Resumen de Chapter 3. Breaking the silence. Contemporary history teaching about ltalian colonial crimes
The chapter describes how history teaching may break clown societal silences on past in-group wrongdoings, on the basis of a case study referred to the contemporary history teaching on crimes committed by the Italian Army during the colonial invasion of Ethiopia ( 1935-1936). Especially when victims are socially weak and isolated, silence on in-group past historical crimes is a rather banal occurrence. Although still silenced in the Italian societal discourse, in the last two decades an account of that colonial invasion was eventually inserted in history textbooks currently used. An analysis of words used and of images siding these texts shows that both of them may be either evasive or mild, omitting the more cruel colonial episodes, or very clear and frank. After reviewing empirical studies on young Italian students' cognitive and emotional reactions to both these ways of narrating this shameful past, the chapter proposes that, three generations after the end of a serious intergroup violence, clear and frank historical accounts of silenced in-group past crimes (labeled parrhesiastic according with the taxonomy of various forms of truth speaking elaborated by Foucault) may better enhance intergroup reconciliation processes.
