A-Infos (en) Italy, Sicilia Libertaria #457 - Turco - Lost Roads (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Sometimes the context is more important than the text: it is one of the 
(few) semiotics lessons that I have carried with me since university. 
And so when last February 12 the president of the Sicilian Region Renato 
Schifani spoke about the possibility of a highway to get more easily 
from Palermo to San Vito Lo Capo, the first question I asked myself was: 
where did Schifani make this beautiful pinsata known? At the 
International Tourism Exchange, an event that since 1980 has brought 
together in Milan tour operators, travel agents, companies and firms 
promoting tourism or in any case linked to the sector's related 
industries. It would have been enough to understand where Schifani was 
going: never give priority to those who live in the territories, it is 
better to provide assistance to the desires of those who speculate on 
the territories or treat them in an extractive way. Then I thought: but 
let's look at Schifani's words exactly. "In San Vito - he said - there 
is a beautiful seafront but then at a certain point you have to take a 
huge detour. This project would make San Vito take an even greater leap 
in quality even if in reality it is already growing a lot on its own, 
but we would fix an important urban aspect making it more easily 
accessible also for the Palermo area with motorists forced up to now to 
make a huge detour". Words that confirm that the landing of these 
declarations is the tourist who leaves from Palermo by car and who to 
get to the city of Trapani, to compete for a piece of beach with tens of 
thousands of people and to shell out 20 euros for an overcooked couscous 
or for a bland pane cunzatu, will take about two hours between curves, 
queues and breathtaking views.

The proposal of the highway has rightly made many people indignant. 
First of all the environmental associations and the opposition parties, 
who feared that behind Schifani's idea there could be the re-proposal of 
the project for a coastal road from Scopello to San Vito that sparked 
many protests in 1980. "From that great popular mobilization of 45 years 
ago - recalls Legambiente Sicilia - the Riserva dello Zingaro was born, 
which is the symbol of Sicilian protected areas, and the regional 
regulations on protected natural areas". Among other things, if 
Schifani's proposal really concerned this project, it would be necessary 
to deface the reserve that was created in the meantime. However, it 
seems that this is not the intention of the region. This is what Stefano 
Pellegrino, president of the Forza Italia deputies in the Sicilian 
Regional Assembly, says, according to whom in reality the route 
discussed would develop south of the Riserva dello Zingaro without 
crossing it. In other words, it would be the so-called "road of 
marbles", which starts from Castellammare del Golfo, more precisely from 
the castle of Baida, to arrive precisely in San Vito. A road that 
already exists but is not yet completed, on which in 2020 the mayors of 
the area had asked the region to intervene. Pellegrino says that the 
controversy is "instrumental and baseless" when in reality it would be 
enough to speak clearly, instead of launching proposals without even 
specifying them. But power, as we know, is based on these delaying 
tactics. What is certain, in any case, is that all the speeches made aim 
exclusively at a strengthening of the existing, where the only means of 
transportation is the car, the most evident symbol of individual freedom 
as conceived by neoliberalism. For those who want to reach San Vito, 
whether from Palermo or any other location, there are no trains - the 
closest and "equipped" station is Trapani - and there are few buses - 
and not even designed to be tourist-friendly, so much so that from Punta 
Raisi airport anyone who wants to go to San Vito must first go to the 
Sicilian capital and take a bus from there. Schifani's proposal does not 
even take into account that the car-based model is in crisis: European 
car manufacturers have been recording production declines for years, 
Sicilian families are so in debt that a vacation in San Vito is the last 
of their goals, the new generations do not even drive or at least tend 
not to own a car, preferring to turn to car sharing or other types of 
sharing. It is clear that the plan is to fleece foreign tourists, 
subjecting them to a tour de force where there is very little of the 
rest and relaxation typical of a vacation, and to leverage that portion 
of Sicilian people who can still afford this plasticized and timeless 
well-being. After all, in Italy, tourism is the sector that has somehow 
not caused the economy to collapse: in the last 24 months, in the face 
of continuously declining industrial production, tourist presences have 
increased, generating more than 100 billion euros of added value, with 
an impact of tourism on the Gross Domestic Product at a national level 
of about 6%. In Sicily, if possible, these data are even more evident. 
As reported by the Sicilian Region's tourism observatory, "in 2024, in 
fact, tourist presences in Sicily increased by 8.5% overall compared to 
the previous year, with a significant increase in the non-hotel sector 
(+16.7%) and a growth in foreign presences of +13.2%. In particular, a 
very positive figure concerns the non-summer months (January-March), 
which recorded an increase of 23%, a sign of an ever greater 
deseasonalization of tourism on the island. Furthermore, in the first 
six months of 2024, Sicilian cultural sites recorded over 2 million 
visitors, with a significant increase compared to the same period in 
2023". Finally, the ones who had the greatest impact on this influx were 
tourists from abroad (the United States above all), while, look at that, 
local tourism decreased. Proposals like Schifani's highway only 
encourage this model: although not explicitly stated, the intention is 
to build an artery (whatever it is) that is used mainly by foreign 
tourists and, incidentally, also by Sicilians. At this rate we will end 
up with infrastructures and services guaranteed only to those who are in 
Sicily for a few days and can afford them. This is why proposals like 
Schifani's must be opposed. But environmental activism must take a step 
forward. Because this is not about the possible questioning of the 
Zingaro reserve, an essential issue in any case, but about the 
opposition to a development model. In recent years, environmental 
activism has focused, still timidly and only in part, on the request for 
sustainable mobility. Fearing, for example, an enhancement of the train, 
considered the most ecological means of transport. True, but the word 
sustainable should be accompanied by the word accessible. The train must 
be accessible from an economic point of view, while today buses, thanks 
to the substantial subsidies from the region that began with Cuffaro and 
have always been confirmed, cost less and take less time to reach 
places; the train must be accessible in places, while today it 
practically excludes anyone who does not live in the three large 
metropolitan cities of Sicily; the train must continue to be accessible 
to all minorities and indeed promotional campaigns must be promoted in 
this sense, because on the train we are all equal. The fight for 
mobility in Sicily is one that must be undertaken, extended and that 
could act as a glue for other mobilizations. More than a superhighway, 
in San Vito Lo Capo, and wherever we choose to go, we want to go by any 
means necessary.

https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/
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