Learning about colonialism. High school students' perception of Italian colonial history. Camilla Guerrato Dissertação de Mestrado em Migrações, Inter-Etnicidades e Transnacionalismo September, 2019 Dissertação apresentada para cumprimento dos requisites necessários à obtenção do grau de Mestre em Migrações, Inter-Etnicidades e Transnacionalismo, realizada sob orientação científica do Prof. Nuno Dias - NOVA/FCSH e a coorientação da Prof. Helena Serra - NOVA/FCSH e do Prof. Shaul Bassi - Universidade Ca’ Foscari de Veneza. This dissertation is presented as a final requirement for obtaining the Master's degree in Migration, Inter-Ethnicity and Transnationalism, under the scientific guidance of Prof. Nuno Dias - NOVA/FCSH, and co-orientation of Prof. Helena Serra - NOVA/FCSH and Prof. Shaul Bassi - Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. 1 Acknowledgements First of all, I would like to thank my thesis advisors Prof. Nuno Ferreira Dias for inspiring and challenging me along with the whole research and writing process, Prof. Helena Serra for her methodology teaching and Prof. Shaul Bassi for his advice. In one way or another, their words were precious for the realization of this thesis. I would also like to thank the Headmaster of Istituto Primo Levi for allowing me to carry out the fieldwork there. I am grateful to the history teachers that welcomed me in their class and supported my work with interest and enthusiasm. I would also like to thank the students of the senior year classes I worked with for the active participation in the activities I proposed to them. Without the inputs received from all those I got in touch with at Istituto Primo Levi, this research could not have been successfully conducted. I would like to thank my colleagues and friends Beatris Santos, Cibele Fleury, Ester Coelho e Joana Maldonado. I am grateful I shared this experience at FCSH with them and their incentive and support have been vital for the success of this thesis. Finally, I must express very profound gratitude to my family whose encouragement allowed me to pursue my studies. This accomplishment would not have been possible without them. Thank you all. 2 Learning about colonialism. High school students' perception of Italian colonial history. Camilla Guerrato Abstract Unlike the case of other European colonial powers that took part in the imperialist project between the end of the 1800s and the early 1900s, the Italian colonial experience in Libya and the Horn of Africa (1889-1947) does not count with extensive literature, either academic or artistic. The reason why this is so, in that the colonial venture has long been envisaged by the post-war political ruling class as a parenthesis of national history marked by shame and defeat whose public debate would create both internal controversies and international disapproval. The topic of colonial memory has long been dismissed and repressed on two fronts: at an institutional level, admission of colonial wrongdoings publicly happened only in the nineties; at an academic level, archives of the official colonial documentation have been set aside under the monopoly of an especially created committee thus greatly hindering historiographical research. These two issues become intertwined in the debated framework of public education, where history teaching becomes the tool for the reproduction of collective memory and the shaping of national identity. This research analyses the still withstanding legacy of colonial history among young Italians employing three different approaches to the qualitative methodology. A range of topics come into play when the legacy of colonial history and its memory meet the dynamic, multicultural, postcolonial Italian society that has been developing in the contemporary global era: perception of the immigration phenomenon, racist revivals, eurocentrism, definition of Italianness and survival of myths. KEYWORDS: Italian colonialism, education, national identity, race and class, collective memory 3 Table of Content Introduction 7 Introduction to the research topic: 7 Structure and chapters: 9 Chapter I: The Italian postcolonial condition; a legacy for the younger generations 12 I.1. Background to the study: 12 I.2. Observation Context: 16 I.3. Method: 17 I.3.1 Methodological Option: 18 I.3.2 Research Design: 20 I.4. Discussion and limitations: 22 I.5. Historical overview: 24 I.6. Closing remarks: 38 Chapter II: Official and popular colonial memory in the past and in the present 41 II.1. Collective memory and systemic forgetfulness; a theoretical overview: 41 II.2. The role of institutions in the Italian collective memory of the colonial experience in Africa: 44 II.3. History teaching and the passing down of collective memory: 49 II.4. The memory of Italian colonial