This is in no way supposed to be a defence of Fascism. Fascism is of course completely unacceptable and often is associated with the most extreme possible forms of intolerance and racism. Let's start by making that 100% clear.
However, many people would define Fascism quite narrowly. It is of course totalitarian, authoritarian, an oppressive regime and a police state - all of these things, and basically evil. Nothing i say here should in any way be seen as an endorsement of Fascism. However, it is also quite narrowly defined as the ideology in which one's only duty is either to the state or to the nation - two different things, incidentally, which complicates things somewhat.
Fascism at its narrowest definition is a purely Italian ideology based on the Italian, or perhaps an even narrower, state consisting of Northern or Southern Italy. Its name originates from the Ancient Roman symbol of the Fasces, a bundle of sticks which are stronger because they're bound together, the idea being that a state is strong and its people are strong because they are united, and that isolated individuals are by contrast weak and vulnerable.
I love Rome. It's the most beautiful and amazing city i have ever seen. However, i'm not so attached to it that i think it's the only place or thing i have any duty towards, particularly in terms of politics. Anyway, when i last visited Rome, i went to EUR, one of the few modern parts of the city, which has interesting (and disturbing) Fascist architecture. One of the most interesting things about it from the aspect of racism is that there are a number of friezes there illustrating the history of Rome, with images of various things intended to be taken in a positive light, and one of those is the Jewish symbol of the Menorah. Italian fascism clearly did not seem to be particularly racist or at least anti-semitic in the light of that symbol, and i have at least the impression that Mussolini was playing lip-service to the Nazis, who incidentally were not really Fascist either so much as racist and socialist, rather than being a dyed-in-the-wool racist, though i'm sure he was very manipulative and basically evil. It was an expedient alliance, i think, though i'm no expert on history.
However, there seems to me to be an entirely different problem. If Fascism essentially involves total allegiance to one's state or nation, Paolo di Canio surely must feel he owes allegiance to Lazio, Italy, Rome or somewhere else other than England or Sunderland. Either that or his self-description as a Fascist is just inaccurate or he considers it expedient or lucrative to be a football manager for Sunderland FC, to which he surely cannot be consistently loyal.
Hope that explains the title.
Yesterday's video, incidentally, is a runaway success. I have a plan now. I think i may finally have hit paydirt with this. I will now set up a vlogging channel devoted to this subject. This takes me into the realm of alternate reality games.
The previous blog entry had an unusually large number of views for some reason, probably bank holidays. In spite of this, i will now set out my plan, clearly, on this blog for all to see, so nobody can say i haven't warned you.
Tomorrow, i will set up an alternate reality game vlog channel on the progress of my pregnancy. I'll upload a slightly edited version of yesterday's video, i.e. this one:
So: start a new channel (which i'll do immediately after finishing this entry), edit the first video a bit (tomorrow), upload it, link to the channel from both other channels, do a video on alternate reality games for the main channel, make a subscriber trailer, do a banner and upload those, then wait.
