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Teach-ins across Italy on BDS, Gaza, University & the Military (Bergamo, Padova, Bologna, Salerno, Naples) + major conference in Rome

The next two weeks, I am going to be busy discussing with many others the colonial war waged by the State of Israel, the militarization of our societies and the roles of our universities in both things, in teach-ins across Italy – adding to dozens of previous assemblies and public events I have been involved in since last October in Turin (here, here, here, among many others), Pisa and Florence, Messina and Palermo, Cagliari, Milan, Rome and Naples, and more (including interventions on national media, for instance here, here, here and grassroots radios, among others).

I ground these conversations around dual-use technologies and the political economy of involving universities in the defence sector, starting from my book Universitá e Militarizzazione (here for a review), to then expand on the contemporary genocidal situation in Gaza, but also on the role of local economic district in supporting the defence industry (here for a recent interview). The idea is to discuss these themes with colleagues, organisers, and students and to support and share local forms of resistance against the cultural mantra of war and the material economy of its implementation in Italy and beyond.

The forthcoming meetings are:

On Monday, 6th May, 2pm-6pm I will intervene online in an event organised at the University of Bergamo on Palestine and Israel. My intervention – among very relevant others! – will be at 5pm (see the poster below for full details).

On Tuesday, 8th May, at 6pm, I will take part in an online teach-in organised by the Spazio Catai (rete Potere al Popolo) at the University of Padova (info TBA).

On Thursday, 9th May, at 12noon, I will take part in an online teach-in for students currently holding a pro-Palestinian encampment in via Zamboni, in Bologna (info TBA). In Bologna I will also take part into another event on Saturday 11th – a day of debates organised by Laboratorio Bologna (TBA).

On Friday, 10th May, throughout the day, I will be in Rome for the first national conference organised the Observatory Against the Militarization of the Schools and the Universities. This event will be important for organising in Italy. It is open to the public – all info at this link.

On Wednesday, 15th May, at 10am, I will be in person at the University of Salerno, to discuss the above themes with my friends and colleagues Giso Amendola, Gennaro Avallone and Valentina Ripa (see details in the poster below).

Last but not least, on Thursday, 16th May, at 12:30pm I will be in person at the University Orientale of Naples, for a conversation with Viola Carofalo, Miguel Mellino and their students (details TBA).

Avanti!

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On the academic boycott against Israel + new work to stop dual-use agreement with Italy (MAECI)

For a few weeks, a number of academics in Italy have been working to stop an agreement between the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the State of Israel to finance ‘scientific projects’ that can lead themselves to military use. The agreement – this one – speaks of research focused on ‘frontier applications’ in the realm of precision optics, electronics and quantum technologies. Working for this kind of technologies with the State of Israel today means working with its military-industrial complex.

Our letter received more than 2,500 signatures from concerned academics and university personnel around Italy, and students have used it to organise on the matter across the country. We scored some concrete successes since the agreement has been stopped, or at least put in question, in a number of Universities, including Turin and the Normale of Pisa. The original letter – here – is in Italian, but I am translating it a bit below:

“At the end of February 2024, we learn that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation is announcing a call for joint research projects based on the Industrial, Scientific and Technological Cooperation Agreement between Italy and Israel. We emphasise that the funding could be used to develop dual-use technology, i.e. for both civil and military use. This would aggravate our country’s international responsibilities since, despite the government’s assurances, Italy does not seem to have stopped exporting weapons to Tel Aviv as of 7 October 2023.
Given these premises, we demand that industrial, scientific and technological cooperation between Italian and Israeli universities and research centres be suspended, with the aim of putting pressure on the state of Israel to commit to respecting all international law, as is rightly demanded of all states in the world.
We also make this request in order to protect Italian institutions from the accusation of not having fulfilled the imperative duty to prevent genocide, wherever there is a danger of it, which is an obligation for UN member states according to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, or of being complicit in war crimes, currently under investigation by the International Criminal Court. The MAECI notice does not protect Italian institutions because it may include the development of dual-use technologies and devices. Our request is in line with the statement, dated 23 February 2024, by numerous UN experts that member states should immediately refrain from transferring weapons and military technology to Israel, including research and know-how for possible war use, as there is an inescapable risk that they will be used to violate customary obligations under international humanitarian law. Moreover, the collaborations that we are asking to be discontinued appear to be in serious conflict with the National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights that the government itself claims to be overseeing. It would be paradoxical to ask businesses to respect rights that are deemed secondary or violable in the actions of public and research organisations, which have a duty to comply with the republican constitutional order (which includes international law as an integral part of it).”

We have now prepared a new statement since tomorrow is the last day to stop the agreement, and strike action has been prepared by students and unions in Italy. Here is the text, in Italian: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Y8j8lPk9ptCog1U0gZL2m7-gxXLPXcwH9KGHSeqH_kU/edit

The conclusions read:

“On 10 April, the MAECI notice will expire, but the deep connivance of our government and our universities with the plausible genocide taking place in Gaza will not see a break except under pressure from those who study, teach and do research in our country’s academic and research infrastructure. For this reason, in addition to participating in tomorrow’s mobilisations, we invite the academic community to a national online assembly to be held on 17 April at 5pm to discuss how to relaunch initiatives to break the links between Italian public research, Israeli institutions and the military industry, and to build real bridges of peace through the creation of channels of cooperation and support for the Palestinian population.
We feel a strong ethical responsibility for our work within society.”On 10 April, the MAECI notice will expire, but the deep connivance of our government and our universities with the plausible genocide taking place in Gaza will not see a break except under pressure from those who study, teach and do research in our country’s academic and research infrastructure. For this reason, in addition to participating in tomorrow’s mobilisations, we invite the academic community to a national online assembly to be held on 17 April at 5pm to discuss how to relaunch initiatives to break the links between Italian public research, Israeli institutions and the military industry, and to build real bridges of peace through the creation of channels of cooperation and support for the Palestinian population.
We feel a strong ethical responsibility for our work within society.”

