365 lines
17 KiB
Plaintext
365 lines
17 KiB
Plaintext
Italian COUNTERINFO #12 (September 1995)
|
|
|
|
************
|
|
CONTENTS
|
|
|
|
* Instead of an editorial
|
|
|
|
* A summary of the recent debate within the ECN
|
|
|
|
* ECN bologna E-zine n.0 agosto 95
|
|
|
|
* ECN Padova - News upgrade, 18 agosto 95
|
|
|
|
* ECN bologna E-zine n.01 agosto 95
|
|
|
|
* ECN bologna E-zine n.02 agosto 95
|
|
|
|
* Corsera - by Leoncavallo (E-Zine ECN)
|
|
|
|
* Milano, 29 agosto 1995 - Comunicato stampa del centro sociale
|
|
Leoncavallo
|
|
|
|
* ECN bologna E-zine n.03 settembre 95
|
|
|
|
* leaflet on FIAT by CSOA el paso (Torino)
|
|
|
|
************
|
|
Italian COUNTERINFO, a summary of recent postings from the Cybernet
|
|
and European Counter Network in Italy, is a cooperative venture
|
|
between the xchange BBS (Melbourne, Australia) and the Padova node of
|
|
the ECN. You can contact us at pmargin@xchange.apana.org.au or
|
|
hobo@freenet.hut.fi
|
|
************
|
|
Check out the ECN's new home page at http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/ecn/
|
|
|
|
Zero! BBS, which is part of both the ECN and Cybernet, has a home page
|
|
at http://linux1.cisi.unito.it/zero!/bbs.html
|
|
************
|
|
<Instead of an editorial>
|
|
|
|
It's been a few months since our last issue - a situation which can be
|
|
explained partly by a trip to Italy during the northern summer, partly by
|
|
too much work upon our return, and partly by sheer *pigrizia*.
|
|
|
|
The Bologna and Padova ECN collectives, however, has been working
|
|
hard, producing no less than 4 issues of an e-zine in the last month, as
|
|
well as a number of news releases. These are summarised below.
|
|
|
|
In the past we have aimed - not always successfully - to mail the
|
|
original ECN news files to interested subscribers. We are very pleased
|
|
to announce that these files are now directly available by FTP, at the
|
|
following site: ftp://pcdigi.unibs.it/pub/ecn/
|
|
|
|
Finally, readers may be interested to know that there are plans afoot
|
|
for an electronic mailing list devoted specifically to the political
|
|
assessment of class composition and class struggle throughout the
|
|
global work-machine. We hope to make this a bi-lingual list accessible
|
|
to comrades who have some knowledge of either English or Italian.
|
|
Never having done anything like this before, we are more than open to
|
|
suggestions, offers of help etc. The organisers can be contacted care of
|
|
pmargin@xchange.apana.org.au
|
|
************
|
|
<A summary of the recent debate within the ECN> - Profit Margin
|
|
|
|
August 1995 saw an important debate within the Italian ECN
|
|
concerning the politics of computer networking. Much of the discussion
|
|
was actually between Marta Mackenzie of Torino and Sandrone of
|
|
Milano, although others did chime in now and then. I got to meet Marta
|
|
along with Luc Pac at the Radio Sherwood festa in Padova two months
|
|
ago, when I was staying there with Hobo. Luc and Marta have recently
|
|
produced a fine Italian language 'alternative guide' to computer
|
|
networking called *Digital Guerrilla* - inspired in part by the book
|
|
written by xchange BBS's own Will Kemp,(*Messagesticks in
|
|
Cyberspace*). Luc and Marta are also both involved in Italy's other
|
|
libertarian computer network, Cybernet. Sandrone is well known within
|
|
the Italian movement because of his association with the social centre
|
|
Leoncavallo, which has been very much in the Italian news these past
|
|
few years.
|
|
|
|
One of the most important points of contention concerned the
|
|
purpose of the ECN. In an article he had written for the left daily *il
|
|
manifesto*, and then reproduced as part of the debate, Sandrone had
|
|
made two central points about the ECN. The first of these was that it
|
|
expressed 'the desire to create a forum [piazza] open to all', unlike the
|
|
regulated atmosphere which pervades Fidonet and similar systems.
|
|
Much more than this, however, the role that he and others had sought to
|
|
develop in Milano was that of 'a human interface' between various
|
|
social subjects - he cited a range of examples, from AIDS activists to
|
|
militant workers - who themselves showed little interest in using the
|
|
network. This notion of the network as 'a crossroads between subjects'
|
|
that 'first of all, connects realities outside' itself, was one that he
|
|
would return to again and again over the course of the month.
