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By Geoffrey Gray
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SARDINIA APART FROM SUN AND SEAby Geoffrey Gray
Brochure-blue skies, beaches and gastronomy are not the only pleasures on offer in Sardinia. The flaunting of wealth, which on mainland Italy seems the essence of the elegant and the stylish, is largely missing from this island. Not much use if you enjoy looking expensive but great if you want to taste life in the raw. "None of the suave Greek-Italian charms, none of the airs and graces, none of the glamour," rejoiced D.H.Lawrence after a visit in 1921. Look at the landscape, the architecture and the way of life, and what you still see is lack of style. But glossy literature about Sardinia doesn't tell you this. Image versus reality Like most tourist publicity, the focus is less on what a place is and more on what the imagination desires it to be. The problem's not dishonesty but too much imagination, too much fantasy. It's sometimes difficult to recognise a gush of contrived lyricism as being only that. "Sardinia, the land of magic, is exoticism close at hand," claims an article in a recent in-flight magazine. The vital ingredients of magic and exoticism are surprise and difference respectively. Would you really expect the jolt of surprise, the throb of difference from a landscape which this article describes as "full of 'designer views'"? No. Designer views are like the photograph of fresh carrots growing in manure which you find on a bag of frozen carrots. If you really want magic and exoticism, avoid clingfilm and packaged hyperbole. Early morning in spring: newspaper's blowing aimlessly round my heels in Cagliari's Piazza Papa Giovanni XXIII. Bland apartment blocks, parked cars and screening trees enclose a space which looms blank. Hardly magical or exotic but still better than promises of ecstasy in a place that's only fantasy. Only in dreary old reality can something happen. It does: a coach, hired by Club Alpino Italiano, arrives. It's taking us to Alghero on the north-west coast for a weekend escursione naturalistica. "Nature" is a hot word these days but let's cut the hype. I'm out looking for raw horizons, the wind howling. City outskirts: in limbo It begins: "Eurobusiness!" yell "Softing", "Casa In", "Big Bon" and other hybrid names of light industries we pass on the outskirts of Cagliari. But Sardinia, a traditionally poor and isolated sheep-rearing community, doesn't fit easily into safe platitudes from Brussels or Masstricht about free markets, common agricultural policy and democracy in true belief-in-progress style. Walter Benjamin argued that whilst new technology shakes up the material world, society lags behind in a kind of dream consciousness. He could have been talking about the periphery of Cagliari. Ragged sheep huddle round pylons, a Senegalese sells imitation portable telephones at the traffic lights which don't work, parabolic aerials gaze at the sky from the flat roofs of homes where architectural style is a breeze block. And on TV, politicians phrase their manovre around the imperfect subjunctive whilst Pipo Baudo says "ciao!" to show he's an ordinary guy. Calcium stone and dirt tracks throw harsh white light. A sun-stricken wilderness? Hardly; despite recession, subsidy cut-backs and unemployment, a mantle of benessere remains intact. Rather, the classic scenarios of a developing country: the modern that's come too suddenly, apparent prosperity that isn't balanced by productivity. Unable to harness the full potential of new technology, people direct their expectations to consumer fantasies. A world of video shops and ragazzi revving their motorini with the front wheel up in the air. Hard road, hard contact with Sardinia Cagliari disappears from view as the road descends into the Pianura Campidano. By 4 BC, the Carthaginians had turned this forest-covered plain into cereal fields. As late as the eighteenth century, Sardinia was one of the largest exporters of grain in the Mediterranean. Many of these fields now lie fallow. Thirty years ago, the Italian State and the regional government