{"id":17796,"date":"2025-06-13T13:08:20","date_gmt":"2025-06-13T12:08:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cassandravoices.com\/?p=17796"},"modified":"2025-06-13T13:08:20","modified_gmt":"2025-06-13T12:08:20","slug":"public-intellectuals-leonardo-sciascia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/2025\/06\/13\/public-intellectuals-leonardo-sciascia\/","title":{"rendered":"Public Intellectuals: Leonardo Sciascia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\"><em>Corruption is worse than prostitution; the latter might endanger the morals of an individual. The former invariably endangers the entire country.<br \/>\n<\/em>Karl Krauss<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Leonardo Sciascia or Shaza was an Italian or rather Sicilian political journalist, an elected radical member of the Italian parliament and the most prominent anti-mafia and indeed anti-corruption critic of his time. He was also a voice of moderation in a sea of extremism in the 1970s and 1980s.<\/p>\n<p>All this features in his famous detective novels which are really anti-detective novels or works of political observation. Along with his masterful analysis of the assassination by the Red Brigade of the Christian Democrat conciliator and former Prime Minister Aldo Moron \u2013 a book not unlike the equally masterful <em>News of a Kidnapping<\/em> (1997) by Garcia Marquez concerning Colombia in the era of Escobar \u2013 his <em>oeuvre<\/em> offers a sustained critique of Italian and Sicilian political and cultural life.<\/p>\n<p>This reflects the complex interstices of corruption and collusion between extreme-right-wing Catholicism, organised crime and the shadowy self-protection syndicates of big business, politics, as well as a malevolent state bureaucracy deeply embedded in all of the aforementioned. His books also demonstrate the lethal effects of innuendo, smoke, mirrors and the nefarious rumour mill.<\/p>\n<p>You could cut and paste these, change the names, and apply them to Ireland, the U.K. or U.S. or any country where extreme neo-liberalism or Christian evangelism holds sway.<\/p>\n<p>Sciascia was a specialist on the mafia, and he demonstrated how they kill and destroy. First, they isolate and disempower and then they denigrate. Often, demonising or scapegoating their prey. And those who seek to investigate them \u2013 such as the anti-corruption Sicilian Judge Giovanni Falcone \u2013 who act on principle are destroyed. This is exquisitely detailed in <em>Equal Danger<\/em> (1971), his best book.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Illustrious Corpses (1976) Original Trailer [FHD]\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/IDWv9ioUjlU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Illustrious Corpses<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In Sciascia\u2019s fiction, it is the detective, not the murderer, who is isolated and suspected, suffering the same fate as <span style=\"color: #000080;\"><a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"https:\/\/cassandravoices.com\/society\/law\/does-ireland-still-have-a-problem-with-whistleblowing\/\">whistleblowers<\/a><\/span> around the world today. It is a post-truth doppelganger of good and evil. Thus, those who oppose corruption in the words of the film adaptation of his book become Illustrious Corpses [1976].<\/p>\n<p>In fact, his current heir, as the anti-corruption conscience of Italian letters, Robert Saviona was placed under police protection after his exposure of the Neapolitan mafia in <em>Gomorrah<\/em> (2016), and his fabulous text <em>Zero Zero Zero<\/em> (2013), which was made into a T.V. series that highlights how the practices and modes of organisation of the drugs trade are mirrored in corporate organisation, and vice versa. The same brutality. The same hierarchical structure. The same partnerships.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Saviona was recently prosecuted by Meloni for calling her a bastard over her immigration views. A cautionary tale perhaps for the revival of the hate crimes bill in Ireland, and our anti-immigrant stance? Who would dare call Jim O&#8217;Callaghan a bastard?\u00a0 I doubt he would sanction a prosecution, but who knows as the centre-right moves even further to the right, just as Starmer has the taken the so-called Labour Party.<\/p>\n<p>In Ireland, anti-mafia or anti-corruption activists face an uphill not impossible struggle in our present universe. Witness the case of Jonathan Sugerman.<\/p>\n<p>In a world of statist and corporate authoritarianism, what Eisenhower historically called (in interview with the late great Walter Cronkite at the end of his Presidency) the military industrial complex poses an existential threat to humanity. Meanwhile, on X, Elon Musk perversely uses freedom of speech to undermine the civic space.<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, <a href=\"https:\/\/cassandravoices.com\/history\/public-intellectuals-jurgen-habermas\/\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Habermas<\/span><\/a>&#8216; ideal of communicative action is poisoned by misinformation undermining the democratic rights and entitlements of all by pandering to far right-wing extremists and racists and WOK simpletons.