“The ongoing elections, both at the level of the electoral campaign before the vote and of “advertising” evaluations of the vote taken, even more than any serious analysis of the results, should be seen as a foretaste of what awaits us in the next regional elections. And also, regardless of whether they are anticipated or not, municipal ones.
We are referring to the “anti-fascism game”. Wait a moment before shouting at us the anti-fascists because we are not talking about serious anti-fascism here. Nor about ridiculing it. Ravenna in Comune has nothing to learn nor to be taught about the practice of anti-fascism nor about the risks of fascism in Italy and also in Ravenna. The memory of the Resistance and the fight against fascism has been with us since our birth, it is in the appeal that we launched nine years ago and will never be abandoned. We can boast without fear of denial of having had Mussolini removed from the list of honorary citizens of our city and of having induced the inclusion of explicit adhesion to anti-fascism as a prerequisite for obtaining public spaces in the city. There are countless institutional but also “grassroots” demonstrations in which we have participated or promoted to push back into those sewers from which every now and then the shame of a fascism that is both nostalgic and “in step with the times” re-emerges. Period.
When we talk about the “anti-fascist game” we mean that phenomenon by which the centre-left and the PD in particular, as an election approaches, calls for a vote to counter the current black tide that seems to materialise only at that moment.
There are no substantial differences between what the centre-right and centre-left express once they settle in Rome or in the suburbs. Not on the economic level, on the rights and protection of the working class, on war and peace, nor on any of those elements that represent adherence to neoliberal dogma. We have seen how quickly Meloni & co. have adapted to the policies pursued by the group led by Draghi and by the coalition of PD and 5 Stars before that. With the exception of 10% of carefully emphasized distinctions, for 90% the policies of the centre-right are indistinguishable from those of the centre-left. Here then is the usefulness of the “anti-fascism game” pulled out at the right time.
Even if the 90% or more of policies in common between the center-right and the center-left may not be shared, the vote for the center-left of every self-respecting anti-fascist should be ensured precisely by the need to close the door to that fascism that, according to a story that is at least 30 years old, the center-right would like to let in. Or at least that is what the PD expects. It is a “game” that has been going on at least since Berlusconi formally supported Fini’s candidacy, as secretary of the MSI, for mayor of Rome in 1993 and allied himself with the MSI itself, bringing it to government the following year. So since then fascism has been coming in and out of that door. And it should be remembered that when the right finds itself in crisis, it is precisely the center-left that revitalizes its fortunes in order to continue “the game”. Does anyone still remember the abyss into which the Lega of the last Bossi had fallen before Matteo Salvini became a permanent presence on all the public television channels controlled by the center-left? And what about the “clearance” of Giorgia Meloni and Fratelli d’Italia insistently pursued by the secretary of the PD Enrico Letta himself? FdI which in the previous elections had just barely passed the threshold…
Regional elections will be held between October and November and the centre-right and centre-left have not yet revealed their cards. But we remember well those sardines that popped out of the can with the usual timing to counter the risk of a return of fascism, right before the 2020 elections, and then disappeared into thin air as soon as the task was finished. And today Bonaccini, the very one who vouched for Meloni as a non-fascist, before submitting his resignation finds time to stigmatize the fascist risk that would only now emerge from nowhere. And de Pascale (de Pascale!) is coming to give us a lesson in anti-fascism on April 25th starting from the Constitution. That same Constitution that he wanted to tear to pieces by supporting Renzi’s upheavals.
The context helps, of course. We look at Germany. At France. We highlight the results of European parties that, if they do not declare themselves fascist, certainly summarize all the characteristics. We hear about surveys in which we discover what we already knew, that is, that a party that keeps the reference to the MSI in its symbol does so because it continues to share those values. And if for a long time they have been repeated as if they were legitimate aberrant concepts, such as the precedence to be given according to race, religion, etc., we should not be surprised if then figures who explicitly express those same concepts are nominated. And they even receive many votes.
We repeat it. Ravenna in Comune believes in anti-fascism and in its non-rhetorical relevance. This does not mean that we agree to the “game of anti-fascism” without denouncing its objectives and authors. One thing must be clear. We were not ready and ready for the holy alliance with the center-left sealed by anti-fascism in the 2016 municipal elections, we did not accept the “little game” in the 2020 regional elections and the subsequent 2021 municipal elections, and we will not agree to the “little game” at the next regional in autumn. Nor at the subsequent municipal elections when there will be. Among our values, anti-fascism is constituent but this does not mean that we are willing and willing to bow our heads to that neoliberalism which, through the mouth of the PD, declares itself anti-fascist only when it suits it!”
Ravenna in the Municipality
