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m Reverted 1 edit by 2001:B07:645A:A321:1866:737:B742:C4E9 (talk) to last revision by Buidhe
m The Libyan word "Shar" means starvation not evil (dialect difference from standard Arabic). Additionally, the statistic is 50% of Cyrenaica not 25% as cited from Ali Abdullatif Ahmida's excellent research
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The '''Libyan genocide''', also known in [[Libya]] as '''Shar''' ({{Lang-ar|شر|lit=Evil}}),<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Ahmida |first=Ali Abdullatif |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YujyDwAAQBAJ |title=Genocide in Libya: Shar, a Hidden Colonial History |date=2020-08-06 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-000-16936-2 |pages= |language=en}}</ref>{{Rp|page=98}} was the [[genocide]] of [[Libyans|Libyan]] [[Arabs]] and the systematic destruction of [[Culture of Libya|Libyan culture]], particularly during and after the [[Second Italo-Senussi War]] between 1929 and 1934.<ref name=":2">{{Citation |last=Ahmida |first=Ali Abdullatif |title=Eurocentrism, Silence and Memory of Genocide in Colonial Libya, 1929–1934 |date=2023 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-world-history-of-genocide/eurocentrism-silence-and-memory-of-genocide-in-colonial-libya-19291934/2F6A0A6F7010B944D4C13A4A6425A0A1 |work=The Cambridge World History of Genocide: Volume 3: Genocide in the Contemporary Era, 1914–2020 |volume=3 |pages=118–140 |editor-last=Kiernan |editor-first=Ben |access-date=2023-12-10 |series=The Cambridge World History of Genocide |place=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-108-76711-8 |editor2-last=Naimark |editor2-first=Norman |editor3-last=Straus |editor3-first=Scott |editor4-last=Lower |editor4-first=Wendy}}</ref> During this period, between 83,000<ref name=":3">{{Cite book |last=Duggan |first=Christopher |title=The Force of Destiny: A History of Italy Since 1796 |date=2008 |publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt |isbn=978-0-618-35367-5 |pages=497 |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":7">{{Cite web |title=Fascist Italy and the forgotten Libyan genocide |url=https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/libya-italy-fascism-colonial-past-forgotten-genocide |access-date=2023-12-10 |website=Middle East Eye |language=en}}</ref> and 125,000<ref>{{Cite book |last=Shahmoradian |first=Dr Feridoun Shawn |title=Reign of the Essence: Encyclopedia of Critical Thinking |date=2022-08-02 |publisher=AuthorHouse |isbn=978-1-6655-6662-9 |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":6">{{Cite web |title=Twentieth Century Atlas - Death Tolls |url=https://necrometrics.com/20c100k.htm#Libya |access-date=2023-12-10 |website=necrometrics.com}}</ref> Libyans were killed by [[Italian Libya|Italian colonial authorities]] under [[Benito Mussolini]]. Over 25% of the population of [[Cyrenaica]] had been killed, resulting in a [[population decline]] from 225,000 to 142,000 civilians.<ref name=":3" /> However, the total number of Libyan deaths during the [[Italian colonization of Libya|entire Italian colonial period]] is estimated to be much higher, with estimates placing the number at 250,000–300,000,<ref name=":6" /> 500,000<ref name=":8" /> and up to 750,000.<ref name=":6" />
The '''Libyan genocide''', also known in [[Libya]] as '''Shar''' ({{Lang-ar|شر|lit=Starvation}}),<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Ahmida |first=Ali Abdullatif |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YujyDwAAQBAJ |title=Genocide in Libya: Shar, a Hidden Colonial History |date=2020-08-06 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-000-16936-2 |pages= |language=en}}</ref>{{Rp|page=98}} was the [[genocide]] of [[Libyans|Libyan]] [[Arabs]] and the systematic destruction of [[Culture of Libya|Libyan culture]], particularly during and after the [[Second Italo-Senussi War]] between 1929 and 1934.<ref name=":2">{{Citation |last=Ahmida |first=Ali Abdullatif |title=Eurocentrism, Silence and Memory of Genocide in Colonial Libya, 1929–1934 |date=2023 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-world-history-of-genocide/eurocentrism-silence-and-memory-of-genocide-in-colonial-libya-19291934/2F6A0A6F7010B944D4C13A4A6425A0A1 |work=The Cambridge World History of Genocide: Volume 3: Genocide in the Contemporary Era, 1914–2020 |volume=3 |pages=118–140 |editor-last=Kiernan |editor-first=Ben |access-date=2023-12-10 |series=The Cambridge World History of Genocide |place=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-108-76711-8 |editor2-last=Naimark |editor2-first=Norman |editor3-last=Straus |editor3-first=Scott |editor4-last=Lower |editor4-first=Wendy}}</ref> During this period, between 83,000<ref name=":3">{{Cite book |last=Duggan |first=Christopher |title=The Force of Destiny: A History of Italy Since 1796 |date=2008 |publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt |isbn=978-0-618-35367-5 |pages=497 |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":7">{{Cite web |title=Fascist Italy and the forgotten Libyan genocide |url=https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/libya-italy-fascism-colonial-past-forgotten-genocide |access-date=2023-12-10 |website=Middle East Eye |language=en}}</ref> and 125,000<ref>{{Cite book |last=Shahmoradian |first=Dr Feridoun Shawn |title=Reign of the Essence: Encyclopedia of Critical Thinking |date=2022-08-02 |publisher=AuthorHouse |isbn=978-1-6655-6662-9 |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":6">{{Cite web |title=Twentieth Century Atlas - Death Tolls |url=https://necrometrics.com/20c100k.htm#Libya |access-date=2023-12-10 |website=necrometrics.com}}</ref> Libyans were killed by [[Italian Libya|Italian colonial authorities]] under [[Benito Mussolini]]. Over 50% of the population of [[Cyrenaica]] had been killed, resulting in a [[population decline]] from 225,000 to 142,000 civilians.<ref name=":3" /> However, the total number of Libyan deaths during the [[Italian colonization of Libya|entire Italian colonial period]] is estimated to be much higher, with estimates placing the number at 250,000–300,000,<ref name=":6" /> 500,000<ref name=":8" /> and up to 750,000.<ref name=":6" />


