Humanitarian Imperialism

Giuseppe Micheli makes only a fleeting appearance in Amalia Ribi Forclaz’s new history of anti-slavery. Yet the words of his autumn 1935 hit, ‘Facetta Nera’ (‘Little black-faced girl’), speak loudly to its themes. Commissioned by the Fascist government, the song was a paean to the Italian troops poised to ‘liberate’ Ethiopia from tyranny. It appealed to the humanitarians (activists, government officials and missionaries) who prepared the moral foundations for intervention. And it underlined the extent to which imperial advances could be portrayed as a war against slavery. ‘If you look down from the plateau on to the sea, little black girl, who are a slave among slaves’, Micheli sang, ‘you will see, as if in a dream, lots of ships and a tricolour waiting for you!’ (p. 160). The boom in humanitarian history over the past decade has told us much about its role in empire’s ‘civilising’ mission. Put simply, we now know much more about the role of human rights, development and disaster relief in sustaining imperial regimes. Humanitarians have been accused of ‘othering’ aid recipients, of intrusive interventionism and of imposing liberal ideals through states, NGOs, missionaries and international agencies. Ribi Forclaz’s book is a welcome addition to those histories. Focusing on the later years of the European anti-slavery movement, and, in particular, on the British and Italian campaigns, it documents the appropriation of humanitarianism in the race to expand imperial domains

Appropriation · Economic history · Empire · Government (linguistics · Indigenous · Political science · Politics · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · History · Law · Philosophy · Race, History, and American Society