Do you remember when on The Economist magazine appeared a report whose title was "Why Silvio Berlusconi is unfit to lead Italy"? It was on April 26th, 2001. More then 10 years ago.
Well, I am not going to repeat what we already know because most of us, probably, have been reading that report. What I am going to talking about is how the Italian Prime Minister has had a bad influence on Italian people, especially young people, during these last 22 years.
So I am not going to discuss if he is fit or not to lead Italy. What I want to inform you is about the influence of this man on Italian people and how much this influence has been negative along this last 22 years. Or maybe over last 30 years, since he assumed an important role in the Italian economy being the owner of the most important Italian private group of media..
Basically I will inform you about Silvio Berlusconi's behaviour as private person and not about his job as public administrator. Because I am convinced that behind the screen of his public profile there is a person with his convictions, fears, idiosyncrasy, weakness and beliefs. Once we know this almost secret part of his personality then we can trace and understand his public profile. In another way we are only supposing something that is uncertain.
Last but not least we must consider something that is absolutely basic in a kind of analysis like this. I am referring to the social environment that, in this case, it is the Italian society. Both are strictly connected so we can't understand Silvio Berlusconi if we don't understand the Italian society i.e. the social environment. What I am trying to say is this: imagine that the environment is water and Silvio Berlusconi is a fish. If the water is a river the kind of fish swimming in it is totally different from a fish whose water is the sea, right?
I think that you have perfectly understood this last example so it is time I start to tell the story. First of all Silvio Berlusconi was born in Milan. If he was born in Rome or Naples or Palermo probably he would be never turned up to the top of the Italian society and then at the top of the world. Because Milan, among all the Italian cities, it is the most suitable for a man whose ambition is to arrive to the top. Milan is the only town of Italy with an European vocation, the only town whose citizens are able to think globally and not only locally like all the other Italian towns. If you know Milan as me, you know Milan it is an international centre enough well connected with the heart of Europe. This means that people living in Milan are able "to think big". They are not a kind of typical Italian middle-class, Roman style, for instance. Because people living in Rome (and even if Rome is the capital of Italy) are very, very provincial people. They are not able to see more far than their nose. If for instance you start to criticize Rome and Romans and at the end of your critics they understand you are right, do you know what they say to cut off any discussions? They say: "E che ce' mporta, tanto a Roma c'avemo er Papa!". Which, translated, means: "We don't mind anything, because we have the pope in Rome!" By this a Roman citizen means that he felt protected by the presence of the Pope even when things are going wrong. What they are saying is they feel protected as they were under the wings of the same Lord!
But a citizen of Milan doesn't think in this way. A citizen of Milan basically is convinced that with his effort and application in his job he can reach any kind of goal in his life. This is more a protestant-Calvinistic attitude than a catholic attitude. So Silvio Berlusconi is a son of this social Milanese environment. If you understand this now you understand why Silvio Berlusconi is such a fighter, for instance.
On the other side what is wrong in Milan is the "Bauscia" attitude. Under the name "Bauscia" in Milan is identified a man who became rich but he never had the culture and the attitude to be rich. It means that there is a lot of vulgarity in this man and this vulgarity is not cancelled by the fact he reached a status of rich man.
If you compare, for instance, Silvio Berlusconi with the already dead Gianni Agnelli, the former president of Juventus football team and Fiat company cars, you can understand how big is the difference in terms of attitude between them. Gianni Agnelli, probably due to he came from Turin, the first capital of former Italy kingdom, incarnated an aristocratic style and for this reason sometime he was called the "King of Italy". Silvio Berlusconi on the contrary is considered the typical "Bauscia", a self-made man but with no style, just an imitation of it.
This "Bauscia" culture, paradoxically, match very well with another Italian local culture, the culture of the town of Naples, in the South of Italy. A Napolitan type is well represented in the "Commedia dell'Arte" character whose name is Pulcinella. Pulcinella basically is a liar, he is living always cheating people and his external fun is almost always fake because, inside, he is always sad.
