In mathematics we define axiom a principle that is believed true for evidence. In other words, this truth does not need to be demonstrated. In religious terms one should believe it for faith. For example, on the evidence that for two points only one line passes, Euclidean geometry has been constructed, which until modern times was considered the only possible geometry.

Asserting Before the Sicilians! assumes that there is a definite and identifiable Sicilianity, which can not be reduced to only being born or living in Sicily, otherwise my brother , which has recently moved to Milan, would no longer be Sicilian or risk losing, after a given period (which no scientific study has yet determined ...), this status. It is therefore necessary to understand which is the axiom which gives rise to the construction of sicilianità.
Genetics can be widely refuted to help us . < br> It is therefore necessary to follow another path for the determination of the sicilianità: we try through a historical approach, trying to identify the purest and most original Sicilian stock.

Who were then the authentic Sicilians?

Were the "pre-Hellenic" and "pre-fenic" natives? Namely the sicule, sicane and elime populations that inhabited the island until the 5th century BC, coexisting with the most advanced Greek colonies and Phoenicians to be completely assimilated?
Or perhaps the incipit of sicilianità was given by the secular "foreign" dominations / colonizations. However, at least initially, the Greeks (which invaded / colonized the eastern part of the island, founding for example Syracuse) and the Phoenicians (ie the Canaanite civilization settled along the Mediterranean coast between the current states of Syria and Israel, which colonized / invaded the western side of Sicily, founding for example Palermo) were not considered more Sicilian of the native populations. At some point in history, however, should have become (otherwise, disappeared as administrative entities Sicilian populations, sicane and elime, the Sicilian would have died out with them and today we would be here to talk about something else ...), as well as the later Romans, Byzantines, Islamic, Norman, Aragonese, Hapsburg and Bourbons, who for centuries have inhabited the Sicilian island.
Does a colonizing population acquire the sicilianità after at least a century of residence on the island? If this were the case, erupts, Ostrogoths, Swabians, Angevins, Piedmontese (who for a short time put their hands on Sicily already a century before the final "annexation" through the Shipping of a thousand) and Austrians (or better, again the Habsburgs, even if of another family branch), with their relatively brief but fundamental passage would have remained outside the acquisition of sicilianità. So Federico II, although he considered himself Sicilian, really would not have been.
Allow me a brief disgrace: to reread all the names of the "colonizing" cultures of Sicily you understand well why some Sicilians look more like those Germans disembarked from cruise ships to Messina (I refer just to those in t-shirt and shorts even in December ...), rather than the classic low topos, dark-skinned, with the scuzzetta and dark mustache.

Returning to our historical analysis, among the most famous "Sicilians" of all time there is the aforementioned stupor mundi Federico II! Historically considered one of the most innovative European sovereigns in history, grew up and educated in Sicily by Christian and Islamic preceptors, unpopular to the popes of the time for his secular vision of politics and for the opening towards the Islamic Sicilians (which also earned him the nickname of Christian sultan and some excommunications), made Palermo the most flourishing and stimulating European court of the 13th century. Could it be considered Sicilian? Frederick II, later also emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, belonged to the noble sveva (ie German ...) family of the Hohenstaufen. On the other hand, the mother was descended from the Normans (population of Danish and Norwegian origin ...) from Altavilla (Hauteville, France ...) Yet it was considered more Sicilian than anything else, enough to decide to keep the two separate crowns.
Unless even to disagree with an emperor, we can say that the sicilianità is more about sharing certain values (political, religious, culinary ...) than a genetic or historical belonging. But what values? In Sicily there was everything and the opposite of everything: from polytheism, to Islam, to Greek and Roman Christianity; from democracy, to tyranny, to feudalism, from cuccìa to cassata, all'arancino / a ...
The sicilianità is the result of a process of commingling between the cultures of almost the entire Mediterranean and most of Europe, which began millennia ago. The result is a sort of syncretism evident not only in the language (which houses terms and expressions deriving from all colonizing cultures) but also in the architecture of monuments: in Sicily we find ourselves for example with Roman villas or Byzantine churches built on the foundations of structures Greek; and Greek mosques or temples set in cathedrals.
Sicilianity can mean everything and nothing. Since the history of Sicily is the emblem of the history of humanity, always characterized by movements and migrations for the most disparate reasons. The richness of Sicilian culture (or rather, of the culture that has been generated in Sicily) is the result of a sort of melting pot, certainly not of an identity isolation. Saying sicilianity is saying humanity.

The problem (according to my modest opinion) arises when implicitly assumes the sicilianità (or the italianità ...) as ideology. In other words, when we consider the esserci of the siciliano as evident, for which therefore we do not need any demonstration: the Sicilian, simply, there is. From this point of view, affirming before the Sicilians assumes that there are non-Sicilian : if the assumed is considered true from the community (in this case) of the Sicilians, the non-sicilianità is a logical consequence that does not need to argue. Quoting Hannah Arendt (forgive me if I choose to omit the text from which I quote, but the eloquence of the title would offend your intelligence) ideological thinking becomes independent of every experience: in other words, it does not matter to demonstrate the historical, cultural and genetic inconsistency of the sicilianità concept as defined and clearly determined. Since if the aim is to politically justify the right to the selfish exclusion of the non-Sicilianity, any dissent will be marked by the community as anti-social, anti-Sicilian, not true as opposed to the "truth", in contrast with the evidence of sicilianità.