One evening last week in Jerusalem, an Italian journalist told me it was reported at that morning’s press conference that I had said Berlusconi was like Hitler, and some leading Italian politicians declared my statement “insane” and offensive to the entire Jewish community (sic). But the press conference clearly dealt with different matters altogether, since the Israeli newspapers next morning gave it wide coverage. The Jerusalem Post did a lead article on the front page and almost the whole of page three, with no mention of Hitler, reporting instead the real questions discussed.
No reasonable person, however critical of Berlusconi, would think of comparing him with Hitler, given that Berlusconi did not spark a world war with fifty million dead, or massacre six million Jews, or close down the parliament of the Weimar Republic, or set up squads of Brownshirts and the SS, and so forth. So what had been said that morning?
Many Italians still don’t realize how poorly our prime minister is viewed abroad, so that when questioned by foreigners one sometimes feels a certain patriotic need to defend him. One tiresome individual wanted me to say that, since Berlusconi, Mubarak, and Gaddafi were or had been reluctant to leave office, Berlusconi was the Italian Gaddafi. I replied that Gaddafi was a cruel tyrant who was gunning down his fellow countrymen and rose to power through a coup, whereas Berlusconi had been duly elected by a significant portion of Italians—and I added the word “unfortunately.” So that, I said jokingly, if an analogy had to be made at all costs, then one might compare Berlusconi with Hitler, since both had been duly elected. Having reduced this rash supposition ad absurdum, we went back to talking about serious matters.
When my Italian colleague told me about the news agency piece, he added: “Journalists, you know, have to pull out the news, even if it’s hidden.” I don’t agree. Journalists have to report news that really exists, not create it. But this is also a sign of Italy’s provincialism. The Italian media have no interest in talks held in Kolkata on the future of the planet unless somebody in Kolkata has said something for or against Berlusconi.
A curious aspect of the whole business, as I saw when I returned home, is that in every Italian newspaper that covered the story, my alleged statements, placed in quotation marks, all came from the original news agency piece, where I was supposed to have described my brief comment about Hitler as “an intellectual paradox,” or to have made the parallel “intellectually speaking.” Now, I might possibly, after a few drinks, compare Berlusconi to Hitler, but never in the worst state of drunkenness would I ever use meaningless expressions like “intellectual paradox” or “intellectually speaking.” What is the intellectual paradox opposed to? To the manual, the sensorial, the rural paradox? Not everyone can be expected to have perfect knowledge of the terminology of rhetoric or logic, but certainly “intellectual paradox” is the language of an illiterate, and anyone who claims that others say things “intellectually speaking” is a dimwit. This means that the quotation marks in the original piece were the effect of a crude manipulation by someone else.
Such shoddy material gave rise to a virtuous campaign of indignation to discredit, as usual, someone who has no love for our prime minister and wears turquoise socks. Yet no one thought to point out that Berlusconi could not be compared to Hitler, since, as everyone knows, Hitler was monogamous.
2011