Rome social center manager: ‘equating ourselves with far-right movements serves to leave them unpunished’

“The fact that one of the first Italian parties supports in a not too veiled way this type of neo-fascist organizations, comfortable in some moments, speaks volumes about the political problem of a part of the center-right. However, the dissolution of a political organization does not ensure that certain gentlemen do not go around the cities doing what they do. Emblematic what happened at the stadium, between the Olympia falconer and the Lazio fans. Bad enough that a man in front of 30 thousand people would allow himself to make the fascist salute, just like what he is happened two years ago with Anna Frank’s photomontages. And then the attack on the CGIL, the swastikas in Genoa, give a sense of how unpunished they are. In short, you must have political support, otherwise you won’t get to that level ” . Carlo Fontana, one of the managers of the Brancaleone social center in Rome, thus comments to the Adnkronos on the hypothesis of the dissolution of Forza Nuova and the motion on an equalization between movements of the extreme right and left. “Equalization serves precisely to avoid measures such as the one hypothesized for fascist-inspired organizations – he continues – Social centers have been making culture for 30 years, they are avant-garde in the suburbs abandoned by all, bulwarks of law and possibilities for young people, for the question homosexual, for the liberalization of soft drugs, against the sale of hard drugs. This is the difference with respect to fascist organizations. An abysmal difference – insists Fontana – social centers have always built spaces where there is light compared to those who want it. dark city “. And he explains: “Personally, who have been managing social centers for 30 years, I insist on the fact that there is a whole other logic than theirs, made up of aggregation, of building knowledge, of the possibility of giving space to young people, of building different models of life. We build situations of aggregation and openness to neighborhoods where there is absolute emptiness on a cultural level, they tell you that the migrant is your target of confrontation because he steals your job. The model of social centers is like Riace. The right-wing game of equating us with them has been doing it for 20 years, precisely to prevent extreme right-wing and xenophobic movements from being dissolved “. (by Silvia Mancinelli)