Don't be fooled. (Antonio Masiello/Getty Images)
“I am Giorgia. I am a woman, I am a mother, I am Italian, I am Christian.” A 2019 speech by the new Italian Prime Minister is doing the rounds on social media, and has Right-wingers throwing flowers at her feet. In it, Meloni promises to “defend God, family and nation”, at a time when many feel all three are under threat. “This is truly prophetic stuff. This isn’t merely political, it is apostolic,” said one US commentator this week. This is the source of her appeal.
My first instinct is to cheer along. This is a woman who cites Roger Scruton among her influences: what’s not to like? But things are not as they seem. For me, Meloni says all the right things. And yet she means by them almost the opposite of what they should mean. This is a very dangerous woman.
On the very same day that Italians were going to the polls to give Meloni a thumping victory, the Vatican was celebrating the church’s “World Day of Migrants and Refugees”. The Holy Father and the new Prime Minister would have a very awkward Bible study session. Where Meloni calls for a full naval blockade of Africa to stop migrants coming to Europe, Jesus says, in St Matthew’s Gospel: “Come unto me all ye that are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.”
Pope Francis explained it thus: “Migrants are to be welcomed, accompanied, promoted and integrated.” This is the Pope whose first official trip outside of Rome, back in July 2013, was to the island of Lampedusa, the southernmost point of Italy, where he met refugees and prayed with them. A few months later, off Lampedusa’s coast, a small boat carrying 500 people seeking sanctuary in Europe caught fire; 311 of them died. Local people came to the help of those who survived. A carpenter named Francesco Tuccio decided to make small crosses out of the boat’s splintered wreckage and give them to the survivors. These Lampedusa Crosses have come to symbolise a very different sort of Christianity from that being espoused by Meloni. She says she “doesn’t understand” the Pope.
And just as Meloni wants to twist Christianity against migrants and those of other faiths — “No to the violence of Islam,” she has said — she also twists the concepts of family and nation to suit her own cruel ideology. I advocate for the family because it is the most successful and versatile nest for mutual support and the nurture of children, regardless of its specific structure. Family doesn’t signify some heteronormative Fifties prison, but — for most of us — a place of love and inclusion, where difference is more successfully tolerated than anywhere else. There are blended families, adopted families, families in which parents have different religions, families where parents are of the same sex. But Meloni would reject many of them. “Yes to natural families, no to the LGBT lobby,” she says.
To add the caveat “natural” to the word “family” is to diminish the potential that the family has for generous re-invention. One of Meloni’s colleagues recently called for an episode of Peppa Pig to be banned because it depicts co-parenting lesbian polar bears sitting down to eat spaghetti together while a little polar bear explains: “I live with my mummy and my other mummy.” This is precisely what it means to be family for some people. Ironically, that episode is called: “Families”. It is not an attack on families but a celebration of them.
And then there’s Meloni’s twisted idea of nation. Even the Labour Party is singing “God save the King” these days, with only the magic grandpa grumbling away that this is “excessively nationalist”. Not that he would think that the NHS is “excessively nationalist”, nor an extensive programme of nationalisation. The concept of nation and its extensions is not the preserve of retired army colonels longing to bring back the days of flogging and national service. But when Meloni mentions the nation, it is hard not to notice its darker undertones. She talks of the threat of “ethnic substitution”, and of the need to defend our “genetic code”.
Here is where things turn nasty. For while the nation is a good thing and, I believe, the epitome of democratic legitimacy, ethnic nationalism is the very essence of fascism. And Meloni knows this: she comes from the birthplace of fascism. Her party grew out of Mussolini’s. And while a party’s past cannot be allowed to determine its present — the Democrats were the most enthusiastic supporters of slavery — such a past should make a political party all the more scrupulous about what it says, especially when discussing race. And especially Jews.
When Meloni repeatedly denounces George Soros as the enemy, and speaks of her resistance to becoming a “perfect slave at the mercy of financial speculators”, she is not just attacking capitalism, she is subtly eliding financial oppression and Jews. The idea of financial speculators preying upon good Christian men and women is one of the oldest antisemitic themes in the book. Saying she supports Israel means little when she’s spouting stuff like this.
At the end of her 2019 speech, Meloni quotes from one of her heroes, G.K. Chesterton. Chesterton called himself a Zionist because he thought getting Jews to go to Israel was a good way of ridding them from Europe. He believed that “19th-century capitalism was essentially usury, hence anti-Christian, and the prominence of Jews in high finance merely underlined that capitalism was alien to Christian culture,” as leading Chesterton expert Professor Colin Holmes explains. Like Chesterton, Meloni still sees Jews as the merchants of Venice, seeking their pound of flesh from decent, hard-working Christians.
As someone who passionately believes in family, faith and flag, it saddens me to see these concepts used as dog-whistles for some sort of racial and cultural superiority. Properly understood, these are all inclusive virtues, but they have been twisted out of all recognition by the unscrupulous addressing the fearful. Which is why it is all the more important that family, faith and flag are defended — and not just from the sneering Left. They need to be defended just as much from the divisive fixations of the ideological Right.
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SubscribeThis author, Giles is a Vicar. Meaning he’s a religious cleric who lives off of the donations of others. Now there is nothing wrong with that. A minister of the gospel is to be provided for by the body that he serves in. But one thing this does is that these people tend to be out of touch socialists. Giles doesn’t understand the desperate state that many Italian families are in now. Or the fact that this unfettered migration that makes Italy the EU’s migration waiting room is destroying Italian lives, or more often aborting them before they can get started.
