36 meters high, you can’t miss it. The Mussolini obelisk sits at the entrance to the Foro Italico, the sports complex where the European swimming championships are held, which end on Sunday August 21 in Rome. Along the monument, inaugurated in 1932, is inscribed the name of the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini (1883-1945), his nickname in Latin, “Dux” (“Duce” in Italian, “the chef” in French), and “Opera Balilla anno X”which refers to the Opera Nazionale Balilla, a fascist youth organization, as well as the tenth year of the fascist era.
The monument, like the entire Foro Italico, was designed during the 1930s at the instigation of Mussolini. Founder of the fascist movement in 1919, the Italian seized power three years later. He remained there until 1943 before being executed by the Italian resistance at the end of the war (1945). Adolf Hitler’s ally from 1936, he set up a dictatorship based on a racial and anti-Semitic policy.
The frescoes, sculptures and other monuments present inside the Foro Italico constitute a legacy of Mussolini. The imperial eagle, the symbol of fascism, like statues of armed men are scattered all over the sports complex.
The Foro Italico and the obelisk constitute “part of the history of Rome“, explains Valerio Piccioni, journalist at the Gazetta dello Sport and specialist in sports policy. All “represents a œimportant work of architecture from the Fascist period. It is a symbol. But is it a testimony to history or does it still send an equivocal message today? The question is debated even within Italian society.
“We have three different reactions to this legacy, explains Piccioni. To sum up, there is a minority which is pro-Mussolini and another which is totally opposed to him. The third position, majority, is that the memory is important and they do not want to forget this past.”
This opposition materialized in 2015. Laura Boldrini, then president of the Chamber of Deputies and member of the Democratic Party (PD, centre-left), demanded that Mussolini’s name be erased from the obelisk. The outcry caused even reached Boldrini’s own party. The response of the president of the PD, Matteo Orfini, fused. “We don’t need to erase our memory, even if it’s dramatic.” Member of the Democratic Party, the former Italian deputy Jean-Léonard Touadi believes that “Ithe Italian left opposed this, in the wake of what was happening in Europe and in the world with the statues of former controversial personalities deposed from their pedestals.“
“We have images everywhere of Nero, Julius Caesar, Augustus. They weren’t all altar boys. They are there. This city mixes its past and its present. Otherwise, the whole city deserves to be demolished. “
Jean-Léonard Touadi, former deputy of the Democratic Partyat franceinfo: sport
However, it brings a nuance. “I don’t think we should erase anything because it allows us to look the history of this country in the face, assures the former Italian deputy. In Italy, there is a tendency not to really do the accounts, not to look the history of this country in the face.“
A major figure on the Italian left at the start of the 21st century, Walter Veltroni has also tackled the subject head-on. The target object: a gigantic fresco entitled Apoteosi del fascismo (“The Apology of Fascism”), located in the Foro Italico, within the hall of honor of the building of the Italian National Olympic Committee. The canvas, painted by Luigi Montanarini, represents Benito Mussolini, in prayer, surrounded by his commanders as well as men, all white. This apology for the superiority of the white race has been veiled since the end of the war.
In 1997, then Minister of Cultural Assets and Activities, Walter Veltroni decided to remove the sheet that hides the painting in order to reveal it. The controversy swells, but the future mayor of Rome (2001-2008) did not disassemble. “Should Leni Riefenstahl’s genius be wiped out simply because she was the director of The Führer or of Soviet films, or should Red Square be razed because it was the site of Stalin’s triumph?“, he wondered in 2013 in a daily interview La Stampa (in Italian).
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For Jean-Leonard Touadi, “everything depends on the educational capacity that society has to transform these places of memory in order to say: never again. Democracy took its revenge on the fascist period but no people, no culture is immune to a return of these ideologies.“
This ideology, Giorgia Meloni has long approved. The current president of the extreme right party Fratelli d’Italia, expressed it clearly in 1996 at the microphone of “Soir 3”. “I believe Benito Mussolini was a good politician. Everything he did, he did for Italy.” Former minister under Berlusconi, at only 31 years old, she could become president of the Council after the September elections.
For Valerio Piccioni, “the loss of memory about past wanderings had political effects. I think Meloni’s victory can cause a return to the past. It’s the risk. Before, we had a wall between the extremes. The situation has changed.” Jean-Léonard Touadi is less categorical: “I think the Italian constitution is strong enough to thwart any fascist idea, at least in power.”
In this context, however, the impact caused by the symbols of the Foro Italico reappears. A phenomenon that could affect young people, a target of Meloni. The sports complex also hosts the Stadio Olimpico, frequented by the city’s two football clubs, AS Roma and Lazio. “There are groups of supporters who have made it a mythical place of far-right propaganda; with fascist salutes, photos taken under the obelisk. There is a temptation for it to become a symbolic place to perpetuate this ideology”, says Jean-Léonard Touadi. The latter calls, once again, to look the past in the face. “The best opposition to fascism must be at the cultural level“, he assures.