Autumn in Europe

By Jonas Neivelt
Source: Solidaritet, Denmark

A wave of protests is sweeping through Europe’s cities as young people and workers demonstrate for a future. Politicians respond by conjuring up frightening images of violence, looting and threats to the homeland. But we must not let the protesters’ message be drowned out by either thunder or silence.

On Saturday, 24 October, thousands of peaceful, unmasked demonstrators had gathered in Piazza Castello, the large square in central Turin, when a white car—a Citroën C3—accelerated in the middle of the crowd. It drove among the demonstrators, forcing them to jump aside.

Had the driver not been a white plainclothes police officer, and had the car not been an unmarked police vehicle, we can imagine what the headlines would have said. Turin’s police acknowledged that the car belonged to them, while initial media reports claimed that the vehicle and its driver had become “trapped” in the crowd.

And trapped it was. Just like all the demonstrators. As activist Andrea Borello pointed out on his Instagram page, police in full riot gear had blocked every road leading out of the square. Batons rained down on demonstrators who dared to stand nearby. According to Borello, who was there that day, the only people allowed to leave were masked, black-clad plainclothes officers, who showed their police badges and were then able to step outside for a breather from provoking the besieged protesters.

Some of the demonstrations in Italy appear to have been coordinated through an Instagram page called Movimento 17 Ottobre—the 17 October Movement. The authorities moved in and arrested the person behind it.

He was Youssef Siher, a 30-year-old freelance journalist and academic, arrested in Milan in the early hours of 25 October. He faced a raft of charges, including terrorism, and Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi did not hold back: “We are dealing with a 30-year-old man known in pro-Palestinian circles.”

Defence Minister Guido Crosetto also wanted in: “I would like to congratulate my colleague Piantedosi and the Italian police on identifying the initiator of the 17 October Movement. This is not a marginalised individual, but a well-connected person (...). He moved among Italy’s intellectual elite, in newspaper offices and public institutions. And the results speak for themselves.”

On 28 October, Siher was released. The allegations against him did not stand up, according to Milan investigating judge Tiziana Landoni. The Italian government cast aside any concern for the separation of powers and immediately criticised his release. “The decision by Milan’s investigating judge was shameful,” said Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, while Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani wrote that the release “put the country’s security at risk.”

Criminals Who Loot and Destroy

Consider what a perfect bogeyman someone like Youssef Siher makes for the far right. He is highly educated and has written for a newspaper they dislike: Il Fatto Quotidiano, an Italian newspaper with a broadly centre-left editorial stance, as the editors note. He is also dark-skinned, has Moroccan roots and is active in solidarity work with Palestine.

Those in power are now trying to impose the same enemy stereotypes on the demonstrators taking to the streets across Europe in recent weeks. Protesters are lumped together with black-clad thugs and Palestine solidarity activists, who apparently irritate many people by insisting on condemning war crimes and an ongoing genocide.

This is evident in the way the police treat demonstrators. In France, people have lost fingers and hands to police grenades. In Italy, people are beaten up—when the police are not trying to run them over.

Does this sound familiar? It should. Twenty-five years ago, Genoa hosted the G8 summit. Demonstrations took place across the city, and some were not peaceful. One demonstrator was killed by police. But even more disturbing was the night-time police raid on a school where many demonstrators were sleeping. Officers went berserk, attacking the sleeping people in a bloodthirsty frenzy.

We have seen it here in Denmark too. Demonstrators are beaten with batons and have their arms broken because they have sat down in front of a doorway or on a road. Press photographers are beaten for trying to document it. And in 2009, the police carried out the largest unlawful mass arrest in Danish history, surrounding an entire section of the huge demonstration during the Copenhagen climate summit, where the world’s politicians failed to reach an agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They used one of the kettling manoeuvres that Turin’s police have also employed in recent weeks.

We have grown accustomed to police violence and arbitrary mass arrests. More disturbing is that we have also grown accustomed to most of the population either applauding police conduct or simply not caring. After all, weren’t the demonstrators a little guilty just by demonstrating? Isn’t it annoying when people stand around demanding a fairer world while I want to walk past in peace or drive home to watch Wheel of Fortune?

It is this irritation with demonstrators in general, and fear of demonstrators of colour in particular, that those in power are exploiting in these weeks. Here are a few examples:

“I also call them terrorists, because they sow fear among people.”
Italian Sports Minister Andrea Abodi.

