Speaking of Italy, have you seen Steve Bannon's latest project?:
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-what-does-steve-bannon-want-with-this-italian-monastery-inside-his/
16
Wow. Thank you!
7
The old saying to the effect that people who ignore history are doomed to repeat it applies here--not just to the sad gaggle of racists pictured here pining for the return of a glorious past that never really was as glorious as they imagine--but the broad swath of the world's body politic that failed to recognize that an economic dislocation as severe as the Great Recession--which approached the severity of the Great Depression would once again unleash the ugly forces and resentments that fueled Fascism in the 1930's.
Historical revisionism will not redeem or restore right-wing fascist principles into an organizing system that can run the world--but that fact is lost on men like Trump and Putin, a preening pair of peacocks who have convinced themselves and the suckers who support them that they are smarter than Hitler and Mussolini--and can build a better world with the fascist toolbox.
54
"Indifference, in any age, is all it takes for a child to be ripped from its parents".
"Words that marked the 20th century’s course — Fascism, Communism, totalitarianism, Holocaust — have become weightless in the 21st century, fungible elements in a furious fake-news theater."
This article goes to the level of poetry. Beautiful.
28
Well, this explains why Steve Bannon has found a new home in Italy...
18
Always the NYT 'reporting'...even in OPINION. I can argue these people are the most dangerous people to our societies, yet there you go making laws protecting fascists and far right. There goes our president, being adored by half of America while he spouts nativist White Nationalism. Yeah, this will end well.
8
Roger Cohen writes so well..; one of the best. Thank you.
29
I despise Trump but there have been pro Mussolini sentiment in Italy for a long time now , nothing recent
15
“The Dreams clash
and are shattered-“
EP
6
What is even more remarkable about such a sign is that it completely ignores history. Mussolini was a disaster for Italy but I guess that is just not relevant for some.
14
A soccer club leads the way back to fascism. Unbelievable but probably not much of a threat. More than that is the indifference we see in this scenario and here in the good ole USofA where instead of talking impeachment of a criminal we have people interested more in their health care and infrastructure. Italy has always been hovering between the right and left side of history. Let's hope enough sanity exists to save it once again. Next time it may not have the allies.
8
Last year Steve Bannon was in Italy stirring up the ultra right movement - coincidence?
17
How a mind arrives at these positions of hate, I will never know, other than somebody must be putting them up to it, like these madrasas we hear about in the Islamic world. And, Trump, of all the things he has done, (or not done), I found his words and actions after Charlottesville the most disturbing.
17
As usual, Roger Cohen’s words resonate.
13
The dark epochs of history like Mussolini's Fascist era, or Hitler's Nazi dictatorship keep reviving whenever people cease to be self-governing individuals and look up to the superhuman like saviour to take charge of their lives. The current phase of the rightist revival across the world just points to this reality.
19
The best response to the pro-Mussolini banner was the Liberation Day march in Milan a day later and the large number of young people who attended to celebrate 74 years of peace and democracy in Italy. The main theme of the speakers was reminding the crowd that remembering the end of fascism has to be combined with maintaining ongoing vigilance against it. Talking sense to a thuggish Lazio soccer fan, like a Charlottesville white supremacist, is no mean feat. Thankfully, that’s where the challenge lies right now, trying to communicate and educate. Woe be the day it isn’t enough.
22
There is no word in the article about the cause of the rise of the right, be it in Italy or Germany: Muslim immigration.
Roger was among the cheerleaders of the US invasion of Iraq. That caused a wave of refugees from the Middle East to Europe. But maybe he can't remember his NYT columns in 2002.
22
Yes, take a look at what's happening today in Italy, Roger Cohen. Throwback to Mussolini toxic nationalism in Bella Italia. Fascisti banners in honor of Matteo Salvini, 46 year old ulra-right strongman and most powerful man in Italy? Echos of Benito Mussolini from 28 April 1946, Italian Liberation Day, when he was hung upside down next to his young main squeeze, Clara Petacci by a gas station in Piazzale Loreto, Milan, celebrating the Liberation of Italy. The past is prologue.
How long till we have MAGA banners of fascist display at Trump rallies? Some of us alive today remember when Italy was liberated, when Benito the Bad was held to account for his fascist war crimes with the Nazis. Millions of innocent people in Europe and Asia died in last century's genocide, which wasn't ancient history. At our peril today, in this trumpian era, we forget World War II and the war against fascism.
White supremacist messages and dog whistles are cyberzinging around the earth during Trump's presidency. Berlusconi and Salvini are just sideshows to the greatest show on earth,Trump in the White House ("Godzilla, King of the Monsters" 1954). Today, America under Donald Trump is anti-democratic, racist, morally bankrupt, and ultra conservative rightist. Not good. Other European first world countries are following in Trump's footsteps. We know what the question is. What is the answer?
15
Trump juts his chin and asks the crowd to remember General George Patton, our great WW II commander who gave his life in Italy. Then, Trump smirks and twitters the image and words of Mussolini, because he "likes good quotes." Part of his "Good people on both sides", schtick, I guess.
My father was a U.S. Army officer in that war. He participated in operations in North Africa, Salerno, Naples and Anzio. He saw the liberation of Rome and Paris. Another relative was shot by a nazi or fascist. He left a lot of blood in Italy, but made it home on a hospital ship. Until the last days of their lives, those veterans and their families were very proud of their service to their country. Any idiot who raises a nazi or fascist salute grievously insults that service.
The efforts of Italian-American US Army veterans, many from New York, were critical to our victory in Italy in WW II. By the time our veterans were done, Mussolini, Hitler, and a lot of their core supporters were dead losers.
23
Italians I know well who have family members still alive remembering the the Duce, full of glory as well as hanging upside down in a street in Milan, voted for Berlusconi and now for Salvini.
What can I tell you? I have friends who have relatives, survivors of the Shoah, who voted for Sharon and now Netanyahu with no shame.
Leonard Cohen wrote a beautiful song called The Story of Isaac. Roger Cohen is of the same tribe (so am I). It is worth listening to it and see what we think.
Mussolini, Hitler, Netanyahu, Trump.
Difficult to remain hopeful.
27
Take off the hat and he looks like trump... Donito Trumpolini, who could end up the same way.
Feckless Republicans had better step up and change their course or they may enable a new fascist regime to poison the world.
The party of morals, law and order, and “values” are simply the party of extreme hypocrisy.
14
" In the United States, the 'Jews will not replace us' cry of white supremacists does not, "
White supremacists aren't the only vocal anti-Semites in the US. But referring them does make for a more acceptable polemic among progressive thinkers.
4
When Nazi salutes are tolerated in Europe and in the United States. Why is a banner for Mussolini rising in Italy surprising? It is foolish to take relative global peace since WW2 for granted. It may not be too late to reverse course but we are living on borrowed times.
12
Never let an opportunity for Trump-bashing go to waste.
As even Cohen must admit, "Their display of Fascist allegiance will have little practical effect..." And because these exact sort of displays have been features of the Italian political landscape for decades, there is absolutely no reason to claim a change in the wind, "that the unsayable has become legitimate discourse in the age of Trump." No reason, of course, beyond the reflex leftist belief that all current societal ills must be traceable and traced firmly to Donald Trump.
14
@hmi
As a leftist, I can quite assure you that we certainly do not see Donald Trump as the root of societal ills. Rather, he is the warm compress applied to the massive boil that contains the ills (racism, classism, other-ism, etc.) our our country. He's both a symptom, and means to lance that boil so that vermin like the Charleston demonstrators ooze out and can thus be identified and held to account by the real patriots here.
52
You write about the dangers of the right, but you don't write about the dangers of the left (and neither will the liberal media in general). The left has declared war on traditional values, such as nations, families, heterosexual relations, borders, men as a gender, and so on. The left is currently engaged in militantly trying to change the evolutionary character of people, but people have evolved over millenia as valuing kinship, family, nations, borders, and reproduction. When there's this militant futuristic attempt to undermine traditional values, which we witness daily nowadays, of course there will be a backlash -- but you don't write about it. And yet the left is provoking this right-wing response with its actions.
34
@Eugene Oh please - this is all silly projection. There is corruption in the "right" currently, and then there is everyone else - all Americans desperately trying to hold onto the rule of law while the Kremlin-talking points of the current President air every day on the news. And you talk of the "left" trying to change the "evolutionary character of people" - nonsense. What is the left to you, "Eugene" - people who care about poor people, and the vulnerable in society?
73
@Eugene: You write, "The left has declared war on traditional values, such as nations, families, heterosexual relations, borders, men as a gender, and so on. The left is currently engaged in militantly trying to change the evolutionary character of people, but people have evolved over millenia as valuing kinship, family, nations, borders, and reproduction."
Say what? The left has certainly not declared war on nations and families! where do you get this stuff? the left is about expanding liberty and freedoms, not contracting them. You don't like homosexuality? Nobody is forcing you to be gay. Homosexuality has been in existence since civilization began, its genetic, not a libertine choice. There are plenty of straight liberals and as many families as the right. The left values country, regulated borders, heterosexual relations, kinship, community, generosity, religion, patriotism etc. as much as you purport to do. where are you getting your news and your prejudices? You're denigrating about half the country.
