Giving Voice to Silence: A Study of State Violence in Bolzaneto Prison during the Genoa G8 Summit - Conflict and Multimodal Communication: Social Research and Machine Intelligence - page 196

being into the legal arena, and it draws attention to constructs such as dignity, trust,
and respect. In societies where state violence is manifested, a climate of impunity
applies that protects the perpetrators, based on silence and denial. Often the victims
are deprived of their right to speak, to communicate what happened, or to denounce
the perpetrators of the violence. The sense of helplessness, the anxiety aroused by
the delegitimization, and the psychological burden of silence represent suffering that
also needs to be addressed, especially in a public and supportive environment. The
trial surrounding Bolzaneto, even with all its limitations, has been able to provide
victims with a kind of therapeutic environment. Beyond the strictly legal outcome,
the process has allowed the victims to reverse the delegitimization they suffered;
regaining that social recognition is essential to the subjective well-being of every
person.
Similar results are found in social practices in order to restore a climate of peace
after collective and political conflicts (Sapio and Zamperini 2007 ). In particular,
there are similarities with the psychological processes activated by commissions for
truth and reconciliation both in the case of intrastate conflicts, such as that of South
Africa (Allan and Allan 2000 ), and in the case of conflicts of community and of the
racist violence that took place in the city of Greensboro, North Carolina, in the USA
(Magarrel and Wesley 2008 ). These commissions start with an assumption, that it is
possible to help people by allowing them to tell their own stories, obtaining in this
way public acknowledgement. Those who have worked with victims of collective
violence relate how the story of the trauma suffered can be transformed through
testimony, thereby passing from a story of shame and humiliation to a narrative of
dignity (Sironi 2007 ). Therefore, empowerment - that is, to regain a sense of power
and control over one's life, to recover social membership, and to receive a sense of
positive identity and acknowledgement - becomes the basis for embarking on an
appropriate healing path.
It is possible to trace some indicators of the transition from a state of powerless-
ness to a state of empowerment even within the demonstrators of the Genoa G8. In
fact, research that we conducted in 2010 with n D 167 demonstrators (Zamperini
and Menegatto 2011 ) - 2 years after the trials ended - showed a decrease of
emotions related to the delegitimization (shame and self-blame) and the rise of
assertive emotions (pride and indignation) that orientated the collective demand of
apologies and admission of guilt by the Italian institutions.
References
Allan A, Allan MM (2000) The South African truth and reconciliation commission as a therapeutic
tool. Behav Sci Law 18:459-477
Almog S (2001) As I read I weep: in praise of judicial narrative. Okla City U L Rev 26:471-501
Amnesty International. http://www.amnesty.org
Andretta M, della Porta D, Mosca L, Reiter H (2002) Global, noglobal, new global. La protesta
contro il G8 a Genova. Laterza, Roma-Bari