There are times when politicians deserve to be cut some slack – or at least to be listened to and even, perhaps respected for the stand they take. I say this not only because I share my home with one but because, like other human beings, surprise, surprise, they may speak sense and raise important points (although, in my experience, not usually in discussions of our personal domestic issues.)
Everybody likes to knock politicians. There’ll be somebody, somewhere, any time, calling a politician a liar, a thief, dishonest, a hypocrite, evil, greedy, mad and stupid. The list of negative adjectives deployed is endless.
In South Africa and the rest of the world, there are plenty of these types of politicians who fully deserve their labels. As my household’s resident politician has remarked: “It’s these 90 per cent who tend to give the rest of us a bad name.”
Libertarians may dream of drastically minimising the number of politicians through less government, while anarchists would do away with them entirely and, somehow, (I have never been able to fathom how this would work), bring about action through self-governing communities.
But we are stuck with politicians, given that we’ve chosen democracy. To manage our relationship with them, it’s best we evince a healthy scepticism.
This doesn’t mean we should stop listening to what they say and closely watching what they do. None should be above criticism, nor should any be ignored because of the labels that have been hastily ascribed to them by mainstream media. Now is certainly not the time to opt out of staying on top of the news or diversifying one’s sources of news.
This week both Georgia Meloni, Italy’s Prime minister, and our President Cyril Ramaphosa gave speeches in New York City: Meloni at a ceremony at which the Atlantic Council of Global Citizens gave her an award; Ramaphosa to the United Nations General Assembly.
No prize for guessing which one I chose to listen to first.
Meloni is a politician on the rise, it seems, confounding critics who predicted she would quickly plunge Italy into disastrous totalitarianism. Instead she has been named one of Time’s 100 influential people of 2024, and is now receiving a Global Citizen award.
Time to find out for myself why she’s gained unexpected allies and appears on her way to becoming something of a ‘poster girl’ of the anti-woke and contemporary conservatives.
Some would note that Meloni is Italy’s first female leader, but this is not relevant. Pertinent information is she is a single mother, pro-life and family, and Christian. She has been a political party activist since the age of 15, and heads the Fratelli D’Italia (Brothers of Italy) party which political scientists have described as neo-fascist.
In the two years she has been in office so far, Meloni appears to have quickly and successfully recast herself and her party as more to the centre than on the extreme right wing, and has forced people to rethink their original take on her.
I’m not about to initiate the Meloni fan club (no politician should be put on a pedestal, free from criticism, whether alive or dead) but she was worth listening to.
There’s no doubt she has appeal even for those who suspect her party’s totalitarian roots will out. This is not only because she is good-looking and has a sexy Italian accent when speaking English (although this certainly does her no harm) but because she is fierce, and passionate and willing to say things that many won’t.
Elon Musk has described her as “a precious genius”, as” honest, authentic and thoughtful”. Many of her positions on issues have something in common with those of Donald Trump, so that’s not really a surprising assessment from him.
Her acceptance speech at the Global Citizen Awards ceremony was refreshing and music to the ears of those who fear the West is being dangerously destabilised by the radical leftists’ attacks on it on a variety of fronts.
It was clear she has become the virtual ‘poster girl’ for the anti-woke and contemporary conservatives.
“For me the West is more than a physical place’, Meloni said. ‘By the word West we do not simply define countries by specific geographical location, but as a civilization built over the centuries with the genius and sacrifices of many.”
The West, Meloni said, is not geographically defined but is “a system of values in which the person is central, men and women are equal and free and, therefore, the systems are democratic, life is sacred, the state is secular and based on the rule of law.”
Anti-West rhetoric is du jour these days in much of the world and has been a staple sentiment for decades in Africa generally and in South Africa. Symbols of the West’s civilization and its history, as well as its values and freedoms are consistently under attack, from within the West and without.
