There is a chapter [of two pages!] entitled "Marocchini" [Moroccans]
in Sergio Lambiase e G. Battistsa Nazzaro, *Napoli 1940-45* (Milano:
Longanesi, 1978), a sort of picture book with commentaries.
Briefly, it states that: the two Moroccans who posed for the
photograph symbolize potentates of victory, and that of all the
colourful peoples of Naples, they are the most marked, and also, the
most DANGEROUS ["piu pericolose"]. The Moroccans inaugurated a
mythology of evil and of violence with their confrontation with the
weak - women, children...To say "Marocchini" signifies the evocation
of a situation at the limits.. "Barbarians" and "savages", the
Moroccans give themselves up in reality to a practice - vilonce and
rape - which is that of all conquerors and "colonizers."...This
demonization of Moroccans has roots in racist and imperialist
ideology of fascism,....[they then compare the attitude to the
"normal" behaviour of the American and British, in comparison to
which the Moroccans were viewed as obscene...
It concludes, and to save time [and embarassment at my rather weak
Italian] I'll quote:
"E le truppe nordafricane vengono inesorabilmente gravate di tutti
gli attributi che il fascismo assegnava ai popoli colonizzati;
rozzezza [rudeness]; bieca istintivita [grimness?]; dissolutezza non
frenata dalla ragione, ma con in meno la mansuetudine. Il napoletano
e disposto a giurare o a spergiurare che il marocchino - suo
antagonista - "puzza" [stink], xhe non ha sguardi che per il sedere
dei bambini....Rimuovendo la sua condizione di "colonizato", il
napoletano finisce per disprezzare proprio coloro con i quali, in
fondo, dovrebbe solidarizzare, respingendo lo "stupro" [rape] dei
marocchini ...ma per accettare, sul piano delle convenienze, quello
piu gelido e conseguente delgi americani o, addittura, dei tedeschi"
[p.140].
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Editor's note:
Since my Italian is nonexistant, I
shall not try! Apologies to those
who, like myself, are left somewhat
in the dark.
mep
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Myron Echenberg, *Colonial Conscripts* (1991) has some germane
points. At first, (1940-44) "black Africans constituted the main
elements of the rank and file in the Free French Army, with North
Africans also an important element..." In Sept.-Oct 1944 20,000 black
troops were withdrawn "as part of the so-called 'whitening'
[blachissement]" of Free French forces ordered by De Gaulle.