Stop it.
165
@Eugene
All leftists, or just some extreme leftists?
3
In their relentless search for rightist targets, the left is now whining about present-day Italian political references to Mussolini? That was 75 years ago, give it up. Next thing you know Democrats will be campaigning to eliminate Columbus Day and renaming it, oh, I don't know, something crazy like, Indigenous People's Day. Pffft!, there goes the Italian vote.
13
@Ronald B. Duke
I don't get the connection between Mussolini and Columbus, aside from the fact that they were both Italian.
11
"There are good people on both sides".
At least the Italians honouring their showman and and dictator Il Duce Mussolini didn't chant "Jews will not replace us".
2
Spend your European vacation somewhere other than Italy. Don’t contribute to their economy until they take control of their fascist fetish.
9
Thanks for clarifying who was who in the picture. I thought second from the left was Donald Trump.
21
Social disorder, economic chaos, the too-fast disappearance of traditional ways of life and the perception of liberalism run amok are what drive people to the right. It was true in the age of Mussolini and it is true now. Instead of demonizing ultra-conservatives and continuing to label them as heartless and stupid, an effort should be made to understand and deal with the forces that motivate them.
7
Throughout Europe and the U.S. unwanted immigration has instilled in it's citizen's a zealous desire for far right governments that promote anti-immigration laws and practices. Of course, political parties which have the most draconian policies are the most desired--humanitarian and legal considerations are secondary.
Depressing demands of the Treaty of Versailles brought a Hitler to power. The immigration problems of Europe and the U.S. have placed the Trumps of the world in positions of power, and nurtured a nationalistic surge.
Is history about to repeat itself?
4
The responsibility for the emergence of right-wing nationalism throughout the Western world can be laid at the feet of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld and their unjustifiable decision to invade Iraq. Warmongers made millions while destabilizing the Middle East, which witnessed the exodus of millions of Muslims—migration augmented by refugees from war-torn and drought-stricken Sub-Saharan Africa—to Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand, and Asia. The unyielding confluence of long-established and alien cultures—including Eastern European—fueled latent nationalistic resentments and the rise of right-wing political entities.
These nationalistic resentments are ultimately rooted in Western colonialism, in Europe’s conquest of Africa, Latin America, and South Asia. In the aftermath of decolonization, Europe witnessed the steady migration of peoples from their former colonies to their native lands. London has long been the epicenter of South Asian and black migration, a demographic trend augmented by European migration with the establishment of the European Union. Trump’s rabble-rousing exploits his base’s rancorous enmity toward the browning of America and antipathy toward black Americans.
Reverse colonization is taking place, even as the West continues to exploit its former colonies’ natural resources and labor to sustain its extravagant standard of living.
The chickens are coming home to roost.
28
@Andrew Shin
That is, without a doubt, the most insightful, erudite, and importantly - concise - comment I’ve read in years.
Take a bow, sir.
10
While columns like this aren’t quite as satisfying as the tears of Rachel Maddow and millions of other socialist open borders globalists whenever they lose another election, I consider them a good carry-over.
And carry-overs they are. They acknowledge that the EU itself is about to become far less suicidal, and far more wary of allowing more of Merkel’s Millions to flood into Europe. They acknowledge that yes, Trump will win agin in 2020. They acknowledge that the socialists, the open borders zealots, and the haters of the West are losing strength and popularity.
And thus, they signal brighter days ahead. Please keep them coming, NYT!
4
I see the world order flipping to authoritarianism, and Trump is the world-wide leader. Human beings won't make it - we like to hate too much.
2
As usual this is a caricature. No one has “declared war” on men as a gender. What has occurred is a critique of so-called norms of masculinity that have been manifestly crippling men and women for a long time
8
The great thing about Italy is that it always seems to sink lower than the rest. It a bellwether. A warning to us.
2
I'm a Trump refugee who moved to the alps in Switzerland go get out of the United States. I also grew up and spent my formative years in Milan where I purchased an apartment as a second home. All I can say is that Italians are as clueless and misguided Americans when it comes to politics. Fortunately, they have a new government every 2 or 3 years (if they make it that long). I don't think the Lega will be in the majority for very long. Thankfully, with the Brexit debacle they are no longer threatening to leave the EU.
11
Andrew Sullivan, out of likeminded anxiety over the growing rightist movement, points out that insufficiently regulated immigration and weightless borders have fueled the far right's rise.
3
I should think many of the descendants of, or the dwindling number of actual living members of the British 8th Army and American 5th Army, who spent two miserable years fighting their way up Italy (and many of whose comrades are still there) would feel the same way.
3
It is amazing how catchy slogans promoting fear and hatred can erase the memory of the collective tragedy that befell Italy during WWII.
And, without a doubt, each of those rabid Lazio participants has an ancestor or a relative who lost his or her life, was wounded as a soldier or as a partisan in that war or was rendered destitute by WWII.
It is said that Mussolini made the trains run on time. And then he made the trains run off the track in his attempts to Make Italy Ancient Rome Again. Mussolini drained the swamps, only to fill them again. Every good thing Mussolini did was destroyed by his megalomania.
Trump looks a lot like Mussolini.
14
MAGA is crypto-fascism; it’s fascism wrapped in the flag (or hugging the flag) and carrying a bible. The hats, the chants, the cult-like adoration of its leader, the lawlessness, racism and xenophobia.... We see it in Europe under different names (e.g., AfD), but the neo-fascists all share the same vile memes and half-baked ideas with one another on the internet (sometimes re-tweeted by Trump himself), and Steve Bannon tours around the world to fan the anti-democratic flames.
We’re not doing enough to stop this; it’s later than we think, and at a certain point we will no longer have democratic or legal means to rely on. Trump’s already almost there, with ‘his’ judges and his flagrant contempt for Congressional oversight. If Trump rolled out uniforms to accompany the hats, many of his followers would enthusiastically don them, and they would believe they were being patriots.
14
Another gift from W to the world. His "liberation of Iraq has created ISIS that lead to refugees that has created a rise in rightist parts due to immigration. Still only the second worst PRESIDENT EVER.
4
You tube has a cast of characters acting as an alternative to mainstream news media. A collection of failed comedians, actors and musicians recreating themselves on video as wise men. One guy who advertises himself as "Blue Collar" has a lot to say. I agree with him most of the time but not all the time. You could do that you know? He admits he wasted most of his as a musician and as a drug dealer to the stars. Now he is a house painter. He also seems to have had acting lessons and is working from a script.
Most of these characters try to project an air of success and superiority. The blue collar guy can sound rational and legit but can go off the rails talking about "non producers". I don't know his opinion on Social Security, I doubt he payed into it. but medicaid and so called government handouts. What he referred to as "jew gifts".
Don't be surprised dosen't this happen when the left tries to hijack a nation? Not ever?
It is alarming to note how many far right “fascist” groups have allied with football hooligans to find a home, not just in clubs like “Lazio” in Italy, but also in other European countries. The rise of appalling racist and anti-immigrant chants against players during matches is becoming more frequent in Germany, the UK, France, Greece, Hungary and even In Scandinavian countries. The football federation UEFA and individual clubs need to do much more to root out the far-right extremists who have so successfully infiltrated football clubs and who, by displaying fascist and nazi iconography at the matches are turning “the beautiful game” into something decidedly ugly.
4
Putin has done everything he can to increase migrants getting to Europe. A simple plan.
3
The Bolsheviks and the Fascists were thinly veiled socioeconomic political masks for enduring endemic white ethnic sectarian European supremacist nationalism.
Rhetorical euphemisms such as populism and the alt- right perform the same level of deception and duplicity.
Benito Mussolini made the Vatican an ethnic sectarian nation state. And the Vatican looked the other way during and after the Holocaust.
The Vatican looked the other way when Mussolini descended upon Ethiopia.
The Vatican looked the other way from the Axis powers Nazi Germany and the Japanese Empire alliance with Italy.
While France and the French have to answer for Vichy, Haiti Cambodia, Vietnam, Algeria and Mali.
2
Hilarious to see an American of all people criticising another country on 'nationalism' because 12 people showed up to a rally. You have enough problems in your country, focus on those maybe.
7
A column built on a few ornery Italian football fans holding up a banner hailing Mussolini gives Mr. Cohen license to do what too many columnists at the New York Times and elsewhere do best: Equate President Trump with Fascism, Nazism, and white supremacy.
When you get by the first few paragraphs, the invective against the President manifests itself again:
"Their display of Fascist allegiance will have little practical effect beyond demonstrating again that the unsayable has become legitimate discourse in the age of Trump, and that a white supremacist message has renewed global resonance."
"In the United States, the 'Jews will not replace us' cry of white supremacists does not, for President Trump, constitute unequivocal moral iniquity."
"Salvini has emerged in a different context to Berlusconi, one where anti-democratic, illiberal, racist forces are on the rise in Europe and beyond, encouraged by the moral abdication of Trump’s United States."
