Berlusconism without Berlusconi

Silvio Berlusconi and Gianfranco Fini

The London Review of Books blog published an article we wrote to dispel some dangerously hopeful fantasies on Berlusconi's decline.

People ask us: Is this the end for Berlusconi? And we answer: No, it isn't. Not necessarily. And even if it were, it wouldn't be the end of Berlusconism as a fetishistic mass cult, an ideological current in Italian life and a certain way of using the media.

The most likely outcome is Berlusconism without Berlusconi. His former allies who are strong-arming him into resigning as prime minister are preparing a continuation of Berlusconism by other means. Gianfranco Fini, the former neo-fascist who is now being idolised even by some left-wing amnesiacs, is yet another Man of Destiny pretending to have come to town this morning. People seem to forget that Fini is still the man who was in alliance with Berlusconi for 16 years; who took advantage of Berlusconi's conflict of interests; who voted for every shameful bill on employment, the environment, the judiciary and so on; who supported the police in every case of brutality against demonstrators, strikers or prison inmates; and who personally devised two very repressive pieces of legislation: the Bossi-Fini Act on immigration and the Fini-Giovanardi Act on drugs. In Italy, amnesia rules.

Read the rest on the LRB blog.