History of the Italian Mafia

 

The first recorded acts of organized crime in Italy were in 1208 in Palermo, Sicily. The “Sicilian Vespers” revolution against the French was traditionally viewed as the birth of the Sicilian Mafia, although the term “Mafia” arises hundreds of years later. This underground movement against the French may be seen as the ancestor of a later Mafia. During feudal times in Sicily, the Mafia first aimed at protecting the estates of out-of-town landlords. The mafia first emerged in Palermo, Sicily, a strong and successful port city where most of Sicily’s wealth was concentrated. Derived from Arabic, “mafia” is a word that refers to “refugee.” A member of the mafia, known as a “Mafioso,” meant a “man of honor” The Mafia also worked towards protecting its villages from the invading Algerians who migrated to Sicily from Northern Africa.
Originally, the concept of the Mafia did not include a centralized organization. Rather, many small groups, called districts, had their own forms of government. The Mafia gained control by its use of scare tactics. By using different sorts of terrorist methods against the peasantry, who could vote, the Mafia gained the upper hand in Italian society and placed members of their own district into political offices. Once in office, the Mafia gained influence from police authorities and was able to gain legal access to weapons and relax the measures against their crimes. Comprised of a network of criminal thugs, the Mafia dominated the Sicilian countryside by the early nineteenth century. Bound by Omertà, a strict code of conduct, the Mafia members were permitted from any contact or cooperation with the authorities.

The Mafia, also referred to as “La Cosa Nostra” (loosely translated as “Our Thing”), was a name given to a number of organized groups of Sicilian brigands in the 19th and 20th centuries. Unlike the Camorra in Naples, their was no hierarchical organization, rather, each group operated on its own. The underlying assumption of the Mafia was that legal authorities were useless and that justice must be obtained directly, as in the vendetta. Italian attempts to curtail the Mafia have suffered from political corruption and the assassination of judges.

During the Fascist period in Italy, Cesare Mori, the Prefect of Palermo, utilized certain powers to wage war against the Mafia and their illicit activities. His work resulted in many “Mafiosi” being jailed or forced into exile. In reality, though, the most prominent leaders of the Sicilian Mafia were enrolled into the MVSN, the fascist Militia, and it was only the low-level suspects that were charged in Mori’s campaign, mainly for propaganda purposes.

The Mafiosi who escaped prosecution fled to the United States. Among those who emigrated was Joseph Bonano, nicknamed Joe Bananas, who eventually dominated the US branch of the Mafia. Lucky Luciano and other members of the Mafia were imprisoned during this time in the US, but interestingly enough, the Americans took advantage of the circumstances, and utilized the Sicilian connections of American Mafiosi during the invasion of 1943 (In July, 1943, July 5, an allied invasion fleet sails to Sicily, on July 10, allies begin their invasion of Axis-controlled Europe with landings on the Island of Sicily, July 25, The Gran Consigliore del Fascismo retires its consent to Mussolini; Mussolini arrested and the power is given to Maresciallo d’Italia Gen. Pietro Badoglio.). Many Italian Mafiosi became valuable patriots and joined the US in the fight against Fascism. As a new American ally, Luciano was pardoned and traveled back to Sicily in 1946 to continue his activates.

The Mafia did not become powerful in Italy again until after the country's surrender in the Second World War. In the 1980s and 1990s, however, a series of internecine "gang wars" led to many prominent Mafia members being murdered, and a new generation of Mafiosi has placed more emphasis on "white-collar" criminal activity as opposed to more traditional racketeering enterprises. In reaction to these developments, the Italian press has come up with the phrase La Cosa Nostra ("the new thing") to refer to the revamped organization.