By Beppe Severgnini, WSJ
Real life in Italy is always one step ahead of anyone’s imaginings. In the past few months, our political scene has started to resemble a spaghetti-western version of Mel Brooks’s “Blazing Saddles”—anything goes. But we Italians are not laughing anymore.
Some foreigners (but not foreign investors) say: “It’s all part of your charm!” But it’s also one of our problems, and at the center of it all sits Silvio Berlusconi, who turns 75 this Thursday and is Italy’s longest-serving postwar prime minister.
The whole world is well acquainted with Mr. Berlusconi’s scandals and shenanigans—wild parties, prostitutes, unsavory business partners. Though he denies any wrongdoing, he is currently embroiled in no fewer than nine judicial tangles. The charges range from corrupting a witness to paying for sex with a minor.
This is embarrassing enough on its own, to say nothing of his government’s pitiful record—stagnant GDP, rampant youth unemployment, stalled tax and justice reforms and fears over the public debt. But through it all—at least until recently—Mr. Berlusconi has been able to fall back on one abiding strength: He is the quintessential Italian and has been able to read the nation’s mood like no one else.
Mr. Berlusconi represents some of the best, and much of the worst, of the national character. Every Italian possesses a tiny bit of Silvio. As the songwriter Giorgio Gaber summed it up:
I’m not afraid of Berlusconi in himself
I’m afraid of Berlusconi in me.
Here, then, are a few key terms to explain why Mr. Berlusconi has been around for so long—and why, despite being down, he’s not yet out.
Simpatico. The most dangerous word in Italian is “simpatico”: nice, likable, pleasant. But it can also mean putting on a seductive attitude, which is not always harmless.
What do many Italians think of Silvio Berlusconi? “He looks like us. He’s one of us.” He adores his kids, talks about his mamma, knows his soccer, makes money, loves new homes, hates rules, tells jokes, swears a bit, adores women, likes to party and is convivial to a fault.
He is our absolver in chief. He forgives us for the sins we have committed and those we may yet commit. “If they want upward of 50% of my income in taxes, I feel that’s an unfair demand. I feel morally authorized to evade as much as I can,” he said once.
“Am I faithful? Frequently,” he quipped when confronted with the evidence of his serial adulteries. As details surfaced of his wild sex parties with girls who called him “Papi,” he explained: “I work hard and, in the evening, I need to unwind.”
Salesman. Mr. Berlusconi has brought to politics a flair for seduction that served him well in his previous careers in construction, television and advertising. He knows that his message has to be reassuring and easily digestible. And there are enough people in Italy who believe what they see in gossip magazines or on television—much of which Mr. Berlusconi owns or, as head of government, controls.
Mr. Berlusconi is convinced that, in a nation obsessed with appearances, image is key. In Italy, making the right impression (“la bella figura”) too often prevails over doing the right thing.
Survivor. Every Italian feels he or she stands alone against the world, or at least the neighbors. Survival—personal, family, social and economic—is a source of pride and a test of ingenuity. Much has been written about Italians’ individualism and resourcefulness, and Mr. Berlusconi embodies these qualities.
First he amassed his fortune, earning his spurs as a self-made man. Next, he built on Italians’ distrust of everything shared, our intolerance of rules and the inner satisfaction that we take in finding private solutions to collective problems. In Italy, there is no real public pressure for a new, fairer tax system. People simply figure out ways to evade the one they already have.
Signore. Together with the Comune (municipality), the Signoria, or absolute lordship, is Italy’s only indigenous political structure. All the others—feudalism, monarchy, totalitarianism, federalism, parliamentary democracy—have been imported from elsewhere. Their Italian incarnations have always been slightly artificial, from the toe-curling awkwardness of Mussolini’s fascism to today’s passive parliament.
But a Signoria stirs ancient instincts, and many modern Italians see Mr. Berlusconi much as their forebears saw absolute lordships. We might satirize, circumvent or hoodwink the great prince, but we don’t mess with him.
In Italy, the powerful do not have to exercise their power with restraint, as they do in other Western democracies. As the opposition called for his resignation, Mr. Berlusconi quipped: “They keep telling me, ‘Go home! Go home!’ They’re putting me in a difficult position. I own 20 houses. Where shall I go?” Can you think of any other Western leader, in today’s economic climate, who could get away with that?
Some things have not changed for centuries. The Signore’s excesses are seen with a kind of bemused complicity, even pride. That is, until excesses become too excessive, as have Mr. Berlusconi’s in the last few months.
Satanic Politics. Margaret Thatcher’s classic acronym T.I.N.A.—There Is No Alternative—says it all about the attitude of Italian voters. The alternative to Mr. Berlusconi offered by Italy’s center-left has proved unappetizing: strife-torn coalitions, woolly proposals, hypocritical posturing. And Mr. Berlusconi never fails to point out the communist roots of the rival Democratic Party.
Italians are realists. Before choosing what they think is right, they consider what they believe to be useful. In order to defeat the left, many Italians would have voted for the devil. Mr. Berlusconi can be pretty diabolical, but Satan’s style is something else.
So, then, buon compleanno, Signor Silvio! Times are tough, and we have no present for you. Perhaps a farewell party instead?
—Mr. Severgnini’s latest book, “Mamma Mia! Berlusconi’s Italy Explained for Posterity and Friends Abroad,” will be published in the U.S. next month.
