All Hail Newsweek

This article turned a few heads on the subway, as its headline was plastered across the cover of my international edition today. DUMP BERLUSCONI is pretty unequivocal even to your average non-English speaking Italian.

Il Cavaliere has just been hit with two really major court rulings, which in itself is a first. THis is, after all, the guy who rewrites laws to suit his own ends. He was ordered to pay damages as he is partially responsible for a corruption case invovled ina judge in the 90's. The second, and in my opinion more important, ruling is that the law that makes him immune from criminal prosecution as the prime minister (guess who wrote that one) has been declared unconstitutional, and rightfully so.
This author lays out the reasons for Berlusconi's early popularity (his policies in the 90's, when he first came into power, lined up really neatly with the general Italian sentiment following the "mani pulite" debaucle in which the political heavyweights were unseated on corruption charges -- he was anti-politics and against taxes), and why it just doens't work in the long run ("If he were the father of his country, he'd be feeding his children pure sugar"). He outlines Italy's current problems -- aging population, labour force dwindling (and would-be labourers from abroad are treated with hostility), economy struggling, education an embarrassment, and the prime minister is doing very little about anything except his own interests.

The truth of the matter is that there are and have been and will be terrible world leaders who behave badly or who run their countries in a questionable manner. Berlusconi is not only doing this but also driving Italy's dignity into the ground. Not too many world leaders want to sit at the table with the guy who cracks jokes about Obama's suntan, who pays for hookers for his distinguished guests, and puts his neighbour in Sardegna into Parliament to settle a personal dispute over the use of their shared land.

The problem? It's an English-language magazine. Berlusconi himself controls the TV that most Italians watch and he controls the major avenues of the press, as well. Journalists who write against them have lost their jobs. He files against those outlets not in his control regularly. We are the only ones hearing this kind of news, and we are not the people who need to hear it -- voting Italians do. But they have accepted him and the censureship that comes with him, or so it may seem.

Even so, liberal Italians have hope. The family I live with is very very leftist and they say often that the country will turn around when Berlusconi dies and another takes his place. But I personally don't think much will change.



The same issue ran an article on why Obama shouldn't have won the Nobel Peace Prize and why the Nobel Peace Prize is a big sham anyhow so it doesn't matter. It drops a few too many names but certainly outlines a strong opinion.

My school subscribes to Newsweek and though I think it's beyond most of the students' level, it's certainly nice for me to have some reading material that also keeps me up to date. Italian press is a bit skewed, due to the fact that Il Cavaliere owns it all, so sometimes I feel like I don't know what to believe. I can't imagine a world in which Berlusconi's news was my only news but that is the case for a good portion of Italians, and the scary thing is, they don't mind.