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

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

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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.

Caligula states that in some cases Sacrifice knows they’re innocent, in other cases, it knows they’re guilty, but it defends them all the same through the publishes press releases and in many cases pays for their lawyers.
“In Sacrifice, there’s a rule that you can understand only if you read Codreanu’s books. The rule is that the militia is more important than anything else in the world.”
The only situation in which the organization abandons them is when the militants are arrested for drug dealing or are linked with people connected to the drug-dealing world. On recruitment, Caligula states that Sacrifice’s type of recruitment is one of the organization’s main merits. Sacrifice recruits many different people, including some little hoodlums, whom it recruits in order to educate them, giving them a spiritual mission. The role of the media
Caligula states that in the great majority of cases, journalists unjustly accuse Sacrifice militants of wrongdoing, reporting a lot of things that aren’t true. The result is that “when journalists accuse a comrade of having committed a crime, everyone immediately figures he’s innocent.”
Knowing that journalists distort the truth, the Sacrifice leaders instantly defend their militants, assuming that they’ve been unjustly accused. Marcus’ experience: Once he went to another town to see Mussolinia soccer team play. He was already on the bus to return to Mussolinia with the other fans when he was harassed by a police officer, who ordered him to get off the bus, accusing him of being disrespectful. Marcus got off quietly, but the police officer started hitting him, then arrested him and had him put in jail on a charge of insulting, resisting, and assaulting a public official.
Although the journalists described Marcus as a violent youth who assaulted an officer, the incident had been recorded. Despite this, the media never revealed the truth.
Marcus then reveals that he was arrested and when in prison, he called the Sacrifice national headquarters, and he was able to get out of jail within 24 hours.
Marcus tells another episode in which he risked being burned alive when he attended the Sacrifice militia’s meeting during his university years.
Marcus then decides to ask Professor Orsini about his own opinions of the story
Professor Orsini adopts the strategy of non-replying, but Marcus insists and asserts that he knows that he wrote a book about left-wing politics
Professor Orsini then states that he believes in the sanctity of human life and because of this, in this specific episode, he was convinced that the left-wing militants committed a crime in throwing firebombs to the Sacrifice militants.
Marcus then goes on mentioning the stoy of the Mattei brothers End of the conversation:
Mattei brothers story
During the night of April 16, 1973, some left-wing extremists, who were many years later tried and found guilty, poured gasoline under the door of the apartment of the family of Mario Mattei, consisting of six children and his wife, Anna Maria. They all saved themselves by jumping off the balcony except for the eldest, Virgilio, who hung back to help his younger brother Stefano. By the time Virgilio arrived at the window, Stefano was

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'.

● 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.

Attacking the weak
Disciplined combat following rules addressed to spectators 3. Adversaries strike each other over long distances
Strategic use of deceit
Concentrating on the technical expertise

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

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