The View from Bologna

The left lose Rome

Rosa Luxembourg, the Polish-German socialist famously theorised 'you lose, you lose, you lose, you win', and that will be of a certain consolation to Walter Veltroni, the first leader of the new left-wing party Partito Democratico, particularly given the shock news last night that the party's 'sure-fire' Mayoral candidate for Rome, Francesco Rutelli, has been surprisingly beaten by right-wing PdL candidate Gianni Alemanno.

Of course, Luxembourg didn't get to taste victory herself (and it's easy to argue that her brand of revolutionary socialism is still waiting), as she wound up shot and her body dumped in Berlin's Landwehr canal. It's not, thankfully, a fate facing Veltroni, or his failed PD candidate Rutelli, but the first right-wing victory in Rome in over 14 years should have some political fallout.

Rutelli, former leader of the former Margharita (daisy) party - which has now merged with the former DS to make up Veltroni's 'new' party - became the darling of the left when he defeated heavyweight post-fascist Gianfranco Fini for the job of Mayor of Rome back in 1994. Since then his major achievements have been to lose in a head-to-head with Berlusconi in 2001's general election, and to have been one of the leading figures in Prodi's lacklustre coalition that failed to win a signifacnt majority against Berlusconi in 2006, despite widespread dissatisfaction with the outgoing government.

He's also managed to get himself involved in a farcical relaunch of Italy on the global tourist market, costing millions and yielding precious few results - apart from the chuckles provided by an ill-advised ad where Rutelli pleaded, borat-style, with english speaking tourists to 'veeseet my cantry'.

In short, his last major political success was over a decade ago, and yet Veltroni's PD's saw him as a safe-bet for the hugely important Rome position. Alemanno's victory puts the final jack-booted stamp onto the prevailing notion that Italy has swung to the right. If anything, though, it's veered sharply away from a dangerously incompetent left-wing leadership.

There are various factors in Rutelli's defeat, including a highly probable abstention by serious left-wing voters still enraged by Veltroni's decision to campaign against his former left-wing coalition partners the Sinistra Arcobaleno (Greens and Comunists allied) - a decision which led to the decimation of the latter at the polls, while not preventing a Berlusconi victory. Add to that various convenient security scare stories (there were a number of hugely-reported rapes in Rome over the last ten days), which will always be to the right's advantage, and the going was always going to be tough for Rutelli.

It's hard, though, to disagree with journalist Peter Gomez's assesment that this is the best thing that could happen to the left in Italy at this moment. The vote, at the end of the day, can only be read one way: a high profile candidate hand-picked by the PD's failed to convince, despite having all the advantage. Romans didn't vote for Rutelli because they didn't like him as a candidate, plain and simple - a theory backed up by the fact that in the provincial elections the PD candidate Zingaretti won comfortably.

Now is the time for the various high-profile lefties like Rutelli, who have more than a decade's worth of a dismal record, to quietly depart the scene. A new party isn't worth a thing without new ideas and, crucially, new faces.

Right or wrong, surely it's news???

On Friday, the 25th of April (liberation day), an estimated two million people gathered in over 40 cities in Italy to protest about the state of journalism (print and television) in Italy.

Over 500,000 people in one day queued up to sign a petition calling for three specific referenda to change the way information is controlled in Italy.

A brief outline of the referenda:
1) The abolition of the order of journalists - a professional body with strict entry requirements, and direct successor to the body set up by Mussolini in 1925 in order to regulate and control who is permitted to work in journalism.
2) The abolition of state subsidies to the print-press. Under current legislation a horde of Italy's daily newspapers recieve taxpayers money, supposedly to support plurality of information. In the worst case scenario this leads to party newspapers spewing official lines. At best it subsidises commercial concerns.
3) The abolition of the controversial Gasparri law regulating television communication, which amongst other things allowed for the legal broadcasting of Rete 4, Berlusconi's third channel and home to some of the strangest propoganda seen since Ceaucescu's Romania.

And the lead stories on RAI 1, the national state broadcaster for the evening of the 25th? Their first headline was that the world is facing global food shortages - a story that has been in the press for over a week at this stage. The second, the celebration of liberation day, including various declarations from politicians left, right and centre (or should that read right, right and centre-right) - an important part of the day's news admittedly, though strange that no mention was made of the fact that Berlusconi chose precisely liberation day to meet up with one of his party's self-professed fascists Ciarrapico. On and on the news went, but no mention that over a half a million Italians are sick to the teeth of piss-poor politically controlled journalism.

One would scarcely have expected TG editor Gianni Riotta to take a favourable line towards the second Vaffa day organised by Beppe Grillo, this time with journalists not politicians in its sight. That he, and the various other gatekeepers of tv journalism, chose to simply ignore the event is, though, absurd. As if word of the event and the issues involved can be neatly swept under the rug.

