[HN Gopher] A novelist who took on the Italian mafia and lived
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A novelist who took on the Italian mafia and lived
https://archive.md/bzPSR
Author : Thevet
Score : 76 points
Date : 2026-01-28 05:28 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.thetimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.thetimes.com)
| weinzierl wrote:
| Reminds me of the story of _Andre Camara_ , who photographed a
| favela drug war in the mid 80s.
|
| Take away: criminals are vain too.
| jama211 wrote:
| Yup, they want to be documented. Tale as old as time.
| articulatepang wrote:
| For those who don't know: the film _City of God_ is based on
| this, and it's a great movie. One of my all-time favorites. The
| directing, acting photography and storytelling are all very
| well done. Worth anyone's time.
| barrenko wrote:
| I have to rewatch what, been a decade.
| noduerme wrote:
| From 2002. It's crazy how happy I was to have 360p mpeg
| rips back then. I'm gonna have to re-pirate it tonight.
| rayiner wrote:
| Same thing with the Taliban:
| https://apimagesblog.com/blog/2021/10/4/taliban-portraits
|
| By the way, there is a Taliban who looks exactly like Christian
| Bale:
| https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/ace/standard/976/cpsprodpb/13EB0/pr...
| cucumber3732842 wrote:
| Why wouldn't an up and coming government administration want
| to take professional photos and engage in all the other
| trappings of legitimate government?
| inglor_cz wrote:
| One interesting thing about the situation is that Islamic
| religious authorities used to have conflicting views on
| permissibility of portraits and depictions of living beings
| in general, which is also why so much Islamic medieval art
| is abstract. Abstract art was religiously safe.
|
| Ubiquity and practicality of photography basically
| destroyed the restrictive side of the conflict. As you can
| see, even the Taliban seems to be on the permissive side
| now.
|
| (IIRC some of the most extreme forms of Islamic State in
| Syria/Iraq tried to ban photography of humans and animals.)
| rayiner wrote:
| I agree. Syria's new leader, a former Al Qaeda, put on a
| suit and got a major glow up:
| https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20250508-syrian-interim-
| preside.... Macron embraced him warmly. News orgs gave him
| positive coverage. Then Trump said what everyone was
| thinking: he looks pretty good in a suit:
| https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-
| east/ahmad-a....
| reddalo wrote:
| Off topic, but I'm always amazed by Archive.md/.is/whatever. To
| this day I don't understand how they manage to bypass a lot of
| paywalls.
|
| The mystery about the owner makes it even more intriguing.
| jama211 wrote:
| I just assumed they copied it into their own db
| amouat wrote:
| I assume they just pretend to be the Googlebot so the site just
| gives the text.
| dewey wrote:
| Won't work for any popular site. You can try that easily by
| using extensions to set the user agent. If you are not
| checking the public list of IPs that Google publishes for the
| crawler you are doing it wrong.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Given to how many people its existence must be incredibly
| infuriating, it's so odd that it's not being chased down with
| more haste than pirate bay was. I mean I'm glad it's not, but
| kinda surprised.
| dewey wrote:
| The music or movie industry lobby is much more aggressive I'd
| assume.
| nosafemode wrote:
| There has been some dns resolver issues, some DNS resolvers
| wont return the address to the sites like archive.is or sites
| like Annas Archive
| silcoon wrote:
| Maybe they have a paid account? I don't think there's much
| magic behind
| blast wrote:
| Publications could use watermarking to encode the name of the
| account an article is being served to, but they don't seem
| to. I wonder why.
| LordHeini wrote:
| I think archive has mostly news, random articles and such.
|
| And as they say nothing is more worthless than yesterday's
| news.
| ventegus wrote:
| thetimes.com has a paywall if you visit it from the UK, and
| full content if you are in the US.
|
| entonces, US-based archive.org "bypasses" this paywall as well:
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/https://www.thetimes.com/culture...
| null_deref wrote:
| It angers me that Fascist Italy could push the Mafia to the brink
| of extinction but Democratic Italy can't.
| locallost wrote:
| One Mafia pushed the other out. No improvement for normal
| people.
| MrBuddyCasino wrote:
| They can, they just don't do it. This is the case in every
| western ,,liberal democracy".
| alecco wrote:
| They just loooooove the campaign contributions.
| blell wrote:
| Why does that anger you? Democracy is fundamentally unable to
| solve such issues.
| null_deref wrote:
| Please elaborate I think there're quite a few examples that
| contradict this
| Etheryte wrote:
| Nearly every democratic country in the world is a counter
| example to this, what do you mean exactly?
| dauertewigkeit wrote:
| Not true. Organized crime operates largely where people
| have money, i.e. in Europe, it's mostly UK, Netherlands,
| Belgium, Germany, Sweden...etc.
