Italy: already there is opposition to Monti
THE DAY after the formation of the new Italian
government of so-called technocrats under Mario Monti, big
demonstrations took place across the country in defence of the right to
study. The marches of students brought home the atrocious situation in
education and the conditions for young people in our country. They
coincided with an important day of action and protest strikes of the
Italian ‘unions of the base’, Cub and Cobas. This is just a foretaste of
what is to come when the full impact of the new austerity measures is
felt.
Participation was particularly significant in Rome
and Naples, with over 10,000 participants in each city. Thousands of
students and workers were also present in the streets of Turin,
Milan, Bologna, Florence, Palermo, Cagliari, Salerno,
Genoa, Bari, Catania, Pescara and, with smaller numbers, in
at least 50 other provincial capitals. The demonstrations were
entirely peaceful, except where the police charged in causing
casualties, as in Milan, Turin and Palermo.
A reporter was injured in Milan where the
demonstration was called under the slogan, ‘Save our schools not
banks’. Armed with polystyrene shields, the students were brutally
charged by riot police. They had done nothing more than throw a few
smoke bombs against institutions seen as the symbols of capitalism:
the Bocconi private university (where Monti was based), the Bank
of Italy, and Unicredit Bank (also one of Monti’s fiefdoms).
The banners at the head of demonstrations,
clearly expressed the general mood of the students: ‘We won’t pay
for the crisis!’ ‘What stability? Reverse the cuts and invest
in public education!’ ‘No more money for private schools and
military spending!’ ‘We don’t want a government of bankers!’ etc.
The demonstrators had mobilised behind important
demands for the right to study, the restoration and increase in
funding for scholarships, the elimination of limits on numbers
studying, an end to the exorbitant costs of public education, a
national plan for school building to prevent students being killed under
the rubble of collapsing schools.
Particularly targeted on Thursday’s demonstrations
by students and teachers was the new education minister, Francesco
Profumo, until recently rector of the Politecnico di Torino. Other
targets were infrastructure development minister, the super-banker
Corrado Passera of Intesa, cultural heritage minister, Ornaghi
(until recently rector of the cultural arm of the Vatican), and Clini,
environment minister, who, in defiance of the will of the Italians as
expressed in the recent referendum, wants to push ahead with nuclear
power plants and a high-speed train plan at all costs. Never was a
government condemned so quickly by a popular movement in the street!
The success of this important day of struggle shows
that the plan to silently pass austerity policies protected by a
government of technocrats and ‘experts’, is completely unreal. It
was only a week earlier that in most Italian cities thousands of people
welcomed, with an explosion of joy in the streets, the news of
the resignation of Silvio Berlusconi. In Rome, the crowd that had
gathered outside Palazzo Grazioli reacted to the prime
minister’s resignation with shouts and songs. Berlusconi was
also greeted with a popular band singing ‘Bella Ciao’, a
traditional, well-known song of the resistance. The scenes were
reminiscent of the resignation of prime minister Bettino Craxi
almost 20 years ago, involved in widespread corruption
scandals.
But while the resignation of the Berlusconi
government is to be welcomed, we need to stress that the fall of
the government is not simply the result of popular agitation and
protests. It is rather the political and economic powers of the
Italian and European capitalist class who could not rely anymore on a
government compromised by numerous scandals. They needed a more
presentable option to make ordinary people pay for the crisis.
Never in the history of post-war Italy, has a
government been such a direct expression of the interests of finance
capital. The name of Monti and putting together a national
unity government is meant to reassure not only the
Italian capitalist class but also international capitalism. This
is especially true for the European institutions which are
greatly concerned about the effects of the Italian debt crisis
on the future of the euro.
The Italian director of the IMF, Arrigo Sadun,
in an interview with Corriere della Sera, stated that the IMF
expects "rapid action with decisive measures to ensure the
achievement of fiscal targets". This is a programme of blood and
tears. It includes widespread privatisation, the forced transfer of
public employees onto temporary lay-off, freedom of dismissal in the
public and private sector – abolition of Article 18 of the
constitution that protects workers’ employment – and raising the
retirement age. It also includes selling off land in protected
areas, the cancellation of national collective bargaining, the
annulment of the June referendum result against the privatisation of
local public services, selling-off natural and cultural resources,
and the construction of huge, expensive and unnecessary projects
like the high-speed transport project in Val di Susa.
For ordinary workers, immigrants and young
people, there is now only one possible way forward: immediate and
firm opposition to this government and to build from below the mass
movement needed to resist new manoeuvres against us.
Without a break with the neoliberal
‘profound economics’ policies of the past 30 years no
recovery is now possible. The measures proposed by the ECB
must be confronted with an alternative programme based on
the central policy of refusing to pay the public debt, along with the
nationalisation of the banks and finance companies on the basis of
democratic workers’ control and management.
This government must be challenged with
a political alternative from the left. The trade union
movement must oppose any suggestion of cuts or attacks on
our living conditions, and be prepared to fight relentlessly for
the defence of every job. We must propose a strategy to break with
the system creating the debt and to break with the political
agenda of the ruling classes and their representatives who are
all, to a greater or lesser degree, compromised by failures and
scandals in the past.
Monti’s government can expect implacable
resistance in schools, neighbourhoods and in workplaces. We
will not allow ourselves to be sacrificial lambs on the altar
of profit to reassure the markets. We will work to organise a
mass movement, deep-rooted and radical, to develop the social
struggles with the following programme:
Jobs, training or an education for all young people
No to a government of unelected
technocrats, yes to a one-day protest general strike against
austerity
No to the programme of cuts being imposed on
behalf of the bankers and capitalists
For immediate new elections and for the
development of a fighting alternative to the cuts and
austerity
For an anti-capitalist programme of
nationalisation under democratic workers’ control and
management of the banking and financial sector and of all major
industries
For linking up the struggle of workers
and young people in Europe against international capitalism and
its institutions
For a genuinely socialist, democratically
planned economy in Italy and throughout the world
Giuliano Brunetti -
ControCorrente (CWI Italy)
