1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:08,590 It's my pleasure today to welcome Professor Peter Recovery, who is professor of criminology here in Oxford in the Department of Sociology. 2 00:00:08,610 --> 00:00:15,990 Which is slightly surprising to those of you who are to a study in the Department of Criminology Centre for Criminology that said a week ago actually 3 00:00:16,050 --> 00:00:22,440 used to be part of the Centre for Criminology and then moved over to sociology where there are actually other criminologists lurking as well. 4 00:00:22,470 --> 00:00:26,160 So you might take a look at that. There's a series of talks and lectures. 5 00:00:27,450 --> 00:00:32,070 Federico is also the director of the Extra Legal Governance Institute, 6 00:00:32,880 --> 00:00:37,770 a research associate at the Centre for Criminology and a senior research fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford. 7 00:00:38,310 --> 00:00:43,490 He's best known for the work that he has published over many years about the Mafia. 8 00:00:43,500 --> 00:00:46,350 And he's he's published many books about the Mafia. 9 00:00:46,350 --> 00:00:53,700 The most recent one, I believe, was in 2017, which is called Mafia Life, Love, Death and Money at the Heart of Organised Crime. 10 00:00:54,360 --> 00:00:59,070 Today Federico will be speaking about the relationship between democracy and the Mafia, 11 00:00:59,370 --> 00:01:05,670 paying special attention to recent developments in Hong Kong and possibly in Russia, although I'm not sure exactly just Hong Kong. 12 00:01:05,910 --> 00:01:12,480 But anyway, I'm going to hand over over to Federico. [INAUDIBLE] talk for about an hour, which will then give us half an hour for questions. 13 00:01:12,720 --> 00:01:19,290 So thank you. Thank you very much. And it's a great honour to be invited back to to talk to you. 14 00:01:19,680 --> 00:01:25,100 So I wanted to tell you briefly about the motivation for this for this stalker. 15 00:01:25,820 --> 00:01:31,080 As as you just said, I work on organised crime mainly and I come from Italy. 16 00:01:31,080 --> 00:01:37,680 So you might be naturally to, to be interested in the relationship between democracy and organised crime. 17 00:01:37,680 --> 00:01:43,680 But the most immediate reason why I decided to keep thinking and thinking a bit deeper than usual 18 00:01:43,680 --> 00:01:47,850 on the relationship between organised crime and the Mafia actually had to do with Hong Kong. 19 00:01:48,240 --> 00:01:54,719 So when I was in there in I think this time I look at this mafia martial law. 20 00:01:54,720 --> 00:02:05,070 If something quite extraordinary happened, there was a movement for democracy in Hong Kong and what the students wanted mainly was student led 21 00:02:05,070 --> 00:02:11,160 movement for the students wanted was basically what we already have the idea that you have one vote, 22 00:02:11,430 --> 00:02:19,260 one person, and the principles of democracy. It was a peaceful movement which lasted between September and December 2014. 23 00:02:19,560 --> 00:02:23,670 Now, as I was writing my book, something quite extraordinary for me happened, 24 00:02:23,880 --> 00:02:29,490 namely that the students were attacked in their protest in for democracy, 25 00:02:29,490 --> 00:02:38,970 by thugs, by what transpired possibly could have been the local organised crime groups called the Triads of which I was, I was writing in my book. 26 00:02:38,980 --> 00:02:46,530 So as soon as I heard that I jumped on the first plane and went to, to Hong Kong and involved a paper on that with a collaborator. 27 00:02:46,530 --> 00:02:54,899 I thought about that paper in a second, so that was the main motivation that led me to to try to on on this particular topic 28 00:02:54,900 --> 00:02:59,910 and reflect more broadly on the relationship between democracy and the Mafia. 29 00:03:00,120 --> 00:03:05,009 So what I'm going to do today in the hour that I have been allocated is first of 30 00:03:05,010 --> 00:03:10,320 all try to make some sense of what we mean by organised crime and the mafia. 31 00:03:10,770 --> 00:03:15,239 It's a very complicated set of concepts, very disputed set of concepts, 32 00:03:15,240 --> 00:03:22,050 and I want to make some sort of clarifications and and try to get some analytical distinctions between them. 33 00:03:22,530 --> 00:03:30,179 And then I also want to discuss an additional concept which is so my cousin, you know, a relative of the mafia in organised crime, 34 00:03:30,180 --> 00:03:35,550 but it's not quite the same, which is what the literature is called, the sons for hire. 35 00:03:36,540 --> 00:03:45,840 And finally, I spend the second half of my talk on this case study on the on democratic mobilisation and in organised crime in Hong Kong. 36 00:03:46,230 --> 00:03:54,480 These are the papers upon which I'll be drawing. And so I wrote a once a chapter on the definition of organised crime for the handbook. 37 00:03:54,900 --> 00:03:56,610 Well, no, it's collection of papers. 38 00:03:57,510 --> 00:04:04,200 We spoke and Campana, we wrote a piece in the British Journal of Criminology about organised crime in this country. 39 00:04:04,620 --> 00:04:09,989 And so I will draw on that. And most importantly of course, this is the paper I wrote with Rebecca Wong. 40 00:04:09,990 --> 00:04:15,299 Rebecca was a student in Oxford in a discipline in sociology, and she's a trained lawyer now. 41 00:04:15,300 --> 00:04:21,030 She's back in Hong Kong as a as a university professor, we about the paper called Resurgent Triads, 42 00:04:21,360 --> 00:04:26,670 democratic mobilisation, organised kind of neo con, which got a lot of attention quite recently. 43 00:04:27,300 --> 00:04:34,170 And so at some point recently I was interviewed a lot and the papers became a hit for the Journal. 44 00:04:36,030 --> 00:04:45,749 And then these, some of these work goes into my book. Machado's So let me, let me just put forward the key arguments. 45 00:04:45,750 --> 00:04:52,920 I would like you to remember about this talk, the key arguments I'm going to make, because some of them would be more irrational. 46 00:04:53,100 --> 00:04:59,100 Other would be extrapolated today. He said mafias prefer democracies to totalitarian regimes. 47 00:04:59,100 --> 00:05:07,060 Mafias are. I mean, democracies are born normally at a time of democratic transitions, and they want democracy. 48 00:05:07,070 --> 00:05:11,950 They need democracies. However, nations, as you might expect, are not good for democracy. 49 00:05:12,370 --> 00:05:18,819 They are effective. The effect of machines on democracy is actually to reduce genuine electoral competition. 50 00:05:18,820 --> 00:05:28,210 So while they thrive in democracy, they only promote and work with a limited number of political parties. 51 00:05:28,570 --> 00:05:31,000 I won't have much time to discuss electoral systems, 52 00:05:31,000 --> 00:05:39,310 but there are some electoral systems which are better for the Mafia to manipulate for their own purposes and their legitimate point, 53 00:05:39,760 --> 00:05:47,020 which fits with the previous ones, of course, is that as the regime becomes smaller, some Italian mafias might. 54 00:05:47,230 --> 00:05:55,600 Obviously, they have less and less scope for action, and they might turn into a just into an arm of the state. 55 00:05:55,690 --> 00:05:59,980 What this concept tries to capture stands for high. 56 00:06:01,120 --> 00:06:08,170 So that's the key argument. So in a sense, mafias are not in favour of totalitarian models of Italian regimes. 57 00:06:08,740 --> 00:06:16,330 Now, let me start with the first point I want to talk about and hopefully try to clarify a bit on what we mean by. 58 00:06:16,540 --> 00:06:18,040 By organised crime in the Mafia. 59 00:06:18,190 --> 00:06:24,819 If you, if you look at the standard definitions of organised crime that you find in the literature or in the UN definition, 60 00:06:24,820 --> 00:06:34,870 or there is a UK definition, these are definitions which are pretty vague and general three people or more that exist for a period of time. 61 00:06:34,870 --> 00:06:40,989 They act together with the aim of committing a crime punishable by at least four years incarceration to 62 00:06:40,990 --> 00:06:48,030 obtain a financial benefit of some material benefits that would cover most of what criminology study. 