This period was marked by a brutal campaign characterized by widespread major Italian [[War crime|war crimes]], including [[ethnic cleansing]], [[Mass killing|mass killings]], [[forced displacement]], [[Death march|forced death marches]], [[settler colonialism]], the use of [[Chemical weapon|chemical weapons]], the [[Italian concentration camps in Libya|use of concentration camps]], mass executions of civilians and [[No quarter|refusing to take prisoners of war]] and instead executing surrendering combatants.<ref name=":3" /> The indigenous population, particularly the nomadic [[Bedouin]] tribes, faced extreme violence and suppression in an attempt to quell [[Senusiyya|Senussi]] resistance to colonial rule.<ref name=":2" /> The Italian military killed half of the Bedouin population of Libya between 1928 and 1932.<ref name=":4">[[Ilan Pappé]], ''The Modern Middle East.'' Routledge, 2005, {{ISBN|0-415-21409-2}}, p. 26.</ref>
This period was marked by a brutal campaign characterized by widespread major Italian [[War crime|war crimes]], including [[ethnic cleansing]], [[Mass killing|mass killings]], [[forced displacement]], [[Death march|forced death marches]], [[settler colonialism]], the use of [[Chemical weapon|chemical weapons]], the [[Italian concentration camps in Libya|use of concentration camps]], mass executions of civilians and [[No quarter|refusing to take prisoners of war]] and instead executing surrendering combatants.<ref name=":3" /> The indigenous population, particularly the nomadic [[Bedouin]] tribes, faced extreme violence and suppression in an attempt to quell [[Senusiyya|Senussi]] resistance to colonial rule.<ref name=":2" /> The Italian military killed half of the Bedouin population of Libya between 1928 and 1932.<ref name=":4">[[Ilan Pappé]], ''The Modern Middle East.'' Routledge, 2005, {{ISBN|0-415-21409-2}}, p. 26.</ref>

