WORLD WORLDWIDE ITALY News Journal Update - (en) Italy, UCADI #172 - THE ULTIMATE REFUGE (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 Berlusconi has been the greatest political innovator since the Second World War.

A radical innovator in terms of communication, with the unscrupulous use of the
media, the creation of a corporate party, personal loyalty, direct relationship
with the crowd as only true and genuine populists have always been able to do. He
completely flattened the left by eliminating its leaders one by one. ---- From
the point of view of economic policies and political ideology, however, he didn't
invent anything. ---- A bit of history. When Berlusconi "takes the field"
republican Italy is now transformed by 2-3 years of "clean hands". Or rather, the
narrative of "clean hands" seems to have overwhelmed and turned the country
upside down. Live television, pro-judiciary demonstrations, coin tosses, use of
handcuffs on the powerful. The political vacuum created by the dissolution of the
historic parties seemed to have handed over the decision-making moment to the
judges, who were in a frankly new climate of consensus for a country like ours.
On the international level, the "iron curtain" and the cataclysm in the so-called
countries had failed in a very unheroic and very prosaic way. "real socialism"
fell (by a strange celestial conjunction, or maybe not) in the phase in which the
PCI possessed the most mediocre ruling class ever. This is also a sign of a
change that had been triggered much earlier.
The PCI was unable to do better than to go along with the wave, losing sight of
all historical considerations, and tag along with a narrative which, obviously,
proved to be completely misleading. Instead, he maintained the presumption of
representing a non clearly identifiable "best country". A kind of leap of faith
that was grafted onto a curious path. The PCI had dissolved, they turned their
backs on their own history, but they kept saying that they "came from the PCI". A
schizophrenia that accompanied the history of those name changes (4 in 30 years)
that looked a lot like the famous "comma 22".
However, the conviction of "being the best" together with the landslide caused by
"clean hands" had finally turned on the green light. If not for full electoral
and political merits, the physical elimination of one's opponents would naturally
have opened the doors to the new political structure, now cleaned up and
presentable even to the American friend.
As often happens, by dint of believing in narratives, the really good narrator
will arrive. "Clean hands" had been a carnival media phenomenon, where the crowd
applauded the powerful in the pillory. It would have been another matter to apply
this new "judicial moralism" to common life.
As long as it was a question of throwing coins at Craxi, ok! But we're not kidding.
Already Craxi, a man completely belonging to the so-called "first republic".
Innovator, of course, and unscrupulous, but very little accustomed to modern
media. More Mussolini-like than new (the constructions of Panseca) which,
however, had torn some chains with respect to the previous phase. Berlusconi
without Craxi perhaps would not have existed, but the common trait between the
two does not appear very broad.
But there was the 80s. Years of deconstruction and construction, and for many,
years of free hands, enrichment, ruthlessness, will to live and fuck you.
Berlusconi, who had represented the imagination in Italy in those years (indeed
he had created it) knew the Italians (yes, the Italians, and like true populists,
he did not admit social divisions or class clashes), much better than the
political class of the time. Entirely intent on grappling behind abstruse
late-Adornian considerations. While they were damned about why, Berlusconi
thought about the "how". He would have also hired Stalin himself to his services
if it had been useful to him and, probably, Stalin would have understood better
with Berlusconi than with Occhetto (the "zombie with the moustache").
After supporting Fini as candidate for mayor of Rome in 1993, Berlusconi took to
the field the following year with an unprecedented campaign that the left did not
understand in its apparent and grotesque populist simplicity. The judicial
investigations had reached their climax and the level of media exposure (to which
Berlusconi's TV had given very broad support) was beginning to tire.
It was a question of resuming the dream of the 80s, which had just ended, and
instill new hope in the population.
The other side of Berlusconi's viaticum was anti-Berlusconism, which concentrated
on the outward and scandalous traits while keeping silent on the fundamentals.
This brought together a number of individuals who had nothing in common except,
precisely, aversion to Berlusconi "in the flesh".
The post-communist left failed to draft even a minimum law on conflict of
interest and leaders trained at the school of Frattocchie fell into the trap of
the bicameral as real amateurs.
But this anti-Berlusconism dedicated only to the criticism of external events was
not only a curse, but the other side of Berlusconism itself.
In the era of liberalism which was occupying every usable space, privatizations,
the precariousness of work, the systematic demolition of everything that had a
public feel, we witnessed a truly singular phenomenon.
On the one hand there was a cry of fascism. Berlusconi a little less than Hitler
(see the portrait that Nanni Moretti makes of him in the film "Il Caimano", the
same Moretti who then, together with his other snack companions - such as Michele
Serra - kept silent about left-wing Berlusconism, or Renzism); the other was
attacked, pass me the French, on bullshit. It would be as if the founder of the
NSDAP had criticized the choice of having a mistress.
However, this apparent contradiction did not originate from some form of idiocy
(which nevertheless existed), but from clear evidence: The dominant paradigm
(that famous Marxian concept according to which the dominant ideas are those of
the ruling classes) had been around for a good decade became hegemonic also in
the ex-left.
The heirs of the PCI had cheap moralism left in their hands, a good dose of
whining that badly replaced the class struggle, the idea that a normal country
