The tribal winds of Jihadism and populism that threaten the endurance of the States

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Norma Bishop
5 years ago
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1 The tribal winds of Jihadism and populism that threaten the endurance of the States A conference in Milan with a prestigious audience examines the crisis of the Nations, flanked by a number of mostly non-state subjects that have tribal or sectarian characters which defy order by Claudia Svampa The cue fuelling the debate is the book written by Maurizio Molinari, head editor of La Stampa: The return of the tribes: the challenge of the new clans to the world order Sometimes they come back. And if the subjects are tribalminded social entities and the setting involved is the world geopolitical chessboard, the return assumes alarming features. It becomes especially worrisome if it is discussed by authoritative voices on foreign and national policies, such as the President of the ISPI (Institute for International Policy Studies), Ambassador Giampiero Massolo, former Secretary General of the Ministry of the Interior and Director of the DIS (Information System for the of the Republic), together with the current Secretary of the PD (Democratic Party) and former Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, with Professor Angelo Panebianco and Maurizio Molinari, head editor of La Stampa and author of the essay Il ritorno delle tribù: la sfida dei nuovi clan all ordine mondiale (The return of the tribes: the challenge of the new clans to the world order. All gathered at the IPSI headquarters in Milan for a discussion on Winds of disintegration blowing on the States: the challenges between Jihadism and populism. This book written by Molinari is the cue fuelling the debate and, as Giampiero Massolo says, it is also a fascinating, historical-geographic itinerary on how the Nation-States are imploding and exploding, according to the cases, not just those for the truth, but also their coalescence as we have known them so far. However, the same ambassador emphasises that the framework to be outlined must be much wider, starting from the complexity of the international community where the Nation- States are flanked by a plurality of subjects, mostly non-state. 86

2 The crisis of the Western world clearly emerges as an inevitable consequence of the sense of mistrust that citizens have towards their leadership, on the level of security, and on the economicfinancial one Meanwhile, we have organised public opinions made more aware by those same mass media and social networks that then provoke and polarise that sense of individual empowerment or individual affirmation, which, at the end, creates many problems to the orders constituted and, above all, to the governments. Massolo continued mentioning that large enterprises, NGOs, terrorist groups and composite groups are involved in this context, unified by the same ethnic tribal origin, or united by the same fears, the same anxieties by the same claims. Let s say that sectarianism, as a sense of identity and protection, contributes to exasperating the reactions and thus to undermine the already fragile assets by much more structural causes than Jihadism, which sooner or later will end, although in many years, and by populism phenomena, which sooner or later will also have to find the most appropriate answers from more or less integrated governmental structures in the West. The crisis of the Western world clearly emerges as an inevitable consequence of the sense of mistrust that citizens have towards their leadership, on the level of security, and on the economic-financial one, reaching the meandering awareness of the public opinion that the chances are that nobody will be called to solve the issue. It is from this point on that populist tendencies take place, enduring the United Kingdom s Brexit and the election of President Trump in the United States, Massolo defines them as manifestations of profound concern, both of which are countered with effective languages, sometimes due to a post-truth, but which represent what the public opinion wants to hear. The processes that are already taking place reach two conclusions. Therefore, if the growing populist culture trend in the Western world can be attributed to the rift created between the political world and the needs of the citizens, the issue shifts from a different direction on the Jihadist front: the instrumental use of religious and ethnic fundamentalism to climb the ladder of political supremacy. Panebianco intervenes, What I really think the truth is, but that international diplomacy does not particularly like to admit is that, in some way, the Western project of nationalising the Islamic world has failed and that the failure of this project challenges the two traditional organisational poles of the Islamic world, namely the Ummah, with its universalistic vocation, and the tribes, with their tribal nature. These have always been the two great poles of Islamic history, since their origins. 87

We must realise that it is a civilisation born with characteristics very different from the western one that has a stationary nature, while the Islamic one is a nomadic civilisation.

