Fascism, Anti-Fascism and Italians in Australia 1922-1945

281 Pages·2016·14.88 MB·English

Although Italians had migrated to
Australia since the middle of the
nineteenth century, it was not until
the 1920s that they became aware that
they were a community in a foreign
land, not just isolated individuals in
search of fortune. Their political,
cultural, economic and recreational
associations became an important
factor.
Many of them, although settled in
Australia, still thought of themselves
as an appendage of Italy, a belief
strengthened by Fascism’s nationalist
propaganda which urged them to
reject alien cultures, customs and
traditions. The xenophobic hostility
shown by some Australians greatly
contributed to the success of these
propaganda efforts. Moreover, the
issue of Fascism in Italy was a
contentious one among Italians in
Australia, a large minority fighting
with courage and determination
against Fascism’s representatives in
Australia.
This broad study of Italian
immigrants before and during World
War II covers not only the effects of
Fascism, but also records the ordeal of
Italian settlers in the cities and the
outback during the Depression and
the difficulties they faced after the
outbreak of the war. It deals with a
subject that has long been neglected
by scholars and is an important
contribution to the history of Italian
migrants in Australia.
Although Italians had migrated to
Australia since the middle of the
nineteenth century, it was not until
the 1920s that they became aware that
they were a community in a foreign
land, not just isolated individuals in
search of fortune. Their political,
cultural, economic and recreational
associations became an important
factor.
Many of them, although settled in
Australia, still thought of themselves
as an appendage of Italy, a belief
strengthened by Fascism’s nationalist
propaganda which urged them to
reject alien cultures, customs and
traditions. The xenophobic hostility
shown by some Australians greatly
contributed to the success of these
propaganda efforts. Moreover, the
issue of Fascism in Italy was a
contentious one among Italians in
Australia, a large minority fighting
with courage and determination
against Fascism’s representatives in
Australia.
This broad study of Italian
immigrants before and during World
War II covers not only the effects of
Fascism, but also records the ordeal of
Italian settlers in the cities and the
outback during the Depression and
the difficulties they faced after the
outbreak of the war. It deals with a
subject that has long been neglected
by scholars and is an important
contribution to the history of Italian
migrants in Australia.
This book was published by ANU Press between 1965–1991.
This republication is part of the digitisation project being carried
out by Scholarly Information Services/Library and ANU Press.
This project aims to make past scholarly works published
by The Australian National University available to
a global audience under its open-access policy.
Fascism, Anti-Fascism
and Italians in Australia
Fascism, Anti-Fascism
and Italians in Australia
1922-1945
Gianfranco Cresciani
Australian National University Press
Canberra, ACT, London, England and Trumbull, Conn. USA
1980
First published in Australia 1980
Printed in Australia for the Australian National University Press,
Canberra
©Gianfranco Cresciani 1980
This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of
private study, research, criticism, or review, as permitted under the
Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without
written permission. Inquiries should be made to the publisher.
National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry
Cresciani, Gianfranco.
Fascism, anti-fascism and Italians in Australia, 1922-1945
Index
Bibliography
ISBN 0 7081 1158 0
1. Fascism — Australia. I. Title.
320.533’0994
Library of Congress No. 78-73567
United Kingdom, Europe, Middle East, and Africa: Eurospan Ltd,
3 Henrietta St, London WC2E 8LU, England
North America: Books Australia, Trumbull, Conn., USA
Southeast Asia: Angus & Robertson (S.E. Asia) Pty Ltd, Singapore
Japan: United Publishers Services Ltd, Tokyo
To my parents
Foreword
Historians in Australia are divided into two castes. There are
the historians of Australia, and the historians of ‘other places’,
of America, Asia, Africa or Europe. In the common rooms of
academe one caste scorns the other. According to one faction,
devotion to the study of the world outside Australia is really
only a cultural cringe, self-indulgent, irrelevant and somehow
unpatriotic, disloyal to Australia’s values and needs. The other
faction instead derides the primitiveness of Australian
historiography, always ten years behind the times, at best ‘a
subject which can be got up in a week’, with its bizarre or
quaint interest in convicts and governors, or in the dionysian
frenzy of third-rate bush balladeers.
