Neo-fascist universe in Italy: a map

This article is published in issue 22-23 of Vanity Fair on newsstands until 5 June 2024

In Tor Bella Monaca, on the eastern outskirts of Rome, there is a gym called “La Trincea” and the subtitle reads: «We are rock, we are marble, we are cannonball». The phrase comes from a song by the rock group Hobbit, known in the far-right environment as an identity and nationalist band. The name is an explicit reference to Tolkien, an author dear to the right (and to Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni). Among the band's first performances was one at a Hobbit camp, organized by the Youth Front, the youth movement linked to the Italian Social Movement, of fascist inspiration, where for years the militants met to “train”, with good and bad. The gym is on the ground floor of a public building, you enter and find yourself in a world that cannot exist but does exist. On the entrance wall stands an image of Benito Mussolini, next to it a poster shouts that gays cannot adopt. In the background, a laminated banner covers the entire wall with the writing: Fascism. The militants train here Frontal Action. They practice Greco-Roman wrestling, martial arts «but the gym is for the neighborhood». Talking is Ernesto Moroni, founder of the openly fascist movement. How can it exist? In Italy, fascism is condemned by the Constitution, as stated in the XII final provision. Moroni says he offers a social alternative to
young people in the neighborhood who don't find answers from the institutions: «We collect syringes, we are a deterrent to drug dealing, we help kids create an alternative to the social degradation in which they grow up», he says. In fact, you educate about fascism by subverting the meaning of words such as respect, values, love, natural order, tradition, identity. One of the first initiatives set up by Azione Frontale was to put up signs with the writing «Boycott foreign shops». Shortly thereafter, Moroni projected the Duce's face onto Palazzo Venezia. But he ended up in all the newspapers for having sent three parcels containing pig heads to the synagogue in Rome. Together with him, there are about twenty young people, aged 17 to 30, who proclaim themselves fascists. Erminio, 18 years old, says it bluntly. “Here I gave myself meaning.” While we talk over a pizza, references to fascism stand out on the walls of the office and, not far away, a bust of the Duce. «It's by design», specifies Ernesto. Then the fasces, history books. Although there is space for dialogue, the line of thought is univocal: no homosexuals, no foreigners, no abortion, no Jews, no emotional education in schools. If physical violence is rarely present today, verbal violence is constant.

On the same line of thought but at different latitudes we meet the guys from Student Blockyouth movement of CasaPound. We are in the center of Rome. «We are not right-wing, we are fascists». Start like this Luca Marsella, spokesperson for the organization that does not feel represented by the government. «I came here because the vision of CasaPound is different from everything that is horizontal», says Chiara, 21, wearing a ZetaZeroAlfa t-shirt, the neo-fascist musical group of the founder of CasaPound, Gianluca Iannone. She approached the group through university. To become a militant, the difference is how much you want to commit, in terms of time and mind. «We are not a sect, there are no rituals. But if they slap us twice, we respond”, they comment. We have already seen many of them in fascist commemorations from Acca Larenzia to Sergio Ramelli. «We use the Roman greeting only in those cases. The present is a ritual where we remember our fallen. It doesn't constitute a crime and, even if it were, we wouldn't care.” There are various rulings on the fascist salute, which is mistakenly called Roman. In some cases it was considered a crime, in others not: it depends on the context. In Italy we have two laws, Scelba and Mancino, which regulate the crime of reorganization of the fascist party and apologia of fascism, including the display of customs, as in these cases, linked to fascists.

Some militants also participate in the ritual of the “present”. National Youth, the movement linked to the Brothers of Italy, approximately fifty thousand members. Before, it was the Youth Front (where the current prime minister received her political education), of fascist inspiration. Let's meet Flaminia at the party that the movement organized to celebrate the tenth anniversary of its foundation. We are in Trastevere, Rome, in a place that has two snakes drawn in the logo. There are about a hundred people around us. They come from Rome well and from the suburbs. Here the Prime Minister she is strictly called Giorgia, a symbol of strength. «We believe that fascism is a historical period that ended with the death of Benito Mussolini. There is no need to declare yourself
anti-fascist”, begins Flaminia, 21, while holding onto the electronic cigarette and relegating to memory the racial laws, the millions of deaths, the squadrismo. «If the anti-fascists are the ones who go and burn the signs with Giorgia Meloni's face, we are certainly not». It would be enough to say that anti-fascism guaranteed Italy's liberation from Nazi-fascism and put the Constitution in our hands. Flaminia contacted the movement via social media at 17 years old. «My father is a real estate agent and my mother is a housewife». The inspiration came while listening to «Giorgia». «He said the things I thought: love for the country, the battle against the mafia. There was someone who could represent me.” Boys and girls pass by the stairs of the club, many greet each other by holding their forearms, the reference is to the greeting of gladiators. Where the words stop, there are the symbols: the tricolor torch present in the Gioventù Nazionale logo, which some militants have tattooed on themselves, an emblem of far-right youth movements since the post-war period. The phrases of Nietzsche, which Mussolini drew inspiration from in his interpretation of the Superman, quoted and engraved: «What does not kill me, strengthens me». On the social profiles of many militants the description is the same: God, homeland, family. Here everyone attends university, they don't imagine a political career but “they are at the service of the party”, continues Flaminia. «I study law because I would like to be a lawyer, this is the first goal. I'm here because this is my community.” The ideas are clear and speak of a world that smacks of the distant past but is eager to regain space. “I am against abortion, I accept homosexuals but I say no to the whim of having children or adopting children.” The guiding voice is the law of nature. Mattia, 21 years old, repeats it. The last book I read was on artificial intelligence, the one before was Player by Dostoevsky. “If I have to imagine a family, even in the name of the principle of procreation, I think it must be made up of a man and a woman.” Within the walls of this place there is the militant base that forms a circle around the Prime Minister. Boys and girls who wear designer accessories, who have studied history but who do not declare themselves anti-fascists, as if it were a possible option in a Republic, ours, which is based on anti-fascism. On these scales the words of Michela Murgia: «Do you expect fascism to knock on the door with a black shirt? It is not so”.

Without awareness today there are twenty-year-olds who call each other «comrades». The first time we hear this word we are in Milan, inside the headquarters of Patriots Network. The pronunciation Luca Bolis, 27 years old, some precedents for clashes. «I entered because of a visceral reaction to the degradation of values», says Luca, who is very Catholic. We start talking after three male representatives reiterated for about an hour at the headquarters that abortion is murder and must be abolished, like homosexuality. A boy tells his friend that we look left-wing because of the way we dress. There are those who observe us, those who don't shake our hands and those who try to provoke by asking if we are scandalized by what we have just heard. «In here we are comrades because we share an ideal type trench. We are fighters for the truth”, Luca continues. We go out while Milan is in the dark. The next day we are in Bollate, in the Skinhouse of the Loyalty Action groupclose to the Hammerskins, active in the social sector with the distribution of food aid to families and the fight against pedophilia. “Here we are against the system.” Emanuele says that when he told his parents he had joined the movement he was removed from home. He does maintenance at Camp 10 of the Musocco cemetery, where around a thousand fascists are buried. «I archive the letters written by fighters who died at my age in the war. I read them and I get goosebumps.” If the word fascism is so good today, as the historian Francesco Filippi asks, how is democracy?

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