More of the same

There is a coalition that has governed a country for 7 of the last 9 years, dominated the political agenda for the other 2, presided over a stagnating economy and a massive arrival of immigrants, its leader facing countless trials and sex allegations, substantiated by audio tapes that clearly link him to dodgy situations. There is a xenophobic party – playing second fiddle in this coalition - managed as a fiefdom by its rabble-rousing founder, flirting periodically with the idea of taking the country out of the euro, and repeatedly showing that general culture is not among the criteria to select its members.

In a moment when the economical crisis is still biting hard, immigrants are blamed for everything that goes wrong and taxes don't decrease as promised, what did the voters choose, in the regional elections held this week? More of the same, of course. The country being Italy, this translates in an electoral victory for PM Silvio Berlusconi, and even more for the second pillar in his coalition, Northern League's Umberto Bossi. Whose son, 21-year-old Renzo, has just won a seat – with the highest number of votes in his town – in Lombardy's regional council. Despite having failed twice – and scraped through on the third time – high school's final exam.

Italians happy with the present economic situation of the country are hard to find, unless you believe the government propaganda. I believe that even if you ask the average Berlusconi or Bossi voter if they are optimistic about the future, most of them will say they're not. Yet, they keep voting for the duo that has shaped Italy's politics for the last 10 years. The Northern League is stronger than ever, since its foundation over 20 years ago. Berlusconi is holding on thanks to his ally; but he can still claim over a quarter of the national vote, and be cheered by supporters when he utters nonsense slogans like “we are the Party of love, the other are only envious and hateful”. Somebody should tell that to Renzo Bossi, who last year developed a Facebook apps called “Bounce the illegal immigrant back” (to the sea).

There are plenty of reasons for this situation, all of them are valid – and I will discuss them in future posts. The opposition, after being battered time after time, still just doesn't get it. Apathy is spreading among centre-left voters. Berlusconi censors opposing voices in the media. But what this bizarre correlation – the country goes to the dogs, hail to the chief! - makes more evident, in my opinion, is the increasing disconnection of Italians from reality/rest of Europe/the world. And it's all part of the plan.

A provincial, uneducated, scoffing-on-culture, egoistic, scared-of-immigrants population wants a strong man to rule. Policies are too complicated: He knows how to do it for you. Those who disturb Him – judges, do-good leftists - are defeatists, enemy of the country. Foreign media criticizing Him – even conservative ones! - are only envious because your food is better than theirs. Immigrants take your jobs. Chinese are shifty and never die. Communists are always around, but until He's around they are luckily unable to harm you.

Not that in the past we were all Nobel laureates. But values were different. You would control yourself in public, instead of spewing racing insults and laugh about it. You would be uncomfortable about your lack of culture. You would work hard to reach a better position. But day after day, in the last 20 years, the importance of all this has been eroded by the media of you-know-who.

After decades of a stolid, self-censored Catholic cultural industry, the audience was receptive. The collapse of the old political order gave space to a tycoon-turned-politician who “says things as they are”. And still owns the media system, giving you light programmes, where fame and money are the key values, and sensible reasoning is impossible to formulate – someone will shout over you anyway, “saying things as they are”. Your leader speaks to the guts, not to your head. You don't need the latter: He thinks for you. And if you vote with the guts, when the world is a scary place, you vote for who promises to protect you from the dangers.

Berlusconi and his peak

I'm very pleased to see Bill Emmott, whose judgment I highly respect, agreeing with what I've been thinking since the sex audio tapes came out: Berlusconi is at the peak. And from now on, although sometimes it seems impossible to get rid of this clown, there can be only downhill. We'll see if it'll be a quick one or a painfully long descent. Knowing the man, he'll fight to death. But he's also one that can't tolerate to fade slowly, so he could prefer to burn out - and bring the rest of Italy with him, like the ending of the movie "Il Caimano".

Here's Emmott's article.

The decline of Italian football, a mirror of the country

AC Milan is out of the Champions League, too. Nothing wrong in losing to mighty Manchester United, of course. But the thrashing 0-4 is just another confirmation of the long decline of our football. There's the serious chance that, for the third year in a row, no Italian teams will play in the quarter-finals of Europe's most prestigious tournament. Don't be deceived by Inter Milan's first leg victory against Chelsea (quite a lucky one, and let's wait for the match in London next week): Inter is an Italian team only on paper, and it's been built by outspending the rivals for years, building up a huge debt. The crisis of football, a mirror of Italy in so many ways, is here to stay.

