DONA NOBIS PACEM 2024 - HOLD THE LIGHT

 

At times like these, when peace seems to be further away than ever, it can be very hard to write about it. Yet this is the time when it is most important to do so, to "hold the light", because we have to show that peace is possible, peace is desirable and that peace is essential, even and especially when we are being confronted with horrific images of war in our time every day and evening of our lives.

My generation, the "luckiest ever", some say, saw our first live images of combat and its effects during the dreadful conflict that was the Vietnam War and no one could say, from that period on, that they "didn't know" about it. Even at the time of the Kennedy assassinations, we had not been able to receive live reporting on them in Britain and most people there had not even gathered around a television set before the Coronation of Elizabeth II. The danger, once we were able to see those live images of horrifying events, was that we would lose our capacity to be shocked, become inured to it all. I don't think that most of my generation did, because from us sprang numerous peace movements; we wrote about peace, we studied peace, we campaigned for peace and we sang about peace.

What, then, can we do almost half a century after the fall of Saigon and all the conflicts in between, as we watch, day after day, shocking scenes of a population who are constantly being told to move on but have nowhere to go? A population with no adequate sanitation or access to healthcare, a population that is starving. No one is suggesting that the event that gave rise to all this was not also terrible, but when faced with human cruelty, do we also have to lose our humanity? 

We can protest, we can become part of a peace movement such as this and those of us who live in democracies can convey our concerns to those in power. In countries like the UK, where citizens have direct access to their elected representatives, we can write or speak to them and make our feelings known. Do you think they will not care? I assure you, they will care when they want your vote - which brings me to the matter we are all probably pondering, which is that so much will depend on what happens in the US tomorrow. Those of us in other countries can only hope that there will be light.

Light breaks where no sun shines, wrote the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. And to "hold the light" we have first to see it, so we must not look away from the harrowing scenes on our many devices or from the possibilities for doing something about them. We have to unite in peace, for peace and for the light.

With thanks as always to the wonderful, indefatigable Mimi Lenox, who continues to inspire us to blog for peace.

BlogBlast4Peace on X.

DONA NOBIS PACEM 2023 - WALKING IN PEACE

 

In the midst of a situation so horrendous that most of us cannot bear to look at the images, an eighty-five-year-old Israeli woman who has just been released turns and holds out her hand towards (I am choosing my words carefully here) a member of the organisation that had held her captive.

During a press conference held later Yochevid Lifshiz said she had done so because the man, a paramedic, had treated her kindly and, with others, had attended to her physical needs. She has been criticised for her gesture, but from what I have read since, I gather that the criticism was really directed at the way in which the press conference was handled. Mrs Lifshiz may also have been thinking of her husband, still being held as far as we know, or she may have taken pity on the man's youth. Or perhaps she was simply offering a gesture of humanity in an absurd situation, and I mean “absurd” in the horrific sense.

It has always interested me that in English we talk of a “theatre” of war to denote geographical location and that we also understand the concept of the “theatre of the absurd”. Is there not a connection? Is it not absurd that in the twenty-first century, with the tragedy of World War II still (just) in living memory, we resort to war to attempt to resolve our differences? War – in which the innocent are always hurt. War, in which there are always terrible deeds because war itself is terrible. There has been much talk in recent weeks about the “rules of war” and surely if we can have rules of war, we can have “rules of peace”, rules to which all nations would adhere? Yet we who are fortunate enough, thus far, not to have experienced war in our homelands cannot know what we would do and for the moment we just look at our many screens and wish that it would stop around the world.

My own interest in the theatre of the absurd began with the study of French literature and it is to France that I turn now to bring to your attention an article, about a “theatre of war” from long ago, posted by the BBC on 27^th August this year. At the time, the events recounted in it stopped me in my tracks but I certainly did not expect it to seem so relevant just a few weeks later: Near the town of Meymac in Corrèze, central France, a ninety-eight-year-old former Resistance fighter, as the last surviving witness, recently decided to speak out about the mass execution there of German soldiers by the Resistance. This was because a German army division had killed ninety-nine hostages in Tulle and 643 civilians in the village of Oradour-sur-Glane in retaliation for a Resistance uprising. (Preparations for D-Day had been underway.) The soldiers were made to dig their own graves and afterwards faced the firing squad bravely. Coins, bullets and other objects dating from the period have been found at what was the execution site but no human remains have yet been located. The Corrèze prefecture and Mayor are determined to find the remains of the soldiers, exhume them and, presumably, bury them in a fitting way. In war, says the Mayor, “You can be on the side of the righteous and still carry out what is morally wrong” and this is the sentence that so impressed me in August. As I have said, all sides carry out terrible deeds in war because war itself is terrible.

