Total War, Alien Control, and the Sicilian Community

gratified by the spectacle of this Sicilian community liberated from Fascism only five years before, preparing to go to the polls. Along the main street that links the medieval east and west gates there was a row of political party headquarters: Christian Democrats, Qualunquistas, Liberal, Monarchist, Republican, Right Socialist, Left Socialist, Social Movement, Communist, Sicilian Independence. The walls of the buildings on both sides of the street were plastered with party posters, but no one paid any attention to them. Down the street a crowd of men, dressed in remnants of Italian and American army uniforms, listened with upturned faces to a series of orators speaking from a second story balcony opposite the main entrance of the basilica. The speakers competed with the hoarse shouts of the peddlers in the nearby market, the church bells, the explosion of firecrackers, and the town band. Women dressed in black skirted this crowd to enter the church, for although they too would go to the polls, they were prohibited by local custom from loitering in public. The orators followed one another just as if they were engaged in a contest at school. On finishing his speech each orator retired into the room beyond the balcony. The crowd listened quietly and to all of the speakers. There was no cheering and no applause, though the orators tried the usual tricks of their trade to arouse their listeners. Neither a fiery Dominican friar nor a cold, rational Communist speaker was able to obtain an overt response from the men below

Alien · Geography · Linguistics · Sicilian · Sociology · Demography · Italian Fascism and Post-war Society · Philosophy