In this week's episode...

Weekly news roundup:

We have a brief run down of some of the news from the week:

 - Pastasciutta Antifascista Weekend

Reporting back from the hugely successful FILEF events both in Sydney and here in Melbourne, FILEF Sydney organised their annual event and had an amazing over 300 people attend!! Here in Melbourne we celebrated our first ever Pastasciutta Antifascista by watching the Gianni Amelio Film "I Sette Fratelli Cervi" which is a dramatic retelling of the events that bring this day through history and to our present day through the film's protagonist Aldo Cervi played by the legendary Gian Maria Volonte'. 

 - Abby Martin - Earth's Greatest Enemy 

Some of the FILEF Naarm/Melbourne crew went to watch the phenomenal documentary by American journalist and activist Abby Martin and report back from this eye opening documentary that dives deep into the ruling class green washing of the climate crisis and just how insidious the US military industrial complex is when it comes to being by far the worlds largest polluter not just of emissions but the many many ways this entity poisons the earth as they seek to maintain their imperial stranglehold on the world!

Abby Martin is currently on tour with the documentary and we will be screening a community screening soon, make sure to follow us right here on the home of radical radio at 3cr and on our socials!

Pietro Lunetto Interview:

Listen here

The main portion of today's episode comprises of a conversation with FILEF Nazionale Rep, Pietro Lunetto, long time activist with the European section FILEF and currently the national rep the conversations covers timely topics like the importance of migrant led migrant advocacy and the situation regarding new Italian government legislation. The impact that these deeply problematic and undemocratic fascist policy reforms are having on large sections of Italian society and how the parrallels are present in the situations we encounter in Australia with the slide right by the major parties as well as the fringe parties. We end the conversation by touching briefly on the history and responsibility of FILEF in organsing and advocating for real change in migrant spaces and about the organisations universalist principles that guide our actions towards the building of a new and better world for all!

Song - Lisetta Lucchini - Bresci, l'anarchico tornato dall'America

Gaetano Bresci Anniversary

Piero reads out the translated history of the historic action by Italian Anarchist Gaetano Bresci and his killing of King Umberto I. The original published by InfoAut can be found here, translation below:

On July 21, 1900, the King of Italy, Umberto I, reaches—almost as in every summer—their residence in Monza, a city where he lives and meets his lover, Eugenia.

On July 29, it is a hot Sunday in Brianza, and after dinner the king leaves his home to attend a high-society event: the awarding of prizes to the athletes of the Forti e Liberi gymnastics society.

After the ceremony, Umberto I gets into his carriage to return to the royal residence, but, recognizing among the crowd lined up around it an officer, he stands up to greet him—and it is at that moment that he is hit by three revolver shots.

The king had already been the target of two assassination attempts in the preceding years: the first in Naples in 1878, when he was struck by a dagger blow delivered by Giovanni Passante, a unemployed man; and the second in 1897, when Pietro Acciarito from Artena, also unemployed, had tried to stab him.

While the king has already lost consciousness and the carriage speeds toward the royal villa, a man is immediately arrested amid the crowd, without offering any resistance and without making any statements: he is Gaetano Bresci, an anarchist.

Gaetano Bresci is 31 years old. He is a silk weaver born in Prato, active in the attempt to overthrow the miserable conditions in which he and his family live, as well as those of all the peasant and urban proletariat, since his teenage years. Already arrested and confined for a year on Lampedusa following participation in a strike, in 1897 he decided to leave Italy and move to America, first to New York and later to Paterson.

During his stay in America, however, Gaetano continues to follow the political events in his native land, and in particular he is deeply shocked by the brutal repression carried out by the royal army against the people who—now exhausted—had stormed the bread ovens in Milan in 1898. Following this uprising (the “protest of the stomach”), in fact, more than one hundred people were killed and hundreds were wounded, while General Fiorenzo Bava-Beccaris—the commander of the operation—was awarded the Cross of the Military Order of the House of Savoy.

