CLIOPATRIA: A Group Blog
Entries by Nathanael D. Robinson
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Sarkozy is Pompey the Great
I'm calling it. The Mediterranean. The Caucuses. He's just not very good at empire building, although Saakashvili appeared on CNN sitting next to the EU flag.
In all seriousness, Sarkozy's six-month term as EU president has already twice brought about confrontation with the union's expansion. The failed gambit at a Mediterranean Union was knocked down by German media and public who saw it as an attempt at reconstituting the French colonial empire. Now any questions of Georgia's belonging to the community of Europe are mute--a nation farther east than Turkey, with less of a Hellenic imprint, which could not be aided militarily by either union or any member nation without going through the Black Sea (controlled by Turkey and Russia). If the Russian invasion accelerates Georgian membership to the EU, Turkish membership would have to follow quickly, effectively killing the dream of an overlapping Mediterranean community.
Side note: there were some interesting editorials in German papers about Braudel's The Mediterranean in the wake of Sarkozy's project. Wolf Lepenies and others wrote an editorial that describes how the book, conceived in Nazi captivity, imagines for the French the region as a counterweight to northern Europe, protecting and nurturing peace and liberty. Unfortunately, Braudel ignored France's domination of North Africa.
(Crossposted at Europe Endless.)
Friday, July 25, 2008
Where have I heard Obama's speech?
I guess there are only so many ways to riff on the "wall" theme.
[Crossposted at Europe Endless]
Friday, July 11, 2008
Retreads
Sometimes deciphering foreign intelligence is like viewing abstract art. "It's an expression of anger." "It's a woman scorned." "It's a case for war."
Arthur Herman ("Why Iraq Was Inevitable", Commentary, July/August 2008) brings us back to Fall 2002/Winter 2003 to show us, with the "long view" of history, that the threat Saddam Hussein posed had been ever present in the minds of the American public and leadership.
I would agree, in part, with Mr. Herman: historians will contend with the image of Iraq in popular consciousness, particularly as an expression of the fear posed by Islam and the Arab world. The case for war was a soft sell. However, Mr. Herman is not interested in the public consciousness. He is interested in the opinions of politicians in order to show that the threat Hussein posed was not something invented by Bush and Neo-Conservatives, but which had its roots in the Clinton administration and that Democrats and Republicans believed in with firm conviction. But that's shooting fish in a barrel.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Iraq Itineraries
Sometime this month Barack Obama will probably become a pilgrim in Iraq. He won’t, of course, travel as a believer en route to enlightenment (although some might wish to paint it so), but as a candidate repeating the journey of his competitor, John McCain. Personally, I want to know what either man learned, or intends to learn, by traveling to the occupied lands. Steven Simon (“The Price of the Surge”, Foreign Affairs, May/June 2008) made a convincing case that appearances are deceiving; that the Surge has allied itself with the insurgents against al Qaeda; and that the insurgents will emerge better prepared to carry on their civil war. Besides, what opportunity will they have to generate facts and interpretations for themselves?
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Memory in Political Dialogue
For the current symposium on Cliopatria, Manan Ahmed and I carried out a brief conversation about the role of memory in relations between communities and nations. We were responding to Valérie Rosoux's article, Foregiveness: Grandeur or Political Slogan, an article that focuses on the discontinuities of memory and ethics in the process of political reconciliation.
Our conversation starts below the fold.
Monday, April 7, 2008
A Call for Symposium
It’s been far too long, but here it is: Cliopatria’s tenth symposium, Reconcile and Remember: The Past in History and Politics. We will discuss Valérie Rosoux’s Forgiveness: Grandeur or Political Slogan (Dr. Rosoux has graciously allowed us to reprint and translate her article at HNN). Her work challenges us to think about how the peacemaking process bring about new interpretations of historical memory.
In addition, I offer several supplementary readings. These works deal with France’s relations with Germany and its North African minorities. Dr. Rosoux has graciously allowed us to take an excerpt from one of her articles.
- Valérie Rosoux, Human rights and the ‘work of memory’ in international relations (excerpt)
- Verena Radkau, "Shared History? The Franco-German High School History Book"
- Naima Bouteldja and Stuart Hodkinson, "The Contest for Memory"
- Christopher Caldwell, "Sarkozy is past saying 'sorry'"
- Joan Wolf, '"Holocaust" in France', Harnessing the Holocaust: The Politics of Memory in France, p. 71-76, available at Google Books
These readings are mere stimulants, and participants should allow their minds to wander.
Cliopatricians should send their contributions to me at *ndr* *at* *brandeis* *dot* *edu*. I will post them on April 16, 2008.
Bloggers are welcomed to participate. They should post their own contributions at their individual blogs and e-mail the links to me. Distinguished historians are also encouraged to participate, and I will endeavor to include your contributions as well.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Why we don't fight
Christian Kreutzer ("Germans to the Front", Atlantic Times, March 2008) produced a piece on the German effort in Afghanistan, describing the army's hesitation to take an active role the war. Alas, the Bundeswehr, more involved than the German public realizes, is still quite tepid about engaging in combat missions. But is this is question of post-war mentality?
[Crossposted to Europe Endless]
Friday, February 1, 2008
Third Generation Memory
I'm starting to wonder whether the confrontation with the past by German '60s Generation will prove to be less about coming to the truth of German crimes and guilt, but will represent one of many successive stages in which Nazism and the Holocaust will be instrumentalized by the political culture. Many scholars have called into doubt something that has become historical dogma: that politicians of early West Germany whitewashed the past. An active discussion about the past took place in that first formative decade, but on different terms than those of the Historikerstreit. A public that largely lost its connection to the German heritage (including Nazism), both materially and spiritually, searched for a way out of the rubble. Arguably, generalizing German guilt allowed Germans to continue and left deeper questions to the future.
Nicholas Kulish ("Germany confronts Holocaust Legacy Anew", NY Times, 1/29/2008) suggests that this culture that seems obsessed with monuments to its crimes is actually rediscovering the Holocaust. Third generation memory (if we can call it that) takes the younger generation's concern for social justice and imperialism (especially as it relates to wars in the Middle East) as the starting point for their approach to the past.
Some say that young Germans, who are required to study the Nazi era and the Holocaust intensively, have shown little indication of letting the theme drop, despite their distance from the events. They say that the younger generation has tackled it as a source not of guilt, but of responsibility on the world stage for social justice and pacifism, including opposition to the war in Iraq.
Of course, the new phase reveals a society that has largely overcome the hindrances of defeat and able to act on the world stage. Its sovereignty is, nevertheless, continually tied the evolution of European institutions, where the future of the continents responsibility to global order is heatedly discussed. It also reveals a society awakening to a reality of its own multiculturalism, measuring what steps it can take in integrating those who seem foreign. [Crossposted at Europe Endless.]
Thursday, December 6, 2007
The Emperor's New Throne
Pierre Mertens writes in Le Monde (December 12, 2007):
Belgium no longer loves itself. It never truly did love itself. A certain masochism always eats away at its insides. This tendency for self-derision that, at times, reflects its humor and its arrogance, also nourishes its suicidal tendencies. . . . Its métissage, its own bastardization, made it a metaphor, a metonym, for all Europe: one part for all. A laboratory all can visit to pierce the secret of the paradoxical, improbable model that we offer.
For all the ink spilled over the constitutional crisis in Belgium (over the election of an anti-federal, pro-Flanders majority), there is little concern, certainly not on par with the election of Hamas. Perhaps some people think it is natural for ethnic groups to go their own ways. Nations are artful creatures, and the confederation that may emerge if the CD&V coalition eventually receives the leadership of government will be as natural as Belgium had been--or the two separate nations that may yet come. Even from the perspective of European institutions, the disintegration of a nation is less important than the ties that are cultivated between regions and communities across national borders--transnational rather than international.
The fate of Brussels may prove more interesting. Federal city, capital city, capital Europe, it is much more than a center of government, but the symbol of an ideal of post-national politics. Without Belgium, what would become of the city and its ideal? Pascal Delwit finds the prospects bleak:
If Belgium implodes, it would be logical, from the logic of a European nation-state, that Belgium would be bequeathed to Walloons and Brussels. It is difficult to speculate [further]. The key problem for Brussels would be to maintain its status as a national and international capital. To be clear, if Brussels is no longer a capital of Europe, it will become a small provincial town. It will lose its European institutions and all the enterprises associated therewith.
A contraction of function as a national would certainly make it less appealing for European politicians. It's been suggested that the current crisis would make Belgium's signature on the new EU treaty meaningless. What would happen to the EU? Brussels is not the only capital. My beloved Strasbourg stands ready already housing many parliamentary functions as well as the court and Council of Europe. And there are a few who would prefer relocating all functions to Strasbourg (mostly those who hate how the city of Brussels is run). For that matter, Bonn might have lots of usable space.
The breakup of Belgium would give fuel to the fire of Euroskeptcism. The symbolic capital of an ethnically-diverse federation would be lost. Other capital cities would inspire national jealousies. Diplomacy between national executives would be emphasized over democracy, and the EU needs much more of the latter. The nations of Eastern Europe would feel less attracted to the "spiritual" dimensions of European integration. As much as Brussels could be hated for burdensome bureaucracy and complex language, the city has a niche that others might not fill.
[Crossposted to Europe Endless]
Friday, October 19, 2007
The Problem with Stopped Clocks
Surprise, surprise: 25% of Germans think that there were "good sides" to the Third Reich (37% among the generation that grew up under the Third Reich, 15% for the next generation, and 20% among the young generation). It neatly parallels the rise of pro-fascists parties in recent elections
It would be easy to make too much of this. "The Nazis did such and such" is a weak, but oft used, rhetorical device. American conservatives often discredit social policies in Europe by noting similar programs established by the Nazis. These programs had roots in previous eras--the conservative-nationalists of the Kaiserreich and the socialists of the Weimar Republic. (I think I have been overheard comparing the current consumer economy to the Nazi war economy. Shame on me!) Surely, the formula can be reversed in order to lend credibility to the Third Reich.
The larger problem is how a positive interpretation of Nazism makes Germans comfortable with political extremism. Eva Herman, whose comments about Germans driving on Nazi-built roads caused a furor, soft-pedals the foundations of Nazism. The institutions of contemporary Germany may have some roots in the Nazi era--thus being Nazi accomplishments--but they are not remarkably Nazi. As Voelker Beck said, the Autobahn had been in the planning for decades before it had been built in the 1930s.
Even to argue for the efficiency of the regime would be a fallacy: was not fascism one force among many that prevented the flowering of democratic culture in Weimar Germany? Did those forces not seek to inhibit the function of the Weimar government? Nazism was partially responsible for the failures of the republic, an author of its faults. The NSDAP solved the turmoil it caused.
The Third Reich did not make order with efficiency. Through violence, it gained the monopoly on violence, thus could turn it on and off at will.
[Cross-posted at Europe Endless]
[Edited 10/20]
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Post-National Man
[Crossposted at Europe Endless]
My first taste of German pride came when I visited a friend in deep in Baden-Württemberg: his father glowed as he described the perfection of the machine we drove in, a Mercedes Benz (a recent model whose details now escape memory). Every other spirited display I experienced mapped out into a different context: the local beer, the regional architecture, the neighborhood argot. Finally, a real German who felt his Germanness. But I also dismissed it: this man had, at great cost, brought his family from the DDR to the BDR in the late 1970s.
A report by the Identity Foundation of Düsseldorf describes a declining sense of Germanness. Nationality doesn't fit into the daily self-perception of Germans. Home(town), neighborhood, and family all take precedent. Of the seven personality types they identify, Germanness seems qualified in one way or other: Kulturdeutsche (cultural accomplishments), Heimatdeutsche (product of the territory), Leistungsdeutsche (innovation and industriousness of the nation), Ordnungsdeutsche (orderly society), Isolationsdeutsche(withdrawal from imperialism), Jammerdeutsche (lamenting past crimes), Globaldeutsche (global citizenship). Strong feelings of Germanness tend to be limited to "neutral territory," notably the arena of technological achievements and ingenuity.
Friday, September 21, 2007
Soukous de Mort
What would it be like to groove at the apocalypse? I always imagined it would be like this:
Three and a half minutes is hardly enough to appreciate Franco's "Attention na SIDA" (lyrics in translation"). The sixteen minute epic alternates versus in French and Lingala, the former being a PSA about AIDS and a call to action to citizens, politicians and professionals to solve the epidemic. So different from the American popular songs that elicited understanding on the part of sufferers, Franco gave urgency to the cause.
It's been twenty years since "Attention na SIDA" was released, eighteen since Franco himself "was rumored to have died of AIDS." The big man of Soukous defined the sound of Mobutu's Zaire. His appetites ran large, and he was known for his womanizing. However, the Lingala lyrics (see Barrett Watten's analysis)take a critical stance to the naive nationalism and chauvinism of the past, filled with regret for betraying family and country for contracting and spreading the disease. Franco's penance belonged to those who could understand this national language of Zaire.
The Lingala lyrics were, unfortunately, beyond the understanding of friends who were involved in spreading information about AIDS in the late '80s and early '90s. It was the call to action, written in French, that touched them. Evoking citizenship to contain the spread of disease, Franco's lyrics appeared to offer a different vision of sexual identity in a democratic society. After all, "AIDS ravages all levels of society," and no one was safe or innocent.
In the intellectual sense, the song gave cause to believe that the histories of sexuality being written were not sufficient. Rumors of the "death of man" were greatly exaggerated; the reality o death by AIDS was frightening. AIDS reminded society of its physicality and corporeality. Decades of mastering sexuality were in question.
This all looks like a hiccup, a momentary reaction that has been replaced by cautious confidence as HIV drugs have become more successful. AIDS/HIV sits further back in the consciousness of students. I'm not sure anymore that the disease will affect how the history of sexuality will be written.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
What Spanish for Chutzpah?
[Crossposted to Europe Endless.]