I live in Southern Italy, and it’s sad here for many who are struggling just to keep a shop open, or for the young just to have hope of being able to afford their own home and family someday. There’s just no hope here, outside of moving off to some other more prosperous place to get a job. The last thing Italian’s need is more migrants from other lands competing for jobs and resources, or more neo-liberal globalist policies that hollow out Italian companies and infrastructure to other places in the world.
The internet globalizes peoples thinking, but the average person can’t take on all the worlds problems. People can only do what they can do in their own circle of influence. She is not universalizing the term family for a reason, because the actual family, where a man and a woman come together and make children is what is in danger here in the West, and Italy, particularly here in the South are pretty good at family. Better than many other countries. They have to be in order to survive. The reason so many children continue to live with their parents is that they have no other options. So, Italy becoming whole again will ultimately benefit other nations, because like other nations many people here do charity work abroad.
Just like Giles doesn’t bring people living on the street into his own home, Italy can’t bring every poor person who wants a better job and a better life into the home of Italy. It doesn’t mean you can’t try to help, but ultimately one of the best ways to help is for other nations to follow the Western models that create safe, prosperous societies. Ones where families, yes real families Giles, are important, and protected. Italians are tired of being abused by people like you thinking of them as a resource for the people you really choose to care about.
Great comment.
Absolutely
Second – “great comment”
Bravo!
Romans in particular are sick of seeing fit young Africans who have been able to pay a trafficker housed and fed while Italians sleep in the street.
actually incandescent with rage throughout Italy, and with the drugs, rape, and crime, and how it is being ignored in the ” interests of multi culturalism”… what ” culture”? one asks?
With Meloni, and elsewhere in Europe, the tide is turning… fast, Thank God!
Italians are tired of being abused by people like you thinking of them as a resource for the people you really choose to care about.
This is such a great comment.
Well said
Is this a record number of upticks?
An interesting comment Steve. In the USA most Christians are rather right wing politically. In England Christians are represented across our political spectrum, in fact a recent leader of the Lib Dems was a Christian who had the integrity to stand down when he lied to a journalist – so different from other politicians who hang in their when known for a lifestyle of lies.
Well … Perhaps in the US most Christians are rather right wing. I am cheering Meloni’s rise to power and I am Jewish. I also root for Marine Le Pen. The US is finding out that many of our migrants are themselves quite conservative and yes, mostly Christians from Latin America. They are looking for work and education for their children. Many of the African migrants are also conservative and take full advantage of the economic opportunity the US offers. Meloni gets it right – the problem is Islam. It is a tenet of Islam not to be governed by a non-Muslim. It is naive to think they even want to integrate. Migration is the new tool of forced conversion by demography. Whether you are Liberal or Conservative, Christian or Jew, white, brown, yellow, red or black, Islam is the oppressor. It has been the cause of ethnic annihilation in many places in the world. Just ask the Sikhs, Kurds, Tartars, Druze, Persians, Berbers, …. and a host of other ethnicities that haven’t even been fully researched. Arabic and Islamic colonization is sinister and eventually, with time, violent. Better a naval blockade today than a bloody war in a few decades.
I doubt that Giles lives off donations. I suspect he lives off a salary provided by an institution that grew rich by exploiting the British population and through slavery the populations of other countries too.
Nope. That’s not it Giles. The current Pope is lost in Leftist fantasy land. All mercy, but no justice. Civil society in the West, is not going to survive the current rates of uncontrolled mass migration. And state institutions replacing the family, and gender extremists deconstructing the individual citizen will complete the descent into hell. Not all “cosmopolitans” are Jewish, and the fact that some, like Soros and Schwab are, doesn’t mean those opposing the ideology of global financialization and the Rules Based World Order are thereby antisemitic.
Yes the constant conflation of antisemitism with a dislike of Schwab and Soros is getting seriously tiresome….
I used to think that Corbyn and his acolytes were deranged on this question. I even remember saying 3 or 4 years ago that it seemed to be a mental illness.
Now I am not so sure and articles like this simply reinforce my doubts
What Rev Giles doesn’t seem to notice here is that it was the people who used language like “reinventing family”, “redefining society”, “creating a new (Aryan/Communist) morality” that went onto murder millions upon millions of people including exterminating all the Jews of Europe, not conservatives like Chesterton.
Klaus Shwsb is not Jewish.
…I suspect you’re correct. I’m just relying on circumstantial info about some of his family and friends connections known to me.
There is apparently this thing where most Schwabs are unrelated Jews from the Schwabia region that renamed themselves to escape identification as Jews. Dunno how true.
The fact that Il Papa and our Seniors in The Catholic Church have been conned and blinded by the national socialist eco sandaloid gestapo is eyewateringly embarrasing
It’s also true that hating a group of Jews working towards your determent for their profit is not the same as hating “the Jews” as a race. People tend to make these total generalizations where they see total generalizations everywhere because that is what they themselves do…. they cannot imagine anyone else not thinking so simple- or narrowmindedly.
Put differently, accusations often reveal more about the accuser than the accused.
probably best to say, “a group of people who happen to be Jewish”…but otherwise I agree with you.
Exactly, the fact they happen to be Jews should not matter. Unscrupulous racism-mongering Jews have sucesfully used this as a weapon for almost a century but now the special treatment has clearly shot them in the foot and is only causing real anti-semitism where none would have existed before.
