Posted on 09/01/2005 10:00:26 AM PDT by Mike Bates
A summer music hit has sparked a war of words between Italian left-wingers and neo-fascists who claim the Colombian pop song, "La camisa negra" ("The black shirt"), as their anthem.
The record, whose singer says it is simply a love song, has topped the charts this summer in Germany, Italy, Austria and Switzerland.
The black shirt -- "camicia nera" in Italian -- was part of the fascists' uniform under dictator Benito Mussolini, and is still a symbol for Italy's extreme right.
Italian left-wing Web site Indymedia (www.indymedia.org) urged readers to "boycott the fascist song, queen of the summer, Camisa Negra", prompting a stream of online comments ranging from the amused to the irate.
The song title was also picked up by Secolo d'Italia, the newspaper published by the National Alliance, a party rooted in Italy's fascist past.
Secolo d'Italia gave front page space to a column imagining beachgoers singing along to "Camisa Negra", leaving out the "g" so it would sound more like "black shirt" in Italian.
Media have reported that extreme rightist party-goers raise one arm in the fascist salute when the song is played in night clubs.
But in an interview to be broadcast on Sunday by Italian television network RAI, Colombian pop star Juanes says "La Camisa Negra" is not a hymn to the National Alliance, but "a love song," according to newspaper Corriere della Sera.
The singer could not be reached for comment.
Conservatives all over the world in the 20's respected Mussolini.
It was presentation. Fascism was sexy and modernist and techonology worshipping and Art Deco.
I have always suspected that many of the Italians who came to the US immediately after WWII were fascists, based on their attitudes on certain subjects, political and cultural.
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