The term Mafia was originally applied to the Sicilian Mafia. Since then, the term has expanded to encompass other organizations of similar methods and purpose, e.g. "the Russian Mafia" or "the Japanese Mafia". The term was coined by the press and is informal; the criminal organizations themselves have their own names (e.g. the Sicilian Mafia and the related Italian-American Mafia refer to their organizations as "Cosa Nostra"; the "Japanese Mafia" calls itself "Ninkyō dantai", but is more commonly known as "Yakuza" by the public; "Russian Mafia" groups often call themselves "bratva"). "Chinese Mafia" groups are often referred to as Triads.
When used alone and without any qualifier, "Mafia" or "the Mafia" typically refers to either the Sicilian Mafia or the Italian-American Mafia and sometimes Italian organized crime in general (e.g., Camorra, 'Ndrangheta, etc.).
Today the 'Ndrangheta, originating in the southern Italian region of Calabria, is widely considered the richest and most powerful Mafia in the world.[2][3] The 'Ndrangheta has been around for as long as the better-known Sicilian Cosa Nostra, but was only recently designated as a Mafia-type association in 2010, under Article 416 bis of the Italian penal code.[4][5] Italy's highest court of last resort, the Supreme Court of Cassation, had ruled similarly on 30 March 2010.[6]
Etymology
The word Mafia (English: /ˈmɑːfiə/; Italian:[ˈmaːfja]) derives from the Sicilian adjective mafiusu, which, roughly translated, means 'swagger', but can also be translated as 'boldness' or 'bravado'. In reference to a man, mafiusu (mafioso in Italian) in 19th century Sicily signified 'fearless', 'enterprising', and 'proud', according to scholar Diego Gambetta.[7] In reference to a woman, however, the feminine-form adjective mafiusa means 'beautiful' or 'attractive'.
Because Sicily was an Islamic emirate from 831 to 1072, Mafia may have come to Sicilian through Arabic, although the word's origins are uncertain. Possible Arabic roots of the word include:
maʿfī (معفي) = exempted. In Islamic law, jizya is the yearly tax imposed on non-Muslims residing in Muslim lands, and people who pay it are "exempted" from prosecution.
màha = quarry, cave; especially the mafie, the caves in the region of Marsala, which acted as hiding places for persecuted Muslims and later served other types of refugees, in particular Giuseppe Garibaldi's "Redshirts" after their embarkment on Sicily in 1860 in the struggle for Italian unification.[8][9][10][11][12]
marfūḍ (مرفوض) = rejected, considered to be the most plausible derivation; marfūḍ developed into marpiuni (swindler) to marpiusu and finally mafiusu.[13]
maʿāfir (معافر) = the name of an Arab tribe that ruled Palermo.[14][10] The local peasants imitated these Arabs and as a result the tribe's name entered the popular lexicon. The word Mafia was then used to refer to the defenders of Palermo during the Sicilian Vespers against rule of the Capetian House of Anjou on 30 March 1282.[15]
mafyaʾ (مفيء), meaning 'place of shade'. The word shade meaning refuge or derived from refuge.[16] After the Normans destroyed the Saracen rule in Sicily in the 11th century, Sicily became feudalistic. Most Arab smallholders became serfs on new estates, with some escaping to "the Mafia". It became a secret refuge.[17]
The public's association of the word with the criminal secret society was perhaps inspired by the 1863 play I mafiusi di la Vicaria ('The Mafiosi of the Vicaria') by Giuseppe Rizzotto and Gaspare Mosca.[18] The words Mafia and mafiusi are never mentioned in the play. The play is about a Palermo prison gang with traits similar to the Mafia: a boss, an initiation ritual, and talk of umirtà (omertà or code of silence) and pizzu (a codeword for extortion money).[19] The play had great success throughout Italy. Soon after, the use of the term Mafia began appearing in the Italian state's early reports on the phenomenon. The word made its first official appearance in 1865 in a report by the prefect of PalermoFilippo Antonio Gualterio[it].[20]
Definitions
The term Mafia was never officially used by Sicilian mafiosi, who prefer to refer to their organization as "Cosa Nostra". Nevertheless, it is typically by comparison to the groups and families that comprise the Sicilian Mafia that other criminal groups are given the label. Giovanni Falcone, an anti-Mafia judge murdered by the Sicilian Mafia in 1992, objected to the conflation of the term Mafia with organized crime in general:
While there was a time when people were reluctant to pronounce the word "Mafia"... nowadays people have gone so far in the opposite direction that it has become an overused term... I am no longer willing to accept the habit of speaking of the Mafia in descriptive and all-inclusive terms that make it possible to stack up phenomena that are indeed related to the field of organized crime but that have little or nothing in common with the Mafia.[21]
Scholars such as Diego Gambetta and Leopoldo Franchetti have characterized the Sicilian Mafia as a cartel of private protection firms whose primary business is protection racketeering: they use their fearsome reputation for violence to deter people from swindling, robbing, or competing with those who pay them for protection. For many businessmen in Sicily, they provide an essential service when they cannot rely on the police and judiciary to enforce their contracts and protect their properties from thieves (this is often because they are engaged in black market deals).[22]
The [Sicilian] Mafia's principal activities are settling disputes among other criminals, protecting them against each other's cheating, and organizing and overseeing illicit agreements, often involving many agents, such as illicit cartel agreements in otherwise legal industries.
