Montanelli and the perpetual denying of Italian war crime
Part 1 - Introduction - LINK
Part 2 - Italian and Colonial Law, Institutions of Marriage in the Erithrean Traditional Constumary Law - LINK
Part 3 - The truth behind the myth of Montanelli - LINK
9. A colonialist type of pasta
In the 1930s, fascism celebrated the Italian colonial empire with new pasta shapes recalling the African lands: tripoline (Tripoli), bengasine (Bengasi), assabesi (Assab), and abissine (Abissinia). Afterwards, to erase references to fascist colonialism, abissine were renamed as conchiglie (shells).
(here you can see how this pasta looks and saw how they are still in stores with the "old" fascist names: LINK)
For all my life I known this kind of pasta as "conchiglie" (shells), because they have been commercialized by Barilla s.r.l. - the main italian agri-food corporate, founded in 1877 in Parma - with this name for years and years.
Same for bengasine, I eaten them with soup as a child and we called them "farfalline" (little butterflies).
I never saw the others and apparently I can't find a safe source to identify them, so checked in Barilla web site - they have a very useful database, based on pasta's pictures - for the others:
- "tripoline" are sold by Barilla as "reginette" (little queens)
- "assabesi" are not easy to identify, but I found them reported as "birilli" in Menucci's pasta catalogue and as "gnocchi" in Barilla's short pasta catalogue, they have a quite peculiar shape, but in "Encyclopedia of Pasta" by Orietta Zanini De Vita they look totally different.
What happened?
La Molisana, popular pasta brand, decide to celebrate the season of colonialism, like Italy did in the '30, with some new pastas: tripoline, bengasine, assabesi, and abissine.
In the product we could read an abuse of linguistic historical adjectives, popularly used during fascism: “striped Abyssinians with a lictorian and colonial flavor”. It was write of a “format with a name that is already storytelling. Does semolina pasta become a unifying element? Why not! Certainly a lictorian flavor, the name of Abyssin Rigate abroad is transformed into shells, conchiglie” . And so on...
After a big shit-storm about accusation of apology for fascism, that is a crime, according to art. 4, law nr. 645/1952, but not one of the most repressed, because, people who live in Italy knows that there are a lot of people who admit publicly and whitout any consequences that they are fascist (and they are not a undergraund movement like naziskin in other countries):
Art. 4. Apologia del fascismo
Chiunque fa propaganda per la costituzione di una associazione, di un movimento o di un gruppo avente le caratteristiche e perseguente le finalità ideate nell'art. 1 [ricostituzione in qualsiasi forma del disciolto partito fascista] è punito con la reclusione da sei mesi a due anni e con la multa da lire duecentomila a lire cinquecentomila.
Alla stessa pena di cui al primo comma soggiace chi pubblicamente esalta esponenti, princìpi, fatti o metodi del fascismo, oppure le sue finalità antidemocratiche. Se il fatto riguarda idee o metodi razzisti, la pena è della reclusione da uno a tre anni e della multa da uno a due milioni di lire.
La pena è della reclusione da due a cinque anni e della multa da cinquecentomila a due milioni di lire se alcuno dei fatti previsti nei commi precedenti è commesso con il mezzo della stampa.
La condanna comporta la privazione dei diritti previsti nell'art. 28, comma secondo, numeri 1 e 2, del codice penale, per usi periodo di cinque anni.
A short story of La Molisana company:
La Molisana S.p.a. was founded in Campobasso as an artisan workshop of the Carlone family in 1912, but it became a leader in the pasta sector within a few decades.
La Molisana won Gold Medal and Grand Palm of Honor in 1927 at the Rome Trade Fair for the production of excellent pasta.
At the turn of the new millennium, the company went through a period of crisis that led it to bankruptcy in July 2004. The company was entrusted to the Maione Group of Naples which rented it, initially for three years and later extended, with the intention to take over control, but in April 2009 the contract is terminated.
The crisis was resolved in 2011 when the company was acquired by the Ferro from Campobasso family for 20 million euros. Ferro are a family originally from Frattamaggiore in Campania, and moved to Campobasso in April 1943 where the Molino di Corso Bucci opens, destroyed in the Second World War and stopped it's activity for three years.
