 Hello to everyone watching the School of Resistance. Today is already the fifth day we are streaming live from the Akademie der Kunst in Berlin, and it's a pleasure to welcome here with me, connected from Italy, Luca Cazzarini and Lorenzo Marcilli, and shortly also Yvonne Saanier will join us. Perhaps let me introduce the School of Resistance and also what we are doing right here. The School of Resistance has been founded last year in order to bring together experts of change. And we have been discussing different topics along the last months, especially with activists but also with researchers and artists regarding the suffering and we observing in the world but also the strategies to remedy it. And especially here at the School of Resistance at the ADK, Akademie der Kunst in Berlin, we are also combining it with discussions on questions of aesthetics. And today is particularly interesting because we just had a conversation about the aesthetics of resistance and now we're talking about the revolt of dignity. So we are really talking from a perspective of activism and public engagement. My name is Martin Walde-Stauber and I'm one of the two curators of this series together with my colleague Kasia Wojcik. Perhaps let me introduce to you the first two guests tonight, Luca Cazzarini is an activist and publicist. He was an advisor to social solidarity minister Livia Turco in the first parody government. In 2014 he narrowly missed entering the European parliament. In March 2019 he led an operation of the ship Marionio in the framework of civilian rescue at sea when it picked up 49 migrants near the Libyan coast. And now he's head of mission on board of the Italian flag rescue ship Marionio managed for Mediterranean saving humans and NGO. Lorenzo Marcili is a philosopher, author and political activist working for a future beyond the nation state. He's co-founder of the transnational NGO European Alternatives and he was one of the initiators of the pan-European movement DM-25. He earned his degree in philosophy and psychology from the University of London and currently serves on the board of the global NGO Civicus. Always these introductions seem rather long so I would like to turn quickly to my first question. A book that impressed me a lot when I was a teenager was The Fane Cells on Dignevue. So a book about the personal indignations we feel and I would like to start with a short question to both of you. What is the thing that triggers your indignation? Perhaps Lorenzo you want to start? I think we've gone through different historical cycles of indignation in the very recent past. And each of the time of The Fane Cells the main worry was to activate the social energies vis-à-vis clearly unsustainable and just economic social reality. Today I think what worries me the most is a sense of despondency even of the spare if you like the idea of an inevitable collapse and inevitable decay a crisis towards which our collective agency cannot apply any transformative change any longer because it is too late. I think there is a real risk of depression as a psychophysical psychosocial phenomenon building in a kind of acceptance of the status quo which frankly we are seeing quite clearly today with the acceptance of the Michael Draghi government in it. Perhaps to pass on to you Luca also as a quote I prepared and I would like to share with you because also we have so many books lying around here you see that this order we are creating at the School of Resistance day by day and here I found this book of Arto and there is one quote that I believe it's pivotal which goes I shall not feel fine else I would rest and accept relief why things are bad. So what is the thing Luca that you cannot help seeing and which triggers your activism? Hi to all and thank you for this opportunity for this discussion. The problem is this that I think that the first the first thinking is that there isn't an out of words. We are in one word. This word is for all is the same word. We can stay inside the word and against the word but we don't have a possibility of go away from this word and the problem is this for me the problem is a concept of exodus in this word. We are inside the word is one. We must stay against the word of injustice word of racism word of exclusion but which is the street for exodus from this word and I think the problem is this is a translation. We are we have objective we can have objective and the way we see look this objective but the way is the problem the the way of life the translation to the other word in this in this moment there is a revolution. I would like to because now we talked about what triggers the indignation and I think you opened already up a broad sphere of questions but I would like to return to the title of today's discussion which goes with the title of the revolt of dignity and I think the word of work dignity is something that is that perhaps we talk to less about or we just use the word so I would like to speak with you a bit about what is your conception of dignity and what importance does it have also in in our struggles whoever wants to start. I think it connects with what Luca was just saying I mean this this capacity of world link of creating the world of it it's precisely what we are very much at risk of missing today and that capacity of world link of creating an alternative reality to the one that is given to you of course speaks to today's topic to the work that we are discussing because it is the task of the imagination to perhaps open up not only such visions but to open up the space within which to organize to materialize those visions and that's I think something particularly important in the gospel that we can discuss later on but in order to create a world that is other one must be able to say no to what is given to you and that capacity of saying no to me is central to the concept of dignity. It is Barclayby's famous I would rather not. Dignity is to empower people to be able to say no, no to exploitation because they have an alternative to being exploited in the factory or in the field, no to racial discrimination, no to gender discrimination, no to a political system that disenfranchises even those who seem to be rather better off in economic terms and so this capacity of saying no to the thought of there is no alternative to say no to your predicament to say to say no to your exploitation is what triggers the imagination and the power to create another world and that is for me a central concept of dignity saying no and empowering people giving people the capacity of saying no. It's true what say Lorenzo and I think it's possible we have a vision of dignity in this way. There is a first step for considered dignity for for construction of concept of dignity in our minds. The first step is indignation is in the in the bible the name is Splengizomai. What move us for fight? Splengizomai is love feminine mother love for the son and is a big a big push for not accept the injustice for the other and in the second the second thing is this the dignity is possible view the dignity only with the other you have your dignity only if you consider the dignity of the other not it's possible I have the dignity individual dignity because or alone abstract dignity the dignity human dignity is a mirror with the other if I can see the dignity of the other I have dignity if I not can see the the dignity of the other I not have dignity I don't know what is but this leads me immediately to to account the question and so are we losing our dignity because we allow suffering to happen happen for instance you you were are very active in the Mediterranean sea and there we see the suffering and not everyone is reacting to it or are we on purpose not seeing these images in order not to lose our dignity look I don't know if you want to yeah yeah you you go you go right okay no you made it the Iranian I mean I always bow to your expertise of that I think dignity works a little bit like solidarity in the sense that as Luca was saying