Black was in the air

In his letter of March 13, Victor Ragonesi disputed my argument that the black background on the PN flag is a sad reminder of their admiration to the late Benito Mussolini and his fascist regime.

According to him, when Vincenzo Bonello designed the flag in 1927, black was used as the dominant colour as it represents in heraldry fortitude and victory.

It was in March 1919 that Mussolini founded the Fascisti di Combattimenti. He and his militant supporters wore black shirts to demonstrate "fortitude and victory". On October 28, King Vittorio Emmanuele invited Mussolini to form a government. By 1926, the fascist leader had transformed Italy into a single-party, totalitarian regime. And now PN sympathisers that look back with nostalgia are trying to lead us to believe that their choice of black within that ambience was coincidental.

Furthermore, in February 1936, Spain democratically elected to government the Socialist Party with a majority and immediately afterwards the Socialists began to revive the reforming programme of 1931. That alarmed the right wingers and General Mola masterminded a conspiracy within the armed forces. Franco and his Falange party supporters provoked a spiral of violence to justify a military intervention.

That saw the start of the civil war.

On March 27, 1934, the Spanish Nationalists entered the capital and 400,000 Republicans were forced into exile. The following day, Lehen is-Sewwa, the Maltese Church's official organ and a robust ally of the PN, ran the headline Dhalna Madrid (We've entered Madrid) and showed no sympathy and solidarity with the exiled. Up to the day of his internment, Herbert Ganado was the editor of Lehen is-Sewwa. Yet, Dr Ragonesi and a few other nostalgic PN supporters are still insisting that before and during WWII the PN was never pro-fascism but solely pro-Italian culture to retain our ethnic, cultural, economic, social and political identity.