You probably wont see it if you visit Sicily. You probably wont see any of its effects, either, unless you look very closely. But considering its profound influence on Sicilian life, no twentieth-century history book on Sicily would be accurate without mentioning the most famous Sicilian fraternity. The word Mafia was formally recorded by the prefect of Palermo in 1865, after the unification of Italy (57 Robb). It wasnt until 1982 that it was added to the Italian penal code. Until the end of World War II, the Mafia was a force that the landowners and state of Sicily found useful to maintain power and property. In the nineteen seventies The Oxford English Dictionary was still listing the Mafia asOften erroneously supposed to constitute an organized secret society existing for criminal purposes.When the New Shorter came out in 1993, the first five words had been dropped from the definition.Cosa Nostra (literally translated means this thing that is ours), or the Sicilian Mafia, had the perfect social setting for their concealed rise to power. Between the clannish nature of Sicilians, their almost instinctive dislike for inconsistent law enforcement, and a repressed hereditary aristocracy created a favorable cultural petri dish for the Mafia. And its no secret that the criminal justice system does not function very well in Italy. And where there is no law, there is no sin (www.bestofsicily.com). In the 1930s, when the Fascists rose to power in Italy, Mussolini had most of Cosa Nostra thrown in jail. This gave way to the Mafias sympathy to the American cause, or at least their hostility to the fascist one. In reality, the relationship between the Fascists and the Mafia was that of one group of criminals pitted against another-two wolves fighting over the same chicken coop (www.bestofsicily.com). Cosa Nostra became politically active, and extremely anti-fascist. In fact, the United States had reason to believe that the Mafia wa...
