Reportage
From Gaza to the black wave, Corbyn and Manifestival guests offer a path
Over 600 people attended il manifesto’s Manifestival, including Jeremy Corbyn and representatives from across the European left. ‘We need uncomfortable reflections, like those at your festival.’
The high number of participants was striking enough, with 600 people crammed into the Palladium theater in Rome and several hundred more watching on a large screen outside. But so was the intensity: two jam-packed hours of discussion about war, genocide, Europe, and the forms of fascism to be fought.
Andrea Fabozzi, editor-in-chief of il manifesto, and Lorenza Ghidini, director of Radio Popolare, moderated the event. Irene Montero, an MEP and leader from Spain’s Podemos party, opened the proceedings, and one could not start with anything else but Gaza: “Anyone with a shred of humanity must be glad for the truce, but we must also ask where it came from,” she said. “From the resistance of the Palestinian people and the mobilization of international civil society. The lesson is that mobilization works. Now we must redouble our efforts. We must not stop watching over Gaza; we must return to the streets until Palestine is free.” Trump’s plan, Montero added, is a “colonial plan of real estate, business, and colonization” because “it does not speak of rights or self-determination.”
The floor was then turned over to Jeremy Corbyn. “We need uncomfortable reflections, like those at your festival,” he began. “On Saturday, we had our 32nd national demonstration; 600,000 to 700,000 people marched to the US embassy in London. It was the single voice of a people made up of different religions and ethnicities, demanding that the descendants of the 1948 Nakba not be forgotten, and that their right of return not be forgotten.” He, too, insisted that “the struggle is not over.” When Ghidini asked him about Tony Blair’s role in Gaza, he replied that the fact that Blair has any role at all is “simply shameful,” after he used “a lie to drag us into the war in Iraq.”
MEP Manon Aubry of La France Insoumise said that the EU “has done nothing and will one day be judged an accomplice to the genocide in Gaza.” She pointed to the 90 packages of sanctions issued against Russia, contrasting them with the lack of action against Israel: “Is the life of a Ukrainian worth more than that of a Palestinian? These double standards are demolishing international law.” In France, she noted, the recognition of the Palestinian state was likewise the result of two years of struggle. “We have looked to your mobilization as a source of hope in a fascist country,” Aubry continued, “and this hope comes from the youth. A generation between 18 and 30 has discovered politics through the Palestinian question.”
Germany’s Die Linke party participated via video link: “The right has no vision for the future. It always goes after the same scapegoats and defends privilege. This isn’t a historical accident; it’s a consequence of the system we are in. Our task is to shift the hatred away from the people next to us and direct it toward those at the top. To do that, we need to build bridges between countries and between the different struggles against oppression.”
At this point, Jeremy Corbyn posed the fateful question: will the Manifestival happen again next year? Yes, of course it will.
“We do not want to conform to a world of cruelty and hatred,” Montero added. “This generation must be aware of its own strength and assert its democratic tradition. Our governments are putting Europe on a dead-end path. We must remember what we are capable of when we organize. A year ago, who would have imagined so many demonstrations for the Palestinian people?”
Corbyn stressed the link between information and power. “The big corporate TV channels spread supremacist messages,” he explained, “but we must not underestimate our own ability to communicate by becoming obsessed with the mainstream. We must ensure our message gets through.”
So, what is to be done in the face of the “black wave” of the far right? “Fascists exist in every country, including my own,” the London MP said. “They didn’t disappear after the Second World War; they’ve just found a new way to reemerge by targeting migrants. It makes no sense for Nigel Farage to blame the people landing at Calais for the poverty of his constituents. But the media talks about him as if he’s the most intelligent man in the world.”
What, then, is the answer? “You respond to the far right by defending the communities that have lost power. I am disgusted when I see asylum seekers locked up in reception centers. They are poor, desperate people, confused by the horrors they have fled.”
Corbyn’s own story is an example: “I was suspended from the party and removed from the parliamentary group on shameful and unfounded charges. I had no right of appeal. That’s why I decided to run as an independent, and my constituency chose to re-elect me to parliament. And now we have founded YourParty.UK. We will hold our founding congress in Liverpool at the end of November, and we will be part of the family of European left parties, challenging the hegemony of the right and the media. And we will win.”
Aubry highlighted the parallels between France and Italy. “We are facing a serious crisis,” she argued. “This crisis has one person responsible: Macron, who lost the legislative elections. He lost, but he continues to demand that he choose the government. Because the left won the French elections; we are the largest group in the National Assembly. And we won by proposing a very clear, radical program. We proposed unity for the left on clear and radical grounds.”
Aubry pointed out that we are facing a process of recomposition of political forces that is leading the right and far right to unite in the name of authoritarianism, austerity and anti-environmental policies. She didn’t spare Italy’s Democratic Party and the European social democrats either, asking just what they think they accomplished by supporting von der Leyen for the EU Commission.
“We must be united, but not at the expense of our radicalism, otherwise the people will remain disappointed.” In short, this isn’t about celebrating the past or waiting for the future. “Resistance is now, and it must be organized. At the European level, too.”
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/da-gaza-allonda-nera-corbyn-la-lotta-non-e-finita on 2025-10-14