Tag Archives: mafia

Once lived a young man called Giuseppe Impastato, “Peppino” for friends. He was from a small town in Sicily called Cinisi. Cinisi was in the hands of the Mafia and Peppino’s house was only a hundred steps away from the house of the local boss, Gaetano Badalamenti.

My eyes lie at the bottom of the sea/ in the heart of the seaweeds and the corals (words by Peppino).

Peppino was an activist, an Antifascist and a Communist, but not one of those who do what the Party says and that’s it. He wanted to change Cinisi and Sicily, he wanted to challenge the locals’ terror  of the Mafia. He hated the Mafia since he was a kid, even though his own father was connected to it. So Peppino and his friends brought about a radio station, Radio Aut, on which they would talk about their everyday lives in Cinisi. They told tales of corruption and politicians’ connections with the Mafia, of illegal building developments and other dodgy maneuvers that were making the Mafia richer. Peppino was very ironic and loved to make fun of the Mafia on the radio. He called Cinisi “Mafiopolis”. He would say things like “the Mafia is a mountain of shit”. Continue reading →