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This Paolo Di Canio Business

Bullet said:
I lived in Italy for a while and it is common for them to refer to their major political parties as left wing and right wing and communist and fascist.

It really grates against our British ears as we use Labour and Conservative and our major parties are all pretty central, but in Italy there are some really mental choices - that is why Berlusconi was Prime Minister for so long.

The guy is an idiot with a penchant for bunga bunga parties yet he's worth 4 billion and you're not. He ruled the media and football and politics, with strong right wing views.

Almost none of you know the background of how Paolo di Canio was brought up, but it was not similar to being brought up in Crawley or Sussex and watching John Major and Ian Duncan Smith on the news.
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Right. That much is clear. Although I was brought up with Wilson, Heath and (most pointedly for my youth) Thatcher, a polarizer of the highest order. I won't even go there, needless to say I know the point you're trying to make (I think). It's why a few of us have stated that we don't actually think he is a racist, more a bit of a nutter. But the old 'how he was brought up' argument does start to wear a tiny bit thin when you think of how international his career became. You'd be aware that your viewpoints need (a) some boning up on and (b) some potential revision with regards to what you say you believe versus the definitions you use to explain those beliefs. I have spent a fair amount of time in Italy myself (love the place) and none of the Italians I know express 'fascist' beliefs. Again, I suspect Di Canio doesn't actually know the depth of his chosen belief system, but now would be a mighty fine time to do some research and see if he REALLY does side with 'Italian fascism'...
 
Bonsaiboy said:
It's both a beautiful and infuriating place to live. The architecture, food and people, but the bureaucracy, the corruption and the impenetrable politics - 60+ post war governments tells you a lot about Italy. It's inherently unstable, barely a country at all. It's only been united for 150 years, but the collection of states, republics, etc it used to be still exists today in reality. There's differences in regional identity here, but they're nothing compared to Italy.

Sad truth is, Italy needs a strong man leader - and they tend have less desirable qualities attached to them unfortunately.
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This.
 
Haven't followed this thread at all, but I don't see what the problem is.

Di Canio has personal views that others don't agree with just like every single person on the planet does.

Sunderland may be supported by and hence represent people whose interests directly conflict with those of Di Canio's, but this conflict of interests lies completely outside of his powers as SAFC manager. He is not a politician or a Trade Union representative, in which case there would be an obvious problem. Surely regarding the Sunderland job his footballing principles are more important than his political ones.

The only influence he can have as manager of Sunderland is through his actions in the public sphere. Yes, many might feel his past actions have been reprehensible, but 90% of the criticism that has been leveled at him is regarding things he has said or done whilst in Italy where one would not be lambasted for publicly airing fascist views.

This is a completely different context and it is illogical to judge his suitability for the Sunderland job based on these events. I am certain Di Canio is aware of the cultural and political differences between England and Italy, he has lived much of his life here, and I doubt he would be so politically controversial in the public eye. He has plenty else to keep the media happy with!

Now I'm not saying Sunderland fans aren't entitled to be unhappy with his views and to dislike him as a result. But to protest him managing your club based on something totally irrelevant to the game is a joke if he can't actually impose those views on anyone/anything. The media and everyone else have just latched on the word 'fascism', I bet there have been many much more deplorable characters with more bigoted views than Di Canio who have also been adored managers in this country.
 
Hootnow said:
These are some of Mussolini's 'finer' moments...



For people who've read up thoroughly on Mussolini and who still claim that he or Italian Fascists weren't racist, I'm not really sure what to say to be honest.

There are others as well. At various points, he acknowledged that there was no 'pure race' and that it was all you needed to be fiercely proud of being Italian but it is beyond doubt old Benito.

Apparently last year, Swindon Town issued a formal apology to Jonathan Tehoue after Di Canio said something about him to the other players.

I reckon Di Canio at heart only believes in a strong Italy and a link with the fans of his beloved Lazio. I don't think he hates blacks or Slavs. But his views are stupid and out of date unfortunately.
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To be fair to Hitler and co., at the time, the scientific community of the time held eugenics in extremely high esteem, and this was the justification for much social policy across the world. The US and Sweden had forced sterilisation policies among countless others. In America the government even did an experiment with black syphilis patients to examine its effects... over a 40 year period... until 1972. Bottom line is, before we knew anything about the structure of DNA (about 1953) and the fact that 'race' as we perceive it is accounted for by less than 1% of the genome, there was still wide consensus that inferior races existed with no hard evidence to disprove it.

While in most countries, democratic structures would have halted eugenics en masse as seen in Nazi Germany, the Germans got fudged over after WW1 and were willing to put their faith in Hitler's dream. Giving one man all that power, along with his racist/eugenicist views, resulted in the Holocaust. After the war, the world was quick to drop any associations with Nazism and soon eugenics was proven scientifically invalid and brushed under the metaphorical carpet.

Hitler possessed (along with many deplorable traits outside of racism) a great deal of intelligence. He saved Germany from economic enslavement and did a lot of good to certain sections of society. He had a vision for which a moral argument could be made at the time. We all know today that racism is disgusting and a cancer to our society, with no basis whatsoever in fact, and I in no way endorse the atrocities committed by Hitler or any other person/group on the basis of racial superiority, but I can see how people like Hitler and Mussolini developed such racist views. It is the racists of today who I can't understand.

EDIT: This was less of a response to Hootnow and more a general ramble...
 
