Atreju 2023: Giorgia Meloni suddenly, Elon Musk talking about children, the celebration of the right (and its inconsistency) on stage

The highest moment of Atreju’s penultimate day came at around 2.30pm, when to great surprise Giorgia Meloni she went on stage smiling like a child who went back to her favorite game and said: «Here I am back here in Atreju in my original role, that of presenter». The ovation started immediately, all cell phones raised to record at least a second of what was the only guest presentation made by the Italian Prime Minister. «Help me welcome the British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak». And he added: «I want to welcome the leader of a great European nation, a conservative leader, a friend of Italy, my personal friend, a man, a leader with whom we found ourselves on the fundamental issues of this time and we built together a report on some subjects such as immigration, artificial intelligence, family, which is bearing fruit. He gave us the great gift of being here.” We are surrounded by the walls of Castel Sant’Angelo, imposing and stupendous, which for three days have become the theater of the celebration of the right in government and all its pomp. There are the stages inside the mega transparent tensile structures but there are also the many people crammed in line in front of the wooden houses where regional and non-regional producers sell food. Porchetta, salami, “turned” pizza (which a blackboard defines as Elon Musk’s favorite food, we ate it and it’s actually good. Filling: chicory and sausage, with egg pasta). Then the mulled wine, the artisanal panettone and the Atreju sandwich, with salami and dried tomatoes.

But let’s talk about Atreju for a moment: there is no photo of him in the entire park. Shouldn’t he be celebrated as a symbol of the party’s strength? Better this way, let’s free him. As explained by Roberto Saviano, the famous character of «The Neverending Story” Of Michael Ende, has nothing to share with the identity of the right. «Atreju created by Michael Ende has no family and was raised by the Greenskin community: there is no father, there is no mother, there is no traditional holy family in his life. The name Atreju in the language of his people means “raised by all”. In Fantasia the world of the Neverending Story all the people speak languages ​​incomprehensible to each other but everyone knows high fantasy, a fundamental language for understanding and welcoming each other.”

And it could have been precisely in the name of welcoming (but it wasn’t like that) the entrance on the scene of Elon Musk, the great international guest of the party, who went on stage carrying his son on his shoulders. The youngest, who has no intention of leaving the scene and, in order not to do so, also clings to his father’s leg. But then he has to go. «Demographics are important,” began the founder of Space X and Tesla. «It is important to have children, without children there are no new generations». It would have been truly “visionary”, to quote the selfie that Minister Santanché published on her social media together with Musk after having gone to great lengths behind the scenes to obtain it, if Musk had said a few words about the gestation for others. Since it is the practice he resorted to to become a father to some of his children (he had 11 from three different women) and it is probable that if families in Italy could access it without incurring a “universal crime” the birth rate problem would be less. A missed opportunity. «My first tip to leaders of government and people in general would be to make sure of have children to create the new generation. Any useful incentive to have the new generation would be far-sighted. It is fundamental, and I cannot stress it enough”, repeated Musk who in his speech defined himself as one of the “greatest environmentalists in the world” underlining that “soon we will have to deal with the billions of tons of CO2 that we put into the atmosphere”, but the environmental one “is not an existential risk” and for this reason oil and gas should not be demonized.

While we are listening to the speech, Debora approaches. She arrived here from Nocera Superiore and she has some transparent bags with wool dolls inside, the pigotte. One of her is there ready to be delivered to Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and it is identical to her. Shoulder length blonde hair, blue suit and party pin. «Yesterday I handed it over to my sister Arianna and she was very happy», says Debora who has a page dedicated to her on her social media called Debby’s dolls. «I left Nocera to deliver my dolls to some government officials. I have been a craftsman all my life”. Not far from us, a group of boys and girls with accreditation around their necks (all party members have them) take one selfie after another next to the photowall on which the words “Welcome back Italian pride” stands out. Some are Roman, others arrived from Milan, Bergamo but also Naples and Teramo. «We are waiting for Giorgia», says Elisa, who is 30 years old and Roman. «Every time I can meet her I try. For me she is an inspiration. She is very strong. “Almost everyone is here to meet some contact, be seen and speed up their path within the movement. «Let’s take a photo, we are the winners», says a gentleman with a strong Milanese accent in a sustained tone. And perhaps the meaning of this day is partly contained here, in this image. Because ultimately this party is above all the party of volunteers in blue sweatshirts running left and right, of ladies in long coats, of gentlemen in suits and ties, of the drone that goes back and forth unstoppably above our heads and of food . Because the queue that never seems to get smaller is only the one in front of the culinary stands. One last note of colour, when we arrived all the entrances were closed and police officers were everywhere. But a security guard let us pass under a barrier. Saying that “everyone comes in like this anyway.”