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Delivering Community Power CUPW 2022-2023

Squatting the master’s house? Lessons in grassroots resistance from Bologna

An Italian court has set an important precedent for recognizing the political and social value of grassroots resistance

EuropeSocial MovementsSocialism

The self-managed Làbas social centre in the heart of Bologna is one of the most important examples of urban activism and autonomous organizing in Italy. Photo courtesy Il Resto del Carlino.

In an historic victory for grassroots resistance, an Italian court has set a precedent by recognizing moral grounds for defying state violence. On December 12, 2024 a Bologna court ruled that members of Làbas, a self-managed political organizing centre in Italy’s most left-wing city, acted out of “particular social and moral value” when they resisted a violent eviction by militarized police in 2017. Such news is a welcome exception in the context of the Italian government’s crackdown on public protests, austerity measures, and social conservativism under the increasingly emboldened right-wing regime of Giorgia Meloni and Matteo Salvini. This should also serve as a moment of inspiration about the potential for grassroots organizing among the global left.

Italian social centres (centri sociali) are self-managed political spaces that provide services to local communities. They first emerged in the decades following the Second World War, though it was not until the 1980s that they began to take their current form. These centres operate through open democratic structures, with decisions made in weekly public meetings. Membership is defined by participation rather than through formal registration and is open to anyone who gets involved.

Many, though not all, are squatted (occupato) spaces and often focus on specific political projects, such as health care, education, or food security—services that the Italian state has increasingly defunded and withdrawn. With the extreme cuts made in recent years to the Italian welfare state, institutions like social centres have become indispensable resources for community survival throughout the country.

Làbas and Bologna’s municipi sociali

Distinct from many other social centres, Làbas identifies as a municipio sociale, a broader model and novel concept developed to address perceived limitations in traditional social centres, including their tendency to focus on a singular political initiative. In contrast, Làbas’s scope includes multiple interconnected projects, including a public health clinic, an educational study and discussion space (Space Faktory), food provision for those in need, an after-school program for children, and a courtyard frequently used for community events. Làbas defines itself as a “political collective” aiming to dismantle the hegemonic systems of patriarchal, racial, and capitalist domination.

The collective places particular emphasis on supporting migrants and others neglected by, and excluded from, state services, offering free legal aid and Italian language courses. Additionally, Làbas works within a broader political network of local organizations, including other municipi sociali such as TPO (Teatro Polivalente Occupato), which offers similar services to Làbas, and Offside Pescarola, which includes a community kitchen. The network also includes a workers’ rights association and an anti-fascist sports club, among other groups.

Làbas was born in 2012 when a group of activists from TPO occupied the abandoned Caserma Masini military barracks in central Bologna, a site once used to imprison, torture, and murder partisans under the fascist dictatorship of Benito Mussolini. The project emerged as a response to the devastating austerity measures imposed throughout southern Europe in 2010. For five years, Làbas grew as a devoutly non-sectarian communist project within that space and developed deep ties of mutual support with the neighbourhood.

The eviction and relocation of Làbas

However, on August 8, 2017, following the eviction of another Bolognese social centre, Laboratorio Crash, earlier that day, Làbas faced a similar fate. Heavily armed riot police surrounded the occupied barracks, violently dismantling peaceful picket lines set up by the community, injuring protesters, and arresting several defenders. Eight activists were subsequently charged with crimes such as resisting arrest and causing personal injury.

The eviction sparked a massive grassroots campaign to save Làbas, culminating in the #RiapriAMOLàbas demonstration on September 9, 2017, which brought over 15,000 people from across Italy to Bologna. This overwhelming display of public support for Làbas compelled the municipal government to grant Làbas a new location a few blocks from its original site later that year.

The move from a squatted space to one provided by the municipality was not without controversy—the degree to which recognition, acceptance, and formalization of alternative spaces by existing, hegemonic power structures (i.e. the state and capital) remains hotly debated in the world of grassroots organizing globally. From the limitations of electoral politics to the inherently repressive nature of law and its enforcement under the racial capitalist state, we are surrounded by evidence that, in the words of Black feminist Audre Lorde, “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.”

