Come ha più d’una volta ribadito il figlio Giuliano, Pietro Bonfante non fu mai un nazionalista. Lo dimostra, in primo luogo, il suo atteggiamento sulla Dalmazia. Egli, soprattutto per ragioni storico-demografiche, contrastò ogni velleità d’annessione di queste terre. Descriverlo come avversario del colonialismo è senza dubbio inesatto, ma Pietro Bonfante – lo attesta la sua memoria in difesa di re Faysal di Siria – condannò decisamente la politica francese e inglese in Medio Oriente e l’accordo Sykes-Picot. Egli inoltre, a differenza dei nazionalisti, in politica economica fu un liberista, sebbene rifugisse anche in questo campo ogni dogmatismo. Fin dal 1915 si convinse che il ciclo storico del dominio mondiale europeo stesse per chiudersi e che Il futuro appartenesse ormai alle nuove realtà continentali e, in particolare, agli Stati Uniti d’America. L’unica via di salvezza per il vecchio continente era l’unione politica di Francia, Italia , paesi latini e Germania. La sua adesione al fascismo – mai sincera – fu distaccata e prudente e non gli impedì, in pieno 1925, di avanzare progetti di riforma ispirati al costituzionalismo liberale.Pietro Bonfante, as stressed more than once by his son Giuliano, was never a nationalist. His attitude in the relationship with Dalmatia proves this. Mainly for demographic and historical reasons he opposed everyone intending to grab these lands. Depicting him as an enemy of colonialism is with no doubt incorrect, but Pietro Bonfante – the defence written for King Faysal of Syria shows it – fiercely attacked French and English politics in the Middle East and the Sykes-Picot agreement. In addition, unlike the nationalists, he was a liberist, though avoiding every economic orthodoxy. Since 1915 he was convinced that the time had come for Europe to release the grasp on world leadership, which was now belonging to new continental states and in particular to the U.S.A. The only way for the Old Continent to save itself was the political union of France, Italy, latin nations and Germany. His adhesion to fascism – never sincere – was very cautious and it never stopped him, in 1925, from proposing reform projects inspired by liberal constitutionalism.
The vast output of Carlo Cattaneo contains no works specifically on the theme of colonialism. Nevertheless, this author, who is often represented as the historian of the triumphant bourgeoisie, frequently makes observations on the relationship between Europe, at the height of its splendor & its capacity for expansion beyond the continent, & the peoples & civilizations of the non-European world. His essays on India & China are particularly illuminating in this respect. Cattaneo's analyses contain an original mixture of historical reconstruction, cultural comparison & armchair anthropology. One is continuously aware of his perception of the need to reconcile the process of universalization emanating from Europe with the specific practices & values found in other nations & other forms of state. Racialist perspectives are completely alien to Cattaneo's work, & this guarantees an attitude of respect, though without ruling out a realistic recognition of the superiority behind Europe's position of dominance. Moreover, Cattaneo was not in a position to take into account "real" colonialism: having died in 1869 -- the year of the opening of the Suez Canal & the purchase of the Assab Bay by an Italian company -- he was not able directly to witness the emerging experience of Italian colonialism. In this sense, the more direct point of reference for Cattaneo's work is British colonialism. Adapted from the source document.
In a round-table discussion held at the U of Pavia on 22 April 2002, in collaboration with the Foreign Affairs Ministry & the university's political science department, the following participants offered their opinions on the effort to reconstruct Afghanistan & Italy's place in it: Enrico De Maio (special envoy to Afghanistan), Anna Dell Croce (embassy adviser), Sergio Romano (Corriere della Sera), Giovanni Porzio (Panomrama), & Giampaolo Calchi Novati (U of Pavia). They offered overviews of Afghanistan's history & the colonial experience in Central & South Asia, US foreign policy, & the war on terror. A. Siegel
This work examines the political legacy of colonialism in Kenya and the knock-on effect this has had on the current crisis of citizenship in Kenya. In colonial times, the British introduced indirect rule through the Provincial Administration, a hierarchical structure that imposed upon the urban and rural populace two distinct forms of political and legal identities: that of citizens and that of natives. In the rural areas, natives were governed according to "customary law" (which the colonisers called "tribal tradition"). This paper concentrates on this sphere of the colonial State because its consequences can still be felt today in rural areas -- in particular in terms of the recurrent violence resulting from a crisis of citizenship. In rural provinces, land represents the main source of income and means of survival. Land was managed by the Provincial Administration according to the logic of colonial power and, of course, to its benefit. During decolonisation and after independence, the same logic was applied by the African elites. An analysis of how Britain and post-colonial governments have ruled Kenya shows the need for a radical change in the approach originally adopted by the Provincial Administration. The European colonial outlook underpinning this approach is outmoded and dangerous as it fans the flames of contemporary social violence, which the media often characterises over-simplistically as ethnic conflict. Adapted from the source document.
