SICILY 2007 - Prologue Edition

   Why Sicily?

   Sicilian Geography

  Sicilian History

  Politics and the Mafia

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PROLOGUE to our Spring 2007 trip to Sicily:

Winter is passing, and our decision for Spring 2007 has settled on Sicily as a venue. We plan to set off this year in early March, which brings its own additional challenges: finding campsites open for the drive across France and Italy, and the uncertainty of weather conditions in crossing the Alps by our favoured route through the Fréjus Tunnel. Ferry crossings to Sicily are another bewildering experience with a choice of routes from Italy: Genoa, Civitavecchia or Naples, depending on how far you want to face the hazards of Italian autostrade. The ferries are expensive, but you can reduce costs by driving the length of Italy for the 3 mile crossing from the 'toe' to Messina. We have split the difference and opted for the Civitavecchia route; as always, we suggest  www.viamare.com  for details of Mediterranean ferry routes.

So why Sicily?  the answer is that this fascinating island contains more history, geography, flora and cultural diversity than you could hope to absorb in even a 12 month stay. Despite the costs of getting to Sicily, there is simply so much to learn. Don't just take our word; visit the  Best of Sicily web site  for a wealth of valuable background information on the island. As always with the Prologues to our ventures, a snap-shot profile of Sicilian geography, history, economy, politics and culture is given below as a prelude to the trip.

Geography of Sicily:  the medieval Arabs thought Sicily was paradise on earth, describing it poetically as Clothed by the peacock from its many-coloured mantle of feathers. The island certainly displays a wonderful diversity of scenery, ranging from idyllic beaches to darkly forested hills, barren and craggy mountain slopes, and ancient river valleys swathed in springtime flora. Its triangular shape gave Sicily its ancient name of Trinacria. The largest of the Mediterranean islands, Sicily straddles the continental shelves between North Africa and Europe. This precarious geographical position has given the island a unique topography, with snow-covered Etna, Europe's largest active volcano at almost 11,000 feet in height, and regularly erupting Stromboli, one of the volcanic Aeolian Islands off the north coast.  Click here for a 'virtual climb'  on the active volcanic peak of Stromboli. This   web site gives a graphic impression of what we hope to experience on Stromboli. Sicily is prone to major seismic instability with cities destroyed by massive earthquakes as recently as 1908. In addition to spectacular natural features, 3,000 years of tumultuous history has endowed Sicily with a wealth of architectural and artistic treasures unparalleled in Europe. These range from wonderfully preserved archaeological sites dating from Classical Greek colonies, through to remains from Roman, Arab, Norman and Spanish occupation, as well as spectacular Baroque architecture dating from urban renewal after 17th century destruction by earthquake.

Sicilian History:  with its strategic position commanding the central Mediterranean, Sicily has throughout history been fought over, colonised and occupied by leading powers. Its history is one of successive waves of foreign domination, each leaving their cultural and architectural imprint on the island, leading ultimately to unification with Italy in mid-19th century.

The earliest traces of human settlement in Sicily date from the Palaeolithic/Neolithic eras (20,000~2,000 BC). Archaeological evidence suggests that Bronze Age inhabitants traded with the Mycenaeans of mainland Greece. From around 1,250 BC, further population movements from mainland Europe and North Africa settled in Sicily. The 5th century BC historian Thucydides (Book VI-2) describes a native people originally from Spain known as Sicanians who were pushed into the south and west of the island by newcomers from Italy, the Sicels from whom the name Sicily is derived. A further group, the Elymians, alleged to be refugees from the fall of Troy, founded settlements in the east of the island. The 8th century BC saw the expansion of colonisation in the western Mediterranean: the Phoenician trading city of Carthage in modern Tunisia founded colonies in the east of Sicily; the cities of Greece, driven by growing population pressures and trade expansion, established a succession of colonies along the eastern and southern Sicilian seaboard: Naxos, Megara Hyblaea, Syracuse, Catania, Messina, Catania, Selinus (modern Selinunte), Akragas (Agrigento)and Gela. As the Greek colonies grew rich and expanded, conflict with Carthage was inevitable. Led by powerful tyrants such as Gelon of Gela, the Greeks defeated the Carthaginians in 480 BC at the battle of Himera to control Sicily. The island's plentiful resources assured the Greek colonies of lucrative trade: colossal building programmes were a testament to the cities' opulence and sophistication. But bitter rivalries, disaffected native population, and parochial politics constantly undermined civic achievements, resulting in endless inter-state conflict and internal civil strife as political factions pitted tyrants against oligarchic democrats. A turning point for Sicily came with the Peloponnesian war between Athens and Sparta in the late 5th century BC: the increasing wealth and power of Syracuse caused Athens in 415 BC to send the Great Expedition against the Sicilian city, the largest military armada ever assembled. Thucydides gives a harrowing account of the expedition's total defeat, and of the Athenian survivors enslaved in Syracusan stone quarries. It would be the end of Athens' days of empire and of Greece's golden Classical Age. Syracuse's domination of Sicily enabled the defeat of the resurgent Carthaginians, but a new power was emerging in the Mediterranean - Rome.

