The Berlusconi effect: Silence of the leopards
Carol
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April 2002
THE BERLUSCONI EFFECT
Silence of the leopards
by VALERIO EVANGELISTI *
Hardly any writers and filmmakers, and even fewer
painters and musicians, support the current Italian
government. Those who champion Silvio Berlusconi are
editorial-writers on daily newspapers and some academics
(1). All of these, together with opposition leaders from
the centre-left Olive Tree coalition, share similar views
on the benefits of the free-market economy and
globalisation. Whatever the issue the war in Afghanistan,
the anti-globalisation movement, Western civilisation
versus "barbarians", illegal immigration, social justice
it is hard to find great differences of opinion between
editorials in papers like La Repubblica or L'Espresso (2)
or in publications with close links to the government.
The weekly newsmagazine Panorama, a leading Berlusconi
supporter, described journalist Oriana Fallaci as
"Italy's most important female writer". Fallaci wrote a
xenophobic tract asking readers to spit on Muslims and
depicting the Somalis Italy's most inoffensive minority
and other Africans as physically and morally unclean.
The government, unable to find qualified candidates, has
appointed incompetent industrialists to run the Venice
film festival and the national film school. It looks as
if the voluble Vittorio Sgarbi, who a few months ago was
selling coffee in TV commercials and broadcasting sex
tips on radio has become Italy's cultural ambassador.
Given this political and cultural void, artists and
academics might be expected to lead dissent. It hasn't
happened quite like that. Some have condemned violations
of the law (most prominently and symbolically, filmmaker
Nanni Moretti). But they have not publicly spoken about
the way that the Berlusconi government appeals to a
bourgeoisie created by the recent growth of trade,
services, communications and stock market speculation, or
of the government's links with international imperialism
and neo-colonialism. Italy's writers and artists do not
speak for the nation like the late Pierre Bourdieu in
France or Gore Vidal in the United States. Protest is
limited to a narrower range of issues.
Yet there is clear evidence of the government's
irregularities and they need to be denounced. People
abroad hear more about scandals when they are exposed by
the centre-left. Consider the refusal to provide
anti-mafia judges with police protection; the decision to
change judges midway through the trial involving
Berlusconi and Cesare Previti, his former legal counsel;
or the decriminalisation of offences threatening
Berlusconi, and members of his inner circle with links to
the Confindustria employers' organisation.
There was relative silence about these events. Yet a
toll-free telephone number, run by a legislator from
Berlusconi's Forza Italia, was set up in Bologna for
students to inform on teachers who had made
anti-government comments. There was an official
inspection to certify that Bologna's schools were not
only emphasising Western superiority over the Islamic
world but were celebrating Christmas properly. Other
incidents include the deportation of 1,500 people without
official papers in a night police raid (against a
backdrop of anti-immigrant attacks in streets and homes).
No writers or artists spoke out against these events,
mostly because the events involved the enforcement of
centre-left-sponsored laws that they had not really
opposed. Most audible dissent tends to be about
Berlusconi, an easy target although personal criticisms
have little effect, or about the egregious conduct of
some institutions. There has been silence about the
profound decline of Italian society, and about social
conflict that could have shaken the system.
Students occupy schools while teachers take to the
streets to fight a nonsensical package of reforms
proposed by the education minister, Letizia Moratti
(latest in a long succession of businesswoman promoted to
strategic positions). The peace movement has rallied
hundreds of thousands of demonstrators while workers have
combated the liberalisation of laws governing lay-offs,
and people threatened by the draconian Bossi-Fini
immigration bill have staged mass protests. These events
have especially failed to register among Italy's leading
writers, who have distinguished themselves by
invisibility, indifference and hostility.
Some authors ignored by the academic establishment have
protested audibly; but mostly there have been no
questions as to whether the neo-liberal ideology adopted
by the centre-left actually contributed to Berlusconi's
victory. Nor have there been questions about whether
building detention camps for illegal immigrants,
speculating on the utility of "just" wars and undermining
employment stability laid the groundwork for Italy's
reactionary decline. Antonio Tabucchi and Andrea
Camilleri have objected to the return of fascism and
Nanni Moretti has denounced feckless opposition leaders,
but they have not tackled the roots of these phenomena.
