article by Bernardo Parrella on November 17 th.

On October 9, Italy's highest Court ruled that Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's immunity from prosecution while in office — guaranteed by a special law passed by his own center-right government in 2008 — was unconstitutional. This decision has reopened two pending trials that accuse Berlusconi of false accounting and bribery.

"SALVIAMO L'ITALIA, SALVIAMO LA DEMOCRAZIA. BERLUSCONI DIMETTITI."

Saturday, December 5 was designated “No Berlusconi Day (NBD)”.



The campaign spread quickly on the Internet with video,blogs and tweets, as well as offline, through word of mouth. In little more than a month over 280,000 people pledged to host a public event on “No Berlusconi Day” via the main Facebook group, with groups formed in many cities in Italy and around the world, including San Francisco and Sacramento (California), Ottawa and Montreal (Canada), Buenos Aires (Argentina), London, Madrid, Brussels, Vienna, and Istanbul - where local rallies will be held on the same day.

The initiative has been featured on countless websites, as well as on Italy's leading daily newspapers, la Repubblica and Corriere della Sera. Today the leftist daily L'Unità devoted several pages to the event, including a story underlining the crucial role of citizen media in such “bottom-up initiatives”, comparing it to the protest movement in Iran and even to the Obama election in the USA. An open letter appeared in the London Times.

While the protest appeal document has been translated in 11 languages so far, including Arabic, Turk and Serb-Croat, the No Berlusconi Day blog further explains:

"The No Berlusconi Day group is a large, informal, global network of ordinary citizens, spanning all political and cultural backgrounds. The coordinators of the group are unpaid and do not collectively hold specific political affiliations… Although the No Berlusconi Day group is non-political, the group and event has received public support and endorsement from a number of high-profile activists, including Salvatore Borsellino brother of the anti-corruption judge Paolo Borsellino who was murdered by a Mafia car-bomb in 1992."

Beppe Grillo,a well-known Italian comedian who launched a very popular (some say ‘populist') campaign against corruption and illegality of past Italian governments last year, has also announced his support of No Berlusconi Day on his website, attracting more than 1,300 comments, the vast majority supporting his statement:

“Mi sono rotto i coglioni di Berlusconi”. Ditelo in pubblico, al bar, al ristorante. Gridatelo in radio, ai semafori, scrivetelo ai giornali, inviate mail ai siti italiani e internazionali, alle caselle di posta dei deputati, dei senatori. “Mi sono rotto i coglioni di Berlusconi”.

[…]

E' mai possibile che gli italiani, anche quelli rincoglioniti dalle televisioni, non abbiano un moto di rigetto, un conato di vomito a vedere la Repubblica Italiana trattata come una zoccola? Il Grande Corruttore ha corrotto forse ogni coscienza? Tutto ciò che ha toccato nella sua vita si è corrotto, decomposto. E' lui l'H1N1 della nostra democrazia."

[…]

How could it be that Italians, even those brainwashed by TV, are not forcefully opposing, are not about to puke in the face of such slut picture of the Italian Republic? The Big Enticer resorted to bribe everybody's conscience? Everything he touched in his life now looks corrupted. He is the H1N1 of our democracy."

The NBD organizers chose the color purple to identify the movement, explaining that “purple is not just for mourning, but it is also a symbol of vital energy and self-determination”.

Will people actually take to the streets en masse? For those still in doubt, the following “Joker Silvio” video explains the “top 10 reasons why citizens should participate in the No B-Day, an event born and promoted almost exclusively on the Net” :

Who has already heard of flopsaland or been to that little strange place?  No, it is not a place made up which you can only read about in Tolkien’s’ books like Lord of the rings.  But true it could come just straight out a modern fairy-thriller story.

That’s why the article of Frank Albers in my weekly magazine Knack made me so laugh. Ready to discover mystical flopsaland?

 

Once upon a time there was a country that didn’t want to exist. Other countries found that very odd because most countries were proud of themselves.  In fact most nations felt superior then the others.  Some pretention wasn’t strange to most of them. Even a country which was hungry often gave the impression it was better then a well fed country.   Most countries were macho’s. Who provoked them got a punch.  That’s how most of them came into existence.  By fighting.  Fighting creates a bond and sometimes a country.  Though there is more needed to maintain a country then spears and bombs.  Most nations are a gathering of shared melancholy and memories, of shared faith and language.  Sometimes, when they became a bit older and wiser, they learned how to work together.  Duo-projects like going to the moon together or destroying together a country.  But how long the collection operation might have taken, in the end they still loved themselves most.  This can be seen at sports games and factory-closures.  Once a macho always a macho.  There doesn’t exist a two-country flag.

Between all these big proud macho-countries lays this one little country that, to surprise of all, doesn’t want to exist. It didn’t love itself but didn’t want to be part of another country.     It sulks and dawdles, it pouts and grouses continuously.  The sun wasn’t entirely up yet or it felt already offended.  It didn’t fit in itself. Too little to be something, too big to be nothing. If another bigger country yelled “boo” it began instantly to howl which made the bigger once laugh.  Flop-sa-land, named by the bigger countries, was extremely thin-skinned.       It didn’t stand critic, sneers and mockery but giggled coquettish with the most minor compliment.   The main state of mind in Flop-sa-land was a curious mixture of self-hate, self-pity and self-over-estimation which can normally mostly be found with teens.   The unfortunate country showed also another symptom which doctors often see with very sad and mentally unstable adolescents, self-mutilation.  The bonsai-country had cut itself in so many bonsai-cells and atoms as possible, which began all to argue with each other. Until the country was nothing more then fuss.  “Nothing comes out nothing” said King Lear but that was said long before Flop-sa-land proved the opposite.  Luckily a country doesn’t have a pulse. And a grave-yard for passed countries also doesn’t exists, except for ..Africa.. maybe.  But the big real countries were worried.  The behaviour of Flop-sa-land became more and more peculiar. It seemed something got created which history had never seen before: a country with suicide-plans.

“Why hypochondriacs Flop-sa-land itself down?” asked the bigger stronger countries. “A lot has to do with the past” told the Flop-sa-land specialists.  Also for a country the child stage is the determinate factor.   Flop-sa-land didn’t make itself or created itself.  It was nobodies wish and nobodies’ creation, more caused then created.  A country cloned out of the rests of DNA of bigger countries.  To prevent that Flop-sa-land would ever be something everyone spoke its own dialect which a few kilometres further no one could understand easily. And had different languages.  Flop-sa-land a country out of the second-hand store, a left-over country. By no inner cause driven, by no army protected (not that there isn’t one) and by no insight justified.

“What should we do with a nation that is annoyed with itself?” asked the big countries at a day. “Let’s made a parking out of it” said some because in most of the big countries parking is a problem.  “Let’s cover it with sonar-panels” suggested some others because the oil was almost getting exhausted. Or let’s make it into a dump of our rubbish of over consummation.    

The Copenhagen appeal

 A binding international agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

 Targets based on the most recent scientific report from the IPCC.

 Action to limit average global warming to a level well below 2°C (compared with the beginning of the industrial era).

 Transfer of substantial resources to developing countries, given the historic responsibility of the industrialised countries for causing global warming. These resources must take account of the specific situation of each country and the action which it can take to reduce its carbon emissions (for example, the fight against deforestation in a country like Brazil). The transfer of resources must also be proportional to the scale of the consequences of climate change on developing countries. And, finally, such resources must obviously be additional to official development assistance (and not replacing it).

 A fair and socially just agreement.

 Urgent implementation of the agreement.

 Action to be taken above all in the industrialised countries themselves, in accordance with a sustainable development model.