Giovanni Francesio adds the most important of his book "Tifare contro" over four decades Ultras-culture in Italy in the subtitle: "Una storia degli ultras italiani" - "A History of Italian Ultras." One, not the story, Francesio makes no claim to the absolute truth or universal solutions - but he insists to add to the discussion a valid vote, the Curva itself And that is why it has become an urgently needed book: For decades there was a published opinion to the hard core of the Italian "Tifo exclusively from spoke of sociologists, politicians, journalists, police superiors and psychologists who have never seen in their lives from the inside curve and in turn, wrote for an audience that was probably not even in a stadium. And then moved the discussion of the phenomenon of "Ultras" has always been on a meta-level by the very subject matter largely detached and only sold as an analytical speculation. Hence come the platitudes repeated as often as wrong of "violent criminals who have nothing to do with the football," from the "social ground-level of society" are recruited. And then logs Francesio, who has spent most of his life in Italy curves to speak:
"For many years I was a Ultrà. In the stadium, in the corner I felt more comfortable. But outside of the curve, no one had the slightest idea, a fact which is so important that the world really is. I have written this book, because I do not have endured it. "
Sure he has not endured Francesio has not tapped anyone yet, he is a regular criminal who will lose his life in marginalized accumulated aggressions on violence excesses. Nevertheless, he is Ultrà. Something can not vote yet so in such a clear picture of the child-devouring rowdy hordes that every damn Sunday invade Italian soccer stadiums. In this respect Francesios book is indeed the right time, appeared clearly in 2008, after the death of a policeman Raciti during the Sicilian derby and shooting death of the Lazio fan Gabriele Sandri . By no means is but a cheap attempt to jump on the weight issue. It is clear that the author in the processing of the History of Italian Ultras the serious episodes of 2007 only as a provisional culmination of four decades of continuous development and sees here an author wishes to speak, who is disgusted by the helpless and the parties acting unsuspecting public, a media discussion on an aspect of society, they do not even want to watch up close. And with Francesini logs for once someone who was there that we can report from inside the Curva and their own dynamics, the fascination and the dangers - without sensationalism, but it is also stereotypical thinking without shortening. Someone where you both the enthusiasm decreases, as well as the critical distance to the failures that led to the present sorry state of Italian fan culture.
"I was born in 1970. The first time I went to the stadium in 1976. I have never stopped. For many years I was a Ultrà. For that I am driven to away thousands of miles, for which I was involved in clashes with rival fans and police forces, for that I am fled, was afraid, but may also have the only community feelings of my life, celebrate with others and to suffer me feel part of a 'true and free "world, may also feel that I am still a part of."
Who now even Ultrà or Kurvenfan is disgusted by the indifference of commonplaces of Journaille, the blatant lies of the police forces, the populist reflexes of the caste of politicians and elite reflections of the university intelligentsia and look forward to an expansive sweeping blow from the Curva, which is perhaps disappointed. Francesio is Ultrà and passion for the "old curve" breathes from each of its lines. So he sits down but far from uncritical deal with the ultras and can be black and white paintings, this time reversed, carried away. "Tifare Contro" describes mostly the basis of particularly dramatic events, the dynamics of the Ultras movement of the different generations that has brought us to the point where we are now: resolution of symptoms of Ultrà groupings, repression, ever more colorless curves and always a miserable spectacle in Italian stadiums. And just as angry and emotional, as the complete ignorance of the greater society, the synchronized press unorganized gewaltgeile to police forces and acting idiotic stadium owners criticized, he is relentlessly with his own movement apart also:
"To have never broken away from the mysticism of violence. have not dug the water in which swam the pure criminals, psychopaths, idiots. Never structured training in the middle of its own antibodies to have never openly stated that the "honorable struggle" is not a viable Nutters against pure violence. "
Francesio begins his journey through four decades of history the ultras obviously with the birth of the movement, the birth of the historical groups such as the "Fossa di Leoni", even if he proves on the basis of press reports that violence at football matches was an invention of the ultras no means and riots with first dead several decades early. Then he accompanied the changes in and finish outside of the curves over the generations to his discourse in the current situation, with resolutions of the most influential groups, the superheated spiral of violence, the mono-thematic call for ever new repression as a panacea and the dead of 2007 . He suggests an arc from the left-wing culture of the 60s and 70s, the one place in the stages of the meeting and to practice the counterculture won an open, on the 80th and 90th, where political alignments are changing and increasingly gained influence and the police the role of the enemy, took up the present day, in the different curves representing economic interests , the actual Ultrà Code are by far away.
