Desperate Italians

FIAT (or "Fix Italy Again, Tony")

2010-06-23T20:08:00.003+02:00

You could call it in many ways: a diktat, a blackmail for the common good, an opportunity not to be missed, an illuminate industrial move, a shot in the foot. Whatever your choice, what's happening these days at Pomigliano d'Arco, in Napoli's populous and stagnant hinterland, has become a paradigm for Italy's decline, its future as a manufacturer in a globalised world, and how Italians realize that something needs to be done to invert the trend.

Fiat, Italy's leading car manufacturer, employs over 5.000 people at its Pomigliano factory, where productivity has been lagging for years. Workers have been put in cassa integrazione (a scheme for workers forced to work less, with a token salary), the manufacturing activity has been moved to factories abroad. In the core of “the South” - a region where the stereotype (whether it's fair or not) describe people as lazy, lacking in initiative and always waiting for a beneficial intervention from the public hand – the “rust belt” could soon swallow Pomigliano as well.

Then comes Fiat's bitter pill, with some sugar on it (or a sugary pill with a bitter aftertaste, if you prefer). If the workers accept a new deal – involving more flexible work shifts, all in order to increase productivity – then production of the brand's low cost Panda car would be moved back from Poland, to Pomigliano. Otherwise, end of the story for a moribund plant.

It goes without saying that the new plan would not make Fiat a Chinese sweathop. We're talking about shifts of 8 hours, day or night for everybody; some more ore di straordinari (overtime work shifts); stricter standards in coverage of sick days. But yes: overall, work will be harder, at the expense of some free time. And it doesn't bode well for the trade unions in the long term, if the results of decades of struggles for more rights are reversed with such speed.

That's why the trade unions split. Most of them accepted the deal, but a leading more left-wing one – Fiom – opposed it. Fiat, then proposed a referendum on its plan – and heavily campaigned for the “Yes”. With their backs against the wall – work more, or else – it was widely expected that the 5,000 employees would swallow the pill. They duly did, but with at a lower percentage than expected: less then 65 per cent.

Supporters of the plan point out that the Pomigliano plant was notorious for its lack of professionality: workers calling in sick in droves, strikes organized during Italy's football matches. Opponents bemoan the loss of bargaining powers on the workers' side. Italy's radical left, which has been out of Parliament for two years and is growing more nostalgic as time goes by, is seething.

This writer has never harboured much sympathy towards Italian trade unions. More appropriately, to what has become of them: places where the only rights worth fighting for are those enjoyed by workers already protected, while the growing army of on-and-off, “flexible” young workers is left without representation, often to the benefit of incompetent workers taken on with safe contracts when the economy was in its golden years.

Conditions have changed. They have been for almost two decades, with the relocation of industrial production and the rise of cheaper Eastern European and Asian rivals in Italy's core industries. The political system, frozen in a “Love or Hate Berlusconi” bubble since 1994, has never dealt with this structural decline. Funds for R&D are constantly the first to be cut. In my current Italian visit, the signs of the crisis are everywhere. Almost every shopkeeper, small entrepreneur, employees with jobs at risk, is complaining, and hoping for better times. Next year, “they say in 2-3 years”... most likely, in my opinion: never, if the problems are not addressed.

Italy is losing battle after battle in the survival struggle in a globalised world, and a huge collective effort is required. Otherwise, the future is grim. The Argentinian spectre has been there for almost a decade: the Greek one is geographically much closer, and Italy is now constantly singled out as the “sick man of Europe”. The way out is neither a supine surrender to the padroni (“owners”), nor a hardline “no, signore” along nostalgic Communist hymns. I think there is room for a compromise, for an “Italy 2.0”. But the more time it takes for people to realize that something needs to be done, the more bitter will be the pills to swallow. Or it could just be too late.

More of the same

2010-03-30T21:11:00.005+02:00

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

2010-03-24T08:34:00.003+01:00

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

2010-03-11T08:23:00.003+01:00

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...

2010-03-01T09:31:00.007+01:00

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.

