I know it happened a few days ago now, but I’ve been discussing Silvio Berlusconi being attacked by a mentalist in Milan with an Italian colleague.
She is not a supporter of Silvio and reports that some similarly anti-Berlusconi people in Italy think that the assault was actually organised by the Italian premier in an attempt to shift attention away from fresh charges of corruption being levelled against him. Apparently a story is emerging about Berlusconi doing deals with the mafia or something like that.
Sounds a bit like a crazy conspiracy to me. Surely Berlusconi would think of another attention-grabbing distraction that didn’t involve him getting hit in the head, losing two teeth, and spending two nights in hospital?
But then Italian politics is pretty crazy.
Tags: Italy, wild conspiracy theories
December 17, 2009 at 11:02 pm
In a country where political parties once raised funds by scamming pensioners in retirement homes, nothing is too crazy.
December 29, 2009 at 10:14 pm
You’re quite right in terming Italian politics “pretty crazy”. I agree with you that this seems to be a conspiracy theory too far, and I think the Italian politicians (usually right-wing) who have said that this seems like a return to the “years of violence” are hyperbolic: the situation in Italy today is nothing like as serious as the anni di piombo etc.
One thing that is often not well-represented (from what I can gather anyway) in the British press etc is that Berlusconi enjoys a lot of support in reality from Italians albeit not all of them – a majority of them did vote him in after all. The anti-Berlusconi camp is strong too, but we shouldn’t think that Berlusconi seized power without the (passive/bought/imperfect, at least) consent of the people.