A-Infos (en) Italy, FAS, Sicilia Libertaria #461 - REBEL MOSS (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Since the end of the last century, Sicily has seen countless grassroots 
initiatives and self-management of spaces, which "Sicilia Libertaria" 
has thoroughly documented. These were often "pilot projects" aimed at 
raising awareness and mobilizing the population on specific issues such 
as public water, environmental and land protection, management of public 
services, and the occupation of abandoned buildings to be reclaimed for 
collective use. The results have not always met expectations, and some 
of these initiatives, rather than remaining "open" to the outside world, 
have over time closed in on themselves, forming small ghettos where only 
a few remain to consume culture, words, and little else.

"Muschio Ribelle," a self-described "ecological group" active over the 
past year between Alcamo and Castellammare del Golfo, represents a 
novelty in this regard, an experiment to be taken as a model. First of 
all, on July 26, 2024, it did not limit itself to saving from neglect 
and abandonment a space (the so-called "Funtanazza," a former hostel on 
Mount Bonifato) dear to the people of Alcamo, to make it the fulcrum of 
a series of interventions to safeguard the forest (the self-managed 
"guardianship" that preserved it from fires last summer, which we 
discussed in the June 2024 "Special"); nor to restoring public use of 
the same, the adjacent playground and adventure park; nor to making it a 
meeting and discussion place for citizens, a coordination center for 
volunteer firefighting groups from Western Sicily, and a place of 
hospitality for many young people passing through; but with this, it 
also provided, with an awareness that is growing in recent years, a 
space for the protection of the environment. In the months following the 
eviction, carried out by the police on October 9th, the pervasiveness of 
the political-mafia power system that predominates in the area has been 
exposed, on the one hand, and the almost complete lack of communication 
between the institutions and the activists (who had initially relied on 
them).

In fact, the "grassroots" care that "Muschio Ribelle" has devoted to the 
Monte Bonifato forest (also a designated nature reserve of the Sicilian 
Region!) after fifteen years of environmental degradation has been met 
by the former right-wing Province of Trapani and the municipal 
administration of Alcamo, controlled by the "Five Star" movement, with a 
negotiated procedure, without a tender or any transparency, to entrust 
the former hostel to some "friend of a friend" and "build a bar, a 
hotel, a restaurant, or any other profit-making business there," or 
even, as leaked in April, to transform it into an exclusive luxury 
retirement home. which, moreover, come from Nordic countries ("Progetto 
Bonifato Relax").

All of these things, in addition to having "no positive impact on the 
protection of the threatened environment," would undermine the 
principle-repeatedly invoked in the weekly popular assemblies held by 
the group, and opposed by local institutions-of "recognition of the 
civic and collective use of the territory based on an assembly 
decision-making model and management free from private and profit-driven 
logic" (I quote from a document dated April 14). This means that 
"Muschio ribelle" counters traditional management of the property, with 
market valuation, tenders, and outsourcing, with direct management by 
citizens, organized through public assemblies, so as to restore it to a 
civic, bottom-up use that would guarantee its care and enjoyment by the 
entire community.

This is a strategic indication of absolute value, which we hope will 
shape territorial struggles in Sicily in the coming years, given that it 
brings together aspects Different environmental, political, economic, 
and cultural contexts (from the collective reappropriation of land, 
water sources, forests, and ancient crops, to the protection of the 
territory and landscape by local communities, from the fight against 
youth emigration to the fight against depopulation and desertification) 
yet united by a strongly anti-statist and anti-capitalist perspective.

In this overall vision, the insistence on libertarian-inspired assembly 
practices stands out. "Muschio Ribelle," in fact, considers itself the 
heir of previous movements, especially the one that culminated in the 
1980 march that saved and imposed the establishment of the Zingaro 
Nature Reserve, and the "SalviAmo Monte Bonifato" Coordination, founded 
in 2012, which made their decisions in assemblies open to the entire 
population, applying a method of maieutic listening and nonviolent 
action inspired by the teachings of Danilo Dolci. In a document released 
on May 18, the 45th anniversary of the March for the Gypsy, this legacy 
is clear: "We do not want highways, mass tourism, privatization of 
common goods, a return of arson, a poisoned sea, or the endangering of 
an increasingly exploited territory without a long-term vision, 
condemning it along with future generations."

The position contained in the April 14 document is even more explicit: 
"Always committed to total inclusiveness, that is, oriented towards the 
creation of a space where everyone and everyone can feel welcome and 
welcomed, the new inhabitants of "La Funtanazza" have experimented with 
an innovative model of socialization and organization of work and 
coexistence based on 'consensus,' in which there are no leaders, 
presidents, assorted positions, majorities or minorities; In other 
words, there has been no 'institutionalization' of the "Muschio Ribelle" 
experience in a context, that of Sicily, where 'institutionalization' 
often becomes the death knell for any genuine improvement and any 
initiative that has a substantial and positive impact on the community 
and the environment.

We hope that these comrades can continue to be-as stated in their 
imaginative motto-"the drops that put out fires and regenerate our land."

Natale Musarra

https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Subscribe/Unsubscribe https://ainfos.ca/mailman/listinfo/a-infos-en
Archive: http://ainfos.ca/en