Masaryk University Faculty of Social Studies Sociology Department

From Bratislava shooting to Devnsky masaker? Analysis of a meaning struggle. Masters Thesis

Supervisor: Bernadette Nadya Jaworsky, PhD. UO: 182840 Year of Enrollment: 2009

Author: Edita Bezdikov

Brno, 2011

tpnovi

I hereby declare that this thesis is my own work and effort. It is to the best of my knowledge and belief, that all other sources of information used, have been acknowledged by means of a comprehensive list of references.

Date:

05/15/2011

Signature:

BEZDIKOV

Number of characters: 161886 3

To Nadya for being an amazing teacher and supervisor. To Filip, because cultural sociology matters! Thank you for your support and patience. Without You, this thesis wouldnt be possible.

ABSTRACT: This thesis analyses the meaning struggle to define the events of the Bratislava shooting on august 2010. By the aid of three cultural sociological frameworks: civil sphere, cultural trauma and social performance, it strives to explain the absence of cultural trauma resulting from the potentially traumatizing occurrence. Using the civil sphere framework, it explains the state of collective solidarity in the Slovak society, which represents the background for the shooting. Here lies the source of the main binary opposition of the ordinary versus inadaptable, that defined the character of the victims and thus framed the interpretation of the shootings. Through the cultural trauma framework, this thesis analyses the trauma script: the character of the victims, the character of the perpetrator, the situation and the consequences, as portrayed by the media. This script accounts for the transformation of the traumatic occurrence to a traumatic event. The analytical focus is continuous, following the meaning struggle along the definition process. The evolution of trauma depends upon the sequence of smaller interconnected performances, which lead to an attempt to perform a summary or a review of the meaning. This attempt is represented by the movie Devnsky masaker. As we could see thanks to the social performance framework, the movie defines the shootings as symptomatic to a wider structural problem of the Slovak society. It is the inability to protect ordinary citizens from abusive behavior of the inadaptable minority. Such framing prevented the identification of the wider collectivity with the victims, as much as it averted the expansion of collective solidarity to affected social group. Thus, it disabled the generation of cultural trauma resulting from the traumatic event.

Table of contents
INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................................8 THEORY ....................................................................................................................................................... 11 CIVIL SPHERE .......................................................................................................................................... 12 Solidarity............................................................................................................................................. 12 Binary oppositions .............................................................................................................................. 14 Institutions.......................................................................................................................................... 14 CULTURAL TRAUMA ............................................................................................................................... 16 Performance ....................................................................................................................................... 16 Script................................................................................................................................................... 18 Audiences - Collectivity ...................................................................................................................... 19 Conditions of trauma.......................................................................................................................... 19 PERFORMANCE....................................................................................................................................... 20 Elements of social performance ......................................................................................................... 21 METHODS ................................................................................................................................................... 25 Thick description ................................................................................................................................ 25 Media in Slovakia................................................................................................................................ 26 Data selection ..................................................................................................................................... 28 ANALYSIS .................................................................................................................................................... 29 CIVIL SPHERE .......................................................................................................................................... 31 Ordinary Slovaks .............................................................................................................................. 32 Fragmentation - Inadaptable.............................................................................................................. 33 Political image .................................................................................................................................... 35 CULTURAL TRAUMA ............................................................................................................................... 36 Trauma script...................................................................................................................................... 38 Series of Performances....................................................................................................................... 45 SOCIAL PERFORMANCE .......................................................................................................................... 49 Script................................................................................................................................................... 50 Pragmatics .......................................................................................................................................... 55 Means of symbolic production ........................................................................................................... 59 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................................. 61 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................................................ 67 Name Index ................................................................................................................................................ 72 ATTACHMENT 1 - DATA MATRIX .................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined. 6

ATTACHMENT 2 - DATA SOURCES REFERRED TO WITHIN THE TEXT: ............ Error! Bookmark not defined. ATTACHMENT 3 - Interview............................................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined. ATTACHMENT 4 - SEIZ - By the eyes of a killer ............................................. Error! Bookmark not defined. ATTACHMENT 5 - Visual materials ............................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.

INTRODUCTION
Nothing is true in itself social processes create appearances of truth
(Alexander in Carballo, Cordero, Ossandn, 2008:528)

On the morning of the 30th of august 2010 something unprecedented happened in the streets of Bratislava. Around 10am media started reporting an active shooter situation in one of the residential parts of the city. A man, taking hand full of ammunition and an automatic gun went and shot seven people. First victims, members of one family, were killed within the building, inside their flat. Perpetrator then went outside and continued shooting on the streets. Despite the severity of the situation, police did close the area down. Apart from receiving warning, advising everyone to remain in hiding and not to approach the windows, no one really knew what was going on. Another woman was shot, standing at her balcony. Approximately another 15 other people were injured by the shooter, who was, in the end stopped. The chaos and panic spread quickly. Around noon time, worldwide media were already reporting the issue. It was possible, in this era of modern technologies, to follow the situation online, almost minute by minute. Nobody could really understand what was going on. First news, occurring almost immediately after the attack was full of confusion and questions. The situation was unprecedented by its scope and character. Due to its incomprehensibility and the fact that it put lives and safety of the people into jeopardy, all in the near proximity of their homes and schools, it had an immense traumatic potential. There were several accusations of police and media for their unprofessional reactions. The inability to react can serve as a proof of the severity and specificity of the situation. They did not know what to do, but thank god for that. It is the sign that it was not normal.1 The reason that makes the situation interesting for a sociologist is a fact that despite its indisputably traumatic character it soon faded from the public discourse. There were only partial traces and eventual outbursts of minor subjects related to it. We could say that there has been a period of silence. It was only in February that the shooting became a topic once again. Two young authors created a documentary movie that intended to provide explanation of what happened.
1

Id Dissolved - Kyberia.sk

The main interest of this thesis lies in explaining the possible reasons of the absence of cultural trauma. It claims that in spite of the severity of the active shooter situation, there was no identification with the victims. The traumatic occurrence did not question the character and the civility of Slovak society. It didnt become an event. On the contrary, the persisting silence, interrupted only by the documentary movie that strived to bring light into the events, still remains in place.

When I started doing this research, various people asked me about my motivation. Most of the expectations were connected to personal reasons. My motives were understood as subjective search for reconciliation. The other appraisals aimed towards my human rights activism. I was labeled a Roma lover and a freedom fighter. These labels were symptoms of a wider tension surrounding the question of human rights in Slovakia. I was also criticized for not analyzing the actual shooting thoroughly. I was accused that of not being interested in how the situation really happened. And I agree. I am not looking for the truth. I am not interested in the true reasons of the shooting. Nor do I deal with the event as such. My reasons to write this work lie elsewhere. I want to provide a deeper analysis of the processes that underlined the meaning struggle about a potentially traumatizing unexpected occurrence. I am trying to understand the perception of the situation, the way it gained its meaning and to account for the leitmotiv of the meaning struggle the position of the Inadaptable, within Slovak media. This thesis analyses the meaning struggle to define the events. It follows the definition process from the unexpected occurrence of the Bratislava shooting towards the documentary movie summarizing them and labeling the event Devnsky masaker. By the aid of the cultural sociology paradigm, it strives to describe the connections between perceived meaning and the character of the collectivity. It utilizes three analytical frameworks: First, by the aid of civil sphere Framework, it concentrates upon solidarity of the collectivity. This Framework provides an analytical tool to study the character of the social fabric present in Slovakia. Its focus is twofold. It consists of the binary codes that represent the distinction between sacred and profane values. And it allows us to see how these values get ascribed to various social groups by the aid of regulative and communicative institutions.

Second, by the aid of cultural trauma theory, it focuses upon the character of the situation. The traumatic occurrence has a potential to create hole in the present social fabric. By the aid of cultural trauma theory, we ask, whether there was any hole created or whether there is an explanation present in the actual state of the Slovak civil sphere. Cultural trauma theory explains the roles appointed during the definition process. It analyses the four important questions that every definition strives to explain: Who were the victims, who was the perpetrator, what happened and what will happen next.

Third, by the aid of cultural pragmatics framework, it concentrates upon the actual performance of the present binaries. We focus upon the way in which the meaning of the events was presented to the public. By the aid of analyzing series of smaller performances we create background for the analysis of the movie, which aspires to become an explanatory frame for the events.

The main questions this thesis strives to answer are:

Why did the meaning struggle triggered by the events not result in generating collectivity and collective solidarity?

Could there be an explanation for the absence of cultural trauma in the actual state of the present collectivity?

These questions are important not only because the topic is still alive but also because it allows us to understand the binary oppositions that define the character of the Slovak civil sphere. By understanding the meanings connected to the event we can identify the background cultural representations evoked. At the same time following the process real time allows us to observe the meaning struggle mechanisms and to see which elements hinder the generation of collective solidarity and the emergence of cultural trauma.

This thesis consists of three parts: Theory, Methods and Analysis. The first part presents the theoretical framework. It consists of three chapters that present the Civil sphere framework, the Cultural trauma framework and the Social performance framework. The second part deals
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with methods and provides methodological justification. The last part is the Analytical part. It presents the actual core of the analytical story. It consists of three chapters. The first one analyses the actual state of the civil sphere in Slovakia and presents the Ordinary/Inadaptable dichotomy. The second chapter, by the aid of cultural trauma framework, provides the ethnographic analysis of the media and presents the meaning struggle to define the Bratislava shooting. The third chapter focuses upon the movie Devnsky masaker and reconstructs the narrative it presents, by the aid of social performance framework.

THEORY
Cultural sociology comes up with the idea that culture should be studied as an autonomous variable. It is not perceived as a dependent variable or as something to be explained, but as an explanatory factor. This approach goes along with the theoretical notion of a strong program. As such, strong program makes a sharp analytical uncoupling of culture from social structure. (Alexander, Smith, 2003:13) The products of cultural sociology are reconstructions of social meaning (Alexander, 2005a; Alexander, 2010). They are interpretations about the relations between symbolic forms, the meaning structures, and social life, the action of the social actors. The focus on the cultural elements structural binary codes and narratives is complemented by the understanding of human action and agency. By the aid of thick description, the authors within this paradigm try to provide not only description, but also explanation of cultural forms and their effects on social collectivities. The fundamental aspect, as Alexander (according to interview, Carballo, Cordero, Ossandn, 2008: 530) puts it is to be interpretative and to have an imagination. Cultural sociologists set out to explore the world of meaning. The approach of cultural sociology is multidimensional. Focusing upon institutional analysis it creates meta-theoretical models and hermeneutical reconstructions (Alexander, 2005a). There are several research frameworks developed by cultural sociologists. They are understood as middle range theories and have specific aims. The research frameworks useful for the scope of this work are the civil sphere, the cultural trauma theory and the theory of social performance. The civil sphere framework strives to understand how collectivities and groups achieve solidarity and the way how fragile social fabric holds together. The cultural trauma theory provides us with a discursive tool a script that allows the explanation of the ruptures within the social fabric. It strives to represent the responsible parties and provide means of civil repair.
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Last but not least, the social performance framework allows us to concentrate upon the process of the representation and the meaning struggle itself. It provides us with a set of interrelated elements that explain how the social fabric actually gets created, played and repaired it deals with how the structures presented in the two preceding frameworks (civil sphere and trauma) are put into action.

CIVIL SPHERE

The civil sphere framework focuses upon the study of collectivities. Its main concern is to explain how a number of individuals form a cohesive social group that holds together by the aid of social solidarity. The sources of this solidarity are twofold. It is the underlying cultural structures and the social institutions that allow the actualization of these structures. The combination of structural binary codes and their institutional counterparts creates an autonomous social fabric referred to as the civil sphere. By the aid of the civil sphere framework, we can study how culture and codes within forming civil society go together with the actual state of the society in reality (Alexander, Smith, 2010). It represents the arena where the struggle for meaning usually takes place. It is important to study the compromises and fragmentations of the real, empirical sphere, rather than merely the idealized civil society. (Alexander, 2006:195) We can understand the concept of the civil sphere as an analytical category, as Weberian ideal type, that is used to confront empirical reality and describe the distortions. This category serves to understand how societies hold together, which values are responsible for that, and how are these values created and transmitted.
Solidarity

The civil sphere theory combines a focus upon individual voluntarism with structural determinism. (Alexander, 1984) It is composed of independent actors, who are glued together by civil solidarity. The framework accounts for how the collectivities hold together by the aid of social fabric. The solidarity of the collectivity closely depends upon the ascription of the underlining cultural structures of binary oppositions2. But to fully understand the process, we also need to focus upon the agency of the actors. It is within the action of social institutions that the structural meanings get represented and become the actual subject matter. These
2

The concept of binary oppositions comes from Durkheim, who claims that it is the dichotomy between sacred and profane that is central to religious life and thus to the society. (Alexander, 2006)

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institutions, by regulating and communicating binaries, together with structural sets of codes, form the social fabric of the society, the civil sphere. To analyze the social fabric, we need to concentrate upon shared values. The analytical framework of the civil sphere strives to explain the relation between these values and social integration. (Alexander, 1984) The structures within the civil sphere limit social actors to members of in and out groups. They provide a sense of shared identity and solidarity (Morris, 2007) a sense of connectedness to other members of the social group. In reality, however, social actors not only see themselves as members of the society (Alexander, 1998), but the social attributes are ascribed to them according to their supposed membership in a particular group. These attributes are essentially shared along the members of collectivity and can be difficult to achieve by the members of the out group. (Alexander, 2006) Solidarity and commonality are closely connected to democracy. The inclusivity of the society is determined by the level of civility ascription to periphery groups... The incorporation of these groups depends upon the character of the historical core of the collectivity. (Alexander, 2006:22) The primordial qualities of the founders are established as highest criteria of humanity. (Alexander, 1998:11) Every functioning group needs a collective self-consciousness. But the truly inclusive collectivities are able to expand and incorporate members and individuals from various different groupings as legitimate and equal parts. (Alexander, 2006; 2006a) The critical role of civil solidarity as Alexander puts it, is the incorporation of out groups (Goldberg, 2007), the closure of the gap between stigmatized categories of persons (Alexander, 2006:410) Solidarity emerges within the everyday lives of ordinary people. It is based upon the ways in which they make sense of their worlds. Meaning, according to Alexander (ibid.) is relational and relative. Because of that, the civility of the self always articulates itself in language about the incivility of the other(ibid: 50) Solidarity is defined in the process of attribution of binary structures, codes of civil and uncivil character, to members of various groups. These codes should not be perceived as an abstract cognitive system. On the contrary, they carry within themselves a moral dimension. (Alexander, Smith, 2010:237) Exclusion of non-members is legitimized by the construction of their anticivil character. (Alexander, 2006:631) The ascription of the binary codes allows us to understand who are the good guys and the bad guys.

