Hated and Proud- Ultras Contra Modernity

by Mark Dyal

  Distance was one of Nietzsche’s favorite concepts, having used it to promote methodological clarity as well as separation of the noble form of life from that of the modern herd.198 Within the noble form of life, lived with a feeling of distance from others, the duties and responsibilities spoken of above only apply to one’s equals: in the case of the Ultras, one’s group or other Ultras.199 This is important for the Ultras, as their form of inter-group ‘nobility’ cannot be earned by shirking one’s duties.

  Nor can it be earned by avoiding conflict. This is where the distance between the Ultras and others is greatest. Their form of warfare, conceptual (in the form of the culture of opposition) or literal (in the form of violent encounters), is explicitly non-utilitarian. It is always in defense of some cherished values, even if these are applied after-the-fact. In this way, their rivalries are always moral endeavors — always involving an investment of moral energies.200 Loyalty, courage, and commitment are the demands made of Ultra upon Ultra. These are never more on display than when AS Roma’s Ultras are away from Rome.

  It is away from Rome that the Ultras act in a particularly militaristic way; marching together, singing and gesturing menacingly, insultingly, and defiantly. There happens at these moments a form of cohesion built from the euphoria of fear, adrenaline, and pride. Away games unfold like ‘an education of the will’.201 After years spent traveling together and facing down rival Ultras and police, as well as their own fear, a transformation occurs of which many Ultras are aware but know little how to describe.

  The arditi (assault infantry soldiers) and other soldiers of World War I became banded together in what Mussolini called a trincerocrazia (a union of the trenches). These were men bounded together by consciousness of war, not class. They were united by the experience of fighting, killing, and surviving together. Italy was divided, wrote Mussolini, ‘between those who were there and those who were not there; those who fought and those who did not fight; those who produced and those who were parasites’.202 This feeling, and the arditi legend, is well known by many Ultras of the Left and Right, and is reproduced when Ultras, away from Rome, distinguish themselves, in knowledge and identity, from those who remain outside.203

  Brian Pronger updated the phenomenological understanding of embodiment by adding an ethical element in order to more fully explain not only the consequences of living within a form of life, but also the possibility of moving between forms. Using Deleuze and Guattari’s explanation of how flows of desire are affected by the reterritorialization of human energy (puissance) under capitalism, Pronger explained that one becomes conscious of one’s body through what Merleau-Ponty called ‘means of representation.’ But, he added, those representations are actually creative of the body’s reality, through not only description but also inscription.204 Thus, representation is not a deep enough concept to explain how profoundly we are shaped by not only material culture but knowledge systems as well.

  In this way, the ethical aspects of behavior discussed above make their mark on the body. The Ultras, like soldiers or warriors, learn war not only from language but from immersion into war(like) events. Thus, the language of war, and talk of contestation, opposition, commitment, and sacrifice, becomes the reality through which their acts come to be understood as aggressive, ironic, or worthy of feelings of honor.

  This process is experienced as an ethical transformation. Many Ultras associate and socialize only with other Ultras. This is because non-Ultras have no idea what ‘truly motivates or interests’ them. With other Ultras, there is no need to explain the experience of being an Ultra; one just is Ultra. Thus, they feel themselves as having been initiated into a new life, with the aggressive actions taken as a group acting as a ‘baptism of fire,’ much like a moment of conversion or illumination.205

  Victor Turner explained such feelings of non-material confraternita as ‘communitas,’ a new existential community built from common passage through states of transition.206 Gabriele, an unaffiliated Ultra formerly of AS Roma Ultras, explained to me the ‘love of life’ and exhilaration he felt every time he arrived in Milan’s central train station with a large group of AS Roma fans. He said it was like going into a war knowing you were unlikely to be harmed, but for which you still had to prepare mentally.

