Intervista a cura di Nicolas Allen e Martín Cortés, Jacobin 2-4-2019
L’intervista si orienta sul libro di Traverso, The New Faces of Fascism: Populism and the Far
Right (Trad. dal francese di D. Broder,
Londra e New York, Verso, 2019), in ci si argomentano i pericoli rappresentati dalla Nuova
Destra per la democrazia, facendo paragoni col fascismo storico e individuando
nuove sue manifestazioni sotto la definizione di “postfascismo”.
Traverso distingue tra fascismo e populismo: “I
distinguish between fascism and populism: the first means destroying democracy;
the second is a political style that can take different, sometimes opposite,
directions, but is usually within a democratic framework”.
Considera marginale il neofascismo direttamente
derivato dal fascismo storico, ma pericolosa l’operazione politica di chi si è
presentato come “novità” rispetto al passato:
“Neofascism,
the movements that claim to be affiliated with classical fascism, is a marginal
phenomenon. One of the keys to the new radical right’s success lies in their
depiction of themselves as something new. Either they do not have fascist
origins (Trump or Salvini), or they broke significantly with their own past
(Marine Le Pen, who banned her father from the National
Front)”.
Quali sono le caratteristiche del postfascismo e della
nuova destra? “The new right is nationalist, racist, and xenophobic”.
Il
postfascismo, spiega Traverso, “is a global phenomenon that does not have monolithic
or even homogeneous features. Its explosive cocktail of nationalism,
xenophobia, racism, charismatic leadership, reactionary ‘identitarianism’, and
regressive anti-globalization politics can take different forms”.
La nuova destra si presenta come un ibrido:
“On the one hand, the new far
right is no longer fascist; on the other hand, we cannot define it without
comparing it with fascism. The new right is a hybrid thing that might return to
fascism, or it could turn into a new form of conservative, authoritarian,
populist democracy. The concept of post-fascism tries to capture this”.
Sebbene il postfascismo si prospetti all’interno
di regimi democratici, è l’indebolimento della democrazia, soprattutto derivato
dalla crisi iniziata nel 2008 con la conseguente disuguaglianza, e l’allentamento
dei valori etico-politici, che ha determinato il fenomeno del postfascismo e
della nuova destra: “The rise of right-wing populist leaders like Matteo
Salvini and Viktor Orbán is not striking at all: ‘The sleep of reason engenders
monsters’”.
Per contrastare queste ideologie, è necessario
rafforzare e modificare l’Unione Europea: “We cannot struggle effectively
against post-fascism by defending the EU. It is by changing the EU that we can
defeat nationalism and right-wing populism”.
Traverso è correttamente contrario alle
analisi neutralistiche del fascismo, perché “an ‘anti-antifascist’ democracy
would only be fragile, amnesic, and unfaithful to its own history”.
[Roberto Bertoni]
