Newsgroup: it.media.tv
Titolo: Dress properly and don't pay taxes (Guardian/Tobias Jones ecc...)

* Una recensione del libro: "The Dark Heart of Italy" by Tobias Jones - (in
inglese purtroppo)
Saturday January 11, 2003
The Guardian
DRESS PROPERLY AND DON'T PAY TAXES
John Foot takes the via storia to unravel the alarming mixture of wealth,
corruption and xenophobia that Italians confront under Berlusconi's rule in
Tobias Jones's The Dark Heart of Italy
Last month Italy's government announced what it called a "condono fiscale" -
a tax amnesty. Anybody who had not paid their taxes, not purchased a TV
licence or even illegally put up political posters could pay a small fine
and "re-enter" the legal world of fiscal Italy. There were to be no arrests,
no accusations, no shame. It had paid not to pay. Tax evaders were being
rewarded for their efforts. As one centre-left politician put it, only a
"cretin" would pay all their taxes on time. None of this is surprising in
the banana republic which Italy has now become.
Last autumn, Silvio Berlusconi's lawyer, Cesare Previti, stood up in a
Milanese court on corruption charges. In perhaps the most talked-about
Italian court case - a trial that the government has successfully changed
the law to block - Previti was to testify for the first time. The
prosecution alleges that in the 1980s he paid large sums of money on behalf
of Berlusconi, Italy's prime minister, to corrupt judges in Rome and in
particular to Renato Squillante.
Previti's defence was an interesting one. Yes, he had kept large amounts of
money in a foreign bank account. No, he had not declared that money to the
Italian inland revenue. But no, he had not used that money to corrupt
Squillante. He simply wanted to evade paying tax. Squillante's defence was
exactly the same. Berlusconi's lawyer was a massive, self-acknowledged
tax-dodger and also a man whom Berlusconi had tried to appoint as minister
of justice.
So, did Previti resign as a parliamentarian? No. Was he arrested for tax
evasion? No. Nothing happened, apart from the weak and little-publicised
promise from a junior minister (and ally of Previti) to "look into the
case". The deep, dark, moral emptiness at the core of Italy is all here,
laid bare in Tobias Jones's brilliant and funny account of a country now
under the control of one all-powerful ruler.
Jones tells his tale as part-autobiography, part history, part politicial
dissection. He is intensely interested in the language of Italy, the words
used to describe things, people and above all everyday activity. This love
for the language and its translation comes over on every page of The Dark
Heart of Italy. In the first chapter, Jones muses that "the words history
and story are the same in Italian (storia). Unless it's defined, or given a
definite article, storia could be a talk from true life or simply
make-believe".
This book is, in part, a journey towards an understanding of the
complexities and beauties of Italiano. Yet it is also very much a journey
across "time and space". The author is always on the move, always
investigating things: he goes to trials, cemeteries, bars, football matches,
universities, demonstrations, pilgrimage sites, prisons; he interviews
fascists, communists, Berlusconi supporters and political detainees. Jones
is always looking for the counter-argument. Just when things get too
depressing, he will show us an example of resistance, of contradiction, of
the failure of the all-encompassing Berlusconi project to penetrate
completely into the minds of Italians.
It is also a book that should be read by those who ignore the perils of what
is happening in Italy today. The huge outcry over Jörg Haider's election in
Austria has not been repeated for Italy after 2001. Yet, this is a country
with racists and fascists in power, where laws are passed to decriminalise
misdemeanours of which its prime minister is accused and where many leading
politicians were members of a secret, subversive organisation - the P2
masonic lodge - dedicated to the overthrow of liberal democracy.
All this should be the object of scandal, sanctions and uproar. It is not.
Instead Blair and Berlusconi are best mates. Berlusconi's Forza Italia!
party has been allowed into the centrist PPE group at the European
parliament. Umberto Bossi's revolting xenophobia goes unreported, or is
simply laughed off. The book is full of pertinent observation, written in a
smooth, easy style. In Italy, we are told, "Only dress and dining codes are
rigorously obeyed; any other rules - red lights or speed limits or
no-smoking signs - are only suggestions".
At the centre of all this is Jones's adopted home town - Parma. The city of
ham is a perfect laboratory for understanding the complicated nature of
contemporary Italy. A red town with a deep communist tradition - Parma was
one of the few cities to defeat the fascists on the streets in 1922 - it is
also an extremely rich place, with its yoghurt companies, its wine and
cheese and, of course, its famous prosciutto.
Berlusconi and his ilk have made serious inroads into its "red culture". A
Forza Italia! mayor was elected in 1998 and confirmed in his post in 2002.
What is difficult to explain is the survival of a communist or oppositional
culture in such wealthy zones (all five of the areas' deputies went to the
centre-left in the 2002 elections) rather than the encroachment of the
centre-right on these former left heartlands.
Italy is also troubled by its history, especially the violent years of the
1960s and 1970s, when there were plots, coup attempts, bombs and fascist
intrigues, and the rise of the biggest and most lasting left-terrorist
organisation in Europe. To get to the heart of this series of conspiracies,
Jones attends the eighth trial relating to the 1969 Piazza Fontana bomb in
Milan, which killed 16 and injured 88 and changed the course of Italian
history, producing violence, terrorism and cover-ups on an unprecedented
scale.
His account exposes the absurd legal technicalities, the weakness of the
prosecution evidence against three neo-fascists, one of whom is now a
Japanese citizen, the personalities called to testify - from leading
unrepentent fascists to an equally fascist supergrass who can hardly speak
thanks to a massive stroke and whose evidence is transmitted to the
courtroom via TV link. All this, amid a near-complete lack of interest from
the Italian public.
Jones's conclusions are pessimistic, almost Italian. "The longer I spent
covering the trial", he laments, "the more it seemed like something out of
Kafka... documents multiply amongst themselves, which sire new pieces of
paper loosed from all logic". In the end, like so many Italians, Jones
simply has to give up. We will never know the truth.
Yet, the book is not all high history. There is a brilliant account of
Italian football, with a timely critique of the "friendliness" of Italian
referees towards Juventus over the years. The author's encounters with the
Italian state and its infamous bureaucracy are told with a masochistic glee.
In trying to understand Italy, Jones travels extensively, going down to
Sicily, where illegal building is rife even in the beautiful arena of
Agrigento's valley of the temples, and visiting the extraordinary centre of
the cult of Padre Pio in Apulia, which attracts six million visitors a year.
This allows him to expand on the history of the church, its relationship
with Italy and, inevitably, its involvement in various unresolved scandals.
At the dark heart of the book, however, lies one man. A Milanese law
graduate, born in 1936, he earned his first wages as a crooner on ocean
liners and is now prime minister and foreign minister, owner of three
national private TV channels and of the biggest advertising, insurance,
publishing and film production and distribution companies. His brother owns
a major daily newspaper. His wife owns another. He is president of one of
the biggest soccer teams in Europe, AC Milan. He is not modest, as Jones
shows. In 2001, in the wake of a bitter election campaign, Berlusconi sent
out 12m copies of a book. Its subject matter? Himself. The book contains 114
photographs of him - balding, smiling, shaking hands, cheering football
teams, greeting world leaders, blessing the Pope.
Although some of the material is quite terrifying, Jones does not simply
demonise Berlusconi but tries to understand him and why millions of Italians
voted for him. Italy is a society with great pockets of wealth, especially
in the north. This wealth has been earned quickly, and individually (or by
sets of families). It is a country reared on the worst, the "most abysmal"
television in the world (unpicked here in a chapter called "the means of
seduction"), where the educational values of mass industrial society have
often been forgotten or destroyed, especially in the face of a weak, corrupt
and inefficient state machine. Berlusconi is a brilliant populist and
salesman, a man who has reinvented politics and state management. He is not
a dictator, at least not in the traditional sense. Millions of Italians love
him, admire him and want to be like him.
But, as this book also shows, not all Italians agree. Massive demonstrations
have rocked the government since its election. Jones helps us to understand
why these protests are so important, and why their task in the Italy of
today is so very difficult.
· John Foot is the author of Milan Since the Miracle: City Culture and
Identity (Berg)

