23
Rome, 29 April – The billboard for tonight’s meeting is quite unequivocal, representative Europe as a man holding himself up on crutches and with a bad leg visualized as Italy. Maastricht, between past, present and future, continues to show its face. Without anyone saying much about it. Perhaps distracted by the infinite joy of the external constraint or by mythological suggestions that have little relevance to the prolonged history of this old and run-down continent.
The leg is lame only for those who do not see reality
Europe is a suffering man who walks on crutches and the bad leg is the Italian boot. In addition to the obvious insult, yet another and perhaps even more extreme than the previous ones, the reality of the last forty years easily belies such an embarrassing narrative. We could also say about the last 73, given that Italy is notoriously one of the founding countries of this ignoble mess that we call the European Union, and that its role is renewed both in the recent past and in the present and – unfortunately – in the future. The bad leg continues to be a net contributor, as it always has been (which basically means that it always gives more than it receives), and in recent decades, before the pandemic chaos of Covid, it has always been in primary surplus with the exception of year 2009. A curriculum of “homework” which no one else, among the medium-large countries of the bloc, can exhibit (Germany and, even more so, France cannot do it). Without Italy, the EU would collapse tomorrow morning, not satisfied with the numerous crises that have characterized it in just twenty years of active existence on the continental and international scene. Lame leg a couple of balls, you will forgive the Frenchman. But here another question arises: one can ignore such a manifesto or it can constitute a starting point for reaction. It can be welcomed with the usual inertia of those who basically consider it normal that the Nation will become extinct forever or be a source of further reaction and determination to contest the realization of such a sad scenario, without caring whether it is popular or not but fighting first and foremost for the good of their land. The writer, needless to say, has already made his choice.
With Italy or against
Faced with a disaster like this, there is no different response. No, we cannot use the excuse of the anti-historical “return to the nineteenth century” coming from the right, much less the even more ridiculous one of the return to fascism which is heard, in the form of hysterical squawking, from the left. It is also not acceptable to continue to perpetrate the completely partial and contradictory vision according to which the United States of America would hinder the virtual United States of Europe for fear of who knows what opposing power is being built. An explanation that does not hold up in the face of unequivocal US documents, declassified and released decades ago by the inexplicably (?) ignored Joshua Paul, which demonstrate in an equally unequivocal way how truckloads of big dollars arrived from overseas after the Second World War in order to finance politicians and useful movements with the aim of creating that “united Europe” that many imperial suggestions (yes, anti-historical ones) arouse in some and viscerally anti-Italian in others. And who at the very least should ask themselves why Washington bothers with the risk of fomenting this alleged “divisive Europeanism” without even imagining that it could become – in a completely political fantasy way if we are talking about the day after tomorrow, vaguely realistic only if referring to centuries in future projection – unitary. A simplification that doesn’t help, in a very delicate moment. In the background the usual suggestions of the USA, China, Russia. To ignore the path of finding its own valid and serious international dimension (without being obsessed by that giant complex which, devoted to the “superpower by force”, is an incredible ballast for the elaboration of any vision of Italy) by taking that of the cancellation and the decisions taken as always by others (perhaps not Chinese, Russians or Americans but Germans and French: a big deal), as if who knows what difference it represented. Without saying it, often even without realizing it, perhaps waving a meaningless tricolor on March 17th or November 4th. Or worse still, having the nerve to talk about “homeland” referring to April 25th and other nonsense about dates that represented the end of our independence. But always walking in that direction. The real starting point is to be for or against Italy in the face of this massacre. Even before making any reasoning about the outside, those who feel the first inclination should think first of all about the sick internal body, polluted by those who for decades have made self-racist propaganda and have even made a shameful cartoon like Saturday’s acceptable: and it will have to continue , like a Christian of the first hour, regardless of the persecutions in the empire and without being frightened by the disproportionate number of those who are – implicitly, unconsciously or even deliberately – against. Because in history you win and lose, you are born and you die. But whoever chooses the most comfortable path is already dead.
Stelio Fergola
