Below are the words
Good morning everyone,
The April 25, 1945 with the liberation of our country from Nazi-fascism, thanks to the sacrifice and struggle of women and men against the regime, the most devastating twenty years in our history ended. In those twenty years, tens of thousands of Italians were persecuted, arrested, confined, tortured, deported and killed because they opposed fascism. Also due to the fascist regime, tens of thousands of our compatriots were sent to invade countries such as Albania, Greece, Ethiopia, the former Yugoslavia, the former Soviet Union, bringing wars and unspeakable suffering to those populations, carrying out real genocides in particular in Libya and Ethiopia. We must never forget all this.
Freedom and democracy today, unfortunately, no longer seem to us to be guaranteed values: as we see every day, the freedom of movement of migrants in the Mediterranean is undermined; as we have seen, this government wants to implement a project of differentiated autonomy which violates our Constitution; we all saw what happened on RAI in recent days (can the word anti-fascist be said on RAI?); Law 194 is today being questioned after the difficult conquests made by feminist movements in the last century.
Faced with openly fascist people in the institutions, faced with the dedication of monuments to fascist hierarchs as the municipality of Affile did a few years ago against Rodolfo Graziani, author of massacres against partisans and against civilian populations in Libya and in Ethiopia, faced with frequent racist chants in Italian stadiums, faced with gender discrimination, it is important to choose a side.
The 25 April it is the celebration of Liberation from fascism, it is not a generic celebration, it is the celebration of those who chose a side, of becoming partisans, of those who fought for the freedom and democracy that we enjoy today.
The 25 April it is a day of living memory, of awareness that the redemption of our country began with the sacrifice of the partisans. Today more than ever, remembering the testimonies of those who fought in the resistance is a fundamental democratic need for the new generations.
We must learn through dialogue and discussion to equip ourselves, study and delve deeper to be able to unmask the culture of hatred; reject the cynicism and indifference of those who portray war as something normal.
I would like to conclude my speech by quoting a part of the art. 11 of our Constitution:
“Italy repudiates war as an instrument of attack on the freedom of other peoples and as a means of resolving international disputes”.
Thank you all for being here today. Happy April 25th! Long live the Resistance!
Alberto Fuschini, President of the ANPI Faenza section
