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Good day to you all. My name is Alfio Caruso and I wrote “I Siciliani” (literally “The
Sicilians”), which was an attempt to explain what the Sicilians are not, mainly because
I believe it would be virtually impossible to explain what the Sicilians are, and obviously
I say this as a Sicilian native. Raffaele Lombardo is a man who had, and still
has the dubious honour of being the latest in a long line of awful politicians that have
governed the Sicily Region since its inception back in 1947. The only people who have no
right to complain are the Sicilians themselves since they are the ones that have showered
not only Lombardo with a veritable harvest of votes, but also Cuffaro on two separate
occasions. In Lombardo’s case, the people went far beyond the pale, giving him more
than 65% of their votes in the first turn of voting, especially considering the fact
that Lombardo is not the exception to the rule in Sicily, in fact he is the rule. In
the past few years, we have witnessed a virtual stampede of individuals clamouring to climb
on his band wagon in the hope of being able to benefit from his generosity, a generosity
shown not with his own money or the Sicilians’ money for that matter, but with the money
that has continued to rain down on the region from the Italian Government’s coffers. I
am sure that in the past few days you have all also read about the numbers of Regional
Administration employees, the number of permanent and temporary public servants, the numbers
of consultants, the numbers of employees of the various firms funded by the Regional Administration
and the huge numbers of forest rangers so you are undoubtedly aware of the good and
the bad of the situation in Sicily, especially since the television stations and the newspapers
have dealt with little else. In fact, all Lombardo has actually done is to take this
Sicilian situation to the nth degree because much of what is going on was there even before
he took the helm. All he has contributed is this unscrupulousness that has always been
his personal trademark. Up to now, all he has managed to do is to make the people in
the Region regret the loss of Cuffaro who, unlike Lombardo, was at least likeable and
cheerful and, unfortunately for Cuffaro, has since been convicted of aiding and abetting
the Mafia. Very soon, however, Lombardo will have to face up to some legal problems of
his own. The Sicilians are watching rather sceptically
and cynically because they have learned that nothing is about to change in any event and,
even the placement of the Island under special administration, about which much has been
said, is dependent on Lombardo doing certain things, which of course he obviously won’t
do. So probably, even if the Lombardo Government resigns and assuming they do so at the end
of July, they will in any event prevent the reduction of the 90-odd regional deputies
that insist on calling themselves “The Honourable” because they maintain that the Sicilian Parliament
is the top Italian Parliament. This is one of the medals that we Sicilians pin to our
own chests as a way to justify the unjustifiable. But what is it precisely that is so unjustifiable?
Well, what is unjustifiable is the salary that is paid to each and every regional deputy,
each of whom takes home more than 17-thousand Euro per month after deductions, and we will
never tire of pointing out that Obama’s salary is indeed substantially less than this.
Now perhaps Obama has a bit more responsibility than our regional deputies, but don’t make
the mistake of thinking that the Sicilian citizens are in the least bit indignant about
this. What the Sicilian citizens are indeed indignant about is that they weren’t elected
as regional deputies because, here in Sicily, it has never been about anything as mundane
as the needs of the people, but always about grabbing as much as one possibly could. I
think that Sicily is the only place on the planet where no head has ever rolled in the
pursuit of the greater good and Sicily has never had a Masaniello (an abbreviation of
Tommaso Aniello, a Neapolitan fisherman who became leader of the 1647 revolt against the
Habsburg rule in Naples). In Sicily, heads have only ever rolled because the labourers
wanted to become farmers, the farmers wanted to become tax collectors, the tax collectors
wanted to become landowners and the landowners wanted to move out of their country farmhouses
and into posh townhouses and perhaps even acquire some or other honorary title.
What I’m trying to say is that here in Sicily we have always strived for personal gain and
the current situation is merely the consequence of all the compromises that were accepted
in the past. In Sicily, even political ideology has been
subjugated to this personal gain because the right-wing, the centre and the left-wing are
actually nothing more than symbols, appearances and smokescreens and everyone who could immediately
joined the “Partito Unico Siciliano”, whose very acronym has defined its destiny
in that the “PUS” has dominated and indeed continues to dominate all Sicilian affairs
and there are politicians, businessmen, mafia members, industrialists, members of bourgeoisie
are all in the “PUS”, almost always linked by their membership of Masonic lodges and
also, at least in the past, by their affiliation to the Cosa Nostra, which, given the current
state of affairs, is no longer quite as sought after. Here in Sicily, nothing ever changes
and nothing is about to change in this regard. This was even borne out by the last municipal
elections where many Italians in the rest of the Country chose to vote for change, albeit
sometimes in a rather confused fashion, but nevertheless there was a very obvious call
for change. In Palermo, instead, in their wisdom the people saw fit to almost unanimously
elect Leoluca Orlando Cascio, the main role player in the destruction of Palermo during
the course of the past 20 years. This was obviously because Leoluca Orlando Cascio had
never bothered to ask any of Ciancimino’s companies to produce Anti-Mafia Certificates,
yet they continued to be awarded lucrative tender contracts, nor did he ever order the
demolition of Pizzo Sella’s houses built without any planning permission by companies
that could be traced straight back to Michele Greco, the famous so-called Pope of the Mafia.