Revision as of 04:51, 20 March 2024

This article is about the genocide in 1929–1934. For the conflict between Italian forces and indigenous rebels in 1923–1932, see Second Italo-Senussi War.
Libyan genocide
Part of the Second Italo-Senussi War and Italian colonization of Libya
Inmates at the El Agheila concentration camp
LocationItalian Libya
Date1929–1934 (main phase)
TargetLibyan Arabs
Attack type
Genocide, ethnic cleansing, mass killings, forced displacement, forced death marches, settler colonialism, chemical warfare, concentration camps and no quarter
Deaths
PerpetratorItalian Empire
MotiveItalian fascism, imperialism, anti-Arab racism, Islamophobia

The Libyan genocide, also known in Libya as Shar (Arabic: شر, lit. 'Starvation'),[1]: 98  was the genocide of Libyan Arabs and the systematic destruction of Libyan culture, particularly during and after the Second Italo-Senussi War between 1929 and 1934.[2] During this period, between 83,000[3][4] and 125,000[5][6] Libyans were killed by Italian colonial authorities under Benito Mussolini. Over 50% of the population of Cyrenaica had been killed, resulting in a population decline from 225,000 to 142,000 civilians.[3] However, the total number of Libyan deaths during the entire Italian colonial period is estimated to be much higher, with estimates placing the number at 250,000–300,000,[6] 500,000[7] and up to 750,000.[6]

This period was marked by a brutal campaign characterized by widespread major Italian war crimes, including ethnic cleansing, mass killings, forced displacement, forced death marches, settler colonialism, the use of chemical weapons, the use of concentration camps, mass executions of civilians and refusing to take prisoners of war and instead executing surrendering combatants.[3] The indigenous population, particularly the nomadic Bedouin tribes, faced extreme violence and suppression in an attempt to quell Senussi resistance to colonial rule.[2] The Italian military killed half of the Bedouin population of Libya between 1928 and 1932.[8]

The genocide was based on a racist and fascist colonial plan to incite settler colonialism and settle poor Italian peasants in Libya. About 110,000 Libyan civilians were forced to march from their homes to the harsh Libyan desert and were then interned in Italian concentration camps in Libya. Between 60,000 and 70,000 mostly rural people, including women and children, and their 600,000 animals died of diseases and were starved to death.[2]

News about the genocide was heavily suppressed by Fascist Italy, evidence was largely destroyed, making remaining files in Italian concentration camps in Libya difficult to find even after the end of Fascist rule in Italy in 1945. The history that Libyans recorded in their Arabic oral history has remained hidden and unexplored in systematic fashion.[2][9][1]: 40  As a result, Italian colonization and atrocities in Ethiopia are better studied and more well known than Libyan cases.[1]: 40  It was not until 2008 that Italy apologized for its killing, destruction and repression of the Libyan people during its colonization of Libya, and stated that this was a "complete and moral acknowledgement of the damage inflicted on Libya by Italy during the colonial era".[10]

Etymology

In Libya, the death in the camps during the genocide is commonly referred to as "Shar" (Arabic: شر, lit. 'Evil'), an Arabic word meaning "evil". The term is derived from the Qur'an, as the opposite of good. This was primarily because the survivors of Italian Fascism in the concentration camps viewed their ordeal as an evil, hence identifying evil as a proper term to describe the horror of the genocide.[1]: 98 

