by Mark Dyal
Conclusion
As we begin to move toward a deeper analysis of the Ultras’ mentalità and the more extreme aspects of their behavior, it is important to appreciate the mundane aspects of being an Ultra: going to stadiums to take part in the games of AS Roma. The trasferta, or away game, was presented as the essence of the Ultra experience. Away from Rome, AS Roma’s Ultras are far more aggressive and united as Romans or fans of AS Roma. While there is always time for play, as in transit to and from stadiums, and occasions for humor, the away game tends to be a serious affair. For one, until 2007, the Ultras experienced away games as veritable war zones, with the potential for violence existing at every moment. What is more, the away game has traditionally been the domain of only the hardest, most committed Ultras. The away game, then, fosters an elite within the Ultra phenomenon. These elite Ultras understand themselves as the quintessential Ultras, ready to sacrifice time, energy, health, safety, and more to support AS Roma in hostile territory. It is not by coincidence that most of the Ultras with whom I developed close relations come from this group. In fact, it was only because of my willingness to join them away from Rome that I was able to get to know them at all.
Back in Rome, the games are perhaps more grand and festive. The occasional choreography charges the air of the pre-game period, as does being with a large group of friends and cohorts. While the away game is given electricity because of the hostility involved, in Rome it is the opportunity to be in Curva Sud that does so. As was demonstrated in the previous chapter, however, being in the Curva is not without its conflicts and dangers, the more so because ideological differences are always present. Away from Rome, such differences largely disappear, as a more cohesive group forms. In or away from Rome, the Ultras support AS Roma in the same manner: with songs, flags, and occasionally flares, bombs, and choreography. Striscioni banners, the traditional voice of the Ultras, are also displayed in and away from Rome. However, these, like much of the Ultra in-stadium experience, are being policed into extinction by a government that is increasingly at odds with the Ultras’ worldview.
Chapter Three
Ultra Practices and Their Consequences
In the last chapter I gave a sense of the emotional, temporal, and financial investments the Ultras make to being Ultras. Whether going to an away game or creating a choreography or banner for one at home, the Ultras are Ultras ‘per tutta la vita’ (for their whole life) as they say. The language used in the chapter was designed to ease the reader into the discursive world of the Ultras, and into the ‘language regime’ through which their mentalità is made real.70 This was more obvious at the end of the chapter, which examined the creation of banners and the purpose they serve within the Ultra phenomenon.
The banners and game-day experiences inform the beginning of this chapter, which seeks to explain the most extreme forms of Ultra behavior and its consequences. I begin by introducing the Nietzsche of the Ultras, who will take center stage in Chapter Four, and explaining how the Ultras utilize what he called ‘monumental history.’ This form of history promotes the creation and celebration of heroes, as well as strictly defined codes of co-identification, wherein the race or nation are often diminished for the sake of more particular groupings. Finally, it allows the Ultras to bask in the importance of their every action, so that the act of following AS Roma away from Rome becomes a series of opportunities to define one’s self and create one’s own value.
The chapter then describes in detail the events surrounding the death of SS Lazio Ultra Gabriele Sandri in November 2007 and how these relate to the period following the death of Filippo Raciti, eight months earlier. This section takes the form of a newsreel so that the confusion, anxiety, anger, and compassion of those days predominate. It is written from the perspective of the Ultras, which I find valuable for presenting their understanding of what transpired.
The section demonstrates what Michel de Certeau theorized regarding the imposition of textual and professional knowledge on the ‘knowability’ and experience of everyday life. The Ultras resisted, in his terms, the ‘view from above’ which painted them as terrorists, but in doing so became thoroughly ensnared in the language of the authorities aligned against them.71 Finally, the chapter uses the Sandri murder and subsequent Ultra violence as a way to introduce the Ultras’ war against Calcio Moderno (the business of football).
