Chapter 97: Custodian of Fascism

365     “entrusted the very strength of democracy . . .” “President Meloni’s Letter to the Corriere della Sera Newspaper on Liberation Day,” Presidency of the Council of Ministers, Italian Government, April 25, 2023,” www.governo.it/it/node/22468.

365     “were excluded from the constitutional process . . .” “the democratic right wing”  “President Meloni’s letter to the Corriere della Sera newspaper on Liberation Day,” www.governo.it/it/node/22468.

365.    “family” . . . “has been able to expand over the years” . . . “who had opposed . . .”  “President Meloni’s letter to the Corriere della Sera newspaper on Liberation Day,” www.corriere.it/politica/23_febbraio_04/meloni-cospito-lettera-ac56d0dc-a484-11ed-a9a2-20247d5f06f9.shtml.

365     “This is how a great democracy was born . . .”  “President Meloni’s letter to the Corriere della Sera newspaper on Liberation Day,” www.governo.it/it/node/22468.

365     “A democracy in which . . .” “President Meloni’s letter to the Corriere della Sera newspaper on Liberation Day,” www.governo.it/it/node/22468.

365     “the only true antidote . . .”  “President Meloni’s letter to the Corriere della Sera newspaper on Liberation Day,” www.governo.it/it/node/22468.

365     “Hence I cannot understand why . . .”  “President Meloni’s letter to the Corriere della Sera newspaper on Liberation Day,” www.governo.it/it/node/22468.

366     “Fathers, uncles, brothers . . .”  Marion Maréchal, speech at Salle des Fêtes in Sens, France, 2017, quoted in Julian Coman, “Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron Face Off for the Soul of France,” The Guardian, March 26, 2017, www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/26/marine-le-pen-emmanuel-macron-french-elections.

366     “If, a century later . . . Vote for Marine Le Pen”  Maréchal, speech at Salle des Fêtes in Sens, France,” www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/26/marine-le-pen-emmanuel-macron-french-elections.

366     reminisced . . . who fought in both world wars Coman, “Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron face off for the soul of France,” www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/26/marine-le-pen-emmanuel-macron-french-elections.

366     “He was an extraordinary patriot”  Marie-Solange Werner quoted in Coman, “Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron Face Off for the Soul of France,” www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/26/marine-le-pen-emmanuel-macron-french-elections.

366     “The Germans tried to enlist him . . .”  Werner’s fuller quote is “With a family history like that, how can I use my life for anything other than fighting for French values? How could I not be in the Front National?” Werner quoted in Coman, “Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron Face Off for the Soul of France,” www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/26/marine-le-pen-emmanuel-macron-french-elections.

366     executed . . . for leading . . . at the University of Munich Shortly before her execution by guillotine, Sophie Scholl told the head of the People’s Court, “I am, now as before, of the opinion that I did the best that I could do for my nation.” Sophie’s 24-year-old brother, Hans, a founding member of the group, was arrested and executed alongside his sister. Among Hans’s final words were “Long live freedom!” Tanja B. Spitzer, “Sophie Scholl and the White Rose,” National WWII Museum (New Orleans), February 22, 2020, www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/sophie-scholl-and-white-rose; and Jud Newborn, “Hans and Sophie Scholl Were Once Hitler Youth Leaders: Why Did They Decide to Stand Up to the Nazis?” Smithsonian Magazine, February 17, 2023, www.smithsonianmag.com/history/hans-and-sophie-scholl-were-once-hitler-youth-leaders-why-did-they-decide-to-stand-up-to-the-nazis-180981643/.

366     “Sophie Scholl would have voted AfD”  AfD Nürnberg-Süd/Schwabach, Facebook, January 2017, quoted in Christoph Hasselbach, “Anti-COVID Protesters Trivialize Nazi-Era Persecution,” Deutsche Welle (DW), November 28, 2020, www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-how-german-protesters-are-trivializing-nazi-era-persecution/a-55753236. 

366     Trump supporters . . . on Martin Luther King Day in 2024 See The Young Turks, “MAGA on Why MLK Would Be a Trump Supporter,” YouTube, January 23, 2024, youtu.be/WZ9YOxjRyHY?si=r5-BhM7Mmc_ycZ5E.

366     "the tradition of all anti-colonial struggles” Renaud Camus, “10^th Anniversary of Riposte Laïque,” 2017, in “Parti de l’In-nocence (PI),” France Politique, ed. Laurent de Boissieu, accessed April 3, 2025, www.france-politique.fr/wiki/Parti_de_l%27In-nocence_(PI), via Google Translate.

366     listed . . . as a possible model . . . as an inspiration  Camus, “10th Anniversary of Riposte Laïque,” www.france-politique.fr/wiki/Parti_de_l%27In-nocence_(PI).

366–367     “Algeria, having become independent . . .” Camus, “10th Anniversary of Riposte Laïque,” www.france-politique.fr/wiki/Parti_de_l%27In-nocence_(PI).

367     “. . . no liberation of the territory . . . without remigration”  Camus, “10th Anniversary of Riposte Laïque,” www.france-politique.fr/wiki/Parti_de_l%27In-nocence_(PI).

