What really happens among the 5 stars
Gianfranco Polillo's analysis
To understand what is happening among the 5 Stars, you have to go to a film library. And look for a great old black and white film. Loaded with years (made in 1952), but above all with awards: 5 oscars, a golden globe, 2 victories at Cannes and the same number of the British Academy Film Awards. "Viva Zapata!" it had been directed by Elia Kazan. Wonderful interpretation by Marlon Brando, who gave life, in fact, to Emiliano Zapata. The revolutionary who, during the Mexican revolt of the early 1900s, fought against the dictator Porfirio Diaz.
The script based on the text by John Steinbeck is intriguing. A farmer, Emiliano in fact, goes in delegation with other campesinos from Diaz to protest against the violence and abuses of large landowners. But he is hunted badly. And that's when he decides to join the other rioters. Soon the bad guys are hunted. But the new ones who arrive are no better than those who have been pushed out. The new power offers Emiliano a piece of land, but for the campesinos everything remains as before.
The only one to gain is his brother Eufemio, also leader of the rioters. Which the victory of the revolution transforms into a ruthless dictator. To the point of remaining indifferent to the killing of Emiliano, who had refused the flattery of the new power. Transparent moral: most of the time we want to change the world; in the end, it is always the latter who wins, changing the challengers. The proper term, borrowed from German philosophy, to describe this regression is: heterogenesis of ends. An unintended consequence of an intentional action. The contrast between the final outcome and the initial good intentions. Contrast that feeds a large part of contemporary history.
The USSR of the October revolution, which is shipwrecked in the despotism of its new ruling classes, which, in turn, make Putin a sort of timeless emperor. Mao's China, which condemned Khrushchev's revisionism, because it was too lukewarm with the Americans, while today that same regime leads the strongest capital-imperialist power in the world. And that is preparing to dominate it. Few examples go against the trend. If we exclude that of the French Revolution, whose greatness was that of producing a change that has remained over time.
Returning to the 5 Stars, even if the comparison appears excessive, what is most striking is the double speed: both in the ascent and in the decline. And with it, the ease with which slogans, which seemed to be carved in stone, were instead immediately set aside. In the quarrel between the MoVimento and Davide Casaleggio we do not know who is wrong and who is right. The commitments undertaken, however, must be respected and the debts paid. Especially from those who had led the assault on the Winter Palace to the cry of "honesty, honesty, honesty". Where did it go? It will be, in all likelihood, the old praetor of the past who will re-establish the truth and oblige the payment of just wages. But beyond any other consideration, it is difficult to escape a sense of sadness.
The least that can be said is that that parable now seems to be heading towards its sad conclusion. That of Giuseppe Conte will be a new "thing", as they used to say, speaking of the thousand turns of the PCI. Even if it is possible that "From what does not arise what", as the late Emanuele Macaluso and Paolo Franchi had feared in one of their essays. We'll see. What is evident, however, is the change in method. The movement of the first hour had been nothing more than a passage from the square to the Parliament. Today, however, Parliament is trying to give life to something different, projecting outward the political weight, if they ever had it, of noble spokesmen, forced to leave the registry of their referents in Casaleggio's hands.
Again this is not the first time this has happened. There are two main cases of ideal type, which still remain in the annals of history: the French and the English. The revolution of 1989 was exclusively a matter of the people. Of which the storming of the Bastille, beyond the strategic value of that enterprise, became the main symbolic element. But it was only a couple of years later, following the King's flight, that the new Legislative Assembly, in which all the popular forces (Foglianti, Giacobini, Girondini, Cordiglieri and in addition the Palude) converged, determined that caesura in the history, which marked a definitive watershed.
The English experience is completely different. For decades Parliament was dominated by two elite forces – the Tories and the Whigs – who had little contact with their constituency. True notables, protected by census suffrage, did not need the people. Then the Whigs, in the mid-1800s, turned into liberals, without changing, however, the essence of their party form. Except admitting to their ranks the first nuclei of trade unionists, who, later, (but we are now at the beginning of the twentieth century) formed the Labor Party, changing the scheme of English democracy. And it was a small revolution. No longer the parliamentary group seeking support from its potential voters, but organized social forces – the Trade Union – sending their representatives to the palaces of power.
Top down versus bottom up: the two opposing schemes that today split the old 5-star movement in two. Old: because that experience no longer exists. It will be something else. Indeed two different "things", destined to compete and conflict. On the one hand, Giuseppe Conte, a proponent of a neo-bourgeois turning point, complete with headquarters in the center of Rome, supported by the ancient legionaries (those who will remain after the electoral decimation), forced to grant them the opportunity of a third term. With a Beppe Grillo left to preach a green revolution, which no longer bites, having become a universal heritage.
On the other hand, the old utopia, just revived by the presence of ancient glories, such as Alessandro Di Battista. However less and less credible. In the sense of utopia: brought, in fact, to its knees by that heterogenesis of the ends mentioned above. A failure that someone should take the trouble to explain. Except aiming to remain one of those minority forces that have always characterized Italian political life. It remains to be seen how this perspective will affect everything else. Especially the internal life of the PD. Whose strategy, all centered on a preferential relationship with the old-fashioned 5 Stars, seems to have lost much of its original polish. Enrico Letta, for the moment, is silent. But around him the party is boiling.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/che-cosa-succede-davvero-tra-i-5-stelle/ on Sat, 10 Apr 2021 09:03:14 +0000.