Expose the Mafia and live in fear

Subject: Expose the Mafia and live in fear Fri Jul 04, 2008 6:20 pm

IT IS a glorious summer day in Naples when Roberto Saviano calls out of the blue to say that he has arrived before time - two hours early to be exact.

The meeting place has been negotiated over a period of weeks, and when the armoured cars park, five Neapolitan carabinieri in civilian clothing emerge before their charge.

Once inside, all rooms - even bedrooms, bathrooms and closets - are checked before the men nod and leave him to talk.

Not yet 30, this young man should have the world at his feet: Gomorra, a raw and furious diatribe against the global might of the Neapolitan Mafia, has sold more than a million copies in Italy and The New York Times has placed it on its must-read list.

The film adaptation floored critics at the Cannes Film Festival and the Italian President, Giorgio Napolitano - and the Pope - have offered the author public support.

Instead, he is living a Salman Rushdie-style life in hiding as threats to his life by Camorra henchmen have forced him to move from house to house, under constant police guard, travelling by bulletproof car.

When he walks in, it is the eyes of this slight, tattooed man that really are striking: they are dark, and seem haunted. His written words exude intelligence and courage but face to face there is deep sadness inside the anger.

"In Naples, the hatred directed against me is without limits. Twice, our car has been spat on. I have to go around in an armoured car. I cannot find a house to live in … just now, I have been chased out of the house where I was and am living in a hotel.

"Do you know what they did … the other tenants banded together to pay the proprietor the equivalent of a month's rent. Here, I am seen as dirty because I spoke and I wrote of 'that thing'. I never expected such hostility. It is total. Absolute."

His book is a mix of investigative journalism drawn from interviews and court reports entwined with harrowing firsthand tales and observations. It is imbued with fury - at the senseless violence and exploitation of innocent people, compatriots whose stories have been ignored by the Italian press for years.

"You ask why this story was not told sooner? So did I. But it is not omerta [the Mafia code of silence]. It is because these were stories about people regarded as nobodies, as merda [shit], as people out there, not in the big cities and towns."

Saviano is a native of Casal di Principe, the town that spawned the powerful Camorra clans known as the Casalese. His father was the local doctor, who once suffered a ferocious beating for breaking a Camorra rule and helping a shooting victim. Roberto, one of two sons, was imbued with the macho and often primitive values of southern Italian men and admits that despite his education (he studied philosophy at university), these are mores he finds hard to shake.

Once inside, all rooms - even bedrooms, bathrooms and closets - are checked before the men nod and leave him to talk.

Not yet 30, this young man should have the world at his feet: Gomorra, a raw and furious diatribe against the global might of the Neapolitan Mafia, has sold more than a million copies in Italy and The New York Times has placed it on its must-read list.

The film adaptation floored critics at the Cannes Film Festival and the Italian President, Giorgio Napolitano - and the Pope - have offered the author public support.

Instead, he is living a Salman Rushdie-style life in hiding as threats to his life by Camorra henchmen have forced him to move from house to house, under constant police guard, travelling by bulletproof car.

When he walks in, it is the eyes of this slight, tattooed man that really are striking: they are dark, and seem haunted. His written words exude intelligence and courage but face to face there is deep sadness inside the anger.

"In Naples, the hatred directed against me is without limits. Twice, our car has been spat on. I have to go around in an armoured car. I cannot find a house to live in … just now, I have been chased out of the house where I was and am living in a hotel.

"Do you know what they did … the other tenants banded together to pay the proprietor the equivalent of a month's rent. Here, I am seen as dirty because I spoke and I wrote of 'that thing'. I never expected such hostility. It is total. Absolute."

His book is a mix of investigative journalism drawn from interviews and court reports entwined with harrowing firsthand tales and observations. It is imbued with fury - at the senseless violence and exploitation of innocent people, compatriots whose stories have been ignored by the Italian press for years.

"You ask why this story was not told sooner? So did I. But it is not omerta [the Mafia code of silence]. It is because these were stories about people regarded as nobodies, as merda [shit], as people out there, not in the big cities and towns."

Saviano is a native of Casal di Principe, the town that spawned the powerful Camorra clans known as the Casalese. His father was the local doctor, who once suffered a ferocious beating for breaking a Camorra rule and helping a shooting victim. Roberto, one of two sons, was imbued with the macho and often primitive values of southern Italian men and admits that despite his education (he studied philosophy at university), these are mores he finds hard to shake.

LNK
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Subject: Re: Expose the Mafia and live in fear Fri Jul 04, 2008 8:04 pm