Racial Justice and Equality - Part 4 - We Join the Conversation About the Troubling History of Monuments

Edited BY

G P Kennedy

 

Ellie - Milan, Italy

1.

Photo by Angelo Amboldi

 Just like many other social waves, Italy is now also swept by the protests and debates on racism that started in the United States over the past month. At first, events and public discussions were simply meant to show solidarity with Black Lives Matter. However, very quickly the attention shifted to racism in Italian society itself, which has seen its significant share of violence and injustice. Racism here often is seen through the lens of the refugee crisis and so it can be masked as some other kind of social tension. However, let it not be mistaken: it is racism. 

 

 One of the focal points in which this has been manifested is the figure of Indro Montanelli, an influential journalist active between 1930-2000 and the subject of the monument in the photo above, placed in the public park in Milan also named after him. Montanelli volunteered as a conscript for Mussolini's colonizing campaign in Africa, with the self-expressed patriotic intention of "civilizing the savages", where he, according to his own memoirs, "leased" a 12 year old girl from her family as a concubine, before turning against the fascist regime and being imprisoned himself.

 

 While this has been public knowledge here throughout the decades and the law in Italy at the time would have forbidden such a relationship, too, he justified his actions with the argument that "it was different in Africa".  This justification and its racist basis - along with reminders of the atrocities committed by Italian troops in Africa as part of the campaign - is the key through which we have to understand the roots of systemic racism in Italian society happening right now.

 

 Protests to remove the monument are met with denial by influential opinion makers; the debates around it roughly follow the predictable lines of similar ones in the United States. Italian society has a lot of thinking to do and issues to come to term with. The red paint thrown over Montanelli's monument is just one gesture in this long-term conflict.

 

2.

 So, how shall we approach contested monuments? How do we rethink symbols of respect given to key figures that may seem worthy objects of admiration now but might be reconsidered in the future? This is a very painful question especially in relation to conflicts originating from deep divisions that have not been completely resolved, like World War II and the period of fascism. There are different approaches in solving these dilemmas that Italian society might find already rooted in its cultural and social landscape. 

 

 For example, I like this monument in the city of Monza near Milan. It is dedicated to all those fallen in all wars and, even though human figures are represented in it; their intertwined bodies are led by an angel pointing up. The monument honors the dead and their death is tragic, not glorious. 

 

3. 

 And what do we do with monuments dedicated to real people whom we have rethought but are impossible or impractical to remove for different reasons? This one here is a bust dedicated to the Duke Gallarati Scotti, a member of the family owning Villa Melzi on Lake Como, whose publicly accessible garden is a popular destination.

 

 The Villa is still property of the family and Gallarati Scotti was an influential public figure that, while a contributing to various philanthropic causes, also championed the power of the Church in the newly founded unified Italian state. This accidental Christo-style wrapping of the monument, while probably intended for protection and conservation, offers a possible strategy: we can certainly modify monuments to take away their glorification power and add irony and twists of perspective when their initial meaning is contested.

 

4.

 And really, why not abandon the representation of real people in our memorialization of the past through public monuments? When we do that we focus on specific values we aim to elevate. It is true that nobody is perfect and hence, can't be idealized without the danger of detonation in the future. Is it possible to point out the value without referring to a specific person when building a monument?

 

 This statue in front of Cardano al Campo's city hall offers another strategy: symbol without reference, the statue uses the generic model of pieta'.

 As a newcomer, I don't have authority to contest historic symbols, but from a humanistic perspective, I can claim a point of view. This I see: monuments need to be reconsidered and perspectives definitely invite rethinking. And frankly, I don't even understand why Indro Montanelli was monumentalized in the first place.