There is one thing, above all, impressed by these bad times when the world of politics and that of information do not exactly give the best image of themselves. It is the determination, almost the obstinacy with which his followers go to defend, in all possible locations, a head of government so obviously caught with his fingers in the jar of jam. And I'm not referring to his longtime collaborators, the Bondi to Cicchitto, the La Russa and the like, all people who share some time with him the responsibilities of power, and know, presumably, that very little would remain standing of their career when that of the head was cut short. They, in fact, have so far kept enough in the background (with the exceptions of Santanchè, confirming her role in hammering free, and Alfano, enlisted because of his ex officio role, with results that are quite painful).
To fight in the front row, to risk his skin in the media talk shows and in interviews, there are more often lesser-known figures. Young and handsome young man, simple deputies (especially MPs) and journalists, those who usually pull the cart at the office while the managers strut on the front page or on TV. They are not always, the balloons, but this does not prevent them from repeating constantly, almost obsessively, the same song.
We can not rule on the misdeeds of the Man of Arcore (they at least do not intend to do so) because his privacy was violated. Because prosecutors haunt him mercilessly. Because there is no evidence to substantiate the charges and still the presumption of innocence should be enough to remove value to each item less than laudatory, to every denomination of real life, to every spontaneous or intercepted disclosure of the rites that were celebrated at the Villa San Martino and on the small "relaxing" evening events there arranged for the use of the landlord. Guaranteed by mechanical means (and a little stupid) from this refusal to take only a priori consciousness of the charges, they can not be in any way unrivet, even when the facts are clearly established and recognized by all. This is the case of the famous phone call to the police station on the nephew of Mubarak, which appears in verbal reports and accounts, and represents of course, the core of any inquiry, that it has unfolded. Yet even before this significant particular the zealots can close their eyes, taking strength from the strong statement by a prosecutor (the same, however, that they charge of a persecution that will drive almost to the coup), he had to say that nothing irregular was noted for what happened to the police station that famous night.
Those strange encounters
This indomitable resolve, this will to want not to see or hear (let alone speak) in the form of the three wise monkeys of the Eastern tradition, has proved far stronger than any argument. Which is absurd, of course, because the news is full of significant details in a different way and, in fact, to explain the spread of the scandal, in addition to charging it to the hostile project of the judiciary, we must as well take a step further and assume a broad, overlapping, media conspiracy. Absurd, because we all know whoever controls the media in Italy. But an absurdity that, until it can hold up, holds up. The young men and young girls are aware that the evidence is only used when it comes to order or carry out that to achieve that distinction must first celebrate a process and that the evidence currently available is more than enough to start one.
They know that, with similar findings, any other defendant who was not Berlusconi would have already been locked up. Does not escape, probably, that the information supplied by the self-defense (the virtual witness of the mysterious girlfriend, the aseptic nature of these strange encounters, during which a score of little girls would have, yes, had the task of entertaining for a fee three elderly gentlemen, but, please, no sex was involved) are laughable. They know in fact that their leader is the victim, rather than of politicized prosecutors and of plots of hostile journalists, of the noontime Devil (or, in his case, serotina), which has always driven older men to frenzied pursuit of lost youth.
But they hold on, in the hope that the bad night passes and the noise goes off. If the Italians, like it sounded a title of "Giornale", "will not fall for it", if they will give back confidence to the one that for the sixteen years has shown them as the latest model of man of destiny, the national Silvio will pull through yet another time, and they with him. To be associated with its glory, after all, is not necessary either too much effort: just a certain amount of gall and tetragonal desire not to see what is there for all to see. Two elements of which, in this happy country, we do not complain about the shortage. The fact that the opposition thoroughly pretends not to exist, of course, helps.
Denied in consoling
Let me have a gloss. Personally, I have the impression that no one may believe (or hope) that the Italians really "will not fall for it" which they refuse, that is, to believe that the head of their government has made the horrible things that have accused him of doing. It is highly probable, on the contrary, that more or less, we all believe, from its most passionate defenders. The real hope of them is that, for exhaustion, cynicism, indifference, low moral ground or innate tendency to laxity, the majority of voting citizens decides not to care. The bet that the Berlusca entrusts his chances of salvation concerns just the average level of morality in the country, hoping it does not prove too much taller than his.
It is not, believe me, with a claim to be discarded lightly or anger and not just because it is confirmed by all the polls. In European culture, there is a respectable genre that sees a kind of cute in Italian scoundrels, rich in feeling, more capable than many others to enjoy life, strong in music, literature and arts, but weak precisely as a moral force and lack of civic skills in general. It is a stereotype of popular fiction, especially English of the first '800, but we find it, in part, even in the work of a sincere friend of our country, as the Stendhal of the Italian History and of the Certosa.
Of course there is also an opposite point of view, mainly related to the thought of the Risorgimento, but variously witnessed since the Enlightenment, which tends to charge any gaps in that sense not so much to innate inclination, to a perverse national genius, but to a number of historical factors, that we can even propose to eliminate applying the appropriate steps. His supporters are often referred to the influence of a church that has always sought to remedy with a kind of permissive obstinate refusal to offer consolation and faithful subjects all forms of true freedom and not be a coincidence that from the church today, despite the hopes of many, not a word has come of true condemnation of Berlusconi, also the positions taken by the pope and a pair of cardinals, including the President of the Episcopal Conference, as enthusiastically received by a left incapable to find themselves their arguments, they are actually very precisely calibrated so as not to serve anything.
This is not the place, of course, to discuss matters of such moment, but it may be worthwhile to note that the Ruby case not only puts into question the morals of a powerful a bit depraved, but offers the opportunity to open a debate on the ethical dimension of the society in which we live.
anno
41 n. 360
Carlo Oliva