Someone, perhaps it was the ubiquitous Sasha, asserted that if people from Mexico attempted to force their way across the border with the US, the US would respond with force equal to, and possibly even greater than, the force used by Israel against Palestinians on Sunday. I tend to disagree with him for several reasons, primarily because of the economic relationship between the US and Mexico as well as the social unrest that it would ignite within the US itself, particularly in states like California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. But he has revealed an important aspect of the occupation that deserves more than the scant attention that it commonly receives, with the recognition of it limited to academia and international providers of security services.

Sasha has implicitly associated the occupation with broader issues of global border contral, and despite his Zionist stance, he is correct in doing so. It is an emerging narrative of the occupation that is as important as the dominant one regarding the conflict between Zionists and Palestinians for the land of Palestine. There is, in fact, a frightening symmetry between the evolution of the occupation and international methods of border control, so much so that the occupation often serves as a testing ground for policies and technologies utilized elsewhere, especially in the US. Prior to the mid-1990s, there was a time when the occupation took a somewhat more benign form in terms of the intrusiveness of social control measures and technologies, but, in the immediate aftermath of Oslo accords, Israel commenced the installation of a system of border checkpoints that has culminated with the ongoing construction of what critics have called the Apartheid Wall, as well as the militarization of daily life. The part of this process that gets ignored, possibly because it is contrary to the tendency of many around the world to hold Israel solely responsible for the abuses of the occupation, is the effort to integrate these measures into other border control situations.

One of the most obvious examples of this process was the attempted construction of a border fence, known as the Secure Border Initiative network, or SBInet, by the US along the border of the US and Mexico, cancelled last fall. Not surprisingly, the US looked to Israel in 2006 for its construction before abandoning the project:

For the SBInet project, the Boeing/Elbit consortium proposed the radical idea of 1,800 towers equipped with cameras and motion detectors stretched across the border. For possibly the first time ever, the words Israel and border are in the same sentence and it doesn't have anything to do with its own borders. The talent and expertise that Elbit Systems (NASDAQ ELST) has employed for years in protecting Israel's borders will now be put to use on US borders to keep Americans safe.

Kollsman Inc., an American-based subsidiary of Elbit, has been selected as a member of the winning consortium by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for the Secure Border Initiative (SBI) to supply technology to identify threats, to deter and prevent crossings, and to apprehend intruders along the US borders with Canada and Mexico.

Kollsman, headquartered in Merrimack, New Hampshire, is a development, manufacturing and support organization providing advanced electro-optical and avionics systems to the commercial aerospace, military and homeland security markets. The company's expertise includes enhanced vision systems, flight displays, head-up displays, thermal imaging systems, fire control systems, and advanced security and surveillance solutions.

The Secure Border Initiative is the latest attempt by the United States government to use technology to secure its borders, stop smuggling, and prevent illegal immigration. After September 11, illegal immigration is not just seen as a social problem, but also a national security issue. A unique aspect of this initiative was that Homeland Security gave the bidders total freedom to create new ideas of how to apply both new and old technology to secure the US borders.

Except that it is not really accurate to say that the US looked to Israel, as the consortium of corporations involved in the aborted construction of the fence, Boeing and Elbit, are transnational, with both companies listed on US stock exchanges. Accordingly, it is more appropriate to say that transnational corporations, many headquartered in the US and Israel, have utilized the occupation as an experimental testing ground for technologies with an anticipated global application. Given the proliferation of surveillance cameras and airborne surveillance in the United Kingdom to the extent that it is considered the most surveilled society among industrialized countries, I would not be surprised to discover that UK corporations are playing a prominent role in this effort as well. Of course, the deployment of technologies originally developed for border control for the purpose of mass surveillance shouldn't surprise anyone. Hence, the occupation, and the technologies associated with its imposition, are part of a global, transnational corporate effort to maintain the separation of the poor of the Global South from the wealthy of the Global North and monitor virtually every aspect of our daily lives. In this respect, Chicano activists in California have much in common with the Palestinians enclosed within the occupied territories, and they have supported the actions of Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of California, as most recently expressed through the support of MECHA for the Irvine 11.

Furthermore, as you may recall, the US engaged in extemporaneous forms of occupation inspired border control within Iraq during some of the most intense periods of Iraqi resistance. Starting in late 2003, the US partitioned Iraqi cities, creating, in the words of Robert Fisk, a controlled populace. By August 2004, Toufic Haddad described US methods as synonymous with those of the occupation:

. . . the use of aggressive techniques of urban warfare with an emphasis upon special units, house to house searches, wide scale arrest campaigns (almost 14,000 Iraqis are now in prison), and torture; the erecting of an elaborate system of watchtowers, military bases, check-points, barbed wire, and trenches to monitor, control, and restrict transportation and movement; the clearing of wide swaths of land next to roads; the use of armored bulldozers to destroy the homes of suspected militants; the razing of entire fields from which militants might seek refuge; the heightened relevance of snipers and unmanned drones; and the attempted erecton of collaborator networks to extract information from the local populace about resistance activities -- both military and political.

