Professor Orsini's Discovery: The Violent Reality Behind Italian Political Protests - Prof, Esercizi di Terrorismo

Scarica Professor Orsini's Discovery: The Violent Reality Behind Italian Political Protests - Prof e più Esercizi in PDF di Terrorismo solo su Docsity! The great fight- chapter 7 - At the beginning of this chapter Professor Orsini is interested in continuing his research into the meaning of violence in the parallel world, attempting to understand why it is so frequent in this particular cultural universe. - Focus on the attacks in which Fascists were the injured parties, not only on those for which they were responsible - Conversation with Lentolus→ After talking for nearly an hour about communist provocations, they walked toward the militia offices: Someone had put a nail in the lock. Professor Orsini was astonished and instintevely said, “The communists!” - Lentolus didn’t reply Conversation about communism on their way back - Professor Orsini intention: to know more about Leonidas’s attack on the fifty-year-old man. - Starts a conversation regarding the aggressiveness and organization of communists - Lentulus perception of communism: “The communists live for us.” - Difference between communists and fascists, in Lentulus eyes: sacrifice members have ideas, plans that they want to carry out, whereas communists have no ideas, they only exist to bother fascists. Without fascists the communists would be desperate and would not have any reason to live. Conversation with young Sacrifice comrades - The conversation about the communists becames impassioned and led Professor Orsini to one of the most important documents he found in all the years of work devoted to Sacrifice. - A video: lasting 25 minutes, portraying a battle between Sacrifice militants and extreme leftists taking place in a major Italian city. It turned on its head the official accounts of a huge fight, involving a hundred or more youths, in which Sacrifice militants were entirely to blame. - Journalistic response: On the basis of the journalists’ stories and the politicians’ statements, everyone was convinced that Sacrifice Fascists had attacked a peaceful march of left-wing militants without provocation. Public opinion had been horrified by the comrades’ violence, and many had asked Sacrifice to be dismantled and its leaders arrested. - However, in the video showed by the young comrade to Professor Orsini, the reality of the facts became clear. What happened - Two groups of university students are facing each other, the comrades on one side and the extreme-left activists on the other. Both groups of demonstrators have come to the square to protest against the government, but the left-wing faction is much more numerous - Embarrassing situation given by the fact that communists find themselves protesting against the government for the same reasons as the Fascists. - Left-wing activists start yelling that the fascists are disgusting: fascist response→ peaceful demonstration in which the militants do not want to fight with the left-wing militants - Chanting against the fascists begin→ it seems a competition over who can shout the loudest between the two factions. Communists chant aggressive chants against the Fascists but Fascists reply with peaceful responses in which they proclaim their right to be present in the square - This scenarios continues - Age: sacrifice contingent is made of young people while the left-wing side includes dozens of 30,40,50 year-olds. - Numerous anti-Fascist militants have joined the left-wing group armed with sticks and glass bottles. Many young demonstrators flee. - Imminent clash The fight The leader of the Fascist group steps forward. - Submission to the leader: he orders the comrades not to move and they obey him - The myth of the soldier : Behind him, the comrades all take up the same position as if they had received military training. Their legs are slightly apart, their arms tense and lowered - Courage: The Fascists number around forty. There are many more communists. - Honor: The comrades prepare themselves for the communists’ challenge. - Sacrifice: They know they have no chance of winning, but they accept the fight all the same. - Love for the militia: They are lined up beside one another in mutual protection. The fight begins. - Glass bottles, sticks, and stones are thrown at the Fascists, who don’t retreat despite the objects flying toward them. The comrades’ leader shouts to close ranks. - Suddenly the screen goes dark, but the audio continues. - The images return: Dozens of people continue to fl ee but get trapped in the narrow alleys around the square. The Fascists remain steadfast. Some are hit and fall to the ground. - The Fascists have broken ranks and are engaged in physical encounters with extreme-left militants. The video ends • The young comrade points out that it was the communists who attacked Mass media representation • The concept of Italian journalists as biased and corrupt. They do not report the truth, they want to damage the image of Sacrifice. • The concept of Italian journalists as criminals: they are afraid of the militants’ ideas, and they want to put fascists in a ghetto to prevent them from influencing society. Marco (Marcus, who was the leader of the Mussolinia militia) enters the room and Professor Orsini tells him that the communists put a nail in his lock. It is at this moment, that a “comic” situation happens. Marco seems annoyed and irritates, but in the end he declares that it was a 80-year-old lady who lives next door. The professor tried not to laugh. - Professor Orsini wanted to ask Marcus more questions: But his inability to control my facial muscles had destroyed all the emotional tension needed to develop such a delicate matter. When he returned home, he noted down that ethnographers should be more willing to recount situations that reveal their errors or their lack of professionalism. He stated that he had been unprofessional, and he had committed a serious error. - In some cases, ethnographers can compromise the success of the interview or an entire research project. already in flames. While a crowd that had assembled in the street watched, Virgilio tried to leap out of the window with his brother, but he slipped, stood up, and also caught fi re. Both brothers burned to death before the eyes of the people below. Key