All this seems even more controversial considering that the Ferro family, now owner of the La Molisana pasta factory, has been severely affected by fascism. As Michele Petraroia of Anpi Molise explained to Ansa, the Nazi-Fascists, withdrawing from Campobasso, destroyed the company and in the postwar period, and the progenitor of the Ferro family participated in the signing of the Festa de L'Unità.
After this shit-storm, La Molisana admitted to be wrong and is preparing to change names to their pasta. Has Barilla already did at least twenty years ago.
As always, Italian journalists claimed that La Molisana S.p.a. was victim of “politically correct dictatorship”, because of in Italy we still can't talk honestly about colonialism without falling in the myth of “civilization of Africa” by Europeans.
Here an exemple taken from the journal Il Foglio (LINK).
Also "Gambero Rosso", one of the most famous food and wine multimedial company, wrote about this matter, but it's not a honest food story, just a quite paranoid free-thoughts against "politically correct" that didn't make any sense. (LINK)
Here, we have several issue: the world “eurocentrism” used with a positive connection, the myth of civilization and the victimism about unfair cancel culture on Facebook. Ok. Thank you.
Issue nr. 1 - So called Fiano law has never been approved, in fact has shelved after the approval of the Chamber of Deputy and never been examined by the Senate.
On the same day in which the Senate does not reach the numbers necessary to carry out the law on the so-called Ius soli (reform on citizenship which aims to introduce automatic citizenship for anyone born on Italian territory and no longer only for the children and descendants of Italians, the so-called ius sanguinis), the law introducing the crime of "propaganda of the fascist regime", the so-called Fiano law proposal, passes with 261 votes.
This bill aimed at introducing into the penal code, among crimes against the State Safety, art. 293-bis, which should have punished with imprisonment from 6 months to 2 years - unless the fact constituted a more serious crime - the propaganda of the fascist regime e Nazi-fascist.
The Fiano law was proposed by the PD (Democratical Party) during a summer characterized by several media cases, such as the fascist beach of Chioggia, on the display of symbols linked to Benito Mussolini and the Nazi-fascist regimes, and after the success of Casapound (extreme right party/movement of clearly fascists inspiration, because has been named after Ezra Pound, poet, fascist collaborationist and admirer of Hitler and Mussolini) in the administrative elections of 2017. The feared "black wave" had inspired a law which, however, after the rapid passage to the Chamber of Deputies was, as often happens, shelved in the Senate of the Republic.
The Fiano law project, very simple and consisting of a single article, would have affected the Nazi-fascist propaganda ranging from objects dedicated to Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler to fake news on Facebook, but has never been approved, so no one could be punish by Fiano law proposal because it was just a proposal and not an actual law.
This is a proof of how ignorant is this guy.
Issue nr. 2 - Fascism during it's colonial program really tried to delete culture.
Fascism in Italy tried to delete my culture. From the fire of the Hotel Balkan in 1921, when a mad crowd (during a fascist demonstration in Trieste) assaulted the Hotel, that was the main site of Narodni Dom, a cultural Slovenian association in Trieste, and set it in fire, to all the laws purposely made to refuse to Slovenian, German and Croatian minorities to speak their language and learn it in schools. Fascism also removed Croatian, Slovenian and German minorities from their public offices and gave them to Italian people, changed names to people and places, created concentration camps in Jugoslavia in clear purpose of deleting minorities' culture and history.
I won't wrote about this matters, because this would be dispersive to the main point of this post, so I will concentrate of the main symbol of Fascism appropriation of other cultures: the Obelix of Axum.
Rome has a long history of stealing Obelix from other countries, expecially from Egypt, but this one comes from Ethiopia.
At the end of 1935, following the Italian occupation, Italian soldiers found King Ezana's obelisk of Axum fallen, broken in three sections, and semi-underground, having been toppled during a 16th century Muslim rebellion. The stele was one of about fifty obelisks in the city of Axum at the time of the discovery. In 1937, it was taken as war booty and moved to Italy. The monolith stele was cut into five pieces and transported by truck along the tortuous route between Axum and the port of Massawa, taking five trips over a period of two months. The weight of the fragments pushed the limits of military vehicles and makeshift roads and bridges built by the Italians. It arrived via ship in Naples (on a ship called Adwa), on March 27. It was then transported to Rome, where it was restored with metal rods embedded in concrete, reassembled and erected on Porta Capena square in front of the Ministry for Italian Africa (later the headquarters of the United Nations's Food and Agriculture Organization) and the Circus Maximus. It was officially unveiled on October 28, 1937 to commemorate the fifteenth anniversary of the March on Rome
After years of pressure from the Ethiopians, Italy agreed in 2002 to return the 1,700-year-old monument.
