This is an unrealistic argumentation, usually deployed to paint contemporaries in a bad light by comparing them to "saints" who are, conveniently, always dead. And it's particularly funny that Borsellino is now in the "saints" category, when he was explicitly namechecked by Sciascia himself in the newspaper column that originated the term "anti-mafia professional". Falcone also got extremely close to becoming the national anti-mafia czar, because his career had been defined by that very subject. Both were killed precisely because they specialised in this area and refused to move elsewhere.

Sciascia was 67 when he wrote that column, and was likely just aggrieved by the fact that national response to the mafia was escalating to levels before unseen (for a number of reasons). He might have had a point about another name-checked personality, the politician Leoluca Orlando, who survived those terrible times and ended up ruling Palermo for more than 20 years - something a lot of people see as realistically incompatible with actually being the anti-mafia hardliner he is supposed to be.

Saviano, however, is just a specialized journalist.