When Mussolini was killed, the people of Italy thought that would be the end of leaderships built around fascism until recently. Dating back to around 1915, ideas of fascism in Italy became very popular, being brought to light by Benito Mussolini’s founding of a group named “Fasci d’Azione Rivoluzionaria,” which translates to English the Fasces of Revolutionary Action. Fascism contains beliefs of ultranationalism, authoritarianism, militarism, and the display of power through dictatorship, which this group displayed heavily. In the 1920s, Mussolini gained a seat in the parliament and founded the National Fascist Party, which, over the years, used its power to take over Italy with their militia called the Blackshirts that committed brutal murders and beatings on their people with the end goal being to regain land they lost and resurrect The Roman Empire.

Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler spent time together.

Today we are still seeing extremist fascist values and Mussolini’s ideologies being upheld by the new group called Brothers of Italy, which demonstrates nativism, nazism, neofascism, anti-immigration, and social conservatism being represented by the current prime minister of Italy, Giorgi Meloni.

A central part of her policies is she wants to limit the parental rights of same-sex couples and stop documenting both parents of same-sex couples in the city registers. Homophobia is a significant focal point of fascist ideologies, and it has come to the point where the state prosecutor demands that only the biological parent be listed on the birth certificate. She firmly believes that children should be raised strictly by heterosexual couples because, according to her logic, a child needs a father and a mother. 

Giorgia Meloni holds the Italian flag and displays the motto “Orgolio Italiano!” which translates to Italian pride in English.

The discrimination against LGBTQ isn’t the only group being targeted in Italy, though, with a very drastic increase in hate crimes happening against minorities and people with disabilities. Brothers of Italy was founded in 2012, and there has been a significant increase in hate crimes around Italy, with only 71 hate crimes being reported in 2012, but in 2013, numbers jumped up to 472 reports of hate crimes. In 2021, Italy had a high of 1,445 hate crimes reported to the authorities. The majority of these crimes are racially motivated, with a small fraction of them being Anti-LGBTQ and Ableist. Italy is showing a rapid increase in very racist, homophobic, and extremist values with a leader who is actively promoting a lot of these values. On January 7, 2024, people came together for the 46th anniversary of the 1978 Acca Larentia killings, where two teenagers from the youth section of the Italian Social Movement were ambushed and murdered. Every year people come together to remember the massacre, but this year, people were seen doing the Nazi salute in Rome and chanting phrases known to be said at neo-fascist rallies.

People were outraged and tried challenging this legally as to whether or not the Nazi salute could be used in public. It was initially believed that the salute was illegal. Still, it was said by lawyer Domenico Di Tullio to CNN, “The decision of the cassation court establishes that the Roman salute is not a crime unless there is a concrete danger of the reconstruction of the fascist party, as provided by Article 5 of the Scelba law, or there are concrete aims of racial discrimination and violence, as provided by the Mancino law,”. Italy is definitely in a rough spot right now, especially with this being the first time they’ve had such a right-leaning leader with fascist ideologies since Mussolini. 

   People did the Nazi Salute in Rome during the Acca Larentia killings anniversary.