A-Infos (en) Italy, Sicilia Libertaria #463 - The Necessary Strait. (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

One cannot discuss the Strait of Messina without mentioning one of 
Nature's most spectacular phenomena, which, years ago, became the object 
of observation for a handful of naturalists. Little more than a handful, 
camped out in what were three old caravans in the woods. The illusion 
(as they were judged) was that they could stem a serious poaching 
epidemic: entire mountains, just beyond the outskirts of Messina, dotted 
with veritable reinforced concrete bunkers from which to shoot at 
migrating birds of prey and storks. Their flight was shattered by lead. 
An aberrant situation, tolerated and even more widespread on the 
Calabrian side, from where even armed customers once arrived, joining 
the establishments, welcomed by the sort of "businessmen" who rented 
them. Yet, instead of encouraging them, there were those who said that 
"it's always been done this way" and that "nothing could change." Things 
didn't go that way, and utopia prevailed. The key figure in all this, 
now at the barricades for the No to the Bridge, was Anna Giordano of 
Messina, awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize in 1998, effectively a 
Nobel Prize for the Environment. Threats and actual attacks didn't stop 
her. Those birds represented an ideal of freedom, realized by seeing 
them finally free to soar amid the often harsh winds of the Strait. 
Today, poaching in that stretch of the Messina province is virtually 
extinct. A new phenomenon, however, now seems to be aiming high; it 
would be placed (with its pylons, tie rods, and spans) right in the 
center of that dangerous passage. All according to the law, of course, 
but it will bring unprecedented quantities of concrete for such a unique 
project. Concrete obtained by crushing limestone taken from who knows 
what mountains, and mixed with clay for the highly energy-intensive 
kilns. Water will be needed, lots of fresh water, although it's not 
clear where they'll find it. Steel, concrete, bolts, lights: this seems 
to be the fate of the Strait. To think that all this doesn't pose a risk 
to the millions of migrating birds is, to say the least, risky. However, 
we no longer observe the rhythms of nature; we withdraw, dazzled by 
advertisements and statements that seem to refer to the same tones of a 
monotonous musical score. These key signatures now characterize our 
daily lives. Those who identified pure wisdom in science (unconstrained 
by power) observed those rhythms, drawing lessons for human society. 
Kropotkin did so when, studying animal communities, he deduced, without 
contradicting Darwin, that competition is not the only important factor 
and that mutualism is at least as important. Reclus did so, observing 
the mountain, the sounds of the cracking ice, its moods. Let us try, 
then, to consider the Strait as a passageway for millions of birds and, 
as discovered more recently, also for butterflies. Many of them come 
from sub-Saharan Africa, crossing the Sahel and then the Sahara. Once 
upon a time, they found hundreds of rifles towering above them, ready to 
block their path forever. It seemed all over, but now the Bridge is 
coming. When, not entirely on their own initiative, someone had to use 
radar to more accurately assess the migration, incredible numbers 
emerged: millions of birds crossing just a "corner" of that Strait in 
just a few months. These animals, in some cases, are extremely rare, 
belonging to species that concentrate almost their entire global 
population in the most central Mediterranean route. Do you know what 
their main problem is, in the Strait of Messina? The wind, sudden and 
often violent. The birds can suddenly change course, rising up to 
hundreds of meters or barely flying above the sea waves. Once upon a 
time, they were demolished by people who were not always crude and 
ignorant, but also great storytellers, who organized "conferences" and 
who, sometimes almost at night, came to visit that handful of 
protectionists camped among the trees in the three semi-trailers. They 
expressed "solidarity" to them. But times change. Doubts remain. Let's 
try asking the great supporters of the Bridge what they think of birds 
and butterflies. It's already happened: look into their eyes, into their 
smiles. They speak a different language, follow different laws, but they 
certainly aren't convincing, given the enormity of the criticism raining 
down on them. The Bridge and NATO, the fault lines on the seabed, plate 
tectonics, the river of money. Evidently, their reasons are like 
powerful engines, given that they're moving forward. The Strait will 
change shape; it will no longer be the Strait, and Sicily will be even 
less so. How much of that wealth will go to Messina, like Villa San 
Giovanni, where local communities have already expressed their views on 
that immense construction? They don't want it. The land will be rezoned 
for vehicular traffic, which is increasingly declining. Hundreds of 
people will be displaced, and the structure of an already precarious 
society will change. New concrete and steel will arrive in a place that, 
after Etna, is perhaps the most iconic in Sicily, its struggles, its 
rebellions born right in Messina against a distant power and the local 
maharajahs, just as they did in the days of the English in the East 
Indies. If we resign ourselves, it will be like accepting an impossible 
island, made up of single-track railways, provincial roads that are 
reminders of ancient roads, people leaving, highway bridges perpetually 
under maintenance, recklessly planted across rivers by a state that, in 
the 1960s, denied or glossed over questions about the Mafia. Can we say, 
regardless of fault lines and earthquakes, that we prefer the flight of 
butterflies to the Bridge?

Giovanni Guadagna

https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/
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