In September 2022, the radical right party Fratelli d’Italia (FdI)—“Brothers of Italy”—came out as strongest in the general elections, leading to the formation of a radical right government under the FdI leader Giorgia Meloni. Consequently, prominent national and international media warned about the return of fascism in Italy. Prime Minister Meloni is regularly criticized for not clearly distancing herself from fascism, specifically Benito Mussolini’s authoritarian regime, including on April 25, which marks the celebration of Italy’s liberation from Nazi-fascism. Moreover, the allied party Lega, with its nationalist turn under the leadership of Matteo Salvini, has been accused of fascioleghismo owing to the party’s connections with the key members of extremist right factions, including the Casa Pound movement. Populist radical right parties are on the rise, gaining positions of power across many European countries. They claim to speak in the name of the “good people” while advocating for the return of the nation-state with closely surveilled borders to counter immigration. Scholars studying radical right populism are debating how and when populism and ethno-nationalism overlap and what the relationship is between nativism and fascism.
Marianna Griffini’s The Politics of Memory in the Italian Populist Radical Right: From Mare Nostrum to Mare Vostrum is a timely and necessary contribution to this debate. The book provides clear evidence for the link between the contemporary Italian populist radical right and the colonial and fascist past. In particular, Griffini focuses on the Lega and FdI, their anti-immigrant rhetoric, and their relationship with the Italian fascist colonial past. The book covers different strands of academic literature on populism and radical right politics, illuminating the interplay between ethno-nationalism, racism, colonialism, and fascism. The anti-immigrant stance of the Lega and FdI is analyzed through the lens of ideological elements peculiar to the radical right, including racism and nativism, along with their appeal to a strong state, which is capable of restoring security. Methodologically, the analysis employs critical discourse analysis of 46 in-depth interviews (conducted between 2016 and 2018 and in 2021) with Lega and FdI representatives, including parliamentarians, regional and local councillors, and intellectuals of the populist radical right. Electoral manifestos from 2013 to 2018 complement this interview material. Unfortunately, the analysis did not include the influential FdI ideological platform entitled “The Thesis of Trieste: A Manifesto for the Patriots,” which was adopted during the 2017 party congress and covers many key issues, such as immigration.
The book begins with a conceptual review of the term “populist radical right” and its usefulness for the Italian case (Chapter 1), highlighting the understudied link between nativism and colonial memory during the fascist period in the context of populist radical right studies. The following chapters discuss the two main elements of nationalism and racism that form the core ideology of nativism in radical right populism (Chapter 2) and briefly outline the book’s data and methodology (Chapter 3). The remaining chapters delve into the heart of the matter, providing a documented and engaging journey from the contemporary anti-immigrant discourses of Lega and FdI to Italy’s colonial past during fascism. Griffini highlights the parties’ distinctive representation of the Mediterranean Sea. According to Lega and FdI discourse, the Mediterranean Sea represents a space of “uncontrolled and undesired immigration”—hence the notion of Mare Vostrum (“your sea”)––while the term Mare Nostrum (“our sea”) was used to convey the idea of a treasured space during the colonial and fascist periods.
Empirically, the author uncovers the variety of discourses the two parties use to promote a nativist ideology and raise hostility toward immigration (Chapter 4). By focusing on Lega and FdI’s relationship to immigration, Griffini uncovers the discursive construction of the immigrant Other. Key tools through which Lega and FdI express their anti-immigrant nativism include problematizing immigration, differentiating between different immigrants, Othering (Chapter 5), along with the criminalization, inferiorization, and what Griffini calls abjectification, that is, the representation of “immigrants as naturally abject Others” (p. 94). Griffini’s research provides strong evidence of the reiteration of colonial rhetoric in the anti-immigrant discourse of the Lega and FdI, despite the parties’ attempts to moderate their racist claims by adopting “civic undertones” and to position themselves at the electoral center.
The remaining chapters (Chapters 7 and 8) explore in greater detail Lega and FdI’s perceptions of the colonial and fascist past. Griffini employs the concept of “politics of memory” to refer to the consciously or unconsciously undertaken process of constructing a selective memory of the colonial and fascist past. She shows that the FdI and Lega engage in a politics of memory regarding colonialism and fascism, remembering what they consider their positive elements while erasing negative ones. The selective memory of both the colonial and fascist past is “rooted in the lack of thorough appraisal of fascism in the post-war period” (p. 133), along with the myth of Italiani brava gente (“Italians, the good people”) who bring civilization to their colonies. Griffini argues that the lack of critical perspectives on colonialism owes to the long academic negligence of the topic in Italy, alongside diplomatic indifference toward former colonies. As a result, Italy’s colonial crimes, as well as the country’s lack of responsibility toward and assistance of former colonies, are largely forgotten.
Griffini claims that “Italy embarked on a process of ‘defascistisation,’ which included the removal of fascist monuments, buildings, murals, and symbols such as the fasci (i.e., fasces), and the change of fascist topographical names, in order to erase the memory of fascism” (p. 133). This passage is quite disappointing and, in my view, the major shortcoming of the book. At best, defascistisation has been limited, and the post-war period has been characterized by the continuity of the Italian fascist state. In an attempt to reconcile the country after the civil war, Palmiro Togliatti, Minister of Justice, even issued an amnesty in 1946. It included fascist collaborators and officials, and even high-ranking officials of the Salò Republic. Hence, contrary to what Griffini sustains, it is the widespread lack of defascistisation that characterized post-war Italy. The country failed to thoroughly address fascist influences, ideologies, and institutional legacies (including in the judiciary, police forces, and academia) and to purge their representatives from the state apparatus and decision-making organs, all in the name of national reconciliation. Consequently, the selective forgetting and self-indulgent memory of colonialism and fascism are reflected in Italian politics and society at large. Herein lies the reason why the anti-immigrant rhetoric of Italian radical right parties finds fertile ground.
In conclusion, despite the above shortcomings, this book offers essential insights into the anti-immigrant stance of the Lega and FdI. It provides evidence of how the nuanced and selective memory of fascism and colonialism influences contemporary Italian politics on immigration. This book is relevant not only to the scholars of Italian politics but also to those more generally interested in radical right populism and fascism and their relationship. Indeed, as Umberto Eco pointed out, while fascism as a historical phenomenon may not return in its original form, the essence of what he termed “eternal fascism” or Ur-Fascism continues to linger and can manifest itself in various forms and appearances (Umberto Eco, “Ur-Fascism,” The New York Review of Books, 1995). Nowadays, these manifestations may adopt presentable civil attire, as opposed to the overtly militaristic uniforms of classical fascism. Griffini’s book explores one of the traits of eternal fascism, namely ethno-nationalism based on the construction of the “pure people” against the immigrant Other. This book also serves as a catalyst for more research into other fascist traits, including anti-intellectualism, appeals to traditional values, conspiracy theories, sexism and machism, and natalist policies. Studying these traits is essential to better understand the persistence of fascist ideologies in contemporary Italian society.
