Week 97

 

And we press on with Mussolini's Popolo d'Italia covering the early steps of Nitti's government – hopeful that such coverage will provide us with a counterpoint for the Italian diplomatic action, as well as an introduction for the internal preparations for the elections of November 1919.

Neo-officiant papers – Mussolini opened his opinion peace on June 27^th with a reference to an apparent resurgence of ministerial press – tell us that we should wait for Nitti's program-speech to be made at the reopening of parliament, before we pass our unappealable sentence on the new government. Those admitted to the inner mysteries of the new ministry are certain it's going to be a marvelous one; but we, while we await for this miracle-speech, have no intention to take their advice. […]

Not only was the date of reopening still uncertain, but the first acts of the new Ministry “fully justify doubts and perplexities”.

That being so, those were still minor provisions concerning internal matters - “of marked political consequence” according to Mussolini, but not worth spending many words on. The attention of the Popolo d'Italia returned therefore to foreign policy. And first, Mussolini doubted that Nitti could really pursue the direction which was discussed in parliamentary and ministerial spheres.

The speech made by hon. Tittoni is not a defeatist one, which leads to assume that the conceit of the government is the following: Pact of London plus Fiume. But since the accomplishment of this goal appears quite difficult […] will hon. Nitti be brave enough to declare, once the time comes, the annexation of the territories promised with the Treaty of London and to accept the annexation of Fiume to Italy? I don't think so. In which case the duplicity and insincerity of the current anti-defeatist attitude would become obvious.

Not that Nitti intends, or wants to solve the problem in the direction of annexation, but since he needed some way to appease and distract the opposition of the national current, [he] had to make use of a demagogic expedient to launch [his] ministry.

This ambiguous international tendency of Nitti – who indeed, in agreement with every other constitutional, parliamentary force, and for quite obvious reasons had no intention to proceed to an unilateral annexation (the argument served, of course, as “a demagogic expedient”), and would have regarded the idea as completely reckless – was paired with a desire to come to “a reconciliation with the elements of official socialism”. Which meant going against the combatants – in this repeating the traditional combatantist argument that the “crisis could not be solved within the narrow, mephitic circle of the Italian Parliament”, but only within the nation, entrusting the function of political leadership to the combatants and to the productive forces of the nation. No surprise therefore that, under Nitti, a true parliamentary man, “measures against the arditi and the political initiatives of the combatants” were to be foreseen.

Even those distensive measures that everyone could regard as necessary – such as the abolition of censorship and the resumption of demobilization (not that the “national” press had complained much when demobilization had been halted from April to June) – couldn't be taken at face value as positives.

Their inspiring idea is dangerous, it is that old one of Giolitti. Everything is done to the end of appeasing the official socialists; everything is done within a design to “depress” the national currents which stand against the pus.

This should not have come as a surprise since Nitti, the “pot-bellied” new prime minister, was “coherent with his past deeds. He didn't want the war; he doesn't like those who made the war”. And, for this reason – Mussolini argued – it was dubious whether he was going to realize the electoral reform ahead of the new elections, “since his friends, the official socialists, don't care for it one bit”.

Hon. Nitti will find a more or less elegant way to delay the reform at the last minute, and the new elections will be made […] with the old system.

On this point Mussolini's take was to prove less accurate than his realistic (but coached in the annexation-straw-man) evaluation of the perspective foreign policy of the new ministry. The fact that Nitti wasn't going to declare the annexation of Fiume was indeed fairly transparent – and could serve as a convenient leverage point to continue Mussolini's pursuit of the combatant forces and to hold together his ambiguous attempts to maintain a position in between the progressive, social themes of “democratic” interventionism and a foreign policy aligned to “national” interventionism, and open to the nationalist expansionist stance (hence the ambiguous take on demobilization) – as well as to maintain a tone of moderation between the two extremes of radical “democratic” voices and the radical subversive “national” right, without appearing by contrast too “conservative” or, even worse, “ministerial”.

