Berlusconi Is Back
by Srdja Trifkovic
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Silvio Berlusconi is back in power, to the chagrin of his numerous detractors and somewhat understated joy of his supporters. The 71-year-old media tycoon, who is assuming the premier’s post for the third time, said his full cabinet would take shape within a week, to include EU justice commissioner Franco Frattini as foreign minister, longtime aide Gianni Letta as deputy prime minister, as well as at least four women. But the success of Berlusconi’s center-right coalition would not have been possible without the support of his often turbulent allies, the Northern League, which doubled its vote to over 8 percent nationally and is certain to have several ministers in the new government.
“Now we need reforms,” Umberto Bossi, the party’s famously outspoken leader, declared the day after the vote. The first measure the party will press for is “fiscal federalism”, which would allow regions greater control over tax revenues. He will also demand rigorous enforcement of immigration laws, greater protection for Italy’s manufacturing industries, slower pace of European integration, and above all the curbing of the waste, inefficiency and corruption of the political establishment in the capital, “Robber Rome.”
For over a decade Bossi has been an often uneasy partner with Mr. Berlusconi and his other major ally, Alleanza Nazionale (AN) led by Gianfranco Fini. The AN draws much of its support from the south, and—being the direct heir to the old Social Movement—strongly supports Italy’s national unity. Bossi brought down Berlusconi’s first administration in 1994, after less than a year in power, and repeatedly threatened to do so again after Berlusconi became prime minister for the second time in 2001.
The League asserts that it is no longer a secessionist party, however, and now it limits its demands to political and fiscal autonomy for the putative northern region of “Padania.” Over the past decade the League has evolved into a more durable and astute political force than it had been in the 1990s, and Bossi’s relationship with Berlusconi is said to be closer than ever before. “He’s not a hostage. He’s a friend,” the League leader said of the prime minister-elect. For his part Berlusconi pledged to split the country into two distinct fiscal entities: describing federalism as “modern,” he said he would be defending a “great principle of democracy and liberty.”
The new coalition is likely to be much tougher on illegal immigration and law and order issues than its leftist predecessors. On Tuesday Berlusconi said that Italy would start rounding up illegal immigrants: “One of the first things to do is to close the frontiers and set up more camps to identify foreign citizens who don’t have jobs and are forced into a life of crime.” His pledge to “increase neighbourhood police forces who would place themselves between the people of Italy and the army of evil” predictably outraged the Left.
In his previous mandate Berlusconi was considered insufficiently tough on illegals because of his links with the business community keen on cheap labor, but this time the League is determined to keep him on the straight and narrow. Its record is promising. Bossi caused a storm in 2003 when a newspaper quoted him as saying that immigrants arriving in Italy by boat should be “blown out of the water.” His aide Roberto Calderoli was forced to resign from the cabinet in 2006 after revealing a T-shirt on TV emblazoned with a cartoon of the Muhammad, originally published in Denmark, that triggered worldwide protests among Muslims.
With Berlusconi’s victory it is becoming more likely that Italy, a major path of entry for North African Muslims moving into Europe, will finally begin to tackle the problem of illegal immigration seriously. As Oriana Falacci noted shortly before her death two years ago, the country’s tolerance level was already surpassed fifteen or twenty years ago, “when the Left let the Muslims disembark on our coasts by the thousands.” In this year’s campaign, one of the League’s election posters displayed a drawing of an American Indian in a feathered headdress, accompanied by the slogan: “They suffered immigration: Now they live in reserves.”
For the first time since before the First World War Italy will have a national assembly neatly divided between two main groups, with one of them commanding a clear majority. Italy needs such stability and, his health allowing, Berlusconi may well keep his promise of staying in power for the next five years. The question is whether he has the will and ideas to put those five years to a good use, not just for himself and his friends—of that ability nobody should have any doubt—but for Italy and Europe.
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1 Comment by james23 on 17 April 2008:
Mass hypocrisy!
Recognise Kosovo which was formed by mass illegal immigration and ethnic cleansing of its indigenous Serb population which is financed by a KLA mafia which has branches in Italy. Yet mainland Italy has a sudden culture conflict and the media has a fit. I hope Italy has a Muslim population explosion to 1/3 of its population is Muslim. You reap what you sow.