A call to sycophants

2010-02-27T09:36:00.006+01:00

Every Italian living abroad, sooner or later, has to face the question “how come Berlusconi is still in power?”. The usual answers (control of TV channels, charisma, populistic appeal to the masses, his it's-ok-not-to-pay-taxes attitude, his macho allure, the use of his multi-billionaire wealth in electoral campaigns... and there's more) are well documented.

Plenty of books have been written on all this. Still, usually those who asked the question remain perplexed. Ever more so when you tell them that the country is sinking economically and morally, but if Italy was to vote tomorrow, Berlusconi would be likely to win again.

Among expats, the lack of hope in the future is palpable. The best and brightest leave. Many, among whose who stay, adapt by following the mother of all Italian justifications against whistle-blowing: “Tengo famiglia” - I have a family, therefore I'm not such a fool to go against the flow.

The last example came yesterday. Writing the final word on David Mills, a British lawyer convicted of corruption for his services in trials involving Berlusconi's dodgy financial holdings, the Corte di Cassazione ruled a sentence of "prescription": that means Mills committed the crime, but as it was too long ago, it is no longer punishable. Berlusconi, it goes without saying, didn't waste a second before attacking the magistrates who had worked on the case.

And how was the news reported? Mostly correctly. But the TG1, the 30-minutes news program on the main state channel, said twice that Mills had been “acquitted”. Innocent, then. Didn't do anything wrong. Berlusconi had been again smeared for political reasons. Now, normally these judicial cases don't move a single vote – those who follow them are already rabid anti-Berlusconites, the “silent majority” doesn't bother. But the silenty majority follows the TG1 as a dinner-time tradition. And Italy, remember, is a country where 70 percent of the population get their news primarily from TV.

There's no shortage of sycophants in Italy, and the TG1 editor-in-chief Augusto Minzolini has proved again and again he's determined to lead the pack. And I suspect Paolo Di Giannantonio, the TG1 speaker who read the news, is more of a “tengo famiglia” type, then a die-hard Berlusconiano. I like to think that he's ashamed of himself, now.

So, I have a dream. That next time, Di Giannatonio or another lackey-type journalist in his position stops reading the news, stares at the camera, says that he's tired of having to lie in order to work, rips up his notes, tell the audience to wake up, and walks away in disgust. Showing some backbone would probably cost him his salary, but he would become a national hero for millions. I suspect some colleagues could follow. And then things would turn interesting.

Desperate Italian is back

2010-02-27T06:30:00.002+01:00

I stopped updating the blog since... I moved abroad. Fittingly for my alias, isn't it? It wasn't an easy choice - and I mean neglecting the blog, not leaving the country. I had a small but committed readership, and felt from the beginning the typical emigrant's sense of guilt: how can you criticize you country, if you don't share anymore its troubles? Fifteen months later, the motivation is coming back: I'm surrounded by foreigners who ask me questions about Italy. I hope my posts will help giving them a better picture, and that this space can become a corner for serious and enriching debates.

The racism emergency

2008-10-05T21:51:00.003+02:00

In less than one month, the following episodes happened in Italy:
- a 19-year-old Italian of Burkinian origin (he had lived in Italy since he was three) was clubbed to death in Milan by two shopkeepers, for allegedly stealing a packet of biscuits. While they were chasing and beating him, the killers repeatedly shouted negro di merda, “shitty nigger”
- a 22-year-old Ghanese was insulted and beaten by local police agents in Parma, who mistakenly exchanged him for a drug dealer out of the school where he attended evening courses. They also wrote “nigger” after his name on the envelope that notified his arrest.
- a 36-year-old Chinese man was assaulted and beaten by a group of five Italian teenagers in Rome, while he was waiting for a bus. The boys insulted him calling “cinese di merda”.

