The pig-stay behind the curtain

I've written before about the sad state of Italy. From yesterday's Corriere della Sera now comes a really good article by journalist and commentator Beppe Severgnini on Italy's recent corruption scandals that have hit the broadcasting world and the son of Italy's last king (my translation):

"I never thought I could simultaneously agree with Flavio Briatore (managing director of the Renault Formula One team, ed.) and Piero Ostellino (journalist for the Corriere della Sera, ed.): but this is exactly what happened. Both point to the cruelty of splashing on the front page of newspapers the transcripts of phone-tappings, which publicly display - together with alleged mis-doings - the private lives of many people. I would also add the following: without phone-tapping, we'd still have Fazio running the Bank of Italy, the kids who didn't play fair would now have enough cash to buy a house in the centre of town, and the World Cup would be followed by another competition, this time based on bribery and not tackling skills. And as for Mr Savoy (Victor Emmanuel, heir to the Italian throne, ed.): if his intent was to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the June 1946 referendum, which turned Italy into a Republic, he needn't have bothered. Anyway, thanks: now we know what we avoided.

As I was saying, transcripts of tapped phone conversations published on the press are somewhat barbaric, and boundaries have to be set - distinguishing between real criminals and simple girls who are lewinskying behind the cameras. But they have served an important purpose: they have crushed our last illusions. We are great country, member of the G8, founder of the EU, yet we have learnt how to put up with Second World practices. Recent scandals would probably go unnoticed somewhere in the Caucasus. But Milan is a stone-throw from Madrid, Munich, Manchester and Marseilles. We have to work and live with the Spaniards, the Germans, the British, the French. They are our colleagues, our friends and our competitors. They have all the right to ask us: "Have you gone mad?". And we have a duty to give them an answer.

I have no idea what we could tell them. Except, that it's shocking: wherever you lift a curtain, you find a pig-stay. Politics, banking, cycling, football, television, telecoms, the health system, public bodies, local administrations. Give it a while and I bet you they'll uncover something dirty in the Revenue Offices, in a couple of highly-skilled professional categories and in the universities. Whoever is caught will squeal like a pig, while everyone else will shut up and keep a low profile, until things calm down and can carry on as they always have.

Let's take the television world, which these days is being made to pay for the voyerism we've been accustomed to. The most embarassing statement is not the one in which Salvatore Sottile, spokesman for the [former] Minister of Foreign Affairs (Gianfranco Fini, ed.), gave the honorary title of "beautiful sow" (to Maria Monsa', a TV showgirl, ed.), but the one in which he explained how to reward these young girls: "One on satellite programming, the other one on Uno Mattina Estate (an early morning programme on Italy's state television RAI, ed.)". I understand the bitterness of Sottile: he knows he's just the latest in a long series of politicians, spokesmen and assistants who've pronounced these words. But what I'd like to ask him is this: do you think it's normal? Do you think this is how things are done in the rest of Europe? Why doesn't your party - all political parties, in fact, up to Rifondazione (the neo-Communist party, ed.) - just leave RAI alone, once and for all? So there'd be no temptations.

I once wrote on this column that the state television is the "brothel of Italian politics". I meant this in an allegorical sense (I was thinking about how it pleased egos, how it provided a backdrop to the pleasures of political power), but now I realise I should have meant it in a literal sense. A former RAI board member told me he once asked - upon joining the broadcasting network - the reason for all those scantily-clad women on air after midnight, most of whom were illiterate and completely unknown. He was greeted by a riot. The old boys in charge of programming took arms in defence of the sluts: they described them as "fringe benefits".

This is where we're at, ladies and gentlemen: not just on television. We either change the way we think, or else we change the rules of the game. The latter is perhaps the easiest option. Why bother voting for the referendum on 25-26 June? Let's just scrap the whole Constitution, reinstate Victor Emmanuel on Italy's throne, and ask him to entertain us. I am sure he'd be good at it".