Its return ends a dispute that has raged since 1947, when Italy signed a pledge to the United Nations to give back all the property plundered from Ethiopia.
As the obelisk was unloaded, Giorgio Croci, professor of engineering for ancient monuments at the University of Rome, said: "Inevitably this could open the floodgates. This is a part of the Ethiopian culture and history and we realise how important it is to this country and its people."
The restoration made it difficult to disassemble, but the obelisk was dismantled at the end of 2003 from where it stood near the Circus Maximus in central Rome.
Ethiopia has turned down an Italian offer to build schools or hospitals in a trade-off for the obelisk. Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin said the obelisk was 'of paramount importance... it is our identity, it is part of us'.
The 15,000 residents of Axum have signed a petition calling for the return of the monument. The authorities plan a national holiday for the day it returns. But it remains unclear when that will be.
Shipping the obelisk back, along the path it took more than 60 years ago, is no longer an easy option - Ethiopia has been landlocked since 1993 when Eritrea declared independence. And the only airstrip big enough for the plane required is at the capital, Addis Ababa, more than 100 miles from Axum. Ethiopia's dusty roads and tracks are hardly fit for the transport of heavy loads. The runway at Axum airport was then upgraded specifically to facilitate the return of the stele and on 19, 22 and 25 April 2005 the thee pieces of the Obelix were finally arrived in Ethiopia.
The operation cost Italy $7.7 million. The stele remained in storage while Ethiopia decided how to reconstruct it without disturbing other ancient treasures still in the area (especially King Ezana's Stele). By March 2007 the foundation had been poured for the re-erection of the stele near King Ezana's Stele, structurally consolidated in this occasion. Reassembly began in June 2008, with a team chosen by UNESCO and led by Giorgio Croci, and the monument was re-erected in its original home and unveiled on 4 September 2008.
The Obelisk at Axum in 1805
Issue nr. 3 - What means “eurocentrism” and “civilization”?
The term 'Eurocentrism' denotes a world-view which, implicitly or explicitly, posits European history and values as “normal” and superior to others, thereby helping to produce and justify Europe's dominant position within the global capitalist world system. At the heart of Eurocentrism lies a binary way of thinking which constructs a white, progressive, modern and civilised European identity and juxtaposes it to a black/indigenous, underdeveloped, traditional and barbarian Other in the colonies.
Now, try to imagine something more eurocentric than using "eurocentrism" as a positive value in a sentence. This happen because the journalist missed totally the point of what eurocentrism means.
Cambridge dictionary gives a definition of civilization as “human society with its well developed social organizations, or the culture and way of life of a society or country at a particular period in time.”
African people had well-developed social organizations, so they can't be "civilized" because they already had civilizations, complex human societies that have certain characteristics of cultural and technological development different from Europeans, but this never meant they were less civilized than Europeans colonizers. You would consider a certain population "uncivilized", only because you see them with the eyeglass of your own Eurocentric mentality on.
So, this journalist have the same way of thinking of dead and racist colonizers. In 2020.
5 - The false myth of Italian "good-hearted" Colonialism and Italian Society Nowdays
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte on 11th October 2018 visited Ethipia and Eritrea to support peace and renovated commercial and diplomatical relationship between the two countries. Italy still plays a significant - arguably neocolonial - role in Ethiopian economic development. Still, reporting on official visit obfusctes significat issues, such as the ongoing refugee crisis, and the current media reports makes no reference to dealing with Italy's colonial past, instead referring to the relationship between the countries as "long-standing". Italy present itself as the purveyor and supporter of peace in a oblique way of hiding the truth of it's past aggression: in the word of Ethiopian writer Igiaba Scego, Italian colonialism remains a "wound that has not healed, a wound poorly stitched up, a memory erased".
("Neocolonialism and Built Heritage: Echoes of Empire in Africa, Asia, and Europe", Daniel E. Coslett)
How Italy arrived in Africa is known history. Giuseppe Sapeto, priest, explorer and spy bought the Bay of Assab for the Rubattino company which sold it to the Kingdom of Italy in 1884. The following year the first Italian contingent landed undisturbed in Massaua thanks to the British intercession. Without the knowledge of the place and the means necessary for the company - an enterprise strongly desired by the monarchy, the shipowners and the colonial circles - the Italian authorities established the new order by means of summary trials, extraordinary incarcerations, deportations and executions.
