No Dal Molin: The Antibase Movement in Vicenza

In 2006 the citizens of Vicenza, Italy, discovered that for three years US authorities, the Italian government, and city officials had been negotiating secretly to approve the construction of a new military base on the only large undeveloped area in the northern part of the city and the largest aquifer in northern Italy. Beginning in the adjacent neighborhoods, a mobilization arose against the construction of the military installation. In a few months hundreds of thousands of residents were demonstrating in the city, and various forms of direct action against the base became a daily occurrence. Thus was born an extraordinary experiment in democratic political participation.