In bourgeois newspapers, we usually only read about anti-fascism on April 25th, a date that for us anarchists marks only a partial victory in the conquest of freedom. The anarchist resistance has made international anti-fascism its moral compass. When it comes to anti-fascism, European public memory continues to tell an incomplete story, one too convenient for Western consciences. The dominant imagination places the fight against fascism almost exclusively in the Italian mountains, in the occupied cities of Western Europe, or on the front lines of World War II. Even the experiences of popular anti-militarism that arose in our South, such as the "Non si parte" revolts against forced conscription, led by Maria Occhipinti in Ragusa in January 1945 (when, despite being pregnant, she lay down in front of the wheels of a military truck that was rounding up young people), end up relegated to marginal footnotes in a history written by the White States and armies. It is a partial narrative, which tends to begin in 1939 and end with the military defeat of the Axis powers in 1945. Yet, the global war against fascism began well before that, and one of its first, most important and tragic battlegrounds was the African continent.
In 1935, the Italian invasion of Ethiopia represented a historical turning point. The fascist regime (like other European powers) sought its empire through a brutal war of conquest, based on biological racism, military expansionism, and the presumed civilizational superiority of Europe. This aggression was not a common colonial war like those of the previous century. It was the concrete and modern manifestation of the fascist project: total domination, racial hierarchization, and the militarization of society.
Ethiopia occupied a huge symbolic position. Along with Liberia, it was one of the very few African states to have retained its independence during the continent's violent colonial partition. For millions of Africans and the black populations of the diaspora, Ethiopia was living proof that white domination was not inevitable. The Ethiopian resistance, often dismissed by European historiography, constituted one of the first great experiences of armed struggle against fascism. Precisely for this reason, Mussolini's attack had a painful and enormous resonance well beyond the borders of the Horn of Africa, mobilizing hearts and consciences throughout the world.
The invasion war was characterized by ruthless violence. The Italian army systematically bombed civilians and used chemical weapons, banned by international conventions. Mustard gas and toxic gases were deliberately released on villages, waterways, agricultural areas, and resistance groups, with devastating effects. The most reliable estimates speak of hundreds of thousands of Ethiopian victims during the years of occupation; a terrible tragedy that still occupies a marginal place in our history books.
Among the darkest episodes was the Yekatit 12 massacre in February 1937 in Addis Ababa. After a failed assassination attempt against Viceroy Rodolfo Graziani, the colonial authorities unleashed blind vengeance: for three days, the civilian population was massacred, entire neighborhoods were devastated, and thousands were killed simply because they were Ethiopian. Other horrific massacres followed, such as that of the Zeret Cave, where hundreds of resistance fighters and civilians who had sought refuge there were gassed and massacred by Italian troops. These events demonstrate that fascist colonialism was not a paternalistic, authoritarian administration, but a system founded on terror. The consolatory myth of "Italians are good people," in short, belongs to nationalist nonsense, not to the reality of history.
Faced with this war machine, the Ethiopian resistance, often dismissed by European historiography, constituted one of the first major experiences of armed struggle against fascism. Peasants, local communities, irregular fighters, and religious leaders put up tenacious resistance. Despite the overwhelming disparity in resources, the guerrilla warfare never stopped, preventing the regime from consolidating control over the territory.
While European democracies were choosing the path of appeasement and the League of Nations was demonstrating its utter impotence in the face of aggression-a powerlessness reminiscent, in a mirror image, of that displayed today by international institutions in the face of contemporary massacres in Gaza, Sudan, and Myanmar-thousands of Africans were already dying fighting fascism. The war in Ethiopia was, in effect, the first chapter of the global anti-fascist resistance.
In this struggle, a fundamental and profoundly human role was played by Ethiopian women, too often erased. They were neither spectators nor figures left behind. They were active protagonists: they took up arms, organized logistical support networks, transported ammunition, cared for the wounded, ensured clandestine connections between villages and partisans, and wrote poems encouraging resistance. According to historical research, approximately a third of the officially recognized partisans after the liberation were women. Some assumed military command roles, undermining the idea of an all-male war.
