Hated and Proud- Ultras Contra Modernity

by Mark Dyal

  Figure 14. Mosaic celebrating the Blackshirts, Stadio Olimpico, Rome, 2006.

  ‘Is that why the Fascists dominate the Curva?’ I asked. ‘I think so,’ he said, ‘but also because when I and others of my generation became active in the Curva, the Left was discredited after the Berlin Wall fell. At school the Fascists had the only critique of capitalism that we felt had not been discredited. It may have been defeated in war, but it was not discredited as ideology. Plus,’ he continued, ‘Boys Roma and Opposta Fazione were the best Ultras and they were the best Fascists. When we looked for the one, we saw the other.’

  It was most interesting that when the Ultras discussed Fascism they did so in ways that mirrored their political consciousness as Ultras — in terms of ideology, history, and mentalità. Conversely, when the media discuss Fascism in the Italian curvas it is normally a discussion of parties. Interestingly, of all the Ultras in today’s Curva Sud who openly discuss Fascism, the two most important and influential groups — Boys Roma and Padroni di Casa — have deep connections to Fascist political parties. More importantly, though, they demonstrate how Fascism preexisted the Fascist political parties in the Curva.

  Boys Roma has been a fascist-based Ultra group since 1972, although for long periods, with no official links to parties. Padroni di Casa has only been in Curva Sud since 2007, but their pedigree reaches back to the rightist-oriented Opposta Fazione and then Tradizione Distinzione Roma. Here too this was without any outward connection to political parties. Today, however, both have open connections to the two dominant parties of the Italian Far Right: Forza Nuova and Fiamma Tricolore (and later, CasaPound).

  The Parties of the Far Right and Today’s Curva Sud

  Even though these parties, both of which understand themselves as movements, are of the Right and share a similar critique of communism and liberalism, they each consider themselves an enemy of the other. Those from Forza Nuova speak of those in Fiamma Tricolore as something akin to zingari (slur for gypsy) who are compromising the spirit of Fascism — and vice versa. Fiamma Tricolore was started in 1995 by members of Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI) who refused to compromise their radical credentials by participating in the move of the more moderate successor party, Alleanza Nazionale, toward the center. Fiamma Tricolore is active at the community level in most of Rome’s working-class neighborhoods, and through its leader Luca Romagnoli it also seeks parliamentary legitimacy and influence.

  Forza Nuova, by contrast, seeks no parliamentary power. Its actions are movement-like in that they focus on community presence and local organization via a series of offices. Forza Nuova was founded as an organic extension of Roberto Fiore’s Terza Posizione organization that was outlawed in Italy after being associated with the 1980 bombing of the Bologna Central railway station. Its Roman members understand themselves entirely as radical activists and many seek opportunities to confront others, whether in ‘la piazza’ (dialogue and outreach) or in ‘la strada’ (violent attack).

  Of the two, it is Forza Nuova that has the most influence in today’s Curva Sud. This is difficult to ascertain, however, because both Forza Nuova and Fiamma Tricolore have members in the various Curva Sud groups. When Tradizione Distinzione Roma disbanded in 2007 it was because some members, including its founder Gianluca Iannone, desired to spend more time outside the Curva. The new group they founded, Padroni di Casa, was immediately associated with the political Right, specifically Fiamma Tricolore.

  On the day that Padroni di Casa introduced itself to Curva Sud, I was with Boys Roma. The leadership of Boys was comprised of three men at the time; two of who are actively involved in Forza Nuova, while the other is of Fiamma Tricolore. Some within the group speculate that the current inability of Boys to prosper as in the days of Paolo Zappavigna is due to this crucial rift. That day in the Curva, one of the leaders affiliated with Forza Nuova watched derisively as Padroni di Casa entered the curva as a group just after the game had begun. He leaned into me and said only, ‘sono da Fiamma’ (they are [members] of Fiamma Tricolore).

