Interview with Marcello Veneziani by Alessandro Rico for La Verità
Marcello Veneziani is one of the most brilliant right-wing intellectuals in our country. With the Truth he had a wide-ranging conversation about populism, sovereignism, Europe, center-right crisis.
Everyone talks about it, many inappropriately. But what is populism, Professor Veneziani?
Populism is the elementary school of new politics.
Effective but cryptic. Explain it to me better?
Populism starts from the discomfort of people who feel dispossessed of the power to decide, cornered by the oligarchies. And he reacts by bringing back the question of the centrality of the people.
And what does it have to do with sovereignty?
Sovereignty is the next level; middle school.
Meaning what?
Sovereignty is not just about popular sovereignty, but of the importance of the sovereignty of a nation in relation to the globalized world. It talks about defending borders and identities. And of the importance of the sovereign decision.
And high schools?
They're the next level, what is still missing.
What do you study at the high school of new politics?
In high school, sovereignism should be linked to a political tradition and produce ruling classes, rather than stopping at the illusion of the direct relationship between leader and people.
No to direct democracy?
The self-government of society and direct democracy are an impracticable utopia, which gives rise to either anarchy or despotism.
So, as someone said, the government will always be oligarchic?
Right. Good governments are not those without elites. Good governments are those in which the few, the elite, they serve the interests of many.
But it makes sense to be sovereignists in such an interconnected world?
Precisely for this reason it must be. There is an objective push from the markets and technology, which is not the place to demonize, towards globalisation. We need to draw boundaries, to compensate for this push with cultural delimitations and identity references, that act as counterweights.
In the meantime, but, even the government of change had to come to terms with Europe under the pressure of the spread.
A government born from a contract and not from a political alliance, where inexperience is prevalent, must have the prudence to consider the real balance of power.
He says it is right to deal with the Eurocrats?
If the government had broad shoulders, the right alliances at an international level to carry his battle to the end, I would be the first to argue that we should fight Brussels to the bitter end. But in the condition we are in, reaching a compromise is inevitable.
In this government of "amateurs", as she says, who is saved?
The Northern League and Matteo Salvini.
For the rest?
We have a Prime Minister who, to be a helper, makes a good impression...
It doesn't save the grillini?
Some are objectively unacceptable.
You wrote that populists will also have to deal with the defense of life. The yellow-blue majority, but, it is divided on ethical issues. This will be the casus belli between Lega and 5 place?
The divisions within the government on these issues are very serious and insurmountable. But I am convinced that the prevalence of the pragmatic character of this coalition will bring Lega e 5 stars to avoid conflict.
But on these matters, rather than inventing new devilry, it is not better not to legislate at all?
Yes, if there is a risk of causing damage it is better to do nothing, But I'm worried...
From what?
If you don't legislate, the sentences of the Constitutional Court count, of the European Court, of the assault magistrates.
The famous creative jurisprudence…
Exact. If on issues such as the end of life or gay adoptions there is a flowering of creative jurisprudence, it is better to take the risk of opening a discussion to arrive at a law.
But also the Church, who once spoke of "non-negotiable values", seems to have abandoned these battles.
Jorge Mario Bergoglio's Church no longer has the priority of defending the Christian religion. He just hopes to survive despite his obvious decline.
It's not too harsh?
When a Pope tells you that, since in certain parishes there are no longer faithful or priests, we must use churches to house the poor, it means that he has already changed the "social name" of the Church. It means that he transformed it into a kind of NGO.
There is another old institution in crisis: the centre-right. Dying or dead?
Not just dead, but buried.
Really? Buried?
But yes. It was founded on leaders who no longer exist and is now an unworkable alliance. And then, let's tell the truth...
Let's face it.
The center-right was a Berlusconian monarchy under a false name. Now that Silvio Berlusconi has lost the crown and perhaps also what is underneath it, the head, it's good to start thinking about alliances outside of that formula.
Yes but what is outside that formula?
The problem is precisely identifying a subject who, together with Salvini and Giorgia Meloni, can represent the Catholic world, moderate and what Forza Italia was.
Professor Giovanni Orsina, to the Truth, he said that a centre-right government with Salvini as prime minister would reinvigorate bipolarism. Share?
He's probably right. But it would be a bipolarism that would be difficult to outline in its contours.
In what sense?
First of all, the Movement 5 stars as one would pose? One side against Salvini, but another part, if not in his favor, it would be "on the side". And the part of Forza Italia now subordinate to the Democratic Party would be against Salvini? It is the Renzian party, third compared to the Democratic Party?.
Many say that populism wins thanks to fake news. Lei, but, he wrote that "post-truth" is an invention of 1968. Why?
Sixty-eight accustomed us to the demolition of the truth, to the disappearance of reality, to the belief that the interpretation of reality must prevail over reality itself. We could have expected that fake news would not arise?
There's more?
Right: "post-truths" are perhaps not a consequence of the "prefalsehoods" produced by the large information factory? They are not the artisanal answers, sparse in rete, arise in reaction to a system that tells you what to think, what to say, and what language to use – obviously, the politically correct one?.
In fact, you maintain that political correctness is the true dictatorship. How do you get out of it?
Coming back to reality. Reality is more complex than unilateral ideology and corrective busts.".
Explain to me better.
«All historical experiences cannot be reduced to an obsession with fascism and Nazism. All languages ​​cannot be reduced to a single lexicon, hypocritical, so as not to offend the susceptibilities of so-called sensitive minorities (gay, neri, etc.). Political correctness wants to box reality in a bubble".
It seems that the European Union will also have a nice reality check in the May elections. Europe will collapse?
I do not believe. There will most likely be a leap forward from populist and sovereignist forces, but at least two unknowns remain.
Which?
The first is that, if these forces also exceeded the 30%, a coalition of all the others could be cemented, one kind of divine convention to exclude.
And the second?
The second unknown concerns the modularity of sovereignist parties. I support from 30 years the importance of giving life to an international of homelands, but I realize the difficulty of the undertaking. When it comes to defending national interests, Obviously, a sovereignist cannot think about the sovereignists of the other house...
So there is a risk of short circuit?
Yes. And then there is an internal complexity to the nature of populist movements.
That is to say?
There is a component that cannot be reduced to national populism: for example, grillini in Italy, like the indignados in Spain. All movements that have a radical aspect, more than national. But even in the nationalist component there are movements like Vox in Spain, which arise in continuity with the past and others which instead arise in rupture with the past, like the League, which has a secessionist tradition.
Speaking of the past: Those who see the return of fascism in populists are right?
It's science fiction. Fascism will not return. This is a terrorist campaign that no longer takes root: the anti-fascist "rococo" is only good for some self-referential intellectual and editorial circuits.
Those who say that Europe saved us from war are also "rococo".?
Yes. Europe didn't save us because it wasn't able to save itself: with the two world wars it lost its centrality on the international scene.
So the idea of ​​Europe must be trashed?
Not this one. But true Europe is based on the diversity of peoples, on traditions, on culture, on safety, on a common foreign and military policy or to stem migratory flows. And instead we find ourselves with a Europe founded on one currency and divided on everything else.
Alessandro Rico, The Truth 10 December 2018
source: http://www.marcelloveneziani.com/uncategorized/adesso-per-la-nuova-politica-e-il-tempo-di-andare-al-liceo/