You would expect the government and local authorities to condemn these acts convincingly. They did (sort of), but always adding that those weren't hate crimes. The Berlusconi government, today with Internal Affairs minister Roberto Maroni, played down the “racism emergency”, as it's called by the media and the opposition. Hardly surprising, as the parties in goverment have played the “security” - aka “fear of immigrants” - card in the elections, and they are still portraying Italy as a country invaded by foreigners.
You don't have to be a one-world leftist to see a cause-effect relationship here. Can anybody in their right mind honestly believe that a white guy would have been clubbed to death, had he stolen some biscuits? Security has been the top issue in the media for the last eight months. Centre-right politicians – from the overtly xenophobic Northern League to the Neo-Fascists - are more popular than ever for their tough anti-immigration stance. When you feed the people with all this invasion/immigration claptrap, you foment their worst instincts. And when you deny that racism plays a role here, you condone these violent acts.
“Italians are not racist, they are brava gente, good people” is a too-often-heard sentence that has no meaning anymore. Maybe it used to be so, when immigrants were seldom to be found in a country with almost no colonial past. But in the last twenty years, Italy has seen its immigrant population soar. And in a country in economic and cultural decline, strangers are enemies. It'd take responsible political leadership to put together a national response, a “new Italian identity” for the 21st Century. But that's nowhere to be seen, at the moment.

Will be back very soon

2008-09-17T11:05:00.002+02:00

I'm sorry for not updating the blog in the last month. I've been travelling for work and I'm busy settling some stuff in Italy right now. I promise to write again very soon. With Italy gearing back to normalcy after the summer holidays, after all I'm ever more desperate.

Hardtalk journalism. But never in Italy

2008-08-13T13:04:00.007+02:00

I watched with gusto yesterday's BBC Hardtalk, an interview with Franco Frattini. Italian politicians able to talk publicly in English are rare to be found. And Italy's Foreign Minister, despite some grammar mistakes and often-repeated sentences (such as "frankly speaking", "oh yesss", and a Roman accent quite evident when he went out of his script), talked his way through Stephen Sackur's usual grilling, managing (hardly) to keep his cool.

As I always do when I watch Hardtalk, I instinctively pick a winner, and this time it was the journalist, big time. Frattini's answers sounded shallow especially on immigration and Roma discrimination, too official, sometimes out of the context; and in some moments you would expect the minister to take off his smiling mask and start ranting at Sackur. But he didn't.

Anyway, while I was watching Hardtalk, I couldn't help but think that you don't see interviews like this in Italy. Political journalism here doesn't go further than putting a microphone under the politician's chin, while he looks at the camera and talks to the viewer (you can't blame them, actually: the journalist is useless, and his questions could be written by the politician's press office). Reporters who dare ask uncomfortable questions are treated by politicians like partisan, unprofessional journalists with a political agenda.

Two years ago, when he was the opposition leader, Silvio Berlusconi walked out of Lucia Annunziata's "Mezz'ora", a one-to-one interview clearly inspired by Hardtalk. Annunziata's questions were soft, by Sackur's standards, but that was more than enough for Berlusconi, who accused her of being biased. The saddest thing about that episode was the reaction of the people. While you could expect fellow politicians would defend Berlusconi, many Italians - even progressive-leaning ones - admitted they were uneasy with Annunziata's aggressive style. And the fact that Annunziata is actually more centre-left than centre-right (although radical leftists consider her too pro-American and conservative), in the eyes of many, prevented her from being "fair" to her guest. Therefore, whatever perfectly legitimate question she posed to Berlusconi, it was because she was biased. Following this way of thinking, it is the journalist who has to prove his guest he's fit to the role, not the other way round.

That's why they should broadcast yesterday's Hardtalk on Italian tv, with subtitles. Because you will never see Frattini grilled for half an hour by an Italian journalist. He simply wouldn't accept the invitation. And if he did, he would know he can call the journalist biased, when he's facing tough questions. Try do that with Stephen Sackur.

