A-Infos (en) Italy, FAI, Umanita Nova #24-26 - Livorno: Hands off the urban gardens. How private property vanishes (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Last Saturday, September 5th, a demonstration of over 3,000 people in 
Livorno voiced opposition to the planned eviction from the Via Goito 
Urban Gardens. These six hectares of land within the city were occupied 
in 2012 by the "Unemployed and Precarious Workers' Committee of the 
Ex-Occupied Barracks." Today, the area is partly cultivated as vegetable 
gardens by dozens of people organized through assemblies, while the rest 
is overgrown with vegetation and inhabited by wildlife. This massive 
demonstration sent a clear message to the construction firm 
Frangerini-which purchased the site at auction with plans to build four 
structures-as well as to the local administration. The latter is 
criticized for failing to intervene when it could have changed the 
area's zoning designation and for appearing unwilling, even now, to find 
serious solutions to halt these concrete-heavy development plans. It was 
also a message to the Livorno Court, which is required to hand over the 
site to Frangerini by the end of October, "cleared of all objects and 
people." Finally, it was a message to the Police Headquarters and the 
Prefecture, making it clear that solidarity runs deep and that any use 
of force by security personnel-now more than ever-will not be tolerated.

Above all, however, it is a message that instills strength and hope in 
all those fighting, protesting, and taking action against private 
speculation, concrete development, environmental devastation, and the 
climate crisis.

In less than two months, a strictly local issue has gained national 
significance-not only in public debate but, more importantly, through 
the tangible presence of dozens of delegations from across the country 
at the September 5th march. The movement has successfully conveyed that 
this is not merely a matter concerning Via Goito, but a global issue-one 
that is integral to the fight against the climate crisis. We have 
succeeded in conveying the idea that saving a handful of vegetable 
gardens, a few blackberry brambles, and clusters of trees-along with the 
wildlife inhabiting them-is not merely a whim, but a central political 
issue that speaks to the kind of society and city we wish to create. In 
doing so, we have managed to shatter the distorting mirror of dominant 
propaganda. Public institutions and the barons of real estate and land 
speculation sought to portray the Urban Gardens as a den of squatters 
who were defacing the land simply to reap a petty personal profit in the 
form of vegetables. This struggle has provided us with the lens through 
which to view the society of the future. Indeed, for many, it is now the 
developer Frangerini who appears as an illegitimate huckster, and his 
projects as arrogant claims upon a public asset; meanwhile, the garden 
collective is finally clearly recognized as a force representing hope 
for a social model based on solidarity and the collective good. If 
working-class communities do not derail these plans for concrete-heavy 
development, the political parties, administrations, and big and small 
bosses-accustomed as they are to carving up power-certainly won't do it.

Let us not be content with merely glimpsing, from afar, a land where 
private property is abolished and society is self-managed by 
collectives. Let us take our lives into our own hands and build that 
land ourselves, starting with our daily struggles.

Dario Antonelli

https://umanitanova.org/livorno-giu-le-mani-dagli-orti-urbani-come-scompare-la-proprieta-privata/
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