Militarization of Sardinia, Aide Esu’s latest book unmasks a mystification

The latest publication of is available Aide Esu, professor of Sociology at the University of Cagliari. The volume, entitled Violating Spaces – Peacetime Militarization and Local Resistance It is published by Ombre Corte, of Verona.

The theme is central to the life of Sardinians and Sardinians, for their recent history and for their future prospects, even if carefully set aside from the politics of the palaces, who know that whoever faces the militarization of Sardinia puts his personal political career at risk. Esu offers a clear, detailed picture from which one cannot escape. “From a methodological point of view, this study is based on an analysis of institutional sources and on original qualitative research materials conducted over a period of 8 years”.

The book is structured in four chapters, linked to each other but compartmentalized by theme: militarization and construction of consentpolitics of uncertainty, islands and militarization, protestsresistance and direct actions.

A theme transversalcentral at least until 20 years ago in the militarization story and in the entire Sardinian story, is the use of the “tradition/modernity” dichotomy, with the modernity which means accepting militarization, which brings wealth, services, well-being. Until a few decades ago, the struggles against the militarization of Sardinia, which sometimes took place even with mass participation, were linked to large political organizations, which also responded to the logic of international positioning. An exception, which was also a watershed moment, was the (victorious) struggle of Pratobello of 1969. And in fact Esu substantially divides the history of the movement against the militarization of Sardinia into three phases: the first from the post-war period to Pratobello, the second from Pratobello to the early 2000s, and the third is the current one, of the “no-bases” movements ”.

This last phase is also the one in which, thanks to the trials, to a different posture of the press and the media but not only, the narrative on the positivity of the base is affected. Common sense changes. In 2018, for example, “the final report of the Parliamentary Commission onImpoverished uranium recalls the need to mitigate the military presence on the island through planning to reduce the military presence on the island within 3 months of the approval of the report. This containment should have resulted in the progressive reduction of the areas subject to military servitude, the divestment of the Capo Teulada and Capo Frasca ranges, and the redevelopment of the PISQ”.

Today, six years later, these positions appear unthinkable. The “piecemeal third world war”, in which we are immersed, and the Italian complicity in the genocide of the Palestinian people makes it unthinkable, for the entire political and media scenario, to even think of planning a reduction of the military presence. I remember that, clearly, that fine report from the Commission led to nothing.

Esu’s book starts, with precise information, from the post-World War II period, and reaches up to today and the “no-bases” movement of Aforas. A rightly central aspect in each chapter of the book is the continuous attempt, successful to date, to cover up, hide, instill doubts, mystify, make uncertain any reasoning on the militarization of Sardinia. For example, on health issues, “the non-visibility and non-existence of a regional cancer register are the two tools on which the military authorities to minimize any relationship between environment and health”. Various studies have focused on the demographic and economic effects of the militarization of Sardinia, but they have never been popularized.

Aide Esu’s book inserts the human story of those who live in Sardinia today and feel the militarization, because they live it daily or because they have learned to recognize it, within “liberating” cognitive paradigms and within an international “geopolitical” dimension that makes the terms of the question clear, masterfully demystifying the tenth anniversary mystification techno-political-military.