I tend to lose track of time. It's a bad quality for an historian, but confronting the same boring file for hours speeds the passage of time even though one perceives it grinding to a halt. I had been picking away at the same document today (in between bouts of looking after my son) before I gave up, turned on the TV, and surrendered to the pablum of cable news.
Only I didn't realize what time it was. Suddenly, the dreaded words, "Lou Dobbs Tonight," appeared in the bottom corner of the screen. Yes, it was that hour when CNN imitates Radio Rwanda, only tonight the Grand Wizard surrendered his stool for his underling (according to the rumor mill, Dobbs wants to import remnants of the Berlin Wall to southern Texas).
As with any other night, another story about Mexico or Mexican immigrants was being broadcasted. This one carried the title, "Mexico's Chutzpah." Unfortunately, it carried the subtitle, "What's Spanish for Chutzpah?" Some clever tech or intern must have thought that one up on the fly. Did they really mean to destroy the credibility of the news shows raison d'être? Did they know it is a loan word from Yiddish, assimilated by English?
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Scar Tissue
Can we call it a trend now: German cities removing post-war construction to restore pre-war architecture? First, there was the recreation of Dresden’s Frauenkirche. Next, the demolition of the East German Palace of the Republic with the hope of restoring the Hohenzollern palace. Then, the Berlin SPD proposed returning to rows of single family townhouses to replace the large, blocky, Bauhaus-inspired apartment buildings. Even Cologners’ racist resistance to the construction of a “super-mosque” belonged to a larger debate about the lost character of the city.
The newest proposal comes from Frankfurt, which is considering demolishing its city hall and surrounding buildings in order to recreate the Altstadt, the old city center, at the cost of 70 million euros. The city wants to replace the modern buildings with housing similar to the burger housing that previously existed. Author Martin Mosebach argues that not only will the restoration renew public spaces in an area made alien by modern architecture, it will frame the patrimony in the area, the cathedral and the Römer (the historic city hall).
Friday, August 10, 2007
Religious Contradance: Everybody swing to the right?
During a rather blasé search for new material concerning German history on the blogosphere, I came upon an unusual new blog: one written by Ludwig Windthorst, one of the founders of the Zentrum and a towering figure in Catholic democracy, called Der Vasall!
I doubt that it is the historical Windthorst, or even a coincidental appellation, but the blog takes on an interesting subject: the theological basis for monarchy in Catholicism. Well, it's more of a Catholic perspective on politics, an interesting "thought experiment", but apparently German bloggers seem to pine for monarchy with some frequency (if the links are any indication).
Anyway, blogger Windthorst raises an interesting question: is monarchy a "right" form of state? is it necessarily conservative? On the surface, his claim that it could be both holds water. The alliance of European kings and queens with more conservative parties, especially nationalist parties, is inseparable from historical development. Who would join the radicals who called into question the legitimacy of monarchy? Even talk of "nation" from the right could be uncomfortable for the monarch trying to fit into the modern world.
This leads to another question: how did religion, particularly Catholicism, affect the political orientation of monarchy? Was there a swing to the right?
Friday, June 29, 2007
A Piece of the Sky
The protests of Neo-Nazis at the planned construction of a mosque in Cologne would normally be taken as a sign of resurging German racism. Cologners have registered their disapproval of the construction in large numbers (most preferring a smaller, more modest structure). The extremists are using the uproar to gain legitimacy. Of course, others would still see the controversy through the lens of the “clash of civilizations,” a Muslim minority refusing to integrate and challenging the values of the western majority, building a mosque that would challenge the city's cathedral.
Cologne is one of two European cities I love most of all. It is, perhaps, one of the few laid-back cities in Germany, as close as Germans could ever come to Los Angeles. Most of its history has been noted for lower levels of racism than other German cities. When the Jews were expelled in the fifteenth century, it was done matter-of-fact, without the typical violence or vitriol. Still, racism is present, and I not only witnessed the racist attitudes toward Turks, I personally received some of that ill-will on a few occasions. Cologners are uncomfortable with Turks. Whenever I raise questions about why Turks could not become good Germans (or why they weren’t turning into them), I am met with hostility. Clearly, Turks need institutions that cater to them if the rest of the city is uninviting.
Ashamed at the way the Cologners have behaved, I feel that the story is being unfairly reduced to a problem of either German racism or east vs. west. Indeed, the skyline is as much of an issue as religious and minority rights, one that has been around much longer. The skyline dominated by the cathedral has been an iconic image for Cologners and Germans alike. It's not a simple matter to let a minaret, or anything, share the skies with the spires.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Clean Hands
[Crossposted at The Rhine River.]
What's in a name? NPR reported last week on how the Polish government wants to change the name of Auschwitz in order to emphasize that it was a German camp, not a Polish camp. According to the story, the Polish government feels that the extermination camp is mistakenly associated with Poland, because it lies on Polish soil. Much of the story concerns how UNESCO is handling the request, mostly focusing on contentious issue with regard to what kind of heritage site it is--a memorial, a museum?
For the life of me, I can't think of any time when I encountered someone who made this mistake. Sure, it was a German extermination camp, and no one would contend with that. However, NPR missed an opportunity to reveal how the current ruling duo on Poland, the Kaczynski brothers, suspected of fascist leanings, have been running afoul of historical memory, trying to draw sharp lines between victims and perpetrators, and attempting to seal Poland's victimhood.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Geremek Affair
Bronislaw Geremek, French historian and Polish politicians, may lose his seat in the European Parliament: he refuses to sign a statement, per a new Polish law, declaring that he did not collaborate with secret state police during the communist era. He has resisted because, first, he already signed a statement, and second, the law is part of a larger purge of intellectual and bureaucrats in Poland:
I already made [such a declaration] in 2004, when I campaigned for the European elections, and now I feel as if I live in the country of King Ubu. . . . I believe that the law of lustration in its current form violates moral rules and threatens liberty of expression, the independence of the media nd the autonomy of the university. It engenders a form of ministry of truth and memory police. (full statement, in French)Colleagues have rushed to defend him, noting his history resisting communism:
[Daniel Cohn-Bendit:] We have fought Stalinism with Geremek, and we will protect our colleague without hesitation from a government that behaves either in a Stalinist or fascist manner.This affair comes as Poland's president, Lech Kaczynski, has come under scrutiny for his administrations intolerant policies, especially toward homosexuality.
(Crossposted at The Rhine River)
Monday, April 23, 2007
Besieging the Ivory Tower: Blogs in History
Zid offers a paper that he will present soon on the future of blogs in history ("Weblogs: Workshops of the historian"). Give him some comments (it's in French, but he can read your English comments).
Because the historian entrenched in his ivory tower does not discuss with amateurs who try to reconstruct the past in their own manner; the historian entrenched in his ivory tower cannot understand the actions of genealogists, without whom access to the archives would be more difficult; the historian entrenched in his ivory tower lets the state or the [elites] respond to the negationists who attack daily life; the historian cannot entrench himself in his ivory tower. He must put his research in the service of a type of democratic humanism. And the blog allows us to communicate like never before. [My apologies to Zid for this rough translation.]
Car un historien retranché dans sa tour d'ivoire ne discutera pas avec des amateurs qui essaient de faire de la reconstitution historique à leur façon ; un historien retranché dans sa tour d'ivoire ne pourra comprendre le mouvement des généalogistes sans lesquels l'accès aux archives serait rendu encore plus difficile qu'il n'est aux chercheurs ; un historien retranché dans sa tour d'ivoire laissera l'Etat ou les grands pontes répondre aux négationnistes qui attaquent au quotidien ; un historien ne peut être retranché dans sa tour d'ivoire. C'est son devoir de chercheur au service d'un certain humanisme démocratique. Et le blog nous permet de communiquer comme jamais.
Thursday, December 21, 2006
"Nicolas Sarkozy, Why Did Your Father Flee Hungary?"
That's the chorus of "Un Hongrois chez les Gaulois (A Hungarian among the Gauls)" by reggae star Zêdess. Taking revenge for all the racailles, the song mocks Sarkozy's notion of "chosen immigration" (the current French minister of the interior and presidential candidate having descended from refugees in flight). Take a listen ... it's a fun song.
(Perhaps an American band can write a similar response to Tancredo, Goode and the like? Perhaps TV on the Radio?)
Saturday, December 2, 2006
The Good Citizen
Are you a good American? Perhaps one way of knowing is taking the US Citizenship and Immigration Services' new test for incoming citizens. It's not hard. Everyone here will breeze through it, even the Brits. I expected it to be harder, perhaps nefariously so, but I would note that some concepts have cultural meanings: only in the United States would constitution be seen purely as a printed document, and self-government would be a Pandora's box that Americans would not want to open if foreign definitions were in use.
The last year has been tough on immigrants, legal and otherwise. The US was not the only country to create new tests for immigrants, tests that intend to assess the quality of the potential citizen. The Migration Policy Institute's top ten migration stories of 2006 shows higher walls being errected around Western nations to people from other parts of the world. The top story, perhaps, says it all: "Good-bye Multiculturalism--Hello Assimilation?":
In 2006, European politicians dealt multiculturalism numerous public blows, which the media was only too happy to cover. Multiculturalism, policymakers essentially said, has failed to adequately integrate immigrants and their descendants.
Since the late 1990s, Europe's emphasis on strict integration policy has increased: learn our language, our history, our culture, and live by our laws and values. The UK, which didn't require a citizenship test until 2005, fully implemented the test this year, and Germany's regional governments introduced tests on top of the 600-hour, federally mandated language courses.
However, the Netherlands has taken the hardest line. As of March 15, prospective immigrants from nearly every country (EU and Western countries excepted) must take and pass a "civic integration exam" at one of the country's 138 embassies before they can be issued a visa.
Included in the exam's optional study packet is a controversial DVD entitled "Coming to the Netherlands." The two-hour video shows prospective immigrants what they can expect, including men who kiss each other and women who go topless at Dutch beaches (an edited version is available in countries where such material is banned). The message: Anyone offended should not come.
Sunday, October 29, 2006
G-d, Government and Butter
Imperial Germany's Reichstag was never a place for serious work. Deputies either rubber- stamped the Chancellor's proposals, or else they shouted each other down. That does not mean that their verbal sparring was unproductive. Hermann von Mallinckrodt, who represented the disenchanted of Münster and was a leader of the Catholic Zentrumspartei, pressed relentlessly for parity: the administration and bureaucracy of Germany and its states should reflect their confessional make-up. The officials in the states and provinces were overwhelmingly Protestant, and generally unsympathetic to the Catholic populations they administered. The elimination of the Catholic section of the ministry of religious affairs made the imbalance glaring. Instead, the number of Catholics in the administration should be proportional to the population.
Thursday, October 19, 2006
A Little French Politics
Mitterand used the anti-terrorism service to spy on starlets and political enemies. Juppé ripped off the city to pay the salaries of RPR (conservative party) employees. Villepin implicated Sarkozy in the Clearstream debacle to discredit him in the upcoming presidential campaign. Should we be surprised by this headline:
60% of French citizens see their elected officials as corruptActually, it's better than that: of the remaining 40%, three-quarters refused to answer the question. Only 10% believed in the integrity of French politicians! (This is all according to a report that should be released in the next few days by Centre de Recherches Politiques de Sciences Po (CEVIPOF).)
Ségolène Royal had drawn attention outside of France as potentially the next woman to be elected head of state, but political anthropologist Marc Abélès says that her style--her approach to political discourse--is a break from the politics of the past. (Is she's the French Howard Dean? I think she does him better.) On the one hand, she uses her blog, Désirs d'avenir (Future Desires), to realize a dynamic, less asymetrical relationships between politician and public, very muc realizing the potential and realities of the blogosphere. On the other, rather than argumentation on the basis of ideological differences, she accepts the collapse of those differences.
What the candidate and her team have understood is that one need not produce a majority opinion as much as the possibility of that the greatest number of people will enter into the debate, expressing their opinions ... Diversity, and not head-on opposition. It is clear that there no longer exists a "left vote" or a "right vote" that is the same on every issue.
Absorption capacity has been thrown out with regard to the expansion of the EU: concern for how new members fit into the overall mix. The fear that limitless expansion would weaken and dilute central institutions is real, but as Thomas Ferenczi points out, such concerns presuppose the need for new members to assimilate the practices of established members. Ferenczi says that absorption capacity is an important concept in measuring up Turkey for membership, but that "new memberships are accompanied by institutional reforms." I don't think it is different for an international organization as a nation: expansion occurs contiguously, and as the limits of the nation increase, diversity must be accomodated. Expansion goes hand in hand with reform.
The Sun King's liaisons were notorious, but were they political sexuality? The NY Times has a good review of Antonia Fraser's new book on Louis XIV and his women. I am, however, a bit wary of the positive spin that Fraser puts on his affairs:
This period, during which Louis enjoyed the “undiluted love of his mother” and witnessed her mostly able leadership — at her death, he memorialized her as “among the great kings of France” — may have established in him a respect for and comfort with dynamic women that led to his “variegated philanderings.
Still, I love this characterization of aristocratic sexuality:
Perhaps, on the domestic front, some innate evolutionary imperative, an awareness of the incestuousness of it all, led many of them — not just Louis XIV but also Charles II of England and a number of “princes of the blood” — into compulsive adultery as a means of expanding the gene pool.
(Crossposted at The Rhine River, here and here.)
Saturday, October 14, 2006
Second Acts in French Lives
Alain Juppé--he's back! The former prime minister of France, after serving fourteen months in jail and another year of political exclusion (for puting public funds to personal use), will again become the mayor of Bordeaux.
The French can be merciless with their politicians. Always suspecting them of corruption, ferreting them out, and becoming enraged at the relevation of their misdeeds--the public has a low tolerance level. Moreso than Americans, dare I say? However, many hommes de politique find their way back in government, forgiven at least by their home constituencies. The public does not endlessly resent them. By comparison, the rare American politician who is caught is pursued to the end of her or his days. Marion Barry is the exception, not the rule.
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
More French Exceptionalism?
[Use Don Adams voice:] Would you believe that French Muslims are among the happiest Muslims in the Western World?
