Nuccio Ordine | writer and philosopher
Best-selling author such as ‘The Uselessness of the Useless’, received this Monday the award for his career at the Fair Saturday Awards without being able to get Giorgia Meloni out of his head
Philosopher and professor at the University of Calabria, he is the author of ‘best sellers’ such as ‘The utility of the useless’ and ‘Classics for life’. In his youth he worked as a journalist while he was studying – «in my house there was no money to spare» – and since then he has never lost his taste for the rabid current affairs. In this sense, Nuccio Ordine (Calabria, 1958) has always considered himself a thinker and citizen committed to society, “in my country and around the world,” he pointed out this Monday to this newspaper, shortly before receiving at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao the Ad Honorem Award in the fifth edition of the Fair Saturday Awards. Before a packed auditorium, the Italian intellectual thanked the award in Spanish and Basque.
– Universal citizen, allow me now to focus on the figure of Giorgia Meloni. How would you define the ideology of the leader of the Brothers of Italy?
– I understand the interest, more was needed. In fact, it must be stressed that Meloni’s election is not good news for Italy or for Europe. Brothers of Italy is a right-wing party with allies in the European Parliament such as Viktor Orbán in Hungary and Santiago Abascal in Spain.
– Do you think she will be elected Prime Minister?
– Yes Yes. Another thing is how he will deal with the right-wing government alliance and, above all, who will be the economy minister. Complicated, it will be complicated. Consider that Brothers of Italy is part of a coalition that includes Matteo Salvini’s League and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia. They are acronyms with disparity of opinions both on energy issues and in the relationship with the Russians or the European Union. What options will prevail? We’ll see, I don’t want to speculate.
– Would you describe the Brothers of Italy as a neo-fascist formation?
– Well, well, I don’t like to label complex realities. You have to go deeper to understand reality or, at least, not lose the nuances. Brothers of Italy is a wide-ranging right-wing party. There are militants of the extreme right, but also people who do not agree with fascism. It is a populist formation, that is clear. From the outset it has a very aggressive, anti-Europeanist ideology, contrary to immigration and homosexuals.
“Behind Meloni’s party there is an egoism closely connected to ‘Thatcherian’ neoliberalism”
– How do you explain that in just four years you have gone from receiving 4.4% of the votes to 26.3%?
– It has benefited from being a party that, for the time being, has remained on the sidelines of power. He has always been in the opposition and that keeps him…
– Cleansed? Innocent?
– Something like that. Mistrust of politicians has played a role. And also the fact that there is no real left in Italy. Draghi is a very competent man, but banks and finance have played a predominant role on his agenda.
– They say that now there is a lot of ‘qualunquism’ in Italian society. In other words, pure passivity and political apathy.
– Indifference adds to mistrust, indeed. And also fear. A very complicated autumn is approaching, with rising prices, gas and electricity, without seeing light at the end of the tunnel. An ideal context for Brothers of Italy who, like others in his line, is a party that takes advantage of uncertainty for its own benefit. He acts as a ‘fear entrepreneur’. What does this mean? Well, it manages people’s fear and makes it profitable. He is only interested in power and the search for scapegoats. You know, the old story always: the fault of all the ills is of others. Rows are closed and a rigid and theoretically pure identity is defended. Nothing new.
“It is a wide-ranging right-wing party, which includes extremists as well as people who do not share fascism”
stagnant strategy
– The motto ‘God, Country and Family’ smells like mothballs. She draws attention that Hermanos de Italia airs it with such pride.
– It is a stagnant strategy but they exhibit it without complexes. Incredible but true. How sad to have only one homeland… I completed my training in France and I feel very proud. Even more so, here in Bilbao I will allow myself to read a text in Basque, at the Fair Saturday Awards, because my respect for all languages is infinite. Every time one is lost, a window on the world closes. I have that very clear.
–Well, what Meloni likes is to underline her Roman accent and ridicule the French. He has a strange fixation on Emmanuel Macron, don’t you think?
– She is a woman who has not traveled much, really. She has made a career in Rome, starting from scratch. She has made herself and I do not deny that she has merit. I also have a humble origin. I was born in Calabria and in my house there were no books. I never thought that he would become a professor at the University but I met very good teachers. I believe in the human factor and solidarity.
– And can we know what a formation like ‘Brothers of Italy’ believes in?
– In total selfishness, which is summed up in ‘every man for himself and us first’. It is an egoism closely connected to ‘Thatcherian’ neoliberalism that has been imposed as if there were no alternative. Money and identity become an obsession. Foreigners are seen as enemies who take away our work, religion, language… They are lies that poison us.
– Given the general picture, are you optimistic?
– Never stop being. I defend and claim quality education, the humanities and the role of teachers. I insist: the human factor and solidarity make us progress. Along these lines, that books like mine are ‘best sellers’ is a good sign…
– And the uncertainty? The economic crisis? Isn’t that a very dangerous breeding ground?
– Let us not be afraid. Fate is not written. Each one is responsible for his life, we must not allow ourselves to be dragged along with our eyes closed. Let’s have discretion.
Profile
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Exercise: Professor of Italian Literature at the University of Calabria and author of various books, several of them on Giordano Bruno. He has been a visiting professor at centers such as Yale, Paris IV-Sorbonne, CESR in Tours, IEA in Paris, the Warburg Institute and the Max Planck Society in Berlin.
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Some of his works: ‘The utility of the useless’, ‘Classics for life’ and on October 5 ‘Men are not islands’ goes on sale. All of them, in Cliff.
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