Is conservatism dead on the Continent? Even the more right-wing governing coalitions of Germany and Italy are participating in the culture of international bailouts for bankrupt governments, as European nations are being subsumed into a mammoth superstate. Where is the conservative movement in Europe? Does it exist?
Conservatism is indeed rare in Europe. A major reason is the long legacy of fascism, which helped to discredit much of the European right. The decline of authoritarian regimes in Europe after the defeat of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy at the end of World War II also entailed the collapse of any other existing conservative forces. During the 1930s, the European right was overtaken by fascist and national-socialist movements, which were engaged in a relentless march towards the creation of a new European order. Conservatives collaborated—willingly or by force—with those regimes but gained little visibility on a stage occupied mostly by charismatic leaders and one-party rule.
When Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler fell, other alternative conservative views also disappeared. Thus, in postwar Europe, the conservative movement was contaminated by fascism; this was a powerful inhibitor to the rebirth and development of a true American-style conservative movement. In France the memory of the “Vichy Republic,” in Germany and Austria of Hitler’s “Götterdammerung,”in Italy the bloody civil war that took place from 1943 to 1945 in the central and northern regions, the Ustashe and Chetniks in Croatia and Serbia, Monsignor Josef Tiso’s regime in Slovakia—all of these political movements de facto polluted any honest effort to implement a conservative agenda in these nations.
Nonetheless, conservative views continued to exist in Europe at the social and popular levels. The endless and wearisome cycle of revolutions and wars that took place in the Old Continent since 1789 left the lower and rural classes relatively immune to the constant efforts to change their cultural identity; they remained still deeply rooted in pre-modern and medieval religious Europe. In addition, people were massively exposed to the war from both the Axis and Allied forces, resulting in countless victims and widespread disengagement. In Italy, in addition, there occurred a bloody slaughter by communist partisans between May 1945 and April 1948, three years after the end of the war. This occurred while Allied occupation forces remained indifferent. Thus, the new democratic regimes were established in Europe under the control of the Allied powers; they were accepted with less enthusiasm by the people than by the new anti-fascist—liberal, Christian-democratic, socialist and communist—political elites.
If genuine conservative views remained substantially still widespread, they found, however, no coverage at the political level: conservative forces were forced to find a nutshell inside the “moderate” political movements and parties. As a result, today, explicitly conservative political forces are—with the exception of the United Kingdom—missing in any national assembly, as well as in the Strasbourg European parliament and in the Brussels Commission.
Yet, conservative sentiments still exist and grow, in conjunction with the declining welfare state and discredited socialist perspectives. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, new parties were born and there are currently new “containers” available to host bits of conservative ideas. This is especially visible in the newly autonomist movements; for example in the platform of the Northern League in Italy, one can detect many—but not all—elements of a conservative worldview: hostility to centralism; the belief in local patriotism; the defense of unborn life; and attention to local and national identity in the context of immigration and religious faith.
In Italy (unlike France), a conservative, anti-liberal and legitimistic party never existed, neither during the so-called Risorgimento— which was in fact the Italian Revolution—nor in the years between 1870 and World War I. At present Italy is led by a composite “populistic-charismatic” government. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s center-right coalition endorses de facto and—this must be underlined—for the first time since 1945, a good many genuine conservative ideas: lower taxes, privatization, smaller government, anti-communism, loyalty to America in peace and in war, respect for religion, and modernization without getting rid of traditional values.
The very problem for today’s conservatism is—as usual—that these positive political lines are mixed with a general tolerant attitude towards vital issues such as abortion, euthanasia, embryo manipulation, drugs, youth culture, divorce, etc. There is an “acute cry” from the Roman Catholic Church regarding what it calls an “educational emergency.”
Mr. Berlusconi, despite his self-referential and histrionic character, makes it possible for genuine conservatism to find some space in the political landscape. Conservatives must transform the governmental agenda in two ways: first, by working to inhibit non-conservative and too “liberal” ideas, especially in the bioethical domain; second, by including in the agenda as many conservative issues as possible, including defending the unborn child and prohibiting euthanasia; and, third, by offering ideas to better tackle the action of the opposition.
Almost all the groups composing the majority party within Italy’s center-right are moving in this direction by creating an infrastructure of cultural foundations, think tanks, newspapers and magazines; they are already exercising a powerful influence. But Italian conservatives have not created a platform.
Conservativism in Italy and Europe exists—at the level of public opinion, as well as in small groups of intellectuals and among cultural activists. The present challenge and mission is to help construct a platform that prepares and supports this burgeoning conservative movement. This platform cannot be the product of a few days work: it needs to be carefully studied, prepared and rolled-out. What was made in America—the fusion of free-market capitalism, anti-communism and traditionalism—since the 1950s can really help, serving as a model and inspiration for European conservatives everywhere.
-Oscar Sanguinetti is professor of Modern History at Università Europea di Roma of Legionaries of Christ and is the editor and director of Cultura & Identità: Rivista di studi conservatori.
