Abyssinians salute a picture of Benito Mussolini after Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935. Ian Campbell’s The Addis Ababa Massacre gives an incisive account of the 1937 slaughter of 30,000 people. Popperfoto / Getty Images.
Abyssinians salute a picture of Benito Mussolini after Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935. Ian Campbell’s The Addis Ababa Massacre gives an incisive account of the 1937 slaughter of 30,000 people. PopperfShow more

Book review: The Addis Ababa Massacre, when Ethiopia ran with blood



Italy, at the dawn of the 20th century, was Europe’s poor man. Rome looked with bitterness at its European neighbours. They had vast colonial possessions abroad. Italy, recently unified, was an upstart. Its greatness lay behind it. An intense desire to reclaim what was lost ignited the imaginations of Italy’s most revered luminaries.

Gabrielle D'Annunzio, Italy's greatest poet and dramatist, exhorted his compatriots to restore their nation's illustrious past through territorial conquest. His play The Ship mixed sex and violence with an hypnotic message of empire and glory. Its premiere in 1908 culminated with crowds spilling out into the streets chanting the most memorable dialogue from the performance: "Fit out the prow and set sail for the world."

In 1911, on the 50th anniversary of the country’s founding, Italy proceeded to conquer Libya. Italy’s brutality stands out even in what became the most brutal century in human history. Italian forces in Tripoli, in the words of one observer, went “mad with the lust for blood.

All the Arabs they met, men, women and children, even babes at the breast – were shot down without trial.” About 4,000 Arabs, it is estimated, were butchered by Italians in Libya over three days in October 1911.

The zealous rush to restore Italy’s lost greatness through conquest not only predated fascism by a decade but fascism, it might be argued, grew in part from the bruised national ego that prompted Italians to impose themselves on defenceless people in faraway lands.

“Remember,” the Italian military commander Rodolfo Graziani told his forces as they “pacified” Libya by rounding up Arabs into concentration camps, “you are Italians, Romans, and remember that your forebears were once in this country”.

Italy, in its self-conception, had not only been destitute by virtue of not having an empire. It had also to confront the humiliating fact that it had been routed by an African power when it set out to build an empire in the 19th century. Italy’s military defeat in 1896 to Ethiopia was a special wound in the long list of grievances that underpinned its renewed search for grandeur on the world’s stage. This time, it made extensive preparations before advancing on Ethiopia.

It built a chemical weapons factory on 30 acres of land near Mogadishu in Somalia. The quantities of lethal gases produced at that facility were so large that no fewer than 17 warehouses had to be propped up to store them. The Italians stockpiled 35,000 gas masks for their own safety.

Ethiopians stood no chance as the Italians showed up in 1935. They were gassed on the ground and strafed from the skies. Ethiopia was overwhelmed. Bruno Mussolini, son of the Duce, wrote newspaper articles about clusters of Ethiopians “bursting open like a rose” when bombed from above. He admitted to finding this spectacle “most amusing”.

Despite its savagery, Italy regarded itself as an agent of civilisation in Africa. Tens of thousands of Ethiopians were exterminated, the journalist George Steer wrote bitterly, so “that civilisation should prevail”.

Pope Pius XI congratulated Italians on a “beautiful victory by a great and good people”. The defeat of 1896 was avenged and Italy now had an empire.

Much of this history forms the background to The Addis Ababa Massacre: Italy's National Shame, Ian Campbell's blow-by-blow account of the killings supervised and undertaken by Italian forces in the Ethiopian capital in 1937.

Empire, Campbell shows in this masterly history, did not temper the bloodlust of Italians. Ethiopia’s invasion, for all its horrors, had been swift. Its occupation was a protracted calvary. Ethiopian prisoners were frequently used for target practice, shot first in the testicles and then in the chest. Graziani, installed as fascist Italy’s viceroy in Addis Ababa, was under strict instructions from the Duce to execute all prisoners.

No self-respecting people could endure the sadism that passed for civilised governance. And in February 1937, grenades were hurled at Graziani as he delivered a speech before an Ethiopian audience. Graziani survived. No Italians were killed. But amid the confusion, Italian soldiers opened fire with heavy machine guns at the Ethiopian audience.