Bauscia style and Pulcinella style perfectly match into Silvio Berlusconi personality. He is a mix of both. But doing so the result is that Silvio Berlusconi is living a kind of life is not a real life, since he is living the life of a comedian on a theatre stage. Silvio Berlusconi is confusing his real life with the role he is interpreting, like an actor on a theatre stage or in a movie set. In this sense Italy is full of this kind of persons. One of the most famous, lately, was Giuliano Soria, an important Italian cultural operator that has recently destroyed a famous literary Italian prize due to his inability to make a distinction between his personal life and his role as president of "Premio Grinzane Cavour".
If you understand this you can now understand why Silvio Berlusconi is involved in so many scandals. Financial scandals, corruption scandals, sex scandals, etc. His life is the result of a full distortion of the Italian concept of "furbizia". The closest translation of this Italian word could be "foxiness". It is the only English name that can give an idea of what Italian people mean when they say "è un uomo furbo". This means that they see a man smart like a fox.
But Silvio Berlusconi has pushed the limit of foxiness over the moral and ethic limit. This is the problem. In his concept of foxiness there is something that doesn't reflect any more the original meaning of this word. Because in his original meaning all the Italian people assigned to the word foxiness (remember, furbizia in Italian) a sense of sharp and smart intelligence. If you empty the original meaning, as Silvio Berlusconi does, and you substitute it with a sense of cheating all people you meet on your way then, of course, all you get is to be involved in so many scandals. I think this is unavoidable.
There is another matter we have to consider. I mean the typical Italian male obsession with sex. Since you are young, in Italy, you are not in competitions with your friends and mates to show you are the best in school or sport activities like in USA, for instance. No, all that minds to an Italian guy is to show how many girl he, sorry, fucked along his life. Italian males are really obsessed with this. It is something difficult to explain and understand where is coming from. I could do it, but I should involve in this explanation Italian women and I don't want, now, to enter another complex analysis. Take my words as good and trustful, at the moment.
If you want that an Italian man feels proud with you don't ask him how much rich he is or which car is owning. Ask him how many women lied with him into his bed. You will see an incredible smile shining on his face. He will feel so proud to tell you about his sexual encounters. Trust me.
Is Silvio Berlusconi a son of this culture? Of course he is. He is fully absorbed into this culture since he was a young Italian boy. If you don't understand this you can't understand why Silvio Berlusconi, for instance, divorced by his first and second wife. Especially his second wife, the really beautiful former actress Veronica Lario.
When Silvio Berlusconi met Veronica Lario she was still working as actress. One day he saw her in Teatro Manzoni in Milan. In an interview of many years ago she told that Silvio Berlusconi to conquer her heart sent her giant bouquets of red roses to impress her. Every night she was acting she received that gift that she found in her dressing room. So finally she decided to meet him and he confessed her to be fully in love with her.
The beginning of this story is really nice, as any other love story in the world. Veronica Lario was really a beautiful woman, one of the most beautiful Italian women of that time. They finally married in 1990 and she told as her husband Silvio at the beginning of their relationship was really romantic. When they met at home in the evening he asked her, both seated on their sofa, to caress and talk him about love. Probably this was the Silvio Berlusconi's way to forget all the problems and difficulties after an hard day of job.
On the other side this idyllic scene maybe hides some Edypic complex, I suppose, in a man already 54 years old in that moment. This need to be caressed and talked about love by a woman for long time in the evening denounces an internal fragility of Silvio Berlusconi. It seems that more than a woman he needed a mother reassuring him on his virility.
But do you remember what I told you some lines above regarding the Italian young males obsession with sex and women? So it seems that this obsession with women and sex in Silvio Berlusconi persisted even in his adult age. Worst, this obsession is still persisting in his older age till now he is 75 years old!!!
If you want to understand all the sex scandals like "bunga-bunga" and the more than 30 prostitutes involved in the allegations against him, you have to start since the beginning. The beginning is the Italian social environment where a young Italian boy must always show and demonstrate his virility to everybody. People around him (family members, friends, mates, etc. both males and females) will be always ready to applaud him any time he can show a new feminine conquest. So Italian males are victims of a system where sexuality is at the centre of their life. But not a correct sexuality in terms of quality, since only in terms of quantity. The psychological distortion is really evident. You don't need to be graduated in psychoanalysis or psychiatry to understand how wrong is this Italian vision about sex.
Well, now all we need to ask is: why all this badly influenced Italian people?