“Ultra-radical left-wing groups. (...) Criminals who want to loot and destroy.”
French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu.

“The extreme left is trying to overthrow the Republic.”
French President Emmanuel Macron.

No Future

Of course, some demonstrations have been violent. Of course, there have also been instances of mindless looting. Nobody gains anything from looting a local optician’s shop, as happened in Paris. We have heard this before, and every thinking person agrees.

The problem is that looting is almost the only thing we are told about the demonstrations. What are the protesters actually demonstrating against—or for?

That question is easily drowned out when the media are overflowing with simpler stories about terrorists, black-clad thugs and threats to assorted European republics. The politicians responsible know perfectly well that the media cannot resist stories about masked hooligans and ethnic minorities running amok in an orgy of violence on the streets of Europe’s major cities. It is like covering your ears and shouting “LA-LA-LA” so that you do not have to engage with the more serious message.

That message comes from young people and a working class who see no future. Because no, it is not “just” young, black-clad Palestine solidarity activists demonstrating in the streets. In Italy, lorries have stood idle on motorways in protest against the rising cost of living. People are demonstrating because they refuse to accept the world they are being offered: a world where young people cannot enter the labour market—and where, if they finally do, they face far less economic security than their parents enjoyed. Those who are in work cannot afford a decent life. Meanwhile, the richest grow richer with the active assistance of politicians.

This is happening in a world of climate crisis, war and genocide, with murderous despots at the helm of one major power and an incompetent, narcissistic and dangerous despot at the helm of another. It is happening in a world where the politicians responsible demand ever greater sacrifices from people—even readiness to die for the homeland—while whatever remains of the welfare society crumbles before their eyes. It is happening in a world where, as Mark Fisher put it, it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.

People are demonstrating for a future. Because right now, it can be hard to see one.

You Must Not Inconvenience Anyone

So what are we witnessing—is this the world revolution? Young people have been on the move beyond Europe too. In India, the Cockroach Movement has challenged Modi’s power. Generation Z has taken to the streets in Morocco and Nepal. And back in Europe, the Student List has removed Serbia’s authoritarian president from power.

It is hardly the world revolution—at least not in this part of the world. These protests may loom large for many people, but the majority seem either indifferent or openly hostile. In Italy, Andrea Borello has shown how the far right is forming Telegram groups encouraging people to confront demonstrators with pepper spray and knuckledusters. The echoes of early fascism’s street gangs are unmistakable.

There has been no widespread condemnation of a police car accelerating inside a trapped crowd, just as there has been no widespread condemnation in Denmark of police attacking a peaceful counterdemonstration against this autumn’s far-right marches through Copenhagen.

The prevailing attitude seems to be that you may demonstrate as long as you do not inconvenience anyone, as Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani has said. The threshold for what counts as inconveniencing others appears to have shifted. Peaceful demonstrations in a doorway, on a road or in a square are now also considered sufficiently disruptive to justify police intervention.

There it is again. The demonstrators are the problem. Not the problems they are demonstrating against.

There is no revolution without a counterrevolution, and reaction is waiting around the corner. Once the baton blows have stopped and the tear gas has dispersed, those in power can step in with further restrictions on how people are allowed to demonstrate.

A Modest Hope

The problem with demonstrating politely is that it gets you nowhere. Neither does a well-written letter to the editor. In that sense, it is the intensity of the demonstrations that offers a measure of hope.

When mass demonstrations reach a certain strength, politicians may be forced to listen. It was not protest songs and letters to the editor that secured a new self-managed youth centre for Copenhagen after the municipality sold the previous one to a Christian sect, which had it demolished, leaving a hole in the ground. It was sustained street demonstrations and acts of civil disobedience.

Just as a self-managed youth centre did not constitute a break with capitalism, that is probably not what most demonstrators are taking to the streets for in these weeks either. They are more likely demanding capitalism with a human face. But when people demonstrate for humanity, capitalism reveals its true face—one that lashes back with batons and contempt.

People are demonstrating for a society where getting a home, and perhaps even having children, is not financially out of reach. A society where an ordinary job provides a secure life and perhaps a holiday once a year. A society whose economic priorities extend beyond further tax cuts for the richest. A society with politicians who dare to take an active stand against genocide.

Unlike the end of capitalism, such a society is quite easy to imagine. But there is little to suggest that those in charge are willing to listen.

https://solidaritet.dk/efteraar-i-europa/

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