Throughout the 90s Naples milieu was: the Camorra
was `power-hungry, public services were completely inexistent and corruption
permeated the daily style of life. However its mayor Antonio Bassolino was
determined to give Naples a new birth, a politician in full support of the
Clean Hands anticorruption movement which was spread throughout Italy as this
public enemy was everywhere in the country.
The campaign to stop illegal activity
embraced turning Piazza del Plebiscito into a pedestrian area, setting up a new
art festival, refurbishing the metro with strokes of modern art and playing
host to the G7 summit.
What followed was a continuing deterioration
of all the feats Bassolino had achieved. He left the mayoralty as had been elected
president of Campania. His successor had to face very hard times: policemen
blamed for torturing protestors, rubbish lining the corners for collecting contracts
were not dealt with, and the clans clashing to control the drug trafficking
which left 47 dead. As the article Città Perduta published in 2006 assures the
town is living a very hard moment in which it does not know where its future
lies whether it will control the Camorra or submerge itself in darkness.
