When Bossi attacks the parties of Rome and those of the South, accusing them of preventing northerners from achieving their autonomy, he's talking nonsense. The League is unable to gain independence for Padania for the single reason that THE NORTH DOESN’T WANT IT: not the northerners of the cafes or the provincial industrialists who don't count for anything, but the North that really counts, the intellectual class and the heads of the Confederation of Industry.
If the League had on its side only a small part of the North that counts, not only could it gain independence for Padania but on paper it would be able to constitute the fourth Reich given the strength of its industrial apparatus and the absolute power that the newspapers of the North have in Rome and in all of Italy.
It is quite evident that if big industry in the North had any real interest in separating from Rome, it would easily succeed in doing so even without the League. Why then are the big industrialists of the North the true, great defenders of unitarianism? Why don't they give a damn about the identity of the North? Because they are only interested in continuing to control the market of the peninsula and to exploit the favors of the State.
Bossi has threatened to arm his followers, to militarize the padanian guard. Why doesn't he do it? He has hundreds of thousands of enthusiastic young people who follow him. He doesn't do it because he knows perfectly well that if he were to try it the powers that be would give him and all the green shirts a kick in the behind.
Note: it is not Rome that would treat him this way, but THE NORTH THAT COUNTS that would give orders to do this. Because Rome doesn't really exist, it is a spectre rattled by Bossi to keep the tension high among his followers.
The mentality of the Romans is shaped by the great press of the North. The Romans, honorable gentlemen included, live on salaries produced by the "national wealth", that is, from the industry of Padania. The national governments, those of Berlusconi and Prodi, are - or become - the immediate projection of the interests of the Confederation of Industry.
As a result it is not the North that is the slave of Rome, but Rome and all of Italy that are slaves of the North.
Two Norths therefore exist, the old North that thinks only about making money and exploiting a State which it employs, and the League which, not having any significant support among big industry and the intellectual classes, sees its manoeuvering area shrinking.
If this situation does not change, the League risks ending up in a kind of box canyon with no possibility of escape, because the unitarian North controls, through the unskilled work force of the South, the army, the police, the structures of the State, the parties, the labor unions, the magistrates, everything. That's why Bossi, for instance, came up with the curious proposal of electing magistrates by popular vote. But in so doing he is only widening further the distance between the League and the intellectual classes of the North.
Bossi consoles himself with the fact that he has the people on his side. But a political program, even if it has strong popular support, can never sustain itself if it is not embraced by the ruling classes.
After 1860, even the people of the South were against a unitarian State, not only that but they manifested that aversion through armed struggle. But they lost the battle completely - why? - because the upper classes of the South were on the side of power and had total control of the press, the army, the police and the magistracy. The current situation of the North with respect to the aspirations of the League is not very different.
The League should absolutely adopt a cultural profile, even at the cost of losing votes, but to do so it must openly and harshly attack the Risorgimento. I don't believe it will do so, because an anti-unitarian battle, however necessary, does not have a significant historical and cultural tradition in the North.
At this point the anti-unitarian feeling of the South could perhaps become the League's only hope of realizing its political aspirations.
Certainly viewed in perspective it is a powerful ally. The civic pride of the South and the civic pride of the North have a common limitation: they cannot come to fruition with respect to the central powers that be without one another’s complicity.
This consideration may perhaps be a blow to the empty presumptions of one or both parties, but at the same time it makes them realists, and in perspective, winners.
Edoardo Spagnuolo / English translation by Anna Milano Appel
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