ITALY:TWO SENIOR centre-right figures, mayor of Rome Gianni Alemano and minister of defence Ignazio La Russa, have sparked off a major row this week by making ambiguous statements about Italy's fascist past, writes Paddy Agnewin Rome
This is a week when Italy recalls the dramatic events of September 1943 which saw fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, then under arrest since being deposed on July 25th, 1943, freed by Nazi troops and set up in a puppet state, the Italian Socialist Republic, based in Salo, northern Italy.
Mr Alemano, a former neo-fascist youth leader, started the row last weekend by making comments to Milan daily Corriere Della Sera.
He said that while he condemned Mussolini's 1938 racial laws, which deprived Jews of work, property and fundamental human rights, he "did not and never has" considered fascism to be an "absolute evil".
Fascism, he said, was a much more complex phenomenon, with many people signing up for the fascist cause "in good faith".
The mayor's comments inevitably prompted criticism from Italy's Jewish community.
Renzo Gattegna pointed out that it was "difficult to separate" the racial laws from the fascist regime.
Furthermore, centre-left opposition leader, Walter Veltroni, himself a former mayor of Rome, recalled that Mussolini had destroyed Italian democracy.
Mr Veltroni distanced himself from Mr Alemano's words by resigning from a town hall committee formed for the planning of a Holocaust museum.
The controversy prompted by Mr Alemano was, however, further exacerbated by Mr La Russa.
At an annual ceremony marking the anti-fascist defence of Rome and the September 8th, 1943 armistice, Mr La Russa said: "I would betray my conscience if I did not recall other men in uniform, men from the Nembo of the RSI army who, from their point of view, also fought in the belief that they were defending their country."
The minister's words prompted an apparent rebuke from state president Giorgio Napolitano.
He praised those 600,000 Italian troops who had refused to sign up for the RSI in 1943 but rather accepted deportation to Germany.
Former president Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, himself a resistance combatant, commented: "Not all the choices were the same. You cannot and should not wipe out certain distinctions."
Former centre-left prime minister Giuliano Amato, who had been appointed by Mr Alemano to head a town hall commission charged with planning the future of Rome, was another opposition figure to underline his disapproval by resigning from his town hall post.
The controversy about fascism comes after a summer during which the Silvio Berlusconi centre-right government has been regularly accused of xenophobia and racism, especially with regard to non-EU immigrants.