|
|
|
|
Marta's position was rather different. More than a simple
|
|
interface between humans in the 'real' world, she stressed that
|
|
computer networks represent 'a new medium' fast becoming an
|
|
important place of 'struggle and resistance' in its own right. As a
|
|
consequence, attention had to be paid to 'the features peculiar to
|
|
[computer] networks - anonymity, the loss/construction of ascribed
|
|
relations and identity, socialisation, the possibilities of
|
|
experimentation', to see whether these might generate new ways of
|
|
destabilising power. In other words, it's not a matter of simply seeking
|
|
to use computer networks as a means to connect the struggles of social
|
|
subjects in the so-called real world, but rather of exploring the
|
|
subjects that are forming *within* the networks themselves.
|
|
|
|
For his part, Sandrone's assessment of such subjects was less
|
|
than flattering. Taking as one example the level of discussion within
|
|
cyberspace, he told Marta: 'What you call debate I generally would call
|
|
chitchat. There is hardly ever a decent debate in either Cybernet or ECN.
|
|
There is almost always chitchat - some of it even interesting -
|
|
between those who play with computers'. Talk of the net culture's
|
|
potential for destabilisation was better suited for science fiction
|
|
novels; so far he had seen nothing to confirm such a view. 'The
|
|
networks are one field of struggle - but only one, however'.
|
|
|
|
Part of the difference between these two positions seems to lie
|
|
with the legitimacy or otherwise bestowed upon communication
|
|
between individual as opposed to collective subjects. Again, in an
|
|
exchange with Ampex from ECN Brescia, Sandrone insisted
|
|
that discussing the politics of computer networks was something
|
|
separate from using the net as a means 'to feel good (a positive thing),
|
|
or to exchange ideas with friends (even more positive)... [or] to send
|
|
letters to a lover in Boston (better again)'. Marta's response to this
|
|
consisted of three parts. The first was that, by its nature, the network
|
|
had so far generated personal rather than collective users - 'so much so
|
|
that our brawling [scazziamo] is between you/sandrino/me/luc/ampex
|
|
rather than between groups of people...' Secondly, that while the level
|
|
of on-line discussion could be improved, it was better than that in
|
|
face-to-face meetings, such as those she remembered from the Murazzi
|
|
social centre in Torino, 'where the recognised "leader" spoke first and
|
|
last, a series of other people felt legimitated to intervene, and the
|
|
majority of the collective just sat and listened, or got bored, or else
|
|
rolled joints'. At least on the net, everyone could say their bit and
|
|
have
|
|
time to reflect when responding to others. Finally, in noting the failure
|
|
to date of periodic attempts to use computer networks as archives for
|
|
movement documents, she argued that the net concerns 'principally
|
|
communication' in the here and now.
|
|
|
|
Another question which kept popping up was the perennial
|
|
technical battle just to keep the system functioning. It may hearten
|
|
fellow members of the xchange BBS to hear that we are not the only
|
|
ones whose bulletin board malfunctions on a regular basis - this seems
|
|
equally to be a problem in Milano. How to tackle this, someone asked?
|
|
Surely there must be some computer nerds involved in the Leoncavallo
|
|
social centre who would enjoy tinkering with machinery and code? Well
|
|
yes, perhaps there are, but according to Sandrino, who is also part of
|
|
the Milano ECN, such comrades like to spend 'their' free time doing
|
|
things at the social centre itself. Perhaps if the BBS was housed there...
|
|
|
|
Two more themes that arose along the way. The first concerns who
|
|
actually uses these Italian BBS, and how. According to Marta, maybe
|
|
15-30 people call up the Torino board each day - 'not much traffic' by
|
|
her reckoning. They scan this and that, usually following their own
|
|
particular interest - software, spunk, news - but 'the majority don't
|
|
even look at the new files'. According to the Milanese comrades, a
|
|
certain amount of energy on any given day goes into clearing out
|
|
abusive messages from people hostile to the very project of the social
|
|
centres. Even when there was a radio program or station loosely
|
|
connected to the local ECN, there didn't seem to be much interplay
|
|
between the two. Finally, there was the question of sectarianism and
|
|
the network's 'purity'. Here Marta raised a couple of Turinese anecdotes
|
|
concerning certain intolerant autonomists and anarchists, who had
|
|
asked, amongst other things: how dare the ECN 'allow' people from the
|
|
'refoundation communist party' social centre to use their network?
|
|
[When I would have thought (Profit Margin concludes, editorialising
|
|
outrageously) that 'we' would be wanting to engage with, and even
|
|
contaminate people like that, rather than worry about protecting our
|
|
'pure' politics from them].
