Claudio Mutti

Claudio Mutti, known also under his assumed Muslim name Omar Amine, is an Italian fascist writer born in 1946 in Parma.1 He had been involved in several far-right organizations brought in connection with terrorist attacks in Italy in the 1970s and 80s, amongst them Ordine Nuovo.

For more than thirty years Mutti taught ancient Greek and Latin at the classical high school in his hometown.1 Since the 1990s he appears in the neo-Eurasianist orbit around the fascist Russian ideologue Alexander Dugin.

Biography

Already in the age of fourteen Mutti turned to political activism by first joining the MSI youth organization, Giovane Italia, of which he subsequently was expelled because of his extremist ideas.1

He then became one of the first activists of the Italian branch of Jeune Europe, an organisation led by the Belgian Jean-François Thiriart, a character who had worked with the collaborationist association Les Amis du Grand Reich allemand (Friends of the Great German Empire) during the Second World War. Mutti, who met Thiriart in Parma in 1964, became editor-in-chief of La Nazione Europea, the monthly magazine of the Italian branch of Jeune Europe, from 1966 to 1970. In that period, Thiriart was embracing an European National Communism, combining ideas of European nationalism and revolutionary nationalism, and tried to find support in Ceausescu's Romania and Maoist China, going so far as to meet Chou Enlaï in Bucharest in 1966.1 Mutti, accordinly, came to define himself a "Nazi-Maoist."2

After a crisis within Jeune Europe, Claudio Mutti joined the organisation Lotta di Popolo in 1969 and in the early 1970s founded Amitiés italo-libyennes (Italian-Libyan Friendships) with Claudio Orsi, the nephew of the former fascist governor of Libya, Italo Balbo.1 At the time, he published two books, La Rivoluzione Culturale Libica and Gheddafi Templare di Allah, the first describing Muammar Gaddafi's raise to power and the reforms undertaken under his leadership, the second is collection of speeches by Gaddafi, presented as being the "Templar of Allah."1

In June 1974, Mutti was arrested and accused of being involved in the Ordine Nero (successor of the Ordine Novo), an underground neo-fascist organization. Between 1974 and 1978, bombings by the Ordine Nero led to a number of wounded and one death, and in 1976 the group assassinated Assistant State Attorney Vittorio Occorsio, prosecutor during the trial to dissolve the Ordine Nuovo, initiated in 1973.3

According to one of the bombers, Vincenzo Vinciguerra, the Italian security services and the "Atlantic Alliance", particularly the United States, had a role in the group's activities.4

At the time of his arrest, Mutti was in possession of a membership card of the Socialist Party, the Potere Operaio group, and the CGIL trade union (the Italian CGT).5 After five months in prison, he was cleared of all charges and released, but remaining accused of having helped Franco Freda, charged of bombings.1

Associated with the Italian extreme right-wing movement, he translated and published in 1976 a reissue, commented by himself, of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, in which he incorporated texts by Julius Evola on the "Jewish question" and the "occult war."6

On 26 August 1980, the Bologna prosecutor issued arrest warrants against 28 extreme right-wing militants of the Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari (Revolutionary Armed Nuclei), including Claudio Mutti7 who, suspected of having participated in the attack on Bologna station, was imprisoned.8 9 All were released from prison in 1981.7

In 1985, he converted to Islam and assumed the name of Omar Amine, in honour of Colonel Johann von Leers, (1902-1965) the SS officer who had served as political advisor to the Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser, who also had changed his name changed to Omar Amin at the time.1 According to Alexandre del Valle, Claudio Mutti is a member of the ultra-radical Al-Mourabitoun group (Independent Nasserite Movement).10

In the 1990s Mutti had contacts to the fascist neo-Eurasanist Alexander Dugin, as evident by a picture showing them together in 1990.11 He appeared also on the editorial board of Dugin’s Elementi with far-right ideologues Alain de Benoist and Robert Steuckers in 1991.

In 2004, he became an editor of the geopolitical journal Eurasia, Rivista di Studi Geopolitici12 , and has been its director and publisher since 2011.

