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The Alleanza Nazionale Repubblikana are suing anyone calling them fascists. But as JAMES DEBONO finds out, there are many things in the past the ANR will not tell you about.
Next week the Alleanza Nazzjonali Republikana will be suing rebel priest Fr Mark Montebello for libel for calling them fascists and racists, the frontman of rightwing Alleanza Nazzjonali Repubblikana Martin Degorgio has told MaltaToday.
But if the words DVX still mean anything today, they surely rekindle a memory of the fearful Latin insignia which accompanied none other than Italy’s fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, ‘il Duce’.
And in fact, the word Mussolini chose as a euphemism for dictator after abolishing Italy’s parliamentary democracy, are indeed close to Degiorgio’s heart – his car registration number bears the letters ‘DVX’ and he also has a company registered under the name of ‘DVX Ltd’.
Unashamed of the clear reference to Mussolini, Degiorgio said one should not read too much in a number plate: “the use of the letters DVX is just as symbolic as sporting a Che Guevara t-shirt. It does not mean that I am a fascist just as I don’t think that all those youths making a fashion statement with their Che Guevara t-shirts are communists bent on abolishing private property.”
Degiorgio told MaltaToday he had every chance to change his number plate during these last eight months of preparations for the launching of the ANR but he does not consider these things as important.
“Fascism in Malta is associated with racism and violence and ANR is neither,” Degiorgio said, who added it is words and actions that count, rather than number plates.
Despite saying the ANR has paid tribute to Malta’s victories against the Nazi-Fascist air raids during World War II, Degiorgio still believes that unlike Nazism, which he says should be dumped from “A to Z”, Italian fascism was not an absolute evil.
“Fascism had some good aspects,” Degiorgio said, although he added he rejects its “dictatorial and authoritarian nature”.
Even his organisation’s emblem, Degiorgio insists, is modelled on the Fiamma Tricolore in Gianfranco Fini’s Alleanza Nazionale, although the same flame is used in the logos for fascist parties such as the French Front Nationale.
However, he says that given the opportunity, ANR would gladly divest itself of the flame and appropriate the PN’s ‘maduma’, claiming ANR is closer to Enrico Mizzi’s and Gorg Borg Olivier’s ideas than the present PN’s.
The ANR’s close association, by words or aesthetics, to the political right wing, still leaves much room for discussion on the organisation’s ideology.
Back in 1994, the Gianfranco Fini had described Mussolini as the greatest statesman of the 20th century, only to recant his statement later. Some ten years later, Fini would shock far rightists by calling fascism an “absolute evil” during a visit in Israel. From then on there was no turning back for Fini, who supports the right of legal immigrants to vote in local elections and has been vociferous in his support for Turkey’s EU membership bid.
Degorgio disagrees with Fini on these two points, and certainly, some fascist terminology seems to have slipped into the stream of ANR’s political jargon. Corporatism is one of these words.
Although initially coined by Pope Leo XII as an alternative to socialism and liberal capitalism alike, it was put in to practice in Fascist Italy where business owners, employees, traders, professionals, and other economic classes were organised into 22 guilds, or associations, known as “corporations” in a legislative body known as the Camera dei Fasci e delle Corporazioni.
In its political vision the ANR proposes that Malta should also be governed by a Kamra tal-korporazzjonijiet alongside the democratically elected chamber of deputies. ANR is proposing the chamber of corporations, which would include representatives of trade unions, employers and even the Church, and who would have the right to block any legislation presented by the chamber of deputies.
But Degorgio insists that the corporatist model proposed by ANR is nothing short of a permanent social pact between the social partners. He also insists that the second chamber would limit the arrogance of any government. “If Gonzi wakes up in the morning with an idea he is always sure that he would have his way but with the chamber of corporations, the social partners will have a definitive say,” says the Degorgio.
Ave Camarata! ANR’s genesis
“Ave Camarata!” wrote ‘Xark’ to greet his former colleagues of the Moviment Socjali Republikana in a thread for the right wing internet forum Ave Melita, earlier on this year. They are the words which describe the fascist salute, and the fascist version of the socialist comrade, the camarata.
“Yes, one by one we are again gathering the old MSR core members. It is so nice to be back together again,” wrote the same Xark, who in another thread seen by MaltaToday revealed that his real name is Martin Degorgio, the ANR frontman.
The nostalgic salute bears witness to the fact that a regrouping of the MSR, a Maltese rightwing organisation set up in the mid-eighties and which looked at the post-fascit Movimento Sociale Italiano as its reference point, was taking place months before the ANR’s foundation.
On the same website, another former MSR member recalls the last days of MSR in 1992: “we had moved into an office in Merchant Street, a ground floor apartment equipped with a full library, computer, the Maltese flag and a portrait of Camerata Borg Pisani,” referring to the Maltese artist who joined the Italian forces in 1941 but who was later caught in Malta whilst on a spying mission. The 28-year-old Carmelo was hanged for treason.
Degiorgio does not hide his past MSR activism, acknowledging that the movement failed to make inroads in the political system because at “that time immigration was not a problem.”
Rather than immigration, their raison d’être in the 1980s was opposing Mintoffian socialism. But after the PN won the watershed 1987 election, most MSR members were “happy with the direction undertaken by Eddie Fenech Adami during the first years.” Satisfaction with the PN led to the disintegration of this right wing group.
It is only in the last years that disillusionment with the PN has grown within the ranks of the right, says Degorgio. But he downplays his role in the MSR and states that none of the ANR’s ten committee members had a leading role in MSR.
A fellow camerata in the MSR is self-styled fascist and ironically, former Labour candidate Joe Meli, who claims responsibility for basing the MSR manifesto on the document “il MSI – dalla A alla Zeta” (The MSI – from A to Z) which had been endorsed by the Italian neo-fascist leader Giorgio Almirante.
Writing in Ave Melita, Meli also alleged in one of the threads that MSR’s original name was Partit Nazzjonali Socjalista, the same as Adolf Hitler’s national socialist party. The party was denounced in the leftist publication Analizi, published by Moviment 83, which used to be led by present Broadcasting Authority CEO Kevin Aquilina.
Writing in the Ave Melita forum, in threads seen by MaltaToday, Meli also challenged Xark to declare whether he ever formed part of this party: “I challenge you to state publicly if in the past you were not a Nationalist Socialist Party Member,” Meli had written.
Martin Degorgio has denied ever belonging to a neo-nazi organisation and says that he would sue for libel anyone who makes this allegation. He is adamant in distancing ANR from far rightist Norman Lowell and any other neo-nazi ideas.
“ANR is closer to the PN and to the MLP than to Imperium Europa,” Degorgio told MaltaToday, condemning Lowell’s anti-Christian and libertarian values.
On this point Degorgio claims he had not even voted for Lowell in the last European elections. But like it or not, it was Lowell who aroused the more mainstream right from its slumber.
‘Xark’ acknowledges this himself in another thread seen by this newspaper: “Without Norman Lowell’s revolutionary politics and his success and without Edrico Figallo opportunity on Ave Melita, we old MSR members might have remained in silence and seen our Nation disintegrate.”
jdebono@mediatoday.com.mt
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