Metaphorically speaking, Italy has had its share of earthquakes over the past few years. After Berlusconi’s government was dissolved in order to make way for Mario Monti’s technical government, life was turned upside down with the introduction of new taxes, the eruption of financial scandals involving all major political parties, and the success of comedian Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement in the elections of February 2013.

Further, in May 2012, Italy was shook up in a more literal way. The Northern region of Emilia-Romagna was struck by a heavy earthquake, which was repeated ten days later. A year has passed and much has yet to be done. Nevertheless, during the anniversary, politicians and the media indulged in a triumphant rhetoric that highlighted the great commitment of citizens and institutions in the reconstruction of “Emilia” (the western and north-eastern part of the region, where the epicenter of the earthquake was based). A reconstruction has yet to begin, leading to an explosion of local grassroots committees consisting of people who were affected both by the earthquake and by a bureaucratic rigmarole. The state bureaucracy has complicated the lives of the locals, this in a climate of crisis and austerity. As the state has responded only to the degree that it serves private corporate interests, citizens were left to fend for themselves, repeating a historic pattern.

The Emilia earthquake represents the last in a series of natural disasters in Italy, which never really produced any progressive legislation capable of transmitting know-how to future generations. A law was first passed in the 1970s, in the wake of two catastrophes that drew wide media attention. In 1980, a disastrous earthquake in the mountainous Irpinia region (Southern Italy) further sensitized public opinion, leading to the creation – in 1982 – of the Ministry of Civil Protection. However, the national civil protection system originated only in 1992, whereas the first legislative decree that would give the Italian regions executive powers was created years later (for a brief history of civil protection in Italy see David E. Alexander, “The Evolution of Civil Protection in Modern Italy,” in John Dickie, John Foot and Frank M. Snowden (eds), Disastro! Disasters in Italy since 1860: Culture, Politics, Society, New York: Palgrave, 2002).

Rather than being focused on the prevention of catastrophes and the safeguarding of citizens, civil protection legislation in Italy has thus been subjugated to political games and economical lines of reasoning.

An earthquake that struck the Northern Friuli region, in 1976, played an important role in this process. For the first time, both the first aid and the reconstruction phases occurred on a more local level. As a consequence, the reconstruction of Friuli followed a logic which was also adopted after a 1997 earthquake in Central Italy: it consisted in the safeguarding of the original organization of the affected locations as opposed to relocation and decentralization, which had instead been applied in Irpinia in the 1980s and – more recently – in the city of L’Aquila, devastated by an earthquake in 2009. Here the Italian Civil Protection regained the hierarchical and centralized format of the pre-Friuli period, in line with Berlusconi’s attempts – throughout the 2000s – to expand the power of the head of government through the Civil Protection.

This reflects what Naomi Klein (2008) has defined “disaster capitalism” or “economic shock treatment”: the exploitation of the public’s disorientation following massive collective shocks, such as natural disasters or terrorist attacks, in order to achieve control by imposing economic shock therapy. In The Shock Doctrine, Klein criticizes Milton Friedman’s ideas about the pushing through of reforms in the wake of catastrophic events, a mechanism that was also adopted by the Italian civil protection system. In the management of the Irpinia earthquake of 1980, for example, “modern” forms of living were pushed through, such as the widening of the typically narrow streets of the medieval towns so as to create more parking space. Similarly, the imposition of a specific way of life upon people marked the reconstruction of L’Aquila, in particular through the creation of New Towns. The latter consisted of a mass of buildings in a peripheral area for some 15,000 evacuees, creating lucrative building opportunities exploited by major companies supervised by the state, at the expense of local businesses. In addition, the New Towns strongly isolated people from the urban context and eliminated those collective places where people used to meet and socialize, resulting in the persistence of a sense of trauma.

The city of L’Aquila itself, however, has remained untouched. Four years later it is a ghost town, a future prey to real estate speculation. The reconstruction process has turned out to be no more than a political and economical bargain for the Civil Protection and for Berlusconi’s government, aimed as it was at accelerating “processes of privatization and the embezzlement of space, power, rights, nearly always to the advantage of a few, and profiteering choices at the expense of a democratic decision-making procedure.” (Stefano Ventura in Sismografie, Ritornare a L’Aquila mille giorni dopo il sisma, 2012, p. 20).

