
Roberto Saviano: My life under armed guard - sasvari
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/14/-sp-roberto-saviano-my-life-under-armed-guard-gomorrah
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pav7en
Good article. Saviano writes from the heart and avoids platitudes. He covers
most everything when someone does something never done before or does it
better: 1\. Intimidation, in this case with threats to life. 2\. Anger and a
sense of irritation from the lay public for shining such a bright light on the
problem. 3\. Attempts at discrediting the person and hence by extension the
person's work.

And the reward for this is: The immense loneliness of the person who treads
the new path.

Hmm, reminds of what PG says (paraphrasing) "the modern age (in the western
world) started when the good kids started to keep their candy." This seems to
have missed parts of Italy.

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uses
I don't understand this quote and was wondering if you could link to the
context?

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pav7en
Sure: "Two things changed. The first was the rule of law. For most of the
world's history, if you did somehow accumulate a fortune, the ruler or his
henchmen would find a way to steal it. But in medieval Europe something new
happened. A new class of merchants and manufacturers began to collect in
towns. [10] Together they were able to withstand the local feudal lord. So for
the first time in our history, the bullies stopped stealing the nerds' lunch
money. This was naturally a great incentive, and possibly indeed the main
cause of the second big change, industrialization."

[http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html)

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Red_Tarsius
Very beautiful piece.

Unfortunately, here in Italy quite a few people (shame on them) think Roberto
is "overrated" and the shallow public seems more focused on finding small
details to criticize rather than being thankful and focusing on the real
problem.

~~~
pizza234
Well, if one writes a book, it's fair to judge his work not only for the
content, but also for the form.

The investigation he's done is universally praised, but regarding his style,
there's plenty of space for arguments, and they can be perfectly reasonable
without any "shame".

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dudurocha
I'm reading his new book (brazilian edition): Zero Zero Zero. A tale about the
cocaine empire and history. It is as good as Gomorrah. Everyone should
understand how deeply ingrained the organized crime is on our society. They
are the real rulers of the world. It'll take so much time and guts to put them
down.

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gallerytungsten
Gomorrah is easily one of the best books I've read (and re-read) in the last
ten years. Saviano beautifully sums up why at the end of the article.

"This is the power of the non‑fiction novel, the kind of book I’ve tried to
write. To tell true stories with the rigour of a journalist and the literary
style of a novelist."

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driverdan
I'm confused about why he needs so much protection outside of Italy. It's
clear that the threat was from local groups. Not that they couldn't send
someone after him elsewhere but they clearly don't have power in other places.
It seems like this level of protection is extremely excessive.

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camillomiller
Neapolitan Camorra, which is the organization exposed by Saviano, has strong
ties everywhere, and has invested in many global ventures. Their reach is
actually beyond the knowledge of many. It's good for them to look like local
groups, but they really are a multinational entity already.

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mhomde
If I was under that kind of threat, why not buy a cottage in some remote
country, get a dog, write books and go fishing all day? I mean life is
probably not like hollywood where they can find you "wherever" and as long as
you stay under the radar you should be pretty safe

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knodi123
or move to america and change your name? how many bilingual international
assassins are there, anyway?

~~~
codyb
The FBI estimates the four Italian mafia families have about 25,000 members
and 250,000 affiliates worldwide. They all are active in the United States
[0]. I'm not sure what kind of ties the families keep with each other but
considering the revenues of the Calabrian mafia alone ($80.5 Billion US
Dollars in 2013) it's a safe bet that the ties of these families are very
deep, and very wide [1].

Also if you look at Rob Saviano, he looks like a guy it would be hard to
disguise. His hairline leaves very few options for drastic appearance changes
unless he wears wigs which are a risk in their own right. He'd probably stick
out in a lot of small towns (especially since if he wants to continue writing
he'll just have to tell locals he's independently wealthy, which means he
probably wouldn't hold a job, and would want to be at the scenes of
interesting events) and in a lot of the big towns in America there's mafia
family members he'd have to be worried about 24/7\. That's just my speculation
on the matter.

[0] - [http://www.fbi.gov/about-
us/investigate/organizedcrime/itali...](http://www.fbi.gov/about-
us/investigate/organizedcrime/italian_mafia)

[1] - [http://www.freenewspos.com/en/latest-news-
article/d/1067995/...](http://www.freenewspos.com/en/latest-news-
article/d/1067995/italy/italy-039-s-calabrian-mafia-earns-more-than-
mcdonald-039-s)

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happyscrappy
>There was a war going on between two mafia clans for control of the
territory, and violence between them spilled into the streets. I wanted to
tell the world what this war zone was like: the victims’ families tearing
their clothes, the stink of piss from a man who knew he was going to die and
couldn’t control his fear, people shot in the street because they looked like
the intended victim.

It is sad and ridiculous that this happens in modern Europe. Can the EU do
anything?

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munin
> Can the EU do anything?

legalize drugs?