In the end we create the monsters that kill us. The irony is that whoever created it some of the first users of mass SJW ideology in the west were Jews and now even the left is turning against them (while using them as human weapons) in a classic case of the revolution eating it’s children.
This is not a Jew thing, it’s a fallen man accidentally comitting long term suicide thing. And the tragedy is the Jews that have woken up about this are oppressed by their own people and essentially designated white supremacists…. and that is just hysterically funny in so many ways.
“When Meloni … speaks of her resistance to becoming a “perfect slave at the mercy of financial speculators”, she is not just attacking capitalism, she is subtly eliding financial oppression and Jews.”
And you’re, not so subtly, distorting what she’s saying. A very cheap, shallow and predictable piece of writing. Why do you even bother?
And you, UnHerd, go and print a photo supporting the pitch.
“Her party grew out of Mussolini’s. And while a party’s past cannot be allowed to determine its present — the Democrats were the most enthusiastic supporters of slavery — such a past should make a political party all the more scrupulous about what it says, especially when discussing race. And especially Jews.”
What a piece of twisted, convoluted, dirty writing. I just reread it to give you a fair go, but it turns out it’s even worse the second time around. Possibly the worst article I’ve read on UnHerd.
Thank you
Maybe he is just having a good White Guilt Struggle Session.
Well I give him 100% for performative action, I think he covered every base.
Well said indeed. At least we can agree on something!
There has to be something.
I refer to my comment made above
‘Where Meloni calls for a full naval blockade of Africa to stop migrants coming to Europe, Jesus says, in St Matthew’s Gospel: “Come unto me all ye that are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.”‘
Except, Giles, as a vicar you will know that the verse you are quoting has everything to do with Jesus calling his disciples, and doesn’t really say anything about a nation’s response towards overwhelming numbers of migrants.
Look, if you’re going to play loosey-goosey with the gospels, it’s not surprising that you do so with ‘faith, family and flag’ either, which you demonstrate so effortlessly in your piece here. You want those things to be defined in an all-inclusive manner that essentially eviscerates them. Meloni does not, and she is rewarded with votes for it.
“Meloni does not, and she is rewarded with votes for it.”
This is one of the problems. According to those who know better, the Proles (deplorables) are too stupid to understand what they’re voting for. Therefore it’s an illegitimate election and a threat to the nation. But they can’t have it both ways: there either is, or there isn’t, a nation,
Yes, another threat to ‘democracy’ – another word that seems to have lost its meaning over the last 10 years.
If they can redefine “family” then they can redefine “democracy”.
Jesus said, “Come unto Me. . . “. The state is not God and does not have limitless resources . . . “Love your neighbor” means ‘you love Your neighbor’ not the state will take care of everyone.
The Bible even mentions motor cycles for the first time….” David’s Triumph was heard throughout Jerusalem”…. not a BSA, Norton, Honda… a Triumph: todays Pope would abhorr this non zero emission aberration!
….indeed, making Triumph, the oldest marque of all.
You really need to read your Bible that you are so ready to quote. In Luke’s Gospel it is the lawyer who asks the question of Jesus “who is my neighbour?” in response to Jesus’ statement of the Law and Jesus in turn tells the parable of the Good Samaritan, where the man who has been robbed and beaten is saved by a Samaritan who comes by after a priest and a Levite (both good Jews in the sense of keeping the Law) had seen him and passed by on the other side. You have to read Josephus to understand just how bad relations between the Jews and Samaritans were at this time and to appreciate how shocking for His hearers, this parable was.
remember Sodom and Gomorrah?
Cumbernauld & Glasgow?
Yeah, I saw them, opening act for Pink Floyd at the Day on the Green in Oakland back in ’74.
As a vicar, Giles will probably take the Gospel at face value. There’s a disappointingly long history of casuists claiming that ‘…he didn’t really mean that literally..’ when it comes to awkwardness between the NT strictures and good hearted common sense etc etc. Your point about refugees should be about the definition of migrants vs refugees.
100% Pure Peak Guardian.
“Labour sang God Save The King so now faith, flag and family are OUR words bigot, you don’t get to decide what they mean any more.”
I like GF, I do, but this was as you say a perfect expression of that tendency.
People could be forgiven for not wanting to overhaul and evolve the definition of faith, family, and freedom. Why is it so shocking that a populace – now downtrodden by unresponsive elites – might choose to reshape government into a vehicle that achieves the best societal outcomes? Pretending that LGBT versions of families are the same as Christian heteronormative versions of families is not going to cut it.
I am not going to defend Meloni, I simply don’t know enough to decide whether she is a dark force or not, but I doubt it, Italy in the 1920s and 30s when Mussolini rose to power was in a very different set of circumstances to 2022.
But I do question a couple of Giles Fraser’s points here;
When Giles quotes, “Come unto me all ye that are weary and burdened and I will give you rest”.
Why or how does the “me” in that mean Europe ?!
Surely it means Jesus Christ and the Christian faith ?
Economic migrants want what the West offers in terms of money and goods, they come here for Mammon, not God.
Refugees are a different matter, they are fleeing danger and I think we should help them if we can.
The second point is re Soros; we must be able to criticise figures like George Soros – not because they are jews, God forbid, but because they are seriously worrying in their power to influence governments and therefore our societies.
I am not interested in whether Soros is a jew or not, it’s his power that bothers me. Being jewish must not be a get-out clause for such a person. If we follow Giles’s argument any corrupt figure that happens to be jewish can escape scrutiny and criticism.
