Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1501168
IT'S a funny old world we all live in, isn't it? Consider, for in- stance, how most of it had react- ed to Giorgia Meloni's victory in the last Italian election (held less than three years ago, in October 2020.) The BBC ran with the headline: 'Who is Georgia Meloni? The rise to power of Italy's new far-right PM.' And the rest of the Euro- pean media, in its overwhelming majority, followed suit... to the point that it almost became 'de rigeur', for newspaper articles to always define Italy's newly-elect- ed PM as a 'far-right' politician, with practically every single men- tion of her name. But that's not all. The Associ- ated Press also reminded us that Meloni had "steeped herself in far-right ideology, as a teenag- er'; while describing her party, 'Fratelli D'Italia', as "a fast-grow- ing, nationalist party with neo-fascist roots." Even earlier, sections of the in- ternational press had predicted (some more eagerly than others) that Italy itself would experience an entire 'regression', in terms of human rights, under Meloni's premiership. The international news agency OpenDemocracy, for instance, carried an article, in September 2022, entitled 'What Giorgia Meloni's Far-Right gov- ernment will mean for Italy.' These are the first few sentenc- es: "Giorgia Meloni's Far-Right Brothers of Italy party is set to head Italy's most right-wing gov- ernment since the fall of Musso- lini's fascist regime in 1943 [...] Meloni's agenda is nationalist and anti-immigration, while op- posing 'gender ideology' and pro- moting the 'traditional family'. She defines herself as 'pro-fam- ily', which has stoked fears over abortion and LGBTIQ+ rights in Italy. But how did we get here – and how will Meloni's extreme views play out in government?" Anyway, I could go on: among other things, by pointing out that even here in Malta, most news outlets – including the one you are reading right now – seem to have also adopted more or less the same sort of approach... But the bottom line, I suppose, is that Giorgia Meloni (who – let's face it – nobody outside Italy had ever really heard about, be- fore 2020) was instantly branded, by almost the entire global press, as either: a) at worst, the single greatest threat to European democracy, since... well, the fascist regimes of Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hit- ler, in the early 20th century; or b) at best, just another 'popu- list' politician: to be ranked along- side the likes of Donald Trump, Viktor Orban, Nigel Farage, and others who – for different rea- sons, perhaps; and often moti- vated by very different ideologies – also evidently 'scare the willies' out of much of Europe's more liberal-leaning, 'pro-democracy' population. But like I was saying right at the beginning: all that was around three years ago, now. And a lot has happened in the meantime. Today, for instance, the global attitude towards the same Gior- gia Meloni seems to have... shall we say, 'softened' a little. And to be fair: this may be down to the fact that Meloni herself has so far defied most of those expec- tations, of an 'all-out return to Mussolini-style fascism'. Even though she has arguably maintained her 'hard-line immi- gration stance', throughout - so much so, that Italy stalled the EU's recent Asylum Pact agree- ment, until it got what precisely it wanted – the fact remains that Italy's current immigration policy is still no 'harsher' than, say, our own... or indeed that of any oth- er European country, right now. (Let's face it: it's much more the case that the rest of Europe has gravitated towards Meloni's posi- tion, than vice-versa.) And unless I am much mistak- en: under Giorgia Meloni, there doesn't seem to have been very much change with regard to any of those other 'human rights' concerns, either. I am unaware, for instance, that the plight of It- aly's LGBTQ population – or its women, for that matter – has sig- nificantly 'regressed', over the last few years. Indeed, it could be even argued that not very much in Italy has changed... at all! (To give you just one quick example, out of sever- al: as I recall, the Italian media were avidly discussing the ques- tion of whether Sabrina Salerno's tits were 'real', or 'fake', as long ago as 1986, at the earliest. And oh, look: it's still the number one topic of avid Italian media discus- sion, to this very day!) See what I mean? Like I just told you a second ago: nothing has re- ally changed, in Italy, for at least the past 40 years... let alone, since Giorgia Meloni became Prime Minister, less than three years ago. But, alas, something tells me that none of this constitutes the real reason, for what appears to be an entire 're-invention' of Giorgia Meloni, in recent months (on the part of the same media that had previously 'demonised' her, please note). We got a small hint last Janu- ary: when Politico.com ran a sto- ry under the headline, 'Europe's conservatives want a piece of Giorgia Meloni'. In it, we were bluntly told that: "While the 46-year-old has freaked out mainstream politi- cians due to her hard-line stance on migration, comments praising fascism when she was younger, and links to hardcore right-wing figures, the EU's top conserva- tive politicians are quickly get- ting over their qualms as they look ahead to 2024, when the bloc elects a new European Par- liament and reshuffles its upper ranks." Ah yes: European elections. Nothing quite like the prospect of 'increasing one's majority in the European Parliament', is there, to make politicians suddenly 'forget' all about their previous 'opposi- tion to Fascism' (not to mention, their erstwhile concerns with 'human rights': including, among others, the rights of asylum seek- ers, and immigrants of every oth- er description...) Which naturally brings me right back to that other issue I mentioned earlier: the latest agreement, by the European Par- liament, on a new 'Migration and Asylum Pact'. Now: as you might expect, the Maltese media chose largely to focus (understandably enough) on how this agreement may, or may not, actually affect the local situation; and as such, they were far more interested in the po- sition that Malta's government took on the issue – which, un- accountably, was to 'abstain': but I'll write about that another time – than with what this agreement actually portends for Europe's immigration policy, as a whole. This might also explain why most of them merely skimmed over the detail, that was given most prominence in the rest of European press: namely, that this agreement was hammered out, specifically to meet the demands of... you'll never guess... Why, Giorgia Meloni, of course! You know: the same Giorgia Mel- oni who – until as recently as Oc- tober 2020 - had struck so much 'terror', directly into the hearts of all Europe's self-styled 'human rights crusaders', and 'defenders against Fascism"! Or to quote the same Brus- sels-based news portal, once more: "Rome's green light on Thursday evening unlocked a major deal to overhaul the EU's asylum procedures for the first time in years, after a gruelling gathering of home affairs minis- ters in Luxembourg. [...] While the EU only needed majority sup- port to push through the reform package, Italy's backing was cru- cial because it receives some of maltatoday | SUNDAY • 11 JUNE 2023 10 OPINION Who are the real 'Fascists', now? Raphael Vassallo When elected prime minister of Italy, Giorgia Meloni was quickly defined as a 'far-right' politician by the world media