Beppe Grillo's Blog

Letter from Argentina

Monicelli said that unfortunately, there has never been a revolution in Italy. The Anglo-Americans put an end to fascism, not the Italians. The ECB has turfed out Berlusconi, not the Italians and not even the colluding Opposition made of papier-mâché. The new masters have always substituted the old ones in this country of servants. Perhaps now, at least for once in our History, we will be able to try to liberate ourselves on our own. This letter from Argentina is a message of hope.

“Dear Beppe, dear all,
When I was little, my father told me stories of Italy and I dreamed of Italy. Your marvellous peninsular and the Mediterranean were for us, together with Greece, not just the cradle of Western civilisation: for 40% of the population of Argentina, Italy was the Motherland. We wondered why we had to speak Spanish, a language that we had nothing to do with. Sometimes with great effort, our parents bought Italian magazines like “la Domenica del Corriere” and we children looked at the cartoons without words and tried to understand them, while listening to Iva Zanicchi singing “Fra noi”. In a good chunk of my land the surnames are exactly like yours.
It was luck that meant I came to Italy as a young girl, flying on my own to visit my uncle and aunt and it happened that straight away after that there was the 1976 coup d'état in Argentina. My father decided it was best for me to stay in Italy. And that’s what I did. I went back to Argentina in 1983. My cousin who lived in Baudenasca (Pinerolo), saw how much I was suffering in a crisis of nostalgia, and he said to me: “The generation that emigrates is a generation lost”. Then I made the choice that my home would always be Argentina. Anyway Italy is in my blood and in my heart, so much so that I carry my “Carta d’Identitá” {Italian ID card} in my wallet together with my “Documento Nacional de Identidad”. Thus I have always followed Italian current affairs. Like so many Argentineans I watch “Rai International”. We are the biggest population of Italian origin in a foreign country, even though Italy has often ignored us. I have been astonished to observe many of the happenings in Italy in the last few years like the adventures of “Your Cavaliere”. In Argentina, the ones that you call “poteri forti” {strong powers}, not having managed to get back up off the ground in spite of the “coup” and the dictatorship, slotted themselves in to the Menem government , corrupting it and upsetting it right from the start. They almost succeeded. However, it has to be said that after Menem we managed to react and when, with De La Rua’s “Alianza” government, they wanted to give us the final blow, the population out in the streets forced them to give up and leave. It was not the “poteri forti” that got rid of those who wanted reforms that people are now telling you are necessary and that the government you elected cannot get through because they are “unpopular”. It was us, the citizens out in the streets that got rid of them, even though we were confused because like you they kept us with our backs to the wall pinned there with massive headlines in the newspapers with “Riesgo País” (your “Spread”) that would have taken us all to hell unless we took the poison. The dilemma was the same as has been presented to you and to the Greeks: “If you don’t want to be killed, commit suicide slowly”. The law of “Flexibilisation of work”, approved by the De La Rua government paying the senators, was partially repealed.
The social security contributions (even those) that had been privatised and handed over to the “Pension Funds”, were taken back by the State. Argentina’s GDP, that plummeted in the year of the default (-11% in 2002), straight away started to grow at an average of 8-9% a year as of 2003 and at the end of 2011 it’ll be at 7% in spite of the international crisis. Hundreds of researchers are coming back to Argentina thanks to the government’s “Radici” {roots} programme; the budget for public education (declared a “public good” by law) has gone from 2% of GDP (2001) to 6.5%.
Our countries have said “no” to the “free trade” that the United States wanted. This was the wish of those presidents who enjoy the biggest support of their citizens and who are often sneered at by the “First World”. For example, for the global media, Chavez is a clown. Cristina, a “populist” who only thinks about buying expensive handbags and shoes. Evo Morales, a “savage” and so on. Stereotypes to discredit our governments because we are resisting the “poteri forti”. We are growing