The L’Aquila case, then, reflects the incapacity and unwillingness of the Italian state to intervene adequately in similar situations, as also happened after the Irpinia earthquake, where “[s]elf-help was the only form of aid” (Alexander, p. 171). The absence of the state is indeed reflected in the fact that Italians have often had to find alternative solutions to natural disasters, such as self-help and volunteerism. Similarly, delay in bringing aid has been “a recurrent theme in Italian disasters” (ibid.): first aid after the Irpinia earthquake was delayed by 24 to 30 hours, whereas squanders and scandals in the reconstruction process earned it the nickname of “Irpiniagate,” contributing to a highly negative, collective memory of earthquakes in Italy.

Perhaps it was this memory that induced the mayor of L’Aquila to make the provocative statement – in a TV interview during the 4th anniversary of the L’Aquila earthquake, in April 2013 – about “disconnecting” L’Aquila from Italy if funds were not released for the reconstruction of the city. His anxiety reflects the risk that L’Aquila will end up like the Irpinia region or like Messina, the port city near the northeast corner of Sicily which witnessed massive emigration after a devastating earthquake in 1908.

In spite of the rigid and military control of the Civil Protection in L’Aquila, in the tent camps that were set up after the earthquake, a number of initiatives developed in which local inhabitants tried to gain a more active and democratic role in the reconstruction process, allowing them to become social actors in a bottom-up process. The grassroots mobilization in Emilia offers another example of this type of engagement. If a state fails to provide adequate civil protection and resolve bureaucratic problems, all the while promoting a false image of the reconstruction process, it is up to the people – as happens too often in Italy – to speak out and claim their rights.

With Italian media being largely compromised by political parties, cooperative companies, media and business magnates and financial strongholds, Italians have remained with only two real outlets for their frustration and disillusionment with contemporary politics and society, the Internet and satire. Blunders, scandals and a wide array of political issues that leak out into the public sphere instantly reach the web, where people vent their anger or have a (bitter) laugh at the guilty party by leaving comments on Twitter or circulating satirical cartoons on Facebook. And then there is satire, a particularly popular means of political criticism and contestation in Italy. Of course it is not new, and has been applied for a long time in the democratic world. Yet, with the various political scandals of the past year, as well as Monti’s harsh austerity policies and rigid attitude, seemingly unconcerned with the disastrous effects of these measures on the lives of many Italians, political satire in Italy is increasingly putting the finger on the sore spots, serving as a sort of mediatized vox populi.

And political satire is increasingly becoming a site of contestation. In mid-February, for example, Maurizio Crozza – best known for the satirical impersonations of politicians during his ten minute sketch on the weekly current affairs program, Ballarò, aired on the most left-centered of the three state-run RAI channels – was attacked by members of the audience at the yearly musical festival of San Remo. At the end of an unflattering imitation of a Silvio Berlusconi trying to buy the Italians’ votes, with which Crozza started his performance, people shouted that he should leave the stage, and that there should be no politics that night, making it apparently impossible for the comedian to continue. Although Crozza seemed affected and offended by the attack, and nearly walked off the stage, necessitating the intervention of host Fabio Fazio, it is likely that the entire scene was set up so as to boost audience ratings. Nevertheless, it shows how important satire has become in debates about politics, and in society as a whole.

Satire mostly surfs the web, though. One comedian in particular has drawn advantages from this, creating his own, grassroots political movement which communicates and organizes itself primarily on the web, completely knocking over traditional politics: Beppe Grillo. After a career in commercial television and (initially) without any apparent political conviction, in the early 2000s, Grillo began traveling across Italy, performing in theaters and out on the street where he unloaded his anger over ecological issues, warfare and Berlusconi. In 2005, he created, along with Gianroberto Casaleggio, an Internet entrepreneur who eventually became the guru behind Grillo’s “5 star Movement”, the Beppegrillo.it blog. In 2007 and 2008 the duo organized the so-called V-day (where the ‘V’ stands for ‘vaffanculo’, the Italian F-word), an unofficial protest day against traditional politics – from left to right – that took place across Italy. Grillo indeed claims to promote neither left-wing nor right-wing ideologies. (Hence, his recent opening up to the neo-fascist Casa Pound movement in the name of non-partisanship.)

