Fascism As a Style of Life Community Life and Violence in a Neofascist Movement in Italy
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Fascism as a style of life Community life and violence in a neofascist movement in Italy Maddalena Gretel Cammelli Abstract: In the European context, where the rise of right-wing movements and parties indicates the emergence of an integral Europe, Italy represents a country where the fascist past grants these political formations signifi cant identitarian se- curity. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted with a contemporary neo- fascist movement called CasaPound active in Italy, this article proposes to take seriously the activists’ defi nition of themselves as “third-millennium fascists.” Th is article examines the network that CasaPound has built around its movement to an- alyze the presence fascist political culture currently maintains. Following militants’ interpretations of fascist ideology and practice, which oscillates between violence and death on one side and emotions and community on the other, third-millen- nium fascism appears to be a style of life deeply rooted in violent acts and death. Keywords: community, fascism, integralism, nationalism, neofascism, violence “Neofascism” generally defi nes the political and fascism is dynamic and mercurial” (2016: 2) ideological groups and parties that have been and that the extremism we are facing nowadays active in Europe aft er 1945, inspired by the “should be understood as a fascism of and in our history of Italy and Germany between the two time” (1; emphasis in original), not necessarily a World Wars (Cento Bull 2009: 586). While there replication of historical forms. is no consensus on one single defi nition of fas- In the contemporary European context char- cism, scholars do largely agree that this legacy acterized by the resurgence of right-wing move- did not end in April 1945. Roger Griffi n suggests ments and parties, I seek to move beyond this that “fascism continues to inspire” present-day defi nition in order to bring fascism back to the movements (1991: xii) and, moreover, that fas- center of analysis. In Italy, the political movement cism is presently characterized by “groupusco- CasaPound defi nes itself as “third-millennium larity” and what he calls a “rizhomic” political fascist,” thus giving shape to and performing the structure (Griffi n et al. 2006: 55), creating a “cel- fascist legacy in contemporary society. Th is arti- lular, capillary network” capable of transform- cle focuses on the political project of CasaPound ing this ideology into a “faceless force” (59). and aims to provide ethnographic evidence of the Douglas Holmes has stated that “contemporary meaning of this form of contemporary fascism. Focaal—Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology 79 (2017): 89–101 © Stichting Focaal and Berghahn Books doi:10.3167/fcl.2017.790108 90 | Maddalena Gretel Cammelli A vast debate has erupted around the politi- engender social formations that are caught up cal and historical phenomenon of fascism in an with cultural identities and processes of identity eff ort to grasp its inner logic. Besides its rela- radicalization, where history and territoriality tionship with the capitalist system, as stressed come to play a primary role in the search for sig- by Marxist analyses, fascism has been explained nifi cance (see also Friedman and Chase-Dunn as a “political religion” (E. Gentile 2005: 35), a 2005; Friedman and Friedman 2008). “revolutionary form of nationalism” (Griffi n Th is article opens with a description of the 1991: xi), a “new political style” (Mosse 1975: CasaPound neofascist movement in contempo- 8) and a “cultural phenomenon” (Sternhell et rary Italy. Linking this movement to the history al. 1989: 444) in which violence is “a means to to which militants themselves claim to belong, I achieve the transformation of the society” (Grif- am able to shed light on the current fl ourishing fi n 2005: 21). Scholarship about nationalism de- of fascism as a political culture and religion of fi nes it as a “social phenomenon” (Gingrich and death. Drawing on an ethnography conducted Banks 2006: 2) and a cultural and dynamic pro- within this movement in Rome in 2010,1 I ex- cess involving a shared imagination (Anderson amine its activists’ self-representation as a com- 1983). However, since “not all nationalisms are munity and the prominent role played by certain the same” (Kapferer 2012: xiv), Holmes delves sites in Rome as well as the importance of the into the new shapes European nationalism takes group’s leader and the music he plays. I then on as they “are being recast by those forces en- show how, considering fascist history and neo- compassed by advanced European integration” fascist Italian networks, CasaPound is neither (2006: 385). He proposes the term “integralism” an isolated nor a groupuscular phenomenon; to refer to those political and cultural phenom- rather, these factors reveal it as a political for- ena that