Berardi Franco

"Observatory on the State of Democracy in Italy"

(articolo, 27/10/200)

Since the coming to power of the right-wing coalition Italy has witnessed a serious undermining of legality, civil rights, freedom and political awareness.

Silvio Berlusconi, the current Prime Minister of Italy, won his seat as head of government by channelling enormous sums of money into electoral advertising. And since, over the last 30 years, he has succeeded in building up a financial empire with the support of both the mafia and secret associations such as the P2 freemasons' lodge (of which he was a member), funds have certainly not been lacking. Furthermore, given the magnitude of the Berlusconi-owned media empire, he has also been able to enjoy a massive communications advantage that is, in a Western democracy, without precedent.

This enormous dominance of the media constitutes an enormous peril for Italian democracy. Yet no less dangerous than Berlusconi and his party-cum-business enterprise are the other parties that bolster it. One is a direct derivative of the fascist regime, while another is openly racist, has been advocating the secession of northern Italy for years, and supports the expulsion of foreigners.

Yet historically, fascism and mafia have never been allies. While both may be seen as symptoms of peculiarly Italian illnesses, they have, in the past, always been anathema to each other. The mafia is a family-oriented organisation that aims to replace the state and pursues its interests through blackmail, violence and corruption. Fascism, instead, is an aggressive assertion of state authority and is systematically violent
towards society. Now, for the first time, these two forms have come together.

Genoa highlighted the totalitarian nature of this government all too
clearly. During those two days the Deputy Prime Minister, Gianfranco Fini, spent two days at Genoa's police headquarters from where he piloted acts of violence, repression and torture, the homicide of a young demonstrator and aggression against citizens wishing to protest against the G8 summit.

The xenophobe instincts of this government also came to the fore when legislation on how to integrate foreign workers was passed. The government lost no time in promising prison sentences for those entering Italy without authorisation, as if just entering the country were in itself a terrible crime, and quickly established that visas for foreign citizens should only last as long as their work contracts.

On other occasions legislation has been brutally railroaded to meet the interests of the regime's mafia. Legislation aimed at shielding the Prime Minister and his direct accomplices from the investigations of magistrates who have been examining allegedly illicit business transactions for years has been rushed through Parliament in record time.

Silvio Berlusconi, Gianfranco Fini and Umberto Bossi represent not only a threat to Italian democracy, but European stability too. There us, in fact, something about this (for the moment) specifically Italian shameless, grotesque authoritarianism that risks being exported, infecting the societies of other European countries.

This is why we believe that it is nothing less than essential to provide a systematic news service that highlights the actions, legislation, repression of dissent and the freedom-restricting policies approved by this all-too mafia-like government and which exposes the antidemocratic nature of the words of its politicians.

That service is one that OSDEM.it aims to provide in full.