Manifesto Of The Racist Scientists, 1938

This amazing document was published in the Giornale d'Italia in 1938, and signed by Italian academics and Fascist sympathizers.  At present, it only exists on the internet on a page with a messy background (but thanks, Dr. Rhyne, for putting it up with the original Italian) and on a pro-Nazi site.  So I thought I'd make it available here.  You can skip to item 7 if you just want the spectacular quote.

MANIFESTO OF THE RACIST SCIENTISTS 

(MANIFESTO DEGLI SCIENZIATI RAZZISTI)

1.Human races exist. The existence of the human races is no longer an abstraction of our spirit, but corresponds to a reality that is material and perceptible with our senses. This reality is represented by masses, almost always imposing, of millions of men similar in physical and psychological  characteristics which were inherited and which continue to be inherited. To say that human races exist does not mean a priori that superior or inferior races exist, but only that different human races exist.

2. There exist large races and small races. It is necessary not only to admit that the large classifications which are commonly called races and which are identified only by a few characteristics exist, but it is also necessary to admit that smaller classifications exist (as for example the Nordics, the Mediterraneans, the Dinarics [Serbs, Croats, Montenegrins] ) identified by a larger number of common characteristics. From a biological point of view, these groups constitute the true races, the existence of which is an evident truth.

3. The concept of race is a purely biological concept. It is therefore based on other considerations than the concepts of a people and of a nation, founded essentially on historic, linguistic, and religious considerations. However the differences of peoples and of nations are based on differences of race. If the Italians are different from the French, the Germans, the Turks, the Greeks, etc., it is not only because they have a different language and a different history, but because the racial constitution of these peoples are different. There have been different relationships of different races, which from very ancient times have constituted the diverse peoples. Either one race might have absolute dominance over the others, or all became harmoniously blended, or, finally, one might have persisted unassimilated into the other diverse races.

4. The majority of the population of contemporary Italy is Aryan in origin and its civilization is Aryan. This population with its Aryan civilization has lived for several millennia in our peninsula; very little remains of the civilization of the pre-Aryan civilization. The origin of the present day Italians  stems essentially from elements of these same races which constitute and will constitute the perennially lively fabric of Europe.

5. The influx of huge masses of men in historical times is a legend. After the invasion of the Lombards, there were not in Italy any other notable movements of people capable of influencing the racial physiognomy of the nation. From that derives the fact that, while for other European nations the racial composition has varied notably even in modern times, for Italy, for the most part, the racial composition of today is the same as that of thousands of years ago; the forty-four million Italians of today have arisen, therefore, in the absolute majority from families which have inhabited Italy for almost a millenium.

6. There exists by now a pure "Italian race". This premise is not based on the confusion of the biological concept of race as the historical-linguistic concept of a people and of a nation, but on the purist kinship of blood which unites the Italians of today to the generations which have populated Italy for millennia. This ancient purity of blood is the greatest title of nobility of the Italian Nation.

7. It is time that the Italians proclaim themselves frankly racist. All the work that the regime in Italy has done until now is founded in racism. Reference to racial concepts has always been very frequent in the speeches of the Leader. The question of racism in Italy ought to be treated from a purely biological point of view, without philosophic or religious intentions. The conception of racism in Italy ought to be essentially Italian and its direction Aryan-Nordic. This does not mean, however, to introduce into Italy the theories of German racism as they are or to claim that the Italians and the Scandinavians are the same. But it intends only to point out to the Italians a physical and especially psychological  model of the human race which in its purely European characteristics is completely separated from all of the non-European races, this means to elevate the Italian to an ideal of superior self-consciousness and of greater responsibility.

8. It is necessary to make a clear distinction between the European (Western) Mediterraneans on one side and the Eastern [Mediterraneans] and the Africans on the other. For this reason, those theories are to be considered dangerous that support the African origin of some European peoples and that include even the Semitic and Camitic [North African] populations in a common Mediterranean race, establishing absolutely inadmissible relations and ideological sympathies.

9. Jews do not belong to the Italian race. Of the Semites who in the course of centuries have landed on the sacred soil of our country nothing in general has remained. Even the Arab occupation of Sicily has left nothing outside the memory of some names; and for the rest the process of assimilation was always very rapid in Italy. The Jews represent the only population which has never assimilated in Italy because it is composed of non-European racial elements, absolutely different from the elements from which the Italians have originated.

10. The purely European physical and psychological characteristics ought not to be altered in any way. Union is admissible only with European races, in which case one should not talk of a true and proper hybridism, given that these races belong to a common stock and differ only in some characteristics, while they are the same in very many others.  The purely European character of the Italians would be altered by breeding with any other non-European race bearing a civilization different from the millennial civilization of the Aryans.