Although defeated in the battle of Dogali by the Ethiopian neighbors, the Italians expanded their control in the region and officially constituted the Eritrean colony. The governors Orero, Gandolfi and Baldissera continued the repressive work against the civilian population. The last of the three declared that "Abyssinia has to be ours, because such is the fate of the lower races; the blacks gradually disappear, and we must bring civilization to Africa not for the Abyssinians but for us ".
The methods used against the Eritreans were so violent that eventually a parliamentary commission of inquiry was born, promptly boycotted by the monarchy. Although the allegations were documented - the memorial of the carabinieri lieutenant Livraghi was reported in the newspapers that reported the massacre of 800 colonial soldiers first hired by the army and then liquidated because they were considered unreliable - in the end the process was resolved in favor of the suspects.
And so in Eritrea the violence continued inside and outside the 7 prisons wanted by the colonizers. The worst of these was the one located on the island of Nocra. Despite the torrid climate, it even reached 50 ° C, the internees, who worked in stone quarries and slept in tents, received rationed doses of stagnant water. Captain Finzi of the navy described them as follows: “The prisoners, covered with sores and insects, slowly die of hunger, scurvy, other diseases. Not a doctor to cure them, 30 cents for their livelihood, ischeletrites, filthy, largely have lost the use of reduced legs as they are constantly living chained on the plank one meter high from the ground.” The escape attempts were punished with shooting.
Thousands of people passed through Nocra. Initially ordinary prisoners, then all those who opposed the Italian domination in the Horn of Africa: the Eritrean anti-occupation elite, the Negus officials after the conquest of Ethiopia, even the monks of Debra Libanos who survived the fury Murderer of Graziani was interned there.
The camp remained active until the Italian capitulation in East Africa in 1941.
This summer has been finally released Silvia Romano, who returned in Italy wearing a jilbab because she decided to convert to Islam with the name of Aisha during her prisony in Somalia. Aisha Romana was an international cooperator and she was kidnapped on November 2018 in the village of Chakama, in South of Kenya.
She has been prisoner since that date and during her prisony she was transferred in Somalia, another former Italian colony. Her she learned Arabic and only book she was allowed to have to spend her time was the Qur'an.
A typical racist claim I have heard is always: "help them in their homes", meaning that western people must help African people not welcoming in Europe migrants, fleeing from wars caused by western powers, but helping them in Africa. Well, Aisha Romano did it and has been insulted in a lot of ways.
Since her return in Italy she has been accused to a lot of false claims: marry her kidnapper, being pregnant of her kidnapper, having planned a fraud with his lover (and kidnapper) to have ransom money from Italian Government and live togheter in lust. All this accusation made me thought of what happened to Italian colonials soldier made prisoner after Adua Defeat, because sources reported to be treated very well by Ethiopian people.
On 1 March 1896 in Adua, Ethiopia, the colonial army of the Kingdom of Italy undergoes a colossal by the negus Menelik II.
Defeat was predictable. The Italian army - thanks to the short-sighted nationalist government of Francesco Crispi - was thrown into turmoil by a depressed commander (General Oreste Baratieri) and equipped with less resistant forces (20,000 armed men against 120,000 by Emperor Menelik). Thus 289 officers and 4,000 soldiers remained on the ground, as well as 1,000 ascari, Eritrean soldiers enrolled in the army of the Kingdom of Italy.
The toll was 5500 fallen Italians, 1000 Eritrean askari, thousands of wounded, including many indigenous Italians whose right hand and left foot were cut off; finally 2,000 prisoners were made that Italy had to redeem for the incalculable sum of 10,000,000 gold lire of the time.
Result: Prime Minister Francesco Crispi was forced to resign and the African ambitions of the Kingdom of Italy had to be limited to Eritrea, only to re-emerge with the war in Libya (1911-1912). As for the Italian prisoners, their memoirs confirm the very humane treatment they received in those months, after a long transfer march: the officers were treated like local nobles, while the ordinary soldiers acted as waiters for them. Many eventually succeeded in imposing themselves on their kidnappers and had close relationships with local women. Menelik even offered the officers a farewell lunch. All were released within a year after the peace treaty.
As always in Italian history, there was very little understanding for the losers.