Scholars have observed that many other societies around the world have criminal organizations of their own that provide the same sort of protection service. For instance, in Russia, after the collapse of communism, the state security system had all but collapsed, forcing businessmen to hire criminal gangs to enforce their contracts and protect their properties from thieves. These gangs are popularly called "the Russian Mafia" by foreigners, but they prefer to go by the term krysha.
With the [Russian] state in collapse and the security forces overwhelmed and unable to police contract law, ... cooperating with the criminal culture was the only option. ... most businessmen had to find themselves a reliable krysha under the leadership of an effective vor.
In his analysis of the Sicilian Mafia, Gambetta provided the following hypothetical scenario to illustrate the Mafia's function in the Sicilian economy. Suppose a grocer wants to buy meat from a butcher without paying sales tax to the government. Because this is a black market deal, neither party can take the other to court if the other cheats. The grocer is afraid that the butcher will sell him rotten meat. The butcher is afraid that the grocer will not pay him. If the butcher and the grocer cannot get over their mistrust and refuse to trade, they would both miss out on an opportunity for profit. Their solution is to ask the local mafioso to oversee the transaction, in exchange for a fee proportional to the value of the transaction but below the legal tax. If the butcher cheats the grocer by selling rotten meat, the mafioso will punish the butcher. If the grocer cheats the butcher by not paying on time and in full, the mafioso will punish the grocer. Punishment might take the form of a violent assault or vandalism against property. The grocer and the butcher both fear the mafioso, so each honors their side of the bargain. All three parties profit.
Mafia-type organizations under Italian law
Introduced by Pio La Torre, article 416-bis of the Italian Penal Code defines a Mafia-type association (Italian: associazione di tipo mafioso) as one where "those belonging to the association exploit the potential for intimidation which their membership gives them, and the compliance and omertà which membership entails and which lead to the committing of crimes, the direct or indirect assumption of management or control of financial activities, concessions, permissions, enterprises and public services for the purpose of deriving profit or wrongful advantages for themselves or others".[24][25]
↑ Gambetta 2009: "The Mafia's principal activities are settling disputes among other criminals, protecting them against each other's cheating, and organizing and overseeing illicit agreements, often involving many agents, such as illicit cartel agreements in otherwise legal industries. Mafia-like groups offer a solution of sorts to the trust problem by playing the role of a government for the underworld and supplying protection to people involved in illegal markets ordeals. They may play that role poorly, sometimes veering toward extortion rather than genuine protection, but they do play it."
↑ This etymology is based on the books Che cosa è la mafia? by Gaetano Mosca, Mafioso by Gaia Servadio, The Sicilian Mafia by Diego Gambetta, Mafia & Mafiosi by Henner Hess, and Cosa Nostra by John Dickie (see Books below).
↑ According to Giuseppe Guido Lo Schiavo[it], cave in Arabic literary writing is Maqtaa hagiar, while in popular Arabic it is pronounced as Mahias hagiar, and then "from Maqtaa (Mahias) = Mafia, that is cave, hence the name (ma)qotai, quarrymen, stone-cutters, that is, Mafia" (Loschiavo 1962: 27-30). See: Fabrizio Fioretti (2011), Il termine "mafia", Sveučilište Jurja Dobrile u Puli.