This memory has been forcefully reclaimed by contemporary literature. In Maaza Mengiste's novel The Shadow King , the "shadow women" represent precisely those whom official history has sought to marginalize. Many protagonists of the African anti-fascist struggle have been forgotten not because they were absent, but because a colonial, patriarchal, and white historiography has chosen not to mention them. For them, resistance took on a double meaning: it was a struggle against the invader and against a system that sought to simultaneously impose colonial domination and gender subjugation. Their experience remains one of the first manifestations of an anti-fascism capable of combining opposition to racism, social emancipation, and self-determination.
This difference in perspective is crucial. Western states, which would later present themselves as the world's liberators from fascism, continued to govern colonial empires founded on exploitation and segregation. But for much of the colonized world, the struggle against fascism and the struggle against colonialism were precisely the same thing.
This contradiction exploded dramatically at the moment of the Allied victory. While Europe celebrated 1945 as the triumph of "freedom," millions of people in colonial territories continued to suffer violence, forced labor, and the denial of civil rights. The victory over Nazism gave the European powers a renewed moral authority, allowing France, Great Britain, Belgium, and other victorious powers (e.g., the United States) to present themselves as the "good guys," defenders of freedom and civilization while continuing to govern vast empires built on a brutal colonial domination.
A case in point occurred on December 1, 1944, in the military camp of Thiaroye, Senegal. The Senegalese tirailleurs, African soldiers who had fought in Europe to liberate France from Nazism, demanded the promised compensation. The French army's response was military violence: the veterans were shot in cold blood, leaving hundreds dead (perhaps 400) on the battlefield. Men who had defeated fascism were treated as subjects when they demanded dignity, simply their pay, not colored medals, not institutional recognition.
A few months later, on May 8, 1945, while European cities celebrated the end of the war, peaceful demonstrations demanding autonomy in the Algerian cities of Sétif, Guelma, and Kherrata (also fueled by the feeling of "liberation" in Europe) were bloodily repressed by French authorities with unprecedented brutality, resulting in thousands of deaths. The day of European liberation coincided with one of the bloodiest colonial massacres in African history. It should give us pause, right?
The end of the war in Europe, therefore, did not mark the end of structures of domination. The subsequent wars of national liberation, from Algeria to Kenya, from Mozambique to Angola, were a continuation of that same struggle against systems that shared with fascism institutional racism, military violence, and the cult of authority. The interesting point is that it was not simply a matter of demanding state independence; in many cases, radical social aspirations also emerged, along with forms of community self-organization and collective practices that challenged not only colonialism but every form of authoritarian power.
From a libertarian perspective, this story highlights that anti-fascism cannot be reduced to the defense of one state against another. If fascism is the extreme expression of hierarchy, nationalism, and militarization, then anti-fascism must necessarily reject colonialism and racism globally.
Today, as nostalgic Vannah soldiers resurface in our societies and authoritarian rhetoric cyclically resurfaces from the sewers of history, the African continent too is confronted with new forms of authoritarianism, extractivism, and militarized borders separating the global North and South. But popular mobilizations, youth movements for social justice, and feminist struggles in Africa demonstrate that this tradition of resistance has not disappeared. Where is our international solidarity with them? Is it really possible that it has all been shipped onto the flotillas and nothing remains?
Remembering African anti-fascism means breaking with a Eurocentric narrative and speaking about a global anti-fascist struggle that has never ended. Freedom is not commemorated in state rituals; it is a daily practice of opposition to all forms of domination. From the Ethiopian mountains of 1935 to the streets of today, the global anti-fascist war and the resistance against militarism, colonialism, and exploitation must continue under the banner of international solidarity.
Gabriele Cammarata
https://umanitanova.org/ribaltare-la-storiografia-eurocentrica-le-donne-ombra-etiopi-e-la-lotta-antifascista-in-africa/
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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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