In this direction, the Popolo d'Italia continued its front page coverage of the national congress of the Combatants Association, reporting on the submission (June 26^th 1919) of a “very important” order of business approved by the Arditi Association (an “imposing assembly of arditi” had taken place in Rome, with Vecchi, Ambrosini and Carli), which

[…] taking into account that in our present circumstances a complete fusion together of all the combatants of Italy is needed, deliberates to send a vote of sympathy for the combatants gathered for congress and to join the ANC in great numbers. It mandates the direction committee of the Roman section to open negotiations for a common action - […] Ferruccio Vecchi, Vittorio Ambrosini, Giuseppe Dotto.

The subsequent acclaim reserved for the Arditi “honorably put the word end to the regrettable incident we had to complain for” on the day before, when Vecchi had been urged to leave the conference works after his attempts to direct the debate towards the preferred solution of a “political action” of the ANC. And despite Mussolini's own positive spin on things, the positive reception of an external order of business was a few steps back from the desired convergence of the ANC over the platform of the Arditi and Fasci di Combattimento. Especially considered how the Association

[…] in consideration of the difficulties for a political and tactical action unified and uniform over all the regions of Italy […] deliberates to leave autonomy and responsibility of tactical methods to the single regional committees, under the directives and supervision of the Central Committee.

The first national congress of the ANC concluded on June 27^th with the approval of an order of business in favor of the combatants living in foreign countries, and with a statement which rejected the accusations of a “compromised resistance spirit” and attributed the responsibility of the defeat of Caporetto to the “inadequacies of the high commands”.

The combatants protest vehemently against the despicable accusations thrown against the Italian soldiers by the one true responsible of the disaster [gen. Cadorna, not mentioned – a reference to his unfortunate bulletin of October 28^th 1917] and declare that they have no confidence in the inquest committee [the proceedings of the inquest committee were submitted to Nitti on July 24^th – for the most extensive and radical criticism of the inquest from a combatants' perspective, before an after its publication, see Giulio Douhet's periodical, Il Dovere] appointed by the government, which tries to cover up responsibilities and to save the true culprits by dilatory means […]

Furthermore the National Congress demanded “for the High Command to be put on trial” and announced the institution of “an inquest committee” of the Combatants Association “to collect evidence and witness accounts to ascertain the true responsibilities and to discover the culprits in order to give them their deserved punishment”.

The final deliberation, carrying “a great significance of national will”, was the election of Fiume for the new congress – to be held at a yet undetermined date, and possibly after the annexation of the town to Italy had been completed.

Meanwhile, with a couple of days of delay, the congress of the combatants held in Cagliari – logistic limitations, as well as the obvious political insularity of the island, likely prevented most Sardinian sections from sending their delegations to Rome – had acclaimed Emilo Lussu as first member of their direction committee. The Popolo d'Italia misspelled his surname, but gave a fairly enthusiastic coverage of the proceedings on July 2^nd 1919.

This one is actually for Africa Floating, but being a clown for my seniors RL stuff get in the way and it came up late, so i'll just post it here instead. This one is about Ottoman influence on South African Muslims in the 19th-20th century

Before talking about the Ottomans, we must first briefly talk about the Muslims in South Africa. During Dutch rule, many Malay Muslims came to the Cape as political prisoners, slaves, convicts and on a few occasions, voluntary migrants. Among these Muslims was also a number of prominent religious scholars, such as Imam Abdullah Kadi Abdus Salaam of Tidore and Abidin Tadian Tjoessoep of Makassar, both of whom influential religious leader who was exiled to the Cape. The institutionalization of Islam started when Abdullah Kadi established the first mosque after the Dutch allowed the practice of other religions than the Dutch Reformed Church in 1840. Another group of Muslims that arrived in the Cape were Indian workers and traders from Bombay, Madras, Calcutta and Gujarat. They were brought by the British to work in Natal on the sugar plantations. Although most of these Indians were Hindu, a second wave of mostly Muslim Indians arrived in South Africa in the 1860s as passenger migrants. They came to make a living in South Africa as entrepreneurs and settled in Transvaal. It was this group that formed the core of Muslims in South Africa from the mid-19th century onwards. During this time, conversion to Christianity had become a standstill and Islam spread rather quickly, especially in slave communities.