it is empowered through this reciprocal relation when I act in solidarity with someone take for instance solidarity within what used to be called the workers movement I work and I act in solidarity with a work with a fellow work I support their struggle the same for I think the vast majority of struggles today that solidarity towards the other comes back as solidarity in fact towards myself because by engaging in an act of solidarity I construct a collective power a collecting energy that transforms the world in a way that improves my own condition as an immediate result so there is this strange interaction of altruism and egoism in the concept of solidarity whereby by leaning towards the other you're actually improving your own existential economic social condition in this sense solidarity works a little bit like love I think those who have children understand very well the pleasure the happiness that one takes by seeing one's children happy and that is at the same time an act of giving happiness to one's own children and receiving happiness by the by the happiness that one gives and this reciprocity of solidarity of love I think it's also and precisely the reciprocity of dignity and when we turn away as you were saying from all that is happening in the military and see when we turn away from suffering when we turn away from exploitation what dies is not only that which we turn away from but is a part of us and turning away is turning away from something that is brought in and decaying within our own very self so it is not just a moral imperative not to turn away it is also an egoistical imperative because that turning away is a turning away from our own internal decay so for egoistical reasons we should turn towards the others especially if we have if we take into consideration how the europeans or the citizens of the european european union would like to describe themselves so then it's even yeah luka go ahead yes no i think a pandemic is a good experiment for no very well this process of dignity for example and the words say lorenzo now because pandemic and virus epidemic situation demonstrating that is impossible safe alone in the world because it's a pandemic is global question and also i think racism is a global question not is a local question or particular question in our our ship in one moment in the last mission we have a panel and right in the ship in the middle of the mediterranean sea black life matter and we are connected with san francisco with los angeles with the seattle with the movement in the united states we don't speak with the movement of the united states we are inside we have inside this movement in our action in what we see on the sea because we think it is a global question and this this problem and then make a result of all no economic situation of the of the person in the world is the problem not only the specific situation in one town in italy or in one peripheral situation and in this way we can we can have a universal vision of dignity is a movement dignity not is a article of the human rights declaration dignity is a movement is a have life like movement is a composed by relationship by experiment by by um crash by successful uh situation dignity is life not only a declaration in the of the 48th of the last century or other declaration if if if dignity is only declaration is that dignity is action product i'm glad that you're bringing up the combination of different struggles on you as an activist in the mediterranean sea and the panel with black lives matter perhaps lorenzo this first to you and in in french there's this notion of convergence so convergence of struggles um which which is not that common at least here in germany at least i think that the and perhaps a question to both of you how do you see the potential and how can we achieve this convergence of struggles bringing activists with different practices strategies and aims together yes and of course it's very fashionable to me today to always throw in intersectionality and so on and so forth i think it's it's it's something quite old actually if you look at the way the Gramsci speaks about women's empowerment for example it's quite clear since the 1920s why the struggle for the emancipation of women is deeply connected to the struggle for emancipation of workers against last effect capitalism and fascism and that is in fact how revolutions are made we know very well that max never predicted a revolution to happen in russia because it was meant to be a dominant proletariat that should have driven forward the next stage of economic development not an impoverished peasantry in a country that was a very incipent industrialization and what the belsheviks achieved is a convergence the loot they managed to bring the farmers the agricultural world Mao Zedong did something similar within a revolutionary movement within a revolutionary inclination so this idea of convergence is absolutely at the heart of all systemic transformations in history and i think there is something dangerous are the fact that we even have to build a theory about it because it's to some extent a kind of neoliberalization of struggle where i can struggle for my own individual empowerment as if it were a separate compartment from the struggle of somebody else and we go back to this idea of dignity and solidarity as being a reciprocal approach a two-way movement so i think today absolutely that the key and the people who were working on this much more than i am is to tie in not only the the the the the logic of the the the climate movement fratis for future the anti-racist movement so on and so forth but to also tie in ways of organizing and mobilizing and this is why it's very important the flag that mediterranean has put on their boat black lives matter because it is not just a question of theoretical convergence it is actually a question of bringing together movements that can build the kind of momentum the kind of force the kind of pressure that is able to reignite a systemic transformation in our societies need something that is very much large-scale to fight against what is 20 years now political stagnation in our continent and it's only going to be achieved by this kind this kind of convergence i think this is the terrain actually where theoretical and political investment needs to be applied today i apologize for my bad english i have a little dignity my english but okay you you can help me okay i i try to make a new a new vision of convergence convergence is the problem because we have power when we are all together we have big power is obvious this but convergence not is i think in the past we are we try to have a system of convergence between movements different movements and so and not is a so easy one and is the past i think we are now inside a new world for example communication is a platform when we are together all together all the world is connected by communication all the exploitation is is have a governance by communication our work our exploitation our of all in in every part of world in india in this movement in this moment there is a big movement of farmers and and workers of the land a big big big movement miamar there is a movement against the against the dictator pushy and so there is many many action many moments and i imagine that this human movement is a network and the problem the communication is the kind of for the way for have one organization of convergence and we must work very well in the communication narrative situation about our action and action is the moment of attraction attention for the other and this problem and what is this problem that we for speak with the other for every relationship with the other with the other we can speak from our actions not from from our words and our words can have weight in the network and can have can exercise attraction for for the other if our action is is strong no is intelligent or is is strange or the other and in this way we have convergence is temporary convergence limited convergence