Yet another article that fails to accurately put its finger on why “right-wing” leaders are gaining traction in western democracies. The policies the Left have in place are not working, quite simple. Open borders, soft on drugs and crime, obsession with racial and gender politics, cost of living crisis, just to name a few, are eroding the foundations of our institutions rapidly. How scary can Meloni really be when her power will be utterly constrained by the EU? More fear mongering hyperbole from the side of the political spectrum that is giving us a front row seat into societal demise…….
Reinventing the family? Haven’t progressives had decades of work on this already? The end result is disastrous……the family has been destroyed, save for those in the upper classes, who have always known the value of an intact family structure for their offspring. The Left is not defending any of these things, they are actively destroying them, hence her appeal.
I was wondering how I would find the time to say all that I needed to say about this article. Yours is the first comment I have read (always read oldest first) and now I don’t need to write because you have made a good start.
As someone who passionately believes in family, faith and flag, it saddens me to see these concepts used as dog-whistles for some sort of racial and cultural superiority.
Since they produce superior culture, FFF are to be defended. If that becomes a racial matter it suggests some races don’t want superior culture. Islamism equates superior with Allah worship, illustrating the Maslov’s Hierarchy of Needs’ breakdown. We’re not at unisocial yet, and may never be.
If you can hear the dog whistle, friend, you are the dog.
“My first instinct is to cheer along.”
Maybe the beloved vicar should have stopped at that—but then we wouldn’t have much meat for talk 😉
Advice unsought: To put more trust in healthy instincts, and put away with layer upon rancid layer of mendacious woke rationalising. Too much to ask… or not?
Very peculiar and twisted way of thinking. Suppositions without any basic evidence. The only reason I think this piece appears on Unherd is to prove the freedom of expression. Nothing else.
Whatever people like to think, UnHerd is a business. Freedom of expression good, until it affects the bottom line.
I didn’t much agree with this piece, but it was challenging to me and made me think. As a regular UnHerd reader, that’s a good thing. I don’t want a staple of pieces that rub my belly.
It’s a bit worrying too see so many commenters saying this is woke, ‘what’s happened to UnHerd?’, etc. Surely we don’t want an echo chamber here?
On this very webpage, there’s an UnHerd piece titled ‘Goergia Meloni is no radical’. Seems like UnHerd are doing their jobs here.
Also, the progressive left are *hostile* to family, flag, and faith – I don’t know how they ever plan to defend that
Very good comment. Like you, I disagree with almost everything Fraser says, but as the cliche goes, I will defend his right to say it.
I bet you have your limits.
It’s not that I object to a different point of view. It’s that this is so biased and shallow, ticking all the tired old boxes. What was the point. It told us nothing about Meloni and more about the writer, which is not much because we’ve heard it all a hundred times. And once again it’s incredibly simplistic in its perspective. How can it be stimulating when it’s just a cut-and-paste job?
I suggest that Fraser has been hoist by his own petard and thatnto silence him would simply make him a martyr. I like to gather as many opinions as possible and make my own judgments.
Not publishing his trash here is not “silencing” him.
What exactly did the piece make you think about that you didn’t already know?
Made me ponder a meta thought ↓
Why do the kind heart and working brain lamentably fail against infestation with simplistic woke talking points?
Terrible manners it may be to answer a question shot not at me, yet here you go 😉
Your reply assumes facts (“kind heart and working brain”) not in evidence.
Like you, I was glad of this piece although there are a number of things that I disagree with here, such as – equating any criticism of the financial activities of Mr Soros with anti-Semitism, the mis-interpretation of a Gospel passage, the seeming belief that Europe can accommodate every person who arrives at our shores with no consequences. However, he also makes a number of interesting points about nationalism, and how it can devolve into racism, and his discussion of the shape of families is also interesting. Families are where most people thrive, and the “traditional” European form of family (1 man, 1 woman and n children) has served us well in the past, but I think there is room for other forms. The one form of family that doesn’t appear to work well is with a single parent, unless there is a lot of outside support. I used to be 100% against same-sex parents, but there is no evidence, that I’ve come across, that they are problematic, and certainly such couples appear to be more willing than others to adopt children with multiple problems who would otherwise spend there lives in care. In many cases same-sex partners adopt traditional family patterns with one being a stay-at-home parent and the other being the bread-winner.
“certainly such couples appear to be more willing than others to adopt children with multiple problems who would otherwise spend there lives in care.”
So, though you have no stats, you’re suggesting same sex couples are more caring than binary, or “others”. I have no reason to believe that. And:
“many cases same-sex partners adopt traditional family patterns with one being a stay-at-home parent and the other being the bread-winner.”
What does that mean, “many”? Some, a lot, the majority, a minority, hardly any at all? And, are you saying that ‘traditional family patterns” are important, essential, and that’s why same sex parents imitate them? If so, what’s the basis for these “traditional family patterns”? How can you think, on the one hand, that traditional family values are important, then deconstruct them?
Yes. A slip-up there. I used to be 100% against same-sex parents, but there is no evidence, that I’ve come across, that they are problematic,… A lack of evidence is no evidence at all. What establishes a claim is the evidence in its favour.
Isn’t that great? No evidence is proof. Welcome to the 21st century.
I wouldn’t be too harsh. it is a very common mistake. So common in fact that it has a name – argument from ignorance – and is featured in texts on critical thinking.
“I used to be 100% against same-sex parents, but there is no evidence, that I’ve come across, that they are problematic, and certainly such couples appear to be more willing than others to adopt children with multiple problems who would otherwise spend there lives in care.”