Rome's conflict with and ultimate defeat of Carthage (whose general, Hannibal had crossed the Alps with his elephants to ravage Italy) brought Roman conquest of Sicily in 212 BC. Under Roman rule for the next 700 years, Sicily became an agricultural backwater supplying corn to Rome from vast estates cultivated by slaves. With the 5th century AD barbarian invasions, Rome's western empire disintegrated: Goths and Vandals passed through Sicily, but as there was nothing left to pillage, soon moved on. For the next 300 years, the eastern Byzantine Empire ruled Sicily, but their days were numbered. By 800 AD, Saracen Arabs controlled the western Mediterranean, and under Muslim rule, Sicily enjoyed a renaissance in trade, the arts and agriculture with the introduction of silk, citrus fruit and date farming. Over the next 200 years, the new capital Palermo became a great cosmopolitan city, a marketplace for produce and centre of learning and the arts.

Ever the target of marauders, Sicily was conquered by the rapacious Normans in the late 11th century. The island was ruled by Roger I and his Norman and Angevin successors for the next 200 years, leaving an impressive architectural inheritance. French brutality and greed fermented Sicilian revolt: in 1282, an alleged assault by soldiers as the Palermo church bells rang for the evening service of Vespers provoked slaughter of the hated French and county-wide rebellion, the so-called Sicilian Vespers. The Aragonese Spanish intervened and ruled Sicily for the next 500 years. The absentee Spanish king governed Sicily indifferently through Viceroys, and the island reverted to a feudal regime where all real power rested in the hands of a greedy nobility. The Sicilian peasantry suffered greatly and the decimating impact of the Black Death in 1347~8 along with periods of starvation reduced them to desperate poverty. Thanks to Spanish misrule and intolerance, the cultural renewal of the Renaissance passed Sicily by, reinforcing the effects of poverty and ignorance. The aristocracy now had the island in its pocket, aided by the corrupt Catholic Church which enforced its power through the Inquisition.

The 17th century marked the nadir of Sicilian history: poverty, disease and ignorance were compounded by natural disasters. In 1669 Catania was destroyed by the biggest eruption in Etna's history, and in 1693 a massive earthquake devastated the cities of south-eastern Sicily, killing over 50,000 people. The cities were rebuilt in the lavish Baroque style of the period. Apart from a brief period in the Napoleonic Wars when Nelson patrolled the island given its strategic position, the Bourbon Spanish continued their inept rule, uniting Sicily with Naples as the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. But the writing was on the wall: continuous revolts against the Bourbons led ultimately their expulsion in 1860 by Garibaldi and his Thousand who landed in Sicily as a prelude to Italian unification under the Piedmontese King Vittorio Emanuele. In spite of initial support for unification, the Sicilians soon began to question whether anything had been gained. The Italian government's failure to solve the 'southern problem', together with lack of investment and ineffectual handling of demands for land reform led to increasing resentment; peasant and workers' uprisings were ruthlessly crushed by Government forces and gangs employed by the landowners to maintain their control. By the end of the 19th century, the overwhelming despair of the peasantry resulted in mass emigration and depopulation of rural areas; a quarter of the population, including the most intelligent and enterprising, left to make a new life in USA. The WW1 dealt a savage blow to Sicily's ailing economy, and was followed in 1922 by the rise of Mussolini and the Fascists who made brutal attempts to crush Mafia lawlessness; the result was to drive the movement further underground. In WW2, Sicily was the first European territory to be invaded by the Allies, when in July 1943 the Americans under Patton and British under Montgomery landed at Gela in Operation Husky. Sicilian cities suffered badly from bombardment and fighting to liberate the island. Ironically, the Allies relied on collaboration with Mafiosi dons to recapture the island; the Mafia's control of the island's economy was re-established, and Cosa Nostra has continued since to exercise power within Sicilian society.

