TURKISH DAILY NEWS: There is a lot of talk in Europe about how “Turkey should reckon with its past and draw the necessary lessons.”
There is also a lot of focus in Europe presently on where Turkey is headed politically. Both questions are valid. But looking at the rise of neo-fascism, in a continent where such things should have long been buried in the past, one cannot help but ask the same questions about Europe as well.
Have Europeans really reckoned with their past and drawn the necessary lessons? Evidence is mounting to suggest that they have not. Just look at Gianni Alemanno, the newly elected mayor of Rome, who is also a “darling” of Italy's new Prime Minister, the reelected and theatrical – not to mention “testosterone-driven” – Silvio Berlusconi.
Alemanno the neo-fascist
Alemanno is a firebrand neo-fascist and he is proud of it. Not surprisingly his election was celebrated by hundreds of supporters raising their arms in the fascist salute and chanting "Duce! Duce!” As for Prime Minister Berlusconi – who appears to be consciously mimicking Mussolini at times – he declared after Alemanno's election that they were “the new Falange," in a reference to the Spanish fascist party founded in the 1930s.
Then there is Umberto Bossi, the leader of the anti-immigration Northern League, who is himself a fascist and with whom Berlusconi is due to form a government. To understand what Bossi is made of it is enough to note his remarks earlier this week.
Indicating that immigrants had to be hunted out, he said, according to press reports, "We have no fear of taking things to the piazzas. We have 300,000 martyrs ready to come down from the mountains. Our rifles are always smoking." The Rise of Neo-Fascism in Europe No Light Matter >>> By Semih İDİZ | May 2, 2008
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback - UK)
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardback - UK)
