A-Infos (en) Sicilia Libertaria 2-24: THE MISSED REDEMPTION - 18 - THOSE "FABULOUS" SIXTY YEARS! (ca, de, it, pt, tr) [machine translation]

We have seen how post-war Sicily finds itself channeled into a 
neocolonial process in which a toxic and extractivist development 
characterizes state and private intervention (funded by the former), the 
greatest expression of which are the chemical industrial centers of 
Milazzo, Gela, Augusta -Priolo-Melilli. Not only is oil extracted from 
the island (discovered in the 1950s by Gulf and then sold to Agip) but 
imported crude oil is refined, transforming the territories involved 
into veritable sewers for multinationals. There will be work in these 
areas and in related industries, but it is not a question of an increase 
in employment: it is a question of moving places of residence, of 
abandoning more tiring and less profitable activities (especially crafts 
and agriculture) for the fixed salary of a blue collar. The poles dig a 
great void in the territories (they suck water, burn the air and land, 
poison the people), and accentuate the phenomena of depopulation, 
impoverishment and slow death of small towns.

Just read some demographic data to understand what we are saying. The 
municipality of Milazzo went from 22,013 inhabitants in 1951 to 31,541 
in 1991; that of Gela from 43,000 in '51 to 72,500 in '91; that of 
Augusta from 23,500 in '51 to 34,189 in '91; the municipality of Priolo 
from 6,545 in '51 to 11,785 in '91; the municipality of Melilli which in 
'51 had 5,969 inhabitants, in '91 had 11,656.

The other side of colonial extractivism is emigration, a necessary 
resource to keep the industries of Northern Italy and Central Europe 
running. The remittances of emigrants represent an important source for 
the survival of millions of Sicilians, allowing them to emerge from the 
age of the caves in which many lived until the 1950s and to begin to 
savor the fruits of the economic boom. But it is not Sicilian society 
that is the architect of its own improvement: it is the conditions of 
colonial exploitation that provoke its entry into the consumer society 
as an area for the sale of goods produced in the North. The island is 
just a large market of consumers whose economic resources quickly return 
to the Northern regions.

The countryside abandoned by emigrants, conquered by extractive 
industries, cemented by building speculation, is going through a severe 
crisis in which only the strongest manage to survive. They are the usual 
potentates, the old noble class, the mafia. The sack of Palermo and the 
most important cities transforms construction into a sector with 
accelerated development but with extremely backward working conditions, 
as well as criminogenic.

An exception makes its way in the coastal strip of Ragusa, where, 
starting from the second half of the 1950s, the epic of the greenhouses 
began: cultivation of early crops under plastic tents, initially for a 
limited period, slowly throughout the year. The rapid and forceful 
development of this production method generates the strengthening of 
small peasant ownership, fuels an allied industry (chemical products, 
seeds, plastic, wood, nails, tractors, transport, fruit and vegetable 
markets, brokerage companies, bank branches, etc.) larger, it generates 
an enrichment of the territory, slows down emigration and, indeed, 
attracts, exactly like the industrial centres, a workforce from within 
and in subsequent years, also from Tunisia. However, the boom brings 
with it very serious problems, such as the depletion of aquifers, the 
desertification of countryside subjected to over-exploitation; the onset 
of serious damage to the health of farmers and labourers; overproduction 
with the consequent drop in prices (and earnings) and the necessary 
reconversion; the arrival of investments from gangs; the criminal 
management of transport, markets, packaging and distribution processes; 
and the presence, up to the present day, of a foreign workforce 
increasingly forced into semi-slavery conditions. (1)

In the 1960s, when these processes were just beginning, the island 
experienced a complex situation of precarious working conditions, 
unemployment, exploitation of workers, with a "worker aristocracy" 
(mainly in the petrochemical industry), still training and unaware of 
the price she will pay (in terms of health and blackmail). From the deep 
province come the denunciations of Danilo Dolci and intellectuals such 
as Carlo Levi ("Words are stones"), or of Pasolini, Trombadori, Guttuso 
who visit the caves of Scicli and the poor areas denouncing the painful 
conditions, the lives of hardship, the hovels in which many live, the 
degradation of entire towns and communities.

