First of March in Bologna

Once more it was a transnational day: new paths of struggle have been opened in Austria; the fight of the hunger strikers in Greece was supported; a link between the two shores of the Mediterranean sea, against the reigns of fear, was built up. Differently from the last year, because of the lack of the media clamor rose by the Rosarno revolt, and in a moment when the crisis beats particularly strong, less people demonstrated in Italy. However, something new happened in Bologna, and the first of March 2011 marked some thresholds that we will not cross back.

The first one concerns the strike. Compared with 2010, much more factories and much more workers, both migrant and italian, got on strike. This fact points out the importance of the communication with the union delegations within the working places and with workers, who understood that the strike of migrant labour is a strike of the whole labour.

The second one is the visibility of migrant and italian women during the demonstration of the first of March. They pointed out the patriarchal character of the Bossi-Fini law, showing in this way that the time of a neutral antiracism and of an organization of migrants which keeps silence on women's subordination - or accepts it by masking it as "culture" - is now over.

The third one is the absolute new fact of the presence and participation to the struggle of migrants' sons and daughters. In the morning there was a migrant students' demonstration, and this initiative, together with the participation to the general struggle through the hip hop music made by the guys of the OnTheMove Laboratory, shows the power of a presence which is not available to be caged within an eternal "second generation".

On the first of March workers, men and women, boys and girls, they all pretended visibility, presence, voice. They all expressed conditions that cannot be represented or be regarded as emergency - be it the emergency decided by governments, or an extreme condition pointed out by an old-fashioned antiracism. Workers, men and women, boys and girls who spoke on the first of March, made clear that they are not at the margins, but at the core of contemporary transformation of labour and, most of all, they can be at the core of the struggles.

We, the Coordinamento Migranti Bologna, will move on from this point, and we want to repeat, as we said during the demonstration, that we are not interested in celebration days, in empty solidarity statements, in mere assistance. We are interested in that space where migrant workers, men and women, boys and girls, could feel powerful, and not only for one day.

Coordinamento Migranti Bologna e Provincia