Italy and the not a so Dolce Vita
A country captivated by Pimps, Popes and Whores!
How does a modern Western nation of ‘enlightened’ citizens elect someone like Silvio Berlusconi to lead their nation?
Hail Berlusconistan!
It would be fair to say, ‘oh well everyone’s entitled to make mistakes and fuck up sometimes. The ALP elected Mark Latham as their leader to contest the 2004 Federal Election. But Italians have elected Berlusconi on four separate occasions.
What does this say about Italians?
I’ve often struggled to come to grips with the contradictions of contemporary Italian culture and mores.
But Italian politics is a byzantine quagmire lost on me…
The closest anyone’s come to trying to debunk this Italian enigma is my 80-year-old Roman uncle. He candidly told me,
“Siamo un popolo di cretini rincoglionitti da preti, palone e putane.”
“We’re a nation of cretins spellbound by priests, besotted by soccer and captivated by a procession of sluts strutting their arses across our television screens every night.”
[this isn’t a literal translation but I believe it best describes the message he meant to get across]
Like my candid uncle, Berlusconi knows this all too well. And his media empire is top-heavy with scantily clad young women strutting their arses for all and sundry. Italian commercial television makes the Ten Network look BBC like by comparison.
Berlusconi knows his audience and he played to it- commercially and politically.
The old cruise ship crooner knows how to woo an audience and with whom to curry favour. I doubt he invited many Cardinals and Bishops to his notorious Bunga Bunga parties but The Catholic Church has Real Power and influence in Italy and was on the receiving end of kid-glove treatment during Berlusconi’s term as PM.
As the largest property owner in Italy, the church was exempt from paying property taxes on their extensive commercial property holdings.
His sordid sexual reputation aside, he knew not to ’fuck with’ The Church and they supported Berlusconi despite the countless allegations of tax evasion, mafia connections and sex scandals which have plagued his political career.
A pact between the pious and the putrid – unlikely bedfellows but a marriage of political convenience.
‘It’s not personal, it’s strictly business’ as Al Pacino’s character said in The Godfather.
Italy is a country where Good Appearances- Beauty holds supreme- La Bella Figura pervades all facets of Italian society. Berlusconi prided himself on stacking his cabinet with ‘good looking’ female ministers.
He boasted that conservative female Italian politicians were better looking than Left-leaning, liberal ones.
The Church relies heavily on the developing world to fill its ranks.
The nuns and priests one sees walking around Rome are invariably non-European.
The Catholic Church may yield political power but it struggles to recruit from the old world order.
The new Pope is an each-way bet for The Vatican. He comes from South America but he’s the son of Italian immigrants.
As an example to highlight La Bella Figura, this particular Italian trait.
I recall my mother once asking my brother what he thought about an Italian relative’s new wife.
“She’s a pretentious bitch,” he told her.
Taken aback by his frankness she responded with,
“pero e’carina “ [ but she’s pretty ]
Being ‘carina’ in Italy has currency. I doubt an Angela Merkel would have risen to such ranks in Italian politics. Well, certainly not within Berlusconi’s Freedom Party.
Anti-immigration graffiti spray-painted on the walls of a restaurant in touristy Rome.
The pizza chef and his kitchen hands were Bangladeshi immigrants looking for their slice of the long dissipated Dolce Vita. La Bella Figura may still rule supreme in La Bell’Italia. But La Dolce Vita is a pipe dream for most Italians!
Fabrizio Marsani
fmarsani@yahoo.com.au
