Territorio e radicalizzazione: formazione agli psicologi del FVG

 

THE DIPLOMACY OF VICTIMS

 

It is difficult to fully understand who exactly brought about last week’s ceasefire and the start of what we all hope will be a lasting peace process in Gaza and Israel. What has become clear after these two years of bloody conflict is the crisis of traditional diplomacy. During this time, we have witnessed the use of weapons, the so-called intelligence diplomacy at the various meetings in Doha for previous ceasefires, and, following Trump’s return to the White House, a diplomacy focused on business and the reconstruction of Gaza in particular. Yet, since the days immediately after October 7, another actor has moved along the diplomatic path — neither political nor military, neither economic nor state-based, but civilian.

These are the people visited last Saturday by Witkoff, the U.S. envoy for the Middle East, and Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, accompanied by his wife Ivanka Trump: the relatives of those kidnapped on October 7. Witkoff opened the ceremony that, every Saturday evening for the past two years, has taken place in Tel Aviv’s Hostages’ Square, where the Forum of the Hostages’ Families has mobilized thousands of Israeli citizens to demand that the rescue of the hostages be placed above all else. A square that has relentlessly challenged both actors — Hamas and the Netanyahu government — who have played their bloody game at the expense of the hostages’ lives.

Beyond the weekly demonstrations, the Hostages’ Families Forum, with the support of politicians, lawyers, and journalists, has organized a broad campaign of communication and international outreach to raise awareness among policymakers and foreign ministries around the world about the centrality of the hostages in ending the conflict. The Israeli military response — which until just a few days ago seemed to lack any clear time frame or political horizon capable of addressing the Palestinian question — has now found an endpoint, thanks in part to the diplomatic efforts of the Forum and the Israeli citizens who have mobilized alongside it. It is work that might have had an earlier impact if the public opinion of Western countries had paid more attention to this third voice — one that, for two years, has persistently denounced the deception of violence inflicted on both Israeli and Palestinian victims.

Unfortunately, propaganda has prevailed — that war of words that has often made us passive consumers of a flood of information, a mix of truth and falsehood, in which the only freedom granted was to choose which narrative to follow, so that we might find ourselves — within a bubble — together with others on the “right side.” Propaganda’s cognitive trap lies in the power of war to shift from the local ground where weapons resound to every global social context, where partisanship divides schools, universities, political parties, and cultural institutions far removed from the battlefield.

The result is polarization — precisely what Albert Camus observed in 1956 — whereby each opposing group of supporters “chooses among the victims and declares some moving and others obscene.”

My quarter-century of work with the victims of terrorism in Italy and across Europe has taught me to “follow the families of hostages” as an ethical compass between humanism and politics. As I wrote in my first essay in 2017:

“Kidnapping is a form of attack that does not end in the few minutes of a shooting or bombing, but prolongs the time of terrorist action. In that prolonged moment, one can observe media and political dynamics concerning the victims/hostages and their families, with particular significance arising from the impossibility of knowing the outcome of the abduction. This temporal uncertainty forces political and social actors to take a position on the strategy for managing the hostages — whether to negotiate their release or abandon them — clearly revealing how each side (social or political) perceives the victims: that is, whether the human value of the hostages’ lives outweighs or not the Reason of State and the stability of government.”

“René Girard Politico” Studies Center at the COV&R2025

 

In the Frame of the of the COV&R 2025 

"Spirituality, religion and the sacred"

Rome Campus, Australian Catholic University

June 4-7, 2025

Panel: “René Girard Politico” Studies Center

Guglielminetti, Ferronato, Fornari & Barberi

University of Padua

This panel aims to present the Studies Center “René Girard Politico”, established at the University of Padua’s Department of Political Science, Law, and International Studies. The session will provide an overview of the center’s mission and activities since its founding in 2021, as well as outline its future directions. The “René Girard Politico” Studies Center serves as a hub for scholars interested in exploring and testing the potential of collaborative initiatives centered on Girard’s thought. The focus is especially on the political dimensions of his mimetic and victimary theory, approached through both multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary lenses.

While the center’s core perspective is grounded in the history of political thought, philosophy, political science, it also welcomes contributions from comparative literature, international relations, anthropology, theology—viewed both in their expressive and broadly “political” dimensions.

In recent years, the Centre promoted knowledge of Girard’s paradigm by organising conferences and lecture series that explored the relationships between Girard and Machiavelli, Hobbes, Schmitt. In 2024, the conference “Reading Achever Clausewitz: War and the End of History in René Girard” brought together scholars from different backgrounds, both experts on Girard and avid readers new to the Girardian paradigm.

Identità culturale e prevenzione della radicalizzazione: un libro a Trieste

 

Guerra Psicologica: un video

Lavoro di gruppo degli studenti di psicologia dell emergenza dell'Università Cattolica di Milano. 

