Italy's Senate Speaker claims that "Mixed blood is an attack on European civilization"

italy / switzerland | migration / racism | non-anarchist press Wednesday August 24, 2005 19:45 by Unità

The Speaker of the Italian Senate, speaking at the conference of "Communion and Liberation" makes racist comments along the lines of 1930's Fascist ideologues.

Italy's Senate Speaker claims that "Mixed blood is an attack on European civilization"

"In Europe the population is diminishing, the doors are open to uncontrolled immigration and to becoming "half-breeds" [...] There is no other road: either we make efforts to integrate the others by making them citizens of our civilization - with our education, our language, knowledge of our history, the sharing of our principles and values - or the contest for integration is lost."

The first sentence was written in 1938 by Lidio Cipriani, anthropologist and theoretician of the Fascist regime's racist policies, in the sixth issue of a magazine, not by chance called "La difesa della razza" (1). The second sentence was pronounced by the Speaker of the Italian Senate, Marcello Pera, on 21st August 2005, during the opening of the Rimini conference of "Communion and Liberation".

From the fear of mixed blood to supporting ethnic purity can be a very short step, say opposition comentators, referring to Pera's declaration (which, by the way, was repeated and supported in Rimini by the Cabinet Vice-President, Giulio Tremonti). And the comparison between the article written 60 years ago (the very year when Mussolini's infamous race laws were introduced) by the Italian theoretician of the superiority of the white race and the words of our current Speaker of the Senate, make the alarm seem more than justified. The defence of European civilization and the fear of contamination (in other words, mixed blood and multi-culturalism) do in fact represent a common thread leading from Cipriani to Pera.

To see this, all one has to do is jump back and forth from the article "L’incrocio con gli africani è un attentato alla civiltà europea"(2), written in 1938 in support of the Regime's racist policies (3), to an article written by Italy's current Speaker of the Senate entitled "Democrazia è libertà? In difesa dell'Occidente" (4), available on the Senate website (5).

Mixed blood is "a serious plague whose effects can be foreseen to increase drastically with time, and for which those responsible will never be sufficiently punished", writes Cipriani, commenting on the law against mixed marriages made by the Fascist Grand Council (6). "Should we add another most serious sickness to the many suffered by Europe?", asks the theologian of the superiority of the white race, 60 years before Pera. Obviously not, Cipriani goes on to say, while (anticipating the Bossi-Fini Law) proposing that "Africans be kept in their own country" and, most importantly, that Italy should "send back to Africa all those, be they pure or bastards of any degree, who leave their people". The aim? Obviously it is "the preservation and the betterment of European civilization". After all, mixed blood is (and the point is repeated several times throughout his magazine) "a crime against God, against life and humanity" since, unlike murder, which "only destroys the individual", mixed blood "destroys or contaminates the entire line".

"In Europe the population is diminishing, the doors are open to uncontrolled immigration and to becoming 'half-breeds'", says Pera to the CL conference on 21st August 2005 as he incredulously wonders how it can be possible for the relativistic idea to circulate in Europe that "all cultures have the same ethical dignity, no one is better than any other, and all are good and proper". "It is our firm opinion that cross-breeding with Africans is an attack against European civilization as it exposes it to decadence", explains Cipriani, "given that it [civilization - ed.] is only possible within the context of the European races".

"A relativist democracy is an empty democracy, it makes us lose our collective identity and deprives us of any objective sense of good", clarifies the Speaker of the Senate, who then adds: "There is no other road: either we make efforts to integrate the others by making them citizens of our civilization - with our education, our language, knowledge of our history, the sharing of our principles and values - or the contest for integration is lost." Also because, insists Cipriani, "no other race has yet demonstrated that it can successfully contribute" to the growth of civilization, "neither have any of the millions of black-white bastards which have appeared throughout Africa, America and unfortunately also on European soil".

The solution?

"On all these problems, Italy long ago gave its definitive answer", writes Cipriani in 1938, "Fascist racism now reinforces these concepts and demonstrates the value to be given to human material in order to better our civilization or otherwise".

"My response, and one which I have stated many times, is: we will defend ourselves", says Pera today, leaving no-one in any doubt. "We will defend ourselves with diplomacy, with politics, with culture, commerce, negotiations and agreements. We will defend ourselves, offering respect and demanding respect. And at the end, we will defend ourselves with the force of arms".

From "L'Unità", journal of the Democratici di Sinistra, www.unita.it
Translation by anarkismo.net

1. "The defence of the race". 2. "Cross-breeding with Africans is an attack on European civilization". 3. The article is available online at http://www.zadigweb.it/amis/ric.asp?id=7 on the Virtual Museum of Intolerance and Exterminations. 4. "Democracy and freedom? In defence of the West". 5. http://www.senato.it/presidente/21572/21575/56671/composizioneattopresidente.htm 6. http://www.zadigweb.it/amis/testim.asp?idtes=113&idsch=107