Africa and World War II by Africa & World War II (2015)

Author:Africa & World War II (2015)
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2015-04-16T07:00:00+00:00

British Ruling on Interracial Concubinage and Italo-Eritrean Children

Sources agree on the high incidence of interracial concubinage in the 1940s and on an equally high level of birth of Italo-Eritrean children. The birth of 3,500 Italo-Eritrean children was recorded in Asmara municipality records, but Bishop G. Marinoni thought that their number was actually many more.54 In February 1942, the BMA opened discussions with OETA authorities about policy regarding laws on interracial concubinage and mixed-race children in the context of a broader discussion on the possible suspension of Fascist race laws.55 Everybody agreed that the BMA should abide by the Hague convention on war laws. Alterations to existing legislation were considered acceptable only if justified by war needs. At the same time, it was embarrassing for British authorities to enforce Fascist race laws, which discriminated not only against Africans, but also against Jews; “one can imagine the line which might be taken in Parliament if it comes to someone's notice that the British Military Administration in Eritrea is maintaining discriminating legislation against the Jews,” Brigadier Hone (chief political officer in Cairo) commented.56 The conclusion, reached in April 1942, was that “no action should be taken to suspend the laws in question, but that no proceedings should be instituted by Administration to enforce them.”57

The Asmara and Hamasien senior political officer, however, was not happy with this solution, and in February 1943, he suggested resuming prosecution of interracial concubinage; “the evils which result from it, notably the propagation of half-castes and the spread of venereal disease, are sufficiently obvious.”58 Interestingly enough, Italian military authorities used to conceive of concubinage as an instrument to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, which they blamed on unlicensed prostitution.59 Brigadier Hone in Cairo readily agreed and ordered the resumption of prosecution of concubinage between Italian men and Eritrean women.60 The problem that immediately emerged was that the Italian law applied only to “Aryan” Italians. The implication, explained Longrigg, was that “the Jews were an inferior race and the pollution of their blood was a matter of no concern.”61 Were British officers supposed to use Fascist legislation to sort out who was a Jew and who was an “Aryan?” Or should they modify the law to extend the ban against concubinage to Jews as well? In July 1943, after months of discussions, the new chief civil affairs officer, Sir Arthur Parsons, replaced Major-General Hone (promoted in March 1943) and decided that it was better to suspend prosecutions altogether once again.62 On July 19, the same day of the Allies’ first bombing on Rome, the Asmara and Hamasien senior civil affairs officer protested that such a suspension was “not only disastrous to the prestige of the European race, but cannot fail to intensify the half-castes problem” and insisted that this piece of Italian law “be maintained inflexibly during the British occupation.”63 But Parsons opined that the law 1004/1939 “should be suspended altogether, as having a Fascist complexion.”64

This exchange of views about the Italian law against interracial concubinage reveals the different political idioms that circulated among the OETA officers in the middle of the war.

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