Sultan Olol Dinle and his Somali delegation of the Ajuuran Clan visiting a Nazi/Fascist rally in Italy in 1938

2 comments

1. People often forget that muslims and nazis were all buddy buddy with each other, with Hitler even wishing that Charles Martel would’ve lost at Tours and that germany would’ve became muslim

2. History is very complicated and inter-connected like that.

   People look at this picture and assume an implied context of Somali Muslims supporting the ideology of Fascist Italy. In reality, at that time there was a complex conflict in the region involving Somali and Ethiopian groups, similar to the complex conflicts in Europe at the time. This picture was taken shortly after the conclusion of the Italo-Ethiopian war in 1937 where some Somali factions were seeking protection and cooperation from the Italians to help achieve and maintain regional goals and independence.

   Nobody bats an eye at [Hitler coming to Finland](https://images.cdn.yle.fi/image/upload/f_auto,fl_progressive/q_auto/w_3509/w_400/v1449128978/14-svyle-199997546b3e568b912.jpg), or that Finnish forces cooperated with Germany forces when dealing with the Soviet threat. That’s because we understand that history, and life in general, is way more nuanced than just black and white. It would be very easy to take newspaper clippings and speeches from a few Finnish politicians at that time and make it seem like Finns, as a people, were actually super chill with the mass murder happening at the time.

   A lot of this historical context gets stripped away or added depending on the narrative and story we want to tell.