Communism, Fascism or Berlusca-ism?

Maturity test

It’s one of those stories guaranteed to divide people, Diary readers included.

The setting is Italy. The subject: a high school exam paper in history.

A report in the New York Times details the content of the maturita (maturity) exam that will be taken by hundreds of thousands of high school seniors this month. The exam is the final step to graduation.

Unfortunately for them, the exam paper has been bathed in controversy. Many people are accusing Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of having a direct hand in penning the questions.

In a change to the usual way of things – Marxist professors demanding anti-capitalist essays – there are hints of a right-wing bias to the exam. A bias that just happens to reflect the views of the billionaire prime minister.

The subject is “terror and political repression in the totalitarian systems” of the 20th century, a subject Italy knows all about. In the words of the NYT, here lies the controversy: “Communism is blamed for the executions of about 100 million people, five times greater than the killings attributed in the exam to Nazism.”

Now, whether or not you believe or accept this to be true, many Italians are unhappy at this apparent revisionism. Says the NYT, “In the wording of the topic, it takes one sentence to denigrate fascism. It takes four to vilify communism.”

Neapolitan high school teacher Giuseppe Costantino is quoted thus: “I teach my students that of course communism must be seen in a negative light, but the goal of Nazism was to kill people, and the goal of communism was to unite them.”

OK. Centre-left members of Parliament are getting worked up about the centre-right bias that is creeping into education since the government came to power. Berlusconi stands accused of “trying to mould young minds.” The prime minister has long been an outspoken critic of all things left-wing. The NYT points out that he owns the publishing house Mondadori, which published The Black Book of Communism a work that had little sympathy with the ideology’s goal to unite people in the gulags. Hundreds of copies were once distributed at a Berlusconi rally. It is mentioned and quoted in the exam paper.

Concern about the exam is so high that education minister Letizia Moratti is due in Parliament next week.

Students can choose from “more than half a dozen” essay questions. So why not avoid Silvio’s teaser?

Well, therein lie further problems. Another of the questions asks about the importance of water to agriculture and development. It quotes remarks on the issue by “the president of the council of ministers” – Berlusconi.

The suspicion is that there are “right” and “wrong” answers to these questions, judged by the most powerful man in the land.

It sounds almost Stalin-esque!

State of the union

It’s been quite a week for Berlusconi and his countrymen.

Italy took over the rotating presidency of the EU. Even when Silvio isn’t comparing socialist German MEP’s to Nazi commandants, the sight of Berlusconi as EU president left a bitter taste in many centre-leftist mouths across Europe.

(BBC Monitoring cast its eyes over the European press and is the source for this item).

Hours before Silvio was sworn in, his controversial new immunity law led to the suspension of his trial on charges of bribery and corruption in a Milan court. Berlusconi cannot now be convicted during his spell as EU president.

“This is now our president,” said the Berliner Zeitung, “a man whose hand we would not willingly shake.”

France’s Liberation called Berlusconi a “danger to Europe”.

The Italian prime minister is, of course, pro-American, and a close ally of President Bush. This puts him in marked contrast to many on the European continent. He has also called for Turkey, Russia and Israel to be invited into the EU.

Yikes! said To Vima the Greek daily, “Europe is trembling at the thought of Silvio.”

So is Romano Prodi, president of the European Commission. He once compared Berlusconi to Goebbels.

For his part, Silvio blamed the “leftist” Italian press for exporting and inspiring this Europe-wide criticism of him.

But the Italian press is not so impressed by the anti-Italian noises coming from its allies. La Repubblica got angry with Germany’s Der Spiegel which ran a cover with a picture of Berlusconi under the headline “The Godfather”. This they judged “an offence to Italy”, typical of the magazine’s “long-running and undeniable anti-Italian prejudice”. Corriere della Sera condemned the “mistrust and sarcasm” in foreign coverage of the issue.

The BBC quotes Jan Zielonka of the European University Institute: “How can you say to the accession countries: you must converge, you must reform your judicial systems, you must defend press freedom, when a country like Italy is doing as it wishes?”

Meanwhile, the EU is set to agree on its new constitution, building a united continent free from corruption.

(Sources: BBC Monitoring, BBC News Online)

Putting the boot in

Of course, as if court cases and foreign sniping weren’t enough to be getting on with, Berlusconi also faces the possibility of a government collapse.

Umberto Bossi, boss of the far-right Northern League, has threatened to pull his troops out of the government in protest at Berlusconi’s unwillingness to shoot immigrant boat people who are surrounding the boot of Italy.

The issue is currently dividing the country. Bossi wants the country more divided – particularly between North and South.

Here’s where Muammar Gaddafi comes in. The Italian government blames Libya, through which many of the immigrants are travelling. Berlusconi claimed this week to be close to an agreement with Libya which would allow Italian troops to patrol Libyan ports and root out the illegal immigrants.