of Sardinia were convinced that only industry, not agriculture, could connect this island with the hub of Europe. Today, common agricultural policy pays farmers for not growing crops and families still squabble over land inheritance. Produce that could be cultivated here is now imported. "God makes drought, man makes famine," goes an old saying in Somalia. But how many Europeans want to look at their continent from the outside? Air slams the coach from the left. A TIR truck edges past and the rosary hanging from the coach driver's windscreen swings from side to side. Strada Statale 131 offers little shoulder to duck from the drift of passing vehicles. It's worse when you do the overtaking, especially at night. Carving a ravine between a truck's sway and the blizzard of reflector lights on the central reservation, your head swirls like a drunk gambler returning home on a Las Vegas boulevard. Then you wonder why you bothered. The answer's simple: on SS 131 everybody keeps pushing - fast. Service stations are scarce and the non-electrified single-track railway, the only other north-south artery, is a tortoise. 131 draws you on. But my mind hangs back: views from the coach window provoke memories of places nearer home. D.H.Lawrence likened Sardinia to the moorlands of Cornwall and Derbyshire. Then he changed his mind. Lacking the cosiness of climbing roses, lilac trees, cottage shops and haystacks, Sardinia was "harder, barer, starker, more dreary." Today, wind-battered plateaus still stretch as far the eye can reach - desolate, uninhabited, dangerous, magnificent. Mid-morning stop at Abbasanta service station. Cappuccino with UHT milk, outside queue in the rain at the toilets. We drive on. You always do on 131. Brooding clouds ahead clash with open skies pointing to Africa behind us. This immensity of dark and light is a perfect setting for an Old Testament tale of justice. Justice in rural Sardinia was Old Testament till recently. A loss brought upon an individual or community had to be made up for, somewhere, by somebody. Farmers and shepherds entered a maze of recriminations. The theft of animals as vendetta was viewed as an action worthy of man, and evidence of hostile worlds still marks the landscape. Walls - millions of stones meticulously placed one on top of the other - were built in hope of peace. Today, leaning against one of these walls, the only sound you hear is wind. Unless, of course, one of the stones rolls down and clatters like a skull. Passing time Arrival at L'Arca di Noe', a nature reserve on the Capo Caccia promontory with sea, cliffs and mighty clouds still before the wind. Breathing the sea-spray air is like drawing in a vital assurance - a gift to hasten the passing dregs of winter. Griffons, falcons and seagulls crest high on the thermals or wedge their way into cracks in the calcium cliffs. Erosion of rocks, nesting birds, rare flowers that take the gusts with pride: nature is the unfolding of millennial, seasonal and momentary time. We reach Alghero, the most heavily patronised tourist resort on the island. Uninspired urban planning encloses a centre still tied to Catalan language and Iberian culture. You can gauge a civilisation from its architecture, and what architecture there is! Here, at last, is Sardinia without an inferiority complex. Ceramic tiles and wrought-iron balconies gleam proud in sun. Yet nothing equals the Roman, Gothic-Catalan and late Renaissance architecture of the church of San Francesco. Neither mechanical nor examples of virtuosity for their own sake, these different styles forge a space that exists for the glory of God rather than as a chamber for his go-betweens. Early-afternoon arrival at hotel and time, at last, for the siesta. A city busy in the morning is now in a repose that only an occasional motorcycle disturbs. Sonorous heartbeat in a silent world. Different from that day in 1541 when Alghero jostled with voices welcoming Charles V, Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor. The Golden Age for a Spain fed by booty from the Americas. Just another conqueror for a Sardinia that was nearly always someone else's prize.
