A few days ago, during a peak-time show on Rai, Italian actor/screenwriter Roberto Benigni hailed the "European dream" conjured by the "heroes of Ventotene"—Altiero Spinelli, Ernesto Rossi, and Eugenio Colorni—who drafted the 1941 Manifesto calling for a federal European Union based on democratic socialist, liberal, and republican values.
In these dark times, Benigni went on to exhort us to be proud to be European: "Europe is the smallest continent in the world that lit the fuse of all revolutions; it transformed the planet, it forged the greatest thoughts of humanity, inventing logic, reason, doubt," as well as "freedom, democracy, theatre, sport, modern chemistry, social conscience," among others, creating a "common heritage, an immense treasure in all fields."
Not surprisingly, Benigni’s call resonated with the liberal left but irked the post-fascist Giorgia Meloni, who retorted in parliament: "I don't know if this is your Europe, but it's certainly not mine."
This is a reminder that 'Europe' itself is an imaginary construct rooted in ideology and history. Of course, Benigni referred to the best of European traditions—harking back to Machiavelli and Spinoza, the idea of progress and justice unleashed by the 1789 and 1848 revolutions, and the heroic anti-fascist struggles, both during the war and in the upheavals of 1968. However, his eulogy overlooks the dark side of European history: feudalism, the Crusades, colonialism, anti-Semitism, and fascism—traditions that were never extinguished and are alive and kicking in the far right. In a way, he was offering comfort food for the disoriented—a celebration of what distinguishes us from the vulgarity and rudeness of Trump's America. But on another level, Benigni's exhortation is an invitation to reclaim that Europe of immense possibilities. This may well translate into a civic patriotism that offers hope in a time of despair.
But like any ideology, the European 'imaginary' is rooted in a historical context. The European social model itself is a fragile historical incident, based on the realisation by elites on both sides of the Atlantic that the only way to prevent communist revolution in this patch of earth was through social democracy, with security needs outsourced to the USA. Of course, this was no clear-cut process, and there were instances—similar to what happened on a much larger scale in Latin America—where the US relied on reactionaries and even fascists to prevent communists from winning power through elections in countries like Italy. Still, by the end of the 20th century, Europe had become a beacon of rights and social liberalism, which explains its appeal to young and educated people in Eastern Europe. In fact, the Russian invasion of Ukraine can by partly explained by Putin's Russia's fear of the European imaginary—a fear triggered by the Euromaidan uprising—that it could represent a different future not only for the former subjects of the Czarist and Stalinist empires but also for Russia itself. In fact, Putin represents the rejection of a long-standing European Russian tradition shaped by advanced liberal and socialist ideas which emerged in the continent particularly in communities of exiled revolutionaries whose commitment transcended borders.
Yet this imaginary remains contested, as it risks being deformed and reshaped by an aggressive right wing that may use this difficult historical moment to push forward a militaristic agenda, potentially making the continent even more dependent on the US. The right is already winning many cultural battles, including on migration, where Malta’s Labour PM is doing Meloni’s bidding in an attempt to reword the European Convention on Human Rights. Moreover, incrementalists like Meloni may be even more dangerous—diluting European values from within instead of openly rejecting the EU project. That is why the left should engage with the emerging civic movement for European unity rather than retreat into a 'holier-than-thou' puritanism and equidistance, which in the current circumstances borders on the myopic and the moronic. But the left can save such a movement from its own pitfalls; by stressing the importance of social and economic reforms aimed at restoring a social model, eroded by two decades of austerity which left the continent vulnerable to the onslaught of the far right.
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