Spectator's Journal! Neo-Italy

...S o shocking was Berlusconi's victory, and so profound its implications, that the other political players and the press reacted much as their counterparts had to the election of Reagan in America: Berlusconi and his allies were portrayed as lunatic extremists, and there were dark hints that something highly improper, and quite possibly criminal, had taken place...

...A thoroughly successful revolution in Italy is one of the most unlikely events in recent history, and yet, as an earlier Italian revolutionary once put it, lo, it moves...

...Berlusconi understood that most Italians did not want the most statist of the old parties to govern the country...

...The main target of the "anti-fascist" campaign was National Alliance leader Gianfranco Fini, who was catapulted to prominence when he won an amazing 47 percent in Rome's mayoral elections...

...According to the latest figures, the purge has produced three suicides and more than two thousand prisoners...

...as part of the problem...

...Worse, it was a contemptuous caricature of the Italian people, who are not so easily fooled as that...

...Berlusconi's slogans were right out of the Reagan/Thatcher playbook: lower taxes and smaller government...

...and senate president Carlo Scognamiglio is another Jeffersonian of long standing...

...one had the bad manners to question the sincerity of Occhetto's conversion to ex-Communism...

...The men and institutions that governed Italy since the latter days of World War II have disappeared, or linger on as hated symbols of the ancien regime...

...Prior to the fall of Communism, the Italian magistracy was loath to crack down on the corruption, for fear of turning the country over to the Communists (Italy's was the largest Communist Party in the Western world...

...Throughout the campaign, Occhetto and his gang wereinvariably described as "ex-Communists," but Fini and his people were always called "neo-fascists...

...Apparently no Michael Ledeen is foreign editor of The American Spectator and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute...

...But dismantling the overbuilt Italian welfare state will require extraordinary political will, and the first month of the new government was not encouraging...

...Bossi was threatening political alliances with Occhetto and others...

...The usual American newspapers and journalists (the New York Times, Mary McGrory) echoed the warnings...

...Occhetto took to behaving like a prime ministerin-waiting, granting interviews in tones of noblesse oblige, and even traveling to the City of London to reassure financiers about his intentions with regard to nationalization and taxation...

...It was a fair question...

...Bettino Craxi, who was the dominant political personality of the past fifteen years, lives in exile in Tunis, knowing that the minute he sets foot on Italian soil his passport will be confiscated in preparation for his indictment...

...The other day in the chamber I said that totalitarianism is contemptible and deplorable...

...The second charge brought against the Berlusconi government was that it contained "fascist ministers," and was therefore antidemocratic...

...The League's Umberto Bossi—who had risen to power on the slogan "Get off our toes and let us work"—had been the expected beneficiary of that anti-government sentiment...

...He forged an electoral alliance with the Northern League (an anti-establishment and sometimes-separatist party from Milan, which had become the biggest party in the north) and the National Alliance (a newly crafted, more democratic version of the old neo-fascist party...

...The accusations had more to do with the increasing desperation of the European left than with any resurgence of Italian fascism...

...Berlusconi offered the best of Bossi's anti-establishment passion, along with self-confidence and spontaneous charm...

...The ex-Communists dropped another few points, and Chairman Occhetto, who has supervised the ruination of what was once a great Communist Party, resigned...

...European leaders—mainly socialists—from Brussels to Athens announced they would not cooperate with the Italian "fascists," and, as if he hadn't enough to do, Israeli deputy foreign minister Yossi Beilin weighed in, announcing that his government was deeply disturbed...

...The Berlusconi victory was a logical development in the Italian Revolution, and the public recognized it a lot sooner than the elites...

...More important, both Fini and Bossi lost votes, making it likely that the rational part of the League and the centrist bulk of Fini's movement will converge with Forza Italia—leaving the neo-fascist remnant out of the political orbit...

...and the courts issued a decision on pensions that promises to cost the treasury plenty...

...Fini has been unusually outspoken in explaining and repudiating his and his party's neo-fascist past...

...And were they not in on the take from Tangentopoli...