Accordingly, an ethnic, sectarian emphasis upon the nature of the conflict in Palestine, while appealing to those seeking to organize among nationalistic Americans seeking to avoid US culpability in the actions of Israel, doesn't come close to addressing the real dimensions of the struggle.

Meanwhile, in regard to Europe, the occupation is consistent with an ideological belief in the necessity of rigorous border control to prevent the entry of people characterized as culturally dangerous. The governments of Italy and France are expressing alarm over the possibility of an influx of North Africans in the absence of Gaddafi's willingness to interdict them, but such xenophobia is not a recent development, as demonstrated by periodic statements by German politicians about the purported inability of Turkish immigrants to adopt German values, as if this matters. Several years ago, Behzad Yaghmaian spent two years in Europe interviewing Muslim immigrants, many of them imprisoned within refugee camps, and published a book about what they told him, Embracing the Infidel. In this book, he humanizes his subjects while exposing an impersonal system of social control across the European continent that restricts them to ghettoes and refugee camps. In a sense, the police methods of stopping people for their identity cards, detaining them and incarcerating them in refugee camps evokes a bygone era, one that predates the accelerated technological modernization connected to the occupation and US military operations in lesser developed countries, but it retains the cultural superiority and xenophobia at the heart of this project. Last week, the suppressed brutality of it erupted on the streets of Athens, as right wing Greek mobs attacked the undocumented.

Labels: American Empire, Europe, Germany, Greece, Immigration, Israel, Italy, Mexico, Palestine, Police, United Kingdom, US Military, Zionism

On Wednesday, there was a general strike in Athens and much of Greece over the continued imposition of austerity measures by the government, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. Towards the end of the day, the police attacked a group of people participating in a protest march, with the doctors who treated the injured, many of them severely, condemning the assault:

Today, we witnessed the the barbarism of the IMF government, which seeks to repress every healthy act of resistance to their plans, laid out by Greek and international capital, and faithfully implemented by their local servants. Dozens of injured demonstrators were transfered to our hospital by ambulances, or by themeselves. Most of them were suffering from fractured skulls. Among them, a 30-year old demonstrator, which arrived in a serious antemortem ["prothanatio"] state, anisocoria and extradural hematoma. At this moment, he is in surgery, operated by colleagues fighting to save his life. We denounce this form of police brutality, and consider the members of Greek government as responsible for this attempt at murder, as well as all attacks upon demonstrators.Violence and repression against the people will not serve them much longer.

A common response to such protests has been police and fascist terror against the undocumented, and the anti-authoritarian movement has, as usual, attempted to defend them. Consider, for example, what has happened in the aftermath of Wednesday's protest, as reported by Occupied London:

In the early hours of May 12th a 21-year old Bangladeshi migrant was stabbed to death in the Kato Patisia district of Athens. The victim, wrongly reported in mainstream news (and reposted on this blog) as a Pakistani migrant, was lethally stabbed almost certainly by fascist thugs who have launched a series of attacks in the centre of Athens following the murder of a Greek man on Tuesday night, on the corner of Ipirou and Tritis Septemvriou Street. Eyewitnesses report that the murderers of the 21-year old man chased him around the neighbourhood and spoke Greek. On Wednesday night alone fascist thugs roamed through a number of districts of central Athens, injuring at least another fifteen migrants most of which were hospitalised.

And, then, more recently, this:

In Thessaloniki, a fascist gathering at the square opposite the city’s train station was temporarily cancelled after approximately 300 anti-fascists gathered at the point first. The fascists were forced to meet at their headquarters instead. There are two demonstrations in the city at the moment, a fascist one (around 50-people strong) and an anti-fascist one, with about 300 people participating.

In Athens, there are reports that fascists stopped public transportation buses passing by Tritis Septemvriou street, where the murder of a 44-year old man on Tuesday night sparkled the tension. The fascists forced passengers out, beating those who looked foreign to them.

Did anyone stand up for the foreigners forced off the buses? The report does not address this urgent question. In Greece, as in France and Italy, the government is complicit in the scapegoating of the undocumented for its political and econcomic failures.