In the early 40s, in Italy, there was a song whose lyrics (already translated) repeatedly said: "Teacher, please, can you tell me who was born first: the egg or the chicken?" This is the same situation. Who is guilty, the Italian society or Silvio Berlusconi? Who started first?
Of course, at a first sight, your answer will be: Italian society because it pre-existed to Silvio Berlusconi arrival on the Italian scene. Yes but not, it is my answer to this interpretation. Because even if it is true that Silvio Berlusconi arrived later, I can guarantee you that he exaggerated a lot what initially only was a funny way to look at sex in Italy. Of course we must consider that there is a part of Italy, Sicily for instance, whose vision of sexuality is more similar to a Muslin society than Northern European society. This is surely due to so much Arab invasions of Sicily, I suppose. In this region of Italy sex is still seen as a pity, something dirty, something to do hidden to the eyes of the community. But in general sex in Italy was more linked to the idea of fun and exhibition. If you think to all Fellini movies or the fabulous Sofia Loren's strip tease for Marcello Mastroianni in the Italian movie "Ieri, Oggi e Domani" (tr.: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow) you can easily understand what I mean. Even if we must never forget the role of the catholic Church in Italy. On sex question the Church point of view has been always an asphyxiation, as you surely know.
So Silvio Berlusconi, I am ready to guess, has been always in conflict inside himself about sex. Pity or fun, fun or pity? This conflict has been surely complicated from the general Italian vision to look at sex only in terms of quantity and not in terms of quality.
Silvio Berlusconi, instead of overtaking this vision and try to live a life free of this kind of obsessions, has lived fully absorbed in this dilemma up to the point that at the age of 75 years old he still feels the necessity to continuously and publicly show his virility. Franking speaking, I don't know you, but I found enough ridiculous this behaviour. Who matters the sexual excitements of such an old man?
The only problem is he is not a Mr. Nobody but he is the Prime Minister of one of the most reputed countries in the Western World. But since he is filling such an important role I find his behaviour really unacceptable. Because his private sex life is under everybody's eyes, especially young generations eyes. These same young generations one day will be the adults. Since an adult is the product of what he/she was when he/she was young you now understand why I can sustain the thesis that Silvio Berlusconi is exercising a bad influence on Italian people, especially young people.
To satisfy his desire to show to the whole world he is still full of sexual energy with the aim of receiving the Italian society applause, he has even sacrificed his family and his marriage with Veronica Lario. I really don't know if his five sons and daughters, in private, are proud to have a father like him whose sexual dirty life is analysed every day by the media all over the world. I feel a lot of compassion for them, really. I fell so sorry for Berlusconi's daughters and sons.
So now I have only one hope. My hope is that the Italian people can finally understand how big has been the mistake to have Silvio Berlusconi as Prime Minister of their Country. I hope the Italian people can understand they have been victims of the sexual obsessions of an old satyr. At the same time I hope Italians can understand that this old satyr is the product of a wrong Italian mentality about sex. So it is now time for them to turn the page and start a new capitol of the Italian story. Italian need a kind of Prime Minster with an ethic and moral vision of life, a man or woman whose dedication is to serve the nation leading the country towards a new ethic and moral heights. Italy and Italians deserves this, because this country has suffered too much in this last 22 years, since the Berlin Wall dropped down I mean.
But a citizen of Milan doesn't think in this way. A citizen of Milan basically is convinced that with his effort and application in his job he can reach any kind of goal in his life. This is more a protestant-Calvinistic attitude than a catholic attitude. So Silvio Berlusconi is a son of this social Milanese environment. If you understand this now you understand why Silvio Berlusconi is such a fighter, for instance.
On the other side what is wrong in Milan is the "Bauscia" attitude. Under the name "Bauscia" in Milan is identified a man who became rich but he never had the culture and the attitude to be rich. It means that there is a lot of vulgarity in this man and this vulgarity is not cancelled by the fact he reached a status of rich man.
If you compare, for instance, Silvio Berlusconi with the already dead Gianni Agnelli, the former president of Juventus football team and Fiat company cars, you can understand how big is the difference in terms of attitude between them. Gianni Agnelli, probably due to he came from Turin, the first capital of former Italy kingdom, incarnated an aristocratic style and for this reason sometime he was called the "King of Italy". Silvio Berlusconi on the contrary is considered the typical "Bauscia", a self-made man but with no style, just an imitation of it.
