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

[claudia bernardi]

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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