Sicily between scandal, revenge, and redemption: the meeting in Acireale with Buttafuoco, Cavallaro, and Bishop Raspanti

Acireale is preparing to welcome one of the most anticipated events on the city's cultural calendar. On Friday, March 13 at 6:00 PM, at the AIAS Acireale Conference Room located at Via Lazzaretto 65, there will be the meeting "The Island That Doesn't Exist. The Sicilianities and the Sicilies, between scandal, redemption, and recovery," an event included in the program of "March The Month of Culture."

It will be an open, intense, and provocative discussion on the condition of Sicily, its complex identity, and the contradictions that have always traversed the island's society. An opportunity to reflect on what is still missing for Sicily to be able to call itself fully realized: independence of thought, autonomy of action, and the capacity for collective redemption.

Engaging in this dialogue will be three key figures from the Italian cultural and institutional landscape:

Felice Cavallaro, a correspondent for Corriere della Sera, one of the most attentive narrators of the social and cultural dynamics of the South;

Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, president of the Venice Biennale, an intellectual and writer among the most insightful interpreters of Mediterranean identity;

Monsignor Antonino Raspanti, bishop of Acireale and president of the Sicilian Episcopal Conference.

The debate will start from a question as ancient as it is current: does the suffering of Sicily arise from the island that cannot be or from the "sicilitude" that imprisons it?

Recalling the provocations of Leonardo Sciascia, the meeting will seek to explore the many "Sicilies" that coexist in the same space: pride and fatalism, genius and stagnation, spirit of revenge and resignation.

Are we really, as some have claimed, an irremediably contradictory people? Or are we still capable of surprising ourselves, of positively scandalizing ourselves and the world by showing the best of our culture, our intelligence, and our creativity?