Italian settlers in Libya

Italian Libyans typically refers to Italians, and their descendants, who have resided or have been born in Libya.

History

Italian heritage in Libya can be dated back to Ancient Rome, when the Romans (considered the ancestor people of Italians) controlled and colonized Libya for a period of five centuries prior to the fall of the Roman Empire and its takover by Arab and Turkish civilizations. But predominantly Italian heritage in Libya refers to modern-day Italians.

In 1911, the Kingdom of Italy waged war on the Ottoman Empire and captured Libya as a colony. Italian settlers were encouraged to come to Libya and did so from 1911 to the outbreak of World War II.

In Libya, the Italians in less than thirty years (1911-1940) built significant amount of public works (roads, buildings, ports, etc.) and the Libyan economy flourished. Italian farmers cultivated lands that were lost to the desert for centuries. Libya was considered the new "America" for the Italian emigrants in the thirties.

File:Italoturcalitho.jpg

An idealized image of the take over of Ottoman Libya by Italy in 1911

The Italians in Libya numbered 108,419 (12.37% of the total population) at the time of the 1939 census. They were concentrated in the coast around the city of Tripoli (they constituted 37% of the city's population) and Bengasi (31%).

In 1938, the governor Italo Balbo brought 20,000 Italian farmers to colonize Libya, and 26 new villages were founded for them, mainly in Cyrenaica.

On January 9, 1939, the colony of Libya was incorporated into metropolitan Italy and thereafter considered an integral part of the Italian state. By 1939 the Lybian italians had built 400 km of new railroads and 4,000 km of new roads (the most important and large was the one from Tripoli to Tobruk, on the coast) in Libya.

The next year started the war between Italy and Great Britain, until the North African campaigns of World War II left Libya in British and French hands. All the Italian projects disappeared after the Italian defeat: Libya in the late forties experienced the beginning of the worldwide process of decolonization, that characterized the colonies of Europe in the fifties and sixties.

Helen Chapin Metz wrote in her book titled Libya: A Country Study the following:

Once pacification had been accomplished, fascist Italy endeavored to convert Libya into an Italian province to be referred to popularly as Italy's Fourth Shore. In 1934 Tripolitania and Cyrenaica were divided into four provinces--Tripoli, Misratah, Benghazi, and Darnah--which were formally linked as a single colony known as Libya, thus officially resurrecting the name that Diocletian had applied nearly 1,500 years earlier. Fezzan, designated as South Tripolitania, remained a military territory. A governor general, called the first consul after 1937, was in overall direction of the colony, assisted by the General Consultative Council, on which Arabs were represented. Traditional tribal councils, formerly sanctioned by the Italian administration, were abolished, and all local officials were thereafter appointed by the governor general. Administrative posts at all levels were held by Italians.

An accord with Britain and Egypt obtained the transfer of a corner of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, known as the Sarra Triangle, to Italian control in 1934. The next year, a French-Italian agreement was negotiated that relocated the 1,000-kilometer border between Libya and Chad southward about 100 kilometers across the Aouzou Strip, but this territorial concession to Italy was never ratified by the French legislature. In 1939 Libya was incorporated into metropolitan Italy.

During the 1930s, impressive strides were made in improving the country's economic and transportation infrastructure. Italy invested capital and technology in public works projects, extension and modernization of cities, highway and railroad construction, expanded port facilities, and irrigation, but these measures were introduced to benefit the Italian-controlled modern sector of the economy. Italian development policy after World War I had called for capital-intensive "economic colonization" intended to promote the maximum exploitation of the resources available. One of the initial Italian objectives in Libya, however, had been the relief of overpopulation and unemployment in Italy through emigration to the undeveloped colony. With security established, systematic "demographic colonization" was encouraged by Mussolini's government. A project initiated by Libya's governor, Italo Balbo, brought the first 20,000 settlers--the ventimilli--to Libya in a single convoy in October 1938. More settlers followed in 1939, and by 1940 there were approximately 110,000 Italians in Libya, constituting about 12 percent of the total population. Plans envisioned an Italian colony of 500,000 settlers by the 1960s. Libya's best land was allocated to the settlers to be brought under productive cultivation, primarily in olive groves. Settlement was directed by a state corporation, the Libyan Colonization Society, which undertook land reclamation and the building of model villages and offered a grubstake and credit facilities to the settlers it had sponsored.