A study by the Pew Research Center suggests that the riots of Fall 2005 don't reflect a failure of the French model of assimilation, nor do they reflect special dissatisfaction among French Muslims for their place in society--at least vis-à-vis other western nations.
Based on poll results, French Muslims 1) have the same concerns of Muslims in other countries, 2) although they are more likely to regard unfavorably the US and the War on Terror, they are more likely to regard them favorably as well, 3) more suspicious of the ascent of anti-Israeli politics (a.k.a. Islamo-Fascism); 4) more likely to feel at home in the West. Here are some charts:
French Muslims appear to be more opinionated, more skeptical, and generally more accepting of the values of their nation than their brethren in other countries. Are French Muslims more French than Muslim? Perhaps, although the conclusion of the pollsters--that "the French need take no integrationist lessons from their European neighbors"--is dubious. French Muslims may feel more French than British Muslims feel British, but the question of how minorities feel about their citizenship and nationality has, in the past, produced highly deceptive results. Those who claim to be true French may have more to say about how integrated French Muslims really are.
[Cross-posted at The Rhine River.]
Saturday, August 12, 2006
Günter Grass: Hero takes a fall
Günter Grass, German novelist and Nobel Prize winner, broke sixty years of silence to admit that he belonged to the Waffen SS.
Als Fünfzehnjähriger hatte er sich noch als Hitlerjunge freiwillig zu den U-Booten gemeldet, mit siebzehn wurde Grass einberufen und kam vom Arbeitsdienst zur Division „Frundsberg“, die zur Waffen-SS gehörte.The Frankürter Allgemeine carries an interview in which Grass talks about the Waffen SS and the forthcoming memoir on the subject:
When he was fifteen he freely reported to a U-Boat as part of the Hitler Youth, at seventeen Grass was conscripted and joined as part of his service the Frundsberg Division, which was part of the Waffen SS.
Mein Schweigen über all die Jahre zählt zu den Gründen, warum ich dieses Buch geschrieben habe. Das mußte raus, endlich. ...
All these years of silence is the reason why I have written this book. It must come out, finally.
Crossposted at The Rhine River.
Tuesday, August 8, 2006
Not Your Daddy's Totalitarianism
Daniel Vernet, in Le Monde, explaining why WWII and Cold War analogies don't describe Islamic fundamentalism, and the War on Terror is not a repeat of the history of the 1930s and 1940s:
If Islamic fundamentalism is a totalitarian ideolgy, sometimes using terrorism, and if it should be fought as such, it does not use the instruments of the state that the great totalitarianisms of the 20th century applied to their ambitions. The methods of classical war will come to nothing in the end. To make the wrong diagnosis unleashes an error of prescription and new catastrophes. See Iraq.
Crossposted from The Rhine River.
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Let's Celebrate Abolition (We'll figure out what it means later)
Several months ago Jacques Chirac designated today, May 10, as the day to commemorate the abolition of slavery by the Second French Republic in 1848. Forced to respond to the uproar over legislation that called French imperialism a positive force in the development of non-European peoples, Chirac chose this one day to prove that the republic and slavery were incompatible. He repeated this formula again in a ceremony at the Jardin du Luxembourg:
Nous devons regarder ce passé sans concessions mais aussi sans rougir car la république est née avec le combat contre l'esclavage. 1794, 1848: la République, c'est l'abolition.
If it were only more true. While the abolition had a positive effect in France's Caribean colonies, African slavery was intensified even though the slave trade came to an end: slavery became more prominent among Africans as markets moved to the continental interior. When the Third French Republic expanded from its Senegalese ports across western Africa, administrators did almost nothing to end the institution. They allied with and propped up the elites who kept slaves on their farms; in some cases, runaway slaves were returned to their masters. Missionaries, notably the White Fathers, were among the few who helped slaves to free themselves (although the conditions of Sub-Saharan Africa made it difficult for Africans to free themselves from the missionaries.) If slavery declined in French Africa, it was because the slaves refused to heed it: as Martin Klein argued, the slaves simply walked away in 1905-7.
The republic's abolition of slavery did not end the institution of slavery in the republic's territory. Expansion of France's empire seemed to depend on tolerating it, perhaps accepting it as the natural condition of many Africans. Hopefully Chirac will work the slaves' own agency in the republic's commitment to liberty and equality.
Friday, May 5, 2006
The Jeunes and the Restless
This map represents six demographic trends in France, according to the Institut National de la Statistique et des ɉtudes Économiques. According to the report (pdf), young French men and women tend to flock to larger cities in their late teens and early twenties, usually for education, and return to their home towns and villages. What is more interesting is that in their mid-twenties to late thirties, when they search for permanent employment, they choose to go south and west (to either cities or suburbs.) Overall, the nation is shifting southward. The large, dark blue swath in the Northwest, where heavy industries once dominated, is a zone of negative migration: young people are leaving for the areas of high-tech industry. (Northern Alsace is almost an island in the deep blue sea, attracting both students and young people seeking employment.)
Paris, as to be expected, has its own characteristics. The spike in arrivals occurs at older ages than other large cities, and the departures occur much later. Where they really differ is in the ages in which migratory trends from the city becomes negative. In the large cities, students stay as long as they studies require, then leave. In Paris, young people stick around till their thirties, then leave. For the former, the age in which the population stabilizes (near zero departures by age) is in the mid twenties. For Paris, the numbers remain negative from the thirties until the seventies. This suggests that young people who move to Paris believe that they will be able to make a career and a home for themselves in the capital, but experience tremendous disappointment as they get older, leading to emigration of middle-aged Parisians. This may say something about the intensity of the Paris protests over the CPE in recent months. The Parisian youth sit at an intersection of hope and discontent, waiting for opportunity, but seeing people not much older than them give up for greener (or in this case, redder) pastures.
[Warning: I am colorblind, so don't be too harsh if I got the colors wrong.]
Crossposted at The Rhine River
Friday, March 24, 2006
Spanish spoken here
Attempting to frame immigration issues, CNN's Lou Dobbs pulled out a quote from Theodore Roosevelt on the unity of American identity and culture and the obligation of immigrants to assimilate.
In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile...We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.
The backdrop for thus quote was the tens of thousands who protested new immigration legislation in the streets of Phoenix.
This Dobbs moment was too cute: a quote from a beloved president on an issue of urgency. I wish that Dobbs had first reflected on the fallacy of what Roosevelt said before using it. This is the worst of 'bad history': choosing a quote that itself warped the reality of its time. Addressing immigrants, Roosevelt lumped together all those who came from a non-European, non-English speaking culture into the same category. Yet many Californios, Nuevo Mexicanos, and Tejanos were not immigrants. They had been in their territories for a long time, becoming Americans by annexation and purchase. Until late in the nineteenth century, these territories were better reached from northern Mexican states than eastern and mid-western American states. The experiences of Mexicans in America up to Roosevelt's presidency were exclusionary, not integrative. New Mexico, the most developed part of the Mexican Borderlands, languished as statehood was withheld--despite the eagerness of the Hispanos to prove their loyalty. Moreover, there is something ironic that Roosevelt, hero of the Spanish-American War, would take this attitude since his actions in war brought about the annexation of so much Spanish-speaking territory; the people whom he conquered would be denied membership in the nation.
Anti-immigrant discourse focuses on the introduction of foreign elements that will corrode American culture. Language is but one of these elements that, in their opinion, is in danger. Not that Americans own English ... even Britains no longer own a language that has been appropriated by many as a medium of globalized intercourse; the purity of English is elusive. But proponents of harsh immigration laws should realize the truth. Spanish has always been spoken here. It is not foreign; it was not imported covertly for subversive purposes. (Indeed, it was a language used to dominate Native Americans as much as English.) Moreover, the ability to speak Spanish was preserved in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (along with all cultural traits.) Calling people who speak Spanish immigrants won't make America a country that speaks only English.
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Germany since Heine
Friday is the 150th year of the death of Heinrich Heine. Perhaps the greatest German poet after Goethe, he died in exile in Paris. It was an inauspicious beginning to German nationalism's relationship with his legacy. Few were willing to embrace him as a poet of national import. He was seen as an outsider, who wrote beautifully in the Germany language (especially as the poet behind Robert Schumann's Dichterliebe), but no German. Even his hometown, Dusseldorf, took a long time before it embraced his legacy, and then with some embarrassment.
[Crossposted to The Rhine River.]
Sunday, January 29, 2006
"Law, History and the Obligation of Memory"
The loi 23 février 2005 (the one that said that colonization benefited the colonized) not only angered politicians in Africa and the Carribean (as well as minority leaders in France), it also annoyed a group of prominent historians: they petitioned the government to abrogate all memorial laws, including those concerning the Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide, and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. So far, it seems that Chirac will ignore the offending article of the law(saying that it is unconstitutional because it is regulative in character rather than legislative.) Sarkozy, as the chief of the ruling UMP, asked Arno Klarsfeld to report on the law, as well as the other French memorial laws, and their relationship to history. (It wasn't helped that Klarsfeld has dual citizenship with Israel.) Thinking that this might be of general interest to historians, I've translated a number of passages (don't take it for my opinion.)
For the authoritarian and dictatorial regimes that struck Europe in the 20th century, the memory of past events constituted an essential issue in the writing of history to conform to the dominating ideology. For parliamentary and democratic regimes, these issues were considerable for entirely different reasons.
All memories are different, sometimes they are antagonistic, but all have been painful and all are part of the French collective memory. The respective obligation of memory forces [those who suffered] to militate so that collective injustices and the suffering are solemnly recognized by the State, whether it is the nation, the republic, or France.
The historians who signed the petition of 13 December say that they are “disturbed by the frequent political intervention in the interpretation of the events of the past ... .” This emotion is astonishing. Does it mean that, according to them, it is not for men of politics to appreciate, according to their convictions and the public nature, the events related to our history .... The signatories claim that it is only for historians to ‘write history.’ Historians do not write history, men, people make history; historians content themselves to write about history. The petitioners conclude: “History is not a juridical object. In a free state, neither Parliament nor judicial authority defines the truth of history ... We demand the abrogation of these legislative provisions that are unworthy of a democratic regime.”
These historians are wrong. Interpreting the past is also a domain of politics, especially for the parliamentarians representing the nation. Sometimes one must promote memorial laws, like those of the past that favored the union of the nation and the people and also that recognized the ensemble of identities that coexist in the republic. If the historian establish facts with rigor and precision, he cannot assume the task of legislating who is to be protected and consoled in the interest of national cohesion.
Sunday, January 22, 2006
Godwin, American Style?
This morning, Tim Russert asked whether references to slavery should be considered inappropriate, like references to Nazi Germany, because they are both too unique. Of course, he raised the question in the context of Sen. Clinton calling the leadership style of the Congress a 'plantation system.' I'd say no--slavery is not unique, it was (and is) a crime committed by many societies, with a variety of economic systems.
What's interesting about 'Godwin's Rule' is that it reflects the patterns of contentious arguments: two sides diverging from one another, seeing each other in the most hostile light. Are references to slavery in southern states used the same way? Are comparisons between Dred Scott and Roe the equivalent to saying "like Hitler"? Perhaps, but for the most part I don't see references to slavery being used in the same way as references to Nazi Germany. In the latter, a simplistic comparison is used to associate something with a notorious regime. Although potentially invidious, metaphors derived from slavery may be more useful. Using slavery as a reference uses something native to the American experience to discuss problems in contemporary society. Banning comparisons, moreover, may come from the desire to expunge slavery from national memory.
Monday, January 2, 2006
Ten Events to Understand Contemporary France
High school kids know or don't know important things about history, and I'd give myself a concussion every day if I banged my head on my desk in disbelief. I might be happy if they knew of the revolution, that it had something to do with defining democracy and liberty. Undergraduates should know more; too bad the university won’t always compel them to learn it. David Gelernter has more faith in our high school and college graduates: they should know the Dreyfus Affair!
Matt Yglesias feels that the Dreyfus affair is too obscure.
But seriously, the Dreyfus Affair would fall pretty low on my list of "need to know" historical events. ... But it makes perfect sense for lots of people's historical knowledge to not be oriented to these things. There's only so much you can expect a given person to be well-informed about and the sort of thing that I (and, apparently, Gelertner) happen to think is interesting isn't obviously the most important part of the human saga.
Never mind that it is probably the most significant event in Modern Jewish history, after the Holocaust and founding of Israel. The Dreyfus Affair carries deep significance for gauging attitudes on ethnicity, religion, gender, and civil rights. I have used it numerous times to explain ethnic unrest and the limits of tolerance. It is more than a lens from which to see attitudes and opinions; Dreyfus significantly shaped political alignments and ideas about secularism and assimilation.
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
Historians in Revolt!
Reacting to the the French National Assembly's dabbling in history and colonial memory, prominent French historians released this statement:
"... The historian is not a slave to current events. The historian does not dump contemporary ideological schemes on the past and does not introduce to past events today's sensibilities. ...
[Full statement, untranslated, under the fold.]
Monday, December 12, 2005
The Jewel in the Meter Stick
If Niall Ferguson redeemed British imperialism (a debatable point), did he redeem all imperialism?
France’s National Assembly as been debating a bill (loi du 23 février) to create a curriculum on France’s imperial legacy. The proposal, part of an effort to reconcile with Algeria, when UMP deputy Christian Vanneste insisted on an amendment (article 4) that confirmed "the positive role of the French presence overseas, notably in North Africa." The otherwise innocuous proposal caused a firestorm throughout French academia and into its oversees territories. Consequently, the intelligentsia of Martinique refused to meet with the minister of the interior on the first high level tour of the French Carribean in many years because his party refused to abrogate the amendment.
Both de Villepin and Chirac have walked on eggshells around the issue. Last week, de Villepin said, "There is no one French memory, but memories. Some of them are lively, hypersensitive, and ailing. ... There is the memory of those who were thrown into the holds of the galleons. ... It is not up to Parliament to write history, that’s not its role."