Monumentalism and Ultra Practices
In October 2007 Boys Roma elected a new leader. A leadership council had governed the group since the death of Paolo Zappavigna in June 2005. Instead of promoting from within that group, Boys decided to reward the loyalty and radicalism of a former hierarch under Paolo. His name is Maurizio, but the Boys’ Ultras call him Duce because of his physical resemblance to Mussolini and, now, because he is their leader. I stopped by the group’s office soon after Maurizio’s ascension, and I stood outside with a group of Ultras looking at the Boys’ graffiti that covered the area walls. My attention focused on the message painted on the front of the office: ‘Chi l’ha fatto, aspetta’ (He who did it, expect [retaliation]), I asked some of the Ultras what they thought of it.
Maurizio, the Duce, said sternly (in English), ‘if someone messes with us, we gonna mess with them,’ before smiling and asking if I liked his imitation of Robert De Niro. Of course I did, I said, and then asked, ‘This is central to the Ultras mentalità, yes?’ He responded, ‘Life is for the purpose of fighting. We search for enemies from history and the present, all the same.’ I had witnessed in other Ultras the commitment to having long memories. Fading graffiti tags in Rome had been explained to me with enough venom to make me think the confrontation that prompted them had taken place yesterday instead of nine years ago. Locales along a train route were explained similarly, always in terms of rivalry, confrontation, and someone or some group acting heroically to avenge its honor.
Figure 7. Graffiti, Monteverde, Rome, 2007.
Maurizio and the others made it clear that for the Ultras, the past is never dead. One must act unhistorically or suprahistorically in order to keep it alive, but in The Eternal City this makes sense. The Ultras act unhistorically by seeking a present that changes only by way of the meanings and will of a highly subjectively understood past. Conversely, they act suprahistorically by being keenly motivated to maintain distance from others and proximity to their mentalità.72 In the second of Nietzsche’s Untimely Meditations, ‘On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life,’ he distinguishes between three kinds of history: critical, antiquarian, and monumental. He implores his readers to ‘employ history only in the service of life’ instead of ‘enslaving life’ to a particularly modern (and in his estimation, decadent) understanding of history.73
Critical history is of use to those who seek to cast off the burdens of the present. It is a history that judges and condemns the past for its role in creating the present. It is also a nihilistic history, in that it condemns all that lies beyond the ‘good’ as being unworthy of life.74 Antiquarian history is of use to those who aspire to familiarity. It is a history that preserves and reveres the past. But in doing so, it is romantic and condemns the present for the sake of every past triviality. In both cases, life is mummified, because the preservation of life is valued above the expansion of life.75
Monumental history, by contrast, is useful for those who aspire to ‘greatness.’ It takes its cues from heroes, grandeur, warfare, victory, and the value of battle (found in sacrifice, honor, duty, and commitment). It is a history that uses the past as inspiration to act in the present. Monumental history is less interested in the study of the past, or in the construction of models of causation. Instead, its interest lies in affect. It diminishes the ‘motives and instigations’ of an historical act in order to fully monumentalize its affect ‘as something exemplary and worthy of imitation.’76 With such a focus on affect, history is made poetic and mythical, just as myth and poetry themselves become important sources of history. As Nietzsche says, ‘the past itself suffers harm’ for
the sake of those heroes, saints, and vistas that fire the blood of the present.77 Monumental history, then, is a history alive in the present moment.
Nietzsche uses this conceptualization of history as a critical way to understand the relationship between history and culture. The ‘natural’ relation between the two is always to serve life at the moment; it is never to undermine the present.78 The weakness of modern culture, he explains, is in part due to its lack of monumentality. In critiquing modernity through its uses of history, in its critical and antiquarian guises, Nietzsche seeks to make us aware of the dangers of consuming knowledge for its own sake and without purpose or affective base — in the mode of ‘culture-less’ ‘career-minded consumers.’79
More powerful is the way Nietzsche explains this in Twilight of the Idols: that the modern West suffers from ‘atrophy of the spiritual instincts’ because of its faith in, and celebration of, the universal and concurrent dismissal of the particular and unique.80 This attack on the universal (and concomitant celebration of ‘spiritual instincts’) is the key to understanding the Ultras in terms of Nietzsche, for as the Ultras act against modernity they do so primarily because they critique it (and what it promises) as a promotion of the universalization of modern-or-global-capitalism.
