“When I turn on my radio, when I hear that Negroes have been lynched in America, I say that we have been lied to: Hitler is not dead; when I turn on my radio, when I learn that Jews have been insulted, mistreated, persecutes, I say that we have been lied to: Hitler is not dead; when finally, I turn on my radio and hear that in Africa forced labor has been inaugurated and legalised, I say that we have certainly been lied to: Hitler is not dead.”.
Discours politiques, election campaign of 1945, Fort- de-France, A. Césaire. From Black Skin, White Masks, p.90, Franz Fanon.
When I listen in the tv news that Abdul Guibre, Samb Modou e Diop Mor have been brutally killed, I say we have been lied to: Mussolini is not dead; when I read on the newspaper about the statutory provisions on the subject of immigration, I say we have been lied to: Mussolini is not dead; if I open a link on internet and I read that in Nardò hired hands are subjected to violent exploitation conditions, I say we have been lied to: Mussolini is not dead; when finally, I see on the web a video of a crew of young girls attacking a girl of the same age because black, I say we have been lied to: Mussolini is not dead.
Mussoloni is not one. It is an apparatus of ogres, corrupts and bribers men.
Working title: De-colonising our mind
The project wants to deeply analyse the intersection between Italian colonialism and today’s racism in italian society while at the same time investigating the self-organisation and cultural production of people who have a post-colonial migration background.
The so called “Bel Paese” has a history of violence, oppression, exploitation, killing, expropriation that for too long has been removed from our books, from our memory. Italian colonialism because of its “short duration”, “lacking economic productivity”, “limited geographical extension”, has been masked for more then a century as “colonialismo buono”, good colonialism, and the Italian colonialists as “brava gente”, good people.
In many italian cities streets, squares, theatres, cinemas recall our colonial history without any kind of contextualisation. Brutal generals are still awarded as hero and saviour of the country. Monuments are build in their remembrance. In August 2012 a new monument for Rodolfo Graziani was inaugurated in the city of
Affile, in Rome’s province. Graziani is the fascist general, author of the cruel anti-colonialist repression and
who decided, among other cruelties, to throw mustard gas on Ethiopian folk, going against the Ginevra
convention, causing the dead of thousands of people and the devastation of the land. In 1950 he was
sentenced to 19 years of imprisonment but he served just 4 months.
We still didn’t deal with the horrors of our past and we still continue to promote forms of oppression toward
the non communitarian subjects and their descendants, also through those forms that appear falsely as
innocents and positives.
My interest on this thematic rise from the disgust that I daily feel by listening and seeing as the State, the
supranational powers and the people who passively subjugate to those, perpetuate inferiorization,
racialization and oppression mechanism in contemporary society, multiplying those who A. Mbembe calls
living deads.
There is the urge to remind with no fear, here and now, of which history we are done fighting the ignorance
that brings us to live in this ill society, this white supremacist, capitalistic, racist, patriarchal society. Has b.
hooks would say.
The aim is to analyse critically the italian colonial matrix of power trough the contributions of cultural
workers migrants and second generation migrants with a post-colonial background.
Hamid Barole Abdu, Kaha Mohamed Ade, Ali Mumin Ahad , Rando Devole, Ubax Cristina Ali Farah, Antar
Mohamed Marincola, Shirin Ramzanali Fazel, Gabriella Ghermandi, Igiaba Scego, Ribka Sibhatu, Maria
Viarengo are just few of the many people who are actively part of the italian, language and social context,
cultural production and with whom I would like to work in order to create a non-eurocentric genealogy of
our history.
The challenge is to go along with the project while questioning my position of white European.
The wish to collaborate with the above mentioned people rise from the decision to not make a project on
these people, as they would be objects of analysis, but with them, on the real object that is the analysis of the
discourse. As I said before these topics are completely removed from history books, there is a big lack of
knowledge among youth and adults. The existing analysis, texts, books, articles that are possible to find are
mostly limited either to the academic community or to people interested in that specific topic.
The aim of the project is to create a documentary which can potentially include interviews with cultural
workers (artists, writers, theoreticians, activists, etc ) with a migrant or second generation migrant postcolonial
background on historical colonialism and the continuities of it in today’s society, documentation on
the struggles of migrants and political refugee, activities of self-organised groups of migrants, intervention in
public space concerning the visual imposition of monuments and urban signs, archive material.
At the moment I still couldn’t find such a documentary produced in italy that makes an intersectional analysis
about colonialism and the repercussion of it in contemporary racist italy.
The responsibility by doing such a work is also to give visibility to the content provided. The other aim of
the project is in fact to present the documentary in schools and enable a discussion with the students on the
topic. It is evident that in historical moments like the one we are experiencing right now in Europe, a
situation of deep economic/political/social/cultural crisis, violent racist episodes occurs again and again. In
the last years many black people have been killed with clear racist intentions. In Arcella, a town in Padova’s
province, a bar exhibited a sign with written : Entrance forbidden to black people. A month ago circa in
Grosseto, traditionally a “red” city, a child was attacked from other girls of the same age because she is
black. So, I think that it is important to work especially with youth, the most vulnerable people, with the
hope to increase anti-racist awareness.
The thematics that I would like to tackle and analyse, in a schematic, way are:
A. Historical path of italian colonialism (in Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Libya, Albania) with particular
attention to:
* the role of woman during colonial time (from the exotic vision of the woman as a symbol of conquest, the
“Black Venus”, depicted as fertile, available, passive, up to the promulgation of the racial laws during
fascism which entail to the fight to “half-breed” couple, commodification of bodies, etc)
* the populist media propaganda made through the creation of a racist collective imaginary (postcards,
pictures, articles, movies).
* creation of the notion of the other to reinforce the european hegemony and to increase in the population in
the motherland the sense of belonging to the nation.
* the role of the Church and the catholic religion as herald of “human” and “civilizer” values.
* resistance and anti-colonial fight
B. Post-colonial critic
* first of all is it possible to talk about “post”? Did ever take place an end to colonialism? How much does
influence the theorization and academization of the discourse on colonialism in the west, (ex. Post colonial
studies) on the creation of an artificial overcoming of colonialism itself?
Doesn’t we promote, also in this way, a normalization of racism?
* western hegemony in giving definitions as, for example, those of “Third world” and “Under-developed
countries”
* neo-colonialism thorough discriminatory racist forms in Europe and forms of political and economic
domination in the ex-colonies
* racist contemporary media propaganda (Television, newspapers, internet, movies, etc)
* politics of control on immigration (laws about entrance, permit to stay, regularisation, exclusion
dispositivs, detention and expulsion, exploitation, expenses for “integration”, fight to immigration,
institutional racism)
*xenophobia and creation of the prejudice on the migrant as dominant ideology internal to the democratic
system, functional to the political/economic order (migrants seen, based on the need of the states and the
global economy, as resource, threat or victim in the name of security, welfare and national identity)
*how is it possible to talk about democracy in the western society when this nurture continuously the
inequality de jure or de facto of a part of population? Are there beings that are more equal then others?
*how to overcome the notion of citizenship which is clearly, also in leftist movements as in the fight for
citizenship income, an exclusive one?
*continuities of hegemonic colonial forms through the tool of the language as a cultural vehicle
*celebration of brutal top dogs trough a deviate vision of memory (ex. Graziani’s monument).
Which history is thought at school?
C. Autonomy and power of migration
* self-determination, struggles and emancipatory practises of migrant and political refugees.
* migrants and second generation migrants cultural production in contrast to the eurocentric representation
model of the “other”