The Paw Print

By Ariane Ravanas

On January 8, a neo-fascist rally was held in Italy. It was held in honor of three fascist participants who were killed in a rally forty-six years ago. During the rally, several hundred men were protesting in Rome, chanting and saluting a building that used to belong to the Italian Social Movement Party. 

EU officials and members were quick to condemn the rally and Giorgia Meloni, insisting that she should not tolerate or allow such behavior from her citizens. In the past few weeks, talk of this demonstration has died down. While many are quick to dismiss this as a riot, other centrist politicians such as Antonio Tajani and Carlo Calenda would strongly disagree. 

The Italian Social Movement Party (MSI), while sounding like an organization of activists striving for social change in Italy, has an extremely checkered past. The MSI was founded in 1946 as a replacement for Mussolini after his execution in 1945. The brutal dictator was initially elected as a socialist and then toppled the Italian government in 1924 and became a feared dictator who infamously supported Hitler and joined the Central Powers in 1945. In addition, Mussolini also had thousands of Romani and Yugoslavians killed and indulged Hitler’s sick, eugenical fantasies. But his terrifying reign is not only extremely recent, but also extremely similar to that of the current political party in Italy.

Giorgia Meloni is the first female prime minister of Italy and the co-founder and leader of the Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy). Elected in 2022, this political party is heavily affiliated with the MSI and its members. This neo-fascist party has gained unprecedented popularity and control over the past few years, and although Giorgia Meloni has stated that her party supports the “condemnation of Nazim and communism”, her cofounder Ignazio La Russa fiercely supports Mussolini.

Ignazio La Russa is Meloni’s current highest-ranking politician and helped run the MSI for several years, working closely with Benito Mussolini’s fiercest supporters. While little else is known about La Russa, he has posed for several pictures with his Mussolini memorabilia, including statues, letters, and photos of the Nazi-sympathizer.

So, although this rally has gone relatively unnoticed in the past, several Italian politicians are growing more and more concerned. A centrist political leader named Elena Schlein recently stated that these crowded rallies make Italy “look like 1924”. Giovanni Donzelli, a right-wing party leader, has stated that the rally was composed of “200 idiots that the left will use to judge [right-wing politicians]. But, Giorgia Meloni and the Brothers of Italy have again fallen silent. So, with the growing number of neo-fascist protests and extremist parties in place in Italy, we must ask ourselves, is fascism here to stay?