These days, we are witnessing yet another quantum leap in World War III. Israel’s repeated bombing of Iran and Iran’s fight back, Trump’s ultimatum to the ayatollah’s regime and the support by France, Germany, and other European states for Israeli operations, the undisturbed continuation of the Palestinian genocide as well as the conflict in Ukraine, and the increase in repression against activists in Iran—which at times echoes what is happening in the USA against migrants and students—make it urgent for all social movements and for those who reject the present deadly state of affairs to speak out massively.
On the 21st of June, we will join the national demonstration StopRearm in Rome, taking place simultaneously with several other demonstrations across Europe against the plan ReArm Europe and NATO push for increasing military spending. But we know that criticizing European rearmament policies is not enough: we must act collectively and in an organized way. We need to build a collective refusal of the war logic and militarism.
While the war continues to produce fronts and alignments that we cannot accept, we refuse Israel’s propaganda to sustain its criminal actions as we refuse the campism of those within the so-called left who celebrate Iranian missiles on Israel. We join the voices from Iran calling for an end to Israeli aggression, as well as opposing the logic of war of the regime that repeatedly attacks every resistance and freedom project.
With the war and its logic penetrating any aspect of society, it is necessary to give voice and organize our side, the side of those who pay the most violent effects of war, the side of workers, of women, of LGBTQI+ people, of students fighting against the militarism that invades schools and society, of migrants who challenge racism and border violence every day: the side of those who fight for a present and a future of freedom.
For these reasons, on the 21st of June, we will join others from the RESET Network on the street in calling for a European strike against the war.
A European strike against the war is the challenge we pose to everyone. A strike capable of breaking the attack on living labour that rearmament policies mean, a strike capable of organizing the rejection of war inside and outside the workplaces, in reproduction, across national borders. A European strike against war as a chance to overthrow the present of death, exploitation, racism, patriarchy and environmental devastation that continues to affect our lives.