Even today, it is not known how and when Bresci’s idea of regicide took shape, but it is very likely that theories claiming he was selected from a group of American anarchists should be ruled out, just as the conspiracy theories supported by Giolitti also should be.

Bresci, defended by lawyer Francesco Saverio Merlino, will be tried for regicide and sentenced to life imprisonment. On January 23, 1901, he will be transferred to the Santo Stefano prison near Ventotene, where he will be given the prisoner number 515.

He will wear the uniform of life-sentence prisoners, with black insignia indicating those guilty of the most serious crimes, and his feet will be bound with thick chains.

On May 22, 1901, a doctor will be called to his cell to verify his death: the official version will be suicide, but the circumstances surrounding his death will raise many doubts. Rumors inside the penitentiary will claim that three guards burst into the cell, immobilized him with a blanket, and then beat him to death (in prison jargon, this is called “fare il santantonio”).

A “state crime” would therefore be the punishment for a crime against the state, despite the death penalty having been abolished by the Zanardelli Code in 1889.

Mohammed Hannoun quotes/speech (President of Palestinian Association in Italy)

Francesca Albanese commentary on Abderrahim Fakir:

the UN special rapparteur to the Occupied Palestinian Territories gives a chilling statement to Italian news agency "ala" where she puts forward the notion of the "Israelization" of Italian society, linking undemocratic policy making, militarisation of police and security forces and the outcomes they produce, in this case the state killing of an innocent man, Adderahim Fakir. 

APAN Webinar - Free Palestine - Fundraiser:

APAN put together a fundraiser and panel discussion webinar with Francesca Albanese and Chris Sidoti you can find out more on APAN socials here. 

No TAV:

Margherita reads out an article that was featured on Contropiano setting the context for the events we saw transpire over the weekend regarding the No TAV moevemtn but more importantly the Italian and even to som eextent global mainstream media reporting of soemthing that the local community has been fighting now for well over 3 decades not to have invasive, expansive, environment destroying development for military purposes on prisitine land!

you can find the original article here, translation below:

TAV is functional for military mobility, not for the country’s development
by Linda Maggiori

On the TAV Turin–Lyon: no. Let’s not call it “high-speed.” High-speed from Milan to Paris already exists, for a long time, and it’s wonderful

Six hours of convenient travel for 45 euros. In September we’ll go with the whole family. It could be improved and incentivized, but it exists and it runs on existing tracks. They could also improve regional connections from Italy to France, but the line is already there

The TAV is only and exclusively for military mobility. A European plan that has existed for years, but every year it becomes more insistent and more threatening.

The European Commission pushes to adapt every logistics infrastructure to war, allocates billions, and once everything is done, the war can break out, the European Parliament will vote on it soon—get informed.

The TAV is part of the Mediterranean Corridor, one of the major transport axes of the European TEN-T network connecting the Iberian Peninsula to the border between Hungary and Ukraine. Make trains that exceed the clearance gauge—military convoys—pass through tunnels sized for tanks, from west to east, toward Ukraine. In Pontedera, La Spezia, Genoa, in every country there are works to adapt ports, railways, stations, tracks, roads.

Thousands, hundreds of other works—maybe smaller ones too, but all for the same purpose: war. Emers is the red button: any state can press it, and our roads and railways will be filled with marching armies. Civilian workers will lose protections and will be treated as military personnel

Everything is already being prepared

The TAV Turin–Lyon makes no sense for commercial and civilian reasons. Maybe once it did—but then it became clear that it’s a damage and a cost disproportionate to the benefit. Now it serves only one thing: war.

When people talk about “guerrilla”—or, better, sabotage—even if violent, against this major project, let’s write exactly how things are.

The TAV is not a train, it’s not a red-arrow train or a TGV

The TAV is military mobility. It’s war

And if once a year, in broad daylight, on an established day known by the police, sabotage happens… let’s call it what it is: sabotage of military mobility. You may not like it (I don’t like the black smoke either), we may prefer other methods, but let’s call it by its proper name.