Do I have an answer for this? No, and neither do presidents, prime ministers, generals and diplomats who are much more knowledgeable than I am. I can only say that peace must be not only the outcome, but peace must be the way.

Of course, no one can negotiate with a tyrant or a fanatic but sometimes, perhaps, it is possible to offer a gesture of humanity: On October 23rd, an eighty-five-year-old Israeli woman who had just been released turned and held out her hand towards a member of the organisation that had held her captive. That day, she walked in peace.

With thanks, as always, to Mimi Lenox, who inspires us all to blog for peace.

DONA NOBIS PACEM 2022

 BLOG4PEACE - NO FREEDOM, NO PEACE

On New Year's Eve 1999 I was having dinner with friends back in Cardiff, Wales. When the clocks struck midnight, we took our glasses of champagne outside, clinked them, watched the spectacular fireworks our hosts had provided, then hugged and kissed and went indoors to drink a toast, proposed by my friend's husband:

"Here's to the new century and we drink this toast in the hope that you young people who are with us tonight will enjoy good things to come, without the kind of horrible events that your grandparents' and, to some extent, your parents' generations had to live through. It seems that you might be lucky."

There is always conflict somewhere and there were conflicts going on even as he spoke, but we all knew that he meant those words sincerely. Then 9/11 happened, less than two years later and the threat of terrorism was everywhere in our daily lives.

As if that were not enough, in 2020, all over the world, we found our peacetime freedoms limited in ways we could never have imagined because of the pandemic and here in Italy we suddenly found ourselves living under a curfew. Every one of us lived in fear of our lives and those of our families and, apart from following the rules, there seemed to be nothing we could do about it. Has this made us better placed to imagine how it feels to have your freedom restricted by war? Perhaps.

On 8th September this year Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II died and on the day of her funeral the world witnessed the passing of an era. As a British person, I watched in sadness but also in awe at the splendour of the uniforms and the precision of my country's military. Yet a part of me was in despair for how, I asked myself, could there ever be a mentality of peace when we carry our revered dead monarchs on gun carriages to the sound of gun salutes and have woven the iconography of war into that of the nation? 

I am very aware that I am writing this one week before Remembrance Sunday in the UK, when the fallen and injured of all wars are commemorated, and I mean no disrespect. My own grandfather was blinded in World War I and I am profoundly grateful to him and to all who have fought for my freedom. I just wish there was another way of obtaining it, as, I am sure, do many soldiers. "No one abhors war more than someone who has been in one", my grandfather used to say. And it was that old warrior Sir Winston Churchill who said,

The one image of the war in Ukraine that I cannot get out of my mind is from the beginning of the conflict, when a young Russian soldier - a child, in fact, for he couldn't have been older than 19 - was captured in a village. The Ukrainian villagers were feeding him and being kind and even helped him to call his mother, at which point he began to cry. Is this what we want? Is this fair, that the old send the young into battle to try and resolve the messes that the former have made? Of course we do not want it and of course it is not fair. Where is the freedom for this young man and others like him to finish his education if he wishes, to have the joy of family, to live? No Freedom, No Peace.  

My thanks, as always, to the indefatigable Mimi Lenox, who inspires us all to blog for peace.

BLOG4PEACE - UKRAINE

 

This evening, Michelle and I will do what I know every parent in America will do, which is hug our children a little tighter,

said President Obama following the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012.

Although the President was referring to a very different situation from the one the world is trying to respond to today, these are words that have stayed with me, for any one of us, through a combination of geographical position and politics, could find ourselves caught up in a war and having to flee. We think it is so far away, and yet it is so near.

