Terrorism Threat in 2008

March 21, 2008 By

Global Geopolitics Net
Monday, January 21, 2008

© Copyright 2008 Rohan Kumar Gunaratna – RSIS Commentaries. All rights reserved.

This report originally appeared as part of the RSIS Commentaries series of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Singapore, www.idss.edu.sg. It has been republished on Global Geoplitics Net with permission from the author.

RSIS Commentaries are intended to provide timely and, where appropriate, policy relevant background and analysis of contemporary developments. The views of the authors are their own and do not represent the official position of the S.Rajaratnam School of International Studies, NTU. These commentaries may be reproduced electronically or in print with prior permission from RSIS. Due recognition must be given to the author or authors and RSIS. Please email: RSISPublication@ntu.edu.sg or call 6790 6982 to speak to the Editor RSIS Commentaries.

By Dr. Rohan Gunaratna

2008 will test the political will of the international community to fight insurgency and terrorism especially in Iraq, Tribal Pakistan and Afghanistan. With the impending withdrawal of US forces from Iraq and the growing instability in Pakistan following the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the terrorist threat is likely to spread in 2008.

AL QAEDA, its associated groups and its homegrown cells will pose the most dominant threat to the United States, its allies and its friends in 2008. The Asian and Middle Eastern Muslim countries will suffer the brunt of terrorism by Al Qaeda and its associated groups. Nonetheless, the US and their European and Australian allies will witness periodic spectacular attacks mounted primarily by homegrown cells. In the spectrum of Muslim and non-Muslim groups, Al Qaeda-directed and inspired groups will pose the single biggest threat.

Epicenters of terrorism

The principal ideological and operational threat will stem from two international epicenters of terrorism – Iraq in the Middle East and Tribal Pakistan. Although Al Qaeda has suffered significantly since 9-11, the group has been able to re-establish a presence by working with like-minded groups. For instance, Al Qaeda co-opted Tawhid Wal Jihad, now operating as Al Qaeda in Iraq and the Levant; Al Qaeda also co-opted the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, now operating as Al Qaeda organization of the Islamic Maghreb in Algeria, North Africa and in Europe. By co-opting, Al Qaeda transferred its operational practice of mass fatality suicide attacks and ideological reference of targeting the US, its allies and friends.

In the Middle East, the Levant, North Africa, and to a lesser extent the Arabian Peninsula will suffer from terrorist attacks in 2008. Likewise in Asia, South Asia will suffer most from terrorism followed by Central Asia and Southeast Asia. With the exception of Xinjiang in China, the threat of terrorism to Northeast Asia will be low. Similarly, Sub-Saharan Africa, especially in Eastern and Horn of Africa, governments, the private sector and the society will suffer from intermittent terrorist attacks. Over 80% of the attacks will be using guns and bombs. With suicide being adopted as a popular tactic, more groups will conduct both vehicle-borne and human-borne suicide attacks.

Key Developments

Three key developments will characterise the global security landscape in 2008.

First, together with the Afghan and Pakistan Taliban, Al Qaeda has established an "Al Qaedastan", an enclave in tribal Pakistan. Similar to Afghanistan under Afghan Taliban, the developments in this enclave will threaten the international community.

Second, with the withdrawal of US-led coalition forces, the Iraqi security forces and its intelligence community will not be competent to fight both foreign and domestic groups including Al Qaeda in Iraq led by Abu Ayub al Masri.

Third, outside conflict zones, the homegrown terrorist threat will emerge as the most dominentdominant threat. Some homegrown cells will establish links with trans-national groups for training, finance, and inspiration.

As result of the gigantic investment in propaganda by Al Qaeda, radicalism is moving from the periphery to the centre of the Muslim community. Furthermore, the suffering, humiliation and anger of the Muslims resulting from the US invasion of Iraq are being exploited by Al Qaeda and its associated groups to recruit and generate support. Both in the territorial and migrant Muslim communities, the scale of radicalisation is on the rise.

Driven by virulent propaganda disseminated by Al Qaeda and its associated groups, these self radicalised cells within the migrant and diaspora as well as territorial communities pose a vibrant threat. While well-structured groups such as Al Qaeda and its associated groups originating from the global South will pose an enduring threat, the homegrown cells present an equally sinister threat to the West. Unlike the well-structured groups with a leadership, membership and a support base, the homegrown cells are difficult to detect. Where well-structured terrorist groups are not operating, the more significant threat stems from homegrown cells.

Threat Trends

The ideology of so-called “jihad” advocated by militant Muslim groups will spread in the Muslim world. With the false belief spreading that the US is purposely killing Muslims and deliberately attacking Islam, waging “jihad’ to defend the faith and the faithful is gathering momentum in parts of the Muslim world. The Western world, in partnership with the Muslim world, has not been successful in waging a sustained and a robust campaign to counter the ideology and propaganda of these threat groups.

With Al Qaeda seeking to unify disparate Muslim groups waging local campaigns, most threat groups are coming together. Al Qaeda has created a number of real and virtual platforms to promote cooperation and collaboration. These groups will share among other capabilities, human expertise (mostly trainers), technology (mostly bomb-making) and finance. By dispatching ideologues, combat trainers and financiers to conflict zones, Al Qaeda will increase the threat in 2008. As suicide attacks in Iraq have influenced Afghanistan beginning in 2004, Al Qaeda will transfer or influence other groups to emulate its operational practices.

Al Qaeda suffered the loss of its state of the art training infrastructure in Afghanistan. But Al Qaeda has created training opportunities in tribal Pakistan, Iraq as well as in conflict zones of Asia, Middle East and Africa. For instance, Mohamed Siddique Khan and Ibrahim Saeed, the leaders of the July 7 and July 21 attacks in London, trained in tribal Pakistan. With the rise of threat groups in Pakistan and Iraq, they have established linkages to radicalised segments of Muslim migrant and diaspora communities. Al Qaeda training, directly or through its associated groups and the Internet, is of a major concern and a challenge to governments.

