A-Infos (en) Italy, Sicilia Libertaria: Ragusa Pride 2024. -- When politics takes back the square (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

A river of people, including many young and very young people, poured 
onto the seafront of Marina di Ragusa on Saturday 29 June for Ragusa 
Pride 2024. An explosion of rainbows, banners and posters, music, flags. 
On the float that opened the parade, next to that of Arcigay and the one 
with the colors of trans* people, the Palestinian flag waved throughout 
the procession. At the bottom of the float, among the balloons, stood a 
large red poppy. This snapshot would be enough to convey the overall 
meaning of the third edition of the Ragusa Pride: a day of multitude, 
community, passionate, joyful and, profoundly, political.

"This is the flower", the slogan chosen by Arcigay Ragusa, which this 
year has entirely taken charge of the organization of the event, 
unequivocally summarizes the spirit that informed the event: 
anti-fascism reread and renewed in a queer and intersectional. A clearly 
legible positioning in the choice of testimonial Lilith Primavera, a 
queer artist and activist who has always been involved in battles for 
the rights and recognition of LGBTQIA+ people, and widely affirmed in 
the political document, which marked a turning point compared to the two 
missing past editions of a platform: the desire to re-politicize Pride 
to restore the original sense of revolt of the homosexual and trans* 
community of Manhattan against repression and harassment by the police.

In the manifesto, written by several hands along the path of collective 
construction of the event started by Arcigay in February, the threads 
that connect Pride 2024 to other experiences of resistance and struggle 
are reconnected: the partisan resistance, the "Stonewall Riots" of June 
28, 1969, the struggle of the Palestinian people, it is no coincidence 
that "No Pride in Genocide" was one of the most present slogans on the 
posters during the demonstration. A political legacy that brings the 
right to today's battles for a free and democratic, just and inclusive 
society, for the recognition of subjectivities that do not conform to 
the patriarchal norm embodied by the hetero-cisgender, white and 
able-bodied male, for the freedom of self-determination and the civil 
and social rights of all, for the immediate ceasefire in Gaza. In the 
awareness that the shift towards the extreme, nationalist and 
reactionary right which we are witnessing, disconcerted, in Italy and 
Europe heralds dark times, in which marginalized, gendered, racialised, 
discriminated and oppressed subjectivities will see spaces torn away day 
by day of liveability and political usability. It is already happening 
in our country with the attacks on same-sex families and trans* people, 
with the Catholic-fascist crusade against the right to abortion and the 
rhetoric of the birth crisis, as well as with the demolition of the 
health and school systems, with the impoverishment and feminization of 
work and, lastly, with the law on differentiated autonomy, which will 
further penalize us, the peripheral people of the South.

However, it has always been from the minority subjectivities that 
inhabit the peripheries and margins, understood as places of 
organization of resistance, that the elaboration of the criticism of the 
"white supremacist capitalist patriarchy", to use the formula dear to 
bell hooks, among the black feminist thinkers who have refined and 
developed the theoretical tool of intersectionality. The mobilization 
and the desire to take back the road and reoccupy the spaces of politics 
from below start from the same subjectivities and the same margins. In 
this sense, the circumstance that today it is precisely the Pride and 
transfeminist marches that bring hundreds of thousands of people back to 
the streets, opening an intergenerational dialogue and confirming 
themselves as intersectional political laboratories, while traditional 
organizations fail to achieve their objective, could offer an 
opportunity for reflection. and they consume their own crisis of 
representation.

Among the concrete demands of the Ragusa Pride political document, the 
request to public administrations, at various levels, to adopt protocols 
for alias careers, to establish municipal registers for the choice of 
name and gender of election, to support the rights of same-parent 
families disobeying the ministerial circular which prohibits the 
transcription of birth certificates registered abroad.

The reading of the document in Piazza Malta, where the procession 
stopped, was a moment of great emotion and participation, with the 
slogan "this is the flower" marking the different parts. At the end of 
the reading, "Bella ciao" filled the square from the installation on the 
wagon and from the voices of the demonstrators.

Over twenty entities from the provincial territory took part in Ragusa 
Pride 2024, including associations, unions, parties and networks of 
associations, such as the 25 November Network, created last December 
following the provincial demonstration for the International Day for the 
Elimination of Violence type. For this edition too, in continuity with 
the previous ones, there was no lack of support from various local 
administrations who sponsored the event.

This year, however, the conclusion of the parade was dedicated to the 
speeches of the associations from the stage in Piazza Torre. The choice 
not to give space to institutional interventions was explained by the 
president of Arcigay Andrea Ragusa, who in his introductory speech 
stated that this Pride wanted to give a voice to those who have none, to 
those who work in silence and away from the spotlight to defend and 
affirm the rights of marginalized people in everyday life. Among the 
people who spoke was also Giovanni Gulino, who recalled how people with 
disabilities also have the right to affectivity and sexuality, raising a 
very topical issue and in line with the contents of Ragusa Pride, which 
has given accessibility a particular care also through LIS interpreting 
for deaf people and the access ramp to the stage.

Ragusa Pride 2024 ended late at night with live music and DJ sets: a 
Piazza Torre packed with people who showed the desire to have fun by 
creating community bonds. "If I can't dance, then it's not my 
revolution," wrote the anarchist feminist Emma Goldman in Living My 
Life, reminding us that joy and activism, politics and passion, either 
go together or they don't.

Luciana Licitra - Arch gay Ragusa

https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/
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