Berlusconi: the premier and the Mafia

by Maddalena Dottori

Hi People

 

Instead of writing about the latest Coen brothers' film or the new installation at the National Gallery, this week I want to use this blog to comment on a much more serious issue involving my native country, Italy, and its beloved Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

 

In the past few weeks, more than one pentito – a former mafia member now collaborating with the authorities  -  claimed that among the instigators of a series of deadly bomb attacks perpetrated by the mafia in the early '90s, was Mr Berlusconi himself, along with one of his closest advisors, senator Marcello Dell'Utri, already convicted to nine years of prison for Mafia association.

 

The Prime Minister promptly dismissed these serious allegations as being part of a plot conceived by a group of  'communist' judges to discredit his name and ruin his political career.

 

Reuters then reported that one of Berlusconi's spokespersons, Paolo Bonaiuti, defended the premier's position by saying: "The Mafia uses its members to make statements against the prime minister of a government that has acted in a determined and concrete way to fight organised crime."

 

Mind you, Bonaiuti was referring to the same man that, before being elected prime minister, had famously employed for a number of years a convicted Mafia boss as a stable-keeper in his villa near Milan.

 

Unbelievable, isn't it? But wait, it gets better (or worse). 

 

Last week, in a ceremony for the opening of the VIP area in a Sardinian airport, the gaffe-prone Berlusconi declared he'd want to strangle the scriptwriters of TV show La Piovra (a very successful series of telefilms depicting the ruthless ways  of the Sicilian Mafia) and all the authors of books and essays on Italian organized crime, for having put Italy in a negative light in front of the rest of the world.

 

The Premier though forgot to mention that many of those writers and journalists he seems to despise so much had actually lost their lives for having revealed the truth behind that vicious organisation and its ties with the political world.

 

What's even more worrying it is the fact that a good percentage of Italians would still vote for this man, who, lets not forget, is also awaiting trial for witness corruption and tax fraud.  

 

But 'Why?' you might ask. The answer is frighteningly simple. 

 

According to statistics, Italians read less newspapers than almost anyone else in Europe, preferring to get their news from TV reports instead.

 

The problem is that three of the six national television channels are owned by Berlusconi who, as Prime Minister, also has a direct control over the other three state-owned networks. 

 

It won't be difficult for you to imagine then that TV news reports in Italy tends to be heavily biased in favour of 'premier-cum-media-mogul' Silvio Berlusconi. 

 

If Berlusconi says that Italian 'bolshevicks' are conspiring to ruin his brilliant political career or that the Mafia is just trying to take revenge against the man who did so much to counteract organised crime, people will just believe so.