As 2023 draws to a close, Worldcrunch has asked its writers to reflect on the past year — and look ahead to 2024.
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PARIS — When the news hit in late November that Henry Kissinger had died, my social media feed quickly filled up with videos and photographs, quotes and infographics… and exclamations of joy.
Who was this round little 100-year-old man triggering such a flood of reactions? Yes, you must forgive a 21-year-old who’s lived her whole life in Europe, I had never heard of Old Mr. Kissinger before his death.
Yet as I learned more about his biography, I realized that he was the embodiment of something that I had heard plenty about: that often secret architecture of U.S. power that pulled strings, meddled with elections and committed war crimes with little or no consequence.
Kissinger, I would quickly see as I scrolled through my phone, was the master of this kind of foreign policy which, brutal and criminal as it may be, was described with as much fascination as outrage. So many seemed to admire his cold calculations with a supposed special touch of finesse.
He spent years at the heart of power, as National Security Advisor and Secretary of State under two presidents, and subsequent decades influencing others — along with world leaders from other countries and plenty of corporate heavyweights. With his death, we are all left to wonder whether Kissinger’s passing may somehow mark an end to that American geopolitical dominance, or not; and whether this should be cause for celebration, or not.
Berlusconi and us
There was a different mix of reaction six months earlier when another global political icon died. In this case, I was the one explaining to my peers from other countries who he was and what he meant. Si, Silvio Berlusconi, who died in June at the age of 86, forever changed my native Italy — and in his own way, the world as well.
Berlusconi was a very different figure than Kissinger. He was first elected as Italian Prime Minister in 1994, and returned to the office twice more throughout the years. But he was something both more and less than just a political leader. A real estate and media tycoon before ever running for office, he would wind up as a kind of caricature of the rules-don’t-apply-to-me public figure who would just never go away.
Growing up, it felt like Berlusconi – or Berlusca, as my father would call him – was more a figment of the collective Italian imagination than a real person.
But he left such a mark on the country that Italy’s past three decades will forever be defined as the Berlusconi era. I don’t even remember a single other politician from my childhood, it was only ever him, Lui.
Worshiping or mocking Berlusconi, depending on your politics, was part of Italian culture for multiple generations. In my family, a kid could make fun of him too and get to feel you were more grown up.
Silvio Berlusconi speaking about Donald Trump’s election on Italian television in 2016Italy Photo Press/ZUMA
National scandal, worldwide reach
Yet as the years progressed, his influence never actually waned. Now Berlusconi is finally, actually, gone, and won’t be able to meddle with politics anymore. But what does he leave behind? A messy republic now led by a sometimes ally of his, Giorgia Meloni, the first ever female Prime Minister, who ran on right-wing policies and recently broke the news of her breakup through an Instagram post.
A showman above all, Berlusconi pumped his face with botox and smiled his way through years of gaffes and scandals.
Is this all sounding a little familiar?
When Donald Trump rose to power in the U.S., I was just becoming politically aware. His presence in my social media feed kindled my burgeoning feminism, made me realize just how influential the U.S. was in the world — but it also made me think: Hey, we Italians did it first!
With 2024 bringing another U.S. election, where Trump is leading in the polls to return to the White House, Berlusconi’s legacy indeed lives on.
So to my American friends, and the world at large, I wish us all good luck; or as we say in Italy, in bocca al lupo!. Into the mouth of the wolf.
To which we then reply, ‘crepi’ – May he die.
Henry Kissinger: The World’s Love-And-Hate Adieu To The Machiavelli Of Washington — WORLDCRUNCH
Kissinger v. Allende, A South American Lesson For What’s At Stake In Ukraine — EL ESPECTADOR
Silvio Berlusconi, The Impossible Biography — LA STAMPA
