Foreign. In Eritrea, a journey between Italian pride and Italianity on the shores of the Red Sea
Published on 27 April 2018 by Marco Petrelli Categories: Foreign
In 2011, on the occasion of the 150th Anniversary of the Italian Unification, the "Guglielmo Marconi" Lyceum of Asmara participated in a competition organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and dedicated to the roots of Italian culture and language beyond the borders.
The students of the asmarino high school produce a video of a few minutes absolutely free from the politically correct and the good-natured that usually wrap the topics related to Africa, proposing to the public and the jury a concentrate of Italian, superb tribute to the national roots of that corner of Black Continent.
But nothing can stop history or the attachment to a distant people that, together with some infrastructures still today a pivot of the economy (offices, shops, bridges, roads, railways and rolling stock), has "drawn" on the map 'Eritrea as a nation. In fact, the current republic preserves the boundaries set by the Italians unaltered.
Lieutenant Amedeo Guillet (Cummandar al Shaytan) and his loyal knights of the Bande Amhara indigenous group in a table by Alberto Parducci.
Of course, together with work and hope for a brighter tomorrow, fundamental freedoms are lacking in Asmara and Massawa; never to come less, however, is the hope that Rome has not forgotten its "nephews" from overseas, who still live in the city in which you breathe deep and absolute Italianness. Asmara, the capital, whose architecture (UNESCO heritage) makes it one of the most beautiful cities in Africa and where, together with the Italian language, the customs and traditions of the Bel Paese are handed down, from pasta produced by small businesses private, espresso and cappuccino served in cafes and restaurants as in the days of the Empire.
Feeling proudly Italian even if it is not: this is the most exciting of Eritrea, a corner of the world that Italy seems to have forgotten along with a large chapter of its near past due to forgetfulness, ignorance by now
Italian coffee in Asmara.
more and more diffused and of a bad interpretation of the history, influenced by a current of research that, if it was right to remember the errors and crimes of colonialism, would not have hurt to remember that too '(or more than a little'? ) of good that our People transmitted, and transmits, every time he sets foot outside the house.
(Software Translation)
