Good Lord

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Fascism: The night of broken glass in Rome
By Gaither Stewart
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Jun 12, 2008, 00:13

ROME -- On May 31, Fascist goon squads armed with wooden clubs carried out a “punitive expedition,” that is, an organized raid on shops of Asian immigrants in Italy’s capital.

Ten or so men masked in scarves adorned with swastikas swooped down on immigrant-run grocery stores, a telephone call center, a laundry and various shops along the streets of one of Rome’s most multiethnic districts, smashing windows and the interiors of the stores. Yelling “dirty foreigner” and “bastards” the hoodlums beat up an immigrant from Bangladesh who was treated in a hospital.

TV newscasts showed broken windows and glass along the sidewalks, recalling similar events in the 1938 pogroms in Nazi Germany which came to be called Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass) for the shattered store windows along city streets of Germany. The Night of Broken Glass became a symbol of violence organized by the Nazi-Fascist state against Jews, homosexuals, Gypsies and the other.

Despite the regrets expressed on Sunday, June 1, by post-Fascist political leaders, violent segments of the extreme Right today feel legitimized by the Right’s recent electoral victory which swept so-called post-Fascists into power in Italy.

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On a related note, my curiosity about all of this pervasive anti-Gypsyism continues. Gypsies are everywhere in the city and are easily identified. Its a woman wearing distinctive clothes, lying on the ground near a lot of foot traffic.