but we are together we we have this perception there isn't a our x we are now together but we recognize the other in the network we in this in this way with action we when we start mediterranean we say our words against salvini against racism against the closer the against the this humanity of the deads on on the mediterranean our words our denouce our indignation by social notice is is like a empty words we need action for speak for example this is the way for create convergence i think and for recognize the other no and and the other recognize you once upon sorry just to look at it once upon a time in the sense it was easier and i was mentioning Gramsci but when you had a strong ideology so marxism would provide a strong glue and there are very interesting debates within feminist organizing as to what extent marxist theory and a structural economic understanding of exploitation through gender discrimination can be applied and to what extent it's an insufficient lens to look instead at something that is particular and not merely reusable to marxist analysis but nonetheless there was some element of holistic overarching ideological glue that could help weave together those those struggles and those energies and that kind of ideology of course in today's world is no longer present which is not necessarily a bad thing but i think it is our generational task to imagine what kind of glue can be resuscitated in order to bring those struggles together maybe in a way that is even more structural than what Luca said which i think is absolutely necessary and still absent today to a to a large part but this question of post ideology for me is very much connected to this question i'm sure we will return to that and also there will perhaps even the concepts we're talking about today like dignity and also we will talk later about the new gospel perhaps the resources for such a glue come from somewhere completely different as we might imagine perhaps it's not a hyper theory but something very fundamental i think Yvon is now connected to us and i hope he can hear us i would like to shortly introduce him to our audience Yvon Sanie is an activist in 2011 he became the spokesman for the farm worker strike at the boncoury farm in nardo he worked as a trade unionist for the agricultural workers union and is one of the founders of the international anti-corporal ralato association no cap in 2017 Yvon Sanie was awarded the italian medal of merit cavaliera del ordine al merito della republica by italian president sergio matarella in milo gaos the new gospel and we will for sure talk about this as well Yvon performs as himself and as jesus christ and i would like to welcome you Yvon and i hope you can hear and see us hello and thank you very much i can hear you all right and i'd like to take the opportunity to apologize to the audience because in italy in particular south it is not easy to travel around at the moment so i'd like to ask you to accept my apologies to the organizers but perhaps you want to share what you were doing because it's very much connected to your work of activism yes that's right so i travel to east and sicily because i was supposed to meet farmers there in the next few days workers and farmers on the ground so and we are involved in a strud struggle for a more equitable a fairer agriculture we will for sure return to this to your work late in the conversation but i would like perhaps to start with the same question that we started together here in this round and perhaps i start uh i rephrase the question this time again but with taking one quote uh milo said when describing the school of resistance i quote somehow it has happened that despite our intelligence and a capacity for love we live in a system of exploitation that will amount to destruction of the planet in the very foreseeable future and although we know this we do nothing about it and i would like to ask you even what is your observation what in your what is your indignation that gives you the energy to work as an activist or to make which makes it necessary to continue your struggle well of course it all depends on each and everybody's culture so culture is highly important education and instructions we've all received so we've all got our own particular visions and it all depends and hinges on education that we benefited from and this is quite fundamental and material for us as we're now adults supposed to educate and train our little sisters little brothers younger people so as to achieve a certain vision of the world and in order to convey also a certain world vision vision based on social justice based on respect of law of the constitution also geared towards loving one another charity and my vocation is also a religious catholic one as well and whenever i encounter injustice well i act with these values which with which i have grown up and whenever i'm faced with injustice and this is what i've experienced also here in italy this is what pushes me forward this is what inspires me to struggle and this is my heritage that i've grown up with and it is very strong it is rooted in my own personality and for me it's a marxist vision that this has given rise to it's also a christian spirit that i'm inspired by and this is what in a nutshell motivates me to do whatever i'm doing today and my everyday business is based on all of this this is some sort of a heritage that older people and before me doma sankara marx nelson mandela also inspired me with perhaps we we start um to looking what you are doing um and perhaps i have to to rephrase in a different way this the the context in which we are talking right now is a school of resistance so let me ask you what is your understanding of resistance what are your strategies your methods your practices perhaps luka you want to start also with regards to your work in civilian rescue at sea we start with this action we define this action and non not governmental action NGO in this in this sense and we start because we move by the first by indignation because there is a in the october in the 2018 the the maximum level of pushback politics of from italy and european union against migrants brothers and sisters that try to escape to the concentration camps to from from the torture from the violence through the mediterranean and they try the institution try to build a border on the sea and this is very interesting process because construction of border is one of the one of the way for don't recognize the dignity of the persons and in this in this sense you know the the discourse that i i say before the mirror they don't want mirror want wall wall you not can see the person you not can have the perception you not can have uh obvious denouce you you not can have a valuation you don't see anything is the modern way for the war no is the game is like a game the migrants person that walk for many many months in the volcanic route and try to cross the border for for safety and call this action game is the game is like a game against the person and the the result of this horrible game is deaths thousand thousand deaths and this deaths is like my son not is like a strange people no no it's like my son my brother my sister is uh like me i i live in sicily i live uh uh two thousand and fifty kilometers from the detention camp in libya not leave one million of kilometers to from from the this horrible situation this situation is paid by the italy by european union and try to uh building a border on the sea this situation uh have a contradiction because there is uh international water there is international law for the obligation to search and rescue person on the sea this is international law against the refoulement uh massive pushback uh from the from from the state and they try to change this this low international law and we try to resist but in this action of resistance with a ship with action on the sea we we we go uh we don't wait that the people like in roulette russa the people safe coming no we go uh in this direction and we won't