Guerra Psicologica: Il Potere Nascosto delle Parole

Convegno internazionale sull'ultima grande opera girardiana

Per seguire la diretta in streaming : https://unipd.zoom.us/j/84383251622?pwd=Rjhg3yOnCykZXoVX8GlYuhFZypUtZF.1#success

Abstract dell'intervento "Democratizzazione della violenza politica e liberazione della vittima".

L'evoluzione della violenza dalle guerre napoleoniche al terrorismo contemporaneo riflette forse una 'democratizzazione della violenza' politica (se la guerra è politica con altri mezzi, allora la politica democratica evolve in guerra democratica), in cui è riduttivo focalizzarsi solo su attori non statali (i rivoluzionali o i terroristi), nuove tecnologie, fine della guerra come istituzione, come fanno René Girard, Carl von Clausewitz, e anche Carl Schmitt. L'evoluzione dei conflitti comporta infatti che ogni cittadino possa diventare perpetratore o vittima di atti di violenza politica più o meno legittimi. Da porre in evidenza è come la vittimologia (Jan van Dijk, 2009)  abbia confermato la dimensione sacra della violenza e il ruolo del Cristianesimo presenti nel paradigma di Girard. Ma negli ultimi decenni il ruolo della vittima è stato sottoposta a critica dalle stesse vittime (del terrorismo) che hanno reclamato il diritto di sottrarsi dal ruolo religioso del capro espiatorio tra i due attori in conflitto, tipicamente stato e attore non statale, o di essere politicamente strumentalizzati dallo stato per le sue politiche di antiterrorismo o di memorializzazione dei conflitti con il terrorismo. Esemplare è il ruolo del comitato dei familiari dei rapiti del 7 ottobre, che nel contesto di un conflitto che sembra spingere all'estremo l'escalation bellica della risposta israeliana all'aggressione di Hamas, si pongono come attori politici terzi e con un'autonoma iniziativa diplomatica finalizzata a 'risparmiare sangue' (concetto di Anna Bravo, 2013).

Così, la vittima che si libera dall’etichetta di vittima, non è solo quella alle prese dal dilemma tra farsi milite che si vendica o buon cristiano che deve perdonare il perpetratore. Proprio come suggerisce Girard, in Achever Clausewitz, si deve stare nel conflitto svolgendo parimenti un ruolo di riconciliazione. Un ruolo che in ultima analisi ricorda a tutti l'umanità del nemico. Le vittime sono forse quelle che meglio possono interpretare tale ruolo da antieroi titolati a richiedere di risparmiare sangue? 

Call for paper sull'ultima grande opera girardiana

Il Centro studi "René Girard politico" organizza il convegno: Leggere Portando Clausewitz all'estremo: guerra e fine della storia in René Girard. 

Il convegno avrà luogo presso il Dipartimento di Scienze politiche, giuridiche e studi internazionali nell'Università di Padova, nei giorni 4 e 5 settembre 2024. 

L'incontro vuol essere l'occasione per far dialogare studiosi di differenti appartenenze disciplinari. In questa prospettiva, il Centro Studi si rivolge a Docenti, Ricercatori e Operatori interessati a presentare un intervento della durata di quindici minuti nel corso del convegno. 

Sono graditi contributi originali, in lingua italiana o in lingua inglese, che si confrontino con i contenuti di Portando Clausewitz all'estremo. 

Gli Interessati sono pregati d'inviare un breve abstract, di massimo mille parole, entro il giorno 28 luglio 2024 alla seguente e-mail: marta.ferronato@unipd.it

The “Centro Studi René Girard politico” organizes the conference: Reading Achever Clausewitz: war and the end of history in René Girard.

The conference will be held at the Department of Political Science, Law and International Studies of the University of Padua on 4th and 5th September 2024. 

The aim of the event is to bring together scholars from different backgrounds, such as experts on René Girard (including Maria Stella Barberi, Giuseppe Fornari e Pierpaolo Antonello), as well as passionate readers who are new to the Girardian paradigm, and to encourage dialogue between them, in an interdisciplinary perspective.

To this end, the Centro Studi is calling on scholars, researchers and practitioners who are interested in presenting a fifteen-minute talk at the conference. 

We welcome original contributions, in Italian or English, that deal with the content of Achever Clausewitz. If you are interested, please send a short abstract of no more than one thousand words to the following email address: marta.ferronato@unipd.it by 28th July 2024.

Admission will be confirmed by 5th August 2024.

Selected applicants agree to speak either in person or remotely during the conference.

After the RAN, the new Eu Hub of Knowledge on Radicalisation

The launch conference for the new EU Knowledge Hub on Prevention of Radicalisation took place  Monday 17 June in Brussels. 