Although the Ottomans had been trading with South Africa since the 1830s, proper relations with South African Muslim community had only begun in the 1850s, after the Ottomans had established an official consul in South Africa. In 1852, The Muslim community of Port Elizabeth wanted to build a mosque, but due to financial troubles, the mosque couldn’t be finished for many years. Because of that, the Muslim community requested for financial aid from the Ottoman Sultan. Sultan Abdülmecid accepted this request and granted 400 liras for the community to finish the mosque and awarded some of the local Muslims with a gold medal. This mosque is named Masjid al-Akbar, and is apparently still standing today. By the 1860s, the Muslim community was going strong, but it has no coordinating council of Islamic authority and as a result each imam tended to the interests of his own community, leading to several religious controversies due to differences in religious doctrines. This led to the Muslim community requesting to the Ottomans religious books and a scholar to settle their differences and teach them the “true” Islam. The request was passed on by the Ottoman Ambassador in London Kostaki Musurus Pasha to the Sultan Abdülmecid. The request was discussed the decision was made that besides some religious books a salaried scholar would be sent. After the approval of the sultan, statesman Ahmed Cevdet Pasha made investigations for a suitable scholar to be sent to the Cape. Eventually, Kurdish scholar Ebubekir Efendi was interviewed on 16 May 1862 and in September Sultan Abdülaziz appointed him to the post. He was already a renowned and reputed scholar in the Ottoman Empire, having attained a highly acclaimed degree of professorship in Istanbul and worked as a civil servant there. On the 1 October 1862, Efendi and his brother’s son Ömer Lüfti Efendi left Istanbul to go to South Africa via London. Eventually, on 3 December 1862, they left Liverpool for Cape Town. After a long voyage they arrived at the Cape Colony on the 13 of January 1863. Besides opening schools and teaching religious studies, Ebubekir Efendi was also expected to hunt down “corrupted” imams and shaykhs and to prevent sectarian and Hindu influences on Islam. This was because during Dutch rule Muslims are not allowed to worship publicly and so they practiced their religion at home with a more mystical tradition guided by local imams. According to Ömer Lütfi, these imams divided the Muslims into 20 parties and each party developed some kind of anger and hatred against the others. Every imam had a different meaning and interpretation to the religious books they had brought from Mecca and felt himself more learned than the others.

15 days after his arrival, Ebubekir Efendi opened The Ottoman Theological School for boys. Within 20 days he had gathered 300 students and also taught adults in evening. Ebubekir Efendi taught Arabic, but also learned the language of the local community, Afrikaans, within 7 months. After that he also made his magnum opus, Beyan al-Din, a book on Hanafi rulings of Islam translated to Afrikaans so it could be spread to Cape Colony, Mozambique and Mauritius. However, the relations between Ebubekir Efendi and the Cape Muslims were not completely cordial. Although he had resolved some religious disputes and cleared up ‘heretical’ practices, with the establishment of a Hanafi-based school a new dispute arose. Because most Cape Muslims were followers of the Shafi’i school and Ebubekir represented the Hanafi school of law, the former had difficulties excepting Ebubekir’s fetwas, especially one about crayfish, primary food of Cape Muslims that he considered haram. It could be said that the community had been polarized between the Shafi’i majority and the smaller Hanafi community around Ebubekir Efendi. However in spite of this doctrinal conflict, it could be said that these disputes developed the Islamic culture and understanding at the Cape in the 19th century. Effendi’s jurisprudence brought new approaches and knowledge into Muslim Society. His activities sparked important debates and enabled reformist changes to occur in some religious practices, which in turn strengthened Muslim consciousness in Cape Town. Ebubekir Effendi stayed in Cape until his death in 29 June 1880 at the age of 67. I could go more in depth with his views, works, and religious disputes but that would be better fit in another post