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ITALY
- MAFIA, 'NDRANGHETA, CAMORRA:
SOCIALIZED CRIME IN SOUTHERN
ITALY |
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"And the Mafia -
what's this Mafia that the
newspapers are always
talking about?"
"Yeah, what is the
Mafia, after all?"
Brescianelli chimed in.
"It's a very
complicated thing to
explain", Bellodi said.
"It's ? incredible,
that's what it is."
Leonardo Sciascia, The
Day of the Owl
Few modern social
phenomena have been more
misinterpreted and
misunderstood than the
Mafia, 'ndrangheta and
Camorra, the three names
designating organized
criminal activity in Sicily,
Calabria and Naples
respectively. In some sense
it is no surprise that there
should be misunderstandings.
Numerous hindrances lie in
wait for the would-be Mafia
observer. Most important of
these may be the secrecy in
which the Mafia shrouds
itself, a secrecy assured by
the vow of silence known as
omertเ, which surrounds all
those who, however
unwillingly, come into
contact with it.
An example: at 2am, July
10, 1988, three associates
of the Camorra boss Antonio
Bardellino were gunned down
on the streets of his
hometown of Aversa, just
outside Naples, by members
of a rival clan. The
gunfight lasted thirty
minutes. A few minutes after
the last shots were fired,
the police arrived. While
they removed one of the
corpses from the street, a
man in a nearby apartment
opened his window to ask in
a derisory tone -
"Anything happen down
there?" As Leonardo
Sciascia shows in his
penetrating portrait of the
Mafia world cited above, one
knows better than to witness
a Mafia crime.
Another, less dramatic,
hindrance to making sense of
the Mafia , 'ndrangheta
and Camorra is the
complexity of these
phenomena. They are distinct
organizations, based in
particular territories, but
they also have numerous
common characteristics, not
to mention continuous
dealings with one another.
The Mafia and 'ndrangheta
especially have similar,
interwoven, histories -
unless otherwise specified,
in this article the term
Mafia will be used to
indicate them both. The
Neapolitan Camorra, for all
its similarities, is
something of a case unto
itself, and will be
considered separately.
Until recently organized
crime was generally viewed
as a southern problem, an
issue of "special"
interest to those with a
criminal curiosity. But with
the Mani Pulite
investigations in the 1990s
it became clear that these
organizations are thoroughly
enmeshed in the fabric of
Italian society as a whole,
and that understanding Italy
is hardly possible without
reference to them. Certainly
they are not something that
can be eradicated with one
trial, defeated in one year
or even in ten; indeed to
move beyond the Mafia would
require the total
transformation of Italian
society, politics and
economic life. Those that
ask what shape Italy will
have in the 21st century
therefore also need to ask
what role the Mafia, 'ndrangheta
and Camorra will play in it.
Nelson Moe , with
contributions by Rob
Andrews
Mafia and 'ndrangheta
The one thing most
mafiologues agree on is
that the Mafia as a thing
does not exist. When a
defendant in a 1960s Mafia
trial was asked if he
belonged to the Mafia he
responded, "I don't
know what the word
means". This criminal
was not so much evading
the question as confessing
a real perplexity. Mafiosi
never call themselves, or
one another, mafiosi, but
rather amici (friends) or uomini
d'onore (men of honour).
In the words of one noted
mafiologue, the defendant
above "knew
individuals who are called
mafiosi, not because they
belong to a secret sect
but rather because they
behave in a particular
fashion, that is in a
Mafia-like fashion".
What does it mean to
behave in a Mafia-like
fashion? "It means to
make oneself respected, to
be a man of honour ,
capable of vindicating by
force any offence against
his enemy," writes
another Mafia expert, Pino
Arlacchi. Honour and
respect clearly have
rather different meanings
here than those that most
people attach to them. A
man is an uomo d'onore
when he acts according to
the prevailing codes of
courage, cleverness and
ferocity, never hesitating
to resort to violence and
trickery to gain the upper
hand.
What gradually emerges
from this portrait,
however, is a sort of
confusion between the
Mafia as a "state of
mind, a philosophy of
life, a moral code,
prevailing among all
Sicilians" (Luigi
Barzini), and organized
criminal activity,
delinquency and social
deviance. In southern
Italy, the border between
the two is often unclear.
Two aspects of southern
Italian culture in
particular seem to have
contributed to the birth
and development of the
Mafia as a criminal
organization. The first is
the generally positive
value this culture has
given to assertiveness,
aggression and the ability
to impose one's will on
others. The meek, mild and
naive may be saints in
their afterlives, but in
this life they are, quite
simply, fools. The
fundamental Neapolitan
phrase, ca'nisciun
e'fesso ("I'm no
fool") - with its
implication "you
won't get the best of
me" - sums up the
milieu of dominance and
submission in which the
southern Italian lives.
A second, related
aspect is the southern
Italian attitude towards
the state. Even today, the
relationship of the
southern Italian (and of
many northern Italians as
well) to the state is one
of profound distrust. The
state, its institution and
laws, are not something in
which one participates as
a citizen but are rather
things which challenge the
citizen's independence,
interfering with his
family's sacred autonomy.
This attitude towards the
state may have its origins
in the long succession of
invading powers that ruled
southern Italy over the
centuries (Norman, French,
Catalan, and so on). And
also in the distance that
separated the mass of
peasant-farmers ( contadini
) working on huge estates
( latifondi ) from
their absentee landlords
residing in Naples or
Palermo. Certainly
Unification did little to
help matters in the south,
transferring as it did the
capital from Naples to
Rome and replacing the
Bourbon monarchy with the
Turin-based House of
Savoy. Whatever the case,
the space of distrust
between citizen and state
is the space in which the
Mafia has prospered.
