Mediterranean Corsica by Kenneth Brown

Le 9 juin 2025, la revue culturelle bilingue Méditerranéenes/Mediterraneans  a perdu son fondateur, Kenneth Lewis Brown.
Anthropologue de renom du Maghreb et du Moyen-Orient, il avait connu notre île à l'occasion de l'édition du n°12, "Ici la Corse/Corsica calling".
Sa défiance envers les frontières physiques et imaginaires l'avait sans  aucun doute poussé à franchir la mer et à venir rencontrer les voix d'ici. Pour lui, et son compère Robert Waterhouse,  les voix venaient autant du passé que du présent, elles étaient autant celles du poète et du romancier que de l'universitaire, autant du peintre abstrait que du photographe portraitiste. Pourvu que le lecteur puisse y déceler la sincérité du propos. Pas de place pour le folklore dans cette approche !

Son expérience l'amena à s'installer à Ajaccio. Pour quelqu'un qui avait été élevé à Los Angeles, vécu au Maroc, en Israël, à Manchester et bourlingué partout en Méditerranée, trouver ici son port d'attache tient sans doute du mystère enchanteur du lieu, autant que de l'hédonisme gourmand de soleil, de mer et de relations sociales. La Corse et sa société lui furent toujours très chères même quand il dut la quitter pour Marseille où les centres de soins lui étaient une meilleure garantie de santé. Il y demeura plus de dix ans.
Il y a laissé nombre d'amis : peintre, poète, épicier, joueur d'échec, professeur, écrivain, musicien... mais avant tout, des amis. Ils faisaient partie, souvent sans le savoir, d'une immense constellation méditerranéenne, une sorte de fraternité invisible, bâtie tout au long de son existence avec tous ceux qu'il avait eu la chance rencontrer. Pour lui les amitiés ne s'effaçaient pas avec le temps.
Son identité juive en faisait un passeur de frontières passionné, à rebours des nationalismes belliqueux qu'il a dénoncé jusqu'à son dernier souffle. Il y a le pire et le meilleur en l'homme. Le meilleur n'érige pas de murs, ne projette pas ses peurs sur le faible et l'opprimé, ne profite pas de sa force pour écraser son voisin. Le meilleur exige plus de lui-même que des autres. Il ouvre la voie aux autres voix...

Bernard Biancarelli

This issue of Mediterraneans, Corsica Calling, began in 1997. Bernard Biancarelli and I sat around a narghila on a terrace in Carthage overlooking the sea, and talked about food, drink and literature.
Bernard suggested that I consider treating sometime in the future the islands of Mare Nostrum that extended before us. I said "yes, why not?" Three years later, I received a letter from Bernard and two books published by Albiana Press - a collection of short stories from Mediterranean islands and a book of illustrations of paintings and drawings of North African scenes and people by Ginette Cals.

He wrote to ask if I didn't think that the time was ripe to prepare an issue of the review on the writings of Mediterranean islanders. I phoned with my own question; "why not a special issue on Corsica"? His answer: "I don't think there's enough material". Then added: "Well, why not"? That's the story of origins. So, we went to work. Robert Waterhouse, who had seen a bit of the island as a tourist, and I, who had never set foot on this Avalon, descended in our innocence on Ajaccio and into the labyrinth of Corsica to discuss with Albiana the ingredients and the method for preparing the marmite and the dish to be served up. We ate and drank in the Grand Cafe Napoleon, talked, and took a pilgrimage to Pascal Paoli's Corte. We met Philippe Antonetti, saw some of his paintings in Bocognano, and listened to many words about 'corsitude', 'corsism', I, 'thou', 'we', they', about identity, pride, honour, dignity, the island, the Continent, exoduses and homecomings, recognitions of differences and specifities, language, ethnicity, even religion, football and sex. Our heads spun, it was baptism by fire!

