Don Bosco has become the emblematic case of the concrete flood that is affecting our city. The project of the new Besta schools has become the emblematic case in which all the contradictions of a “city development” have exploded which favors building speculation, conversion to tourism and private interest, with PNRR funding, large private investments and the invasion of Airbnb, in a city where the fight against the Passante has remained unheard, however, causing growing discontent to boil over.
In fact, in just one park, a stone’s throw from the ring road, and therefore from the works of the Passante di mezzo, various symbolic works of this council have accumulated. These great works must be guaranteed, and quickly, even in the face of clearly absurd executive projects, and despite the protests of residents. Thus works such as a new school, a cycle path or a tram line must literally asphalt whatever is on their route, be it trees, pieces of park, or protesting citizens.
However, a resistance from below has developed, a new opposition made up of citizens, environmentalist committees, student organizations, in which also as Power to the People we have decided with conviction to take part in fighting against this development model.
Some people today are wondering who and what we are fighting for. We said it a week ago at the forum “Bologna: whose city it is”, which was held right in the Don Bosco park. We fight against what is also defined by the Civic Coalition as “the revolutionary season of construction sites”, a thousand construction sites that favor those processes of overbuilding and real estate income useful to a few entrepreneurs, financial groups and platforms.
While the council says in words that it wants to fight them, they are instead encouraged in the transformation of Bologna to distance the working classes from the working-class neighborhoods and make room for tourists or wealthy professionals.
In this process there are private students, the spread of large and small shopping centers and multinational chains in the city and neighborhoods, as well as the “red line” of the tram, yet another gift of public funds to Farinetti’s failed project, which after the collapse of FICO tries again by changing its name to “Grand Tour”.
And again, the case similar to that of the Besta schools, with the Cavazzoni schools at the Acerbi garden, or the concreting of entire green areas for the construction of new residential neighborhoods, such as at the Lazzaretto-Bertalia or in the area adjacent to the CAAB.
With the forum on 15 June we began a reasoning that can understand this project as a whole which wants to transform Bologna from a city for citizens to a city for profit. We understand so well which side we have to be on, knowing that we must carry out a political struggle that is capable of bringing together the defense of a park “tree by tree” with that of the popular classes who can live and work in their city and their neighborhoods .
Not only is the PD-Civic Coalition junta evidently on the other side, consciously carrying forward this project, but it has decided that it wants to completely abandon any political discussion and confrontation.
Mayor Lepore has delegated the Don Bosco issue entirely to Minister Piantedosi. Faced with his total inability to manage political opposition in the neighborhood, he has given a mandate to resolve it militarily, continuing for months to attack the Besta Committee and all the organizations in defense. of the park.
The last accusation, after having already tried to say that the Committee would be led by the right, or exploited by PAP, is that of the anarchist trail, always ready if necessary for those who want to criminalize a movement.
But we saw who brought violence into Don Bosco park, because we were there and there are dozens of videos that prove it. On 3 April, when the police forces had to sweep away the demonstrators with truncheons to make way for the construction site, before being pushed back by popular resistance, and on 20 June, when the police began to load without any warning, and to pull down of weight the activists climbed trees to save them. The last image is the very serious and dangerous one of a policeman with a gun stuck in his belt.
In the next few days, the DL Nordio-Piantedosi will be presented in parliament, which stiffens the penalties for social and environmental struggles, against activists who protest against “strategic works” and goes so far as to prefigure the crime of “terrorism of the word”. We have been talking about the Lepore-Piantedosi Pact for the militarization of neighborhoods and the repression of struggles since January, and we have no doubt that this new decree, if approved, will be a new instrument of repressive action even in the hands of the mayor.
To demonstrate against this umpteenth repressive crackdown, also in Bologna as in other Italian cities, we will see each other on Monday 24 June at 6 pm under the Prefecture in Piazza Roosevelt, and we will continue to see each other in the mobilization in defense of Don Bosco, of the green areas of Bologna and social struggles for the right to the city.
June 24, 2024 – © Reproduction possible WITH EXPLICIT CONSENT of the CONTROPIANO EDITORIAL TEAM
Last edit: June 24, 2024, 11:02 am
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