"Race! It is a feeling, not a reality. Ninety-five percent, at least, is a feeling. Nothing will ever make me believe that biologically pure races can be shown to exist today. National pride has no need of the delirium of race." Benito Mussolini
A quote I can get behind even if it's from Mussolini.
And one in which importantly marks the essential difference between Mussolini's fascist Italy and Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler.
Mussolini, was a theatrical, narcissistic, charismatic, tyrannical thug who plunged into a war it wasn't ready for, and his Black Shirts did use excessive brutish force but he wasn't a racist or anti-Semite - though he was to later expel Jews from Italy in a gesture merely designed to play ball with Germany - nor were his convictions and political positions superfluous. Above all, he wasn't evil.
Which is why, in contemporary Italy, Mussolini - though a demagogic figure - isn't necessarily seen as an absolute hated figure. Mussolini's love and patriotism of Italy was authentic. He definitely wasn't in it for the money. When former Lazio player (Lazio and Rome naturally would be places where fascist sentiment still exists in some form) the colorful and fiery Paolo Di Canio made a controversial fascist salute the media howled, but the reality is people in Italy didn't see it as quite the atrocity as depicted (particularly in the Anglo world).
It makes him a different cat from Hitler altogether. Like many political figures in history, he was, well, more complicated than we give him credit for.
I often joke to myself that when Mussolini and the Italians found out what the Germans were doing building concentration camps predicated on annihilating fellow human beings, they must of said to one another, "sono matte!" (they're mental!).
Italy - woefully and embarrassingly unprepared for war as already mentioned - was on the wrong side of WWII but they weren't a civilization that sunk into barbarity like an advanced, intelligent, cultural, and powerful nation like Germany did.
As for the quote, replace 'race' with 'language' and it applies for our situation in Quebec.
Nationalism stinks and hastens civilizational regression.
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