O PT, uma mafia, ou a Mafia? - vejamos o que diz Luigi Barzini

Existem sutis distinções entre uma máfia ou a Mafia. Creio que o PT representa ambas.
Vejamos o que diz Luigi Barzini.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

The Italians by Luigi Barzini.

Luigi Barzini's famous 1964 description of the Mafia: "The word Mafia notoriously means two things, one, which should be spelled with a lower-case 'm', being the mother of the second, the capital letter Mafia. "The lower-case mafia is a state of mind, a philosophy of life, a con­ception of society, a moral code, a particular susceptibility, prevail­ing among all Sicilians. They are taught in the cradle, or are born already knowing, that they must aid each other, side with their friends and fight the common enemies even when the friends are wrong and the enemies are right; each must defend his dignity at all costs and never allow the smallest slights and insults to go unavenged; they must keep secrets, and always beware of official authorities and laws. ... "Mafia, in the second and more specialized meaning of the word, is the world-famous illegal organization. It rules over only one part of Sicily: its threats are terrifying in Palermo, Partinico or Agrigento, but are ignored in Messina, Catania and Syracuse. It is not a strictly organized association, with hierarchies, written statutes, head­quarters, a ruling elite and an undisputed chief. It is a spontaneous formation like an ant-colony or a beehive, a loose and haphazard collection of single men and heterogeneous groups, each man obey­ing his entomological rules, each group uppermost in its tiny domain, independent, submitted to the will of its own leader, each group locally imposing its own rigid form of primitive justice. Only in rare times of emergency does the Mafia mobilize and become one loose confederation.

1900 map of Mafia presence in Sicily. Towns with Mafia activity are marked as red dots. The Mafia operated mostly in the west, in areas of rich agricultural productivity.

"Nobody knows how many mafiosi there are. Only a minority of Sicilians are technically mafiosi, in the criminal sense of the word. Many do not honestly know whether they are mafiosi or not. West­ern Sicilians must, as a rule, entertain good relations with the Mafia in their native village or city quarter. They have to live there, they must protect their family, job, property or business, and want no trouble. The Mafia is for them a fact of life, one of the permanent conditions of existence, like the climate, the average rainfall or the local patois. It is often impossible to draw a neat dividing line between Mafiosi and non-Mafiosi. "Take the good friars of Mazzarino, who were recently arrested and tried for having acted as messengers between the Mafia and its in­tended victims, men who were being blackmailed. The pious fathers patiently explained to the non-Sicilian court that they were by no means to be considered advisers, instigators or accomplices of the criminals. They had only done their best to persuade the intended victims, to whom they brought the Mafia's blackmail message, that it was safer to pay, and pay quickly, in order to save their lives. Were not one or two men, who had stubbornly overlooked the advice, sub­sequently found dead in solitary country lanes? Yes, of course, the monks had written some of the messages themselves, but only because the mafiosi were illiterate and did not own a typewriter. "Furthermore, the friars pointed out that they were by no means responsible for the conditions of law enforcement in Mazzarino. They were not policemen. They took for granted that there were extortionists and potential victims, moneyed men whose only safety was in conforming with the Mafia's demands, and men who could live and prosper out of the fear they could evoke in others. The monks explained they were only doing their duty: they had avoided unnecessary bloodshed. Was theirs not a charitable mission? (The monks were found guilty, nevertheless, and given long prison sentences.) "Everybody, of course, knows (although such things are never admitted openly) that the trouble the Mafia defends one from is almost always contrived and controlled by the Mafia itself. Every­body knows that the tributes he is paying to the local boss could be compared to a tribute to a powerful feudal baron. Everybody is resigned. But the relationship between the Mafia and its victims is not limited to the collection of money. A day always comes when the Mafia also needs some favour in return. On that day, a man discovers he can no longer refuse. A businessman finds he must give a job to an ex-convict, a banker extend a loan to a risky customer, a farmer shelter some unknown men for a few days in a barn without asking questions, an honest man remember distinctly something he never knew or forgets something he saw. All these people gradually get so enmeshed in the net, in the hope of avoiding trouble, that they cannot free themselves."

