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Introduction: Negotiating Memories of Protest

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Introduction: Negotiating Memories of Protest Notes Introduction: Negotiating Memories of Protest 1. ‘Contentious’ protests relate to collective actions performed by social groups that do not have ‘regular access to institutions, [ ...] act in the name of new or unaccepted claims, and [ ...] behave in ways that fundamentally challenge others or authorities’. Tarrow (2006, p. 3). 2. See Melucci (1996); Goodwin et al. (2001); Polletta and Jasper (2001); Jasper (2010). 3. See Mason (2011). 4. This is opposed to social memory, ‘an often not activated potentiality’ of which collective memory only represents ‘an activated practice’. Namer (1991, p. 93). 5. See Nowotny (1994); Adam (1995); Hoskins (2001); Brose cited in Hoskins (2004). 6. At present memory studies are, in fact, a disparate discipline which involves fields as diverse as history, sociology, literary and media studies and psychol- ogy, and its inter- or trans-disciplinary nature has produced a multitude of terminologies and definitions. Erll (2008). 7. ‘Communicative memory’ implies a living, autobiographical and ‘fluid’ memory based on everyday communication (Assmann, 2008, p. 111). 8. In this book I will predominantly apply the definition of ‘cultural’ memory in my analysis of the transference of memories of protest movements of the 1970s, whereas I reserve the concept of ‘collective’ memory to discussions about shared memories of groups more in generally (Erll, 2006, p. 5; Erll, 2008, p. 4). 9. The ‘linguistic turn’ was a development in Western philosophy which focused on the relation between philosophy and language. One of the strands within the movement acknowledges that language is not a trans- parent medium of thought, thus creating an awareness of the falseness of the claim that history can produce ‘true’ or ‘authentic’ accounts of the past. White (1978). 10. Cited in Alexander (2004, p. 4). 11. The concept of ‘creeping May’ reflects the long duration of the protests of 1968 in Italy, and the metaphor of ‘May’ refers to the famous French protests, which were mostly concentrated in the period of May 1968. 12. Throughout the book I will use the Italian name for both Lotta Continua and Autonomia Operaia (Workers’ Autonomy), the two most important groups within the alternative left in the 1970s. 13. On the origins and reception of the term ‘years of lead’, see Chapter 1, pp. 29–31. 14. An exception is the volume which gathers the papers of a conference on the 1970s held at the University of Bologna during the 30th anniversary of 1977, 177 178 Notes in 2007 (see Chapter 5). It must be noted that, if the incidents of 1977 have never been systematically analysed and debated from a critical and impartial, historical perspective, this is also due to the reluctance of former 77-ers to become an object of historical research, as we shall see (see Chapter 5, pp. 120–121). 15. By ‘vernacular’ memory agents James Bodnar means those ‘ordinary people’ who ‘privilege the personal or vernacular dimension of patriotism over the public one’. They are ‘less interested than cultural leaders in exerting influ- ence or control over others, and are preoccupied, instead, with defending the interests and rights of their respective social segments’ (1992, p. 16). 16. Where possible, references are provided, although some of the material from the Lorusso archive (box B5) – including correspondence with Lydia Franceschi, the mother of another victim of police violence in the 1970s – was neither dated nor signed. 17. This event contributed significantly to the overall ‘condemnation’ of these years as ‘years of lead’, where ‘lead’ is a metaphor for bullets. 18. The concept of ‘memory sites’ or ‘sites of memory’ was introduced by Pierre Nora (1989). 1 “Years of Lead”? Political Violence in Perspective 1. Kneecapping was a speciality of the Red Brigades. 2. The definition of the 1970s as anni formidabili was taken from the title of a famous book by the former 68-er and protest leader Mario Capanna, Formidabili quegli anni, first published in 1988 and reprinted in 1998 and 2007. 3. The group was named after its two main leaders, Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof. 4. On the politics of memories of the Second World War in Europe, see Ned Lebow, Kansteiner and Fogu (2006). 5. See Robert Gildea’s chapter on French activists in the volume edited by Von der Goltz (2011b). 6. The expression ‘1968 years’ refers to the enduring impact of the protests of 1968 in Italy. Bonomo (2013a, p. 8). 7. See also Lumley (1994) for an account of the students’ and workers’ movement in Italy. 8. See also Fraser et al. (1988, p. 221); Bonomo (2013a). 9. See also Venturoli (2007); Hajek (2010). 