 inglese purtroppo)
You lucky, you can find a good translation of this review in it.politica or
it.discussioni, with a lot of flames about it!
Unless you want to start a flame here....
Cheers
Fabio

 DRESS PROPERLY AND DON'T PAY TAXES
Sounds like an interesting book to read. I'll put it on my shopping list for
Amazon.
---
Xakero

 Tobias Jones's The Dark Heart of Italy
Attento: il ng pullula di fan del Berlusca, pronti a segnalarti all'abuse.
Uno di questi ha un nick che comincia per P.

".·°^°·Joanna·°^°·." schrieb:
Carissima Joanna, trovo questo post assolutamente fuori posto, e'
disgustoso.
Ancora si insiste qui in questo NG che ha come tema, leggi 'Manifasto',
'La TV'. Il marciume della politica e politicanti non sono IT* quindi 
non graditi. Quando ho voglia di parlare di politica cambio NG visto che
ce ne sono a bizzeffa.
Ti ricordo inoltre, che questo NG it.media.tv... 'it' sta per lingua
ITALIANA... vedi di adeguarti.
-- 
Ciao;-)
  M@rc\Irritatissimo ;-|

 disgustoso
Ma no, è gustoso e 'relevant'. Tanto più che adesso tutte le TV, pubbliche e
private, fanno capo al Cavaliere Mascarato (= ripassato col Mascara).

 wrote in message
news:3E2D2B43...@hotmail.com...


 ITALIANA... vedi di adeguarti.
Sacrosanto!
--
bye
 Divino

 private, fanno capo al Cavaliere Mascarato (= ripassato col Mascara).
Daje...
-- 
Ciao;-)
  M@rc

 lunghisissimo).
Uhmm... Ok, mi hai fregato, scusami, ho esagerato un po'... 
Cio non vuol dire che ti perdono pero' eh hehe eheh;-))
-- 
Ciao;-)
  M@rc

  tanti, si deve capire il contesto in cui il libro è stato scritto.
Non ha offeso, secondo me, tantomeno disgustato, anche se la
prospettiva politica è molto come dire, ristretta, ed esasperata, e il
paragone con Haider e la richiesta di sanzioni è veramente da ridere -
però a dire quello era l'autore della recensione sul Guardian, non
Jones. Sono anni che molti della stampa inglese hanno antipatie per
Berlusconi e la lega e an e ne parlano malissimo, quindi non mi pare
sto shock culturale. ;-)
Grazie di averlo postato, per me è stato interessante, e non l'avrei
scovato da solo per caso sul sito del Guardian.

 Attento: il ng pullula di fan del Berlusca, pronti a segnalarti all'abuse.
E sono certo che pullula, come tutti i ng, anche di persone pronte ad
entusiasmarsi per le cazzate standard del libro antiberlusconiano! :-))