The term means “ shaved head ”, which was the identifying trait of the movement, and their clothing consisted of combat boots, blue jeans, bomber jackets, and a shirt. Skinheads appeared in the late 1960s in the most deprived neighborhoods of English cities (the Hard Mods), and were the youth of the British working class . This subculture was born on a social basis, and opposed the bourgeoisification of the English working class and the oppression of the ruling class. Although today in popular culture they are labeled as neo- Nazis , the early Skinheads did not base their identity on political ideologies, but on elements related to factory work , reggae music , and a passion for football . They also hung out with Rude Boys , who were young Jamaican immigrants, with whom they shared the same clubs and a passion for African-American music.
The right turn
In the mid-seventies, with the spread of the Rastafarian religion, many Rude Boys converted and began to profess the maintenance of their black identity, considering their culture, especially their musical one, a sacred ground to be defended against any possible contamination by white groups (Hedbige, 1979). The sociologist Hedbige (1979), in his book “Subculture: The allure of an unnatural style“, supposes that this stance gave rise to racist movements within the Skinhead movement, which suddenly felt rejected. In the late 1970s, the British Skinhead movement had strong ties with the National Front, a far-right English political party, which ended up recruiting them as militants. The Skinheads thus began to sympathize with Nazi ideologies e racist, and shifted their musical tastes to punk music. In particular, they listened to “Oi!”, a subgenre of punk born in the late seventies in England (Cotter, 1999). Many of them, however, did not accept this change and, remaining faithful to the origins of the movement, gave birth to the Trojan Skinhead, a group of skinheads loyal to the apolitical and anti-racist line.
Skinheads in Italy
The phenomenon arrived in Italy in the early 1980s, and developed in the main cities of the north, in Tuscany and in Rome. Although in England, for some years already, many members of the Skinhead movement had begun to join far-right parties, in our country this subculture was born. apolitical e antiracistThe look was an exact replica of the original English subculture, even though specific clothing items were difficult to find commercially in Italy. Many local Skinheads, in fact, were forced to travel to England to properly emulate the style. Their music of reference was Punk, and in particular "Oi!", which also had a fair amount of success in the Italian social centers. Our local Skinheads, like those across the Channel, frequented football stadiums and had strong ties with the fans and ultras groups. Even in Italy, at a certain point during the decade, a split emerged within the movement, due to the entry of nationalist and racist ideologies originating from England (Caiani, 2011). Except in the areas of Milan and Veneto, most Italian Skinheads remained faithful to the movement's original line, refusing to become neo-Nazi militants. In 1986, the cultural association "Veneto Skinhead Front”, a far-right political organization, which also collaborated with two Italian parties: the Movimento Sociale Fiamma Tricolore and the Lega Nord (Berizzi, 2015).
Simone Nigrisoli