1960 saw this malaise explode in the protests against the Tambroni 
government, a single-party DC supported by the CIA and the Vatican, with 
the external support of the MSI (2). As is known, Genoa gives the lead, 
with the anti-fascist protest that exploded on June 30, the violent 
police charges and the strong popular reaction. The pretext is the MSI's 
attempt to hold its national congress in the gold medal city of the 
resistance. The events in Genoa trigger protests throughout the country, 
and everywhere the police attack the demonstrators with violence. On 5 
July in Licata (AG) a procession for work (agricultural crisis linked to 
bad weather, closure of the Montecatini, port and railways in decline) 
was blocked by the soldiers of the XII mobile brigade of the 
Carabinieri, who shot at the crowd occupying the station and against the 
barricades on the highway; 25-year-old farmer Vincenzo Napoli dies 
instantly, hit by a burst of machine gun fire; 24 injured. The popular 
anger that follows is destructive. "In Licata - writes "L'Agitazione del 
Sud", a Sicilian anarchist monthly (3) - it was the 
economic-social-environmental conditions typical of depressed areas that 
pushed the population to protest in the square with such resolution and 
vigor to move the national and international public opinion and interest 
it in this angle of "waste" and death. And this diversity of goals and 
purposes - we repeat - confirms the spontaneous character of the "July 
riots", which Tambroni deliberately pretends to ignore and denies to 
justify the nature and conduct of his government and the actions of his 
police. These movements also reveal a foundation, a common ideal 
substance of which the aversion to fascism is but one part, one aspect, 
perhaps the most striking, and of which Licata's economic-social protest 
represents another part, another an aspect that integrates and is 
summarized with that aversion. It is a passionate defense of the 
"Italian freedoms" which Genoa and the whole of Italy see increasingly 
tempted, compromised and oppressed by clerical-fascism due to its 
intrinsic nature, and to which freedoms Licata and the whole South see 
the problem linked of their rebirth and the end of their miserable 
living conditions."

On the 6th Rome was the scene of violent clashes culminating in 600 
arrests. On the 7th there is the massacre in Reggio Emilia, with 5 dead 
murdered by the police. On 8 July all of Italy takes to the streets 
against the massacre in the Emilian city; in Sicily the response is 
massive in all the capitals; in Palermo on 27 June a general strike had 
already been proclaimed for the abolition of wage cages, the relaunch of 
the metalworking industry and the shipyards, the municipalisation of 
public services, the rehabilitation of the old neighborhoods where over 
100 thousand people lived among the rubble of the bombings; the largest 
demonstration since the post-war period had been attacked by the police; 
now those taking to the streets are once again garbage collectors, 
builders, shipyard workers, the unemployed and many young people; the 
rapid charge at Pio La Torre's rally, a day of memorable guerrilla 
warfare erupts; in the evening there were 4 deaths at the hands of the 
police: Giuseppe Malleo aged 16, Andrea Gangitano aged 14, Francesco 
Vella aged 42 and Rosa La Barbera aged 53.

On the same day Salvatore Novembre, an unemployed construction worker, 
left his home in Agira (EN) and headed to Catania in search of work; 
here he encounters the general strike and is involved in the clashes in 
Piazza Stesicoro; the jeeps launch themselves on the demonstrators and 
their barricades, the agents fire with machine guns, rifles and pistols, 
six young people are injured, one of them is Novembre, forced to the 
ground by truncheon blows, finished off by a policeman who shoots at him 
repeatedly and then dragged as a trophy and warning.

There will be no culprits in the trials, except workers and the unemployed.

July 1960 is remembered for the deaths of Reggio Emilia, but the blood 
contribution of the Sicilian people was equally serious, if not greater.

The Sicilian environment is not immune to the wind of change that is 
blowing throughout the world: long hair and miniskirts, new musical 
tastes, Vietnam, accompany the first cries of youth protest. Danilo 
Dolci's incisive action transforms depressed areas into lands of 
redemption, study centers and cooperatives arise, the fights for dams 
begin; a new protagonism involves the inhabitants, with women in the 
front row, in the clash with the political-mafia class. Starting from 
1960, on the initiative of Dolci, Lorenzo Barbera, Paola Buzzola and 
Carlo Doglio, 19 committees were established in the 25 municipalities of 
the Jato, Belice and Carboj valleys, giving life to an exemplary 
experience of self-management and redemption from below. A great march 
for Sicily and for peace took place from 5 to 11 March 1967: it was the 
revolution of the Belice valley. Around Dolci a large array of 
intellectuals and volunteers, with anarchists demonstrating an active 
and supportive presence outside and inside Sicily. (4)

In Catania the non-institutional left-wing environment, mainly 
university, is very lively; spontaneous struggles develop, while the 
magazine "Giovane Critica" anticipates all the themes of the global 
protest that would explode shortly thereafter. The anarchist area was 
also in turmoil, with its press and the formation of the first 
university nuclei. In large and small towns the signs of change are 
evident. Despite '68 being seen as a phenomenon of the large cities of 
the Center and North, Sicily is an important laboratory with a view to 
renewing the revolutionary dream.

However, the year will open and close with the names of two symbolic 
places: Belice and Avola.

Pippo Gurrieri

Continues

Note

In 1960, out of 64 prefects, 62 had been officials of the Ministry of 
the Interior under the fascist regime, like all 214 vice prefects; 7 
general inspectors of Public Security came from the fascist police, as 
did 120 out of 135 police commissioners.

AA.VV., The "transformed band" of the Ragusa area. Workers' rights, 
migrants, agromafias and public health, Sicilia Punto L, Ragusa, 2021.

Gidie (Gianni Diecidue), The movement of 1860 - The "July Movements" of 
1960, "The Agitation of the South", August 1960.

Natale Musarra, Danilo Dolci and the anarchists, Libertarian Sicily n. 
172, January 1999 and The lesson of Belice, Sicilia libertarian n.269, 
January 2008.

https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/
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