By Andrea Hajek, September 23rd, 2013 
In May 2013 one of Italy’s leading newspapers, La Repubblica, published an article entitled “Nimby effect on renewable energy – Italy allergic to biomass electrical generation.” Living in an agricultural area where green energy subsidies have boosted the production of biomass power stations over the past few years, I couldn’t help laughing at a similar condemnation of protests against the economical power games that lie behind green economy policies, and in which I have gotten increasingly involved over the past year. Yes, many of the people involved in the numerous bottom-up committees are worried about what is going on in their back yard, but perhaps that’s also because local politics have no interest whatsoever in defending those back yards. Moreover, a sound collaboration among various committees and associations that operate both locally and on a regional and national level prove that this is more than a group of residents concerned about their neighborhood. So it’s not all that simple. Hiding behind the ever so popular green economy business, in these times of crisis, it is easy to put off any criticism of biomass electrical generation as plain nimbyism. Yet the threat is real.
Other than the discomfort for residents, i.e. the stench and the frequency of heavy vehicles passing continuously (and often without considering speed limits) on the narrow country side roads to transport corn, grain and grass to the power plants, there are a number of very serious risks, problems and ethical issues involved.
Health: experts have demonstrated that these plants produce noxious gas that may cause cancer and birth defects. Medics, university professors and scientists have sound the alarm on more than one occasion, participating in counter-informative events and protest demonstrations, but local governors – with some minor exceptions – and media have remained indifferent to their criticism.
Profit: the presence of a relatively high number of power plants in small areas, producing energy not for the purpose of disposing biological waste in return for energy but for the sole purpose of gaining subsidies, . . .
Read more: Going Against the Grain of the Green Economy
By Andrea Hajek, May 30th, 2013 
Metaphorically speaking, Italy has had its share of earthquakes over the past few years. After Berlusconi’s government was dissolved in order to make way for Mario Monti’s technical government, life was turned upside down with the introduction of new taxes, the eruption of financial scandals involving all major political parties, and the success of comedian Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement in the elections of February 2013.
Further, in May 2012, Italy was shook up in a more literal way. The Northern region of Emilia-Romagna was struck by a heavy earthquake, which was repeated ten days later. A year has passed and much has yet to be done. Nevertheless, during the anniversary, politicians and the media indulged in a triumphant rhetoric that highlighted the great commitment of citizens and institutions in the reconstruction of “Emilia” (the western and north-eastern part of the region, where the epicenter of the earthquake was based). A reconstruction has yet to begin, leading to an explosion of local grassroots committees consisting of people who were affected both by the earthquake and by a bureaucratic rigmarole. The state bureaucracy has complicated the lives of the locals, this in a climate of crisis and austerity. As the state has responded only to the degree that it serves private corporate interests, citizens were left to fend for themselves, repeating a historic pattern.
The Emilia earthquake represents the last in a series of natural disasters in Italy, which never really produced any progressive legislation capable of transmitting know-how to future generations. A law was first passed in the 1970s, in the wake of two catastrophes that drew wide media attention. In 1980, a disastrous earthquake in the mountainous Irpinia region (Southern Italy) further sensitized public opinion, leading to the creation – in 1982 – of the Ministry of Civil Protection. However, the national civil protection system originated only in 1992, whereas the first legislative decree that would give the Italian regions executive powers was created years later (for a brief history of civil protection in Italy see David E. Alexander, “The Evolution . . .
Read more: Economic Shock Therapy, Italian style: Reflections on the 2012 Earthquake
By Andrea Hajek, March 25th, 2013 
“…were it not for our perseverance, for the fact that we turned our anger into the courage to say ‘We will not accept being denied the truth’ – were it not for this, then the stories [of our loss] would just end, they would have ended on that day. And we realize that, as we go on, we are the only power that we have.”
This is how Ilaria Cucchi – the sister of 31-year-old Stefano Cucchi, who died under mysterious circumstances in an Italian prison in 2009 – described the situation of her family and, by extension, of other families of victims of police repression in Italy, in her appearance on a television documentary about her late brother. Remembering requires a memory agent who will “actualize” or “activate” the memory in question, if it is to remain vivid. The Cucchi case demonstrates that in Italy the role of such memory communities has proven essential, considering the low commitment or unwillingness of the State to bring justice to the victims of police repression.
I have studied one such case – the violent death of Francesco Lorusso, on 11 March 1977. Lorusso, a medical student and sympathizer of a left-wing extra-parliamentary group, got involved in a conflict between left-wing and Catholic students which resulted in severe police repression during which Lorusso was shot in the back. The incident provoked an urban upheaval in which Lorusso’s friends and fellow students vented their anger in the city center, resulting in more public order measures. Lorusso’s death thus marked the final stage in the conflict between a newly arisen student movement and the local Communist authorities. The chapter on 1977 was, however, all but closed off, as the police officer who shot Lorusso was absolved on the basis of a disputed public order law, while the numerous requests by Lorusso’s family to open a new investigation remained unanswered.