And the same RAI will be looking for support, proudly proclaiming its dubious public broadcasting value when it comes under attack, as it surely will, from Berlusconi's mob during the lifetime of the next parliament. This monkey, for one, will not be taking to the streets to defend it - given that all it offers in the way of public broadcasting is a different brand of reality show. Berlusconi offers Big Brother on his Canal Cinque channel, while RAI run X-factor on their frequencies.

The newspapers are scarcely much better. The Corriere della Sera had a snide piece, focussing mainly on the main demonstration in Torino, where 50,000 people gathered to hear Grillo (50,000 is scarcely a trifle, but sounds pleasingly more marginal than two million). No analysis of the proposals calling for reform, and significantly no mention of the estimated 13 million euros of taxpayers money that goes annually to its publishers the RCS group.

Yet another shameful moment for Italian journalism - and not one that can be blamed on Berluska.

Remembering the 25th of April

Today is a national holiday in Italy, though not one that everybody celebrates. The 25th of April comemorates the liberation of the country from the Nazi occupying forces, and from the Fascist rump government of Mussolini's Repubblica Sociale Italiana.

Luckily for Berlusconi his new government won't take office officially until the end of the month, meaning Berluska will be free of official engagements celebrating liberation day. Actually, it makes not a blind bit of difference, given that during his various terms of office over the last fifteen years he has steadfastly ignored what is, arguably, the most important national festival.

But it's not just neo-fascists like Berluska that steer clear of the 'resistance'. After decades of cold-war politics, where apologists explained the complex and respectable nature of fascism - allowing former ministers and dedicated followers of fascim like Giorgio Almirante to participate actively in political life (to be fair to Almirante, he did accept Italian democracy - in the 1970s!!) - the 'resistance' suffered the direct opposite. A highly-complex movement, made up of comunists, anarchists, nationalists, monarchists, catholics, feminists, farmhands, and factory workers - to list just a few of the different categories - had its complexity glossed over, as it became effectively colonised by a strident left-wing which had effectively been shunted out of power in post-war Italy.

Thankfully there are some serious historians out there researching and publishing work that reflects the complexities of the period - a period in which over 40,000 Italian partisans were killed, and in which over 15,000 civilians were killed by Nazi and Italian fascist reprisals.

If you want to learn more about the Italian resistance, and the complex battle over official memory in post-war Italy, then treat yourself to Alessandro Portelli's brilliant book The order has been carried out: History, Memory and Meaning of a Nazi Massacre in Rome. Ostensibly about the infamous 'fosse ardeatine' massacre carried out by the Nazis in reprisal for a partisan attack, the book has a much larger scope examining the origins of the resistance in Rome, post-war attitudes to it, and the strange process that has culminated in the rehabilitation of fascism at the expense of the resistance freedom fighters.

Maybe that explains it

There's been widespread news coverage in Italy regarding the recent decision in Canada to ban polycarbonate baby bottles containing bisphenol-a, a chemical that has been linked to hormonal changes in animals tested. Risks related to the use of the chemical were identified as early as the 1930's but its use has been widespread nonetheless. Amongst the risks suggested by some studies are infertility and neural disfunction.

In last week's election results the 'leftest' coalition, the 'Sinistra Arcobaleno' (Left Rainbow) were decimated. The party, which combined the Italian Comunist Party and the 'Rifondazione' Comunist Party along with the Green party. They were, in a very real sense the biggest losers of the election. The next parliament will be the first in Italian post-war history to have no serious left-wing representatives amongst its members.

In the best tradition of western communist parties, the auto-critique has begun, as party leaders attempt to understand why the party's progressive program was so roundly ignored by the electorate (they polled 3.08% in the lower house, and 3.2% in the Senate).

Continue reading "Maybe that explains it"

Walter knows his chickens

So the post-mortem sets in, with the 'extreme'* left wiped out in this election. They're blaming the 'moderate' PDs, who were undoubtedly the main challengers to Berlusconi. The theory is, put simply, that PD leader Walter Veltroni's strategy of excluding them from any possible coalition consigned them to the wasted vote category - meaning that plenty of their traditional vote went to the PD's. An accusation the PDs are, understandably eager to shake off, given that they've failed to win the election, or to even win enough of a presence to make life difficult for Berluska.

Continue reading "Walter knows his chickens"

The environment wins, with Super Silvio

Tree huggers, eco-warriors, and stuffy scientists pushing for aviation taxes were all celebrating last night at the news that Silvio Berlusconi and his right-of-centre party the Pdl had won a landslide victory in the Italian elections. Or at least they should have been.

A central plank in Berlusconi's election campaign was the refusal to sell the lumbering airline Alitalia to Air France, who, with a restructuring program planned to make the airline profitable (for the first time since 1984).

Berlusconi has made it clear that he intends to scupper the deal, to keep Alitalia in the hands of Italians (perhaps his own), and to maintain its proud record of service.

A company famous for overstaffing, poor service, and an admirable (from an environmental stance) record of strike action and flight groundings.

Call it a stealthily introduced aviation tax. Particularly given that the bill will eventually be paid, no doubt (despite huffing and puffing from the EU), by the Italian tax payer.