Why the Mafia can't be defeated in Sicily? (part 2)

Category:

Mafia

Removing those misfit kids from the Mafia's claws before they'll become adults and from there callous criminals, shouldn't be that hard to do it. By simply giving some possibilities for better futures to them and their parents, these kids will become productive and responsible adults to a modern society. Of course all this will be only possible if, the Italian national institutions will set a policy from preventing those kids in becoming the next, "Mafiosi".



From what I could see, there were two main culprits to be called in cause: the first culprit as I said is, the Italian State not doing much (besides the detecting/policing, prosecution and jailing works on affiliated of the Mafia) on the prevention. I don't believe in the effectiveness of a zero tolerance policy the same ways it was applied (more likely it was imposed) on the New Jersey and New York's populations, for safer and cleaner neighborhoods! That kind of policy isn't going to work in the Sicilian Society, but only steer social unrest.

Giving jobs to those low income family living in run-down neighborhoods is, of course, a first line to fight criminality perpetrated by minors. Those same neighborhoods should be cared more from the Italian government, to prevent the Mafia of using them as a reservoir to resupply its troops. Moreover, new resources should be spent in those neighborhoods, like social workers taking care of low ambient families by helping them arise to high standards of living. Those same social workers should in the same time, enforce the kids' parents to send their children to attend schools and do follow up their progress during their growing up.




Police patrolling on foot those streets should be a norm, especially in very difficult neighborhoods, to prevent the criminality of infiltrating them. Parks should also be created in those neighborhoods, to give to the people that are living in them a sense of communities. As well, garbages should be collected regularly, streets, schools and any other social infrastructures should be well maintained in those same neighborhoods, to not give a false impression to those people that the Italian national government doesn't really care much about them.

The second culprit is: in the Sicilian culture there are many things that should be thrown out! In the Sicilian culture is indeed occulted, a certain mentality of mafiositi. For example: in Sicilian dialect there are some words like mafiosetto/mafiosetta (youngsters, acting in mafioso's ways) not seen and used in derogatory terms by a part of the Sicilian population but as some form of rewarding badges for an ill-mannered youngster. People looking to circumnavigate (as I mentioned in a previous post, see: Fighting the Mafia-Incorrect conceptions and bad attitudes from the Sicilians people) the normal difficulties of the day to day life, by applying unorthodox methods to beat the system by form of cheats such as l'arte di arranggiarsi (the art of getting by) by asking favors to the wrong people.




They see politicians stealing and cheating on regular basis, or when seeing the employers not paying the taxes or not paying themselves the appropriate salaries. An other of unethical behaviors is when they are seeing someone to pay the, "bustarella" (little envelopes containing cash which is used to bribe someone in getting in return a big favor). Unfortunately, to a portion of the Sicilian population such occurrences are seen as a normalcies, and when they can they'll apply the same methods.

All the above statements are not helping much in fighting the Mafia at the present time, but helping the Mafia in its own survival. Until the culprits which I have mentioned in this current post are not defeated, the Mafia too won't be defeated! I must point out that in the Sicilian past somehow, must have been an hidden agenda from some political puppeteers which were acting in the shadows to keep the Sicilian's status-quo unchanged for personal gains.

"The Mafia is oppression, arrogance, greed, self-enrichment, power and hegemony above and against all others. It is not an abstract concept, or a state of mind, or a literary term... It is a criminal organization regulated by unwritten but iron and inexorable rules... The myth of a courageous and generous 'man of honor' must be destroyed, because a mafioso is just the opposite."

-- Cesare Terranova, Italian Magistrate murdered in 1979

Nowadays things are looking a bit different for Sicily and maybe, maybe, there is finally some hopes for the honest, working Sicilian families.

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Why the Mafia can't be defeated in Sicily? (part 1)

Category:

Mafia

The Sopranos

The Mafia is a sort of ghost, invisible to anyone visiting Sicily unless he does know how to look for it, for all other residents it's all an other matter... First, it's the kind of Mafia you won't find on American movies but the kind of Mafia you'll find in Sicily has nothing appealing. Those American movies based on the glamorous American Mafia are contrasting sharply with the reality of the Sicilian Mafia. The Sicilian Mafia is a revolting, treacherous, deceitful, viscid, threatening world that like a leech sustains itself by bloodsucking vital lymph from the sane tissues of the Sicilian society.

