Gomorrah: A Personal Journey into the Violent International Empire of Naples’ Organized Crime System Read Online Free PDF

catapults from the stage into his fans. A bunch of motorcyclists pulled up around the hearse waiting to take Manù to the cemetery. They revved their engines and clamped down on the brakes: a chorus of burnouts for Emanuele’s last race. Their tires squealing and mufflers howling, it was as if they wanted to escort him all the way to the hereafter. Thick smoke and the stench of gas filled the air, permeating everyone’s clothes. I went in to the sacristy; I wanted to talk to the priest who’d uttered such fiery words. A woman got there before me. She wanted to tell him that the boy had gone looking for trouble, that his family hadn’t taught him anything. Then she confessed proudly, “My grandchildren would never havecommitted robbery, even though they’re unemployed … But what did that boy learn?” she continued nervously. “Anything?”
    The priest looked at the floor. He was wearing a tracksuit. He didn’t try to respond, didn’t even look her in the face. He just kept staring at his sneakers as he whispered, “The fact is that the only thing you learn here is how to die.”
    “Excuse me, Padre?”
    “Nothing, signora, nothing.”
    But not everyone is underground here. Not everyone has ended up in the quagmire of defeat. At least not yet. Some successful factories are still strong enough to compete with the Chinese because they work for big designer names. By delivering speed and quality—extremely high quality—they still hold the monopoly on beauty for top-level garments. “Made in Italy” is made here. Caivano, Sant’ Antimo, Arzano, and all across Las Vegas, Campania. “The face of Italy in the world” wears fabric draped over the bare head of the Naples suburbs. The brand names don’t dare risk sending everything East, contracting out to Asia. Factories here are crowded into stairwells, on the ground floors of row houses, in sheds on the outskirts of these outlying towns. Lined up one behind the other, staring at the back of the person in front of them, the workers sew cloth, cut leather, and assemble shoes. A garment worker puts in about ten hours a day, bringing home from 500 to 900 euros a month. Overtime usually pays well, as much as 15 euros an hour more than the regular wage. Factories rarely have more than ten employees. There’s almost always a television or radio so the workers can listen to music, maybe even hum along. But during crunch times the only noise is the march of needles. More than half the employees are women; they’re skilled workers, born staring at a sewing machine. Officially these factories don’t exist, and neither do the employees. If the same work were done legally, prices would goup and there’d be no more market—which means the work would disappear from Italy. The businessmen around here know this logic by heart. There’s usually no rancor or resentment between factory workers and owners; class conflict here is as soft as a soggy cookie. Often the owner is a former worker, and he puts in the same hours as his employees, in the same room, at the same bench. When he makes a mistake, he pays for it out of his own pocket, in mortgages or loans. His authority is paternalistic. You have to fight for a day off or a few cents’ raise. There’s no contract, no bureaucracy. It’s all head to head, and any concessions or benefits are individually negotiated. The owner and his family live above the factory. His daughters often babysit his employees’ children, and his mother becomes their de facto grandmother, so that workers’ and owner’s children grow up together. This communal existence acts out the horizontal dream of post-Fordism: * workers and managers eat together, socialize with each other, and are made to feel they’re all part of the same community.
    No one acts ashamed here. They know they’re doing top-quality work, and that they’re being paid a pittance. But you can’t have one without the other. You work to get what you need and you do it as