All the stars, save one.

   The troubling statements of Beppe Grillo, the rising star of the Italian political firmament, commented by Giorgio Israel.

   
   Is Mr. Bersani sure that extending his hand to Mr. Grillo is really a good idea?
   (Translated and edited from Italian by Leonardo Pavese)

Never before, a word about which one could write treatises of sociology and political theory has been used with as much levity, and as mistakenly, as this one is used these days: populism.

Since I’m neither able nor capable to write such a treatise, I will just remind the readers that, among all others, there exists an important meaning of the word that is very often forgotten, notwithstanding the fact that it points to the way anti-democratic movements get to a position of power. That is, the case in which the political “elites” bow to a powerful popular movement in the name of a misunderstood principle of respect for the popular will.

It is a fact that a fourth of the Italian electorate voted for the Movimento 5 Stelle (the Five Stars Movement, the party of Mr. Grillo). Only a fool could refuse to try to understand the reasons they did it, and withdraw into a scornful attitude, akin to the style of the people who say that someone who votes for Mr. Berlusconi is stupid or a thief. Nevertheless, between that and shutting one’s critical faculties in a drawer and taking the road of opportunism it’s a big step. With all due respect to the people who voted for Mr. Grillo, and trying to comprehend their motivations, I’d like to ask them what they think about several of the statements of their leader; if they know them, and if they agree with them.

Beppe Grillo

A politician should ask Mr Grillo himself for an explanation. Mr. Pier Luigi Bersani (leader of the Leftist coalition) gave Mr. Grillo an opening, representing the opinion of that portion of his party who think that a dialogue with Mr. Berlusconi is absolutely impossible, while to negotiate with Mr. Grillo is feasible; and actually, as many people close to Mr. Bersani keep saying, Mr. Grillo’s movement has many things in common with the left (short of saying that is one of their ribs).

We could even condone some of the expressions like the following (that originated from Mr. Grillo’s movement): “Surrender! You are surrounded by the Italian people. Come out with your hands above your heads”, and catalogue them as folklore; but we should refresh people’s memory about more serious things, such as Mr. Grillo’s statements, made just a few months ago, in an interview to the Israeli Daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth; statements that contain a medley of anti-Israeli prejudices, which might explain the reason why, on his blog, a lot of borderline anti-Semitic comments are tolerated.

According to the Guru (Mr. Grillo) of the Five-Star Movement “everything that we, in Europe, know about Israel and Palestine is filtered through an international press agency called Memri; and behind Memri there’s an agent of the Mossad”. Who explained that to Mr. Grillo? Former London’s Mayor Ken Livingstone, who supposedly used independently-translated Arab texts. But let’s forget about Israel, because, as Mr. Grillo explained, “talking about Israel is a taboo; like talking about the Euro: as soon as one touches the subject one’s called a racist and an anti-Semite”.




To understand Mr. Grillo’s way of thinking it is enough to refer to what he thinks about the massacres in Syria: “Those are things we can’t comprehend. We don’t know if it’s really a civil war or if the rebels are foreign agents who infiltrated that country”.

Moreover, (according to Mr. Grillo) the Iran of the ayatollahs is a wonderful place: “the economy is thriving”; the people who escape are “just political opponents”; and the ones who stay “don’t worry about the same stuff we worry about here”.

What about the capital executions? Nothing even compared (again according to Mr. Grillo) to what happens in the U.S.A.: “Over there (in the U.S.), they put a guy on a diet so when they hanged him his head wouldn’t come off. So, what’s more barbaric?”

It is not at all surprising that this kind of talk is perfectly agreeable to those, from the (Italian) far left, who concocted the thesis that the World Trade Center was destroyed by the Zionist in cahoots with the C.I.A.; nevertheless, it would appear that Mr. Bersani, and most of the voters of the P.D. (Partito Democratico), don’t actually belong to this bunch, and don’t subscribe to the idea that “we Italians are under American occupation”.

Pier Luigi Bersani

So, as I was saying before, I would ask one of Mr. Grillo’s voters if he or she was aware of some these propositions; how he or she could reconcile them with what motivated him or her to vote for Mr. Grillo; and if he or she doesn’t think it would be opportune to ask their leader to rectify those statements.

Any politicians who’s open to an alliance with Mr. Grillo should really ask him, beforehand, to withdraw those statements, if only for the sake of dignity. Otherwise, how could a hypothetical Prime Minister Bersani, for example, show his face at the White House?

   Dr. Giorgio Israel is an academic who teaches at the La Sapienza university in Rome, but who's better known for his books and his frequent contribution to several Italian publications. Dr. Israel blogs here, where you'll also find a link to his website and a list of his works.
The comment I translated appeared on Informazione Corretta on the 2/28/2013 (but I believe it had been originally published on the daily Il Foglio). Your comments will be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Leonardo Pavese