Bunga (Franco Origlia/Getty Images)
In 1994, when Berlusconi launched his political party Forza Italia, I was 12 years old. At the time, the last thing I was interested in was politics, and yet Il Cavaliere, as he was known, soon became a part of my life — for the simple fact that, along with every other kid of my generation, I spent my afternoons watching Japanese anime cartoons on the Mediaset channels he founded. In the three months leading up to the general election, which Berlusconi won, Mediaset ran Forza Italia ads around the clock. I soon knew the party’s cheesy jingle by heart.
Many of the elements of Berlusconismo were already present in that first campaign to become prime minister: Berlusconi’s larger-than-life persona, his unscrupulous use of his media empire to propel himself onto the political stage, his proto-populist marketing-style approach to politics. Yet, for several years, as far I was concerned, Berlusconi was little more than an annoying interruption between episodes of my favourite TV shows.
This changed in the final years of high school, when I became involved in Left-wing politics. One of the first things I learned was that being Left-wing in late-Nineties Italy meant being against Berlusconi. Even though I didn’t realise it at the time, what I was being exposed to was perhaps one Berlusconi’s most toxic legacies: the fact that, by then, the Italian Left had come to define itself almost exclusively in opposition to Berlusconi — as anti-Berlusconismo.
This changed, briefly, with the advent of the anti-globalisation movement. The horizon of Left-wing politics was extended beyond national borders (and beyond Berlusconi) to embrace — in our naïve vision at least — the entire planet. There were much bigger threats than Berlusconi looming out there: neoliberal globalisation, transnational corporations, free-trade agreements, and global financial institutions such as the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO.
That movement culminated in the massive demonstrations that were held against the G8 summit in Genoa in July 2001 — one of the largest protests in Western Europe’s recent history, and one of the bloodiest. It culminated in violent clashes with, and brutal repression by, the security forces, and in the fatal shooting of 23-year old anarchist Carlo Giuliani by the police. For everyone on the Left, and especially for those who had witnessed first-hand the violence in Genoa — including myself — the blame for those tragic events fell on one person: Silvio Berlusconi, who had won the elections for the second time just a few months earlier.
As the anti-globalisation movement waned during Berlusconi’s second term in office between 2001 and 2006 — the longest served by any Italian leader since the Second World War — Italian Left-wing politics once again came to be defined by anti-Berlusconismo, though for a few years the latter overlapped with opposition to the war in Iraq (for several years, Italy was the third-largest contingent of the US-led coalition). In 2008, after a two-year centre-left government led by Romano Prodi, Berlusconi was elected as prime minister again. By the time the euro crisis hit in 2010, he had been in power for almost a decade. Meanwhile, anti-Berlusconismo had metastasised into a political obsession: if only he could be removed from the equation, everything would be fine.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeYes, it was a coup d’etat. Italy like Greece is essentially an EU colony. Italy has also paid the highest price for the removal of Gaddafi, which was done to protect French interests in Africa.
Although i can’t recall the others, i doubt this article was even the best on its day, let alone one of the “Best of 2023”. Still, that’s a reflection on the generally high quality of output by Unherd.
This piece was probably not even the greatest on its day, much less one of the “Best of 2023″—and I honestly don’t remember any of the others. Still, that’s a testament to Unherd’s consistently high-quality work.
PS, excellent article.
“This changed in the final years of high school, when I became involved in Left-wing politics…….Even though I didn’t realise it at the time, what I was being exposed to was perhaps (one of the) most toxic legacies”
Fixed it for you.
Time to grow up, Mr Fazi.
And the debt burden grew under Monti. While the deficit was beaten by the 5 star movement, ( to a primary surplus) it was at a terrible cost.
So Berlusconi was basically the Italian Trump.