Sacrifice: My Life in a Fascist Militia
228
Sacrifice: My Life in a Fascist Militia
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Overview
Alessandro Orsini is one of Italy's premier analysts of political extremism. His investigation of the beliefs and mind-sets of Europe's political fringe has largely focused on anarchist and far-left groups, but in Sacrifice he turns his inquiry to the rapidly expanding neofascist movement. He joined local groups of a neofascist organization he names Sacrifice in two neighboring cities with very different political cultures. In this gripping, "insider" book, which features dialogues with various militia members, Orsini shows how fascists live day to day, how they understand their world, and how they build a parallel universe in which the correctness and probity of their attitudes are clear.
Orsini describes the long, troubled process by which these two groups slowly accepted him as an investigatoractivist and later expelled him for his ideologically uncommitted stance and refusal to subject his observations to censorship. His activities as a fascist were often mundane: leafleting, distributing food parcels to the indigent, and attending public rallies. In Sacrifice, Orsini describes from within the masculine ethos of the militias, the groups' relations with local police and politicians, and the central role of violence and anticommunist actions in building a sense of fascist community.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781501712272 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Cornell University Press |
| Publication date: | 09/15/2017 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 228 |
| File size: | 631 KB |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
Alessandro Orsini is Director of the Observatory on International Security at LUISS University of Rome, Department of Political Science, and Research Affiliate at the Center for International Studies of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author of Anatomy of the Red Brigades, also from Cornell. Sarah Jane Nodes is a translator who lives in Rome.
Read an Excerpt
Sacrifice
My Life in a Fascist Militia
By Alessandro Orsini
Cornell University Press
Copyright © 2017 Cornell UniversityAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5017-1227-2
CHAPTER 1
The Organization of Education
The Fight
It was one o'clock in the morning.
In Mussolinia a big party was in progress, organized by the mayor and town council. For the occasion, all the shops were staying open until six. Thousands of young people were drinking and dancing in the streets.
Caesar, a Sacrifice militant, was strolling downtown with fifteen buddies. For reasons that have never been made clear, not even during the trial that followed, he started insulting Joe, a man he had met by chance, and his friends. After a brief fight, the two groups separated without inflicting too much damage.
An hour later, Caesar, who had lost an eye in a brawl a few years earlier, went in search of his adversary, telling his pals that he wanted to humiliate the guy. When he saw Joe in the distance, Caesar broke a bottle and, holding it by the neck, took a run at Joe, jumped on him, and thrust the bottle into his eye. The victim fell to his knees, his face covered in blood, yelling for help. The two groups launched into a new fight, at the end of which Joe was taken to hospital.
My Arrival in Mussolinia
A week after the fight, I went to Mussolinia to collect information and interview people about what had happened. The doctors made it very clear: Joe had lost an eye.
Neither the mayor of Mussolinia, nor the political parties, nor the various cultural associations condemned Caesar's attack. After remaining at liberty for some months, he was arrested, tried, and sentenced to three and a half years in jail (and is still there as I write).
While the case against Caesar was under way, I tried to find out about the relations between Sacrifice and the political parties governing Mussolinia. I spoke with as many locals as I could, as well as politicians, journalists, and some police officers.
Although many Mussolinia residents condemned the brawl that Caesar had initiated, the political parties had decided not to organize any demonstrations against him and his political movement. As a Mussolinia shop owner said: "It's incredible what happened. It's incredible but also terrible. My son could have been there instead of Joe. How awful for the family of that poor boy, to have a son who's lost an eye!"
I managed to extract a more useful piece of information while eating with some friends in a pizzeria.
Jonathan, a forty-two-year-old engineer who owns a building company, told me that Caesar had lost an eye during a brawl at the Mussolinia stadium between "ultras," rabid fans of rival soccer teams. "Everyone knows about Caesar. He lost an eye during a fight at the stadium and now he's done the same thing to that poor kid. The Sacrifice militants are extremists and violent, but the mayor protects them."
Why?
