Introduction

In 1965, India and Pakistan fought a four-day war over a patch of salty, barren territory
populated by greater numbers of wild asses than men. In the historiography of modern South
Asia, that war has been left largely untouched. India and Pakistan have fought longer, blooding
wars over relatively more hospitable bits of territory (as well as a glacier). Those wars—in
Kashmir, in Bengal, in Punjab—have received the bulk of historians’ attention (Gupta 1969;
Grover and Arora 1998; Raghavan 2013).

Despite this historiographic neglect, the 1965 war in the Rann of Kutch was no mere
skirmish. It was the penultimate event in a centuries-long dispute that demonstrates how the
interaction of sovereignty with the natural world has been transformed as the world’s dominant
regimes have moved from kingdoms and empires to the modern nation-state (Scott 1998;
Cederlöf 2013; Gardner 2021). That the long-running dispute over the Rann concerned a strip of
land regarded by many visitors and administrators as an interminable waste, neither land nor sea,
makes its example deeply relevant to a world in which the boundaries between those two realms
are increasingly blurry (Young 1839; Krishnamurthy Rao 1965; Lagergren, Entezam, and Bebler
1968).

This thesis traces the history and evolution of the Rann of Kutch dispute over more than
200 years. The dispute traces its genealogy to early modern battles between Sindh and Kutch, the
two political territories adjoining the Rann (Lagergren, Entezam, and Bebler 1968). Their animus
was transformed by the bureaucratic apparatus of the British Raj into a decades-long exchange of
maps and memoranda between Sindh and Kutch over where the jurisdictional divide between them lay. The dispute was finally concluded when India and Pakistan, after both diplomacy and war had failed them, accepted an international tribunal’s verdict on the position of the border in
1968 (Khan 1998; Singh 1998).

This paper was prompted by a conundrum: why would India and Pakistan go to war over
a tract of desolate wasteland? Working through archival sources, legal arguments, and a diverse
array of cartographic evidence, I offer an argument in two parts that forms the core of this paper.
First, I contend that the Rann of Kutch dispute endured because the modern nation-state
demands the transformation of fuzzy pre-modern boundaries into hard borders satisfying the
nation-state’s requirement of a well-defined territory (Elden 2013). The final period of the
dispute, which involved contestation between India and Pakistan, was driven by the need of both
to completely constitute themselves as sovereign states.

Second, I argue that border-making was frustrated in the Rann by its amphibious, barren
condition. Border-making, which relied on evidence of state presence, could not be carried out in
the Rann. The tract, with its sparse and transient population, lacked clear and uncontested
evidence of state-imposed taxation, violence, or administrative jurisdictions (Frere 1870;
Lagergren, Entezam, and Bebler 1968; Ibrahim 2004). India, Pakistan, and their predecessors
attempted to escape this problem by imposing a cartographic and bureaucratically-defined reality
on this complex ecological system, reifying it into categories that could be operated on by
border-making practices. The attributes of the Rann that challenged attempts to extend
sovereignty over its alien landscape presage the problems states will be forced to confront as
they strive to preserve the tokens of sovereignty in an increasingly environmentally volatile
world.

My arguments take as their starting point a landmark piece of international arbitration from the 1960s, the award of the Indo-Pakistan Western Boundary Case Tribunal. I intersect the arguments and claims made in that case with a diverse array of cartographic and qualitative evidence that makes the conceptual visualization of the Rann possible. In combining these disparate kinds of sources, I find that the dispute over the Rann, which was motivated by the most fundamental needs of the nation-state, proceeded inevitably from the environmental confusion that the Rann produces.

I arrive at this conclusion by bringing together legal claim-making, a strong proxy for the
state’s understanding of its own rules and authority, with cartographic depictions. The process of
doing so required the analysis of an archive previously only considered for the tribunal I
reference above, which traces the shifting representations of the Rann over two centuries through
its cartographic and bureaucratic records. In the next section of this introduction, I lay out the
specificities of this singular place to help shape an understanding of what, perhaps, the Rann of
Kutch is, and why it has posed such a challenge to the modern state.

Setting

The Rann of Kutch encompasses two connected but differentiable ecological systems.
The Little Rann of Kutch, a salt flat covering 2,000 square miles, is located entirely within the
Indian state of Gujarat. The Great Rann of Kutch, a salt flat covering 7,500 square miles,
transgresses the India-Pakistan border. The lion’s share, 90%, is in Gujarat. The remaining 10%
lies in the Pakistani state of Sindh (Lagergren, Entezam, and Bebler 1968; Raikar 2023). The
Great Rann shares the Kachchh Rift Basin, a seismically active former seafloor, with the Kutch
Peninsula, which bounds it on the south, and with the Little Rann, which bounds it on the
southeast (Sorkhabi 2014; Thakkar and Kar 2017; Chauhan et al. 2021).

This paper is concerned exclusively with territorial disputes in the Great Rann. While disputes over the Little Rann were cited during the arbitration of the Rann of Kutch dispute, Pakistan and India never contested control of the Little Rann (Lagergren, Entezam, and Bebler 1968). Whenever I refer to “the Rann” in this account, I am referring to the Great Rann.

The Rann is a flooded grassland biome covered mostly by sabkhas, alluvial salt, and mud
flats(Glennie and Evans 1976; Olson et al. 2001). On account of its extreme salinity and seasonal
inundation it is often described as a salt marsh. The salt flats are most expansive in the central
and western Rann, often called the “white desert” in contemporary travel stories (Springer 2018;
Patel 2021). The flat terrain is intermittently interrupted by bets or dhools, upraised “islands”
where pasture and occasionally freshwater may be found (Burnes 1829; 1834; Lagergren,
Entezam, and Bebler 1968). Four large bets cross the southern Rann from west to east: Pachham,
Khadir, Beyla, and Chorar. A chain of small bets runs north from Pachham to the part of Sindh
called Pirol Valo Kun.

Every year, during the monsoon, the Rann is inundated by rainfall, inflow from rivers,
and, in places, seawater (Glennie and Evans 1976; Lagergren, Entezam, and Bebler 1968)3. The
waters, which may be a foot or more deep, are shallower at the center of the Rann and deeper at
the edges (Frere 1870). The largest river flowing into the Rann is the brackish Luni, which
evaporates in the northeastern Rann after picking up salt and silt in the Thar Desert, which is also
the Rann’s northern border.

One genre of descriptions of the Rann focuses on its aridity and salinity, calling it a “barren waste, sandy desert, vast salt flats, salt desert, salt waste, salt impregnated alluvial tract.” But the Rann, inundated for a large chunk of the year, is not a typical salt pan. A second genre calls the Rann a seabed, inland sea, lake, or gulf, emphasizing its aquatic qualities. Unlike any of these features, though, the Rann is arid for most of the year. A final genre characterizes the Rann as amphibious: “swamp, marsh, morass, salt marsh, salt water waste, mud and sand, marsh of alluvium.” This category is closest to capturing the extreme duality of the Rann, but even then, the Rann lacks the clusters of low-lying vegetation typical of salt marshes (Tremenheere 1867; Frere 1870; Lagergren, Entezam, and Bebler 1968). It is, as the British adventurer Alexander Burnes said, “a tract without a counterpart in the globe.”

Theory: Borders and Barriers

My argument for the close and intricate relationship between the state and its borders is
founded on an expansive literature dealing with the emergence of the modern nation-state and its
territory. In The Art of Not Being Governed, Scott writes that:

“State power, in this conception [of the nation-state as the standard and nearly exclusive
unit of sovereignty], is the state’s monopoly of coercive force that must, in principle, be
fully projected to the very edge of its territory, where it meets, again in principle, another
sovereign power projecting its command to its own adjacent frontier. Gone, in principle,
are the large areas of no sovereignty or mutually canceling weak sovereignties” (Scott
2009).

The period I study, from the 18th century into the late 20th, nearly traces the global transition
from empires and kingdoms to nation-states. During this period, the overlapping legal and
territorial landscapes associated with empire—characterized by a plurality of asymmetric
relations between the sovereign and the governed—were replaced by relationships between the
governed and the state that were defined in terms of an impersonal, not personal, sovereign state.
That state was necessarily defined by its group (national) identity and its borders, which marked
the limits of its territorial control. Elden describes the conception of territory that was born out of
this transition into modernity as “a bounded space under the control of a group of people, usually
a state” (Elden 2013).

The conception of sovereignty, specifically territorial sovereignty, articulated by Scott
and Elden has manifested itself repeatedly in South Asia. During the colonial period, the East
India Company and the British Raj both created the conditions for the rise of the modern
nation-state, in their attempts to define the boundaries of their rule, and permitted the persistence
of older forms of overlapping territorial and popular sovereignty (Cederlöf 2013; Chatterjee
2020). A close analogue to my work is Gardner’s research on Ladakh, which traces the uneven
march of a border across the Ladakh-Tibet frontier from the late 19th century through the 20th.
Gardner argues in The Frontier Complex that:

“The colonial state’s use of geography became intimately tied to the particular demands of
security and to the general process of making legible political territory. This increasingly
close relationship between geography and the state reveals a major spatial reorientation of
the modern period: a geopolitical vision that conceived of the world as a set of
coterminous territories tied to, and dependent upon, geographical features. While the
British Empire would ultimately fail to define its territorial borders in the northwestern
Himalaya, it bequeathed to its successor nation-states a conception of political space that
made borders objects of existential significance” (Gardner 2021).

Gardner’s exhaustive analysis of border-making in Ladakh, and the tension between the
ambiguities permitted under empire and the imperatives of postcolonial nation-states, maps
closely to the process I describe in Kutch in this essay.

As in Ladakh, India and Pakistan found themselves the unhappy possessors of a
territorially ambiguous situation in one of the least hospitable places in the world. From the
British Raj into the post-independence period, all parties attempted to use the tools of geographic
sciences to transfer the uncertain volatility of the Rann into forms of representation and data that could be understood and interpreted by the state. But even as British imperium and imperial science sought to make the Rann legible, the Rann frustrated their efforts through the simple fact of its environmental volatility. As was true in other shifting landscapes, like the delta of Bengal, it could not be easily categorized by the systems of territorial control to which the Raj or its successor states would be accustomed, and any attempt to reify the ecological system and place through maps, reports, or surveys was at odds with its shifting complexity (Bhattacharyya 2018; Dewan 2021).

This is not to say that the colonial project in the Rann was fully intentional. As Cederlöf
notes, “There is a tendency at times to ascribe far more coherence of interest and institutions to a
state in its daily practice than can be justified” (Cederlöf 2013). Rather, the everyday attempts by
agents of the Raj and of the precolonial kingdoms they succeeded to govern the Rann would be
ultimately interpreted by India and Pakistan as attempts at imposing governance on an
ungovernable place, largely by creating a vision of its reality that fit neatly on a map but did not
necessarily fit neatly onto the ground. As Cederlöf outlines in 18th century Bengal, well into the
19th century, out of a combination of the permissiveness of empire and technological limitations
to the assertion of control, a boundary in the Rann could be “a set of points… marking out
territorial claims meant fortifying strategic strongholds such as heights or rivers bifurcations, or
exercising authority by taxing market places” (Cederlöf 2013). My research demonstrates how,
as they grew increasingly uneasy with their frictional frontier, the component parts of the Raj as
well as the Raj’s postcolonial successor states clung to such points and markers of authority in
order to achieve broader control over an uncontrollable place.

While the purposes for which borders were sought in the Rann were complex and multi-layered, they came over time, even during the Raj, to be regarded as essential to the functioning of the imperial components adjacent to the tract. Neither Sindh nor Kutch, nor Pakistan and India after them, could permanently tolerate a wide, liminal boundary between them. In pursuit of a border, “geographical science was employed to determine territory by attempting to rationalize and standardize boundary-making principles and practices… the resulting frontiers and borders were simultaneously physical spaces and spatial ideals that reflected a host of aspirations and anxieties of the state” (Gardner 2021).

The following thesis brings together a host of archival sources and materials to show that the process of border-making and the anxieties that accompanied it were an essential part of the historical transition into modernity. But these processes relied on ecological and geographical fantasies sustained only by the relative stability of the last three centuries. As we transition into a new age of widespread climatic volatility, the underpinnings of the modern nation-state, especially its requirement for a clearly defined territory, will be called into question.

The Indo-Pakistan Western Boundary Case Tribunal, 1965–1968

In 1948, newly-independent Pakistan sent a diplomatic correspondence to newly-independent India complaining of hardship to Pakistani pastoralists as a consequence of uncertainty over the boundary between India and Pakistan in the Rann of Kutch. In 1949, India responded with the assertion that there was no dispute and that the Rann fell firmly under Indian control. In 1954, shortly after it signed the Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement with the United States, Pakistan responded. Saying that “the boundary between Sind and Cutch from Sir Creek onwards has always been in dispute,” Pakistan proposed that the boundary be demarcated, either by a conference, an arbitration, or India’s acceptance of Pakistan’s claim to the Rann north of the 24th parallel. India, in its 1955 reply, said that it would not accept a border anywhere besides the northern edge of the Rann (Krishnamurthy Rao 1965; Munshi 1998).

After half a decade of further disagreement, the two disputants agreed to the Sheikh-Swaran
Singh Agreement in January 1960. The Agreement provided a nebulous framework for the
peaceful settlement of the border problem, saying that “detailed ground rules for the guidance of
the Border Security forces along the Indo-West Pakistan frontier… will be put into force by both
sides immediately” (Lagergren, Entezam, and Bebler 1968; Gupta 1969). Despite the Agreement,
clashes intensified in the Rann after 1960, culminating in Pakistan’s Operation Desert Hawk, a
series of strikes on Indian military installations in the Rann, on 24 April, 1965. A ceasefire was
declared on 28 April, but the conflict was not officially concluded until 30 June, 1965, when
both parties agreed to submit the dispute for arbitration after the intervention of Harold Wilson,
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (Ahmad 1973).

The dispute was arbitrated by the Indo-Pakistan Western Boundary Case Tribunal, which
operated from 1966–1968. The Tribunal was constituted by three judges: one nominated by
India, one by Pakistan, and a chairman, after India and Pakistan could not agree on a candidate,
nominated by the Secretary General of the United Nations. Prior to the start of hearings,
delegations from India and Pakistan were permitted two months to visit each others’ archives to
collect evidence. Hearings before the Tribunal ran from 15 September, 1966 until 14 July, 1967.
A draft award was proposed by the Tribunal in October 1967. The award was finalized on 19
February, 1968 (Lagergren, Entezam, and Bebler 1968).

The Tribunal found itself fully in favor of neither India nor Pakistan. It awarded ninety
percent of the Rann to India—all areas where the Raj had, affirmatively or by omission, accepted
Kutch’s claim. Ten percent, the areas where Pakistan had demonstrated sustained state activity originating from Sindh, was allotted to Pakistan. The verdict written by Gunnar Lagergren, Chairman, said:

“A recognised and well-established boundary did not exist in the disputed region east of
the Western Trijunction on the eve of Independence… Since the Rann until recently has
been deemed incapable of permanent occupation, the requirement of possession cannot
play the same important role in determining sovereign rights therein as it would have
done otherwise. Therefore, special significance must be accorded to display of other State
activities and to attitudes expressed or implied by one or several of the sovereign entities
abutting upon the Rann in regard to the actual extension of their respective dominions”
(Lagergren, Entezam, and Bebler 1968).

In Lagergren’s verdict, we see the problem at the root of the dispute exposed: without evidence
of state presence, jurisdiction could not be determined in any conventional way. As I argue above
and throughout the rest of this paper, the reason for this absence lies in the Rann’s ecological
complexity. To simplify it, India and Pakistan both conceived of and presented competing
cartographic, bureaucratic, and ecological visions of the Rann from 1947–1968.

Pakistan’s Conception of the Rann

In publicity documents, published works, and its arguments to the Tribunal, Pakistan articulated a vision of the Rann that emphasized the ways in which it met the conditions of being a marine space. This conception was premised on the geomorphological reality that the Rann was a former seabed disconnected from the Arabian Sea by tectonic uplift and seismic activity (Thakkar and Kar 2017). It was supported by an outdated claim that the major source of the Rann’s seasonal inundation was monsoon winds blowing seawater across the length of the Rann. In Pakistani documents, the Rann was described as an “inland sea,” in some cases with the caveat “now dead” (Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan 1965; Lagergren, Entezam, and Bebler 1968; Ahmad 1973).

In addition to drawing on scientific knowledge about the Rann, Pakistan drew on the
ways in which movement across the Rann resembled navigating marine spaces. These arguments
drew on statements like that of the Acting Commissioner in Sindh, who said in 1856 that:

“This district [Thar Parkar] is in fact… as much separated from Kutch by the Runn as if
the sea there still covered its former bed. In fact it is even more completely separated
from Kutch than if the Runn were still covered by the ocean, for in that case the
communication by boat would assuredly… be more than it now is across the salt swamp
of the Runn” (Lagergren, Entezam, and Bebler 1968).

Descriptions like these emphasized the idea of the Rann as a barrier, a concept that implied
comparisons to seas and other water bodies are seen as barriers that must be traversed, rather
than inhabited. The claim that the Rann was in many respects a sea—uninhabited, difficult to
cross, often watery—and therefore a barrier supported the Pakistani contention that the Rann was
a bounding area, a peripheral and perhaps liminal space, rather than a place in and of itself. This
sense of the Rann as “belt of boundary” could be neatly aligned with legal conceptions of
transboundary bodies of water, but had far fewer modern legal precedents for terrestrial areas
(Gardner 2021).

Categorizing the Rann as a marine space rendered an alien landscape familiar, making it conform to the existent principles of the nearness of shores and the median line. Doing so achieved two objectives. It reduced the need for special categorization of the Rann, which could be understood as a marine feature and subsequently divided and demarcated using pre-existing frameworks. Without the need for greater and more specialized site-specific knowledge, further knowledge production was unnecessary (Bhattacharyya 2018). The complexity of the Rann as a temporarily inundated landscape could be replaced with the fiction of the Rann as a permanent body of water, cartographically and bureaucratically imposed on the landscape. Second, once the Rann was defined as a marine feature, it was subject to different standards for sovereignty. It could be demarcated using a simple and single line, and disputes over islands were washed away.

In its effort to place the Rann firmly in the legal category of the marine, Pakistan sought to effect a reclassification of space that suited its political objectives (Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan 1965). Classifying the Rann as a sea opened up the category of marine features to the possibility of including a space like the Rann, and it applied existing rules to a confusing place in a way that made its administration simpler and advantageous to Pakistan. Choosing one aspect of the often-confused British categorizing project, Pakistan solidified its terms and then redoubled its application to the Rann in order to construct a space over which it had an undeniable and persuasive claim.

India’s Conception of the Rann

In its claims to the Rann between 1947–68, India emphasizes that the Rann should be
understood as a complicated salt marsh within its territory. Defining the Rann as a wetland
allowed India to push for a context-driven understanding of the space as one that was terrestrial
but prone to frequent and violent change. India supported its argument with statements like a 2
November, 1906 Foreign Department letter saying, “It does not appear to be correct to show the
Rann of Kutch as though it were all water. The symbol for a swamp might be used”
(Krishnamurthy Rao 1965; Lagergren, Entezam, and Bebler 1968).

Understanding that India saw the Rann as a marsh is essential to understanding India’s
perspective on border-making in and around the tract. If the Rann were categorized as aquatic or marine, it would be subjected to the rigid and pre-existing rules governing aquatic features.
While a wetland is both soaked and fluid, unlike non-fluvial and non-soaked land, it is still
ultimately more governable by the context-driven rules of terrestrial law than the standards of
maritime law (Bhattacharyya 2018). India’s contentions rendered the Rann as an anomalous but
not totally alien place, a space integral to the whole of Kutch and therefore subject to the same
exercise of sovereignty. The Rann could experience change or shifting within its cartographically
outlined borders, but that change was constrained by lines on a map. Having been defined as a
wetland, the Rann was tethered to a very specific piece of land in the Indian imagination, as an
auxiliary but integral part of Kutch.

Before and after 1968, India was deeply concerned about what the liminality of this
auxiliary, integral space meant for its functional coherence with the body of Kutch. Despite its
physical and bureaucratic taming, the fear went, the Rann might still serve as a place of
disorientating crossing, as an ungovernable periphery. Imagining the Rann as a landform and the
border as being at the edges of the Rann, rather than anywhere within it, gave India room to
remake the Rann as a militarized frontier, on the edges of society but central to its security, rather
than letting it remain a place of marginality and liminality (Ibrahim 2004; 2017; 2018). To
borrow from Benjamin D. Hopkins, the Rann was constructed in the Indian imagination as one
of a number of “forgotten peripheries—the edges of empire” built, often intentionally, by
colonial states and their successors (Hopkins 2020).

Constructing a Peripheral Space

This section chronicles the construction of the Rann as a peripheral space in the period before 1857, when The British Raj assumed paramountcy in South Asia. The Rann’s peripherality was premised, in part, on a geopolitical reality. It was not part of any state in a way that would be contemporarily recognizable. And it could not be an effective component of any state because no state could maintain an effective presence within it (Lagergren, Entezam, and Bebler 1968). But the Rann’s peripherality was also the reflection of an effort to make it definable, a process that began with informal documents and accounts that reified conceptions of the Rann as a periphery to state entities. This process began with documents and observers that emphasized the ways in which the Rann was alien to familiar life and neglected by or outside of
the state.

Dams and Earthquakes

Before the weakening of Mughal power in the 1700s, Sindh was a part of the Thatta
Subah, an administrative division of the Mughal Empire (Ansari 1992). Kutch was the core
territory of Cutch State, a Mughal client. From the 1730s until at least 1741, Kutch maintained
thanas (outposts) in Sindh at Rahim ki Bazar, Virawah, and possibly the nearby towns of Baliari
and Badin. Sindh achieved de facto independence from Mughal rule in the 1730s. By the
mid-1700s, the Kutch thanas appear to have been abandoned (Burnes 1829; 1834).

The armies of the Kalhora mians (princes) of Sindh crossed the Rann along different
routes to raid Kutch in 1762, 1764, 1775, and 1776 (Burnes 1834). In 1762, the most devastating
invasion, Sindh and Kutch met in the Battle of Jara, an inconclusive Sindh victory. Afterward,
Sindh stationed a garrison at Lakhpat and built a bund across the Puran at Mora, a few miles
north of the Rann. The building of the dam marked the beginning of the desertification of Sayra,
which began to lose the waters that sustained its rice paddies. The Sindh garrison at Lakhpat was
withdrawn in the 1770s, but Sindh again built a dam across the Puran in 1802. The dam this time
was at Ali Bunder, near Mora (Burnes 1829; 1834).

In the early part of the 19th century, Kutch was riven by internal strife that weakened its
ability to project power in and across the Rann. In 1809 and again in 1815, the East India
Company concluded treaties with representatives of the Kutch darbar, or court (Lagergren,
Entezam, and Bebler 1968). In 1819, a final treaty, the Treaty of Alliance, was signed by
representatives of the Jadeja bhayad, Kutch’s regnal council of noblemen. Article 5 of the Treaty
of Alliance stated, “The Honourable Company engages to guarantee the power of his Highness
the Rao Dessul, his heirs and successors, and the integrity of his dominions, from foreign or
domestic enemies” (Aitchison 1909).

Though not apparent at the time, it would emerge over the course of the 19th century that
the boundaries of the dominion of Kutch were functionally unknown. They were further
complicated a few months before the signing of the Treaty of Alliance when the Rann of Kutch
earthquake occurred. The earthquake flooded Sayra, leaving behind only a lone tower peeking
out of the lake covering Sindri’s former location (Burnes 1834; Lewis 1873). A 16-mile-long
natural dam on the Puran, Allah Bund, formed five miles north of Sindri, erasing evidence of the
customs post at Kaeera Nullah from the landscape (Raikes 1855; Frere 1870; Athavale 2013).
When Kutch attempted to establish a customs post on Allah Bund, it was forced to withdraw its
officers in the face of opposition from Sindh.

Both the destruction of Sindri and the earthquake of 1819 would be cited in the ensuing decades as evidence of Kutch’s lack of effective presence in the Rann. Alexander Burnes, who was stationed in Kutch in the 1820s, implied that in some respects state failure was a cause of the expansion of the Rann, and that the Rann and the state could not therefore coexist. Burnes wrote that Kutch had tolerated repeated dam construction on the Puran for so many decades that the flooding of Sayra “passed unheeded, for it had become a matter of indifference to Cutch whether the tract which had been a desert since the battle of Jharra [sic] continued so, or became an inland lake, as in either state it had ceased to yield those advantages to the people which they had once enjoyed” (Burnes 1834).

Burnes’ writing suggests that Sayra and Sindri were seen as peripheral to Kutch even
before they were functionally a part of the Rann. Having become part of the Rann after many
years of desertification and the 1819 inundation, they were truly peripheral to the core territory
of the state, and so did not merit attention or a state presence. While Burnes’ narratives include
mentions of Kutch attempting to assert its presence in the tract, it is essential to note that this
presence was temporary and rebuffed; Kutch could not sustain a customs post, the fertility of the
landscape, or its interests writ large. That was because the landscape, due to its inherent volatility
as well as human action, was now part of the Rann. And the Rann could not be controlled
because it was inherently hostile to the people and the presence of the state.

Writers and Mapmakers

Several accounts similar to Burnes’ were written during and shortly after the Company
Raj. These include the memoirs of Marianne Postans (Young), who lived in Kutch in the 1830s
as the wife of the Political Agent; Henry Bartle Frere, Chief Commissioner in Sindh in the 1850s
and later Governor of Bombay; William Pottinger, who traveled to Sindh in the 1830s; and C.W.
Tremenheere, an officer in the Royal Engineers. These accounts describe a remarkable place.
Postans says, “nothing could, perhaps, be found more worthy the observation of the traveller”
(Young 1839) But it is remarkable in part because of its desolation and alienness. Frere says,
“There is a total absence of any sign of animal or vegetable life which could break the uniformity
of the surface. There are no trees, no tufts of grass; and the bones of a dead camel are visible for miles, whether seen in their actual form or size, or drawn up into the likeness of towers, rocks, and houses by mirage” (Frere 1870).

Mirages appear repeatedly in travel writing about the Rann (Burnes 1834; Young 1839;
Frere 1870). Mentioning them served to emphasize the ways in which the Rann was distinct from
the typical human existence. The fact that the only indicators of human presence to be found in
the Rann were illusory emphasized its desolation and hostility to human life. And the presence of
these illusions reinforced the unreality of the Rann; rather than being tangible, firm, and real, like
the world of the state, it was cloudy and intangible—at the margins of the known world. Through
these descriptions, the Rann was constituted as a place that could be seen but not inhabited, a
space rather than a place in its own right. At best, in these narratives, it can only be an alien
periphery, undergoing such frequent tumult and subject to such hostile conditions that it is not
worth the effort or the time of the state to establish a presence in the first place.

There are occasional exceptions to this picture, but where they disrupt the idea that the
Rann is totally hostile to human life, they entrench the idea that it is not inhabitable. Burnes
writes that “the traffic across is considerable” on the direct military and trade route from Bhuj to
Rahim ki Bazar, despite “an inhospitable tract of forty-eight miles without a drop of fresh water,
on leaving Luna” (Burnes 1834). But this piece of evidence, as well as descriptions of river
traffic in the decade after the 1819 earthquake, are always contrasted with the Rann’s
inhospitality otherwise (Burnes 1834; Holland 1855). Trade can only take place through it, not in
it; there are not, as there are in the settled places of the world, points of state presence in the
Rann. It is a tenuous bridge between two areas of state control, liminal and peripheral.
The extent to which the Rann was seen as a periphery is reaffirmed in the pre-survey
maps, the earliest of which dates to 1788 (Lagergren, Entezam, and Bebler 1968; Dossal 2019).

These maps were prepared by a range of creators with an equally varied range of familiarity with
the Rann. Perhaps as a consequence, it is difficult to extract a sense of what the Rann is from the
maps. It is a marsh in some, a desert in others, a sea in a third fraction. There is no standard
depiction of the space (Pottinger 1814; Arrowsmith 1822; Walker and Walker 1833; Zimmerman
1851; Wynne 1872a; Risley et al. 1909; Indian Information Service 1965). In Fig. 1, I show a
section of Burnes’ 1829 map of Kutch, which ambiguously depicts the Rann.

In Burnes’ map, which influenced depictions of Kutch and its environs for decades, and which was used to represent landholdings in the Rann, the Rann is personally knowable through Burnes’ recollections of his travel (Burnes 1829; Lumsden 1855). But this information is of limited use to the state, which cannot use a map like Burnes’ to govern. This is in spite of its detail and fairly careful measurement; without a standard of systematization, it does not serve the key function of cartography to the state, which is to simplify an unsimple space into a visual language that is codified and can be used to exert power and control.

The irregularity of the Rann was later communicated through the range of ribands, demarcating ribbons of color, used to separate the Rann from Sindh and Kutch on maps. The Tribunal’s award notes that “In these maps Sind and Kutch are either represented in different colour washes or they are bounded off by coloured ribands. In between is the Rann, coloured either blue, white, or light brown, with the addition, sometimes, of swamp or marsh symbols” (Lagergren, Entezam, and Bebler 1968; Indian Information Service 1965; High Commission of India 1965). I show an example of one kind of boundary marker in Fig. 2.

The confusion over how to depict the Rann, and the ways in which it was occasionally
merged with the Thar and at other points rendered as a sea, contributed to the sense of its
peripherality (Wynne 1872a; 1872b; Risley et al. 1909). The lack of clarity reinforced the sense
that the Rann was beyond the ken of the state. No standard border could be drawn around or
through it because it was not a knowable place. On the basis of hearsay, assumption, or first-hand
knowledge, it might be assigned to one mainland, the other, or left uncategorized. The
ambiguousness of its depiction contributed to the peripheralization of the Rann: it was not
knowable through maps, could not be known, and therefore existed firmly at the margins of the
state until it could, by means of state presence, state-generated knowledge, and growing state
capacity, be brought in from the hazy margins of early cartographic efforts.

Searching for a Legible Rann

As Scott uses it, legibility describes a state’s efforts to order society in such a way that it
is knowable, controllable, and extractable by the state (Scott 1998; Lee and Zhang 2017).
Compared to the complexity and specificity of local and particular knowledge, legibility is an
abstraction that simplifies knowledge in order to make it manipulable. A range of projects
undertaken by states can contribute to making a place and its people legible; surveys, censuses,
and standardized units are archetypal examples (Hopkins 2020).

The British Raj replaced the East India Company as the paramount power in the Rann
after 1857. Over the course of its rule, it engaged in a series of occasional efforts to make the
Rann more controllable by the organs of the state. As I outline in this section, that program
involved first making the Rann knowable. Through decades of surveys, maps, and administration
reports, the Raj, Sindh, and Kutch worked to simplify the complexity of the Rann until it could
be both a target of state presence and a component of states.

The urge to do this was driven by a fact of modernity: the rise of the modern nation-state
erased the possibility of a geopolitical no man’s land or space of ambiguous borders. A space
was required to be a place, and a place was required to belong to a party. Every border needed to
be coterminous, rather than a borderland. The Rann, which had occupied a peripheral position
during the era of pre-modern states, therefore needed to be made fully a part of one or both of the
adjoining mainlands. This need grew more pronounced with the end of the Raj. An empire could
accommodate the fuzziness of a borderland, but the postcolonial state could not.

In response to these pressures, both Kutch and Sindh sought to create and co-opt standardized knowledge about the Rann into their claims to and about the space. Pakistan and India, in turn, sought to draw stronger claims out of these legible-making processes. In this analysis, I consider two mechanisms of legibility: surveying efforts and documentary evidence, and illustrate how legibility was used to support assertions of the Rann’s integrality to state spaces and of their presence within it.

Surveying

Four surveys took place in and around the Rann between 1857–1947. The first, lasting
from 1855–1870, was a Survey of India survey of Sindh. From 1866–1870, the survey, under the
leadership of Donald MacDonald, concerned itself with Thar Parkar, Mohamed Khan’s Tanda,
and Shahbunder Districts. The survey maps from Mohamed Khan’s Tanda included a “Runn
Sub-Circuit” outside of any village dehs, or revenue collection areas (Gastrell 1867; 1868; 1870;
High Commission of India 1965). The reasons for this decision are unclear. In 1968, India
claimed that the survey, a revenue survey, was meant to survey the political and topographical
landscape of a region, meaning that the omission of most of the Rann was evidence that it was
really a part of Kutch. The parts of the Rann so included were included because of instructions to the surveying party to survey adjacent areas to the areas they were tasked with surveying. Pakistan, on the other hand, argued that revenue surveys were meant to capture only the revenue-producing parts of a place, and so the Rann, a barren waste, would not have been included (Lagergren, Entezam, and Bebler 1968).

There is no record of a dispute at the time between Sindh and Kutch over the surveying
boundaries. But it seems clear that the survey was not viewed as the final word in the boundary
question because in 1875, the mukhtiarkar, or revenue-collector, of Diplo Taluka responded to a
query from the Political Superintendent of Thar Parkar about the location of the border between
Thar Parkar and Kutch with a message that:

“In the midst of Kutch Bhuj and Taluka Diplo, District Tharparkar, from the Rann, from
Rahimki [Bazar] coming in the north of Allah Bund, Mian ji Sari, the distance of which
from Rahimki will be 24 miles, is the settled boundary, and from Vingar and Balyari,
Gaind ji Chhan, where Dharamsala is built, the distance of which, from Balyari will be 24
miles, from where towards the north, at a distance of half a mile, the boundary of Diplo,
and towards the south, boundary of Kutch Bhuj territory. On these boundaries, there is no
boundary mark” (Lagergren, Entezam, and Bebler 1968).

On the basis of the mukhtiarkar’s report, the Political Superintendent informed the
Commissioner in Sindh that there was no demarcated boundary between Sindh and Kutch, but
that customary points indicated the border. He recommended that the boundary be demarcated
with the assistance of the Political Agent in Kutch, who asked the Dewan of Kutch whether the
border had ever been demarcated and what Kutch’s border claim was.

The Rao of Kutch died that year, and the Government of Bombay passed an 1876 Resolution postponing border demarcation. The question of where the border fell spurred the Dewan to ask three vahivatdars, or leaseholders, to “collect evidence relating to the boundaries of Kutch in the direction of Sind[h] and Thar Parkar” (Lagergren, Entezam, and Bebler 1968).

This new interest in the Rann would be encouraged by the 1879–1886 Survey of Kutch,
led by Major A. Pullan. This survey mapped the whole of the Rann. When questioned as to why
after Sindh raised objections, Pullan wrote “I surveyed the Runn because it is intimately
connected with the country of Cutch and it was an absolute geographical necessity that it should
be surveyed. I have carefully abstained from laying down or even suggesting any boundary
between Cutch and Sind” (Lagergren, Entezam, and Bebler 1968).

Before asking Pullan to answer to it, the Government of Bombay had already resolved
that the dispute over the location of the border be suppressed. It sent a Resolution titled
“Boundary Disputes: Claim of Cutch Darbar to the Sind side of the Runn,” and took no further
action. But the border remained undefined (Lagergren, Entezam, and Bebler 1968).

Pullan’s attitude that it was “an absolute geographical necessity” to have the Rann
surveyed and mapped speaks to the unacceptability of the informational lacuna embodied by the
Rann. Though it was a hinterland, it was essential that the Rann be understood in order to fix its
position relative to its settled state neighbors. Without a knowledge of the geographic and
ecological characteristics of the Rann, there was no way to begin the process of reifying the
Rann into a simplified form that suited Kutch’s claims to the Rann.

In this respect, Pullan’s notes from the survey are contradictory. He claimed to the Government of Bombay that he did not recognize Kutch’s claim to the whole Rann. But in a letter to the Surveyor-General dated 9 August, 1880, he wrote that “the survey when completed will be of the greatest use to the Durbar who are very desirous to obtain a reliable map of the Country.” In his 1880–1881 Survey Report, Pullan adds that “The part of Cutch surveyed during the past field Season comprised firstly a portion of the Great ‘Rann’ and the widespreading grass land known as ‘Bani” (Lagergren, Entezam, and Bebler 1968).

Pullan’s writing makes explicit the way in which Kutch saw accurate information about
its erstwhile hinterland as a necessary ingredient in the process of transforming the Rann from a
periphery into an essential component of the state. It also suggests that Kutch saw patronizing
information creation by an organ of the paramount power as a way of creating usable knowledge
about a place that would be seen as Kutch knowledge about a place that was a part of Kutch.
Using standardized information, Kutch began to seek to freeze the Rann as a static entity in maps
and to use evidence from surveys to substantiate its claims to the Rann.

Compared to Kutch, Sindh did less during the colonial period to make the Rann legible to
it; it was largely content to assume that it had a legitimate claim to the northern half of the Rann.
Where there were efforts to render the Rann legible, these were at its edges, in places where
human activity was semi-permanent, and therefore more within the traditional realm of the state
and knowable through information already possessed by Sindh. For Sindh, the Rann did not
demand the level of legibility that Kutch sought to create and enforce.

The third major surveying effort in the Rann was that of Erskine in 1904–1905, which sought to resolve territorial disputes between Kutch, Wav, Suigam, and Sindh. This led to a complaint in 1907–1908 from the Commissioner in Sindh of encroachments by Kutch on Sindh territory. The Government of Bombay, writing to the Kutch darbar, said: “If the Darbar had reason to think this boundary was inaccurate — the Government was perfectly willing to consider any representation it might have to make and that, in that case, the Darbar should state precisely and with an accurate map the boundary which it claimed, specifying the grounds on which its claim was based” (Lagergren, Entezam, and Bebler 1968). The conditions of this letter emphasize the importance of legibility—in this case represented by an accurate, survey-derived map—to control.

