Postcard from Littoria
A place like no others
There are few movies that I love more than Porco Rosso. There’s something special in the story of a heroic aviator with the name of a famous italian artist and the curious sembiance of a pig.
I understood later that part of the fascination for this movie comes from the atmosphere in which is set, a world between fantasy and real history. It taps into a vivid feeling of familiarity and nostalgia, with images of sunny rivieras and the recognizable fashion of early 1900. But it’s a Belle Époque shadowed by the constant presence of a fascist threat underneath and the prelude for darker times ahead. It’s an alternative world that, as Italian, I can immediately recognize: it’s us, it’s our history.
I noticed how it’s the same feeling I’m experiencing in these strange times: there are echoes of war not too far from here and people that go on with their lives as nothing happened. There’s still enthusiasm in the air, but you can sense that there’s also a palpable tension among the people. Like if something can break at any point. It feels like the last century is all over again.
This déjà vu feeling is also reinforced by the current administration. Twentytwentytwo is the anniversary of the infamous “March on Rome” that kickstarted the fascist regime in Italy. 100 years later, a party with the same ideological roots is democratically elected with a large majority. History repeats itself with striking precision and irony.
Is sad to realize how apparently history hasn’t taught anything and we’re starting all over from the same point.
But come on, don’t be so dramatic! Do you really see fascism today? Do you see people wearing funny hats and going around kicking oppositors? Don’t be silly.
See, the word “fascism” has become somehow prohibited in Italy today. It has become the f- word. That “thing” you know it exists but you can’t really say out loud. And yet, it’s still there, hidden in plain sight.
And it’s a game in which the current government and all its supporters seem to have a lot of fun playing.
The rules are simple, it’s like the fight club: you do not talk about the fight club. The goal is also simple: the rehabilitation of the fascist doctrine back into society.
It now has to appear palatable, moderate, middle-bourgeois. Not a crime forbidden by the Constitution anymore, but just an idea like any other in the big plurality of opinions allowed by social media. This was the goal of the project launched by Giorgio Almirante to whitewash the regime and made it compatable to the new democratic rules.
The raise to power of Giorgia Meloni is the final realization of that ideal. She took the heritage of Almirante and brought it from minority party to mass popularity. She may have followed a pristine and democratic process, but the roots are still deep in the past.
She doesn’t even hide it: her party is a walking dog-whistle for nostalgics of the regime, starting even from the flame in the logo. A direct reference to fascist MSI (Italian Social Movement).
She didn’t even have the discretion of a rebranding, like the Swedish Democrats did, adopting a cute and harmless flower. She went straight on with a burning flame.
The situation in Italy feels a little like it’s 1920 all over again. It’s only the beginning, but the signs are all visible.
Sometimes it feels a little bit surreal, like living in an alternative place inside a Ghibli Movie. It’s 2023 and yet it doesn’t feel quite like it.
The secretary of the Minister of Culture is currently on a spree for rehabilitating intellectual figures of the past century, like Gabriele D’Annunzio, l’enfant terrible that greatly inspired the fascist rhetoric, or Giovanni Gentile the philosopher of fascism.
We’re supposed to have moved on from those years and yet we’re still stuck there, dealing with our unresolved ghosts of the past. It’s groundhog day again.
The President of the Senate, elected by this Parliament is a renowned nostalgic of the “duce”, collecting many memorabilia of Mussolini. Now he holds the second highest office of the Republic.
The Prime Minister Meloni is another big player in the fight club game. The secret is to act, scream and walk like a duck but never really say the f- word.
So she “casually” forgets to remember the terrorist act of “Piazza Fontana”, where fascist terrorists shone a bomb in a crowded piazza, killing dozens of people. Not a big deal.
And when its time to remember the killings of civilians by the nazi occupants in the foibe massacres, she’s very careful not to mention any responsibility of the fascist regime at that time. The aligned press is even more blatant in re-writing history, by blaming even the partisans for the massacre.
Like those Putinverstehers that blame Ukraine for any retaliation from the criminal Russian regime. Fascists are always the same everywhere.
That’s what’s going on in Italy right now. The attempt to whitewash the crimes of a dirty history and normalize it, thanks to a complacent government. History is being rewritten to allow it to be repeated in this era.
But don’t call them “f-word”, they get offended.
Call them fuckers.
