Aon the eve of the 33rd anniversary of his assassination and one hundred years after his birth, Free Grassi one cannot forget, both because his rigor and his incorruptibility have made history, and because his memory has always inspired anti-racket movements such as projects like those of his daughter Alice, who has been fighting for years so that the park dedicated to him in Acqua dei Corsari, one of the Palermo districts, can see the light.
My father taught us by his example that freedom and coherence are priceless.
Alice Grassi, daughter of Libero Grassi
“A project that has been waiting for years”, he explains Alice Grassidaughter of the entrepreneur, killed by the mafia on August 29, 1991, «exactly since 2013, when this area was named after my father, but who got bogged down in the quicksand of bureaucracy which, despite the 11 million euros of the Po.Fesr 2014-2020 on the new 2021-2027 programming planned for the reclamation of the area have been confirmed just in these days, still has to understand what other impediments exist before reaching a goal that aims to qualify this large area of the South Coast, long plundered and abandoned, used as a waste area in the years of the Sack of Palermo».
An ambitious goal, one that is pursued to bring benefits to a community in which sociality over the years has only been a distant hypothesis
It is clearly an urban redevelopment project, but also a social one because the“Parco Libero” association wants to give life to a place to deliver to a territory devoid of any service that could offer opportunities for socializing. There are many of us who want it, individual citizens, professionals, associations, but everything must first pass through reclamation. Then, being a state-owned area, it must be handed over to the Municipality, to then give us the opportunity to open the drawer of dreams and start thinking about all those splendid opportunities for aggregation and growth that pass through theater, dance, animal care. A place intended for adults and children, in which the ugliness of a past of abandonment and exploitation can remain only a distant memory.
A place that will breathe new life also through an exceptional stage such as the sea that laps this coast, on which once there were also thermal baths such as the Virzì, also frequented by the Palermo bourgeoisie
It couldn’t be otherwise since dad returned to Palermo because he couldn’t stay away from his beloved sea. If he were here today he would be happy with what we are doing, even though I’m sure he would tell me I’m crazy to deal with the bureaucracy of public administrations.
Davide, Pina and Alice Grassi. (photo by Luciano de Castillo)In hindsight, do you think it is right, is it necessary, in your opinion, to sacrifice one’s life to demonstrate that there are things that are not right and that need to be changed?
I prefer to talk about example, rather than sacrifice. My father’s public outburst certainly served to lift the veil on a situation that everyone knew about, but deliberately ignored. He decided to publicly denounce the extortionists’ threats to give others a chance to come out into the open. The then president of Confindustria himself declared that everything was fine. I like to think that he set a precedent.
A school that taught what? How much has the situation changed today?
Unfortunately, the pizzo is always paid, even if in different ways. Of course, even before the staff was imposed, as well as the suppliers, but today the requests go beyond money. Let’s keep in mind that things, compared to the world of commerce, have changed today; in the city there are many franchise chains, for example many in the food sector, one every 100 meters, as if we couldn’t live without it. On the other hand, the anti-racketeering movement has come a long way. Dad’s choice to say “no” to the pizzo and to do it with that revolutionary gesture – the letter to the “Dear extortionist” published on January 10, 1991 in the Giornale di Sicilia – has marked the history of Palermo and Sicily, triggering the birth of anti-racketeering movements and the rebellion of businesses and citizens against mafia oppression.
When your father thinks of what image today?
I think of him on the terrace that he loved so much. In 2000 I returned to the house where he was born, the one from which he left on August 29, 33 years ago, never to return. Not that he dedicated himself to plants or anything else of a manual nature because it was not part of his nature. Nature that my mother did not have either, but in her there was a creative streak. She had, in fact, a degree in architecture. I must have taken after her. It is no coincidence that in life I also decided to become an architect, loving to create, to fix, to express myself creatively. It is exemplary that my mother paraphrased the sign for artisanal activities, writing behind the door of my room: “This daughter is an artisan”.
Pina Maisano Grassi and Libero GrassiThe anti-racket movement has grown so much over the years, starting from the killing of your father, but what is it that fails to increase the critical awareness of citizens regarding the phenomenon?
One of the reflections that “Addiopizzo” makes, and that I cannot help but agree with, is that redevelopment should be 360 degrees. You cannot expect citizens who live in peripheral neighborhoods or in the historic center to change, to become respectable, if then social degradation attacks the context in which they are immersed. You cannot spend twenty years to approve a master plan expecting people to put up with the many uglinesses that surround us. As an architect, for example, I suffer from all this. In other countries, with community funds they do everything, why is it so difficult for us to understand that it takes little to make life more beautiful?
But is there a positive note, a message we can send?
Absolutely yes. Today we have many resources in the field. The police, for example, collaborate differently even among themselves. Today we have the advantage of being able to choose which side to be on, knowing that we are protected and no longer risk as we once did. A certainty and not a hypothesis.