Labels: Anarchism, Europe, France, Greece, IMF, Immigration, Italy, Neoliberalism, Sub-Proletarianization of Europe

UPDATE 1: As contemplated in paragraph 1 of the original post:

A Texas school district says a teacher won't return to work after being accused of mocking an American-born Muslim student by asking if she was grieving because her uncle had died, a reference to Osama bin Laden.

The teacher was put on leave after making the alleged remark May 2, hours after bin Laden was killed in a U.S. military raid.

INITIAL POST: The death of Bin Laden brings an old question to the forefront: why is it that people are willing to accept state violence, no matter how extreme and indiscriminate, while responding angrily to acts of individual or group violence that are minor by comparison? In the United States, it appears that many have a vicarious relationship with the violence of the government, exulting in a sense of collective superiority associated with its use against others, particularly those with whom they have developed a pre-existing bias. Socialists have always struggled to overcome this nationalistic sensibility, partially because of the gratification connected to such violence. Not surprisingly, to the extent that the people of another culture are different from the still predominately European, Christian one of the US, the use of violence against them is frequently considered an unavoidable necessity.

There are many examples: the near extermination of Native Americans, the continued support for the use of nuclear weapons upon the civilian populace of Japan to end World War II, the bombing of North Vietnam during the Vietnam War, and, of course, more recently, the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan as part of a larger war on terror. During the 19th Century, European Americans believed that it was impossible for them to coexist with Native Americans on the North American continent unless Native Americans were violently suppressed and, thereafter, socially controlled, and such a perspective is central to the current approach to the peoples of North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia, an approach that is an extension of prior European imperial practice. The US military made the connection explicit when it selected Geronimo as the code name for Bin Laden prior to the raid on his compound. Both constitute modernization projects based upon the principles of the Enlightenment, one in which the peoples of non-Eurocentric cultures must be forcibly incorporated into a neoliberal, nation state system that had its origins in, first, Western Europe, and then, in North America. Significantly, most people on the left supported this effort in the late 19th Century and early 20th Century, and some still do, with people like Christopher Hitchens and Fred Halliday being prominent examples.

Of course, this is one of those binary oppositions that has little basis in social reality. The peoples of North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia are not monolithic, and they do not live in inferior, debased societies that evolved as a result of a separation from the peoples of other parts of the world, such as Africa, Europe, South Asia and East Asia. In other words, this effort is based upon a mythology of social superiority that has no basis in fact. There were, and remain, less violent, more collaborative alternatives of transformation, ones that the proponents of the purist Eurocentric imperialist vision cannot accept. But, beyond such an academized, abstract discussion, there is a more immediate, direct problem. Why is it that so many people that otherwise have no connection to it so strongly support this violent enterprise? An enterprise, that, if Libya is an indication, is now gaining more and more European participation? If there is any possibility for Osama Bin Laden to be embraced as a martyr, despite his heinous qualities, it resides in his symbolic opposition to American and European imperial domination. To the extent that this domination becomes even more remorseless, the greater the prospect that Bin Laden's perverse failings will become less and less prominent in future representations of him.

Labels: "War on Terror", Africa, American Empire, Eurocentrism, Europe, France, Imperialism, Italy, Libya, Neoliberalism, Osama Bin Laden

No wonder Richard Perle, Tony Blair and Silvio Berlusconi considered it important to establish a connection to Muammar Gaddafi:

Libya has proven oil reserves of 44 billion barrels, the largest in Africa, according to the International Energy Agency.

The country has used this burgeoning oil wealth to invest close to $100bn (£61.6bn) around the world since economic sanctions were lifted in 2004.

Libya's overseas investments include a portfolio of UK properties as well as a 3% stake in Pearson Group, which makes it one of the biggest shareholders in the owner of the Financial Times.

The Libyan Investment Authority is the country's main financial vehicle, with an estimated $70bn of assets, according to the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute. In June 2009 it paid £155m for Portman House, a 146,550 square foot shopping complex on Oxford Street which houses retailers including Boots and New Look. Five months later the LIA spent £120m on an office at 14 Cornhill – opposite the Bank of England – and in September 2010 Libya set up a joint venture to develop a hotel and retail complex in Maple Cross, Hertfordshire.

The LIA, set up in 2006, has also made a series of investments in Italy, where prime minister Silvio Berlusconi enjoys a close relationship with Gaddafi. Libya owns about 2% of Fiat, 7.5% of Juventus Football Club and has a 2% stake in – and joint venture with – Italian aerospace and defence group Finmeccanica. It owns 7.5% of UniCredit, one of Italy's largest banks, and is a shareholder in Fortis, the Belgian-Dutch bank.

Libya has also made investments through other state vehicles, such as the Libyan African Investment Portfolio, which was set up in 2006 and is worth an estimated $8bn, according to the Sovereign Wealth Institute. This entity is behind FM Capital Partners, a hedge fund set up last year in Knightsbridge to execute a range of investments.