| blell wrote:
| Hell, Belgium is basically a narcostate at this point.
| koverstreet wrote:
| If you think Belgium is a narcostate - oh my :)
|
| People lose touch with reality when life becomes too rich
| and comfortable, and they become too focused on security.
| You miss all the other corrosive influences on society.
|
| I've travelled the entire United States, multiple times
| over, and seen quite a bit of Europe and South America,
| and I'm in Colombia now.
|
| Latin America, and Colombia in particular would be far
| more of a "narcostate" according to the popular Northern
| definition - but perception often isn't reality.
|
| I've never seen the gripping poverty and desperation
| that's common in the United States anywhere in Latin
| America; even the poorer communities here tend to be
| vibrant and well functioning, with families and little
| farming communities everywhere that are living life well.
| The fabric of society functions pretty well - health care
| and healthy food is far more available, far less conflict
| with government apparatuses (try walking into a DMV
| anywhere in the states, vs. walking into a government
| office in Latin America - I think you'll find it
| enlightening).
|
| The security-obsessed mindset in the United States and
| Europe leads people to want to stamp out the mafia and
| cartels, but if you look at the actual outcomes I think
| it's pretty clear that that approach fails in the long
| run. Look at Mexico for the worst example of what can
| happen - being next to the United States the pressures
| have been high, and it hasn't worked, and cartel violence
| is absolutely ludicrous.
|
| When people have more of a "live and let live" approach,
| things tend to stabilize in unconventional arrangements
| that are on the whole much less toxic to society. So
| Colombia, which does have cartels, doesn't have the same
| level of warfare or violence that affects the average
| person as Mexico does - where you'll regularly see a half
| dozen army/swat guys on patrol in a pickup with M-16s.
| Even so, you don't feel the same level of tension about
| that in Mexico vs. seeing a LEO presense in the United
| States, where that often means outright harassment for
| the populace.
|
| There's a lot more to having a functional society than
| just eliminating elements that run contrary to "popular
| order".
|
| And Belgium is great :)
| luqtas wrote:
| > I've never seen the gripping poverty and desperation
| that's common in the United States anywhere in Latin
| America; even the poorer communities here tend to be
| vibrant and well functioning, with families and little
| farming communities everywhere that are living life well.
|
| with all the respect but what a naive paragraph. i
| suggest you to go away from touristics places or get into
| a poor part of any big city in Latin america. the stuff
| is nasty. what you are comparing is relatively stable
| rural families that would be an akin to a rural medium
| class on the USA... you can almost say in 100% of the
| cases a medium class North American is equivalent of
| someone from the upper class here. in term of
| goods/comfort, not work. and if you still romantize as a
| traveler these poor communities on the backcountry, i
| suggest to try a week or 2 of their work. just take the
| routine of a +40 y/o man to check what being 'medium
| class' is about. being on the hunger line with a bare
| house is poverty and Latin America has many examples
| koverstreet wrote:
| Have you seen the poorer parts of the United States? Or
| walked around the Tenderloin? Or seen what meth has done
| to parts of the rust belt, and the farming communities
| that have been hollowed out and eviscerated across the
| midwest?
|
| Ever been to a reservation?
| luqtas wrote:
| you are comparing a marginalized demographic against
| people who belong to the middle class on Latin America.
| it's totally out of sense. we also have cracolandia and
| favelas and people dying of diarrhoea and dying of hunger
| in some regions.
|
| please, don't visit a country with probably tourist type
| of visit and sum up a whole continent on socioeconomics
| or whatever category your empirical sociologic
| observation was
|
| edit: since ur in Latin America and if ur not reading
| anything, i recommend:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Veins_of_Latin_America
| koverstreet wrote:
| Ok, if you're actually from Latin America, I should
| apologize - I don't mean to say that those kinds of
| issues don't exist (and actually, I have seen some -
| Honduras) - I often assume I'm talking to someone from
| the states, and Americans have gotten insular and really
| out of touch, and most have no idea how much things have
| changed over the past 50 years.
|
| That said, I'd rather live in middle lower class Latin
| America that Estados Unidos any day. The food is probably
| going to be better - too many places in the States
| Walmart is the only practical option now - health care
| won't bankrupt you, and people in Latin America are
| almost universally better educated and less depressed on
| social issues.
|
| And I think a lot of that can be traced to a culture
| that's a bit less authoritarian, because people
| understand the history of why that doesn't work. Just
| going to war with the Mafia or the narcos is a trite
| answer, but it usually doesn't solve things in the long
| run.
|
| Edit - also, you really should compare the poorer parts
| of the big cities you're talking about to Detroit or New
| Orleans or the Tenderloin. In my experience, people in
| Latin America can also have a skewed perspective. The
| world is a big place.
