“To understand a reality, it is necessary to become aware of it.”
Released in the first version of 1962, Pantaleone’s book had the merit of breaking the wall of silence around one of the most controversial themes in the history of Italy: the relations between the mafia and politics.
A sneaky bond, which like cancer has undermined the development of an entire region. Through an ill-concealed moral laxity, in fact, it was preferred to close our eyes on issues considered closed, until they took on national dimensions, of impossible solution (and we are sorry to say that).
The same behavior of the local political representatives, who, in order to guarantee the fictitious consensus of more and more electoral basins, have not disdained the creation of opaque areas of contiguity with the mafia. A modus operandi in many ways still functional, as many sentences report over the years.
The history of the mafia is one with the Sicilian one, and it could not have been otherwise. The morphology of the territory and the social structure constituted the natural undergrowth for the flowering of the Mafia subculture.
A book that must therefore be read, against all hypocrisy, to understand some mechanisms that have made Italy the country we know today. A collective awareness necessary for those who continue to look away, and pretend not to see the sick relationship between legality and illegality.
The written words are the direct testimony of Pantaleone’s concrete commitment in the fight against the mafia, in a historical period in which the greatest commitment, even within the institutions, was to deny its existence.
The abundance of details with which the role of the mafia in the landing of Allied soldiers on the island during the Second World War is particularly appreciated. A fundamental step to understand the union between mafia and politics.
The introduction of Carlo Levi is wonderful, with a scenographic but truthful description of the square of Villalba, and the unchanging passage of time.
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Michele Pantaleone, Mafia and politics, Einaudi, Torino, 1972
