Prime Minister Lamberto Dini's government of so-called "technocrats" resigned
on 11 January, paving the way for a general election on 21 April, the first post-war
election in Italy in which voters had a choice between two distinct opposing blocs rather
than an array of individual parties.
The election pitted the centre-left alliance, Ulivo (Olive Tree), composed of fourteen
parties, the most important being the Partito Democratico della Sinistra (PDS, Democratic
Party of the Left, the former Italian Communist Party), against the centre-right Polo
della Libertà (Freedom Alliance), led by the former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's
Forza Italia (FI, Go Italy!) party and Gianfranco Fini's right-wing Alleanza Nationale
(AN, National Alliance, see also parties, organizations, movements).
The Olive Tree won an effective majority of 157 seats (out of 315) in Italy's senate
(elected by proportional representation), but in the lower house of parliament, the
chamber of deputies (75 per cent of seats elected by a first-past-the-post system, 25 per
cent by proportional representation), it won only 246 seats (out of 630), making it
dependent on the support of the hard-line Marxist party the Partito della Rifondazione
Comunista (PRC, Communist Refoundation Party), which won 35 seats in the chamber of
deputies and 10 in the senate. The Freedom Alliance won 116 seats in the senate and 169 in
the chamber of deputies. Despite its slim majority, Olive Tree's victory meant that, for
the first time in post-war Italy, the left came to power at the head of the national
government, which included nine cabinet ministers from the PDS, the reformed, now social
democratic, Communist Party.
The separatist Lega Nord (LN, Northern League, see also below) originally part of the
Freedom Alliance until its withdrawal led to the collapse of Berlusconi's government at
the end of 1994 fielded its own candidates. The LN, under the leadership of Umberto Bossi,
secured twenty-seven seats (10.4 per cent of the vote) in the senate and fifty-nine seats
(10.1 per cent) in the chamber of deputies.
The right-wing AN barely increased its share of votes, partly due to the spoiling tactics
of Pino Rauti's breakaway hard-line neo-Fascist party, the Movimento Sociale
Italiana-Fiamma Tricolore (see parties, organizations, movements), which won 2.3 per cent
of the vote for the senate, securing one seat.
The economy was a central problem for the new government, thanks to the extremely high
level of debt and the necessity of cutting public spending. Social problems such as
unemployment and the poor functioning of public services-education, the national health
service and the postal system-continued to plague Italy.
The results of regional and local elections in June and November did not indicate a
definite political trend either towards the left or the right, but they did signal a drop
in support for the LN in its one-time stronghold regions of Veneto and
Lombardia-apparently as a result of LN leader Umberto Bossi's increasingly hard-line,
separatist rhetoric-as well as a slight drop in votes cast for the AN from the April
general election (14.1 per cent from 16.4 per cent).
In September, the LN organized a three-day pilgrimage from the source of the river Po to
Venice, culminating in a declaration of independence of the so-called Repubblica Federale
de Padana (RFP, Padanian Federal Republic), named after the Po river valley. According to
the LN, it would include the regions of northern and central Italy as far south as Tuscany
and Umbria. The LN set up a "provisional government" and established a
controversial, green-shirted volunteer defence corps called the Padana National Guard. In
various towns whose local administrations were controlled by the LN, streets and squares
were renamed, and initiatives were launched to hire only northerners in public offices and
schools.
LN voters shied away from these policies, as well as from some of Bossi's antics, like his
use of Nazi-style cries of "Raus!" (German for "Out!") to evict
television crews from an LN rally earlier in the year. In the local elections in November,
after Bossi's declaration of secession, LN candidates in a number of key northern
cities-including Mantua, Padania's putative capital-failed to be elected. Prominent LN MP
Irene Pivetti, who served as president of the chamber of deputies in 1994, left the party
as a result of her opposition to Bossi's shrill secessionism and founded a new party of
her own, Italia Federale (Federal Italy).
In 1996 Italy managed to lower its public deficit, allowing the lira to recover strength,
and rejoined the European exchange rate mechanism (ERM). But the economy grew at a rate of
one per cent and, while the inflation rate dropped to 3.4 per cent from 5.4 per cent in
1995, unemployment rose to 12 per cent nationwide. (The situation was far more serious in
the south, where the general unemployment rate was 26 per cent, and the rate among young
people under twenty-five was 56 per cent.)
Jews have lived continuously in the Italian peninsula for over 2,000 years. Their
treatment has differed according to the areas in which they have lived. Times of relative
tolerance and fruitful growth have alternated with times of serious anti-Jewish prejudice.
From the middle of the sixteenth century onwards, the attitude of the popes towards the
Jews became more ambiguous. This culminated in 1555 with the issuance of the Bull Cum
nimis absurdum by Pope Paul IV, which marked the beginning of a harsh policy towards
Jews living in the Papal state, with the closing of the ghettos, the exclusion of Jews
from many cities and villages, and forced baptisms.
