00:00:00:00 - 00:00:33:07 Unknown Hello and welcome listeners. My name is Jose and I will be your gracious host for this podcast All about Italian Fascism, subheading How the Emperor Augustus influenced 20th century politics and how Mussolini influenced 21st century politics. Now this topic is complex with a lot of interconnected parts. So I'll start with the basics. Fascism is a far right political ideology conceived by Benito Mussolini post-World War one. 00:00:33:09 - 00:01:05:17 Unknown He presented it as an alternative to communism for an Italy that was on the verge of political collapse following the war. Mussolini was the Italian prime minister slash dictator for over 20 years, until his allegiance with Hitler in the Second World War led to his dismissal from this position in 1943, then his execution in 1945. During his reign, Mussolini proved himself to be a strong political and military leader and developed a resilient cult of personality. 00:01:05:19 - 00:01:31:10 Unknown The admiration for Mussolini continues to this day, with his tomb and childhood home up here acting as pilgrimage site for old school and neo fascists, and in the centuries since his rise to power. The anniversary of his march on Rome has always been accompanied by his supporters flocking to appear to rally and celebrate in his venture to mediate and strengthen Italy. 00:01:31:12 - 00:02:00:16 Unknown Mussolini was very much inspired by the Rome of antiquity, and in particular the Emperor Augustus. One of Augustus's most memorable platforms was his endorsement of marriage and childbearing, and his discouragement against adultery in the Rome of Augustus. Families with three or more children were financially rewarded, while unmarried men of a certain age had additional taxes imposed on them outside of public policy. 00:02:00:21 - 00:02:24:20 Unknown Augustus had a strained relationship with his daughter Julia, due to both her inability to produce a male heir and her sexual promiscuity. Mussolini also promoted traditional family values, and went so far as to claim that Italian overpopulation was a result of their supreme cultural and spiritual vitality. For Mussolini, the issue was not that there were too many people. 00:02:24:22 - 00:02:50:14 Unknown It was that they had not yet attained enough land wherein the population could reside comfortably. Overpopulation and famine had been a constant issue for Italian rulers throughout history, and it proved a difficult problem to solve. Augustus's response to this was to instigate Virgil's concoction of the George IX, a poem about agriculture that was intended to popularize farming and rural life. 00:02:50:16 - 00:03:18:12 Unknown Mussolini's approach was focused on the promotion of wheat production and the introduction of coarser grain to wheat bread. He aimed to increase Italian independence and promote their strength by decreasing the reliance on imported grain. In addition to emulating the political values and decisions of Augustus, Mussolini held a personal interest in Roman archeology and his pursuits in the area of construction and reconstruction made Rome into the city. 00:03:18:12 - 00:03:55:18 Unknown It is today. This mirrors Augustus's own regime. When Suetonius recorded him boasting that he had found a city of brick but left of marble. One of Mussolini's chief pursuits was to sanitize ancient monuments that had been corrupted by urbanization. One such monument was the Mausoleum of Augustus. Since antiquity, this space had been utilized as a garden, a bullfighting arena and an opera house, before being gutted and redecorated with murals and inscriptions linking Fascist Italy to ancient Imperial Rome. 00:03:55:20 - 00:04:29:10 Unknown The houses surrounding the mausoleum were demolished and similar demolitions were happening all across Rome. Mussolini showed little concern for the architecture that neighboured more ancient structures, regardless of their own historical value, and many medieval Roman buildings were destroyed during this time. In addition to his rehabilitation of ancient buildings, Mussolini's construction of new monuments in the imperial style connected modern Rome to the Rome of Augustus and cemented Mussolini and fascism as part of Italian history. 00:04:29:12 - 00:04:57:14 Unknown A key component of Mussolini's dictatorship and cult of personality was his control over the public's perception of him. He was a journalist before he was a politician, and as such was highly adept at exploiting the media and ensuring national debate focused on him. His personality and the good he was doing for Italy. Regardless of how much good he was actually doing. Where Mussolini had controlled his image by controlling the media. 00:04:57:16 - 00:05:21:15 Unknown Augustus was able to control his image due to the fact that widespread news media didn't really exist in the same way that it does today. Very few people got the opportunity to see the Emperor up close, and as a result, his positive image could be maintained with relative ease. He produced literary works that outlined his accomplishments, but he focused more on creating visual testaments to his greatness. 