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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   35341 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 26, 2022

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Something that always bothered me about the Motte is that while massive cultural/political events are going on in Europe, one needs to dive deep into the roundup thread to find any discussion of it at all. Meanwhile the latest trans-people-in-school or outrageous-nytimes-oped controversy (which nobody will remember in a week) will have 500 comment threads dedicated to extreme nitpicking.

Anyway sorry for the rant. It looks like the far-right (of the quite openly far-right, even post-fascist variety) has just won the Italian elections and will very likely going to provide the prime minister to a cabinet that will include a 85 year old Berlusconi among others. Italy is the 3rd most populous and wealthy country in the EU. It also acts as a perennial threat to the stability of the Brussels-led order and the euro, since an Italian default or currency exit would almost definitely trigger the collapse of the euro with who knows what consequences. The EU looks determined to fight. Meloni herself does not sound like the type of politician who will accept to be crushed as easily as her predecessors. Here is a French interview with a 19 years old activist Meloni. She still sounds like a true believer to me. To get the gist of just how radical (from the EU-norm) she is willing to be with regard to cultural issues, I recommend this speech from 3 years ago (with English subs).

What are your expectations? Are we coming near a grand showdown? How is this going to interact with the looming threat of grid collapse in Europe? Russia sanctions and the European willingness to keep Ukrainian army in the field? NATO expansions? Is her family and God rhetoric just fluff or do you expect some real moves in this regard? When the ECB will have to start increasing interest rates substantially and Italy has to choose between bankruptcy or euro-exit, how will this go under this government?

P.S. Italy was one of the most anal countries with regard to vaccine oppression and corona measures in Europe. Does anyone know what the position of the Fratelli was back then? And how they talk about these things now?

This whole thread is kind of odd when only a few posts mention the specific reason the words "fascist" and "post-fascist" are applied to Meloni and Fratelli d'Italia: Her party's roots go directly to the original Italian Fascist party, particularly the Saló Republic period. Wikipedia:

Brothers of Italy emerged from a right-wing split within Silvio Berlusconi's party, The People of Freedom (PdL), in December 2012.[18] The bulk of the party leadership (including Meloni), as well as the symbol of the movement (the tricolour flame),[19] comes from the National Alliance (AN, 1995–2009) party, which had merged into PdL in 2009.[20] AN was the heir to the Italian Social Movement (MSI, 1945–1995), a neo-fascist party founded by former members of the banned National Fascist Party (1921–1943) and the Republican Fascist Party (1943–1945).[21][22][23]

Meloni herself joined at the time when MSI still existed and praised Mussolini in her youth:

Meloni was a teenage activist with the youth wing of the Italian Social Movement (MSI), formed by supporters of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini after World War II.

At 19, campaigning for the far-right National Alliance, she told French television that “Mussolini was a good politician, in that everything he did, he did for Italy.”

After being elected an MP for National Alliance in 2006, she shifted her tone, saying the dictator had made “mistakes,” notably the racial laws, his authoritarianism and entering World War II on the side of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany.

Of course, most actual prestige media reporting on this topic also reports that she has moderated her views and her party's views notably, and the word "post-fascist" is precisely meant to remind that her party, while having fascist roots, cannot be called fascist any more. I'm actually going to quote a local article here from this morning - Google Translate, apart from some flaws, offers a serviceable translation:

THE PARTY LED BY MELONI is right-wing, but it is not market and economic liberal. It gives the state an important role in the economy and its social policy includes income transfers between different income groups. In many matters related to the economy, it is more moderate than, say, the coalition. For example, the Italian brothers opposed the liberalization of the Italian taxi market a few months before the elections.

Outside of Italy, there has also been concern about the country's immigration policy. Meloni has often spoken of his opposition to illegal immigration, but – like Lega 's Matteo Salvini – he has added that the doors are open to those who want to work and do not break the country's laws. This is a necessity for Italy, whose demography is in a catastrophic state. Meloni's view of immigration is therefore in a way more moderate than, for example, that of basic Finns.

It is also worth mentioning that Meloni's party has traditionally been supported by the Italian armed forces. One of the founders of the party - Ignazio La Russa - served as Italy's defense minister for several years. Italy has been a member of NATO since its inception, and the Italian brothers and the parties before it have always been staunch Atlanticists. For them, the Soviet Union before and then Russia has been the entity that Italy has needed a defense alliance for.

"Basic Finns" is a mistranslation of the Finnish right-wing populist party's name.

It absolutely is very common to call Die Linke the post-SED party or otherwise remind that its roots go back to the DDR when discussing it.

I dunno? My occasional experience in looking at German news media content about Die Linke, which hasn't been necessary for some time considering how powerless Die Linke currently is, did tend to emphasize it's DDR roots.

I'd imagine that if we looked at recent German media coverage about Die Linke vis-a-vis FdI, it would probably not need to emphasize the DDR thing that much, since Germans already know what Die Linke is and how it came about to be, while they would very likely be encountering Meloni and FdI for the first time right now.

Anyway, I'm not sure what the problem is. The fascism thing absolutely is a part of FdI's party history, should they NOT mention it for some reason? Censor this rather important part of understanding Italy's political history regarding the election of this party?

Anyway, I'm not sure what the problem is.

I just don't believe this statement. What you're discussing here is a very basic propaganda method, and everybody objects when their side is targeted by it.

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