
Issue No 74		20 October 2000

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Away For The Games

Better Read Than Dead

The Italian left-wing daily newspaper 'L'Unita' has risen from the dead. It's success is important for a country at the crossroads.

In Italy's diverse media, L'Unita had been the voice of the Left since it was founded by the Communist Party in the 1920's. That was until this July when the weight of debt and falling readership finally halted the presses. Three months later, a group of investors have come forward with a plan to relaunch l'Unita with a drastically reduced staff and a broader left perspective. Both these changes are significant shifts - before its crash as many political operatives as actual journalists were on the L'Unita staff; and their influence on the final output was seen as a negative. Interestingly, the new focus is to be the New Economy - where there is seen to be a lack of critical analysis amidst the gushing profit forecasts of the financial press. What the new backers are now banking on is that there if they get the settings right, there is still a market for an overtly progressive political daily.

Only in Italy? There's no doubt that this is a country of extremes - in media and politics and any other field of endeavour you care to name. More than a dozen major dailies grace the newstands, reporting on a political system that suffers legenadary instability as the phalanx of minor parties that make up the political landscape routinely shift allegiances. From the extreme right, to the Communists, proportional representation is the saviour of diversity and, at the same time, the enemy of the sort of political certainty that global markets demand. And the diversity extends to the trade union movement, where three separate bodies - linked to different sections of the Left, purport to talk for workers. There is a grand fragility to Italian existence, a passion for daily life that can easily give way to excessiveness.

Likewise, the politics, where debates rage with all the discipline of a vino-fuelled polemic across the dining table. On the Left, activists want to ban McDonalds (like their French brethren) - marking World Food Day with protests outside the Golden Arches where polenta and red wine were handed out to customers - the health argument fusing with a simmering anti-Americanism. On the Right, there is the Northern League, which wants to throw Italy's south out of the Republic and stages anti-Muslim rallies in the Lombard towns that are their political stronghold. The difference with a country like Australia, is that these are not just voices from the left field, they are alternatively members of the government and opposition. At the centre, sitting closer together than many of their political allies, are the leaders of the two major political groupings - the Democratic Left, currently in power, and Silvio Berlusoni's Forza Italia, which has replaced the once great Christian Democrats as the dominant right-wing party. Berlesconi is routinely forced to distance himself from the extremism of the Northerners, while PM Amato has been decrying the 'Suslovs' of the Left (Stalin's chief propagandist) for blocking privatisations and the reform of the pension scheme. This leaves both major coalitions in a state of permament fragility.

There are many in Italy who would like to see the discipline the new owners of L'Unita are demanding, shift through to the actual political players as well. Their major political challenge at the moment is, like most other European nations, financial integration and a common currency. While there is official bipartisan support for integration in Italy and agreement by all three union bodies that wages will be held steady to control inflation to help position Italy best for the Euro, waves of snap strikes in education, transport, even the media - show that all are not happy with the so-called 'pact'. Unions are also being called on to publicly campaign for racial tolerance, against rising tides of racism directed at the increasing numbers of African and Eastern European economic refugees. Put together, the picture is one of resigned acceptance to integration, with significant resentment of the costs involved.

As an outsider, walking around the towns and cities, you get the feeling this is a country which is not yet at ease with its place in the 21st century. This is a place that dominated the first millenium, and through the Catholic Church was a major player in the second. But what of this new era - where Italy will be a component part of a larger, aspirant super power? If there's one thing in Italy's favour, it is that this political fragmentation that so frustrates and obstructs, will now serve the national interest by providing the forums for these doubts to be fully explored. At times of major change, the last thing a country needs is a homogenous voice imposing the one vision on the people. Dissenting voices are an escape valve.

In this context, a paper like L'Unita is not just an important voice for the Left, it is an asset for all Italians.

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Issue 74 contents

Interview: Politics Italian Style
Italian journalist's union official Rodolfo Falvo talks to Peter Lewis about Italy's Rupert Murdoch and why Italian politics is so crazy.

Unions: A Partnership That Works
Students at Williamstown High in Victoria are benefiting from a creative partnership with TAFE and the Electrical Trades Union. Kevin Peoples reports.

International: Fiji Paymasters Fill Their Own Pockets
The Interim Administration imposed on the people of Fiji, as a result of the coup-makers, have voted themselves a hefty pay increase at the same time as they demand public sector workers take a twelve per cent pay cut.

Politics: USA Campaign 2000 - On the Road
Michael Gadiel reports on the thrills, spills, highs and lows of the US Presidential Election.

Women: Party Girl
'You can take the girl out of the Port, but you can't take the Port out of the girl' - Stephanie Key recounts her life as a feminist in a male bastion, the Transport Workers Union.

Satire: Telstra to issue $50,000 Reith Phonecard
CANBERRA, Monday: Telstra have announced Peter Reith-themed phonecard. The phonecard allows friends and family to make $50,000 worth of phone calls on it before you receive a bill. Plus, you only have to pay the bill in total if there is sufficient public outrage, otherwise the card costs just $950.

Review: Health, Wealth and Mutual Obligations
Mutual obligation for the poor only, increasing income inequality and a widening health gap. Welcome to the 21st century -or is it the 19th?

» Bitter Dispute Ends With Joyful Tidings

» Bodgy Telemarketers Face Union Wrath

» Another Bastard Bank On Rampage

» Employers Reject Individual Contracts

» Time To Come Clean

» Child Care Workers Tell Kim How Howard Nicked Their Money

» Reith Must Apologise Say Hotel Workers

» Telstra Too Smart On Casuals

» Primed To Win

» Payday Nightmare Follows AFFA Outsourcing

» Palestinian Community Seeks Union Support

» Trade Union Choir Rocks Town Hall

» WorkCover Goes For Gold In Paralympics