So, Mr. Cohen, while I may agree with you on the seriousness of raising banners to Mussolini on Liberation Day, I recognize that Trump was not promoting any equivalence between white supremacists and others in Charlottesville, no matter how hard progressive journalists, columnists, and Joe Biden want that charge to be true.
And it is hard to see the baseless charges of insensitivity continue to flow from the insensitive pens and minds of those in the New York Times and other progressive media.
4
Roger, please never stop writing and publishing. You keep me grounded and hopeful. I am 86 years old, remember Mussolini, Hitler and the horrors seen from newsreels at the movie theater during the 1940's. I have been sick at heart ever since Trump came on the scene. Its more than Trump now and a severe test of our democracy.
8
One of the difficult challenges in dealing with Trump is the relative absence of ideology. There are shards of ideology in his mind. Nothing is crystallized into a coherent whole.
As a Jew, here's what I find about his flirtation with fascism and white nationalism. He appears to be leaning towards white nationalism, even as he seems to want to include Jews in the white nationalist 'tent'. It's as though he sees no contradiction between his love affair with Bibi Netanyahu and his love affair with those who march in Charlottesville with tiki torches.
This is incoherence. And it is dangerous, including for American Jews.
9
Strong men, facism, nationalism, all back in full force globally. I am not looking forward to the outcome, things are going to become quite bad before they get better.
4
Let the so called Illegal Immigrants in to our cities and towns. Let them come from all around, we will give them a chance. Then we see who is right when those who are least among us help to make those cities wonderful. The art,music,culture will spring forth like a great fountain in those areas that were once lifeless. We will not stifle hope but allow it to flourish. The well spring of human kindness will bring human dignity. We welcome you all with our love and compassion.
7
I continue to be inspired by the rise of the right, not only in the United States, but around the world young people that see that the path to ruin rise with the words coming from the left
@There Those who can't remember history are doomed to repeat it. You are helping repeat it.
4
@There There, there....once again you have proven that teaching history is a total waste of time. Maybe, just maybe you could actually learn something about the last 300 years of warfare. That might just shed some light on your views.
4
The moral vacuum preceded Trump, as did the right-wing resurgence in Europe, but the rampant use of lies and the devaluation of truth seem to have taken off since he became a devotee of Soviet-style disinformation. George Orwell may have been more worried about socialism than fascism, but in their totalitarian forms they are much the same...
11
"The risk is that a weightless world is indifferent." To me, this one sentence is an accurate description of today's world. The bigger question is how did we arrive at the particular pinnacle in time?
Has humankind always been consumed in the everyday survival that they missed all the road signs or is today's world more unique? We willingly chose leaders that are corrupt charlatans seeking their own aggrandizement for total power.
Has the cacophony of mass media, with the siren call of feeding one's ego, totally destroyed our ability to hear, listen and learn from each other. More importantly, we can no longer discern the difference between truth and lies.
All this brings me back to the often quoted Pogo,.."the enemy is us..."
18
The West, bathed in the indifference and arrogance of is citizenry, is failing. Steadily and surely, history will repeat and the East will again account for a majority of the world's wealth as it did 200 years ago. Apparently, the seeds of decay are part of the fruit of prosperity. Nations become complacent, greed takes over and people turn against their neighbors.
8
@Max duPont Hyman Minski said this about economic systems but I think we can apply it to civilization as well:
Stability leads to instability. The more stable things become and the longer things are stable, the more unstable they will be when the crisis hits.
2
In the political struggle between democracies and autocracies, it's worthwhile noting that those of us who work in any corporate structure know autocracy well, often too well.
As has been experienced by generations of company employees, their leadership is not a result of a popularity contest. In fact, the best companies are run by enlightened dictators and have been since the dawn of capitalism. From the time of the Rockefellers, Carnegies, and Ford right down to the Jobs' and Musks, dictatorial control was and is their hallmark.
So, is it any wonder then that our current president, coming from a family business no less, exhibits all the properties of an autocrat? What is a wonder, and a troubling one, is that about 40+% of the electorate is perfectly fine with that along with Trump's party.
The autocratic forces we see growing again elsewhere should not distract us from the reality that we are not that far from it as we would like to think. That's why the 2020 election is turning out to be so significant.
28
Often when seeing what is going on now politically in the US and around the world, I think of my American Jewish parents who are no longer alive. My father fought with the US Army in North Africa and up through Europe in WWII. My mother worked at the Pentagon during wartime. They supported Israel when it became a country. They would be appalled by all of it and I sometimes think it’s good that they aren’t around to see this.
It’s clear the US has abdicated its authority and leadership in these matters and now all these nationalistic countries get a free pass to revert to primal instincts.
Is history being taught anywhere?
33
"Maximize efficiency, rationalize effort, raise productivity, and modernize relentlessly" are the creed of a handful of oligarchs seeking to "run the world."
They are making deals that harm the environment, keep the masses in poverty, and guarantee their hold on power. Nationalism is a ruse to unite their followers; but it has horrific antecedents in Germany, Italy and other countries of Europe.
We must root out this rank nationalism before fascism takes hold in America. "Make America great again" plays into the hands of the oligarchs by fooling us into voting against our best interests
.
21
Bravo, bravissimo, you are absolutely correct!
3
What we lack today is a leader able to inspire and rally the forces of liberal democracy against fascism and left authoritarianism. FDR played that role admirably in the 1930’s. The late Sir Isaiah Berlin noted, in a remarkable essay on Roosevelt, how, at a time when the whole world seemed drifting toward fascism or communism, Roosevelt, with that cheerful insouciance of his, became the beacon of liberty and decency to oppressed people the world over. I believe that a Roosevelt equivalent is lurking somewhere in the halls of democratic institutions today. If we are lucky, he or she will soon surface. If not, we are probably done as a free society. Alas, the individual still matters in history — a lot.
40
@Kinsale But we had to have a real catastrophe before someone like FDR could become president.
3
Remarkable column, Mr. Cohen. We must pay attention to the rise of far-right sentiment and ultra-rightist governments if we are to remain fully democratic.
Thank you for keeping us informed.
24
The echoes of history are like gravestones in a military cemetery. Even deeply etched marble erodes over time and while we may know the names of the fallen, we are hard pressed to say why they gave their lives for our country.
Arlington National Cemetery may be running out of room but it will not soon be running out of bodies. Our indifference and our willful blindness virtually guarantee an unbroken line of catafalques carried on gun carriages throughout the years to come.
26
Mr. Cohen writes about the role of empire as he notes that “when you get out of that line of work, the need to maximize efficiency, rationalize effort, raise productivity, modernize relentlessly, is diminished.”
Sorry, the problems of the world are still going to find their way to your doorstep. Whether you are Italy or the US, migrants from far less pleasant parts of the world will trudge to your border, bringing more than a bit of the suffering they have at home to your notice.
The world is much, much smaller than in 1945. While societal pain may seem to appear on the other side of the globe, the new reality is that it’s in the house next door too. Walls and tariffs will not work. “Their” problems are our problems.
These are not issues of imperial scorekeeping. Who has a first-class cabin or a pleasant view does not matter when the ship is sinking underneath a warming globe. Let’s turn our attention from a few cranks who figured out how to type with their thumbs to the real problems we face.
32
It's the economy as usual.
Italy has massive debt, but it's government is at odds with most of the European Union.
People need something to hold on to. Mussolini exploited this in the early 1930s. Globally, there are those who exploit this today under different names and for allegedly different reasons.
Religiosity, opioids, fascism, communism et. Al, are mostly just symptoms of despair and believing there is no chance of a productive future.
65
@Texan
I assume that like the Rust Belt in the US - that lost jobs, decaying infrastructure, government debt, abandoned small towns, immigration, environmental degradation- made worse by international corporations that outsource every cost possible, evade taxes and buy politician ,"all legal" of course- the end is like watching two trains heading towards each other. The article predicts China will be the new US by the end of the century.
11
Pedantic correction: Mussolini exploited these weaknesses from the early 1920s. In some ways he gave some sort of respectability to these loathsome ideas a full decade before Hitler rose to power.
7
Only the details change. The depths of cruelty, the violent hatred, the suffering remain the same. One place or another, one generation or the next, any targeted group or a different scapegoat. Intolerance is spoken in all languages.
The dark parts of human nature haven’t changed and never will. It can happen any time, any place. The only safeguard is our own vigilance. Evil thrives when good people get complacent.
193
My father died at 102 on Veterans Day last year. He joined the U.S. Navy with his best friend the week after Pearl Harbor and didn't get home from the war in the Pacific until October 1945.
His friends were similarly men who served in WW II. One, a son of Yugoslavian immigrants, spent the war with Patton and had 3 tanks blown up around him. Another was with the Marines at the end of the Pacific campaign and was reactivated for Korea.
They were Democrats and they were Republicans. They joined, they said, because Hitler and the others were wrong. The father of one of my friends, a Japanese son of parents imprisoned in our own concentration camps, fought with the famed 442 Regiment in Italy where he was wounded.