The Italian prisoners of Adua who were then "bought" by the King of Italy for a weight of gold long after the battle, were landed in Naples at night so that they could not see them, hooded with uniforms taken at random (grenadiers' trousers and the jacket of the genius) and sent home with a small sum, so that they would be silent, so as not to be seen. So here, we saw the lack of national identity, the sense of being a community that is now been evident in Aisha Romano's case: people never forgive who wants generously want to help African people as they didn't want to forgive who lost a war of invasion in Africa. Only in the battle of Adua more Italians died than in all three wars of independence. Unfortunately, the "dream" to become a colonial power never died with them.
On 3 October 1935 the Second Italo-Abyssinian War (also referred to as the Second Italo-Ethiopian War) began when Italian forces crossed into the territory of present-day Ethiopia (also referred to as the Ethiopian Empire or Abyssinia). Tensions between the countries dated to at least 1887, when Italy first invaded Ethiopia. The second war was expected and tensions had been growing since the December 1934 Wal Wal incident in which Ethiopian and Italian soldiers clashed at a fort constructed by Italy at an oasis at Wal Wal.
The fort was on Ethiopian territory and Italy, in constructing it, meant to provoke a border demarcation dispute between Ethiopia and Italian Somaliland.
The war is also remembered for Italy's successful use of chemical weapons,primarily the blister agent sulphur mustard, that was banished from the Geneve Convention of 1925.
The use of sulphur mustard was particularly effective because the Ethiopian soldiers wore traditional light desert garb that exposed the skin. In addition, Ethiopian soldiers typically wore sandals or were barefoot.
Chemical weapons do not appear to have been used in the war until Ethiopia launched its ‘Christmas offensive’ of 1935, which blunted an Italian offensive and succeeded in temporarily cutting off some communication and supply lines. In December 1935 Italian aircraft dropped tear gas grenades and asphyxiating gas over the Takkaze Valley in north-eastern Ethiopia. Italy controlled the air and initially dropped sulphur mustard air bombs but later shifted to the use of aerial spray tanks.
Sulphur mustard air bombs reportedly caused most of the chemical weapon casualties. The use of sulphur mustard played an important role in shifting the momentum of fighting in favour of the Italian forces and in demoralizing the Ethiopian forces. Its use resulted in many long-lasting, painful injuries and in a significant number of deaths.
Italy also used chemical weapons in the Battle of Shire (29 February–2 March 1936), the Battle of Maychew (31 March 1936) and in attacks on the remnants of Ethiopian forces in the Lake Ashangi region starting in April. The last reported use of chemical weapons by Italy was in April 1936. That month the Ethiopian Government also provided a list of towns it said had been attacked with chemical weapons.
Italy’s use of chemical weapons had a strategic effect on the conduct of the war and, as operations progressed, Italian forces were able to deliver large quantities of sulphur mustard against target areas. Chemical weapons were used to protect the flanks of Italian supply routes and lines of attack and as a ‘force multiplier’ to increase disruption in the Ethiopian forces by hindering communication, demoralizing troops and confusing troop movements.
Soviet estimate states that 15 000 of the 50 000 Ethiopian casualties in the war were caused by chemical weapons.
(SIPRI Arms Control and Non-proliferation Programmme, October 2009, "The use of chemical weapons in the 1935–36 Italo-Ethiopian War" by Lina Grip and John Hart)
10. War Crimes Committed Against African Women by Italian Colonizers
Fourth Geneva Convention (1949) recognize that widespread forms of sexual violence purposefully inflicted by military forces upon civilians, expecially when they are part of a minority, as war crimes. Explicitly the Conventions refers to "rape, enforced prostitution, or any form of indecent assault."
In this war scenario, one of the aspects on which it is more difficult to find information is the violence suffered by African women, despite having appeared in recent years some precious works that focus, from a gender perspective, on the condition women in Africa occupied by Italians (Barrera, 1996, 2002; Poidimani, 2006; Sòrgoni, 1998, 2001; Stefani, 2007). These works mainly analyze two sides: the representation of women in the cultural imaginary of Italians e sexual relations between African women and Italian colonizers.
Regarding the first aspect, the studies emphasize that Italians, at least until the time of the conquest of Ethiopia, were in line with the “Porno-tropics tradition” (McClintock, 1995), based on the metaphor of Black Venus, which reduced the image of the African woman to mere dimensions of exoticism and eroticism. The black woman was recognized only on her sexual dimension. A sort of "colonial harem" ensued (Alloula, 1986;see also Gautier, 2003) which had the function of making ai desirable Italian workers transfer to the colonies.