Both the darbar and the Collector of Karachi District submitted maps with boundary
claims on them to the Government of Bombay. The Kutch map showed a diagonal border
running from the top of Sir Creek, a tidal creek west of Kori Creek, to the junction of the Rann
with the Jati and Badin talukas, both in Karachi District. Sindh claimed a vertical boundary
running due north from the top of Kori Creek to the junction point. The compromise
promulgated by the Government of Bombay was for the boundary between the two jurisdictions
to run from the top of Sir Creek until it met Sindh’s proposed border, then north to the junction
point (High Commission of India 1965). In Fig. 3, I show the relevant map.

In a letter from 20 September, 1913, the Secretary to the Government, Bombay wrote to
the Secretary to the Government of India, Foreign Department, that the compromise had been
suggested to and approved by both parties to the dispute. In the Resolution of 23 February, 1914,
the Bombay Government mandated that the letter of 20 September, 1913, be circulated to the
Commissioner in Sindh, Political Agent in Kutch, and the Rao of Kutch (Krishnamurthy Rao
1965; Lagergren, Entezam, and Bebler 1968).

The last of the surveying efforts was that of Gordon Osmaston in 1937–38, which was
prompted by the creation of Sindh as a Governor’s Province in 1935. The creation of Sindh
created a demand for demarcated borders from the bureaucracy, and these could not be found
along its southern edge. This last effort was unsuccessful in settling the jurisdictional conflicts
between Sindh, Kutch, Wav, and Suigam that had necessitated Erskine’s earlier survey
(Lagergren, Entezam, and Bebler 1968).

The surveying efforts in the Rann began as efforts to render the region legible, and they
culminated in two efforts to make border-drawing within it feasible. While these are different
kinds of legibility, they both reflect the importance placed on having abstract knowledge about a
place in order to make it governable (Dossal 2019). The problem faced by these surveys was that
while they allowed Sindh and Kutch to make their respective attempts at reifying the landscape
and imposing their respective categorical ecological visions on it, they captured only a slice of
reality. Given the volatility of the Rann, they did not even fully succeed at rendering it permanently abstracted; the Rann could change from season to season, and surveys were unable to capture this dynamism. As a consequence, surveying efforts, while useful, were frustrated in their efforts to unite visions of the Rann with knowledge about it by the complexity of the ecological system in question.

Documentary Legibility

Kutch (later India) was the main party attempting to establish the legibility of the Rann
through non-survey means, which it did through three channels: pre-survey maps, local
knowledge, and administration reports. The 1844 map of Kutch witnessed by J.G. Lumsden,
Political Agent, enabled this process. The map depicted feudal land ownership among the royalty
and nobility of Kutch using 35 colors of washes and ribands (Lagergren, Entezam, and Bebler
1968). On this map, the area formerly called Sayra is occupied by a lake with the note, “this
colour lake of his Highness the Rao.” Describing this map in 1968, India added:

“The northern limit of the Rao’s possessions in the Sayra District is approximately the
northern edge of the Rann. Besides the mainland of Kutch, the Banni (spelt Bunnee) and
the three large bets of Pachham, Khurir and Beyla as well as a group of four more bets
are shown as belonging to the Kutch Bhayad. The group of four bets is situated to the
north of Pachham. The first is called Koosree, the second Gainda, the third Horonto. The
fourth has no name but has the notice: “attached to mainland before earthquake of 1819.”
This notice and the place on the map where the bet is situated permits the hypothesis that
it is Dhara Banni… The Rann was so well protected that feudal ownership over bets on
its extreme northern edge made some sense and was worthwhile recording and depicting”
(Lagergren, Entezam, and Bebler 1968).

This map indicates legibility by means of property rights and ownership; with specific demarcations of land titles and demesnes, it was possible to make the claim that Kutch both knew the Rann well and could lay meaningful claim to it. By pointing to the evidence of royal and noble titles, Kutch could argue that the Rann was an integral component of its territory about which it knew governance-supporting knowledge.

Later in the 19th century, Kutch sought to demonstrate its knowledge of the Rann and its
ability to make the space legible by drawing on the testimony of the Bhuj vahivatdar, who wrote
in 1885 that the Rann had historically been in the possession of Kutch. The vahivatdar wrote, “At
present the entire Rann is in our vahivat and there is ample evidence for this… from the village
Dhrobana in Pachham up to the limit of the Rann in the north… guide stones have been fixed…
at the Kutch Darbar’s expense” (Lagergren, Entezam, and Bebler 1968).

While they are an untraditional means of indicating legibility, the ability to fix guide
stones in the Rann indicated that the darbar had the information and the capability to order an
unsettled landscape. Through guidestones, Kutch could make the Rann legible to travelers, and
therefore somewhat closer to being a productive part of the state. The capability described by the
vahivatdar meets the key legibility-related need for the state to be able to order the world in a
way that is conducive to its needs. Without the guidestones, the navigators of the Rann would
still have been capable of crossing. But the guide stones indicated the supremacy of the state
over the landscape and the people participating in it—a feat achieved through a knowledge of the
land itself in terms that could be reported and repeated in other media.

Finally, from 1855–1945, Kutch sent annual Administration Reports detailing the
condition of the State to the Government of Bombay. Fifty of these reports touched on the Rann.
Of these, 47 describe the area of Kutch as “6,500 square miles exclusive of the Rann,” “7,616
square miles exclusive of the Rann,” or some other variation (Lagergren, Entezam, and Bebler
1968). The Rann is described as spanning 9,000 square miles and belonging either directly to the
State or to the Rao. Rather than rendering the Rann governable to Kutch, these reports sought to make the idea of a Kutch in which both the Kutch Peninsula and the Rann were included legible to the Raj. The Administration Reports abstracted these two distinct geomorphological regions into a single entity that could be communicated to the empire’s bureaucracy. In doing so, they created the appearance of the Rann’s essentiality to Kutch, and asserted that Kutch found the Rann legible, even when and where it did not.

The way Kutch presented the Rann in its Administration Reports shows how Kutch sidestepped the challenges posed by Kutch’s ecological understanding of the Rann. Kutch recognized the ecological ambiguity of the Rann and the hazards of applying typical border-making principles to it. By placing the border it claimed at the edge of the Rann, and denoting the Rann as a core component of Kutch, Kutch placed literal solid land underneath its claims and bureaucratically began to integrate the Rann into its dominion.

The representations Kutch made to the Government of Bombay of its relationship with
the Rann were largely accepted. From 1871–1924, the Government of Bombay in turn prepared
its own Administration Reports on the agencies and territories within its ambit. Of the 31 of
these reports touching on the Rann, 30 describe the area of Kutch as “exclusive,” “besides,” or
“independent” of the Rann. These reports show the way in which legibility was communicated
successfully by Kutch, to the Government of Bombay, which ignored Sindh claims in favor of
Kutch, which seemed to have made the Rann legible and therefore controllable (Lagergren,
Entezam, and Bebler 1968; “Report on the Administration of the Bombay Presidency” 1915).

In the following chapter of this thesis, I expand on the ways in which legibility, or the perception of legibility, enabled attempts at control. I further discuss how those attempts at control were inconclusive as a result of the inherent reductiveness of simplifying attempts to make the Rann legible. As I note in my introduction, attempts to assert control over the Rann failed to overcome the fundamental mismatch between reality’s ambiguities and the state’s imagination (Scott 1998; Cederlöf 2013; Dossal 2019; Gardner 2021).

Controlling the Rann

A claim on territory is most often premised on a state’s successful occupation of that
territory. What is de facto true becomes the de jure reality over time. Once a territory is claimed
effectively, borders can be drawn around it. The challenge faced by India, Pakistan, and their
predecessors in the Rann was the difficulty of demonstrating occupation within the Rann. For
most of history, there was little reason to station military forces within the Rann, a hard-to-cross
wasteland. Because of its salinity, the Rann lacked a population through which evidence of
occupation could be demonstrated using consistent tax payments, among other things.

In response to the challenges created by the Rann’s environmental condition, Sindh,
Kutch, India, and Pakistan sought avenues through which they could substantiate their claims of
control over the Rann. In the colonial era, these avenues took the form of citing and investing in
indicators of state capacity: fiscal instruments such as indirect taxes and customs taxes. Where
evidence of the state did not previously exist, parties to the Rann of Kutch dispute worked to
produce it. And in the decades leading up to and immediately after independence, India and
Pakistan introduced law enforcement and armed occupation as a third indicator of state presence
(and, eventually, of state capacity).

In all cases, the object of state capacity-building exercises and substantiation was to support the boundary claims made by the states adjoining the Rann. Rather than being understood as evidence of true state capacity, they should be understood as attempts to underwrite territorial claims that both sides knew would not be decided on the basis of functional capacity or the fiscal and infrastructural integration of the Rann with a mainland, but on the basis of textual evidence that matched the location of boots on the ground.

Fiscal Capacity

The essential indicator of a state’s fiscal capacity and presence is its ability to raise taxes.
Kutch and Sindh provided their respective evidence of this capacity by indicating the range of
tax levies and customs duties they imposed within the Rann and at its edges. In the case of taxes,
the types of taxes relied upon were indirect taxes that demonstrated the state’s purported ability
to extract revenue but lacked the complexity of direct taxation or the systematic frameworks for
payment. These were the best evidence of state presence on offer in the Rann, which lacked the
population or wealth needed to drive the construction of complex tax systems.

In the 1876 report from the Bhuj vahivatdar to the Dewan of Kutch, the vahivatdar wrote,
“In the Rann, sale of cattle from Sind and other places takes place. On that sale the Darbari
Officer collects levy on sale of animals and also ‘Ukaru Dan’ on the same animal is payable”
(Lagergren, Entezam, and Bebler 1968). He also says that on the bet of Sindhdi, fewer than 15
miles from Rahim ki Bazar, Kutch levied a duty called ukrau until the 1819 earthquake, after
which the customs post had to be moved to Luna, on Banni. On the islet, the jamadar, or officer,
who was from Luna, had the right to levy chowki and tansri duties on the goods that passed
through.

Kutch pointed to these statements from the vahivatdar as evidence of its historical and persistent presence in the Rann, but they also expose the challenges of asserting state presence in this dynamic space. Sindhdi is not mentioned in any other accounts of the Rann, and it is possible that it was erased or reformed by the 1819 earthquake that shook the Rann. The ability of any state to maintain a presence and build capacity in the Rann was highly contingent on the temporary environmental conditions of the space, suggesting that no power could truly claim to control it because they could not sustain a permanent presence within it in the face of natural changes. Without evidence of a permanent presence and the limits of state power—which customs posts helpfully evince—coterminous boundaries were extremely challenging to draw.

In order to assert state presence, Kutch in particular turned to levying taxes on
pastoralists. Pastoralists are often a challenge for the state, but in this case, Kutch worked to
demonstrate its ability to impose taxes on graziers in order to substantiate its claims of state
presence. In 1926, the thanedar, a kind of police officer, of Khavda, a town in Pachham, was
permitted to levy a panchari grazing tax on graziers from Thar Parkar who grazed their cattle in
Chhad Bet (Krishnamurthy Rao 1965; Lagergren, Entezam, and Bebler 1968). Chhad Bet, which
is included in the 1876 note of the Bhuj vahivatdar as part of a bet called Dhera (likely another
name for Dhara Banni), is close to Thar Parkar and the Sindh mainland. Sindh considered Chhad
Bet a part of its territory, although Kutch acknowledged no dispute (Lagergren, Entezam, and
Bebler 1968).

The graziers’ headmen petitioned the Commissioner in Sindh for a stoppage of the tax,
which they accused of exacerbating their poverty and violating their customary rights to the
Rann. When they investigated the matter, British officials in Sindh found that the border in the
Rann had never been demarcated, and that panchari had not been levied before 1926. The
graziers were told that they did not need to pay panchari, and the dispute lay dormant for about a
decade. Kutch began to assert itself more in 1938, around the time of Osmaston’s surveying
efforts in the northeastern Rann, and the question of whether Nagar Parkar graziers were
obligated to pay panchari became a recurring issue. Throughout the 1940s, officers including a
tajvijdar, or revenue officers, were sent to Chhad Bet. In 1945, 13 officers and peons from Khavda traveled to Chhad Bet to ensure compliance with panchari, but were confronted and confined for a day by more than 200 armed men from Nagar Parkar. This confrontation indicates that while Kutch worked to project authority and control in the northern Rann, it was not always successful; it did not have a monopoly on coercion in the area and indeed had limited power projection capabilities.

By 1947, Kutch had licensed the rights to graze cattle and collect panchari in Chhad Bet
and the nearby areas of Dhara Banni and Pirol Vala Kun to Node Sadi Rau, a Kutchi, and his
sons. When Rau’s license expired, the thanedar in Khavda re-leased the territory to Sama
Ibrahim Suleman and Sama Jusal Kesar, two other Kutchis from Pachham, for at least
1955–1957, after which the leases were discontinued due to increased military presence in the
Rann (Lagergren, Entezam, and Bebler 1968).

It is more likely than not that Kutch only began to impose panchari in Chhad Bet in 1926
because it realized that Sindh was not effectively exercising its authority in the area and because
it recognized that in order for it to make a claim to the whole Rann, it needed to particularly
make its presence in the region where human activity took place. But the environmental
condition of the Rann was such that there was a significant cost for Kutch to project its presence
into the Rann, and it could not do so often. Border-making could not proceed on the basis of
these tenuous and disputed assertions of sovereignty, and Kutch would ultimately fail to
transform these measures on the ground into a compelling conceptual vision of how the Rann fell
entirely within its dominion.

Sindh took much less care to issue licenses or tax local pastoralists around the Rann,
though it did earn revenue off of fishing licenses issued for dhandhs and lakes west of the Puran.
There is evidence from both 1926 and 1954 that Sindh earned thousands of rupees through licensing fishing rights, a practice which Kutch could or would not contest. But the main evidence of fiscal capacity on Sindh’s part comes through customs. In 1968, Pakistan demonstrated that officers of the Central British Customs Organisation patrolled the Rann on 53 occasions between 1945–1946. Pakistan pointed to this practice as evidence of British presence and effective control of the Rann, which in turn meant that Sindh, as a direct component of the British Raj, was the party to whom control of the Rann ought to be assigned. But Sindh itself did not exercise a right to taxation on salt or grazing, and the extent to which it can be said to have projected a state presence in the Rann on the basis of fiscal capacity is also extremely dubious
(Lagergren, Entezam, and Bebler 1968).

Coercion and Occupation

A second and essential dimension of state capacity is the state’s coercive capacity. In the case of
the pre-independence Rann, this can be analyzed through the ability of each state to maintain law
and order in the Rann and the extent to which each state actually did so. Both Kutch and Sindh
acted as though they held police authority in the Rann, though Sindh often did so to a greater
extent. Sindh claimed patrolling, arresting, and inquiry rights for offenses in at least the northern
half of the Rann, and it additionally reserved the privilege to try cases in Sindh’s courts. In 1892
and 1923, Sindh police assisted Kutch police in combating dacoity even on the Kutch mainland.
The extent to which this was a function of Sindh’s jurisdiction rather than that of the Imperial
Police, which belonged originally to the Central Service, is uncertain (Lagergren, Entezam, and
Bebler 1968).

In several cases during the immediate decade preceding independence, “offences allegedly committed by persons assumed to be citizens or residents of Kutch, purportedly committed outside the boundary of Sind as conceived by India, were registered at Sind police stations and investigated by Sind police.” Some offenses of this nature were also tried in Sindh courts. These collected incidents took place in 1939, 1940, and four times in 1945 (Lagergren, Entezam, and Bebler 1968). India rejected these citations of Pakistani jurisdictional authority in the Rann as evidence specifically of British authority over British subjects, rather than as evidence of any territorial authority in the region. It also pointed to Kutch investigations of
offenses committed in the Rann as evidence of Kutch’s police jurisdiction in the tract.

In the post-independence era, both India and Pakistan sought ways to translate their
claims about the Rann into tangible evidence of occupation. This was enabled by the advance of
modern technology, which transformed the nature of state presence in the Rann. The state was no
longer totally subject to the environmental condition of a complex, hostile ecological space.
Instead, it could sustain a presence in the Rann, albeit at cost and only, at first, on the bets, for a
much longer period. This was most clearly demonstrated in the 1950s, when military patrols
from both India and Pakistan traversed the Rann north of the 24th parallel, especially around
Karim Shahi Bet (Lagergren, Entezam, and Bebler 1968; Gupta 1969).

On 19 February, 1956, India realized that Pakistan had established its presence
sufficiently to occupy Chhad Bet when an Indian patrol near the bet was fired on by Pakistani
troops. In response, India sent back its forces on 25 February, 1956 to occupy Chhad Bet
themselves. They found the site deserted and established a border outpost there that was visited
biweekly by deployments of the Rajkot Rangers. Pakistan’s protests were dismissed by India
(Krishnamurthy Rao 1965; Gupta 1969; Ahmad 1973).

Neither state could keep its forces in the Rann forever. Even with cartographic reification
in play for decades, the volatile, seasonally-inundated salt flats could not be physically reified in
the 1950s and 1960s. But India’s decade-long occupation of Chhad Bet demonstrates how the nature of state presence in the Rann began to change in the modern era. No longer were the states
competing for control of the Rann mostly dependent on conceptual redefinition of the space.
With improved military technology and more sophisticated logistical networks, it was possible to
make the redefinition of space and control of space a physical, tangible project supported by
boots on the ground.

The military patrols and occupations of the 1950s and 1960s marked the penultimate
stage in the evolution of the Rann from peripheral boundary space into a state-claimed and
state-defined frontier. In the final stage of that evolution—the stage we are currently in—India
and Pakistan have used technology and the concept of the nation-state to physically alter the
Rann into a militarized frontier. In this new ecosystem, the state must always be vigilant against
forms of transgression—border-crossing, unmonitored movement, environmental volatility—that
could harken back to the Rann’s history as a place outside the state (Ibrahim 2017; Hopkins
2020; Gardner 2021). While volatility continues to threaten the stability of state control, there is
no longer any risk that the Rann could exist beyond the state. The arms of the state, and its
borders now stretch too far for such a possibility. Through the cooperation of technologies of
knowledge—mapping, documentation, and surveying—and tools of occupation, the Rann’s
ecological complexity and amphibious ambiguity have been subdued. In spite of this, the Rann
as a place of imagined transgression continues to survive. And, importantly, many more places
around the world are being driven by environmental change to become like the Rann—outside
the ordinary realm of the state’s governmentality, if not totally out of its reach (Bhattacharyya
2018; Hopkins 2020; Gardner 2021).

Conclusion

One of the few Indian films to prominently feature the Rann is the 2000 Bollywood
movie Refugee, which marked the debut of both Abhishek Bachchan and Kareena Kapoor.
Refugee dramatizes the saga of crossing the Rann in the decades after independence. The picture
it paints of a radically transgressive landscape that must be patrolled by state actors to prevent
offenses against the authority of the state, namely terrorism, accurately depicts the Rann in the
state’s imagination and begins to capture how its harshness enabled its frustration of
state-making objectives. The movie ends with a state victorious over terrorism, and by
implication, over the transgressive environment of the Rann that has stalled the state’s progress
towards asserting its authority (Dutta and Mahadev 2000).

As in the film, in the last three centuries, the Rann of Kutch has been radically
transformed, physically and conceptually, by an unprecedented level of attention from state
actors. Until the 19th century, the Rann existed only at the margins of the state; it was a space
apart from state control and beyond the incentives for state control. Over the course of the 19th
century, the Rann was constructed as a peripheral space through the production of written and
cartographic knowledge that described the Rann—and, in doing so, sought to make it both
knowable and categorizable. This effort was advanced by the efforts of surveyors and
bureaucrats, who worked to place the Rann into defined categories that would facilitate the
tract’s governance and control through a legibility-making process. Their efforts were made
necessary by the driving need of modern states to constitute themselves as discrete territorial
entities with sharply defined borders, rather than fuzzy boundaries (Scott 1998; Cederlöf 2013;
Gardner 2021).

From the late 19th century onwards, the states adjacent to the Rann began translating
their reconstructions of the Rann from an elusive but increasingly knowable periphery into an
integral component of the state by working along axes of state capacity: fiscal capacity, public
services, and coercive capacity. In some sense, this effort has succeeded. The Rann’s ecological
complexity has been trampled by the imperatives of the modern state, which has militarized
much of the tract and laid concrete over salt pans.

Today, the Rann is traversed by wire and sentry posts (Ibrahim 2021). But the long-term
viability of the modern state’s foundations—absolute control over a discrete and defined
territory—are in serious doubt. The states of the future will struggle to reconceptualize and
reshape ecological systems and landscapes to the extent that has been achieved in the
post-colonial Rann by India and Pakistan, who have succeeded in part because of relative
environmental stability in the rest of their territories. The frustrations faced by those states in
claiming the Rann will pale in comparison to the problems posed by new forms of
environmentally dynamic and ambiguous spaces that continuously challenge the
governmentalities of yesteryear (Bhattacharyya 2018; Dewan 2021).

In the last three decades, global weather patterns have grown increasingly erratic.
Extreme weather events have grown more common, with South Asia bearing a particularly heavy
burden of storms, floods, and droughts (Guhathakurta, Sreejith, and Menon 2011; Roxy et al.
2017). In the decades to come, persistent sea level rise will threaten coastlines around the world,
including the densely-populated shores of the subcontinent, which are already maladapted to the
environmental conditions in which they exist (Bhattacharyya 2018; Pasricha 2021; Dewan 2021).

A world of increasingly volatile environmental conditions will be one that increasingly
resembles the Rann. This is not necessarily a function of inhospitality, but of the weak link between the governmental approaches to territory that have characterized the modern nation-state and the kinds of territories—soaked, amphibious, or barren—that states will begin to grapple with governing (Bhattacharyya 2018; Gardner 2021). The Rann has been, in some ways, successfully “tamed.” It has been integrated into the state’s imagination and its territory, even if it continues to persist as a wasteland of imagined transgressions. But as work on the amphibious regions of Bengal and Northeast India has shown, such state successes are almost invariably temporary (Saikia 2019; Dewan 2021).

The greater the volatility that manifests, the greater the need for the state to create, or
recreate, new conceptions of territoriality and governmentality in order to justify its continued
existence. This will be doubly true in the populous coastlines of the world, where cities like
Karachi, Mumbai, and Dhaka will wrestle with questions of their continued existence. The Rann
contains lessons for states on the frustrations of complex ecological systems and the technologies
and imaginations needed to conquer them. But its most important lesson may be that its
conception, construction, and conquest will not be repeated.

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Introduction

“Historians have traditionally attacked the British for either failing the Jews, failing the Arabs, or failing the Empire.”¹

British policy at the end of the Palestine mandate has been criticized by historians of every imaginable variety, testifying to the immense difficulty the British authorities in Palestine faced. Caught in a quagmire of their own partial design at a crucial moment for the Empire, British decision makers had to balance the dangers of Arab and Jewish insurgency, Soviet encroachment, American hegemony, and their own regional standing – all of which could not be satisfied simultaneously.

This essay will discuss British strategy in the final years of the Palestine mandate, focusing
on (1) the evolution of partition as a solution to the territory’s sectarian conflict, and (2) British
responses to the changing international environment in which a solution was to be applied.
Situated within a novel international order and strategic environment, British decision-making
in this period was profoundly shaped by two factors: considerations of Britain’s role and
standing in the Middle East in the postwar world, and Britain’s relationship with the two great
powers of the nascent Cold War. Late British Palestine policy was therefore both consistent
and strategy-driven, taking into account the acute financial and strategic limitations on the
exercise of British power in the Middle East. Ultimately, however, Britain’s abdication of
responsibility in Palestine – resulting in the establishment of Israel – proved unforgivable to its
Arab partners, and exposed its weakness at a critical moment. This was to have far-reaching
implications for Britain’s future in the Middle East, and for the strategic alignment of its former
colonies and clients in the later stages of the Cold War.

I: British Strategy in Prewar Palestine

British rule in Palestine was shaped by considerations of international strategy from its earliest
days. The defining document of the mandate’s creation is the Balfour Declaration, in which the
British government pledged its support for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home
for the Jewish people,” undertaking to use its “best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of
this object.² Historians have pointed out how this move to capture Zionist support in 1917 was
part of a “broader strategy to win the First World War” by currying American support for
Britain and undermining Jewish support for Germany. The framing of British rule in Palestine
as an endeavor in nation-building was also in line with Wilsonian ideals of self-determination,
the zeitgeist of the Entente Powers which rejected outright imperialism of the type that had
defined the British Empire before the war.³ This pledge became a formal international legal
agreement when it was incorporated into the text of the British mandate in Palestine at the San
Remo Conference three years later.⁴

Support for the Zionist project was also in line with progressive theories of imperialism,
popular among Labour Party leaders of the 1920s. Ramsay MacDonald, for example, saw
Zionism as a civilizing force on the Arab population of Palestine, and supported it as a way to
promote independent “constructive imperialism” within the Empire.⁵ This support, however,
rapidly provoked animosity and resistance from the same Arab population. To some, including
anti-imperialist historians, this was part of a deliberate plan to foster animosity between Jews
and Arabs. Such a “divide-and-conquer” strategy, which had been employed in other British
colonies, had the potential to perpetuate British mandatory rule.⁶

Britain was indeed unquestionably successful at stoking seemingly irreconcilable animosity
between Jews and Arabs in Palestine between the wars. On the Jewish side, noncommittal
immigration policy bolstered strife between mainstream Zionists who continued to work with
the British and more radical Revisionists who believed more drastic measures were necessary.⁷
On the Arab side, British support for notable figures advocating the incorporation of Palestine
into a greater Syrian state undermined the formation of a Palestinian nationalist movement.⁸
After large-scale Arab riots in 1929, the British were much more hesitant to support the Zionist
cause, and thus refused to allow Jewish-financed mass immigration of German Jews to
Palestine after the Nazis came to power.⁹ Even so, Arab resentment continued to grow, fueled
by frustration that Palestine was not slated for increased sovereignty after similar developments
in Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and Transjordan in the 1920s and 30s. The Zionists, too, interpreted these
developments as an indication that they were next in line for independence after their
neighbors, in line with the text of the mandate.¹⁰ British administrators thus set themselves up
for failure all around when neither promise materialized.

An examination of British strategy during this period must note Palestine’s outsized importance in the Empire. To quote Colonial Secretary William Ormsby-Gore in 1937: “Palestine was unlike any other country with which the British empire had to deal… The task of the mandatory Power in Palestine was unique. The country was unique: the difficulties were unique.”¹¹ Appropriately, Palestine came to occupy an outsize presence in the British imperial consciousness. Of all British possessions, Palestine received the second-most attention from the British press and parliament in the 1930s and 40s, due to its religious value and to the impact of British policy in Jewish and Muslim circles in Britain, its Empire, and the United States.¹² Palestine was also strategically important, since the Middle East became a vital source of oil for the British Empire over the course of the mandate.¹³

Important as the territory was, British policy in Palestine was constrained by influence from
international institutions. The “unusually high levels of international scrutiny and lobbying”
surrounding Palestine were a product of its religious significance and mandate status, which
subjected British administration of the mandate to criticism from members of the League of
Nations.¹⁴ Failures of administration that would have otherwise found a small local audience
were amplified in Geneva and onwards in the world press, making such mistakes an
international embarrassment for the Empire.¹⁵ The League’s Mandates Commission also
provided a platform from which to influence British rule. Though it was responsible for the
administration of sixteen different mandates, Palestine alone was responsible for 43% of the
more than 3,000 petitions addressed to the Commission.¹⁶

II: Towards British-Led Partition

“The obligations imposed upon His Majesty’s Government by the terms of the Mandate were irreconcilable.”¹⁷

Partition motivation

During the interwar period, the situation in Palestine progressively deteriorated, with major waves of violence erupting in 1929 and 1936-39, mirroring the mounting international challenges Britain faced. As a result, British strategists began to contemplate a radical idea: partitioning the territory. Numerous external factors catalyzed the formation of this idea: Zionist influence on British politics, experience with partition elsewhere in the Empire, British interests in the Middle East, and the increasingly difficult task of satisfying the dual requirement of the mandate – providing for a Jewish national home and respecting the rights of Palestine’s non-Jewish inhabitants. The rise of fascism in Europe also played a role, motivating governments seeking either to aid Jewish refugees or to rid themselves of their Jewish populations to support Jewish emigration to Palestine against Arab wishes.¹⁸

Considerations of partition were also marked by growing American influence on British
policy in the Middle East, which accelerated during the Second World War. Britain sought
American support for the administration and defense of the Middle East, leaving it open to
influence through American electoral politics on top of its own domestic considerations. This
was successfully leveraged by Zionists to elicit commitments of support from Churchill during
the war, for example.¹⁹ This dynamic would only become more difficult for Britain after the
war, when American leaders recognized the potential of a “willing Zionist client” to act as a
more effective agent of American priorities in the Middle East than a “reluctant Britain.”²⁰
Finally, changes in British Palestine policy were motivated by a shift in Soviet attitudes
towards Zionism during the war. Soviet authorities had repeatedly denounced Zionism as “an
instrument of imperialism in the struggle against the movements of national liberation” and “a
glaring example of the deception practiced on the working-classes of an oppressed nation by
the combined efforts of Entente imperialism and the bourgeoisie.”²¹ Prioritizing the war effort
against Germany above all else, however, the Soviets came to view friendly contact with the
Yishuv as beneficial. Such contact could be used to muster support among American Jews for opening a second front against Germany, and then to preserve Soviet influence in the postwar
Middle East.²² By the end of World War II, then, Britain faced a deteriorating situation in
Palestine and an international environment increasingly amenable to the idea of partition.

Despite these push and pull factors, British planners viewed partition as an option to be
avoided if possible. Partition along religious lines had been attempted in Bengal (1905-11) and
Ireland (1920), at great cost and with mixed results. Not only was a partition plan thus likely
to be costly and bloody, but the prevailing British belief was that it was prohibited by the text
of the mandate.²³ As the idea gradually spread, however, planners defined a number of strategic
priorities that a partition plan would have to satisfy. Penny Sinanoglou writes:

“From their inception, plans of territorial separation were designed to ensure the
maintenance of British access to material resources, carve out some sort of space for
Britain’s Zionist allies, placate regional Arab states, and solidify Britain’s position as a
protector of the holy sites of three of the world’s major religions.”²⁴

The impact of partition on British-Arab relations was of particular concern. During the war,
inchoate Arab nationalism and encroaching Soviet influence made Britain shift its Middle East
policy from country-specific to regional.²⁵ This required a Palestine policy that was more
conciliatory towards Arab interests, but efforts to maintain good relations with the Arabs were
frustrated by their unwillingness to cooperate with alleged supporters of Zionism. The British
thus tried repeatedly to establish Arab political institutions equivalent to the Jewish Agency,
but the Arab population refused to cooperate at every turn, up until the end of the mandate.²⁶

The Evolution of Partition Plans

Partition was first formally proposed by the Peel Report of 1937, commissioned in response to
the ongoing Great Arab Revolt. In hindsight, British authorities identified this as the moment
in which it became clear that “the obligations imposed upon His Majesty’s Government by the
terms of the Mandate were irreconcilable,” and that “it was impossible both to concede the
Arab claim to self-government and to secure the establishment of the Jewish national home.”²⁷
The Peel plan called for the partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states with a British
exclave stretching from Jerusalem to Jaffa, thereby retaining control of key strategic points. In
advocating for the “difficult and drastic operation of partition,” the report rejected the idea of
cantonization, which was competing for influence within the British government at the time.²⁸
While the Peel recommendations never became official policy, their influence was in the longer
term: the partition lines became the core idea for resolving the “Palestine question” through the
eventual UN partition plan and beyond to the Oslo Accords of the 1990s.²⁹

The publication of the Peel Report renewed the Arab revolt, frightening the British
authorities. With the prospect of war with Germany and Italy looming, British authorities
particularly feared any Arab opposition that threatened their control of the Middle East.³⁰
Intending to walk back the partition recommendation, the British appointed the Woodhead
Commission in 1938 to conduct a “technical study” of the Peel plan.³¹ The members of the
commission were under strict instructions to prioritize British strategic interests in their report
– limiting its military and financial burden, and retaining control of holy sites, key border zones, and natural resources. The three plans the commission produced were thus distilled products of British strategy, envisioning an Arab state and a much smaller Jewish state, along with British enclaves in Jerusalem, Nazareth, and potentially the Negev. Thus, even as the Woodhead Commission declared that “the problem cannot be solved by an exchange of land and population”, the British failed to propose a better alternative.³²

As Arab violence persisted and the situation in Europe deteriorated, the British government
published a white paper in May 1939 which explicitly announced that “it is not part of [British]
policy that Palestine should become a Jewish State,” calling for the establishment of an
“independent Palestine State” within a decade in which “Arabs and Jews share authority in
government.”³³ Even this document, however, demarcated geographic zones in which different
land transfer rules applied, thereby maintaining a commitment to a territorial solution – albeit
of a different kind. On the verge of a world war and embroiled in a three-year-long Arab revolt,
the White Paper was a product of British pragmatism and commitment to shelving the Palestine
question. Within months of its publication, Britain was at war with Germany, and Palestine
found itself out of the limelight for once. With the Arabs largely satisfied and the Jews largely
preoccupied with events in Europe, the White Paper was a successful temporary fix.

The 1939 restrictions on Jewish immigration, the core provision of the White Paper, were
set to expire in May 1944, requiring British attention during the war. In August 1943, Churchill
appointed a Cabinet committee to propose long-term plans for Palestine, all of which ended up
being partition plans of one kind or another. Even the report’s dissenting opinion agreed that
partition represented “the best and possibly the only final solution of the Palestine problem.”³⁴
The committee advocated for a return to a “natural” political order, reversing the “arbitrary
dismemberment of the Levant” in the 1910s by incorporating much of Palestine into a Levantine Arab state.³⁵ The plan’s nod to a pan-Arab political consciousness was an attempt to
placate Arab partners crucial to Britain’s warfighting efforts, who had explicitly been promised
independence in 1939 and now had to contend with partition once again. The plan won over
Churchill, and the rest of the Cabinet followed suit in October 1944.³⁶

British planners later determined that the key suggestion of the Cabinet report – Levantine
unification – was impossible. This, along with the assassination of the British minister of state
Lord Moyne by Lehi operatives in November, halted all partition planning. For a brief moment,
it seemed that partition would be taken off the table for good, as British opinion on Zionism
soured, the new Arab League began to exert influence, and even Zionist leaders shifted their
lobbying efforts towards federation.³⁷ Experience with enclaves in Danzig in the interwar
period also made British planners more reluctant to implement them in Palestine, which ruled
out most conceivable partition plans.³⁸

As a result, the next plan under consideration by British authorities – the Hall-Harris plan
of September 1945 – called for federation rather than partition. Sharing an author, the plan was
similar to the Harris-Andrews plan of 1936 (which the Peel Report had effectively buried). In
this plan, Britain would retain strategic control of Palestine, but limit its territorial control to
Jerusalem. Britain would thus be responsible for foreign relations, defense, customs, and
communications in the entire territory, while Jews and Arabs would administrate their
respective cantons independently.³⁹ The Hall-Harris plan was a pure reflection of Britain’s
interests at the end of the Second World War, and thus embodied continued hopes that a
solution in Palestine could produce maximum benefits for a minimal cost. As this chapter has shown, this was simply the latest iteration of British attempts to produce a solution that would
satisfy conflicting Zionist, Arab, and American interests, balanced according to Britain’s own
evolving strategic priorities. As we have seen, however, none of these plans could produce a
broad enough coalition of interests to actually be implemented.

III: The Cold Reality of the Cold War

“Abdication in Palestine would be regarded in the Middle East as symptomatic of our abdication as a Great Power.”⁴⁰

Britain emerged from World War II with four million troops under its flag, commanding the
world’s second-largest navy, and ruling over a loyal Empire-Commonwealth spanning the
globe.⁴¹ Beneath this façade of strength, however, Britain was in dire financial straits –the
Lend-Lease program had terminated in August 1945, and the mammoth $3.75 billion American
loan that followed was only expected to keep it afloat for two years.⁴² In the postwar world,
Britain was unmistakably a second-rate power inferior to the United States and the Soviet
Union, both of which were showing keen interest in the Middle East and Palestine. Facing these
new regional competitors, all Britain had to show for a quarter-century of mandatory rule was
spiraling violence, a series of failed solutions, and rapidly-deteriorating security.

Despite its massive financial challenges, Britain still conceived of itself as a victorious great power, requiring expensive military commitments around the world. According to British historian David Reynolds, “national retreat from global status after military victory was entirely counter-intuitive for both British bureaucrats and politicians.”⁴³ British strategy in the years immediately following the war was thus based on a delicate balancing act between domestic reconstruction and the preservation of British status and independence vis-à-vis both great powers, and the main tool in service of the latter end was the Empire. Even as decolonization took off in the British and other empires, the Communist threat kept Britain from completely retreating from its former colonies as it attempted to continue to exert influence in the newly-formed Commonwealth.⁴⁴

British foreign policy in the early Cold War was defined by Churchill’s idea of the “Three Circles”, with Britain at the nexus of the United States, Europe, and the Empire-Commonwealth.⁴⁵ Up in arms about the Communist threat and heavily reliant on American financial, material, and military support during the war, Britain was naturally drawn to its ally across the Atlantic over its former ally across the Continent.⁴⁶ By 1947, then, the contours of a bipolar world order had been drawn. The United States would assume responsibility for the defense of Western Europe against the Soviet threat, with Britain and France both relegated to supporting roles.⁴⁷ British leaders thus understood that American support was essential to the success of their foreign policy, but sought to retain the Empire-Commonwealth as a British sphere of influence.