The author tells of the beginning and the end of the glorious Milan "Fossa di Leoni", the "Fedelissimi from Turin, the birth of the Ultras-culture from the protest of youth against a perceived as a fascist state. He tells of the politicization of the curves and the intricacies of the "Brigate Autonomous Livornesi" or the "Brigate Gialloblu Verona" or the infiltration of the Lazio-curve by neo-fascists or nascent racism . We learn of the death of the first Ultras-culture in Roman Derby in 1979, when a misguided 18-year-old fires befeuernden under the applause of his friends several anti-hail rockets into the northern corner, until he meets there, Vincenzo Paparelli face. We learn the background of deaths, such as the 14-year-old Andrea Vitone, the inflamed, 1982 in a train compartment by a torch suffocated. By Marco Fonghessi, is stabbed to death after a game against Milan Cremonese 1984 or by Stefano Furlan, who was in the same year bludgeoned to death by a police baton. By Paolo Caroli, which burns on the way home from Pisa in one of Roma ultras set fire to railway carriage. From Reno Fillippini, Antonio de Falchi, Vincenzo Spagnolo, and all the other ultras and police that has left this battle on the track. And only in rare cases in "honorable combat".
"If you will not want them to behave like animals, listen to it, such as to treat them." (Lord Justice Taylor Report)
This Francesini denounces coming back to the blindness with which the ultras are running even in their own destruction, as the fascination of the debate have succumbed, as isolated acts of violence increasingly has devalued by meaning-context and end in itself, for free adrenaline has. On the basis of deaths and massive destruction, he outlines how the public image of the ultras and their own marginalization they maneuvered ever in a situation where they face resistance with no lobby or colleagues unconstitutional and absurd repressions how Ultrà of antirepressiven aspect of a free counter-culture In the corner of the moves from all sides, hated and scorned "hooligans". And as Ultras have been missing every opportunity to remove a type of "self", the criminals and pure psychopaths from their midst, which determine the image of the ultras in public, even if - or precisely because - they constitute a minority.
"The Italian government will set out to beat an enemy they never wanted to get to know them."
This criticism arises but now just an understanding of the ultras of the curve knows and loves, who has lived by the rules and not just analyze that Ultrà stands as a youth movement at a crossroads, but pity the end of Ultrà just personally would deeply. investigate because of what Ultrà may just be: a place where young people according to their own rules of their own passion and to the ideals and emotions they can live quite freely. A space in which is its own value system and that can be arranged according to their own ideas. Consequently denounces Francesio not the violence of the "altercation" in themselves, but their excesses, the use of knives and other weapons, the mindless devastation of railway wagons, attacks against innocent "Normalfans" attacks in majority. And this is where the opening dialogue: Ultras are not, but what they describe, but they are also not that what they describe themselves.
"With all its stains, its too serious debt, the ultras one of the few juvenile mass movements of recent years."
