Silent Politics in the Society of Silences

During these last weeks, we have been informed about police investigations against Mr. Nicola Cosentino (Deputy Minister for Economy) and the coordinator of Mr. Berlusconi party in Campania Region Mr. Luigi Cesaro: they have been accused by a mafia fellow to be involved in the illegal business of waste management with mafia. Actually it is quite normal that Italian politics appeared united, both right and left wings with just few exceptions, in defending a representative of its domain. Yet the zero reaction in public opinion is rather surprising. It is surely true that people cannot react because just little information is spread about these facts and actually TV and newspapers reported very few news about it. This is also to confirm the political control over information in Italy: anything can erode consensus and imagine of political power is immediately silenced. I note however a sort of anesthetisation in all of us towards these news. Finally, after decades of corruption and bad politics, the fact that important expressions of Italian politics are suspected to be involved with mafia, is considered “normal”: furthermore, probably, common people know these situations very well and consider these (dis)qualities as essential properties for a successful politician rather than a problem. If a politician is not “rightly” involved, he is not a good politician; if he hasn’t the ”right” contacts how can he be able to help me in finding a job, a bed in a hospital, in letting me have an echography jumping the long waiting list, or letting me build a house without license?. We are living in a system someone still calls “democracy” and thus the responsibility for this is on all of us. Actually, everyone has the government he is worthy of…