It’s now been more than a year since the spectacular victory of Giorgia Meloni and our friends from Fratelli d’Italia. Those elections showed us, once again, that we, conservatives and reformists, the patriotic forces of Europe, can win elections. And we can do so without having to renounce our principles or disguise our ideas, as it has always been mistakenly believed by other forces that proclaim themselves conservatives in front of their voters, but, when election day arrives, are only concerned with not making any noise and keeping a low profile.
The principles and values that we represent are defended openly and without fear. These values are capable of connecting the majority of society, as long as we know how to live, feel, and fight for the demands of our people at all times.
Of course, we have to be smart in order to reach those sections of the population that are not familiar with our vision and discourse. But that does not mean giving up our ideas, or hiding away, or packaging them in a standardised product as if they were something to be negotiated upon in the market.
We are not managers. Our nations are not businesses. We are politicians and we have to do politics. And we can and must win by doing politics.
Opting for Permanence
After Meloni’s election victory, the Spanish media headlined that ‘Europe’ had a plan to stop the winner of Italy’s elections—as if ‘Europe’ were the bureaucrats of Brussels, Ursula von der Leyen, or the Bauhaus directive project, and not the Roman Coliseum, the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran, the Vatican, El Escorial, and Versailles. We are Europe. Europe is the 3,000 years of history behind us, not a handful of officials and unelected functionaries of the European Commission telling nations how to behave and ‘manage’ things. Of course, the European Commission, the Parliament, the Council, and the Court of Justice are part of Europe—and an important part that we do not want to give up. But they are not ‘Europe.’
Europe is much more than the Union. Europe is its nations, its peoples, its history, its culture, its religion. Europe is not the no-go-zones promoted by the globalists, nor the migratory invasion, nor population replacement.
For decades, the adversary, the enemy, has been fighting for the imposition of a kind of specific but banal cosmopolitanism that seeks to reorganise our personal, family, social and professional relations, through the supranational integration of markets, social networks, and international organisations, governmental and non-governmental alike.
It takes us out of the natural, our territory, landscape, family, nation, religion, and offers us, in exchange, a plan of artificial banalities: instead of the physical territory, virtual empty spaces; instead of the unique landscape, the undefined planet; instead of the family, immigration and temporary shelter; instead of the nation that unites and embraces us, the collectivisation into conflicting groups, indigenism, tribalism, and sexism; instead of religion, the fanatical idolatry of climate, sex, or money.
Its aim is none other than to create and promote a new type of individual that destroys and reconstructs itself, de-territorialised, geographically nomadic, spiritually nomadic, and virtually nomadic. The kind of individual who says he is walking but doesn’t know where he is coming from or where he is going. But he keeps on walking—and he ends the day exhausted, without a single idea of his own.
A world in which no person has anything to say or offer to any other citizen of the world loses the identity from which to contribute something new and to enrich global society.
A type of human being who lives in an almost infinite universe of overwhelming sensations (sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch) that, in fact, make it impossible for the individual to be aware of his identity and thus discover from it their vocation. A world of virtual social networks while real, physical, natural, and community networks are disappearing.
And we conservatives are the most ambitious. With our feet on the ground, we live in reality. Without losing or renouncing any of our communities and natural networks, we are willing and able to fight in the virtual social networks. But if we have to choose, we always opt for the permanent.
Our adversaries are the globalist elites who live in extraterritoriality, who neither reside, live, think, nor feel like their peoples do. They are disconnected from their nations. They do not understand people, nor do they live their problems and their aspirations, and they do not wish to do so, either. They are elites who despise the people.
The right to identity
St. John Paul II said that the first right of every nation is the right to its historical continuity, the right to be itself.
All nations have their own identities, forged on the battlefields, in defeats and in victories. These national identities are not characterized by uniformity or homogeneity, but of richness and variety. They are each based on a shared history, customs and traditions, ancestral legal and political institutions; a religion, a language perhaps, or many languages of their own; their own way of acting, feeling, even thinking.