Another Libyan fund, known as the Long Term Asset Portfolio, was set up in 1982 and has an estimated $10bn, which is mainly invested in property and investment funds operated by other banks.

In addition, Libya's ruling elite – led by Gaddafi – has untold billions of dollars of funds around the world, according to Alistair Newton, senior political analyst at Nomura, the Japanese bank. This is a country that is so un-transparent I couldn't even begin to guess just how much money the ruling elite has [but] I would be very surprised if it didn't run into billions, Newton said.

Given that Libya has, by and large, been ignored by both the commercial and alternative media in the US, the scope of the activities of the kleptocracy are truly amazing. It provides us with an insight as to the exponentially greater investment activities of Sunni kingdoms in the Gulf, and the fear that will envelop global financial markests if substantial protests erupt there. Meanwhile, as for Libya, if the populace prevails, then, perhaps, the country's tremendous oil wealth can be used to benefit them.

Labels: American Empire, Italy, Libya, Neoconservatives, Neoliberalism, Tony Blair

UPDATE 6 (10:55PM Pacific time): From the Associated Press:

Violence escalated on Thursday at protests outside the capital. In the flashpoint city of Suez, along the strategic Suez Canal, protesters torched a fire station and looted weapons that they then turned on police. The Interior Ministry said in a statement that more than 90 police officers were injured in those clashes. There were no immediate figures on the number of injured protesters.

In the northern Sinai area of Sheik Zuweid, several hundred Bedouins and police exchanged gunfire, killing a 17-year-old. About 300 protesters surrounded a police station from rooftops of nearby buildings and fired two rocket-propelled grenades at it, damaging the walls.

Video of the shooting of the teenager, Mohamed Attef, was supplied to a local journalist and obtained by AP Television News. Attef crumpled to the ground after being shot on the street. He was alive as fellow protesters carried him away but later died.

UPDATE 5 (7;25PM Pacific time): Right on cue for Vice President Biden:

Thousands of Egyptians are planning to take part in peaceful marches and sit-ins in major cities. Mohammed ElBaradei, who has offered to become an interim leader, will be attending a major demonstration after Friday morning prayers in downtown Cairo.

But already I have started getting reports from citizen journalists that government-hired thugs will make sure that nothing about tomorrow is peaceful. They say that in several low-income parts of Cairo and Alexandria, government-hired thugs were seen to be splashing petroleum over parked cars. This to prepare for protests in which they'll light vehicles on fire when the time is right for them.

They've also heard rumours that the intelligence services will release a separate group of thugs under the name Akhwan al- Haq, or Brothers of Truth, a trumped-up extremist group, that will charge through the streets with swords and caustic acid to splash on the protesters - thus placing all the blame of a peaceful uprising gone violent on a certain kind of Islamic extremism.

UPDATE 4: Egyptian security forces detain 80 members of the Muslim Brotherhood before dawn. And, perhaps, others as well?

UPDATE 3: Vice President Biden supports the Mubarak regime on the PBS News Hour:

Asked if he would characterize Mubarak as a dictator Biden responded: Mubarak has been an ally of ours in a number of things. And he’s been very responsible on, relative to geopolitical interest in the region, the Middle East peace efforts; the actions Egypt has taken relative to normalizing relationship with – with Israel. … I would not refer to him as a dictator.

He also appeared to make one of the famous Biden gaffes, in comments that could be interpreted as questioning the legitimacy of protesters' demands. Monitor Cairo correspondent Kristen Chick, other reporters in the country, and activists have generally characterized the main calls of demonstrators as focused on freedom, democracy, an end to police torture, and a more committed government effort to address the poverty that aflicts millions of Egyptians.

Biden urged non-violence from both protesters and the government and said: We’re encouraging the protesters to – as they assemble, do it peacefully. And we’re encouraging the government to act responsibly and – and to try to engage in a discussion as to what the legitimate claims being made are, if they are, and try to work them out. He also said: I think that what we should continue to do is to encourage reasonable... accommodation and discussion to try to resolve peacefully and amicably the concerns and claims made by those who have taken to the street. And those that are legitimate should be responded to because the economic well-being and the stability of Egypt rests upon that middle class buying into the future of Egypt.

Of course, Biden's emphasis upon the need for the protesters to act peaceably fits perfectly with the efforts of the regime to manufacture the appearance of out of control street violence to justify the crackdown.