After the foundation of the empire,when the emphasis was placed on the fight against hybridisation, the regime muted this depiction. The image of the black Venus was replaced by representations of an ethnographic type, which highlighted physical traits considered a sign of inferiority, in order to reaffirm the "natural" superiority of Europeans and the legitimacy of their colonization.
As for the second aspect - sexual relations between African women and Italian colonizers - since the pioneering work of Gabriella Campassi (1983), in which possession of the body of the subjects of the colonies was interpreted as metaphor of territorial possession, the studies have devoted a lot of space to relationships di madamato (“temporary, but not occasional, relationship between a citizen and a indigenous subject ”, Sòrgoni, 1998, p. 74), which characterize the entire first phase of the Italian occupation, until the abrupt break made by fascist politics in concomitance with the proclamation of the empire. From that moment they came implemented a series of legal arrangements aimed at controlling the behavior of Italians and "subjects" to reaffirm the prestige of whites.
Marital and extra-marital relations between different "races" were prohibited, prohibited the legitimacy and adoption of children born from the union of "citizens" with "subjects", established a widespread racial segregation. The "mestizos" were driven back into the indigenous communities and any institutions previously created for their assistance was outlawed. The aim of these measures was the desire to strengthen the pyramid ethnic and not to allow, within it, any "gray area", to guarantee the "Italian race" a prominent place among the colonizers.
Other information can be found in the works of Sòrgoni (1998) and Barrera (1996), who reviewed the sentences issued by the Addis Ababa's Courts. Sòrgoni (1998) analyzes, for example, two rape trials. In the first - "Violent rape" - the victim, Desta Basià Ailù, is a nine-year-old girl, segregated against her will, for several days, in the accused's home.
The latter is tried for rape, not kidnapping, e obtains the extenuating circumstances on the basis that it was an abandoned child and therefore, according to an Italian translation of Fetha Negast, a text that contained i Abyssinian criminal customs, it could be taken into the house by anyone. The second case it concerns the rape of a thirteen-year-old girl, Lomi, who also had denounced having been, after the violence, tied up "for punishment". The accused was in the first instance acquitted because the judges declared that at thirteen an Abyssinian was "the age of sexual development". He was later convicted by the Court of Appeal for not having behaved according to the dictates of the civilizing mission of the superior race.
Analyzing the letters of expulsion of Italians from the colonies for behavior unworthy (scams, thefts, beatings, murders often committed for futile reasons), Barrera (2002) found some who report sexual harassment, mixed with pressure and threats aimed at the families of the victims. Always Barrera (1996) refers to some trials in which the Italian defendants had been reported for having beaten African women with whom they had a relationship. In one of the cases, the accused was acquitted of madamato's charge, because the violence committed proved proved the existence of an emotional relationship.
In the period following the enactment of the racial laws and the consequent prohibition of any relationship of a marital nature between Italians and "indigenous", there was one resurgence of acts of violence. According to Barrera (2002), oral sources and Archival records reveal a considerable increase in rape and harassment sexual during the conquest of Ethiopia, acts that did not cease with the end of hostility, but continued into the following period. Also Maria Messina, an Italoeritrea born in Asmara in 1917, interviewed by Barrera (1996), testifies a increase in harassment and rape after the conquest, attributing it to the arrival blackshirts, much more violent than the "old colonials". Ladislav Sava, a Hungarian doctor who was in Addis Ababa at the time of the occupation Italian, he told the London weekly New Times & Ethiopia in 1940 News, directed by Sylvia Pankhurst, to have personally witnessed the “Deportation of Ethiopian women to homes forcibly converted by the Italian military in brothels ".
