Faccetta Nera

"'Faccetta Nera'" ("Little Black Face" or "Pretty Black Face") is a popular marching song of Fascist Italy about the Second Italo-Ethiopian War. It was written by Renato Micheli with music by Mario Ruccione in 1935.

"Faccetta Nera"
Song
Released1935 (1935)
GenreMarch
Songwriter(s)Renato Micheli

The lyrics are written from the perspective of a fascist Italian Blackshirt soldier during the invasion of Ethiopia. In the song, the Italian narrator tells a beautiful young enslaved Abysinnian (Ethiopian) girl that she will be liberated from slavery and ruled by a new regime. She is invited to parade with the fascist Blackshirts in Rome, where she is promised a new and better life.

Themes

Slavery in Ethiopia is a prominent theme in the song.[1] The song follows the trend of Italian fascist propaganda portraying the invasion not as a war of conquest, but as a war of liberation to abolish Ethiopian slavery.[1]

The song also contains heavily implied themes of interracial romance.[2] The song is noticeably focused on the freedom of only Ethiopian women, and the Italian is fixated on the physical beauty of the young Ethiopian woman.[1] The lyric "La legge nostra è schiavitù d'amore" ("Our law is the slavery of love") suggests that the Italian desires intimacy with the Ethiopian woman besides liberating her from slavery.[1] This is part of the overall trend of Italian media exoticising and sexualising the women of Ethiopia to portray them as objects of sexual conquest who must be rescued from "uncivilised" Ethiopian men.[3]

History
Italian notice, signed by general Emilio De Bono, proclaiming the abolishment of slavery in Tigray in Italian and Amharic. The abolition of slavery was one of the first measures taken by the Italian colonial government in Ethiopia.

The hymn is said to have been inspired by a beautiful young Abyssinian girl, who was found by the Italian troops at the beginning of the Italian invasion of Ethiopia.

During the invasion, the song was hugely popular in Italy and caused national fervor.[4] During the fascist occupation of Ethiopia, Ethiopian women cohabited with Italian men in a system of concubinage known as madamato.[5] The implicitly erotic song was, however, somewhat of an embarrassment for the Fascist government, which had, starting in May 1936, introduced several laws prohibiting cohabitation and marriage between Italians and native people of the Italian colonial empire.[4] These efforts culminated in the Italian Racial Laws of 1938. The Fascist authorities considered banning the song, and removed all picture postcards depicting Abyssinian women from Roman shop windows.[4]

Lyrics
Italian lyrics
Se tu dall'altipiano guardi il mare
Moretta che sei schiava fra gli schiavi
Vedrai come in un sogno tante navi
E un tricolore sventolar per te
Faccetta nera, bell'abissina
Aspetta e spera che già l'ora si avvicina!
quando saremo insieme a te
noi ti daremo un'altra legge e un altro Re
La legge nostra è schiavitù d'amore
il nostro motto è LIBERTÀ e DOVERE
vendicheremo noi Camicie Nere
Gli eroi caduti liberando te!
Faccetta nera, bell'abissina
Aspetta e spera che già l'ora si avvicina!
quando saremo insieme a te
noi ti daremo un'altra legge e un altro Re
Faccetta nera, piccola abissina
ti porteremo a Roma, liberata
Dal sole nostro tu sarai baciata
Sarai in Camicia Nera pure tu
Faccetta nera, sarai Romana
La tua bandiera sarà sol quella italiana!
Noi marceremo insieme a te
E sfileremo avanti al Duce e avanti al Re!
English translation
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!
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
Pretty black face, little Abyssinian
We will take you to Rome, as a freedwoman
You will be kissed by our sun
and a black shirt you too will wear
Pretty black face, you will be Roman
Your only flag will be the Italian one!
We will march together with you
and parade in front of the Duce and the king!

See also
Italian Wikisource has original text related to this article:

References
  1. "The True Story of "Faccetta Nera" by Igiaba Scego". Words Without Borders. 1 April 2016.
  2. O'Healy, Áine (June 2009). "'[Non] è una somala': Deconstructing African femininity in Italian film". The Italianist. 29 (2): 175–198. doi:10.1179/026143409X12488561926306.
  3. Clò, Clarissa (2010). "African Queens and Italian History: The Cultural Politics of Memory and Resistance in Teatro delle Albe's Lunga vita all'albero and Gabriella Ghermandi's Regina di fiori et di perle". Research in African Literatures. 41 (4): 26–42. doi:10.2979/ral.2010.41.4.26. ISSN 0034-5210.
  4. Forgacs, David (2014), Italy's Margins: Social Exclusion and Nation Formation since 1861, ISBN 1107052173, pp. 80-81
  5. Trento, Giovanna (2011). "Madamato and Colonial Concubinage in Ethiopia: A Comparative Perspective". Aethiopica. 14: 184–205. doi:10.15460/aethiopica.14.1.419.


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