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Rating: I would like to begin my collaboration with the site by discussing politics and contemporary history, through the examination of a person and a book of fundamental importance for Italy.
Fifteen years after the historic entry into the field, the "Berlusconi phenomenon" cannot be underestimated by any of us, simple politics enthusiasts, city councilors, public officials, or mere voting citizens, and potentially electable, in various electoral rounds.
In history books, in a few years, this era will be referred to as the "Berlusconi era", characterized by an overcoming of traditional political alignments and pentapartite fragmentation, by a return to political representation based on charisma, by a close relationship between consensus and tools for creating consensus as a determining factor for adopting certain decisions of collective relevance.
Silvio Berlusconi cannot, therefore, be downgraded to a mere populist caudillo or historical accident, rather embodying one of the symbols of our Republic, as well as the true founder of modern, alternative thought and action, both to the centrist stagnation of the Christian Democrats and its more or less official inheritors (like Casini, Buttiglione, Mastella, Martinazzoli, Castagnetti, Rotondi), and especially to the old-school communism, neo-leftism, and social democracy of the so-called "block" of left parties, while also being complementary to the traditional re-evaluation of nationalistic and corporative demands (represented by the now-defunct National Alliance) or to centrifugal forces based on para-ethnic neofundamentalisms that could have risked leading our country towards a true Balkanization (Northern League).
Berlusconi has been and is, therefore, a democratic counterbalance to the risks stemming from centrist-immobilist, social communist, post-fascist and secessionist policies, whose opposition and mutual actions and reactions could have led the country into phases of uncertainty, crisis, and stalemate, and, thus, the pivot of present-day Italy 1994-2009.
At a time when the Prime Minister's image is being attacked from various sides, based on events that for now do not seem to affect the public role of Forza Italia's founder and have not yet gained autonomous significance in the criminal realm through an indictment by the Magistrature, it might be worth reading for the first time, or, as in my case, re-reading this important programmatic text, published independently and without public contributions (Mondadori) in the year 2000, in which Berlusconi himself clearly and concisely sets out the foundations and main lines of his "vision" and political strategy for the short, medium, and long term, breaking with tradition and with a pre-modern vision of the State.
The style of the book is very conversational, being speeches used during the numerous electoral rallies held by Berlusconi himself in anticipation of the decisive 2001 elections, in which the center-left coalition was heavily defeated.
Here we find the emotional and rational pillars of Berlusconi’s work: freedom of private initiative and renewed centrality of the individual in contrast to the planned economy and the hypertrophic presence of the State in private life typical of the block of thought of Catholic-centrist and social-communist origin, to which variedly the original ideological luggage of the right and Northern League, both of social-populist origin, were connected; dream and hope contrasted with the politics of prohibitions and conditions, where an excess of balancing and tactics leads to the stasis of consciousnesses and activities; enthusiasm and voluntarism contrasted with the politics of opposing blocks mutually controlled, typical especially of the first republic and historical cooperationism; a sincere attention to money and wealth endowments as a starting point from which the individual can form themselves, opposed to an idea of money as a diabolical means typical of the Catholic-communist, socialist tradition and the same right-wing factions, placing at the center the idea that only through money can activities be realized and new wealth produced for the benefit of the entire population and not just a few.
These pages, therefore, tell us why Berlusconi is the symbol of the majority of Italians, who vote for him enthusiastically at each electoral round, including the recent one, and above all, they tell us why Italians identify with him.
With this, it is not intended to deny that Berlusconi also has limits, clearly evident, for example, in an excessive joviality and trust in his collaborators, not always faithful to the realization of his programs (the cases of Dini, Casini, and even Fini seem indicative of this), or again in an exaggerated trust towards others, exposing himself to more or less extortive forms as those emerged in the framework of the so-called Noemigate, all expressive of his underlying ingenuity and simplicity, for which in reality Berlusconi is the only politician to "be as he appears" and to never dissimulate his nature with good intentions or forms of hypocritical well-meaning.
But even these defects contribute to the uniqueness of a man who has redefined, more for good than ill, the Italian identity, urging Italy itself to recognize itself in him.
To be read without prejudices and ready-made answers, with balance and attention.
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