Yesterday I read some extracts from the diaries of Ukrainians in Mariupol, and I cannot get out of my mind the distress of a journalist who had finally pushed her beloved dog down the stairs and out of her building, presumably in the hope that the dog would find a way to survive. That could be any dog-owner too, in a sudden change of circumstances.

When Mimi Lenox, the indefatigable founder of Blog4Peace, decided to launch a special Ukraine edition of the project this weekend - we usually do it in November - I, like many bloggers around the world, wondered how I could do it, although I desperately wanted to. How could I put my hands on the keyboard and write about the tragedy in Ukraine when experts on that country and Russia also find their fingers paralysed by horror? But Mimi is right - this is exactly the moment when we must start typing, to show that words matter, that people matter, that peace matters to us all.

My first reaction to the escalating situation a few weeks ago was, "Have we learnt nothing?" but of course it is a myth that we have had continuous peace in Europe since 1945. Man just isn't that wise! And every time, I ask myself, over and over again, "Why?" Every time I see that leaders on both sides of a conflict have at least got themselves round a table, I want to yell, "Keep talking, keep talking! If you can declare a truce for an hour, you can declare a truce for a day, a week, a month, a year or forever. And if you can agree thus far, you can agree to stop it. So stop it!"

I do know it is not as simple as that and I have no idea how you can begin to reason with a tyrant. Yet I imagine that one man does have an idea and that, of course, is President Zelenskyy, for who can fail to admire this brave and inspiring man? Derided at the beginning as "just a comedian", he has defied all the odds. "Just a comedian?" No one is better placed to understand tragedy than someone who has an understanding of comedy, for the two are intrinsically linked. Even in Shakespeare's tragedies, there is often a fool or a clown and much comedy hinges upon a point at which tragedy is (only just) avoided; for example, girl almost marries the wrong man, then something happens that enables her to marry the right one and, to bring Shakespeare into things once more, "All's well that ends well."

Comedians, then, certainly have a role to play, as do the protests of ordinary people and an example of the latter has given me hope today: In the occupied town of Slavutych (Northern Ukraine) citizens continued to protest peacefully as sten grenades and bullets whizzed across the sky above them. They demanded a Russian withdrawal and the release of their imprisoned Mayor. In the end, they got both. Words matter, people matter and peace matters to all of us.

And tonight I will hug my dog a little tighter.

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY 2022

March 8th, La festa della donna, is widely celebrated in Italy and you see mimosa blossom everywhere. Here's why it is a symbol of this day. Arrangements such as those in the photo above are sold in supermarkets and in the streets (the one on the left containing artificial mimosa, of course but it's a pretty idea) and I bought the one below this morning:

Also this morning in my favourite bar all breakfasts and coffee consumed by women were paid for by a local business and we were each given little gifts of flowers - something to brighten our day after two years in which we haven't really been able to celebrate this day.

The dark times, as we know, continue and my thoughts today are with all the women who cannot celebrate International Women's Day in their own homes or even in their own country and who, unlike me, have had no choice in the matter. I'm sure you will join me in wishing them peace.

DONA NOBIS PACEM

 BLOG FOR PEACE 2021

#blog4peace

 

DONA NOBIS PACEM - BLOG FOR PEACE 2019

It is never hard to wish for peace - peace in your personal life and peace in the world - but it is certainly hard to write about it when both your life and your country are in turmoil. The turmoil in my country of origin, Britain, is nothing like that in war-torn countries around the world but there are worrying and upsetting events there - things I never imagined happening in Britain, of all places - and I am among an estimated 1.2 million British people in EU countries who feel, to say the least, unsettled and insecure.

I am not displaced; I am not a refugee; I have faced no danger but I do know that it is hard to begin a life in a new country, even when you are there, as I am, from choice, let alone when you have endured a perilous sea crossing and have been tortured, threatened and physically assaulted along the way, only to find that you are less than welcome when you reach your longed-for destination. My heart goes out, as it always has, to all who experience such trauma.

