The anti-Mafia movement that wins through action and the one that prefers talk shows

Report or no Report. Ranucci or no Ranucci. Lavitola or no Lavitola. Poll or no poll. Ultimately, however, the underlying issue is this: how can we find an alternative to the media-judicial circus model, based on public shaming, a culture of suspicion, and the prevalence of insinuations over evidence? We do not know what direction the future Report will take, but we do know that whoever ends up presenting – whether in Italy or from Mozambique – the programme that belonged first to Gabanelli and then to Ranucci should start from scratch and should try, above all else, to reflect on a fundamental difference that exists within the world of justice, from which the followers of the Ranucci model have drawn heavily in recent years. A difference that exists in many areas but which is particularly evident between two distinct categories of magistrates: those fighting against the Mafia, against criminal networks, against the clans. 

There are magistrates who are usually recognised for what they say, and who drive followers of the "Report" model wild with delight. And then there are magistrates who are recognised for what they do, and who are viewed with greater suspicion. The first category of magistrates tends to speak a great deal, to chat a lot, to provide the press with plenty of headlines to generate publicity, and tends to focus heavily on what they say rather than what they do – partly to prevent people from realising, by observing their actions, exactly what sort of magistrate they are: all talk, few deeds. The second category of magistrates, on the other hand, tends to speak little, to appear rarely, to avoid television talk shows, to keep their voice unrecognisable, to ensure their face does not go viral, and tends to focus heavily on actions and lightly on words. The first category of magistrates – those who seem more at home on talk shows than in courtrooms – includes numerous figures whom it is pointless even to list: you simply need to switch on the TV. The second category of magistrates, which is the predominant one in Italy, often tends to keep a low profile, to avoid the limelight, and – understandably – to prefer the ‘anti-Mafia by deeds’ approach, which is of little interest to television talk shows, rather than the ‘anti-Mafia by chatter’ approach, which, on the other hand, is wildly popular with followers of the Report model.

Maurizio De Lucia, Public Prosecutor of Palermo, who coordinated – without much fanfare or television appearances – the investigations that culminated in the arrest of Matteo Messina Denaro, occasionally, like some of his colleagues, chooses to timidly step out of anonymity to deal a few ‘abbuscatina’, as they would say in Palermo, to the anti-Mafia chatter. De Lucia, who in recent days has found himself at the centre of public debate following a desperate cry of alarm regarding the conditions in Italian prisons – where the state does not always do what it ought to – published an interesting book a few days ago, co-written with Salvo Palazzolo, on a seemingly generic topic: "La mafia che cambia". A quick flick through the pages of the book is enough to realise that, tactfully and between the lines, De Lucia has offered the public a formidable guide to help distinguish the anti-Mafia of hot air – or of the ‘pundits’, as Ninni Cassarà famously put it, with their accompanying media circus – from the anti-Mafia of facts. The book’s central argument—one that could prove useful to anyone wishing to produce a programme in the future based on evidence rather than idle chatter—is that serious anti-Mafia work starts with the facts and leads to the narrative, whilst the ‘anti-Mafia spectacle’ starts with the narrative and then seeks out facts to support it. De Lucia writes that, in recent years, “in many sectors we have seen figures who have made the anti-Mafia movement their banner, solely to build careers and secure privileges”. He maintains that Leonardo Sciascia was right to describe these individuals as “anti-Mafia professionals”. He reiterates that “the anti-Mafia that truly troubles the Mafia is the one that has an impact on real issues, not the one that makes proclamations”. And he recalls, as Judge Rosario Livatino maintained, that “a judge must present himself as a serious, balanced and responsible person… if he remains upright and impartial, he will never betray his mandate”. At one point in his discussion with Palazzolo, De Lucia indirectly dismantles years of so-called ‘hardline’ anti-Mafia activism—consisting of idle talk and insinuations—by referring to the Scarantino case.

Scarantino was a turncoat whose testimony many magistrates had believed; by choosing to regard his words as truthful, they led to the life sentences – later quashed – of seven innocent people who had played no part in the massacre of 19 July 1992, in which Paolo Borsellino and five members of his security detail were killed. De Lucia writes: “The Scarantino case was certainly the most striking: the statements of a suburban thug transformed into a seasoned state witness actually withstood scrutiny by several judges, as if they were fully corroborated accounts”. What De Lucia leaves unsaid—a view that fits perfectly with the approach to the anti-Mafia movement taken by Giovanni Falcone, whose stance has, not coincidentally, recently been demonised by the ‘prince of the mozzorecchi’ in Il Fatto Quotidiano—is that among those who believed Scarantino were some of the leading anti-Mafia magistrates of the ‘talking-the-talk’ variety. The head of the Caltanissetta Public Prosecutor’s Office, Giovanni Tinebra, who died in 2017, along with prosecutors Ilda Boccassini and Carmelo Petralia, who authorised the police officers in Arnaldo La Barbera’s unit to conduct investigative interviews with Scarantino. Gian Carlo Caselli, at the time Chief Prosecutor of Palermo, who in 1995 – when Scarantino’s wife accused La Barbera of having her husband tortured to make him talk – intervened in defence of the ‘super-cop’, speaking of “a smear campaign against state witnesses”.

Prosecutors Nino Di Matteo and Anna Maria Palma considered Scarantino’s revelations credible even when he retracted them in 1998, claiming he had been pressured by the police. According to De Lucia and Palazzolo, the same pattern applies to the case of Massimo Ciancimino, another anti-Mafia figure frequently featured in the specialist press, who was constantly smeared, “who never entered the witness protection programme, but became a sort of star witness, a leading figure not only in courtrooms but also on talk shows, always ready to make new revelations and hand over documents belonging to his father which he claimed were previously unpublished”, and whose story “is truly significant: years after his arrest, he remained a media phenomenon, hailed by a section of the anti-Mafia movement”. The book praises Leonardo Sciascia, in contrast to the anti-Mafia professionals – except when Sciascia criticised Borsellino – and also praises Maria Falcone, Giovanni’s sister, not in an absolute sense, nor in a rhetorical sense, but on a specific issue concerning the populist wave that swept the country at the time of Giovanni Brusca’s release from prison – the very Mafia member who had blown up her brother. Maria Falcone, who today, as then, stands against the ‘easy-handcuffs’ camp, said that the law on collaborators must be respected, and that personal feelings must take a back seat to the collective good. The message is clear: the ‘anti-Mafia of empty rhetoric’ cannot be combated merely by exposing its followers, but also by showing how there are those who, in the name of the anti-Mafia movement, sacrifice due process simply to gain a little more support and for personal gain. Less media trial means fewer headlines and a more effective fight against the Mafia. The ‘Report’ model or the De Lucia model? Choosing which side to take should not be that difficult.