And I’ve seen no evidence of THAT.
On the other hand, there’s this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hart_family_murders
Not saying it’s dispositive, but it’s not nothing, so it’s more than you’ve got.
Mary Harrington makes you think. This was just a dressed up propaganda piece.
I don’t mind unHerd publishing things I disagree with. But publishing this brain-dead screed didn’t make me think anything except that unHerd ought to have SOME standards and apparently doesn’t have any.
You say this article “made [you] think”. Of what, exactly?
White skin. Blond hair. Blue eyes. A headline that suggests said person is hiding something. Yes, just as I suspected. Praise be, I no longer need to think about this matter. I don’t need to read her words or listen to her speeches. She’s evil, she’s fascist. Got it. So grateful to Unherd for giving me the peace of mind and warm sense of righteousness that I craved. #stunningandbrave
Exactly: telegraph writing. Because we’re so stupid we need to be told.
When Meloni repeatedly denounces George Soros as the enemy, and speaks of her resistance to becoming a “perfect slave at the mercy of financial speculators”, she is not just attacking capitalism, she is subtly eliding financial oppression and Jews. The idea of financial speculators preying upon good Christian men and women is one of the oldest antisemitic themes in the book.
This is incredible. I welcome well-argued and incisive examinations of claims but this is an example of blanket assertions without evidence and guilt by association as evidence. If Meloni’s views are to be elucidated and critiqued then damn well provide evidence and sound argumentation.
For example, where is evidence “she is subtly eliding financial oppression and Jews”? And then on the back of that claiming this is one of the oldest antisemitic themes in the book, when antisemitism has not been demonstrated, is risible.
It’s not risible. It’s repulsive.
Ridiculous article – just plain silly. A country is obliged to welcome any and all who wish to come ? Really ?
You are right! Tell that to the Ukrainians. Ridiculous.
Are you attempting to be ironic?
Fail.
Hoorah for Meloni
I support her emphasis and would define those desirable qualities even more specifically.
Yes to natural families made up of a man and a woman making and rearing children, within a community of the same.
No – to gay marriage, and no to gay adoption.
No – to Trans anything. Meaningless self-delusion by mentally ill people.
No -to mass migration as all it brings is militant, non Western foreigners offering cheap labour to undercut our own people and to take up housing and state resources that our own people produced and need.
Yes – to a reasonable pride in our nation and clear a identification of who we are as a race and what we stand for.
No – to the replacement of white Europeans with brown people from Asia and Africa. The Great Replacement – It is real and happening every day, by tiny fractions, across the entire continent.
What Giles and his ilk of hand wringing centrists and socialists really desire is that ‘Europeans’ as existed in 1900 cease to exist and that ‘Europeans 2030’ become a new race of brown-ish folk made up of 50% Caucasian, 25% Asian and 25% black African.
Giles – playing the Jewish card. No one cares about Jewish folk because they are jewish or about someone’s Jewish background. What people care about is Soros, as a $billionaire financier, buying influence and stamping his policies and his desires on our lives across Europe. That is why people get so very angry about Billionaires buying and funding think tanks and buying and influencing political parties and why the Davos attendees are treated with such mistrust. The internationalist ultra rich elite care not one jot about any nation State (they are above nationhood), or about any set of morals, or national identity, or of religions. They are above all that and are untouchables. They don’t want to be controlled in their sex arrangements, their relationship arrangements, their country of domicile arrangements. Hence all those things can be sacrificed and allowed to wither away.
Giles says the Left needs to defend family faith and nation. But the problem is that the Left doesn’t do that. Remember the Left is now culturally dominant throughout the Churches of all denominations and every branch of civil society. Giorgia is restrained by EU bribery and will be lucky to survive politically. But the Italian people won’t forget they had this one chance, after many years, to elect their own government. They might get used to the idea.
Cleary dysfunctional. The church embraces the left who despise them, and now the church abandons their remaining supporters.
“The Left must defend family, faith and flag.” Seriously? After spending the last 50 years doing everything it can to destroy those things, now suddenly the Left is going to champion them? Please. How credulous do you expect people to be?
Wake up and smell the coffee. Ordinary people are turning right because the Left has failed them so spectacularly… and is utterly blind to both their failures and the aspirations of common citizens. In case I haven’t gotten the point over here: the leftist “progressive” elites are the last place any sane person would look for protectors of family, faith or national sovereignty.
Throwing around ad hominems, canards, and half-truths about people who don’t happen to agree totally with their ideas, dogmas, and agenda will not benefit the Left in the long run. The truth will out.
“As someone who passionately believes in family, faith and flag, it saddens me to see…”
Come off it, you’re a member of the CoE
A very disappointing essay. It should be clear by now that, considering ESG policies are being enforced and driven by the world’s biggest financial and political players (WEF and the like), speaking of an LGBT cartel is not an overstatement at all.
So you are saying that migrants coming to Europe is like coming to Jesus? What poppycock. In fact it is just the the opposite. Europeans have long forgotten the reason why people from around the globe want to come there. They have forgotten their Christian (Jesus) foundation and so do not know what to defend nor what they could offer migrants. The Christian faith. A few years back, during the Arab spring, The atheist Ayaan Hersi Ali recommended on BBC News that the West send Christian missionaries to the Arab countries as a solution to the never ending problems there. The BBC announcer nearly swallowed her microphone in her indignation. Europeans just somehow think that migrants will adopt European values when they step onto the ‘magic soil’. If Europe did offer migrants the Gospel of Jesus Christ and biblical (mainly Protestant) values to migrants, it would make a powerful case for welcoming immigrants. As it is, far from coming to Jesus, all they have to offer is stagnant materialism and secularism.
