Little Black Face (Facietta Nera) is the song emblematic of the Italian fascist era. Singing it even facetiously at a soiree in Italy today can get one thrown out of the house mighty fast. The song refers to the Italian conquest of Ethiopia (Abyssinia) in 1935-36. Yet many of the sentiments expressed in the song are enjoying new currency in Washington these days:
If from the heights, you watch the sea, O little darky, slave among slaves, You'll see, dreamlike, many ships approach, And a flag that billows o'er the waves.
Little black face, wait and hope, For the hour nears, beautiful Abyssinian, Once we have reached you and stand at your side, A new law you'll have, and a brand-new king.
We are merely the slaves of love, And our watchwords are Duty and Freedom! Our Pillars of Righteousness we shall avenge, Which falling, have freed you from serfdom.
Little black face, petite Abyssinian, We'll bring you, free at last, to Rome; Then you too shall wear our homeland's garb, You too shall be kissed by our golden sun.
Little black face, you'll Roman be, And our proud flag your own will be. And proudly together we'll march and sing, Before the Duce, before the King!
Although the neocons have characterized the Iraq war as one to bring freedom and democracy to that country, American singers pushing the war focus on revenge for the putative Iraqi attack on the World Trade Center rather than on bringing freedom to the Iraqi people. Darryl Worley, in his Have You Forgotten?, meditates thus:
I hear people saying we don’t need this war – I say there’s some things worth fighting for…. And you say we shouldn’t worry ’bout bin Laden. Have you forgotten?… Some say this country’s just out looking for a fight – After 9/11, man, I’d have to say that’s right.
Clint Black expresses similar sentiments in his I Raq and Roll:
I pray for peace, prepare for war and I never will forget… This terror isn’t man to man, they can be no more than cowards… Now it might be a smart bomb, they find stupid people too. If you stand with the likes of Saddam, well, one might just find you.
These singers are obviously more sincere than the neocons whose war they are promoting. Sincere but misinformed. For no plausible evidence of a link between Saddam Hussein and the attack on the World Trade Center has ever been produced. But as Joe Sobran explained recently in his essay What Happened to the War on Terrorism?: “American people aren't in the mood for yet another war. So the trick was to convert the shock of 9/11 into war fever, then to redirect it at Iraq by u2018linking' Saddam Hussein to u2018terrorism.' This required some slippery semantics and a lot of propaganda – which is mostly sheer repetition of nonsense until resistance is worn down, and logic surrenders.”
Leaving aside the differences between the songs pertaining to the two wars, there are many similarities between America's invasion of Iraq and Italy's invasion of Ethiopia, as can be seen by reading Denis Mack Smith's critical biography of Mussolini:
“As [Mussolini's] military preparations became more obvious, further private messages were sent from London to warn him that, since Ethiopia was willing to accept arbitration, Italy's bullying of a much weaker country would alienate potential friends…
“Mussolini was not the man to be moved by such arguments and made clear that, if thwarted, he would leave the League [of Nations] never to return; he hoped…that in the last resort, most English people except u2018pacifists and old ladies' would accept if not actively support Italian imperialism. In any case, he added, the hostility of world opinion meant nothing to him. He had already spent vast sums in preparation for this colonial war and u2018intended to give Italy a return for his investment.'…
“In public he listed ninety-one examples of Ethiopian u2018aggression' and claimed that he was just exercising the right to self-defense….
“[But p]ublic opinion in the world at large was building up against someone who, by challenging the League and destroying the idea of collective security, was demolishing the illusions of a whole generation….
“Mussolini,” however, “u2018was living in isolation, within four walls, seeing and hearing nothing of reality…surrounded only by flatterers who told him merely what he wanted to hear.'”
Of course, the comparison of Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia and Bush's invasion of Iraq holds up only to a certain point. Unlike Mussolini, Bush possesses an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. Given that Defense Secretary Rumsfeld has refused to rule out the use of nuclear arms, if conventional weapons are insufficient to defeat the Iraqi military and irregulars and American casualties reach a level unacceptable to the American people, low-intensity nuclear weapons could be used to selectively target objectives in Iraq, and if necessary, in Syria and Iran.
All of which recalls the refrain of a song from another war of liberation:
It must be now the kingdom coming and the year of Jubilo.
April 3, 2003
Kevin Beary (send him mail) writes from his home in Italy.