  ‘Milan is interesting, he said, ‘because you arrive there with normal people who come to shop or whatever. And there we are, looking at the group of policemen advancing up the platform. Some of us would love to fight each and every one of them, but others just want to get to San Siro (the stadium). Regardless, we know that the police could attack us if they want, and, what usually happens, they could lead us to the Milanisti (the enemy Ultras) so they can beat on us. But we always expect an attack from someone. So, when the train arrives, you have to be ready. We might sing when we get off the train, but otherwise we are usually quiet and intense.’

  Later I asked Giorgio of Padroni di Casa about Gabriele’s awareness of the distance between the Ultras and the non-Ultras on the platform. ‘It’s true,’ he agreed. ‘It’s very easy to think to yourself, who are these people and what are they doing with their lives? They speak of freedom but they seem like slaves.’ Why do they seem like slaves, I asked. ‘Because,’ he responded, ‘if you only do what is expected of you then you are not free.’ Because of the particularity and extreme nature of such experiences, they are difficult to reconcile with a non-Ultra form of life. As Eric Leed explained, ‘the personality, once adapted to war, is incommensurate with civilian society’.207

  Life as War

  Antagonism between peoples or a state of war between them is in itself not the cause of a civilization’s collapse; on the contrary the imminent sense of danger, just like victory, can consolidate, even in a material way, the network of a unitary structure and heat up a people’s spirit through external manifestations, while peace and well-being may lead to a state of reduced tension that favors the action of the deeper causes of a possible disintegration.208

  The Ultras have chosen war as their normal mode of interaction with others. Through war, they feel a constant tension, or seeking of battles, and the thrill of engaging in hostilities with others — be they verbal and ironic, as is often the case with the Ultras mode of tifare contro (rooting against), or physical and violent.

  Tifare contro (rooting against), as the preceding chapters have demonstrated, is the normalized mode of being a ‘fan’ for the Ultras. Giovanni Francesio used the concept to describe the Ultras’ in-stadium behaviors.209 However, he stopped short of using the concept to understand what it is in the Ultra phenomenon that buttresses those behaviors. As is clear, I am arguing that the oppositions for the Ultras do not end at the stadium but are only most obvious there. It is in the spaces and activities of the Ultras that are far removed from the stadium lights that the depth of the commitment to their form of life becomes apparent.

  Commitment and Organic Community

  Just as Eric Leed explained the idea of war held by many veterans of World War I, the Ultras employ an understanding of war and society that is romantic and non-economic.210 The romanticism of the Ultras’ use of war is seen in two ways: their promotion of an organic community, and their devotion to honor, sacrifice, and suffering as markers of status and distinction.

  The Ultras believe themselves to be an organic community. One particularity noticed by scholars of the Ultra phenomenon is its trans-class nature. As Roversi and Balestri explained, the Ultras have always welcomed the participation of all social classes, even in cities with large industrial workforces and working classes, like Turin or Bologna.211 They explained this the way many do in Italian piazzas, by the overall level of passion for soccer that exists at all levels of society. My interactions with larger groups (with over a hundred members) like Boys Roma and Ultras Romani supported this claim. However, it was made clearer by Padroni di Casa, which, while sharing the Fascist ideologies of Boys, does not share their skinhead aesthetics.

  I asked Daniele (a ne
w member of Padroni di Casa) about the multi-class makeup of the group and the Ultras. ‘Who gives a damn about class stratification,’ he responded. ‘We are Fascists and therefore the bourgeois is a question of mentality. I have a little money, I went to the university, but above all I believe in a Fascist life. We don’t think about money for money’s sake, no. Instead we think about a heroic and radical life.’ Others in Padroni di Casa seconded Daniele’s attitude about the class composition of the Curva. One need not be poor, they told me, to fight for Fascism or the Ultras. Instead one needed ‘le palle’ (‘the balls,’ or commitment and determination) and ‘coraggio’ (courage). Later, on a visit to CasaPound, a new initiative of the Roman Far Right that seeks to transcend the limitations of the liberal political order that has hamstrung radical politics since the war, I overheard an impassioned explanation of the critique of the bourgeois form of life at the initiative’s core.

