President Mattarella calls on Italy to be united against fascism

After days of controversy, the day dedicated to remembering Italy’s liberation from Nazi-fascism opened with an image of unity. The highest officials of the State, like every 25 April, gathered in Rome at the Altar of the Fatherland.

The President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella, the Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, the President of the Senate Ignazio La Russa, the Minister of Defense Guido Crosetto and others all celebrated the day with solemnity.

The victims of Civitella in Val di Chiana

The head of state then flew to Tuscany, to remember one of the many wounds caused by fascism and the pact between Mussolini and Hitler. In Civitella in Val di Chiana, in June 1944, the Nazi-fascists killed 244 people.

These were coldly planned massacres, Mattarella recalled, extolling the values ​​of the partisan struggle and inviting Italian men and women to be united against fascism.

“Unlike their enemies, imbued with the cult of death and war – said Mattarella in Civitella in Val di Chiana -, the patriots of the resistance made use of weapons so that one day they would fall silent, and the world would finally be marked by peace, freedom and justice. Long live Liberation, long live freedom, long live the Republic!”.

The Scurati case

However, the controversy linked to the Antonio Scurati case hovers over this April 25th. The intellectual and biographer of Mussolini was in fact supposed to read a monologue on TV but it was censored.

A decision by the RAI management which had a boomerang effect since the text was talked about more than would otherwise have happened.

Call yourself anti-fascists

“The word (anti-fascist, ed.) that the Prime Minister refused and still refuses to pronounce throbs on the grateful lips of all sincere democrats. Be they left, right or centre”, said Scurati, reading his speech today in the square.

Prime Minister Meloni – criticized in the writer’s text – has for her part published a post on social media in which she does not talk about anti-fascism but says: “The Liberation, with the end of fascism, laid the foundations for the return of democracy”.

Other protests too

Hundreds, thousands of demonstrations in Italy to celebrate the Liberation. And in the larger squares such as Rome and Milan, there are those who have used the stage for a completely different protest.

Associating yesterday’s partisan resistance with today’s Palestinian resistance, some groups have contested the Jewish brigades, perhaps without knowing that they too fought for democracy in Italy 80 years ago.

Protests, counter-celebrations and vandalism

There was no shortage of so-called nostalgics either. In Varese, members of the neo-Nazi group Dodici Raggi (Do.Ra) took the opportunity of April 25 to pay homage “to the comrades killed by the enemy while fighting for their homeland” as their leader Alessandro Limido explained.

Early in the morning, the militants went to the Ganna cemetery and then reached that of Sant’Ambrogio in Varese where the family member of a “comrade killed by the communists without trial” was waiting for them. “These guys died for us, for our values. Our fallen are the heroes of the country. To protect us they accepted their holocaust” added Limido.

The reaction of the Municipality of Varese was immediate, reporting the militants for “failure to comply with administrative measures as well as for other possible crimes”.

In Rome, however, the writing in red paint “Partigano
rapist murderer” appeared today on the tombstone of Forte Bravetta, one of the 15 forts of Rome.

In Turin, during the night, the militants of the extremist movement
right La Barriera hung a banner with the phrase:
“April 25: remember the crimes of the partisans”, later explaining in
a note that the partisans “were guilty of very many
infamous crimes and violence, many of which occurred against women
and civilians, once the war was over. Especially in our city.”

Another neo-fascist “incursion” was finally carried out in
Taranto, where the memorial stone of the partisan Pietro Pandiani, hero
of the Resistance, silver medal for military valor, was
defaced with a Celtic cross imprinted with black paint
right on the word “partisan”.

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