“European Micro” today reports the death on June 12 of Silvio Berlusconi, with Daniel Zappala, Italian journalist correspondent for the daily “Avvenire”.
Silvio Berlusconi, died on June 12 in Milan, celebrated by a state funeral, was three times President of the Council, or Prime Minister. He was a figure in modern Italian politics.
So since 1945, there have been others, Alcide de Gasperi, the creator of Christian Democracy, Amintore Fanfani, Aldo Moro assassinated by the Red Brigades, Giulio Andreotti, as mysterious as he is sulphurous, Francesco Cossiga, Bettino Craxi, the socialist, the man of scandal and scandals, and two great emblematic general secretaries of the Italian Communist Party, Palmiro Togliatti and Enrico Berlinguer.
franceinfo: Did Berlusconi arrive at a time when Italian politics was looking for itself ?
Daniele Zappala : Yes, he really arrived at the time of the collapse of what is called the First Republic, namely those political systems where Christian Democracy was hegemonic. With the corruption scandals, the Christian Democracy, the socialist parties and the central parties collapsed, and there was a void that Silvio Berlusconi, in an extremely skilful way, was able to fill in a way that finally no other like it.
We must not forget that during the lead years of the Red Brigades, Berlusconi, who was a businessman, was known in Italy because he appeared in the press with his colt. He was still armed.
He was in fact the “Cavaliere” already, because in the 70s he had actually obtained his titles of “knight of work”, and therefore he was above all the man who was going to move towards this objective of becoming the richest of the Italians. He actually centered that goal. But then he was, it’s true, involved in a whole series of situations directly or indirectly in the scandals in Italy in the 70s and 80s.
So his entry into politics was perceived by some as also a way, in a way, of defending himself against those periods when, behind the great entrepreneurs, there was also this proximity to the most sulphurous years of the history of the Republic.
Yes, because it must also be said that Silvio Berlusconi was sulphurous. There have been scandals. Three things: he’s the man from AC Milan, the second is the man from television, he’s the 5. And then “Forza Italia”, his party.
Yes, it was he who truly transformed politics into the society of the spectacle. And so, today, many consider him above all as a great seller, initially a seller of apartments, then in fact a seller at the level of the enormous advertising market of his TV channels, and then also a seller in politics. Moreover, he presented himself in 94 truly with the look of a great advertiser. Moreover, it was on this that he had made his dissertation.
He has always had this closeness in the ability to interpret the wishes of the Italians. He was someone who really had the ability to sell himself. He had a great need to be truly desired, and behind, of course, this screen, today, the Italians all ask themselves, I believe, the same question: has he rolled us in flour?
He promised a lot of nice things, but in the end, we saw, in fact, this Italy of the economic miracle, let’s say from the 60s to the 70s, really sinking deeper and deeper into crisis. He had promised a liberal revolution, in the true sense of economic expansion, when in the end it was mainly Berlusconi’s companies that were doing very well in a country that was really bad.
And so, we can say that his political record is quite disappointing. But he certainly saturated the political scene, both sporting with AC Milan, but also the judicial scene. So today Italians, whether they like it or not, are forced to ask themselves what is the political legacy of this man.
Is it thanks to him, somewhere, without his wanting it, that a comedian like Beppe Grillo was able to get into politics?
We can say that he truly paved the way for this spectacle policy. We can say that even without wanting it, in an almost mimetic way, many other characters recognize having been influenced by Berlusconi.
Does Georgia Meloni today represent post-Berlusconi?
Georgia Meloni was the one who benefited the most from these extremely controversial choices of having effectively opened the field of government to a party of the radical right, even of the extreme right, and even today, it is the great questioning.