As I have said, I have experienced none of those things but events in my own country have led me to reflect on how quickly things can change, how events which you can influence little, if at all, can destroy your sense of security and take away your sense of control over what happens to you, simply because of where you find yourself geographically at the time. There is, in my case, also a feeling of guilt. I have no way of knowing if this is shared by others in my position but sometimes I wonder whether, I were in Britain, I would be able to help change things by adding my voice physically instead of, or as well as, through posts like this or through social media. But even if the answer to that were "Yes", it would not be possible so I have to ask myself what else I can do:

When Mimi wrote that her climate change theme this year could include our inner climate, I thought about that a lot and I began to ask myself what inner peace actually is. Millions of dollars have been made by gurus who believe that they can tell you, and perhaps some of them can. I can only say what it is for me and I think I find it in appreciating and remembering moments of love because these are the moments that enable us, sometimes fleetingly, to feel safe. So I would like to share with you some of my moments of love, and therefore of safety and peace, of this year: I found inner peace in February, sitting on a park bench in Norfolk, England, with the sister I never thought I'd meet; I found it in lighting a candle for my wonderful (adoptive) parents and another for the birth mother I never knew in Norwich Cathedral's Peace Globe; making Welshcakes for people is always a pleasure and for me, their aroma is that of home and, therefore, of safety and it was a joy to be able to make them in my sister's kitchen for St David's Day this March; and I have many precious moments of love every day with my dog Bertie, who loves me when I'm happy, grumpy, distracted, focused, tearful, energetic or tired and in the latter case she nuzzles me. She's a rescue dog but I always say it was she who saved me.

I am also lucky in being able to love where I am and my spirits were lifted recently on an autumn evening walk in Noto when I witnessed again the beauty of the sunlight on the stone of the Cathedral. I always go to the Noto Infiorata (carpet of flowers) in May and this year, as part of the "Italians in North America" theme, this flower portrait of Gaetana Midolo, who emigrated from her home town of Noto, Sicily to America, only to lose her life at the age of 15 in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911, made a lasting impression on me. Gaetana had had a dream of another country too, and I know what it is like to arrive somewhere full of hope and to have your dream shattered. I recovered but poor Gaetana had no chance, in old age, to cherish her moments of love.

To Gaetana, to all who dream of a better life, to all who are struggling to change their inner climate and to all who dream of peace, I dedicate this post. To the big dreamers who are out there protesting to change our world, I send my thanks and I would like to say to them that sometimes, when you are deeply in turmoil or despair, you can only do small things, such as remembering love. But sometimes that is enough.

Dona Nobis Pacem

DONA NOBIS PACEM

In a world that seems more sadly divided than ever, this is more important than ever:

Thank you again to the wonderful Mimi Lenox for all that you do.

DONA NOBIS PACEM 2017

With thanks, as always, to the wonderful Mimi Lenox for her year-round work for this day.

Laura Pausini - Il mondo che vorrei

SICILY SCENE'S REVIEW OF 2016

The year which drew to a close yesterday was the one in which it became clear to me that the world has learnt nothing from the tragedies and disasters of the last century. Here, a little late, is my review of it:

Ups

Most unexpectedly, falling in love again.

Spending Christmas in Norwich with the sister I have known for only two years and walking through a bauble in that fair city!

Downs

The down side of falling in love - being dumped. It is a much worse experience, I have discovered, than it was when I was young, for there are now so many places to be dumped from, such as social media.

Brexit - even more devastating.

Continuing to hear of needless migration tragedies as the world looks on and does nothing.


Recipe of the year

Of those I have invented myself, this is the one I like best.

Chicken with cedri and Prosecco

Books of the year

The two best books I read in Italian during 2016 were Pesce d'aprile and Lacrime di Sale, Dr Pietro Bartolo's account of migrant tragedies as they affect Lampedusa. I'll shortly be reviewing Lacrime di Sale on Sicily Scene.

The most interesting book I read in English in 2016 was Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Besides telling a gripping story, the book explained to me a conflict which took place during my lifetime but which I knew next to nothing about.

Film of the year

This is related to my second book choice above. It is Fuocoammare.


Italian logic prize

This goes to Rai and the Italian government for this scheme and their strange definition of the term rata [installment].  Predictably, after July consumers were required to pay not one "installment" for the TV licence fee but the remaining six in one go!


