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09/08/2008: "Rome mayor: Fascism not evil but 'complex'"
Italy's opposition politicians and Jewish leaders reacted with outrage Monday to a newspaper interview in which Rome's right-wing mayor refused to condemn fascism as evil.
Gianni Alemanno's comments were published Sunday by Italian daily Corriere della Sera as the mayor and other Italian politicians concluded a trip to Israel that included a stop at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem.
In the interview, Alemanno condemned the racial laws passed by Benito Mussolini's regime in 1938, but when asked if he considered fascism "an absolute evil" the mayor took a softer stance.
"I don't think so and I never thought so: Fascism was a more complex phenomenon," Alemanno was quoted as saying by Corriere. "Many people joined it in good faith, and I don't feel like labeling them with that definition."
[ Asking Alemanno to condemn fascism as "an absolute evil" is unintelligent. It raises all sorts of questions over the nature of "evil" in a philosophical sense, as well as doubts over how well the interrogator understands the meaning of "fascism". It is only sensible to say "no". Similarly, if he was asked if Stalin or Pol Pot or Jack the Ripper, even a fictitious character like Satan was "pure evil" the only sane answer is "no". However Alemanno himself did not understand the nonsense of dualist judgements of "absolute good" and "absolute evil" himself because he added "the racial laws enacted by fascism, which caused its political and cultural end, were the absolute evil." Perhaps he thought he had overstepped the mark and needed to reassure his hosts for his own safety. ]
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/09/08/italy.rome.mayor.fascism.ap/index.html?eref=rss_latest