Sleeping With The Fishes

I present for your perusal an interesting article from this weekend's Financial Times about the hows and whys of the Sicilian mafia's ability to live on in this day and age.

The author grew up in Sicily, but moved to London to start a law practice and has since become a novelist. The anecdotes she shares are startling, if for no other reason than that they show the Sicilian populace's willing participation in the system of "clientelism" that brings the mafia its power. Even if the participation is that of the unthinking variety:

{...}”Mafiosita” lurks within me, and it came out powerfully last summer. I was at our family estate in Sicily. My grandchild cut his hand; while I was holding him in my arms, blood flowed copiously. I rushed to the telephone and called a friend: “Whom do you know at A&E?”, I asked. Had I been in London, I would have gone straight to the local hospital.

I thought long and hard on that episode, and was shamed. Distrustful of the ability of the local health service to deliver services without an “introduction”, I had resorted to the “known ways”: personal contact. My friend is just a friend, but for people less privileged than I, the Mafia is always ready - at a price - to be the “best of all friends”, and it has friends in all places. Sciascia was right: there is “something of the Mafia” in each of us. My father would have been ashamed of me.{...}

Go read the whole thing. It's fascinating.