Max, thirty-three, unemployed, and from a well-off family, explains to me that the mayor of Mussolinia, who today is the head of a liberal party, had been a far-right activist in his youth: "Mussolini loved Mussolinia and the people of Mussolinia loved Mussolini. The architecture of the town also tells you this. Haven't you noticed that there are Fascist symbols everywhere in Mussolinia? In the seventies we even had right-wing terrorists here." Max asserts that the mayor of Mussolinia is very friendly with the Sacrifice militants, who claim they oppose the bourgeoisie and capitalism but who go around secretly at night putting up electoral posters for the mayor, who has even given them a medal for bravery in peacetime. (A medal for bravery?)
"In the winter," Max continues, "there was a heavy snowfall. The Sacrifice militants shoveled the snow off the roads. That's all. I did the same thing with my friends, but nobody gave us a medal! The mayor wanted a pretext to show his loyalty to Sacrifice, and so he gave them a medal!" Max raises his voice: "Do you think that's normal? What a shitty country we're living in! The mayor from a liberal party gave a medal for bravery in peacetime to an organization that praises Hitler and Mussolini!"
Max seems sincere, but he's a left-wing activist who hates Fascism.
To check his facts, I ask for an appointment with a Mussolinia councilman who belongs to the same party as the mayor. He answers my question courteously: "Yes, it's true, our mayor gave Sacrifice a medal. The Sacrifice militants are idealistic young people who are militant in politics in a very open manner." The councilman tells me that, when he was a boy in the eighties, he was active in the same Fascist party as the mayor. After various experiences, they both ended up in their present party. He remains friendly, however, with the Sacrifice leaders: "But I would ask you not to repeat what I'm telling you because I could have problems with the press. You know what journalists are like. I'm a member of a liberal party now, and I don't want to find myself labeled a Fascist."
The councilman knows that I'm a sociologist conducting ethnographic research, but from the way he talks to me, he seems convinced that I have far-right ideas. I have given him no reason for thinking so. The man talks to me as if we were longtime friends and explains that relations between his party and Sacrifice are good but have to remain hidden because many voters despise Fascism. "As you know," he says, "the Italian constitution forbids the reestablishment of the Fascist Party. We have to be very careful about what we say. We're on good terms with Sacrifice and Sacrifice is on good terms with us. But neither of us wants to advertise the fact."
I wasn't aware that the good relations between Sacrifice and the mayor of Mussolinia were so "unnoticeable."
I saw that the Sacrifice militants were permitted to organize public meetings in Mussolinia's most beautiful historic buildings. Great examples of elegant architecture, they are among the finest in Europe. The mayor has even asked for the building that dominates the town's main square to be designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Since it belongs to the municipality, the mayor has to authorize its use. And the mayor never asks the Sacrifice militants to pay, so they get to use its impressive conference room for free.
It is obvious that the Mussolinia militia has close ties with local political institutions and with the town's power centers.
Lenintown
Less than twenty miles from Mussolinia there's Lenintown, a city with the same number of residents as Mussolinia but located on the sea instead of in the hills. At the same time that extreme-right terrorism started to appear in Mussolinia in the 1970s, far-left terrorists in Lenintown — which has a strong left-wing tradition — were responsible for numerous homicides.
There is also a Sacrifice cell in Lenintown. Its leader is Leonidas, a twenty-eight-year-old professional boxer with a broken nose. He is covered with Fascist tattoos.
A year and a half after the Mussolinia brawl, Leonidas was in a downtown bar one Saturday evening with some comrades. Steering his way through a crowded room, he came face to face with Ashley, a pretty young woman wearing a short, tight skirt. Leonidas, as he himself admitted during his trial, bent over Ashley, whom he didn't know, and whispered some insults in her ear. The girl spun around and slapped his face. Leonidas was humiliated in front of his friends; he froze for a few seconds and then punched Ashley in the face. Witnesses asserted that he started kicking her after she fell to the ground. Leonidas declared that he never punched Ashley but only "slapped" her.
Ashley's friends intervened to defend her and a fight broke out. Leonidas managed to hit seven people before being immobilized by a youth who grabbed him from behind, putting his arm around Leonidas's neck.
The bartender called the police, and Ashley was taken to the hospital. The doctor found that Ashley's hearing had been permanently affected: "She won't hear well ever again. Her ear has been irreversibly damaged."
The mayor, with the backing of all the town's political parties, organized a public demonstration against Fascism and demanded that the Sacrifice headquarters in Lenintown be closed. These are the mayor's words, reported in a Lenintown newspaper: "The Sacrifice militants have nothing to do with politics. They're just a bunch of delinquents."
