The Italians have a word for it. Campanilismo. Literally belltower-ism. Love or attachment to one’s home town. Our bell-tower is bigger than yours. It’s a strong force in Italy, in practice much stronger than any sense of national pride. It’s not unusual for Italians to define themselves more by their region than as Italian. The roots lie in the relatively recent existence of Italian city states. Remember, Italy as a nation has only existed for 150 years or so and been a republic since 1946.
Campanilismo is very much at the heart of the Ultra phenomenon. Much Ultra behaviour is around proving the point that your city/region is superior to others. Tobias Jones’ brilliant book, ‘Ultra’, plots the course of the Ultras from enthusiastic fan-groups to political movements, left-wing often in the early days, to the modern times of complicity with organised crime and mostly right-wing extremism. It’s a recommended read and in many ways a sad one as it highlights numerous deaths, outrageous levels of violence, drug addiction and dealing, what amounts to blackmailing of clubs and hard-line unswerving political allegiance to Mussolini and the fascists. There are exceptions, of course, and Jones focusses greatly on the anarchic left-leaning Ultras of Cosenza, way down the boot. Spoiler alert: Lazio, Juve and Verona harbour the darkest and most disturbing tales.
The section on the early and mid 80s, highlights an almost pathological and frenzied desire for Ultras to stab or even shoot one another. Jones does not go into the connection at length, but it becomes easy to picture the kind of toxic atmosphere that Liverpool fans faced in Rome for the ‘84 European Cup final (multiple assaults and stabbings) and from there the tragedy of Heysel. Not excusing that, I hasten to add, and the deaths of 39 people is nothing but tragic, but events of the past have to be seen in context.
And there we have it, yet again a piece from this Forest fan has mentioned Liverpool! Thought I was done with that for this season at least, but it does lead nicely into the astonishing backlash unleashed in the direction of LFC fans this week. The cause, of course, the lack of patriotism shown in booing the National Anthem at Wembley on Saturday. Which brings us back to Campanilismo. Neat, or what?
We all exhibit Campanilismo. Some more than others maybe. Scousers, Geordies, Glaswegians, true Cockneys… Find a Nottinghamian who isn‘t one thousand percent sure that their home city is better in most respects than Derby. Which it is, by the way! No doubt, Derby fans will find a response to that and there is no denying the brilliance of Derbyshire as an outstandingly beautiful county. That the Hairy Dog is also a fantastic Derby punk venue, is also an undeniable truth.
Campanilismo is a form of patriotism. Loyalty and connection to your country, made more localised. It’s an ancient concept. The Greeks and Romans understood patriotism as loyalty to a common good, to shared values and liberty, not to a nation. That sort of patriotism was strong in the 15th century Italian city states too; safeguarding the liberty and common good of the city against others.
Swiss philosopher Rousseau was amongst the first to mark a change towards a patriotism centred on the power and righteousness of one’s country over another’s. His idea of patriotism was about being loyal to your political system masters.
18th century Prussian (so German, but born in now part of Poland), philosopher Johann von Herder was one of the first to describe an attachment to one’s country and preservation of that; the concept of The Fatherland, which led to all sorts of shenanigans a bit later on, shall we say. Here, patriotism is not about defending liberties for all, but exclusively for the rights of a particular culture. The moral worth of others outside that culture is reduced to support the long term prospects of the nation.
Billy Bragg, in his book the Progressive Patriot highlights much to celebrate in English working class culture; inclusion, diversity, bravery, creativity and much more. He believes you can be patriotic and still tolerant and fundamentally decent. This nicely hands me the chance to throw in one of those brilliant German words coined by the most prominent post-war German philosopher Juergen Habermas to describe a patriotism that seeks to embed loyalty to ideas of harmony between diverse groups: Constitutional patriotism. here we go… Verfassungspatriotismus.
Back to Wembley then. Is it unpatriotic to jeer the national anthem? It depends, perhaps, on your idea of patriotism. Our national anthem is solely about God protecting a particular person, a member of a particular family, and granting them the right to rule over the rest of us as a birth right. It asks that she or he is sent victorious, presumably to fight other nations. Something monarchs haven‘t been asked to do for quite some time now. That usually falls to working people to do.
I’d suggest it’s quite possible to harbour an intense dislike for the national anthem, whilst still not being treacherous. It’s possible to feel that your part of the country has suffered injustice, does not get a fair deal and that the State, head of which is the monarch, that facilitates this is not worthy of your support. That clearly applies to many Liverpudlians. The causes are well documented, repeatedly explained but routinely ignored. It also applies to many of the rest of of us, who don’t share the values of the State, which can seem out only to look after the elite - think striking miners v police, think Grenfell victims, think universal credit cuts, whatever ires you.
In the particular, unique case of Liverpool, you also need to factor in just why 33 years of abuse from many of the rest of their ‘fellow-countrymen’ over 97 unlawful deaths, taunting about poverty and unemployment, being repeatedly told that everyone hates you, might just, just be a factor too. Cast us out and we’ll turn and look after ourselves. It’s natural. How many of these patriotic complainants will be supporting Real Madrid, historically the team of the Spanish royalty, Franco’s team, the team of the fascists, against Liverpool in the final coming up?
But presently, it seems our Campanilismo overrides common sense and football is a big factor. We’ll come out against people much like ourselves, with similar lives, similar problems, similar battles just because it lets us get one over on them, all the time just reinforcing the divisions that keep us down. We’ll side with multi-billionaires, cheats, liars and people who cut benefits just to make a football-related point. We’ll slander the poor, victims of disaster, injustice, giving a ‘free pass‘ to the people that cause those problems.. Surely, we can support out football teams fervently and passionately, perhaps even with some venom in the stadium, without falling prey to nonsensical divisive hatred outside it.
I’m, contrary to accusation, not a supporter of Liverpool FC. At times, I’ve hated them. I don’t now. Times are different. I have come to admire, respect and very much like a good number of people associated with Liverpool FC. Their football club plays an attractive brand of football and I’ve no problem with them winning any time except against Forest. It makes no difference to my life and it makes people I am fond of happy. I respect the politics. I respect the concerted effort to create and present an inclusive fan-base and to do some social good with food banks and other initiatives. I’m not naive. I lived there in the 80s and there were as many racists, bigots and ne’erdowells as anywhere. I’ve reported previously on some scary experiences on the Annie Road End. But 40 years on from that, we perhaps need to have a look and a think about what they might be doing right.
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