The Importance of Palestine

In the Middle East, where Soviet influence was less of an immediate threat than in Europe, Britain was more reluctant to defer to the Americans. In November 1945, the State Department declared that the United States had “no intention” of becoming a “mere passive spectator” in the region, but the British were jealous of their regional hegemony.⁴⁸ Some, like the commander of the Transjordanian Legion John Glubb, even believed that Britain was entitled to a “Monroe Doctrine in the Arab countries.”⁴⁹ These lofty ambitions were checked by Britain’s financial state, however, which had drastically reduced its ability to deploy force in the region. To maintain regional primacy without damaging the valuable Anglo-American relationship, Britain therefore needed to maintain good relations with Arab populations – and this required distance from the Zionists.⁵⁰ At the same time, Britain’s weakened state also meant that it could not afford to be perceived as weak in Palestine. As Harold Beeley, future secretary of the Anglo-American Committee on Palestine explained in July 1945:

“Abdication in Palestine would be regarded in the Middle East as symptomatic of our abdication as a Great Power, and might set in motion a process which would result in the crumbling away of our influence throughout this region.”⁵¹

The situation in Palestine was not only a test of British power in the Middle East, but also a
constraint on it. Palestine was considered one of three major overseas burdens on the British
treasury, which had reached a critical state by the end of 1946.⁵² In numbers, British military
expenditures in Palestine from the end of World War II to the end of the mandate topped £100
million, representing approximately 0.3% of GDP over the same period.⁵³ Though the British
military was responsible for the administration and security of one quarter of the world’s
population, the violence and unrest in Palestine had reached such proportions that by the end
of 1946, one out of ten British troops was stationed in the territory, whose population numbered
fewer than two million.⁵⁴ In the final years of the mandate, these troops were mainly tasked
with fighting Jewish insurgent groups – the IZL and Lehi, and briefly the Haganah, the armed
wing of the Jewish Agency.⁵⁵ Statements of British leaders from this period leave no doubt as
to the magnitude of the frustration they were experiencing. In July 1945, Colonial Secretary
Oliver Stanley admitted:

“The Palestine Mandate […] has proved a continual drain on resources of material and manpower. I realise, however, that the effects both upon our strategic position in the Middle East might be serious, but these matters are more for the Foreign Office and the Chiefs of Staff.”⁵⁶

The same month, Churchill in his final weeks as Prime Minister remarked in exasperation: “I am not aware of the slightest advantage which has ever accrued to Great Britain from this painful and thankless task. Somebody else should have their turn now.”⁵⁷ In spite of this frustration, Palestine in the 1940s remained a rare bastion of British imperial power in the Middle East, and the prospect of retreat raised serious alarm in certain official circles. By early 1947, the British economy was reeling from war debts, lost export markets, and a harsh winter, but the Cabinet was unwilling to give up on Palestine – one of only two Middle Eastern territories still under direct British rule.⁵⁸ At the center of the eastern Mediterranean, Palestine had unique importance to British imperial interests, providing control of strategic land and sea routes and access to vast oil resources beyond.⁵⁹

The weakening of British control in the region only increased this strategic importance. In
September 1945, Egypt demanded to revise the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936, and Britain
promised to do so on the basis of full equality. The unrest in Palestine directly undermined
Britain’s bargaining position, as it had forced a diversion of nearly all the combat troops
stationed in Egypt to Palestine. The Foreign Office found this situation concerning as well, and
noted that the formation of a Jewish state on the lines of communication between Egypt and
Arab states to the east would be a disaster for British interests.⁶⁰

Confronted with the specter of evacuating its strategically vital bases in Egypt, the British
military immediately turned to Palestine as the closest and most viable alternative. In its view,
Palestine was the only place “between Malta and Aden” that could accommodate the Middle
East Reserve and British air bases, critical to power projection in the region.⁶¹ To this end, the Chiefs of Staff warned Attlee against the grave strategic implications of any solution which would forfeit the right to station British troops in Palestine. Lord Tedder, chief of the Air Staff, went even further and insisted that even a solution which addressed British interests in Palestine would be unacceptable if it alienated the Arabs.⁶² For the British military, the Middle East was an area of “prime importance to the British Empire”, and surrendering the mandate would result in the loss of Britain’s “predominant position” in the region, causing “incalculable” damage to its reputation.⁶³ With all avenues of action challenging or blocked entirely, it becomes apparent why Palestine has come to be regarded as “perhaps the most intractable problem facing the British government” in the early postwar years.⁶⁴

External Pressure Points

For all this talk of strategic importance, by 1947 there was no denying that British control of
Palestine was weakening with every passing day. To quote the commander of British forces in
Palestine in 1946: “The Palestine government is completely in control of those areas which are
primarily Arab, [and] the [Jewish] Agency in areas where the Jews predominate.”⁶⁵ A major
factor in this deterioration of sovereignty was illegal immigration, which was the source of
70,000 of the 120,000 Jews who arrived in the territory between the end of World War II and
the end of the mandate. Illegal immigration particularly scared the British because it was the
main source of recruitment for Jewish underground organizations. The arrival of every
immigrant ship therefore raised the probability of the worst possible outcome for the British –
having to fight both Jews and Arabs – and their interception became the paramount task of
British forces in Palestine and the Mediterranean.⁶⁶

This was hardly a task for the British military alone, however, as the immigration was
largely originating from territories under US and Soviet occupation in central and eastern
Europe. Under instructions from Soviet authorities eager to disrupt British rule in the Middle
East, the Polish and Rumanian puppet governments permitted Jews to emigrate to Palestine, a
fact of which British authorities were aware as early as January 1945. The British managed to
leverage negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference in summer 1946 to slow emigration from
the Soviet Union and the countries under its influence, but the Americans proved more
difficult.⁶⁷ Much of the financial and material support for illegal immigration and underground
resistance in Palestine originated in the US, but American authorities maintained that they
could do nothing to stop it.⁶⁸

Facing issues like illegal immigration, any British course of action was likely to provoke
violence from Jews, Arabs, or both – in addition to international condemnation from the United
States if it was anti-Zionist. Britain thus found itself in a nearly impossible position in which
inaction meant the loss of control in a strategically important territory, but any action would
anger one of its two principal partners in the early Cold War – the United States and the Arab
nations. The situation was made worse by divided opinions on the Palestine question within
the British government itself. The Chiefs of Staff and Foreign Office were more concerned
with Soviet expansion into the Middle East and beyond into Africa and southern Europe, and
generally maintained pro-Arab attitudes. Several Cabinet members, in contrast, were more
concerned by American reactions, and were therefore inclined towards pro-Zionist policies.⁶⁹

British leaders had deemed that American cooperation on the Palestine issue was necessary
for the preservation of the mandate as early as 1945, further complicating this debate.⁷⁰
American interests in Palestine went beyond support for Zionism – the US viewed Palestine as a weak underbelly for British policy in the Middle East, recognizing that support for pro-Zionist
policies would make it difficult for the British to ensure their position of primacy in the Arab
world. Indeed, as time went on, Britain found it increasingly difficult to apply a coherent policy
to the entire region, since Palestine required an entirely different form of treatment from the
rest of the region.⁷¹ The United States thus found itself in the opportune position in which its
support for Zionism won it support from Jewish interests, but also had the indirect effect of
increasing American influence in the Arab world at British expense.

Understanding this dynamic, British leaders sought to engage the Americans in producing a solution for Palestine and kill two birds with one stone. American involvement would not only make them assume some of the responsibility for the events in Palestine, but also hinder Soviet encroachment into the region.⁷² Britain was desperate to achieve the first goal, and used mutual concerns about Soviet expansionism to form the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry (AAC) in January 1946. With split attitudes on partition, the committee recommended placing Palestine under UN trusteeship, which would allow the British to retain control of the territory and provide an opportunity to rewrite the seemingly impossible terms of the mandate. The British Cabinet took up the AAC’s recommendations, and in July produced a joint Anglo-American agreement on Palestine policy, which became known as the Morrison-Grady plan.⁷³

This plan recommended splitting Palestine into three provinces – Jewish, Arab, and British,
removing restrictions on Jewish purchases of Arab land, and immediately issuing 100,000
Jewish immigration certificates, which was a personal priority of President Truman.⁷⁴ The plan
was categorically rejected by the Arabs, and the US eventually removed its support after a few
months.⁷⁵ Initially considered a major British success, the AAC was ultimately a failure. The
committee failed to secure American support for continued British rule in Palestine, buy Britain more time to stem the tide of its waning influence in the region, or move the United States towards support for the principles of the 1939 White Paper which had previously preserved the peace in Palestine. This failure meant that Britain remained without a workable plan and with few options to resolve the situation on its own.

At this juncture, the position of the Palestine question in the Anglo-American relationship in the late 1940s should be clarified. Britain was frustrated at what it perceived to be American hypocrisy in advocating for the mass resettlement of Jewish refugees in Palestine while refusing to allow them to immigrate to the United States. In 1945, the British ambassador to the United States Lord Halifax went so far as to write about Jewish immigrants: “The average citizen does not want them in the United States, and salves his conscience by advocating their admission into Palestine.”⁷⁶ At this point, however, Britain was seriously dependent on American financial and strategic support in Europe. With their hands thus tied, British leaders had to acquiesce to American priorities – themselves a reflection of U.S. electoral politics – at the expense of their own strategic interests. Truman personally played a central role in this dynamic, successfully pushing the British to shift towards a more Zionist-friendly line without assuming responsibility for the repercussions – whether in the expenditure of blood and treasure in Palestine, or by allowing Jewish immigration to the United States.⁷⁷

Despite these disagreements, British and American leaders could unite behind a shared suspicion of the Soviet Union, which stood to benefit from the weakening of Britain’s grip on the Middle East. One major tool at the Soviets’ disposal for sustaining the unrest in Palestine was enabling Jewish emigration at a time when the British were seriously concerned with curbing it. In 1944-45, the Soviets allowed hundreds of thousands of Jews to return to Poland and Romania, whence they had fled earlier in the war. In the throes of anti-Semitism, neither was an attractive destination for Jews, and Stalin anticipated that many of them would attempt to continue onwards to Palestine.⁷⁸ Stalin thus hoped to accomplish two strategic purposes.
First, any Jewish migration to Palestine was likely to generate pressure on Britain to allow it, since the Americans were particularly sensitive to this issue. Second, this migration had the potential to favorably influence the course of a future Jewish state, since many Polish Jews had leftist sympathies.⁷⁹ This episode was a major anomaly in Soviet policy regarding displaced groups during and after the war. Despite official denial of any mass emigration taking place, the departure of so many Jews from Soviet territory could have only taken place following an explicit directive from Moscow.⁸⁰

Motivated by different concerns, the United States also used Jewish displaced persons (DPs) in Europe as a lever of pressure on Britain. Despite incessant American pressure, the British refused to budge from the tight quotas of the 1939 White Paper. After the war, the United States occupied significant parts of Germany and Austria, and encouraged Jewish DPs there to move toward Mediterranean ports where they could continue to Palestine with the support of Zionist organizations. These seized the opportunity to help DPs from other occupation zones move to the American zones, where they could be transported to a port for emigration. For the Zionists, this was a win-win situation, since those that could not be transported would constitute a financial burden on the Americans, incentivizing them to up the pressure on Britain to allow more immigration. Motivated by memories of the Great Arab Revolt, the British held fast to their quotas, significantly exacerbating the Jewish DP problem in Europe. Jews had made up no more than 1% of the 10.5 million DPs in Europe immediately after the war, but by 1947 they represented 20%.⁸¹

IV: A Strategic Retreat?

By 1947, then, the British government was facing significant pressure from the Americans, the
Soviets, the Arab countries, Zionist organization, and its own generals to produce a workable
solution for Palestine, but none appeared. The territory remained a powder keg, and any major
policy shift was likely to provoke tremendous upheaval. British officials were particularly
frustrated by Jewish illegal immigration and by the obstinance of Arab leaders. The latter factor
was exacerbated by the sense of Muslim betrayal following Britain’s near-expulsion from
Egypt in 1946 and catastrophic partition of India the following year.⁸²

In late 1946, President Truman unilaterally declared his support for partition, and the British conducted a series of unsuccessful negotiations with Zionist leaders. Reaching new levels of frustration, British leaders began to consider letting the newly-formed United Nations solve the Palestine question in their stead.⁸³ Turning to the UN would draw the Soviets into the mix and likely strip Britain of its strategic assets in Palestine and was therefore seen as a last resort short of unilateral withdrawal, but Britain was running out of time. The deteriorating situation raised the probability that the Soviets would refer it to the Security Council themselves, which was likely to undermine British interests even further.⁸⁴ With the British government unable to advocate for partition because of Arab sentiment, under American pressure to pursue policies friendly to the Zionists, and split along ideological lines, the appeal of a UN-sponsored partition
spread rapidly, even among those who were previously strongly opposed to any form of partition.⁸⁵

After numerous failures to reach a compromise within the British government, Foreign Secretary Bevin gave a speech to the House of Commons in February 1947 stating that “the only course now open to us is to submit the problem to the judgement of the United Nations.”⁸⁶ The speech captures the sense of paralyzed frustration gripping British authorities at the time:

“If the conflict has to be resolved by an arbitrary decision, that is not a decision to which His Majesty’s Government are empowered, as Mandatory, to take. His Majesty’s Government have of themselves no power under the terms of the mandate, to award the country either to the Arabs or to the Jews, or even to partition between them.”⁸⁷

Following Bevin’s speech, the British Cabinet decided to refer the issue to the United Nations,
after a last-ditch negotiation effort at the London Conference for Palestine.⁸⁸ The decision to
surrender responsibility in Palestine was thus a deliberate strategy choice, and not merely a
cost-cutting measure as some have suggested. Several weeks later, the British representative to
the UN requested a special session of the General Assembly to discuss the issue. The session
convened in April 1947 and formed the UN Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) to
produce a workable plan.⁸⁹ The choice of a non-binding body was not accidental. Convening a
special UNGA session was seen as the best option, since the Security Council was seen as too
prone to Soviet influence and issued binding decisions.⁹⁰

UNSCOP’s starting point for examining the Palestine question was five volumes of British
documents and data and officials’ private analysis of past partition plans, which gave it a very
British view of things. As an international body, however, it had much less of an interest in
protecting British interests than all previous British plans, and therefore cut Britain out of the
plan entirely. The UNSCOP plan was therefore essentially the first plan to not call for some
form of British presence or control over strategic resources. Instead, the UN considered the
Jewish state “the force to implement the partition plan,” and rejected the unification of the Arab
state with Transjordan, which was a central British priority.⁹¹

By this point, British public opinion on Palestine had reached an all-time low, significantly
undermining British leaders’ ability to advocate for their strategic interests. As the UNSCOP
report was being written, Britain plunged into another balance-of-payments crisis, and the
Jewish underground organization IZL kidnapped, murdered, and booby-trapped the bodies of
two British soldiers. Days later, British forces turned the immigrant ship Exodus away from
Haifa towards Marseilles, from where it would be turned back to Germany, producing a
publicity nightmare for the British government. It was at this moment that the two UNSCOP
plans were published, both agreeing on the immediate termination of the mandate, granting of
independence, and preservation of economic unity, but diverging on the appropriate political
solution. Seven members called for a transitional period of British rule under UN trusteeship
before partitioning Palestine into a Jewish and Arab state, while three supported the
establishment of a federative state, and one abstained.⁹²

Critical to the success of the partition plan was Soviet diplomatic support, which was a truly seismic shift in Soviet policy. Following decades of open hostility towards the Zionist project, this support formed part of Soviet grand strategy in the early Cold War, and has been widely analyzed in the academic literature. Particularly informative for understanding this strategy is the Declaration of the Founding of the Cominform, published by the Communist parties of the Soviet Union and its satellite states on November 10, 1947. Seeing light only 19 days before the UN vote on the Palestine partition plan, this document provides a snapshot of Soviet grand-strategic thinking at the precise moment in which the partition debate entered a critical phase. The declaration divides the world into “two diametrically opposed political lines”:

“On one side, the USSR and the other democratic countries directed at undermining imperialism and consolidating democracy, and on the other side, the policy of the United States and Britain directed at strengthening imperialism and stifling democracy. […] The anti-imperialist democratic camp should close its ranks, draw up an agreed program of actions and work out its own tactics against the main forces of the imperialist camp, against American imperialism and its British and French allies.”⁹³

The rhetoric of this document leaves no room for doubt as to the fixation of the Soviet Union
on undermining British and American influence in the late 1940s. This worldview was entirely
black and white, good and evil, and explains both the convergence of British and American
geostrategic interests and the dramatic pendulum swings in Soviet policy towards the Zionist
project in this period.

In this new zero-sum world, Zionism came to be seen as “an issue of truly central
importance” for Soviet authorities.⁹⁴ To this end, the Soviets initially supported the
establishment of a single, majority-Arab state in Palestine. Soviet sympathies naturally lay with
the Arab population of Palestine, as the Jews were seen as colonizers “vigorously backed by
British imperialism.”⁹⁵ As the violence in Palestine escalated, Stalin came to see a Jewish state
in Palestine as a potential “source of trouble” for Britain.⁹⁶ In the Soviet worldview, the Yishuv
was at that moment playing a progressive and anti-imperialist role in undermining British rule,
even as the Zionist movement itself was regarded as subversive and bourgeois. The Soviets’
desire to supplant British hegemony in the Middle East with their own influence was
paramount, even at the cost of losing standing in the Arab world.⁹⁷ To that end, on October 13,
1947, the Soviet delegation announced its intention to support the UNSCOP majority plan,
citing Britain’s failures in Palestine, Western failures to protect Jews during the Holocaust, and
rising Jewish-Arab tensions. This essentially guaranteed the plan’s passage in the UNGA.⁹⁸

Indeed, Palestine’s disruptive nature was a blessing to Soviet designs on the Middle East.
As British policy in Palestine and other arenas came to rely more heavily on American support,
the Attlee government came under increased criticism from the left wing of Attlee’s own
Labour Party to reduce this dependence.⁹⁹ Sustaining chaos in Palestine therefore not only
directly undermined British power there, but also fueled Anglo-American discord, from which
the Communist bloc stood to gain. The Soviets therefore did not only support the partition plan,
but also enabled permitted the export of arms and aircraft from Czechoslovakia to Israel during
the 1948-49 Arab-Israeli War. These shipments had a major impact on the success of Israeli
forces in the war.¹⁰⁰

During this entire period, however, the Soviets were careful to not explicitly endorse Zionism as an ideology. “Zionism” was never brought up in a favorable context in Soviet media or speeches at the UN; only “Jews” and “the Jewish people”.¹⁰¹ This had the effect of separating Zionism as a global movement and ideology from the de facto existence of the Jewish settlement in Palestine. One was considered highly subversive to the Soviet regime; the other a useful tool to weaken the British grip on the Middle East. Indeed, once the British had left Palestine and the existence of the State of Israel was a fait accompli, the Soviets again shifted their focus towards the suppression of domestic Zionism, and Soviet support in arms and immigration ended by 1949.¹⁰²

Following the publication of the UNSCOP plans, the British anticipated that the majority partition plan would spark an Arab revolt, and the minority federation plan a Jewish revolt. In response, the Cabinet determined that it was not willing to commit the military resources that restoring order in either scenario would require. This was not only a financial decision – both plans ran a significant risk of alienating Arab public opinion at a moment when British strategy required it desperately.¹⁰³ By the end of 1947, then, Britain had no realistic options short of withdrawal, since no solutions other than the UNSCOP plans were in sight. This was both a validation of British concerns in referring the issue to the United Nations in the first place, and a resounding signal of the decline in British imperial power.

Without a viable course of action, Britain chose to abstain in the vote on the partition plan
in November 1947, and subsequently announced that it would surrender the mandate the
following May. Even as the situation rapidly devolved into open warfare, Britain refused to
cooperate with UN authorities. British authorities thus hindered the arrival of the partition
implementation committee in Palestine and refused to establish UN trusteeship. The Arab
response to this decision is contested by historians. In one view, the decision to withdraw rather
than implement partition was well received, thereby accomplishing Britain’s chief strategic
aim.¹⁰⁴ In another, the haste of the British departure was viewed in the Arab world as abetting
the Zionist cause.¹⁰⁵

V: Aftermath and Conclusion

Amid the chaos that gripped Palestine after the partition vote and despite the decision to withdraw, British decision makers refused to write Palestine off. With Palestinian Arab institutions still largely absent, Britain successfully negotiated an agreement between Transjordanian and Jewish Agency officials allowing the former to administer the territory of the hypothetical Arab state, a British goal which had been explicitly rejected by UNSCOP.¹⁰⁶ This was part of a broader British plan to use its Arab proxies to continue to exercise influence in the Middle East after partition. Central to this plan were the armies of Egypt, Transjordan, and Iraq, all of which were commanded by British officers and controlled by governments with some degree of British influence. After the British withdrew their forces from Palestine in May 1948, they urged these governments to invade the infant Israel in the hope of defeating it militarily to preserve their influence in the territory.¹⁰⁷ These plans were largely unsuccessful, however, as Israel prevailed in the war and conquered much of the territory designated for the Arab state.¹⁰⁸

Within Palestine, the British withdrawal was a tactical success and a strategic failure. In the
immediate view, British forces emerged “relatively unscathed” once the decision to surrender
the mandate had been made – thereby avoiding a large and costly military engagement.¹⁰⁹ In a
broader view, British weakness had been exposed for all to see, and all it had to show for 30
years of control was “the dismal wreck of Arab Palestine,” to quote a senior official in the
Foreign Office’s Eastern Department.¹¹⁰ Indeed, Britain’s “infamous scuttle” from Palestine
was to adversely affect its reputation both in the Arab world and in the United States, which
was to emerge as the unmistakable hegemon during the Korean War only two years later.¹¹¹ Internally, too, the trauma of Palestine in the last days of the mandate reached such an extent that it became a metaphor of administrative failure throughout the Empire. Thus in 1947, Lord Wavell, the penultimate Viceroy of India, warned King George that the situation in India could deteriorate into a “large-scale Palestine.”¹¹² When the British faced a Communist insurgency in Malaya the following year, they worried about it becoming “a second Palestine.”¹¹³

Unfortunately for Britain, the partition of Palestine was to be only the first in a series of critical blows to its standing in the Middle East which it tried so hard to preserve. In the 1950s, British influence was to become a target of Nasserism and pan-Arabism, leading to the 1956 Suez crisis and the eventual alignment of much of the Arab world with the Soviet Union. While the Middle East would occupy a central role in world politics over the subsequent decades, Britain would largely play a minor role in these events. Although the partition of Palestine was not the cause of this broader decline, it exposed Britain as flippant, self-interested, and weak to Arab leaders, who found comfort in the anti-colonial rhetoric of the Soviet Union and its allies.¹¹⁴

While Britain persistently tried to tie its policy in Palestine to its broader evolving strategic
goals, then, it was ultimately unsuccessful. British policymakers were initially correct that
support for Zionism would help them win the mandate for Palestine, but this rapidly provoked
resistance from the local population. The Pandora’s box of Jewish immigration could
conceivably have been closed once more in the early years of the mandate, but the rise of
fascism in Europe made the mandate an easy target for international pressure on Britain. With
rising sectarian tensions, British strategists began to contemplate the partition of Palestine, but
no consensus could be reached. When war broke out in Europe, Britain got a brief reprieve in
Palestine, with the Arabs placated by stricter policies and the Jews preoccupied with the
ongoing Holocaust.

The Second World War demoted Britain’s standing on the world stage, and left it financially and militarily weak. The emerging Cold War made competition for global influence a zero-
sum game between the United States and the Soviet Union, both of which showed interest in exerting influence in Palestine and the region. Britain threw in its lot behind the United States for the defense of Europe, which exposed it to the exercise of American leverage on issues like Palestine policy. Anxious to preserve its regional hegemony necessary for its global standing, British leaders attempted to have the United States assume some of the responsibility for administering Palestine. When this failed, they felt they had no choice but to turn the problem to the United Nations, or risk alienating their Arab partners.

When UNSCOP recommended partition as a solution for Palestine, both great powers saw it as advancing their own interests, producing a rare moment of Soviet-American consensus in the late 1940s. Britain still saw its future as a bridge between the Arab world and the United States, and distanced itself from the decision as much as it could. Even unilateral withdrawal and non-cooperation with the partition implementation mechanisms were not enough to salvage Britain’s reputation, however. British plans to regain indirect control of Palestine were foiled first by Israel’s successes on the battlefield, and later by the broader split between Britain and its Arab partners. By the middle of the 20th century, then, Britain had very little to show for its 30 years in Palestine. Both Arabs and Zionists had pinned their hopes on British control of the Middle East, but constant course changes in an effort to maximize evolving strategic goals left both feeling betrayed.

References

Featured/Headline Image Caption and Citation: Jewish Brigade of the British Eighth Army, taken 1939-1945, Photo by Imperial War Museum | Image sourced from Picryl | CC License, no changes made

1. Ravndal, “Exit Britain.” 416. ↩︎
2. “Text of the Balfour Declaration.” ↩︎
3. Hollis, “Palestine and the Palestinians in British Political Elite Discourse.” 7-8. ↩︎
4. Brenner, Zionism: A Brief History. 140-41. ↩︎
5. Kelemen, The British Left and Zionism. 15-16. This represented a wider embrace of Labor Zionism
   among European social democrats, who saw it as a force for positive change in the colonized world. See Kelemen, 25. ↩︎
6. Lumer, Zionism; Its Role in World Politics. 13; Nosenko, “The Palestinian Struggle in the 1920s-
   1930s.” 43. ↩︎
7. Penkower, Palestine in Turmoil. 86-89. ↩︎
8. Sinanoglou, Partitioning Palestine. 40-41. ↩︎
9. See Penkower, chapters 1-4. ↩︎
10. Brenner, Zionism: A Brief History. 145-46. ↩︎
11. League of Nations, “Minutes of the Permanent Mandates Commission.” 55. One unique aspect was
    that Palestine was initially inhabited by a native Arab population and settled by nationalist Jews who
    were neither native nor British. The Yishuv (the Jewish community in Palestine) was therefore neither part of the imperial community nor entirely outside it. See Sinanoglou, 19. ↩︎
12. Kelemen, 5. ↩︎
13. Nachmani, Great Power Discord in Palestine. 30. ↩︎
14. Sinanoglou, 18, 34. ↩︎
15. Sinanoglou, 34-35. ↩︎
16. Pedersen, The Guardians. 87. ↩︎
17. Colonial Office, 6. ↩︎
18. Sinanoglou, 18, 35. This final category included Nazi Germany itself, which encouraged Jewish
    emigration to Palestine in the early 1930s and signed an agreement regulating it with the Jewish Agency in 1933, inter alia. See Black, Edwin. The Transfer Agreement: The Dramatic Story of the Pact Between the Third Reich and Jewish Palestine. Cambridge, MA: Brookline Books, 1999. ↩︎
19. Kelemen, 22-23; Cohen, Palestine and the Great
    Powers, 1945-1948. 11. ↩︎
20. Nachmani, 273. ↩︎
21. Frankel, The Soviet Regime and Anti-Zionism. 2-6; Resolution of the Second Congress of the
    Comintern, 1920. In: Degras, The Communist International, 1919-1943. I, 144. ↩︎
22. Frankel, 10-11. ↩︎
23. Louis, “The Dissolution of the British Empire.” Partition in Bengal was reversed after six years
    following opposition, but was far more successful in Ireland. For an elaboration on the history of these partitions, see Sinanoglou, 23-32. ↩︎
24. Sinanoglou, 172. ↩︎
25. Nachmani 28-29. ↩︎
26. Colonial Office, 5-6. ↩︎
27. Colonial Office, 6. ↩︎
28. Ovendale, Britain, the United States, and the End of the Palestine Mandate, 1942-1948. 5; El-Eini,
    Mandated Landscape. 316-19. Partition caused deep disagreements within the British government. See JTA, “Britain Seen Firm on Partition.” ↩︎
29. Brenner, 149. ↩︎
30. Kelemen, 34-35. ↩︎
31. Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949. 49. ↩︎
32. El-Eini, 332-40; Morris, 49. “Palestine Partition (Woodhead) Commission Report.” §178. In fact, the
    report itself rejected all three of the plans that it put forward. ↩︎
33. Secretary of State for the Colonies, “Palestine Statement of Policy.” ↩︎
34. War Cabinet, Committee on Palestine, Report of the Committee, December 20, 1943. In: Sinanoglou,
    160. ↩︎
35. Ibid.; El-Eini, 346. A Levantine state appealed to a Britain made hegemonic in the Middle East by the surrender of France and the German defeat in North Africa. ↩︎
36. Sinanoglou, 162. ↩︎
37. Sinanoglou, 163. British attitudes towards Zionism were complex, especially among soldiers in
    Palestine. Jews were simultaneously seen as both sympathetic victims of Nazi aggression and murderous terrorists. See Kadish, 10-11. ↩︎
38. El-Eini, 355. Jewish settlement patterns made it incredibly difficult to partition Palestine into two
    contiguous territories without major transfers. ↩︎
39. Sinanoglou, 165; El-Eini, 356. ↩︎
40. Beeley minute, July 10, 1945. In: Cohen, 16. ↩︎
41. Deighton, “Britain and the Cold War.” 112. ↩︎
42. Sinanoglou, 164; Cohen, 1. ↩︎
43. Reynolds, “Great Britain.” 78-79. ↩︎
44. Deighton, 114-17; Ravndal, 419. ↩︎
45. Davis, “WSC’s ‘Three Majestic Circles.’” ↩︎
46. See a JIC report from September 1946: “Communism is the most important external political
    menace confronting the British Commonwealth and Western democracies and is likely to remain so in the foreseeable future.” In: Deighton, 120. ↩︎
47. Deighton, 121. ↩︎
48. Nachmani, 28, 38. ↩︎
49. Nachmani, 32. ↩︎
50. Ravndal, 430. ↩︎
51. Beeley minute, July 10, 1945. In: Cohen, 16. ↩︎
52. Cohen. 30-31. ↩︎
53. Colonial Office, 10; Chantrill, “Gross Domestic Product for United Kingdom 1946-1960.” ↩︎
54. Nachmani, 19; United Nations Conciliation Committee for Palestine (UNCCP), “Palestine Population Estimates for 1946.” ↩︎
55. Kadish, The British Army in Palestine and the 1948 War. 1. ↩︎
56. Cohen, 15-16. ↩︎
57. Cohen, 15. Of course, Churchill was well aware of the strategic benefits of British rule in Palestine,
    as we shall now see. ↩︎
58. Ravndal, 418-20. ↩︎
59. Deighton, 120. ↩︎
60. Cohen, 34; Ovendale, 178-83. ↩︎
61. Cohen. 34-37. ↩︎
62. Ovendale, 185. ↩︎
63. Cohen, 16. ↩︎
64. Ravndal, 418. ↩︎
65. In: Nachmani, 19. ↩︎
66. Nachmani, 16. Many of the illegal immigrants were imprisoned in Palestine and Cyprus, but some
    were sent back to Europe. Intercepting migrant ships and imprisoning their passengers, most of whom were Holocaust survivors, generated extreme international and domestic pressure on the British government. ↩︎
67. Kochavi, 168, 210, 228; Nachmani, 78. See more on Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union below. ↩︎
68. Ovendale, 202-03. ↩︎
69. Ravndal, 420, 423. ↩︎
70. Nachmani, 270. ↩︎
71. Nachmani, 31, 40. ↩︎
72. Grigoryev and Fedchenko, “Palestinian Problem in the United Nations (1945-1947).” 63-64. ↩︎
73. Sinanoglou, 165-66. ↩︎
74. Colonial Office, 8-9. ↩︎
75. Sinanoglou, 168. ↩︎
76. Cohen, 15. ↩︎
77. Ovendale, 178-79. ↩︎
78. Khanin, Bogdim Ba-Moledet. 39-41. ↩︎
79. Kaganovitch, 76-79. More than others, Polish Jews who survived the war in the USSR felt indebted to the Soviets when they learned that by escaping, they had evaded near-certain death at the hands of the Nazis in their home country. ↩︎
80. Kaganovitch, 59. Kochavi, 167, 227. ↩︎
81. Nachmani, 9, 14-16. ↩︎
82. Ovendale, 187-89. ↩︎
83. Ovendale, 167. ↩︎
84. Ravndal, 421. ↩︎
85. Ovendale, 168-70, 193-96. ↩︎
86. Sinanoglou, 168. ↩︎
87. Colonial Office, 9. ↩︎
88. Ravndal, 417. ↩︎
89. Ovendale, 199-201. ↩︎
90. Grigoryev and Fedchenko, 65-66; Ravndal, 421. ↩︎
91. Ovendale, 168-71, 174. ↩︎
92. UN Special Committee on Palestine, “Report to the General Assembly.” ↩︎
93. Organ of the Cominform, “Declaration of the Founding of the Cominform.” 122-24. ↩︎
94. Frankel, 9-10. ↩︎
95. Grigoryev and Fedchenko, 71; Nosenko, 40. ↩︎
96. Kaganovitch, “Stalin’s Great Power Politics, the Return of Jewish Refugees to Poland, and Continued Migration to Palestine, 1944–1946.” 76. ↩︎
97. Frankel, 14; Hersh, 20; Ovendale, 186. ↩︎
98. n.a., “Text of the Russian Statement on Palestine.” Hamilton, “Russia Endorses Palestine Division;
    U.N. Approval Seen.” In an anecdote that captures the spirit of the moment, the article about Russian
    support appeared on the front page of the New York Times, to the right of an article describing how the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem was the third diplomatic mission in three weeks to be attacked by
    Arab militants for supporting partition. ↩︎
99. Ovendale, 176. ↩︎
100. See Krammer, The Forgotten Friendship: Israel and the Soviet Bloc, 1947-53. Urbana, IL:
     University of Illinois Press, 1974. Chapters 3-4. ↩︎
101. Even these indirect allusions to Jewish nationalism were dangerous to intra-Soviet stability, which
     was predicated on the replacement of nationalism with centralized socialism. ↩︎
102. Frankel, 12-15. See also Khanin, 197-98. ↩︎
103. Ravndal, 425; Hollis, 12. ↩︎
104. Ravndal, 426-29. ↩︎
105. Hollis, 12. ↩︎
106. Ravndal, 428-29. ↩︎
107. Lumer, 13; Grigoryev and Fedchenko, 76. ↩︎
108. Israel’s battlefield success was in small part due to Soviet support, such that it had the intended effect – weakening British power in the Middle East. ↩︎
109. Louis, 336. This naturally draws a parallel to India, where the British withdrawal had similar reverberations. ↩︎
110. Sir Michael Wright, 30 March 1949. In: Louis, 336. ↩︎
111. Deighton, 127-29. ↩︎
112. Wavell to King George VI, 24 Feb. 1947, In: Louis, 332. ↩︎
113. Louis, 337. ↩︎
114. See Behbehani, The Soviet Union and Arab Nationalism, 1917-1966. ↩︎

Since the overthrow of former President Siad Barre (1991), Somalia has had neither a state nor a bureaucracy.¹ After three decades marked by failed peace conferences, externally sponsored state-building attempts, and widespread violence, the image of Somalia as the epitome of state collapse and lawlessness has been virtually cemented.² Responding to this, arguably reductionist, narrative, recent literature has posed that Somalia is doing better, not in spite, but because of its lack of bureaucracy, often highlighting the country’s flourishing telecom industry as an example.³ There are many reasons to study Somalia’s telecom industry – one of the most competitive in Africa, providing millions across the world with cheap and clear calls. Beyond complicating the conventional image of a country in chronic decline, Somalia’s telecom industry challenges Weberian assumptions about private and public bureaucracies – distinguished by their efficiency, rationality, and durability – and their relationships with each other and the state. Contrary to what is suggested by those who seek to weaponize Somalia’s telecom industry to argue that free markets, minimal state intervention, and even anarchy yield economic development, however, this is not a story about everything Somalia lacks, but about everything it has.⁴ 

An examination of the ways companies have navigated the need for capital, tribunals, and security in Mogadishu (void of bureaucracy) and the unrecognized state of Somaliland (whose state and bureaucracy date back to 1991), provides a case study with which to understand what the telecom sector needs to thrive. What emerges is a recognition that the story of Somalia’s telecom industry really is a story of Somalia’s constant migration and the juxtaposition between its volatile political institutions and its enduring social structures. The success of Somalia’s telecom industry demonstrates how unique features of Somalia’s history have enabled its population to trade using trust and tradition, as well as to leverage informal (i.e., nongovernmental) systems to produce complex private bureaucracies. But as demonstrated in the comparison of companies’ trajectories in Mogadishu and Somaliland, there are challenges to sustaining private bureaucracies without the stability and authority of a state. The telecom industry presents a way to explore the potential and the limitations of informal systems and reexamine what may be considered efficient and durable in a Somali context, and in the end, offers new angles from which to approach the country’s prospects for stability. 

