Italy, crucial next week for government and opposition

Next Saturday, the political and social opposition to the government in office will finally make itself known in the streets of Rome. It will do so both by highlighting the priorities of a platform that is openly alternative to that of material interests, both internal and international, which inspire the choices of the executive, both by materializing the political and social recomposition of the front that concretely opposes the government.It is a coalition that brought together for a national event 38 national organizations and networks, 43 local social bodies and realities and about seventy cultural and political personalities.

The "spirit" that runs through the convocation of Saturday's demonstration is a clear and convinced No to war. This mortgage continues to weigh on the country's choices both with the military commitments decided by the last two governments in the war in Ukraine, and with the social, economic and ideological repercussions on what we can define as the "home front". A country that goes to war produces internally "monsters" that feed many others and consequently the overall regression of society.

But, beyond the no to war, the list of priorities that animate the platform of this political and social front that marches in opposition to the agenda of the Meloni government is long. Starting from the question of wages and the minimum wage, to arrive at environmental devastation, the unsustainable housing emergency, the unbearable policies against immigrants, the blocking of the social elevator for the new generations and the risk of "real secession" of the country represented with differentiated autonomy.

The concentration of the procession is expected in Piazza della Repubblica at 14.00. The procession will be opened by a unitary segment of all the promoting realities and will see the various realities that have strongly wanted it pitted off. The Usb, which after the general strike of 26 May pushed hard for this demonstration, chose to stay behind, sending an important signal to the protagonism of social realities and the unitary sense of the procession. The added value will once again be given by the convinced participation of youth and student organizations.

Last Saturday's demonstration of the M5S in Rome, which also intended to fill the political space of the opposition to the government, was in many respects similar but different from the one that will take place next Saturday. "There have been discussions with basic sectors of the M5S, especially on issues related to the minimum wage and the defense of income" says Freddy Fornaciari (Usb). Last Saturday a USB category manager also intervened from the stage denouncing the conditions of heavy precariousness and low wages of many workers. But at the top level there is instead absolute impermeability to any proposal for common action.

“For example on the No to war, there was no total empathy from the pentastellati leaders with Moni Ovadia's clear and strong words from the M5S stage, indeed perhaps there was even a little embarrassment” it is underlined. A completely non-existent embarrassment, however, in the statements with which the secretary of the PD Elly Schlein reaffirmed the continuation of Italy's military commitment in the war in Ukraine.

Finally, next Saturday in Rome the CGIL will also be in the square for a demonstration on health care. Another hot pan after the three inter-regional demonstrations held to avoid declaring a general strike against the Meloni government. Plus a stone guest who helped dismantle public health such as the corporate welfare introduced in contracts, thus fueling that bleeding of +70% of resources that went from public health to private.

The materialization of the real opposition to the Meloni government - which is artfully fed by the mass media a force it does not have - therefore becomes a central issue. But this is not a question of making "muina" and then perhaps paving the way for the alternation of government with the PD and the interests it has represented and still represents. It is an alternative system for the country that Saturday's demonstration intends to begin to outline.