63 00:06:48,040 --> 00:06:53,830 It's a very, very broad definition. Three people getting together with the aim of committing a crime. 64 00:06:54,280 --> 00:06:58,690 Now the UK definition, which shows up in several documents in this country, is pretty similar. 65 00:06:59,200 --> 00:07:07,270 Organised crime is people working together with the intent and capacity to commit serious crimes because of what is defined by serious except, 66 00:07:08,710 --> 00:07:15,760 you know, could be anything. And these include some sort of planning, control, coordination and structure. 67 00:07:16,090 --> 00:07:24,760 So these definitions tend to be extremely vague on what constitutes organised crime and also tend to focus on the structure. 68 00:07:24,790 --> 00:07:29,889 I mean, if you want to be charitable to these definitions, they are aimed at telling us, look, 69 00:07:29,890 --> 00:07:35,920 there is some degree of organisation, you know, crime that is organised is organised, crime that's in a sense. 70 00:07:36,100 --> 00:07:41,190 So clearly for the three of us to get together and plan to steal, you know, 71 00:07:41,230 --> 00:07:45,310 a few pounds from the budget of the Centre for Criminology, which would be organised crime. 72 00:07:46,390 --> 00:07:52,630 Now that then you go to the extreme of starting the Mafia, United would be basically under the same concept. 73 00:07:52,810 --> 00:07:57,639 Now it may have to, you know, police reason to have such a broad definition, but analytical. 74 00:07:57,640 --> 00:08:03,970 You can't do very much with this. You would put people who are very different for in the same basket, intellectual, conceptual basket. 75 00:08:04,390 --> 00:08:08,290 So it's not surprising. It's not surprising that some very distinguished scholars. 76 00:08:09,010 --> 00:08:12,310 Smith is an American criminologist from the seventies. 77 00:08:13,210 --> 00:08:18,340 My TV rundown seven do not more negative and more contemporary criminologists. 78 00:08:18,640 --> 00:08:24,310 They came up to the conclusion that we might as well take the Council of State into being organised. 79 00:08:24,310 --> 00:08:34,090 Crime is a complex concept so overburdened with stereotyped imagery we cannot meet the basic requirements of a definition it does not include. 80 00:08:34,090 --> 00:08:40,030 The motive should include. It does not exclude or destroy the school. So damning definition, damning judgement on the concept. 81 00:08:40,630 --> 00:08:47,890 And so as I was saying to me on my TV was a professor in this country, one doing who is in Holland. 82 00:08:47,890 --> 00:08:53,500 I think they came to the conclusion that we should dispense all together with the concept of organised crime. 83 00:08:53,770 --> 00:09:00,759 Now other scholars, including myself, is I've come to the conclusion that we might try to rescue the concept, 84 00:09:00,760 --> 00:09:03,640 try to do something with it instead of the being. 85 00:09:04,100 --> 00:09:12,580 And to cut a long story short, I've published, as I told you, this introduction on what is organised crime in the break room paper. 86 00:09:13,000 --> 00:09:19,390 We can finally also come up with an attempt to have an analytical definition which is not what is coming next. 87 00:09:19,960 --> 00:09:22,960 I can see the next slide on my computer so I know what's coming next. 88 00:09:24,400 --> 00:09:26,620 So what do we try to do with that? 89 00:09:26,620 --> 00:09:35,410 With the concept of organised crime, we try to unpack it and then basically we think there are three key activities that go on in the underworld, 90 00:09:35,470 --> 00:09:40,990 in the both legal, especially legal market, but also in some legal markets, you need them. 91 00:09:41,560 --> 00:09:47,160 There are some people in illegal markets that specialise in the production of goods and services. 92 00:09:47,170 --> 00:09:54,649 So if you go to Colombia, where I was recently, thanks to my sabbatical, in fact I was there for three or four weeks. 93 00:09:54,650 --> 00:09:59,740 So a few months ago, you know, you go to the countryside, you go to the end, to the forest. 94 00:09:59,970 --> 00:10:11,460 And peasants who farm leaves that can then turn into coca faced and then eventually produced into a good which is cocaine. 95 00:10:12,750 --> 00:10:15,810 That is heroin, of course, produced in Afghanistan, in Burma. 96 00:10:16,050 --> 00:10:23,010 Also for this book massacre, I went to visit to the area called the Golden Triangle in the Burma border with 97 00:10:23,010 --> 00:10:27,800 China and visit the main activity of the people there is to produce heroin. 98 00:10:28,140 --> 00:10:36,780 And these are people in the fields that produce their peasants based or China is specialised in the production of counterfeit goods. 99 00:10:37,170 --> 00:10:44,040 So now these people are very different from those who are involved in very different activity. 100 00:10:44,040 --> 00:10:49,140 That requires a different kind of skills, which is to take the goods to and move them somewhere. 101 00:10:49,380 --> 00:10:54,870 So there are people who specialise in moving goods as opposed to produce index. 102 00:10:54,930 --> 00:11:01,589 And you can appreciate these three concepts are pretty much standard in economics and sociology. 103 00:11:01,590 --> 00:11:03,960 Economics are so. So we're not reinventing the wheel. 104 00:11:04,200 --> 00:11:11,399 All we are saying is that why don't you apply the simple concepts that we already have in standard political science, 105 00:11:11,400 --> 00:11:15,120 sociology and economics to the world that we studied, namely organised crime. 106 00:11:15,640 --> 00:11:21,240 And so there are an activity which is about moving goods from one place to another human smuggling, 107 00:11:21,630 --> 00:11:28,470 drugs, trafficking, the people who trafficked drugs from Colombia to Calabria, for instance. 108 00:11:28,650 --> 00:11:32,750 These are very different from the people who seek in the fields and produce the drugs. 109 00:11:32,760 --> 00:11:36,240 They have different skills. They are usually businesspeople. 110 00:11:36,450 --> 00:11:39,660 They speak several languages and they've travelled a lot. 111 00:11:40,650 --> 00:11:43,890 So they are different professionals, a skill set. 112 00:11:43,920 --> 00:11:50,190 They have a different professional skill set. Money laundering, also lots of cybercrime. 113 00:11:50,190 --> 00:11:53,550 If you think about cybercrime, which is something I've been working on recently as well. 114 00:11:53,670 --> 00:12:02,220 What is cybercrime? Cybercrime is going on to a web page which is usually hidden in the so-called dark web and buying and selling stolen goods. 115 00:12:02,670 --> 00:12:10,420 So there is an architecture in this so-called darkweb that puts on it goods and services that you buy and sell. 116 00:12:10,440 --> 00:12:14,580 So a lot of what cybercrime is about is buying and selling goods for trading. 117 00:12:14,670 --> 00:12:19,110 I talked about these about payments, informal banking, the so-called hawala. 118 00:12:19,140 --> 00:12:23,460 Again, that is a way to move money illegally and formally from, say, 119 00:12:23,970 --> 00:12:30,000 Afghanistan to to Italy or back from Italy to Afghanistan, often to pay for drugs. 120 00:12:30,630 --> 00:12:33,240 And finally, we come to this sort of exciting fast, 121 00:12:33,240 --> 00:12:38,490 which is the one I've been working on for the past 20 plus years, which is a third type of activity, 122 00:12:38,490 --> 00:12:46,740 which is not involved in producing or trading goods, is involved in giving others the permission to produce or to trade. 123 00:12:46,830 --> 00:12:51,720 So it's involved in governance. These are people who want to govern what other people do. 124 00:12:52,350 --> 00:13:00,600 And this is where you find what I would call the governance type, organised crime, or, well, you will find the mafia, 125 00:13:00,600 --> 00:13:08,520 for instance, the organised crime that we know exists in Italy, in Russia, in Hong Kong and in in other countries in Japan. 126 00:13:09,240 --> 00:13:13,530 So what do they do? They are involved in settling disputes between people. 