Europe

Sicily

Sicily is historically interesting.  As the largest island in the Mediterranean it has been highly contested for the entirety of recorded history and probably before there was systematic writing to diarise events.  Appropriately to being kicked about, it's that big triangular island that looks like it is being kicked by the boot of Italy.  Australians may think of Tasmania but Sicily is a little over a quarter of the size.

Sicily has traces of pre-humans; stone age hunter gatherers; early pottery makers; bronze age civilisations; iron age warriors; and, of course, recent civilisation - two world wars and the Mafia.  Because of this, events that took place were essential to the eventual conception of every European alive today.  Indeed, every human and every earthly being alive today.

There is a plethora of information about these events and achievements on-line but briefly, so you don't need to spend endless hours on Wikipedia, I'll give you a brief and probably biased snapshot.

What can we know?

Thanks mainly to their religion there remain significant remnants of Greek and Phoenician settlements on Sicily dating back to 750 BCE.  In more recent times, after the Battle of Carthage (149 BCE), Sicily became part of the Roman Empire. 

As in magazines today the Romans had no issue with putting a recognisable head on an idealised body

This remained the status quo (as the Romans say) for around six hundred years, into the Common Era, when around 435 CE the Vandals arrived and incorporated Sicily into their new kingdom, along with the Roman province of Africa as well as Corsica, Sardinia and Malta (see my travel notes on Malta).  Along with the Vandals were another Germanic tribe: the Goths, comprising Ostrogoths and Visigoths. These northern tribes soon dominated most of Spain and France and Italy.

The northern tribes had been converted to Western Christianity during Roman times but some then followed Arius to reject the Trinity on the grounds that Jesus more than once said he was less than God (eg John 14:28 - I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I).  They also spoke Latin, not Greek, and these heresies deserved sanction.  Thus in 535, the Byzantine (eastern Christian) Emperor Justinian I conquered Sicily as his first step to defeating the heretical Ostrogothic Kingdom in what became known as the Gothic War.  

A century or so later, in 660, Byzantine Emperor Constans II decided to leave Constantinople and move to Syracuse in Sicily with a view to taking those parts of Italy still beyond the Empire's control.  Byzantine rule over Sicily and much of the mainland would continue for three centuries. But as time went on local fractiousness led to tensions with Constantinople.  And the Byzantine Empire was weakening and under attack on several fronts from the followers of a new religion - Islam.

As if to demonstrate how the personal dealings of a single person sometime have enormous repercussions on the future, around 825 Euphemius, the Byzantine commander in Sicily was involved in love affair with a nun and committed uxoricide. 

To save himself from the repercussions of this scandal Euphemius split with Constantinople and offered Sicily to the Saracens (Muslims) as a base.  Constantinople counter-attacked but by 965 the Saracens in close association with Moorish Spain gained full control.  So that by the turn of the 11th century the island was known as the Emirate of Sicily.  Corsica too fell under Saracen control.  The history of the world was forever changed.  In due course Napoleon would be born in Corsica and the world events he set in train would lead to two world wars, Hitler and to you and me (see my article Adolf Hitler and Me).

Like Moorish Spain under Muslim rule, considerable reforms and technological advances were made and Sicily thrived.  But the 11th Century brought Norman (Latin Christian) knights from northern Europe.  Most were mercenaries more intent on making money as contract fighters than on returning Muslim territory to Christianity.  Initially they exploited power struggles within the existing establishment by signing treaties with one side or another.  But progressively they gained control over both the Saracens and Byzantines.  By 1130 the Norman Kingdom of Sicily controlled the whole of Southern Italy, south of the Holy Roman Empire and was among the wealthiest states in Europe, surpassing the Kingdom of England (also Norman after 1066). 

The Cathedral of Palermo - in Norman, Moorish, Gothic, Baroque and Neoclassical styles
Erected in 1185 by Walter Ophamil (or Walter of the Mill), the Anglo-Norman archbishop of Palermo on the site an earlier Byzantine basilica of which some elements remain. After their conquest of the city in the 9th century the Saracens had turned the original into a mosque.

The Norman Kingdom of Sicily continued for nearly seven centuries, until 1816, when the first stages of unification began. Ultimately, in 1860, Sicily became integrated with Roman Italy under Garibaldi.

Progressively under the Normans, the Eastern Christian rite and Greek language was suppressed in favour of Latin Catholicism and the population changed with northern immigrants arriving and Jews and Muslims being expelled. 

