For those Chippings doing Il Giro de Sicilia, I write to assure you that you have nothing to fear from the Mafia. While Sicily is indeed the home of La Cosa Nostra, these made men have no interest in shaking down old coots riding rental bikes and surviving on Social Security.
For the average Joe Tourist like us, the Mafia is invisible. I walked all over Catania but nowhere did I find a bunch of sharply-dressed guys, pistols bulging under their suit jackets, their black Ferraris parked at the curb, knocking back vino rosso and sambucco in a fancy ristorante. Non ci sono.
The only thing even suggesting the Mafia are the black T-shirts hawked at tourist shops with a dour image of Marlon Brando under the words "Il Padrino." The godfather.
Pepe, my Italian language teacher and a font of informazione about all things mafiosi, tells me, however, that the Mafia is very much alive and even respected in Sicilia. He claims that 80 percent of the small businesses (and most of Sicily's businesses are small) continue to pay the "pizzo," the protection money exacted by the Mafia. They do it in part because they know the Mafia will likely straighten things out quicker and more effectively than the police or the courts. They also do it because they don't want any trouble.
So who would you trust? The Mafia? Or a bureaucratic, inept and often corrupt government?
While the Mafia continues to traffic in drugs and run gambling rackets, it now invests its money in construction, real estate, financial institutions and other legitimate businesses, Pepe says. In fact, its money provided the means for Catania -- hardly a world capital -- to build the biggest commercial center in all of Europe.
Ponder that next time you're watching the Sopranos.
Location:Sicilia
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