On March 24th, we held an international meeting where different political organisations, individuals and community members from different parts of the world came together to share experiences and reflections on what it means to care for people and communities in contexts of war, conflict and political violence.
We would like to thank everyone for their effort, generosity and time for this collective and international project: Fikret Çalağan from Ata Soyer Sağlık ve Politika Okulu, Davide Grasso, Ian Parker and Luke Manzarpour from the Red Clinic in UK, Samah Jabr from Palestine, Mariela Rodriguez from Cuba, Graciela Painelaf from Wallmapu, Comité Cerezo from Mexico, Pedro Madero and Beto Paredes from the Santa Maria Ostula community in Michoacán.
The theme of this meeting is connected to the context in which the Brigata Basaglia was born: the wide socio-sanitary catastrophe of 2020. Our network of psychosocial support started while all around us tens of thousands of people were dying in overcrowded hospitals, the streets were patrolled by the military, and prisons’ riots were suppressed in blood. We realised that the only way to deal with the emergency without subdueing to the brutality and selfishness of our corrupt, mafia-like, profit-seeking institutions was to self organize.
We also realised that if we had been able to be already be organized, our political work would have had a greater impact, we would have resisted to the emergency policies more strongly. This is why we never stopped being active and supporting other political organisations and communities affected by the floods, student collectives repressed by the police, and workers fighting for their jobs.
We have realised that an ever-wider and more diverse network will enable us to withstand the coming crises and emergencies.
We also know that many of the crises we face have global origins, and many of the wars, catastrophes and genocides that occur in other territories also originate within our own borders.
We therefore believe that internationalist solidarity is indispensable and complementary to territorial and community work. We also believe this because the founding nucleus of Brigata Basaglia works and is rooted in different territories, not only in Italy but also in Mexico. And so we know what it means to work in a context marked by enforced disappearances, paramilitarisation of civil society, extrajudicial executions, material poverty and constant insecurity.
We know that we have to learn from those who have been organising and fighting for longer than us, for generations and centuries, from those who experience far more brutal and all-encompassing oppression and violence.
This second international meeting, the first was held in Milan in May 2023, was a further step in the direction of creating a network of organisations that goes beyond national borders, because the systems that attack us are also global and transnational. We hope, therefore, that in addition to testimonies and presentations, this dialogue will lead us to build concrete and sustainable collaborative proposals, consolidate new relationships and organise new meetings.