The Roman Church also came to own much of the land and defended the agricultural traditions of the society of which it had become a central part - ignorant god-fearing peasants and wealthy landowners.

As the industrial revolution modernised northern Italy and the rest of Europe the Church resisted change in Sicily.  As a result Sicily remained largely rural and descended into relative economic decline .  This led to massive depopulation as peasants left the farms and migrated in search of a better life, mirroring the Irish diaspora where the Church played a similar reactionary role.   

Meanwhile among those remaining in Sicily some resorted to brigandage, looting towns and large estates. The local land owners, government and the Church were unable to rely on Rome to maintain law and order and began to rely instead on hired local strongmen to protect their property. Thus was born the Sicilian Mafia, later called the Cosa Nostra (our stuff or our things), who imposed their own self-serving laws and at times fought pitched battles for control with the authorities of the State. 

In 1939 a significant war took place but in museums the history of modern Italy seems to leap forward from the 1920's to the 1950's:  try not to mention the war.  It's much the same in Germany where the Märkisches Museum in Berlin that details the culture and history of the city has more about Stalin than about Hitler.  But it does show the destroyed chancellery and contains Hitler's globe of the World that recalls Charlie Chaplin and the "I want to be alone" scene in The Great Dictator (Click Here - it's quite funny).

The globe from Hitler's Chancellery - shown as a backdrop

Back in 1914 the Great War had begun in Europe.  Italy was on the side of France and Britain, against the Central Powers, led by Germany.  Amongst those supporting the Italian war efforts were the 'Fasci', nationalistic syndicates that sought to eliminate class conflict and restore the glories of the Roman past by forming cooperatives of workers, employers and government.  The word Fasci refers to a bundle of sticks, indicating that individually, like sticks, people are weak but a bundle of sticks is is difficult to break. The symbol they used on their banners has Roman origins. 

The Flag of Italian Fascism
source: Wikipedia commons

The 'Fasci' distinguished themselves from Communism by eschewing Marxism and class warfare and embracing extreme nationalism and racial pride in place of lip-service to internationalism and brotherhood.

But the Great War failed to give them what they wanted.  Although they were among the victorious allies, Italian nationalists claimed that Italy had been disadvantaged by the subsequent treaties that constrained the Italian Empire's power to expand its borders and gain spazio vitale (living space) for colonisation by Italian settlers.  A similar claim for lebensraum was subsequently made by Hitler for Germany as grounds for invasions in Poland and Russia.

In 1921 the The National Fascist Party was founded bringing the Fasci together under Benito Mussolini. It quickly took hold as a 'Third Roman Empire'.  Il Duce, Mussolini, became dictator, a Roman title, and ruled Italy from 1922 until defeated by the allies in 1945. 

It was Mussolini who funded Hitler and after he'd gained dictatorship of Germany they together supported Franco to become the dictator of Spain.  This new fascism was opposed to Representative Democracy that it held to be weak, disorganised and indecisive and to Communism that it held to be degenerate and ungodly and dedicated to class warfare and/or part of a Jewish attempt at world domination.  Together Mussolini and Hitler inspired other Fascist leaders like Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists in England, as well as elements in Australia such as the New Guard and the United States like Henry Ford.

In Sicily the Fascists imposed their new order and firmly suppressed the Mafia causing more to emigrate, taking with them their culture of 'protection' secrecy and violence, to the United States and even to Australia.  The Cosa Nostra in the US is a theme explored in the movie The Godfather that was partly shot in Sicily.

But when the Allies invaded Italy 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' and so the Sicilian mafia, the Cosa Nostra, now designated partisans, was supplied with weapons and engaged to fight for the Allied cause, giving it new strength so that it became a significant feature of post war Sicilian society.  As a result there has been considerable bloodshed bringing them under control. 

In the 1990's Mafia assignations of judges and others attempting to bring them under control prompted the Government to send in the army with the result that businesses were able to refuse to pay protection money and began to rid themselves of anyone with Mafia associations. Thus squeezed for funds the Mafia seems to have moved on - except for alleged interests in Wind Farms, attracted by lucrative subsidies.

In Palermo there is a large memorial to the victims of the Mafia.

Wind Farms are now seen everywhere on the island but the resulting supply variability has instead led to Sicilians paying 40% more for electricity than the Italian average despite Sicily exporting more power to the Italian grid than it imports.