Rural Europe on the move English_chap7_13 | Page 75

Not guests,
inhabitants
“When we founded this Centro di
Creative
confrontation
Forum Synergies has long known
important. We know that in the space
of this confrontation, empathy or at
least tolerance may be cultivated to
counter this politics of fear – if you
Educazione Ambientale Serra Guarneri the significance - ethical, political, map it, you can see with some clarity
in Cefalù we chose this wild and personal - of these spaces of creative that those areas harbouring the most
remote place in the Sierra Guarneri confrontation. The founders decided xenophobic beliefs are often those
because it has this strong energy for long ago that it was not enough to with the fewest immigrants. We fear
profound change. Sicily needs new ‘read’ about rural development, both what we do not know and we live in a
care for nature and new ways of living successes and failures, it had to be political system where some want to
together between people. We are an something that was ‘experienced’, felt. capitalise on these fears.
environment education centre and They travelled across the continent to learn ourselves from nature every see how people were ‘enacting’ rural day. So we do not see you as our development. A simple idea, but an guests, you are inhabitants, citizens of important one.
Guarneri, and you always have a home
here,” Giuseppe Burgio welcomes us.
We live in a time of profound
uncertainty. I write this from the UK
We are here for the final gathering in the midst of increasingly absurd
for our collective book writing project, Brexit chaos, while the continent as
nestled between the prickly pears, a whole faces the looming threat
the agave and the palmaneras on of a fragmenting European project
the edge of Madonie Regional Park coupled with a widespread politics
in northern Sicily. This place is about of scaremongering. I believe that
200 years old and began as a place of a lot of our capacity to act with
exchange of goods, a ‘marcato’. It was empathy toward others relies on a
always an open space, all those who confrontation with them. In these
wanted to enter could do so, and this times, this confrontation with the
spirit lives on today. supposed other has never been more
“We do not see you
as our guests,
you are inhabitants,
citizens of Guarneri.”
Giuseppe Burgio
OPPOSITE
1. The authors searching for fresh air and
inspiration in the Sicilian countryside
THIS PAGE
2. Our host Giuseppe
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