| publié le 1 May 2004 |
The 1st of May for a long time symbolized the workers struggle and has been finally - in the social democratic and socialist traditions - transformed into a kind of a celebration of work. On the 1st of May 2003 G.W. Bush proclaimed the military victory of the Coalition Forces in Iraq. This year the European Union will be enlarged by ten countries on the same day. The content of the day, so precious to the people, that cherish the tradition of the workers and liberation movements, is changing. The 1st of May has witnessed another recuperation by the power. And what kind of adbusting of that recuperation can be developed in the networks of global movements? The coming 1st of May will be built both by the power and by the European social movements around the issue of social struggles and European political space. The power, in its un-conflicting ceremonies of EU enlargement, will try to deny the existence of social struggles, for it is building a market that is supported by national in supranational repressive and bureaucratic apparatuses. The movements will construct their own 1st of May on the visibility of social struggles, because they are devoted to the construction of a common European space, a federation that is understood as a network of social struggles, of movements that oppose the power of the neo-liberal capitalism.
That is why networks from the movement of precarious, cognitive and migrant work of Alpe Adria region call for a week of communication/action that will begin in Ljubljana (23rd of April) and Trieste (24th of April). From a radical Europeanist point of view, we can think of a common political space traversed by social movements on the territory that was historically divided into different countries (Friuli, Venezia Giulia, Slovenia, Hungary, Istria, Dalmazia and great part of a Balcans). We know that movements, as the result of free and autonomous cooperation among subjects and individuals, are always preceding the power. This fact becomes clear if we look at the process of European social and political construction. In these last years, starting from Genoa, through Prague, Amsterdam, Paris, Madrid, movements have been experimenting practices and affirming an absolutely heretical conception of Europe: where Mr. Prodi is celebrating free circulation of commercial goods, we support and practice free and clandestine circulation of individuals; in opposition to the Europe of money and of Maastricht’s parameters, we demand social rights and granted income for all; in the confrontation with European Union - divided on the refusal of war, but absolutely agreeing on the need to persecute and repress every social conflict - we invoke the right to resistance to permanent global war, everywhere, from Iraq to Palestine, from the Lacandona to the streets of Genoa.
In Gorizia and Nova Gorica on April the 30th Mr. Prodi and other European and national politicians will talk in enthusiastic way about the enlargement of Europe, about the end of painful divisions that left many scarves in the memory of this territory. In doing this they will keep back the fact that citizens of the new adherent countries will not be able to move, work and live freely across Europe, that in Slovenia there is almost one percent of population that was erased in 1992 and that these persons still live as ghosts in their own country. And of course they will not mention that the exploitation of erased in Slovenia is paradigmatic of what happens to all the clandestines and precarious in Europe. Hereby we declare that fighting every form of nationalism and xenophobia is our first duty as global European citizens: for this reason struggle of Slovenian erased is our struggle. The Mayday events we prepare are meant to unmask the deceit of institutional celebrations. Than, on the first of May, we join the multitude of precarious and cognitive workers on the EuroMayDay Parade of Milano. In this festal and mobilization day the streets of Milano, Barcelona and Dublin will be filled with the same need of recomposition of all those subjects that are fighting against increasing precariousness of life and against the exploitation of social richness and common goods produced in neo liberal economy.
We believe that another Europe is possible, that it already exists and that it needs visibility. On our way to the 1st of May we will provide the visibility of a different Europe. This is Europe that is building itself through struggles, which are the basis for a social and political re-composition (struggles of precarious workers, migrants and erased, invisibles of all kinds) and is becoming through comportments of disobedience, resistance and solidarity. For us three elements are inseparable: free circulation of people, access to income and to civil and social rights, right of resistance. These are not ideological propositions, but the focus points of what we call post-socialist program. Our collective and multitudinary participation to the European Mayday - as precarious and cognitive workers, as students and migrants, as exploited citizens - means for us the starting point, the beginning of our engagement to make this program alive globally and in our common territory, and the step to reinforce the struggles of invisibles, to build, here and now, from below, Europe of rights and movements.
Our common agenda in the week of communication/action is:
– 23rd of April: a seminar in Ljubljana
– 24th of April: a seminar in Trieste
– 30th of April: the visibility of a different Europe in Nova Gorica (Slo) and Gorizia (It)
– 1st of May: a manifestation of the precogs (precarious and cognitive workers), migrants and other invisibles in Milano
We are inviting all movements and networks that contest the power to join us in our common endeavor of constructing the 1st of May of the Invisibles of Global Europe!