That he belongs to the "Russophile" camp of the international far-right is also shown by his contributions to the neo-Eurasianist think tank Katehon, financed by Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeev, dealing mostly with topics surrounding Islam.13 In the meantime (as of January 2021),  links to Mutti's articles seem to have been removed from the Katehon website, his author profile still being available though.14

2012

In 2012, Mutti appears on the anti-Semitic New Horizons conference in Teheran, Iran. A now defunct SPCL articles recounts the following participants: "Hands Off Syria Coalition steering committee member Issa Chaer," Voltaire Network founder Thierry Meyssan, "World Workers Party member Caleb Maupin, Alt Right journalist Tim Pool, Holocaust denier Kevin Barrett, and Duginists like Voltaire Network associate Mateusz Piskorski, German editor Manuel Ochsenreiter, Leonid Savin, and Claudio Mutti the leading fascist infiltrator of the Campo Antimperialista."15

2014

In 2014, Mutti appeared with the German far-right editor Manuel Ochsenreiter during the New Horizon conference in Teheran, Iran.16

Claudio Mutti (left) and Manuel Ochsenreiter (right)

Image Source

https://www.facebook.com/EurasianArtistsAssociation/photos/a.497558750347806/49…

Ideology

Claudio Mutti has been writing on a variety of topics such as esotericism, symbolism and religion. He has published various studies on writers celebrated in the far right, such as Mircea Eliade, Emil Cioran, Friedrich Nietzsche, René Guénon or Julius Evola. As the author of an introduction to the work of the German sociologist Werner Sombart, he also became interested in the aesthetics of Nazism and its influence. He has also busied himself for many years with Finno-Ugric philology, having authored about thirty articles and essays on Magyar folklore and Hungarian literature.

He is the founder of All'Insegna del Veltro Publishing, which has published works on symbolism, tradition, golden age myths, paganism and Islam, as well as Nazi and fascist authors, including Horia Sima, Corneliu Codreanu, Robert Brasillach, and negationist texts.17

He also contributes to the journal Jihad and translates texts about Islam.

Bibliography

• Ebraicità ed ebraismo, Edizioni di Ar, 1976, 218 p.
• Pittura e alchimia: il linguaggio ermetico del Parmigianino, All'insegna del Veltro, 1978, 50 p.
• Simbolismo e arte sacra : il linguaggio segreto dell'Antelami, Edizioni All'insegna del Veltro, 1978, 67 p.
• Il nazismo e l'islam, Barbarossa, 1986, 19 p.
• Mircea Eliade e la Guardia di Ferro, Roma, All'insegna del Veltro, 1989.

French translations

• Le symbolisme dans la fable. Les racines métahistoriques des contes de fées, Paris, Guy Trédaniel, 1979.
• Symbolisme et art sacré en Italie. Du Baptistère de Parme aux peintres hermétistes de la Renaissance, Milan, Arché, 1980.
• Introduction à l'œuvre de Werner Sombart, Chalon-sur-Saône, Hérode, 1993, 47 p. (traduit par Philippe Baillet)
• Les plumes de l'Archange. Quatre intellectuels roumains face à la Garde de fer : Nae Ionescu, Mircea Eliade, Emil Cioran, Constantin Noica, Chalon-sur-Saône, Hérode, 1993, 143 p. (traduit par Philippe Baillet)
• Nietzsche et l'Islam, Chalon-sur-Saône, Hérode, 1994, 47 p. (traduit par Philippe Baillet, préf. Christophe Levalois)
• Art totalitaire, art national-socialiste, Nantes, Ars Magna, 1998, 20 p.
• La Grande Influence de René Guénon en Roumanie, suivi de Julius Evola en Europe de l'Est, Akribeia, Saint-Genis-Laval, 2002.
• Julius Evola et l'Islam, Nantes, Ars Magna, 2004.
• Le nazisme et l'Islam, Nantes, Ars Magna, 2004.
• Mircea Eliade et la Garde de Fer, Paris, Avatar, 2005, 94 p.

