Tuesday, June 18, 2024

Meloni has not-so-quietly continued her crusade against women’s and LGBT rights

The guests got the royal treatment: breathtaking locations, renowned chefs, all Italian style. And so did the hostess: it seems we are willing to turn a blind eye (or both) when it comes to the finer details of Giorgia’s (mother and Christian) version of “Italian style.”

The text backtracking on abortion and LGBTQ+ rights was eventually signed by the G7 gathered in Puglia with hardly a care, despite initial resistance from the U.S. and Macron’s “regret.” So we should simply pretend that nothing has changed from the text signed in Hiroshima last year: this suits everyone, each with their own domestic troubles. It especially suits the Italian premier, who gets a win by not having to back down. It’s an old story, one that keeps repeating.

One might recall that on September 11, 2023, the website of the Prime Minister’s office announced that “on the occasion of her visit to the State of Qatar,” Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni met with Emir Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani to “strengthen the excellent bilateral and personal relations” between them. During their talk, they spoke about “the major opportunities for collaboration for our businesses.”

And yet, just two years before, in July 2021, the same Giorgia Meloni – of course, before she was triumphantly installed as Prime Minister – had some accusatory words: “In the Draghi government, there is great inconsistency and hypocrisy on the issue of the fight against homophobia. I will present a bill in Parliament in which I will ask the government to stop any form of trade agreement with countries where homosexuality is a crime, such as Qatar. Hypocrisy bothers me a lot.”

The contradictions that political leaders fall into when they move from opposition to government are a well that never runs dry. However, the current Prime Minister must hold the record on hypocrisy. Hiding behind whataboutism is a specialty for her and her ministers (“But what about the Khmer Rouge?”).

The truth is that in June 2021, the Draghi government had added its signature to a declaration by 13 European countries against the Hungarian anti-LGBTQ+ law, which banned so-called “homosexual propaganda” in schools, advertising and TV programs aimed at minors. This was the actual impulse behind Meloni’s reaction, which amounted to “What about Qatar?” Then, during the electoral campaign, the FdI’s Federico Mollicone readily embraced the Orbán doctrine with his own “What about Peppa Pig?” (a polar bear with two mothers appeared in one episode of the very popular cartoon).

It’s hardly worth mentioning that the Meloni government (together with Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Croatia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, the Czech Republic and Slovakia) did not support the EU Commission’s subsequent appeal against the Hungarian law. Ursula von der Leyen had called the law “disgraceful” because it “puts homosexuality and gender reassignment on a par with pornography” and “uses the protection of children … as an excuse to severely discriminate against people because of their sexual orientation.”

On LGBTQ+ issues, the Meloni government has cut an unmistakable figure on several occasions, in Italy and across Europe: the crusade against the two mothers in the Peppa Pig cartoon during the electoral campaign was matched by the war against the real-life children of same-sex couples, against social transition in schools and against drugs for transgender teenagers. Sexual and emotional education remain taboo.

In May, Italy was among the several European countries (not quite the most enlightened bunch on the issue) that refused to approve the declaration on the advancement of human rights for LGBT+ people prepared by the Belgian rotating presidency of the EU Council, presented on the occasion of the International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia. It’s certainly a way to stand out.

And now, Italy offered its guests at Borgo Egnazia yet more revealing images, right on the eve of the Pride march in Rome. Giorgia’s FdI have been very worried these days because the fisticuffs in Parliament risked damaging the country’s pristine image in front of the world’s bigwigs. It’s a shame that the right-wing physical violence in Parliament simply reflects the cultural, social and political backwardness of the party led by the country’s first woman premier.

Italy refused to sign the European declaration on LGBT+ rights for the same reason it decided to water down the final document of the G7 in Puglia compared to the one in Hiroshima. It’s because the previous year’s text contained (same as the failed Zan decree) something Meloni & co. cast as their greatest enemy, “gender identity,” at the basis of the fictitious “gender ideology” invented by reactionary right-wingers across the world to justify homophobic and transphobic impulses and reassure the most backward and nostalgic part of their base and electorate (and it’s not just old timers, as the Fanpage investigation shows). Similarly, the word “abortion” and the reference to the role of education also disappeared from the final document of the Puglia G7.

Of course, the premier is claiming this is all fake news: no backtracking on abortion (even though pro-life groups are now being allowed into clinics), no wavering on LGBT rights. This is Giorgia Meloni, not some Vannacci, after all. And that’s clearly good enough for the outgoing president of the EU Commission, who, with her goal of a second mandate at the helm of the Union in sight, doesn’t seem worried about the Orban-like tendencies of one of her major partners in dialogue.

Is that self-contradiction? Hypocrisy? Sudden alarm at the supposed encroachment of “gender theory”? Or fear of the return of Peppa Pig causing her to miss out on a second term?

Il manifesto global


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