WORLD WORLDWIDE ITALY TURKISH News Journal Update - (en) Italy, Sicilia Libertaria, July: Turkish Special - The conflicting memory (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 She still bleeds, and who knows how long she'll continue to do so. It

was July 10, 2013 when in Gela the No Muos movement managed to ruin the
party that the institutions and war fanatics had organized to celebrate
the seventieth anniversary of the landing of US troops in Sicily. In the
mainstream narrative that had been the decisive episode that had allowed
Italy to free itself from the occupation of the Nazi-fascist troops
during the Second World War. And this parade - made up of fake marines,
reproductions of tanks and amphibians, Yankee flags and parades of US
diplomacy - had taken over the waterfront and the historic center, with
the aim of showing off and, at the same time, paying homage to the
star-striped ruler. We could not accept it. In the city of poisons,
linked to the industrial presence of Eni, a few kilometers from the NRFT
military base and the Muos di Niscemi, the ostentation of rhetoric and
propaganda was even more nauseating. So with the local committee, with
the help of the entire movement and of the No Muos artists, we organized
three days of counter-celebration: debates, concerts, readings and the
demonstration of 10 July, with which we implemented numerous actions to
disturb the parade along the seafront, even reaching the beach, chased
by police and carabinieri in riot gear. It was a joyous and subversive
party, also full of anger, which led to the arrest of Turi Vaccaro, one
of the best known No Muos activists, accused of damaging a police car
after jumping on the roof.

It's been ten years since then and it's still being talked about. As if
the ghost of protest still hovered over the city. When I go back to Gela
it happens quite often that some people remember those episodes. It
seems that even the institutions themselves still remember it. They
don't say it openly but it has been noticed in recent months in the
enthusiasm with which they wanted to make the eightieth anniversary of
the landing an occasion for revenge for that defeat. They would have
liked to extend the commemoration of July 10 to the whole summer: they
imagined a summer of themed concerts, themed meetings, themed readings,
who knows what themed. They had set up a commission that had to draw up
a busy calendar of appointments, with the usual controversies about the
free or otherwise contribution of the participants. They had asked Eni
to finance everything, the first and last support of every mayor of
Gela, and the company had also made 800 thousand euros available. They
had tried to involve Angelo Famao, a well-known neo-melodic singer from
Gela: a pity that, having learned that he was supposed to perform to
commemorate the landing, he gave up saying that "my songs sing of love
and light-heartedness, for these reasons it seems to me inappropriate to
perform at the within this context". The councilor for the branch,
Salvatore Incardona, replied to these words, explaining that "all the
events we are organizing have nothing to do with the war but are a
bridge to build peace, there is no connection between the exhibitions
and a possible image linked to the war". Really? But what peace? For who?

Too bad that in recent years not a word from the current junta has been
spent on the Muos instrument of war and death. We are not surprised,
given that even ten years ago the institutions of the time experienced a
feeble dialogue with the No Muos movement, which we immediately rejected
when we understood that the desire for peace only wanted to silence
dissent. In any case, what is certain is that the anniversary, once
again, should have served a lame administration, which has repeatedly
faced the theater of the mayor's resignation, then returned, to
interpret the commemoration of a historical event. The aim, in fact, is
to make Gela the "Normandy of Italy", that is, a place of attraction for
enthusiasts and scholars. There is no memory will: neither of the
population massacred during the battle of Gela nor on the meaning and
scope of this event; only a mere and childish speculation in a tourist
key, with the aim (also) of robbing the museum of the landing in
Catania. Faced with this scenario, we understand the reasons why the
only work of memory made this year is the documentary "Lo sbarco",
produced by Jacopo Fo (the same one who for years has been promoting an
alleged cultural work and "re-appropriation of 'imaginary" financed by
the six-legged dog), with the economic contribution of Eni and the
patronage of the Municipality. They are the students of the Morselli
industrial technical institute, then, the protagonists of this story.
No one seems to worry about the main short-circuit of this work,
regardless of its quality and the good intentions that animate it: that
is, the fact that to support a work on "historical memory", which aims
to "stimulate reflection on the theme of peace and war today", both a
company and wherever it operates leads to pollution, land exploitation
and, above all, conflicts linked to the appropriation of resources, from
Libya to Niger, from Kazakhstan to Mozambique.

We, on the other hand, have linked the themes of energy and war with the
No Muos movement since our birth. The very first banner of the No Muos
committee of Gela, which we brought to the historic demonstration of
March 31, 2013, bore the inscription "Wasn't petrochemicals enough?". We
gladly do without memories and itineraries financed by the six-legged
dog, or to be understood exclusively as a display and tinsel. We prefer
conflictual memory to muffled historical memory. While waiting to return
to the streets, the hope is that the ghost of protest will haunt your
dreams of war.

Andrea Turco

https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/
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