Robert Fisk om Berlusconis politiske sensur

From: Karsten Johansen (kavejo@ifrance.com)
Date: 05-06-02


Berlusconi griper til εpenlys politisk sensur og viser dermed sitt sanne
ansikt. Ingen tvil om at en modernisert fascisme er en akutt ψkende
trussel i dagens EU.

Fra Independent:

Imagine if Blair tried to force Paxman off air. In Italy, that sort of
thing is about to happen

By Robert Fisk in Rome
05 June 2002

Sciuscia, in Neapolitan Italian, means "Shoeshine". It is the most
controversial, provocative, irritating programme on the second channel
of Italy's state television, RAI.

Silvio Berlusconi, the Prime Minister of Italy, would like to make sure
that last week's 33rd edition of Sciuscia – pronounced 'shiewsha' – is
the last. In April, Mr Berlusconi claimed that Michele Santoro, the
anchorman of this crazy mix of brilliant documentaries and That Was The
Week That Was scorn, had "made a criminal use of public television".
Italian journalists are waiting for blood to flow.

Last week's "final" programme of the season – in which I was invited to
take part – included a devastating documentary by the reporter Corrado
Formigli on the West's failure to help Afghanistan. It also featured a
long, angry and sometimes hilarious studio debate on the folly of our
involvement in the country between NGOs, defence specialists, an
American actress, a leftist Italian reporter, a pro-Israeli journalist
and Signor Fisk.

Sciuscia has been a plague on the Berlusconi administration, at one
point investigating the mafia-like background of one of the Prime
Minister's closest colleagues. In presenting the plight of Palestinians
under occupation, Mr Santoro was accused by the Italian Jewish community
– like so many journalists who dare to criticise Israel – of
"anti-Semitism". Leone Paserman, the president of the Jewish community
in Rome, also asked the RAI administration to fire Mr Santoro. Mr
Paserman was subsequently ordered by an Italian court to pay €50,000
(£32,000) to the journalist.

Like many leftist reporters in Italy, Mr Santoro was a communist – he
began his career as a journalist on the then communist party newspaper
L'Unita but, today, he is the perfect anchorman, as provocative as
Jeremy Paxman and as theatrical as Brian Rix – the perfect David Frost
before Sir David went to seed. He goads his guests into anger and
generosity. RAI's board of five administrators are not amused. Three of
them, appointed in February, are allies of Mr Berlusconi's Forza Italia
and the president of RAI, Antonio Baldassarre, is close to the
Berlusconi coalition.

Sciuscia staff have not been told if they will be allowed another series
– by now, they should already be planning next autumn's schedule.

In addition to the influence he wields over the RAI board, Mr Berlusconi
has a near- monopoly on private-sector television in Italy: through his
company Mediaset, he controls three private channels – Channel Five,
Italy 1 and Network 4. Through his brother, he controls the daily
newspaper Il Giornale, with a circulation of 200,000. He, in effect,
controls the weekly news magazine Panorama, and also the gossip magazine
Chi with a circulation of about 1 million.

Despite promising after his rise to power last year not to meddle in the
running of the public television network, Mr Berlusconi provoked outcry
with his suggestion that there should be a purge of current affairs
presenters such as Mr Santoro. Again the opposition reacted with horror
last month when a majority of members of the ruling coalition put their
names to a motion calling for the suspension of Sciusia, and three other
news programmes accused of "one sidedeness" during local election
campaigning.

Is this just another little fracas between the right-wing papivor of
Italian politics and the subversive, electorally defeated forces of the
left? It would be pleasant to think so. But a few hours after the last
programme of the series, I came upon an exhibition in the basement of
the Vittorio Emanuele monument, the notorious ice-cream cake of concrete
and marble that houses Italy's First World War unknown warrior. This was
a Rome I had never seen before. The exhibition, a demonstration of 150
years of Italian unity, a plaque at the entrance announced, was the
inspiration of none other than Mr Berlusconi.

Inside were dozens of military flags, indeed hundreds – in fact, far too
many military flags – from the 1914-18 war and before. There was a piece
of Garibaldi's leg bone, extracted after the 1862 battle of Aspromonte,
and even the great man's right, fur-lined boot, complete with bullet
hole. Far more impressive was a long documentary on the Italian army's
campaign against the Austro-Hungarian empire in the First World War,
when Italy was, of course, on "our" side. Worrying, however, is the
written commentary, appearing on screen as it must have done when the
film was originally put together – presumably in the early years of
Mussolini's rule. Over and over again, war is referred to as "glorious".
The 600,000 Italian casualties of the war are even referred to, in
Italian, as a "holocaust". The last great battle of the war – at Piave –
is treated as a blood sacrifice.

Nothing inaccurate from a factual point of view, perhaps but is blood
really the unifying cement of Italy? I thought I might find an antidote
across the square at the Palazzo Valentini, where another exhibition –
"Portrait of an Era: Art and Architecture in the Fascist Era" – was
arranged in what were once the baths of the Emperor Trajan. The purpose
of the exhibition, Rossana Bossaglia's introduction informed me, was "to
show how Italian art of the Fascist era developed an expressive language
of its own, able to deal with different themes in a completely
independent way...." This sounded a little dodgy. No condemnation of the
Fascist era.

Rather, a peek into what might have been good about it. And, sure
enough, there was an oil painting of Mussolini and then a sculpture of
Mussolini, alongside a photograph of the Duce himself looking at the
very same sculpture. Silvano Moffa, president of the Rome province,
offers us, in the same introduction, the thought that "Fascism as it was
in the 1920s – that is to say a movement characterised by the need to
celebrate itself – was not the same movement it would become in the
1930s. From the very beginning of his dictatorship, Mussolini stated
that the relationship between politics and art was an important one, and
promoted several exhibitions ..." What did this mean?

I opened my Italian newspaper. And what did I find? President Carlo
Ciampi of Italy wants to honour Garibaldi, the Italian soldiers who
bravely fought the Nazis on the island of Cephalonia in the Second World
War and – wait for it – the soldiers who fought in the battle of El
Alamein in 1942. But the latter soldiers were fighting for Mussolini and
his Nazi allies. Had Rommel won the battle with Italian help, the Axis
powers would have reached Cairo and Palestine – whose Jewish population
would then have been included in the holocaust. I wondered, briefly,
whether Mr Paserman wouldn't have done better to complain about this
sinister plan of Mr Ciampi rather than slandering Mr Santoro.

Is this something to be worried about? Italian journalists like to
ameliorate the situation. Mr Berlusconi is a businessman first, they
told me. So is Mr Ciampi, a man who often speaks before he thinks. Mr
Santoro is an artist who likes to play the martyr. And if Sciuscia comes
back on the air, it will be another Italian tempest. If it does not,
however, a lot of Europeans might do well to think more seriously about
Mr Berlusconi, to ask themselves whether he really is the president of a
united Italy. Or a scoundrel.

 
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