It is mostly on the web that Grillo’s anti-politics take shape. Journalist Giuliano Santoro – author of an interesting study of the Grillo phenomenon (Un grillo qualunque. Il movimento 5 stelle e il populismo digitale nella crisi dei partiti italiani, 2012) – claims that Facebook in particular favors Grillo in that it creates “a bond between the Comedian and the People which makes possible keeping together […] both the propagandist strength of the “logo” that is so typical of the classical relation of consumerism, and the emotive and intimate power of ‘friendship,’ typical of social networks such as Facebook.” Put simply, Facebook allows Grillo to provide people with a sense of identity and belonging to community, a “product” which he can sell without having to gain the consumer’s confidence, considering his notoriety and Facebook’s capacity to create online – and subsequently also real – communities. And what Grillo has to sell, sells well, particularly since the political scandals of 2012. Recent opinion polls indicated that the “5 star Movement” is gaining support and may do well in the upcoming elections, due also to Grillo’s so-called “Tsunami tour” across the peninsula, these past few weeks. Grillo’s returning to old-fashioned street politics and online democracy seems to be paying off.

Yet, there is a big downside to the “5 star Movement,” and to Grillo’s character. His blog, for example, is not really a blog, as Grillo himself admitted: it is mostly a site of communication and propaganda, with no interaction between Grillo and his followers. Nor did the two highly successful V-days originate “from below.” Rather, they were programmed and effectively “sold” by the Casaleggio-Grillo duo. Similarly, Grillo’s political rallies – which are often filmed and put online –are more a one-man show, which, again, do not promote interaction but simply reproduce the stand-up comedian format of television. Accordingly, the people who attend these meetings are spectators rather than demonstrators. His activities, therefore, represent no more than a shift from television to new media. Things apparently change, but are essentially the same.

The obsession with new media reached a climax when it was decided that people could present themselves as candidates for the 5 star Movement primaries in 2012 by uploading videos of themselves to the Internet, where they would receive votes, a form of democracy from below. But this failed horribly as only a very small number of Italians voted, which was to be expected, with Italy still lagging behind in Internet usage.

Grillo’s hierarchical and undemocratic nature, finally, was revealed when he expelled a regional and a communal councilor of the “5 star Movement” in the city of Bologna. One of them had participated in the abovementioned TV program Ballarò, a decision which clashed with Grillo’s number one rule of complete absence from the mainstream media, although he does not always apply that rule to himself. In October 2012, he pulled off a publicity stunt as he swam the Straits of Messina for the launch of his local election campaign in Sicily, where the “5 star Movement” would be very successful.

Clearly, Grillo is afraid of losing control. Or maybe he just doesn’t like it when someone draws attention away from him, as also became clear after a member of the “5 star Movement” was elected mayor of Parma during local elections in 2012, leading to polemics with Grillo who tried to dictate his next moves. The Movement does indeed come across very much as an army of little soldiers, who are dismissed as soon as they step out of line.

So how would they govern Italy, should they win the elections? Of course, they won’t, but if they would, Grillo-Casaleggio would probably dissolve the movement. It is indeed likely that Grillo has no intention to govern, but simply wants to obstruct other parties and bring about some kind of revolution. At a local level, though, the Movement is doing well, which illustrates an increasing call for local activism and participant democracy, due not in the least to a discontent with European politics in these times of crisis and austerity.

Grillo’s success also shows how traditional politics are being affected ever more by the power of satire and democracy via the web. In a way, this is not very surprising, Italy having been run for nearly 20 years by a man many consider a clown, and who has indeed built much of his popularity on the Italians’ (bad) sense of humor.

Yet, to a certain degree, Grillo’s assault on the political caste is a good thing. In a country where traditional political parties have exploited ordinary citizens for far too long, distracting them with semi-nude ballerinas or simply brainwashing them through television, it is time people wake up and smell the coffee. But I’m afraid Grillo is not our man. Although many of the things he says are true, they do no more than feed grudges. Grillo does not offer any real alternative, so that voting for him is not a vote for something but against, and that is never really productive.

In a previous article I argued that Italy is witnessing a sort of end of ideology: Prime Minister Mario Monti’s technical government responds to the economic market alone, while Beppe Grillo’s a-political grassroots movement is winning over disappointed voters. But with the elections in sight, the old political guard is warming up, eager to regain control over the country. Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who has governed the country on and off since 1994, is first in line: after months of tactical holding off, the Cavaliere – as Berlusconi is also called – decided to get back into the game as it became clear that Monti might run for the elections. For some weeks now he has been appearing on every single political and current affairs show on Italian television, primarily on his own TV channels but also on the more critical, independent La7, where he engaged in a highly media hyped duel with a critical journalist Berlusconi managed to have removed from state television back in 2002. On another talk-show, old times again revived as Berlusconi took it out on magistrates who ordered the former PM to pay €36 million ($48 million) a year in a divorce settlement with this ex-wife Veronica Lario: they were accused of being Communists and now also feminists.