Weber’s belief in the “availability of continuous revenues” as a prerequisite for bureaucratically structured enterprises seems a “given,” as does the fact that telecom companies require capital to operate.⁵ The issue of insufficient funds confronts businesses across the world, yet the challenge facing Somalian businesses is not merely a lack of capital, but a lack of (conventional) financial infrastructure. According to Weber, rulers do not “dispense or replace the bureaucratic apparatus once it exists”⁶ because of its “technical superiority over any other form of organization.”⁷ In the case that it is “interrupted by force,”⁸ chaos ensues, as the “fate of the masses depends upon the continuous and correct functioning of the ever more bureaucratic organizations of private capitalism.”⁹ Somalia’s Central Bank, banking system, and (at least formally) its national currency, crashed with the government in 1991, and have not been restored.¹⁰ Yet, a glance at Somalia’s imports and exports or gross domestic product (which frequently outcompete other African states) suggests that the market has prevailed.¹¹ Absent a financial infrastructure and the role of public bureaucracies in managing domestic and international trade, how have companies compensated?

Some authors attribute the sector’s success to the lack of taxes and the fact that “business is essentially pure capitalism.”¹² As summarized in an Economist article: “The trick is the lack of regulation.” Disregarding the fact that companies in Mogadishu and Somaliland do pay taxes (to armed groups and its government, respectively),¹³ this literature’s failure to consider the more fundamental questions of how businesses can store, move, and exchange money leaves much to be desired.¹⁴ A second category of responses focuses on the deficiencies of the postcolonial bureaucracy. In an assessment of Somalia’s development, Peter Leeson concludes that Somalis are “better off under anarchy than they were under government,” and that the growth of economic sectors can be ascribed to the absence of a predatory state.¹⁵ From a Weberian perspective, the inefficiency of the former bureaucracy might explain why Somalia’s society never came to rely on bureaucratic structures, and why their collapse has had limited repercussions. As explained by Leeson, poor economic management, deteriorating economic conditions, and decaying public institutions had led to the emergence of parallel markets already in the 80s.¹⁶ Following the normalization of trade smuggling and black marketeering, “the alienated urban private sector was forced to join the informal markets,” according to Jamil A. Mubarak.¹⁷ It is easy to critique the Somalian bureaucracy that emerged following independence and this might suffice to explain why there was not a noticeable negative change in conditions following the collapse. What is more intriguing is the positive change since – the fact that Somalia, since 1991, has moved from the 29^th to the 8^th African country in terms of main lines per 1000 of population.¹⁸ Good or bad, the mere absence of a bureaucracy cannot explain the emergence of Somalia’s telecom sector. For that, we must look beyond the formal systems.  

Dating back to precolonial times, when nomadic pastoralism represented most Somalis’ way of life, the most important currency in Somalia has been trust. Like the four million Somalis that live as pastoral nomads today, many generations of Somalis have had to develop extensive networks, allegiances, and means of communication to manage the lifestyle of constant movement.¹⁹ Drawing on the work of Göran Hydén, Gregory Collins argues that “Somalia’s economy of affection was born of a geographically interdependent livestock economy predicated on long-distance trade and interconnectedness.” As a result, a uniquely segmented, hierarchical, and institutionalized clan system formed, providing Somalis with a “clan-embedded basis for protecting private property, enforcing contracts and resolving disputes that is national – if not international – in scope.”²⁰ Michael Van Notten reinforces the last point, contending that Somalis long have “dealt with foreign governments and their agencies on a clan-by-clan basis.”²¹ Somalia’s clan system is widely recognized for its role in the organization of Somali society, but it is almost exclusively understood as an impediment to stability. The telecom sector suggests that there might be more to the story and that trust, when institutionalized, might prove both efficient and durable. 

As other countries and their bureaucracies have gained complexity, so have the informal systems through which Somalis engage with the world. When Somali laborers began working in the Gulf region in the 1970s, communities adopted the informal system of Hawala, enabling laborers to send home money with the help of remittance organizations. Since the collapse, the Hawala system has become more pervasive, assuming responsibilities previously fulfilled by the bureaucracy and transferring over 2 billion dollars in and out of the country annually.²² Drawing on Cockayne and Shetret, Stremlau and Osman argue that the entire Somali Remittance Organizations (SRO) business model runs on trust, which “provides security for moving large values over long distances through cooperation with people that an SRO agent may never meet.”²³ Coyne’s elaboration on how customers verify their identity by answering questions about their clan lineage illustrates the system’s distinguishing incorporation of relationships.²⁴ That people continue to trade with old Somali shillings, refusing to “accept denominations larger than those that existed in 1991,”²⁵ despite the lack of formal guarantees, is further evidence of the role of trust in promoting a stable business environment.²⁶ 

A Weberian analysis of the trust-based system undergirding Somalia’s telecom industry is inconclusive. According to Weber, bureaucracy enables the specialization of “administrative functions according to purely objective considerations.”²⁷ That SROs, as characterized by Stremlau and Osman, “replace the formal system’s expensive bureaucratic safeguards, designed for an open market populated by economic strangers, with a closed network constructed out of the social capital and safeguards provided by family and clan membership,”²⁸ may be understood to undermine Weber’s bureaucratic logic by privileging tradition over calculability.²⁹ But Weber also holds that bureaucratic organization rests on “increasing precision, steadiness, and, above all, speed of operations,”³⁰ and “general rules, which are more or less stable, more or less exhaustive, and which can be learned.”³¹ Today, the Hawala system operates according to written rules, in an institutionalized and efficient manner. As noted by Mohamed Houssein, “[l]iterally every town is served. No banking service in Somalia in the past has ever achieved this scale of funds transfer and covered such a wide area.”³² If two of bureaucracy’s constituent components are efficiency and durability, there is something to be said about Somalia’s old and new means of moving capital.

Referred to by some as “the world’s most ambitious experiment in mobile banking,”³³ the telecom sector’s establishment of M-money illustrates how enterprises can leverage traditional systems to meet the demands of modern society. Broadly defined as “the provision of financial services through a mobile device,”³⁴ mobile banking was developed in the 2000s on “the same trust-based social networks that have supported the Hawala system.”³⁵ Currently used by 70% of Somalia’s population, its popularity is indicative of the population’s desires – and difficulties; in the words of Brian Hesse, “where the country works best also reflects some of what is most wrong.”³⁶ By reducing the need to carry cash, M-money protects people from the risk of being robbed. As explained by a shopkeeper, “Nowadays, I am able to send up to $3000 from my phone to people in other regions without the person next to me knowing. It is good for our safety since we live in very violent times and can lose all our money to militias.”³⁷ At the same time, studies have found that users hesitate to use mobile banking for saving: “I don’t have trust in Zaad [a mobile money service] when it comes to saving money in my account…[W]ho will you sue if something happens to your money? We believe there is nobody.”³⁸ Stremlau and Osman confirm this hesitation, noting that the combination of the electronic system and the weak traditions of documenting commerce has “created a gap that some have attempted to exploit,”³⁹ and “raised a number of social and legal questions, particularly in regard to handling disputes.”⁴⁰ Rather than an isolated problem, this reflects a broader dilemma of how to handle disagreements without bureaucracy.

Second to the availability of capital, the capacity to settle disputes and enforce rights seems essential to business management. That the society that has emerged in Somalia post-collapse is not “the anarchy and disorder that Hobbes…would predict,” but rather one governed by “alternative forms of localized order and authority,”⁴¹ suggests the existence of an alternative justice system, but to what extent has it fulfilled the role of bureaucracy? Dating back to pre-colonial times, Somali customary law, known as Xeer, has played an essential role in society.⁴² The colonial state and the Somali nation-state tried to replace it with marginal success, and following the collapse, most people have returned to Xeer, which is interpreted and enforced by local clan networks.⁴³ Among other things, Xeer outlaws “homicide, assault, torture, battery, rape, accidental wounding, kidnapping, abduction, robbery, burglary, theft, arson, extortion, fraud, and property damage.”⁴⁴ According to Stremlau and Osman, it plays an important role in promoting intergroup security, accountability, and reciprocity, as well as in regulating interactions, preventing disputes from escalating into violence, and encouraging investments by demonstrating that “reputable and accessible dispute remedies are available.”⁴⁵⁴⁶ With or without bureaucracy, many Somalis appear to behave according to a set of rules, capable of supporting both communities and companies. 

From a Weberian perspective, the fact that each Somali court operates independently, leaving the possibility of contradictory interpretations and lengthy tribunal processes – especially when carried out nationally – precludes the bureaucratic idea of “a ‘rational’ interpretation of law on the basis of strictly formal concepts.”⁴⁷ In this way, Xeer might illustrate the limitations of nonbureaucratic systems that function on a micro level, but prevent society from achieving complexity on a macro level. Even so, the fact that Xeer law remains in use in Somaliland suggests that there is some perceived benefit to a hybrid approach involving both bureaucratic and traditional legal systems.

Unlike Mogadishu, Somaliland has a formal judicial system and an internal revenue system to support it; of its annual budget, forty percent is dedicated to security.⁴⁸ The state’s decision to continue to draw on informal justice systems and involve elders and faith leaders in dispute settlements thus appears to be a conscious one.⁴⁹ According to Sarah Phillips, negligible foreign intervention during Somaliland’s formative period allowed for the emergence of “locally legitimate solutions,”⁵⁰ that “offer a counterpoint to models offered in the mainstream state building and development literature”⁵¹ and see order as “the result of neo-Weberian institutional incentives.”⁵² In fact, the lack of rational-legal institutions, “appears to have created a logic of action upon which order has rested,”⁵³ Phillips argues. Somaliland’s use of Xeer law in settlements related to M-banking reinforces Stremlau and Osman’s point that the grounding effect of traditional social structures goes hand-in-hand with innovation in the telecom sector.⁵⁴ Additionally, their explanation of how companies opt for traditional settlements because “institutions such as the police and courts”⁵⁵ are “seen as corrupt”⁵⁶ and not always “considered cost-effective,”⁵⁷ reinforces the point that informal systems can be considered both efficient and objective. Somaliland’s use of Xeer offers a fascinating account of how informal systems may be understood as complements rather than competitors to bureaucratic structures. But as a comparison of the telecom companies based in Somaliland and in Mogadishu reveals, there are limits to what informal systems can do.

Like public bureaucracies, an examination of Somalia’s telecom sector suggests that informal systems are good at coordinating interactions, such as communication, trade, and, to some extent, disputes – when the people involved trust in and operate within the systems. As is the case in every country, with or without bureaucracy, however, there are people in Somalia who operate outside of the system, and this is when the limits of informal systems – as well as public bureaucracies – become apparent. Rules prescribe what people are allowed and not allowed to do in both Mogadishu and Somalia, but when people break against these rules, it is not up to the rules themselves, but to their source – most often the state – to enforce them. This might be possible in Somaliland, but in most of the country, it is not – as illustrated by Hormuud Telecom’s experience in Mogadishu. 

Once considered Mogadishu’s proudest enterprise, Hormuud Telecom’s status as a financier and a victim of the militant organization Al-Shabaab is symptomatic of a society in which bureaucratic logic is sacrificed for security.⁵⁸ According to Weber, the first principle of efficient economies is that enterprises reinvest all profit and focus solely on continued expansion. Such a narrow focus is only possible in a stable and calculable environment. According to Collins, order and authority in Mogadishu have been predicated on the “symbiotic client-patron relationship between Mogadishu’s warlords and businessmen,”⁵⁹ and the many criminal groups’ “sustaining of…instability as a means of profiting from it.”⁶⁰ The city has a police force, but without a state, it is unclear who the force serves; as articulated by Alice Hills, “policing in Somalia is a reflection of the agenda of those in power, which has virtually no constitutionally based stability or norms for order.”⁶¹ From imposing a ban on mobile banking to storming Hormuud’s headquarters and occasionally demanding the shutdown of data services, Al-Shabaab undermines the very bureaucratic logic that once might have been identified in Hormuud’s operations. 

In 2010, Hormuud opened its own university, dedicated to training the next generation of Somali engineers, in an expression of how private bureaucracies accumulate not just capital, but also knowledge, information, and infrastructure.⁶² Al-Shabaab’s capture of the company in the decade since demonstrates how such development almost inevitably catches the interest of others – and the difficulty of preventing such hijacking without the (potential) authority of a state. According to Mr. Abdullahi, a manager in the telecom sector, warlords’ need for mobile services has enabled an equilibrium. Yet, his reiteration that companies “badly need a government”⁶³ and are “very interested in paying taxes,”⁶⁴ speaks to the limitations of charismatic rule. Somalia’s informal systems might have sufficed to enforce rules locally but faced with an international organization like Al-Shabaab, they fall short – not primarily because of Somalia’s lack of bureaucracy, but because of Somalia’s lack of a state. 

When one begins to understand how the success of Somalia’s telecom industry fits into a larger history – characterized by a continuity that in ways contradicts the country’s popular perception – the story becomes even more extraordinary. Indeed, what I have done is merely scratching the surface; while this paper has examined the supply of telecom, the question of demand constitutes an equally important part and underscores the role of Somalia’s diaspora.⁶⁵ As articulated by Collins, what makes Somalis’ demand for mobile services intriguing is that “both of the explanations for it – transnational migration and the importance of being connected – reveal a cultural and historical continuity in the ways Somalis have dealt with the unpredictable environments they have faced.”⁶⁶ Anyone looking to extract a formula will be disappointed by the finding that the success of Somalia’s telecom industry is contingent on a set of complex conditions, and that it takes more than state collapse for a sector to flourish. But within a Somali context, this insight holds potential. Rather than understanding existing social structures as incompatible with the pursuit of stability, actors should consider “possibilities for state (re)building in Somalia that leverage the strengths of Somali society and the ethno-national logic of connections so evident in telecoms case.”⁶⁷ By understanding the story of the telecom sector as a grander story of a people’s resourcefulness and the proven ability of traditions, the question of national integration may be asked with an appreciation for everything Somalia is and the importance of working with, rather than against everything it has. 

References

Featured/Headline Image Caption and Citation: Woman holding Somali flag; photograph by AMISOM Public Information | Image sourced from Flickr | CC License, no changes made

1. Ken Menkhaus, ‘Governance without Government in Somalia: Spoilers, State Building, and the Politics of Coping’, International Security [online journal], 31/3 (2006/2007), page 74, https://www.jstor.org/stable/4137508, accessed 24 Oct. 2023. ↩︎
2. Raj M. Desai, ‘Somalia’s path to stability’, Brookings [website], (2 Oct. 2019 ), https://www.brookings.edu/articles/somalias-path-to-stability/, accessed 24 Oct. 2024. ↩︎
3. Yumi Kim, ‘Stateless in Somalia, and Loving it, Mises Institute [website], (21 Feb. 2006), https://mises.org/library/stateless-somalia-and-loving-it, accessed 24 Oct. 2023. ↩︎
4. Ibid ↩︎
5. Max Weber, The theory of social and economic organization, ed., tr. Alexander Morell Henderson and Talcott Parsons (Mansfield: Martino Publishing, 2023), page 968. ↩︎
6. Ibid. 988. ↩︎
7. Ibid. 973. ↩︎
8. Ibid. 988. ↩︎
9. Ibid. ↩︎
10. Benjamin Powell, Ryan Ford, and Alex Nowrasteh, ‘Somalia after state collapse: Chaos or improvement?’, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization [online journal], 67/3-4 (2008), page 668, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2008.04.008, accessed 24 Oct. 2023. ↩︎
11. Robert L. Feldman, ‘Amidst the chaos a small force for stability: Somalia’s business community’, Small Wars & Insurgencies [online journal], 23/2 (2012), page 300, https://doi.org/10.1080/09592318.2012.642201, accessed 24 Oct. 2023. ↩︎
12. Benjamin Powell, Ryan Ford, and Alex Nowrasteh, ‘Somalia after state collapse: Chaos or improvement?’, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization [online journal], 67/3-4 (2008), page 668, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2008.04.008, accessed 24 Oct. 2023. ↩︎
13. ‘Somalia calling’, Economist, ‘Business’, 20 Dec. 2005, para. 1, https://www.economist.com/business/2005/12/20/somalia-calling, accessed 24 Oct. 2023. ↩︎
14. Reaping the Whirlwind: Hormuud Entrepreneurs and the Resurgence of Al-Shabaab (Nairobi: International Policy Group, 2019), page 25. ↩︎
15. Ibid. 12. ↩︎
16. Peter T. Leeson, ‘Better off stateless: Somalia before and after government collapse’, Journal of Comparative Economics [online journal], 35/4 (2007), page 2029, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jce.2007.10.001, accessed 24 Oct. 2023. ↩︎
17. Jamil A. Mubarak, ‘The ‘hidden hand’ behind the resilience of the stateless economy of Somalia’, World Development [online journal], 25/12 (1997), page 2028, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0305-750X(97)00104-6, accessed 24 Oct. 2023. ↩︎
18. Benjamin Powell, Ryan Ford, and Alex Nowrasteh, ‘Somalia after state collapse: Chaos or improvement?’, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization [online journal], 67/3-4 (2008), page 633, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2008.04.008, accessed 24 Oct. 2023. ↩︎
19. Robert Snow and Tahlil Abdi Afrah, Improving access to health care services for pastoral nomads in Somalia (2021), https://www.gu.se/en/research/improving-access-to-health-care-services-for-pastoral-nomads-in-somalia, accessed 24 Oct. 2023. ↩︎
20. Gregory Allen Collins, ‘Commected: Developing Somalia’s telecoms industry in the wake of state collapse’, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing [online journal], (2009), page 6, https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/connected-developing-somalias-telecoms-industry/docview/304839440/se-2, accessed 24 Oct. 2023. ↩︎
21. Yumi Kim, ‘Stateless in Somalia, and Loving it, Mises Institute [website], (21 Feb. 2006), https://mises.org/library/stateless-somalia-and-loving-it, accessed 24 Oct. 2023. ; Michael van Notten, The Law of the Somalis: A Stable Foundation for Economic Development in the Horn of Africa, ed., Spencer Heath MacCallum (Trenton, NJ: Red Sea Press, 2005), 15. ↩︎
22. Sonia Plaza, ‘Anti-Money Laundering Regulations: Can Somalia survive without remittances?’, World Bank Blogs [website], (11 Feb. 2014 ), https://blogs.worldbank.org/peoplemove/anti-money-laundering-regulations-can-somalia-survive-without-remittances, accessed 24 Oct. 2024. ↩︎
23. Nicole Stremlau and Ridwan Osman, ‘Courts, Clans and Companies: Mobile Money and Dispute Resolution in Somaliland’, International Journal of Security & Development [online journal], 4/1 (2015), page 5, https://doi.org/10.5334/sta.gh, accessed 24 Oct. 2023. ↩︎
24. Christopher J. Coyne, ‘Reconstructing Weak and Failed States: Foreign Intervention and the Nirvana Fallacy, Foreign Policy Analysis [online journal], 2/4 (2006), http://www.jstor.org/stable/24907256, accessed 24 Oct. 2024. ↩︎
25. Benjamin Powell, Ryan Ford, and Alex Nowrasteh, ‘Somalia after state collapse: Chaos or improvement?’, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization [online journal], 67/3-4 (2008), page 668, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2008.04.008, accessed 24 Oct. 2023. ↩︎
26. Ibid. ↩︎
27. Max Weber, The theory of social and economic organization, ed., tr. Alexander Morell Henderson and Talcott Parsons (Mansfield: Martino Publishing, 2023), page 975. ↩︎
28. Nicole Stremlau and Ridwan Osman, ‘Courts, Clans and Companies: Mobile Money and Dispute Resolution in Somaliland’, International Journal of Security & Development [online journal], 4/1 (2015), page 5, https://doi.org/10.5334/sta.gh, accessed 24 Oct. 2023. ↩︎
29. Max Weber, The theory of social and economic organization, ed., tr. Alexander Morell Henderson and Talcott Parsons (Mansfield: Martino Publishing, 2023), page 975. ↩︎
30. Ibid. 974. ↩︎
31. Ibid. 958. ↩︎
32. Mohamed Djirdeh Houssein, ‘Somalia: The Experience of Hawala Receiving Countries’, in Regulatory Frameworks for Hawala and Other Remittance Systems (USA: International Monetary Fund, 2005). ↩︎
33. Nicole Stremlau and Ridwan Osman, ‘Courts, Clans and Companies: Mobile Money and Dispute Resolution in Somaliland’, International Journal of Security & Development [online journal], 4/1 (2015), page 2, https://doi.org/10.5334/sta.gh, accessed 24 Oct. 2023. ↩︎
34. Osman Sayid, Enchabi Abdelghani, and Abdul Aziz, ‘Investigating Mobile Money Acceptance in Somalia’, Pakistan Journal of Commerce and Social Sciences [online journal], 6/2 (2012), page 271, http://www.jespk.net/publications/90.pdf, accessed 24 Oct. 2023. ↩︎
35. Nicole Stremlau and Ridwan Osman, ‘Courts, Clans and Companies: Mobile Money and Dispute Resolution in Somaliland’, International Journal of Security & Development [online journal], 4/1 (2015), page 5, https://doi.org/10.5334/sta.gh, accessed 24 Oct. 2023. ↩︎
36. Brian J. Hesse, ‘Where Somalia works’, Journal of Contemporary African Studies [online journal], 28/3 (2010), page 1, https://doi.org/10.1080/02589001.2010.499234, accessed 24 Oct. 2023. ; ‘Somalia Economic Update: Rapid Growth in Mobile Money’, World Bank [website], (13 Sep. 2018 ), https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2018/09/13/somalia-economic-update-rapid-growth-in-mobile-money, accessed 24 Oct. 2024. ↩︎
37. Brian J. Hesse, ‘Where Somalia works’, Journal of Contemporary African Studies [online journal], 28/3 (2010), page 45, https://doi.org/10.1080/02589001.2010.499234, accessed 24 Oct. 2023. ↩︎
38. Nicole Stremlau and Ridwan Osman, ‘Courts, Clans and Companies: Mobile Money and Dispute Resolution in Somaliland’, International Journal of Security & Development [online journal], 4/1 (2015), page 6, https://doi.org/10.5334/sta.gh, accessed 24 Oct. 2023. ↩︎
39. Ibid. 7. ↩︎
40. Ibid. 2. ↩︎
41. Gregory Allen Collins, ‘Commected: Developing Somalia’s telecoms industry in the wake of state collapse’, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing [online journal], (2009), page 12, https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/connected-developing-somalias-telecoms-industry/docview/304839440/se-2, accessed 24 Oct. 2023. ↩︎
42. Benjamin Powell, Ryan Ford, and Alex Nowrasteh, ‘Somalia after state collapse: Chaos or improvement?’, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization [online journal], 67/3-4 (2008), page 666, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2008.04.008, accessed 24 Oct. 2023. ↩︎
43. Benjamin Powell, Ryan Ford, and Alex Nowrasteh, ‘Somalia after state collapse: Chaos or improvement?’, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization [online journal], 67/3-4 (2008), page 666, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2008.04.008, accessed 24 Oct. 2023. ↩︎
44. ‘The Xeer Traditional Legal System of Somalia’, UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage [website], (2023), https://ich.unesco.org/en/individual-case-study-00988&id=00032, accessed 24 Oct. 2024. / Benjamin Powell, Ryan Ford, and Alex ↩︎
45. Nicole Stremlau and Ridwan Osman, ‘Courts, Clans and Companies: Mobile Money and Dispute Resolution in Somaliland’, International Journal of Security & Development [online journal], 4/1 (2015), page 5, https://doi.org/10.5334/sta.gh, accessed 24 Oct. 2023. ↩︎
46. Ibid. 4. ↩︎
47. Max Weber, The theory of social and economic organization, ed., tr. Alexander Morell Henderson and Talcott Parsons (Mansfield: Martino Publishing, 2023), page 976. ; Michael van Notten, The Law of the Somalis: A Stable Foundation for Economic Development in the Horn of Africa, ed., Spencer Heath MacCallum (Trenton, NJ: Red Sea Press, 2005), page 36. / Benjamin Powell, Ryan Ford, and Alex Nowrasteh, ‘Somalia after state collapse: Chaos or improvement?’, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization [online journal], 67/3-4 (2008), page 667, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2008.04.008, accessed 24 Oct. 2023. ↩︎
48. Benjamin Powell, Ryan Ford, and Alex Nowrasteh, ‘Somalia after state collapse: Chaos or improvement?’, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization [online journal], 67/3-4 (2008), page 665, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2008.04.008, accessed 24 Oct. 2023. ↩︎
49. Nicole Stremlau and Ridwan Osman, ‘Courts, Clans and Companies: Mobile Money and Dispute Resolution in Somaliland’, International Journal of Security & Development [online journal], 4/1 (2015), page 7, https://doi.org/10.5334/sta.gh, accessed 24 Oct. 2023. ↩︎
50. Sarah G. Phillips, ‘When less was more: external assistance and the political settlement in Somaliland’, International Affairs [online journal], 92/3 (2016), page 644, https://www-jstor-org.yale.idm.oclc.org/stable/24757628?seq=17, accessed 24 Oct. 2023. ↩︎
51. Ibid. 640. ↩︎
52. Ibid.  ↩︎
53. Ibid. ↩︎
54. Nicole Stremlau and Ridwan Osman, ‘Courts, Clans and Companies: Mobile Money and Dispute Resolution in Somaliland’, International Journal of Security & Development [online journal], 4/1 (2015), page 13, https://doi.org/10.5334/sta.gh, accessed 24 Oct. 2023. ↩︎
55. Ibid. ↩︎
56. Ibid. ↩︎
57.  Ibid. 17. ↩︎
58. Reaping the Whirlwind: Hormuud Entrepreneurs and the Resurgence of Al-Shabaab (Nairobi: International Policy Group, 2019), page 44. ↩︎
59. Gregory Allen Collins, ‘Commected: Developing Somalia’s telecoms industry in the wake of state collapse’, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing [online journal], (2009), page 13, https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/connected-developing-somalias-telecoms-industry/docview/304839440/se-2, accessed 24 Oct. 2023. ↩︎
60. Ibid. 12. ↩︎
61. Alice Hills, ‘What Is Policeness? On Being Police in Somalia’, British Journal of Criminology [online journal], 54/5 (2014), page, https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/what-policeness-being-police-somalia, accessed 24 Oct. 2024. ↩︎
62. ‘Our history’, Hormuud University [website], (2022), https://hu.edu.so/vision-mission/our-history/, accessed 24 Oct. 2024. ↩︎
63. Joseph Winter, ‘Telecoms thriving in lawless Somalia’, BBC News, 19 Nov. 2004, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4020259.stm, accessed 24 Oct. 2023. ↩︎
64. Ibid. ↩︎
65. Gregory Allen Collins, ‘Commected: Developing Somalia’s telecoms industry in the wake of state collapse’, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing [online journal], (2009), page 24, https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/connected-developing-somalias-telecoms-industry/docview/304839440/se-2, accessed 24 Oct. 2023. ↩︎
66. Gregory Allen Collins, ‘Connected: Exploring the Extraordinary Demand for Telecoms Services in Post-collapse Somalia’, Mobilities [online journal], 4/2 (2009), page 204, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17450100902905139, accessed 24 Oct. 2023. ↩︎
67. Gregory Allen Collins, ‘Commected: Developing Somalia’s telecoms industry in the wake of state collapse’, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing [online journal], (2009), page 7, https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/connected-developing-somalias-telecoms-industry/docview/304839440/se-2, accessed 24 Oct. 2023. ↩︎

Introduction: Peninsula to Peninsula

In April 1905, hundreds of Koreans were gathered in Jemulpo Port under Korea’s hot spring sun.^[1] The SS Ilford was about to lead approximately one thousand Koreans to Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula in a transpacific journey. Newspaper advertisements distributed across the peninsula had offered young, able men the chance to seek a new life as a farmer in Mexico. Immigrants could labor, save money, and return home with the rewards of their hard work after just a few years. Contractors for Mexican henequen plantations provided meals for contract signees. At the time, the Korean peninsula was caught in rapidly changing political spaces with a variety of emerging, competing notions of nationhood and citizenship after “opening” through the Treaty of Kanghwa in 1876. The Taehan Korean Empire was locked into unequal port treaties and suffered rising peasants’ discontent at the lower classes’ state of affairs. Accordingly, the call for workers across the world would be enticing, especially with stories circulating of the migrants’ financial successes in Hawaii’s sugar plantations. However, just a few months later in November 1905, Japan would force the Korean Empire to enter Japan’s imperial-colonial sphere as a protectorate. So, while the Koreans boarding the Ilford may have imagined returning home, this would be the last time these Koreans would see their sovereign homeland.^[2]

As of 1910 the Koreans remained stuck in Mexico, with neither Mexican citizenship nor Korean state protection after Japan conquered Korea in 1910. These first Korean immigrants to Mexico would become the Latin American bastion of support for the Korean international pro-independence movement that connected in multiple international sites. While their counterparts in the United States and China often receive the historical spotlight from scholars, I shed light on the actions of Mexico-bound Korean immigrants. Despite the prospect of living the rest of their lives in Mexico, this group of immigrants still considered themselves Korean and supported an independence movement for a land they last knew as sovereign and independent. Their racial/ethnic encounters with mestizaje in Mexico shaped their identity, which I explore to better understand the ways in which (ethno)nationalist rhetoric and practice suggests different meanings for those it includes and excludes.

The Korean immigrant community in Mexico faced many challenges, particularly the way in which the complex process of othering affected them in the Yucatán. Historically, the Koreans were caught in a distinct moment between ethno-nationalist Mexican sentiments and a longing for the Korean homeland that would soon cease to hold sovereignty. José Sánchez Pac, born on the Ilford, would go on to write that the “one and only primary source” on the everyday life of the Koreans in Mexico as they navigated the sociopolitical movements they in which found themselves was Korean independence and Mexican revolution.^[3] José Sánchez Pac’s memoir presents an insightful opportunity for a deep analysis into the Korean immigrant experience in early 20th century Mexico. Although at first glance the various community-building methods employed by the Korean immigrants reveal a group with strong national ties to their motherland, the story is more complicated. Various excerpts from Pac’s memoir show that there were few other choices for the alienated community: their motherland was no longer sovereign and their new land practiced exclusive ethnonationalist ideologies that barred full access to the state.

This thesis gathers a wide range of materials that I read critically. These include Pac’s memoir, written about eighty years after the 1905 immigration, and Korean-American newspaper articles from the first decades of the twentieth century. I also analyze less traditional sources in both Spanish and Korean, including oral histories and state-produced media that highlight the vast array of narratives about this community. Fukuoka’s typological framework that complicates ethnic belonging based on blood, culture, and nationality inform my critical reading of these sources for plurality.^[4] Reading these in combination with various secondary articles in Korean, Spanish, and English, I highlight the social pressures that directly contributed to a rise in Korean ethnonationalism amongst immigrants in the early 20th century. This ethnonationalism in turn laid down the foundation for long-term affiliation to the Korean nation while Korean immigrants also became members of the Mexican state.^[5]

By examining how Korean immigrants fostered community via the Christian Church and other social spaces, I demonstrate how Koreans exercised their agency through what I analyze as “flexible nationalisms.” I argue that this agency was relatively narrow in scope compared to community-building initiatives elsewhere in the global diaspora: instead, there existed a much more complex responsibility to and relationship with Korean nationhood and identity. The immigrants separated themselves from mestizaje and Mexicanidad and identified as Korean. Being Korean in this era meant affiliation with and support for Korean independence. This is a distinct immigrant experience: they had little choice but to stand outside mestizaje and be Korean as prescribed by the global Korean community seeking Korean liberation. Ostracized from the Mexican state because of mestizaje ideology, and at risk of being cut off from global networks, the Korean immigrants in Mexico were forced to organize under the banner of Korean ethnic culture and liberation to survive Mexico and remain connected to the global Korean diaspora. However, Koreans were able to gain legibility within the Mexican state that allowed them to serve the Korean liberation movement’s interests. I describe this phenomenon of securing legibility as a member of one state to be able to employ citizenship practices for the benefit of another nation as flexible nationalisms. I argue that the Koreans’ community-building reflects a reaction to mestizaje ideology and global Korean diasporic pro-independence call, thus leading to further separation from the Mexican nation-state. In turn these self-reinforcing practices produced flexible nationalisms that Korean immigrants used to support Korean liberation.

This thesis is structured as follows: Section I presents a brief history of the conditions in Mexico and the Korean peninsula at the turn of the 20th century to better contextualize the situation of the Korean immigrants. I then share a historiographic overview on Korean immigration, nationalism, and typical methods used to understand transnational migration and end with a discussion of the use of mestizaje ideology in the Mexican nation-state project. This section aims to provide a critical foundation for the circumstances that motivated Korean community-building due to Mexican exclusivity. Section II offers insight into the various ways in which legal and economic methods were employed by the Koreans in Mexico in the 1910s through the 1920s for participatory membership in the global diasporic community. This section also discusses the role of Christian churches in catalyzing Korean community-building and how churches served as headquarters for the Korean Association’s activities, such as collecting donations for independence. In this section, I argue that membership in the larger diaspora, in addition to anti-Asian sentiment and policies in Mexico, forced Korean immigrants to support ethnonationalism in order to find community in their new circumstances. Section III turns to local forms of Korean ethnic community-building via education and a military school, specifically addressing how Koreans in Mexico promoted Korean ethnonationalism in Mexico. Finally, I conclude that the limited nation-state membership options afforded to the Korean immigrants in Mexico created the conditions that simultaneously distanced them from the Mexican nation-state and drew them to the global Korean diasporic independence movement.

Part I: Planting Community Seeds: From Immigration to Confronting the Mexican State

Brief History : Green Gold, Blue Oceans, and Mixed Communications

Unlike most Korean migrants at the time, who sought agricultural opportunities in Hawaii, the migrants on board the Ilford hoped to work on henequen plantations in Mexico. Mexican henequen plantation owners saw henequen, the core ingredient in rope, as “oro verde” (“green gold”), and thus vital to the local economy.^[6] Porfirio Diaz’s campaigns to unite and nationalize Mexico had left labor shortages. Owners of the henequen-harvesting haciendas, hacendados, searched outside Mexico for potential laborers. The hacendados promised to protect the workers’ interests.^[7] At the turn of the 20th century the Asia-Pacific corridor underwent rapid changes: Japan and Korea’s 1876 Treaty of Kanghwa was an early foundation for Japan’s imperial aspirations in Korea. More specifically, the Treaty of Kanghwa pushed Korea out of Chinese suzerainty and mandated treaty ports with Japan.^[8] Japanese imperial ambitions continued growing after Japan’s victory in the 1895 Sino-Japanese War. This victory allowed for Japanese influence over the Korean peninsula from Qing China and Japanese colonization of Taiwan. Korea’s Queen Min was also assassinated in 1895 through Japanese-Korean collaboration. In 1897, King Kojong declared himself emperor of the Great Korean Empire in an attempt to ward off the encroaching Japanese empire. This transformation was meant to modernize Korea with a set of laws, the Kwangmu Reforms, and secure Korea’s independence in the international world order. Meanwhile, the Korean peninsula suffered difficult economic times in 1901 and typhoid and cholera outbreaks in 1902.^[9] These challenges were significant push factors for Korean emigration.

Thus began the journey of 1,033 Koreans to the Yucatán peninsula with a newspaper advertisement placed by John G. Meyers, an Englishman of Dutch-German descent and naturalized Mexican citizen, around the Korean peninsula in August 1904.^[10] The advertisement called for “adventurous spirits”—able-bodied men under the age of 40 who were permitted to bring their female partners and children under the age of fifteen.^[11] Meyers’ advertisement promoted Mexico as a country of equivalent civility and wealth to the United States with a mild and favorable climate, little poverty, and the opportunity to earn wages on par with previous Asian immigrants.^[12] A more immediate pull factor for potential workers was the promise that the day the applicants registered, the contractors would provide food and tents for them to camp out by Jemulpo Port before departure.^[13]

Meyers specifically singled-out Korea for laborers since the Japanese had vested interests in diverting the Korean labor force away from the profitable agrarian jobs in Hawaii, which the Empire wanted to keep in the hands of Japanese subjects abroad.^[14] A variety of individuals responded to his call, mainly from the Seoul area, as high wages, the promise of a high quality of life in Mexico (promoted as equal to that of the United States), and the ability to immigrate with their family members drew them in.^[15] The auspices under which these immigrants traveled were murky, as was the legality of their recruitment. A French minister issued their passports even though King Gojong had delegated overseas emigration matters to American entrepreneur David W. Deshler in 1902.^[16] Recruitment advertisements also showed inconsistencies in job description, wages, contract periods, and government authorization.^[17] Nevertheless, they departed from the port of Incheon on April 4, 1905 and landed in Salina Cruz, Mexico on May 15, 1905 where they were split-up between 22 henequen plantations.^[18]

Shortly after, Japan made the Korean peninsula a protectorate in the fall of 1905 and later incorporated Korea as a colony in 1910. All of a sudden, the Korean immigrants in Mexico were stateless under their immigration status mentioned above. The Japanese Empire was now in charge of their representation and care abroad, which did not bode well for the Koreans who had left a sovereign Korea. Japanese imperial interests blocked diplomatic support for the Korean immigrants. When reports detailing henequen plantations’ slave-like conditions arrived to the Korean empire, the Ministry of Exterior Relations assigned vice-minister Chi Ho Yoon to go to Mexico and investigate.^[19] However, Japan assumed its diplomatic superiority shortly after and canceled Chi Ho Yoon’s trip. The Korean empire effectively lost its opportunity not only to protect this group of immigrants, but also its future chances to grasp at diplomatic autonomy.^[20] The Korean immigrants to Mexico were abandoned in the diplomatic politics rumbling across the Pacific Ocean. After their arrival, the Korean immigrants soon realized that their labor contracts were not in their favor, as they faced poor working conditions under the hot Yucatán sun,^[21] a completely different diet,^[22] and their position under Mexico’s state-building project of mestizaje was unclear.^[23]

In the late 19th century, indigenous populations and political dissidents of the Porfiriato (Porfirio Diaz’s political regime) provided insufficient labor for the henequen boom.^[24] The ideology of mestizaje—the idea that the Mexican nation was composed of citizens with mixed Spanish and indigenous ancestry— was (and remains) exclusive, and “serves more as a mask of harmony that overlooks the racial division prevalent in Mexican society…(and) disregards not only the economic and political disempowerment of the indigenous but also the multicultural presence of various immigrant populations.”^[25] Exclusion vis-a-vis mestizaje also affected the indigenous population that would work alongside the Koreans on the plantation. However, the indigenous people had longer imperial-colonial histories with the Spanish and Mexican states which placed them in different conditions and alliances to counter mestizaje ideology. Thus, the Korean immigrants, both stateless and not a part of the racial and ethnic makeup that constituted mestizaje (ergo Mexicanidad), had mainly only themselves to look towards for community in this new land.

