Fighting the Mafia & Renewing Sicilian Culture

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Leoluca Orlando. Fighting the Mafia & Renewing Sicilian Culture

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I remember two things from those days: sore knees from kneeling, and the black smock with a starched collar we were forced to wear. I hated that smock! In the garden there was a fountain with several taps, and during recess I often “accidentally” got my smock soaked so I would have an excuse for not putting it back on over my shorts when we returned to class. For years my ultimate ambition was to lose the smock and gain long trousers. In the meantime I had a proximate ambition: to become a member of the choir. This was not because I had any particular love of music or could sing very well. In fact, I was tone-deaf. But the choir members wore a special smock that was slightly more tolerable than the regular one. Finally, moved by my pathetic persistence, my teachers agreed to put me in the choir on one condition: I was to move my mouth but, on pain of immediate expulsion, I was not to sing. Not one note.

My satisfaction was enormous. The special smock allowed me to feel that I had bella figura. This concept, which might be understood as “cutting an impressive figure,” is of course almost a secular religion to all Italians, but especially to Sicilians, for whom the elegant appearance has traditionally masked and to some degree transformed the impoverished reality. I have more than once asked a friend, after giving a speech, how it went, and received what I must admit was a satisfying response: “Luca, you talked a load of nonsense, but you had bella figura.”

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