367     “the African colonisation of Europe . . .”  Emphasis is Camus’s. Renaud Camus, You Will Not Replace Us!, (Plieux, France: Renaud Camus, 2018), 43. Find the library book at search.worldcat.org/title/1091051149.

367     made Europe the richest continent in the world and Africa the poorest continent in the world by the twentieth century  See Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972; London: Verso, 2018). Find the library book at search.worldcat.org/title/1080637113.

367     About ten million people  Adam Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa (London: Pan Books, 2006), 280. Visit search.worldcat.org/title/42769595to find this book at a library.

367     “Congo Free State,” the personal colony . . . from 1885 to 1908 Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost, 87, 259. Find the library book at search.worldcat.org/title/42769595.

367     resisted German colonial stealing . . . Namibia “What Is Genocide?: The Herero and Namaqua Genocide,” The Holocaust Explained, Wiener Holocaust Library, accessed October 30, 2025, www.theholocaustexplained.org/what-was-the-holocaust/what-was-genocide/the-herero-and-namaqua-genocide/.

367     called for the extermination Lothar von Trotha’s Extermination Order, October 2, 1904, German History in Documents and Images, accessed October 30, 2025, germanhistorydocs.org/en/wilhelmine-germany-and-the-first-world-war-1890-1918/ghdi:document-5478.  

367     approximately 75,000 people “Some claim these statistics are inflated, while” some “Herero activists believe the figures were far greater.” “‘Our Auschwitz, Our Dachau’: Reckoning with Germany’s Genocide in Namibia,” Al Jazeera, November 6, 2022, www.aljazeera.com/features/longform/2022/11/6/reckoning-with-genocide-in-namibia; and “What Is Genocide?: The Herero and Namaqua Genocide,” www.theholocaustexplained.org/what-was-the-holocaust/what-was-genocide/the-herero-and-namaqua-genocide/.

367     forcing them to cultivate cotton, upwards of 300,000 people . . .  Jessica Parker and Danai Nesta Kupemba, “Germany Asks Forgiveness for Tanzania Colonial Crimes,” BBC News, November 1, 2023, www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-67285182; and “Tanzania Country Profile,” BBC News, May 2, 2023,www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-14095776.

367     massacred upwards of 20,000 . . . in three days, in retaliation for . . .  Emanuele Ertola, “Italians Committed Terrible Crimes, Then Forgot Them,” Jacobin, February 20, 2024, jacobin.com/2024/02/addis-abada-ethiopia-italian-massacre. On colonial governor Rodolfo Graziani, see “Marshal Rodolfo Graziani Dies; Leader of Italy’s Army in Africa; Ex-Viceroy of Ethiopia, LastI Head of Fascist Troops, Was Convicted as War Criminal,” New York Times, January 12, 1955, www.nytimes.com/1955/01/12/archives/marshal-rodolfo-graziani-dies-leader-of-italys-army-in-africa.html.

367      in the fifteenth century . . . initially to protect newly extracted gold . . . and then . . .  Christopher R. DeCorse, “Early Trade Posts and Forts of West Africa,” in First Forts: Essays on the Archaeology of Proto-colonial Fortifications, ed. Eric Klingelhofer (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2010), 213–214; and Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), The Transatlantic Slave Trade, 2022, eji.org/report/transatlantic-slave-trade/origins/#the-barbarity-of-the-middle-passage. Find First Forts at a library near you at search.worldcat.org/title/682614081.

367     four hundred years “The Portuguese made history as the first Europeans to sail along the Atlantic . . . in order to bring enslaved Africans back to Europe,” arriving in Lagos in 1444. Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, rev. ed. (New York: Bold Type Books, 2023), 23. Find the library book at search.worldcat.org/title/1340743269. Slave Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, accessed April 4, 2025,www.slavevoyages.org/, records the transatlantic human trade as ending in 1866.

367–368     roughly the current population of France  The population of France at this writing is 68.5 million. U.S. Census Bureau, “France,” accessed April 4, 2025, www.census.gov/popclock/world/fr.

367–368     sixty million people—a tally that includes . . .  Steven Mintz writes, “The transatlantic slave trade was the largest movement of people in history. Between 10 and 15 million Africans were forcibly removed from the continent between 1500 and 1900 . . . The Atlantic slave trade, however, was not the only slave trade within Africa. Nearly as many Africans were exported across the Sahara Desert, the Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean from AD 650 to 1900 as were shipped across the Atlantic. Islamic traders probably exported 10 million slaves into north Africa, Arabia, Yemen, Iraq, Iran, and India. In addition, it now seems clear that during the era of the Atlantic slave trade, many and perhaps most of the enslaved were kept in Africa. It is imaginable that as many as 60 million Africans died or were enslaved as a result of these various slave trades.” Mintz, “Introduction,” in African American Voices: A Documentary Reader, 1619–1877, ed. Steven Mintz, 4th ed. (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), 10. Find the library book at search.worldcat.org/title/259265596.

