Following the brexit "saga" I came across his motivations. Claiming that the British are idiots and that they all voted (or largely because Labor also had a large Brexitara base) against their own interests raises some interesting questions, but after following the "discussion" on the web one thing emerged clear.

It was clear, that is, that the English press (plus the one linked to Murdoch, but also the rest did not joke) made the country live in a world of illusions. Similarly to the American press, it did the same. And when I notice the propaganda operation that is taking place in Italy, I notice a certain connection between these nations.

The very small percentage of people who know, speak and especially read foreign languages.

Because the first thing you need when you do a campaign against another nation on the internet is that very few of the “targets” understand the foreign language. When discussing what was going on in Europe, the British were offered unlikely quotes from foreign newspapers, but being the English unable to read any other language (what need do they have? Everybody speaks English anyway, right?), They were unable to verify using the internet: even being able to translate a page of some German newspaper, the problem was what to look for on google, which must be translated FIRST.

I am not saying that it is impossible for an Englishman to read a German newspaper, but to do so you need to know (in addition to the language) also the cultural panorama of German newspapers:

• if you read the Bild, you always have to multiply by 0.5, because half of the news is invented from scratch. Then you have to divide the numbers by 10. Then maybe you get what (maybe) happened. Bild has (become?) The Afd newspaper.

• if you read for example the FAZ, you get a much more cultured newspaper, with fewer boobs, but normally you have to learn how to decode the hochdeutsch , because often google also gets some nice blunders when the German gets "up".

The same will happen, I presume, for the French press (which I know much less since I haven't been to France for a long time), the Spanish, the Russian, etc.

But the English, like all English-speaking countries, are born with a cultural disadvantage, which is that they do not speak foreign languages, a little out of disinterest (everyone speaks English so much) and a little because of their terrible high school system.

Let it be clear that European countries also have, to some extent, the same problem: the average citizen speaks only their mother tongue, and some also speak English. German and French only in tourist areas.

Consequently, it is very easy for the local press to bring citizens to live on a virtual planet where incredible events happen or incredible discoveries are made.

This is about what happened during Brexit: after the fire of the Grenfell Tower all the European newspapers interviewed experts scandalized by the fact that the English law allowed skyscrapers with gas pipes (and cut-off valves) inside. , and that allowed the use of those materials for building, which in the EU have been banned for decades.

On the other hand, the English press wrote that that way of building buildings was imposed by the EU regulations, because the houses built with the English regulations were made MUCH better.

Why could they do it? They could do it because they knew very well that the vast majority of British couldn't go to foreign newspapers (including Italians, because of the victims) to check.

The British, that is, were imprisoned in a linguistic cage, which had increased the insularity of England. The same can be said of the “target” person of any populist campaign: they almost never have the ability to discern sources, nor to read them.

How big is this gap?

• it obviously depends on the number of people studying foreign languages. In German high schools they study a third in addition to English, which is compulsory since elementary school, in other countries not. In France, the diffusion of English is still lower than that of Italian, while an average Dutch normally speaks English at a native level (or almost), and often also chews French or German.

• it depends on how far the tongue is. If we take the difference between Spanish and Italian, hardly any particularly strong dance will be able to go unpunished. Although there is the problem of false friends, at least the average Italian will be able to go around the newspaper, because he will be able to understand that "mundo" or "internacional" is the foreign section, "opinion" are opinions, etc. If we take a German newspaper, for an Italian / Latin it is not easy to trace the words Wirtschaft, Gesellschaft, Wissen, Reise to their correspondents. Even navigation is impossible.

For example, if I told you that some German scientists have invented GMO fruits called "horse apples", it would be a bit complicated for you to search for the news:

• if you tried to translate "horse apples" and google, you would find mountains of manure because "Pferdeapfel" indicates horse shit. The search for the legendary GMO would be impossible. Furthermore, the acronym GMO is not very common, replaced by Gentechnik in the commercial and common language, and at the very least you should use GVO. Google would be of little use because you don't know what to look for.

• even found the article, your problem would be judging the source. The difference between Spiegel and Die Partei is practically invisible to most: both are the newspapers of a party that has few voters and exists only to take public subsidies, and to distinguish them you will have to judge their sarcasm. In short: Bild is Cronaca Vera but sells a lot, Spiegel is an apocalyptic version of the Republic when Scalfari has an ingrown toenail. FAZ is a rather serious newspaper but aimed at the upper classes, etc etc.

In short, from the point of view of the newsagent of some non-German-speaking country it is easy to invent events or statements that never occurred in Germany, just as it is easy for many Americans to believe in things that never happened in Brazil, France, Italy, Germany, Poland. , Sweden (last Friday night. In Sweden last Friday night things happen).

And I didn't give the example at all: when Trump said "look what happened last Friday night in Sweden!", Without anything happening, he was counting on the fact that almost no American can read a Swedish newspaper .

And it worked.

From the point of view of the Expat, this means having to continually reassure relatives and friends, who read about events that never happened, or happened in a completely different way and for very different reasons.

To some friends I recommended DW which is in English, and as you can see there is a political controversy because not enough vaccines arrive and the manufacturer struggles to follow the rhythm of orders, while in Italy it was written that the Germans they had bought gozzillions of doses.

But what could I do to reassure my mother who doesn't read English? Unfortunately DW does not have an Italian edition.

In other words, a German-speaking nation is the boon for Italian newspapers that intend to tell lies. Consequently, I have already explained to my parents that I DO NOT believe ANY of what they hear. After all:

• Italian sources almost never report links.
• they almost always refer to Bild and Spiegel.
• newspapers do not deign to verify the credentials of those who speak on social networks.

But this thing is dangerous. Just as the British were able to convince that the welfare cuts (initiated by Thatcher and carried out by Blair) had been "ordered" by Brussels, without fear of denial by a people who did not know or could not follow the news of other countries, it was possible to make them believe almost everything, for example, DO YOU WANT HER TO STOP FRYING FISH & CHIPS to the British ?

(actually it happened that in ONE school in Rome fish & chips ended up among the European recipes. Which is correct since it also exists in Belgium, Holland and France).

And this is the danger I see today: that the Italian press is turning to populist positions, taking advantage of the fact that Italians do not read German, and therefore DO NOT KNOW how to verify the news they see. A news about London could at least be verified by students who read English, but one in German, or Polish, or any other European country, could be told quietly and no one would notice.

Did you know that it is a habit of UFOs to terrorize Bavaria? Well, before you call your relatives in Bavaria, that's not true. In Bavaria, UFOs are lovable people.

Unless Repubblica says otherwise.