help these people to escape from libya is like Auschwitz i think in the in the other history not is the same no i don't want these comparisons yeah yes but i think for us is very important to have in mind that european union built the the the the possibility of a european union is linked to this horrible horrible horrible situation like holocaust or like Auschwitz birkenow and so and i think if we live in that period we try to help the the person that they escaped that try to escape from the camp and is the same for me now on the sea we go with the ship we don't have money we don't have anything but we have this uh in indignation we we move from this and search search link with the friends with all and uh pay the ship with the borough uh by etic bank uh with the project and go uh on the sea in the moment the uh in the the maximum moment of these politics uh from salvini and other uh uh right-wing parties action against against our brothers and sisters and this this is very important because uh we we know now uh two years of activities on the sea we know many persons we know many activists we all over the europe for this and we have now a network of NGO with eight ships rescue and ship rescue search and rescue ships and free uh plane for monitoring and one uh electronic control room and we we self organize the system for help brothers and sisters and resist but this is also project not is only resistance is also a new uh vision of mediterranean this is very important i also understand that you can see resistance is something to restore dignity and i mean that's also why i briefly interrupted you i think this historic references are problematic but uh what you made clear is that we live in a european union which defines itself more by what it excludes by what it makes makes invisible then by what it makes visible in order also to to have this reciprocal relationship of of dignity and of solidarity and this is problematic this this happened the same also in the in the uh campaign in the land of fogey of ccd for the workers and even uh fight for this because the invisibility is the the first no for not don't recognize dignity because is not person not human person is only numbers yeah we will turn in in in short to evan but first lorenzo perhaps to you what is your perspective on on the world or the concept resistance and also what are the strategies of a philosopher and a writer regarding resistance firstly let me say that i think the the work of mediterranean the other search and rescue missions is one of the most inspiring political developments of the recent years i think we've all been part of several movements of protest actions of solidarity actions but i think what we're witnessing uh in since a couple of years in the mediterranean the self-organization that luka was just mentioning is uh not only a great source of inspiration but also a great source of good and too often when you work in activism and even more so if you work in theory there is a kind of sense of helplessness and detachment from what you're talking about or what you're protesting about to actually your inability to do anything to limit or reduce the suffering that you are addressing and mediterranean managed to make the jump between merely advocating or protesting to actually even at small scale reducing the gross amount of suffering that we're witnessing literally a few miles from the frontiers of the european union i think this is absolutely a best practice that if we found ways of replicating in other sectors of of political organization would be actually quite a powerful innovation it's something incidentally that the many groups in the past have done including groups that one may not necessarily like where support for the local terrain for local communities was part and parcel of a political demand whether that demand was correct or wrong it goes from Hezbollah to mafia actually this idea of actually helping in reality and not merely in a in a docu then briefly i think it's not so interesting now to philosophize too much but i think but what i believe is that there is a risk of falling into a kind of literally tragic moment where the prophecy of a calming and looming catastrophe the line that you read from Milo Dao just a while ago becomes an inevitable self-fulfilling prophecy towards which we are unable to offer any resistance of sorts and we are in the in the role of a tragic hero tries and moves and organizes and mobilizes and yet you always get the next dragon you always get the next round of slightly more decayed normality until at some point something cracks and the prophecy of the catastrophe is realized i think trying to understand how one moves away from this tragic inevitability is part and parcel of what theory should be applied to today and from my part it's got to do with the limits and i think the terminal decline of the national dimension as the dimension within which politics is organized and conducted i think for as long as we politically organize we politically fight we struggle we develop policies within a national level there is always going to be a disconnect a tragic impotence of actually applying any agency which means any human contribution to a systemic transformation of this world marching towards a looming catastrophe so constructing transnational forms of organizing transnational political forms whether that is at the institutional level at the level of cooperation that the red sea and the the search and rescue missions that luka was discussing represent very well whether that is connecting migrant workers in Tunisia and Sicily to fight against capitalato and exploitation those connections i think are what will define our capacity to stop the prophecy of tiresias from actually materializing thank you for that perspective then i would like to turn to yvonne and perhaps you want to to share also what are your practices what is your form of of living forms of resistance and perhaps you also want to go into the functioning of the no cap association and the work you're doing there well i come from a country and a continent that suffered a lot so we experienced colonialism imperialism our people just like most of people have experienced witnessed suffering but also resistance as basic values as a basic value and this is what pushes me forward in order to do what i'm doing right now just as i told you before no cap well when i first arrived in italy i've all of a sudden realized how unfair the situation was how much people were exploited workers lived in unfair conditions high level of injustice marginalization in society workers working in a position to big corporations but living off starvation wages meager wages so this is what i recognized straight away this injustice in the country and then i did the maths which was quite straightforward her thing to do and i just had to revive this culture and this value that i've had in myself that was inherent to myself i organized a strike in order to protest against this situation but then i am a trained engineer as well at the churin polytechnical university and there i also got to know about struggles what form struggles can take and i realized that we have to move on from protest to proposals so moving on from just complaining about things denouncing things protesting towards something more concrete specific walking the talk taking action of course it is quite straightforward and justified to condemn things but we have to come up with alternative solutions in order to make for a better world it's not just about telling beautiful stories but you would have to put those things into practice into reality and this is what i started out doing basing myself on the experience that i witnessed myself and being also an activist for agricultural workers myself so i realized that today those that are responsible for workers exploitation are not just kapparali and farmers but of course farmers and kapparali also represent a bigger cause the economic system as a whole the ultra capitalist system