This "Bauscia" culture, paradoxically, match very well with another Italian local culture, the culture of the town of Naples, in the South of Italy. A Napolitan type is well represented in the "Commedia dell'Arte" character whose name is Pulcinella. Pulcinella basically is a liar, he is living always cheating people and his external fun is almost always fake because, inside, he is always sad.
Bauscia style and Pulcinella style perfectly match into Silvio Berlusconi personality. He is a mix of both. But doing so the result is that Silvio Berlusconi is living a kind of life is not a real life, since he is living the life of a comedian on a theatre stage. Silvio Berlusconi is confusing his real life with the role he is interpreting, like an actor on a theatre stage or in a movie set. In this sense Italy is full of this kind of persons. One of the most famous, lately, was Giuliano Soria, an important Italian cultural operator that has recently destroyed a famous literary Italian prize due to his inability to make a distinction between his personal life and his role as president of "Premio Grinzane Cavour".
If you understand this you can now understand why Silvio Berlusconi is involved in so many scandals. Financial scandals, corruption scandals, sex scandals, etc. His life is the result of a full distortion of the Italian concept of "furbizia". The closest translation of this Italian word could be "foxiness". It is the only English name that can give an idea of what Italian people mean when they say "è un uomo furbo". This means that they see a man smart like a fox.
But Silvio Berlusconi has pushed the limit of foxiness over the moral and ethic limit. This is the problem. In his concept of foxiness there is something that doesn't reflect any more the original meaning of this word. Because in his original meaning all the Italian people assigned to the word foxiness (remember, furbizia in Italian) a sense of sharp and smart intelligence. If you empty the original meaning, as Silvio Berlusconi does, and you substitute it with a sense of cheating all people you meet on your way then, of course, all you get is to be involved in so many scandals. I think this is unavoidable.
There is another matter we have to consider. I mean the typical Italian male obsession with sex. Since you are young, in Italy, you are not in competitions with your friends and mates to show you are the best in school or sport activities like in USA, for instance. No, all that minds to an Italian guy is to show how many girl he, sorry, fucked along his life. Italian males are really obsessed with this. It is something difficult to explain and understand where is coming from. I could do it, but I should involve in this explanation Italian women and I don't want, now, to enter another complex analysis. Take my words as good and trustful, at the moment.
If you want that an Italian man feels proud with you don't ask him how much rich he is or which car is owning. Ask him how many women lied with him into his bed. You will see an incredible smile shining on his face. He will feel so proud to tell you about his sexual encounters. Trust me.
Is Silvio Berlusconi a son of this culture? Of course he is. He is fully absorbed into this culture since he was a young Italian boy. If you don't understand this you can't understand why Silvio Berlusconi, for instance, divorced by his first and second wife. Especially his second wife, the really beautiful former actress Veronica Lario.
When Silvio Berlusconi met Veronica Lario she was still working as actress. One day he saw her in Teatro Manzoni in Milan. In an interview of many years ago she told that Silvio Berlusconi to conquer her heart sent her giant bouquets of red roses to impress her. Every night she was acting she received that gift that she found in her dressing room. So finally she decided to meet him and he confessed her to be fully in love with her.
The beginning of this story is really nice, as any other love story in the world. Veronica Lario was really a beautiful woman, one of the most beautiful Italian women of that time. They finally married in 1990 and she told as her husband Silvio at the beginning of their relationship was really romantic. When they met at home in the evening he asked her, both seated on their sofa, to caress and talk him about love. Probably this was the Silvio Berlusconi's way to forget all the problems and difficulties after an hard day of job.
On the other side this idyllic scene maybe hides some Edypic complex, I suppose, in a man already 54 years old in that moment. This need to be caressed and talked about love by a woman for long time in the evening denounces an internal fragility of Silvio Berlusconi. It seems that more than a woman he needed a mother reassuring him on his virility.
But do you remember what I told you some lines above regarding the Italian young males obsession with sex and women? So it seems that this obsession with women and sex in Silvio Berlusconi persisted even in his adult age. Worst, this obsession is still persisting in his older age till now he is 75 years old!!!