I discerned this same monumentalism in the banners displayed in the Curva and in the strong desire to display one’s colors away from Rome. The Ultras have become cognizant of their ability to influence both public discourse and other curvas because their displays are captured in film and published both online and in print. The groups themselves hire photographers located in other areas of the stadium to take photos of their banners so that they are recorded for posterity. Thus, there is always a sense amongst the groups that what they are doing is historical and creative, a marker of the Ultra mentalità. The banners that were intended to honor Vanessa Russo are perfect examples of how the Ultras use monumentalism.
On April 28, 2007, Vanessa Russo was attacked and killed by two female Romanian prostitutes while leaving the Metro at Termini (Rome’s central rail station). After arguing in the subway because the Romanians thought she was looking at them, one, Doina Matei, sixteen years old, jabbed the closed end of an umbrella in Vanessa’s left eye. She died of a massive brain injury. The city was outraged. It was the first of what would be a long summer filled with accusations and attacks against Romanians and Roma for criminal behavior.
The game following her murder was April 29: AS Roma — SS Lazio, the biggest game of any season for the Ultras and the city. Early in the day, a small group calling itself BD Ultras Roma reached the staging area beyond Curva Sud’s entrance. They carried a banner that said simply ‘Ciao Vanessa.’ As Sandro, the group’s leader later told me, it was meant to show Vanessa’s family, and all the sisters, daughters, and mothers in the city that what happened to Vanessa would not be tolerated or forgotten.
‘For me and my friends,’ he said, ‘the murder of an innocent Roman girl at the hands of illegal immigrants was like a call to arms.’ However, the police would not allow the group to enter the stadium with the banner because it was unrelated to AS Roma or the game per the terms of the 2007 Amato Decree. The mood in Curva Sud that day was murderous. Hardly anyone followed the game. Ultras were on cell phones explaining to one another and others beyond the stadium what had happened to BD Ultras Roma. ‘If the State wants to destroy the Ultras,’ an unfamiliar Ultra roared, ‘that is one thing. We are at war with them already. But to defend murderous zingari [derogatory term for Roma gypsies — plural of zingaro] by disallowing a salute to Vanessa’s family was treasonous.’ As word spread through both curvas, the AS Roma and SS Lazio Ultras united in protest against the banning of the banner. Both curvas began taking down all banners and colors. Neither curva displayed any striscioni banners, even though some Curva Sud Roma groups had been able to enter the stadium with their banners honoring Russo.
The protest of the State’s treatment of BD Ultras Roma demonstrates an interesting aspect of how the Ultras use fandom. In order to do honor to something, in this case Russo, her family, or Roman women in general, the Curva creates banners announcing their sentiments and intentions, and then performs their unique form of fandom. Conversely, when the Ultras are protesting something, usually their own treatment by the State, they will deny themselves the act of fandom. Because the Ultras act as fans for themselves, and for the eleven players on the field, there is no sense that they are denying the general public the thrill of the spectacle they create. Using history and creating history as an affective force, then, are inseparably linked, as the Ultras do not assume that the other fans seated in the Olympic Stadium comprehend their actions or worldview. The selection of history to use and to make, in other words, is done so to honor Curva Sud, Rome, and AS Roma, for the sake of Curva Sud and not the non-Ultra audience that may be watching.
The War for Sandri or The Sack of Rome
In the morning of November 11, 2007, Gabrielle Sandri, a twenty-seven-year-old Roman fan of SS Lazio, and three friends were driving to Milan to support their team against Inter Milan. Sandri was well known in Rome, and famous amongst Ultras, as one of the city’s most respected DJ’s. His parents own a men’s clothing store in the Trionfale neighborhood that had supplied countless Ultras with the ‘casual’ clothing that defined Ultra fashion since the 1990s. Through DJ-ing and his parents’ store, Sandri was also well connected with several SS Lazio players. His entire family was involved in the Ultras and was fans of SS Lazio in some form.