Mamma mia!, the army in the streets

2008-08-06T22:46:00.004+02:00

The government is already hailing it a success. Italians unlucky enough to spend August in the big cities, however, don't know whether to laugh or cry: 3,000 troops have been deployed in Milan, Rome and Naples' streets since last Monday, in order to crack down on petty crimes.
One could wonder what crimes you'd expect in ghost towns as those three cities are during the summer holidays, unless you plan to put a soldier in every block to defend empty flats from burglars. And whether Italy has seen a statistical rise in crime is open to debate: data are open to interpretation, the government and the opposition produce the ones that suit their theories best.
Anyway, the initiative is clearly part of the recent Italian obsession with "security", which usually goes with immigration-bashing. Some months before last April's election, the media agenda has been dominated by news related to immigrants - arriving in mass from Africa, getting stranded at sea, dying on our beaches, joyriding and killing innocents, raping. Every piece of news, every reported crime, kicks up a media frenzy if committed by foreigners. Berlusconi's goverment is playing into the people's fear that immigrants are taking Italy over: last week it even declared a state of emergency.
Being a nation with only a recent history of immigration, Italy could be forgiven for its inexperience to deal with the problem. But the government's populism and eagerness to subtly exploit the immigration card is, I would say, criminal itself. Instead of crafting policies to manage the problem, it sheds responsibility by declaring it insolvable, implying the use of force is the only way. The results: a hysteric country, scared citizens ready to take security into their hands because they don't trust the state, and ultimately a nation that feels besieged. And that, rather than opening itself to the world in the era of globalization, chooses to retract in its own carapace. And therefore, to decline.

Who cares about Alitalia

2008-07-24T22:59:00.003+02:00

Three months after the elections, when Berlusconi aroused the traded unions into rejecting Air France's plan and promised a quick solution, the Alitalia saga still looks neverending. The ailing state-controlled air company, after long and overdue negotiations, was about to be sold to the French. Staff cuts were necessary, as Alitalia was (is) virtually bankrupt, and the deal looked reasonable to most observers.
Then Berlusconi, eager to win a third stint in goverment and eyeing a potential electoral coup-de-theatre, upset the table. He knew personally a group of businessmen willing to save Alitalia, and that would be a priority for his government. Alitalia's trade unionists, widely despised by Italians for being out of touch with reality and defending absurd privileges, upped the ante. And AirFrance left the table.

A hundred days later, Alitalia is barely surviving only thanks to a 300 million state loan, highly frowned upon by the EU. The company has cut flights but also lost passengers, and is losing over 1 million euros a day, more than it used to lose daily when a deal with AirFrance was still possible. Berlusconi is still promising to save the "italianity" of the company, but is now warning that some staff cuts will be necessary. Thanks for informing us: it would be bizarre if the new "saviours" cut more staff than AirFrance intended to do. Meanwhile, counting only the last three months, Alitalia cost every Italian more than 5 euros. God knows how much more during the years. And I don't know a single person who actually cares about the "italianity" of Alitalia. Cheaper flights and a better service would be more important.

You said renewable energy? Italy goes nuclear

2008-07-15T17:42:00.004+02:00

There's much talk about a return to nuclear energy in Italy. After shutting down its (few) atomic plants in 1987, as Italians approved a referendum still in the wake of the Chernobyl accident, the government now wants to go nuclear again.

Now, I'm not biased against nuclear. There are pros and cons: it provides cleans energy, security has improved - but plants are expensive, they require huge investments, and the problem of waste-disposal is unsolved. But the point is: while the rest of the world is investing in new forms of energy - wind, solar, biomass, biofuels, geothermal - Italy is pursuing an old idea.

Other countries are betting heavily on nuclear energy: the UK is planning 8 new plants, and in the US John McCain has envisaged 45 new plants if elected. But in those countries, heavy investimens on new energy are already in place. And the cost of energy produced by solar, wind, biomass, thanks to (non-existent in Italy) R&D, is going steadily down. While the cost of uranium - a finite resource - has risen 19-fold since 2000. The future, it is widely assumed, belongs to renewable energy.

With its southern regions enjoying sunny days for most of the year, Italy has "one of the largest potentials for solar energy in Europe", reckons the US Energy Information Administration, which adds that "analysts estimate that Italy could have the largest, per-capita geothermal potential in the world". Why don't politicians talk about this, instead of squabbling on TV about secondary issues?

