A Quantum Diaries Survivor

“Live as if you should die tomorrow. Think as if you should never die.“

(Giorgio Almirante)

Giorgio Almirante, a militant fascist before WWII and then a leader of MSI, the party which collected the nostalgics of Mussolini’s movement, died in May 1988 at the age of 74 years. He was always faithful to his fascist roots. Because of that, the proposal of Gianni Alemanno (now major of Rome and a member of the party which originated from MSI’s ashes, Alleanza Nazionale) to name a street after Almirante is causing a fierce debate in Italy these days.

Should Italy forgive the bad Almirante of the early days, and celebrate the late years of a consumed politician ? Emanuele Fiano, a congressman member of the Democratic Party, so commented the issue today in the italian parliament: “I saw posters in Milano according to which italians should be proud of Almirante, and remember him. I thank who had the idea to dedicate a street to Giorgio Almirante to not forget. In fact, we will never forget him“.

Fiano was alluding to a few sentences he had just read out loud, written by Almirante in 1942 as a vice-director of the magazine “The defence of the race“, which during the early forties tried to diffuse in Italy the nazist creed. In one of these, Almirante is quoted as saying “Racism is the broadest and most courageous attempt Italy ever tried at a recognition of its identity“, and in another he expressed the need to “stop the jews and the half-cast“.

Should Italy forgive the early mistakes of Almirante, and name a street after him ? I am with Shakespeare (in the speech by Marc Anthony, in Julius Caesar) on this one: “The evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones“. So let it be with Almirante.