Iranian and Italian politics explained

 

Seeing Mussolini’s Italy in Modi’s India

There are uncanny parallels between the Italy of the 1920s and the India of the 2020s writes Ram Guha in Scroll India

 

I read a lot of biographies, these often set in other countries than my own. A book I have just finished is Benedetto Croce and Italian Fascism, by the Canadian scholar, Fabio Fernando Rizi. It uses the life of a great philosopher to tell a larger story of the times he passed through.

Reading Rizi’s book, I found uncanny parallels between the Italy of the 1920s and the India of the 2020s. The myth of Benito Mussolini, like the myth of Narenda Modi, was crafted by writers and propagandists “eager to sing paeans to the genius of the Duce”. These propagandists had begun to call the leader of fascism “the providential man”, “the man of massive faith”, or simply, “the Man of Providence”. Thus was created “the myth of the Duce, the chief who is always right, the leader who dares where others vacillate”.

In December 1925, the Italian State passed a new law, which came down hard on the press and its freedoms. The consequences of this law were that “within a few months, the most important papers came under Fascist control, one by one. Some owners were compelled to sell under economic or political pressure. All the liberal editors had to resign and were replaced by more accommodating men.”

Professed reverence for the laws

In the same year, Benedetto Croce characterised the ideology of the ruling party and of Mussolini as a “bizarre mixture of appeals to authority and to demagoguery, of professed reverence for the laws and of violation of the laws, of ultra-modern concepts and of musty old trash, abhorrence of culture and sterile attempts at producing a new one…” In this regard, the Italian State of the 1920s bears a striking resemblance to Modi’s regime today which speaks respectfully of the Constitution while blatantly violating its spirit and essence, which appeals to ancient wisdom while displaying a contempt for modern science, which claims to exalt ancient culture while manifesting an utter philistinism in practice.

While most independent-minded Italian intellectuals were forced into exile, Benedetto Croce stayed on in his homeland, offering an intellectual and moral opposition to fascism. As his biographer puts it, “[w]hereas the regime employed the mass media and the education system to promote the cult of Mussolini and to inculcate submission to authority, demanding from the new generations, in mystical union with the Duce, without asking questions, ‘to believe, to obey, to fight’, Croce, instead, offered a set of liberal values, preached freedom, defended the dignity of man, as a free agent, and urged individual decision and personal responsibility.” 

Reading further into Rizi’s book, I found this passage: “By the end of 1926, liberal Italy had died. Mussolini had consolidated his power and created the legal instruments for the continuation of his dictatorship. Political parties had been outlawed, and freedom of the press destroyed. The opposition had been disarmed and Parliament reduced to impotence. By 1927 it had become almost impossible to undertake any political action; it was also dangerous to express critical opinions in personal letters or in public places. Civil employees could lose their jobs if they expressed views contrary to government policy.

“Besides a powerful and revitalized police division in the Ministry of the Interior, under the direct responsibility of the chief of police, a new and efficient secret police organization, ominously and mysteriously called OVRA, was created with the aim of repressing any sign of anti-fascism and controlling any expression of dissent. In a short while, it collected files on more than one hundred thousand people, including Fascist leaders, and built an impressive web of special agents, spies, and informers whose reach extended throughout the country and even abroad.”

As I was transcribing these words from Rizi’s book, news came in of the home ministry demanding, from the Finance Commission, a sum of Rs 50,000 crore to fund what it called “real-time surveillance” of citizens. This at a time when the states are being denied the money owed to them by the Centre; and while the home ministry has already dangerously abused its powers through the foisting of fake cases on independent thinkers, activists, and journalists.

And here is Rizi’s description of the Italian Parliament, c. 1929: “Parliament had become a rubber stamp of the government’s decisions. Speeches of the few remaining members of the opposition were ignored, or more often shouted down to jeers from the floor and from the public galleries.”
Patria and gloria

Fabio Fernando Rizi’s book focuses on one person in one country, and eschews comparative analysis. However, in passing, the author remarks that “Italian Fascism created an authoritarian regime, ever increasing its reach, but it did not have the time, perhaps did not even possess the strength, to build a totalitarian society.” This must be read as meaning only one thing; however awful Mussolini’s Italy was, it was not nearly as awful as Hitler’s Germany.