Libya said it had no knowledge of any deal, and was darned if it was going to let Italian soldiers on its soil again.

The news came as Italian football club Perugia unveiled their new signing: Saadi Gaddafi, son of the Libyan big cheese (previously reported by the Diary). Saadi, part-owner of Juventus, signed a two year contract, saying, “The work in front of me isn’t easy ... [But] in Africa, we play some games that are maybe even tougher than the ones in Italy.”

Spoken like a true Gaddafi!

Back in Libya, Robert Mugabe, “President” of Zimbabwe, wrapped up an oil summit with Muammar Gadafi.

Mugabe wanted a new deal to resume Libyan oil supplies. It was not clear he got what he wanted.

We did, however, get the statement of the week. The idea of Mugabe and Gaddafi discussing “ways of strengthening peace and stability in Africa” is worth a laugh or two.

If Mugabe doesn’t get his oil from Gaddafi, there is another option: France. The Zimbabwe Independent reports that the government has approached the French oil company TotalFinaElf. Again, nothing has been confirmed. But the Diary suspects France would do anything to annoy Britain.

Earth calling Bush

The United States on the other hand ...

Anger mounted this week after Zimbabwe’s state-controlled Herald newspaper called Secretary of State Colin Powell an “Uncle Tom” who “dances to the tune of his masters”.

The US embassy in Harare registered its “profound disgust at the use of racial slurs”.

President Bush will visit Africa at the end of this week, stopping at South Africa, Botswana, Uganda, Niger and Senegal.

The US-Africa business summit wrapped up in Washington this last week with keynote addresses from Powell and Bush, who said “Our nation has more than a set of interests; I believe we have a calling”.

The first calling may be to Liberia. Prompted by a statement from UN Secretary General Kofi Annan welcoming US participation in a multilateral force, the US is considering a military mission to the West African country.

The last thing the White House wants are pictures of Liberia’s humanitarian crisis dominating the news while Bush is in Africa.

In Monrovia, as rebels and government forces clash (and terrify the population), Liberians have been demonstrating outside the US embassy, threatening hunger strikes until the US intervenes (something Harun Hassan called for on openDemocracy recently).

Damned if you do. Damned if you don’t.

But can America exorcise the ghost of Somalia? Bush has already called on the Liberian leader Charles Taylor to pack his bags with all the palace valuables and split.

“The President wants to work with the international community,” White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said, surprising everyone.

But does the international community still want to work with the president? It emerged this week that Nelson Mandela, “the people’s president”, will conveniently be out of the country when Bush visits South Africa later this month. Mandela said recently that Bush is incapable of thinking properly, so perhaps his absence from Dubya’s visit was to be expected.

South Africa may also be one of the countries barred from US military aid, after Washington declared almost fifty countries ineligible this week. Their crime? Supporting the International Criminal Court (ICC).

As for Botswana, Dubya can expect trouble. President Festus Mogae was forced to deny reports this week that five al-Qaida suspects arrested by the CIA in Malawi had been flown to his country.

Protestors in Malawi have taken to the streets in support of al-Qaida, chanting “Allahu Akbar!”

Police opened fire on the protestors. Mogae is trying to prevent a similar outburst in Botswana.

Add Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army into the mix, and Bush has a lot on his plate.

No wonder the US is planning to build an unmanned hypersonic bomber capable of striking any target in the world within two hours.

Pre-emption is here to stay.

(Sources: allAfrica.com, New York Times, BBC Online)

Quotes of the week

“Senator Strom Thurmond led an extraordinary life. He served his country as senator, governor and state legislator. I saw first hand the tremendous love he had for his constituents, and the admiration the people of South Carolina had for him.”
President George W. Bush on Strom Thurmond, who died this week age 100. For the record, Thurmond ran for president on a segregationist ticket in 1948, when he had this to say: “I want to tell you there’s not enough troops in the Army to force the Southern people to break down segregation and admit the Negro race into our theatres, into our swimming pools, into our homes and into our churches.”
Read more here and here.

“Our beaches are full, our hotels are full. Our fishing nets are full ... but not of drowned immigrants like the papers say.”
Bruno Siragusa, Mayor of Lampedusa and a member of Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party, looking on the bright side.

“Enough killing, enough tragedy, enough pain – let’s move to the future.”
Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian Prime Minister

“When rights and traditions collide, traditions must change.”
Anna Diamantopoulou, EU commissioner for employment and social affairs, speaking at the “Roma in an Expanding Europe” conference.

“Return rule to the people.”
The chants of protestors in Hong Kong, opposed to a new anti-subversion law which outlaws criticism of the Beijing authority and access to “subversive” material.

url of the week

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Contact the Diary Editor: dominic.hilton@openDemocracy.net