Clearly the system of values Meloni described closely resembles what underpins our Constitution. The very Constitution which our government of national unity professes is part of the glue that binds its disparate ministers together. The MK party on the other hand appears to want this Constitution replaced.
While the West is demonstrating a mounting discontent with its own symbols of civilisation and looking down on itself, Meloni said, it often also claims to be superior to others. This puts it in danger of becoming ‘a less credible interlocutor’ with the nations of the Global South.
“Autocracies are gaining ground on democracies and we risk looking more and more like a closed and self-referential fortress.”
She is correct. The West does need to chew on this and find some ways of countering this perception.
Meloni suggested the West take a hard look at itself so it can “defend its systems and values and its identity against those who portray it and democracy as failing to deliver”.
Again, I cannot disagree.
‘An army of foreign and malign trolls and bots is engaging in manipulating reality and exploiting our contradictions. But to the authoritarian friends, let me say very clearly that we will stand for our values. We will do that.’
Is there a deliberate conspiracy by big powers to undermine the West?
I waver between ‘not convinced and ‘this may have legs’.
Meloni said she wants to be a leader, doing what the people need, “not a follower of polls”.
That’s an admirable aim. Polls can mislead. But how does a non-divine leader know what the people need, and will the people always appreciate or want what she believes they need? It’s an eternal political problem.
Popular among Western leaders for her solid support of Ukraine. Meloni is a driving force in the European bloc to initiate strategies to keep immigrants from even setting off from their homes. She takes a tough line on human trafficking and small-boat illegal migration. Her detractors also accuse her of eroding LGBTQ rights, basing this mostly, it appears, on her opposition to surrogacy in Italy for foreign parents.
Several months ago, Meloni had to fiercely reprimand youth members of her party who’d been revealed, in video interviews circulating in public, as using racist and anti-semitic language and expressing a hankering for Italy’s totalitarian past.
Responding to the exposé, she said there was no place in her party “for racist or antisemitic positions, in the same way as there is no room for nostalgia for the totalitarian systems of the 20th Century, or for any other displays of foolish folklore.”
“Our task is too great for those who have not understood its scope to spoil it.”
Le Monde reports that one of the tasks Meloni is currently engaged with is the radical transformation of “the Italian constitutional balance in favour of the head of government.” Giorgia Meloni wants to transform Italian democracy (lemonde.fr)
But it appears she may be envisaging an even bigger task for herself, such as leading the European defence of the Western values of freedom.
Is she a true original who will succeed in helping the people of her country and other countries survive the onslaught on the West, from wherever it comes; succeed in winning over former colonies in Africa, stemming illegal small-boat immigration into Europe and perhaps, even, joining the pantheon of remarkable modern politicians who boast ardent fans and defenders even after their deaths?
Or will she disappoint those with such hopes, and instead solidify her and her party’s powers; reveal deep seated racism; move into full-on fascism?
As the cliché has it: Only time will tell. But she is someone to keep an eye on.
It is, however, unfortunate that media, being what it is, has made Meloni something of a ‘celebrity’ politician for millions around the globe who will never want to know whether she is carving her own unique political path or making any significant speeches.
They’ll only be interested in finding out whether there’s any truth in the breaking scuttlebutt that followed the awards ceremony. Did Meloni and Musk, who was seated next to her at dinner, ‘get it on’ back at the hotel?
(Musk’s mom, Maye, says this rumour is not true. He returned to the hotel with his mom.)
For those who would like to know what Cyril said in his speech, I give it to you in the style of a young news satirist on X, Gugz The3rd: 30 years ago, we agreed on democracy… South Africa is an expert on apartheid… thousands of Palestinians are dying because of Gaza apartheid. It’s a genocide. We’ll do sustainable and just transition if you give us the money…also vaccines. Africa needs a seat in the Security Council. Give money and invest. Other familiar stuff.
[Photo: by Governo italiano – www.governo.it, for the license see here, CC BY 3.0 it, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=130564393]
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