To generate more recruits and support, the head of Al Qaeda’s Media Committee Abu Abdel Rahman al Maghrebi, who is the son-in-law of Al Qaeda’s number two Dr Ayman al Zawahiri,, will invest more in propaganda. As in 2007, where Al Qaeda released a video every three days, Al Shahab, the video production arm of Al Qaeda’s Media Office, will, will invest in propaganda to indoctrinate Muslims both in the Muslim world and beyond. By instilling the belief that “it is the duty of every Muslim to wage jihad,” Al Qaeda seeks to radicalise the Muslim community. The mainstream Muslim leaders have failed to match the gigantic investment Al Qaeda has made to politicise and mobilise the Muslim masses.

Promote market economies, not democracy

Unless the West works closely with the Muslim world, the threat of terrorism and extremism will spread in 2008. Instead of promoting democracy, it may be more important for the US to promote market economies in the Muslim world. With economic growth and development, the people themselves will want greater representation. The partnership between the West and the Muslim world is crucial to reduce the misunderstanding between their governments and peoples.

At the tactical and operational levels, investment in intelligence has proved to be the most useful ingredient in fighting terrorism. As intelligence is the spearhead of counter terrorism, it will become important to continue to invest in developing human source penetration and technical intelligence capabilities. With high grade, high quality intelligence, especially human intelligence, the threat of terrorism and extremism can be managed.

While operational counter terrorism is essential to reduce the immediate threat, it is necessary for governments to develop strategic projects to engage the Muslim community. Without building bridges to the Muslim community, it will be difficult to contain and counter the spread of the virulent ideology spread by Al Qaeda and its associated groups. Working with the religious and educational institutions and the media sector, governments will be able to inform the community that groups such as Al Qaeda, Afghan Taliban, Pakistani Taliban, Hizbut Tahrir and Jemaah Islamiyah are not Koranic but deviant groups. For governments and communities under threat, a theologian is as important as a counter terrorism practitioner.

About Rohan Gunaratna

Rohan Gunaratna is Head of the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research at the S. Rajaratnam School for International Studies, (RSIS), Singapore. The author of "Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror", Gunaratna debriefed high value detainees, including in Iraq.

S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, NTU, South Spine, Block S4, Level B4, Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639798. Tel. No. 67906982, Email: wwwrsis@ntu.edu.sg, Website: www.rsis.edu.sg.

Filed Under: Featured, Security, Terrorism

The Economy: US and the World

March 16, 2008 By

Global Geopolitics Net
Sunday, March 16, 2008

© Copyright 2008 Abbas Bakhtiar. All rights reserved.

By Dr. Abbas Bakhtiar

"Madness is rare in individuals – but in groups, political parties, nations, and eras it’s the rule." (Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche)

And no madness is worse than greed. Every so often people assume that somehow they can make money out of the thin air. The most famous one was the Tulip mania of 1636-1637 in Netherland and the most recent one was the “dotcom” bubble of 1995-2001 (on March 10th, 2000 the NASDAQ peaked at 5132.52). Today we are witnessing the beginning of the end of the real estate bubble.

In every case, the madness begins with those who have high tolerance for financial risk. That is to say they are rich and can afford greater financial loss than others. They speculate and make money, lots of money. Soon the less wealthy see this and join the crowd and before you know it the whole country is involved.

When President Bush entered office he gave one trillion dollars (tax cut) to the wealthy. In effect he increased the tolerance for financial risk of the wealthy individuals and companies even further. Later, he started the Iraq war, pouring billions of dollars into the economy. One should not forget that when the US government spends about $2 billion a week in Iraq, most of that money finds its way back into the US economy (salaries, armament, etc). But all these monies were borrowed money (deficit spending), and all the growth and feeling of well being was illusory.

The money pumped into the economy had to find some channel for investment. So banks and financial institutions began to push money in hope of getting incredible returns. Easy credit was the solution. You want to buy a house? No problem, we finance 90% of it. You want to have a new car? No problem, we give you a loan. This push suddenly made it possible for millions of people to buy houses, putting pressure on the housing market. House prices sky-rocketed, increasing the illusion of increasing wealth, which in turn allowed people to borrow more money. All the time, banks and credit institutions were jubilant at the sight of extraordinary returns on their investments. A normal credit company charges around 18% to 23% on the dollar while they borrow the same money for 8% to 9%. It is a great business. The banks also had a good time. Cheap money was lent to people backed by assets that were appreciating in value. The risks were spread by selling mortgages to other banks and institutions. Before you knew it every bank, insurance company and god knows who else were rushing in to take their piece of the action.

Growth in housing construction represents a substantial part of general US economic growth. So with easy credit and continuing increase in housing prices, US showed a good growth rate, giving the illusion of well-being.

But as with Tulips and DotComs manias, there comes a time when there is no more room for illusory growth and demand. The bubble bursts and asset prices crash. The banks are left with depreciating asset guarantees for their loans and before you know it the whole financial system is in trouble. Usually when this happens, it takes a few years for the companies and individuals involved to go bankrupt, after which the cycle starts anew. Hopefully with lessons learnt.

But this time it is different. When a recession starts, the government has a few tools at its disposal to deal with the economic downturn: Interest rate, the budget and war. It reduces interest rates to stimulate economic growth. It can also start large infrastructure projects such road building, constructing bridges etc, to reduce unemployment and stimulate the economy (deficit-spending). There is another sure way of kick starting the economy and that is WAR. Wars are good for businesses and reduce unemployment and stimulate (for US) important parts of the economy.

However, all three tools have been already used prior to the recent recession. US has huge trade deficit and is involved in two wars (Afghanistan and Iraq). It has also reduced its tax revenues by giving huge tax-cuts to the rich. Large trade deficit, low tax revenue, tremendous debt, wars and low interest rates make it extremely difficult for the government to do much to help the economy.

If this was not enough its currency “the mighty dollar” is losing its position as the preferred international reserve and trading currency. The Federal Reserves keeps pumping dollars into the market, while at the same time keep reducing interest rates. This means only two things, a devaluation of dollar and an increasing inflation. Countries such as China, Japan, oil producing countries and others keep their reserves in dollar. These reserves are in the order of trillions of dollars. Imagine a 15% decline in value of dollar will translate to $150 billion dollar loss for the Chinese government alone. How long will these countries tolerate this loss is anyone’s guess, but surely there comes a time when these countries will react and begin to switch to other currencies. It is then that we will see the real collapse of the US economy.

