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Remarkably, this is not the first time that evidence has been shaken. status quo We welcome the stubborn reaction of Italian society, still very patriarchal, and people are still allergic to discourses on discrimination and inequality, be it on race or gender.
This was already the case in 2018, when Italians mocked and laughed en masse at fellow actress Asios Argento, who was actively involved. #I also in a campaign against Harvey Weinstein, but was accused of sexually abusing a young actor.
Reuters / Scanpix Photo / Asia Argento
This time, the knee-jerk reaction is to rush to help Montanelli, although the reasons for the outrage at the statue of a journalist who died in 2001 at the age of 92 are really strong.
I hired a girl
Montanelli served in the army for two years and participated in the Second Italian-Ethiopian War in the 1930s.
He himself has admitted that he bought or “rented” a young Eritrean woman in Africa. An Italian cost his father 350 liras, a horse and a rifle. The girl, whose name was Desta or Fátima, was 12 or 14 years old at the time.
And Montanelli herself called this girl a “quiet animal” in a long and painful trial in 2000. Her scent was disgusting to her husband, and her disfigured genitals “resisted passion,” that relationship was only possible with the rude intervention of the girl’s mother.
Photo by Scanpix / Indro Montanelli
Montanelli has never shown regret for such a youth purchase. In an interview in 1969, he rejected any criticism and said that “Africa simply has different traditions.”
However, the news of the painting on the statue of I. Montanelli in Italy was met with horror, such action was condemned. And the most prominent were those whose voices are still the most famous: middle-aged and old men. It is they who have the most power and influence in the media in Italy.
These men, perhaps unsurprisingly, were rocked by the very idea that women and ethnic minorities can also express an opinion on what should be glorified in statues.
Reuters / Scanpix photo / Statue of Indro Montanelli in Milan
“It is shocking to see them rushed to minimize the treatment not only of a ‘hired’ girl, but also an opinion that does not correspond to them.
After all, this attack on the statue was carried out only after it became clear that local officials ignored activists’ requests to remove the monument, “says famous Italian feminist Giulia Blasi.
Did you really love democracy?
He also noted that the Italian media, which had paid real attention to the incident anyway, had not even filed a communication with their African counterparts, focusing only on the statue’s disgrace.
Scanpix / PA Wire / Photo from Press Association Images / Statue of Subjaurota Indro Montanelli in Milan
For example, Beppe Severgnini, a columnist for the Corriere della Sera newspaper, called the girl’s purchase and rape simply “marriage to a place Montanelli had agreed to.”
And Marco Travaglio, the editor of Il Fatto Quotidiano, who considered himself Montanelli’s student, allowed himself to call the journalist’s relationship with an Eritrean girl proof that Montanelli was anti-racist.
In a 1978 WikiLeaks report, US diplomats said Montanelli wrote that a Pinochet-style dictatorship would be appropriate for Italy.
Finally, the left-wing mayor of central Milan, Giuseppe Sala, called Montanelli “a great journalist who fought for press freedom.” The Red Brigades that operated in Italy during the Cold War actually attacked this journalist: once they shot him in the legs.
“What do we ask of the people we choose to immortalize with statues? Should they be without sin? Asked G. Sala.
Scanpix photo / statue of Subjaurota Indro Montanelli in Milan
A similar technocrat, former head of the Fiscal Department of the International Monetary Fund, Carlo Cottarelli, similarly said: “What Montanelli did 90 years ago does not justify an attack on his statue. It is a monument to an Italian who loved freedom, democracy, independent thought and honesty. “
It is true that G. Blasi immediately noticed that I. Montanelli did not evaluate democracy in the same way as its defenders.
For example, in a 1978 report published by WikiLeaks in 2015, US diplomats said Montanelli wrote that a Pinochet-style dictatorship would be appropriate for Italy, that that regime would be better than a coalition of Christian Democrats and Communists.
“Montanelli’s often contradictory views have never been analyzed. No one has overshadowed his image as a solid and respectable professional. The tone of today’s debate suggests that the situation will not change,” says G. Blasi.
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