Mafia and Antimafia

A Brief History

Umberto Santino

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9780857729026
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Italian History
• Index: History

The mafia is the impenetrable and seemingly infallible embodiment of notoriety and criminality. Umberto Santino, one of Italy's leading mafia experts, here provides a new perspective on the mafia: as a polymorphic organization which encompasses crime, the accumulation of corruptly acquired wealth and power, the cultural code of omerta and consensus. Exploring the movements which strive to fight against the powers of the mafia, such as the campaigns of civil society organizations like the Centro siciliano di documentazione, the author also provides a fresh look at the mechanisms - and struggles - of the antimafia movement.

CHAPTER 1

THEORIES AND REALITIES

Prologue

After decades in which its existence was denied, in recent years the mafia has become, and remains, a topic of discussion in newspapers, on television and even in schools. This is largely due to the spectacular crimes attributed to it. Many people remember or have heard about the large number of deaths that occurred in Palermo in the early 1980s, during the so-called ‘mafia war’, which also involved many crimes outside the mafia groups. The massacres in 1992, which saw the deaths of the magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino (we too often forget that others died alongside Falcone: his wife Francesca Morvillo, herself a magistrate, and Rocco Dicillo, Antonio Montinaro and Vito Schifani; and alongside Borsellino, the police officers Agostino Catalano, Walter Cosina, Emanuela Loi, Vincenzo Li Muli and Claudio Traina), and those in 1993 in Florence and Milan, with ten victims, also made headlines around the world.

These and other crimes gave rise to talk of an ‘emergency’, suggesting that the mafia exists only when it is shooting and is headline news when it kills famous people. Since those years saw attacks on representatives of state institutions (the police, magistrates, politicians), the mafia was also seen as ‘anti-state’.

These views of the mafia – as a murder machine; as operating outside and against the State – are among the most widespread, but we should ask how accurate they are and whether they provide an adequate description of the phenomenon that is the mafia.¹

We also need to question ideas about the antimafia that have gained currency. It is said that the struggle against the mafia began only in recent years, and we remember the efforts of certain magistrates, particularly those who were killed, the demonstrations that have been held and still take place, and the work done in schools. In fact, as we shall see, the struggle against the mafia started long ago and is as old as the mafia itself: we may see it as beginning in the 1890s, with the first peasant struggles (the Fasci siciliani).²

Methodology

To understand the mafia and the antimafia correctly, we must first examine the ideas now circulating to establish whether or not they are correct. This preliminary phase, the assessment of current ideas, or inspection of the collective imagination, must be followed by a second, formulating a definition, and inevitably a third, verification of this through research. This methodology is valid for any subject, but is particularly relevant to one such as the mafia and the antimafia, around which so many wrong and often misleading ideas have accumulated over time.

Current Ideas: Stereotypes and Paradigms

I shall divide the current ideas on the mafia into two groups: stereotypes and paradigms. Stereotypes are the most widespread current ideas, the clichés trotted out without reflection or documentation, which are derived from and perpetuate a mass consensus, are accepted thanks to a lack of thought and passed on through force of habit. The assessment of these ideas requires their demystification, through comparing them with an accurate representation of reality. This operation is fairly easy at a cultural level but difficult to put into practice, since many of these notions about the mafia have been adopted by the media and also underpin the legislation in force today.

I shall call paradigms those ideas that have some claim to be regarded as scientific, in that they are derived from the collection and interpretation of a certain mass of data. As we shall see, the most widely accepted paradigms (the mafia as a typical criminal association and the mafia enterprise) describe only part of the mafia phenomenon, and so raise the question of how we can incorporate other aspects that have not been fully considered or have been ignored.

The Most Widely Accepted Stereotypes: Emergency and Anti-state

I have already mentioned the idea of the mafia as an emergency and as an anti-state body. The stereotype of the mafia as an emergency is based on the view that it is mainly or primarily a murder machine. Whenever there is a murder that can be ascribed to the mafia, the press and television talk of the ‘revival’ of the mafia phenomenon, as if in between crimes the mafia ceased to exist and proof of its existence consists only, or mainly, in its carrying out of murders. If there are many such crimes, and particularly if well-known people are targeted, we talk about an ‘emergency’. This is a view that sees the mafia as alive only when it is shooting, as a phenomenon that is of importance and concern when it generates cadaveri eccellenti (‘eminent corpses’, a brutal expression that it would be better to avoid) and becomes a questione nazionale (a ‘national issue’, to quote the headline in the Corriere della sera of 5 September and La Repubblica of 6 September 1982), if it kills men such as Dalla Chiesa, Falcone and Borsellino. By this reckoning, if the mafia does not kill it ceases to exist – or it is as if it has ceased to exist, and deserves no attention; if it does not aim high, it is merely a local phenomenon that gives no grounds for concern.

