[Continues from Part 1] 

…Ok, I feel a lot better after that Margherita, and the ‘espresso’ was nice too…

Yeah. Postmodern irony-schmirony…

So, anyway, the first article: “Whosoever acquires, receives or hides anything involved in any offence or otherwise becomes involved in making others buy, receive or conceal [such things] in order to accrue a profit to themselves or to others shall be punished with imprisonment from two to eight years.” This is Article 648: it’s the definition of ‘receiving stolen goods’. It defines as a crime the act of deriving an advantage – and not just financially – from receiving the proceeds of a crime. And while Berlusconi certainly benefited politically from Marrazzo’s resignation, he would have benefited even more had Marrazzo bough back the video: the ‘good cops’’ investigation is already under way, so Marrazzo was already politically dead in the water, but if the only hard evidence of the crime – the video – disappeared, it would be a lot harder to prove the involvement of Berlusconi or of anyone else connected to him.

The second is Article 361: “Any public officer who fails to report or delays in reporting to judicial authorities […] an offence of which they have come to know in the course of exercising or because of their office, commits an offense punishable by a fine of 30 euros to 516 euros. The punishment is imprisonment up to one year if the offender is a public officer or a police officer who gained knowledge of an offence they were under an obligation to report”. And who, according to Italian law, is a ‘public officer’? Public officers are those who exercise a public function, whether it be legislative, judicial, executive or administrative. Such as the Prime Minister.

Hold on a second, are you saying Berlusconi – the Prime Minister! – failed to report a crime and handled stolen goods?

Well, that’s up to the investigation to determine, but there certainly seems to be plenty of evidence – Berlusconi’s own admission in that book, for example. …Oh, and don’t forget the fact that he was also ‘aiding and abetting’ many of others – editors, publishers, agents – who were committing the same crimes, if he knew about them doing so (his daughter Marina, for example).

I can’t believe my ears! …This must be all over the papers in Italy!

Yes, it is, actually.

…Ah-ha! So you see, for all your cynicism, at least the media’s doing its job! The nobility of this hallowed land is saved!

Well, I wouldn’t put it that way, exactly.

What do you mean?

Most of the media is reporting the Marrazzo story, but only its ‘tabloid’ elements: the transsexual, the cocaine, and the Governor.

Nothing about stolen goods?

Nope.

…reporting crimes then?

Nada.

Nothing at all?

Nix.

Yikes.

Yep.

I think you may have a point.

So, Socratic dialogue over, what do we learn from all this, and more importantly what questions should we ask?

First of all, we learn that there are a group of corrupt police officers commit a series of crimes, and even more importantly that there is a string of people at the highest levels of Italian media and politics who partake in several activities which criminal law defines as offences. This has gone nearly entirely unreported even in the Western media hostile to Berlusconi (e.g. Rupert Murdoch’s).

Second, we learn about the importance of a free and independent media. What was the Italian media doing? Was it asking hard questions about criminal law or political responsibility? Not at all: it focused on a sex scandal, while the sexual part of it was probably the least important dimension. Most of this media is owned by Berlusconi’s family and by those – like Angelucci’s Rizzoli group – who share similar interests. But the fact of the matter that is that the challenge to press freedom is not limited to the Right: even a casual perusal of press freedom rankings (Reporters Without Borders or Freedom House) shows that rankings get worse under Centre-Left governments too. This will provide a clue about the bipartisan nature of Italian political troubles, more of which in later posts.

Third, the question we must ask but which again mainstream media coverage doesn’t provide answers to: how is this possible? It’s possible because Italy’s public life works in a certain way: there are media monopolies; a conflict of interest between Berlusconi as editor and Berlusconi as Prime Minister; and that there is a widely-shared culture of disregarding the law. Digging a little deeper into this incident and the media oligopoly and its political connections which lay behind it gives us one piece of the jigsaw puzzle: media control.

Finally, perhaps the most worrying dimension is that this is a pretty straightforward affair by the standards of Italian politics: it’s ‘just’ a question of media and politics, and there are no connections with organized crime, or with the secret services, or terrorism, or secret Masonic lodges, all of which are staples of Italian post-War politics.

That’s it for my first post. But in the near future, there’s going to be news on various trials involving Berlusconi relating to corruption and association with the Mafia, so we’ll start to unravel the complex web of connections between politics, business, and mafia, of corruption, blackmail and violence which is at the heart of Italian public life.

So much for pizza politics.

Comments (3)

Fetira for all?
written by Andrea Teti , November 05, 2009

Yep! That's precisely what I always keep going on about, in class and in research :-)) I think that, for all the talk about Orientalism, it's a thoroughly under-estimated aspect, this question of analogies rather than differences.

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Fine fines.
written by Velina , November 05, 2009

I also quite like the legal definition of "a fine of 30 euros to 516 euros". So, if I had commited an offence worth a fine of 517 euros, I wouldnt go to jail? )

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From Pizza to Shawerma
written by aidoog , November 04, 2009

Thank you for a very enjoyable read (especially the Socratic dialogue)! First thing I thought of while reading the first part, the questions you ask, was how the exact same questions apply to the authoritarian regimes of the Middle East, where presidents can rule longer than kings. While Huntington keeps insisting on a ‘clash of civilizations’ or as you label it, ‘pizza politics assumption’, the similarities that still exist today between Italy and other countries proves once again that Edward Said is right, ‘West’ and ‘East’ are so similar…even when it comes to corruption and political power.

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