Mussolini In Myth and Memory

“Nostalgia for past authoritarian regimes may contribute to paving the way for a new authoritarianism.” In this magnificent book – Mussolini – In Myth and memory – Paul Corner dissects our all-too fallible recollections of the past. Do we only remember what we want to remember? What we're able to remember? Does memory intentionally warp reality?
These are my questions, and I'm also asking myself. I hold no nostalgic warm feelings for fascist Italy however I do understand the cult of revisionist history – not necessarily in Italy but in many other places.
Part of the myth about Mussolini included that he wasn't that bad, because he wasn't Hitler, and the more famous one – the trains ran on time when he was in power. Corner examines Italy up to, during and just after the Fascist period, and goes into considerable detail explaining why one must consider the entire Fascist package rather than cherry pick.
Living in the land of dictators is not new to me and I am very familiar with revisionist history. While living in the Central African Republic of both Ange-Felix Patassé as well as Francois Bozizé, I was surrounded by locals pining for the days of Jean-Bedel Bokassa, when “things were built.” In the Democratic Republic of Congo, there is a certain nostalgia for the days of Zaire under Mobutu Sese Seko, while in the republics of the former Yugoslavia, many, especially Serbs, pine for the days of Josep Broz, who “held things together.”
In South Africa, where I live, it is not uncommon to find whites (and even some blacks) who will tell you to your face that “things were better under apartheid.”
In order to understand the bigger picture, governments/dictators need to be examined as a whole rather than focusing on some of their parts.
The ruling party in South Africa, the African National Congress, is attempting to take propaganda to levels of the absurd by claiming, especially through social media, that it has the means, the know-how, and the desire, to make South Africa the country it promised to create when it came to power in 1994. Almost 30 years later, through massive corruption and incompetence, the ANC has laid waste to much of what it has touched. At the same time it is attempting to sell its own positive myth while, understandably, dining out on the recent memory of a white racist government.
Is a certain amount of reconciliation with the past necessary, especially when the past is recent? Almost certainly yes. But we should not forget.
No matter what we say or do, history repeats itself.