Sicily Before Italy: State Absence & Violence

• The priority of one of the most important Italian companies is money, it is a criminal organization.
• Prior to becoming a state in 1861, Italy was a peninsula, not a geographic entity.

Sicily Before the Birth of Italy (Pre-1861)

• Sicily was colonized for centuries by various invaders.
• It experienced four centuries of invasions.
• The Mediterranean Sea held significant economic power, making Sicily a target for invaders seeking control.
• There was an absent (weak) state with no authority.
• Colonizers never managed to fully impose their will in Sicily.

Absence of State Authority

• Sicilians were ruled by foreign invaders for centuries.
• The foreign invaders did not guarantee local safety due to limited resources.
• In the absence of the state, citizens felt vulnerable.
• Tough individuals saw a business opportunity by offering protection for a fee, commodifying violence.
• Appearance was important for these individuals; they looked strong and used intimidation, avoiding violence unless necessary. Citizens and state had a relationship of distrust and hostility due to being ruled by foreigners.

Mafia Initiation

• The process is not automatic.
• Male candidates must be brave and reliable.
• The ritual involves burning an image of the Madonna (Virgin Mary).
• A vow of silence is taken, where members cannot disclose their affiliation, even to family.
• "Pricked" (punciuto) until blood is spilled.
• Dr. Ghilati considered social class important; he was a member of the Sicilian elite and inherited orange and lemon groves in the 1870s.
• The two main principles of the mafia are territorial control and political connections.
• Dr. Ghilati went to the corrupt police instead of the mafia; the police sided with the Mafia.

Settings for Mafia Development

• Developed in some areas of Sicily.
• First was the outskirts of Palermo, an area of orange and lemon groves which resulted in huge profit.
• Sicilians mostly could not afford the fruit, so it was exported to northern Europe, where it was used for essential oils in pharmaceutical industries.
• Second was the Latifundia ,which is always sunny with not much water, fields of grain and corn, also sulfur mines in the interior of Sicily.

1860s

• Teresa Cologna wrote a pamphlet detailing the mafia's structure and operations.
• The mafia was characterized by a refusal to cooperate with the police; witnesses often remained silent, contributing to the organization's secrecy and resilience.

1876

• Sidney Sonnino and Leopoldo Franchetti, Jewish members of the Italian parliament, investigated the mafia.
• Sonnino and Franchetti thought they would obtain information about the Mafia from local aristocrats of Sicily.
• Northern Italian rulers grew increasingly concerned about Sicily, viewing it as mysterious and problematic, prompting investigations.

Teresa Cologna's Role

• Cologna was discovered to be a close ally of the mafia, using political connections to benefit the organization.
• The mafia relied on powerful political friends. representing a "grey area," embodying the ambivalence and ambiguity that often characterized mafia relationships with society and politics.
• Cologna was not a member but indicated a lack of honesty and deep complicity.

Key Observations from Sonnino and Franchetti's Report

• Where the mafia operated, criminal organizations were deeply rooted; interventions like sending the national guard were ineffective.
• The report characterized individuals within the mafia as "entrepreneurs in violence".
• The Sicilian state was unable to enforce its monopoly over the use of violence which led to the privatization of protection.

Florios Whitaker - 1890's

• The Whitakers were wealthy British merchants who imported grapes from Spain and found grapes in Sicily and moved there and became members of the Sisilian elite.
• The Florios discovered their artwork had been stolen and reported it to the Mafia, who returned it within days.
• The Whitakers' daughter, Audrey, was kidnapped; the family turned to the Mafia, who brought her home safely, rather than the police.
• In a mafia environment no one locks the doors which sends a message that it is safe.
• Pax Mafiosa is paradoxical because it is a criminal organization but they take care of business.
• The mafia environment does not want police or want to attract their attention.
• Notarbartolo (1893) was a respected public servant and member of the aristocracy in Sicily.
• Notarbartolo was honest and not corrupt and was assassinated.
• The trial lasted for years and years so when the final verdict came out no one really paid attention
• The Mafia is like an octopus as it can infiltrate anything.

1890s

• Europe dominated the world and colonized Africa.
• Europeans invented racism and used it to justify slavery.
• Lombroso criminal anthropology 1876 claimed all southerners were born criminals in the book "Criminal Man".

2002

• Wolfgang Rheinhard wrote "History as a Source of Delitizimation."
• The version of the relationship between the Sicilians and the Mafia was conveyed from the perspective of the elites
• History is written by the winners- history is delegitimized by silence because the losers have know voice in history.

