Innovations for Successful Societies
	

AN INITIATIVE OF
THE WOODROW WILSON SCHOOL OF PUBLIC AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 
AND THE BOBST CENTER FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE



		

Series: 		City Management
	
Interview no.:		B1		

Interviewee: 		Honorable Leoluca Orlando			

Interviewer:		Rushda Majeed	

Date of Interviews:	17 March 2012 and 24 March 2012

Location:		Palermo, Italy
					
		





Innovations for Successful Societies, Bobst Center for Peace and Justice
Princeton University, 83 Prospect Avenue, Princeton, New Jersey, 08544, USA www.princeton.edu/successfulsocieties


Part I, Introductory remarks on 17 March 2012

MAJEED: 	This is Rushda Majeed, Laura Bacon and Roberto Pitea with former Mayor, the Honorable Leoluca Orlando, in Palermo, Sicily. We are here to speak with Dr. Orlando about his role as mayor. Before we begin our formal interview: Dr. Orlando, would you like to say a few words?

ORLANDO:	First of all, thanks for your attention. I will try to tell you something in general that probably can be useful, even when I will specifically reply to your questions. 

	In my point of view to let it be clear what happened in Palermo during the time I was mayor, before I was mayor, during the time I was mayor, and after I left my office-can be interesting to speak about identity. Identity and time. Identity and space. I think that Palermo can be interesting; probably what happened in Palermo can be useful. When I speak about leadership in other different countries having the same problem, how is it possible to manage identity in relation with time and with relation to space?

	Palermo, and generally speaking Sicily, has a very rich identity. We have a very rich multicultural identity. If you question, "Mr. Orlando, are you Arab?" I reply, "Yes, but not only Arab." If you question, "Mr. Orlando, you are French?" I reply, "Yes, but not only French." If you ask if I am Spanish I reply, "I am Spanish but not only Spanish." If you question if I am German, yes I am German but not only German. If you ask if I am Italian I reply yes, but not only Italian. If you as if I am Sicilian, I reply that I'm Sicilian and nothing else. I think that our identity is so rich therefore we do not know what means intolerance. 

	In Sicily traditionally there is no example of intolerance. Even people of extreme right in Sicily, they are not intolerant. We are not intolerant. We are South Italians. We are not intolerant about sex. We are not intolerant about homosexual. We have no intolerance about the differences of languages, difference of races, differences of difference.  

	So as you can understand we have a very important relevant historical identity. When people say so many countries, so many people invaded Sicily, including the Americans. (We will say we were invaded.) We have to say thanks to the Americans because they let us be free, but they invaded us. We were invaded by Americans, we were invaded by Spanish, we were invaded by French, by Arabs, by Greece. But this is the wrong story. We transformed the people who invaded into Sicilians. The Americans who invaded Sicily were transformed into Sicilians. The Arabs who invaded Sicily was transformed into Sicilians. The French were transformed into Sicilians, the Normans were transformed into Sicilians. 

	Imagine that in our history there is an example of art which is called Arab-Norman art. What has to do Arab culture with French culture? Nothing. But in Italy, in Sicily, they are used as two different adjectives indicating one reality. The most relevant example of an Arab castle in Mediterranean area is Al-Aziz, the Zisa, it means wonderful. The Zisa was built, an Arabic castle, was built by the French king who defeated the Arabs. The day after he defeated the Arabs he built a very magnificent castle in Arab style. Both became Sicilians.

	Identity is important. Our most relevant problem is identity. Identity is our most relevant richness but it is at the same time the most relevant problem. Sicily, in Sicily, identity it is richness has been in the centuries transformed into a culture of belonging. To be proud for my identity is my right. To transform my identity into a belonging is my vice. 

	There is a traditional Sicilian expression not asking who are you, not asking what do you know, not asking you what are you able to do but asking whom do you belong to. If your belonging is strong, you can be a really silly person, you will have a magnificent career. If your belonging is weak you can be Albert Einstein, you will remain jobless, jobless. So the culture of belonging is the most relevant perversion of our identity.

	The culture of belonging has transformed our identity into a prison, not a castle but a prison. I think that what happened in Palermo can be useful in many, many other countries where identity is perverted. Not only perverted in Russia, not only perverted in China, not only perverted in Japan, not only perverted in Northern Ireland, not only perverted in Basque countries but even perverted in Islamic countries, even perverted in German countries.

	Islamic terrorism is a perversion of identity. Who is the first enemy of Islamic culture? The first enemy of the Muslims has a name, Osama bin Laden. He appears to be a man defending identity, but he is really the enemy of the Islamic identity.

	Who is the first enemy of German culture? The first enemy of German culture is Adolf Hitler. Saying that he wanted just to defend the German race.

	Who is the first enemy of Sicilian culture? It is a Mafia boss. Saying and repeating, "I am the real, the pure Sicilian. I am the face of Sicilian culture." No you are the first enemy of Sicilian culture. Because in too many cases identity was used as a weapon against the other human rights. In my opinion identity is the first among human rights. But in the world nobody is afraid for normal criminals. Excuse me for using normal, but everybody is afraid just in front of identity-based criminals. Killing in the name of identity. 

	So the identity, in my opinion, is the first among the human rights, is used as a weapon against the other human rights, freedom, life, development, competition. 

	Of course what I am saying now is what I discovered at the end of my experience. When I started I did not have such clear ideas. So my experience is an experience, and I have tremendous experience, a very big, strong experience. Oscar Wilde said, "Experience is the name we give to our mistakes." So I have a lot of experience because I did a lot of mistakes. But now I can tell to people who are without experience my mistakes, my mistakes. So I will not speak about my positive contributions but I will speak about my mistakes. I think that through my mistakes somebody else in another part of the world can avoid making my mistakes or can use the result of my experience. 

	The second point is how is it possible to promote confidence. Leadership needs confidence. Confidence does not depend on the identity of opinions. We two can have completely different ideas, completely different opinions but I will always have confidence on you, not if you think what I think, but if you speak as I speak. The same language I mean, the same language in the sense of-the same language means the same system of values. I have no confidence in people just thinking as I think but not speaking my language.

	Formally they appeared to be near to me, but they are really against me. You appear to be against me but you are really near to me because you just share my language. So the leadership in Palermo needed to build a common language, not common opinions. 

	The third point is just to let people to be proud for identity, to condemn the perversion of our identity, to speak the same language, to accept the idea that what is important is not only what is correct, is not only what is legal, but first of all what is correct, legal and convenient. Convenient, the ethic of convenience. I at the end of my experience produced just the idea that we need culture and economy of legality. Not only culture of legality but even economy. Culture and economy of environment. Culture and economy of peace. Culture and economy of everything. In my point of view, culture comes first, economy arrives later. But culture without economy doesn't work. It doesn't work. [interruption]

	To build leadership I needed to say, "I am Sicilian and I am against Sicilians perverting my values, my Sicilian values." I speak your language, you speak my language, we speak a common language. We needed to do something convenient. Therefore I am sure you have some question about that specifically. What is not yours, what is not mine.

	In Palermo before I was elected mayor was of nobody. I tried to demonstrate that what is not yours, what is not mine is of everybody. The culture of belonging that has produced even the Mafia, not only Mafia, because we have people just asking whom do you belong to who are not yet Mafiosi or no longer Mafiosi or not Mafiosi. The question is what is not mine, is not yours, is of nobody. Nobody takes care of the things that are nobody.

	I changed the position saying, the most relevant things, the most convenient things in this city are the common things: park, theater, school, streets, the square, arena. Things that are not mine or yours. You understand that when the most relevant things in a community are the common things, the Mafia plays no role. Because the role of the Mafia, the role of criminal power is to change the border between my property and your property. But if the most relevant things are of everybody, the Mafia plays no role because the common things do not belong-or better, they belong to everybody, that means to nobody. 

	Second point, the necessity of, social services, a system of social services. One of the most relevant things was just that the city of Palermo had no social assistance, nothing. Because the system of power cut the social assistance letting the people being obliged to ask as a favor something in the name of cultural belonging, to have social services. 

	The third was to demonstrate that jobs come from legality. In a system like Palermo where the people imagine that everything needs to belong to somebody. Social services are managed in the name of cultural belonging, personal belonging. And the job, if you are looking for a job you need just to belong to somebody. I am not using the word Mafia but tell me what is the Mafia if it is not that. The Mafia is the criminal result of the culture of belonging. 

	Then finally the importance of the school, the importance of the school. I have seen that you will speak with Alessandro Siragusa. Alessandro Siragusa was responsible for the schools. She did a tremendous positive job. She will speak about her experience about that. You will speak with Emilio Arcuri, he was the vice-mayor, a very clever man, who produced the restoration of the historical center, just to promote the richness of our identity, our history. 

	The re-opening of opera house Teatro Massimo is in some way just like a flag. It is a really strange magic. A city like Palermo, it is a flag, it is not the cathedral, it is not the city hall, it is an opera house. No city in the world has an opera house as a flag. With a theater, a unique theater is very important. But it was our idea. We had just to send the message that our history is really important and is important for everybody. We decided to have as a symbol a historic monument. It was not exactly popular opera. Because to let become just a symbol a very popular square, but an opera house.

	I remember the day when we opened the opera house I met a jobless citizen who told me, "Today, Mr. Mayor, today I am happy." Why? "May I introduce me Mr. Mayor? I am jobless, I am a poor man. I have never been in an opera house. My father has never been in an opera house; my grandfather has never been in an opera house. I don't think I will go in an opera house but today that you are reopening the opera house I am the happiest man in the world." So the common thing. He felt that the opening of the opera house was one way to promote pride for identity and common things. To be a member of a community. Because you don't need only to have common goods, you need to have common goods that are connected to a community. Because common goods not connected to a community doesn't work. It doesn't work. It is exactly what happened. 

	I wish to tell you that in my experience-I have been, I am even an actor, a German actor. I was awarded as the best German actor in 1994. My last film was directed by a really unknown film director Wim Wenders. Nobody knows him but problem one day somebody will know him, Wenders. This guy, after Berlin, and I was until two years ago was an actor in the film, a German film. The most relevant film, I was awarded for another film, GezŠhlte Tage, that means Counted Days, not a funny title. It is about the risk of my life. But there is another film, Palermo flŸstert. In the German language, Palermo flŸstert means Palermo whispers.

	The German film director came and told me, "Mr. Mayor, we want to produce a film about your experience as mayor." Nice, nice. "Can you play the role of actor?" Of course. But the gutsiness inside me spoke. I said "I will play in the film about my experience the role of mayor." You have never been mayor of Palermo. I have never been mayor of Palermo, nobody told me that I have never been mayor of Palermo. I have to say that many, many people noticed that I have been mayor of Palermo, especially people not being agreed with my decisions. They discovered that I was mayor. "No, no, you have not been mayor." So what is my role in the film? "Your role is the role of clockmaker." 

	Before I was elected mayor of Palermo people living in Sicily had no respect for the time, no memory of the past, no hope for the future. Before I was elected mayor of Palermo the citizens lived in eternal present, no yesterday, no tomorrow, only today. At the beginning of this film there is just a big clock on the faade of city hall without the time indicators. We don't need them. We live in the eternal present, we don't need to indicate the time. During all the film, two hours, I am an artisan just working around the machine of the time, letting finally the clock tick-tock, tick-tock, whispers. Not crying, not being silent, but whispering. 

	I think that to build leadership you need to send respect for the time. Memory of the past, hope for the future, not eternal present. If you live in the eternal present and if you live without the community you cannot change your city. You need to send the message that the past is useful to build the future. That is just crossing the sense of community. The community cannot be in the eternal present. The community has a past and a future. 

	So I think I have to reply to your questions. 


Part II, Interview on 17 March 2012


MAJEED: 	Thank you so much Dr. Orlando. That was excellent context. If I may start this oral history interview by asking you to talk about your current position and the experiences that brought you to where you are now.

ORLANDO:	At the moment I am a member of the Italian Parliament. I am Speaker of the Party, which is called Italy of Values, Italia dei Valori. I am considered the co-leader of the Party; one is Antonio Di Pietro, former prosecutor in Milan at the time of Mani Pulite (Clean Hands). 

	At the time I was Mayor of Palermo fighting against Mafia and corruption he was fighting the prosecutor in Milan fighting against corruption and the Mafia. I was fighting against the Mafia and discovered that behind the Mafia there was the corruption. He investigated, fought against the corruption and discovered that behind the corruption there was the Mafia. So we met, not only the corrupt Mafiosi met but even we met fighting against the same enemies. 

	I am Vice President of ELDR (European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party). I was re-elected Vice President in Palermo Congress that was in November of this year. I am in the foreign affairs commission in the Italian parliament. I am President of the Inquiry Commission on National Service in Italy. I am President because this office is indicated by our constitution to be given to a member of the opposition, otherwise I could never be elected President of this commission. So they are obliged to appoint me because the position is a position of controlling what happens in national service in Italy is a very, very tremendous job. You must imagine that our so-called federal system is a federal system of health, day care, and from 65 to 80% of the budget of the single region is dedicated to health services, 65 to 80%. The most relevant scandals, the most relevant example of infiltration of the Mafia inside the state, the most relevant example of corruption is in healthcare services. So you understand how important is the role I am playing as President of this commission, having the same competence as a prosecutor and using the finance police for our investigation. It is quite an important role. 

