Missionaries of Peace – The Creation of the Italian Identity in the Representation of the Political Discussion in Favour of Italy’s Participation in the Iraq War in Il Corrieredella Sera

Marja Härmänmaa

University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

ABSTRACT

Linguistics is not a traditional method used in the security studies. However, today’s world, and the information society are ever more based on texts and images. Also, both the sense of security and a threat are produced with language at the first place. For this reason, the study of a discourse used in a conflict is of vital importance. The present paper will deal with the political debate in favour of Italy’s participation in the Iraq warin the spring of 2003, as it is represented in one of Italy’s most important newspapers, Il Corrieredella Sera. In using the term ‘representation’ I mean the interpretation of a given phenomenon with language. According to the method of critical linguistics elaborated by Roger Fowler, Robert Hodge and Gunther Kress, and based on the functional grammar of M.A.K. Halliday, I shall analyse the vocabulary and naming of different elements related to warfare, and transitivity;I will examine the choice of agents and affected participants and types of predicates to which they are related, as well as the argumentation strategies.In conclusion, I shall show how the representation of the Iraq war contributes to the creation of and/or emphasis ona specific national Italian identity.

KEYWORDS: Italy’s national identity; Iraq war;discourse analyses; political discourse; media discourse; right-wing coalition

1. The war in Iraqofficially began on March 19, 2003, when the United States started to bombard the country. The following day the US troops crossed the Southern border of Iraq from Kuwait and entered the country. Before the invasion, Washington had asked for Italy’s willingness to offer first logistical and later direct military help if the war should start (Sarzanini, 10.4.2003).Public opinion and the leftist parties of the political opposition in government in Italy had been very much against any kind of Italian involvement, and demonstrations and strikes against the war started before the US invasion and continued after.Although the right-wing governmentinitially denied anypossibleItalian involvement in the warfare when it began, the leading politiciansslowly startedto change their opinions.At the end of March, Italy gave permission to the US to send American parachutists from Italy to Iraq.Around April 10 the Italian Prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi,started to talk in public aboutthe possibility of anoffer of concrete military aid to the US (Di Caro, 11.4.2003).A few days later (April 15) first the Senate and then the parliament voted in favour of sending approximately 3000 Italian soldiersto Iraq in May: in the parliament the decision was approved by 308deputies, 31 votedagainst and 159 abstained. In the Senate the decision was approved with 153 votes, 26 votedagainst and 2 abstained. (Caprara,16.4.2003) Soon after President Bush had proclaimed on May 1, 2003 that the war was ended, Italian troops left for Iraq, where they stayed until December 2, 2006.

2. This paper focuses on the representation of the Iraq war by the Italian ruling politicians as they argued in favour of Italy’s participation and as it was reported in an Italian newspaper. By representation I mean the interpretation given of a phenomenon with language. I am mainly using the method of critical linguistics as it wasdeveloped at the first place by Roger Fowler, Robert Hodge and Gunther Kress. Based on the systemic-functional grammar of M.A.K. Halliday, critical linguistics is one method of critical discourse analyses. In this kind of representational analysis especially crucial features are the naming and transitivity.(Fowler, Hodge, Cress and Trew 1979; Fairclough 1995; Hodge and Cress 1996; Lehtonen 2000, 44-48).

Representation is always created from a specific ideological point of view. According to critical linguistic theory, any aspect of linguistic structure, whether phonological, syntactic, lexical, semantic, pragmatic or textual, can carry ideological significance; in other words, ideology differs systematically in different forms of expression, in different choices of words and grammatical phrasing. (Fowler 1991, 36, 66, 67) Associologists nowadays agree, newspapers or media, instead of reflecting reality, rather produce it from a certain ideological point of view. Thenews is one product among others. Its publicationis the result of a complex selection that reflects the ideology of the newspaper and the society to which it is addressed: these factors not only give relevance to a phenomenon reported as news, but also indicate how it is reported. (Fowler 1991;Fairclough 1995)

3. This research is based on articles published between March 19 and May 1, 2003 in the most sold andreadItalian newspaper, namely Il Corrieredella Sera. The paper was founded in Milan onMarch 5,1876, and many prominent Italian intellectuals and writers have collaborated with it. Nowadays the newspaper belongs to RCS MediaGroup, the first Italian publisherthat has developed a strong international presence in the sector of daily newspapers, and even has interests in the Spanish market, through the company Unedisa that publishes the daily El Mundo. Over a half of the shares of RCS Media Group is owned by large enterprises (FIAT holds about 10%) and banks: MediobancaS.p.A., Italy’s leading banking group,is the main shareholder with over 13% of the shares.From a political point of view, IlCorrieredellaSera is independent, but it is situated in the centre-right. It is distributed all over the world and it has daily edited, free Internet sites.[1]

