If I would believe to this press, I would have seen a scared escaping crowd of 5000 people leaving the village of Nicolosi in panic without hope...
But
what did I have seen during my stay time around Mt. Etna and Nicolosi?
Positive thinking Sicilian people practising ancient rituals four kilometers in the north of their town while staying courageous and close to the huge lava front.(It is an old tradition to take hot pieces of lava from the front to stay in peace with the volcano and beware the threaten
houses from their destruction).
The everyday live of the 5000 inhabitants in Nicolosi was more than relaxed and beside of the increasing sensation tourism the normal live tooks
it's way. In contrast of the hectical press, the people of Mt. Etna are used to live with this
natural phenomena since centuries.
Dear panic-maker-press there was really no sign of panic during my observation days in the whole Etna area.
I don't want to blame special senders or newspapers. From the boulevard press to the serious newspapers, from the daily broadcast news up to the magazines, the July events at Mt. Etna were generally infected from one virus called 'incompetence '. It seems that it is also an ancient
tradition of the international press to transpose basic events. Even lying to produce an exclusive report from the volcano may reach a successful result and a good method to stay up to date.
If I would believe to this press, I wouldn't be able to order a cup of coffee at the Sapienza in the next future.
A serious German newspaper reported that the Sapienza was completely destroyed. This message was also broadcasted on all German television news. The reality was, the upper station was hardly damaged. Without correcting this mistake the readers were left in a big untruth. Yes,
sometimes the press is really able to displace tourist centers and cable car stations. May you can remove the next time the whole Volcano.
But who is really hiding behind this lies? May some fatal wrong messages are home made but several persons in place are especially keen on to create specials panic info's.
In Zafferana Etnea I met a German who was watching out for this persons. Unfortunately I don't have his name, but I hope if this person is reading this article may he can tell us the result of his examines. Maybe he could made out the names of this panic makers who are cheating the
whole world.
Finally I noticed the years before a very poor reporting interest from the German medias to the real fascinating side of the Mt. Etna's activities. Don't tell me that there weren't spectacular events in the upper regions in the years of 2000/2001. At the end I came to the decision that a volcano has his only fascination for the press destroying human goods or lives to get a cheap story of sensation. If destruction is your only target, would you please be so kind to describe the right one.
Thorsten Boeckel
Cinema