Prelude

During the Italian invasion of Libya in 1911, the Italians were portrayed as the liberators of Libya from Ottoman rule, concurrently concealing any evidence of repression campaigns and massacres during the war, such as the ones following the battle and massacre at Shar al-Shatt. On the other side, the Arabs were described as 'beasts' that needed to be civilized by the Europeans.[11] Reportedly, both Italian officers and men had declared that "we must destroy the Arabs". Official reports into the atrocities emphasized racial hatred, vindictiveness and "psychological flaws" as their underlying causes. Such brutal Italian war crimes in Libya were primarily associated with the Fascist era, as well as the Italian Liberal regime, albeit in a less systematic manner.[12] Upon gaining entry in Libya, Italy promptly initiated racist and discriminatory practices of class division, including the construction of concentration camps, where approximately 50,000 Libyans lost their lives during the 1930s. Libya was of strategic importance to Italy, thus prompting the latter to annex the former as its "Fourth Shore" to allow Italians an expanded trade route area which greatly benefited Italy.[13]

Genocide

On 20 June 1930, Italian military officer Pietro Badoglio called for the annihilation of the entire population of Cyrenaica, and wrote to General Rodolfo Graziani: "As for overall strategy, it is necessary to create a significant and clear separation between the controlled population and the rebel formations. I do not hide the significance and seriousness of this measure, which might be the ruin of the subdued population...But now the course has been set, and we must carry it out to the end, even if the entire population of Cyrenaica must perish".[14]

According to Melvin Page and Penny Sonneberg, Benito Mussolini was the person ultimately responsible for "putting 80,000 Libyans in concentration camps, blocking and poisoning wells, building a network of garrisons in troubled areas, bombing villages with mustard gas, killing and confiscating hundreds of thousands of sheep and camels, and constructing a 200-mile barbed wire fence between Libya and Egypt to prevent rebel border crossings".[13]

By 1931, more than half of the population of Cyrenaica were confined to 15 Italian concentration camps where many died as result of overcrowding, lack of water, food and medicine. The Italian government experimented poison gas in violation of the 1925 Geneva Protocol against chemical and biological warfare. Badoglio had the Air Force use chemical warfare against the Bedouin rebels in the desert. This caused the nomadic way of life of the Bedouin to decline. Cyrenaica had a population of about 200,000 in 1911 during the Ottoman period, however it declined to 142,000 by 1931, with 40,000 dead and 20,000 in exile in Egypt.[14] Historian Ilan Pappé estimates that between 1928 and 1932 the Italian military "killed half the Bedouin population (directly or through disease and starvation in camps)."[8] Italian colonial authorities committed ethnic cleansing by forcibly expelling 100,000 Eastern Libyan Bedouins, half the population of Cyrenaica, from their settlements that were given to Italian colonist settlers.[15][16] Less than 40,000 Libyan survivors left Italian refugee camps, following their release in 1934.[11]

A direct connection exists between the Libyan genocide and the Holocaust. Italian-sponsored Arabic language publications from the colonial period indicate numerous visits to Libya by officials from Nazi Germany, who admired the settlement techniques of the Italian fascists, viewing them as "successful". Historian Ali Abdullatif Ahmida stated that the extreme violence carried out against Libyans by Italian fascists served as a blueprint for the atrocities that Nazi Germans later committed in Europe.[4]

In April 1939, Nazi German Field Marshal Hermann Göring made an official visit to Tripoli, where he held discussions with the Italian colonial governor general of Libya, Italo Balbo. In the same year, the chief of the Schutzstaffel and the architect behind the concentration camps, Heinrich Himmler, also made an official visit to Libya to witness the outcomes of the Italian methods. He is credited with conceiving the idea of the Final Solution: the Holocaust.[4]