Jesus didn’t mean that all people should come to Israel when He said they should come to Him. That is so well understood that misunderstanding it is impossible. George Soros is indeed a subverter of nations, European ones and the USA. It is not anti-semitic to call him that. He can’t use his religion as a shield to deflect just criticism. Traditional families are still preferable to other kinds. Not only for administering to childrens’ spiritual and other needs, but for demonstrating the relationship based on the peculiar attraction between men and women in the best setting for its expression.
The Left sees “fascists” under every rock and behind every tree. Sorry, dude, nothing to see here. You’ve got fascists on the brain.
…the greater part of the World had the opportunity to live under Western rule…which in the case, at least, of the British Empire was mostly exercised by quite small numbers of people actually from these Islands…and many more local people who willingly signed up to our way of doing things…
…but then they wanted us gone, and we duly went…mostly, again our case, leaving behind every opportunity to carry on according to our methods…which in many cases they enthusiastically trashed pretty as soon as we got on the boat home…
…so perhaps it’s pretty understandable why there is some consternation about just how many people have had a change of mind…and are desperate to get back under a flag they were pulling down and sometimes burning…during the lifetime of anybody born here who is over sixty.
Throw in the fact that they are also consistently obnoxiously rude about what vile, genocidal, racist brutes we all are and were…loudly, constantly and in public…and even the best of us can find it a bit difficult to summon the epic quantities of kindness and Christian charity you would like us to manifest.
Seriously, you cannot quote Jesus and then go on to say that all of these abominations should be accepted.
And when Jesus says, in Matthew’s Gospel: “Come unto me all ye that are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.” you cannot really believe that means that we should not have any borders or border controls?
I remember seeing a statistic that we can help 13 times more people at their point of need than if we bring them to our country.
I do everything in my power to help people in need but we must have controls so that when we set up systems to help, then we can efficiently target the resources while also ensuring the safety of the ones we are helping.
An open border overwhelms the resources and allows in some people who just want to destroy everything we have built and hurt the people we have taken into our care.
I welcome people into my home but I want the right to lock my door and choose who I let in.
‘I do everything in my power….’ – no you don’t – you explicitly want the right to ration your power to help. That’s not everything. We’re all fine with that, but don’t overclaim. Only mad Christian folk do ‘everything in their power’.
It’s not ‘rationing’ – it’s a practical targeted distribution for maximum effect.
If I allow everybody into my house then nobody will end up with anything. All the food will go and the house will get trashed. I will lose my job – my source of income to help.
I have particular giftings and skills that I focus on. I must target people with those needs and not try and be everything to everyone.
I cannot give to people in need effectively if I don’t ensure my resources are maintained and targeted.
There is certainly plenty of prejudice on display here, but none of it is Meloni’s, all of it is Fraser’s. Meloni did not say “No to Islam”, she said “No to the violence of Islam.” Why single out “Islam” violence?” What other organised violence is a threat? Why not just say “No to violence”? Because she doesn’t make cowardly weasel statements. “Twists the concepts of family and nation to suit her own cruel ideology.”? What is “cruel” about giving children the stability of two loving parents? What is immensely cruel is “twisting” in the minds of children the male/female nature of all life since long before it crawled out of the sea. And no, teaching that is not being “cruel” to the tiny minority of genuine cases of sexual dysphoria, any more than it is being cruel to paraplegics to teach that people walk on two legs. “Yes to natural families, no to the LGBT lobby”? You said that, not her. But I certainly hope she says no to the woke disease that divides all of us into mindless warring factions of hate for the sake of achieving nothing but destruction – that is pure evil that benefits nobody.
Meloni’s ‘No to the violence of Islam’ isn’t ‘twist[ing] Christianity against migrants and those of other faiths’. On the contrary, it’s you who are twisting her words.
She didn’t say migrants and she didn’t refer to other faiths (in the plural). She spoke out, very specifically, against the violence of Islam which I assume, as a Christian, you also condemn.
This is a crock, from start to finish. First, Christianity does not mandate open borders (how many migrants did the Pope take in this year?). Second, there is a wide gulf between tolerance for gay people and tolerance for an LBGTQetc agenda— which has become increasingly shrill and offensive (including pushing filth on children). Finally, objecting to George Soros is not antisemitic at all— Soros himself has supported numerous anti-Israel causes (unlike Meloni, who is pro-Israel). The allegation, in fact, is particularly offensive— and I say this as an Orthodox Jew who doesn’t have much use for Soros. Sorry— this article shouldn’t have made it into Unherd.
> how many migrants did the Pope take in this year?
As Trump comically pointed out when the Pope chided him for his border wall, there is a thirty foot high wall all round Vatican City! 🙂
Don’t know about you folks, but I must avoid this author in future. I bet he uses pronouns.
Why can’t we say that this is a sh*t piece of writing, politics aside?
We definitely can, and we should alao ask: why UnHerd decided that it was worth publishing?
Because they know we’ll bite and keep subscribing.
Giorgia Meloni is hiding a glimpse of hope.
For the Italians who believe in the values of the traditional family.
For the Italians who feel alienated, threatened and destabilized in their own country.
For the Italians who think that the laws define the perimeter of a nation.
The Italians have decided. No one else.
Well said Marco. However, if Italy is ever to get back on the path to prosperity you really do have to ditch the euro.
