by Jawad Asaria
“I have no intention of telling you anything about my friends. You know me: I am bound by Omertà.”
Tomasso Buscetta’s words rang uncomfortably in the minds of hearts of victims to Mafia violence, journalists, and lawyers, when he uttered a statement emblematic of the romanticisation of the Mafia: silence and loyalty above all else. “I will never betray my friends. I will remain silent and faithful unto death,” is the quasi-hippocratic oath spoken by incumbent Mafia members, forming the baselines of the set of intricate honour-based rules that form the Omertà, the mafia code demanding silence and non-compliance with non-Mafia entities.
Mafia sympathisers claim the Omertà is a descendant of a form of valiant and nationalist resistance against Spanish invaders, however its roots are most likely found in the efforts to sustain the various organised crime groups that sprouted in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in the beginning of the nineteenth century, a far cry from its purported perception of noblesse in the origin story provided by the Mafia.
The mafia were supposedly the men of honour, or uomini d’onore, who stringently followed these rules, the infringement of which would result in death. To be an informant was a greater dishonour than to be a criminal. However, history proved that Omertà was just as ineffective as every other vague moral principle adopted by the Mafia in order to publicly present themselves as heroes and internally justify that they were one of the ‘good guys.’
The Omertà first fell in America. It didn’t take much. Joseph Valachi was a trusted soldier of the Genovese family, who was convicted of narcotic trafficking in the 60s, during the time that pressure on defeating the Mafia had reached a fever pitch. It did not take long for the honour to wash away, unlike the blood on his hands, and on the hands of the thousands of false agents just like him. After an event which Valachi saw as his attempted assassination, he told the American Senate all about the Mafia, proving to be quite the loquacious inmate. A far cry from the Omertà, indeed.
The hope amongst the Italian Mafia was that, at least across the Atlantic Sea, those mafia members who had been imprisoned such as Tomasso Buscetta would keep to Omertà, at the risk of losing their honour. Hopefully, it was just an issue with the American offshoots, who were far away from the proud and cultural roots of the Sicilian Cosa Nostra. Evidently not.
Tomasso Buscetta, the same mobster who claimed to be bound by Omertà, revealed a trove of Mafia secrets so large that the Italian Government was able to launch the Maxi trials which led to the indictment of over 400 Mafia Members. Still, Buscetta continued testifying in various trials until his eventual death in 2000, living and dying in hiding. Omertà, thus, seems to be a code of silence observed only by people who benefit from the Mafia or who fear from the disproportionate repercussions of non-adherence. However, it is telling that even by their own codes and ethos, history has shown that the self-claimed men of honour who form the Mafia are anything but.
Bibliography:
"Omertà: The Code of Silence That Governs the Mafia." All That's Interesting, https://allthatsinteresting.com/omerta.