The sense of history repeating itself was reflected in a satirical cartoon, where we see Berlusconi’s face on TV as he yells “Happy 1994!” to a terror-stricken viewer. Unless Monti’s newly found political list, “Civic choice,” can put a stop to it. Positioned neither to the left nor to the right, Monti seems to want to do away with traditional polarities in politics for good and give continuity to his technical government, with no one to respond to but the European Union. In fact, when criticized for the rigorous measures taken in order to bring down the government bond spreads, i.e. the spread between Italian benchmark 10 year bonds and safer German Bunds, Monti inflexibly shifted responsibility to bad management by previous governments. In the name of rigor and economic reconstruction, he has thus been able to pull off tricks none of his predecessors could ever have dreamed of getting away with. “Europe wants it” and “I respond to the market,” were Monti’s stoical replies to criticism.

During an international conference on protest cultures in Italy, sociologist Donatella della Porta argued that Monti’s government disguises a “corrupting democracy” and what she coins as “clean corruption,” in that it presents itself as an a-political and neutral government while in reality it is very much immersed in economical politics in the Euro zone (unsurprisingly, Monti is connected to Goldman Sachs). Consequently it has pushed through anti-Constitutional measures that may work in Northern countries such as Germany, but not in Italy. Sponsored (at least until recently) by politics on the left and on the right as well as by mass media, Monti’s government thus follows a neo-liberal program with a highly non-democratic way of decision making, where trust is not sought among citizens but economic markets.

And Monti is not ready to give that up yet. Before his formal decision to participate in the upcoming elections, during the holiday season, he declared that he was “open” to lead the government if he was “asked” to do so. More recently, he invited the Italian center-left to “silence” the more radical, anti-reform elements in its ranks, including the left-wing union organization CGIL. Should the “civic choice” he is offering Italians perhaps be read in ironical sense then? It leads Della Porta to conclude that Monti is more Berlusconian than Berlusconi, whose many trials, gaffes, indecent behavior and political incapacities have made him the official laughing stock of Europe. Monti, on the other hand, is somewhat of a wolf in sheep’s clothing: with the European Union behind him, the serious and polyglot professor is far more respectable than his predecessor. He is indeed the absolute counterpart of “Mr Bunga Bunga,” and even those Italians who didn’t/don’t see through Berlusconi’s game seem to get that: opinion polls reveal that what people most appreciate about Monti is the fact that he has given back “credibility” to the country, a catchy formula which is often repeated in the press, but actually reflects a linguistic media habit where complex issues are reduced to slogans.

In reality, he is not as innocent as he would like us to believe, and I’m not so sure Monti is really doing Italy any good. Recent figures show that youth unemployment has reached 30%, while more and more companies and factories (and not just small and medium enterprises) are closing or being relocated to East-Europe, Asia and Latin-America. Even Fiat, the country’s biggest private-sector employer, is no longer made in Italy. Italians’ purchasing power is staggering, as they are continually faced with tax increases and new taxes such as the much debated council tax, whereas wages – for those who can claim any – fail to grow accordingly. All these problems are arrogantly sidetracked by pulling out the “Europe wants it” story, or by placing Italy on the same level as other European countries, forgetting that Italy seriously lags behind wages – again, for those who (still) have a (paid) job – and civil rights, in comparison with Northern European countries. And what about Monti’s raising of the retirement age? Surely, he could have made exceptions for old age pensions? Contrary to more advanced European countries, in Italy many workers from older and poorer generations have been working since their early teens, and therefore no longer see the end of it. On top of all of this, Monti’s ministers have attempted to defend the measures indulging in offensive, selfish and downright stupid comments, for example about Italian youngsters being “choosy” and pretentious when it comes down to getting a job, completely ignoring the privileged positions of their own children who have clearly been favored by their parents’ connections.

Perhaps Monti’s “Civic Choice” list is an attempt to make amends, and make up for some of the harsh measures he was “forced” to carry out by the European Union? He has in fact announced that he wants to modify the law on council tax and suspend a future tax-increase. But is he to be trusted? Or does Italy risk ending up with something worse than Berlusconi?

Forty three years ago, on 12 December, 1969, a bomb exploded in a crowded bank in Piazza Fontana, Milan, killing seventeen and wounding eighty eight. This bomb was the first in a series of terrorist massacres performed as part of the so-called “strategy of tension,” a political climate of terror orchestrated by a variety of right-wing organizations which aimed at promoting “a turn to an authoritarian type of government.” (see Anna Cento Bull’s study on Italian Neofascism) Other major bomb massacres followed: in 1974, during an anti-fascist demonstration in the Northern city of Brescia and on a train traveling from Florence to Bologna. Bologna was also the stage of another dramatic massacre, when a bomb exploded in the waiting room of the central railway station, on 2 August 1980: eighty-five people died (including a three-year old girl), two hundred were wounded.