3 We must realise that it is a civilisation born with characteristics very different from the western one that has a stationary nature, while the Islamic one is a nomadic civilisation. This leads to giving completely different meanings to the role of cities. Being a citizen in Europe means being identified with a city, being a citizen of the Islamic world, instead, means being within one of the many points of the Ummah. Panebianco continued, Now all this seemed greatly influenced by the birth of certain States between World War I and II, which were actually built by Europeans. We marked the boundaries of these States, thereby allowing to assume that the establishment of national or state identities would downgrade the two aforementioned great principles around which Islam was organised. The inefficiency of that modernist and Western project challenged both the tribes and the Ummah. In fact, the idea that the old States fall through, that Syria no longer exists, that there is no more Iraq and that Libya is all split up, and the risk exists and is very high. The problem is how do you put the toothpaste back inside the tube after it is squeezed out, this is the point. In theory, and also in political practice, the alternative solution, 88

4 The former Prime Minister Renzi: the issue of migration will remain standing for the next 20 years, and politics has the task of giving a deep, non-superficial reading to the matter other than war, is confederation, rightly emphasised by Molinari in his book. Where statehood is impossible to rebuild and confederation is the only road that even the international community should take. Matteo Renzi was the one to bring back the debate between the folds and faults among current European political affairs and on the Italian agenda, with an analysis of the migratory phenomenon that is not free of French-speaking responsibility. The former Prime Minister says, Migration in the Mediterranean is an issue that arises from the failure of the State and from the victory of the tribes in Libya and to be honest, from the failure of international politics that expects to intervene subtly, sometimes as an accomplice of Italy of those years, in order to regulate an internal competition in France. The decision to speed up the Libyan operation was taken by Nicolas Sarkozy, as we well remember, and it was the only time that a U.S. President in office, Barak Obama, in 2016 would say, we got something wrong, we made a geopolitical mistake. That event marked a new beginning of migratory problems for Italy. Renzi continues, But the issue of migration will remain standing for the next 20 years, and politics has the task of giving a deep, non-superficial reading to the matter. To those who tell me that they disagree on the ius soli due to the migration problem, I reply: we cannot be so miserable in the political controversy not to understand that a child born in Italy and who has gone to school here, has the right to be Italian without waiting to turn eighteen, but maybe just waiting for them to achieve their middle school diploma. Nonetheless, at the same time, I have a duty to acknowledge that public opinion is exasperated on these issues and therefore the truth must be explained: we have always been a people of migrants and we need a long-term strategy. The former Prime Minister affirmed, The long-term strategy is to prevent the numbers from being those of today, because they cannot be withstood, they are not sustainable. However, on the other hand, a huge educational and cultural effort is needed because the nations composed of migrants that have worked well in history are those in which the first, second and third generation children are moved when hearing the national anthem or standing in front of the flag, they recognise the shared values of that community, they treasure the sense of belonging to the local tribe, to the territorial tribe that is the community-tribe. If you want to make sure that the tribes do not break apart but integrate within a community, you need a strong culture, and 89

5 the left wing party must acknowledge that the word identity is a beautiful, positive word. Identity is not the opposite of integration, it is exactly the opposite: identity is the prerequisite for integration. If you do not have an identity, you will not integrate, you will just be invaded. Lastly, the former Prime Minister also recalls that during the semester of Italian Presidency of the EU which began in July 2014, immediately after the declaration of the birth of the Islamic State by al-baghdadi, and a few days after Isis s conquest of Mosul Italy decided to do something strikingly unexpected: to go to Baghdad and then to Erbil in August 2014 to bring Europe straight into the core of those dynamics that it had just seen starting the American intervention and which then saw the Islamic State grow, but not aiming at Baghdad as it was initially imagined. Molinari replied, There is no doubt that the Renzi administration has had the merit, with regards to the decomposition of the Muslim Arab world, to launch the desert diplomacy, that is to send his men to speak with the tribes. Physically, the envoys of President Renzi went to talk to the tribes. And if today, there is a possibility of composing, or an attempt to manage the emergency at the borders between Libya and Niger and between Chad and Algeria, it is thanks to Italy, as it has been working with the tribes for many years now and not only with the leaders of those countries. This is certainly an innovative element in European foreign policy. The director of La Stampa continues, The question is whether also the approach to inequalities should not have been equally innovative. On the domestic level, instead, our country was forced to face the genesis of inequality, an intolerance of the middle class that objectively grows; just consider the abrupt decline in enrolments in the first year of university. 90

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