In the last weeks our Organization has received growing attention by several Italian newspapers (first of all by "Libero", "il Giornale" and "il Mattino" of Padua), the purpose of which is clearly repressive. We include herewith our statement on this matter.
As in the usual, abused promptbook some people felt compelled to classify the political perspective and activity of OCI as terroristic (!?). Such an operation obviously aim to attack not only our organization. Together with several other kinds of operations perpetrated by medias and state bodies this operation is aimed to intimidate, isolate and repress every kind of effective and coherent form of opposition against the present imperialist aggression as well as against the capitalistic globalization, which this war is an integral part of. There is no need to remind the strong attack which the immigrants associations as well as all immigrant people as single persons are undergoing, the present criminalization of Islam and all this only a few weeks after the Genoa demonstrations, the searches carried out against so many comrades, the pressures to push the workers to renounce the right to strike, which has been already considerably reduced, etc.
In our case this operation is aimed to attack first of all the political work we’re carrying out to promote the union and the unity among the proletariat and the struggle movements of the western countries and the immens working masses of Islam and of the South of the world but also our resolute reproposition of the communist internationalism. In order to get its goal this operation is going to use every kinf of pretext - preparing in the meantime every kind of provocation.
We ask therefore all comrades and all people actively engaged in the above mentioned structures to take cognizance of this situation and to take responsibility for the consequent denunciation and public alertness, which such operations need to draw.
October, 21th 2001
In the last week several local and national newspapers focused –in and out of place- their attention on our organization. It seems to us that some corrective explanations are needed.
First of all: the Organizzazione Comunista Internazionalista is not a "suspicious"(1) organization. It’s a small organization, we must admit it, which at present draws excessive and instrumental attention. It has its own seats, a duly authorized newspaper ("Che fare") which is also readable on the Internet; our meetings are anything but secret; our propaganda and agitation are of a public kind and this is well known not only to all people partecipating in the Genoa rallies (and among them was also the assistant director of "Libero"(2) or in the demonstrations against the present war, but also to the workers entering some plants where they’re working, to the students we talk with in front of their schools and universities and to the people in the markets and in the districts of the main towns of Italy. In all these places we’re used to distribute our flyers and to talk with the people; we’re not accustomed to "leaving" our flyers(3).
In the second place the OCI cannot be assimilated to the ideology and practice of groups such as the Brigate Rosse and the stalinism, against which we polemize since ever. We are a marxist organization which applies the classical marxism (the same marxism you have endless times defined as dead) to the present explosive contradictions of the decadent capitalism. If you can’t help labelling us, then the label of marxism is the only one which we can accept and claim because it’s the only corresponding to the truth. But you’re probably acquainted with it. The aim of such a wrong assimilation is probably the preparation for a repressive action or a provocation. Are we wrong?
In the third place we are accused to "nearly claim" the attacks of september 11th against the Pentagon and the Twin Towers. In reality, togeter with some people who surely cannot be suspected of marxism (such as Benjamin and Nogaro(4), for instance, together with million of "common" people who share the same opinion), we’ve interpreted those actions as the reaction and the resistance against the plundering policy, the exploitation, the inexpressible violence that the big powers of the West have been perpetrating for centuries against the islamic people. And together with millions and millions of oppressed people of all the continents we’ve stated that these western policies are the real, big terrorism, which we have to fight against. Are things going in a different way?
For this reason we find it rather strange to state, as these newspapers did, that OCI is "instigating" the arab and islamic masses to an armed struggle "against USA, NATO and the corporations". These masses surely don’t need to be instigated by our organization since the daily actions carried out precisely by USA, NATO and the corporations in peace times as well as during the wars are the best fuel for instigation.
Rather we incite –this is true- the workers and the sound young people of the West not to remain passive and indifferent by the present massacre and by the future ones which are in store. We incite them to recognize in the oppressed people of Islam and of the South of the world – which are attacked again in Afghanistan, Palestine and Iraq by our "superior civilization"– our class brothers, that we have to unconditionally support and together with we have to unite in a common struggle as a natural result of the common oppression. What else should proletarian people in the USA or in Italy do? Is it not true that their existence – long before september 11th – was getting more and more precarized and humbled by the dictatorship of the capital? Should they obey the orders of Bush, Berlusconi, of the financial profiteers and the bosses of the military corporations who are the executer of this dictatorship and to climb on the same wagon of a war which is aimed to crush them too?
In the end, the formula "hammer, sickle and crescent"(5) doesn’t resume our position. Our perspective aims to go beyond the solidarity we’re expressing today (as well as we expressed in the past) for the arab-islamic exploited and immigrant people. It is aimed to build a unified international and internationalist front among the exploited people from all over the world; from the western proletariat to the Korean and the Chinese workers, from the people demonstrating in Durban and Seattle to the women of the World March of Washington, from the Mujeres de Plaza de Mayo to (please don’t be scandalized about it) the european farmers fighting against the superpower of the agroindustrial corporations. The formula which resumes in the best way our activity is the old but very fresh one: "Workers of all the countries, unite!". Unite to conquer the communism. This is our mandant and, at the same time, our mandate. Don’t waste your time looking for something else.
1) One of the mentioned newspapers.
2) This newspaper wrote that our organization in Genoa wasn’t actually to be seen among the people involved in the riots. Our place - so the newspaper – was "among quite normal people" and this is what disturbs: trying to establish a connection between the several links of a chain of all the oppressed people whose enemy is a common one.
3) In the mentioned newspapers was told that in Padova a parcel of flyers was found. This fact needs an explanation since the Brigate Rosse and other similar organizations were used to "leave" their statements and documents in several parts of a town and then to call media headquarters in order to let the documents be found. Consequently the articles writing about "leaving" of flyers for instance in a paper basket want to show the link between the well-known practice of those organizations and our organization. Actually the title of "Libero" openly spoke of "Brigate Rosse…
4) Nogaro, bishop of the southern Town of Caserta, near Naples, clearly spoke of the attacks of september 11th as of the result of the rage of the poor people against the plunder of the West.
5) This was the title of the mentioned article published by the newspaper “Libero”.