With no oil and gas on its territory, the country pays the highest electricity bills in Europe. Higher than Germany, which has put a renewable-energy tax on electricity bills since the early '90s, and now is one of the top producers of wind and solar energy in the world. And 40 percent higher than France, which thanks to its nearly 40 nuclear plants has an excess capacity, allowing the country to export electricy to - yes - Italy.

Of Mafia, Camorra and the real security emergency

2008-07-12T18:01:00.003+02:00

Mafia, Camorra and all the other Italian criminal organisations have always sold well in Italy. In the '80s, a TV fiction like La Piovra was one of the biggest hit ever in the country. In the last years, Roberto Saviano's book (and later film) Gomorra has constantly been a best-seller. And when, between May and July 1992, Mafia killed the two most prominent anti-Mafia judges Falcone and Borsellino, Italians were shocked and united in their grief. Yet, never has an Italian government pledged to root the "grande criminalità" out.
Through drug trafficking, extorsions, prostitution, Mafia eats up 7 percent of Italy's GDP, dragging down the whole economy, particularly in the South. Despite some high-profile arrests in the last years, it's as active as ever. And it kills, not just rival criminals, but also innocent and honest people like Raffaele Granata, a beach-owner murdered yesterday near Naples for refusing to pay protection money, the so-called "pizzo".
Sicilians, it has been recently reported, are waking up against Mafia. The number of people reporting extortions to the police is rising. Citizens' associations have been founded. And what is the goverment doing? Nothing. The much-talked about "security emergency" focuses on Roma and immigrants.
Berlusconi's is surely to blame for never mentioning Mafia as a priority, and many analysts have linked the extraordinary success of the centre-right coalition in the South (in the 2001 elections, it scooped up all the 61 contested seats in Sicily) to the "soft approach" towards Mafia, a decisive vote-gatherer in some Southern regions. But the centre-left coalition, despite some commendable candidates (like Borsellino's sister Rita) has hardly played the Mafia card in any elections.
Maybe politicians think that Mafia is too big a cancer to eradicate, therefore it can just be contained. Maybe the Mafia backing is too important to win in some constituencies. Maybe investing heavily in the struggle against the high criminality would not improve noticeable results. Maybe it just requires too much courage to stand up to Mafia, because vengeance is likely. But I guess that, if a national coalition put the struggle against Mafia, Camorra, 'Ndrangheta and the likes at the top of its priorities, stressing the message that Italy can be different, that the state can really protect those who dare stand up, Italians would pull together and things could change.
Think of a new prime minister announcing on TV, or in his first speech to the country or to a crowd of supporters, "We shall overcome against Mafia", or "yes, we can". Unthinkable? Maybe. Surely unseen in Italy, up to now.

Italy's opposition, a laughing stock for all

2008-07-10T22:48:00.003+02:00

Foreign observers used to laugh at Italian politics because governments changed once a year. Now they make fun of us because of Berlusconi. But the behaviour of the current centre-left coalition deserves the same treatment.
While the government majority has basicly coalesced into two parties (Berlusconi's People of Freedom and the xenophobic and populist Northern League), the opposition is more divided than ever, even after being drubbed in last April's elections.
Following all the splits and name-changing facelifts is hard even by Italian standards. After splitting into three Communist parties, the far left united under one flag but got kicked out from the Parliament. The Democratic Party, the biggest movement in the coalition, was born from the merger between the secular Leftist Democrats and left-catholic The Daisy and was led by Walter Veltroni, a popular former mayor of Rome who took inspiration from Kennedy and Obama, but suffered a hard blow in April, despite the alliance with a small but fiery anti-corruption party led by former Tangentopoli prosecutor Antonio Di Pietro.
After the usual grand electoral promises, Berlusconi swiftly changed his priorities to what he does best: fixing the trials he's involved in with some self-tailored laws. In today's case, by passing a law that would temporarily freeze trials for the four highest political figures.
And how does the opposition reply? The radical left is busy trying to find a new identity, and is nowhere to be seen. Veltroni's Democrats, unconspicuous in their opposition but active with a "shadow government" so shadowy that few Italians realize it exists, apparently are convinced that the best way to tackle Berlusconi is by means of "dialogue for the reforms", a vague mantra that Italian politicians have kept repeating for the last ten years, to the point that nobody knows what these reforms would be anyway.
Di Pietro's Italy of Values, together with citizens who feel unrepresented by any parties but follow Beppe Grillo, a stand-up comedian-cum-firebrand, is the only one actively trying to denounce the prime minister's attempts to muzzle the judiciary.
This week, tens of thousands of people took to Rome's Piazza Navona to participate in a mass protest organized by Di Pietro. Anti-Berlusconi voters watched with a mix of hope and perplexity, but it was a stirring event anyway, when compared with Veltroni's smooth style.
And what happened today? The Democrats attacked Di Pietro, vehemently asking him to choose "between the streets and the Parliament". Another division in Italy's beleaguered opposition. On the other side, Berlusconi must be watching the show and have a laugh, too.

