Anti-Slavery as a Justification for Imperialism

The song Facetta Nera, or Black Faced-Girl, became popular in Italy during the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935. The song and other documents show part of their key justification for the war, that by conquering Ethiopia they were bringing law and order and wiping away the supposed barbarism of old Ethiopia.

“If you look at the sea from the hills
Young brunette, a slave among slaves
Like in a dream you will see many ships
And a tricolour waving for you
Pretty black face, beautiful Abyssinian
Wait and see, for the hour is coming!
When we are with you
We shall give you another law and another king
Our law is slavery of love
Our motto is FREEDOM and DUTY
We, the blackshirts, will avenge
the heroes that died to free you!

The song and the justification for invasion exemplifies many of the problems with the Savages, Victims, and Saviors complex in human rights decried by Makau Mutua. In the song, the savage is the old Ethiopian order, the victim is the black-faced girl, and the savior- the brave Italian blackshirts. In this case human rights, specifically anti-slavery and development, is used as a justification for a war that saw violent human rights abuses such as chemical weapons assaults on civilians by the Italian air-force. It is an extreme example of thrusting supposedly superior western values on an unwilling populace.

The invasion of Ethiopia and the Italian human rights justification raises uncomfortable parallels by more recent invasions executed by the US, France, Russia, and other powerful nations around the world. In the first Iraq war, the savior was the US led UN, the Savages were the Iraqis, and the victims the Kuwaitis. In the second Iraq war, the US led coalition was the savior, the savages were the Baath Party, and the victims were the Iraqi people. In both wars, countless Iraqi civilians were killed by US forces in the name of their human rights. France has employed the same breakdown in its neocolonial wars in North Africa (Libya, Mali, Ivory Coast) and Russia is using the same justification in eastern Ukraine, where the savior Russians fight the barbarian nazi Ukrainians to protect Russians stuck in Ukraine after the fall of the Soviet Union.