The Italians made modern medical care available for the first time in Libya, improved sanitary conditions in the towns, and undertook to replenish the herds and flocks that had been depleted during the war. But, although Mussolini liked to refer to the Libyans as "Muslim Italians," little more was accomplished that directly improved the living standards of the Arab population.

Libyan Italians after World War II

The final defeat of Italy in World War II and the era of international decolonization fostered an exodus of Italians from Libya when Libya became a country. The Italian population virtually dissappeared after Libyan president Muammar al-Qaddafi ordered the expulsion of Italians in 1970. [1]

Only a few hundred of them have been allowed to return to Libya in the 2000s.

In 2006 the Italian Embassy in Tripoli calculated that in Libya there are approximately one thousand original Libyan Italians, mostly old people living in Tripoli and Bengazi.

Actually the Libyan Italians are organized in the Associazione Italiani Rimpatriati dalla Libia [2].

Most Italian Libyans speak Italian, Arabic, and English, while only Arabic and English for the assimilated. In religion, most are Roman Catholic Christians with some converted Sunni Muslims.

YEAR	ITALIANS	PERCENTAGE	TOTAL LIBYA	SOURCE FOR DATA ON POPULATION
1936	112,600	13.26%	848,600	Enciclopedia Geografica Mondiale K-Z, De Agostini,1996
1939	108,419	12.37%	876,563	Guida Breve d'Italia Vol.III, C.T.I., 1939 (Censimento Ufficiale)
1962	35,000	2.1%	1,681,739	Enciclopedia Motta, Vol.VIII, Motta Editore, 1969
1982	1,500	0.05%	2,856,000	Atlante Geografico Universale, Fabbri Editori, 1988
2004	22,530	0.4%	5,631,585	L'Aménagement Linguistique dans le Monde

Main Libyan Italians

Well-known Libyan Italians (according to their place of birth):

Claudio Gentile

Tripoli

• Claudio Gentile (born 1953), international football player and coach
• Rossana Podestà (born 1934), international actress
• Franco Califano (born 1938), singer and music composer
• Emanuele Caracciolo (1912–1944), movie productor
• Nicola Conte (1920–1976), navy officer

• Victor Magiar (born 1957), writer
• Herbert Pagani (1944–1988), singer
• Valentino Parlato (born 1930), journalist and newspaper director
• Gianni Pilo (born 1939), writer
• Adriano Visconti (1905–1945), fighting pilot and flying ace
• Nicolò D'Alessandro (born 1944), artist and writer

Bengasi

• Maurizio Seymandi (born 1939), TV anchor
• Gabriele de Paolis (1924–1984), Italian Army General

Houn

• Mario Schifano (1934–1998), painter

Bibliography

• Chapin Metz, Hellen. Libya: A Country Study. Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1987.
• Sarti, Roland. The Ax Within: Italian Fascism in Action. Modern Viewpoints. New York, 1974.
• Smeaton Munro, Ion. Trough Fascism to World Power: A History of the Revolution in Italy. Ayer Publishing. Manchester (New Hampshire), 1971. ISBN 0836959124
• Taylor, Blaine. Fascist Eagle: Italy's Air Marshal Italo Balbo. Montana: Pictorial Histories Publishing Company, 1996. ISBN 1-57510-012-6

See also

• Italia irredenta
• Greater Italia
• Italo Balbo
• Libyan resistance movement
• Italo-Turkish War
• Italian Empire
• Italian Mare Nostrum

External links

• Photos of Libyan Italians and their villages in Libya
• The Italians in Libya after World War II Template:It icon