Mike's Blog

No, Mussolini was just misunderstood

Horseshit!

Today's page 8 story in the New York Times "A Proud Mussolini Refuses to Let 'Il Duce' Be Vilified," profiles Alessandra Mussolini, an up until recently member of the National Alliance party and current member of parliament.

The article begins: Alessandra Mussolini never minded the occasional small dig against Fascism, which certainly had its problems, or a little gibe about her grandfather Benito, who had his flaws.

Had his flaws? Yeah that whole thing about replicating the Nuremburg laws in Italy, having all those scheming Jews and those dirty Gypsies carted off to concentration camps, having his army overrun Ethiopia without provocation, a battle which, by the way, did not result in an Italian ass-kicking only because the Italians used poison gas. Haile Selassie (Ras Tafari) begged the League of Nations, of which Ethiopia was a member, to intervene but Britain and France were unwilling to risk another war...thought it better to let Mussolini take Ethiopia and appease him (cough)....you know what happens next. Mussolini's army was also responsible for brutal atrocities against civilians in Greece and Albania.

But you know, these are just little flaws.

Other descendants of Il Duce are politically active as well.

One of Romano (son of Benito, ed.) Mussolini's nephews, Guido Mussolini, ran for mayor of Rome in 2001 on a Fascist platform. He got few votes but, then again, he had little governing experience: he works in a cheese factory.

He said his name certainly was not to blame.

"The name has even worked in my favor," said Guido Mussolini, 66. "The Fascists love you, while the others, who aren't Fascist, have to respect you. It has been a beautiful experience."

Right. You're either a Fascist who suporst the Fascist platform, or else you have to respect the Fascist plantofrm and its candidate. Oh, and it's beautiful too, apparently.

The article focuses on the rift between Ms. Mussolini and Gianfranco Fini, a deputy Prime Minister under Silvio Berlusconi. Burlusconi is no fascist, but he is Italy's version of George W. Bush. His deputy Gianfranco Fini, however, is another story.

In 1994, Mr. Fini called Mussolini the greatest statesman of the 20th century. After Mr. Fini became the deputy prime minister of Italy in 2001, he retracted that comment, and he paid an official visit this week to Israel, where he denounced Mussolini's years in power as "shameful pages of history."

Fini has been trying to reign in his party a little for some time now. The Times describes the National Alliance as, "the successor of the Italian Social Movement, which was the successor of Mussolini's Fascist party." That's completely true.

But back to Alessandra. She's bolting the party because Fini called the period of Mussolini's rule, "disgraceful." That's too kind an adjective to describe that period of Italian history, but it has apparently outraged Alessandra.

It is the contention of Romano, Alessandra and other Mussolinis that Benito did many great things for Italy, beyond making the trains run on time.

Buildings were erected. Roads were paved. Order was preserved.

"There was no delinquency," said Romano Mussolini. "There were no strikes."

Of course not. Anyone who tried to oragnize a strike would have been executed. "Order was preserved," using mainly the same tactics. But hey, some roads got paved

I'm a firm believer that evil people sometimes do good things or have good ideas, and that one has to judge the merit of any idea independently from whomever delivers it. But that doesn't mean that a good idea like "paving roads," neutralizes the other horrendous acts of the Mussolini regime.

Any member of the German parliament would be expelled for expressing admiration of Hitler. Acutally, that happened quite recently in Germany over comments made by one member that I consider more benign than those of Alessandra Mussolini. But that won't happen in Italy as long as we have this type of sentiment.

But there are nonetheless many (in Italy, ed.), including Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who seem to think that history has given Il Duce a bit of a raw deal.

A raw deal indeed. Stunning.

Mussolini, c'mon, he wasn't that bad

Posted by mike at November 30, 2003 03:28 PM