-> See details here: 

This marks the conclusion of the Radicalisation Awareness Network - RAN ’ the European network for prevention practices established in 2011 by the DG Home of the European Commission. Thus, it is time to evaluate this experience, in particular in Italy, and open up a discussion on the future consolidation of policies and practices aimed at preventing and countering violent extremism and terrorism.

I thank React/StartInsight for publishing my paper a few days before the launch of the new Eu Hub.

-> Read my article here

Formare insegnanti e giornalisti sui fenomeni di radicalizzazione

Nuova collaborazione con OIKOS ETS di Udine nel  progetto regionale sulla prevenzione della radicalizzazione indirizzato ad insegnanti e giornalisti. Si veda la pagina https://www.oikosets.net/pratica-logica/

Prevenzione, Gestione e Risoluzione dei Conflitti

Un nuova sfida in ambito formativo... nel quadro della convenzione di terza missione della Facoltà di Scienze Politiche di Padova e l'Associazione Leon Battista Alberti e nel quadro delle attività del "Centro Studi René Girard politico".

La protezione dei luoghi di culti da violenza e terrorismo

 

Il progetto SHIELD, a sostegno della protezione dei luoghi di culto dal pericolo terroristico, ha raccolto i suoi principali risultati, rapporti e risultati in un manuale di facile utilizzo, progettato specificamente per i leader delle comunità religiose, i decisori e le forze dell'ordine a livello locale, con l'obiettivo di supportare un sistema di protezione completo per i luoghi del culto, inserendo i risultati del progetto nel quadro più ampio delle politiche europee sulla prevenzione e il contrasto dell’estremismo violento (P/CVE) e sul sostegno alle vittime del terrorismo.

Un manuale in 10 lingue, curato dal sottoscritto e Alessandro Marani, scaricabile da questa pagina web: https://shieldproject.eu/handbook/

Orientarsi di fronte alle guerre

Di fronte a guerre che coinvolgono sempre più direttamente l’Europa e l’Italia, siamo sopraffatti da un senso d’impotenza che ci rende passivi fruitori di un mare d’informazioni. 

Un mare nel quale l’unica libertà concessa sembrerebbe essere quella di poter scegliere quale propaganda seguire, per poterci ritrovare - in una “bolla” o “camera dell’eco” (echo-chambers) - insieme ad altri, dalla “parte giusta”. 

Chi voglia sottrarsi a queste bolle, cariche di pregiudizi di conferma, si pone il problema di come approcciarsi in maniera vigile e consapevole ai mezzi e alle fonti di informazione e di analisi.

Esattamente a queste persone - psicologi dell’emergenza, operatori sociali, umanitari e di pace, studenti, ma anche a chiunque sia interessato - si rivolge l’incontro on-line:

 ”Orientarsi. La guerra, l’informazione, gli inganni.” 

il 27 Marzo alle ore 21, on line su Zoom al seguente link:

 https://unipd.zoom.us/j/87366408059?pwd=SzlvYlJTVU1IRXA2OWhMR2x3VGdxdz09

Narrazioni diversive

Intorno alle teorie del complotto, loro natura, utilizzo e fine. Se ne discute alla libreria torinese Il Ponte sulla Dora con l'autore, Tobia Savoca, e con Enrico Manera - giovedì 7 Marzo ore 18.30.

A Shield For the Places Of Worship

 

In response to terrorist attacks that occurred in Europe in the last decade, the European Commission has funded a wide range of projects that develop effective strategies to protect public spaces. Places of worship, such as mosques, churches and synagogues, are hereby of particular importance, as they are considered sensitive targets due to their high symbolic value of civil coexistence and social and cultural cohesion.

In order to address this issue, the European Commission has, through its Internal Security Fund, funded amongst other initiatives the SHIELD Project, which aims to protect places of worship from the risks of violent extremism. To achieve this objective, the project connects and is jointly implemented by 18 partners from 10 EU countries, including representatives of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim religious communities. Through an in-depth analysis of violent attacks over the last twenty years against places of worship, the project analysed potential vulnerabilities, especially of smaller buildings and local communities, for which security was often not a priority. However, in the light of the Middle East conflicts, the recent attacks in France and Belgium and a global increase in incidents of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, security has become a key factor for places of worship and has raised an alert from various intelligence or counter-terrorism agencies. In response to this heightened need, the SHIELD project has been able to draw from its extensive research, conducted interviews and inspections of various types of buildings, to provide places of worship with tools and methods to assess their potential risk level and specific vulnerabilities. These tools are further supported by detailed overviews of different technical and procedural means that can be used to address the identified risks.

In order to make these tools even available on a wider-scale, the project has compiled its main deliverables, reports and findings into an easy-to-use handbook, designed specifically for decision makers, leaders of religious communities and law enforcements agencies at local level, which will be presented on the occasion SHIELD Final Conference in Brussels next February 29.