By the early 2000s, it was no longer taboo for mainstream politicians to speak warmly of Mussolini: admirers of Il Duce had become government ministers, and many fringe, fascist parties were growing in strength – Forza Nuova, Fronte Sociale Nazionale, and various skinhead groups. But where the other fascists seemed like throwbacks to the 1930s, CasaPound focused on contemporary causes and staged creative campaigns: in 2006 they hung 400 mannequins all over Rome, with signs protesting about the city’s housing crisis. In 2012, CasaPound militants occupied the European Union’s office in Rome and dumped sacks of coal outside to protest on behalf of Italian miners. Many of their policies looked surprising: they were against immigration, of course, but on the supposedly “progressive” grounds that the exploitation of immigrant labourers represented a return to slavery. [...]
They also began pushing for policies the left had given up hope of ever hearing again, such as the renationalisation of Italy’s banking, communications, health, transport and energy sectors. They cited the most progressive aspects of Mussolini’s politics, focusing on his “social doctrines” regarding housing, unions, sanitation and a minimum wage. CasaPound accepted that the racial laws of 1938 (which introduced antisemitism and deportation) were “errors”; the movement claimed to be “opposed to any form of discrimination based on racial or religious criteria, or on sexual inclination”.
CasaPound’s concentration on housing also appealed to voters of the old left. Its logo was a turtle (an animal that always has a roof over its head) and Ezra Pound’s name was used in part because he had railed, in his poem Canto XLV, against rent (considered usury) and rapacious landlords. One of the first things CasaPound did in its occupied building was to hang sheets from the windows protesting against rent hikes and evictions – in 2009, there were an average of 25 evictions in Rome every day. They campaigned for a “social mortgage”, in which rental payments would effectively become mortgage payments, turning the tenant into a homeowner. Within months, they had given shelter to dozens of homeless families, as well as to many camerati down on their luck. [...]
These ideas are not likely to appeal to many Italian voters – but CasaPound’s job is already done. It has been essential to the normalisation of fascism. At the end of 2017, Il Tempo newspaper announced Benito Mussolini as its “person of the year”. It wasn’t being facetious: Il Duce barged into the news agenda every week last year. A few weeks ago, even a leftwing politician in Florence said that “nobody in this country has done more than Mussolini”. Today, 73 years after his death, he is more admired than traditional Italian heroes such as Giuseppes Garibaldi and Mazzini.
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