JJulius Caesar loved women as much as he loved men. General Roberto Vannacci, who describes himself as the heir of the Roman leader and who poisons against homosexuals (FAZ of August 18), has to put up with that, as the Italian classicist Luciano Canfora has just stated in the “Corriere della sera”. With an ironic undertone, he also recalled the words of the historian of philosophy Emilio Bodrero. When Mussolini was still in charge, Caesar called it “the empire’s first black shirt”. Maybe the quote is a mood lifter for the general?
He won’t need him. His book Il mondo al contrario (The World Upside Down) could become Italy’s best-selling book this year, and the general’s isolation after Defense Minister Guido Crosetto ousted him as head of the Military Geographic Institute is now a thing of the past. For days right-wing politicians and right-wing conservative media have been vying to curry favor with the general and stylize the negative reactions to the book as a case of cancel culture. Infrastructure Minister Matteo Salvini made a big leap with a live stream from his desk, in which he chatted about the resentful work like in a program recommending literature.
Giorgia Meloni has completed an institutional turnaround
So he will buy it, explained the head of the Lega and actually had the chutzpah to name it in the same breath as Che Guevara’s “The Partisan War”, which, according to Salvini, he had read in school. After this dig at the formerly left-wing school policy, Salvini said he will now read the book of a man “who was deployed in Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan, who saved lives, who defended the country, the flag and our boys “. He considered it unreasonable to sentence Vannacci to the stake, as Giordano Bruno had done before, Salvini added. Well aware, of course, that some of Meloni’s voters and certain circles in the military had long since declared the general their new icon. On the Facebook page of the National Association of Army Special Forces, one reads, not without a shudder: “The association is rallying around General Vannacci, as commander, as a member of the special forces and as a writer.”
Salvini would like to have all these voices. The chances of that happening are perhaps better than ever. The current prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, had won over many with her years of anti-system sermons and her criticism of the political establishment. Now there is disappointment at their institutional turn, and it is precisely this feeling, this implicit charge of betrayal, that is reflected in Vannacci’s book. It is reminiscent of the right’s mission to “turn the world upside down” again, to attack “woke culture” head-on. A right that strives for acceptance on the European stage, that is silent on “ethnic mixing”, that refrains from fighting gay marriage, is for the general a right that is betraying itself. The conclusion to let the disappointment about their adaptation to the mainstream flow into political action is read between the lines.
The Folgore military unit has always warmed the hearts of the right
The newspaper “La Stampa” has now pointed out that Vannacci is perfect for bringing up the charge of betraying the idea. Vannacci is not just any folkloric interpreter of the so-called folk soul, but “a former leader of the Folgore, the military unit that has always warmed the hearts of the right wing” and, as a man who served on the front lines, is now synonymous to many with “Colonel Mathieu at the Battle of Algiers or Commander Kurtz recounting the horrors of the Cambodian jungle”. In 2020, two official complaints by Vannacci had brought to light that Italian soldiers on a mission in Iraq had been exposed to the risks of enriched uranium without the necessary protection.
The accusation of betrayal of the idea has always been a reason for surges in radicalization among the right. Some fear that in Italy too, the result could be the emergence of a new political movement even further to the right than Meloni’s “Italian Brothers”. The general has so far denied all questions about political ambitions. Some of the press suspects that a collective is actually behind his book. The foreword is also striking, in which the author distances himself “from any type of illegal activity that could result from what he has written”. Vannacci is said to be in the process of preparing public book launches. So you’ll be hearing from him again soon.
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