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20.500.12854/49853

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The idiotia in politics: Subversion and neo-populism in Italy

Abstract

On 5 April 1992, an ‘earthquake’ shaken Italy: the results of the elections sign the death of Christian Democracy in power since 1945. Questioning these results amounts to wondering about the breakthrough of the North League, which was only an ‘unidentified political object’. By proposing to study the ‘Ligue phenomenon’ in the Bergamasca valleys, Lynda Dematteo had the ambition to identify the local roots of leghista ideology. Without discouraging in the face of retreat, he had to find other interlocutors than the discredit or the wooden language. Umberto Bossi’s political idiotia, the leader of the League, was, to speak, the key to its success: his inexperience attracted disused citizens, who were initially foreign to autonomist ideas. Its behaviour is akin to that of the tradition: he does not respect anyone, not even the Pope, his irreperence is commensurate with his irresponsibility and his attacks are all the more effective in targeting the most respected institutions. With him, political practice is essentially entertainment. Following activists, the author gradually gained the feeling of being confronted with counter-structural demonstrations. What had only been a ‘leak by laughter’, the subject of ethnographic questioning proved to be a wealth of perspectives. In the League, the reality goes beyond fiction, however satirical it may be. The author’s position was therefore to take this movement very seriously, but his parodic manifestations were entirely clear. Adopting this ethnographic line, she was able to guard against the independent performance of leghisti. Creating a ‘Padania’ is in fact only a huge subversive filling of very bad taste and a destitution, with a symbolic contrast. The idiotia is the source of this. It could be thought that activists, sincerely engaged in this identity building company, are “useful idiots” or even short idiots, but they are engaged in a playful way and play their idiotia, nose and barb of their critics, those who still believe in political action.

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