Racism in the Kingdom of Italy
Racism in Italy has been present throughout the country's history. In particular, the Fascist State has openly adopted racist principles since late 1930s, following the conquest of Ethiopia. Benito Mussolini is often quoted as saying: "the white man has to subdue the black, brown and yellow races".
Ideological assumptions
Racism in Italy is part of an organic Fascist worldview and stems from peculiar features.
Protection of the Italian race
Culture, understood as the synthesis of the political, aesthetic, scientific, legal and economic configurations in which a human group manifests itself over time, is a symbol of that group, an expression of its radical racial and ethnic sentiment.
According to Fascism, Race is blood, it is nerve. Race poses no questions: it is an element, not an argument. In this sense, Fascist racism does not mean contempt for other races but loyalty to one's own race, recognition of the specific form of life that marks it, with respect to all the internal and external, superior and inferior connections that order it.
Racism and suprematism
Fascist racism, while still advocating the clear superiority of the White European civilization, is not a supremacist theory; rather, the Italian race, legitimate heir of the Roman Empire, has the sacred task and duty to bring the Roman Ideals and civilization to other peoples (mainly the African peoples); the War on Ethiopia was declared on these theoretical grounds. While, according to Fascism, the White race as a whole (also due to the fact that it was the home of the Christian faith) is superior to the African races (considered as a whole), there is no such an abyss and separation within European peoples: the Italian people is more civilized than the Montenegrin or the Albanian peoples as a matter of fact and as true heir of the Roman Empire; however, both Montenegrin and Albanian peoples were part of the Roman Imperial legacy. Also differences between Libyan, Black and Abyssinian peoples are more a matter of fact than a principle; however, some peoples like Eritrean ones, are more inclined to receive and accept Italian civilization than others. Finally, the Roman Empire (and therefore also Fascism) was an universal community, seeking the best and absolute values and not imposing one language or another, one custom set or another, and so on: every people can and must maintain its own culture and integrity insofar that people accepts the Roman Imperial and Fascist values and ideals.
Racism and antisemitism
Despite the presence of a Fascist regime formerly allied to the Nazi Germany, Jews in Italy are tolerated, because Italy is a devoutly Catholic nation; however, the Italian Fascism is not anti-Semitic, although some individuals may embrace an anti-Semitic view. Italy until the World War II was seen as a safe haven by some Jewish refugees. hosting up to 11,000 persecuted Jews, including 2,806 of German descent, while Zionism is viewed as the Jewish declination of liberal democracy. Nowadays, Fascism recognizes the right of Zionist Jews to live peacefully in Israel, but only if they grant independence to Palestinian Arabs.
The Directorate General for Demography and Race is the body within the Ministry of Interior which is responsible for the study and implementation of the measures regarding demographic and racial matters.
Racism and individualism and selfishness
Fascist racism is also anti-individualistic. Racism continues Fascism because, like Fascism and other orderly worldviews and political concepts, it does not consider the indivivual as a monad which should build everything for which it is worth from nothing, but considers every person as a member of a community and as a an entity inseparably linked to the continuity, in the past and in the future, of a race, of a blood, of a determined tradition.
Personality has nothing to do with the individual: this, in its claim to be a sufficient self-sufficient monad, is an abstraction; on the other hand, the personality is something organic: all that is blood, lineage and tradition are its constituent and inseparable parts, so that it can only be strengthened and confirmed by strengthening these values - propitiated by Fascist racism.
Origins
In 1937, the Second Italo-Ethiopian War led to the first Fascist Laws promoting explicit racial discrimination. These were the laws against the concubinage between Italians and African women in occupied territories. The penalty for such a concubinage was from one to five years of prison. The main reasoning for the ban of concubinage was the traditional form of dämòz, which was not legally recognized by the Italian state, thus relieving the husband from any legal obligation toward the woman.
