From singer Al Bano to philosopher Diego Fusaro, not to mention the former dissident Nicolai Lilin, more and more Italian celebrities are affected by the charm of Vldadimir Vladimirovich Putin. But among those who want to feather their own nest and those who want more celebrity, the reasons are often specious. That is why.
“Putin is not Lenin (unfortunately), but now he plays a very important role on the geopolitical side: resist to American special mission and its imperialism, guarantee a plural world freed from the United States unipolar domain”, Diego Fusaro wrote on his Facebook page, excerpting a paragraph oh his new book, “The future is ours”. The young Marxian and Marxist philosopher is in good company. From Al Bano to Nicolai Lilin, it seems that the list of celebrities struck by the charm of Vldadimir Vladimirovich Putin is getting longer and longer. There are those who endorse the Russian foreign policy and those who recognize the reasons that pushed the head of the Kremlin to get his hands over Ukraine, those who would recover Istria as Moscow has done with Crimea and those who see Putin as the last bastion of Western civilization against the barbarity of multiethnic relativism. But despite the authoritative tones, the reasons given seem to be dictated by ideological bias and not really convincing.
With Putin I feel good
The philosopher Fusaro knows his stuff. “Putin’s Russia must be supported on its geopolitical path,” he writes in his latest book. It is clear considering “not only the hate spread by the diplomatic and media circus of journalism and Western intellectual – a mouthpiece of the neo-capitalist and financial power – but also the growing number of American military bases” in Eastern Europe. And thank goodness that Putin “has autonomy and strategic weapons of deterrence … to curb the unlimited extension delirium of fanaticism US-led economy,” because otherwise the neo-capitalist power would also seize Russia impoverishing its 150 million inhabitants and inflating the pockets of only a lucky few oligarchs.
Despite the hate spread by media circus, Fusaro’s version is not as solitary as we might think. The former soldier, writer, former dissident of Russian Transnistria Nicolai Lilin, perhaps also thanks to its origins (Transnistria is a breakaway territory of Moldova under the control of Russian peacekeepers), seems to have been struck by Vladimir Vladimirovich’s charm. Only a couple of years ago he wrote that Putin “came to power through the usual truce between corrupt bureaucrats and businessmen in the Kremlin”, and that doing opposition in Russia means to be aware “of the evil that brings a dictatorial political system” (from a post on his Facebook page on 30 January 2012). He has now a different opinion. “Putin is the only hope not only for Russia but also for Europe on issues such as identity, sovereignty, anti-globalism,” he said during a recent meeting in Varese. If only he has noticed it, while all the others just whine “poor Pussy riot, poor homosexuals,” is because of the “shameful campaign of russophobia and the level of defamation to which came the Italian media. It becomes imperative, therefore, to try to tell the truth.”
Another Italian celebrity helped to tell the truth, Al Bano. In an interview with La Repubblica, after complaining that Italy has let go Istria instead of doing as Putin did with Crimea, the singer (very popular in Russia) has hit the problem: “With Putin and his fellows I feel good. I make a dozen concerts a year; they pay for the cachet without hassle. Forty, fifty thousand euro, no problem …“
I was born in Apulia, I’m not going to die in China
Despite the depth of the arguments, not all of them appear persuasive, even those of Al Bano. One might argue that, all those who complain about the bias of Italian media, can make their voices heard thanks to the Italian media. It would be a more difficult task in a country listed 148th in the world press freedom index, according to Reporters without borders. Beyond the effort to interpret the reasons for everything that happened around Moscow in the last year, is to say that assigning the rights and wrongs in foreign policy is like trying to plug the drafts at the Coliseum. I have written several times in this blog that the division into good and bad does not fit the crisis in Ukraine and that, even if blame Putin is like shooting on the Red Cross, it is useless to deny that the Kremlin is pursuing an international policy in the interests of Russia. And, perhaps, Al Bano described it with the perfect words: “Putin is enlightened. He said: you Russians can stay with Russia. I was born in Puglia, why do I have to die in China?”
From singer Al Bano to philosopher Diego Fusaro, not to mention the former dissident Nicolai Lilin, more and more Italian celebrities are affected by the charm of Vldadimir Vladimirovich Putin. But among those who want to feather their own nest and those who want more celebrity, the reasons are often specious. That is why.
