The Godfather takes over Palermo
The Mafia. The big bad wolf infused in the locally-sourced olive oil bottle sitting on your scarred kitchen table, the marijuana the teenagers in the local piazza smoke and the wellbeing of your ancestral farmhouse. They are the stuff that movies are made about (recall Godfather I, II and III?), and that children nightmare about (my parents will definitely recall the many evenings of anguish). In my hometown of Palermo, the Mafia are, undoubtedly, the gods of crime.
But, what if I said to you that they could be responsive to citizens’ need? That, one day, when a global virus murders hundreds of thousands innocent Italians, this spine-chilling organisation would step up to save our grannies. That, when the nation enters a complete lockdown, and the government fails to fulfil the basic human need for food, these devilish dons would choose to deliver food to the most vulnerable. That, just maybe, they could morph into a group that listens to the people, not act against them.
The Mafia was born when the government failed to cater to the need of all its citizens. Thus, when they saw their fellow forgottens unaided, it was natural- or some may say more adequate- for them to step in. Arguably, this means the Mafia may be both the root and the solution to failures in governance. To consider the implications of the Mafia being more responsive to citizen’s needs than the state, we must first understand what these acts of charity (or exploitation) are motivated by.
Valentina Di Donato’s article published in CNN argued that that this supposedly benevolent Mafia action was underlined with an exploitive motive to build the Mafia network, because future help was expected in exchange for the food and money. Specifically, she claimed that this disguised extortion has been seen before, in the 2008 financial crisis. When the Italian national banks did not have enough liquidity to distribute loans, the Palermitan Mafia offered 65 billion euros to locals, in exchange for “shares in [their] company”. This idea led her to argue that the acceptance of Mafia help always comes with the hidden clause of future repayment; it is thus not purely altruistic because it serves to build their network of adherence (Donato, 2020). Although I believe extortion could be one of the main reasons for the relief, I think this article fails to acknowledge a perhaps more important factor; the emotional connection that the Mafia must maintain with its local community.
On the other hand, Vanda Felbab Brown argues that it doesn’t make sense for the Mafia to give tied aid from a risk perspective, because exploitative aid threatens the local community support that allows the organisation to thrive. The Mafia cannot exist without the local support in their community. Thus, Brown argues that illicit operations like drug trafficking happen far from the home territory, so don’t threaten the local citizen’s happiness. Aid, that some may consider exploitative, risks overtaxing this local support. She concludes by stating there must be an aspect of altruism in their actions, in contrast to Di Donato, as exploitative relief alone is not a worthy avenue for them to pursue (Felbab-Brown, 2020). Though this concept is insightful into the incentive structure of the Mafia, I believe, once again this idea underemphasized the emotional connections the Mafia Dons feel to their community, beyond just consolidation of political clout.
Instead, as Cecilia Anesi and Matteo Civillini suggest in their article in the magazine Vice, the Mafia might even consider the COVID aid an obligation to their local communities, as they feel a moral responsibility to take care of their citizens when the traditional government does not. They painted this duty using the example of the Palermitan suburb of San Luca — where many of the Mafiosi are from. The Cosa Nostra (the street name) affiliates decided to self-impose a strict lockdown because the government was focussing, as always, on the affluent North. There were no recorded cases of the virus in the San Luca region. What the authors were getting at is that the state often fails in the South, and the Mafia feels an obligation to take care of their own(Anesi & Civillini, 2020). This is the argument I feel most aligned with because, in my opinion, the Mafia exists to fulfil the role of the government in areas where the government doesn’t reach. However, these authors neglect to acknowledge the inherent criminal incentives that must play a role in warranting COVID-19 relief, as mentioned by Di Donato.
So, if the Mafia does feel an emotional duty to serve its people, and it is better at it than the state (as demonstrated by them delivering some form of COVID aid, whereas the government completely ignored the issue), what kind of role should it take in our current society? I believe there are two ways the state and Mafia could work together; the antagonistic relationship and the one of coexistence.
