If you put together the worst, most right-wing and xenophobic aspects of the Daily Mail, The Sun and the Daily Express you might get an idea of what kind of newspaper the Berlusconi-owned Il Giornale is in Italy. Only you need to add a number of journalists that can barely make sense and write a grammatically correct sentence and you get the picture.
Il Giornale's editor Alessandro Sallusti today has written article that even by his low-standards can only be considered disgraceful. The title says it all, and really doesn't need much comment: Blame It On The Fat Ar**.
The article refers to the news published by the WSJ which claims that Angela Merkel has pushed Italian President Giorgio Napolitano to ouster the dwarf Silvi Berlusconi. Ms. Merkel is called Fat Ar** following a wiretapped phone call in which the dwarf Berlusconi referred to her as such.
The article is symptomatic of the normal behaviour of Berlusconi's owned media. If you are against him, every weapon to denigrate you is legitimated, nevermind if politicians should be judged by the size of their brain rather than the size of their butt.
Il Giornale made sure to chose a picture of Ms Merkel at her worst
So many things happened in 2011, it's hard to remember them all. The always helpful Google has posted the Zeitgeist 2011: Year In Review video, to remember all the bad (Japan Earthquacke, Brasil Floods, Various Deaths - Amy, Steve Jobs, Liz Taylor, etc.) and good (Southern Sudan Independence, Arab Spring, Occupy Movement, etc) things happened this year:
One thing is missing from this video, Berlusconi's resignation as Italian Prime Minister. Here's a video of that historical night:
Last week the Corruption Perception Index 2011 has been revealed. This is the definition from taken from the official website:
The CPI ranks countries/territories based on how corrupt their public sector is perceived to be. It is a composite index, a combination of polls, drawing on corruption-related data collected by a variety of reputable institutions. The CPI reflects the views of observers from around the world, including experts living and working in the countries/territories evaluated.
Italy is pretty much half way through the index, at number 69, one of the lowest for European countries and the lowest among G8 countries, which is really not surprising considering that the former prime minister is one of the most corrupted politicians in modern history and the country is based on a system of cronyism.
I started this blog, mainly because I felt the need to report in English some news regarding Italy, and also because as an Italian living abroad I get the chance to see a different point of view on my country. But as a foreigner living in the UK for more than four years now, I have also learnt to observe this country, and hopefully understand a bit of its culture.
One thing that would impress most foreigners coming to the UK - at least somebody coming from a place like Italy, where the number of foreigners is relatively low - it's how cosmopolitan this country is. London and pretty much every medium/large UK city are a melting pot of differente ethnicities, nationalities and cultures that, at first sight, peacefully coexist together.
This was also one of the subjects of my masters dissertation. Through interviews with groups of foreigner students and British students, I wanted to see how differently the foreigners would see this society as opposed to the locals. What I found was that the newer people are to this country, the more they think racism is not an issue. The more you live here, the more you think racism is a pretty big issue. Most of the British students I interviewed came from non-white ethnicities and they all felt they experienced some kind of racism at some point in their life.
The reason I am talking about this, is an awful video that went viral on YouTube yesterday. Titled "My Tram Experience" the video shows a British woman (Emma West) with a baby on her lap, racially abusing people on the tram, ranting about her country been taken over by black and polish people.
The video is truly appealing and generated disgust among most people, but looking at a bit of stats, it has so fare gained nearly 3.8 million views on YouTube; 46,952 dislikes and 13,603 likes. Now I wonder, what all these likes mean? Do they mean that 22% of the people that expressed an opinion on the video, agree with the woman? The number seems a bit high, but I wouldn't be too surprised if it represented a realistic percentage of xenophobes in this country.
At times of recession, when day in day out the papers are talking about job losses and crisis, it's easy to blame the lack of jobs on the foreigners.
After studying in this country and finding a job, I remember been happy to have a job where my Italian and language skills in general were a requirement, in that way I didn't feel like I was taking one of those "British jobs for British people" that are often promoted by a certain type of media.
I think this country has come a long way in accepting minorities, and in that it's far more advanced than many other European countries (including Italy), but at the same time, I feel that behind the surface there is still lots of hate and intolerance.
If Mario Monti has been compared to Super Mario, the dwarf Silvio Berlusconi can easily be compared to Pinocchio.
I'm not just talking about the lies, but about that thing on his head his hair. Berlusconi seems to have been inspired by the famous puppet for his latest hairdo.
In the past few weeks different parts of Italy, from the north to the south and Sicily have been affected by extreme weather conditions. People have lost their houses, their possessions and even their lives. I guess it doesn't really make a big news, we are not at Tsunami levels, and people are busy thinking about the economic situation, the X-Factor or the Christmas shopping, but sometimes it's good to stop for a moment and think that everything we have now, could be gone tomorrow.
