Mafie &
Social Media:

Attilio Bolzoni has recounted all the major mafia massacres, including the murders of General Dalla Chiesa, Judge Rocco Chinnici, Dr. Giovanni Falcone, and Dr. Paolo Borsellino. He began his career with the newspaper “L’Ora” and later became a correspondent for Repubblica in 1982. He won the journalism award for reporting for over thirty years on the history of Sicily and the mafia. In 2019, he wrote his latest book, Il padrino dell’antimafia, published by Zolfo Editore, where he tells the story of Calogero Montante, the now-famous “puppet and puppeteer” of “Sicilian legality.” Today, he writes for “Domani,” the new newspaper by Carlo De Benedetti.

Our interview focuses on a reflection on the evolution of mafia communication in the age of social media. If we think about how different the image of the mafioso with a shotgun and a cap—who “knows nothing and says nothing”—is from a Luciano Leggio, who in 1986 agreed to be interviewed on television by Enzo Biagi,
how has the way mafias communicate evolved over time?

“There is a great deal of superficiality around these topics in the media. Lots of acting, many clichés, a lot of floating information, and little true knowledge.

Let’s start with Palermo. At some point, in the Zen neighborhood, after the arrest of one of the alleged local mafia bosses, who had become famous the previous year for distributing food to the people in the neighborhood, the balances change and become unstable. Then, one evening, a shooting occurs. It happened just a month and a half ago, a major shooting.

Three remain on the ground, three end up in the emergency room at Villa Sofia: one has a bullet that shatters his ankle, one in the shoulder, so far everything’s normal. They return home, and the challenge, which started on the street with gunshots, moves to Facebook, where they insult each other. So, Maresco is right in his film “Non c’è più la Mafia di una volta” (There’s no more Mafia like before). I mean, the mafia is a secret, criminal organization, yet these guys go on Facebook. So what are we talking about? Is this the mafia? Or is it that other mafia, the one with the “new mafia bosses” who are in the Gulf of Mondello with their jet skis, taking selfies, shouting, screaming, and laughing?

It’s the complete opposite of what we thought the mafia was in the last 50, 100, or 300 years. There’s an anthropological shift. An anthropological change that, starting from ricotta and that vegetable called chicory – as the old uncle Bernardo Provenzano used to say – has evolved into everything that is expensive, exclusive, and wealthy. But is this the mafia, or is it the image that power wants to project about the mafia? For me, this isn’t the mafia. This is the mafia of the street corner, the mafia of the slums, filled with blood and filth. The real mafia is the mafia of always, the one that makes deals with power and remains silent, the one that makes deals with politics, finance, and entrepreneurship. ”

In recent years, we’ve witnessed the proliferation on Facebook of groups and pages that spread mafia messages. A striking example is the case of the group “Onore è dignità” (Honor and Dignity), which garnered almost 20,000 followers and was later discovered to have been created by Vincenzo Torcasio, a boss of a ‘Ndrangheta clan who was subsequently sentenced to 30 years in prison in 2017. What are the risks and dangers surrounding such a phenomenon? The fact that a more or less influential mafioso can, through social media, send these criminal messages to citizens, what risk does it represent?

“The risks are many, you gave this example, but shall we talk about the son of Totò Riina who has his own page? Shall we talk about Totò Riina’s first son-in-law, Tony Ciavarello, who intervenes on Facebook and makes threats to my journalist colleagues? The risks are enormous.

I’m going to tell you something that few know because I kept it fairly private, but this is the occasion to talk about it. Two and a half years ago, I had a blog on Repubblica, which is now on Domani. At a certain point, I asked the President of the Senate Grasso, a bishop, Minister of Justice Orlando, 5 or 6 DIA officers, and 5 or 6 famous magistrates for a statement on May 23rd, and each of them gave me a reflection that I started publishing on my blog. After two or three days, Facebook blocked everything. So, it blocked the President of the Senate, the Minister of Justice, a bishop, 5 DIA officials, 5 high-ranking magistrates, all of whom made interventions that were neither obscene nor out of line. They were memories of Doctor Falcone and Doctor Borsellino.

Why did this happen? Because someone intervened. They reported these posts, which Facebook, without conducting an inquiry, but with the infamous algorithm, censored. So, this tool is terrifying. If “Onore è rispetto” is online, if Riina’s son can do it and then the President of the Senate or the Minister of Justice cannot intervene, there is something extraordinarily dangerous.

Couldn’t it be a useful tool to investigate starting from the administrators of these Facebook groups, from those who create these Facebook pages? Are there any journalistic investigations, including international ones, that have emerged from tracks based on the observation of social networks?