  Blending Mussolini and Amilcar Cabral, the young Fascist told a group of ten men and women that ‘if one discounts the historical nature of the critique of liberalism — if one ignores the fact that Nietzsche, Evola, Pound, Sorel, Spengler, and all the others were professional academics or thinkers — then it might appear a form of “class suicide” is necessary in order accept that capitalism is leading us to an abyss. Certainly, we can be seen to benefit greatly from American imperialism and global capitalism. But regardless of the destruction of other peoples, so that you may live in comfort, you too are being destroyed — turned soft and impotent.’

  Padroni di Casa’s political agenda is not to fight against socialism and capitalism but against ‘what materialism and the marketplace do to humanity. The logic of profit and marketing destroy any community or culture that confronts them.’ Instead of a class-based critique of the bourgeois form of life, then, the Ultras believe themselves committed to a spiritual or cultural struggle. Being committed to something greater than oneself and one’s personal gain is important because it demonstrates a move beyond the individualism that is inherently bourgeois. Primarily limited to the Ultras, AS Roma, and Rome, their commitment is shown in the willingness to fight and to stand against the will of others. It can be argued, as did Bromberger, that the fighting and defending are merely symbolic or even rhetorical.212 However, this critique would have to ignore the extraordinary value placed upon rhetoric and symbolism by the Ultras. To see the world through the eyes of an Ultra is to see ‘us against them’ at every turn. They use this value to create of themselves a community whose basis lies beyond the material — in the realm of will, sentiment, volition.213 This is their mentalità.

  Sacrifice and Struggle

  Part of the romanticism of the Ultras is how they create and understand their community. Another is the basis of that community — the sanctity of honor earned through sacrifice and struggle. An extension of Evola’s ethics of the warrior, the nexus between sacrifice and warfare is explained by Allen Frantzen as a dominant theme not only of traditional Indo-European knowledge of warfare but also of the narratives of World War I veterans. In these narratives, the invocation of self-sacrifice as a path toward redemption is common.214 AS Roma’s Ultras use these narratives to create their very community, but more so to create a hierarchy within that community. They are a community of people who are expected to defend and fight for the things that are dear to them. The more accountable one shows oneself to be, the more ‘Ultra’ one may be seen to be.

  In other words, no one may buy his or her way to group leadership or to respect within the Curva. One must be worthy of these. It serves this model of ‘cultural capital accumulation’ to have one’s actions be understood as sacrifice and struggle. As Fabrizio of Romulae Genti told me as he waited tables in a center-of-Rome restaurant, ‘one has to be committed to be an Ultra. It is not something you can do once and then claim to be. The groups are too serious about this — if you come in as a tourist and then get caught talking about how hard you are, it can be trouble.’ I asked how the groups might know. ‘We are everywhere in this city and we know everyone,’ he responded wryly.

  I asked Mario about the constant references to sacrifice amongst AS Roma’s Ultras and how this related to how much fun the Ultras seemed to have. ‘Even though it is fun,’ he told me, ‘no one else will do it. [The bourgeois fans] will not sing, follow AS Roma away from Rome, and would never fight. Even though it is fun, there are many times when it is not. Look at Manchester,’ he said, referring to a 2007 Champions League quarterfinal game in which AS Roma lost 7–1 to Manchester United. There, ‘we had the humiliating defeat, hooligans seeking revenge on us for what happened in Rome [a number of English fans were stabbed before the first game between the clubs], and police on horseback that were more interested in beating us than protecting us. Singing that night was difficult, but by singing and supporting AS Roma we showed that we have honor. By standing up to the rushes of the hooligans we showed courage and that Romans are not to be trifled with.’