↑ Lupo, History of the Mafia, p. 282 quoting Lo Monaco (1990), Lingua nostra.
↑ John Follain (8 June 2009). The Last Godfathers. Hachette UK. ISBN9781848942493. Even the origin of the word Mafia remains obscure. Some believe its roots lie in the Arab domination of Sicily from 827 to 1061 and the Arabic word mahias (daring) or Ma àfir (the name of a Saracen tribe).
↑ Richard Lindberg (1 August 1998). To Serve and Collect: Chicago Politics and Police Corruption from the Lager Beer Riot to the Summerdale Scandal, 1855-1960 (illustrateded.). SIU Press. p.161. ISBN9780809322237. The word Mafia is a derivative of the Arabic maafir, the name of a tribe of Arabs who settled in Palermo, Sicily before the Middle Ages. The Sicilian peasants adopted the customs of the nomadic tribe, integrating the name into everyday language. When the French were massacred in Palermo on Easter Sunday, 1282, the townsmen described their brave defenders as the "Mafia". In 1417 this secret band of guerrillas absorbed another society of local origin, the Camorra.
↑ Theroux, Paul (1995). The Pillars of Hercules: A Grand Tour of the Mediterranean. New York: Fawcett Columbine. p.176. ISBN0449910857.
Mosca, Gaetano (1901/2014). "What is Mafia", M&J, 2014. Translation of the book "Che cosa è la Mafia", Giornale degli Economisti, July 1901, pp.236–62. ISBN979-11-85666-00-6.
Paoli, Letizia (2003). Mafia Brotherhoods: Organized Crime, Italian Style. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN0-19-515724-9.
Omertà is a Southern Italian code of silence and code of honor and conduct that places importance on silence in the face of questioning by authorities or outsiders; non-cooperation with authorities, the government, or outsiders, especially during criminal investigations; and willfully ignoring and generally avoiding interference with the illegal activities of others. It originated and remains common in Southern Italy, where banditry or brigandage and Mafia-type criminal organizations have long been strong. Similar codes are also deeply rooted in other areas of the Mediterranean, including Malta, Crete in Greece, and Corsica, all of which share a common or similar historic culture with Southern Italy.
The Sicilian Mafia or Cosa Nostra, also referred to as simply Mafia, is a criminal society and criminal organization originating on the island of Sicily and dates back to the mid-19th century. It is an association of gangs which sell their protection and arbitration services under a common brand. The Mafia's core activities are protection racketeering, the arbitration of disputes between criminals, and the organizing and oversight of illegal agreements and transactions.
Stefano Bontade, born Stefano Bontate, was a powerful member of the Sicilian Mafia. He was the boss of the Santa Maria di Gesù Family in Palermo. He was also known as the Principe di Villagrazia − the area of Palermo he controlled − and Il Falco. He had links with several powerful politicians in Sicily, and with prime minister Giulio Andreotti. In 1981 he was killed by the rival faction within Cosa Nostra, the Corleonesi. His death sparked a brutal Mafia War that left several hundred mafiosi dead.
Michele Navarra was an Italian member of the Sicilian Mafia. He was a qualified physician and headed the Mafia family from the town of Corleone in Sicily. He was known as 'u patri nostru.
Beati Paoli is the name of a secretive sect thought to have existed in medieval Sicily and possibly also in Malta. The sect, as described by the author Luigi Natoli in his historic novel I Beati Paoli, resembles an order of chivalry fighting for the poor and the commoners. Whereas the novel is fictitious, Sicily's history bears some evidence that the Beati Paoli existed.
Criminal organizations have been prevalent in Italy, especially in the southern part of the country, for centuries and have affected the social and economic life of many Italian regions. There are major native mafia-like organizations that are heavily active in Italy. The most powerful of these organizations are the Camorra from Campania, the 'Ndrangheta from Calabria and the Cosa Nostra from Sicily.
Salvatore "Ciaschiteddu" Greco was a powerful mafioso and boss of the Sicilian Mafia in Ciaculli, an outlying suburb of Palermo famous for its citrus fruit groves, where he was born. His nickname, "Ciaschiteddu" or "Cicchiteddu", translates from the Sicilian alternatively as "little bird" or as "little wine jug".