Below I am reporting some interviews I have been releasing in national media, on la Stampa, il Fatto Quotidiano and Repubblica on this matter. Similar exposure work has been done by a number of comrades (both students, unionists and academics), who have been attacked on national media. Avanti!

il Fatto Quotidiano
La Stampa Torino
l’Espresso

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Three events this week on war economies, the militarization of education & BDS-Palestine in Turin and Milan

Spring has arrived, and the horror of the Israeli war and so many other wars are still here. We must not stop studying and discussing the intensification of militarization in our collective lives in the West and beyond. This week in Turin and in Milan, I will take part in three exciting public events, open to all (discussion will be in Italian).

On Monday, the 25th, at 20:30 in Turin (at OST Barriera), there will be a meeting on the capitalistic mode of production and the fragmentation of international markets. It is the launch of a very interesting book by the Rete dei Comunisti, upon which I will offer some reflections, among others.

On Tuesday, the 26th, at 16:00 in Milan (at the Universitá Statale di Milano, Legnaia), I will be discussing my book Universitá e Militarizzazione and be talking about the relationship between the university and the military sector with students and comrades.

Finally, on Thursday, the 28th, at 18:30 in Turin (at the Kontiki place via Cigliano), I will discuss a book, with others, about the Boycott, Disinvest, Sanction campaign and the involvement of Italian authorities in doing all sorts of problematic (read: militarized) dealings with the Israeli state.

I look forward to all of this! Posters and info are below.

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Our petition to fight the agreement between the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the state of Israel (ITA)

Con le bravissime Paola Rivetti e Alessandra Algostino (e tant* altr*) promuoviamo questa lettera indirizzata al Ministero degli Affari Esteri e della Cooperazione Internazionale (MAECI) riguardante la rinnovata cooperazione di ricerca tra istituzioni italiane e israeliane.

Come si puo’ vedere dal bando – https://www.esteri.it/it/diplomazia-culturale-e-diplomazia-scientifica/cooperscientificatecnologica/accordi_coop_indscietec/ – non ci sono indicazioni per escludere che tale cooperazione porti allo sviluppo di tecnologie dual use, anzi: la terza linea di finanziamento e’ chiaramente utilizzabile per lo sviluppo di tecnologie di sorveglianza e controllo.

Chiediamo la sospensione del bando non solo per ragioni morali, ma anche per proteggere le istituzioni italiane che hanno il dovere di prevenzione di genocidio secondo la convenzione del 1948 e che, quindi, collaborando con le istituzioni israeliane, si potrebbero esporre al rischio di complicita’ con quello che la ICJ ha definito ‘un rischio palusibile di genocidio

La nostra lettera: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Q5uuXmdJeDEyi06Kv1VkLPXAeVkMbfl8gHxPh6JGLQM/edit

Il form per firmarla: https://forms.gle/FC6vSN1Z98mDEy75A

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Student assembly on Israel, the war machine and the role of our Universities | Today in Turin

From Israel to Leonardo: The role of our universities in the war industry.

Today 17:30 at the Einaudi campus in Turin with Cambiare Rotta Torino, End Fossil and the Palestine Project.

The meeting is a conversation amongst anti-militarist and anti-extractive collectives, with the idea of gathering our knowledge and publishing an open-source booklet on these topics. All welcome.

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Antifascist University Alliance – a new initiative in Turin

Today, we had our first meeting in Turin of our new antifascist university alliance.

This is a renewed form of activism that links our anti-fascist praxis to anti-militarism and the need to defend the terrain of our universities in order to fight inside and outside them. It comes out of the increased militarization and policing of our University spaces, as well as to fight the far-right acceleration of the political and societal spheres in Italy.

In our first public meeting, we talked about foibe (for a brief intro on the topic see here) with Eric Gobetti and Bruno Maida.

If you work in the university world in Turin, you can sign up and read our Manifesto here (in Italian): https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSenJkDVdA3i7h8FUqCUo2S-oG_uoICo4FY-TO4rReTSA1phbA/viewform?usp=sf_link

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Beautiful presentations and debates in Turin on the Academy and the defense sector

What a beautiful evening yesterday in Turin! Among the hundreds of books in the wonderful Libreria Comunardi , we took the time to discuss my short essay on #university and #militarisation

With Francesca Governa, Luca Rondi of Altreconomia and Ada of Cambiare Rotta Torino and a lot of people, from many different realities, who are fed up with the spread of the military in our individual and collective lives.

The next day, I was also invited into an autonomous student assembly at Palazzina Einaudi, where, in a space occupied by students, we discussed the same issues. Moving forward!

Book: https://www.amazon.it/Universit%C3%A0-militarizzazione-duplice-libert%C3%A0-ricerca/dp/B0C44VM66Y

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Speaking of Frontex, Militarization and Universities at a public meeting in Turin (Volere la Luna)

On Saturday, 24th September, 9pm, I will join a critical public festival in Turin, sponsored by ‘Volere la Luna‘.

At the event, I will join a number of activists and colleagues to discuss around the increased role that the militarization industry is having in Turin, the city where I live. I will speak of the relationship between my University, the Polytechnic, and that industry – focusing in particular on the Frontex case, on bordering, and on the relationship between research and the military.

Free entry, in Via Trivero 16 at 9pm. Check the poster below for the full extent of the Festival.

Locandina 2022 def