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The Irish Woman Who Shot Mussolini
- ddoolin 6y agoCan an assassination attempt be considered successful even if it fails?
- boomboomsubban 6y agoYes, the attempt was successful but the assassination failed. They weren't thwarted or abandoned as far more assassination attempts against Mussolini were.
- mattnewton 6y agoI disagree, the next paragraph says only one came close to succeeding. I think it should have said “completed” attempts at least to avoid this obvious confusion.
- boomboomsubban 6y agoI also wouldn't word it that way, but it is technically correct. The four "successful" attempts all involve Mussolini in situations where slightly worse luck would have killed him, missed shots or bombs thrown and a sniper arrested just before he reached a balcony. Meanwhile there were many other plots against his life that didn't ever put him in danger.
- munk-a 6y agoI'm also quite confused on the wording here - I would guess you can have multiple people succeed at assassinating someone (if they are all intent on their plan, they all follow the steps of their plan and the target ends up dead whether directly due to their actions or not) but not if the target remains alive.
- unyttigfjelltol 6y agoIt's especially confusing considering that Mussolini eventually met his end at the hands of partisans. So, the event that actually did end his life ... was not a successful assassination? Back to the editors with this article!
- toyg 6y agoHis death was not an “assassination attempt”, but an instance of rough military justice. He was detained while trying to escape a country his troops had lost control of, and subsequently executed. This was (and is) a common instance in military conflicts.
- tomc1985 6y ago"Task failed successfully."
- readflaggedcomm 6y ago>“He was very misogynistic, as was the entire fascist regime,” she says. “He was shocked to be shot by a woman. And he was shocked to be shot by a foreigner. It was a kind of injury to his great ego.” >[...] >As Stonor Saunders explains to the World, misogyny and stigma surrounding mental illness played a role in silencing Gibson’s story for decades. Chauvenism isn't misogyny, but this historian has faith that mountains can be moved so illusion may become reality.
- happytoexplain 6y agoWhy did you phrase this in such a superior way?
- dang 6y agoPlease don't post ideological or political flamebait to HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- readflaggedcomm 6y agoYour accusation is unwarranted. The repeated unsupported use of this now-common epithet does not fit the times or situations it describes. Does any challenge of unstated premises constitute flamebait to you?
- dang 6y agoIt's not clear to me what you're trying to say but sarcastic one-liners on ideologically fraught topics automatically get the "epithet".
- readflaggedcomm 6y agoWhat sarcasm? I was talking about the historian's epithet. This moderation by snark and bad faith doesn't engage readers.
- rodgerd 6y agoA shame she didn't manage to kill him; the world would likely have been a great deal better off for it.
- ggm 6y agoalternative history tends to two paths. The one you say: it would have headed off some X. And, the weight of circumstance: no, somebody else would have filled the need for X, X was going to happen come what may.
- ekianjo 6y agoFunny, but systems hardly collapse if you just remove one person.
- wahern 6y agoThey can if they're built around a cult of personality, of which Mussolini's Italy is often considered an archetype. Though, I have no idea what might have replaced Mussolini's regime.
- riffraff 6y agoIn 1926 Italy had already vastly changed the state (i.e. the parliament could no control the government, elections were tilted in favour of the fascist party) but it was still technically a democracy, it's only in November 1926 that non-fascist parties and organizations were abolished. So, interestingly this specific attempt might have pushed things in 2 directions: faster and harsher repression, or the rise of a less fundamentalist leader. There's plenty of material for ucronic writing :)
- mjcohen 6y agoWhat would have happened if Trump had been killed in 2014?
- selcuka 6y agoTrump was hardly a dictator (he would have loved to be) and he couldn't make any non-reversible changes to the system. He probably won't have any sensible effects in the future of humanity.
- aikinai 6y agoFrom the very beginning of the article, there were four “successful assassination attempts” but only one “ever came close to succeeding?” I’m very lost.
- chc 6y agoI think by "successful" they mean something like "successfully completed." Four attempts to kill Mussolini were carried out to completion, but only one actually succeeded in injuring him, while the others basically just missed.
- blowski 6y agoIt’s like my five successful attempts to play for England in the World Cup Final.
- istjohn 6y agoI wish the article would describe what motivated her in more detail.
- padraic7a 6y agoI think her motivation remains a bit of a mystery.
- waterhouse 6y ago> Gibson’s home country of Ireland is hoping to belatedly recognize her legacy, reports Orla Barry for public radio program the World. The Dublin City Council recently passed a motion giving initial approval for the installation of a plaque in Gibson’s honor. Is it a good policy for a nation to glorify and honor an attempt at assassinating the leader of a nation? Compare to John Brown the abolitionist, who raided a federal armory in an attempt to start a slave revolt (and was executed for treason). Might it be better to say "don't do these things no matter how important you think your cause is"?
