by AFT President Sandra Feldman
November 1999

Palermo’s battle
against the Mafia
became a real-life
civics course.

Americans who question the value of voting and participating in public affairs should look at what’s happened in other countries. In places as far apart as Russia, Colombia, and Italy, criminal organizations exercise enormous power over the institutions that people rely on for safe and orderly lives. They enforce a new form of authoritarianism, where citizens are kept out of decision-making, their voices ignored.

In Palermo, Italy, for example, the Mafia used violence, terror, and intimidation to maintain control over a frightened and demoralized public. But the people of Palermo demonstrated that the public can fight back, and they can win. People can make their institutions serve the public good rather than the greed of a band of criminals. Exercising the right to free association—the right to organize protests, or to freely join civic and political organizations, churches, and trade unions—is the key.

Citizens Lived in Fear

Ten years ago, although Palermo had an elected city government, the real power resided with the Mafia bosses who controlled public services and city contracts and most business that went on in the city. The Mafia had penetrated the police force, the courts, and almost all the institutions of civil democratic society, making them little more than vehicles for criminal activity and profits.

Through brute force and murder, the Mafia took Palermo’s lifeblood. Tax dollars meant for schools, housing, and the restoration of public monuments were diverted to the pockets of the Mafia. Ancient churches, museums, and public buildings were left to rot. The beautiful old opera house was closed; housing built for poor families crumbled. The very water people drank came from wells drilled by taxpayers’ money but owned by the Mafia. The economy—which depended on the right of free expression and free association to operate efficiently—stagnated. When it came to civic affairs, most citizens lived in fear behind their curtains and closed doors.

But some brave souls—dissidents of a sort, including a handful of remarkable prosecutors, magistrates, and policemen--fought on. Two magistrates in particular, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, heroically pursued the Mafia and eventually became martyrs in the cause of freedom. Civic society had already begun slowly to reassert itself, but with the murders of Falcone and Borsellino, the citizens of Palermo were galvanized and took to the streets. Women hung bed sheets out the windows with the word Basta! (Enough!) written on them. United in their anger and revulsion, the people of Palermo began to be a community again. They formed groups and associations, and with great courage, began to take their city back.

A year after the murders, Palermo elected Leoluca Orlando, a reformist mayor who won 75 percent of the vote, and the city began to accelerate on the difficult road back to democracy and civil society. At great risk to his life and that of his family, the mayor took on the leaders of the Mafia. And backed by the people of Palermo, he won, leading to their arrest, conviction, and imprisonment. He worked to rebuild trust in the processes of lawful society, where people could freely associate without fear.

Restoring Trust in the Law

Mayor Orlando made a point of involving Palermo’s teachers and students. One of his initiatives was a "curriculum of lawfulness"—like one of our civics courses but with a special urgency. The children of Palermo needed to learn that the Mafia was responsible for the violence that permeated the city and that those who informed on them were heroes, not traitors. They needed to learn that obeying the law is the right thing to do and that flouting it destroys a society at its roots. (Something America’s teachers want all our students to understand as well.)

School children also became a part of the mayor’s program to rebuild the city center, which during the years of Mafia control had become a wasteland of decaying and abandoned churches and palaces filled with rubbish. Schools were encouraged to "adopt" historic buildings, learn about their past, and help in their rehabilitation. Students used their newfound expertise as tour guides. Today, Palermo is once again safe and beautiful and a source of pride. The restored Massimo opera house is a wonder to behold. The economy is improving.

In a real sense, the citizens of Palermo were engaged in a war against totalitarianism and terror. Their story can and should be an inspiration to everyone who believes in the basic right of men and women to organize and associate freely. Corruption and organized crime are grave, pernicious threats to democracy. But with determination, leadership, and a citizenry prepared to fight for the values of a free society, democracy can overcome.