Just before we all headed our separate ways for Christmas a
bunch of us were having goodbye drinks in Treviso. A passerby – who looked much like an extra
from This is England stopped and said a few words to T. “Who’s that?” I asked
to which T replied “Oh just a fascist.” The
strangest thing was that I didn’t bat an eyelid, by now I had seen enough
fascists for it not to register with me.
In my recent experience and being
a bit of a lefty when a person is described as a fascist it is usually a jokey
reference to voting for the Conservatives in the UK or supporting Tony Abbott
in Aus but here fascist means fascist. Italian
politics is a seemingly impenetrable world of alliances and factions that one
is exhausted just looking at it let alone trying to understand it. One of the strangest things to me is the fact
that factions and ideologies that the rest of the world has consigned to the
past are still political forces here today.
Of course every country has their bone headed (Nick Griffin
or Pauline Hanson anyone) extremist elements it’s just that I’m not used to
people being so open about being pig ignorant.
It was not long into my working life here when a student happily told me
he was fascist and I’m a little ashamed to say that I was so taken aback that I
didn’t challenge his opinions. Yesterday
Treviso was in full St Patrick’s day celebration (go figure) and the place
seemed full of skin heads and I mean full drainpipe jean and bomber jacket
wearing skinheads. Now most people here
in Treviso are perfectly lovely, progressive thinkers but there is no denying
that this far right element is tolerated.
I once asked an Italian acquaintance about this and his theory was that
after the fall of fascism in Italy instead of going through a process similar
to the denazification of Germany the Italian fascist parties simply changed
their name and carried on in Politics. Political discourse here in Italy at times has
shocking levels of overt racism – I can’t think of another country where the
leader of a political party could get away with calling people from Africa
“bingo-bongos.”
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| The Communist club Venice |
At the opposite side of the political spectrum is Venice
which is staunchly left. Maybe it is
because as a port city Venice over the many hundreds of years got used to the
mixing of different peoples or if they are just pragmatic enough to take money
from anyone. Many of my Venetian friends
are proudly communist and abhor the proto fascist parties that Berlusconi
legitimised by bringing into government.
Those that aren’t communist are most definitely to the left of the
divide. Recently a date attempted to “show”
me around Venice only to be disappointed when I knew the place almost as well
as he did. After dinner he said he
wanted to introduce me to a true Venetian character an old died in the wool
communist – sadly this was yet another fail on his part as the died in the wool
communist is my old friend L who I met on my first day on Venice 3 years
ago. Stepping into the back room of L’s
bar leaves you in no doubt as to the political affiliation. The walls are covered in flags and pictures
from a lifetime of activism.
I find it so amazing that two places that I know so well can
be so politically different but then again having most recently lived in
countries where the left and the right have so blurred as to become effectively
the same party it is strange to come across such a pronounced divide.
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