that is which has only got one vocation which is the law of maximizing profits and today we're faced with these huge multinational corporations that are active and that actually rule agriculture in the world today so land is managed by just a handful of persons today multinational companies in that instance 10 percent of multinationals today manage almost 80 percent of the land of the agricultural land in the world so what we find in big supermarkets where we are used to buying our food is just provided and produced by those companies and i told myself well it's no use to just struggle and fight against the kapparali and the farmers themselves which are at the lowest level but you would have to move up and fight against the system as such and this is what i get my fight towards against these big multinational companies and supermarkets that dictate and impose their rules that dictate prices for produce and that's those people that decide about the price about the value and what a tomato is worth for instance or a kilogram of tangerines it's those that it's those persons who dictate their perverted system that they created for themselves because their law suggests actually or according to our law we would suggest that the producers from sicily from colabrio from africa or from south america producing cocoa coffee and tomato so our logic would read that these producers should be able to decide about their prices themselves but we are now faced with a system in which it's not those people who decide but it's also purchases that decides so the system as such is perverted and illogical and so we decided and i decided to make a difference to change that situation with no cap so what did we do we decided to talk to the population on the ground and to the consumers also in this instance because consumers have the power to impose their own rules because if there is no such thing as an awareness on the part of the citizens and consumers i mean there are 80 million persons in italy having to eat and drink every day and going to the supermarkets shopping for things and if they don't raise questions if they don't ask themselves about to where the tomatoes that they're buying come from and how they're produced and how they were actually grown if there is no such thing as a collective awareness on the part of the citizens and consumers the ultra liberalist system imposed by multinationals and big supermarkets will keep on exploiting persons be it farmers be it workers so this is how we keep up our struggle and we're focused on the entire agri-food chain it's from a disease so i'm starting from of course workers rights this is my foundation a labor code which helps us to build a fairer system but what's happening today in the market economy it's that the market dictates rights and legislation determining the value of services and products and what we do is to impose new rights to we want to push for a minimum wage minimum threshold that you cannot not actually undercut so that people can make a decent living because if you sell products at a cheaper price it will mean that workers cannot actually live off their wages so we take positions we take a stance and we go and see purchasers consumers buyers and tell people well see products have to come at a certain price because that would be decent for farmers and workers it would actually promote fair and equitable farming so this is the technical part we also introduced a brand that would help consumers and buyers to find orientation and to identify products and make a difference between products derived from an abusive system and from a fair system so this helps to raise awareness not only a philosophical awareness but also material awareness because we've issued our own products release their own products with our brand sign with our label and this helps us to have a more participatory movement and to identify fair products thank you for giving us this insight and also for the audience you find information with if you search no cap association you will find more information on this and particularly for the german speaking audience today if you go on the web page you will find also further information on how to support the no cap association Yvonne was mentioning the the personal responsibility we have as consumers but also in different structural elements of how in which context we are moving and that the branding would be probably something in between mediating Lorenzo perhaps to you what is the relation between individual responsibility and the necessity to actually organize forms of solidarity how can we navigate these two polls yes I don't give a fuck whether you recycle or not as long as you join the revolution is tendentially my attitude but I think what Yvonne was saying is very important because it's actually the way that capitalism has sold mass impoverishment and is sustaining itself vis-a-vis mass impoverishment it's a kind of compensatory capitalism where the compensation is tied to a system of slavery this is not just something happens in the agricultural field but think what happens in the fashion industry we have generations of precarious workers who are denied the stability that would enable them to set up a family to know what is happening in their middle age and in their old age who especially in the south of Europe face a future where even the right to a pension is being put in doubt but they're able to go and engage in very high-class compulsive shopping because we can sell for three euros for five euros shirts and garments other lights of zada h&m so on and so forth which are made precisely with the same my slavery conditions that Yvonne was mentioning in the case of agriculture but in the case of garment production especially in East Asia and we have a system whereby this compensation serves to keep the pretence that capitalism is working for a majority because you are some vestiges of what used to be a bourgeois lifestyle you can buy clothes you can buy tangerines you can buy even strawberries out of season and yet perhaps you're paid a mini job salary your your work is precarious your pension is denied so there is I think a very close connection between what Yvonne was mentioning and the way that capitalism sells itself today at a moment when it's not delivering for a for a majority and I think precisely to conclude what Yvonne was saying is the heart of the matter it's important to shape one's own behavior in accordance with the fight that one is leaving that is not something so important to actually drive change in my mind but it's very important for credibility so it must be done in order to be credible with what you say and what to do but it's not going to be an organization of consumers which is too easily too easily manipulated into the kind of bioeconomy that especially in Germany is thriving that is going to lead change change requires political fights it requires conflict and it requires the capacity to attack the structural dimensions of production precisely in the way that Yvonne was mentioning and we need to be able to say things that are unpopular like some goods should cost more you should not be able to pay three euros for a shirt and then if the counterargument goes ah yes but then poor people will be worse off that is precisely the contradiction that one needs to break yes that is the case but that is why we need free and universal transport systems for example so the demand that one saves on transport one can use to pay a fair a fair cost for mandarins so that the workers can be paid themselves a fair salary so it's this this this connection of an unjust system used to pacify social conflict and to keep the pretence of a functioning capitalism that we need to be able to untangle changing our behavior is key for our credibility to be credible actors of a structural revolution not merely enlightened consumers we're very happy to showcase their view of products in Tesla with that no I mean it's it's great how you're pointing out also that that we as dormant