In Depth

"This Thing We Have": Men of Dishonor

In Sicily, they don't call it the Mafia (from the Arabic mu'afah, or "protection"). They call it Cosa Nostra, literally "our thing," but more accurately "this thing we have." Its origins are debated, but the world's most famed criminal organization seemed to grow out of the convergence of local agricultural overseers working for absentee Bourbon landowners -- hired thugs, from the peasant workers' point of view.

Members of the Sicilian Mafia (or "Men of Honor," as they like to be called) traditionally operated as a network of regional bosses who controlled individual towns by setting up puppet regimes of thoroughly corrupt officials. It was a sort of devil's bargain between the regional bosses and the national Christian Democrat Party, which controlled Italy's government from World War II until 1993 and, despite its law-and-order rhetoric, tacitly left Cosa Nostra alone as long as its bosses got out the party vote.

The Cosa Nostra trafficked in illegal goods, of course, but until the 1960s and 1970s, its income was derived mainly from funneling state money into its own pockets, low-level protection rackets, and ensuring that public contracts were granted to fellow mafiosi (all reasons that Sicily has experienced grotesque unchecked industrialization and modern growth at the expense of its heritage and the good of its communities). But the younger generation of Mafia underbosses got into the highly lucrative heroin and cocaine trades in the 1970s, transforming the Sicilian Mafia into a major player on the international drug-trafficking circuit. This ignited a clandestine Mafia war that, throughout the late 1970s and 1980s, generated lurid headlines of bloody Mafia hits. The new generation was wiping out the old and turning the balance of power in their favor.

This situation gave rise to the first of the Mafia turncoats, disgruntled ex-bosses and rank-and-file stoolies who opened up and told their stories, first to police prefect Generale Alberto Dalla Chiesa (assassinated in 1982) and later to crusading magistrates Giovanni Falcone (murdered in May 1992) and Paolo Borsellino (murdered in July 1992), who staged the "maxi-trials" of mafiosi that sent hundreds to jail. It was the magistrates' 1992 murders, especially, that attracted public attention to the dishonorable methods that defined the new Mafia and, perhaps for the first time, began to stir true shame.

On a broad and culturally important scale, it is these young mafiosi, without a moral center or check on their powers, who have driven many Sicilians to at least secretly break the unwritten code of omertà, which translates as "homage" but means "silence," when faced with harboring or even tolerating a "man of honor." The Mafia still exists in Palermo, the small towns south of it, and the provincial capitals of Catania, Trapani, and Agrigento. Throughout the rest of Sicily, however, its power has been slipping. The heroin trade is a far cry from construction schemes and protection money, and the Mafia is swiftly outliving its usefulness.

Even in Palermo, the grip of Cosa Nostra seems to be loosening. In the closing days of 2000, the city hosted a United Nations conference on combating organized crime. Palermo's mayor, Leoluca Orlando, proclaimed that his fragile city was "battling a great evil" and paid homage at the conference to those who died fighting the Mafia. As local officials have worked to fight the mafiosi's corruption and stifling of Sicilian society, their efforts have been hailed as a Palermo Renaissance.

As late as June of 2006, Italian police arrested 45 people in an anti-Mafia crackdown, including top mobsters allegedly ruled by Bernardo Provenzano, the reputed number one "godfather" apprehended earlier this year. Investigators claimed that the arrests in Palermo struck at the heart of the Sicilian Mafia, dealing it a serious blow. But the police also warned that the arrests don't "mean that the Palermo Mafia has been dismantled."

Today, civic groups and schools conduct programs to help people, especially young Sicilians, loosen the stronghold of the Cosa Nostra. We never thought we'd see it in Sicily, but the Museo Civico di Palazzo Provenzano, Via Orfanotrofio 7 (tel. 091-8464907), exhibits photographs documenting Mafia atrocities, right outside Palermo in the sleepy village of Corleone. (Corleone, of course, is a name familiar to all Godfather fans: It was depicted as the home of Salvatore Rina, the "boss of all bosses." Rina lived here for nearly a quarter of a century, as Italy's most wanted man.) Admission is free; hours are Monday to Saturday from 9am to 1pm and 3:30 to 7:30pm, Sunday 9am to 1pm. GALLO (tel. 091-6171141), Via Balsamo 4, Palermo, runs buses to Corleone; a one-way ticket costs 4.20€ ($5.05).