Bologna: fascists yes, deep state no

But what is so difficult about stating what we all know, and what the courts have established, namely that the Bologna massacre was a fascist attack? Giorgia Meloni’s (linguistic) reticence is historically untenable and politically self-defeating. It is not even clear what the reason is behind this culpable omission: she could have clarified that it was the work of fascist groups outside the Social Movement, just as left-wing terrorist groups acted in opposition to the Italian Communist Party (PCI), which, after an initial period of confusion, consistently condemned and fought them. The truth, plain and simple, is less damaging than prevarication.

Furthermore, if any aspect of historical truth is concealed, it allows others to construct specious and unsubstantiated historical reconstructions with impunity, such as those still invoked today by Judge Raffaele Magi and Concetto Vecchio in La Repubblica, which revive the fanciful theory of the ‘great conspiracy’, a classic of left-wing conspiracy theory in which, for decades, almost all the traumatic events in the nation’s history have been linked together – from the assassination of Piersanti Mattarella to the Moro kidnapping, right through to the Bologna massacre and beyond. These reconstructions and ‘narratives’ have no place in either judicial or historical truth. It is in the national interest – and therefore a duty for those in government – to firmly counter all such fabrications that deny the Republic’s fundamental democratic continuity, which is precisely why it has been able to withstand so many terrible trials whilst upholding constitutional principles. If tendencies to deny or conceal part of this history take hold at the highest levels of government, the result is that equal credence is given to other accounts which are themselves based on concealment and misrepresentation. It is high time both sides put an end to this.