Monday, May 29, 2006

Neo Bourbons: Who, Why -The Resurrection of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies??

 

The ANNOTICO Report

 

I am not a fan of Monarchies, nor do I have respect for the hereditary rights of Monarchies, Oligarchies, Dynasties, or Robber Barons who built their fortunes on the exploitation of their own and other peoples.

 

With that said, I am addressing the Web Site of  "Neo Bourbons". It appears to me that they are proposing the return of the Bourbon Monarchy, somewhat like those who wish to see the return of the Savoy Monarchy, both of which I would vehemently oppose. Their return might be as benign as is the British Monarchy, which is the antithesis of Democracy, and a bad joke. (Does Lega Nord fit in here somewhere?)

 

Setting aside the Aims of the Neo Bourbons, and recognizing their "glossing over" of the Bourbons, and ignoring that they feel the greatest contribution of the Bourbons was that they were "glamorous", it is worth listening to their complaints of the Southern Italy vs Northern Italy.

 

But BEFORE we deal with the History of Modern Southern Italy/Sicily it is important to give a least a brief historical background of  Southern Italy/Sicily.

 

Sicily and Southern Italy protruded into the Mediterranean Sea (which was for the longest time the center of Civilization), and thus was strategic and coveted,targeted and often conquered by ambitious rulers.

 

The first heyday was Magna Grecia (800 BC to 500BC, although Greek presence continued to 212 BC).

Italy provided a sanctuary for the most creative (philosophical, painting, literature,science) and entrepreneurial minds that were stifled in a suffocating stratified society on the main Greek Islands. Magna Grecia was the seat of the Pythagorean and Eleatic (Parmenides) systems of philosophy, and the home of  Archemedes, Empedocles, and an unending list of others.

It is important to Note that ancient Greece never became a nation.The "Iliad' tells that the patriotism of Greeks were to their city-states, who joined forces to fight their common foe, Troy and then Persia. It was  that inter mural competition of the Colonies of those city-states that brought great prosperity and culture to Southern Italy and Sicily, far surpassing that on the main Greek Islands, and also lead to constant inter mural battles, that weakened them so, they were no match for the highly disciplined Romans.

In ancient times, Sicily was covered with extremely rich farmland, whose copious wheat harvests fed virtually the entire western part of the Roman Empire, and called the "bread basket" of the Mediterranean. Its thick forests were renowned, but the Romans plundered them to build their great naval fleets and the myriad wooden homes that fueled Nero's infamous fire. Sicily is now a mostly barren and arid land.

However, Rome's most lasting (and infamous) contribution to the island came in fostering the great land ownerships which eventually impoverished the peasantry and led, many centuries later, to the founding of secret societies aimed at destroying the fabulously wealthy landlords. In Palermo, these groups were known as Mafia.

The Romans were replaced by the Vandals and the Ostrogoths, who demolished far more than they built, and were swept away by the Byzantines, who were followed by The Arabs.

The Normans took over in 1061, and tore down many  signs of Arab culture, but brought Sicily to a new level of prosperity.

Sicily became one of the centers of the Western world, under the realm of Frederick II, "Stupor Mundi", the Swabian king (von Hohenstaufen dynasty) and a Holy Roman Emperor that ruled from Palermo, from 1198 to 1250, when he died,  

Thereupon, Charles of Anjou, French allies streamed into the island and established a new aristocracy so despised that it led to the popular uprising called the Sicilian Vespers.

Eventually, in 1302, the French gave way to the Aragonese who dominated until 1734.The Aragonese clergy, while wielding the heavy arm of the Inquisition, effectively conspired to keep almost all artistic traces of the Renaissance out of the island.

The earthquake that devastated the southeastern provinces in 1693 became the springboard for Sicily's most glorious period, the Baroque, in that all of the major cities had to be rebuilt from the ground up.

After the Aragonese, Sicily passed briefly into the hands of the Austrians, to be willingly rescued in 1734 by the Bourbons of Spain, whose throne was actually located in Naples. During one forced exile in Palermo, the Bourbon king Ferdinand's wife Maria Carolina (sister of Marie Antoinette) built La Favorita, a magnificent refuge in which to hide from the subjects she thoroughly loathed. Sicily remained in Bourbon hands until 1861, when unification of Italy took place. 

The name Two Sicilies derived from the splitting of the Kingdom of Sicily in 1282. Though ruled as a unit for a century and a half, the island and mainland parted ways when the Sicilian Vespers rose up and threw off Neapolitan rule, accepting in its stead Aragon. The Angevin Kings of Naples retained the mainland and continued the name Kingdom of Sicily  in order to assert their claim. The two kingdoms were not under the same ruler until 1735 under Charles (to become later Charles III of Spain), and were not legally reunited until after the 1815 Congress of Vienna. Between 1816 and 1848 the island of Sicily experienced no less than three popular revolts against Bourbon rule, including the revolution of independence of 1848, when the island was fully independent of Bourbon control for 16 months. Apart from having occurred at an interesting point in European history, there is a clear link between this revolution and th! e more well known historical event that was to occur 11 years hence (the Risorgimento).

One can be in the uncomfortable position of being torn between those of the North Italy,(who while "home grown" are more proud of their Lombard, Germanic, French, and Austrian Roots),  and Southern Italy (who are more proud of their "foreign rulers" of the kingdom of the Normans, the Swabians, the Anjous, the Aragons.and the Bourbon dynasty).

 

How can one make such a choice????

