We always have to remember the Resistance to defend and spread out our Costitutional values. The Resistance is important because we never have to forget what happened, because the current Italian politics would like to change our Costitution, “we have to resist, our coscience and our status of citizens impose us to resist” says Simone, one of the members of ANPI London.
The Italian ANPI (Associazione Nazionale Partigiani d’Italia – National Association Partisan of Italy) made official the Londoner section of ANPI in December 2010 during a national congress. ANPI London was born in 25 April 2010 and yesterday promoted the celebration of the 66° anniversary of the liberation from the Nazi-fascism. Several Italian associations attended and supported the celebration: Associazione 25 Aprile, Emergency UK, Federazione della Sinistra, Partito Democratico, Popolo Viola London e Sinistra Ecologia Libertà.
In the London-based INCA CGIL, ANPI screened “Four Days of Naples” (original title Le Quattro giornate di Napoli). The movie is a 1962 Italian film, directed by Nanni Loy.
It is dedicated to Gennaro Capuozzo, Gold Medal of Military Valor, a 12 years-old child killed during the four days of battle. The movie describes the popular uprising in the Italian city of Naples between the 27th and 30th September 1943 against the Nazist forces who occupied the city during World War II. The Gestapo occupiers were forced out by the townsfolk and the Italian Resistence before the arrival in Naples on October of the first Allied forces, and for these actions the city was awarded the Gold Medal of Military Valor.
The Italian resistence was a result of the pool of all Italian anti-fascism groups: communists and catholics, liberals and socialists, monarchists and anarchists; all together for the only democratic objective of freedom.
The Italian Republic takes root in the Resistence, from which the Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale, that wrote our Costitution, was born. The Nazi-Fascism was a horror for the whole European people, the World War II was the most tragic event of the human history. With the Italian armistice on the 8th of September 1943 and the Gestapo occupation of Italy, the heroic contribution of the partisan movement became essential for the ribirth of the country, a new democratic and republican way on the vestiges of the italian Resurgence.
Remembering is a commitment, resisting is a duty of citizens. The citizen has to be responsible for the wellness of his own society, taking part into the res-publica and resisting to every kind of oppression. Democracy is grounded on equality among humans, on common rights, on the defense of its values at any cost, for avoiding tiranny and absolutisms in the future.
“First they came for the communist, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.” [First they came… a poetry by Martin Niemoller]