127 00:13:13,560 --> 00:13:21,280 If you have a dispute over access to your driveway and you have a dispute with your neighbours in a place like parts of neighbours or neighbourhoods, 128 00:13:21,570 --> 00:13:24,840 then you can go to the local mafia boss to discuss the matter. 129 00:13:25,170 --> 00:13:31,889 They protect people against competition, businessmen. They protect against thieves, labour racketeering. 130 00:13:31,890 --> 00:13:37,160 They organise able workers. The intimidation of lawful. 131 00:13:37,170 --> 00:13:43,409 I told us they recover debts in one of the main activities of the Mafia, in fact, is to enforce cartel agreements. 132 00:13:43,410 --> 00:13:48,840 So there are businessmen who want to call it a certain sector, sector of the economy, a certain market. 133 00:13:49,050 --> 00:13:54,630 The Mafia come, sing and make sure that competitors who are outside the cartel do not get in. 134 00:13:54,870 --> 00:14:01,290 And also those on the cartel, they are punishment punished too if they cheat on the cartel agreement. 135 00:14:02,070 --> 00:14:08,040 I always mean doesn't make sense. Yeah. So this is a very different and it requires different skills, of course. 136 00:14:08,370 --> 00:14:14,520 Here, violence is absolutely crucial. Violence is a key element of this particular activity. 137 00:14:14,760 --> 00:14:19,990 Now there is a long list of scholars starting from poppies to chastity. 138 00:14:20,220 --> 00:14:25,090 Thomas Schelling was an economist, and that, of course, was written about this. 139 00:14:26,010 --> 00:14:31,229 A long list of scholars who have specified the kind of social event derives from this. 140 00:14:31,230 --> 00:14:38,170 You know, if you are in the business of governance, well, obviously there can be two governance structure that is in the same place, 141 00:14:38,170 --> 00:14:41,550 on the same activity, obviously, in a sense of exclusivity. 142 00:14:42,060 --> 00:14:50,760 So therefore, you know, as much as states fight between themselves so dramatically, you know, and when we see a turf war between two gangs, 143 00:14:51,240 --> 00:14:55,410 you know, you might we might think they are crazy or we might think they are actually fighting all the time. 144 00:14:55,410 --> 00:14:59,180 So in order to be the only governance structure in that particular territory. 145 00:14:59,460 --> 00:15:06,270 So. To cut a long story short, I think this is a much better way to think about organised crime. 146 00:15:06,600 --> 00:15:11,340 And you might appreciate the fact also that it is based on activities. 147 00:15:11,430 --> 00:15:19,170 So it's not so much saying, oh, it's about how long you hang together with how sophisticated is your internal structure, not. 148 00:15:19,260 --> 00:15:26,330 It's about what you do. So it's a definition based on activities, not so much on organisations. 149 00:15:26,590 --> 00:15:33,900 Then of course we can think of the organisation as a by-product of the activity as a consequence, as a dependent variable. 150 00:15:34,290 --> 00:15:39,599 So if you want to govern, obviously you must need some structure is if you want to organise an army, 151 00:15:39,600 --> 00:15:43,950 you need the people who run the arm, you need the hierarchy, for instance. 152 00:15:43,980 --> 00:15:50,280 So you will be able to derive the structure from, from the activity. 153 00:15:50,730 --> 00:15:54,360 I obviously. Yeah. And so let me go to the next slide. 154 00:15:54,360 --> 00:16:02,370 And then I mean, obviously, what this slide is trying to tell you is that the mafia then if you believe this story, 155 00:16:02,760 --> 00:16:09,870 the mafia that I study is in the same box, is in the same continuum as the state. 156 00:16:10,060 --> 00:16:13,290 Now, ultimately, governance is a function of the state. 157 00:16:13,650 --> 00:16:23,370 So although they made Mafia the mafia, as I study, maybe rudimentary may be the you know, not as developed as a fully functioning state. 158 00:16:23,580 --> 00:16:26,400 Well, they are in the same business, the business of governance. 159 00:16:27,300 --> 00:16:34,800 And of course, if we're not going to say that the masses in the state are the same thing, maybe anarchists would agree to that statement. 160 00:16:34,800 --> 00:16:41,280 But it's a bit unfair on the if you don't fight on a democratic state so that there is a very clear difference between, 161 00:16:41,910 --> 00:16:46,469 say, in a mafia family in Sicily and in the United Kingdom. 162 00:16:46,470 --> 00:16:55,740 I think there should be. And the tentative answer to that is that the difference is this kind of cumbersome way of putting it, 163 00:16:56,100 --> 00:17:00,930 that the collective action mechanism that constrain the institutions of governance are different. 164 00:17:01,290 --> 00:17:08,009 To put differently, if you live in a mafia land, in a massive governance territory, you do not get to elect your boss. 165 00:17:08,010 --> 00:17:13,950 The mafia boss does not get elected by you. You know, you don't have any power over who becomes the mafia boss. 166 00:17:14,430 --> 00:17:20,909 So you are a victim, ultimately of an unjust order in an order which has got no justice, 167 00:17:20,910 --> 00:17:26,370 because you have no rights in a mafia state, in a mafia state of situations. 168 00:17:27,240 --> 00:17:33,860 So that to put it in a more academic way, corrective action mechanism do not constrain the boss anymore. 169 00:17:33,900 --> 00:17:39,130 He may be constrained by other considerations like rationality, but not by justice. 170 00:17:39,150 --> 00:17:43,680 So there is no there is no criminal code that you can appeal to. 171 00:17:43,680 --> 00:17:53,700 There is no rule that you can appeal to. And as this so the way I think about this, as this mechanism become more and more effective, 172 00:17:53,700 --> 00:17:58,590 as the people who live in a given context have more and more choice over who owns them. 173 00:17:59,040 --> 00:18:06,300 But then you move from a mafia to a rule of law state and potentially to a democratic state. 174 00:18:07,320 --> 00:18:10,830 And if you study insurgencies, some of them are extremely sophisticated. 175 00:18:10,850 --> 00:18:18,479 The insurgency in Colombia at the start, which is now effectively shut down the you know, 176 00:18:18,480 --> 00:18:24,120 it was a left wing insurgency that was very active in the seventies and eighties, and now it's disbanded. 177 00:18:24,690 --> 00:18:32,620 But the fact that the rudimentary justice system they had the courts and and there was a rudimentary justice system, 178 00:18:32,620 --> 00:18:35,339 not obviously was imperfect, but you could go to court. 179 00:18:35,340 --> 00:18:46,470 When I went to Burma to this part of Burma called the Golden Triangle, which is run by a military organisation called the Army, W8 Army. 180 00:18:46,800 --> 00:18:54,750 And they are sort of remaining sort of a descendent of the Communist Party of Burma, who is now becoming a sort of independent army. 181 00:18:55,080 --> 00:19:01,280 Well, I was told that the the daughter of one of the main leaders of the of the Army and 182 00:19:01,950 --> 00:19:06,510 ran over one classroom in a car and she was brought to court and sentenced now. 183 00:19:07,050 --> 00:19:11,940 I'm sure she got a better sentence, a lighter sentence, and some will. Yes, but still, there was a justice system. 184 00:19:12,210 --> 00:19:15,820 Even members of the Army would would have to abide, too. 185 00:19:15,990 --> 00:19:24,450 So to me, that's the key difference between between the Mafia and the state is you was I was kind of argue that the state is the same as the Mafia. 186 00:19:24,660 --> 00:19:34,500 And then we have, empirically speaking, some kind of organisations that do not really govern many domains or even aspire to govern many domains. 187 00:19:34,800 --> 00:19:40,110 They govern only one domain, maybe prostitution. So if you want to all drugs. 188 00:19:40,470 --> 00:19:44,370 So if you want to push drugs in a given neighbourhood, you have to ask the permission of the gang. 189 00:19:44,370 --> 00:19:48,930 But the gang will not really be able to prevent you from opening a shop. 190 00:19:49,320 --> 00:19:58,590 So that to me is a different kind of beast, which maybe will have evolved into Mafia but remains separate. 191 00:19:58,590 --> 00:20:02,680 And it needs a special. And controls on a single market. 