One of the Republic's Ministers, Minister Lunardi, once said that we have to learn to live with the Mafia. But in order to live with something you first have to establish exactly what it is. What is today’s Mafia all about? How many parliamentarians, mayors and town councillors do they have in their pockets? The various Mafia groups arrange to have their own people democratically elected to Parliament. They are sitting on the Board of Directors of the banks, the major industrial companies and the real estate firms. Wherever there is an opportunity for laundering hundreds of billions of Euro, they are there. In a single year, the Italian Mafia groups generate a combined turnover of 130 billion Euro (2003 estimate). 70% of this figure is straight profit and they are in a position to re-invest almost 100 billion Euro per year. They can buy whatever and whomever they wish. The life and death of a man. Convert their money into outwardly respectable business enterprises. The Italian Mafia’s GDP is greater than that of many of the medium size Countries around the world. It is greater than that of Croatia or Rumania. The Mafia is one of the largest and most secure employers in Southern Italy (they always pay). Thanks directly or indirectly to the Mafia, some 27% of the residents of Calabria, 12% of the residents of Campania and 10% of the residents of Sicily (*) manage to make a living. When you have no other option, the one that provides your daily bread automatically becomes your boss. The Mafia is not only the most important business, but also the largest employer in the South of Italy. The turnover generated by the Mafia groups must be added to the turnover generated by their investments via their money laundering activities. In the past decade, the Mafia’s total profits have been in the region of 1,000 billion Euro. What kind of yield does 1,000 billion Euro of laundered money provide in political terms, financial terms and in terms of Government influence? What we need to find out is whether or not there is any longer any distinction whatsoever between the Mafia and the Sate and between the “clean” economy and the Mafia economy. To establish whether there is still such a thing as a “clean” economy and whether or not a Country’s economy is still able to survive without the influx of Mafia capital. Whether it is the State that has to live with the Mafia or the Mafia that must live with the State. Whether the State has become a Mafia entity, whether the Mafia groups have become parastatal and protectors of the system that has been set up. The truncheon hailed as a hero on a par with Borsellino in the Panthoen of the Homeland. Andreotti, convicted criminal and senator for life for Mafia association and Government activities. Money is completely undemocratic. Those who have it control the capitalist democracies and now the Mafia groups have the money. We have to ask ourselves whether there is anything left that can still be classified as non-Mafia and whether living with the Mafia has become a process of slow integration that dilutes and eventually swallows up absolutely everything and everyone.

(*) Data drawn from the book entitled "Mafia Pulita" (The Clean Mafia), published by Longanesi

Ps: the buoys are red. I repeat: the buoys are red.