Light and sound Early evening bicycle ride on a long straight road to Le Bombarde and Lazzaretto beaches. Sunlight streaks through poplar trees that line the road and cast tall shadows. The change of seasons affects the mind in strange and subtle ways. Winter, though colder and darker, is the time to light fires, play games and dream of summer. The winter night, falling like a shroud in late afternoon, brings a security which makes the world glow from within. Keep warm! The same simple thought occurs to everyone. Spring, on the other hand, is when you stand on the outside. Being the first light imposed from without, spring sets in motion a kind of dissent. It's unfair that there's now no recoil from the light, no way of leaving an evening that's too long. Winter seemed frozen in time but the new light shows that time passes. Mortality reigns. Questions about living bud open. Spring puts you on trial. On the beach there's nothing except a shabby bar and the lapping sound of small waves coming, falling and going back. Hardly sound at all. Rather, a deafening silence of an unceasing movement of an invisible will. A strong, uncanny feeling that's captured in a short story by Yukio Mishima: "a lyrical transformation of the waves, not waves, but rather ripples one might call the light, derisive laughter of the waves at themselves." These lapping, self-mocking waves; those solitary drones of motorcycles: why are certain sounds so uncanny when heard in isolation? Perhaps because they suggest the insistence of the self against all odds. Perhaps because, like a mountain echo, these sounds rebound in empty space. Perhaps because this insistent self and this emptiness are the same thing. Returning to nature Nature in Sardinia as a set of cliches, or nature as a sounding board for introspection? My attack on the former has become an exposition of the latter. But musing upon the real emptiness of the landscape is better than padding the scenery with "designer views". Tourist brochures lure us with images of an idyllic Mediterranean resort without the irritations of real life. No raucous noises, no litter, no graffiti. Sometimes, these images do indeed correspond with a place. But such places are usually overwhelming in their artifice: a yachting marina that's a child's playground, a fishing village that belongs to everyone except fishermen. An artifice which, on the Costa Smeralda, is over-civilised to the point of being barbaric. People the world over are happy to lie on sequestered beaches or to play on railed-off golf courses. But as in Venice (another vision on water that's paralysed by its own myth), the unique, spontaneous, free-of-charge experience is becoming impossible to find. Like gondola-and-velvet Venice, sun-and-sea Sardinia may one day sink forever into its narcissistic reflection. We live in an age which projects nature as an origin to which we should return. Going back to your roots is good; it's modern civilisation that ruins us. But this craving for rustic simplicity is sometimes reminiscent of Marie Antoinette's preference for her little country folly to her husband's palace at Versailles. Only the former supported her fantasy of being the peasant she wasn't. White stuccowork houses that sentimentalise a peasant lifestyle of wretchedness and purity are built on Sardinian coasts for people with four-wheel drives. Terracotta pots, miniatures of unshaven men riding donkeys and other parodies of a less materialistic age fetch good prices in the shops. Almost anything evoking our "natural state", our lost innocence, can be exploited commercially. We invariably return to nature as consumers. Is the search for authentic experience thus doomed in the modern world? No. Just remember that romantic memories are sometimes contrived images of things which never existed. Perhaps, one day, we shall see the emptiness of our saccharine vistas and kitsch replicas - and what a horrid sight that will be. Meanwhile, you can keep your glamour and style. I'll stick with the way Sardinia looks on the map - a sheepskin stretched taut without fat or embellishments. Envy me. END
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Hot and bothered in Italy's thirstiest city
BY GEOFFREY GRAY
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British newspapers speak of a "drought" back home. People living in chunks of negative equity in the Home Counties are being asked to sprinkle their green lawns only once a week, not nightly. Right now, the very idea of garden hose-pipe culture makes me dribble saliva with envy. Long shadows on the cricket pitch of an English country village... this is my fantasy. Deprived of effective plumbing for twelve hours a day, I'm also fed up with the sound of "muratori" banging away on nearly every building in Cagliari that's more than fifty years' old. As you can see, I enjoy telling you about my discomforts. That's because I belong to Western culture. Without experiencing the obscene horrors of drought which stalk parts of the Third World, most of us believe that we suffer unduly when gallon after gallon of water isn't constantly and readily available in the home. The strange thing about Cagliari is that life continues as though lack of water were not a problem. Obsession with "l'igiene intima", psychological dependency on the bidet and the compulsion to feel beautiful at all times are still as prevalent here as in any other part of Italy. Television and the local newspapers are suspiciously quiet about why this water crisis has occurred. When I ask people, I invariably receive two types of answer. Some speak about irreversible changes of climate. Others start from the premise that despite this island's distance from the mainland, it's still embroiled in all the problems which flow from Italy's revolving-door style governments and Machiavellian system of favours for short-term benefit. It's important to consider both of these views without conflating them: lack of rain doesn't necessarily entail water shortage. As well as