Monday, December 5, 2005
Sweet Dreams are made of these
In La mémoire collective, Maurice Halbwachs doubted that universal(izing) history could be anything more that an intellectual project. So vast, so ancient, it lacked the texture and urgency that national history had in the popular consciousness.
History can present itself as the universal memory of humanity. But there is no universal memory. All collective memory is supported by a group that is limited in space and time. One cannot collect into one tableau the totality of past events except by detaching them from the groups that guard memory ... history is interested above all in the differences [between societies], and makes abstractions of the similarities for which there exists no memory ...
[crappy translation is my own]
To bring immediacy to historical elements, social groups must deploy rituals and symbols that takes history from classroom into the public sphere and gives it emotional import. Consequently, meaningful history, capably of becoming memorialized, is precious, circumscribed by spatial and temporal boundaries (especially of a nation.)
Some events are capable of being imagined even though they do not belong to an unbroken memorial tradition (like the Trojan War to the early modern English readership.) Nevertheless, the notion that what is taught in Western Civ courses will probably never find any meaning outside of the classroom weighs heavily on those who teach it.
Hugo Schwyzer's recent complaint that the first half of Western Civ tends to be a quick-step march from Sumer to the Bastille stresses the point further (to be fair, we modernists should be able to pick up the story at Aquinas). However, I don'’t worry that something important will be lost as the span of pre-modernity is stretched beyond recognition. Rather, I worry that despite the best judiciousness, speedy lecturing produces lacunas that betray the founding suppositions of Western Civ courses: an ongoing tradition that becomes recognizable as the West.
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Onward and Outward
Fritz Lang seduced Weimar audiences (as well as a few contemporary film critics) with his bold vision of the future city and architecture in Metropolis (review). Tall towers reach to the sky; automobiles move high above the ground on raised highways; biplanes weaving between the buildings; the workers toil far below on the sunless surface. Lang had taken his impression of the New York cityscape to the extreme. The design elements (as well as the robot) often overpower a conventional story about labor relations as well as a much needed message about moderation and mediation.
Lang had the opportunity to see the true future city unfold before his eyes when he hid from the Nazis in Los Angeles and filmed thoughtful noires. Against the backdrop of criticism and the decline of the efficient Red Car system (links to histories and bibliographies) (immortalized by another film, Who framed Roger Rabbit?), Los Angeles broke from the pattern of American cities reaching to the sky to create, what Edward Soja has called, the postmodern city.
But here is the kicker: Los Angeles is the densest city in the United States (HT: Kevin Drum).
Monday, September 5, 2005
Awash in Civilization
David Sucher, an author on urban planning and community development, wrote the following to me in a comment:
Do you folks think it is worth rebuilding if it requires massive and expensive flood control measures? How much will you pay?
It seems to me that much of the city is in a place which current "sustainable growth" thinking would reject out of hand.
Despite the tone of his comment, I don’t think that he has decided himself whether or not New Orleans should be rebuilt, rather noting that the landscape and the environment of the city make reconstruction almost inconceivable. [Added:] He has posted some thoughts here and here.
David knows more about healing a city and keeping it healthy than I. I can speak first as an historian, second as a regionalist, which means that I only know of the historical challenges faced by cities as they develop a relationship with the natural and the social world. With all due respect to David, I don’t think that sustainable development, at least seen from inside the city, can be the sole, or even major, factor by which to judge reconstruction. Indeed, New Orleans’ disadvantage, its position with respect to major bodies of water, is also its advantage, and historically speaking, the growth of cities has always been a function of their relationship with water.
Note: I consider this to be a vital conversation, not just because of New Orleans, but because other cities will face environmental crises in the future. Everyone should chime in.
More below the fold.
Thursday, August 25, 2005
Opponents only, no collaborators
Czech PM Paroubek apologized to Germans who were expelled in 1945 by Benes. Well, at least those Germans who were "anti-Fascists."
"We are correcting an injustice committed against our German co-citizens,'' Czech Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek said. The apology is for "the opponents of Nazism who were affected by measures taken by former Czechoslovakia against its so-called enemy citizens after WWII.''
"We are documenting that the Benes decrees did not refer to anti-fascists,'' Paroubek continued. "We are expressing our admiration, appreciation and apology to the significant minority of those Czechoslovak citizens of German descent,'' who "had remained faithful.''
The conditionality is delicious. Who are these loyal ethnic Germans, the Sudetenlaender who resisted the annexation, occupation, who did not benefit from the special privileges given to ethnic Germans over ethnic Slavs and Jews? What commission determined who they were?
The government promises to locate these people and to remunerate the loss of property, but I think that they will step into their own historiographic nightmare as they try to sort out what it meant to have collaborated and resisted. Good Luck!
(Cross-posted at The Rhine River.)
Sunday, August 21, 2005
Filling the Void
In 1936, as the German army moved across the Rhine, no British soldiers were in Cologne to confront them. No Belgian troops were in Aachen to prevent them from reaching the border. No French troops were in Trier to control the crowds. And no American troops were in sight to protect the rights of minorities and foreigners. They had already left.
The remilitarization of the Rhineland is a contentious memory, a point at which Hitler might have been confronted. With the withdrawal of settlers from Gaza it is not surprising that people would use 1936 to judge the prudence of Israeli actions. Unfortunately, the remilitarization was perhaps another failure of the Allies to prevent Germany from reconstituting its military strength than a point of no return.
Saturday, July 16, 2005
Tele-history
Alun, at his eponymous archeology blog, hits a subject that is probably close to many historians' fears: the television documentary that tries to show that some long held fact is actually false. Can good history also be good television? As Alun points out, the goals of television programming differ greatly from an archeological excavation. Usual suspect Sharon weighs in as well, noting that many of these shows search for a single source -- missing link that debunk years of thorough research.
Television clearly is not academia, which is its major drawback as a vehicle for history (or archeology). It likes to tell a linear story; more often than not that story is not what happened (if that can be portrayed with certainty), but a revelatory narrative in which old knowledge gives way to new. Tele-history may tell more about the present than the past, casting doubt on the traditional methods of the academy and replacing them with something else, more often than not technology (as in the PBS documentary on the map of Vinland that I discussed). Unfortunately, these technological sources are not themselves unimpeachable, and the producers must change the questions that have been asked by historians in order to fit the methods they wish to employ.
Friday, June 17, 2005
"La Samar"
As a conditional Francophile, I hate Paris. I go to the so-called City of Light for two reasons: to arrive and depart from CDG, and to arrive and depart from Gare de l’Est. Of course, I often must stay at least one night on every visit. The five-hour train trip to Strasbourg wears down the traveler who has already spent nine hours on an airplane. (I could fly through Stuttgart, but that would involve more flights, and I hate flying).
Monday was one of those stays. My wife stayed with me as long as she could – as long as a graduate student’s income allows – and our two bunnies were probably feeling a bit abandoned. My role was to convey her to the airport, and then return to finish my archival research (yes, I fit it in between bottles of Riesling). We stayed in the Latin Quarter, in one of several haunts we like near the Sorbonne. Balzac described the area as “one of the poorest and dingiest back-streets in Paris.” For us the Latin Quarter has the appeal of interesting shops and lots of bookstores.
Monday afternoon was no different. We avoided most of Paris, staying within the arrondissement for the most part. Our only divergence was to walk down river to see my favorite building in Paris, La Samaritaine, the last great grand magasin, a relic from the revolution of commerce and fashion begun by Haussmann’s demolition of old neighborhoods. Between the imposing weight of the monumental architecture and the voluminous, sloped roofs of the apartment buildings, the art deco "La Samar" stands out as a breath of lightness at the Pont Neuf. The interior (apart from the bottom floor, which now looks like every department store) is gorgeous, with the grand staircase in the center, light railings, and art nouveau decorations on the roof, and the glassed dome on top. Perhaps La Samar owed its survival to the fact that, as architecture, it accomplished best the aesthetic of the grand magasin: steel, light, levity, space. We walked down the staircase, looking at the (seemingly outmoded) furniture and fashions, until we were forced out by the overpowering aromas from the fragrance section. At least I bought a cool pair of striped socks.
On Tuesday the store management announced the La Samar would close “to bring fire emergency measure up to standards”. It is feared, by both business analysts and labor leader, that the closure will be permanent.
Is it the end of an era? The grands magasins changed how people shopped, taking the wares from the stodgy shopkeepers who guarded them behind counters and put them in reach of the customers, who intoxicated by the abundance of textiles in their reach and the beautiful salesgirls, succumbed to new styles and passions. They gave Emile Zola and other writers new social groups to analyze: the patriarchal family that sits atop the company; the male managers who prey upon the poor salesgirls; the wealthy woman who, despite her money, is overcome by kleptomania; and finally the white-collar workers who, with their brains and modest incomes and not much else, could emulate the lifestyle of the entrepreneur. The grands magasins brought the joy of fast shopping to the masses; one could ask why fast food was not the next step.
The grands magasins stand out less in contemporary Paris. Almost every arrondissement has been transformed, first by Haussmann, but always remade as new immigrants and new inspirations settled in the city. Now they are tame. Tourists are glad to hike up Montmartre or walk along the Rue Pigalle, the former haunts of prostitutes, drunken artists, and soldiers on leave. Even the Latin Quarter is accessible, as well as attractive, to yours truly. Perhaps the process set forward by Haussmann, which made the grands magasins possible, also led to their decline.
Sadly I took no pictures of La Samaritaine. I only have the socks that I bought. And they’re dirty, so you won’t get to see them.
(Cross-posted to The Rhine River).
Saturday, May 21, 2005
Passing into Memory
Le Monde reports that philosopher Paul Ricoeur died yesterday.
More reporting:
- In the Face of History, the Search for a Just Memory (in French)
- A Supporter, an Inspiration (in French)
- Biography and Reaction (in French)
- Daniel Riot links to one of his last interviews.
- Entries from Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- Liberation looks at Ricoeur's accomplishments -- thanks, Ralph. (In French)
- Brandon at Siris points to this on-line chapter: "What Makes Us Think? A Neuroscientist and a Philosopher Argue about Ethics, Human Nature, and the Brain" by Changeux and Ricoeur. (Finally, something in English)
Added Monday, May 23:
- Mainstream Baptist gives a brief look at Ricoeur's influence on his dissertation in theology.
- Fido the Yak links to Ricoeur's speech from when he accepted the John W. Kluge Prize: Asserting Personal Capacities and Pleading for Recognition.
- Le Figaro finally gives its obituary. They also account for his involvement in 1968 and gives an interview of one of his students, Olivier Abel.
Friday, May 6, 2005
Weaklings
The German Open began with an unfortunate incident. A tennis club published a pamphlet of its history that describes the termination of Jewish membership in the 1930s as a "Golden Age."
... the brochure by the century-old LTTC Red White Berlin tennis club said the flight of Jewish tennis players from Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 1940s only led to a brief drop in membership, and that it finally ushered in a "golden age" at the organization.
"The number of members was reduced by half but in this way the former so-called Jews' club opened itself to new members," the anonymous author wrote on page 71 of the magazine. "This change did not lead to a break for the club or German top tennis. Instead, it led to a golden age."
The page included a photograph of Luftwaffe chief Hermann Goering in the club's VIP section at an earlier tournament.
Beyond the obvious faux pas, the statement is contradictory. It begs the questions: why were so many Jews members and why would their expulsion improve the athleticism of the club?
Since the founding of Zionism Jews struggled against the image of the Shtetl Jew, the diminutive body riddled with disease because of unhealthy ghetto air and hours spent hunched over textual commentaries. Almost every issue of Juedische Turnzeitung (later renamed Der Makkabi) had an article from Mandelstamm or some other physician who dissected the influence of the city on the body. The image was self-criticism that bordered on self-hatred. Because of the image of the Shtetl Jew, men and women strove for physical improvement, becoming over-represented in German athletics. German Jews turned German athletics into a tool for their regeneration.
The statement suggests that Jewish members were dead weight, which is unlikely. They were, perhaps, more eager to prove themselves than their German counterparts. Unfortunately, struggling against the image of their own weakness, Jews validated, to the satisfaction of nationalists, notions of their inferiority.
Friday, April 1, 2005
Poetic Landscapes and Real Environments
In March issue of American Anthropologist, Christopher Fischer and Gary Feinman hypothesize that environmentalists can learn about the degradation of landscape and its restoration from history.
Past successes and failures in environmental manipulation can inform modern land use and serve as potential guides for policy makers, as well as the general public.
Civilizations have all dealt with changes in the environment that threaten the existence of communities. However, their efforts to recover the environment should not be written off. Despite the trope of environmental decline leading to social catastrophe, in many cases communities perceive degradation and can manage it.
The articles suggest that historical knowledge about the environment can be transformed into knowledge about land preservation. What is necessary is, first, "a common language that can act as a bridge between the various factions pursuing these kings of research paradigms" and second, a shift from the nature as a cultural construct to the environment as the product of human activities (including culture).
Although the article talks about "historical approaches", it is not clear that Fischer and Feinman recommend a dialogue between environmentalist and historians. Landscape, like other types of place, is marginal to historical inquiry; it is, to paraphrase Jane Jacobs, "metaphorically everywhere but often times nowhere."
Nineteenth-century German history provides numerous examples of individuals, both professionals and amateurs, preserving landscape against both modernity and natural erosion. Landschaft, unlike the English equivalent, never lost its complex definition, nor was reduced to the visible world. Nature, politics, and society affected one another, and Landschaft brought them together. Ethnologists like Riehl and geographers like Ratzel looked at the relationship between communities and the environments that surrounded them. The types of plants that grew, the health of the forests, etc., were signs of the morality of the people. They were alarmed by the decline of rural life in the presence of industrialization. At the popular level, hiking, especially by youth clubs and Heimat societies, forced Germans to confront nature and to appreciate its power.
