Palestine is today's Vietnam, young people take to the streets to make history
The general strike
It fills my heart to see such a young and large movement working for an oppressed people. It's an opportunity for redemption for the country, for the union, and for politics as a whole.
Seeing so many people, women and men, young and old, filling the streets and squares for the freedom of Palestine, for the end of the genocide, fills my heart with hope. Especially the young people, so many, so many, so aware and combative. Perhaps a generation is growing up for whom Palestine represents what Vietnam represented for my generation.
A struggle certainly of solidarity for a struggling people bombed with napalm, whose villages and fields that supported them were being destroyed, and the rejection of the oppression and violence of those, the United States of America , who rained that napalm on the heads of men, women, and children. But also something more. The desire to participate firsthand in defining the values and characteristics of the world that awaited us, to not be resigned to accepting a fate already sealed, by the omnipotence of profit and the market, and by the choices of a policy that considered profit and the market the first things to defend and protect. We also considered the bombs that rained down on Vietnam as bombs that rained down on our heads.
Vietnam was at the center, but from Vietnam it quickly moved to schools and factories. Not only did we protest against the planes dropping bombs, but also against the hierarchies in schools, universities, and factories that claimed to determine our destiny, suppressing our dignity and freedom. It took a while for the unions and the official left to engage seriously with that movement, which had largely emerged outside of institutional politics. All politics, and even unions to some extent, were considered by that movement to be a "higher" from which to free itself. But in the end, the unions decided to be there. And from that movement, they emerged richer, stronger, and more democratic. Because they didn't retreat, they didn't shy away from protests, but knew how to confront them and use them to renew themselves. It was within this history that the council union was born, against the extremism of those who wanted "everyone to be delegates" and rejected any form of union organization, and against the bureaucracy of those who entrenched themselves in the old internal commissions and remained anchored to the traditional division of tasks between union and party.
We, however, were not present in Genoa in 2001—except for the FIOM . We were afraid of being part of something beyond our leadership and management. And we were slow to understand not only the major issues that movement was raising—the priority of environmental protection, the rejection of a destructive growth of nature and human beings, the great question of liberation from the dominant patriarchy, the pacifism of the people against the militarism of the powerful—but also that probably in that world filling the squares of Genoa there were those new figures from the world of work that we were unable to represent. Those who eluded our models of representation, both high and low. The minds that our development model was unable to put to stable work, and those living on the margins of development, those discarded by a production model that lives on waste, on things and people. And that there was a part of them that was trying to address those contradictions. Neither with political parties nor with unions, but by building new forms of grassroots associationism, both secular and Christian, which attempted to mend solidarity in the fragments into which the world of work and society as a whole was breaking down.
As a longtime CGIL militant, I lived for many years with the guilt of not having been in Genoa during those days, and of not having flown my organization's flags in those marches. And I saw the " main road" promoted by Maurizio Landini with the world of pacifist, environmentalist, feminist, secular, and Catholic associations as a way to heal that wound, as a way to innovatively address the dilemmas and tragedies of today's world, and at the same time redefine in new terms our ability to organize the fragmented world of work. The proclamation of a general strike in support of the Flotilla, against the blatant violation of the rule of international law, of the land and sea of the State of Israel, and against the ambiguities and reticence of our government, is an essential step in that direction, and to be able to credibly address the short- and long-term challenges facing the Palestinian people and all of us. Meanwhile, recognizing that Trump and Netanyahu 's peace plan isn't a true peace plan. It's at best a truce, to halt the extermination of the Gaza people and allow the opening of UN-run humanitarian corridors. And perhaps, another shared goal, to free ourselves and the Gazan people from Hamas's cutthroats.
But there will be no true peace until the Palestinian people are allowed to decide their own destiny, and until international law, blatantly violated by Israel in Gaza and the West Bank, and with the illegal blockade of the Flotilla, is fully restored. Netanyahu, like the Hamas leaders, is indicted by the International Criminal Court as a war criminal. Paradoxically, if Hamas agrees, as we hope, to lay down its arms in exchange for amnesty and safe conduct to hospitable lands, we would have the paradox of a war criminal granting amnesty to other war criminals while simultaneously absolving himself. And while continuing to deny any role to the International Criminal Court and the UN. The governing majority urges everyone to pressure Hamas to accept Trump's plan, but remains silent about Israel's continued bombing of Gaza, and that the Israeli government will consider anyone who doesn't immediately abandon Gaza as terrorists, thus foretelling another massacre of the elderly, the sick, and people who no longer have the strength to continue their journey to who knows where.
Our Prime Minister says there will be no recognition of the State of Palestine unless Hamas is rid of it. But can there be a State of Palestine if settlers are free to forcibly annex lands and villages in the West Bank, against all UN resolutions, and can the State of Israel be considered trustworthy and democratic if it continues to practice a policy of apartheid within its borders, permanently stripping the Palestinian population of land, homes, and rights? And is she credible when she says she deplores the Israeli government's excessive use of force, when she refuses to even vote for the timid sanctions the European Union is proposing against Israel? Therefore, the general strike is absolutely necessary, against Israel's crimes and the Trumpian-like favor our government continues to bestow on the Israeli government. And to initiate a long-term commitment so that, after the desired truce, the issues left totally unresolved by the so-called peace plan are properly addressed.
But the general strike is also the most appropriate and natural way to strengthen contact with the young Palestinian generation. They are, among other things, the ones who voted most in the CGIL referendum. More than middle-aged men, who are concentrated among those with permanent contracts, and a large portion of CGIL members among the active workforce. From this perspective, the general strike is also a step towards union renewal, towards building that inclusive, territorial, and street-level union, which is the organizational aspect of the Via Maestra, from a union perspective. In the knowledge that this territorial refoundation of the union is today more crucial than ever for restoring strength and vigor to workplace bargaining itself. As it happened in the 1970s, as it did not happen in 2001.
l'Unità