And is not "Tifare Contro" the work of a Nestbeschmutzer. I emphasiere the aspect of self-criticism in Francesios works only because the other in the publications of the Curva itself mostly just missing as well as on the media side, any sort of serious examination of the phenomenon Ultras. If we currently two enemy and to no dialogue ready stock to see which are each on their own absoluteness and its own wagons (which is largely on myth and dogma and not based on reality), then doing a book of this particularly well . For, of course, bear the largest share of the escalated situation from Francesio become central factors: a sensationalist press, which surpasses without any knowledge of the subject, in ever more spectacular civil war reporting. Police forces, whose own interest in violence is not even so hidden (and brought examples are indeed well researched and frightening). Intellectuals, the legitimacy of incorrect classifications and unquestioned Anahmen a brutal repression, which in turn exacerbated the problem only and not least the incredible state of Italian stadiums (very beautiful the background on the case of Raciti) and the pathetically amateurish organization which, for the "public policy security "be responsible, and (should the conduct of the police forces in Romans" derby del bambino morto "(" Derby of the dead child ") is stupid enough to chose only described).
Francesio writes a history of Italian Ultras, his own. He researched, he concludes, and he reflected. And he is not looking for simple solutions to complex problems - something ends, we see straight. But he finally brings the voice of the Curva into the public discourse, much has been fired for too long of protagonists who insisted no one above the lowest knew their own, but all the more solid on their beliefs. In this respect, "is Tifare contro" the natural counterpart to the excellent "ACAB" by Bonini - while the latter, the spiral of violence inside the police forces out lights out, uses Francesini in "Tifare contro" of the gaze from the curve itself books together, both produce a fairly clear picture of what went wrong in Italy and goes wrong. Both with no simple debt write-ups, both by putting the phenomenon in the context of other social changes, and both by state a general Italian problem in the "public policy" that has long been hushed up simply from respective self-interest and swept under the carpet. A book that polarized because it is just liberated from the typical stereotypical thinking and the dynamics of development provides a total, the failure of both sides. And that's why it opens up a dialogue, a dialogue that would in a truly democratic society, the latest after the first death to be conducted, the two sides are close but so far consistent.
"Tifare contro," which takes its title from the typical Italian culture of "support against someone" borrowed, is an exciting to-read book, an emotional reckoning with four decades of youth, a personal - and personally written - refurbishment of both the positive factors as and the contradictions within the Ultras movement. The above examples are to be read in the exciting, unpretentious develop written, its full charm but only because in the context of social changes and developments made in the football itself, which manifest themselves in a total of constant aggravation of the cycle of violence. It is clear that there is a logically comprehensible way of first use of blades, on the first death by a shot from the curve rocket to the fight against the mobile police forces with its serious consequences, a path that is best in the younger integrate Italian history in other areas of society can be. A way to analyze the so far neither sociologists nor safety officers, and especially not journalists bothered. In Italy, which is always the panacea it still looks to create symbolic laws and then make sure that scandals quickly disappear from the public eye as possible - no matter whether he was dead or just a Ultrà a "Celere. And suddenly the two deaths in 2007 are no longer the startling and frightening individual cases which fall into a peaceful bourgeois normality, but expectable and consistent events of a hushed-up reality for decades.
"'Fighting'. That's what we've done for 40 years, is fought. Never avoided, limited, controlled. No. We fought. And lost. "
Giovanni Francesio - Tifare contro. Una storia degli ultras italiani.
206 p. € 16.00 - presente Sperling & Kupfer, 2008 (Radici del)
EAN 9788820045050
Buy: Of course, so * a book no one in Germany, translated it so no one . I get my books always with Italian La Feltrinelli.
Addendum: As the comments below show, has been prepared but fortunately someone bring out the factory in Germany and I really hope that it meets a lot of interest. The Francesio raised questions also apply to Germany, also to "avoid Italian standards" to. If you are interested, just write a mail to info [ring] altravita [dot] com and I'll take you to a distributor in. You get exactly an email from me if the translation is finished and it is foreseeable when you buy the book where and for how much can.
Related:
Duleep Allirajah: The policing of fans is more insidious now.
Marc O'Brian: The problem of violence.
Reviews:
Secolo XIX (claudiopaglieri.com)
Il Manifesto
Quasi Rete
Ivo Germano
La Gazzetta dello Sport