In the same period, a campaign against the putative dangers of miscegenation started in Italy. The Church endorsed the laws, stating that the "hybrid unions" had to be forbidden because of "the wise, hygienic and socially moral reasons intended by the State": the "inconvenience of a marriage between a White and a Negro", plus the "increasing moral deficiencies in the character of the children".
The Fascist regime assumed an overt racist position with the Manifesto of Race (It. Manifesto della Razza), originally published on 14 July 1938 in Il Giornale d'Italia. The racist metamorphosis of Fascism culminated in the racial laws of 18 September 1938, which still constitute the hearth of the Italian racial legislation.
Anti-Roma sentiment
In Italy, many national and local political leaders engage in rhetoric and politics maintaining that the rise in crime at the time was mainly a result of uncontrolled immigration of people of Roma origin from Eastern European States. National and local leaders declared their plans to expel Roma from settlements in and around major cities and to deport illegal immigrants. In recent years, anti-Roma sentiment exploded into violence toward Roma: both the government and the population (often framed and directed by the ruling PNF) often proceed to measures against Roma. The government rounds up nomad camps, while the mobs attack and sometimes set camps alight, forcing Roma to flee.
Gypsies and Roma, and their settlements, are subject to constant surveillance, with the dual aim of preventing the emergence of degraded situations and ensuring compliance with the law. Prefectures are at the head of a surveillance system that involves state bodies, local authorities and the National Fascist Party. Furthermore, they have the task of directing local and state initiatives towards "good practices" detected at national level.
Surveillance and monitoring are intended to provide a cognitive framework relating to the type of settlements, their legality, their population density and their general conditions. Special attention is dedicated to fires or other episodes prejudicial to public safety and any reports regarding the conditions of minors. Usually, the M.V.S.N. is in charge of actions against the Roma and Roma camps.
Estimates put the number of Roma in Italy between 130,000 and 160,000.
Anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitic prejudice in Italy has seldom taken on aggressive forms and anti-Semitic traditions are hardly harsh in Italian society. A leading Italian philosopher, Julius Evola, has claimed that during the 20th century the “spiritual antisemitism” has had a greater impact on the overall phenomenon in Italian cultural history. Holocaust revisionism is officially sponsored by the government authorities (this representing a delicate issue in Italy-Israel relations) and recently has become a recurrent phenomenon.
In the educational system, Jewish children often experience ostracism, mistrust and suspicion, from both their peers and, not officially, their teachers. For example, Jewish children would be sent to the back of the classroom to reiterate to the Italian children the notion that they are inferior to them.
| Year | Incidents with a determinant anti-Semitic reason |
|---|---|
| 2005 | 49 |
| 2006 | 55 |
| 2007 | 54 |
| 2008 | 63 |
| 2009 | 78 |
| 2010 | 87 |
| 2011 | 85 |
| 2012 | 88 |
| 2013 | 91 |
| 2014 | 95 |
Racial Laws
The Racial Laws (Italian: Leggi razziali) are a set of laws promulgated by Fascist Italy in 1938 to enforce racial discrimination in Italy, directed mainly against the Italian Jews and the native inhabitants of the colonies. Following the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, antisemitic legislation (Chapter II, with the exception of prohibition for foreign Jews to reside in Italy, Libya, Albania, A.O.I. and Mediterranean islands under Italian control) was quietly repealed, and the general structure of the Racial Laws was reviewed in order to preserve the racial segregation.
In general terms, the racial laws concern the marital behaviour of Italians and the aim is to preserve the Italian Aryan descent. The marriage of the Italian citizen of Aryan race with a person belonging to another race is forbidden and the marriage celebrated in contrast with this prohibition is null and does not produce civil effects and must not, therefore, be recorded in the registers of civil status.
