The pacifists’ call: “Don’t sell those aeroplanes to Israel.”

The over 200 demonstrators who gathered in Venegono, in front of the headquarters of Alenia Aermacchi, were demanding something very simple: “Don’t sell the M346s to Israel.” Their message was shouted, with a long procession around the large factory in Varese Province.

“Ours is a province of death,” the organizers said, “because there’s Agusta in Verghera, NATO in Solbiate, and Aermacchi here; but it all must, and can change.” What the demonstrators were demanding was not only an end to the sale of 30 military airplanes (on paper, they were described as training aircraft that can be armed), but also the “conversion of the war industry”. The demonstrators repeated again and again that “We’re not against the workers, we’re against the death industry,” but at the same time, “This bloodshed can’t be justified solely by the defence of jobs.” And pacifism is not the only motivation of those that marched for many hours under a sky that was threatening rain. “Selling weapons to Israel is doubly wrong,” because, “they’ll be used against the Palestinian people,” as the Gaza Massacre so terrifyingly reminds us. “In Italy, we’ve got a law that forbids selling to countries at war or that don’t respect human rights,” explained Marco Tamborini, a former Aermacchi employee, “and who better than Israel satisfies that definition?”  Marco, who worked for the company his whole life, remembers when “in order to sell weapons to South Africa, which was under embargo, they had to go through Switzerland.” And what is happening today is a reminder of those years, with the only difference that “this time Israel won’t be paying with money, but with other military technology, things we don’t need.”

The procession, which was coloured and livened up by good music, saw children walking with the elderly, former Aermacchi employees and a lot of ordinary people, all united by their wish to express their opposition to the industrial plan of a company of the Finmeccanica Group, so a state-owned company. And among all of the protesters, there was also a very special one, Father Alex Zanotelli.

“It is very important to be here today,” said the Comboni missionary, who is famous for his anti-war campaigns, “given that the European Union won the Nobel Peace Prize yesterday.” He did not hesitate to call this decision “incredible”, and one that clashes with agreements of this kind. He remembered that “in 2011, the construction of military vehicles and the selling of weapons amounted to $1740 billion dollars,” the equivalent of “$3 million per minute.” Father Alex complained not only about the deafening silence of Italy, “which, in one year, spent $26 billion on the military,” but especially that of the Church. "It pains me to see how silent my Church has been,” he explained amid the applause, suggesting once more that “we should say that the nuclear bomb is a sin, and choose either baptism or the army.”

Father Alex, who gave his speech in front of the entrance of an over-protected Aermacchi, then said, “This is nothing to joke about,” we must acknowledge that weapons serve only one purpose, “to defend our privileged place in the world.” And this is why we must “work hard to have a world in which all men are received with equal dignity at the same table.” Before concluding his speech, Father Alex Zanotelli described one of his biggest dreams. “I wish the numerous pacifist groups would join together, just like in the campaign for public water,” to fight against war. And seeing 2000 people in remote Venegono, on this cold day, with the threat of rain, can only be a good omen.