Retracted
This article shows the daftness of the Left-Right paradigm unless discussing France in 1790s as it occludes rather than reveals. The socialism Karl Marx and the socialism of Giovanni Gentile were never polar opposites, just different ways to end up with a centrally directed economy and society, both hostile to the idea of “free” markets.
And whilst I am mightily suspicious Meloni, disliking Schwab & Soros is not “anti-Semitism”, something which these days is more commonly practiced by those on the self-described “Left” (to wit Corbyn and his vile ilk).
It does seem to me that there are many unknowns about Meloni, for example her apparent support for EU hegemony, therefore some caution might be in order… but it’s disingenuous to argue that her opposition to an open Italian door for “refugees” — when we all know quite well that most migrants from Africa these days often aren’t actual refugees — is racist and cruel.
What Meloni is really hiding is that, for all her bluster and good intentions, she’s politically fettered hands and feet. Those who salute her as the saviour of Italy are just as mistaken as those who revile her as a dictator in the making. The reality is that very little of what she plans to do can be practically done without incurring the wrath of the EU apparatus; an engineered financial crisis and a technical government are always one misstep away and, like most Italians by now, she knows this very well, from experience. All that remains to be seen, in my opinion, is how long she can manage the balancing act of keeping her electorate happy without displeasing our overlords in Brussels and Washington. I give her 18 months at the outside.
I agree with most of Meloni’s points on immigration, family and culture but alas, it is too little, too late. I do not think there is any hope left for Italy at this point.
I expect you’re right – maybe a change in mood music but no major change to the drumbeat of Brussells.
Blonde hair, blue eyes, pale skin … I get it. She’s obviously a white supremacist.
Have you secretly converted to Catholicism, Giles? The Pope knows on which side his bread is buttered. Africa is his only growth area. Plus, he is the absolute ruler of a small country: how many migrants is the Vatican taking this year?
Immigrants that have no skills and come with different religion / moral norms are a net liability on European states. They erode the common culture and further erode Italy’s Catholicism. Immigrants that DO Have skills and a willingness to adopt some of Europe’s historical morals should stay in their home country’s and be the instruments for incrementally making their homelands more stable / meritocratic.
At a time when Cordoba, Spain had 300k people and a decadent civilization, Germans were living in a Feudal society. The fact that they did not migrate themselves to Spain allowed Germany to exist as a strong people and race today. The “Refugee Crisis” is a false absolution of responsibility for people to improve the home’s they had the privilege / burden of being born in.
It’s true that Jesus says….: “Come unto me all ye that are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.”
However, what would he have said if Israel was experiencing an endless wave of illegal, poor Babylonian migrants, mostly young men?
On the NT evidence, if you take all that stuff seriously, he would just have said it again, God’s mercy and loving-kindness, notoriously, being infinite.
He would have suggested that middle class liberals should bear some of the costs instead of dumping the migrants on poor communities with insufficient resources to accommodate them and then helping themselves to all the profits in the form of endlessly rising property prices and falling wages. Oh, and meanwhile, virtue signalling about it like windmills in a hurricane.
Sadly, Giles just showed himself one of those cultural elites who thinks the West has a moral duty to bring in every illegal economic migrant and treat them as a victim to be given full access to all our social services and to hell with the people who fund them with their hard-earned taxed income, while those public services fall apart. There is not a bottomless pit of money to fund everyone arriving illegally while people in Italy and the West cannot afford to heat their own homes.
And then he wheels out the antisemitic trope. Give me a break! If I quote Aristotle or Plato does that make me pro-slavery? Is this the Daily Mirror or something?
One of the blessings of a polarised article like this one is that it often communicates the opposite of the message the author intended.
It’s time to stop accusing those who question the behaviour of George Soros of anti-semitism. It’s dishonest.
The pope can of course invite the hoards to Europe because he and his cabal do not pay for maintenance of the wretched. The Catholic Church has been milking the populace since it’s inception.
Glad someone pointed that out.
I’ve been refraining from commenting on this article – it’s almost “where do you start?” but i’d simply ask two questions:
1) how many migrants has the Vatican allowed to “come unto it”
2) how many migrants has GF allowed to “come unto him?” other than preaching to them?
Sanctimonious hypocrisy in action.
Edit: just read, point 1 has already been made.
Right on Giles. Enjoy your bubble, while it lasts.
Shylock was a money-lender, not a merchant: they were the anti-Semitic Christians. Understand that and you’ll see that the play is at a different level.
The prophet of open borders…
Sorry Giles, Giorgia is not defending your kind of family nor your kind of faith and definitely not your rainbow flag. But I doubt she will deliver more than promises. Is she not the political heir of a certain Benito or even a Nicolò?
The EU, or better the French and German banks, will clearly limit her choices, if it is not in their interests.
Don’t panic anyone! Don’t panic!
“For while the nation is a good thing and, I believe, the epitome of democratic legitimacy, ethnic nationalism is the very essence of fascism. And Meloni knows this: she comes from the birthplace of fascism.”
Somewhat contradictory. Whilst not described as ‘fascist’, most nations up until the 20th century, by GF’s definition, were fascist.
Giles trying desperately hard to prove he is still a man of the left. How can there be a left wing version of faith, family and flag when the left despises every aspect of that. I have no idea of who or what Meloni is or stands for, an unmarried mother of one is hardly a religious icon. Neither is a pope who seems very keen on open borders and an ageing population as do the secular elites who have little time for any faith, especially the Christian or Jewish variety. It’s complicated and we can understand people not being completely happy with what’s on offer? But what else can they do?
