- Apr 2, 2009
- 8,660
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Caterina Falessi, 18 years-old, student at La Sapienza University, Rome
Rome - “We have a job: change the world.” She says tranquilly and with a smile. And with the security of one who feels she has no future to look forward to under the present regime. Nor is this about a small battle, rather there's only one way out: “There's need for radical change. Even the tourists have understood us judging by the applause the give us on the streets, because even in their countries there is crisis. Caterina Falessi, former student of Avogadro liceo (high school) and for years an student activist, is now a student at La Sapienza.
You want to change the world: is this a return to 68?
“My parents were part of the 77 protests and are today disparaged. For my father the only way to make the situation any better is to change the government. Yet I don't feel at all represented by today's political class, neither on the right or the left, as don't many of today's youth.”
So your cause addresses more than the schools as in last year's protests?
“Today the enemy is something of a greater and more complex status. It's no longer merely about the debased schools: there is need of a global change that passes straight through the economy.”
Has the economic crisis changed you?
“Everyone has older brothers or sisters, or friends, who can't find a job, who have degrees but live in a precarious situation, or else people with jobs who risk loosing them because of the cutbacks. The grave thing, however, is that the government and the financial apparatus have used the crisis as an instrument and an excuse to impose harsh austerity measures on us and therefore cuts on the social services and our democratic right to have decent public schools. And we all feel that we have been hoodwinked.”
You feel hoodwinked because of what?
“By the economy itself. The way it's horribly imbalanced and mismanaged by a political and financial class that tends to it in ways that are exclusive to their own interests, but to mass society's detriment. As students, however, we're not only looking at the current problems with the school cuts, but at the financial maneuvers of the other counties. And society can't always be made to pay for the excesses of finance and private business.”
At 3 PM you will be in piazza with Europe's students?
“Yes. The crisis is global and young people are sick and tired of arriving at a future in which they will be made by government to pay for a debt that wasn't accumulated by them, certain of not having a pension payed for by their fiscal contributions to the state and of seeing their taxes squandered to pay for this debt: while the public sector gets further debilitated. I believe in Europe, that is in a Europe of students, precarious workers, of citizens who want to profoundly change the world.”
Is there a message you have for the politicians?
“A voi che trascinate la nazione al buio ma vi divertite a fare luminari, pronti a tutto pur di ricevere un' udienza...('To you who drag the nation into the dark, but amuse yourselves at playing luminaries and will stop at nothing just to receive an audience...'). It's from a song by Caparezza.”
Speaking of the political leadership, what would you ask of Berlusconi?
“He's had his time. Step down and leave space to the new generation.”
Source: Caterina Pasolini, la Repubblica
Quant'è bella giovinezza
che si fugge tuttavia!
Chi vuol esser lieto, sia:
di doman non c'è certezza.
“How beautiful is youth, that is always slipping away! Whoever wants to be happy, let him be so: about tomorrow there’s no knowing.”
– Lorenzo di Medici “The Magnificent” (1490)
Rome - “We have a job: change the world.” She says tranquilly and with a smile. And with the security of one who feels she has no future to look forward to under the present regime. Nor is this about a small battle, rather there's only one way out: “There's need for radical change. Even the tourists have understood us judging by the applause the give us on the streets, because even in their countries there is crisis. Caterina Falessi, former student of Avogadro liceo (high school) and for years an student activist, is now a student at La Sapienza.
You want to change the world: is this a return to 68?
“My parents were part of the 77 protests and are today disparaged. For my father the only way to make the situation any better is to change the government. Yet I don't feel at all represented by today's political class, neither on the right or the left, as don't many of today's youth.”
So your cause addresses more than the schools as in last year's protests?
“Today the enemy is something of a greater and more complex status. It's no longer merely about the debased schools: there is need of a global change that passes straight through the economy.”
Has the economic crisis changed you?
“Everyone has older brothers or sisters, or friends, who can't find a job, who have degrees but live in a precarious situation, or else people with jobs who risk loosing them because of the cutbacks. The grave thing, however, is that the government and the financial apparatus have used the crisis as an instrument and an excuse to impose harsh austerity measures on us and therefore cuts on the social services and our democratic right to have decent public schools. And we all feel that we have been hoodwinked.”
You feel hoodwinked because of what?
“By the economy itself. The way it's horribly imbalanced and mismanaged by a political and financial class that tends to it in ways that are exclusive to their own interests, but to mass society's detriment. As students, however, we're not only looking at the current problems with the school cuts, but at the financial maneuvers of the other counties. And society can't always be made to pay for the excesses of finance and private business.”
At 3 PM you will be in piazza with Europe's students?
“Yes. The crisis is global and young people are sick and tired of arriving at a future in which they will be made by government to pay for a debt that wasn't accumulated by them, certain of not having a pension payed for by their fiscal contributions to the state and of seeing their taxes squandered to pay for this debt: while the public sector gets further debilitated. I believe in Europe, that is in a Europe of students, precarious workers, of citizens who want to profoundly change the world.”
Is there a message you have for the politicians?
“A voi che trascinate la nazione al buio ma vi divertite a fare luminari, pronti a tutto pur di ricevere un' udienza...('To you who drag the nation into the dark, but amuse yourselves at playing luminaries and will stop at nothing just to receive an audience...'). It's from a song by Caparezza.”
Speaking of the political leadership, what would you ask of Berlusconi?
“He's had his time. Step down and leave space to the new generation.”
Source: Caterina Pasolini, la Repubblica
Quant'è bella giovinezza
che si fugge tuttavia!
Chi vuol esser lieto, sia:
di doman non c'è certezza.
“How beautiful is youth, that is always slipping away! Whoever wants to be happy, let him be so: about tomorrow there’s no knowing.”
– Lorenzo di Medici “The Magnificent” (1490)
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