Writing the Terrorist Self: The Unspeakable Alterity of Italy's Female Perpetrators

2009 ◽  
Vol 92 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Glynn
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
Life Writing ◽  
Primary Concern ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Red Brigades ◽  
Female Perpetration ◽  
Female Perpetrators ◽  
Critical Problems ◽  
The Voice ◽  
Acute Anxiety

This paper examines texts written by, or in collaboration with, female ex-members of the Italian left-wing armed organization, the Red Brigades. The corpus differs from male-authored or male-centred texts in that issues relating to identity and selfhood lie at the very heart of the project of narrating the terrorist past; the primary concern of Italian women's post-terrorist narration is not to narrate the experience of belonging to an armed organization, but to construct a new identity distinct from a pre-existing self identified exclusively with the transgressive experience of political violence. I consider the corpus in the light of a number of critical problems posed both by the specificity of female perpetration and by the dearth of theoretical writings on perpetrator trauma more generally. I identify in each text an acute anxiety about the very act of speech or narration and find that, in order to circumvent the perceived prohibition on speech, the women of the Red Brigades subtly insinuate into their life writing a discourse of alterity bordering on subalternity that obscures the boundary between victim and perpetrator. The unacknowledged slippage between discourses of perpetration and victimization is explored in relation to Ruth Leys’ critique of Cathy Caruth's formulation of trauma as the wound that cries out through the voice of the victim. The paper concludes by questioning whether perpetrator trauma can ever be articulated as such and by considering the implications of that question for traumatized perpetrator and victimized society alike.

Arte ConTexto

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 29-52
Author(s):  
Antonio Bellisario ◽  
Leslie Prock
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Pictorial Representation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Political Dimension ◽  
Political Views ◽  
Socialist Government ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Military

The article examines Chilean muralism, looking at its role in articulating political struggles in urban public space through a visual political culture perspective that emphasizes its sociological and ideological context. The analysis characterizes the main themes and functions of left-wing brigade muralism and outlines four subpolitical phases: (i) Chilean mural painting’s beginnings in 1940–1950, especially following the influence of Mexican muralism, (ii) the development of brigade muralism for political persuasion under the context of revolutionary sociopolitical upheaval during the 1960s and in the socialist government of Allende from 1970 to 1973, (iii) the characteristics of muralism during the Pinochet dictatorship in the 1980s as a form of popular protest, and (iv) muralism to express broader social discontent during the return to democracy in the 1990s. How did the progressive popular culture movement represent, through murals, the political hopes during Allende’s government and then the political violence suffered under the military dictatorship? Several online repositories of photographs of left-wing brigade murals provide data for the analysis, which suggests that brigade muralism used murals mostly for political expression and for popular education. Visual art’s inherent political dimension is enmeshed in a field of power constituted by hegemony and confrontation. The muralist brigades executed murals to express their political views and offer them to all spectators because the street wall was within everyone's reach. These murals also suggested ideas that went beyond pictorial representation; thus, muralism was a process of education that invited the audience to decipher its polysemic elements.

scholarly journals What is terrorism (according to the news)? How the German press selectively labels political violence as “terrorism”

Journalism ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 146488492110170
Author(s):  
Valerie Hase
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
News Media ◽  
International Terrorism ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Western Countries ◽  
Policy Responses ◽  
German Press

Baghdad, Christchurch or Paris: Over the last years, many cities were the location of extremist attacks – but only some incidents were covered as “terrorism”. Journalists selectively attach the label to particular acts of political violence. This study analyses how characteristics of attacks and their perpetrators influence whether news media portray incidents as terrorism. Based on attacks between 2012 and 2018 ( N = 86,668) and their coverage in the German press ( N = 5411), the study finds that highly lethal incidents in Western countries are more likely to be called terrorism. Moreover, news more often portrays violence by Islamist extremists as terrorism than attacks by right- or left-wing extremists. Small or inconsistent effects emerge when comparing violence by lone actors to those by groups and domestic to international terrorism. The study illustrates that news is highly selective in which acts of political violence are presented as terrorism, which may foster stereotypes and prevent policy responses towards different forms of extremism.

