“Here I am, here for you for the first time after a month in a shirt and jacket.” The video message sent by Silvio Berlusconi to the Forza Italia convention taking place in Milan begins with these words. Blue suit, shirt and party pin attached to his jacket, in the video, recorded at the San Raffaele hospital, in Milan, where Berlusconi has been hospitalized since April 5, the FI leader and former prime minister appears sitting at a table with the Convention poster on the back with the Forza Italia symbol and the Italian and European flags.
“A few nights ago, here at the San Raffaele – says Berlusconi – I suddenly woke up with a question in my head that I couldn’t get rid of. ‘But why am I here? What am I doing here? What am I fighting for here?’ Next to me my Martha was watching. I also asked her the same question ‘why are we here?’ And she said to me ‘We’re here because you’ve worked so hard, you’re working so hard to save our democracy and our freedom?’ And I want to remind you of that, I also want to tell you what I’ve been thinking and going through, even though I know it’s going to make me very emotional. I overcame a very dangerous pneumonia. I never stopped, not even in those weeks. I worked in the new party organization. I am ready to resume working with you, to fight our freedom battles with you.”
From Berlusconi, who recorded a speech lasting about twenty minutes, signals also reached the other center-right leaders: “We are the backbone of this government, we are the essential pillar of the majority. A loyal and constructive relationship with our allies to which we are bound not only by a common program but by a relationship of friendship. Forza Italia – he said again – is for us like a secular religion, the religion of freedom that Benedetto Croce spoke of, a religion of the heart, of the mind, a commitment to us, our children, the Italians. Please, let’s continue like this, with conviction, enthusiasm, passion. Nobody – the closure of the video message – will be able to defeat us, you will see that the Italians will consider us their lay saints, the saints of their freedom and well-being. I will be with you with the same enthusiasm and commitment as in 1994, the future belongs to our ideas, the future must guarantee us true and complete freedom”.
Source: IL Tempo
Emma Fitzgerald is an accomplished political journalist and author at The Nation View. With a background in political science and international relations, she has a deep understanding of the political landscape and the forces that shape it.
