April 2011 - Centre for Civil Society - University of KwaZulu-Natal

on for their livelihoods through oil spills, gas flares, and the dumping of
other toxic wastes.
These are interesting days indeed. Without doubt, crude oil business is not
only volatile, but explosive. It is the stuff that oils the machinery of
despotism and it is the stuff that blinds the world to the bloods that flow
on the streets as people fight for liberty.
It is also the stuff that bluffs and seeks to blind us from demanding
environmental justice but accepting tokens.
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This article first appeared on 234next.com
Nnimmo Bassey is director of Environmental Rights Action (ERA)/ Friends of
the Earth Nigeria.
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Pambazuka News
Italy Beyond the scandals
A fighting alternative to Berlusconi is needed
Piero Acquilino, ControCorrente, Genoa 14 March 2011
In recent weeks the Italian and international press has given a lot of
coverage to the umpteenth wave of scandals that has hit Silvio Berlusconi
and his government. In the last few days, the David Mills trial has been restarted
– one of many which see the Head of Government under
accusation.
In Italy the parliamentary opposition thinks that weakening the image of
the Prime Minister without calling into question his policies is the best
tactic to prepare the way for a centre-left government - building on the
work of Berlusconi in the field of economic policies without any moral
’mishaps’ on the way. But the end of ‘berlusconismo’ will only come when
a strong opposition is developed capable of challenging the material
foundations on which it is based and the links that tie Berlusconi in with
particular sections of society and with the powers-that-be within Italian
capitalism.
In the following article, Piero Acquilino, a worker at the Fincantieri
shipyard in Genoa, examines the web of material interests which for
almost 20 years has determined the fate of Italy.
In the first few months of this year, Italian politics has been worrying and,
in some ways, incomprehensible. In the face of a worsening economic and
social situation, the prime minister, Berlusconi, has been taken up with
saving his own future and that of his business affairs. His parliamentary
majority has been bought with money and favours, and the MPs which form
it are ready to support the most improbable legal acrobatics. His lawyers,
who are often also MPs and ministers, prepare laws especially so that he
can avoid having to go before the courts and reply to well-known and wellproven
accusations.
Luckily for Berlusconi, he is facing an inconsistent and ineffectual
opposition which is more at home with gossip than social conflict. Never