Proletarians, comrades,
remember the struggle of the immigrant proletarians in Rosarno (Southern Italy), their self-determination against exploitation, against the indifference and hostility that surrounded them? They challenged a world that was oppressing them, consisting of work-gang leaders and police, bosses and union organizations, which constantly kept them separated from the rest of the proletariat for fear that a spontaneous alliance might be formed against the existing social order. They had residence permits, they didn’t need to apply for them in order to work, so this was not what they were claiming or fighting for: they were fighting the deplorable and inhuman treatment they received and to defend themselves from their horrendous living and working conditions. During their struggle it was clear to them that in a capitalist regime, whether you have a residence permit or not, there can be no life worth living unless this regime is fought against until it is destroyed.
Proletarians, comrades,
the fight you have begun in order to procure the “piece of paper” can do no more than place you in the condition of legal salaried slaves, just the same as other, Italian proletarians. Of course it saves you from a clandestine existence, created precisely so that you have to beg and accept starvation wages, hovels to live in, police controls, being chased on the streets to end up shut up in monitoring or expulsion centres. Nothing will stop us supporting the fight you have begun. But this fight, arising out of total desperation, is nevertheless doomed to defeat, unlessit is accompanied by more widespread action from the whole of the working class and avoids condemning itself to recognizing its own humanity in a “job”, in a productive jail. In these conditions isolation cannot be overcome by facile charitable solidarity; itcannot be overcome unless a united battlefront is formed, with a view to spreading over the territory and organizing a relentless response – a unified internationalist organism, characterized by methods of class struggle and the following immediate claims:
- Refusal, in an organized form, of any persecution, expulsion, confinement of immigrant workers
- Residence permits for everyone, with no limits
- United front of internationalist struggle
