There is a controversial “tail” for April 25th in Gallarate and for the choices of the mayor Andrea Cassani. AND It’s not the forces of the left who are speakingbut the most centrist and moderate area, on a city level and on a cultural level.
«I want to make this clear: for the first time the Municipality of Gallarate as an institution did not bring flowers to the war memorial and to the monument to the Resistance, a great lack of respect” he said Massimo Gnocchimunicipal councilor of the civic Gallarate Municipality Objective. Opposition force, but with civic and centrist positions. The point is this: with the cancellation of the parade, the administration he was not present at the passage to the war memorial in Piazza Risorgimentowhere they were the wreaths of flowers and the flags, the latter carried by the Alpini and Bersaglieri.
This passage was also noticed by some former soldiers who – despite not having participated in the procession – did not miss the lack of “personal” homage to the Fallen (even if, it must be said, this, like the monument to Garibaldi, was however regularly “decorated”). Someone else, on the contrary, chose to follow the procession right up to Piazza Risorgimento and the monument to those who lost their way in the war.
The crown brought by Anpi to the war memorial
On another front, more on content than form, one a firm position instead comes from the Italian Mazzinian Association, an association that harks back to the national and Risorgimento character of April 25th, rather than the political one: the Mazzini supporters of Gallara «after having listened to and shared the lecture by Prof. Armocida who invited young people to remember so as not to repeat the mistakes of the past” they expressed “disapproval for the speech given by the mayor of the city of Gallarate”, says a note signed by the president of the Ami Michele Rusca.
The Mazzinians believe that «far from being a celebratory speech, it has offended the memory of those who fought for democratic ideals of freedom and justice» and consider it «serious to have wantedor drag the memory of the end of fascism into a low-grade political controversy and of the victory of the Resistance and the partisan struggle.”
Three years ago, the Mazzinians promoted with Anpi the laying of the “stumbling stones” in Gallarate which commemorate two victims of the Shoah and a victim of Nazi repression in Italy. The installation was part of a process shared with the municipal administration, thanks also to the work of the culture councilor of the time (the civic citizen Massimo Palazzi, who is also president of the Società di Studi Patri). A process that was completed in 2022 with Mayor Cassani, in a different phase.
Among the first associations to move, the Mazziniana week shared – together with other associations and parties – Anpi’s decision to hold the procession, which proved to be well attended, with over five hundred people arriving in Piazza Libertà and Largo Camussi, as well as someone more who stopped in Piazza Risorgimento (someone by choice, wanting to get – precisely – at least to the monument to the Fallen. For the Mazzinians «the broad and composite participation in the procession» represents «the best response to the attempt to diminish the scope of the celebration of April 25th”.
For the rest, the demonstration was deserted by the Gallaratese centre-right, even if there was – in private – some distance from “downsizing”. Officially, however, no one lined up from the line mayor Cassani, who kept the ranks of his majority compact“against” the street response.
