User:Juanm/Sandbox/Controversies about Silvio Berlusconi

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Silvio Berlusconi is an italian politician and enterpreneur born in September 1936

Jokes, gestures and blunders


In February 2002, at a European Union summit of foreign ministers, Berlusconi, who was present since the replacement of his previous foreign minister, Renato Ruggiero, had not yet been appointed, made a vulgar gesture (the "corna") behind the head of the Spanish foreign minister, Josep Piqué, intimating he was a cuckold during an official photo shoot. This is a common joke among Italian children, but many felt it was utterly out of place in an international meeting. He later explained that he "was just kidding", and was trying to create a relaxed atmosphere, that this sort of meeting was meant to "create friendship, cordiality, fondness and kind relationships" between the participants, and that he wanted to amuse a small group of Boy Scout bystanders.

On 2 July 2003, one day after taking over the rotating presidency of the EU Council of Ministers, he was heavily criticised by the German SPD Member of the European Parliament Martin Schulz because of his domestic policy and his alleged links to the Mafia. Berlusconi responded: "Mr Schulz, I know a movie producer in Italy who is making a movie about Nazi concentration camps. I will recommend you for the role of a Kapo. You are perfect for the part!". Responding to the shoutings that then came from the Socialist backbenchers, Berlusconi insisted that he was only joking, but soon after accused Martin Schulz and others leftish MEPs to be "bad-willing tourists of democracy". His comparisons with the Nazis caused a brief cooling of Italy's relationship with Germany.

Addressing traders at the New York Stock Exchange in September 2003, Berlusconi listed a series of reasons to invest in Italy, the first of which was that "we have the most beautiful secretaries in the world". This remark resulted in uproar in Italy where female members of parliament took part in a one-day cross-party protest. Berlusconi's list also included the claim that Italy had "fewer communists, and those who are still here deny having been one".

In 2003, during an interview with Nicholas Farrell, then editor of The Spectator magazine, Berlusconi claimed that Mussolini "had been a benign dictator who did not murder opponents but sent them 'on holiday'".

In 2001, during negotiations to decide on the location of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), Berlusconi had sought to justify choosing Italy over Finland by declaring that the Finns "do not even know what prosciutto is". He caused further offence at the opening of the EFSA in Parma in 2005, when he claimed that during the 2001 negotiations he had had to "dust off his playboy charms" in order to persuade the Finnish president, Tarja Halonen, to agree to Italy's claim. He caused further offence by saying that he had had to "endure" Finnish cuisine, and declaring that there "is no comparison between culatello and smoked reindeer". The Italian ambassador in Finland was summoned by the Finnish foreign minister. A minister of his cabinet later 'explained' the comment by saying that "anyone who had seen a picture of Halonen must have been aware that he had been joking". Halonen took the incident in good humour, retorting that Berlusconi had "overestimated his persuasion skills". The Finnish pizza chain Kotipizza responded by launching a variety of pizza called Pizza Berlusconi, using smoked reindeer as the topping. The pizza won first prize in America's Plate International pizza contest in March 2008.

In March 2006, Berlusconi defended accusations he made that the "Communists used to eat children", by responding with claims that "... read the Black Book of Communism and you will discover that in the communist China of Mao, they did not eat children, but had them boiled to fertilise the fields". He later admitted, "It was questionable irony ... because this joke is questionable. But I did not know how to restrain myself." His political opponent Romano Prodi told the press, "The damage caused to Italy by an insult to 1.3 billion people is by all means a considerable one", and that Berlusconi's comments were "unthinkable". Berlusconi replied by gifting 1000 copies of the Black Book of Communism during one of his election rallies.

On 4 April 2006, less than a week before the upcoming political elections in Italy, during a speech given at the National Chamber for Trade, Berlusconi stated that he holds "too high esteem of the Italians' intelligence to think that there are so many coglioni (literally "testicles", a vulgar term whose closest semantic equivalent in English is "assholes", often used against morons or people otherwise considered stupid) around voting against their interest". He later apologised for the "rude but effective language".

At an awards dinner in January 2007, Berlusconi was quoted as saying, "If I wasn't already married, I would marry you right away," and "With you, I'd go anywhere" to Mara Carfagna, a representative of Forza Italia and former showgirl. These flirtatious comments prompted his wife Veronica to demand an apology in a front-page letter to the Italian newspaper la Repubblica, one of Berlusconi's rival publications. In a statement released through his political party, he begged for forgiveness and stated that he would "always protect [Veronica's] dignity." Mara Carfagna is now serving under him as minister for Equal Opportunities.

In the run-up to the 2008 Italian general election, Berlusconi claimed that right-wing female politicians were better looking than their left-wing counterparts. His remarks provoked an angry reaction from Italian centre-left parties, which accused him of being sexist. Berlusconi was quoted as saying that when he looked round Parliament, he found that female politicians from the right were "more beautiful" and that "The left has no taste, even when it comes to women".

During a televised encounter with voters on 10 April 2008 a young woman asked Silvio Berlusconi what the younger generation should do about the lack of secure jobs. He promptly suggested that she try to marry "the son of Berlusconi... with a smile like yours, you could try."

Since the 2008 general election, Berlusconi has already begun to court controversy at European level. He has publicly criticised the current composition of the Council of Ministers of the Spanish Government as being too 'pink' by virtue of the fact that it has (once the President of the Council, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, is counted) an equal number of men and women. He also stated that he doubted that such a composition would be possible in Italy given the "prevalence of men" in Italian politics.