|
|
************
|
|
<ECN bologna E-zine n.0 agosto 95>
|
|
|
|
1) International Anarchist Demonstration - Sunday 6 August
|
|
|
|
A brief notice publicising a Hiroshima Day demo at the border town of
|
|
Ventimiglia.
|
|
|
|
2) Proposal for a National Mobilisation Against the Use of Tornado
|
|
Bombers and other Italian and NATO forces in the Balkan War -
|
|
Piacenza, luglio 1995
|
|
|
|
Today, as in the Gulf War, Italian jets are being used in a military
|
|
conflict. The Belfagor social centre calls both for debate and
|
|
organisational work within the social centres and the broader 'self-
|
|
organised' left, with the aim of a national mobilisation this September
|
|
or October. In particular, it calls for an opening to green and pacifist
|
|
circles as well as the traditional left, along with the development of
|
|
arguments to counter the growing interventionist mood within the
|
|
latter.
|
|
|
|
3) RADIO ONDA D'URTO Festa at Brescia (20 August - 3 September)
|
|
|
|
Food, drink, debates, film and plenty of 'antagonistic' information are
|
|
all promised at this year's festa.
|
|
|
|
4) Statement of the Roman social centres following the 85 charges
|
|
made against some of their representatives.
|
|
|
|
'The 85 charges for "delinquent association", stemming from incidents
|
|
provoked by the police opposing the occupation of the La Torre social
|
|
centre, represent the apex of an offensive - by the right, the fascists
|
|
of Alleanza Nazionale, sections of the courts and police - which aims
|
|
to isolate and criminalise Rome's social realities..."
|
|
************
|
|
<ECN Padova - News upgrade, 18 agosto 95>
|
|
|
|
Debate on the upcoming conference of Social Centres at Arezzo
|
|
|
|
One of the most important polemics within Italy's self-managed social
|
|
centres at present concerns their place within the evolving social
|
|
landscape. According to a number of comrades - for example, those
|
|
associated with the journal *Derive Approdi* - the social centres
|
|
represent a new form of productive organisation based upon
|
|
'immaterial', post-fordist labour. Thus Benedetto Vecchi has
|
|
characterised the CSOA as 'high points of capitalist development' based
|
|
upon 'knowledge, science and communicative action,... the most
|
|
contradictory phenomenon of a possible exodus of labour power from
|
|
capitalist society, through the constitution of a public sphere that
|
|
contemplates the synthesis between developed social cooperation and
|
|
political initiative' [B. Vecchi (1994) 'Frammenti di una diversa sfera
|
|
pubblica', in F. Adinolfi et al., *Comunit virtuali: I centri sociali in
|
|
Italia*. Manifestolibri, Rome, p.14]. Similar sentiments were recently
|
|
voiced in *il manifesto* by those promoting a conference on the social
|
|
centres to be held at Arezzo. The two postings summarised below beg
|
|
to differ.
|
|
|
|
1) Centro Sociale Autogestito ex Emerson di Firenze: "Non siamo
|
|
un'impresa"
|
|
|
|
In criticising the reading of the social centres as 'enterprises', this
|
|
piece rejects the assumption that market criteria are the most
|
|
appropriate terms through which to interpret the CSOA. Its authors also
|
|
reject a logic of social pacification which seeks to divide the 'good'
|
|
sections of the movement from those which the state deems to be
|
|
beyond the pale. Opposing all frameworks blind to power relations
|
|
within modern society, they point out that 'We have been within all
|
|
moments of class conflict... seeking to act [towards] its social
|
|
recomposition. This is our horizon. We are not prepared to accept, at
|
|
Arezzo or elsewhere, what sociologists, entrepreneurs or council
|
|
officials tell us we are and must become'.
|
|
|
|
2) Impresa centro sociale? No grazie! (C.S.A. Garibaldi di Milano)
|
|
|
|
A detailed critique of the premises informing the Arezzo conference,
|
|
the title of which is 'Metropolitan Social Space: Between the Risk of
|
|
Ghettoisation and a New Enterprise Horizon' [progettista imprenditore].
|
|
Setting these premises within a discussion of Italy's changing place
|
|
within the global economy, the crisis of welfare and the emergence of
|
|
new forms of production, the author emphasises the thematic of social
|
|
and political mediation which permeates the conference proposal.
|
|
************
|
|
<ECN bologna E-zine n.01 agosto 95>
|
|
|
|
1) Leoncavallo - Press release on the *Corriere della Sera* article
|
|
|
|
A response to a scurrilous article in a Milano newspaper of 25 August
|
|
suggesting that the Leoncavallo social centre is a site for drug
|
|
trafficking.