10. Armed struggle was closer to forms of guerrilla tactics as used in Latin American countries, and did not operate underground, as was the case of terrorism. It ‘attempted to maintain a more open character and within the network of autonomous organisms’. Indeed, these groups ‘wished to distin- guish themselves from the experience of the Red Brigades’. Scavino (2001, p. 179). 11. See Casamassima (2008). 12. Another form of protest against the economic (and political) situation in Italy originated with so-called Proletarian Youth Clubs, in the mid-1970s, which will be discussed in Chapter 3, pp. 58–59. Notes 179 13. For a more in-depth reading of the historical compromise (compromesso storico) and the context within which it developed itself, see Amyot (1981). 14. Italy too had suffered a number of attempted coups d’état in those years. 15. The concept of ‘milieu’ reflects a space of social communication and lifestyles, and will be applied throughout the book. Hajek (2011b, p. 112). See also Zinnecker (2003) and Rucht (2011). 16. See Crainz (2005) and Ginsborg (2006). 17. For more details on publications by former terrorists and their representa- tion in cinema, see Glynn (2008), O’Leary (2011) and Glynn, Lombardi and O’Leary (2012). 18. On the issue of generation and memory, see Chapter 2. For another comparison between Italy and Germany, see Della Porta (1995). 19. See also Davis, Mausbach, Klimke and MacDougall (2010). 20. Nearly ten years later, a similar gender conflict led to the demise of the Italian left-wing extra-parliamentary group Lotta Continua (Continuous Battle, LC), as we will see in Chapter 3 (p. 63). 21. Other German terrorist groups include the Tupamaros, the 2nd June move- ment and the Revolutionary Cells. Hauser (2008, p. 271). 22. Nevertheless, polls revealed that, in 1971, 14 per cent of the West German population as a whole was willing to help or shelter RAF members. Hauser (2008, p. 272). 23. See also Cooke (2006, 2011). 24. The movie is known in English by two titles: Marianne and Juliane and Two German Sisters. 25. These battles over memory are at the heart of Hans Weingartner’s film The Edukators (2004). See Homewood (2010). 26. The Italian case is not dissimilar: two publications of 2007 and 2008, written by young authors belonging to the right, try to ‘blame’ 1968 for the poor state of the Italian educational system and the dramatic working conditions faced by the country’s youth. Surprisingly, a rejection of the legacy of 1968 in Italy also came from younger generations on the left, as in the provocative ‘pamphlet’ Against ’68. The Infinite Generation, published in 2007 by author and journalist Alessandro Bertante. 27. Perhaps the movie Après mai (‘After May’, dir. Olivier Assayas), which was released shortly before the 45th anniversary of 1968 in 2013, reflects (or announces) a new approach to the memory of 1968: focusing on the story of a young activist in a 1970s’ suburb as he slowly renounces to his political activism, it explicitly turns attention away from the Parisian ‘May 1968’. 28. A second important pacifist network was the Campaign for Nuclear Disar- mament (CND). 29. De Mauro (n.d.). See Cento Bull (2007) for a complex analysis of Italian neo- Fascist terrorism. 30. Cited in Simpson (2007, p. 90). 31. There is a vast literature on terrorism and stragismo in Italian cinema, which, however, exceeds the scope of this book. For more information see in particular O’Leary (2011) and Glynn, Lombardi and O’Leary (2012). 32. This was the primary aim of the first Truth and Reconciliation Commissions (TRC) in South Africa, which allowed victims to break the silence and speak out in public. Flores (1999). 180 Notes 2 “Wonderful Years”? Myth, Nostalgia and Authority 1. The initial working title of the book in Italian – Vent’anni. Una testimonianza (‘Twenty Years. An Account’) – evoked the idea of an eyewitness account even more strongly. 2. In fact, an international conference held in Great Britain in September 2012, entitled ‘A Multifaceted Decade of Protest in Italy: 1968–1978 between Myth and Reality’, contained presentations which engaged mostly with the topics of 1968 and the women’s movement, on the one hand, and terrorism on the other. 3. In this perspective it would also be interesting to examine the various movies and TV series that narrate those years, such as The Dreamers (Bernardo Bertolucci, 2003), La meglio gioventù (‘The best of youth’, Marco Tullio Giordano, 2003), Il grande sogno (Michele Placido, 2009) and Après mai (‘After May’, Olivier Assayas, 2012). However, such an analysis exceeds the scope of this book, which is focused on commemorative practices. 4. On 1968 and generation in the specific Italian case see Giachetti (2008). 5. See also Revelli (1995). 6. La Repubblica Bologna.it, 6 March 2007, http://bologna.repubblica. it/ dettaglio/chi-sei-marianna-del-77-bolognese/1278206 [accessed 30 May 2011]. 7. The left-wing extra-parliamentary group Lotta Continua, for example, took its name from the French slogan ‘la lutte continue’ (‘the battle continues’).
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