re: Italian vs. Sicilian

I've never been to Italy proper, but spent some time at Naval Air Station Sigonella. The best part of our DET rotations was when they put us up at the the Sigonella Inn after our relief detachment arrived.

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True Turks look more like orientals, look at Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

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Many of the Turks I’ve met look Greek, or even Roman, they have the faces you see in ancient mosaics.

Damn cantaloupes.

Similar to a famous quote about the Pyrenees, "Africa begins below the Liri".

Central and northern Italy are very much a part of the Central (Austrian/Germanic/Swiss) and Western (French) European sphere, have been for 1,500+ years, and their history, heritage, culture, cuisine, ethnicity, and so on very much reflect that.

Southern Italy and especially Sicily might as well be a different country and, people forget, were a different country only 6 or 7 generations ago. The U.S. is an older country than is a unified Italy. The Mediterranean (Greek, Arab, Balkan, Spanish, etc.) roots run very deep in that part of the world. It is also the very poorest region of what would traditionally be considered Western Europe. Much of it makes the Mississippi Delta and Eastern Kentucky look positively developed and enlightened in comparison.

Have you read this?

Pesky peaky blinders.

I've always heard that the Sicilian mafia, in its hay days, made the Italian mafia look like kindergarten kids. I've also heard that Sicilians are extremely clannish.

I’m 1/4 Sicilian. My grandmother came from Sicily as a child. Supposedly my great uncle had ties to the mob through his bakery.

No idea about Sicilian vs Italian. And I don’t get offended from any names. In fact, I love stereotype humor about all types.

I have!

It’s truly one of my favorite books. It was the book that helped me to understand the cultural cleavages in this country, and my own culture.

I didn’t understand what I was, or where my values came from. I just knew my normal wasn’t universal.

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People from North Africa are Arabs, not black people.


Outside of Egypt, they're really Berbers/Maghrebi. I think you'd piss off a Tunisian if you called him Arab.

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North Africa is complicated, to be honest. Tunisians, to your example, definitely consider themselves to be a cut above the rest of the Maghreb and not only consider themselves Arab/Berber but the true (and really, correct) and rightful heirs to the Carthaginians and Vandals.

Moroccans, as another example, have a lot of both as well but many consider themselves to be "Andalusians", which is basically a Berber-Arab-Southwest European mixture.

North Africa is really an incredible place. If you draw a straight line from Agadir to Sfax, like 90+% of Africa's population (excluding the Nile Delta) north of the 15th parallel lives in that piece of turf bordering the Med, the Atlantic, and the Atlas Mountains. The history, the cultural idiosyncrasies (a huge portion of the population speaks French and many speak English as well), the food, the beaches, the mountains, and so on, and so on - it really has so much potential. Morocco and Tunisia are already middle-income countries - and are really cool places to visit - and are poised to continue to develop and become serious players in Mediterranean affairs; Algeria probably has the most potential of all (they were the largest exporter of wine in the world until the French left and are just now starting to take baby steps back in that direction, as an example), but they have a bad latent Islamic radical problem and are still recovering from the effects of two of the worst wars the world saw after 1945. Libya is a backwards shithole and has been for 2,000 years (it's the West Virginia of the Arab world, and that is saying something), and that won't change. Egypt is its own thing (not Maghrebi, for sure) and while it has been the leading intellectual center for Arab culture for hundreds of years (and still really is), it is far too volatile. But the Maghreb really can go places if they play their cards right.