Needless to say, the 1970s have a bad reputation, in Italy. Notwithstanding the fact that two neo-fascist terrorists were sentenced for the Bologna massacre, there are still too many unresolved issues and (state) secrets for Italians to make amends with this difficult past. In fact, the so-called “years of lead” are known mostly for the large number of terrorist attacks carried out by both left-wing and right-wing terrorists, as well as other forms of “subversive” violence. These have given shape to a “collective trauma” which the country has failed to come to terms with, in spite of official monuments and annual commemorative rituals that really only contribute to the silencing of memories.

The lack of a commonly shared, official memory of these events might explain why there are so many cultural products that take on the issue of 1970s political violence. A number of movies produced since 2000, for example, have tried to narrate the story of the 1970s, in different ways and with different purposes.

Recently, acclaimed filmmaker Marco Tullio Giordana has attempted to visualize the traumatic memory of the Piazza Fontana massacre in Romanzo di una strage (“Piazza Fontana. The Italian Conspiracy,” 2012). The movie focuses not so much on the massacre itself but on the mysterious death of an anarchist who was arrested after the massacre and interrogated for three days, before he was thrown out of the window of the police headquarters. No legal truth has ever been reached on this incident, which was put off as a tragic accident. Giordana too fails to bring light on it, though he probably didn’t even intend to do so. Using the genres of the detective story and the Italian cop film, he presents a tale of mystery and secrets where the responsibility for the massacre is split between neo-fascists and anarchists, perhaps in an attempt to forge a symbolical reconciliation, which, instead in my judgment, only reopens the wound.

And so the phantom of the 1970s continues to haunt the country, as happened in May 2012, when the chief executive of a leading Italian manufacturer of thermoelectric power plants in Genoa was kneecapped by two men. Mainstream media instantly and dramatically called back memories of (left-wing) terrorism. In fact, the term “years of lead” primarily refers to left-wing terrorists, who used fire arms (“lead” being a metaphor for bullets) rather than bombs, and thus ignores right-wing terrorism which mostly had recourse to bombs, as in Piazza Fontana or Bologna. Of course it is not impossible, in times of crisis and social malaise, for some wannabe Che Guevara to decide to have a go at revolution again. But to talk about the return of the “subversive violence” of the 1970s is senseless. We are in a completely different social and historical context. More importantly, there has been a change of mentality which excludes any possibility of a new terrorist generation: Communism is no longer in, and most young people are more worried about how much money they have in their cell phones than about bringing down capitalism.

In fact, I think that we have been witnessing a sort of end of ideology in Italy: Mario Monti’s “technical” government responds primarily to the economic market, and the highly successful “5 star Movement,” led by comedian Beppe Grillo, explicitly has presented itself as an a-political party which promotes neither left-wing nor right-wing ideologies, but ideas. The traditional left, finally, has had its own demons to fight with: Florence’s mayor Matteo Renzi, a young and highly overestimated politician whose political views seem closer to the neoliberal right than to his own party. In a move not dissimilar to the one with which Silvio Berlusconi managed to win over the Italians in 1994, 37-year old Renzi had a go at the presidential primaries for the Democratic Party last month, promoting vague ideas about generational change and modernization. In doing so, he built strongly on the American model, with his Obama-like blouse with blue tie, tour bus and catchy slogans. Although such attempts to break with the hierarchical and rigid schemes of Italian politics is necessary, Renzi’s incapacity (or reluctance) to take discussions beyond the idea of generational change and engage in more serious political debates make him a highly inappropriate candidate. His success both among disappointed left-wing voters and right-wing voters in search of a new leader is another sign of Italy’s current struggle to define a political identity and outline a future direction, a struggle exemplified also by Berlusconi’s neoliberal right.

Over the past few months, Forza Italia has been desperately seeking a new political leader, up to the point that the party announced its own presidential primaries with some twenty candidates, an unthinkable situation when Berlusconi was still in charge, the party being constructed entirely around his figure. This has further fragmented the party, pushing right-wing voters in the direction of Renzi. However, this may also have been Berlusconi’s strategy – to create the impression that his party, and the country as a whole, cannot do without his leadership.

