No berlusconi day

No Berlusconi Day was a spontaneous mass political event, held worldwide on december 5th 2009, that was organized almost entirely trough the internet.
Genesis
The idea was to protest against Silvio Berlusconi , Italy's Prime Minister at the time, which was seen by many Italians as unfit to hold the office after being involved in a countless number of scandals, brought to courts in trials for financial crimes and accused by many mobbers to be involved with the mafia.
Although his political position was not immaculate -to say the least- he did not only refused to resign, but tried to defend his positions against further trials by using his political position and media leverage to promulgate laws which protected him from the justice.
The Shaping of the project
When , on october 6th 2009, one of these laws -the so called "lodo Alfano"- was sentenced to be against the Constitutional principles of equality by Italy's Supreme Constitutional Court, a small group of bloggers started to comment this sentence through intenet's social networks, and almost immediatly and naturally they decided they could organize something on the streets to show their criticism towards Silvio Berlusconi and his countless problems with Italian justice.
So, they contacted other people through internet's most popular social networks to start working on the "no Berlusconi Day" (No B. Day) project.
The idea started to spread like wildfire, and in less than a week No B. Day supporters' number was over 20.000. The entire project was immediatly adopted by people all over Italy and all over the world, local group were created and people started to organize themselves eagerly and spontaneously.
In late october a day was earmarked, december the 5th, and the main venue was of course Rome.
People from all over the country and all over the world kept joining in, and by early november registered supporters had boomed to 200.000.
Media's and Parties' attention
The project started to attract media's attention and ordinary people who were in charge of the event's organization-people never heard before by the greater public but rather known in the bloggers' community- started to appear in TV news and to be interviewed by the major newspapers.
This uproar forced the main opposition party - the PD- to declare his position as far as supporting the No B.Day. The PD Secretary, Pierluigi Bersani, took a rather foggy and abiguitous position, creating much disillusion in the Party's supporters and staff.
Event's chronicle
When december 5th came, the No B. Day started at 4.00am, Rome time, when the No B. Day group in Sidney opened up. This was of course due to the time shift between Australia and Italy, but the thing kept going on for the whole day since No B. Day demonstrations took place all over the world - from Bejjing to Paris, from London to Buenos Aires, from Madrid to New York , from berlin to Washington D.C. etc.
The main gathering was planned to take place in Rome, and it was simply huge - to say the least.
The actual partecipants' number is hard to calculate, an approximate guess could be close to 1.000.000 people.
The program was respected almost flawlessly. The participants gathered in piazza della Repubblica and started to march at 14:00 towards piazza S. Giovanni all along via Cavour, piazza S. Maria Maggiore and via Merulana. In piazza S. Giovanni a huge stage had been erected and the first speaker started his speech at 16:30. Many other followed until 18:30, when veteran songwriter, singer and latin teacher Roberto Vecchioni buckled the day with a 30' concert.
The day run on incredibly smooth. Although Rome was litteraly invaded by the partecipants, the atmosphere was not only peaceful but also colourful and energetic. The shops were kept open in all the streets were the No B. Day people marched trough and the general atmosphere was absolutely joyful.
Why it's so important?
The entire event is remarkable for three main reasons:
1 - it was global
2 - it was generated and organisted trought the intenet
3 - it was a people's idea, not started neither sponsored by parties or organization

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