Ulrich Siegmund (born October 25, 1990) rides a Simson motorcycle associated with the times of the former GDR. A week ago he swept the elections in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, in the former East Germany, promising something he had never seen (since the Berlin Wall fell on November 9, 1989): a society where, when Christmas arrived, everyone shared what they had, in which the faces were native and not from beyond the seas, and whose children played peacefully in the street.
Siegmund sold during his campaign that he would revive what is actually the essence of 'Ostalgie' ('Ost', "East"; 'Nostalgie', "Nostalgia"), a certain way of life coated today with an aura of utopia, but which in reality exercised the harshness and lack of freedom that have been forever recorded in the history books. And now, Siegmund's party, the far-right AfD, uses that distorted memory of a world under Soviet orbit to fill bags of votes. If Erich Honecker would raise his head.....
Another German party, BSW, but this left-wing populist, also uses the old East German organizational model to dazzle voters. What's more, despite his ideological disparity with the AfD, in recent days he has shown himself willing to facilitate its access to power. Because? Its own leader, Sahra Wagenknecht, has justified it like this: "AfD voters and BSW voters are people with similar concerns: they want controlled migration and, above all, they want politics to focus on them again, for their lives to be the priority." Once again, the promise of a concrete social architecture.
The new political combat that is being waged in the first quarter of the 21st century is not about left versus right, but about the different conceptions of coexistence. We no longer talk so much about raising or lowering taxes, but rather about order, security or identity, that is, about the elements that citizens want to permeate their community.
The German situation finds its reflection in Italy. Last weekend, on the shores of Lake Como, former general Roberto Vannacci participated in the prestigious The European House Ambrosetti Forum. The transalpine country holds elections next spring and the rising far-right politician is in fourth place in the polls, just seven months after the launch of his party, Futuro Nazionale, self-defined as a "patriotic and identity-based right-wing force" based on the "values of Catholic civilization."
Vannacci was involved in a clash with the 83-year-old former European commissioner Mario Monti, who swore an oath before the audience: "No matter how old I am, I will dedicate what remains of my life to stopping this attempt to reconstruct the rhetoric of fascism." Now, the message that Vannacci insists on to win more and more followers is that of his commitment to a new conception of society. The brand new disruptor of Italian politics is committed to "a cohesive society in which a spirit of sacrifice and a sense of belonging drive citizens to work harder and take risks every day."
France is the other great laboratory of this new battle, with two clear examples in the favorite candidates to advance to the second round of the presidential elections on May 2: Marine Le Pen (far-right) and Jean-Luc Mélenchon (far-left). Both assure that a victory for them would bring to the Hexagon the ordered society that the Gauls so long for. For Le Pen, this means security, border, national identity, authority, cultural homogeneity, family... For Mélenchon, equality, housing, public services, bonds of friendship... The same community, two antagonistic conceptions.
In these times, the objective of everyone who aspires to govern is to present themselves as the future leader who will provide stability and put an end to the widespread feeling of chaos and disorder that is so denounced. And a citizen who perceives that no one is in control experiences a deep helplessness that ends up leading to indignation and, finally, to a vote for an extremist force.
You don't have to go far to find that state of helplessness in the citizen. In Ceuta, according to a recent survey published in the same pages of this newspaper, the "feeling of abandonment" is among the three major concerns suffered by its inhabitants since last July 30.
The real debate is no longer so much what we want, but rather what society we want to live in; not who is right, but who can offer us the environment we long for. Beyond an ideology, we are committed to rules of coexistence. And that leader who promises the ordered society that fits our convictions is the one to whom the sacred ballot is entrusted. What happens next is something else entirely.