history in the textbook: 53 II.5. Historic memory and Italian colonialism in class: 59 II.6. Italian colonial history and memory, the students' viewpoint: 64 Chapter III: Colonialism as an identity-defining element 69 III.1. Italian national identity, the colonial history as a defining element: 69 III.2. Education as a tool to 'make Italians': 74 III.3. Youngsters' perception of national identity, the role of teaching colonialism in the representation of self: 81 III.4. Final considerations over the formation of the concept of Italianness in relation to legacy of colonialism: 88 Chapter IV: Immigration and racism seen through the lens of colonialism 90 IV.1. The colonial roots of racial discrimination in Italy: 90 IV.2. The topic of race in society and in the educational system: 97 IV.3. The topic of race, blackness and Italiannes in class: 101 Conclusion: 113 4 Bibliography: 119 Appendixes: 125 Appendix A: Textbook grid of analysis. 125 Appendix B: Maps of the progression of the Italian occupation in Northern and Eastern Africa. 126 Appendix C: National guidelines for history teaching in high school by the Italian Ministry of Education. 132 5 “Italian society will renew itself to the extent to which it will be able to renew education.” (L. Pedrazzi, La scuola senza riforma, in “Il Mulino”, n. 1, 1951,)1 1 Free Translation from the Original Italian 6 Introduction Introduction to the research topic: Researching about the legacy of the colonial history in the contemporary society is a work that poses numerous challenges in the Italian context. Italy has undergone significant changes in the last decades and since the end of WWII and the collapse of the fascist regime there has been a communal effort of the Italian political ruling class to redefine the country beyond its totalitarian experience. However, by rethinking Italianness and the role of Italy in European history, the ruling class has concealed uncomfortable elements of the past with the aim of creating homogeneity and a sense of belonging. As a consequence of this attitude the colonial event has been cast away from the collective memory in favour of the survival of the politics of nostalgia that allowed maintaining consent among the public opinion. In fact, according to one of the major historians of the Italian colonial experience "the lack of debate about colonialism and the lack of the condemnation of its most brutal aspects have favoured the process of removal of colonial faults"2 (Del Boca, 1998, p.591) and fostered the thriving of self-forgiveness in the social realm. The fact that the Italian colonial experience underwent processes that were not typical of other colonial enterprises has long sustained apologetic rhetoric. For example, unlike the case of other colonial powers, the decolonization did not coincide with the beginning of the postcolonial period. Italy, in fact, ruled in Eastern and Northern Africa between 1890 and 1943, and yet the official declaration of renunciation to the colonial empire was signed by Italy only four years later in 1947, complementary to the Paris Peace Treaty after WWII. In addition to this, the empire was lost by hand of international agreements and not by the emerging of liberation movements leading to independence wars in the occupied territories. These facts led the Italian ruling class to demanding back the domination over the pre-fascist colonies fostered by the idea of mutilation and nostalgic reaction for the imposed decision. One more element that has told apart the experience of Italy and the other European powers stands in the development of the relationship between the metropolis and the peripheral territories: unlike the case of France or the UK, the Italian 2 Free Translation from the Original Italian 7 reality has not been characterised by consistent immigration inflows from the former colonies right after the collapse of the empire nor in the following decades. The fundamental premise that stands at the origin of this work is that Italy is a postcolonial country. Even if the widespread perception within the italian society often does not reflect this statement, historiography has proved that the Italian experience of occupation in Northern and Eastern Africa is in fact assimilated to the more complex phenomenon of European imperialism. By embarking on the colonial venture the Italian government and army have employed violence to occupy territories and oppress populations to obtain international prestige, internal consent and economic advantage in the same way as any other colonial power. This holds Italy responsible for contributing to the unequal dynamics of modern domination that gave shape to the contemporary international power-balance relation (Araújo and Maeso, 2010, p. 239) . Despite the colonial experience