| null_deref wrote:
| I'm no expert on global crime stats, but it feels like
| organized crime used to be way more 'in your face.' Back
| in the day, the countries you mentioned including Eastern
| Europe, you'd hear about car bombings, public shootouts,
| and blatant protection rackets. Doesn't the relative
| disappearance of that kind of chaos suggest things have
| actually improved? Look at the UK, for instance the fact
| that average police officers patrol without firearms
| feels like a pretty strong indicator of a more stable
| society, doesn't it?
| mikkupikku wrote:
| Organized crime doesn't like publicly visible violence.
| That's bad for business. They only resort to that when
| they feel they have no other choice. They do shit like
| bomb judges and get into shootouts with the police when
| they have to exert their power, not when they feel secure
| and business is good.
|
| A better measure of organized crime is the sort of crime
| they profit from, like the general availability of
| illegal drugs, trafficked women, etc.
| null_deref wrote:
| But aren't car bombs and public shootouts between
| different crime groups an unavoidable by product of
| existing organized crime? It seems to me there always be
| someone who thinks he can get more money by leaving a
| group and creating one of their own or some other group
| trying to expand revenue and territory
| mikkupikku wrote:
| Not necessarily. Intra-gang violence can be done in more
| private ways, public terrorism is a choice but not an
| inevitability. Gang splits are also less likely to occur
| when the government is corrupt and working with some
| gangs but not others; the intra-gang violence can be
| disguised as law enforcement action and the overwhelming
| power of the government makes them a powerful ally that
| deters competition from even trying.
| null_deref wrote:
| Interesting take. I think I have lived in an environment
| that makes it harder for to imagine stuff like that can
| happen
| nkrisc wrote:
| That's just the state mafia replacing the other.
| viktorcode wrote:
| They pushed them out of Italy, which forced mafia to adapt in
| the US, eventually becoming richer and stronger. A much more
| powerful transnational mafia returned back to Italy.
| oriettaxx wrote:
| by "they" do you mean Mussolini?
|
| What exactly Leonardo Sciascia mean in his "Porte Aperte" is
| the fascism merely "anesthetize" the mafia rather than
| eradicating it (gaining temporary Sicilian consent through
| illusionary repression)
| trhway wrote:
| With Putin's Russia transition to authoritarian and recently
| becoming fully totalitarian, the Russian Mafia of 90s (with the
| 90s being the most democratic time in Russian history), is
| pretty much no more. FSB and police have replaced them in the
| protection and extortion domain. Thus nowdays an arrested
| colonel of FSB or police may easily have a couple cubic meters
| of money (euro and dollars) at home, to the envy of many
| mafioso around the world. Or Chechnja - instead of many smaller
| (and poorer and less organized) warlords of 90s, now there is
| only one with personal army of 40000 and exploiting the whole
| region in the style of the most cruel mafia.
| pandajoy wrote:
| How about America? And what about Trump?
| y-curious wrote:
| America doesn't have bribery! It has "lobbying". This has
| been a problem long before Trump made it shameless.
| cucumber3732842 wrote:
| This. We do't have bribery have made the bribery above
| the table to "legitimize" it and make the useful idiots
| and enablers simp for it. The "pure" act of lobbying is
| only the tip of the iceberg. There's all sorts of
| incestuous revolving door and distasteful but not illegal
| dealigns between government and the industries government
| favors.
|
| If I had a nickle for every time I read a "if you don't
| like your tax dollars being spend on <obvious handout
| bullshit with negligible positive impact on anything>
| then you should go vote about it" or "if you do't like
| the govermet squashing <something> at the obvious behest
| of <entrenched interest> just vote harder" comment I'd be
| rich enough to buy an entire train worth of boxcars to
| put those comment's authors on.
| silcoon wrote:
| Did they? I'm pretty sure that's just political propaganda of
| the regime.
| mikkupikku wrote:
| I don't think they actually pushed the mob out, but evidently
| they did succeed in pissing off the mob enough to make the
| mob happy and willing collaborators with the Allies.
| oriettaxx wrote:
| a couple of links about this
|
| https://historycollection.com/the-mafias-secret-role-in-
| help...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaborations_between_the_Un
| i...
| null_deref wrote:
| I learned about it in the article.
|
| > Under Mussolini, Moorehead argues convincingly, the Mob
| merely became dormant.
|
| I did some googling and seems like this is a popular belief.
| mikkupikku wrote:
| The purpose of democracy is to create stable governance with
| peaceful transitions of power, so that people feel confident
| about the future and are willing to invest in long term things
| that require long term stability. It's not because we think the
| plebiscite are really wise and effective at governing, they're
| not, but stability is more important and ultimately more humane
| than government which is truly effective but not stable in the
| long run.
