When the media justify the executioner who slaughters his wife and children
E’ a constant: the man who makes a massacre, then he always takes his own life “a brave person”. And to arm him is the terror of losing his family while the real victims disappear from the narrative
Perhaps it would be enough to understand which side to be on. Or at least try to tell by avoiding the trap of very heavy prejudice, of the repeated stereotype, of continuing violence, constant. Let the media talk about rape, violence, femicide and even family massacres there is often a disconcerting imbalance, even vulgar between victim and executioner.
The last executioner, in order of time, his name was Alberto Accastello. In Carignano, in Piedmont, at dawn on 8 November, armed with a pistol, killed his wife Barbara, the two-year-old son Alessandro and even the dog. He also fired on the other child of the couple, Aurora, who is in desperate condition. Then he took his own life.
In telling us this tragedy, the Corriere della Sera reports the testimony of the neighbors, inevitable in the narration of the drama. We read to find out that Accastello “he was a hard worker, he lived for the family. His wife Barbara wanted to separate, but the husband did not accept her decision. Lately the quarrels between them would have been frequent. He "also worked on Saturdays and Sundays to finish the house they had built - the neighbors continue -. Alberto was a quiet person. Always attentive and kind. Evidently the prospect of separation upset him. He had asked Barbara for another chance, but she said "when I say no it's no". We saw her last night and she was quiet, indeed euphoric ".
Synthesis: Accastello, good man, he goes crazy when his wife Barbara asks him for separation. She is “euphoric”, “when he says no and no” and that's enough to trigger the slaughter.
In addition to the testimonies of neighbors, there is no contradiction in this article published by the most important newspaper in Italy. E’ a miserable equation that confuses plans, the roles. Who is the victim, who is executioner? The massacre of the “quiet person” shocked by the eventuality of the end of the relationship is, practically, justified.
It almost always happens like this. If they rape you, you are looking for it (the dress too short, you went out at night, you drank), if they kill you too.
In substance, in conclusion, the theme of the article is not about the terrible gesture itself, but the narration of the fact. A toxic narrative. No separation causes a crime. Simona Musco says well about Doubt: “Applying a basic mitigating factor to such a horror is only confirmation that there is a cultural problem. That which perhaps even in an unconscious way - but much more often absolutely conscious - accepts the logic of patriarchy, of possession, of the reduction of women and children to objects which exist only in relation to their relationship with the husband / father and of the family as an inseparable unit, to be safeguarded at any cost”.
E’ already happened, same cut, same interpretation.
7 June 2020. Lecco. A man, Mario Bressi, kills by strangling the two twin sons of 12 years. Then he takes his own life.
Titles:
"The man committed the murder because he could not bear the idea of separation” (Ansa)
“Difficult separation, man kills his two sons and takes his own life” (Tg With).
"The drama of separated fathers". (The morning)
Morale: Whose fault is it? Of a murderer or separation, ergo of the woman who asked for it?
E’ a very dangerous ridge what the media in Italy, even the most authoritative, they cross with the lightness of the unconscious, sometimes accomplices.
In the case of Accastello the massacre is total, in the one completed in Lecco there is even one more devastating element. Mario Bressi does not kill his ex-wife Daniela Fumagalli but in fact condemns her to eternal consumption, to the public mockery, to the infamous judgment. E’ a death sentence in absentia.
Fault, it's your fault. How do you survive the guilt of being the reason for such a devastating gesture? How to survive the death of your children caused by an accident, a disease, let alone the one conceived and created by the man you had chosen for love? There are orphans, widows, and Vedas. What is a parent called, a mother, who suffers the death of a child? In many languages there is no word. In Sanskrit it is called vilomah, Means “adverse event to the natural order”.
We could cite dozens of other cases.
The semantics of violence always has a linguistic basis. Words hurt. Terrible sometimes. Information professionals should know this and instead do not shy away from stoning, to prejudice, to stereotypes. Part of a court that has already chosen a side, who to condemn.
The 3 September of 2017 Lucio March, years 17, kills Noemi with stabs Durini, years 16, in a town in the province of Lecce. He buries her, agonizing, under a pile of stones in the open countryside. Ten days later he confesses. The 14 September The Courier title “The boyfriend under the press confesses: I killed her”. Summary of the piece: “Who could think of such violence as to take the life of his love?”.
What love are we talking about, sorry? I repeat: who is the victim, who is the executioner?
When femicide takes place at home (in 2019 the victims were 73. In September 2020 we are already at 53, and they are missing 3 months at the end of the year) the titration is even more subtle, an overabundance of terms that in fact justify the massacre.
here they are:
rape
fits of jealousy
passion
fear of abandonment
he was terrified of losing her
the woman of his life
tormented love
sick love
loss of control
Watch, just type on google “killed out of jealousy”, 211thousand results in 50 seconds.
The mechanism is always the same: make victims invisible, bring women to the dock, reiterate the guilt of those who are not guilty in asking for a separation. They are very dangerous linguistic codes, enough to induce the reader to search for morbid details about the victim such as to explain the man's jealousy, and basically to motivate the incident by virtue of the terrible and unmanageable raptus.
The Venice Manifesto exists within the Deontological Code of Journalists, September 2017, strongly desired by Giulia, the collective of journalists born in 2011 with the aim of modifying the information imbalance on women also using a language free of stereotypes and correctly declined in the female.
Three years later, little has changed, Unfortunately. Almost nothing.
