Posted on 02/08/2005 12:19:20 PM PST by Tailgunner Joe
ITALIAN state television has exhumed old hatreds between the political Right and Left in Italy with the dramatisation of a World War II massacre that was banished from the history books.
RAI this week broadcast Il Cuore nel Pozzo (The Heart in a Pit) about the slaughter in the 1940s of about 15,000 Italians living in disputed territory in the mountains of modern-day Slovenia and Croatia. The film portrays screaming children ripped from their mothers' arms and families set before firing squads - not by Benito Mussolini's Fascists, but by Italian communists and Yugoslav partisans.
"This tragedy was hidden to most Italians for 60 years," director Alberto Negrin said.
"I wanted to show the story in simple emotional terms, that thousands of innocent people, including children and women, died terrible deaths. The aim was not to make it political."
However, keeping politics away has proved impossible.
The tragedy of the Foibe, named after the deep chasms the victims were thrown into, was initially hushed up by politicians keen to heal Italy's war wounds and move on with reconstruction.
The 1943-45 massacres also sat uncomfortably with Italy's post-war history, which portrayed the communist partisans as national heroes who saved the country from its alliance with Adolf Hitler.
But Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who rails against communism, and his right-wing Government have been eager to dig up the past, naming February 10 the first memorial day for the Foibe and promoting RAI's €4.5 million ($7.5million) film.
"We must pull from this abyss of lies a truth hidden by the imposition of a cultural bias," said communications minister Maurizio Gasparri, a member of the National Alliance, which has its roots in Mussolini's fascist party.
But Slovenia's former foreign minister, Ivo Vajgl, criticised the making of the drama as an "offence and provocation" to Slovenia.
While Italy's Left has stayed mute over the Foibe, some centre-left politicians are facing up to the past, with Rome mayor Walter Veltroni visiting the area last week to pay homage to the dead. "The Holocaust was a tragedy without equal, but it was not the only tragedy of the 20th century. What I have seen here is witness to a guilty silence, even involving the communists."
Fascinating post.
Good. One of the 41 Bush's biggest mistakes during his Presidency, was that he didn't use the euphoria of the fall of the Berlin Wall to push for an international court to condemn Communism, and possibly put leading Communist figures from the former 2nd World on trial - secret policemen, Gulag wardens, ect. This would have been a brilliant political manuever to stain the Left forever, as the Left has gotten away with exonerating Communism: bragging about being "Anti-anti-communists" (can you imagine someone in public claiming to be an "Anti-anti-Nazi"?), hiding the 100 million dead in 85 years, ignoring the consequences of collectivism, ect. The Ward Churchill's and Michael Moore's of the world could no longer ignore the crimes of Communism, if there was some international indictment against the ideology itself.
During the 20th Century, the communists killed more people than anybody.
Stalin 25,000,000
Mao 60,000,000
They made Hitler and Mussolini and Saddam combined look like pikers.
How long till this film get reviewed by the "Sundance" crowd. I'm not holding my breath on that one. Henry Fonda this film is for YOU!!!
Left and Right? Communist socialist vs National socialist sound more like a fight between the left and the left like Dean vs. Kennedy.
You can't put Mussolini in the category of those killers. Compared to them, he was a saint. Communists are red for a reason.
- Tony Montana, AKA "Scarface"
I can envision a Quentin Tarantino style screenplay that would be quite effective in tearing the heart from Communist sympathizers. Never say a film will not be made or will be unsuccessful, just look at The Passion. It could happen.
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Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
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"The tragedy of the Foibe, named after the deep chasms the victims were thrown into, was initially hushed up by politicians keen to heal Italy's war wounds and move on with reconstruction."
Road apples. It was hushed up for the same reason Katyn Forest and hundreds of other incidents were hushed up: to protect communism and communists.
Here's a really good column on the subject of movies about communism:
http://reason.com/0006/fe.kb.hollywoods.shtml
I don't believe the communist ever did anything like this. The VC, NVA, and Khmer Rouge were really a bunch of real nice people. I distinctly remember, during the anti-war marches of the 60's and 70's, signs comparing the VC to Jesus Christ himself. If the communist are such bad people why did our estemed politians such as Bill Clinton and John Kerry march on their behalf? I mean we even had some of our most notable movie stars such as Jane Fonda support them. This has got to be some type of mistake.
Excellent post. Just because the Soviets are history it doesn't mean the Commies are gone...
In fact, I think a major power behind a lot of the terrorists is Communism
Old Enemies PING!
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