What is the relationship between Benito Juárez and Benito Mussolini

This Monday, March 21, the doors of one of the megaprojects of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) will open, which, since its inception, has been surrounded by controversy: the Felipe Ángeles International Airport.

The new facility was raised leaving the corpse of the recently begun New Mexico City International Airport (NAICM) or Texcoco airport, which was one of the emblematic projects of the presidency of Enrique Peña Nieto.

AMLO promoted and defended AIFA from all kinds of attacks, despite the fact that it was built with great speed, the change in the budget, the designs of its logo, of being a work commissioned by the military, and so on.

However, the president during his morning conference from the state of Oaxaca on the birth of former President Benito Juárez, where he explained where the famous saying “Do what the wind does to me Juarez”. He also enunciated it to ensure that the criticism of the so-called “conservatives” did not harm him.

“That is why it is said that the conservatives did to the country what the wind did to Juarez (...) They will continue to do what the wind does to Juarez, the conservatives”, referring to that they will remain unharmed.

For this reason, the writer and historian, Alejandro Rosas, ironically commented on his Twitter account that he expected the president to talk about the relationship between the name of Benito Juárez and that of a famous fascist dictator of the mid-twentieth century:

This in remembrance to a controversial chapter in which AMLO spoke of that connection.

According to the story that the president explained during his participation in the General Assembly of the United Nations (UN), he spoke of the fame of the Merciful of the Americas in Mexico and the world and mentioned an unfortunate anecdote.

For the dictator Benito Mussolini was named after the Oaxacan who defeated the French by firing Emperor Maximilian of Habsburg.

“His behavior and fame were so important that Benito Mussolini bears that name because his father wanted him to be named after Benito Juárez”

This earned him criticism because of the things he could have mentioned he spoke of that curious and unfortunate connection. Many complained that despite the liberal president's actions such as The Laws of Reform, he could only mention that fortuitous episode.

However, AMLO's assertion is recognized by some as fact. In Álvaro Lozano's book, Mussolini and Italian Fascism, he mentions that the Duce was named after the Mexican president because of his father's liberal ideas:

Similarly, politician Guido Dorso in his book Mussolini to the conquest of power mentioned that “his father the socialist Alessandro Mussolini named his son Benito Amilcare Andrea in honor of Benito Juárez, a Mexican revolutionary; Amilcare Cipriani, an Italian revolutionary and Andrea Costa, an Italian socialist deputy.”

However, although Alejandro Rosas mentions it in Myths of Mexican History: From Hidalgo to Zedillo, he proposes it more as a rumor: “It is even said that after learning about Juarez's life, the Mussolini family baptized one of their children with the name of Benito.”

KEEP READING: