Berlusconi's remote control

The left opposition has done nothing to stop Italy's prime minister using his media networks to dominate the way Italians think.

In any other European country, a prime minister like Silvio Berlusconi would have already been swept away, punished for a style of government that is dedicated to protecting his own interests as a business tycoon and demolishing the autonomy and independence of judges to ensure his impunity. His lifestyle is closer to that of an Oriental potentate than to the devout (and hypocritical) supporter of the traditional "God, the motherland and the family", which is the mantra of the right. Needless to say, Italian conservatives mouth these statements to pander to the Vatican. Mussolini, too, paid lip service to being a proud champion of the family, idolising women as angels of the hearth, whereas in reality he was a boastful womaniser. Berlusconi's problems on the domestic stage are mostly to do with rifts in his own governing coalition – mainly with his deputy, Gianfranco Fini (the third power in the state, after President Napolitano and Berlusconi). Opposition does not come from the Italian people or from the opposition – the centre-left Partito Democratico appears to be incapable of offering a plausible alternative to the current government. Why isn't the PD considered as a possible government? I think it's clear: Berlusconi's monopoloy of the media embodies the difference between the two sides. In a country in which hardly anyone reads books (Italian book readership is last but one in Europe behind Turkey) and where schools and universities are painfully neglected, over the last 15 years political and civil instruction have been provided by Mediaset's TV serials, which have "educated" (absit iniuria verbis) at least two generations. This has happened with the complicity of both Massimo d'Alema and Walter Veltroni, who when they were the leaders of centre-left governments did not consider it necessary to limit Berlusconi's excessive media power, in a democratic way, as is usual in all civilised countries, with the exception of Thailand. Why didn't they do something? I'd hate to think it was a cynical deal (or as they might see it, a "compromise"), done behind their voters' backs. Perhaps it was a cultural limitation, a refusal to believe that in a weak and under-educated country like Italy, the daily bombardment of commercial TV stations, in the possession of a man like Berlusconi, would deeply change daily lives. Or was it because of the perfunctory assumption that the medium of television could not set off a revolution; that revolutions could only have their origin in politics, not mass entertainment. Whatever the reason, the fact is that the way Italians think, consume, dress and make love – their collective imagination and their shared feelings – are in the tight grips of Mediaset and Rai, dominated by a prime minister who has purged from them those who disagree with him. Why believe the Partito Democratico, which when it was in power did nothing to overcome the problem of Berlusconi's excessive control of the media, can offer an alternative?

Continue ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/sep/27/berlusconi-italy-control