Italian author and activist Roberto Saviano, whose Neapolitan mob exposé “Gomorrah” is the basis for the popular HBO Max series of the same title, delves into the life of another individual who exposed Italy’s organized crime in Sky doc series “The Man Who Wanted to Change the World.”
This time, the story revolves Mauro Rostagno, the Italian sociologist, political activist, guru and journalist who, in 1988, was killed by the Mafia.
Rostagno was a multifaceted individual who embodies the spirit of Italy’s turbulent 1970s, but who escapes definition through endless personal reinvention.
Born and raised in Turin, Rostagno married at age 19 and had a daughter. But he then left his family and travelled to Germany and France where he worked in factories. Rostagno subsequently returned to Italy and enrolled in the faculty of sociology in Trento, where he became a student protest leader and was among the founders, in 1969, of revolutionary leftist group Lotta Continua.
When Lotta Continua dissolved, in 1977, he founded a groundbreaking alternative community culture space in Milan called Macondo that led to his arrest on drug-related charges. Macondo was eventually shut down, prompting Rostagno to travel to India, where he became a follower of Baghwan Shree Rajneesh, AKA Osho Rajneesh (whose move to Oregon is documented in Netflix series “Wild Wild Country”).
Rostagno – who had changed his name to Swami Anand Sanatano – instead went to Sicily and founded a community called Saman, which soon became a residential recovery center for substance abusers. In Sicily he also became a TV reporter for a local broadcaster and started using a signature style of guerrilla journalism producing news stories that exposed local corruption rooted in the Sicilian Mafia. Rostagno was killed by Cosa Nostra hitmen in his car on a dirt road outside Saman on Sept. 26, 1988.
Variety speaks to Saviano about the parallels between his being forced to live with police protection ever since his account of the inner workings of the Neapolitan Camorra crime syndicate was published – and the death threats that followed – and Rostagno’s carefree attitude in taking on the Sicilian mob.
Simply put, what attracted you to Mauro Rostagno’s story?
What drew me was Rostagno’s cool and epic life. For me delving into this story meant entering the life of a man who had many skins. Who had the courage to change, while remaining true to himself. And I love the way he always wielded irony as his weapon.
One of the things that really struck me was how when Rostagno went to Sicily he latched on to a small broadcaster [local TV station Radio Tele Cine] and turned it into a vehicle that provided real hard-hitting news. At the time, local TVs in Italy just aired news reports covering local festivals and fairs and basically served as mouthpieces for local politicians. They didn’t have any journalistic dignity.
Of course Rostagno’s work as a journalist on TV got him killed. Did you feel a personal connection to that aspect?
I have to say that I would have liked to have been as bold as Rostagno. I envy him a lot. His strength in constantly starting life over from scratch. I don’t know how he did it. I am tormented by the choice that I made [of living under police protection] that has destroyed my life. And now any other choice just evokes the big mistake I made when I made that choice [by writing “Gomorrah” and also becoming a staunch political activist] has literally taken away all my space. It means that anything I do, be it to go teach in Paris or pick a week during which I shut myself in somewhere for vacation, gives me anguish. Rostagno never put himself in that position.
Why did it take decades for Italy’s justice system to figure out that Rostagno had been killed by Cosa Nostra?
Because admitting that Rostagno’s killing had to do with Cosa Nostra meant validating the role that journalism could play in Sicily. It meant revealing lots of very complicated dynamics. It was much better to think about the possibility that he had been killed by his former political associates, who had been implicated in another murder – allegedly for fear that he could blow the whistle on them – which was an absurd theory. The investigation was so slow because by going that route prosecutors had to open a whole can of worms. By the time they reached a verdict [Cosa Nostra boss Vincenzo Virga was condemned as the instigator 30 years after the murder] the criminal system on which Rostagno had been blowing the lid had been phased out. So the verdict was no longer a threat.
What sets Rostagno apart from other activist figures of the 70s who went to India such as Allen Ginsberg?
His defining trait is his desire to continually re-invent himself. First he was a factory worker, a Communist, a union leader, a political activist, and a professor. Then he becomes a cultural entrepreneur, then a mystic, then a therapeutic community founder, and then a hard-hitting TV journalist. There is no other figure like him. He also paid dearly for this. Historical figures tend to have strict boundaries, they can’t be many different characters. Even today Rostagno isn’t taken seriously in Italy, he’s considered a bit of a nut case who went to India like the Beatles. Instead he’s really timely and modern today when social media allows you to label yourself anyway you want [and to change those labels]. These days Rostagno is probably more easy to understand for a 15-year-old than for someone who is 50.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
