An Eternal Fascism? Baloney!

This essay is dedicated to my beloved Sarah who has been an unfailing inspiration in the creation of it...

When I was a boy—about ten or eleven or twelve, I guess—I would frequently

accompany my mother to Greenwich Village from Woodhaven, Queens to
pick up my father after work at the Federal Detention Headquarters
(Department of Justice). FDH, then, was a hold-over detention facility where
defendants accused of federal crimes would be lodged during their trials.
Many famous individuals spent time there, including Lucky Luciano, Soviet
spies, Joe Banana, Vito Genovese, Arthur Miller, et alia.

Once, while my mother and I were waiting outside FDH in our 1953
Evergreen Chevrolet sedan, my father appeared at the entrance to the federal
building and beckoned my mother and me to come in. We looked nonplused
at each other, but quickly responded. We entered. Passed through an
enormously heavy cell door that was reinforced with bullet-proof glass. The
door clanked behind us as we entered a mausoleum-like, dingy compartment
where my father introduced us to a well-dressed Italian man: “Mr Genovese,
this is my son Anthony and my wife Helen.” Vito Genovese, “the Boss of
Bosses,” shook my hand vigorously, and with a charming smile, fashed this to
me: “Remember always to obey the law and make your country proud of you.”
I said: “Yes, sir.” I did not know what to think. I had been told by my biology
teacher, Father La Rocca, who had said the requiem mass at Vito Genovese's
funeral, that the so-called mafa boss was an upright and benevolent American
citizen!

Many years later, in Florence (Firenze), Italy, I came across a Sicilian architect
from Taormina, and I asked him if the “Mafa” truly existed. He replied: “The
Mafa does not exist, but 'mafa-like individuals' do.” I began to think. Was
Vito Genovese, in my father's detention center, held there to protect him from
“mafa-like individuals?” Was his myth important to the DisUnited States'
government—so as to capture other “mafa-like individuals” that “Mr
Genovese,” as my father had referred to him, had fnked on for FBI agents?
Was the Hollywood on-going “story” about Italian “mafa-like individuals,”
who put dead horses' heads in your bed while you slept, just another “global
conspiracy theory, a fake news” concocted to keep people under the spell of
some ridiculous Mediterranean fairy tale? Has not the Roman Catholic church
kept its focks under the terrible threat of being sent to an everlasting hell if
its self-serving doctrines are not abided by? Authoritarianism is wont to take
on different forms in The Boot. Italians are always on the front line of
despotism. They want to be the honcho at all times—eternally! Even Pope
Francis shares in this charade: some months ago he stated that he was afraid
that World War III was imminent; and, of late he has stated his concern about
the possibility of a nuclear war. Great scare tacticians.

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Recently, I picked up and bought a pocket-sized booklet, Il Fascismo Eterno, in

the bookshop at the Santa Maria Novella train station in Florence (Firenze).
The tome is a translation of Umberto Eco's (1932-2016) charla made on 25
April 1995 at Columbia University in New York to celebrate the liberation of
Europe after World War II. It later was published in the New York Review of
Books (22 June 1995) under the title, Eternal Fascism.

When I had fnished reading it, I exclaimed to myself: “Ah, the Italians are at
it again!” If the world is now in a passé pose concerning the “Mafa” and
“mafa-like individuals”—organized crime elements are found all over the
world; Italian “mafa-like individuals” are nowhere near the gritty power of the
Russian and Chinese “mafa-like individuals!”—would it not behoove Italians
to create a new Mediterranean yarn called an “Eternal Fascism” with those
symbols of it which we should be on guard against now and forever? So that
we might not be caught in its mesh? Can you image all the anti-fascist flms
that could food out of Hollywood? “We're gonna teach those Italians a lesson
or two!” Oh, if only the Chinese had liberated the Italians instead of those
dumb Americans!