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Binary oppositions

The system of general binary structures is widely shared. These underlying cultural structures are understood and accepted by both members of the core and periphery groups. The distinction between good and evil is stable and consistent. Thus it can and ought to be extracted and studied. The real struggle begins by the ascriptions of the opposite sides of the spectrum to actors, groups, their motives, relations and institutions they form (Alexander, 2006). Alexander and Smith (2010: 235; Alexander, 2006: 57) offer three key questions in the ascription of democratic and anti-democratic code. These are: What kinds of people are necessary for viable democracy? What types of relationships are legitimate / illegitimate. How do people get along? What kind of organizations is formed by these people?

Institutions

Alexander suggests two main types of institutions that are responsible for the meaning making within the civil sphere: the regulative institutions and the communicative ones. The regulative are concerned with individual responsibility for action. They are represented by the political parties, the legal systems and the office (Alexander, 2006). They carry legal force(Alexander, 2010: 280) The communicative institutions, on the other hand, provide cultural authority. (ibid: 280) Therefore it is them who constitute the cultural arena, the stage for the meaning making. According to Alexander, there is no determined relation between any event, or group and either side of the cultural scheme. (Alexander, 1992:299) The actors and the groups are not inherently good nor evil, civil nor uncivil. Their identity has to be strived for, as Eyerman suggests (2004:29) throughout the spiral of signification. What we have, according to Alexander (2006) is the conflict over representation. In this conflict, the communicative institutions play an important role. They interpret the message and convey it to others. (ibid.) They reconstruct the narratives, performed by the actors, present in the cultural background. (Eyerman, 2004) It is then the regulative institutions that put the meanings into practice. By the aid of legal regulations the representations and the ascriptions of binary codes gain their legitimacy.
Communicative media, pools associations

For the scope of this work it is necessary to concentrate upon the communicative institutions. It is mostly concerned with the ethnographic analysis of the media and the study of ways in which
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they represented the meaning of the studied situation. These institutions, according to Alexander (2006), are public opinion, the mass media and civil associations. Public opinion is understood as a normative reference of the public sphere. Its role is to mediate between the binaries of civil society discourse. Referring to the public opinion indicates the pure and the impure evaluations of the members of the society. It is the sea in which we swim, a structure that gives us a feeling of a democratic life. (ibid: 73) The role of associations is to press arguments within the court of public opinion. They struggle for the expansion of rights. They can be understood as lobbying groups and agenda setters, that play role in the boundary definition and the in and out group placement processes.(ibid) The most important focus of this work lies in the study of mass media. It is they who play a central role in the meaning making process. They set the tone and provide the themes for how the occurrence gets narrated. Eyerman (2011) states several functions of mass media. Their role is to spread the news beyond those immediately present. They air the representations and provide interpretation. They impose a narrative structure that tells a story, and frames the event. All this is done visually, orally and through the written word, through dramatic photographs of the firsthand reactions of the general public, as well as through other specific media features such as sound and voice. (ibid: 229) The mass media, as Alexander (2006) categorizes them, are factual and/or3 fictional. The factual usually serve as the sole source of firsthand experience about others, their motives, relationships and institutions. They should provide information in an objective manner, emphasizing speed, accuracy and neutrality. They strive to portray the world as it is. But doing so by typifying previously unrecognized events in discursive categories that are already understood.(Alexander, 2006: 81) This entails the critical role of binary oppositions. They make the selection of relevant news and they interpret the meaning of these news. That way they answer the four important media questions who was involved, what happened, where and why did it happen (ibid.). The fictional media, on the other hand, create plots that make the events and characters seem typical. They place the actors into easily interpretable situations that represent civil and uncivil motives and relations. Popular culture and tabloid media could be seen as the expressive media of contemporary civil society. (ibid: 76)

It is important to note that the distinction between the factual and the fictional media is blurry. And as we see further on in the text, the factual/fictional character of the media influences the authenticity of the performance.

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Civility is a question of representation. There is always a way for the members of the out groups to become recognized as civil. At the same time, the civility is always under threat or abuse and irrationality. The danger comes not only from the uncivil groups, but from within as well. Even the good citizens themselves can become the source of pollution. The actual identity of the social collectivity and its members is always of question. Every hole in the social fabric has the potential to generate the refection of the kind of society that we are. (Alexander, 2006:66)

CULTURAL TRAUMA
According to Just World phenomenon (Lerner, 1980), people tend to seek explanations for traumatizing occurrences, to be able to keep the idea of a balanced, transparent world, where bad things only happen to bad people. Somehow, there always has to be a reason for suffering. If such an explanation is missing, there is a potential for trauma development. Trauma represents a hole in the present social fabric. There is a gap between the occurrence and the collective representation. To create cultural trauma, this hole is to be performed in the trauma drama process and fused with affected collectivity. This process is a performative meaning work, which allows transformation of several disjoint narratives into a single generalized version of the event. Trauma process consists of several elements: the speaker (the carrier group), the audience (putatively homogenous, sociologically fragmented) and the situation (the historical, cultural and institutional environment) (Alexander, 2004). The carrier groups present their suffering by the aid of media. They do so to appeal upon the bases of wider collectivity. A successful trauma generates questions about the identity and the type of collectivity and allows civil repair. It does so by the aid of psychological identification of wider audiences with the suffering of the victims.
Performance

From a cultural sociological perspective the psychological trauma resulting from a traumatic occurrence is but a starting point, a referent. What the research program (Alexander, Eyerman, Giesen et al., 2004) is interested in is the process and the point, where psychological trauma turns into a collectively shared cultural trauma. As Eyerman (2011) suggests, we should distinguish between traumatic occurrence and traumatic events. The former relates more to a psychological understanding of trauma as emotional experience. Though, it may create conditions conducive to setting in motion a process of cultural trauma. (Eyerman,
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unpublished manuscript: 15). The latter is the result of a meaning work of responsibility attribution. Thanks to mass media representations, narratively interconnected (traumatic) occurrences(Mast, 2006:117) become filtered through the cultural structure of binary codes. Traumatic events are generated in process of Attributing blame and settling on who is responsible (Eyerman, 2011:14). Emotionally traumatizing occurrences develop through series of smaller meaning struggles, in which perpetrators and victims are named (ibid: 4). In this performative process, they might achieve generalization and turn into traumatic event. Cultural trauma, in terms of cultural sociology, may be understood as an interpretative frame, a struggle to ascribe meaning to the traumatizing occurrences, turning them into events. One of the fields where meaning struggle takes place is the mass media. They allow the reconstruction and interpretation of the event and its narration and performance as a traumatic one. The occurrence of trauma (Eyerman, 2011) depends upon the quality of the performance, upon the narrative and interpretation and upon the power, character and authenticity of various carrier groups. It is the mass media that play the most important role in the reconstruction and maintenance of the trauma narrative, thanks to the scope and intensity which they achieve. (Alexander, 2001) Media provide a moral framework in the meaning making process of an event, they draw on deeply rooted sensibilities, structures of feeling in their representations. According to Stuart Hall (in Eyerman, 2011) mass media highlight certain features and focus upon particular aspects of the occurrence and thus construct a preferred understanding of what actually happened. The meaning is defined in terms of binary codes and dramatized by use of specific narratives. Mediated images may create a sense of solidarity and feeling of community among broad publics. Mass media actors are the first carrier group. These are parties with moral, professional and commercial interest in portraying an occurrence and making it into an event. (ibid: 230) I argue that the trauma process is not in fact a single performance, but a set of smaller parallel performances, that narrate what happened, to whom and why. These several partial versions might merge into one generalized version that becomes widely shared and defines the character of the event. In other words a set of narratively interconnected occurrences achieves generalization and becomes the event. (Mast, 2006:117). The constitution of a single widely shared narrative might serve for the ritual like performance of the experienced trauma.

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Script People constantly need to inflict meaning upon the object outside self and strive to experience solidarity. (Alexander, 2003:84) The world has to be perceived as a just and meaningful place. If something unexpected, unprecedented happens, there has to be an explanation for it. And if there is none, it might lead us to crisis. Piotr Sztompka (2000) argues that this type of crises might turn into cultural trauma. Cultural traumas mainly deal with suffering. There is a strong need for the responsibility attribution, a need to represent, in a symbolic and antagonistic manner, who is the perpetrator, the cause of the suffering. (Alexander, Eyerman, Giesen et al., 2004) At the same time the character of the victims is also struggled for. If the victims are represented in terms of valued qualities shared by larger collective identity, if they are recognized as one of us, the audience will be able to symbolically participate in their traumatic experience. This identification might broaden the realm of social understanding and sympathy(Alexander, 2004:14). Cultural traumas play an important role in the process of social incorporation. They are processes of transformation, construction and reconstruction of the social. The cultural trauma theory, according to Eyerman (2011), works as an analytical framework to reveal all the factors which condition, contain or catalyze cultural trauma. It may be understood as a script that underlines the process of blame attribution and responsibility settling. Crises can develop into cultural traumas through a meaning struggle and a form of narration in which perpetrators and victims are named and asymmetrically positioned. The trauma script represents a narrative that strives to answer four important questions. These concern the nature of the pain, nature of the victims, relation of the traumatized victims to wider audience and the attribution of responsibility for the suffering. (Alexander, 2003) The nature of the pain speaks about what actually happened. The nature of the victim asks who was affected, what kind of persons? The relation of the victims to the wider audience means to what extent do the members of the collectivity identify themselves with the actual victims? Do people see the connection between the victims and themselves, or was the trauma process successful, fused?

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Audiences - Collectivity

Traumatic occurrences provide unique opportunities to study the foundations of collective identity. Ron Eyerman suggests that cultural trauma provides collectivities with the occasion to reflect on themselves(2011: viii, 13). A traumatic occurrence functions as a potential catalyst for a broader public debate. (ibid: 13) Traumas have capacity to question the bases of the collectivity as well as evoke a sense of belonging (ibid: 14) Breese and Alexander (forthcoming) suggest that traumas can either lead to reconciliation, purification and civil repair, or towards a deeper polarization of public fragmentation. Eyerman (2011: viii) suggests something similar when he speaks about the capacity of trauma to shatter, to unify and to can leave an indelible mark on the people and the locality. To construct a cultural trauma, the narrative has to be directed towards a group and shape its collective identity. (Heins, Langenohl, forthcoming) If the construction of imagined homogenous community of victims is impossible, cultural trauma is most likely not to take place. (ibid) Alexander and Breese (forthcoming) suggest the term cultural work to describe the meaning making process of turning suffering into trauma. The result of such a work should be to incorporate the meaning of the suffering of the victims into the self-understanding of the collectivity and allow them to become recognized as legitimate parts of the society.

Conditions of trauma

The occurrence is supposed to create a sense of divide between before and after. There needs to be a definition of the cultural background, the description of how was the situation before the occurrence. Then the trauma process represents the actual event, by acting out (Eyerman, 2011) the interpretation and the narrative of what happened. After that it also entails the consequences, actions that happen next. This means it creates space for civil repair within the working through (ibid.) period. Its full extent develops over time and must be studied accordingly. (Alexander, Eyerman, Giesen et al., 2004) After a period of silence, that Giesen (2004:116) calls the coalition of silence, there is a need for reconciliation; search for new narratives and for the civil repair (Alexander, 2006) that allows reconnection of past and future. Another important condition is the fusion of the event and its representation with the background conditions and the social, cultural and political context present in society before and during the trauma process. Next, there need to be strong carrier groups present. These are

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actors, who speak through the media, the relatives, families and friends of the victims and the interprets, who write books, articles, make films and artwork about the event. If the trauma is to succeed, then the carrier groups manage to achieve psychological identification of the audience. The whole collectivity is affected by the trauma. The identity of this collectivity is questioned. And the suffering of the victims is perceived as unnecessary and uncivil. In case these conditions are not satisfied, there will be no trauma generated. There might either be silence, representing the failure to establish a shared representation of the occurrence. Or there might be only psychological suffering of few individuals, which is not relevant for the collective identity recognized.

PERFORMANCE

The cultural pragmatics theory represents an analytical Framework that offers to study meaning and action. It transcends the basic sociological dichotomy of structure versus agency by creating the structural hermeneutics approach. This approach accounts for how underlying structures get to be performed by the aid of human action. There are two important axioms of social performance. First, that at the core of every collectivity, there lies a ritual experience. It is this ritual experience that, according to the classical authors of sociological theory represents the source of social cohesion and solidarity. Due to modernization, there has been gradual fragmentation of previously fused and seamless society and its forming symbolic action. Nevertheless the main aim of every performance, according Alexander (2004a) is to achieve fusion, to re-fuse the interdependent elements that constitute performative action and to provide the collectivities with ritual like experience. Consequently, the second important axiom is that the magic still matters. It means that our lives are still centered on this ritual like experiences. There is still a need for a careful distinction and for the maintenance of the gap between the sacred and the profane. The aims of this section are twofold. It strives to present the cultural pragmatics framework and describe its constitutive elements. It presents this framework as key to the analytical intention of this work. Social performance theory can be understood as focusing upon the processual
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part of the meaning struggle. It creates a common ground for the combination of the previously stated middle range theories. First it represents a process in which various actors of the civil sphere perform the binary oppositions of civility and uncivility and ascribe them to social groups. Second it enables the understanding of the process of transition from traumatic occurrence towards the traumatic event and thus explains the actual generation of cultural trauma.
Elements of social performance

In case of fused performance it might be difficult to identify and distinguish the constituting elements. It is thanks to the fragmentation of modern societies, and the de-fusion that the elements became visible. They became more analytically identifiable. These interdependent elements provide framework for interpretive reconstruction of the meanings of performative action.(Alexander, 2004a:533) The analysis consists of three main focal points. First of all, the cultural background can be analyzed by focusing upon the binaries, codes and scripts. Next, performance theory allows focus upon the mise en scne, fusion and the audience. Last sphere of interest can be referred to as social power. By the aid of analyzing the means of symbolic production we can identify the influence of power.
Background

Cultural background consists of the elements that are already known and present. It contains collective representations, structured by codes and narratives. The binary oppositions provide analogies and antipathies and the narratives create a storyline. It is the structural part of the civil sphere, the skeletal part of the social fabric that underlines every event. It can be understood as the cultural arena where various meaning struggles takes place, connecting themselves with their already present and settled counterparts. (Alexander, 2004) It is a system of collective representations that allows comparative evaluation. Every past experience and previous performance enables comparison and allows reference. Background representations are enriched by the foreground scripts. These represent immediate referents for action, culturally defined roles (Turner in Alexander, 2004a) that actors play. The cultural background is present in form of texts. The scripts emerged as an independent element that reflects the relative freedom of performance from background representations. (ibid) Although they are already predefined, the fashion in which actors put
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the scripts into practice depends upon their agency. The script, according to Alexander (ibid) is an audience fusing device, it serves as an agent connecting the contents of cultural background with a concrete collectivity, for which it achieves authenticity. Script is defined by simplification, spatiotemporal compression, moral antagonism and a storyline of twists and turns. These background figures, despite their iconic character, are not able to speak for themselves. They need to walk and talk in front of our eyes (Alexander, 2004a:530) to achieve fusion. They need actors who cathex with background iconic figures and foreground scripted storylines and audiences who identify with these actors. They need pragmatics.
Pragmatics

There are several elements that can be marked as pragmatics. We can focus upon the actors, upon the way the story is actually put in scne, the mise en scne, and upon the reactions of the audience. Throughout the analysis, it is necessary that we avoid the confusion and substitution of the analysis by the reproduction of the stance and the interpretations of the actors. The mise en scne deals with the localization and the context of the script. It represents the way of putting the empty grid of mythical figures into the everyday experience of the actors and the audiences. This means making the script subjectively relevant. Actors center the meanings upon themselves. They have to cathex with the background roles they represent. They gain their legitimacy as authoritative interprets of social texts. (Alexander, 2004a: 545) By mediating the meanings their identity becomes authentic and allows psychological identification of the audience. One of the aims of the performance is to achieve cultural extension. This is by fusing script, actors and audience, who decodes the transmitted meaning. This extension also prevents the fragmentation of the collectivities. By the aid of psychological identification, audience fuses with the performed role and experiences its contents. Feelings like this is me, this is my world, this is how I feel, are symptomatic of this fusion. The audience response and reception is an important part of the process because it questions the totality of structural influence. There is a difference between the codes of production, the intentions of the authors and the actors and the codes of readers (ibid: 563). This gap allows subversive action. It is thus necessary to study the audience reception.

