Tuesday,
September 18,
Beppe Grillo:
The New Clown Prince of
The
ANNOTICO Report
In
a little over a week Beppe Grillo
has gone from being a satirical comedian, to a putative leader, to the actual
leader of a de facto group of candidates, whom he will vet before endorsing.
The
Establishment Media try as they might, have not been able to ridicule him into
oblivion, but have only added to his luster.
This
article deserves careful reading - We may have the beginnings of Serious movement at hand.
Last week he was
just another comedian. This week Beppe Grillo "tousle-haired, beer-bellied, foul-mouthed and 59 " is something else. But what
exactly? Is he a new Mussolini in the making, a reckless demagogue who
threatens to overturn the established order and replace it with God knows what?
The gadfly from the blogosphere
spreading wild, anarchic ideas about democracy of the base? Or simply the
man who is giving
All
It all started
on 8 September.
For the past four years Mr Grillo
has written a blog, beppegrillo.it,
It might have
fallen flat on its face, like other efforts to shake the established order in
recent years. Some years back the art-house film director Nani
Moretti led a movement called the Girotondi
to thumb a nose at the left-wing establishment, dancing ring-a-ring-a-rosy
around famous Italian piazzas in whimsical protest. But the media grew bored
with it and the movement quietly disappeared. No-one doubts the degree of
political disenchantment in
Not Beppe's, though. F-Off Day seemed ambitious for a movement
confined to the blogosphere. The comedian called for
one big rally in
Contemporary
Italy has produced a succession of superb satirists who tangle with the
sensibilities of the rich and powerful: Dario Fo, awarded the
Nobel prize for literature for Accidental Death of an Anarchist, is over 80 and
still provocative; Roberto Benigni, Oscar-winning
star of Life is Beautiful was far more robust (and funny) when teasing Silvio Berlusconi; Sabina Guzzanti,
whose cruel impersonations of the man they call "psiconano"
("the psychotic dwarf") led to her show being axed by RAI after a
single episode.
But Mr Grillo has paid his
dues longer than anyone else, and for many years has mined material from
the rich seams of abuse and corruption in Italian public life. His live shows
have long involved political tub-thumping. He trained as an accountant before
becoming a comic. A barbed joke against the Socialist leader Bettino Craxi (later convicted in absentia of corruption) led to
him being banned from television in 1986. His appearances on the small screen
since have been rare, but he has built a huge following with stage shows; and
indignation against the corruption and hypocrisy of Italian politics and
business have been at the heart of his act for two
decades.
Mr Grillo's
material seemed to take on a prophetic character when he became the only
Italian public figure to predict the downfall of Parmalat,
the dairy giant based in the city of
This was Mr Grillo's role in
Italian life: the clever, raucous, tub-thumping gadfly. But in the past
week all that has changed. The turnout for "V-Day" stunned the
political establishment, and in the days that followed he maintained the
initiative. Big gun columnists were rolled out to rubbish the man, to condemn
him as a dangerous demagogue, a Mussolini in the making - but every roar
of the canon only amplified his importance.
Having proved
that he was, as claimed, the voice of a broad mass of disaffected Italians,
what would he do next?
The first
answer came on Saturday when he showed up at the Festa
dell'Unita, the great annual jamboree, first of the
Communists, now of the post-Communists, and received a loud ovation from the
crowd, despite the fact that prominent among the people he was mocking and
scorning were their highest leaders. Mr Grillo was in no mood to soften his message or tender olive
branches. The "up yours" tone continued unabated.
Then on Sunday he
went a step further, announcing that his blog would
give its backing to independent candidates for local elections who fulfill the
criteria of openness and who remain seperate from the
established parties. "Candidates who adhere to the requirements will
receive a certificate of transparency from beppegrillo.it"
he wrote on the blog yesterday.
So much flim-flam, you might think, so much self-dramatising nonsense in a country which specialises
in it. But as
Fifteen years ago
a revolution began in
But the
The political
parties are fragile, fissiparous, constantly in flux; at the same time the
political establishment is a closed, highly privileged entity, as dissected in La Casta (The Caste), a huge bestseller which exposes the
corruption and nepotism at its heart.
No-one doubts
that Mr Grillo is moving
into politics. "Certainly
"I myself
was taken surprise by the size of the response to my call for V-Day. But this
is not a demonstration of anger: it's a pure breath of air. There were no
banners at the demonstrations, no violent incidents, a
mood of good cheer. Italians were standing in line to sign our petition
-smiling and standing in line. Have you ever seen Italians doing that?"
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