How hypocritical it is on the left to call a comrade who makes a mistake a ‘squadrista’

Gian Carlo Caselli is a prominent Italian magistrate, now retired, and even in his busy second career as an essayist, writer and intellectual, he has continued to maintain a status which, through considerable effort and perseverance, he had built up during his time as public prosecutor in Palermo: a powerful figurehead for the concerns of a section of the progressive world. Yesterday, Caselli was interviewed by "La Stampa" in his dual capacity as an intellectual and a magistrate, and, given his sensitivity to issues concerning the fight against crime, he commented on last Saturday’s unrest in Val di Susa. You know what happened there. During the No Tav march which set off from Venaus, a small town in Val Cenischia – a side valley of Val di Susa – hundreds of hooded protesters broke away from the main procession and attacked the Turin–Lyon construction sites at San Didero and Chiomonte.

They carried out their actions using the usual methods: they threw stones, rockets, firecrackers and Molotov cocktails; they broke into the construction site; they set fire to Carabinieri vehicles; and they injured over a hundred members of the police force during the clashes. Caselli is very harsh in his condemnation of the No Tav protesters’ violence. However, he chooses to use a specific and deliberate category of political thought to characterise the perpetrators of violence. He does not call them fascists, nor does he claim they are right-wing; however, he places their methods within the political family of fascism. “Those who choose violence,” says Caselli, “adopt para-fascist methods. And in doing so, they place themselves outside the Constitution.” There was a time when a section of the Italian left – particularly the extra-parliamentary and intellectual wings – during its period of ambiguity regarding Red Brigade terrorism, described violent left-wingers as ‘comrades who have gone astray’. Caselli, of course, is not part of that history: he fought on the front line against the Red Brigades. And he does not say that the No Tav activists are fascists, but that they adopt “para-fascist methods”. This is precisely the point: comrades who are in the wrong, the moment they are in the wrong, are semantically reclassified as part of the fascist family.

The logic is clear: if an act of violence takes root within a world that has in the past found support and indulgence within progressive circles, to cleanse your conscience with the mouthwash of political correctness, you simply need to say that such violence, precisely because it is violence, actually belongs to the political family of fascism: it is so extreme that, ultimately, it can only be right-wing. From a psychological point of view, it is an approach that is easy to understand: it does not hold you accountable, it does not make you feel guilty, it does not commit you to anything, it does not force you to reflect on the instincts you have indulged in the past, and it does not force you to question your self-righteous moral superiority. This approach, after all, is not a one-off but a recurring pattern which, on closer inspection, has been repeated on several unedifying occasions in recent times. Is a newspaper (La Stampa) being vandalised by hooligans linked to a social centre? No doubt about it: thugs. Is a peaceful protest in Bologna turning into a march towards the prefecture and police headquarters, and ultimately into hours of clashes with the police? No doubt about it: thugs. Is a professor attacked at the University of Pisa – who, as a ‘Zionist’, is kicked and punched during a raid on his lecture theatre by a pro-Palestine collective? No doubt about it: thugs. Is there a railway station (Milan) which, during a march for Gaza, finds its windows smashed, barriers and objects thrown at officers, and the station’s fire hydrants used against the police? No doubt about it: thugs. Is there a skirmish during a pro-Palestine march in Rome, in which some demonstrators throw bottles and firecrackers at the police, use rubbish bins as barricades and set cars alight? No doubt about it: squadristi. Is Leonardo’s Turin headquarters occupied by pro-Palestine activists, with offices defaced and damaged whilst an important meeting is taking place, attended by Defence Ministry staff? No doubt about it: thugs. Is there an attempt to block the pre-Senate session at Ca’ Foscari because the academic body refuses to adopt the position demanded by pro-Gaza demonstrators? Is there a lecture by a director (Molinari) cancelled at Federico II University in Naples following protests, tensions and intimidation directed at the speaker? Is there a journalist (Parenzo) who is prevented from speaking at La Sapienza by pro-Palestine collectives shouting ‘fascist’ and ‘Zionist’ at him? Is there a politician (Fiano) who is prevented from speaking at Ca’ Foscari, in Venice, by a collective shouting ‘Zionists out of the university’ at him? Thugs. The self-exculpatory approach by which a section of the progressive world systematically chooses not to look within its own vast political camp—so as not to come to terms with its own ambiguities, its own silences, its own affinities, its own skeletons in the cupboard—is not, as many irresponsible figures on the right try to claim, clear-cut proof of the left’s general endorsement of the demands of violent extremists. Rather, it is indicative of a different phenomenon: the inability to call a spade a spade, the refusal to question one’s own moral superiority, and the desire to avoid facing up to the consequences of one’s own choices. If, from the left, you ally yourself with parties that have flirted with the worst No Tav instincts, you cannot help but wonder whether the links with those movements have functioned as they should have. If, on the left, you organise demonstrations fuelled by hatred towards the police, you cannot help but wonder whether you have really done everything possible to avoid turning the police into a target until proven otherwise.

If, from the left, you turn a blind eye to the risk that anti-Zionism might turn into anti-Semitism, you cannot help but wonder whether the violence perpetrated by extremists making their way into pro-Palestinian rallies has not taken your desire to wipe out the Jews ‘from the river to the sea’ literally. If, whenever a fist is raised, you rightly call on the right to come to terms with its own history, you cannot help but wonder whether there is not a hint of unacceptable hypocrisy in the exculpatory rhetoric with which, when faced with violence born of an extremist culture originating on the left, you have nothing else to say but that such violence is an expression of right-wing violence and not a problem on the left. And when faced with references to ‘squadrismo’ in the wake of an editorial office being stormed, a conference being disrupted, a ‘Zionist’ professor being attacked, a firecracker thrown at the police and a building site being targeted, rather than dwelling on the boundaries of para-fascism, it might perhaps be worth it for the left to reflect more humbly on the new frontiers of political opportunism.