<nettime> From the occupied faculties of the La Sapienza, from the University in mobilization, Rome.

[Matteo Pasquinelli <matteopasquinelli@gmx.it>]

Date: 26 October 2008 11:55:26 GMT+01:00
To: agu@listcultures.org
Subject: <agu> From the occupied faculties of the La Sapienza, from  
the University in mobilization, Rome.


National Call, Rome, 22.10.2008

To the faculties in mobilization, to the undergraduate and Ph.D.  
students, and to all the precarious researchers

"We won't pay for your crisis", this is the slogan with which a few  
weeks ago we started our protest at the university of La Sapienza,  
Rome. A simple, yet at the same time immediate, slogan: the global  
crisis is the crisis of capitalism itself, of the financial and real  
estate speculation, of a system without rules or rights, of  
unscrupulous companies and managers. The burden of this crisis can't  
fall on the educational system - from the school to the university -  
on the health system or generally on taxpayers. Our slogan has become  
famous, spreading by word of mouth, from town to town. From the  
students to the precarious workers, from the working to the research  
worlds, nobody wants to pay for the crisis, nobody wants to  
nationalize the losses, whereas for years the wealth has been  
distributed among few, very few people.

And it is exactly the contagion that has been produced in these  
weeks, the multiplication of the mobilizations in the schools, in the  
universities, and in the cities that should have stirred up a lot of  
fear. It is well known that a fearful dog bites; similarly, the  
reaction of President Berlusconi was immediate: "police against who  
occupy universities and schools", "we will get rid of violence in our  
Country". Only yesterday Berlusconi declared that he was willing to  
increase the financial support to the banks and that the State and  
the public expense would stand surety for the companies' loans: in a  
few words, cutbacks to education, less founds for the students,  
cutbacks to the health system, but public money for the companies,  
for the banks and the private sector. We are wondering where is  
violence: is it a violence to occupy universities and schools or  
instead that of a government who imposes the Law 133 to cutback the  
founds for the education system refusing the parliamentary debate? Is  
it the dissent violent or is it violent who intends to put it down by  
the police? Who is violent: who mobilizes for the public status of  
university and schools or who wants to sell them for a few private  
profits? Violence is on Berlusconi government's side, while in the  
occupied schools and universities there is the great joy and  
indignation of who fights for his own future, or who doesn't accept  
to be put in the corner or forced to be silent. We don't want stay in  
silence in the corner, of who wants to be free.

They tell us that we are only able to say no, that we don't have any  
proposal. There is nothing more false: the occupations and the  
meetings of these days are really building up a new university, a  
university made of knowledge, as well as of sociality, of learning,  
but also of information, and consciousness. Studying is very  
important for us: and it is exactly for this reason that we think  
that the protests are necessary: we are occupying so that the public  
university can endure, to continue to study and do research. There  
are a lot of things that have to be changed both in the universities  
and in the schools, but one thing is certain: the change can't pass  
through these cutbacks. Changing the university means increasing  
founds, to sustain the research, to qualify the educational processes  
and to guarantee mobility (from study to research, and from research  
to teaching). The cutbacks mean just one thing: transforming the  
public universities in private foundations, decreeing the end of the  
public university.

The design and its tools are clear: Law 133 was approved in august,  
and against the protests of dozens of thousands of students they  
claim the police. This government wants to wreck democracy, through  
the fear, through the terror. But today, from La Sapienza in  
mobilization and from the occupied faculties, we want to say that we  
have no fear and we won't step back. On the contrary, our intention  
is to make the government retreat: we won't stop struggling before  
Law 133 and the Gelmini decree will be withdrawn! This time we will  
proceed till the very end, we don't want lose, we don't want submit  
to this arrogance. For this reason we ask all faculties of the  
Country to do the same: they want to repress the occupations, so that  
a thousand of faculties occupy!

Moreover, after the extraordinary success of the general strike on  
October 17th, we think that is the right time to give an unitary and  
coordinated answer in our cities. We suggest two national dates: a  
day of mobilization on Friday November 7th, with demonstrations  
spread all over the cities; a huge national demonstration of the  
educational world, from university to School, on November 14th in  
Rome,  the day the unions proclaimed the general strike of the  
university; a day to be built from the bottom and in which the  
central figures have to be the students, researchers and teachers in  
mobilization. At the same time we think that it is useful to cross,  
with our forms and claims, the general strike of the school  
proclaimed by the unions on Thursday October 30th.
What is happening in these days tells us of a powerful, extraordinary  
and rich mobilization. A new wave, an anomalous wave that doesn't  
want stop and that rather wants to win. We have to increase this wave  
and the will to struggle. They want us idiots and resigned, but we  
are cleavers and in movement and our wave will go far!

 >>From the occupied faculties of the La Sapienza, from the  
University in mobilization, Rome.


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