The Provincial Parade for Obama

Published in L'Opinione delle Liberta
(Italy) on 11 May 2017
by Arturo Diaconale (link to originallink to original)
Translated from by Bora Mici. Edited by Elizabeth Cosgriff.
Barack Obama’s visit to Milan was a shameful provincial parade, which Milan did not deserve. Matteo Renzi defined it as the first act of return to the world political scene of the personality that represents the point of reference for Democrats on a global level. But the reconfirmed secretary of Italy’s Democratic Party is provincial. And he did not realize that the homage to the former president of the United States did not assume any political meaning of global reach. (Always removing one’s tie in the name of Obama’s politically correct fashion sense is not the liturgy of an innovative ideology.) But it was a singular demonstration of pedestrian provincialism, done not in adherence to a cultural vision meant to mark the future of the planet, but in homage to the rites and the fashions imposed by the society of image and spectacle.

Barack as a rock star? The comparison holds, also because the banalities on climate and food pronounced by the former president of the United States were all in all similar to the banalities on the same subjects repeated by more or less politically active singers. However, that is with the added caveat that none of the provincial homage payers, first among them Renzi, got it into his head to highlight how the American guest does not have successful songs in his past but years of failing political action, not only on a domestic level for the U.S., but especially on the level of the Mediterranean basin, with our country at the center of all the events that have been consuming it for centuries.

Renzi, who, when he sees Obama, seems like Alberto Sordi in “The American in Rome,” has every right to dress like his role model. But it becomes concerning when he tries to turn him into an Allah and be his Italian and European prophet, because Obama has not just been one of the worst U.S. presidents – we could perhaps compare him to poor Jimmy Carter – but is also not, under any circumstance, the indisputable leader of an entirely nonexistent Democratic International. That is, obviously, as long as the politically correct culture imposed by the privileged American and European classes does not get confused by the provincialists as a kind of reformed and updated version of the Third International.


La visita di Barack Obama a Milano è stata una vergognosa parata provinciale. Che Milano non meritava. Matteo Renzi l’ha definita il primo atto del ritorno sulla scena politica planetaria del personaggio che rappresenta il punto di riferimento dei democratici a livello mondiale. Ma il riconfermato segretario del Partito Democratico è un provinciale. E non si è minimamente reso conto che l’omaggio all’ex Presidente degli Stati Uniti non ha assunto alcun significato politico di portata planetaria (sempre che togliersi la cravatta in nome della moda politicamente corretta di Obama non sia la liturgia di un’ideologia innovatrice). Ma è stata una singolare manifestazione di provincialismo pedestre compiuta non in adesione a una visione culturale destinata a segnare il futuro del pianeta, ma in omaggio ai riti e alle mode imposte dalla società dell’immagine e dello spettacolo. Barack come una rockstar? Il paragone regge, anche perché le banalità sul clima e sul cibo pronunciate dall’ex Presidente degli Usa sono state in tutto simili alle banalità che sugli stessi argomenti ripetono i cantanti più o meno impegnati. Con l’aggiunta, però, che a nessuno degli omaggiatori provinciali, primo fra tutti Matteo Renzi, è saltato per la testa di sottolineare come l’ospite americano non abbia alle spalle canzoni di successo ma anni di azione politica fallimentare non solo sul piano interno degli Stati Uniti ma, soprattutto, sul quel bacino del Mediterraneo che vede il nostro Paese al centro di tutte le vicende che in esso si consumano da secoli.

Renzi, che quando vede Obama sembra Alberto Sordi ne “L’americano a Roma”, ha tutto il diritto di vestirsi come il suo modello. Ma diventa inquietante quando cerca di trasformarlo in un Allah di cui essere il profeta italiano ed europeo. Perché Obama non è stato solo uno dei peggiori presidenti democratici degli Stati Uniti, paragonabile forse al povero Jimmy Carter, ma non è in alcun caso il capo indiscusso di una internazionale democratica del tutto inesistente. Sempre, ovviamente, che la cultura politicamente corretta imposta dalle caste privilegiate americane ed europee non venga scambiata dai provinciali per una sorta di riedizione riveduta e corretta della Terza Internazionale!
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