A-Infos (en) Italy, Sicilia Libertaria #463 - The Mass Tourism Disaster in Noto (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Back in 1974, Pier Paolo Pasolini wrote polemical articles on the 
changes in Italian society, especially the proletariat and 
sub-proletariat. He accused the leaders of power and politics, through 
their economic and political choices and in concert with the media, of 
having brought about the "anthropological mutation" that Karl Marx, in 
the Communist Manifesto, had called "genocide." This anthropological 
mutation not only gradually contributed to the dissolution of left-wing 
political parties like the PCI and the PSI, which together held nearly a 
majority of votes in Italy, but also led to a consumerist ideology that 
gradually obliterated class struggle and left-wing parties: parties that 
promoted political struggles and defended the social demands of workers, 
now extinct! In their place was established the consumerist ideology 
that Pasolini called "consumer fascism," which then, with globalization, 
gave rise to the "generic subject," stripped of its class and political 
identity.

Every action generated by this system reaches every corner of the globe. 
In this case, I'll limit myself to Noto, a city declared a UNESCO World 
Heritage Site and which, in the space of a few years, has become a mass 
tourism destination. Companies have invested capital in the area, along 
with real estate agencies that have driven up property sales and rental 
prices. These rentals are no longer available, as the homes have been 
transformed into luxury B&Bs, in addition to the regular ones, whose 
number continues to grow in the historic center and suburbs. Various 
merchants have arrived from nearby cities and towns. Wealthy celebrities 
have turned Noto into a venue for billionaire weddings.

From the many free beaches, there has gradually been a shift to paid 
beach resorts. The main street and its side streets have been stripped 
of artisan workshops, grocery stores, butchers, fishmongers, clothing, 
shoe, and appliance shops, travel agencies, newsstands, florist's, 
herbalists, cultural clubs, pharmacies, and printing shops: all replaced 
by restaurants, trattorias, takeaways, pizzerias, sandwich shops, wine 
bars, ice cream parlors, luxury shops, luxury hotels, and luxury B&Bs. 
This is happening in a city that lacks basic services, with just an 
emergency room open to the public from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., and a 
very poor water service, with water supplied only for a few hours, while 
in several neighborhoods it sometimes goes unnoticed for days. This is 
in addition to the problems of parking and public transportation 
connections within the city, apart from the Noto-Noto 
Marina-Calabernardo line; not to mention waste collection, which is 
sometimes limited to the city's main streets. There's also a lack of 
rationalization of public spaces, especially the historic center, which 
has become an open-air trough, perpetually occupied by tables and 
chairs, where everyone takes over the space they want, spoiling the 
identity of the places and taking it away from residents. Even in terms 
of cultural programming, aside from classical music concerts, which are 
an annual highlight, the theater program is increasingly disappointing, 
with two or three acceptable works and the rest being provincial-level. 
So how can we call it a culturally open city?

The dominant system of consumer ideology, upon which the "hidden 
persuaders" have worked, has succeeded in transforming the potentially 
political subject into a "generic subject," one that ends up in the 
tourism industry's meat grinder. It has also displaced the citizen and 
the intellectual, replacing them with the subject and the marketing 
influencer. It has exploited the desire for cultural enrichment in 
travel for an industrialized form of tourism, turning it into a consumer 
product, generating revenue from the historic center and commodifying 
its spaces, as has also been done in Noto. We are therefore far from a 
sustainable tourism that respects the environment, local traditions, and 
residents; we are in its uncontrolled reverse, in that mass hedonism 
where everyone wants everything at all costs, perpetuating a constant 
state of dissatisfaction on which we depend and from which we are never 
satisfied. In short, this mass tourism, in addition to having exploited 
the generic individual, has become almost a top-down order imposed by 
the ideology of consumption, in which the generic individual, in 
addition to consuming, self-consumes to increase the GDP of the new 
local, national, and global leopards hiding behind other fashionable masks.

What economic benefits does this mass tourism bring to the city? Is 
there real respect for those who work there? We need to rethink tourism 
to find a balance between the city and its tourists, a balance that 
promotes sustainable cultural tourism for all, respecting the identity 
of the places and their budgets, and avoiding defacement. This must be 
done before the Trojan horse, which currently appears and disappears 
like a spectre, establishes itself in front of the Porta Nazionale as a 
symbol of the city's complete expropriation.

I close this article by returning once again to a brief comment by 
Pasolini, who wrote on September 4, 1975: "I saw them, I saw them in 
crowds on Ferragosto. They were images of the most insolent frenzy, so 
committed were they to having fun at all costs that they seemed to be in 
a state of 'raptus': it was difficult not to consider them despicable or 
at least consciously reckless. They were deceived, mocked. A sudden and 
violent reversal (as far as Italy is concerned) of the mode of 
production destroyed all their previous 'particular' and 'real' jobs, 
changing their form and behavior: and the new, purely pragmatic, 
existential values of 'well-being' stripped them of all dignity. But 
that wasn't enough: after having been rendered monstrous (puppets guided 
by a 'new' hand, and therefore as if mad), the well-being, the cause of 
their monstrosity, disappears, while the puppet dance continues."

Roberto Bellassai

https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/
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