Eleven days after giving this testimony, D’Amico was found shot dead with a tappo (“cork”) in his mouth. The message was clear—from the mouth of a dishonorable man nothing should come out, not even his bad breath. Other symbols are the cut hand left on the chest, which denotes that the victim had stolen from an area that was under the control of the Mafia, and the genitals hanging around the neck to indicate that the victim had attempted to seduce the woman of a Mafioso while the latter was in jail.
The Camorra constitutes an exception to all this, since it appears not to have any discernable code of honor, other than espousing some basic principles that go back considerably in time (1842) to a code called il frieno, which it abandoned. It does not have an initiation ceremony. Its activities are rarely covert, probably because the Camorra deals primarily in contraband and thus needs members to play visible roles in criminal operations. Another major difference is the way in which the Camorra discourages rigid hierarchical structure. As Shelley Klein notes, this is an advantage because it is “very difficult for opposition groups to eradicate any particular Camorra ‘family,’ for without a recognizable head of operations and subordinate chiefs, there are no targets.”[26]
The Power of the Code
The main way in which the Mafia conducts its extortion operations is by demanding a percentage of a victim’s earnings or a fixed rate from businesses in exchange for protection. Simple demand for money would be perceived as being undignified and a vulgar form of street crime. In this way, a kind of “honorable system of taxation” is set up and used to justify the intimidation and violence to be used if failure to pay emerges as a possibility. This is, clearly, a clever tactic for ennobling a criminal enterprise. It bespeaks of honor, not vulgarity. By extorting common citizens in this way, the Mafia is better able to establish a firm control over its territories, assuming taxation authority properly belonging to the government. Surveys show that a majority of commercial businesses in Sicily and other parts of Italy submit to the pizzo willingly. Along with the code of silence—both as a system for maintaining control over members within the Mafia and a threat of reprisal for anyone who runs to the authorities—this type of pizzo racket works effectively and efficiently. Those who are being extorted prefer not to make a fuss, agreeing to pay the “reasonable” pizzo as part of the expense of running a business. They often choose to risk criminal charges of perjury or false testimony rather than to risk the wrath of reprisal from their extortionists.
As Lunde notes, this form of extortion racketeering is the basis of both real-life Mafia activities and, of course, gangster movies, and it was the activity that installed the Mafia permanently into American society. Here’s how it took place:
In the 19th century, an organization that helped newly arrived Italians in the United States to find homes and work was the Unione Siciliana, which had branches across the country. It was infiltrated by extortionists, the so-called “Black Hand gang,” the foremost of whom was Ignazio Saietta. By 1901, Saietta had become the national chairman of the Unione Siciliana, and he filled its regional offices with many of his criminal associates. Many new Italian immigrants, especially in New York, were leaned on to pay a percentage of their weekly wage to the extortionists, fearing violence and the loss of their jobs. Small businesses such as grocers, drug stores, and barbers also paid “protection.”[27]
The anti-Mafia movement that sporadically surfaces in Sicily and Calabria is appropriately termed Addiopizzo (“Goodbye to the Pizzo”), implying that if one breaks the code of silence and does not collaborate by paying the pizzo, the Mafia will be defeated. But this is easier said than done, given the power of the silence code. The pizzo phenomenon penetrates deeply into the fabric of Sicilian and Calabrian culture and the mind-set of those growing up in such a culture, spreading to other parts of contemporary Italy. Being the wise guys that they are, the Mafiosi are extremely careful not to drive their victims to bankruptcy. Too much greed is seen as being counterproductive and “immoral,” tending to injudiciously provoke a public outcry, not to mention public pressure on the police to intervene. Gouging victims is simply not good for business, especially since the extortion business is easy to prosecute in the courts. However, as new technologies surface faster than regulating laws, the opportunities in cyberspace seem literally infinite for mobsters, as Lunde observes: “Organized criminals are now able to carry out protection rackets without moving from their desks.”[28]
Anthropologists divide the main spheres of culture into basic domains and their attendant institutions—kinship, religion, politics, law, economics, and education. These generate consensus and guarantee general adherence to the norms of behavior and communication that are deemed appropriate by the collectivity as a whole. These are established and enforced primarily by those who are centrally located within the most dominant sphere at a specific point in time. If that sphere is the religious one, for instance, then the leader or leaders of that sphere will dictate what the norms are; if it is the secular political sphere, then those located in a central position within that sphere will determine them. Those who do not comply with such norms risk censure, punishment, or marginalization. Indeed, those who reject them outright must show the validity of why they are doing so publicly. Otherwise, they risk facing some form of castigation.
