Berlusconi's remarks endorsed by some in Italian press (AP) Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit source - Peter Bell [The AP also claims the Italian people are just fine with Berlusconi's remarks announcing the Idiot Crusade, but present no polling data to back that assertion up. They did find some local commentators to endorse Berlusconi, and educate us to some cheerful Italian usages - for instance, using "Christians" where others might tend to use "people." Again, how current these usages are isn't clear to me. ] * Berlusconi Remains Popular in Rome By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Filed at 6:12 a.m. ET ROME (AP) -- Until now, being Silvio Berlusconi pretty much meant never having to say you were sorry -- no matter what you said. Italy's billionaire businessman and conservative prime minister has always prided himself on his blunt talk, his hard-driving style, his practical know-how. But blunt became blunder when he was thrust into the international crisis touched off by the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the United States. At a time when world leaders were courting the Muslim world, working to forge a broad coalition to combat terrorism, Berlusconi publicly asserted -- several times over -- the "superiority" of Western civilization over Islam. Alarmed, Western leaders swiftly distanced themselves from the remarks. The Muslim world demanded an apology. The apology was eventually given, but only after a bit of time had passed and the prime minister had tried, without success, to claim he'd been misquoted. On the domestic front, the reaction was more mixed. Berlusconi's comments sent a quiet chill through Italy's low-profile Muslim community of 600,000 people. His political foes denounced the remarks as a "planetary gaffe" and many professional commentators were equally disapproving. According to a poll in La Repubblica newspaper, the majority of Italians believed Berlusconi should apologize. At the same time, the gaffe does not appear to have seriously dented his popularity. "Ordinary people don't give much importance to diplomatic language," said Giuliano Ferrara, a Berlusconi fan and the director of Il Foglio newspaper. Author and columnist Beppe Severgnini, who writes for the daily Corriere della Sera, said Berlusconi "expressed what many people think, not only in Italy." "I'm sure that if you really could search the souls of Americans, British, French, Germans, you'd probably find similar feelings," he said. "Truth hurts," Francesco de Salvo of Rome said in a letter to the editor of the Berlusconi-owned daily Il Giornale. "It might not be politically correct, but you heave a sigh of relief at hearing it." Italians also make allowances for Berlusconi's background, according to Severgnini. "He really doesn't know much about the ways of the world. He doesn't speak foreign languages. He knows about Italian business and politics and back rooms," Severgnini noted. Another reason Berlusconi remains relatively unscathed is that Italians have their own idea of how to talk about race, cultural or religion. The archbishop of Bologna, for instance, recently suggested the government should consider curbing the immigration of Muslims to protect Italy's Christian culture. And sometimes Italians use the word "Christian" in place of "people." A "person of color" is commonly used to describe someone who is not white, from an athlete to a Roman Catholic cardinal. Severgnini says political correctness in Italy revolves around other concerns. It "has to do with not being pinned down," he said. "The politically correct thing is always: 'Yes, but...' " Sociologist Franco Ferrarotti said Berlusconi can survive his Islam gaffe -- to say nothing of a host of legal woes, potential conflicts of interest between his private empire and his public role, and his failure to deliver on populist campaign promises -- because he represents "the Italian dream" of immense wealth. "Politically correct in Italy means being a winner," he said, ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytrc-10.11.01-03:11:29-22495