A fistful of mafia

There is an Italian journalist has won over the heart of many in his native Italy. He is the author of the controversial and highly publicised book ‘Gomorra.’ His name is Roberto Saviano and last year the Neapolitan mafia announced their intentions to kill him before the end of 2008. They failed.

The mafia in the South of Italy is notorious for the ability to keep promises especially when it involves the torturous murder of someone who has been scribbled onto their ‘list.’ Saviano’s book was a harsh reminder for the mafia that, not matter how hard they try, they lack flawlessness and their hierarchal nature can be penetrated by outsiders.

His book underlined the clandestine make up of the Camorra – the Neapolitan mafia who has, without this notion ever really being exposed, had control over the Campania region and most definitely Naples, for centuries now. The most calamitous of the Camorra’s work suddenly became a real life disaster, in the form of waste disposal. It is widely believed, but unconfirmed, that since the 80s the Camorra have been paying other municipalities in the country to dump their solid waste in landfill sites around the city of Naples. When these landfill sites became too difficult to deal with, the rubbish men refused to deal with the mess and went on strike.

This is when Neapolitans started leaving their rubbish on the streets for days on end, which piled up into sheer chaos. Researchers think that: 1) it was a money-making scheme for the Camorra and 2) chucking all sorts of waste on their land meant it was easier to cover any sort of surreptitious affair they had engaged with.

Either way, the land in the Campania region is now wholly contaminated and so nothing can really grow there or be consumed by locals due to the levels of toxicity in the foods. In fact only recently a group of Japanese scientists did a test of foods grown in the region and resultantly deemed them highly unsafe to eat. It is so ridiculous that a region so famous for its rich cuisine now has to regionally import its buffalo mozzarella from the Lazio region along with its vegetables!

This leads me onto another intriguing Italian figure in the form of Silvio Berlusconi. I am sure many would agree his rise into political fame should be admired. He was born into a middle-class Milanese household, educated in law and then started his own business in his late 20s - early 30s.

It was a developing project in the construction of flats. His first role in media where he would later become astoundingly successful was Telemilano in the 70s. He then bought other channels and invested in a media group, Fininvest in ’78 which was the start of a huge media empire.

His largest assets I would guess now are Mediaset that produces three national Italian TV channels, Panorama, which is an Italian political magazine, and he is also the chairman of AC Milan – one of the most prominent football teams in the world. He is also quite the character and is always the subject of debate, for one of his public actions or another. This includes making seedy sexual gestures at a woman getting into a car and using taxpayer’s money to get a chin lift. Whatever you make of him he is now the Italian prime minister again, for the third time – because the Italian public voted for him – or did they? I am simply baffled that a man that every Italian I seem to know hates, has ended up being voted in for a third term. I, therefore, feel it imperative to add that Signor Berlusconi has never ever been officially trialed for mafia link allegations.

However his senior political advisor Marcello Dell’Ultri, with whom Berlusconi shares a close relationship, is currently on trial for 'concorso in associazione mafiosa' for which he was deemed guilty in 2004 and sentenced to a decade in jail but has since appealed. Vittorio Mangano is also a name that springs up again and again. Mangano was introduced to Berlusconi by our little amico Dell’Ultri in the mid 70s. He was, at the time a member of the Cosa Nostra, which is a synonym for the Sicilian Mafia, and was hired as a stable keeper in one of Berlusconi’s villas. A natural progression obviously – from ‘taking care’ of the enemy to taking care of a horse, literally. Berlusconi has only been accused of helping the Cosa Nostra gain political influence through Forza Italia (Berlusconi’s coalition) in Sicily during the 90s which, along the road, led to the killing of Italian Christian Democrat (opposition party) Salvo Lima. Some associate the murder of Lima as a way of getting rid of an influential character that could have given Forza Italia a run for their money politically in the South. As it stood though, Lima was the face of the Christian Democrats and when he was assassinated, Forza Italia swept up all 61 of Sicily’s Parliament seats in the 2001 elections. Just a coincidence?

There is so much to admire about Italy – it is an incredibly beautiful country and has been so integral to Western culture that it almost seems incomprehensible that an organization like the mafia could still have a strong a hold on a First World country in the West. That is just it though; Italy is a complete rollercoaster of a nation and has never been the country for the light-hearted. Scandalous, sinful, dishonourable are all fairly justified adjectives to describe Italy.

It also happens to be a nation of great music, food and authors, authors like Umberto Eco and Dario Fo who have out rightly spoken in their support for the protection of Roberto Saviano and how it is the Italian man’s duty to preserve the right of basic civil rights. Saviano has had police protection for over two years now as he fends for his life against the mafia and continues to do so.

Berlusconi, on the other hand, recently speaking about a younger generation of politicians, and more precisely Obama (comparing him with Medvedev) said he could get along with anyone because of the following criteria he is young, he is good-looking and he is even tanned and so surely a humble relationship can be formed. The nature of Berlusconi’s character is that he is an entertainer, a bit like Bush Jr. but underneath that cheeky exterior lay a steel shell that is hard to break. As the world economy and politics becomes more globalised, one wonders how much longer the mafia can highly influence Italy. Globalisation is a major issue for Italy, as is migration and the progressive loss of their culture, through the standardizing of their language to the lowering birth rate and higher death rate. The Mafia is emblematic of Italian culture and it makes me curious to think whether there will be a new generation of Berlusconis, business-minded and also immensely nationalistic who see the mafia as a way of preserving their traditions.