The Mafia system is a small-scale model of basic culture. In fact, it is made up of an extended kinship sphere, as previously discussed. It also espouses its own forms of religion, politics, law, and education. Coalescing into the code of omertà, the syndicate can maintain an ideal of manliness, honor, and respect, imbuing it with historical validity by tracing it back to the era when Sicily was ruled by despots. It is both subversive and compelling, since it offers an alternative to ineffectual and corrupt systems of government. But unlike civil institutions, the fundamental principle of justice espoused by Mafia culture is the vendetta; however, as already mentioned, vendettas cannot be carried out in the form of brutal revenges. They are to be carried out according to the norms of respect and honor as spelled out by the code of omertà. In personal quarrels, for example, a Mafioso must show aplomb and control as he takes the law into his own hands, gaining the upper hand through poised enactments of violence. And, of course, Mafiosi must look out for one another in all situations. Any offense against an individual Mafioso or the Mafia clan will trigger a vendetta campaign by the Mafioso’s partners.
The vendetta resonates with a biblical “eye for an eye” meaning. An established form of justice in many rural cultures to this day, the vendetta serves to punish crimes wherever governments are greatly distrusted. In the case of a blood feud, the clan of the murdered individual must seek vengeance on the murderer or on the killer’s family. No wonder that Hollywood and the media have become enraptured by this concept of vendetta, with movies using the term as a title proliferating, from a 1919 German film entitled Vendetta to the 2006 film V for Vendetta. Vendetta, silence, and honor all converge in the code of omertà, imbuing it with great emotional resonance.
Deadly vendetta warfare among Mafia clans is a common occurrence as they vie for territorial hegemony to carry out their criminal activities and, more importantly, lay a geographical stake to establish their pseudo-statehood. The threat of punishment in no way deters Mafiosi from their activities and lifestyle; in fact, it fuels it. Membership in a clan is perceived as prestigious and even an obligatory coming-of-age rite for many young people in Sicily, Calabria, Naples, and many American inner-city districts. The enormous emotional appeal of omertà, with its manly and religious symbolism, probably has much more to do with the continuing appeal of the Mafia today than many might think.[29] Glorified by movies, gang warfare affords many young people the opportunity to become empowered and feel the sheltering effect of the Mob.[30]
Historically, in Sicily, the territory claimed by a clan was called a cosca. In Sicilian, a cosca refers to the heart of an artichoke (its middle stem), which is protected by the surrounding leaves of the plant,
which are often thorny. The cosca thus perfectly symbolizes the fact that the Mafia is sheltered or protected from outside forces. The appearance of these cosche was due, in part, to existing social conditions (as mentioned in the previous chapter) and the cosca’s alliance with some revolutionary cause aiming to bring about political or social change, for instance, Italian Unification. For a cosca to gain a foothold in the social terrain, it required leadership and structure. The leader came to be called a capocosca, and he was expected to be a prominent figure in the social milieu where the cosca was located. He could be a nobleman, a gabellotto (someone who leased land from the aristocrats), a well-known person, or even a priest with revolutionary inclinations. Many villages or neighborhoods had a cosca. It offered real protection against various corrupt forces in the society.
