Example 1: Racialized nationalism in Italy
Northern Italy is an excellent place to study the contemporary spread of rightwing populism and racializing ideologies. Italy has seen a rapid rise in far-right political parties, some of which have joined the national government. Leading political parties such as the “Lega Nord” (“Northern League”) have created moral panics against social "others,” especially migrants, blaming them for economic disruptions. On July 13, 2013, Italian Senator Roberto Calderoli of the Lega Nord made the following comment about former Italian Minister Cécile Kyenge, who was the Italian Minister of Integration at that time. “Quando vedo la Kyenge non posso non pensare a un orango” (“when I see Kyenge, I can’t help but think about an orangutan”). Minister Kyenge is an Italian-educated ophthalmologist and politician who was born in the Congo but has lived in Italy since 1983. Calderoli’s comment was immediately reported on the national news, and the news report was posted on YouTube with the title “Razzismo: Calderoli insulta il ministre Kyenge, ‘sembra un orango’” (“Racism: Calderoli insults Minister Kyenge, ‘she looks like an orangutan’”) (www.youtube.com/ watch?v=A33jlKm2IPA).
Segment 1: "She looks like an orangutan"
1. [TV News Reporter] “quando vedo la Kyenge non posso non pensare a un orango”
“When [I] see Kyenge, [I] can’t help but think about an orangutan”
2. le parole sono del leghista Roberto Calderoli
these words were [uttered] by the Northern League’s member Roberto Calderoli
3. un ex-ministro della Repubblica
a former minister of the Italian Republic
4. che dal paleo della festa della Lega aTreviglio nel Bergamasco
who from the stage of the Northern League’s celebratory rally in Treviglio, in the Bergamo area
- 5. ha insultato il ministre per l’integrazione Cécile Kyenge insulted the Minister for Integration Cécile Kyenge
- 6. rispolverando un vecchio frasario leghista
by reviving old Northern League terminology
- 7. Calderoli che già una volta si era dovuto dimettere dall’incarico di ministre Calderoli, who once had to quit his ministerial post
- 8. per aver indossato una maglietta anti-islam because he wore an anti-islam T-shirt,
- 9. è subito state sommerso dalle critiche
was immediately criticized
- 10. ha provato a liquidare il tutto come una battuta he tried to justify everything as a joke
- 11. escludendo 1’ipotesi di dimissioni dalla carica di Vicepresidente del Senato by dismissing the hypothesis that he should quit his role as Vice-president of the Senate
- 12. “non vorrei” ha aggiunto
“I would not want,” he added,
13. “che il polverone su di me serva a coprire altro
“that this uproar around me should serve to cover up something else
14. non saro un capro espiatorio”
I won’t be a scapegoat”
15. ferma la risposta del ministro Kyenge che è apparsa rammaricata
Kyenge, who seemed saddened by this [Calderoli’s remark], responded firmly:
16. “non prendo le parole di Calderoli come un’offesa personale
“I won’t take Calderoli’s words as a personal offense
17. ma mi rattristano per 1’immagine che diamo dell’Italia
but they sadden me for the image that [we] give about Italy
18. credo che tutte le forze politiche debbano riflettere sull’uso che fanno della comunicazione”
I believe that all the political forces need to reflect on how [they] make use of communication”
FIGURE 6.1 Representing Calderoli’s original comment.
This complex event of speaking contains five narrated events, as portrayed in Figures 6.1 and 6.2. Figure 6.1 represents the first segment of the narrating event, from lines 1—6, in which a national TV news reporter quotes Calderoli’s words and describes the scene in which Calderoli made his comment. The video at this point is footage of Calderoli speaking at that event, with a brief clip of Kyenge herself when the reporter mentions her name. Figure 6.2 represents lines 7—18, in which the reporter first describes an incident from Calderoli’s past and then
FIGURE 6.2 Recontextualizations of Calderoli’s comment.
describes responses to the subsequent uproar that were made by Calderoli and Kyenge. The video during these segments shows the respective politicians making public statements.
In the narrating event, a reporter tells the Italian public about Calderoli’s comment and several reactions to it. This reporter might be performing various actions in the event of speaking. For example, she might simply be describing what happened and informing the audience. She might be evaluating one or more of the characters that she describes—perhaps aligning herself with Kyenge and criticizing Calderoli. She might be encouraging the Italian public to take particular actions themselves, like condemning racism. In order to identify the actions taking place in this event, we must attend to emerging patterns of indexi-cal cues.
The news report is built around what appears to be a highly evaluative indexi-cal: “orangutan.” Describing a human being as like an ape can presuppose racial-ized ideologies that identify some human groups as biologically distinct from and lesser than others. Such ideologies have been widespread throughout human history, but they have been circulated even more widely in recent years by populist politicians in many countries, including Italy. Calderoli’s comment is newsworthy because of the indexical presuppositions of this characterization. Our analytic question is how his utterance becomes contextualized across the newscast, and then across subsequent responses, such that it comes to have clear meaning and effects.
In order to analyze the social actions accomplished in this segment, we need some background information about the context. We draw this analysis from work by Sabina Perrino (2017, 2019), who has been doing detailed discourse analyses of this and related events, as well as ethnographic work on followers of the Northern League political party in Italy, since 2003. This party has existed since the 1980s. Its complete name was “Lega Nord per 1’Indipendenza della Padania” (“Northern League for the Independence of Padania”), and it was officially renamed “La Lega” (“The League”) in 2018. It is a highly successful far-right, anti-immigrant political party that began as a vehicle to defend northern Italy against alleged invasion and exploitation by southern Italians. It has since transformed itself into a nationwide party that focuses on defending Italians against “extracomunitari,” a derogatory term for certain migrants. “Extracomunitari” was first used in the 1980s to refer to migrants who were not citizens of the European Union. It is now commonly used for migrants from developing countries. From June 2018 at least through the time of this writing in summer 2020, the Northern League’s current leader has served as Deputy Prime Minister of Italy as well as Minister of the Interior.
The Northern League’s anti-immigrant politics emerged in response to the arrival of many migrants in Italy across recent decades. Unlike other European countries, like France, Italy did not create laws in response to the first wave of migrants in the 1970s. Accelerating in the 1990s, however, restrictive laws were enacted against both longstanding migrants and newcomers. Politicians from the Northern League played a central role in creating these laws. In 2009, an even more draconian law mandated the immediate expulsion of all “clandestini” (“undocumented migrants’’). This anti-immigrant legislation has transformed migrants’ lives in Italy and made them objects of suspicion, surveillance, and expulsion (Storni, 2011; Allievi, 2014; Perrino, 2019, 2020). Given the power and impact of right-wing, populist movements like the Northern League, it is important to understand how they sustain themselves, in part, through online discourse.