Nonetheless, their culture acted as a prism by which they perceived the loss of environment. Ecological systems were never understood. Marc Cioc notes that the polluting of the Rhine River was often ignored because people had a simple understanding of how the river cleaned itself, believing that filth just flowed into the ocean. Preservation did not try to attack the problem of industry, but sought to negotiate with it, balancing it within rural life. The paths that they hiked took them to unique views and medieval ruins. Finally, the environment was always perceived aesthetically — what should be saved was judged on the basis of what Germans valued, which were the look of the farming community and the drama of nature. They did not look at the environment as a whole, and tended to ignore what was not idealized. The results of preservation were often successful only in that they saved what was culturally valued.
Saturday, March 26, 2005
On Historical Proliferation
I thought that Technorati's tag function would be an effective way to find people who write about history in the blogospher. It categorizes blog posts according to their subjects as defined by the user. Every day, I look up a few of these — including history — to see what bloggers have written about things that interest me. At the very least, I find a blog or two every week to add to the sidebar.
What counts for a history tag is not subject to any guidelines other than the discretion of the person making the post. Because tagging is entirely self-selected, what Technorati calls history reflects the definitions that bloggers employ. Personally, I resist using the history tag unless the post has substantial historical content (something more than an example or two). I also limit the number of times that I use it because Technorati has a peculiar bug. Every time a blog is published, Technorati picks up the tags for the new posts, but it also picks up the tags for the old posts as well. If I publish one new post, three previous posts will appear along with it on the History page. Of the twenty entries that appear on the page, as many as four might be my own.
Despite my early excitement and continued use of the feature, I have been disappointed by the types of posts that have appeared under the bloggers' aegis of historical work. Lots of comparing current politicians to tyrants, critiques of policies, discrediting of multilateralism, ... . With scant, uncritical mentions of past events, history would appear to be the slave of politics. Drop Napoleon's name, a quick word on abolition, maybe a reference to the persecution by the Romans. Don't forget big H (Adolf, that is). German history is ripe for abuse, especially in the last week. One side references death camps, the other despotism. These references to the Third Reich don't convince me of the writer's arguments: they make me despair that there is so little understanding of the nature of Nazism and its crimes. Would either side be so quick to drop references if they knew the difference between "the drowned and the saved"? Luckily this discipline has benefitted from the contributions of writers outside of academia, but sometimes I wish there were some equivalent of the AMA or the Bar for historians.
Saturday, March 19, 2005
A Lifelike Death
A few weeks ago my Ancient Civ class discussed Antigone. I though it was the perfect play to assign to the class. Women’s roles, legitimate authority, fate and man’s agency. Moreover, the play perfectly complimented the previous week’s reading, the Book of Esther. Antigone also resonated with me personally because it dealt with familial deference and obligation.
The class discussion stalled on Kreon’s arbitrariness: his decree that no one may bury Polyneices. Leaving aside the nature of kingship for a moment, I tried to explain why a decree on one person would contradict law based on universal principles. One example came to my head: a Florida woman, suspended at the moment of death, for whom special laws and procedures were made. The example was successful, moving the discussion back in the direction that I wanted. Much to my chagrin I realized later that my students foremostly identify Antigone with Terry Schiavo.
At the time I did not think of the comparison in political terms. There appeared to be no partisan action to keep the woman on life support. I prefer to remain apolitical in the class, insisting that lessons can be learned from studying the material directly rather than searching for historical examples to prove political positions. Congress’s actions, however, force me to make comparisons. Tiresias said to Kreon,
“thou hast thrust children of the sunlight to the shades, and ruthlessly lodged a living soul in the grave; but keepest in this world one who belongs to the gods infernal, a corpse unburied, unhonoured, all unhallowed. In such thou hast no part, nor have the gods above, but this is a violence done to them by thee.”
Keeping Schiavo on life-support, in defiance of her husbands wishes, regardless of whether or not he knew the wishes of his wife, is an inversion of life, death, and even family. And Congress undertakes this for political reasons, jealously holding onto the authority it commands. Moreover, I am disturbed that these same people who claim to defend life and family attack the husband, insinuating that he abused her in her waking life.
These actions leave open all sorts of new questions: if medicine can keep the body physically alive, must families do so? Must husbands and wives who cannot support the ongoing care for spouses’ in permanent comas endure the deprivation of their meaningful deaths? Will they lose custody of their spouses’ bodies, forced to watch them undergo numerous procedures without resuscitation? If so, will they use this excessive standard to support an expansion of health care for the living? Will there ever be a point where the law recognizes that there is no longer an inspiration to live?
Monday, February 14, 2005
Returning to the Rubble
Yesterday Germany marked the sixtieth anniversary of the allied bombing of Dresden, an event that has been remembered several times over the last few years with two publications (WG Sebald and Jürg Friedrich) and by the Anglo-German restoration of the Frauenkirche. The morality and legality of the air raids have been hotly debated in recent years. Dresden has become a symbol in the current debate about whether Germans can mourn their losses in terms comparable to memorials of the Holocaust. Indeed, the NPD (the Neo-Nazi party that holds seats in the Saxon state parliament) marked the memorials with a "march of sorrow" and the slogan, “The Holocaust of Bombs”. It will be difficult for Germanists to remain neutral hereafter.
However, as I read the numerous blog postings on the subject (mostly descriptions and rhetorical discussion about the allies’ justifications) a poem by Bertolt Brecht, Die Heimkehr, ran through my head:
My hometown,
How will I find it?
Following the swarms of bombers I’ll get home.
How far away is it,
How far away is it?
There, where the monstrous mountains of smoke stand,
There it is, in the fire.
My hometown,
Will it welcome me?
Before me come bombers,
Deadly swarms announce my return,
Conflagrations pave my way.
(By the way, that was my crappy translation from the years in which I dreamed I could save Rock and Roll by marrying it with cabaret. How many went down that path before me ... ?)
Brecht’s sentiments, which was by no means unique to the author (whoever that might have been), depicts a different perspective on how the destruction caused by the raids should be viewed, one that is at odds with the contemporary trends in German memory. A different paradigm, the homecoming, ruled intellectual consciousness in the years that followed World War II.
The homecoming was fully developed in Trümmerliteratur, especially in the works of Heinrich Böll. In order to return home, Germans must confront the destruction, the negation of everything, including the negation of the beauty of heroism on the front and sacrifice at home, that their war had created. For Böll, himself a soldier in the waning days, the homecoming was a painful process of seeing a completely different German landscape, one absent of culture, but also produced by its excesses (its interiorness in particular). Every German, therefore, had two Heimats – one that had existed in space and time, but was now confined to memory – the other, heaps of rubble that are remarkable only for their height. According to Böll, Germans were morally obliged to see the rubble as their new home and to accept that the beauty of the pre-war world could not be recovered. In the 1960s Böll became concerned that the significance of the post-war years had waned as the towns and cities were rebuilt. Still, he could say that “Germans did not begrudge the allies.”
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
How open is Europe?
Die Welt asks that question in reviewing the "year in Europe": how inclusive is Europe, either as a civilization or as a political entity? The Union had its largest expansion; a semi-Asian nation just reformed itself (and revoted) in the name of becoming more European; and the centrality of Christianity has come under scrutiny. As the definition of Europeanness is becoming more diffuse, resting on a constellation of political institutions, social relations, culture and religion, it must also deal with its own exceptionalism--and whether or not its exceptionalism allows for the proliferation and replication of its own example.
The most obvious focal point is religion. The ascension of Turkey into the EU is finally being taken seriously (even if it is not universally popular). The Turkish prime minister asserts that the specifics of history, culture and faith are less important than the acceptance of political values that are currently valid in European countries:
The EU is neither a union of coal and steel, nor of geography, nor of only economies. It is a community of political values. It has to be an address where civilizations meet and harmonize.
Is part of the process learning to bridge differences rather than fortify them into divisions? Islam is not sufficiently un-Europe in order to exclude Turkey--or Muslims. However, this may be a Jabèsian impasse: the inclusion of Turks, and Muslims, may be nothing more than an accommodation with a people who have assimilated, and not inherited, European civilization.
But is the question about religion in particular or about faith and secularism? The place of the Church in the creation of European civilization has been controversial. The Papacy has argued (and I would agree) that Christianity, even Catholicism in specific, has been central to the emergence of European institutions as they are taking shape within the EU. The beatifications of Karl I and Robert Schuman are evidence of how willing the Papacy is to prove this point. And although secularism and suspicion of faith are not limited to Christianity (hence the war on the veil), the drive to dissociate modern society from religion impoverishes its inheritance of civilization:Et là est bien le problème : à trop vouloir refuser de parler de Dieu - ou de le voir, même dans les représentations d'une imagerie populaire -, au nom d'une prétendue laïcité, on en oublie notre histoire culturelle et les fondements de notre mémoire collective ... Etre laïque, c'est être indépendant de toute confession religieuse : indépendant, et non intolérant.
On a related note, I want to draw attention to Daniel Riot's piece at Europeus. He argues that anti-globalization movements, environmentalists in particular, that would oppose the creation of a constitution should consider that they would benefit from a unified European position on Kyoto and other matters of industrial emissions.
Monday, December 27, 2004
Wayward economies
The Globalist offers a list of headlines from 2004 that reflects the state of the global economy. They reflect the growing influence of Asia, the lack of responsible budget planning, and America's dissociation from global financial institutions. The most telling headline is the first:
"China tells U.S. to put its house in order." (Financial Times, November 23, 2004, edition)
Monday, November 29, 2004
Adjunctin'
Next semester I will wander into the world of the unknown, teaching a class in a subject that has only tenuous connections with my dissertation topic, in that vaunted and dreaded series of classes known as Western Civilization. I am teaching the first third of this metanarrative, Ancient Civilization: some Sumeria, Egypt, formative Judaism followed by healthy doses of Greek democracy, Roman imperialism, barbarian invasions and Christian theology, hopefully reaching the point when I can drop the curtain on the western empire. Luckily I am not new to teaching Western Civ, and some of the problems are familiar through my topic (the central question to Rhenish history, no matter the period, is what is the boundary between civilizations and what does it mean.)
My biggest problem has been finding the books for the class. There are very few semester-long courses that only deal with the ancient world, so there are few textbooks for that period. Most series for Western Civ divide between the pre-modern and the modern (either 1500, 1600 or 1800). A few stop before the Renaissance. I kept asking myself how I could force students to purchase a 500-600 page book, of which they would read half, for $70. I also thought about assigning more advanced books that were actually less expensive. However, I was warned by the department head at “Higher Education U” that most students were business-minded, and although they are eager to learn, they are not attuned to the humanities. Ultimately, I found a textbook that I like.
The primary sources posed a different problem. The internet has become a vast source for public domain texts. Why should I ask them to buy a specific book when I can refer the students to something like the History Sourcebook? (Personally I would not purchase a “reader” if I could.) Most readings will appear on-line in some form or other: a little Gilgamish, Egyptian hymns, Aristotle’s writings on politics, etc.
However, I felt that I must order specific texts so that they would appear to be more important than others. Antigone is a wonderful artifact from the Peloponnesian War that deals with virtue with respect to the obligations of the citizen to the (city-)state. Tacitus’ The Germans is a personal favorite of mine (“They made a desert and called it peace” is an aphorism that I use too often). Tacitus, more than other Roman historians, examined the mission of civilization with respect to geography, pushing over the Danube into what we would currently call Europe and confronting the differences between culture and civilization. I am waffling on a late inclusion of Augsutine’s City of God as a transition from the Roman world to the medieval. I also considered ordering copies of the Bible, but I found it hypocritical for a Yid to chose between different translations of the New Testament.
So how to teach Ancient Civ? As much as historians criticize the equation of Europe with Rome, Athens, Egypt (what Braudel would see as the Mediterranean World), I cannot ignore that civilization evolved to order, control, and assimilate what we now see as a continent. Moreover, the expansion of civilization acquired a clear orientation toward the north. If the center of Western Civilization would remain in the Mediterranean for another millennium, its frontiers were in Gaul, Britain, Germany, Bohemia, eventually reaching points above Baltic Sea and across to frozen islands in the Atlantic. And even beyond the fall of the empire a “Roman framework” persisted to understand the relationship between political and ecclesiastical entities. Even the notion of a “Roman Empire” enlightened German politics in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and it has been revived in order to understand European unification and the Christian contribution to Europe.
Thursday, November 18, 2004
Damn French, always standing in our way
No one in America appreciates a Gallicist. Claiming to know and understand the French is a step backward from being a Germanist (and I can claim to be both). The parade of books and articles that have been published in the last two years have armed the public with straw men arguments that form the basis of American familiarity with France. Each one claims that the nation is full of ungrateful contrarians bent on undermining American will.
Our Oldest Enemy is no exception. I have read reviews by conservatives who describe its argument as simplistic. Critics (willfully) ignore the contributions and assistance that France has provided to the US. The universalism, an exaggerated aspect of French political culture, is a legitimate target for criticism, but it is hardly different from the universalism of American democracy that is currently forced onto the world.
However, the notion of France being our oldest enemy is simplistic as well. How many states could claim that status? Very few were sufficiently organized and powerful to project their interests in a way that confronted American policy. In 1776 there were five: England, Portugal, Spain, the United Provinces, and, of course, France. Only two survived as world powers.
France is the straw man for promoting unfiltered American power. One nation stands in the way of the American will: the exercise of power is the means of defeating a weak, obstructionist nation.
BTW, I also want to congratulate Kevin Boyle, who was the graduate chair of history at UMass-Amherst when I was there, for winning the National Book Award.
Sunday, November 14, 2004
Imagining Provincial Iraq
Fred Kaplan and Juan Cole are debating whether some new subdivisions for Iraq will help to ease ethnic tension. They differ on whether there should be larger regions that encompass the major ethnic groups (between three and six territories) or smaller that better represent social and tribal structures (on the order of eighteen territories) respectively.
Prof. Cole comes up with a few reasons why smaller regions should be preferred over larger regions. First, the creation of a "Kurdistan" will cause tensions between the ethnic majority and the Christian and Turkmen minorities. Second, larger provinces are a prelude to partition, drawing boundaries that define the players in an eventual civil war. Third, smaller provinces have already been established: they have already proven to be a " bulwark against ethnic cleansing" and will help to stabilize the country as prosperity begets internal migration.