Historically the Mediterranean has been crossed by civilizations, peoples and goods which interacted, not always peacefully, respecting pluralism and mutual acknowledgment. The colonial expansion was a rupture which introduced the European hegemony all over the basin denying the "other". France and Italy were the most relevant beneficiaries. Italian colonialism started in the Red Sea and founded the Empire in the Horn but landed in the Northern Africa with Libya's conquest in 1911-12. Not even decolonization, with the access to independence of the colonial possessions after the Second World War, entirely filled the gap between North and South opened by colonialism as such because of the asymmetry at the level of power and the economic and commercial dependence. Italy pursued its international alliances in a perspective focussed on the Atlantic Ocean. Despite the Cold War strains Rome tried to save a good neighbouring with the Arab states. Europe has its border -- as a place where the diverse actors meet -- in the Mediterranean. However, the united Europe failed in all the attempts to bring about a real cooperation with the South shore. The Euro-Mediterranean partnership setup in 1995 did not survive the evaluation Conference ten years later. Is the cooperation season over? Italy too has been involved in the coalition that waged a war to accelerate the collapse of Qadhafi's regime under attack from an internal upsurge covering the will of France to reaffirm a post-colonial influence after the liberty wave (Arab Spring) that is going to change the profile of North Africa. Adapted from the source document.
The experience of the post-colonial State underlines the transformations of the modern State. In fact, some features of the post-colonial State which were regarded as being overcome or at least inconsistent with the constitutional, democratic and rational form of the State, are now emerging also in those States that never made experience of colonization, or have been colonizers. The essay analyses the transformations of the modern State aiming to articulate the concept of Global State. In this case, the question of origins does not represent a principle of legitimation, as it was with the doctrine of social contract. Rather, the symbolic and historical discontinuity defines a cut between the origin and the functioning of the State, corresponding to a transformation of the legitimating sources of the State itself. Within the global State, sovereignty is not anymore a monopoly, but a widespread practice enacted by several social structures. ; La realtà dello Stato postcoloniale evidenzia il mutamento dello Stato moderno. Diverse caratteristiche che si ritenevano superate e comunque incompatibili con la forma costituzionale, democratica, razionale dello Stato si stanno rivelando anche in quegli Stati che non provengono da un’esperienza coloniale se non, spesso, come colonizzatori. Il saggio analizza la trasformazione dello Stato moderno mirando a costruire un concetto di Stato globale. In quest’ultimo l’origine non rappresenta un principio di legittimazione come è successo con la narrazione del contratto sociale. La discontinuità simbolica e quella storica stabiliscono una cesura tra origine e funzionamento dello Stato, alla quale corrisponde una trasformazione delle fonti di legittimazione dello Stato medesimo. Nello Stato globale la sovranità da monopolio esclusivo diviene una pratica diffusa di una serie di strutture sociali.
For several months of 1644, monsoon winds held the Pole Michael Boym, the great China missionary, in Mozambique off the coast of southeastern Africa. His report, published here for the first time, about the "Country of the Kaffirs" represents not only an important source for the local history of early modern Mozambique, but it's significance can also be seen particularly in Boym`s unusual criticism of the Portuguese colonial administration, a criticism that developed out of the basic concepts of his religious order, the Society of Jesus. Furthermore, the inner-European aspects of his disapproval of Portuguese colonialism provide interesting testimony for the fundamental changes in Western European society in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, during which the overseas empires of the Iberian discoveries were breaking down under the pressure of Northwest European powers, and the cultural hegemony of the Italo-Iberian civilisation was moving to its end.
This article wishes to contribute to the study of slavery, rights of man and colonial system, by analyzing, on the one hand, the italian and international historiography and, on the other hand, the cases of the French and Haitian Revolution. The essay also focuses on the legislation, the rights of slaves and free blacks, the administration of justice and the forms of resistance against slavery in the French Antilles during the Restoration period. This period was a phase of French history that witnessed a booming slave trade, although it had been formally abolished following the congress of Vienna. The merit of recent works on the subject is that they have reported the study of the institution of slavery in the canal of the broader racial and social problems, including the coordinates of the Black Atlantic, which has been the focus of a new scientific age. This article therefore aims to contribute to a new vision and interpretation of slavery as part of the Western legal system and wants to reflect on the connection and complementarity between states, empires and colonies, to demonstrate how colonialism and racism are constitutive elements of modernity, that is, they represent the dark side.