Since the unification of Italy in 1861, Jews have had full civil and political rights.
The Fascist era (1922-45) may be divided into three periods: up to 1938, the regime was
indifferent to the so-called "Jewish problem"; in 1938, anti-Jewish legislation
deprived Jews of their rights; and in 1943-5, the period known as the Salò Republic, the
collaboration of the authorities of Mussolini's Repubblica sociale italiana (Italian
Social Republic) with the Nazi occupation led to the deportation of 8,566 Jews from Italy
and Italian territories in the Aegean basin.
The 1970s saw a return to anti-Jewish prejudice both among the general population and in
the political arena. This was traced to the influence of the far right and to the effects
of anti-Zionism. The most violent anti-Jewish incident was the attack by international
terrorists on the Rome synagogue in October 1982 in which a child was killed and
thirty-six people were injured.
The number of immigrants into Italy rose slightly in 1996. According to the ministry of
the interior, the number of foreigners legally resident in Italy in 1996 was 1,095,622, an
increase of 10.5 per cent from the previous year. Of the total, 86.1 per cent were from
non-European Union (EU) countries, this being 1.7 per cent of the total Italian
population; 77.8 per cent came from developing countries, a rise of 17.5 per cent from the
previous year.
Parliament discussed a law presented by the ministry for social solidarity aimed at
curbing and controlling immigration as well as aiding the integration of immigrants into
society.
The question of immigration was a hotly debated topic, both in official and unofficial
circles. The falling birth rate and ageing of the population caused many to view the
introduction of a labour force from other countries as an increasing economic necessity.
Still, the presence of "extra-communitary" immigrants-extracomunitario is
a term meaning immigrants from countries outside the EU but which in practice is used to
denote non-white people from developing nations-was often viewed mainly as a law-and-order
problem, due to the participation of a small percentage of immigrants in criminal
activities, particularly in the spheres of small-time drug dealing and prostitution. There
was concern, too, at the continuing arrival of illegal immigrants from Albania, whose
transit across the Adriatic to southern Italian shores was often arranged by criminal
organizations.
There were few statistics available gauging racist attitudes in Italy during 1996.
However, a number of violent incidents against foreigners were reported, including several
murders, assaults with deadly weapons and arson attacks. Also, in several cities local
citizens' groups organ-ized various types of demonstrations against the presence of Roma
(see below), against illegal immigration in general and against the activities of both
male (transvestite) and female prostitutes from Third World countries.
A survey carried out in 1996 by the Osservatorio di Milano gathered data from charity
organizations, trade unions and from municipal foreigners' offices in ten Italian cities
about acts of violence carried out against foreigners. In 365 documented cases of such
violence, only 65 were judged to be fruit of actual racist sentiments (and only 35 of
these were found to involve actual violence); 163 were common cases of crime, sometimes
commit-ted by other immigrants involved in organized crime; 84 were linked to poor or
unstable living conditions; and 53 resulted from difficulties involving the victim's
status as an exile or immigrant. Some 70 per cent of the victims of the documented
episodes of violence were found to be illegal immigrants without residency permits.
Another opinion survey, conducted by a sociologist at Rome University, sampled 1,200
students in the last two years of high school, in the cities of Rome and Palermo. The
survey was about the image of prison and punishment: 23 per cent answered that they
consider intolerance towards immigrants is legitimate.
There have been reports of abuse by the police, a high proportion of which involve non-EU
immigrants (mostly Africans) and Roma, and persons held in connection with drug-related
offences. Amnesty International (AI), the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC),
the UN Committee Against Torture and the Council of Europe's European Committee for the
Prevention of Torture reported instances in which police abused detainees. Examples of
mistreatment include kicking, punching, beatings with batons, or deprivation of food. The
UN Committee Against Torture and the UNHRC expressed concern over a possible trend towards
racism. Although complaints of mistreatment were investigated, some of the investigations
were found to lack thoroughness.
Racist attitudes were also manifested by militant football fans who hurled abuse at black
players on opposing teams and used racist insults against fans from opposing teams in the
stadiums. Sometimes these episodes erupted into violence, which often was incited by
groups of skinheads. In April, two skinheads dressed in the hooded costumes of the Ku Klux
Klan hoisted a black puppet figure bearing the words "Negro go away" against a
member of the Verona football team, a black player from the Netherlands. The two were
arrested on charges of racist violence.
Roma face discrimination, including difficulty in finding places to stay. The city of Rome
opened three camps and was expected to open others. The Roma population around Rome is
between 5,000 and 6,500.