Hello, Silvio talking. But not resigning

2008-07-09T17:20:00.010+02:00

Some of them were made public. Others, the really juicy ones, were later destroyed after a judicial order. But, if secret they were meant to be, word got quickly around that countless wiretaps of Berlusconi phone calls exposed some sexually dubious behaviour by the Italian prime minister.
It didn't take long. In one of the conversations, as left-leaning La Repubblica subtly wrote, Berlusconi "boasts about some of his female ministers' qualities". And in his defence of Berlusconi, conservative Libero's editor Vittorio Feltri said that poor Silvio cannot be blamed if he likes "la gnocca" (pussy).
By word of mouth, now everybody points the finger at the Equal Opportunities minister Mara Carfagna, a 32-year-old former beauty contestant and TV presenter, who recently became the youngest minister ever in Italy. Many Italians, who maligned at the time on the reasons for such a quick ascent to power, now can't refrain from snickering.
In another conversation, published by L'Espresso magazine, Berlusconi - at a time when he was just the opposition leader - pressures a state TV manager to find a role for a little-known starlet who keeps saying the prime minister wants to block her career. One would wonder why. Anyway, that's a plain Italian-style recommendation, and not based on work merits.
A plethora of right-wing journalist, and of course politicians of his coalition, rose up to defend Silvio: his private life is his business, shame on the communist judges and journalists who revel in listening to his conversations. Many Berlusconi voters would probably think the same. After all, everybody makes recommendations in Italy, and most Italians didn't understand what the fuss was about, when the US got stuck into the Clinton-Lewinsky affair. The concept of resigning must be so absurd that nobody even mentions it. If somebody dared to, he would be quickly ridiculed.
Yet, nobody seems to get the ethical point. Shouldn't the prime minister explain to his voters if the "qualities" of one of his female ministers were a factor in giving her the job? Doesn't anybody see anything wrong in a prime minister who, when not even in power, uses his influence to favour somebody's career - in Berlusconi's case with a clear conflict of interests, as he appears to have a say in the decisions of the company that rivals his three TV channels? And don't Berlusconi's female voters have anything to complain about how these episodes confirm the depressing situation of "equal opportunities" in Italy?
In some Northern European countries, it would have taken much less to prompt a politician to resign spontaneously. Last April, Finland's Foreign minister resigned after the media exposed his sending improper text messages to a dancer. In October 2006, Sweden's culture minister resigned after she admitted paying a nanny under the table. But it's not just civil Scandinavians that can look down on Italians. In July 2007, Japan's defence minister resigned after suggesting that the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were inevitable. Last January, Malaysia's health minister resigned Wednesday after acknowledging that he and a female friend were the couple in a secretly filmed sex video. And right today, Kenya's finance minister has resigned after being named in a corruption scandal. Had these cases happened in Italy, it wouldn't have been enough to get a resignation. And whoever had been caught in one of these scandals, they would have said it was all a plot against them.