192 00:20:05,050 --> 00:20:09,550 I go with me. Yeah. Doesn't make sense. So that hopefully helps to understand what we are talking about. 193 00:20:09,880 --> 00:20:14,280 Now, let me now go a bit into the meta of democracy and democracy. 194 00:20:14,800 --> 00:20:21,220 And let's go back to to Sicily. To Sicily, where arguably a very distinguished mafia emerged. 195 00:20:21,670 --> 00:20:28,900 So the mafia in Sicily emerged between 1816, 1812 and 18. 196 00:20:29,230 --> 00:20:31,540 By 1838, we know the Mafia was dead. 197 00:20:31,570 --> 00:20:40,450 We have a report by a guy called Pietro Carol Law, who was the procurator general in Trapani, and he writes a report in 1838 to the king. 198 00:20:40,900 --> 00:20:45,130 And he basically describes what we observe today. 199 00:20:45,160 --> 00:20:48,250 So there are individual families, their rituals, 200 00:20:48,400 --> 00:20:55,840 and they coordinate across each other in in western Sicily, which is where the Sicilian Mafia is located. 201 00:20:56,140 --> 00:21:06,040 So we know that the mafia emerged around the time of the end of feudalism in Sicily and then transition to the market economy. 202 00:21:06,070 --> 00:21:16,840 What happened in Sicily between 1812, 1816 was that this land became acclimatised commodity before it was owned by the Lords, by the feudal lords. 203 00:21:17,500 --> 00:21:24,700 With the Napoleonic invasion there, the land was split up and even church land was auctioned. 204 00:21:24,970 --> 00:21:30,940 And so you go from around 6000 landowners to more than 60,000 in a matter of a very few few years, 205 00:21:31,690 --> 00:21:41,440 which of course generated a lot of complex dynamics because the state was not that equipped to determine and define property rights and protect them. 206 00:21:41,710 --> 00:21:47,710 Anyway, we know that the Mafia merged around 1838 and and we can talk more if you want, about how the Mafia emerged. 207 00:21:49,240 --> 00:21:57,700 But then there is this man called Leopoldo Franco, who was a very sort of well-meaning Italian intellectual, 208 00:21:58,030 --> 00:22:07,239 who in 1876 travels to Sicily and writes an amazing report on the mafia in Sicily, who he writes, It's a self-funder. 209 00:22:07,240 --> 00:22:08,980 So he was an aristocrat so you could afford. 210 00:22:09,340 --> 00:22:17,260 He was particularly upset at the way the Italian state, new unified Italian state in 1860 was dealing with the south in question. 211 00:22:17,650 --> 00:22:19,120 And he thought he should see for himself. 212 00:22:19,150 --> 00:22:27,050 So he goes to Sicily with a friend and stays there for a year and writes probably what is the first ethnography of the history of the Sicilian Mafia? 213 00:22:27,160 --> 00:22:33,940 Mean book, which unfortunately is not translated into English, but it's on the part of Tocqueville, 214 00:22:33,980 --> 00:22:40,150 democracy in America, and it's that kind of intellectual ability to see social obligations. 215 00:22:41,170 --> 00:22:45,670 And the key point I want to report to you today is this sentence he writes. 216 00:22:45,970 --> 00:22:52,210 He says, The villains are still ready to serve the purpose of others and become self employed. 217 00:22:52,360 --> 00:23:00,970 So what happened in Sicily before the Mafia emerged is that you had feudal lords that employed thugs, you know, 218 00:23:01,060 --> 00:23:07,840 by the people who control the were on the fields and they beat up the peasants and they kind of police the countryside. 219 00:23:08,140 --> 00:23:17,200 Once the feudal lords retreated and lose the land, they'd have to send to all these villains who still work for other people. 220 00:23:17,590 --> 00:23:22,450 They become self-employed, so they don't work anymore for them, for the law. 221 00:23:22,600 --> 00:23:29,049 So they're not just the sons of the law. They're not just they are not a particular employer. 222 00:23:29,050 --> 00:23:32,520 They have many employment doesn't make sense. 223 00:23:32,530 --> 00:23:43,210 So they are an autonomous entity, an autonomous source of power and delegated to sell their their violence services to whoever would pay. 224 00:23:43,510 --> 00:23:52,300 Now, this is, in essence, what the Mafia does from that point in time, and they do it in a very nasty way. 225 00:23:52,330 --> 00:23:58,450 This is a quotation from a book by John Dickey on the Sicilian Mafia, which is a very popular, 226 00:23:58,600 --> 00:24:04,530 very popular history of the Sicilian mafia, which if you want to read a good book about this, I recommend it. 227 00:24:05,680 --> 00:24:12,309 Mafioso would intimidate and murder countless socialists, communists, trade union leaders, so many, in fact, 228 00:24:12,310 --> 00:24:19,930 that they came to be seen as if the Mafia very purpose was to battle organised working class in the countryside into submission. 229 00:24:20,200 --> 00:24:27,290 Now, the reason why he writes this is big is partly because there was a movement in Sicily called the fascist Siciliano, 230 00:24:27,310 --> 00:24:30,700 which was started because of a doubt, I think. 231 00:24:30,700 --> 00:24:37,570 And so they were not paid. The peasants and the peasants organised a socialist movement to request to strike ultimately. 232 00:24:37,870 --> 00:24:43,900 And so what they need to does in Sicily is to use the Mafia to crush this movement. 233 00:24:44,050 --> 00:24:50,230 So the perception we get from many accounts is that all the mass is doing is 234 00:24:50,230 --> 00:24:56,379 simply to serve the interests of the landowners to to crush the working class, 235 00:24:56,380 --> 00:24:59,510 which is to a great extent. Correct. But. 236 00:24:59,610 --> 00:25:08,490 Also examples in which sometimes the market will switch side and protect some local cooperatives, which would ask for their services. 237 00:25:08,700 --> 00:25:16,200 So it's not that they were constantly and only crashing and the same group of people, but certainly they have a problem. 238 00:25:16,500 --> 00:25:20,550 The Mafia has a problem with socialists and communists and trade union leaders. 239 00:25:21,090 --> 00:25:31,380 And the next quote is from Antonio Calderone, who is a mafia boss which testified against the mafia in the in the eighties. 240 00:25:31,590 --> 00:25:40,650 And he makes a very interesting point about the relationship between democracy and mass electoral democracy and the mafia. 241 00:25:41,070 --> 00:25:46,770 So the Cosa Nostra has always opposed the Communist Party in the U.S. but why you know, why do they oppose the Communist Party? 242 00:25:47,130 --> 00:25:50,490 And we they also did not like the fascists. I was in Catania. 243 00:25:50,520 --> 00:25:55,470 The instructions were to vote only for centrist party, what it calls a Democratic Party. 244 00:25:56,550 --> 00:26:00,390 If a totalitarian party comes to power, the Cosa Nostra is finished. 245 00:26:01,680 --> 00:26:08,009 And which are the totalitarian parties? The Communists, the socialists, the fascists, and the Christian Democrats, 246 00:26:08,010 --> 00:26:15,540 which was the ruling party of Italy from the end of the Second World to the 1990 was actually a good party and democratic path to democracy. 247 00:26:15,540 --> 00:26:19,080 They must love that they would share power. 248 00:26:19,110 --> 00:26:26,370 You see, that's the key point of the Mafia. They want a party which shares power, then that accepts their existence. 249 00:26:26,610 --> 00:26:31,499 The moment the party would not allow the existence of the party becomes a totalitarian party, 250 00:26:31,500 --> 00:26:37,440 the Socialist Party, the Communist Party do not come to terms on a regular basis with the Mafia. 251 00:26:37,680 --> 00:26:46,620 So the Mafia at the time was voting for parties such as the Republican Party, the tiny Liberal Party, a tiny splinter Socialist Party, 252 00:26:46,620 --> 00:26:55,830 which was on the right, and the Socialist parties all at some point so-called Italian Socialist Party, but not the the Communist Party. 253 00:26:57,540 --> 00:27:01,980 The Mafia couldn't get along with that. It would make it possible to do more. 254 00:27:02,280 --> 00:27:08,910 Does that make sense? So that's the kind of political allegiance that you find in in the Mafia. 