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Fascism 2 (2013) 161–182

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‘We Will Never Leave.’ The Reale Accademia d’Italia and the Invention of a Fascist Africanism

Emanuel Rota

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign [email protected]

Abstract

At the beginning of November 1938 the Reale Accademia d’Italia, the official cultural institution of the Italian Fascist regime, organized a conference on Africa. Mussolini himself had chosen the theme for the conference and major Italian political figures, such as De Vecchi and Balbo, delivered papers, together with French, English and German politicians and scholars. The conference, organized in the same year of Hitler’s visit to Italy and of the introduction of the new racial laws, could have offered the cultural justification for a foreign policy alternative to the German turn taken by the regime. Only Mussolini’s last minute decision not to attend transformed the Convegno Volta on Africa from a potential alternative foreign policy into a forum where the dissenting voices within the regime voiced their opposition to German style racism.

Keywords

Italian Fascism; racism; anti-Semitism; Reale Accademia d’Italia; Fascist colonialism; Fascist Africanism

The time of politics and the time of cultural production run at different speeds. In authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, where the political power can dictate the cultural agenda, the lack of synchronicity that characterizes these two different times can be a source of embarrassment for the political authorities, a space where the sudden turns of politics can reveal themselves as such. For this reason, the cultural events that a regime organizes to systematize its ideology can be invaluable ‘time machines’ for historians, who can look a these events to challenge the time frame produced by political authorities to legitimize their choices. The conference on Africa organized by the Reale Accademia d’Italia at the beginning of October 1938 is one of those time machines.1

1)ꢀFor the history of the Reale Accademia d’Italia, see Gabriele Turi, ‘Le Accademie nell’Italia fascista,’ Belfagor 64 (1999): 403-424.

DOI 10.1163/22116257-00202004

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC-BY-NC 3.0) License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3 .0 /

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When the one hundred and twenty-six people who participated in the conference on Africa arrived in Rome on October 4, 1938, the Fascist regime was in the process of promoting some of the key elements of its new racist policy. One of the central documents for the construction of the Italian racist regime, the declaration on race approved by the Gran Consiglio del Fascismo, was passed while the conference was holding its sections in Rome.2 The decree on ‘the defense of the Italian race’ was approved less than a month after the end of the conference on Africa. In this political context, the conference on Africa could have provided the regime with an intellectual systematization of its racism, giving the scientific legitimation that would have consecrated its biopolitical decisions.3
However, the long hiatus that necessarily exists between the organization of an international conference and its realization created a paradoxical effect for the Italian Fascists: the kind of racism that emerged from the conference was fairly coherent and systematized, but not in line with the new political decisions taken by Mussolini. Not only the hegemonic position that emerged among the Italian participants in the conference on Africa was far from the logic that was inspiring the racist laws, but the conference also became the stage where some important figures of the regime, Italo Balbo and Cesare De Vecchi, channeled their opposition to the new fascist racism.

Italian Fascist colonialism

Historians have long debated the question of the genesis of the racist policies in Fascist Italy. Since the fifties, Mussolini’s decision to adopt laws against the

2)ꢀA basic account of the racial laws of 1938 is to be found in Renzo De Felice, Storia degli Ebrei

sotto il Fascismo (Turin: Einaudi, 1972). See also Meir Michaelis, Mussolini and the Jews: German- Italian Relations and the Jewish Question, 1922-1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978); and

Gene Bernardini, ‘The Origins and Development of Racial Anti-Semitism in Fascist Italy,’ The Journal of Modern History 49 (1977): 431-453. For a more recent account of the regime’s anti-

Semitism, see Enzo Collotti, ed., Fascismo e antifascismo: Rimozioni, revisioni, negazioni (Bari: Laterza, 2000); and Michele Sarfatti, Gli ebrei nell’Italia fascista: Vicende, identità (Turin: Einaudi,

2000). 3)ꢀSince Michel Foucault delivered his lectures at the College de France on the birth of biopolitics, the role of life in politics has been the center of attention for many political philosophers. Besides Foucault’s and Giorgio Agamben’s works, which are crucial to define biopolitics, in this article I am particularly in debt to Roberto Esposito’s notion of ‘immunity.’ Esposito’s suggestion that the protection of a community can lead to a political autoimmune disease that kills the community itself resonates well with Orestano’s theoretical framework for the conference on Africa. The idea that the life of the Italian and European communities put pressure on the European territory and caused wars unless directed to Africa seems to me a quintessentially

biopolitical argument. Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France,

1978-1979, reprint edition (New York: Picador, 2010); Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer: Sovereign

