Exposing the Anti-Mafia Regime: That Pact of Mutual Survival with the Mafia

More than ten years have passed since local journalism uncovered an arbitrary and high-handed exercise in seizures and confiscations in the Preventive Measures Section of the Palermo Court : assets seized under the pretext of anti-mafia activity and transformed into a veritable cash machine for judges, judicial administrators, assistants, and the like. The national press coverage, necessary given the scale of the scandal, ensured that the dangerous investigation was not reduced to a cry in the wilderness—with the associated nine-year legal case involving journalist Pino Maniaci , before a full acquittal, confirmed on appeal, on the infamous extortion charge—and the Caltanissetta Prosecutor's Office took action to judicially dismantle Silvana Saguto 's so-called "magic circle."

This is what happened, confirmed and beyond dispute. That the reaction was undertaken by a small broadcaster like Telejato is both bitter and natural: only David can face Goliath, and to avoid undermining the victims' struggle, the people must own the narrative and the memory that is passed down. Indeed, despite the attention of the national media, even today the suspicion that the Palermo case is far from isolated and that a well-established system exists, distributed across the country, is barely voiced in sporadic episodes by small local news sources. Another aspect that remains largely unrevealed is a truly open secret: the correlation between seizures, confiscations, and the Bankruptcy and Foreclosures sections . It's a fact, supported by numerous incidents and case law, that the judicial administration of a confiscated property, intent on enriching itself, has a keen interest in seeing the asset stripped to the bone as quickly as possible, because once it has failed, there is no obligation to report. While this cannot be discussed, perhaps to avoid offending the scandalized masses of Pasolini-esque reminiscence, the scandal lurking in the final phase, that of judicial auctions, is completely inconceivable. These methods of participation and allocation are so ambiguous that no one dares speak out, protected by a smokescreen, sealed, inviolable, and above all, legal, which prevents the initiation of legal action. Politicians, who have many tools to intervene, seem to react like a conscript at the front when called upon.

More than a lack of interest, from Cafiero De Raho 's reactions to the Cavallotti family's appeal to the ECHR or Andrea Delmastro 's inconclusive, legalistic response to Roberto Giachetti's parliamentary question, it seems that politicians are afraid to address the issue. This is disturbing for a system where it's impossible not to wonder how much the mafia, the real one, is directly or indirectly involved. This is the most untouchable and frightening aspect, even though it corresponds to the natural course of deviance: the mafia masquerading as anti-mafia in a pact of mutual survival. Why does politics feel justified in not delving deeper? The answer is simple, almost banal: a cultural approach is lacking. Regardless of how prepared the world is to accept the truth, awareness is fueled by irrational and unstoppable channels: the desire to ensure justice for the victims, to shine a spotlight on this latest chapter of the Southern Question , to give the phenomenon a clear cultural place; why not, on a stage?

Where the king is stripped naked and the mask of power is judged by an audience, where the bourgeoisie has long fallen into the trap of worldliness and is slapped by memory and words, the theater represents the baptism of a definitive social awareness. The immortality of free scenic narration and the fleeting testimony of current events make the audience judge by what they see and be judged by what they hear, in a present still too conditioned by the past to look to the future. And it is precisely art that stimulates the imagination; in its play, it is imperative to push critical thinking beyond all materialism to bring out that supreme truth which, to quote Eduardo De Filippo, in the theater has been and always will be the sublime fiction. It will be done, it will be on stage.

FROM

Roberto Disma