	It is about my political activity, about my other activities you can find them in my biographical notes. I am proud to be a promoter of American football in Italy. But don't forget American football in Italy has nothing to do with American football in your country. Here, nobody-it is the poorest sport in Italy. I remember one day, I was at that time with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and we were just having breakfast and I gave my business card. You know for several years I have been your guest in Palermo with your wife, chat with your daughters. They go in the street of Palermo, we met several times and you give to me your business card, now I have to give you my business card. Leoluca Orlando, President of Italian Federation of American Football. She told me I am completely mad. Yes, I am especially mad because American football in Italy is very poor. 

MAJEED: 	Thank you so much Dr. Orlando for that. We are very interested in your terms as Mayor in Palermo. If I may start this interview by asking you about your motivations for becoming mayor. I know that you were mayor between 1985 and 1990 and '93 onwards. Can you remember back and tell me what made you decide to run for mayor, especially during the second term.

ORLANDO:	I have to tell you, first of all, why I decided to run for political activities. 

MAJEED: 	Yes.

ORLANDO:	Because everything started the 6th of January, 1980. On the 6th of January, 1980 Piersanti Mattarella, President of the regional government was killed by the Mafia. I was very young. I was 27, 28 years old, 30 years old and I was Professor of University. I was the legal adviser of President Mattarella. It doesn't mean the man who followed him. I knew the relevant business about his policy of keeping papers in order, the accounting regular. We are in 1978, '79, '80, in Sicily to say that politicians need to have their papers in order was more than the French or the American Revolution. He was too advanced in comparison with that time. He was so advanced he was killed. Not only by the Mafia as I said at times, repeatedly, but feared by politicians, big, near, behind him, appearing to be members of the same Party, the same coalition, but not accepting the idea that a politician could break the law of the silence, the law of the belonging, the law of the Mafia. 

	When he was killed I had to decide what to do, to come back to the university? The chair was waiting for me. Or to be involved in political activities? The friends of Piersanti, the wife of Piersanti, the brother of Piersanti who had, is a member of the Constitutional Accord, Sergio Mattarella, who has been Vice Prime Minister and Minister for Defense for the country, were still crying. 

	In the spring of 1980, it means four months after the terrible 6th of January, were elections for the city council. The told me, "We cannot let Piersanti be killed twice. We need to send a message that we can go forward. We ask to you to be a candidate as a member for the city council." Do you understand? A young professor of the university, who has been for two years, would be for two years legal adviser of the most powerful politicians in Sicily, to be a candidate as a member of the city council in the city of Palermo, which was governed by the friends of the Mafia boss, by politicians who were friends of the Mafia boss. 

	Because I wish to remind you, that before me the mayors in Palermo were friends of the Mafia boss. They are normally friends of the Mafia boss, I must be honest. There was one [mayor] who was not a friend of the Mafia boss, he was the Mafia boss, (Vito) Ciancimino. He was at the same time the mayor Palermo and Mafia boss. So no problem of relations between the Mafia and political power, the same person. 

	I imagined that being a young professor and being legal adviser to the president of the region, I could campaign to be President of the world, member of the world parliament, not just the city council in Palermo, with Ciancimino. But I understood that I had no chance, no choice. I had to be a candidate. Not to be responsible for the end of an experience of hope. My spring has a name, Piersanti Mattarella, my spring, my personal spring. So I was a candidate of course. It was from 1980 to 1985, I was a very singular member of the city council, against everybody, against everything, until when this system collapsed as I described in my book. 

	When the system collapsed, the party decided to change. The system collapsed, Ciancimino was arrested and the parties had to change. Sergia Mattarella, the brother of Piersanti, was appointed as responsible of the party and I was appointed as vice responsible of the party. In 1985 I was a candidate as a member of the city council and I was elected mayor. 

	Probably the members of the Christian Democratic Party imagined that ok, I am a professor, very clever, very nice. Nobody can speak against him, nobody can attack us for supporting him. Three, four, six months we passed through the storm and then we send him home and we change the mayor. I'm sorry for them. I'm sorry for them because from the first moment I decided to just keep high the attention of public opinion about Palermo. Summer after I was elected mayor, the day I was, I started my experience, my friend, my school friend, my university friend, (Antonino) Ninni Cassarˆ was killed by the Mafia. Just the day I started my experience. Together with a bodyguard policeman. 

	The maxi-trial started and for the first time I announced and I decided to represent the people in Palermo asking condemnation of the Mafia bosses and asking to restore damages they produced in my city. It was something totally new. Everybody, it was necessary to discuss. The mayor has the title to ask restoration of the damages in the name of the city. Imagine that we prepare our defense just with the least of the expenditures. The cost for the city administration after a killing. The cost of closing the street, the cost of salary of the policemen just directing the traffic. I asked to restore this little expenditure just to have the proof that we received direct material damage.

	But I add of course, we asked the damage for our image. The court accepted the damage of our image. But we needed just to be sure, I had to let change the jurisprudence about that. 

	Then I was elected in 1985 in the name of the fight against the Mafia. I was obliged just to break my coalition, making an alliance with the communist party. Making an alliance with the communist party in 1987, two years before the end of the cold war, two years before the Berlin--- 

MAJEED: 	The collapse of the Berlin Wall. 

ORLANDO:	Yes, two years before it. No one is perfect; I have never been communist. Sure I met a few communists, I thought I would never be communist. But the communists were the only possibility to break a political coalition connected with the Mafia.

	I am Catholic, nobody is perfect. But I was considered a bad Catholic and I was considered a communist. The idea was a Catholic is on the side of the Mafia, the communists are against the Mafia because the Mafia is inside government and the communists are in the opposition. So my problem is Catholic, my Catholic identity. I am proud to be Catholic, I am proud. But to defend my identity I needed to go against Catholic bishops and Catholic cardinals. In the name, in the pride of my identity, do you understand the message that I send to people? That to respect some rule, to respect ethical rule, to respect some value is more important than cultural belonging. In the name of cultural belonging I had to be on the side of all the bishops, all the cardinals. In the name of my identity I had to be against the cardinals and the bishops perverting my identity.

	Who is the first enemy of Catholic faith? The first enemy of Catholic faith is a bishop perverting the Catholic faith. Exactly like Osama Bin Laden. Exactly like [Indecipherable 46:40], exactly like a Mafia boss. I changed the coalition. Letizia Battaglia came inside at that time. It was until 1990 when I was reelected. I got four times more votes than the most voted candidate in the history of Palermo, four times more. But the Christian Democratic Party asked me not to make a coalition. I said I cannot, I cannot cut my relations with the parties who supported me in the terrible time against the Mafia. 

	I was elected mayor and I left my office after eight days when I discovered it was not possible to make a coalition. My last request was to make a coalition with the greens. Letizia Battaglia was the green movement. Not communist, ok, but at least Greens. No. So I left my office and from that time started my trip outside from the Christian Democratic Party.

MAJEED: 	Ok. 

ORLANDO:	The year before, 1989, there were European elections. I was proposed as the first of the list for the Christian Democratic Party, and as top of the list, as chief of the list. I asked, yes, who will be on the list? After me there was the name of the member, [Indecipherable 48:30], member of the European parliament, Salvo Lima. Salvo Lima was considered the most relevant politician just promoting relations between Mafia, business and politics. Never investigated. So formally perfect. Substantially everybody knew he was a member of the same part, fraction of the party that was lead nationally in Rome by Giulio Andreotti. Andreotti was seven times prime minister of Italy, a symbol of relations between Mafia, business and politics. 

	I can say that because the court has demonstrated but he was not condemned because the crime was-.

PITEA:	Statute of limitations.

ORLANDO:	Until 1980. But politically, ethically, culturally speaking, I can say what I always say. He is a symbol of relations between politics and Mafia. I left. I said, If Minister Lima will be on the list I will not be a candidate. My party of course decided on Mr. Lima and I said no thanks, I am not a candidate. At that moment I understood that the Christian Democratic Party, the party of Piersanti Mattarella had refused the legacy of Mattarella. I founded La Rete, the Network, a new party.

MAJEED: 	What made you run for elections in 1993? 

ORLANDO:	I ran in 1991 in the regional parliament. I ran in 1992 in the national parliament and then was elected in the north, middle and south Italy. I was the most voted politician in the national election in 1992, one million or so votes in four different parts of Italy. In 1992 there was the terrible time of (Giovanni) Falcone, (Francesca) Morvillo, (Paolo) Borsellino and the bodyguards. There was the reaction of people. There was just and I was a candidate in 1993 as La Rete, the Network, and I was elected as mayor as La Rete, against, the list of the Christian Democratic Party. 

MAJEED: 	When you became mayor for the second time in 1993 would you remember back to the challenges facing the city in your opinion at that point in time?

ORLANDO:	Pardon?

MAJEED: 	What were the main challenges facing the city when you became mayor at that point in time?

ORLANDO:	To be able to let the people in the nation, the people's reaction against the Mafia into administrative choices, administrative acts. I was just something like a bridge between my ideation and the administration, between the individual people and the administration. I needed just to demonstrate that in the name of the values, people used it to protest was it even possible to govern. That is the charge. I can protest in the name of legality but I needed to demonstrate it was possible to govern. 

MAJEED: 	Sure.

ORLANDO:	So the real challenge was how was it possible to transform opposition into government. That I think is exactly the most relevant challenge for all the politicians who wish to change. Because when you protest, but you have to demonstrate that you are able to govern instead of people against whom you protested. It is just like cultural dichotomy. 

MAJEED: 	Sure.

ORLANDO:	I needed to demonstrate that to nations, the values, during the protest were useful here to govern. 

MAJEED: 	When you say opposition in governance, were there particular groups of people or coalitions that you were trying to build to be able to bring them into government?

ORLANDO:	Starting from the perversion of identity, starting from the confidence, starting from the common language, as you can understand, I had many oppositions on my side and many friends on the other side. So in 1993 I got a lot of power. I was able to decide not in the name of the balance between the political forces because I some way I was the political forces. There was a big personalization. I was not a mayor supported by parties; I was a mayor being at the same time the parties.

	I was not a mayor supported by a coalition, I was the coalition, I, me, a person, one man. It was not normal. Because there was a risk of populism. I needed the populism to give confidence to people. Considering the traditional parties to be corrupted, but I needed a second challenge to transform my personal role into a community activity. All my experience until today is how is it possible to let Palermo to be finally free from Orlando. You know?

MAJEED: 	Yes.

ORLANDO:	Orlando was necessity to change, but Palermo cannot remain prisoner of Orlando.

MAJEED: 	So to be able to build sustainability.

ORLANDO:	So necessary. The different members of government, different-to let people to be free. To let different public companies be free. The President of the public company was completely free. I said, "If you make a mistake I'll change you but I will never tell you what to do, what you have to do." I expect at the end of the year if your results are not correct you are the former president. But you will never be able to say that you made a mistake because I told you to do something against your will. 

MAJEED: 	In terms of when you were elected mayor, you mentioned violence, you mentioned 1992 there were a number of assassinations, 

ORLANDO:	Yes.

MAJEED: 	Was reducing the level of violence also something that voters expected of you?

ORLANDO:	I have to tell you that the reduction of violence came from the terrible violence of 1992, 1993. The Mafia bosses understood that to kill too much is not convenient. It is not convenient. After the killing of Falcone and Borsellino, you know that I had to be next. After the killing of Falcone and Borsellino the people reacted. The Mafiosi, don't forget, they are identity-based criminals. They need the cultures, they need to stay inside. They appeared to be too against, too outside. Because what was relevant was not the protest of Mr. Orlando, or another prosecutor, it was the protest of the brothers or the children. It was just the human chain. It was just the people with the white---

MAJEED: 	The Committee of the Sheets. 

ORLANDO: 	 Yes. Then we exaggerated. Too much is too much. 

	We need them now to try and go under. But I could say, during my office, we wonder. We have completely reduced the violence. It is true. We completely reduced the violence but it is not only our merit. Our merit was to let the Mafia understand that there was no open door into the system, so it remained closed between. The door of politics closed, finally closed. No longer the mayor being the same time the Mayor of Palermo and Mafioso. The other, the isolation from the people, protesting in the street. They understood that they had to change their strategy and they changed their strategy.

	The reduction of violence was too big to be normal, too big. We passed from having more than one hundred killings each year, to seven killings in one year. Seven. And the killings were all connected with the Mafia, these seven, not one connected with the Mafia. It was too much, too much. It means that both the elements, our fight, our strength and their convenience. 

MAJEED: 	You mentioned something interesting right now that you mentioned earlier also. The door was closed in terms of the linkages between the politicians and the Mafia. How did that happen because in your book you also mentioned that during the second term it became easier for you to govern because that linkage was broken. Could you tell me a little bit about how that came about? 

ORLANDO:	At the beginning I spoke about common space, social services, jobs. 

MAJEED: 	Yes.