On August 8, 2017, riot police surrounded Làbas, a social centre in the heart of Bologna, violently dismantling peaceful picket lines set up by the community, injuring protesters, and arresting several defenders.

Pragmatic resistance

In the early 1990s, a major rift emerged between social centres that were willing to negotiate with municipal governments to legalize their squats and those committed to opposing any such interactions with state structures. By the turn of the millennium, the majority of social centres had accepted some degree of negotiation with municipal governments to legalize their occupation of these spaces.

However, in the case of Làbas (along with many other social centres), the acceptance and legalization of their space came from a direct, grassroots rebellion against repressive state actions during the eviction. Their move to the new space does not reflect their adoption of the ‘master’s tools,’ but rather the power of massive community mobilization that forced the municipality to accept the collective’s own ‘tools.’

In an interview, an organizer at Làbas explained the collective’s position, stating that they “don’t see the public administration as an enemy” but rather as “an actor in society” (at least at the municipal level), and their capacity to collaborate productively varies contextually. In Bologna, a city that has been governed by the Communist Party (PCI) and its successor (PD) since 1946, with only one brief interlude when an independent mayor was in office (1999-2004), the municipal government is one with which projects like Làbas can more frequently have a meaningful dialogue and effect genuine change.

The move to a legally recognized space has enabled Làbas to expand its initiatives, including establishing an inclusive after-school program for students at the neighbouring primary school and the Laboratorio di Salute Popolare (People’s Health Laboratory). This community health clinic offers nursing care, psychological support, and, since 2022, dental care. Làbas’s collaboration with local authorities has allowed them to operate such initiatives legally, with the necessary licensing to provide proper health care, broadening their community impact.

A new precedent

The December 12 ruling is another example of grassroots organizing having a transformative impact on the ‘master’s house,’ overturning criminal charges against the eight protesters and reducing their sentences, thereby setting an important precedent for recognizing the political and social value of resistance.

Bologna’s Court of Appeal recognized that the activists had acted “for moral reasons” when they defended their occupied space against the eviction. Làbas released a statement on social media on the day of the court decision, noting that the ruling “represents an important recognition of the political and social value of [Làbas], as well as of the action of those who defended it with their own bodies, creating an important jurisprudential precedent.”

This ruling is of particular significance in the wake of recent efforts by the Meloni government to crack down on squatting and other forms of protest. In a recently proposed amendment to the Italian ‘Security Bill,’ those found guilty of illegal occupation could face lengthy prison sentences. Additionally, the punishment for property damage during demonstrations—an easily enforceable law against political opponents—is likely to be increased from one-and-a-half to five years with a fine of up to €15,000, in addition to other measures designed to further empower the police. Activists are already organizing against these new policies throughout Italy.

Following the January 11 clashes between protesters and police in a number of Italian cities over the killing of 19-year-old Ramy Elgaml by police, there are increased concerns among community organizers and activists that the new anti-protest legislation may be introduced sooner and more harshly. In a statement following the protests, Meloni voiced her unequivocal support for increased policing and called on local governments to express their solidarity with the police, a measure most recently rejected by the Reggio Emilia City Council.

Learning from Làbas

The politics of recognition in spaces like social centres is always complicated. On the one hand, acceptance by the state can undermine the radical alterity and independence of such spaces, which seek to transcend existing power structures. On the other, building a positive relationship with the municipal administration, while retaining grassroots community action as the strategy, can enable forms of emancipatory initiatives that require an engagement with formal channels, and set precedents that can enable and promote the expansion of such projects elsewhere in Italy and beyond.

The story of Làbas reminds us that grassroots organizing can thrive even in the face of increasing state repression, and that occasional pragmatism can be a tool—not a compromise—when wielded strategically.

Jonah Durrant Olsen is a PhD candidate in the Department of Geography & Planning at the University of Toronto. His research considers the conditions of possibility for economic alternatives, focusing on the Basque Country and Italy.

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