Several groups of fundamentalist Catholics in the Veneto region carried out leaflet
campaigns against Muslim immigration into Italy and against what they considered to be an
excessive openness towards immigrants on the part of the official Catholic organizations,
which they accused of being communist.
The far-right AN, led by Gianfranco Fini, formed a key part of the Freedom Alliance
centre-right bloc, which went into opposition after the general election in April (see
GENERAL BACKGROUND). Formally established in January 1995, when the neo-Fascist Movimento
Sociale Italiano (MSI, Italian Social Movement) dissolved and reconstituted itself as a
more respectable right-wing party, AN still included among its ranks most of the members
and leadership of the MSI. The original MSI was founded in 1946 as the successor to the
dictator Benito Mussolini's then-outlawed Fascist Party. It merged with another group in
1973 to become the Movimento Sociale Italiano-Destra Nazionale (MSI-DN, Italian Social
Movement-National Right) and remained on the far-right fringes of mainstream politics
until the early 1990s, when corruption scandals undermined and then destroyed Italy's
traditional political parties. Fini steered the MSI-DN into a more moderate course that
eventually led to the foundation of AN. In the March 1994 general election, AN joined the
victorious Freedom Alliance coalition with Berlusconi's FI and Bossi's LN, and AN/MSI
members were included in Berlusconi's cabinet.
In the April election, most MPs were elected on a first-past-the-post majority system, but
some were elected on a proportional basis. Among this group, AN received 15.7 per cent of
the vote nationwide, with higher local percentages in central and southern Italy. In one
district of the central Lazio region, AN received 30.9 per cent of the vote.
Without really abandoning the neo-Fascist origins of his party, Fini has tried for several
years to shift AN more to the centre and to imbue it with the image of mainstream liberal
conservatism. In this regard, an ideological conference and seminar involving various
liberal-right intellectuals was held in June near Viterbo. Fini also continued efforts to
organize a trip to Israel, without success, as a means of demonstrating AN's repudiation
of antisemitism.
The AN political hierarchy officially toed Fini's line, but throwbacks to the neo-Fascist
past, xenophobic traditions and other anti-democratic attitudes cropped up from time to
time-and were not immediately put down by Fini. These included the naming of streets,
squares or parks in honour of personalities from the Fascist era by AN members elected to
municipal authorities. The AN was also supported by certain more conservative far-right
factions outside the party proper. The tendency for AN leaders to accept all this could be
linked with their attempt to maintain their electorate and prevent hard-line supporters
from abandoning the AN and turning to the more radical right, in particular the Movimento
Sociale Italiano-Fiamma Tricolore (MSI-FT, Italian Social Movement-Tricolour Flame).
The MSI-FT was formed by a small faction of neo-Fascist hardliners led by former MSI
leader Pino Rauti, who refused to accept the transformation of the MSI into the AN and
instead continued to support an undiluted neo-Fascist agenda. In the proportional part of
the April general election, the party received 1.7 per cent of the national vote for the
chamber of deputies and 2.3 per cent of the vote for the senate, with most of the vote
from the centre and south of the country. One MSI-FT candidate, from Sicily, won a seat in
the senate. Rauti also served as a member of the European Parliament.
On the political level, the party's main interest was its potential for subtracting votes
in central and southern Italy from the AN and thus from the Freedom Alliance in general.
The MSI-FT also organized demonstrations against Third World immigrants and against drug
trafficking and prostitution by immigrants. Because of these activities and also because
of its loyalty to Fascism, the party served as a reference point for a number of fringe
groups of the radical right, particularly in the centre and south of the country.
The panorama of non-parliamentary far-right organizations was extremely fragmented and
appeared to be undergoing a process of transformation. Organizations known in the past
have for the most part disappeared or were undergoing sharp changes. This derived partly
from the effects of the 1993 law against racial, ethnic and religious discrimination,
which led to the closing of the offices of various organizations and in penal actions
being taken against many of their members, and partly from broader political and social
changes that included generational shifts and an increasing political detachment of young
people.
Far-right groups that once operated on a national or regional scale tended to
disintegrate, leaving numerous, tiny micro-groups in their wake. These mostly acted as
cultural associations and clubs whose influence was limited to a single city or
neighbourhood, or school or university. This particularly became the case in Rome.
The passage to secrecy of those organizations that are prosecuted by law did not happen,
as it was feared, sometimes perhaps due to the loss of charisma of party leaders, arrested
for hooliganism or other "common crimes".
The break-up of the scene has changed the shape of the skinhead movement, which until 1993
included about 1,000 members in groups based mostly in the centre and north of Italy.
These included: Movimento Politico Occidentale (Western Political Movement); Base
Autonoma; Veneto Fronte Skinheads; and Azione Skinheads.