After reading Rizi’s intellectual biography of Benedetto Croce, I turned to David Gilmour’s magnificent book, The Pursuit of Italy, a wide-ranging and compellingly readable history of that country from the beginnings of time. Thirty of the four hundred pages of this book deal with Mussolini’s years in power. As with Rizi, much of what Gilmour said about Italy in the past chillingly resonated with what I am witnessing in my own country at present.

Consider thus these remarks: “In the 1930s the regime’s style became more ostentatious. There were more parades, more uniforms, more censorship, more hectoring, more speeches from the leader, more shouting, gesturing and grimacing from a balcony to vast crowds, which greeted Mussolini’s every reference to patria and gloria with chants of ‘Du-ce! Du-ce! Du-ce!’”.

Much the same could be said about Modi’s rule, especially after he won a second term in 2019, his every utterance greeted with “Mo-di! Mo-di! Mo-di!”.

Credit: Prakash SINGH / AFP

Why did the Italian demagogue enjoy such great popularity among the masses? Here is Gilmour’s answer: “Mussolini survived so long partly because he incarnated certain strands of italianata; he embodied the hopes, fears and generations that believed Italy had been cheated of its due, both by its liberal politicians and by its wartime allies, who had forced it to accept the ‘mutilated peace.’”

By the same token, Modi has successfully appealed to an alleged Golden Age in the distant past where Hindus were supreme in India and abroad, argued that Hindus had slipped from that pedestal owing to Muslim and British conquerors in the past, and pitted himself against conniving and corrupt Congress politicians who would drag Hindus and India down again.

Reading these books about Italy in the 1920s in the India of the 2020s, I was depressed by the many parallels; but also consoled by the few departures. Unlike Mussolini’s Italy, in Modi’s India, the Bharatiya Janata Party has had to contend with political opposition from other parties; admittedly an Opposition much attenuated at the Centre, but still fairly robust in half-a-dozen major states of the Union. The press has been tamed, but not entirely crushed. And while Mussolini’s Italy had only Benedetto Croce to call it to account, Modi’s India still has many writers and intellectuals speaking out courageously in defence of the founding principles of the Republic, and in all the languages of the Republic too.

In The Pursuit of Italy, after describing how Mussolini consolidated his rule, Gilmour remarks: “Fascism’s appeal was blunted, however, by its failure to provide prosperity. Italians might be deceived into thinking they were well governed but they could not be deceived into thinking they were well off.” Mussolini failed in providing jobs and prosperity; whereas Modi has, in fact, done far worse on the economic front, his ill-thought and quixotic policies annulling much of the progress that the Indian economy had made in the three decades since liberalisation.

Millions of young men today fanatically follow Narendra Modi. The fate that awaits them, and us, is anticipated in what Benedetto Croce said with regard to the millions of young men who fanatically followed Mussolini. After the Italian dictator had died and his regime had finally fallen, Croce wrote sadly of “the treasury of moral energies that the oppressive regime misguided, exploited and at the end had betrayed”.

Benito Mussolini and his fascists thought they would rule Italy forever. Narendra Modi and the BJP think likewise. These fantasies of eternal rule will not come to fruition; but so long as the present regime remains in power, it will continue to extract a horrendous cost – in economic, political, social, and moral terms. Italy took decades to recover from the ravages of Mussolini and his party; India may take even longer to recover from the ravages of Modi and his party.

The jihadi girls are just part of a long line attracted to mad, bad men

Yasmin Alibhai Brown in The Independent

As I write this, the three Muslim teenage girls from East London are still missing. Shamima Begum, 15, Kadiza Sultana, 16 and an unnamed 15-year-old are believed to have gone off to join Isis. Their friend, another 15-year-old, took off in December and seems to have “inspired” them to do the same. In their photographs they are dressed like average British teenagers. These are academically gifted girls, whose parents are bewildered and distraught.