But near the end of the nineteenth century, the cosche started becoming less and less tied to some social cause and more and more inclined to enact their own style of justice. As they began losing their original function, they started gradually being taken over by small tightly knit groups of criminals, whose purpose was hardly to bring about social change, but to ensure personal financial gain. They continued to present themselves as an alternative form of justice to the corrupt legal system, even though they acted in blatant self-interest, gaining power and control through extortion activities. Nevertheless, the new cosche were perceived as constituting parallel justice systems and even self-contained economic systems, becoming, in many regions of Sicily, the de facto authority structures. Agriculture, for instance, was the main economic activity of the Corleone cosca, commerce of the Palermo cosca, and fishing of the Castellammare del Golfo cosca. Each capocosca gained prominence by corrupting public officials through intimidation and bribery. Seeing what was occurring, law-abiding citizens had no choice but to resort to a cosca for protection, thus living in two juridical universes, and paying taxes to both—to the legally constituted government of the region and to the cosca. In return, the cosca offered assurance that they would not harm a business or a specific person, although they claimed to also protect the business or individual from common street criminals and corrupt authorities (if need be). As a common Sicilian proverb aptly puts it, A paura guarda a vigna, no a sipala, which means, “It is fear that oversees a vinyard, not a fence.” The lupara, the sawed-off shotgun used by cosca members, became the symbol of vendetta justice. Today, any powerful weapon will do the job.
The original foot soldiers of the capocosca, known as the picciotti (“little ones”), were coopted enforcers who shared the booty with him. To ensure that the cosca maintained a separate identity from common street criminals, the code of omertà was enforced, demanding that anyone who cheated was to be punished and ensuring that loyalty to the cosca was maintained through brutal enforcement. At first, this rendered the internal cohesion of a cosca fragile, since disputes and jealousies were common and resolved through bloodshed. Vying for territory and dominance among the various cosche was also commonplace. But territorial disputes gradually resolved themselves in the service of self-interest for everyone concerned, and the code of omertà allowed for the cosche to survive outside threats. Silence emerged as the common language of the cosche. Talk was replaced by a powerful body language, for instance, the dire-looking face and the gesture of cutting someone’s throat or face, becoming part of a system of terror and control. “The best word is the one not spoken” was, and continues to be, a basic commandment of the omertà code.
The padrino, as already touched upon, is a Hollywood invention. In the actual Sicilian Mafia, no such figure existed before The Godfather. The boss could, of course, have been a godfather to someone in the cosca, but it was not a requirement. Nevertheless, the notion of a leader as a godfather fits in perfectly with general padrino culture in southern Italy. There was, however, a parrina in real Mafia culture, a kind of bordello madam—the term being a distortion of the madrina (“godmother”) figure into a provider of sexual entertainment for the Mafiosi. The parrinu was the local parish priest, and the parrineddu was writer Leonardo Sciascia’s portrayal of a pathetic figure who “talked too much.”
The Mafia’s welcoming of the padrino figure into its symbolic universe is a convenient fiction that adds to ensconcing its mythology. This event is a perfect example of the power of what the late French philosopher Jean Baudrillard called the simulacrum, a state of mind whereby the world of fiction is perceived as being more real than reality—a state that he called hyperreality.[31] From early myths to legends told about heroes, real and fictitious, we seem to prefer living in the realm of fantasy over real life. The borderline between fiction and reality breaks down through the power of symbolism. And our myths and legends have always been hyperreal, that is, perceived as larger than life, and thus as more real than real. The cinematic padrino is a Hollywood simulacrum, penetrating real Mafia culture.
Mafia Women
The Mafia is a patriarchal organization. Like most criminal gangs, it is a testosterone-driven enterprise, espousing tacit principles of pseudo-masculinity. Originally, women were called panza lenta (“loose guts”) because they were seen as being too talkative and gossipy and thus “spilling their guts out.” Men, on the other hand, were called uomini di panza (“men of the gut”) because they could be trusted not to talk and spill the beans. Ironically, it was the men who, as pentiti in the 1980s and 1990s, talked willingly to the authorities. By and large, women are perceived to be supplementary role players by the Mob, even though today female liberation has made some inroads into Mafia culture, with women showing themselves to be as violent as their male counterparts.[32] Omertà has, however, always assigned subservient roles to the women, even though the wives of modern-day capi might be expected to run the affairs of the clan behind the scenes, if necessary. In other criminal groups, like the Mexican cartel, the wife will often take over the “family business” if the husband is either jailed or killed.
