Come to Milan on April 25 for liberation in Europe

Versione italiana – Versión en español – Version française – Deutsche Version

Let’s return to Milan on April 25 — 30 years after the Liberation of 1994, when an enormous demonstration filled up the city under the pouring rain. It was il manifesto who proposed that slightly crazy idea. It was successful, it resonated and it was spread.

The list of supporters grew quickly, and the streets filled up. It was a celebration and a triumph of the people. We could do it again – we could do even better. This time, it could be in the light of the sun. April 25 is not a mere holiday, but a date that puts us in charge of our destiny each year, reminding us that liberation is in our hands.

The neo-fascist threat was serious 30 years ago, when Berlusconi and Fini were in government for the first time; and it is extremely serious today, now that the government under Meloni has moved even further to the right. It is an aggressive and vindictive right, unable to make itself presentable even a year and a half after winning the elections. And it’s only natural that it should be so, because it has its roots in the 20-year fascist period and the nostalgia for it: in the blackest period of the history of Italy, in everything that was defeated on April 25.

The threat concerns not only Italy, but the whole of Europe, which is being pulled more and more each day into a spiral of war.

Everywhere, extreme right-wing or openly neo-fascist parties are putting freedom, equality, rights and peaceful coexistence up for debate. They must be stopped at the ballot box in the European elections, but also with a great popular mobilization that would revive the values of resistance and anti-fascism.

In Milan this year, we want a big demonstration in the streets, bigger than the usual, one that would be able to speak for the whole continent, just like back in 1945, when Italy’s April 25 was the herald of liberation in Europe.

Seventy-nine years after the end of the Nazi-Fascist nightmare, the risk has never been higher that crisis and resignation will favor an overwhelming victory of the extreme right-wing in the European elections.

Let us return to the streets, knowing that what is needed to beat authoritarianism and oppression, racism and police batons, precarity, exploitation and environmental devastation is not invoking the specter of the past; what is needed is to build a better future.

This is what liberation is, first and foremost: the desire for a realized humanity. And that is why it would be nice if we could be together one day, on that day, bringing to Milan our bodies, desires, commitments and hopes for the future of humankind and the planet.

The Resistance fought Nazi-Fascism to liberate Italy, to build a more just and advanced country, with the Constitution and the Republic built on the foundation of labor. And it fought against it to stop the war and erase war from the destiny of Europe and the world.

That is what we must do now once again, against the wars that are already being fought and those that are coming up on the horizon, more and more ominously. Build peace relentlessly against all dark tidings of war, silence the guns in Europe, stop the Russian invasion of Ukraine at the negotiating table, immediately obtain a ceasefire from Israel to stop the Gaza massacre, secure the release of the October 7 hostages, a just peace – all this is part of what April 25 is for.

Let us build it all together, and most importantly, let us fill it together. Let them all come: the NGOs, the parties, the trade unions, the workers and retirees; the movements, the students, the pacifists of Italy and Europe. Come with company or all by yourself, so you will never be alone.

Come to Milan, whether by train, by bus, on foot or by bicycle. Tell us how you would like that day to be, how you imagine it. Let’s build our own Liberation, starting today.

Write to us at sipotrebbe@ilmanifesto.it and tell us how you would like this April 25 to be and what you will do to make the celebration succeed.