Mediterraneity: the art of dancing with complexity

When talking about the Mediterranean, it is difficult to have a clear idea of what to touch upon: it is such a complex and intertwined reality that it is challenging to find a single thread to narrate it. However, we can begin with certainty from the idea that the Mediterranean is often relegated to a limited and limiting narrative. In fact, it is simply associated with images such as archaeological ruins, tourist destinations, or, unfortunately, a very complex migratory phenomenon.

A choral sea

The Mediterranean is much more than all those things. First of all, it is a sea surrounded by lands, which have always been the framework of unprecedented economic, historical, and cultural development. The mixture of cultures has, in fact, led to a flourishing of avant-garde societies. An example of this is the Greek philosophical schools, or those of Magna Graecia (from Rome downwards), such as the Eleatic school born in, what is now Cilento, or the Salerno Medical School, the first European medical institution to appear in the ninth century. Medium Terrae, therefore, being in the middle of the lands. But what does it mean today?

Researcher Anna Carfora, associate at the Pontifical Theological Faculty of Southern Italy, reminds us that “The Mediterranean is a reflecting surface in a literal and metaphorical sense. […] It changes its aspect depending on who is looking at it. Talking about the Mediterranean means talking not so much about this sea as about the gazes that are reflected in it. There are therefore as many Mediterraneans as there are eyes looking at it.”

For example, the emblematic communities of the Mediterranean Diet, seven small “lighthouses,” seven different but similar voices, scattered around this small and at the same time great basin, are a testimony to this. From Greece to Portugal, in Spain, Croatia, Morocco, Italy, and Cyprus. Other voices, voices that mix each other up: ancient crop varieties, originally from Portugal, have been exported through the years and travelled slowly along the other coasts of the Mediterranean, to Morocco, where it is now considered a typical local crop. Or today, culturally, the artistic tumult that is taking shape in countries such as Morocco, or even from a musical and cinematographic point of view, such as the rap phenomenon in Tunisia or the appearance of local directors as witnessed by the new Italo-Tunisian series about illegal migration. Little-known voices on the other side of the Mediterranean.

“Listening to the languages used to narrate the Mediterranean and crossing the spaces in which these languages are transmitted and translated means bending the inherited framework (without erasing it), thus creating a historical and critical depth that draws the map of a different Mediterranean, yet to come.”

- Iain Chambers and Marta Cariello, “The Mediterranean Question” (2019)

Being in the midst of lands today means being open to multiple narratives and reminding ourselves that “the events of the world do not line up like the English. They crowd together chaotically like the Italians.” (Carlo Rovelli). In an era of constant and rapid changes, it is important to keep an open mind in order not to simplify the complexity of reality, Mediterranean or not.

We have decided to do this beginning from Pollica, the center of the Mediterranean, from which we have started a path of valorization and knowledge of what is Mediterraneity. We want to transmit this idea of a multidisciplinary and systemic approach through our Paideia project, which literally means education.

Mare nostrum: a sea with a worldwide impact

Talking about the Mediterranean means, as we have seen, talking to a plurality of actors who make it up, even on a global level. Let’s think, for example, of the Marshall Plan for the reconstitution of Europe and the Mediterranean after the Second World War. The United States realized that helping this area of the world meant maintaining fundamental balances and avoiding a deep world depression.

Helping the Mediterranean, therefore, meant helping themselves.

This shows us the importance of this region’s influence, not only on a geopolitical level but also on environmental, cultural, and economic levels. As historian Braudel reminds us: “The Renaissance spread from Florence. The Baroque, son of Rome and triumphant Spain invaded all of Europe, including the Protestant countries of the North. Similarly, the mosques of Istanbul will be imitated in Persia and India.” The Mediterranean with its innate symphony is a perfect training ground to connect the dots and collaborate as a regional, national, and global society. In this sense, the Mediterranean Diet is a symbol of sustainable lifestyle and heritage not only of this part of the world but of the whole of humanity.

To “sacrifice” or to make sacred

As Fischler (2010), a food anthropologist, reminds us, conviviality around eating, a fundamental aspect of Mediterranean cultures, stems from the so-called sacrificial banquets. But sacrifice is not to be understood with a negative valence. Sacrifice derives from the union of the adjective “sacer” (sacred) and the verb “facio” (to make), that is, to make sacred. The verb to sacrifice therefore takes on a whole other meaning and becomes a tool to clarify and operate clear separations.

There is something that is sacred and something that is not. There is something that is of fundamental importance for us and something that is not. Then we can ask ourselves, what do we want to make sacred today? What can and must be protected or enhanced? The Mediterranean Diet can take on this role by becoming a vehicle for working in a common direction and for shared values of care, protection, education, and innovation consistent with the territory.

We also “make sacred” the idea of collaboration. As Sustainable Development Goal 17, Partnership for Sustainable Development reminds us, it is crucial today to build bridges and identify deeply with the idea that it is only together that we can build a better future. This idea can be found in the expression “Integral ecology,” coined by Pope Francis, a philosophy that guides our work. Integral ecology means the importance of acting for the common good and understanding that we are all deeply connected to each other.

It is as if the Mediterranean is calling us, asking us not to relegate it to something we take for granted, that we already know. It invites us to be explored, or using the words of Fairouz, a historical Lebanese singer, to go and visit it, not to forget it.

زورونی کل سنه مره

حرام تنسونى بالمرة

زورونی کل سنه مره

حرام تنسونى بالمرة

Come visit me at least once a year

It would be a shame if you forgot about me

Visit me at least once a year

It would be a shame if you forgot me

Zourouni — Feirouz

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