<\/p>\n<p>The film Illustrious Corpses. (1976) begins with the murder of Investigating Judge Vargas in Palermo, amidst a climate of demonstrations, strikes and political tension between the Left under a Christian Democratic government. The detective Rogas is assigned to investigate the case and no sooner has he started then two more judges are murdered.<\/p>\n<p>He is encouraged \u2018not to forage after gossip,\u2019 but to trail the \u2018crazy lunatic who for no reason whatsoever is going about murdering judges.\u2019\u00a0 He focuses mistakenly on a suspect leftist wrongfully convicted by the judges. Whereupon he is advised by the President of the Supreme Court, played in sinister fashion by Max van Sydow, that the court is incapable of error.<\/p>\n<p>At a party he is advised there will be a coalition of the Communists and the Christian Democrats, and that the murder of the judges as well as Rogas&#8217;s investigations were causing tensions, and justify the prosecution of the far-left groups. Rogas also discovers that his suspect, Cres, is present at the party. Rogas meets with the Secretary-General of the Communist Party in a museum. Both are killed.\u00a0 And the murder is blamed on the innocent detective.<\/p>\n<p>The film ends with the dictum: \u2018<em>The people must never know the truth?<\/em>\u2019<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_17814\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-17814\" style=\"width: 376px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-17814 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/cassandravoices.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Giovanni_Falcone_and_Paolo_Borsellino.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"376\" height=\"258\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-17814\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in March 1992. Two assassinated judges.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><em><strong>Equal Danger<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>It is this kind of disrespect for the truth that has led us collectively, in my view, into the present quagmire. The gatekeepers of the system must be above reproach, and the exposure of corruption may lead \u2013 as it did to the Italian judge Falcone \u2013 assassination by the mafia, although in more \u2018civilised\u2019 countries this may consist of a fabricated charge, or some form of propaganda-by-omission where a critic of government policy is no-platformed in the media.<\/p>\n<p>The salient message of the book <em>Equal Danger <\/em>is that the system breaks down when one of the canonical features of the Rule of Law is eradicated. This includes when the gatekeepers are no longer independent, as Lord Bingham suggested in his canonical text on <em>The Rule of Law<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>At the core of the ideal of the Rule of Law, the legendary Law Lord and jurist Bingham, suggests is the idea \u2018that ministers and public officers at all levels must exercise the powers conferred on them reasonably, in good faith, for the purpose for which the powers were conferred, and without exceeding the limits of such powers.\u2019 Sadly those conditions have been undermined in many jurisdictions.<\/p>\n<p>Ironically in the end, Sciascia attacked crusading judges for putting civil rights at stake in an article, while on his deathbed, that irredeemably punctured his reputation: attacking Falcone as a celebrity judge which was ludicrous and frankly in bad taste.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_17815\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-17815\" style=\"width: 188px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-17815 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/cassandravoices.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/IlGiornoDellaCivetta-188x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"188\" height=\"300\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-17815\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">First Edition.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong><em>Anomie<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Another Sciascia theme, particularly evident in his most famous text, <em>The Day of the Owl<\/em> (1961)\u2019 is the Sicilian trait of anomie or indifference, implying that pursuit of principle, justice and the truth are all a waste of time.<\/p>\n<p>In controlled societies, such as Italy or Ireland, Sciascia\u2019s books demonstrate the lethal effects of innuendo, smoke, mirrors and the nefarious rumour mill, along with the collective trivialisation that amounts to a resigned admission that the victims of crime had it coming to them in some obscure way. This betrays a latent desire for yourself not to go the same way. What C.S. Jung referred to as the shadow.<\/p>\n<p><em>The Day of the Owl<\/em> also brilliantly shows that to succeed in a mafiosi culture you must pay the protection money or <em>pizzo<\/em>; just as in Mario Puzo\u2019 s vastly underrated <em>The Godfather <\/em>(1969) you must kiss Don Corleone\u2019s ass. An understanding of patronage and feudalism remains crucial in our time.