Roberto Saviano: "Meloni has been very clever: she makes people believe that she is fighting against the mafia, but she is not doing anything"

RomeRoberto Saviano (Naples, 1979) wanted to write a love novel. But when he discovered the story of Rossella Casini, a young woman raped, murdered, and dismembered by the family of her boyfriend, Francesco Frisina, heir to a 'Ndrangheta clan, he began an investigation that brought to light one of the cruelest crimes perpetrated by the Calabrian mafia. My love does not die (Ara Llibres) is the result of five years of work. A book with which the author of Gomorrah (2006) tries to do justice to a forgotten victim of the mafia, while continuing to fight against his own demons. A battle of which he confesses to being increasingly tired. Saviano meets ARA at the Cervantes Institute in Rome. The Italian journalist seems especially dejected, convinced that he has sacrificed his life in vain. While abroad he is recognized as a brave writer, in Italy there are those who reproach him for having diminished or tarnished the country's image by denouncing the relationships between power and organized crime. Saviano has lived under police protection for 20 years after being threatened with death by the Casalesi clan, one of the most bloodthirsty in the Camorra. He was 26 years old, almost the same age as Rossella Casini when she was brutally murdered.

Of the protagonist of his book, there is only one photo. Who was she and how did you learn her story?

— Rossella was a 20-year-old girl from Florence, who in 1977 fell in love with her neighbor, a university student from Calabria. But this relationship ends up leading her to death. The 'Ndrangheta tears off her legs, her arms, decapitates her... But first, they rape her and throw her into the sea. Her story is almost unknown in Italy, but I come across it in the archives of the anti-mafia association Libera and I decide to tell it to keep her memory alive.

How do you rebuild a history of which there are hardly any witnesses left?

— Thanks to Rossella's cousin and his wife, who grew up with her. And above all with the documents from the judicial process. I also traveled to Palmi, where Francesco's family comes from, where, by the way, they say she ran away with a Japanese tourist. Incredible! The court's verdict was absurd. The judges acknowledge that the Frisina family is “logically”, they write it exactly like that, responsible for Rossella's death, but they cannot convict them because they do not have enough evidence. The magistrates say more or less that they are acquitting them against their own will.

Years later, a former mobster cooperating with justice confessed who was responsible for the crime, right?

— That's right. Not even after giving names and surnames was justice achieved for this poor girl. The Italian law has never provided an answer to the homicide, there is no one convicted for her death. Francesco's sister, Concetta, continues to live in Palmi. And Francesco lives in Rome, where years ago he bought the most important bar in the capital, in front of the Chigi Palace, the seat of the government presidency.

In all mafia families, women end up having a great influence, also in the story of Rossella.

— Yes, because without women the mafia would not exist. Women are memory, rules, bridges. That is why they are so cruel to them. The woman belongs first to the father, then to the brother, then to the husband and finally to the children. But she is not submissive. She has a role that must be defined by a man, but it is an important role. It is fundamental when the man is in prison. Women decide who dies. Rossella's fate, most likely, was decided by Francesco's sister, who understands that by eliminating her she purifies the family. They rape her, which is something that is forbidden in the 'Ndrangheta, because they consider it something external, an animal. A man would have been shot in the face and that would be it.

You said that you would like to write a love story. Deep down this is a love story even if it is a terrible one.

— It is. I chose to tell this story because I knew I could write about love. A love that has all the toxic and romantic connotations. Rossella was wrong about everything, poor thing. However, deep down, she believes there is a romantic, poetic love. A love that at a certain moment seems to her that it will be able to save them both.

In your situation, how do you manage to experience love?

— The truth is that, beyond my physical condition, the problem is that I no longer trust anyone. So I always think about what it is that you really want from me, about what you will do if we argue... This is my great fear. And it has nothing to do with my situation, but with the boy I was, with the life I have had. In reality, I feel envy for Rossella's love, so beautiful and undeserved. Undeserved love is a mystery that fascinates me deeply because I believe I have never experienced it.

He has lived under police protection since 2006, but in recent years the right wing has also targeted him. Why does he think they are attacking him?

— To discredit me. Because whoever speaks of the mafia, speaks of public affairs. They are afraid that their electorate might believe me when I speak about legality and, therefore, that they might also do so when I speak about them. If I had only spoken about an NGO or rights, it would have been all the same to them, but when I speak about legality, their voters listen to me. They need to tell their own that I am the enemy. And, secondly, politics: when they attack me, they provide no answers. In this way, the problem is not the Camorra, it is how it is explained.

In Spain there will be elections and the polls show the PP with Vox as the winners. And in Italy, National Future, General Roberto Vannacci's party, is already surpassing the League in voting intention. Is the world becoming radicalized?

— Vannacci has destroyed Salvini. The right is riding the issue of immigration and Vannacci is taking it to the extreme, using it as a reactionary weapon, but starting from common sense. In his discourse there is racism, prejudice, paternalism... I do not believe there is any hope, they will win everywhere. And I will stay here to explain a reality that is more complex and that they are trivializing. It infuriates me to see how they have used Ceuta; a propaganda operation by Meloni. Social networks have enabled extremism. Everything that can be easily reduced to a sentence wins. And what is it that can be reduced to a sentence? Propaganda. It is the victory of Goebbels. That is why political totalitarianisms are returning, because their language is returning.

Do you return to Naples often?

— Not often, but I return to it from time to time.

The city has changed a lot. In the last local elections, there was more talk about Airbnb than about the Camorra.

— This is the answer to those who say that I defame Naples. If the city were considered terrifying, there would be no tourists.

Why is there so little talk about the mafia in Italy?

— Because the country does not want to talk about it, it feels defamed. This has always happened, but what is happening now is even more serious. Meloni has been very skillful in making people believe that she is fighting against the mafia while doing nothing. Whoever listens to you feels like a coward, feels like an accomplice, and often they are. Therefore, it is better to do nothing, keep quiet, and say that whoever talks about it is exaggerating and doing so for their own interest. Never before had so little been said about the mafia, nor had so little been done to combat it. But this has also been thanks to the skill of the mafias, which rarely shoot. They will not continue like this forever; at any moment violence could return.

You have stated that you feel abandoned by the institutions, almost as if you had to suffer an attack to stop being suspicious.

— Judge Falcone used to say it. Italy is the country where, if someone puts a bomb at your front door and the bomb doesn't kill you, you are the guilty one. The simple fact of being alive is already an element of suspicion.

In March, after 18 years, the Court of Cassation confirmed the convictions against the head of the Casalesi clan, Francesco Bidognetti, and his lawyer for the threats against you. What has changed after the sentence?

— Nothing, nobody was interested. If they had been acquitted, it would have been used against me, but since they were convicted, it has not been used to defend me. Italy is in a terrible state, like the rest of Europe with these fierce populisms in governments.

Do you feel responsible for your situation? What would you have done differently? What is your responsibility?

— I would not do anything that I have done. I do not regret it, but I would not do it again. My responsibility is to have continued. I should have stopped immediately. After Gomorrah I should have walked away, done something else, written another type of book.

Why didn't he do it?

— Out of ambition. I believed I could defeat them, I swear it. I said to myself: now I will draw the world's attention to all the mafias in Europe. I truly believed it. I was a bit naive.

What would have to happen for their situation to change?

— It depends on me. I am devastated, very lonely. I must stop writing, find another life, but I have been saying it for years without achieving it. I am like drug addicts or those who go to the casino and say it will be the last time. My addiction is to take revenge. I think: you have not managed to silence me and I will continue scattering seeds among the people. It is for this reason that I cannot manage to stop it... For now.