FASCIST FAITH

Greymouth Evening Star, 22 February 1937, Page 11

FASCIST FAITH

RULE OF MUSSOLINI The Duce rules his country, a more absolute autocrat than ever, says a writer in the “Manchester Guardian.” He has held power fourteen years, and absolute power ten years. In the first four years he had to tolerate an opposition, to solicit allies and listen to advisers. Sympathisers made speeches commending his policy but bidding him beware of excess; newspapers approved this, disapproved that. By 1926 the Duce had put an end to such transactions. Opposition leaders had been, killed, gaoled, or exiled; opposition newspapers bought up or burnt down; ' the Freemasons, ox-combatants, professional associations, trade unions, Boy Scouts, Society for Prevention of Cruelty to ‘ Animals, Society for Assisting Special Areas (Associazioue del Mezzogiorno), and any other .possible rally-centres for the discontented had been disbanded or taken over by the appropriate ; Ministry. With each year the Italians in public life have become more submissive, unanimous, and adulatory. If the Duce moves he must now have two pages of superlatives where one used to suffice —often with his name in special capitals. For. his image and superscription miles of wall space and hoarding are now required;. To him is ‘ ascribed the merit in every big company report of the “accelerated rhythm of industry and commerce,” to him are due the beauty and vigour of the young, the fecundity of hui mains and quadrupeds, the speed of i cars or Caproni aeroplanes, scientific { discovery, successful archaeological , research; he is the builder, creator, / inspirer, “ideator” of all that is com- ' prehended in “the fourth Italy.” The » historians seek materials for noble H nortraits of his father, the turbulent blacksmith; of his uncle, who composed dialect rhymes in Romagna; or ? nis grandfather, who sported the * rank of lieutenant in some civic guard i, or militia. The anniversaries of the. • death of his relatives-in-law are ob- \ served with public ceremony.

■ MOCK REVERENCE * Ot/Th.e Italians have had long lessons i reverence with their tongue in Bsiliefr—cheek—have knelt to LBorgian KpJ-'-pes and lit up their towns to wel--me “Caesars” from Vienna. EloF quent panegyrists ..were gathering ’ riches in Italy fifty years before the Wars of the Roses; their industry has rot since languished. The Italians . cnn sustain a concert of encomium V' like few, if any, other people in the world, and will do so with far less effort than slower-tongued people imagF Inez Travellers who wander round highways and by-ways in Italy are always finding out how much energy • Italians, after ail their huzzaing, still 1 have in reserve for mockery. A skil-, I ful listener could quickly fill his noteL book with quips of this or .of-, any year —what King Victor Emmanuel said I when asked to go to war, why he did r not want/to nominate a Viceroy, how h' Mussolini talked German to Hitler, and so on. Some time ago an Indian prince arrived in Rome and was given an official welcome. Behind the ranks of troops lining the street a vast crowd watched the potentate, who smiled in pleasure and perhaps surprise. The crowd had been col- • lected by a line of military being thrown across in front of the suburban station without any notice. Thousands of workers, their day’s work done, were hurrying for the evening b trains, only to be held up for an hour L more and forced- to admire Prince Each intercepted newcomer ask,d what was up, made a grimace at > he queer name of the Indian State as i’assed from mouth.to mouth, or swore -loudly. At the end the policeman in charge at one corner announced in a “• loud voice, “End of the comic opera.” ■ The hasty traveller in Italy can see r only conformity: obedience to everlasting summonses, participation in fparades, processions, demonstrations, “rites” (“sagre”), mysteries, Roman . salutes, choric exercises in repetitive invocation —“£)uce, Duce, Duce, Duce f,;. . .” But can he believe that this ■■ sparkling, mischievous, merrymaking • people has trained itself to be no more than a gramophone with one record? Italy mocks behind four walls; ~mocks at all things between earth and ‘/'sky, most of all at the play in which all Italians are acting, the play of a kheroic nation at length roused from a ' torpor of indecision and anarchy, led p forward now by an infallible super- ■ -dan towards inconceivable destinies , of greatness, and letting the world tknow it with yaups of the voice and ; jerks- of the arms. Who could think j of anything funnier? ■ And yet—“Forse che si, forse, che i-- no,” says D’Annunzio. (“Perhaps yes, 1 perhaps no”), and Pirandello, in F another famous title, says, “Cosi ese vi pare (“It is so if you think so”), p One does not willingly give half one’s l life, still less risk the whole of it, for K the fun of keeping up a farce. A ■Ration cannot do obeisance for fifyears without growing into K obedience.

ITALY'S DESTINY • A nation regarded as an organisation —and as such we usually think nd talk of it, however much we adkiire the doctrine of the Social Contact—seems to delegate functions to this or that complex of cells: we would say class of individuals. The observer of Italian life who knows that the Italian nation must believe in its own part, since it could not submit to playing it for ever (or even for ten years) in perfect inner sobriety and detachment, may discover here and there the unmistakable devotee of the faith. At- a cafe table three or four men Will be talking. For prudence’ sake (since a police spy is very likely near them —was in fact, quite obviously near one such table one day last October, in the Far South) everybody talks orthodox-wise about the questions of the day, but one after another will take any safe occasion for a little irony. Once they feel safe they may let their tongues wag merrily at at expense of Ethiopian Empires, Corporate States, rites of commemoration, Not so the fifth man who is sitting by them. He is a dark, slim youth with fixed gaze. Disconcertingly for his friends, he follows up their sparkling remarks on the Corporate State, and argues that Italy is now only at the beginning of an experience which is to harmonise capital and labour in the service of the community. Solemnly also he argues that Italy’s destiny is to expand east (or it maybo south), to renew the civilising message of Rome. Risk of war? Man’s destiny is to be a warrior, to pit valour and brains against other men, to break or be broken, as God or fate decide. Mussolini's Italy will not '”.»rch, Other nations may forget that this is life, that to sit tight and cn- , sure comfort, pleasure, or safe sport is. to fall and decay. If England and

I France have forgotten this, Italy will be destiny’s instrument to remind them —Italy, now flanked by awakened Germany. In truth, by dominating the decadent, these peoples of destiny will be helping them to awake and see whither lax dreams have led them. Perhaps then they will stop short ot the ruin in which Russia (so thinks this henchman of destiny) is engulfed, the victim of materialism. The dark, slim youth is one ot a few thousands, or only a few hundreds. He is sure that the Duce has found the answer to life’s riddle; he will give himself body and -’soul to achieve what is set before him. He has perhaps passed through the university, reading history and philosophy, or is perhaps an engineer, or is in some humbler way of living. He has never been abroad, has never read a foreign newspaper. Or he may, if well-to-do, have looked round Paris, only to read the signals of approaching catastrophe. Amid the millions of voices yelling “Duce, Duce!” as the, “Founder of the Empire” celebrated various anniversaries this Autumn,la few were voices from such true devotees. Those for whom Fascism is one of life’s absurd phenomena, exacting lip service and even foot service or perhaps blood sacrifice, but certainly no moke than that minimum, cannot altogether account for or explain away the young men (and maybe women too) who look forward with gloomy faith to a meaningful Fascist future.