Peppino Impastato was born on 5 January 1948 in Cinisi, in the province of Palermo; He died at the age of thirty years for opposing and for denouncing the mafia system present in their territory. Peppino was a young man who refused to align with the conspiratorial climate in Sicily of the fifties and sixties, never accepted to be silent in front of the apparent corruption and mob clans in the province of Palermo conducted in areas of the province, never accepted to remain silent in the face of oppression and violence of the mafia against those who, few, dared to rebel, never accepted to lower his head and kiss the hand to the boss of the country, never accepted to consider lost his lonely battle for Justice, freedom and condemnation of the mafia. Peppino denounced the Mafia bosses, including that in your country, Don Tano Badalamenti, and the mafia attitude of his countrymen, Sicilians and anyone who while seeing, even knowing, turned his head to see, don't feel, not knowing, doing so the game Cosa Nostra. Peppino struggled every day to liberate their land from the mafia. I believe that everything you need to know about the life of Peppino Impastato is this. There is, However, a second biography that I would like to bring to light and that seems to bring together so many other boys, men and women, Magistrates, Commissioners of police, Police officers and men of the escort, died young at the hands of the mafia: Rosario Livatino (38), Calogero Skullcap (27), Roberto Antioch (23), Ninnì Carolina (38), Beppe Montana (34), Antonino Montinaro (30), Rocco Dicillo (30), Vito Schifani (27), Claudio Traina (27), Eddi Walter Cosina (31), Emma Lane (25) Fabio and Vincenzo Li Muli (22) and many others. They were United by the belief that the law should be good and evil mafia, only in their own land and among his people, considered to be deluded by defeating an opponent too strong and powerful, considered awkward to not stay in place, silent as everyone else. I like to remember Peppino and these guys in their 30s as people who courageously chose to say no to mafia, they've decided to stay on the good side in spite of evil was stronger, they chose to fight to change minds by their example, they breathed that “fresh scent of freedom” that made them free to refuse “the stench of moral compromise, the contiguity and therefore of complicity“. And’ Thanks to the sacrifice of Peppino that people had the courage to put up a poster that said that Peppino had not beaten and then killed himself, How brilliantly they had immediately reported the police and local press organs, but that Peppino's killers had a name: “Mafia”. And’ State thanks to the sacrifice of the young Sicilians Peppino had the courage to take action, even on the day of his funeral and mass scortarne the coffin, to take to the streets and to express openly its disagreement to the mobsters. Hundred steps separated the House of Peppino from him who made him kill, Don Tano Badalamenti. The boss of Cinisi did not understand ever Peppino, said it was getting more uncomfortable than dangerous, surrounded by a few friends harmless: Don Tano including only the day of the funeral of Peppino, When his order addressed to citizens of Cinisi not to participate was not heard, When he saw people in the streets to demonstrate against the Mafia, What was great Peppino and what he had been able to engage people without weapons, money or power, only with the force of his ideas of right and justice.
Hundred steps that grew from that day in thousands of young steps which still walking together to shout, How did Peppino, that the Mafia is a pile of shit.
Roberto Rossetti
