Berlusconi is dead, down with Berlusconi! by Luciano Nicolini

"Le roi est mort, vive le roi!" (The king is dead, long live the king!). This was the phrase used in France, before the great revolution of 1789, to inform the public of the king's death and the appointment of his successor. The aim was to reaffirm the uninterrupted continuity of the monarchy.

Since I hope Berlusconism will not persist beyond the death of its inventor, all I can say is, “Berlusconi is dead, down with Berlusconi!” 

We're talking about a man who has been a key player in Italian life for half a century. By inserting himself into the great social changes deriving from the struggles of the ’70s, he distorted their meaning and twisted them into a form of commodification. He dominated the political scene in Italy (and beyond) for thirty years and governed longer than any other prime minister in the history of the Italian Republic.

The causes of his success

There are many doubts about what drove his economic success. There's been repeated talk of mafia financing and this has never been ruled out. There's been repeated talk of generous political support from Bettino Craxi's Italian Socialist Party, and much more. It can't be denied, however, that Berlusconi was able to put his support to good use, obviously to his own advantage.

As for the causes of his political success, things have always seemed rather clear to me. The Berlin Wall had recently collapsed (and with it, so-called "realistic socialism"). The US government had finally been able to get rid of Andreotti and Craxi (they'd not forgotten what happened that night in Sigonella when the Carabinieri surrounded US troops!). At that point, a clear electoral victory for the Northern League (at that time secessionist and anti-American) was likely in Italy’s northern regions. There was the risk of a split in the country, which the US government uses as a natural aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean. Someone capable of gathering large support in a short amount of time was needed. And who could do it better than the king of football, the owner of the most-watched private television stations?

In fact, Berlusconi's "entry onto the pitch" was a triumph.

Even in this case, one must still admit that he knew how to put his own spin on things and was able to speak clearly to Italians. Did he tell only lies? Of course, like most politicians, but at least he told lies that were understandable to most of his listeners who didn’t (and still don’t) understand the language of the left, and often not even that of journalists. 

("What's an escort?" a mother of a young friend of mine asked her son after weeks of discussion on television of the D'Addario case concerning someone whom journalists had called a “luxury escort.” She was literally stunned when her son explained what it meant...).

By the way, one cannot be silent about the charm Berlusconi exercised over women. Feminists should not be shocked. It is well known that slightly older women (especially in southern Italy) punctually rewarded him with an avalanche of votes. That’s also why his career as premier was longer than anyone else’s during the first eighty years of the republic.

The effects of success

There’s much discussion these days about the effects of his success. The right-wing press, of course, sings his praises. It doesn't go too much into detail in describing such success, perhaps to avoid pointing out that it was partly based on commodifying the changes in customs which the right-wing press had always opposed. About Berlusconi’s political successes, as mentioned above, they were at least initially based on his subservience to the US government. So the right-wing press limited itself to saying that Berlusconi would halt the "communist" advance which had already ended in Italy long ago.

Even a large part of the Democratic party’s leadership, after having demonised him for a long time, is now praising Berlusconi, saying, "He was not the devil. We only described him that way so we could get the biggest advantage in divisive moments.” In fact, I always had the impression that this was the case.

Fortunately, there is no shortage of people pointing out that, thanks to his "unconventional" policies and his television stations, our country fell into an abyss of ignorance under his leadership, becoming a sort of banana republic.

However, I fear that most of our country was already in such an abyss, and that the defeat suffered in the Second World War had long ago turned us into a banana republic. The defeat was caused by a criminal, Benito Mussolini, who got the idea of declaring war on the United States of America at a time when our own country was still a sovereign one (becoming so in the 19th century thanks to the heroes of the Italian Risorgimento).

In fostering ignorance among the people, Berlusconi certainly put a lot of his own into it. As for bowing down before the US government, which, as I said, in part accounted for his success, it doesn’t seem to me that he did this more than anyone else. Am I right, Mr. D'Alema?

Will we be able to free ourselves from Berlusconism?

Few of us are wondering this. And it is hard to say yes. 

The commodifying of everything commodifiable, something Berlusconi cannot be entirely blamed for even though he often is, seems irreversible ('seems' is not the same as saying it ‘is’). At the cultural level (understood in the broadest sense), though, he did incalculable damage. But it is worth remembering that the country was in an "abyss of ignorance" even before Berlusconism: indeed, over the last fifty years, state schools (with all their limitations) have produced generations of young people far more educated than their predecessors.

Has all this been thwarted by the messages conveyed by Berlusconi's television stations (and the state ones which have followed suit)?

It seems unlikely.

It will be much more difficult (and we see this on a daily basis) to free ourselves from Berlusconism’s subservience to the US government. But in this, as I mentioned, Berlusconi was really no more servile than other Italian politicians.

For a country like Italy, which is essentially an American military base, a new Risorgimento, and, what is most important to us, the possibility of truly changing the balance of power among social classes, can happen only by strengthening the European Union. 

I’m well aware that I’m making a bold statement at a time when European governments, even more than their peoples, are cow-towing to the US. But frankly, I struggle to see any independent way out for Italy.