The Italians Author: Luigi Barzini Publisher: Penguin Books Copyright Luigi Barzini, 1964 Pages: 253-257

Mussolini, um Chavez avant la lettre (ou Chavez, um Mussolini como farsa) - Luigi Barzini

Today's selection -- from The Italians by Luigi Barzini. Benito Mussolini was the leader of Italy from 1922 until ousted in 1943. His strong jaw, stern countenance, and dramatic speeches made him an icon of Fascism, but when he led Italy into war as an ally of Hitler in 1940, its economy and armed forces were weak and added little to the Axis cause. In 1945, Mussolini was caught and executed by members of the Italian communist resistance when trying to escape to Spain:

"[Italian dictator Benito] could not help being corrupted by his own spectacle and people who surrounded him. Roman emperors all began to deteriorate the day they were raised to the imperial dignity. Many great leaders in the past, drunk with their own great importance and vast intelligence, thinking themselves infallible, surrounded by sycophants, eventually stumbled and committed a fatal mistake. At one point, they all took too big a risk. Napoleon attacked Russia and Hitler tried to fight two wars on two fronts. But Napoleon and Hitler commanded the most efficient and powerful military machines of their times, which had hitherto defeated all their enemies. They both had a reasonable chance; they both came close to winning, against heavy odds.

Benito Mussolini dressed in the fascist uniform

"Mussolini never had a chance. It is true, he thought the war was almost over when he entered it, in June 1940; he counted on the aid of his mighty ally in an emergency; he trusted his intuition and his luck. But any reasonably prudent dictator should also have been prepared for unforeseen circumstances. He was not. ... He never even suspected that practically nothing was behind his show. He never knew how really weak, disarmed and demoralized the country was. He honestly thought he could play a role with his ineffective army, his servile generals, his Biedermeier guns, his toy planes, his tin tanks, and his ramshackle industries. ...

"The master of make-believe could not always detect make-believe when practised by others on him. This, of course, is the heart of the matter. His resistance to deception, which was never very strong, gradually dwindled and eventually disappeared altogether. When people warned him against adulation, he shrugged his shoulders. In one of the first months of his government, in 1923, an old ambassador returned from Geneva, where he had represented Italy at a meeting on the control of poison gases. As the venerable gentleman entered the younger man's room, Mussolini did not look up from his desk and went on writing. Finally, after long minutes, he lifted his eyes from the paper and, jutting his chin forward, asked disdainfully: 'What are the most dangerous gases, ambassador ?' The ambassador gravely answered: 'Incense is the most lethal of all, your excellency.' He was soon put on the retired list. As the years went by, Mussolini became completely addicted to the artificial paradise he had created for others. He needed bigger and bigger doses of flattery and deception each year. In the end the most sickening and improbable lies, as long as they adulated his idea of himself and confirmed his prejudices, seemed to him the plain and unadorned expression of objective truth.

Mussolini with Adolf Hitler in Berlin, 1937

 

"All great personages, of course are surrounded by fawning courtiers. Flatterers are especially common in Italy, where the people have always employed such arts offensively, to gain advantages, destroy rivals, and conquer power and wealth: and defensively, as the squid uses ink, to blind and confound powerful men, dictators and tyrants. But most great personages are aware of the danger surrounding them. All men in authority, in Italy, any kind of authority, even village mayors, know that the smiles, the praises, the gifts, the applause are not for them but for their rank. Most of them manage to protect themselves from disaster. Mussolini never learned. ...

"The technique was so smooth that it even deceived Hitler. Preparations for his visit in 1938 went on for six months. All Italy was to show the German dictator a new face. Nothing was to be left that was 'nineteenth century, homely, familiar'. The country
was transformed. Streets where the parades were to pass were redesigned and reconstructed like film sets, houses were painted and decorated along the railway line from the Brenner to Rome. The soldiers taking part in the reviews had been hand-picked. Most of them were to be blue-eyed and tall, to show the visitors that Italians, too, were Aryans. (Only the king could not be changed, to Mussolini's annoyance. He was very small and not impressive. He was, strangely enough, the only nordic one of them all, with so much Austrian and German blood in him, showing through his light blue eyes.) The parading soldiers were armed with all the weapons existing in the country. They were all dressed in brand-new uniforms."

The Italians
Author Luigi Barzini
Publisher Penguin Books
Copyright Luigi Barzini, 1964
Pages 173-176

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