Europe: Old Feuds, Fresh Outbursts

A DISCREDITED ideology and an obdurate religious feud produced violence in two European countries last week. In Italy, neo-Fascist youth gangs shattered windows at the University of Milan and painted on a wall in Varese: "Long live the Duce!" They were also accused of spearheading the renewed rioting in Reggio Calabria (lower left) over whether the town is to be chosen over Catanzaro as the capital of the region. In Catanzaro, they were blamed for a grenade attack on anti-Fascist demonstrators, which killed one and injured 13. The Catanzaro incident in turn set off demonstrations and rioting in Naples, Genoa and Rome, as well as a fistfight between Communist and neo-Fascist Deputies in the Italian Parliament. Despite the warnings of the Communists, the neo-Fascists have no chance of emulating Benito Mussolini's 1922 march on Rome. But they are capable of giving the country a case of the jitters. Premier Emilio Colombo declared last week that "infantile extremism" was endangering Italian democracy.

In Northern Ireland, where fighting between the Protestant majority and Catholic minority has raged sporadically since the bloody outbursts in the summer of 1969, the slightest incident can cause a renewal of hostilities. In Belfast last week, when British troops searched Catholic homes for arms caches, a group of Catholics attacked them with stones and bottles, and the battle was on. Using homemade bombs and grenades, mobs burned a bus (lower right) and blew up a water main. By the end of the week, at least four persons were dead, including one British soldier--the first to die since the tommies were sent to Ulster 18 months ago. To prevent the violence from spreading, the government banned a Protestant rally that was to have featured a speech by the Rev. Ian Paisley, Northern Ireland's leading demagogue, and the British prepared to bolster their 6,000-man Ulster garrison with 600 additional troops.

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