Why the Mafia can't be defeated in Sicily?

That's the one million dollar question which I wish, I could answer it! I'll take my years I lived in Sicily as an example while I'm trying to give an answer to this Sicilian eternal dilemma.

I remember from the experience that I had acquired while I was living in Palermo, that there was a stratified society similar to many other societies you'll find around the globe: there were the wealthy of an upper class, the middle-income people (as might be expected) from the middle-class, and last a lower class made up of the underprivileged such as: the poor, the helpless, the illiterates, the miserables, the misfortunate people, along with all the other kind of inadequates from a society (note: this last class sometimes has been rejected by the the rest of the upper-classes, but it has also been totally neglected by a failing Italian system for a very long time).

***

Now, from this lower class is where most of the times the Mafia refuels its ranks.




The people of this class, usually lives in unacceptable conditions inside run-down neighborhoods where crime is the norm, and where the kids of this lower class hardly get to finish the primary schools so that they can manage to speak a decent and acceptable Italian language. Those kids are usually been neglected by their own fathers (ordinarily these fathers are men with stone aged mentalities) and are spending the rest of their days hanging around the streets by doing nothing or almost nothing!




That nothingness is where takes those kids in looking toward detrimental activities. First of all, they start their petty crimes activities with broken-windows, small burglaries, doing small favors of doubtful nature to the next neighborhood's thug (like delivering packages of drugs, or delivering dubious messages to the local bosses, etc and etc...)




And soon, very soon escalating these activities with their first, "scippo". Scippo? What is this thing called scippo, you may ask! Ask a tourist that went to Sicily for a vacation, and maybe, he can answer you. The, "scippo" may sound like a beverage's name but it isn't. It's a violent motorcycle theft, and it is caused by the grabbing of an incautious's property with a violent pull by one or two kids while they are riding fast their motorcycle.




Consequentially to that violent pull, the poor tourist is left on the street floor badly bruised and sometimes even with broken bones (this form of stealing it is most of the times, practiced on unaware tourists and rarely on the locals because the locals know where to find them or to who to talk to get the stolen property returned). As soon these kids grown up and the local family Mafia have noticed them, they will be engaged in their ranks as, "picciotti" (literally it means youngsters but in the Sicilian culture it was also used for soldiers) to do their dirty jobs.

Mafia is an invisible and invincible force incapable of been defeated by traditional policing methods!

I believe we should still have a long time to confront ourselves with the organized crime of mafia origin. For a long time, not for the eternity: because the Mafia is a human phenomenon and like all the human phenomenons it has an its beginning, an its evolution and it will also have an its end.

Giovanni Falcone (assassinated Italian judge)

Now my next question is: why this malicious cycle can't be broken by removing the running water from the watermill?

Next: Why the Mafia can't be defeated in Sicily? (part 2)

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The years of the MAfiA's reign in Palermo.

Category:

Mafia

Before the carnages of the anti-mafia judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in 1992, and before the carnage of Gen. Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa in 1982, and even before many other carnages that happened over there, there was a time in which Palermo was living in an apparent state of optimism while the Mafia was having very good times!

Those were the years of when the Sicilian's Mafia families were dictating their laws, the years where legality and national institutions were partially active in Sicily, the years of the Mafia's illegal building constructions, rampant misappropriations, and corrupted mayors.

The years of Palermo's sack.

Thanks to the Mafia, there was for Palermo a partial era of economic boom (the only one I could ever recall from the years of my growing up in Palermo). All over the city of Palermo there was a frenetic activity of constructions. Construction buildings were springing up all over the city, like they were malefic mushrooms. I remember those years as the, "Sack of Palermo".



I still have in my memories of a much smaller Palermo than it's today. From up above the mountains that are surrounding it, you could have had an astounding panoramic view. Palermo looked like was made of gold because of all its lemon's trees cultivations, and for that specific reason Palermo's valley was named, "La Conca D'oro" (the golden valley). From where I lived, my father to get in the city's center for work, he had only one small street available to reach his destination. Along this single street there was nothing but trees, interminable lines of lemon's trees and a few old buildings scattered all over.