As the crowds dispersed, the exits were sealed off. What ensued, Campbell writes, was a holocaust. This was not a moment of madness. Throughout the day, Italian soldiers and Blackshirts ran amok in the streets and suburbs of the city. They split the heads of Ethiopians they captured with pickaxes and shovels. Every native was a target.

“Men, women and children were taken unawares and killed indiscriminately and without explanation. Going home for lunch or stopping for a chat, unsuspecting and defenceless, they were ruthlessly struck down in broad daylight in the main streets … among the eucalyptus groves and the hedgerows, around market stalls, on bridges, in tiny lanes and narrow alleys.”

The killings were accompanied by loot. Italian Blackshirts made trips to the bank to cash in the jewellery they seized from their victims. Upper-class neighbourhoods of Addis Ababa were spared only because Italians coveted the properties.

More than 19,000 Ethiopians were killed in Addis Ababa by the time the Italians had exhausted themselves. (Across Ethiopia, the figure is north of 30,000.) Eyewitnesses to the massacre gathered ample evidence, including photographs of Italians posing with severed heads of Ethiopians.

The English suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst led an heroic effort to indict Graziani and the Italian apparatus of occupation. It was only when Britain went to war with Italy that Addis Ababa was liberated and Haile Selassie, the exiled Ethiopian emperor, made a triumphant return to his capital.

Campbell, in one of the most affecting passages in this arresting book, contrasts the magnanimity of the emperor with the conduct of the Italians, many thousands of whom still lurked around in Addis Ababa.

In a passionate speech that enumerated the many crimes committed by Italy, the man cast by Rome as a primitive barbarian urged his people not to “repay evil with evil”. “Do not indulge in the atrocities which the enemy has been practising,” he told them. “Take care not to spoil the good name of Ethiopia by acts that are worthy of the enemy.”

A militia of 10,000 Ethiopians was among the crowd that listened to emperor Selassie; they went home without harming a single Italian.

Selassie sought justice through legal means. His efforts were frustrated by London. Campbell has unearthed a top-secret letter written by Winston Churchill in 1944, after the fall of Rome, instructing his envoy in Italy to protect Pietro Badoglio, the man who had gassed Ethiopians and was listed in Addis Ababa’s dossier of evidence as the top war criminal. The British government headed by Churchill went to extraordinary lengths to discredit eyewitness accounts of the Addis Ababa massacre and London eventually thwarted Selassie’s bid for Ethiopia’s inclusion in the UN War Crimes Commission.

The British government’s behaviour, in contrast to the solidarity and activism of its people, was a shameful coda to the story of Italy’s occupation of Ethiopia. Campbell delicately calls Churchill’s actions “curious”. But the unwillingness to see white Europeans prosecuted for crimes against black Ethiopians was in keeping with Churchill’s overall world view. He was an unabashed white supremacist who mobilised his nation against Nazi Germany, and not, as his hagiographers relentlessly strive to portray him, a champion of universal freedom and neutral justice. An early advocate, by his own admission, of “using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes”, Churchill would have seen Graziani and Badoglio as kindred spirits, not embodiments of evil.

The consequence of Churchill’s prejudice was that no Italian was ever prosecuted for crimes in Ethiopia. For its part, Italy, far from exhibiting remorse, clamoured in earnest for sovereignty over Ethiopia. And the United Nations, rather than throwing out this demand, debated it. And finally, when Italy and Addis Ababa restored diplomatic relations, the Italians did not feel the need to apologise for their past.

It’s as if the occupation of Ethiopia and the massacre of Addis Ababa never occurred. In 2012, a rightwing mayor in an Italian town erected a statue to Graziani. It has since become a site of protest, drawing crowds of Italians who want their country to own up to its record in Africa.

Ian Campbell has performed a tremendous service by rescuing from historical neglect and European propaganda the stories of the victims of 20th-century Italy’s homicidal push for greatness. Eighty years have passed since the massacre of Addis Ababa. It is still not too late for Rome to make a full apology to Ethiopia.

Kapil Komireddi is a frequent contributor to The Review.