Other testimonies have recently been published by Stefani (2007, p. 137), which, citing the diary of an officer, Mario La Sorsa, recounts the attack carried out by two Italian soldiers against an indigenous woman and the wounding of husband, who rushed to her defense. Rivello (2006), on the other hand, reports a sentence, issued by the First Army Military War Tribunal in February 1943, which he condemned some Italian soldiers for a manhunt against the inhabitants of a Tunisian country, Kisbet al Medionni. Two drunken Italian soldiers had entered private homes to rape the women who were there. Blocked by the Arabs, unarmed, they returned shortly afterwards with dozens of fellow soldiers shooting and killing the locals. ("Violence against women in the Italian colonies. Psychosocial perspectives of analysis" by Chiara Volpato)
("Mussolini's colonial race laws and state-settler relations in Africa Orientale Italiana (1935-41)"by Giulia Barrera)
("Italy's Margins: Social Exclusion and Nation Formation since 1861" , by David Forgacs)
("Dangerous Liaisons: Colonial Concubinage in Eritrea (1890-1941)" by Giulia Barrera)
("Etnografia e colonialismo. L'Eritrea e l'Etiopia di Alberto Pollera 1873-1939" by Sorgoni Barbara)
("Parole e corpi. Antropologia, discorso giuridico e politiche sessuali interrazziali nella colonia Eritrea (1890-1941)" by Barbara Sòrgoni)
("Colonia per maschi. Italiani in Africa Orientale: Una storia di genere" by Giulietta Stefani)
("Il ruolo della magistratura militare" , in "Crimini di guerra. Il mito del bravo italiano tra repressione del ribellismo e guerra ai civili nei territori occupati" by Pier Paolo Rivello)
Conclusion
There is not a "good" side of colonialism and we need to stop talking about who is more criminal than others: this actually leads to free rapers, war criminals and racists from responsibility and create a situation where everyone tries to palm off responsibility on the historical context and the overcoming power of Nazi Germany on it's allies.
We already saw this last year, when a lot of white italian journalists started to defend Montanelli and all the historical period of violence against poeple who lived in the colony, without making a real condamn on what happened.
Let's start to talk to children about the atrocities and war crimes committed by Italians, this is the only kind of context we need to understand that every try to defend Montanelli and La Molisana pastas is standing on defence to colonialism, fascism, racism, war crimes and sexual violence against black women.
We must stop defending criminals, when a minority is the victim, and begin to punish the crime. Saying that Montanelli was "son of his age"(the statue was built in 2006) because in Africa was / is normal to rape children or young girls, and that some pasta's name are completely neutral historical testimonials to a very positive moment of both Italian and Abyssinian hystory, means defending the oppression of the white people on black people. Montanelli and all those white journalists are a part of a special boys club that loves to tell minorities what is racist and what is not, basing the valutation on eurocentrical criteria made up by themselves. For example, they are the one who decide what is a war crime or not: Italian fascists never been under trial for their crimes, even if the Chart of Nuremberg of 1945 opened this possibility, by their intend to persecute and punish every war crime, crime against peace and crimes against humanity committed by European Axis.
Obviously, recognizing the violence committed by Italians against African people would be very damaging for United Kingdom, France and other colonizer powers. Again, life of African are less important than European ones.
That special boy club loves also to control black women bodies and applies a double standard of valuations on sexual violece: raping a 12 years old white child is not the same as raping a black child of the same age, said Montanelli. Why? Because a black girl is not equal to a white girl. The white girl has an higher value.
This is racism, boys. White guys loves to tell black women what is rape and what is not, basing the valutation on skin color and not on the law. And all the other white guys around agrees. Except, the only italo-erithrean woman on the audice, Elvira Banotti.
But, yes, the journalist of Il Foglio continued to spread his Eurocentrical vision of history and said that African should be grate to Italian for stopping slave trades, without thinking that Italians colonizers didn't built street for African poeple or because they were good-hearted, they did it for themselves. Mostly for moving better troupes on the territory.
Also, this ignorant guy accused Italians who protested for La Molisana pastas to be not respectful of Italian History. How could someone be respectful of an history of invasion and colonization in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia and Libya? How could we respect the use of nerve gas on civilian populations, bombings, mass rape, massacres, enslavement of girls and boys, child brides purchased by families, theft of artistic and monumental goods, resources and lands?
Unfortunately, we are not ready for a honest discussion about this details of our history.
I hope that someone must start an honest discussion about colonialism, because we lost this opportunity when Indro Montanelli statue has been vandalized: some people wanted to remove it, but I think It must be modified into a positive message against racism, colonialism and fascism not only against terrorism. Maybe the authorities would have to keep it as it looked after the vandism of some months ago, with red paint on it and a little children in his arms. It would look like postmodern art and will have a story behind: the story of citizens who opposed to a racist, misogynist society and against that kind of people who continue to hide italian war crimes.
