Italy: The mid-August crisis

The ever sunny and lazy Italian August brought even a government crisis this year. Instead of gossip under the umbrella, beer and food at will, instead of doing nothing under the hot and shining sun, the Italian holiday month par excellence saw this year the sudden end of the government alliance. The Northern League - 5Stars Movement coalition was the only possible one after the March 2018 elections, but the new government lasted just over a year and was also a difficult and contentious one.

Matteo Salvini, League's strong man, pulled himself out of the alliance immediately becoming the target of poisonous attacks both from the former 5Stars allies and from... all the others. It's like Orwell's two minutes of hatred but lasts much longer.

I don't particularly love Salvini and I did not vote for him in last year's elections, preferring the 5Stars. I was surprised by the votes that the League got and I did not expect Salvini to become Minister of the Interior and Deputy Prime Minister. But later, I begin to think that it was really a good thing: I appreciated some of his initiatives, above all having almost blocked the traffic of immigrants, Africans and not, that Europe had imposed on us with the complicity of the Italian pseudo-left and of Soros style NGOs.

Salvini is seen as a barbarian who speaks to the belly of voters. His political slogan "Italians first!" is radioactive smoke in the eyes of the snowflakes-left that has dominated Italy in recent years, unopposed.

"Italians first!" is a simple and effective slogan: it says that Italians will be at the center of politics and they will be safe, with a job and tranquility. An inflexible but likeable leader, a Gascon with a little belly, the Captain with the mojito in hand that many wanted.

Although they does not like to remember it, also the 5Stars speak to the belly of the voters but in a more aristocratic and plastered manner. They are the good guys who do homework, teacher's pets, the hair in order and listening to mom. They never tell lies and don't eat jam secretly. Therefore, when they choose the slogan "Honesty must come back into fashion" they do not realize that they condemn themselves to failure. If honesty is no longer fashionable, it means that its opposite is: that is, Italians are mostly criminals. Why should they vote for a political party that promises handcuffs and jail to all villains? The 5Stars Movement has not obtained the numbers to rule alone and it is even strange that it has obtained the percentage it holds in this parliament.

The 5Stars Movement is naturally antithetical to all traditional Italian political forces and is condemned to sign with every ally government contracts that are impossible to fully implement. Moreover, some of the current 5Stars parliamentarians come from the Italian Democratic Party (the former Italian communists) and this suggests that the government alliance had to be with the IDP rather than with the League but the numbers decided otherwise.

The 5Stars are wrong: the justice reform thought by the Minister of Justice Alfonso Bonafede is particularly strict and aimed at restoring the authority of the State. It would never have been voted by the Italian Democratic Party, a political party that should be taxed because in recent years it helped and still help to fill the Italian jails with its corrupt politicians. Charge the League of broking the government alliance because it is hostile to the reform of justice means to say a half-truth (perhaps not even this) and against an easy target.

I voted 5Stars, full of enthusiasm, because I was sure that there would be a clear and definitive turn in Italian politics, but I must recognize by now that, when the 5Stars are not naïve, they are often incompetent and cowards. They have just shown it barely in office with the budget law: Europe requires budgets with a maximum deficit of 3%, we do one at 2.4%, therefore widely respecting the limit but no, Brussels orders us to go down again and we lower our breeches up to 2.04%. So why put the 3% limit? Paris regularly goes over it and imposes on its former colonies in Africa the French Colonial Franc which is de facto a parallel currency prohibited by European treaties, but no one dares to breathe. Germany barks at us, ordering us to respect the sanctions against Russia and damaging us more than the Russians. But Berlin is completing the North Stream 2 pipeline that will bring Russian gas to Europe and Siemens, among many other examples, sold turbines to the Russians for their power plants in Crimea.

Some time ago I asked in a column how much fear it was right to give us, we Italians, against a crippled German in a wheelchair and his former DDR boss lady. Now I answer: none. The Italian economy for the moment is even more dynamic than the German one, which bases its strength above all on a foreign trade surplus that has largely attracted the rage of the Trump administration. Our army at this time is stronger than the German one, emasculated, feminized and under-equipped. Except for nukes, our military strength is comparable to the French one: the best units of the Italian army (Folgore, Sassari, Lagunari, 9th Col. Moschin) could all give to the French Foreign Legion a lesson bloody and difficult to forget. But it won't be like this forever. Salvini is the only one who tries to build a dialogue with the armed forces, he is the only one that shows respect for the sacrifices and risks that police faces, without taking them for granted. The 5Stars unfortunately have not been able to do anything better than to impose as defense minister a woman, Elisabetta Trenta, simply hated by generals and admirals.

