Il testo che segue, finora inedito, è stato scritto nel 1984 dal giornalista americano Roger Cohn, allora inviato del "Wall Street Journal" in Italia, adesso direttore del magazine "Mother Jones", di San Francisco. In quegli anni i riflettori della grande stampa italiana ed estera erano puntati sulla Sicilia, dove si erano succeduti delitti di mafia clamorosi come quelli del presidente della Regione Piersanti Mattarella, del parlamentare comunista Pio La Torre, del magistrato Rocco Chinnici, in ultimo, nel settembre 1983, quello del generale Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa.

For the foreign press, the Mafia is a major story. No sooner did the wave of Mafia arrests begin last September than droves of foreign correspondence began making their way to Palermo. Since then, newspapers in New York, London and other major capitals have been full of stories about boss-turned-informer Tommaso Buscetta and about the Italian state's new determination in confronting Cosa Nostra.

This intense interest in the Mafia does not, however, embrace a general interest in the problems of Southern Italy. Most of the correspondents who have been to Palermo over the past few months probably had not visited Sicily since the Mafia was last in the news. Earthquakes, organised crime and the periodic eruptions of Mount Etna provoke coverage of the South, but the area's perennial problems of poverty, poor government and misguided investment tend to be widely ignored.

This is reflected in the way the Mafia story is treated. Cosa Nostra is viewed much more as a source of sensational news about killings, heroin laboratories and international drug smuggling than as a powerful symbol of the general problems of the South. The social background of the Mafiaand his penetration of local government are examined less closely than the lifestyle of a major boss like Ms Buscetta or the random killing of eight Mafiosi in the Brancaccio area of Palermo.

Why so much interest in the Mafia? The answer is probably to be found in the organization's mystery, glamour and international links. The extraordinary success of Mario Puzo's novel "The Godfather" (Il Padrino) revealed the popular attraction that a Mafia hero could exert. To most people outside Italy, the Mafioso is not the picciotto who kills for a million lire, but a member of a strange, inpenetrable society, whose history and rules distinguish it from other criminal organisations.

Following the confessions of Mr. Buscetta, there is a growing awareness that the Mafia has changed. The organization's international character, and the enormous wealth and power it has gained from heroin are generally recognised. It is seen more as a complex, criminal multinational, and less as an intriguing bend of Sicilian Men of Honour. The mass killings in Sicily in recent years have created a sense that the discipline of the Mafia and its old codes of behaviour have broken down. The collapse of the code do "omertà" has reinforced this impression.

However, the old image of the Mafia is by no means dead. If it were, there would probably be less general interest in the story. Men like Luciano Leggio or Raffaele Cutolo of the Neapolitan Camorra, are much more than ordinary criminals. They exert a kind of popular fascination as the most powerful expressions of a culture and a tradition that many foreigners find difficult to comprehend, and therefore intriguing. The Mafia's code of silence, its traditional sense of honour, and its power based on unwritten laws all set it apart, and make its leaders charismatic.

The fact that the organisation has resisted repeated attempts to eliminate it, and has established powerful networks in the United States, Canada, Venezuela and other countries also contributes to the widespread sense that there is something remarkable about the Mafia. <people want to read about it because it is so resilient.

Foreigners are less interested in the many ways in which the Mafia is an emblem and a cause of the general problems of the South. Its control over the award of public contracts, its central place in the client systems of many prominent politicians, and its role in forcing out private investment are rarely examined in great detail.

There is a sense that, as in often written, "the Mafia rune Sicily" or "the Camorra runs Naples", but there is little detailed analysis of the mechanism of this power. This stems partly from the difficulty of gaining reliable information on the Mafia's manipulation of State funds and politicians. But it is also the result of a widespread sense that the problems of the South are intractable and unchanging, too complex for explanation to the foreign reader.

Thus, the day-to-day Mafia, that which most affects the lives of Southerners, is ignored in favour of the Mafia of grandiose international operations. Correspondents may mention in passing that State funds provided for building new houses after the 1980 Naples earthquake have ended up in the hands of the Camorra, or that spending of public funds in the Sicilian region has been paralysed by the influence of the Mafia over the award of public contracts or the granting of subsidies, but they will rarely devote entire articles to these subjects.

If things work badly in the South, if rubbish is not collected, new hospitals are not built, promised houses are not provided, and buses do not run, then that is widely assumed to be the immutable way of things. The links between these problems and the strength of organised crime generally remain hazy.

Recent arrests have done something to change this. The fact that Christian Democrat Vito Ciancimino and the Salvo cousins have been thrown into jail has prompted some correspondents to attempt to explain how they appear to have been decisive in maintaining the Mafia's control over Sicily. The problems of the Christian Democratic party in Sicily have been examined, and the fight between the old forces with Mafia ties and the new pressing for another kind of government explained.

In general, the conclusion has been pessimistic. The Mafia's deep roots in the South appear too strong to be quickly uprooted. On a recent visit to Palermo I was told by the owner of a restaurant that the State should stop trying to change the way Sicilian do business, particularly "at a time when our turnover has reached the levels of Fiat". Such attitudes seem impervious to new forces such as Città per l'Uomo.

The struggle between these forces - between what may be called a Mafia way of thinking and a more open, modern approach - is not, however, generally examined in its full significance. It is nothing less than the decisive a struggle between those who want the South to change, and those who would prefer it to remain much the same. But this is a complex subject and one not easily explained to the foreign reader.

For as long as new private enterprises are to be intimidated, the spending of State money distorted, investments wasted, and the possibility of innovation discouraged, the problems of the South will be difficult to resolve even partially. These are all habits more or less directly linked to the existence of the Mafia, the Camorra and the 'Ndrangheta. Recent economic successes in Puglia seem to illustrate how in a less polluted social climate, the South can innovate, produce and create wealth.

If there were a change, the attention of the foreign press might begin to concentrate less on crime, natural disasters and colossal administrative errors, and more on the positive achievements of the South and the striking transformations that have taken place there since the war.

Instead of the disaster of Gioia Tauro, the ravages of Mount Etna, and the latest Mafia killings, we might hear more of positive new investment, of new forces in Sicily and Naples, of the South's development unto a better place to live. Correspondents might be prompted to look more closely at what in happening in the Mezzogiorno, an area which, after all, accounts for 35 per cent of Italy's population and 40 per cent of its area.

Until then, however, Mr Buscetta, Mr Leggio and Me Cutolo are going to have a major place in the way the South is reported by Italy's foreign press.

Roger Cohn

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