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3 Comment by james on 17 April 2008:
Mass hypocrisy!
Recognise Kosovo which was formed by mass illegal immigration and ethnic cleansing of its indigenous Serb population which is financed by a KLA mafia which has branches in Italy. Yet mainland Italy has a sudden culture conflict and the media has a fit. I hope Italy has a Muslim population explosion to 1/3 of its population is Muslim.
4 Comment by james on 17 April 2008:
@Srdja Trifkovic
Will you be writing a column on the meeting you attended entitled “Russia: Friend or Foe”?
5 Comment by Srdja Trifkovic on 17 April 2008:
My contribution to that evening’s proceedings was posted ten days ago: http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/?p=563
6 Comment by NGPM on 18 April 2008:
@3: A vengeful visitation of the sins of the Italian political and academic élite onto the Italian people does not become us. Whatever happens to Kosovo, ask yourself, do you really *want* it to be repeated in Italy? They will go like dominos, one after the other, until there is no good place left in the world.
7 Comment by Srdja Trifkovic on 18 April 2008:
We must not succumb to the temptation to see Italy — or any other Western country — degraded and ultimately destroyed because of the sins and follies of her political leaders. The fact that such degradation and destruction may yet happen, before this century is over, is a tragedy of world-historical magnitude.
8 Comment by Djordje on 18 April 2008:
In reality Berlisconi needs parlimentary immunity from the never ending football scandals involving his team, AC Milan:)
9 Comment by Srdja Trifkovic on 18 April 2008:
Re Berlusconi’s immunity: He’d be back in the game regardless of his many legal problems (which are getting “resolved” thanks to the statute of limitations, rather than his lack of culpability). He’s only 71, which means he is still in his prime by the standards of Italy’s political class. Don’t forget that Giulio Andreotti, “divo Giulio” (b. 1919) is still a power broker par excellence in his 90th year. His famous quip, “power wears out those who don’t have it,” sums it up. On that form, acts of God permitting, Silvio Berlusconi will be very much around in 2028, playing the never-ending game of musical chairs even after all his scandals of the 1990s are long forgotten…
10 Comment by james on 18 April 2008:
@9leon holler
Actually there is one nation on earth that is fanatical in perserving racial cohesiveness and even have law perserving it and at is Israel. Multicultural societies are less democratic not more as they need organisations like Southern Poverty Law Centre (SPLC) and Anti Defamation League (ADL) to monitor “hate” groups that usually turn out to be hoxies like “Jena 6″ or the jewish student who scrawled swatstikas on dorm doors.
11 Comment by james on 18 April 2008:
@6NGPM
If the chinese olympic torch passed through Italy there would be thousands of demonstrators demonstrating for Tibet although its been part of China for about 700 years. If KLA prime minister was to visit Italy you would not get more than ten people protesting about it.
12 Comment by Sean Scallon on 18 April 2008:
The Italian right seems to be an interesting mix of three ingredients 1). The business class/elites/neocons in Berlusconi’s party; the decentralists represented by the Lega Nord and the nationalists represented by Fini’s AN (which also has a Sicilian wing if I am right). The Lega Nord has had to give up of dreams of independence because it will not happen, the other two wings of the Italian right will not allow the richest part of the country to break away. But decentralization is an acceptable compromise given decentralized character of Italy’s politics for many years until the socialists both on the left and right demanded a tighter Italian state for their own nefarious purposes. Immigration reform is also a bond that can keep the Italian right together. The only question is, can Berlusconi get right this time.
13 Comment by P. Stwart on 18 April 2008:
Leon Holler – (is that your name, or where you were born?)
Please define for me, so I can follow your argument as closely as possible, in two columns who fits into the white race, and who fits into the “other, lesser breeds” race. Be specific in naming ethnic groups, tribes, etc.
14 Comment by Peter RV on 18 April 2008:
Leon Holler, I don’t believe in superiority of my race, so -count me out.
