The political crisis is catastrophic and coincides, at least in part, with the crisis of the left. He has no doubts Fausto Bertinotti, former President of the Chamber and former Secretary of the Communist Re-establishment. Politics is getting closer and chaos has broken out on the left with the split between Calenda and Letta. Now the Democratic Party has stuck with Di Maio, Fratoianni and Bonelli, perhaps not enough to oppose the centre-right. The former CGIL union leader has very clear ideas…
What went wrong with Letta?
I am not suitable for specific analyzes of the behavior of individual managers, because I find all of this questionable. Indeed, delving into the analysis of individual behavior obscures the fundamental fact of the situation: the catastrophe of politics. It’s not about the bugs of this or that there are, but it’s worth investigating the bugs when the big picture – apart from those bugs – could have had a fix. But no here, the catastrophe heralds the death of politics, which in an emergency will be replaced by a technical-oligarchic solution.
Excuse me, can you explain that better?
Politics from lady to servant. In this general framework, all the protagonists are overwhelmed by the lack of density in politics, the lack of relationship between politics and the people. There has been a division between the ruling classes and the people, politics is afloat in the ruling classes. Significant to this non-politics is the relationship between them, but the official country has separated from the real country. In this IPO, the alliances are not the result of a quest for programmatic convergence, only for government takeover. Alliances are only born to win. Individual behavior at this stage is of interest only to the political class. When you step out of this circle, most of the population is uninterested in what is happening. A political-moral revolt against all this politics would be necessary”.
What should be done to turn politics from servant to maid?
I have a precise location, left, and I believe that the crisis of politics and the crisis of the left are closely linked. I don’t want to exaggerate when I say that the crisis of the left is so much part of the crisis of politics, but in a way it’s true. Throughout its history, the Left has had a special relationship with the world of work and has conceived of politics as an idea of building an alternative for society. This urge has fueled all politics to either counteract it or seek dynamic compromise or confront each other in a struggle for supremacy. Everything was animated by these two elements: a social protagonism of the little ones and the vocation to transform society. Without this attraction, politics closes itself in its caricature, governability. It’s gone, it’s just a competition to go to government. A competition to see who can best ensure governability. If I wanted to be worse…
To say.
In our time, the European governments, and particularly the Italian experience of this technical-oligarchic crook, have been the lynchpin of the system, not Parliament, the parties, or civil society. Governments elect the majorities, it’s a paradox. It is the government that from time to time chooses the partners with whom it wants to compete. And when politics can’t stand it any longer, we move towards a technical-oligarchic solution. And it’s a disaster.
A clear judgement…
In France, a political left has been reborn, it has become the protagonist again in a country where the dispute was between the center and the right, between Macron and Le Pen. The rebirth of a radical and influential left allows for a return to the classics, to the struggle between what is recognizable as a left – pacifism, social equality, war fear and so on – a center that can only be democratic and essentially reactionary on the right. All of this is the result of the shock coming from the resurgence of the left.
Back to Italian politics, let’s go to the right. But is the return of fascism really plausible or just campaign hype?
Premise. I am an old fighter, born in the climate of a new anti-fascism, from a movement that is preventing the Italian Social Movement Congress in Genoa. I think that anti-fascism is the basis of our constitution and our republic. Fascism was the tragic emergence of a reactionary force against workers, workers, socialists and communists. A social revenge that becomes fascist imperialism that ends on April 25, 1945. This is fascism.
Could history be repeating itself here?
no There was a risk in the ’60s and ’70s, but I don’t think so anymore. However, I think we need some elements of political clarification. I’m not telling Meloni that her education is fascist. I want you to be asked publicly whether you declare yourself an anti-fascist. So far he has never given an answer to this question and I believe that sooner or later he will give it explicitly.
His analysis on the right is tranchant…
This right is a hymn to inequality and social discrimination. The latter is considered guilty or pollutes society. Just think of immigrants. Meloni is a prudent policy – and for that reason I feel worse – and proposes a naval blockade, something that cannot be done in Europe, it is forbidden. Why is he doing it? Because I think it’s consistent with the American right. The New Right is built on a society conceived as systematically built on inequalities. It is linked to the culture that Foucault denounced as the culture of “guarding and punishing.” It is not an idea of minimal funding, but an idea according to which the successes that are achieved in society – even at the expense of others – are justified in themselves. I think that the right should be fought on a civilizational issue before a governmental issue. Trump was defeated, but do you see how the culture of resentment and discrimination lives on in American society?
Are you afraid that it could also arrive in Italy?
yes there is It doesn’t have the forms of American society, but it’s there. This culture is creeping to the right, with the rejection of the culture of solidarity.
Do you see figures on the left capable of fulfilling these purposes?
I believe that a leader on the left is built into the creation and growth of the subject. While it was always possible for the right to have a charismatic leader, for the left – even with charismatic leaders – there was always the leader of a church, of a community. A recognized expression of the community. Today the vertical crisis of the parties demands the construction of a new subjectivity and its leader will be formed in this new subjectivity.
In this election campaign there is no talk of European solidarity, why?
Because they are accepted by politics as a whole. Impressive: Until recently, each of these decisions involved a debate between pros and cons. Draghi’s policy of anaesthetising, now absolutized with the myth of the Draghi agenda, means that some decisions are denied as such, ascribed their neutralist character. The Draghi agenda is the objectification that the policy chosen by the governments of concerts with the EU and the ECB is not the result of a political decision but is necessary. Anyone who wants to run for government must accept this unconditionally. And with it the death of politics.
And then there’s the matter of alliances…
Italy thoroughly debated the issue of Atlantic alliances, and even when NATO membership was accepted, the political tendencies of both the socialist-communist and Catholic worlds mingled with pacifist and neutralist demands. Just think of the solidarity with the Palestinian people, the history of the Vietnam War and I could go on. Today, however, this discussion is omitted. Without a shot being fired, we became gendarmes of the Atlantic Alliance with Draghi and joined the war party, despite all the polls that said the majority of the Italian people are against arms sales to Ukraine. The people have no voice.
But there is always one constant…
Politics is dead, replaced by a mechanism of command descended directly from the interests of the system. The people is a dependent variable, it is not a complex reality or basis of democracy: it is a variable that depends on the ruling decisions. People are like De Gaulle’s superintendent, they will follow. Until he turns around and there another story begins.
(by Massimo Balsamo)
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