Italy's 'Rubygate'

**http://www.boingboing.net/2011/01/25/berlusconis-rubygate.html

Jasmina Tešanović <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jasmina_Tesanovic> is an
author <http://snipurl.com/pd3q>, filmmaker<http://zokster.net/drupal/user/5>,
and wandering thinker<http://www.alexandria-press.com/Bio/jasmina_tesanovic.htm>.
Her blog is here <http://jasminatesanovic.wordpress.com/>, and her email is
here <politicalidiot-/[email protected]>.

> Many years ago, I took part in a movie directed by Miclos Jancso, called
> "Private Vices, Public Virtues." It was a dissolute story of sex drugs and
> rock-n-roll, anachronistically set in the Austro-Hungarian empire.
>
> In the film, the rebellious heir to the crown of Franz Joseph gets murdered
> by his own father, the Emperor, for a criminal public display of orgiastic
> excesses, which involve the nobles of the court, plus the many less noble
> participants of the collapsing empire.
>
> I remember vividly when a group of girls arrived from Rome to participate
> in the film. "Il gruppo Max," they were called, and they brought their film
> assignment with them: "pronte a tutto," ready for anything. Meaning ready to
> do anything requested by the film production, ready to dance, to sing, to
> strip, to have sex on camera. Ilona Staller, who later became the famous
> Italian parliamentarian Cicciolina, was one of that group.
>
> And they perfectly performed that task: it was in the seventies, make love
> not war, hippies, free love, with men and women, among men and women, kings
> and beggars, friends and foes...
>
> The movie was a commercial flop, and an artistic failure.
>
> However, from today's perspective, that film was clearly a futuristic
> experiment. These days, all the Italian dailies have headlines which are
> paraphrases from that Movie: "ragazze pronte a tutto," "vizi privati
> pubbliche virtu," "il re perverso e triste," papi of the nation....
>
> Of course they refer to the Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi, and his
> endless squalid story with underage girls, professional paid escorts, TV
> stars who become deputies and government officials, all thanks to his
> protection.
>
> "Rubygate" they call it in the Italian press: it's named after his biggest
> and weirdest sex-scandal yet, with an illegal, thieving, juvenile delinquent
> belly dancer from Morocco.
>
> The most recent public confession of the girl, who is an Italian media star
> these days, is that she was raped at nine by her Muslim uncles, then almost
> killed at 12 by her father, when she declared her intention to become a
> Christian. This appalling story, told in tears, won her an eager audience of
> millions, and suddenly her affair with the 75 year old premiere seems a true
> happy-end to her tragic destiny, if not, indeed, true love.
>
> While he is in power, I will eat, declared the girl, after Silvio
> politically survived by a single vote in the parliament. In the meantime, a
> very restrictive and harsh law on university and students has been passed in
> Italy, notwithstanding huge students protests. Factories are closing.
> Workers are forced to work for minimal wages, or in the black market. Fake
> bankruptcies are also commonly reported these days, because business owners
> can earn more profit using state support.
>
> Every day, a new economic model of survival, in an economic crisis where
> rich become fewer and richer, and poor poorer and vaster in numbers.
>
> In the meantime, the nation's premiere, pressured by the unrestrainable
> torrent of confessions and leaks from entire squads of party girls, declares
> candidly that he has found a steady relationship. The search for la dama
> Bianca of his heart instantly takes the front pages of Italian press.
>
> What makes all this paparazzi nonsense so credible and plausible is the
> amazing resemblance of these girls, Silvio's sweethearts, to his wife, who
> recently divorced him. She said that she couldn't endure his dalliances with
> underage woman, and sure enough, all these starlets seem to be under thirty,
> if not, indeed, under the age of legal consent.
>
> Somehow, the Italian audience and people manage to behave as if nothing
> unbearably strange is going on. For centuries, tales of sex and power,
> perversion and violence have lingered over Italian history: from Caligula to
> Mussolini, from Caesar to the pedophile scandals in the Catholic church.
>
> However, the new development is that this sinister behavior has become a
> public fact, and yet, that makes no public difference. On the contrary,
> those who once secretly envied and admired the immoral dissolution of the
> premiere of Italy nowadays are loud and public in their firm support of him.
> Silvio, as the role model, has become the mainstream,not the excess.
>
> Perverse curiosity and passive voyeurism accompanies the daily leaks from
> the court, the wiretaps, the police investigations. There is fatalist
> expectation of the worst, which is yet to come. A international Twitter
> stream of those two vulgar simplistic words, "bunga bunga," makes Italian
> public life a reality show.
>
> Berlusconi owns almost all the media in Italy, and he has become the star
> in every one of his own properties. His personal scandals overshadow the
> mafia killings, the economic crisis, the earthquakes and the floods. Italy,
> a G7/G20 major world power, is losing its credibility, honor and dignity day
> by day, sometimes hour by hour.
>
> The president and the Vatican are asking for caution and clarity. As my
> American friend noticed: the frightening thing is not the slipping façade of
> Italy, but the genuine face behind that mask. The time of "ragazze pronte a
> tutto," of court politics as pornography, is finally here.
>


Johne Cook
| http://raygunrevival.com | http://authorculture.blogspot.com |

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