If you want to understand all the sex scandals like "bunga-bunga" and the more than 30 prostitutes involved in the allegations against him, you have to start since the beginning. The beginning is the Italian social environment where a young Italian boy must always show and demonstrate his virility to everybody. People around him (family members, friends, mates, etc. both males and females) will be always ready to applaud him any time he can show a new feminine conquest. So Italian males are victims of a system where sexuality is at the centre of their life. But not a correct sexuality in terms of quality, since only in terms of quantity. The psychological distortion is really evident. You don't need to be graduated in psychoanalysis or psychiatry to understand how wrong is this Italian vision about sex.
Well, now all we need to ask is: why all this badly influenced Italian people?
In the early 40s, in Italy, there was a song whose lyrics (already translated) repeatedly said: "Teacher, please, can you tell me who was born first: the egg or the chicken?" This is the same situation. Who is guilty, the Italian society or Silvio Berlusconi? Who started first?
Of course, at a first sight, your answer will be: Italian society because it pre-existed to Silvio Berlusconi arrival on the Italian scene. Yes but not, it is my answer to this interpretation. Because even if it is true that Silvio Berlusconi arrived later, I can guarantee you that he exaggerated a lot what initially only was a funny way to look at sex in Italy. Of course we must consider that there is a part of Italy, Sicily for instance, whose vision of sexuality is more similar to a Muslin society than Northern European society. This is surely due to so much Arab invasions of Sicily, I suppose. In this region of Italy sex is still seen as a pity, something dirty, something to do hidden to the eyes of the community. But in general sex in Italy was more linked to the idea of fun and exhibition. If you think to all Fellini movies or the fabulous Sofia Loren's strip tease for Marcello Mastroianni in the Italian movie "Ieri, Oggi e Domani" (tr.: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow) you can easily understand what I mean. Even if we must never forget the role of the catholic Church in Italy. On sex question the Church point of view has been always an asphyxiation, as you surely know.
So Silvio Berlusconi, I am ready to guess, has been always in conflict inside himself about sex. Pity or fun, fun or pity? This conflict has been surely complicated from the general Italian vision to look at sex only in terms of quantity and not in terms of quality.
Silvio Berlusconi, instead of overtaking this vision and try to live a life free of this kind of obsessions, has lived fully absorbed in this dilemma up to the point that at the age of 75 years old he still feels the necessity to continuously and publicly show his virility. Franking speaking, I don't know you, but I found enough ridiculous this behaviour. Who matters the sexual excitements of such an old man?
Silvio Berlusconi, Italian Prime Minister
(picture courtesy of Platon photographer)
Don't you think he is smiling like an old satyr?
The only problem is he is not a Mr. Nobody but he is the Prime Minister of one of the most reputed countries in the Western World. But since he is filling such an important role I find his behaviour really unacceptable. Because his private sex life is under everybody's eyes, especially young generations eyes. These same young generations one day will be the adults. Since an adult is the product of what he/she was when he/she was young you now understand why I can sustain the thesis that Silvio Berlusconi is exercising a bad influence on Italian people, especially young people.
To satisfy his desire to show to the whole world he is still full of sexual energy with the aim of receiving the Italian society applause, he has even sacrificed his family and his marriage with Veronica Lario. I really don't know if his five sons and daughters, in private, are proud to have a father like him whose sexual dirty life is analysed every day by the media all over the world. I feel a lot of compassion for them, really. I fell so sorry for Berlusconi's daughters and sons.
So now I have only one hope. My hope is that the Italian people can finally understand how big has been the mistake to have Silvio Berlusconi as Prime Minister of their Country. I hope the Italian people can understand they have been victims of the sexual obsessions of an old satyr. At the same time I hope Italians can understand that this old satyr is the product of a wrong Italian mentality about sex. So it is now time for them to turn the page and start a new capitol of the Italian story. Italian need a kind of Prime Minster with an ethic and moral vision of life, a man or woman whose dedication is to serve the nation leading the country towards a new ethic and moral heights. Italy and Italians deserves this, because this country has suffered too much in this last 22 years, since the Berlin Wall dropped down I mean.
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