Report From Rome: One of One Million

I have attended countless protests in cities across the US. The last protest I attended was in Hawai’i, where I live and work, at the No Kings March on April 5, 2025. Estimates have it at 3,000 participants. As a sociologist and geographer, I have a decent sense of demography and space. As a long-time activist, I know how important it is to the powers that be to deny our numbers and the peacefulness of our protest.

Old Friends and Italy’s Grassroots

I had the good fortune to attend the Saturday October 4 protest in Rome, scheduled at 2:30 pm local time, on a glorious sunny autumn day in a light only the Mediterranean can provide. These protests were called by the pro-Palestinian organizations as a nationwide event with activists and union members bussing in from various parts of Italy (buses with arrivals that were slowed due to police interference). The day before a national strike was called by the Italian General Confederation of Labor (GCIL). For the first time in over 20 years, it was not a demand for better labor conditions, but a political action in support of the Sumud Flotilla, which has been seeking to give food and medical items to Palestinians being starved by Israeli occupation.

A colleague and friend, who I had not seen for over a decade, though we were close participating in global justice protests in the mid-2000s, invited me to travel with her and her children and join the protest in Rome with her circle of friends. She had returned to her home in Italy about seven years ago. There are multiple reasons for return migration, but after having children, and even with a tenured university position, the school shootings in the US were something she could not shake off.

Gelato and the Everyday in Social Justice

I joined the protest with her daughters, her friends’ daughters, and found myself amid five "tweens," with a Palestinian flag painted on my cheek, thanks to the girls’ artistic flare. The parents were friends since college days and had, like me, never stopped tending to causes of social justice. One friend commented that her father shared concerns of his grandchild participating in the procession. We joked about this word, and as we walked through the day, took rest under shade and fine jazz (“Watermelon Man”) being played loudly in front of the Colosseum. We eventually recognized the march to be just that—a calm, nonviolent procession, of at least a million people heading to San Giovanni square.

Just before getting to the square, we stopped to get the girls gelato and freshen up our water at the public tap. This was a remarkable way to be in the center of Rome with a million persons in protest and in peace. At San Giovanni, we stood and chatted, chanted a bit, the girls sat on the curb. We were there until after 7:0 pm, waiting for a friend of a friend of a friend to meet us so we could all get dinner. Eventually, we could not wait, our hunger got the best of us and several members of the party retreated to San Lorenzo, my friend’s old haunt from her college days in Rome.

Flags and Words and Stories of Truth

It is remarkable that Reuters, Politico.eu, and other reports of the march mention clashes in their headlines and show sensationalized photographs. If we are accurate these occurred after the march, when the police in the area should have already departed rather than engage with some rightly aggravated youth, about .02% of the marchers. The five hour walk was locked in with the traditions of non-violence, it is the largest in Italy for over two decades. It was remarkable for me, in its calm, its warmth, and the matter-of-fact understanding that we can’t go on with our everyday lives while starvation and slaughter continue and Israeli forces act with impunity on land and sea.

Unlike US protests where we pride ourselves on verbiage, flags were the centerpiece in Rome. Yet the presses (even those I consider neutral) focused on the few flags among thousands, that promoted Hammas, or challenged the Israel Defense Forces. This is selective representation and a mischaracterization of the day, which was similar to an Italian religious procession with babies and children, elders, and those of us in between walking, chanting, and laughing. Side by side strangers knowing together that we are doing this in solidarity with those who have lost homes, their children, and mundane pain and joy.

So many people in the US and abroad express that they don’t know what to do in response to the utter violence they are witnessing as carried out by Immigration and Customs Enforcement or the National Guard in the US and in Palestine, Ukraine, or Sudan. Start by doing what the Italians did this past Saturday, get outside and walk with others who feel the same, talk, drink some water, and buy snacks for the kids.