In Roberto Benigni’s film Johnny Stecchino, Benigni arrives in Sicily and is introduced to Palermo by a gangster. The mafia man talks about the great “piaghe” or curses that blight Sicily in the eyes of the world: Etna, the volcano, that, however destructive, is a part of nature and beautiful in its own way; drought, which again is a natural burden that has to be put up with; the final curse that blights Sicily, though, is a man made curse, and one which inspires fear in all those who encounter it, pitting brother against brother, family against family – (drum roll!)… the traffic!
Last week Rai Tre (one of the State TV channels) broadcast, as part of its Report series, a documentary on the Mafia in Sicily – which has created no end of controversy. President of the Sicilian region, Salvatore Cuffaro (member of the CDU party), and the mayor of Catania Scapagnini(Forza Italia),protested strongly that the programme defamed and offended their Sicily, repeating old stories. Their protests were repeated by some members of the public, for example one viewer wrote to Report that the programme presented a picture of a Sicily of mafia killings, where the people are virtually imprisoned by the Mafia – a partial picture.
Interestingly, none seems to have taken up the programme makers on the facts presented, but rather that they didn’t balance them out with a prettier view of the beautiful island. According to the programme makers roughly 80% of firms and businesses in Sicily pay protection money to the Mafia, while the remaining 20% require police protection.
On the 19th of January, the chief anti-mafia investigator, Piero Luigi Vigna, in an address to union chiefs declared that the Mafia’s earnings now place them as the biggest business in Italy bar none. Their earnings are calculated as being double that of FIAT or triple that of Telecom Italia.
Obviously not great news for anyone wishing to invest in Sicily, and you can understand, to a certain extent, the furore created. For an island with five million inhabitants, where unemployment has been traditionally high, investment is desperately needed, but global finance is generally shy of trouble zones. Understanding their anguish is one thing, dismissing the fact that there’s a serious problem is another.
Some suggest that what is termed crime outside Sicily is termed Mafia in Sicily, with all that that entails. Indeed, there are widespread problems with the Camorra in Naples, the ‘Ndrangheta in Calabria, and, outside Italy, we Irish can look to our own budding entrepreneurs in the Republican and Loyalist camps. The Mafia, though, is a curious hybrid: On the one hand it is an organised gang of hoodlums prepared to use violence at every step, while on the other it has the financial clout of a corporation, running business interests so great that any region associated with it would fear its disappearance, like a multinational pulling out of a small town in Ireland. It has its obvious ‘businesses’ (drugs, prostitution, arms trafficking, etc) while also controlling various public/private businesses such as refuse collection & road building. At the same time, through violence, or the threat of violence, it taxes businesses in its sphere of interest, but without providing any service. It is a State within a State. What allows this illegal organisation to wield that power is political collusion, and that’s what separates it from ordinary crime. The Mafia time and time again has courted, with success, politicians at the highest levels of the Italian State.
Strange that prominent politicians, such as Salvatore Cuffaro, should take umbrage at the presentation of Mafia related facts. Cuffaro is currently under investigation for Mafia connections. In December of last year, Marcello Dell’Utri, a close friend of Silvio Berlusconi, and founding member of Forza Italia, was convicted of collusion with the Mafia. Forza Italia, coincidentally, currently holds 61 of the 61 constituencies in Sicily…
Well and good, you might say. Let them protest the facts contained in the programme, and, if it is found wanting, let the record be corrected. That should be the way to proceed, but the recent history of Italian TV suggests it will be otherwise. Negative coverage in the eyes of the Government has always been treated harshly on State Television, and particularly so since the arrival of Berlusconi’s majority. A pattern has been created where programmes that are considered unacceptable by Berlusconi’s majority (and in-depth investigations on the Mafia appear to be in that category) are lambasted in public while veiled threats are voiced to the RAI authorities – then, programme makers are driven to correct/neuter their programmes. Political satire was hit first, with anything remotely resembling hard hitting comedy being forced off the air*. Threats from the Government, who using their majority have already brought in extensive legislation on broadcasting, coupled with the financial power of Italy’s richest inevitably leads to a self-censorship on the part of the media. Nobody can say that voices have been legally prohibited from Italian TV (indeed Rai Tre, traditionally left of centre, has become a home from home for some), but one can say without a shadow of a doubt that the Government has produced a climate of fear in the State broadcaster.
And so, faced with brave voices pointing to a problem that all know exists, what do you do? Avert your gaze, cut anti-Mafia resources, and count your votes.
* A case in point being last year’s Raiot programme, hosted by comedian and impressionist Sabina Guzzanti. The programme, which leaned heavily on the Rory Bremner school – i.e. mixing political arguments with satirical impression sketches – was pulled off the air after only one episode, partly due to a libel action presented by Mediaset for