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Means of symbolic production

The third focal point deals with the intentions of the authors. It is the focus upon social power influencing the performance, the means of symbolic production. Alexander (2004a), who has been criticized for underestimating the role of social power argues, that in case of fused performance, it is highly problematic to analytically grasp the power mechanism. It is due to its fusion with the actual contents of the performance. The social power, for him, represents the resources, the capacities and the hierarchies of the performance. It is the external boundary, parallel to the internal boundary line consisting of the cultural representation. It determines the access, the means and the responses that are acceptable and legitimate for the performance in question. In the analytical framework, social power is represented by the means of symbolic production. These can be divided into three main categories, the production and the creation, the distribution and the critique of the analyzed performance. It is first the materiality and the resources that are being used along the performative action. These are the stage, the material context and the objects that serve as iconic representations. The distribution represents the dissemination of the performance and its accessibility. It deals with whom and where can gain access to the performance. Who is the intended audience and how is it reached? The critique deals with the reception of the audience. It defines who is entitled to criticize and give opinion and what that opinion is actually like. The differentiation of the elements of performance is closely connected to the multiplicity of interest groups that aspire for the meaning definition. There is no single actor or force responsible for the actual performance; it is more about the multiplicity of speech communities and about setting up rules for understanding (Alexander in Carballo, Cordero, Ossandn, 2008). As Alexander (ibid: 533) sums up, there is no single power, but plurality, which doesnt necessarily implicate it is a liberal one. For him, power theories that only deal with resources forget about the highly relevant shaping power of the symbolic forms. He reminds us that we have to study how background symbols and forms by the aid of the mise en scne and actor interpretation result in the audience identification. The performing power is mediated by the accounts of effectiveness, through the reports of journalists and critics towards the deeply resonant currents of the public opinion. (ibid)
Performing trauma to achieve civility

I picked the cultural pragmatics framework to be able to analyze an occurrence that is highly relevant for the civil sphere in Slovakia. It illustrates the definition of collective identity and the groups that become incorporated underneath this identity. I want to study how the binaries of
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civility and uncivility are played and represented and how they affect solidarity with various social groups. The character of the situation of Bratislava shooting creates a space for the incorporation struggle. This could take place by the aid of drama performance. I ask for whom it was relevant and what kind of collectivity did it affect, if any. This focus is closely connected to the cultural trauma. If the social group affected by a traumatic occurrence manages to enlarge the scope of suffering and makes it relevant for wider collectivity, this occurrence might conducive to cultural trauma. Alexander (2004a: 528-9) believes, that It is possible to explain how the integration of particular groups and sometimes even whole collectivities can be achieved through symbolic communication. The purpose of this symbolic communication is to mobilize solidarity and consensus around scripted narratives. Social groups strive to represent their identity in terms of the civil part of the binary opposition codes. The efforts to extend solidarity depend, on understanding excluded actors in new ways. (Alexander, 2006:649) It is through the social drama4 that humanity can be ascribed to the ones suffering. The group might get recognition by achieving psychological identification and catharsis (Alexander, 2006b). But for that it needs mobilizers of communication, the translators (ibid: 6) that break the structural constraints and make the drama relevant to wider collectivity. To achieve the civil repair and civil incorporation, it is not only the actors, the translators and the carrier groups, but the context, the background, the state of the civil sphere and the mise en scne that influences the success of the trauma drama. (ibid) Public inflictions of pain on members of subordinated groups are, according to Alexander (2007:647), critical in widening solidarity understanding. However, these painful occurrences must be actively constructed as civil traumas. It is by the performance of the disruptions in the social fabric, their staging, framing and interpretation(ibid: 650) that that the cultural trauma process takes place. Cultural trauma can be understood as a specific type of script that tells a story about suffering of the victims and the guilt of the perpetrators. The theoretical framework of cultural pragmatics offers a set of concepts for analyzing the process through which highly certain groups represent their suffering by the aid of this script and manage to achieve collective recognition, incorporation and civil repair.

Dramatization of the suffering

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To conclude the theoretical part, I provide justification of the selected theory and its intended application. It is first by the use of civil sphere framework that I analyze the actual state of social fabric in Slovakia. I study the present fragmentation, closely connected to the symbolic position of Roma ethnic group. Second, by using the cultural trauma framework, I analyze the meaning struggle to define the traumatic occurrence in terms of traumatic event. It is by the aid of cultural trauma script that I focus upon the victimhood ascription. Last, by the aid of cultural pragmatics framework, I focus upon one concrete performance case (the movie Devnsky masaker) and try to account for its cultural background and its script; for its performative authenticity and for the power relations that influenced its creation.

METHODS

The aim of my research is to provide a cultural sociological interpretation of the events of the Bratislava shooting. It is an ethnographic study of the events media representation. It is achieved by the aid of thick description. This chapter presents the selected methods and their methodological justification. Then it strives to explain the context and the setting of the studied situation. It introduces the selected stage upon which the trauma performance took place. After that it presents the process and accounts for the data selection. It justifies the sources and describes the character of the collected data.
Thick description

Im not sure I can tell the truth I can only tell what I know.
(Clifford, 1986:8)

One of the main principles of strong program is to use thick description to carry out the research. It is an ethnographical research method that Alexander (2010) uses in his Performance of politics. He claims that his work is a case of media ethnography. In my case, it is the same. In accord with Marcus (1986: 265), I am trying to achieve a straightforward analytical and descriptive account from the fieldwork. This descriptive account has several characteristics. It describes the situation as perceived by the social actors. It is always

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contextually localized, always subjective. And it is never complete, never finished; it always leaves space for further improvement. Geertz (1973) reminds us that doing ethnography means reading and writing culture. He aims to capture the fleeing and always transforming world of meanings, all this for the sake of reconstruction within the interpretative frameworks .His work is a descriptive interpretation of how other people, the social actors, try to make sense of their lived worlds. The ethnographer only speaks about the discourses and their qualities. He presents those who speak, who write, when and where, with whom and under which institutional and historical constraints. It is never possible to isolate the data from the context, from the situation that is going on or from the people who take part in it. On the contrary, the aim of ethnographic writing is to introduce the polyvocality of these actors and the self reflexion of the author. For Clifford (1986), ethnographic writing is determined by contextuality and localization within certain expressive conventions and institutional, political milieu. It is never free from subjectivity and participation. There is no fixed external standpoint for observation. Ethnographic truth is situated and always incomplete5. For Geertz (1973), the analysis is never finished. The deeper we go, the more incomplete it gets. My research follows the same logic. I try to account for the various different representations of the selected situation. I follow the media and their audiences. By the aid of selected analytical frameworks, I am trying to reconstruct how they managed to make sense of the situation. The meaning is not settled yet. The situation is not over. The analysis could go on, much deeper and much thorough. There will always be something missing and you could always ask what it is. My findings, in accord with Geertz (1973:34), are not privileged, they are just concrete. His imperative is to keep the analysis tightly bound to concrete social context and everyday life. It means to keep the connections between theoretical formulations and descriptive interpretations as transparent as possible. And this is exactly what I try to do.
Media in Slovakia

The main focus of this work lies in its media analysis. The Bratislava shooting became the most reported event of the year. It increased the ratings of all the media. 6 I decided to create a

5 6

For you could always have new actors and new interpretations. According to (Tragick streba...) When looking for information, people mostly put trust to Markiza; there were 932-thousand viewers, 48,8% of the total number of the market rate

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widely focused data matrix and to incorporate resources from most of the media. I covered material accessible online. I started by press. Then I continued with television. Last I focused upon discussion portals. The press is represented by online versions. There has been an ongoing increasing preference of the online media over the printed ones (Czwitkovics, Mistrkov, 2009). In terms of readership, tabloid press dominates, Nov as is preferred by 25,7% of the readers and Plus jeden de by 8,8%. The influential daily press is represented by Sme by 8,3% and Pravda 7,8%. The decrease of interest in printed media recently resulted in establishing charges for access to electronic contents. All of the stated journals have their electronic counterparts. Apart from these, there are bleskovky.sk, topky.sk and webnoviny.sk. All of these media share similar characteristics. Due to the preference of electronic version, most of the media publish the exclusive information online. The content of this news is less complex, focused on the speed. The main problems of the internet media are much lower quality and the lack of language and editorial correction. These standards were substituted by actuality and exclusivity of the news. (Czwitkovics, Kollr, 2006) Another source of data is the television and the official online threads of different channels. The three most popular channels are Markiza, JOJ and Jednotka.7 Most of the main news were accessible online. The trustworthiness of the TV is very low. There is no channel that could be considered as an independent benchmark. (Czwitkovics, Kollr, 2008: 591) Apart from the press and the TV, I focused upon internet discussion portals. I did so, to be able to analyze the reception of the events by the audience. I chose to concentrate upon facebook.com, but I have also read discussion threads underneath the news articles and some discussion groups on other portals like pokec.sk, birds.sk and kyberia.sk.

Markiza 35%; Joj - 16,8%; Jednotka - 16,35% (Czwitkovics, Mistrkov, 2008: 591)

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Data selection

This section aims to account for the process of data selection. It first explains the process of the data selection which corresponds with the perceived meaning struggle. Then it explains the exact mechanism of the creation of data matrix.8

Process

Despite the tendency to study the cultural trauma process with a temporal distance, I decided to study the meaning struggle in process. I chose this approach to be able to follow the evolution of the meaning of the situation live and in motion. It is important because it allows confrontation of various data sources. At the same time, it shows how the previously diffused situation, where several narratives strive to dominate, settles down by the aid of a coherent assessment performance and some temporal distance. It all started in September, when I collected various pictures representing the perpetrator. These were portraying him in different context and were part of the iconic9 meaning struggle. In December I realized the first media analysis of the event, focusing upon the definition of the character of the victims and that of the perpetrator. By that time, none of the versions dominates. There was silence prevailing. We were in the state of diffusion. I studied a series of smaller performances and the reception of audience, by the aid of cultural trauma framework. In February, there was a movie released. Once I noticed the advertisement campaign, I started following the news. I watched the movie, recorded the audio track of it and collected the critical reception. I also managed to get an interview with the authors. Then, by the aid of cultural pragmatics, I analyzed the movie, its production, its background, the intentions of its authors and the public reception. Throughout the entire time, I followed the news concerning the Inadaptable citizens and the Roma, to be able to understand the underlying context.
The actual data

For the purposes of my analysis I decided to work with internet media. These bring specific feedback options. Online media enable discussions and allow the public, the audience to participate. They get continuously updated, but the changes are traceable. The old articles represent background for the newer ones and thus create a web of contents. This web visualizes a tangible and mutually interconnected the structure of news. Bedn (2011) even
8 9

See attachment 1 See attachment 5

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speaks about specific life cycles of online media. They vary from being published to deactualization, possible re-actualisation, gradual merging with the context and archivation. It is thus necessary to follow the mutual hyperlinks and to cover several levels of the news network. Internet journalism, according to Bedn (ibid), is an interactive multimedia. It combines text, speech, video, pictures and information that are mutually bound. There are several types of the media tabloid, news, specialized media and personal blogs, as well as several styles informative, narrative, descriptive, and explicative and others. When constructing my data matrix, the procedure was to look up relevant keywords: shooting, Devinska Nova Ves, Devinsky masaker, etc. I followed the links and relations and covered almost all types of media and all mentioned styles. I collected data until reaching theoretical saturation, e.g. no new information was coming from the articles. I followed different hyperlinks and dove into deeper levels of associations. I achieved a rich and diverse data set. To fill in the information about the audience reception, I collected data from social networks and discussions. The procedure was again to look up keywords and discussion threads or groups related. I followed the official commemoration event on Facebook, several feedback threads on the Devnsky masaker movie, Facebook group related to the movie and an immediate discussion in the Bratislava forum on Kyberia.sk. To analyze the movie, I created another data matrix, consisting of a variety of reactions, critique and reception of it by different social actors, from politicians, to official critics and regular bloggers. The principle with the sample saturation was again theoretical saturation. Apart from the reactions, I worked with the excerpts with the movie, the official trailers as well as the movie itself. I also had an interview with the authors, to provide a better insight into the context and the sphere of symbolic production.

