Italy Calling

Some American and European comrades have asked me, Why didn’t you have an Occupy movement in Italy? Why is the NO TAV movement the only expression of social struggle? The NO TAV, despite their strong success, despite their original expression of post-modernity class war, lack the characteristics of the Occupy movements: an extension of social change, the power to remove old hierarchies, and, above all, a shared and “common” political dynamic open to radical political upheavals.

But here’s another paradox: what sense does this question have now? The Occupy movements seem already dead. The Arab springs have mostly been crashed by military coups and civil wars, or have ended up producing Islamic regimes that seem to forecast the repression of freedoms and political practices only just discovered – the continuation of the status quo under a different name, possibly even worse than the old theological-political dictatorships. In Europe, movements have been suffocated by the unhealthy atmosphere brought over by the economic crisis, while in the States they are just about to be swallowed by the political structures that nowadays dominate the electoral deadlines. Continue reading →