A-Infos (en) Sicilia Libertaria: Firefighters in action. Against the environmental party (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

From an environmental point of view, 2023 began with the action of the activists 
of the Last Generation, the ecological group that has stood out the most in 
recent months. At 7.50 am on 2 January, the Senate building in Rome was daubed 
with orange paint by the group calling for the abandonment of fossil fuels 
because, as the note subsequently released states, "the government and the 
political class continue to finance and encourage a development model that 
accelerates the eco-climatic collapse and condemn their own fellow citizens to 
suffering and death". Although it was washable paint, which disappeared in a few 
minutes, the predictable and ridiculous outrage of all parties was accompanied by 
the equally predictable and ridiculous repressive action. There are currently two 
most serious cases: for an activist, the Pavia police station has asked for 
special surveillance, assuming it was Matteo Messina Denaro, while three other 
activists are on trial for private violence, damage and possession of weapons in 
public.

A few days later in the village of Lützerath, in western Germany, hundreds of 
environmentalists from all over Europe (also from Italy) tried with their own 
bodies to prevent the demolition of the village which, according to the 
intentions of the German multinational RWE, is preparatory to the extension of 
what is already today one of the largest coal mines in Europe. The two episodes 
testify, as largely predictable and as we had long hoped for in our small way, 
the radicalization of the new environmentalist galaxy, which ranges from Fridays 
for Future to Extinction Rebellion and Ultima Generazione, with the hope that 
others will soon be able to structure or appear on the horizon. The new 
movements, united by their attention to the climate crisis which in their 
interpretation is the most serious emergency to face, not only have they 
personally tested the stellar distance between their requests and the interests 
represented by the parties but have accomplished in the last year and half a 
notable path made of study and contaminations.

A ferment that bodes well, provided you don't give in to the usual sirens of 
firefighters. Like those agitated in recent days by the newspaper Domani, 
directed by the former Bocconian Stefano Feltri and financed by the former 
publisher of the Republic Carlo De Benedetti. And what is the easiest and most 
attractive temptation that can be offered to an incandescent and (perhaps) 
pre-revolutionary movement? But of course, the elections! And in fact just in 
January Domani came out into the open, through a series of editorials and 
articles, making explicit an appeal that in recent months he had actually 
prepared through increasingly heartfelt invitations: we need a new 
environmentalist party! Already on 1 December last Ferdinando Cotugno, probably 
at this moment the most followed environmental journalist in Italy, wrote that 
the "climate movements are tired of waiting for the attention of the Democratic 
Party in its eternal congress or the growth of the Greens, after September 
elections the conversation on the possibility of creating a new political entity 
is fully underway". Even if the new party is currently more in Cotugno's mind 
than in the facts, two other events then gave a hand to this construction. On the 
one hand, the Italian Greens, who arrived in parliament by the skin of their 
teeth, tried to intercept the new climatic demands without however ever arousing 
great appreciation and in recent months, entangled in the story of the deputy 
Soumahoro, have already shown the younger ones that they are equal to other 
parties. On the other hand, in Germany, the Greens, who are in government there 
in one of the typical Teutonic coalitions, immediately disregarded their 
electoral promises, giving way to the return of coal, the maintenance of nuclear 
power plants and the replacement of Russian gas with regasifiers. Faced with this 
unreliability, the refrain is always the same: you are young and beautiful, you 
are right, make your case count in this democracy which may not be the most 
beautiful in the world but it is the only possible alternative, start from the 
municipalities, where you will be able to build a civic alliance and make your 
experiences and sensitivities available.

Instead of sowing conflict, Tomorrow calls on the climate movements to sow 
defeat. Instead, much more weighted analyzes would need to be launched, based 
above all on the study of the "old" environmentalism, which has been completely 
harmless for some time and which has become wrapped up in a bland associationism 
that limits itself to marrying individual campaigns without being able to affect 
collectively nor, much less , almost never win a fight. On the contrary, becoming 
the bearer of industrial interests and a slave to state prebends.

It would be useful to be able to bring back to the territories the context 
analyzes that climate movements have managed to elaborate, in a comparison that 
is really an exchange, putting aside the hegemonic desires and the old languages 
that tire the new generations. It would be necessary to broaden a radicalization 
which, albeit still timid, is one of the last hopes to cling to in order to 
tackle enormously complex cases, to limit ourselves to Sicily, such as the 
Argo-Cassiopea gas pipeline in Gela or the Priolo refinery or the bridge over the 
strait over which the new climate movements have said little or nothing. It would 
help to get out of the deception of environmental protection seen solely as a 
defense of the existing, because ecological conservatism is one of the two 
matrices, together with industrial production, on which the current right in 
government is based, albeit in a contradictory way. In other words, it is 
necessary to develop an idea of the world that makes environmental issues feel 
desirable, going beyond apocalyptic language, so that the environment is not 
perceived only as a sacrifice to be faced or to be delegated to the good will of 
individuals. Other than an environmentalist party, an environmentalist revolution 
is needed here.

Andrea Turco

https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/
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