History Repeating Itself?

When I started this blog, the idea was to report news about Italian politics in English. At that time I found that although foreign press tended to be much more objective than the Italian’s, it couldn’t quite capture the true essence of our politics. For example, I don’t know any non-Italian person who doesn’t think that Berlusconi is an idiot a highly corrupted politician, and yet in Italy he is still hated and loved in equal measure.

At that time, it also seemed much easier to understand what was good and what was bad, but after the elections the political situation in the country is much more blurred.

On one side Berlusconi and his centre-right coalition, on the other side the Democratic Party (PD) and centre-left coalition, and on neither side, but still at the centre of it all, Grillo and his 5 Stars Movement.

After a messy elections result, where no one obtained a strong majority, the Democratic Party was pretty much forced to form a coalition Government with the centre-right, after failed negotiations with Grillo.

I guess this is no much different from what happened in the UK with current coalition Government, and in  my opinion it represents a good expression of democracy. As much as I hate to admit it, there were still over 10 million Italians that voted for Berlusconi, and this  has to be acknowledged.

However, most Italians see this as a “dirty partnership” among the old political parties, who want to keep the power and cut out the new (Grillo and his movement).

What I think is that Grillo had the chance to stop all this, and by forming a coalition with the PD he would have had the opportunity to actively contribute to the reforms that are really needed (rather than keep wasting time on Berlusconi’s trials, which will jeopardise the relations inside the existing coalition).

The main problem is that Grillo never had a programme other than ‘destroy everything and rebuilt from scratch’ and therefore any alliance would have been seen by his supporters as a betrayal.

What scares me, is that most people don’t seem to realise the similarities between Grillo and Berlusconi. Berlusconi also rose to Italian politics with the intent to reform the old political elite, presenting himself as a self-made man, who could lead the country to prosperity in the same way that he had made his businesses successful.

Grillo and Berlusconi are both extremely charismatic leaders, their supporters become like followers of a guru, rather than active participants of the political life.

Both cases remind me of George Orwell’s Animal Farm.

This is an extremely complicated political situation and I really don’t think I have the ability to explain it, and probably even fully understand it, but for those who wish to understand more about what’s really going on in Italy I suggest this brilliant piece authored by the Wu Ming Foundation:

Grillismo: Yet another right-wing cult coming from Italy