368     includes the people who died in wars . . . human traders on the coast “Captives were usually obtained in the traditional way, by warfare; some were kidnapped . . . As the [European] demand for slaves increased, coastal Africans began to raid inland, and march their enchained captives to the coast. Many, an untold number, died in the process of capture and during the long march to the coast. More died on the coast in the Europeans’ grossly overcrowded barracoons (slave-holding prisons) while awaiting shipment. In the late eighteenth century it was estimated that 4.5 per cent of captives died on shore; 12.5 per cent on board ship and 33 per cent during ‘seasoning’ in the Americas. When one adds the numbers killed in battle or in raids, it looks as if half those destined to be enslaved died before they commenced their often brief lives as unfree, dehumanised labourers.” Marika Sherwood, After Abolition: Britain and the Slave Trade Since 1807 (London: I. B. Tauris, 2007), 6. Find the library book at search.worldcat.org/title/74525317. See also EJI, The Transatlantic Slave Trade, eji.org/report/transatlantic-slave-trade/origins/#the-barbarity-of-the-middle-passage.

368     deathly waits in the castles and boats  “Records do not establish an exact death toll, but scholars estimate the mortality rate among those confined in barracoons and on board docked trading ships ‘equaled that of Europe’s fourteenth-century Black Death,’ which claimed at least 40% of Europe’s population.” EJI, The Transatlantic Slave Trade, eji.org/report/transatlantic-slave-trade/origins/#the-barbarity-of-the-middle-passage.

368     nearly 2 million . . . and 10.7 million . . .  Slave Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database estimates that 12.5 million captives endured the Middle Passage, with 10.7 million surviving. David Eltis, “The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database: Methodology,” Slave Voyages, August 24, 2025, www.slavevoyages.org/blog/the-transatlantic-slave-trade-database/16.

368     double its size in 1850, if not for . . . human trading  Patrick Manning, Slavery and African Life: Occidental, Oriental, and African Slave Trades (Cambridge, UK: University of Cambridge, 1991), 171. Find the library book at search.worldcat.org/title/19739639.

368     “demographic change”  Camus, You Will Not Replace Us!, 43. Find the library book at search.worldcat.org/title/1091051149.

368     ended human trading under a Whig government  Arthur Burns, "William Wyndham Grenville (Whig, 1806-1807)," History of Government, blog, GOV.UK, October 14, 2015, history.blog.gov.uk/2015/10/14/william-wyndham-grenville-whig-1806-1807/. 

368     twenty years of activism in Parliament UK Parliament, "Parliament and the British Slave Trade: Overview: Wilberforce makes the case," accessed December 4, 2025, www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/tradeindustry/slavetrade/overview/wilberforce-makes-the-case/.

368     claimed that the Conservative Party was responsible  George Osborne was chancellor of the exchequer and first secretary of state on October 5, 2015, when he said, “For it was Conservatives in previous governments that ended the slave trade, that stopped children working in factories and gave them universal education. They gave equal votes to women and equal rights to disabled people.” See “The Rt Hon George Osborne,” GOV.UK, accessed www.gov.uk/government/people/george-osborne; and Patrick Worrall, “Is George Osborne Rewriting History?” Channel 4, October 5, 2015, www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-george-osborne-rewriting-history.

368     as an independent MP . . . into a Tory James Cleverly, Twitter, August 1, 2019, 1:13 p.m., x.com/JamesCleverly/status/1156976369831686151, archived at archive.today, February 9, 2026 capture, archive.ph/wip/eAXuu. On William Wilberforce’s political affiliation and career in parliament, see Worrall, “Is George Osborne Rewriting History?” www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-george-osborne-rewriting-history. ; and “Historic Figures: William Wilberforce (1759–1833),” BBC, accessed April 4, 2025, www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/wilberforce_william.shtml.

368     a Black Tory MP . . . as home secretary in 2023  Rajeev Syal and Aletha Adu, “James Cleverly Appointed Home Secretary in Cabinet Reshuffle,” The Guardian, November 13, 2023, www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/nov/13/james-cleverly-appointed-home-secretary-in-cabinet-reshuffle.

368     refused to apologize or retract  Within a few days of Cleverly’s initial tweet, Angus Young of Hull Live—William Wilberforce had been an MP for Hull—reported that Cleverly’s inaccurate tweet had “attracted nearly 4,000 replies,” with “many of them calling on the MP for Braintree to either apologise or delete his post.”   Instead of issuing an apology in response to backlash, Cleverly doubled down: “A lots of people unhappy that I described William Wilberforce as a Tory because he described himself as an independent. His friend and political ally Pitt the Younger is universally described as a “Tory PM” even though he described himself as an independent too! #GoFigure” See Angus Young, “Backlash over Conservative Party Chairman James Cleverly’s Wrong William Wilberforce Claim,” Hull Live, August 5, 2019, www.hulldailymail.co.uk/news/hull-east-yorkshire-news/james-cleverly-conservative-party-william-3174768; and James Cleverly, Twitter, August 8, 2019, 4:42 p.m., x.com/JamesCleverly/status/1159568073550180374, archived at archive.today, February 9, 2026 capture, archive.ph/wip/8Mcij.