These days it became known that the German intelligence, the BND, makes its job to managing the flow of immigrants against Italy. Is this how an ally, a friend, of our country behaves? Italy is the laughing-stock of a Germanized North of Europe that wants to strip the flesh out of us in order to save German banks and fill us with immigrants impossible to integrate in our society, so as to sow chaos between us and make us even weaker.

So, where is the difference between us and the Germany of Frau Merkel von DDR and the France of Monsieur the president Marie Macronette, the Toyboy at the Elysée?

Germans and French are united, we are not. If they quarrel over matters of domestic politics, over international ones they show to the world a single face while we are perpetually divided over everything. Here with us, a Sandro Gozi (IDP) [1] can become a consultant for European affairs in the Macron government, while he had already been undersecretary for European affairs in the Italian governments of Renzi and Gentiloni. Here with us, an Andrea Marcucci (IDP) writes an apology letter [2] to the French ambassador, call back to Paris for problems between Italy and France. Here with us, Matteo Orfini Graziano Delrio and Davide Faraone (all of IDP) board the ship of Carola Rackete [3] in solidarity with the immigrants and an Ivan Scalfarotto (IDP) pays visit in jail to the American killer of an Italian carabiniere [4] to be sure he is humanely treated.

Who would do such a thing in France or Germany?

The 5Stars are looking for new allies. Former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, the man with the ice cream in his hand [5], has shown himself available at the cost of a schism inside the Italian Democratic Party. I understand Renzi's haste: some rumors say he made his job in the fake dossier against Trump and that The Donald wants his head, maybe literally. A place in the new government could therefore keep him safe for some time.

Salvini saw Steve Bannon shortly before the crisis of government and he could have given the Americans the guarantees that the 5Stars didn't want or could give, perhaps even guarantees about a future war against Iran. Salvini knows that his game could fail but he accepted the risk. The 5Stars wanted to rub him, allying with the IDP, in the throes of an executioner fury that sees Salvini even as Putin's agent in the Italian version of Russiagate. But Salvini saw their game and raised: dear 5Stars, do you get angry for this? You have made up your mind to reform Europe from within, sure that an enthusiastic Germany will let you do it. If Europe were susceptible to reform, the PIIGS would not exist and Greece would not be in the situation it finds itself now. Who is the naive here? Dear 5Stars, Salvini is not the problem of Italy.

These days, the great and progressive Italian press has directed its media guns against Salvini, firing at full power. Many bloggers have done the same and among them also someone who lives abroad, proud to be the butler of some important German.

August 10th was the anniversary of Nazario Sauro's death [6], the Istrian who, in the name of love for our country, as Austrian subject, chose Italy as his Homeland and fought for Italy during the WWI. He knew what his end could be: captured by the Austrians, he was hanged as traitor to the Empire on August 10th1916 in Pula. Yes, butlers working as servants abroad and looking with contempt on us here in Italy because, according to you, we do not know how to live: men like Sauro have existed and have served Italy. There have been men like him and they there are, they just wait with desperate patience for their moment: this is what scares your masters and you, infamous servants.

Nazario Sauro wrote two testament letters, one to his wife and one to his son, Nino:

"Dear Nino,

you perhaps understand or otherwise you will understand in a few years what my duty as Italian was. I gave to you, to Libero to Anita, to Italo to Albania names of freedom, but not only on paper; these names needed the seal and I kept my oath. I die with the sole regret of depriving my dear and very good children of their beloved father, but the Homeland, which is the plural of father, comes to your aid, and on this Homeland, swears my Nino, and you will make your brothers swear when they have age to understand, that you will always be Italian everywhere! My kisses and my blessing. Dad. Give a kiss to my mother who is the one who will suffer the most for me, love your mother and give my greetings to my father."

Such words and the sacrifice of those who wrote them, of all those who have ever written them and thought about them, make Italian politics very often a bleak show to watch. I would laugh, if it were not a tragedy. Therefore, I will not compare Salvini to Nazario Sauro, be quiet the butlers who voluntarily throw themselves away in Germany. But I want to say one thing, which I say to everyone and therefore to you too, stupid 5Stars: it is not honesty that must come back into fashion, it is Homeland.

[1] https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandro_Gozi

[2] http://www.affaritaliani.it/politica/andrea-marcucci-senatore-pd-scrive-una-lettera-di-scuse-alla-francia-586981.html

[3] https://www.liberoquotidiano.it/news/italia/13478125/sea-watch-matteo-orfini-graziano-delrio-notte-sotto-stelle-carola-rackete-migranti-pd-kit-sopravvivenza.html

[4] https://www.quotidiano.net/politica/scalfarotto-carabiniere-carcere-1.4719934

[5] https://www.dissapore.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Matteo-Renzi-e-il-gelato-di-Grom-1280x720.jpg

[6] https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazario_Sauro

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Costantino Ceoldo - Prava freelance