consumers are part of an economy of suffering and most of consumers are themselves and not gaining from from this from this mechanism but they just have been compensated and I also think it's particularly important that you're pointing out how perhaps things a bit different north of the Alps because I also feel that this question of personal personal responsibility as a consumer combines ecological thinking on the other one hand and moralizing questions on the other and moralizing this question of how you consume also inhibits an actual political fight or discussion or questions of structural change so this is probably a discussion we would need much much more especially here and and you're pointing prenslauer berg which is close from where we are right now and I would like perhaps to to switch to to a different part of our conversation even before before you joined we were already talking about this and the next question would go to Luca and because we started to talk about dignity and we mentioned the new gospel and and I would like to ask you Luca what you see in this in this reference which was so important for for the work which we will show this afternoon the movie the new gospel what form what what notions what forms of inspiration perhaps also regarding to the concept of dignity we already talked about do you see in this in this text how does it speak to us I I think we have is linked with the last question the last time also this because I think we have a big problem of narrative of our history narrative narration or narrative not is only one there is a narrative of the winner narrative of the multinational narrative of the invasion of the migrants that's okay push the public opinion to sustain for example the close borders political action or other inhuman condition and I say in the new gospel and one thing very important one way another way for right together a new narrative about our action our action of resistance our our project our desires our dreams and this this way is very interesting because it's way to the future but linked with the old past is a narrative of one movement human movement that is complementary to the capitalistic movement liberally liberalism movement and power and so and I think is very interesting for us and have this narrative also about the spiritual part of our movement not only material part the material is the condition material is the action material is the consequence of our action for example for us on the sea we go and material is the life that we save to the dead is an incredible action for me is the the biggest for my imagination no for my happiness but there is another part a spiritual part is very important that in this world that is a digital world we we we have also a part that speak about our the quality of our relationship of our reasons I think that if I think that these persons that woman men and children that coming from Libya is my brothers my sisters my not is a slogan is a particular vision of relationship between human persons and is a particular vision also for the planet because climate change movement anti-climate change movement speak about also Pope Francis speak about the planet the life of the planet mother earth this this problem for the left in part in particular is like Erezia is like heretic when we speak about a spiritual situation but we don't we I think in this in this time in this época we not have a fried about spiritual problem we move for something that we are we have inside don't all is rationality there is a part depends this part of our vision of the world not is rationality we we know that if we stay together in solidarity and in love is better that we stay without love without respect this point is very fundamental point because materialistic vision not is in contradiction with the spiritual spiritual vision also and I say the I I look this in gospel process and new gospel process and and for example in Palermo in Palermo events I have a big impression of this courage for say this I have big impressions who look even like Jesus is very good because we we must have a link with the history we fight not with we we are not alone we are we are not the first we are not the last then also to you even what does this this text the new gospel but also the project in which you participated mean for you as an activist well of course Miller row has always managed to find an original way of approaching this complex issue at hand and there are so many persons that associated this title chosen by Miller row as some sort of provocation the new gospel so as if they had been to Gospels this is how they perceived this title but I always kept telling people that the Bible is not just the only reference for Christians the Bible today well we can say that it is also the biggest instrument for lay persons today because if you look at what is going on in society even things that lay persons experience go back to what the Bible says Miller row is also a person interpreting the Bible more than also self-declared Christians it is it for me it means more and goes beyond just going to the mass Salvini often instrumentalized religion and being a Christian for me is of course practicing what is written in the holy scripture because the message that is enshrined in the Bible is a universal message and it can be reproduced and reiterated everywhere going beyond cultures going beyond religions and going beyond all of our origins so as I told you from the outset it is not just about what people pretend to be as self-declared Christians but it has to go back to what is written in the Bible and I believe now what is still topical 2000 years on and I think even today Jesus Christ would be close to the poor to the impoverished to the suffering as people who suffer to migrants to it he would be close to those being exploited and he would be also next to Italians Africans also in the midst of people Jesus would be on the sides of the poor and not with which people just like it says in the Bible the poor people are the ones that arrive in paradise first not the rich persons and Milo Rao found this original way of approaching things and to convey this message to everyone in the world if it's the world of believers or non-believers he said that film this film film just states that those that believe in something those that have the faith should not push back others should actually not turn their backs on others just like Pope Francis says we have to be against racism against barbarism etc so he intentionally addressed the Christians of today and wanted to also turn to the non-christians to tell them well Jesus Christ was there he was followed by the disciples and even if you don't believe in him he was one of you he was one of us and I'm telling it to you trade unionists for instance he was also an activist like you he fought for people's rights he joined in the struggle he initiated the struggle against the rich people of the time and he stood up for the rights of impoverished people he was an activist a trade unionist a militant person as well as you could translate this concept to today's world and Jesus was all of that embodied all of that and the new gospel links up the religious world with the non-religious world and this is the originality of Miller out being inspired by what we're witnessing today the problems we grapple with with what happened in the past hearing all that Lorenzo and referring to the things that both Yvon and Lucas said and before we were talking about the glue to bring people together to mobilize together what do you think could this be an intellectual source for creating this glue or what are the intellectual sources a theorist would be working with allow me to play the atheist in this in this group I have a view of the pope that is similar to the view that I have of Mario Draghi to some extent I think Mario Draghi's government today is unfortunately the best option for the country at the moment given that the alternative is a fascist government in two