The New Old World (62 page)

When, to the fury of Veltroni,
MicroMega
courageously called for another mass demonstration against Berlusconi's return to power in the Piazza Navona last summer, the underlying contradictions of the
girotondini
burst into the open, Moretti and half the platform dissociating themselves from the more radical speakers, who this time did not spare Napolitano, the PD or the Rifondazione. Just as the impenetrable circumlocutions of the latter-day First Republic produced in reaction the calculated crudities of the Lega, so on this occasion the prissiness of much of the rhetoric of the
girotondi
, more given to pleading than savaging, detonated its opposite, a flamboyant coarseness of image and idiom—Berlusconi's bedroom boasts virtually inviting it—from comedians famous for detesting the political class, to the acute embarrassment of the better-behaved in the square—but apparently not, judging by opinion polls, most of even the Centre-Left electorate itself.
⁷³
Politically speaking, the episode could be read as a micro-version of the polarization of the seventies, anxious propitiations from above once again provoking angry explosions from below.

In the autumn, such tensions dissolved in the torrent of student protests against the cuts in educational funding, and compression of schooling, voted through by the Centre-Right, and—a more limited—union mobilization against the government's economic response to global recession. The concessions gained are of less significance than the scale of the movements themselves. But a pattern of tactical retreats by Berlusconi and temporary surges of popular insurgency against him is not new. How it might alter as economic conditions worsen remains to be seen. Putting behind
it the dangerous tools of the carpenter and the farmer, the Italian Left has adopted one symbol after another from the vegetable kingdom, or thin air—the rose, the oak, the olive, the daisy, the rainbow. Without some glint of metallurgy, it seems unlikely to make much headway.

 

1
. 1 November 1786,
Italienische Reise
, Leipzig 1913, Vol. 1, p. 126.

2
. 2 January 1821, Byron's
Letters and Journals
, Vol. 8, Cambridge, MA 1978, p. 55.

3
. 17 November 1816, 7 January 1817:
Voyages en Italie
, Paris 1973, pp. 9, 423.

4
. Massimo D'Alema,
Un paese normale. La sinistra e il futuro dell'Italia
, Milan 1995. Heading the list of the criteria of normalcy: ‘a market economy open to competition', p. 63.

5
. Originally published in Italian as
L'Italia del tempo presente: Famiglia, società civile, Stato 1980–1996
, Turin 1998, the English edition covers developments up to end of the first Centre-Left government in 2001. See especially chapters 5 and 6.

6
. White was the symbolic colour of the DC.

7
. The ecology of the early League is laid out in Ilvo Diamante,
La Lega. Geografia, storia e sociologia di un nuovo soggetto politico
, Rome 1993, pp. 19–42. In 1992, the party took 8.65 per cent of the vote and won fifty-five seats in the Chamber of Deputies.

8
. For his own account, see Mario Segni,
La rivoluzione interrotta
, Milan 1994, whose general tone is: ‘The referendum of 18 April carried Italy from the First to the Second Republic. That evening, I confess, I felt truly proud'—sentiments shared by virtually all organs of established opinion at the time.

9
. For the extent of this collaboration, estimated at times to cover up to 90 per cent of laws passed, see Frederic Spotts and Theodor Wieser,
Italy: A Difficult Democracy
, Cambridge 1986, pp. 113–15. Reversing the standard description of the political system of the period, Alessandro Pizzorno and others would later describe it as a
conventio ad includendum
.

10
. For measured, but bitter reflections on the way the turn was conducted, see Alberto Asor Rosa,
La sinistra alla prova. Considerazioni sul ventennio 1976–1996
, Turin 1996, pp. 124–42. Even within the leadership of the subsequent PDS, there was considerable unhappiness at its abruptness: see Giuseppe Chiarante,
Da Togliatti a D'Alema. La tradizione dei comunisti italiani e le origini del PDS
, Rome-Bari 1996, pp. 210–16.

11
. The best study of the way in which the party was constructed is Emanuela Poli's carefully documented
Forza Italia: Strutture, leadership e radicamento territoriale
, Bologna 2001.

12
. For detailed analysis of the results, see Stefano Bartolini e Roberto D'Alimonte (eds)
Maggioritario, ma non troppo. Le elezioni politiche del 1994
, Bologna 1995, especially Luca Ricolfi, ‘Il voto proporzionale: il nuovo spazio italiano', pp. 273–315.