|
|
|
|
2) Leoncavallo - Press release on Riccione
|
|
|
|
A statement of support for those in Riccione who physically defended
|
|
themselves from the police when threatened with arrest. Today, the social
|
|
centre notes, around 40% of people detained in Italian prisons are there on
|
|
so-called 'drug-related' charges.
|
|
|
|
3) Brescia: Program of the Radio Onda d'Urto Festa
|
|
|
|
A detailed account of the music, debates, films and food available at
|
|
the festival of this 'self-managed and self-financed' radio station.
|
|
|
|
4) Parma: Solidaritay with the Taranto comrades
|
|
|
|
The social centre XXII APRILE condemns the eviction of the CSOA Citta'
|
|
Vekkia in the Southern city of Taranto, and calls for a demonstration on
|
|
10 September.
|
|
************
|
|
<ECN bologna E-zine n.02 agosto 95>
|
|
|
|
1) Leoncavallo - fax to Giorgio Bocca and the editors of *La
|
|
Repubblica*
|
|
|
|
A sarcastic response to a piece that Bocca had written concerning 'A
|
|
ghetto called Leoncavallo'.
|
|
|
|
2) Milano 27 August - BRILLIANT POLICE OPERATION AGAINST
|
|
LEONCAVALLO
|
|
|
|
On the carabinieri raid which netted some 'extra-comunitari' activists
|
|
and tiny quantities of dope. 'Once again social questions become
|
|
problems of public order...'
|
|
|
|
3) GABRIELLA IS FREE! The struggle continues!!
|
|
|
|
After 18 months detention the charge of 'terrorism' against Gabriella
|
|
Guarino has fallen apart, and she has been released from a Peruvian
|
|
prison.
|
|
************
|
|
<Corsera - by Leoncavallo (E-Zine ECN)>
|
|
|
|
A number of satirical articles sending up the Milanese daily *Corriere
|
|
della Sera*, following its campaign against the Leoncavallo social
|
|
centre and the latter's opposition to drug laws.
|
|
************
|
|
<Milano, 29 agosto 1995 - Comunicato stampa del centro sociale
|
|
Leoncavallo>
|
|
|
|
In response to the authorities' decision to forbid Leoncavallo from
|
|
demonstrating in front of the *Corriere della Sera*'s offices, this
|
|
press release 'reconfirms' the social centre's original schedule, and
|
|
invites all and sundry to three days of mobilisation against the existing
|
|
legislation on drugs - 8-10 September at their Via Watteau premises.
|
|
It also condemns the 'Chilean-style' police raids which have hit the
|
|
local neighbourhood in recent times.
|
|
************
|
|
<ECN bologna E-zine n.03 settembre 95>
|
|
|
|
1) TO ALL TELECOM WORKERS AND TO ALL UNION STRUCTURES
|
|
|
|
The telecommunications section of the alternative union FLMU invites
|
|
all those who oppose the 'shameful deal' just signed by the official
|
|
unions to meet and organise a campaign of opposition.
|
|
|
|
2) TORINO BRAVO E BRAVA : THE CITY OF COLOURS
|
|
|
|
In the face of the glitzy razzamatazz 'celebrating' the launch of FIAT's
|
|
two new product lines, the CSOA Murazzi calls for a demonstration on
|
|
10 September by 'all those: the unemployed, young workers, part-timers
|
|
and casuals' opposed to Agnelli's 'City of Colours'.
|
|
|
|
3) TOTALLY CONFUSED - OR JUST OUT-AND-OUT LIARS?
|
|
|
|
More from the FLMU on the role of the official Telecom unions.
|
|
|
|
4) ROSANDRA CROSSING: 5 days of self-financing for Radio Onda Libera
|
|
|
|
Program details for the festa organised by this Trieste free radio
|
|
station.
|
|
|
|
************
|
|
Leaflet from the CSOA el paso (Torino)
|
|
|
|
A flyer - rather different in tone to that issued by the CSOA Murazzi -
|
|
expressing opposition to FIAT's media hype. Calling for self-management and
|
|
the 'free association of individuals', it reminds us that there can be
|
|
'NO BOSSES WITHOUT SERVANTS'.
|
|
|
|
************
|
|
Italian COUNTERINFO, a summary of recent postings from the Cybernet
|
|
and European Counter Network in Italy, is a cooperative venture
|
|
between the xchange BBS (Melbourne, Australia) and the Padova node of
|
|
the ECN. You can contact us at pmargin@xchange.apana.org.au or
|
|
hobo@freenet.hut.fi
|
|
************
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|