Doug Dowd's latest letter from Bologna:
In Italy, the 25th of April is “Liberation Day.” It was the day in 1945 when the
Italian and German fascists finally were militarily defeated in Italy and that
Italian fascism came to an end — as did Mussolini, hanging by his feet in his
northern hideout. I was asked to participate in the celebration in Modena; whereby
hangs this story.
I live in Bologna, and for the past seven years have been teaching at the
University of Modena (a 20-minute commute by train). Both are on “the red belt of
Italy,” with Bologna as its buckle. During the war, those two cities provided
thousands of the Partigiani of the Resistenza. A high percentage of them were
killed and countless numbers were wounded.
(In the public squares of both cities are huge walls covered still with more than
two thousand photographs — old photographs — of those were killed. At least a
thousand of the dead were from Modena — from in the war years, a total population
of less than 50,000).
Well. I received an e-mail a while back asking if I would give a speech in one of
Modena’s public squares on April 25. I was asked by a young man who is the
boyfriend of the daughter of the preside (dean) of my faculty. After some
reflection, I e-mailed back and said OK.
Why the need for reflection? Because the group organizing the demonstration is not
one of my favorites. Its name, politely translated, is “UP YOURS!” — directed at
virtually all politicians and all groups, including those left of center.
UP YOURS! is the creation of Beppe Grillo, an entertainer very popular especially
amongst the angry young and disenchanted. In Italy, as with the USA, it is easy to
be largely contemptuous of all political groups. But I stoutly maintain that that
disgust has to be tempered and dealt with constructively, lest the Right take over
without even working up a sweat. I wanted to make my point.
So...given that bit of reflection, plus my affection for the young man and his
family, I said OK. Then began to think through the politics of my talk. The aim
became to ascertain a way to convince the young people to express at least some of
their anger by also finding some way to do some work with others who also know
this society is cruel and dangerous and insane and–
Given the membership of the Grillo group, it was not surprising to find that the
major attraction was not the nearly nonagenarian yours truly, but a VERY loud rock
band. Fortunately, I was to speak before the music began and in a nutshell this is
what I said...
1. The intrawar fascism of Italy and German (et al.) was ended in 1945, but
fascism itself was not.
2. The USA in one way and another paved the way for fascism in Iran and South
Korea (in the 1950s), in the Congo in the 1960s, and in Chile in the 1970s (among
other such “achievements”).
3. Because of the interactions of globalization and speculative finance since the
1970s, the world is now facing severe economic crises and environmental disaster.
4. We face the prospect of permanent wars — all of these facilitated by
consumerism and by today’s many-weaponed giant media’s “consciousness industry”
and its “mind managers” — all aided and abetted by the always deeper corruption of
politicians, journalists, doctors, professors, et al. Put together, these are
steadily paving the way for what has been called “friendly fascism” (Bertram
Gross, 1980). How can fascism be friendly? By being a totalitarian and always more
unequal society and more militaristic society run by and for the neo-cons and
their big biz heroes; but achieved without the without the need for sustained
violence at home or concentration camps — just a few thousand in prison (or
killed). And those not on the bottom rungs (or ungratefully dead or political
prisoners) go on shopping.
Getting to the overall point: I concluded by arguing that it is already very late
for competing groups to realize that they have a lot in common and that it’s time
for all of us to get politically serious and work together to change this society
from the bottom up — before the topside blows all of us off the face of whatever
earth is left.
And that all of that applies to Italy, as well as to the USA, given the recent
election, won easily by Berlusconi, with the substantial help of the the Lega
Nord’s Bossi — both winning by their largest ever margins. Berlusconi, one of the
richest men in Europe, is an always-smiling Mussolini in a business suit and
necktie, and Bossi is quite simply a thug. Yet they won. And won handily.
Adolph and Benito are doubtless smiling in their graves.
So we have to stop playing games, work together even if we don’t like each other,
even though we disagree on this and that; for all MUST understand (as the Italian
and German Lefts did not until it was too late in the 1920s and 1930s), MUST
understand that there is no way to hold back fascism — friendly or unfriendly —
unless all sane and decent people work hard to work together.
Davvero.
Doug
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