Hopes for 2017

Once again, I hope the world wakes up to the fact that we are all migrants and I want to see safe corridors for today's migrants and an end to migration tragedies. I want to hear more from the voices of peace and less from those of belligerance.

I wish you all peace, health and love, wherever you are.

Happy New Year and thank you for reading Sicily Scene!

Buon Anno e grazie di aver letto la Sicily Scene!

You can find links to all my migration posts here and to my adoption posts here.

DONA NOBIS PACEM 2016

As thousands continue to die in the Mediterranean trying to flee war, working for peace is more important than ever.

Thank you, Mimi Lenox, for inspiring #blog4peace and for all that you do.

NICK

It was with great sorrow that I learnt of the passing, in Kentucky on Saturday, of my blogging friend Nicholas Temple, the "Sometimes Saintly Nick" of  Nick's Bytes.

I never met Nick but felt as though I knew him personally, for we shared a sense of humour, a love of animals, many a political opinion and a birthday. We also knew what it is like to fall upon hard times, both financially and healthwise. Sadly Nick had been very seriously ill for some time and he knew the end was near, but even as recently as January he found the strength to try to cheer others up on his blog, with his "Too Bad it's Monday Humor" posts and "Friday Funnies".  Those posts helped me to face the coming day many times and I shall so miss Nick's daily "Good morning, world", accompanied by a beautiful picture, on facebook.  Somehow this greeting made me want to get out there and cope.

A military man, social worker and later a pastor, Nick's life experiences enabled him to understand others and reach out to them in friendship. You only have to look at the tributes to him currently on facebook to realise that.

Central to Nick's life was his beloved cat Alex, now being cared for by Nick's granddaughter, I understand.  Alex even had his own blog and oh, it made me smile!  So I'm thinking of you and your pals Midnight and Sugar too, Alex.

Peace was very important to Nick and I am sure that all who remember him will be comforted, in the coming days, by the knowledge that he is at peace now.

I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere condolences to Nick's family who can be assured that he was, and is, loved by people all over the world.

DONA NOBIS PACEM 2015

SICILY SCENE'S REVIEW OF 2014

Here we go again!

Let's start with my event of the year, which was undoubtedly this:

For those of you who are interested, you can now easily access all my "adoption" posts from "My adoption posts" in the pages bar underneath the blog header photo.

My recipe of the year, from those I've invented myself, was this one:

These polpette came a close second:

My gadget of the year - well, more of an implement, really - is this €0,99 easy-ice-cream-scoop:

Of the books I've read this year, my favourite in Italian was this biography of the journalist Oriana Fallaci and my favourite in English has to be Edge of Eternity, which completes the Century Trilogy by my fellow-Cardiffian Ken Follett. More historical novels please, Ken!

My Scrooge of the year award goes to the Comune di Modica for scrapping the "single inhabitant" reduction when they introduced the hated new rubbish tax, the TARI, a few days before Christmas. Come on, Modica! There's no way I generate the same amount of rubbish as a family of five and I think I'm going to start a twitter campaign about this injustice.

Whilst we're being negative about poor old Modica, my most-read post of 2014 was, surprisingly,  this one, which attracted the attention of the local press. Sorry, Modica - I do love you, really.

On a more cheerful, seasonal note, the most original Christmas decoration award goes to Bar Cicara for their cork tree:

The Italian logic prize goes to the shopkeeper who, having discounted certain items by 50% and sold two to customer number one, then told customer number two - me - that the former had been "extravagant" as soon as she'd left the premises. I give up, Italy!

My favourite Italian TV programme of the year continues to be Masterchef Italia, which has just started its fourth series, closely followed by BakeOff Italia.  For those of you who missed it, here is the contestant who endeared herself to the entire nation by throwing her éclairs around the kitchen when they went wrong. Hasn't every cook been there?

I must show you my fun thing of the year:  it is this makeup box, a Christmas present from two of my youngest students and using it to update my all-important look is a very enjoyable way to pass the time!

