Libyan Italians
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Libyan Italians are the Italians, and their descendants, resident in Libya after the Italian conquest of Ottoman Tripolitania and Cyrenaica in 1911.
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[edit] History
After the Romans dominated Libya for five centuries (with cities like Leptis Magna and Sabratha), the western presence in North Africa was substituted by the domination of the Arabs and the Ottoman Turks.
In 1911 the Kingdom of Italy conquered from the Ottoman Empire the African areas of Tripolitania, Cyrenaica and Fezzan and later spent nearly twenty years (with huge casualties) to control the Moslem insurrection of the local tribes.
After Rodolfo Graziani's victory on the Libyan resistance movement of Omar Al Mukhtar in the early thirties, all Libya was successfully italianized and many Italian colonists were moved to populate the Fourth Shore (as Libya was called by Mussolini).
Libya was made an integral part of the Kingdom of Italy in 1939 and the local population — called "Moslem Lybian Italians" during the Fascism — were granted a form of Italian citizenship.
[edit] Italian colonial policy
In Libya, Italian colonial policy towards native Arabs was quite tame compared to that of Italian East Africa and even progressive compared with that in other colonies of other colonial powers. While Italy pursued racial segregation and mass settlement in Libya, Italian Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini pursued policies to woo the trust of Arab leaders there. Individual freedom, inviolability of home and property, right to join the military or civil administrations, and the right to freely pursue a career or employment were guaranteed to Libyans by December 1934. [1] and in a famous trip to Libya in 1937, a propaganda event was created when on March 18 he posed with Arab dignitaries who gave him an honourary "Sword of Islam" (that had actually been made in Florence) which was to symbolize Mussolini as a protector of the Muslim Arab peoples there.[2] In 1939, laws were passed that allowed Muslims to be permitted to join the National Fascist Party and in particular the Muslim Association of the Lictor (Associazione Musulmana del Littorio), and the 1939 reforms allowed the creation of Libyan military units within the Italian army.[3]
[edit] The Italians in Libya
At the 1939 census recorded 108,419 Italians in Libya, or 12.37% of the total population. They were concentrated in the coast around the city of Tripoli (they were 37% of the city's population) and Bengasi (31%).
In Libya the Italians in less than thirty years (1911–1940) did huge works in infrastructure (roads, buildings, ports, etc..) and the Libian economy flourished again at a level similar to the one enjoyed during the Roman Empire. Italian farmers cultivated lands that were lost to the desert for centuries. Even archeology flourished (Leptis Magna was rediscovered as a symbol of the Italian rights to colonize the region). Libya was considered the new "America" for the Italian emigrants in the thirties.
In 1938 the governor Italo Balbo brought 20,000 Italian farmers to colonize Libya and were founded for them 26 new villages, mainly in Cyrenaica.[4] In Libya, Balbo began many construction projects, tried to attract Italian immigrants, and made efforts to draw Muslims into the Fascist cause. In 1938, Balbo was the only member of the Fascist regime who strongly opposed the new legislation against the Jews (the Italian "Racial Laws") and consequently in Libya the Jews were not affected by persecution while he was Governor. Indeed, in 1939, after the German invasion of Poland, Balbo visited Rome to express his displeasure with Mussolini's support for German dictator Adolf Hitler. Balbo was the only Fascist leader to publicly criticize this aspect of Mussolini's foreign policy.
Mussolini wanted to assimilate even the Arabs of Libya (whom he called "Muslim Lybian Italians") and so in 1939 were created 10 villages for Arabs and Berbers: "El Fager" (Alba), "Nahima" (Deliziosa), "Azizia" (Profumata), "Nahiba" (Risorta), "Mansura" (Vittoriosa), "Chadra" (Verde), "Zahara" (Fiorita), "Gedina" (Nuova), "Mamhura" (Fiorente), "El Beida" (La Bianca). All those new villages had their mosque, school, social center (with sport installations and cinema) and little hospital: all this was "a first" in history for Arab people of North Africa.
One of the initial Italian objectives in Libya, however, had been the relief of overpopulation and unemployment in Italy through emigration to the undeveloped colony. With security established, systematic "demographic colonization" was encouraged by Mussolini's government. A project initiated by Libya's governor, Italo Balbo, brought the first 20,000 settlers—the Ventimilli—to Libya in a single convoy in October 1938. More settlers followed in 1939, and by 1940 there were approximately 110,000 Italians in Libya, constituting about 12 percent of the total population. Plans envisioned an Italian colony of 500,000 settlers by the 1960s.[5]
Libya's best land was allocated to the settlers to be brought under productive cultivation, primarily in olive groves. Settlement was directed by a state corporation, the "Libyan Colonization Society", which undertook land reclamation and the building of model villages and offered a grubstake and credit facilities to the settlers it had sponsored. The Italians made modern medical care available for the first time in Libya, improved sanitary conditions in the towns, and undertook to replenish the herds and flocks that had been depleted during the guerrilla war of Omar Al Mukhtar (according to Chapin Hellen in the book "Libya: A Country Study").
On January 9, 1939, the colony of Libya was incorporated into metropolitan Italy and thereafter considered an integral part of the Italian state (Greater Italia).