UPDATE 2 (4:33PM Pacific time): OK, here's something that I have found the time to post: Riot control police are being withdrawn from various locations in central Cairo, while plainclothes security are pouring gasoline on vehicles and setting them afire. They are also trying to burn storefronts as well. This is similar to what happened in Tunisia just before and after Ben Ali departed, and the military put a stop to it. The purpose is to create a pretext for a crackdown that justifies mass arrests and the indiscriminate use of live fire against the populace. There are already reports that such arrests are taking place in the early morning hours.

Meanwhile, here is some recent video from Suez, where there are reports that the police are shooting at protesters who are responding with Molotov cocktails:

UPDATE 1: For ongoing updates on the situation in Egypt, please visit the Egyptian Chronicles, The Arabist, 3arabawy and We Are All Khalid Said. It is, frankly, impossible for me to attempt to keep up with the breaking news, which indicates continued confrontational protest in many Egyptian cities. The Guardian's live blog is useful as well. It has been reported that a call has gone out for day of national resistance after prayers tomorrow.

INITIAL POST: Something quite extraordinary is happening when The New York Times and As'ad Abukhalil, the Angry Arab, find themselves in agreement, or, at least, close to it. First, the Times:

The roots of the uprising that filled Egypt’s streets this week arguably stretch back to before the Tunisian revolt, which many protesters cited as the catalyst. Almost three years ago, on April 6, 2008, the Egyptian government crushed a strike by a group of textile workers in the industrial city of Mahalla, and in response a group of young activists who connected through Facebook and other social networking Web sites formed the April 6th Youth Movement in solidarity with the strikers.

Their early efforts to call a general strike were a bust. But over time their leaderless online network and others that sprang up around it — like the networks that helped propel the Tunisian revolution — were uniquely difficult for the Egyptian security police to pinpoint or wipe out. It was an online rallying cry for a show of opposition to tyranny, corruption and torture that brought so many to the streets on Tuesday and Wednesday, unexpectedly vaulting the online youth movement to the forefront as the most effective independent political force in Egypt.

And, now, the Angry Arab:

I have just received from Egypt a secret document titled How to Revolt Intelligently prepared by the youth activists in Egypt. It is a most sophisticated manual by activist that I have seen. I am not exaggerating. It has very specific instructions as how to deal with the oppression tactics and methods of the Mubarak regime. I would have shared it with you, but the activists are circulating it as a secret document with special instruction against wide distribution for fear of falling into the hands of police. It has specific instruction as to how to deal with tear gas canisters and the repression vehicles and baton of the police. It sets the demands and style of the movement with well-done illustration. It ends with an illustration of Jamal Mubarak nicknamed Jaban Mubarak (Coward Mubarak). It is most impressive and makes me more hopeful about change in Egypt. I have not seen anything like this before, not by any revolutionary or activist movement anywhere.

Both point toward the fact that it has been young people, acting outside of any recognized institutional structures, that have driven anti-establishment protest around the world. Of course, the role of young anarchists in the December 2008 protests in Greece is well known, so much so that AK Press has published an excellent book that places these protests within a broader context of anti-authoritarian resistance there, with the anger of the Greek protesters subsequently finding an echo in the United Kingdom and France. In France, during nationwide protests triggered by a proposed reduction in pension benefits in October 2010, young people rioted in downtown Lyon, a riot described by a Figaro reporter as about 2000 youths . . roaming the streets in an insurrectional climate of urban guerrilla combat.

Meanwhile, a couple of months later, in December 2010 in the UK, student protests over increased university fees brought out unanticipated participants:

They marched to parliament square, got stopped, surged through police lines and trampled onto the grass that had been so painstakingly regrown after the eviction of the peace camp. And then they danced.

The man in charge of the sound system was from an eco-farm, he told me, and had been trying to play politically right on reggae; however a crowd in which the oldest person was maybe seventeen took over the crucial jack plug, inserted it into a Blackberry, (iPhones are out for this demographic) and pumped out the dubstep.

Young men, mainly black, grabbed each other around the head and formed a surging dance to the digital beat lit, as the light failed, by the distinctly analog light of a bench they had set on fire.

Any idea that you are dealing with Lacan-reading hipsters from Spitalfields on this demo is mistaken.

While a good half of the march was undergraduates from the most militant college occupations - UCL, SOAS, Leeds, Sussex - the really stunning phenomenon, politically, was the presence of youth: bainlieue-style youth from Croydon, Peckam, the council estates of Islington.

Having been very close to the front line of the fighting, on the protesters side, I would say that at its height - again - it broke the media stereotype of being organised by political groups: there was an anarchist black bloc contingent, there were the socialist left groups - but above all, again, I would say the main offensive actions taken to break through police lines were done by small groups of young men who dressed a lot more like the older brothers of the dubsteppers.