My heroes of the year are the Italian Navy, Coast Guard and all who continue to risk their own lives and willingly give up their comfort at this time of year to save and help migrants and others, at sea and on land. Let us hope that there will be no more migrant tragedies in 2015, or tragedies like the two we have seen so far this week.

That brings me to my hopes for 2015:  as always, I hope for world peace, for peace in my own life, for more time with my precious Simi [now 16] and, this new year, for more time with my newfound sister.

Happy New Year to all of you and thank you for reading Sicily Scene!

Buon anno a tutti voi e grazie di aver letto la Sicily Scene!

AN HONOUR FOR THE NAVY?

Ensign of the Italian Navy

It's always nice when Italy receives praise rather than brickbats and this week Rupert Neudeck, co-founder of the humanitarian association Cap Anamur, has suggested that the Italian Navy be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for its humanitarian work in saving 73,000 migrants in the Mediterranean during the Mare Nostrum operation.  Mr Neudeck also said in Hamburg that European policy towards migrants is a disaster and that Northern European countries have a duty to take in more refugees to help countries such as Italy.

Mare Nostrum is a controversial initiative in Italy but no one could deny that the Marina Militare are doing a sterling job. It is estimated that they have saved 1,396 migrants in the last 24 hours alone.

But can a military force be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize? What about this? What do you think?

I decided to find out more about Rupert Neudeck and was surprised to learn about this event, which took place a year before I settled in Sicily. It also shows how things have changed.

A CANDLE IN SICILY

Father and son - Richard and Arthur Eggleton

In one hour from now, the lights will go out all over my own country to commemorate the moment, one hundred years ago, when Britain entered the First World War. The ""Lights Out"  initiative is also intended as a mark of respect for those who were killed or maimed in that terrible conflict. Households are asked to leave just a single candle burning for one hour and that is what I am going to do here in Sicily, although Italy entered the war the following year.

During that hour, like people all over Europe and beyond, I will reflect upon those killing fields, some so near Britain that the guns could be heard there and yet so far away in terms of their unimaginable conditions and brutality. And my mind will also turn to a Welsh naval officer who never saw his son. The officer was blinded in the Battle of Jutland in 1916 and his son was my father, born three years later. 

Chief Petty Officer Richard Eggleton could not have known, during the long months of coming to terms with the loss of his sight, that there was still happiness in store for him, but one day, while he was in rehabilitation at St Dunstan's [now Blind Veterans UK ], a friend of his brought another friend along to visit. This was my future grandmother, Mary. Richard and Mary were not young when they married, so when Mary stopped menstruating and began to put on weight, she assumed it was the menopause. When my dad decided to pop into the world one summer afternoon it was a complete surprise to her.

War, as we all know, hurts the innocent and it hurt my dad in indirect ways: Mary had developed a severe hearing impairment and my dad was a bit rebellious so, with his best interests at heart, Mary and Richard sent him to a boarding school which had iron discipline and [unknown to them] a very cruel régime. My dad never forgot it. This may seem nothing if we compare his suffering to that of the frightened children of a faraway war taking place at this very moment, but I can remember my dad shivering every time we passed his former school when I was a little girl.

The starving German children of 1918 grew up to want revenge and got it and I wonder whether those waging war so mercilessly now ever stop to think about what could one day be unleashed upon their children and their children's children.

No one despises war more than someone who has fought in one and Richard Eggleton, while of course respecting the memory of all who had fought with him, wanted his son to grow up in a world at peace. 

As I sit by the light of a single candle in Sicily tonight, I silently thank a grandfather I never knew for choosing to go on living, despite the moments of deepest despair that he must have gone through, and for the little boy who became my dad.

DONA NOBIS PACEM 2013

Without peace, there is no hope 

and no one can live without hope.

Posted as part of blog4peace 2013, with love and thanks to the indefatigable and wonderful Mimi Lennox, whose initiative this is.

MONDO IN ATTESA

Today the world waits:  with the USA, UK and France seemingly ready to launch missile strikes on Syria, the Italian government said yesterday that they will not allow Italian bases to be used in connection with this plan without UN agreement.  Even in this unlikely event, Foreign Minister Emma Bonino has added today, Italy will not automatically lend its support to any strikes. Meanwhile NAS Sigonella in Sicily is on standby.