Sandri had worked until 6 am and was then riding to Milan for the 3 pm game. In an Autogrill parking lot near Arezzo he and his companions encountered a carload of FC Juventus fans and engaged in taunting and insulting them. The yelling alerted two local police officers assigned to keep the peace at the Autogrill, as these stops on the highways have become among the favorite meeting places for Ultras traveling to away games. As both cars were pulling away shots were fired. Moments later, the car in which Sandri was riding came to a stop. He was dead, having been shot in the neck.
Initial news reports said only that a young Roman had been killed in what appeared to be an accidental police shooting. As midday approached, reports were lengthened to say that the dead youth was an Ultra of SS Lazio. These reports said nothing about games being cancelled, but most Ultras believed that Inter-Lazio would be postponed if nothing else. Then it was announced on the radio that Inter-Lazio would not be played but that the other games of the Serie A calendar would start after a fifteen-minute delay (as a show of respect). Indeed, newly elected FIGC President Giancarlo Abete said on live television that Inter-Lazio could not be played but that ‘the other games will be played in order to avoid problems.’ One had to assume he referred to ‘problems’ with the Ultras.
In Milan and Bergamo
At the opening of Milan’s San Siro stadium at 1 pm (at that time the game was still going ahead), very few fans entered. The few that did sang songs against the police and Juventus. The most popular song in Italian curvas, perhaps the only one common to all, is against the Carabiniere: ‘La disoccupazione, ci ha dato un gran mestiere, mestiere, di merda, carabiniere’ (Unemployment has given us a great profession, profession of shit, carabiniere [the militarized State police]). It is this attitude toward the police that truly unites, and creates, what could be called ‘the Italian Ultras.’ Where otherwise the joys of agon and celebrations of local particularity override common values, ultimately hindering the Ultras’ ability to unite as a true social movement, the police act as a rare stimulus to unity.
Instead of entering the stadium directly, a group of Inter and Lazio Ultras sought to enter through the tunnel used by buses carrying the players. They went to secure a promise from the players that they would not play. When told the players had yet to arrive they left to amass under Curva Nord. It was there that they learned of the cancellation of the game.
Outside the stadium other Lazio and Inter Ultras joined together to smash the TV cam
era of a reporter who insisted upon filming their activities and to parade behind two banners. These read, ‘Amato Dimettiti’ (Amato Resign) and ‘Per Raciti Fermate il Campionato, La Morte Di Un Tifoso Non Ha Significato’ (For Raciti you stopped the championship, the death of a fan means nothing).81 They shouted ‘Assassini’ (Assassins) and ‘Un Saluto a Gabriele’ (A salute to Gabriele) as they marched behind the banners to the police headquarters on Via Novara. Once there, the group of approximately 400 launched bottles and stones against the office. Along with them was also a small group of Ultras of AS Varese, a small but historic team from the Milan suburbs who, like the Ultras of Inter and Lazio, are known to have Far Right convictions.
Figure 8. SS Lazio Ultras graffiti: ‘Our rage wants your blood, Gabbo (Gabriele Sandri) lives,’ Rome, 2008.
Meanwhile, in Bergamo the Atalanta BC Ultras had a skirmish with the police before the game between Atalanta BC and AC Milan (around 1 pm). The Atalanta Ultras, among the most active and aggressive in Italy, first attacked a police jeep with rocks; those inside received minor head wounds. They then began a more serious engagement with the police amassing near the stadium, raining stones upon them. AC Milan Ultras attacked train guards at the Treviglio station (between Milano and Bergamo) and then evidently fought with Atalanta BC Ultras outside the station in Bergamo.