ANALYSIS

I learned about the shootings, sitting in front of my computer, in Brno. It was just after the first news started spreading worldwide. I received a phone call from a friend, from Croatia, asking me about the safety of my friends and family. Before that I did not know anything. I started to closely follow the news. It was not only the official resources, but also the unofficial live feeds on discussion portals, that I was interested in. I was surprised to see how people reacted. There
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was a lot of confusion, lots of discussions taking place. People strived to get information as much as they needed an explanation. Soon, rumor started spreading about the ethnicity of the victims. As people learned about the victims being Roma, the discourse got polarized. There was a new key word circling around innocent. I was struck by the situation. But what upset me even more was the general acceptance of the evil character of the victims. Their ethnicity as a reason to doubt their innocence or the certitude of guilt, were the first apparent question marks for the eyes of a sociologist. How is it possible, for the people, to draw conclusions without a thorough investigation? But as a sociologist, I have to pose myself the same question am I able or entitled to draw conclusions about the situation without analyzing it? To escape the void normativity of my judgment, I decided to analytically grasp the meaning struggle to define the shootings. The deeper I went the more interesting and more complex it grew. In the analytical part of my work I intend to account for the path I went from first noticing an interesting topic for sociological investigation until gaining a thorough insight into the situation. The aim is to provide a possible explanation for the absence of cultural trauma resulting from the traumatic occurrence of shooting in the residential part of the city. I claim that the situation became symptomatic of a deeper structural character of Slovak society. In terms of cultural sociology, it was the state of social fabric, the character of the civil sphere in Slovakia that provided background for the meaning struggle. This background presents the subject matter of my first analytical chapter. It is here that I present the problematic representation of the Roma minority in Slovakia. And it is here that I account for the word Inadaptable that became reference for the victims. I present it as being a part of an underlying binary opposition: Inadaptable versus Ordinary, that provided grounds for the shooting. I then turn the attention towards reconstructing the narrative that explained the reasons for the shooting. In accordance with Alexander and Eyerman I concentrate upon the trauma script. By the aid of cultural trauma framework, I try to trace back the definition process of the character of the victims and of the perpetrators personality. The aim is to describe the struggle to represent the traumatic occurrence in terms of an actual hole in the social fabric, as a traumatic event. It is throughout the series of smaller narrative occurrences that the meaning of the situation settles.

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But for the cultural trauma to take place, the smaller interconnected fragmented narratives have to merge into a larger constitutive story. In my third analytical chapter I present the movie Devnsky masaker. This movie could be perceived as such a story. It presents itself as a coherent package of facts that sum up the situation. I analyze this movie by the aid of cultural pragmatics framework. I concentrate upon the script it presents, as much as upon its performative character. I evaluate its success in terms of generating fusion of previously de-fused parts of the social fabric. By the aid of these three focal points I follow the process in which the meaning of the Bratislava shooting established and turned from an unexpected shocking occurrence to what we now refer to as Devnsky masaker.

CIVIL SPHERE

You dont need that much. It is just a representation of Roma that is complementary to the Slovak identity based on suffering.
(Elena Gallov Kriglerov)

Every social fabric is fragmented. The civil collectivities are under constant pollutive thread of uncivil minorities. As Bancroft says, this fragmentation; segregation and Othering is an inherent part of modernity. To protect the idea of the modern, he claims, modernity includes the idea of backwardness as its counterpart. There is always a polluted minority of backward vagrants, strangers10, threatening the social moral fabric of the state and society. Their backwardness becomes a moral category11. (Bancroft, 2005:5) This chapter presents the actual state of the social fabric in Slovak collectivity and to demonstrate its fragmentation. It does so, to provide the analysis of the cultural background necessary for the analysis of the meaning struggle. It is chapter that I present the problematic representation of the Roma minority in Slovakia. And it is here that I account for the word
10 11

As elaborated by Simmel. It is similar to Alexander speaking about the inevitability of the evil for the good. He claims, that evil is necessary to give contrast to good (Alexander, 2003: 110) It must be coded, narrated and embodied in every social sphere (ibid: 115)

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Inadaptable that became reference for the victims. I present it as being a part of an underlining binary opposition: Inadaptable versus Ordinary, that provided grounds for the shooting. The collective identity and the membership in Slovakia are defined in terms of Slovak ethnicity. Other minority groups are seen as uncivil. They represent a thread to the integrity and independence of the Slovak nation. Therefore the collective solidarity cant be stretched to incorporate them. I argue that this inherent fragmentation can be defined by the binary opposition of ordinary versus Inadaptable. By the aid of the first section I present the category of the ordinary which refers to the majority of the citizens in Slovakia, the ethnic group of Slovaks that form the dominant collectivity. By the aid of the second one I present the Inadaptable. This label, as I demonstrate further on, is a euphemism used to refer to Roma, who are perceived as the most conspicuous other in Slovakia.12

Ordinary Slovaks

We simply want to separate the decent people from those who are not.
(Hruka , 1998 in Bancroft, 2005: 60)
13

Slovakia is mentally perceived as the country of Slovaks.

(Vaeka, 2009:243)

Michal Vaeka (2009) speaks about the ethnization of the civil sphere in Slovakia. For him, one of the main problems with the civility of Slovak society rests upon the definition of Slovak identity and the membership status derived from it. This identity was defined by the president of Slovak republic, Ivan Gaparovi (as cited in IVO, 2009: 138), who stated that the important values he wants to protect are safety, prosperity and identity. It is the family, the ancestry, the nation and Slovakia that are key The definition of Slovak identity is specific by three characteristics: it portrays the majority as suffering. It establishes official protection of the majority form the discriminatory minority abuse and it represents minorities as a thread. In the constitution and in the preamble, the definition of Slovak identity is ethnicized. It is Us, the Slovak nation, remembering the political and cultural heritage of our ancestry, and the
12

82% of the majority disagrees with having a Roma family as their neighbors. (The annual report on the state of Slovak society IVO 2008; 69) 13 Contemporary Mayor of Usti nad Labem.

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hundreds of years of struggle for national sovereignty and integrity(preamble of the Slovak constitution), that bear the legitimate membership. This Us is considered to be the direct descendants of the Slavs and are thus the authorized owners of the Slovak land and the Slovak state. One of the most important myths that explains the need and the right for the Slovak national state is the thousand years long struggle for independence (Gallov Kriglerov, Kadlekov, Lajkov, 2009:86). It is this struggle that underlines the suffering of Slovaks, also present in the Slovak national anthem14. There is a perceived threat from the minorities anchored in the constitution. It literally states that the exercise of the minority rights might not conducive to the discrimination of majority population, and might not question the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of the state. (Slovak constitution, article 34(3), supra memo 50, In ibid.) Even the antidiscrimination law that was accepted by the government in order to guarantee equal opportunities was consequently cancelled. (Lajkov in IVO, 2009: 219) The government itself raised question to the constitutional court to investigate the legitimacy of the law. It was dismissed for being in direct conflict with the constitution, which guarantees the protection of the majority from the members of national and ethnic minorities. (ibid.:219) The members of the majority renarrate themselves as the victims of recalcitrant minority. (Bancroft, 2005:135) The ethnic stratification of the inhabitants and the privileged position of the dominant nation create space for minority accusation. The members of minority groups are perceived as potentially disloyal (Gallov Kriglerov, Kadlekov, Lajkov, 2009:87) and represent a threat (ibid: 90) to the long pursued Slovak sovereignty. It is by their unemployment and poverty, that they endanger the social and economic development, by their criminality, that they thread the security and by their abusive behavior, that they jeopardize the international prestige of the country15 (Hojsk, 2009).

Fragmentation - Inadaptable

To demonstrate the fragmentation I want to present Roma minority, an ideal Other to provide contrast to the moral self-image of the majority. First I present the shift from the word Roma

14 15

Slovakia has been long asleep, but it is the thunder and the lightning that will wake it up. Slovakia receives severe critique form the international human rights institutions.

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to Inadaptable while arguing that the characteristic traits remain in place. Then I present an example of Roma minority representation in political discourse. There is a major problem with the definition of the Roma. They are mostly defined as selfidentified members, the carriers of the culture of the Roma settlements or as those who are recognized as Roma by the majority. (Miku, 2007) This definition problem is inherently present in the governmental documents. The Roma are defined as the group of people which majority refers to as Roma according to anthropological signs, cultural belonging or the lifestyle, the point is in the subjective perception of this group as being different. (Gallova Krigelova, 2009:32) The definition problem is also present in the academic sphere. According to Jakoubek and Budilov (2008) no one really knows and defines who Roma are. We consider as Roma a person, who sees himself so, even though he does not necessarily have to declare it. We also consider Roma such person, who is considered as Roma by a major part of his social surroundings, based upon the real or imagined anthropological, cultural or social indicators. (ibid: 5) But such definitions are problematic, due to their inherently essential construction of the category of Roma. There has been a major confusion about Roma as a race, as an ethnic group and Roma as a socially excluded minority. All of the definitions have their rationale, but they need to be used reflexively. The mixture or hybridization of these categories brings the risk of conservation and deepening of the already present negative stereotypes.(in IVO, 2008:214) Apart from hybridization, there is a deliberate tendency to set aside the ethnicity. But this setting aside happens without the actual deconstruction of the defining characteristics. The de-ethnization of the discourse, as Miku (2007:75) refers to it, leads to contextual synonymous designations, such as the Roma from the settlements, the socially excluded, the members of the Roma national minority or the Inadaptable. (ibid: 83) The Inadaptable, according to Miku, is a cryptical designation of Roma. It is widely used by the media. Since it is not acceptable to describe the criminals by their ethnic label, the Inadaptability appears to be a specific form of political correctness. Miku (2007) asks to which extent the discourse of the Inadaptable could be considered as a specific form of racism. He claims that, if racism is to be explained as the base for Othering, then the Inadaptability label is highly problematic, because it implicates no chance for
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adaptation. The fusion of the Roma ethnicity with the Inadaptable euphemism is problematic because it omits the historical and social sources of the bases of the Inadaptability. It also legitimates the violence exercised against these individuals, since they are understood as polluted for once and for all. It is the mental difference that creates a specific form of social essentialism, where a social group is considered to be different without ability to change (Miku, 2007). It is the undisputable incompatibility of the Roma. Although their incompatibility is not connected to their Roma essence, but to their psychological difference, the Inadaptability (of the Inadaptable).
Political image

To illustrate the actual political background, I present two examples. One of them is the official billboard of former parliamentary party and the other one is the excerpt from the electoral campaign of one of the actual members of the governmental coalition. The first one, the electoral campaign of one of the recent coalition parties SNS, represents the iconic character of Roma in Slovakia. Their billboard16 portrayed a stereotypical image of a halfnaked, tattooed person, with dark complexion, and a lot of gold necklaces. It was accompanied by the text We are not going to feed those who don't want to work. It is one of the emblematic images that somehow underpin the situation in Slovakia. Roma are portrayed as maladjusted minority. Ethnicity is entwined with social Inadaptability. When accused of racism, the speaker of the political party in question answered : It is not us being racist. It is those people who see Roma on that picture, the human rights activists, that are racist. (Anna Belousovova. Latentn rasisti, alebo...) The second one is the election program of the independent candidates that refer to themselves as the Ordinary people. These were four independent candidates listed on the candidate list of the newly established political party SaS17. Despite of being listed at the end of this list, all four of them managed to speak out for such a wide public, that they were selected and became new members of the parliament. We could say that their electoral campaign achieved immense fusion.

16 17

See attachment 5 Sloboda a solidarita Freedom and solidarity.

35

This campaign presents Roma as specific by the fact that they dont work. They are portrayed as usually uneducated, with poor hygienic standards and with no sense of order. Without diving into specific details of this campaign, it is important to underline the perception of the actual Roma population and its characteristics: the inability for economical rationality, the tendency to ask money for nothing, the lack of hygiene, the drug abuse and the criminality. The problem, according to ordinary people, is that we feed Roma with our taxes. Our governments, as the program claims, were bribing the Roma to avoid problems when facing the European Union. But once the thread of rejection is over, ordinary people feel free to speak out loud again: Literally It can no longer be accepted to label the Roma attack against a white person a fight and to label the whites beating Roma a racially motivated crime. It is not normal and we can even speak about the discrimination of the whites ... Work is the only cure for this disease. It seems to be very straightforward. Maybe it is actually this directivity and straightforwardness that makes the ordinary people so attractive for the Slovak voters. This chapter spoke about the binary structure present in the Slovak society. It is the distinction between ordinary and inadaptable that represents the sacred and profane dichotomy defining the character of the present collectivity. As we will see in following chapters, it is this binary opposition that creates basis for the ascription of several antagonistic qualities to the victims and to the perpetrator, and consequently represents the cultural background for the meaning struggle to define the meaning of the Bratislava shooting.

CULTURAL TRAUMA

There has been an active shooter. He killed five members of a family within their flat. Then he went out to the streets, raging and shooting around. He killed another two and injured more than a dozen of others. Finally, he stopped. There are discussions about his death, was it a police bullet that injured him or did he kill himself? First few hours after the event, situation is unclear. Media all around the world report the news. Everyone is shocked, waiting for the official version and information. The Police are petrified, eagerly looking for possible accomplices. People start discussing, asking questions. At 14:30 there is an official

improvised press conference directly from the crime scne. The perpetrator is dead. The
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police president reports the total of seven victims five members of the family within the building, another one on the street. When asked about the seventh one, he adds the perpetrator. One of the most important questions for the press: were the victim Roma stays unanswered for now. Within the next few days, the identity of the victims as well as the one of the perpetrator becomes the main issue. Everyone keeps on asking about the motives. The world is inherently a meaningful place to be. According to the psychologists, we have a tendency to Believe in a Just World (Lerner, 1980). This means, that we believe that bad things only happen to the bad people. If there is harm to innocence it is considered as shocking. The moments of meaningless suffering have potential to generate ruptures in the delicate social fabric. Ron Eyerman offers the concept of cultural trauma, to describe situations of meaning crisis. It is these situations, where we are unable to explain the reasons of the suffering, that the trauma process might take place. During the trauma process, we need to identify the carrier group. This group represents the collectivity, the mutually shared we identity of the people, who are directly18 affected and suffer. We could say that the trauma process consists of definition of the boundaries of collectivity affected by the traumatizing occurrence. All this takes place to facilitate social justice. It is necessary to identify the one responsible, the cause of the suffering. These are then represented as utterly evil and are to be punished accordingly. The punishment represents the civil repair, the process of healing of the social fabric. I analyze the meaning struggle within the field of mass media. There are two main focus points, two frameworks the first is the cultural trauma script the definition of roles - the character and the consequences of the situation and the parties involved. And second, the analysis requires thick, multilayered interpretation (Eyerman, 2011) of how the meaning developed over time, throughout the series of smaller performances. The trauma process presents a performative meaning struggle. This struggle starts with a traumatic occurrence and, through series of smaller narratives, leads towards establishing a traumatic event. It is here, that, as Alexander (2004a:530) suggests, the script begins to walk and talk in front of our eyes.