Links

• Website of Eurasia Rivista

• 1 a b c d e f g h Giovanni Savino, "From Evola to Dugin: The Neo-Eurasianist Connection in Italy," in M. Laruelle (ed.), Eurasianism and the European Far-Right: Reshaping the Europe–Russia Relationship, Rowman & Co., Lanham Maryland-London 2015, pp. 97-124.
• 2"An admirer of Islamic fundamentalism and Franco Freda's brand of armed right-wing terrorism to provoke revolution, Mutti styles himself a 'Nazi Maoist.'" See: Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, Hitler's Priestess: Savitri Devi, the Hindu-Aryan Myth, and Neo-Nazism (New York: New York University Press, 1998), 217.
• 3Vittorfranco S. Pisano, The Dynamics of Subversion and Violence in Contemporary Italy, Hoover Press,1987, p. 52 ff, ISBN 978-0-8179-8553-0, https://books.google.nl/books?id=dl1wKolapXIC&pg=PA52&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false.
• 4Philip Willan, Puppetmasters: The Political Use of Terrorism in Italy, iUniverse, 2002, p. 249 ff., ISBN 978-1-4697-1084-6.
• 5Frédéric Laurent, L'Orchestre noir: enquête sur les réseaux néo-fascistes (revised edition), Nouveau Monde Editions, 2013, ISBN: 2365838499, https://books.google.nl/books?id=kIEdAgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=l%27orchestre+noir&hl=nl&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwie8-nmp6LgAhUBMewKHT5LB9oQ6AEIMDAA#v=onepage&q=%22claudio%20mutti%22&f=false.
• 6Pierre-André Taguieff, La Judéophobie des Modernes : des Lumières au Jihad, Odile Jacob, 2008, p. 637, ISBN 978-2-73811-736-6.
• 7 a b Bologna 1980-2011, Unione Sindacale Italiana, archived of 4 April 2017, https://web.archive.org/web/20170404042928/http://www.usi-ait.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=271:bologna-1980-2010&catid=34:archivio-articoli&Itemid=41 "Già il 26 agosto dello stesso anno la Procura della Repubblica di Bologna emise ventotto ordini di cattura nei confronti di militanti di estrema destra dei Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari: Roberto Fiore eMassimo Morsello (futuri fondatori di Forza Nuova), Gabriele Adinolfi, Francesca Mambro, Elio Giallombardo, Amedeo De Francisci, Massimiliano Fachini, Roberto Rinani, Giuseppe Valerio Fioravanti, Claudio Mutti, Mario Corsi, Paolo Pizzonia, Ulderico Sica, Francesco Bianco, Alessanro Pucci, Marcello Iannilli, Paolo Signorelli, PierLuigi Scarano, Francesco Furlotti, Aldo Semerari,Guido Zappavigna, GianLuigi Napoli, Fabio De Felice, Maurizio Neri. Vengono subito interrogati a Ferrara, Roma, Padova e Parma. Tutti saranno scarcerati nel 1981."
• 8L'Express Numbers 1812 to 1824, 1986, p. 48: "Par exemple, dans l'affaire Claudio Mutti, Italien nazi-maoïste, incarcéré, en 1980, pour sa participation à l'attentat de la gare de Bologne, qui a prétendu avoir été inspiré par le 'socialisme islamique' de Kadhafi."
• 9Claire Sterling, The terror network: the secret war of international terrorism, 1981, p. 259: "The head of his early Italy-Libya Association, afloat on Libyan money —and eventually outlawed as a Black terrorist front— was Claudio Mutti, one of Italy's star Nazi-Maoist terrorists, jailed in 1980 for his alleged role in the Bologna railroad station bombing. Mutti's close associate Mario Tuti, now serving a life sentence for terrorist killings, had picked up a hundred-thousand-lire payoff from the Libyan embassy in Rome just before gunning down two policemen in 1975."
• 10Alexandre del Valle, "Islamophobie ou reductio ad Hitlerum?," website of d'Alexandre del Valle, 15 June 2001, http://archive.wikiwix.com/cache/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.alexandredelvalle.com%2Fpublications.php%3Fid_art%3D86: "les liens tissés par la nouvelle droite avec la nébuleuse islamiste, notamment en Italie, où le leader de la mouvance 'brun-vert', Claudio Mutti, alias Omar Amine, membre du groupe ultra-radical des Mourabitoun (qui a mis à prix la tête d’Oriana Fllaci), édite les Protocoles des Sages de Sion."
• 11http://vouloir.hautetfort.com/archive/2011/03/15/dugin.html.
• 12www.eurasia-rivista.org
• 13"Claudio Mutti," http://katehon.com/person/claudio-mutti.
• 14"Claudio Mutti," Katehon, archived version from January 2, 2021, https://web.archive.org/web/20210102122516/https://katehon.com/en/person/claudio-mutti.
• 15Alexander Reid Ross, "The multipolar spin: how fascists operationalize left-wing resentment," Southern Poverty Law Center, March 9, 2018, archived version from March 9, 2018, https://web.archive.org/web/20180309225139/https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/03/09/multipolar-spin-how-fascists-operationalize-left-wing-resentment.
• 16Eurasia Artists Association, Facebook post, October 3, 2014, https://www.facebook.com/EurasianArtistsAssociation/photos/a.497558750347806/498788470224834/?type=3&theater.
• 17Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism, and the Politics of Identity, New York University Press, 2003, p. 105: "His own imprint, Veltro, offers a wide range of books on symbolism, tradition, golden age myths, paganism and Islam, together with works by Nazis and fascists, including Horia Sima, Corneliu Codreanu, Robert Brasillach, and Holocaust denial texts."