If you were a man or woman coming from Sardinia what could you complain for?

You' d have the best way of life near at hand: sunny weather, cheap and healthy lifestyle, fine-sandy beaches.

But what would be your mood if you lived in permanent unemployment, begging for your tax money to come back home after umpteen political scandals?

It is often weird to see that Sardinia hosts the most depressed areas in Europe (according to the Italian Senate report provided on May 2014, the province of Carbonia-Iglesias reached an unemployment rate of 48% this year), while its inhabitants are used to own up to three smartphones.

It's hard to admit that despite broad unemployment rates and poor production of goods and services Sardinians persevere in a high standard of living.

With its ancestral roots and ruins witnessing a proud biography, Sardinia was discovered only recently by the rich and famous who punctually became occupants of the brightest side of the island.

Glamour turned out to be the only possible way of living. Working three months a year and affording a second property for renting out, your house valuation tripled in few months and Peter Gabriel having breakfast round the corner: all beautiful things.

But, as usual, the love story came to an end. Elite tourism moved to even more elitist places while Sardinian economy had to raise prices for vacations and transports.

It's the same old story: tourism can improve local economy till the point of no return represented by its sustainability index.

Too close to the caviar coast to be ignored, a small hippie community occupies the quiet Valle della Luna (Moon Valley) since 1960: the date in which Costa Smeralda was launched. A group of people that made the choice to get away from the stereotype of frantic pace of modern life.

But a Valley which attracts hundreds of visitors a year often cannot preserve its allure.

They call them “poseurs”, due to the many intrusions such tiny landslide had to face through the years. Carl Gustav Jung would agree, it's difficult to interact and accept others' behavior, above all when they are strangers, or conventional, or bourgeois.

Visitors arrived with an all-inclusive offer: they were strangers, conventional and bourgeois. And similar to people that are conventional and bourgeois, tried to make the Valley bow in their presence.

When you are a 33 years old French bank officer turning up at a hippie community, you'll probably fancy an anthropological journey on the wild myth of Woodstock. You'll meet people on their 40ies who at the age of 23 decided to give up the Law school, instead. On the average and well-organized, that's the description which fits better to new hippies. With a small amount of marijuana, (not legal in Italy) for everyday needs.

What happens if you are not prepared for? Absolutely nothing. You get bored to swim among nudists, the weather is ok but a bit too warm, you' re not that magnet for girls, and so on.

Once upon a time two groups of people had opposite habits, ideals and future hopes.

They used to despise each other's way of life: in the opinion of a banker having a stock option wage, life in a cave sounded miserable, horrible and ridiculous. At the same time, hippies answered with a free-minded vision which rejected every constraint that could be defined appropriate and productive by a prevailing code of social behavior.

To sum up: money versus happiness. Maybe.

Nowadays, those two categories are in a certain way completely autonomous: although supposed not to be compatible, their members seem not to know about each other existence.

Times have changed for new hippies above all. While until 90's you could see them growing vegetable gardens and feeding themselves with their families through that, at the present time life has become more expensive for all. Almost every counterculture's son owes a small stand where to sell artistry goods such as necklaces and earrings but also incision works and rare books.

Which means that the ones who want to sell their goods should have an internet connection to make their income more certain and durable.

For instance, hippies seem to struggle to win the hardest challenge of the entire existence of the ideology, the one carried against mass consumption. That is to say that mass consumerism has already invaded their communes. At the same time, hippie lifestyle became soon a fashionable new trend for upper- and middle-class.

As a matter of fact, hippies world-view is entangled in a paradoxical position, whose values, habits and non-violent protests have just become marketable.

But the last word belongs to those who by chance host those opposite worlds. Sardinian residents (1,5M people having Italian citizenship) declare not to have anything against what they call “two weird kinds of social systems: everybody is welcome as long as we can avoid soil consumption and have enough nourishment not to be disturbed in our routine”.

In the end, money won.

Peace and love.

 

below: Milena Fadda - photo essay, Moon Valley and Luxury in Sardinia