There is every good reason to keep the territorial structure as it is. It has a history of its own. The provinces themselves match up with existing social structures.
However, the preservation of the eighteen provinces does not preclude the creation of larger territories to encompass them. The eighteen can be maintained as administrative entities for the state while regional power is represented by larger regions. There can be a "congress of Sunni territories", and perhaps there should be. Regionalism works best when there are multiple levels to intermediate government, each of which is a different mixture of popular participation and state administration. Better to have eighteen provinces and five regions.
Furthermore, the preservation of eighteen provinces does not guarantee that forces that oppose the government will remain fragmented. The notion of ethnic regions, like Kurdistan, have already been imagined and, to some degree, operationalized. If the existing provinces don't appear to fulfill political ambitions and interests, people will fight for imagined regions in their stead
Thursday, November 4, 2004
Refining the Red/Blue Model
USA Today has this map of the electoral results according to county (via Red Ted and Outside the Beltway). Initially, I would say that Democrats are not only more urban, but that they are highly clustered within urban networks. There are a number of blue splotches, such as along the Mississippi, that defy state boundaries, probably indicating a large conurbation. One oddity: not one county in Oklahoma preferred Kerry--I thought Native Americans would have given him a significant vote.
Update: Crooked Timber has many more maps that show more variation and detail. The red/blue map is stark, but the others are useful as well.
Wednesday, November 3, 2004
Left and Center
I drove up to New Hampshire a few times to volunteer for the campaign in Keene. Once on the drive a church in Winchester had a sign that said, "Kerry voters, repent," in big red letters. I laughed: one reading was that if your vote for Kerry is somehow sinful, you can always find forgiveness (it was OK to vote your conscience). However, this subversive meaning was not the intent of the writer. The next time the sign had been taken down. The priest or minister must have been informed that the church would lose its tax-exempt status for its involvement in politics. At the time I felt I was robbed of a great photo.
The sign was typical of the preaching throughout the area leading up to yesterday's elections. There were rumors of sermons on "right voting" that were quickly dismissed. Such sermons in other areas may have been more motivating than we first believed. When this election is analyzed, historians will have to contend with how religious institutions inserted themselves in politics. The Democratic Party will have to contend with the loss of Catholics voters, despite running a Catholic candidate. Or because they ran a Catholic candidate.
It's no stretch to say that Catholics may have harshly judged one of their own. That was the fate of Wilhelm Marx, the Chancellor of Germany whom Hindenburg defeated for the Presidency in 1925. A Catholic from Cologne, Marx was regarded as a very pious man, and he should have received overwhelming support from German Catholics. However, nationalists attacked him for the coalition he formed between the Center and the SPD. Some priests, like von Galen (known as the "Lion of Muenster" for his opposition to Hitler), helped nationalists spread doubts about the coalition, spreading fears that the two parties were actually merging, and that the Center was going secular. The rhetoric against the coalition was successful, counteracting Marx's piety. Catholics voted in small numbers.
The loss of religious voters may have no end. Last election the Democrats ran two men who upped the publicness of their faith. Kerry seemed to exhibit enough faith that he might hold Catholics and Jews in place. It does not appear that Democrats can make inroads by appearing to be more spiritual. However, full secularism would only prove to some voters that the left is g-dless.
Tuesday, October 26, 2004
Are we Americans?
The Senator from Massachusetts has become so insulting in politics that one wonders whether the state is actually American. The Gadflyer's Paul Waldman examines how "Massachusetts" figures into the rhetoric of the presidential campaign, capturing some of the frustration that people are feeling out here (something Robert Reich noted months earlier) at the constant disparaging of the state. Will we soon question whether or not the Senate is American?
Update: Tom Toles cartoon from the Washington Post.
Saturday, October 23, 2004
Will the real W please stand up?
Two interesting sources deal with the abstractness of President Bush, his ideas and the idea of Bush himself. Mark Kaplan of Charlotte Street reads W into Joyce's description of Parnell:
The blankness of Bush, his emptyness, the absence of distinctive qualities... these are not to be thought of in contradiction to his status as 'leader'. On the contrary, they are essential components. Bush is nobody and everyone, a template that any American might fill. He can act as a cypher, a mouthpiece for other's voices (and this is of course given an uncannily literal twist).
On the more irreverent Fafblog, Medium Lobster concludes that Bush makes powerful use of ideas that transcend the limits of reality:
Any leader could have made the war on terror into a tedious, ongoing struggle to unearth and uproot a multi-tentacled terrorist organization while attempting to heal the rifts between the Muslim world and the West. But George Bush didn't just see the task: he saw the grand idea behind the task, and better still, the vague abstractions behind the grand idea. And he was willing to fight those vague abstractions. Terror, weapons of mass destruction - they may not have been really in Iraq, but the idea of them most certainly was. And that was an idea the world's only superpower had to confront with real troops...
Indeed, in time it may become possible that the distance between President Bush's ideas and his reality becomes so vast that he achieves pure abstraction - so that he himself is an idea, leading America not from the White House but from the Platonic Realm of Forms, where with but a thought he can eradicate the concept of Terror altogether. And that, my friends, is an idea worth standing for the concept of fighting for.
Friday, October 22, 2004
Ferguson
I hate to displace Hala’s excellent post from its deserved place at the top of the blog, but Niall Ferguson’s article in the Hoover Digest is a bit surprising. His recent re-examinations of empire have been enlightening. Now they may have crossed the lines of playful reassessment:
the alternative to a single superpower is not a multilateral utopia but the anarchic nightmare of a new Dark Age. … We tend to assume that power, like nature, abhors a vacuum. In the history of world politics, it seems, someone is always the hegemon or bidding to become it …
Anyone who dislikes U.S. hegemony should bear in mind that, rather than a multipolar world of competing great powers, a world with no hegemon at all may be the real alternative to U.S. primacy. Apolarity could turn out to mean an anarchic new Dark Age—an era of waning empires and religious fanaticism; of endemic plunder and pillage in the world’s forgotten regions; of economic stagnation and civilization’s retreat into a few fortified enclaves.
This article will take some time to digest. Initially, I am not convinced by Ferguson’s argument. He offers the world the choice between fragmentation and American hard power—the Bush doctrine is better than the alternative (perhaps I am overinterpreting). However, he (of all people) should realize that every hegemonic power must establish itself within its milieu, adjusting to new technologies, socio-political configurations and geo-political networks. The best empires use hard power sparingly.
Wednesday, October 20, 2004
Convivencia comes to an end
The hope that Muslims in Alsace would find some accommodation with school authorities has been dashed. Two girls have been expelled from two lycées in Mulhouse (southern Alsace) for wearing veils and bandanas as a sign of religious devotion, and two more cases are pending in Strasbourg (via Talk Left).
Alsace does not operate under the French secular laws that prohibit religion in public schools. There is a special regime that allows religion to be taught in Alsatian schools for Christian denominations and Judaism. Muslims in Alsace had hoped to use that fact to introduce Islamic education into public schools and to circumvent the headscarf that attains the rest of France. School officials in Strasbourg have been lenient applying the law concerning religious dress because of the special circumstances in the région. The headscarf issue is already contentious. These expulsions will bring into question religious education in Alsace, and probably the legality of regionalism in France as well. I guess it is back to France one and indivisible.
Update: The original law against the veil (loi de 15 mars) specified that religious attire was prohibited. The students attempted to meet the law half way, wearing bandanas as a means of keeping their heads covered in lieu of "Muslim veils". Education officials ruled that the bandanas had taken on religious significance because of their constant use and because they cover the entirety of the scalp. The ministry of education considers the bandanas to be an evolution of religious symbols.
Tuesday, October 19, 2004
A Cultural Mission to Civilize
Cliopatriarch Jonathan Dresner asked yesterday whether or not we should compare current American politics to fascism. I am usually cautious in this matter: it’s too easy to vilify a person or nation by identifying them with history’s greatest villains. However, historians might have to start using the “f” word more critically.
HDS Greenway wrote an article for Friday’s Boston Globe that compares the foreign and defense policies of the Bush administration with the eagerness of German nationalists to prove their ascendancy to the world:
One has to wonder if, among those discontented intellectuals of the Bush administration, there was not a similar impatience with America's "belle epoque," the decade of peace and plenty between the end of the Soviet Union and 9/11. Some of the Republicans close to Bush today called themselves "the Vulcans" after the Roman god of fire. Did they perceive a moral decay and a lack of imperial will in that brief, fin de siecle age of Bill Clinton, whom they despised? Did they perhaps see in the sloppy Clinton White House, culminating in the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the modern equivalent of an Oscar Wilde age waiting to be swept away by the harder values of the right?
Did the German plans for war in 1914 and the German dream of spreading Kultur to other nations by force have their echo a century later in America with the pre- 9/11 plans to invade Iraq in order to spread democracy and American Kultur to lesser breeds without the law? If so, then the assassination of the Austrian archduke in Sarajevo in 1914 and Sept. 11, 2001, provided both sets of narcissistic idealists with the crisis they needed to put their plans into action.
On the surface I would say that Greenway’s argument is a stretch. Certainly Bush believes in a version of democracy that is rooted in the “homeland”, and it is closer to German Kultur than French civilisation.
There are limits to how much democracy can be spread around the world. Tony Judt notes that democracies tend to make poor empires. The electoral process makes financing imperial projects difficult. Citizens of democracies tend to be uneasy about spreading democracy by means of empire (see the Barbarians in the Roman Senate or the Germans in the French Revolution’s National Assembly). Furthermore, American power is virtual: based on financial and political influence. Bush’s “homeland” democracy is a worse product for the world market: it is entwined with the peculiarities of rural American life, open spaces and fundamentalism. The democracy that the administration has exported has been abstract.
There are other comparisons that could be useful, such as the French Revolution. Matt Yglesias offers Putinization. However, I have my doubts that we should not talk about Fascism. Regardless of what version of American values will be distributed throughout the world, whether or not they are in conflict with Bush’s vision of democracy, they are the result of the will to remake the world–internally and externally. As Suskind quoted an administration aide over the weekend:
We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.Arrogance of will has no bounds. The determination to actualize American superiority resembles German imperial policies from the naval build-ups all the way to the Third Reich. (Of course, Germany was a better world power in virtuality than in actuality).
Is it too early to start talking about Fascism? Stay where you are, Jonathan, I am coming over to your side.
Tuesday, October 12, 2004
Electoral Maps
Having raised some questions about the relationship between history, geography and partisan support in the US last week, the same questions are being raised in Germany. Two German states, Saxony and Brandenburg, have seen a rise in support for Rechtextremismus–reactionary right political groups. The success of the DNP in recent elections raised the specter that fascism was on the rise in Germany. The social conditions appear to mimic those of the early 1930s: deindustrialization, poor economic growth, unemployment. German politicians feared that the same circumstances might lead to an oppressive turn in the country.
I don’t think that the Bundesrepublik will make the same mistake as Weimar. The major parties, where necessary, are forming coalitions with each other in order to shut out extremists (this would include communists as well as ultra-nationalists). In Cologne, the Christian Democrats even attempted a coalition with the Greens.
The truth is that Rechtextremismus has been limited to the eastern states of Germany–those that made up the former DDR. Recent elections in North Rhine-Westpahlia did not show growing support for fringe political parties. One NY Times report notes how a city in the Ruhr has resisted extremism, even as the residents question the leadership of the Social Democrats whom they have followed for decades. In parts of Germany where the Christian Democrats dominate, residents question its leadership. Support for the major parties is wavering, but most voters are looking to smaller parties that are not on the fringes: notably the Greens and the FDP. Together, these smaller parties are joining coalitions with larger parties in order to solidify the center of the political spectrum.
The appeal of Rechtextremismus appears to be limited to the children of the children of the people who came under Soviet domination. These “children of the myth” were not denazified in the same manner as West Germans. Instead, they were told that attaining communism solved the problems that caused Nazism; the content and psychology that led to Nazism were not dealt with. Current partisan divisions were formed by the failure of commemoration in one part of Germany versus another. Consequently, they have no problem expressing their political concerns with the fullest aggression.
Thursday, October 7, 2004
Only White People have Souls
As Atrios points out, the data from Pew that is used to track support for candidates on the basis of religious affiliation is unusually exclusive. It counts "white Protestants" and "white Catholics". It is not clear that anyone who does not qualify in these two categories is lumped into "secular". I usually don't complain about being represented in every depiction of America, but I say to Pew in a loud voice count my Judeo-Mexican arse!
Wednesday, October 6, 2004
So, we are still fighting the Civil War?
Glenn Smith at Blog of the President has this observation about partisan divisions on the basis of geography:
Even after four years of punditizing the blue state, red state phenom, it's been too little noticed the extent to which Republicans have revived the old Confederacy. Accurately, the fight is once again between the Blue and the Gray, not the blue and the red.
Little noticed? Perhaps not in the world of political activism, pundits have not played the your daddy was a slave-owner/yankee cracker cards. However, historians have noted how north/south divisions have perpetuated themselves by shifting into different fields of political conflict, from slavery to states' rights, labor relations, economic policies, foreign intervention, works programs, civil rights, internationalism ... until we get to our current division. (Being a Europeanist, my sense of American history is weak, so go easy on me.) And we use the legacy of slavery to draw critical (sometimes partisan) attention to Southern politics.
Calling the red states a revival of the Confederacy is a bit much--indeed, Southern Republicans advocate types of cultural unity that have no equivalent in American history (no one will like it when I say this, but it resembles the Jacobin instincts of French republicanism). Perhaps what is interesting is that the divisions between north and south have been politicized and that people are choosing where they live on the basis of their political identities. This view is further problematized when historians consider that civil rights, the most recent contentious debate about racial equality, was a debate within the Democratic Party as well as in the public sphere.
