Italy has come to a halt today. Buses are stopped, trains are cancelled, schools closed, hospitals slowed. All in the name of Gaza.
Solidarity with a tormented people is beyond debate: faced with a massacre, silence is not an option. But the point is different: the message sent has reduced the protest to Gaza alone.
A noble, indisputable cause—but one that has overshadowed everything else. Health care, schools, wages, workplace safety — the open wounds of our country — have vanished from the narrative.
And so Italian workers find themselves suffering disruptions for a distant cause, while their everyday pains are met with silence.
Citizens do not forget. They recall the endless waiting lists, emergency rooms overwhelmed, teachers under fire, wages no longer keeping up with prices. They remember Italy sending billions to Ukraine and military spending, while hospital staff and teachers are missing. Yet never do we strike with that same force for these.
The truth is—and it is harsh—that Gaza has served as a symbolic fuse. Powerful, morally untouchable. But if we do not also loudly acknowledge that behind it lies the struggle against war economy, against cuts to services, against precariousness — then what remains is just a flag: noble, yes, but hollow.
It’s a mistake. Because protests cannot live on ethical suggestions alone: they must speak to the tram rider at six in the morning, to the person who can’t make ends meet, to whoever waits months for surgery. Without this connection, the strike becomes a symbolic ritual that weighs only on those who already struggle the most.
International solidarity is right, but it cannot overshadow internal social justice. Today, the opposite happened. And here the question arises, simple and burning:
A country that strikes for Gaza but not for its own internal problems—does that country have a problem? Yes, of identity.
ITALIAN VERSION: https://secolo-trentino.com/2025/09/22/sciopero-generale-per-gaza-ma-non-per-gli-italiani/