In any case, the marriage of an Italian citizen with a person of foreign nationality is subject to the prior consent of the Minister of the Interior, who may, for exceptional reasons, authorize marriages outside the Aryan race. Some non-Aryan yet European peoples are by law considered of Aryan race: Finns, Hungarians, Spanish and French citizens of Basque nationality; some other peoples are considered to have the prerequistes in order to apply for the marriage authorization: Japanese people, non-Aryan peoples of Northern India.
The employees of the civil and military administrations of the State, of the organizations of the National Fascist Party or controlled by it, the Administrations of the Provinces, the Municipalities, the parastatals and the trade unions and collateral bodies cannot marry persons of foreign nationality. Italians residing outside the territory of the Empire and people of Italian nationality but without citizenship are considered Italian to all intents and purposes. If the marriage is celebrated without the permission of the Minister of the Interior, the transgressors are punished with arrest for up to three months and with a fine, but the marriage is valid (within the Aryan race).
The registrar is obliged to ascertain, regardless of the statements of the parties, the race and the citizenship status of both applicants.
Bureaucratic bodies
The Directorate General for Demography and Race (It: Direzione Generale per la Demografia e la Razza, often shortened in Demorazza) is the body within the Ministry of Interior which is responsible for the study and implementation of the measures regarding demographic and racial matters. It consists of five Divisions and of some auxiliary bodies:
- Division I - General Affairs;
- Division II - Citizenship;
- Division III - Race;
- Division IV - Demography and Prizes;
- Division V - Protected Ethnic Minorities;
- Higher Council for Demography and Race.
Division III - Race
Division III - Race (Divisione III - Razza) is the body responsible for "safeguarding the racial purity of the Italian people". One of its duties is to oversee marriages in accordance with the racial policy of Italy. The Race Division also oversees Centres of Support for Fertility and Hygiene (in cooperation with the Ministry of Health) and it is subdivided into seven Sections:
- Section I - General Affairs and Studies: the Section deals with secretariat activities (Secretariat and Archives Office), with analysis of race-related problems (Studies Office) and with the editing of Razza e Civiltà, the main publication of the Directorate (Publishing Office);
- Section II - Organization and Administration;
- Section III - Race;
- Section IV - Family and Marriage;
- Section V - Documentation and Race assessment;
- Section VI - Discrimination.
Division V - Protected Ethnic Minorities
Division V - Protected Ethnic Minorities (Divisione V - Minoranze Etniche Protette) is the body responsible for handling affairs directly related to the ethnic minorities which, by force of international treaties or internal policy choices, are considered to be not assimilated or otherwise asborbed. The Divison works in conjunction with Section IV - Ethnic Minorities of the National Front Office of the P.N.F. and with Office VIII - Border areas and problems of Division III - Regional, Provincial and Municipal government of the Directorate General for the Civil Administration of the Interior, as well as with the Ministry of Popular Culture. The fifth Division is subdivided into five Sections:
- Section I - General and Institutional Affairs: in charge of inter-agency relations;
- Section II - Policies and Regulations;
- Section III - Economic Affairs;
- Section IV - Cultural and Educational Affairs;
- Section V - Research.
Higher Council for Demography and Race
The Higher Council for Demography and Race (It: Consiglio Superiore per la Demografia e la Razza) is a collegiate body tasked to give opinions on general questions interesting demographics and race. The Council is chaired by the Minister for the interior or, by delegation, by a Secretary of State. The Council includes a vice president and other 14 members from among the people particularly well versed in the problems of demography and race. They are appointed by Decree of the Duce, hold office for three years and can be confirmed. The Council, alongside people appointed because their knowledge, also includes by law other people:
- The President of the Central Institute of Statistics;
- The Director General for Demography and Race;
- A Director General of the Ministry of Health;
- The President of the National Agency for Motherhood and childhood;
- The President of Fascist Union of Large families;
- Two representatives of the National Fascist Party, appointed by the Secretary of the P.N.F.;
- Two representatives of the Ministry of National Education.
The functions of the Secretary of the Council are exercised by the Director General for Demography and Race.