to the European antifascist LGBT movements,
Italy is experiencing a real state of danger under the axe of neofascism. Daily attacks against migrants, gays and lesbians, trans sexworkers and students have recently put in alarm the anifascist movement.
Here is a brief list of what happened in the last month, since Berlusconi took the power. In attachment a zipped ppt presentation in English with images of this daily fascist brutality.
Please send this message around to the European antifascist movements which may support us. We need to let everybody know about that.
collettivo femminista la Mela di Eva
collettivo TransLesboGayBisexQueer SuiGeneris
Recent Fascism in Italy: a critical memoire >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Rome, last week. The Dean of the faculty of Lettere, La Sapienza University of Rome gives a group of young students of Forza Nuova the permission to organize a cultural initiative, where Roberto Fiore would have been one of the speakers.
How can this happen in a democratic Country and in an antifascist University?
Roberto Fiore
is an anarco-fascist from the 70s who has recently been elected in European Parliament.
Forza Nuova is a neo-fascist political organization.
Despite fascist apology is considered a crime by the Italian Constitution (act 20 June 1952, n. 645), Forza Nuova has never been stopped by the institutions.
What is the story behind this silent acceptance of fascism in Italy?
Members of the fascist phalanxes are very visible among football supporters.
Rome, 29th April 2008.Despite the fact that performance of the fascist salut in public can be prosecuted, Alemanno supporters welcomed his election as major of Rome by organizing a neofascist parade in Campidoglio square.
What is the relationship between the fascist phalanx in the football and Alemanno supporters?
Italy is recently experiencing not a fascist climate, but the effects of a structured fascist network, which now that the right is on power again, does not need to hide anymore.
Everyday migrants are object of verbal aggression on the street and on the public tansport.
“You all will be sent away soon!” Is the recurring expression addressed against migrant people on the bus. Apparently, xenophobia in Italy does not need to be repressed or prosecuted, since the Government itself declared its intention to “clean the country” from Roma and migrant people.
Rome, 26th may 2008. A fascist kommando attacks the shops run by the migrant community in Il Pigneto, which is also a student area in Rome. The shop windows have been broken, and the local laundrette-phone centre, point of aggregation of both students and migrant people, was ripped apart, its telephones destroyed. The fascist raid happened in the morning under the unbelieving gaze of some local citizens. The migrant community had the support of students and members of the antifascist students. The Municipality of Rome did not take any action.
Rome, 17th April 2008. The Circolo di Cultura Omosessuale Mario Mieli, an historical glbtq social centre, has been attacked in the ground-floor by a group of neofascists during the afternoon, while some members of the Circolo were doing a meeting in a room next-door. The group of vandals was composed by young guys 20-25 years old, who irrupted in the Circolo shouting “froci di merda!” (shitty fags!) and “Viva il Duce!”, referring to Mussolini. Can we still speak of bullying action?
Few days later, the neo-mayor of Rome, Gianni Alemanno, declares that Municipality of Rome is withdrawing its support to the Rome Gay Pride. “I completely respect gay people. I even know some o them” Alemanno told the journalist. “But the Gay Pride is a form of sexual exhibitionism, and I am against any form of sexual exhibitionism, be heterosexual or homosexual”.
What is the relationship between Alemanno’s gross political position about the gay pride and the homophobic assault against the Circolo Mario Mieli?
Yesterday the antifascist students of La Sapienza University thus decided to squat the Head Office of the faculty, in order to show their disappointment about the Dean’s permission accorded to Forza Nuova.
As a consequence, today, 27th May 2008 the antifascist students have been assaulted by 12-15 men belonging to the neofascist organizations. The comrades were tearing off all the posters that Forza Nuova had hung the previous night, while three cars arrived in via de Lollis, the core of the University life, at 12.30 am. Although it was lunch time and the street was crowded of students, the neofascist group did not have any shame or need to hide. They were 30-40 years old men, and they were armed with clubs, sticks, knuckle-dusters, iron chains, knives, and all sort of pseudo-medieval weapons, among which a plastic bag full of broken glasses, which wounded one of the comrades! The bestiality of the attack occurred under the eyes of everybody. Now 4 students from the antifascist collectives have been injured and two of them are still in hospital. One is in really serious conditions.
We ask all the European Antifascist Movements to spread this information around. What is happening in Italy in the last month, since Silvio Berlsusconi became prime minister, and Gianni Alemanno became the mayor of Rome (although he has been taken to court several times, for the fascist riots he took part in the 70s), represents not only the return of a fascist ‘climate’, but the emergence of a structured network which has never been limited by the institutions.
While Gianni Alemanno is ripping apart the camps in the surroundings of Rome where Roma people are living, the mayor of Verona is allocating 50,000 Euros to fund “safety patrols” against criminals in the city. Migrants, who are victim of the xenophobic and fascist prejudice, are the usual victims of this patrolling.
In Rome this seems to have been already accomplished. In one night of terror and brutality the local police together with some civilians and operated a search against the trans sexworkers in Prenestino neighbourhood. The rage of the civilians ended up in an event of rough justice, without any right for the sexworkers. They have been beaten in public, accompanied by the citizens’ applause. Where is the law when it means protecting sexworkers?
Homophobic attacks, the raid against migrants, and the fascist assault against antifascist students: is there any connection?
The attacks against migrants, gays and lesbians, trans sexworkers and the antifascist students are all intertwined in the fascist mind which is taking shape in Italian everyday life, with the complacence of Berlusconi’s Government and Gianni Alemanno’s.
It is impossible to keep the silence before such blunt and visible expressions of fascism, which have been bred by wild globalization, the viscid form of capitalist exploitation, and forms of sexism. Today in Italy xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, and sexism are forming the structure upon which the fascist mind is imbricated. The fascist mind is the product of power relations which are keeping minorities to the margin, declaring women, gay and lesbians, transgender and transsexual people, leftist students and precarious workers out of law and out of culture.
The fascist mind in Italy is turning into a fascist regime (once again), which is sustained by the silence and connivance in Berlusconi’s dictatorship.
We cannot keep the silence before this brutality!
collettivo femminista la Mela di Eva
collettivo TransLesboGayBisexQueer SuiGeneris
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