{"id":1029,"date":"2018-01-31T12:00:16","date_gmt":"2018-01-31T11:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stefanopitrelli.com\/?p=1029"},"modified":"2018-02-10T13:07:44","modified_gmt":"2018-02-10T12:07:44","slug":"the-surprising-reason-mussolinis-home-town-wants-to-build-a-fascism-museum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stefanopitrelli.com\/?p=1029","title":{"rendered":"The surprising reason Mussolini\u2019s home town wants to build a fascism museum"},"content":{"rendered":"

Predappio’s mayor see this as an opportunity to learn from a dark era, not to glorify it.<\/p>\n

by Michael Birnbaum and Stefano Pitrelli, The Washington Post<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"TWP<\/a><\/p>\n

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PREDAPPIO, Italy<\/span><\/div>\n
\"\"The Casa del Fascio, or House of Fascism, in Predappio, Italy. The town\u2019s mayor, working with historians, plans to transform the building into a museum and center for the study of fascism. (Simone Donati\/TerraProject for The Washington Post)<\/div>\n
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Thousands of admirers of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini visit his tiny home town every year. Now, as far-right parties expand their appeal\u00a0ahead of March elections, the town\u2019s leftist mayor wants to open a museum of fascism on the main square, not as an homage to their cause but as a way to contain it.<\/p>\n

The effort has reignited a long-running\u00a0debate about Italy\u2019s\u00a0conflicted relationship with the jut-jawed Mussolini, who seized power in 1922 and held his nation in thrall for more than two decades, building it into an industrial behemoth even as he threw his opponents into prison camps. Many historians and politicians say that Italy has never fully reckoned with its fascist past \u2014 and that one result is\u00a0the modern-day popularity of leaders who cite Mussolini as a model.<\/p>\n

The nostalgia has grown even thicker\u00a0this year in the run-up to the\u00a0March\u00a04 general election, in which\u00a0insurgent outsiders who say Mussolini is misunderstood are making up ground on traditional centrist candidates. One aspiring\u00a0governor in a prosperous\u00a0region recently said Italy\u00a0must protect \u201cthe white race.\u201d Another politician said Mussolini did \u201cgreat things\u201d for the country.<\/p>\n

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Predappio\u2019s center-left mayor wants to overhaul the town\u2019s crumbling 1937 House of Fascism, an imposing marble-and-brick edifice with a balcony once\u00a0used for delivering speeches to cheering crowds, for the proposed Museum of Fascism.<\/p>\n

Backers of the plan\u00a0envision a spiraling display modeled on Dante\u2019s circles of hell,\u00a0with Mussolini\u2019s\u00a0pugnacious presence at its center. Visitors would gaze out at neighboring hills from\u00a0the curving, airy ballroom where local fascists once held their galas. They would eat in the same spot where Blackshirts once sipped espressos.<\/p>\n

If the project\u2019s backers find the additional $6.2\u00a0million they need for the museum, it\u00a0would be Italy\u2019s first devoted exclusively to the fascist era, 73 years after Mussolini was executed and strung up by the feet in a public square in Milan. Shops in Predappio cater to his fans, selling marble busts of the dictator, hats stitched with fascist icons and collections of his speeches.<\/p>\n

\u201cPredappio is the right place to do this, because it\u2019s a fascist symbol,\u201d said Giorgio Frassineti, the mayor of the leafy\u00a0town of 6,000 in Italy\u2019s rolling northeast. \u201cI want to use culture as a weapon of mass destruction for ignorance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Advocates already have $2.5\u00a0million in pledges, and the town owns the empty property.<\/p>\n

Unlike neighboring Germany, where Adolf Hitler remains a third rail even for far-right parties, Italy has long harbored ambivalent feelings about\u00a0its fascist leader.<\/p>\n

\u201cMussolini built so many things,\u201d Matteo Salvini, the leader of the far-right Northern League<\/a> party, said on\u00a0Italian radio\u00a0Friday. \u201cBut I prefer democracy to dictatorship, dictatorships of any kind.\u201d<\/p>\n

A sense that Mussolini is being rehabilitated\u00a0unsettles some of Italy\u2019s mainstream leaders.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is surprising to hear, even today, from some quarters, that fascism had some merits but made two serious mistakes: the racial laws and the entry into the war,\u201d Italian President Sergio Mattarella said in a\u00a0speech last week marking\u00a0the 80th anniversary of the signing of Italy\u2019s notorious anti-Semitic racial laws. \u201cRacism and war were not deviations or episodes from its way of thinking, but the direct and inevitable consequence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Frassineti said he fears that there is a trend on the continent\u00a0toward a fascist resurgence.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Europe, there is a wind\u00a0blowing in that direction,\u201d he\u00a0said in Predappio\u2019s town hall, where he said his high-ceilinged office once served as Mussolini\u2019s childhood bedroom. He blamed the fascist stirrings on a poor understanding of the past. \u201cThis country has given up on a whole generation. Because schools and politicians haven\u2019t done their job.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Predappio, traces of the fascist leader are everywhere. His\u00a0birthplace, a squat stone structure where the guest book is full of far-right slogans,\u00a0is fronted by a sweeping Fascist-era plaza. Just outside town, the leader\u2019s crypt looms over the\u00a0cemetery.<\/p>\n

