But why. «Zionists out of the march». «Fascist Israel, terrorist state». It’s a beautiful sunny day, there are at least one hundred thousand people. Corso Venezia is full of elderly people who cherish the memory, and young people who intend to cultivate its seeds. Associations and schools, the phoenix of Milanese civil society rising again from its ashes, an even more accentuated sensation this year of rediscovery of the profound meaning of this anniversary.
And we must talk about this disgrace, about this minority and about its own proselytism who take the stage, who stain the anti-fascist April 25th, shouting fascists at the children and grandchildren of people who died in concentration camps, reduced to silence, Please do not respond to the provocations, the agents implore while they parade with signs which in some cases reproduce a series of numbers, those engraved on the wrists of their grandparents in Auschwitz, in Dachau. “Stick those numbers up your arse.”
At 2pm there is no room left even for a pin, the notes of Bella ciao resound. But we’re not leaving. Can not be done. Someone prevents it. Halfway down the street, in front of a hamburger shop, about forty members of the Resistance support committees for communism, otherwise called CARC, acronym that was supposed to be extinct, or almost. Few, but aggressive. They wait for the “assassins” to pass, so they shout into megaphones.
We can’t start like this. Mayor Beppe Sala remains planted in the middle of the Milan Municipality band that opens the procession. Wait, like everyone else. They don’t move. The police don’t want to charge, it’s certainly not a day for truncheons. The Jewish Brigade and the other groups are forced back in the procession, “please lower the banners if you can” is the advice given by the police, and positioned behind the Ukrainian flags, as if the latter could act as a pass.
A pious illusion. «From Donbass to Palestine, liberation from the murderous NATO», so says the largest of the Carc banners. The avenue becomes a bottleneck. The passage of the various Jewish associations, «foreign and hostile bodies protected by a platoon of policemen» and those of deportees are marked by shameful insults. “Eighty years ago they burned and incinerated you and now you do the same thing.”
This last sentence does not come from the mouth of a militant, but from that of a distinguished and bejeweled lady, supposedly from the good Milanese bourgeoisie. Also a tourist dragging her trolley looking for her hotel says “shitty Jews” to the interlocutor with whom he speaks on the telephone.
The Carc are the trigger. But there are quite a few who follow their lit fuse. “You’re like the Nazis”, the most common insult. Luckily, we will always have the tolerant and supportive Milan. From the open windows, from passers-by on the sidewalks and from the tail end of the procession applause arrives aimed at the Jewish Brigade and to the other associations, and to the children who carry the banner of the Roma and Sinti, “exterminated yesterday, discriminated against today”.
Up to Piazza del Duomo, never seen so full in the last ten years. The crowd is such that the queue of a procession, however split up to keep incompatible realities as far apart as possible, will arrive at 6pm, when everything is over. But the space in front of the stage has been occupied since early afternoon. Grassroots unions, social centers, Power to the People, Young Palestinians, the university students of Cambiare route. The statue of Vittorio Emanuele II is wrapped in a Palestinian flag.
Sala speaks first and is the first to be challenged. This is the fate that befalls all the guests who take turns on stage, except ad Antonio Scurati. The writer reads his monologue censored by Rai and at the end is hugged by Elly Schlein, which was there but was rarely seen, unlike the leaders of Action and Italia viva who have chose to stand in the front row with the Jewish Brigade. The sound of beautiful and intense speeches is muffled by shouting. The quote from Vittorio Foathe radio appeal of Sandro Pertini and the memory of the martyrdom of Bruno Buozzi. The family album of the best Italy is opened in front of people who don’t give a damn about the resistance, the partisans and the “continuous removal of the ignominy of fascism” denounced by the mayor of Milan.
I’m not here for that. «Let the Palestinians speak», «Nazi Israel». Signs «before and after” equate the swastika of the Third Reich and the Star of David. A girl of North African origin waves a doll completely wrapped in a white clotha clear reference to the Islamic funeral and to the children killed in Gaza by the Israeli army.
It’s the most beautiful and also the ugliest April 25th, says a law enforcement volunteer of the Anpi while trying to stand between the most excited and the Celere who is forming a cordon around the stage. Of course, adds one of his colleagues, but they have some reason, last year the Ukrainians made them talk. There is an atmosphere like an away match, with the speakers insisting on reading their texts in front of people who don’t listen, ignoring the whistles and insults. An anger that does not subside even when the president of the Anpi Gianfranco Pagliarulo asks Italy to recognize the Palestinian state.
Afterwards, there will be the inevitable rush on the part of the institutions present to belittle, cut off and silence. It’s always sad when parties are ruined, at least partially. In the Cathedral square which empties and immediately fills up with tourists waiting their turn, there remains a group of girls dancing in the churchyard. Each of them holds a sign in their hands On one side it says “W l’Italia”. On the other, “free and anti-fascist”. double-sided cardboard.
