Breathe
By Rocío Correa
He died, he died, yes, yes, yes, he died, one could hear people commenting among those sharing a table in the lounge room of the Marco Polo airport in Venice. At 9:30 a.m. yesterday morning
Silvio Berlusconi, who led the Italian government for four times, died on June 12 at the San Raffaele hospital in Milan; the date will be written in the history books. The leader of the political party Forza Italia political party and founder of the Mediaset television network was 86 years old.
I write verbatim a small excerpt of what was reported on its website by the Italian daily newspaper Il Corriere della Sera at the time of the news of his death: "If one had to make the anatomy of an instant in the extraordinary life of Silvio Berlusconi, perhaps one should choose the night of November 8, 2011. Not the day he laid the first stone in a building in Brugherio in 1964, or founded "Fininvest" in 1975, opening the way to a television and financial empire that made him one of the richest men in the world, nor the day he descended into politics. Nor the time he descended by helicopter to the Arena to inaugurate the Milan epic, which won five Champions League titles and eight shields in 31 years. No. Berlusconi has taken so much of that power in his life that the real "magic moment" to tell is the one in which he lost it.
Things were like this: Italy was going into a tailspin because of the financial markets' attack on government debt. Spread of more than 500 points. Merkel and Sarkozy laughing at it in public. Europe was afraid of falling together with Italy. Gianfranco Fini, always at his side, had become a political party and was moving to the opposition. Eight deputies, all former "super faithful", betrayed Berlusconi in a decisive vote, making him lose the majority to "Montecitorio" (Chamber of Deputies), but even if the "Cavaliere" as he is called by all Silvio Berlusconi wanted to resist and not to give in, he resigned accepting the inexorable logic of democratic politics.
Silvio has been a comical, ridiculous and exaggerated figure, but also a phenomenon of willpower and historical necessity. Together, the fruit of Italian evil, but at the same time his attempt to cure it. In good and in evil he has been the founder of a new politics, with liberal ambition and populist signs, that has made school in the world and dominated the Italian scene for twenty years even when he was opposition; a snake charmer, a man of magic; not always very respected abroad and in Italy a very controversial figure.
The "anti-Berlusconi" professionals have accused him of all kinds of crimes, almost 80 trials with various accusations, from the prostitution of a minor in the person of Ruby Ribacuori, one of the participants in the girls' parties in Berlusconi's houses, to the suspicion of collusion with the Mafia, of all the accusations he was acquitted. According to the law of the judges and prosecutors, Berlusconi only committed one crime: tax fraud, and he was convicted. In the end he obtained full judicial rehabilitation and was again a candidate, winning first a seat in the European Parliament and then again in the Senate.
Berlusconi represents for Italians the American myth of the self-made man, seducing the people by taking them away from the left, since 1994, the year he entered politics. As my husband says: "history tells us that he has interpreted first of all the idea of a new country, whether we like his politics or not, while the left in all this time has made politics only against the person". The "Cavaliere" discovered the horizonless blue sky of the moderate voters hostile to the left. He had the bad tact to scandalize the audience with politically incorrect statements, which went around the world. How can we forget the time he referred to Obama as "tanned" referring to the color of his skin?
But after all, Berlusconi's political balance sheet is not as bad as his adversaries have tried to make it look, Berlusconi has left on paper, as the Corriere della Sera says, the "rivoluzione liberale", made of lower taxes and higher growth, the promise that brought him to the government. At 86 years of age, he still dreamed of being able to return to the "Quirinale" (residence of the President of the Republic).
In politics everything is always to be written and he has left an heir in the right of center to win again: Giorgia Meloni.
"The unspeakable must not remain in silence"
Rocío Correa
The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are absolutely independent of the position and editorial line of Opinion 51.
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