Anti-fascist publisher: self-certification will be required for the Rome Fair

To take part in the Rome Book Fair, which takes place every December, you will have to sign a declaration of anti-fascism. I repeat: all publishers wishing to take part will have to sign a declaration of anti-fascism in order to have a stand on which to display their wares. Quite apart from the fact that, for anyone who still possesses even a modicum of clarity about the world, this news speaks for itself, just take a moment to consider where we are. We are at a book fair – a place designed for the exchange of the ideas contained within books. A place where openness to all kinds of ideas should be the guiding light, because it is through dialogue, exchange and cultural debate that we grow, rather than remaining like amoebas incapable of seeing reality for what it is. A book fair ought to be a place of complexity, of difficult and controversial ideas; otherwise, it is reduced to a sort of sugar-coated Disney-style world of the so-called ‘good guys’ who pat each other on the back, getting all excited about the correctness of their own positions. Instead, to gain entry to such an event, you have to sign a declaration full of slogans reminiscent of secondary school pupils on a march or at a never-ending school assembly; otherwise, you’re excluded.

It is glaringly obvious that this anti-fascist measure is entirely fascist. But even that would be paying it a compliment. The pettiness of this measure magnificently symbolises how much of the Italian cultural industry is in a comatose state, out of touch with reality, still clinging to prehistoric battles. These figures, with their meagre power as cultural organisers, and the whole unsavoury breeding ground in which they were produced, remain clinging to times long past and long dead because they are utterly incapable of developing the vision needed to see the new world. They are so devoid of an identity of their own, so incapable of forging one, so lacking in the intelligence and freedom to do so, that they recycle what is now nothing but the dust of history, and sprinkle it upon themselves to pay themselves homage. They are nothing but necrophiles!

Publishing is a marvellous sector. It is thrilling to work in it, discovering new books, new authors and new ideas. Yet it is just as petty, crude and absurd. It is often afflicted by a ragged form of narcissism; people cling to small, entrenched privileges that could be snatched away at any moment. This creates a servile environment where, instead of the open-mindedness of thought – which ought to reign supreme – a banal and narrow-minded homogeneity prevails, feeding on itself. A measure such as the declaration of anti-fascism is precisely the product of this environment. How else could one even imagine such a ‘certification’? From a publishing industry that produces something so wretched, what ideas can possibly emerge? What new perspective on the world can possibly emerge from it? My contempt for those who may have conceived and promoted this certification is absolute, all the more so because it poisons a space where freedom of thought should be absolute and unquestionable. The officials of this petty cultural organisation – debased, moralising narcissists – inspire nothing but disgust. I must confess, however, that such a measure makes me rather happy. For this pitiful self-certification represents their perfect and squalid autobiography.