4. For the present research, I have studied the articles in IlCorrieredella Sera’sInternet archives,[2] where it seems to have stored all the past numbers from 1991 onward;only the photographic material is lacking.The articles conserved in the Internet archive are merely news, whilst there are fewercomments or editorials. The central feature of the news about the political decision-making is the abundance of direct quotations from politicians’ speeches or their words, in most cases indicated by quotation marks.The quotations in the press have two basic functions: on the one hand,they are used to emphasise certain words or expressions, and on the other, to mark a citation. The meaning of a citation is to make the text more “objective”, to create an illusion that things speak for themselves. (Tuomarla 2000: 163)For this reason the direct, explicit voice of the newspaper on some occasions seems to be lacking, and what I am merely studying is the language that the politicians have used and that has subsequentlybeen reported in the articles. Of course the “objectivity” is only an illusion, since the author subjectively chooses what to put in the text, which words or statements to report, even as direct quotations. Plus, in many cases the language used by the politicians coincides with the language of the newspaper: the terms, expressions or statements that on some occasions might be between quotation marks, on the othersare used directly by the journalist. However, with this tactical choice of using citationsthe author is able to avoid making statements of his/her own, andinstead puts him-/herself in the background in the role of a mere objective observer.

Also thedecisions the author considers to have “newsvalue”, and thus report as news,are made subjectively. By archiving the articles about the political decision making, IlCorrieredella Serainitially shows its normal interest in domestic politics, and secondly, it assumes the role of mediator: the paper informs the public about the point of view of the Italian politicians, by reporting what they have said about the matter. The articles in the Internet could thus be considered as a sort of archive of historical documents (instead of newsarticles only), with which one could reconstruct the chronology of the decision-making that led toItaly’s participation in the war.

5. The image of the war that emergesfrom these particular articles is extremely abstract and sterile. Whereas the main protagonists are the Italian politicians or Italy as a country, there are no real warriors. During the whole period, the aggressors in Iraq, George Bush or Saddam Hussein, the original reason for the war, and the Iraqi people are hardly mentioned at all. The tragic events that on the frontline led to the destruction of the Iraqi army, as well as the brutal attacks against civilians by the US forces that all caused thousands of casualtieswithin the first few weeksof the war are mentioned very little, if at all. The warthat is discussed by the politiciansis truly a paperwar without weapons or victims, or reason: it isa war fought among the politicians about the meaning of the terms having as a final aim the shipment of Italian troops to Iraq with valid justification.

6. One linguistic strategy thatrenders the representation of the war ever more abstract is the abundance of mental and verbal actions, whilst there are very fewphysical ones. As normally in political language, here too people are “saying”, “considering”or “deciding”, instead of “attacking”, “shooting”, or “bombarding”, whichwould be rather normal terms in an article about a war.Alsothe metaphorical representation of processes as entities with the nominalizationof the verbs contributes to the idea that it is more a question about anintangible dilemma instead of a concrete course of action and a human catastrophe. For instance, when the newspaper writes about “sending of the Italian troops on an operation of peacekeeping in Iraq” (Verderami, 15.4.2003), not only the verb and the agent are missing, but also the true nature of the action fades away in a vague noun: “the operation of peacekeeping”.

7. In most cases the event itself is explicitly called “war” (laguerra), however, usually there is no specification where or against whom the war is conducted. In some cases it is mentioned that the war is in Iraq (la guerra in Iraq). Only in one case is it specified, that the war is actually fought “against” Iraq (l’imminenteguerraall’Iraq). There are also numerous synonyms and quasi-synonyms, as usually, when the topic is of a particular preoccupation or problem.(Fowler 1991, 85).Onmany occasions, to soften the significance of ‘war’ the journalists have used alternative words, such as ‘conflict’ (unconflitto), ‘military intervention’ (l’interventomilitare), ‘direct intervention’ (l’interventodiretto), ‘offensive actions’ (azioni offensive). Only in few cases are the “real responsible” for these “actions” mentioned, and the operation is called ‘US intervention’ (l’interventoUsa) or‘the angloamerican attack’ (l’attaccoangloamericano), even though, here as well the process is nominalised and the agentdisappears in the adjective.

8. Negotiating the political line of a country can be considered as a negotiation of the country’s identity. By creating or emphasising a certain identity politicians are able to justify a certain role in the field of international politics.[3]In this case the Italian government at any price wanted the country to have an active role and participate in the war – regardless of the fact that public opinion was against it.To sustain theirpoint of view, the politicians have to know which positions the public will accept, which positions must be defended, and how these positions should be defended. In other words, the politicians have to be aware of the Italians’ innate “identity”: which are their interests, values and beliefs. (Lo Cascio 1991; Perelman 1996)This will have an effect on the strategies of argumentation, the authorities to whom apply, and the terminology. Vocabulary is of great interest, for it can be regarded as a representation of the world for a certain culture; or as the world is perceived according to the ideological needs of a culture. (Fowler 1991, 82)

