A-Infos (en) Italy, Sicilia Libertaria #469 - RAGUSA. - Anarchist May Day 2026 (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Greeted by the mischievous tolling of the bells of the Cathedral of San 
Giovanni, the Anarchist May Day rally was held again this year in 
Ragusa. The baton left by Pippo Gurrieri, unable to attend the 
demonstration for the first time, was taken up by three mature comrades 
from the Sicilian Anarchist Federation and a promising young Ragusan 
anarchists. An audience of just over a hundred people and several 
tourists cheered the comrades. --- The steps, parapets, and terrace of 
the church were decorated with flags and banners. In the square, a large 
number of comrades and just over a hundred onlookers and tourists 
cheered the speakers, highlighting some of the more significant passages 
with persistent applause.

Natale Musarra began by emphasizing that this year's May 1st is not only 
anarchic but also anti-fascist: Meloni, with her security decrees and 
the new directives imposed on police officers and magistrates, is 
dusting off blatantly unconstitutional laws from the 20-year period to 
prevent the emergence and growth of a "real" opposition to the 
government. This opposition is not that of the parliamentary left 
Brasil, Bento Goncalves/RS, OSL:  inept and incompetent  Brasil, Bento 
Goncalves/RS, OSL:  but the social opposition represented by grassroots 
movements fighting for decent work, against wars, against the MUOS 
project in Niscemi and the militarization of Sicily, against drilling, 
against the mafia and corruption in the Sicilian Region, against fires, 
for common goods and civic uses, for public water, for a Free Palestine, 
in support of the Sumud Flotilla, migrants, environmentalist and 
ecological struggles, and in defense of the territories from speculation 
and profiteering. The fascists in power dislike May 1st (during the 
twenty years of Mussolini's rule, they replaced it with April 21st, the 
"Christmas of Rome," which they have returned to celebrating this year!) 
because it has anarchist roots: it was born in commemoration of the 
eight-hour general strike held in Chicago in 1886, following which five 
anarchists who had called it were sentenced to death. Under the pretext 
of incitement, the authorities of the time transformed these comrades of 
ours from victims of aggression into aggressors, exactly as happened 
after the fascist massacres of the 1920s, and particularly in Ragusa on 
April 9, 1921 (the same location where this year's rally was held), and 
as continues to happen today.

Antonio Rampolla echoed these last considerations in his speech, 
accusing the neo-fascists governing the country of wanting to rewrite 
history by attacking those who expressed solidarity with Cospito and the 
anarchists involved in the struggle. He focused in particular on the 
preventive arrests of Roman anarchists, guilty, according to the city's 
police commissioner, of writing on walls "Peace among the oppressed, war 
against the oppressors." A terrible, inciting phrase, harbinger of dire 
consequences, taken from a famous song by Pietro Gori (Addio, Lugano 
bella), which the commissioner evidently did not know. But the 
repression has hit hard here too, against the No Muos activists, 
inundated with dozens of expulsion orders; against the ProPal movement, 
hit with fines amounting to thousands of euros; and against self-managed 
social centers, primary places of youth gathering, acculturation, and 
politicization, which have been evicted everywhere. All this while, to 
stay in Niscemi, people lose their homes in the massive landslide, or 
develop cancer from radiation, or burn hectares of cork oak forest near 
the MUOS  Brasil, Bento Goncalves/RS, OSL:  without the Americans at the 
base noticing  Brasil, Bento Goncalves/RS, OSL:  while local authorities 
and the Gela prosecutor's office conceal their responsibilities; while 
in Sicily the mafia is resurfacing and wars are raging in the 
Mediterranean without European governments intervening to stop them.

Renato Franzitta has pilloried the labor decree flaunted by the 
government on the eve of May 1st, which introduces a concept both new 
and ancient: the "fair wage," as opposed to the "minimum wage." The 
"fair" wage is the wage that masters, in their goodness, give to their 
servants based on what they believe they should be entitled to; It 
chains them to the logic of the market and production, marking their 
lifespan (for example, with faster workloads, exhausting and harmful 
jobs, and more frequent overtime, even if well-paid); it ignores the 
erosion of purchasing power caused by inflation. This is a worn-out 
concept because, except for those "guaranteed" by national contracts, it 
has always fueled job insecurity, youth emigration, the depopulation of 
the South, and has reduced wages by an average of 8%, more than in any 
other European country. All this within the context of a political class 
that has squandered billions from the PNRR, impoverished the already 
poor to make the rich ever richer, a government subservient to the 
wishes of the financial masters, the major energy companies, and the 
military-industrial complex, an economy that pollutes, destroys the soil 
and the environment, and a foreign policy that winks at the worst 
warmongers and international criminals.

In conclusion, after a brief speech by comrade Ignazia, focusing on the 
repression affecting the anarchist youth movement and gender repression, 
the comrades present sang "Addio, Lugano bella" by Pietro Gori.

One who was there

https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/wp-content/uploads/maggio-2026_compressed.pdf
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Subscribe/Unsubscribe https://ainfos.ca/mailman/listinfo/a-infos-en
Archive: http://ainfos.ca/en