WORLD WORLDWIDE ITALY SICILIA News Journal Update - (en) Sicilia Libertaria 2-24: Colonialism Made in Italy. The MelEni plan - TO DEPLOY AFRICANS IN THEIR HOME (ca, de, it, pt, tr) [machine translation]

They broke our ears for more than a year with this Mattei plan. They

told us over and over again that we had to trust, that it would be a
"new model of non-predatory cooperation with Africa", as Prime Minister
Giorgia Meloni defined it. And we pretended to believe it, because we
know that this ignoble right-wing government really has the interests of
the continent at heart with the most tumultuous demographic growth of
the present and future. They are not racist and discriminatory, nooooo,
today's clean-cut fascists have also found themselves conciliatory and
collaborative.

And instead the Italy-Africa summit on 28 and 29 January in Rome - as if
54 different states and, above all, hundreds of populations with
different cultures and histories could be summarized in a single voice -
proved to be what was easy to predict , that is, a half flop. Is that
all this Mattei plan? This is what many analysts have asked themselves.
Just 5.5 billion euros, among other things money subtracted from other
purposes such as adaptation to climate collapse, and not even a shred of
an actual program, if not a partial list of already existing projects on
cooperation, with the ministries of the Environment and Foreign Affairs
who have revealed their discontent with the centralization decided by
Palazzo Chigi.

Already in the days preceding the summit, 80 African civil society
organizations had presented a series of requests to the Italian
government, including greater transparency and real inclusion of those
living in Africa. "The Mattei plan is a symbol of Italy's fossil fuel
ambitions, a dangerous plan and a short-sighted ambition that threatens
to turn Africa into a mere energy conduit for Europe," said Bean
Bhekumuzi Bhebhe, campaigns manager by Don't Gas Africa. Words with
which the real meaning of the Mattei plan is identified, i.e. the usual
hoarding of African resources by Italy. The dedication to the founder of
Eni does not come by chance. For the grabber and security right, we can
easily ignore the partisan commitment of Enrico Mattei, who fought in
the Christian Democratic groups and who for this very reason was put at
the head of the then Agip (he was supposed to be a simple liquidator
commissioner to allow the USA and Great Britain to grab Italian oil and
gas and instead relaunched the state company, transforming it into the
six-legged dog we know), while its colonialism with a human face is
taken as a patriotic reference, forgetting that the choice to focus on
Africa (and on the Middle East) was pursued by Mattei for a pure
corporate positioning strategy: given that the so-called "seven
sisters", i.e. the other oil multinationals, were too strong in certain
markets, Eni chose to grant conditions to the weaker and resource-rich
states far better than its competitors. But always from a capitalist
perspective of exploitation. Which is the same aim of the Meloni
government, intent on filling the void of France which, after centuries
of oppression, is abandoning its policy known by the term Françafrique,
that is, the economic and political control of its former African
colonies and of the many French-speaking regions of continent.

Since the real messages must be given to those who put the money into
them, it was Minister Crosetto who revealed this intention during a
confidential event, organized by the consultancy firm Ernst & Young and
with a large audience of entrepreneurs and managers. "We are the country
best accepted in the nations where we were colonizers" said one of the
leaders of the Brothers of Italy, reeling off for the umpteenth time the
story of the Italians as good people who with the Mattei plan become a
political objective. For our part, the militant one, we must not make
the foolish mistake of overestimating or altering the government's
intentions. The aim is not to contain migratory flows by bringing
development to Africa, as I read somewhere, nor does Meloni aspire to
become the stateswoman who wants to solve the problems of the whole of
Africa. Also because Italy still plays an insignificant role compared to
powers such as Russia and China, which in the meantime have enormously
expanded their presence on the continent. The Italian state simply wants
to continue to guarantee the profits that its shareholdings in giants
such as Eni and Enel allow it.

Beyond the political fluff, in fact, there are other words that you need
to know how to listen to. Like those pronounced by Claudio Descalzi, the
CEO of Eni, on the Rai broadcast hosted by Bruno Vespa. A first note is
that the pseudo-confrontation between the two took place on January 29,
just after the Italy-Africa summit organized by the government. "

They have a lot of energy, a lot of territory, we don't have energy but
we have a big market" was Descalzi's message. Clearer than that... Faced
with this plan, the reformist intent to try to improve the Mattei Plan
must be completely rejected. Not only because it is the project on which
the crazy and anti-historical idea of Italy as a gas hub is based, not
only because it diminishes the cooperation sector, not only because in
its first draft Africa was not even consulted (as the president of the
African Union stated to the Senate, the real one and not the one played
in a historic joke against Meloni by two Russian comedians a few months
ago) but because it is just another cage, not even a golden one. Net of
the alliances and collaborations that we must consolidate and initiate
with those who live in Africa, this is where we must undermine the
dominance of "our" energy giants. The fight against multinationals has
always also been an anti-statist fight.

Andrea Turco

https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/
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