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When they started to talk about the first strike of immigrants, in December, it seemed a pipe dream. Today, however, the protest is on. Twenty-four hours in which not only caregivers but also masons, teachers, nurses, doctors, politicians and journalists, all immigrants, are crossing their arms. A protest born in France, thanks to journalist Nadia Lamarkbi, and then resumed in Italy and in Europe, too.

It will be only the first appointment of an "anti-racist spring" in which all immigrants living in Italy will defend their rights, those that nobody seems to want to recognize. We speak of almost 5 million people who are living in Italy and today won't go working but they will take part in marches and sit-in. It won't be a strike in the technical sense. "There will be a strike only in some cities such as Trento, Trieste and Modena, where the unions have accepted this demand coming from the bottom. - Stefania Ragusa, Chairman of the "1st March, 2010" explains - The big unions at national level have not supported us, and yet nobody has ever thought to call it an ethnic strike".
The protest started by immigrants but wanted to involve all workers who do not feel protected, all those who think to be somehow discriminated or those who simply do not think it is right that their rights are different from those who work and produce but are citizen of another country.
If in some cities, like Naples, Milan and Syracuse, the protest march was held this morning, in others the event will be in the afternoon as in Rome where the protest will start at 5 p.m. in Porta Maggiore and at 6 p.m. there will be speeches and concerts in Piazza Vittorio Veneto. Then, at 6.30 p.m., in every Italian city will be launched into the sky yellow balloons, so that the sky will be yellow, too. Because this color has been chosen to mark the event.
Probably at that time it will be yell the question from which everything just started:"What would happen if four and a half million immigrants living in Italy decide to fold their arms for one day?"

Not only France and Italy will protest, because Spain and Greece will do the same, too. The yellow revolution, which was very popular on the web (with a website and a group on facebook) and it sought support anywhere, it will be only the beginning of the campaign "anti-racist Spring", which will go on until March 21st. Among the upcoming events there will be a general strike on 12th March organized by the CGIL that will ask for the rights of migrant workers.
During the strike Coldiretti has asked for "the timely publication of the flows decree 2010 in the Official Journal, as the delay is likely to damage areas of great importance for italian agricolture."
Without the flow decree for seasonal workers, 80 thousand immigrants might not be able to enter in our country by endangering the crops of our countryside.
Despite what some propaganda would make us believe, the help of migrants is the key for the functioning of our society. And today will be a day to remember it.

If immigrants go on strike

Marianna Lepore

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