Paolo Di Canio: “I’m not a Fascist” (but Italy would be in a ‘better situation’ under Mussolini)
Is Paolo Di Canio still a Fascist? Right now, he is not saying because he only wants to talk about football, but there is a rambling interview in a 2002 book West Ham: Irons in the Soul by Pete May (available as an e-book) in which he can be said to have answered the question:
“I never said I was a fan of Mussolini but for the media it is more easy to make the polemic. I said that after Mussolini no one political man was a patriot or a nationalist because nationalism is not equal to being a Nazi. English people are very proud of their nationalism too; my nationalism means you are proud because you are Italian…
“In Italy if the right or left win the election they don’t think in three or four years time we will give the people a better society… They don’t think tomorrow we are going to work for the people, they think tomorrow we start the publicity for the next election. They have no vision. With Mussolini I’m sure we would have had a better situation, but not in a wrong way, not with a union with the Nazis because I am not a Fascist. Then was a different time, nobody wants war, now we want peace…”
“Black or white or yellow people, gay people, men or women, they can come to my house and be my friend because I am not xenophobic.”
http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/...der-mussolini/