Italy’s Anti-imperialist Camp on the victory-defeat of Prodi
The centre left has won the elections or better the referendum on Berlusconi by a hairbreadth. But the confirmation was given only after the imperator Bush eventually called Prodi thus making his investiture effective.
With the end of national sovereignty also politics died away and their remains only the distribution of seats as well as of the public resources. According to D’Alema, president of DS, electoral promises are vague, what really counts is the assignment of offices. Padoa Schioppa, a well-known senior bank manager, is designated minister of economy and Bertinotti, chief of Communist Refoundation, will become president of the chamber of deputies. These are signals emitted in different directions which, however, well converge. The first sends the vampires of international finance a sign of stability while the second tells the left to keep quiet.
Now as the electoral campaign is over the slogan is clear: all back home to work in order to save Italian capitalism from being further rampaged by globalisation. What this means everybody knows. Austerity to further concentrate the resources in the hands of big capital as well as the re-confirmed alignment to the euro-atlantic block (see the all party agreement on the sanctions on Byelorussia or on the punishment of the Palestinian people for having elected Hamas).
Whoever does not understand to prepare for worse will subside. Those who voted Prodi only to get rid of Berlusconi will soon heavily pay the blank check they signed. The scenario to come is predictable: on the left the disappointment will grow while the right, not to much defeated in the elections, will re-conquer popular consensus. In this way after five years the entire farce will repeat itself. This bi-polarism is perfectly circular. The poles do no more stand for different interests or value they are only different cliques of the same capitalist oligarchy. Bertinotti even tried to give a sense to this dirty game: according to this wise man the alternance is the antechamber to the alternative.
There are some who believe that there will be a big new cycle of social struggles to put all this into question. We also hope so but we can not set on such imponderable factors. We, however, foresee a period of reflux as the centre left works for paralysing and neutralising the social conflicts. The anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist forces thus have to prepare for a difficult period of loss of consensus and a difficult resistance.
The pro-governmental degeneration of the so-called radical left will affect even important parts of the antagonist left. After having shouted loudly against Berlusconi they now lower the tone. The only positive aspect of this crisis is that it might shake up the left and we have to help this process. Whoever does not understand that he has to cut the umbilical cord with the centre left and the bi-polar regime is lost and doomed to go under. So no big leaps are ahead of us and we can only count on our own forces and our tenacity in opposition.
Anti-imperialist Camp
End of April, 2006