255 00:27:09,150 --> 00:27:15,000 And then the other question is, what does democracy in in electoral politics? 256 00:27:15,450 --> 00:27:19,919 Well, for the mafia, elections are an opportunity. 257 00:27:19,920 --> 00:27:26,880 An opportunity in elections is a market is a market for votes where you can buy and sell votes. 258 00:27:26,940 --> 00:27:33,920 So as the Mafia was growing in strength, there was there was also an extension of the voting rights in Italy. 259 00:27:34,290 --> 00:27:42,509 Italy in 1861, only 2% of people could vote in 1882, six, four, nine, and then in 1912, all males could vote. 260 00:27:42,510 --> 00:27:48,160 In the 1946, all anybody could vote, including women. 261 00:27:48,210 --> 00:27:53,170 So it took a long time to get a full electoral, you know, everybody could vote. 262 00:27:53,490 --> 00:28:01,800 But as the election and the franchise expanded, also market opportunity for the mass expanded, which was to control the vote. 263 00:28:02,190 --> 00:28:07,559 So the Mafia politicians always wanted us to because we can provide the vote. 264 00:28:07,560 --> 00:28:13,170 So a key function of the mafia in the electoral system is to provide votes for 265 00:28:13,200 --> 00:28:18,000 these parties that they can share power and they come to terms with the Mafia. 266 00:28:18,540 --> 00:28:27,359 And the best electoral system for the Mafia has always been proportional representation with preference voting because so as you understand, 267 00:28:27,360 --> 00:28:35,490 the electoral systems, if you have imagine you have a first past the post election in this country with a large constituency. 268 00:28:37,230 --> 00:28:38,280 You know what I mean, right. 269 00:28:38,280 --> 00:28:45,689 You are basically one guy who gets elected to the empty position and there are 18 or 20,000 people voting for this person. 270 00:28:45,690 --> 00:28:52,740 30,000, a big chunk of the time. Well, it's very hard for the market to control even hospitals. 271 00:28:52,750 --> 00:29:00,090 What they would that I mean there are situations in which the voting could be very close and even if you wanted to vote would make the difference. 272 00:29:00,090 --> 00:29:03,290 But most in most cases, you wouldn't control a lot of votes. 273 00:29:03,660 --> 00:29:10,140 But if you have a PR system for personal representative with preference of voting within the least of the party, 274 00:29:10,800 --> 00:29:17,580 what the Mafia can do is to make sure that the people in that particular list get the Mafia votes, 275 00:29:17,940 --> 00:29:24,480 get on top of the list and get elected thanks to the general voting that goes through the PR system. 276 00:29:24,810 --> 00:29:31,380 So the competition for votes in a PR system is preferential voting is within the party, least of which are part of. 277 00:29:31,650 --> 00:29:38,340 So if you are a candidate in Palermo in the seventies, you don't care about the communists or the socialists and you don't care about them. 278 00:29:38,520 --> 00:29:43,380 That's a problem of the National Party to compete against the, you know, for big issues. 279 00:29:43,650 --> 00:29:46,860 What you care about is the other the Christian Democratic Party, 280 00:29:46,870 --> 00:29:52,230 fellow guy who he's got who has gotten more preference votes and more friends and would vote with him. 281 00:29:52,440 --> 00:29:59,220 So the temptation is to use the Mafia to vote for you. And the Mafia found really sophisticated ways to make sure. 282 00:29:59,290 --> 00:30:02,500 That you could that you could see it sign the vote. 283 00:30:02,620 --> 00:30:07,389 So you can actually have a way to vote in a PR professional system so that you can 284 00:30:07,390 --> 00:30:11,770 almost know exactly how many people had promised to vote and then would vote for you. 285 00:30:12,470 --> 00:30:18,760 I always think does make sense. I can speak and we can talk about more about this, but it's a key. 286 00:30:19,180 --> 00:30:26,649 It's a key. And just as we come to an end of this early part, I wanted to draw attention to this figure, 287 00:30:26,650 --> 00:30:35,710 which just came out in which these three economists, they study the effect of the market on electoral voting in in Italy. 288 00:30:35,950 --> 00:30:40,900 And they're a measure of mafia prevalence from the 1900, which comes from a report. 289 00:30:41,290 --> 00:30:45,550 And this measure of mafia presence in Italy goes from 1 to 3. 290 00:30:45,760 --> 00:30:55,090 And they check the fact that this that the change from 1 to 2 to 2 to 3 would have on that on the elections. 291 00:30:55,630 --> 00:31:02,140 And then they have an index of concentration, which is using economics to study how industries are concentrated. 292 00:31:02,140 --> 00:31:05,440 So to what extent in industries monopolised, always competitive. 293 00:31:05,650 --> 00:31:10,900 So using this index, Hirshman is one of the authors of the index. 294 00:31:10,900 --> 00:31:18,910 Incidentally, they come to the conclusion that the presence of the Mafia is associated with a greater concentration of votes on few parties. 295 00:31:19,120 --> 00:31:27,730 So that's the real effect that the Mafia as on elections, fewer parties get most of the votes, so they exclude the other parties. 296 00:31:28,450 --> 00:31:36,880 And you can measure this as you go from law, mafia to more mafia and to more mafia, less dispersion of votes and more concentration. 297 00:31:36,890 --> 00:31:46,720 So people vote for those parties. Let me end of this digression on Mafia and in politics with this final slide. 298 00:31:48,190 --> 00:31:52,210 So I suppose the point I want to make is that the Mafia is got a political dimension. 299 00:31:52,750 --> 00:32:00,050 There have been Mafia groups that have toyed with the idea of taking over the state. 300 00:32:01,870 --> 00:32:08,430 If you follow the the start of Colombia's Gustavo Escobar, is he himself was a candidate. 301 00:32:08,440 --> 00:32:12,610 He became a candidate in the Senate in Colombia. He had a political program. 302 00:32:12,610 --> 00:32:17,350 You know, obviously, it the self-interested he wanted to avoid extradition to the United States. 303 00:32:17,740 --> 00:32:22,000 But if you read in detail his political problem, he made some sense. 304 00:32:22,000 --> 00:32:26,560 You know, he wanted to reduce the American influence in the U.S. He wanted to solve poverty. 305 00:32:27,610 --> 00:32:33,160 He was a populist in a sense of that kind, obviously self-serving populist. 306 00:32:33,170 --> 00:32:36,729 But we have seen many of seven populists winning elections. 307 00:32:36,730 --> 00:32:44,260 So even to be the first ones. And he was making money from selling cocaine, which wasn't perceived to be a social arm in the country. 308 00:32:44,260 --> 00:32:47,890 But he was certainly Escobar certainly had a political problem. 309 00:32:48,520 --> 00:32:57,429 And even in Sicily, just after the Second World War, the Sicilian mafia, for a moment thought that they might they might want an independent Sicilian. 310 00:32:57,430 --> 00:33:02,850 And there was a movement for independence of Sicily called Independent Moustaches Young. 311 00:33:03,130 --> 00:33:14,080 So I think just to conclude, mafias always have to strike a balance or trade off between making a deal with the political powers of the time, 312 00:33:14,080 --> 00:33:19,720 like in this case, Cosa Nostra did in Italy from 46 to 1982. 313 00:33:20,470 --> 00:33:27,700 So you strike a deal with the political power or on the other end, you talk to the the political point of this. 314 00:33:27,700 --> 00:33:32,379 There is a huge research agenda you have to study under which conditions you would want to 315 00:33:32,380 --> 00:33:37,180 strike a deal and under which conditions you would launch an all out attack on the states. 316 00:33:37,270 --> 00:33:45,040 Escobar famously did that and in the in the boss of the Italian but the Sicilian mathematical arena also did that for two years. 317 00:33:45,040 --> 00:33:49,329 They would fail. So maybe that's why it's not a good policy. 318 00:33:49,330 --> 00:33:53,230 But it has been tried and I think in some countries in Latin America maybe succeeding. 319 00:33:53,920 --> 00:33:58,630 So let me now turn to the second concept I wanted to discuss a bit more, which is substance. 