The day of November 14 has seen demonstrations against the austerity policies set by Europe in 87 different Italian cities.

Students and workers flooded streets and squares, re-appropriating themselves of the right to strike in the wake of the European mobilizations, by strongly challenging the technocratic government that is stealing our future and destroying our present. After October 5, the day on which the secondary school students from all Italy created a first occasion of social opposition against the technocratic government, November 14 was a downright explosion of the mobilizations against the government of Monti, both from a quantitative point of view ( with thousands of people taking the squares) and a qualitative point of view, taking into account the great determination with which the people identified and striked the opposing parties. Once again, the answer of the institutions was the use of police forces, with their truncheons and tear gas, in order to stop the protests. Still, the police, who carried out particular violence in many cities, couldn’t extinguish the students’ rage: the answer was strong and consistent. Since thursday, dozens of schools joined an already long list of occupied and self-managed education facilities. We immediately  went back to our assemblies, where discussions led us to the will of relaunching the movement and self-managing our struggles inside the secondary schools and the occupied faculties, building a concrete alternative to the school, sociality and knowledge model which they impose on us.

We will take those squares again, more  united and convinced than before, firstly on November 24, with marches  and events of various kinds, and on December 6, in a nationwide  mobilization. December 6,  the same date of the metalwork and mechanical engineering industry  strike called by FIOM[*], will be a new occasion to generalize and widen  the front of our struggle, by connecting ourselves to other social  backgrounds that every day suffer the weight of the crisis and of the  austerity policies, always looking for a mass and radical opposition,  able to express an ever-more widespread rage that cannot be channeled in  the party and trade unions politics’ system.

A  day of social strike with which, through all Italy, we will be all taking back our contents together to the squares, by talking about  opposition to European economic policies, that aim to destroy welfare  and our expectations for the future. We will keep on bringing across the  streets of our cities practices of confict against this system that day  after day takes away from us the option of leading a dignified life.

STRIKE AGAIN!

StudAut Network

[*] The Federazione Operai Impiegati Metallurgici (FIOM) (Federation of Metalwork and Mechanical Engineering Workers and Employees) is a  trade union associated  with the left-leaning (but still mainstream and  bureaucratic) Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro (CGIL) (Italian  General Confederation of Work) albeit more radical. After being notably  supportive of social struggles during the late Berlusconi government,  it recently turned back to coordinate itself much more with the CGIL.