What happened, Mr Fraser? You have changed.
What happened, Mr Fraser? You have changed.
So Giles, where did all these cruel people come from?
They can’t all be bitter, uncaring racists, would you think?
So Giles, where did all these cruel people come from?
They can’t all be bitter, uncaring racists, would you think?
Christ said “Come unto me.” He did not say “Come unto the state.” Neither did He say, “I am the state.”
Steve White’s comment just below cannot be improved upon.
Giles Fraser, like many Christians, has a large blind spot about Jews and even more so about Judaism. Today’s European resistance to migrants has nothing to do with anti-semitism or Jew hatred, or even anti-capitalism. Today’s resistance has everything to do with self-preservation of western values and ethnic identity, and there is nothing wrong, immoral or dangerous about that. I am Jewish. Many parts of the world have never seen Jews living in it today, yet they are highly anti-semitic. The blind spot for Christians is the modern continued association in the Christian narrative concerning the blame of Jews for the death of Christ. This theme is anti-semitic today and also anti-Jewish. If you want to understand this distinction – then know that when Shakespeare created Shylock the Jew, and capitalism was born in England with the legalization of lending with interest, there were no Jews in England. Here is an elucidating video by a scholar at Yad Vashem titled Anti-Judaism, Shakespeare and the Jews. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gej4nfRvWcE&ab_channel=YadVashem
I believe that Jews everywhere, even Jews in the “global ghetto” Chesterton might call Israel, would welcome Christians to understand the debt Christians owe to Rabbi Jesus and to Judaism. The Holocaust taught the world about the horror of genocide. But don’t let that contribute to the blind spot. Jews are the scapegoat of the world, and in today’s lingo – the canary in the coal mine. Jews bring new ideas and innovation to the world. Yes, sometimes this is scary, and it requires hard thinking, like understanding why George Soros is such a contradiction. He became a billionaire by almost bankrupting the UK. Yet he spends all his money on socialist and communist causes. What does this truly teach us ? Well, in Judaism, money is a tool. It can be wielded for good or ill.
Giles Fraser, like many Christians, has a large blind spot about Jews and even more so about Judaism. Today’s European resistance to migrants has nothing to do with anti-semitism or Jew hatred, or even anti-capitalism. Today’s resistance has everything to do with self-preservation of western values and ethnic identity, and there is nothing wrong, immoral or dangerous about that. I am Jewish. Many parts of the world have never seen Jews living in it today, yet they are highly anti-semitic. The blind spot for Christians is the modern continued association in the Christian narrative concerning the blame of Jews for the death of Christ. This theme is anti-semitic today and also anti-Jewish. If you want to understand this distinction – then know that when Shakespeare created Shylock the Jew, and capitalism was born in England with the legalization of lending with interest, there were no Jews in England. Here is an elucidating video by a scholar at Yad Vashem titled Anti-Judaism, Shakespeare and the Jews. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gej4nfRvWcE&ab_channel=YadVashem
I believe that Jews everywhere, even Jews in the “global ghetto” Chesterton might call Israel, would welcome Christians to understand the debt Christians owe to Rabbi Jesus and to Judaism. The Holocaust taught the world about the horror of genocide. But don’t let that contribute to the blind spot. Jews are the scapegoat of the world, and in today’s lingo – the canary in the coal mine. Jews bring new ideas and innovation to the world. Yes, sometimes this is scary, and it requires hard thinking, like understanding why George Soros is such a contradiction. He became a billionaire by almost bankrupting the UK. Yet he spends all his money on socialist and communist causes. What does this truly teach us ? Well, in Judaism, money is a tool. It can be wielded for good or ill.
“When Meloni repeatedly denounces George Soros as the enemy, and speaks of her resistance to becoming a “perfect slave at the mercy of financial speculators”, she is not just attacking capitalism, she is subtly eliding(sic) financial oppression and Jews.”
I didn’t bother reading this wall of crap once I got a whiff of its smell. but I scanned it a bit and this jumped out at me. It’s lunacy, of course. I don’t mind in the slightest that Soros made his stash by betting against the pound (whish is capitalism of a sort, I guess) nor that he is ethnically Jewish (as am I, more or less). But the way he’s spending his money is not good for the rest of us, and I see no reason to suffer this author’s slurs because I think so, nor should Meloni.
I thought this was article by Giles was good
What a grumbling lot in the response! Giles seems to be attacked for having Christian compassionate values. How could you Giles!
.Okay you can’t have unlimited immigration but whether you accept them or not into the country it’s a bit oversimplified not to look at other factors in explaining living standard decline. Very right wing economic policies do more damage than potential migrants.
Also Giorgia has just cut a benefit for the poorest people in Italian society. She is on the side of the very rich.
“Giles seems to be attacked for having Christian compassionate values.”
Maybe he does have compassionate values. Most of us do. But what you choose to ignore is his support of ideas that resist long held Christian values, like family, marriage and nations. What exactly does he stand for? And what are “very right wing” economic policies, as opposed to conservative economic policies?
“ethnic nationalism is the very essence of fascism.”
But not in Ukraine, right?
I appear to be in the minority but I appreciated this piece. I don’t get why others seem to think that just because ‘woke’ may have gone too far – what we will get in response to it can’t also be too far in the opposite direction.
“I don’t get why others seem to think that just because ‘woke’ may have gone too far “
Well, has it?