320 00:33:58,780 --> 00:34:03,180 The point of this talk and the society is a very different beast. 321 00:34:03,580 --> 00:34:08,140 These are not mafiosi. They are not autonomous governance structure. 322 00:34:08,410 --> 00:34:17,810 They are, as we say in the paper. non-State actors used by authorities to impose policies and decisions upon the population. 323 00:34:17,860 --> 00:34:25,300 So you and the Chinese government some time in China, but you also had Suharto in in Indonesia, in Zimbabwe. 324 00:34:25,600 --> 00:34:30,250 They are a form of privatised state violence which are drawn from the underworld. 325 00:34:30,310 --> 00:34:32,320 Usually they come from outside the terrorism. 326 00:34:32,530 --> 00:34:43,000 They are sent to a particular area and they basically beat up and victimised peasants or landowners in order to enforce state policies. 327 00:34:44,620 --> 00:34:52,030 And there are examples of this across the world. China is the most significant one, but also Zimbabwe and so on. 328 00:34:52,600 --> 00:34:58,890 One quarter about Egypt. So if you bear with me, I think we should lead it to support the needs of a neighbour. 329 00:34:59,360 --> 00:35:06,259 The regime of the Minister of Interior is starting to outsource its most dirty business with increasing impunity. 330 00:35:06,260 --> 00:35:09,829 Criminal investigation officers began to promote a new police force. 331 00:35:09,830 --> 00:35:16,100 Thugs. And these thugs are killing us with a record of violence who have failed to carry out duties of discipline. 332 00:35:16,100 --> 00:35:23,150 Members of the public, in return for police to unite and turning away from a blind eye to their criminal activities. 333 00:35:23,570 --> 00:35:30,200 So these want to get a job description as expanded to include voter intimidation, beating up, raping, 334 00:35:30,200 --> 00:35:36,890 sexually abusing criminal suspects and political activists, breaking up demonstrations, forcibly removing farmers from their land and much more. 335 00:35:37,100 --> 00:35:41,210 So this is what's happening in in in Egypt. 336 00:35:41,570 --> 00:35:48,090 And this is a very different kind of privatise lunch than than what the machines. 337 00:35:48,530 --> 00:35:55,760 Now, I understand I've got maybe half an hour still, 20 minutes, 23 minutes, 15 minutes in this room, 338 00:35:55,790 --> 00:36:03,560 as I wanted to, to discuss this work I did with my co-author on the Triads and the Umbrella movement. 339 00:36:03,570 --> 00:36:17,330 So this is a qualitative fieldwork we did at the time of the attacks that the students, the students were victims of during the the Occupy movement, 340 00:36:17,510 --> 00:36:26,960 you know Kong so fi and very clever which are not I want to show you some of the pictures I took at the time is coming up. 341 00:36:27,560 --> 00:36:35,270 So these are some of the. Just to give you a sense of what was going on in Hong Kong in from September to December 2014. 342 00:36:38,690 --> 00:36:49,999 So imagine this is the main throughway, you know, the main highway of downtown Hong Kong, which was peacefully occupied by students who camped there. 343 00:36:50,000 --> 00:36:53,120 And you could actually stay there and camp there overnight. 344 00:36:53,990 --> 00:36:59,930 And this was called Umbrella Movement, which I was telling you about, about trying to. 345 00:37:00,290 --> 00:37:05,119 And it was umbrellas were used to protect against spray. 346 00:37:05,120 --> 00:37:12,290 You can see these are very young children from high school. There must be 14 really facing the police that is facing the police. 347 00:37:12,740 --> 00:37:16,430 Just for democracy, what they want is one vote, one person. 348 00:37:17,690 --> 00:37:18,160 Let me see. 349 00:37:18,740 --> 00:37:25,970 So basically this you know, it was really sweet that because they were not going to school, the students would then come for and study overnight. 350 00:37:26,330 --> 00:37:31,909 And so there was a study corner. So there were study groups you could see on the hot end, you know what? 351 00:37:31,910 --> 00:37:37,740 It would be normally working on books by academics, chemistry analyses. 352 00:37:37,940 --> 00:37:46,100 So there was a chemistry teacher who would teach chemistry. This is a very famous wall called the John Lennon Wall, 353 00:37:46,310 --> 00:37:54,680 which I think now it's been cleared by the police in Hong Kong where people would put stickers on with the sentences about democracy. 354 00:37:55,130 --> 00:38:01,220 Every night there would be a meeting of all of these people and we would talk about what happened during the day. 355 00:38:02,060 --> 00:38:08,390 So we attended these meetings. We slept in the campus. So you could sleep actually overnight, but you couldn't pay for the tent. 356 00:38:08,450 --> 00:38:11,840 So we I tried to pay and they said, no, we don't want money. 357 00:38:12,290 --> 00:38:16,759 You can only help us. So we stayed. 358 00:38:16,760 --> 00:38:19,970 And I said, in democracy, which is very nice. 359 00:38:20,330 --> 00:38:26,810 And so these are some of the sentences that you would find in Slavic languages, including Russian and Italian. 360 00:38:28,790 --> 00:38:29,359 And then of course, 361 00:38:29,360 --> 00:38:38,480 the camp this encampment was barricaded by in this way because the police would try to remove these students from the from the camp. 362 00:38:39,290 --> 00:38:42,350 It was pretty easy to do, though, to do that. 363 00:38:43,130 --> 00:38:46,300 So I think. Yeah, that's to show that I was there. Yes. 364 00:38:46,400 --> 00:38:49,430 You never know what it's like to be off the Internet or something. 365 00:38:49,640 --> 00:38:53,860 I mean, but what is behind me is actually a shrine is a shrine to gods. 366 00:38:53,870 --> 00:39:02,070 Right. And so there was this is a god which apparently washes both by the times, but also by ordinary people in Hong Kong. 367 00:39:02,090 --> 00:39:09,830 So there was a religious dimension to this fight. And and this was the attack that I'll talk to you in a second. 368 00:39:10,310 --> 00:39:14,090 So let me see if I can get off of this now. She could be want. 369 00:39:19,480 --> 00:39:31,559 So. How to get out on the screen. 370 00:39:31,560 --> 00:39:35,520 You have got that, too. I think that you should be okay and you make it. 371 00:39:37,830 --> 00:39:41,380 I knew I should do this. That's fine. 372 00:39:41,550 --> 00:39:44,790 That's right. Okay, so that's a go now. Okay, great. 373 00:39:46,170 --> 00:39:51,510 So the Hong Kong stallions are in the local mafia in Hong Kong. 374 00:39:52,890 --> 00:39:59,820 The I mean, we don't have much time to discuss why they originated from they originated in the Qing Dynasty in the 18th and forties, 375 00:39:59,820 --> 00:40:07,920 18, 1860s, becoming involved in opium trafficking and slave labour and liberal racketeering. 376 00:40:09,210 --> 00:40:14,970 But we know that by 1909 there was a standardised ritual among all of these different gangs. 377 00:40:15,210 --> 00:40:19,230 So they all subscribe to a standardised ritual. 378 00:40:19,260 --> 00:40:29,550 So although you might be a member of a given try and you would join it through a ritual which was shared by other gangs within the Hong Kong triads. 379 00:40:29,640 --> 00:40:36,900 Doesn't make sense. So that's the key. So these are independent crime groups which share the same rules and standardised rituals. 380 00:40:37,290 --> 00:40:42,330 And I put that this yellow bird operation because at the time of the gentleman square, 381 00:40:42,540 --> 00:40:51,540 one of the of the Triads actually helps the students, the Chinese students escape China and to come to go to Hong Kong. 382 00:40:51,540 --> 00:40:59,730 And then some of them went to Paris so that the birds were not automatically and always being followed a particular political power. 383 00:40:59,940 --> 00:41:13,290 But then by 1993, Chinese officials started to talk about patriotic triads and how much they should be brought into the fold of the new regime. 384 00:41:15,930 --> 00:41:18,850 So the attack that I that I witnessed and that I, 385 00:41:19,160 --> 00:41:27,600 I report in the paper with Rebecca took place on the 3rd of October between 10 a.m. and 430 in the night. 