Happy Vaffanculo Day 2!!

Oh, thank goodness for Beppe Grillo!

Not only he organised the first Vaffanculo Day last year (see video below) but he's done it again!! Yes, today has been V-Day2: all over Italy fed up Italians have gathered and shouted out lout against the monopoly of information, the Italian and European funding of that same monopolistic information, the mafia among parlamentarians.... Today signatures have been collected for three referenda: the abolition of the Order of Journalists (which doesn't exist anywhere else), the abolition of public financing of a billion Euro a year to the publishing industry (Berlusconi gets a large chunck of this money), the abolition of the Gasparri law and the duopoly Parties-Mediaset (i.e. media businessman should not have direct control of government media).

Is this asking too much in a democratic, developed country part of the EU, the G7, the NATO etc.?

Needless to say, most Italian and international newspapers and tvs have ignored this event.

The New York Times on Beppe Grillo's VDay in 2007:

Opposition? Which opposition?

Ciao ragazzi, è bellissimo sapere che siete vibranti di energia e di idee!!

Continuerò a scrivere il mio blog in inglese perchè desidero poter raggiungere il maggior numero di persone possibili. Ma continuate a scrivere, fatevi sentire!

As some of you have pointed out, the latest elections in Italy were tough because of a lack of a real, strong opposition. Yes, Veltroni & friends were the opposition - but they could have never made it. And in this I must admit that Berlusconi has done very well: he realised he had to change the underlying structure of his political approach, he changed it by doing his homework and also by borrowing some ideas from the opposition itself and thus undermined the opposition. (Thank you Zadig for the reference to Ezio Mauro and Ilvo Diamanti on Repubblica.it.) And once again it was a case of choosing the "lesser of evils" (see: http://www.beppegrillo.it/2008/04/il_meno_peggio_1/index.html).

So now it's back to us and to the political opposition: if Berlusconi managed to learn his lesson, so can we! We need to understand how he did this, what allowed him to drop all those smaller parties with tree and plant references and move on. And how did you do it? Through information!

Some of you said it is a matter of culture. Yes, culture is important, it is our roots - but it should never block out innovation and ideas. Even Berlusconi managed to change some of his political strategies!

Some others said it is all about ignorance. The literal meaning of that word is "little, limited knowledge". So again, beating ignorance is about information. It's about acquiring new knowledge and also about being open to new ideas, to new approaches, to new times. Even Berlusconi evolved his underlying political structure!

Sometimes even people we do not like can be an example for us...

Why learning English could save Italians

So, Berlusconi has won once again.

When talking about the elections on Monday my boss, an English businessman, asked me what was wrong with Prodi. "Nothing", I thought. "So why are we back with Berlusconi then?" After some thinking I replied "He's unglamorous. That's all". Even The Sunday Times of London describes him as "Great Seducer" leading a "glamour team".

But if this is true, why are Italians such glamour addicts? Well, it's partly because of information. As we all know Italian is spoken in Italy, in a small part of Switzerland and in some border areas. So the information Italians gets is what is published on national media. Trouble is Berlusconi the businessman owns a big part of the most important national newspapers, magazines and book publishing companies and three of the six big TV channels. And The other 3 main channels are state run, so Berlusconi the prime minister now has direct control over them too, as he had twice before. This is the reason why everywhere you look or read there is so much coverage about sex and celebrities: keep them busy with gossip and they won't ask for politics and economy.

Another reason why Italians (secretly?) believe they are the best is history. And climate. And Food. And Wine. And fashion. And the landscape. And Venice, Rome, Tuscany and Lake Como, now with George Clooney. And... and the whole world is watching from out there telling them how wonderful they are! So many times during my four years in London I met people, told them I'm from Italy and spent the following 10 minutes or more listening to what a marvellous country that is!!

The real problem is that Italians do not need to learn about the rest of the world - because the rest of the world comes to Italy. But what both Italians and foreigners fail to understand is the huge difference it makes to holiday in a country rather than to live there, i.e. work or study, be sick, buy or rent a place, install a landline phone, etc.

So why would a better knowledge of the English language save them? Because then they would be able to read foreign newspapers, magazines, books and web sites and watch foreign TV and news. They would be able to learn from the world which is out there, learn how others do things, learn from other peoples' and other countries' mistakes. And gain the possibility of choosing.

The only other thing that could change things is a major catastrophe. We'll see what they choose.