February 10, 2018: Thousands of people protest against racism and fascism during a national demonstration in Macerata, Italy. Danilo Balducci/Press Assocation. All rights reservedLast Saturday in
the centre of the Italian city of Macerata, a young man affiliated with the
extreme-right opened fire on Gideon Azeke, Jennifer Otiotio, Mahmadou Touré,
Wilson Kofi, Festus Omagbon and Omar Fadera. They were singled out because of
the colour of their skin and their African origins.
Several days prior
to the attack, several suitcases had been found in Macerata containing the
mutilated body of a young female drug addict, Pamela Mastropietro. The principal
suspects of the grisly murder at present are two Nigerian drug dealers. The
gunman who perpetrated Saturday’s attacks said in his confession that he’d gone
out hunting black people to avenge the young girl’s death, and with the
intention of killing every immigrant selling drugs. The media were quick to
portray the attacks as the acts of a mentally unstable individual or as crimes
of passion, but the environment in which the attacks occurred weakens the case
for either of these explanations.
On the contrary,
rather than avenging the young woman’s murder, the gunman sought to send a
clear message to his compatriots: immigration is a threat to all of us,
particularly for the most vulnerable members of society.
Unfortunately,
this message found itself an eager audience. Leaders of the Italian ‘far-right’,
notably Matteo Salvini and Georgia Meloni, have seized every opportunity to
hammer it home, stating that while the attacks were of course criminal,
ultimate responsibility for them rests with “those who would fill Italy with
migrants.”
Our response must
be to call things by their right names: what happened in Macerata was an act of
fascist terrorism, the most serious attack of its kind since Italy’s “Years of
Lead.” This act was intended not only to
sow terror among people of colour living in Italy, but also to play on the pervasive
fears that haunt Italian political opinion concerning immigration. Furthermore,
beyond matters of political opinion or party affiliation, the theatricality of
the attacker’s surrender to the police displayed precisely those elements
constituting the essence of an underlying fascist ideology: that is to say,
fascism as an obscene death cult. Why then do Italy’s political leaders seem
unwilling to recognise these facts?
The centre-left’s
failure to recognise the racist and fascist nature of the shootings is nothing
less than the culmination of a series of abdications of responsibility. These
abdications, like self-fulfilling prophecies, have been the logical outcome of
the assumption that Italian public opinion has been won over by a “xenophobic”
or “anti-anti-fascist” common sense. Accordingly, progressive forces in Italy
have tolerated the emergence of what Hannah Arendt called “race-thinking,” which
is now in the process of solidifying into a genuine “racist ideology.”
Immigration tropes
The “immigration
as a social problem” trope has become an established fact across the political
spectrum, with the result that the divide between different political options
has shifted from the question of the problem itself to that of its possible
solutions. Therefore, the various political actors, while not necessarily
engaged in “race-thinking” themselves, have come to adhere to a single
discursive framework in which immigration policy becomes the fundamental
problem.
It does not
matter how much effort is put into statistical evidence proving the falsity of
the idea that “native Europeans” are being invaded and replaced by African
migrants. As Hannah Arendt reminds us, an ideology is not a theoretical
doctrine, but an arm of mass persuasion appealing to the “immediate political
necessities” of men and women, in other words to their lived experience and
desires.
February 10, 2018: Thousands of people protest against racism and fascism during a national demonstration in Macerata, Italy. NurPhoto/Press Association. All rights reserved.There is no point
in calling for thoughtful reflection and silence, as did the mayor of Macerata,
when, fearing further division and violence, he called for the cancelation of an
antiracist and antifascist rally organised for February 10 in his home town.
Rather than appeasing tensions, the silence the mayor calls for runs the risk
of leaving an open space for the voices of those who sow hatred, because at the
moment, it is those voices who occupy the foreground of public debate.
Silence no solution
It is for this
reason that the struggle against the sort of barbarity we have seen in Macerata
calls not for silence, but for powerful symbols. We must counter the
pseudo-heroic acts of the fascist gunman with thousands of daily acts of
resistance. We must counter the fascist death cult with the phrase used in the Zapatista
communities of Chiapas to welcome visitors who come as friends: “Long live
Life, down with Death!” With this in mind, we of DiEM25 Paris and DiEM25 France
welcome the success of last Saturday’s rally, which, despite all opposition, drew
thousands of committed citizens to Macerata and sparked solidarity
demonstrations all over the world. We invite all who want to stop the race to
barbarism on our continent to seize any occasion to speak up against racism and
fascism, in a spirit of solidarity and constructive disobedience.
Viva la vida y muera la muerte!
Translated by Simeon Gallu DiEM25 Paris
Anti-fascist demonstration in Macerata on February 10, 2019 in response to the assault on immigrants by extremist Luca Traini. NurPhoto/Press Association. All rights reserved.