Luigi Moretti's ex-GIL: Eagles, and an Occupation

It's just one photo--and not our own--but it tells a story.  The photo is of the entrance to the Casa della GIL (House of the Italian Fascist Youth), a stunning modernist structure designed by Luigi Moretti and constructed between 1933 and 1936.  It is now most often referred to as the ex-GIL.
When I first saw the photo, I assumed it was a period pic, though color photography was in its infancy in the 1930s.  My assumption was that "Rome for the Romani" was, even decades ago, a Fascist slogan.  Moreover, the photo shows large, highly stylized metal eagles above the entrance to the building--one of Mussolini-era Fascism's potent symbols--and Dianne and I, having observed the building for about 20 years, had never seen those eagles. So I assumed they were part of the original structure (which they may have been) and, therefore, that the photo was vintage.

Wrong.  The photo was taken in April, 2017, when the building--the ex-GIL--was briefly occupied by Forza Nuova, a militant, anti-immigrant, homophobic far-right political party founded in 1997. CasaPound, a neo-Fascist organization with affiliates in dozens of Italian cities, including Rome, was also involved in the occupation.


Looking more closely at the photo, the smaller flags say FN and "Forza Nuova."  According to Forza Nuova (and the press), the building's elaborate and expensive reconstruction was completed (except, perhaps for those eagles) in 2015, yet the building remained empty.  The occupation was designed to make that point, and to immediately turn the structure into a shelter for the homeless--unless, of course, they were immigrants, socialists, or gay.

The ex-GIL as it looked in 2012, when it was open briefly for an art exhibition.

Some might object to the re-mounting of the Fascist eagles.  Others would point out that the eagles hardly matter, given the prominence of a Fascist slogan on the facade.

And that's the story.

Bill

The ex-GIL is located in Trastevere, on Largo Ascianghi, between viale di Trastevere and the Tiber River.  It came in at #10 in RST's Top 40.

Lotta Studentesca, Blocco Studentesco: the young right wing tackles education

As you walk the streets of Rome--and if you "read" its walls--you'll find evidence of two similarly-sounding organizations: the Lotta Studentesca (literally Student Struggle) and Blocco Studentesco (Student Block).  Both are student organizations, and both are actively--perhaps sometimes too actively--involved in changing Italian schools, including secondary schools and universities. 

Posted outside a school on via Taranto

Although its name dates to the 1970s, the current Lotta Studentesca began as the youth arm of Forza Nuova, a militant, anti-immigrant, homophobic far-right political party founded in 1997.  The LS wants more investment in the public schools, opposes costly textbooks (costly, they say, because of corruption), is anti-drugs, and advocates more emphasis on school sports. 

Reprediamoci Tutto: We'll Take it all Back

The Blocco Studentesco emerged in 2006 from CasaPound, a neo-fascist organization named after the American poet Ezra Pound, who in the 1940s, while living in Italy, was an ardent supporter of the Mussolini regime.  It currently has affiliates in some 40 Italian cities, including Rome, Verona, Parma, and Palermo. 







The Rome affiliate has carried out occupations of several schools in Rome and, on October 29, 2008, occupied the tourist mecca Piazza Navona, where its supporters participated in a bloody clash with opponents on the left.  The clash was precipitated by the Gelmini Decree, named after Mariastella Gelmini, the

A Rome school occupied by Blocco Studentesco

Minister of Education, and passed by the Italian parliament.  The Gelmini Decree was composed of a series of proposed actions, most of which were opposed by the Blocco Studentesco.  The group was especially angry about cuts to the education budget (response: "we won't pay for your crisis") and a new course offering in "civic education" that was likely understood as an exercise in thought control. 

Despite the militant protests, the BS program seems less than revolutionary:  improved services, reduced bureaucracy, more student representation in decision-making, opposition to public money being spent on private schools.  A Roman friend offers a different perspective.  He describes both movements as "violent and dangerous," "anti-Semitic and homophobic."  "The difference [between them]," he adds, "is minimal and linked to personal opposition and dislike between their leaders." 

