Georgia Meloni Wins Elections in Italy
“ I am Giorgia. I am a woman, I am a mother, I am Italian, I am Christian.”
These were the strong words of…. MEM and J’s remix ‘I am Giorgia’ currently has 12 million views.
These vehement words have been taken from a 3-year-old speech delivered by Giorgia Meloni, who is now the first woman Prime Minister in Italy.
All that is left to address is whether Giorgia and her party (Brothers of Italy) is a sugar-coated Mussolini or not.
The defeat of Mario Draghi and the victory of the Brother of Italy with 114 seats has left everyone scrimmaging for words. Shaping up into a political blur, the results have left many doubts in the minds of people, the most pressing being,
Is it modern fascist, far right, or solely populist? Does Meloni’s speech mean a shift in the party’s stance?
And perhaps the most concerning, how does the coming of this party affect the European and global political landscape, and link to the long-anticipated rightist wave?
I am Italian.
The first thing to address is the ambiguity surrounding Giorgia’s: Do her agendas reflect the actual political structure for the coming years? While Giorgia’s party on paper is the center-right party, why is there so much obscurity about their near future impact on Italy’s future?
A lot of the existing confusion is mirrored in the shifty tone and policies that were delivered by Meloni after her victory.
After winning the elections, Meloni quite passionately addressed her supporters as a fellow Italian dedicated to serving her country and vowed to govern them. Needless to say, this isn’t a phenomenon we Indians are unfamiliar with.
However, here are a few key points that were highlighted by Meloni in her speech that made her seem like a respectable opinion for Italy.
Firstly she, by stunning contrast, agreed to not exit the European Union and secondly to not join the Hungarian leader Viktor Orban. The European Union has been hanging by the thread since learning about the coming of the Brothers of Italy Party. She stated that she doesn’t need to be accepted by the EU to align her policies and stance on the Ukraine war with them and unvalidated any hopes hard right Orban had about stopping European sanctions against Russia.
Going further she pledged to accept three conditions, starting with the continuation of military support to Ukraine. Secondly, once again as the EU has held its breath tight to see her true colors, is full succor to NATO. Lastly, she stated they won’t be approving new budget slippages intending to keep public debt under control.
Even Though just a matter of a few minutes, this speech bewildered everyone completely causing them to rethink the history of Italy. These passionate words have also been the main driver for thousands of Italians to put their trust in her, seeing her as the source of solutions to their problems.
However, like most things in politics, this is a two-faced situation, where the likely possibility is that all these actions are a complete facade.
I am a neo-fascist nationalist?
The most pressing thing to address next is whether there is a serious risk for Italy and whether is it on the way to following the same path as (Orban’s) Hungary? Does Italy have dark days ahead of it, with brutal repercussions on civil rights and violence against migrants, people of color, and the LGBTQ+ community?
Meloni and her party have made use of mainstream, populist tropes and conciliatory tones to win over the heart of Italians. However, promises reveal as empty when we see the insignificant shift in the Party’s communication with its supporters.
Her strategies of adhering to EU budget rules amplified with emotive language have made her palatable to moderate actors while her main target remains the center-left Democratic Party.
The Brothers of Italy have a history of quite some perturbing actions when it comes to their actual mindset for an ideal society. The most stirring actions are regarding the welfare of migrants and refugees. The Party has often derogatorily referred to these groups as illegals or ‘clandestini’. Imbibing anti-immigration propaganda by conforming to stereotypes such as all undocumented migrants end up as drug dealers and sex workers has slowly led to increasing acceptance of her proposed naval blockade of the Mediterranean. This aims to push back illegal immigrants all while keeping the ‘interest of Italians’ in mind.
Additionally veiled behind the arousing ‘impassioned’ words, are the attacks on the LGBTQ+ communities and the right to abortion. This is made clear by the priorities set by Meloni in her campaign, one of which is to give a boost to ‘traditional families and families with children. Even her emphasis on equality has been to glorify pro-choice options or disregard the right to abort.
Perhaps what poses the biggest danger, is the parallels we can draw between Trump’s and Meloni’s thinking processes. She has blamed the (exaggerated) demographic decline on the free open market and has looked to incentivize local production with tax cuts. While this economic nationalism doesn’t seem to be problematic on the face, it actually leads to the isolation of the market slowing down the rate of development and causing it to stagnate. This has been a common feature in all center-right or hard-right governments and has never reaped good results.
Meloni’s words have acted as a catalyst for increased hatred towards particular communities that have been made the scapegoats for the country’s ills. I will further explain this in the conclusion section.
To conclude this section, whether we title Meloni as a fascist or not, she imposes a considerable threat to the government and puts vulnerable communities and activists in a tough position.