Timeline

• Before 1861: Italy becomes a state.
• Liberal 1861-1922.
• Fascism 1922-1943.
• Post-war 1943 to now.
• The Sicilian Fasci 1892-1895.
• The Sicilian Faci was a movement of farmers that became particularly strong in Cordileone.
• The protests were against the Elite (bosses, landowners) who were known as the Landowners.
• The protests had to do with living and working conditions as they were terrible and very destitute which had a correlation to the conditions of the people who were treated like slaves.
• Farmers shared socialist ideals, requesting improved working contracts; ideology was associated with the working class (blue collar workers, factories, rural environment).
• Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels witnessed Industrial Revolution's effects on capitalism and wrote The Communist Manifesto, advocating for the proletariat.
• Protest grew:
  • The elite asked for the Rome government's intervention.
  • Bernardino Verro (leader of Cordileone) joined the Mafia.
• Mafia infiltrates everything → In 1914, Verro ran for elections with the socialist party and won.
• He was assassinated by the mafia.
• 98% felt helpless and subordinated to the mafia, lacking resources;
• The mafia was and is a conservative criminal organization (siding with the elite, maintaining the status quo).
• The mafia is a single hierarchical criminal organization.

Fascism

• Italy became a dictatorship under Mussolini; there was still competition for power.
• Mussolini wanted to eliminate the mafia (the "cancer" of society) by the cancer of people.
• Cesare Mori was appointed to achieve this in 1924 by people; he was rooted in racism and believed southerners were inferior.
• Mori thought Sicilians only understood violence and needed to be suppressed.
• In 1926, Mori launched the Siege of Ganci:
  • The army surrounded the town and stopped people from entering or leaving.
  • The town's water supply was cut off.
  • Citizens were given 12 hours.
  • A mass arrest of citizens, including women, and children.
  • It involved low mafiossi, guilty or innocent.
• Italy shifted from a liberal regime to dictatorship. A dictatorship is supposed to be a strong power, if not, what does a dictator do to establish the power.
• Mori was celebrated, and other operations followed.
• The mafia went into hiding when threatened by Mori's operation.
• Mori operations led to the mafia's submersion.
• The mafia went into hiding and stopped carrying out their business → felt threatened by Mori's operation
• Several Sicilian mafiosi left for the US in the 1920s as a safe haven, where there was traditionalism and bootlegging.
• The state shifted fear to the government (citizens resented loss of rights).
• Fascism blew a "bandaid" hole in the mafia.

Toward the end of WW11 (1943-1950)

• Americans prioritized Hitler and the Nazis.
• Soviet's withdrew and set fire to everything which let Nazi advance but they will only find desert tactics.
• Army pushes back, reaching Central Europe, making it a turning point.
• The truce, was signed by September 8 1943 to the anglo american countries.
• Moussilini gets dismissed and September 8 1943 the truce was signed with anglo americans but with no alliance

The End of the War

• 1943-1949 huge movement of occupation of land of the Southern farmers because there the political leadership of the Italian communist party.
• America also opposes communism, and communists of charge in south of Italy.
• FDR accused of being too weak and the world divided by the communist sphere of influence and the american leadership

The Re-legitimization of the Mafia

• Americans blamed for postwar mafia re-legitimization.
• The elite feared radicalized farmers.
• They hired the mafia to stop farmers in 1949

Portella della Ginestra

• Mayday 1947 in Italy.
• The US sided with mafia over communism (farmers).
• Mafia shifts from land-based prior (rural mafia) to urban mafia in late 1950s.
• Italy industrializes and it is associated migration (south to northwest) and urbanization which makes members into blue collar jobs.
• Farmers across Italy move to cities and in the south to their own cities.
• 1943: Christian Democrats are born, who corrupts city plans, allowing mafia tear downs, resulting in "Sack of Palermo" by the 1970s.

Sack of Palermo

• The new mafia of the 1950s.
• The model of the traditional, rural mafia experienced a deep crisis as a result of processes if social, economic and political change which transformed italy
• Italy transforms due to migration, urbanization, industrialization and state funding in the south.
• The "sack of Palermo" is a construction boom starting in 1950s, destroying architectural grace in Conca d'oro.
• There was cementification of what was formerly green.
• 1957 meeting in Palermo lead to the involvement in drug trafficking and was at the Hotel des Palmes and Joe Bananas.
• the drug trafficking was handed out to the sicilian mafia.
• the creation of the commission.
• Cosa nostra in the 1950s; drug trafficking, commission (1957-63, which was the urban mafia.
• The bottom line of the role of the commission: huge arrival of money provokes competition and rivalries and fights
• Cesare Manzella got totally excluded from the business of drug trafficking, mafia in corleone were not.
• They required an airport near Cinisi, located between the mountain, sea, and on the flat ground.
• Those who rebelled against the mafia faced negative consequences.