Historiography

Scholarship on 20th century Korean immigration to the Americas has primarily focused on movement to the United States. Richard S. Kim’s monograph, The Quest for Statehood: Korean Immigrant Nationalism and U.S. Sovereignty, 1905–1945 (2011), traces the formation of the Korean ethnic identity and nationalism from the United States during the Japanese colonial era.^[26] Kim, though concentrated on Korean-American activities and Korean-American diasporic identity, does mention the connections among the U.S. Korean community, Latin American Koreans, and other expatriate communities abroad. Authors like Warren Kim documented the experiences of early Korean immigrant communities on Hawaiian sugar plantations, and similar to Richard Kim, highlighted the struggles Korean immigrants faced in xenophobic, racist America.^[27] Scholarship on Korean immigrant conditions in the United States reveals unfavorable receptions to Koreans and supplies testimonies and reasonings as to why various Asian countries looked towards Latin America as potential lands of opportunity.^[28] A common pull factor noted throughout the historiography on Asian immigration to the Americas is the immigrants’ hope for future wealth if they work hard enough. My project draws on this body of literature on the Korean-American diaspora to understand: the reasons for Korean immigration, diasporic articulations of Korean identity, and how these Korean-American versions were in communication with and inspiration for the Koreans in Mexico.

Where there are pull factors, there are also push factors. Andre Schmid’s Korea Between Empires, 1895–1919 (2002) discusses the formation of a Korean national consciousness/identity in the pre- and early-colonial era on the Korean peninsula.^[29] He converses with scholarship on Korean nationalism (i.e. Ch’aeho Sin [Toksa sillon], Gi Wook Shin). In Korea Between Empires, Schmid provides one origin of nationalism in the growth of the minjok movement in the early 20th century as he discusses how “decentering the ‘Middle Kingdom’” arose alongside foreign entrance into the Korean peninsula.

The term minjok, relatively new and coined circa 1900, conflated ethnicity and citizenship in a modern move to associate the state with the ethnic people. Schmid highlights the importance of newspapers as a modus operandi to circulating this idea; he cites the very publishing of such arguments that centered the East as equal to the West in the contemporary Hwangsŏng Sinmun (Capital Gazette). Schmid argues that this nascent nationalism was teleological in its placing of Koreanness as a separate entity that was primordial and “construed as an objective entity…infused with those criteria and features- territory, people, language,…that were seen internationally as determining nationhood.”^[30] Schmid cites the growth of the minjok movement as an answer to defining where Koreans stood in the region grounded in a historical model that, as argued by Sin, was there regardless of people’s recognition of its presence. Schmid’s scholarship provides a background of the sociopolitical environment the Korean immigrants to Mexico exited, and what ideologies they may have carried with them as they left right before Japan made Korea a protectorate in the fall of 1905. His seminal work aptly renders the state of the rapidly changing Korean society and Schmid parses out how Korean national consciousness arose between the Taehan Empire and Japanese Empire.

The Korean immigrants encountered a new sociopolitical environment in Mexico. Jason Chang’s book on anti-Asian racism in Mexico, Chino: Anti-Chinese Racism in Mexico, 1880-1940 (2017) highlights Mexico’s nation-state project and the ways Mexicanidad was constructed under mestizaje ideology.^[31] Chang furthers the discourse by focusing on Chinese immigrants to Mexico, but anti-Asian discrimination in the United States and Mexico shapes his argument about mestizaje affecting Chinese assimilation to Mexico. These same ideas and sources, including the 1917 Mexican Constitution, inform my work as I explore the conditions Korean immigrants encountered when they immigrated in 1905.

Fredy González’s scholarship on trans-Pacific Chinese communities in Mexico also explores the challenges faced by Chinese immigrants in anti-Chinese Mexico.^[32] González’s research on the intra-community conflicts over politics, alongside issues with the broader Mexican nation-state, explores the Chinese immigrant community’s tensions between identifying as Chinese while contending with Chinese political identifications and how Chinese political identities affected their relationship to Chineseness. Both scholars (Chang and González) articulate the Mexican state’s (ab)use of the 1917 Mexican Constitution to justify anti-Asian racism. The effects of Japanese empire, including how it forced Chinese immigration (especially from Canton) and the use of the Japanese Mexican as an ideal Other,^[33] are also explored by both authors. Chinese reactions to mestizaje, as presented by Chang and González, shed light on at least one East Asian community’s interpretation of the racial politics they encountered and faced exclusion from.

Aihwa Ong’s Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality informs this essay’s study of flexible nationalisms.^[34] Ong defines flexible citizenship as “the cultural logics of capitalist accumulation, travel, and displacement that induce subjects to respond fluidly and opportunistically to changing political-economic conditions.”^[35] She emphasizes that subjects employ “practices favoring flexibility, mobility, and repositioning in relation to markets, governments, and cultural regimes.”^[36] While Ong’s flexible citizenship certainly reflects our globalized world, I argue that the term “citizenship” cannot be applied to the first Korean immigrants into Mexico. Although they too employ flexibility and subscribe to citizenship-like practices (as I detail below), their flexed nationalist practices, like donations and martial actions, were intended to increase their legibility within the Mexican state and support Korean causes based on the local Mexican resources available to them.

Mestizaje, Henequen & Anti-Asian Racism

From the arrival of Spanish conquistadors in 1519 and the “conquest” of the Aztec Empire in 1521, social organization was key.^[37] From its earliest stages, the Spanish Colonial Mexican political apparatus facilitated the separate ruling of Spaniards and indigenous peoples through the establishment of the República de los Españoles and the República de los Indios respectively.^[38] The Spanish colonial state furthered its exclusionary politics with the creation of a sistema de castas (caste system) and carried out the limpieza de sangre (ethnic cleansing, lit. blood cleaning) by requiring probanzas (proof/ evidence) to prove one’s racial heritage.^[39] Special fueros could be acquired for “pure” Spaniards to access certain jobs and education. Similarly, there were privileges associated with being of indigenous noble pedigree: these individuals were called caciques and they would extract labor from indigenous populations (presumably had closer ties and authority based on said noble bloodlines).^[40] Out of this hierarchy came the term mestizo^[41] and the adjudication and rights of these individuals was murky territory for the Spaniards. The Spanish colonizers toed the line between remaining absolutely at the top of the colonial hierarchy, yet also acknowledging that their “superior,” masculine-coded blood ran through mestizo veins, thus placing them “above” indigenous people. Blood purity and quantum was of huge import in social organization as intermarrying continued and different combinations of part-Spanish, part-indigenous arose. Mestizaje communicated both mestizos’ mixed heritage and higher rank on the colonial racial-class ladder.

Nonetheless, Maria Elena Martínez notes that by the late 1500s, mestizos were increasingly discriminated against and barred from entering prestigious trades and guilds for fear of them becoming a political threat to the Spaniards.^[42] There was a simultaneous decrease in “pure” indigenous people and an increase in the number of poor Spaniards. Class and caste crossed a contention point: mestizo lineages increasingly had less “pure” indigenous blood, yet continued to hold power positions above the pure-blooded, yet poor, Spaniards.^[43] The combined dynamics of race and economic power created an antagonistic situation for mestizos who could never fully access the privileges of either of their racial-ethnic heritages. These tensions remained through independence in 1821 as liberals and conservatives fought to negotiate solutions for the lack of capital (and thus lack of a middle class), the lack of regional integration, debt, and militarism left by the independence period.^[44] The Constitution of 1825 allowed for indigenous self-rule and “the elite sidestepped many of the bloody interethnic conflicts of the early nineteenth century caused by the mestizo [sic] appropriation of indigenous political control.”^[45]

However, tensions continued, and the period’s decade-long War of Reform (1857–1867) thrust the country into civil war again, the direct consequence of the liberal-conservative conflict. The peasant class remained largely composed of those of indigenous descent.

In this context, the Porfiriato began its rule. Porfirio Díaz, a mestizo himself, led coups against his predecessors Benito Juárez (1867–1872) and Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada (1872-1876) before finally taking control of the government in the autumn of 1876. “Pan o palo” politics, a mix of liberal and autocratic conservative policies, marked Díaz’s tenure. Mexico became increasingly economically integrated with the United States, agricultural modernization increased, railroads spread across the country, and land tenure became concentrated in the hands of a few hacendados at the expense of peasant communities. But with this also came growth and continued inequality. The “ley de fuga” ensured that any opponents attempting to escape the regime would be shot. The Porfiriato was notorious for its notions of order and progress, and power became increasingly consolidated in the state. The pax política porfiriana promoted the idea of a mestizo nation to unify the nation on the back of racist indigenismo ideology.^[46] Indigenous peoples arguably suffered the most from this but did not stand idly by. The Porfiriato’s state-power consolidation encountered resistance in the Yucatán Peninsula located on the southern tip of Mexico with a demographic majority of indigenous people. Beginning in 1847, indigenous Mayans fought in the Caste War, fleeing “to the forested jungles of southeastern Yucatán, where they lived in autonomous communities outside the state’s reach.”^[47] But in 1901 Díaz sent General Ignacio Bravo to the Yucatán peninsula to put an end to the Caste War and bring stability (read: state dominance) to the region. This event highlights Porfiriato’s stance on and use of mestizaje. Studying this event allows us to better understand how the national unification project was furthered by the labored subjugation of indigenous peoples in the Yucatán’s henequen plantations.

Authors Alston et. al. explain that the main legal precept of the Porfiriato was the liberal Constitution of 1857 with a high number of individual rights and

    In terms of labor,…prohibited the rendering of personal service

without just compensation and full consent. The 1856 Reform

Laws had abolished all corporate forms of land ownership; the

1857 Constitution reiterated this prohibition, which was primarily

aimed at the church. The stripping of corporate property rights

also greatly facilitated the privatization and transfer of communal

lands from indigenous communities, many of which had previously

owned lands as pueblos, or villages.” ^[48]

Still, this was a constitution written for citizens. Within the state’s construction of a Mexican citizen with rights there remained a grey area for the elevation of mestizaje and exploitation of indigenous labor. Enrique Florescano explains how historiography during the Porfiriato era favored the narrative of Mexican ascent through various trials and challenges (i.e. colonization, independence, etc.).^[49] One of the Porfiriato Education Ministry’s historians, Justo Sierra, building from another Mexican historian, Riva Palacio, ascribed to mestizaje “el papel de proceso fundador de la nacionalidad mexicana” (“the role of the foundational process of the Mexican nationality”). With this ascription Sierra aligns with the state narrative of Spanish conquest and Catholic Church’s role in submerging Mexico’s indigenous populations into an absolute passivity and equating la nacionalidad mexicana (Mexican nationality) with being mestizo. Official Porfiriato historians’ intentional elevation of mestizos, while constructing the stereotypical passive Native, provides the ideological context for the ways in which mestizaje was (ab)used. These would be the very same plantations where the Korean immigrants would labor beginning in 1905.

Landowners continued to hold power and the Yucatán Peninsula’s hacendados were no different. Economic gains spurred the hacendados to find labor for their plantations. With the greater narrative of the Porfiriato’s thirst for national economic growth in the background, hacendados were able to harness the zeitgeistical fervor of contributing to the national economy by exploiting cheap, indigenous labor. Eiss argues that the concept of the pueblo, or the people, was a statecraft tool for “modernity” and “civility” for the majority indigenous peasant population under the direction and boosting of the mestizo gentry.^[50] Hacienda work was a way to avoid mandatory military conscription, but many laborers were often forced to exchange this by dwelling on the hacienda, and having to work off debts they came with at the discretion of their “masters” who rarely took cash. Eiss describes how debt peonage to haciendas became the “most regimented and exploitative” form of peonage in Mexico as policies and laws actively supported the exploitation of indigenous labor (even though peonage had been declared illegal in the 1857 Constitution). Mayans were the majority demographic on the plantations with a significant number of Yaqui war prisoners. The socioeconomic ways in which the mestizo gentry promoted themselves and their imagination of Mexican nationality in the haciendas highlights one form that mestizaje took during the Porfiriato. Mestizaje’s racial-class dynamics expose the lines along which membership to the Mexican nation-state project were narrow and guarded.

Korean immigrants arrived during this era of mestizaje, during which individuals outside its membership were subject to exploitation as non-citizens. Conditions took a turn a little over a decade after the Koreans’ arrival. The 1917 Mexican Constitution, influenced by the Mexican Revolution, marked a new stage in the development of mestizaje. The 1910 Mexican Revolution was imbued with racist and xenophobic overtones, particularly antichinista.^[51] Jason Chang contextualizes “the extension of constitutional protection to those the constitution had previously ignored” as a revolutionary consequence that despite offering “populist redemption” to natives, “ was underwritten by a new set of juridical-racial discourses being articulated around anti-Chinese politics.”^[52]

Pac quotes a first-generation immigrant: “Even though the first generation of immigrants suffered for four years in forced labor, they thanked the Mexican government for its generosity… [their] generous hospitality in Mexico without legal registration.”^[53] Article 30 of the 1917 Mexican Constitution was pivotal for the second generation of Korean immigrants: under a jus solis citizenship policy they were now considered “Mexican” rather than foreigners. Article 30 offered Mexican nationality by birth on Mexican territory and also extended Mexican nationality by naturalization.^[54] For the stateless Korean immigrants this was a huge shift in legal status and came with potential other benefits that contemporary expatriates were seeking with legal citizenship in their new homelands. Pac noted this gratitude, however, alongside the suffering of the immigrants. It is a bittersweet moment: the forced labor conditions of the Koreans from 1905 to 1909 helped to forge strong bonds among the immigrants, and they created an independent community for themselves with ties to the international Korean independence movement. They had been treated differently from mestizos and native indigenous peoples from the very beginning: Koreans were finally granted membership to the Mexican state, but very much had grown in their allegiance to the Korean nation. Moreover, as Chang argued, mestizo nationalism, though seemingly creating a more inclusive space, ultimately was anti-Asian and exclusionary to the imagined Mexican nation.

A little over a decade later the Sinhan minbo, a California-based Korean-American newspaper, published an article in their September 9, 1926 issue stating: “Blood is holier than water,” and encouraging Koreans in Mexico to gain Mexican citizenship.^[55] In this article, the Sinhan minbo claimed that although they received a new nationality, they would not forget their roots, that Mexican citizenship allowed them, in fact, to do more for their motherland. Membership to the Mexican state was a complex process laced with the colonial afterlives of racism, anti-indigeneity, and class. While the 1917 Mexican Constitution presented on paper a more inclusive Mexico, a closer look at Mexico’s exclusive history with the ideology of mestizaje, especially in the henequen industry, explicates the marginalization the Korean immigrants encountered.

Anti-Asian racism was more subtle in the Korean domestic sphere. On the plantations, food rations were corn, not rice. Corn, to Koreans, was not fit for their consumption. From interactions with indigenous women, Korean women learned to mill beans and corn into food on metates. However, eating corn gave the Koreans stomach problems. This led to Korean workers’ protest for rice and basic medicine. Upon seeing the poor conditions the Koreans were living in, the plantation administration ordered rice to be sold at the plantation credit store for the Koreans.^[56] Pac recounts this anecdote to show how new and difficult life was for the Koreans in Mexico, down to the food. The women struggled to find ingredients to make kimchi. Cabbages were planted for decorative purposes at many plantations and the horticulturist at the plantation would trim and dispose of unpretty pieces of cabbage. The Korean women would use these discarded pieces to make kimchi.^[57] The henequen plantations would occasionally distribute meat to the workers. Korean women would gather the tails, heads, feet, and intestines since they could use them for their cuisine. This would lead to derogatory calling of Korean women as perras.^[58]

Although these moments surely convey the various challenges of adjusting to a new land, in the long-term they also show great resilience on behalf of the Korean immigrants. Oral histories from various descendants demonstrate the various techniques employed by immigrant families whose labor in the kitchen passed along Korean food traditions. Ana Maria Song, a 75 year-old second-generation Korean immigrant still living in the Yucatán, demonstrates making kalguksu, cabbage kimchi, and watermelon-rind kimchi with local ingredients.^[59] Song shares how it was her father who shared these recipes with her. According to Song, all the Koreans eat kimchi. In the interview, she even encourages some of her family to try the kimchi using one of the few Korean phrases she knows: meogeo (먹어, eat). The home was a small-scale institution that supported the preservation of the Korean ethnic identity in Mexico. Traditions from home were perhaps the closest for many Korean immigrants and the least escapable— at least until adulthood. Song also shares that for many of them it was not until they married and left the house that they learned to make tortillas. Song herself married a Yucateco man whose diet centered around corn over rice.

Despite carrying on food traditions, the Korean immigrants did not pass down oral language traditions. In the same documentary with oral interviews another descendant, Genny Song, shares that the Yucatecos and Mexicans constantly bullied the Koreans (she makes the distinction) for their inability to speak Spanish and thus taught their children it was better to learn Spanish.^[60][61] Apparently there were some remnants of the persistence and adaptability of Korean immigrants as witnessed by Ana Maria Song’s use of common eating-related Korean terms.

The home indicates a different dimension to the Korean immigrants’ proliferation of ethnonationalism. While I argue that there was a narrow path for the Koreans between the Mexican nation-state project and the Korean nation-state project cum liberation movement, I acknowledge the material limitations to group organizing the immigrants faced. In the home there were smaller, but equally impactful, choices made that reproduced a Korean in-group. A mixture of traditions were passed down generationally that reflect “Koreanness” via these adaptations. While these at-home events may not have been specific articulations of Korean liberation, they do illustrate mechanisms of everyday life that linked the Korean community. The need for rice over corn, although a dietary concern, was a separating factor between Koreans and other Yucatán populations. Language barriers did bar Koreans from further access and assimilation to Mexico. Yet these very same challenges also created opportunities to unite the Korean immigrant community further in their organizing for Korean liberation. Accordingly, the domestic sphere also provided space for flexible nationalisms for the Korean immigrants. Koreans’ shopping, cooking, and eating meals different from their Yucatán neighbors also served to leverage their worker status to ask for rice they could eat and use the resources available to them to fashion eating practices approximating

Part II: Laying Community Roots: Citizenship Strategies & Community Building

Legal & Economic Methods

The introduction of Asian indentured labor clearly exposed mestizaje’s membership limitations and mestizaje’s resulting structuring of racial-ethnic hierarchies in Mexican society.As mentioned before, the 1857 Mexican Constitution expressed a high number of individual rights. Section 1, Article 5 the 1857 Mexican Constitution articulates a ban on slavery and peonage.^[62] Yet the peonage labor system of the henequen haciendas where the indigenous people, and later the Korean immigrants, labored reveals a gray space to this law. The Korean immigrants encountered not only these illegal conditions but a lack of citizenship unto their own. Soon after their arrival the Japanese Empire annexed the Korean peninsula and the immigrants effectively lost a sovereign nation to look towards for legal recourse to their dilemmas. Beyond legal recourse, returning to the Korean peninsula would mean being subjected to cultural erasure and servitude in the Japanese imperial war machine. The immigrants’ old status as Korean subjects was effectively expunged. Moreover, at this time, the Korean immigrants could not obtain Mexican citizenship and thus state protection. The Koreans were stateless, vulnerable, and excluded between Japanese imperialism and Mexican mestizaje.

Koreans had a limited set of options for state protection before Article 30. In many ways Article 30 provided legibility in an otherwise invisible legal existence. The Sinhan minbo call^[63] Richard S. Kim echoes such sentiments in his reading of a 1909 Sinhan minbo article that urged Korean expatriates in Manchuria and the Russian Far East to naturalize as Chinese and Russian citizens in order to “maintain the struggle for Korea’s freedom.”^[64] This article also states that naturalizing was not a rejection of Korea and in fact was a great act of patriotism. Kim also makes similar arguments for the case of Koreans in the United States. Scholar Jason Chang complicates the seemingly gracious changes in the Mexican nation-state’s articulation of citizenship and belonging via his scholarship on Chinese immigrants in Mexico.^[65] Chang details how the 1917 Mexican Constitution provided a basis for an imperialistic and paternalistic Foucauldian surveillance state with the ejido system. These specific moments illustrate a complex navigation between allegiances to the Korean motherland while utilizing the resources and legibility given to acknowledged citizens of their new countries— flexible nationalisms.

Although the exact numbers of how many of the Korean immigrants in Mexico chose to naturalize or were born into Mexican citizenship are unknown, these sources illuminate how the transnational Korean community was aware of legal-political structures of belonging that could aid them in their mission for Korean liberation. This is a powerful contrast to the treatment the Koreans faced in Mexico. Not only were they in poor labor conditions in contracts they believed they were tricked into, they also faced racism.^[66] The Koreans’ place in the Mexican nation-state was marginal and subject to Mexican exclusion of those outside the mestizo model. Still the choice to support the homeland vis-a-vis this legal-political method stood as one way for the Korean immigrant community to strategize legibility between Korea and Mexico.

Whether a deep sense of patriotism towards Mexico was a major factor in Koreans’ choice to claim citizenship is questionable. After all, they had suffered anti-Asian racism and exclusion in the mestizaje state. But what choice did the Korean immigrants really have? Acquiring Mexican citizenship made it possible for the Korean immigrants to gain access to a wider international community of Korean expatriates working toward Korean liberation. The connection between international and domestic community ties was intimate: relevance in the Korean nation-state to-be depended on belonging to Koreans belonging to their local community. In this way, ostracization from the small Korean community risked many perils, including international disconnect and few mutual aid networks. Furthermore, continuing on sans legal residence in Mexico would be difficult for mobility, employment, and access to state services. Obtaining Mexican citizenship was essential. Earning a livelihood without it would be extremely challenging. Ultimately, intense pressure from both nation-state projects, Korean and Mexican, most likely stimulated the immigrants’ flexible nationalisms: entering the Mexican state to support the Korean nation.

Another legal-political method through which the Korean immigrants in Mexico articulated a distinct form of community and belonging was in their monetary collection and donation towards Korean liberation. Pastor Nam Hwan Jo, who first arrived as an evangelical missionary to the Yucatán in 1995, wrote an exhaustive account of the history of the Korean immigrants to Mexico on the centennial anniversary with the endorsement and support of the Christian Herald USA on its 29th foundation anniversary.^[67] Jo lived for ten years with the Yucatán Korean community and his book broadens scholarship on the daily life of the first immigrants, particularly with regard to their religion. Both Jo and Pac mention the Korean immigrants’ communal commitment to gathering funds, and according to Pac: “For donating people, this money was not a burden.” and, comparatively, “For their choked native land, can’t wear clothes right, [could] not eat right, was [it] not a big issue they suffered like this.”

The intimate ties between the immigrants and sharing what money they could towards Korean liberation, though notable, are not solely patriotic efforts. Jo mentions how donations were part of official activities for the Korean Association in Mérida, whose origins I will discuss in the following section. Via their ‘paga mandataria nacional,’ (‘mandatory national payment’) the immigrants sent half of the mandatorily collected funds to the independence movement while the other half remained to support local association activities; each member had to pay a single peso monthly.^[68] Pac supports and elaborates Jo’s statement; Pac states that the Association had about 900 active members, meaning a total of 900 pesos was collected monthly and 450 pesos exactly were collaboration with the Pan-Korean Association and revolution promotion plans towards independence.^[69] Jo continues on to describe the Association as a sort of quasi-government for the Koreans. This perspective explicates how association membership for a Korean immigrant was not solely claiming being part of a community, but a sort of citizenship and belonging to a nation(-state to-be).

Participation in the Korean Association was a complex negotiation of identity, community, and ethnonationalism between Mexico and Korea. Donations to Korean liberation were part-and-parcel of belonging to the local Korean community. Despite the fact that their Korean homeland had been inhospitable to the lower classes to which Korean immigrants had belonged, Koreans in Mexico sent money in the hopes of helping to create a grander Korean ethnic nation. Koreans’ economic productivity in Mexico was valuable to both the Mexican economy and Korean liberation movement. Scholar Hahkyung Kim distinguishes between state appreciation for the Koreans’ economic productivity on Mexican territory versus state acknowledgement of the Koreans as productive Mexicans; Kim suggests a tolerance for Koreans rather than acceptance due to their economic contributions.^[70] In response, I suggest that this economic productivity, yet exclusion, enabled further separation from Mexicanidad. The Korean immigrants’ isolation has already been emphasized and banding together was consequently key to survival and prosperity in the stateless zone of illegibility. Accordingly, the (little) capital at their disposal was the de facto modus operandi to express and take action on their will. Moreover, as much as the individual Korean immigrant in Mexico did not want to face social isolation, neither did the greater Korean community in Mexico amongst other Korean international expatriate communities. Donations to the liberation movement were payment to participation and legibility to the Korean nation, scattered as it was. Los Angeles was the center of the Korean revolutionary movement and not too far from the Koreans in Mexico.^[71] As such, the Mexican Korean enclave inevitably felt the pull and push for participation. Pac characterizes the peoples’ donations as unburdensome in comparison to the toil and trauma of their fellow nationals back on the Korean peninsula. However, because one’s status in the Korean immigrant community was tied to participation in the Korean Association, supporting Korean liberation was an inevitable part of being a member of the local community. Therefore, whether or not an individual wanted to support that movement, their belonging depended on it: this lack of choice created a burden.

Membership to the international Korean community was important. Connections could lead to benefits. Chang-Yong Cho notes that in 1911 Korean-Americans rallied funds in a plan to try and convince the United States’ government to allow for the Koreans in Mexico to immigrate to the United States.^[72] Overall, the call to gain citizenship dialectically parallels what Hannah Arendt would later call the “right to have rights.” Arendt describes how membership/citizenship to the nation-state was fundamental for human rights. She argues that the Rights of Man are unenforceable, even when constitutionally inalienable, whenever stateless peoples are considered.^[73] Although Arendt speaks from the perspective of stateless Jews in World War II and postwar Europe, parallels to the early 20th century Korean diaspora are evident in the ways that Koreans sought to tap into the rights given by nation-states to their citizens for themselves and their pro-independence cause.

Role of Christian Churches

“Koreans were not Catholics and did not understand Catholic customs. Moreover [we] did not understand the [Spanish] language, so [we] were not invited to wedding ceremonies nor celebrations. [Either way]…[we] did not have curiosity nor a want to nose around.”^[74] Still, the Koreans‘ labor contracts stipulated a mandatory day of rest on Sundays in the fervently Catholic nation.^[75] In fact, religion was such a deep part of the plantation owner-laborer relationship that it affected housing conditions. Pac states that indigenous peoples were prohibited from the benefit of thatched cottages (like those of the Koreans) because the plantation owners rationalized not to allow the natives this privilege since they did not attend church.^[76] Thus when Koreans expressed an interest in the Christian church, the plantation owners’ hoped that following this new (Christian) doctrine would enlighten the Koreans.^[77] The Koreans could only register at official state churches, but they did not understand Spanish—the language spoken at these official churches—so this led to many voluntary missionary numbers to increase and to establish a Korean church.

Anti-indigeneity, Catholicism, mestizaje, and Korean Christianity all fomented a distinct niche for Korean community-building in the Yucatán. The first homeowner in Mexico amongst the Korean immigrants was Che Seon Kim who finished his contract early.^[78] He opened up his house for bible study in 1908 and Jo speculates around 300 registered members, with a likely far lower number of regular attendees. Jo states that a San Francisco nationalist group reports that the vast majority of the departing Koreans were Christians, but in reality only a few were registered as Christian upon departure from the peninsula and the rest did not register until 1911.^[79] It is important to remember that the immigrants attended Methodist churches as opposed to majority-Catholic Mexico.^[80] Nonetheless, Jo notes that the church became an important space for reunion for the Korean immigrant community.^[81] The plantation owners would allow the laborers to attend the local church in Mérida, as noted above, and this allowed for them to come from all around and reunite. In this way the Church became the meeting grounds that set the foundation for the isolated immigrants seeking community. The immigrants were looking for future stability as they laid roots in the Yucatán.^[82]

Born from weekly church reunions was the Asociación de Coreanos (Korean Association). During uncertain times the people would look to the Church and its leaders for hope and direction. Contracts mainly ended circa 1908–1909 and returning to Korea became a more distant dream with those laying roots in Mexico, so joining and being active in Korean Christian community was a critical medium to maintaining kinship. But this Association was not only a social meeting space: it also dictated private affairs of the Korean immigrant community as Christian values regarding courtship, marriage, and gambling.^[83] However, the vibrancy of the Church space also manifested with the Association’s support of the Korean independence movement. Nationalist overtones colored the Korean community experience in the Yucatán as across the Pacific the Japanese empire strengthened its grip on the Korean peninsula. The Association made donations to the independence movement as part of their official activities^[84] and Samilchŏll (3.1; Korean Independence Movement Day) was a major celebration amongst the Koreans that was continuously observed and seen as a way to connect back to the motherland.^[85] Nostalgia for a sovereign Korea they left behind helped feed nationalist sentiment. It is unknown whether every participant was truly nationalistic for the now imagined Korea they left behind. However, it is reasonable to infer that the Church’s role as interlocutor for access to the Korean community meant that supporting independence was a requirement.

The role of churches as community-building social spaces for immigrant communities is nothing new.^[86] The Mexico case is unique in how the Church was not only an access point for a marginalized community due to the political ideology of mestizaje, but in how it produced a space for nationalist sentiment. Missing their motherland may have been a natural response, but the fact that they actively maintained ties to independence movements back home and a Korean identity rather than attempt to only become “Mexican” indicates a divergence from traditional assimilation theories for adjustment to new spaces.^[87] Again, flexible nationalisms come to the fore: while Koreans utilized socially-appropriate Church gatherings in highly religious Mexico that allowed them closer ties with their bosses, these same spaces became fertile grounds for organizing around Korean nationalism.

Part III: Henequen Leaves Stretching Back to Korea

News of the March 1st Korean Declaration of Independence (1919) reached the Yucatán soon after and the immigrants felt a renewed spirit of unity and support.^[88] President Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points and support for national self-determination catalyzed an enormous reaction in colonial Korea— liberation from Japan was a just endeavor and nationals had to step up to achieve independence. The Korean immigrants in Mexico had intended to return to Korea and now there was more concrete evidence that this might be possible. The main leader of the Pan-Korean Association abroad, Chang-ho Ahn, was also due to visit the Koreans in Mexico on the Declaration’s two year anniversary.^[89] Pac describes the emotions as nervous and restless amongst the community. Koreans streamed into the local Korean Association’s central headquarters in Mérida. This gathering was the first of its kind. So many gathered that some plantations underwent disorder and had to halt work. Others went so far as to help provide transportation costs for their workers to the gathering.^[90] Pac also attended this gathering since his father was staying in Mérida. Ahn’s visit came with a whirlwind of activities and one conspicuous speech noted by Pac: the meaning of the taegukgi– the Korean national flag. Ahn’s speeches and discussions led the Koreans in Mexico to see how, because of the enemies’ yoke, independence could not begin domestically so it was up to them to cooperate and help. When Ahn called for the liberation of the native land, Pac describes how he was met with quiet, red eyes, and tears.^[91] At the end of another session a question was raised: what was the meaning of the taegukgi, to which Ahn requested time to reflect and respond. The next day Ahn responds to a large crowd explaining the deep mythology and symbolism of the taegukgi: the flag was a symbol of recognition of national sovereignty and a symbol for nationals to adopt.^[92]

This was surely a confusing experience for the Koreans who had recently received the means for legal citizenship and residency in Mexico. Pac further commented that when the news of the Declaration it came at a point when “ the kids, compared to the parents/adults, spoke better Spanish and had a base of life there…[they were] more used to the customs of Mexico.”^[93] Yet, Pac also remarks that despite fourteen to fifteen years of living in Mexico, the Koreans continued to proudly maintain Korean traditions like wedding customs and Confucian ethics.^[94] The immigrants’ identities were pulled between the Mexican state and Korean nation. How did they resolve the divide between state and nation? Pac’s memoir suggests that the solution lay in continuing Korean community-building in the Yucatán. Descendants’ oral histories, accordingly, testify to a strong cultural tradition amongst the Korean immigrants and diligent efforts to clarify their ethnic identity as Korean, not Chinese, Japanese or Filipino.^[95] Pac himself shares an anecdote where he applied to work at a restaurant in Villa Hermosa and the owner asked him if he was Filipino. Pac responded: “I was born in Mexico but I am Korean.”^[96] Clearly the Korean immigrants maintained a distinct sense of belonging to the Korean nation. While the Koreans may have accessed membership to the Mexican state, they culturally cultivated their Korean ethnic identity within the Mexican state.

Although supporting Korean liberation and ethnonationalism offered a path to membership to the local Korean community, following these customs also led to struggles. Intergenerationally knowledge was lost and subject to time and memory distortion. Influences from the environment around the Koreans also challenged the preservation of Korean heritage in Mexico. Although larger institutional support may have increased the immigrants’ legibility to the Mexican and Korean nation-state projects, smaller institutions also played a significant role in developing the Korean-Mexican immigrant community. Mestizaje ideology and the global liberation movement sprung a strong reaction from the Koreans in Mexico who used education, the Sungmu military school, and the home to maintain and pass along their Korean ethnic culture. These actions not only brought them closer to the global diaspora but also resulted in a further distancing from the Mexican nation-state.

Education

The Yucatán Korean Association set up Ohakgina on May 26, 1913.^[97] It was the first of multiple schools built to encourage “minjok consciousness.”^[98] Pac details his educational experience on the henequen plantation. The Korean immigrants established an education board within the Yucatán Korean Association with the purpose to educate illiterate adults and the children.^[99] The Association faced challenges establishing the Korean school. They held a discussion regarding environmental constraints and enduring material burdens: 1) there was no formal teacher for instruction in the Korean language and 2) the parents of those being educated would shoulder an economic burden (teachers had to be paid for their labor).^[100] It was then decided that they would appoint a temporary teacher, Changi Cho, and that this position would be concurrent with the position of clerk for the Mérida Korean association.^[101]

The actual education system was based on the Korean education system with the Korean language and writing in Hangul at the backbone, as well as hanmun.^[102] Pac reminisced about having learned hanmun but not remembering his lessons. Usually a plantation Korean school would have two teachers: one for arithmetic and another for Hangul (language, reading, and writing).^[103] Also included in the curricula were: lessons on supporting one’s native land, history, the four-class hierarchy system (i.e. samin, yangban, etc.), physical education, speech, and hymns.^[104] In these ways the education system was imbued with “minjok consciousness.”^[105]

The plantation system workday schedule meant that students and teachers would have to do classes usually from dawn 2 AM to 4 AM and then in the evening again from 6 PM for about two more hours.^[106] Pac also reflects on the corporal punishment doled out for those who did not do well in their studies. The arduous schedule above that required students to balance both long, hard days on the plantation with schoolwork often led to students with incomplete or missing schoolwork. In a moment that exposes privilege amongst the Korean immigrant community, Pac reveals that those who lived and attended school in the city (of Mérida) would go to school for 8 hours, not study hanmun, and not receive corporal punishment.^[107] An urban/rural divide in the Yucatán is inferable from Pac’s statement. Even though this division may point to splinters in the construction of a unified community, the separation of students from the broader Yucatán community illustrates a concerted effort to retain the immigrants’ language and culture. Early on in his memoir, Pac also pointed out the challenge of language for the immigrants; even though body language was used for communication, acquiring Spanish language skill was advantageous.^[108]

Deliberately supporting the continuation of the Korean language amongst second-generation immigrants— beyond Korean being presumably the primary language spoken at home— elucidates the resilience of the Korean immigrant community. This tactic also diverges from traditional assumptions about assimilation: rather than only absorb the new language, they actively worked towards passing down the Korean culture. Flexible nationalisms can also be observed in the Yucatán Korean education system. Although second-generation immigrants may have learned Spanish for quotidian affairs, the existence of a Korean school system instilling the language of the Korean (literal and minjok consciousness) builds on communal practices fostering identification with the Korean nation.

