Disillusionment with democracy

2024-04-07 12:39:00, Opinione Ermal Mulosmani

There is a very interesting moment in the book "Leather" by the writer Curzio Malaparte. The Americans arrived in Naples at the end of September 1943 as winners of the war with the German invaders. The Italians were double losers, first they were occupied by Germany and later they felt both liberated and occupied by the Americans. It was a mixed feeling, between shame as a loser of the war but also gratitude, for the new liberator-conqueror.

This quite unusual situation combined with the extreme poverty of the Neapolitans produced scenes that the writer describes with impressive talent and truth in the book. As if this ambiguous situation were not enough, the plague broke out in the city! Malaparte devotes several pages to the effect that the Plague had on the total depravity of the Neapolitans, already delivered from every moral barrier.

This is how the writer describes it:
"This plague had a diabolical character as it did not destroy the body, but perverted the soul. The limbs remained intact wrapped in intact flesh while the soul decayed, undone". The greatest change occurred in Neapolitan women.

They were the same heroines who, during the years of slavery and war, gave high proofs of dignity and spiritual strength, even greater than that of men.

As soon as the deliverance took place and the pestilence fell, the women surrendered their honor as a burden which they had carried on their backs and could not wait to remove! They rotted in the scum of prostitution with a vile flight that evoked croup.
"The power of molestation was so bad, so unjust - writes Malaparte - that selling the body was a work for every praise, a test of patriotism. Men and women, instead of blushing, seemed to boast of their own and the general humiliation. But the men were no less miserable.

As they begged, they lost all sense of self-respect, committed the lowest things, the foulest abominations, dragged their slippers in the mud, kissing the shoes of their deliverers who were disgusted by such great and uncalled for humiliation, not only the sufferings and humiliations they had endured during the years of slavery and war were forgiven, but they had the honor of being placed under the heel of the new rulers. They spit on the flag of their country, sold their wife, their daughter, their mother. They did all this, they said, to save their homeland".

I was particularly impressed with this part of "Leather". What happened that the Italian heroines who agreed to die in order not to fall into the hands of the German occupiers, who guarded their honor as the most precious thing and fought with their lives to protect human dignity suddenly turned into slaves of vice and lust, despising it that they had as the most sacred thing only 1 month ago?!

Malaparte leaves this transformation to the plague, which according to him struck the soul more than the body. I think it is a benevolent attempt by the writer to justify the moral depravity as a result of a force majeure such as the epidemic.
I think that the humiliating transformation of human characters that took place in the Italians of those years was not caused by the Plague but by Disillusionment with Liberty.

In the times of the German occupation the heroic morality and pathetic enthusiasm of society inspired men to die in the name of so high a cause as Freedom. They were waiting in Liria for the end of their suffering, the destination of their tragic journey. When it came in the form of American soldiers, the Italians suddenly found themselves in a complete blank. They had nothing to wait for, he had arrived at his destination. A disappointing destination full of want, misery and above all it had to come with submission and gratitude. This kind of state of emotional viscosity, this kind of disappointing destination wears them down and they are released into the arms of extreme vice as a form of despair. I think so.

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The same situation with the Italians in '43 seems to me to have happened with the countries of Eastern Europe after the change of the system. The arrival of democracy was the destination, after arriving there it seemed as if the "travelers" were deprived of the right to complain. Now their right was only the vote: authoritarianism ended.

Who has lived for a long time in slavery or authoritarianism creates a dream world with the existing system falling. The new world is seen as idyllic, just, equal. The doors of heaven will open there. Alternative voting was seen as a miracle that would change the poor and desperate lives of the population.

But democracy would soon run out of tin. The poor and inexperienced new leaders would produce such rampant corruption and unfair distribution of wealth that the population would soon long for the equality of communist misery. All this corruption would be clothed in the guise of meritocracy to doubly insult the losers. They felt not only robbed but also humiliated as inferior creatures. Changing parties was not a solution, they simply changed people but with the same thirst for corruption and abuse of power.

This was the first firo from democracy. But that's not all.
Every day less and less power is decided by the votes of the people. Some time ago, the former Prime Minister of Kosovo, Isa Mustafa, in a moment of sincerity, when the journalist told him that the people voted for another Prime Minister and not him, declared:
"The people do not vote for the Prime Minister, the people choose the deputies.
The prime minister is elected by the deputies".

Mustafa was right. The people are leaving every day the opportunity to choose. The creation of many parties and the systematic failure of new alternatives has increased confusion and confidence that the people's vote will bring about any change. Today, the victory of power depends on a much more complicated algorithm than the simple counting of citizens' votes. In a world that votes for everything from Miss, singer, actor, athlete or favorite resident, the voter believes less and less that his vote will make a difference.

The maximum feeling is what Isa Mustafa once said: "The people choose the MPs, not the Prime Minister". There are as many examples as you like. We have all seen that after the split of the Democratic Party, the majority of opposition voters, heirs of that Party, went to the side of non-women. This has been confirmed in both electoral tests. But that doesn't matter. The importance is that in the forums that elect the President, the procedures provided for by the Statute have not been implemented and for that reason they are not recognized by the Court. So people's vote easily loses its importance. The procedure, one of the most wonderful inventions of democracy, matters more than the undisputed majority itself! In fact, the procedure is envisaged in the first place to enable the indisputable victory of the majority. But who cares. Now, the minority claims the logo in the name of the procedure.

Today's voter feels almost as powerless to change anything as yesterday's voter of authoritarian systems. Except this time, this impotence for change is also accompanied by a surrender of the feeling to protest. If once the feeling of conspiracy and conspiracy against an authoritarian system had all the power and understanding precisely because it was forbidden and punishable, it has already lost that magic. Everyone is free to swear and talk as they please.
But where will they go more than in democratic pluralism?

This is the killer question. You are in the quagmire of powerlessness to protest. Your only protest is the vote and it is irrelevant. This is a big trap precisely because the system you are in is the most advanced, it is the dream.
Where will you go next?

And the voter surrenders. If you do not find yourself in democracy, it means that you are incompetent. Then leave. You don't have to protest babush, no mechanism more advanced than democracy has been invented.
We are in the situation of the Italians liberated by the Americans in September 43. We have no right to complain, we are at the destination. If we go further, we will return to authoritarianism. So stay there and don't make noise. /CNA