“We started with 1.9% of the vote then!” He says. “I thought there was no way we would ever get more than 10%. Now we are approaching 30%.” As someone shouts profanities from a passing car, there is general laughter from the group of flyers. “They don’t want to acknowledge that times have changed around here. They are still mourning!’ The northernmost stop on Milan’s M1 metro line, away from the Duomo and La Scala, Sesto San Giovanni was a right-wing no-go zone. Nicknamed ‘Stalingrad’, the streets and urban buildings still bear witness to the bygone era when the local Communist Party ruled the region, supported by a huge workforce employed in four metallurgical factories. But a different political wind is now blowing in front of Karl Marx’s municipal library. On Sunday, in one of the most closely watched contests in the country’s general election, polls show Sesto on the verge of voting for Isabella Rauti, daughter of Pino Rauti, one of Italy’s most prominent neo-fascists of the 20th century, and among the highest officials of Meloni’s party. A precedent was set five years ago when Sesto elected the first right-wing mayor after decades of unbroken rule by the left. The stakes, given the city’s position as one of the key seats in the race for Italy’s Senate, could not be higher. Rauti’s background encapsulates progressive fears that Italy is about to hand over power to influences that have remained on the sidelines for 70 years. Adding to the sense that this is no ordinary contest, her centre-left opponent in Sesto is Emanuele Fiano, whose father was an Auschwitz survivor. Despite the urgency of the current economic crisis, the past has cast a dark shadow over the campaign. Isabella Rauti. Polls show that Sesto is on the verge of voting for Rauti, the daughter of Pino Rauti, one of the most prominent neo-fascists of 20th century Italy. Photo: Fristaci/AGF/REX/Shutterstock “There is a very simple way in which the Brothers of Italy could show that they have made a break with the past,” says Fiano. “They could remove the tricolor flame from their logo, which dates back to Mussolini’s supporters. But we are interested in challenging their ideas and values today.” He cites the resolution passed last week by the European Parliament, which said that under Viktor Orbán, Hungary is no longer a full democracy and has turned into an electoral autocracy. “Meloni is the main supporter of a leader who invented the idea of ’illiberal democracy.’ He says that if a leader wins through voting, that is democracy. So is Putin a democrat? We know they want to change the presidential system, but they won’t say how. I’m not accusing the brothers of Italy or Rauti of being fascists, but history teaches lessons.” Rauti dismisses such talk as part of a “fear project” campaign by the left – one that is doomed to fail. “The left is apoplectic,” he says, “because it has realized that after a long period in which it has been in government, it is going to lose its hegemony. The Italian right made a journey. We are a conservative party. What is fascinating about Sesto is that the changing politics here have predicted what is happening in the rest of Italy. The old worker votes for Meloni and the right.” Giorgia Meloni, the leader of the Brothers of Italy. Photo: Pasquale Gargano/Pacific Press/REX/Shutterstock In Viale Casiraghi in Sesto, where Russo’s group of activists had gathered earlier, the views of Cosimo Apicella, 77, seem to confirm this position. Apicella worked as an engineer at the giant Falck steelworks that once dominated the Sesto skyline. In the 1990s, as local industry closed, he voted hard left. On Sunday, he will vote in favor of the right-wing coalition represented by Rauti. “The left has stopped representing workers,” Apicella said. “There used to be two Milanese, the Catholic one from the bosses and the middle classes and the left one from the workers. The second world has dissolved. Politicians on the left have allowed globalization to destroy it. Be sure to put it on your paper.” Perhaps more importantly for the future, the sense of post-industrial disenchantment in places like this has been carried over to subsequent generations. According to Roberto Camagni, professor of urban economics at the Politecnico di Milano: “Workers – that old phrase – is no longer a relevant category in Sesto. The loss of the old blue world in Sesto and elsewhere was also a cultural loss. The old class solidarities disappeared, along with a sense of security.” The new reality is more restless and more fluid in its political commitments. “The sons and daughters of many of these old workers are more insecure, often in precarious jobs,” says Camagni. “Or they are employed in call centers and low-level jobs that are vulnerable to automation. The far-right is capitalizing on a widespread sense of frustration, exploiting it to create a different, threatening kind of solidarity – one that unites people against immigrants and other minorities.” As in Orbán’s Hungary, gender theory has become a useful dividing line. During an increasingly polarized campaign, Rauti, who is a spokesman for the Brothers of Italy for equal rights, made headlines by attacking a recently broadcast episode of Peppa Pig featuring a polar bear character with same-sex parents. Since his election in 2017, Sesto’s first right-wing mayor, Roberto di Stefano, has strictly followed the playbook described by Camani. A supporter of Matteo Salvini’s populist League party, Di Stefano orchestrated bitter opposition to plans for a mosque adequate for the city’s sizeable Muslim population, which currently worships in a prefabricated hut outside the city. Recently re-elected, during his first term he also launched a “clean the streets” campaign. More than 200 people were driven out of the city – most of them homeless, immigrants or street vendors. Samarkanda Abou El Kheir, a researcher for a popular TV show, has lived in Sesto most of her life. Half Italian and half Egyptian, she watches Meloni’s rise and Rauti’s campaign with horror. “I’m scared of the direction of travel,” he says. “In Sesto lately, and not only here, you can feel a changing atmosphere happening in everyday life. The campaign against mosques in particular was so damaging. I am an Italian citizen who has the freedom to adopt the faith of my choice. Why should I pray in a kind of container? Sesto San Giovanni Train Station. Nicknamed Stalingrad, the area’s streets and urban buildings still bear witness to the bygone era when the local Communist Party ruled the region, supported by a huge workforce employed in four metallurgical plants. Photo: Phil Wills/Alamy “My mother is Italian. But because I wear a headscarf I am never treated as Italian. The extreme right talks about the need to integrate immigrants and then does everything it can to make integration impossible.” When it comes to housing and jobs, he says, an Italians First approach is in full swing. “If you’re an immigrant, then the message is ‘one false move and you’ll be thrown out.’ This is not only happening here in Sesto, although perhaps the hostility of politics is more open here. I sympathize with ordinary people who struggle with bills and financial difficulties and have few options. But politicians need to stop blaming immigrants, LGBT people and other minorities for years of economic policy failure.” According to a study, Sesto San Giovanni is one of 67 places in first place where the result could go either way. These key battles will determine both whether Giorgia Meloni becomes Italy’s next prime minister and whether she wins a two-thirds majority and with it the power to change Italy’s constitution. As unlikely as it seemed even 10 years ago, “Stalingrad” could help create the most right-wing government in Italy’s post-war history. For those in the city who have remained faithful to its political traditions, it is a difficult prospect to contemplate. “In the 1970s, Sesto was awarded a gold medal for military valor for his resistance to the Nazis,” says Abou El Kheir. “If Rauti wins here on Sunday, the daughter of a known fascist, it will be incredibly painful.”