There is already some ominous sign of this. A few days ago, Venezuela declared that it will no longer sell its oil in dollars. Currently there are Iran, Venezuela, and Russia that have decided to trade their oil and gas in other currencies. In addition, some Arab countries have started to de-peg their currencies from dollar. For these countries peg to dollar has meant importing inflation and they are trying to stabilise their economy. As dollar decreases in value and more and more raw-material producers switch away from dollar, this de-pegging will only increase.

Let us look at why this happens. China buys oil in Euro from Iran. It then produces gadgets and sells it in dollar. Naturally the dollar prices of Chinese goods increase. The US and others that use dollar or are pegged to dollar will see an increase in prices of their imports which is passed to the consumers. This means importing inflation. The countries that have pegged their currencies to the dollar naturally do not wish to import inflation and cut their loss. (Please note: raw materials in general are increasing in value, regardless of the currency. There is not enough space here to discuss this matter in detail)

This will put further pressure on the dollar contributing to its decline. This, of course is not good for the US consumers. When times were good (illusory) US kept its inflation in check by importing goods from countries such as China, India, and other places; where imports were paid with dollars. Now some stuff has to be paid for in Yen and Euro both of which are appreciating in value against the dollar. At the same time oil and gas prices have increased tremendously, not only in dollar term but also in other currencies. All these things mean that US has to pay many more dollars for the goods that it imports. In simple terms, US’ inflation is rising rapidly. In my opinion, the US government is not telling the American people the real truth, fearing further collapse in confidence.

The outlook for the US economy

When recession hits, the government usually starts deficit spending to increase employment. At the same time the interest rates are reduced to stimulate economic growth. United States is now in an unenviable position of entering recession with very low interest rates, huge deficit and declining dollar.

Already in August 2006 I warned about the coming financial crisis (please read “U.S. and The Coming Financial Crisis”). The following is an excerpt from that article: “The current account deficit of over 7 per cent has long passed its danger levels of 4-5 per cent. In 2005 the U.S. government paid $325 billion dollars only in interest payments alone. Then there are the future obligations such as Medicare, Social Security and government pensions. These obligations amount to $54 trillion dollars. This huge problem worried the former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. He told congress: “As a nation, we may have already made promises to coming generations of retirees that we will be unable to fulfil”

As can be seen the government has not the ability to meet its existing financial obligations to the American people, let alone starting infrastructure projects to reduce unemployment or help the economy.

With regards to the interest rates, the Federal Reserves has very little room for manoeuvre. Already the real interest rates are in negative territory (lower than inflation), although the government and the experts say otherwise. Further interest rate cuts will only increase inflation and devalues the shaky dollar even further. But this is exactly what the Federal Reserves is doing. This is most likely to rescue big financial institutions, the very institutions that were earning huge profits from unsuspecting American consumers. In effect, the Fed is abandoning the poor and helping the rich. If the government was serious in helping the working American, it would have paid the money directly to the people, so that they could pay their debt. Instead it is pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into the banks. If you count the monies that have been poured into the financial markets, you’ll see that $160-$200 billion dollar tax rebate to the people was only mere peanuts as compared to what banks and others have received.

All in all, one can say that this recession, if it doesn’t turn into a depression, will be severe and will last at least 2 to 4 years. Now you must realise that I am talking about the effects of the recession and not technical recession. The recent technical recessions that we have seen is listed below:

  • January-July 1980: 6 months (worst quarter GDP Growth -7.8% )
  • July 1981-November 1982: 16 months (worst quarter GDP Growth -6.4%)
  • July 1990-March 1991: 8 months (worst quarter GDP Growth -3.0%)
  • March 2001-November 2001: 8 months (worst quarter GDP Growth -1.4%)

Technically a recession may last one year, but the effect of that recession on families may last a decade. Some lose their homes, some their jobs, some families will break-up and so on and so forth. The human misery of technical recession lasts much longer than the recession itself. Anyway, if the price of the houses is dropped by 40% in two years, how many years of growth will it take to retake that 40%? Usually much longer than people think.

I wrote an article in September 2006 titled “Who Will Pay the US Debt”. In this article I explained who will be most affected by the coming financial crisis. This is the direct excerpt from that article:

“The truth is that at the end of the day it is the American people that have to pay. This will be in the form of higher taxes and reduced governmental services. In other words lower living standards. The poor and the working poor do not have anything to give. Their contribution will be in form of statistics. The number of people living below poverty line will increase. They will suffer because they rely on many services that will be cut or reduced. The rich will always find some loop-hole to avoid paying the major part of their share. Even if their wealth is reduced by 10%, they will see no hardship. This leaves us with the Middle class. This group will be hit the hardest. They will see their taxes and expenses increase simultaneously. A good portion will have to live on far less than they are used to. Many will work longer hours just to stay solvent. Many may also join the working poor. It all may sound rather apocalyptic but the numbers do not lie. Politicians may avoid this problem for now, but sooner or later someone has to pay the piper.”

The World Economy

It is said that when the US sneezes the world catches cold. This was true before but the world has started to think that it can decouple itself from the US economy. Here the umbilical cord is the US dollar; once that is cut, slowly but surely the decoupling will take place; with dire consequences for the US. As I mentioned before, already some important oil producing nations have decided to abandon the dollar. Others have decided to de-peg their currencies. Others such as China have started thinking about reducing their reserves in dollars. Once others begin to do the same the dollar will cease to be the international reserve and trade currency of choice. Meanwhile, major trading partners have to just bite the bullet and accept the consequences of holding to the dollar.

You know the saying that if you owe the bank one hundred thousand dollars you are in trouble, but if you owe the bank one hundred million dollars, the bank is in trouble. Currently US owes foreigners over two trillion dollars. In addition many trillions of dollars are also held in foreign central banks. These countries are in trouble and they will try hard to stabilise the US economy, if only for saving their own money.

But they don’t do this out of love. They just need stability to reduce their dollar holdings gradually and hence save as much of their reserves as possible. If they mention this openly, the dollar will collapse over-night and they lose. So the long-term plan would be to reduce their exposure to the dollar as gradually and as quietly as possible. This of course doesn’t mean that the value of dollar will not fluctuate; it simply means that over time dollar will become just like any other currencies and will be treated similarly. The Federal Reserves will no longer be able to just print money and refuse to publish the M3 statistics.