La Conca d’Oro - (golden valley)

Oil painting of, "Francesco Lo Jacono' (1838-1915)

In a very short time period, everything was destroyed and was replaced by a processes of savage urbanization with little control from the competent authorities. I remember, a few of those Liberty stile Villas at the corner of viale della Liberta and viale Lazio, been bulldozed down just for speculative interests. I was too little to figure out why those marvelous Villas were demolished. The penetration from the Mafia of the public administrations was so deep, that they did find very little oppositions to their devastating pillages to the city. The Mafia sacked Palermo the same way the barbarians did to Rome. That's why that devastation is still remembered till these days as the, "Sack of Palermo".

Vito Calogero Ciancimino.

The sack of Palermo was, the construction boom from the 1950s through the mid 1980s. The high point of the sack happened under the Christian Democrat Mayor Salvo Lima. Vito Calogero Ciancimino (born in Corleone) also a Christian Democrat, became assessor for public works and building permits under Salvo Lima. At some point Ciancimino himself became mayor of Palermo, and he gave out a record number of licenses for building constructions, which all of them were managed from the Corleonese's Mafia. Who was Ciancimino? He was an Italian politician and in the same time a criminal!



I remember from those times, the people of Palermo were much happier because there were more jobs availability (thanks to all the illegal construction buildings that were going on around all the city), and more jobs meant more cash were flowing into their packets. I remember that even my father was happy, because he was doing businesses in his shop with people in a hurry to spend their money.

The Mafiosi are the bad guys!

Unfortunately for the Palermitans that were wrongly believing that Mafia with its thriving and lucrative businesses of the cement coupled with cigarette smuggling and heroin trafficking (and believe me, some Palermitans knew back then, who really had the hands firmly on the power of command) were really bringing jobs for everyone...



Naturally, their dreams of better lives were easily shattered once the Italian State decided to put a stronghold to the Mafia's unrestrained criminal activities with the cement, by closing down all the building constructions and starting penal processes to the Mafia and all of the corrupted politicians accused of Mafia association.

Consequentially to the Italian State's actions, a darker and deeper depression came back more revengeful than before by rolling down on a once green city, and now silent, exhausted, and cemented with its citizens left at the top of their desperations and drained from their energies and hopes.

There was in those years, unattainable social peace for Sicily because of (besides the criminal organizations) inept and sometimes corrupted politicians. I don't know right now, but back then there were politicians very easily corruptible in exchange for votes, and the Mafia knew very well all that. Politicians were colluding together with the local Mafia's boss by plaguing the well-being of Sicilians, and overall, the same was happening to the rest of the south's Italian regions with their local 'Ndrangheta/Cammorra/Sacra Corona Unita/Stidda's bosses and their illicit activities!

Leoluca Orlando - Former mayor of Palermo.

I would like to dedicate this post to one of the few good men left in Palermo, because of his activities in understanding, fighting, and sharing awareness on the pervasiveness of the Mafia in Sicilian society. This man is Leoluca Orlando, a former (and very honest and uncorrupted politician) mayor of Palermo.

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Fighting the Mafia-Incorrect conceptions and bad attitudes from the Sicilians people.

Category:

Mafia

Looking inside a Sicilian's ordinary mind can be a very difficult task to accomplish, because of his impenetrable mentality.

Sometimes looking inside an ordinary Sicilian's mind can make you better understand the social impact of the Mafia, and all of the mafiosi's typologies that are deeply entrenched into a society. There are many Sicilians (not mafiosi) which are proud to know mafiosi and they brag about it whenever they can. Just to mention to know a mafioso make them feel feared and respected, like they were mafiosi themselves even though they aren't! If I know someone I am someone. But the thing is, if this someone is a mafioso it's even better. You know, he can open many doors for me.

That honorable guy sent me here!




"In Sicilian dialect: mi manna u zu' toto, or mi manna u zu' pippinu (it's impossible to translate, so that I give you a different English version hopefully with the same meaning)... To an employer: that honorable guy (intending a politician, someone very important, or a mafioso) send me here for a job, and now you must (note: the request is an imposing one) give me a job. While buying a new car, a new house or whatever: that honorable guy send me here to buy a new car, a new house or whatever for myself, now you must sell it to me very cheaply. In short: because of, "that" guy you must treat him respectfully.

The real meaning of the words Mafia and Cosa Nostra in the Sicilian society.

