Ya Basta - Disobedient

The Ya Basta movement, cosponsor with RTS of PGA, has its origins in the Italian "self-managed social centres" for young people and the socially excluded. Its militants were also heavily involved in the squatters' movement and set up a radio station (Radio Sherwood).

It was formed after Italian militants participated in the first Zapatista Encuentro in Chiapas in 1996. It set itself the dual purpose of supporting the Zapatista struggle and fomenting the struggle against neo-liberalism in Europe. Ya Basta attended the Amsterdam Euromarch in 1998, "squatting" a train, and repeated this tactic in mobilisations from Prague to Nice. Ya Basta has inspired others in Spain, USA, Belgium, Finland and Britain (the WOMBLES) to set up similar groups

In 1998, they set up the tute bianche or white overalls. White was meant to symbolise and challenge the "invisibility" of people on the margins of social life, the unemployed, the homeless, illegal immigrants. Ya Basta! demanded a "universal basic income and better conditions of life for everybody".

Its tactics centred on symbolic confrontations with the police. Their militants wore "armour", made of polystyrene foam and rubber inner-tubes and carried plexiglas shields to ward off police batons. They wore gas masks against teargas and pepper spray and used mobile barriers for pushing through police lines. This equipment is manifestly "for defensive purposes only" and its purpose is to show "who starts the violence" as well ...

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