Pity poor Italy. Surveying the Western world, I think you would probably be hard-pressed to find a democratic government that is less likely to advance the nation than that presided over by the newly re-elected Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Berlusconi was re-elected earlier this week for a third time at 71 with the assistance of the Lega Nord or the “Northern League”, a minor party whose leader Umberto Bossi reportedly once described African immigrants as bingo-bongos, and has suggested that the state should open fire on the boats of illegal immigrants arriving in Italy. In short, if you thought (like me) our own Howard Government once ran with some fairly distasteful rhetoric on illegal immigration matters, Berlusconi’s latest absurd foray into rabble-rousing will knock your socks off:
Mr Berlusconi, 71, who was elected on Monday to serve a third term as prime minister, said that he would “step up neighbourhood police, who can be an army of good, placing themselves between the Italian people and the army of evil”.
Generally speaking, I tend to view use of the word “evil” in public life in contempt, or in the very least, suspicion. To call a certain group of people evil is to essentially disavow humanism; to assert that they can not be reached through rhyme or reason, their lives (and souls) somehow unsalvageable. It is dehumanising. By summarily dismissing someone as “evil”, we are relieving ourselves of the intellectual burden of understanding why they think or act the way they do, what drives them, and what grievances they feel that they have. Condemnation is obviously much less taxing than empathy, and whenever someone in public life stoops to label someone evil, it is worth pausing to wonder what they are playing at by doing so.
This latest gambit from Berlusconi is abhorrent because it simplifies things so utterly unfairly, and most likely for base political reasons. Many of the illegal immigrants who arrive in Italy merely come in search of a better life, not to rape, pillage and plunder like the Prime Minister’s rhetoric seems to indicate. While I respect the fact that nations do need to regulate and protect their borders, I also strongly feel that the people governments turn away need to be treated with respect and dignity, and the rationale for immigration decisions made entirely substantiated.
Of course, one can hardly expect a billionaire tycoon who owns seemingly half the country to understand or empathise with the plight of the poor and the desperate. There has scarcely been less a man of the people than Berlusconi is for economically troubled Italy. Why the Italian community continues to resurrect him and collectively endorse his offensive rhetoric is quite simply beyond the bounds of my comprehension.