Berlusconi purports to be needed, motivating his umpteenth change of mind about going back into politics for the good of the country. Not very convincing, though: the day after Mario Monti’s announcement of resignation, the bond spreads rose instantly. The country risks losing the confidence of economic markets which Monti so painfully obtained. He brought the spreads down from nearly 600 in 2011, when Berlusconi resigned, to some 300 before Berlusconi announced his return, earlier this week.  Now, Berlusconi seems to be building his election campaign on a new enemy: the ‘scam’ of the bond spreads.

The world no longer seems to be run by politics or warfare, but predominantly by economic markets. People too are tired of politics and ideology, and ready for a new start. This increases the tendency to talk about difficult memories of political violence in terms of stereotypes and clichés. Interpreting acts of violence like the attack in Genoa in May 2012 as the reproduction or continuation of something that happened 40 years ago reveals a lack of critical analysis, an unwillingness to take responsibility for what’s happening today, and a turning away from problems which have their roots in the present. It’s the “easy way out,” and yet another sign of how the past continues to haunt the country and obstruct the way forward.

Ever since former PM Silvio Berlusconi was forced to make way for Mario Monti’s politics of rigor and sacrifice, Italy has been confronted with major cuts, radical changes in legislation, and a complete reversal of mind-set with regards to life-styles and consumption habits. Whether “Rigor Montis” (from the Latin expression “rigor mortis,” i.e. stiffening caused by death) – as Monti is mockingly called on occasions – will manage to turn Italy into a real European country is still a big question. What I fear will not change easily is the disgraceful condition of women in Italian society. My anxiety was confirmed on a daily basis throughout the summer of 2012, as I followed a contest to elect two new showgirls for a popular show on Channel 5, one of Berlusconi’s TV channels. But what is the big deal with women, boobs and bums in Italy anyway?

Since classical antiquity, female beauty occupies a central place in Italian culture. Not by chance, the nation has often been represented through allegorical female figures. The connection of the “fatherland” with female mother figures or erotic ideals was to encourage men to a “passionate attachment to the nation,”  as Stephen Gundle puts it in his Bellissima: Feminine Beauty and the Idea of Italy. In other words, beauty was used as a form of (political) persuasion. This is also because Italians have never really had a commonly held, national sense of identity. Therefore, special importance was given to factors relating to the informal culture that Italians did share, i.e. the sexual fixation of men on women, the physical element apparently being more important for Latin males.

Berlusconi’s application of the stereotypical image of women as erotic objects of desire for men is part of both his success at home and his negative image abroad. His sexist and degrading jokes – most notably his vulgar remark about Angela Merkel’s bottom – are sadly famous across the world. Homosexuals weren’t spared either, like when he publicly justified his erotic escapades with a young belly dancer by stating that it was better to like girls than to be gay. But if it was only Berlusconi going through a second hormonal phase, it wouldn’t even matter that much. The thing is that many Italians accept and nurture the gender discrimination that has erupted during the Berlusconi governments, and the former PM’s popularity and public support very much relies on his self-proclaimed virility. As if you are not a “real man,” if you do not chase after young, beautiful women. On the contrary, this is presented as natural and normal behavior, as opposed to those that prefer their own sex. Clearly, the impact of the Catholic Church plays a crucial role here, and the documentary Suddenly Last Winter (2007), offers a good picture of the sad situation homosexuals in Italy often find themselves in. On the other hand, Berlusconi’s adultery and preference for under aged girls is not looked upon with a good eye by the Church. Yet, many Italian men do not judge Berlusconi for his immoral (and illegal) dealings with the women around him, but actually admire and probably envy him for his sexual adventures.

A second problem is the way women position themselves in this highly sexist society. Sadly, the majority tries to live up to the image Berlusconi and the media have created of women: young, slim and stupid. But it’s a tough battle as there are strong expectations of women, not only with regards to their physical appearance but also to their place in society (i.e. subdued to men), and it is hard to step out of this rigid scheme and develop an identity of one’s own without being criticized by both sexes.

Of course, there are successful career women, nowadays, but they often end up “imitating” men in order to gain that respect from their male colleagues, which they would otherwise not gain. I’m thinking of Emma Marcegaglia, the former President of the Italian Industrial Association Confindustria, with her male vocabulary and iron lady-like expressivity.