At a joint press-conference at Villa La Certosa (17 April 2008) in Sardinia with the Russian president Vladimir Putin, a Russian journalist from Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper, Natalia Melikova, put a question to Putin, asking him if he intended divorcing his wife and marrying Alina Kabayeva, an Olympic gold medalist and MP in Russia. When his guest showed annoyance, Berlusconi intervened with a gesture toward the journalist that imitated a gunman shooting. The journalist was reportedly reduced to tears. Putin denied rumours that he was to marry Kabaeva. A spokesman for Berlusconi tried to play down the shooting gesture. He said: "It was just a gesture, a playful gesture, in fact it was appreciated given the technical time needed for a long and tedious Russian translation." Afterwards, Melikova said: "I saw Berlusconi's gesture and I know he has a reputation as being a joker. I hope there are no consequences."

Berlusconi and George W. Bush are known to be intimate friends and spend time together on Bush's Crawford, Texas ranch. He declared that he and Bush would "remain friends forever", nostalgic at the end of Bush's term as a president. On an official dinner in the White House on October 2008, Berlusconi, tripping over a microphone cable, crumbled the podium, too excited about greeting Bush and embracing him. Then Berlusconi commented: "did you see what a huge love can do?"

On 6 November 2008, two days after Barack Obama was elected the first African-American US President, Berlusconi "complimented" Obama on his "suntan":

"I will try to help relations between Russia and the United States where a new generation has come to power. I don't see problems for Medvedev to establish good relations with Obama because he is young, handsome and even tanned, therefore I think that a good cooperation can be developed." On 26 March 2009 he added:

"I'm paler [than Mr Obama], because it's been so long since I went sunbathing. He's more handsome, younger and taller." Subsequently at a tent camp on the outskirts of L'Aquila housing some of the more than 30,000 people who lost their homes during the 2009 earthquake he said to an African priest:

"you have a nice tan." Berlusconi then grabbed the priest and told him:

"hold me tight and call me Papa."

On 18 November 2008, Berlusconi played "hide-and-seek" with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. He was set to receive Merkel but opted to hide behind a column while Merkel and her entourage walked by. According to reporters present, Berlusconi called out "coo coo", prompting Merkel to turn around, saying "Oh, Silvio".

On 24 January 2009, Berlusconi announced his aim to enhance the numbers of military patrolling the Italian cities from 3000 to 30000 in order to crack down on what he called an "evil army" of criminals. Responding to a female journalist who asked him if this tenfold increase in patrolling soldiers would be enough to secure Italian women from being raped, he said:

"We could not field a big enough force to avoid this risk [of rape]. We would need as many soldiers as beautiful women and I don't think that would be possible, because our women are so beautiful." Opposition leaders called the remarks insensitive and in bad taste. Berlusconi retorted that he had merely wanted to compliment Italian women. Other critics accused him of creating a "police state".

On 3 April 2009, Berlusconi appeared to have annoyed Queen Elizabeth II at a photo session during the G20 summit. During the photo session, Berlusconi shouted "Mr. Obama, Mr. Obama", prompting her to turn around and chastise Berlusconi, “What is it? Why does he have to shout?”. The following day, at the NATO meeting in Kehl, Berlusconi was seen talking on his mobile phone, while Merkel and other NATO leaders waited for him for a photo on a Rhine bridge. (Afterwards, Berlusconi claimed he was talking to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan about accepting the Secretary Generalship of Anders Fogh Rasmussen). Responding to the Italian media's reaction to these incidents, he said he was considering "hard measures" against reporters, and referred to some of their claims as "slander".

Two days after the 2009 L'Aquila earthquake, devastating the capital city of the Abruzzo region and causing more than 290 deaths, Berlusconi said to n-tv that the people left homeless by the earthquake should view their experience as a camping weekend. In that occasion he asked woman councillor Lia Beltrami, "Can I fondle you?" on a tour of an earthquake site.

In May 2009, Berlusconi said to a reporter while he was on a live television in Rome that when he was in Finland he had to travel three hours to see a two hundred year old church in the countryside. In his opinion that wooden church would have been destroyed if it was in Italy. Berlusconi had made a non-official visit to Finland in 1999 and had never seen any Finnish church. He had just been visiting Iceland.

In October 2010, Berlusconi was chastised by the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano after he was filmed telling "offensive and deplorable jokes", one of the gravest blasphemies in the Italian language. It was also revealed he had made another anti-Semitic joke a few days previously. Berlusconi responded to the allegations by saying the jokes were "neither an offence nor a sin, but merely a laugh".

On 1 November 2010, after once again being accused of involvement in juvenile prostitution, he suggested that an audience at the Milan trade fair should stop reading newspapers: "Don't read newspapers any more because they deceive you. [...] I am a man who works hard all day long and if sometimes I use to look at some well-looking girl, it's better to be fond of pretty girls than to be gay". The remarks were immediately condemned by Arcigay, Italy's main gay rights organization, on behalf of both women and gay people; speaking on behalf of the organization, its president Paolo Patanè said that it was "unacceptable for a head of government to foster a chauvinistic and vulgar attitude" with such a statement, and requested that Berlusconi apologize. Politicians including Nichi Vendola, Antonio Di Pietro, and Franco Grillini released similar statements, with the latter commenting that it was "better to be gay than to be a sex-addicted schemer like Berlusconi." Flavia Madaschi, president of Agedo, the Italian equivalent of PFLAG, also commented that it was "better to be gay than Berlusconi." Activists staged an anti-homophobia protest outside Palazzo Chigi.

On 13 July 2011, according to a leaked telephone surveillance transcript, Berlusconi told his presumed blackmailer Valter Lavitola: "The only thing they can say about me is that I screw around [...] Now they're spying on me, controlling my phone calls. I don't give a fuck. In a few months [...] I'll be leaving this shit country that makes me sick." He had already made a comment about sending a postcard from the Bahamas in 2005.