I think there is value to a culture, we don’t want Japan to disappear, we don’t want Italy as a culture to disappear, we don’t want France as a culture to disappear, I think we have to have to maintain the sort of reasonable cultural identity of the various countries or they simply will not be those countries. You know, Italy is the people of Italy. The buildings are there, but really what is Italy? Italy is the people of Italy.
That's what he actually said in the video.
So I have two issues with this:
- He, and every other conservative, assumes that current culture is the default for a region and must be "conserved" because otherwise the norms, practices, and language is risking going extinct.
Aside from the fact this is clearly trying to give credence to the "great replacement" bullshit, trying to hold a culture from changing and evolving overtime is impossible.
No matter how much someone like Meloni might harp on about it, Italy isn't the Roman Empire anymore, nor is it Mussolini Italy anymore; those eras shaped today's Italy and it's every generations job to add new chapters to the country's story.
- He's correct in that the people make the country, but not because they're born there or because they have some genealogical link to the land, but because the people of France CHOOSE to be French every day.
The people of France choose to partake in café and restaurant culture, they choose to enjoy wine regularly, they choose to buy fresh bread from a local bakery, and they choose to make their voices heard very loudly when discontent with the government.
They are French because they choose to partake in the culture of the place they live, they buy into the shared story that is France.
Let's give an example:
Person A is born and raised in France until they are 16 and then go on a foreign exchange program to the UK. After coming back, finishing their "high-school", they decided they liked the UK enough to go to university there and meet a romantic partner on campus. After finishing their university degree, they get a job, rent a place with their university sweetheart, and socialise with British friends regularly.
Person B is born in France, but moves to the UK with their parents when they're young (5 years old or under), they grow up in a duel language household learning both French and English, go to primary school in the UK, make childhood friends, and halfway through secondary school (high-school) the parents move back to France, they finish high-school level education, then go onto university in France, and go to the UK to do a year abroad during their degree.
Now which person identifies as French and which person identifies as British?
The answer is, you don't know until you ASK THEM which culture they choose to identify with.
Person A could have utterly hated growing up in France so much that when they experienced a different culture they liked that they felt compelled to make living that culture the one they wanted to participate in for the rest of their lives and reject their place of birth.
Equally, Person A could still strongly identify as being French but chooses to live in the UK for a multitude of other reasons: it's better for their career, they chose to stay in the UK as a compromise with their partner, they prefer the lower income taxes, etc. They also choose to practice their culture in a foreign land such as going to a café for a long lunch during the work week, booking off most of August for their annual holiday, and having a keen fashion sense making sure they look good in public.
Person B could identify as both because they've lived a good portion of their lives in both countries OR could prefer the country of their birth OR the one where they had a happy childhood in an idyllic setting.
You never know, maybe overtime Person A convinces their co-workers to come with them to a café for lunch instead of just quickly eating sandwiches at their desks, so they can unwind for a little while before getting back to work. Maybe the whole small company starts doing it because they start to appreciate that way of living, and voilà the (company) culture has evolved to take long lunches at a café because their co-workers appreciate the midday reprieve and find they work better in the afternoon because of it. Though they're still not willing to book off the whole of August for a holiday.
Culture is not meant to stagnate and people, wherever they go, will bring different culture with them. Overtime cultures change and grow as they adopt new ideas and ways they like leaving out those they don't like and discarding old and tired traditions they'd rather leave in the past.