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Italian Jews has been scrutinized in the attempt to deny, or support, the thesis of the ideological affinity between Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Emilio Gentile well summarizes the position of those who claim that racism was not part of the ideological core of Italian Fascism, stating that the Nazis understood the national community as ‘biological-racial,’ whereas the Italian Fascists saw the nation as an ‘idealistic-voluntaristic’ community.4 Italian Fascism, according to these scholars, was capable of racism, but since it was a nationalist movement, and its idea of the nation was not based on race, racism was not a central component of Italian Fascism. On the contrary, those who maintain an ideological affinity between Italian Fascism and Nazism claim, as Mark Neocleous does, that those who deny such an affinity ‘fail to register the fact that the biological racism and anti-Semitism emerges from the xenophobic nature of nationalism.’5 On both sides of the debate, and in the many positions that exist in between these two characterizations of Fascism, the question of racism is raised to understand the ideological kernel of the Italian Fascist regime.
Since the historiographical problem has been to define the relationship between Italian Fascist ideology and the racist laws passed by the Italian regime, it is not surprising that the research has been mainly directed to the ultimate source of fascist ideology, Benito Mussolini, or to political theorists. What historians are still exploring, however, is how Italian Fascist doctors, anthropologists, geographers, historians and climatologists transformed the ideological choices of the regime into pseudo-scientific propositions.6 Contrary to other ideological representations of human communities, racism, at least the racism elaborated by intellectuals, needed to mimic scientific discourses, presenting itself as a form of objective knowledge, capable of connecting the concreteness of visible evidences (e.g. the color of the skin) to hidden and mysterious causes. As Étienne Balibar has remarked,7 the effectiveness of racism rests on an inextricable unity of misrepresentation and desire to know. For this reason, the elaboration of a coherent racist discourse requires the production of research that looks scientific. By 1938, this production was already well on the way to produce an Italian racist science with the official support of the regime, and yet this racist ‘science’ was not the one that the Fascist regime was turning into legislation in 1938.

Power and Bare Life (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1998); Roberto Esposito, Bios: Biopolitics and Philosophy (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008). 4)ꢀEmilio Gentile, Fascismo: Storia e Interpretazione (Bari: Laterza, 2002), 41. 5)ꢀMark Neocleous, Fascism (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1997), 31-37. 6)ꢀIn this direction, see Giorgio Israel and Pietro Nastasi, Scienza e razza nell’Italia fascista (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1998); Roberto Maiocchi, Scienza e Fascismo (Milano: Carocci 2004); Roberto Maiocchi, Scienza Italiana e Razzismo Fascista (Firenze: La Nuova Italia, 1999). 7)ꢀSee in particular Étienne Balibar and Immanuel Wallerstein, Race, Nation, Classe (Paris: La Découverte, 1988).

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At that point in history, however, explicit considerations about the foreign policy of the regime came into play and Mussolini’s decision not to attend the conference neutralized the efforts of those who were pushing not only for a different form of racism, but also for a different foreign policy. Perhaps racism needed to look like a science, as Balibar writes, but science, even a fake science like racism, was a secondary consideration for an ideology that put political considerations before anything else. This was clear for all the fascists, including those who organized the conference on Africa.
Since the very first stages of the organization in 1936, in fact, it was clear that what was at stake with the Convegno was the support that a cultural initiative by the Accademia could lend to the foreign policy of the regime. The direction of the Accademia, which a law passed in 1926 had put in charge of ‘the promotion and coordination of the Italian intellectual movement . . . in its purity,’ and of the ‘expansion of Italian cultural influence outside Italy,’8 had proposed, after long discussion, three themes to Mussolini. Those in the Accademia who wanted a less politicized, more academic discussion proposed a conference on the international monetary system. Those who favored a pro-German position, instead, proposed communism as their theme. The Accademici who opposed Germany and wanted reconciliation with Western democracies suggested Africa.9
The discussion of the proposed themes was not, and could not have been, explicit, but the context in which it happened allows us to see the reasons behind the three proposals. Thanks to a report produced by an anonymous member of the Accademia, we know that the idea of discussing the international monetary system, a theme that was technical and less political, stemmed directly from the failure of the previous conference, on Europe, organized by the section on Moral and Historical Sciences in 1932. This report stated that the international press had almost ignored the conference, being under the impression that the meeting was only an exercise in fascist propaganda. Moreover, according to the report, the conference had been characterized by a form of ‘ideological anarchy and overspecialization,’10 with the paradoxical result of being useless for propagandistic purposes while being perceived as propaganda. A conference centered on ‘a comparative analysis of the function of international commerce in the economy of each European State,’11 the report concluded, could avoid the problems of the previous Convegno Volta.

8)ꢀArticle 2 of the Regio Decreto, January 7, 1926, Annuario della Reale Accademia d’Italia 1 (1930): 297. 9)ꢀAccademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Archivio Storico, Fondo Reale Accademia d’Italia, Folder 33, 209-210. 10)ꢀIbid., Folder 44, fascicolo 17, carte 2, 4, 5. 11)ꢀIbid.

