Matteotti, Liliana Segre and Elena Cattaneo: “The best Italy denigrated, persecuted, massacred”
The female senators for life on Corsera, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the 'death speech' of the secretary of the Unity Socialist Party
ROME – “With the Matteotti murder, fascism was born as an entirely totalitarian regime”. They write it on the pages of Corsera< /strong>, the senators for life Liliana Segre and Elena Cattaneo, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Giacomo Matteotti’s speech to the Chamber, on 30 May 1924. A speech in which the secretary of Unity Socialist Party denounced the climate of violence and fraud in which the elections of April 1924 had taken place. A speech that cost him his life, kidnapped and killed on 10 June 1924 by fascist squadristi.
THE DISCOURSE OF DEATH
“It was the afternoon of May 30th one hundred years ago when Giacomo Matteotti spoke for the last time from the seats of the Chamber to pronounce what is remembered as ‘the speech of death’ With a courage that bordered on, indeed surpassed, temerity, Matteotti denounced the abuses and violencewith which fascism had won the political elections of 6 April 1924, held with the infamous Acerbo Law.” .
NOW PREPARE MY FUNERAL ORATION
“The deputy Matteotti, in an unparalleled din, unleashed by the fascist elected representatives, was interrupted a thousand times, but a thousand times he resumed his speech to ask for the postponement of the elections affected by the violence. He managed to finish the speech, but his fate was now sealed – add the senators -.At the end of the speech, with a sadly prescient phrase destined to remain engraved in the collective memory, he said to his companions: ‘ Now prepare my funeral oration‘”.
A TURNING POINT IN THE HISTORY OF ITALY
“Matteotti’s death marks a profound turning point in the history of Italy in the 20th century. Not only because of the brutality of the crime. There had been many others before, there would have been afterwards From Don Minzoni, to Giovanni Amendola, to Piero Gobetti, to Carlo and Nello Rosselli, to Antonio Gramsci, the best Italy was denigrated, exiled, persecuted, attacked, imprisoned, massacred during interminable winds. years”.
THE MOST INTRANSIGENT OF THE ENEMIES OF FASCISM
“Matteotti was a socialist. A man of the institutions, a promoter of justice, of freedom. He had started from the bottom, from his poor and oppressed Polesine; he had been mayor and provincial councilor, he had organized and protected the farmers of his land, exploited and starving by those landowners who were the first foragers of the fascist ‘civil war’ Matteotti was the first, the bravest, the most intransigent of the enemies of fascism”.