This stereotype is undoubtedly the most prevalent: held not only by ordinary people, it is a favourite of the mass media and is also shared by Italian legislators. All the antimafia laws in Italy were passed following major crimes and massacres: the law of 13 September 1982, which stated for the first time that the mafia is essentially a criminal phenomenon, was passed ten days after the assassination of General Prefect Dalla Chiesa, a figure well known nationally and internationally as a result of his long career and in particular for his efforts to combat terrorist groups; the anti-racketeering law was passed following the assassination in 1991 of the businessman Libero Grassi, who had opposed extortion and who also had a high profile following his appearance on television; the laws introducing strict imprisonment (Article 41bis) and providing rewards for mafia members who cooperated with the authorities (the so-called pentiti: ‘turncoats’) followed the massacres of the magistrates Giovanni Falcone, Francesca Morvillo and Paolo Borsellino with their protectors in 1992. Some legislative provisions adopted in response to mafia violence have subsequently been watered down or abrogated. For example, limitations were placed on cooperation by the pentiti, who have to make their statements no later than six months after they start to cooperate.

The mafia is not a phenomenon that comes and goes, as the ‘emergency’ stereotype would have it, and it is not merely a murder machine; it is a structural and ongoing phenomenon, and its activities are legion and not limited to the planning and execution of murders.

The stereotype of the mafia as ‘anti-state’ is based on a reading of the crimes against those working for the institutions as a ‘war on the state’. In reality, these are crimes carried out against individuals who are particularly committed to the struggle against the mafia and who are often isolated within the institutions and offices to which they belong. This stereotype argues that the mafia, as a criminal entity, will always be other than the state and its institutions; in other words, their adversary. In fact, the relationship between the mafia and the institutions is much more complex, ranging from aversion to complicity. As we shall see, the link with sectors of the institutions is part of what characterizes the mafia phenomenon (we shall consider below the mafia as a political actor).

‘Mind Your Own Business’

We have not exhausted the list of stereotypes. One of the most common expressions is: ‘The mafiosi simply kill each other. If you mind your own business, they won't bother you.’ Here the underlying belief about the mafia is quite clear: mafia crimes are an internal affair, which is considered a natural phenomenon. The resulting moral is equally clear: mind your own business, keep your eyes closed, live quietly, curled up in your own shell, because this is the only way of keeping out of it, certain not to become involved and a target.

For decades the mafia has killed trade unionists, leaders and ordinary activists in the peasant struggles and opposition parties. But none of this should be of concern to ordinary people, who are happy with their own lives and firmly anchored to their own self-interest – or so the stereotype implies. Society is seen as a series of closed boxes, not communicating and having preordained roles that cannot be altered. Why should I care what happens to other people? My family and I keep to ourselves, not looking beyond the ends of our noses or our own concerns.

As a result of the murders of people working for public institutions – magistrates, police officers, journalists and government politicians – this stereotype has begun to lose ground, but it has survived thanks to a twist: it is their job, their professional duty, to deal with the mafia, that is what they are paid to do. And – some people think this but do not say it, some think it and say it – almost all those killed were too enthusiastic, they pushed themselves forward, and that is why they became the targets of mafia violence.

In the early 1980s, when the toll of the killings in Palermo amounted to hundreds a year, a lady ‘assailed continuously by the deafening sirens of police cars escorting the various judges’ wrote a letter published in the Giornale di Sicilia on Sunday 14 April 1985, asking for the magistrates most at risk, whom she described as ‘those eminent officers’, to be transferred to ‘villas on the outskirts of the city’, in order to preserve ‘the peace and quiet of those who live and work’ and to ensure ‘the safety of all of us who, in the event of an attack’ could be ‘involved for no reason (as in the Chinnici massacre)’. The lady's moral position was quite evident: the mafia problem is one for the magistrates, a sort of war between gamekeepers and poachers; it has nothing to do with the ordinary ‘workers and citizens’, who should not therefore suffer the consequences. The removal of the most committed magistrates to the suburbs follows from this logic and this moral position: they, not the mafiosi, are the public danger, better to keep well away from them.

The Mafia as a Subculture

In academic language, the term ‘subculture’ does not imply a value judgement: it refers to codes and models of behaviour that are specific to sectors or segments of society and that constitute a deviation from or opposition to the prevailing culture. In everyday language, however, the term does imply a judgement: the behaviour to which it relates is viewed negatively while the dominant behaviour is regarded positively. Using this term about the mafia means considering it as the product of factors that are negative, deviant or minoritarian, whether culturally or socio-economically (backwardness and underdevelopment).

If we use the term subculture in an anthropological sense, we are simply saying that the mafia has its own distinct culture, as do particular social strata and those who belong to specific professions (doctors, teachers, businessmen, etc.). This does not expand our understanding in any way. If we use it in the non-academic sense, the mafia is seen as a deviant, minority phenomenon, which is and can be isolated. This means ignoring fundamental factors which integrate the mafia phenomenon into the body of society as a whole. For this reason I propose the term ‘transculture’ to describe the behavioural aspects of the mafia. In my view, this term is better able to embrace the complexity of mafia behaviour, which includes aspects ranging from the archaic to the modern or, as is often said, post-modern. I shall come back to this point later.