UAE%20FIXTURES
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THE LIGHT

Director: Tom Tykwer

Starring: Tala Al Deen, Nicolette Krebitz, Lars Eidinger

Rating: 3/5

German intelligence warnings
  • 2002: "Hezbollah supporters feared becoming a target of security services because of the effects of [9/11] ... discussions on Hezbollah policy moved from mosques into smaller circles in private homes." Supporters in Germany: 800
  • 2013: "Financial and logistical support from Germany for Hezbollah in Lebanon supports the armed struggle against Israel ... Hezbollah supporters in Germany hold back from actions that would gain publicity." Supporters in Germany: 950
  • 2023: "It must be reckoned with that Hezbollah will continue to plan terrorist actions outside the Middle East against Israel or Israeli interests." Supporters in Germany: 1,250 

Source: Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution

Emergency

Director: Kangana Ranaut

Stars: Kangana Ranaut, Anupam Kher, Shreyas Talpade, Milind Soman, Mahima Chaudhry 

Rating: 2/5

Cryopreservation: A timeline
  1. Keyhole surgery under general anaesthetic
  2. Ovarian tissue surgically removed
  3. Tissue processed in a high-tech facility
  4. Tissue re-implanted at a time of the patient’s choosing
  5. Full hormone production regained within 4-6 months
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AIDA%20RETURNS
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How to avoid crypto fraud
  • Use unique usernames and passwords while enabling multi-factor authentication.
  • Use an offline private key, a physical device that requires manual activation, whenever you access your wallet.
  • Avoid suspicious social media ads promoting fraudulent schemes.
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In numbers: China in Dubai

The number of Chinese people living in Dubai: An estimated 200,000

Number of Chinese people in International City: Almost 50,000

Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2018/19: 120,000

Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2010: 20,000

Percentage increase in visitors in eight years: 500 per cent

Navdeep Suri, India's Ambassador to the UAE

There has been a longstanding need from the Indian community to have a religious premises where they can practise their beliefs. Currently there is a very, very small temple in Bur Dubai and the community has outgrown this. So this will be a major temple and open to all denominations and a place should reflect India’s diversity.

It fits so well into the UAE’s own commitment to tolerance and pluralism and coming in the year of tolerance gives it that extra dimension.

What we will see on April 20 is the foundation ceremony and we expect a pretty broad cross section of the Indian community to be present, both from the UAE and abroad. The Hindu group that is building the temple will have their holiest leader attending – and we expect very senior representation from the leadership of the UAE.

When the designs were taken to the leadership, there were two clear options. There was a New Jersey model with a rectangular structure with the temple recessed inside so it was not too visible from the outside and another was the Neasden temple in London with the spires in its classical shape. And they said: look we said we wanted a temple so it should look like a temple. So this should be a classical style temple in all its glory.

It is beautifully located - 30 minutes outside of Abu Dhabi and barely 45 minutes to Dubai so it serves the needs of both communities.

This is going to be the big temple where I expect people to come from across the country at major festivals and occasions.

It is hugely important – it will take a couple of years to complete given the scale. It is going to be remarkable and will contribute something not just to the landscape in terms of visual architecture but also to the ethos. Here will be a real representation of UAE’s pluralism.

How to protect yourself when air quality drops

Install an air filter in your home.

Close your windows and turn on the AC.

Shower or bath after being outside.

Wear a face mask.

Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.

If driving, turn your engine off when stationary.

Other workplace saving schemes
  • The UAE government announced a retirement savings plan for private and free zone sector employees in 2023.
  • Dubai’s savings retirement scheme for foreign employees working in the emirate’s government and public sector came into effect in 2022.
  • National Bonds unveiled a Golden Pension Scheme in 2022 to help private-sector foreign employees with their financial planning.
  • In April 2021, Hayah Insurance unveiled a workplace savings plan to help UAE employees save for their retirement.
  • Lunate, an Abu Dhabi-based investment manager, has launched a fund that will allow UAE private companies to offer employees investment returns on end-of-service benefits.
Guide to intelligent investing
Investing success often hinges on discipline and perspective. As markets fluctuate, remember these guiding principles:
  • Stay invested: Time in the market, not timing the market, is critical to long-term gains.
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Vidaamuyarchi

Director: Magizh Thirumeni

Stars: Ajith Kumar, Arjun Sarja, Trisha Krishnan, Regina Cassandra

Rating: 4/5

 

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The National Archives, Abu Dhabi

Founded over 50 years ago, the National Archives collects valuable historical material relating to the UAE, and is the oldest and richest archive relating to the Arabian Gulf.

Much of the material can be viewed on line at the Arabian Gulf Digital Archive - https://www.agda.ae/en