L'île de Beauté

Several years ago, thanks to the generous hospitality of Madame Poggioli, I had the opportunity and the privilege to visit Porto, to stay and visit l'île de beauté, (Corsica) for a month. There, I enjoyed the most enriching vacation of my life. From the first moment, I was in static awe in front of this view.

Corsica is a mountainous island in the Mediterranean, pertaining to France. Its roads are sinuous, narrow and dizzying, where tourists buses have to pass one at a time, but goats, pigs and boars can go in herds, and cows can even nap.

The most prominent peculiarity is its people's contradictory hospitality. Tourists are received warmly and treated generously with the silent discretion of their pride of being Corsican. They practice a tacit "don't mess with Corsica" slogan whose evidence one can see in road signs like this one.

Then, I started reading this Corsican history book from the point of view of a Corsican: "Histoire de Corse" by Francescu-Maria Perfettini, and came to understand the things I was seeing around. The island had changed owners for centuries, either invaded, negotiated or given as a gift among the powers of the moment. People had been killed, raped, tortured, harassed, humiliated, repressed, forced to change identities, go hungry, just to mention a few of the vexations they suffered through history.  This historic suffering, the sense of constant insecurity, has force them to only believe and trust themselves for survival and safety. They are strong and solid like the mountain they inhabit, They developed their own alliances to protect themselves. It's a people that now see any foreigner as a potential threat from whom they need to take preventive measures. There is a general  yearn for independence, taken to the extreme by some radical groups that fight actively for it. 

I think their flag is emblematic and accurately representative of this sentiment. It's a black human head over a white background. 

(For the readers from the USA who may perceive a sign of racism in that, it has nothing to do with racism). The story goes like this: It represents a Moore's head girded by a white cloth tied on the back. It refers to the story of a Corsican youth from Aléria whose fiancee had been abducted by Moore corsairs and sold to the King of Aragon. This young man would have delivered her and killed the King's lieutenant when this one came after him to Corsica. The young man showed the lieutenant's head around the island. And that's the head that has become the official emblem of Corsica. In words, -since I can't deny I am a translator- the message is: "Don't dare to mess with us, you'll suffer the consequences".

I learned that they wrote the first Constitution in 1735, even before the 13 American colonies did, that established a democratic government organization based on "le droit des peuples à disposer d'eux-mêmes" [the right of peoples to exercise self-determination]. Nietzsche is quoted to have said later: "There are only three peoples in Europe capable of will: the Spanish, the English and the Corsican".

As the Corsican say themselves, they have been frequently conquered, but never submitted. La Corse, souvent conquise, jamais soumise, it's their slogan.

To keep vigilant on the sea, they built massive stone towers around the island, like the one on the first picture I share here, which is the one at Porto. Once someone would catch sight of a possible enemy ship, they would build a fire on the tower, then the next tower would see the light, and build a fire in turn and so on, the message would go around the island in 3 hours. [To be continued]