Beppe Grillo - Political Activism

Political Activism

Grillo has spearheaded several national and international political campaigns. On September 8, 2007, he organized a "V‑Day Celebration" in Italy; the "V" stood for vaffanculo ("fuck off"). During the rally, Grillo projected the names of two dozen Italian politicians who had been convicted of crimes ranging from corruption and tax evasion to abetting a murder. More than 2 million Italians participated in this rally. Grillo also used this rally to urge Italians to sign a petition calling for the introduction of a Bill of Popular Initiative to remove members of the Italian Parliament who have criminal convictions of any kind from their office. According to Internet scholars, V‑day was the first case in Italian history of a political demonstration developed and promoted via word–of–mouth mobilization on the blogosphere and the social networking services.

This was followed by the second V-Day on 25 April 2008, in Turin, S. Carlo Square. This V‑Day was dedicated to the Italian press and the financial support it receives from the government. Grillo heavily criticized the Italian press for the lack of freedom, Umberto Veronesi, for his support for incinerators, NATO bases in Italy, the politicians (Silvio Berlusconi had recently been re-elected), and TV channel Retequattro, for still holding on to TV frequencies already assigned to Europa 7 .

On 1 September 2005, thanks to contributions from readers of his blog, Grillo bought a full page advertisement in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica in which he called for the resignation of the Bank of Italy's (then) governor Antonio Fazio over the Antonveneta banking scandal. In October 2005, Time chose him as one of the "European Heroes 2005" for his constant battle against corruption and financial scandals.

On 22 November 2005 Grillo also bought a page in the International Herald Tribune, again claiming that members of the Italian Parliament ought not to represent citizens if they have ever been convicted in a court of law, even in the first degree of the three available in the Italian system. His blog now contains a regularly updated list of members of the Italian Parliament who have been convicted in all three degrees, in what he calls "operation Clean Parliament". Grillo claimed, in 2007, that data suggested that even Scampia, the most dangerous suburb of Naples and one of the areas with the highest crime rate in Europe, actually had a lower crime rate than the Italian parliament's membership.

On 26 July 2007 Grillo was permitted to speak to the members of the European Parliament in Brussels, where he drew attention to the dangerous, negative state of current Italian politics.

In August 2008, Grillo was the subject of a report on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's (ABC-TV) international affairs program "Foreign Correspondent". Titled "The Clown Prince" the report profiled Grillo's life, political activism, the V‑Day campaign, and use of the internet as a political tool.

In 2010, he started a political movement called "Movimento 5 stelle" ("Movement five stars"), without the desire to be a leader and to be elected, but only to join, by the Internet, people who believe in ideals like honesty and direct democracy, and saying that politicians are only subordinates of the people and that they should work for the country only for a short time and only if they are not condemned for crimes, and thinking about the problems of their country without any other interest. The movement will be truly a party chance only from the next political round, when they will purpose their name not only in some regions but also in the political elections.