In 1996 Movimento Politico Occidentale and Base Autonoma seemed exclusively to carry out
actions commemorating anniversaries of Nazi personalities (bill-posting or small rallies
to honour Erich Priebke-see LEGAL MATTERS). Veneto Fronte Skinhead and Azione Skinhead,
which operate in Veneto and Lombardia, were more active during the year. As well as
arranging White Power music concerts, members of the 200-strong Veneto Fronte Skinhead,
led by Piero Puschiavo, were also responsible for various acts of violence and racist
activities in streets and soccer stadiums (see also LEGAL MATTERS). One of the group's
members ran as a candidate for the MSI-FT in the April general election.
Individual far-right sympathizers also con-tinued to carry out attacks and various other
acts of violence and intimidation, and far-right groups among soccer fans were also quite
active. Skinheads and, more generally, youth belonging to the radical right ran fan clubs
supporting teams in many cities (see RACISM AND XENOPHOBIA and CULTURAL AND SPORTING
LIFE).
Also, a few better-known far-right groups continued to operate. Among the best known was
the Fronte Nazionale (FN, National Front), led by Franco Freda, which was founded in 1990
to fight "racial mixing", "cosmo-politanism", Zionism, influences from
the United States and transnational finance. In 1995, Freda and forty-five other FN
organizers or members were convicted of trying to revive the Fascist party and were
sentenced to jail terms of various lengths. Nonetheless, L'Antibancor, the movement's
economic and financial periodical, continued to be published in 1996. Freda remained head
of Edizioni di Ar, the publishing house he founded, which has issued numerous racist,
antisemitic and Holocaust-denying publications (see PUBLICATIONS AND MEDIA).
Another organization that continued its activities was the Alternativa Nazionale Popolare
(ANP, National Popular Alternative), successor to the Lega Nazionale Popolare (National
Popular League), which was founded in 1991 by neo-Fascist militants who included members
of the MSI-DN. Today the ANP operates mainly in Rome and southern Italy, particularly in
schools. In Rome, also, some of the members of the ANP work with the MSI-FT.
On a completely different ideological orientation, the small fundamentalist Catholic group
Sodalizio Cattolico, based in Ferrara, was still in operation (see RELIGION).
There were no overall statistics available for antisemitic manifestations in Italy in
1996, but about fifty incidents of antisemitic behaviour were reported in the media and
elsewhere.
This represented a continuation of the trend showing a clear drop in reported antisemitic
incidents in recent years. This trend has been particularly evident in Rome, where the
far-right organizations traditionally responsible for most of the episodes have scaled
down their overall activity as well as their concern with Jews and open expression of
antisemitism. At the same time, however, expressions of antisemitic attitudes among Roman
Catholic fundamentalists increased (see RELIGION).
The types of antisemitic episodes reported were similar to those in previous years,
consisting mainly of rare acts of violence, slogans written on walls, threatening letters
sent both to individual Jews and to Jewish organizations, antisemitic attitudes expressed
in the media, and antisemitic banners and slogans in sports stadiums.
Among the most serious incidents was the beating of a twelve-year-old boy on a street in
Rome by four skinheads, who shouted antisemitic insults at him without apparently knowing
whether or not he was Jewish.
In March, antisemitic slogans were found on tombs in the Jewish cemetery in Ascoli; in
July, vandals pushed over three tombstones in the Jewish cemetery in Merano (but it was
not clear if antisemitism was a motivation); and in December, vandals damaged thirteen
tombstones, hung a sign saying "Arbeit Macht Frei" on a tomb, and placed
numerous swastikas in the Jewish section of Rome's Prima Porta cemetery.
Despite tough measures taken by the police and judiciary to prevent violence and
intolerance in sports stadiums-in particular at football matches-militant fans continued
to spout racist insults and raise banners bearing racist slogans against opposing teams.
Sometimes these slogans were of an antisemitic nature. In February, for example, before a
match between the rival Rome teams Roma and Lazio, groups of fans of each team unfurled
banners with antisemitic content against the other. One banner condemned Lazio as
displaying "the colours of the Jews"-a reference to its blue and white team
colours, similar to the Israeli flag. Other banners referred to teams having "the
stink of Jews". In another incident, before a match in November between the rival
teams Milan and Inter, some Milan fans raised a banner against Inter supporters accusing
them of being "a racist choir for ten years, with blacks, Jews and mixed-bloods on
the team". Also in November, antisemitic slogans were found scrawled on a sports hall
in Varese before a bastketball match with an Israeli team.
This phenomenon had seemed to be on the wane in recent years, but that appears to have
been only a temporary lull. Using "Jew" as an insult against fans of opposing
teams has apparently now become entrenched.
As in 1995, 1996 saw very few cases of antisemitic prejudice expressed in the
mainstream national or local media. The few examples that did occur mentioned the presumed
power of the "Jewish lobby" or made particular note of the Jewish identity of
persons under judicial investigation.