15 Comment by Vincent Chiarello on 18 April 2008:
While it would be immodest to claim that I know Italian politics as well as Signor Trifkovic, as a U.S. Foreign Service Officer, I was assigned to both the US Embassy to the Republic, and US Embassy to The Holy See. Further, I have followed the Italian political landscape closely: since ‘96, I have also spent at least a month in Italy. Allow, then, these comments:
a. the Prodi government was unable to prevent the Italian Left, and one must remember that the Left still commands a large audience in Italy, from descending into chaos. It is fair to say that the Italian Left is cannabalizing itself.
b. there is serious dissatifaction amongst the Italian working class, which sees the euro as the source of its growing concern regarding runaway inflation; Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, and Fini’s Aleanza Nacionale have openly campaigned on the platform of slowing down further Italian integration into the EU, something that has a broad backing amongst the Italian electorate. By contrast, Prodi’s coalition government hitched its wagon to the EU; indeed, Prodi has been a cheerleader for further Italian domination from Brussels. Given the opportunity, Italians today would, I believe, question the wisdom of entering the EU.
c. the issue of unfettered immigration from Muslim and Eastern European countries into Italy has been traumatic in that while Muslims have created their own problems, especially their clannishness, the Albanians and Rumanians have been responsible for the rapid rise in violent crime, the most publicized being the bludgeoning to death of the wife of an Italian admiral. It was on this particular case that Berlusconi raised the rallying cry of deporting all illegal aliens. It should be remembered that, despite the presence of organized crime in Italy, personal safety was never an issue; Rome is (was?) amongst the safest cities in the world.
Finally, Umberto Bossi, dismissed by US Embassy officials as a madman twenty years ago, has maintained his position within the Northern League, or as it is called today, “Padania,” despite a debilitating stroke several years ago. (Bossi is a physcian.) The key to Berlusconi’s success, I believe, will be to take decisive action against the hordes of North Africans who enter Sicily each night, and the infiltration of Eastern Europeans, many of whom are tied to the Albanian crime families. Berlusconi need Bossi, and, I suspect, they will be singing from the same page.
a presto
Vincent Chiarello
16 Comment by Kirt Higdon on 19 April 2008:
#14
Mr. Stewart,
You had to ask, didn’t you? In any event you now have a thorough account of the views of Mr. Haller including (most important for our purposes here) his total contempt for Chronicles magazine and its editor, for this forum, and for most of us who participate here, however white we may or may not be.
17 Pingback by Berlusconi Is Back : Novakeo.com on 19 April 2008:
[...] himself and his friends—of that ability nobody should have any doubt—but for Italy and Europe. http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/?p=569 Dr. Srdja Trifkovic is a regular columnist for Novakeo.com Dr. Trifkovic is Foreign Affairs Editor [...]
18 Comment by Peter RV on 19 April 2008:
Mr. Holler, I’ll risk another question ( I appologize to Mr.Higdon):
What is great in a race which produces as its leaders Bushes, Clintons and McCains ?
19 Comment by Bob on 19 April 2008:
Webmaster,
Please ban Mr. Holler again, or advise him to keep it short.
20 Comment by james on 19 April 2008:
@15leon holler
“I was born in the city of Los Angeles, in what was formerly the United States, but is now a territory in the process of transitioning to Mexican control and eventual ownership”.
BOO HOO! That what you get for the US launching a global cruasade against christianity and CREATING and recognizing the gangster mafia state of Kosovo. I hope your area turns into a Mexican Zimbabwe.
Might not be so bad Piñatas, Tacos, you could even join one of those lovely gangs like MS-13 and have one of those tear drop tattoos, think of it as face painting when you were a kid. You would be a proper homie
You could always move. Ever heard of “white flight”. You could move to New Orleans if you dont like mexicans I hear the mayor there is very popular.
I’m curious. Do the average European view Russians as white? I dont think they do in Britian.
21 Comment by Srdja Trifkovic on 19 April 2008:
To Vincent #15: Thanks for an informative post. The trouble with Berlusconi’s heralded clampdown on the African boat people is that he is not instinctively opposed to the deluge, and he has not articulated a culturally coherent argument against that deluge.
Just remember that in 2003 it was HIS Interior Minister, Giuseppe Pisanu (Forza Italia), responsible for controlling the country’s borders, who declared that the high fatality rate of North African illegals perishing at sea en route to Sicily was “a dreadful tragedy that weighs on the conscience of Europe.”