On a recent sunny weekday afternoon, a steady stream of visitors walked up to the high-arched mausoleum, where a red-white-and-green Italian flag was tied to a door handle. Some threw the stiff-armed fascist salute. Others praised Mussolini\u2019s leadership.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is our Bethlehem. This is a way to pay thanks for what he did for the world,\u201d said Antonino Monti, 64, who ambled up to the crypt, trailed by his wife, daughter and their Chihuahua, then saluted smartly.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was the best leader of the 20th century,\u201d said Monti, who said he visits Predappio several times a year from his home in Sicily, where he works on the Sigonella air base.<\/p>\n

The growing traffic to Predappio \u2014 city leaders say it draws\u00a0more than 50,000 people a year \u2014 has upset groups that represent victims of fascism.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis city is becoming a temple to Mussolini,\u201d said Noemi Di Segni, the head of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities,\u00a0who backs the museum project.<\/p>\n

The museum\u2019s planners, like Di\u00a0Segni, argue\u00a0that it is past time for an analytical look at the history.<\/p>\n

Italians live \u201cwithout the possibility of understanding how Italian society lived during the fascist era,\u201d said Marcello Flores, a history professor at the University of Siena who heads the academic committee designing the museum.\u00a0Remedying that, he said, is the museum\u2019s principal aim.<\/p>\n

Some civic leaders say Italy has not learned\u00a0lessons from its past.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe weren\u2019t able to spread out to young people in the schools how bad a dictatorship is compared to a democracy,\u201d said Emanuele Fiano, a center-left lawmaker in the Italian Parliament who recently proposed a bill\u00a0to outlaw the fascist salute<\/a> and distribution of\u00a0National Fascist Party and Nazi imagery. Current laws ban such materials only if they are being used to re-create the historical Fascist Party, which gives wide leeway to Mussolini\u2019s admirers.<\/p>\n

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But critics of the museum say that rather than diminish the town\u2019s appeal\u00a0as a fascist destination, it could entrench it by adding yet another attraction on the far-right Mussolini tour. Predappio is far from Italy\u2019s established tourist centers, requiring a slow train and a bus from Bologna, the nearest big city. Few people seek it out, other than those with a penchant for Mussolini.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m afraid Predappio might become a place for spreading fascism, not rejecting it,\u201d said Anna Foa, a\u00a0historian of Italian Judaism who has opposed the project.<\/p>\n

The head of Italy\u2019s influential anti-fascist partisans association shares the worry.<\/p>\n

\u201cA museum of fascism would de\u00a0facto become a place of pilgrimage for fascists\u201d if it were in Predappio, said Carla Nespolo, the group\u2019s president.<\/p>\n

Many analysts say that Mussolini nostalgia\u00a0has helped drive the success of Italy\u2019s modern-day far right. The two biggest far-right parties, the Northern League and Brothers of Italy, together capture about 18\u00a0percent in opinion polling and could win power in March in coalition with the larger Forward Italy party of Silvio Berlusconi, who has praised aspects of Mussolini\u2019s rule.<\/p>\n

A smaller far-right group, \u00adCasaPound Italy, has been more explicit in its embrace of Mussolini. And although its\u00a0national support remains low, it is growing and has won some\u00a0local offices.<\/div>\n
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\u201cWe have to recognize that something is still working, something created by fascism,\u201d said Alberto Palladino, a member of the group\u2019s steering committee.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

In Predappio, anti-fascist activists say they remain shocked that such sentiment is still so visible.\u00a0Stores selling Mussolini memorabilia line the main street in proud defiance of laws against \u201capologizing for fascism.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re like sex shops for fascism,\u201d said Stefano Ignone, a member of a local foundation that has battled the museum plan. \u201cBut at least in a sex shop, they cover the windows. Here, it\u2019s all in the open.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Predappio’s mayor see this as an opportunity to learn from a dark era, not to glorify it. by Michael Birnbaum and Stefano Pitrelli, The Washington Post<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[109,1],"tags":[110,81,50,20,61,25],"class_list":["post-1029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-front-page","category-washpost","tag-fascismi","tag-olocausto","tag-politica","tag-societa","tag-storia","tag-turismo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanopitrelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanopitrelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanopitrelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanopitrelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanopitrelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1029"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanopitrelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1031,"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanopitrelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1029\/revisions\/1031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanopitrelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanopitrelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanopitrelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}