Nonetheless, antisemitic material continued to be a regular feature in several
small-circulation political journals, most of them linked with far-right circles or with
Catholic fundamentalism (see RELIGION). Three of these publications stood out: Avanguardia,
Orion and L'uomo libero.
Avanguardia (Vanguard), a monthly founded in 1983, is edited by Leonardo Fonte and
is based in Trapani, Sicily (with two regional offices). It has a monthly print-run of
1,000 copies. Its political line is anti-mondialist, anti-Masonic, pro-Iran, and closely
linked to the national-socialist experience of the Se-cond World War, in particular to the
Fascist Italian Social Republic of 1943-5. It remains one of the most virulently
antisemitic of the fringe publications, and also promoted Holocaust denial. In the same
vein as Avanguardia , but even more marginal, was the monthly La sentinella
d'Italia (Italian Sentinel), a news-letter of a few pages founded in 1947 and edited
by Antonio Guerin.
Milan-based Orion (circulation 2,000), a monthly that includes political, cultural
and news articles, was founded in 1984 and is distributed mainly in northern and central
Italy but also in the south. Under the directorship of Alessandra Colla, the magazine is
associated with the Synergies européennes network (see France). It considers itself
"national-communist" and seeks to collaborate with both the radical right and
the radical left, supporting a "red-brown" alliance between ultra-nationalists
and hard-line communists. It champions the safeguarding of cultural, religious and
traditional specificity, opposes mondialism and is also strongly anti-Zionist. It also
supports Holocaust denial. Recent articles expounded on the use of the "myth" of
the Holocaust as a basis for post-war Jewish identity. It is published by the Società
Editrice Barbarossa, which also publishes books on similar topics.
L'uomo libero (Free Man), founded in 1980, is published by the Milan-based Edizioni
dell'Uomo Libero and edited by Piero Sella. It advocates the struggle against mondialism
and the multi-racial society; it is antisemitic and denies the Holocaust. While it is
meant to come out four times a year, only two issues were published in 1996, at a time
when one of its key contributors, Sergio Gozzoli, and his son Marzio were defendants in a
trial of sixty-three skinheads charged with incitement to racial hatred (see LEGAL
MATTERS). One of these issues focused on Holocaust denial and included an international
bibliography of 1,200 publications on the topic.
Other far-right publications publishing antisemitic material were Controcorrente (Countercurrent),
distributed mainly in the Campania region, and Heliodromos , 500 or so copies of
which were published every few months by Edizione Il Cinabro.
About fifty antisemitic books published in earlier years remained in print and in the
catalogues of small publishing houses, mainly linked to the far right. These include:
Edizione Il Cinabro of Catania; Edizioni dell'Uomo Libero of Milan; the Società Editrice
Barba-rossa of Milan; Edizioni la Sfinge of Parma; Edizioni all'Insegna del Veltro of
Parma; and Edizioni di Ar of Padua (run by Franco Freda-see LEGAL MATTERS). Authors
published by these houses ranged from Nazi-era figures such as Adolf Hitler and Julius
Evola to contemporary writers such as Gianantonio Valli, Piero Sella and Igor Shafarevich.
In 1996 these books had a very limited circulation and were sold primarily by post and in
small bookshops run by far-right extremists. A small left-wing publisher, Graphos, in
Genoa, has also published several Holocaust-denial works (see HOLOCAUST DENIAL), and the
fundamentalist Catholic La tradizione cattolica (see RELIGION) has put out a number
of antisemitic booklets on topics such as deicide, ritual murder and the influence of
Jewish Masonry on the church.
Also, two Italian Internet web sites existed that involved racism and antisemitism. One
was the site of the small Catholic fundamentalist group Sodalizio Cattolico (see
RELIGION), which, among other things, carried the texts of La tradizione cattolica
booklets. Another site was run by a committee pressing for the abolition of the 1993
Mancino Law against inciting racial and religious discrimination. Among other things, the
site attributed the law to the "dictates of the international oligarchy", in
particular to the Anti-Defamation League, as well as to the strong pressure of Italian
Jewish authorities on "the faint-hearted government".
There were few isolated examples of antisemitic material published by mainstream
publishers. These mainly appeared to involve the publication of foreign fictional works in
translation (including at least one mystery) that included negative antisemitic
stereotypes.
