"Mamone, a hamlet of the Municipality of Onanì." A letter that feels like a vent, for what she considers a new institutional affront. Governor Alessandra Todde's visit to the Mamone penal colony on Tuesday afternoon, accompanied by the prison administrator Domenico Arena, did not sit well with Onanì's mayor, Clara Michelangeli. "Once again, I was not contacted or involved," she clarified. "This had already happened with the visit of Undersecretary Andrea Delmastro. Yet the penal colony falls within our territory."
The letter
Clara Michelangeli addresses the regional president, the prison administrator, and Vincenzo Lamonaca, the prison director. "I repeat: Mamone, a hamlet of the municipality of Onanì," the mayor reiterates. "That's what it says, at least on the sign at the prison entrance. That's how it's always been, given that the penal colony extends over 2,300 hectares within our municipality, to which it is administratively dependent. That's what we're reminded of every time we have urgent bureaucratic matters to address, civil protection issues. And the municipality of Onanì, reluctantly, has to deal with them. Among other things, we recently appointed a guarantor. Giampiero Farru, from his first day in office, has always prioritized his role in safeguarding prisoners' rights, but he has also begun a veritable crusade to restore to Onanì the institutional weight that is often denied it. Because Mamone is part of Onanì, and there is not a single citizen who does not claim this evidence."
The bond
On one side, a penal colony, with its sprawling park; on the other, a community inextricably linked to the dynamics and presence of a prison. "Onanì has known, for generations, what having an institution in the area that increased employment, the economy, and the number of residents has meant to the community," writes Clara Michelangeli. "Onanì also knows what it means to watch, helplessly, as the penal colony was downsized, and how the abandonment of the land (about which a book could be written) has significantly contributed to the depopulation of our town. Mamone is part of our municipality: we take the positives as well as the negatives."
The question
"So, where does this mechanism jam?" asks the mayor. "At what point and at what level is it established that Mamone is an abstract, orphaned entity? Is it a question of ignorance? If so, it would be intolerable, because it becomes a kind of disrespect to write, speak, or speculate about a reality about which one is unaware of such a fundamental aspect. At the political level, then, it becomes a question of institutional disrespect, a more or less active effort to disenfranchise an entire community from what is a portion of its territory. In this way, the efforts of the Municipality of Onanì to seek effective dialogue gradually fall on deaf ears. Because they don't understand, or perhaps don't want to understand, that we're not talking about two different realities, but two sides of the same coin."
Clara Michelangeli concludes: "So, once and for all, let it be known that Mamone is an integral part of Onanì, and no amount of spite or pretense, whether political or institutional, can change that. Because that 'fraction of the Municipality of Onanì' leaves no room for any kind of interpretation."
