36 meters tall, you can’t miss it. Mussolini’s obelisk is located at the entrance to the Foro Italico, the sports complex where the European swimming championships take place, which will end on Sunday 21 August in Rome. Along the monument, inaugurated in 1932, is engraved the name of the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini (1883-1945), nickname in Latin, “Dux” (“Duce” in Italian, “the chef” in French), and “Opera Balilla year 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 in the 1930s on the initiative of Mussolini. Founder of the fascist movement in 1919, the Italian took power three years later. He remained there until 1943 before being executed by the Italian Resistance at the end of the war (1945). Ally of Adolf Hitler since 1938, he established a dictatorship based on a racial and anti-Semitic policy.
The frescoes, sculptures and other monuments present inside the Foro Italico are a legacy of Mussolini. The imperial eagle, symbol of fascism, like statues of armed men are scattered throughout the sports complex.
The Foro Italico and the obelisk constitute “part of the history of Rome“, Explains Valerio Piccioni, journalist at the Gazzetta dello Sport and specialist in sports policy. All “represents a œimportant architectural work of the fascist period. It is a symbol. But is it a testimony of history or does it still send an equivocal message today? The issue is also debated within Italian society.
“We have three different reactions to this legacy, Piccioni explains. In short, there is a minority that is pro Mussolini and another that is totally against him. The third position, majority, is that memory is important and they don’t want to forget this past.”
This opposition materialized in 2015. Laura Boldrini, then president of the Chamber of Deputies and deputy to the Democratic Party (PD, center-left), asked that Mussolini’s name be deleted from the obelisk. The outcry aroused also reached Boldrini’s own party. Melted the response of the president of the Democratic Party, Matteo Orfini. “We do not need to erase our memory, even if it is dramatic. ” A member of the Democratic Party, former Italian deputy Jean-Léonard Touadi believes it “Ithe Italian left opposed, in the wake of what was happening in Europe and around the world with the statues of controversial former personalities laid from their pedestals.“
“We have images everywhere of Nero, Julius Caesar, Augustus. They weren’t all altar boys. I’m there. This city mixes past and present. If not, the whole city deserves to be demolished. “
Jean-Léonard Touadi, former deputy of the Democratic Partyto franceinfo: sport
However, it brings a nuance. “I don’t think we should delete anything because it allows us to face the history of this country, assures the former Italian deputy. In Italy there is a tendency not to really do the math, not to look the history of this country in the face.“
A leading figure of the Italian left at the beginning of the 21st century, Walter Veltroni also addressed the subject head-on. The target object: a gigantic fresco entitled Apotheosis of Fascism (“The apologia for fascism”), located in the Foro Italico, inside 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 by men, all white. These excuses for the superiority of the white race have been veiled since the end of the war.
In 1997, the then Minister for Cultural Heritage and Activities, Walter Veltroni decided to remove the cloth that hides the painting to reveal it. The controversy swells, but the future mayor of Rome (2001-2008) is not dismantled. “Should Leni Riefenstahl’s genius be wiped out simply because she was the director of the Führer or Soviet films, or should Red Square be razed to the ground because it was the site of Stalin’s triumph?“, He asked himself in 2013 in a daily interview La Stampa (in Italian).
For Jean-Leonard Touadi, “everything depends on the educational capacity that society has to transform these places of memory to say: never again. Democracy has taken its revenge on fascism but no people, no culture is immune from a return of these ideologies.“
This ideology, Giorgia Meloni has long approved. The current president of the far-right Brothers of Italy party made it clear in 1996 on the microphone of “Soir 3”. “I think Benito Mussolini was a good politician. Everything he did, he did for Italy “. Berlusconi’s former minister at the age of 31, he could become prime minister after the September elections.
For Valerio Piccioni, “memory loss on past wanderings has had political effects. I think Meloni’s victory can bring us back to the past. It’s the risk. We used to have a wall between the extremes. The situation has changed “. Jean-Léonard Touadi is less categorical: “I think the Italian constitution is strong enough to counter 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 houses the Olympic Stadium, frequented by the two city football clubs, AS Roma and Lazio. “There are groups of supporters who have made it a mythical place for far-right propaganda; with fascist greetings, photos taken under the obelisk. There is the temptation that it becomes 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 on a cultural level“, He assures.