Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

ITALY AND POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES

2006; Routledge; Volume: 8; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13698010600956105

1469-929X

Miguel Mellino,

Anarchism and Radical Politics

Abstract Italy is certainly a postcolonial country. First, because, like most European countries, Italy has a past as a colonial nation. And colonial discourse even in Italy has played a central role in constructing the national identity, from the post-unification period onwards. Second, because since the late 1970s it has become the destination or transit area for significant transnational migratory movements. Finally, Italy is a postcolonial country because it is an active participant in the neo-imperialist attempt by the United States and its allies to recolonize Afghanistan and Iraq. Given these premises, some explanation is certainly due of the scanty (and late) development of postcolonial studies on the Italian intellectual scene. This essay has the aim of tracing some of the most significant elements that have conditioned the reception and development of postcolonial studies in Italy. My thesis is that an understanding of this process should take into account themes and arguments such as: the almost complete removal of the Italian colonial past from the collective national memory and from the public sphere, historical revisionism and the climate of 'national reconciliation' that has enveloped the country from the end of the Cold War, the so-called 'political reflux' that has characterized the Italian intellectual scene from the 1980s onwards, the conservatism and permanent immobility that governs the Italian system of university recruitment, the Italian debate about postmodernism and post-structuralism, the almost total indifference in Italy to Edward Said's work, and finally the absence of diasporic and migrant intellectuals at the key points of cultural and knowledge production. I conclude the essay by arguing that one of the main Italian routes to postcolonialism is to be found in political, cultural, militant and para-university areas of society that are contiguous with those of the new social movements. Keywords: cultural critiqueItalian colonialismItalian cultural studiesItalian race relationsnew social movementspostcolonial studies Notes 1A few years ago, indeed, while Nato planes, often taking off from military bases on Italian territory, were bombarding Yugoslavia, the effects of this myth could be seen in the enormous publicity given by the media and much of the establishment to the charity and aid supplied to the Yugoslavs by the Italian 'Missione Arcobaleno' (Rainbow Mission), an operation more fraudulent than humanitarian, set up by the then centre-left government. 2Translations from the Italian sources are my own unless otherwise indicated. 3 Fascist Legacy is the title of a documentary directed by Ken Kirby and produced by the BBC in 1989. The film tries to reconstruct the story of the massacres and war crimes committed by liberal, and then by fascist, Italy in the colonial expansion in Africa and the occupation of the Balkans during the Second World War. Through interviews with important historians – such as Giorgio Rochat, Angelo Del Boca and Michael Palumbo – and the accounts of some eyewitnesses, the film dwells on the reasons why the Italian war criminals (around 1,300) were never tried or charged, and on the lack of any public debate in Italy on these events. When the film was shown in Great Britain it led to a protest from the Italian ambassador in London, a question in Parliament and various accusations in the main Italian dailies. It was bought by the state broadcasting company, but was never broadcast on the state channels. It was shown on Italian television only in 2003 on a small private channel (La7). 4 The Lion of the Desert is an American film of 1979 that tells the story of the Libyan resistance to the brutal fascist occupation led by Omar Mukhtar. Directed by Moustapha Akkad, it features actors such as Anthony Quinn, Oliver Reed, Rod Steiger, John Gielgud, Irene Papas and Raf Vallone. Distributed in the USA in 1980 and two years later in Europe, it was never distributed in Italy – in spite of the debate about it in the press – following a veto by the then Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, Raffaele Costa, who accused it of 'vilifying the Italian armed forces'. 5It is important to say something here about Italian revisionist discourse, which is especially prevalent in the fields of political science and history but also in the most prominent spheres of Italian public opinion and hence does not necessarily come from right-wing intellectuals. Revisionist discourse around the fascist period has its local logic in the absurd claim that even the fascists (who remained allied with Nazism till the end of the Second World War and hence fought against the anti-fascist partisan struggle) were then fighting in the name of national 'pride' and 'sovereignty', though on the 'wrong' side. This is one of the bases on which discourses about 'national reconciliation' between those who fought for the return of democracy (anti-fascists) and those who did not (the combatants of the fascist Republic of Salò) operate in the Italian scene. The main scope of revisionisms of this kind, of course, is to try to remove from the national memory the phenomenon of fascism itself, or even what fascism was really about. 6One such is Hamdi Isaac, the Ethiopian arrested in Rome recently, accused of being one of the would-be suicide bombers in London on 21 July 2005. Born in Addis Ababa before attending the then ultra-radical mosque in Brixton and the gym in Notting Hill where he watched DVDs on the massacres in Iraq and Afghanistan caused by the 'democratic' bombs, he had apparently spent his teens in and around Rome. 7The CPTs are internment centres to contain migrants without IDs, guilty only of not being identifiable. They are special prisons that cannot be officially termed such, as the law does not allow imprisonment for purely administrative crimes. It has been established that hundreds of people seeking asylum end up in these prison camps too. They were created and legalized by the last centre-left government, though the Berlusconi government has extended their functions and powers. They are closed areas, isolated from their surroundings by long, high boundary walls, barbed wire and gates, and are controlled by CCTV, police and members of the Italian military Red Cross. There have been a number of riots in them on the part of the migrants detained, and they have also been at the centre of various scandals after reports of ill-treatment of the 'internees' and abuse of power. Access to them is extremely difficult, and very few politicians, journalists or members of NGOs have succeeded in obtaining an entry permit. There are thirteen CPTs functioning in Italy, as well as 4 CPAs (Centri di Prima Accoglienza, or reception centres, theoretically intended only for asylum-seekers), and nine more are being built. They are powerful symbols of the permanent state of emergency in force today in Italy and elsewhere.