In terms of arrogance, overbearance and coarseness, in recent days the Italian government, accompanied by its tail of prettified intellectuals, has shown that it is second to none. This time it has become the protagonist of a shameful and farcical political campaign that has even tried, in defiance of general ridicule, to arouse a broader international backlash against Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, an athlete legitimately competing in the Olympics being held these days in Paris. The call was promptly answered by a large army of obscurantists ready to spew their prejudices steeped in petty cunning, discrimination, racism and nationalism.
Imane Khelif is allegedly guilty of winning a boxing match after 45” against the Italian policewoman boxer who made shameful statements, refusing to shake hands with Imane herself. The policewoman has become a flag of the fascist right wing now in government in Italy. According to Italy’s politicians, for the occasion improvising themselves as “scientists” and judges of sports ethics, Imane Khelif would not be genetically a woman and should not be allowed to participate in women’s competitions in her specialty, boxing. The IBA, an obscure international boxing association, apparently based in Russia, declared its support for the Italian policewoman and offered to hand her an amount of 100,000 euros as compensation and prize money.
Various representatives of self-styled “leftist” red-brown organizations also did not fail to join the doge. On this occasion Popular Resistance comes out of the closet and shows its true face. The communiqué of Popular Resistance, which claims to refer ideologically to communism and even to Marxism-Leninism, in line with the various exponents of fascist parties and groups states, “The boxer Carini was forced to retire against the athlete from Algeria with the xy chromosome Imane Khelif after just 60 seconds. … a match that should not have even started, which distorts the whole competition and covers the competition, the IOC and the whole ‘Olympiad with ridicule. Women’s Boxing suffers this farce where an athlete with the XY chromosomes and testosterone of a man is allowed to compete in women’s competitions.”
Former boxer Marco Rizzo’s Popular Sovereign Democracy could not miss the roll call, increasingly organically linked to sectors of the far right, which does not give up presenting itself, competing with Popular Resistance, as the legitimate heir of the “Communist Party/Popular Left” and the experience of the formation of the “Communist Youth Front” outcomes of, among others, the fragmentation of the “Communist Refoundation” Party. Rizzo asserted against Imane Khelifi and in violent polemic against the Olympic committee: the “Rules of Sport are reset to zero and totally replaced by ideology. That of globalist and liberalist totalitarianism. We are against both.”
Among other things, to lend support on this occasion to our fascist government were also joined by some of the most reactionary figures in world politics. For example, possible future president Donald Trump or billionaire Elon Musk, owner of social X/Twitter. A sign that by now the issue has transcended the narrow confines of sporting events and our provincial diatribes. Think also of the stance taken by the likes of J.K. Rowling, author of mystical children’s “novels” who has also been trying for years to present herself as a feminist.
All united in the holy crusade against women in the name of the supposed need to scientifically and ethically establish, once and for all, the line between female and male sex. This while feminist collectives such as “”Not one [woman] less”,” which our journalists never fail to quote among the most ‘radical,’ are not spending a word to denounce the seriousness of the cultural and psychological pressure and violence of which our highest institutional representatives have become protagonists against Algerian athlete Imane Khelif. In short, the worthy image of an imperialist country as “ragged” as it is bullying women and peoples who do not belong to the sphere of Western imperialist countries.
Imane Khelif does not come from a privileged family. Her family’s origins are from the working class. While still a young girl, Imane Khelif courageously chose to face a difficult path of emancipation that cost sacrifice, loneliness and humiliation to build her identity as a woman and an athlete. Because of her earnest determination, Imane Khelif was already an example of emancipation for many women in Algeria, even going so far as to win the unsurprising support of her family, which was traditionalist and previously hostile toward her choices.
The shameful crusade mounted against Imane Khelif today makes her objectively and independently of her will a symbol of the struggle for the redemption of all Algerian women and people and is looked upon with admiration by the most conscious and combative men and women of the peoples of other nations and those of the popular masses within the imperialist countries.
For Angela Carini, who chose to achieve notoriety by lending herself to the dirty games of reactionary and obscurantist politics instead of competing fairly in races like all other female athletes, it is not even worth spending many words. Many are now predicting her transition to politics in the ranks of the fascist parties, to which the red-brown groups are increasingly closely aligned.