Would I turn my father in? That’s the question going through my head as I listen to Angelo Provenzano talk, part of my Sicilian tour’s commitment to controversial topics, this one being on the mafia. Angelo is the son of Bernardo Provenzano, former boss of the Cosa Nostra, the Corleone-based mafia here in Sicily.

Would I turn my own father in if he had done terrible things? The easy answer is: I don’t know. I can’t imagine what it would have been like to be a teenager and find out that my father was a leader within – and soon to be THE leader of – a criminal organization responsible for literally dozens of killings, sentenced in absentia to life in prison for his role in those.

Angelo is open, honest, candid, and emotional as he talks about Bernardo Provenzano the person. He doesn’t pretend his father wasn’t a criminal and murderer, stating that his 2006 arrest (he would die in prison in 2016) was appropriate. But he also says it stands in contrast to who Provenzano was as a father and a husband. He talks about how being the son of a mafia boss has been for him, and how despite never getting involved in the Cosa Nostra himself, he will forever be linked to criminality. (It should be known that even having him talk to groups like mine is controversial. For many in Sicily, humanizing someone like Bernardo Provenzano is completely inappropriate. I liken it to having a descendent of Franco give talks in Madrid about the person behind the dictatorship. I’d imagine that not going over well either. And to be honest, I am still as of this writing not sure how I feel about it; I’d prefer it to be Angelo’s story and not one about how someone responsible for such terrible things was also a “good” parent.)

Angelo is our group’s second speaker. Gino Felicetti, author of The Devil’s Choice, a book about the Cosa Nostra, is first. For Gino, too, the Sicilian mafia is personal, though for him condemnation is much fuller. He had family members involved in the mafia, and for their crimes, his nineteen year old daughter cannot be an attorney in Italy, her lifelong dream. Any family must be mafia-free going back five generations to have their members be able to practice law here. That is how fully the mafia penetrated society, and how seriously – and let’s face it, unfairly, in this case – the government takes the chance it might do so again.

Between the two, Angelo from the personal side and Gino from the still emotional but more academic standpoint, our group gets a tiny but intimate glance at the thing that this island is perhaps best known for.

It is impossible to briefly sum up the history of the Cosa Nostra, but Gino gives it his best in about a half hour, which itself is a nearly miraculous feat. The mafia formed in a power vacuum after Italian unification (click here to read about that fascinating period), when rapid industrialization in northern Italy left the south – and Sicily especially – behind and pretty much destitute, its prior ruling class having left for the united capital in Rome. It was violently suppressed by Mussolini, only to reemerge after World War Two, partially thanks to working with the Allied Powers providing intelligence for the invasion of Italy. When the new Italian government formed, those most anti-fascist were given (many by the Americans) posts, and the mafiosi were about as anti-fascist as one could get. I guess their evil was just a different flavor.

Thus began a period of seventy years of Sicily being effectively controlled by the mafia. It didn’t help matters that unemployment was high (and still is – more on this in a moment), mistrust of government was higher (and still is), and poverty rampant (not as bad today, but still the highest in Italy at about 22%). So for many, the only path to a job was through the mafia. They and their controlled officials promised jobs, but those of course came with strings. And the cycle goes on.

I haven’t been able to find exact figures, but to give you a scale of the mafia’s crimes, from 1983 to 2002, members of the Cosa Nostra carried out more than 5400 murders in Italy. This is in addition to attempted murders, and any number of other crimes. Among the most blatant were the 1992 murders of anti-mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paulo Borsellino (along with their security retinues). These led to the 1993 arrest of then-boss Toto Riina, after which Angelo’s father, Bernardo, took the reins.

In Palermo, near the spectacular cathedral, sits a small museum, the No Mafia Memorial. It is free to enter and explore the few tiny rooms dedicated to the history of the Cosa Nostra and the memory of its victims. Photos and stories are a bit disturbing, but worth seeing for a few minutes.

Of course, those experiencing crime directly aren’t the only victims of the mafia. Gino is a victim, watching his daughter’s dreams dashed before his eyes due to family involvement before she was even born. Angelo, too, is a victim, being raised on the run and denied a childhood, not able to get a job due to his family lineage. The stories are endless, and all are sad. The mafia has taken so much from so many, and the reverberations of that are being felt constantly.

As Gino relays it, with the arrest of Matteo Denaro in January of 2023, the Cosa Nostra truly ended as an organized and powerful group. However, it doesn’t mean organized crime has stopped in Sicily, or in Italy. Other powerful groups, like the Ndragheta in Calabria, have become more visible, and here in Sicily, smaller gangs have taken over from the more centrally run mafia. Many business owners still pay for “protection,” though the percentage is declining. But with mistrust of the government still very high, few trust the authorities to help, so a code of silence still remains for many.

What will happen now? Both Gino and Angelo are less optimistic. While the Cosa Nostra may be gone, the environment that led to its rise remains. Unemployment is high, more than 20%, and up to a whopping 50% among younger Sicilians. Wages are low, with many working seasonal contracts. And with a government seen as corrupt and both unable and unwilling to address real issues, there is every possibility that crime continues, though it should be noted that the violent crime rate is down more than 90% from its peak in the early 1990s.

The question still haunts me. Would I turn my father in? Or more simply, would I have the courage to stand up for morality in the face of possible retribution? I’d like to hope I would. But it’s a decision I’ve never been forced to make. For people like Angelo and Gino, interactions with the mafia are only too real, and their consequences even more so.

It is unfortunate that Sicily is known more for the mafia than for anything else, since it is a truly amazing place, as I hope you’ll get from reading the remainder of my articles from the island. Perhaps one day it will be more famous for those positives.

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