By Giovanni di NapoliOn my way to work today I made a detour to the Italian Consul General’s office in NYC. In a small but symbolic gesture I unfurled the Bourbon flag of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies at the front gate to display my displeasure with the Italian state's plans to celebrate, over the course of the next year, the 150th anniversary of Italian unification, which will be on March 17, 2011.
My friend and I observed a moment of silence to reflect on the tragic historical event and pay our respects to those who fought, suffered and died in defense of their homeland. In a final act of defiance, before leaving, we saluted the heroic memory of King Francis II and Queen Maria Sophia and read the proposed national anthem for the future independent Southern Italian nation, Ritornati dal passato ("Back from the past"), attributed to Riccardo Pazzaglia.
Let God save you, dear homelandthat stretches out in this ancient sea of heroes,
cradle of thought
that, born in Greece,
in this land flourished anew.
Erased from history,
we are once again flying your flags.
On the sacred towers of Gaeta
we write again the word: Dignity.
Soldier of the Volturno,
you that fell here,
no one for a hundred years
has engraved your name.
The children you never knew
will return honor to you.
Back from the past,
those who believe in us this time will win.
Go ahead, drummer,
beat like you once did:
without luck
but not without courage.
Fate that betrayed us
now reunites us.
Back from the past
those who believe in us
this time will win.
As a descendant of the Southern Italian Diaspora community in the United States I find it difficult not to feel revulsion over the planned state-sponsored festivities in honor of Italy's coming anniversary. They are a reminder of why my ancestors (and those of millions of others) left our ancestral homeland to come to America. They glorify the events and personages that caused incalculable hardships on the Mezzogiorno and the loss of our distinct ethnic identity. They reinforce the myths of Italian unification, which by nature require the wholesale vilification of Southern Italy.
Everyone knows that the victors write history, and the history of the South is no exception; it is written from the conquerors perspective. Despite the subjugation, colonization and legacy of oppression, the conquest of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies by Piedmont has been made out to be a boon, instead of a bane. With the limited space available it's impossible to recount the whole story here, but I would like to give a few examples of what I mean.
For starters, it is generally accepted that the nineteenth century political and social movement for Italian unification called the Risorgimento ("Resurgence") was fought to liberate Italy from foreign (i.e. Austrian) domination. If this was the case then why was King Francis II of the Two Sicilies considered "foreign" but his cousin, King Umberto of Savoy, was not? If, as some people claim, it was to save a backward and oppressed people from a corrupt and abusive despot than how do they explain the fact that Sardinia, a possession of Piedmont for 150 years, was actually poorer and worse off than the regions of the Two Sicilies? Considering the large numbers of Southerners killed, and many more disenfranchised and scattered by the war and subsequent occupation, it is difficult to see how the rule of Piedmont was superior to that of the Bourbons.What's also conveniently forgotten is the fact that Charles of Bourbon drove the Austrians out of Southern Italy more than a hundred years before their Northern neighbors did, therefore restoring the sovereignty of the ancient Regno, first established in 1130 by Roger II. Unlike the South, Northern Italy was never a unified nation, even after the touted battle of Legnano (1176) during the War of the Communes. Sure some towns joined forces and rebelled against Emperor Frederick I ("Barbarossa") but they never formed a nation. Also, we mustn't forget that certain towns, Lodi for example, remained loyal to the Empire.
As the Sicilian Traditionalist Baron Giulio Cesare Andrea Evola pointed out in his Men Among the Ruins:
"The League of Communes was not followed by a national unification, not even of the purely political, schismatic, and anti-aristocratic type that was first exemplified in France by Philip the Fair. The Communes were followed by the Seignories, with their suspicious figures of petty, tyrannical princes and condottieri–while in Florence we could witness the unprecedented case of the elevation of a money-lending family to the status of a princely dynasty: thus, the Medici were entrusted with the political government of the city. Generally speaking, what ensues is political chaos, struggle, and turmoil–in the name not of the nation, but rather the faction and the most extreme particularism." [Men Among the Ruins, Inner Traditions, 2002, p. 185]The truth of the matter is the Risorgimento was a war against Tradition and religion by subversive forces consumed with false notions of progress and humanism. Much like their later communist brethren, who had no problem with murdering millions of kulaks to create their “workers paradise,” the Mazzinians, Jacobins, Carbonari, etc. had no problem with murdering thousands of so-called "brigands" (some estimates put the figure as high as one million dead) for a unified Italy.
