REFLECTIONS : Silvio Berlusconi’s world of gaffes!

If you watched news on your television last Monday evening, you must have been distracted by a sleeping man when the news-clip on Germany came on. The man, whose cheeks are threatening to defy the determined effort of a surgeon’s knife and go sagging again, seemed to ignore the animated activity all around him and enjoy his sweet dreams in slumber-land. You may accuse me of being afflicted by a similar penchant for gaffes, and I cannot be caught hurrying to deny it, but I must confess that I am intrigued by that man. And that man, in case you have not already caught on to the avowed object of my affection, is none other than Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister. Well, now, what’s with the old geezer, Ingina, you may be asking. And I’ll say yes, I am fascinated by this man, Silvio Berlusconi, who seems to be larger than life. The man, all of 73-year-old hunk of him, is an entrepreneur, a real estate and insurance tycoon, a bank and media proprietor, a sports team owner and a composer. Berlusconi is Prime Minister of the Italian Republic and has held that position on three separate occasions: from 1994 to 1995, 2001 to 2006 and currently since 2008. He is leader of the People of Freedom political movement, a coalition of many other parties in Italy. As senior G8 leader, he is the longest-serving current leader of a G8 country. In spite of all the aforesaid, however, Silvio Berlusconi’s legacy may retain his jokes, gestures and blunders more than it may his accomplishments. I remember that the first time I read about this side of his character was when he was reported making a vulgar gesture. In an official photo shoot during a European Union summit of foreign affairs ministers in 2002, Berlusconi is reported having made a vulgar gesture called the “corna”, behind the head of Spanish minister Josep Piqué. He was intimating that the minister was a cuckold – the husband of an adulteress! The following year, Berlusconi touched off a diplomatic furore between Germany and Italy when German parliamentarian Martin Schulz criticized him on his domestic policy and alleged links with the Mafia. “Mr Schulz,” he said, “I know a movie producer….who is making a movie about Nazi concentration camps. I will recommend you for the role of a Kapo.” To those unfamiliar with the Nazi lingo, a Kapo was a prisoner who worked inside Nazi concentration camps during World War II. Addressing a group of Wall Street traders in London in mid-2005, Berlusconi sent Italian female parliamentarians into a spate of cross-party demonstrations when he listed a series of reasons to invest in Italy. The first of them, said he, was that “we have the most beautiful secretaries in the world.” Add that to the remark that literally drove his now-ex-wife, Veronica, up the wall and you will see why the women of Italy and their Prime Minister are not good bedfellows. The remark was at an awards dinner in 2007, where he told Forza Italia party representative and former showgirl, Mara Carfagna: “If I was not already married, I would marry you right away.” Carfarga is now minister for Equal Opportunities. You remember him more recently, this Silvio, at the G8 summit in London as those powerful leaders took their positions around Her Majesty the Queen of England for a photo session. Berlusconi was shouting: “Mr Obama, Mr Obama! He was so nosy that even the ever-so-cool and always-aloof demeanour of the queen was ruffled, leading her to go beyond her usual majestic pleasantries to loudly wonder, perhaps for the first time in her monarch-hood: “Oh, dear, oh dear, why does he shout so?” And you remember him in the news as he threw his arms up in the air, in dramatic exasperation when Michelle Obama offered him a hand instead of her cheek for a diplomatic peck as a greeting. Later he reported that Barack Obama was more handsome because he was “suntanned” and, said he, “his wife is suntanned, too.” Then it was in Germany, at the NATO meeting in Kehl, when he missed a photo call with 27 other leaders. He was gesticulating as he shouted, in an intense conversation with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on his mobile phone. What horrified even us disinterested observers in the rest of the world, however, were his comments to his fellow citizens two days after the L’Aquila earthquake that caused 290 deaths. The people left homeless and who were living in tents, he said, should “view their experience as a camping weekend.”And, even more horrifying in that same occasion, he followed that heartless remark with the question to woman councillor Lia Beltram: “Can I fondle you?” Wonderful Italians, though, you can bet your last dime that they will go for him again, if he is to step down tomorrow. Fascinated? I guess I am not alone! ingina2@yahoo.co.uk