Waiting for the Punchline

The joke was bad, the refusal to apologize worse. But Berlusconi's gaffe may be a symptom of a European disease that's hardly funny at all

Nearly every day, an hour or two before Channel 4's television news broadcast in the UK, anchorman Jon Snow or someone else in the newsroom sends out a brief and breezy edition of Snowmail,"giving you the inside track on what's buzzing in the newsroom." It's a great read. Three or four stories, tops, so when it plops into the inbox, you know that, after a good 15-second skim, you'll have been sufficiently briefed for the hour. Catching up comes later; Snowmail is simply about the bare bones essentials. So when Snow reported on the latest developments in the Berlusconi brouhaha late last week, he was almost apologetic. The story, he wrote, was "irresistible, but stupid."

No question that Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's remarks in front of the European Parliament last Wednesday were sensational. What newsie wouldn't be tempted to run with it. Once again, briefly: As things stand, and until a new constitution is finalized and ratified, the presidency of the EU rotates among member countries for six months at a time. Italy took over on July 1 to preside until the end of the year. This alone sparked a bout of justified hand-wringing across the continent so wide-ranging geographically and politically that the Italian daily Corriere della Sera devoted practically a secial edition to what The Economist, a long-time Berlusconi foe, called "international lambasting."

European parliamentarians took their worries right into that first meeting last week. Berlusconi listened to one after another criticize his all but complete takeover of the media in Italy, his shady business deals and an immunity law he recently rammed through to protect himself, all crescendoing into the speech from German Green Martin Schulz. The VP of the European Parliament's socialist group took no prisoners, and for Berlusconi, it was the last straw: He knew of a film being produced in Italy on Nazi concentration camps, he said. Schulz would be perfect for the role of a kapo, a commandant.

In German, this is what is known as a "Nazi-Vergleich," sort of a variation of Godwin's Law extended to discourse among politicians. The German press and public know them well, since they seem to pop up with weary regularity all across the political spectrum. They must be immediately and publicly condemned, of course, but the whole routine has also become a real "here we go again" drag. This "Nazi-Vergleich," though, is slightly more eyebrow-raising since it comes from the Italian prime minister, and that on the very day he was suppose to assure the continent that the EU, at this crucial moment of expansion, constitution-writing and so forth, was in good hands.

The reactions in the Italian and European papers were predictable enough, with the only papers in the world coming to Berlusconi's defense being those owned by Berlusconi. German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder dutifully stood up in front of the German parliament and demanded an apology. During a phone call with Berlusconi later that day, he thought he'd gotten it and was ready to move on, but wait! Berlusconi announced the next day that he hadn't apologized at all. Sure, he was sorry that no one appreciated his sense of humor, but he sure wasn't sorry for his remarks. And so it goes, this gotcha game played out on the international stage, a macho pissing contest no one seems to be enjoying but Berlusconi himself.

In the meantime, while anyone could have written each of those paper's editorials on Thursday, a few reactions are worth note. Cristina Odone's, for example. Deputy editor of the New Statesman and half Italian herself, she writes in the Observer, "Every nation gets the leader it deserves. And Italy deserves Berlusconi." It's a chilling thought, especially for an American like myself. How can I help but refuse to buy into that argument.

Here at Telepolis, Peter Mühlbauer had a most curious reaction, but an intriguing one for a cinephile (Kaput Lager). There's little space here to translate the humor of Mühlbauer's train of thought, but behind it is the question: Another Italian film about a Nazi concentration camp? What's up with that? Follow the links in that piece to nearly a dozen Italian productions listed at the IMDb, e.g., Le Lunghe notte della Gestapo, about which one user exclaims, "Nazi Sexploitation at its best." Mühlbauer's onto something here.

But Martin Jacques, writing in the Guardian on Saturday, draws the most far-reaching and serious conclusions from all "irresistible, but stupid" hoopla: "Berlusconi is - and has been ever since his political emergence in 1994 - the most dangerous political figure in Europe." He has been "pursuing a policy of creeping totalitarianism" in a "political style" which "is a direct descendant of fascism." Another "Nazi-Vergleich"? If so, this one isn't as easy to dismiss.

Elsewhere

The mind of a bureaucrat must be a terribly hard nut to crack. As the weekend papers are reporting that Schröder is planning a trip to Washington this year, ahead of Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer's already confirmed trip, spend a few frustrating minutes with Jeffrey Gedmin, director of the Aspen Institute Berlin, and Ronald D. Asmus, formerly of the Clinton State Department. Their amiable chat about The Future of US-German Relations gets labeled a "debate" by the Council on Foreign Relations, but that's hardly the word for it.

Asmus: "As you know, I would be the last American to absolve Germany for its policy and lack of leadership on Iraq." And he's the Democrat. Gedmin: "Minister Fischer said recently Europe needs its own Boston Tea Party. Does the German foreign minister really think that independence from America is an urgent foreign policy priority?" Yes, Mr. Gedmin, yes. With the US rampaging around the globe in a vain attempt to remake the world in its own image, a unified Europe as a geopolitical counterweight is very much an urgent foreign policy priority. No one has been exactly secretive about this over the past year (see, for just one of many examples, Wanted: A New Axis). You may be living in Berlin, but you're clearly not listening.

On his way to a more serious point - that, for many Europeans, "there is an element of class vengeance in vacation" - the New York Times's Richard Bernstein marvels at a PR Photo released by the government before it announced drastic measures aimed at Germany's ailing economy (see Big Tax Cuts, Bigger Spending Cuts): "It showed the men and women who run this country discussing tax reform while sitting under Renoiresque dappled sunlight at a table set, it seemed, more for an alfresco Italian wedding than a serious conversation about the future of Europe's most powerful economy."

Jan Swafford in Slate: "Figuratively speaking, everybody knows [Beethoven's] Ninth. But has anybody really understood it? The harder you look, the odder it gets."

Richard Wolin reviews Jean Grondin's Hans Georg Gadamer: A Biography in Bookforum.

And finally, a somewhat surprising package from openDemocracy. Three articles on the uprising of June 17, 1953 (see What We Think About When We Think About Germany) by Wolfgang Schuller, Jörg Roesler and Anthony Glees.