Italy
guaranteed by the leadership of what was, if only in name, an autonomous organization. Ultimately, however, Fini also toed the line, partly out of an awareness of his isolated position within his own party. All the loose ends seemed to have been tidied up, with moves afoot to reinforce the alliance with the LN, and especially with its chief, Umberto Bossi, who had previously acted as a majority shareholder, always ready to spring traps to underscore the movement’s “diversity” and consolidate his own position as the true defender of the North’s interests. A year after the 2008 elections, the left appeared increasingly justified in the fear that it would be no longer be able to stem the pro-Berlusconi tide. Indeed, it began to worry about the possibility that his supremacy might be transformed into an actual authoritarian regime: in other words – to put it in Gramscian terms – that his dominant position would be consolidated into “hegemony.”
The uprising of the center-right With one of his signature coups de théâtre, the leader of the center-right accepted an invitation from Dario Franceschini, PD Party Secretary, to attend the Liberation Day celebrations, although he had studiously avoided such events in the past. On April 25, he turned up in Onna, a small village in central Italy, which was the scene of a Nazi massacre of civilians on June 11, 1944. Sporting a scarf in the colors of the Italian flag, Berlusconi did not merely recognize that the Resistance “was a great chapter in our history, and forms the basis of our fundamental law, the Constitution,” but went so far as to “pay homage” to the founding fathers, the authors of that text about which he had expressed such grave reservations (and which he would continue to call into question). The opposition was forced to praise “the enemy” and recognize that “a turning point has been reached.” At the same time, however, they continued to voice concerns that the “step in the right direction” taken by Berlusconi “towards reconciliation of the country in respect of what happened sixty years ago” might be accompanied by “retrograde steps to-
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RIGHT-WING EXTREMISM IN EUROPE