The Camorra
Though in recent years the
Neapolitan Camorra
has in many ways become
indistinguishable from the
Mafia and ' ndrangheta
, conducting similar
illicit activities in the
drug trade, extortion,
building speculation and
suchlike, and often
working in collaboration
with them, its origins are
quite distinct from its
southern cousins. While
the Mafia and ' ndrangheta
were predominantly rural
phenomena until World War
II, the Camorra has always
been an urban animal, a
secret underworld
organization of gambling
and gaming. Today, a main
Camorra activity is that
of the clandestine
lottery, which shadows the
official one run by the
state. Instead of buying
an official ticket you buy
one printed by the
Camorra. The winning
numbers are those drawn by
the official lottery, but
the Camorra version has
significant advantages: if
you win you're paid
immediately (instead of
waiting a year or two);
and, clearly, you pay no
taxes.
Though the Mafia has
outshone, or outshot, the
Camorra over the past
century, the Camorra is
much older and was already
a well-established and
ill-reputed criminal
society at the beginning
of the nineteenth century.
In the bustling Bourbon
capital there were huge
sums of wealth to be
controlled by aspiring men
of the underworld, and
there were few commercial
transactions in the city
of which the camorristi
did not get a substantial
cut, known as the taglio
or tangente . Even
today, a great number of
Neapolitan businesses pay
a monthly sum to the
Camorra for
"protection" -
which of course means
protection from the
Camorra itself.
Until World War II the
Camorra was a relatively
traditional organization,
performing the familiar
social functions of
mediation and the
maintenance of a kind of
harmony, by whatever
violent and parasitic
means. Against a
background of profound
transformations in postwar
Naples, and the arrival of
the American-trained
gangster Lucky Luciano
, the Camorra turned to
the traffic in contraband
cigarettes and drugs. Like
the Mafia, the Camorra has
become entrepreneurial,
and the name of the clan
which commanded Naples
until recently, the New
Organized Camorra,
suggests that the new
Neapolitan underworld is
structured more like a
commercial firm than a
family.
Although Camorra
practice is to retain its
business in all corners of
the globe, its cardinal
rule is to maintain its
connection to the culture
of the region, to the
popular quarters of
Naples. Such is the case
of the Giuliano
family, the clan based in
Forcella, the district
near the train station,
which controls the centre
of Naples. Though members
of the family have become
millionaires many times
over, moving comfortably
in the international
circles of high society,
the family still lives in
the centre of one of
Naples' most run-down
quarters, in a basso, or
one-room, ground-floor
apartment. A friend from
Forcella once explained
this apparent
contradiction: "These
camorristi , for
however powerful they
become, realize that
outside their quarter,
their territory, they're
nobodies, provincial
hoods. They stay here
because this is where they
count, this is where their
respect and control is
beyond dispute."
Ironically, the
"traditional",
neighbourhood character of
such a Camorra clan as the
Giuliano family creates a
clash between good
neighbourliness and
delinquency. By producing
and dealing heroin, the
Camorra, Giulianos
included, have inflicted
upon Naples one of the
great social tragedies in
contemporary Italy, as
evidenced by the used
needles that litter the
streets of the city. This
paradox was brought home
to the Giuliano family in
the autumn of 1987 when
one of their own,
seventeen-year-old Ciro,
died of a heroin overdose.
What followed was
unprecedented: the
grandfather/godfather of
the family forbade the
funeral to take place in
his native quarter, making
it pass through a street
behind Forcella. He wanted
to signal to his
"people" that
something was wrong, that
something had to change.
This strange admonition,
however, did not deter the
thousands of mourners from
following the funeral
cortege, and the 25
limousines bearing flowers
from "friends"
made clear that it wasn't
just any
seventeen-year-old who had
died.
The other
ground-breaking aspect of
this incident was the
reaction of Nunzio
Giuliano , the boy's
father. Soon after his
son's death, Nunzio began
a campaign (in the papers,
and at public gatherings)
against the heroin trade
and the Camorra's
perpetration of it - in
general terms, taking care
not to incriminate any
kin. Many saw this as a
potential turning point in
the Camorra's operations
in Naples, while others,
less optimistic, viewed it
as little more than an act
of showmanship, a piece of
theatre, to divert
attention from the real
workings of the Camorra
and an embarrassing family
tragedy.
The late 1990s saw the
body-count in Naples
overtaking that of the
Mafia and 'ndrangheta,
with the high tally of
innocent victims caught in
the crossfire making the
headlines. As Camorra women
get in on the act for the
first time
, often taking over the
roles of their dead or
incarcerated husbands and
brothers, the situation is
as chaotic and desperate
as ever, and there is no
sign yet of the same kind
of intensive
investigations that the
anti-Mafia commission has
set in motion in Palermo.
Recent years have seen
alliances forged with
criminal organizations in
Russia and the Balkans,
creating a greatly
expanded scope for dealing
in illegal immigration,
prostitution and arms
trafficking. Evidence has
surfaced of Camorra
involvement in musical
piracy - illegal
recordings in Italy
account for some twenty
percent of the total music
retail market - leading to
the arrest in 1999 of 14
members of a Neapolitan
organization calling
itself "Quadrifoglio",
also involved in
counterfeiting and
money-laundering and
thought to be close to the
Contini clan. The creation
of the single market in
the EU has further
extended the Camorra's
arm, as seen by the
exposure in 2000 of a
scandal in Brussels where
it was found to be bribing
officials to subsidize and
market "butter"
which contained beef
tallow, cosmetics oils and
chemicals - but no milk
products.
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