No doubt a society gets the historians which it deserves. A
debate, or rather a division, on whether Australia’s interests
and characteristics are local, parochial, born in the bush and
nurtured in the tyranny of distance, or international, part of
the history of colonialism and capitalism, is central to much
Australian intellectual and political life. As a trained historian
of modern Europe, I have made my own decisions, and
polished my own prejudices. I believe that Australia scarcely
exists, and that I scarcely exist as an Australian. As a resident
of Sydney, a European city, inconveniently placed in the
Pacific, but conveniently part of the international air routes,
and sometimes reached by the international news services, I
look outwards, away from the bush of flies and snakes and
inconvenience, of a cruel dead landscape, sterile, forbidding
and unmastered. In the last decade, I have been to Rome more
vii
viii F oreword
often than I have been to Canberra, let alone to Melbourne. I
seem yet another alienated Australian academic, Australian-
born and therefore unable to slough off a skin made up of
potato scallops, Alan McGilvray and The Potts, but staying in
Australia only because the pay is good and . . . there always (?)
are sabbaticals.
Yet, in so many ways, Australia ought to have changed since
1945, and perhaps it has changed, and perhaps I exaggerate
my alienation. Always an immigrant country, Australia has
stopped being only the venue for Anglo-Saxon or Celtic kith
and kin, and has been enriched by Italians, Greeks, Turks,
Lebanese, Vietnamese and many others. What a joy that in
Sydney I can eat as well or better as in many a European city.
And is it not time that our historians began to recognise that
‘Australian history’ now means not just the derring-do of
Governor Bligh or Colonial Secretary Stephen, but also the
political and social history of Italy, Greece, Turkey, Lebanon,
Vietnam and the rest?
Migration weaves a complex web, not surprising given that
even Robert Bruce’s spider would tire at the labour, the travail
of the migrant, and Australians are only beginning to study it.
Sometimes in such study, there is absurd, if predictable bias.
Some ‘Italo-Australians’ discover only in Australia that they
are or were Italians; when in Italy they were Calabrians or
paesani. Political views or even knowledge of the country of
origin freezes at the moment of departure, and those in the
political leadership of migrant communities go on fighting out
the disputes of 1948 or 1943 or 1922 like flies warring in
amber. Not only Australian historians have been forgetful of
the migrant experience. Italy, that great emigrant country,
has still not produced a serious historical investigation of
emigration, and in fact the best study of Italian emigration in
any language remains R. F. Foerster’s, The Italian Emigration
of our Times, written by an American in 1919.
For all these reasons, Cresciani’s study, despite the
limitations of a monograph, must be welcomed by both castes
in the common-rooms. Cresciani himself is a migrant, although
one not dominated by the passions and ambitions of Italo-
Australian politics. As a Triestine too, he carries the traditions
of Central Europe, the Habsburg Empire as well as those of
F oreword ix
Italy, and can comprehend the fatuity of narrow nationalism.
What the book says must stand for itself, but in introducing it
to its readers, I must acknowledge Cresciani’s achievement.
Cresciani reached Australia already an adult. In completing
this work he has had to master English, and survive the
lottery of under-graduate and post-graduate work as the head
of a household, employed in an Italo-Australian business
concern, and without the luxury of a Ph.D. scholarship or a
university post. Yet no-one could have been more indefatigible
in tracking down lost evidence, more enthusiastic and
judicious in using the new techniques of oral history. Best of
all for the author of this preface, a lecturer in Italian history at
the University of Sydney has been granted an able and
efficient student, and is granted a loyal, stimulating and
independent friend.
R. J. B. Bosworth