You are the ruins, we are the future!

Far beyond the rituality, the 17th November in Italy has been a great day of struggle spread all over the country, against the government, cuts and the last education reform.

High schools, universities, students, researchers, precarious, teachers, all the education world took to the streets not just to give a signal of presence, but furthermore to shout our strong dissent to a reform that destroy completely the educational system in Italy.

In Rome, students showed a banner saying "what future among these ruins?" closing the entrance of the university to affirm the necessity of a national and generalized strike.

In fact, if European Union approved the austerity measures, legitimizing the destruction of welfare state, the Italian government is destroying completely any form of guarantees and social rights. In this context, the question of future and welfare becomes the central claim for students that are struggling: "knowledge is a common good, take back the future!" affirmed the banner opening the demo in Padua, and more "Today we take back everything" said the banner in Pisa.

The last news tells us that about 90% of the scholarships have been cut by the "reform", so that yesterday students claimed for welfare and funding against student loan. In fact, in the next year every form of sustenance and indirect income will be dismissed, encouraging loans and indebtedness. So, in Bologna, students showed yellow banners claiming for studentships as part of the regional campaign "yes we cash" to obtain basic income. At the same time, in Genova and Turin students enveloped and closed the head quarter of the regional government with long stripes, showing the banner "too much cuts, danger collapse!".

Basic income is the only perspective we can draw for a real change as an answer to the global crisis, that's why communicative actions spread all over Italy focusing on the finance issue. A huge demo in Palermo threw eggs against the Sicilia Bank, as in Turin San Paolo Bank was the target of students shouting "Satisfied or reimbursed? Income for everyone!"; in Pisa students made direct actions against banks and private universities, trying to reach the headquarter of the italian industrial confederation (Confindustria) where police charged them in a brutal way, injuring several of them. The same happened in Ancona.

Otherwise police brutality, students affirmed their right to take to the streets, to block the city expressing dissent and rage! "ignorance is submission, knowledge is rebellion" said banners in Genova. In Turin an unauthorized parade occupied the train Station, and in Padua students occupied a meeting where the secretary of the CGIL (the biggest union in Italy) was participating, and they asked for a General strike. In Rome thousand of students and researchers decided to break the rules of the City council and reached the Parliament with giant books as symbolic shields: it was a wild demo spreading in the city center.

The necessity of a big trans-national and generalized strike has been another issue for the demos. A national space of debate defined the possibility of a common struggle between unions and movements: "United against the crisis" is both the name of this experiment and then the words that links the demos on 17th November.

Not only a day of conflict in the education world, but even more an attempt of recomposing all the workers against austerity.
Once more, from the Wave in 2008 and the last mobilizations pushed by researchers, the attempt was to match and to communicate among students, teachers and precarious.

In Rome, a banner of precarious workers of the university was opened saying "You are the ruins, we are the research": events, open lessons in the squares, symbolic and direct actions will characterize next week in the attempt to connect different subjects of education, to affirm that this reform cannot be approved and that the government must fund university and research.

The demos on 17th November all around Europe are just the signal of the impossibility of austerity and destruction of the university, the necessity of a huge movement to take back our future.