Mafie &
Social Media:

Professor Enzo Ciconte is a professor of the history of organized crime at the University of Roma Tre and of the history of Italian mafias at the University of Pavia. From 1997 to 2010, he was a consultant for the Parliamentary Anti-Mafia Commission, and his book ‘Ndrangheta from Unity to the Present (1992) is the first historical study on the ‘ndrangheta. In general, all his books provide a clear and precise picture of Italian mafias.
We take inspiration for this conversation from his latest work From Omertà to Social Media: How Mafia Communication is Changing, published by Edizioni Santa Caterina, in which numerous aspects of the mafia phenomenon in our country are analyzed.

We begin with the title of the first chapter of the book, which says “To understand the mafias, we must listen to their silences.” What does he mean by this?

“I mean something very simple, we must imagine the mafia organization as, first and foremost, a secret organization.”
Secret to many, but especially secret to law enforcement and magistrates, not to the citizens who must know about it.
Silence in the mafia organization is important for at least two reasons.
The first: the affiliate, the person who becomes a mafioso, whether ‘ndranghetista, camorrista, must maintain silence about the activities of their organization. So, you must not talk about it with anyone. This is the first issue.
The second issue: there is a silence that envelops the mafia organization, which is the silence of the victims, who do not speak up or report it, and the silence of those who are corrupted by the mafia organizations. It is also the silence maintained for centuries regarding women, who were considered completely unrelated to the mafia organization, but that was not true.
It is the silence of the Church regarding the mafia organizations, so it is a silence that involves many.
If you do not study these things, you cannot understand the mafia organizations. If you do not study the relationship between the mafias and the silence of the Church, you cannot understand why, over the centuries, especially when the Church had significant influence in society, they said nothing about the mafias.
Ecco perché dico se vuoi capire le mafie devi capire il silenzio”

Ancient and ultra-modern: how has the communication of the ‘ndrangheta changed over the years?

“The communication of the ‘ndrangheta, but not only the ‘ndrangheta, this also applies to the Sicilian mafia and the Neapolitan camorra, has changed because society has changed.”
We must not make the mistake of thinking that mafiosi live in the hyperuranium, that they are untouched by the changes in society, and that they live in a world completely disconnected from what happens among us. It’s not like that.
In the age of cell phones, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, mafiosi couldn’t do without these tools. It’s clear that they had to be present there too.
QSo, the language has changed, but in some ways, a part of the nature of the ‘ndrangheta has changed as well. Once, the ‘ndrangheta was silence. “A megliu parola, e chilla chi non si dice,” the best word is the one that is not spoken.
Instead, now it’s exactly the opposite. Today, mafiosi are on Facebook, posting their photos, saying what they want to say, making videos, showing weapons, showing the wealth they have—they communicate just like we do. Right now, young people reading this couldn’t imagine their lives without a cellphone, so why should mafiosi, who are part of this society and live among us, be any different? It’s not that young mafiosi are different from other young people; they are different in that they are mafiosi, but their habits are identical to those of their peers, and their tastes are the same.

Are these young mafiosi who use social networks and all the tools that the internet offers today aware of the danger they expose themselves to by leaving traces on the web? Or are they unaware of this and use these tools even knowing they might be reported to the authorities?

“They are aware and, at the same time, unaware. They know very well that the authorities track them. I believe that none of them imagine they will remain, how can I put it, free from investigations.”
They are aware, but they still want to gain approval.
They want to convince other young people to choose that path.
Today, they have understood that more than formal meetings or a bold attitude in the square, it matters a lot to show themselves to these young people who want to change their lives, because it is among the young that the desire to change life lies.
And they want to show these young people that they have reached a point of wealth and power precisely because of their affiliation.
So, the message these videos, footage, and photographs send is exactly this: trying to bring these young people to their side.
They seek approval, and it’s a way to tell others what they do when they are good, that their parents, their siblings who are in prison, are completely innocent.
On the other hand, have you ever seen a guilty mafioso?
Mafiosi aren’t all intelligent; some are also fools, and fortunately, there are fools, so at least they get caught.
Some fugitives, for example, took a photo and posted it on their profile or the profile of a friend, showing a luxury 5-star hotel behind them, not realizing that by doing so they would get caught. In fact, they were captured because, by looking at the hotels, the Carabinieri could figure out where they were staying. So, fortunately, there are also fools who make it easy for them to be caught; otherwise, they could have escaped undetected.
What is this? It’s a display.
Today, unfortunately, we live in a society of images. If you’re not on TV, if you’re not on Facebook, you’re nobody; you think you’re worth nothing, and of course, this is not true.
But for them, with the mentality in Italy today, it seems true.
Moreover, another point that emerges from the pages of your book is the idea of music. We can cite the emblematic case of the Glock21 music video filmed in Rosarno, where these young Calabrians show themselves with guns, saying terrible things. And if under a video where young people with Kalashnikovs shout “long live the mafia,” there are comments saying, “Thank you because in this way you bring our culture online,” that is the real problem. “