A traditionalist movement opposing innovations in the Roman Catholic church wrought by
the Second Vatican Council in the mid-1960s appeared to gain strength in 1996, although
the tiny fundamentalist groups involved remained at the fringes of the Catholic church as
a whole. These groups ascribe the ills of modern society to a distancing of the population
from traditional religious principles and the yielding of the church, particularly under
Pope John Paul II, to the materialism of modernity. They demand a return to
"traditional" forms of prayer and also tend to espouse an antisemitic,
pre-Vatican II view of Jews and Judaism, including a resurrection of myths such as deicide
and ritual murder. These groups to one degree or another reject the authority of Pope John
Paul II and oppose current church policy, particularly the Second Vatican Council's Nostra
Aetate declaration of 1965, which removed the characterization of Jews as
"Christ-killers" and opened the way for Catholic-Jewish dialogue. Current church
policy towards Jews, the traditionalist groups maintain, is the product of Jewish
influence in the church.
The only real religious group with an antisemitic bias is the fundamentalist Sodalizio
Cattolico (SC, Catholic Association), a small group based in Ferrara that does not
recognize the authority of the pope. Little is known about the SC, but until the end of
1996 it had an Internet web site that linked to the antisemitic and anti-Zionist Norwegian
Internet publication Holy War ("The Christian Brotherhood Holy War Against the
Enemies of God") (see Norway). Holy War , through a number of providers, is
reproduced in seven languages, including Italian. Among Holy War 's
Italian-language offerings was a seventeen-page article on ritual murder. The SC web site
also put users in contact with the Catholic periodical Sodalitium (see below).
In November, SC organized a demonstration in the northern town of Trento by about thirty
people from Milan, Ferrara and Turin who handed out flyers and collected signatures on a
petition calling for the restoration of the cult of Blessed Simonino of Trento. Simonino,
a child, was murdered in Trento in 1475, and the blood libel was raised against local
Jews, who were accused of killing him for ritual purposes. Simonino was revered as a
martyr, and a popular cult grew up surrounding his memory. The Roman Catholic church
banned this cult in 1965.
The journal Sodalitium was published four times a year by the Istituto Mater Boni
Consiglii in Verrua Savoia, near Turin, an institute founded by a small group that broke
away from the Fraternità sacerdotale di San Pio X (Priestly Brotherhood of Saint Pius X)
that now also has a centre in France and was about to open a centre in Argentina (see
France). The Italian edition of Sodalitium , distribu-ted mainly in the
centre-north of the coun-try, had 3,000 subscribers in 1996 (a circulation approximately
1,000 copies larger than the French edition). Its political line mixes antisemitism with
anti-Zionism and opposition to Israel. It strongly opposed current church policy towards
Jews, and it regularly pub-lished articles on deicide, on the connections between
Freemasonry and Judaism, and on ritual murder "as practised by the Jews".
La tradizione cattolica (Catholic Tradition), the bulletin of the Italian branch of
the Fraternità sacerdotale di San Pio X, was edited in Rimini at the Priory of the
Madonna di Loreto and espoused similar positions as Sodalitium. It published
articles on moral doctrine as well as articles against mondialism and Freemasonry. In 1996
it ran articles that referred to "Jewish masonry in the B'nai B'rith" and to the
supposed international power of the Jewish lobby (see PUBLICATIONS AND MEDIA).
Other journals within the sphere of the traditionalist Catholic movement that published
anti-Jewish articles included: the monthly Chiesa viva (Living Church) in Brescia,
edited by Don Luigi Villa; the bi-monthly Il silenzio di Sparta (Silence of
Sparta), edited by Maurizio Blondet and published by Edizione Il Minotauro of Milan; Ex
Novo , founded in Milan as a quarterly in 1995 and edited by Giulio Ferrari; and Teologica
, edited by Piero Mantero and founded in 1996 in Udine by Edizione Segno.
As in 1995, B'nai B'rith was a major theme in traditionalist and fundamentalist Catholic
journals in 1996. This stemmed in large part from extensive (and favourable) reviews of
the book Misteri e Segreti del B'nai B'rith (Mysteries and Secrets of B'nai B'rith)
by Emmanuel Ratier, which underscored the organization's "great world power"
(see also Belgium).
There was little information about how widespread Islamism, antisemitism and anti-Israeli
attitudes are among the scores of thousands of Muslim immigrants in Italy.
In 1996, Holocaust-denial theories were to be found above all in books and periodicals
of the far right. Two small publishing houses in particular-Edizioni di Ar, of Padua, and
Edizi-oni la Sfinge, in Parma-have published books denying the Holocaust, including
translations of foreign authors as well as works by the Italian Holocaust-denier Carlo
Mattogno. Edizioni di Ar published two denial works by Mattogno in 1996, Intervista
sull'olocausto (Interview about the Holocaust) and Dilettanti allo sbaraglio (Dilettantes
to the Slaughter) (see PUBLICATIONS AND MEDIA).