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Comments

Last Friday the mayor of Venice, Mr. Cacciari, was a guest on "L'ultima Parola," a political talk show discussing Italy's political and economic crisis. Inevitably, the bank bailouts came up in the discussion. The issue boggleminded the mayor. The thought that this economic crisis is driven by bankers and financiers, to line their pockets, he considered far-fetched. Talk of banks is a waste of time for Mr.Cacciari. It's a simple-minded idea he used to discuss back when he was a young student and saw bankers as obese, greedy, puffing on fat, expensive cigars bought with the avail of capital and labor. And he is right. The bank idea is old. After all, bankers and financial speculators have been with us since usury was considered a sin and first practiced four or five hundred years ago. Neverthless, in a more sophisticated and complex way, banks generate profits the old fashioned way: they create money from nothing and lend it at a fixed interest rate through time and in roll huge profits and, naturally, power. The kind of power capable of shaping and manipulating the economies of countries across the globe. Of course, I simplified to the bare bones, but that's how bankers get rich on the avail of capital, labor and consumers. How rich do they get? Very rich. To the point where 1% of the people are getting richer and richer and the other 99% impoverishing at a frightening rate. I don't blame the mayor for being skeptical or smirking at all of the above. But if he goes to New York, Chicago, Denver, Oakland, Minneapolis, Toronto, Vancouver and other cities across North America he will see thousands and thousands of people camped outside the banks. They are the people made homeless by banks repossessing their homes. They have given life to a national movement called OCCUPY WALL STREET. Could OCCUPY WALL STREET have anything to do with greedy, fat cat bankers, Mr. Mayor?

Posted by: louis pacella | November 15, 2011 03:32 PM

Just a quick comment on Ms Moricelli long letter.
To write that: "The Anglo-American put an end to Fascism not the Italians" is COMPLETELY FALSE.
It is an insult to many Italian Partisans that did fight Fascism and Nazism to the very end and to the many that die in the process.
If Ms Moricelli is talking about the Nazism and the Germans,I agree completely.
I believe that Fascim ended when Benito and his girfriend were hanged by THE ITALIAN PARTISANS (including 2 cousins of mine) "upsidedown" in Milan.
Obviously Ms Moricelli needs to brush-up on her Italian History!
Sincerely

Anthony P.Zannoni

Posted by: Anthony P.,Zannoni | November 14, 2011 08:20 PM

Great proposal, Peter. Maybe the overwhelmingly rich and corrupted need to be 'trampled by the people'.. there is something deeply poetic in these ruthless psychopaths being 'walked over' by 'the people' they used to step upon to reach whatever they were after.
All the things i've been reading in the foreign press, with Italian journalists pre-cooking our opinion about "le simpatiche canaglie", it's a collective lie that people trie to believe in.. The Stockholm syndrome on a massive scale. Nine out of ten Italians are intrinsically good people with inborn good norms and ethics, and they have been used and abused by a bunch of manipulating psychopaths since Mussolini invented fascism.
I hope Berlusconi's downfall will be the trigger Italians need to transform themselves so they can live up more to their potential and get to the confederal anarcho-syndicalist aristocracy there used to be. Like the Carbonari, which, like humanists should, organized their group efforts when needed and disintegrated when unneeded.
But let's insist for heaven's sake there is not going to be a "third republic" and all that try, let the Italians trample them into the ground and return their glory in the dust.

Posted by: paul | November 14, 2011 04:08 PM

Having ruined the country it is an affront to Italians to listen to Berlusconi now telling everyone how he is needed to save it. But Berluscono is only the tip of the cornetto. Hidden in the cone are politicians, advisors, even mafia bosses who have been ripping off the nation's wealth for years. What is extraordinary is that the people keep voting for this mob.
Italy needs a new Resorgimento. First Berlusconi should be stripped of much of his wealth to return it to the nation and then be strung up like Mussolini. Next is a new order to reduce the cost of the state by removing a number of regions and local authorities in which all politicians have their salaries and pensions reduced to more reasonable levels and face en end to their privileges. The State needs to end corruption by recovering all known mafia assets together with all untaxed offshore funds held by Italians.
This would be a start to a new fairer and more just society. It is a nice idea even if it is just a dream rather than reality

Posted by: peter fieldman | November 14, 2011 09:43 AM