The Times MONDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1937. Eagles Over Africa

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 38, 15 February 1937, Page 6

The Times MONDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1937. Eagles Over Africa

The outlook lor the Ethiopians appears grim unless Italy radically the colonisation methods described by Knud Holmboe in “Desert Encounter.” Mr. Holmboe was a young Dane, turned Moslem and fluent in Arabic, who made a hazardous journey across the Libyan desert. With heroic persistence in the face of Italian antagonism, he managed to discover the true significance of Roman Eagles over Tripoli and Cyrenaica. He has since been slain at the age of 29 by Arab brigands, and in the words of Dr. J. H. Driberg, who writes the introduction to this book, “In him we have lost a potential T. E. Lawrence.” The conclusion Mr. Holmboe reached on Italian colonisation was “. . . that any European who obtains a glimpse of it must feel ashamed to belong to the white race. ..” The experiences he relates justify this conclusion. There may be some question of the extent to which his sentimental enthusiasm for Islam, the religion of the Bedouins, biased him in their favour and against Italian imperialism. On the other hand there is every indication of a desire to give a true picture of the situation and the author goes out of his way to praise the few Italian administratox's whom he found using humane methods to tame the desert tribes. The Italian attitude to the Bedouins of the Libyan desert is summed up in the words of an Italian soldier to Mr. Holmboe in the city of Tripoli, .. we got this country at the conclusion of peace with the Turks in 1912. The people will have to behave accordingly. And if they won’t—well, we’ll give them short shrift.” Italians speak of these people as “bloodthirsty rabble” and “more like beasts than humans.” But Mr. Holmboe found much to like and admire in them and their culture. Their merciless fight, against Italian dominance is hardly surprising in view of the suffering and cruelty to which they have been subjected. In the words of a young Bedouin, “Now we are starving to death slowly. I think the Italians want to destroy us utterly. There is no x'ebellion; there is only a desperate fight for existence on the soil which our fathers left us.” Mr. Holmboe was convinced that the domination of Italy meant the extinction of Arab fi'eedom. “It became more and more clear to me,” he says, “that the Italians understood nothing of the soul of the people of whom they had appointed themselves rulers.” Those who submit to Italy appear to be unable to make a living because they are kept off fertile parts of the land, are not allowed to cai'ry rifles and are attacked by their own free people who call them traitors. The author came across many wells filled in with concrete by the Italians. Mr. Holmboe made his journey in 1930 and this book was first published in Danish. Italy’s conquest of Ethiopia has made the English edition highly topical. It has been banned in Italy.