3632 Standing against the mafia in Sicily

I hope she will succeed Becky, as she seems to have fair objectives in mind. I'm sure she will need good solid ethics all the way through her campaign and will have to face some difficult situations head on.

Perhaps she can do it if she gets strong honest support behind her.

The situation in Sicily is much more complex than people conceive and it is a mixture of stereotypes, preconceptions and facts.

The mafia is one thing and corruption is another. One is about an organisation (the oldest organised crime society in Europe) with strict rules and the other is about a culture of favours and returns of favours, of mistrust of goverment and of a 21st century version feudal system with lords and servants - where the lords are the politicians distributing EU, national and regional funding and servants are the people competing for that funding.

Along this society there is one of Sicilians and people who have fallen in love and moved to Sicily that are trying to construct an alternative.

It will take several generations before Sicilians will be able to say - "remember when there was the mafia"

Well, La Borsellino suffers (in Italian - let alone Sicilian) politics by being a female. Emma Bonino should be a powerful presence........but she's a woman, and less than eighty years old..............say no more.

"Sicily.It looked lovely but I must admit I would be put off by the Mafia connections" . It's like saying you'd like to visit the UK but you've heard that Scousers are louts. The Mafia connection will never rear its ugly head for the vast majority of tourists or Brits who choose to buy or stay in Sicily. Perhaps if you open a shop in Palermo you might have a visit from someone who wants a slice of your profits, but here in the south east of Sicily, it is a different world.
If the Mafia put you off Sicily, would the Ndrangheta, Sacra Corona, or Camorra, put you off all of the rest of Italy south of Rome? There is organised crime everywhere in Italy, I would advise you to visit Sicily and see how magical it is, and you wont see a man in a pinstriped suit with a violin case anywhere :)

Hmmm, I dont think it will be any more difficult for a woman to be elected in Sicily than anywhere else in Italy.

As nfor the mafia, well you will not have anything to do with them if you are a tourist, but if you are building or renovating you may get some visitiors to assist you in your selection of builders. You will also be paying an informal tax on anything you buy, that ends up with the mafia.

It is the general level of corruption throughout sicily that is the cause of the problem, and that allows the mafia to survive. IT is a general attitude of no concern of what impact your actions may have on others, and chasing the quick buck. Look at how much money has been wasted in sicily on infrastucture over the years. The whole padrone thing etc etc etc

Sicily, beautiful place, but cant see its future being bright

[FONT="Book Antiqua"][SIZE="3"]hmmm..ram your attitude may well be slightly coloured by your business interests but I understand what you are saying.I would not be at all put off visiting Sicily as I am fascinated by it and I want eventually to visit every part of Italy.

What I would worry about is buying a house in Sicily.

Yes the corruption/mafia influence is terrible and as usual it's the Americans we have to blame for their support of the Mafia in WW2 allowing them to once more take control.Although you hear very little today about their role in this situation.

I too wonder if Sicily can ever sort out these problems?

Becky[/SIZE][/FONT]

Americans have no blame at all, they left over 60 years ago, sicilians are to blame, its the sicilian cuture that has allowed the mafia to survive

Maybe not for the current problems, but they did bring the Mafia back into existance when it had virtualy dissapered, and continued to support it with the help of many italian goverments during the years after WW 2, even to the point of releasing them from prison and putting them in to local goverment in Sicily with the assistance of the Italian goverment of couse. Mafia were better than communists and at the time they were the USA's enemy.

Dawn.

Dawn,
yes the americans let some mafia out of the prisons, however they are not the cause of the problem, if there was a list of ten main causes of the mafia existance the americans would not make the list. Over the past thirty years the EU has funded more of the mafia growth through capital works throughout the island than any other income, and yet nobody holds the EU to task for not vetting grant recipients properly.

If it was the americans fault, how is it that organised crime did not get active in post war germany, or austria, or france, or northern italy for that matter.

It is about time sicilians accepted that the mafia is continued through sicilian culture, until they accept their problem is 100% theirs, they will not be able to change

It is an fallacious argument that organised crime is a result solely of the populations culture or lack of will to eradicate it. The Mafia is not the Sicilian's fault, as The Triad is not the fault of the 1 billion other Chinese, and the Ku Klux Klan is not the fault of the 350 million Americans. The Mafia owes its existence to many factors, almost all of which were external influences on Sicily and the resulting poverty and discrimination. Organised crime in ITaly, the Baltic States and the emerging countries of the ex Soviet Union is a reaction to an 'economy' imposed on the country. When people feel powerless in the face of governments who openly act in their self interest an alternative economy starts. I am not excusing organised crime, but there are countless reasons for the existence of the Mafia and other organisations. However, to argue that the EU is as culpable as America for the renewed existence of the mafia is nonsense. It was American policy to encourage and revitalise the Mafia during and after WW2. It is not EU policy to do the same; capital investment is needed in the south: if 'middlemen' appropriate resources due to ineffective domestic checks and balances, or blind eyes being turned in Rome, it is not the fault of the EU.
In reply to Manopello, my business interests don't colour my views. I would not have a business here if I thought the Mafia would be a problem. I was in Naples for years before coming to Sicily, and the Camorra there is much more visible, insidious and dangerous than anything I have seen or heard of in Sicily. It is unfortunate that Sicily and the Mafia have become synonymous when the reality is that organised crime does not touch the lives of 99% of the population.

Welll said Ram!

[LEFT][B][FONT=Verdana]In Todays La Repubblica: BARI [/FONT][/B][FONT=Verdana]- Vasta operazione antimafia a Bari: 40 ordinanze di custodia cautelare e oltre 70 perquisizioni nei confronti del clan Capriati, considerato dominante nel capoluogo pugliese.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana][/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana]Things are happening to eradicate the problem, though I suspect it is not going to be an easy task and will take some time.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana][/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana]The Mafia's origins were the product of the Italian state's failure in Sicily. What this organisation did was simply fill a space that the state could not, although the Mafia cannot be considered as an alternative form of government. Like most organisations, the Mafia extended the spread of its operations geographically and so it is not confined to just one region.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana][/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana]It is unfortunate that the Mafia and Sicily are associated with organised crime. I think that part of the problem is that certain images are still difficult to shake off. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana][/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana] [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana][/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana][/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana][/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana] [/FONT][/LEFT]

You are, as usual, Mr Marche absolutely right! Images are hard to shake off. Which one of us doesn't love the theme tune from the Godfather?

[CENTER][ATTACH]688[/ATTACH][/CENTER]

How many of us know what it's called.. or who wrote it?

:D :D

Vito`s Theme, and was it Nino Rota that wrote it? :)

Yes. Here is a link.. sorry it's off topic, but it's interesting none the less. Shoot me later!

[url]http://www.ninorota.com/[/url]

:) :)

As they say in Sicly: U pesci fet d'a testa...corruption starts at the top!