Genoa watershed
Genoa, July 2001, remains a watershed. This was the
Berlusconi government's first major test, directed by
Gianfranco Fini, the post-fascist leader. Protestors were
assaulted and beaten; many women arrested complained of
sexual harassment; and police officers presided over the
bloodbath with impunity. This was all overseen by police
selected by the centre-left, which was in charge during a
run-up to the Genoa events several months earlier in
Naples.
Writers who claim a special understanding of the world
and believe in literary realism seem not to have seen the
videotapes of the events in Naples and Genoa. Yet Italian
academics have long thought realism was the mark of the
greatest novels (which is why even Italo Calvino and Dino
Buzzati had difficulty gaining recognition). Given the
lack of ideas, and courage, it is hardly surprising that
minimalism is the predominant mode of contemporary
Italian literature.
Few writers publicly opposed the shameful situation in
Afghanistan either, though they may have done so
privately. Anti-war writers, for all their coffee-shop
diatribes, have not dared take on major media
commentators, strident propagandists in the West's
insane, contemptible jihad. The same applies to Somalia,
Kosovo and other military escapades in which Italy was
involved.
Grim realities are not just missing from articles and
commentaries: they are, above all, absent from modern
Italian fiction, as are all other realities. Future
readers of fiction will get little understanding of
contemporary Italy (probably they will not even read the
novelists of today). There are absences in non-realistic
literary genres too in Italy it would be pointless to
look for an Orwell or a Zamyatin (3) who might use
metaphor to address issues.
About racism: Italy's overlap of ideologies, as well as
the sense of continuity provided by the Berlusconi
government's experiments in authoritarianism, can be
illustrated in this example. On 15 January Il Corriere
della Sera published a letter from Geminello Alvi, an
economist who was a well-known contributor to the
centre-left press until recently. In response to the
debate over environmental degradation, Alvi remarked that
pollution was a natural offshoot of demographic growth.
After condemning anti-globalisation protestors for
"jumping around as if they'd been bitten by a poisonous
spider", he concluded that the "importing" of millions of
immigrants was polluting Italy's air.
Non-Italian readers may find it hard to believe that a
major daily newspaper would publish such comments.
Although Austria's Jvrg Haider and France's Jean-Marie Le
Pen both favour banning further immigration, they would
be wary about Alvi's other ideas; they would find them
brainless. Yet Alvi is typical of commentators who spread
racial, class and religious hatred daily in
all-too-willing newspapers.
Such commentators have also harshly attacked those who
resist an amoral world by clinging to idealism. This
unites Italy's centre-left and centre-right, which are
supposedly opposing forces. By courting the growing
bourgeoisie, the centre-left turned its back on the
principle of solidarity and adopted neo-liberalism as the
only ideological option. The centre-right maintained the
same posture but added neo-fascism and post-modern
vulgarity. Only then did the opposition writers and
artists woke up.
Will they eventually realise that, though Berlusconi may
be a political aberration, he is not isolated? Perhaps
they never will, judging by their sheepish reaction to
his dalliance with Tony Blair. Genoa was a turning point:
those who did not speak out then, or did so hesitantly,
will continue to keep silent, and dishonour Italian
culture with their cowardice.
____________________________________________________
* Italian science-fiction author whose most recent books
include Cherudek (Rivages, Paris, 2000) and Mital hurlant
(Rivages, Paris, 2001)
(1) Angelo Panebianco, Ernesto Galli Della Loggia and
Paolo Mieli.
(2) Written by Geminello Alvi, Antonio Polito, Eugenio
Scalfari, Mario Pirani .
(3) The anti-totalitarian Russian writer, Yevgeny
Zamyatin (1884-1937).
Translated by Luke Sandford
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