US will also need to begin building reserves in other currencies. Today US dollar has no backing. People accept dollar on faith alone. Imagine if that faith suddenly disappears. Will you exchange 1 kg of green paper for 1000 Microwaves? I doubt it.

But meanwhile the world’s economy will experience the negative effects from the US economic downturn. The most affected areas will be China and other Asian “emerging” economies and European Union.

The case for the European Union is straight forward. A flight from dollar to Euro makes the EU’s export much more expensive, just when one of its biggest trading partners “US” goes into recession. European Union will also feel the pains of financial crisis of the US. Many EU financial institutions had invested in US and now they will have to accept the losses. So we will see a down ward trend in Europe, but not as severe as the one in US. In addition European Central Bank has still a lot of room for manoeuvre. It can reduce interest rates substantially. EU also has smaller total deficit than US. Most importantly, most of the EU countries have solid social security nets in place which will dampen the effects on their citizens.

China on the other hand lacks this social security net, but has large foreign reserves. Most of this reserve has been the result of its exports. Last year its trade surplus with US was over $200 billion. This surplus will diminish substantially over the coming year, unless of course the US continues to spend the money that it doesn’t have. But in general, a recession in US and a slowing economy in EU will impact China negatively. Its exports will decline and its unemployment will increase, something that the Chinese government is very sensitive to. China suffers from double digit unemployment rate, something that the Chinese government is reluctant to discuss openly. For example in 2004 the RAND estimated the actual Chinese unemployment to be 23%. Things haven’t improved that much since then. Even if the unemployment rate was down to 15%, it still presents a very large number.

So China will most likely embark on large infrastructure projects to keep unemployment levels stable. The government will also try to improve its social security programs and pay more attention to the interior of the country, where the benefits of double digit growth has not reached yet. The economic growth will also be reduced to single digits, relieving some pressure off the oil prices.

India will fare worse than China simply because its population growth is higher than China while it lacks the Chinese reserves and resources. According to the Indian government forecast, India needs to create 10 million new jobs per year to keep its unemployment rate steady. But others put that figure at 15 million. An Indian national report on employment situation has warned that nearly 30% of the country’s 716 million-strong workforce will be without jobs by 2020. This of course is a conservative estimate based on continued solid economic growth; something that, at least with the current economic outlook, is highly unlikely.

Stock-market: The Near Term-outlook

The outlook as you have guessed is not good. I have been waiting for this crash since mid 2006 and what kept it from happening was what Greenspan called the “irrational exuberance” of the investors. The market, especially the US markets, will plunge further. I see Dow Jones below 11500 and Nasdaq at 1900. The full picture of financial crisis is still hidden and full cost of the coming bailouts will not be known till autumn.

Of course this is not written in stone. The US government may come to its senses and decides to act responsibly and allow many companies and banks to go under. It may try to support dollar. It may try to cut the budget deficit or the trade deficit. It may even decide that its war in Iraq was not and is not such a good idea and withdraw its troops. It may even try to get friendly with Venezuela and Iran, thereby reduce both the price of oil and pressure on the dollar. The truth is that it is the US president that can do these things and not the Federal Reserves. We just have to wait for the elections and see who is elected as the next president.

It is my opinion that no other US president has ever damaged United States as much as George Bush, and he will be remembered by both the Americans and others as one of the most unpopular US presidents ever. But he is at the end of his second term and has only a year to destroy the rest of the economy. Let us hope that he will be busy with other things and doesn’t do more damage. Let us also hope that the American people will not fall for promises of further tax cuts and glories in battle fields abroad. Neither brings peace and prosperity.

Dr. Abbas Bakhtiar lives in Norway. He is a management consultant and a contributing writer for many online journals. He can be contacted by e-mail at: Bakhtiarspace-articles@yahoo.no

Copyright Abbas Bakhtiar, all rights reserved.

Filed Under: Economy, Featured, United States

ITALY, ITALIANS AND SILVIO BERLUSCONI — A CASE OF ANYTHING FOR POWER

March 14, 2008 By

“Rome is well worth a mass”

Global Geopolitics Net
Friday, March 14, 2008

© Copyright Gaither Stewart. All rights reserved.
Originally Published in CYRANO’S JOURNAL ONLINE (http://www.bestcyrano.org/)

Gaither Stewart

How much laughter and tears, consternation and gnashing of teeth Silvio Berlusconi has provoked in Italy, Europe and the world since he entered politics in 1994, or as he colorfully described it with the sports terminology he loves, “he entered the game.” He coined the quip, in Italian scendere in campo, with in mind his championship soccer club, Milan, “taking the field” to win another international cup. His nine-minute message to the nation telecast simultaneously by all of Italy’s TV networks in January of that year, followed by the creation of his own political party and a subsequent blitzkrieg campaign, swept him into the Premiership in elections held two months later.

Since then it has been an ugly, ugly voyage with Berlusconi. For a time it seemed a trip into the dark night with no return and at the cost—to Italians—of huge penalty fees.

Though Berlusconi had been aided enormously in his media activities—three top TV networks and a host of magazines and newspapers—by Socialist Premier Bettino Craxi, his public political activity had been limited to supporting the unsuccessful candidacy of the neo-Fascist Gianfranco Fini for the mayorship of Rome while trying to convince the political center to create another anti-Communist coalition. When both failed, the enterprising Berlusconi created the Forza Italia party (something like Let’s Go Italy, another sports expression) and entered the ring.

A majority of voters blithely ignored the immense conflict of interests in his regard, the power of his TV networks, justified suspicions concerning the source of his great wealth, and the widely held conviction that he was “entering the field” chiefly in order to defend his business empire, and enthusiastically voted him into office. That vote changed the face of Italy’s political map.

One might wonder why politically conscious Italians chose and continue to choose to vote for Silvio Berlusconi, widely considered at the most semi-legal, who acquired his wealth by highly questionable means.

