Yair Lapid, Beppe Grillo And Social Justice
Nadav Eyal compares the aftermath of the Italian Five Star movement to the Israeli social justice protest and considers that new Israeli faces can and might deliver.
Beppe Grillo, leader of the Italian Five Star Movement, came like a bolt of lightning in the darkening skies of Europe. And, as argued by both Grillo and his party, it seems that their emergence in the recent general election in Italy points toward a much wider phenomenon than a mere random protest vote.
In fact, in a number of European countries, the ideological frames of operation of politics have extended far afield. It started with the green parties, continued with anti-European parties (such as the British UKIP, the UK Independence Party, which seeks the withdrawal of Britain from the European Union) and pro-[Internet] piracy parties, and has now culminated in an all-out protest party like the Five Star Movement, which talks, rather chaotically, about ecology, government corruption, the European Union failures, direct democracy, and the like. In a certain sense, Grillo is a separatist, which, on the face of it, seems to contradict the notion of a universal agenda. However, it somehow all falls into place, as Grillo is, simply, the voice of protest. And his rivals would say that it is protest for the sake of protest.
