A-Infos (en) Italy, FAI, Umanita Nova #29-25 - Beyond the Squares for Gaza. Sedimenting Indignation - Rooting Awareness (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

The recent pro-PAL demonstrations have certainly demonstrated that there 
is still a foundation of empathy between peoples. Beyond this, reading 
this phase without adequate reflection on our present can give rise to 
facile enthusiasm. From many quarters, editorials offer comments and 
outline reflections in the aftermath of the days of mobilization in 
support of the work of the various flotillas, in particular, and against 
the indiscriminate and systematic massacre of the Gaza population, in 
general. At the time of writing, the situation has changed, with a 
solution having been reached to establish a truce that will soon allow 
the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza. Meanwhile, three regional 
elections have already taken place, with some data worthy of attention.

This, in short, is the situation of the last few weeks, the implications 
of which, both locally and internationally, need to be understood.

The demonstrations called by grassroots unions, led by the USB, marked a 
turning point noted by the more established unions and the so-called 
left-wing political constellation. There was an attempt to exploit the 
demonstrations, with that display of political awkwardness typical of 
those trying to crash a party. While it's simple enough to interpret the 
actions of those who, for decades, have been at a loss for words, 
analyzing the demands that brought so many people to the streets is not 
so straightforward. While it's inappropriate to propose triumphalistic 
interpretations as we've seen and heard online it's also not correct to 
dampen the enthusiasm.

It should be a sign of intellectual honesty not to indulge in free 
interpretations, but to seek to analyze a phenomenon. Without indulging 
excessively in the theory of revolution or engaging in refined 
speculation, we can nevertheless affirm that the demonstrations have 
genuinely responded to the silence of political governance on the 
Palestinian question. Europe's stammering in the face of Israeli 
atrocities and the constant accusations of anti-Semitism against anyone 
who dared to criticize the ongoing massacre have reached a saturation point.

It is probably in this light that the actions of the various flotillas 
(there were at least two, the Global Sumud Flotilla and the Freedom 
Flotilla, with obvious differences in media visibility) should also be 
interpreted: an action in response to European political inaction. 
Regardless of who financed the operations whether solely NGOs or West 
Bank agricultural and commercial sectors the perceived need of the 
people who subsequently filled the squares was to resolve a situation 
that was becoming more shameful by the day.

When understanding a phenomenon like the squares, it would be preferable 
to consider the rational or emotional forces that brought people onto 
the streets, and what the perception of those present was in being 
there. This aspect often gets lost in enthusiastic narratives, which 
tend to describe a profound understanding of certain problems by the 
masses. History and current trends suggest other explanations: people 
often act and react on issues that seem far less relevant than others. 
An adage from a few years ago held that strong protests would only erupt 
if stadiums or cinemas were closed; and in the recent past, people 
mobilized for a green pass.

This time, empathy for a massacred and oppressed population, combined 
with the hateful subservience of an entire political union to a single 
state, created the breeding ground for an act of protest. What's 
thought-provoking is how many political actors, both institutional and 
otherwise, have spent energy figuring out how to exploit the phenomenon 
rather than understanding it. The frenzy of speculation about the future 
of this mobilization speaks volumes about the ability of some to 
understand our present, and exposes that attitude of waiting for the 
phenomenon rather than working to reproduce it.

The crisis of the movements is also measured by these methods and their 
poor understanding.

Proof of this can be found in the regional council renewal process: if 
it were true that the streets were expressing open and mature dissent 
against the government and the parties that animate it, we should have 
seen much different results, rather than sweeping victories for the 
right. These local elections, however, are providing an interesting 
piece of data: the crisis of representation is also revealing a crisis 
of legitimacy. When to take the Calabrian example 43% of eligible voters 
vote and the elected governor has 57% of voters behind him, this means 
he governs with the support of 24% of the population. Here too, 
abstentionism is a fact that should be interpreted more as resignation 
and distrust than as a precise political strategy pursued in the silence 
of one's existence.

Empty ballot boxes, like crowded streets, in the absence of clear, 
incontrovertible, and obvious reasons, are not processes that can be 
analyzed with the same ease with which one attempts to ride them or 
gloss over them. We are in a highly complex historical phase, in which 
many distinctions seem increasingly evanescent.

Western society has lost ground on questions of true social equity, 
existential guarantees, and the future of its own imagination; in a 
word, it is precarious. Yet empathy for the suffering of others seems to 
still be alive at least in the large numbers of popular dismay while in 
everyday life people are left to die on the sidewalks. In this sort of 
schizophrenia between the consternation of the streets and individual 
cynicism, it's increasingly difficult to understand the reasons behind 
processes like the protests: difficult not only because of the 
complexity of the phenomenon, but because we try to understand it simply 
by observing it from the outside.

The central role of being within the processes and the related 
development of strategies aimed not only at understanding the present 
but also at predicting future scenarios has been lost. We live in a 
present floating on unpredictability, trying not to sink, and in the 
meantime there are those who try to ride every ripple, regardless of 
what caused it, always striving to use rather than understand. Now that 
a stationary phase seems to have been reached in the Middle East, it's 
unclear what will become of this mobilization, which will likely wane.

Moments and slogans will likely arise that call for "let's block 
everything." There will be attempts to mimic the actions of those across 
the Alps, and attempts to keep something afloat, but likely with the 
usual results. Perhaps what's lacking today is not the ability to be 
outraged, but the ability to consolidate that indignation into action, 
to translate empathetic impulses into organized and conscious 
expression. Every mobilization, when it doesn't become a trial but 
remains an event, ends up dissolving in the frenetic pace of current 
events that consumes everything. The question, therefore, is not how 
full the streets are, but how much they are inhabited by an awareness of 
the conflict that recognizes its own time, that knows how to give itself 
duration. Without this awareness, every empathy risks remaining a 
momentary reflection of pain, and every protest a rite of collective 
survival within widespread impotence.

In this direction, the political-practical challenge is to build an 
infrastructure of dissent capable of transcending the occasional nature 
of the event: places of elaboration and coordination born not from 
urgency but from rootedness, which connect individual social and 
territorial disputes within a common framework. That is, we need to 
reassemble the fragment, recognizing that the conflict is widespread but 
dispersed. It's not a matter of pursuing nostalgia for past movements, 
but of rebuilding a fabric of collective intelligence capable of 
bringing together reflection and action, analysis and organization. 
Where institutional politics is finally demonstrating its mere function 
in favor of financial flows and particular interests, in an absurd 
theater of false opposites, social actors must return to producing 
territorial organization.

Only in this way can the act of empathy become a political gesture, and 
the public square be transformed from a place of venting into a 
laboratory of possibility. Without this material translation, any 
collective momentum is destined to be reabsorbed by normality, and the 
wave, instead of becoming a current, is destined to crash upon itself.

JR

https://umanitanova.org/oltre-le-piazze-per-gaza-sedimentare-indignazione-radicare-consapevolezza/
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