Trends of Radicalisation

Italy/3.2 Research Report July 2021

Abstract

This report presents and analyses four hotspots of radicalisation in Italy in order to shed light on the micro, meso and macro factors that enable radicalisation and extreme violence to take place, and to examine the motivations of individual perpetrators. To ensure a comprehensive overview on the Italian case, we have chosen to focus on a set of hotspots that exemplify radicalisation into the four main radical milieus in Italy (right-wing; left-wing; Islamist and ethno-nationalist/separatist). The four hotspots cover a broad period of time, with the historical case study of the 1961 Feuernacht/Notte dei fuochi (Night of Fire) in South Tyrol (ethno-separatist hotspot); the 2002 assassination of government consultant Professor Marco Biagi (left-wing hotspot); the 2011 xenophobic rampage by Gianluca Casseri (right-wing hotspot) and the so-called ‘Inzago cluster’, a network of radicalisation surrounding Maria Giulia Sergio uncovered in 2014 (Islamist hotspot). They also capture the diverging contexts and motivations of individuals who may engage in different types of violence.

Analysis of Gianluca Casseri’s xenophobic rampage in 2011 sheds light on the factors motivating and enabling violent extremist attacks by individuals only partially embedded in the right-wing milieu. In Casseri’s case, it emerges that mental health conditions and social isolation, combined with longstanding xenophobic and racist convictions, were crucial to informing the vague grievances which fed Casseri’s sense of injustice and ultimately motivated his violent act.

Instead, the killing of the consultant to the labour ministry Professor Marco Biagi by the NBR in 2002 maps a different path to violent radicalisation. In this case, Nadia Desdemona Lioce’s writings and declarations suggest that the injustices and grievances derived from extreme left-wing ideological convictions were crucial in determining the alienation of the perpetrator (through her underground life) and of the NBR (as the self-proclaimed avantgarde of the proletarian revolution), as well as in identifying the victim as a symbol of the bourgeois state.

The analysis of the Sergio-Kobuzi case exemplifies how the conundrum of experiences of injustices and grievances, family ties and foreign networks facilitates a sudden conversion to a radical, extremist, and violent Jihadi ideology. Unlike in other contexts, in the case of Maria Giulia ‘Fatima’ Sergio and her family, mosque communities and group dynamics did not play a significant role. Rather, a mixture of serious grievances, some of a socio-political, religious and economic nature, coupled with perceived experiences of systemic injustices and discriminated related to intolerance and high levels of Islamophobia in politics and society and skilful online indoctrination, were factors triggering the radicalisation process of a whole family.

Finally, the analysis of the 1961 Feuernacht has highlights how the transnational dynamics of border regions can amplify grievances experienced at individual level in a context of social and linguistic divisions. Such polarised environment fosters the development of parallel and conflicting narratives that persist long after violence has been defused. The fact that Sepp Kerschbaumer had always despised the use of violence towards people has somewhat legitimised the use of ‘his’ symbolic violence. To this day, the debate surrounding the role of the armed struggle in the path towards territorial autonomy is still very active and very far from being settled.