Row over fascist-era statue reveals schism in how Italians deal with past

The Guardian ^ | 4-5-13 | Lizzy Davies

[TurboZamboni]

In 1932, a 24ft marble statue of a young, muscular male athlete was unveiled in Brescia, northern Italy, and given the name Fascist Era. With its rippling torso and hand placed solemnly on hip, it was considered to symbolise the "rejuvenating ideals of the fascist regime", and, when Benito Mussolini came to visit, he was said to have praised it for its strength. Its sculptor, Arturo Dazzi, was reported to have remarked, "even if they want to tear it down, I don't care at all."

Some 13 years later, that is what happened when, with the second world war over and Italy's former dictator dead, the Brescia authorities took down the statue and consigned it to a warehouse. There it remained for nearly 70 years. But now, in a move condemned by critics as "overtly ideological", the city's centre-right mayor plans to reinstate the statue in its original position.

Adriano Paroli, of Silvio Berlusconi's Freedom People party (PdL), rejects any accusation of revisionism or fascist nostalgia, insisting the Bigio – as the statue became known in Brescia – is a valid piece of heritage that can be appreciated, aside from its political links, for its artistic and cultural merits.

[Fiji Hill]

Italy is loaded with gorgeous fascist art deco architecture.

This style of architecture can be found in America as well.

United States Court House, Los Angeles (1940)

[haroldeveryman]

It may be true that all forms of oppressive government are not necessarily socialist. However, all offshoots of socialism whether facism, social democracy or communism, are forms of oppressive government. Income redistribution and other forms of enforcing economic equality necessitates government coercion. Once government has that kind of power, it’s goodbye to our other freedoms.

[Fiji Hill]

Stalin went to “socialism in one country” because he believed, accurately, that the world was not ripe for universal revolution, not because he decided that universal revolution was no longer the goal. So he concentrated on making the Soviet Union a solid base for the future world revolution, not abandoning the goal but moving it into the future.

Could China be doing something similar today? After all, despite the growth of free enterprise in China since Mao died, the ruling party still calls itself the Communist Party; it maintains organizations such as the Communist Youth; China's flag features Marxist-Leninist-Maoist iconography, etc.

[RobO1125]

My great grandmother (RIP) was a part of the anti-fascist underground under Mussolini and left Palermo for America when the brownshirts killed her brother. The statue should be taken on a national tour where folks can spit on it, then blown to smithereens.

[Sherman Logan]

Whither China? That’s a damn good question.

My personal opinion, which is not particularly well informed, is that there is very little that is communist about the present Chinese system other than the name. Any country with many private-property millionaires and billionaires cannot be called communist in any real sense. YMMV

I think the present Chinese system has a great deal more in common with the traditional rule of the mandarins, with them replaced by the Party, than it does with a dictatorship of the proletariat.

In traditional Chinese society the rule of the mandarins tended to be brought low by unbelievable levels of corruption. The basic role of the emperor in this system was to act as a check on this corruption of the mandarins.

The problem in China today is largely that since there has been no emperor since the death of Mao the corruption has gone on unchecked.

IMO this will eventually cause the breakup of the country, as has happened dozens of times before.

But my opinion on China is based merely on reading, no actual experience.

[TurboZamboni]

The Facts on Fascism

http://spectator.org/archives/2009/04/30/the-facts-on-fascism

It is especially appropriate to make such comparisons if one has already shown that it is not merely a partisan accusation. Some of us noted even when Bush started us on this path that it had similarities to fascist economics. And I take a back seat to nobody in having fought against real neo-Nazism on the right, as a founding board member of the Louisiana Coalition Against Racism and Nazism (which carried the fight against David Duke).

Again, this is a question of freedom. It's a question of free enterprise, free markets, and free minds. When an administration takes over banks and car companies, and makes moves to force through a takeover of the entire health care industry without the ordinary procedural safeguards, and (even under Bush) forces banks to buy other banks against their will, then this isn't the America we know and love. This is instead a country ruled by a top-down, command-and-control, invasive, barely accountable, self-selected elite.

And that is dangerous. And, minus the antipathy to labor unions, that is the very definition of Italian economic fascism.

[Forward the Light Brigade]

Fascism has a larger military budget and a nationalistic flavor rather than an international goal of World Socialism. It also has a poor shelf life—people get over it and vote it out—in time. Once the “leader” dies it drys up. Think of Fascism as a sort of drastic medicine. If your nation is going down the toilet—try the Fascism pill—it will make a recovery, establish law and order, lots of parades and music and uniforms, etc... BUT, like all bitter medications—it has bad side effects. The worst case was the racist Nazi German Government of Adolph Hitler. Wars, racism, xenophobia, and conquest to name a few. When thinking of Fascism—think Franco’s Spain, or Evita and Juan Peron’s Argentina. I believe Putin’s Russia is slipping into Fascism even now. It may come here-BUT-not with Obama. A Fascist state needs good, leadership that captivates the nation—Obama can’t do it. I see no leaders today who could pull it off in the USA.

[Calvin Locke]

A lot of Hitler's buildings were destroyed at the end of the war, especially if they had any Nazi symbolism in the architecture or facade.

Whether they were works of art regardless of any symbolism, I have know idea.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks TurboZamboni.

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bigio

[miss marmelstein]

One of my favorite movies. If ya got it,baby,flaunt it, flaunt it!

[EricT.]

Italy is loaded with gorgeous fascist art deco architecture. Just as the Borgias and Medicis were monsters, so was Mussolini. But a lot of great buildings got put up in their time. (Unlike Hitler who had no taste whatsoever!)

They've also got plenty of beautiful artworks from the Roman Empire, which was not exactly the height of human rights.

[miss marmelstein]

What is it Orson Welles says at the end of The Third Man? He talks about the blood-stained history of Italy and compares it to Switzerland. And what art did they ever produce? The cuckoo clock.

[Caipirabob]

But the notion that any and all forms of oppressive government are socialist just won’t fly. The Roman and Chinese Empire under their worst emperors weren’t socialist.

I agree with that. I mean that the left side of the scale is totalitarian.

Fascism is a form of totalitarianism.

One person I knew who argued that the Nazis were fascists and there's no way they could be considered on the same side of the scale as the socialists under totalitarian government could not reconcile his objection because the regime still had the power to subdue personal freedom and cart people off and shove them into ovens.

Different implementations of the totalitarian state, but all the same and same results in the end.

Thanks for the response. I want to discuss this more with freepers because I know I'll get the correct perspective from a position I respect.

Here is a fascinating video that fleshes out the concept:

The Political Spectrum Easily Explained - Basic Forms of Government

[Caipirabob]

"Anarchy" as a mechanism of change is really how I see it's place on the scale. Unfortunately it most often results in something from the left side of the scale.

[Caipirabob]

#11-lol! If only he had explored his full potential, but then we’d have one less lesson on the disaster of socialism to look to.