What is the danger that this freedom, this lack of control on platforms like YouTube and Facebook, represents for young people?
If everyone can post whatever they want and there is no content control, doesn’t it risk creating an uncontrollable phenomenon of online proselytism?

” Yes, although as long as no crime is committed, you cannot prevent this from happening, because otherwise, there would be unacceptable censorship.
We must fight with the tools of democracy. I believe it can be done because, fortunately, these fools are not the majority; they are the minority.
So, this time, we also have the opportunity to see them, to know, and therefore explain to the young people that this is a wrong attitude, an incorrect attitude that needs to be changed.
In Calabria, there was a period, but it still exists, of producing cassette tapes.
There were CDs and cassettes that praised the ‘ndrangheta, the old ‘ndrangheta. The ‘ndrangheta was portrayed as a sort of Robin Hood who steals from the rich to give to the poor. Blood and honor, and the fact that a stain of honor must be washed with blood. A whole series of myths about the old ‘ndrangheta that never really existed, except in small part.
But it’s the mythology of the old ‘ndrangheta that is carried forward.
Naturally, when these words are accompanied by tarantella music, it’s clear that it becomes appealing.
The tragedy is that this thing didn’t just work in the province of Reggio Calabria, but even in Germany. In Germany, for several weeks, these ‘ndrangheta tarantellas topped the German hit parade. So, we are facing these phenomena. People went to buy the ‘ndrangheta cassette tapes, which, I repeat, are about the old ‘ndrangheta, the bandit Musolino, who was unjustly condemned, and a whole series of songs that, by the way, link Aspromonte to the ‘ndrangheta. It’s old junk, but it has an element, so to speak, of reality in these cassette tapes.“

Given his experience in the Parliamentary Commission, is there a higher-level conversation, one with the potential to change things, about how the mafia has managed to modernize? Are there investigations, journalistic inquiries, or political reflections born from this insight?

“I don’t think so, especially today, because people don’t care about the mafia phenomenon.
Just this morning, I was reading the reflection of the police chief of Naples, who said that no one cares about the camorra anymore.
Police Chief Giuliano, the son of Boris Giuliano, who was killed by the Sicilian mafia, said that no one cares about the camorra in Naples anymore, and he’s right. But right now, let’s be honest, it’s hard for people to worry about mafia phenomena, and it’s understandable because everyone is worried about the ongoing pandemic.
The same thing happened in the 1970s when there was terrorism.
It was a terrible season, people didn’t go out, they were afraid, they stayed locked up.
In fact, terrorism was fought on two levels: the judicial level, obviously, the repression level.
Then there was a revolutionary level. The fact that a city councilor from Rome, Renato Nicolini, projected a series of films at the Basilica of Massenzio, and many people came.
The message was: “The terrorists want us all at home, we must go out to regain our freedom, our self-determination.”
But at that time, no one thought about the mafia. In fact, the mafia reached its peak in the 70s and 80s. If we think that on January 6, 1980, the mafia killed the President of the Regional Government of Sicily, Piersanti Mattarella, we understand that we are dealing with a very high level of mafia presence. Two years earlier, the President of the Christian Democracy Party, Aldo Moro, had been kidnapped, held hostage, and then killed, so in front of these phenomena, these events, the mafia had a free hand.
Today, we are more or less in the same situation. This doesn’t mean that the mafiosi are standing still, no, they are doing their part, but I think that the judiciary has understood some things, and I imagine they are taking action.
For the rest, in politics, I don’t see much capability”

Let’s make one last reflection on the need for a change in anti-mafia communication. Because if it is true that the mafia evolves, perhaps the anti-mafia movement also needs to find new languages and tools to counter it.
How is it possible that at the Faculty of Law in Palermo, the same faculty where Dr. Falcone and Dr. Borsellino graduated, anti-mafia legislation is an elective course?
Why is there no awareness that studying history and the tools we have equipped ourselves with is not considered fundamental by our Ministry of Education, by those who decide the ministerial programs of the University?