The more we examine the Risorgimento, the less romantic it becomes, and the more it appears to be a period of bloody conquest hidden behind the facade of social progress. Like them or not, the Bourbons of the Two Sicilies were a major part of Southern Italian history. In order to get a better idea of who we are, we need to know our history.
Consider these words from a recent correspondence:
“For better or for worse, the truth is that unlike other dynasties, the Bourbons lawfully ascended to the throne by recognized rules of succession (even if we argue about international law, war and the law of noble succession) and heavily invested in the betterment of the kingdom, its infrastructure and its trade and commerce. Once the Bourbons came on the scene positive results came about. Naples was an Enlightenment city with academic ties to England and France and became the third largest economy and power after London and Paris. I can tell you that proof is in the fact that I myself have seen English and French publications of the period that praised the country for its wide access to education for all classes and the government’s willingness and ability to build and foster industrialization through both native efforts and through attracting competent foreign investors who brought new emerging technologies…The Bourbons certainly endowed more departments for research and development in the universities in Naples and Palermo than the next hundred years of governments did. Our ancestors had the first train and tracks in Italy, the first gas lights and exported more cotton, silk and wine and minted double the amount of coins than all of northern Italy combined. If you point that out today many people are shocked because they have been fed the image of our people as illiterate cafoni, cammorristi and mafiosi and they are used to images of a post 1865 underdeveloped country. What is interesting is that after the 1850’s when the geopolitics of Europe changed the anti-Naples propaganda began and British in particular began seeking to create incidents with the government and to accuse the government of corruption and excessive violence against dissidents. The Bourbons spoke Neapolitan and ate Neapolitan food. Several queens made presepio figurines and their own Christmas decorations. They had a real and visceral rapport with the people because they were born there and were linked to many ancient Southern families. This was and is maddening for their detractors because unlike other ruling families imposed from the outside they did not simply overtax the people and separate themselves from the people. For this reason the House of Bourbon remains a great symbol of a proud native Southern tradition. Since they were the last lawful rulers of an independent country, in a way a large part of our history stops with them. I guess that’s why in the 1960’s the Neoborbonici focused on them to build a consensus to reclaim a tangible identity. So for a lot of us, it is not just that we liked the dynasty itself, but we’re inspired by that entire lost world of our ancestors.”My views concerning the Risorgimento and Italian unification may cause people to think that I despise Northern Italians, but that is untrue. Like most people, many Northerners know only what they were taught. Northerners who are honest about the past, or who have no ill will toward the South, I would be happy to befriend. As for Northerners who want to be separated from us, I can understand that, I feel the same way. The problem is with those who wish to dominate and exploit us, and they are as active today as they were in the past. Anti-Southern sentiment continues to be kept alive in modern Italy in order to falsely justify the invasion and to counter any possible claims for restitution. Today Italy is willing to spend Billions in reparations and aid to hostile nations like Lybia, but has done precious little to acknowledge its actions against Southern Italians, who are supposed to be part of the Italian nation.The culture of greed and exploitation imposed by the Risorgimento has not only oppressed the South, but has finally eaten away at the native communities of the North as well. Not satisfied with exploiting Southerners, cheap labor has been imported in such excess that foreigners have formed political blocks that compete with native Italians for resources. Concessions are given to outsiders at the expense of Italians themselves, especially the poor.
The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was doing well enough before Garibaldi and the House of Savoy chose to interfere with them and didn’t need to be “rescued” by bullets or cannon balls. The egalitarian promises made by the invaders were as empty as such promises usually are, and now they have the gall to celebrate 150 years of occupation and socioeconomic failure.
I refuse to celebrate what Piedmont and their allies did to my ancestral homeland, and will not ignore the troubled legacy their false promises have left us today.
