A-Infos (en) Italy, Umanita Nova #26-25 - Let's Block Everything (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

It's happening something is moving. Hundreds of thousands of people some 
even say a million! - took to the streets on Monday, September 22, 
against the war and the genocide in Palestine, responding to the general 
strike called by USB, CUB, and other grassroots unions. ---- The 
novelty, however, does not lie so much in the numbers  which are 
exceptional in recent years for a strike organized by base unions  nor 
in the concrete force of the slogan "Let's block everything!", which 
undoubtedly managed to transform protest into material action.
What is new is that, at the end of the demonstrations held in more than 
80 towns, in some cities people did not go back home. That same day or 
in the immediately following days, permanent encampments sprang up in 
public squares, industrial zones, and port areas, with tents, gazebos, 
and assemblies.
Similar initiatives have continued to appear even days later. After 
weeks of local assemblies and protests against the genocide in Palestine 
and in support of the Global Sumud Flotilla, which took place at a rapid 
pace at the beginning of September, the general strike opened a new and 
more intense phase of mobilization.
With agitation spreading to ports and many workplaces, and with 
permanent protest camps, the movement is gradually moving beyond single 
days of action and beginning to build an everyday dimension of struggle.
This is a developing dynamic in which we see participation and 
involvement expanding to social sectors that had not previously taken to 
the streets.
Certainly, union leaderships influenced by authoritarian political 
tendencies still play a central role.
But it must be acknowledged that opposition to the war has already shown 
it can engage workers regardless of their union affiliation and involve 
far broader social sectors.
For this reason, it is essential that we play our part, clearly putting 
antimilitarism at the center wherever possible, aware that in such a 
fluid situation not only libertarian practices and methods can find 
space, but also new and radical issues and goals.

September 22 surprised many. It has been called unexpected, but in 
reality it was long prepared.
The antiwar strikes of recent years - in which the anarchist and 
anarcho-syndicalist components present in base unionism were deeply 
involved - have certainly provided common ground for trying to bring the 
general strike back to the forefront of opposition to war. The belief 
was that only the working class has the power to stop the production and 
trade of armaments, to halt the arms race, and to resist the recruitment 
of society as a whole into the war policies of governments.
The work of some groups of workers - such as the Autonomous Collective 
of Port Workers of Genoa, the Autonomous Group of Port Workers of 
Livorno, Railworkers Against the War, and the Observatory Against the 
Militarization of Schools and Universities - though starting from very 
different positions and often with small numbers, has built solidarity 
networks and targeted campaigns over the years, raising awareness about 
the role of infrastructure and institutions in militarist policies and 
creating conditions in workplaces to take the initiative against war.
The conditions that made this day of strike successful were created by 
the arrogance of governments themselves - especially the current 
government led by Giorgia Meloni and the main parliamentary parties - in 
supporting rearmament policies, increased military spending, Italy's 
deeper involvement in wars, and backing the State of Israel.
Moreover, this strike was prepared in some local contexts through 
expanded organizational processes and was called in a climate of growing 
public attention on Gaza and the Flotilla.
Thus, despite disinformation about the right to strike, the low 
visibility in mainstream media, and the intervention of the Strike 
Guarantee Commission against some unions - in particular against USI-CIT 
- nothing could stop the momentum of September 22.
Even the strike called by the CGIL for Friday, September 19 - falsely 
presented as a general strike - did not, as some bureaucrats would have 
hoped, undercut the general strike on the 22nd but instead almost had 
the opposite effect.

This outcome was by no means guaranteed, since it was a wholly political 
strike - in solidarity with Gaza, with the Global Sumud Flotilla, 
against rearmament and the war economy.
But precisely because of this, it succeeded in channeling the antiwar 
sentiment already present in society and bringing to the political level 
the humanitarian urgency that had mobilized tens of thousands of people 
in recent weeks in collecting supplies for the Flotilla.
At a time when the world's powerful are playing with war more 
dangerously than ever, risking an escalation of the conflict in Eastern 
Europe, while the State of Israel pushes its plans of deportation and 
genocide against the Palestinian population of Gaza to the extreme, it 
is clear:
Many are saying we are witnessing the birth of a new movement.
What is certain is that no one will be able to claim any longer - as 
many have until now - that opposition to war exists only in opinion 
polls and not in the streets.
With blockades of port gates, highway exits, train stations, and major 
transport arteries, this opposition has been given a concrete political 
outlet.
In Livorno, Taranto, and Genoa, there have been victories - partial, 
yes, but victories nonetheless - because the mobilization of workers and 
a broad solidarity movement effectively blocked the unloading of ships 
carrying military cargo or otherwise implicated in the genocidal and 
militarist policies of the State of Israel.

Now we need to go all the way.
This means not only bringing an antimilitarist, internationalist - in 
short, revolutionary - perspective into these mobilizations.
But above all, it means spreading the practice of direct action, outside 
and against institutional mediation; fostering forms of 
self-organization and horizontal decision-making to broaden 
participation; and multiplying blockades until they become a mass practice.
Let's make those tremble who seek to impose a regime of terror and fear 
upon us.
Let's make the ground crumble under the feet of those who wage war.

Dario Antonelli

https://umanitanova.org/blocchiamo-tutto-3/
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