In my forthcoming book on the public memory of the 1977 incidents, I interpret the family’s role in the process of getting justice in terms of “affective labor.” Post-Marxist philosophers Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri define affective labor . . .
Read more: Police Repression in Italy and the Affective Ecology of Victims’ Families
By Andrea Hajek, February 22nd, 2013 
 With the Italian general elections of 24-25 February 2013 around the corner, electoral campaigns are putting the country upside down. Nothing out of the ordinary, though competition among Italian politicians always seems to go a little further than elsewhere in the Western world. Only recently Berlusconi made a “shock” announcement, promising not only to abolish the council tax Mario Monti’s government introduced if his center-right coalition wins the elections, but even to refund Italians for the council tax that has already been paid in 2012. Just this week, a letter – highly reminiscent of an official income revenue document – with details on how to claim the money back was sent to millions of voters. In a more pathetic vein, various political leaders posed before cameras or appeared on TV shows cuddling puppies in an attempt to win over the Italian electorate.
With Italian media being largely compromised by political parties, cooperative companies, media and business magnates and financial strongholds, Italians have remained with only two real outlets for their frustration and disillusionment with contemporary politics and society, the Internet and satire. Blunders, scandals and a wide array of political issues that leak out into the public sphere instantly reach the web, where people vent their anger or have a (bitter) laugh at the guilty party by leaving comments on Twitter or circulating satirical cartoons on Facebook. And then there is satire, a particularly popular means of political criticism and contestation in Italy. Of course it is not new, and has been applied for a long time in the democratic world. Yet, with the various political scandals of the past year, as well as Monti’s harsh austerity policies and rigid attitude, seemingly unconcerned with the disastrous effects of these measures on the lives of many Italians, political satire in Italy is increasingly putting the finger on the sore spots, serving as a sort of mediatized vox populi.
And political satire is increasingly becoming a site of contestation. In mid-February, for example, Maurizio Crozza – best known for the satirical impersonations of politicians during his ten minute sketch on . . .
Read more: The Upcoming Italian Elections and the Seamy Side of Satire
By Andrea Hajek, January 14th, 2013 
In a previous article I argued that Italy is witnessing a sort of end of ideology: Prime Minister Mario Monti’s technical government responds to the economic market alone, while Beppe Grillo’s a-political grassroots movement is winning over disappointed voters. But with the elections in sight, the old political guard is warming up, eager to regain control over the country. Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who has governed the country on and off since 1994, is first in line: after months of tactical holding off, the Cavaliere – as Berlusconi is also called – decided to get back into the game as it became clear that Monti might run for the elections. For some weeks now he has been appearing on every single political and current affairs show on Italian television, primarily on his own TV channels but also on the more critical, independent La7, where he engaged in a highly media hyped duel with a critical journalist Berlusconi managed to have removed from state television back in 2002. On another talk-show, old times again revived as Berlusconi took it out on magistrates who ordered the former PM to pay €36 million ($48 million) a year in a divorce settlement with this ex-wife Veronica Lario: they were accused of being Communists and now also feminists.
The sense of history repeating itself was reflected in a satirical cartoon, where we see Berlusconi’s face on TV as he yells “Happy 1994!” to a terror-stricken viewer. Unless Monti’s newly found political list, “Civic choice,” can put a stop to it. Positioned neither to the left nor to the right, Monti seems to want to do away with traditional polarities in politics for good and give continuity to his technical government, with no one to respond to but the European Union. In fact, when criticized for the rigorous measures taken in order to bring down the government bond spreads, i.e. the spread between Italian benchmark 10 year bonds and safer German Bunds, Monti inflexibly shifted responsibility to bad management by previous governments. In the name of rigor and . . .
Read more: Mario Monti’s Midway: A Civic Choice in the Italian Elections?
By Andrea Hajek, October 10th, 2012 
In the early 1990s, the political scandal “Bribesville” led to the emergence of a new political class in Italy, headed by Silvio Berlusconi’s right-wing party Forza Italia (“Go Italy”). Bettino Craxi’s political protégée promised the Italians a “clean, reasonable and modern country.” Instead, the media magnate turned Italy into the “sick man of Europe”: “a country still struggling between modernity and backwardness, between the need/will to change and the fear of losing some local or specific privileges.” Twenty years on, a new corruption scandal has emerged, and the country seems to have returned to its point of departure, in spite of Berlusconi’s dismissal as Prime Minister.
