Medeea Pașca reviews James Mackay’s The Invention of Sicily: A Mediterranean history (Verso, 2021)
Regional identities are rarely neutral inheritances. Instead, these are constructions guided by ideological projections and political necessities. In his book, The Invention of Sicily, Jamie Mackay argues that the recovery of a territorial identity should always be a collective process. To anticipate his discovery, he offers an excerpt from an interview with Palermo’s mayor, Leoluca Orlando:
Being Palermitan is not about blood, or heritage or even where you were born. It’s about the simple choice of living in this city. This place has always been a kind of mosaic, a melting pot. We recognise difference not as something to be overcome, but as a value in itself. We find our unity not by clinging to what makes us exceptional, but when we mobilise among ourselves to defend universal human rights. (4)
Born in the United Kingdom, Jamie Mackay has found home in Italy, namely Florence. He is a journalist, author and cultural historian, bringing his written contribution to international journals including The Guardian, The Economist, and Frieze, to name a few, whilst also writing a Substack newsletter, The Week in Italy. The Invention of Sicily: A Mediterranean History is his first book, revealing Mackay to be a thorough historian and ingenious writer. Not only is the content of the book exhaustively researched, it is also captivatingly presented. The author relates the main historical events of the island, highlighting important figures and taking time to explain the evolution of the economy and urban design, specific incentives behind political decisions, the development of polyethnicity and the resulting religious and cultural syncretism. In addition to this, he also points out scientific advances, culinary acquisitions, linguistic developments and uses stories, novels and paintings of Sicilian origin to better illustrate the socio-cultural atmosphere of each century.
The key point which Mackay develops throughout his book is that we should not see Sicily as a mere a border between multiple empires:
Sicily’s history is as an autonomous community rather than just a parenthesis to that of its better-known imperial masters.(5)
To support this claim, the author proposes two complementary concepts: tolerant cohabitation and necessary revolts. When talking about the first three peoples that have settled on the island, the Greeks, the Romans and the Muslims, Mackay highlights the cultural and religious syncretism between the Greek and Roman culture, which is a direct result of the Roman occupation of Sicily, and the religious tolerance of the Muslims, who allowed for freedom of practices in the privacy of homes.
Under Norman rule, syncretism, collaboration and tolerance continued, despite the hegemonic intentions of the Papacy. Under the French rule of the 13th century, the first major Sicilian uprising, called The Sicilian Vespers, took place. The war that ensued only shifted power from the urban elite towards the rural landowners and church authorities and not much was achieved in the benefit of the masses.
These events represent a kind of pattern for the years to come. The Sicilians tried seizing every opportunity for autonomy. More often than not, their efforts only resulted in some sort of shift of power, but minimal change. Still, they remained determined to keep a certain form of control over their lives, which often turned out to be subversive.
For Mackay, the Italian playwriter Luigi Pirandello offers a revealing, albeit controversial example. The Sicilian-born author proudly wrote propaganda in his early years, celebrating the “heroic struggle of the Fasci against the island’s noble landowners.” After the First World War, however, he declared himself apolitical. In practice, this meant switching his allegiance to Mussolini’s insurrection. His works, though, became harder to classify. His texts became introspective, philosophical and somehow remotely ambivalent. Pirandello’s mock-historical drama, Henry IV (1922) presented a deeply anti-democratic message. There are no foundations for building a better society, nor convincing political heroes. What remains, instead, are primitive power games and increasingly elaborated forms of self-deception. (195)
Pirandello’s meditation on the collapse of metaphysical foundations undermines fascism itself. As Mackay puts, “ how […] might the regime deliver on its promises if its grand narratives are based on nothing but hot air? How can any such political venture avoid collapsing into mindless violence? Tellingly, nowhere in his work does he provide a serious answer to these questions.”(195)
This combination of public devotion and apparent obedience with private subversion is a direct result of the variations in external governance of the island. Mackay uses this as a point to explain the development of the mafia. There are some historical precursors for this organization such as the fictitious ‘Beati Paoli’, a secret occult society that may have developed under Spanish rule, and the very real gabellotti, independent farmers who, in the 18th century mediated the transactions between landowners and the peasants who rented their lands. Developed, most likely, in direct correspondence with the Italian nationalist movement, the mafia came into being in the second half of the 19th century, as a result of the economic situation of the time.
Apologists for Cosa Nostra like to present the organization as if it were the expression of a deep, almost mythological aspect of Sicily’s anti-colonial identity. This early history, though, paints quite a different picture.
The mafia was not born from some abstract ‘spirit’ of foreign oppression, but from specific material conditions: it was a direct consequence of top-down imposition of laissez-faire economics on a territory where the justice system had rarely been respected. (154)
John Dickie, one of historians of Cosa Nostra and other organized crime groups, has described the early mafia as representing a ”hellish parody of the capitalist economy and it would be difficult to put it any better ”(154). The evolution of this organization, as well as its ties with landowners and the authorities and ultimately its expansion across the Atlantic ultimately introduced Sicily to potential tourists, especially with the production of The Godfather, establishing the island as a Mediterranean Paradise and uncovering its cultural mystique.
As the island’s European identity gained recognition, Sicily became a safe haven for migrants and the entrance-point to Europe for refugees. By discussing this matter, Mackay reveals his second important claim, Sicily as a ‘cosmopolitan’ island:
For most Sicilians, cosmopolitanism is an a priori assumption, an unconscious, pre-political recognition that all societies have a responsibility to humanity as a whole.(4)
Mackay is complimentary about the way Leoluca Orlando, the mayor of Palermo, administered the refugee situation. Opposing the directories of the European Commission, Orlando welcomed the refugees and the whole of Sicily followed his lead. This, says Mackay, re-energized Sicily’s civil society prompted the development of a distinctive democratic culture. The island’s resurfaced multicultural past proved to be in its advantage and the community’s rediscovered diversity revitalized Sicily’s Middle-Eastern identity. Still, as essential as his argument for openness is, given the attention to nuance cultivated throughout the entire book, one would have hoped for a more detailed account of the refugee situation as well, given its importance at a European level.
By repeatedly returning to Sicily’s multicultural character, Mackay brings the book full circle. The movement of people is not merely a feature of Sicily’s present. Instead, it also represents a direct link to its flourishing past. Mackay’s captivating recounting of history also proves its relevance as story, as repository for fantasy and knowledge and as a good starting-point for future reinventions.
Medeea Pașca is an Assistant Editor in the Democracy and Culture Section.
