Version imprimableEvery day we need to continue to defend jobs, wages and solidarity between the Italian and migrant working classes.
Let’s talk again about 25 April and the Resistance struggle that defeated the dictatorship and returned freedoms and democratic rights to citizens. We are living through dramatic times in which the pandemic crisis brings out more acutely the contradictions of a capitalist society based on the profit motive. Everywhere misery, unemployment, inequality, insecurity and social injustice are growing.
We have a government including a right-wing party, the Lega, which is a true friend of the bosses, looking after their interests, and which does not hesitate to use openly fascist forces. The government parties that call themselves anti-fascist have decided to embrace their enemy, because they too are committed to guaranteeing the profits of the capitalists, rather than relaunching a new policy in defence of social rights and in support of the working class that is suffering the most from the crisis.
All this should not be a surprise! Let’s remember that in recent times, Interior Minister Minniti (of the PD - the Democratic Party) set the stage for the current authoritarian and racist backlash. Then Salvini (Lega leader) developed the work of his predecessor by criminalizing even the struggles of trade union and working class militants.
The sacred law of the sea, along with respect for basic human rights, have been trampled on. European countries, with Italy in the lead, refused to respond to the rescue calls that for two days came desperately from the Mediterranean waters, leaving 100 migrants to die. Yet another unacceptable massacre for which the Italian and European governments are fully responsible.
Just as we cannot forget the fact that the governments that have succeeded one another in Italy over the last 20 years have torn public health care to shreds. Today we are paying harshly for the consequences.
In this context of difficulty and anger a party like Fratelli d’Italia (Brother of Italy) is growing. It is the heir of the Italian Social Movement, (MSI), while political forces, which are explicitly fascist like Casapound and Forza Nuova, take to the streets and lead movements that deny the very existence of the epidemic.
The goal of fascists old and new is clear: to divide the front of the exploited, taking advantage of the growing malaise to lead people down the wrong road.
The enemy becomes somebody who is lower down the social scale, such as our immigrant brothers and sisters, the workers from another sector or another region, and not the bosses who in recent years have seen their profits grow by reducing wages.
It is no coincidence that these forces show absolute indifference to all the victims, those of Covid (there are now 120,000 in our country) as well as those drowned in the Mediterranean.
Fighting the fascists and the forces of the reactionary right means building the solidarity and unity of the working and popular classes so that they can assert their interests.
On 25 April we remember those who fought to free us from Nazi-fascism, but today we also want to oppose all forms of injustice and oppression and fight for a policy of solidarity and social justice.
– Build solidarity in the fight against the pandemic. Revive public health services and the right to health. We demand the suspension of the private ownership of patents on vaccines so that they can be produced and guaranteed for everyone.
– We need a new public economic policy that guarantees safe and decent jobs for all.
– Antifascism, as well as the fight against the pandemic, must start from the solidarity between workers, Italians and migrants together, against all forms of racism, for an Italy and a Europe that is open and supportive.
Translated by International Viewpoint from Sinistra Anticapitalista.
