The birth rate between the globalism of the left and the nation of the right
The debate that developed during the work of the States General on the birth rate highlighted the deep ideal-ideological fractures that characterize the Italian political world. Here are the dichotomies. Gianfranco Polillo's analysis
The debate that developed during the work of the States General on the birth rate highlighted the deep ideal-ideological fractures that characterize the Italian political world. On one side the left, with its globalist suggestions, on the other the right, more careful in defending the specific values of the nation. And in between a difficult, if not impossible, attempt at mediation. At the origin of everything, a long history that has not yet found moments of national reconciliation. With a right that is still the daughter of the Risorgimento and the bloody end of the first attempt at globalization, which led to the Great War. And a left that moves on a completely different terrain.
The latter's DNA is marked by a cultural marriage, whose intrinsic strength has allowed it to overcome other contradictions of an ethical-religious nature. On the one hand, internationalism. Peoples of the world unite. On the other, ecumenism and solidarity of a Catholic nature. La Pira and Dossetti: to have points of reference. Hence the careful policy of Palmiro Togliatti, all calibrated on the need to reach an encounter between the communist people and the Catholic masses, to build a "progressive" society in which socialism became such a distant horizon that it transformed into a simple mirage .
These strongly identifying elements are destined to emerge whenever we speak of Italians, Europeans or other peoples. Each of which has its own cultural identity that no one is able to change at will. Therefore, this observation would be enough to put an end to what, otherwise, risks becoming a useless diatribe. Try asking a Frenchman if he is willing to give up the Marseillaise. Or to an Englishman, who wars in the name of His British Majesty, for not recognizing himself in the "God save the King". Then there is the case of a British premier Rishi Sunak: Asian origins, but a culture that leaves no doubt, considering his curriculum.
Not everyone agrees. “Minister Lollobrigida – tried to counter with a tweet Simona Malpezzi, senator of the Democratic Party – my daughters have a German father, a Croatian grandmother, a Dutch great-grandmother and another Estonian. How do I rank them? First race, then ethnicity: to err is human, to persevere… isn't it that maybe you really believe in it?”. Obviously Lollobrigida will answer, if he deems it appropriate. As far as we are concerned, the example does not stand. What matters is not the color of the skin, but what is in the head of each of us. That complex of elements, those cultural stratifications, which, at the same time, distinguish and unite. And they make us recognize each other, sometimes without even needing to speak, in every single corner of the Earth.
In the past, before the great wars that bloodied the 1900s, those distinctive features perhaps had the consistency of real barriers, especially for the less well-off classes. The most cultured, generally an expression of the wealthy class, were cosmopolitan. The Albertine Statute, which was the Constitution of the Kingdom of Italy, had been written in French and only later translated into Italian. Since the first language was incomprehensible to that "dispersed populace" whose praises Manzoni celebrated in the Adelchi chorus.
Pastist reminiscences? Perhaps. Still better than remaining prisoners of the globalist logic that dominated the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the third millennium. During this period, peoples did not unite in the name of socialism, but were dominated by the development of a finance capitalism, which proved Hilferding right and Lenin wrong. It was a phenomenon that greatly amplified the tendency towards cultural homologation, to the detriment of national differences. But which, in the end, resulted in a strong crowding out and marginalization of the West in favor, above all, of its most bitter enemies: the Eastern autocracies.
At the beginning of the 1980s, when the phenomenon had shown its first stirrings, the weight of the West on the world economy (share of world income) was equal to 63 per cent, against 37 per cent of the emerging economies. Last year this ratio was reversed: 42 per cent for the former, 58 per cent for the latter. And that these are not mere statistical conundrums is demonstrated by what Vladimir Putin is doing and Xi Jinping is helping, albeit with all the dialectical tricks of a millenary culture. If these have been the great results of globalism and internationalism, linked to the developments of globalization, the beginning of a healthy reflection on the part of the left should be more than necessary. To put values back at the center which perhaps, in the past, were removed too hastily.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/la-natalita-fra-il-mondialismo-della-sinistra-e-la-nazione-della-destra/ on Fri, 12 May 2023 18:47:29 +0000.