Neither my father nor any of his friends were extremists. Extremists cost them dearly. They'd seen what it led to, the deaths of tens of millions and the physical and psychological maiming of 10 times that many. All over Europe and Asia millions more were cast into diaspora.
Extremists have not once in recorded history successfully dealt with our problems. Before there was Christianity cultures and societies as ancient as the Code of Hammurabi devised standards Extremists have no patience for:
*One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself
*One should not treat others in ways that one would not like to be treated
*What you wish upon others, you wish upon yourself
Those who don't subscribe to a Golden Rule aren't fit to rule.
343
@John F. McBride
Well expressed John!
My parents were young in Naples Italy during the war years (my mother was 7 and my father was 13 in 1940).
I learned from them about the real (not fake!) outcomes of Nazi and Fascist extremism --- food shortages, air raid sirens, psychological terror at the hands of a uniformed foreign aggressor, and uncertainty about making it to th enext day.
Extremism on the Right and on the Left are equally dangerous.
Poor economic conditions are often at the root cause of these extremist movements --- and often specific groups of people are given the blame and demonized.
What is amazing (and very sad) is that these exterme positions actually start from within a very small minority of any given population. The majority of people reside in the Center. Unfortuneately, the Silent Majority allows the extremeists to sieze power by remaining silent. This scenario has repeated itself throughout our human history.
Praying for a better world where the Silent Majority becomes the Vocal Majority. Silence is agreement!
21
@John F. McBride
Well expressed John!
My parents were young in Naples Italy during the war years (my mother was 7 and my father was 13 in 1940).
I learned from them about the real (not fake!) outcomes of Nazi and Fascist extremism --- food shortages, air raid sirens, psychological terror at the hands of a uniformed foreign aggressor, and uncertainty about making it to th enext day.
Extremism on the Right and on the Left are equally dangerous.
Poor economic conditions are often at the root cause of these extremist movements --- and often specific groups of people are given the blame and demonized.
What is amazing (and very sad) is that these exterme positions actually start from within a very small minority of any given population. The majority of people reside in the Center. Unfortuneately, the Silent Majority allows the extremeists to sieze power by remaining silent. This scenario has repeated itself throughout our human history.
Praying for a better world where the Silent Majority becomes the Vocal Majority. Silence is agreement!
2
Authoritarianism and a toxic nationalism threaten human liberty, world peace, and the civilizing forces of law and equal justice for all. Those who don't speak out aren't just indifferent, they are accomplices. The lessons of history must provide our prescriptions for action now, before it's too late. Those who can vote, must vote. Those who can write, must write. Those who can speak out, must speak out. Everyone must resist.
320
And those who can lead us to equality for all, to justice for all, to freedom for all – they must lead.
34
@Eric Caine
And yet it seems that people are only happy when the economy shows that people feel confident enough to shop. Are the folks still floating past their barns and houses in row boats able to see the world differently? Or is it a sign of strong economy when they need to buy a second boat for the grandkids?
14
Measles. The Native American population was annihilated by measles and other contagious diseases common to the invading Europeans. That, forgotten coupled with a lie about vaccines has led to a global threat.
Fascism, authoritarianism, Nazism....we know about them, how dangerous they were. Today we have forgotten or been distracted and manipulated by ambitious men. Inequality is the fertile field of the “far right”. The rise of inequality provides the means to pay for fascism and a desperate, hopeless population ripe for exploitation. Extreme wealth confers extreme privilege and with it a sense of “earned privilege”. This is a disease.
12
Wikipedia defines "fascism" as
"Fascism is a form of radical, right-wing, authoritarian ultranationalism, characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society and of the economy."
There are many countries around the world today which display these characteristics, some more than others.
Trump is doing his best to get us there. Erdogan of Turkey has nearly succeeded, despite a recent setback in mayoral elections. Modi of India, Putin of Russia, Xi Jinping of "communist" China are all aspiring fascists with various degrees of success. And most ironically, Israel under Netanyahu has long stepped over the line in that direction.
It would be helpful and more honest if Roger Cohen acknowledges occasionally that there are variations of fascism in which the potential victims are not Jews, or Jews alone.
15
@JB
Dear JB,
I don't think Mr. Cohen is saying that the victims of fascism are or were only Jews. Certainly Jews bore the brunt of fascism brutality during WWII but, any sentient being can see the suffering of people under repressive regimes regardless of whether they read Mr. Cohen's column or not. That these regimes practice some form of fascism is just one way to describe their politics.
4
Meanwhile, over here, the president doubled down on praise of Robert E. Lee; a confederate general who supported slavery and the dissolution of the Union.
Trump also will not condemn the nazis and other white supremacists who marched in Charlottesville against Jews and racial minorities.
Added to the above, Trump seems to like many, if not all dictators while picking fights with most of our allies.
Italy too has its history, including what Mr. Cohen so aptly describes replaying itself in the modern context.
It seems that populism knows no geographic boundaries.
17
@JT FLORIDA
But it is not really Populism is it. It is the Press who dubs these people Populists.
1
Americans who owe their SS, their Medicare, their unemployment compensation, and so on, to Democrats, voted for Trump while southern Italians who are discriminated against by all members of Salvini's northern League, voted for him. The two events are still incomprehensible and one hopes that this is only an unfortunate and momentary deviation from the norm. While both groups may have grounds for complaints, it doesn't explain the irrationality of the act.
28
@Frank Casa
Yeah it does. Sicily and Calabrese are getting giant influxes of migrants with zero money or plan for them. They all are anti-immigrant now in Sicily.
3
@Frank Casa
The irrationality of the act can't be explained except as arising from ignorance and frustration: the desire to "give the finger" to the establishment no matter what the cost.
2
@Frank Casa To coin a phrase: "A sucker is born every minute."
1
Every time a member of America's political right wing sends out an alarm to the effect that progressives are planning to impose Socialism on the U.S. I think it's more than fair to reciprocate with a warning about the threat of Fascism coming from the right. Trump is far closer to Mussolini in his sympathies than even Bernie is to Karl Marx.
45
Regarding Italy and Europe in general, regrettably what we are seeing at present is a very natural reaction to levels of extra-European, predominantly Muslim immigration which is perceived more and more as an existential threat whereby the native European population is being progressively swamped by people from other regions of the world: mainly from the Middle East and Africa (both North and sub-Saharan Africa)
Is this total fantasy or are their facts to support these fears?
In France, the country I know best, where there is no collection of ethnic or religious statistics, estimations based on the number of newborns subjected to obligatory screening for sickle cell anemia which only affects people of African, Middle Eastern and Indian origin show a huge increase in the numbers screened over the last 20 years , about 20% in 2001 to about 40% in 2017. This means that in 2017, 40% of births in France were of people of non-native European origin and since on average, between continuing mass immigration and the fact that this population is considerably younger than the native population, we can expect this trend to continue accelerating over the years ahead.
Should we be concerned by this reality? To the extent that this population is well integrated into French society, probably not too much. However, to the extent that a very significant proportion of this population adheres to a hostile Islamic counter culture, it is unfortunately hard to see this finishing well...
22
@Donna What you conveniently omit from your post is that the non-assimilated 'Arab' population is mostly from your own ex-colony, Algeria, whose Algerian population lost close to 1 million, slaughtered by French troops and by right-wing terrorism in the Algerian war. And, that poor Algerians were invited to enter France as cheap labor after the war. And, that they were bound into ghettos. And, the chief hatred of them came from ex-French colonials who, first, re-colonized the island of Corsica, leading to an upsurge of nationalist resentment among the Corsicans. And, that the ex-colonial French have always had ambitions to overthrow the French Republic anyway.
1
To stop and defeat the new populist and fascist wave in the world today, a united front of all freedom-loving people who believe in an open, democratic society must be shaped, similar to what took place during world war II. The burden for American Democrats is to realize that the main issue of the 2020 election is to defeat fascism. As President Obama has said, Democrats must, by all means, avoid circular firing squad tactics, and unite behind the best candidate that can defeat Trump.
16
we should look at predatory policy that pillages resources from various African countries by France. it supports various strongmen and dictators that keep millions of young Africans without prospects except immigrating north which in turn help increase influence of proto fascist groups.
5
@sally B.
When you make sweeping statements like this, you should at least try to back them up with some facts, examples etc..
The two biggest problems in Africa are crazy levels of population growth (populations multiplied by 4 or 5 in almost all African countries since they gained independance) and appallingly bad governance.
To blame France or the West in general for this is actually profoundly racist because it implies that contrary to Asian countries for example, African countries have no free agency and are thus forever condemned to manipulation/exploitation by malevolent foreign powers.
BTW, China has a much bigger presence in Africa today than France. We'll se over time how that works out.
4
One thing we humans can be sure of is that history repeats itself time and time again because it does not learn from it. My grandparents came from both Southern Italy and Sicily. They left at the turn of the 20th century when they wanted to escape oppression in the form of extreme poverty. The America that welcomed them gave them hope, new lives, and livelihoods that provided for their large Catholic families. They saw what happened to the nation of their birth during World War Two. They were ashamed of this man called Mussolini, and they worked even harder to become patriotic Americans whose love grew for their adopted country. How they would grieve if they were alive to see the heinous trends overtaking both their homes, one in the Old Country, the other here. They would ask as you and I do: What happened? What did we collectively do wrong, what did we miss to cause the rise of the Trumps's and the Salvini's? Oddly enough, the Italian word for salvation is "salvezza." What a disheartening contradiction...
