Italy: Why flags and crowds can corrupt the view
By Ray O'Reilly
The least you'd expect of a disgraced politician is to bow out of the limelight. Not Silvio Berlusconi with his grandstanding and rent-a-crowd.
Tuesday 14 May 2013
The Sicilian team Trapani Calcio made history at the weekend by winning the Serie B football competition. I know this because I was stuck in a taxi crawling through the flag-waving crowd that poured into the city to bask in a rare winning moment for a struggling region.
Our driver honked his horn at the passing motorcade of chequered maroon and white flags – not as an expression of road rage or frustration at the slow progress, or his passengers' very real fear of missing their flight, but as a shared moment of noisy joy. “It's fabulous Trapani wins … corruption possibly, but a big success,” he told us.
The night before, I watched a televised speech by Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's former premier, as he grandstanded before a rally of more flag-waving Italians, but this time in the northern part of the country.
According to the Associated Press, the ‘Everyone for Silvio' rally was backed by his People of Freedom party in Brescia, a small industrial city that is a bastion of the conservative leader's political support. A handful of detractors shouted “jail, jail” at the edge of the rally, but the police reportedly kept them apart from the majority who were waving pro-Berlusconi banners.
“Anyone who is not caught up by political factionalism can see clearly that there are politically motivated magistrates who are blinded by hate and prejudice towards me,” he told the crowds on Saturday night, days after losing his appeal against a tax fraud conviction, and days before the Milan judiciary was due to deliberate on charges of paying for sex with a minor.
The least you would expect of a disgraced politician or leading figure is a bowed head and a dash for a waiting black car, or a nervous apology on the 6 o'clock news. In Italy, in Berlusconi's Italy, you get a full stage, mounted cameras, and a neat rent-a-crowd of acolytes to help you sell your lies.
Beppe Grillo, a comedian who's ‘Five Star Movement' won the popular ‘protest' vote at Italy's recent elections, refused to enter government with any of the old-guard Italian parties, which meant one thing … a fractious coalition of centre-left and centre-right parties. Grillo prefers to do his politicking from the side lines through his blog – painting his nemesis Berlusconi as a caricature of mafia figures and clowns.
Berlusconi holds no ministerial position in this new coalition government which is led by Italy's centre-left Prime Minister Enrico Letta. He does, however, wield considerable clout in the corridors of power and, according to commentators, could bring down the government if he were to withdraw support in parliament.
The fact that his Mediaset company owns three free-to-air national TV channels in Italy, including naturally the one televising the recent rally I watched, is shocking but no real shocker to clear-eyed observers of Italian politics and business. Critics, including The Economist magazine, have long argued that Berlusconi holds inappropriate control over national media and that he is unfit to hold leadership positions in Italy, or sit next to legitimate European leaders.
Berlusconi's two dates with the court raise questions yet again about his political future at a delicate moment for Italy, as it faces economic and political turmoil, and increasing pressure from Europe to put its house in order. It is remarkable to anyone outside Italy that he was even allowed to take part in the country's February elections – and that people voted for him.
That a disgraced politician should be anywhere near politics or be deemed fit to own national media is stupefying. That he has a national platform to ‘rally' support for his brand of conservative politics which clearly has not delivered Italy from the throws of economic collapse is bordering on criminal negligence. Negligence that casts a shadow over the European Union's credibility and economy.
Shame on Italy and Europe for allowing this corruption of democratic values to go on this long.