18

It is not directly in terms of undergoing the trauma, but in terms of perceiving it as affecting. In accord with the cultural trauma theory, it is the meaning work that allows the collectivity to experience the pain of the victims as its own suffering.

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Trauma script

This section analyzes the trauma script as represented by the Slovak internet media. It focuses upon the roles and characteristics that were ascribed to those who were part of the situation the affected victims and the responsible perpetrators. It first briefly introduces the definition of the situation, as presented by the media. Then it turns towards defining the affected collectivity. It speaks about the representation of the members who were affected. It analyses the ascription of victimhood. Last, it concentrates upon who was held responsible for what happened. It strives to define the evil and looks for possible repair.

Situation

The situation was first unclear. No one knew what was going on. There were rumors about drugs, mafia wars19 and remarks about the Wild West and the Wild East20. It was perceived as an active shooter situation. There was a huge debate about the tragic and traumatizing character of the situation. We learned about the murdered victims coming from one flat, being members of one family. From that moment on, the situation could be understood as a neighborhood conflict. Then we learned about the ethnicity of the victims. Suddenly it was their wrongdoing and the suffering of the perpetrator21 that were understood as the cause of the shooting. It became perceived as a tragic event. The shooting was not considered an

intentional active act, more it was referred to as a passive catastrophe inflicted upon the people22. It was the gun, which killed23. The suffering of the citizens was caused by desperate times which require desperate measures.(Preo kat vystrieal)
Victims

Due to the traumatizing potential of the shooting, there was a need to explain and understand the reasons why the situation happened. The character of the affected collectivity became questioned24. It was first perceived widely. Until the disclosure of the ethnicity of the victims, it was the whole society affected by the shooting. Once we discovered the ethnicity of the victims
19 20

Prime Minister Radiov using the words Sicilly and Vendetta. (Radiov:Streba...) Various discussion portals mentioning USA, referring to Devnska Nov Ves as DENVER or BEIRUT. 21 Harman decided to resolve his problem by the aid of the automatic gun.(Npisy v devnskej ) 22 Slovakia trembles from the shooting massacre, that took place in Devnska.. (Vrah z Devnskej) 23 The shooting demanded took lives (Po strebe v...;Streba v Bratislave;Strebu v Devnskej) or This man was a loner and a weapon lover. And it was his biggest love, the automatic rifle that took seven peoples lives. He then turned her against himself. (ubomr Harman mal..) 24 Alexander (2004) argues that trauma has potential to generate questions about the character of the affected collectivity.

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 a different line of thought was circling around. All of a sudden, the innocence was in question. Who was actually the one suffering? Was it a case of crazy shooting? Or was there a reason that caused the tragedy? Was the perpetrator insane or was it the society that drove him to commit the act? To explain the struggle for answering these questions, I sum up the various different ways in which media and other relevant actors referred to the victims, to the perpetrator and to the majority. I try to reconstruct the binary oppositions that defined the boundary between the victims and the majority collectivity, as well as the boundary between this collectivity and the perpetrator. I reconstruct the definition struggle for the sacred character of the ordinary citizen. I argue that the representation of the affected groups was underlined by the binary opposition25 of the civility of the ordinary people and the uncivility of the Inadaptable victims. MAJORITY ORDINARY Civil Values oriented Rich, working Good people Obey law Decent Clean (white) Moral Quiet, shy Reasonable Friendly, calm Honest Table of binary oppositions VICTIMS INADAPTABLE / ROMA uncivil Money oriented Poor, Dont want to work Bad Roma26 Escape regulation Improper Dirty, Polluted Immoral Noisy Passionate Aggressive Heartless

25

See the section Ordinary/Inadaptable

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Who were the actual victims? When reporting about the victims, the media usually claimed the number was eight. Seven of them were shot by the perpetrator and the eight was the perpetrator himself. The victims were sorted into target victims, the members of the family killed in the flat. Then there was a random victim, who was shot on her balcony. And last the perpetrator, who was also presented as a casualty, or as one of the victims. First, the target victims, the members of the murdered family, became represented by their ethnicity. The moment they were labeled Roma27, the meaning of the situation changed. Once the victims were defined this way, it was much easier to justify the committed act and the reason for the tragic situation to take place. As several people stated suddenly an incomprehensible situation could make sense.28 Roma are portrayed as abusive, dependent, maladjusted. They are perceived as inherently uncivil. For that reason, they cant be granted the membership status of the majority collectivity. It is also a reason for the absence of psychological identification. The suffering of the Roma victims became displaced by the sacred rights of the normal, ordinary people that are defined as always threatened by the evil minority. I argue that these are the main reasons why the cultural trauma could not take place. There were many reactions on the discussion portals that more or less openly expressed racial hatred. These provoked the reaction of the NGO people against racism, who alerted to avoid racism.29 Within the reactions to their appeal, we could see that the term racism was constantly denied and redefined.30 Afterwards the ethnicity of the victims became relabeled by their Inadaptability31. This way we could speak about the Roma ethnicity without actually mentioning it.32 But the ethnicity of the victims wasnt lost. It was just redefined by a set of binary codes, characterizing them as uncivil, Inadaptable33. The media still portrayed the family

27

Why did the executioner kill Roma family? (Preo kat vystrieal...) He shot a Roma family that had conflicts with the neighbors (tonk vystrieal rmsku) The family belonged to the Roma ethnic group" (Statement of the ministry of inner affairs, Strelec zabil v..) 28 But, when I learned it was a gypsy family, it stopped bothering me or There were five gypsies in the flat, so nothing terrible happened. (Obrazom: Slovensko v) And the conclusion of a human rights activist: Suddenly a feeling crawls in, slow marasmus, that the tragedy, in the end, is not that big (Devnska Nov Ves rasov) 29 (Vzva zstupcom televznych) 30 It was a racially motivated act (08/31/2010, Streba v Devnskej, bol to) It wasnt a racially motivated act (09/03/2010, Streba v Devnskej, nebol to) 31 Only one of the victims was Roma (Iba jedna obe) 32 Reaction from the discussion TV NOVINY: it is not the skin color, it is the lifestyle. And the fact that they are a minority and they have a different color is just their advantage (user QWQ, Obrazom: Slovensko v..) 33 One of the victims had criminal record the Police President stated during the official press conference (Jaroslav Spiiak, Iba jedna obe)

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as a typical one, the social and psychological characteristics remained the same. It was but the name and the label that changed. It was no longer race, but cultural differences and/or social Inadaptability that represented the victims difference. To prove that the Roma ethnicity remained the major descriptive sign, we can confront the way people on discussion portals referred to the victims. The victims were indicated as we all know who or the unnamed ethnic group; the Inadaptable also-citizens or the citizens for now. They were labeled as the gypsy family of the Inadaptable, the vermin, the Indians, dirt, parasites, the burned ones, smoked ones, cacaos, the disease spreaders. They were often represented by the socially excluded ghetto LUNIK IX.34 Second, there was the perpetrator, who was also listed among the victims. He was perceived as a decent man. It was his motive that was widely searched and strived for. His act was seen as a result of lifelong frustration35. Some of the media reported that his action was planned 36. They presented the shooting as a long awaited37, intentional act of justice38. Others spoke about nervous breakdown. They considered the shooting to be an impulsive act, a self-assessment suicide39, where the perpetrator punished everyone he considered as the source of his suffering. His character and membership status in the majority collectivity were long strived for. His act was referred to as a cut off, the loss of patience, the overflow, the nervous breakdown or the falling down. He was perceived as psychologically labile, introvert and distant, indirectly: mentally deranged. It was only for a small public on the discussion portals40 that he was granted the status of an ordinary citizen. Over there he was represented as: our boy, the

The press offered an explanation: Bad neighbor had to die, skin-color wasnt important- that was the logic behind the act, since only one victim was Roma. (ibid) And they exemplified it by: The neighbors complained there were ten people living in the flat. They were noisy and asocial. (Strelec bol Samotar) 34 Ghetto like residential part of Koice that became known as an emblematic negative Roma settlement. 35 That guy had to be desperate (Neastn prbuzn obet) Both psychologists suggest that his act was a result of a lifelong frustration. (Strelec si tere) 36 According to the expert: he prepared himself. He had it planned. He did not want to leave anything to chance. (Samopal, ktor vradil..) Media account for this opinion by referring to the statement of one of the neighbors: suddenly Harman appeared, aiming at her and her granddaughter. Get out of here! He shouted. So she ran away, but she heard another shooting. (Vrah susede, vypadni) 37 Video of a psychologist who speaks about perpetrators act: It was a long awaited act of justice. (Radiov sa podpsala) 38 Why did the executioner kill Roma family? (Preo kat vystrieal) 39 A psychologists refers to the act as a bilance suiscide, that results from frustration and inability to escape. And that is why he killed everyone that he considered to be the source of his problems. (Strelec z devnskej si tere) 40 Various reactions in the discussions. Especially the FB perpetrator commemoration groups.

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innocent victim, the national hero, the victim of terror or simply41, the citizen. And he was referred to respectfully as Mr. Harman. Third, there was the random victim and several injured people affected by the situation. We could speak about the suffering of the inhabitants of the locality and of the people on the streets, whose lives were put in jeopardy. These people were considered to be the ones unarguably innocent. The innocence was especially visible in the discussion servers. Here they were referred to as the local inhabitants, the neighbors or the innocent victims. On a wider scope they were defined as white Slovaks. 42 They were recalled as the ordinary citizens, the non Roma, the discriminated majority, the white Christians or the white human with average level of decency. In the discussions people usually expressed compassion with the relatives of the victims who did not deserve to die, or those who were at the wrong place in the wrong time43. It is the ordinary citizens that were affected by the situation. They are not the Inadaptable, and so they dont identify with the suffering of the Roma. On the contrary, the target victims are perceived as one of the reasons of their suffering. Neither are they psychologically labile. But I ask all along the analysis process, the same question over and over again. Who are they? And how are they like? As we could see, there was a major difficulty in appointing the virtue of victimhood. The character of the target victims got undermined by their ethnicity. This ethnicity, later relabeled as Inadaptability, was seen as the cause of the shooting. It was thus only the ordinary innocent people on the street that were perceived as true victims of double suffering. On one side it was the perpetrator, threatening their lives, on another, the Inadaptable citizens that pollute the collectivity by their uncivil presence.
Attributing responsibility

The last part of this section deals with the appointment of responsibility. As we could see in the previous part already, the situation became represented as resulting from a deeper structural problem of the majority suffering, caused by the polluted minority. This explanation is problematic. It presents a transparent case of victim blaming44, which is considered as uncivil.

41 42

Extreme positions in the discussions Discussion in .tyzden media 43 Facebook commemoration event 44 William Ryan (2009) - Blaming the victim tendency to explain the suffering of the victims by their uncivility, usually present in case of racial discrimination.

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To escape uncivility, there has to be others to attribute responsibility. There are several sides that are to be held responsible for the situation. I present those, who were mentioned in the press or emerged from the reactions of the public. These are the police and the system on one side and the human rights activists on the other. The system and the police are criticized for the inability to resolve the conflict situation and the complaints of the neighbors45 on two levels: before and during the accident. It is represented as crisis of security46. People need to be protected from polluted minority. But the responsible do not provide them with this protection. On the contrary, they even positively discriminate Roma. The system is perceived as unable to deal with the situation. Because of that, it was legitimate47 for the citizen to take matters into his own hands and resolve them. This narrative was especially strong and visible on the extreme right web portals. In the media there was a milder version of the need for elimination present, the need to build walls to escape the pollutive influence.48 After the accident, the police was criticized because it failed to comply with the duty to protect lives of the citizens. They ran away from the crime scne49. It was even discussed whether it was the police or the perpetrator himself who eliminated the thread50. The most extreme critique questioned the police conduct to such extend that they accused the police to be the source of the injuries and the death of the innocent random victim51. The other side that is held responsible52 for the situation are the activists and human rights fighters. There are understood as the supporters of positive discrimination discrimination of the majority by the minority. This discrimination is perceived as the main source of the racial

45

The statement of the local inhabitants, as described by media: The problems of the citizens are unresolved. And this is the result. The politicians just play with us. Thus summoned up the situation one of the citizens, Rastislav Teovi (32), who even took a day off to participate on the meeting. (Obania Devnskej, problmy ) 46 (Proti krze bezpenosti) 47 They even refer to the constitution: Citizens are authorized to stand against everyone, who threatens democracy and the basic human rights granted by this constitution, in case the responsible organs fail to do so and legal means are precluded (art. 32). This can be understood as, when the state fails. The citizen can strive for justice himself. (Pokus o socilno) 48 Walls are better than shooting: the increasing number of walls in the proximity of Roma settlements that people build for their protection. It is up to the state to fix the situation. (Proti krze bezpenosti) 49 In discussion: The thieves in the uniforms, were there in two minutes. So how come that the national hero kept on shooting another hour into the surrounding windows? (Obrazom: Slovensko v) 50 Media claimed that: he killed himself (Strelec zabil v) Or later on, quoting the Minisrty of Internal Affairs, that: The police killed him (Strelca z Devnskej trafil) 51 This extreme opinion is only present in the discussion portals and blogs. 52 Activists, parasites, doped, accomplices some of the reference labels from the discussions.

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conflicts.53 It is not only the minority (in this case Roma) that are the source of injustice, but the human rights fighters and the activists, who support them. These people live on the international funds or use state money54. Their perceived activity is based upon the accusation of racism. But these accusations are void55, since the activists are represented as being way out of line, without real experience with the ones, they are protecting. The political correctness they proclaim is just a cover for the real problems56. These are never named by the true names. It is not the race, not even the culture of the minority that poses problems. It is the dirt 57, the chaos and the abusive behavior58 that are the key issue, the Inadaptability. And so we have to be very careful to avoid the perception of the Devinska Nova Ves shooting as an act of racism. It should be perceived as the neighborhood conflicts with problematic neighbors that neither the police nor the government succeeds to resolve. Otherwise everyone will pity the poor Roma, for being victims of the racial attack (which is not true).59 I argue that it was due to the inability to appoint victimhood that there was no cultural trauma generated. There was no psychological identification with the members of the family, who were represented as target victims. On the contrary, the situation became symptomatic of a deeper underlying trauma in the Slovak identity60. The majority of the decent ordinary citizens constantly suffer by the inability of the state to guarantee and protect its rights. In the case of shooting, the ordinary people suffered double suffering. The abuse from the polluted minority and the inability of the state to cope with this minority due to a systematic pressure from the human rights regulations of the European union on one hand, and the failure of the state to protect its citizens during the shooting, which was a result of the previously unresolved drama on the other hand. It was the police who failed to protect the innocent citizens.

