Italy as a stinking boot

The liberal-conservative daily Corriere della Sera underscores the pessimistic and alarming message delivered by US author Alexander Stille on the state of the nation, which was published in the magazine supplement of the Süddeutsche Zeitung on 13 February under the title "Der Stinkstiefel" (the stinking boot). "The title page is reminiscent of the famous plate of spaghetti with a gun which adorned the news magazine Der Spiegel in the 1970s, with the small difference that this time the analysis leaves no hope for the future. … The criticism of [Prime Minister Silvio] Berlusconi is harsh, the title page deliberately provocative, the article inevitably sketchy in its analysis. But it is the clearest description of the situation in Italy to come from abroad. It's left to the reader to either shrug it off or rise to the provocation: It remains a fact that on Friday 13th of February an alarming and pessimistic message was brought into the realm of public opinion in Germany – about a country that has become unrecognisable for many non-Italians."

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