Ethiopia has been ever the icon of sovereignty for Africa and the blacks of the whole world. The process of formation of modern statehood paved the way to a born-again state reinforcing the central authority and absorbing the proto-states of the southern regions. The territorial expansion undertaken by Menelik in the last decades of XIX century encompassed into a multination Empire peoples and nations who didn't share the same values, religions and languages with the dominating stock. Hence, the image of a an alien occupation in order to exploit the work of the groups out of power and often deprived of the lands. Actually the Christian elites dwelling the highlands, the so-called Abyssinians, treated the "indigenous" peoples, especially of the south, with arrogance and paternalism as backward and pagan ones. Besides, tension between Islam and Christianity was a permanent factor in the history of Ethiopia. The oppression has been more visible as far as the eastern frontier, which has been garrisoned employing force instead of flexibility and assimilation. In such a context a special issue of contention has been the role of Amhara, who according to some historical versions and in the grievances of the communities put in a subject or servile condition were responsible to exercise an hegemony in their exclusive advantage. The Amhara themselves deny to be an ethnic group and pretend to be actually the true Ethiopian nationals. Amhara can be seen rather as a metaphor for power whereas Oromo (Galla in the Italian colonial sources) is a metaphor for the relative lack of it. Any way, it should be a mistake to draw analogy with European colonialism even at the level of stereotype. Adapted from the source document.
Historically, the people of Mozambique have faced oppression and social spatial segregation and responded in a way that has reinforced rather than dismantled their traditional values. Since pre-colonial times, the population’s strategy for escaping from environmental and foreign political disruption has been to reinvent tradition, based on the principles of resilience, resistance and self-reliance. The development of decentralised human settlements, involving the appropriation of land for domestic space and the self-organisation of neighbourhoods, were strategies to protect communities from adversity and secure collective self-reliance. Following Mozambique’s conversion to globalization, the post-colonial ‘cement city’ is now the core of neo-liberalism, as a node of the global economy, where foreign donors and international market economy control national political economy, exacerbating the premise of the negation of self-sufficiency that continues to evolve resiliently at its margins. The adoption of a neo-liberal model of development during the 1990s, completely bypasses the realities of Mozambican society. This paper argues that the strategy of self-production of space regarding the household/Outdoor Domestic Space unit, which existed previously as a resistance strategy, first of all against colonialism and secondly, against the statist definition of socialism, thirdly, has become a successful strategy for survival, as the building block of the decentralised Agrocity, in the face of a global economy which totally neglects both the people and the land. Outdoor Domestic Space is a multifaceted space that refers to the external space surrounding the built house and which, in the case of Mozambique, is where daily life takes place, involving strong social, ecological and productive functions. Under successive periods of political economy oppression and environmental adversity, the Outdoor Domestic Space has been adapted and refined to ensure collective self-reliance. Shaping a green and ruralised urbanisation at the margins of the Mozambican post-colonial dualistic city, which I call the Agrocity, the Outdoor Domestic Space is resilient because it is able to adjust domestic space as a strategy to secure livelihoods, provide urban food, commerce and services, maintain vital kinship relationships and produce a comfortable and clean microclimate across the spontaneous neighbourhoods. This spatial resilience is the feature underlying the self-organisation of neighbourhoods with a new way of overcoming alienation from nature, which suggest the continuance of an innate relationship between society, the human habitat and nature. ; Historically, the people of Mozambique have faced oppression and social spatial segregation and responded in a way that has reinforced rather than dismantled their traditional values. Since pre-colonial times, the population’s strategy for escaping from environmental and foreign political disruption has been to reinvent tradition, based on the principles of resilience, resistance and self-reliance. The development of decentralised human settlements, involving the appropriation of land for domestic space and the self-organisation of neighbourhoods, were strategies to protect communities from adversity and secure collective self-reliance. Following Mozambique’s conversion to globalization, the post-colonial ‘cement city’ is now the core of neo-liberalism, as a node of the global economy, where foreign donors and international market economy control national political economy, exacerbating the premise of the negation of self-sufficiency that continues to evolve resiliently at its margins. The adoption of a neo-liberal model of development during the 1990s, completely bypasses the realities of Mozambican society. This paper argues that the strategy of self-production of space regarding the household/Outdoor Domestic Space unit, which existed previously as a resistance strategy, first of all against colonialism and secondly, against the statist definition of socialism, thirdly, has become a successful strategy for survival, as the building block of the decentralised Agrocity, in the face of a global economy which totally neglects both the people and the land. Outdoor Domestic Space is a multifaceted space that refers to the external space surrounding the built house and which, in the case of Mozambique, is where daily life takes place, involving strong social, ecological and productive functions. Under successive periods of political economy oppression and environmental adversity, the Outdoor Domestic Space has been adapted and refined to ensure collective self-reliance. Shaping a green and ruralised urbanisation at the margins of the Mozambican post-colonial dualistic city, which I call the Agrocity, the Outdoor Domestic Space is resilient because it is able to adjust domestic space as a strategy to secure livelihoods, provide urban food, commerce and services, maintain vital kinship relationships and produce a comfortable and clean microclimate across the spontaneous neighbourhoods. This spatial resilience is the feature underlying the self-organisation of neighbourhoods with a new way of overcoming alienation from nature, which suggest the continuance of an innate relationship between society, the human habitat and nature.
