The crisis of these days, with the arrival of thousands of migrants on the island of Lampedusa, is a tragic detonator that accelerates various social and political processes, showing not an emergency but a permanent condition that has affected the West for many years now and demands answers.
Giorgia Meloni, head of an extreme right-wing government, the “good” one, a time-reader, a perfect communicator in pre-democratic monologues, continues in a risky but useful swing at this moment to reassure her most intransigent electorate: she remains Atlanticist, she asks aid to Europe but in the meantime cultivates and strengthens its relations with far-right governments in Europe. On the one hand, you go to Lampedusa with the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, who promises solidarity with Italy; on the other hand he goes to meet Viktor Orban and signs an unacceptable pact, at the moment in which the Hungarian leader and his government advisors tighten the grates around the women’s cage stating that “in Hungary women have too much space in the university and in the world of education. And this could soon lead men to feminize themselves and lose the behavioral characteristics peculiar to their gender” as stated in a report from the Office of Economic Auditors of the Hungarian Parliament, loyal to Orban, just recently! Furthermore, you have forcefully taken up the formula “God, homeland, family”, an old formula of the more retrogressive right which is being relaunched almost as if to replace the government’s problems in economic policy, in policy on migrants, in labor policies.
She, a Christian, wants to defend God (a burdensome, disturbing and arrogant task since God, any God does not need it since he is the author of all things and since in general autocratic governments have always clung to his defense); she, the mother, wants to defend the family, but she uses an iron fist towards people, mothers, fathers, children who arrive here desperate by sea and find those who send them back to their countries are risky, politically and socially unliveable; She, an Italian, wants to defend her homeland, but many of her citizens cannot find work in it and often die at work, even precarious ones, and have to leave the country because this homeland does not guarantee or protect them. It is not clear which God, which country, which family the Prime Minister is talking about. The decrees issued so far, from that of Cutro to others, such as the latest one after the violence in Caivano, all have a repressive approach and not at the same time reparative of the social realities that express and produce violence: tightening sanctions, prison sentences even for minors of 14 years according to an idea of order and security according to the motto “supervise and punish”. The important thing now is to dupe a part of public opinion like in bullfighting the cape that the bullfighter waves in front of the bull to attract it, confuse it and knock it down.
This oscillation between a Europeanism exhibited out of necessity and a nationalism which is an ancient reflection of the right may still last but in the end it will be presented with the obligation of a choice that can no longer be postponed since only in the commedia dell’arte is it possible that Harlequin is the servant of two masters.
The other problem for the Meloni government is that for a few days it has finally had a clear opposition but to its right and within its own ranks. In fact, Salvini, leader of the League, in the mass epic in Pontida dramatically signed his alliance with Marine Le Pen, leader of the French extreme right, beaming on stage to illustrate her anti-migrant policy and a strengthened anti-Europeanism for a Europe of nations, of the homelands, to be opposed to the financial bureaucratic groups of Brussels. This event and an alliance are very useful to both: Salvini who is trying to get out of the role of second in the government coalition and Le Pen who thus strengthens her opposition to President Macron on the burning issue of immigration and also winks to the traditional French right, Les Républicains to remove them from a possible convergence with the Macronists in the French parliament.
Meloni is therefore on the gridiron, he cannot continue to present himself as a modern Centaur: half man, therefore the part that is with Atlantic and European values, and half horse, the part that shouts the paean of victory with Vox in Spain and considers the Orban’s policies “as a perfect model”. The centaur of the myth, among other things, does not bring them good luck since he was defeated in the war against the Lapiths, the Centauromachy, as Ovid tells us in his Metamorphoses; the current scenario is complicated, Forza Italia, the third government party, makes it known that the alliance with the iron sovereignists belies its own liberal right traditions; the European elections are close and the parties of the various countries have already started the preparatory exercises for a final waltz of victory. And a new Theseus, who knows, could arrive unexpectedly to upset the tight balance on which this right-wing government is based.
