Italy's anser to militarist propaganda
Protests call for removing troops from Iraq
By John Catalinotto
On Nov. 22, tens of thousands of people demonstrated along
the entire Italian "boot" and in Sardinia to demand that
Italian troops withdraw from Iraq.
The protest was the first answer to a militarist and
patriotic propaganda offensive by the government of Silvio
Berlusconi. This offensive followed a car-bomb attack in
Nassiriya, Iraq, that killed 19 Italian occupation troops.
Berlusconi has been trying to use mass sympathy for the
soldiers the way the Bush administration used the mood in the
United States after Sept. 11, 2001, to get backing for "endless
war." The Italian premier and media magnate has proclaimed that
the Italian forces "will not be driven out of Iraq."
The anti-war movement and its allies, meeting at the
European Social Forum in Paris just after the attack,
confronted this propaganda assault by demanding that Italian
troops withdraw. The Nov. 22 mobilization was the first mass
answer to Berlusconi's offensive.
While not as many participated as during last winter's
buildup toward war, there was a Nov. 22 protest that reached
out to the masses of the population in nearly every city in
Italy, big and small. As an organizer in Bologna put it, the
protest was aimed at combating the "mood that is similar to
that of World War I, when everyone was mobilized behind family
and country to support the war."
Among those participating were veterans of Italy's own
resistance to German occupation from 1943 to 1945. That
experience of partisan resistance in Italian history
predisposes more people to support the right of an occupied
population to resist. The largest labor union confederation,
the CGIL, supported the protest.
Thousands marched in the northern financial center of Milan,
hundreds in Turin, a thousand in Bologna, and several thousand
in Cagliari, Sardinia. In Tuscany, there were demonstrations in
eight cities, including 5,000 people marching in Florence.
The biggest demonstration was in Rome, the capital, where
demands to withdraw the troops were combined with those for
jobs and a living minimum income. Organizers were pleased they
were able to unite these two strong movements.
One banner showed a picture of a smiling, 36-toothed
Berlusconi, saying, "We promise you a million jobs in
Iraq."
Reprinted from the Dec. 4, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
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