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Title: Step by Step
Author: Anonymous
Date: Summer 2019
Language: en
Topics: gentrification, Naples, Metamorfosi, The Local Kids, The Local Kids #4
Source: Translated for The Local Kids, Issue 4
Notes: First appeared as Passo dopo passo in Metamorfosi (Edizioni La Miccia, Napoli), May 2016

Anonymous

Step by Step

The process of the socio-urban restructuring of the historical centre of

Naples went through a first phase at the beginning of the 90s. The

objective was and still is to bring the city into the European norms

which envisage the displacement of the most marginal categories of the

population from the historical centres to the periphery in great part

made up of suburban dormitories. The poor, immigrants and marginalized

are an obstacle to the creation of a city on display and attracting

tourists, and thus money, and that becomes the headquarters of

institutions, companies, etc. In short a place emptied of all

pre-existing historical and cultural heritage, a place under huge

surveillance and militarised where capital can proliferate and expand

with the least possible obstacles.

In Naples this transformation is going much slower than in the rest of

Italy and Europe because of the heavy involvement of criminal

organisations in the territory of the city and the massive presence of

that social marginality that lives at the limits, sometimes largely

crossed over, of legality, but its advance seems relentless. The crucial

years during which the advance towards a massive “gentrification” took a

decisive turn were 1993 and 1994.

During the first, Antonio Bassolino was elected the Mayor of Naples,

who, in the middle of the Mani pulite operation [“clean hands” – huge

investigation into corruption at the highest levels of the Italian

society – triggered the implosion of the main political parties],

represented the man of change, who would “step-by-step” give new life to

the so-called “Neapolitan renaissance”. The second was the year of the

notorious G7.

The programme of the Mayor at the time was mainly based on the

revalorisation of the historical centre, with all its adverse

consequences. It was notably possible thanks to funding, spread out here

and there, that the then-government had scheduled for the organising of

the international meeting of the “great 7 of the world”.

The squares would be turned again into ancient marvels free from cars

and street vendors, the historical buildings would be restored, the

public transport reorganised and strengthened and the streets invaded by

all sorts of uniforms for the policing imposed by capital. That year the

pillars were build for the project that would make Naples a destination

for hordes of tourists attracted by the beauty of the place, which, over

the course of years, would radically change the social and cultural

structure of the city.

The objective has been fully reached; today we find ourselves in a

situation where whole buildings are used as Bed&Breakfast at the expense

of those who are looking for accommodations for a decent price, where

small shops are disappearing replaced by supermarkets, bars, pizzerias,

fast-food, pastry and ice-cream shops, restaurants, all these places

where tourists can satisfy one of their primary needs: to stuff

themselves. Where hundreds of cameras control even the most remote spots

of all the neighbourhoods of the city. Where thousands of tourists

“graze” in the city streets preventing the locals of moving around even

on foot. Where the forces of order have increased exponentially,

including a massive presence of soldiers armed to the teeth, posted to

places considered key points. And where public services (transport,

health, etc.) have reached again the nightmare levels of the 70s.

It goes without saying that the rise of rents, the generalised lack of

comfort, the always more restricted and militarised social spaces will

displace a considerable amount of people away from the city centre. It

seems evident that we are living (or maybe it is more correct to say

surviving) in a place that in a troubling way resembles a maximum

security prison, in a sterile and empty place where any social,

non-conforming political expression is impeded and repressed by force.

In this context of progressive transformation the cultural, artistic and

even political associations have been integrated, and have played a

dominant role in almost all Italian cities. They represent a real

vanguard on the issue of regeneration (in a direction that the author of

this text considers authoritarian) of degraded neighbourhoods, of

dilapidated and chiefly central zones. That is, of all those places that

don’t produce a profit and where the established order scarcely takes

root. They start with the micro to arrive at the macro: they open an

alternative bar to which soon dozens are added, they organise tours of

local cultural interest, they invite some sort-of-famous artist to give

a touch of colour to a place otherwise considered shabby, they clean up

some parks, they demand to install some new lampposts and the cards have

been played. Under the pretext of avoiding degradation and abandonment

another part of the city is submitted to the logic of control and

economical exploitation.

It is evident that the realising of this outcome has also and above all

been made possible thanks to a difficult and cumbersome social

pacification that cannot only happen “with the force of arms”. Those in

power have understood that the “social forces”, the “well-meaning soul”

of society have to get involved in the management of public affairs, or

at least pretend to do so, to have free rein in its decisions (with the

criminal system, an agreement under the table will do).

Since more than twenty years, the municipal administrations have put in

a slow-paced but relentless effort in that direction. The keyword is:

recuperation. Not only urban, but above all social.

Every change, obvious or not, of the society in an authoritarian

direction takes place in parallel with the sociocultural transformation

of the citizens who are part of the economical and productive processes.

Where ignorance, religion, misery don’t come about, politics does: the

one with a capital ‘P’. Active citizenship, participative democracy,

bottom-up decision-making are the battle cry that power, self-declared

“enlightened”, uses as lubricant to pass measures that increasingly

limit the space of political action.

The average citizen feels included and principal actor in the

decision-making mechanisms that govern the living together and, for that

reason, become themselves controller and oppressor of all behaviour that

goes beyond the rules that they think they have contributed in setting

out.

Concepts such as conflict, rebellion, radical opposition to power have

been almost totally eliminated or, at least, totally diluted by society.

Erstwhile revolutionaries present themselves today as an integral part

of the political decision-making process. Power is not seen any more as

an enemy, as something we have to defend ourselves from or against which

we should fight. Today it is considered as the privileged interlocutor

for the management of the public things. One doesn’t storm the Winter

Palace any more, now one politely knocks on the door. Collaboration and

supposed active participation are considered as tools of political

struggle, even not in terms of a radical transformation of society, but

in a reformist sense of it. All this without questioning the existence

of the statist political system.

Today one actively undertakes a electoral campaign, one presents oneself

at the elections for the municipality (someone even succeeded [from the

social centre Je so’ pazzo came the electoral list Potere al Popolo!]),

one becomes collaborator of the ruling city councillor and at the same

time one plays the role of firemen in the context of (few actually)

popular struggles.

When one doesn’t manage to reach directly to the vital organs of power,

the strategy of bottom-up organising is implemented. Consultations,

associations, citizens assemblies of so-called liberated zones (meaning

more or less unofficially linked to the current Mayor De Magistris)

grant themselves a leading role and a privileged contact to bring to the

attention of the political class all those entities that believe they

can transform a “fake” democracy into a real democracy, directly in the

hands of the citizens.

To make this concept even more clear, we transmit one part of a pamphlet

distributed in the middle of March on the occasion of a citizen assembly

where it is clearly stated that: “We are in an election period: the

promises are not kept and the words lose their meaning. For that reason,

at a time when many speak about participation, we challenge everyone to

break with this democracy and to build a new one, real and radical,

through real mechanisms of involvement of the inhabitants of the

territories. Not substitute the institution but to overrun it by

participative and collective processes… In June there will be municipal

elections and all these machinations are nothing more than an electoral

campaign in favour of the current Mayor De Magistris who claims the

title of the revolutionary, attentive to social demands of his

underlings. It is not an accident that the last polls show a marked

advantage to his “anachronistic” adversaries.

For miserable political calculations, years of struggles have been sold

out with the purpose of creating some leeway in a comforting

institutional framework. A new political class has emerged made up of

windbag militants, who will give a fresh face to the deformed and

detested one of the current ruling classes. They will be our next

enemies.”

Nothing more to add…