LA GOULETTE, Tunisia — Worshippers crying “
Hail Mary” walk alongside their Muslim neighbors in
the Tunisian port district of La Goulette, harking back to a time when
Sicilians were at the heart of neighborhood life.
اضافة اعلان
The Madonna of
Trapani procession, marking the Catholic Feast of the Assumption, is an echo of
a “forgotten history” researchers of Italian origin say offers a model for
coexistence with migrants, among faiths and ethnicities.
The annual
procession was born in the mid-19th century when La Goulette was home to tens
of thousands of Sicilians, as well as Sephardic Jews, Maltese, Greeks, and
Spaniards.
“They shared each
other’s celebrations and sadnesses, and took part in each other’s events”, said
Silvia Finzi, editor of Italian-language Tunisian newspaper Corriere di Tunisi
— one of some 120 Italian publications founded between 1838 and 1956, the year
Tunisia gained independence from France.
There were some red
lines — for example, there were few marriages across religious divides.
But for centuries,
Tunisia has been able to peacefully host a mosaic of migrant communities
“without forcing them to forget their roots”, Finzi said.
The Madonna of
Trapani procession started after Tunisia’s Muslim ruler Ahmed Bey — whose
mother was a Sardinian Christian — gave a piece of land for the building of a
church in 1848.
It was Sicilian
fishermen from La Goulette, a port district on the edge of Tunis, who started
the annual procession from the church to the sea to mark the Feast of the
Assumption on August 15 and pray for a good catch and protection on the high
seas.
The mariners lived
among Muslims and Jews in a part of La Goulette nicknamed “Little Sicily”.
Trapani is a city
in the northwest of the Italian island.
The procession was
suspended in 1964 following Tunisia’s independence from France, but was
relaunched in 2017.
This year it
attracted hundreds of
Christians,
Muslims, and the mayors of Tunis and La
Goulette.
Example of respect
The Catholic Archbishop of Tunis, Ilario Antoniazzi, said such a
procession would be “impossible” in other parts of the Maghreb region.
The 74-year-old,
who has spent some 50 years in the region, said Muslim-majority Tunisia’s
“respect” for those of other faiths is “an example for many Arab countries”.
That is partly
due to the long history of Sicilians in
La Goulette, just 220km from the
Italian territory, the Mediterranean’s biggest island.
Alfonso Campisi,
a professor of Italian civilization descended from Sicilian settlers, has spent
two decades researching the “forgotten history” of some 130,000 Italians in the
North African country, mostly Sicilians.
He wrote a book
and produced a documentary to “give a voice” to those who have continued to
live in La Goulette.
His film on the
“Sicilians of Africa”, which was shown in France, Italy and Tunis this summer,
also examines the fate of those who left after independence and ended up in
refugee camps in northern Italy.
Missing link
Italians had headed to
Tunisia in waves over the 19th and 20th century,
and they were to leave a lasting mark on Tunisian architecture, cuisine (lots
of pasta plates), and even the local dialect of Arabic.
Many were craft
workers, masons, mechanics, or farm workers who fled Italy to escape poverty or
Cosa Nostra, the Sicilian mafia.
Most left Tunisia
after independence, when Tunisians were given priority in public jobs and land
ownership.
Nadia Naji, a
Tunisian lecturer in Italian, said that Tunisians themselves “don’t know this
period of history, there is a missing link”.
Italian heritage
is everywhere from the colonial-era buildings of Tunis to words that have
infiltrated the local dialect of Arabic — such as the names of fish (triglia
for red mullet) and expressions such as “d’accordo” (OK).
“My grandparents
used to tell me about their Jewish, Italian, and Sicilian friends,” said Atef
Chedli, a radiologist aged 65, after seeing Campisi’s documentary.
“It wasn’t
‘Tunisians and the others’. The Jews were very well integrated, so were the
Italians and the Maltese.”
Under French rule
from 1881 to 1956, “Italians were close to the Tunisian population (partly)
because they had the same inferior status” and because of a shared,
Mediterranean culture, Finzi said.
Both Campisi and
Finzi think this Tunisian model can serve as an example nowadays for the
integration of migrants in Italy, France, and in the rest of the world.
Tunisia “was able
to welcome a mass of poor people, from Sicily but also from Greece, Corsica,
and Spain,” said Campisi.
Those who remember that
period, Tunisian Sicilians and Tunisians, have a mix “of nostalgia and a desire
for Tunisia to remain an open and tolerant country” that welcomes migrants,
Finzi added.
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