Enzo Traverso during the Walter Benjamin Lecture Session
at the University of Gerona, 2017 | Source: MUME
What could be some policies of memory that raise awareness of
the dangers of the current far right without resorting to trivialising
fascism with outdated comparisons?
All establishment politicians stigmatize the far right, but often they
legitimize its rhetoric. If we accept the idea that constructing Europe
involves adopting austerity policies, that the constraints put in place
by the markets are indisputable, that there are too many immigrants
and that illegals must be deported instead of being legalised, that
Islam is incompatible with Western democracy and that terrorism
should be combated by special laws reducing civil liberties — as all our
governments have been saying for ten years — then the far right will
only prosper. In order to stop its advance, it is necessary to first have a
real discussion and tell the truth. Receiving immigrants and refugees is
a moral duty, insofar as millions of Europeans emigrated and fled from
authoritarian regimes in the past two centuries; and a social necessity,
insofar as we need them for both economic and demographic reasons.
In a global age, our societies cannot survive as closed, ethnically and
culturally homogeneous entities.
In terms of policies of memory, we have to recognise that the fascism of
the 21st century is very different from that of the 1930s. The lesson we
should infer from history is that democracies are perishable and can be
destroyed. In countries that have experienced fascism — I’m thinking
of Italy, Germany, Spain and a few others — a democracy that has not
assimilated this lesson will be fragile and vulnerable. In this sense, anti-
fascist memory seems topical to me.
Expert’s view
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