That link suggests why it might be correct to describe Italy as the most right-wing country in Europe – but doesn’t tell us why that is the case.

Why do you think it is?

What’s Italian for ‘vigilante’?

We had a lot of trouble with vigilantes operating near where I live. The police wouldn’t listen to our complaints about them so eventually we had to take the law into our own hands.

Cjcjc raises a good question: why Italy, rather than Germany. Why did the latter learn the lessons of WWII wile the former seems hell bent on repeating their mistakes?

Great article – I hate having to point out small errors – but it’s “Libyan” not Lybian

#2 – “Ronda” is Italian for “vigilante”, I think.

Words like ‘vigilantism’ and ‘taking the law into your own hands’ are the language of tyrants. The law belongs to the people and we made it for ourselves, to protect us as a free citizenry. Our freedom to defend ourselves against criminality is part of our general freedom to live our lives lawfully. The police are merely citizens who have been hired by us to help us enforce the law, not to tell us that we cannot do so. The state has no right to have a monopoly on force. Well done to the Italians for pointing this out!

Claude,

I think Ronda was having a bit of a joke (say vigilante to yourself, emphasising each sylable whilst articulating with your right hand and eating a pizza with your left).

WHY IS EVERYTHING IN ITALICS?

I don’t like italics.

Oh good! So there’s no chance of coming across you pretentious bunch of Guardianistas swanning around Tuscany for some time. How come you all seem to know so much about Italy when none of you have even the faintest idea of the language? How many Italians across the political spectrum have any of you ever spoken to? I say this with great bitterness and sadness because the best historians and commentators on the complexities of Italian history, society and politics have often been British but at least they made the effort to understand their subject first.
The Guardian has consistently always been totally dismissive of anything Italian and I often see the same attitude on the cheap comments on this site. So before anyone tells me to fuck off – yes, I will! Happy dinner parties.

Nino, ma che cazzo dici?

Could someone fix whichever open tags are causing everything to be in bold italics? Because its really annoying.

Have you seen the Italian polls, I wouldn’t be surprised if 50%+ of the electorate reply to the Guardia Nazionale Italiana’s recruitment pleas.

Shatterface @4: “Cjcjc raises a good question: why Italy, rather than Germany. Why did the latter learn the lessons of WWII wile the former seems hell bent on repeating their mistakes?”

The popular conception is that West Germany was denazified and that the East was not — hence greater prevalence of racist skinheads and electoral success for far right wing parties in the former East. I only know enough to appreciate that the analysis is overly simplistic. Authors such as Professor Paul Wilkinson were reporting about far right parties — technically illegal in West Germany — throughout the 1980s. Not all West Germans learned the lessons of WWII and many of the new followers are/were young people. Remember also that the Red Army Faction comprised denazified West Germans.

Over the last couple of months, during the debates about about the BNP, I’ve felt that the distinction between fascism and nazism has become blurred. I appreciate that many historians do not distinguish between them. But surely there is a difference? Mussolini and Franco executed, tortured and imprisoned people, but they didn’t build extermination camps. Whilst they were antisemitic, and Mussolini deported Jews to Germany and Austria, they didn’t have the stomach to build their own killing machine. To me, the BNP has always looked like a nazi party rather than a south european or south american fascist movement.

Oh well, summer has arrived and BNP members will be going on holiday to meet their Flemish colleagues in Belgium. Another country that needs a dose of denazification.

News just in:

A proposal tabled at Milan city council: a number of seats on tram, buses and metro should be reserved for the ‘Milanese’ people.

What instead is LAW already is something that covers the entire Lombardy region: the so-called ‘Anti-Kebab Law': it will no longer be allowed to eat kebabs and take away food in the street! And kebab shops will have to shut at 1am. A Northern League regional councillor said: “At last reduced opening hours for kebab shops!”.

In the town of Parma, the Northern League are also announcing a motion calling to get rid of non-Italians, especially “carers”, “loafers” and “shady characters” from local park benches.

