Davide De Novellis is from another equally beautiful and difficult city. Neapolitan, he arrived in Palermo 20 years ago. To stay there, to marry her, to adopt it. As a man and as a carabiniere.

of Onofrio Dispenza

The photo shows him with the most classic of uniforms, that of Marshal of the Carabinieri. Sitting next to a little girl, he helps her with her homework. Extraordinarily beautiful photo for the story it tells. Repubblica offers it to us, in the Palermo pages of the newspaper. The historian was there on Monday “bow” of a procession, this time stopped in front of the police station, not in front of the home of this or that other boss, as the chronicles have had to tell so far. With mafia, Camorra and 'Ndrangheta sure of being able to enslave not only men, even God. And the Repubblica chronicler went to Zen 2 of Palermo, knocked on the barracks, met the man who for ten years has been in charge of the command of a station that only two decades ago seemed like a miracle, after being a gamble.
Davide De Novellis is from another equally beautiful and difficult city. Neapolitan, he arrived in Palermo 20 years ago. To stay there, to marry her, to adopt it. As a man and as a carabiniere. And both are helped by a great passion, the music, the piano:” Music is my life – dice – if I didn't play I couldn't be the marshal that I am”.

Ten years ago it was not easy to create and accept the barracks hello Zen 2. Here the mafia and crime were daily food, forced, from which it was difficult to escape. The mafia fed you mafia. Fathers and sons united by a single destiny, which seemed inescapable. The state, distant and enemy thing, enemies as many as they came in the name of a state from which they distrusted. The rooms that now house the barracks were squatted, “rule” it was a word that did not appear in the vocabulary of these streets. With patience and humanity the marshal managed to be accepted, to get his people accepted 14 men. An undivided family between families forced to go upstream, with little hope.

Davide De Novellis lives and works here 24 hours on 24. And he lives there, shares urban and social marginalization. Sharing is understanding, and understanding is necessary to know, dialogue, listen and then be heard.

Marshal and teacher and much more. After school with children, soccer with children, with the families of Zen small, rare joys and pains and daily sufferings. A marshal here must also be a sower of hope, like teachers, like the priest, like the volunteers who plug the holes caused by absences. The message is that tomorrow will not necessarily be as bad and dirty as today, there is a road that – if helped – can make it grow, change things even in a place that appears to be the cork of life.

To the Zen Marshal– tells us about the meeting of the Republic – it was not easy to play with a child and the next day knock on the child's house to arrest the father. E’ happened, and the child marshal was looked at badly by the child. Then the child was helped to understand and for him the marshal went back to being a teacher and playmate. Marshal to Zen is also this. And also receive the hugs and thanks of the men of the neighborhood who the day before had decided to stop the procession in front of the barracks. Important gestures, that mark – why not – passages that appear small when read from a distance, but which are immense if written in these parts. They are slabs of a new road, but they can be sharp and threatening splinters in everyday life.

Never a doubt for the Neapolitan marshal who became Palermo: “If I left now it would be a shame ... The people here are tired of harassment and harassment ... They are tired of the mafia ...”. Tired of the mafia. Important words, magical, goal dreamed of by all men who, in uniform, in toga, as an ordinary man or woman, of entrepreneur, as a journalist who tells and reports, of priest indicating hope, the mafia have fought and are fighting, throwing their days on the esplanade of the challenge, even life itself.

Please follow and like us: