Between 2002 and 2003 I was writing my MLitt dissertation in journalism at Strathclyde University, in Glasgow, Scotland. It was entitled "Berluland: The influence of Silvio Berlusconi on Italian means of communication". I distinctively remember that it was particularly difficult to wrap up the final chapter. Actually, I hadn't hit a creative rut, but, on a daily basis, Mr Berlusconi, then Italian Prime Minister, came up with new comments or did something worth of being included in the dissertation and I had to change or readapt the conclusion.
I remember having to include at the last minute an interview for The Spectator with Boris Johnson (who probably learnt a few things from Berlusconi for his own clownish political career as UK Prime Minister...) and Nicholas Farrell in which Berlusconi declared from his villa in Sardinia "There is no conflict of interests (…) I am the most liberal publisher in history," and then proceeded to attack (as usual) the Italian magistrates investigating him.
So, when yesterday they announced Berlusconi had died at the San Raffaele hospital in Milan, I didn't feel just relieved, I wanted to party hard. That feeling wasn't triggered by the never-ending conclusion to my dissertation, but by the embarrassment Mr Berlusconi has caused to Italy, my home country, for over 20 years.
Born in 1936, in the outskirts of Milan, as a young man Berlusconi worked as entertainer on cruise boats. After finishing his studies, in 1961, Berlusconi embarked on his first venture in the construction industry, establishing Cantieri Riuniti Milanesi srl in partnership with Pietro Canali.
From then on, the entrepreneur focused on real estate, also through a new company, Edilnord, founded with money that came from a mysterious financial company based in Switzerland.
Milano 2, a "new town" built for yuppies and nouveau riches in the outskirts of Milan, Segrate, was one of his most ambitious building projects. Again founded with mysterious sums of money from Switzerland, the project obtained the necessary permissions when the Segrate City Hall aligned itself with the Psi (Partito Socialista Italiano, Italian Socialist Party).
The area was completed in 1978, but, before that, in 1973, Berlusconi had already launched a TV channel, Telemilano. Devised as a supplementary service for the Milano 2 residents and broadcasting only in that area, it was used to support the election of two candidates of the Christian Democracy party (Dc), and one candidate of the Italian Socialist Party (Psi), Bettino Craxi, at the 1976 elections.
Then came a financial company (Fininvest), another residential area (Milano 3) and a shopping mall (Il Girasole). At the end of the '70s, journalists started hinting at the relationships between Berlusconi and mafia boss Vito Ciancimino, who had interests in investing money in the North of Italy, and between the entrepreneur and the Masonic Lodge P2 (Propaganda 2; in which Berlusconi enrolled in 1974). The lodge had a Piano di rinascita democratica (Plan for a democratic rebirth) that had as main principle the acquisition and control of the means of communication in Italy and the immediate "constitution of a TV channel via cable". Indeed, P2 wanted to create a network of private channels that could be "co-ordinated…to control the public opinion" and could destroy the monopoly of State broadcaster Rai.
In 1979, Fininvest founded various TV companies (Publitalia 80 srl, Rete Italia srl) and became the major shareholder of Il Giornale. It also launched Canale 5, another company that substituted Telemilano and bought American serials, films and other programmes. In 1982, the company acquired another channel, Italia 1, from Rusconi, adding in 1984, Retequattro, bought from Mondadori.
Helped by decrees issued by Bettino Craxi's government that protected Berlusconi's monopoly, and penalized Italian state broadcaster Rai, Berlusconi's channel’s thrived. In 1987 the channels also turned into means of propaganda for the new political elections, mainly supporting Craxi's party. In December 1989, Fininvest bought Mondadori: Berlusconi's media concentration ended up including private TV channels and the most important publishing house in Italy and was therefore the first of its kind in the Western world.
At the beginning of the '90s a scandal exploded in Italy: magistrates launched an inquiry later called Mani Pulite (Clean Hands) from the pool of investigative judges who later discovered the so-called Tangentopoli (Bribesville). Craxi received four notifications of investigation and resigned from the office of Psi secretary. Fininvest was also involved in the inquiries: the prosecutor's office in Milan found in a Swiss account 21 billion lire that, according to the magistrates were bribes given by Berlusconi to Bettino Craxi.
In April 1993 Craxi asked Berlusconi to start a new political party that could preserve the Dc and Psi tradition and could have contrasted the Communist Party. The new party should have also supported and helped Fininvest since, without any political support, there wasn't any future for the company.
Fininvest formed the Forza Italia party in 1993, though the party was officially born in 1994. In the same year the Mediaset group controlling Canale 5, Italia 1, and Retequattro, was created and became Italy's major private television and communications network. Berlusconi stood as candidate at the 1994 elections: Forza Italia ads literally invaded Finivest's channels. No other party could compete with Berlusconi, a "self-made man" who promised Italians there would have been wealth and jobs for everybody.
At the time, the Ds party (Democratici di sinistra, Left Wing Democrats) defined Berlusconi as an "anomaly": he was a politician and he owned the country's means of communication.
