Italy is in turmoil – but there are grounds for cautious optimism

Is it all doom and gloom in Italy? After all, the country is in turmoil, unable to make up its mind over which bunch of bandits should be entrusted to run the Government for the next four years. The economy, a basket-case since 2008, is said to be sitting up and taking soup, and there is even talk of growth in the air. But the banking crisis has yet to be fully resolved and one in three young people are unable to find work. As if that wasn’t enough, a new summer of illegal immigration is about to get underway, bringing in boatloads of sub-Saharan Africans, most of whom would like to work in Finchley but will probably have to settle for selling figurines in the Piazza Navona.

But here’s the surprise. Yes, there is lots of stuff in the press about the political crisis and all the other stuff that has so vexed Italians since they thought they had got rid of Silvio Berlusconi in 2011. But just as prominent, at least on the online edition of yesterday’s left-leaning La Repubblica, were the following big stories: The royal baby is a boy; UK: Charles surprises the Queen: he calls her “mummy” at the concert for her birthday; and, with video accompaniment, noting the appearance on Britain’s Got Talent of 13-year-old Holly Booth, a survivor of last year’s terrorist attack in Manchester: Holly’s courage: girl wounded in the Manchester massacre dances on a wheelchair

Another British story featured prominently examined the plight of the parents of Alfie Evans, the brain-damaged infant whose case last week went before the Supreme Court in London. Mr and Mrs Evans, it will be recalled, wanted to take their son for treatment to the specialist Bambino Gesù hospital in Rome, but had their plea rejected. Dr Mariella Enoc, the hospital’s director told reporters that the case highlighted a much broader ethical problem but expressed her gladness that she had succeeded in securing the prayers of Pope Frances for “il piccolo Alfie”.

Given the extent of the coverage devoted to the upcoming Champions League semi-final, between Roma and Liverpool, La Repubblica’s news coverage bore more than a passing resemblance yesterday to that of the Liverpool Echo. Just as significantly, perhaps, while reflecting the dissatisfaction of readers with the impotence of their political élites, neither paper seemed to have any space for the vagaries of Brexit.

Surely some  mistake.

Three hundred and twenty seven miles (or 525 kilometers, if you prefer) to the north of Italy’s capital, Turin’s La Stampa also gave space to both the royal baby and “il piccolo Alfie”.  But the centrist title, dating back to 1867, was more concerned with the ongoing political crisis.

Its lead story was, you might say, cautiously optimistic.

President Sergio Mattarella had entrusted the President of the National Assembly, Roberto Fico, with the task of exploring the possibility of a coalition government made up of the populist Five Star Movement, led by Luigi Di Miao, and the centre-left Democratic Party, presided over, for the moment at least, by the outgoing prime minister Matteo Renzi.

After a weekend of reflection, Mattarella was reported to have met his advisers on Monday morning to evaluate how to proceed. It then fell to Fico to take things forward, starting with talks between Matteo Salvini, leader of the right-wing La Liga party –who won the most seats in last month’s general election – and Di Maio’s second-placed Five-Star.

Salvini and Di Maio had originally hoped that they would lead a coalition with a substantial parliamentary majority, but were stymied by the former’s links to the 81-year-old Berlusconi, whose Forza Italia party – slogan “Honesty, Experience, Wisdom” – trailed in fourth behind Renzi’s demoralised Democrats.

La Stampa quotes Salvini as saying to Di Maio, “Let’s get round the table and talk about things instead of calling each other names. Let’s do it fast. ” Di Maio, however, apparently responded by taking out a list of demands: “Here are the demands made by Five-Star. I ask now for a display of loyalty and honor.”

All very Italian. What could possibly go wrong?

Speaking of loyality and honour, allow me to pay tribute here to my brother-in-law, the American documentary film-maker Paul Sapin. In 2016, Sapin, based in Manchester, released “A Very Sicilian Justice – Taking on the Mafia,” a detailed account for Al-Jazeera of the five-year-long struggle between Judge Nino Di Matteo, the state prosecutor in Palermo, and a combination of mob bosses, crooked police chiefs and Marcello Dell-Utri, the co-founder of Forza Italia.

Previous Sicilian judges had been assassinated for taking a stand against “this thing of ours,” and Di Matteo, protected day and night by as many as 20 security guards, was tested every step of the way. But last week, eight men, including Dell’Utri, were sentenced to lengthy prison terms, ranging from eight to 28 years, with more trials to come. My brother-in-law spent a year with the embattled judge, whose manifest courage and determination were evident in every frame in which he appeared. Not all Mafia stories have unhappy endings.

In a statement issued after the trial ended, Berlusconi denied that he had ever had anything to do with the Mafia. The multi-billionaire tycoon, who in 2013 was sentenced to four years in jail for tax fraud but never spent so much as a day behind bars, insisted that the governments he headed had always fought against organised crime.