•
Rating: Massimo Fini: a name that shakes up numb souls and those wallowing in "bad faith." A shameless, direct, provocative, and outspoken character.
Journalist for "L'Avanti!" and "L'Europeo," militant in the Lombard and movementist ranks of the old PSI, and in the '80s, he gravitated towards unorthodox and hard-to-classify circles. From anti-capitalist analysis, Fini moved towards a strongly "anti-modernist" and "anti-Western" worldview. He quickly became friends with Frenchman Alain De Benoist, a former exponent of the Nouvelle Droite, and other "heretical" thinkers.
Fini has something against everyone: he hates to death the dwarf of Arcore and the "alleanzini," yet he doesn't tolerate even the various brands of leftism. Whether they are categorized under "politically correct," "economicism," "productivism," "anti-fascism," "feminism," and so on.
Fini, beyond his gruff appearance, is not afraid of dialogue. Not even when it becomes intense or is started by someone who is, in every way, different from him by history and culture. Despite his Jewish origins, Fini has participated in debates organized by the far-right, and despite his aversion towards the old PCI, he also attended several Unitá festivals.
A character in his own way, unique and truly transgressive: an adventurer who has always loved following his own path, even if, as often happened, in perfect solitude. Accused of crypto-communism, crypto-fascism, "integralism," and misogyny! Yet Fini, like a good Nietzschean, has always remained indifferent to the boring babble of the righteous.
Besides being a journalist and "fierce" opinionist, he has also authored several books. The most interesting, in my opinion, are and remain: "Il Vizio Oscuro dell'Occidente," "La Ragione Aveva Torto?," "Dizionario Erotico," and this "Sudditi: Manifesto Contro la Democrazia."
The title is frightening and tends to drive the reader away! Could it be an ode to the worst regimes of the twentieth century? Could it be a "revivalistic" apology of the Ancien Regime? None of the above!
Fini, in fact, proves to be particularly caustic and sharp in choosing the titles to "slap" on his books. Fini does not hate individual freedom, does not hate pluralism, nor the much-discussed "popular participation" (democracy, indeed!). No! Fini hates and mocks a specific form of democratic organization: Western democracy, the so-called "LIBERAL-DEMOCRACY".
For the author, there is no worse oligarchy than the one reigning throughout the West. Politicians, parties, and the state are, for Fini, weapons in the hands of economic and "sectoral" structures. Legal weapons that, without shame, are used to "screw people over, especially poor people, with their consent" (quote).
Liberal democracy, in this sense, represents a restricted committee of affairs and elites (the discussion inaugurated by Vilfredo Pareto is briefly resumed here). A structure far from the people but very close to a few "elect."
What perspective is there in front of this debilitating and demoralizing state of affairs? The good, old, healthy, and fascinating DIRECT DEMOCRACY. Zero or few delegations, citizen responsibility, the birth of small communities, self-sufficiency, and rejection of the model that has been dominating for years. Whether it is administrative or of an economic-productive nature. To conclude, Fini dreams of a Europe made up of small homelands, autarchic (but not in a "xenophobic" or pro-fascist sense) and increasingly distant from the concept of false civilization imported from Washington.
You can faintly hear echoes of libertarianism, "Bookchinian" municipalism, but also a strong, and now characteristic, aversion to modernity generally understood.
The proposals are, overall, very interesting and full of charm. However, some doubts arise and persist. Let me explain.
Is it desirable for us Europeans, the birth of a continent based on "small homelands"? Won't the so-called "small homelands" become (as in the case of Kosovo) Trojan horses in the hands of the Americans? I find it imperative to defend and protect local specificities! However, I find it risky to create a once-again fragmented Europe.
Direct democracy is, without a doubt, democracy etymologically understood. But isn't it in such a context that certain subjects, the so-called "demagogues," manage to insinuate themselves masterfully to return to a previous order?
These are, I believe, more than legitimate questions. Questions I'd like to pose, perhaps over a coffee, to the Fini in question (no relation to the current President of the Chamber!).
However, something remains! This book, in fact, hits and shakes without mercy. It exposes some realities of fact without much ceremony and without the sugar-coating typical of other essayists. Because, and tell me if I'm wrong, I see neither a state nor a political class willing to serve the interest of the "public good." Same old rhetoric? Same old tired slogans? Perhaps! The fact is that a good 70% of what is written in "Sudditi," painfully, I find as everyday reality. A reality that involves everyone!
Loading comments slowly