Sungmu Military School

Kunyong Lee’s creation of Suk-Mu Kak Kyo on November 14, 1910 expanded upon the Korean immigrants’ use of a space such as school to facilitate community.^[109][110] Scholar Chang-Yong Cho traces Sungmu hakgyo’s roots back to the Korean mainland’s reaction to Japanese colonization and the National Enlightenment Movement’s use of Sungmu Consciousness/-ism to enlighten the people.^[111] Cho states that the National Enlightenment Movement contended that the reason for the fall of Korea was partly due to [the imperial government’s] reverence of other world powers’ military strength while suppressing/controlling Korea’s own military.^[112]

Thus, military power was needed to regain Korea’s sovereignty. Sungmuism followed this logic and the spirit of Sungmuism was exhibited and defined by patriotism imbued into educational values of every school subject.^[113] Physical education was the first step towards inspiring patriotism and through this Sungmuism was implemented with youths across the nation (of Korea) training in a patriotic, military spirit with the goal of one day bringing Korea to stand as an equal world power.^[114] Sungmuism’s expansion resulted in Koreans cultivating and enabling the notion that dying for one’s country was brave—all in preparation for being needed for an actual battle for independence.^[115] Sungmuism spread to other Korean immigrant communities abroad, including Mérida. As noted above, former Kwangmu Army soldiers were part of the Korean immigrant community in Mexico, approximately 200.^[116][117] When the trend of Sungmuism arrived in the Yucatán peninsula, men with military backgrounds gathered in three locations to reflect on the fall of the native land and to prepare willing patriotic martyrs for Korean liberation.^[118] To create such devoted fighters, they would conduct soldier training daily for 1~2 hours in military strategies/methods and gymnastics during the leisure time from farming.^[119] On November 17, 1910 a full-scale effort from the Mérida Local Council came to the construction of Sungmu School, a military training school where the goal was gaining Korean independence, with Lee leading the efforts.^[120]

José Sánchez Pac also mentions that 25 Korean youths in the Yucatán, under the leadership of Kŭnyŏng Lee, participated in the 1910 Mexican Revolution.^[121] Pac also mentions accidentally meeting a “Mr. Choo” while working at the same company in El Aguila. Mr. Choo proudly shared with Pac that he fought in the Revolution and was even promoted to major.^[122] Jagyeong Lee’s 100 year chronicle on Korean immigrants in Mexico, Meksik’o Hanin imin 100-yŏnsa : enek’en kasibat ŭi 100-yŏn oditsei, corroborates Pac by suggesting that while total numbers of Korean participants are unknown, it is possible dozens fought under Kŭnyŏng Lee and died in battles.^[123] I have found no further supporting sources on this claim, but similar participatory actions occurred in Manchuria and Russia.^[124] Manchuria and Russia were also home to the Korean diaspora organizing revolutionary armies for Korean liberation.^[125]

If Korean immigrants in Mexico participated in the Mexican Revolution, these actions would further reveal the lengths to which local participation facilitated a proof of allegiance to the new country that could possibly translate into reciprocal support for Korea’s liberation abroad. Moreover, the Koreans’ participation in the Mexican Revolution testifies to the immigrants’ attempts to integrate into the Mexican nation-state project. Revolutionary military service was similarly applied as an assimilation and acceptance technique by ethnic Koreans in Manchuria and Russia. The absence of sources, beyond the general difficulty in accessing wartime records, can also be due to the possibility of officials having coded Koreans as “Chinos,” a larger Asian immigrant population at the time.^[126] This reflects possible further discrimination, racism, and illegibility the Koreans faced socially and at the state level.

Supporting Korean liberation through martial action was not limited to Mexico. Genny Chans, mentioned in Footnote 73, shares how her grandfather, Seok Hwan Chang, was a soldier. As a soldier, he joined the Sungmu School founder, Ki, and 25 other Koreans in an expedition to Guatemala as mercenaries in the Guatemalan Revolution.^[127] Chans notes that while they were criticized at the time, the goal of the men was to earn a little more money to send to Korea in support of liberation. According to Chans, upon their return they sent the money to Korea and also donated part of their earnings to further support the construction of Korean schools. Cho dates this mission to 1913 and actually placed the number of Korean Sungmu soldiers participating to be 300 men.^[128] Cho links the success and realization of Sungmuism to this expedition.

Here again, community-building participation blurred into citizenship-like practices to the Korean nation. These martial actions indicate flexible nationalisms. Even though they may have donned the uniform of Mexican revolutionaries, their actions were aimed at providing support for Korean nationalism. The young men training for possible Korean liberation on one hand could simply have been filling their time and not totally feel the urgency of such militant preparations. Camaraderie with other young Korean-heritage men would have been a more immediate benefit of joining the Sungmu military school. Yet, the routine habits, recognizable military hierarchy and infrastructure, and at least nominal goal of Korean independence nonetheless demonstrate a broader implication of the Korean immigrants’ positioning of themselves within a larger Korean nation where citizenship entailed liberation support. These martial practices elucidate a clear relationship between Korean nationalism and the ethnonationalist institutions the immigrants had set up for themselves.

Moreover, these younger Koreans were a manifestation of not only the legacies of the Kwangmu Army training, but also the minjok consciousness that grew in the late 1800s pre-departure and reiterated in the Korean schools in the Yucatán. These young Koreans grew up under a combination of martial training and ethnocentric education that accentuated their ethnic differences in the name of the nation. Although mestizaje ideology positioned Koreans to the periphery of the Mexican nation-state project, Koreans themselves also rejected mestizaje and rendered a separate identity to locals.

Conclusion: Braided Henequen Rope: Crossing Peninsulas, Identity, and Time

The first Koreans in Mexico may not have imagined they would never return to their homeland. Nor would they know that, shortly after their departure, the reach of the Japanese empire would extend itself to destroy the sovereign Korea the immigrants last knew vis-a-vis various pogroms of name-changing, forced Shinto and emperor worship, and mandatory conscription and support for Japanese wartime efforts. While the Japanese destroyed the Korean state, the Korean nation lived on through domestic liberation efforts and the support of the global Korean diaspora. The Koreans in Mexico came to articulate their identity and community in connection with these transnational efforts for Korean independence.

Before connecting with the international Korean liberation movement, the Koreans first had to make sense of their place in Mexico. Mestizaje’s exclusivity, and general lack of mutual aid, fostered the conditions and reaction for Koreans to parse out their own community identity as Koreans. Social spaces, like the Christian Church, Korean Association, and schools, were made by and for the Koreans. Koreans’ realization of their exclusion from mestizaje prepared them to organize around ethnic lines. This in turn assisted them in their relationship to the global Pan-Korean community where membership and connection consisted of support and preparations for Korean independence. Two nation-state projects with narrow prescriptions for membership constrained the Korean immigrants in Mexico. Legally, economically, socially, and culturally the Korean immigrants mobilized themselves around ethnic Koreanness and what would be best for the continuation of the Korean nation. The Korean national question asserted close ties to the mission for a nationally self-determined Korean state.

Pac’s memoir is limited. Pac wrote his memoir years later at the bequest of a South Korean-Mexican friendly council formed after the formalization of relations between the two countries. Time and memory inevitably distorted some of his recounting. Moreover, certain narratives, like the victimhood of Koreans during Japanese colonization and the “win” of South Korea over North Korea, had already circulated and could have biased how Pac presented his narrative. Moreover, he was a child when most of these events occurred so a lot of his story depends on the community’s collective memory and their own memory’s distortion through time. Beyond the challenges of memory work, Pac’s memoir remains a male-centered narrative. Pac’s father was heavily involved in the Korean Association in Mérida. Despite providing an inside look at Mérida leadership, Pac’s perspective is not inclusive of an average Korean immigrant, nor does it fully delve into the unique struggles of the female immigrants. But his memoir, and the oral histories, do show what stories were considered worthy of passing down in the community and worth sharing outside the community; Pac expounds the nostalgia for and various continued efforts to maintain ties to the Korean homeland.

The veracity or depth of the immigrants’ religiosity or want for an independent Korea is indeterminable with the limited sources available. Nevertheless, it is clear that these institutions of church and the liberation movement were critical components for membership to the Korean Yucatán community. Korean national consciousness, first introduced on the Korean peninsula pre-departure and then expounded by Japanese colonization, was fiercely forged against the fire of mestizaje and its rejection of Asian identities. The henequen “green gold” picked by Korean hands was transformed into funds for Korean national liberation. After 1917, options opened up for the Korean immigrants: the nation that had ostracized them now offered them the opportunity for Mexican citizenship. However, even this was an opportunity to build on Korean nationalism: as citizens, the Koreans’ legibility to the Mexican state provided legal capacity to bring Mexican attention to the Korean colonial plight. Membership to the local Korean Association provided local mutual aid, but also contributed to the international liberation movement. The Sungmu Military School was the Koreans’ direct response to the call for cooperation and preparation to physically fight for Korean independence. Food, language, the Church, and a separate Korean education system contributed to an ethnonationalist consciousness.

The complexities to the formation of identity for the Korean immigrants in Mexico indicate how both domestic and international nation-state projects and national apparatuses affected immigrants. Their agency, though limited, produced a vibrant Korean community in Mexico with various institutions that provided support for them and their descendants. The spirit of revolution continued on: in 1921, 350 Korean immigrants from Mexico immigrated again to Cuba.^[129] Some of these Cuba-bound immigrants and their descendants would go on to participate in the Cuban Revolution.^[130]

Today in the Yucatán, the Korean community continues to celebrate their heritage with Samilchŏll festivities, taekwondo, Korean cooking classes, and cultural festivals.^{[131][132][133]} The descendants continue to maintain that they are Korean.^[134][135] The rise of Hallyu, the Korean Cultural Wave, and various anniversaries of the Korean immigration to Mexico has led some of the descendants to fly back to South Korea (irrespective of their ancestors’ origins within the peninsula) under government-affiliated sponsorships to reconnect with the land their ancestors were unable to return to. Various documentaries were the products of these South Korean government and/or media driven efforts. In 2012, Young-ha Kim published Black Flower, a historical fiction novel written first in Korean and later translated to English, intentionally expanding the book’s potential audience.^[136] It is yet another cultural production from the story of the Korean immigrants to Mexico.

All of these cultural productions invoke and emphasize the suffering of their (South Koreans’) ancestral kin and the bravery of the immigrants who supported Korean liberation— how the immigrants remained ardently Korean. They are emotional, yet convenient, narrations of the life and trials of the Korean immigrants to Mexico. But these cultural products fall short of acknowledging that the immigrants had few other options. Had the Korean immigrants in Mexico not supported Korean liberation, what would the collective memory and representation of their lives be for (a now-divided) Korean nation? Mexico’s nation-state had no space for them, and Korea as they knew it was no more. Through legal, economic, and sociocultural citizenship practices the immigrants honed their Koreanness. Their Korean identity was not a simple recourse to nationalism: it was a tool for survival and support when faced with two narrowly defined nation-state projects. Exclusion from the Mexican state and participation in the international Korean liberation movement mutually reinforced one another in the Korean immigrant experience. At first glance the Korean descendants’ Spanish fluency, creative adaptations of Korean traditions to the resources available to them in Mexico, and continued community in Mexico demonstrates a “successful” assimilation. It is the formation of the Korean and Mexican nation-state projects that crafted a response in which the Korean immigrants had to use flexible nationalisms to, on the one hand, get nominally closer to Mexican nation membership (with language ability and legal recognition), but in reality to benefit the Korean nation movement.

There is a Korean saying: “All trees have roots.”^[137] Mestizaje and the Korean national liberation movement sowed the seeds of strong community building. The Korean immigrants laid down the roots to ferment their community through the Christian Church, seeking Mexican citizenship, donating to and preparing for the Korean independence movement, educating themselves in and practicing Korean language and tradition. Much like the strong henequen fibers the original Korean immigrants picked, their own identities became intertwined and resilient tight community ropes among dynamic nation-state project-building. Their henequen roots crossed peninsula to peninsula.

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References

^[1] Note on Romanization: all romanizations are translated in McCune-Reischauer style unless otherwise noted by the source. I follow the First Name, Last Name order for all Korean names. Scholars writing and publishing outside the Korean academy or in English, I write according to their published Romanized name. Common names of across sources with differing Romanizations, are Romanized in McCune-Reischauer.

^[2] Significantly, many of the young men who signed up were former-imperial Kwangmu Army soldiers with experience in and exposure to conversations regarding Korea’s “national strengthening” and the need for active, participatory citizenship.

^[3] Hahkyung Kim, “Korean Immigrants’ Place in the Discourse of Mestizaje: A History of Race-Class Dynamics and Asian Immigration in Yucatán, Mexico,” Revista Iberoamericana 23 (2012): 246–247.

^[4] Yasunori Fukuoka, Lives of young Koreans in Japan, (Melbourne: Trans Pacific Press, 2000), xviii, xxx.

^[5] I define nation, distinct from the state, as a group of people united under common ethno-political ties and goals. Even though states often organize around national identities, membership in a state does not necessarily imply membership in the nation associated with that state. For example, Korean immigrants after 1917 were legally considered members of the Mexican state. Yet as I will argue many Koreans in my research era still identified themselves as Korean nationals because mestizaje socially excluded them from Mexicanidad. Therefore, they were members of the Mexican state but also members of the Korean nation. As I note in Appendix I, I have yet to settle on definitively labeling this community as “Korean,” “Mexican,” “Korean-Mexican,” “Mexican-Korean,” or any other descriptor, but for consistency I distinguish between the Mexican state and the Korean nation as the main poles of orientation for the Korean immigrants.

^[6] Nam Hwan Jo, “Historia de la vida de los coreanos en México, 1905–2005” (Los Angeles: The Christian Herald USA, 2006), 35.

^[7] Jo, “Historia de la vida de los coreanos en México, 1905–2005,” 35.

^[8] The 1876 Treaty of Kanghwa was an unequal treaty between two East Asian powers that Japan seemingly took right out of the Western gunboat diplomacy playbook: a tactic Japan had been subject too with the 1858 Ansei Treaties.

^[9] Jo, “Historia de la vida de los coreanos en México, 1905–2005,” 35.

^[10] Wayne Patterson, “The Early Years of Korean Immigration to Mexico: A View from Japanese and Korean Sources,” Seoul Journal of Korean Studies, vol. 6 (1993): 87–103, 88.

^[11] José Sánchez Pac, “Yukkat’an ŭi ch’ŏt K’oriŏn (Yucatán’s First Koreans),” in Yukkat’an ŭi ch’ŏt K’oriŏn: Han’guk-Meksik’o imin 80-yŏnsa ed.Yŏng-suk Yi (Seoul: Inmundang, 1988), 37. Acquired from the Harvard-Yenching Library, the memoir I used was the Korean version (amongst once printed Spanish and English versions). The memoir is part of a larger collection of materials in a single booklet aimed at commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Korean immigration and the normalization of relations between Mexico and South Korea in the 1960s. As part of an edited booklet the nature of the memoir offers a more curated approach to the author’s narrative by dividing the text into varying chronological subsections. All references are translated from their original Korean.

^[12] Patterson, “The Early Years of Korean Immigration to Mexico: A View from Japanese and Korean Sources,” 88.

^[13] Pac, “Yucatán’s First Koreans,” 37.

^[14]Jo, “Historia de la vida de los coreanos en México, 1905–2005,” see pages 35, 37, 39, 41; Kim, “Korean Immigrants’ Place in the Discourse of Mestizaje,” 248–249: footnote 26.

^[15] Patterson, “The Early Years of Korean Immigration to Mexico: A View from Japanese and Korean Sources,” 88–91.

^[16] Hea-Jin Park, “Dijeron que iba a levantar el dinero con la pala: A Brief Account of Early Korean Emigration to Mexico,” HMiC: història moderna i contemporània 4 (2006): 137–150, 143.

^[17] Park, “Dijeron que iba a levantar el dinero con la pala,”141. Generally the contract period ended up being four years.

^[18] Patterson, “The Early Years of Korean Immigration to Mexico: A View from Japanese and Korean Sources,” 93–95.

^[19] Jo, “Historia de la vida de los coreanos en México, 1905–2005,”35, 37, 39, 41.

^[20] Jo, “Historia de la vida de los coreanos en México, 1905–2005,” 39–41.

^[21] Park, “Dijeron que iba a levantar el dinero con la pala,” 145.

^[22] Jo, “Historia de la vida de los coreanos en México, 1905–2005,” 61.

^[23] Kim, “Korean Immigrants’ Place in the Discourse of Mestizaje,” abstract.

^[24] Park, “Dijeron que iba a levantar el dinero con la pala,” 142: footnote 8.

^[25] Kim, “Korean Immigrants’ Place in the Discourse of Mestizaje,” 224.

^[26] Richard S. Kim, The Quest for Statehood: Korean Immigrant Nationalism and US Sovereignty, 1905-1945, *Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).

^[27] Warren Y. Kim, Koreans in America, (Seoul: Po Chin Chai Print Company, 1971).

^[28] Eiichiro Azuma, In search of Our Frontier: Japanese America and Settler Colonialism in the Construction of Japan’s Borderless Empire, Vol. 17 (Oakland: University of California Press, 2019). For more information on the Japanese case, Azuma’s book sheds light on the interimperial, interregional histories of Japanese immigration to the Americas.

^[29] Andre Schmid, Korea between Empires, 1895-1919 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002).

^[30] Schmid, Korea between Empires, 175.

^[31] Jason Oliver Chang, Chino: anti-Chinese racism in Mexico, 1880-1940 (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2017).

^[32] Fredy González, Paisanos Chinos: transpacific politics among Chinese immigrants in Mexico, (Oakland: University of California Press, 2017).

^[33] González, Paisanos Chinos, 49.

^[34] Aihwa Ong, Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality (Durham: Duke University Press, 1999).

^[35] Ong, Flexible Citizenship, 6.

^[36] Ong, Flexible Citizenship, 6.

^[37] Anne E. Eller, “Early Colonial Projects: Mexico- “Conquest”,” HIST325 Spring 2020, January 21, 2020, New Haven: Yale University.; “Aztec” is a monolithic name for a variety of groups of indigenous peoples (inside this could also be included the Olmecs, Mexica, etc.)

^[38] The key leaders tended to be encomenderos (owners of encomiendas [tracts of land for cultivation]), Catholic Church officials, and caciques (indigenous noblemen)– all of these roles will be described below.

^[39] María Elena Martínez, Genealogical Fictions:Limpieza de Sangre, Religion, and Gender in Colonial Mexico (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008), Chapters 4 and 6.

^[40] Martínez, Genealogical Fictions, 108, 281.

^[41] Someone of mixed Spanish and indigenous blood.

^[42] Martínez, Genealogical Fictions, 148.

^[43] Martínez, Genealogical Fictions, 147.

^[44] Anne E. Eller, “Independence: Economics and Politics, Part 1,” HIST325 Spring 2020, February 18, 2020, New Haven: Yale University.

^[45] Benjamin Smith, Roots of Conservatism in Mexico: Catholicism, Society, and Politics in the Mixteca Baja, 1750-1962 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2012), 110.

^[46] Paul Garner, “Historia patria and the construction of the mestizo nation in Porfirian Mexico: the Fiestas del Centenario, 1910,” Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies 22, no. 1 (2016): 41-53. Garner further explains how Porfirian mestizaje connected the mestizo nation with modernity by espousing “scientific” claims based on racist Darwinist ideologies, skull sizing, and similar pseudo-scientific techniques to make the argument for “modernizing” indigenous peoples.

^[47] Lee J. Alston, Shannan Mattiace, and Tomas Nonnenmacher, “Coercion, culture, and contracts: Labor and debt on henequen haciendas in Yucatán, Mexico, 1870–1915,” The Journal of Economic History 69, no. 1 (2009): 104-137, 108.

^[48] Alston, Mattiace, and Nonnenmacher, “Coercion, culture, and contracts,” 107.

^[49] Enrique Florescano, “Patria y nación en la época de Porfirio Díaz,” Signos históricos 7, no. 13 (2005): 152-187, 180.

^[50] Paul K. Eiss, “El Pueblo Mestizo: Modernity, Tradition, and Statecraft in Yucatán, 1870-1907,” Ethnohistory 55, no. 4 (2008): 525-552, 525.

^[51] Alan Knight, The Mexican Revolution: counter-revolution and reconstruction, Vol. 1 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990), 208.

^[52] Chang, Chino, 142.

^[53] Pac, “Yucatán’s First Koreans,” 119–120.

^[54] Mexico, Constitucion, Mexican Constitution of 1917. Washington, DC, 1917, PDF, https://www.loc.gov/item/17021628/.

^[55] “Meksik’o chonggyojŏnjaeng,” (Mexican Religious War), Sinhan minbo (The New Korea), September 9, 1909, available at http://db.history.go.kr/item/level.do?sort=levelId&dir=ASC&start=1&limit=10&page=1&pre_page=1&setId=-1&totalCount=0&prevPage=4&prevLimit=&itemId=npsh&types=&synonym=off&chinessChar=on&brokerPagingInfo=&levelId=npsh_1926_09_09_v0002_0250&position=-1. Also cited in Jo, “Historia de la vida de los coreanos en México, 1905-2005,” 195.

^[56] Pac, “Yucatán’s First Koreans,” 56.

^[57] Pac, “Yucatán’s First Koreans,” 58. Interestingly enough, the chilis used in modern kimchi originated in Mexico and thus this comes ironically full-circle.

^[58] Pac, “Yucatán’s First Koreans,” 58. Perras translates to “female dogs.” The dual levels of sexism and racism here is evident in the treatment and extra labor of Korean women.

^[59] KBS Docu, “[Han’guk in ŭi papsang] Maeksik’o enek’en ŭi papsang: Pab i choguk ida” (“[Koreans’ Table] Mexico Henequen’s Table: Food is the Motherland”) Youtube video, May 22, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2V3v8-dZL8, 7:50.’

^[60] KBS Docu, “[Han’guk in ŭi papsang] Maeksik’o enek’en ŭi papsang: Pab i choguk ida,” 19:40.’

^[61] This echoes Pac’s statement mentioned later in Part III: Henequen Leaves Stretching Back to Korea that by the time the Korean declaration of independence was announced many of those born and raised in Mexico were more familiar and comfortable with Mexican customs. However, Pac also detailed the Korean education system set up in Mexico to allow the coexistence of Korean heritage (see Education).

^[62] Republic of Mexico Constitution of 1857, §1, Art. 5.“Nadie puede ser obligado á prestar trabajos personales, sin la justa retribución y sin su pleno consentimiento. La ley no puede autorizar ningún contrato que tenga por objeto la pérdida ó el irrevocable sacrificio de la libertad del hombre, ya sea por causa de trabajo, de educación ó de voto religioso. Tampoco puede autorizar convenios en que el hombre pacte su proscripción ó destierro.”

^[63] “Mekshik’o chonggyojŏnjaeng”

^[64] Kim, The Quest for Statehood, 43-44.

^[65] Chang, Chino.

^[66] Pac, “Yucatán’s First Koreans,”(“Sogimsu e sogakko paesindanghaettanŭn sashil to alge toeŏtta”,속임수에 속았고 배신당했다는 사실도 알게 되었다 ([Koreans] learned they were deceived and betrayed), 35; kangyodoen kyeyak 강요된 계약forced contract), 70; “kangje nodong” 강제 노동 (forced labor), 81; “kangjenodong halttae ch’oeag ŭi saenghwalsang” 강제노동할때 최악의 생활상 (the worst living conditions during forced labor ), 103; “kangyodoen kyeyak 강요된 계약 (forced contract), 119.

^[67] Jo, “Historia de la vida de los coreanos en México,” Nota de publicación, Recomendación, and Prologo del autor.

^[68] Jo, “Historia de la vida de los coreanos en México,” 135. Note the early use of “nation(al)” in how the association framed what these contributions stood for: even in this action the Koreans labeled their actions as national.

^[69] Pac, “Yucatán’s First Koreans,” 73.

^[70] Kim, “Korean Immigrants’ Place in the Discourse of Mestizaje.”

^[71] Pac, “Yucatán’s First Koreans,” 108.

^[72] Chang-Yong Cho, “Korean Emigration to Mexico and their Independence Movement for Korea between 1904 and 1914,” Masters’ thesis, Sungkyunkwan University, 1992, 69.

^[73] Hannah Arendt, The origins of totalitarianism, Vol. 244 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1973), 293.

^[74] Pac, “Yucatán’s First Koreans,” 53.

^[75] Jo, “Historia de la vida de los coreanos en México,” 57.

^[76] Pac, “Yucatán’s First Koreans,” 76.

^[77] Pac, “Yucatán’s First Koreans,” 76.

^[78] Jo, “Historia de la vida de los coreanos en México,” 107.

^[79] Jo, “Historia de la vida de los coreanos en México,” 107.

^[80] Jo, “Historia de la vida de los coreanos en México,” 109, 111.

^[81] Jo, “Historia de la vida de los coreanos en México,”107. “Nos podemos dar cuenta que mucho antes de la creación de la Asociación de Coreanos había algo que los unía, y aquello era la iglesia protestante.”

^[82] Jo, “Historia de la vida de los coreanos en México,” 107.

^[83] Jo, “Historia de la vida de los coreanos en México,” 191 & 193.

^[84] Jo, “Historia de la vida de los coreanos en México,” 135 & 137.

^[85] Jo, “Historia de la vida de los coreanos en México,” 139. Jo also notes how participation in association activities like Samilchŏll, especially in World War II, was a key defense during a time when many Koreans were being seen as the same as the (enemy) Japanese (141).

^[86] Rebecca Y. Kim, The Spirit Moves West: Korean Missionaries in America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015).

^[87] Milton Myron Gordon, Assimilation in American life: The Role of Race, Religion, and National Origins (Oxford: Oxford University Press on Demand, 1964).

^[88] Pac, “Yucatán’s First Koreans,” 96.

^[89] Nerea Ramírez, “Desde México los inmigrantes coreanos apoyaban la lucha por la independencia,” posted August 5, 2018, https://spanish.korea.net/NewsFocus/HonoraryReporters/view?articleId=162245. There are conflicting accounts as to when Ahn visited the Koreans in Mexico. Genny Chans, a granddaughter of Seok Hwan Chang, an original Korean immigrant, dates Ahn’s visit to 1918 in an interview. Jo, in “Historia de la vida de los coreanos en México,” also dates Ahn’s visit to 1918 (163). Do Hyung Kim, cited in Footnote 129, dates Ahn’s visit to 1917 (p. 41). I used Pac’s date since Pac describes how Ahn’s speeches discussed the 1919 declaration— after Chans 1918 date (96–108). Nevertheless the range of dates between 1918–1921 still shows that there was keen interest in rallying the Koreans in Mexico to the revolutionary cause from the very early stages.

^[90] Pac, “Yucatán’s First Koreans,” 103.

^[91] Pac, “Yucatán’s First Koreans,” 99.

^[92] Pac, “Yucatán’s First Koreans,” 105–107.

^[93] Pac, “Yucatán’s First Koreans,” 96.

^[94] Pac, “Yucatán’s First Koreans,” 93.

^[95] AJ Kim, “Yo Soy Coreana (2018): Migration and Immigrant History in Mexico,” Youtube video, October 3, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADHD2QG0pjQ&t=662s.

^[96] Pac, “Yucatán’s First Koreans,” 113.

^[97] Cho, “Korean Emigration to Mexico,” 78. School name: Ohakgina (오학기나, lit. five semesters).

^[98] Cho, “Korean Emigration to Mexico,” 78.

^[99] Pac, “Yucatán’s First Koreans,” 77.

^[100] Pac, “Yucatán’s First Koreans,” 77.

^[101] Pac, “Yucatán’s First Koreans,” 77.

^[102] Pac, “Yucatán’s First Koreans,” 78.

^[103] Pac, “Yucatán’s First Koreans,” 79.

^[104] Cho, “Korean Emigration to Mexico,” 78.

^[105] Cho, “Korean Emigration to Mexico,” 78.

^[106] Pac, “Yucatán’s First Koreans,” 79.

^[107] Pac, “Yucatán’s First Koreans,” 79.

^[108] Pac, “Yucatán’s First Koreans,” 45.

^[109] Pac, “Yucatán’s First Koreans,” 80.

^[110] Cho, “Korean Emigration to Mexico,” 76.

^[111] Cho, “Korean Emigration to Mexico,” 71.

^[112] Cho, “Korean Emigration to Mexico,” 71.

^[113] Cho, “Korean Emigration to Mexico,” 72.

^[114] Cho, “Korean Emigration to Mexico,” 72.

^[115] Cho, “Korean Emigration to Mexico,” 72.

^[116] Cho, “Korean Emigration to Mexico,” 76. Almost 1 in 5 Korean immigrants had ties to the imperial Kwangmu Army.

^[117] Jo, “Historia de la vida de los coreanos en México,” 155. Jo, citing the Sinhan minbo (November 17, 1910), actually lists the total Sungmu School population as 118 students.

^[118] Cho, “Korean Emigration to Mexico,” 75. The three localities listed are: Ttuitti (띄티), Chakkol (작골), and Ssosil (쏘실). Also see Sinhan minbo (September 8, 1909)

^[119] Cho, “Korean Emigration to Mexico,” 75.

^[120] Cho, “Korean Emigration to Mexico,” 76. Note: In 1910 the Mexican Revolution began and the Sungmu School’s students either sought refuge with their families or went to fight in Mexican revolutionary war efforts. The chaos of the revolution, and with many students gone, forced the Sungmu School to close the school for three months.

^[121] Pac,“Yucatán’s First Koreans,” 80.

^[122] Pac, “Yucatán’s First Koreans,” 81.

^[123] Jagyeong Lee, Meksik’o Hanin imin 100-yŏnsa : enek’en kasibat ŭi 100-yŏn oditsei (100 years of Immigration to Mexico: 100-year odyssey in the henequen field) Vol. 2, (Seoul: Meksik’o Hanin Imin 100-chunyŏn Kinyŏm Saŏphoe, 2006), 729.

^[124] Carla Freeman, ed, China and North Korea: Strategic and policy perspectives from a changing China, (New York City: Springer, 2015), 93, 109–111.

^[125] Cho, “Korean Emigration to Mexico,” 77.

^[126] Special thanks to the Yale Race, Indigeneity, and Transnational Migration Winter Colloquia 2020-2021: Asian Migration to Latin America and the Caribbean for incredible insights into understanding the limitations, challenges, and errors in the archive.

^[127] Ramírez, “Desde México los inmigrantes coreanos apoyaban la lucha por la independencia.” Chans named the commander of this expedition as Gun Yeong Lee (Kŭnyŏng Lee), founder of the Sungmu School. See also Sinhan minbo, August 10, 1916 and September 8, 1916.

^[128] Cho, “Korean Emigration to Mexico,” 78. This date varies. Do Hyung Kim, Meksik’o chiyŏk taehanin’gungminhoeŭi chojik kwa hwaltong (The Organizations and Activities of

Korean National Association in Mexico), Kuksagwan nonch’ong 107 (2005): 1-42, 28-32. Kim discusses the Guatemalan expedition in detail and sets 1916 as the year the Korean soldiers went to Guatemala.

^[129] Pac, “Yucatán’s First Koreans,” 109.

^[130] Jeronimo, directed by Joseph Juhn (2019; Diaspora Film Production), accessed via Amazon Prime Video. This documentary follows the story of Jeronimo Lim, one of the descendants of the 350 Korean immigrants from Mexico to Cuba who would play a central role in the Cuban Revolution alongside Fidel Castro.

^[131] Canal Once, “Los que llegaron-Coreanos (22/02/12),” Youtube video, February 23, 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmDTrvddD_8

^[132] Kim, “Yo soy coreana”

^[133] KBS Docu, “[Han’guk in ŭi papsang] Maeksik’o enek’en ŭi papsang: Pab i choguk ida.”

^[134] Kim, “Yo soy coreana.”

^[135] Canal Once, “Los que llegaron.”

^[136] Young-ha Kim, Black Flower: A Novel, Boston: HMH, 2012.

^[137] Ppuri ŏmnŭn namuga ŏpta  뿌리 없는 나무가 없다; lit. “There are no trees without roots.”

Acheson Finalist

Current hegemonic economic and socio-cultural standards prioritize the freedoms and needs of individual entities—whether be a country, business, or person. However, some sectors of society seek to balance the rights and interests of the individual with those of the collective. These sectors stray from individualist trends and, for a variety of reasons, instead employ collective-based approaches, such as trust systems, to achieve similar goals.

This paper examines the importance of trust and trust systems through analyzing street vendors and their reliance on one another for the prosperity of their businesses. Specifically, it seeks to answer this question: how do street vendors develop and use trust systems to respond to contextual situations in their work environment? Through observing street vendors in areas of high population density and high mobility across Buenos Aires, Barcelona, and Cape Town, I gathered information regarding the forms and styles of street vendor interactions. From this data, I argue that, in a field as precarious as street vending, street vendors develop trust systems through repetitive action in order to mitigate risk and increase the likelihood of business success.

To advance this argument, this paper will first define trust and discuss and how it develops into the collective-based approach of trust systems adaptable to street vendors’ contextual situation. Second, this paper will offer an overview of the methodology used and its limitations, as well as give relevant historical context of each of the cities visited to provide a basis of understanding for the development of specific trust systems. Finally, this paper will turn its focus to the city-specific observations of how street vendors use trust systems and analyze how these systems help to mitigate risk and increase the chances of business success.

Theoretical Framework of Trust and Trust Systems

Trust is a socio-cultural concept based on actions and intentions. It is a central element to human relations and serves as the basis of social and economic networks. Due to its multidimensionality, the interpretation of trust is subjective and ever-changing; it is difficult to define, but also flexible enough to be applied in a variety of situations. As a result, trust is an abstract notion that, despite being overlooked due to a growing focus on the individual entity, is still a relevant and fundamental aspect of society that is present across different fields.

For this study, I define trust as the “real or effective psychosocial distance between individuals”.[1] This implies that trust is a social closeness to others based on levels of certainty and is specifically established through repetitive action and positive outcomes. According to the Law of Effect in psychology, if an action is carried out and reaps positive consequences, then, under the same situation, this action is more likely to be repeated in the future.[2] This repetition builds a level of certainty that is high enough for others to ignore the unreliability of human agency and decide to collaborate due to an increased sense of confidence that their actions will be reciprocated. Ultimately, if a person is worthy of trust, then positive cooperation is more likely to occur.[3]

In the field of street vending, trust—specifically, trust systems—fills in the vacuum left by the lack of formal contracts that establish guidelines for cooperation.[4] These trust systems are established through repetitive action. However, these actions are circumscribed to vendors’ contextual situations: location, risk, economy and other circumstantial factors. When these groups of actions are repeated to the point of near-certainty, they form a trust system—a series of actions that vendors can trust will occur and, thus, are willing to reciprocate as well. Overall, this trust system that builds up over time is the foundation for increased cooperation and, eventually, increased productivity.[5] For this reason, despite trends prioritizing the individual entity, vendors develop and use a collective-based trust systems to jointly ensure the protection and success of their businesses.

Methodology

To investigate the relationship between street vendors and trust systems, street vendors were observed in areas of high population density and high mobility—such as transport hubs, central parks, and main boulevards—in the cities of Buenos Aires, Barcelona, and Cape Town. The observations were done in short intervals during which the focus was on a group of street vendors and the physical and vocal interactions they had with each other and their surroundings. In addition to this, some interviews were conducted with street vendors and their representative organizations to obtain further information and clarification on the practices and systems that form part of their daily work life. During this process, repeated actions were identified and classified in response to how street vendors used them to respond to contextual situations in their work environments, leading to the deduction that a trust system has been established.

When using an observation-based methodology, many factors can affect the gathered data and the conclusions subsequently drawn from this data. For one, there is the impact that I as the observer have on the environment being observed, especially when it is difficult to analyze what exactly is changing, how it is changing, and if I affected said change. For another, there is the impact of my personal biases and perceptions on the observations I made of the environment and the actions conducted within, , even more so when it comes to trust and trust systems, given there is no definite way to see them. Therefore, while acknowledging that the full answer to my research question cannot be obtained through observation alone, this approach is the best way to examine an environment in its natural form, leading to more accurate analysis about how street vendors use trust systems. Thus, based on the data collected and the theoretical framework presented, conclusions were drawn about how trust systems are used as a collective-based approach by street vendors in their precarious working environment.

Historical Context

To fully understand the reasons behind the development of specific trust systems by street vendors in each city, one must first comprehend how the social, economic, and political context of each city has influenced the lives and working environments of the street vendors.

In the case of Buenos Aires, racial marginalization and an economic crisis have pushed many people into the street vending sector, only to be faced with imminent persecution by official forces. With Argentina being considered the Europe of Latin America, racial identity is tied to national identity. This is especially true in Buenos Aires, where the locals “claim the European-ness of [the city] and its people, while distancing themselves from various non-white people….”.[6] These non-white people are primarily migrants who hail from bordering countries and African nations, a large part of whom are working as street vendors.  In addition to this racial marginalization, the city of Buenos Aires has been experiencing an economic crisis since the beginning of the 20^th century.[7] Despite having a relative self-sustainable system, the Argentine economy crashed in 2001 on account of high inflation rates, poor management of economic policies, and the onset of neoliberalism^[8].[9]  Because of this, many people have turned to street vending as a means of living during these unstable times. However, between racial prejudice and economic pressure, Buenos Aires street vendors face many financial- and persecution-based impediments to success.

For street vendors in Barcelona, the public and informal nature of their business defies the pristine and cosmopolitan image of the city that is advertised to the rest of the world. Due to this branding, in addition to tourism[10], Barcelona also attracts a lot of migrants who view the city as having a more stable economic and political environment for living than their home country.^[11] A small portion of these migrants, mainly those of African nationality, dominate the street vending sector. Therefore, in Barcelona, these street vendors face difficulties not only because of the contradictory image that they present against the city’s brand, but also because of their non-white and migrant status in a white-dominated area, leading to high levels of persecution of street vendors in order to cleanse the areas in which they work.