At the outset it should be stressed that though the story of the relationship between Italians and Berlusconi is on one hand a very Italian story, it is also a universal story. The big Italian vote for a person thinking people and the magistracy consider a crook exemplifies the facility with which power manipulates the innocence and gullibility of electorates everywhere. For as we know political scoundrels and naïve voters thrive in every climate, from Kenya to Chile to the United States of America.

ROME TOO IS WELL WORTH A MASS

One reason Italians continue to vote for Berlusconi is his apparent lack of any kind of ideology. People are tired of political squabbles and the crowd of little men thronging for power. They like Silvio’s presentation of himself as someone from outside politics even though he brags that he entered politics … to save Italy. Not only did he enter the Rome political world, but he has also penetrated into every nook and cranny of the world of power. Silvio is always ready to bond with anyone, Fascists or mafia or the infamous P2 Masonic Lodge, and to the astonishment of some and the amusement of others, simultaneously with “my friend George” and “my friend Vladimir” as he called the two international leaders he preferred. No sacrifice has ever been too great for Berlusconi, no discrepancy too outrageous. He probably did utter during his sleepless nights or on his world travels in his private plane his version of the famous words of that French king that also “Roma vale bene una messa.”

Italians love the expression of Henri de Navarre who, in order to become Henri IV, King of Catholic France in the year 1590, renounced his Protestant faith and converted to Catholicism, and uttered the famous aphorism, Paris vaut bien une messe, Paris is well worth a mass. Recently Nicolas Sarkozy, the new Roi de France infuriated most of France, even the conservative Le Figaro, during a December visit to Pope Benedict XVI in Rome. The new French President emphasized his Catholic faith, the general role of the Church and the Christian roots of Europe precisely as advocated by the Roman Church, words which chilled secular France, probably even his conservative predecessor, George Chirac.. Trop et trop et trop. One of the nicest comments about l’affaire Sarkozy in letters to the French press was this:

"Monsieur Nicolas Sarkozy outrepasse ses droits, il a été élu Président d’une République Laique. Son contrat avec les Français qui l’ont élu est d’exercer ses fonctions dans le cadre de la laicité qui est le ciment de notre constitution". (Monsieur Nicolas Sarkozy has surpassed his rights, he was elected President of a Secular Republic. His contract with the French who elected him is to exercise his functions in a framework of secularity that is the cement of our Constitution.)
One notes that Blair at least converted after he left office; however, his religious situation is the reverse: Great Britain is not as Catholic as France.)

The reality is that Sarkozy and Berlusconi are truly cousins, as Italians and French refer to each other. They both want it all, religion and secularism, Bush and Putin, total authority and a façade of democracy. Even though lacking in any kind of ideology, TV magnate Silvio Berlusconi, an apparent crypto-Fascist and by any measure rogue capitalist, has become the real face of, and the force behind, Italian neo-Fascism: he alone brought the Fascists out of the closet. Even his anti-Communism is phony; Berlusconi’s only sincere conviction is opposition to rules of any kind that limits his personal freedom to become richer and more powerful.

Not only did he start out with the support of part of Italy’s capitalist oligarchy, which tends to be more concealed than its American counterpart, but he promptly made neo-fascists again salonfähig by forming a government coalition with them. Today he stands illogically to their right, to the right of the Right so to speak. Thus he has become the major exponent of Italy’s anomalous Right, which has little to do with traditional European political or economic Conservatism. Italy’s real Right exists in the memory of Mussolini and loves the old Fascist salute.

As French begin to turn up their noses at Sarkozy, referred to as a “Hungarian shopkeeper”, Italians of the Left now feel free to sneer back and say “They elected him but act like he dropped from heaven. Now they can keep him for five years as we did Silvio.” But, it is not at all the same. Though defeated in 2006, Silvio is still omnipresent, shaking violently Rome’s marble columns to bring down the temple of power, capable of anything, any alliance, any conversion in order to return to power. For him Rome is truly worth a mass.

YOUNG ITALY

More than other European countries Italy is split down the middle between an immoderate Right that calls itself moderate and Center Right in order to hold power, and a Left divided over practically every issue, traditionally keeping it out of national political power. The Right rejects rules; the Left makes many rules, rules that are then largely circumvented by both Left and Right. The result is ordinary daily chaos, which most Italians apparently prefer.

The birth of the Italian Communist Party in 1921, twenty years of Fascism, alliance with Nazi Germany, and defeat in World War II deepened the split between Right and Left: the Communist one-third of Italy was barred from power by the USA during the Cold War, while Fascism was shunned until Berlusconi unchained it. Meanwhile, for half a century the country was in the firm hands of the Christian Democrats staunchly backed by the USA.

For hundreds of years Italy was a romantic place to escape to, a haven for lovers or scoundrels, a land isolated from the rest of Europe. Separated geographically from the rest of the continent by the Alps, Italy was always a distant land. Right up until 1970 it took two days to drive from Munich across the Alps to Rome. Italy was thus the least known West European country, the most mysterious and in reality the most concealed. No rules in that Italy. Nothing verboten as in Germany or Switzerland. All my adult life I have heard people say, ah, to escape to Italy and live free like they do. North Europeans still today retain the image of an Italy of wine, women and song, of little work and all play. Nothing could be farther from reality.

Isolated and distant, Italy was truly different from the rest of Europe. Whether cause or effect, Italians too are different from other Europeans, who don’t know what to make of Italy. They have held onto their past longer even though they yearn to be a “normal country.” Most every political speech contains de rigueur a remark to the effect of, “If this were a normal country ….” In fact, until the advent of television many people hardly spoke proper Italian; they spoke their own dialects. Even today Sardinians speak five dialects incomprehensible to Italian speakers. Italians want to be like other people but in their hearts they know they are not. Perhaps because of that yearning they are the super-Europeans of the European Union, embracing Europe with one arm, and repulsing it with the other. Contradictorily but true to character they hate EU rules that force them to be what they are not. Berlusconi encourages that sentiment, but for the wrong reasons; he has little regard for the EU because of its rules.

Italians voted for Mussolini because of his promises of glory and empire in imitation of imperialistic France and England—and victory parades on the Via dei Fori Imperiali toward the coliseum. Today one hears mutterings that what Italy needs to get organized is another Duce. Silvio Berlusconi, who understands Italians and responds to such looking back and desire for old glories, incarnates many Mussolinian characteristics.

