“The reform has passed, but the students’ revolt won’t stop here. We’ll stop the Gelmini law from being put into practice in our universities. We’ll stop any attempt of private companies to enter our buildings. We’ll stop the cuts to our grants and any attempt of raising university fees. Above all, we will go beyond mere opposition to this reform. During the last few weeks the movement has become more ambitious and aware of its own possibilities. We want to connect with other groups in the struggle, starting from the workers. We want a general strike at the beginning of next year, to relaunch the mobilisations and unify all opposition groups of our society. We will carry on fighting, because we have a future to build and we want to do this by a radical change of the whole society. There are no baddies or goodies, there are no violent and anti-violent people. The only truth is that during the last few months the streets have filled up with an entire generation of people fed up of not being listened to and seeing their own rights stomped on.” (from Ateneinrivolta)
On 22nd December student were back on the streets: Protests all over Italy, from Milan to Palermo. A group of students even managed to meet with Italy’s President Napolitano: A partial success, considered that for the first time a political institution has been forced to meet real students from the real movement, instead of the usual “phantom” student representatives.
Video: Riots in Palermo, where the student tried to occupy the Regional Offices. (Don’t we love these book shields?!)
Info from Ateneinrivolta and Uniriot. Also published by EU Uniriot “A whole different story”, more reflections on the protests of the last few months.