Book. Sometimes the profession of novelist resembles, in some aspects, that of criminologist. Antonio Scurati, author of a fascinating novelistic saga on Benito Mussolini, the inventor of fascism (M, the child of the century ; M, the man of providence ; M, the last days of Europeall published by Arènes), takes on the role of historical and political investigator to go back to the roots of the movements “populists and sovereignists”. Are these replicas of the Mussolini model, with leaders who are “copycats” of the former dictator? Or should we push the research and analysis to verify whether the DNA of contemporary far-right formations is the same as that of the National Fascist Party?
In a few years, Antonio Scurati – who claims to be “antifascist” – has become a lookout. The man who was made a knight of Arts and Letters in June wants to give his work an educational dimension. In The Politics of Feara short, invigorating essay, he quickly looks back on his career, archetypal according to him of the “last generation of young people of the last century”the last one “to have received an intellectual, ethical and political education drawn from the bed of anti-fascism of that same century”.
The idea is therefore to transmit this cultural and political baggage. Which Scurati does through his books but also through his public interventions. With some not insignificant risks: he and his family were attacked by the right-wing press and, in the spring, Mr. Scurati was censored by Italian public television. As part of the commemorations of the liberation of Italy on April 25, 1945, he was to read a text denouncing the inability of the right in power today to rally to the anti-fascist base.
Read also the interview | Article reserved for our subscribers Antonio Scurati, author of “M. Child of the Century”, at the Mostra: “The rules of intellectual debate are annihilated in Italy”
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The Politics of Fear is therefore another way for him to continue this fight for democracy and against authoritarian temptations. He says this in the conclusion of the book: “We must resume the fight (…)to re-appropriate the history of democracy, to be once again part of this history which has always coincided with the struggle for its conquest. A daily, endless, inexhaustible struggle.
“The tactical supremacy of the void”
Antonio Scurati’s political thinking becomes fascinating when he dissects the populist dimension of fascism and how these different traits are found today in several movements or political parties in Europe and on the American continent. Warning: the author is always careful not to make a lazy amalgamation between the 1930s and our era. No, parties like the Fratelli d’Italia of Giorgia Meloni, the head of the Italian government, or the National Rally (they are not named, but readers easily recognize them) are not the equivalent of the Blackshirts with clubs and castor oil. The fact remains that there is a “kinship” : “It is not a straight line, but a tortuous one that, like karst erosion, advances underground for decades before resurfacing in an often illegitimate lineage, since it does not allow Mussolini to be recognized with certainty and explicitly as its origin.”we can read.
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