The former people’s advocate claims the need for a kind of party school. However, it is not that simple. First because, in fact, a party is needed: the M5S is not and has always scornfully rejected such a dimension. Secondly, because pupils are not enough to go to school: teachers are also needed. The Mosaic by Carlo Fusi
Who knows Giuseppe Conte has ever seen or remembered Massimo Catalano from Quelli della Notte. If so, he might find it useful to refer to his Communist wisdom. Like: to make a party school, first of all you need a party. Already. The company of the former Prime Minister deserves respect and does not scorn not only for its difficulty that scares the soul, but also and above all because it concerns a party that, although halved in consensus, remains a pillar of current governance and will be decisive in the election of Mattarella’s successor, that is the mother of all the choices of the legislature.
It is an effort which, in order not to reveal itself to be Sisyphus, must rely on the revision of some theorems of the Movement. And also on the reinterpretation of the very image that Conte has of himself and how it is now experienced by the Cinquestelle. We have already illustrated here on Formiche.net how the metamorphosis from head of government to head of a party is anything but easy. For those who do not have a structured political dimension behind them, it can become a much more than complicated operation. Indeed, it is one thing to have the most important position of power in the state and the leadership envelope that it entails. Another is to guide a magmatic and bizarre structure like a party: there a navigation perhaps stormy but firmly holding the rudder of command; here a rodeo.
And it is precisely the image that is decisive for the purposes of authoritativeness. If you are prime minister, others must, convinced or not, follow you. Or unseat yourself by paying the price. If you are the leader of a political force, the aura of hegemony is shattered. In hindsight, Conte’s decision to be given the tu responds to this need. In other words, to the need to be recognized in the new role and become an interlocutor for everyone. Let’s say a reinterpretation with that much necessary instrumentality of the ideological architrave of grillismo for which one is worth one.
But there is a reverse of the coin that Conte himself looks at and brings us back to the Catalan mentioned above. And it is where the former people’s advocate claims – in the form of a question to the militants – the need for a kind of party school. Indeed, to use his words: “Do you agree with the idea of creating a well-structured Training Center, which favors the elaboration of ideas and projects and the deepening of the various issues concerning political, economic, social and cultural life“? Question that arises from the fact that “there is a particular need to offer training tools that favor the cultural and political growth of all the various subjects involved with the Neo-movement”.
In practice this is the most blatant disavowal of the precept of one is worth one. It is the full-blown recognition that culture, ability, competence are all right. Because becoming a ruling class is an exercise that requires commitment, study, deepening. Because those who took turns in state posts after the overwhelming electoral victory of 2018 did not possess – or at least not all and not in equal measure – the necessary and indispensable background of knowledge, experience and preparation. That’s why you have to go to (party) school.
However, it is not that simple. First because, in fact, a party is needed: the M5S is not and has always scornfully refused such a dimension: therefore, changing skin is complicated and perhaps even painful. Secondly, because pupils are not enough to go to school: teachers are also needed. In the case of the Neo-movement who would they be? Beyond the suggestion that the reference to Frattocchie evokes (the PCI closed it in 1993: five or six geological-political eras ago), the point is which values, which ideals the Conte school wants to refer to. The M5S has lost – fortunately for many – the palingenetic charge it had at the beginning and that Beppe Grillo he had set up with the Vaffa: an anathema to be hurled against everything and everyone. But no one knows what to replace him with, nor does the former prime minister make it clear. The PCI had the Frattocchie because it intended to prepare its leaders for the insertion of “elements of socialism” in Italian democracy. Always in the shadow of the communist doctrine, of course. What does the M5S want to teach? If you are an extremist, even if in the center, become a liberal (option Luigi Di Maio) is impervious. One could start from the basic elements of representative democracy, from Parliament which is not a can of tuna, from statism which is not the free market, albeit “correct” in its animal spirits.
It is true that arsonists are born and firefighters move. But it is an epitaph, not a political line. And no school teaches it.