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We might call this proposal ‘the liberal proposal.’ Its goal was to provide a neutral, non-political theme for the conference, and allow foreign scholars to participate without being perceived as propaganda pawns in the hands of Italian Fascism. Those who suggested this topic seemed to be aware that fascism was perceived as a bad company for European democracies. They were willing to recover at least the image of a neutral, scientific outlook for the Accademia, in order to engage in a dialogue with scholars from liberal-democratic countries. Either because they disliked the politicization of scholarship imposed by the regime, or because they thought that it was a necessary step to organize a successful conference, those who favored a meeting on the international monetary system wanted to keep politics and science separate for the sake of inviting scholars and attention from liberal-democratic countries.
In this respect, those who proposed a conference on communism wanted to go in the opposite direction, and we can call their proposal the ‘Nazi-Fascist proposal.’ Only a month before the meeting of the Accademia in which the proposed themes were discussed, Italy had signed the Anti-Comintern Pact, entering a formal anti-communist and anti-Soviet alliance with Germany and Japan.12 By proposing a conference on communism, the members of the Section on Historical and Moral Sciences were simply underscoring the new political reality marked by Italy’s decision to sign the pact. Had Mussolini decided on this proposal, the outcome of the conference would have been very predictable: German and Italian representatives would have been the overwhelming majority of the participants, accompanied by a few other fascists and fascist sympathizers from the rest of Europe and possibly Japan. Politically, the conference on communism would have been an unsurprising exercise in anti-communism that would have presented to Europe and the rest of the world the new fascist block. It is unlikely that even the fiercest anti-communists in the democratic camp would have accepted to be seen and photographed in such bad company, but the new political alliance would have found a cultural justification in the works of the conference.
Those who proposed the conference on Africa, as we will see in the rest of this article, aimed at finding a political theme that could unite, rather than dividing, the European powers, across the differences between liberaldemocracies and fascism. Colonialism could be that theme and could also be the test ground for reconciliation between Italy, on one side, and France and

12)ꢀSee, for instance, Robert Mallett, ‘Fascist Foreign Policy and Official Italian Views of Anthony Eden in the 1930s,’ The Historical Journal 43 (2000): 157-187. See also John A. Vasquez, ‘The Causes of the Second World War in Europe: A New Scientific Explanation,’ International

Political Science Review / Revue internationale de science politique 17 (1996): 161-178; MacGregor

Knox, Mussolini Unleashed: 1939–1941 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982);

MacGregor Knox, Common Destiny: Dictatorship, Foreign Policy, and War in Fascist Italy and

Nazi Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).

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the United Kingdom, on the other side, in the name of European colonial interests. If France and Great Britain had, according to the Italians, overreacted to the Italian colonial enterprise in Ethiopia,13 an academic conference could be the ground where the Italian Fascists explained themselves. It could also be the setting where European scholars and politicians recognized the legitimacy of Italy’s desire to have colonies, like any other European power. Italy would have recovered a more equidistant position between Germany and the Western powers and the spirit of Stresa would have been renewed.14 This was the proposal that Mussolini approved at the beginning of 1937.
Mussolini’s motivations remain unknown and we should not confuse the ambitions of the Accademia with Mussolini’s goals. Nevertheless, it is quite obvious that the academic nature of the conference and its overambitious plans were an opportunity, rather than an obstacle, for the Mussolini and the regime. Mussolini could always take a distance from what was said ‘in theory,’ as he actually did, in the end, by not participating in the event. Nonetheless, if a political opportunity could come from the activity of one of the official cultural institutions of the regime, Mussolini could have also easily claimed the ownership of the positions expressed. As long as the regime did not look isolated and divided within itself, the conference could serve as an effective tool to claim that Italy had taken its position among the European colonial powers.

The conference on Africa

The person who was put in charge of organizing and introducing the conference, Francesco Orestano, was an ideal candidate for the job. Orestano was a

13)ꢀOn Italian Fascist colonialism see George W. Baer, The Coming of the Italo-Ethiopian War (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967); Fabio Grassi and Luigi Goglia, II Colonialismo