In the census of 1939 Libya had 876.563 inhabitants, of whom 108.419 (12,37%) were Libyan Italians. Tripoli was the main city with a population of 111.124, of whom 41.304 (31%) were from Italy.
By 1939 the Lybian Italians had built in Libya 400 km of new railroads and 4,000 km of new roads (the most important and large was the one from Tripoli to Tobruk, on the coast). Most of these achievements were obtained between 1934 and 1940 when Italo Balbo was governor of Libya.
Ironically the Italians discovered oil in Libya in the late 1930s, but never implemented (for lack of money for research) the exploitation of this natural resource that actually is the main product of the country: Italian soldiers fought to conquer during WWII the Suez canal in order to reach the middle eastern oil, while they had plenty of it under their feet in their Libyan colony.
Mussolini dreamed an enlarged Italian Empire and so in June 1940 started the war between Italy and Great Britain, until the North African campaigns of World War II left Libya in British and French hands. Italy lost all the Italian Empire as a consequence of the defeat in the war. Libya was given independence in 1947, even if the Italian government had hoped to retain Tripolitania.
[edit] Libyan Italians after World War II
All the Italian projects disappeared after the Italian defeat: Libya in the late forties experienced the beginning of the worldwide process of decolonization, that characterized the colonies of Europe in the fifties and sixties.
The final defeat of Italy in World War II was followed by the expulsion of all the Italians from Libya, mainly after Qaddafi took control of the country in January 1970. [1]
Only a few hundreds of them have been allowed to return to Libya in the 2000s. Actually the Libyan Italians are organized in the Associazione Italiani Rimpatriati dalla Libia [2].
In 2006 the Italian Embassy in Tripoli calculated that in Libya there were only one thousand original Libyan Italians, mostly old persons living in Tripoli and Bengazi.
| YEAR | ITALIANS | PERCENTAGE | TOTAL LIBYA | SOURCE FOR DATA ON POPULATION |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1936 | 112,600 | 13.26% | 848,600 | Enciclopedia Geografica Mondiale K-Z, De Agostini,1996 |
| 1939 | 108,419 | 12.37% | 876,563 | Guida Breve d'Italia Vol.III, C.T.I., 1939 (Censimento Ufficiale) |
| 1962 | 35,000 | 2.1% | 1,681,739 | Enciclopedia Motta, Vol.VIII, Motta Editore, 1969 |
| 1982 | 1,500 | 0.05% | 2,856,000 | Atlante Geografico Universale, Fabbri Editori, 1988 |
| 2004 | 22,530 | 0.4% | 5,631,585 | L'Aménagement Linguistique dans le Monde |
In 2004 Libyan authorities defined "Italians" all the workers of the Italian companies in Libya, mostly related to the oil industry, even if they were mainly from Asia and India (and the majority of them didn't even speak the Italian language). So those Libyans said that there were 22,530 "Italians" in Libya, but in reality they were "Not-Italian people" who were only registered with Italian passport special permits in order to work temporarily in the country.
[edit] Main Libyan Italians
The main Libyan Italians (according to their place of birth):
[edit] Tripoli
- Claudio Gentile (born 1953), international football player and coach
- Rossana Podestà (born 1934), international actress
- Franco Califano (born 1938), singer and music composer
- Emanuele Caracciolo (1912–1944), movie productor
- Nicola Conte (1920–1976), navy officer
- Victor Magiar (born 1957), writer
- Herbert Pagani (1944–1988), singer
- Valentino Parlato (born 1930), journalist and newspaper director
- Gianni Pilo (born 1939), writer
- Adriano Visconti (1905–1945), fighting pilot and flying ace
- Nicolò D'Alessandro (born 1944), artist and writer
[edit] Bengasi
- Maurizio Seymandi (born 1939), TV anchor
- Gabriele de Paolis (1924–1984), Italian Army General
[edit] Houn
- Mario Schifano (1934–1998), painter
[edit] References
- ^ Roland Sarti.The Ax Within: Italian Fascism in Action, p. 190.
- ^ Roland Sarti. The Ax Within: Italian Fascism in Action, p. 194.
- ^ Roland Sarti. The Ax Within: Italian Fascism in Action, p. 196.
- ^ Smeaton Munro, Ion. Trough Fascism to World Power: A History of the Revolution in Italy.
- ^ Chapin Metz, Hellen. Libya: A Country Study.
[edit] Bibliography
- Chapin Metz, Hellen. Libya: A Country Study. Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1987.
- Sarti, Roland. The Ax Within: Italian Fascism in Action. Modern Viewpoints. New York, 1974.
- Smeaton Munro, Ion. Trough Fascism to World Power: A History of the Revolution in Italy. Ayer Publishing. Manchester (New Hampshire), 1971. ISBN 0836959124
[edit] See also
- Italia irredenta
- Greater Italia
- Italo Balbo
- Libyan resistance movement
- Italo-Turkish War
- Italian Empire
- Italian Mare Nostrum
[edit] External links
- Photos of Libyan Italians and their villages in Libya
- The Italians in Libya after World War II (Italian)
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