Deep Dive: Palermo Patchwork – Ink Pen

For five non-consecutive terms, until 2022, Leoluca Orlando was mayor of Palermo, the capital of Sicily. During that time, Orlando put forward a “cosmopolitan vision of local identity” — in other words, that the city had an essence, and that essence was multicultural.

In “’Palermo is a Mosaic’: Cosmopolitan Rhetoric in Sicily’s Capital,” a recent article in the magazine Modern Italy, Sean Wyer writes writes of Orlando’s message: how he communicated it, why he saw its value, how it was received, and the risks inherent in insisting that a city has a true nature.

Orlando was not the first to embrace this image of Palermo. As Wyer explains, “Sicilians often emphasize the complex cultural ‘mix’ of their island, which stems from its history as a place of invasion and its long experience of emigration and immigration.” But Orlando, one of Sicily’s most recognizable politicians, reinforced the idea. Wyer argues that this fight against intolerance is linked to another of Orlando’s struggles: against the Mafia.

Wyer was particularly interested in Orlando’s social media posts, particularly his Facebook missives. He has more than 85,000 followers on the platform and has posted thousands of times since 2012.

Wyer argues that Orlando argued his case by combining past and present: “To construct a vision of Palermo’s local identity, Orlando draws connections between periods in Sicilian history and the contemporary reality of Palermo, arguing that these display features inherent to Palermo and its inhabitants.” Orlando attempted to argue that fascism and even the Mafia were an “aberration” in Palermo’s history.

“Palermitanize”

For some of his commentators, it made sense to use Palermo’s past to justify an open attitude in the present: one commentator wrote: “Everyone who comes to Palermo ‘Palermitanizes’ himself, and often the Indians and the Senegalese speak our dialect better than we do.”

Others, however, rejected the existence of such parallels between past practice and current policy: as Wyer notes: “One commentator stresses that any get together in medieval Sicily was short-lived: Frederick II (1198–1250) expelled the remaining Muslims from Sicily to the mainland. In other words, it is by no means easy to determine what lessons, if any, can be learned from Sicilian history.”

Orlando attempted to use both rhetorical and historical arguments, comparing the city to a “mosaic,” which, as Wyer notes, is an important art form in the city, the core of its cultural identity. Again, while he was not the first to use this phrase, he amplified it: “Each tile makes a separate and necessary contribution to the whole. The whole, in turn, is not only capable of accommodating contradictions, differences, and tensions, but also requires contrasts to convey the desired artistic effect: the whole mosaic is greater than the sum of its parts.”

Orlando’s posts were used symbolically (to inspire a kind of ethos in and towards others in Palermo) and practically (to promote concrete political platforms). Wyer wonders whether the effect is to advance an inclusive vision or, alternatively, whether it is self-serving, obscuring the real xenophobia on the island. Perhaps the answer is both. “This identity narrative will be articulated, reshaped and contested in the decades to come,” Wyer writes, “whether or not elected representatives continue to play an active role in promoting it.”