Mobilizing for the common: some lessons from Italy | ROAR Magazine

Mobilizing for the common: some lessons from Italy | ROAR Magazine:

Tens of thousands of protesters marched on Rome this Saturday to denounce the austerity measures and economic reforms of Matteo Renzi’s new government and to restate their call for income, housing and dignity for all. Dozens were injured as clashes broke out towards the end of the march and police violently charged forward into the crowds, indiscriminately beating protesters and trampling over those who got caught in the way. What the police could not trample, however, was the resolve of the movements to step up their resistance in the wake of last October’s sollevazione generale (“general uprising”), which brought a hundred thousand people into the streets of Rome.

Saturday’s events are particularly remarkable for two reasons: first of all, the Italian movements had been fairly lackluster in responding to the European debt crisis when it first broke in 2010-’11. Apart from a massive demonstration in Rome on October 15, 2011, which quickly degenerated into tactless violence, the indignados-Occupy wave largely passed the country by, even as an unelected technocratic government headed by former Goldman Sachs adviser Mario Monti took power. This somewhat ambivalent recent history makes the ongoing mobilizations all the more important, especially since the housing and unemployment crises have deepened significantly since.