How Many Times Does Everything Change So Everything Can Stay The Same?

However real a change appears to be, it doesn’t mean change was real at all

Image by Septimiu Balica

“Everything must change so that everything can stay the same.” One of my history teachers used Lampedusa’s words to explain the rise of fascism in Europe in the first third of the 20th century.

Today, it is hard for us to see fascism as a modern, innovative ideology, but that is what it was when it first came about: something new and exciting that promised to do away with old politics. It isn’t difficult to see the parallels it draws with some current political movements and leaders. Indeed, populism — regardless of its colour — is a game of appearance. As long as you appear new, you are new and exciting as far as we are concerned. The public will perceive you and your message as change, as a repudiation of the system’s inherent injustice.

All too often, in the Information Age, it only takes a couple of online searches to find out who is behind any such movement. Indeed, any minor effort will reveal sponsors and supporters who aren’t very new at all. In Spain, for example, fascism turned a broken country upside down so that the same families could hold the same power. Decades later, when the blood-thirsty dictator died, a so-called transition to…