Alternatively, they just play the role of the beautiful but dumb woman who gets what she wants through sexual favors, as in the case of Nicole Minetti, the showgirl-turned-politician who got herself a job as regional councilor in the Lombardy region for Berlusconi’s Freedom Party. During Berlusconi’s most recent sex-scandal, Minetti – an alleged accomplice in the scandal – tried to turn attention away from her trial by appearing in public with a T-shirt that read: “I’m even better without a T-shirt.” More recently, she has made the news by refusing to step down from her position unless she was offered a movie career in Hollywood.

Women often play into the stereotypical and sexist gender division. This was confirmed for me over the summer as I watched the program Veline. The term “veline” was originally a journalese reference to the paper handouts from which journalists read news reports on TV, before it become the common denomination for female television showgirls. This happened after the satirical program Striscia la notizia – a parody of the daily news – started using glamorous showgirls to hand the “veline” over to the TV presenter. A few years ago, an additional program was created where the two Striscia la notizia showgirls – one blond, one dark-haired – would be selected from a wide range of candidates, during the summer break. Every episode contains six candidates who have a few minutes to talk about themselves and show off any talents (mostly singing or dancing), before they do a final, brief dance. The winner is selected by a group of five jury members, mostly fashion journalists or magazine editors, and then goes on to the semi-finals, and so on.

The girls that participate in these shows very strongly fulfill the image of the Berlusconian woman: tall, thin and not too bright, or so it seems. In fact, many of these girls are students, either at school or at university, play classical instruments, and occasionally even have a good working position. Of course, not everyone with a degree is a cultured person. But maybe some of them are also just playing the role of the dumb showgirl? More shockingly, the girl’s parents are often in the audience, and seemingly proud. One father even signed up his daughter for the contest! Becoming (or trying to become) a showgirl is apparently seen as something normal and worthy of praise, and it is a common dream for many young girls to become a velina, and marry a football player. This takes us back to the issue of expectations and social conventions. The girls – called not by their names but by the numbers pinned onto their chest– simply do not realize that they are being treated as livestock. Or do they? For many it is probably their once-in-a-lifetime go at instant fame. Who knows, maybe some TV producer is watching and might just make them a star overnight…

A novelty this year is the many Eastern European girls who are participating in the competition. Some of them are adamant to demonstrate their “Italianness,” their rootedness in their new homeland and their desire to respond to the social and sexual conventions in Italy. Optimistically speaking, they are integrating into society, but I doubt they will be better off here than in at home.

Whether Silvio Berlusconi will make his comeback on the political scene or not therefore doesn’t matter much, for the problem isn’t Berlusconi alone. It’s the mentality of the people that – with the help of the Church – upholds the old-fashioned idea about virile (or just rich) men chasing after slim and stupid women. Women’s emancipation in Italy has yet a long way to go.

In this post, Minas Samatas, Professor of Political Sociology, University of Crete, reports that while the Greeks said no to draconian austerity, no to the two ruling parties, and no to European threats of Greece’s exit from euro zone, “Grexit,” they suggested a new path for a democratically legitimate European Union. -Jeff

Μay 6^th elections in Greece have sent a loud and clear message: the Greek people said no to the draconian austerity measures that have devastated the country in exchange for dead-end bailouts from the troika of European Union (EU), European Central Bank (ECB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF). Designed by IMF and Eurocrats, the bailout “memorandum” does not guarantee a safe path to move Greece away from disaster, even if implemented in full. The austerity policy gives absolute priority for paying creditors at the expense of citizens’ incomes, without any future prospect of development and growth. It promotes sharp reductions in public spending, shattering the healthcare and educational system, and the “Balkanization” of Greece with salaries under 200 Euros comparable to Bulgaria. The Greek electorate rejected this in no uncertain terms.

They also, and very importantly, said no to the two ruling parties, punishing the socialist PASOK and conservative New Democracy (ND). They are responsible for the dramatic economic crisis and signed the disastrous austerity program (memorandum) to protect the foreign creditors and the banks at the expense of the most vulnerable. The outcome of the ballot expressed anger against the corrupted political elite and its policies. It expressed dismay at the lack of punishment of those responsible for the crisis. It was a call for social justice for those who suffer from the crisis. The election results express the fear and despair of the Greek people affected by the memorandum’s inhumane policy, lurching deeper into poverty and despair by sharp salary and pensions cuts, unfair tax increases, 22% unemployment (with 922 people losing their job per day over the past year), leaving no future for the young people but immigration, leading to over 3,000 persons to suicide.

