expedientes de regulación de empleo y prejubilaciones

Since 1878 Libya has been subject to the power-political bargaining of three countries: France, Britain and Italy. In order to avoid a political clash over Tunisia and the Suez Canal and Egypt, France and Britain urged Italy to occupy Libya as a means of harmonising policy over a militarily weaker people. This policy of harmonization gave Italy a satisfactory share of the Ottoman Empire which by then had become known as “the sick man” of Europe11

following the 1877-1878 Berlin conference where the major European Powers met to decide its fate and put an end to the Ottoman Empire (Samalot, 1981, & Ashorax, 1985). After the Ottomans renounced their rights over Libya in 1912, the Italians met resistance from Libyans. Italian occupation was confined to certain areas of the Libyan coast until 1922, but by 1932 it had been extended to the entire interior. Libya was eventually made a part of the national territory of Italy under Dictator Benito Mussolini in 1939 (Ahmida, 1994, 2005, and St John, 2008). The Italian colonisation of the Arabic language in Libya was no more successful than that of the Turks under the Ottoman Empire where both introduced their own languages as means of transforming local culture. In contrast with French colonialism in Algeria and British colonialism in Egypt, where both French and English languages have been heavily introduced into those colonies through their educational and cultural institutions, Italy‟s colonialism in Libya was mainly military based rather than cultural. However, the Italian government was keen to erase the Arabic language in order to extend their control and occupation of Libya (Ahmida, 2005). Therefore, in 1914 a decree was issued allowing the establishment of Arab schools in Libya but only under the supervision of the Italian education ministry (St John, 2008). In 1917 an additional decree was issued with the following two provisions for the main regions of Tripoli and Burka: Freedom of education for Libyans and compulsory primary education for Libyan boys; Teaching of Arabic language in all classes and teaching of Italian language after the third year. 1922 marked a major turning point in

11

It is the name given to the Ottoman Empire then due to its weakness of its strategies towards development in its latest stage.

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Libyan history when the Italian Fascist Government came to power in Rome and abandoned traditional Italian colonial practices. Instead the Fascist government rejected the colonial practice (followed since 1911) of collaborating with local Libyan elites, terming it a failure. Like apartheid in South Africa and Aryan supremacy in Nazi Germany, the Italian fascist policy was based on an ideology of racial supremacy. It stressed hierarchy, holding that as a superior race Italians had a duty to colonize inferior races which included in their views Africans. It was Mussolini‟s plan to settle between ten and fifteen million Italians in Eritrea, Somalia, and Libya to populate what he heralded as “the second Roman Empire” (Ahmida, 2005:41). Italian Fascism has had a deep impact on today‟s Libyan society where Ahmida (2005:36) described it as „…not just a case of war accidents, but rather genocide experienced

by human beings.‘ Moreover, according to Ahmida (2005:41) this situation became worse:

“Rights accepted before 1922 by the previous government were dismissed. Educational

policies changed in accordance with racial supremacy views: while previous colonial officials had moved to Italianize Libyans by broadening education, the fascists barred Italian culture from natives, replaced the Italian language with Arabic in the classroom, and banned education to Libyans after sixth grade”.

After the sixth grade Libyans were not allowed to continue their studies at secondary schools until the year of 1927-1928 where an Italian government passed a resolution that decreed that young Libyans willing to continue their education were allowed to enter Italian secondary school12.

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Fig: 3.3 Establishment of the Primary Girls Schools in 1914, during the Italian Reign.13

This was the main route for introducing the Italian language into Libyan society and to imposing it at all levels of the Libyan schools to “Italianize” Libyans (including Kindergartens).

Historically, then, colonial languages in the MOWS were employed as means of power/knowledge (following Fanon and Said) in order to deepen the influence of colonialism over subject populations. However, the spread of the Italian language via that route was not effective due to the fact that those who joined the Italian schools were only the sons of the “elite” while the majority of the pupils were sons of the poor. The poor students were studying at the Kuttab “informal school” (see fig-3) where their studies were mainly confined to the Koran and other Islamic studies (Arabsheibani & Manfor, 2000-5). This is significant as it is factor in explaining the limits to the cultural transformation of Libyan society under colonialism, compared say, with that of Algeria which was a Department of France

13

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Fig: 3.4 the Informal Schools “Kuttab” for the poor people “the majority”

This situation significantly contributed to the survival of Arabic during the occupation era in Libya, but is also contributed to high rates of illiteracy of more than 90% that persisted into the early post-colonial period. The racist Italian policies had been reflected in the Italian Anthem at that time in which soldiers chanted against the holy Koran and Libya, “don‟t you know Mum, that Italy is calling me, to go to Libya and to my happiness, I will shed my blood to eradicate this nation and combat the Islamic religion, I will fight the Koran with all my Strength” (Ashorax; 1985). In the meantime, the Libyan resistance together with the changing international circumstances and the start of the Second World War saw Italy forced to withdraw from Libya in 1943. As the conflict between states in the Core over the direction of the MOWS was played out in WW2 its denouement had huge implications for Libya‟s subsequent integration into the system.