months time and that is precisely the tragedy the pope this pope is possibly with the exception of reproductive and gender questions the only truly left-wing international leader in the world and that is also the tragedy to be honest with you because I would like this to be a secular dimension I would like to see many secular leaders at the stature of Pope Francis and not have to go to the church which I think is an outdated institution to find this kind of progressive spirit but as we were saying before we live in tragic times and so there we go tragedy is all that we have to to work with but when it comes to the new gospel of course I'm joking just in part when it comes to the new gospel and I think of course there is it's very hard let me say that firstly it's very hard and I think it was really slightly crazy of Milo Rau to try and do a film on migration because it's really hard to make works of art that deal with migration today that not not only because there is a bit of an overdose of them but because when one gets so close to touching human suffering for something that is immediately ratified and enters a market enters a star system it's very easy to end up like Ai Weiwei with that picture of Ai Lan which I think is absolutely the death of art and also the death made of the dignity of an artist um but I think Milo Rau actually and and and and the team and and and all the team of the the institute IPM pulled it through for at least a couple of reasons one it's got to do what with what Ivan was saying uh the Christian mythology is obviously an extraordinarily powerful influence especially in the present of our geographical area so white Europe the white west it's something that we think is our own something that defines our identity and and and to collapse that in a gesture that really explains the kind of global realism that that is also present in other works to collapse that with the question of migration to place Ivan in the figure of Jesus sends a short secret circuit of signals in people's subconscious maybe not the spirit that Luca was mentioning but certainly the the psychic energies of people that triggers a realization that actually what Luca was saying before that they are my brothers and sisters maybe is actually true and maybe it's something that I can begin to see by seeing it enacted in a story in a myth that has shaped my own consciousness as a white christian european and that collapsing of these narratives I think is extraordinarily important and effective uh and the the myth of christ is has always played that role it's it's a myth that's been on the one side taken by the power of the church uh the establishment uh a kind of institutionalization of obedience but on the other it's always been an extraordinarily radical narrative uh from from munstein in germany you know this very well from the the the the the the christian rebellions that merged with a social and economic demand in germany uh in especially in the 1500s on and so forth are extraordinarily powerful so it's important to take this myth and reclaim it in the way that the new gospel does this is partly of what I would call a mythopoetic act of really working within and working through a myth in a way that reshapes it and hence transforms our understanding of our own position our own being in the world to quote another german um the the final thing to say though is that I think the new gospel goes farther than that it's not just rewriting uh a myth or playing this tag of war or pulling jesus towards the good guys uh and not not towards the other side but it's actively it's something I think is very important and it's very innovative it's actively transforming reality by engaging with it and so the fact that um the the film works with people who actually work in the camps and in the fields uh the fact that through an engagement in the film those who take part those who start in the film take part in a process almost of political subjectivization there are the film reinforces the political protagonism of really existing struggles and movements on the ground to the extent that for example a house is built as a result of the mess that the film has caused in matera and the connections that the film has enabled in matera this transforming of reality through the shooting of a film is I think extraordinarily innovative goes a bit in the direction that we were discussing with uh regarding mediterrania before of actually changing things as you describe them as you look at them as you theorize them and it's for me an actually novel uh artistic form of expression which in a previous joke with milo I called hegelium because somehow reality is transformed by its description what happens at the end of the process of shooting the movie transforms the symbolism and the significance of the movie itself exposed so I think this is uh uh truly interesting and I thought it was going to be a failure and I was I was happy to be proved wrong that it's still possible to do very interesting works dealing directly with the question of migration I'm happy to know that I was not in a way doesn't take much we will turn to to the questions of of of ours at the very end of our conversation and but I would like now to take the opportunity also referring to a question that came from the audience and perhaps Luca you want to be the first answering to it is the question of the audience was regarding indifference so I'm rephrasing it is how can we break the indifference surrounding us how can we break also the bubble we move in the people that are watching us now is probably grouped in some way is is defined and also somehow closed how can we confront others with with your work with your experiences and how can we raise awareness or or invite them to join our fights is a big big problem this because the power don't make a simple action for influence the public opinion but building the public opinion above through the shock strategic point no and the power not limit to produce the public opinion directly but produce also the your imagine our imagine and I think we must broke this imagine with the two two way one is a concrete action we we we not can is in all all the all the the situation and philosophic and political debate situation or action on on on camp on on the sea on the land and the concrete action with project because action not is a sporadic action like demonstration and so is a way of life a way of life is our life this is the point the fight of Ivan and the other comrade in in Sicily or in Puglia or in other with the knock-up process not is a episodic situation is a way of life is a project of life no and this is the point also the the situation in the Mediterranean is a way of life for us because for many many of us is all the time now is there there are many activists that's work about this and I think this is a first point we don't afraid if is a concrete action in the start this concrete action probably is minority minority action close action and so the other the other problem is language we can we must use all the language artistic language poetic language and spiritual language we must use all because for broke this situation of closing and club and description by the power about us about our problem and I I think this is two way it is good and the other is exchange with the old experience we must force our tendencies to stay at our home in our action point and we must force this with the change experience with now is very difficult with the pandemic but the with the meeting for example physical meeting and we we discover the the revolutionary property of friendly situation for example no and different situation I think is very good if even coming in marionio and in Mediterranean for visit and speak about the experience of knock up and the Mediterranean go in the knock up situation and speak with the other person about our experience and so also is very good this experience of today for example I think this is the way but not afraid because it's a way of life we