  Since that day in February 2007, Padroni di Casa have twice switched their party allegiance — first to Forza Nuova, and then, several months later, to start the now nationwide movement CasaPound Italia. Named in honor of the Fascistic American poet Ezra Pound, CasaPound Italia seeks to be a new type of Fascist movement — one that is just as active in acculturating as in activism. At Padroni di Casa’s office CasaPound, the original office of the nationwide movement, weekly lecture, film, and cultural events are held. They have affiliations with Roman Futurist artists and poets, Evolan and Nietzschean students, and a host of Fascist Romans of various professions.

  The movement’s ultimate goal, according to its leader Gianluca Iannone, is to become an autonomous voice of ‘truly radical Fascism in a way that the post-war Fascists have been unable to maintain.’ CasaPound’s Fascism takes the beauty and passion of the Ultras and applies them to the piazza. On 3 November, 2008, three gentlemen identified as members of CasaPound stormed the studio of RAI 3, Italy’s main Left wing television network, as the program Chi l’ha Visto was preparing to air a video of the previous day’s violent encounter between activists on the Far Right and Left in Piazza Navona. The fight was related to ongoing polemics and street battles due to the Left’s protests of proposed school reforms. CasaPound Italia released a statement saying it would no longer tolerate the violence against Fascist activists by their Leftist counterparts. Two days later Il Messaggero linked CasaPound Italia to Padroni di Casa, as Iannone was among those arrested for the assault on RAI 3.

  Neither representatives of Fiamma Tricolore nor Forza Nuova admitted to using the Ultras as a site for recruiting. During a brief conversation with a Fiamma Tricolore contact (provided to me by the third member of Boys’ leadership), it was explained that Fiamma Tricolore does not officially enter the Italian curvas. Any shared membership between the two, Ultras and Fascism, is coincidental, he explained. ‘In the past, though, the curvas were fertile ground for the organized Right, and many Ultras became involved in Fiamma Tricolore through being Ultras — myself included,’ he told me.

  A longer conversation at the Piazza Vescovio office of Forza Nuova was similarly dismissive of the Ultras. I was told by Martin Alvaro, a well-known Forza Nuova activist, that the Ultras are of no interest whatsoever to their movement. Even though some members of Forza Nuova hailed from both SS Lazio’s Curva Nord and AS Roma’s Curva Sud, the Ultras, he said, had never been a large part of Forza Nuova’s recruitment scheme. When asked why, he explained that, ‘The curvas were unreliable, being fuller of hedonists than Fascists.’ Whatever the position of Forza Nuova on the Ultras, my research pointed to deep crossovers between their form of political activism and that of the Ultras. These connections will be explained in the following two sections.

  In contrast to what Martin Alvaro told me, that there are only coincidental members of both the Ultras and Forza Nuova, I can attest to there being a number of AS Roma Ultras who follow the actions of Forza Nuova closely. While these persons did not speak of Fiore or other national leaders of Forza Nuova, they all knew of those who were attached to ‘Piazza Vescovio,’ as Forza Nuova was called (because of the location of their Rome office). On the rare occasions when I was with Ultras and Forza Nuova members away from a strictly Ultra related activity (such as an AS Roma game or an office of one of the groups), neither the Ultras nor soccer were discussed. For the Ultras this is rare, as it would be hard to converse with an Ultra for five minutes without the discussion turning to either the Curva or AS Roma.

  One can conclude, therefore, that the parties of the Far Right and the Ultras of Curva Sud Roma are two overlapping constituents that intersect without necessarily uniting. While the issues that concern these parties are certainly important to the Ultras, from alleged immigrant crime to the national trade deficit with China, it is most likely that the large majority of Ultras have become devoted to these concerns without the intervention of
the organized Far Right. There are certainly Ultras who are active in organized Fascism, as will be made clear below, but there seemed to be many more who consider themselves Fascist without being dedicated to the Fascist parties. As I said above, it was common to speak with Ultras like Federico, Mario, or Gabriele of Romulae Genti who knew Martin Alvaro of Forza Nuova and the goings on of that party but who otherwise never made serious contact with organized Fascism.