scholarly journals Clarifying the Structure and Nature of Left-Wing Authoritarianism

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas H Costello ◽  
Shauna Bowes ◽  
Sean T. Stevens ◽  
Irwin Waldman ◽  
Scott O. Lilienfeld
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
Scientific Inquiry ◽  
Data Driven ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Nomological Network ◽  
Right Wing Authoritarianism ◽  
Beliefs And Values ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Left And Right

Authoritarianism has been the subject of scientific inquiry for nearly a century, yet the vast majority of authoritarianism research has focused on right-wing authoritarianism. In the present studies, we investigate the nature, structure, and nomological network of left-wing authoritarianism (LWA), a construct famously known as “the Loch Ness Monster” of political psychology. We iteratively construct a measure and data-driven conceptualization of LWA across six samples (N = 7,258) and conduct quantitative tests of LWA’s relations with over 50 authoritarianism-related variables. We find that left- and right-wing authoritarianism reflect a shared constellation of personality traits, cognitive features, beliefs, and values that might be considered the “heart” of authoritarianism. Our results also indicate that LWA powerfully predicts several critical, real-world outcomes, including participation in political violence. We conclude that a movement away from exclusively right-wing conceptualizations of authoritarianism may be required to illuminate authoritarianism’s central features, conceptual breadth, and psychological appeal.

The Evolution of Jewish Terrorism

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ami Pedahzur ◽  
Arie Perliger
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
Religious Violence ◽  
Global Dynamics ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Tremendous Impact ◽  
Land Of Israel

While Jewish violence and terrorism, both early and contemporary, is closely correlated with one particular territory—Palestine or Eretz Yisrael (Land of Israel)—the chapter utilizes Rapoport’s four-waves framework in order to show that the evolution of Jewish terrorism was shaped by global dynamics and developments. More specifically, we will argue that whereas Jewish terrorism in Palestine and later in Israel consists of only two periods—the nationalist (1930s–1950s), which corresponds with the anticolonial wave, and its derivative, the nationalist-religious (1970s–present), which overlaps with the religious wave—the two missing waves, both of which were left-wing revolutionary, had a tremendous impact on political and social processes in Israel in general, and on the evolution of Jewish terrorism in particular. We conclude by discussing the implications of the similarities and differences between Jewish religious violence and other types of religious political violence.

Monsters in the “jihadi revolutionary atmosphere”

2019 ◽  
pp. 100-122
Author(s):  
Marco Pinfari
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Al Qaeda ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Modus Operandi ◽  
Palestine Liberation Organization ◽  
Nationalist Movement ◽  
Terrorist Groups ◽  
Invasion Of Iraq

This chapter continues with the analysis of the terrorist “actor” by highlighting how the establishment of a “revolutionary atmosphere” through the use of political violence has been a goal of several insurgent and “terrorist” groups in the Middle East, from the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to al-Qaeda in Iraq to the Islamic State. First, it focuses on the reception of European left-wing “terrorism” and third-worldism in the Middle East, especially within the Palestinian nationalist movement. Then, it explains why, in the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq in 2003, several ideologues affiliated with al-Qaeda (including Abu Musab al-Suri) have recommended the use of brutal fighting techniques for establishing what al-Suri described as a “jihadi revolutionary atmosphere.” Finally, it considers the extent to which the impersonation of the prototype of monstrosity (either in its entirety or in its individual components) can help explain the modus operandi of the Islamic State.

