Che Italia è quella che va al voto, stretta tra un piazzista che in 20 anni non ha combinato nulla se non arricchirsi in maniera disgustosa e un comico che non ha uno straccio di programma economico? Un paese in cui la realtà, come dice Tim Parks, è troppo dura e ci si affida all'illusione per credere in qualcosa di meglio. Perchè la realtà è quella di Monti che tassa e che va a Berlino in ginocchio, del PD che negli ultimi 20 anni si è alternato al governo con Berlusconi senza poter portare un solo risultato buono all'infuori dell'euro che tanto buono ora non è più... Invece di votare per una speranza migliore, ci riduciamo ad affidarci alla fantasia. Bellissimo il pezzo di Parks dal New York Times
In Italy, Illusion Is the Only Reality
di Tim Parks
da New York Times
It takes a certain talent to live in happy denial, to slide toward the
edge of a precipice and be perfectly relaxed about it. Of all the
talents that Italians are renowned for, such nonchalance is perhaps
their greatest. Their economy is in deep recession; more than one in
three young adults are unemployed; they are unable to compete
economically with their neighbors; yet they continue as if nothing were
happening, or as if a small glitch in the dolce vita could be fixed with
the wave of a wand.In particular, whether in awe or horror, they continue to be enchanted
by the pied piper Silvio Berlusconi, the former and perhaps future prime
minister and fabulously wealthy media magnate. In the run-up to the
elections that begin today, he has promised to abolish the stiff
property tax that was introduced by the previous government and is
largely responsible for bringing a little credibility back to the
country’s finances (and that he voted for himself when it was
introduced). Not only would he abolish it, but he would actually pay
back what Italians paid on it last year.
The announcement, despite coming from a man who has repeatedly failed to
turn even the most promising political and economic circumstances into
anything resembling the collective good, earned Mr. Berlusconi a
considerable leap in the polls.
I have lived in Italy for 32 years. One of the first things that struck
me was the relation between action and consequence, which is different
in the other countries I knew, Britain and the United States. Here
someone is found to have abused their position of public office — given
jobs to relatives, accepted bribes, spent public money on personal
pleasures — but does not resign, does not think of resigning, attacks
the moralists and sails on regardless.
Statistics show that tax evasion is endemic, and the more so the more
one moves south, to the point that around Naples, dentists declare lower
incomes than policemen. Needless to say, the fiscal shortfall has to be
made up with government borrowing and higher taxes for those who do
pay.
Meanwhile, though sports is glaringly corrupt, fans are as passionate as
ever. As the owner of the big soccer club A. C. Milan, Mr. Berlusconi
decided, at the beginning of his campaign, to buy the star striker Mario
Balotelli. Again he was rewarded in the opinion polls.
The constant discrepancy between how one might expect things to pan out
and how they actually do is nothing new. On a tour through Italy in
1869, Mark Twain wrote, “I can not understand how a bankrupt Government
can have such palatial railroad depots.”
Things don’t change. Italy recently completed Europe’s fastest train
service; one can travel the 360 miles from Milan to Rome nonstop in just
2 hours and 45 minutes. In a country with a huge debt, this wonderful
engineering feat has cost an astonishing 150 billion euros (about $200
billion).
Nobody seems sure where the investment came from or how the project will
be paid for. One thing is certain: much of the money that legally
should have been allotted to local services must have found its way to
the high-speed project; to accommodate the few going fast, hosts of
working people grind to the office in dirty, overcrowded trains. But
what matters is the gleaming image of progress that the service
projects.
Benito Mussolini, perhaps the first great propagandist of the modern
era, understood perfectly this aspect of Italian psychology. “It is
faith which moves mountains because it gives the illusion that mountains
move,” he said. “Illusion is perhaps the only reality in life.”
On Jan. 27, at a ceremony for the national Holocaust remembrance day,
Mr. Berlusconi felt it was the right time to say that Mussolini had
actually done many good things and was not such a bad guy. He was
rewarded with another upward twitch in the opinion polls.
The answer, aside from the extraordinarily slow and complex judiciary
and a distressing lack of truly independent journalism, is that Mr.
Berlusconi’s political instincts mesh perfectly with the collective
determination not to face the truth, which again combines with deep fear
that a more serious leader might ask too much of them. One of the
things he has promised is a pardon for tax evaders. Only in a country
where tax evasion is endemic can one appeal to evaders at the expense of
those who actually pay taxes.
The mirror image of Mr. Berlusconi might be the caretaker prime minister
Mario Monti, an unelected professor of economics, who took over in late
2011, in the middle of the euro crisis. Foreign observers are convinced
Mr. Monti did a great job and deserves re-election; this is naïve. As
many Italians see it (and I agree), the professor merely bowed to
pressure from Berlin, cut spending where there was least resistance and
taxed everybody without regard to income. His election campaign, based
on a rhetoric of dour seriousness, has been disappointing. As a
colleague remarked, if one is to be fleeced by the government anyway,
better the entertainer than the pedant.
One entertainer seeking to capitalize on the situation is Beppe Grillo, a
rowdy ex-comedian-turned-political blogger whose Five Star Movement
proposes to sweep away the corrupt political order and promises a utopia
of salaries for the unemployed and a 30-hour workweek. Mr. Grillo’s
style is so demagogical and his party so dependent on his inflammatory
charisma that the 20 percent of the electorate supposedly planning to
vote for him must surely have decided that it simply does not matter if
the country is ungovernable after the elections.
Alternately, it may be that people feel that nothing can be done anyway,
so great is the power exercised over Italy by the European Union; hence
it is largely unimportant whom they vote for. Perhaps it is the effect
of centuries of Catholic paternalism and reckless electoral promises,
but nobody seems to envision a practical series of reforms to get from
where we are now to where we might want to be; in its place there are
prayers and fiscal fantasies.
Mussolini later corrected his comments on illusion. “It is impossible to
ignore reality,” he said, “however sad.” One wonders, as this election
approaches, how near Italy is to the moment when denial is no longer
possible. I imagine Mr. Berlusconi re-elected and the stock market
crashing, the country’s international credibility melting away so that
he must be removed in a matter of days. But then perhaps Italy’s woes
will be attributed to the perversities of international finance.
What is never countenanced is the notion that one has made very serious
mistakes, or that one might really have to adjust to a reality where
economic initiative has shifted decisively to the East, and investment
capital with it. Almost every political program in Italy expresses a
desire to return to the past, rather than understand the country’s place
in a changed world.
fonte: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/opinion/sunday/in-italy-illusion-is-the-only-reality.html?pagewanted=2&_r=0
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