Defiance (14 page)

facing page
5
Peppino Impastato

7
A meeting of the Music and Culture group

right
10
A funeral in
Cinisi. From
left to right:
Felicetta Vitale,
Felicia Impastato,
Giovanni
Impastato and
aunt Fara

11
A house confiscated from the Badalamenti family, with Mount Pecoraro in the background

This was the background to Radio Aut being set up in a private house in the back streets of Terrasini. Broadcasting for several hours a day, the political input was strong but not overwhelming. Not only were there daily news bulletins with information from all over the world, but in September 1977 Peppino travelled as far as Bologna with bulky radio equipment to record debates and interviews at a three-day conference against state repression.

Peppino’s main contribution was a show named
Crazy Wave
, which went out on Friday evenings, and was repeated on Sunday mornings. It was partly improvised, although a safety net of sound effects was always used. People would bring a bottle of wine, bread and olives, a record or two, and the microphones would be switched on. In many ways it was his crowning achievement – he was able to let rip with all his political passion and satirical imagination. Although he was a very private person, everybody recognised that when it came to talking about politics in public Peppino was a ‘great communicator’. The recordings that have survived show that, considering they were complete amateurs operating with rudimentary equipment, the quality was very high.

The broadcasters self-mockingly defined it as a ‘satiricalschizophrenic’ show, and it is fair to say it was surreally political. By now Peppino was knocking at an open door: his political reputation as a straight shooter had already earned him large audiences when he gave speeches, and when
Crazy Wave
went out radio was still probably as popular as television in the homes of southern Italians. Many people would carry their transistor radios into bars, and groups would gather to enjoy the show. The powerful, meanwhile, would stay home to hide their embarrassment.

In order to avoid both legal problems and to amuse his audience, Peppino re-created Cinisi, its corrupt politicians and
Mafiosi
through the use of nicknames. The whole town was renamed ‘Mafiopoli’, and instead of using the real name of the town’s main street, Corso Umberto, he changed it to ‘Corso Luciano Leggio’ – after one of the three top Mafia leaders of the time. Important local people were given nicknames, often relating to the American Wild West. ‘Geronimo’ was in fact the Christian Democrat mayor Gero di Stefano, ‘Joe the Hod Carrier’ was the Mafia building contractor Giuseppe Finazzo, Badalamenti’s deputy Vito Palazzolo became Cinisi council’s ‘Minister for Foreign Affairs’ due to his frequent trips to the US – a description many people would have presumed referred to his involvement in international drug trafficking. Peppino’s favourite target was Don Tano Badalamenti, whom he sometimes called a ‘pale-face’, and here some explanation of Italian is necessary to understand the Wild West allusion. The leader of the Oglala Sioux, Sitting Bull is translated into Italian as ‘Toro seduto’ – so Tano Badalamenti became Tano Seduto.

The force of these programmes went far beyond clever puns and nicknames; they were a political podium from which Peppino and others used one of the most formidable weapons that can weaken the powerful – satire.

The following monologue not only attacks another sacred cow – the Church – it also attacks the Christian Democrats, while all the time making sarcastic remarks about Badalamenti. The timing of this broadcast, just two weeks before a council election, also increased its effect:

Don Tano is praying for a Christian Democrat victory, so that the CD gets in the best position, so that everybody bends over and offers their arses . . . ‘dear brethren, give us some help’. . . Don Tano Seduto is overcome, at the moment he is paying penance for all the sins he has committed so that the brethren of Mafiopoli and the holy CD forgive him . . . ‘My dear brethren, I have cleansed myself, now I am pure, my act of penance is a sign that I have returned to the flock, that I am praying for you, that my sacrifices have been for you. I beseech you in the name of my earlier teachings’ (gunshots) – vote Christian Democrat.

These radio shows were very popular in town, and they must have been very enjoyable to make. But Peppino and others didn’t forget that they were still engaged in a deadly serious campaign to change Cinisi from head to foot.

The central political problem they had campaigned against for a decade was still there: a system of power formally dominated by the Christian Democrats, but in which the Mafia had a strong influence. Jets now screamed overhead in the lower areas of Cinisi and heavy traffic was still clogging up some streets as construction work for the new motorway had not yet finished. Following the worldwide success of
The Godfather
there was even an obscene element of ‘Mafia tourism’, mainly involving British visitors. Once a week a coach would leave a resort along the coast and climb up into the mountains behind Cinisi on a day trip. It cost 2,500 lire to visit ‘The Godfather’ and receive a kiss on the cheek and a glass of wine. However, there wasn’t much play-acting going on: Pietro ‘The Damned’ Palazzolo – the human ‘tourist attraction’ in question – had recently been serving a life sentence for no less than 13 murders. He was a typical specimen also in his apparent deep sense of respect towards others. Margherita Galati met him several times because at the time she was a friend of his granddaughter: ‘he was a real gentleman, with a real sense of reverence towards the family and towards women’. While all of this was simply in bad taste, what was truly scandalous was that Cinisi council had spent a huge amount building a road that led to virtually Palazzolo’s house alone.

What perhaps made Peppino and others angrier more than anything else was that the Communist Party was slowly but surely sliding into this swamp. This was the background to a meeting held one day in April 1977, when the group argued strongly over the text of a leaflet. Many said it was over the top, but in the end it was printed and they allowed Peppino to distribute it. It contains all the anger, frustration and sense of betrayal they felt towards the Communist Party, but Peppino distributed it virtually on his own. As regards both the Christian Democrats and the Mafia, they had never gone this far before: