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No, Giorgia Meloni, JRR Tolkien's Middle-earth is not a paradise for the xenophobic far right [1]
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Date: 2022-10-17
Giorgia Meloni with the hobbits of Tolkien's Middle-earth (Image by Dan Jensen, Independent Australia)
The summer of 1420 in the Shire was magnificent. Most babies that year were ‘fair to see and strong’, with bright eyes and blonde hair – as well as furry feet. Some of those descriptors fit incoming Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who leads the hard right party Fratelli d'Italia – Brothers of Italy – except maybe for the feet.
A coalition of right wing parties won the majority of seats in Italy’s recent elections. As leader of the dominant party, Meloni will be confirmed as Italy’s first woman PM later this week.
Meloni has been the subject of countless analyses across the globe, ranging from excited approval to grave fears about the neo-Nazi history of her party – descended from the Italian Social Movement (ISM) established in 1946 by a minister in Benito Mussolini’s dictatorship.
Two writers – Jason Horowitz in the New York Times and Sébastian Seibt in France 24 – have highlighted the strong association Meloni has had with the hobbits of Middle-earth created by an English linguist and novelist nearly 100 years ago.
Horowitz wrote that as a youth activist in the post-Fascist ISM, ‘she and her fellowship of militants, with nicknames like Frodo and Hobbit, revered “The Lord of the Rings” and other works by the British writer J.R.R. Tolkien. They visited schools in character. They gathered at the “sounding of the horn of Boromir” for cultural chats.’
Tolkien’s world view
So what is the connection between Tolkien and Italy’s far right?
Sébastian Seibt claims Tolkien's works ‘have often been associated – more or less wrongly – with an ideology close to the extreme right’. He suggests the battles of elves and men against the orcs parallel the struggle against foreign invaders. The simplicity of life in the Shire, according to Seibt, reflects ‘a conservative belief in the author that the world must be preserved against decadent modernity’.
Thoughtful reading of Tolkien’s novels in fact affirm liberal, communitarian and multicultural values much more than those associated with fascism.
Xenophobia versus inclusion
Racism certainly existed in Middle-earth:
‘Mr Butterbur shook his head. “If there’s a few decent respectable folk on the roads, that won’t do no harm,” he said. “But we don’t want no more rabble and ruffians. And we don’t want no outsiders at Bree, nor near Bree at all. We want to be let alone.’
That, of course, is not Tolkien’s view. It is the opinion of Barliman Butterbur, described by Strider as ‘a fat innkeeper who only remembers his own name because people shout it at him all day’.
Tolkien’s ideal community is in fact diverse and multicultural:
‘The Big Folk and Little Folk (as they called one another) were on friendly terms, minding their own affairs in their own ways, but both rightly regarding themselves as necessary parts of the Bree-folk. Nowhere else in the world was this peculiar (but excellent) arrangement to be found.’
Capitalism is the curse
If Tolkien has any message relevant to contemporary economics, it favours social democracy over individualist capitalism:
‘It all began with Pimple, as we call him,’ said Farmer Cotton ... ‘He’d funny ideas, had Pimple. Seems he wanted to own everything himself, and then order other folks about. It soon came out that he already did own a sight more than was good for him; and he was always grabbing more, though where he got the money was a mystery.’
Ms Meloni’s contributions will be revealed in due course. Her identification with hobbits may just be an image-softening facade, as some have claimed. Her divided nation will benefit greatly if she follows the precepts of Farmer Cotton rather than Mussolini.
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This is an edited version of an article published today in Independent Australia. The original article is available here in full for free:
https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/giorgia-meloni-should-return-italy-to-middle-earth,16871
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[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/10/17/2129425/-Could-Italy-under-far-right-leader-Giorgia-Meloni-return-to-Middle-earth
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