Alarm, alarm, the wolves have returned. This isn’t a nursery rhyme; it could be the refrain of a silly song, or rather, a lamentable one. Yes, because it’s about wolves disguised as sheep, as one of our most beloved and influential singers, Vasco Rossi, points out. In a post remembering the death of his father in 1979, Blasco states that the neo-fascists have returned, masked but always recognizable, bullies and grinning. His father was one of those soldiers who, after September 8, 1943, refused to fight alongside the Germans and Italian fascists against the partisans in the North, where the Republic of Salò was established. For this, he was deported to Germany and spent two years imprisoned in the Dortmund concentration camp. It was a wound that never fully healed, affecting him physically until his death in 1979.
So much for the history. What can we say? Is Vasco right? Is it the usual leftist reflection from artists in Italy, especially those from Emilia? Well, we’re treading familiar ground here, and if we want to strip this outburst of its emotional and subjective elements and read it historically and politically, it seems to me to be a rather vague accusation. Indeed, the left-wing mainstream has already framed it in today’s anti-government headlines. However, dear Vasco, it’s important to name names and be more precise, to talk about facts and analyze them in a modern way without turning a blind eye to a dramatic page of history. I prefer Blasco as a pure artist at the Roxy Bar, in an existentialist key, with his formidable gravelly voice. If he drinks a bit too much at the bar, I’d rather pretend not to notice and keep my aesthetic judgment, which is always bomb-proof… and against both real and presumed neo-Nazis.
