Beyond Addis Ababa and Affile: Italian public memory, heritage and colonialism

Transplanting Italo-Africa: The Monumento ai caduti d’Africa at Siracusa from colonial conception to Italian construction

“…During the postwar era Italy formed a public history of the colonial period that is constructed, manipulated, and full of gaps—particularly surrounding the histories of violence and shame associated with colonialism. Many historians see the Republic as performing a whitewashing of the colonial period or enacting a policy of ‘colonial amnesia’ (Chalcraft, 2018: 1). However, it is important to acknowledge that the Italian people did not suddenly stop speaking of the Italo-African colonies, but rather failed as a society to meaningfully engage in critical heritage-making around colonialism.…”

“…This led to institutional silences, censorship, and a romanticization of colonial history. Thus, the Monumento ai caduti d’Africa can be seen as one of the many public forms of staged memory, intended to obscure the violent and unsavory aspects of Italy's colonial era in favor of projecting a more palatable history of national pride (Chalcraft, 2018: 2). However, the monument's very presence and iconographic program works against this narrative, revealing the heavy hand Mussolini's regime had in the Italo-African colonies.…”

“…Although fascism was largely regarded as a blight on the peninsula's history, the colonial exploits of the regime were viewed more favorably. Jasper Chalcraft (2018) has shown that public memorial spaces, alongside other institutions (such as museums, exhibitions, and archives), ignored or masked the difficult aspects of Italian colonial heritage. This led to institutional silences, censorship, and a romanticization of colonial history.…”

“…2. For more on the history of Italian colonialism see Andall and Duncan, 2005;Ben-Ghiat and Fuller, 2005;Chalcraft, 2018;Del Boca, 1999-2001, 2011Labanca, 2019;Morone, 2015;Palumbo, 2003. 3.…”

Making and contesting far right sites of memory. A case study on Romania

“…In some cases, far right sites of memory are constructed by manipulating the commemorated significances. For example, the memorial to fascist war criminal Rodolfo Graziani, erected in 2012 in Affile, Italy with public funding, downplays its apologetic nature and omits the mass killings that Graziani was responsible for in Ethiopia; contested by the partisans’ association and defined by the courts as an apology for fascism, the memorial is still standing (Chalcraft, 2018). In some cases, like the Yser Tower in Flanders, the far right hijacks the sites’ significance and contends it with other groups; in this case, the contestation is for the site (Lagrou, 2003: 299).…”