I used to teach English to young Bangladeshi and Somali mothers in this area. Denied education themselves when they were young, what they all wanted was for their daughters to become doctors, businesswomen and teachers, grab life chances, reach the top.

One of them, Razia, gave me her purse to look after. It contained her savings and cash she had got after selling some of her wedding jewellery. She was building up a fund so her daughter could go to college one day. Her husband was a boor and bully but she somehow kept her hopes and dreams alive for her children. When she finished the course, the purse contained almost £1,200. I rang her to ask how she felt about these East End girl jihadis. “My daughter became a teacher. She can’t understand. Allah, what is happening to them? The devil must have got into their heads. Or maybe they want to shock their parents. To be bad, not good.” Wise words.

Hundreds of impressionable young Muslim girls from around the world have been enticed to join Isis. Some have taken up arms, others have handed themselves over to some of the most violent men in the world today. A study by the Institute of Strategic Dialogue found evidence that such groupies “revel in the gore and brutality of the organisation”. They seem willing to accept Isis’s hardline code of conduct and want to submit to brute male power.

This phenomenon is widespread and not confined to fanatic Islam. Women and girls throughout history have been fatally attracted to fascists, communists, revolutionary armies and serial killers. Sometimes it is the cause that consumes them. I have just returned from Vietnam where, during the many wars that have beset that lovely country, beautiful, innocent young girls volunteered to fight with guerrilla forces and to die.

In Cuba, similarly, teenage girls rushed to join the resistance armies. Much is made of their “beautiful sacrifice”. But did they even understand what they were signing up to? In her book, Women and Guerrilla Movements (2002), Karen Kampwirth suggests that some of the youthful volunteers “want to escape the tedium of their homes, to join another sort of family, start life anew”.

Then there are those who are drawn to monstrous men and extreme politics. Messianic fervour, millenarianism and magnetism can whip up female hormones alarmingly. In one of Sylvia Plath’s last poems, “Daddy”, she delves into her complicated relationship with her German father. “Every woman adores a fascist/The boot in the face, the brute/ Brute heart of a brute like you.”

In the Thirties, fascist Oswald Moseley was one of Britain’s most charismatic politicians. Joan Bond, a young poetess, glorified this nasty man who promoted the cult of motherhood and obedience. He married Diana Mitford, an aristocrat. The wedding took place in the living room of Joseph Goebbels and Adolf Hitler was the only other guest. Diana remained loyal to her husband and other fascists till she died in 2003. Her sister Unity was besotted with Hitler and another, Decca, was lured by communism.

Mussolini had a limitless supply of nubile mistresses, many of whom described with pride the pain he inflicted on them. Teenage girls were recruited into Piccole Italiane, a training camp for Italian fascists. In Germany the equivalent was The League of German Girls. When you look at pictures of the recruits, with ribbons in their hair and faces full of optimism, you wonder how this could ever happen. Just as we do now over the Isis handmaidens. 

In the dark web of the female psyche lie these desires for pain, self destruction and annihilation. And cravings too for notoriety, the thrill of transgression, of doing something seriously wrong. Those who court danger don’t all go join armies and cults. Some, for example, choose to befriend and even marry callous murderers. It is the ultimate romantic adventure.

Denise Knowles, the Relate counsellor, believes: “These women crave recognition that comes from being attached to a gangster or dangerous criminal.” Sometimes it is an extension of teenage rebellion. Women who have had a sheltered upbringing are most prone to these liaisons. Within this spectrum, I would also include women who go for abusive partners and never break from the pattern.

The female Isis jihadis are no different from all those women who seem to go for men and messages outside the civilised norms. It may be madly exciting but for most, anguish will surely follow and then death or desolation without end.

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