10
Extremely clear concepts. One problem with these people is the constant escape from discussing the point on a clear factual base. Whenever they are in the corner, then you are or "lying", or "reporting false data", or "a classical member of the elites". They do not discuss the point anytime.
Since 1925 in Italy there was a totalitarian regime with totalitarian laws and totalitarian treatment of opponents. These are data and facts. This regime pushed a completely not prepared country to the war where half milion people died and milions were injuried. An entire army was sent to death in Soviet Union; in 1936 gas was used against Ethiopian soldiers and people (a charge that was accepted in 1996 only). And so on.
Differently from Germany and Japan (the other two countries allied of Italy), Italy had not her "Nuremberg trial".
I read that Churchill strongly wanted this and American allies disagreed. I don't know the truth, but for sure it would have been very useful for italians to open their eyes on fascism, often believed as an edulcorated (very very edulcorated for someone) version of nazism. Many of them still compare fascism to nazism, instead of discussing on fascism alone.
An these are, in my opinion, the results.
We're accepting fascists going to the stadium and use it to openly express fascist ideologies. 70 years after your uncle risked his life against these.
15
@Amegighi
Good points. Remember also that many powerful American businessmen offered their support openly to Franco. The CEO of Texaco not only shipped oil to Franco, he also used his international shipping contacts to point out to the Italian navy which tankers to target as they sought to aid Franco.
We have always had a fascism problem here, but all it takes is a setback to send them scurrying away back into their dark corners. They are essentially cowards. General Smedley Butler proved this fact during the business plot.
We will hand them their setback in 2020. It might be our last chance.
2
In Italy and the United States we have witnessed a resurgence of right wing extremists represented by Salvini and Trump respectively. There is no question that fascists in the United States and in Italy have used anti-immigrant and racial hatred to renew their popular appeal.
Yes, there were fascists trying to honor Mussolini in Milano on April 25th, the Day of Liberation. Very importantly, in every neighborhood of Milano and in the city center as well, there were much larger groups of people who gathered to celebrate the Italian partisans that died fighting Mussolini's and Hitler's forces.
These groups of citizens moved around their respective neighborhoods placing wreaths at the homes of the martyred partisans. There were choruses of voices singing the Bella Ciao and other songs honoring the courage of the antifascists. There were also moving speeches by local speakers denouncing fascism and declaring the need to honor the rights of all people.
Both in Italy, in the United States and elsewhere there must be a vocal and active united front against the rise of fascism. This front must take action at the polls and peacefully demonstrate in the streets. We must not allow the history of Austria Germany and Italy of the 1930's to ever be repeated.
11
There is a study which explains that the most efficient social unit consisted of 150 people. The world population is growing much faster than social evolution can tolerate. What we are experiencing is the collapse of social cohesiveness, we are devolving back to smaller tribal entities, thus the appeal of conservative fascist ideals. It takes a lot of energy to coordinate larger populations, it requires more sharing not less. Social organisms operate like living organisms and when cancer infects a living organism it takes over the operational functions of its host. Social movements that are cancerous, movements such as unregulated capitalism, corporate fascism, totalitarian Utopianism, and religious dictatorships; these all become cancerous entities on society because they destroy the very essence of a balanced society. Societies that become one sided disrupt the social equilibrium of fairness and devolve into the survival of the fittest. Power becomes the purpose of certain cancerous individuals. Maybe this is natural societal evolution. History seems to indicate that humans are incapable of learning from the lessons of history.
3
Indifference is the default attitude of people who are not directly in harms way. The creep of Fascism is deeply concerning, but what is the concerned citizen to do? Vote? March? Write letters to the editor?
A global trend of aggressive, authoritarian, anti-democratic government is replacing the benign Euro/North American alliance of post war 20th century. People around the world are reacting to fears of technological disruption, climate change, refugee migration, and a new level of vicious religious/sectarian violence by opting for mafia style leaders who stoke their fears and promise security in exchange for fealty.
We have been here before. We know this history, but we still don't know how to avoid it.
62
Just exactly what were the Americans, the British, the French, the Belgians, the Dutch and the Russians 'liberating'.
It certainly was not their own Empires.
They were fighting the German and the Japanese Empires in order to preserve their own pieces of the globe
It took decades after the War to for their subject peoples to liberate themselves.
4
This is the progression of things in the face of over-population together with climate-change induced scarcity. Humans revert to zero-sum thinking. Yet the issues are now such that only non-zero cooperation can save us, and the planet. I wish I were more optimistic.
9
He is in Milan? And here all along, it thought that he had reincarnated in Queens and was now living part-time in Washington, but mostly in Mar-a-Lago.
36
@Penseur I sometimes speculate that there is a parallel between Trump/Melania and Mussolini/Petacci
2
Bravo. Wonderful piece. Very bad for us is that it is so true.
11
The casual disregard of history by Matteo Salvini and his right-wing nationalists in northern Italy is not surprising in the Age of Trump, when the racism of neo-Fascists is now considered a legitimate point of view by Donald Trump and by many of his followers.
I recall seeing a very disturbing film in 1970, directed by Vittorio De Sica and set in Ferrara, a city two hours southeast of Milan. The theme of the movie is the short distance between indifference and complicity. The name of the movie is “The Garden of the Finzi-Continis.”
A well-to-do family is separated from the privileged society in which they had been active by the passage of laws designed to isolate Jews from Christians socially. In less than two years, every member of the Finzi-Contini family had been sent to concentration camps, where they were either worked to death or executed. No one survived.
We have a president who, although his daughter has converted to the Jewish faith of her husband, is a hero to American white-supremacists. He seems to inspire authoritarians across Europe. Trump even appears to be consciously imitating the physical gestures and poses of Benito Mussolini, with the jutting jaw and all.
The next time a Republican politician calls you an alarmist or worse, think of the Finzi-Contini family.
135
@sdw The garden of the Finzi Continis was one of the great movies of the last century not only for its message but it’s visual beauty but to draw from that ”we have a President who, although his daughter has converted to, the Jewish faith, is a hero to American white supremacists?” This conclusion, in my opinion, proves one thing only, the power of the media: anyone who doesn’t accept that Trump is giving Israel everything they could possibly want and more is ill informed. Trump is not only continuing wars for Israels benefit that during his campaign he promised to extricate America from (and spend that money on infrastructure), spew forth a continual verbal trashing of Iran, withdrawn from the nuclear treaty, done everything but bomb them, amped up the relationship with The Saudis, gave them a pro settlement Ambassador, moved the Embassy, gave Bibi the election, allowed Jared to pretty much do whatever he wants with respect to the “Palestinian Issue” nominally the basis for terrorism over the last seventy years: Jareds moves have nothing to do with anything other than what benefits right wing Israelis and settlers or benefits The Kushner Clan. In short anyone who doesn’t see Trump and Kushner for what they are, which is another lackey for AIPAC and the right wing of Israel and self dealing opportunists, isn’t paying attention. Furthermore the farce of dragging in “white supremists and evangelicals” for cover as Likud extends its power grab is obvious.
5
I am glad, Mr. Cohen, that my father, like yours a WWII veteran (with the RCAF), is no longer around to see this resurgence of fascism. Because of him, the battles of that generation seem so close to me.
41
Great column! It reminds of the sentiment of W. B. Yeats that all it takes for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. As far as world leaders go today, we have even a shortage of good men and women.
31
@James Ricciardi: That wasn't Yeats, it was Edmund Burke. You may be thinking of another line from Yeats, equally valid today and equally important:
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
...
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Yeats wrote that exactly a century ago, in 1919. I myself would quote another poem, by W. H. Auden, entitled "September 1, 1939". The title speaks for itself, as does the reference in the poem to "a low, dishonest decade".
Sadly, we seem to be incapable of learning from history, or to listen to what our artists and poets are telling us. Every generation has to repeat the catastrophic errors of its predecessors. And the stakes are getting higher all the time, as we invent more and more deadly ways to destroy one another.
70
@Ellen Valle All that needs to be added to Yeats is Conrad's insight into the evil that resides in all us as recounted in "Heart of Darkness".
4
@Ellen Valle. Thank you.
3
What author appears to be saying is that his many readers r unable to distinguish nationalist movements of the present from the fascist parties of the interwar period, 1919-1939 in southern and northern Europe, that if you defend your Western values and do not want to be submerged by illegal immigration, you r no better than say, the Arditi who supported D'Annunzio and Mussolini in Italy in the 1920's, 1930's. or the storm troopers in Nazi Germany who supported Ernest Rohm and Hitler's National Socialist Party. But nuance, and as the French say a nuance makes all the difference,citizenry in EU Europe simply want their countries back. Significant omission is that Mr. Cohen in his column never calls for referendums in EU countries which would have allowed the citizenry to decide questions of immigration. We have seen what happened in GB when Enoch POWELL, Conservative Party m.p. and classical scholar called attention to unilateral decision made by BOTH Labour and Conservative Parties to allow 50,000 immigrants to enter the U.K yearly w/o so much as a by ur leave from the voters: Powell was drummed out of the party.1 can defend 1's position in life, Conradian turn of phrase, 1's civilization, decide who and how many migrants the "mere patrie" should accept w/o being labeled a right wing radical or worse, a fascist.
