Giorgia Meloni at CPAC, a new lexicon between freedom and the West
Rereading the speech that Giorgia Meloni gave via video link to CPAC, two elements emerge in the foreground, which go beyond the points rightly underlined by the media on Europe, Ukraine attacked, just and lasting peace. The first element concerns the non-use of the word “right”. A choice that is certainly not casual and not due only to the fact that she was addressing an audience of American and international conservatives.
In fact, Meloni, indicating the objectives of the cultural battle of the "conservatives" - a term used in place of right and right-wing parties - can also refer to the more radical right, prefiguring a common and shared goal to be reached by walking along the same road: "They vote for us," she said, "because we defend freedom, we love our nations, we want to secure borders, we protect citizens and workers from the crazy environmentalism of the left, we defend family and life, we fight against workism , we protect our sacred right to faith and freedom of speech. We fight for common sense.
The battle is tough, but the choice is simple: do we want to go along with the decline or fight it? A new lexicon from the Italian Prime Minister that links the current success of the right to a rebirth of values while connecting the battles of the left to decline. Evolution versus involution, rebirth versus decadence, change versus status quo, hope versus resignation. A certainly clever way to go beyond the categories of right and left.
But rebirth of what? This is the second element that presents itself to a more in-depth analysis of Meloni's speech. Rebirth of the West. A concept, a theme, an ideal that was the protagonist of the speech at CPAC. The West that cannot exist without Europe and cannot be conceived without America. "I still believe in the West," said the Prime Minister, "in the West not as a physical place, but as a civilization. A civilization born from the encounter with Greek philosophy, Roman law and Christian values. A civilization built and defended over the centuries with the genius, energy and sacrifices of many. With the word West we define a way of conceiving the world in which the person is at the center, life is sacred, men are born equal and free, and therefore the law is the same for all, sovereignty belongs to the people and freedom comes before anything else."
Conservatives, an all-encompassing term to mean all the right-wing parties that with various nuances go around representing the alternative to the radical and liberal left, need a myth to evoke and it has been evoked. The West is a founding myth, it is Sparta against the Persian Cyrus in Herodotus's story, it is Ulysses who returns to the roots of Ithaca but is devoured by the anxiety of research, it is the intoxication of Dionysus and the rigor of Apollo, the dialogue of the square, the market, continuous experimentation, the law, polemos and eros, Athens, Rome and New York.By saying she still believes in the West, Giorgia Meloni gave an answer to the many who accused her of aphasia regarding the paradigm shift that Trump is impressing on the global scenario. Not the either/or: to be with Europe or to be with the USA, but the choice of et et: to be with Europe and to be with the USA, to be with the West against its external and internal enemies. The West as a myth, the West which is also a dialectical invention and therefore conceivable only if we identify what the Other is. It is not difficult: for example, who (external enemy) stages macabre ceremonies with the coffins of murdered newborns, who (external and internal enemy) imposes the burqa on women, who (internal enemy) does not recognize the culture of limits. Looking at Prometheus, also an archetype of Western culture, the old categories of right and left return to enlighten us: seen from the left, that of the Titan is a liberating rebellion, seen from the right it is pure nihilism. The same one that risks emptying the old, beloved Europe of meaning.
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