I use the word, "Mafia" often and almost never the word, "Cosa Nostra" (meaning belonging to us) when I talking about mafia topics because on those words there are differences in their meaning, sometime very slight differences that only Sicilians can understand.

Cosa Nostra, what it really means? Unfortunately is very hard to explain it in a plain english, but I'll try it anyway! The common Sicilians never use the words, "Cosa Nostra" when they want to indicate a mafioso, or hes belonging to a family of mafiosi, but they just say: a mafioso, or he belongs to a mafia's family. Only mafiosi call the mafia organization the Cosa Nostra, and thus they named their organization Cosa Nostra. The common Sicilians call it simply Mafia or Mafia organization, never Cosa Nostra. In matter of fact, I remember when I was used to live in Sicily and the Sicilians never spoke about the mafia organization as the Cosa Nostra, but only as the Mafia (news media sometimes refer to the mafia with a symbol, the octopus's symbol because of its many tentacles).

In the other hand, the everyday Sicilians are using the words, "cosa nostra" in regular sentence, for their real meaning like: these toys belong to us. You see, "cosa nostra" means: it belong to us. That's what really means in regular conversations. Keep also in mind to pay close attention, to the tone of voices and the facial expressions when Sicilians are pronouncing words, because sometime they can have different meanings.

In the case of when the Sicilians are using the words, "e' cosa nostra?" (is it ours?) with a particular tone of voice and contemporaneously they are lifting an hand in the air to make a circular motion with their fingers toward their interlocutor, what they are saying to them with their gesture is: did you steal that? Instead, when they want to allude something or someone that belongs to the mafia, they say in a disdainful way: cosa nostra eh! When Sicilians are saying jokingly to their interlocutor, they say: lui e' cosa nostra; what they are saying is: he is with us.

The words cosa nostra, when it is pronounced among mafiosi can have also many meanings. A mafioso when using those same words he intent also something different, and by the way, the mafioso uses them when he's only with other similar. As I said, when they are conversing among them, they are giving to the words, "cosa nostra" also different meanings (now that's the hard part), but remember to pay attention to the different tone voices and facial expressions when they are spoken those words.

When they say: non ti proccupare di lui, e'cosa nostra; what they are really saying is: don't worry about him because he's with us (meaning he's a mafioso like us). When they are simple saying: lui/esso e' cosa nostra (meaning: it is ours); they are saying: don't worry about it/him, we'll take care of that problem or any other problem that will arise. Sometimes that problem could even be an assassination. You see, a subtle change of voice, some gestures, an expression of the face, and the adding of a few more words into a short sentence of two words as the, "cosa nostra" and it'll be enough to pronounce a death sentence.

At last, the mafiosi are using the words Cosa Nostra to name their organization, including any mafioso from top to bottom together with all of their filthy activities. And of course, there are many other instances where those words are used, but they'll take too much space in a single post just to talk about them.

L'arte di arranggiarsi (the art of getting by).




If the Mafia still esiste in Sicily in part is because of some honest citizens that sometimes are unknowingly or knowingly too condescending with their social attitudes, and and because of them, sometimes they are even imitating mafiosi's behavioral by getting their hands on whatever don't really belong to them by using an unethical shortcuts.

In south of Italy, there's a way of thinking that is called l'arte di arranggiarsi (the art of getting by), and it's deeply embedded in the DNA of many people. Sometimes this kind of thinking can be very bad, often contrasting with ethics and laws. More often than not, this form of cheating to beat the system can lead someone to deal with mafiosi, camorristi, or any other form of criminal organizations by asking them favors to get what they are looking for. Of course, the mafioso himself will be very happy to help you (for his help in time, he'll ask you a big favor in return).

This kind of thinking from ordinary citizens on the south regions of Italy, it's what really keeping the mafia and any other criminal organization to fade away from theirs cities. These cities can't become modern and industrialized, not until the bad attitudes from those people of arranggiarsi (of getting by) is removed. Look in Italy: the north and south part of it, industrially there are totally unbalanced. North regions are more wealthy than the south regions, and that's why many poor people decide to leave from the south regions with destinations toward the north of this nation, or altogether to emigrate in a new nation.

Naturally if you could look inside a Sicilian's mind, you could find many other answers that could explain why the Mafia hasn't been defeated yet. To entirely explain the whys and wherefores of the Mafia still living in Sicily, it would take to write many more chapters or to write an entire book which right now I not feel particularly motivated in doing it!