existed somewhere" (this was the refrain of Repubblica, if we want to speak
damage caused by the media, rather than Berlusconi's TV, I am thinking of the
disasters caused by the "enlightened bourgeois" press of which Repubblica was the
progenitor).
Now, it is evident that if you abandon your historical references, it is not
understood why someone else should not take advantage of it. In politics, gaps do
not exist and spaces are occupied. Berlusconi did not invent the neoliberal
narrative, but he inserted it into a kind of endless 80s. His masterpiece was not
only having cleared customs and methods "unorthodox" (from an external point of
view) but also that of appearing an ordinary man. The dream of someone who made
it from scratch. Depoliticization, machismo, beautiful women, the beautiful life
and the continuation of Milan to drink, but less heavy than the Craxian one
(which, as I said, remained political in the 1900s).
Everything was seasoned with that extraordinary glue that has always been
anti-communism. Attention, visceral anti-communism, not doctrinaire. Not Catholic
or reactionary anti-communism or even fascist. "Communism" is all that prevents
me from doing as I please, the whining of the "do-gooders", the defense of the weak.
Now, let's face it, Communism and materialistic doctrines, in the Marxist
accession, were not born to defend the "weak", but to emancipate and conquer
power by the proletarian classes. Unfortunately, this "tearful" view of the class
struggle was hegemonic from the late 1980s onwards, what remained of the left.
On this narrative, Berlusconi has grafted a real war to zero. A dialectical
masterpiece.
Attack the ex-PCI accusing them of still being communists. An ingenious strategy
that really hit the mark.
If the PCI had still been there, or if the heirs had followed a different
strategy than having thrown the child with the basin, this weapon would have been
completely dull. "Are we communists?" "Certain!"
But just when you were one step away from being accepted in the good salons
here's that there, that coarse type to break the spell. "Communists"? But we
never were, we are not communists.
We are those of the sheets, of the liberalizations, of the privatizations (and
still continue: Multiutility, Differentiated regionalism).
In short, if Berlusconi was that of the red pill, the left was that of the blue
pill, or a world of shit and sacrifices, of moralistic floggings. Of a gray life.
For heaven's sake, not that they were entirely wrong, but, once the ideologies
have fallen... for what damned reason should the population of a country have
chosen the hair shirt?
The great post-1980 liberal reassembly not only inaugurated a new phase of
political, social and economic life, certainly not only in Italy. But it
literally overturned the paradigms that had guided the West up to that point.
What was missing was the collapse and implosion of the socialist countries for
that ideology to remain the only and last one.
Berlusconi was certainly one of the greatest interpreters of that literal
demolition of any social inspiration.
Also because it always had a very high consensus on the part of a transversal and
truly post-ideological Italy.
But that was not the point where he was fought. Because what the left of the
"Republic" longed for was, in fact, a "normal" country, with a functioning
capitalism, a sober society. Basically the story of another country and not that,
specific to Italy (it was enough to have taken a look at the works of Stefano
Merli, but what am I telling you about).
Upstart Berlusconi shattered the icy dream/nightmare of a pacified country
(Veltroni made it clear in his speech at the Lingotto, when the Democratic Party
was founded) and he did it in the noisiest way possible.
That noise, that vulgarity (my lady) was quite a punch in the face.
Berlusconi belongs to the past by now, and not just because he's dead, but
because he has settled so much into Italian society that everyone (especially the
anti-Berlusconians to whom he gave a reason to live) owes him something.
Bordiga was certainly a sectarian and also not very sociable, but certainly not
an idiot. And when he said that fascism, with its violent and criminal conduct,
would spread such hatred and rancor as to completely divert one's gaze from
politics, however questionable the framework in which he inserted this
consideration, he didn't go very far from the truth.
For an entire generation, anti-Berlusconism represented the last foothold of some
"other" identity.
Thus the roundabouts, the "if not now when", up to the 10 insane questions of the
Republic. All very noble causes, please (except for the idiocy of the 10
questions), but all evanescent, immaterial, postmodern stuff (precisely).
In practice Berlusconi has applied the liberal agenda in the same way as it has
continued with the left. It's unpleasant to make these statements, always
smelling of indifference. It could also be true that "they are not all the same".
It could if there was some indication of it. Furthermore, the appearance of
Renzismo, the cynical version of Berlusconi, has eliminated any difference. With
the addition of a rare dislike that emanates from the scoundrel of Rignano
(unlike the real and empathetic populist).
Berlusconi's death decrees the end of Forza Italia, whose diaspora will see a
part go with Renzi (but is it better for him?)
and a large part with FDI (being the winning horse). Decrees the end of the
corporate party and the end of the Berlusconi "scandal". However, he does not
decree the end of omnivorous capital but, on the contrary, relaunches it under
the guise of liberal nationalism well represented by Meloni.
I would never say that we will regret Berlusconi (who, however, as an upstart
could afford unimaginable exits in foreign policy) but, certainly, we will not go
through a period of milk and honey.
I conclude by saying that, like Renzism, like fascism, Berlusconi was a social
phenomenon that cannot be solved and cannot be understood by attributing
everything to one person. Berlusconi governed neither with the army nor with
castor oil, but with the consent of a large part of the citizenry.

Andrea Bellucci

http://www.ucadi.org/2023/06/19/lultimo-rifugio/
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