ORLANDO:	At the beginning of my experience people said, "Mr. Mayor," I remember especially the first time 1985 to 1990, but 1993 the situation was not so changed to say it was a different situation. But I was stronger but the situation was better even in 1993, I was stronger, the situation was better than the past. People protested saying, "Mr. Mayor, you fight against the Mafia and we lost jobs. You fight against the Mafia entrepreneurs. We work with these Mafia entrepreneurs and we are jobless." There was a lot of [interruption]

	
Part III, Interview on 17 March 2012

MAJEED: 	We were talking about the link between the Mafia and the politicians, this was in the 1980s and you were talking about the four or five reasons-the common spaces, the system of social services and so on that may have helped reduce the linkages. So if we can just start from that point?

ORLANDO:	Another point was the economic relations between the Mafia clans and the city administration, the public contract, all the sectors of public contract means just public contract for the management of the state, the management of the public administration, the management of all public services. But even the really strong relations between the Mafia clans and the city administration pass through buildings. Not only the inspections but even the relations between city administration and the owner of the building. For instance, in the area, high parts of the city schools were rented by Mafia clans. We had buildings built for apartments transformed into schools. 

	For instance, I discovered that there was a school titled to Giovanni Falcone-this was one way to say to the kids a hero, a hero. The owner of this building was the killer of Giovanni Falcone. Paid by the city administration to rent to the building. I can't understand it. It was the first time, total infiltrations. I cut, just the first experience, all the relations, all the contracts with the entrepreneur who was considered connected with the Mafia bosses. We cut the public contracts, for instance, for the public lights, the lights in the street and I give to the public company of the city, of the town administration. 

	I interrupted the promulgation of contracts about the street and about the sewage that were given to a family, a very high level family, they were here, a count nominated by (Benito) Mussolini, at the time of the king, the time of Mussolini. They maintained control of all these activities and were just considered the meeting point between Mafia, business man, politicians, bishops and the unemployed. It was a system, one of the-and I cut, I interrupted these relations and I offered a public tender according to European rules, open to all the entrepreneurs in Europe. 

MAJEED: 	Which point in time was this? Which year? 

ORLANDO:	It was 1986, '85. The first time. But I wish to tell you, there was a continuation between the two experiences. I must say the first experience was more violent and more difficult. The second, after 1992, I was more powerful and it was easier. In my first term in 1985-1990, it was a daily fight, fight, fight. 

MAJEED: 	You say in the first term you had mentioned earlier that the town council, you did not have a lot of support. You were somebody who was on your own-.

ORLANDO:	At that time when the maxi trial started, I was supported by the people, just growing up the support of the people. I was strongly supported by international public opinion. I must say thanks to many, many United States, British, German, French newspapers. As you understand my protection came from out of Italy, from people out of the system in Palermo. In the middle there was the system. In Rome, so far as Palermo, had links and connection with the Mafia, in my first experience.

	I can tell you a little story about all these different values. I was elected mayor the first time. One day in my office came a delegation. They came from a little part of the city, the periphery of the city, Croceverde Giardini that were considered the center point of Michele Greco, Michele Greco was called "the pope," the boss of the bosses of Cosa Nostra. A delegation came to my office. The delegation was just like an arrow. The first position, the most relevant person of the delegation and then all the others. There was the parent, there were the sub-parents of the children. 

	They came because I interrupted the contract with a Mafia-a member of the Mafia clan who was the owner of the building hosting the school in this little part of the city. So they came. It was already difficult for us because I organized a school bus just to transport the kids from their home to another school but not so near. It was of course not comfortable. They came to me just asking to do all that was possible to build a school in that part of the territory of the common instead of renting the building of the Mafia clan.

	The first man came and said, "Mr. Mayor, we are a delegation, we come from this little part of the city, the periphery. I am proud because I organized this meeting with you. I am so proud because I voted for you. I am so proud because you are just hosting us in your office." He told me so. I called my secretary and said please come. My secretary came. I said, "Please let this man go outside because he doesn't participate in the meeting." 

	He told me, "Why." You cannot say that you voted for me in front of other people when the right not to vote for me. To be considered a citizen exactly like you are. Please go outside. You know it doesn't mean culture of belonging. After that he went away. After that every time he meets me, even today, he says, "I vote always for you but I will never say." 

	To break this culture, to give confidence-I would be a candidate to be reelected, to be a candidate to be member of the national parliament, it was prohibited to let one facsimile, one electoral paper inside the offices in our administration, it was prohibited. There were all the facsimile of all the other candidates but not of me. Just to send the message that the mayor takes care first of all, of people not voting for him. 
	
	I have never asked people meeting me for whom did you vote or for whom will you vote. Never. Neither to the chief of cabinet of my office, appointed by me. I told him, "I don't know your opinion, your political opinion, but I am the mayor and I prohibit you to participate in my political meeting. You will be the former chief of my staff if you will participate one political meeting. Just to send the message. 

	When I started my experience people say, "Yes, he is a politician, he comes from a high-level family. He has no economic problems, he doesn't take care. He will never go against the power persons of the town." I needed to demonstrate that I was first of all against the friend of the Mafia boss and not only against the Mafia bosses. Because everybody said to be against Mafia bosses but the real problem for the poor people in the town was not the Mafia bosses, was the powerful men living in very elegant buildings and giving protection to the Mafia bosses. So I needed to demonstrate that I was against my relatives, my colleagues. Against the part of the city that was considered the most influential part of the city controlled by the Mafia or anyway, ending relations with Mafia interests. 

	As I described in my book I lived for twenty years in a little apartment, only a table with four chairs. No one was invited for dinner or lunch. I had never been for dinner or lunch in a private house, never. Because as I say, I risked to die just inside a glass of whiskey, or scotch, in a very elegant aristocratic climate of my relatives, of my friends, of my colleagues. If I should have contact with them I would be considered like all the others. To make decisions, it was very interesting. The second term, 1996, I, my family, I have a villa, a wonderful villa, the most beautiful villa in south Italy, wonderful. But I considered it not correct for a mayor in war to live in so elegant a villa. It was a villa of my family. It comes from my relatives, from another generation. But I considered it not correct and I lived in a very little apartment with my wife and two daughters, not having any social relations. I am the only member of my family not being a member of the aristocratic climate of the city. We are seven, six are members, I am not, never, never, never. 

	In 1996 Palermo was in a relevant way changed. The opera house had opened, this villa remained closed for several years. My wife knowing me decided let's go to live there. I lived six months in a military barrack while my wife was just making the change of the apartment to the villa. The neighborhood said: "Mrs. Orlando, the wife, divorced" because I lived in a barrack and my wife lived in a home. 

	The first day I was in this villa I received some threats. Before this I received a letter. Mr. Mayor, I am a citizen, I will not sign this letter because I don't want to imagine that I need to contact you. I am unemployed, I have no money, I don't know how to live but I am so happy that you finally live in your villa, the villa of your family. It was an offense for me. Imagine that my mayor was not able to live in his family villa. Best, not signed. Because they felt that I lived their life. The mayor, somebody told me, a very wise man told me there are three ways to receive the support of people. The first is to pay, to pay them off. The second is to threaten people, the third is to touch. 

	One day a very wise man, an old Sicilian man told me, "Mr. Mayor, you don't pay us, you don't threaten us, at least you must touch us." That means, to share with us. I touched all the citizens of Palermo. There were people living in prostitution; I touched them. People living without money; I touched them. To send the message that everybody can change. Of course it is a tremendous change, a cultural change, to get confidence. Speaking about some other examples.

MAJEED: 	When you say you touched people, were there any policies or any specific programs you put in place so that people would recognize that these changes were happening or coming?

ORLANDO:	There is a part of the city called the Borgo Vecchio, so-called the Santa Lucia. It is just near the Piazza Politeama. It is off limits, in the heart of the city, off limits. We have off limits in the periphery controlled by the Mafia but this one was off limits in the heart of Palermo. Being the mayor people came protesting against what doesn't work in Palermo. From this part of the city nobody came to protest. They did not recognize the public facility, it was not for the public. Their views were controlled by the Mafia and they were even completely separate from the city administration. For them the city administration did not exist, it did not exist, the mayor. They decided what time the shops were open and closed. There was no Sunday, no Saturday, no Wednesday. There was no Christmas, no holidays. How was it possible to touch them?

	The kids in that part of the city they had no school. There were required by bus to go far away to another school. When I arrived as mayor I was to pick money and to build a new modern school. It looks like Sweden, or like America, like California. I said to the contractor you have to build this school in two years. We must write that the school will be finished in two years but you want to complete this school in one and a half years. We must not respect the term, we must let the school be ready before. 

MAJEED: 	Which year was this?

ORLANDO:	It was 1988, '89. When the school was ready the people in that part of the city felt touched by the mayor. They said that this mayor is a very terrible man, fighting against us but he takes care of our children.

MAJEED: 	So when the school was being built did you not get any resistance from people in the neighborhood or the Mafia because you were building it in their neighborhood?

ORLANDO:	No because they had interest to say, "Yes, he says that he will build a new school." Yes, he says he will build a new school in one year. Yes, he says-but they defended the school because it was used by their sons. You let explore the conflict of interest inside the family of the Mafia bosses. You probably are not able to let them expose the contradictions inside the houses, the family Mafiosi. But inside the families of poor people controlled by Mafia bosses, yes.  

	I can tell you a little story. I was exactly in this part of the city, Borgo Vecchio. There is the church. On Sunday morning I went to the mass. When I arrived at the mass five kids came. They said, "Mayor, Mr. Mayor." "Shut up, shut up, it is mass." "Mr. Mayor, Mr. Mayor." "Shhh, the priest is arriving." Those said, I have to speak with you. I said ok, come in. They told me, "Mr. Mayor, I am John. Yesterday Charles, in my school, ten years old, Charles. I am Peter, yesterday Charles in my school did something not correct.

	The teacher came and said "Who is responsible?" I said, "It was Peter. Peter told me bad police to me." Mr. Mayor, I replied, it is better to be a bad police than to be in the prison like my father. For that kid, 10 years old, the policeman is the bad man arriving in the night, carrying into the prison the father and letting the mother cry. It is better to be the bad police than in the prison like my father. 

	It is just-how is it possible to break the connection? We let it explode inside since so many contradictions because we win against the best criminals if you are able to let the son to be against the father, the mother against the sons, the wife against the husband, otherwise you don't change. But you need to let-.

	I remember one day, Francesca Morvillo, the wife of Giovanni Falcone, she was prosecutor for under 18 years old, for children. She told me a story, an experience. One day she was called because a young boy, 17 years old, he had killed a man. I arrived and I found the killed man and there was the killer, the young killer. I called the mother of the killer. The mother of the killer arrived and I tried to understand as prosecutor, she said. The story was the following.

	This 17-year-old wished to stay with a girl who was 17 years old like he was. The father of the girl disagreed. And he killed him. Francesca Morvillo told me, "I called the mother of the killer and said what do you think about what happened? Why did this happen?" What are you asking she said, the mother. It was the only thing he has to do, to kill the other man. Do you understand what kind of an occasion, what kind of-did the mother say, "My son did a mistake, was wrong." No, he did exactly what he has to do. To kill. To arrest a Mafioso, a killer, we need one minute. To let the son of the Mafioso, to understand and to agree, about the opinion that the father was wrong is not possible. To obtain in one minute we need ten years. But if the son of the killer doesn't understand the father was wrong, in a short time we will have a second killer, a third killer, a fourth killer. So change of the customs. The contradictions are inside, we are speaking about identity-based criminality. 

MAJEED: 	You had mentioned in your book on that point that the Mafia was very powerful and during your first term as mayor it was still inside the state and there were these political linkages. As a result municipal personnel, many who owed their jobs to the Mafia, subverted your efforts and did not let you do what you meant to do as a mayor. Can you speak a little bit about how civil servants prevented you or resisted your term?

ORLANDO:	Just the understanding that not the Mafia but the state is able to promote development to give jobs. In a simple way, we had a thousand people working on public contract. The public contractor was a member of the Mafia. And I said, let's cut any relations between the poor worker and the Mafia boss. And I decided to approve just a competition, European rules, according to European rules, saying to the contractor who was just winning the contract. Ok, you are winning the contract but if you need the workers you have to just call the workers of the former contractor. If you need to have people you have first of all to call them. So they saved the job, cutting any relations with the former contractor who was a member with the Mafia bosses. 

	So we cut the connection between the needs of poor people and the illegal business of the Mafia bosses. 

BACON: 	How did they react those Mafia bosses when you did this?

ORLANDO:	They were in prison, they tried to kill me. I lived as you know, as I live even today completely protected day and night. But I am not a prosecutor. I am not responsible for the allegation of the Mafia bosses. But I am responsible for cutting the connections between Mafia bosses and the community. That is the most relevant thing. They are not normal criminals, they need causes and when they lose causes they are finished. 

	I can tell you a story. During elections in 1997 when I was reelected mayor, I knew, I met the son of a Mafia boss in Palermo who was saying that he voted for me. When I had to go to the elections, I received this information before the elections. I called the chief of police to say there is something that I don't understand. There is something I don't understand because I am afraid why this son of a Mafia boss says that he does vote for me. I wish to tell this to you before the elections, not after the elections. Please, you have to investigate. I asked them to investigate before the election about the relations between-.  They said ok, let's check. 