I can only quote Churchill:

"To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war."

Quite what you do when one party refuses to "jaw-jaw" or, as it appears in this case, has crossed a humanitarian red line, no one has yet worked out, though a solution short of war ought not to be beyond our power in the 21st century.

"The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est 

Pro patria mori",

wrote Wilfred Owen.  What worries me is that new lie of modern warfare, the idea that war, once unleashed, can somehow be contained and sanitised;  that civilians will not be hurt;  and that terrified people will not attempt to flee. War creates injuries, it creates widows and orphans and it creates refugees.

At dawn this morning a migrant boat containing 191 desperate souls, all of whom declared themsleves to be Syrian, was intercepted by the Italian Coast Guard 60 - 70 miles south of Siracusa.  Among the 51 women, 48 children and 92 men the coastguards found a newborn baby girl with part of her umbilical cord still attached.  She and her mother were immediately transferred to hospital, where both are said to be doing well.  

The baby girl, said the captain of the Siracusa Coast Guard, is "more proof that life always triumphs."  Let us hope so as the world continues to wait.

THE ALLIED LANDINGS MUSEUM

One of the many facts that I hadn't known about the Second World War is that Catania, because of its strategic position and the importance of its port, was the target of more Allied air raids than any other city in Sicily. No fewer than 87 air raids on Catania were recorded by Italian Supreme Command, as compared with 69 on Palermo and 58 on Messina. Ragusa, for the record, was targeted 27 times.  In reality there were probably more raids than this, as it is possible that some were deliberately not noted in the interests of morale.

I learnt this and absorbed much more knowledge that was new to me as I walked, with my friend Carol King, through the Museo dello Sbarco or Allied Landings in Sicily Museum in Catania on Saturday.  We had both wanted to visit the museum for some time but had never got around to it and we were pleasantly surprised by how well it is organised, its exhibits and excellent annotation.

As you enter the museum a guide tells you what to expect and about events leading up to the 1943 landings. There is backup on film as there is throughout the museum. The first exhibition area that you enter is a simulation of a Sicilian square of the time and you can see into meticulously recreated houses, offices and shops.  Then you are invited into a simulated air-raid shelter, where you can experience a "bombardment", complete with vibrations.  It was dark and quite scary!  As you emerge from this room, you realise you are again in the square, only now two-thirds of it have been destroyed in the raid.

The museum occupies three floors and some 3,000 square metres of space, so there is a lot to see. There are exhibits of newspapers and the propaganda of the period, a mock-up of a street and rooms with octagonal tables featuring electronic chronicles of the progress of the various armies from day to day.

There is a simulated bunker which you can enter, a reconstructed field hospital tent, and further on there are armaments and exhibitions of the military uniforms of all sides. There are also waxworks of  some of the main protagonists of WW2, including Churchill, Roosevelt, Mussolini, Hitler and King Vittorio Emanuele 111.  Towards the end, there is a reconstruction of the tent where the Cassibile Armistice was signed.

Both Carol and I were struck by the newsreel footage of the civilian population and, in particular, how thin so many of the people looked. The museum's excellent guidebook points out that the "liberators" were hailed not so much for any democratic ideals which they might have brought with them but because they symbolised the end of the killing and an end to that older enemy of Sicilians, hunger. Episodes such as the Mafia's alleged role in the landings and the Massacre at Acate [Biscari] are not overlooked.

The very last exhibit is an electronic memorial plaque dedicated to all the soldiers who lost their lives during the landings and ensuing Sicily campaign. One thousand of their names, selected at random, are read out in their own languages.  We both had a lump in our throats as we left.

A total of 14,864 soldiers from Italy, Germany, the USA and the Commonwealth lost their lives during the Allied Landings in Sicily.

DONA NOBIS PACEM

It's "Blog for Peace" day and once again I'd like to thank the inspirational Mimi Lennox for the original idea and all her hard work. Mimi is a great writer so I hope you'll visit her blog as well as the Peace Globe Gallery.

Have a peaceful evening, wherever you are.  And whoever wins, may he work for peace.