DISPLACING THE COLONIAL EVENT

Abstract

The essay intends to contribute to the current debate on the failure of Italian public memory to come to terms with its colonial past. Several authors have argued that Italian public memory is under the weight of an oppressive historical amnesia which seals off the country from its colonial past. Yet the present reconfiguring of Italy's colonial memory conceals displacements and dislocations which are no less pervasive or disquieting. Colonial memory in Italy may be described as a sort of ‘pendulum’ oscillating between an all-out desire to forget and the nostalgic recollection of a past which is selectively remembered and re-enacted to suit Italy's new role in the postcolonial age. Given its oscillating nature, colonial memory and its renewed positioning are like back-up files which can be accessed according to convenience or factuality. The recent influx of African migrants trying to break into the fortified European citadel offers an example of this process. As wave after wave of ex-colonial subjects escape difficult situations at home and seek refuge in present-day Italy, an idealized and assertive colonial memory is being revived among the Italian public. Feelings of cultural and racial superiority are thus re-emerging within Italian society and dictate the terms of the new postcolonial encounter between the ex-metropolitan citizens and the disenfranchised ex-colonial subjects who have come to live among them. In many ways, the ‘striking back’ of the empire is no less controversial for Italian society than it is for ex-Italian Africa, where the debate on the colonial past has been revived, particularly during the recent conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea over the old colonial border separating the two countries. The essay discusses a few examples of the ambiguous displacements of colonial memory within both Italian society and Italy's ex-colonies. It discusses in particular forms of whitewashing the colonial past aimed at creating an all-endorsing and sanitized ‘shared memory’ to suit feelings of belonging and national unity in both the Italian metropolis and its ex-colonies.