At which point does it turn into full-blown fascism? Is there a visible line you cross?
What do you think?

sources:
http://milano.repubblica.it/dettaglio/articolo/1621364
http://milano.repubblica.it/dettaglio/metro-la-proposta-di-salvini-(lega)-posti-riservati-soltanto-ai-milanesi/1630092
http://oltretorrente-parma.blogautore.repubblica.it/2009/04/22/via-le-badanti-panchine-per-soli-anziani/

I think that line was crossed long ago, Claude. That is shocking. If I were in Italy I’d leave! I feel sorry for the people stuck there who are having seven shades of immigrant demonised out of them. What can we do to help them?

Claude: that is indeed shocking (and who buys a kebab BEFORE 1am? You’d have to start drinking at noon)

My sides are splitting, Shatterface. Oh you’re so cheeky.

What’s wrong with ‘carers’??

Bloody hell, it’s catching:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/8104287.stm

Racist scum have forced hundreds of Romanians living in Belfast to flee their homes and seek refuge in a church.

What the fuck is the world coming to?

Ryyan,
yes I’ve just read about the incidents in Northern Ireland. I must say it is a cross between worrying, upsetting. Now, people here may want to a) argue the toss or b) say something uper or proto-ironic, but the fact of the matter is that we’re reaping the harvest of an unprecedented decade-long brain-washing about evil asylum seekers and or/immigrants.

It is no coincidence that some people actively confuse asylum seekers with immigrants or even EU citizens.

It is no coincidence that there’s widespread ignorance about the number of immigrants.

It is no coincidence that the myth that “they all get our council homes” has now become “truth” by default for most people.

It is no coincidence that so many people think “they all come here” or “they all want to come here” while they totally ignore levels of immigration in other EU countries such as France, Spain or Germany!

Look at the link I added above and look at that Express front page. That’s been happening at a rate of at least ONCE a WEEK for 10 years. How can we be surprised about the Belfast stuff?

Hopefully we’ll get a full blog about Belfast before long but it does seem that there’s always somebody to hate over there: if my (Protestant) Grandfather and (Catholic) Grandmother had found it a tolerant city they’d have never come to England in the first place.

did anyone try this to close?

didn’t work

The Problem stems from the fact that when governments in the west invited immigrants into their countries they forgot to ask the people who elected them if that’s what they wanted. Then comes the social engineering to create a multiracial society so that people don’t integrate and therefore keep people divided even though they might be second or more generation say English or French. Then came the Muslims who are not liked by any non Muslim regardless of where they come from or what race they are. But even though the people don’t want Muslim immigration still they come by their hundreds of thousands. Now all of a sudden people feel aggrieved enough to vote for a party that does listens to their concerns. If the mainstream parties listened to their own voters we wouldn’t be giving any votes to the right. But now within the next 15 years (or sooner) there will be a civil war through out Europe. Even the most liberal countries that had the most easy going people who had a live and let live mentality like Holland are voting to the right, Denmark, Finland and Sweden (if they have any balls left) will be next, Germany is still traumatised from the war. Most of the Europeans are unable to find a party that will listen to them about immigration that they would be prepared to vote in, but a new generation of politician is developing in Europe that many will find expectable to vote for, and geert wilders is the part of this generation, and it is parties like his that stand a chance of drawing in the middleclass and working class voters, which many parties like the BNP have been unable to do simply because most middle class people would not vote for them, which is why most of their voters come from a more working class /Labour party background. A party that can attract the working and middle class vote will be a party that can win parliaments throughout Europe, have a centralist economic and social policy and still remove most of the Muslims from Europe halting immigration and removing illegal immigrants and then workout immigration policy with the people who vote for them. The fact is this is what most European want, and if they don’t get it, then they will be voting another Hitler in soon enough and then we are all going to hell.

If you’re the fount of all fucking wisdom, why are you incapable of using paragraphs?