The anti-Mafia is too distracted to realise that someone is laying waste to Palermo

Where has the front line of the anti-Mafia struggle gone? Almost everyone is preoccupied with entirely different matters, so engrossed in politics and their careers that they fail to hear the sound of Kalashnikovs. Because this is what has been happening in Palermo for months. They are too distracted to realise that someone is laying waste to the city. They mark their raids with the sound of machine-gun bursts and the acrid smell of fires. They are sowing fear on a scale not seen for decades to force shopkeepers to pay protection money. They send out emissaries with threatening messages to settle old scores dating back to before these people were even born. They carry out their attacks and then return to the scene of the crime, brazen as they are. It is the ragged Cosa Nostra raising the stakes as it tries to reinvent itself. From a prison cell or from one of the bosses now free after serving their sentences, the order goes out to a handful of picciotti from the run-down Zen suburb who feel all-powerful.

Yes, Zen – perhaps that is precisely the key point. The media and high-society anti-Mafia movement, with its host of gurus and champions, has everything to lose and nothing to gain from a confrontation with the new generation whom the older bosses contemptuously refer to as ‘bearded dogs’. Long beards, tacky necklaces, designer or knock-off clothes, neo-melodic music blaring, violent language, the myth of Totò Riina and "Gomorra" are the ingredients of the videos posted on social media. By day they’re on TikTok; by night they’re shooting. The picciotti do not hide; they flaunt their affiliation. This mafia forces one to grapple with social ruin, to get one’s hands dirty in the mire. The only ones left to do so are the neighbourhood priests, volunteers from community organisations and a few local politicians. It is the shadow of what the anti-Mafia movement once was. The era of collective awakening is a distant memory. It took bombs to rouse us from our torpor, but then came the white sheets, the human chains, the marches. It was a genuine rebellion, made of flesh and blood.

Then came the anti-Mafia professionals who, by chasing ghosts, lost touch with reality. Now that the enemies of yesteryear are no longer present, the high-level anti-Mafia movement that had rallied around magistrate Antonino Di Matteo has vanished. The glue that held it all together was the state-Mafia negotiations. The plots of shadowy deals – whether struck by those in suits and ties or in uniform – unprovable yet fascinating, stirred the masses and numbed consciences via the media. It went the way it went; the lack of any substantive outcome in court has dampened interest. Only trickles of feigned resistance remain. There was a time when one had to elbow one’s way through to make a name for oneself on the crowded stage of notoriety. There was a queue to join the anti-Mafia brotherhood and the ‘criminal systems’ theorised by another magistrate serving in Palermo, Roberto Scarpinato, who today revives these ideas from time to time as a senator for the Five Star Movement, thanks to the revolving door between the judiciary and politics. There was always some elusive traitor to the state to be sacrificed (or discredited) in the merry-go-round of interviews, books and screenplays. Courtrooms were merely an annoying interlude. Today’s horizon – the last lifeline before oblivion – is the convergence between the Mafia responsible for mass killings and right-wing terrorism. Some people turn a blind eye to the fact that, in the meantime, the new investigations into the ‘mafia and public contracts’ nexus – which Paolo Borsellino was working on before he was murdered – have already brought a truth to light. We do not know, and perhaps will never know, whether this was the cause of the massacre, but there was at the very least an underestimation on the part of those who hastily dismissed that case file.

The champions of militant anti-Mafia activism, who have proclaimed themselves the guardians of the truth, are floundering and prefer to remain in the background. Not a single word about what is happening today. A far cry from the triumphant parades arm-in-arm with Massimo Ciancimino, the son of Don Vito, the Mafia mayor of Palermo. He was the icon of the anti-Mafia movement, as another magistrate, Antonio Ingroia – the ideologue behind the ‘Trattativa’ – had described him. ‘Massimuccio’ got carried away and palmed off on the prosecutors – who were essentially looking in the mirror – forged documents passed off as the ‘papello’ written by the Corleonesi boss to stop the bombings. Of course, one can always wait confidently for the millionth inquiry – followed by the case being dropped – into Marcello Dell’Utri and Silvio Berlusconi as the instigators of the massacres. A perennial favourite – they glide along on velvet. The former bears the stamp of mafia affiliation, confirmed by final judgements; the latter has been dead for ages. Admittedly, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to make it onto the front pages of newspapers and into the evening news bulletins. Even Totò Cuffaro, whose name is now barely recognised beyond the Strait, has become démodé. After serving a sentence for aiding and abetting the Mafia, the former Christian Democrat governor of Sicily found himself at the centre of the dirtiest political intrigues and struck a plea bargain for a new conviction on corruption charges. Another enemy has fallen by the wayside – one who used to unite the anti-Mafia movement, which no longer even mentions the Mafia. They have turned to other issues – legitimate ones, and in some cases even of current interest – but they are still digressions from the main theme on which they have fed for decades, dispensing their recipe for solving problems. They have looked only to the past, taking no interest in what the Mafia had become. Every now and then, the suspicion arises that they remain silent because they do not know what to say.

A sign of the times was Di Matteo’s visit to Palermo a few weeks ago to discuss the genocide in Gaza at the launch of the book by Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Meanwhile, new and ruthless gangs have emerged. They respond to arrests with further raids and demands for protection money. Brazen and dangerous. What is needed is a wake-up call, an analysis, a debate on today’s Cosa Nostra. Anything but silence. There are voices of which not even a whisper can be heard. Where has Leoluca Orlando gone, the man who grew up in the soft underbelly of the Christian Democrats, who turned against Salvo Lima and Giulio Andreotti and won the Palermo mayoral election? Today he is far away, and not just because of the kilometres separating his city from Strasbourg, where he sits in the European Parliament. Equally marked is the distance from Caterina Chinnici, herself a magistrate and MEP, whose father Rocco – to whom we owe the establishment of the anti-Mafia task force – was killed by the Mafia. A regional councillor in the administration of the autonomist Raffaele Lombardo, she moved from the PD – for which she served as an MEP and stood as a candidate for regional president – before finally joining Forza Italia at a time when the political scene was seeking symbols of blood and suffering, in the belief that this alone would be enough to present herself with a stamp of credibility in the eyes of the electorate. Accusations of political opportunism have not fazed her; she has nonchalantly brushed aside the dilemma of whether to align herself with the party of Berlusconi and Dell’Utri and the Sicilian governor Renato Schifani, who is also backed by Cuffaro’s Christian Democracy.

