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Anonymous

ByAnonymous, Anonymous

Opinion

Mussolini’s Italian legacy lives on

March 31, 2013 17:00
2 min read

Silvio Berlusconi is one of the most colourful and controversial characters in western politics. Understandably, his recent praise of Benito Mussolini caused international outrage. The media tycoon and former Italian PM essentially argued that Italy’s racial laws were imposed on the country by Hitler, and Mussolini did much that was good.

Such comments about its fascist past are hardly new in Italy, where there have been many attempts at rehabilitating Mussolini. Fascism has been represented as moderate and acceptable and Mussolini’s policies as, at worst, tolerable.

But this obscures the political and electoral agenda underlying such whitewashing. Berlusconi’s anti-communist rhetoric, for instance, is often very attractive for far-right activists.

It is too easily forgotten that from the 1990s Berlusconi governed with neo-fascists and the Northern League. He is now allied with La Destra (The Right), a party founded in 2007 by the former governor of Lazio (Rome’s region), Francesco Storace. The Rome Jewish Community attacked La Destra in July 2012 when it took part in a meeting titled “Open the doors to the rebels”, which was attended by hardline neo-fascists, historical revisionists and well known antisemites, alongside activists from other parties.