SILVIO’S HOUSE OF FREEDOM

Berlusconi organized Forza Italia using the business tactics and staff of his huge company, FININVEST. He too promised glory and riches, the respect and admiration of Europe and the world, which was to be achieved by running Italy like a company and eliminating or obviating rules and while leaving intact the chaos schizophrenic Italians thrive in.

As Germans in a historical moment of desperation permitted Hitler’s legal access to power, Italians three-quarters of a century ago had voted for and supported Benito Mussolini for the glory of the still relatively new unified state of Italy. Forty-five years later a majority of Italians flocked to the polls and voted for TV magnate Silvio Berlusconi who so recalled the former dictator.

In the aftermath of World War II Italy began turning its back on its particular past in search of new realities in Europe. Yet it is hard for Italians to put aside their Italianità, their Italianness. In dozens of films, the actor Alberto Sordi portrayed the false American, singing a popular song “vuoi fare l’americano, l’americano, ma sei nato in Italy.” Berlusconi personifies both the old and the new, his daily behavior underlining that this is a nation of playacting, a people aware that their trying so hard to act and look American back then was comical, even if their act was endearing to non-Italians. Those times have passed.

Exuberant Berlusconi has the backslapping bonhomie of a salesman and an unbearable ego but Italians chose him anyway in the hope that as Prime Minister he would continue his run of successes as in business and with his soccer team, modernizing and enriching Italy. To many he seemed a more exciting prospect than the austere Center-Left, eternally divided since the diaspora of the Italian Communist Party, the PCI.

BERLUSCONI UNDERSTANDS ITALIANS
Outrageous Silvio! Capable of anything to win elections, any lie, any alliance. Besides his promise of modernity, his second most potent message is anti-Communism, which appeals to one half of Italy. Once, before the 2006 elections he said publicly that Chinese Communists under Mao boiled babies and used them as fertilizer, causing an uproar in Beijing. Italy had to apologize and explain that Berlusconi’s polemics were directed against Italy’s Center-Left, not China. He also once boasted to a Milan daily that he had rung four porno chat lines to ask which candidate they favored and seven of ten declared in his favor.
In or out of office Berlusconi keeps himself in the limelight with his clownish antics and by behaving as an anti-politician despite his having created his own party, forming his House of Freedom (Casa della Libertà) coalition and serving twice as Prime Minister. Play the piano at international conferences. Sing bawdy songs in public. His style is the regular guy who cracks jokes and does a lot of backslapping. Traditionally more reserved Italians like this behavior because it seems worldly. Many like to see him arm-in-arm with Bush or Putin. Berlusoni-Prime Minister liked nothing better than getting the two world leaders together, standing between them and drawing them near as if he were creating peace in the world.

Berlusconi unabashedly exploited the Italian’s natural sense of humor. They say the more a people suffers, the more they need to laugh and find things to laugh at. By that standard the Italians must have suffered a lot because their sense of humor is remarkable within their ordinary chaos. Whether people realize it or not, there is a level of comicality in their hyperbolic actions—Italians are definitely, even today, more theatrical than other peoples, although most Mediterranean cultures have that trait.

Luciana Bohne, of Italian origin, a professor of literature and film at Edinboro University in Pennsylvania, admires the treatment of the subject of Italians and their vicissitudes in the genial work of film director Federico Fellini: “It’s all about the fantasies, hopes, and delusions of a little people who had been innocent enough to trust fascism. It’s about the pathetic Epicureanism of the boom. About Italy’s sad inability to be anything but an occupied country—the Vatican and Washington today, the Hapsburgs, Bourbons, before. It’s about the tragicomic destiny of a people who make too much noise at the wrong time, and sleep when they should wake.”

As a result it has been surprisingly easy for manipulative politicians to convince Italians that they are the most fortunate people on the planet. For non-Italians too Italy is the mother of all and its peoples the most special. That Italy however is in precipitous decline. The divide between rich and poor is deep. Class bitterness is rampant today since workers wages lag dreadfully behind the rest of Europe. Cheapness pervades society as mirrored in a degenerate television that emerged with Berlusconi’s commercial TV empire. Berlusconism has done much to change Italians into a more mean-spirited people.

Nonetheless the transformation of the delicate 20th century Italian we once knew remains no less mysterious than the transformation of fierce Romans into the gentle post-Risorgimento peoples.

Berlusconi did not create the chaos in Italy, but he played up to it. He encouraged and exploited it. Because of the chaos visitors from the north feel a beguiling sense of freedom here, to do things forbidden at home, to dive into fountains, dress outrageously and drive recklessly, things Italians either scorn or are forbidden to do. In theory they truly want things to work; they want Italy to be a “normal country”

That desire however is pure unadulterated theory. For Italians an expression of Utopia. For the Italian’s natural inclination is anarchy. No rules. No limits. For fifteen years Berlusconi has promised Italians the order they know they need but don’t want any more than he intends creating it.

In theory things should again work as Mussolini’s trains did.

In theory Berlusconi would eliminate the plagues of the chaotic multi-party system, without however eliminating the parties.

At best he would change everything albeit without changing anything, according to the expression coined by Tomasi di Lampedusa in his Sicilian novel, Il Gattopardo: “cambiare tutto, affinché non cambi niente.” (Change everything so that nothing changes.)

OUTRAGEOUS SILVIO

Incidents of Berlusconi’s antics are legion: Happy-go-lucky Silvio making the cuckold sign behind the head of a politician from another European nation as they posed for a commemorative photo. Or in response to the German Socialist, Martin Schulz, who criticized him in the European parliament, Berlusconi suggested that Schulz would be perfect as an SS guard in a film on a Nazi concentration camp. Berlusconi shrugged it off as ‘irony.’ For most people this was too much. Italians don’t want to be the laughing stock of Europe.

