The fascist salute in Rome in Italy is causing concern

A clip of hundreds of black-clad men raising their hands went viral and sparked strong reactions.

Now the Italian connoisseur warns of the fascist winds blowing across Europe.

– It’s scary, says Anders Bergman.

“For fallen comrades!”, chant the men before stretching their arms in the air in a fascist salute.

The incident took place in the Italian capital Rome, on the day 46 years after three people in the fascist youth union MSI were murdered.

“Rome, January 7, 2024. It looks like 1924,” writes opposition leader Elly Schlein on social media.

The opposition has called for Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing government to ban neo-fascist groups after the video, but has faced opposition.

Right-wing nationalist Speaker Ignazio La Russa says the Roman salute has nothing to do with fascism and should therefore not constitute a crime.

– There have been conflicting opinions about whether or not it constitutes a crime to perform the Roman salute in honor of a dead deceased, he says.

The ban on propaganda

Anders Bergman, author and expert on Italian right-wing extremism, says it is a shocking statement:

– It’s scary, but La Russa is himself a fascist who has been with MSI since the early days. In Italy you are not even allowed to publish pictures of Mussolini making the salute because you can then be convicted, he says.

Benito Mussolini’s fascist regime took power after the “March on Rome” in October 1922 and in April 1924 secured a resounding electoral victory before extinguishing Italy’s multi-party system.

Italy’s post-war constitution later banned fascist ideology and propaganda, but neo-fascist groups such as MSI have been able to circumvent the ban by using new names and, by their own admission, new ideology.

Congratulations to SD

Prime Minister Meloni’s party, the Brothers of Italy, sprung from the post-fascist movement and she herself praised Mussolini in 1996 as a “good politician who did everything for the good of Italy”.

During the election campaign in 2022, however, she said that they had now “consigned fascism to history”.

At the same time, Anders Bergman sees signs that it is gaining new momentum.

– It is a sloping plane across Europe. It has been downplayed that it is not that dangerous to make a fascist salute. But it is such statements that are really dangerous.

In connection with the parliamentary elections in Sweden in 2022, Giorgia Meloni congratulated Jimmie Åkesson and the Sweden Democrats on their success.

– Let their success be a hope and a model for the rest of Europe, she said.

Anders Bergman says that there is cooperation between the parties.

– There are two parties that have exactly the same background and they are in contact with each other.