53 54

It might be the due to the Suffering of the ordinary. Reactions from the discussion under the People against racism appeal. the NGOs who parasite on EU money (Vzva zstupcom televznych) and from .Tde discussion thread: I thought we call things by their true names here, without the unnecessary political correctness. Do we all have to comply the instructions of the humanists from EU governorate? (tvanica na Rmov) 55 From discussion: We are all racist if we want the gypsies to live as decent people (user Hary, Jak a pro) 56 From discussion: Welcome multiculturalism, Welcome anomie, Welcome USA! (tvanica na Rmov) 57 What the hell are you speaking about? It is no culture, and I dont mean poverty, but the crap and filth that they spread around them. Discussion reaction (Rmovia: Masaker bol) 58 From discussion: This social group. I refer to it this way, for by definition It is not a discrimination case anymore. So It is politically and morally clean. Although this group mostly consists of Roma. (tvanica na Rmov) 59 Discussion quote (user Donatan, Pozostal a zranen maj) 60 See Ordinary vs. Inadaptable section

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Series of Performances

Trauma is never a direct result of traumatic occurrence. It always has to be explained and built up. It happens throughout the series of smaller narrative occurrences. It is by the aid of ritualized repetition and systematic commemoration that the meaning of the situation settles. The aim of this section is to reconstruct the narrative that explained the reasons of the shooting. It strives to describe the struggle to represent the traumatic occurrence in terms of an actual hole in the social fabric, as a traumatic event. Almost immediately after the killings occurred, the media took up the situation and the meaning race started. There were four important narrative moments that influenced the meaning struggle. First, there was a spontaneous commemoration of the victims on the day of the shooting. A few hours after the attacks one of the inhabitants created a Facebook invitation for the candle lighting commemoration. Second, during the evening news, one of the most popular commercial televisions screened a reportage about the victim family. It labeled the victims as Inadaptable and problematic. This reportage almost immediately cathexed with the cultural background and provided a widely shared definition of the situation. In reaction to the screening, a Slovak NGO People against Racism issued a letter. This letter appealed to the media to avoid nourishing the racial hatred evoked by displaying the ethnicity of the victims. A few weeks after the actual accident, someone wrote glorifying messages on the walls of the building, where most of the victims were killed.

In the beginning, there was no explanation, just emotions. It is abnormal to shoot on the streets and threaten the safety of the people. The shooting caused insecurity and fear. The sacredness of human life was put in jeopardy. This narrative had a great potential for defining the trauma. It was within this narrative, that the Facebook event and spontaneous commemoration were performed. Here, people expressed affection and compassion. There was a lot of emotions, stress, fear and regret. The act was perceived as incomprehensible and shocking.

Sometime during the day, the first leaks about the identity of the family of the victims appeared. The rumor said it was a Roma family. On the evening of the 31 st august, one day

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after the shooting, Markza, the TV channel with highest watch ratings screened a reportage61 that symbolically defined the character of the victims. This reportage, subsequently proven misleading, portrayed two Inadaptable women that were supposedly victims of the shootings. It claimed that bad neighbor is a catastrophe. With one Inadaptable family in the house, all the others might go crazy. It informed about the terror, everyday hell and suffering of the ordinary people, who were dissolved and individualized by the everyday struggle and fear. The co-opted psychologist claims that the decent people might feel like being completely alone. Although there is just the two of them (the Inadaptable women), the decent inhabitants are in minority. According to the expert it is impossible to stand against an abnormal evil. A well socialized person facing a pathological one, does not have the necessary psychological resilience and might be unable to fight for his rights. On the contrary, due to experienced fear for their lives and belongings, the decent people might be afraid to say anything in public. The Inadaptable, per contra, are not at all afraid to speak out, really loudly. The main message of the reportage is that the police is unable to cope with the situation either. The women were held in custody already couple of times, but were always released and came back to continue the terror inflicted upon the ordinary people. Suddenly, the incomprehensible situation could make sense. This reportage, even if later shown inaccurate62, represents the most successful narrative. It immediately achieved fusion with the prevailing cultural background where Roma and the Inadaptable are the source of constant threat of pollution. And the sacredness of the Ordinary citizens and their rights if put into jeopardy, not only by the presence of the thread but also because of the inability of the responsible to deal with it. As a response to the screening and Inadaptable narrative, one of the Slovak NGOs, People against Racism, released an official statement, an appeal to the media63. Within this statement, they reframed the situation, accusing the media from provoking racial hatred and reproducing stereotypical information, based upon faulty claims. They labeled the reportage as inciting racism and xenophobia, resulting in blaming the victims and excusing of the perpetrator. They disagreed with the representation of the perpetrator as a desperate, powerless introvert who

61

This reportage was screened in 2005 and was part of the series called Lampre. This series represented the final resort to receive complaints that were previously ignored. It was the last stance when all other options failed( Lampre, 05/04/2005) 62 As we can see, nothing is true in itself. The explanation of a fact has to fuse with the present cultural background and thus, became relevant. 63 (Vzva zstupcom televznych)

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is driven to commit an act of justice by the family of Inadaptable Roma. They did so, because such a representation justifies the murder and arouses the hate. The ethnicity of the victims, as Krempaska64 claims, legitimates the inappropriate violent and malevolent encroachments against Roma community.

This narrative did not achieve fusion. The possible reasons might be the meaning loaded connotation of the authors human rights activists.65 To account for this explanation, I state excerpts from the discussion threads underneath the appeal. People against racism evoked many flames and passionate reactions. As I already mentioned before, there was a huge debate and definition struggle about racism. Even here it was the case. Audience offered different definitions. For example: It is not racism, just negative experience with an ethnic group. The discussants accused the authors of being racist because of distorting negative reactions of members of the Slovak public and generalizing them as racism. The human rights activists, according to the reactions of the public, are discriminating the majority by fighting for unmerited rights of the minority. It is actually the authors who were accused of provoking negative public opinion by positively discriminating the gypsies. The human rights activists are referred to as triggers of the racial hatred and violence. It is here, it the audience reactions, that the critique of the system is most visible. It is not a case of racism, but the helplessness of the many against the irresponsibility of the few. Several weeks after the shooting, someone sprayed a note on the crime scene wall. This message praised the perpetrator66 and expressed gratitude. Although the writings met with disapproval, they still reminded us of the ambiguity surrounding the character of the perpetrator. The writings represented the narrative about the inability of the system to protect decent citizens. They did so in a hardy acceptable manner. But the same narrative gained voice by a political action of a newly established nongovernmental organization Devinska inak.67 It is this organization that raised official complaint against the messages on the wall. But it immediately framed them as the result of the inability of the local municipality to deal with citizen problems68. According to the NGO representatives, this inability results in violent
64 65

(Devnska Nov Ves rasov) See the Attribution of Responsibility section 66 The sign said: Harman, Hero. and Thank you Mr. Harman. Citizens of DNV. 67 Devinska differently. Citations from the official web page: http://www.devinskainak.weblahko.sk/ 68 Ibid.

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conflicts. Since there was no official reaction to the tragic event and no suggested improvement of the problematic situation, the leader of the newly established organization, an ordinary citizen69, takes the situation into his own hands. He offers to bring peace and safety back to Devinska Nova Ves. To prove himself, he starts by collecting reports on neighborly disagreements70 and resolving the situation of the forgotten victims of the shooting71. These are the neighbors who suffer from living next to the shootee family72. They have had their flat devastated by the mixture of water and blood of the victims. And while the municipality was dealing with commemoration plate73, the aware citizen acted and helped the forgotten ordinary people74 (suffering from the pollutive75 proximity of the murdered family not only before but also after their death). The verification of the local relevance and fusion of this narrative might be the electoral success of Rastislav Teovi76, who became the second best mayor candidate and the most successful municipal representative77.

The aim of this section has been to identify the evolution of the meaning making narrative. This process varied from representing the shocking, incomprehensible occurrence towards speaking about possible reasons and providing explanations of the causes of the tragic event. To conclude, I present official reactions of politicians78. These reactions frame and sum up the narrative stages underlying the definition process, they parallel the media and popular narratives. After the preliminary shock, the definition struggle for victimhood and innocence was underlined by the statement of the Prime Minister, Iveta Radiov 79. While expressing compassion to the innocent victims she asks: Will we distinguish the loss of life according to the skin color? Those innocent people that the perpetrator killed consequently, how were they
69 70

As he refers to himself in his CV. Ibid. Ibid. 71 In the section Pomohli sme Vm koda sposoben nsilnm inom 72 Ibid. 73 Ibid. 74 Ibid. 75 They didnt clean the corridor, the neighbors complain, there were five people lying dead here. They got interrupted by the granddaughter, looking for deposit books. The police had to intervene. (Fotky hrzy, ialenec) 76 The leader of Devnska differently. 77 According to official results reports on the municipality web page. 78 Official state representatives, who can be seen the second carrier group, and who spoke through the media (Eyerman, 2011) 79 (Radiov: Streba sa)

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guilty?... Is nervous breakdown an excuse for murder? By referring to the consequent innocent victims and the nervous breakdown, she directly supported the uncivility of the Inadaptable victims. At the same time, she made a distinction between normal people, and the perpetrator, who had a nervous breakdown. After the innocence of the Inadaptable/Roma victims slowly fades, only the ethnicity and the contents related to it. To illustrate, the head of the police department, Jaroslav Spiiak80, acknowledged that at least one victim, shot in the flat had a criminal record. It was mostly vandalism. But it is not important, even if they were severe criminals, it does not authorize the murder. He adds Their criminal record is relatively thin, compared to other members of their and other similar communities in Slovakia. This statement, similar to many others provoked the appeal of the human rights activists. After their reaction, the racial motivation of the act becomes subject matter. This version is soon abandoned. It is in no one interest to consider the act as such. If we acknowledge the racial motivation of the act, the situation would require a completely different solutions and public reactions. To prove the failure of the human rights, antiracist narrative, we could see the reaction of the official representative of the Roma minority the plenipotentiary, Miroslav Pollk81. The shootings dont demonstrate the attitude of the Slovaks towards Roma, but a sole, individual crime of an insane person. This person was mentally deranged, at least during the actual shooting. This act thus is not related to the relationship between Slovaks and the Roma minority. By concluding the character of the victims as Inadaptable, it is the perpetrator who becomes the main focus. The victims are not considered to be the members of the collectivity, one of us. The question remains whether perpetrator is. Was he an ordinary citizen? Or was he insane and did this insanity drive him to commit the act? The plenipotentiary prefers the latter, but the head of the police department identifies the perpetrator subsequently: Harman was single, coming from a decent family was employed.. and seemed to be a superior, serious, honest man, who fulfills his duties as expected.

SOCIAL PERFORMANCE

80 81

Video of the improvised press conference. (Napt vzahy s Rmami)

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I picked the movie to be one of the bases of my analysis because of its huge potential to become the main narrative defining the events. Alexander suggests studying the trauma with a temporal distance. I didnt do that. On the contrary, I followed the meaning struggle from the beginning. It was through series of previously disjointed little narrative chunks that Bratislava shooting turned into a coherent version. This version is presented in the movie Devnsky masaker. Within this movie, the authors claim to present what really happened. When media reported about the movie, they usually evoked the feeling of reliving the situation. They claimed that there is another shooting in Devnska, but now, in the cinema.82 Alexander argues that for the ritual like experience, the performance has to replay the situation and achieve such fusion, that it generates feeling of reliving the performed story83. I think that this is exactly what the movie strives for. What makes the analysis important is the fact, that due to the apparent interest of the authors as well as of the investors, the movie will make it to the national level. It is planned to be screened on the official anniversary commemoration of the shootings. This fact makes it a highly important performance to be studied and considered. It is now, the decisive point about the situation remaining in the realm of traumatic occurrence or gaining relevance for wider audience. I decided to analyze the movie by the aid of social performance framework. It allows me to combine the focus upon structural background of the movie with its actual pragmatic form and with the influence of social power that affected the movies creation as well as its distribution. First, I introduce the background and the script, the story and the characters that the movie presents. Second, I turn towards analyzing the mise en scne, the actual shape of the performance. And third, I present the means of symbolic production, as presented by the authors and perceived by the press.
Script

Until this moment, the contents of this work were mainly describing the cultural background, the actual setting present in the public discourse. By presenting the situation of the Roma/Inadaptable in the civil sphere institutions and by showing the binary structures that are used to describe the main actors in the shootings, I provided the reader with and insight into the structure and the quality of the social fabric representing collective solidarity in Slovakia.

82 83

(Devnsky masaker sa) and also (Harman ide do kn) Thanks to Fillip for reminding me

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Then I presented the meaning struggle about the traumatic character of the situation and the trauma process - the trauma script defining the situation. I now turn towards the way the shooting drama was performed re-enacted within factual/fictional movie Devnsky masaker. I present the script, as seen by the authors and as portrayed by the movie. The script of the movie was written by the authors84. Without having the results of the official investigation, they based the story upon the analysis of media documents that the medial partners of the project85 provided. Although they claim complete objectivity, they acknowledge that most of the work has been done in the cutting room. First I speak about the perpetrator, who can be seen as the main character of the movie. Although authors deny the tribute character of the movie, the perpetrator still plays the main role. Then I turn towards the way in which the victims are portrayed. They are presented as an Inadaptable family and are considered to be the trigger of the shooting. Last I analyze the message that the movie delivers. The authors intend to provide the viewer with an explanation of the act86.
Perpetrator

The movie, despite officially denying any kind of support for the portrayed action, still appears to be almost a tribute. Already in the promotion, we can see that the perpetrator, portrayed on the billboards, plays the main role. To prove, I present three examples. First, the movie questions the motive of the perpetrator and tries to find explanation for his act. Second, it presents a positive image. And third, it invites us to identify with the perpetrator. The movie supports the narrative of the perpetrator being a decent man. Despite some few claims of the relatives, who question his sanity and a remark from the neighbors of him being antisocial, he is mostly portrayed in a positive manner. His close ones claim his responsibility, seriousness and quietness. He is mainly presented by two people his ex-colleague and the chairman of the shooters club, where the perpetrator was a member. The ex-colleague refers to him as a honest, responsible, serious boy (our boy), not mean, who would not do any harm. The chairman, by describing an older competition, draws even more positive image. He claims the perpetrator was loyal, disciplined and respected the law, even in a situation, where

84 85

As they acknowledge in the interview. For further details see the Means of symbolic production secion. 86 As we can see, they perceive lack of such explanation: It would be easy to get rid of it by saying it was a case of racism and that Harman was insane. But no one really deals with what drove him to commit the act. (Author, in the audio interview, Devnsky masaker..)

