How do the clans manage the vote? This too is simple. The organization obtains ballots that are identical to those the voter finds at the polls, through obliging poll monitors or from the printers themselves. It fills them out and keeps them. The voter who wants to sell his vote goes to the clan’s people and is given a ballot already filled in. Then he goes to the polling place, presents his identification and receives a regular ballot. Once in the booth, he substitutes the clan’s already filled-out ballot for the ballot he received at the polling place, putting the latter in his pocket. He leaves the voting booth and hands in the ballot pre-completed by the clan. Then he goes away. He goes back to the clan, gives them the unused ballot and receives his money. The unused ballot given to the clan is filled out and given to the next voter, who takes it, votes with it and comes back with a clean one. And will in turn be paid his silver coin: 50 euros, 100 euros, 150 or a mobile phone. Or a small job if he is lucky. In this way the clan is able to elect all the politicians it wants. Sometimes we see a politician on television and we think: ‘He can’t speak well, doesn’t have the right skills, how on earth did he get elected?’ This is how he got elected.

With things the way they are, it’s easy to convince yourself that they will never change, that it’s hopeless to strive to make that happen, since you will never be able to shape the country’s destinies. But the truth is exactly the opposite: things work that way because we don’t participate, because we don’t make an effort, because we don’t try to effect change.

One of the things that hurts me the most is being accused of defaming my country simply because I talk about its contradictions. A person who talks about his own country is not defaming it, he’s defending it. When he was Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi said:

If I catch whoever made the nine series of La Piovra and the people who write books about the Mafia […], I swear I’ll strangle them.

And on a later occasion:

There was publicity given to this criminal organization […] let’s remember the nine series of La Piovra and all the literature, the cultural promotion, Gomorrah and all the rest.

Cultural promotion? How is that conceivable? The former Prime Minister does not understand that to tell stories is to reshape the country’s dream. Telling stories is already a step forward in terms of doing, because words are actions. Which is why putting a stop to words means to stop doing. Telling how things are means not having to submit to them.