What is the Mafia?
One fact that has always surprised me while reading my books on the Mafia is that no author has been able to provide a comprehensive and convincing answer to the question:
What is the Mafia?
These described it, recounted its origins, defined its internal structure, and presented its affairs, yet I never found a complete definition of the Mafia phenomenon. The authors, however, perhaps because of this very difficulty in defining it, have curiously tried to construct analogies to try to help ordinary people understand it: many have described it as an octopus that stretches its tentacles over institutions and different sectors of the economy and civil society in order to control them; Luigi Garlando imagined it as an artichoke whose leaves would represent the different clans that make up the entire organization; Giovanni Falcone said instead that the Mafia was like a panther: “Agile, fierce, with the memory of an elephant”; finally, someone launched into more colorful similes, equating the Mafia to a pile of shit.
Leaving provocations aside, the reason for this lack, in my opinion, is caused by several factors that emerge explicitly when studying the Mafia phenomenon. First, there are no official documents attesting to the origins of the Mafia. The only historical pieces of evidence collected over the years are incomplete Bourbon police reports from the mid-19th century that described members of these organizations as idle, idle, or simple thugs who haunted the streets. Consequently, not having historical evidence makes any in-depth study of the Mafia difficult.
Second, the members of Mafia organizations themselves have always disputed their existence. Mafia groups owe their longevity mainly to their ability to keep their internal structures and mechanisms of operation secret. In fact, the state’s first real victories against the Mafia occurred after the passage of the 1991 law on collaborators with justice, when members themselves began to provide information about the organization, finally giving it a clearer definition. However, for decades (but still today), Mafia bosses not only avoided revealing crucial information but even denied its existence. Famous was the phrase uttered by ‘Ndrangheta boss Giuseppe Morabito during his interrogations:
“Ndrangheta? What is it? Is it a food, is it something you eat?”
That said, over the past few months I have been trying to work out a totally personal and subjective thought about what the Mafia might actually be. The result of that process has led me to one conclusion.
The Mafia is a way of thinking; I would even go so far as to say that it is a way of life or a way of interpreting the world. The Mafioso thinks he is more deserving than his peers and believes he is above them. While ordinary criminals aim to enrich themselves and avoid the state because they are afraid that they will not be able to continue their activities, the mafioso believes that he is in the right and that he is exercising a right to which he is entitled. He does not hide from the state; on the contrary, he makes it his client and exploits it to conduct his business there where legality does not reach. In other words, where there is no state, there is the Mafia, and when the state comes, the Mafia does business there. The goal is not to get rich but to create a parallel state where only the Mafia’s rules apply: a world founded on fake moral laws behind which these criminals hide to justify their mentality and lifestyle. Power is the ultimate goal, while money is merely a consequence. The mobster sees legality as a client to be exploited and ordinary people as subservient to an unjust system, consequently, these deserve to be sacrificed like chess pawns in the service of the strongest: the King. In a nutshell,
The Mafia mocks us every day.
Having had in my life great examples of respect for legality and dedication to work, it is no wonder that in the presence of this mentality, I feel only deep revulsion. That is why, years ago, I decided to fight the Mafia understood not as a criminal organization but as a mentality that poisons our society and kills the ethical values that have characterized my life. In other words, echoing the words of General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa, certain things are not done either for oneself or for some mania of heroism, but solely and only “to look more serenely into the eyes of one’s children and our children’s children,” and I would also add those whom I love and I have respected for a lifetime.
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