IRAQ: Italians Feel Intensely about War and Peace

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Tony Giffard *

ROME, Mar 25 2003 (IPS) - One might think, watching the vociferous reaction of Italians to the U.S.-led attack on Iraq, that Italy itself was threatened.

Tens of thousands have been taking to the streets in Rome, Florence, Milan, Turin and Naples to protest the U.S. action and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

University students and members of labour unions have been demonstrating against “a useless war, wrong, without reason and without sanction of the UN that will produce dead innocents and disrupt the world order”.

Although seemingly spontaneous, the demonstrations were predictable. For weeks, buildings in Rome and the surrounding countryside have been festooned with colourfully-banded flags with the word PACE (peace) emblazoned in the middle.

They fly from home and office windows, are worn as skirts by young women, protrude from the top pockets of men’s jackets and hang in front of people’s desks.

Why all this intensity of feeling? Talking to Italians, watching their television and reading their newspapers provides some clues to a visiting American.

First, says Nazzareno Todini, who works at the University of Washington’s Rome Centre, there is a general feeling that Italians do not like war on principle – no matter which superpower is bombing which defenceless civilians.

This pacifism comes in part from the Catholic upbringing of most Italians. Pacifism is ingrained in their religion, say Todini.

This becomes evident when one listens to the daily news on Vatican Radio, broadcast here consecutively in Italian, French and English, starting at 8:00 in the morning (local time). For weeks now every bulletin has led with or at least included an ardent plea for peace from Pope John Paul II or some senior church spokesman.

The pope has also denounced UN sanctions against Baghdad arguing that they only hurt the poor and the weak. When the bombing began, the broadcast said the Vatican was “deeply pained by the start of military action against Iraq” and that it “deplores the abandonment of efforts to bring about a peaceful solution.”

In addition to the principled aversion to war, however, the way this particular war is being waged has raised concerns among the great majority of Italians, says Claudia de Medina, a news agency staffer in Rome.

A recent poll showed that more than three-quarters opposed attacking Iraq without UN support, and almost as many opposed it even if the UN approved. Even leftists do not deny that a campaign against Saddam Hussein is justified, both for the Iraqi people and for the region as a whole. As one Socialist Member of Parliament said, “we cannot be silent towards the countries in which adulteresses are stoned or homosexuals beheaded”.

There is little blatant anti-Americanism evident in Rome; many people here have relatives who immigrated to the United States in search of a better life, and Italy has long been a friend and ally.

But there also is a good deal of disquiet about current U.S. policies and actions. The U.S. is criticized for riding roughshod over world opinion and acting without the sanction of the UN. Its apparent willingness to wreck such institutions as NATO, to reject treaties covering issues such as global warming, to unquestioningly support Israeli subjugation of the Palestinians – all that is gnawing away at that cosy relationship.

Some see the U.S. as an “arrogant bully,” as a letter in the influential newspaper Repubblica put it, and reject the concept that a new world order calls for “the U.S. to fight, the UN to feed, and the EU to fund.”

President George W. Bush personally gets much of the blame and is savaged in posters as an “ignorant cowboy” – or worse.

Italy has reason to be concerned about the long-term effects of the war.

Most of its energy supplies are imported. Electricity is expensive and gasoline already costs more than 4 dollar a gallon. As one of the four biggest nations in the European Union, Italy is positioned uncomfortably between Britain’s gung-ho support for the war and the refusal by France and Germany to have any part of it.

The World Food Program, which is preparing to feed the thousands of refugees expected to flee the fighting, is based in Rome. And Italy fears that many of those refugees may end up on its shores, as happened during the Kosovo conflict.

The war on Iraq also has become a hot issue in Italy because, like so much else here, it is highly politicized. During the war in Kosovo, a centre-left coalition was in power. It supported the U.S. coalition, with backing from the centre-right opposition in parliament.

This time, a centre-right coalition is in control, and the left sees the Iraq war as an opportunity to attack Berlusconi’s government. Hence the call by Italy’s powerful trade unions for anti-war demonstrations.

Berlusconi’s right-wing allies maintain that the war is legitimate and that Italy should permit the U.S. to use its military bases and airspace. Some centrists oppose the war because it is “unilateral,” because it divides the international community, and because it lacks a go-ahead from the UN. A Communist deputy in parliament declared Berlusconi’s position was “servile and unjustified,” and that the war is “brutal and illegitimate.”

The result inevitably is a compromise. Early on in the crisis, Berlusconi was one of the few European leaders to support the U.S. threat to invade Iraq if it did not disarm. When it became apparent that public opinion was strongly opposed, however, Berlusconi backed off. Faced with growing unrest among voters and a fractious opposition that challenged his constitutional right to commit Italy to the war effort, he brought the issue before parliament last week.

His proposal was that Italy permit the U.S. warplanes to overfly Italy, and to use its bases here – provided they are not used to launch direct attacks against Iraq. Nor will Italy supply a single soldier to fight there. After impassioned, nationally-televised debates, the lower house approved the resolution by a vote of 304 to 246; in the senate it passed 159 to 134.

It was, Berlusconi told reporters after the votes, a diplomatic coup: He had pacified the pacifists but also managed to retain the goodwill of the United States.

* Tony Giffard is a professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Washington. He is on study leave in Italy while writing a book about a Rome-based news agency.