Opinions #23/24

International public opinion is stunned by the events and prospects dancing furiously on the horizon. In America, Donald Trump’s political and judicial affairs present a disturbing picture of the divisiveness that characterizes the democratic structure of the United States. The taboo on preventive delegitimization of opponent’s victory is broken. The next steps could be anything at all, with no exception, given the political history of this country. Meanwhile, in Europe, the June 8 and 9 elections are generally seen by parties as a useful poll to establish the balance of power within individual states. The overall outcome at the community level is of less interest. The Brussels institutions – Commission, Council, Parliament – have managed to drastically reduce public participation in recent years. The idea of a Europe capable of determining its own destiny did not last very long: within two years, a regional crisis that turned into an international war had returned the Old Continent to the state of subjugation, into which it had been plunged during the Second World War. Now there is fear of World War III, perhaps on a narrow scale: again, in Europe, to face Russia, to please America, and to stay away from China. With a known loser: namely Europe.

While on the southern shore of the Mediterranean, a gangrenous hotbed has been generating unimaginable crimes against Palestinian civilians for nearly eighty years. The post-war period we are trying to think about is at the center of Alberto Negri’s analysis, which assesses the real possibilities of reaching an agreement on the Gaza government, which also involves an agreement between the Palestinian factions of Al-Fatah and Hamas. Around this persistent Middle Eastern hotbed, the European West, and beyond, is embroidering its fears. Which, as in past centuries, are happy to focus on the other, the different, the immigrants. Even when the economic system, on which we base our current well-being, Donald Sassoon recalls in his excursus, desperately needs “others” to sustain itself.