Giu­lia Giaume
Once upon a time, in the heart of the Hispa­nic ter­ri­to­ry, the­re was a whi­te city. But not an inch of snow had fal­len that day. It was flour. And egg shells. And why not, fire.

Every 28th of December, the Spanish town if Ibi is covered in a white vest, and a familiar sweet aroma. No one would say it’s under attack. A civil war takes place here, one made of fire, eggs and flour. And it’s no tale.

The Fie­sta dels Enfa­ri­na­ts, lite­ral­ly the flou­red ones’ cele­bra­tion, is a sup­po­sed­ly 200-year old cele­bra­tion to com­me­mo­ra­te the Bibli­cal Mas­sa­cre of the Inno­cen­ts – althou­gh only revi­ved in 1981. The who­le day is dedi­ca­ted to ree­nact a most uni­que civil war. The group of Els Enfa­ri­na­ts, the flou­red ones, sta­ge a fake coup d’état in mock mili­ta­ry gar­men­ts, and take the city. As they claim “New Justi­ce”, the mad­ness begins.

To elect a new chief in com­mand for Ibi, they orga­ni­ze the Race for Mayor, and the win­ner gets the pro­mo­tion. They para­de thou­gh the stree­ts to get to the Church Squa­re, the Plaça de l’Església, whe­re they resi­de and draft new laws. But no justi­ce is invol­ved here: the most absurd the­se laws are, the bet­ter. And the resi­den­ts must com­ply. Other­wi­se? They actual­ly get fined, and if they refu­se, go to jail. All the col­lec­ted fees go to cha­ri­ty, thou­gh. Five poin­ts to the Enfarinats.

They raid the city for infrin­gers thou­gh the who­le day, until a rival army gets into the sce­ne. Its’ La Opo­si­cio, the oppo­si­tion. It tries to fight the revo­lu­tio­na­ry govern­ment back, and resto­re the order. The bat­tle is on: the town explo­des with fire­crac­kers, eggs and flour bombs. Debris flies eve­ry­whe­re, as the all-men armies pelt each other to exhau­stion – all with safe­ty gog­gles. In the end, La Opo­si­cio takes the power back, and eve­ry­thing goes back to nor­ma­li­ty. Cur­tain falls. And clean-up time.

Such an event, must be seen with your own eyes. If you’ve got no time to fly to Alicante region, though, you may enjoy some beautiful photographs.

A pre­cious insight of this uni­que festi­vi­ty was given by pho­to­gra­pher Anto­nio Gibot­ta, who won a stun­ning second pri­ze for the Sto­ries in the Peo­ple sec­tion in 2017 World Press Pho­to con­te­st – the most famous pho­to­jour­na­li­stic com­pe­ti­tion in the world. You can enjoy his, and many others’ extraor­di­na­ry works, by going to the offi­cial exhi­bit in 100 cities and 45 coun­tries. Check the nea­re­st open ones here. And if you’re in Ita­ly, you’ve got time until the 7th of Janua­ry to go see it in either Naples or Aosta.

Reda­zio­ne