He refers to the anti-Berlusconi Economist magazine as The Ecommunist and suggests that the Milanese investigating magistrates who have been on his trail for years are sexual perverts. Although he finds the hated Communists under every bed, he bends over backwards for the former KGB chief, Vladimir Putin. He allegedly coached a cheer squad to chant VLA- DI-MIR; VLA-DI-MIR, outside one of his Sardinian villas where he hosted Putin. As Prime Minister he compared himself to Napoleon and then Christ because no other politician has achieved as much and no other has been so persecuted. One of his schoolteachers disclosed that young and enterprising Silvio used to sell his homework to schoolmates.

A corresponding Italian joke is that on the dashboard of Silvio’s car is a plaque with the message that “the only difference between God and Berlusconi is that God doesn’t think he is Berlusconi.”

Nonetheless it is because of such unpredictable and boorish behavior that some electors consider him more real than run-of-the-mill politicians. It is no surprise then that with a man of his vulgarity at the helm, the traditional and romantic nation of Italy was transformed into one of Europe’s most vulgar nations during his Premiership from 1991-96.
Among many books about Silvio Berlusconi, two pose the question: Is Silvio Berlusconi a threat to democracy, a Mussolini-in-the-making? Silvio Berlusconi: television, power and patrimony by Paul Ginsborg and Berlusconi’s Shadow: crime, justice and the pursuit of power by David Lane. Among the reasons for their harsh criticism is that despite his pre-electoral promise to divest himself of his three national commercial television stations, he has not done so. As Prime Minister he could also influence the three state channels so he had a virtual monopoly of television, particularly as one of his companies controls also most television advertising. Another sensitive point is that his government introduced laws to protect him personally in various trials on charges of business misdemeanors before he entered politics, and even of bribing judges. A third reason is that because he is the richest Italian, with multiple business interests apart from television, many government measures are liable to charges of conflict of interest. Moreover he is heedless of institutional niceties in his purported attempt to reshape Italy.
Both authors ask pointblank how such a man ever became Prime Minister? Initially a Milanese builder, with the help of the then Prime Minister, Bettino Craxi, he obtained a near-monopoly of commercial television once it was authorized. When Craxi and other politicians were swept aside because guilty of corruption, it seemed to the Right that the hated Communists would come to power. But Berlusconi quickly created his party, formed a coalition with the Fascists and surprisingly won the 1994 elections. The coalition fell apart after seven months but he put it together again to win in 2001.

Lane, of The Economist, emphasizes Berlusconi’s alleged links with the Mafia and his criticism of the magistrates who investigated him. For Lane, Italians must be particularly cynical or stupid to have voted for Berlusconi. Lane pursues meticulously Berlusconi’s business transactions and trials and has no empathy with his supporters. Ginsborg, an Englishman who at Florence University teaches contemporary Italian history and has written several books about it, is more attentive to the social factors behind Berlusconi’s success. Moreover he treats Berlusconi as but one example of the worldwide melding of personality politics, great wealth and media control, which pose problems for democracies.

Berlusconi’s promises of tax cuts and constant alarms of the Communist threat swung center voters over to his side. He accused one and all, even the Industrialists’ Confederation of allying against him together with the Center-Left, the Trade Unions, Italy’s five major dailies and a section of the judiciary. Still today he includes also the banks and the cooperative movement in the conspiracy against him. His preferred stance is as victim. He convinced voters with his conspiracy theories, his divisive tactics and his eternal optimism—he is resilient, energetic and probably forever bordering on desperation. Failure, I believe, is his nightmare and nemesis.

Once elected Berlusconi claimed that the ongoing conspiracy hobbled his government and blocked the renovation he aimed at. In other words, he is forever a populist revolutionary opposed by the establishment. Because his coalition was regularly beaten in local administrative elections, he began losing the allure of a winner. It has been often said that Italians found that Berlusconi is an efficient cure against Berlusconi.

In the end Berlusconi delivered on few of his many promises in his “pact with the nation.” He made the labor laws less rigid, introduced pension reform and a controversial version of federalism. He promised to reduce taxes and reform the justice system but Italy continues to be ever less competitive and has scant innovation or research. In the international sphere he aligned closely with the United States at the expense of European Union ties and Italy’s traditional pro-Arab policy. Berlusconi has found it much more difficult to govern than to run a business. He failed at re-election in 2006. Yet, today, like a modern Napoleon, he is battling to return.

WHY DID ITALIANS VOTE FOR A BUFOON LIKE BERLUSCONI IN THE FIRST PLACE?

The mythical catch phrase "now we have to make Italians," supposedly uttered by the 19th century conservative nationalist, Massimo D’Azeglio, has been much cited in debates over the question of Italian national identity and the movement toward Italy’s Unification. The question was of what those newly made Italian subjects were constituted, and in what consisted their "Italian" specificity so different from their ancient Roman ancestors. Literary and academic figures, educators and scientists have long reflected on the nature of the social bond of the diverse peoples on the Italic peninsula.

Pinocchio, the puppet without strings, provides the master metaphor for meditation on the nature of attachment itself. How are we to understand the play between a submission exacted by the Law and a submission freely chosen, between external determination and internal compulsion, in the form and functioning of the social bond?

The Italian example is a scintillating study in itself, a major contribution to our thinking about ideology and its workings. One has also dealt with fin-de-siècle obsessions with the ways that bodies were measured and disciplined, attached to apparatuses, and made to move autonomously. That is, like mechanical puppet Pinocchio. Much discussed is the emergence of a male masochistic subject from the traumatic rift opened up by the radical separation between Church and State wrought by the Unification of Italy, and its effect on the male citizen leading to the Italian vulnerability to dictatorship. Recent work on Italian modernity, combined with a reflection on ideology, has therefore focused on the Fascist period.

Here, regarding the puppet image I will cite some pertinent words about “false consciousness” from Patrice Greanville’s review of Joel C. Magnuson’s Mindful Economics: Understanding American Capitalism, Its Consequences & Alternatives. “Conditioned behavior injected from above, or false consciousness,” Greanville writes, “has always worked to prop up the status quo. In the 14th century, for example, embedded in fanatical religiosity and ignorance, it justified feudalism. In our time, it props up capitalism and its offshoot, imperialism. As such, it presents true democrats with a tough challenge: systemic propaganda in pursuit of false political consciousness is not just annoying; it’s lethal to the survival of democracy, and its advance inevitably eviscerates every single feature of democracy that make its functioning worth fighting for.