  In terms of performance, the act of singing even when AS Roma is losing is seen as sacrifice because one is acting when the ‘spirit’ is unwilling. Traveling great distances is sacrifice because it takes considerable time and involves discomfort. Facing a group of Carabinieri with machine guns and a small tank is a sensation that other ‘normal’ fans are unwilling to feel. Certainly, facing another group of Ultras armed with bricks and bottles or police officers with night-sticks, and doing so with coraggio (courage) and in sprezzo del pericolo (defiance of danger), is beyond what others are willing to do in the name of Rome. Willingness to do these things is the root of honor. The unwillingness of others to do them is what creates the distance between Ultras and others.

  Conclusion

  The Ultras understand that warfare is redemptive. Nietzsche explained warfare as the ‘father of all good things’ because, as he said, it makes life poetic. It brings raw emotion and an affective sensibility to the fore.215 The Ultras seem to understand the poetry of which Nietzsche spoke, as they experience so much of life in states of euphoria or raging disgust. The Ultras life is extreme, as is made evident by their rivalries. From their perspective, the bourgeois life of safety and security, in which thrills are provided by consumerism, is a life castrated of its passion. In the years they were active in Curva Sud, Antichi Valori unfurled many banners that spoke of these ideas. One of the most concise, Contro Tutto e Tutti (Against everyone and everything), explained the Ultra mentalità perfectly. This refusal to reconcile or compromise was seconded by Boys Roma. Their 2004 banner reading Sempre Schierati Mai Omologati (Always in [military] formation, never homogenized/standardized) is a declaration of war against Calcio Moderno and standardization. It can also be read as a life of war, danger, and confrontation in defiance of the ‘homogenized form of life’ that opposes the Ultras.

  Chapter Six

  Romanità and the Ultras

  This chapter examines the concept Romanità, an extreme identification with Rome and things Roman, and what Rome means to the Ultras. Through its history, culture, and cultural symbols, Rome is the main inspirational entity for the Ultras; it makes knowable their deep affection. Even in the ‘nastier’ elements of their politics, witnessed in the preceding chapters, the Ultras are not motivated by a narrow, or parochial, fearfulness, but instead an intensely positive and prideful feeling of connection to place. Their discursive understanding of themselves, the rest of Italy and the world are filtered through Rome, and their relationship to the city’s past, present, and future glory and greatness. This chapter examines the theoretical aspects of Romanità and then turns to examples of how the Ultras use and present their own vision of the intense connection between themselves and the city.

  Romanità

  Romanità as Campanilismo?

  Campanilismo, or localism, is understood as an excessive attachment to one’s town or birthplace.216 It can lead to a particular identification and process of differentiation that can ultimately result in fragmentation and conflict.217 A
lthough generally used to describe the process through which many Italians interact with nationalizing trends, it is perfectly incorporated into the mentalità of the Ultras.218 Thus, campanilismo could be used as an introductory element of a general mentalità of Italian Ultras, as the phenomenon is deeply linked with strong associations between glory, team, and town throughout Italy.

  Romanità is a highly-exaggerated version of campanilismo, for Romanità is at base a hyper-identification with Rome and things Roman that causes fragmentation and conflict. I have already explained how extremely limited is the altruistic inclusiveness, or propter nos, of the Ultras and how this impacts their political ideology and behavior.219 Based on my experiences and the behaviors of Ultras that I have witnessed, it is clear that a strong attachment to their city exists. Indeed, the national movement-based Movimento Ultras highlights ‘local particularity’ as the primary aspect of soccer under attack by Calcio Moderno.220

  However, as connected as they might be, there is more to Romanità than campanilismo; there is also Fascism. I demonstrated in previous chapters that the Ultras have an ‘aristocratic’ sense through which they relish the distance between themselves and others. This ‘aristocratic’ sense, I explained, also makes the Ultras improper Fascists, in that there is little desire for unity (even amongst the Ultras themselves) or sense of being part of a movement. In other words, most of the Ultras are lacking a feeling of responsibility that would allow the phenomenon a truly political function.