Beppe Grillo, leader of Italy’s Five Star Movement has launched an assault against the government in Rome. The battle, which he says he’ll soon win, is taking place in Brussels, the city where he marched against Chinese steel dumping and in favour of the European steel industry.
Euronews’ Gardenia Trezzini spoke to Grillo about Europe, populism and the media.
Gardenia Trezzini, euronews
“Beppe Grillo, our meeting takes place at a time that, without undue exaggeration, can be labelled ‘historic.’ That’s to say, the election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States. What’s your take on that?”
Beppe Grillo, Leader of the Five Star Movement
“It’s an extraordinary turning point. This corn cob – we can also call Trump that in a nice way – doesn’t have particularly outstanding qualities. He was such a target for the media, with such terrifying accusations of sexism and racism, as well as being harassed by the establishment – such as the New York Times – but, in the end, he won.
“That is a symbol of the tragedy and the apocalypse of traditional information. The television and newspapers are always late and they relay old information. They no longer anticipate anything and they’re only just understanding that idiots, the disadvantaged, those who are marginalised – and there are millions of them – use alternative media, such as the Internet, which passes under the radar of television, a medium people no longer use.
“With Trump, exactly the same thing has happened as with my Five Star Movement, which was born of the Internet: the media were taken aback and asked us where we were before. We gathered millions of people in public squares and they marvelled. We became the biggest movement in Italy and journalists and philosophers continued to say that we were benefitting from people’s dissatisfaction. We’ll get into government and they’ll ask themselves how we did it.”
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“There is a gap between giving populist speeches and governing a nation.”
Beppe Grillo
“We want to govern, but we don’t want to simply change the power by replacing it with our own. We want a change within civilisation, a change of world vision.
“We’re talking about dematerialised industry, an end to working for money, the start of working for other payment, a universal citizens revenue. If our society is founded on work, what will happen if work disappears? What will we do with millions of people in flux? We have to organise and manage all that.”
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“Do you think appealing to people’s emotions is enough to get elected? Is that a political project?”
Beppe Grillo
“This information never ceases to make the rounds: you don’t have a political project, you’re not capable, you’re imbeciles, amateurs…
“And yet, the amateurs are the ones conquering the world and I’m rejoicing in it because the professionals are the ones who have reduced the world to this state. Hillary Clinton, Obama and all the rest have destroyed democracy and their
