The Stranger on the Border

Abstract

The author discusses the problem of racism and fear of the stranger from different perspectives. First of all, she employs classic psychoanalytic concepts (such as projection, identification with the aggressor, etc.), together with concepts derived from ethno-psychoanalysis and sociology. Her reflections follow the methodology of so-called “ego-history”, namely, she gives a detailed account of her personal experience and of the experience of her family during World War Two in the territory of ex-Yugoslavia, occupied by Italy and later by Germany, and as a member of the Slovene minority in Trieste in 1947. The author’s father was an Italian antifascist who had to immigrate to Yugoslavia, and her mother was from Slovenia. She describes her childhood and adolescence, in reference to the experiences of minorities and different ethnic groups. This past history triggers socio-psychological and political reflections on the current phenomenon of racism in Italy as witnessed by the growing fear of and aversion to immigrants. It is hypothesized that this fear and aversion towards immigrants could be consequences of the fact that social groups reinforce their identity by exercising the human tendency to create an enemy. The author does not accept the psychoanalytic notion that this aversion is part of human nature, but rather seeks an explanation in the fact that the other becomes an enemy due to psychological processes such as “cognitive delusion” and “typological illusion”. These processes, ones promoted by totalitarian regimes, make the other invisible both as other and as human being, and thus serve to immunize one against anything that is perceived as new. A better knowledge of these processes may prevent the loss and obfuscation of memory that can generate a resurgence of mass racism or of racism of entire communities. In conclusion, this may be the path we should take in order to counteract the invisible racism possibly lurking within each of us. (This paper, with the original title “Accepting or rejecting the other: Border psychopathologies”, was presented on March 14, 2011, at a series of seminars entitled “On the road”, organized by Stefano Benni and Alessandro Castellari at the Pluriversità dell’Immaginazione “Grazia Cherchi” of Bologna, Italy).