Umberto Eco lists the eight requisites that constituted the formation of the
original Italian Fascist movement: it was founded on the sentiment of a
charismatic leader; it was distinguished by its reliance on corporative
organizations and sympathetic businesses; it upheld the visionary theme of the
“fatal destiny of Rome,” it had an imperialistic itch to conquer new lands; it
was hyped up with an exacerbated nationalism; it urged that the entire nation,
Italy, should be dressed in “black shirts;” it repudiated the idea of democratic,
parliamentary rule; and, it was anti-Semitic. UE further states that Italian
Fascism was the frst to create a military liturgy, a folklore, and even a way to
dress that would have had, abroad, more success than Armani, Benetton or
Versace! Take it easy, Umberto!

It is very diffcult for anyone to conjure up reasons why Italy might be on the
cusp ready to create a “New” Fascism (Neo-Fascismo) borrowing from the
“Old” Fascism. Times have changed, and UE should have informed us that he
had not. Almost twenty years into the 21st Century, Italy is more a nation in via
d'estinzione than it is one that might embark on a violent political foray.
Twenty percent of the Italian population is beyond 65 years of age; Italy is
economically paralyzed with a domestic debt that is nearing €3 trillion; its
infrastructure is so fragile and dilapidated, any robust weather system can play
havoc with it; unemployment is outrageous for a nation that claims to be a
vibrant member of the G-7; 57% of the Italians possess a high school diploma;
half of the university students do not fnish their degrees; and, Italian politics
does not exist, but “politicians” talk about it as if it does with the aplomb of
cooped up madmen! For Umberto Eco to hazard that from this concoction of
desolation and highly-ranked greed and corruption a viable Fascist movement
could spring up, one must ask ourselves “Did Umberto actually live in
modern-day Italy?” He is so far from the reality of Italy, one who knows The
Boot will post-haste shake off UE's faccid political thesis—his nostalgic
whimperings to bring back the old days.

Yet, he is not in a hurry to go away. If he cannot “make real” Fascism, he will

raise it to the heights of some mystifcation where he can put the fear of the
unknown into all of us. The fres of Hell, guardian angels who protect us from
the devil, changing water into wine, raising the dead, ad infnitum.These are
what make believers of people. “The bigger the lie, the more believers.”
(Joseph Goebbels [1897-1945]). UE is out to protect us from the menaces of
Fascism that do not actually exist, but just might be lying dormant—
simmering to boil over one day right before our eyes. The Italian Boogeyman!

Umberto Eco sallies forth with fourteen salient points any one of which “...è
suffciente che una di loro sia presente per far coagulare una nebulosa fascista.” UE
throws dust in our faces to confuse us with his ingredients that comprise the
Fascist recipe he believes is alive and kicking, and will be with us for an
eternity. These are: the cult of tradition, the denial of modernism, action for
action's sake, discord is betrayal, the appeal to the frustrated middle classes,
the conspiracy obsession, the fear of what is different, the enemy is
considered very strong and very weak, pacifsm is collusion with the enemy,
the weak are looked down upon, the cult of death, machismo, stiff opposition
to parliamentary governments, and a “neo-language” lacking any elementary
synthesis in order to limit complex reasoning and the ability to criticize.

There will not be another Fascist Renaissance. Fascism has had its day, yet
there might be something worse than it was in the offering today. Italy will not
be the causal agent of some new political invention that could ruffe the
feathers of present political reality. However, Italy might be the catalyst of its
own decline into a rampant widespread anarchy that will set the country back
to where it came from: the Middle Ages. Le Nouveau Moyen Âge?

I regret Umberto Eco blew on the burning embers of Italian Fascism while
cautioning us that they just might explode again into a national confagration
of black shirts and violence and hatred. He was very unkind to do so. His
method is creepy. It implies that Italy is the superior one here based on its
Past and blue-ribbon culture. “Italians do it better.”

We may rest assured that Fascism will not reanimate in Italy. With one of
every fve ffteen-year-olds illiterate, and the educational level of Italian adults
between 25 and 64 years of age the lowest in Europe, Italian Fascism will
remain the dud it always was—except when Adolf Hitler propped it up. Still,
Anarchy is another consideration to be taken seriously.

Authored by Anthony St. John

11 February MMXVIII
Calenzano, Italy
www.scribd.com/thewordwarrior
Twitter: @thewordwarrior

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