italian-studies: Scholarly discussions in any field of Italian studies
A very similar thing happened recently at the University of
California, Berkeley. Students upset at the invitation to speak
proferred to one of the provocative "alt-right" speakers associated
with the Breitbart news site rioted, and the police had to be called
in.
I think it's very important to make the following distinction:
violence against individuals or personal property is never to be
tolerated. In instances like this, I do think that it is not
inappropriate for some form of police response to be made, as long as
this response is proportionate, to protect human lives and property.
This is where it gets tricky, no? At what point does a reasonable and
commensurate police response intended to protect lives and property
cease to be a reasonable response to violence on the protestors' part
and become a kind of "paramilitary" response in which excessive force
against the protestors occurs? It sounds like in Bologna, this
hard-to-define line may have been crossed, evoking nightmarish
scenarios of a kind of Fascistic quasi-military intervention on the
part of the forces of public order during the darkest days of the
student protests of the 1960s and 70s (for example, the indiscriminate
slaughter of thousands of student protestors in Mexico City just ahead
of the Mexico City Olympics, in which thousands of students were
indiscriminately slaughtered by paramilitary police forces at the
behest of the central government).
And of course Italy was and is, unfortunately, no stranger to a
similar use of state force against those seen as a threat to the
establishment.
In America, at least in recent times, we are fairly good at at least
TRYING to balance the need for public order with the even greater need
to preserve something as precious as our sacred rights to freedom of
speech and lawful assembly. A recent example of this were the riots in
Oakland a year or two ago, in which the police had the unenviable task
of trying to protect public property and businesses while
simultaneously trying not to react so forcefully as to provoke more
violence on the part of the demonstrators. But I think that this is
always a very difficult balance to achieve, and probably varies from
case to case. But at least in America in recent times, there does seem
to be at least an attempt to recognize the importance of trying to
achieve this balance, and to respond appropriately in any given
situation.
Since I was not in Bologna, I can't comment on what happened there.
But it does sound as if this delicate line between "proportionate
police response" and a kind of paramilitary response did occur there,
something which, given Italy's history, would, if it is true, be
particularly worrisome. And the mention of turnstiles seems to me a
bit worrisome; once again, it seems that here we might be being
confronted yet again with the difficult task of trying to achieve a
delicate balance between a legitimate need to preserve public access
and safety, and what I would call (to use a term borrowed from
journalism) the creation of a "chilling effect," by which measures
taken to preserve public order end up--sometimes unwittingly and
sometimes by design--actually damaging the even more important social
and cultural values of free expression.
But if one absolutely had to choose between the two (the need to
maintain public order vs. the need to preserve freedom of expression
and the right to lawful assembly), I think anyone who values a free
society would have to choose the latter. Unfortunately, given both
human nature and also the experience of history, attempts to keep
society clean and organized and smoothly-functioning, no matter how
well-intentioned at the beginning, have the unfortunate tendency to
begin a gradual and sometimes imperceptible slide into more
authoritarian attempts to repress all forms of independent thought and
action. And history has also taught us that there are, unfortunately,
many among us who would use appeals to law and order as a simple ruse
to justify the imposition of a more totalitarian order. Hence I think
it's always useful to keep carefully in mind the admonition of the
American patriot Tom Paine, who uttered the immortal words "The price
of freedom is eternal vigilance."
On 3/4/17, Andrea Hajek <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> italian-studies: Scholarly discussions in any field of Italian studies
>
> Dear Ed,
>
> I would like to observe that the "note" reporting the course of events
> preceding the incidents on 9 February does not render the full picture of
> the situation, nor does this appeal reflect the position of the (majority
> of the) students at the university of Bologna, some of whom have criticized
> the students involved in the incidents. Undoubtedly Italy's police forces
> have a tendency towards military repression of dissent, and the violent
> intervention of the celere inside the university library should definitely
> be condemned, but when calling for list members to sign a similar appeal
> you should make sure they are informed correctly.
>
> Best wishes,
> Andrea Hajek
>
> 2017-03-04 10:42 GMT+01:00 Ed Emery <[log in to unmask]>:
>
>> italian-studies: Scholarly discussions in any field of Italian studies
>>
>> APPEAL FROM STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BOLOGNA
>>
>> POLICE IN THE UNIVERSITY - NEVER AGAIN!