12
@Alexander Harrison
How hard can it be to live with compassion? The very world is changing. You can't have your country back, you can only move forward. That's reality. Move forward with courage and compassion for your fellow human because to deny it to others is ultimately to deny it to yourself.
Nah, I don’t think that is what the author was saying....
Yes, but it’s this demonization of “others”, (immigrants), where fascism festers and grows. Patriotism is the love of ones people. Nationalism is the hatred of others.
Indifference 'kills'. Looking the other way may be a suitable escape from speaking up, but then a time may come when no one else is there to protect us when our turn to suffer arrives. Old words but renewable. Just look at Trump's fascist tendencies...if we let him get away with 'murder'. You are referencing Italy but fascism is reproducible whenever citizens stop caring for each other.
20
@manfred marcus. In the US we have had a few years of progress, civil war and reconstruction followed by nearly a 100 years of regression until LBJ signed the civil rights act, the voting rihts act, the fair housing act, Mediare, Medicaid, Hesdstart, Foodstamps, the non-discrimination immigration act, etc. That period was followed immediately by Nixon's contempt for LBJ's social and racial justice. Trump is the apotheosis of Nixon 50 years after LBJ.
9
@James Ricciardi you bizarrely skipped over a lot of good done by FDR...
2
Well the world maybe insane with hate but those of us who realize that it is economics will fight for economic parity , democracy and justice for all no matter there class, color or religion
We live in a time when there are boundless business opportunities if we just THINK and be creative stop work on telephones and work on real progressive developing positions for the future which is now.
There are enough resources on this country if we stop being hateful and small minded. We can go to the moon but we can’t tackle climate change. We can’t tackle poverty because millionaires can’t be billionaires at the expense of regular people. We must have for profit prisons do we need to fill prisons with people of color.
Capitalism has morphed into greed look at Amazon ,pays no taxes and doesnt pay there employees well either dictatorships are flourishing because of economic disparity and racism. It’s always the brown people who create strife for rich white people. We need to remember our history and when Trump begins his hero worship of dictators we stop him in his tracks.
No more children in cages and never again detentions that turns into concentration camps . Americans will not allow the past to be our future. The past was pretty brutal yo the majority of the human race.
13
The aftermath of World War I impacted the victorious Allies in different ways. Italy felt that its secret agreements with Britain and France were not honored. The Paris Peace Conference proved to be a disappointment to Italian dreams of acquisition.
Mussolini took advantage of this discontent, as Hitler would do later. Mussolini seemed to promise a transformation of Italy. “He made the trains run on time” was an expression of Mussolini’s competence. In 1923, he would appear on the cover of Time magazine.
As for the outstretched arm salute, Mussolini promised a return to the ancient glory Rome. That this symbol would be adopted by Hitler and be associated with engulfing Europe in war and produced genocide was not the intent in 1920s Italy.
Mr Cohen’s concern of the banner may be an overreaction. It is unlikely that Italy will return to fascism. It may indeed reflect the rightward leaning of Europe. Or it may be a sports team seeking to garner attention.
If it is the former, then we should look into a mirror, for such elements have arisen here. If it is the latter, then calling attention to it only reinforces such behavior in the self-centeredness that now dominates our social milieu.
7
@doughboy Those are fancy words but honoring a fascist is simply contemptible.
Fascism was an evil for Italy, and eventually Italy made it an evil inflicted on others.
However, Fascism had a cause. It's cause was other evils. It existed for its promise to remedy those other evils. And they were evil, too.
Those other evils returned, full force, and have crushed Italy (and many others). So of course Fascism rears up, and once again offers its "remedy" for those evils. And they are evil, too.
If you complain about Fascism, you must also speak about the evils to which it is the reaction. There is no understanding its causes or its cures without understanding the rest.
8
@Mark Thomason -- To clarify, this is not an attack on the immediate issues, of say immigrants.
If the country were running well, if people felt secure, if people agreed more labor were needed, then immigrants would be welcomed by them as were Turks in the Germany when their labor was needed.
The causes I address are not the superficial excuses used by the right, but rather the deeper causes of bad government and people betrayed by their own government. It is economies that fail to provide for their people. From that comes various superficial blame, but that blame is not pointed at the real cause.
12
Sounds an awful lot like justification.
@Mark Thomason
You call it "bad government".
I would say it's politics that were successful after WWII, when there were 4bln people on the planet. With the rapid growth and globalization of our species, we need to conduct/invent new methods of governance.
I think Europe is in the blind, a little, for this. They look at China (the worst example, concerning freedom) of how to control a rapidly changing society. We should develop new methods ourselves and don't look back at old, reactionary movements.
1
I am in a way grateful that my great grand mother died before the racial laws since she was a Jew. My grandfathers were part of the Risorgimento. My father was a GI in WW2 in France and Germany, and my relatives were partisans. We had no tolerance for Mussolini lovers nor the fascists that currently are polarizing and terrifying Italy, as well as Germany, France, Spain, Hungary and have in roads in the United States via that despicable character Bannon and his national socialists.
37
@St. Thomas
Bannon, unfortunately has made inroads in Italy as well, opening a school in a former monastery in a remote part of the country.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-what-does-steve-bannon-want-with-this-italian-monastery-inside-his/
3
What exactly is surprising? Italy started fascism in 1922 and the whole country was proudly fascist until 1943. The army disintegrated but many bet on fascism until the bitter end in 1945. Along the way Fascist Italy invaded Etiophia, Libia, Albania, Slovenia, and Greece, Russia. Every single time planing and implementing or being actively supporting genocide of the local populations.
These historical facts have never been part of the national discourse. There has never been talian guilt. Italians absolved themselves in one sweeping motion on April 25 1945. What is happening now is the obvious consequence: Mussolini and fascism was not so good but ok, the struggle was between fascists and communist, and it is not even worth remembering it.
Not surprising, but it has nothing to do with Trump. Don't count on Nations to admit guilt if they squeak by on the side of the oppressed as Italy did, or if the win a war. We are still waiting for the U.S of A. to pay reparations to Vietnam, aren;t we?
8
David: “These historical facts have never been part of the national discourse... Italians absolved themselves in one sweeping motion on April 25 1945”
I agree. Up to a point. I would not say “in one sweeping motion”. It took a while to remove completely those historical facts from our collective memory. I think that most of the italians who took arms against the Germans, alongside the allied anglo-american armies, between september 1943 and april 1945, didn’t do it to wash their (and our) conscience. I think that they had understood what fascism had meant for our country and simply decided it was their duty to fight to regain some dignity. I also think that most of the politicians, liberals, catholics and socialists, who served during the first post war years, working together in a display of real national unity to write our new constitution, were humble enough and deeply aware of our recent faults and miseries. But then, since 1948 the cold war spirit took over and a new division prevailed. The threat of communism became the new urgency and a deep cause of mutual distrust between the largest popular parties. That changed the whole cultural climate and forged our political discourse, and our capacity to look back honestly to our past. Until a new generation followed, with scarse memory of it.
4
@Davide
The WHOLE COUNTRY was not "proudly fascist until 1943". Many Italians did not ever embrace fascism. There was always a significant opposition.
You need only look at the "morale" of Italian troops in North Africa who surrendered in huge numbers not long after American troops arrived. On the Russian front, the Italian (and Romanian ) troops were considered the weak link by the German generals.
Italian Gentile partisans fought the Germans hand-in hand with Italian Jewish resisters. This was largely not the case in much of fascist-occupied Europe.
The Italian occupation forces in Greece while not benign, were certainly not nearly as draconian as the Germans. In Croatia, because their morale was so low that they wound up being the major suppliers of arms to the Yugoslav partisans, who had more to fear from the home grown Croatian fascists.
The officers in the Italian army were largely upper class snobs and bullies who had distain for their rank-and-file troops.
Although the Fascisti were in power almost ten years longer than the Nazis, the Italian people did not embrace fascism to the extent that the Germans, Austrians or even the Hungarians did.
2
@Giuliano Abate
Sounds like the flock doesn't know how to
get to where sheep may safely graze. SDS
"All that, however, took place in the faraway 20th century. Words that marked that century’s course — Fascism, Communism, totalitarianism, Holocaust — have become weightless in the 21st century, fungible elements in a furious fake-news theater."
I wonder what the elderly soldier in the center of the photograph was thinking at that moment. Should he not have known better? Did life teach him nothing? Or was he given no choice?
We must be constantly vigilant. Too many of us can too easily forget the dark recesses of our past.
We must never forget.