Death toll

After coming to power in Libya in 1969, Muammar Gaddafi claimed that half of Libya's total population had died during Italian colonialism, amounting up to 750,000 Libyans.[6][17] During the Allied administration of Libya prior to independence, the United Nations estimated that 250,000 to 300,000 Libyan natives died under the Italians between 1912 and 1942.[6] According to historian Denis Mack Smith, about 20,000 Libyans died in concentration camps, and perhaps 100,000 nomadic Bedouins (half the Bedouin population) died overall.[6] Ali Abdullatif Ahmida estimates that 500,000 Libyans were killed out of a total population of 1,500,000.[7]

An exact number of victims of the genocide can not be determined because there are very few remaining documents on death marches and concentration camps in Italian archives. This is due to the fact that evidence regarding the genocide was largely destroyed by Italian colonial authorities. Additionally, news about genocide was heavily suppressed by the Italian state.[2]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Ahmida, Ali Abdullatif (2020-08-06). Genocide in Libya: Shar, a Hidden Colonial History. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-000-16936-2.
  2. ^ a b c d e Ahmida, Ali Abdullatif (2023), Kiernan, Ben; Naimark, Norman; Straus, Scott; Lower, Wendy (eds.), "Eurocentrism, Silence and Memory of Genocide in Colonial Libya, 1929–1934", The Cambridge World History of Genocide: Volume 3: Genocide in the Contemporary Era, 1914–2020, The Cambridge World History of Genocide, vol. 3, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 118–140, ISBN 978-1-108-76711-8, retrieved 2023-12-10
  3. ^ a b c Duggan, Christopher (2008). The Force of Destiny: A History of Italy Since 1796. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 497. ISBN 978-0-618-35367-5.
  4. ^ a b c "Fascist Italy and the forgotten Libyan genocide". Middle East Eye. Retrieved 2023-12-10.
  5. ^ Shahmoradian, Dr Feridoun Shawn (2022-08-02). Reign of the Essence: Encyclopedia of Critical Thinking. AuthorHouse. ISBN 978-1-6655-6662-9.
  6. ^ a b c d e f "Twentieth Century Atlas - Death Tolls". necrometrics.com. Retrieved 2023-12-10.
  7. ^ a b Ahmida, Ali Abdullatif (September 2006). "When the Subaltern Speak: Memory of Genocide in Colonial Libya 1929 to 1933". ResearchGate. p. 189.
  8. ^ a b Ilan Pappé, The Modern Middle East. Routledge, 2005, ISBN 0-415-21409-2, p. 26.
  9. ^ Kiernan, Ben; Lower, Wendy; Naimark, Norman; Straus, Scott (2023-01-31). The Cambridge World History of Genocide: Volume 3, Genocide in the Contemporary Era, 1914–2020. Cambridge University Press. p. 141. ISBN 978-1-108-80627-5.
  10. ^ The Report: Libya 2008. Oxford Business Group. 2008. p. 17.
  11. ^ a b Aruffo, Alessandro (2007). Storia del Colonialismo Italiano: da Crispi a Mussolini. Rome: DATANEWS Editrice. pp. 48–65. ISBN 978-88-7981-315-0.
  12. ^ Wilcox, Vanda (2021). The Italian Empire and the Great War. Oxford University Press. p. 169. ISBN 978-0-19-882294-3.
  13. ^ a b Nagar, Dawn; Mutasa, Charles (2017-10-25). Africa and the World: Bilateral and Multilateral International Diplomacy. Springer. p. 171. ISBN 978-3-319-62590-4.
  14. ^ a b De Grand, Alexander (2004). "Mussolini's Follies: Fascism in Its Imperial and Racist Phase, 1935-1940". Contemporary European History. 13 (2): 131-132. ISSN 0960-7773. JSTOR 20081201.
  15. ^ Cardoza, Anthony L. (2006). Benito Mussolini: the first fascist. Pearson Longman. p. 109.
  16. ^ Bloxham, Donald; Moses, A. Dirk (2010). The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. p. 358
  17. ^ Vandevalle, Dirk (2012). A History of Modern Libya. Cambridge University Press. p. 217.
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