A-Infos (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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