Calogero Vizzini, also commonly known as "Don Calò", was a Sicilian Mafia boss of Villalba in the province of Caltanissetta, Sicily. He was considered to be one of the most influential and legendary Mafia bosses of Sicily after World War II until his death in 1954. In the media, Don Calò was often depicted as the "boss of bosses" – although such a position does not exist in the loose structure of Cosa Nostra.
Giuseppe Genco Russo was a Sicilian Mafia boss from Mussomeli in the province of Caltanissetta, Sicily. Genco Russo, also known as "Zi Peppi Jencu", was an uncouth, sly, semi-literate thug with excellent political connections. A vulgar man, as he used to spit on the floor no matter who was present, he was often photographed with bishops, bankers, civil servants and politicians. He was considered to be the arbiter of Mafia politics, and was regarded as the successor of Calogero Vizzini, who had died in 1954. Although by then a wealthy landowner and politician as a member of Christian Democracy (DC), Genco Russo still kept his mule in the house and the toilet outside, which was little more than a hole in the ground with a stone for a seat and no walls or door according to Mafia turncoat Tommaso Buscetta.
Francesco Marino Mannoia is a former member of the Sicilian Mafia who became a pentito in 1989. His nickname was Mozzarella. He is considered to be one of the most reliable government witnesses against the Mafia. Antimafia magistrate Giovanni Falcone, who was first to interrogate him, recalled Marino Mannoia as an intelligent and reliable witness.
Cesare Terranova was an Italian judge and politician from Sicily, notable for his anti-Mafia stance. From 1958 until 1971 Terranova was an examining magistrate at the Palermo prosecuting office. He was one of the first to seriously investigate the Mafia and the financial operations of Cosa Nostra. He was killed by the Mafia in 1979.
Calcedonio Di Pisa, also known as Doruccio, was a member of the Sicilian Mafia. He was the boss of the Mafia family in the Noce neighbourhood in Palermo and sat on the first Sicilian Mafia Commission, the coordinating body of Cosa Nostra in Sicily.
Giuseppe Di Cristina was a powerful mafioso from Riesi in the province of Caltanissetta, Sicily, southern Italy. Di Cristina, nicknamed “la tigre’’, was born into a traditional Mafia family, his father Francesco Di Cristina and his grandfather were men of honour as well.
A series of meetings between Sicilian Mafia and American Mafia members were allegedly held at the Grand Hotel et des Palmes in Palermo, Sicily, between October 12–16, 1957. Also called the 1957 Palermo Mafia summit, the gathering alledgedly discussed the transatlantic illegal heroin trade between the American and the Sicilian Mafia. The FBI believed it was this meeting that established the Bonanno crime family from New York in the heroin trade.
Antonino Calderone was a Sicilian Mafioso who turned state witness (pentito) in 1987 after his arrest in 1986.
Antonio Cottone was a member of the Sicilian Mafia in his hometown Villabate in the province of Palermo, Sicily. He was known as 'U Patre Nostru due to his alleged generosity. The Cottone clan was a historical Mafia family. They were mentioned in 1937 as the Mafia bosses of Villabate by Melchiorre Allegra, a mafioso physician who became an informant when he was arrested.
The Greco Mafia family is historically one of the most influential Mafia clans in Sicily, from the late 19th century. The extended family ruled both in Ciaculli and Croceverde Giardini, two south-eastern outskirts of Palermo in the citrus growing area. Members of the family were important figures in the Sicilian Cosa Nostra. Salvatore "Ciaschiteddu" Greco was the first ‘secretary’ of the Sicilian Mafia Commission, while Michele Greco, also known as The Pope, was one of his successors.
Pietro Torretta was a member of the Sicilian Mafia. He was the boss of the Mafia family in the Uditore district in Palermo and one of the protagonists in the First Mafia War. He was initially considered to be the man behind the Ciaculli massacre.
The Sicilian Mafia was less active during the era of Fascist Italy and it was fought by Benito Mussolini's government. In June 1924, Mussolini instructed Cesare Mori to eradicate the Mafia from Sicily and on October 25, 1925, appointed Mori prefect of the Sicilian capital, Palermo.
The Interprovincial Commission, also known as "Regione", "commissione regionale" or "cupola regionale") is a governing body of the Cosa Nostra. It gathered only to deliberate important decisions about the Cosa Nostra interests between several provinces in the same territory that involved other crime families.
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The dictionary definition of mafia at Wiktionary