There is no powerful, identifiable enemy. Cosa Nostra has become someone else’s problem. That of the current public prosecutors, the Meloni government and, first and foremost, Minister Matteo Piantedosi, who has announced that the initial response to the shootings will be the installation of a handful of CCTV cameras and the arrival of new officers (many of whom will be replacing those who have retired). A bit meagre, to be honest. The Prime Minister is striking a different note and does not rule out sending the army onto the streets, as happened after the massacres. Others are trying to fill the gaps left by the old anti-Mafia activists. Ismaele La Vardera, a former correspondent for "Le Iene" and a rising star in Sicilian politics, is making his mark. He knows his stuff and, as they used to say, some people didn’t see him coming. He brings energy, commitment and considerable media savvy to the table, capitalising on a political scene mired in old-fashioned party politics that proves incapable of taking countermeasures. Does he have what it takes to lead the region? We’ll see; after all, these are just details. He has even exposed a few misdeeds and capitalised on others. His electoral appeal has won the favour of some anti-Mafia representatives who have come forward. They’ve put their money on La Vardera.

Take Sonia Alfano, a former MEP for Italia dei Valori and daughter of a journalist murdered thirty years ago by the Mafia in Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto, who has left Carlo Calenda. It remains to be seen whether her move to Controcorrente, La Vardera’s movement, is driven more by political calculations than by a genuine anti-Mafia stance. Take Piera Aiello, the ex-wife of a Mafia boss, who cooperated with the authorities for twenty-three years. Her story is linked to that of Rita Atria, the young woman from Partanna who took her own life following the Via D’Amelio massacre. Aiello was the wife of Nicola Atria, Rita’s brother, who was killed before her very eyes. At that time, she decided to tell the magistrates everything she knew about the Trapani Mafia. In 2018, Aiello was elected to the Chamber of Deputies for the Five Star Movement following an election campaign in which she kept her face covered for security reasons. This followed unsuccessful attempts with Luigi De Magistris’s Popular Union and with the autonomist Cateno De Luca. Today she, too, stands alongside La Vardera, all vying for the best position ahead of the upcoming elections. Like Salvatore Borsellino, Paolo’s brother – another symbol of the militant anti-Mafia movement chanting ‘out with the Mafia from the state’ – entrenched in his convictions, which have never been called into question. Not even in the face of the evidence of Ciancimino Jr’s lies. Their embrace at a ceremony in 2014 is probably the most damaging image of a certain brand of anti-Mafia activism. In recent days, Salvatore Borsellino has endorsed La Vardera. Every now and then, faces that have disappeared from the radar reappear, such as Tano Grasso, the distinguished founder and president of the Italian anti-racketeering movement, to remind us that the cooperation of shopkeepers is vital in the fight against protection money and that there is a power vacuum within the Mafia in Palermo. It is not enough.

“Dum Romae consulitur, Saguntum expugnatur”. The besieged Sagunto is Palermo, submerged by the symbolic and fleeting rituals of the anti-Mafia movement and by idle chatter. People sing and dance at ceremonies, and toasts are raised to the rule of law, as happened on 23 May – the day marking the commemoration of Falcone – at the home of the chairman of the regional anti-Mafia commission, Antonello Cracolici, who admitted the bitterest of truths. The commission, which deserves credit for having met in the Zen district, is unable to keep up with all the judicial investigations currently underway in Sicily. It has lost the ability to “prevent or anticipate scenarios that subsequently lead to criminal proceedings”. It is the distracted political establishment, in this case embroiled in the parallel tribunals of the commissions, which have in some circumstances ended up distorting the prerogative to conduct investigations by taking the place of the judiciary, and at times even bypassing it. Fierce battles are being waged, clashes between factions. There are those who accuse the chair of the national commission, Chiara Colosimo, of using the investigations into the Mafia massacres to exact revenge and silence attempts to expose the true interests behind the massacres. How? By brandishing the "Mafia and public contracts" dossier as a weapon of distraction. Those who make this claim forget that for 30 years, the hardline anti-Mafia movement had carte blanche, with no restrictions on personnel or resources to pursue its theories. They lie knowing full well that they are lying. Getting to the bottom of “mafia and appalti” – an issue dear to the Borsellino family – is a duty.

Without ‘shady plots’ and ‘hidden masterminds’, anti-Mafia professionals remain silent. They do not express outrage, they do not take to the streets, they do not point their little fingers like inquisitors. They remain in the comfortable confines of politics and the judiciary. They only venture out into the real world to express their thoughts in a press release thanking the police for carrying out yet another raid. Or for a social media post that smacks of modern politics. Every now and then, the passing of a convoy of armoured cars will remind us that they exist. Perhaps they’re on their way to attend the next commemorative ceremony or that all-important conference where they’ll talk over one another. Or maybe to board the yacht of the American ambassador to Rome, Tilman Fertitta, moored off the coast of Cefalù, at the invitation of the Falcone Foundation. The important thing is to stay far away from the crack of Kalashnikovs in the forgotten anti-Mafia Palermo.