The Left Always Cries Fascism, But Not a Word About Red Terrorism –

Pietro De Leo

August 11, 2024

There is no trace of a dispatch from the agency. No note reaches the newsrooms. Not even a post, as a duty, is surfing the Net. The silence of the left on the release, for good behavior, of the former terrorist, Simone Boccaccini, is deafening. The former prisoner, now rewarded by Justice, is a former member of the left-wing armed organization “Nuove Brigate Rosse” who participated in the murder of Marco Biagi. For the son of labor lawyer Lorenzo, “it is as if they had killed my father all over again”. Absolute silence, however, is recorded from the left. A silence that can be interpreted as an attempt to avoid reopening the wounds of the past or as a sign of embarrassment regarding unresolved issues in the relationship between the left and terrorism.

And yet, the left is always ready to take refuge in anti-fascism. This distorted use of the concept of anti-fascism appears to be a reflection of the crisis of ideas that is affecting a part of the Italian left, incapable of formulating a credible and solid political alternative. And so, any position that differs from its own vision is fascist. It is impossible to recount all the times that the left has branded the Meloni government as fascist since it took office. This strategy, already widely used during the First Republic by the PCI, is still in vogue today. In essence, the accusation of fascism becomes a dialectical shortcut, a sort of ideological trap in which one tries to capture the political opponent. However, this approach risks being counterproductive, further alienating that part of the electorate that already perceives the left as distant and incapable of responding to the real needs of the country. And the fact that the left has been in government for ten years without winning the elections is evidence of this.

The other gift of the left is to deny the evidence. Let’s take a very recent example, to better understand. Last August 2nd, the anniversary of the Bologna massacre was celebrated and part of the left accused the government of being in collusion with black terrorism. And this, despite the government itself, led by the prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, having admitted that the massacre at the Bologna station and that of the Italicus were of fascist origin. We report an excerpt of the statements. The Minister of the Interior Matteo Piantedosi, spoke of “a neo-fascist massacre”; the president of the Senate Ignazio La Russa even underlined the importance of continuing with the declassification of the documents and defined the explosion as “a vile attack that the sentences have attributed to a neo-fascist origin”. Meloni, too, in her message, used the formula of “a terrorism, that the sentences attribute to exponents of neo-fascist organizations”. But, for the left, the Meloni government is conniving with black terrorism.

Returning to the former Red Brigades member released from prison for good behavior, there are those who interpret the silence of the left as a failure to assume moral responsibility also towards the victims of red-origin terrorism. And speaking of victims of terrorism, the attack that comes to mind from the stage of the Bologna station, last August 2, during the commemoration of the massacre, the president of the association that brings together the relatives of the victims, the former parliamentarian of the Democratic Party, Paolo Bolognesi, launched an attack on the Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni and her executive, precisely for the failure to recognize the fascist origin of the attack. But today, on the part of the former Democratic Party deputy Bolognesi, in his capacity as president of the association of relatives of the victims of the Bologna massacre, there is also a deafening silence. Nothing new under the sun.