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Africa: Ethiopia Unassessed

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Military history: African / European / Italian Start‑class

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Unilateral

This article is written totally like Italian war propaganda. Jnyssen (talk) 14:15, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

See also Talk:Second_Italo-Ethiopian_War#Question_of_emphasis_regarding_war_crimes Jnyssen (talk) 11:47, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

(The two comments above have been restored by Generalrelative after being vandalized by IP 2601:58C:C080:8AA0:49BA:C1C8:AA2:3B2C; see diff: ) Generalrelative (talk) 03:50, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

OF COURSE Generalrelative shows his one-sided opinion calling me a vandal....but he does not "try to understand" that I can be new to wiki and so I don't know all the rules....

@IP 2601:58C:C080:8AA0:A88B:63E:287:C0B5: "Illegitimately deleting or editing other users' comments" is one of the definitions of vandalism here on Misplaced Pages. I haven't accused you of bad faith but I do expect you to educate yourself about and observe community norms. I suggest starting with the page I just linked. Also: why assume that I am male? Generalrelative (talk) 03:58, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Then start educating yourself (I am using your same words!) and try to welcome newcomers without relating them to vandalism from the first approach.

• The murder of Italian CIVILIANS (even if European colonists -sic- in Africa) by Ethiopians cannot be erased: it would be a SECOND murder of them. BD

And, additionally, we must remember also the hundreds of Eritrean CIVILIANS (living in the Tigrai region of northern Ethiopia) murdered by the Ethiopians only because they were on the side of the Italians. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:58C:C080:8AA0:49BA:C1C8:AA2:3B2C (talk) 23:19, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

@IP 2601:58C:C080:8AA0:49BA:C1C8:AA2:3B2C: That's not how murder works. Also, erasing Jnyssen's comments above as you've done (I had to restore them; see diff: ) is vandalism which can get you banned from Misplaced Pages. Generalrelative (talk) 03:48, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

• Hey Generalrelative. Murder is murder for all of us. But "many" forgets those who died on the losing side of History....Nearly twenty thousand Eritrean civilians were butchered by bands of Ethiopians in the Tigrai region (that was later united to the enlarged Governorate of Eritrea by the Italians, even as a reward for their support to the Italian side) in the first months of the war in 1935.....and OF COURSE there it is no reference to these massacres in wikipedia's article Second Italo-Ethiopian War, even if there are serious references (on related books written by academics) to these murders!

@IP 2601:58C:C080:8AA0:EC87:92B1:EC70:2179: It's unclear to me what basis you have for using the term "OF COURSE". If there is a gap on a Misplaced Pages article that you can fill using reliable sources then I encourage you to do so. But it seems rather that you are alleging some sort of systematic bias against Italians and their allies. If you believe that, I would encourage you to reflect on your own biases before contributing further. And no, "murdered by words" is not equivalent to literal murder, nor should the two be equated on Misplaced Pages's Talk pages. Generalrelative (talk) 15:58, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

GENERALRELATIVE, allow me to pinpoint that I too -after reading many of your posts in Misplaced Pages- "would encourage you to reflect on your own biases". For example, try to google and easily you'll find in Italian (to be translated with the famous "google translate") some serious & reliable sources about the murder of Eritrean civilians by the Ethiopian bands. You'll find that Eritrean historians (like Ibrahim Mukhtar) wrote about nearly 20000 Eritrean civilians murdered, while Italian historians (like Tripodi) wrote of more than 2000 and Ethiopian historians simply wrote of only "a few hundreds". I am not an experienced wikipedian like you and I don't know how to write well on the articles related, while you could write something on these murders in the Second Italo-Ethiopian War article…..but OF COURSE you will NOT write anything about..... am I wrong? Sincerely, I hope to be wrong....Additionally, allow me to remember you that murder is a murder -of course in literature and/or while writing simple essays- with a spear or with words, as Cervantes pinpointed some centuries ago. And with this I salute you (I have a lot of work to do in the next weeks).

