Anarchist revolt against the mafia
Sicilian shopkeepers are striking back against the mafia in the best way they can: against their fat pocketbook.
Fabio Messina has never run a shop before and agrees that the supermarket he sunk his savings into and opened yesterday sells a rather eclectic array of goods, from marmalade and pot plants to pyjamas and wristwatches.
But it is a landmark in Palermo: all products and staff are 100 per cent guaranteed Mafia-free, supplied only by shops and producers which have stood up to Sicily’s Cosa Nostra and refused to pay protection money.
‘I decided it was right to give those traders who refuse to pay an extra opportunity,’ said Messina, 29, a former boating instructor and bar owner and now owner of Punto Pizzofree. The ‘Pizzo’ refers to the €200 (£153) to €500 that up to 80 per cent of Palermo’s shopkeepers pay the mob monthly to avoid a smashed window, a mysterious fire or a bomb under their car.
The store is part of an anti-Mafia groundswell that started four years ago when activists plastered Palermo with bill stickers stating: ‘An entire population that pays the pizzo is a population without dignity.’
Now if we could only do the same thing with the State!