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he had suffered injustice from it. At one point during this description, there is the second verse of the Slovak national anthem playing87. The storyteller presents the perpetrator as an introvert, who suffered, perceived the world as being against him. He is referred to as a loner. But his distance (underlined by the neighbors) is rhetorically questioned: People were a puzzle for him, but does it make him really dangerous?88 While describing the perpetrator, the movie invites us to identify with him: Who dares to diagnose psychological state of Lubomir Harman and who is to throw the stone? When we all often feel lonely and alienated? Was Lubomir Harman really mentally disturbed? Didnt the society or his close ones notice?89 To underline the excerpts from the movie, we could cite the authors, who while describing the movie for the media refer to the perpetrator as to Mister Harman90. While presenting the perpetrator, the question which puzzles the authors, the actors and the storyteller the most is: what made him do that, what caused him to take justice in his hands? The answer they provide might be found in succeeding section.
Victims

According to the authors of the movie, we are supposed to realize the society and the environment that the murdered people came from. The victims are portrayed in a passive manner, described by others. The final image is very negative. Their character is presented as the source of the perpetrators suffering and the trigger to his action. To support, I first concentrate upon the intention of the authors to present a certain type of people. Then I speak about the portrayal of the ethnicity of the victims. The open reference to Romani identity is almost absent. But I prove that the characteristics connected to it still remain relevant. On various occasions91 the authors claim the intention to show what kind of society and what type of people the victims were. They claim that they did not realize it themselves. But when they faced the reality, when they first spoke to the people and saw their behavior92, it all came together.(Devnsky masaker, ako to) They spoke about the people from the ghetto, real hell. And they even claimed that suddenly you could understand why he did it. Nothing is as
87 88

See the Ordinary/Inadaptable section in the first analytical chapter; Our Slovakia has been long asleep, but now The storyteller, in the movie. 89 Ibid. 90 There will also be some scenes with Mr. Harman still alive, which have not previously been published. (Dezorz, Zabijak sa vracia) 91 In various media and also during the interview. 92 Excerpts from the interview

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innocent as it seems.93 What type of society or what type of people it actually was is left upon the audience to figure out. After seeing the movie, the audience is supposed to know who we are dealing with94.To state example I quote the official movie trailer in which the chairman of the shooters club presents the victims. He portrays them as a collectivity a big family, people who were sitting in the hall, drinking, joking, picking on him (the perpetrator). They were humiliating and terrorizing him. The peak of the description is when the speaker states that they shit in front of his door and spread it all over his door handle. The movie describes the victims as Inadaptable. It avoids the usage of the word Roma. It only does so by denouncing the Romani ethnicity of the victims. Nevertheless it still uses expressive95 language to portray them as such. It ascribes generalized social and psychological characteristics that refer to the widely shared stereotypes about Roma. The neighbors referred to them as gypsies although they were not Roma. It was a big family, akin with Roma, connected. Other people considered them as Roma96. As we already know97 if the majority of your surroundings consider you a Roma, you are considered to be one. We dont need an actual Roma ethnicity to be able to speak about typical ethnic signs. The typical ethnic signs are widely present in the movie narrative. Despite the neighbors who describe the family as a decent one, there is a voice98 saying they were not so quiet as we present them. The storyteller describes the situation as follows there were many people living in one flat The family was a poor one, they were not Roma as majority of the neighbors thought. They maybe just lived a more colorful social life. The victims are then referred to as Inadaptable and problematic .The problematic members of the family are described as playing theater, running around the streets, committing acts of vandalism, noisy, vulgar and not paying the rent, they went to work to England. When referring to the 12 year old victim, they speak about and portray him as having unexpected looks, reminding us that the police, due to his long hair, confused him with a woman. All these characteristics were mentioned without hearing the word Roma once.

93 94

To read the full excerpt see the Attachment 3 Excerpts from the interview 95 Romani music and other.. 96 The storyteller 97 See the section on Problems with the definition of Roma in the first analytical chapter. 98 Computer modified silhouette

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Message

The movie presents a story about an act of justice. It refers to the perpetrators act as to a revenge for continuous humiliation of ...(his) human dignity. To underline that this was one of the main storylines of the movie, we could refer to one of the critiques 99 which described the act as a big cleaning job. (Devnsky masaker) According to the article, the movie reminds us that: intolerance, xenophobia, Roma problem, drugs, prostitution, poverty and unemployment create a soil that can drive more labile individuals towards unreflected acts. (ibid) The authors present the movie as a nice package of facts package of information that should serve the audience to make their own judgment. It is but during the interview that they acknowledge a message included. Due to perceived impossibility to express ones opinion clearly and openly100, the message of the movie is hidden within the gleams and glimpses. When asked for direct wording, the authors pointed towards the closing scenes. These scenes inform, in an objective and neutral manner101, about extremist web sites. They literally quote them. For example people are already sick of multiculturalism, and if he did not shoot sideways from the main target, many would consider him a hero. The chairman of the shooting club adds he just wanted to live where he lived, he always helped everyone, we never had any problems with him. Then the closing gradates into final lines, presented by the computer modified voice of a black silhouette: many people think that there were others to die. Not those who were killed in the flat. Blankly, many people said, that there was at least one more person supposed to die Stano Putik102. For the final subtitles, there is a song playing. And as much as we know that music bears a political message within it (Martiniello, Lafleur, 2008), it is important to note, that the title song is a rap song called by the eyes of the killer. This song collects the suffering of a frustrated individual, who decides to resolve matters himself, taking the gun and silencing the ones who cause his frustration. The song in itself could be considered another performance and be analyzed as such.103

99

This critique is stated and linked to the official web page of the movie Excerpts from the interview: i still want to be able to walk in there (in Devinska Nova Ves) or we could not say anything direct, because it would be speculations 101 By reporting in a neutral tone, the media not only strengthen the latent racism that is virtually genetically fixed in the thinking of mainstream society, but even help create the basis for racial hatred and intolerance.. (Cangr, 2002:264) 102 One of the victims relative 103 See Attachment 4
100

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Pragmatics

The idea of cultural pragmatics is based upon combining the analytical focus upon structures with studying the agency of social actors. It claims, that it is not only important to focus upon the narratives and roles that the performance contains, but it is equally necessary to see how these structures walk and talk in front of us (Alexander, 2004a:530). This section analyses the pragmatic part of the movie. It studies the actual mise en scne. It also concentrates upon the actors and the audience reception.
Mise en scne

To study the mise en scne, we focus upon how the movie was actually put together, how was it shot and where was it staged. The main interest lies in its character. I first concentrate upon the narrative style. I discuss the perceived authenticity of the scenes that were used in the movie. Then I connect this authenticity with its declared documentary character. It is the objectivity and the content of the dramatized part that are object of the analysis The authors present the movie as a genre documentary. It consists of four types of scenes, four important types of discourses. It first has a narrative figure, the objective, omnipresent storyteller, who introduces comments and guides the viewer through the story. It then uses archive material footage, from the personal archive of the perpetrators relatives. It also works with archive material from the direct witnesses of the shooting. Third, there are the talking heads. These are the authentic actors, the relevant people that were given voice, to express their opinion. It is the neighbors, the relatives of the victims and those of the perpetrator, the police officers and official state representatives that speak out. Last it supports the presented story by the aid of acted scenes. These scenes portray the actual shooting, or as the movie refer to them, the massacre.

The perceived authenticity level could be represented upon a continuum104: Inauthentic Authentic

104

Continuum between factual fictional media.

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Acted scenes

Talking Heads

Archive footage

Narrator

The deepest source of the authenticity of this movie lies in its proclaimed documentary character. It implies the authenticity of the actors. The critics claim that the authors dont pretend anything, they just ask and record. (Devnsky masaker) For them, the movie provides an objective and complex image (Devnsky masaker recenzia) where all sides get their space to speak(Devnsky masaker, document) It is this documentary character that allows the authors to claim objectivity and neutrality. From analytical perspective, it is important to note, that no one disagreed with them. The objectivity and neutrality of the narrator were never impeached. Nor anyone questioned the way in which the talking heads were portrayed. We could say, that the message and the story that the movie presents were accepted by the public. It was only the acted scenes that were questioned. The acted scenes were target of critique. The way in which the featured scenes were enacted seemed to be problematic. The reconstruction of the massacre was seen as highly unlikely and improbable. Moreover, the expressive figures were considered inappropriate. The scenes were criticized for being underlined by rock music and because of consisting of blood, stop motion like footage of empty shells falling to the floor and victims begging silently for their lives. The inauthenticity can be demonstrated upon the media critique, which claims, that the scenes are shot in a contemporary criminal series way and their aesthetic points towards action movies. The scenes in themselves do not illustrate the atmosphere but lead it astray towards the stylized world of fiction. (Devnsky masaker masakruje) There is only one aspect of the acted scenes that was successful. It is the authenticity of the stage. The authors wanted to first shoot the stylized scenes of the movie on the crime scne. Due to the apparent controversy of the idea they decided to move to other residential parts of Bratislava. Even in these parts of the city, there were several reports to local police department, in reaction to the shooting. People supposed it was another real case. Media did not question the ethical character of such conduct. On the contrary, the most courageous commended the authors for the authenticity of the buildings which served better than the actual saddest panel building which was already repaired by the workers in the reconstruction process. (Devnsky masaker sa zopakuje..)

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It is important to underline the fact, that the narrative presented by the movie was accepted on the documentary level. It was only the obvious interpretation implicated within the acted scenes that were criticized by the media. The interpretative character of the documentary scenes was never questioned.
Actors

One of the important elements of the performance are the actors and their ability to become the roles they perform. In this particular case it is the documentary character of the movie that ensures fusion. Since the movie itself is always a certain type of representation, it is important to focus upon the way in which the real actors are portrayed. Then it is also important to see whether this portrait was accepted by the critique. I first concentrate upon the talking heads representing the relatives. I focus upon the perceived authenticity of their portrayal. They are supposed to just speak for themselves. It is important to note that there was almost no critical reaction questioning the way the victims or the relatives of the victims represented. Almost no one questioned the authenticity of the actors, since, they are being portrayed the way they are. It is only within the scenic scenes that the actors perform. Therefore, second, I concentrate upon the character and performance of the scenic actors. I wondered how the authors perceived the relatives of the victims, to be able to understand the way they were portrayed in the movie. The authors referred to the relatives as to a certain type of people. When asked directly to explain what type of people they mean, the authors explained that they had a certain perception. They knew about the people. But to really show and prove what kind of people it was, it would require a bit more time. Literally, you need to fuck with them for a bit. You need to become their friend and to drink with them to be able to show them in the bad manner (To show they are evil). You come there and you see, you feel what kind of type they are, but you have to show it!105 During the interview there was a point when we started talking about the character of the relatives of the victims. I asked the authors about the level of cooperation and their perception. They consider the relatives to be simple people. The cooperation with them was perceived as good. The people were accommodating, willing to cooperate, almost professional, almost as if they were born for the media. In fact authors state, they were even too professional, too

105

For the whole excerpt from the interview see attachment 3

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distant. The people were not emotional. It seemed almost as if they already coped with the situation. They did not express any emotions.106 This lack of emotions appears to be important. First of all if there is no suffering or emotional pain of the relatives, how can the collectivity identify with them? How can the pain of the victims be felt by the majority, if their closest ones do not feel it? Second, this lack of emotions, as explained by the authors is related to the simplicity of the people. As authors explain, they consider the victims and their relatives to have different register of those things. The perception of time for them is like for children. It has already been yesterday, three months ago, back then. It is different now so money were the question ...how much money will you give us? They asked. For the authors the relatives were either very simple, with minimal emotional scale, or even money driven107. To analyze the performance of the actual actors representing the victims and the perpetrator, it is important to note that the victims have only a very passive role in the movie. They just represent mute dying bodies. They do not speak or act. The victims are not an important part of the movie. Although it is their character in question, they dont get any space. The perpetrator, on the contrary, is present and active. The authors tried to reconstruct the exact process of the shooting by putting the actor into positions according the video material from the witnesses108. The presentation of the movie is also based upon the character of the perpetrator and it is his face that made it to the official billboards. Thanks to the unfamiliarity of the actor, he was perceived as authentic. The critics often identified the actor with the real perpetrator. The saddest role of the killer was portrayed by Pavol Vrabec who had something in common with the perpetrator. He also loved the nature (Herec z Devnskeho). This identification might be problematic, since it always works both ways, especially when the actor claims that he is a pacifist and a vegetarian, who had terrible problems when he was supposed to shoot the child. Two questions remain Why did the actors who represented the victims not get any space to reflect their emotions? And how come no one asks about them?
Audience

One last element of the pragmatic part of the social performance is the audience. First, it is important to know, who was the intended audience and how did they perceive the movie. It is
106 107

Excerpt from the interview. Struggle for civility of the intention who was actually doing it for money, the authors, scavengers or the victims who are not ashamed to ask for money to commemorate their relatives? 108 "The staff had lots of material from the witnesses, shot by mobile phones. They always positioned me according to them, to be as it really was. (Devnsky masaker sa zopakuje..)