<\/p>\n<p>That book also canvasses another theme of distraction central to our age: the playbook of the false sex allegation. The virtuous are undermined by the <em>crime passional<\/em>, the allegation of sexual impropriety, including child abuse. Those who carry out the task appear sanctimonious and mask political persecution, often framing their victims. A favourable appointment follows. Robespierre would approve.<\/p>\n<p>In the context of false allegations Roy Cohn, Trumps lawyer, was barely twenty-four years old when he played perhaps the central role in the Rosenberg\u2019s\u2019 espionage trial, relentlessly and vindictively lobbying the judge for their execution. Both were found guilty of passing information to the Soviet Union and electrocuted at Singh Sing in 1953.<\/p>\n<p>It was quite clear that this was utterly malicious in that he knew Ethel Rosenberg was innocent but used forged documents, perjured evidence and the art of persuasion \u2013 in that he believed her indictment would force Julian Rosenberg to reveal his espionage sources.<\/p>\n<p>Well whistleblowers and anyone accused of sedition, espionage or treason also come from the fascist playbook. That is now Trumps agenda for even academics and students.<\/p>\n<p>And people forget. Memories fade. The shadow play moves on. Thus, Sciascia a proper Sicilian communist has much to say about the rule of law and not just in Italy. His work is crucially relevant to our time.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_17816\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-17816\" style=\"width: 261px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-17816 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/cassandravoices.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/800px-Roberto_Calvi-261x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"261\" height=\"300\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-17816\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Roberto Calvi<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong><em>Roberto Calvi<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Close to my Chambers is Blackfriars Bridge where Roberto Calvi the former head of the Vatican bank was found dangling. Sciascia\u2019s acidic response was: \u2018Why was a good mystery preferred to finding out the truth?\u2019<\/p>\n<p>But the truth depends on memory, pattern recognition and a sense of history, and as Milan Kundera \u2013 as good an exposer of corruption as Sciascia in his way \u2013 remarked, the first way of liquidating a people is to destroy memory, or the lessons of history.<\/p>\n<p>Thus, in contemporary Italy the mayor of Montefalco banned cricket in a village played by immigrants near Joycean Trieste, forgetting that AC Milan was founded as a cricket club. And lest we forget that in the jaw-droppingly beautiful village of Sant Angelo in Ischia Italy gave refuge to one of the great artists and enemy of Pinochet, the Chilean Pablo Neruda, though the film <em>Il Postino<\/em> (1994) fictionally suggests it was nearby Procida!<\/p>\n<p>Thus, as I enthused about the country on a train from Perugia, after viewing the Fra Angelica painting Resurrection, an Italian lawyer said yes but what about the government? He reminded me not just about Berlusconi, but Andreotti so closely connected with the corruption I have referred to \u2013 Il Divo (2008) to reference Sorentino&#8217;s film about him. Surviving into his nineties, he was the reptile like crystallisation of the world\u2019s corruption. A man who sent people to their death via his associations with the mafia, but a pious Catholic. Sound familiar?<\/p>\n<p>Now let us pave a path for a new resurrection to create a better world based on the Rule of Law and moderation, whether secular or Christian. Let us wonder if the good man Jesus would stand for what has been done and is being done in his name.<\/p>\n<p>The message of our sceptical and brilliant communist Sicilian friend is most relevant to this age. Keep to the truth and let the heaven\u2019s fall.<\/p>\n<p>Title Image: Paolo Borsellino with Leonardo Sciascia (Creative Commons).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Corruption is worse than prostitution; the latter might endanger the morals of an individual. The former invariably endangers the entire country. Karl Krauss Leonardo Sciascia or Shaza was an Italian or rather Sicilian political journalist, an elected radical member of the Italian parliament and the most prominent anti-mafia and indeed anti-corruption critic of his time. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":17820,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[501,577,2815,3727,4107,4321,4427,5145,5463,5464,5644,7528,7541,7902,7903,7906,8173,9000],"class_list":["post-17796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history-2","tag-and","tag-anomie","tag-economics","tag-giovanni-falcone","tag-history","tag-illustrious-corpses","tag-intellectuals","tag-karl-krauss","tag-leonardo","tag-leonardo-sciascia","tag-lord-bingham","tag-public","tag-public-intellectuals-leonardo-sciascia","tag-robert-saviona","tag-robert-saviona-equal-danger","tag-roberto-calvi","tag-sciascia","tag-the-day-of-the-owl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17796\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}