The Leopard

It often happens to outsiders looking in that they can often provide incisively detailed and objective assessment and analysis of what really goes on within certain countries as well as what makes them tick.

A case in point are two books written about Italian politics: Forza Italia: Come Ripartire Dopo Berlusconi by Bill Emmott, and much more recently Ammazziamo il Gattopardo by Alan Friedman.

While Emmott was a former editor of The Economist that had published a cover in April 2001 with the bold headline: Why Silvio Berlusconi is unfit to lead Italy; Friedman is an American journalist who in his early days was a collaborator of the J Carter US Presidential administration, and also a correspondent of the FT; an opinion writer of the International Herald Tribune and an editorialist of the Wall Street Journal. Being Italy-based for a number of years he has long been accredited as having a finger on the pulse of the nation.

Although there is a four-year gap between the two books, both see hope for Italy in the eternal reservoir of change: youth.

Then and now the leaders of the anti-Mafia struggle, the new entrepreneurs, the up and coming politicians, the radical journalists (right and left even at a time when people are asking what is left of the Left!) and even the most lively academics are disproportionately young.

Were one to examine these two books clinically one will understand why the Renzi factor has not only worked but is also expected to succeed, even if it might eventually go through difficult patches.

The mere notion that he is trying to push forward real and radical reforms is in itself a modal shift of the first order.

While Emmott blames Berlusconi practically for all of Italy’s sins in recent years, Friedman shows that the biggest blame rests with the system itself and past politicians’ reluctance to change it in any noticeable way.

One of the most ticklish questions that he asks is whether the crisis Italy went through in recent years was Germany’s fault, a consequence of the imposed austerity measures, or just the end result of the mediocrity of the ruling class?

More importantly the same way that Emmott tried to offer hope in the future, Friedman tried to answer his own question – as to whether there was any exit or not as a result of which the Italian system could be reinvented and re-engineered without allowing hubris to continue clinging on to its structures and institutions.

While Emmott tried hard to show that beneath the Mala Italia there was a Buona Italia struggling to emerge and come on top, Friedman starts off his book by making it clear that strange as it may sound, his book is a book of passion.

Written out of his love of Italy and Italians.

Where I think he has the edge on the Emmott book is that it is far less one dimensional and far more multi faceted than the previous impressive offering.

He showed no hesitation about being bitter in his criticism and radical in his proposals. So long as the country he loved and that seems to have adopted him found its feet, as such a highly gifted country deserved to do.

The title is easy to understand the moment one comes across various references in the book to the Gattopardo who is reported to have played without any scruples a Macchiavellian game during the Risorgimento, by giving the impression of embracing new ideas while deep down being solely interested in preserving the status quo as most Italian politicians are reported to have done for decades, through a reform process that was either fake, partial and hollow, with the sole intent of not moving forward one metre.

Prior to Renzi’s ascent to power he argues that the Gattopardo mentality has continued to prevail right across the whole spectrum.

His message is easy to comprehend. Italy cannot waste more time.

“No more tempi supplementari’ – he exclaims.

This is why his battle cry is that of killing the Leopard in order to bring its reign to an end.

Particularly for those who have not experienced those cataclysmic years, Friedman goes into detail as to how the Pentapartito used to work in practice, with everyone sharing the spoils in government. As part of what was termed ‘la lottizzazzione’ through control of state entities and parastatal bodies.

He first met key players like Monti when still associated with Bocconi University, Letta when close to Andreatta, and Ciampi when still the uppermost central banker and Prodi was still trying to take on the IRI monster.

Predictably people like Cardinal Marcinkus were not spared his merited  criticism.

He explains how the Milan stock exchange was for quite some time less regulated than the Far West and how even he had been almost duped into thinking that people like Salvatore Ligresti were the best thing that could have happened for the benefit of the so called Italian Salotto Buono.

When a country so close to us geographically and even in socio-economic terms as well as on a people to people basis goes through such stagnation, the worst that can happen to them is to see them experience empty hopes.

Feeling the vibrancy of the new Italian government and its Premier one might have more than enough reason to feel that the tidal change is happening already.

One needs to look at the future in such circumstances but what really triggered public confidence in Renzi as evidenced by the way glowing editorials are regularly written about him even in such respected media as the FT, is the fact that he has admitted that the old system was not only built on mediocrity… but worse than that… That the whole ruling class had failed.

Leo Brincat is Minister for Sustainable Development, the Environment, and Climate Change