- sudosysgen 6y agoThere is nothing wrong with an attempt of assassination of a fascist genocidal dictator. There is actually no other way of improving things. I don't see either why one should oppose a plaque for John Brown.
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- waterhouse 6y agoSo, how many current world leaders would be on your "justifiable to assassinate" list? Kim Jong-un, perhaps? Should it be official U.S. policy to have the CIA working on trying to kill him? Kim Jong-un presumably thinks we're just as evil as we might think he is; should he feel justified in trying to assassinate the leaders of Western countries? How about Putin, people say he jails his political opponents and rigs his elections, does he count? Should there be a Cold War of Assassination going on?
- Synaesthesia 6y agoWhy not start with the leaders of the USA, Israel and the West for their notorious war crimes? At least North Korea hasn't invaded anyone for the last 60 years. As they said in the Nuremberg trials, aggression is the ultimate war crimes, a capital one.
- bitdizzy 6y agoSo much for the tolerant left.
- Synaesthesia 6y agoWe should be passive and cowed and let him rule!
- filmfact 6y agoOr perhaps we should all shoot our political opponents in the street?
- anoncake 6y agoNo, just the tyrants.
- filmfact 6y agoAnd who decides who the tyrants are?
- rijoja 6y agowannabe tyrants
- filmfact 6y agohttps://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/mar/23/facebook-guidelines-allow-for-users-to-call-for-death-of-public-figures https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/mar/23/facebook-... Apparently it’s Facebook.
- anoncake 6y agoDid Facebook publish a whitelist of public figures that may be murdered?
- dc2k08 6y agoShe wasn't Irish. She was British but born in Ireland. This is part of Ireland's attempt to cobble together some sort of anti fascist history as nationalism rises due to the displacement levels of immigration seeing numbers greater than the historical plantations of her kind, the legacy of which still causes trouble to this day.
- gerbler 6y agoMore accurate to say she was Anglo-Irish, as she was born in Ireland. > This is part of Ireland's attempt to cobble together some sort of anti fascist history as nationalism rises due to the displacement levels of immigration seeing numbers greater than the historical plantations of her kind ... Who is creating this narrative? And what do you mean by "Ireland's attempt"?
- Irishsteve 6y agoHe’s onto us !
- dmoo 6y agoNationalism tends to have a different meaning in Ireland and while there is some anti immigration feeling on the rise I would suggest that it is small and entirely misplaced in a country from which many more people traditionally emigrate.
- alberto_ol 6y agoSo also Joyce should be considered a British or an Anglo-Irish writer?
- cafard 6y agoItalian, or maybe Swiss.
- filmfact 6y agoCompare and contrast: Violet Gibson and Thomas Mair. Different politics, same agenda.
- pjc50 6y agoThis makes no sense.
- filmfact 6y agoPersonally I think putting up a plaque celebrating someone with mental health problems and a revolver, who attempted to murder someone doesn’t make any sense.
- anoncake 6y agoDifferent politics = different agenda.
- unicornporn 6y ago37 comments and no links to the source. Here it is: https://www.rte.ie/radio1/doconone/2014/0612/647669-documentary-irishwoman-shot-mussolini-violet-gibson/ https://www.rte.ie/radio1/doconone/2014/0612/647669-document... Listen to it.
- aaron695 6y agoOr read the original news articles for yourself. I don't think the podcast was unbiased. Where you'll read comments like "Not the least curious thing about her is that she was an ardent admirer of Mussolini. The idea of a dictator appealed to her. She had regarded Napoleon as one of the world's greatest men" She was found wandering with a knife. And even the podcast mentions she wasn't even expecting Mussolini to be there, but she had a gun.... https://trove.nla.gov.au/search/category/newspapers?keyword=%22Violet%20Gibson%22&startPos=20 https://trove.nla.gov.au/search/category/newspapers?keyword=...
- pjc50 6y agoIt seems like we have the answer to "should you use a time machine to kill Hitler": no, HN will definitely quibble with you if you do that. I'm also reminded of the term "premature anti-fascist", used against people who were against Fascism too early before WW2.
- filmfact 6y agoPerhaps HN is of the opinion that you shouldn’t mix politics and violence?
- Ar-Curunir 6y agoThen HN is, for the lack of a better word, foolish. Politics is violence. What do you think the military does? What do you think the prison system does does? What do you think the police do? These are all political institutions, and they are all violent; it’s just that the target of the violence is maybe easier for some to ignore (poor black and brown people)
- filmfact 6y agoCool. So rather than vote - shoot? Thomas Mair didn’t like the Jo Coxs politics so he took a shot too. I guess you’ll be setting up a kickstarter for a plaque for him too?
- rijoja 6y agoDoes this article really belong on HN?
- bladefire 6y agoThe Irish woman that almost could
- bladefire 6y agoAlso, they mentioned fascism, so somehow we have to spin this to be Trump's fault.