His death closes a very long page of history and opens a scenario full of unknowns. One thing is certain: without him Italy will be different. Berlusconi is certainly the one who changed it more than any other in the post-war period. No politician has had such an impact as he has on the culture of the country that came out of the conflict and entered, within a few decades, the G7, the club of the richest countries in the world. No one.
Silvio Berlusconi, born in Milan in 1936, has been everything and its opposite. The man of the television miracle and financial collapse, the most successful president of AC Milan ever and the premier insulted by the crowd at the Quirinale after the resignation he never wanted to tender, the party leader most loved by voters and the most hated political opponent. But he was above all a visionary and a forerunner.
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When, in 1978, he took over Telemilano, announcing that he would compete with RAI, everyone took him for a fool, just as they took him for a fool when he bought an agonising AC Milan team declaring that he would bring the Champions Cup back to Piazza Duomo. His descent into the field then anticipated by many years the communication model that would become dominant through social media and that today is adopted by all politicians. In 1994, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram were not even in their embryonic state, yet the man who was to be named Cavaliere invented the “post”. It was not social networks that spread it, but its three television channels. Rai followed suit. No interlocutor, just microphone and camera. The homemade filter, a nylon stocking in front of the lens. The blurred contours, the confidential tone of voice, the domestic scenery, desk and bookcase behind, the social status highlighted by the dress and the solidity of the furnishings. “Italy is the country I love. Here I have my roots, my hopes and my horizons”.
With these words begins the proclamation that will end with the announcement of his entry into politics. An announcement meticulously prepared for the purpose, opponents claim, of defending his companies from the communist aggression looming on the horizon. The Berlin Wall has already fallen a few years ago, the left has removed the word communist from the name of the party that has been transformed from PCI to PDS, and yet Silvio beats hard on the Bolshevik danger. Has the Soviet Union crumbled? Who cares. People need content, fear, strong emotions. He will take an avalanche of votes by tearing apart what the “comunist” Achille Occhetto called a joyous war machine.
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At the roots of his wealth are real estate deals. The shadows on the origin of the capital that started the empire will never be dispelled. There are those who speak of connections with environments of the worst Sicily. The rise is achieved in a hurry. From brick to cathode ray tube, the step is short. When he entered politics Silvio Berlusconi was already a very powerful man with strong support in the ranks of the socialist party then led by Bettino Craxi, his best man at his wedding to Veronica Lario.
Through his televisions, Berlusconi proposes a model that in a short time shatters the schemes on which the Italian cultural model based on hard work, study, sacrifice and solidarity is based. The woman who comes out of the kitchen and onto the stage is measured by her ability to attract. Asses and tits multiply behind the screen in an itchy smoothie that makes grandparents widen their eyes, excites fathers, and convinces girls and mothers that the road to get there is not as complicated as the one indicated by the communists. The watchword is to trivialise: the Italian miracle is possible, you just have to follow the wave that Silvio rides with extraordinary skill by telling jokes. The rules? Annoying. What does a guy need to get there? A good barber, a nice suit and lots and lots of good humour.
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This is how Italy changed its face in less than a decade. The fall of Berlusconi's first government at the hands of the League and the setback suffered by Prodi in 1996 were but accidents along the road to power. Not even the relentless judicial enquiries were able to stop the rise of the Milanese entrepreneur: the throng of lawyers following him succeeded in unhinging the accusations if it is true, as it is true, that he has always been acquitted, cleared or time-barred in the 20 trials instituted against him, except in one case. That will be recorded in the downward phase when his conviction for tax fraud forces him to resign from the Senate.
But let us go back. In 2001, after a five-year period in which a centre-left torn by internal venom was at the helm of the country, Silvio Berlusconi overwhelmingly won the elections and created the longest government in the history of the Republic: 1412 days, almost four years. The horizons of which he spoke in the 1994 “post” have been reached. Having overthrown the communists, Silvio has the chance to put in place the liberal reforms hitherto prevented by the communists by getting to grips with taxation and justice. But he will not succeed.
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Instead, he will manage to mismanage the changeover from the lira to the euro with a reckless price increase that is far higher than in other European countries. And he will succeed in convincing Italians to invest less and less in work and more and more in financial activities. Conflicts of interest, thunders the opposition, warning Europe, which is watching perplexed through the lens of German Prime Minister Angela Merkel. “An unattainable ass” will define her by dismissing as a joke the concerns growing within the Union and in international financial circles. And Italy? Split in two. On one side those who are with Silvio, on the other those who are against him.
His main adversary, Romano Prodi, will beat him again in 2006, but the government will fall again brought down by the low blows of his left-wing allies. And so, in 2008, Berlusconi returns to power. Although aged, it is a Berlusconi who still manages to appeal to the electorate even though he moves like an unscrupulous sex addict. The elegant dinners, Ruby Rubacuori, the Olgettine: abandoned by his wife, he puts on a show with increasingly decadent atmospheres while political action does not register any upsurge. The decisive surge is that of the spread, the differential between Italian and German bonds, which in the light of the 2011 financial crisis rises to unprecedented levels, forcing him to resign on pain of Italy's default.
“An international conspiracy” will continue to repeat in the last years of his life. When, with extraordinary vitality and relying on a fair share of votes, he succeeded in rehabilitating his figure by re-entering parliament and running, unsuccessfully, for the presidency of the Republic after the return to power of the centre-right led by Meloni, whose ally he was. He was.
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Because the hunt to grab the votes of his MPs has already begun. In the front row is one of his favourite colts, Matteo Renzi. History is turning over a new leaf.
Illustration Acrimònia Studios
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