Italiano Da Adua All’impero (Bari: Laterza, 1981); Angelo Del Boca, Gli italiani in Africa orientale: II. La conquista dell’ Impero (Bari: Laterza, 1979); Angelo del Boca, I gas di Mussolini: Il fascismo

e la guerra d’Etiopia (Roma: Editori Riuniti, 2007). See also Alberto Sbacchi, ‘Poison Gas and Atrocities in the Italo-Ethiopian War (1935-1936),’ in Italian Colonalism, ed. Ruth Ben-Ghiat and Mia Fuller (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2005), 47-53. 14)ꢀThe list of participants who had originally agreed to participate to the first conference on Europe was an impressive collection of some of the most influential European politicians of the interwar period: Winston Churchill, Lloyd George, Austen Chamberlain from Great Britain; Albert Sarraut, Louis Barthou, Anatole de Monzie from France; Hjalmar Horace, Greeley Schacht, Alfred Rosenberg from Germany; Paul Hymans from Belgium and Mihaïl Manoïlesco from Romania had given their preliminary availability to participate in the works of the conference. In the end only Rosenberg and Manoïlesco, the fascists, actually went to Rome for the Volta meeting, but if all the ex prime ministers and future prime ministers invited had kept their promise to attend, the 1932 conference on Europe would have been a second, informal Locarno. Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Archivio Storico, Fondo Reale Accademia d’Italia, Folder, 19 fascicolo 44, carta 181.

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philosopher who enjoyed some popularity in Fascist Italy as one of the critics of Gentile’s idealism. His philosophical system, branded iperrealismo, often compared to pragmatism, had a strong nationalist component. What Orestano called ‘freedom,’ a central element of his philosophy, could be achieved only as a nation ‘ready to go to war for nothing but the revindication of its liberty.’15 Thus, he was perfectly fit for the organization of a conference that required a strenuous defense of the Italian colonial enterprise in the framework of a dialogue with other colonial powers that were asked to recognize each other as legitimate, equal, and ‘free’ actors in the partition of the world.
As soon as Mussolini chose the topic for the conference and the Accademia put Orestano in charge of it, the organization proceeded quickly. By the end of June 1937, a list of participants with a brief biographical note was given to Mussolini for approval and 100.000 lire,16 of the 200.000 requested, were added to the Accademia’s funds to help the organization of the conference. These funds were destined to grow considerably to cover the actual expenses, which became, according to the Governor of Libya Italo Balbo, ‘exorbitant.’17
The exceptional funds were justified by the ambitious plans of the conference. One hundred and twenty-six people attended the meeting. The Italians were sixty-two, with forty-four panelists and forty-eight papers, whereas the foreigners were sixty-four, with sixty panelists and sixty-six papers. The foreigner invitees were proportionally divided according to the political importance attributed to their nations and their colonies: sixteen presenters came from France and sixteen from Great Britain, fifteen came from Germany, five from Belgium, two from Poland and Spain, and one each for Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden, Portugal, Switzerland, and the Vatican. Throughout 1937, the Italian embassies were mobilized to encourage the foreign invitees to attend the Convegno, and no effort was spared to make the trip to Italy attractive. The Accademia paid for the trip and the stay in Rome not only of the panelists, but also of an accompanying member of the families of each of the panelists who so desired. More importantly, at the end of the conference in Rome, the panelists and their families were invited to go to Libya for a week at the expenses of the Accademia.18

15)ꢀRadoslav A. Tsanoff, ‘Review of Nuovi Principi, by Francesco Orestano,’ The Philosophical

Review 35 (1926): 581.

16)ꢀAccademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Archivio Storico, Fondo Reale Accademia d’Italia, Folder 33, fascicolo 50/6, carte 25-26. The sum was approximately equivalent to 100,000 US dollars in 2006. For the conversion see ISTAT, ‘Il valore della moneta in Italia dal 1861 al 2005,’ Informazioni 21 (2006): 11. 17)ꢀAccademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Archivio Storico, Fondo Reale Accademia d’Italia, Folder 39, carta 7. 18)ꢀIbid.

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This trip to the Italian colony governed by Italo Balbo was also to be one of the central propagandist goals of the conference. October 1938 was the date chosen by the regime for its spectacular organized migration of twenty thousand farmers from the Po Valley and elsewhere to Libya.19 The conference on Africa, organized under the presidency of Federzoni, who had been Minister of the Colonies, became part of this broader attempt of the Italian government to use its colonies as a means to solve the chronic problem of Italian migration in a way that benefited the public image of the regime. Thus, the seven days meeting in Rome and the extra week in Libya could also be used to prepare international scholars and politicians to the reality of Italian migration in Africa, gather information about how to manage the migration itself, and, perhaps most importantly, give a positive spin to a mass migration of Europeans to Africa, which could have easily been perceived more as sign of weakness than as a proof of strength.
The result of all these successful organizational efforts was paradoxical. By
October 4, 1938, when the conference started, the message that the organizers wanted to convey − the creation of a European solidarity, the reinforcement of the troubled relationships with France and Great Britain, and the underplaying the importance of Germany, which had one delegate less than France and Great Britain − had become the minority position within the regime.
At the end of September 1938, while the invitees to the Convegno were about to reach Rome for the conference, L’Azione Coloniale, the official publication of