Italy (catch all)

[davidbfpo]

Thread re-opened after this update on Sicily in the German newspaper Der Spiegel; the title and sub-title:

How Sicily Became Ungovernable; Italy's poorest region, Sicily, is the country's problem child. Now it has elected a new government. To fix the island, it will have to overcome corruption and widespread Mafia control - and figure out how to convince its population not to leave.

Link:http://www.spiegel.de/international/...-1177068.html?

[Bill Moore]

Thread re-opened after this update on Sicily in the German newspaper Der Spiegel; the title and sub-title:
Link:http://www.spiegel.de/international/...-1177068.html?

An insightful article that generated a lot of thought about failing states, even within the West. Italy isn't failing, but regions of it have or in the process of being ungoverned by the elected government. Pockets of corruption and lawlessness can leap frog or spread to adjacent areas are where conditions are permissive.

A couple of initial thoughts, perhaps more later. Corruption has strategic effects over time, the recent trend in U.S. counterinsurgency is that corruption is largely irrelevant is deeply flawed. Corruption is a key means in the competitive control competition to compete for control over select regions.

Tactics evolve with means, as criminal organizations gain more wealth, they can shift from using terror as their principle means of coercion to infiltration and influence, resulting in a defacto government or shadow government. The police who are supposed to fight these organizations are quietly co-opted. Then it eventually becomes "just the way that it is." At this point it takes great leaders of great courage to create a movement to change the norm.

I found the following paragraph to be a ray of hope.

For a bar owner in Di Matteo's neighborhood, this "gift" amounts to a 6,000-euro (6,960-dollar) reduction in annual profits. Many businesses are no longer able to pay the protection money, some are now unwilling to do so. Stickers from the Addiopizzo organization are now displayed in more than 1,000 shop windows in and around Palermo. The organization encourages consumers to shop in businesses that refuse to pay the "pizzo," or protection money.

As I pointed out in my book review of the Originals.

http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...7&postcount=41

There was another section that spoke at some length on how to mobilize a resistance movement. For example, people prefer to challenge state sponsored oppression / terror as a group. Instead of facing the terror of standing out as lone resister, people were able to see themselves as members of a group based on seeing symbols in many locations that indicates others feel the same way. It’s easier for wan to be rebels to rebel when it feels like an act of conformity. The book provides several examples.

The stickers from the Addiopizzo are an example of this. Bravo!