Street vendors in Cape Town experience similar circumstances, wherein the city’s racial divide—in addition to high crime rates—is woven into the daily fabric of their work environment. The institution of apartheid left a tangible legacy of segregation and inequality in the city between whites and non-whites and their areas of living, labour and consumption. This disjuncture has led to a large income inequality gap that has given way to high levels of crime, especially towards migrants and their businesses, due to growing xenophobic sentiment in the South African population.[12] Additionally, under the structure of racial capitalism, there has been high levels of government control over sectors of lower-class society—such as street vending .[13] Street vendors in Cape Town, most of whom are non-white and migrant, are thus faced with structural and physical obstacles that they must overcome in the process of conducting their business.

Observations & Analysis

            Given the contextual situations of each aforementioned city described, street vendors develop and use specific trust systems to respond to the challenges in their work environments. In this way, trust systems help them achieve two main goals: mitigating risk and increasing their likelihood for business success.

Mitigate Risk

In regard to mitigating risk, street vendors take action to not only protect their business, but also those of their surrounding peers. These actions constitute one of the trust systems used by street vendors in their precarious work environments.

As observed in the cases across three different cities, street vendors face two main forms of risk: institutional risk and local risk. I define institutional risk as any occurrence that leads to exposure to the law or any other formal establishment, such as police encounters. On the other hand, I define local risk as any small-scale conflict that only involves people in a surrounding region, such as theft and loss of goods. Given these two types of risks and the different contextual situation of each city, trust systems were adapted to respond accordingly to the circumstances and ensure the maintenance of security.

In the case of Barcelona, where street vendors mainly face institutional risk, trust systems took the form of vocal and physical communication. Here, my observations were focused on street vendors in Barcelona’s central tourist hub: La Rambla.^[14] These street vendors—known as manteros for the manta, or blanket, they sell their goods on—were mainly young male African migrants who sold backpacks, purses, soccer shirts, shoes, belts, and sunglasses to passersby. They usually set up in groups across the boulevard, the smallest being four and the largest more than ten. By effect, when conducting business, manteros were very visible as a large group of black people occupying space in a central and white tourist hub (See Figure 1). This is not the image of Barcelona that the city advertises. Therefore, the manteros—who do not have permits and whose personal legal status is unknown—are highly persecuted by the city police.

Figure 2. Manteros packing up goods to leave premises on La Rambla, Barcelona

When this occurs, the situation often evolves as follows. The manteros are selling their goods on La Rambla. One of them sees a police officer and responds by pulling the strings of their manta and throwing it over their shoulder (effectively packing up their goods), while also yelling (See Figure 2). Both responses are visible enough that, given their group set up, when one mantero responds, the others follow suit in a domino effect until all have safely left the premises with their products. In this way, the manteros avoid the institutional risk of being caught by the police.^[15] Considering how this vocal and physical communication occurs every time a police officer is near, the repetition of this action has created an expectation that this is how all manteros should react under the same circumstances in order to decrease the risk of being apprehended. Thus, this creates a trust system that is adopted by these street vendors to mitigate risk.  

Figure 3. Street vendors and their stands in Grand Parade, Cape Town

Conversely, street vendors in Cape Town mostly face local risks, so their trust systems are based on a lookout system. In this case, my observations were focused on street vendors in and around Grand Parade, a large open parking lot in the city centre near a transport hub with taxi ranks, bus stops, and train stations. Every Wednesday, there would be a large market where stands would be set up next to each other in, more or less, the same position every week, with walking space in between for customers (See Figure 3). This led to high levels of population density and mobility, increasing the risk of theft.

In response, street vendors developed an interdependent lookout system in which neighbouring vendors would keep an eye on both their own stand as well as other stands nearby. This was explicitly observed when street vendors would leave their stand unattended. During this period, the neighbouring street vendors would be paying attention to this stand through actions such as glancing, walking by, or, in some cases, even positioning themselves near the stand. If at some point a customer came to the stand, the neighbouring vendor would call for the owner. These actions were observed in multiple occasions across Grand Parade, indicating that this practice of being a lookout for your neighbour is implemented to such an extent that it is just another part of being a street vendor in Cape Town, as much as is attending to customers or handling cash. Due to this trust system, street vendors have a sense of certainty that they can rely on each other to decrease the chances of theft, and other local risks, in their work environment.

Figure 4. Repurposed goods sold by street vendor in Parque Centenario, Buenos Aires

Given the similar circumstances for street vendors in Buenos Aires, the local risks also led them to establish a trust system based on lookouts. These street vendors in particular are located at Parque Centenario, a park that hosts a large weekend market near a residential and commercial area dotted with bus stops. Here, I specifically looked at the street vendors that sell refurbished goods on mantas in a separate back corner of the market (See Figure 4). These street vendors usually set up in the same spot every week next to people they know. Due to high mobility and high risk of theft, the street vendors implement similar practices to the ones in Cape Town. They are always keeping an eye out for their neighbours’ goods, and, in this case, being on the floor and closer to each other make these actions easier. The lookout system is thus used to mitigate the risk of theft among these street vendors.

From these observations, it is clear how trust systems are developed from repeated actions and are used to mitigate risk in the work environment. It can also be seen how these trust systems would not be possible without the emphasis on its collective-based approach. Furthermore, these observations demonstrate how similar contextual situations lend themselves to the adoption of similar trust systems—as the different street vendors are all working to achieve the same goal.

Increase Chances of Success

In addition to mitigating risk, street vendors also use trust systems to increase their chances of business success. Here, I define success as an increase in customer yield, which potentially leads to an increase in profit. Therefore, when conducting observations, actions that led to more customers were categorized as part of a trust system used to increase a street vendor’s success.

In Barcelona, this trust system was implemented on a basis of recommendation. As the La Rambla manteros are conducting business, they receive a lot of customers: some who are leisurely browsing, others who are searching for a particular commodity. If the customer is not drawn to any of one vendor’s offerings, that vendor suggests the customer stop by the mantero next to him to check out his goods. Similarly, if the mantero does not sell the item the customer explicitly wants, the mantero will direct the customer to a colleague in the same group that does. This practice ensures the customer does not leave the premises without making a purchase from at least one of the manteros. It creates a system of recommendation that allows for the circulation of customers within a group of manteros, increasing the customer yield amongst themselves. It is a natural strategy adopted by this group—and on other manteros using it—as a form of customer outreach, especially since there is no access to advertisement due to the informal nature of their business.

In Cape Town, the trust system used by street vendors is based on additional support. For street vendors in and around Grand Parade, the large influx of people in the area means there is often a high customer demand. In some cases, stands would have four to five customers at a time asking for prices, change, or other additional services. However, due to strong regulations on street vendors, there are usually only two attendants at a stand at any time. Under this situation, the neighbouring vendors—if available— would help with the management of customers. Through this additional patron support, street vendors in Grand Parade can cater to more people. Therefore, the willingness of street vendors to help their neighbours demonstrates how a trust system based on providing support has developed and is used by these street vendors to improve the success of their business.

For Buenos Aires, the street vendors used a trust system based on economic transactions. Here, I define economic transactions as any monetary exchange between the vendors.  This trust system developed in Buenos Aires most likely due to the economic crisis, causing people to have a shortage of cash as well as a lack of smaller bills, among other things. Such a case was mostly visible with the street vendors in Parque Centenario. There were multiple times when a vendor would be carrying out a transaction with a customer and would find himself without sufficient change to finish the purchase. In these situations, the vendor would look to his surrounding vendors for cash. When he asked for a certain amount of money, not only did other vendors offer it to him, but they also did so without asking questions or demands in return. Because of this, the vendor can successfully complete the transaction, increasing his customer yield. Under this trust system of economic transactions, street vendors in Buenos Aires have a sense of security in the completion of their sales, so much so that they are willing to repeat the actions for others as well.

Through these observations, the collective approach to trust systems is seen to facilitate the process of achieving the street vendors’ goal of success.  It can also be seen how the contextual situation of street vendors shapes the way in which they develop and use trust systems to also increase the chances of success of their businesses.

Conclusion

From the observations and analysis above, it can be concluded that street vendors build trust systems through performing repetitive actions in response to contextual situations in their work environments. These actions are repeated to such an extent that it basically forms part of the industry, so much so that street vendors willingly carry out these actions and participate in these trust systems because they are aware of its collective benefits in the process of achieving similar goals of mitigating risk and increasing their likelihood of business of success. Therefore, street vendors have demonstrated how trust systems function within the current society.

 In the larger scheme of things, this use of trust systems by street vendors concretizes the idea that collective-based approaches can still be successfully implemented under the hegemonic individualist framework of the world today. It proves that despite the growing framework that prioritizes the individual entity, there are still spaces in which, under specific circumstances, collective-based approaches can be put into use. For street vendors, it was the precarious work environment based on contextual city-specific situations that led to a collective-based approach as a solution. For other sectors of society, there are aspects of their structure that could also benefit from the implementation of a collective-based approach like that of a trust system. Thus, the use of these non-conventional systems can be put to practice, even if they don’t follow the reigning state of affairs. With that in mind, the question now is this: how can these collective-based approaches, such as trust systems, be used to challenge the status quo and potentially change the dominant structure of this individualist society?

Bibliography

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References

[1] Larissa A. Lomnitz & Diana Sheinbaum, “Trust, Social Networks and the Informal Economy: A Comparative Analysis,” Review of Sociology 10, no.1 (2004): 6.

[2] Saul McLeod, “Edward Thorndike: The Law of Effect,” Simply Psychology, January 14, 2018, https://www.simplypsychology.org/edward-thorndike.html (accessed December 5, 2019).

[3] Diego Gambetta, “Can We Trust Trust?” in Trust: Making and Breaking Cooperative Relations, ed. Diego Gambetta (Oxford: Blackwell, 1988), 219, http://www.sociology.ox.ac.uk/papers/gambetta213-237.pdf (accessed December 4, 2019).

[4] Levy Charles Odera, “The Role of Trust as an Informal Institution in the Informal Sector in Africa,” Africa Development 38, no. 3&4 (2013): 135.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Galen Joseph, “Taking race seriously: Whiteness in Argentina’s national and transnational imaginary,” Identities 7, no. 3 (2000): 355.

[7] U.S. Congress, Joint Economic Committee, Argentina’s Economic Crisis: Causes and Cures, June 2003, Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 2, http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.535.237&rep=rep1&type=pdf (accessed December 4, 2019).

[8] Neoliberalism policies in Argentina gained popularity during the military dictatorship (1976-1983) and reached its height under the rule of Carlos Menem (1989-1999) (Grimson, 2017, p. 185).

[9] Alejandro Grimson, “Spatial Border and Urban Policies: A Study of Buenos Aires,” in The City Is The Factory: New Solidarities and Spatial Strategies in an Urban Age, ed. Miriam Greenberg and Penny Lewis (Ithaca; London: Cornell University Press, 2017), 185.

[10]  In 2016, Barcelona received 36 million tourists, in comparison to its 1.6 million residents (Plush, 2017).

[11] In 2016, 23% of Barcelona’s population was foreign-born (OECD, 2018).

[12] John Ntema, “Informal Home-based Entrepreneurs in South Africa: How Non-South Africans Outcompete South Africans,” Africa Insight 46, no. 2 (2016): 54-55.

[13] Faisal Garba, History of South Africa: Post-1994 to Present, lecture, November 11, 2019.

[14] La Rambla is one of the most visited places in Barcelona. Extending from Plaça Catalunya to the Christopher Columbus Memorial, the 1-mile long pedestrian zone is lined by brand name stores, restaurants and landmarks that draw a lot of tourists to the area. Due to this high tourist population, La Rambla is one of the main spots in which manteros conduct their business.

[15] Being caught by police could entail fines, confiscation of goods and possible immigration problems depending on the street vendor’s legal status.

This piece was published in the Acheson Issue, Volume 11

1. INTRODUCTION

On May 28, 2020, Vera Uwalia Omosuwa, a 22-year-old college student in Edo State, Nigeria was raped and sexually assaulted while studying in a church. Two days later, she succumbed to the injuries she sustained during the assault. Shortly after Vera’s death, the case of an unnamed 12-year-old girl who was gang-raped by eleven men in Jigawa State was reported. The suddenness of these two cases of gender-based violence caused an uproar in Nigeria (Ewang, 2020). These two cases represent only a fraction of the reported cases of gender violence in Nigeria, which in turn  pale in comparison to the number of unreported cases. Many cases are not reported because victims and their families fear stigmatization and they do not trust the judicial process (Orjinmo, 2020).

After these two cases became public, many activists organized protests in various Nigerian states and the federal capital of Abuja including a protest of over 200 people outside the federal police headquarters on June 4, 2020 (France-Presse, 2020). In the past decade, civil society organizations and civilians have felt that the Nigerian government is not doing enough to fight gender-based violence. Violence has continued despite the National Assembly’s^[1] passage of the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act in 2015, a piece of legislation seeking to protect women and girls from gender-based violence. The protests that occurred in 2020 have highlighted the Nigerian government’s failure in enforcing this national legislation as well as the lack of response from state governments.  What remains to be determined is whether these protests can or will have any effect in compelling the government to enforce this law.

This research discusses whether protests can influence legislation enforcement in Nigeria and other governments with similar political systems on the issue of gender-based violence. This research also addresses an important gap in the literature because the topic of protests on gender-based violence has not received much attention in Nigeria and other African countries. It will inform Nigerian civil society organizations and NGOs about how to overcome obstacles needed for real political change on gender-based violence.

Previous literature focused on the influence of political movements in the development of legislation on gender-based violence (Htun & Weldon, 2012; Anyidoho, Crawford & Medie, 2020). Existing literature also highlighted how movements can successfully help in the implementation of legislation. However, factors such as weak organizational structures and the lack of political support from international organizations prohibit the international media attention needed to pressure governments for legislative implementation (Andrews, 2001; Meddie, 2013; Anyidoho, Crawford & Medie, 2020). Beyond this, the Nigerian case showcases many difficulties behind the proper implementation of legislation on gender-based violence. Factors such as social divisions in civil society and institutional constraints make it challenging to implement legislation on gender-based violence (Weldon, 2006; Weldon, 2012; Sharma, Unnikrishnan, & Sharma, 2015). Specifically, this paper contends that the federal structure in Nigeria makes legislation on gender-based violence difficult to strengthen and implement, even with the impact of widespread civilian protests. Nigerian religious and political diversity are the main obstacles to a successful movement achieving interstate cooperation.

This paper finds that it is difficult to change and implement new legislation on gender-based violence in a decentralized country such as Nigeria. The federal government of Nigeria also has difficulty coming up with a unified, tangible response to protests against gender-based violence. Even with the passage of national legislation, every Nigerian state has a different way of responding to protests against gender-based violence. Protests have not been found to be an effective means to influence legislative change and implementation in Nigeria. This paper adds to existing literature by highlighting how the success of protesting for the issue of gender-based violence is dependent on the socio-political context of a country. In doing so, the paper demonstrates the relevance of a country’s structure of political opportunities for successful protests.

In the rest of the paper, I will first analyze gender-based violence in Nigeria using the history of Nigeria and describing gender-based violence more broadly. Second, I will review the literature on the outcome of protests against gender-based violence and examine my argument. Third, I will walk through my methodology and state my research findings. Finally, I will evaluate my research findings and assess the effectiveness of protests for legislative change and implementation on the issue of gender-based violence in Nigeria.

2. BACKGROUND INFORMATION

2.1     Gender-Based Violence 

According to the World Health Organization’s (2013) report on Global and regional estimates of violence against women, gender-based violence^[2] is broken down into two categories. The first category is intimate partner violence where it is the “self-reported experience of one or more acts of physical and/or sexual violence by a current or former partner since the age of 15 years old” (World Health Organization, 2013, p. 6). The other category of gender-based violence is non-partner sexual violence where it is the “experience of being forced to perform any sexual act that you did not want to by someone other than your husband/partner at age 15 or over” (World Health Organization, 2013, p. 6). Some examples of physical violence include being pushed, choked, or threatened with a weapon. Other examples of sexual violence include having forced sexual intercourse when you did not want to or due to fear of your partner. Health impacts of gender-based violence include injury, mental health problems, substance use, HIV, unwanted pregnancy and abortion, and suicide (World Health Organization, 2013, p. 8). 

The WHO’s report (2013) specifies that globally about “35.6% of women have ever experienced either non-partner sexual violence or physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner, or both” (p. 20). Gender-based violence is also a frequent occurrence and varies across different regions of the world, but it has a larger incidence in Africa as 45.6% of women report it in their lifetime (World Health Organization, 2013).

Palermo & Peterman (2014) defend, however, that statistics of gender-based violence found by formal sources such as police and health officials underestimate the true prevalence. According to their multivariate logistic regressions, about 40% of women who experience gender-based violence actually disclose it to someone. However, only 7% of women reported gender-based violence to a formal authority (Palermo & Peterson, 2014, p. 609). Specifically, Palermo & Peterson (2014) found the rates of reporting to formal authorities to be 2.29% in India and East Asia and 6.20% in Africa (p. 605). This analysis shows that gender-based violence is severely underreported and underestimated in developing countries.

2.2     Overview of Nigeria

Focusing on Nigeria will be useful for examining the larger picture of the effectiveness of protests on the issue of gender-based violence in Africa. Nigeria is the largest country in Africa by population and one of the most diverse countries in Africa by ethnicity and religion (Central Intelligence Agency, 2018). Nigeria also has a large number of unreported cases of gender-based violence (Orjinmo, 2020). 

In this section, I will provide an overview of the history of religious and political structures in Nigeria as well as international attention to #BringBackOurGirls, a movement supporting the release of schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram. This chapter also includes a section on gender-based violence in Nigeria.

History of Nigeria

In Nigeria, there is a population of 200.9 million people (The World Bank, 2019). There are also about 250 ethnic groups, but the three largest groups are the Yoruba, Igbo, and Hausa-Fulani. The Hausa-Fulani group (primarily found in northern Nigeria) makes up about 29% of the population while the Yoruba (primarily found in southwestern Nigeria) makes up about 21% of the population. The Igbo also makes up about 18% of the population while primarily residing in southeastern Nigeria (Odukoya, 2020). The official language of Nigeria is English and the national languages are Yoruba, Igbo, and Hausa. However, there are over 500 additional indigenous languages (Central Intelligence Agency, 2018).

The main religions in Nigeria are Islam, Christianity, and traditional religions. Muslims reside mainly in the northern region of the country and comprise half the population. On the other hand, Christians reside mainly in the southern region of the country and account for 40% of the population. The last 10% belongs to traditional religions. This diverse makeup of Nigerian people has led to various political structures found in the country (Odukoya, 2020).

The main political structure present in Nigeria is federalism. Various Nigerian states are able to have some autonomy and power in how state politics are run (Shehu, 2017). The three legislative systems also present in Nigeria are common, customary, and sharia law. Out of the thirty-six states in Nigeria, sharia law^[3] is a part of civil and criminal law in nine Muslim-majority states while it is seen in some parts of three Muslim-plurality states (Magbadelo, 2003). The federal government of Nigeria currently considers the adoption of sharia law a state right. This gives autonomy to Muslims, especially in the Northern region of Nigeria, to govern and flexibly interpret legislation on gender-based violence.

 #BringBackOurGirls

#BringBackOurGirls characterized the passage of gender-based violence legislation in Nigeria. On April 14, 2014, there was a kidnapping of schoolgirls in Chibok, Borno State. Boko Haram, a terrorist organization based in northeastern Nigeria, abducted 276 girls while they were taking their final exams. Boko Haram militants disguised themselves as the Nigerian military and forced these girls into the back of trucks (Karimi & Duthiers, 2014). This case of kidnapping soon gained international media attention that put pressure on Nigerian government officials. More awareness to this case started through a social media campaign called #BringBackOurGirls. This hashtag also led to massive protests in Nigeria by civilians calling for the Nigerian government to aid in the return of these girls to their parents (Gibson, 2014). Six years later, Boko Haram released many girls, but 112 girls still remain unaccounted for. Many of these abducted girls have fallen victim to forced child marriage and other acts of gender-based violence (Duncan, 2020).

Overview of Gender-Based Violence in Nigeria

Gender-based violence, especially domestic violence, is prevalent in Nigeria. Over the past decade, cases of gender-based violence have been increasing. According to Nigeria’s Demographic and Health Survey (2018), “33% of women and aged 15-49 have experienced physical or sexual violence” (p. 430). Gender-based violence in Nigeria is the result of many factors such as cultural norms. These factors have emphasized patriarchy within Nigerian society. Women fulfill a subordinate position and are taught to be submissive to men. In various areas of Nigeria, men have power over women in familial life, places of employment, and everyday life. This domination causes increased levels of gender-based violence because women do not have a lot of authority in the social, economic, and political contexts of Nigeria (Abayomi & Olabode, 2013).

The main national legislation passed against gender-based violence in Nigeria is the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act of 2015. This legislation bans all types of violence against women and promotes justice for these crimes. However, only thirteen out of thirty-six states have adopted and signed the law, while the other twenty-three have no laws that protect women against gender-based violence (Egwu, 2020). As mentioned earlier, the passage of the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act of 2015 was influenced by the #BringBackOurGirls movement in 2014. However, civil society activists have accused the legislation of having a limited impact on decreasing the cases of gender-based violence. The federal government is not effective when imposing the national legislation and forcing Nigerian states to enforce it. Federal ministries such as the Ministries of Health and Women Affairs also do not effectively implement the legislation (Onyemelukwe, 2015).

Umar (2018) also conducted a qualitative study where he found that Nigeria must reform current legislation through amendment and enactment in order to create a more enforceable legal framework for fighting against gender-based violence. Umar (2018) also found that there is a need for a government agency that focuses on issues on gender-based violence after conducting interviews with judges, policymakers, legislators, and victims of gender-based violence. This analysis is important in showing that many individuals from diverse backgrounds within and outside of the Nigerian legal system believe that it is important to reform the way Nigeria deals with gender-based violence.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a rise in cases of gender-based violence.

For example, Lagos state has almost five times the number of cases in April compared to March 2020 (Federal and State Ministries of Women Affairs (Nigeria), 2020). This can be explained by Lagos being the first state to issue a stay at home order due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The upward trend of reported cases of gender-based violence continued throughout the pandemic. 

Protests Against Gender-Based Violence (2020)

During June 2020, the cases of twenty-two-year old Vera Uwalia Omosuwa and an unnamed twelve-year old girl sparked a series of protests in cities such as Lagos, Jos, and Ibadan (Ewang, 2020). 

The poor implementation of the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act of 2015 shaped the motivation behind the 2020 protests. Protests organized by civil society and human rights organizations addressed the lack of legal protection for women and girls. The protests were mostly led by women from various socioeconomic classes (Shaban, 2020). Many women’s groups and gender activists also planned protests to push authorities to investigate more instances of gender-based violence (Al Jazeera, 2020). Many civil society and human rights organizations leading the fight against gender-based violence include Girl Child Africa, Enough is Enough Nigeria, Stand to End Rape, Yiaga Africa, and the Dorothy Njemanze Foundation (Kulkarni, 2020). Mostly non-violent protests have occurred as protestors have simply marched in the streets and outside government buildings (Adebayo, 2020).

Additionally, social media aided in mobilizing these protests. The main hashtags on Twitter and Instagram were #WeAreTired^[4], #StopRapingWomen, and #JusticeForUwa. They helped spread awareness about the astounding number of cases of gender-based violence that take place in Nigeria. Social media mobilized protestors to learn more about what they are protesting for and sign petitions advocating against gender-based violence. For example, Amnesty International created a petition that demanded justice for the rape and death of Vera Uwalia Omosuwa and the unnamed twelve-year old girl. Social media also led people to call out the President of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, for his lack of action against gender-based violence (Adebayo, 2020).

3. THEORIZING THE OUTCOME OF PROTESTS AGAINST GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE

In this section, I review the literature that explains how political movements can develop and influence the implementation of legislation on gender-based violence. 

Feminist mobilization in civil society led to a variation in policy development around the world (Htun & Weldon, 2012). Using a dataset that tracked social movements and legislation on gender-based violence in 70 countries for four decades, they show that autonomous social movements are important to encouraging political change for more progressive legislation. The mobilization of civil society is therefore necessary for successful legislative change.

Building on Htun & Weldon’s argument, Medie (2013) shows that women’s movements can influence a state’s implementation of rape legislation. Focusing on the Liberian post-conflict period, she theorizes the linkage between women’s socio-political movements and the enactment of rape legislation. Medie (2013) finds that the Liberian women’s movement was able to increase the referral of rape cases to court through two conditions: an open political environment and political and material support from international organizations. Thus, Meddie’s argument shows that protests do have the ability to influence legislative implementation, especially in the area of women’s rights.

Anyidoho, Crawford & Medie (2020) take a more nuanced approach to legislative implementation and explore the difficulties that political movements face in the legislative implementation process. They focus on a case study of Ghana’s Domestic Violence Coalition, a coalition of women’s rights organizations crucial to the passage of Ghana’s Domestic Violence Act in 2007. Anyidoho, Crawford & Medie utilize a framework of three internal factors (strategies, movement infrastructure, and framing) and two external factors (political context and support of allies) that guide how movements are able to influence implementation. Anyidoho, Crawford & Medie (2020) argue that changes in movement infrastructure are the biggest explanatory factor for the failed attempt of Ghana’s Domestic Violence Coalition to influence the implementation of legislation. This analysis of the “movement infrastructure” model is found in earlier work. Andrews (2001) focuses on how the organizational structure, resources, and leadership of a social movement influences how it impacts policy implementation. Strong movement infrastructures have a diverse and complex leadership structure, multiple organizations, informal ties that cross geographic and social boundaries, and member resources for both labor and money. Andrews (2001) finds that these characteristics of movements provide “greater flexibility that allows them to influence the policy process through multiple mechanisms” (p. 85). Therefore, literature shows how the internal factors of protests determine the influence it can actually have on the implementation process.

Sharma, Unnikrishnan, & Sharma (2015) also discuss solutions to the problem of gender-based violence in India that may address gaps in the failed implementation of amended Criminal Laws related to gender-based violence. They focus on protests that occurred in response to a high-profile rape on December 16, 2012, in India and conclude that the Indian government has inadequate resources to implement legislation. The authors advocate for the creation of task forces and crisis centers to examine victims, provide legal counsel, and encourage more reporting of gender-based violence crimes.

However, political movements also suffer from other problems when pushing for the implementation of policies against gender-based violence. Weldon (2006) argues that movements that advocate against gender-based violence only succeed if activists cooperate. Inclusivity is important for movements to have a real impact on the change and implementation of legislation. Otherwise, as Weldon (2012) explains, social divisions within movements can foster a deeper understanding of the nuances of gender-based violence for various social groups.

After conducting background research on Nigeria and examining the gap in relevant literature, I contend that the federal structure of Nigeria and the religious diversity of the country make it very difficult to implement unique and coherent legislation within the entire country. Feminist mobilization and protests after #BringBackOurGirls contributed to the passing of the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act of 2015. However, legislation has been difficult to enforce. Even with the impact of widespread civilian protests, interstate cooperation on the implementation of legislation on gender-based violence is difficult to achieve in a decentralized country like Nigeria. 

4. METHODOLOGY

For this research, I have conducted a qualitative media analysis to examine the impact of protests on legislation reform and implementation for gender-based violence in Nigeria. I focus on two time periods: 2013 to 2015 to cover the outcomes of the #BringBackOurGirls movement in 2014, and 2019 to 2020^[5] to examine the outcome of the June 2020 protests. With a focus on these time periods,^[6] I want to survey and examine the protests and government responses that have occurred before and after the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act was passed in 2015. These time periods can tell us the most about the effectiveness of legislative change and implementation on gender-based violence in Nigeria.

The sources I have used to evaluate the news media are Nexis Uni and Factiva. These sources contain the best access to the international media outlets that I wanted to focus on. The media outlets covered by these two databases are: The Punch, The Nation (Nigeria), The Sun (Nigeria), Africa News, Sahara Reporters, Impact News Service, Africa Newswire, Naija 247 News, African Arguments, Weekly Trust, PM News, Nigerian Tribune, This Day, The Guardian (Nigeria, Daily Independent (Nigeria), Premium Times and AllAfrica.

For both NexisUni and Factiva^[7],  I looked specifically for news that discussed protests occurring in Nigeria against gender-based violence. I also looked for news articles that discussed the outcome of protests against gender-based violence that have occurred. The search results for both NexisUni and Factiva show that the media has reported many cases in 2020 compared to previous years. Many factors can explain this phenomenon such as more rapes occurring during the COVID-19 pandemic leading to more protests. These protests against gender-based violence consequently led to more media attention and legislation.

Finally, in my research, I also used the Legal Information Institute^[8] (LII) to analyze the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act (2015). I needed the actual bill to examine whether the motivation of the legislation passed contained any information about protests. 

5. RESEARCH FINDINGS

In this section, I introduce my research findings. Section 5.1 focuses on #BringBackOurGirls. This is important to the timeline since it occurred a year before the passage of the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act (2015). For section 5.2, it is important to know that Nigeria has thirty-six states. Using both NexisUni and Factiva, I used articles that discussed five of the thirty-six states. Two states (Ekiti and Lagos) are located in the southern region of the country, while the other three states (Plateau, Kaduna, and Sokoto) are located in the northern region. As mentioned above in the historical overview of Nigeria, northern Nigeria is predominantly Muslim. Section 5.3 focuses on the national government response to protests against gender-based violence, and it explores political officials’ views and initiatives offered by Nigerian federal agencies. Section 5.4 examines the legislation passed on gender-based violence. Section 5.5 examines the motivation behind the passage of the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act.

5.1     Impact of #BringBackOurGirls Protests (2014)

As mentioned above in the overview of Nigeria, in April 2014, there was a kidnapping in Chibok, Borno State by Boko Haram. This kidnapping sparked protests against gender-based violence in cities such as Abuja, Lagos, Kano, Port Harcourt, and Jos.^[9] The protests pushed Deputy Governor Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire to show how Lagos State is trying to promote gender equality and reduce cases. She mentioned that many women are now in key political positions due to increased amounts of equal opportunities for women.^[10] The increased attention also led the national government to develop guidelines on gender-based violence such as counseling and mental health services. This is also because there have been numerous attempts to pass national laws since 2003.^[11] The British High Commission in Nigeria also developed a forum to discuss #BringBackOurGirls. The chief panelist, Itoro Eze-Anaba emphasized how it is important to create awareness for the issue of gender-based violence in Nigeria. Another forum panelist, Yemisi Ransome Kuti, also discussed that the release of the Chibok girls succeeded not because of the government or organizations, but rather because the international community stepped in. Feminist mobilization pushed international attention to #BringBackOurGirls. Kuti and other panel members are advocating that the National Assembly and every State’s House of Assembly must work together to implement human rights legislation.^[12]

5.2     State/Regional Response to Protests Against Gender-Based Violence (2019-2020)

The response by five states will show how fragmented reactions to the issue of gender-based violence are within Nigeria. Even with the passage of national legislation on gender-based violence, states are at their own discretion in how they choose to respond as seen in this section. 

Plateau State

In Plateau State, specifically in the city of Jos, about 75% of cases of gender-based violence were found to go unreported. In 2017^[13], women from Jos expressed public concern over the failure of national laws on gender-based violence being implemented. Civic leaders met with political officials and created an initiative that included forums discussing gender-based violence. Over many months, these forums served as a space for victims to explain how their stories were ignored or they were blamed for the act. This forum highlighted that in a third of the cases in Jos the perpetrators were a close relative or friend working on the city’s police force. In May 2019, police in Jos opened the city’s first unit for investigating sexual and gender-based crimes.^[14]

Kaduna State

In Kaduna State, during the month of June 2020, women’s groups protested and discussed an increase in the number of rape cases that have occurred during the pandemic. A state of emergency was declared in Kaduna. The Governor Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai signed stricter rape laws on September 17, 2020. It specifies that any man who rapes someone over 14 years old, they will have their penis surgically castrated and receive a life sentence. Men will be executed for raping a child under the age of 14 years old. For women, their fallopian tubes will be removed for raping a child and receive a life sentence for raping someone over 14 years old. The old national law that Kaduna followed set the maximum sentence for rape in Nigeria to be 21 years and a life sentence for raping a child.^[15] [16]

Ekiti State

In Ekiti State, Governor Kayode Fayemi signed a new law from the Ekiti State House of Assembly called, “Compulsory Treatment and Care of Child Victims of Sexual Abuse Law 2020.” The new state law in Ekiti mentions that no sexual offender will be granted bail. This portion of the state law is in violation of Sections 35(1), 36(5) of the Nigerian Constitution. Both the Governor and State House of Assembly believe that there should be zero tolerance for sexual violence. The Governor also believes that there should a national consensus on the issue of rape within Nigeria. The former Lagos State Governor (Babatunde Raji Fashola) also expressed similar thoughts when he established a sexual violence agency in Lagos State. Governor Fayemi created a Sexual Offenders Register and publicizes the register on his social media account. However, this register does not include wealthy perpetrators who have been accused of gender-based violence in the past.^[17] [18]

Lagos State

In Lagos State, during June 2020, there was a protest at the police command station in Lagos. Various groups such as Girl Child Africa^[19], Stand To End Rape^[20], and Connected Development organized protests.^[21] The demands of the groups were for all Nigerian states to adopt the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act and Child Rights Act and every state to establish Sexual Assault Referral Centers (SARC). These groups also called for the prompt state-led prosecution of gender-based violence cases and the implementation of functional Family Support/Force Gender Unites at the state level to address cases of gender-based violence. Deputy Commissioner Etim said that the police force would look into the demands when addressing the crowd of protestors.^{[22] [23] [24]}

Additionally, during June 2020, a group of all-male protestors showed up at Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu’s office to pledge support for laws on gender-based violence. The Lagos State Domestic and Sexual Violence Response Team (DSVRT) organized the march. The governor’s wife, Dr. Ibijoke Sanwo-Olu, said that the state is prepared to do what it takes to end rape and gender-based violence. She also mentioned that men coming out to protest against gender-based violence was commendable since the normal protestor demographics have mainly been women.^[25] Moreover, the Young Women Christian Association (YWCA)^[26] protested against the increasing cases of gender-based violence in Lagos. They called for the federal government to declare capital punishment as the main form of punishment for rapists.^[27] [28]

Sokoto State

In Sokoto State, the Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar, is one of Nigeria’s most influential Islamic leaders. During December 2019, he banned the #ArewaMeToo^[29] movement. The ban by Sultan Abubakar intimidated people to come out and protest due to fears of arrests and beatings by police officers. The Sultan’s ban on this feminist movement was not a surprise to many civilians since Sokoto State operates under sharia law. The Sultan is also socially conservative due to his role as a traditional leader in Islam.^{[30] [31] [32]}

5.3     National Government Response to Protests Against Gender-Based Violence (2020)

In June 2020, the Nigerian federal government responded to a mix of media pressure and protests of more than 200 people outside the Nigerian Police Force Headquarters in Abuja (federal capital of Nigeria).^[33] It is difficult to isolate the effects of protests here in their response. There is no cohesive pattern in the national government response to protests against gender-based violence.

Attorney General of Nigeria and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami also said that the national government was trying to establish specialized courts for speedy and seamless trials of rape and gender-based violence. The Women’s Rights Advancement and Protection Alternative^[34] urged the national government to speed up the prosecution process for perpetrators. Malami claimed that his office had started to review all existing laws relating to rape, child molestation, and gender-based violence. The National Human Rights Commission urged the government at all levels to put in place laws and policies that eradicate gender-based violence in the country. The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohamed, said that the government would launch a national campaign against rape and gender-based violence in the country.^[35] Here, there is no communication between various divisions of the national government. It appears that each division is taking a different approach to how to respond to the issue of protests against gender-based violence.

Additionally, in June 2020, the Nigerian government approved stricter penalties against rapists and child abusers as mentioned by the Ministry of Women Affairs. The Minister of Women Affairs, Pauline Tallen described the spike of gender-based violence cases during the pandemic as alarming. Nigeria’s Federal Executive Council pushed for the adoption of the Violence Against Persons Prohibition Act in all Nigerian states. Protestors have demanded a state of emergency to be declared all over the country.^[36] In response to protests, the Nigerian Governors Forum soon declared a state of emergency.^[37]

In September 2020, there are still 23 states out of Nigeria’s 36 states that have not adopted the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act (2015). This comes three months after the main protests against gender-based violence in June 2020. The state governors of these 23 states have not yet signed the national legislation into state law.^[38]

5.4     National Legislation Change For Gender-Based Violence in Nigeria

Legislative change in Nigeria has come with some difficult drawbacks. Under the Nigerian Criminal Code, the punishment for rape is life imprisonment (Section 358). Section 283 of the Penal Code means life imprisonment or for any lesser term and liable to a fine. Incest is punishable with 6 to 7 years imprisonment and a fine (Section 390 of Penal Code).^[39] However, current rape laws have caused difficulty in amending child rights laws for protection against gender-based violence. Since 2008, every attempt to review child rights laws have been unsuccessful. It keeps on getting pushed off because there is no consensus for the definition of rape, punishment for committing rape, and the burden of proof. For example, the Child Rights Act (2003) has been ratified by almost every state in Southern Nigeria, but most of Northern Nigeria has not chosen to ratify it. The Child Rights Act violates sharia law since sharia law permits child marriages. The religious diversity across the country accounts for the different political views toward gender-based violence on young girls and women.^[40]

Also, the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act was passed in 2015 as the main national legislation explicitly addressing gender-based violence. The definition of rape in this law falls under the Criminal Code, Section 357 defines rape as “a man having forceful carnal knowledge of women.” However, this definition fails to include women who rape women or men who rape men. At the same time, the law also asserts that a married man cannot rape his wife.^[41] More recently in 2019, there was a bill created to amend the Criminal Code on Rape, but it made it to second reading and disappeared. Similarly, in 2020, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege and others have expressed concerns to amend rape laws due to the current protests.^[42] There is no collective push by the legislative branch of Nigeria to find effective ways to enforce gender-based violence legislation.