are we we are minority but that have vision majority this is the point we think to the world for the world the other is majority but think only in their garden and don't not can have a vision of the world the garden or their personal interests of very particular interest or the garden or the suite of the big hotel and big Trump palace and blah blah blah then also to evolve this question of how can we break the indifference the blindness of others and how can we ourselves in our work increase the people we reach well I believe that indifference today is one of the major results brought about by the system we have at the moment by the reigning system so power structures that has filled us with indifference and this is something also enshrined in our communication habits that fed and nourished our indifference also economic powers have oriented our actions and our beliefs our feelings so I believe that if you want to fight against indifference today you would have to work towards acting on two levers we need to focus on communication more on the one hand we need to educate people raise awareness and on the other hand we would have to try and change the economic system that we are faced with today when it comes to the economy for instance when you have a student for instance sometimes students listen to speeches a speech that I held on modern slavery in Italy and this student came up to me after that I gave that talk and said that she now had more awareness about those facts and she that this inspired her to join in that fight and to spread out the word and to reach out to other people and she asked me whether I could give her a hand and fight against exploitation and when she asked me that she also asked me well how are we able to find a product where we can be sure that there is no such thing as exploitation behind it in the production and I told her well it's quite a hard thing to do and she wanted to know how can I go to Lidl and find out how products are produced but what happened afterwards is that the student that I'm talking about one week after came back to a supermarket thinking about what she bought but the thing is how can we avoid her to become indifferent again at some point in the future we would have to change the economic system towards greater justice towards better values to combat indifference on the part of individuals so this is to say if we don't manage to make for greater sustainability economic ecological sustainability it will be difficult we've made a lot of mistakes and now we fight against injustice we fight in favor of persons and their social rights their civil rights this is the first thing we can do without changing the entire system if you ask a left oriented person what type of an economic system he or she would want to have they are going to give you all sorts of different answers but this is one thing but on the other hand maybe this would be too abstract for people to truly understand it's not specific and concrete enough so the fact of having a fair economy an equitable economy based on environmental sustainability based on redistribution of the riches based on decent working conditions leads to a situation where people can change the way they look at their society and on the other hand you need to choose the right way of communicating to people Silvio Berlusconi achieved his power in society thanks to his controlling part of the communication in our country and he changed the mindsets of parts of youngsters of parts of one generation in Italy that became a lot more indifferent towards a number of problems I mean there are so many people dying in the sea today which has become quite a normal thing for some people that it's become normal for them to watch others suffer because they've gotten used to this new consumerism model by way of this communication type following one program but so we should pinpoint communication in a different way today but this unfortunately is not a priority in our system in in our world today and what I would like to add is that I fully second what Luca said we have to join forces today we have to pull our strengths we have to be perseverant in our fight we have to keep up the fight and I did so when I was a little and when I arrived in Italy as well and I worked also in the section of the Communist Party people got rallied people joined forces they worked together in communities and reached out to others that were maybe not necessarily the biggest intellectuals but they were able to exchange and to join forces think about the system and those people have managed to be inspired by those values and this is what has also become a part of what we do now a generation today some of us have parents who did not go to school who were not educated who didn't follow and have a higher education they could not participate in debates and exchanges of that sort but still this is what we can do now but this is what we lack as well unfortunately and I'd like to conclude by saying that this joint fight is material is essential so the class struggle is something that is still valid today we've got the class of the rich and the wealthy ones and the class of the impoverished and it's about keeping up the fight keeping up the struggle not just taking to the streets but to roll about sleeves and to fight sustainably and this is an element that will lead us towards freeing ourselves and fighting against this indifference that we're faced with today and we took to the streets for two months we organized strikes we organized uprisings in order to fight against the situation Kaka Sarini for instance I mean we need those people who are prepared to take up the fight in order not to fall back into this indifference Luca just mentioned thank you very much and I'm sure that also in the after talk after the screening of the new hospital we will have today and you will continue commenting on these things and something that happens all this week in the school of resistance is that time is too short for really having the conversations at the length we would desire to have and the good thing is that the school of resistance is a hyper mobile tiny object which can travel around pop up enable decentralized conversations land something at a specific social terrain we have heard how important this is as a practice but then also be mobile again for reconnecting somewhere else and I hope very much that we can continue the conversation that we are having right now at some different point also something I wanted to share because I'm so deeply impressed with everyone that I'm talking about and with this week is the like the personal commitment biographic commitment everyone is giving there is one quote I had prepared for today from the Acton philosopher Medi Kasem who says modern heroism heroism means either standing up by your own example you are out to biography or shutting up and all of you are not shutting up but you are standing up with your own biography and and that impresses me a lot and it's now time for me to announce how the audience can watch the new gospel perhaps you have heard it is only available in germany in austria and you have to go to the website of the akademik künste or of schau bühne berlin so for instance bv.adk.de and there will you you will find a description of how to to access the movie the same is valid for schau bühne berlin and I can announce that the movie will be released in swiss Belgium and Netherlands in april and also later on in many other places and the months to come and the last thing that remains for me is to thank the audience at home but especially also the three of you. if you want to watch it from outside germany in austria you can use a vpn because after the revolution copyright will be dead so there are ways of moving. I guess that some barriers have been built up I don't know that exactly hope to see you soon hope that we can have conversations like this all together in the same room thank you very much wow thank you thank you sorry for my english no no no so