@IP 2601:58C:C080:8AA0:A88B:63E:287:C0B5: It seems you misunderstand how this works. No one is here to do work for you. We are all volunteers here, motivated by our own interests. What unifies us is our commitment to civil discussion and the continual creation of an encyclopedia presenting a reliably sourced, neutral point of view. Personally I reflect on these issues for a living and have little patience for narratives of European victimhood. Your perspective may vary, which is fine so long as you're able to contribute according to community norms and respond to criticism collaboratively. And Cervantes aside, I stand by my assertion that "murdered by words" is not equivalent to literal murder, nor should the two be equated on Misplaced Pages's Talk pages. Generalrelative (talk) 03:58, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

So you, Generalrelative, can "encourage me to fill a gap with reliable sources" but if I request from you the same.... I get the answer "No one is here to do work for you"...….WOW....this is REALLY UNILATERAL!...... like it is unilateral your POV on Cervantes's famous sentence on murder...Finally, allow me -again- to "encourage you to reflect on your own biases".

Rebooting the conversation: Unilateral

Given that the above thread has gone far off topic, I'd like to reboot the conversation on Jnyssen's original point, that this article reads like period Fascist propaganda. I agree, and will only add that similar problems have long been apparent across a range of WP articles dealing with Italian colonialism in Africa during the interwar period. Achieving a neutral point of view on these topics appears to be an ongoing struggle. For context, see this discussion: Talk:Second_Italo-Ethiopian_War#Question_of_emphasis_regarding_war_crimes. With regard to the Gondrand massacre in particular, can anyone suggest reliable sources that detail events from an Ethiopian perspective? I will be happy to draft new material but I'd like to do so with the best sources available and as much community buy-in as possible. Generalrelative (talk) 23:17, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

There have been hundreds of massacres in that war. I am afraid Ethiopia has not the resources to research them. No international, nor local historian has documented even the Italian war crimes on the ground, nobody went to those villages to speak to witnesses. So why would a historian give more attention to this event (except for sake of debunking methods of fascist propaganda that seem to impress even some wiki writers)?Jnyssen (talk) 04:43, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks Jnyssen. It's such a shame that this work hasn't been done, especially when compared to the shelves of material detailing the Italian narrative. In this case that lack is felt more acutely because we are given no sense of context, motivation or proximate cause as we have for, say, the Yekatit 12 massacre. Any aspiring historians out there looking for a PhD topic? Precisely now, while a few survivors of this war are still living and universities are beginning to recognize the need to redress Eurocentric bias, would be the time to get this work done. Generalrelative (talk) 10:30, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm sympathetic to the argument that Ethiopian sources would be nice. In their absence, we should use what we have - see WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. Misplaced Pages is not the place for WP:OR and merely follows what's out there. —Brigade Piron (talk) 07:42, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

If you reread the comments you will see that at no point have Jynssen or I suggested placing WP:OR on Misplaced Pages. And WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS is not an appropriate way to describe legitimate POV issues. The article has remained as it is because, as you say, Misplaced Pages merely follows what's out there. Generalrelative (talk) 04:53, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

It was an "incident", or a killing under unclear circumstances, that was further magnified by Italian fascists for sake of propaganda. Very similar for instance to the Bloody Sunday (1939). I am astonished that there are still Italians around who continue such war propaganda. It would be much better to make pages for each of the Mussolini's gas attacks that killed thousands of villagers and soldiers. Jnyssen (talk) 14:12, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

There are many more details about the propaganda "stunt" in Andreani & Pazzaglia, as well as in these works:Jnyssen (talk) 04:35, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Sbacchi, A., 2005. Poison gas and atrocities in the Italo-Ethiopian war (1935–1936). In Italian colonialism (pp. 47-56). Palgrave Macmillan, New York.

Ben-Ghiat, R. and Fuller, M. eds., 2016. Italian colonialism. Springer.

Borruso, P., 2020. Debre Libanos 1937: Il più grave crimine di guerra dell'Italia. Gius. Laterza & Figli Spa.

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