7
@Blue Moon, the “elderly soldier” in the photograph is Marshal of Italy Emilio De Bono, one of the founders of the National Fascist Party and architect of Italy’s 1930s conquest of Ethiopia. He most certainly should have known better.
1
The aftermath of World War I impacted the victorious Allies in different ways. Italy felt that its secret agreements with Britain and France were not honored. The Paris Peace Conference proved to be a disappointment to Italian dreams of acquisition.
Mussolini took advantage of this discontent, as Hitler would do later. Mussolini seemed to promise a transformation of Italy. “He made the trains run on time” was an expression of Mussolini’s competence. In 1923, he appeared on the cover of Time magazine.
As for the outstretched arm salute, Mussolini promised a return to the ancient glory Rome. That this symbol would be adopted by Hitler and be associated with engulfing Europe in war and produced genocide was not the intent in 1920s Italy.
Mr Cohen’s concern of the banner may be an overreaction. It is unlikely that Italy will return to fascism. It may indeed reflect the rightward leaning of Europe. Or it may be a sports team seeking to garner attention.
If it is the former, then we should first look into a mirror for such elements have arisen here. If it is the latter, then calling attention to it only reinforces such behavior in the self-centeredness that now dominates our social milieu.
1
"Italy’s liberation by the Allies and partisan resistance forces was not some debatable “derby” devoid of moral significance, but a victory that laid the foundation for Italy’s postwar re-emergence as a decent, democratic country."
I lived and worked in Milan, from 1969-1979, only a few decades after the end of WWII. I taught English at branches of US companies whose Italian employees were eager to learn "American English," the language of business. Italy was growing, becoming modern.
So when I read how quickly Italy is changing, caught up in this century's willful forgetfulness of the pain, hate, and deaths of world wars, it begs the question: are humans destined to keep repeating historical cycles, no matter how horrific?
Back here, it's different, because the rise of Trump (who kept a book of Hitler's speeches on his bed table, according to his first wife) is unlike anything in American history.
But what's truly alarming is how much in common we suddenly have with modern-day Europe in terms of indifference.
I find that scary--because we used to be better than that.
59
@ChristineMcM
Ciao ChristineMcM,
I lived in San Donato from 2007 to 2015. You will know it is a suburb of Milano and the headquarters of ENI. What has happened is a huge wave of illegal immigrants have descended on the country. This was exacerbated and accelerated by Mrs. Clinton's removal of Mr. Gadhafi. "We came, we saw, he died."
Petty crime increased and most of these young men are a public nuisance. Walking across the piazza down at the Duomo in Milan is to be aggressively pursued by hawkers of good luck bracelets, knock off hand bags, or just young men begging for money.
For me it was a minor annoyance, I have lived in places where this is only mildly inconvenient, but my Italian colleagues, whether left or right leaning are increasingly angry about the situation. It is not fascism.
Since you lived there you also know that there are still a small percentage of Italians that think Mussolini was a great guy. But this has been a reality long before Trump.
The real issue in Italy and Europe in general is illegal immigration. Unfortunately there are politicians like Trump who demagogue the issue to gain power and some of them may try to turn their country into some kind of fascistic regime.
Arrivederci, Garth
7
Things are in flux in much of the world, as dark forces arise once again to blame the "other" for their miserable lives.
It takes a special, highly virulent "leader" to coalesce these resentments into a political movement. And those leaders need examples of how to be effective at rabble rousing, at promoting conspiracies, at identifying those who are not like us, and to unfurl the flags of mindless xenophobia.
The U.S., right now, today, is leading the way for this sorrowful, sodden rebirth.
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It cost me my father too. who is buried in the military cemetery in Bari in Italy - shot down over Italy in a Lancaster bomber for which he was the navigator, ferrying wounded soldiers. Sad to read this and see fascist trends on the rise, when so many gave their lives to defeat it less than a century ago.
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Mr. Cohen, you and so many "benpensanti" are so indignant now as to what is happening in Italy, the USA and so many parts of Europe. As neo fascists and white supremacists gain power throughout, I don't remember you pointing out the right wing moving tendency of the neo-liberals wether in Italy with Renzi or in the US with Hilary Clinton. Many sat back and watched how the so called left allowed the shift of their parties to move to the center right, with income inequality getting worse as the years went by. Even now with all that is happening, the tendency is to defend the center, to advocate for the moderate position, enter Joe Biden. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and next time tell us something we don't know.
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And yet of course you sneered at president Obama and made light of hilliary . You helped trump. He took office. Now you rue your choices. Too little, too late.
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Too bad for the trite orientalist passages (the depiction of Italy as a country bypassed by modernity, a la-la land)
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And, fyi, that’s a good thing!
@Anna, even if it were, it is not true
This unfortunately is the problem with capitalism in crisis. People are forgetful fools. In a generation all is forgotten.
Very sad.
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@Blunt
At the large electronics company I worked for as an engineer, we had a saying, "What have you done for me, lately?"
I had no idea, it would permeate the rest of society.
3
Agreed, but there is blame to go round. By overusing the term "fascist,” the left too has caused it to be weightless. We see this here also.
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Mussolini is one of the most fascinating people of the 20th century. A newsman, writer, soldier, multi lingual, athletic with a normal family(despite his infidelity), his 4 battles (grain, birth, lira, land) would be a decent platform now. Obviously the Ethopia atrocity and the alliance with Hitler qualify him for the disgrace he received but many in Italy want to ignore the bad as that was the only time in 1600 years Italy mattered in the world. Honestly I have read a lot of history and his moments of lucidity (even to his wife who pleaded with him in 1935 to step down and just be a family man and grandpa...she live till 1980) make me sad as he could have made a difference in history if he had not been lured by the promise of a shortcut to glory on the coattail of Nazism. He is a parody now but one of the the great "what if"s of the 20th century. Don't believe me, look at the youtube "Italians make America great" from 1927 which was one of the first talking newsreels and spoken in English (Trump would never learn another language). Watch, you won't believe it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALy_A5owNUo
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@arthur I'm sorry but that clip on youtube is a meaningless word salad full of empty platitudes. Not sure what you find so exciting about it?
But there are very fine people on both sides.....
19:50 EDT, 4/26
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Never once in an otherwise well written article does Mr. Cohen actually define fascism, elucidated by the historian and talented writer, Edward Tannenbaum as "anti modernity!" Suggest he read works by ET on Italy , birthplace of fascism, and his informative book on Charles Maurras's Action Francaise!Having known fascists in the OAS such as JJ Susini, with whom I shared many a dejeuner in his planque in Algiers during the final days of "Algerie francaise,", located in quartier Valentin and later in his "hotel particulier"@ 11 rue Cernuschi in Paris,(watch my videos) which dejeuners were prepared for us by his charming "epouse" and unabashed monarchist, Marie Antoinette Luciani,ABH knows whereof he speaks. and also was well acquainted with Jean Marcel Zagame, founder of Croix Celtique!But, "revenons aux moutons," Mr. Cohen. Ultra right wing movements gaining popularity in Europe r no more fascist than you or I, but rather a reaction to illegal immigration which threatens national identities all over the world.Read Pat Buchanan's "Suicide of a Super Power" in which he proposes legal immigration with an asterisk. Let us assimilate 1 group of immigrants before allowing others to enter.My wife Juliana and our son, Alister Hall love the US, and if Julie, "mon amour du siecle,"w/o legal immigration, would not be enjoying the fruits of this great nation and Alister would not be attending a charter school! We r a great nation and President Trump is a great chief of state.
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@Alexander Harrison
"Anti-modernity" ,my foot. Mussolini invented the term "fascism", and wrote an article defining it in 1932 for the Italian Encyclopedia. Read it.
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@Alexander Harrison
Am I the only one who can't figure out what the heck Alexander is trying to say??? I hope his intended audience is not the current occupant of the White House...way too many foreign and three-syllable words for his "stable genius."
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@Alexander Harrison
The fact you use "assimilation" shows you're not really interested in our globalized world. "assimilation" assumes people will submit to the ruling culture. Why should they?
Integration comes from respect; you integrate, with your own set of values, into the greater set of societies' values, trying to tolerate or accept the unavoidable conflicts of interest.
"assimilate" is what China is doing now in Xinjang. Is that what you want?
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My father, John Howaniec, son of Polish immigrants, served in the Fifth Army, a 19 year old boy from Maine who landed in Casablanca in 1943. Part of Mark Clark's Fifth Army, they made their way through North Africa, across the Meditteranean, landed in Napoli, and then north to Rome for the liberation of that ancient city. He was one of four Polish American brothers who served in World War II, part of the generation that helped to save the world. The rise of these fascists in this age of Trump is sickening.
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It's not entirely new.
In the early 1980s, the fascists bombed the train station at Bologna, killing dozens. That wasn't an isolated incident either.
By the way, all honor to your late uncle Bert, may his memory live on.
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@Tara
Hi Tara, in the interest of truth, the bombing at Bologna was part of state sponsored terror, which appears to have been 'memory holed'. operation Gladio was its name.