	After eight days he came to me. He said, "Don't worry, everything is okay." Everything is okay? The son of Mafia boss votes for me and everything is ok? He says everything is ok. I sent a former police to speak with the Mafia boss and said, "How are you Mr. Giovanni?" "Fine." 
	
	"What do you think about politics?" 

	"Um, politics, I have nothing to do for politics."

	"And what about Mr. Orlando?" He watched when he said this.

	"Why are you asking that? If you don't arrest me I kill today Mr. Orlando. I have only a wish to kill him." 

	"This is strange," the police said, "this is really strange because people say that your son, 18 years old, is saying that he'd vote for Orlando." 

	"Vote for Orlando? I can lose one time. I cannot lose two times. I prefer to let my heart be cut, but not to-I will vote for Orlando."

	"What about your son saying that he would vote for Orlando?"

	"I can lose only one time, not twice. If I say to my son not to vote for Orlando, and he does vote for Orlando and I lose as father and I lose as Mafia boss. I prefer not to say anything so I lose only one time." Because a lot of young people reacted against the father. The fight against the Mafia cannot be done only by speaking theoretically about the Mafia, what bad things. Then you discover that they make business with Mafia bosses. They don't think I care about them. Just the same, do you wish to destroy the Islamic terrorists? You need to be helped by the son of Islamic terrorists. That is all. Otherwise the son of Islamic terrorists will be terrorists as the father. 

MAJEED: 	You mentioned this incident happened in 1997. At that point you had already been mayor for four years and were running for your second term. Can we focus a little bit on your second term and go into some of the policies that you set in place as mayor? For example, who were the key people at that point in time that you relied on as team members to carry change forward? What were some of the changes that you thought were important to put in place? 

ORLANDO:	As I told you imagine I am speaking about something that does appear as a romantic story. Just a romantic story, very old fashioned, having nothing to do with modern times. It is so old fashioned. It is so interesting, so nice. It is one phase of experience. The strength of this experience that led this experience to have leadership is the second phase.

MAJEED: 	Right.

ORLANDO:	It is the modern phase. When I was elected mayor the first time there was no central switchboard in the city hall. Each office had a single telephone, just to have direct private relations. Imagine what it does culturally. That everybody has his space of power. Even the telephone. I promoted the informatization of the offices. When I was mayor finally the city of Palermo was awarded as the first public administration for telephone, for information services. Each citizen could know how much has been paid, who has paid, to whom has paid, and why it is paid.

MAJEED: 	For which services?

ORLANDO:	For all the public expenditures.

MAJEED: 	So the budget, you made it-.

ORLANDO:	All the public business was-. I ordered that the invoices had to be paid in thirty days. You know that normally it is sixty, three months. I repeated that if someone would be paid after thirty days the public servant would be fired because you needed to know you are paying, not asking somebody please, when will you pay? Let me tell a story. One day, a contractor with public administration came in my office. It was the 10th of September. "Mr. Mayor, you said that we contractors, we people having relations with the public administration, we must be paid in thirty days. I am sorry but in my case my invoice was on 29 July and it was paid yesterday, 9 September. It is more than thirty days, it is forty days. 

	I said, "That is very strange, let me check." I could say but in the middle was holiday time. In Italy it is more important than Jesus Crist, the holiday time in August. I did not say that. I called the office and asked how it is possible this happened. I say, "I'm sorry but in this case you are wrong, we are right. Do you know Mr. Rossi?"

	"Yes, of course, he is working in my company. "

	"You have to tell to Mr. Rossi that next time he would date the invoice not the 29th of July but he brought this invoice to the office the 29th of August."

	"Excuse me Mr. Mayor." 

	It was not 29th the date of the invoice but he brought it to the office one month after so it was paid in 10 days, not in 30 days. 

	I was, in the first experience, because the first experience was the moment in which we planted the seeds. Then we had the plants. But I arrived in the office, in my office, there was a man, a very well-known man, a business man. He was considered the man paying more taxes in Palermo. He was considered the first fiscal contributor. He was there. I asked him, "Why are you here?" 

	"Mr. Mayor, I'm so happy you found time to spend with me. I wish to tell you that I am so happy you are the mayor of Palermo. I wish the chance to tell you, if possible, I am waiting for $2 million. I am to receive money from the city administration and I need that you sign this act so I can be paid."

	"Oh, [inaudible]. There are a lot of acts here that I have to sign because I sign two times a day." There was a rule. No act of the mayor can remain in the office of the mayor more than six hours. No one has to come to the mayor to say, "Mr. Mayor why don't you sign?" It is six hours.   

BACON: 	Did you set that rule?

ORLANDO:	Yes.

BACON: 	You made that rule yourself?

ORLANDO:	Yes, six hours. It was the old system. Now the system is changed. At the time I signed everything. It was all the acts to sign. This one? Oh sure. Just a moment. I called my secretary. My secretary came, "Have you seen this one? I have to sign this one. But I prefer to sign, keep this one. Tell me to sign this one after six months from now." The other one I sign whole, no problem. If you come another time I will pay not in six months, in one year. Tell to all the other corporates not to come here. Do not come here because if they come here, the appointment with the mayor has economic value. Seeing the mayor has economic value. It is a change of culture. 

MAJEED: 	So you took all these steps in terms of payments within-.

ORLANDO:	Sorry. The person-the international office. I had a very clever lady taking care of international relations. She is the sister-in-law of Queen Paola (dei Principi Ruffo di Calabria) of Belgium, having relations all over the world. We had an international office taking care of different relations with different countries because I needed to change the face of Palermo all over the world. So I had the Russian, I had the Georgian, I had of course American, French, German. 

	Second Europe office, how to get money from. Third, to have the rating. When I left my office the city administration of Palermo had rating Aa3 from Moody's. To have relations with the city of Palermo, with the public administration of Palermo was less dangerous for the banks than to have relations with the theatre, with the Italian government. To have relations with the city of Palermo, the capital of the Mafia was less than Italy. That rating, it can be interesting if I can get the copy of the motivation of the rating. Even the confidence of the people, of the change, the confidence of the banks soon changed. This rating that was given by Moody's. 

	The importance it was not one bank, one person, many persons of course, but it was the change of climate. No one, it is a shame to say that, but we needed to give an example more strong than normal example. In a normal condition it may happen that you will meet a person with relations with the Mafia, in our position. In normal conditions some member of the government can receive illegal money; in our case it was not possible. Many, many-that is one of the questions. Many, many civil servants who accepted the old system, they completely changed and accepted the new system. I did not change the people, I changed the mind of the people. 

MAJEED: 	How did you do that?

ORLANDO:	First of all I introduced inside the city administration young civil servants selected by public competition. 

MAJEED: 	Which year was this?

ORLANDO:	In 1994, '95, the second time. The first time it was not possible. I gave confidence to the old system. I told them, "The music is changing. From this moment everybody can change. Who doesn't change he does pay." I don't say, "You pay because you were a civil servant in the past." No, I don't say that. I say, "Be careful, you maintain your position, you play your role, you have your professional activity. I have confidence in you. If you make a mistake you pay twice, one time because you make a mistake, the second because I am just investing in you. You can change." 

	Some did not change, became a former civil servant of Palermo. But the majority understood. They had no interest. They had assumed that there was no possibility for them to speak with the politician and say, "Mr. Mayor, this time please close your eyes." 

	I'll tell you something about that. When the top does make mistake, all the others have to change. If I know that the mayor has given a job to his son, I am one of the office of the mayor please give me some money to have a copy of a document, illegal money. I signed everything, not controlling, to say it more clearly. The general director of a different section. "Mr. Mayor, there is something to sign. I wish to tell you what happened, this information."

	"No, I don't need it, don't worry, I'll sign." I sign, I sign. I signed everything. But he went away. After I signed it I control it. If the act was not correct I sometimes called and said, "What do you decide? Do you go alone with your feet or I sign your expulsion from civil service?" The main idea is that I have confidence in you, I invest in you. But we are civil servants of the old system. You can change. 

	My slogan was who was born round can die square. There is a traditional Sicilian, a special saying, Cu' nasci tunnu, nun p˜ moriri quatratu, he who was born round cannot die square. Wrong. Who was born round can die square. Of course, you need this system in the meanwhile but in the meanwhile you need to prepare the new, the new civil servant, the new manager, the new persons.

	Speaking about another program. I appointed as president of the five-we have five public companies, water, gas and light, rubbish, transport and information service. I appointed the president, not following the indication of the parties, not following the political position of the appointment. The parties knew the name of the manager I appointed the day after from the newspaper, the day after from the newspaper. 

	I said to these five presidents, the same with the general director inside the city administration, I said, "You are responsible. I will never tell you what you have to do but at the end of the year, if you don't bring the results, you are the former President. If inside the board of your public company there is somebody who is disturbing you tell me, I will change him because you are responsible for everybody." They got-even the public company, AA3 as a rating from Moody's.

MAJEED: 	In terms of the city workers, you mentioned earlier and also I think public companies, usually in many cities it is difficult to fire civil servants but in Palermo you said that you were able to replace people.

ORLANDO:	Yes, I make distinction between the members of the board that I can change. The civil servants who are in office normally I change the office. I find, not to give them any responsibility and letting them stay in a place where they cannot be dangerous.

MAJEED: 	So you would demote them or remove them, transfer them?

ORLANDO:	Sometimes I do something else. I'll tell you a story. One day, to tell you about the climate, the leadership cannot be an individual, it needs to become community leadership. You need not only common goods but real community. One day the chief of police told me there is a citizen, an entrepreneur, who received a request from a civil servant, a relevant civil servants in the city administration, to receive money to pay less taxes. This man has decided to say no and to ask us to arrest this general director who was asking for money in exchange for reduction in taxes. 

	We organized a trap. I talked to the city police to organize everything. I did not follow what happened. The man, the citizen, went to pay the illegal money. He went inside the office, said to the police what I will cough twice come inside and it will be the moment I give the money. They arrest. The office gave me information about what happened. Reading the information about what happened I discovered that the citizen just letting arrest the civil servant was a cousin of mine. I called him and I said, "Congratulations on what you did. I did not know that you were saying no to the request of illegal money." 

	He said, "Yes, of course, I am your cousin. I have a family name different from yours. If I could have said to the civil servant I am the cousin of the mayor probably he would not have let me pay illegal money and I would reduce my taxes. But I did not say I am your cousin, but he was arrested. I will pay all my taxes without reduction. But I think that now I am worthy to be your cousin." 

	In Palermo it was completely normal to say to the man just asking for illegal money, "Oh, yes but tomorrow I cannot come to pay you because I have an appointment with my cousin the mayor." The civil servant also understood that the cousin of the mayor has to receive the favor of having the taxes reduced without paying money. It is the change of climate. This change of climate can have two different photos, my photo or the AA3 rating. You can decide which one is the right photo. 

MAJEED: 	You mentioned just now also in terms of reclaiming public spaces and in terms of mentioning the city workers and how you were working with them in terms of cutting the linkages between the Mafia and civil servants as well, one idea that you had in the beginning was this idea of public spaces and reclaiming and creating a sense of civic consciousness. I was wondering if you could describe a little bit more in detail about how, what specific steps you took to be able to reclaim public spaces. For example, you mentioned the theater. What were some of the strategies you employed to be able to revive the city center and then were you able to replicate it to other areas?

ORLANDO:	As I told you the main source was-we cleaned our budget. We had a lot of expenditures not being strategic but used just to let people receive money, just like a rain of money to give without a project. 

	The second was to let everybody pay municipal taxes, the informational system. In the past the system was written on paper, the papers were lost. I don't find the paper about your fiscal position. The information can guarantee to let everybody pay municipal taxes. 

	The third was I had no problem with banks because I had a good rating. The banks want to give money to the city. I had no problem to get extra budget finance. 

MAJEED: 	So you would get loans from banks?

ORLANDO:	I get loans, not from normal banks. We have in Italy a system that is called Cassa Depositi e Prestiti. It is the bank of the state. But if I need the banks, I need money, I had no problem of money. I had the problem of finding projects to spend money. The other one was the European source. European money. We got a lot of money from Europe. Just according to the European rules. Even this was important to break the traditional isolation of Palermo. To say to people in Palermo, we are not only Mediterranean, not only Sicilian, but we are European and to be European is convenient. 

MAJEED: 	In terms of the budget my understanding was that one of the interesting things that you had done was claimed more autonomy of the budget because it was linked more to the regional government and the regional government had more budget autonomy. As mayor during your first term you were able to kind of get laws passed that would allow the city to have more control of its own budget, is that true?

ORLANDO:	Controlling the municipal incomes is coming from renting buildings, coming from taxes, coming from all the different ways. The control of the system, one way-the control of the fiscal pressure of course gave us more credibility even in front of the national government. We are even receiving money from the national government. I remember that sometime we received in name, in the name of our credibility, special law for Palermo. We got special money because we had possibility to say we are giving money to city administration who does spend correctly. It was not possible in the past. In the past it was not possible. Even today the city of Palermo, receives money following the tradition of the past, even if today is not-. From eight years Moody's refused to give rating to the city of Palermo. Their rating agency is saying that Palermo is not possible to be checked, it is out of control. Now we are in default. You know Palermo is in default. 

