On the 30th of May, the first public assembly after the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic was held in Napoli’s Piazza Plebiscito, gathering social movements, activists, art workers and many others for an afternoon of discussion on grassroots responses to the pandemic and the looming crisis.
According to a recent report by the Polytechnic of Turin, if the current mindset on dealing with the Coronavirus pandemic persists, in the near future Italy might need millions of disposable, single-use breathing masks per month. We all know very well where these masks will go after being used once, and since wearing them might become compulsory at work, in shops, on public transport and even in the streets of our cities, we must learn how to make our own, re-usable masks, unless we want to discharge on Mother Nature the cost of yet another one of our collective delusions.
A group of women from different working backgrounds offers several proposals for a “phase 2” of the Covid-19 emergency that also addresses social needs, and not only productive ones. We need a politics that goes beyond the management of emergencies, and tries to imagine a possible world. By Tristana Dini, Ilaria Durigon, Barbara Buoso and Sara Gandini.
Di Sara Manisera e János Chialá. Mohammed Ghani, 22 anni, non riesce a nascondere la sua preoccupazione. Da oltre due mesi, ha smesso di lavorare come bracciante nella raccolta di agrumi nella piana di Gioia Tauro e il suo ultimo stipendio, in nero, risale a fine febbraio. “Ogni anno a fine stagione mi sposto a Saluzzo ma adesso come faccio?”, racconta in francese, “Non possiamo continuare a vivere in questa situazione, senza acqua, senza cibo, senza lavoro, senza niente”.
On the Repubblica.it news website.