But is it necessary to “keep the bar straight on anti-fascism as President Mattarella says?” asks the presenter of Agorà, the Rai3 program in its edition on Saturday 27 April, to Massimo Cacciari. For the philosopher the problem should not even arise. “If there is a radically anti-fascist Constitution, it is ours”, replies the former mayor of Venice who recalls that in our Charter “it is stated that being fascist or starting or organizing something that has to do with fascism is a crime. More that’s enough.” In short, anti-fascism is part of the “presuppositions” of the Constitution, “it is no longer a political discourse because there is no danger on the face of the earth of a return to fascism, Nazism or totalitarianism of the type of the first half of the twentieth century”.
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Then Cacciari takes things further by undermining the instrumental attacks of the left, amplified by the case of Antonio Scurati’s monologue missed on Rai. “To wave this danger”, i.e. the return of fascism, “is either stupid or instrumental”, explains the philosopher. In short, being anti-fascist today “only means implementing and strengthening the cultural-political design of our Constitution, period”. Here Cacciari addresses those who raise the bogeyman: “Tell me what reforms they want to make on schools, on healthcare, how they want to defend today when the interests of all the middle and less well-off classes are under tremendous threat – argues the former oracle of the left – tell me about this because being anti-fascist means only this.” If, however, “you warn me of dangers represented by some return to the past, you are either stupid or ignorant – concludes Cacciari – or you are someone who exploits”.