MAJEED: 	In terms of your second term as mayor, something that you mentioned in the book is that you took early steps to beautify the city, the clean the public spaces, the theater, the symbol of the city. What made you do or take this particular step? What would change if you wanted to take these steps to beautify the city?

ORLANDO:	I think that what we did is just to go forward for the historic center of Palermo. I mean the work was stopped in the last years, the work has been stopped. The other relevant part is to restore the periphery because I think that in the last ten years the periphery has been abandoned. We invested in the tradition of Palermo, we invested in our identity, we invested in the historic center but you cannot reduce the city only to the historic center. You need to restore, to let the quality of life to be better in the periphery. I think that today is necessary is to go forward at the historic center and to go forward in the periphery. 

	Now it is-the city appears to be abandoned. I say appears to be invisible, not visible. I say that Palermo was really visible in my time, everybody was speaking about Palermo. Not only about Mafia and Palermo, but even about anti-Mafia and Palermo. In December 2000 I think the most relevant moment of all was when you had the United Nations celebrating Palermo. The signature of the first world convention against organized crime was in Palermo. The choice to come to Palermo was not depending on the sun, on the sea or from a beautiful mayor. It depended on the circumstances that Palermo was transformed from the capital of the Mafia to the capital of the anti-Mafia. 

	Change the visibility from being illegal to visibility being legal. Now we are another time invisible. The citizens look invisible. You know that the leadership needs to let the citizens become visible. If the citizens they are visible they are aware of their rights. If the citizens are not visible they are not aware of their rights and they have no interest to stay together, to organize groups, to take a position, to organize movements. 

MAJEED: 	In terms of-and I would like to get your perspective on how the situation stands now, in a little bit, I wanted to go back to your second term as mayor and also talk about some of the social services you mentioned earlier.

ORLANDO:	Yes. 

MAJEED: 	What were some of the services that you targeted and how?

ORLANDO:	We built a network of social services in the territory. We built a network of social services in the territory just to send messages that we had a different Palermo. First layer, second layer, third layer. Just like a snowball. I mean the same standard of social service, we cannot guarantee the same standard of economic conditions of people in the periphery, it is not possible but we need to guarantee the same standard of social services. 

	So if you live in the periphery or if you live in the historic center, you receive for the citizens, the same standard of social services. Then if you are poor or if you are rich. But if you are poor in leadership of opinion, in a part of the city with poor people. Social services are the face of the quality of citizens. Just using your special-the citizens, they are different but they have the right to be equal, to be different but equal. That is exactly what you have to believe. To be equal was just exactly what the people arrived in the United States of America wished to be, to be different, to maintain the difference of identity but to be equal, the have the same rights. 

	Of course, this was very important. For example many little things. For security reasons in the first time, after, for a choice, my wife, my daughters, they have never been in the car with me, never, never, never. My wife, when she went to the theater, she went in the morning at seven just with a key to have to buy the ticket. When we met with my wife at the entrance of the theater, she had paid for the ticket in the morning and the man selling the tickets would say, I had the wife of the mayor this morning. I have never got a document not passing through the key in the office. My wife, my daughter, no. Do you know what it means just in terms of change of mentality when the civil servant after ten persons, arrives a lady, arrives a girl, the wife of the mayor or the daughter of the mayor. In other countries it is normal, in Sicily it is a revolution. 

	So you build leadership in a different way because you build leadership, so strong is the leadership you build, so strong is the contradictions so you let it explode, the conditions. Probably in another country it is normal for the wife of the mayor just to wait to buy the tickets to go to the theater. It is normal. You  let, Palermo has a system.

MAJEED: 	But in terms of the social services, what kinds of services were you providing to all the neighborhoods?

ORLANDO:	Children, old persons, the unmarried mothers, the handicapped, disability. We had a special office, different sections in the city. Of course we had the so-called casa familia for the children not having a family. They lived not in an institute, but live in a little apartment in the city, five, six, like a family with people who take care of them. For people with problems of the mind. 

MAJEED: 	Mental problems.

ORLANDO:	Mental problems, they had special places. So all the different conditions. We had, of course, an office for the foreign people living in Palermo, mainly Arab and people speaking French and English. We elected-when I was mayor we elected a council of foreign people living in Palermo. There were five people, having just the role of advisors, advisors to the city administration. They were called just to give suggestions to the city.

MAJEED: 	For their communities. 

ORLANDO:	Yes, for foreign persons. This was the system of social services. Near the social services the schools. You can imagine in my first experience I put the conditions just to let the new experience to be, I, my first experience I started to build more than fifty different schools, fifty. I have been mayor-I think no city in the history of Italy has built so many schools in so short time as I did in my experience. 

	Speaking about schools, fifty schools it doesn't mean fifty buildings, less rent by Mafia bosses, being a property of the city administration. We used the building schools as just to let different part of the city to have even gyms, school gyms. So the school was not only a school, it was a center of socialization for this part of Italy. You can imagine how important is a center of socialization in Croceverde Giardini, in the periphery of the city, in the places far from the center. The schools played this role. 

	We built a lot of sport arenas. I built three little stadiums. I built a cycling racetrack, I built an arena for rugby. I mean, just to let people consider the city administration not only fighting the Mafia but building a new quality of life. Palermo was transformed during my experience into a touristic city. Palermo was not touristic. In the airplane, landing in Palermo, before I was elected mayor and even in the first years I was mayor, people coming back to Palermo, they were only Palermitans. If you met somebody, not Palermitans, English, French, you could ask you are journalist, how do you know. Only journalists. Journalists came in to make some report about the Mafia, about the killers, about Mafia bosses, about the drug trafficking, not about tourism. Palermo has become a touristic city. Palermo, may I tell you that to become touristic is convenient. How many people working, taxi driver, restaurant.

	I remember Palermo, we had-when I was young we had five or six restaurants, five, six, in all of Palermo. Now you find five or six in each street. When I was born in Palermo, I had never been alone in Palermo during the night in the middle town, the historic center, never. Being alone walking, it was not possible. It was dark, dangerous. Now I can send my granddaughter at ten-years-old to walk alone in the historic center of Palermo without problems.  Another control of Italy.

	You can let the Mafia control, it does control Italy or you can let the pubs and restaurants to control Italy. Because movement of people, of course, lets the Mafia not to be able to play the role. I cannot be a robber in a place where many persons are living, are working, are drinking, are eating. 

MAJEED: 	You mentioned of course the schools that you built and then revitalized all these areas. I just wanted to ask this question again, what kind of resistance were you getting at this point? Did people who were connected to Mafia-there would be people who were benefiting from Mafia families as well-did you find any kind of resistance and how did you overcome? 

ORLANDO:	There was resistance of course. There was cultural resistance in the school because many, many kids, their sons, they are members of families. We promoted a very interesting experiment. That was an experiment of education to legality.

PITEA:	We had to take those classes too in Calabria. 

ORLANDO:	Yes. Now Palermo's experience business has become a model all over the world. There is a project, we are very proud for that, the school adopts a monument. 

MAJEED: 	Adopt a monument.

ORLANDO:	At the beginning of the year the mayor officially, with the Italian flag, in a public theater, just gives to each class an adoption, formally, a monument. During the year the students had to study the historic monument and at the end of the year they play the role of tourist guide. So it was possible that at the end of the school year to go on Saturday and Sunday and to have these little kids showing you around. 

	At the beginning of this experience 80% of the monuments adopted, 80% were not restored, were completely abandoned. Every year these monuments were re-opened and restored because through this project we built the opposition to ourselves. You give to a school a monument to adopt and the day after the students say, "Mr. Mayor why is the monument? Why is it not restored?" I, we built the conditions to have the opposition of the people against us, against us. When we established people said, don't waste your time and pay money to restore this church. I'd say but 1000 young kids are in the square protesting against us. 

 	Doing the monument doesn't mean to change the mentality of the people inside the family. How important is it for a kid saying to the father or the mother, during lunch, during dinner, "Why papa? You have never protested against the church closing, the monument not being restored, the ruins of the theater. Why?" It is one way to let everybody to have his own historic center, to have his own opera house, even in the little periphery of the city. To let people know that we have a story, we have a tradition, we have richness. We are the past that we have. It was the sense of community.    

	At the end of the experience after many years, the 80% of the monuments were re-opened and restored. We gave the adoption, even services, one class receives the adoption by the mayor, how does work the public lights in the boroughs? How does work the traffic in the boroughs? They started asking. One project was in the school, to let the students coming back home to give tickets, for fines. The car was not correctly parked. The kids as they watched the car not park well they put a note where it was written not polite. That was the penalty. You know what it means when at home the father discovers that the son has written an impolite note on his own car? Not the police, the city police, the son. It is just a change of mentality starting with the children.

	For example, when I was mayor, not without the problem of security, my telephone number, my personal telephone number at home was in the telephone book. Now it is not there; I'm not mayor. But when I was, because the message was, it is not possible to accept that the citizen needs to speak with the mayor and cannot contact him. Of course the office of the mayor was open 24 hours, Saturday, Sunday. But there are persons who are not able to contact, don't have the possibility. For example, the Romas, they have a large population in the city. They don't go to the office of the mayor. They will telephone during the night to the mayor saying, "Mr. Mayor, " kids, ten years old with so-called Italian language, friend or friend or-when some of these kids, Roma kids, called me saying that they had a camp, it was cold. I went with bodyguards, cars, blankets. I went outside again. People in the buildings, in front of the camp said, "Mr. Mayor, you lost your time with these people, they do not vote." 

	I replied, "I lost my time with the Roma who do not vote for me, exactly as I lost my time with your children who don't vote for me." 

	We solved the problem of cohabitation of Roma camp with people. Because I said I am on the side of the Roma exactly as I am on the side of your children. I was called the mayor of the children. The old wise politicians said, "Mr. Mayor is crazy, he lost his time with the children, the children do not vote." Silly persons. They do not understand anything. It is more important, the children get the vote of the parents, than to speak two hours with the parents. 

	It is exactly, so called, the romantic traditional part of my experience. 

Part IV, Interview on 24 March 2012

MAJEED:	The first question I have is that we've heard a lot about the Palermo model. Many people have mentioned that you, during your term as mayor and even after, it has been spread to other cities and other areas around the world. What we're interested in knowing is your description or how you describe the Palermo model and what you think has been taken from that and applied to other cities and which cities and countries around the world have adopted it?

ORLANDO:	I think that the first message, probably the most relevant message was that to change is possible, to change is possible. As you know, as I say, there is a traditional Sicilian expression saying who was born round cannot die square. I always say no, who was born round can even die square. It was the most relevant message, mainly important in Palermo, Sicily, where we now, we have a terrible enemy that is fatalismo (fatalism). Nothing can change. Don't worry, let's wait, that in time something will come back in a different way, don't move yourself. Wait for the situation moving around you. 

	So for me to send this message was really important in the specific Sicilian world situation, culture, tradition. The same message I sent outside. Do you know, Palermo is the capital of the Mafia but it is possible for Palermo to be transformed into the capital of the anti-Mafia. That is 180-degree change. Speaking about that you have to consider our specific situation. 

	The two most known in the world, pieces of art are the Godfather and The Leopard. When Marlon Brando died, I was in Germany. A journalist called me and told me, "Mr. Orlando, what is your opinion about Marlon Brando? He is very famous because he was the godfather. What do you think about Marlon Brando? He is probably one of the most prestigious actors in the last century. The Godfather is a wonderful film but both the actor and the film, for us Sicilians, they are a tragedy. How is it possible to forget the wonderful scene of don Vito Corleone, just one old man near to the moment of death, preparing the death, just walking in the garden with the little grandson, with the eyes so sad, so wonderful. I will never forget the image of don Vito Corleone, so sweet, so human, so criminal. 

	The risk to send the message that the Mafia boss are very nice men or they are exactly like we are. I can speak about Sopranos. Just the same. Normal people. And you imagine that the Mafia is made by so sweet a man, such normal people, and you forget they're criminals So a great actor, a great film, a great tragedy for us. The second is the book, the Leopard. Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa is a wonderful writer. He is even one of my relatives. He is a wonderful writer. The book is a wonderful book too, but a tragedy. They send the message nothing will change. The terrible expression. There is no sense to change anything, let everything remain the same. It is a terrible message. It is fatalism.

	So I needed especially in a situation like Sicily to send a message that it is not true. That for a Sicilian to be Mafioso is normal. To send a message that change is possible, against fatalismo. The same message can be useful just to fight against the Nazis. It is possible to be German and not be a Nazi. It is possible. To evolve to be Nazis. The same message as I say speaking about Islamic terrorists. It is possible to be Muslim and not be a terrorist. Change is possible.

	In which cities the message was really important; interesting for everybody of course. When I speak about this situation people living in Sweden, in Denmark, they say how nice this man. Coming from a very warm land and speaking about a topical ill that will never be in Stockholm. A topical ill that will never be in Hamburg, will never be in Helsinki. They supported me, but just like a man speaking about something so far, not being important for the daily life of people living in Sweden or in Norway or in Finland. 