No Tav Press Conference snippet - Nicoletta Dosio

We close out the program this week by listening to an excerpt of the press conference by the No TAV movement of legendary No TAV activist and inspiration Nicoletta Dosio adressign the press conference after their hugely attended event on the weekend and where no mainstream cameras were to be seen. This is a story we will be following closely and will provide an episode dedicated to the history of the movement and the context that it was born from. Following you will find the press statement they released ont their page after the weekend. Link to the whole press conference here. 

Link to statement from the No TAV movement in Italian here, translation below. 

https://www.notav.info/post/ceravamo-ci-siamo-e-ci-saremo-sempre

Full translated statement:

We were there, we are here, and we will always be here. Always.
Let’s talk about violence. The violence of those who, for 30 years, have refused to listen to the Valsusa’s arguments based on objective technical data.
The violence of a schizophrenic and criminal economic system that supports the construction of colossal, useless projects to fuel the greed of a few at the expense of emergencies that should be priorities (climate change, environmental fragility, pandemic threats, increasingly widespread poverty, a public health system on the brink of collapse, inadequate education, the right to housing)—and for which, instead, funds are always lacking. The violence of those who repress rather than educate, of those who deprive younger generations of any form of hope. The hypocritical violence of a subservient and short-sighted media system. The violence of those who speak based on hearsay, because properly informing oneself takes effort. Let’s talk about it, at last.

Because once again, we’ve been looking at the finger instead of the moon. We’ve been tearing our hair out over what happened in Val di Susa at the hands of so-called “Black Bloc” members, demonizing a cross-sectional struggle that has lasted for decades and carefully avoiding any analysis of its underlying causes. There’s no such thing as the “Black Bloc”—no Martians, no multinational conspiracy to sow chaos. We’re all just men, women, young people, and older folks. “Go ahead and protest, as long as the construction sites keep moving forward!” say the TAV supporters on both the right and the left. What a pipe dream! Every day we fight to stop the work. Every day we face off against the engineers, the administrators, and the Unione Montana. They think they can “buy off” the mayors with compensation. Money, incidentally, that reaches the people of Valsusa thanks to the No Tav protests.

To the law enforcement unions—who are not the target of the No TAV movement but who have been providing 24-hour protection for the construction sites since as far back as 2011—we say: Aren’t you fed up? Aren’t you tired? You come from all over Italy to work your shifts—first in Chiomonte, then in San Didero, and now even in Salbertrand and Susa… how far do you want to take this? How much longer do you want to be sent on grueling shifts far from your homes and loved ones? To act as security guards for a private company?

You are not our target; we are not violent; we do not want anyone’s blood—neither the police’s nor our own. We are simply and consistently reacting to the devastation being imposed on us. We’ve been saying this for three decades now: our territory is at capacity. We’re crisscrossed by an extremely disruptive (and expensive!) highway, two state highways, and a railroad line where the TGV and Frecciarossa trains pass several times a day, back and forth, from Turin to Lyon (or rather, from Milan to Paris). The Valsusa community wants only one thing: to live quietly and in peace in a healthy environment.

On the other side, who do we have? A cross-party business clique—the party of cement and bribes—that is already planning a new route beneath the moraine hill between Avigliana, Rivoli, and Rivalta. Yet another example of land consumption and a promise of future water instability. To oppose all this—and to advocate for a land-use policy that is prudent and attentive to the needs of its inhabitants—as already announced at the Alta Felicità Festival, we are preparing for a new march on October 3, between Sant’Ambrogio and Avigliana. Let the “madamine” of the moment take to the streets all they want; we do not want this project.

We were there, we are here, and we will be there. Always.
No Tav Movement

Closing remarks:

Our next film night as part of the FILEF Film Club is on Friday 14 August at Democritus - screening Pasqualino Settebellezze make sure to be there to discuss what will surely be a memorable movie night for all involved!

Any info you can follow us on Instagram @filef_melbourne 

Song - Medium Beer - No TAV