| karmakurtisaani wrote:
| I don't doubt that a fascist regime can solve problems like
| organized crime effectively. This is because they don't need to
| care about human rights or the rule of law. The problem is that
| once the mob is gone, the fascists stay.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| Mafia exists because legal entities refuse to take
| responsibilities --- oh it's too expensive to do X so we will
| leave it alone or legalize it. So eventually the underground
| takes over and Mafia becomes quasi governments.
|
| To eradicate you need a stronger central government that is
| willing to send its probes into the deepest of the society and
| has a strong hand. Unfortunately this also has unforeseen
| consequences as well so is not everyone's cup. Some societies
| prefer a stronger central government and some don't.
| newsclues wrote:
| Modern version has spawned TV show
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberto_Saviano
| lormayna wrote:
| Saviano is exactly one of the "antimafia professionals" that
| Sciascia complained about.
| newsclues wrote:
| Sciascia Died in 89, Saviano was 10 years old and wouldn't
| start writing until the early 2000s.
| lormayna wrote:
| It's not about the year of birth, it's about the role.
| Saviano creates his own career with mafia and now is acting
| as opinionist to any other option (i.e. now about the
| constitutional referendum that "will enforce the mafia").
|
| Falcone, Borsellino, Livatino, Don Puglisi (just to mention
| people that paid with their own life) fight heavily against
| mafia, but they never converted this fight in a career.
| newsclues wrote:
| Maybe it's lost in translation but my argument is
| semantic.
|
| Saviano may be the type that was warned about but not the
| one.
| antirez wrote:
| Sciascia, btw, is one of the biggest thinkers and writers of
| '900. It is not really defined by his mafia-related novels and
| takes. He used to be friend with Borges, and was regarded as one
| of the top men in humanistic culture. Disclaimer: I was born in a
| town (Campobello di Licata) near his town (Racalmuto), but I'm
| not saying this because of this fact.
|
| If you never read Sciascia, I suggest you starting from his last,
| tiny novel: "Una storia semplice". I believe there are English
| translations that can be found around as ebook or used on eBay.
| silcoon wrote:
| Truly great Italian literature. Also "The day of the Owl" is
| another famous Sciascia's book with old mafia theme.
| nine_k wrote:
| Nit: I suppose you mean 1900s, not just "'900". I mean, one
| could reasonably suspect that good writers existed in Italy in
| early 10th century, too.
| sooheon wrote:
| The 2020 adaptation of ZeroZeroZero, mentioned in this article,
| is one of the best crime shows I've ever seen, with basically
| zero buzz. Pretty interesting reading the reason for the
| authenticity.
| oriettaxx wrote:
| where is it mentioned?
|
| ZeroZeroZero is by Saviano, article is about Sciascia.
| rayiner wrote:
| Do all countries have something like an Italian mafia? Is there a
| German or British mafia of a similar scale and sophistication,
| but we just call them something else?
| Carrok wrote:
| Most just call them the government.
| nosafemode wrote:
| in Iran it's called IRGC
| j3th9n wrote:
| In The Netherlands it's called D66.
| toyg wrote:
| There used to be, but afaik modern networks are largely led by
| Balkan groups across the whole of Europe.
| alexpotato wrote:
| My mom, who is from Italy, has some great lines about the Mafia:
|
| "Italy will never go bankrupt b/c we have the Pope AND the Mafia"
|
| I once asked her how the Mafia was reined in and she mentioned:
|
| "The Mafia was once trying to kill some judge or politician and
| they blew up several hundred meters of highway to do it. They
| also killed a lot of innocent people and the outcry was so big
| that the Carbinieri(Italian FBI) got involved."
| pizza234 wrote:
| > the Carbinieri(Italian FBI)
|
| Carabinieri are actually military-status police force in Italy,
| which is a different setup from the FBI in the US.
|
| Calling them the Italian FBI, is ironically quite funny,
| because in Italy they're the butt of a lot of jokes -
| "carabiniere" is a common stand-in for "someone dumb".
| toyg wrote:
| Carabinieri have been involved with (and occasionally fighting)
| the mafia since late 1800s. That's got nothing to do with how
| we got to the current situation of relative tranquility.
|
| What happened between the end of the 1980s and the 1990s was
| that, because of continuous feuds among mafiosi that produced
| too many civilian victims, political connections broke down,
| particularly with a few especially vicious bosses. Laws were
| passed to isolate the worst offenders, new connections were
| brokered with more moderate mafia leaders, and eventually the
| "bad" bosses were magically found, hiding more or less in plain
| sight.
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