	Of course it was more and more important for other situations in the world. For people just living in a strong way in the daily life the perversion of their identity. The message is especially important in Mexico. I worked for three years in Tijuana, Baja California. I worked a lot in Mexico, Mexico City, Ciudad Juarez, in QuerŽtaro. The same in Medell’n, the same in Bogot‡. The same in many other places. One day Senator Hillary Clinton told me, "It is really interesting your book. It can be useful for the Muslims." Therefore I translated into the Arabic language my book. It was published in Beirut, the Arab edition of my book, Fighting the Mafia because it is the same problem. How is it possible to be proud, to be Muslim and not be a terrorist? How is it possible to change from inside? How is it possible to change using two wheels of the Sicilian cart, the wheel of the justice system, the wheel of law enforcement and the wheel of culture, the wheel of businessmen, of journalists, judges, of civil society. The two wheels needing to march at the same speed.

	Therefore my model is an alternative to the Rudolph Giuliani model, completely alternative. 

MAJEED: 	How so?

ORLANDO:	I am proud to be a friend of Rudolph Giuliani. He was mayor at the same time I was mayor in Palermo. I was of course mayor in a very important city; he was mayor in a little village. Anyway, he was mayor too. We had a really interesting experience. After when I compared with Hillary, our friendship was not so strong as in the past. Anyway, we are really good-he did a tremendous positive job. I remember many times when I arrived in New York, two times I went to New York, I'll never forget, one day from Laguardia, one day from John Kennedy airport, I reached Manhattan. Just going with the car from the airport to Manhattan there was the terrible, terrible situation of New York. Two times I reached the hotel and I said to the taxi driver, let's go back to the airport. And I went away. It was New York before Giuliani, a terrible city. Today one of the most exciting experiences to walk in the street in the night. To walk in the street in Brooklyn, it has nothing to do with Italian-American Brooklyn, a wonderful place. He really changed completely New York. 

	He used the so-called zero tolerance, the famous expression about the broken window. He is Sicilian, but he is Sicilian in Manhattan, not in New York. He is Sicilian in that part of the city where we had a lot of normal criminals, not identity-based criminals. It is a great difference. Therefore someone just saying that Giuliani originally made an agreement with the Mafia, it is completely not true. But if you think, he fight with zero tolerance against the normal criminals because against normal criminals the first wheel of the cart is enough. Police, police, police, law, law, law, justice system, justice system. But against the Mafia, the Mafias, the perversion of identity, police is not enough. Really it is the second wheel, the school, the teachers, the businessmen, the journalist, the priest. 

	I remember one day, (AndrŽs Manuel) L—pez Obrador that was we can say the mayor of Mexico City, the governor of the Distrito Federal, Mexico, he called me, he phoned me and he told me, dear professor, from six months, we have Giuliani working in Mexico, just to let extend in our experience zero tolerance. But Mr. Professor, it doesn't work. We need your second wheel because you cannot go to Tepito, Iztapalapa, to [Indecipherable 15:31], you cannot go in the different parts of the city of Mexico with police. It doesn't work. Because if you have only police, police, police, there is the risk that people will say it was better when it was worse. You need to come inside the mind, the heart, the life of people. You need to let the son be against the father. You need to let the wife be against the husband. You need to let them explore the contradictions inside the criminal system. 

	Because if you say all Sicilian are Mafioso it is the best gift you can give to the Mafia bosses because the Mafia bosses say they don't understand us. They don't know our history, our identity, our values, home, family, friendship and so on. So the same problem. In each part of the world where I go I tell my story. I tell that Sicilian values are honor, family and friendship, the traditional. We needed not to say we have shame to be Sicilian. We need to say we are so proud to be Sicilian that we are obliged to be against Sicilian Mafia bosses. 

	When I was in Mexico I said I don't know which is the traditional value in your identity. I don't know, I'm not Mexican. I went to Mexico the first time on honeymoon with my wife, not exactly last year. But I say to Mexicans, I know how it does work. How the perversion of identity works in Sicily. I presume that the same model can be used in your country but I don't know your values. I don't know which are the most relevant values in your tradition. 

	We discussed a lot to discover the most important value in Mexican tradition. Finally I discovered that the most important value in Mexican tradition is to succeed, to have successes, to become someone, to have a role, to be recognized in the social community as a relevant person. There is a traditional Spanish expression that says el que no tranza, no avanza. Chi non ruba, non avanza. 

PITEA:	He who doesn't steal doesn't go forward.

ORLANDO:	It is a perversion, el que no tranza, no avanza. They said no, no, el que tranza, no avanza. El que no tranza, avanza. (He who swindles does not advance. He who does not swindle advances.) You cannot say that it is not important avanzar (to advance). You cannot say it is not important to have a permanent social role. It is important, for them it is important. You have to say it is important but there is an illegal way, there is a legal way to be Mexican. The same question was in Colombia. 

	When I am in Islamic countries of course the perversion comes from the perversion of the verses of Koran, the Satanic verses, Salman Rushdie, the Satanic verses. Perversion of Koran. But speaking of Colombia. I said, please tell me which is the most relevant value in Colombian tradition. It was a really complicated question. I did not receive any reply for a long time. One day it was ten o'clock in the night. I was meeting one hundred young students in the university. It was a very informal meeting. Just after dinner, we were speaking and I questioned. "Please let me know, in your opinion, which is the most relevant value in your Colombian tradition?"  No one replied. I insisted, please tell me, try to think about that. 

	After one hour a young student, 18, 19, 20 years old, who was just in the middle of all the other friends told me, "Mr. Professor, justice." I understood everything about Colombia. The most relevant problem in Colombia is the perversion of justice. The justice of the state doesn't work. The state does pervert justice. The FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), they do pervert justice. They kill in the name of justice. They are criminals, terrorists, in the name of justice. They are paramilitaries. They do pervert the name of justice. The narcos (narcotics traffickers), they do pervert the name of justice. I speak about the narcos at the time of the famous narco traffickers. I cannot remember the name, I am getting old. The most important narco traffic person just died. [speaking in Italian.] Pablo Escobar. 

MAJEED: 	Oh Pablo Escobar, yes.

ORLANDO:	Was a man of justice, justice. He was a criminal perverting justice. Pablo Escobar usually gave $1400 to anybody killing any police. I killed a police, a normal police, not being especially engaged in the fight against narco traffickers, even a quiet policeman, not taking care in the fight against the narcos. I killed him, I go to Pablo Escobar and Pablo Escobar gives to me $1400. The day after Pablo Escobar caught the wife of the killer of the police and gave to her an apartment, perversion of justice. 

	So I think that the message that comes from Palermo is that change is possible and that it is possible to fight against the old identity of the community or against the perversion of the old identity of the community. The second is that to change is convenient. The quality of the life, even the quantity of business, they increase if you fight against the perversion of your identity. You become not more correct and less rich; you become more correct and more rich. I think these are the two main points about all that.

	The third is that in society, society is where, the civil society is weak, society is where the people live their daily life, they have not a strong, they are not strongly aware of their rights. The politicians, especially mayors, they have an essential role because people living in a society, many criminals, with many perversion of identity, you need just to have leadership. In a quiet city, in Germany, in a quiet city in France, you don't need to know the name of the mayor. You can live a normal life without knowing the name of the mayor of your city, not meeting him, not having special relations with him. 

	In the cities where society is weak and the people are not conscious of their rights as citizens, the leadership is necessary. Of course you have to work to let your city be free from you. My promise today is to discover that my city probably needs my leadership. For me as a man it is something wonderful, but for me as a citizen it is a real shame because it is not normal that after so many years people say, please come back to be mayor. Not normal. It means that in the meanwhile the strengths of citizenship are not so strong as in the past. 

MAJEED: 	Thank you so much for that, I really appreciate it. If I can move onto the next topic that I wanted to talk to you about. You built, while you were mayor, both during the first and definitely during your second administration you built a great team of people, a great team of commissioners. How did you keep things on track? How did you motivate your team? Was there any training or tracking that you did regularly? How did you manage the people who were working for you? Also we heard that you did not have any written strategy or strategic plan so how did you make sure that everybody was on board and moving along so that there was a wholesome development of the city? 

ORLANDO:	I repeated always, I have full confidence on you. I have full confidence on you. If you make a mistake you will be my enemy. I will never tell you what you have to do. You are a manager of a company, you are responsible for a sector of the administration. You are president of a municipal agency. I have full confidence in you but don't make a mistake. I think that it worked because everybody, even people who worked with the ousted? [indecipherable 00:29:37] regime, even as I said last time, even people working with the old system, they understood that they, even they, had a chance to change.

	When I arrived, being completely innovative, many of them told me, "Mr. Mayor, I wish to leave my office. Please, I resign. You have to indicate somebody else because I was part of the old system." I asked them, "You were part of the old system, it is not my problem. Do you agree to change yourself? If you agree to change yourself you will be more strong than the new people just arriving now." They did not believe me.

	They told me, "Mr. Mayor, you cannot have confidence in me because I was responsible all the time, in a different period." I always said, "Do you imagine to be the right man to have this responsibility? Do you imagine to be professionally just in a good position to solve the problems? If you imagine it I have confidence in you." It was very important because people understood that not only Palermo can change, not only the citizens can change but even people, managers, being responsible for the sector of the public administration, they understood that they were able to die square. They were born round, they could die square.

MAJEED: 	But how did you keep people on track? You must have had in your mind, I want this to happen in six months, in a year. You were looking at the revitalization of the historic center, education and so on. How did you keep things moving along?

ORLANDO:	First of all I charged the people who were competent, the competence professionally. I used two different systems to decide who was the right person. One is professionality, the other one is love. In my opinion professionality and love are the two wings of the change. If you have only the professionality without love you will never solve the problems. If you have only love without professionality, you let the problems become bigger. You love but you destroy. So it was necessary just to check the people in the name of these two different points of view. To be an expert and to love, to have enthusiasm. To do what you do not because you are paid but because you believe in what you are doing. Then of course you must be paid because you have a right to live. 

BACON:  	When people did make mistakes or disappointed you, how did you react?

ORLANDO:	If they did a mistake in a conscious way, not pity. If they did mistakes and they explained to me how it was possible to make the mistake, to err is human, to make mistake is human, it happens. Normally I said you have the right to be human one time. If you are human two times, there is some problem. If you are human three times probably we need to divide our path, we need to divide our relations. It happens to make a mistake, everyone can make a mistake. But the problem is if the mistake was sabotage or the mistake was a mistake. I cannot accept the people receiving my confidence can organize a sabotage to my activity. In that case, honor and friendship can be used just the same. 

	There is another-you know that in our language we use "you" and there is "tu" and "lei"

PITEA: 	 I explained a bit to them because it happened before.

ORLANDO:	We use the tu and lei. I normally say please, from today let us use "you" in our relations. Normally we say-it is difficult to explain in English because you have not the similar thing. 

PITEA:	It is like the Spanish usted, it is a form of respect, a respectful form of "you." Which means she, her, but it is used for men as well. 

ORLANDO: 	We have two different ways. When I speak with my grandson I say "you", when I speak with my professor I say, "lei". When I speak with my wife, when I speak with my friends I say you, you, you, tu. When I speak with someone who is more distant from me, is not my relative, is not my friend I say "lei."

	When I am a citizen, I speak with the prime minister, I say to the prime minister "lei." When I meet my wife I say you, tu. I normally say, so we say, in the normal way, we say "lei." I don't know you, it is the first time we meet, I say "lei" who are you. Then the moment comes when I say please from now let's use you. I usually say the opposite, I say from now let's say "lei." So to say you is normal. To say "lei" for me is something special. 

	Sometime in my life I say to people, please from now, let's no longer use you, let's use "lei." Just to say, from now, let's be distant please. So it was just one way to say it. You can imagine it. What was the city administration, when I was elected mayor the first time? I told you there was no switchboard, no central switchboard. There were single telephones because the public service was a private office, private. 

	They were completely, it was normal not to have respect for the public goods, for the common goods. As I say it was not mine, it was not yours, it was nobody's. Remember one day, one of the managers of the city, I was just elected mayor the first time, one of the managers of the city, they came, he came in my office. He was smoking a cigarette. He came inside my office. He threw the cigarette on the floor and switched it off with his shoes. I said, I do so? It fell down, it's yours. Understand? Because there was no respect.

	The office of the Mayor was not considered just belonging to someone, was considered belonging to nobody so you can throw the cigarettes on the floor. As you know, in my opinion, in a different way, but in any condition, the city administration is something like an educational agency. 

MAJEED: 	In terms of your second administration, what were some of the electoral platform? What was the electoral platform you ran on and what were some of the things you thought you would do for the city when you became mayor? 

ORLANDO:	I think the most relevant thing was the culture is not an option. The culture means of course art, music, schools, it is not an option. It is the main, the real core business. To promote culture means to promote respect for the whole identity of the people. That doesn't mean to fight against the Mafia in that case. That is the perversion of identity. The second thing is that the work, the jobs, do not come from the Mafiosi but jobs come from normal business, far away from the Mafia system. Comes from city administration, far away from the Mafia system. Comes from a condition where the culture of belonging doesn't work, where the most relevant question is who are you, what do you know, what are you able to do and not to whom do you belong.

	So as you can notice I think the necessity is just to apply this model but we need to translate into Colombian language, into Mexican language, into German language, into Islamic language, into Russian language. The model is just there. You need just to translate. Therefore every time I work, and I work a lot in other countries, in Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Islamic countries, Russia, I normally say, this one is just the method. I will never be able to apply my method to you. I give you the method, bye-bye. My mission is finished; I have nothing else to do. 

