Читать книгу The Notebook - José Saramago - Страница 14

According to the North American magazine Forbes, the Gotha of global wealth, Berlusconi’s fortune comes to nearly ten thousand million dollars. Earned honorably, of course, albeit not without the assistance of many other people, including, for instance, my own. Being published in Italy by the Einaudi publishing house, owned by the aforementioned Berlusconi, I must have earned him some money. An infinite drop of water in the ocean, to be sure, but at least enough to be keeping him in cigars, assuming that corruption is not his only vice. Apart from what is public knowledge, I don’t know very much myself about the life and miracles of Silvio Berlusconi, il Cavaliere. The Italian people, who have sat him once, twice, three times in the prime minister’s chair, must know far more than I do. Well, as we often hear it said, the people are sovereign, and they are not only sovereign, they are also wise and prudent, especially since the continual exercise of their democratic rights allows citizens to learn certain useful things about how politics works and about the different means of attaining power. This means that the people are very well aware of what it is they want when they are called to vote. In the particular case of the Italian people, since that is who we’re talking about and no one else (the time for others will come), it is obvious that the sentimental feelings they have for Berlusconi, which they have demonstrated three times, are quite impervious to any consideration of moral order. Really, in the land of the Mafia and the Camorra, what importance could the proven fact that the prime minister is a criminal possibly have? In a land where justice has never had much of a reputation, who cares if the prime minister gets approval for laws aimed at defending his own interests and protecting himself against any attempt to punish his excesses and abuses of authority?

Eça de Queiroz used to say that if we were to send a laugh around an institution, that institution would fall to pieces. That was then. What can be said about the recent prohibition—ordered by Berlusconi—against Oliver Stone’s film W. being shown there? Have il Cavaliere’s powers already stretched so far? How has it been possible for such senseless acts to have been committed, especially since we know that however many times we might send a laugh around the Quirinale it will not fall? Our outrage may be just, but we should make an effort here to understand the complexity of the human heart. W. is a film that attacks Bush, and Berlusconi, a man of heart just as any Mafia boss might be, is a friend, colleague, buddy of the man who is still president of the United States. They are good for one another. What would be no good at all would be for the Italian people to place Berlusconi in the seat of power for a fourth time. No amount of laughter will be able to save us then.