“It’s fairly obvious that from the ruling orders’ perspective the wages of propaganda are substantial. False consciousness among the masses allows the upper classes to run society in their own narrow self-interest while pretending to do so in the interest of all. Enormous, mind-boggling wealth and power are thus rapidly accumulated by the tip of the social pyramid in all societies riddled with inequality.

“Outright repression can ensure a level of compliance, sometimes for a generation or two, but in the long run it cannot guarantee political stability or legitimacy. Only covert mind control can deliver that. Thus by far the most efficient solution is when we are made to carry the chains and prisons right inside our heads. Policing our own actions while still believing in our total freedom is simply a diabolically effective formula ensuring perpetual bondage.

”The drift toward authoritarianism cannot be arrested, only slowed down or momentarily interrupted, given the essentially undemocratic nature of the system. Living with capitalism is like living with a sociopath in the room, a maniac who bears constant watching. Yet that is exactly what we continue to observe among broad segments of the population of many nations, most notably the U.S. (think of "the red state syndrome"), where such "irrational" voting patterns have become so scandalously common as to make the American electorate something of an enigma if not a laughingstock to many observers around the globe. So how do we explain this? The short answer is false political consciousness.”
One answer to our query about Italians is that contrary to a diffused conception of them Italians are not more politically sophisticated than others in the world of the Occident. In fact they are gullible, easily swayed and maneuverable, a nation of Pinocchio’s, especially when firmly entrenched in their trusted ideologies of Left or Right. Despite their innate skepticism and cynicism—qualities lacking in the great American heartland—the Italian masses do not think any more than do their American counterparts. They react to what fills, or seems to fill, their everyday lives.

Yet, they too are learning that voting is not enough. Electoral laws seem to mutate from one year to the next. New laws are passed but the candidates and the rhetoric remain the same. Inhabitants of the Italian peninsula, in a setting of changing kings and popes and invaders and occupiers, have been changed by the times, by bad politics, by a growing lack of ideals and a lack of adequate political leadership and positive example and political instruction.

The historic chaos of Italy and growing indifference to reality of its peoples provided vast space for the likes of Silvio Berlusconi.

ALBERTO MORAVIA ON THE SENSE OF REALITY

As the Rome writer Alberto Moravia emphasized in his sizeable literature the sad fact is that Italians of the post-World War II era have lost their identity provoking a gradual departure from their sense of reality. In Moravia’s interpretation this enormous change in Italian temperament occurred during the passage from the Fascist bourgeoisie to the neo-capitalist bourgeoisie of the post-war. To pinpoint the change, the mutation took place precisely in the era of US tutelage of Italy, considered “the weak underbelly of West Europe” during the Cold War, when propaganda depicting Cossacks watering their horses in the fountains of Vatican City created a new “false consciousness” that was continued by Silvio Berlusconi.

The loss of both identity and sense of reality generated the alienation of individuals and society as depicted in Antonioni’s stark cinema settings. Moravia had first preceded the French existentialists with his novel, The Time of Indifference, 1929. In the post-war he paved the way for French sociologists like Jean Baudrillard with his depictions of the transformation of man into an object to be bought and sold, as if his life were an investment which must produce profit. In his collection of short essays, Mots de Passe, published in the year 2000 by Pauvert, Baudrillard repeats word for word Alberto Moravia’s views on man as an object of exchange. The fundamental idea is that when material success—that is possession—is considered the highest value, relationships between men will also follow the same patterns of exchange controlling consumer goods and labor.

“In this sense, resistance is the key response. Resistance to being possessed. A person’s real value then is proportional to the resistance one puts up against being possessed.” (Giuliano Dego, in Moravia, Oliver and Boyd, London and Edinburgh.)

Once in his apartment for an interview, Moravia, to underline that the crisis of the relationship with reality, said that “reality can be that table” and whacked it with the knob of his cane and knocked the microphone of my recorder to the floor, which we had trouble adjusting. Then, after pondering his own statement, he repeated, “Yes, reality is this table. I’m not speaking here of our relationship with the social world. It is more philosophical than that. I mean our relationship with an object. The problem emerges from the idea that there exists something outside ourselves, despite the idealistic philosophy according to which nothing exists outside ourselves. The thing is people don’t realize this crisis but they suffer from it anyway.”

The fundamental theme of Moravia’s work became revolt and the difficulty of relationships with reality, admittedly, he said, an obsession. Communication, in his view, was the basic problem of man. “Sex is the most primitive means of communication,” the writer said of the incommunicability infecting his characters. “Psychiatrists call this defect of our relationships with reality ‘de-realization.’ It’s a sickness. But there are various mediations between us and reality—like sex. We can relate to reality with our bodies. Like the woman asked if she preferred to masturbate or make love? ‘Make love,’ she answered. ‘That way you at least get acquainted with someone.’ In fact, sex in my literature is for communication.

Moravia’s literary milieu is the bourgeoisie, which he hated with a passion … although he himself was part of it. In his work the proletariat and the intellectuals hovering around the fringes of his bourgeois world are his instruments for dissecting and analyzing that world, which is Italy. The working class yearns for the Eden of the bourgeoisie while the intellectuals like Moravia and his invented characters who live within that milieu are suffering in their alienation. Since there is no escape, their anguish can only grow.

Moravia’s bourgeoisie must be understood in moral terms, not economic. It is a life style. Moravia said clearly that it is better to be rich than poor. Moreover, his bourgeoisie must be understood in European terms. It is not the American Middle Class. The term originated in a century of social revolution in Europe terminating in the Russian Revolution. Uncertain in his artificial idolization of the proletariat as the natural opponent of the hated bourgeoisie, Moravia gravitated toward Communism, as did most of his liberal generation in Europe.

I have dwelled on Moravia because he showed in his fiction that the bored indifference of the Italian people as a whole facilitated the birth and twenty-year survival of Fascism, the same political indifference that marks Italian society today in the face of the modern form of reactionary extremism that is Silvio Berlusconi.

Indifference, I might add, is not only an Italian story.

Gaither Stewart is a Senior Contributing Editor at Cyrano’s Journal Online (http://www.bestcyrano.org/)

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