	I am able to tell the story, to explain the method, how to work my situation, but from this moment I have never gone to these countries, never gone to these countries with people not being of that country. I have never been in Mexico with an Italian guy. I have never been in Colombia with an Italian guy. I always go there completely alone. Just to say, I only can give you a method, then please I have to go back home because to change from inside an identity is possible only with people having that identity, otherwise it appeared to be just like a colonization. 

	People were reacting because people would say, yes, you come from abroad. You do not know us, you cannot understand us. I will never be able inside the system. I will never be able to explain to a priest that it is necessary not to have relations with the Mafia if I don't find a priest saying what I am saying now. And priest needs another priest saying and giving testimonial. It is possible to be priest, not being friend of Mafioso. It is possible to be businessman. If I say to a businessman believe me it is convenient not to have relations with the Mafia, he will reply you are not a businessman, you don't know. But if a businessman says to another businessman believe me, it is convenient not to have relations with the Mafia, probably the businessman having relation with the Mafioso will understand the message. 

	So you can apply this one, from an Italian speaking to a Mexican, from a Colombian or a German, but inside the system I needed to have, I applied a very relevant point of the administration, businessman, just to send the message that the city administration is not against people making business. We promote your business. What we cannot promote is the business just being richer with the help of the Mafia, or alliance with the Mafia.

MAJEED: 	Very interesting, thank you so much. One question I had in terms of your terms as mayor, could you tell me a little bit about the single biggest obstacles you may have faced in office, something that you didn't expect and how did you recover? I would be interested in learning more about, first of all the second administration, then also the first. 

ORLANDO:	The first was I needed everything.

MAJEED: 	Resources?

ORLANDO:	Nothing worked in a correct way. So I needed to send really, what can I say, I needed just to send really just a strong message. In my first mandate I needed just to divide the city. I said I am proud to be mayor of a city that I contributed to divide into parts. When I started my experience I needed enemies, enemies. Just to send the message that I wished to change in a real way. If you don't do what I think it is necessary to do you are my enemy. Not a person thinking a different way from me, my enemy. Of course it was necessary at the beginning. 

	When I went in front of the court, just asking for condemnation of the Mafia bosses, it was one way to say clearly the Mafioso are my enemies. Enemies. They can even have the face of don Vito Corleone, they can even be sweet, they can even be elegant-normally they were not elegant. They can even be elegant, but they are my enemies. Of course it was really curious to watch my speeches. In my first term it was terrible because it normally does happen that the mayor says, I am happy because I divided the city into two parts, one against the other. Normally the mayor says, I am happy because there is a harmony in the city, because everybody discussed about the problems. There are no terrible contests.

	When I sent strong-imagine, I declared war to Giornale di Sicilia. I declared war to the most relevant newspaper in Sicily and in Palermo. I talked to the press office, my press office, no relations with newspapers in the city. No relations. You are not to reply to the phone calls of the journalists. The press office. It was a terrible, terrible fight. I lived for almost one year not having relations with the newspapers in the city. Attacking me every day. After one year the editor called me. "Mr. Mayor, we wish just to have an interview from you. Please give us an interview because we are losing so many readers. You declared war to us and the majority of people in Palermo don't buy our newspaper. We understand that it is not convenient to be in a fight against you." Not convenient, not correct, not convenient. 

	From that moment they completely changed and they promoted the program that is called the newspaper in the class. Then there was a page that came to the class with the little kid's photo, their name, speaking about the problems of the city. I replied every night during the time people normally sleep to write my end, the reply to each position of each young kid. You can imagine what it means, 8 years old, 10 years old, 9 years old, watching their photo in the newspaper, a journalist. Speaking about how does it work the traffic in Palermo? How does it work the school? How does the city administration take care of the rubbish? Every one of them received my reply. Yes ok, yes we did, yes we will do. Yes, I will try to explain to you how it is working, why we are not able to solve the problem. 

	You can imagine. I sent my letters to the young kids with an officer of the city police. Many times they told us they reached the school and then asked please, we have a letter from the office of the mayor for Mr. Manirosi. But there is no Manirosi working here. Manirosi in the class four. Class four? There is no professor with the name Manirosi in class four. No, Manirosi is a student, he is a scholar. 

	The officer came inside the class. Everybody was surprised and gave a letter from the mayor. You understand that in such a way the mayor is not a man coming from another planet and the officer of the police is not only the man arresting your father. He is a man just carrying the reply of the mayor to your article in the newspaper. Such a way to let the people understand that even the mayors are human beings. The so-called humanization of politics.   

MAJEED: 	During your second term was there anything unexpected that came up in the administration that you had not expected that prevented you from moving forward with your reforms and how did you overcome it?

ORLANDO:	What I believed, what I thought is people could understand the importance of an administration having the papers in order, of correct administration. They did not understand the importance. For instance, the city administration of Palermo got, as I told you last time, rating from Moody's AA3, it is a good rating. I was not able to explain the importance of that. Now, after many years they understood the importance of that but at the moment, I spent a lot of time just letting the budget, the financial documents, just to let the-to have the network hold the information about the administration. I presume you will speak with Mr. Bonta', I gave you the telephone number. He was responsible for the company taking care about the informatization of our administration. 

	But probably it was too advanced for people and they did not-I did not expect that they should not understand the importance of what we were doing. It is-sometimes you build leadership that is not appreciated. I was appreciated because I touched people. I was appreciated because I was a man just going in all the dark parts of the city and speaking with everybody, with the prostitutes, with the people living in a terrible way, with people living in an unpolite way. I touched everybody. So I succeeded about that, how to touch people, to be considered the mayor is one of us. 

	Many times, just now I was speaking with a friend of mine. Then I remember when 1000 people unemployed, really, really violent, they came inside the city administration without order. They occupied the town hall. There were soon twenty police cars arrived [siren sound]. The officer came to me and said, "Don't worry Mr. Mayor, we will let them be thrown out from the town hall." I said, "Why?" All the people were there, "They are visiting me, it is a visit. There is no problem, they are not occupying it."

	When I said that they were visiting everything was quiet. We discussed for two hours. Then I said, "Your visit is finished. Let's see you another time" They said, "Ok, Mr. Mayor. They went away. The police were-. I could have said, "Go away, please police." They appeared to be the enemy of people. In this way I did not give them to the alternative system of power that in Sicily is Mafia. I remember many, many times I reached the town hall and there were many, many people protesting against me, against the mayor. I went with the police, with bodyguards, with machine pistols. I remember one day there was one just crying against me. Mr. Mayor, Mr. Mayor we are coming for you. You know to say that it is really offensive.  

	He was crying to me so. I separated the bodyguards and I went attacking him. "Why are you saying this? It is not correct. You want to speak with me, let's speak. What is the problem? You have a problem, let's speak. You cannot offend me." All of the others, a thousand people saying, "The mayor is right. The mayor is right." If I shoot them and go directly inside the palace, protected by police that was the end of any discussion with them and I'd be isolated. 

	I remember one day I was in the jail on Sunday morning, sometimes I went on Sunday morning inside the jail. You know I was considered the man against the criminals. I was considered a terrible man against illegality. The people living in illegality considered me as an enemy. I was the mayor. I cannot accept that a citizen considered me an enemy. So sometimes, not telling anything to anybody, except of course the bodyguards, I went into a jail during the time of the mass. I participated, it was a normal mass, a normal church in the city. 

	I remember one day the priest, the head of the mass told, "We are seeing the mayor of Palermo being with us, praying to God. I think it would be correct if the mayor of Palermo would say something to you." I went there and I said, "Good morning." One of these people just arrested was inside the jail, crying against me. I said, "Why are you crying against me? I could not come here, if I am here it is because I was discussed with you. If you cry-I could say I'd go away. Let me say, you can cry, I don't go away. Then you will be tired to cry against me. You will understand that it is not useful to cry." 

	All the other prisoners including many Mafia bosses were saying, "Mr. Mayor is right. He is ready to hear our position. It is not in our interest to let him go away. Let's discuss." That is the reason for which as you know my telephone number is not in the telephone office. As I told you when I was mayor, it was there.

MAJEED: 	Thank you so much. One question I had in your second administration, you got a lot of money through the Europe budget office and it seems to have been very beneficial for the city. Did you take any other steps to enforce taxes or build up your local revenue base in the city?

ORLANDO:	No.

MAJEED: 	Why was that?

ORLANDO:	I did not increase taxes, I let everybody pay taxes. When I was mayor of Palermo there was really terrible tax evasion.

MAJEED: 	How did you tackle the problem?

ORLANDO:	Through informatization. Through informatization it was possible just to reach everybody. So I was able not to increase taxes because I let everybody pay taxes. It was not a problem in Palermo, it is a problem today in Italy. We have in Italy a fiscal pressure that is about 55%. But it is considered that we have a fiscal evasion that is something like 140 billions of Euros each year. That is 140 billions of Euros each year. So when you increase taxes it is always the same who pay. Who doesn't pay the taxes doesn't pay the increase in taxes. So I say when people discovered that I was not able to increase the taxes but was able to reach everybody of course I lost probably many votes of people before who were not paying and now paying, but I got votes of people paying the taxes, not paying increased taxes. Of course what you need is to explain, explain, explain. It was very important.

	Normally two times in the month, one or two times in the month, I stayed two hours on television receiving calls and replying. It was necessary to explain. Of course in many cases people spoke about a personal problem. I was able, starting from the personal problem to say it was not possible to solve each personal problem, but it was possible to explain what we were doing to solve a problem of many persons including him. Because tradition of what was, "Mr. Mayor I have a problem. Please solve my personal problem." When you explain on television, when everybody knows that they can speak with the mayor, can receive reply, can receive information, not only a theoretic scenario of the city but how it is possible for a poor man, for an old widow, for a man who is seriously ill, to receive from the city administration the solution of the problem, not of his own personal problem but how the problems like the problems he has can be solved by the city. 

	So you will speak with Mr.Manirosi, you speak with all the Manirosis of the city who have the same problem. 

MAJEED: 	I see, thank you so much. You mentioned the media, you have mentioned the civil society. The church also plays of course a very important role in Sicilian life. Can you tell me how you built coalitions with the church in terms of administering the city and also in terms of fighting back the Mafia? 

ORLANDO:	We have to start from the Sicilian situation. In the Sicilian situation there was an alliance between the church and the Mafia, a strong tradition of alliance. When I started my political activity, fighting against the Mafia as I told you I was considered a communist. As I told you I was considered an atheist. Yes, the mayor says to be Catholic is not a good Catholic because to fight against the Mafia was not considered possible for the Catholics. Not seeing, not speaking, not hearing. It was the situation of honest people, honest people. Not seeing, not speaking, not hearing from a criminal is normal but it is a problem when the honest people don't watch, don't speak, don't hear, because they become the best friends of the Mafia bosses. They are really important for a Mafia system of power. 

	A Mafia system of power needs silence and darkness, needs people not speaking about the Mafia. The Mafia does not exist. There was a really important point that it was the position of Cardinal (Salvatore) Pappalardo. There was an archbishop, a Catholic archbishop, really different from the previous archbishop in Palermo. The previous archbishop in Palermo said the Mafia does not exist, it is an invention of the journalist. As I told you when the cardinal archbishop of Palermo, number one of Catholic church in Sicily says the Mafia does not exist, is an invention of the journalist, you can consider the position of the poor priest in Corleone. He will say he is very proud to celebrate the wedding of the Mafia boss. 

	But Cardinal Pappalardo changed it. The Cardinal Pappalardo said it was not possible to be Catholic and to have a Mafia culture. He said strong words. But when he started he was completely alone inside the church, completely alone. We were afraid for the security of the cardinal because the risk, so speaking in a situation of the church, being deeply, strongly connected with the Mafia system of power. We published a little book, One voice, One City. We collected twelve different persons to help, not 12,000, not 12 million, twelve persons who wrote an article saying what Cardinal Pappalardo says, we agree. That was one way to let him know that to remain isolated inside his church, not isolated in comparison with the Mafia bosses inside the church. It was really important because in any case it was the cardinal, the archbishop.

	Somebody imagined that he was considered once possible Pope. But a priest, a cardinal, a pope, cannot be against somebody. They said, other cardinals, not other communists, other cardinals, not other mufti or Islamic imams. Other cardinals said Cardinal Pappalardo celebrated the mass against the Mafia. The Catholic father cannot be against somebody. It was one subtle way to isolate him. I think that he was in Italy the first cardinal needing bodyguards. But it was just a message that gave courage to the other priests, that gave courage especially to the young priests. He took an oath; he took care of the education of the new priests in the seminary. 

	One of the positive results of Cardinal Pappalardo was to let people like I am to imagine it possible to be Catholic and not to be connected with the Mafia, to be against the Mafia. The same for many, many, a new generation of priests, Catholic priests. He was very secular in a way. He was a secular cardinal. God is God, state is state. Church is church. Bodyguard is bodyguard. There is a difference, a big difference between church and bodyguard. Bodyguard and the state. With corrupt banks, with corrupt cardinals, with corrupt management. 

