In February 1909, a strange new manifestoappeared, first in the Bologna-based Italian- language newspaper Gazzetta dell Emiliana, and then inFrench in Le Figaro. Readers ofthe declaration might have struggled to work out whether the manifesto waspolitical or aesthetic in character. In the past, the celebrated manifestos hadbeen political: the Communist Manifesto of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels,for example, published in 1848, or Anselm Bellegarrigues Anarchist Manifestoof 1850. Yet this piece of work seemed to blend political and aestheticsentiments: The essential elements of our poetry, it read, will be courage,audacity and revolt.
The manifesto also explicitly glorified war the only cure for the world militarism, patriotism the beautiful ideaswhich kill. In our own time, there has been much discussion around the ways inwhich incendiary language creates a dangerous political atmosphere. What canwe learn from turning to an earlier period in modern history?
The 1909 declaration was the founding Manifesto of Futurism, and its author was an eccentric, Egyptian-born Italian writer, artist and political radical Filippo Tommasso Marinetti. Marinetti would go on to promote fascism, and the art of the Futurists with its obsession with speed, technology and, increasingly, military power would be close to one of the official styles of the fascist revolution. The attitude of the Futurist Manifesto, a piece of writing that emerged long before the seizure of power by the Fascists in Italy in 1922, is an extreme example of a phenomenon which is very much with us now. What is the connection between rhetorical and actual violence? When do angry words become violent actions, and how should they be resisted?
The manifesto of 1909 was not the only typeof document circulating Europe in this time period that extolled violence, ofcourse, and not all of these types of rhetoric are linked to what we would nowcall the radical right. Yet the manifesto seems unique in the extreme,extravagant and performative nature of its language. It seems intentionally togoad its readers, promoting an aggressive misogyny We want to glorify contempt for women, it states and a joy in destruction for its own sake.
We want, writes Marinetti, to demolishmuseums and libraries, fight morality, feminism and all opportunist andutilitarian cowardice. The manifesto is littered with references to violence,war and destruction. It was a manifesto of ruinous and incendiary violence, whichwanted to heap up the fire to the shelves of the libraries, because art canonly be violence, cruelty, injustice.
If such extremist language cannot beshown to have had a direct impact on thesquadristi violence of fascism in the 1920s and the violence of the NationalFascist Party regime in power at home and abroad, Marinetti certainly cheeredon fascist imperialism and was always a consistently pro-military figure.Indeed, the Futurists had initially agitated for Italy to enter the First WorldWar in 1914. By the time of Marinettis death in 1944, the writer and artistwas creating eulogies to Italian fighting units and remained loyal to the fascistcause, even as represented by the Nazi-backed puppet state of the RepubblicaSociale Italiana.
In 1945, the fascist-supporting American poet Ezra Pound placed the ghost of the recently-deceased Marinetti in his Canto 72, promising retribution for the defeat of the Axis powers at the battle of El Alamein. In this context, the relation of violent language to actual violence is complex and layered. Futurist and fascist agitators glorified war and violence at the same time as the street fighting and, later, imperialist wars of fascism, played out in the real world.
Cause and effect cannot be straightforwardly demonstrated here. Yet language surely creates a context in which violent acts may become increasingly commonplace. In contemporary Britain, the fevered atmosphere around Brexit has similarly given birth to a situation in which angry words and incendiary language are paralleled with a rise in radical-right street action. Prime Minister Boris Johnson dismissed concerns raised in the House of Commons by the Labour MP Paula Sherriff that his rhetoric would or could fuel violence as so much humbug.
In the prime ministers mind, terms like surrender, used to describe the Brexit Withdrawal Bill designed by the opposition and rebel Conservative MPs to prevent a no-deal Brexit, are simply his usual colorful rhetoric. But Johnson is now supported by radical-right actors like the self-styled Tommy Robinson / Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, founder of the English Defence League. We back Boris, Yaxley-Lennon wrote at the beginning of September, referring repeatedly to those who opposed the prime minister as traitors.
Death to traitors, freedom for Britain, was famously what Thomas Mair, the murderer of the Labour MP Jo Cox, had shouted when asked his name during his court trial. The link between the prime ministers rhetoric along other leaders of the pro-Brexit mainstream right and radical-right violence is not a question of a smoking gun or a straightforward case of cause and effect. Rather, the use of violent language causes an atmosphere where sentiments emerging from supposedly responsible politicians are mirrored back to them by the agitators of the radical right.
Florid, excessive language that hints at violence then often incites a more shocking response from its listeners. For example, at an event at the Conservative Party conference, Boris Johnson suggested that Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn be removed and placed in a figurative rocket to send him into orbit. But Johnsons words a cartoonish vision with an attempt at humor were interrupted by voices from the Tory activists on the floor, who suggested Corbyn be put in a noose and sent to traitors gate in a reference to the prisoners entrance to the Tower of London.
In this context, Johnsons jokey rhetoric was reflected back to him in words that seemed to suggest a far more visceral and violent reaction to opposition politicians. In particular, the repeated use of the word traitor in the rhetoric of both radical-right thugs like Yaxley-Lennon, murderers like Mair and the activists of a supposedly mainstream UK political party is disturbing.
If there is not always a direct linkbetween words and violence, there is nonetheless a sense that violent languageincites, creating an effect of heightened tension, enabling its selectaudiences to delight in the prospect of destruction and battle. The philosopherThorsten Botz-Borstein has compared the aesthetics of Italian Futurism to thatof the so-called Islamic State. For Botz-Borstein, the nihilism at the heart ofboth projects exalts in the prospect of violent destruction, particularlythrough the use of technology.
This is by no means to compare the language of Boris Johnson and other politicians with the Islamic State. However, violent language even language that only gestures toward violence creates its own effects, its own momentum, which it cannot always control. In the 1935 The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, the German critic Walter Benjamin described fascism as a product of a self-alienation that had reached such a degree that it can experience its own destruction as an aesthetic pleasure of the first order.
We must avoid the temptation of thinkingthat language is overstating political desires, that nobody really wants the kind of violence orchaos being gestured to. For this underestimates the power the aestheticpower of language to create or encourage these desires in its listeners.
*[The Centre for Analysis of the Radical Rightis a partner institution ofFair Observer.]
Theviews expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarilyreflect Fair Observers editorial policy.
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When Angry Words Become Violent Actions - Fair Observer
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