examining changing weather patterns, one must also ask whether the precious water that there is in Sardinia is collected, stored and distributed in the most efficient way. "LA DESERTIFICAZIONE DEL SUD" I discussed the first of these issues with Stefania, a friend with global environmental interests who has always lived in this city. Average temperatures in Cagliari throughout the year have, she said, increased by one degree centigrade in the last ten years. One of the reasons for this is that soil erosion, forest fires and over-grazing have exacerbated a phenomenon she calls "la desertificazione del sud". The dust bowls and treeless mountain tops around Cagliari are comparatively recent features of what was once a thickly wooded landscape. The encroaching desert conditions in southern Sardinia are, she alleged, a continuation of what happened in North Africa. The Western Desert, which forms part of the Sahara belt, was once a lush savannah that was reduced to its present state not only by winds but also thanks to overgrazing by Stone Age pastoralists. Stefania's words were bold and many of them are probably true. Yet I remained sceptical: she was vague about whether these changes are irreversible or whether science and political will can still give us a second chance. I was also apprehensive about her fondness for the phrase "la desertificazione del sud". It certainly had potential as a captivating headline. An image of Sardinia as a vast expanse of sand dunes filled my mind. Instead of having spent my recent free time frigging around with my 740 tax form, perhaps I should have been out with my Nikon, preparing an article for the National Geographic on how this island is becoming part of the Sahara in all but name. On balance, I felt Stefania was offering a fashionable and rather too hasty view of environmental "doom and gloom", of a future that is always beyond our control. The main difficulty was that I liked her too much and knew her too well. She had a sensuous, animated energy - the kind of thing the Brits think is endemic to Mediterranean culture - and a predilection for sensationalism. Despite her global concerns, she was, I concluded facetiously, still living in a cosy state of "fanciullezza" that extended no further than the geraniums, watered twice daily, on her parents' balcony. "UN BEL DISCORSO" The next day, Ignazia, another friend, told me about the political aspects of this water shortage. A journalist by profession but a political animal by nature, she has a lethal sharpness of judgement which turns most of our conversations into the following syllogism: since A equals B and B equals C, I'm definitely wrong and my ego needs a good bashing. On this occasion, Ignazia reserved her malice for "politicians" - a term she extended, no doubt correctly, to cover anyone responsible for running public services. She began by describing present-day Israel, a desert that was turned into lush and fertile areas thanks to technology and human resolve. Sardinia, she argued, can and must follow this example. Alternative sources of water such as the sea and melting snows in spring should be explored far more seriously. At present, we have to depend almost exclusively upon an inadequate number of reservoirs to collect occasional rainfall. Some of these cannot be used to full capacity because the dams that contain the water have never been thoroughly tested. Tirso, one of the biggest reservoirs in Sardinia, has never contained more than approximately one third of the water it was originally designed to hold. Furthrmore, intent on making a correct political impression, the ruling powers prefer to use money for extravagant new projects rather than for repairs to existing pipes and structures that leak water. Only one half of the water pumped from Flumendosa, a reservoir situated some 85 kilometres away, arrives at its destination in Cagliari. According to Ignazia, then, the real cause of this water shortage is incompetence on the part of politicians. Chronic lack of rain has been on the cards for some time; preparations could have been made. Yet nobody really expected the politicians to do anything more than just talk. The abstractions and rhetoric of a "bel discorso" are, after all, the substance of their trade. ON REFLECTION Climate change and/or the ineptitude of those with power: each of these views expresses a partial truth but neither gets to the root of this mess. Science could, as in Israel, be used to stretch the earth's bounty a little further here and politicians with greater integrity can presumably be found. Yet these improvements would not in themselves confront a more fundamental predicament which is sustained by three pernicious myths: that Sardinia is a "natural" wilderness; that its terrain is intrinsically poor and infertile; and that its only hope of prosperity lies in selling up-market packages of sun and sea to stressed-out Milanesi or other jaded city-dwellers. There's something galling about living in a region - whether it's the Dolomites, the Sardinian coast or the Scottish Highlands - which exists in the minds of most people only as a remedy for the ills of living in the metropolis. In the case of Sardinia, this lack of consideration for the region as place rather than image, and for the real people who make their lives here, has produced short-term colonial-style exploitation, first for wood, then for the occasional chemical refinery and now for the annual two-month burst of elite tourism. Most of the profits made from holiday-makers pass into the hands of people who rarely see, let alone live, on this island. The present water scarcity, the desolate landscape and the history of exile and pain which lives on here are as man-made as the rice fields of Vercelli and Novara. Things don't have to stay this way. But little will change unless the people of Sardinia manage to develop lives of their own, instead of continuing as characters in someone else's fantasy. END
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