Reportage
Liberation Day offers common ground for antifascists
'The appeal has joined together with this march because we are against all fascism, in all times and in all places'
“I am here because we need to see each other's faces. There are so many of us, and sometimes we forget that. Today we are going in the same direction, coming from a thousand different roads.” In mid-afternoon, with half of the procession still standing still in the sunshine amid the great (and not at all “sober”) crowds across Milan, a dad with his daughter on his shoulders gave us the best image for this April 25, holding a sign saying “Cittadinanza per tutt*” (translator’s note: “Citizenship for all,” with “all” explicitly marked as gender-neutral).
We reach Piazza San Babila, at the intersection the pro-Palestinians have chosen for their final rally, to claim their own right to citizenship. For the second year in a row, their protest is taking place across the world.
The Palestinian flags turn out to be the common thread in a march of no less than 100,000 people, and the keffiyehs around the necks as well – regardless of the fact that they were not allowed to march at the head of the procession. “It was a very serious error not to give the stage to a Palestinian voice, because at the global level, the nadir has been reached in Palestine.”
Marco Sannella is the vice president of the Stadera-Gratosoglio branch of ANPI, which chose to mingle among the Palestinian section. “It's about overcoming a post-colonial consciousness that still lives within us. So we will stay here, beside them. Not very ‘sober,’ but very cheerful, colorful and determined.”
Another of the recurring topics is war. One truck has a reproduction of a broken missile on its roof. The large banner on the front, “Fuck rearm,” sums up a demand shared by everyone.
On the stage in Piazza del Duomo, Pope Francis is quoted and everyone applauds, including the Palestinian Youth, who are there in the front row. “April 25 is not a carnival,” rails ANPI President Gianfranco Pagliarulo. “We are celebrating the end of fascism, Nazism and war. And we never want to see fascism, Nazism and war ever again.”
There is heavy applause – more than Mayor Beppe Sala got, marching among the institutional flags and banners at the head of the march, right in front of the Jewish Brigade – surrounded by a rapid intervention police squad and the red vests of the City Angels – and the section waving Ukrainian flags. Marching behind them are all the others: the parties, the unions, the collectives, Emergency, ARCI, the social movements, and il manifesto as well. Each with their own speeches, each with their own music. And their playlists are telling all by themselves.
One only has to walk around to take note: the PD is going for the Modena City Ramblers, AVS opts for Aprés la Classe, Communist Refoundation is blasting combative punk with Los Fastidios. And the leaders mingle without any hesitation in the cheerful chaos of an extremely long river of people, as is customary in Milan on Liberation Day.
Schlein is being chased by reporters and cameras. Fratoianni, Bonelli, and Acerbo are roaming from section to section. The common sentiment is that there is nothing odd about this: anti-fascism is always solid ground, and being on the streets of Milan this April 25 has a meaning that transcends all misunderstanding.
One can find little “sobriety” here, thankfully. “Sober tomorrow.” “We are the sober ones, the government is drunk.” “Soberly anti-fascist” – all the slogans on the signs and on the walls are not enough: the marchers are there to give their response in person to a government that unbelievably thought it could exploit a funeral to water down Liberation Day.
The march is united and tightly knit. And it seems able to unite everyone, even regarding matters on which the televised debates often tend to cause division. Proof of this are the flags of Italia Viva squeezed in between those of the M5S and AVS, without anyone being all that shocked.
The opposite sides of other historical conflicts also seem to have been brought together: the Kurdish and Turkish sections, marching close (but not too close). “We feel that April 25 is ours too, because we have been fighting against fascism for decades,” says Serkan, a Kurd. “It's a message we share because what happened in Italy 80 years ago is happening in Turkey right now,” says Rafet, chairman of the Milan regional branch of the Turkish Kemalist CHP party.
A little further on is the historic section of Holocaust survivors, holding signs with the names of the Nazi death camps. Right behind them are the youngsters from Never Indifferent, the Jewish Anti-racist Laboratory (LEA) and the signers of the appeal of the Italian Jews Against Ethnic Cleansing. “The appeal has joined together with this march because we are against all fascism, in all times and in all places,” says Sveva Haertter. “Against what is happening in Palestine, what is happening in this country, what is happening at the Repatriation Center in Gjader. April 25 brings together social justice, environmental justice, equality between genders, between ethnicities, between natives and migrants.”
Cristina is the coordinator of the House of Abused Women in Milan; she marches with her own people, gathered around “the first Italian anti-violence center born from feminism.” They are here because the very fact of being a communal space means being a space for anti-fascism. “This government is targeting the principles of freedom and democracy,” she says. “It has an authoritarian and repressive logic that addresses violence against women only on the surface, but does not address the structural causes, which are cultural, which are housing, healthcare, work, integration between public and private life.”
I read letters from partisans ... And then I read letters that came from Gaza: the same words, the same feelings, those of people who are on the right side of history - Andrea, Spazio 20092
From many different paths, we all march in the same direction. One of these is that of Spazio 20092 in Cinisello Balsamo, which was evicted two years ago. The activists march with a rickshaw, distributing stickers: “Cinisello: trashy, anti-fascist, anti-Zionist.” “It was a housing space for families under forced eviction. In eight years, 150 people passed through it, dozens of families,” Andrea says. “This year, the anti-fascist struggle can only be tied to the fight against Zionism and the genocide in Gaza. I read letters from partisans, written to their parents when they knew they were nearing the end. And then I read letters that came from Gaza: the same words, the same feelings, those of people who are on the right side of history.”
When the tail end of the march reaches the square, some of those who got there almost three hours earlier are already leaving. There is dancing, and dusk falls over the cathedral. The expressions on people’s faces are those that only April 25 can bring out. And it did, once again. The dad with the little girl in his arms got his answer: there is a people, despite how it may seem. Or, perhaps, exactly as it seems.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/il-governo-usa-il-lutto-di-stato-per-oscurare-la-liberazione-2 on 2025-04-23