Obama, Berlusconi and the suntanned

Some Italian political leaders irrationally analyze US political facts with the intention of making some sort of profit. The current “Obamania” that is pervading the political debate in Italy is largely consequence of this attitude.

When no one in Italy knew or had ever heard of Obama, the most politically incorrect Italian newspaper, Il Foglio (directed by Giuliano Ferrara and sponsored by the wife of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi), announced on December 4, 2004, that the Senator from Illinois would be the next President of the USA. No doubt about it, Obama is the first of his class. There was a sense of predestinate inevitability about it.

The Italian politicians discovered Obama

Sometime after that article was written, the Italian intellectuals and some politicians claim to have “discovered” him. In particular the former mayor of Roma, Walter Veltroni, who decided to become the Obama of Italy. He insinuated to the Italian public that he is very knowledgeable on Obama and his policies. It doesn’t matter if Veltroni was a leader of the Italian communist party. Veltroni is now a prominent leader of a newly invented party named, ironically, Partito Democratico.

This party is a product of the end of the cold war. Italy had the stronger Western European communist party after the defeat of the USSR, therefore causing the political system to change. The change was determined by both, the collapse of the USSR and the consequent necessity of the Italian communist party to change. The leaders and the party had to change to survive.

At the end of this process a new party had been formed in Italy, built by the post-communist leaders with the help of the leftist components of the Christian Democratic Party. Both of them had a long-standing tradition of anti-Americanism. They were opponents to the American way of life for different reasons, but they were also against American foreign policy, in particular toward the Arab Nations and the Middle East.

Silvio Berlusconi Racism and his Background

The Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi, defined as “pop opera” by Ferrara, has landed the front page of many Italian newspapers and some “honorable mentions” in International newspapers with his congratulations address to President Elect Obama. Of course, the focus is on when he said that the President Elect is “young, handsome and suntanned”.

There is no doubt that it was a tactless remark. Berlusconi is not a professional politician. His background is different with respect to the other Italian politicians. He is a businessman. He has not been in a political party for all of his life and he did not attend the party political school like the majority of the leaders of the opposition. He has a great capacity to communicate with the Italian people, in particular with the middle class, but less with the intellectuals.

Intellectuals and journalists suddenly stated their opinions: that was a racist comment because Berlusconi focused the attention on the color of Obama’s skin. It started a clamor amongst the Italian people that wanted to the world to know that they did not share his opinion. The New York Times forum was filled with Italians apologizing for this. Someone also created a new website to further clarify that Berlusconi was not speaking in their name.

Obama in some way has become a part of the political struggle in Italy, being indirectly used in the battle against the First Minister.

The Italian Newspapers and the President Elect

The headlines of the newspapers that have most criticized Berlusconi’s comment exposes this Italian way to make instrumental use of Obama. The headlines written before directly referred to the color of his skin. They well describe the duplicity to judge facts according to who is speaking, typical of some intellectuals.

Il Manifesto (11/05/2008), a communist newspaper’s headline read, “Guess Who's Coming to Dinner”; Il Riformista (11/05/2008), the director of which is a former representative of the Democratic Party, titled “L’uomo Nero”, which means “The Black Man” but in Italy this phrase is used to scare the kids when they are making too much noise. Liberazione (11/06/2008), the official newspaper of the Communist party’s headline read “Black Power”.

Nobody said anything about the deep meaning behind these headlines, or about the anthropologic racism by whom Italians should be afflicted in the opinion of the columnists of those newspapers.

Furthermore Lidia Ravera, an intellectual, a novel writer, a columnist of l’Unità, the historical newspaper owned by the Italian communist party, a declared feminist wrote that Condoleezza Rice is a monkey-woman and a B.M.W., black-middle aged-woman (l’Unità 11/25/04). Of course this was not interpreted as racism or stupidity, but just as strong criticism of US foreign policy.

The most ironic of all of this is the final. After days of discussion about the impolite Italian Prime Minister, Italians discovered who was truly the first to describe President Obama as being “suntanned.” It was the Washington correspondent of the newspaper La Repubblica that endorsed Walter Veltroni in the last election.