Viva Beppe ! (Et vive la démocratie…)

Viva Beppe ! (Et vive la démocratie…)

La démocratie marche, nous dit-on depuis si longtemps, avec un clin d’œil torve à Périclès… Eh bien, pourquoi pas ? Quand le Système et ses serviteurs atteignent un tel degré de folie où on les voit s’agiter aujourd’hui, le bon usage de la démocratie s’apparente alors, pour suivre la pensée de Chesterton, à un direct, du droit ou du gauche peu importe, porté sans ménagement dans la tête de celui qui ne veut ni entendre ni écouter. Ainsi Simon Jenkins résume-t-il la philosophie de l’acte démocratique posé ce dernier week-end en Italie : «Change will only come, as Chesterton said, with “a sharp blow to the head” and from a blunt instrument. That instrument is the ballot.»

Dans le Guardian du 27 février 2013, Jenkins commente la victoire de Beppe Grillo en Italie au travers d’une description superbe de l’abîme de folie qui s’est emparé des dirigeants européens depuis quatre ans, appliquant une politique suicidaire d’austérité : «Leaders (and their bankers) claim that austerity is a “necessary” punishment, to be visited on European people for allowing their governments to borrow beyond their means. […] The message is […] take the medicine, even if it is poison.»

Le commentaire de Simon Jenkins montre combien le fait même des ripostes extrêmes des population devient l’unique possibilité de résister à l’agression extrême lancée contre elles. Il ne s’en émeut pas, au contraire des commentateurs-Système et sérieux (type Apatti sur RTL et Canal +, s’exclamant très sérieusement : “Ils sont fous, ces Italiens”) ; au contraire, il n’est pas si loin de trouver du génie aux citoyens de la démocratie italienne, dans ce paysage de ruines qu’est devenu l’Europe – ce qui montre que, tout en restant lui-même un “commentateur sérieux”, Jenkins n'est plus tout à fait un commentateur-Système. (Les Britanniques vont-ils connaître une aventure semblable, avec John O’Farrell, comédien devenu politicien pour l’occasion, et actuellement engagé dans une élection partielle ?) Manifestement, Jenkins semble voir Beppe comme Mao voyait les “Cent Fleurs” : “Que cent Beppe s’épanouissent !”, – et cela dit en songeant à l’Europe toute entière.

«Oh happy day. The Italian election result is a triumph for democracy. “No pope, no government, no police chief,” went yesterday's viral tweet, hailing the arrival in Rome of “punk politics”. The outcome is an antidote, not just to Italy's corrupt politics, but to the dogma of austerity that now has Europe's economy by the throat. The only way of loosening its grip is through the ballot. Congratulations, Italy.

»The most spectacular victor is Beppe Grillo, a rollicking satirist but with a clear message: that austerity, the euro and corruption are jointly to blame for Italy's continuing ills. We can argue the issues, but why bother when no one listens? Just tell those in charge, as he says, to fuck off. When politicians banned Grillo from TV, he turned to the blog and the piazza. His knockout blow was the ballot.

»Grillo's chief victim is the short-lived prime minister, Mario Monti. He was pushed into office by the banks a year ago to impose unlimited suffering on the Italian economy, so as to shore up the euro and thus protect German and other bank loans from devaluation. Darling of the bankers' ramp, he was Super-Mario.

»Like Greece and with no local currency to take the strain, the Italian economy had to be waterboarded. It shrank by at least 2.2% last year, with official unemployment at about 10%. Monti promised to hold the Italian economy in its downward spiral, without growth and ever less able to repay its mounting debt. Future generations would be in perpetual bondage to German banks.

»Grillo spoke for those generations. His one roughly coherent policy may be a referendum on the euro, but leaving the euro is the key that unlocks the prison door. Even the revival of the outrageous Silvio Berlusconi is good news: his irresponsibility might contribute to pushing Italy into financial crisis and eventual salvation.

»For what seems an entire decade, Europe is to be dominated by the “politics of austerity”, a gamble with the economy of an entire continent on a par with that of the 1920s. Leaders (and their bankers) claim that austerity is a “necessary” punishment, to be visited on European people for allowing their governments to borrow beyond their means. The policy offers no growth to pay off the debts, and for the eurozone no devaluation to reduce their incidence. The message is forget Keynes and take the medicine, even if it is poison.

»Despite being outside the euro straitjacket, Britain's George Osborne holds that austerity knows no bounds. As he starves the economy of demand and it duly shrinks, his revenue slides – and the debt and deficit rise. There is a classic vicious circle. Sooner or later, austerity becomes an end, not a means: an obsessive self-flagellation. These finance ministers are like Aztec priests at an altar. If the blood sacrifice fails to deliver rain, there must be more blood.

»You can fool a democracy only so long. The current anti-Keynesian dogma has lasted four years and is just not working. In Greece and Spain, unemployment is touching an appalling quarter of the workforce. France is in trouble and, even in Germany, the strain is telling as growth falls. Europe's leaders are steadily dragging their joint economies towards depression, afflicting their competitive relation with the outside world possibly for ever. Nor can they blame others. They are doing it to themselves, voluntarily, in obeisance to the gods of confidence, who long ago abandoned them.

»Clearly no new idea will dent these dogmatists. Economists are to modern government what doctors were to tobacco companies, as good as the last fee. Change will only come, as Chesterton said, with “a sharp blow to the head” and from a blunt instrument.

»That instrument is the ballot…»

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