Informants; Institutional and Non-Institutional Informants Having earned the trust of the cultural intermediaries and gained access to the study group, the observer will still need to construct privileged relationships with some of the subiects studied, Insiders whom the observer uses to acquire information and interpretation from within the culture studied are usually called informants (or key informants). The researcher establishes an intense personal relationship, and sometimes true friendship. with these individuals. They may be people who occupy positions that are strategic for the knowledge of the environment (such as the manager of a grocery store who knows the neighbourhood well). Or they may be ordinary people whom we can simply call 'main contacts'. We can make a distinction. between 'institutional informants' and 'non-institutional informants'. The former are people who have a formal role in an organization (e.g. in a study on prisons, the governor, social workers, the chaplain, etc.). Given their role, their interpretation of social circumstances may be influenced by their loyalty to the institution. Non- institutional informants are more important; they belong directly to the culture under examination (in the above example, the prison inmates) and, as such, can provide their interpretation of facts and their motivation for action, crucial elements for the observer's 'comprehension. It must be added that the person most willing to cooperate may not always be the best informed. Moreover, if the choice falls on an unpopular person or one who is not respected in the community, this could have a negative impact on the observer's integration into the group. The researcher should therefore consolidate a relationship with an informant only after being in the group for some time, and scrutinize the informant thoroughly before beginning any collaboration. Gaining Trust Naturally, once access has been gained to the study environment, the researcher's work is only beginning. The trust of those being observed must be earned, day after day, through patient application. This makes demands upon the researcher's personality and psychological characteristics, his sensitivity, his ability to handle relationships, not only with others but also with himself: frustration, emotional involvement, etc. (Lofland and Lofland, 1995: Chapter 4). In some cases, the opposite problem may arise; excessive identification of the observer with the group being studied can impair the critical assessment of observed facts. In his appendix to Street Corner Society (1943), Whyte points out that at one stage his excessive integration with the youths engendered a risk that he might evolve from being a 'non-participating observer' to a 'non-observing participant'. The Gate-Keeper When the social group studied is an institution, the situation is different. Sometimes, formal rules of access exist; in other cases, permission has to be obtained from 'gate-keepers' - that is, the people who control access. Gate-keepers may be persons within organizations who have the power to grant or withhold access to people or situations during research into organizations. One classic example is that of the researcher who took a job in a company in order to study the world of work. Cultural mediator The participant observer usually gains entry to the field of study, but it is never simple. The most common way of solving this problem is through a cultural mediator. A cultural mediator is an individual who helps establish a connection between two social worlds, between the culture of the participant observer and that of the social group under investigation and vice versa. This tactic is based on appealing to the prestige and credibility of someone who is trusted by the group to legitimize the observer and get him accepted by the group. The cultural mediator is a person who is trusted by the population and who, because of his cultural characteristics, is also able to understand the motivations and the necessities of the ethnographer. . In the appendix of his classical book, «Street Corner Society», published in 1943, William Foote White recounts his initial attempts to make real contact with the inhabitants of 'Cornerville' (the fictitious name of the neighborhood studied). After many frustrating attempts, a social worker in the neighbourhood suggested that he contact Doc, an intelligent youth who had worked for a time with the public housing social service. Whyte claims that: «In a sense, my study began on the evening of February 4, 1937, when the social worker called me in to meet Doc». Doc understood Whyte's intentions and offered to introduce him to the various neighborhood groups as a friend. Doc's prestige was so great that these introductions were sufficient to open doors to all the local groups and obtain cooperation from all of the local inhabitants, especially the young people who were the main object of Whyte's study. This is an example of entry into an informal group. When the social group studied is an institution, the situation is different. Sometimes. formal rules of access exist; in other cases, permission has to be obtained from 'gate-keepers' - that is, the people who control access. One classic example is that of the researcher who took a job in a company in order to study the world of work. In this case, the aspiring participant observer no needs a cultural mediator to gain access. He just need to follow the formal route in order to get hired. Randall collins: barrier of confrontational tension and fear ● The process of becoming civilized has encouraged in people a psychological propensity to avoid physical clashes → therefore violence does not easily develop in situations of daily life ● Imminence of a violent clash → person gets struck by strong emotional tension → person becomes less lucid and with less control over movement ● Even when physical contact is reached, violence is almost always ineffective because of “the barrier of confrontational tension and fear” - it slows down the “surge” of the combatant 5 “situations”... ... which help overcome the barrier of confrontational tension and fear. 1. Attacking the weak 2. Disciplined combat following rules addressed to spectators 3. Adversaries strike each other over long distances 4. Strategic use of deceit 5. Concentrating on the technical expertise