“Italy is ahead of other countries on these issues. I’ll give you an example, let’s shift to another front, but we’re still talking about the same thing. In Germany, there is a festival in Berlin, a festival of bad music. And there is a man, Francesco Sbano, from Calabria. He has sold tens of thousands of CDs in recent years, with the SIAE stamp in Germany. Some of these songs have criminal lyrics, one of which is against General Carlo Alberto dalla Chiesa, saying: ‘They killed the general / he didn’t even have time to pray / so he was quickly sent to Heaven / The mafia is a criminal law that leaves you alone as long as it wants / but if you poke it / the moment comes when it moves.’ He writes songs about the mafia’s deeds, presenting them as folklore and Calabrian tradition.”

“They hold conferences in Germany, with officers from the criminal police BKA, university professors, journalists from Der Spiegel, where they cheerfully talk about this Calabrian tradition.”

“In Italy, we have many mafias. Fortunately, we also have many antibodies because we have one of the best anti-mafia legislations in the world, and we have different sensitivities because we’ve had many deaths and many injuries. So don’t think that abroad can intervene on these matters.”

Mafia is the most famous Italian word in the world, more than pizza, more than spaghetti, but it’s seen as folklore, and they don’t realize that it’s actually criminal power. I believe that abroad will never understand this, also because the representation of the mafia is that of the movies, the mafia that is with the people. But in reality, it never stays with the poor; it always stays with the rich and with power. But the meat is the same, the slice of meat is always the same. Mafia, organized crime, entangled with power

But let’s also think about the role of young people in this situation. If it is true that the mafia somehow always manages to adapt to society, shouldn’t the anti-mafia movement also be closer to the tools it uses to communicate with young people?

“While the mafia and the mafias use new languages and adapt to the times we live in, the anti-mafia has an ancient vocabulary. The vocabulary of holy cards, of the catechism. It is a “religious” anti-mafia, in a perpetual pose. And it uses a language and languages that today’s kids don’t understand, because they didn’t exist, because the massacres happened before they were even born. This is the most serious thing of all: this way you learn by heart, but you don’t elaborate. This is the most serious thing in my opinion: because knowledge should never become rhetoric. This is therefore an anti-mafia of performance. It is devastated by clichés, by the rhetoric of interests, by a lot of money that has arrived, it is an anti-mafia that has lost, in my opinion, a lot of its credibility. The further we distance ourselves from the massacres, the more it loses it.

Also because when the mafia was shooting it was weak. The mafia with the Kalashnikovs, with the massacres, with the TNT in Capaci and in via D’Amelio was a mafia in difficulty, cornered.

The anti-mafia movement is equally weak because it cannot find a language, it cannot find answers. For twenty years they have always talked about the same things, it is a circus, it is a play. They propose to us the image of the Judges killed as Saints, when instead they were only men, with feelings, with their genius, and it is a vulgar, vulgar way of representing the sacrifice of those people who were “secular” and not religious, workers, not Saints to be worshipped.”

I really think that journalism in general should start again from this, because apart from you and a few others, there is very little talk about the mafia and mafias.

“This is the theme. There is little information and a lot of communication. Journalism has become communication, so it is no longer journalism, it has become advertising.

It’s not that people don’t buy newspapers anymore because they’re bizarre, but because newspapers have lost credibility. Just think about the Montante case you mentioned. He had journalists on his payroll, he had 20, 30, 40. The beacon of anti-mafia in Italy was a friend of the mafiosi until a few years before. He became the beacon of anti-mafia in Italy with the Minister of the Interior Alfano in the mix, with the chief of police, with the heads of the secret services, who are all on trial. Then I don’t want to be a defeatist because there’s always a part of the State that works, but we journalists haven’t done a good job.”

Thinking instead of those journalists who in times now remote, made a different, irreverent journalism, against the mafia, we could remember Peppino Impastato and think about his way of doing anti-mafia, how current it was with his radio with that instrument so close to young people…

“Crazy, crazy. Peppino had a mafia father, a mafia boss uncle 100 steps away, and he was alone, desperate. Peppino Impastato used to say “the mafia is a mountain of shit” but it made sense in 1976, 77, 78 because he was just desperate, he was a rebel, it was a cry of pain, anger and rebellion. But there are journalists who write it today, after 40 years. The mafia is a mountain of shit: they are charlatans. They are charlatans because today we have to move forward, after 40 years, after all the sacrifices. Doctor Falcone, Doctor Borsellino, all the magistrates killed. You should have said it 40 years ago, the mafia is shit, like Peppino did. A revolutionary, surreal gesture. If you say it today from 2020, 2021 you are a poor guy, you are a smart guy. Speaking of which, a few days ago, Giovanni Impastato, Peppino’s brother, sent me his manuscript, a novel about his brother’s story. I read it at night, amazing. In the next few days I will write a page on Domani because I found it beautiful”