Bill

For more on "reading" Rome's walls, see our December 2011 post.

Opposition to government spending on private schools. 

Rome Posters, 2012

 Like the rest of Italy, and unlike the U.S., Rome is a poster city.  There are thousands of them on building walls or in huge metal poster holders (we wonder if there's an Italian word for these frames) that line the streets, and turnover keeps them current and entertaining.  Many are narrowly political--for this candidate or that--but others are broader in subject matter and appeal.  A majority have right or right-center content.  Here are some our favorites from 2012.

It was appropriate that we found this poster to Alessandro Alibrandi in the Trieste quarter of Rome, for it was there, in 1975, that he and some other young, right-wing ideologues formed a group called Nuclei Armati Revoluzionari (Armed Revolutionary Nuclei).  The NAR, as it is commonly known, was a direct-action organization that killed people on the left.  Alibrandi did his share of the shooting and killing.  In the late 1970s, he turned to more ordinary forms of organized crime, working with la Banda della Magliana, headquartered near Ponte Marconi.  He died in December, 1981, following a gunfight with police at the Libaro station, a few kilometers from Rome.  As the poster reveals, some people still consider him a hero.  (For another post on the right-wing in the Trieste quarter, see this one on Piazza Vescovio and also the one on Zippo, who some might call a thug, but the right-wing wants to see as a political hero.  Also see Paul Baxa on neofascism in the Tuscolana section of Rome.)

Italians are not alone in thinking that their economy would benefit if its citizens bought Italian products.  This poster, sponsored by the right-wing group Noi Oltre, proclaims "Against the Global Crisis/Support the National Economy," and in slashing letters, "Buy Italian Products."  The main figure appears to represent a worker, gesturing in a sort of "Uncle Sam Wants You" way, with an industrial facility beneath.  Noi Oltre is headquartered in an upper-middle class neighborhood in Monteverde Vecchio; it has 893 Facebook "friends."

Water is in increasingly short supply around the world (one can purchase an ETF [Exchange-Traded Fund] that specializes in water), and areas that have it in abundance, like the U.S. Great Lakes or Rome (from the mountains nearby) guard it jealously.  Here, the center-left Democratic Party accuses the right-wing Rome mayor, Gianno Alemanno, of "swindles and 'assaults' to sell off the Romans' water." 

Lazio, the region in which Rome is located, has a garbage-disposal problem; the regular dump is full, and 2012 was highlighted by a search for a new location.  This poster accuses Renata Polverini (referred to as La Polverini), then the president of the Lazio regional government, of not only cancelling a festival at Hadrian's Villa--a major historical site located just beneath the hill town of Tivoli--but of working to turn the Villa Adriana into a dumpsite.  "Vergogna," it reads: "Shame on You."  Polverini later resigned, but not because of garbage issues.

This poster strains our knowledge of the language.  It's in favor of a nationalist, socialist, and secular (laica) Syria.  It calls for a June, 2012 demonstration in Piazza del Popolo, "in support of the people and the legitimate government of the Syrian Arab Republic."  At the top/center is the claim that the USA considers Syrian elections a sham.  But the ad's ironic take on NATO air power suggests that the poster is opposed to any sort of foreign intervention.  One pilot asks, "Where are we going?" and the other replies, "To teach the Syrians how to vote."  Support for the existing Bashar al-Assad government--we think.  (Readers comments and interpretations welcome).

Here's proof that the right has more entertaining posters than the left.  That lean and nasty critter is a version of Rome's founding myth: the she-wolf that suckled Romulus and Remus.  This she-wolf is angry at what's happened to Europe, and especially angry at the bankers and financiers who (the poster says) dominate the EU and damage Italy with currency speculation.  The folks from Noi Oltre that printed it promise to defend "the nation" and its "people."  Former (and most hope he stays that way) Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has tried to rile up the masses by claiming Italy should return to the Lira.



In this photo, it's hard to see what it is that the wolf is stomping on.  So we've blown it up for you--below. 