What Gianluca Fiorenti argues in his book “The Economics of Organized Crime” is that the Mafia can only exist in a complementary role to the state, because it serves to perform governmental functions in the sphere where the legal judicial system fails to exercise power. Essentially, he states that the fact the Mafia takes care of those left behind is what makes it so much more effective. If you were to replace the government, you would get rid of the structural discrepancies that the Mafia is attempting to fulfil. His claim is this: with a successful government, there are no disenfranchised people, so there is no need for the Mafia to help them. He concludes by suggesting the Mafia and state may need to evolve into a state of peaceful coexistence (through, say, a seat in parliament) in order to serve all citizens (Peltzman, 1995). While a state of coexistence is the commendable solution, I believe that his argument is morally warped because he seems to suggest we must make sure the government failing to allow the Mafia to reach its potential as a citizens government. Furthermore, Fiorenti doesn’t consider the societal implications of the criminal Mafia and the supposedly righteous government joining together.
Instead, as Jorge Castaneda argues in his opinion piece in New York Times, the co-existence state makes the government inherently corrupt, because it is allowing the Mafia to provide aid and run illicit operations. Castaneda grounds his argument in the example of El Chapo’s (the Mexican drug kingpin) son’s arrest. Following his imprisonment, the Mexican cartels revolted against the political system, forcing the president to sign Little Chapo’s release within hours. Castaneda shows that this is common in Mexico’s government, where the corruption is so strife that the leadership will often consciously help the cartels, in order to maintain relative peace. He concludes by suggesting the cause of Mexico’s huge corruption issue may be this harmony between the state and the gangs (Castaneda, 2019). Though Italy is not yet at this level of coexistence, it is easy to see how it could develop into a completely corrupt state if it absorbed the Mafia into governance, contrary to Fiorenti’s claim. I believe there is also another risk due to the Mafia’s inherent criminality that Castaneda underemphasizes; if the coexistence relationship is successful, eventually the Mafia would no longer be needed to help the disenfranchised, and it would exist purely as a wing of crime that is legitimised by the state (as we have seen partly in Mexico).
Therefore, the natural consequence is to assume the Mafia needs to stop dealing in felonious activities, because that’s what is preventing them from fulfilling the role of a citizen’s government and from gaining a legitimate seat in parliament. This is what Edgardor Buscaglia attempts to tackle in his research paper “Controlling Organized Crime and the Public Sector”. Specifically, he found high levels of criminal organisation tend to be found in areas with vicious cycles of poverty. He claims that criminality is the only way these organisations can prosper in environments of bad governance. This idea led him to argue that the Mafia is inherently criminal; we cannot remove the illegal activities from the Mafia’s operations, because they are the illegal activities (Buscaglia, 2003). Whilst Buscaglia and Castaneda are correct in stating that this relationship of coexistence couldn’t exist because of the inherent and associated criminality, I don’t think they considered whether this shift of responsibility would push the Mafia to be more responsive to their people, and thus the possibility that their illegitimateinterests would finally take a back seat.
This concept of considering the Mafia as two opposing halves (the half who wants to run drugs and the half who wants to help their people) is the basis of the Felbab-Brown’s concept of the mutually-beneficial antagonistic relationship (Comolli, 2018). In her book section about the relations between state and society, she suggests that government could assume a “state of innocence” about the illicit side. This would mean the Italian government would condemn theMafia, yet at the same time not overtly pursue prosecution. This differs from the Mexican coexistence relationship outlined by Castaneda in that there is impunity with public condemnation with no physical installation of the Mafia into Italian governance. By doing so, they give the Mafia the room to rule their local territories, and be better equipped as a nation to respond to all their citizens. Although a commendable idea, she fails to consider that this may subvert legislation and the pre-existing order, which I believe would undermine the power, legitimacy and efficacy of the state.