...Rarely has a modern state experienced such a thorough purge of its ruling class...

...The initial difficulties of the new regime transformed the European Parliament elections of June 12 into a national referendum on Berlusconi, and he emerged with more than 30.6 percent of the vote, a 10-percent leap from March...

...Berlusconi lost key senate votes...

...And I did it, changing our movement into a post-fascist force...

...Occhetto's coronation procession was rudely interrupted by Silvio Berlusconi, a real estate tycoon, media magnate, sports impresario, and former intimate of the unfortunate Craxi...

...As late as last winter, it was generally expected that the gravediggers of the old order would be its historic opponents: the Communist Patty (now calling itself the Democratic Party of the Left, and led by the hapless Achille Occhetto, the former Communist general secretary...

...This theory conveniently ignored the left's decades-long domination of the other three networks, as well as the abundance of other news media...

...A few months before the March parliamentary elections, a left alliance had run well in local contests, capturing town halls from Turin to Rome and Naples...

...His unlikely coalition won the elections, achieving a solid majority in the chamber, and falling barely short of one in the senate...

...I believe that the break with the past consists in the acceptance of the values of liberty, democracy, and toleration...

...Berlusconi has surrounded himself with anti-statists: foreign minister Antonio Martino is a Chicago School economist and a former Heritage Foundation fellow...

...It's been a big year for Silvio Berlusconi: first the Italian elections, then the European soccer championship for his beloved Milan, 'then the Europarliament triumph...

...I said indeed that antifascism was an important moment for the return of democratic values, even if . not all the antifascists were antitotalitarian...

...The ex-Communists presented themselves as the rightful successors to Tangentopoli, but the public was rather more inclined to view Occhetto & Co...

...Less than three months before the elections, Berlusconi announced the creation of a new conservative political movement, "Forza Italia," which is what fans yell when the national soccer team takes the field...

...SPECTATOR'S JOURNAL Neo-Italy by Michael Ledeen T he Italian Revolution has reached its halfway point, having liquidated the old political parties and having made possible a radical transformation of the state...

...But Bossi was abrasive and inconsistent, offending many potential supporters...

...54 The American Spectator August 1994 they wanted to weaken the Rome government, not reinforce it...

...His opinion that Mussolini's fascism did not become evil until its passage of anti-Semitic laws in 1938 has been widely quoted...

...And, in sharp contrast to the tedious and evasive Occhetto, Berlusconi was straighforward and intelligent...

...There was a great hue and cry over the necessity to separate Berlusconi-the-politician from Berlusconi-the-media-magnate, otherwise he would rule forever thanks to a continuous indoctrination of the Italian people...

...Berlusconi was named prime minister, and put together a group of largely new faces (only two cabinet members had ever held ministerial rank), to match a two-thirds turnover in the legislature...

...Because being an Italian, being of the right, being of the [neo-fascist party], it is proper that I give a judgment of fascism...

...The Christian Democratic Party, which had been part of every postwar government until last autumn, no longer exists (a rump has renamed itself and now searches for a political identity), and its two most powerful leaders—Giulio Andreotti and Arnaldo Forlaniawait trial...

...But in the same interview he also said: I continue to define myself as post-fascist...

...But once the Soviet Empire had been shattered, the judges—backed by such explosive new political forces as the Northern League and an antimafia movement in Sicily—closed in on their targets...

...0 The American Spectator August 1994 55...

...Had they not taken money—and lots of it—from the Soviet Union and its satellites...

...T here are still some nostalgic supporters of it Duce in the National Alliance, and one should continue to challenge Fini on basic issues—like his enthusiasm for the role of the state...

...The first charge was that Berlusconi—who owns three of the six national television networks—was a"media fascist" whose stations had brainwashed the public...

...It will be recalled that the revolution was directed against a system of corruption known as "Tangentopoli" (Payoff City), which made the state—which is to say, the political parties—a partner in every major business deal...

...What more do you want...

...Forza Italia is now the number-one political party in every region of the country, far outdistancing the National Alliance in the south and the League in the north...