	For people believing, the church is the mystic body of Christ. People believe the church is the people of God. The Vatican is a state with all the vices of the states. When you confuse the two, it is the end of the faith. Therefore I am Catholic and that is perfect I can be. I wish to have back the Bishop (Marcel) Lefebvre. He was a very conservative one, because if we have the Bishop Lefebvre, a really conservative one, we can have theology of liberation too. We can have a priest with ideas left-oriented, and a priest having ideas right-oriented, it is normal. What terrible happened in the last years is that the church, with all its difference was reduced to unity, was confused with the Vatican. When the Vatican is in consonance with the church, it is the end of the faith, many people lose their faith. 

	Cardinal Pappalardo was very good because being cardinal he did not consider it necessary to defend all the priests because he considered that even among the priests there were Mafioso perverting the faith. I was against Sicilians perverting their identity and he was against the priests perverting the Christian identity. As you can understand, the model can be used in each part of society, in each country in the world, with different regions, different values, different identities, but it is always the same model, perversion of identity. 

MAJEED: 	I see, thank you. One question that I have, when you became mayor in 1993, how did you sequence your reforms and set priorities for your administration?

ORLANDO:	It was a terrible time. I think that the most painful time of my life was after the election in 1993. I was elected with 75% and it was terrible. It was a terrible time because everybody wanted, pretended, everything today. 

MAJEED: 	Yes.

ORLANDO:	I tell you that I got too many votes. You cannot build a leadership if you get too many votes because everybody does pretend to receive everything today. It was six terrible months. I spent a lot of time to say to people we need time, we need time. The real change needs time. What is the problem was the same problem of the first two years [indecipherable 01:16:21]. The same problem. I always said to [indecipherable 01:16:23], you have to say, don't make the mistake to say that we'll solve the problem tomorrow. You have to say, "probably in the next three years." "But the house is burning." "I'm sorry, I can just switch off the fire in the next two years." We lived in a terrible time. He told me, how did you prevent my terrible time? Because I passed through, I knew the same terrible time. It was the same problem of my friend. The new mayor of Naples.

MAJEED: 	So what steps did you take and what lessons did you give others when you were advising them? What steps did you take in terms of assuring people that reforms will happen?

ORLANDO:	I of course, I was not a theoretic, I was a mayor, I needed to give a reply. So I tried to give some immediate reply to something because you cannot say, ok, let's see, in 1995. 

MAJEED: 	So what were some of these quick responses?

ORLANDO:	The first was the problem of unemployment, that was the first problem. The second was the problem of the last of the people being in bad social conditions, economic conditions. You can say to the people I will guarantee public lights in two years. You cannot say to a family without apartment, without housing, I will solve your problem in two years. They need to cover their heads; they need something to protect them from the rain, from the cold weather. Therefore the most serious opposition of people having voted for me three months before, two months before, the most strong opposition was of people having not immediate needs. 

	It doesn't mean the professors, the society, it was really a problem-I needed to just go where there was the fire. It was almost one, two years long. There was a terrible moment in 1994 because I was seriously ill and two months long I didn't know exactly if I was dying or not, it was not clear what I had in my body but bed rest didn't work. So I resisted but for two months it was a terrible time. Terrible because I got too many votes. Terrible because everybody wanted to receive an immediate reply to their needs, and terrible even for my physical condition. 

	Anyway, the best time was 1996, three years after, 1997 was when we reopened the opera house. It was a wonderful time, 1998, 1999, year 2000. It was a wonderful time. It was possible to breathe. 

MAJEED: 	What was your relationship to the town council or the city council?

ORLANDO:	In our electoral system the mayor has almost all the power. In the first term 1985 to 1990 the mayor was in the hands of the city council. From 1993 to 2000 the city council was in the hands of the mayor. It was a change of the electoral system, it was a change of the system of power. You can imagine, when I was mayor the first time I was elected by city council. I could be obliged to resign by a vote of the city council. So I could stop to be the mayor every day.

	From 1993 if I resigned, all the city council was ready to go home. So some time when they tried to do something against me I said, "Don't worry, I'll resign, everybody go home." No, no. Because it is a system. If the mayor resigns, the city council goes, we have new elections for everybody.

MAJEED: 	During your second term you seem to have appointed a number of people on short-term contracts as technical experts, heads of companies, and so on.

ORLANDO:	Yes.

MAJEED: 	We heard that there was resistance to some of these appointments. What made you appoint people who were considered to be in a sense outside the civil service and how did you-? 

ORLANDO:	I strongly reduced the people coming from the outside in the second term. I strongly needed to have people coming from outside from 1993 to 1997 because I had so many pressures, so many people asking for help and I needed to have many, many experts coming from outside. But I decided, it was my decision that all the experts that I appointed coming from outside could not stay in office more than three years. I did so to send a message. The expert, the advisors coming from the outside, they are not in the place of civil servants. They need to help the civil servant to know something new and after three years they would go away.

	So people coming from outside they have to train you but they will never replace you. It is an important message because otherwise, the adviser coming from outside would become the enemy, the conqueror. So I had really clever experts coming from outside, what a pity after three years to have to say sorry, you have to go away. You did a tremendous positive job but I need to preserve the stability of the city administration, of the civil servant. The civil servant will welcome you if they know that you will stay three years. They will never accept you, they will resist against you, they will try to get you to be without success if they know that if you have success you will replace them. 

	I would never cooperate with somebody who is killing me, who is taking my place, who is just cutting, interrupting my career. But somebody coming from outside, helping me to get more professionality, and then to have more of a chance to go up inside the city administration because you are not my conqueror, because you are going away, ok welcome, thanks. So it is a little simple rule.

	In many cases, in other cases, in other cities, the adviser remained ten years long. Here it is not possible. You don't let the city administration grow up. If you use external experts you solve the problems of the city but you don't solve the problems of the city administration.

MAJEED: 	Thank you so much. You have established a foundation, the Institute for Sicilian Renaissance. Can you talk a little bit about why you established it and did it help in the spread of some of the experiences in Palermo?

ORLANDO:	I imagined that it was necessary just to think of the day after I finish being mayor. I decided just to have this little association, to have room to spread all over the world, outside from Europe, absolutely outside from Europe, because I had been a member of the European parliament, an Italian politician. I just said we need to cut a relation between our activity as the institute and my political activity. I want to send a cultural message. I cannot be, I cannot spread a cultural message in combination with my political positions, it doesn't work. So I said ok, I cannot be considered a world politician. I can be considered in any case a European politician. Outside of Europe I can work, I can do, I can use this institute. This institute now probably is a name that has been for many years just an institute just working and I am the President of this institute. 

	The honorary President was the Cardinal Pappalardo and the Vice President is Rita Borsellino that I campaigned, hoping to be the mayor. It was not possible. Anyway, now I am obliged to candidate. 

MAJEED: 	Thank you.

ORLANDO:	One member was Andrea Scrosati, that you will meet in Rome. Another one was a professor from Georgetown University, Roy Godson. He now is working all over the world with this institute just spreading my message, cultural economy of human rights, cultural economy of legality. I did not use the copyright. 

MAJEED: 	Just a few more questions in conclusion. One question I had is what role does the Cosa Nostra or the Mafia play in Palermo, Sicily, now?

ORLANDO:	The Cosa Nostra, I mean, for the first time in the history of Palermo, if you question what about Cosa Nostra, does it exist, somebody says, Cosa Nostra doesn't exist. The Cosa Nostra does exist. But they decided not to kill any more, any longer. For many, many years Cosa Nostra changed their strategies. Cosa Nostra discovered, understood, that to kill too much is not convenient. The Cosa Nostra in these years has changed its strategy. Not yes, of course we have old traditional Mafiosi, but the most dangerous part of Cosa Nostra is the new Mafia. It means very elegant people, very normal people, living in wonderful houses, speaking many languages but being involved in Cosa Nostra. 

	The change is that at the beginning of my experience Cosa Nostra controlled territories physically. Now Cosa Nostra does control the territories culturally and financially. There is a difference. Now it controls the territories in the name of business. The name of business can be associated together with the Mafia. Competition, competition, please, don't exaggerate, we need some monopolies. Freedom, oh freedom is very important but we cannot be obliged to respect too many rules. So freedom without rules, competition transformed in to monopolies. The richness, the strength of development, they are the three perverted values of the new Mafia. The three perverted values of the old Mafia, honor, family, friendship. The three perverted values of the new Mafia, freedom without rules, monopoly instead of competition, richness instead of development. So it is more difficult to fight against it, it is more difficult.

MAJEED: 	Thank you.

ORLANDO:	I don't know if I told you, my interview on television, in Holland. Did I speak about that? I was invited to speak about the old and the new Mafia. It was in Utrecht, in Holland. It was a live program. So when you have a live program you need to say what you think, to communicate what you think in the time. You cannot say please let's repeat. I tried to explain the difference between the old and the new Mafia. The old Mafia perverting old traditional Sicilian values, the old Mafia just using weapons, the old Mafia just using kalashnikov. 

	The new Mafia freedom without rules, richness instead of development, and monopoly instead of competition. But it is not easy to understand. Everything was clear about the old Mafia. You have clear ideas about the old Mafia. Rough men, unpolite man living in the country just using weapons. Just really rough. Then I think it was clear to communicate about the old; I understood that. The journalist did not react to me about the new. The time was just running and the hour of live programming was finishing. Then I understood I needed just to find a solution to send the message, what is the new Mafia. 

	I decided to ask the journalist, "please who do you imagine can be a boss of the new Mafia." The journalist told me, "the boss of the new Mafia? I don't know. I don't know who can be the boss of the new Mafia, I really don't know." "Please tell me. Who do you imagine can be a candidate to be the boss of the new Mafia?" "Really, Mr. Orlando, I really don't know."

	I. I. I am the perfect candidate to be the boss of the new Mafia. I speak many languages, nobody can imagine I am Mafioso. I say that we don't need Mafia. I am the perfect boss of the new Mafia. If you don't understand that, you will never understand what the new Mafia is. A new Mafia boss needs to be exactly as I am, so probably you are in front of a boss of the new Mafia. It is exactly so. Otherwise you can imagine the Mafia is only kalashnikoves, in the country Corleone, speaking about cows, about horses? 

MAJEED: 	As you know our program tries to help others learn from-.

ORLANDO:	When I said, I am the new boss of the city, I am an alternative boss of the city, I am a boss, alternative Mafia boss of the city. An alternative, not against only but instead of. 

MAJEED: 	Reflecting back on your experience, what advice would you like to offer others and if you think of anything you could have done differently what would it have been?

ORLANDO:	To let grow other leaders in your city, to let grow other leaders in your city. My problem is that I was not able to have other young leaders around me. It is the most important point that I wish to send as a message. Because probably my mistake, I don't know probably the situation, but it is really sad that I am the candidate as mayor another time, really sad. It does mean that it is my fault, I don't know, I don't leave, I don't take care of the problems of the city for ten years, I probably cannot be the only one responsible. I normally say if in ten years we are not able to have a son, it cannot be my fault. You can just have a son, to have a new leader. I cannot be responsible for new leaders not being born. For ten years I don't make love with the ladies in Palermo so it cannot be my mistake. Why no one was born? 

MAJEED: 	Towards the end of your term-.

ORLANDO:	It depends on the fact, it probably depends on the fact that I have never been a boss, I have been a leader. You know the difference between a boss and a leader? A boss he does know the people follow him. The boss knows the name, the address of everybody following him. He knows everybody, or knows somebody knowing everybody. The boss gives security for the present. The boss speaks to the interest of the people. Correct, legal interest, that is the boss. 

	The leader doesn't know the people following him. The leader does not know the names of the people who follow him. The leader speaks to the heart, to the minds of the people and the leader gives no security for the present but hope for the future. 

	Thirty years ago I discovered that to be boss was not possible for me. So I tried to be a leader. The leaders, they have no successor. The leaders normally they have no father and the leader normally has no son; the boss yes. The boss decides he will be after me. But I don't know who is more important, the leader or the boss. It is like a plumber or an electrician, which one. I am sorry, I am not an electrician, I am a plumber. 

MAJEED: 	So one of your regrets is not helping the young leadership in the city?

ORLANDO:	One of many, the many people involved in politics grew up following me, they have many different roles, important roles, members of the government.

MAJEED: 	But did you make any efforts or what efforts did you make to build sustainability towards the end of your term?

ORLANDO:	To let other people-I probably did a mistake. In the 1999, '98, '99, when I knew that my office was just finishing after two terms, I felt myself in the wrong position and I called the parties, we had the parties in our country. I appointed as a member of my government the chief of the different parties saying now I prepare what will happen after me. I ask you as different parties to take care of what will happen after me. So I can be called irresponsible but I was not alone.

MAJEED: 	Is there anything else we have missed, anything else you would like to add before we conclude?

ORLANDO:	No, I wish only to say that I had a wonderful experience. Oscar Wilde said that experience is the name we give to our mistakes, so I have had a tremendous experience because I did a lot of mistakes.

MAJEED: 	Thank you so much for your time. 




Innovations for Successful Societies				Series:	City Management
Oral History Program						Interview number: B1
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Use of this transcript is governed by ISS Terms of Use, available at www.princeton.edu/successfulsocieties