00:05:21:17 - 00:05:48:19 Unknown As the vast majority of Rome's population couldn't actually read. Images of Augustus were all over the city of Rome. They saw him on coins and buildings, as well as in a multitude of public portraits and statues. He was everywhere, and he was pushing an idea of himself that the Roman people wanted to see young, capable and strong, an effective military leader and a fitting successor to Caesar. 00:05:48:21 - 00:06:19:08 Unknown Controlling the media and the public's perception of you is not unusual for world leaders. It comes with the territory. But the intersection of Italian media and politics has remained especially prevalent through to the 21st century. Now, I could not produce a podcast on the modern history of rightwing Italian politics without touching on Silvio Berlusconi. Berlusconi was the Italian prime minister for nine years, on and off, between 1994 and 2011. 00:06:19:10 - 00:06:44:20 Unknown He was a center right politician who legitimized several radical right wing parties and was known to speak in defense of Mussolini, condemning only his racist ideology and his association with Hitler. At the height of his power. Berlusconi was the richest person in Italy. He earned three of the main TV channels of the country, and indirectly controlled the National Broadcasting Company through his own government. 00:06:44:22 - 00:07:07:06 Unknown He was also the owner of Italy's biggest publishing company, several newspapers and magazines, and one of the main football clubs in Europe. Berlusconi did not just take a page out of the Augustus and Mussolini Book of Media Control. He wrote the sequel. Following the decline of fascism, Italian politics were away from the right and was much more centrist. 00:07:07:08 - 00:07:35:13 Unknown However, we've seen a shift back to the right following the turn of the millennium, less than ten years after Mussolini's death. Scholars linked the neo fascist movement to emotional distance from the fascist regime. Young fascists in the 1950s were in fact, too young to remember what it was like to live under Mussolini's dictatorship, and as such, the lived experience didn't deter them from fascist ideologies. 00:07:35:15 - 00:08:01:14 Unknown If that was true, a decade after the height of Italian fascism, could the same not be said for neo fascists? Nearly a century later? The current Italian prime minister, Giorgia meloni, belongs to the far right political party the Fratelli d'Italia, or the Brothers of Italy, while the Brothers of Italy, as a collective, rejects the label of near fascism, their behavior and policy indicate otherwise. 00:08:01:16 - 00:08:38:18 Unknown A bust of Mussolini and books glorifying fascism and Nazism have been spotted in the offices of certain party members, while other party members have expressed that they should be free to self-identify as fascist without fear of persecution. The party also utilized targeted advertising and Facebook algorithms to pursue a specifically fascist voting demographic. We know that they did this because if you responded to a Facebook ad for the Brothers of Italy saying, don't show me this advert again, an automated message came up explaining why you had been shown the ad in the first place. 00:08:38:20 - 00:09:09:23 Unknown The message read, quote, “the reason why you see this advert is that Fratelli d’Italia wants to reach people interested in fascism”, end quote. The message goes on to describe how your data is collected and other demographics the party is trying to reach. But that first line really tells us everything we need to know. In addition to party members self-reporting their Mussolini apologies and the Brothers of Italy stance on social issues is highly reflective of Mussolini's. 00:09:10:00 - 00:09:40:06 Unknown The party supports what they call the traditional family unit, working in collaboration with anti-abortion and anti LGBT movements. They're also calling for a zero tolerance policy on illegal immigration, and want to boost the birth rate of Italian nationals to ease the need for migrant labor. The populist ideals passed down from Augustus to Mussolini to Meloni, have resulted in the ruling government of Italy holding much the same values that it did before the common era. 00:09:40:08 - 00:10:07:22 Unknown But allow me to be clear Italian history is not unique. Every nation on Earth has a history that they're not proud of. Western civilization is no stranger to ignorance, hostility, xenophobia, and nationalism in both modernity and history, but never such that the past repeats itself as it has in Italy. Would Americans vote for a politician that identified as Confederate? 00:10:07:24 - 00:10:33:22 Unknown Would Australians vote for a party who wish to set in motion a second stolen generation? Would Germany vote for a candidate openly nostalgic for Nazism and Hitler? The majority of Italy evidently held no such qualms regarding Giorgia Meloni and her political values forged in new fascism? The legacy left by Augustus only flourishes in modernity, as Mussolini's cult of personality lives on.