But this model does not explain everything. The most obvious thing is the redness of the Rocky Mountain region. Geitner Simmons is exploring the relations between the South and the West--he might have some explanation of the strength of the Republican Party in the West. I also think that both parties are thinking of ways of reaching across the north-south divide, looking for charismatic politicians that can capture the imagination of voters in hostile territories. On the left, John Edwards, Mary Landrieu and Wesley Clark are examples; on the right, Mitt Romney, Rudi Guiliani and Arnold Schwarzenegger. The "blue-gray" map, if one exists, may not last long as both parties cultivate charismatic politicians to carry their messages into partisan regions.
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
Another "Two Americas"?
Does Ferndinand Tonnies’ model of society—that there exists a division between Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft, community and society—still apply? Is there opposition between genuine communities that are close to the land and the universality of the metropolis?
Kevin Drum points to an article in the Austin American Statesman that examines the political dichotomy between the urban and rural worlds in the US. They analyze the results from presidential elections on a county-by-county basis. Their results show that counties are taking on distinct political identities, becoming either largely Republican or largely Democrat. More importantly, this analysis shows that rural areas are becoming more Republican while urban areas are becoming more Democrat: the population of Republican-dominated counties is significantly smaller than the population of Democrat-dominated counties.
The results are not surprising: stereotypes pretend that all the Homeland-loving Americans are rural Republicans, while all the Republic-loving Americans are urban Democrats. These stereotypes aren’t even American: in France and Germany, the religious right has been associated with peasantry while the liberal left clung to the urban intellectuals.
There are some problems with the survey: counties are not a good basis for comparison. They are not expressions of community per se, but units created by the states for their own administrative convenience. Furthermore, counties in America vary in size: Texas counties are Lilliputian, but California counties are larger (in both population and area) than other states. The problem is revealed in comparing Los Angeles County to neighboring Orange County. On the one hand, the article claims that Republicans still find the majority of their votes in Democrat-dominated LA County. On the other, Kevin Drum points out that Conservative powerhouse Orange County does not rank as one of the most Republican counties in the country.
To get back to the question that I originally posed, are the differences between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft still meaningful? There is a tidbit in the article that points in a different direction:
… since the late 1970s, Democrats and Republicans have been segregating, as people sift themselves into more politically homogeneous communities.
Mobility, rather than community, may be at the root of these political shifts.
Are people who are moving to rural areas more politically conservative? Is it possible that the choice of community is driven by political identity?
I must hold back on answering: the study does not give the data necessary to answer this. America is not divided into two distinct parts. John Friedmann (in Prospect of Cities (Minnesota, 2002)) points out that the urban/rural division has become meaningless. Between transportation and information, the two have become more alike. Cities have become less centralized, and towns have access to almost anything found in the city via warehouse stores and online shopping. So many middling types of communities have emerged that must be distinguished as well: planned communities, suburbs, edge cities, de-industrialized towns. Even though it is best to conduct business in the city, getting there has become a matter less of habitation than of transportation and technology. Are people who flee the city to the suburbs connected to the land and the community? Some social scientists suggest that the answer is a partial yes. Simply, the different milieu are overlapping one another, and it is difficult to distinguish between them.
I think that overlapping extends to the realm of politics as well. Republicans fundraise in New York City; Democrats search for legitimacy in the country. Blurring can even be represented in the two candidates. There is little distance between George Bush and John Kerry when you look at their origins. Bush—who presents himself as a man of the soil—is actually an urban refugee, an example of the flight from the cities. Kerry—who is painted as a cosmopolitan New Englander—is really a townie, a Bostonian whose worldview is highly localized (he claimed that Springfield, MA was out by the New York border--ha!). Both men carry Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft inside themselves.
Monday, September 20, 2004
March of Extremism
Fellow Cliopatriarch Oscar Chamberlain asked whether or not it is dangerous to humanize Hitler (with respect to the film Der Untergang). The film, however, may be evidence that Germans are becoming too comfortable with the ideas that Hitler represented, ideas which are making their way back into German politics.
The Neo-Nazis (Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands, or NPD) made the cut in the elections in Saxony, winning 9.2% of the vote and twelve seats in the Landtag. In some areas of Saxony the NPD gained 20%, outperforming the Gerhard Schroeder’s SPD. There is little chance that the NPD will conduct any business: all other parties have refused to work with them, and the majority Christian Democrats have spoken of a possible “grand coalition” with other political parties to shut out the NPD. However, the NPD will work with ultra-nationalist parties in other German states, notably the Deutsche Volksunion (DVU), which has six seats in Brandenburg’s Landtag.
It was expected that both NPD and DVU would do well. Radical parties on both right and left have profited from the controversies over social reforms (especially Hartz IV), unemployment and the poor economic conditions that have overtaken German politics. The NPD has had victories in other fronts this year: a Bavaria court overturned an injunction against their commemoration of Rudolf Hess in Wunsiedel.
Wednesday, September 15, 2004
Outsourcing from the local perspective
Does it matter how we conceptualize globalization and its sorrows? Despite daily reports about low-tech jobs going to China and southeast Asia and hi-tech jobs going to India, globalization as an issue lacks valency--it moves the American public to anger, but not to action. There appear to be too many benefits to globalization that cannot be dismissed--is it not better to adapt as the benefits will come someday?
America is not the only nation that feels the pain of globalization. In France, offices and factories close up and move east, some to China and India, others to Eastern Europe and Morocco. This issue, however, has become more volatile in daily political discourse, and the French government has been compelled to act more quickly. Economic minister Nicolas Sarkozy and an inter-ministerial committee announced an 750 million euro investment plan to create "poles of competitiveness":
These poles, technological or industrial, are associated with enterprise, centers of education and research organizations that are synergistic.
In essence, rather than throwing money at the social problem in a general sense, the committee also defined the problem in term defining the relationship between industry and local resources. I believe that this proposal draws from the model of the European Spatial Development Perspective, which promotes creating access to the European market (and by extension, the global economy).
How the French public conceptualizes globalization may reveal why action was taken so quickly. Indeed, the problem of globalization is not as pressing as the public fears: it is estimated that about 5%-6% of jobs lost were due to globalization. What concerns the public is délocalisation--the flight of industry and employment from the local and the privation that it causes by displacing the local from the global. Job creation is insufficient if it requires people to relocate (especially to large cities where cheap housing is in short supply), if it disturbs the balance between urban and rural sectors, or if it disturbs the local culture. It's one thing to fear losing one's job if another may be around the corner; it is another to say that one's hometown will lose access to any future economic boom.
Leshanah tovah tikateivu v'tikhateimu.
Monday, September 13, 2004
Mulling over Frontier Theories
Geitner Simmons of Regions of Mind notes an interesting question about how and why the American West was settled.
A professor posed an interesting query to the H-West listserv last week:
I lectured Tuesday about westward expansion in the post-Civil War era. I read a quote from Horace Greeley urging New York's poor to take a farm in the West and "crowd nobody, starve nobody." Then I opened it up for questions.
A student pointed out that at many times in history, ruling elites have used frontiers or distant edges of the empire as a convenient dumping ground for unwanted minorities or disagreeable elements of society.
Her question: can we see the Homestead Act of 1862 and its promotion in the post-Civil War period as an effort by Northeastern elites to offload what they saw as unwanted human rubbish onto the West? In other words, as a cynical political move rather than solely as government acting to fulfill the Free Labor dream? Can it be flipped on its head to be seen as an effort in negative social engineering (remove the awful) rather than positive social engineering (accentuate the good)?
The equation of frontier settlers and the unwanted seems to hold up quite well in comparative history. In European history, the question of who left to populate new continents is familiar. In the eighteenth century Britain transported unwanted and undesirable elements (especially criminals) to the American colonies and, when that option was closed by American Independence, to Australia. The missionaries of eighteenth-century California were likely a mix of untalented, restless and troubled monks who inflicted their frustrations on natives. In the nineteenth century France turned its colonies into a repository of criminals who might return to the metropole one day.
There are a few problems with this theory. Mr. Simmons points out that while this argument has some strengths, people who populated the American West required some means to do so. They were not simply the “dregs of society”–the poor and landless could not always migrate at will:
Those who migrated to the Plains, California, and the Pacific Northwest in the mid-nineteenth century were not urban poor, but primarily middling farmers who were struggling to support their families on midwestern farms.
Those living on the most marginal farms, or who were working as laborers on farms or in cities did not have sufficient capital to move their families hundreds or thousands of miles to start over on far western frontiers, even if they were offered free land.
Still, we must admit that migration attracted some people who were down on their luck.
But I also think that this question must be asked: did governments really want to deposit the unwanted on their frontiers and peripheries?
I am very skeptical of a positive answer. Frontiers and peripheries are not empty space–indeed, they could have native populations. They are also places where the reach of government is weak, and where challenges to authority over the frontier abound.
I see two basic problems. First, administering far off territories is laborious. States cannot police them and they cannot provide services without difficulty. States tend to fear that frontiers will turn into ‘badlands’–like the Wild West or China’s Muslim provinces. Second, frontiers border other nations who are themselves trying to secure their territory and who might have a claim on the frontier as well. Again, China’s frontier is being drawn into the politics of the “stans”–the Muslims republics that splintered off from the Soviet Union.
Why would states want to encourage people they consider unreliable to migrate to places that were difficult to control? The threat to the state is that the settler population will become unstable, drawing the state into an international conflict that might result in territorial loss. The federal government believed that its hold on the Louisiana territory was threatened by Louisiana’s complex racial mixture and the liberties of free blacks. Furthermore, there was concern that Spain would try to use ethnic tensions to destabilize Louisiana, thus gaining control over it. Currently, I am writing about German political exiles who wanted to settle in Alsace in the 1920s. The French government feared that these exiles would incite ethnic conflict that would give Germany a claim on the eastern départements.
Policies on settlement had to take into account strategic concerns. Consequently, states wanted stable, reliable populations that consisted of loyal, upright citizens. Governors tried to prevent former slaves and refugees (especially those from the Carribean) from coming to Louisiana. When Bismarck annexed territories in Africa and the Pacific as German colonies, he dreamed that entrepreneurs would lead the way to settlement.
All these go to questions of how states control territory. At some point states cannot continue to use force in order maintain their integrity. They rely on citizens to maintain the legitimacy of the state’s presence and to maintain security. If the state must rescue its citizens, it must do so with overwhelming force. The old situation cannot be restored: the needs of the settlers must be met fully. Such was the case with Bacon’s Rebellion and the Herero War. Ariel Sharon has been pondering these issues as well: whether or not the Israeli settlement in Gaza and the West Bank are legitimate, they can be maintained only at great cost to Israel. Defending the settlements may be too expensive.
Ultimately, peripheries and frontiers are not impoverished places that vacuum up the destitute. Indeed, cities on the periphery can be quite prosperous. They are ports of entry for goods and ideas into the nation. They are also places where people can benefit from cross-border relationships. If states fear that far off territories will become ‘badlands’, they also struggle with peripheries that become independent through their affluence.
Thursday, September 9, 2004
Thank You, General
US Secretary of State Colin Powell on Thursday classified the atrocities in Sudan's troubled Darfur region as genocide and called on the United Nations to launch a thorough probe into one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.
Powell told a Senate hearing that evidence compiled by the United States "concluded that genocide has been committed in Darfur and the government of Sudan and the Janjaweed bear responsibility, and that genocide may still be occurring." ...
Powell said the United States "will propose that the next UN Security Council Resolution on Sudan request a UN investigation into all violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law that have occurred in Darfur, with a view to ensuring accountability."
Darfur will have a better end than Rwanda ten years ago. In Rwanda, the nations of the world balked at calling the killings a "genocide" because it would compel them to stop it. Now that the most powerful nation in the UN has recognized the genocide in Darfur, other nations and international organizations will be forced to do the same. Considering the current political weakness of the US State Department in US politics and international affairs, this is a personal triumph for Colin Powell. Thank you ... you have done a tremendous service for humanity.
Wednesday, September 1, 2004
Austrian Guilt
Often I cringe whenever politicians try to draw lessons from history. More often than not they prove they are bad historians (or people with bad memories). Such was the case with California Governor Schwarzenegger's speech at the RNC last night:
When I was a boy, the Soviets occupied part of Austria. I saw their tanks in the streets. I saw communism with my own eyes. I remember the fear we had when we had to cross into the Soviet sector. Growing up, we were told, "Don't look the soldiers in the eye. Look straight ahead." It was a common belief that Soviet soldiers could take a man out of his own car and ship him off to the Soviet Union as slave labor.
Matt Yglesias has already written quite a job dissecting the governor's speech (some criticism I agree with, some I do not). However, Schwarzenegger should have thought his speech through more carefully, especially with respect to the issue of the Red Army.
The occupation was a frightening time for Austrians. As a people they were complicit in Germany's war. Indeed, they showed more enthusiasm for some of the worst crimes of the Nazi regime than other Reichsdeutschtum. When the Red Army advanced on Eastern and Central Europe, Austrians (like other Germans) developed an irrational hatred of Russians. They developed fantasies about the persistence of the Russian mob and the crimes they would commit against Germans. The Mühlviertler Hasenjagd reveals the depths that the hatred of Austrians could reach: a village slaughtered a group of Russian POWs who escaped from Mauthausen. Austrians did not dread Russians in the same manner that Americans had; their emotions had monstrous roots.
There is no benign occupation, no foreign army whose presence does not elicit feelings of powerlessness and shame. There were places where the Red Army committed crimes of war. However, the fear that the governor spoke of was, in part, a carryover of the war that Austrians helped to fight. Governor Schwarzenegger was young: he grew up in a generation who described themselves as the “first victims of Nazism.” The truth is more sinister, and it has been difficult to accept.
Tuesday, August 31, 2004
Around the Horn
Some interesting things from around the blog-o-sphere:
- Lusophonic blogger Nuno Guerreiro of Rua da Judiaria has an excellent post explaining Jewish theological views on abortion (I usually explain to people that abortion has the same gravitas as amputating an arm.) Nuno stresses that abortion is mandated by Jewish law (halacha) in some cases. Here is the Googlized translation.
