The Purge: Meloni clears critics out of Italian culture

 

The Purge: Meloni clears critics out of Italian culture

 

From opera bosses to TV stars, Italy’s prime minister stands accused of expelling her political detractors from the country’s media and arts sectors.

 

BY HANNAH ROBERTS

SEPTEMBER 29, 2023 4:00 AM CET

https://www.politico.eu/article/italy-culture-wars-style-giorgia-meloni/

 

ROME — Italy prides itself on its spectacular cultural heritage, with a peerless pedigree of some of the Western world’s greatest artists, stretching from Leonardo da Vinci, Dante and Vivaldi to Federico Fellini.

 

Now many of the country’s foremost cultural institutions — including those charged with safeguarding that national legacy — find themselves in a political battle, raising fears that their independence is at risk.

 

Italy’s far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni stands accused of trying to stamp her authority on the arts and media, in a purge her critics say is designed to silence dissent.

 

In recent months, her government has cleared out the old leadership of some of Italy’s most prestigious museums and cultural organizations and installed sympathetic executives at the top.

 

 

Last week two politicians from parties in Meloni’s coalition demanded a senior museum director be removed because he offered free entrance to Arabic speakers.

 

Andrea Crippa, the deputy leader of the League, claimed Christian Greco, director of the Egyptian museum in Turin, was from the left and “racist against Italians and Christians.”

 

Elly Schlein, leader of the opposition democrats, defended Greco, saying he was attacked because he was seen as not aligned with the government.

 

For Schlein and Meloni’s other critics, the latest bust-up fits a pattern in which Italy’s right-wing coalition attempts to shut down independent voices. Meloni “has a mania for control,” Schlein claimed. The government holds “a proprietary perception of institutions and culture that we cannot accept,” she added.

 

Perhaps the most significant shift in Italy’s national cultural life under Meloni’s 11 month-old administration has been in the leadership of the state-owned broadcaster, Rai.

 

A long-term Meloni comrade who has perpetuated conspiracy theories about George Soros and Kremlin propaganda in the past, has been appointed managing director of Rai, while the CEO and two star talk-show hosts were pushed out. The opposition said it amounts to a political “purge” of the country’s most influential broadcaster.

 

A Rai insider, who is critical of the government and asked not to be named discussing sensitive matters, said: “For this government Rai is the symbol of the dictatorship of the left. They think if they control the media, they will change the cultural narrative in Italy.” 

 

The pattern is likely to alarm officials in Brussels and other capitals who raised concerns over how far such a rightwing administration in Rome would go before Meloni won power last year.

 

In recent months, Giorgia Meloni imposed her authority on some of Italy’s most significant museums and cultural institutions | Giuseppe Cacace/AFP via Getty Images

Last year the European Commission adopted the European Media Freedom Act, a set of rules to guarantee impartiality of public media. This year it published a report asking for Rai to be more independent from political interests.

 

Free speech campaigners and journalists’ organizations have also raised the alarm. In June, the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom, the European Federation of Journalists and others expressed their “growing alarm about threats to the editorial independence of the broadcaster” and called for reforms to protect Rai’s independence.

 

The Meloni government’s overhaul of the media landscape doesn’t stop with the state broadcaster.

 

Last month the government cut short the term of the board of the Experimental Cinematography Center, Western Europe’s oldest film school, and awarded itself greater powers to appoint new leaders of the institution, a decision criticized by the entertainment world and by the opposition. A former far-right activist was appointed president of Rome’s contemporary art museum, MAXXI.

 

The future also looks bleak for administrators who don’t share Meloni’s politics.

 

Culture minister Gennaro Sangiuliano created obstacles to the appointment of international directors of Italy’s top museums, bringing in new requirements such as European citizenship and Italian language skills. And he has brought in age limits for leadership of opera houses, potentially as a means to remove the bosses of two of Italy’s most prestigious opera establishments, who happen to be French.

 

Political football

Rai’s news and talkshows make it one of the major instruments for forming public opinion in Italy.

 

Handing out top management posts at the broadcaster to allies is something of a tradition for Italy’s political leaders. It was the center-left prime minister Matteo Renzi who changed the rules in 2015 to give incoming governments almost total control of Rai’s board.

 

But Meloni’s critics claim her government has gone too far, with a campaign of personal attacks aimed at stoking distrust.

 

Rai’s former CEO, Carlo Fuortes, who was appointed by former prime minister Mario Draghi, resigned earlier this year, citing pressure to change the editorial line and alter programming.

 

The country’s most popular presenter, Fabio Fazio, who interviewed the pope and Barack Obama on his ratings-topping Sunday night show, but had irked the government with his support of migrants, also walked out. A second star journalist, Lucia Annunziata, followed swiftly after.

 

Fazio claimed in an interview that Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini had attacked him 123 times in just one season. 

 

After they left, Salvini signalled his satisfaction, tweeting “Belli Ciao,” an ironic reference to the leftist anthem, Bella Ciao.

 

The Rai insider cited above described a campaign of “character assassinations” to prepare the way for ousting broadcasters and executives who are unsympathetic to the far right-led coalition. “These are methods that you see in autocratic regimes.”

 

The government’s appointment of new managing director of Rai, Giampaolo Rossi, caused shockwaves. He has defended Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orbán, and blamed the U.S. for destabilizing Ukraine.

 

“Putin’s fault is that he does not want to submit Russia to the dictates of the New World Order advocated by [George] Soros, a globalist speculator with a habit of destabilizing elected governments,” he wrote in 2016. 

 

Rossi also compared Nigerians, Tunisians, Moroccans and Bosnians to rapists and murderers and said they “should be jailed until they can be sent back home kicking their a**”. 

 

Following his appointment, Rossi said he wanted to “rebalance media narratives” and recover spaces “usurped by the left.”  

 

Opposition politicians have expressed fears the change in management will result in a chilling effect on journalism and lead to a whitewashing of Italy’s fascist past. Angelo Bonelli, MP in the Green Europe party called it an “indecent” attempt to “purge and censor” the media. 

 

MP Sandro Ruotolo, of the leftwing opposition Democrats, told POLITICO the takeover was “dangerous” and posed “a risk to pluralism and democracy of this country … Rai should be for the governed not the government.”  

 

But Meloni’s allies say the balance is simply being corrected. In the run-up to elections last year, she promised to give a voice to the unheard because of what she sees as media domination by a left-wing elite, calling for the “liberation of Italian culture from the culture hegemony of the left.”

 

“A new era at Rai has begun … open to all ideas and all the cultural trends of Italian society,” said Marco Scurria, a senator in Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party. “As well as an intellectual, Rossi is a man of culture who will know how to offer effective content and direction for the future Rai era.”