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also necessary to see whether the audience believed the story presented by the movie. At the same time we ask about their level of identification with the main actors. Since we started this analysis by focusing upon collective trauma, the fusion of the performance should be considered on two levels. First, whether the event affected and put into question widely shared values. Did the drama cathex with the present cultural background and become recognized as a case of suffering? And second, did the drama affect a concrete collectivity? Did the members of this collectivity identify with the suffering presented? And did it trigger the redefinition process? It is difficult to evaluate the fusion of the movie right now. Alexander suggests studying the performances and trauma with a temporal distance. It is only time that shows which version and which narrative becomes true and definitive. And it is only time that provides us with the ability to evaluate fusion. With the movie, I can only state some assumptions based upon the analysis of the press reception. It is nevertheless important, for if there will be a nationwide screening of the movie, the information provided by this thesis might help to establish indicators that could serve to evaluate the fusion after that. As I already mentioned, there was no critique of the movie narrative. No one questioned the authenticity of the script. The ordinary people believe the story about the inability of the state to protect its citizens from the uncivil minority who pollutes their environment or from the labile individuals who threaten their safety. It was only the way in which the story is represented that was questioned. There are many people who do not wish to identify with the perpetrator. I do not wish to plea for the shooter, he was insane. It is not the person of the shooter, but the suffering of the majority, of the ordinary people, that is the key. These ordinary citizens are the ones who suffer, "either by glorifying the murdered family with doubtful dignity or by showing the perpetrator as a tortured victim. (Devnsky masaker, document).
Means of symbolic production

This section concentrates upon the influence of social power. It explains how the power relations are perceived by the authors and how they manifest in the actual shape of the movie. The power relations can be analyzed by the aid of one of the social performance elements means of symbolic production. In this section, the description of the means of the symbolic production consists of three parts. It is important to focus upon the production process how
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was the movie created, by which means. Then upon the process of distribution to see who took part, who were the partners and how did it get diffused. And finally we should see about the reception of the final product to analyze the critics. All these three parts are closely related and represent the aspect of social power that plays role in the performance. The authors of the movie are Gejza Dezorz and Jozef Palenik. The movie is a piece-work. It was completed on order. Authors stated: if there was no request and no money, there would be no movie. When I was doing the interview, they pointed out there was no personal interest behind the movie: No obsession, just a product ordered, investors and the professionals who put it in reality. One of the main partners of the movie was the media: Slovak commercial television JOJ, daily press SME and a tabloid journal PLUS JEDEN DEN. The aim was to create commercially interesting and successful movie, which will attract audience to the cinemas 109. The intention was to fill up the market hole, a void period after Christmas. So the movie had to be produced very quickly one month for the script, few days of shooting and 16 days of postproduction. The materials that served as the basis of the script were obtained from the partner media. Other materials were hard to get. As the authors stated: There were media fights. You could not get or use anything from the other side. Everything was bought, like on the market, we have apples, you have pears After collecting the materials, author themselves made the selection process of what was interesting enough, and produced a script. The success of the movie depends on the quality of the PR campaign. One of the main reasons for the movie to be produced, according to the authors, is self-promotion. The investors media and a marketing advert firm gorilla.sk took care of the promotion. There were lots of billboards and posters hanging around Bratislava. These were provided for free, in exchange for logo publication. Authors believe that the topic is a very good marketing campaign and pulls attraction of the public. They suggest that the commercial interest was strong since the topic drags attention. There is going to be so many people watching. It is nothing else, then a piece of advertisement110. The intention was clear, to address the people and give them what they want. What is most important about the distribution is the fact that the media partners have the intention to spread the movie. Since it is commercially interesting, the movie is going to be in DVD distribution. There is a plan to screen it on the nationwide level during the first event
109 110

The full wording of the order, in the interview. Excerpt from the interview.

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anniversary. It has thus huge potential to become the official version of what happened, where and to whom. As for the critique, the media mostly perceived the authors as scavengers who want to profit from the severity of the tragedy.111 About the actual critique the main problem with the

movie was seen as the inauthenticity of the intention of the authors. The commercial interest prevailed and the authors were widely criticized for doing advertisement and marketing to tragedies112. The fact that they could be making money on suffering was inacceptable for most of the critics. The authors disagree with such opinion and claim that the commerce is everywhere. It is upon the critics to cooperate with the authors to create audience space instead of audience depression (a phenomenon of the lack of interest in Slovak movies. They see the reason of the critique solely in the Slovak mentality, which considers everything wrong, no matter what you actually do. To sum up it is important to note the inner fragmentation of the character of the movie reception. It was criticized on two bases. First, for the inauthenticity of the authors, who were perceived as scavengers, interested only in the commercial profit. This critique points towards the inability to fuse upon the level of means of symbolic production. Second, it was perceived inauthentic due to the mise en scne. The critics mostly disapproved with the character of the scenic part of the movie. These were considered inappropriate. This might point towards the inability to achieve fusion on the level of mise en scne. However, there was no critique questioning the authenticity of the presented narrative, nor of the presented script. The story as such was fused. It was just the expressive language used that was perceived as problematic. In other words despite the fact that the expressive part of the movie didnt achieve fusion, all the other parts were perceived as more or less authentic. The story about the Inadaptable victims and Ordinary suffering seems to be credible.

Conclusion
Once we understand how social processes create appearances of truth we will grasp that we, as analysts, can have the effect of helping groups and actors separate themselves from an unthinking fusion with social performances. At the same time, we also know that the process of
111 112

See Attachment 5 Reaction from the Czechoslovakian film database web site.

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separation usually happens only when people are already committed to something else. So, you do not just sit there as an isolated intellectual without any pre-commitments or presuppositions. You are applying reason but in a non-rational manner.
(Alexander in Carballo, Cordero, Ossandn, 2008:528-9)

The existence of this thesis is the result of several accidents. I first studied this topic in December. Back then, there was silence prevailing around the events. In February, upon arrival back from my travels, I was greeted by an email113 with a picture portraying the perpetrator. It was how I learned about the movie. Due to previous interest, I was curious to see the way in which it represented the situation and the character of the victims and the perpetrator. So I went to see it. It was fascinating to follow how the previously unexpected occurrence of Bratislava shooting gained autonomy and became recognized as Devnsky masaker. What puzzled me, when I first learned about the situation, was the lightness and speed of the emergence of open expressions of hatred. The internet discussion servers were flooded by them, the moment we learned about the possibility of the victims being Roma. It was even more puzzling, since despite that we learned the Roma ethnicity was a misinformation, the prejudiced opinions and expressions of hate remained present. The word Roma disappeared from the discourse, but the stereotypical traits that served as basis for the victim blaming received the Inadaptable designation and are still in place today. Both the transformation of the meaning struggle and the position of the Roma minority in Slovakia were subject of this research. They were the two areas covered by the research questions. Within this conclusion I account for them and sum up the answers. I do so by first summing up the theoretical background I used for the analysis and the theoretical implications that this analysis brought. Then I examine the analytical findings. I directly answer the research questions. Last, I present the importance of the findings and suggest possible follow up. Within this thesis I analyzed the absence of a cultural trauma resulting from the Bratislava shooting. I did so by focusing upon the process of meaning struggle that took place after the event. To accomplish the intended goals, I used three analytical frameworks of the cultural
113

Thanks to Gabor, for letting me know.

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sociology paradigm. These were the civil sphere, the cultural trauma theory and the social performance framework. I argue that while studying cultural trauma process, it is highly convenient to combine the scope of these three research projects. Ron Eyerman (2011), while studying cases of political assassination, claims that to fully understand the process how the trauma emerges, we should not only study the cultural trauma script but also the way it is put into action. He suggests combining the cultural trauma framework with cultural pragmatics to account for the transformation of the potentially traumatic occurrence into a traumatic event. I agree, and add, that if cultural trauma is to generate questions about the character of the collectivity that it affects (Alexander, Eyerman, Giesen et al, 2004), then it is also necessary to focus upon the social fabric underlying this collectivity. We can do so by the aid of civil sphere framework. This allows us to study the binary codes that define the civil and uncivil character of social groups. It also accounts for how social collectivities hold together by the aid of social solidarity. I argue, that the state of the civil sphere, the binary oppositions and the regulative and communicative institutions within it enables us to grasp the character of the present collectivity and thus to capture the cultural background of the trauma performance. In the first analytical section, I used the civil sphere framework to portray the fragmentation of the civil sphere in Slovakia. I presented the binary opposition of ordinary versus Inadaptable. This binary code underlies the character of the present social fabric. The term Inadaptable can be seen as a euphemistic designation of Roma ethnicity. It is symptomatic to what Vaeka (2010), refers to as the ethnization of the civil sphere. I argued, that despite seemingly dropping the ethnic designation, by not referring to the ethnicity of the victims, the socio-psychological characteristics, stereotypically ascribed to the Roma minority, still remain in place. I demonstrated that their uncivility might still be referred to by the aid of the Inadaptable euphemism. I then focused upon the trauma drama and the representation of the suffering. By the aid of cultural trauma framework, I followed several narratives that defined the victims and the perpetrator. I accounted for the uncertainty of victimhood ascription, showing that there were three different types of victims represented along the media reports: the target victims114, the random victim and the perpetrator115. It was the civil and uncivil character of these victims that
114 115

The labels were selected to underline the designated character of the different types of victims. Who was also listed among the victims.

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was object to meaning struggle. Their civility was questioned and they were defined by the aid of the ordinary/Inadaptable binary code. The meaning process took place throughout the series of smaller narrative occurrences. I argued that it was due to the misleading116 reportage of the TV Markza, that the target victims became referred to as Inadaptable. This Inadaptability prevented psychological identification of the wider collectivity with the victims suffering. On the contrary, the uncivil character of their perceived Inadaptability became symptomatic of a deeper fragmentation already present in the Slovak society. It was the majority of the ordinary people that were represented as suffering. The suffering of the ordinary was seen as twofold. It is not only that the innocent majority of decent people suffer from the polluting threat of the uncivil minority, but their security is also threatened by perpetrators act. His motives and his character are strived for within the selfproclaimed documentary Devnsky masaker. This movie was presented as an objective summary of the Bratislava shooting event. Therefore I considered it as a case of social performance. I analyzed its narrative, its pragmatics and the power relations affecting it. I did so to be able to account for the way in which the movie strived to represent the events. It refers to the target victims as Inadaptable. It literally designates the random victim as the only innocent one. It presents the uncivil character of the victims as possible source of the suffering of the perpetrator. As I have shown, it is he who represents the main character. He is portrayed as a decent man and as an ordinary citizen and the audience is invited to identify with him. To sum up, there were two main questions that this thesis strived to answer: Why did the meaning struggle triggered by the events not result in generating collectivity and collective solidarity?

The victims were first represented as Roma. Their ethnicity served to provide explanation of the perpetrators act. Roma are the most negatively perceived minority group in Slovak society. They represent the ultimate Other. The information about their ethnicity provoked an outburst of racial hatred. The victims were represented as members of an abusive social group; collectivity. They were seen as the primary source of the attack. Their problematic character
116

The reportage supposingly presented the victims of the shooting. It was only afterwards, that we learned that the identity of the Inadaptable women did not correspond.

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immediately justified the perpetrators action. The ethnicity of the victims can in no democratic society be considered as explanation for murder. Blaming the victims, especially based upon their ethnic belonging, is seen as uncivil. As such, it was spoken against by the human rights watchdog, People against Racism. As we could see, their appeal was unsuccessful. Despite that the ethnic designation was dropped, the uncivil character of the victims remained present. They were just relabeled from Roma to Inadaptable. This relabeling allowed the de-ethnization of the discourse. Their uncivility was no longer defined in terms of their ethnicity, but in terms of the inherent cultural and/or psychological -Inadaptability. It was in nobodys interest to represent their suffering. There was no more space for racism accusation, since there no longer was any Othering based upon racial traits. There was no carrier group to represent the victims. It was nobodys agency to re-narrate the story. The victims, defined as Inadaptable were in no case to be considered one of Us (Ordinary ones) and there was thus no space for psychological identification. Could there be an explanation for the absence of cultural trauma in the actual state of the present collectivity?

According to the results of my analysis, it is not only because of the inability to appoint victimhood, but also because of the inability to represent the character of the victims as civil, that prevented the generation of cultural trauma. Since the Inadaptable victims are not see as legitimate members of Slovak collectivity, their suffering does not generate identification. There is no cultural trauma present, since the situation became symptomatic of a deeper underlying fragmentation present in the Slovak civil sphere. This fragmentation, represented by the binary opposition of ordinary versus Inadaptable, became the explanatory framework of the traumatic occurrence. This became understood as the double suffering of the ordinary citizens, who suffered from the attack as much as they suffer from the polluting influence of the uncivil minority that lied at its heart117. This thesis, with its findings, is important for defining the character of the civil sphere in Slovakia. It is because it questions the civility of Slovak collectivity and point towards its already mentioned ethnization. It also questions the level of incorporation of the Roma minority into the Slovak collectivity. It demonstrates the widespread acceptance of the perceived
117

The victims are blamed to be the trigger of the perpetrators act.

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Inadaptability of the members of the minority group. It points towards the problematic depiction of the character of the minority within Slovak media as much as towards the absence of political representation that would question the authenticity and legitimacy of such depiction. It points out, that Roma serve as the Inadaptable Other to contrast the Ordinary character of Slovak Citizens. The question remains, who are these ordinary citizens and what are they like? There are several things that could serve as a follow up to the findings of this thesis. To support the argument about the problematic representation of the character of the victims and the perpetrator, there could be an analysis focusing upon the iconicity of the expressive language, used along the meaning struggle. This would mean to analyze the visual materials that accompanied the articles, the pictures from the crime scne and the material that was brought along. It would also require thick analytical description of the visual and musical language of the movie. It is also necessary to focus upon the audience reception. The result of the meaning struggle cant be analyzed without necessary temporal distance. It also requires analytical tools that allow capturing the public opinion and studying the prevailing narrative resulting from the meaning struggle. This thesis could serve as the analytical background for operationalization and construction of indicators that would allow public opinion polling before and after the anniversary and the movie screening. The results of such polling could serve to validate the findings of this thesis or to prove their inadequacy. And last, but not least, this thesis opened a wider question about the fundamental cultural codes defining the character of the Slovak collectivity. It is the ascription of civility, connected to the Ordinary citizen status that generates questions. The bottom line of this research, that remains open, is: Who are the Ordinary citizens? And what are the characteristic traits one needs to bear to become one?

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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Alexander, Jeffrey C. 1984. Three Models of Culture and Society Relations: Toward an Analysis of Watergate. Sociological Theory, 2:290-314. Alexander, Jeffrey C. 1992. Citizen and Enemy as Symbolic Classification: On the Polarizing Discourse of Civil Society, in Michele Lamont and Marcel Fournier (eds.) Cultivating Differences: Symbolic Boundaries and the Making of Inequality, pp. 289308. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Alexander, Jeffrey C. 1998. Civil Societies Between Difference and Solidarity. Theoria 45 (92):1-14 Alexander, Jeffrey C. 2002. On the social construction of moral universalism: The Holocaust from war crime to trauma drama. European Journal of Social Theory, 5(5):5-85. Alexander, Jeffrey C. 2003. The Meanings of Social Life. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Alexander, Jeffrey C. 2004a. Cultural Pragmatics: Social Performance between Ritual and Strategy Sociological Theory 22(4): 527573 .

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Name Index
Alexander, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 30, 31, 37, 38, 50, 55, 59, 62, 63 Bancroft, 31, 32, 33 Bedn, 28 Breese, 19 Cangr, 54 Carballo, 8, 11, 23, 62 Clifford, 25, 26 Cordero, 8, 11, 23, 62 Czwitkovics, 27 Eyerman, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 30, 37, 48, 63 Gallov Kriglerov, 31, 32, 33, 72 Geertz, 26 Giesen, 16, 18, 19, 63 Hall, 17 Heins, 19 Hojsk, 33 Kadlekov, 33 Lafleur, 54 Lajkov, 33 Langenohl, 19 Lerner, 16, 37 Marcus, 25 Martiniello, 54 Mast, 17 Miku, 33, 34 Ossandn, 8, 11, 23, 62 Smith, 11, 12, 13, 14 Turner, 21 Vaeka, 32, 63

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