Berlusconi’s Hubris

ROME, Italy—Tomorrow, the G8 summit will convene in L’Aquila, the Italian city in the Abruzzo region that was destroyed by a horrific earthquake on April 6—a disaster that claimed 299 lives. Since April, the city has experienced at least half a dozen tremors (some of them quite significant), including three early this Monday morning and one Monday afternoon. Only two days later, the eight most powerful leaders in the world will meet there for two days. Almost everyone in Italy is asking him/herself the exact same question: Why? Why would the eight most important people in the world get together in a place where the ground can’t stop shaking?

The answer isn’t stupidity, so much as hubris. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is flying way too close to the sun. But before I get into that, some background information.

The summit was originally going to be held in Sardinia on the island of Maddalena, in a beautiful seaside resort town. On April 23, less than three weeks after the earthquake that left tens of thousands homeless, Prime Minister Berlusconi announced that the meeting would be moved to L’Aquila. He said the purpose of the change was to divert funds away from preparing the lavish accommodations in Sardinia and towards the relief effort, as well as to bring international attention to the tragedy. Berlusconi’s critics suggested that the real reason for the move was that the convention buildings in Maddalena were nowhere near finished. Either way, the G8 countries all agreed to the change of location, and so it was decided.

In the beginning, everyone thought it was a fine idea. It would bring much needed funds to the region and the Italian government even promised there would be a basketball court where our very own president, Barack H. Obama, could shoot hoops after a long, stressful day of trying to solve the world’s problems. Each country sent a delegation to make sure the accommodations were up to safety standards and L’Aquila passed each and every test.

Then, right before 11 p.m. on Monday June 22, L’Aquila had another earthquake. On Friday July 3, it happened again. And then—guess what?—early Monday morning there were four significant tremors. That afternoon there was another. Don’t worry, though, officials insisted, everything would be just fine for the G8 (which was scheduled to begin in just 48 hours). And then again on Tuesday: four more quakes.

Of course, by 11 a.m. on Monday, Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera had run a story on the alternate plan in the works: If the quakes become too angry, the heads of state will just meet in Rome (Wow, original idea! I’m really glad after two weeks someone finally came up with that). However, it’s 24 hours before the summit starts and the plan remains the same: Everyone get in your helicopter and get your very important tush up to an irritable fault line!

Um, WTF, Mister Prime Minister? The last thing Italy needs right now is for some important foreign leader to get hurt in a quake at the G8 summit. Seriously, Italy appears to be falling apart at the seams: Last week 22 people were killed in a tragic train accident that almost certainly could have been prevented by better controlling techniques, and for over two months Berlusconi has been under attack for his sex life. Not to mention the fact that Irish pop-singer-turned-activist Bob Geldof virulently criticized Italy’s Prime Minister for only delivering three percent of the international aid it had promised to give in 2005.

“How can you lead the G8? Where is your credibility?” the former lead singer of the Boomtown Rats asked Berlusconi in a face-to-face exchange published in Sunday’s edition of Italian newspaper La Stampa (the issue was co-edited by Geldof). Like a chastised school boy, Berlusconi clenched his fists and apologized, promising to do better next time.

It certainly won’t help Italy’s credibility if the ground starts shaking in L’Aquila just as Air Force One touches down. Berlusconi knows that; Italy’s prime minister is a lot of things, but a dummy he ain’t. He must genuinely think that nothing will happen—a shocking case of hubris. Sure, politicians often believe they are invincible, that the laws of man don’t apply to them. Berlusconi is no exception, but this arrogance is a different kind of beast. It appears that Silvio Berlusconi thinks he can stop an earthquake, that his grasp on Italy is so tight he can control even nature within it.

Berlusconi is wrong. He is in serious trouble because of the current sex scandal, which now involves accusations that a big-time cocaine dealer was present at many of the Villa Certosa festivities. When he visited the site of the recent train accident, he was greeted by shouts of “Clown!” Berlusconi’s attempts to assert his power, his determined hubris, now seems not only pathetic, but also politically and literally dangerous.

Watch out, Mister Prime Minister, Sophocles already wrote this one. It didn’t end so well.


Sofia E. Groopman’12 is a Crimson news writer in Currier House.