Selected Titles on Nonviolent Action and Movements: in French, German, Spanish and Italian

The story, narrated by his brother, of one of the most iconic figure of the anti-mafia struggle, Peppino Impastato, who revolted against the patriarchal structure of his family, went against his father who belonged to the Sicilian mafia organisation and ignited an anti-mafia culture and actions at the cost of his own life.

These stories, which Dolci collected in Sicily, are the medium through which he elucidates the local dimension of the mafia – its action and influence in Sicily – and its wider impact in Italy and beyond. This is a record of how ordinary people coped with their suffering of violence, and it aims to transmit their vision of social justice. The work has an educational value.

An analysis of the role that women had from the period of the ‘Fasci Siciliani’ (Sicilian Workers Leagues’ revolts) until now in changing the mafia culture and mafia organisations in Sicily.

Santino analyses the Mafia organisation and social consensus. He sees in the latter a supportive element to mafia organisations as well as the ground on which it is possible to build forms of nonviolent education and practices that could lead to a change within the current system. He adopts a ‘paradigm of complexity’ at the foundation of the epistemological and methodological approach to the mafia phenomenon and identifies the limit of the military and repressive reaction against it. In so doing, he discusses what action civil society can undertake to sustain nonviolent forms of resistance against mafia.  

Retrievable at: http://www.centroimpastato.com/nonviolanza-mafia-eantimafia/

This long article touches on the development of the anti-mafia movement and distinguishes within it civic anti-mafia and social anti-mafia. It delineates the developments that took place in three different periods of time in Italy: 1950s, that saw the birth of the nonviolent anti-mafia movement; the 1960s and 1970s, when socio-political-cultural aspects of the anti-mafia movement started to develop organically; up to the 1980s-1990s, a period that saw the development of the pacifist movement rising against the US militarisation of the Italian island of Sicily that paralleled the reinforcement of the anti-mafia movement and a stronger participation of organisations within it alongside individuals. It touches also on the growth of the anti-mafia movement outside the confines of Sicily, and its extension to the entire Italian peninsula, mainly because of the activity of teachers and students that facilitated the adoption of the first set of anti-mafia legislation and led to the removal from public offices of staff involved with the mafia organisation.  It also establishes a conceptual distinction between the anti-mafia movement and social movements as traditionally considered, and stresses the peculiar nature of the first as being pro-system and anti-system, simultaneously. Finally, it highlights the weak points that undermine the continuity and cohesiveness of the anti-mafia movements.

Retrievable also at: http://www.centroimpastato.com/voci-per-il-dizionario-di-mafia-e-di-antimafia-di-narcomafie-2/

This long article highlights the three different periods of time that defined the anti-mafia movement, namely from 1891-1894 until 1950s; 1960s and 1970s; and from 1980s up to now. The analysis provides an initial understanding of the typology and tools of the anti-mafia struggle in each of these phases, alongside the ethical and cultural factors that supported it. The article also elucidates the social, economic and cultural composition of the mafia organisation as well as the anti-mafia movement and touches upon its development as a national movement, rather than configuring it as an issue concerning solely the island of Sicily. Finally, it depicts the peculiar characteristics of the anti-mafia movement and what differentiates it from social movements as traditionally considered, by contextualising the analysis within power relationships in Italy.