The results:

The conservative New Democracy (ND) came in first place with only 18.9% of the vote, followed by the leftist SYRIZA (16.8%) and by the socialist PASOK (13.2%) in third, followed by the Independent Greeks (10.6%) a splinter party from ND in fourth, and in fifth the Greek Communist party KKE (8.5%), which refuses to cooperate with anyone in government, followed by Golden Dawn, the  extreme right-wing party, 7% (the big shock) in sixth, and the moderate “Democratic Left,” a party which gathered splinter deputies from SYRIZA and PASOK with 6.11 % of the vote in seventh. The Ecologist Greens with 2.93 % and Popular Orthodox Rally (LAOS) (2.9%) failed to enter the parlament, given the 3% minimum entry. Also a group of small, neo-liberal, pro-business parties “the Democratic Alliance” “Drasi,” and “Creativity Again” failed to enter parliament. A record 34.9% of voters abstained.

These results are a clear defeat of the pro-memorandum forces (PASOK and ND), which want to keep Greece in the euro zone (EZ) at any cost and signed the latest loan agreement. They gathered a combined record low of 32 %. This is a rejection of the governing parties since 1974. The political patron client system collapsed because the two parties can no longer accommodate their clients due to the state bankruptcy.

The elections were won by those who are against the memorandum, but want to stay in euro zone, though not on “Merkozy” and IMF austerity terms. Only the Greek Communist Party (KKE) unambiguously calls for Greece’s exit from both EU and EZ.

There are dangers revealed in the results. Austerity and national humiliation by the crude scapegoating of Greeks abroad has caused anger, racism, xenophobia and ultra nationalism. Hence the ballot brought the neo-Nazi “Golden Dawn” in parliament, with 21 out of 300 seats. The first neo-Nazi party to enter a European parliament since WWII won votes throughout the country, even in places devastated by the Nazis. Along with the “Golden Dawn,” the hard-right nationalists “Independent Greeks” entered the parliament, using rabid nationalism and anti-immigrant rhetoric.

The results also suggest new promise. The surprise winner in May 6^th election was SYRIZA, the Coalition of the Radical Left, which easily beat PASOK, sweeping all of the greater Athens region and Thessaloniki. Led by 38 years old Alexis Tsipras, the party is in favor of remaining in the euro zone and the European Union, unlike the Communist Party, but has opposed the loan agreement. SYRIZA’ s charismatic leader succeeded in integrating a broad spectrum of anti-memorandum forces: disillusioned PASOK voters, the indignant protesters in the squares, the young occupiers of schools and government buildings, the organizers of solidarity networks and barter alternative exchange systems. Based on his party’s remarkable surge to 16.78 %, Tsipras has written to EU officials to declare the memorandum deal null and void because a total of 68 % of voters rejected the terms of the EU-IMF bailout.

With seven parties in Parliament and none gaining more than 20%, the elections destroyed the post-dictatorial political system of the past 38 years and opened the way for new political forces, which however are not eager for cooperation, both before the elections and after. Yet, the ballot does not give enough parliamentary seats for a majority government. Therefore, it seems that the deadlock will be resolved by new elections in June 17, which are considered anathema for the established parties and creditors. It seems that democracy is not really welcome in the euro zone, which prefers appointed technocrats, like ex-bankers Monti in Italy and Papademos in pre-election Greece. But the new election suggests the possibility of a new beginning, despite the concerns of the European establishment.

Has Germany and its northern European partners got the loud message of the Greek elections into easing their fiscal demands on Greece or make them push Greece out of the euro zone? Can Greece negotiate the memorandum terms with its creditors without risking its place in EZ? The Troika and especially Chancellor Merkel have blatantly threatened a Greek euro zone exit, “Grexit,” if Greeks don’t accept and implement the painful memorandum.

Although they want the euro, the Greeks voted in defiance of IMF and EZ threats. And I think it is important to recognize that despite scaremongering by the pro–memorandum forces and media, Greece still has negotiating power, because the Greek crisis is a European one. In my judgment, sooner rather than later, foreign lenders will realize they have imposed an unsound policy, transforming Greece into a Weimar type of republic, providing a foretaste of what will happen to Portugal, Spain, Italy, or even France.

Grexit should not be the cost Greeks have to pay to get rid of a rotten political system and get back their dignity and autonomy. The potential new Greek, European and global catastrophe can be averted if the Greek defiance is backed by other “revolting Europeans.” The practical reasonableness of this approach has been underscored by Paul Krugman. Opposition to market dictatorship and the euro zone unilateral austerity in Southern Europe is the way to restore the “European project” with a policy of growth, promoting closer integration through democratic mandate. The Greek election has presented an important new beginning.