A similar pheonomenon occurred in Rome about a week later during protests after Berlusconi survived a no-confidence vote.

And, then, of course, Tunisia:

Despite a curfew being imposed in the Tunisian capital during the hours of darkness, young men defied threats not to leave their homes and took their anger onto the streets of the southern suburbs of Tunis.

Police who had used tear gas during the day to try to control mobs of angry people fired live rounds. According to reports from eye-witnesses three people in Tunis were killed.

Finally, I forgot to mention the young people who pushed beyond the timidity of the so-called Green Revolution in Iran in June 2009:

Meanwhile every Westerner seems to think that Mousavi is a great reformist or revolutionary, and some kind of saintly figure beloved by all. He's an opportunist crook. That being said, I support the students and protesters in Iran, even the ones chanting Mousavi's name. I believe they are putting their lives on the line to fight for greater freedom, accountability, and democracy within the Islamic Republic, and they have to couch that in the language of Islam and presidential politics in order to avoid even greater repression than that which they already face. A friend who is in Iran right now confirms: half the kids throwing rocks at the police didn't even vote. To me, that means that they are not fighting for a Mousavi presidency, but for more freedom, which they must hide under a green Mousavi banner in order to have legitimacy in the eyes of the state.

Do the young people in all these countries share a clearly defined ideological and social perspective? Of course not. But there are some important commonalities between them. Many of them, even the dubsteppers of London and Rome, are well educated, yet find themselves paying the price for the corruption of their political and economic leadership through a lack of job opportunities, a lack of social mobility and increased poverty. Global policies of austerity and local ones of crony capitalism are making their lives miserable. All of them resent the social controls placed upon them, whether it's a black Londoner in Brixton angry about police brutality or a Egyptian, Tunisian or Iranian subjected to the surveillance and repression carried out by the security forces of their countries. At best, they are cynical and calculated about the utility of working within established political institutions and parties, at worst, they are disdainful of it.

Hence, there is the question as to what sort of new social order can incorporate their needs, their concerns, their legitimate anger that is increasingly being expressed violently. It is a difficult question to answer, but we can tentatively say that it must necessarily be more inclusive, less dependent upon the corrupted forms of representation that have been so discredited, and, thus, independent of the military neoliberalism practiced by the US. In relation to the protests in Tunisia and Egypt, nothing has been more comical than to hear US diplomats speak of the need for regimes to reform themselves so as to provide economic opportunities for their growing population of young people, while simultaneously continuing to insist upon neoliberal, IMF-style policies of structural adjustment. The US clearly wants to buy off the protesters, while preserving the authority of its most favored, most tested political figures, but its wallet is empty. Absent a reversal of policy, and an embrace of Keynesian policies of demand creation globally, the protesters will ultimately discover that their most determined, most implacable enemies are the elites of the US, and their transnational allies.

Labels: Activism, American Empire, Egypt, France, Greece, IMF, Iranian Protests, Italy, Neoliberalism, United Kingdom, YouTube

Just before leaving office as President of Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva issued a decision refusing to extradite Italian fiction writer Cesare Battisti to Italy for four killings that he was found guilty of committing in absentia as a participant in the violent leftist group Armed Proletarians for Communism in the 1970s. Battisti fled Italy and France for Brazil while protesting his innocence, as he does to this day. For those of you interested in one left perspective about the legal procedures used to convict Battisti, consider this recent World Socialist Web Site article. While the author's tone is someone strident, even by WSWS standards, Marc Hall does make the essential point that Battisti was convicted in the 1980s under special measures used to combat domestic violence, measures that were rightly maligned at the time as a perversion of the judicial process to serve the purpose of political repression.

Not surprisingly, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi continues to make Battisti's extradition a priority when he isn't paying to have sex with the nubile young stars of the reality TV shows of his television network. According to Wu Ming, his supporters have now proceeded to seek to have the books of other authors who have supported Battisti in his efforts to avoid extradition banned:

The Assessor for Culture of the province of Venice, a guy called Speranzon – a former activist of the MSI [the old neo-fascist party, active from 1946 to 1994] and now a member of Berlusconi’s party – approved a proposal from a party colleague and will order Venetian libraries to:

1) Remove from shelves all the books written by any author who signed a 2004 petition asking for Cesare Battisti’s release from jail;

2) Abstain from organizing events featuring such writers (they must be declared undesirable persons, he says).

Any librarian who will not accept this diktat will be held responsible of his behavior. Is this a hint about fund freezing, withdrawal of patronage, mobbing, hostile media campaigning? The proposal was lauded by the COISP, a policemen union. The poor librarian will think twice, before opposing local authorities and the police. A clique of honest democratic citizens is already trying to extend the thing to the whole Veneto, and the initiative is likely to be emulated beyond regional borders.

