“We will have, for a thousand years, peace.”
An intense text, in which the author relives his memories as a soldier employed in Africa during the Second World War.
Linear in the memory, as if it were a long diary, in which dreams, doubts, individual daily events are reported that together marked the fate of the conflict, up to the defeat in Sudan, the imprisonment and the long period spent in India.
The detail of some situations and the uncertainties of the command offer us a unique cross-section, which should be added to more consistent history books to have a complete picture of what happened. The sincere testimony of the protagonists is perhaps one of the most relevant historical sources to understand how we arrived at some decisions and some humanitarian catastrophes, today forgotten, or even worse revisited or reinvented to give a distorted vision to those who do not need and want to delve deeper.
To be discovered, especially for those who were not aware of it, the descriptive part of the relationships between the colonizers (Italians) and the colonized (the Eritreans). This also means talking about history: entering into the interpersonal relationships of individual subjects, even though they may have an undercurrent of racism, but in line with the era, because reading and studying history means not judging, but trying to understand the ways of reasoning, however far away they may seem from us.
The sense of burden of the white man that the author continually reports is touching; we are certain that both he and his comrades in arms were convinced of it, perhaps even with the best of intentions, imagining how Italian values had strengthened those of the Ascari and the entire native population.
It is not surprising, however, the umpteenth revelation, at least for us who have read a lot on the subject, of the total unpreparedness of the Italian troops for war, with little and inadequate equipment, weapons dating back to the First World War, and a lot of brainwashing for those who would then face imprisonment or certain death.
Shared memory is the most important weapon for those who fight daily for peace, and this book fully enters into the pacifist armies.
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Ferdinando Bersani, I dimenticati, Mursia, Milano, 2000