What makes a Mafia state? Is it the relative scale of Mafia funds flowing through the economy? Is it the presence of one or more of the international Mafias, whether Sicilian, Calabrian, Russian, Japanese, Chinese or whatever? Is it systemic government corruption or links between state entities? Or the presence of assassinations linked to organised crime?
It’s a timely question because it’s evident to the Italian forces of law that billions have been funnelled through Malta by the Calabrian Mafia alone. This very week, more investigations raised questions about Malta-based companies fronting for the Mafias of Sicily and Puglia as well as Calabria.
And there’s no need to belabour the links between kleptocrats in Azerbaijan and Malta, the stench arising out of 17 Black, or the widespread cry – verbally and in graffiti – that Daphne Caruana Galizia’s assassination was a sign of a Mafia state.
So it’s important to get things right. ‘Mafia state’ is not just a label. It’s a diagnosis of cause and effect, of where we are and where we’re going.
Anyone is free to use it colloquially as a term of abuse, just as the term ‘fascist’ has been used (by some Labourites to describe Nationalist ministers or entire administrations, and by some of the Muscat government’s critics, Nationalist or otherwise).
But in that case it’s just a porridge word, too vague to mean anything useful, just strong enough to show depth of feeling. It’s like Edwin Vassallo, the PN MP, calling the equality minister ‘Marxist’ – it has nothing to do with Marx, Karl or Groucho; he just means authoritarian or totalitarian.
Up to a point, the definition of Mafia is up to us, as long as we keep it clear. Mafias exist on a continuum of extortion and violent enforcement. Manchester gangsters aren’t usually considered a mafia, nor are Mexican drug cartels, nor are insurgent terrorist groups like FARC in Colombia, nor are the family-linked cliques running a state like Syria. But the lines between them and Mafias are admittedly blurred.
Mafias do exhibit state-like tendencies when they muscle in on a territory and attempt to run it as their own, controlling who can actually participate in a market (whether it’s narcotics or construction) and collecting their own taxes.
But despite the blurred lines we’re also clear when a state is not a Mafia state. A spectacular mass murder in Germany in 2007, plus the presence of Mafia activity in that country do not make of Germany a Mafia state.
Neither is the US a Mafia state, in spite of the documented infiltration of the Mafia in various sectors of the US economy and in local party machines; in spite, even, of the documented occasional collaboration between the US government and the Mafia, especially on security issues.
When New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman called for the government to make use of the Mafia in the fight against ISIS infiltration of US soil, no one accused him of wanting a Mafia state.
As it happens, Mafias are the subject of an extensive scholarly literature. If that sounds distant and detached, keep in mind that one of the world authorities on the subject, Federico Varese, has conducted many in-depth interviews with mafiosi around the world – from the US and Italy to Russia, Georgia, Dubai and Hong Kong.
Varese has sometimes stayed at the same hotel rooms, and interviewed the same maids, that serviced the big bosses. His book Mafia Life shows what the texture of mafioso life is like – including how much they like to imitate The Godfather trilogy, despite Mario Puzo never ever having met a mafioso before he wrote the novel that gave rise to the films.
Descriptions of Sicilian social life, say, that match up with some aspects of Maltese life, are no clincher for a ‘Mafia mentality’
But Varese also shows the kind of intriguing relationships that exist between various Mafias and their respective states. For one thing, Mafias like democracy – they thrive in it because they can deliver votes from the territories they effectively govern.
Mafias also tend to dislike trade unions – if they protect workers against exploitative bosses. Mafias see their business in selling protection, sometimes by running their own security firms.
Mafias detest fascists, communists and authoritarian states – as these bullies don’t need the Mafia as a middleman. In fact, they see the Mafia as a threat to their own authority. The Russian Mafias are afraid to have their meetings in their home country.
They prefer to meet at weddings, organised at great expense, abroad – say, in Italy. That way, everyone has a reason for turning up. They wave their gifts as proof of their innocent intent.
Varese was puzzled when one of the Hong Kong Triads seemed to be involved in putting down pro-democracy protests a few years ago. It turns out that some businessmen developers had reason to be grateful to mainland China (for turning a blind eye to the developers’ repression of a civic protest group), so they hired some Mafiosi as thugs.
Under authoritarian regimes, Mafias can be allowed to thrive but at great cost to their power and status. They are relegated to the status of hired thugs.
Among themselves, Mafiosi have a code of conduct – sometimes with their own constitutions. Promotions are published – say, the Georgian Mafia’s Dubai Declaration of 2012, which was even published on a dedicated website. One website has a dedicated following, with Mafiosi sometimes publishing comments on the news.
All this might seem grimly amusing but the initiation rituals and ritualised promotions are there because Mafias do think of themselves as a form of governance unto their own. They like democracy for others as it’s a source of business. But they do not like democracy for themselves: bosses are not elected by the inhabitants of the neighbourhoods they govern, and while a boss is sometimes an impartial judge in disputes, the law he administers is Mafia law.
All this detail takes us far and away from any publicly available information we have about Malta today. Descriptions of Sicilian social life, say, that match up with some aspects of Maltese life, are no clincher for a ‘Mafia mentality’; it simply shows how Mafias tend to use the regional pieties of everyday life for their own ends.
There is nothing in Varese’s book to make you think that Malta today is a Mafia state.
None of this takes away from the stench of corruption – even systemic corruption – in which Malta is mired. It doesn’t for a minute make it less necessary for Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri to resign. It doesn’t wipe away the criticism that some of our State institutions are not doing their job and are not behaving independently as they should.
Nor, by the way, does it mean that we are not vulnerable to Mafia infiltration of our politics. But Varese shows us where we should be looking.
For example, in times of political disenchantment and voter abstention, there is a stronger chance that votes may need to be ‘delivered’. Particularly if there are areas where voters live in no-go areas for the police.
It’s certainly true that one of the Mafia’s tricks is to persuade you that it does not exist. But there’s a difference between being a land where the Mafia operates and feels at home, and a state that it controls.
Confusing one with the other is a serious mistake. It confuses one kind of power with another. We cannot fix Maltese politics if we misrecognise what’s wrong.
ranierfsadni@europe.com
This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece