Decoding Meloni. Renato Cristin, philosopher and professor of Hermeneutics at the University of Trieste, sees in Meloni a leader who has made Western unity the conceptual pivot since the very beginning of the war in Ukraine.
- “Since Giorgia Meloni has for many years developed and defended a political and cultural theory centered on the spiritual identity of Europe and the West, and since the conceptual fulcrum on which she has moved since the outset of the Russian invasion of Ukraine is the unity of Western nations as the only possibility to confront Putin’s aggressiveness, Monday’s summit at the White House is, objectively, a success for Giorgia Meloni.”
- From here, Professor Cristin explains to Decode39, the gears of the “Melonian reform project of the European Union” take shape, based on “ideal impetus and an understanding of concrete reality.” And thus, “liberal conservatism can establish itself as a winning political-cultural model.”
The philosophical frame. Cristin, author of works analysing the future of the West, such as in his book “Quadrante Occidentale”, interprets current crises as a deformation of the Western essence, which weakens when it ceases to be itself. “When the West ceases to be itself, it weakens and becomes vulnerable.”
The Ukrainian warning. For Cristin, Ukrainian heroism is the litmus test of Western identity: “Ukraine is an example of heroism that must serve as a warning for all other Western nations, because, as Meloni says, ‘it looked its enemy straight in the eye and chose to fight.’”
- The philosopher alerts: “In the face of the Putinian Russia (which I have defined as neo-Soviet, to the point that one writes Russia but reads URSSIA), Europe and the West must urgently reactivate their lost energies, otherwise a decline will hit both sides of the Atlantic.”
What we’re watching. Cristin warns that the challenge is not only European but global. The Russia-China-Iran-North Korea axis represents “the global version of the local threat that Russia is launching against Europe.”
- To confront it, the principles of the “Meloni schema,” as the professor defines it – identity clarity and Western unity – will need to be applied on a broader scale.