In addition to these far-right publishers, the left-wing Graphos in Genoa has published
several Holocaust-denying works by Cesare Saletta and in 1996 published translations of
Paul Rassinier's "The Lie of Ulysses", Pierre Guillaume's "Jean-Claude
Pressac, Alleged Demolisher of Holocaust Revisionism" and Roger Garaudy's Les
mythes fondateurs de la politique israélienne (Founding Myths of Israeli Politics)
(see France). Graphos also published a book by Carlo Mattogno, Ras-sinier, il
revisionism olocaustico e il loro critico Florent Brayard (Rassinier, Holocaust
Revisionism and Their Critic Florent Brayard). Holocaust-denial theories could also be
found in journals such as Avanguardia, L'uomo libero and Orion (see PUBLICATIONS
AND MEDIA).
These books and periodicals had a very limited circulation, but Holocaust-denial theories
also made an appearance in the national mainstream media, for the most part through
articles and editorials examining the phenomenon and criticizing such views. Occasional
letters to the editors of mainstream publications, however, attested to the fact that some
members of the public agreed with these theories.
No national opinion polls were conducted on antisemitism in 1996. One small survey was carried out among a sample of university students in Rome after antisemitic slogans were were found written on walls of a university building. The results released by the end of the year were only partial, referring to a sample of 410 students. Of these, 89 per cent considered the scrawled slogans either simply a prank or the fruit of ignorance. Responding to a question on the Holocaust, only 8 per cent knew that the Jews killed by the Nazis numbered in the "millions", while 52 per cent said they numbered in the "tens of thousands" and 28 per cent said they numbered in the "hundreds of thousands". Responding to questions on their self-perception vis-à-vis race and racism, only 2 per cent considered themselves racists, and 5 per cent said that their racist feelings would depend on circumstances. But 55 per cent of the respondents said they would not give up their seat on a bus to a pregnant "extra-communitary" woman; 37 per cent said they would not give help to an "extra-communitary" person surrounded by a group of skinheads because "they weren't interested"; and 58 per cent said they wouldn't help such a person in that situation because they didn't want to get in trouble themselves. In addition, 20 per cent of the respondents said they would not share an apartment with someone from a different religion.
Numerous trials against skinheads took place in various Italian cities in 1996. Among
the most important was the trial in Milan of sixty-three skinheads from the Milan branches
of Azione Skinhead and Base Autonoma (see PARTIES, ORGANIZATIONS, MOVEMENTS), who were
charged with acts of violence and with instigating racial hatred.
Among the defendants were Maurizio Boccacci, leader of the disbanded Roman far-right group
Movimento Politico Occidentale, and Sergio Gozzoli, a sixty-six-year-old doctor on the
editorial board of L'uomo libero (see PUBLICATIONS AND MEDIA), who was accused of
being one of the ideologists of the skinhead movement. In a statement during the trial,
Gozzoli, whose son Marzio was also on trial, stated his opposition to "racial
mixing" and said Italy's Fascist-era antisemitic laws had been justified because
international Jewry had wanted the death of Fascism.
Also, in Verona, fifty-six members of the group Veneto Fronte Skinheads, including their
leader, Piero Puschiavo, were indicted for violation of the law against racial, ethnic and
religious discrimination. Their indictment refers to a series of events that occurred in
1994 that included: distribution of anti-immigration leaflets; use of Nazi symbols; and
the celebration of the anniversary of Hitler's birthday. Members of the group are expected
to stand trial in 1997.
In May an Italian businessman found guilty of making antisemitic remarks was ordered to
read twelve books about Judaism (including works by Hannah Arendt, Raul Hillberg, Léon
Poliakov and Jean-Paul Sartre), then return to court to give an account of their content.
The complaint against the defendant had been lodged by a French businessman who had heard
the remarks, which were made around the time of the assassination of the Israeli prime
minister, Yitzhak Rabin.
Former SS Captain Erich Priebke went on trial before a military court in Rome on 8 May for
his role in the March 1944 Nazi mass execution of 335 men and boys in the Ardeatine Caves
south of Rome. The Nazis ordered the massacre in reprisal for an Italian partisan attack
that killed thirty-three German soldiers. Seventy-five of the massacre victims were Jews.
Priebke, who had been extradited from Argentina to Italy in November 1995, admitted
killing at least two of the Ardeatine Caves victims. On 1 August, the military court found
him guilty of taking part in the massacre but not punishable for the crime of multiple
murder because of extenuating circumstances and the statute of limitations. It thus
ordered him freed.
This sentence triggered widespread anger, embarrassment and disapproval in Italy, from top
political figures down. Immediately after the sentence, relatives of victims and their
supporters, including many Jews, staged a noisy demonstration inside and outside the
courthouse, during which they scuffled with police and physically blocked Priebke, his
lawyers and the judges inside. After eight hours, Italy's justice minister ordered Priebke
rearrested, technically to await a decision on a German request for his extradition.