Robert returned in February to gather material on tourism and development, and I came back for a week around the Winter Solstice to visit the Chestnut Fair at Bocognano. On the way there Philippe took me to visit the 15th century church in Tavera which had been founded by Genoans, probably Marranos, and where he had created a contemporary fresco and nave. The annual fair which has now existed for 18 years came from an incentive by the village to re-invest in the agricultural heritage of the island - chestnut flour for bread, polenta, beer- the staples of rural life. There were also stands for the 'passion-fruits'- oursins and oysters, for olive oils and soaps, handicrafts of various sorts. It was a meeting with an air of familiarity and sociability, such as fairs are supposed to offer, among Corsicans from the island and those returning from the continent, pinzutu - 'outsiders'- and some blow-ins like myself.
I heard lots of French and quite a bit of Corsican, and many sounds of bonhommie, cacophonie, and later the sweet lamentu-dirges of polyphonic chanting. I met some people, remember especially an attractive, diminutive, keen, serious, humorous, teasing, passionate, intense - particularly the eyes-, young lady who wanted to know what I thought of Corsica, to which I admitted sympathy, innocence, credulity and curiosity. The marmite was bubbling, Corsica was calling like a Janis Joplin song.

I should add to this expressionist tableau the following: a relative separation of the sexes - between the blokes, lads, guys, and the dolls and lasses, and their playfulness; the importance of appearance, of discretion, self-control, expressionlessness (which reminded me of the Soussi Berbers of the Anti-Atlas); the verbal gymnastics; the alcohol ("real men are able to hold their liquor and their tongues"). And the conversations in which I heard about the Baroque architecture of Bastia, the problems of industrialisation, the names of Nicolas Giudici, Francis Pomponi, Edmond Simeoni, Alexandra Jaffe, Angelo Rinaldi, Dorothy Carrington -some of whom have contributed to this issue- and about many other things.
Back in Ajaccio the fare turned to snail soup, Peraldi red wine, and descriptions, interpretations, analyses of Corsican society and culture - the centrality of the father figure, patriarchy, the significant realities and demands for equality, of mutual respect, of knowing where one's roots lie.

I went to meet Dorothy Carrington, an English lady and scholar in her early 90s, living here for at least most of the past half century, and the author of Granite Island, The Dream, Hunters of Corsica, la Constitution of Pascal Paoli (1755) and completing a biography of Charles Bonaparte, father of Napoleon. She begged off contributing to the issue because of her work load, but indicated what she considered some useful paths to follow.
In retrospect I think that her judgement was basically sound, although circumstances and space haven't always allowed us to follow her advice. Among the paths mentioned were the impact in the 1960s and 1970s of the arrival or return of people from the former French overseas colonies, especially the Pieds-Noirs from Algeria, their relative wealth, the consequent inflation, the development of the country's infrastructure, the angers and jealousies of those who suffered as a result, or who felt resentful; the relative importance of the presence of NATO air and naval bases, particularly during the Gulf War.
She also spoke of the interest in the facts that in the US there were four towns called Paoli and two named Corsica; that music here has so far been saved from the invasion of television; that some religious ceremonies of earlier days continue to be practised, as well as soothsaying in regard to dreams; and that "people still go killing animals", and have incredible indigenous hunting dogs called Cursinu.

What seems to me especially fascinating about Corsica, aside from its Avalon qualities (when I came here for six weeks to finish cooking up our dish, I was greeted every morning by one of our Albiana hosts with a cheerful "Life is beautiful isn't it?!"), is that, despite its eccentricity, it is a microcosm of many aspects of French society today, of Mediterranean peoples, of islands and insularities, even, of the world we live in, and, indeed, of 'human existence'. Braudel and the English poet John Donne ("No man is an island") put these matters succinctly. So does the man in the street here who says ironically that the Granite Island has to import cement, or that its beauty is that of a graveyard, and that many are trying to jump ship. This floating island is in some ways, indeed, a battleship. Its history and its present have to do with boundaries, frontiers, integrations, segregations, tolerance and intolerance, minorities, ethnic groups, linguistic and religious communities, questions of colour and repression, civilisation and barbarism.