   

It's a 1-Euro coin, the symbol of the hated (by some) European Union and its financial oligarchy. 












Noi Oltre is probably Rome's most active non-party postering organization.  This poster attacks immigration on the grounds that it violates the occupational rights and the identity of native Italians:  "Defend Your Work/Defend Your Rights/Defend Your Ground."

"Sign the Law/Stop Equitalia."  That's the message of this poster by CasaPound, a right-wing group named after Ezra Pound, the American poet who lived in Italy and supported the Fascists during World War II.  Equitalia, subtly presented here as a blood-sucking vampire bat in a business suit, is a decade-old public company, created to collect taxes and to help prevent tax evasion.  It is sometimes referred to as the "legalized mafia" for what some have seen as draconian policies and methods: small tax debts that accrue large interest payments, mortgage foreclosures of properties only minimally in arrears, and so on. Of course, Italians sometimes are viewed as the most expert - worldwide - at tax avoidance.  In 2011, the director of the Rome office was injured by a bomb sent to the Equitalia address.

A recent protest against tax-collector Equitalia. 

Bill

The Story of Zippo

Free Zippo, with schematic fasce below

Zippo Libero/Free Zippo.  If, like RST, you walk the streets of Rome's outlying neighborhoods, you'll now and then see the words Zippo Libero written on a wall.  And Zippo is not purely of local, neighborhood interest. 

Zippo (right)

The 23-year-old young man was the subject of a well-atttended march on via dei Fori Imperiali, obviously undertaken with city approval, the marchers uniformed in white T-shirts decorated with the Zippo Libero slogan.  And on December 5 of last year, hundreds of demonstrators gathered in protest outside the Regina Coeli prison, where Zippo was being held. 

Siamo quello che Facciamo (We are what we do).
A CasaPound sticker attached to a light pole near
Stadio Olimpico. Looks like the mascot is
a turtle. 

Zippo, whose real name is Alberto Palladino, is a right-wing militant and activist, with ties to rightist organizations, including the Blocco Studentesco (Student Bloc) and CasaPound, which takes its name from the American poet Ezra Pound who, living in Italy and enamoured with Mussolini's Fascism, made hundreds of radio broadcasts citicizing the United States during World War II. 

1930s public housing in Monte Sacro

The event that landed Zippo in jail took  place on the night of November 3, 2011, in via dei Prati Fiscali, a major thoroughfare in Monte Sacro, a hilly, middle- and working-class neighborhood north of the Center.  According to the Carabinieri, who happened by that evening, Palladino was one of 15 men who, with their faces covered and armed with wooden clubs and "mazze ferrate" (iron cudgels) set upon five members of the youth movement of the Democratic Party (PD) who had just moments before finished with some postering--a common activity among political youth groups.  Four persons, all affiliated with the PD, required hospital treatment. 

Marchionne Infame (Infamy)

Palladino was identified as one of the aggressors by Paolo Marchionne, head of the PD in the Monte Sacro area (how he made that identification is not clear), and Zippo was arrested in early December, on his return to Italy from Thailand, where he was doing volunteer work. 

Zippo Libero March.

Despite the marches and protests, Zippo was convicted of assault and battery and in early July, 2012, was sentenced to 2 years and 8 months of house arrest (domicilio coatto) in Ronciglione, a town between Rome and Viterbo were he had previously lived.  At the sentencing, Palladino's mother confronted Marchionne, the only one who had identified Zippo as among the aggressors. 




CasaPound, which occupied a small building near the scene of the November 3 confrontation, claimed the arrest was "purely political," a reponse to Palladino's social activism.  The source of the identification--a political operative on the left--would lend credence to that claim.  Even so, an armed assault took place, 4 young men were injured, and Zippo, given his strong political convictions, may have been among those wreaking havoc.

Zippo Libero?  Maybe, maybe not.

Bill 
Two other posts on right-wing graffiti incude one centered in Piazza Vescovio and one generally deciphering Rome's walls.

A "Zippo Libero" sign makes an appearance among extreme
soccer fans (Ultras)