That identity is richness. It must be preserved and shared. Because the patriot does not have an identity to possess it exclusively. The conservative shines his or her identity in order to share it, as a precious treasure to be put at the service of the rest of the nations. Thus, Spain made its Hispanic Heritage, carrying the conviction by means of heroism throughout the world that all men without exception are equal in dignity and rights, and that we can save ourselves—and that is why the theory of human rights and international people’s rights emerged from Spain.
Every nation has the right to preserve its identity, its heritage, and its law; and to that end, to protect its borders. We therefore have the right to regulate the conditions of entry for those who aspire to live within them. Immigration must be legal, controlled, adapted to national needs, and it needs to have the capacity and willingness to adapt.
For the same reason, we are reclaiming the right of every human being not to emigrate, but to live, grow, and develop in their own national community, contributing to its prosperity in accordance with their own culture. We do not see it as a benefit in itself that our young generation has to go to the U.S., the UK, or India to look for employment.
Open-border policies and multicultural societies have failed in the West. Countries such as Belgium, France, and the UK are the most obvious examples.
Despite this, globalist elites are opting for the arrival of millions of immigrants, legal or illegal, in the coming years, in order to reverse the demographic winter, while imposing policies that are against the family and the preservation of identity. This advancing globalism threatens the preservation of the cultural identity of Western nations, undermines their sovereignty, and jeopardises the welfare state.
Because there is only true solidarity in the nation. The nation is a type of community in which special personal, economic, social, cultural, and spiritual relationships are forged and developed, which shape men and help them to live out their identity: respect for the law, for authority, and for tradition.
It is in the nation that human beings become historical, expand their heritage, learn to love the non-sensible, become apt for solidarity, sacrifice, or even heroism, for the sake of people they do not know but with whom they share that common history, that heritage, that territory, that culture.
Identity always stands for something. Just as the human being tends to be dedicated to something, so is the nation. The search for the common good, the pursuit of happiness, the dissemination of one’s own identity. And it is that kind of Europe which we want and which we fight for: nations that cooperate in solidarity, not nations that are forgotten or overshadowed.
This piece is based on a speech delivered in September 2022 at the “Italian Conservatism” conference co-organized by The European Conservative. It appears here by kind permission of the author.
We are Europe
Credit: Vox España
It’s now been more than a year since the spectacular victory of Giorgia Meloni and our friends from Fratelli d’Italia. Those elections showed us, once again, that we, conservatives and reformists, the patriotic forces of Europe, can win elections. And we can do so without having to renounce our principles or disguise our ideas, as it has always been mistakenly believed by other forces that proclaim themselves conservatives in front of their voters, but, when election day arrives, are only concerned with not making any noise and keeping a low profile.
The principles and values that we represent are defended openly and without fear. These values are capable of connecting the majority of society, as long as we know how to live, feel, and fight for the demands of our people at all times.
Of course, we have to be smart in order to reach those sections of the population that are not familiar with our vision and discourse. But that does not mean giving up our ideas, or hiding away, or packaging them in a standardised product as if they were something to be negotiated upon in the market.
We are not managers. Our nations are not businesses. We are politicians and we have to do politics. And we can and must win by doing politics.
Opting for Permanence
After Meloni’s election victory, the Spanish media headlined that ‘Europe’ had a plan to stop the winner of Italy’s elections—as if ‘Europe’ were the bureaucrats of Brussels, Ursula von der Leyen, or the Bauhaus directive project, and not the Roman Coliseum, the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran, the Vatican, El Escorial, and Versailles. We are Europe. Europe is the 3,000 years of history behind us, not a handful of officials and unelected functionaries of the European Commission telling nations how to behave and ‘manage’ things. Of course, the European Commission, the Parliament, the Council, and the Court of Justice are part of Europe—and an important part that we do not want to give up. But they are not ‘Europe.’
Europe is much more than the Union. Europe is its nations, its peoples, its history, its culture, its religion. Europe is not the no-go-zones promoted by the globalists, nor the migratory invasion, nor population replacement.
For decades, the adversary, the enemy, has been fighting for the imposition of a kind of specific but banal cosmopolitanism that seeks to reorganise our personal, family, social and professional relations, through the supranational integration of markets, social networks, and international organisations, governmental and non-governmental alike.
