Fascism in Italy Today
On Saturday 3 February 2018, there was a drive-by shooting in Macerata, a city in central Italy. A man wounded 6 people from his car, all African immigrants, in their 20s and early 30s. Luca Traini, the man who committed the attack, got off his car wrapped in an Italian flag with his hand raised in a fascist salute while yelling “Viva l’Italia!”. This was without a doubt a display of racial hatred, carried out by far-right extremism.
Authorities in Italy later stated that during a search of Traini’s home they found a copy of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf and a flag of a Celtic cross, a symbol commonly used by white supremacists. Traini, who has a neo-nazi symbol tattooed on his forehead, has become the center of many political conversations in the past days, especially with the Italian elections coming up in March.
Leaders of the centre-right parties, such as Matteo Salvini and Giorgia Meloni, have blamed the incident on immigration and the chaos it supposedly causes. They both have been particularly eager to point a finger towards the left parties of Italy. Salvini went as far as saying that “the left has blood on their hands”. Even more overtly, the far-right party Forza Nuova, meaning New Power, has come out in complete support of the shooter. In fact, they even offered to cover his legal fees.
Forza Nuova has been an active party for a long time, and yet only recently has it started to gather momentum. This is due to the fact that, while the whole world wasn’t watching, Forza Nuova planned and executed a second march on Rome. The neo-Fascist demonstration was supposed to take place on October 28th, which is the anniversary of the original March in 1922, led by Benito Mussolini. Italian authorities prohibited it, so the group marched just a few days after, on November 4th. The crowd of over 2000 people had their hands raised in a fascist-salute, carrying flags with neo-nazi symbols and the party’s propaganda posters. Undoubtedly, it was not anywhere close in magnitude to the original, but the message was clear.
This might come as a shocking event to many people outside of Italy, knowing it as the country of “la bella vita”. Yet, sadly, Italy has once again become a growing hub of neo-fascism. Sixty-eight years have passed since World War Two ended in Italy and one would assume that fascist ideals would’ve since been erased from Italians’ minds. However, in spite of this, the fascist sentiment is strong in many Italians, old and young.
In schools, the history of Fascism is taught in a negative light and yet, strangely, Benito Mussolini is still seen as a hero: the main figure in a golden era of law and order. In fact, the war and the Holocaust are often seen as secondary concern, undermined by the incredible economy Mussolini built up. His place of birth, the northern town Predappio is a destination of a fascist pilgrimage, which is visited by 50,000 people each year, all with a sense of nostalgia.
The neo-fascism in Italy has been feeding off the large number of Italians that have strong beliefs of homophobia, racism, and radical nationalism. It seems that, since Italy’s true fascist past is not often brought up, many Italians have the tendency to only see the positive aspects of the fascist regime. Thus, the country has not entirely been able to overcome its past, which means that it is harder to develop preventive measures and protect the new generations from committing the same mistake. Giorgio Frassinetti from the Partito Democratico (Democratic Party), and mayor of Predappio, was quoted saying: “We need to slap Italians in the face with what fascism really was.”
To be able to acknowledge their past and learn from it, Italians need to first fully know about it.
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