>>
>> The university, and all spaces for the circulation and production of
>> knowledge, must not be permitted to become places for the military
>> repression of dissent.
>>
>> We call on everyone to sign this appeal, and to join us in condemning
>> what
>> happened shortly after 5.00pm on 9 February 2017 in the Library of
>> Humanistic Science at via Zamboni 36 in Bologna.
>>
>> In the following days there was a media campaign directed against the
>> reaction of the students [to the imposition of security gates], rather
>> than
>> protesting the paramilitary action conducted by the police in a
>> university
>> library at the request of the university's Rector Ubertini.
>>
>> WE CALL ON
>>
>> All students, of every faculty and department
>> All teachers, of every faculty and department
>> All writers, actors, and musicians
>> All people working in the worlds of education and culture
>> All the men and women of our country
>>
>> To make their voices heard, to express themselves, to get involved, to
>> get
>> angry, to meet together, in order that what happened in Bologna on 9
>> February can never be allowed to happen again. The repressive model of
>> action must not become normalised as a way for the authorities of Italian
>> universities to deal with growing conflicts within their university
>> spaces.
>>
>> Beyond the questions of turnstiles and of what they represent, and beyond
>> individual opinions on the choices made by individual universities, we
>> believe that there must be no division or hesitation on this question. We
>> believe that a firm condemnation of this unacceptable action is the only
>> sure guarantee for all of us.
>>
>> Signed:
>>
>> Students of the University of Bologna
>> [Studenti e studentesse dell'Università di Bologna]
>>
>> [NOTE: In the New Year the authorities of the University of Bologna
>> installed
>> security turnstiles at the entrance to one of the university libraries.
>> The
>> students began a series of mass meetings to protest this move. The
>> movement
>> continued for three weeks until the point when, on 9 February, having
>> refused to negotiate, the Rector called in the police (the paramilitary
>> celere branch). An armed force of police stormed the library, and the
>> rest
>> is history...]
>>
>> Facebook page:
>> https://www.facebook.com/Quelli-del-36-378741579167591/
>>
>> You can sign the petition by sending your name and affiliation to:
>> [log in to unmask]
>>
>> ________________________
>>
>> ++++++ APPELLO: MAI PIU' POLIZIA IN UNIVERSITA' +++++++
>>
>> L'università e tutti i luoghi di circolazione e produzione dei saperi non
>> possono essere scenario di repressione militare del dissenso , chiediamo
>> a
>> tutti di sottoscrivere questo appello, di unirsi nel condannare quanto
>> successo poco dopo le ore 17 del 9 febbraio del 2017, nella biblioteca di
>> scienze umanistiche di via Zamboni 36 a Bologna.
>>
>> Nei giorni seguenti l'opinione pubblica è stata impegnata nel condannare
>> la
>> reazione di studenti e studentesse e non l'azione para-militare condotta
>> dalla celere in una biblioteca su richiesta del Rettore Ubertini
>> dell'Alma
>> Mater Studiorum.
>>
>> CHIEDIAMO
>>
>> A tutti gli studenti e a tutte le studentesse di ogni ordine e grado
>> A tutti i docenti e le docenti di ogni ordine e grado
>> Agli scrittori e alle scrittrici, agli attori e alle attrici, ai
>> musicisti
>> e
>> alle musiciste
>> A tutti gli operatori e le operatrici del mondo dell'educazione e della
>> cultura
>> Agli uomini e alle donne di questo Paese
>>
>> di prendere parola, di esprimersi, di agitarsi, di indignarsi, di
>> aggregarsi
>> per non permettere che quanto visto il 9 febbraio a Bologna possa
>> ripetersi
>> nuovamente, per non permettere che quell'azione repressiva possa essere
>> normalizzata e considerata dai Rettori delle Università italiane metodo
>> di
>> risoluzione dei conflitti nascenti all'interno dei propri spazi
>> universitari.
>>
>> Al di là dei tornelli e di quello che rappresentano, al di là delle
>> singole
>> opinioni sulle scelte delle singole amministrazioni universitarie
>> pensiamo
>> che su questo non ci possano essere divisioni o tentennamenti, pensiamo
>> che
>> la ferma condanna di questa inaccettabile azione sia a garanzia di tutti
>> e
>> di tutte.
>>
>> Studenti e studentesse dell'Università di Bologna
>>
>> _________________
>>
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