One month after the confrontation with Ashley, Leonidas was involved in another violent episode. One evening at a bar in town, he quarreled for no reason with a fifty-year-old man, threw him to the ground, and kicked him in the face. The man passed out and was taken to the hospital, where he underwent reconstructive surgery on his face. During the trial, Leonidas's lawyer asserted that his client was in another city at the time the man had been attacked.
Notwithstanding, the mayor stated that Leonidas's conduct was unacceptable, adding that the presence of Sacrifice in Lenintown represented a danger and a disgrace for the entire city.
The Chief of Police
After the episode involving Leonidas and the fifty-year-old man, I made an appointment with the chief of police in Lenintown, who received me in his office. He told me that he couldn't say anything about Leonidas since investigations were still under way. To prompt him to talk, I used a technique called "interviewing by comment," which is an attempt to elicit information by making a statement rather than by asking a direct question.
From what I understand, Leonidas didn't do anything to this girl. The press exaggerated to sell more copies.
"You're wrong, Professor Orsini. There's a medical report. The girl has suffered permanent damage to her hearing. The doctors at the Lenintown hospital have stated that she no longer hears well in one ear." He added that the Sacrifice militants had been involved in numerous aggressive acts and that the violence against the girl was just one of many incidents.
At the end of a very cordial conversation lasting some thirty minutes, the chief of police advised me not to conduct research in Lenintown. All of a sudden his tone, until then friendly, became firm and decisive: "Professor Orsini, the people you want to study are dangerous and violent, and we might not be able to protect you. If you decide to go ahead with your research, you will have to assume complete responsibility for your choice. We have a special unit that deals with Sacrifice, and as I told you, we're conducting our investigation into the fights in which Leonidas is involved. I would also inform you that you could be charged if you break the law. Being a sociologist does not mean having special permission to commit crimes. Bear that in mind."
A few days after my meeting with the police chief, at the end of three and a half years of preparation, I was permitted to enter the Mussolinia and Lenintown cells. I joined at a significant moment, when the police, having already arrested Caesar, were finishing their investigations of Leonidas.
Mussolinia and Lenintown
Unlike his counterpart in Mussolinia, the mayor of Lenintown has come out against the militia there, who are seen as a "disgrace" by all the city's parties.
But there is more.
There have been various acts of sabotage against the Sacrifice headquarters in Lenintown. On the day Leonidas had appointed for the inauguration of the center, some unknown protesters dumped a great pile of shit at the front door, writing "Fascism = shit!" on the walls in red. Photos spread rapidly on social networks, but there was no negative reaction from the local people or the politicians. The political use of shit was praised on an extreme left-wing site managed by some Lenintown youths.
While the Mussolinia mayor does not condemn Sacrifice militants who carry out violent acts, the Lenintown mayor calls them "delinquents" and wants to close them down. Moreover, in Lenintown the mayor keeps quiet when the Sacrifice militants are provoked by extreme left-wing militants. Karl, a Lenintown politician of the same party as the mayor, agreed to talk to me as long as I wouldn't reveal his name. "Sacrifice is a Fascist organization and shit is the essence of Fascism," he tells me, laughing and giving me a friendly slap on the back. "Perhaps it wasn't a nice gesture from a politically correct point of view, but it's good to know that the people of Lenintown think that Sacrifice is a political organization that deserves to be covered in shit. Lenintown is not Mussolinia. I'm proud of this."
Since the Sacrifice militants have been involved in violent acts both in Mussolinia, where they enjoy the favor of the mayor and the main political parties, and in Lenintown, where the mayor and the parties governing the city are against them, the relationship between Sacrifice cells and political authorities cannot be the deciding factor behind the involvement of these young Mussolini admirers in aggressive acts.
Fascism as Spiritual Dimension
On a splendid spring day, while I was handing out Fascist flyers in downtown Mussolinia, I was trying to question other comrades on what they thought about various subjects: sports, politics, sex, films, music, anything that might gain their trust. Ethnographers have to grasp every opportunity to get social actors to speak about the significance they attribute to their actions while trying to put them at their ease.