draw directly on the Counter-Enlight- mation compatible with the democratic arena. enment as a specifi c European tradition in four Based on activists’ statements about the meaning registers: “as a framework of meaning, as a prac- they grant to fascism, this article seeks to grasp tice of everyday life, as an idiom of solidarity, the inner logic and sense of this movement, an and, above all, as a consciousness of belonging analysis that reveals “third-millennium fascism” linked to a specifi c cultural milieu” (2000: 3). to be mainly a lifestyle. As such, it is not a pro- Th e term “integralism” enables Holmes to in- gram that leads participants to engage with the vestigate a broader phenomenon that “can, but community but rather a prerational experience: need not, follow a trajectory toward fascism.” a lifestyle best represented by violence and the Nevertheless, he states that “fascism is a form of ability to face death. integralism” (14). According to Holmes, the project of Euro- pean integration has a direct eff ect on processes CasaPound in Rome and community of meaning making and signifying social real- ity. Holmes calls “fast-capitalism” not “a sys- Near the Termini train station in Rome, we fi nd tem of production or exchange” but a cultural the Esquilino neighborhood, a multiethnic area phenomenon that “degrades moral claims, sub- populated mainly by Chinese and Bengali peo- verts social consensus, and challenges various ple. On the columns of Vittorio Square, there are forms of political authority” (10). In this con- several posters celebrating the Chinese New Year text, he analyzes the spread of integralist po- and some holy Hindu saints written in several litical formations and discourses. In a similar languages. Th e only Italian-language posters are manner, Jonathan Friedman’s (1994) global from CasaPound: fl yers celebrating the day ded- anthropology perspective suggests that periods icated to a special fascist fi gure or inviting pass- of hegemonic decline and shift s in processes of ersby to attend conferences at CasaPound or, as accumulating and distributing forms of capital militants love to call it, the Italian Embassy. In Fascism as a style of life | 91 fact, present-day CasaPound began life as sev- of the building from the state using funds be- en-story apartment building in this multieth- longing to the City of Rome (11.8 million eu- nic area that hosted several militants from the ros), an operation that ultimately failed because movement and their families. Th e building is of the opposition posed by left ist members of still easily recognizable today, as it bears marble parliament. letters on the facade over the main door spelling Th e Italian Embassy is the main site in Rome’s out CASAPOVND. topography related to CasaPound, but it is not Th e political movement CasaPound was born the only one. Since the 2000s, Esquilino has in 2003 following the occupation of this build- also hosted Cutty Sark, “Italy’s most hated pub,” ing in Esquilino. At fi rst it was a movement as- where militants oft en meet up to drink beer and sociated with the right-wing Fiamma Tricolore hold discussions. Th e door is always closed; party and active mainly in Rome.2 In 2008, it cut you need to ring the bell and show a registered ties with the party to become an independent, card to gain access. In the same area, near the legally recognized association with a presence in Church of Santa Maria Maggiore, there is the multiple Italian cities. In 2013, it shift ed again, bookstore Testa di Ferro. Th is site, also requir- this time to become an independent political ing visitors to ring the bell to get inside, con- party, participating in local elections. In Rome, tains a large collection of the main publications it earned 0.69 percent of the overall vote. In related to fascist ideology and history, as well 2014, it initiated a collaboration with the Lega as the magazine issued by CasaPound, T-shirts, Nord party led by Matteo Salvini, helping it fi rst and music CDs. to gain support among voters in the district of Th e CasaPound building itself is always Rome within the European parliament elections closed, with a large, solid wooden door at the and second, in 2015, establishing a new political front and a 24-hour guard on the fi rst fl oor. subject called Sovranità, thus defi ning the alli- In order to go inside, somebody called out my ance with the Lega Nord and supporting Matteo name from a window on the fi rst fl oor to verify Salvini’s leadership. In 2016, fi nally, CasaPound my identity and then came down to let me in. At participated in elections as an independent Area 19 enemy emplacement,4 the other space party, earning a surprising 8.6 percent in the lo- central to CasaPound’s topography in the capi- cal elections in Bolzano, a city in northern Italy tal, there were security guards at every corner, a near the Austrian border, and 1.14 percent, the force of more than 30 individuals, on the night equivalent of 14,711 votes, in the local elections of a big concert.