Berlusconi's party obtained the majority of votes and, in May 1994, the first Berlusconi government was formed: it was the first government with a Prime Minister who had an embarrassing conflict of interests. Berlusconi owned the one and only Italian private TV network, but, as head of the government, he also controlled the State TV and was the owner of one of the richest companies in Italy, that controlled newspapers, publishing houses, foreign channels, cinemas and movie distribution companies, building companies and a football team, AC Milan.
Berlusconi lost the 1996 election to the centre-left leader Romano Prodi; then he won them again in 2001, becoming the first Italian politician in 50 years to complete a full five-year mandate. His third term, that began in 2008, ended with his resignation in 2011 a year in which Berlusconism seemed to wane.
The decades in which Berlusconi was in power were among the most controversial in Italian politics: he "reformed" Italian State broadcaster Rai by putting his friends in power places and cancelled those programmes that annoyed him with investigations and jokes against him (satire was great in Italy in those years as Berlusconi ended up providing comedians with a constant flow of fresh material...). His channels, in the meantime, started a campaign to defame the magistrates who had accused Fininvest of being involved in the Tangentopoli scandal.
Throughout the years, Berlusconi was charged with embezzlement, false accounting and bribing a judge, but he always managed to avoid trials, often by changing the laws. Convicted of tax fraud in 2013, Berlusconi had to serve a four-year prison term, of which three were pardoned. The legal proceedings involving him would actually be worthy of a legal drama on one of today's popular streaming service.
Deemed unfit to govern the country by the foreign media (Berlusconi sued The Economist for an article published in 2001, claiming it was defamatory, but he lost the lawsuit in later years), Berlusconi led a career peppered with gaffes and politically incorrect behaviour.
Quite often he was an embarrassment at global meetings: in 2002, Berlusconi attended a summit in Caceres. In the official photo, he made the sign of the horns while posing behind the Spanish Foreign Minister, Josep Piqué.
A year later he told German centre-left politician Martin Schulz, who criticized Berlusconi's conflict of inerests and his attacks on magistrates, that he would have recommended him for a role as a Nazi guard in a war film; then he called the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, an "unfuckable lard-arse", described US president Barack Obama in 2008 as "suntanned" and called his opponents "malodorous and badly dressed people".
But there's more: a master of the photo opportunity, Berlusconi used the ruins of L'Aquila's 2009 earthquake as a set for the G8 and showed total disregard of art when he requested to move the 6th century BC Capestrano Warrior to L'Aquila for the G8 to show it off. In that occasion, he also tried his hand at fashion, giving out as present to the other heads of state a Belstaff jacket signed by himself.
Among his most consistent achievements there are many sex and corruption scandals, and his "bunga bunga" sex parties at his luxurious villa outside Milan.
He was also accused of unlawful sex with 17-year old nightclub dancer Karima El Mahroug, an Italian-Moroccan woman, known as Ruby Rubacuori, who, he claimed, was the granddaughter of Egyptian President Mubarak.
In many different occasions Berlusconi showed sexist attitudes, even during official parades: during a meeting with EU leaders, he started sketching pictures of women's lingerie through different ages and then passed them around the table. His behaviour turned Italy into a laughingstock, an immorality play that extended for decades and that brought decadence to Italy.
For decades Berlusconi behaved as if he lived his life on the set of an Edwige Fenech movie. Feminists fumed every time he offended women in his jokes, but Berlusconi's entourage and supporters laughed and encouraged him instead.
In the shows on his channels women were always objects: usually wearing very little or a staple uniform of low-cut tops, mini-skirts and stilettos, women on Berlusconi's channels were reduced to silent veline, mute showgirls, posing and doing a little bit of dance, while the male presented spoke.
In some cases, though, there was a progression and, from showgirls, the luckiest ones became ministers - Mara Carfagna, a former velina and model, became indeed Minister for Equal Opportunities in one of Berlusconi's governments.
In the age of Berlusconi - a self-obsessed individual and a firm believer in hair transplants, with two best friends, his hair dye and full coverage foundation that he used in copius amounts - fashion was marked by a distinct shift towards garments that enhanced women's bodies, while simultaneously playing with their physical attributes. Revealing necklines, daring slits, and form-fitting silhouettes became prevalent during those years.
At a certain point even Anna Wintour wondered "how can Italy tolerate Silvio Berlusconi and his girls?" Vogue US's powerful editor, also rebuked Italians, stating: "I really can't understand how this can be possible: you can not even talk about democracy here, this is a dictatorship (…) it seems impossible to read the news about your Prime Minister and think that it is all real and that he still hasn't resigned, or that Italians aren't doing anything to force him to resign."
Unfortunately for Wintour, only a few years later, Americans elected Donald Trump as President. Both Trump and Berlusconi actually had a lot in common: they were both egocentric real-estate tycoons and billionaires; both were media stars prone to gaffes and lies, known for their politically incorrect behavior and misogynist vocabulary. Embroiled in sex scandals, both entertained a controversial relationship with the press, the judiciary and the tax authorities. Both of them relished presenting themselves as the genuine representatives of the people, fighting against a disconnected and morally bankrupt ruling class. Both had an obsession with their hair and with thick full coverage foundation of the sort thanatos-beauticians use on corpses.