I am the trigger point for the rightist wave that spreads across Europe and the world?
Now that it’s clear that a center-right and likely fascist party has come to power in Italy, what impact does this have on Europe and the world?
Given the increasing stability of the right-wing populist sentiment over the past decade, it is unlikely that we will see major shifts in the attitude of the public.
Conservative, traditionalist, and nationalistic groups have been gaining power all their policies reflecting rightist policies that just might be the downfall of the respective country.
What Italy’s election brings to our attention is the parallels between many of the current rightist governments and their seizure of power. Parties like Brothers of Italy have increasingly found a place in countries like Poland, Brazil, and even India.
Once sparked, right-wing populism spread like a wildfire, where leaders often depict themselves as defenders of countries against a particular threat that appeases the masses such as Orban advocating himself as the elected protector of the country against Europe and Muslim migrants.
Moreover, there seems to be an overlap in the traditional values these conservative groups stand for. These over-politicized agendas include religious beliefs, national identity, and protection against immigration. These lead to collective hatred of chosen communities in society.
The most terrifying realization is how these parties have become so imbibed in society that we don’t even realize how they have shaped much of today’s faulty and repressive system. In fact, we don’t even need to look beyond India’s Example. Our current government as appeasers of the staunch Hindu nationalists has now become emotionally attached to the prime minister and his policies. This includes the actions that strip four million people of their citizenship along the Bangladesh India Border with Religion being key issue for dissent.
Conclusion/ Summary
To conclude this article, while the results of Italy’s election were shocking, it wasn’t a phenomenon we are unfamiliar with. Most, if not all parties have adopted populist rhetoric and strategies, especially during the onset of elections, that play a major role in swaying the voters.
These include the masking of the true nature of a party by using passionate and collectivist methods to promote the party.
However, the results of this election expose the systemic attack democracy has been facing for the past decades that will eventually lead to its downfall.
By twisting one’s objectives to hide the true policies and their intents, democracy fails its most important gatekeepers: The people. However, this is a venom that has spread in most countries, weakening the foundation of universal adult franchises and mutual respect among communities.
When leaders arouse the sentiments of people without being able to give them a constructive direction, it brainwashes people. People connect their values to these political figures that turn them around other communities in society.
As mentioned above, blaming the degradation of Italy on certain communities like immigrants could potentially lead to an extremely violent situation, especially if people’s bitterness and social tensions increase with the onset of the energy crisis.
And what makes it even worse is that these political figures represent inaccurate facts/data. As people say great minds think alike, Trump too had completely turned the masses against the idea of immigrants using the famous words ‘ OUR COUNTRY IS FULL’.
However, great minds too can falter, as research shows that the U.S has a huge capacity to accept immigrants and refugees.
As it turns out Trump is wrong both on the factual and on the objective opinion front of immigrants. Not only are the perceived numbers highly varying, but also the belief that immigrants are harmful to the country is quite to the contrary.
Firstly, there is no credible evidence that the influx of low-skilled laborers harms the economy of the recipient country. Additionally, migrants have been known to serve as a boost to the country’s economy due to the special nature of the labor market, something I will do justice to in the future.
But why restrict it to the US, when many countries with rightist parties have had extreme views regarding migration due to inflated data and outdated and incorrect remarks such as the Brexit crew, Marine le Pen, Assamese in India, and Zimbabweans in South Africa.
Italy is no different as we see that while the actual share of immigrants in the population is 10%, the average perception of that share is 26%.
Likewise, restricting the country’s market from the world is an unhealthy expression of economic nationalism that deeply impacts our liberal market, given that local markets usually can’t keep up with the speed of development making the country not only incapable of meeting the needs of people but cheapening the quality of most products whereas the higher quality is only available to the richer who can meet the import duties.
The last point that I believe is important to address is how the coming of these parties into power is also a threat to social norms of forbearance. While no one side can be blamed for this solely, the rightist might have a larger share of responsibility. Most of the leading democracies are now composed of two strong-rooted parties that oppose each other in terms of policies and plans for the country’s future. However, with time these parties have started becoming more hostile to each other, treating each other as their enemies and not as rivals. This intensified animosity is a result of the rise of to-be-authoritarians in (Usually) rightist parties. This causes parties to oppose each other and refuse to acknowledge each other’s validity as a whole which negatively impacts society.
Additionally, this enmity leads to the use of dirty tricks and deceptive lies in politics that are the source of a lot of corruption in the world.
To leave you with my final remarks, I believe that the rightist wave is indeed a true threat to everything our democracy stands for and is the vehicle for much of the anticipated violence and intercommunity hatred.
The only way we can restore the innocence of democracy is to clear these clouds of ignorance and oblivion and start examining these parties beyond the facade they have put up as gatekeepers of democracy.