  That Ultras like them were dedicated to the ideology of Fascism and were familiar with leading Roman Fascists but never committed themselves to Forza Nuova, for instance, might play a role in the ways my contacts in the Extreme Rightist parties disparaged the Ultras. Meanwhile, odd as it seems, the Ultras in the post-Raciti/Sandri era are castigated in the media more severely than the Fascists. It could be that the fascist parties have chosen to distance themselves from the Ultras given their present conflict with the State. Nevertheless, even without formal connections to the parties, the Rightist Ultra groups operate with Fascism in mind, adopting squadrismo (action in the form of Fascist paramilitary squads), an ethic of violence that celebrates engagement and aggression, pageantry as a form of political action, and a critique of modernity. It could be said, then, that the Ultras are another form of Fascism.

  The Ultras as Political Actors

  MTV Day

  In the early Fall of each year, MTV holds a one-day festival in Rome called MTV Day. In 2007, it was held in Piazza di Porta San Giovanni and was attended by a group of twenty Ultras belonging to Padroni di Casa. They were there along with a sizable contingent of Roman university students belonging to Forza Nuova’s student wing, Lotta Studentesca. The purpose was not to enjoy the festivities but to protest them. They marched into the piazza behind a banner reading ‘Boicotta MTV’ (Boycott MTV). Behind the banner the Ultras distributed handbills explaining their presence:

  MTV completes ten years? Ten years of brainwashing millions of children. Ten years of dishonor, relativism, materialism, and hedonism! In the media society that shapes how we think, MTV has for years influenced the ideas and style of life of the young, promoting a process of homogenization that annuls particularity and identity. Lotta Studentesca retains the right to our own characteristics and the differences between these and a society that is becoming more Americanized by the day. For this we have entered the piazza today, to contest the ever-present Americanized media, and to stimulate a desire amongst the youth to desire and hold dear our true identity and traditions of our people. To be revolutionary today is to love Tradition.

  The terms of the protest were typical of the Ultras’ understanding of globalization and what is at stake in its triumph. MTV is perhaps the greatest purveyor of American values on Italian television. It is a twenty-four hour-a-day promoter of what the Ultras call leisure, avarice, and vulgarity. As in the US, its shows like ‘Cribs,’ ‘Pimp My Ride,’ and ‘The Fabulous Life Of ...’ present a constant stream of, as said the Lotta Studentesca leaflet, ‘relativism, materialism, and hedonism.’ Through its original shows like ‘Buzzin’’ and ‘Nabari,’ MTV Italia promotes the idea that Italy is a multicultural and multiracial society in which all groups share friendship and understanding despite their differences. Black Africans, burkha wearing Muslim girls, and Italian teens share experiences and interests. On other shows, like ‘A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila,’ Italians learn of the thrills of bisexuality and sexual promiscuity. The Rightists’ banner and handbills expressed outrage at this cluster of messages.

  Family Day and Gay Pride

  The Ultras’ protest against MTV Day showed a highly-moralized understanding of the terms of globalization. The protection of institutions and traditions, however they are defined — in this case as the bulwark of ‘particularity’ against ‘homogenization’ — is not a goal for the sake of the Italian State, but instead is part of a local fight against multicultural-and-globalization-based change — change imposed either from without or from the perspective of liberal or modern ‘progress.’ In either case, the Ultras understand both as a shameful flight from their own culture. These were also the terms with which they engaged Family Day and the annual Roman Gay Pride parade.

  Family Day was the Church-organized day to protest DICO — Rights and Obligations of Permanently Cohabiting Persons, the bill proposed by members of the 2006–2007 Prodi government, which sought rights for cohabiting couples, including homosexuals. Held on a warm May day in Piazza di Porta San Giovanni, the rally brought together hundreds of Catholic organizations from all around Italy. The Far Right parties were there as well, with Alleanza Nazionale urging all parties to carry no colors so as not to risk making the family seem a ‘political object.’