386 00:41:28,000 --> 00:41:36,270 And what happened is that by 10 a.m., some thugs started to effect that problem right here, 387 00:41:36,600 --> 00:41:42,809 started to remove remove the in this particular area of Hong Kong, 388 00:41:42,810 --> 00:41:51,300 which is on the other side of Nathan Road, started to remove the sandbags that and also the tents where students were sleeping overnight. 389 00:41:51,780 --> 00:42:02,400 And. And then the confrontation increased in in in violence throughout throughout the night. 390 00:42:05,030 --> 00:42:10,680 The police have been accused of not intervening so to letting the confrontation escalate. 391 00:42:11,070 --> 00:42:18,040 The police claimed that they were busy doing something else. But anyway, the the bottom line is that these are thugs. 392 00:42:18,060 --> 00:42:25,650 These are the kind of people that were involved with removing the barriers and and beating up protesters very much. 393 00:42:25,650 --> 00:42:34,380 And there are video evidence that some of the sides were arrested by the police and then released without ever being charged. 394 00:42:34,950 --> 00:42:44,620 Some of them eventually were arrested and charged and released pretty quickly, while the only people actually end up in jail where protesters. 395 00:42:45,350 --> 00:42:50,640 And what is most exciting about this event is that eventually the attack failed. 396 00:42:51,240 --> 00:42:59,760 So the students held the line and they were not intimidated by this vicious attack by sons. 397 00:43:00,090 --> 00:43:03,810 And in a sense, for once, you know, democracy won. At least they held the line. 398 00:43:03,990 --> 00:43:12,069 And by 430, they the thugs retreated and the and the site was held. 399 00:43:12,070 --> 00:43:24,870 The lessons here. Right. And the Amnesty International called it an attack by time that the news media in the world decried this particular attack. 400 00:43:25,320 --> 00:43:31,260 Now, what we tried to ask in this paper is who attacked the students, how much they were paid? 401 00:43:32,970 --> 00:43:39,390 And the question is, did the Thai itself mobilise from the neighbourhood to protect their local business, 402 00:43:39,390 --> 00:43:43,610 or did they come from the outside in order to attack the students? 403 00:43:43,620 --> 00:43:50,100 If it was the latter, it would be an evidence that the Times acted on their own, 404 00:43:50,850 --> 00:43:56,370 on the order not of themselves, but of other forces that made them do it. 405 00:43:57,300 --> 00:44:02,400 And so they were basically starts to hire who paid them and can this happen again? 406 00:44:04,320 --> 00:44:11,459 Now, this is the data that we collected. We we did a lot of first we read all the newspaper articles. 407 00:44:11,460 --> 00:44:16,800 We did a number of interviews with news reporters and news editor with students. 408 00:44:17,310 --> 00:44:23,430 We interviewed volunteers. There was a first aid, of course, people who had all attended a were there at the time. 409 00:44:23,820 --> 00:44:26,950 We interviewed many taxi drivers and minivan drivers. 410 00:44:26,950 --> 00:44:30,010 So we can talk. About the importance of minivans in Hong Kong. 411 00:44:30,190 --> 00:44:32,320 But basically, it's a business run by the clients. 412 00:44:32,890 --> 00:44:41,520 And we also interview trade unionists, the trade unionists of the van driver and the taxi drivers, which is a front for the times. 413 00:44:42,250 --> 00:44:47,110 And we interview shop owners, but also thanks to the ingenuity of my co-author, 414 00:44:47,260 --> 00:44:52,970 we also managed to interview people that are in the trials, and they gave us their version of events. 415 00:44:53,050 --> 00:44:57,370 So that's the basis. Just to give you a sense of who the taxi drivers are. 416 00:44:57,610 --> 00:45:02,710 So they're not exactly the standard taxi driver know. That's the taxi driver that we interviewed. 417 00:45:02,890 --> 00:45:09,820 Taxi drivers are very, very outspoken against the movement and they were not great fun. 418 00:45:10,390 --> 00:45:15,160 So let me try to go through the key questions and answer with the fieldwork interviews that we did. 419 00:45:15,550 --> 00:45:20,830 Who are the students? Well, according to a news person who was on the site all the time, 420 00:45:21,280 --> 00:45:30,489 anti anti movement protesters who are shuttled to Mongkok by minibuses and run some of the kids this guy 421 00:45:30,490 --> 00:45:38,140 was working for told him that they were going to have some fun in Mongkok because they were told to do so. 422 00:45:38,920 --> 00:45:49,600 And then the one of the Triad bosses we interviewed told us most of the people who went to attack the students were youngsters aged between 15 and 20. 423 00:45:49,930 --> 00:45:56,530 They were not within their target group. So they saw this as an opportunity to prove themselves, to humiliate the police and to impress their bosses. 424 00:45:57,820 --> 00:46:02,920 Those who did this. A second thought. Same type of guy. Those who joined the fight were based in Hong Kong. 425 00:46:02,920 --> 00:46:06,160 That was in the march. So they're not coming from China. They're not shipped in from China. 426 00:46:07,960 --> 00:46:10,990 But there are basically some of them of India and Pakistan. 427 00:46:11,020 --> 00:46:16,690 All of this because this article titled The Singapore Trial, which is based in the new territories, 428 00:46:16,690 --> 00:46:21,070 which is in the northern part of Hong Kong, recruiting these communities. 429 00:46:22,120 --> 00:46:27,520 And finally, the second part, Boss told us, I know the people who beat up the students on the 3rd of October. 430 00:46:27,670 --> 00:46:33,010 I saw them on television. Some came from the new territories, so from outside the neighbourhood. 431 00:46:33,460 --> 00:46:39,160 I was not surprised. They were all released after being arrested because the high command of the police knew they were coming. 432 00:46:40,840 --> 00:46:46,209 So this seems to be the person. I mean, the patriarch goes into greater details on the profile of the media. 433 00:46:46,210 --> 00:46:52,960 What the key point here is that they are not from the neighbourhood. And then also we try to. 434 00:46:53,200 --> 00:46:58,749 So this is a continuation. Apple Daily, a vocal anti-China newspaper, reported that members of this trial, 435 00:46:58,750 --> 00:47:04,750 the Muppets and the well-known bosses were among those involved in the attack. 436 00:47:04,990 --> 00:47:08,020 So, again, this is watching what seems to be quite a phenomenon. 437 00:47:08,740 --> 00:47:16,389 Now, how much they were paid. Again, our prior guys told us the payment depending on experience and and seniority. 438 00:47:16,390 --> 00:47:19,450 So there is a meritocracy always in the top low level. 439 00:47:19,630 --> 00:47:25,300 Who knows? We are paid 800 HKD more senior people are paid more. 440 00:47:25,300 --> 00:47:30,070 But basically they were paid. Right. These not that they are self mobilised to protect their turf. 441 00:47:30,400 --> 00:47:34,389 These are people who are somewhere else. They were paid, shipped in. 442 00:47:34,390 --> 00:47:41,020 I talked to Stevenson last year. So it seems to be a qualifying of thugs for hire as we defined it before. 443 00:47:41,650 --> 00:47:50,500 So individuals, some without the guns, received cash to attack the students and the aggressors came from Hong Kong, so not from China. 444 00:47:51,730 --> 00:47:57,910 Crucially, the attackers did not come from the neighbourhood Mongkok, but other parts of Hong Kong, especially the new territories. 445 00:48:00,520 --> 00:48:03,790 Now, did they mobilise to protect their business? 446 00:48:04,720 --> 00:48:09,260 Now the point is the occupation obviously had an effect on the local business. 447 00:48:09,370 --> 00:48:16,120 Taxi drivers couldn't go. So because the road was blocked, the shops didn't have the cars going by. 448 00:48:16,120 --> 00:48:22,180 The were also this is an area of triads presence, in particular Mongkok, as you know, from Hong Kong. 449 00:48:22,510 --> 00:48:28,600 So there are buses of the bus there. So was the business affected by the students? 450 00:48:28,780 --> 00:48:31,330 So we tried to listen to the question from our interviews. 