Yet there is a difference: Trump is an amateur compared to Berlusconi as he may actually get arrested; Berlusconi dodged it all, constantly bouncing back on the political scene and changing the laws in his favour, either to advance his businesses, protect his empire and avoid prison. This allowed him to return in power last year after joining a far-right coalition with Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy and Salvini's Lega.
A zombie who would still rise to perform his comedic routine, he also tried to colonise TikTok, an app mainly used by kids blessed by the luck of having been born many years after Berlusconi's arrival on the political scene.
Obviously, Berlusconi continued to be embarrassing: as per tradition, in December 2022 he told the players of AC Monza (the football team he acquired after selling AC Milan - designer Philipp Plein, notorious for his hyper sexualised image of women and his bad taste, provided the team's off the pitch uniforms), that if they had won a match, he would have rewarded them with a "pullman di troie" (literally "a coach of sluts"). Besides, while the war in Ukraine is continuing, he boasted about his close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin, claiming Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, was to blame for his country's devastation.
Italy is reaping what Berlusconi has sowed for 20 years: ignorance, discord, mediocre TV programmes in which people quarrel and shout at each other, and Giorgia Meloni. A previous member of the right-wing party Alleanza Nazionale (National Alliance) that then merged with Forza Italia, Meloni, a right-wing populist and nationalist with far-right views, is Italy's first female Prime Minister. She also happens to have a complete disregard of women, but we will save this for another time.
Yesterday, when they announced that Berlusconi had died, Meloni stated that Berlusconi taught Italy that it should never have limits imposed onto it. Not having lived with the stigma of being an Italian abroad during Berlusconi's governments, Meloni can't imagine that he also taught millions of Italians living abroad to be embarrassed about their country and their nationality (for years, I travelled with a T-shirt in my case stating in four European languages "I didn't vote for Berlusconi").
Many Italians are still in love with Berlusconi, they still harbour this romantic vision of the "self-made" man with the fame of being a Casanova. There are people crying on his channels as I'm writing this post (well, probably because, after him, his empire will go through some changes once it will be broken up and assigned to his many heirs) and condolences are pouring in.
Vladimir Putin, the Russian president wanted for war crimes in Ukraine, released a heartfelt message for his friend Silvio. That a war criminal compliments him should get us all ashamed, but in this topsy-turvy world such a tribute seems to be normal and it is even appreciated.
Berlusconi will also be honoured tomorrow with a state funeral at Milan's Duomo and a day of national mourning (not in my name).
At the end of his long life and career, the most worrying thing about Berlusconi remains his disturbing, controversial and disgusting legacy. Just as you can find Mussolini memorabilia on vintage market stalls and, sadly, fascists still exist, it will be the same with Berlusconi. The memorabilia - including the magazine about his life that he printed in million of copies and sent to Italians before the elections - the nostalgia, the misogynist language he used, and the perception that being rich and powerful puts you above justice and ethics, will stay.
Amidst all these people crying for him and sending condolences, the only honest tribute came from Escort Advisor, a site featuring reviews of escorts: the Italian version of the site features at the moment a somber black background to align with the general mourning mood in Italy and the words "Ciao Silvio".
In a press release, the site explained why they opted for this homage, highlighting it wasn't "for political sympathy", but for the "contribution" he made to the semantics of the paid sex industry in Italy. "If today the word 'escort' has entered the collective vocabulary to indicate professionals who receive clients in apartments, it is also thanks to the normalization that has taken place in recent years, stemming from the trials involving Silvio Berlusconi," the site explained. "The extensive media coverage of Berlusconi's trials, led Italians to search for the word 'escort' on Google without reservations (…) A tribute, therefore, to a man who publicly contributed, in his own way, to normalize an industry that remains controversial to this day." Well, at least the site was honest and willing to mention this aspect of Berlusconi's life.
The fact that in Italy violence against women and femicides are not decreasing doesn't directly depend from Berlusconi's attitude towards women, but it is a consequence of that attitude that men have learnt to appreciate and admire throughout the decades of his political tenure. For Berlusconi women were just objects defined and classified by his derogatory language, bodies on which he was free to let his lecherous gaze travel.
As Berlusconi's life finally comes to an end, the tycoon turned politician can finally put to good use the grand mausoleum built by Pietro Cascella in his villa in Arcore: even to build it Berlusconi changed the laws: initially deemed illegal due to its proximity to residential areas, miraculously gained legal status through a modification to a two-century-old law enacted by his own government in 2003. Well, at least we can be sure he won't resurrect three days later, as years ago he announced he would do in a joke in which he obviously compared himself to Jesus.
If after this life there is an Inferno like the one described by Dante's, I hope they have added a new Circle for him: may he rot in the deepest corner of Hell, because that's where he deserves to be.
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