There is a history of active participation of women in the ’Ndrangheta, which has an extended family structure that is totally dependent upon women to carry out traditional family roles. In effect, in the ’ndrine, the criminal and extended “families” are one and the same, and the women in them assume roles according to a hierarchy of power mirroring the actual hierarchy in the clan—the wife of a capo is more powerful among women than is the wife of a foot soldier, for example. She is expected to ensure that her husband’s reputation is maintained. There are documented examples of young ’Ndrangheta girls who, having fallen in love with a carabiniere (“policeman”), ended up being killed by her family for a questione d’onore (“a point of honor”). Flirtation or adultery with other men are not tolerated on any level. Essentially, ’Ndrangheta men are expected to “marry the sisters and daughters of other men of honor,” writes Dickie, or “women who have lived in a mafia environment all their lives and are therefore more likely to have the kind of discretion and/or submissiveness that the organization requires of them.”[33] Arranged marriages are common and form the basis for expanding the power of a family.
Although seen as subservient, the women are held in high respect, and they are expected to follow a strict moral code, but when it comes to the men, a double standard surfaces. Mistresses are tolerated as part of manliness, although they are to be kept secret. Brazen and open sexual shenanigans of any type are strictly forbidden, but extramarital sex for the men is not only tolerated, but in some instances even encouraged. At no time, however, must the affair come out into the open. Cawthorne and Cawthorne tell a story related to Brooklyn mobster Frankie Saggio, born in 1964, which brings this out emphatically:
From the age of seven, his uncle would take him over the East River to have a haircut, a shoeshine, and a lunch in Little Italy. It was there that Frankie got a detailed education in the ways of Cosa Nostra. Uncle Philly was steeped in the Mafia ethos. His father-in-law was Carlo Gambino, head of the Gambino crime family. If one of his men turned up at his house with his girlfriend, the door would be
shut in his face. He would be told to come with his wife, or not at all.[34]
Promiscuity for the men is seen as actually preserving family unity since the implicit principle of the code is that “boys will be boys.” Mafia men have mistresses, as men of power and influence often do. On the other hand, if the women are caught in an adulterous relation, they are banished from the family or punished in sometimes brutal ways. Omertà is certainly a convenient code for Mafia men; not so much for the women. As Reynolds observes, “Any woman who swears risks being labeled a puttana, a prostitute, and cheating on a husband who happens to be a ‘made’ man is a capital crime.”[35] This view of sexual relations is consistent with patriarchal cultures and, in Europe, has a tradition that goes as far back as the Renaissance (and perhaps even before). It is evident, for instance, in the plays of Calderón, the Spanish dramatist and poet, who was the last prominent figure of the golden age. The main theme of his writing is the exaltation of the Castilian code of honor requiring husband, father, or brother to punish the transgressions of an unfaithful woman.
Despite the double standard, there is nonetheless a deep-seated respect for women that derives more from general Sicilian culture than it does from the code of omertà. Moreover, the situation is changing. The growing importance of women in the modern Mafia and ’Ndrangheta is no doubt a consequence of the progressive liberation of women from their traditional housewife roles in Italian society. In the past, the women were more likely to stay in their place, and their influence, which was indirect or suggestive, did not extend beyond the husband or the immediate home environment. In the ’Ndrangheta, only if a woman showed particular criminal qualities could she rise to be a sorella (“sister”) d’omertà. This honor, however, was not, and still is not, open to any woman. It is restricted to a wife, daughter, sister, or fiancée of a clan male who shows prowess in criminality. There are documented cases of Mafia and ’Ndrangheta women seeking to avenge some perceived wrong by imploring the men of the clan to track down and eliminate the wrongdoer or even taking the vendetta into their own hands.
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