That reaction was paradigmatic of the utopian liberal mind-set. If Europe should feel guilty that people who have no right to come to its shores are risking their lives while trying to do so illegally, then only the establishment of a free passenger-ferry service between Africa and Southern Europe, with no passport or customs formalities required upon arrival, and a free shuttle to Rome or Milan, would offer some relief to that burdened conscience.
BTW Sr Pisanu — now a Senator — remained in his post until the end of Berlusconi’s previous ministry in 2006!
22 Comment by james on 19 April 2008:
@22Captainchaos
If Britian views Russians as “White” why are the British trying to destroy Russia? Boris Berezovsky running a Russian “civil rights foundation” is an absolute joke. Maybe he’ll find out who murdered a critic of his, Paul Khlebnikov, who at the time of his death was reportedly completing research for a book about Berezovsky’s killing of a popular tv presenter and media magnate during the 90’s.
23 Comment by Vincent Chiarello on 19 April 2008:
Srdja Trikovic @ 23
Your valid comments about the troubled consciences of European officialdom regarding African immigration could equally apply to the US government’s attitude for the past 30 years toward the Mexican and Central American invasion of our southern borders.
While it is indisputable that Pisanu was a minister in Berlusconi’s last government, it is also accurate to say that his description of the unfettered Muslim immigration invasion as “…a tragedy…” included the fact that, on more than one occasion, the ships that contained these North & Central Africans capsized, and there were children among the victims. Pisanu only repeated publicly what I heard very often on the streets of Rome: sympathy for the dead children (“poverini”), but strong opposition to further immigration by Africans and Eastern Europeans. But Pisanu will not be part of Berlusconi’s new cabinet; at least two members of Umberto Bossi’s party will.
And therein lies the difference: Bossi and his party officials will hold Berlusconi’s feet to the fire, which, if the next PM is as prescient as I believe he is in these matters, will not take much effort. The next PM’s mettle will, however, be severely tested when the EU steps in and informs the Berlusconi government that what they are doing regarding immigrants is contrary to EU regulations. I have no doubt that scenario will unfold within the next year.
The difference is that Bossi will not allow too much wiggle room for Berlusconi; Pisanu was never a true believer. But the contending forces are certain to meet over the issue, and I, for one, am much more confident that the Italians will do more in one year to identify, and take appropriate action, than George Bush has done in nearly eight, or any of the presidential hopefuls will do in the next four in dealing with the invasion of our southern borders.
a presto
Vincent
24 Comment by james on 20 April 2008:
A typical European or American shares the views of @12John Smith and @26Ron Lewenberg in Srdja Trifkovic’s previous post “Russia and the West: The Tragedy of 1204 Redux.”
25 Comment by TJF on 21 April 2008:
Two small points: 1) I believe Umberto Bossi, whom I have met on several occasions, was a medical salesman, not a physician. Bossi lost many followers after his famous ribaltone during the first Berlusconi term, but the loss was personal. Many “Padanians” believe in the principles of the Lega but will often vote for Forza Italia candidates to avoid putting Bossi in a position where he can again, as they would say, betray the right.
2) There are no topics off limits on this website, and that includes race and ethnicity. What we do exclude, however, are boors such as Leon Holler and his new ally “captainchaos.” For the most part, these people are nasty little children who keep on chanting their stupid slogans and interrupting any serious conversation. Note to webmaster: please block these unwanted visitors again. What kind of people, I wonder, not only crash parties to which they are not invited but then insist on entering in by the window by coming up with new names and new addresses?
26 Comment by james on 21 April 2008:
@28Captainchaos
All white nationalist groups do is talk. They have not done or said anything when Serbia and Russia are under attack. Polls show that the majority of Americans are opposed to mass immigration yet they can’t even have the political cohesion to mount a political body or finance and support a senator who would lobby for changes in US immigration laws.
White europeans are the most hostile towards Russia and Serbia. They have embraced egalitarianism with such vigor since the enlightment that it permeates academia, media and the body politics.
If Serbs ever want to reclaim their land or if Russia started recruiting foriegn legions in there future battle against Nato and the Jihadis I’ll be the first to sign up.
