Words

For thirty years, 23 May has been Falcone's day. Celebrations, remembrance, emotion. Speeches. Duly. Woe to it not so. The words of the many who loved him. Or opposed. Or - also - hated and fought. Just pay them the attention they deserve.

Better still it would be to keep quiet. And listen to - reread - Falcone's words.
For example these, from his book Cose di Cosa nostra.
"We in the anti-mafia pool have lived as convicts: wake up at dawn to study the files before going to court, return home late in the evening. In 1985, Paolo Borsellino and I went on vacation to a prison in Asinara, Sardinia to draw up the final provision of the investigation of the maxi-trial.
I do not regret anything, even if at times I perceive in my colleagues an understandable desire to return to normal: less supplies, less protection, less rigor in traveling. And so I am surprised to be afraid of the consequences of such an attitude: normality means fewer investigations, less incisiveness, fewer results. And I fear that the judiciary will return to the old routine: the mafiosi who do their job on the one hand, the magistrates who do theirs more or less well on the other, and in the end, palpable, the inefficiency of the state. It would be unbearable to feel the irony and Mafia arrogance of the past during an interrogation! Professionalism in the fight against the mafia also means being aware that investigations cannot be the monopoly of a single person, but the result of teamwork. The excess of personalization is the greatest danger of the anti-mafia forces, after the underestimation of the risks. I am thinking of General Dalla Chiesa. He was alone. He did not have the time nor did anyone help him to become fully aware of the military power achieved by the mafia ».

How many teachings, for those who want to collect them.
And then those last six lines of the book.
Prophetic and terrible.
“People generally die because they are alone or because they have entered into too big a game. People often die because they do not have the necessary alliances, because they lack support. In Sicily the mafia hits the servants of the state that the state has not been able to protect ».

If - in addition to celebrating him - Falcone were listened to more. Everyone: magistrates, politicians, citizens. These are blood-soaked words. Therefore authentic, sincere, precious. Not just one day a year.


Renzo Agasso
NP May 2022