rivista anarchica
anno 41 n. 361
aprile 2011


women in the square

Moral question and social question
by Cosimo Scarinzi
photo by Roberto Gimmi

Considerations in two voices on the large mobilization female (but not only) last February 13.

Hypocrisy is a tribute that vice pays to virtue.
François de La Rochefoucauld

The reflections that follow and take begins with a brief discussion on Facebook on the memo statement by Education Minister Maria Stella Gelmini who said that on Feb. 13 in the square there were only "radical chic, and only a few left-wing snob" . The carry-over:

Mara – just made a mistake by defining radicalchic ... middle-class in its place.

Cosimo – Know your place in crisis, a priori beliefs on the basis of reality. It was anything but a typical elitist democracy movement. Then there were also sinistrignaccole terrace or hill does not change the social nature. If anything, we should reflect on the resurgence of the undifferentiated antiberlusconismo.

Mara – bourgeois values that belong both to the right, left and radicalchic.

Cosimo – Exactly, I'll teach, you teach me, we teach each other, in order to burst onto the scene of the fourth state, a condition favorable to the mobilization of the third state and the opening of its internal contradictions. "

Milan, February 13, 2011 - In the streets for the dignity
of women (photo Roberto Gimmi).

Turin February 13

Piazza San Carlo is very crowded from 14.30, the time of calling the event.
The people who come fairly evenly women and men, have the classic appearance, clothing, way to give you the "people left. "
I have the distinct feeling that the average age is high enough, not that young people lack the contrary, but there are many gray feathers. As if a political generation, the one between fifty and sixty, and beyond, has felt called to harvest.
In some measure, except that nothing repeats itself perfectly square dell'antiberlusconismo the militant, the square that appeared the first time April 25, 1994 in Milan under a driving rain and reappeared several times with more or less texture and liveliness as girotondi, manifestations of the CGIL in Rome and the like.
The Turin organizers, a group or network of collective feminist - I do not know, asked to come to the streets without banners and flags, and this is an indication national.
What makes a sort of undifferentiated community of demonstrators armed with umbrellas and balls, a community non-partisan, asindacale a. ...?
It is a choice that seems to appeal, the protesters do not want to feel "exploited"or divided for membership, we want citizens and towns in revolt against what is happening in the building. A version of sweet, very sweet, what happens to a few tens of miles from our shores.

True to a certain point. If the koine of this world is the opposition from civil society (correct) - the government (corrupt) and does not tolerate, or at least not too much appreciate other languages such as opposition to capital - labor or, god forbid!, l 'hypothesis of a radical break of social equilibrium, it is all too clear that, in the watermark, the "movement" refers to the current political left, the need for its modernization and dive in "his" people.
And on this point is interesting because the attitude of a number of my old and new knowledge.
When you have to do only one case, the bad grace to point out a few sinistrignaccola average conformist that the Secretary General of the CGIL Susanna Camusso was on stage in Rome, that someone has decided to give much space to the post-Fascist Future of Freedom and order obvious to deny the character too closely "left" of the square and to allude to a broader anti-government front, it feels discomfort dell'interlocutrice.
Forte, in short, is the need to dream about a change that does not demand too much effort, commitment, pain, conflict and the actual reality, clear well, annoying.
Each identity is too "strong", did not seem to be the functional unit of the movement that we can not keep up with a platform broad enough to take in everything and its opposite.
It is interesting to note that some problems have also fellow militants in the face of difference, objectively remarkable in terms of numbers between "our" actions and the square of 13 February. They want "knew better communicate"with this crowd.
If, however, indicates that people who make up this assembly are not stupid, and if not beyond criticism of the government, it is not ignorance but by choice, and above all that we do not have the means of the most remarkable sign antiberlusconiano (Year Zero , the infidel, but that time ago, La Repubblica, the daily show, who paid € 80,000 in cash for the rent of Palasharp to name a few) and using flyers, e-mail and do not contribute much else equal, we brighten rapidly.
Yet the mobilization of February 13 can not and should only be dismissed as yet another manifestation dell'antiberlusconismo functional electoral alliance with some as wide as possible and / or some application of women in local and national elections.

Destrignaccolo and sinistrignaccolo

Indeed, I believe that some elements in the current results must be nurtured and deserve further consideration:

1. First, for the entry field in the fourth state, our class, the clash between the third and was dominant oligarchy is a favorable condition as are the internal contradictions in the same block destrignaccolo third was one of the professions and corporals of fortune sinistrignaccolo small business and that of university professors and middle-class semicolti. I realize that the parallel with the great revolution may seem forced, but I think some of their utility in the face of the statement in the category of citizenship in our time;

2. Secondly, this movement also draws, so evident, from the difficulty of finding outlets for social conflict. Relevant human masses that have little or no confidence and / or ability to place the conflict in the workplace are in a sweeping motion, undifferentiated, generic, an opportunity to provide an outlet for their tensions and make their sufferings, hopes, expectations .

3. On the other hand, and the recent strike on January 28 as are the protests by students, researchers, school workers, the social question is on the agenda is obvious and, in some measure, is interwoven with the moral, if only because the protagonists of the different waves of struggle often coincide.

No coincidence that the demonstrations were clearly crossed by the social issue that, say, used the words of the moral issue.
Girls who are claiming, will be trivial but it is important, the right to a decent income and to a life less precarious for the quality of people and not for merit subcintolari are an expression of a specific form of class contradictions, expressing the radical rejection of a new and disgusting, servitude.

When right-wingers "libertarian" tell us that women "sit on their luck" can - at least from this point of view it is useful - to make clear to anyone that a limit has been exceeded and they reveal that behind the liberal democratic story , lies, evil, radical contempt for the dignity of people and, primarily, for our class.
There is certainly present in the mobilization of all and would be exceedingly naive to underestimate the recovery - in the form of aggregations "informal" - are at work but I think there is much that could evolve in interesting way.

Cosimo Scarinzi

translation Enrico Massetti  
enricomassetti@msn.com