The fatuous pacifism of the pacifists

The vote in the European Parliament on Ukraine is the signal of an opposition that is comfortable with the ambiguity of the majority on the war. Giuliano Cazzola 's opinion

It is difficult to find a unanimous vote from Parliament in the 19th legislature. Perhaps the archivists are able to find some resolution or agenda which, after long mediations, has not seen a clear contrast between the majority and the opposition.

It took the shock caused by the murder of Giulia Cecchettin, so absurd and cruel, to induce Parliament to quickly and unanimously approve law no. 168 of 24 November 2023, Provisions to combat violence against women and domestic violence with amendments to the 2019 law known as the "red code". Normally the forces of the left (unlike the centrists who supported some government initiative until they vanished into the fog) lead an all-out opposition, making crude arguments aimed at the belly of the electorate. Emblematic is the case of the referendum to repeal the Calderoli law, which is branded as a measure for the rich part of the country to the detriment of the poor and accused of splitting Italy by abandoning the South to itself, forgetting that the principle of differentiated autonomy was introduced in the reform of Title V of the 1948 Charter launched by a centre-left government and majority and which was the last president of the PD Council (Paolo Gentiloni at the end of the XVII Legislature) to sign the differentiated autonomy agreements with the governors of the regions involved including Stefano Bonaccini now president of the Democratic Party.

In reality – beyond the judgment on the law – it is a gross controversy to represent the South always queuing in front of Caritas to seek the indispensable assistance. But the left accuses the government of waging war on the poor by abolishing citizenship income and introducing other protection measures. Popular uprisings were expected but were not seen, indeed in the South employment increased more than in the rest of Italy. The left does not intend to help solve the problems, but simply seeks ways to embarrass the government. This was the case last year with the minimum wage soap opera and this year with the ius scholae : in the first case it was clear that the majority would never have voted for a bill presented by the opposition; thus the amendment on the ius scholae only served to put FI in difficulty, whose leader had thrown his heart over the obstacle during the summer but had not gone to get it back so as not to create problems for the government.

The left is also committed to canceling the action taken by its governments (by supporting Landini's referendums) in the last ten years during which the Democratic Party reproaches itself for having governed without having won the elections. And he fails to realize that this is in fact a recognition of the usefulness of that premiership to which he attributes authoritarian delusions and dangers (the writer does not agree with this reform but the left's argument is banal demagogy). And it is part of the creeping controversy over anti-fascism. The left can't wait for April 25th to arrive because on that day it is in a position to weigh family origins and ancestry as a legitimate child against someone born out of wedlock, this in defiance of family law, which provides equal rights. On that day "all the friends of friends" of the left in the newspapers and on TV (nothing but familism!) practice weighing every word uttered by Giorgia Meloni to distil her distance from her with the twenty-year anniversary. While the ANPI always has the last word.

We are now just a few hours away from the opening of the budget session during which rags will fly in Parliament and the majority will be accused of every atrocity, starting with the destruction of public healthcare in favor of private healthcare. And not to protect work. Before addressing these problems, the majority and minorities found a way to divide themselves even over a squalid affair of horns and to argue with mutual and somewhat infamous accusations, from the right, of inefficiency and from the left of profiteering in the face of the new flood in Emilia-Romagna. In those same hours in the Strasbourg Parliament – with a few praiseworthy exceptions – all the representatives of all parties voted against point 8 of the document on Ukraine.

What was written that was so negative as to provoke the vote against in dissonance – for the Democratic Party, FI and Greens – with their groups and parties at European level? Let's read it together: (Parliament) «calls on member states to immediately lift restrictions on the use of Western weapons against legitimate military targets on Russian territory». It was the only point that mattered. It will then be said that the document was voted on in its entirety by the faithless ones. But the signal had already been sent clearly and unambiguously. The signal of the duplicity of a prime minister who on all occasions pursues Zelensky to embrace him and of an opposition which is comfortable with the ambiguity of the majority and which – when it is not distractedly with Putin in the company of Salvini – is unable to free itself from that pacifism which in recent history was directly inspired by the Kremlin regardless of the pro tempore tenant and in his exclusive interest.

This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/pacifismo-sinistra-italia/ on Mon, 23 Sep 2024 05:23:30 +0000.