It takes us out of the natural, our territory, landscape, family, nation, religion, and offers us, in exchange, a plan of artificial banalities: instead of the physical territory, virtual empty spaces; instead of the unique landscape, the undefined planet; instead of the family, immigration and temporary shelter; instead of the nation that unites and embraces us, the collectivisation into conflicting groups, indigenism, tribalism, and sexism; instead of religion, the fanatical idolatry of climate, sex, or money.
Its aim is none other than to create and promote a new type of individual that destroys and reconstructs itself, de-territorialised, geographically nomadic, spiritually nomadic, and virtually nomadic. The kind of individual who says he is walking but doesn’t know where he is coming from or where he is going. But he keeps on walking—and he ends the day exhausted, without a single idea of his own.
A world in which no person has anything to say or offer to any other citizen of the world loses the identity from which to contribute something new and to enrich global society.
A type of human being who lives in an almost infinite universe of overwhelming sensations (sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch) that, in fact, make it impossible for the individual to be aware of his identity and thus discover from it their vocation. A world of virtual social networks while real, physical, natural, and community networks are disappearing.
And we conservatives are the most ambitious. With our feet on the ground, we live in reality. Without losing or renouncing any of our communities and natural networks, we are willing and able to fight in the virtual social networks. But if we have to choose, we always opt for the permanent.
Our adversaries are the globalist elites who live in extraterritoriality, who neither reside, live, think, nor feel like their peoples do. They are disconnected from their nations. They do not understand people, nor do they live their problems and their aspirations, and they do not wish to do so, either. They are elites who despise the people.
The right to identity
St. John Paul II said that the first right of every nation is the right to its historical continuity, the right to be itself.
All nations have their own identities, forged on the battlefields, in defeats and in victories. These national identities are not characterized by uniformity or homogeneity, but of richness and variety. They are each based on a shared history, customs and traditions, ancestral legal and political institutions; a religion, a language perhaps, or many languages of their own; their own way of acting, feeling, even thinking.
That identity is richness. It must be preserved and shared. Because the patriot does not have an identity to possess it exclusively. The conservative shines his or her identity in order to share it, as a precious treasure to be put at the service of the rest of the nations. Thus, Spain made its Hispanic Heritage, carrying the conviction by means of heroism throughout the world that all men without exception are equal in dignity and rights, and that we can save ourselves—and that is why the theory of human rights and international people’s rights emerged from Spain.
Every nation has the right to preserve its identity, its heritage, and its law; and to that end, to protect its borders. We therefore have the right to regulate the conditions of entry for those who aspire to live within them. Immigration must be legal, controlled, adapted to national needs, and it needs to have the capacity and willingness to adapt.
For the same reason, we are reclaiming the right of every human being not to emigrate, but to live, grow, and develop in their own national community, contributing to its prosperity in accordance with their own culture. We do not see it as a benefit in itself that our young generation has to go to the U.S., the UK, or India to look for employment.
Open-border policies and multicultural societies have failed in the West. Countries such as Belgium, France, and the UK are the most obvious examples.
Despite this, globalist elites are opting for the arrival of millions of immigrants, legal or illegal, in the coming years, in order to reverse the demographic winter, while imposing policies that are against the family and the preservation of identity. This advancing globalism threatens the preservation of the cultural identity of Western nations, undermines their sovereignty, and jeopardises the welfare state.
Because there is only true solidarity in the nation. The nation is a type of community in which special personal, economic, social, cultural, and spiritual relationships are forged and developed, which shape men and help them to live out their identity: respect for the law, for authority, and for tradition.
It is in the nation that human beings become historical, expand their heritage, learn to love the non-sensible, become apt for solidarity, sacrifice, or even heroism, for the sake of people they do not know but with whom they share that common history, that heritage, that territory, that culture.
Identity always stands for something. Just as the human being tends to be dedicated to something, so is the nation. The search for the common good, the pursuit of happiness, the dissemination of one’s own identity. And it is that kind of Europe which we want and which we fight for: nations that cooperate in solidarity, not nations that are forgotten or overshadowed.
This piece is based on a speech delivered in September 2022 at the “Italian Conservatism” conference co-organized by The European Conservative. It appears here by kind permission of the author.
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