19. Before the parliament was to take the decision about Italy’s military participation in the waronApril 15,the authorities to whom the newspaper appeals are the US and Great Britain: the Prime minister Berlusconi will send military troopsto Iraq as the US and Great Britain have asked, and as the Italian Prime minister Silvio Berlusconi had promised in a phone callto President Bush before the war started. (Sarzanini, 10.4.2003; Di Caro, 11.4.2003; Verderami, 15.4.2003) With such an argumentation, the right-wing government not only openly showed its pro-American policy, but also Italy is represented as a reliable country that cannot, and will not rescind a promise it has given – although it is questionable, whetherPrime ministerBerlusconi had the right to make such a promise on his own. In addition, Italy’s presence in Iraq among the first foreign countries becomes a sign of its political prestigeon the international level. There is the urge to hasten, as Poland is already in Iraq, whilst Spain, Denmark, Holland and Portugal are about to go there too. (Verderami, 15.4.2003)The craving to gain political importance with the participation in the war is also evident in the titles of the articles, such as “The phase of emergency starts and our country will participate among the first ones” (Sarzanini, 10.4.2003), or “We and the USA will sow democracy” (Di Caro, 17.4.2003) that gives the idea of a close collaboration between the US and Italy in the administration of Iraq. In “Within six months a command to Italy” (Nese, 4.5.2003) the title is almost misleading, as the topic of the article concerns the quality and quantityof the troops that will be sent to Iraq, whilsta hypotheses about the organisation of the administration of the foreign soldiers is mentioned only briefly.

10. Nevertheless, Italy is not only a Catholic country among others, but it is the very centre of Catholicism. The strong presence of the Catholic Church has an influence on social life and civilian values. Furthermore, Italy was one of the aggressors in the Second World War,the memory of which and a sort of shame still persists among the adult population of the country.Therefore, any argumentationon behalf of sending soldiers to an occupied country to help the aggressor, against international law and without the consent of the UN, based on any kind of utility, wouldsimply be unacceptableto the great majority of the people.Instead,the main reasonswhy Italy should participate in the war,are humanitarian.

Halliday has used the term ‘anti-language’ for the cases in which the words change their meaning. (Halliday 1976) In the discourse of the right-wing politicians,helping theinvaderto control a foreigncountry is transformed into ‘peace-keeping’. The activity of the Italians in Iraq will concern peace, which, on the other hand, shows the capacity of the politicians to foresee the future, since during the publication of these articles the war was still going on: the Italian “soldiers [go] to Iraq for peace”, there will be sent “an Italian body of peace” that is “ready to participate in peace-keeping”. The Italian one is “a mission that will guarantee peace in Iraq”.Alternatively, the reasons are related to charity. The Italians will “do this task to defend the population”.The approximately 3000 soldiers will be sent to Iraq for “humanitarian purpose”, to “guarantee the aid”, to “bring humanitarian help to tormented Iraq” (Fregonara, 14.4.2003) and “in order to alleviate the sufferings of the Iraqi people”. (Franchi, 16.4.2003) The government has created a “humanitarian machine” (Sarzanini 10.4.2003), that will effectuate “a humanitarian intervention” (Verderami, 13.4.2003), and contribute to“the humanitarian stabilization in Iraq”. (Fregonara, 14.4.2003)

In addition to the topics ofmedicine, sanitation, reconstruction of the streets, bridges and buildings, a peculiar national characteristic of the Italian discourse about the war is the argumentation on behalf of the salvation of Iraqi cultural heritage.It is mentioned in different articles that the Italians will work to rescue the historical monuments and works of art. (Nese, 18.4.2003; Caprara, 20.4.2003) Yet in one article it is presented as one of the main reasons to go to Iraq, as the title explicitly states: “On the front line for cultural heritage”. (Conti, 4.5.2003)

11. In all these articles Iraq is represented, when it is represented,as a country thatis in a state of extreme confusion, and therefore eagerly needs the Italians to rescue it and to react “to the nightmare of emergency” created in Iraq (Breda, 15.4.2003). Since no reason is given for this confusion, the result is that the disorder was born out of nothing, as a natural catastrophe. Plus, it seems to have nothing to do with the ongoing warfare, since the only concrete attributions about the nature of the disaster are related to criminality:it is “a country at the mercy of corruption, of speculation, of black market, of robbery and of spreading criminality”, a “disastrous country” (Nese, 5.5.2003), a country of “plundering and banditry”. (Caprara, 20.4.2003) The Iraqi people are mentioned only once as a passive group withno will of their own nor capacity to react in any way to the “criminality” that somehow and suddenly “has spread” in their homecountry, and for this reason: “the Iraqi people cannot be left alone”, whereas from Italy’s part,“it would only be vile not to stop the agony of Iraq”. (Verderami, 13.4.2003)

12. Themost current term used to describe the nevertheless obscure activity of the Italians in Iraq, the true slogan of this cruel and disastrous adventure, is ‘mission’ (la missione). This term, in Italian, has many connotations and can be used in military, political, civic or religious meaning. In any case, it always contains the idea of devotion, moral obligation or duty towards the army, the State, the society or the Church that has given the commission.(Lo Zingarelli 2003) It is repeatedly mentioned in articles that the Italians have a mission in Iraq. (Breda, 15.4.2003) It is: “a humanitarian mission of the Italian government”; a mission “that will guarantee peace”; a mission for the freedom of the country: “the mission Iraqi freedom”. (Verderami, 15.4.2003)