Julius, one of the most influential militants in Mussolinia, is twenty-eight and has a degree in philosophy, one of my own greatest passions. We start talking about the philosopher to whom he devoted his thesis, but then I manage to change the subject to the relationship between Mussolinia and Lenintown. I knew that there was a strong rivalry between the two soccer teams. Since almost all the comrades from Mussolinia and Lenintown are ultras — that is, rabid fans — have there ever been tensions between the two Sacrifice militias?
Julius tells me: "I'm a member of the Mussolinia ultras, but it makes no difference if a comrade lives in Mussolinia or in Lenintown. We all belong to the same spiritual race. We think, do, and say the same things. Sacrifice is more than a political organization; it's a way of being. Fascism is a set of immortal values. For many political movements, money comes before everything. None of us is in politics to get rich or to become famous. If you want to understand who we are, you have to understand that our battles are linked to our way of seeing the world."
Also distributing flyers is Varus, a sixteen-year-old, and I ask him about the brawls between partisans of the two teams. "I always go to the stadium," says Varus, "because I'm a member of the Mussolinia ultras. There's great rivalry between the Mussolinia and Lenintown ultras. There've even been clashes with knifings, but there's great respect among the comrades. What counts is we all have the same way of thinking; we're all Fascists and we all do the same things. Our motto is: we are what we do! This is the motto we learn when we enter Sacrifice. We're all brothers."
It's hot out. Cornelia is twenty-six, dresses heavy-metal style, and is the only female member of either town militia. She approaches me and Varus with a bottle of water and asks if we want a drink. I thank her, accept, and bring her into our conversation. Cornelia laughs and jokes, but when I ask her what Fascism is, she becomes serious: "Fascism is a way of being, it's a set of values that have been handed down for centuries. Mussolini said that Fascism is an idea. Do you know this saying of his? It's famous. During our demonstrations, you'll see this saying on many flags. Mussolini said that Fascism is an idea in the sense that ... in the sense that it's a way of thinking. If you ask me to say what Fascism is for me, well, for me Fascism is something that made me see the world in another way. Fascism makes you see many things that this bourgeois society tries to hide."
The Mussolinia comrades define Fascism as a "set of immortal values." These "values" produce similar behaviors in different contexts, so we have to take them into serious consideration. And we have to study the socialization process through which Sacrifice educates young people to have a "new vision of the world."
Sacrifice asserts that its "ideology" can be found in books. "The values in which we believe," says Leonidas during a meeting, "have already been announced by some great men and have never changed. We have only to teach them and to keep them alive through example."
This is the reason why Sacrifice attaches great importance to the "study sessions," those weekly meetings in which books containing the essence of Fascism are read and discussed. "Beliefs matter," writes Nigel Fielding, "because they are capable of altering behaviour, and ideology affects action."
In the chapters that follow, we will see how the Fascist mental universe develops, not only through reading books, but also through the ideological organization of sports, cinema, and music.
The Political Soldier
Lentulus is twenty-eight years old and is one of the founders of the Mussolinia militia. Two hours before our first appointment he texts me that he's coming to the meeting with his girlfriend. With the idea of limiting the influence of a third person in our conversation, I ask a woman friend of mine to come with me. My strategy works.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Sacrifice by Alessandro Orsini. Copyright © 2017 Cornell University. Excerpted by permission of Cornell University Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Preface
1. The Organization of Education
2. In Praise of Suicide
3. The Construction of the Parallel World
4. The War against the Far-Left Extremists
5. Living with Contempt
6. From a Fascist Perspective
7. The Great Fight
8. Soldiers Who Fight and Soldiers Who Don't
9. My Expulsion
Acknowledgments
Notes
What People are Saying About This
Vivid reporting and suspense as an Italian professor joins a militant fascist gang. This is social science in action—a page-turner for sure!
Alessandro Orsini invested intensive field research and anthropological study into understanding the sacrality of the anti-bourgeois struggle for Italy's left-wing terrorists. Now he has applied his insights to making sense of how political violence is generated from within a small, hierarchical neo-fascist cult. The result is a new genre of academic analysis where sociology, ethnography, psychology, and history merge with field journal, documentary, cinema verité, autobiography, and journalism. The dynamics of a single cell of fanaticism are uniquely revealed in a way which makes the vast ideological monsters generating political violence in the modern world all the more intelligible, all the more human, and all the more disturbing.
A stunning rendering of life inside a fascist militia, exposing the raw exhilaration of violence that lies at this heart of this frightening world.