However, in an interview with Michael Franzese (a former Mafia Boss), it was argued that when the government refuses to prosecute, there is often a widespread legitimisation, and even glorification, of crime. He drew on the example from Cosa Nostra in the 1950s, when the Mafia and the government worked in this “blissful ignorance”. Yet, the reality was not so blissful- it led to the Second Mafia War, with over 400 deaths in Palermo alone, all of them unprosecuted. He claims that the government refusing to take notice of the crime organisations just egged them on, leading to a sort of self-fulfilling cycle of crime (Franzese, 2020). I think this argument could even be applied one step further, looking at how it has led to the glorification of crime in media (for example, with the uber popular Netflix Series Money Heist). The refusal to condemn organized crime has fostered a ‘robin hood’ image in the eyes of the people, that has even translated into popular acceptance of drug cartels and violent gangs in some nations, such as in Mexico according to Castaneda. Arguably, this failure to condemn has led to the triumph of the illegality, which I believe is not the area of the Mafia we should be encouraging at all.
To be completely honest, there doesn’t currently seem to be a role the Mafia can take in order to better serve the needs of the forgotten. But, in some ways, there shouldn’t be. We are living in an eclipse of the civil society, where local bottom up non-governmental organisations are beginning to tap into the Mafia’s potential. This is what Youngwan Kim looks into in his research for the University of Iowa (Kim, 2011). He claims there has been a power shift to NGOs, and although they may not currently have the structure and order that the Mafia monopolises, they give an ear to the left behind. However, even though I believe there is enormous potential in the legitimate approach of the NGO, I think they often fail to hold an emotional connection with the people they are representing, and thus, in my mind, wouldn’t be as alert to the needs of the forgotten. Furthermore, NGOs don’t have the capacity to respond to the aggregate number of excluded citizens, because they lack the financial backing the Mafia holds, as Di Donato specifies earlier.
Yet, there is still a need for some form of a middle man to the people. However, perhaps rather than an issue of what organisations perform governmental functions for the left behind, this is one of the objectives of current political decisions in contemporary society globally. Arguably, in this ever-diverging climate of inequality, we should shift the goal of governance to focus on the excluded, rather than enriching the rich. We need a spokesperson for the poor, and perhaps NGOs will integrate with formal governance in the future to fulfil that role. But, what about the left behind on an inter-continental? Can NGOs fulfil the gaps in global governance? Or would more intra-territory organisations like the Mafia again prove more effective in representing the needs of the people?
Bibliography
Anesi, C., & Civillini, M. (2020, July 15). Corona Virus has only made the Mafia stronger. Retrieved October 17, 2020, from Vice Magazine: https://www.vice.com/en/article/935dgy/mafia-italy-profit-coronavirus)
Buscaglia, E. (2003, December). Controlling Organized Crime and the Public Sectoe. Forum on Crime and Society, 3, 30–33.
Castaneda, J. (2019, October 3). The Bigger Story Behind the Humiliating Release of El Chapo’s Son. Retrieved October 17, 2020, from New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/23/opinion/el-chapo-son-mexico.html
Comolli, V. (2018). The threat of illicit economies and the complex relations with state and society. In V. F. Brown, Organized Crime and illicit trade: How to respond to this strategic challenge in old and new domains(pp. 1–21). London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Donato, V. D. (2020, April 19). The Mafia is poised to exploit coronavirus, and not just in Italy. Retrieved October 13, 2020, from CNN World News: https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/19/europe/italy-mafia-exploiting-coronavirus-crisis-aid-intl/index.html
Felbab-Brown, V. (2020, April 27). Mexican Cartels are Providing COVID-19 Assistance. Why that’s not suprising. Retrieved October 13, 2020, from The Brookings Institute: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2020/04/27/mexican-cartels-are-providing-covid-19-assistance-why-thats-not-surprising/
Franzese, M. (2020, September 20). Government is Mafia. (A. Thomas, Interviewer)
Kim, Y. (2011). The Unveiled power of NGOs: how NGOs influence states’ foreign policy behaviours. University of Iowa Research, 5–7.
Peltzman, S. (1995). The Economics of Organized Crime.New York City, USA: Cambridge University Press.
