Commentary
The Italian grassroots left is ready – are the parties?
The party left has struggled to grasp and get aligned with the grassroots mobilization in its various forms: protest tents, marches, signature collections, sit-ins, book presentations and film screenings.
Saturday’s large demonstration in Rome, with hundreds of thousands of people of different ages, backgrounds, and social classes, conveys two messages that should be obvious to those who are involved in politics professionally and those who engage in it on a daily basis: that courage pays off, and that the “grassroots” are always one step ahead and one level of radicalism beyond the party leadership.
If the opposition in this country had called for a national demonstration six months ago, or a year ago, it is very likely that they would have gotten the same massive response. People see what is happening in Palestine, they have understood for a long time and are ready to react, to walk together and share their sense of powerlessness and shame, that excruciating pain that now occupies the thoughts of so many, having carved a deep hole inside.
They were ready to join together in a mass of humanity, as they have shown over the course of 20 months and countless initiatives, each with as much resources as they had and in their own social spaces, workplaces and streets.
The party left has struggled to grasp and get aligned with the grassroots mobilization in its various forms: protest tents, marches, signature collections, sit-ins, book presentations and film screenings. This failure has allowed the government and a significant portion of the complacent press to proceed swiftly with the criminalization of dissent, media blackouts (first of Gaza, then of the protests) and disingenuous and senseless accusations of anti-Semitism. The criminalization of protest has had concrete effects: people censoring themselves, young students beaten with batons, people seeing their jobs endangered, and Italy being one of the few Western countries where it had not been possible to build a mobilization as broad as possible, able to bring such a large number of people into the streets.
On Saturday, the demonstration, with its melting pot of party colors and affiliations, openly challenged the delays from the opposition parties, their mincing words, their hesitations during these endless months, and their fear of calling things by their proper name. But the people still came. Despite the delays, the half-hearted statements and the fear of those in the party leaderships, the demonstrators were there, joined together with a sense of urgency, because before our very eyes, Israel is committing genocide and a century-long injustice. And precisely because the “base” is one step ahead, and one level of radicalism beyond, the slogan most shouted throughout the Rome march was “Free Palestine.” This is not another platitude, nor is it nostalgia for old activism: it is the heart of the problem and the key to the solution.
They were calling for an end to a prolonged and ferocious form of colonialism and for the justice inherent in recognizing the Palestinians' right to their own land and to decide for themselves. They were not calling for a state of Palestine: they were calling for freedom. So the parties must now have the courage. The diverse people of the left in this country have been ready for a long time.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/il-popolo-di-sinistra-e-gia-pronto-e-non-fa-sconti on 2025-06-08