A brief glossary of mafia terms might help to explain what we mean by the "peaceful coexistence" between the state and organised criminality, and therefore to understand what is happening in Silvio Berlusconi's Italy.
The mafias: There are four separate mafias, who control the territory and business activities in four southern Italian regions: Cosa Nostra in Sicily, Camorra in Campania, 'Ndrangheta in Calabria and Sacra Corona Unita in Puglia. They have investments not only in Europe, but also all over the world.
Coexistence: This expression was first used some years ago by Pietro Lunardi, then minister of public works in Berlusconi's 2001-05 government. The concept of coexistence with the mafia is what Roberto Saviano is writing about when he claims that concrete and building are the most important legal activities of the mafia bosses.
White mafia: This phrase means the whole spectrum of mafia criminal activities that do not explicitly involve physical violence – the white collar crime, so to speak. Since these activities are apparently invisible, they create little social alarm.
Pizzo, or protection money: If you, an entrepreneur (or shopkeeper or craftsman) produce wealth, you must share some of your profits with us. In other words, you have to pay us a sort of extortive territorial tax from which there is no possibility of evasion. If you don't pay up you are putting your business premises and your very life at risk. Violence is not always necessary. The victim of extortion can always (or is often obliged to) make his local mafioso a joint owner of his business, and may even eventually be driven out by the new "partner".
From this brief explanation, you can see that the "white mafia" – through the use of unlimited funds of fraudulent origin and the application of "pressure" – can considerably alter the rules of free competition in a market economy. An entrepreneur who is also a member of the mafia never has cashflow problems. All he has to do is sell a shipment of cocaine, whereas an honest businessman is obliged to get into debt with banks and pay interest on loans. And once established in legal activities, the mafioso builds up privileged links with political and financial institutions, influencing them by lawful and illicit means, corrupting or threatening.
Financial success in the "regular" world, by using irregular methods, is part and parcel of mafia prestige: the modern "man of honour" seeks fame not only in ruthlessness but also in wealth. In the aberrant mafia criminal code, a prison sentence, even a long one, is paradoxically considered a requisite, a rung on the ladder of mafia advancement which increases the prisoner's prestige.
It was only after the killing of Giovanni Falcone in 1992 that the Italian state, with the 41-bis law, transformed custody for mafia bosses by introducing severely restrictive measures and solitary confinement. Until then, being in prison for a mafia boss was like staying in a hotel from where they could continue to exert their executive powers.
But what mafia bosses have never been able to bear is the loss of the billionaire fortunes that they have accumulated over the years.
Thanks to the clever insight of two men – a remarkable priest from Torino, Father Luigi Ciotti, and Giancarlo Caselli, the former public prosecutor in Palermo – some of the ill-gotten assets and properties confiscated from the mafias have since 1996 been allocated for social use. It was a symbolic blow to their power. If the villa of a notorious member of the Camorra was converted into a library or a nursery school it was an unmistakable ethical lesson to the local population controlled by mafia mentality. It was an invitation to freedom, an object lesson in a civil order in contrast to the mafia's.
All over Italy, Libera, the association founded by Ciotti in 1995, runs land trusts created on properties confiscated from mafia bosses. Although these co-operative trusts have often been threatened and even attacked, they offer an outstanding model of anti-mafia social purpose.
But now, with a controversial amendment recently approved by the Italian senate (it still needs to be ratified by the chamber of deputies), the mafiosi assets will no longer be assigned to social co-operatives, but will be sold by public auction. This means that the mafiosi, without the slightest effort, will be able to get back what they claim belongs to them with the help of obliging fronts.
Since Berlusconi's Italy is best viewed as episodes from a TV series, considerable attention is given to police operations and the recent arrests of mafia bosses such as Gianni Nicchi. Simultaneously, however, the government is giving back financial power to the mafia bosses.
This, then, is what "peaceful coexistence" with the mafia will mean: giving back with your left hand what you take away with your right.