"Someone likes it hot" – About the events of Oct 15 in Rome (Italy)

Rome, Italy, October 15 2011: anger explodes uncontrollable during a demonstration against the austerity measures imposed by the government to tackle its economic crisis.

The official organizers, inspired by the Spanish movement of the ‘Indignados’, had called for a ‘pacific demonstration’ in order to democratically express their dissent. But such an invitation can no longer be accepted: hundreds of angry people, most of them kids in their teens with no connection whatsoever with political groups or organizations, just took to the streets of Rome to destroy the misery of the existent, attack banks and shops, and finally engage in a battle against the police in Piazza San Giovanni.

As far as we know 12 kids were arrested that day, almost all of them underage. Two days later, on October 17, police raided the houses of dozens of anarchists all over Italy in search of ‘weapons’ supposedly used during the demonstration. The searches, carried out without warrant but relying on the special powers granted by article 41 TULPS (alleged possession of weapons and explosive material), came to no result.

This communiqué of Asilo Occupato from Turin, picked up among many others, offers a beautiful insight into the event. For more info and communiqués see informa-azione.info

A march was held in Rome on 15th October against the new financial measures of the government and the austerity measures adopted to tackle the worn-out spectre of the crisis. In practice people took to the streets to react against the threat of the nth season of tears and blood to the detriment of the poorest, always forced to tighten their belt and to endure daily sacrifice and exploitation in a world full of goods and governed by the interests of the few who can afford to consume.

For the organizers, the sinister caravan of citizenists and Italian ‘indignados’, it was meant to be a pacific march, a lively but respectful stroll ‘to have our say’, to express the harmless buzz of opinions timidly and from inside the ranks. A pre-prepared package, a film already seen and whose end was foreseeable, all this inside the balance of a well managed normality. The fair game between power and the recuperators of anger enables the functioning of the desert of real democracy by suffocating the storming of hostile passions.

But this time there was no theatre, the march broke down with the first smashed windows, and the spectacle went up in smoke among the clouds of teargas and the rain of stones.

A chaotic rhythm of destroyed cash machines and shops resounds on Via Cavour, a looted market and cars in pieces, that is to say the expression of a fury which takes aim at random.

To organize oneself in order to hit banks and the provocation of luxury is the first step to invade the streets and knock down the physical places of exploitation, one by one. To know how and when to do it is a question of time, space and a lot of methods to be learned in the practice: to set fire to a car in order to erect a barricade is a different thing than do it in the middle of a march thus endangering the rest of the demonstrators and those who live in the opposite building, which also pushes possible accomplices away. Black hoods and helmets are useful tools to protect oneself and to remain anonymous, but they are not a uniform to show off. Let’s leave the logic of military blocks to the press of the regime and to the reports of the police, we are angry proletarians. Today the hatred towards the bosses and the police is not exclusive to militant sects worn out by years of isolation and search for purism, but a reality that enters with force the life of so many.

14th December 2010 in Rome, the battles of Val Susa against the TAV, the revolts in Greece and mass expropriations in London tell us something on the social temperature of the present in which we live, on how endurance has gone out of fashion. We don’t give a fuck of demonstrative gestures and allusions to revolt. As a very long winter of pacification seems to finally croak, rebellion doesn’t go through symbols, even if the latter are more beautiful and evocative than the zombies of politics, but it goes through actions and practical and efficient instruments. Identities and ideological fetishes catch on exactly because of a historical lack of insurrection, whereas today to pick up the possibility of insurrection means to take the responsibility for raising one’s sights.

The battle of Piazza San Giovanni was an occasion to measure oneself against police power, and there the day took its mass breath. There were people of all kinds and ages to face police charges, many unmasked and at their first experience in the streets… nothing was arranged and decided in advance. The strongest and most explosive moment of the demonstration, the one that brought down all plans, stirred the blood and made the atmosphere hot had as its only protagonist the determination to take hold of a piazza and defend it, the uncontrolled and widespread anger.

There is much to learn from this demonstration of courage, displayed mainly by fed up kids without flags, like many of their peers in many other cities of the world. What Black Bloc? Instinct, practical intelligence and sudden reciprocity of intents: to attack a police van, re-launch the teargas and charge the police. The shout is Free Rome. Vandals can do it by themselves.

Organization by little groups, affinities and friendships, precise objectives and agility are common characteristics that make us almost undetectable to the eyes of the enemy. The civil war scenario that resonates from many parts of the world has crashed the faded image of the Spanish protest… the party of the citizens has lost. The call of revolt is much stronger. We won’t ever go back… Fuck off!



Asilo Occupato of Via Alessandria 12, Turin.

19-10-11

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For those who want to write their solidarity to the arrested ones here is the list. Send information to modernize this list.

Ilaria Ciancamerla

c/o Casa di Reclusione di Rebibbia.

Via Bartolo Longo, 72

00156 Roma

Fabrizio Filippi

Robert Scarlet

Stefano Canigliaro

Giovanni Caputi

Giuseppe Ciurleo

Alessandro Venuto

Giovanni Venuto

Lorenzo Giuliani

Valerio Pascali

c/o Casa Circondariale REGINA COELI

via della Lungara, 29

00165 Roma

Tags: Economic Crisis, Insurrection, Italy, Riots, Rome

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 22nd, 2011 at 3:13 pm and is filed under Autonomy.