Yesterday, 3 November 2018, about 2,000 fascists from all parts of Italy deployed in Trieste, the town where Mussolini 80 years ago proclaimed his racial laws. The authorities of Italy’s north-eastern most port city had proven unable (or gutless) to prohibit the clearly anti-democratic and xenophobe hate event, hiding behind the ‚right for free speech‘ while obviously having forgot or never understood or never heard of Karl Popper’s famous tolerance paradox.
The civil society of Trieste and the surrounding region protested with a simultaneous demonstration in which 5,000 persons participated. The pictures of the two marches, rigorously separated by the police, reveal two insights:
1) Fascists present themselves uniformed, dressed in similar way, waiving the same flags, either the national tricolour or the more than ugly tortoise flag of CasaPound, one of Italian’s fascist gangs, and marching in a military-like formation, carrying in front a kind of monstrance as if ti was a procession.
The ones who protested against this assault walked through the streets as a large motley crew, multicoloured, manifold, obviously belonging to very diverse political backgrounds, if not just concerned citizens without specific political bonds.
2) However, the apparent colourfulness of the protest against fascism was in a good part due to the many flags and banners of dozens of various groups, campaigns, parties, trade unions, et cetera, each of which grasping the opportunity to be seen, even at the risk that a majority of the participants would not agree with many of their claims.
How to counter fascism: Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
This leads me to a general thought of how to counter fascist arrogance. The diversity of the civil society is a message so strong that it should be underlined as determinedly as ever possible. For this reason, it would be helpful that all the groups from whatever political tendency for once renounce at emphasising their peculiarity and just melt with the crowd. I know of course that the theories on how fascism develops vary much, depending on whether somebody looks at it from a liberal or a socialist view, to name just two political bonds. But as it comes to confront a fascist deployment, the true issue at stake is to stand firmly together. Renouncing at dividing symbols could help other people to join in, even bourgeois or conservative people who are against fascism as well, based on their own reasoning. Political debate has it’s own places, marching against fascists is a different place.
There is still another thought that struck me looking at the pictures. Fascists marching uniformly and in military order attract people who feel weak, degraded, and therefore are prone to look up to a movement that pretends strength and rigour: Yes, they will solve my problem! Instead, confronted with the demonstration of a cheerful motley crew they are bewildered as they get no orientation but rather chaos, perceiving it as a threat to them personally, not as a chance for a change that could bring equity to them, too.
I am far advocating to uniform our campaign for freedom, equity, and solidarity. Many years ago, when I looked at photos taken in the nineteen-twenties of fascists and communists presenting themselves in groups to the public, I was shocked by the fact that they looked so similar that I had to read the captions below the pictures to get who was who. We may not fall back to that, but we should reflect on how to give a joint image that attracts also the ones who feel like underdogs. Renouncing at specific, thus dividing, political slogans, why not refer to the claims shared by a vast majority of citizens, from left to right: Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité, and make clear that we understand this inclusively, as more freedom, more equity, and more solidarity for everyone.
We should even underline such message by paying more attention to a unifying (not uniforming) choreography of a march in which everybody may join, even the ones who for a moment fancy to march with the alleged fascist saviours. Let’s win their souls and strengthen their self-esteem!
[1] First published on Facebook
