‘A beautiful moment of bravery and hard work’: Italian colonialism in post-1945 history high school textbooks

Abstract

Italian colonialism in Africa has for some time been a largely neglected subject of study. The signing of the Paris Treaty of 1947, which deprived the country of its colonies, did not lead to critical debates, in Italy, around the issue. On the contrary, the post-war political elites continued to demand the restitution of those colonies, in continuity with previous regimes. The hagiographic and mythic image of colonialism that had been created by liberal and Fascist propaganda remained alive in Italian culture and society. This article analyses the continuities and ruptures in the treatment of colonial history offered by post-war high school history textbooks. Traditional discourses and imagery marked the way in which textbooks examined the nation's colonial past, distorting the reality of the past and contributing to the creation of a sense of innocence with regard to the Italian presence in Africa.

Keywords:

• colonialism
• racism
• textbooks
• education
• postcolonial studies

Notes

Notes

1. Angelo Del Boca has extensively investigated the causes of the lack of critical debate on Italian colonialism. Del Boca (1992, 2003).

2. The Algerian war and its impact on French politics, society and culture are important reference points and the literature on this topic is extensive. On the opposition of French intellectuals to the war and on its limits, Vidal-Nacquet (1986); Roux and Sirenelli (1991). According to Stephen Howe (2005), nothing of that sort happened in post-war Britain where a key role in the organisation of an anti-colonial culture was played by migrants from the former colonies. See also Schwarz (2003).

3. Among the few studies dealing with this issue are Rossi (1980), who concentrates on the diplomatic aspects, and Pastorelli (2000), who focuses on the internal debate. See also Kelly (2000).

4. This justification was adduced by Alcide De Gasperi in his speech delivered during the Paris Peace Conference. See Per una pace nella fraterna collaborazione dei popoli liberi. Discorso pronunciato al Palazzo del Lussemburgo a Parigi, all’Assemblea Generale della Conferenza della pace il 10 agosto 1946, in Allara and Gatti (1990, 357–64).

5. According to Del Boca no less than a hundred thousand people perished in Libya between 1911 and 1932, while no less than four hundred thousand Ethiopians died between 1887 and 1941 (Del Boca 1992).

6. The Association for the Defence of National Schools was created between 1946 and 1947 with the aim of defending state education, which was thought to have been weakened by the privileges that the Minister Guido Gonella had granted to private and Catholic schools (Semeraro 1993). The Conference was given prominence by the parliamentary debate on the Scelba Law. According to article 9 of the law, publications documenting Fascist anti-democratic action must be disseminated among school students (Baldissara 2004).

7. On the links between Fascism and school publishers see Galfrè (2005).

8. ‘On the 26th of January 1887 [Ras Alula] with five thousand men attacked a column of our soldiers, who were marching toward the plateau, under the orders of colonel De Cristoforis, and barbarously massacred it at Dogali’ (Manaresi 1951, 127). On the legend of Dogali, which, according to Alessandro Triulzi, represented one of the stepping-stones ‘for the strengthening of the new foundations of the Italian colonial monument’, see Battaglia (1958); Del Boca (1976); Triulzi (2003).

9. The survey originated from a refresher course for teachers on the ‘Last Fifty Years of Modern History’, organised by the Istituto Nazionale per la Storia del Movimento di Liberazione in Italia (Institute for the History of Liberation Movement in Italy), the University of Milan, the Milan City Council and the National Didactic Centre in Florence.

10. On this topic see Ricuperati (1972, 1977). Mattozzi (1978) was in favour of the abolition of textbooks.

11. On Sciara Sciat see Del Boca (1986); Del Fra (1995); Rainero (1983). On the massive deportation following the battle see Moffa (1996).

12. In her research around the discussion of Italian colonialism in Libya in Italian history textbooks published between 1950 and 2001, Francesca Di Pasquale has identified some textbooks which cite the atrocities committed by the Italians in suppressing the Cyrenaican resistance. Among these, it is worth remembering Capra, Chittolini and Della Peruta (1992); De Bernardi and Guarracino (1990); Camera and Fabietti (1998). Overall, however, of the 43 textbooks examined by Di Pasquale – the great majority of which were published between the second half of the 1980s and 2001 – only eight offer an analysis of the situation of Libya in the aftermath of the First World War (Di Pasquale 2003).

13. On the complex relationship between the Gentile reform and the cultural and ideological debate preceding it see Borghi (1951); Barbagli (1974); Galfrè (2000) and Raicich (1981).

14. The purpose of recasting the organisation of education, from the lowest to the highest level, remained unfulfilled. Moreover, if the reform of the middle school was finally realised, at the end of 1962, after more than a decade of debates, that of upper secondary education never took place. The changes introduced in 1969 represented a limited government response to the demand to dismantle and reform the system of higher education. It is worth noting, however, that the new state examination, which was meant to be a ‘biennial experiment’, actually lasted until 1999. See Dei (1993).

15. D.M. 24 April 1992 ‘Programmi ed orari di insegnamento per i corsi di qualifica degli istituti professionali di Stato’, Gazzetta Ufficiale della Repubblica Italiana no. 117, Supplemento Ordinario no. 77, May 21, 1992.

16. D.M. 31 January 1997, Gazzetta Ufficiale della Repubblica Italiana no. 36, Supplemento Ordinario no. 31, February 13, 1997.