Events in Italy leading up to the national demonstration in support
of the people of Gaza and for the boycott of Turin Book Fair, 10 May:
29 March Turin: 700 people rally in support of the boycott of the
Turin Book Fair; Milan & Rome: activists picket Feltrinelli bookshop,
a major Italian publisher of the left, which announced it will take
part in the Book Fair.
21 April Bologna: picket of Feltrinelli. An enormous Palestinian flag
unfurls from the top of Asinelli tower which is the symbol of the city.
29 April Bologna: The dean at the university bars a seminar about the
boycott - students occupy the university and have the seminar anyway.
1 May Turin: Mayday march - 30,000 demonstrate, Israeli and US
flags are burnt in the main square.
4-5 May public meetings in various cities.
5-6 May Turin: University, Seminar on "Western Democracies
and the ethnic cleansing of Palestine" with Gianni Vattimo,
Ilan Pappe (on video) Tariq Ramadani, Aharon Shabtai and
Jonathan Rosenhead.
7 May Rome: public assembly to discuss how to take part in
the national demo in Turin.
8 May Milan: Vigil in front of Corriere della Sera, one of the main
Italian daily newspapers, which attacked the boycott.
10 May Turin: National demonstration, thousands expected.
For more information: in Italian see http://www.infoaut.org
http://www.infoaut.org/ ; in English see www.globalwomenstrike.net
http://www.globalwomenstrike
Read the organizers statement, and support the demo by
writing to the email address, below.
ISRAEL IS NOT A GUEST OF HONOUR!
FREE PALESTINE!
"Gaza will sink – declared the president of the Popular
Committee against Blockade, Jamal al-Khoudari – and
the whole world bears responsibility for this. Immediate
actions must be taken to put pressure on the occupation,
in order to end this crisis."
The situation of the Palestinian population is getting worse
day by day. From the blockade/embargo against the
Gaza Strip and Israeli raids by land and air in all the
Palestinian occupied territories, to building the
Apartheid Wall and the deteriorating living conditions
of refugees and Palestinian residents in Israel, the Israeli
authorities are persistently committing war crimes and
violations of civil rights, ignoring dozens of UN resolutions
and forcing millions to live in disastrous conditions.
Every day, at every checkpoint, soldiers humiliate elderly people,
women and children, robbing the Palestinians of their daily life
and of the time necessary to work, study, participate in politics,
and plan their future. Scarcity and even sheer lack of food and
fuel, produce a situation of intolerable poverty, while sanitary
conditions in the refugee camps remain appalling.
What Israel is performing is literally politicide – the deliberate
attempt at destroying social and political resistance, by means
of periodic ethnic cleansing – against a humiliated, oppressed
and occupied Palestinian people. All forms of organization,
resistance, dissent and demonstration are forbidden to Palestinians.
Even the most peaceful protest triggers the Israeli army to employ
teargas or to shoot into crowds, while any militant action is punished
with mass punishment. This is the macabre and racist bookkeeping
of 21st century wars: for each Israeli dead or imprisoned, hundreds
of Palestinians and Lebanese are killed or arrested.
In this context of brutal misuse of power, international institutions
remain silent, the western press censors and minimizes, the
European and North American governments insist on stronger
economic, diplomatic and military alliances with the Israeli
government. Even the use of unconventional weapons and the
devastation caused by the war against Lebanon in 2006, did
not prevent all the G8 governments from proclaiming their
faithfulness to their best ally in the Middle East.
With the same logic, Italian institutions are openly aligning
themselves with Israel at all levels: from the President of the
Republic to the governments of recent years, from local
institutions to military and commercial ones, the strategic
alliance with Israel is never discussed, in spite of the bloodshed
that Palestinians must endure. From Silvio Berlusconi to
Walter Veltroni, from Sergio Chiamparino to Giuliano Ferrara,
from Gianfranco Fini to the most influential television and
press journalists, they all pay the ritual homage of unconditional
solidarity with the politics of the great ally, and the most conformist
intellectuals are no exception. A radiant Berlusconi announced
right after his election success that the first diplomatic journey
of the new government will take place in Israel.
As a further insult, this year − which marks the sixtieth anniversary
of the 1948 war and which the Palestinians experience as a symbol
of mourning, both in their memory and in their present lives − one
of the biggest cultural initiatives in Europe, the Turin International
Book Fair, has chosen to invite Israel as the "guest of honour", like
the Paris Book Fair. In spite of the plea, signed by international
writers and intellectuals from all over the world − among them
Palestinian and Israeli − for the cancellation of such invitation and
in spite of their demand that it be replaced with a dedication to a
just peace, the city of Turin has decided to endorse the invitation.
This is a clear choice. It is a political choice, a one-sided choice:
not only in the light of what is currently happening in Palestine,
but also because the memory of 1948 is treated as a "celebration"
in spite of the Nakba, the "catastrophe" of the Palestinians.
850,000 refugees on the run, 531 villages razed to the ground,
tens of thousands dead, a dreadful legacy of blood and violence.
Countless people, from Arab society and the whole world, who
are appalled by what is happening, are asking: what is there to
celebrate, to "showcase", what is there to be happy about?
In our world of global and permanent war with its militarized culture,
writers too must put on their helmet: such is the price demanded of
the institutions of the countries waging war in exchange for a career,
fame and money. For those who have neither fame nor money, for the
landless and those without peace, where is hospitality? Where is
honour? For the memory of the losers, the persecuted and oppressed,
in Palestine as elsewhere, what hard high-backed chairs have been
prepared?
Once again it will be up to the social and internationalist movements,
the citizens, workers and students, also in response to the pleas from
Palestine, to side with those who bear the brunt of the barbarous wars
and the acts of infamy of global capitalist domination. The time has
come to surge out onto the streets of Turin and for our protest to reach
the Lingotto, the seat of the Book Fair, in order to demand:
– an end to the Israeli embargo and US and EU sanctions
against the Gaza Strip;
– an end to military occupation of the territories;
– that the Apartheid Wall be destroyed;
– that the dignity and rights of Palestinians living within
Israel's borders be respected ;
– the right of return for all refugees;
– that all Palestinian political prisoners be freed.
While we denounce the authoritarian and militarist politics of Israel,
and the difficulties that plague whoever shares a political culture or
historical memory different from the official one, we demonstrate for:
– the end of diplomatic, economic and military alliance between Italy
and Israel;
– cultural policies which take into account the memory and reasons of
the oppressed and criticize the oppressors;
– full political freedom in Israel for the movements against
war and the occupation;
– a full and effective lack of restrictions on historic research
within Israeli universities;
– the release of all Israelis who have refused to report
for military service.
ISRAEL IS NOT A GUEST OF HONOUR! FREE PALESTINE!
MEETING POINT:
CORSO MARCONI, TURIN
10TH MAY 2008 2pm
ASSEMBLEA FREE PALESTINE – TORINO
Email your support to:
adesioni10maggio@infoaut.org
Cc: payday@paydaynet.org &
womenstrike8m@server101.com
Mona Baker
Personal website: www.monabaker.com
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