‘All Sicilians are Mafiosi…’

This is a clearly racist stereotype, which sees all Sicilians, to a greater or lesser extent, as mafiosi, behaving as mafiosi, having a mafia mentality and so on. This stereotype extends to other regions of southern Italy where phenomena similar to that of the mafia exist, albeit with certain specific features: the ’ndrangheta in Calabria, the camorra in Campania and, in recent years, the Sacra Corona Unita in Apulia.

This stereotype stems from anti-southern prejudice: the Mezzogiorno is seen as a ‘paradise inhabited by devils’, a land of brigands and criminals, of idlers and parasites, a lead weight chained to the foot of Italy.

There is also a contrasting stereotype, one that makes excuses and offers a defence: so-called sicilianismo, the defensive regional pride that sees the mafia as invented by northerners to denigrate Sicily; this interprets the mafia not as a criminal association but simply the result of an inflated ego and overdeveloped sense of honour. This leads to the demand by Sicilians for the state to intervene and provide resources to make up for the ‘wrongs’ done to Sicily. Similar are certain forms of meridionalismo (‘patriotic meridionalismo’) that ignore or underestimate the bad points of the South, which certainly include criminal organizations, and stress primarily or solely the responsibilities of central government and its prejudices against southerners.

The first of these stereotypes extends the presence of the mafia and criminal elements to a whole region and the entire Mezzogiorno, identifying an entire population with the mafias. The second stereotype replies with excuses, or by denying the reality of the mafia and other criminal phenomena. Both stereotypes are equally without foundation. The mafia and other forms of organized crime certainly exist, but the whole of Sicily is not mafia, nor is the entire Mezzogiorno criminal: this is clearly demonstrated by the substantial efforts made to combat the mafia, particularly in Sicily. And the stereotype of excuses or denial is generated and fostered by the mafia itself and other similar organizations, nurturing pro-mafia and pro-criminal ideologies in order to minimize or camouflage criminal activities and pursue the interests of one part of the population by presenting them as the interests of all. I shall return to this point again, with particular reference to the events (the trial resulting from the Notarbartolo murder) that gave rise to sicilianismo.

‘The Mafia is Everywhere’, or ‘Everything is Mafia’

It is often said that the mafia exists throughout the world, and equally frequently the term ‘mafia’ is employed as a generic description of criminal activity, corruption, arrogance, aggression, abuse of power, favouritism and bad behaviour, ranging from bullying in schools to the use of raccomandazioni (the practice of securing jobs for relatives or friends by recommending them to potential employers or appointing authorities).

The effect, whether intentional or not, is a tendency to obscure or underestimate the presence of the mafia in Sicily by reducing it to a sort of global or cosmic mafia, vague, unknowable and impossible to get to grips with. Look elsewhere, not here, is the watchword of this viewpoint, while historical reality and the present day clearly show that the mafia is both here and elsewhere, and before it took root elsewhere it grew and developed here. The indiscriminate use of the word ‘mafia’ for virtually anything bad creates the impression that the mafia is the ultimate evil, for which there is no remedy other than some improbable cosmic regeneration.

Mafia as an ‘Octopus’

The most recent media version of this stereotype is La Piovra, a famous television series that has achieved higher foreign sales than any other Italian production. The various episodes show omnipresent and omnipotent mafiosi in conflict with a positive hero who is a police chief or magistrate. The clash between lawlessness and the law is in reality a clash between two forms of violence: the illegal violence of the mafia and the legal violence of the police, a media portrayal that frequently boosts the stereotype of the ‘godfather’ as a charismatic personality who is more attractive than the positive hero. Following the recent TV series Il capo dei capi (The Boss of Bosses) I heard teachers observing that children identified more strongly with the mafia boss than with the hero fighting against the mafia.

The mafia is said now to be active throughout the world; in fact, for some time there have been various groups around the globe that resemble the Sicilian mafia model in the complexity of their activities and relationships. But there is no single mafia or supermafia, as certain journalists like to argue. Fighting these groups needs not a single hero but a concerted collective effort.

‘There Used to be the Mafia, Now There're Only Criminals’

One stereotype which concerns in particular the mafia's historical development argues that in the past it was possible to speak of the mafia as a more or less organized body of men who had a sense of honour, followed certain rules – for example, no killing of women and children – and administered a sort of people's justice when official justice was absent or perverted, but at some point it changed into mere criminality. This stereotype promotes the idea that, once upon a time, the mafia served a useful purpose, or was at least reassuring. It goes on to argue that more recently this mafia has ceased to exist and there are now only common criminals who kill, threaten, extort and undertake a variety of illegal acts, knowing no rules and possessing no sense of honour. In reality, the mafia has been a criminal association since it began: it has always operated within a system of relationships and has developed by adapting itself to its context and changes therein, often showing great flexibility alongside a formal rigidity that is more talked about than practised. We shall see that the history of the mafia, as of all long-term phenomena, is...