This is not just Berlusconi’s fault, as I discussed in an earlier post . After all, he was voted in by many Italians, even if his control over the media (the Berlusconi family owns several TV channels, a publishing house and national daily) suggest a certain degree of political manipulation. The problem is that there is a mindset where getting away with (bad) things is a kind of national sport. It relates to the diffidence of Italian citizens towards the state, as historian John Foot explains in Italy’s Divided Memory:
“T]he Italian state has been in the throes of a semipermanent legitimation crisis ever since its inception. The basic ‘rules of the game’ have never been accepted by many Italians in terms of a ‘rational’ management of the state and the political system. They have, instead, been partly replaced by other, unwritten ‘rules’ that have institutionalized patronage, clientelism, and informal modes of behaviour and exchange.”
This legitimation crisis is evident, for example, in tax evasion but also – on the part of the state – in the use of excessive violence against citizens during social conflicts. The most exemplary case was the G8 summit in Genoa, in 2001, when police killed a student activist, savagely beat up . . .
Read more: Italy: Still the Sick Man of Europe
By Andrea Hajek, August 23rd, 2012 
Ever since former PM Silvio Berlusconi was forced to make way for Mario Monti’s politics of rigor and sacrifice, Italy has been confronted with major cuts, radical changes in legislation, and a complete reversal of mind-set with regards to life-styles and consumption habits. Whether “Rigor Montis” (from the Latin expression “rigor mortis,” i.e. stiffening caused by death) – as Monti is mockingly called on occasions – will manage to turn Italy into a real European country is still a big question. What I fear will not change easily is the disgraceful condition of women in Italian society. My anxiety was confirmed on a daily basis throughout the summer of 2012, as I followed a contest to elect two new showgirls for a popular show on Channel 5, one of Berlusconi’s TV channels. But what is the big deal with women, boobs and bums in Italy anyway?
Since classical antiquity, female beauty occupies a central place in Italian culture. Not by chance, the nation has often been represented through allegorical female figures. The connection of the “fatherland” with female mother figures or erotic ideals was to encourage men to a “passionate attachment to the nation,” as Stephen Gundle puts it in his Bellissima: Feminine Beauty and the Idea of Italy. In other words, beauty was used as a form of (political) persuasion. This is also because Italians have never really had a commonly held, national sense of identity. Therefore, special importance was given to factors relating to the informal culture that Italians did share, i.e. the sexual fixation of men on women, the physical element apparently being more important for Latin males.
Berlusconi’s application of the stereotypical image of women as erotic objects of desire for men is part of both his success at home and his negative image abroad. His sexist and degrading jokes – most notably his vulgar remark about Angela Merkel’s bottom – are sadly famous across the world. Homosexuals weren’t spared either, like when he publicly justified his erotic escapades with . . .
Read more: Sexism Italian Style: Why Sacking Berlusconi Isn’t Enough
By Andrea Hajek, July 13th, 2012 
 In 2011, protests across the globe placed contentious politics at the heart of media attention. From the Arab Spring to the global Occupy movements, the world was caught in a rapid of rebellion. The role of new media in sparking, diffusing and connecting these protests did not go unnoticed.
But it’s not only the younger generations of protesters who increasingly have recourse to digital and mobile media in their activism. Old-timers are discovering new media technologies as well. This was exemplified in the recent publication of a series of photo albums on Facebook, containing hundreds of snapshots of Italian activists from a 1970s student movement, the so-called “Movement of ’77.” This was not the first attempt to reunite the 1977 generation, and yet, it has never been so successful. What makes Facebook different? Are we dealing with plain nostalgia here? I would rather argue that these digital photo albums, which open up a whole new perspective on the 1970s, as they turn attention away from dominant memories of terrorism and violence, have potentials in that they contribute to a more inclusive, alternative “history from below.”
In 2011, Time Magazine elected global activists “person of the year”. That same year, Italian student protests which had occurred 35 years ago revived on the web as photographer Enrico Scuro – class of ’77 – uploaded his photographic collection to Facebook. In doing so, he unchained enthusiastic reactions from former protesters, who tagged themselves into the photographs and left comments of all sorts. People also sent Scuro their own photographs, thus contributing to what has become something of an online family album, currently containing over 3,000 photographs. As they narrated personal anecdotes, complemented by other people’s recollections, the former protesters collectively reconstructed the (hi)story of a generation, a history not tainted by traumatic memories of terrorism and political violence – typical of the official and public version of the Italian 1970s. Furthermore, the Facebook rage led to a series of reunions outside the virtual world and, a few months ago, to the publication . . .
Read more: Facebook and the Digital (R)evolution of a Protest Generation
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