ROME — Italy on Thursday celebrated its liberation from Nazi occupation and fascist rule amid fresh media controversy over suspected censorship and the legacy of Italian fascist complicity in the Holocaust and World War II-era crimes.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, whose Brothers of Italy party has its roots in the neo-fascist movement that emerged after the fall of dictator Benito Mussolini, joined the Italian president at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Rome for the solemn commemoration of Memorial Day. Release.
This year’s anniversary was marked by a media storm over RAI state television’s decision to publish a monologue planned for Liberation Day by an Italian author denouncing fascism and what it said was Meloni’s refusal. to repudiate it.
The issue struck a chord in Italy, where Meloni’s election in 2022 as the first far-right leader since World War II has revived criticism that Italy has not fully reckoned with its fascist past, in the same way that Germany did it with National Socialism.
The suggestion that RAI censored Antonio Scurati’s monologue because it was critical of Meloni, his party and lingering neo-fascist sentiment has dominated Italian news for days and led Meloni to post Scurati’s essay on his Facebook page.
In the post, Meloni accused the left of creating a scandal where none existed. Although he said he did not know what happened, he noted that RAI initially said it simply did not want to pay Scurati “1,800 euros ($1,930; the monthly salary of many employees) for a one-minute monologue.”
The monologue, which was supposed to have been broadcast as part of RAI’s Liberation Day commemorations, recounted well-known incidents: the assassination, on June 10, 1924, by Mussolini’s hitmen of a socialist legislator opposed to fascism , Giacomo Matteotti, as well as the 1944 massacres of Italian civilians during the Nazi occupation.
“These two sad concomitant anniversaries – the spring of ’24 and the spring of ’44 – proclaim that fascism was throughout its historical existence (not just at the end or occasionally) an irredeemable phenomenon of systematic, murderous political violence fueled by massacres,” says Scurati’s essay. saying. “Will the heirs of that history recognize him for once? Unfortunately, everything indicates that they will not do so.”
Meloni has sought to distance his Brothers of Italy party from its neo-fascist roots and has gone to great lengths to forge ties with Italy’s Jewish community, back a long-delayed project for a Holocaust Museum and support Israel, including in its war. current. in Gaza.
But the opposition has accused his forces of refusing to declare themselves firmly “anti-fascist”.
RAI, for its part, has launched an internal investigation to understand the decisions that led to Scurati’s monologue being published. Scurati is the author of the award-winning volume “M” on the rise of Mussolini and the parallels with today.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the suggestion that the state broadcaster published a text by Scurati critical of Meloni’s ruling party has only drawn attention to it, with calls for mayors to use their Liberation Day speeches of this year to quote it.
“Deep down, there is a rule that must not be forgotten,” wrote commentator Aldo Grasso in Corriere della Sera. “Once a text is censored, there is a great risk that the text itself will no longer be controllable and will follow its own unpredictable path: the ‘boomerang effect.’ “This is what happened.”
The RAI controversy has fueled tensions on a Liberation Day that were already high given Israel’s war in Gaza and planned pro-Palestinian marches in Italy on a day that traditionally celebrates Italy’s Jewish community. But the Italian association of partisans who fought against Nazi occupation and fascist forces planned to press ahead with marches, including one in Milan in which Scurati would participate.
“Long live the anti-fascist republic!” ” read this year’s Liberation Day banner from the National Association of Italian Supporters.