FIFTH COLUMN
by Marcello Veneziani
Welcome to the South. It seems like a surreal film but instead the story is coming true. Matteo Salvini he will be crowned King of the South as early as the spring European Championships? Until now he had received sympathy, pats on the back and crowds of onlookers, promises of consensus. Ora, with the conquest of Abruzzo the southern passion for the League is no longer a rumor but a certified reality. Salvini began his conquest of the south from Abruzzo. And the south is preparing to throw open its doors and crown the League as the first party.
It is a novelty with triple jump: after having turned its back on the southern political class of the first republic, and after the Berlusconi season more An, the south now turns its back on the last leader of the protest, the 5 Star Movement, and opens the doors to yesterday's Po Valley enemy, the slayer. How can we explain this radical change? It's just a passing infatuation, a phenomenon of media illusionism that affects a sensitive electorate, disorientated, iridescent?
The past centuries are full of sovereigns and conquerors who came from the north and were enthusiastically welcomed by the southern people. That south that refused the Piedmontese conquest, who missed the Bourbons and rejected the subalpine dynasty that spoke French, in the end he remained faithful to the Savoy to the point that to the south, al referendum, the monarchy won against the republic.
Today the south is experiencing an unprecedented emptying. Even fewer children are born than in the north, the kids go away from the south to study or work, parents fall into depression or sometimes follow them to look after their grandchildren. The old ones remain, migrants, the void. And the mafias, However, they too partly emigrated. The south does little business, it doesn't make history, it doesn't give an opinion. It does not produce culture: once churned out "intellectuals of Magna Graecia"; Now I'm missing those. With the second republic he no longer expressed national leadership. Ora, Instead, due to a coincidence of factors, we have a Sicilian president of the republic, a prime minister from Puglia, a deputy prime minister and head of the 5 Stars from Campania and a president of the Chamber from Naples. This hasn't happened for decades. Last year the south gave the 5 Stars a popular consensus that not even the DC of the best times... A mix of protest and expectations, let's say a vote against power and for citizenship income. The south had rediscovered the Three of Spots, the historic tribunes of the plebs who occupied the seats of the people in Naples: Masaniello-mayor – the former magistrate Luigi De Magistris – the Masaniello-leader – the Guaglione Luigi Di Maio – and the Masaniello of Montecitorio, the late Jacobean Roberto Fico. The rest of the landscape in power is Pd-branded, Sicily aside; the furthest to the right is the governor Vincenzo De Luca.
Ma, judging by the polls, from the air you breathe, from the vote in Abruzzo, the south is also shelving this last season and is taking another path: that of Salvini. What's happening, what they expect from the League?
The first thing to note is that the consensus within the League mirrors the national one. This time the south does not vote differently from the north and the centre, is in step with them. Evidently the perception of reality and politics is common. But this conformity is also reflected in the contents. The south does not ask the League for southern treatment, it does not raise the southern question but the national question regarding Europe and regarding landings from the south of the world. And Salvini does not promise particular advantages to the south, special laws, personal help, such as citizenship income. His direct message is safety, the Italians first, the people first, stop the migrants who press from below and the potentates who oppress from above, border protection, public works, construction sites. Salvini then appears to be the one who defends the religious sense, national sovereignty and the family in the global era of political correctness. In Bossi's time the league attempted to land in the south but promising an anti-unity alliance against Rome. This time the call is the opposite.
Salvini's message takes root in the south, to its ancient reactionary and modernist populism, indifferent and monarchist, anti-system but not anti-State and its ancient right-wing soul, that right of the people that was of Laura e di Admiral or that despite voting for the DC he was Catholic-national, anti-communist, conservative and traditionalist. Compared to the 5star movement, the League appears to be a return to reality, to national and popular roots but at the same time embracing development and not degrowth, like grillini. E, to surprise, no promise of clientelism is announced, as in some ways the Grillino income risks becoming a boomerang, because the audience of the included will be smaller than that of the excluded who have expectations; and this disappointment generates backlash, resentments and revolts. To the south, apart from the pranks of some mayors, like Leoluca Orlando, by Magistris and Mimo Lucan, the strongest opposition to the League comes from two opposing camps: fiction about organized crime and crime itself. The first with Roberto Saviano but also with Andrea Camilleri-Montalbano, prepares boats to disembark migrants (plus the radical poet Erri de Luca). The underworld, around you, be wary of anything you don't control, with whom he has not made any pacts and has no territorial affiliations or parental connections; and then the League presents itself as the party of order and the police.
The first real obstacle in the idyll between the South and Salvini is the promise of autonomy made to the northern regions. How will they take it in the south?? Not bad so far, but we don't know - if and when the project becomes reality - they will still be of the same mind. Meanwhile, love has blossomed and goes from Naples to Bari, from Abruzzo to Sicily. Not just Salvini, but the south also changes the game.