 

WHY WE ARE NEO-BOURBONS

By Associazione culturale Neoborbonica

On the cold afternoon of December 27, 1894, in the town of Arco, province of Trento, Francesco II of Bourbon, the last king of the Two Sicilies, died.The Bourbon dynasty no longer governed Southern Italy after a reign of 126 years.One hundred years after the death of King Francesco, nobody remembers the Bourbons anymore except as a negative symbol of the past.

Never has history been so maliciously falsified as it has been with this king and with this dynasty.126 years of prestige and of glory, of art and culture, of theatres and factories, of laws and achievements, of public works and archeological excavations, of order, of security, of riches, and of generosity have all been cancelled from our collective memory.

The Piedmontese, with the self-interested complicity of the English and the French, invaded the peaceful Kingdom of the Two Sicilies which extended from Latium to Sicily over all of Southern Italy. Francesco II, at 24 years age, found himself fighting an unexpected and undesired war against his "Italian brothers". N

Notwithstanding the betrayal and corruption of many in high places, the Neapolitan army fought valiantly alongside its king and its heroic queen, Maria Sofia, who has barely nineteen. It surrendered after 93 days of siege in the fortress of Gaeta, at dawn on February 14. 1861.Thousands of heroic citizens of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies died on the battlefield. In the same way, thousands of men, women, and children were shot in the campaign against Southern Italy - they were called "bandits" or "brigands", but they were, in fact, the last soldiers and defenders of a history, a tradition, and a culture that would die with them forever.

But how were they before this fatal unification of Italy?Certainly everything was not perfect, but it is worth noting that Naples was the capital of a kingdom born seven centuries earlier. Together with London, Paris and Vienna, Naples was an essential point of reference with regards to both political and cultural affairs in Italy and in Europe. Then, suddenly, it became a unimportant province of a farway and enemy kingdom.It is a fact that Southern Italian reserves held twice the amount of gold and silver than all the other Italian states combined.

It is a fact that Piedmont carried away 80 million ducats cash from our banks (more than $ 1 Billion). It is a fact that we had more than 5000 factories (among the great nations in the world).It is a fact that the streets of our beautiful cities were full of tourists that came from every part of the world.It is a fact that the Piedmontese made us pay more than twice the level of taxes we paid before unification.

Only after unification, due to widespread hunger, more than five million emigrants left their families and homes and would never again see their native land.In the streets of our cities, we no longer saw tourists.Our factories, sooner or later, were are closed and still today we buy, eat, drink, wear, and use only products that come from Northern Italy.

One cannot say today that Southern Italians live well; the average income of a Northern Italian is twice that of a Southerner; the ten poorest cities in Italy are all in the South. With unemployment, poor services, government crisis, and the collapse of a flawed system, a rosy future for our children is highly unlikely.Still, from the elementary school texts to those used by college students, we hear a tale much different than the truth.

In 140 years, they have made us ashamed of being Southerners. They have said that our dialects were "vulgar", that our traditions were uncivilized, that being a "Southerner" or a "Bourbon" meant to be backward, nostalgic, ignorant, or uncivil.We have begun, as Tacitus wrote two thousand years ago, to "admire their way of life, of dress or of speech, forgetting our own and thinking that their's was civilization when it was only a ploy to dominate us."

Until 1860, the citizens of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies were respected and esteemed in all the world because they were citizens of an ancient and prestigious kingdom - the kingdom of the Normans, the Swabians, the Anjous, and the Aragons.We are respected and esteemed because  we were subjects of a king that belonged to the Bourbon dynasty - an ancient dynasty but one capable of governing with wisdom and love.

Upon  all of this is the unbearable weight of the destruction of the historical consciousness, of the culture, of the traditions,and of the identity of The South. 

Many people got rich with the unification of Italy, but not the Southerners.

Why  be a Bourbon today? Because the time has finally come to understand who we were and who we can be. The time has come to begin to uncover our lost roots and to give to our children the roots they never knew - to give to them. at least, a sense of pride in being Southern Italian.

To be a Neo-Bourbon means to have understood history with the desire and drive to construct a new history on the base of the old for all the people of Southern Italy. Certainly the Bourbon period was not the "Golden Age" and one cannot say we would have entered into a "Golden Age" if the Bourbons had continued to reign, but no one can deny that, during that cold winter of 144 years ago, the people of Southern Italy ceased to be a People. 144 years ago, Southern Italy ceased to be a nation. The historical memory and consciousness, whether it be Greek or Latin, Norman or Swabian,  Anjou or Aragonese, began to be extinguished on the battlements of Gaeta.

Some may call us "nostalgic", but how can one not be when one walks through the streets of our run-down and degraded cities or passes before our ancient buildings, churches, and monuments, now lost or forgotten? Yes, we are nostalgic and proud of being such, only  that our looking back serves a purpose. Now, more than ever, it is necessary to understand what are the real causes of our current problems in Southern Italy and how we can find the road toward a better future. The system and the ideology that have governed our politics and our culture for more than a century have demonstrated that they are based on a deliberate lie. Southern politicians and intellectuals over the last century, closed off in isolation from the world around them, soiled the memory of the House of Bourbon of the Two Sicilies, but also demonstrated their incapability of representing or loving their own South.

Honesty, dignity, loyalty, courage, religious faith, wisdom, respect for history, love of art, affection for the land and the people of the Two Sicilies - these were the fundamental characteristics of all the Bourbon kings of Naples. Fortified by these examples and by these symbols, by new ideas and new values, we can and must liberate ourselves from the systems and ideologies that are already collapsing into ruins and are which are responsible for having destroyed the past and the present of an entire people and of putting their future in jeopardy.

Let us reconstruct our historical memory - reconstruct our pride in being Southern Italian - and being to walk together on the long road towards the salvation of our ancient nation and of our ancient dignity

 

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