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Located
off the western coast of southern Italy, Sicily is a large island
that has long been the home of mafioso who look to profit from the
island's agriculture-based economy. Poor, and often having little
education, Sicilian peasants have learned to see the government as
being filled with corrupt officials who are more interested in padding
their bank accounts than in improving the lives of peasants. Due to
this, Sicilians have a strong sense of omerta the idea of receiving
help locally rather than getting it from outsiders. It was into this
environment that an outsider did arrive to help in 1952. Danilo
Dolci arrived in the slums of Trappeto with the idea that he could
use his peace-loving background to make a difference in the lives
of Sicilians. Danilo was born in 1924 in the northern village of Sesana
(which later became a part of Yugoslavia) to parents who thought nothing
wrong with beating their children as a form of punishment. The beatings
he received, often occurring even though he had done nothing wrong,
would go on to play a big role in Dolci's hatred of violence as an
adult. (Mangione, 135) In 1925,
when Danilo was a year old, Mussolini rose to power and declared Italy
to be a fascist state. This would have little affect over Dolci's
early years which he claims were quite normal but would greatly affect
a teenage Danilo. As a teenager Dolci saw Europe enter into World
War II, and he detested even the idea of war. Danilo worried his family
by tearing down any Nazi posters he came across, even though he realized
that he could be drafted into Mussolini's Fascist army at any time.
According to Danilo, "I had never heard the phrase 'conscientious
objector' and I had no idea there were such persons in the world,
but I felt strongly that it was wrong to kill people and I was determined
never to do so." Danilo tried to escape from Nazi authorities
who suspected him of tearing down the posters, but he was caught while
trying to reach Rome and ended up in jail for a short time. (Mangione,
137) After World
War II, Danilo was inspired by the work of a Catholic priest named
Don Zeno to give up his middle class standard of living to work with
the poor and unfortunate. Though he himself had never been a big follower
of the Catholic Church (much to his mother's chagrin), Danilo liked
the work he saw the priest doing, and quit school at the age of twenty-five
to join him. (Mangione, 134) Don Zeno was running Nomadelphia, a Christian
commune in Tuscany who's purpose was to take care of war orphans.
Danilo learned to abandon the middle class values of his family in
order to see that the people of Nomadelphia were just as beautiful
and just as good as members of the upper classes even if they did
not lead lives that were filled with luxuries and privileges. Danilo
worked alongside everyone else, cleaning latrines and hoeing gardens.
(Dolci, Sicilian, 302) Don Zeno was so impressed with Danilo's work
that he had Danilo set up another commune in Tuscany called Ceffarel!
lo. It was while working at Ceffarello that the army, though no longer
under the control of Mussolini and fascists, finally caught up to
Dolci he had to serve his compulsory army time in 1951. (Mangione,
139) It was
during this time period that Danilo became aware of the workings of
the Christian Democrats, as Don Zeno was being harassed by officials,
namely the Minister of Police, who felt he was a Communist. The government
wanted to put the orphans into asylums and close down both Nomadelphia
and Ceffarello, and even the Vatican turned against Don Zeno, calling
him the "mad priest." Danilo had to sit by and watch as
government forces took off with many of the commune's children, and
then he had to gather up all his energy to aid in the building of
a new Nomadelphia. By 1952, he was ready to move on and work elsewhere.
(Mangione, 140) Dolci decided
to head for "the poorest place I had ever known"-- the western
Sicily town of Trappeto. ( Dolci, Sicilian, 302) Danilo realizes that
when he first came to Trappeto, he was full of Northern stereotypes
about the South, even though he had already learned to see past a
person's social standing. As Danilo says, "Coming from the North,
I knew I was totally ignorant. Looking all around me, I saw no streets,
just mud and dust... I started working with masons and peasants, who
kindly, gently, taught me their trades. That way my spectacles were
no longer a barrier. Every day, all day, as the handle of hoe or shovel
burned the blisters deeper, I learned more than any book could teach
me about this people's struggle to exist..." (Dolci,
Sicilian, xv) From the
beginning, Danilo noticed that people were suspicious about telling
details of their lives to an outsider. When interviewing different
people, Dolci noticed that if he changed his interviewing style to
fit the person being interviewed, that person would politely, though
suspiciously. Danilo learned that he had to be friendly, yet forceful
enough to convince them that they needed to tell him the truth. (Dolci,
Waste, 13) Dolci made the peasants realize that he was there to help
them unite and improve their living standards, unlike the Mafia, who
tried to improve their own lives but not those of the peasants. Due
to this, Dolci, with his peaceful way of doing things, came to be
an opponent of the Mafia. Dolci began
his crusade against the Mafia by claiming that government officials
were receiving help in their elections from the Mafia. Rather than
making his accusations only in Sicily, Danilo would travel to Rome
to participate before the Anti-Mafia Commission to ensure that his
worries about the Mafia in Sicily were heard. When Sicilians backlashed
at him for this, Dolci would make copies of the propaganda produced
against him for his supporters and continue on with his work. (Mangione,
20) His willingness to stand up to the Mafia in his quest to improve
the living conditions of Sicilians helped him to gain the confidence
of the locals. Early on,
Danilo realized that he would get nowhere with officials if he tried
to reach them in conventional ways. He tried at first to talk to officials,
or at least their secretaries, but soon found out that "the doormen
behave like lazy dogs assigned to guard the tranquility of their masters."
(Mangione, 143) This led to Danilo using a new method that would lead
to him becoming known as the "Gandhi of Sicily"--- hunger
strikes. Throughout his career in Sicily, Dolci has used fasting as
a method to force the government to make improvements, with one of
his most famous fasts being in November, 1955, when he fasted for
a week in Partinico to "draw attention to the misery and violence
in the area and to promote the building of a dam over the Jato River
that could provide irrigation for the entire valley" (Mangione,
145). Danilo's method of protesting peacefully has proven successful
in gaining the government's attention, but it has not always kept
supporters at his sid! e. Many supporters of Dolci have left because
they do not feel that he follows through with his protests by making
sure that the government follows through with its promises, and others
have left because they think the protests are held only to gain publicity
for Dolci himself. (Mangione, 40) Danilo
Dolci has sacrificed much to try to improve living conditions in Sicily.
He left the middle class to live in substandard conditions, and often
puts his life at risk to make improvements. Dolci uses the hatred
of violence that he learned as a child and the hatred of poverty that
he learned after World War II as motivation for his work in Sicily.
He knows that he can not completely change Sicily, but he believes
that he can at least make small improvements. WORKS CITED
Danilo
Dolci Sicilian Lives. New York: Pantheon Books. Waste. New
York: Monthly Review Press Jerre Mangione
A Passion For Sicilians. New York: William Morrow and Co. 5/7/97 |