In the Eighties and Nineties, Italians boasted that Serie A was the toughest league in the world. They were probably right: our teams would regularly advance in all sorts of European cups, the best world players would come to play in Italy. Then, things stalled. AC Milan's triumphs masked the progressive loss of competitiveness of the others. When English and Spanish teams where transforming their clubs in merchandising machines, rooting out hooligans from their brand-new stadiums, or scouring the world for football talent, Italians got stuck. Today, stadiums are decrepit and still city-owned. Referee scandals have fed the never-ending suspicions that game officials are bribed. Italian prospects grew scarce, and few teams realised the potential of the opening up of frontiers.

Now, I can already hear some of you saying: “Don't forget that Italy won the last World Cup! English and Spanish teams are in debt up to the neck, wait until the collapse of the Premiere League!”. Right. It's true that lots of the richest teams are on the verge of financial breakdown, and we're still World Champions until next July. But this sounds so much like the usual refrain by Berlusconi during the financial crisis, that hit Italy less than other countries. Steady as we go, our downhills are less evident. But only because we're always flat or slightly going down anyway, while the others enjoyed a boom for years.

Once, a key to any conversation with adult males around the world was muttering the names of our football players; now, I find taxi drivers that know Chelsea's or Liverpool's line-ups by heart, but when it comes to Italy they only remember Baggio, or Totti if you're lucky. In the next World Cup, the world will discover Italian football players they have never heard of.

Clinging to our past seems to be a strategy also of Italy's manager, Marcello Lippi: he's still leaning heavily on the core of players that – against all odds – won in 2006. But time takes its toll on the best athletes. There's only one potential game-changer: Italy's knack for pulling together, right when nobody is expecting that anymore. It worked wonders four years ago, when the country was still shocked by a huge referee scandal, which united and motivated the Nazionale's players. But now, in the air there's something different: only resignation for a much-debated decline, with solutions nowhere to be seen. Precisely like everything else in Italy.

What will happen when we get rid of Him...

Speaking about sycophants... the phenomenon is not confined to Italy, of course. But Italians, historically, have demonstrated a peculiar attitude that is quite similar to licking the current ruler's - whatever ruler - ass. To put it nicely, you call it "political adaptability". Bluntly speaking, it's switching sides so quickly and with an apparent clean conscience, so much so that you can probably deny your past and believe yourself when you do it.

After Mussolini was hanged in Piazzale Loreto, we say, suddenly nobody was a fascist anymore. Fascism was outlawed, confined to the past, but somehow we didn't come to terms with it. There was no Nuremberg-style trial, no public shame. "At least, under Mussolini trains were on time" is still a popular saying among people who lived under Fascism, without experience direct violence from it. Italians felt somewhat relieved that Mussolini was no Hitler, and the world demonization of the latter allowed us to forget that we had elected, supported, cheered a dictator for over twenty years.

Fast forward to year 2010... feels like a déjà-vu? It does to me. Berlusconi tapped into this nostalgia for "the strong man". And, although some people despair we'll never get rid of him, one day we will - unless he really proves immortal. Some months later, you'll tell me how many fasc... er, Berlusconiani you see around.

P.S. Joseph Heller's masterpiece, Catch-22, contains a great dialogue between an American soldier and an old Italian in a brothel (the novel is set in Italy during World War 2). Surreal, as the rest of the book. But spot-on, even 50 years later. Check it out:

Capt. Nately: Don't you have any principles?
Old man in whorehouse: Of course not!
Capt. Nately: No morality?
Old man in whorehouse: I'm a very moral man, and Italy is a very moral country. That's why we will certainly come out on top again if we succeed in being defeated.
Capt. Nately: You talk like a madman.
Old man in whorehouse: But I live like a sane one. I was a fascist when Mussolini was on top. Now that he has been deposed, I am anti-fascist. When the Germans were here, I was fanatically pro-German. Now I'm fanatically pro-American. You'll find no more loyal partisan in all of Italy than myself.
Capt. Nately: You're a shameful opportunist! What you don't understand is that it's better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.
Old man in whorehouse: You have it backwards. It's better to live on your feet than to die on your knees. I know.
Capt. Nately: How do you know?
Old man in whorehouse: Because I am 107-years-old. How old are you?
Capt. Nately: I'll be 20 in January.
Old man in whorehouse: If you live.