Figlio di partito: Visti da bambino gli amici di pap� [The Party Man�s Son: A Child�s-Eye View of Father�s Friends] by Alfonso Sciangula. Published in 2004 by Armando Siciliano Editore, Messina, Sicily, 123 pages, �10, ISBN 88 7442 331 4.
Alfonso
Sciangula tells of Italian political intrigue, Mafia and corruption from the
early 1970s. The perspective is that of a growing child whose sensitive mind
records, traumatically, the regular events in the daily life of his father, a
Sicilian politician in the Christian Democrat party under Giulio Andreotti. The
place is the city of Agrigento in Sicily, suggestively set in the vicinity of
the Valley of Temples, Port Empedocles and Caos, the birthplace of Luigi
Pirandello. Sciangula, a law graduate and now in his early thirties, has become
an anti-Mafia activist who investigates the Mafia presence in political,
economic and social life both in Sicily and beyond.
Sciangula�s
narrative style tends naturally towards the dramatic and is couched in irony
which is at times searing. The effect is further heightened
by atypically Italian short sentences, compact paragraphing and by the
direct, informal language which incorporates colourful sayings and set
expressions sometimes in Sicilian dialect. Most of the book�s twenty-six chapters
are no more than three or four pages long, which helps make the book a
page-turner.
The
idea of writing the book, we are told, springs from a threat Sciangula once
received: �Unless you keep
quiet and behave yourself, someone will clean their blood-stained knife on your
father�s still warm dead body.� Sciangula�s chief purpose is to challenge
what he sees as the absolute evil, namely the tradition of collective silence (omert�)
which prevents important truths from getting out.
The
opening section of the first chapter sets the tone and rhythm for the rest of
the book:
Towards
the end of the chapter Sciangula relates how he once saw one of his father�s
friends first strike his son for using the word Mafia and then ask the boy who had taught him to repeat such nonsense. This considerably
upset Sciangula who had introduced him to the term.
The
book�s chapters unfold in rapid succession always with fresh insights into a
wide variety of topics: from reactions to the murder of
Aldo Moro to the lowdown on how lobbies get moving and are financed, where the
cash is held and how it is divided up and shared out; how local political
elections are won and how power is gained; how the Mafia operates and how to
find out everything about anyone; father�s police escort and his photograph
album, and much more. This last chapter begins:
�Father�s friends are all very religious. In fact, they compete to see who has had the most photos taken with popes.� (p.26)
Here we learn that one friend boasted that he had been photographed with three different popes and that all the friends together regretted not having managed to secure photographs with one particular pope who died unexpectedly, thus denying them all the opportunity to complete their album collections.
Sciangula describes his account as that of a tragediatore, the dialect word which Sicilians sometimes use to label truth-tellers. You will find tragediatori both where you have the preconditions for tragedy and also where the tragedy has already taken place, says Sciangula. But Sciangula is unlikely to wreak any tragedies on himself here since he is sufficiently sparing in naming names.
Curiously, part of the editorial summary situates the entire story within a virtual context as the understandable and excusable result of a child's imagination. This seems to be intended as an ironic parody of the ritual editorial precautions against accusations of defamation or worse, and it is quickly undone in the same summary and convincingly contradicted by the author's own introduction and by the facts recounted. The suggestion seems to be: "Give me a mask and I will tell you the truth", but in this case the mask is so thin as to be virtually nonexistent.
A large photograph at the start of the book depicts a group of over thirty men, formally dressed and huddled together, posing for the camera � presumably father together with his friends. But there is no caption or explanation. The strategic omission of certain names linked to certain events reflects the limits of what can be safely and explicitly said. At such points Sciangula is addressing those who are sufficiently familiar with the facts to be able to read between the lines.
Sciangula has not only provided an important document with a novel perspective on the inner workings of Sicilian politics; he has also succeeded in doing this both convincingly and entertainingly. Armando Siciliano too must be congratulated for this latest example of outstanding ongoing work in promoting a deeper understanding of Sicilian culture across a wide spectrum � from this, the tragically true at one end to the breathtakingly beautiful at the other.
Students of Italian studies and others interested in the daily reality of corrupt politics and Mafia will learn more from a careful reading of Sciangula's book than from a dozen pseudo-specialist treatises on the subject by writers who engage in arid intra-academic recycling or peddle inaccurate accounts based on glamourised cinematic sources.
Domenico
Pacitti is Editor of JUST Book Reviews.
Note: This review was first published by JUST Book Reviews on January 26 2005.
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