Since coming to power, Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni and her party Brothers of Italy have repeatedly raised the question of who and what is remembered in Italy. They have paid particular attention to how the experience of Italian fascism is told.
Writing on the front page of newspaper Corriere della Sera, Meloni questioned the way the nation marks April 25 – the day Italy remembers its liberation from Nazi-fascism and honours the victory of the Italian resistance. She implied that those with rightwing political views are effectively locked out of the commemoration. She suggested that “the category of fascism” is used as a “weapon of mass exclusion” so that certain groups or people are not included on the “list” of those allowed to celebrate the anniversary.
The implication was that people associated with fascism should also be recognised for their contribution to the democratic republic. Referring to the Italian Social Movement, founded in 1946 by people who wanted to revive fascism and fight communism, Meloni wrote: “those who were excluded from the constitutional process for obvious historical reasons undertook to lead millions of Italians into the new parliamentary republic, shaping the democratic right wing”. Several Brothers of Italy leaders cut their teeth in the party’s youth group, including Meloni.