Many of us are in the proscription list: we, Valerio Evangelisti, Massimo Carlotto, Tiziano Scarpa, Nanni Balestrini, Daniel Pennac, Giuseppe Genna, Giorgio Agamben, Girolamo De Michele, Vauro, Lello Voce, Pino Cacucci, Christian Raimo, Sandrone Dazieri, Loredana Lipperini, Marco Philopat, Gianfranco Manfredi, Laura Grimaldi, Antonio Moresco, Carla Benedetti, Stefano Tassinari and many others. They would almost have to leave the shelves empty.

And maybe, this is their dream.

Quadruppani is right: we can’t react with a shrug, say that it’s only taunting, suggest indifference as a mean to avoid publicity for certain people. Sometimes that is the right thing to do, but not always.

Of course, this is also taunting , but it’s mostly something else:

1) It’s a threat against an entire category of workers (librarians). They should accept an authoritarian and unconstitutional ultimatum, or else pay dearly.

2) It’s an act aimed at isolating and censoring writers and artists as moral accomplices to terrorism. An act by an administrator, a person of authority, who appeals to the gut feelings of the ordinary folks by waving a scarecrow that diverts their attention from other problems. An act that wants to intimidate and keep in line those who produce public discourse.

As our colleague Tiziano Scarpa put it: This puts in peril the citizenship of a writer, which lies in its language and its works.

We should all react against this rubbish, not just the writers that are directly involved or the librarians that are directly threatened.
- Citizens, readers, library goers should make themselves heard.
- Administrators, political organizations and associations in the Venice areashould make themselves heard.
- Whoever works in the media, or has a blog or you-name-it, should write about this.
- The National Association of Librarians should say something.
- Public administration unions should say something.
- Publishers should take action and file a lawsuit against an initiative that damages them economically and morally.
Protest mails to newspapers should be sent, fliers and open letters should be affixed to the bulletin boards of libraries and reading rooms.
- Articles should be shared and linked, like this one (we will post constant updates at the bottom [of the Italian original version, T.N.]) or any other text or video that informs about this guy, his liberticidal intentions and about possible initiatives by his imitators and cronies.

Updates in the comments to the original post indicate that the situation has worsened:

Wu Ming
January 18, 2011 at 4:59 pm
P.S. Librarians from the Veneto region are reporting unofficial pressure to remove certain books from their libraries’ shelves. Eg Roberto Saviano’s books.

Wu Ming
January 18, 2011 at 7:53 pm
They’re still trying, by other means, and the attempt is now at regional level, it involves the whole Veneto region instead of the Province of Venice. The vice-governor of Veneto Marino Zorzato (a member of PDL, Berlusconi’s party), who is also the Regional Assessor for Human Resources, Sports and Culture, stated to the local press:

As ours is a liberal party [!], it is difficult for us to conceive censorship. Instead, we could find a way to inform the library user, to make clear who is the author of any book and what position he took in the Battisti affair.

Wu Ming
January 19, 2011 at 11:33 am
The situation has gotten much worse. The Assessor for Education of the Veneto Region, Donazzan (of the Northern League) announced that she will write to all the principals, asking them to remove from school libraries the books written by the authors who signed the 2004 petition for Cesare Battisti.

And, finally, there is this, most recent update:

Wu Ming
January 19, 2011 at 11:28 pm
REMOVE SAVIANO’S BOOKS FROM LIBRARY SHELVES!
by Loredana Lipperini (original text here, translated by V)

Let’s call her Em.

I have erased and replaced her name also in previous comments by her and by other readers. Em works in a public library of the Province of Treviso, I will not tell in which town. I want to protect her identity, and also to thank her for her courage.

Em has told here, and then privately, a story regarding libraries, once again. The day after the Speranzon Case (on which you can find an important article by Massimo Carlotto on Carmilla, by the way), a breach is opening: many librarians are contacting me and Michela Murgia, in order to denounce explicit or underlying forms of censorship.

Some episodes are already well-known: for instance when, in October 2009, the mayor of Musile di Piave asked the library of his town get rid of politically-oriented newspapers, namely La repubblica and Il manifesto [leftist newspapers-RE].

Here you can read the official reply from AIB (TN the National Association of Librarians), which has also taken an official stance on the Speranzon case. Another episode of censorship dates to May 2009, when a library in Genoa was requested to block the public initiative Due regine due re [Two queens two kings].