  Concurrently in Piazza Navona there was a rally in support of purely secular government. Here, demonstrators sought to keep the church from being involved in political issues. At the time of these demonstrations ‘Ratzinger’ (as most Ultras called Pope Benedict XVI) was in Brazil proclaiming the need of the church to be unconcerned with the political issues of the day. The irony was not lost on Federico, the former member of Antichi Valori with whom I attended Family Day. Even though he grew up in the shadow of the Vatican, worked in its museums as a tour guide, supported Family Day, and approved of Ratzinger, he noted that it made sense for the Pope to say this in Latin America, as the conservative elements in the church had struggled to eradicate that continent’s Liberation Theology since the 1960s. For Federico, the Church was and is extremely political. It is not always that he, and other Romans, agrees with the Church’s politics, but on this occasion, he said, he and many others did.

  The Ultras who attended Family Day did so for much the same reasons other Ultras had attended MTV Day. At the latter, they were protesting a celebration of turbo-capitalism, hedonism, and hyper-materialism; at the former they joined a celebration of tradition, idealism, and protectionism. Thus, the events were two sides of the same coin. The Ultras talked about Family Day not as an anti-gay statement, but as an opportunity to show the Prodi government that his will to make of Italy one grand market, as the US and UK are understood, is opposed by Italians. It was explained to me that the problem of the Italian Left is that it is always too ready to undermine Italian traditions in order to please the international community. ‘They attack proud and strong Italians on behalf of immigrants and silly pleasure seekers,’ Federico told me.

  The Pope pronounced on the issue in the week before Family Day. Where the Ultras spoke of tradition, he spoke of sin. Nonetheless, there was little distinction between their arguments. The materialist philosophies, Capitalism and Marxism, had torn away our ability to be more than vulgar matter, he said.295 When secularism is embraced, a wholly abstract human follows. Ratzinger did not continue in this way for long, but I mentioned it to the Ultras for a reaction. I was told by Mario, now of Ultras Primavalle but formerly of Monteverde, ‘[not to] worry about traditions collapsing in Rome. The rest of the world lives without tradition because their history, culture — existence itself — are not real. But here in Rome, the past is so important that you cannot even live in it. We have a perpetual present [il presente permanente] that stretches back 2700 years.’

  Mario’s statement demonstrates the depth of the Ultras’ commitments to Rome as a place in which history, culture, and existence (to use his words) operate differently than elsewhere in the world. Romanità is more than just a weekend-only ideological dalliance for the Ultras. Instead, it acts as the basis for their understanding of cultural and historical processes. It ensures that culture and history form a visible and knowable ‘web of significance’ through which the mundane everyday is made knowable. As he said, the past is important in Rome because there really is no past — all is lived presently and immediately. Mario assumes that this does not happen elsewhere in the world, because beyond Rome, culture and history are not real — playing no true role in how people live.

  I was reminded of Michael Polanyi’s struggle to justify the forms o
f knowledge generated by zealotry, through which violence and terror are given fuel. Borrowing from Hannah Arendt, he explains that revolutionary education is designed to abolish the line between truth and fiction, thereby making every knowable thing a ‘statement of purpose’.296 Leaving aside his epistemology (and political aversion to extremism), his understanding of knowledge serving a purpose but also being pliable is reflected in Mario’s statement. And, there is no mistaking that this devotion to Rome is a form of extremism. Rome’s visibly multi-layered history makes the city’s historical importance a constant reminder of what is ‘at stake’ for the Ultras. In effect, their feelings of proprietorship are manifested in every evening stroll they take.

  The Church was less at issue on Family Day than was taking a stand against the liberalization of Italian society. The media coverage of Family Day made it an issue of ‘gay rights’ and the ‘grettezza’ (close-mindedness) the ‘traditional Italian’ that keeps Italy from ‘making progress.’ For the Ultras, Family Day was less about these immediate concerns than with an opportunity to take exception to the very idea of the liberal, rights-based human to begin with. Nietzsche wrote about ‘breeding strength’ as an ideal for his radical aristocratic nobility. Strength, like nobility itself, was to be achieved through struggle and hardship. It was to oppose the very idea that ‘man’ is given value by virtue of his ability to participate equally in a marketplace (what Nietzsche called ‘mechanical virtue’).297