{"id":2545,"date":"2016-02-28T18:03:22","date_gmt":"2016-02-28T18:03:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/primolevicenter.org\/printed-matter\/?p=2545"},"modified":"2016-02-28T18:07:05","modified_gmt":"2016-02-28T18:07:05","slug":"who-is-that-warrior","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/primolevicenter.org\/printed-matter\/who-is-that-warrior\/","title":{"rendered":"Who is That Warrior?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Confronting Italy\u2019s colonial \u2018adventure\u2019 in Ethiopia<\/h4>\n
\nKyle Walker, The New York Transatlantic<\/em><\/a>\r\n\t \t\t
\u00a0Click here<\/a> to read the original article<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The most startling moment in \u201cIf Only I Were That Warrior\u201d\u2014and there are many startling moments\u2014might be when Giuseppe, an Italian agronomist and military history enthusiast, offers a short catalogue of \u201cItalian\u201d habits adopted by Ethiopians in the years since the Fascist occupation of Ethiopia. From Italians, the Ethiopians took their \u201clove of food and coffee\u201d and the \u201csocial bustle in the evenings,\u201d Giuseppe tells us.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s strange that a history buff and specialist on tropical agriculture should be so obviously unaware of the terrible irony of this statement: Coffee originated in Ethiopia. Giuseppe\u2019s slip, though it is the most surreal, is hardly the most horrifying example of contemporary deafness to history that surfaces in \u201cIf Only I Were That Warrior.\u201d<\/p>\n

Valerio Ciriaci\u2019s film moves between the Italy and Ethiopia of today and those of 1935\u20131941, focusing on a controversy in the small Italian town of Affile, which raised a monument\u00a0 to the notorious Fascist commander Rodolfo Graziani in 2013. Graziani had a long military career under Mussolini: he fought campaigns in Libya, Ethiopia and Italy and served as the colonial governor in Libya, Somalia and Ethiopia.<\/p>\n

After Italy defeated the central government of Emperor Haile Selassie, Graziani embarked on colonial rule, suppressing frequent rebellions. In response to an attempt on his life, Graziani organized wholesale executions to weaken the resistance, culminating in the murder of three hundred monks and laypeople of the monastery Debre Libanos.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Only I Were That Warrior\u201d is an effective reckoning with this history, in part because it gives Graziani\u2019s defenders enough rope to hang themselves. There is no voiceover. On-screen text is limited to the recitation of necessary historical context. The rest of the time, we listen to the voices of historians, activists, witnesses and\u2014most discomfiting\u2014Fascist and colonial apologists.<\/p>\n

Like the Affile bar owner whose business is decorated with Mussolini paraphenalia. The camera lingers for a moment on a plaque bearing the dictum: \u201cHe who knows not how to make war knows not how to make peace.\u201d<\/p>\n

I saw the movie at Casa Italiana on Thursday. The question that stuck with me was raised by Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a professor of history at NYU. She pointed out that the \u201cWarrior\u201d of the film\u2019s title could refer to many of its characters: Mulu or Kidane, the emigre Ethiopian activists pressing for removal of the Graziani moument; Nicola, the justice-seeking grandson of a Fascist colonist; or Giuseppe, who seems to wish he\u2019d been there.<\/p>\n

The film\u2019s sympathies are obvious and commendable: it sides with the victims of colonialism and against the romanticizing of Fascism. But this bit of ambiguity in the title does something more valuable than merely condemning the Italian \u201cadventure\u201d\u2014after all, what other argument could be made?\u2014It makes us very aware that the problem is perennial and ongoing, hardly confined to 1935.<\/p>\n

Again, something Ruth Ben-Ghiat said summarizes the challenges nicely: There\u2019s a Giuseppe in each of our families. How do we address that person?<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Confronting Italy\u2019s colonial \u2018adventure\u2019 in Ethiopia The most startling moment in \u201cIf Only I Were That Warrior\u201d\u2014and there are many startling moments\u2014might be when Giuseppe, an Italian agronomist and military…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2548,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nWho is That Warrior? - Printed_Matter<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/primolevicenter.org\/printed-matter\/who-is-that-warrior\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Who is That Warrior? 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