This is a self-report. A few days ago I attended a meeting at the Ugo la Malfa Foundation (known subversive of the last century). About a hundred people had gathered in a small room to discuss Siegmund Ginzberg's book Syndrome 1933 (Feltrinelli), which highlights analogies and assonances with what was said then in Germany on the eve of Hitler's rise to power and what is said today, in bars, in newspapers, on TV and even in Parliament. Since the police are so quick to remove banners expressing views that conflict with those of the "Captain" interior minister, they may even regard such gatherings as "seditious gatherings" and begin filing attendees.
Joke, but not too much. Ginzberg's book is not an explicit indictment. He does not openly say that today's national populists risk repeating the same tragedies made by the Nazis and fascists. History repeats itself, but never in exactly the same way. What comes to us from the past is a more or less clear echo that can guide us in decrypting today's events. We often hear or see things we have already seen or read about that have happened in a similar way in the past. But when the feeling of déjà-vu is frequent then it is not just an episodic assonance. It is the social, cultural and political environment that seems to retrace old paths and risks falling back into the same tragic mistakes.
Ginzberg goes on an intentional search for analogies between those years and the current situation in Italy. His is not so much a history book, even if nothing is forced, and all the facts told have been rigorously ascertained by comparing different sources. Nor is it an overtly political book: there is no explicit proposal to avoid the worst. It is a book that invites you to reflect. Through a chilling series of episodes in which the blindness and sloth of the men of the time stand out, the reader is led to think: how did my ancestors be so foolish? But it is a question that many should ask themselves even today. Are we not underestimating the many signs that indicate a degeneration of politics and social culture, and to which we are therefore not responding with the necessary determination?
Like then even our modern populists and nationalists have a set of rhetorical keys that they strike obsessively. The first is the search for the external enemy, the scapegoat, on whom to blame the responsibility for our unhappy situation. It ranges from immigrant which exploits the already suffering people international finance network supported by supranational organizations (today the bureaucrats of Brussels) sucking his blood. “First the Italians” who in years past have been betrayed and abandoned by politicians who only minded their own business. Not to mention the intellectual, of the professors, who didn't want to tell people the truth. Now these new parties promise everything to everyone (and in the last century it was the same) clearly saying that he wanted to do the will of the people. A people that for Salvini is made up of 60 million of his children! A fearful people to whom the preachers of hate propose the exchange between more security and less freedom. Then security and the reconquest of full sovereignty will also have an economic cost, so much so that our ministers increasingly speak, with eager eyes, of the great private wealth of Italians that must be mobilized for the necessary public investments.
The syndrome is that set of symptoms and signals which in medicine give decisive indications on the disease. We have accumulated quite a number of them in recent years. Except that many don't want to see them, others think they are electoral campaign exaggerations, but that once in government even the new revolutionaries will be more realistic. Is this likely to happen? History, as far as it can teach, says this is a false hope.
When a government qualifies as a government of the people against those of the past who had been at the service of speculators and the Europe of the banks, a red alert should light up in all of us. After all, who can go against the will of all the people interpreted by the great father of all? Just a madman or a criminal. So it's quick to turn opponents into traitors, and accuse them of boycotting the "popular will".
The worst is not obvious, but to avoid it we will have to react in time. u