Here is a link to a BBC documentary on the subject.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGHXjO8wHsA
2
Roger Cohen's words scare me to death: “In Israel, 'Fascism' becomes a perfume for a rightist minister’s election-campaign ads. In the United States, the 'Jews will not replace us' cry of white supremacists does not, for President Trump, constitute unequivocal moral iniquity. In Italy, liberation from Fascism becomes a squalid 'derby' for the most powerful figure in the government. Ideas that were solemn, or even sacred, become dog whistles.”
Cohen brought back a conversation I had with my golf partner a few years ago, when he asked me what the dumbest idea I ever had as a kid was. I was 80 at the time, and I told him I was a Jewish kid living in severely anti-Semitic Boston when World War ll ended and news about what we now call the Holocaust was seeping into our awareness. Further, I told him I had actually thought to myself, “at least it’s over; what the world is learning will finally stop mass killing of civilians once and for all. After a pause I added, “Of course, I was only about ten years old at the time.”
Since then, we’ve learned there is no “world,” only individual nations or peoples constantly seeking their own best interests. And we’ve seen scores of episodes we can rightfully call genocide emerge whenever leaders called for them. In each case, propagandistic language was used to build and justify the urge to slaughter. It has been said, “The decay of language is the decay of man.” How that works never takes long for the “world” to see. Again?....
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As an aside.
I can't get past the older guy to Mussolini's left, sporting a long white beard and making a very half-hearted salute.
Can anyone say who he is?
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@John
Associated Press photo, taken in Rome on October 28, 1936. Available for purchase on Shutterstock. Participants not otherwise identified. Hope this helps.
1
@John not sure, but looks like Annibale Bergonzoli.
@John
That was General Emilio De Bono, an early convert to Fascism who was instrumental in organizing the party.
He was part of the group that, on July 25th 1943, toppled Mussolini and when he was reinstated by Hitler he had De Bono (and Galeazzo Ciano, Gottardi, Marinelli and Pareschi) executed in Verona.
7
Meanwhile, here in our good ol’ democratic republic, the nation’s would-be dictator trots out his mini-Mussolini act at the NRA Convention.
Trump’s shtick indicates he is ready to revise Charlton Heston’s assertion: If they try to take my presidency away from me, they’ll have to take it from my cold dead hand.
Will anyone be surprised if in 2020, for the first time in our nation’s history, there is no peaceful hand-over of presidential authority?
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@Andrew G. Bjelland, Sr. Yes, I've wondered about that too
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@Andrew G. Bjelland, Sr.
He will have to have the courts and the military fully on his side by then to pull it off. Think of Maduro in Venezuela. We won't necessarily have a view as to the state of mind of the military until perhaps it is too late in the process. Time will tell.
4
Mussolini has resurfaced in Washington, and he's a lot more dangerous than the original.
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At the end of World War II American and British troops occupied much of Germany and until not too long ago several heavy American armored divisions were still in Germany. At the time of the first Iraq war and not too long after the dismantling of the Soviet Empire the Americans began withdrawing. America's presence ended. Germany was reunited and Eastern Europe was free from oppression. What followed next was the slaughter in Bosnia and Serbia and then the rise of rightwing extremism.
When the American troops were in Europe so were their families. There was cultural and economic exchange and benefits. And there was also the military and political assurance that America would stand fast against the rise once again of Nazism, Fascism, and ultra-nationalism. American had presence and power on the European continent.
Now America has withdrawn from the European theatre. Fascists have returned to Italy. Neo-Nazis openly seek office and power in Germany. Immigrants are the easiest targets. In France Le Pen is seeing legitimacy and power. And in Poland, Hungary and Austria anti-Semitism is now openly part of the political process.
Russia and China have both taken advantage of the American withdrawal and the power vacuum that has resulted. Crimea, Georgia and Ukraine are the beginning. Poland is next on the list as Russian forces are ready on the border.
Italy is not running a sideshow. Immigration and economic stagnation have taken a toll. The price is to be paid.
11
@Jay
"And in Poland, Hungary and Austria anti-Semitism is now openly part of the political process."
So then why did Israel's ambassador to Hungary give an interview last fall in which he emphasized how safe and comfortable Jews felt in Hungary? He contrasted that with the problems Jews were having in some of the countries in Western Europe.
Political process?
There is one party in Hungary which has anti-Semitism as one of its main themes: MIEP.
Care to guess how it fared in the last national elections?
0.16%.
Yes, the decimal point is in the right place.
And so on ...
3
How did we get here? The way out is going to be really hard. The Specials have a great song Racist Friend. If you have a racist friend that friendship must end. Tough yes. Has to happen, yes.
5
The resemblance is startling. The mannerisms, the stylin’ and posin’, the sheer arrogance. From Italy to Queens, with hate. Reincarnation, or a very, very bad spin on the cosmic wheel.
Seriously.
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"Salvini has emerged in a different context to Berlusconi, one where anti-democratic, illiberal, racist forces are on the rise in Europe and beyond, encouraged by the moral abdication of Trump’s United States."
The above statement confuses me, specifically the last part "... encourage by the moral abdication of Trump's United States."
I think it's not just "Trump's United States." It seems to me that it isn't just Trump, but, indeed, if anything, mostly those leaders before him.
Trump, it seems to me, is only harvesting what those before him have sowed. It can't all be Trump's fault, not even the majority of it.
I think it's everybody before him, at least the more recent ones, from the 60s and 70s onwards, including Congress, who sowed the seeds of public mistrust and the social inequality and misery that today Trump exploits.
And, it's also the institutions therein, too, including this very paper, that have contributed, slowly but surely, to where we find ourselves.
We can't suddenly give all the credit to the interior decorator, or the electrician, when people before them dug the foundation, laid the bricks, mixed the mortar, inserted the insulation, the plumbing etc. Leaders and institutions before Trump have contributed to the house we live in today.
This paper itself, like most of the media, if i recall, provided near countless hours of free exposure and publicity for Trump during the campaign.
When he said "Mexican ..." they amplified the message etc.
10
Handwringing is not helpful. Pushback is essential: Swift, universal condemnation. If you value free expression, practice it! A counter demonstration, please.
10
"He would have been incredulous at those Fascist salutes and the minister’s choice of words. He would have been disgusted."
The general concepts of morality and ethics are remarkably similar across countries and cultures. This is probably the result of human societies, over the past 100,000 years or so, learning and internalizing similar lessons of what is and isn't good for their survival. To me it is amazing that we have to keep re-learning these lessons over and over again. I suppose it must be because we carry the seeds of our own destruction within us - perhaps so that something better might emerge when the time is right.
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@Partha Neogy
The nature of culture is that it must be learned and relearned by each succeeding generation. Human nature is the ground upon which all culture stands, and is also its pitfall.
Culture is both an expression of the degree to which humanity has transcended human nature. It is also a measure of how far humanity has yet to travel to achieve a stable counter balance to human nature.
7
correct, Partha. It seems like the 1930's again. I can't believe we've learned nothing!@Partha Neogy
6
@randall freeman
We haven't learned nothing.Some of us
have learned a convenient forgetting,Mr.
Freeman. SDS
1
Italy is one of those countries within the E.U. that is feeling the brunt of the migration crisis from Africa and the Middle East.
Hundreds of thousands are fleeing the decades of constant war and strife that has led to failed governments/nations, omnipresent violence and bleak economic options. They land on the shores wave after wave looking for something to eat, somehow to work and somewhere to live.
The backlash is the rise of the extreme right that across several fronts and in several countries that want their supposed way of life restored and to live among only people that look, live and think like themselves.
The problem is only going to get worse as the wars continue, but now with climate change exacerbating where people can live.
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@FunkyIrishman - It's foolish and a colossal waste of time and energy but I keep thinking how different the world might be had SCOTUS not handed GW Bush the presidency in 2000. 9/11 might still have happened but his misbegotten illegal war on Iraq wouldn't have, and we wouldn't have been responsible destabilizing the whole area, setting off a chain of events that has besieged Europe and led to the mess we're in now. And, we'd likely be 19 yrs. ahead on combating climate change. The old saying goes, it's darkest just before the dawn. I hope that will prove true in 2020, cause it's pretty dang dark right now. Peace to you.
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@Deb
Aye, too true, but it is never a waste of time to keep positive thoughts within oneself as everything around them is deteriorating.
I take your point, but imagine as well if the immigration reform bill of 2013 got through Congress (let alone was allowed to come up for a vote) and the then candidate (now President) was mitigated in demonizing the issue ?
I know, sigh, Peace be onto you as well.
21
@FunkyIrishman Except for the fact that most of the so-called "refugees" who've come into Italy in the past 6-7 years are not refugees at all: most come from sub-Saharan West Africa where there are nor wars (other than a smallish one in one part of Nigeria, which can be easily avoided by moving to another part of Nigeria). These latest migrants are almost exclusively young men, hustlers looking for a sweeter life. I don't blame them for trying, but they have no "right" to move to Italy without visas, and they're placing a burden on the Italian taxpayers and citizens. Have you tried walking through the Piazza di Santa Maria Novella in Florence lately? The migrants are there aggressively in your face. Italians are getting sick of it.
14