MV, Panorama, n.7 2019
It is a novelty with triple jump: after having turned its back on the southern political class of the first republic, and after the Berlusconi season more An, the south now turns its back on the last leader of the protest, the 5 Star Movement, and opens the doors to yesterday's Po Valley enemy, the slayer. How can we explain this radical change? It's just a passing infatuation, a phenomenon of media illusionism that affects a sensitive electorate, disorientated, iridescent?
The past centuries are full of sovereigns and conquerors who came from the north and were enthusiastically welcomed by the southern people. That south that refused the Piedmontese conquest, who missed the Bourbons and rejected the subalpine dynasty that spoke French, in the end he remained faithful to the Savoy to the point that to the south, al referendum, the monarchy won against the republic.
Today the south is experiencing an unprecedented emptying. Even fewer children are born than in the north, the kids go away from the south to study or work, parents fall into depression or sometimes follow them to look after their grandchildren. The old ones remain, migrants, the void. And the mafias, However, they too partly emigrated. The south does little business, it doesn't make history, it doesn't give an opinion. It does not produce culture: once churned out "intellectuals of Magna Graecia"; Now I'm missing those. With the second republic he no longer expressed national leadership. Ora, Instead, due to a coincidence of factors, we have a Sicilian president of the republic, a prime minister from Puglia, a deputy prime minister and head of the 5 Stars from Campania and a president of the Chamber from Naples. This hasn't happened for decades. Last year the south gave the 5 Stars a popular consensus that not even the DC of the best times... A mix of protest and expectations, let's say a vote against power and for citizenship income. The south had rediscovered the Three of Spots, the historic tribunes of the plebs who occupied the seats of the people in Naples: Masaniello-mayor – the former magistrate Luigi De Magistris – the Masaniello-leader – the Guaglione Luigi Di Maio – and the Masaniello of Montecitorio, the late Jacobean Roberto Fico. The rest of the landscape in power is Pd-branded, Sicily aside; the furthest to the right is the governor Vincenzo De Luca.
Ma, judging by the polls, from the air you breathe, from the vote in Abruzzo, the south is also shelving this last season and is taking another path: that of Salvini. What's happening, what they expect from the League?
The first thing to note is that the consensus within the League mirrors the national one. This time the south does not vote differently from the north and the centre, is in step with them. Evidently the perception of reality and politics is common. But this conformity is also reflected in the contents. The south does not ask the League for southern treatment, it does not raise the southern question but the national question regarding Europe and regarding landings from the south of the world. And Salvini does not promise particular advantages to the south, special laws, personal help, such as citizenship income. His direct message is safety, the Italians first, the people first, stop the migrants who press from below and the potentates who oppress from above, border protection, public works, construction sites. Salvini then appears to be the one who defends the religious sense, national sovereignty and the family in the global era of political correctness. In Bossi's time the league attempted to land in the south but promising an anti-unity alliance against Rome. This time the call is the opposite.
Salvini's message takes root in the south, to its ancient reactionary and modernist populism, indifferent and monarchist, anti-system but not anti-State and its ancient right-wing soul, that right of the people that was of Laura e di Admiral or that despite voting for the DC he was Catholic-national, anti-communist, conservative and traditionalist. Compared to the 5star movement, the League appears to be a return to reality, to national and popular roots but at the same time embracing development and not degrowth, like grillini. E, to surprise, no promise of clientelism is announced, as in some ways the Grillino income risks becoming a boomerang, because the audience of the included will be smaller than that of the excluded who have expectations; and this disappointment generates backlash, resentments and revolts. To the south, apart from the pranks of some mayors, like Leoluca Orlando, by Magistris and Mimo Lucan, the strongest opposition to the League comes from two opposing camps: fiction about organized crime and crime itself. The first with Roberto Saviano but also with Andrea Camilleri-Montalbano, prepares boats to disembark migrants (plus the radical poet Erri de Luca). The underworld, around you, be wary of anything you don't control, with whom he has not made any pacts and has no territorial affiliations or parental connections; and then the League presents itself as the party of order and the police.
The first real obstacle in the idyll between the South and Salvini is the promise of autonomy made to the northern regions. How will they take it in the south?? Not bad so far, but we don't know - if and when the project becomes reality - they will still be of the same mind. Meanwhile, love has blossomed and goes from Naples to Bari, from Abruzzo to Sicily. Not just Salvini, but the south also changes the game.
MV, Panorama, n.7 2019
source – http://www.marcelloveneziani.com/articoli/il-regno-del-sud-e-con-salvini/