Overview—Training and Workforce: Preparing for the Future That Is Already Here

2019 ◽  
pp. 453-456
Author(s):  
J. Lloyd Michener ◽  
Craig W. Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Rapid Growth ◽  
Training Programs ◽  
Health Improvement ◽  
Primary Concern ◽  
Health Issues ◽  
Professional Schools ◽  
Full Force ◽  
The Voice

Over the last few years, this chapter explains, the role of training and the workforce has moved from the position of not a primary concern to an important factor in public health issues. Part of the shift was the result of the rapid growth of community partnerships, making the opportunity to include learners more than an isolated possibility. Another was the infrequent presence of learners, training programs, or professional schools in the partnerships, even though many were occurring in the neighborhoods around the professional schools and programs. And a large part was the eagerness of the learners themselves. However, as this next section of chapters will explain, the voice of students and residents in the health improvement process has not yet reached full force.

scholarly journals Sexualization of Female Perpetration in Fictional Holocaust Films: A Case Study of The Reader (2008)

Genealogy ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 52
Author(s):  
Sabine Elisabeth Aretz
Keyword(s):  
Female Victims ◽  
Female Perpetration ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Female Perpetrators ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Holocaust Film ◽  
Holocaust Films ◽  
The One

The publication of Bernhard Schlink’s novel The Reader (1995) sparked conversation and controversy about sexuality, female perpetrators and the complexity of guilt regarding the Holocaust. The screen adaptation of the book (Daldry 2008) amplified these discussions on an international scale. Fictional Holocaust films have a history of being met with skepticism or even reject on the one hand and great acclaim on the other hand. As this paper will outline, the focus has often been on male perpetrators and female victims. The portrayal of female perpetration reveals dichotomous stereotypes, often neglecting the complexity of the subject matter. This paper focuses on the ways in which sexualization is used specifically to portray female perpetrators in The Reader, as a fictional Holocaust film. An assessment of Hanna’s relationship to Michael and her autonomous sexuality and her later inferior, victimized portrayal as an ambiguous perpetrator is the focus of my paper. Hanna’s sexuality is structurally separated from her role as a perpetrator. Hanna’s perpetration is, through the dichotomous motif of sexuality throughout the film, characterized by a feminization. However, this feminization entails a relativization of Hanna’s culpability, revealing a pejorative of her depiction as a perpetrator. Consequently, I argue that Hanna’s sexualized female body is constructed as a central part of the revelation of her perpetration.

Terrorism in Spain

2020 ◽  
pp. 81-99
Author(s):  
Diego Muro
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
The State ◽  
Terrorist Group ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Collective Security ◽  
Security Threat ◽  
Intelligence Services ◽  
Violent Extremism ◽  
Violence Against Civilians

Spain has experienced four waves of terrorism during the twentieth century: anarchist, nationalist, left-wing, and religious. This chapter examines the variety and intensity of terrorist incidents of the last two waves, as well as the counter-terrorist efforts since 1975. The argument is structured as follows: First, the chapter accounts for the longevity of the main campaigns of indiscriminate violence against civilians. Second, it evaluates the interaction between the security and intelligence services and the various clandestine groups, and argues that the process of democratization increased the effectiveness of counterterrorism, particularly against ETA. The section further argues that collective security is a relational act that brings two self-interested actors—the state and the terrorist group—into conflict with each other, and that it is not possible to study campaigns of political violence in isolation. Third, the chapter critically assesses the security threat posed by Salafi jihadist cells, which were responsible for the attacks on Madrid (2004) and Barcelona (2017), and examines the ongoing agenda of countering and preventing violent extremism in Spain.

‘Sympathy for the Devil?’ The West German Left and the Challenge of Terrorism

2012 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 511-532 ◽  
Author(s):  
KARRIN HANSHEW
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
The State ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
The West ◽  
Counter Terrorism ◽  
Ambivalent Relationship ◽  
The Devil

AbstractIn the 1970s, the West German extra-parliamentary Left struggled to respond effectively to left-wing terrorism and the state powers mobilised against it. This article argues that a shared conception of counter-violence as legitimate resistance helps explain the Left's ambivalent relationship to political violence and its solidarity with militants. The mounting strain on the projects and protest networks of student rebels, older leftists, anti-nuclear demonstrators and feminist activists, however, provoked debate and, eventually, change. Caught between terrorism and counter-terrorism, leftists revised assumptions upon which their commitment to resistance had rested – and reconceived resistance itself as part of everyday, mainstream politics.

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