IS DEMOCRACY AT RISK IN ITALY?

Rome, March 6, 2011

After long and agonizing hesitations, the Italian Government proclaimed last March 17 a national holiday to celebrate the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the creation of Italy as a Nation State. The circumstances surrounding this event raised many questions, and, in particular, caused doubts to be expressed as to whether Italy, after 150 years, is any more united than it was in 1861.
While, on their part, the Government and the institutions seemed almost embarrassed a the rhetoric and the flag waving, the popular response, instead, was actually warmer than expected, and, in many Italian regions, flags were hung out of windows and, indeed, some are still there.
The image of Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi kissing the hand of Colonel Gheddafi in the course of one of the Libyan leader’s frequent state visits to Italy was recently circulated, with adverse comment, in that part of the Italian press which is not totally subservient to Government control. In fact, Berlusconi’s often publicly reiterated admiration for Gheddafi and other authoritarian leaders, such as Mubarak, Ben Ali, Lukashenko, Vladimir Putin and the President of Kazakhstan, who, according to the Italian Prime Minister, is “much beloved by his people”, have added weight to questions as to whether, under the Berlusconi leadership, Italy has reverted or is reverting to its Fascist past.
There is no simple answer to this question, for, on the one hand, It has to be pointed out that those marches, slogans and paramilitary uniforms typical of a Fascist regime have certainly not made an appearance, nor have there been episodes of physical violence meted out to political opponents. A recent massive demonstration against the Berlusconi Government took place unopposed even though it was then either ignored or harshly criticised by the Government media.
On the other hand, however, more subtle symptoms emerge which do indicate a constant, steady erosion of basic democratic values and a gradual slippage into what could be called a softer, homespun version of Neo-Fascism. Indeed, it is not difficult to find chilling similarities between attitudes prevalent in today’s ruling majority and those typical of the Fascist regime.
The esteemed journalist and writer Paolo Monelli (1891 – 1984), already professionally active and well-known during the regime, wrote in 1945, early after the fall of Fascism, that “it is difficult to imagine a more intense apathy in a nation. The Fascist dictatorship's greatest fault lies in having rendered an entire nation negligent, apathetic and indifferent.” (Paolo Monelli, “Roma 1943”).
In the course of the past 17 years, during most of which Berlusconi has been in power, he has been able to exert an almost total control on the media. Italians are stubbornly monoglot (most have never even seen a foreign film if not in a badly translated and atrociously dubbed version), and over 80% of the population depends exclusively on the TV as a source of information. The Prime Minister owns three private TV stations and has succeeded in transforming the principal of the three public channels into what can safely be defined as an all pervasive instrument of personal propaganda.
The viewers, therefore, are subject to a constant stream of totally inane shows (mainly “reality shows” or very elementary quiz shows), in which scantily clad female bodies are on constant display and which are quite blatantly geared to reach the lowest level of cultural awareness. This has greatly contributed to dull the general public’s critical alertness and, in a certain sense, to render it willing and ready to accept anything from the TV fare which, in analogy to the neologism “infotainment” could be dubbed “indoctritainement”. There are one or two extremely popular programmes which invite thought and argument. Their very popularity makes them “dangerous” and they are constantly facing the risk of being shut down by an irate Prime Minister who claims that “in no civilized country does the “State Television” criticise the Head of Government”. More than once has Berlusconi telephoned live his strong disapproval in the course of the programmes.
A recent example of media manipulation amply illustrates the situation. In protesting his total innocence on the many charges brought against him and for which he will have to stand trial, Berlusconi likened the “persecution” against him to the type of persecution operated by the notorious “Stasi” in the Democratic Republic of Germany. This statement was given ample, totally uncritical, coverage on the nation’s most followed newscast, on public television at 8:00 P.M.. After that, in an unannounced change of schedule, a recent award-winning film on the German police state was shown, convincing many of the basic truth in the Prime Minister’s complaints
Through constant, unopposed, reiteration on television, another much repeated “Leitmotif”, has taken hold of the public imagination, and a growing number of people seem to accept the totally illogical assertion that the very quantity of indictments brought against Berlusconi are themselves proof of his innocence. It was recently asserted on public television that a normal person may collect one or two criminal indictments in the course of his life. It should therefore be obvious that the Prime Minister, who has to fight against many more criminal indictments, is a victim of unjust persecution by “communist” judges who use illegal means in an attempt to get rid of him”.
The result is a growing conformity and passivity in the expression of opinions, as can be easily ascertained by listening to radio or TV shows which accept telephone messages from the public. This , in turn, generates an appalling docility in the acceptance of ascertained or alleged misconduct on the part of the Prime Minister..
Similarities with the Fascist regime are also noticeable in the growing, and at the end almost total, identification of the leader with the country itself: the embodiment of the dictum “L’Etat c’est moi”. Today’s leader, much like yesterday’s “Duce” seems to confuse his personal vicissitudes with the needs and problems of the nation.
Berlusconi has more than once, with no trace of irony, reiterated that he is the “greatest Prime Minister in Italy’s history”, and has also stated that those who criticise him are actually animated by “anti-Italian” feelings. According to him, Italy’s allegedly poor international reputation is exclusively due to all the poisonous articles written and published about him in the Italian “communist” press, and not a day goes by without some mention of the international “conspiracy” led by the “Anglo-Saxon media”, animated by envy at Italy’s resounding successes on the international scene.
Berlusconi has often inveighed against the system of “checks and balances”, which he attributes to a “Soviet inspired Constitution” and which prevents him from fulfilling the will of “the people who overwhelmingly voted for me”. His favourite target is the Judicial system which, in truth, does need urgent and drastic reform. In fact, trials in Italy take place in an absolutely Dickensian atmosphere, calling to mind “Bleak House” (Jarndyce and Jarndyce). Therefore, when Berlusconi talks about the need to reform the Judicial system, his appeals fall on fertile ground. The Government’s view of Judicial reform, however, is limited to assuring the Prime Minister’s impunity: some days ago a text was presented by a Government Parliamentarian granting considerable advantages to people “over the age of 75, with no prison record”. Not surprisingly, that particular segment of Italy’s population does happen to include the Prime Minister.
Even the attitude of the Roman Catholic Church shows some parallels with the past, when the womanizing, blaspheming, self declared atheist Mussolini, in the space of a few years went from the edge of excommunication to being dubbed “this man, sent to us by Divine Providence”. By the same token, in the name of “stability” Church officials turn a blind eye to Berlusconi’s peccadilloes, although, in truth, there are symptoms of disapproval from the Catholic rank and file, and these keep finding a growing coverage in the Catholic press.
The underlying fragility in Italy’s democracy is further enhanced by an absolutely irrational electoral law, which has transformed Parliament into the type of rubber-stamp assembly normally associated with Communist regimes, and situations such as these (there are many other significant episodes) risk undermining the very essence of the democratic institutions guaranteed by the republican Constitution of 1948. Italy is certainly not yet a Fascist state, but there are serious grounds to justify the uncomfortable feeling of a dangerous, inexorable drift in that direction.
Carlo Ungaro
carloungaro@gmail.com