13
. Gianni Barbacetto, Peter Gomez, Marco Travaglio,
Mani pulite, la vera storia. Da Mario Chiesa a Silvio Berlusconi
, Rome 2002, supply a full account: pp. 153–68.

14
. For this episode, see Giuseppe Fiori,
Il venditore. Storia di Silvio Berlusconi e della Fininvest
, Milan 1995, pp. 174–86.

15
. Gerardo D'Ambrosio and Piercamillo Davigo, respectively.

16
.
Una costola della sinistra
: phrase pronounced on 12 February 1995.

17
. For this sequence, see ‘Soldi SISDE. Su Scalfaro vince Mele',
Corriere della Sera
, 12 November 1993; Riccardi Scarpa,
Scalfaro
, Rome 1999, pp. 71–7; Barbacetto et al,
Mani pulite
, pp. 105–6, 393–5.

18
. For the results, see Paolo Natale, ‘Mutamento e stabilità nel voto degli italiani', in Roberto d'Alimonte and Stefano Bartolino (eds),
Maggibritario per caso
, Bologna 1997, pp. 208ff.

19
. For coverage of the ensuing labyrinth, Barbacetto et al,
Mani Pulite
, pp. 419–74.

20
. Named after its author, the DC deputy Sergio Mattarella. For its emergence, see Paolo Pombeni, ‘La rappresentanza politica' in Raffaele Romanelli,
Storia dello Stato italiano dall'Unità a oggi
, Rome 1995, pp. 120–24.

21
. See
Come sbagliare le riforme
, Bologna 1996, and
Una occasione mancata?
, Rome–Bari 1998. Denouncing the ‘Italian cunning' that had ‘proportionalized' the first-past-the-post component of the Mattarellum, Sartori did not want a pure French system, fearing that if only two candidates were allowed into the second round of voting, in Italian conditions this would lead to extreme parties on the flanks of each of these cutting deals in the first round to retain their leverage, while eliminating options in the centre, for which at least three candidates were needed:
Come sbagliare
, pp. 71, 51.

22
. See,
inter alia
, Matt Frei,
Getting the Boot: Italy's Unfinished Revolution
, New York 1995, p. 73.

23
.
Rivoltare l'Italia come un calzino
: Davigo would later claim that it was not he who had used the phrase, but Giuliano Ferrara, at that time minister of justice.

24
. For a balanced assessment of the Italian judicial system, see David Nelken, ‘A legal revolution? The judges and
Tangentopoli
' in Stephen Gundle and Simon Parker (eds),
The New Italian Republic: From the fall of the Berlin Wall to Berlusconi
, London 1996, pp. 191–205.

25
. On 14 October 1997, Francesco Saverio Borrelli expressed his ‘complete agreement' with the verdicts condemning Sofri. For these, see Carlo Ginzburg,
The Judge and the Historian: Marginal Notes on a Late-Twentieth-Century Miscarriage of Justice
, London 2002.

26
. In reality, more than just an advisor, Amato was the ‘key organizer' of successive governments under Craxi, who was not much interested in the detail of policies: see David Hine,
Governing Italy
, Oxford 1993, pp. 206, 209.

27
. ITANES,
Perché ha vinto il centro-destra
, Bologna 2001, pp. 19, 30, 37, 52, 62–5, 162–3.

28
. The calmest and best retrospect of the political system created by the First Republic has been offered by Mauro Calise,
Dopo la partitocrazia
, Turin 1994. He noted that ‘the Italian parliament was the only assembly among Atlantic democracies to resist the general decline of the legislature to the profit of the executive in the past half century', and foresaw much of degradation of political life under the Second Republic: pp. 60ff.

29
. Respectively, 2000 and 1999.

30
. For an overall judgment of the record, in these respects, of Berlusconi's coalition in power, see Luca Ricolfi,
Dossier Italia. A che punto è il ‘Contratto con gli italiani'
, Bologna 2005, pp. 101–40, and
Tempo Scaduto. Il ‘Contratto con gli italiani' alla prova dei fatti
, Bologna 2006, pp. 103–17. On premises otherwise completely uncritical of the political and ideological universe of the Italian establishment—no questions asked of foreign policy or justice—Ricolfi's writing on economic and social issues has consistently shown an independence of mind rare in either academic or journalistic output of recent years: at once perfectly loyal to what might be called
la pensée unique à l'italienne
(roughly, ‘modernization' at all costs), yet in its conclusions discomforting equally to Centre-Right and Centre-Left. The epigraph to
Tempo scaduto
comes from Pasolini: ‘The intellectual courage to tell the truth and the practice of politics are two things irreconcilable in Italy'.