- Take a look at the survey of US Dialects. It looks at the different things Americans say and how they pronounce them. I had fun looking at those things that are clearly "New Englandisms"--things like tag sales and cabinets. Kudos to those who figure out where people say "whipping sh!tties".(Reference at Far Outliers.)
- Geitner Simmons of Regions of Mind has two posts on controversial depictions of African Americans. They deal with Griffith's Birth of the Nation and Porgy and Bess. The first was protested by NAACP for its heroic depiction of the Klu Klux Klan (James Card, in Seductive Cinema, quotes a rabbi who felt ashamed for having cheered on the Clansmen.) The second was protested because it "glorified the worst in black folk and urban street culture."
- Writer Shane Maloney gave an interesting speech to the students of Scotch College. Here is one gem: "It is not your fault, after all, that your families decided to institutionalise you." (Reference at Barista.)
Sunday, August 29, 2004
Myths of Alta California
I spent several days in California visiting my parents. They no longer live in Los Angeles, moving to one of the interior valleys about a decade ago. This was the first time I had been in California and did not visit LA–--it was no longer my home. And as Goa Xingjian says, it is impossible in a city for any place to belong exclusively to one person. Still, I was a tourist in the place of my birth.
The Temecula Valley, where they live now, has undergone immense change in a short time. It is high desert nestled between tall mountains. The climate is generally dry, and trees are precious. Initially, there were numerous orange groves; to the south there are avocado groves. There is also a small wine country with a dozen and a half vineyards. Every time I visit I am impressed by the progress made by the winemakers
The landscape is a piece of the Mexican desert pushing into California. In fact, there are a number of strong, long-standing Mexican-American communities. It is possible to see a long distance from almost anywhere within the valley. My Connecticut-born wife thinks it is picturesque, but not quite hospitable.
This area has come under pressure as new housing developments are raised and new people move in. A few orange groves have disappeared. Cookie-cutter houses obscure the original buildings that were appropriately weathered. The new residents commute to far off San Diego and Orange Country ... and to LA in some cases. They don’t understand the Mexican Americans who live in the area.
Being a tourist at home allowed me to do tourist things that I would not have done before. One thing I wanted to do was explore Spanish Colonial influence. Local myth in New England is intimately entwined with the founding history of America: people tend to see all American history originating from them. I was happy to show my wife the history and myths of old California with which I was raised.
The myth, of course, is that of Catholic missions and Father Junipero Serra: a Franciscan who was sent to establish a firm Spanish presence in Alta California against the encroachment of British and Russian traders and to Catholicize the natives. The mission were outposts whereat Europeans and natives coexisted. They were the basis for the settlement of California. The pastoral image of monks and natives living together in harmony persists today. The reality was that the mission system, while growing, was fragile, and the religious goals of the missionaries conflicted with the goals of the crown, which wanted to turn natives into Spanish citizens. To this end, the state founded towns: there were parallel policies that led to the settlement (in the European sense) of California.
We drove out to two missions, San Juan Capistrano and San Luis Rey (a beautiful drive over the mountains). Each mission left me with a different impression. San Juan Capistrano completely fit its romantic image. The mission is right in the middle of the city, surrounded by streets that run parallel to the walls. Large parts of the structure have been not been rebuilt, giving that classic look of a ruin. The large church has been left completely open to the elements, its roof having collapsed in an earthquake. The gardens are filled with colorful plants; there are running fountains. Numerous artists paint the famed bells. Parts of the mission dedicated to artisanship are open and thoroughly explained. There is even a little display showing the piano whereat “When the swallows return to Capistrano” was composed. So close to the street, the mission is more of a park than an historical site–a respite from urban life among romantic surroundings.
San Luis Rey has been restored. The damage that it experienced has been repaired, and it appears to be more functional. The mission is painted in a stark white, and stunning site as it is some distance from its city. One of the last missions that was built, it was meant to look more like a baroque Spanish church. Details that would normally have been created with wood carving, stained glass and marbled stone were painted in. Imported statues of religious figures were evocative and emotional. The museum was well organized, showing the articles of daily and religious life. Most of these came from Spain, although some were produced in Mexico and (in rare cases) locally.
Despite its restoration, San Luis Rey probably did more to recreate the impression of a mission against the Southern California landscape: a stark white edifice against high mountains, surrounded by land affected by drought. I was transfixed by two photographs that showed the conditions of both mission in the mid-nineteenth century. Not only were they in need of repair, but the landscape was desolate. Time has given richer flora to both San Juan Capistrano and San Luis Rey (thanks to the likes of William Mulholland). However, the former looks like a piece of paradise in a hectic world. The former reveals more of the imposing presence of the Church when it was first built, something that could have been alien and unfamiliar. Furthermore, San Juan Capistrano gave the impression that the missions were self-sufficient because of the centrality of displays of artisanship, a notion betrayed by San Luis Rey.
Friday, August 27, 2004
Withering Nations
Several conflicts over separatism have heated up in the last few months. The integration of Georgia after the overthrow of Shevardnadze has slowed down, and much of the problem concerns the support given by Moscow to Russians in Georgia (as well as elsewhere in the former Soviet republics). Bolivia is being torn apart by two groups with strong ethnic identities that are aimed at each other. In India, the far west and far east have continued to experience violence as various movements try to diminish the influence of New Dehli in their affairs, although people have questioned whether or not it would be better to negotiate with the national government.
Chechnya is the most prominent secessionist movement in Russia, but separatism is rife in several former Soviet republics. Georgia is the most obvious case. There are two "break-away regions": South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The political movements in both regions are pro-Russian, preferring to join the federation rather than remain part of Georgia. Exacerbating the problem is the fact that new president Saakashvili came to power (displacing Shevardnadze) with the support of groups who favored less centralized government. He has since integrated many movements into a nationalist agenda, but these regions persist in their resistance.
Russia has been meddling in the relations between Georgia's national government and the regions. Moscow wants to protect its economic interests in oil from the Caspian Sea (especially from American companies). They have supported the separatists in Georgia, allowing them to persist on corruption. An article in the economists claims that these movements are largely smuggling rings--they lack legitimacy:
... Russian-backed statelets at the heart of these disputes have something in common: they have no legal existence, and can easily serve as a free-for all for illegal activity of every kind.
In general, Moscow has used enclaves of Russians abroad to influence the politics of the former Soviet Republics--their own pawns that advocate for Russian foreign policy from within domestic policy.
Bolivia is being riven apart by two different forces. One is an Indianist movement, Aymara, composed of natives who live in the highlands. The movement grew out of failed peasants' movements from the 1960s and 70s, grafting to their philosophy pride in indigenous identity as a means of enforcing political cohesion. They would recreate the "Andean system" that existed under the Inca Empire, creating a state out of regions from Bolivia and other nations and living according to Andean political culture (as they have memorialized it). Their ascent in Bolivia has made Indianists influential with the national government.
The other force is the more prosperous lowlands in the east in the city of Santa Cruz. Talk of secession reflects the frustration that people feel concerning the direction of Bolivia as Aymara politicians gain influence. They fear that if indigenous parties take over the government, that they will heavily interfere with the economy and industry of Santa Cruz. Decentralization--perhaps autonomy--is seen as a solution that would isolate the "Cruceños" from Aymara. This side also tends to express its frustration in racist terms: people go to great lengths to point out that they are not Indians. Furthermore, a minority would have the constitution recognize that they are a distinct minority group--the Cambas--with rights on par with indigenous peoples.
The edges of India have always been a problem. Indeed, the new prime minister comes from a region (Gujarat) that has been marked by inter-ethnic violence. Kashmir has been a continual problem, but now that Pakistan and India have started to negotiate over the status of Kashmir, the internal separatist movements have begun to fight amongst each other. Several months ago, a man was killed while at prays: he was the cousin of a separatist politician who believed that the movement should try to inject itself into talks between India and Pakistan. Now, those who oppose negotiation have formed their own political party, shutting out moderate voices.
In the east. fragmentation has been a continual process ever since the dissolution of Assam into numerous tribe-based states. (In Siddhartha Deb's Point of Return the fragmentation of Assam is an important narrative device in showing the disappointment of a generation of Indian nationalists. I highly recommend the novel.) Despite recent violence, there is evidence that eastern Indians have tired of fighting.
For the most part, these separatist movements are driven by some form of ethnic nationalism, making a negotiated solution with the national governments difficult. Some would not be satisfied with any arrangement that kept their regions under governments ruled by other ethnic/national groups. Bolivia might be the most interesting case because it involves warring ethnic groups who could take large parts of the nation with them. On the other hand, the two Bolivian movements situate themselves differently, the Aymara groups seeing themselves as part of a larger movement in South America, the Cruceños as a defensive reaction to the former.
[Added on edit:] Fellow Cliopatriot Manan Ahmed notes the case of Baluchistan (Pakistan) in the comments:
Most of the region never fully integrated into the State and with the continuous military offensive of the past 4 months, is really starting to show troubling signs of native unrest against the military and Pakistani government. The mode, again, is ethnic and lingual solidarity of the people and a counter-nationalist narrative.(Also on Pakistan, it is interesting to note how the geo-political composition slowi down the hunt for al Qaeda and bin Laden. Many areas are not completely held by the Musharraf, and Islamabad cannot exert force into these areas without disturbing the fragile balance between central government and provinces.)
Wednesday, August 18, 2004
Two Notes from Africa
On the heavier side, a new war in Central Africa may break out.
On August 13, a group of Hutu rebels attacked a refugee camp in Burundi, killing 160 Banyamulenge refugees (Congolese of Rwandan and Burundi descent, most of whom have been identified as Tutsi) at the Gutamba Refugee Camp. It is believed that the rebels came from Democratic Republic of Congo.
The presence of Hutu rebels–genocidaires responsible for the 1994 Rwandan Genocide–and the support that they have received from Kinshasa for almost a decade has been a major concern for Rwanda and Burundi. The genocidaires continued to attack Tutsi in the two Kivu provinces and in Ituri, and they transmitted their racial hatred to other Congolese groups. (This report describes the regional connections between the Kivus, Rwanda and Burundi). Twice Rwanda and Burundi invaded Zaire/Congo in order to protect ethnic Tutsi.
There have been only brief intermissions in violence in eastern Congo since the ceasefire. Violence continued at the lower levels, below what the states considered the legitimate subjects for diplomacy. Nevertheless, they have been carried out by armed militia groups, some composed of demobilized soldiers. Stephan van Praet of Human Rights Watch says that the peace talks don't address the issue of justice at low levels, thus perpetuating the "cycle of impunity."
Diplomats from the two small Great Lakes nations have lost all their faith in the ongoing negotiations with Kinshasa.
"The process has broken down and we need to repair this break down," Azarius Ruberwa, the head of RCD and one of Congo's four vice presidents, told United Nations radio.Furthermore, politicians from both Rwanda and Burundi have suggested that they are thinking of another war:
"We need to stop, re-read the (peace) agreement and the conclusions of the negotiations because it is incomprehensible that, during a peace process, genocide of Congolese people takes place abroad," he said.
"I have not ruled out an offensive against the DRC aimed at making them respect our country's borders," General Germain Niyoyankana told reporters.Laurent Nkunda, a renegade Congolese commander, has also made threats:
"I am not attacking now ... I will be here in Goma mourning for a few days. By then hopefully the people of good faith will have taken the appropriate decisions ... This won't happen again."The previous fighting was significant because it expanded to include states beyond those on the Great Lakes, most notably Angola and Zimbabwe, as the different states started to fight for mineral interests in the Kivus.
-----
On the lighter side, the last few episodes of Amazing Race 5 (taking place in Egypt and Tanzinia) have been touching. Most competitors scream at natives to do things for them--as if volume can overcome the language gap. Trying to win the show, they become ugly Americans--more than they might naturally be.
The married couple Chip and Kim (who grew up in South Central LA) have been moved being in Africa. They look around and think about the roots that they have in Africa. But more surprisingly, they actually stopped just to enjoy a moment of hospitality in a Tanzinian village.
Tuesday, August 17, 2004
Memory in the Shadows of Diplomacy
This weekend, France commemorated the Allied landing in Provence in August 1944. Dick Cheney was invited, but did not attend. Of course, he can be excused because he is campaigning hard for his reelection. Tony Blair was invited, but did not attend. It is more difficult to excuse him: Blair is on vacation (something that Le Monde has noticed), and he made an appearance at the opening ceremonies at the Athens Olympic Games. It was, nevertheless, a remarkable event. Jacques Chirac, speaking before veterans and heads of state from African nations, recognized the sacrifices that French colonial subjects made for liberation and for the fight against Fascism in general. He even awarded the Legion of Honor to the city of Algiers, which he called “the capital of fighting France (France combattant).” (The reports from French television are here–you can access the video on the right sidebar.)
Recognition of Africa’s role in both World Wars has been growing. Several books have been written about the African dimensions of European wars. Senegalese soldiers served on the front lines as shock troops (literally to frighten Germans with their blackness) in the First World War. French colonies were a refuge for politicians as well as a source of soldiers in the Second World War. After the war native leaders in the colonies (like Senghor) expected that Africans would be awarded individual rights (as citizens) and territorial rights (full representation in the legislature). The subsequent disappointment encouraged Africans to find other alternatives to France.
While the African contribution to France is being remembered, the Americans are ignoring the same memorials, forgetting in the process. Americans are not aware of memorials like this that are taking place. French newspapers and television news are rife with stories that document the progress of the Allies sixty years ago as well as the private and public memorials that are taking place. [Aside: These popular histories have become a guilty pleasure of mine: every week the Wednesday edition of Dernières Nouvelles D’Alsace has at least two articles dealing with WWII and the deliverance of Alsace.] Unfortunately, the rhetoric of the last two years has created a rift within which the feelings and thoughts of Frenchmen and Frenchwomen are lost. Most Americans may believe that France is ungrateful for its liberation sixty years ago. Furthermore Americans remain unaware of the contribution of French institution–in this case the colonies–in continuing the fight after occupation.
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