Leoluca Orlando has always pursued his own personal gain and, it may be said, very successfully
too, yet the residents of Palermo still saw fit to place their trust in him, and that
after having previously placed their trust in a succession of Mayors who proceeded to
plunder not only the Municipal Council coffers, but also those of the Regional Administration
and, above all, the coffers of the Italian State, which are regularly requested to provide
special funding on a regular basis. Sicily’s destiny obviously lies in the hands
of the Sicilian people’s sloth. As a matter of fact, (oh dearie me) Sicily’s destiny
is marked by the sloth of the Sicilian people, who have up to now always found it more profitable
to negotiate with the viceroys who have ruled the Island rather than to seek a better quality
of life. Unfortunately, the cause of all this lies within the special Constitution that
Italy gifted to the Island on 15 May 1946. This Constitution was the first great trick
that Sicily played at Italy’s expense in that The Honourable Sicilians of the time,
who were predominantly Christian Democrats by the way, managed to convince the head of
the Alcide De Gasperi Government that the Island was on the verge of a revolt, in other
words that a civil war was about to break out because the Sicilian independence movement,
which was then often hastily referred to as “the separatists”, was on the verge of
causing a revolt all the cities and provinces, and the only way to defuse this revolt would
be to grant Sicily that special Constitution. But in fact, that was a nothing more than
a major trick because, at that time, the Sicilian independence movement was already on the back
foot. The movement had been sidelined because the United States had established that Italy’s
territorial integrity should not be touched under any circumstances and so, everyone who
was on the United States payroll, and there were many of them in Sicily at that time,
not least of all the Cosa Nostra, had distanced themselves from the Sicilian independence
movement, just as Calogero Vizzini had done, who was not quite the leader of the entire
Cosa Nostra but only led the Vallone Nisseno faction in Caltanissetta Province.
One morning, Don Calogero Vizzini had left the head offices of the independence movement
and had walked across the square of his hometown, which is called Villalba, and walked into
the until then deserted offices of the Christian Democratic party, accompanied by a mob of
some 200 followers, and asked for a membership application to join the Christian Democrat
Party. Thus the Cosa Nostra had essentially totally ditched the independence movement
and had switched to the Christian Democrat Party, lock, stock and barrel, especially
the barrel part. So, in May 1946, the independence movement
was essentially an unarmed mine, yet they still managed to convince De Gasperi otherwise.
It has to be said that the latter had far bigger problems on his hands at that time,
so he agreed to that special Constitution, one that not even Umberto Bossi would ever
have dreamed of asking the Italian Government for, not even in his wildest dreams of an
Italian Federation. That special Constitution granted the Sicilian Government, and in theory
at least also the Sicilian people (although not really because only the individuals governing
Sicily benefit from it) the right to levy taxes, take over Government-owned assets,
to draw up election laws and above all banking laws, to establish its own police force and,
the cherry on top, to have its own Upper Court of Justice.
In order to ensure that all subsequent governments that came in over the next 65 years in Palermo
would forget about that concession that the State had made and waive the right establish
their own Upper Court of Justice, Rome has been obliged to keep granting them non repayable
loans. Younger people won’t remember this, but for half a century there was an entity
called the “Cassa del mezzogiorno” which was essentially the Region’s cash-cow through
which many billion, indeed hundreds of billions were drawn, which made only the usual culprits
very wealthy indeed and left much of the Island hungry, to the point where the Island is now
at serious risk of economic collapse, not because the Sicilian accounts are now in very
poor shape, but because the Sicilian accounts have always been in very bad shape. The problem
at the moment is the Italian State … as long as the State continues to pay, above
all the Regional Administration employees will continue to be able to go on pension
at 45 years of age, continue to get golden handshakes worth millions of Euro and continue
to enjoy pensions equivalent to virtually 100% of their last monthly salaries. The real
problem will arise when, notwithstanding the Constitution, Italy no longer has a single
Euro left to give to Sicily, but as long as Italy continues to pay, no matter what state
the accounts may be in and no matter how much the Sicilian Government Auditor may call for
greater fiscal discipline, everyone will still continue to spend and continue to grow fat
in full view of all law-abiding Italians and Sicilians who may well be in the minority,
but they do exist nevertheless, although they have not been able to enforce their will to
date. It is patently obvious that only a series
of extraordinary events that are not dependent on the wasteful tendencies of the Sicilian
people can ensure that the municipal and provincial councils, which in theory should be abolished,
and the Regional Council adopt a spending policy that is far, far stricter than what
they have had to date. Do you believe something like this could ever happen? I certainly don’t!
So please, spread the word!