“It’s the same question I asked myself many, many years ago. And I asked it to a Minister of Education, asking why they didn’t establish chairs of mafia history. He replied that in this way we would enhance them, we would give them credit.
But in reality the mafias are already in the universities. First of all because there are some professors who sell their grades, they sell their exams to the mafiosi, they are even mafiosi themselves.
Anyway they didn’t do it, I in my small way, exactly 15 years ago, proposed to the University of Roma Tre to do a course on the history of the Italian mafias. I was told that it was too hard as a title and we settled on “history of organized crime”.
In addition to the Rector, I had the various heads of some departments come, the President of the Anti-Mafia Commission, the opposition group leaders of the Anti-Mafia Commission, the then Attorney General of Palermo Pietro Grasso, who spoke with the students all afternoon.
I also took a course for 10 years now in Pavia, “history of the Italian mafias” and it is the Santa Caterina da Siena university college in Pavia. It is an optional course, it is offered to students of Political Science, Law, Literature and Economics.
The course is attended mostly by magistracy students because they know about law, because they know that this is an important exam for them, if they want to understand the mafias. To understand the historical evolution, because if you go to address the problem of the mafias, now it is no longer a problem of the South, it is also a problem of the North unfortunately, and a future magistrate must understand these things.
The other thing that must change is journalism. Because journalism has sat on the anti-mafia issue. What does journalism do? The news is always the same because they take the press release from the prosecutor’s office and don’t go into more detail. They are not the ones to indicate, to do serious anti-mafia investigations, which do not only concern what the Public Prosecutor’s Office says, which can also be wrong. But the journalist must not be a showman.
He must have the ability to give the reader a different perspective from the one given by the prosecutor. Also because there are some behaviors that are not criminally relevant. If a young person, a journalist says it, well, it’s better.
Let’s go back to the issue of the cassettes, let’s go back to the issue of the songs.
A magistrate can’t do anything about it. But a journalist can point out to readers that in that neighborhood of Naples, in that neighborhood of Rome, in that construction site of Reggio Calabria or Palermo, there are these songs, there are these videos, there are these initiatives.
They could offer citizens knowledge of a phenomenon that is maturing, that is changing.
But if the journalist doesn’t say it, if he doesn’t get his hands dirty with these inquiries, these investigations, he’s simply a scribbler, who copies and copies and pastes what the custody order is and in my opinion that’s not good. “

So I truly hope that his example, that of the Pavia college, can be replicated in Palermo so that young jurists can have the tools to understand and fight the mafia.

“I hope so too. There is another little book that we made with the College of Santa Caterina, which is about Giovanni Falcone. Reading that book brings out some curious, particular, intriguing stories, which make you see Falcone the man, not simply the magistrate.
I will give just two examples: The first story was told to us by Judge Guarnotta who was part, like Falcone, of the anti-mafia pool. Well, he tells us how Falcone, going to dinner with other magistrates, would start attacking his colleagues with bread balls. So you can imagine what happened when Doctor Falcone threw the ball and his colleague magistrate replied with equal force with other balls. It was a way to release tension.
Or another story, this time told to us by General of the Carabinieri Angelo Pellegrini. It is the story of one evening, when they were in Rome, both escorted. They obviously had different escorts, but they slept in the same hotel a little outside of Rome.
And in the evening, after finishing work, they returned to the hotel, the escorts once they had taken the two of them to the room, went to sleep. That evening Falcone called Angelo Pellegrini, and said: “Generà, see you in the hall”. The General went down to the Hall and they took a walk through the streets of Rome, like two normal citizens. In Rome he could do it because obviously not everyone knew him, in Palermo something like that would have been unthinkable, but it gives you the human dimension, it gives you the dimension of a man who doesn’t want to be surrounded all the time by these escorts who take him everywhere, he wants to walk around like a simple citizen together with a friend, through the streets of Rome.”