Re: You didn't answer my question. Do you think Berlusconi is a fascist?
HEY, take it easy! That's a question for Yaacov --he's in the thick of it, after all... In my view, Berlusconi is definitely NOT a fascist. The guy is smart, somehow the Italian archetype... His French is almost perfect. As I said before, he could be thought of as Italy's Rupert Murdoch.
Problem is, Berlusconi didn't win on his own and his entourage (Umberto Bossi, Fransesco Fini) is made up of fascist sympathizers, to say the least.... Moreover, Berlusconi's outspoken sympathy for GW Bush doesn't help --today, for a European leader to be pro-American is a cardinal sin.
On the big picture, I'd say that the whole European endeavor is currently exhausted... I mean, we could diagnose the EU's current state as burnout: the rift between France and Germany over the EU's institutional shape, the Irish referendum disavowing the Nice Treaty, the violent disruption of the Goteborg EU summit, etc... My Orwellian scenario for Eurasia could be right, after all: except Germany, all the European heavies are shifting to the right, that is, the mainstream, conservative Right, so far. Spain has a rightist government crawling with Opus Dei stooges; Italy has a (far-)rightist cabinet; and France, although still led by Socialist Jospin, has a right-wing Prez (Chirac) and was overwhelmingly won by the right in the last municipal poll (except for three cities --Paris, Lyon, and Lille)
So, as the European masses feel more and more pushed around by an unaccountable EU bureaucracy, violent protests such as Goteborg's will likely become a recurrent feature, providing EU spin-doctors with yet another useful foil: the far-left/anarchist crowd. Hence a likely alliance between Yank-bashers and pinko-bashers... Now, how does that translate into political shibboleths? Anti-americanism is basically about the fear of a "mongrelized" Europe and the "spoilt" culture from the US; far-left-bashing is all about Europe's own liberal traditions (unionism, egalitarianism, anticlericalism,...). Now, if those two political forces merge together in an attempt to kick-start the EU, we might be in for nasty troubles ahead...
Gus |
