I CARE - ITALY: BLOOD AND HONOUR FASCISTS FORM POTENTIAL PARLIAMENTARY LINK

9.12.11

I CARE - News - Internet Centre Anti Racism Europe: The news that Blood and Honour have opened their first branch in Italy has come as a surprise, but only because the neo-nazi organisation was thought to be sufficiently well represented already in ideas and deeds by the local Veneto Fronte Skinheads, active since 1987, some of whose members have been arrested over the years for incitement to racial hatred. November 2011- The significance of this "official" opening rests in the fact that it reveals the possibility of links that would take Blood and Honour not a million miles away from contact with Members of Parliament. The story goes back to 2007 when the so called "fascists of the Third Millennium" of Casa (Ezra) Pound took over a house in Colleverde Guidonia, near Rome, part of the squatting strategy that has enabled this neofascist organisation to spread to every major town across the country in the guise of a cultural association helping the homeless to live in empty buildings. The house was subsequently handed over to the neo-nazi SPQR Skin, and the idea of locating Blood and Honour in the premises appears to have come from them (they call themselves "Italian Division of Blood and Honour" on Facebook, 1,600 friends) rather than from Casa Pound, which denies any involvement. The distancing however is more likely to be part of a parallel strategy that enables Casa Pound to widen its phalanx of foot soldiers while pursuing its plans to spread its network and seeking political legitimacy, even crossing the threshold of Parliament.

An entry has already been secured. A couple of months ago the MP Domenico Scilipoti chaired a meeting in the House under the heading "Usury, Ezra Pound lands in Parliament, a topic discussed by the Responsabili, Forum Anti-Usury and Casa Pound". A member of Silvio Berlusconi's Party (PdL), Scilipoti achieved prominence after he helped save the Prime Minister's skin in a crucial vote of confidence by joining a group of staunch supporters called the "responsibles". He drafted the group's manifesto by doing a cut and paste job from a document written for Benito Mussolini in 1925 by the then Minister of Education, Giovanni Gentile. At the "usury/Ezra Pound" meeting Scilipoti promised to bring the ideas and legislative proposals put forward by Casa Pound into the House.