During the trial, civil plaintiffs had requested that the presiding judge, Antonio
Quistelli, be dismissed because of alleged openly expressed bias towards Priebke. An
appeals court rejected this request during the trial, but after the trial, in October, the
court of cassation ruled to accept the request, thus annulling the verdict and ordering a
retrial.
The Priebke trial received wide coverage in the Italian media and touched off much debate
about the role of the anti-Fascist resistance during the war.
The media stressed that among the victims of the Ardeatine Caves massacre were
seventy-five Jews, and gave ample space to the recollections of relatives of the victims
and also to former deportees to concentration camps and to their children, thus broadening
the topic to encompass the Holocaust. But this emphasis also tended to give the impression
that the massacre was directed primarily against Jews.
This element was very evident in the extensive coverage of the emotional protest
immediately after the verdict, whose participants were mostly Jews, as well as in the
declarations of shame by politicians after the sentence. Before and during the trial, the
media gave a high profile to comments on the case by Jews, including the opinion expressed
by the chief rabbi of Rome, Elio Toaff, that Priebke should be held under house arrest.
Toaff's comment drew protest from within the Jewish com-munity, and this also received
ample media coverage.
After the verdict, voices began to be raised criticizing the legitimacy of the justice
minister having ordered Priebke to be rearrested. The minister was accused of having
little respect for the law and of having yielded to the pressure of the crowd. Other
criticisms were made against the Jews of Rome who protested, and some commentators went so
far as to accuse the minister of ceding to the pressure of a "Jewish lobby".
The right-wing AN party supported the Priebke trial from the beginning, but in September,
after the verdict, three of its MPs (of their own accord) presented a formal query to the
justice ministry asking whether any measures had been taken against the demonstrators who
had battled with police and barricaded the courtroom after the verdict.
On 30 November, some 300 people attended a conference in Rome in support of Priebke.
Speakers included Mario Consoli from the far-right periodical L'uomo libero (see
PUBLICATIONS AND MEDIA), as well as Massimo Fini and Piero Buscaroli, two journalists
known for their sharp criticism of Jews. The object of the conference was to show that the
trial against Priebke was an ideological trial, in direct continuation from the Nuremberg
war crimes trials, where, the speakers asserted, victors sat in judgment on vanquished who
were guilty of nothing worse than losing the war. Speakers addressing the conference
expounded on themes such as mondialism, Holocaust denial and international Jewish lobbies.
On 23 December, organizers of the conference held a mass in Priebke's honour in a central
Rome church, celebrated by a priest who took part in the November conference.
Numerous demonstrations against racism took place in a number of Italian cities
throughout the year, and state, church and local authorities repeatedly condemned
antisemitism.
In March, officials including the prime minister, the president of the senate, political
party leaders and the auxiliary bishop of Rome attended a demonstration in Rome held to
honour the victims of terrorist bombs in Jerusalem. President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro gave an
emotional speech that included the words: "I am a Jew alongside you. Every time that
discrimination touches you or contempt offends you, I am a Jew alongside you."
At the end of December, following the desecration of the Jewish section of Rome's Prima
Porta cemetery (see MANIFESTATIONS), the interior minister, the mayor of Rome, the Rome
chief of police and other officials atten-ded a ceremony in the main synagogue. The
Vatican's official spokesman also issued a statement condemning the action. A few days
later, during his speech opening the judicial year, the prosecutor general at the Rome
court of appeals expressed "very great alarm" at the type of racist behaviour
exemplified by the desecration. In a later magazine interview, he also expressed concern
both at episodes of racism and antisemitism and at the weak response to such incidents on
the part of the public. He said it appeared to him that "a latent and constant
antisemitism is continuing".
In the cultural field, a growing number of exhibitions, theatrical productions, television
programmes, culture festivals, newspaper and magazine articles and book publications
brought knowledge of Jewish traditions, history and contemporary reality to an
increasingly broad public.
In 1996 there was a further slight decrease in manifestations of antisemitism in Italy.
The number of reported incidents was the lowest in recent decades. This was due to a
number of reasons, one being the fact that far-right groups, whose members were generally
responsible for "organized" antisemitic actions in the past, were in a period of
ideological and organizational ferment in the wake of the 1993 Mancino Law against racial
and religious discrimination.
Also, for some years now, a much greater interest in Jews and Jewish themes has been
manifested in the mass media, popular culture and institutions. On the one hand, this has
helped contribute to a wider knowledge of Jewish culture and history and to a greater
sense of understanding and tolerance. On the other hand, it has led to expressions of
antisemitism among some individuals and groups who attribute this high Jewish profile to
the power wielded by Jews in contemporary cultural, social and economic spheres. Some of
these people go so far as to equate Jews with the overall system. For them, antisemitism
and opposition to Jews are used as an assertion of their opposition to the system as a
whole.
Institute for Jewish Policy Research and American Jewish Committee
© JPR 1997