Or maybe it's just because I'm not really that capable to do it? Hmm...

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Good people versus the people of respect in the Sicilian society.

Category:

Mafia

Since I was a little boy in Sicily, I learned to distinguish the people in general as good people and people of respect.

I remember of when people were mentioning my family in their conversations, and they were always referring to my family as good people. What that meant? I learned soon what they really meant.


"Good people" was a way to distinguish the honest hard working people inside the Sicilian society from another kind of people. This other kind of people which reputations were with dubious moralities, and they were the so-called, "people of respect".

The people of respect (also mis-regarded as honorable people) was and still it is in Sicily, the people gravitating around or living within the Mafia's contest.

When the common people were mentioning them in their private conversations, they were always doing it with uneasy feelings of hidden fears. In fact the phrase of, "people of respect" evokes till these days in the honest people a bad concealed truth, and this truth was that they were indeed all fearful of them (the mafiusi).

That was and unfortunately still it is, the sad truth. When you found yourself in some particular circumstances and you asked to someone close to you, who were those people present at that moment and this someone was telling you that they were people of respect, then you realized soon what that meant. That meant to be cautious, to be afraid, because you never knew what they wanted from you.

Indeed, what you really heard when you were hearing those words in the Sicilian society for sure was: fears, intimidations, extortions, murdering and so on. As you can see, there was little of respectfulness on those words and more of fearfulness. That's what the mafia really evoked in the minds of the Sicilian men when those words were spoken, and none of respectability.

Now, I want to tell you a story of when I was a teenager living in Sicily and I had a small incident with one of these people of respect.

This incident happened one summer morning, and I was with the company of my young friends. My friends and I were all playfully horsing around a nearby empty water channel.

During this playfulness, I felt someone grabbing my right shoulder with excessive strength. Then, in a puzzled way, I turned myself around and saw a tall old man with completely white hairs under a black coppola looking angrily at me. He started shouting at me with an old Sicilian dialect, which I could barely understood.

While I was trying to make sense of the words rushing out from the mouth of this old guy, he was already pushing me toward the edge of the empty water channel. After we reached that edge, he pointed his index finger to something which I could barely see down there.

I was totally confused up then. I could not make any sense of what he was trying to tell me, and either the why he was pointing his finger to that mysterious thing at the bottom of the channel.

At that point I was getting in a mix of frustration, angriness, and fearfulness. Slowly my brain started to decipher the intelligible words shouted at me from the old guy (later, I found out this old guy was on his seventies).

He was accusing me to had thrown his metallic wheelbarrow to the bottom of that channel. I promptly rejected his accusation vented on me, and his face started to twist more in an unrecognizable mask of angriness (I want to be more specific, in that incident I believe I was around the age of nine or maybe eleven years old). The kind of exaggerated reaction of this old guy, was like he was dealing with an adult guy capable to stand up to his confrontational attitude.

In fact now, he was pushing me harder to the edge of the channel while with a furious tone of voice (the kind tone of voice from someone used to give commands) he was ordering me to go towards the bottom of it to recover his metallic wheelbarrow. Right that moment, I started to think that the old man must had been out of his mind for wanting from me something like that, in spite of my young age. For me at that young age, his request sounded like he was asking me to descend from a very high mountain's peak, to recover a very heavy metallic object at the bottom of it.

Consequentially to his unreasonable request I started to cry while I was imploring him to let me go, but still he kept insisting with his absurd request. I can't recall how long he persisted with his absurdity. Eventually, he gave up and let me go but not before he warned to harshly punish me if he ever saw me again around that place.

Later, I had a conversation with some acquaintances about that old guy. I asked them who he was, and they told me he was a man of respect. A man of respect which was the family head of the Di Maggio's clan. To be more concise, he was a mafia boss well know and respected (I dare to say that more than respected he was feared) in the neighborhood where I lived.

In those days, I started to learn for the first times those words, "men of respect" and their real meanings.

Those same words, kept coming back during the rest of my years I lived in Sicily. I can say today, that harsh, brief encounter with the old, "respected" man was for me a childhood trauma, as well the first lesson on the real nature of the mafia's grasp on the minds and lives of the honest Sicilian people.

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