451 00:48:31,720 --> 00:48:39,640 The taxi drivers, not the lost much money during the occupation, told us a taxi driver instead of this taxi driver told us, 452 00:48:39,640 --> 00:48:44,310 I hate the students, they should set himself on fire and get away because they hate him. 453 00:48:44,440 --> 00:48:47,589 So these are not people who are sympathetic to the students. 454 00:48:47,590 --> 00:48:56,710 And yet he admits that there was no loss of income. Then we interview this trade unionist that she's the owner of the 200 strong taxi company. 455 00:48:57,400 --> 00:49:04,230 So although the loss was significant, initially, revenues actually went up towards the middle and end the face of the movement. 456 00:49:06,040 --> 00:49:09,310 He noted that people were more willing to pay taxes to return home. 457 00:49:09,730 --> 00:49:16,180 The news reporter told us he was told by drivers that they lost no money yet 458 00:49:16,180 --> 00:49:19,540 to the owners of these companies and lodged complaints against the students. 459 00:49:19,550 --> 00:49:25,690 So there were legal complaints against the civil occupation of the territory, but it was not for economic reasons because they lost money. 460 00:49:26,530 --> 00:49:31,309 And then the leader of the. Minibus trade union told us that the drivers were affected at first, 461 00:49:31,310 --> 00:49:37,040 but then they just adjusted then from that, which is very easy to go by these particular occupations. 462 00:49:38,690 --> 00:49:42,200 Now I go with more interviews, but we don't have much time left. 463 00:49:42,620 --> 00:49:47,659 But this is the legal side of this stuff. Prostitution and gambling, custody, Occupy. 464 00:49:47,660 --> 00:49:57,020 That is Mongkok, where it's first affected. But then that area was quickly picked up, told us the two Thai bosses, the routes, the roads were open. 465 00:49:57,020 --> 00:50:03,110 Why would business go down? This is the nickname we give today to one of the bosses and the Triads. 466 00:50:03,110 --> 00:50:10,790 Income is diverse. So imagine imagine that, you know, to launch such an attack, which is going to be on every news bulletin in the world. 467 00:50:11,180 --> 00:50:14,180 It's a huge cost for the mafia. And it's not that you just do it right. 468 00:50:14,210 --> 00:50:18,110 You must have you must be under such a huge pressure if you do that. 469 00:50:18,310 --> 00:50:26,180 And so the mafia boss told us very sensibly, you know, it would be crazy to launch such a direct attack, 470 00:50:26,180 --> 00:50:35,840 which would be so high profile for business reasons, because our income is diverse and even we might get some money from the minibars, 471 00:50:36,260 --> 00:50:44,450 but we don't do that just on one source versus pubs gambling Mongkok lost little revenue customers, 472 00:50:44,450 --> 00:50:50,989 quick return template, loss of income and also protection fees mandatory. 473 00:50:50,990 --> 00:50:55,730 So you still have to pay protection fees even if you don't want to have the guy in the house. 474 00:50:56,360 --> 00:51:02,730 So the bottom line, as far as we understood, is that this was not motivated by buying. 475 00:51:03,020 --> 00:51:06,710 Now, who paid for them? Who paid for these people to attack? 476 00:51:06,740 --> 00:51:12,860 Now, that's obviously we don't know exactly. And then you get into very dangerous territory because it's very speculative. 477 00:51:14,600 --> 00:51:18,259 But one very experienced newsagent person, 478 00:51:18,260 --> 00:51:28,120 you news person told us that want us to look at how developers in the new territories managed to acquire land in the new territories. 479 00:51:28,130 --> 00:51:31,820 According to the regulation, this is very complicated, so it may not be crystal clear, 480 00:51:32,390 --> 00:51:38,060 but there are very odd land deals happening in the northern part of Hong Kong and the government, 481 00:51:38,060 --> 00:51:47,060 the Triads, the local triads and the local developers all involved in this in evicting evicting the rightful owners of this land. 482 00:51:47,420 --> 00:51:53,090 So he's referring to that. And if you happen to be from Hong Kong, you might go watch this movie called Overheard. 483 00:51:53,090 --> 00:51:56,720 He's a three movies in on this topic. 484 00:51:57,080 --> 00:52:05,090 And basically Dates tell the story of how the trials are pushing the peasants and the locals out in order to help the developer. 485 00:52:05,300 --> 00:52:11,629 So the argument of this guy is that these connections to this bunch of business interests wanted 486 00:52:11,630 --> 00:52:17,510 to show their gratitude towards the central government in Hong Kong and possibly in China, 487 00:52:17,840 --> 00:52:22,060 and they paid for that attack. So that's the idea. Mean we don't really know. 488 00:52:22,070 --> 00:52:25,130 We don't have the receipts, of course, but that's the idea. 489 00:52:25,910 --> 00:52:35,000 Let me move on. Now, the final point I want to make is that if you think about this with the standard Italian mafia eyes, 490 00:52:35,450 --> 00:52:41,359 you would know that in order to do anything in a mafia territory, this is run by a particular mafia group. 491 00:52:41,360 --> 00:52:43,400 You need to ask permission to the local mafia. 492 00:52:43,850 --> 00:52:51,920 If I plan to kill a particular person in your territory, I would have to ask permission to you if it's your territory and vice versa. 493 00:52:52,970 --> 00:52:58,940 So you have to have permission to enter the services of another group. That's obvious as as you would expect in a standard state. 494 00:52:58,940 --> 00:53:06,350 Right. So look, again, it's well, not that's the mission and we are not happy to see such an invasion, told us the journalist. 495 00:53:06,740 --> 00:53:16,220 But the to vacate boss has confirmed to us that the local Mongkok gang was not ask permission to come in. 496 00:53:16,520 --> 00:53:24,919 In fact, the local Thai members were very upset about this invasion and in fact later they even started 497 00:53:24,920 --> 00:53:28,760 to hang around the protesters site in order to ensure that there was no second attack. 498 00:53:29,870 --> 00:53:36,860 So you see that point. It is very important from the latter point of view, there was no permission asked and not given. 499 00:53:39,890 --> 00:53:44,750 So let me start to come to a conclusion on this particular field. 500 00:53:44,750 --> 00:53:55,880 Take off in favour of triads did not self mobilise as far as we understand they were paid to do so by not non not well-defined business interests. 501 00:53:56,660 --> 00:54:04,280 And there was even a tension between the local clients and the individual from outside that arrived without asking for permission. 502 00:54:04,560 --> 00:54:10,670 And the final point I want to to conclude on this, and I think I've made my general conclusion of it. 503 00:54:10,670 --> 00:54:15,110 I think the question is, could this happen again? And the question is very easily answered. 504 00:54:15,110 --> 00:54:16,040 It did happen again. 505 00:54:16,220 --> 00:54:27,330 It did happen again very recently, because, as you know, the democracy movement is continuing in Hong Kong and on in July this year in. 506 00:54:28,300 --> 00:54:36,530 In a metro station in the new territories. When the protesters were in commuters, ordinary communities were coming home from the protest. 507 00:54:36,550 --> 00:54:47,270 But those that are coming home from work, they went through the the the metro stations and all a hundred the armed men attacked the commuters. 508 00:54:47,290 --> 00:54:52,480 And so there were there was a pregnant woman who was attacked, was a journalist was attacked. 509 00:54:52,690 --> 00:54:57,250 Plus, ordinary members of the public and some some students. 510 00:54:57,820 --> 00:54:58,930 And only yesterday. 511 00:54:58,960 --> 00:55:09,880 Only yesterday, this man called Jemmy Shum, who is one of the most famous activist against democracy, was attacked by four and five men, is dead now. 512 00:55:10,150 --> 00:55:17,320 So not only could that happen again and the general thrust of this work is that we might be seeing a shift 513 00:55:17,650 --> 00:55:25,150 from a standard martial behaviour on the part of the Triads to them becoming really thugs for hire. 514 00:55:26,170 --> 00:55:28,660 And on this note, I'm. Thank you. Thank you very much.