Silvio Berlusconi and Alessandra Mussolini: Judah’s kiss

I never thought much of Silvio Berlusconi.  He leaves me cold.  I have stopped (sadly) to be outraged by the fact that so much power can be in the hands of one person in a democratic country such as Italy precisely when I realized that Italians voted for him twice and that precisely because they are choosing him, it is necessary to respect their choice.  However, I have suddenly understood that I must force myself to pay attention to what is happening in Italy for two reasons.  The first reason is that it is an important country since it has troops in Iraq and since it is a member of both the European Union and of NATO.  The second reason is that what Silvio Berlusconi is doing is redefining the boundaries of what is acceptable in politics.  Silvio Berlusconi made an alliance with the neo-fascist party of Italy headed by the granddaughter of Benito Mussolini in order to win the election of early April against Romano Prodi.  They are running neck and neck and Berlusconi feels he needs every vote to sneak in a victory.  What is striking about that is that Silvio Berlusconi is somebody who likes to call other people fascists as he did when he called in 2003 a German member of the European parliament a “Kapo” who is a Nazi guard in a concentration camp.  Mr. Berlusconi is somebody who believes that Islam is in the dark ages and who constantly uses a clash of civilization language by talking of terrorism in terms of West versus East and Christianity versus Europeans.  What saddens me about this is that in spite of the fact that Mr. Berlusconi hands are becoming dirtier in an attempt to keep power, he remains an ally of the United States and of Great Britain.  My question is simple.  Is it acceptable to betray what modernity stands for or what it should stand for in order to win, in order to remain in power?  I do not like the term Islamo-fascists because I believe that radical Islam is different that fascism in the sense that in radical Islam purity, goodness is not defined by blood as in fascism but by belief, by faith.  The fascists say, “We think with our blood.”  Islamists say, “We do not have to think, we believe.”  Anyway, my point is simple.  Berlusconi is allying himself with fascists while he is fervently combating what he believes to be Islamo-fascists.  Isn’t there a contradiction there somewhere?  Or is the origin of radicalism, of totalitarianism makes all the difference?  Are neo-fascist Europeans parties less scary or acceptable because they are western?  Or should we equally fear people who preach hate, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, and who deny history no matter where they are front, no matter if they came form the West or from the East and the South? Clashes occur when there is hypocrisy, inconstancy and most of all when values changes or rather stop to matter whenever it is convenient to forget them or to remember them.  Somebody should remind Mr. Berlusconi that he cannot pretend to defend the world against terror if he associates with people in his own country whose own history and values embody it.