On Southern Italy
By Benito Mussolini
[...]
Then there is the tangible symbolic significance of the gesture of solidarity towards our brothers in the south of Italy.
D'Azeglio said that, having made Italy, it was necessary to make Italians. Perhaps Italy is not yet finished, indeed it is not finished, but the Italians are making themselves through the efforts of the war, through the hard struggles of the post-war period, and through the Fascist revolution. All this has given rise to pride in feeling Italian and awareness of national sentiment, and this national consciousness has spread to all corners of the peninsula from north to south.
I visited southern Italy and I reported complex and discordant impressions. They are a wonderful, sober and patriotic people whose instincts and traditions have never been infected by northern or Russian diseases. But in certain areas they live in living conditions which I would call prehuman or prehistoric. None of the municipalities in Basilicata have any water, and not just for washing, but for drinking! And it is only with the rise of the Fascist government that Basilicata will finally receive an aqueduct.
Many dozens of municipalities in Calabria and hundreds of municipalities in Sicily are in a state that can be defined as absolutely primitive. In Messina some 60,000 Italian citizens have lived in barracks for fifteen years. These shameful living conditions are unfit for human beings.
And yet these people not only have never been Bolsheviks, but they do not even complain: they are strong, patient, resigned. And anxious. Anxious for a National Government.
And the National Government meets these people not with mere rhetorical words, but with deeds. Thus those people no longer feel forgotten, they no longer feel neglected; they have tangible, daily documentation that the Government also takes care of that prolific, sober, hard-working part of Italy, which is a great reserve for the nation's destinies.
Alongside these government works, it is also necessary to provide proofs of solidarity...
The people of the south are sensitive and sentimental, they appreciate every generous gesture and want to feel ever more intimately linked to the great family [of the Nation].
Milan, I dare say, is dear to the heart of all southerners; Milan was the first to help Messina; many thousands of southerners live in Milan; and when the bell sounded for national solidarity, Milan always responded superbly on the front line.
This gesture will consolidate the bonds of fraternity between the inhabitants of Milan and the people of the south and the islands.
So, little by little, by will of the Government and by this impulse of human solidarity which touches all of Italy and which gathers all the sons of the Nation, we will reach that goal towards which all our forces and all our energies tend. It is the goal that warms every spirit, and which must also incite us in the obscure daily work of performing labor with discipline, harmony, and a spirit of devout obedience. This goal is no longer a mere word, because Italy exists and the Italians exist.
And that goal is the greatness of the Fatherland.