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Robspur12 said:
For many on this board fortunately this is nothing more than an intellectual debate on political ideology mostly if you are not from an ethnic minority or jewish you will not be directly affected by fascism. It's great to hold the opinion that a man can subscribe to any view he likes in his personal life even vile ones such as fascism unless of course you have been a victim of race hate or antisemetic crime or you have fought fascism as many of the war veterans have. The far right salute given by di canio in 2005 engenders fear in members of the ethnic minority or jewish community because, forgetting for a moment the intellectual debates as to whether it is representative of racism or fascism, mostly it means we are going to get a kick in. It's not as if the far right are shrinking violets who keep their views quietly to themselves. Just ask the tottenham fans cut up in Rome by the Lazio fans from whom Di canio hails. We have every right to question di canio's political views as they may attract a far right element to his club and endanger jewish or ethnic supporters.
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I you raise an interesting point, but I am not sure I agree with the bit in bold. Football clubs do not simply 'attract' fans over night, and I doubt any racist Sunderland fans/ potential Sunderland 'fans' are going to be encouraged enough by this stuff for it to make an impact on the groups you mention. Di Canio and the club will firmly distance themselves from it, and if anything will be even more on the look out for incidents of racism in order to demonstrate their position on the matter. Yes there will be a very small minority of idiotic bigots who parade Di Canio as some sort of hero for about a week, but it won't make them any more or less racist, or active in their racism.

Any racist factions of Sunderland supporters will have already been long-existent before this story broke and will remain so long after Di Canio is out the door. They are more likely to rally around nationalistic ideas such as those of the BNP and EDL than an Italian football manager who there are a couple of allegations against IMO.
 
If anything, all this media exposure is more likely to get people interested in fascist ideas, and not everyone will be as level-headed as people on here...
 
Bullet said:
I lived in Italy for a while and it is common for them to refer to their major political parties as left wing and right wing and communist and fascist.

It really grates against our British ears as we use Labour and Conservative and our major parties are all pretty central, but in Italy there are some really mental choices - that is why Berlusconi was Prime Minister for so long.

The guy is an idiot with a penchant for bunga bunga parties yet he's worth 4 billion and you're not. He ruled the media and football and politics, with strong right wing views.

Almost none of you know the background of how Paolo di Canio was brought up, but it was not similar to being brought up in Crawley or Sussex and watching John Major and Ian Duncan Smith on the news.
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Can I quickly point out that I was not brought up in either, and as such do not hold the political views associated with that. ;)
 
Shows just how scummy the media are. Nothing mentioned before, but moved to the PL and now its a huge story lol. Scummy tossers.
 
I would stop supporting this club if he was ever given a role here. Or any other fascist for that matter. The reason, I hate fascists. I saw the little gnome like taco making his salute with that pathetic Mr Angry man face. I felt rather sorry for the macaron. Some people will do anything for some attention. He can do these things, as it is part of his democratic right. So long as he has no association with Spurs, my only interest will be in ridiculing him to others if he ever does it again.
 
Di Canio did the Roman salute in a public football stadium. He was about 36 years old at the time. He wrote about his admiration of Mussolini in his autobiography. No one forced him to put his fascist beliefs in the public domain. Now they are in the public domain its fair that people ask him about them.
 
Gilzeantoscore said:
I would stop supporting this club if he was ever given a role here. Or any other fascist for that matter. The reason, I hate fascists. I saw the little gnome like taco making his salute with that pathetic Mr Angry man face. I felt rather sorry for the macaron. Some people will do anything for some attention. He can do these things, as it is part of his democratic right. So long as he has no association with Spurs, my only interest will be in ridiculing him to others if he ever does it again.
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the club employs hundreds of people, it's extremely likely that there is someone with fascist views in a role somewhere
 
As soon as I saw the thread title the words Godwin's Law popped into my head. I think it took only 5 posts!
 
Boonie said:
As soon as I saw the thread title the words Godwin's Law popped into my head. I think it took only 5 posts!
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Yeah, real strange someone brings up the subject of a football manager's fascist beliefs and discussion of nazism ensues, how predictable, just as predictable as the reference to Godwin's Law.:ross:
 
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Boonie said:
As soon as I saw the thread title the words Godwin's Law popped into my head. I think it took only 5 posts!
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I'm not sure Godwin's Law is that relevant in a man accused of doing Nazi salutes.. Surely that's the basis on the discussion, not something that has eventually happened..


Like if you started a thread on WW2, when the Nazi's are mentioned it wouldn't be Godwin's Law..
 
Hootnow said:
It was brought up with the Swindon move but unsurprisingly, no-one, especially internationally, gives a fudge about League 2.
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More to the point, it dosnt get exported to every country and counted in the top 50 British export products, or influence billions of young football fans globally ( by young I mean gullible and prone to marketing flimflam ). Which is of course the worry that the Durham Miners have been voicing, and have been calling for a restored Miners Trade Union banner at the stadium to remind people of the sacrifice of millions of ordinary people fighting facists from Cable Street to Guam. The Japanese facists were eating POWs in Borneo because they considered them not even human.

At the risk of sounding racist, I have zero faith in Itlay or its facist tendencies. The whole country is run by Germany anyway now, no more Bunga Bunga parties for you Berlusconi! I also enjoy the Christopher walken scene in True Romance, my favourite bit of 'fudge you nazis' in film history!
 
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