Back to Em, now. We are in the immediate aftermath of the broadcasting of Vieni Via Con Me [TN a popular TV show on the national channel RAI 3, featuring Roberto Saviano]. One of the library supervisors, vaguely embarrassed, tells his librarians about the criticisms he received from the Mayor (a member of the Northern League). More or less in the same days, the local Councillor for Culture has also expressed his concern: he has noted that one of the librarians is cataloguing works by Marco Paolini [TN a popular left-wing actor in Italy] and, as Em refers, he has explicitly asked to be informed in advance of our new acquisitions, in order to give us his indisputable and binding advice. The supervisor suggests opting for a soft line: to remove the books from shelf, just until the dust settles.

Em then asks for a written order, which will never come. Christmas comes, a New Year begins. Now, Saviano’s books are formally registered in the library catalogue: yet they are materially missing from shelf. Nobody answers those who ask why.

Em says: I decided to write because I had to share my sadness with someone. I really thank her for this, and I invite more librarians to write, and tell us more stories. When the stories proliferate, and when they become a collective heritage, they also gain strength.

An update from Il Corriere Veneto: The Regional Councillor for Education, Donazzan, declares that she will write a letter (with the formal support of Governor Zaia) to all the Headmasters of the Region of Veneto (and through them, to all teachers), asking not to let the works of the blacklisted authors circulate among the youth. To those who denounce her act as a censorship, she replies that hers is not an imposition, but a political address.

Beyond posting this blog entry, as requested by Wu Ming, what to do? Besides what they have suggested, which, in many instances, are specific to Italy, perhaps we should contact the Italian Embassy in the US, or, alternatively, Italian consulates here, and express our solidary with those resisting the censorship currently transpiring in the province of Venice. Perhaps, the second, consular link is more useful for this purpose, as it readily provides e-mail addresses to facilitate communication with consular officials. Of course, any other suggestions would be welcome.

Labels: Europe, Italy, Neoliberalism, Political Violence

UPDATE: Assange is released on bail in London, as US Attorney General Eric Holder prepares a conspiracy case against him. It looks like the expectation is that Bradley Manning can be abused badly enough in solitary confinement to say whatever is necessary to convict him.

INITIAL POST: As you may have heard, violent clashes erupted on the streets of Rome yesterday after Berlusconi survived a no-confidence vote:

Meanwhile, the electoral opposition to Berlusconi is engaging in the predictable search for police provocateurs as a partial explanation for the eruption of violence in Rome:

Anna Finocchiaro, leader in the Senate of Italy's biggest opposition group, the Democratic party, said: There were evidently people who had been infiltrated [among the rioters] and who put at risk the demonstrators and the police. Who commanded them? Who paid them? What were they meant to cause?

Photographs taken during the disturbances have prompted not only suspicions but bitter memories of the 1970s when rogue members of the police and intelligence services lent themselves to a so-called strategy of tension aimed at raising the level of violence to the point at which it could be used to justify draconian repression or even a coup d'état.

Yesterday, groups of masked and hooded demonstrators rampaged through the capital attacking police, smashing windows, setting fire to vehicles and throwing up barricades. The mayor of Rome, Gianni Alemanno, said first indications were that they had caused damage of about €20m. The disturbances were thought to be the most violent in Rome since 1977.

One of the participants in this week's rioting was photographed hurling a dustbin at members of the revenue guard and wielding a long shovel. But in other shots, he appears to be standing with the guards raising a truncheon in one hand and holding a pair of handcuffs in the other.

I have no trouble believing that there were, in fact, police provocateurs on the streets of Rome yesterday instigating some acts of property destruction, just as there were in London last week. And people in Italy have good cause to be concerned about it because of the 1970s strategy of tension mentioned in the article, a covert program that involved bombings and assassinations carried out by neo-fascists, with the apparent assistance of the Central Intelligence Agency, that were falsely attributed to radical left groups.

But the attacks upon the police, the burning of cars and the smashing of store windows in Rome cannot be entirely attributed to government manipulation. First off, people on the street were already angry, and rightly so. Hence, if provoked, they directed their anger towards whatever symbols of privilege were immediately at hand. Second, it strikes me as implausible to believe that the eruption of conflict was limited to situations exploited by the police. There was an independent agency, and that agency was, again, young people rebelling against the bleak future that the European Union and the European Central Bank have planned for them.

Apparently, the government has confidence that it can benefit from instigating them into more and more acts of property destruction and conflict with the police. But the rebellion is increasingly showing signs of spreading across the entire continent. Greece, then France, then the UK, then Italy and now, Greece, again today. Intensifying social unrest in one place as a means of generating local support for repressive measures may have the unintended consequence of inciting unrest elsewhere on a larger scale.

Labels: Activism, American Empire, Europe, Italy, Neoliberalism, Political Violence, Sub-Proletarianization of Europe, wikileaks, YouTube