Ignazio La Russa celebrates the Italian Social Movement and the Democratic Party calls for his resignation

“In memory of my father, who was one of the founders of the Italian Social Movement in Sicily and who chose the MSI throughout his life, the path of free and democratic participation in defense of his ideas respectful of the Italian Constitution”. Thus the president of the Senate, Ignazio La Russa, in a post on Instagram published yesterday and then updated this morning, recalled the 76th anniversary of the birth of the Italian social movement, founded on 26 December 1946. The neo-fascist-inspired party has as its symbol the tricolor flame, often identified as the one that burns on Mussolini’s tomb.

On December 26, it was Isabella Rauti, Undersecretary of Defence, who celebrated the 76th anniversary of the birth of the MSI on Twitter by relaunching an old photo of her father, Pino Rauti, and speaking of “deep roots” that “do not freeze”.

From that tweet a controversy had broken out that continues today after the post of the president of the Senate. The deputy of the Pd, Stefano Vaccari, asked for the resignation of both: «Only a few days ago they swore on the anti-fascist Constitution and now they exalt the founders, birth and history of the MSI. Isabella Rauti and Ignazio La Russa are incompatible with their government and institutional roles. An unspeakable cultural drift. Resignation!”.

«With all human respect for the fathers of Isabella Rauti and Ignazio La Russa, their nostalgic outings towards the MSI are serious. Those who represent the institutions cannot fail to remember that the country’s democratic roots and our Constitution are anti-fascist,” the president of the Democratic Party senators added on Twitter Simon Malpezzi. Also Laura Boldrini he asked for the resignation of the president of the Senate: «He cannot mortify the anti-fascist Constitution. Zero sense of institutions. The second state office is debased. He resigns.”

Hard also the attack of Emmanuel Fiano, former parliamentarian of the Democratic Party: «For the MSI, fascism, that of the Matteotti murder, of the Special Tribunate, of the closure of parties, of the unions, of the annulment of Parliament, of the institution of censorship, of torture, of violence, of the racial laws, of the servile alliance with Nazi criminal bastards he simply shouldn’t be denied. Then for dear grace it was not to be restored”. «And today – concluded Fiano – he is exalted by exponents of the government and by the second office of the State. Who takes the revenge of a lifetime. And you? Former colleagues in Parliament? Everyone shut up?”

On the other side, however, Fratelli d’Italia defends the second position of the state: «The left, increasingly distant from the needs and problems of the Italians, in its obsessive search for the enemy today launches its arrows against some exponents of FdI ” guilty” of having remembered a page of republican history such as the foundation of the MSI”, declared the senator of FdI, Andrea DePriamo. “It must be remembered – he added – to those who today ridiculously try to put important exponents of our political force in the pillory, that the Social Movement was a party born in Republican Italy which characterized its entire existence with a view to national reconciliation , for the respect of constitutional values ​​and parliamentary dynamics”.

Even the senator of FdI Alberto Balboni, president of the Constitutional Affairs Commission, recalls that the MSI “adhered to the democratic rules in Parliament and in the country”. «Some nostalgic for the civil war – said Balboni – deny Isabella Rauti, Ignazio La Russa and with them an entire political community, the right to recall the foundation of the MSI and the importance it had for Italian democracy. As recognized by the more independent historians, the MSI allowed many Italians to participate in post-war political life by accepting constitutional values ​​and democracy, contributing fully to electing not only many mayors in cities, even important ones, but also large parliamentary groups both House than in the Senate and even presidents of the Republic. The full adhesion of the MSI to the democratic rules in Parliament and in the country is history and nobody can deny it».