Post-war Politics and The Mafia:  in the aftermath of WW2, Sicily was in a state of turmoil. The Mafia was enlisted by the ruling authorities to help suppress the spread of Communism, and in response to demands for Sicilian separatism, the first Regional Parliament was established in 1947. During the 1950s, the ruling Christian Democrats, in league with the Mafia and landowners, gained a secure hold on regional politics. Despite grindingly slow government bureaucracy and Mafia opposition, some agricultural reform was achieved (50% of land had been held by 1% of the population) and investment finally gave the beginnings of an industrial base, but at a disastrous environmental cost. With unemployment however at 30%, many Sicilians sought work as migrants in Italy or Germany.

Traditionally the Mafia had operated mainly in the countryside: absentee landlords employed bailiffs and gangs of enforcers (mafiosi) to collect extortionate rents from peasant labourers and to deal with 'problems' for anyone who paid well. Sicilian society kept quiet about the shadowy organisation out of fear or complicity, the so called omertà or code of silence. Post WW2, the Mafia began its expansion into the cities: it took over the lucrative construction industry and laundered funds from networks of protection rackets and kickbacks into its bank accounts. During the 1960s and 70s, in conjunction with US Mafia, the Sicilian Mafia moved into  narcotics dealing earning billions of dollars; greed between the rival families resulted in vicious feuds and murders. In the 1980s, the first serious attempts to investigate the Mafia, and the hold that organised crime exercised over Sicilian politics and economy, led to murderous retaliations against prosecutors, police-chiefs and judges, culminating in 1982 with the murder of Police Prefect General Dalla Chiesa and in 1992 the car-bomb murders of the 2 leading prosecutors, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino. Major breakthroughs in the fight against the Mafia came in the 1990s: the first was the capture of Salvatore 'Toto' Riina, the Mafia 'Boss of Bosses'; despite being the most wanted man in Europe, political collusion had had allowed him to live openly in his home village of Corleone for 20 years. Further arrests and convictions of leading Mafia bosses continue, but the Mafia's invisible influence of today still permeates Sicilian society: it is estimated that 80% of Palermo's shopkeepers pay some kind of protection money; Mafia profits from international drug trafficking and other rackets is believed to be €123 billion, 10% of national GDP. Arrests of leading Mafia figures revealed incriminating evidence to implicate Italian political leaders in Mafia corruption: Giulio Andreotti, 7 times Prime Minister, went on trial but was acquitted due to the comic-opera nature of the Italian judicial system. Following enquiries into his business dealings, the current Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, secured immunity from prosecution for Mafia money laundering only while he remains in office.

Continuing anti-Mafia campaigns have caused the Mafia to maintain a lower profile after all the headlines of the 1990s, but its activities and corruption continue as an insidious feature of Sicilian society at all levels. The costs of organised crime are a major debilitating factor in the Italian economy. But the revelations of high-profile trials of Mafia bosses and political figures has perhaps brought changing public attitude, more likely to reduce the Mafia's hold on Sicilian life. There is even an Anti-Mafia museum now in Corleone, once a Mafia stronghold, to educate both Sicilians and overseas visitors. Even so, remarks by the interior-minister in Berlusconi's new government perhaps signify the Mafia's endemic presence: "We have got to learn to live with this reality". This most enduring of criminal organizations is the predominantly challenging social problem confronting Sicilian society today.  Click here for more information on the Sicilian Mafia.

So there we have it. Hopefully this Prologue will have served to explain the fascination of Sicily, and our reasons for choosing the island for our Spring 2007 venture. Our plans are reaching fruition, ferry tickets are  booked, preparations almost complete, and we set off at the beginning of March. Again we shall be covering entirely new ground with so much of interest to explore and to learn about. During the trip, we shall continue our practice of updating the web site weekly or so, reporting on our explorations with news and photos. We hope you will enjoy sharing our venture.

Sheila and Paul                                                                                                                    Published: Thursday 15 February 2007

Music this week:
The Godfather

   
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