I’ve read the trail transcripts of the Milosevic trail. Civilian deaths were created by Nato bombardment and KLA terror attacks. Serbs were virtuous and fought with honour and ingenuity while Kosovar Albanians where torturing and killing Serbs and some Albanians with the most extreme babarity.
27 Comment by Derek Leaberry on 21 April 2008:
Sadly, Mr. Chiarello is absolutely correct to say that the new Berlusconi government will do much more in the next year than any prospective American government will do over its four year administration. Belatedly, European parties of the right seem to understand the cultural changes which will inevitably happen if mass immigration is not strongly reduced while the party of the American right, the Republicans, will nominate an open-borders, cultural philistine named John McCain as its presidential candidate. Unlike the situation in Italy, American conservatives face the worst of all worlds. Vote for McCain and hope that he, as party leader, will not betray the conservative position on immigration. Or vote against McCain and know that if McCain loses, he will most likely be vindictive toward conservatives and gladly lead the charge to knife them in the back on the immigration issue. Can we just hope that a President Obama is as incompetent as Jimmy Carter?
28 Comment by Vincent Chiarello on 21 April 2008:
TJF @29
Thanks for the correction: I should have written that Bossi studied medicine at Pavia, but dropped out along the way. I was unaware he sold medical supplies. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea massima culpa.
But there is no correction to my major point that Bossi will have much more to say in this new Belusconi government than the previous. Whether there now is, as reported, a closer personal relationship between the next PM and Bossi I do not know, but the baleful effects of African and Eastern European immigration on Italian cities is evident. Unlike most Americans, Europeans, in this case Italians, still have a strong attachment to their cities, and to see the wall of Africans selling faux jewelry, leather, etc. on the streets of Florence, must be hard to swallow for any resident of that city.
There is another dynamic at work here: the role of the Church in these matters, but that is a tale for another time.
a presto
Vincent
29 Comment by Frank on 21 April 2008:
James,
what would you have people do? Our government is attacking both you and us.
The hope of Europeans is Russia and Eastern Europe. Take that as you will, but we’re sick.
30 Comment by james on 21 April 2008:
Does anyone not find it peculiar in Europe there is a sudden rash of islamphobia, how all of a sudden it OK to discuss the demographic and free speech threat to the native populations of Europe, except of course Serbia and Russia; yet promotion of holocaust education has increased sponsored by the likes of Gordon Brown, Nicholas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel to educate Europeans against the evils of racism.
Gordon Brown wants to finance trips to Auschwitz for British schoolchildren and Sarkozy put forth the idea that French schoolchildren should “adopt” a child victim of the holocaust.
@Frank
I’m actually British not Russian or Serbian but when I discovered the truth about Russia I began to sympathise with it.
I didn’t know that Bolshevism was installed on Russia not an internal revolution, that the Russian mafias’ bosses comprised no ethnic Russians, how tens of thousands of Russian girls have been sold into sex slavery in Europe and the Middle East, how approxamitly 3 million Russians died due to the “economic shock therapy” when Western goons in Russia swallowed up the wealth of the country.
31 Comment by Vincent Chiarello on 28 April 2008:
For the first time in recent memory, the residents of Rome voted a member of the Alianza Nacionale (AN) as its new mayor. Giovanni Alemanno, a southerner from Bari and the former Agricultural Minister, won nearly 54% of the vote, a further indication that there are very serious problems in the political parties of Italy’s Left. Alemanno’s opponent, Francesco Rutelli, a key figure in the Italian Socialist Party, was expected to win the election and resume the Socialist domination of the city. The previous mayor, Walter Veltroni, a Socialist, resigned and ran unsuccessfully against Berlusconi two weeks ago.
The Alemanno victory is part of a new Italian mosaic that is being put together as the Italian Right increases its size and power, while the left, which for the first time in 60 years witnessed the failure of the Italian Communist Party to elect one representative to the national legislature, feeds on itself. The AN victory ensures that Berlusconi and Bossi will have the support of Italy’s major city government as it tries to deal with the issue of illegal immigration and other issues.
One final note: Alemanno’s Christian ties are strong, so strong that he wears a Celtic cross, the sign of the Italian right, despite the howls from the Italian Left. The signs are good, and getting better.
a presto
Vincent