31
. Alexander Stille,
The Sack of Rome
, New York 2007, pp. 273–4.

32
. Antonio Floridia, ‘Gulliver unbound. Possible electoral reforms and the 2008 election: Towards an end to “fragmented bipolarity”?',
Modern Italy
, August 2008, pp. 318–19.

33
. For a fulsome portrait, rushed out for electoral purposes, see Marco Damilano, Mariagrazia Gerina and Fabio Martini,
Veltroni. Il Piccolo Principe
, Milan 2007.

34
. Pino Corrias offers a crisp account in his introduction to Peter Gomez, Marco Lillo and Marco Travaglio,
Il bavaglio
, Milan 2008, pp. 25–9.

35
. For a detailed analysis, see Felia and Percy Allum, ‘Revisiting Naples: Clientelism and Organized Crime',
Journal of Modern Italian Studies
, Vol. 13, No. 3, 2008, pp. 340–65.

36
. See especially Nicolò Conti, ‘The Italian political parties and the programmatic platforms: How alternative?',
Modern Italy
, November 2008, pp. 451–64; Marco Brunazzo and Mark Gilbert, ‘The Right Sweeps the Board',
Journal of Modern Italian Studies
, Vol. 13, No. 3, 2008, p. 423.

37
. For this, see Luca Ricolfi,
Perché siamo antipatici? La sinistra e il complesso dei migliori prima e dopo le elezioni del 2008
, Milan 2008, p. 199; for overall figures, Brunazzo and Gilbert, ‘The Right Sweeps the Board'.

38
. Adalberto Signore and Alessandro Trocino,
Razza Padana
, Milan 2008, pp. 5–7.

39
.
Razza Padana
, pp. 339–43, 349, 322–6.

40
. Tremonti, a former associate of Craxi in the PSI, comes from Sondrio in the far north of Lombardy, deep Lega country. His
La speranza e la paura
, denouncing ‘marketism, a degenerate version of liberalism', warning of the neo-colonial ambitions of China, and calling for a European industrial policy, appeared in 2008: pp. 19, 27–9, 109.

41
. See David Lane,
Berlusconi's Shadow
, London 2004; Paul Ginsborg,
Silvio Berlusconi
, London 2005; Alexander Stille,
The Sack of Rome
, London 2006; Giusuppe Fiori,
Il Venditore
, Milan 1995. For critical reflections on Stille's account of Berlusconi, arguing that it is over-generalized, see Donald Sassoon, ‘Povera Italia',
Journal of Modern Italian Studies
, Vol. 12, No. 3, 2007, pp. 339–46.

42
. For the figures, see Ilvo Diamanti and Elisa Lello, ‘The Casa delle Libertà. A House of Cards?',
Modern Italy
, May 2005, pp. 14–16.

43
. Ilvo Diamanti and Luigi Ceccarini, ‘Catholics and Politics after the Christian Democrats: The Influential Minority',
Journal of Modern Italian Studies
, Vol. 12, No. 1, pp. 49–50.

44
. For the pedigree viewed in electoral terms, see Michael Shin and John Agnew's careful ecology,
Berlusconi's Italy: Mapping Contemporary Italian Politics
, Philadelphia 2008, pp. 78, 134.

45
. Marco Travaglio,
Montanelli e il Cavaliere
, Milan 2004, pp. 59–60, in Stille's translation.

46
. Sergio Rizzo and Gian Antonio Stella,
La Casta. Cosí i politici italiani sono divenuti intoccabili
, Milan 2007, pp. 13, 46.

47
.
La Casta
, pp. 53–60.

48
.
Le Monde
, 31 May 2007.

49
. Sergio Rizzo and Gian Antonio Stella,
La Deriva. Perché l'Italia rischia il naufragio
, Milan 2008, pp. v, 128–9, 134, 140, 148, 185, 218;
Il Manifesto
, 8 December 2007.

50
.
La Deriva
, pp. vi, xvii–xviii, 24, 27, 60, 66, 72, 79–80;
Financial Times
, 13 May 2005;
Economist
, 26 November 2005.

51
.
Sole 24 Ore
, 21 November 2007.

52
.
Economist
, 26 November 2005;
Financial Times
, 28 March 2007.

53
.
Economist
, 19 April 2008.

54
. For some general remarks, see Christopher Duggan,
Force of Destiny
, London 2007, pp. xvii–xx.