Internal Dynamics

March to Athens
Day 114-XL, Potenza

Popular assembly in Potenza

Potenza, February 29

 

Dear people,

 

Our group is growing stronger. We have been joined by another Neapolitan, we have almost reached the mountain top, and we are seriously starting to focus on Greece.

Things got a lot more relaxed ever since comrade Marianne left. In the end there was complete incommunicability between her and many of the French.

The French, like I said, are the soul of the march. Two of them have been on the road all the way from Nice, and others have been with the march for most of the time.

Aside from them there are two persons who are true pillars of the march. Comrade Max, and comrade José Miguel.

Max is Sicilian. He is an indefatigable organiser of popular assemblies. He is also a translator with an admireable ammount of patience. He is our main link with the Italian population.

José Miguel is from Barcelona. He speaks perfect Italian and he is a charming communicator. Wherever we arrive, he goes to the bar, and he starts to chat with the locals. It’s the most effective way of doing diffusion. He is also the last to leave the square whenever we move on. He wants to make absolutely sure that we leave the place cleaner than how we found it.

Max is a biologist, José Miguel is an archeologist. Both of them left university to come along with the march.

There are many more people who make a fundamental contribution to the march in different ways. But me, I’m not one of them.

I don’t cook, I don’t do a lot of diffusion, I clean my own things but little more, I don’t push a cart with common stuff, I don’t translate. I walk, I observe, and I write. That’s all. So if the march becomes a success, it won’t be because of me.

 

Today, however, I increased my level of participation a bit. We held an internal assembly about the route to Bari, and about the great controversy… The date of arrival in Athens.

For once, I volunteered to moderate the assembly.

I can’t remember the last time we held an internal assembly that didn’t turn into a farce. So I prepared some things in advance. First of all I talked to the Old Man. He can be reasoned with, and I’m actually starting to appreciate him. The other day, when everyone - me included – loaded his or her stuff onto the van of the protezione civile, the Old Man refused. He pushed all of his stuff up the mountain for fifteen kilometres. I made a deep bow when he arrived.

We talked about the proposed route to Bari, he made a few corrections, and I presented it in the assembly.

We reached a consensus in eight minutes. I don’t know if it’s a record, but it was definitely better than the five hours it took to reach a consensus about the route to Potenza.

 

It was the first time I moderated an assembly. Normally, the moderator has to guide the proces of collective reasoning, without making use of his role to highlight his own opinions or try to impose them. This sounds very horizontal, but if the moderation is too weak, it leads to chaos.

So I did away with it. I started off with an appeal to the assembly to bear in mind our common objective: arrive in Athens as a group, to the greatest possible satisfaction of ourselves, of the people who are expecting us, and of all the people who are following our march or have contributed to it in any way.

I forced the assembly to focus and to be constructive. Maybe I was a bit too strict, but in the end my moderation was appreciated by almost everyone, and within two hours we finally reached a first consensus about an approximate date of arrival.

We aim to be in Athens somewhere between April 26 and May 5. In a future assembly we will try to narrow it down further.

One of the people from Potenza offered us a bottle of rum to celebrate the consensus. But we shouldn’t get carried away. There’s a new controversy looming. The port of arrival.

There are two options. Igoumenitsa in the north of Greece, at over 500 kilometres from Athens, and Patras at just over 200. Many people seem to be in favour of Patras. They fear that Igoumenitsa is not a reasonable option, given our current pace.

Others say that Patras is too close to Athens. After marching through Italy for almost four months, we can’t really take ourselves seriously if we only take a short stroll up to our final destination.

So, our troubles are to be continued. Finding a consensus will be hard, maybe impossible. But for now, we have a reason to rejoice. The popular assembly this evening was a success. Despite the strong wind, people resisted. And yet again, after Salerno and Vietri, the locals decided to start their own assembly.

The appointment is for March 8, at five clock, in the faculty of Letters and Philosophy.

 

The same popular assembly in Potenza

Popular Bureaucracy

March to Athens
Day 113-XXXIX, from Picerno to Potenza, 19 km.

Acampada Potenza

Potenza, February 28

Dear people,

Over a week after we left Eboli we have finally reached a place that looks more or less like a town.

Potenza, capital of Nowhere, situated right in the middle of it.

The walk over here was long, but rewarding. We keep climbing out of Picerno until we reach a kind of highland that leads us straight to this little mountain town.

It’s not inviting, nor beautiful, nor nothing. Going up the hill you reach the old centre, which seems suspiciously new. Later on, someone tells me why.

Salute to the sun this morning in the social centre in Picerno

The vanguard has planted the first tents on the central square in front of the government palace. Soon after that, police arrive, in civilian outfit. It’s the hour of siesta, there is no-one out here but us.

They don’t want us to camp here. But neither do they want to make trouble. They ask for some ID, but when we refuse, they don’t insist. Soon the chief and the town councillors arrive. They try to convince us to move to a less visible square nearby. Officially because it’s better protected against the cold wind, but the real reason is that they don’t want us in front of the seat of government.

They are respectful enough, so we treat them likewise. But there’s is no way of moving us. I say that we chose this square, first because it’s symbolic, and second because our movement has a well-developed esthetical taste. We want to put our tents on the most beautiful squares.

They say we can leave one, or maybe two symbolical tents here during the night, but we can’t sleep there and we definitely can’t light a fire.

I say that we appreciate their proposals, but that we can’t decide by ourselves. We decide as a group. We have to wait for everyone to arrive before taking a decision. I like the irony of it. The state has its own bureaucracy, its own lengthy procedures that can drive you crazy as a citizen, and that finally make you give up, especially here in Italy. We use the same tactics if necessary.

“I’m very sorry, signor sindaco. You will have to wait. We have to respect procedures, I’m sure you understand. We will speak about your proposal in assembly. Only the assembly can decide. It can take some time.” And all the while they are there, with four police cars and a dozen officers, the commander, the mayor, waiting for a handful of vagabonds to arrive with their shopping carts full of stuff.

Then the siesta ends, the people come out. We start to talk them, they begin to bring us food and tea, and everything. And then it’s too late. Once the inhabitants of Potenza have embraced us, there is no way the authorities can force us to move. Not only do they give up, they offer their full collaboration. We can even light our fire without problems. We can sleep inside if we want, and tomorrow we can hold our popular assembly in the town hall.

We stay in the square, and while we’re there, pizza and pasta is brought to us from all sides. I speak to one of the locals. He explains to me the peculiarity of Potenza.

During the earthquake of 1980 the old centre was heavily damaged. The people who lived here, and whose ancestors had lived there for generations, got offered a small sum of money and an apartment in the new outskirts to move. Their homes got bought and beautifully rebuilt to house the rich and to create a fashionable shopping district.

This way Potenza became a ‘laboratory of gentrification’. Its example has been followed all over the peninsula. What remains is a sterile little centre speckled with brand names, an Apple store and luxury bars. Real life has migrated to the suburbs.

Even so, the people open their heart when they see our encampment. Not only because they know we’re marching for a good cause, but also because we’re doing so in winter time. Along some of the streets there are still heaps of snow melting away. The people admire us. And when they see us sitting around the fire at night, singing songs, we awaken some kind of nostalgic, primordial feeling in them. Something that is buried deep inside all of us human beings. The memory of the tribe.