5.5     Motivation of the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act (2015)

The motivation of the main legislation created to combat gender-based violence within Nigeria is below:

The explanatory memorandum^[43] accounts for what the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act (2015) intends to do. It aims to protect against all forms of violence, including gender-based violence, for any gender. It also aims to support victims of violence and punish offenders for the crimes that they commit. There is no preamble to the law that highlights the urgency of this legislation and the pressing concern of the population through protests.

6. DISCUSSION

6.1     Fragmented Responses to Protests Against Gender-Based Violence by State

There have been varying responses to protests in different Nigerian states. The most common response out of the five states examined were vague commitments to check the development of legislation and initiatives that address gender-based violence. For example, Lagos state had media articles that quoted government officials declaring that they were ready to act and make a change. 

The only state legislative change that was seen came from protests in Ekiti and Kaduna. The Governor of Ekiti signed a new piece of legislation called the “Compulsory Treatment and Care of Child Victims of Sexual Abuse Law 2020.” It was passed in order to prevent sexual offenders and suspects of gender-based violence from obtaining any sort of bail in the judicial process. The new state law in Ekiti mentions that no sexual offender will be granted bail. On the other hand, Kaduna developed stricter laws in response to protests. In addition to a life sentence in prison, these newer laws show that a man will have his penis surgically castrated or a woman will have her fallopian tubes removed for raping a child over the age of 14. Men convicted of the rape of a child under the age of 14 will be executed.

Also, some states in the northern region of Nigeria are trying to adopt national legislation on gender-based violence. The Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act of 2015 provides protection to victims of any type of violence, including gender-based violence, and punishes offenders. These states are reluctant to adopt this legislation because it prohibits child marriage. In the northern region, many predominantly Muslim states use Sharia law which allows child marriages. Hence, adopting the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act would outlaw child marriage in these states and reduce children’s exposure to gender-based violence in marital relationships. This case is important because it highlights how religion, via Sharia law, can influence the political structure of a state.

These differences are attributed to the federal structure of Nigeria which grants states the right to adopt or refuse to adopt national legislation. Therefore, it is difficult to evaluate the success of protests on legislative change and implementation on the issue of gender-based violence in Nigeria. The political and religious diversity in Nigeria provides different ways of enforcing legislation on gender-based violence.

6.2     Fragmented Response to Protests Against Gender-Based Violence by Nigerian National Government

There has also been an inconsistent response to protests by the federal government. Government officials are displaying very different reactions rather than having one centralized response. For example, Attorney General and Minister of Justice Malami mentioned that the national government is trying to establish specialized courts for speedy and seamless trials for cases of rape and gender-based violence. Malami also said that his office has been reviewing all existing policies related to gender-based violence. This differs from the Minister of Women Affairs who says that the federal government has already approved stricter penalties against rapists and child abusers that are convicted. On the other hand, the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohamed, proposed a national campaign against rape and gender-based violence in the country. 

These governmental bodies within the federal government, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Women Affairs and Ministry of Information and Culture are discussing stronger implementation of policies and possibly changing current policies. They agree that current legislation must be amended or strengthened to address the root issues of unsuccessful policy implementation. However, these governmental bodies and agencies differ in the approach to take in response to protests against gender-based violence in Nigeria. The fragmented responses by governmental bodies and agencies highlight that the Nigerian government has failed to take appropriate action because every governmental body is trying different things. The lack of a unified, strategic approach shows that the federal government is not strong in the implementation of legislation on gender-based violence.

Similar to the state response to protests against gender-based violence, it is difficult to assess if protests are actually having an impact on legislative implementation at a country-wide level. Section 6.1 shows how the three states of Ekiti and Kaduna reformed their legislation on a state level in June 2020. However, according to media articles from September 2020, there are still twenty-three states out of Nigeria’s thirty-six states that still have not formally adopted the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act (2015).  I did not find any evidence that the federal government is taking steps to follow up on Nigeria’s Federal Executive Council’s plan to make all Nigerian states adopt the main national law against gender-based violence.

6.3     Ambiguity in the Motivation Behind Passage of the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act (2015)

The explanatory memorandum in the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act (2015) explains how this piece of legislation mainly is working to provide full protection for those who are victims of violence. The memorandum also explains its intention to provide effective solutions for victims and punish the offenders. The explanatory memorandum does not clearly state anything about protests or public concern being its motivating factor. Even though it does not clearly mention any particular protest, it is assumed that the 2014 Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping and the subsequent protests caused international pressure for Nigeria to pass this national legislation.

This kidnapping case was publicized globally where many were concerned with issues such as child marriage and genital mutilation in the country. This major case also highlighted how there have been attempts to pass national laws since 2003. This case created awareness for how human rights issues such as gender-based violence need to be discussed and have a tangible piece of legislation passed in Nigeria. The passage of the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act (2015) took a step in the right direction to create a law that declared gender-based violence a crime. However, it fails to address the Child Rights Act (2003) in gender-based violence also applying to child brides. The motivation to reform the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act (2015) has been inconsistent because there is no consensus on how rape and punishment should be defined in the country, especially with many current national child rights laws violating the regulations of sharia law. It can be assumed that the main motivation behind the passage of the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act (2015) is due to international media attention’s pressure to have national laws on gender-based violence.

7. CONCLUSION

I have argued that the federal structure of Nigeria makes it difficult to implement legislation on gender-based violence. Unlike most explanations of gender-based violence in Africa, I focus on the dynamic factor of Nigeria’s religious and political structures for being the reasons that protests do not work as intended. 

It is clear that the federal structure of Nigeria has caused a decentralized response to protests against gender-based violence in the country. Even with the passage of national legislation like the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act (2015), civilian protests have not been able to influence the implementation of legislation on gender-based violence in various Nigerian states. Protests must receive international support in order to pressure the government to immediately respond to the issue of gender-based violence. In addition, we must examine ways to reform the legislative system for more effective implementation of gender-based violence in Nigeria. The customary, common, and sharia law systems must work effectively together in order to have real political change on the issue of gender-based violence. The federal government must also develop a cohesive way to respond to protests against gender-based violence.

Future research on gender-based violence should look more systematically at the consequences of protests in Nigeria. A quantitative analysis would help to track the changes or lack of changes that follow every protest. The ability to track every protest in the past decade would aid in coming up with a conclusive answer to whether protests can take on the federal structure in Nigeria and influence real legislative change and implementation. To this goal, archival research of Nigerian newspapers should be carried out to fully understand the nature of protests in the country. Here, it is important to note that the use of online media by newspapers has changed in the past decade and online databases might be incomplete. Field research and interviews with civil society organizations and legislators would also contribute to having a firsthand account of protests, and the way in which the federal system in Nigeria constrains its success.

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References

^[1] The National Assembly of Nigeria is the bicameral legislature made of the Nigerian Senate and Nigerian House of Representatives.

^[2] Gender-based violence is also known interchangeably as sexual violence in discourse around the world.

^[3] Sharia law is one of the three legal systems found in Nigeria. Sharia law is considered much stricter in comparison to common and customary law in Nigeria. It operates under Islam.

^[4] #WeAreTired is a hashtag used on social media during these protests to highlight the frustration by Nigerian civilians on the frequent occurrence of gender-based violence cases in the country.

^[5] Note: In my analysis, I used the timeline January 1, 2019, to October 31, 2020, for the 2019 to 2020 time period.

^[6] Note: I was originally going to analyze the entire decade (2010 to 2020) and analyze changes in reporting for gender-based violence in Nigeria, however, attention to this issue has varied before and after the passage of the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act of 2015. Due to a lack of media articles on NexisUni and Factiva, I have decided to focus on these specific time periods (2013 to 2015; 2019 to 2020).

^[7] Note: NexisUni and Factiva had some overlap in the media articles displayed. I kept track of the title and/or author of every news article relevant to my research findings. Thus, if there were overlapping articles, I cited the media article from the NexisUni database instead of Factiva.

^[8] The Legal Information Institute is a research group based at Cornell Law School. This institute collaborates with publishers, legal scholars, computer scientists, and government agencies to provide free access to various laws.

^[9] Nagarajan, C. (2015, April 14). #Bringbackourgirls hasn’t brought back Chibok’s girls, but it has changed Nigeria’s politics; Women fighting Boko Haram – and working for peace, human rights, and the abducted girls – are having an unexpected impact on national politics. The Guardian (Nigeria). https://advance.lexis.com/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:5FS1-9DH1-JCJY-G187-00000-00&context=1516831.

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^[12] (2014, June 20). Nigeria; Towards Ending Violence Against Women. Africa News. https://advance.lexis.com/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:5CGB-0C41-JC86-C220-00000-00&context=1516831.

^[13] This information about protests from 2017 is from a news article written in 2019.

^[14]Media articles will be cited in footnotes. See for example, (2019, August 9). As Africa Battles Sexual Violence, a Nigerian City Shows How. Impact News Service. https://advance.lexis.com/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:5WT7-6641-JDG9-Y09F-00000-00&context=1516831.

^[15] Wilkes, J. (2020, September 17). Rapists will be castrated and child rapists executed in new law in Nigerian state; In Kaduna, in north-western Nigeria, where a state of emergency was declared as cases of rape soared during lockdown, harsh new laws have been brought in. mirror.co.uk. https://advance.lexis.com/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:60VW-KWK1-JCJY-G3N9-00000-00&context=1516831. 

^[16] Parker, E. (2020, September 17). Child rapists face death and others surgical castration in country’s new laws; The change in legislation in Kaduna, Nigeria, follows months of civil unrest as rape figures soared across the region, prompting Nasir Ahmad el-Rufai to declare a state of emergency. Daily Star Online. https://advance.lexis.com/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:60VS-TDB1-JCJY-G0D3-00000-00&context=1516831.

^[17] Abati, R. (2020, June 9). The Rape Pandemic: #No By Reuben Abati. Sahara Reporters – Online. https://advance.lexis.com/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:603F-GX31-DXHW-M0M9-00000-00&context=1516831.

^[18] (2020, June 14). The next pandemic. The Nation (Nigeria). https://advance.lexis.com/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:604R-5BY1-F00C-64HH-00000-00&context=1516831. 

^[19] Girl Child Africa is an organization that promotes Nigerian girls’ access to quality education in rural communities.

^[20] Stand To End Rape is a youth-led social enterprise advocating against gender-based violence.

^[21] Connected Development is an organization that empowers marginalized communities in Nigeria to hold the Nigerian government accountable.

^[22] (2020, June 5). Protests rock Lagos, Abuja over rising rape cases, sexual assault against women. The Nation (Nigeria). https://advance.lexis.com/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:606D-YMB1-JCH9-G55V-00000-00&context=1516831.

^[23] (2020, June 6). Group holds protest against gender-based violence. Premium Times. https://advance.lexis.com/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:602R-YY31-F12F-F0KG-00000-00&context=1516831. 

^[24] Anigbogu, J. (2020, June 5). Rape: Coalition Of CSO Takes Protest To Lagos Police Area Command. Daily Independent (Nigeria). https://advance.lexis.com/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:602K-9561-JDJN-649X-00000-00&context=1516831.

^[25] (2020, June 12). ‘No man with conscience keeps mute against rape’. The Nation (Nigeria). https://advance.lexis.com/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:6049-29D1-JCH9-G563-00000-00&context=1516831.

^[26] The Young Women Christian Association (YWCA) of Nigeria is an organization consisting of young women that advocate for peace and human rights. See more: Young Women’s Christian Association of Nigeria. (2020). About Us. http://ywcanigeria.org/about-us/. 

^[27] Umeha, C. (2020, June 17). Young Women Christian Association Seeks Capital Punishment For Rapists. Daily Independent (Nigeria).https://advance.lexis.com/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:6054-8YM1-F11P-X23V-00000-00&context=1516831.

^[28] Rapheal. (2020, June 11). YWCA seeks capital punishment for rapists. The Sun (Nigeria). https://advance.lexis.com/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:603T-5761-F11P-X55B-00000-00&context=1516831. 

^[29] #ArewaMeToo is northern Nigeria’s version of the #MeToo movement that is well known in the United States.

^[30] (2019, December 10). Nigeria’s Sultan of Sokoto Bans #MeToo Movement. Naija 247 News. https://advance.lexis.com/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:5XR1-57R1-F00C-63SN-00000-00&context=1516831.

^[31] (2019, November 2019). #ArewaMeToo: Sultan Of Sokoto Bans Protest Against Gender-based Violence In Sokoto. Sahara Reporters – Online. https://advance.lexis.com/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:5XKN-CP81-JB2T-X0X9-00000-00&context=1516831. 

^[32] Collyer, R. ( 2019, December 3). Nigeria’s Sultan of Sokoto bans #ArewaMeToo campaign. RFI (English). https://advance.lexis.com/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:5XN4-VSX1-F11P-X0J5-00000-00&context=1516831.

^[33] (2020, June 5). Protests rock Lagos, Abuja over rising rape cases, sexual assault against women. The Nation (Nigeria). https://advance.lexis.com/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:606D-YMB1-JCH9-G55V-00000-00&context=1516831.

^[34] The Women’s Rights Advancement and Protection Alternative (WRAPA) is an organization dedicated to promoting and protecting the rights of Nigerian women with three legal systems: customary, common, and Sharia law. See more: MacArthur Foundation. (2014). Women’s Rights Advancement and Protection Alternative. https://www.macfound.org/maceirecipients/78/. 

^[35] (2020, June 20). RAPE: FG MULLS SPECIAL COURTS AS PROTESTERS STORM ABUJA. Weekly Trust. https://advance.lexis.com/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:6065-K0S1-F00C-62B7-00000-00&context=1516831.

^[36] (2020, June 10). Nigeria backs stiffer penalties for rapists, child abusers. PM News. https://advance.lexis.com/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:6041-6BN1-F00C-63KJ-00000-00&context=1516831.

^[37] Sanni, K. (2020, June 11). Nigerian governors declare ‘state of emergency’ on sexual violence. Premium Times. Retrieved from Factiva database.

^[38] (2020, September 12). 3 Months After, States Yet to Domesticate Anti-Rape Law. AllAfrica. Retrieved from Factiva database.

^[39] (2013, February 19). Nigeria; Rape! Incest! Violence! Women! Children!. Africa News. https://advance.lexis.com/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:57SX-8V11-DYR8-33XT-00000-00&context=1516831.

^[40] Abati, R. (2020, June 9). The Rape Pandemic: #No By Reuben Abati. Sahara Reporters – Online. https://advance.lexis.com/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:603F-GX31-DXHW-M0M9-00000-00&context=1516831.

^[41] Ibid.

^[42] Ibid.

^[43] Legal Information Institute. (2015). Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act. https://www.law.cornell.edu/women-and-justice/resource/violence_against_persons_(prohibition)_act. 

This piece was published in the Acheson Issue, Volume 11

Abstract

Throughout its existence, the Hellenic Republic has struggled to reconcile its “modern Greek” national identity with its “ancient Greek” cultural history, burdening the country with both an economically and geopolitically marginal position within the European and world order and with a schizophrenic national identity. The Federal Republic of Germany and its predecessors since the nineteenth century have been some of the most important foreign architects of the modern Greek state, and thus have also been influential sources of this complex Greek identity. Over two hundred years of shared cultural history between Germany and Greece, the divergence of Greek national identity from its German idealized conceptions has led to tension, disillusionment, and even hostility. Periods of interaction and conflict are symptoms of a fundamental dynamic of the Greco-German relationship: the recurrent imposition of German ideological hegemony on Greece philosophically, politically, militarily, and economically, forcing Greece to conform to this German ideology, ignoring the complexities of Modern Greek national identity. Over the course of modern Greek history, Greek citizens themselves have integrated this dynamic into their own national consciousness, resulting in increased expressions of victimhood and defiance against an oppressive German “other”. 

I. Introduction

Throughout its existence, the Hellenic Republic has struggled to reconcile its modern national identity with its ancient cultural history, burdening the country with both an economically and geopolitically marginal position within the European order and a schizophrenic national identity. The Federal Republic of Germany and its predecessors have been some of the most influential foreign architects of this modern Greek identity.  Over two hundred years of shared cultural history, the divergence of Greece’s national identity from German ideals surrounding its conception have led to tension, disillusionment, and hostility between the two countries. German philhellenes who fought to liberate the supposed modern descendants of the ancient Greeks instead confronted heterogeneous, non-Western, and often-violent peoples. Nazi military forces, driven by formulations of racialized history partly founded on ancient Greek aesthetic principles, subjected Greece to brutal occupation conditions when faced with resistance. Greek economic instability during the Euro Crisis after a period of growth, integration, and development prompted a cultural and ideological clash between the two countries that manifested via cultural and historical stereotypes in mass media. 

These periods of interaction illustrate a fundamental dynamic of the Greco-German relationship: the imposition of German ideological hegemony on Greece in a manner that forces Greece to conform to Germany’s idealized image while ignoring the complexities of modern Greek national identity. The Greeks themselves have integrated this dynamic into their own national consciousness, resulting in increased expressions of victimhood and defiance against an oppressive German “other.” 

As the locus of the “cradle of Western civilization”, Greece has one of the longest and most influential histories in Europe. “Ancient Greece” is somewhat of a cultural topos, commonly treated as a cohesive, singular entity. The phrase evokes images of classical Greek temples, mythology, and white marble sculpture. 

 Compared to ancient Greece, the modern Hellenic Republic formed in 1832 has struggled to solidify its achievements within the context of the European world order, due to features such as its geographic location, relative economic difficulties, and periodic oppression due to armed conflict. Despite being a member of both the EU and the Eurozone, as well as the largest economy of the Balkan region, Greece is still considered a “peripheral” European economy. From 2001 to 2010, Greece represented a mere 2.5% of total EU GDP (Mylonas 2012, 652).

The article begins by discussing the distinction between the perceived cohesive, timeless cultural topos of ancient Greece and the struggles of the modern Hellenic Republic. The article then briefly discusses modern Greece’s place in Europe and addresses modern Greece’s national identity. The article concludes with a brief discussion of how this work distinguishes itself from pre-existing literature. 

Chapter II examines the earliest modern dialogue between the Greek and German cultures: German art historian and archaeologist J.J. Winckelmann’s development of Germany philhellenism in the late 18th century. The chapter provides a brief sketch of Winckelmann’s life and work, and then outlines German philhellenism’s salient features and peculiarities. The chapter concludes with examinations of Friedrich August Wolf and Wilhelm von Humboldt, two German intellectuals who personify philhellenism’s importance in German academia and culture. 

Chapter III addresses the cultural impact of the Greek War of Independence on the German state and people, then addresses how Germany contributed, both directly and indirectly, to the war effort. It also highlights German reckoning with the disjunction between the idealized conceptions of Ancient Greece that motivated German support of the war and the reality of Modern Greek identity. 

Chapter IV analyzes how Germany shaped the development of the newly-independent Kingdom of Greece. Classically-educated Germans, steeped in the Romantic-era philhellenism developed by Winckelmann and his successors, took up key roles in the state apparatus of the Kingdom of Greece during this period of national reformation and exercised great influence in shaping Greek domestic policy. The chapter concludes with a brief examination of the decline of both the German presence in the Greek government and the German influence on the nascent state as a whole. 

Chapter V demonstrates how Greece simultaneously provided a philosophical and ideological foundation for, while also being subject to, Nazi policies during the 1941-1944 Occupation of Greece. The chapter begins with a discussion of the racialist precedent in German philhellenism that better enabled its assimilation into Nazi ideology. The chapter then addresses the occupation itself, as well as the German actions and policies that once again highlight the disjunction between the conception of ancient Greece on which they were based and the modern nation then being occupied. 

Chapter VI examines both the overall trajectory of Greek economic growth at the turn of the twenty-first century land its particular landmarks: Greece’s joining of the European Union in 1992; adopting the common Euro currency in 2001; and hosting the Olympic Games in 2004. The chapter assesses Greece’s adoption of German economic principles in the pre-crisis period, then examines the Euro Crisis-era Greco-German relationship and the cultural characterizations of the two countries in mass media. 

To conclude the article, Chapter VII briefly summarizes the history of mutual misunderstanding that has characterized the Greco-German relationship throughout modern history, the status of this relationship in a “post-crisis” era, and, finally, considers what must be done to shape the relationship for the better in the future. 

Although the various topics explored in this thesis have been examined across generations, scholarship typically discusses episodes of the Greco-German relationship as more discrete developmental phenomena, rather than as an ongoing cultural dialogue. The subject of German philhellenism has been well-documented from a variety of perspectives, ranging from the development of the German philological and archaeological tradition following the advent of widespread German philhellenism in the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries to its subsequent incorporation into the rhetoric and propaganda of the Third Reich (see Butler 1935, Marchand 1996, Roche 2018). In particular, the effects of Euro Crisis-era developments and policies on the Greco-German relationship have facilitated the creation of a wealth of literature assessing its current state. While some sources, particularly news articles, have attempted to contextualize the relationship between Greece and Germany by invoking the trajectory of modern Greek history, these typically do so only cursorily. 

II.   German Philhellenism: Origins of German Hegemony

Enter J.J. Winckelmann

The origins of modern Greco-German relations began with the formulation and spread of German philhellenism, a component of the German intellectual movement which was born in the late eighteenth century out of the observations and scholarship of Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-68). Winckelmann, generally regarded as the singular progenitor of Romantic-era German philhellenism, was born into poverty in Altmark, and spent his youth seeking education far beyond his family’s means. While begging his way across Germany in search of classical texts and antiquities, he sought the scholarly companionship of the few fellow Graecophiles in Germany (Butler 1935, 11-12). His greatest goal was a pilgrimage to Rome, his means of accessing a repository of Greek art forms (Butler 1935, 16). After making the journey to Rome and securing patronage, Winckelmann published various works, including his magnum opus, History of the Art of Antiquity, in 1764. Although his grander ambition was an eventual pilgrimage to Greece itself, he was murdered at Trieste before he could finally complete his journey.

Winckelmann conceived of ancient Greek art as the pinnacle of human artistic achievement, a testament to both the beauty of the ancient Greeks themselves and their ability to translate that physical beauty into their work. He believed that the ancient Greek bodily form had been optimized through a wide variety of factors, ranging from ambient climate, exercise regimen, diet, forms of artistic expression, clothing and dress (Winckelmann 1766, 11). In addition to cultivating a beautiful physical form, Winckelmann argued that the Ancient Greeks, through various aspects of their education, were taught “to judge, with discernment and taste, of those bodily proportions that constitute true beauty” (Winckelmann 1766, 19), which in turn prepared ancient Greek artists to portray the likeness of the ideal form. This capacity for capturing the ideal bodily form, according to Winckelmann, made ancient Greek art reign supreme.^[1]

Of Winckelmann’s life and scholarly formulations, two features were particularly notable. The first was his aforementioned preoccupation with the ideal form of Greek beauty, which he conceived of as the epitome of artistic achievements. To Winckelmann, art was an organic product, its greatness “inseparable from racial, climatic, social and political conditions” that enabled its creation (Butler 1935, 44). The second was the uniquely voyeuristic nature of his scholarly contemplations. Like all but a handful of German travelers, Winckelmann had neither travelled to Greece, nor seen its monuments firsthand; his only experience with Greek art was through Roman copies of primarily Hellenistic statuary, so he had minimal interaction with Greek art of the Classical period (St. Clair 2008, 92; Roche 2018, 545; Butler 1935, 44). 

Despite his indirect relationship with Greece, Winckelmann’s vivid descriptions of the physical, as well as the “romantic” particular details of his life and death – his impoverished origins, wanderings across Europe, and tragic murder – made him not only one of Europe’s leading figures on classical art history but also the catalyst for the entire German philhellenic movement. His work inspired generations of scholars, enlightenment followers, and cultural nationalists (Marchand 1996, 7-8), and Winckelmann himself became Germany’s leading authority on art history and archaeology, worshipped by many of Germany’s greatest Romantic authors, including Goethe, Schiller, Herder, and Lessing (Roche 2018, 545).

From Ideals to Institutions

In the decades following Winckelmann’s death, philhellenism spread and became institutionalized throughout the German states. Translations of classical work proliferated, while German classical specialists greatly improved their social and academic standing. One such follower was Friedrich August Wolf, traditionally regarded as the father of modern philology. Wolf’s deliberate academic pursuit of philology signified the ascension of Altertumswissenschaft(“Antiquity”) within the realms of scholarship and pedagogy. Before Wolf, Germans who engaged in higher-level classical studies typically did so through theology or law, rather than pursuing classical philology for its own sake (Marchand 1996, 17-18). Upon his acceptance of a professorship at the University of Halle, Wolf revitalized philological studies within the university, bucking contemporary trends in German academia, which increasingly favored “useful” subjects such as the sciences. (Marchand 1996, 19). 

Later, Wilhelm von Humboldt, a Prussian philosopher who as head of Prussia’s Interior Ministry for educational and ecclesiastical affairs was responsible for redesigning the system of financing Prussian educational institutions, reshaped the Prussian educational pipeline and its various requirements to more strongly emphasize philology, including the study of ancient Greece. He implemented the Abitur, a new state-wide school-leaving exam required for prospective university students, that emphasized thorough knowledge of both Latin and Ancient Greek; the exam was administered only at Gymnasien, select schools that emphasized classical education, thus making such schools the only university preparatory institutions in Prussia (Marchand 1996, 27). This new academic landscape required a great majority of Prussia’s would-be university-educated professionals, such as free professionals, public servants, and teachers, to obtain a classical education and study Ancient Greek. 

Humboldt also founded the University of Berlin in 1810, within which he prioritized philosophy – which included philology, natural sciences, and philosophy proper – and its faculty over those of the so-called “practical” fields such as law, medicine, and theology (Marchand 1996, 27). Humboldt attracted scholars to Berlin and his university by offering large salaries and the promise of academic prestige, especially for classical philology “the centerpiece of his grand new institution” (Marchand 1996, 27). The University of Berlin quickly cultivated a reputation as a place of “industrious, mature, and unsocial scholars such as Wolf and Humboldt themselves had been” (Marchand 1996, 28). Humboldt’s own scholarship reflected the influence of his predecessor Winckelmann. His 1806 essay “Latium und Hellas, oder Betrachtungen über das klassische Alterthum” (“Latium and Hella, or Observations on Classical Antiquity”) re-emphasized the anthropological, Winckelmannian conception of an optimized society, that in turn facilitated the creation of the most ideal art.^[2] This holistic, anthropological view of ancient Greece was perhaps the best representation of the core views of then-contemporary German philhellenism. 

Within just a few generations, German philhellenism was born, grew, and spread, leading to an “institutionalization of German admiration for Greek beauty” (Marchand 1996, 7). While German philhellenism would continue to evolve through contributions from other writers, thinkers and intellectuals, the movement was rooted in this conception of ancient Greece’s identity as the timeless paragon of human artistic achievement. Through the efforts of individuals such as Wolf and Humboldt, philology (and with it, ancient Greece) was entrenched as a pillar of Germany’s academic institutions. As these institutions shaped the intellectual priorities and cultural output of Germany as a whole, ancient Greece became intertwined with German intellectualism. Until the early nineteenth century, German philhellenism was a distinctly cultural phenomenon, cultivated in academic and intellectual circles and confined to the regions in which it was born and had grown; however, a new geopolitical shift soon presented the German philhellenes with a novel opportunity to tangibly and politically assert their principles. 

III.   The Greek War of Independence

The Greek War of Independence began in 1821. Although the nation declared its independence in 1828, the conflict would continue until 1830, when, under the London Protocol, Greece was recognized as independent by the Great Powers of Europe. During this time, German contributions to the revolutionary Greek cause broadly took three forms: soldiers, donations, and propaganda materials. Compared to their fellow Europeans, Germans were some of the earliest public supporters of the Greek cause, with German cities in the summer of 1821 being among the first to establish Greek committees, which distributed pamphlets, gathered aid, and sent men off to fight (Penn 1938, 639). By this time, pro-Greek sentiment had already spread throughout German universities, propaganda campaigns promoting Greek liberty were underway, and volunteers had begun gathering in German cities (Penn 1938, 639; Marchand 1996, 32). 

After forming legions in various German cities, between 1821 and 1823, Germans sent a total of over four hundred men in eight formal expeditions to the Greek front including soldiers, officers, and medical personnel (Penn 1938, 643). These Germans joined a philhellenic corps founded in Greece in 1822, which included volunteers from various European countries (ibid.). The corps were often not effective, mostly owing to a lack of supplies, training, leadership, and cohesion (ibid.). 

German donations to the cause were consistently generous. Between 1821 and 1823, supplies sent on the eight expeditions included various forms of aid, including medical supplies, military equipment, and other necessities (Penn 1938, 643). In 1823, the German states supported an influx of Greek refugees who had fled there to escape the theater of war through contributions of food and clothing (Penn 1938, 646). German towns were some of the most significant monetary contributors from 1826 to 1828, even during periods marked by institutional fatigue and the exhausting of European donations (Penn 1938, 650, 653). Among German benefactors, King Ludwig I of Bavaria—father of the future first king of Greece, Otto— was particularly noteworthy, openly and consistently supporting the Greek causes while also encouraging others to do the same (Penn 1938, 642).^[3]

Although present across all of German society, philhellenism and revolutionary support were especially prevalent in intellectual spheres. Accordingly, educated Germans, bolstered by previously institutionalized philological studies in the German Gymnasien, were particularly receptive to the calls for European support of the Greek cause (Marchand 1996, 32). Their writings in newspapers, journals, and political pamphlets were crucial in drumming up widespread German support for the war effort. Wilhelm Traugott Krug, a philologist at Leipzig, published a pamphlet in 1821 calling for committees of Greek aid to be established. Friedrich Tiersch, a philologist, author of works on Greek grammar and archaeology, and the founder of the Institute of Munich, wrote newspaper articles arguing the benign nature of Greek Revolution concerning local political affairs (Penn 1938, 642).

Despite its prevalence throughout German society, the translation of philhellenism to concrete support for the Greek cause was far from seamless. Philhellenic activities across Germany were often met with waves of resistance from authorities, who prohibited the public from forming pro-Greek associations, volunteering and fundraising for the war effort, and, in some cases, even issuing pro-Greek public statements (Güthenke 2008, 98; Marchand 1996, 32-33). However, the protracted Greek defeat at Missolonghi in 1826 reignited widespread German public support for the Greek cause (Güthenke 2008, 98).

An appeal particularly attractive to German philhellenes was the so-called “continuity thesis”: that modern Greeks currently fighting for their liberation were direct descendants of their ancient brethren (Roche 2018, 557). The Greek revolution, therefore, represented a symbolic liberation, the rebirth of civilization’s peak in the form of a modern state. Under the “continuity thesis,” the Turks were merely “foreign tyrants whose odious rule had blighted the fair land of Hellas for centuries” (Penn 1938, 639). Literary appeals for German support described the idealized, transcendent beauty of the Greek natural landscape, a continuity of the ancient Greek perfection that had continued to exist since ancient times and could be recaptured by liberating Greece from her Ottoman overlords.

Even in the fifty years since the advent of German philhellenism preceding the Greek revolution, few German philhellenes had actually visited Greece, and its literature and art were accessible only by way of classical texts and Roman imitations. The Greek revolution presented the opportunity for German philhellenes to directly experience Greek culture; however, like the philhellenism that formed the ideological basis of support, German support of the war effort largely ignored the wide gulf between Greek antiquity and modernity, preferring to characterize modern Greece using antiquated tropes.

When German philhellenes finally reached Greece, their reactions to the discovery of the gulf between ideal and reality ranged from surprise to disillusionment. The volunteers that comprised the Philhellene corps expected modern incarnations of the aancient Greeks described in their philological studies, but when they arrived in Navarino they were met by peoples more closely resembling Turks, who could not even speak the ancient Greek language (St. Clair 2008, 82). Additionally, reports from German soldiers and officers recounted terrific brutality by Greek revolutionaries; the Philhellene corps at Navarino witnessed the remains of horrific massacres of Turkish communities, which the Greeks had undertaken in hopes of impressing the arriving volunteers (St. Clair 2008, 83); Maximilian von Kotsch, a German officer and philhellene, in his account of the fall of Nauplia in late 1822, describes how the Greek soldiers extensively mutilated and murdered civilians, including a fellow Greek suspected of corresponding with the Turks and a Jewish would-be deserter (St. Clair 2008, 107). The anxiety and disillusionment of these German accounts reflected the unacknowledged truth that Romantic-era German aspirations of reclaiming the lost glory of ancient Greece via the establishment of a modern Greek state were doomed to fail. These aspirations, rooted in idealized conceptions of ancient Greece ascribed to the modern Greek state a glory that could never practically manifest. 

Despite the existence of such accounts, German philhellenism continued largely unimpeded throughout the War of Independence and beyond. German philhellenism’s foundations of idealization gave it a certain resilience, even in the face of firsthand German accounts of modern Greece and its people that seemed to undermine the authenticity of the “continuity thesis.” German philhellenes refuted, or simply disregarded, disillusioned philhellenes and their accounts of the Modern Greek people and their “unclassical” behavior throughout the war, attributing their negative accounts to the individual incompetence (Marchand 1996, 33-34; St. Clair 2008, 120-121). In April 1822, a group of French officers who had returned to Marseilles from Greece published an open letter detailing their horrific experiences on the Greek front at Tripolitsa, calling the Greeks a “despicable, cowardly, and ungrateful race” (St. Clair 2008, 76). In response, the Greeks at Marseilles alleged that the open letter was in retaliation for their expulsion due to misconduct, an explanation wholeheartedly accepted by the German volunteers awaiting departure (ibid.). 

The institutional admiration for ancient Greece was also responsible for a feedback loop of Greece’s own conceptions of self and national identity, enabled by Greek diasporic communities, which provided much of “the educational preparation for nationhood” (Kaloudis 2006, 56). Greek expatriates, most notably students, in German and other European cities were exposed to Romantic-era philhellenism and its ideals through their interactions in German universities (Güthenke 2008, 97). Exposure to philhellenic ideals awakened feelings of nationalism in these educated diasporic Greeks, who contributed significantly to the spread of pro-Greek sentiment throughout German cities. Additionally, Greek merchants and commercial communities in these cities also contributed to the war effort by publishing pamphlets and organizing contributions. These Greeks represented the fusion of German and European philhellenic ideals, Romantic-era formulations of nationalism, and Greek identity. After Greece finally won its independence, many of these diasporic Greeks would return to their homeland to contribute to the nation-building effort.

The War of Independence had always, to a certain degree, been a competition for influence between Europe’s more geopolitically influential powers (Kostis 2018, 75). Once Greek independence had been won, German philhellenism at home relegated itself once more to German intellectual and educational spheres, its political aspirations having now been largely achieved (Marchand 1996, 35). The nascent Greece state, however, presented a new opportunity for German philhellenes to assert their influence on the architecture and organization of the new Greek state apparatus. The presence and influence of such German philhellenes would become a hallmark of the early nation-building period in Greece. 

IV.   The Formative Years of the Modern Greek State

Greek Country, German Government

In 1832, Prince Otto, the second son of King Ludwig I of Bavaria, was appointed King of Greece by the great powers of Europe via the Treaty of London. Due to Otto’s youth, the Treaty stipulated that Greece would be preliminarily governed by a regency council with unlimited authority until Otto came of age in 1835. The council’s three members – Josef Ludwig von Armansperg, George Ludwig von Maurer, and Carl Wilhelm von Heideck – appointed by Otto’s father, Ludwig, were both intellectuals and politicians (Kostis 2018, 77). The external appointment of German governing authorities by the Great Powers was not welcomed by the Greek national assembly, but domestic authorities were powerless to prevent it. The assembly was subsequently dissolved, cementing the Germans’ absolute authority over the new Greek state. 

In the immediate post-liberation era, Greece could almost be described as a “Bavarian colony” (St. Clair 2008, 348). Distrustful of local political actors, the regency council filled most key positions of the new Greek state apparatus with fellow Bavarians. The other main institution of Greece’s central government, the cabinet, was completely subject to the will of the regency council and then the king. The principal duty of cabinet ministers was to advise the king and enforce his will, and they could not implement policy without his approval. Similarly, the bureaucratic organization of the state municipal structure gave local leaders very little power, and was essentially “an extension of central power in miniature” (Kostis 2018, 87). These features of the new government made it highly dependent on the will of the king after he came of age. 

Most of the Bavarians imported along with the regency council did not stay long in Greece and returned to their homeland; even after this, though, Bavarians still occupied many of the highest positions in government, thus remaining the primary architects of state policy. Otto himself proved to be opposed to the gradual removal of foreigners in the Greek government and took steps to ensure their continued presence. Although Greeks could serve in positions as high as cabinet minister, the nature of the position gave them little real power in determining state policy. Additionally, Greeks who held positions in higher levels of government were mostly expatriates, known as heterocthons, who were chosen due to their increased qualifications from having been educated elsewhere in Europe (Kostis 2018, 78). The presence of both Germans and German-educated Greeks at the upper levels of government was a testament to the perceived supremacy of the German model; the new Greek state could not be capably managed by autocthons, its local inhabitants. 

The foreign identity of the upper levels of Greek government and lack of widespread local public support necessitated an authoritarian style of governance. German control over the military became essential to maintaining German hegemony. Under German direction, Greece’s army and navy were dramatically reorganized and upgraded. Although most of the 3,500 German mercenaries who accompanied the regency council to Greece as a military entourage subsequently returned to Bavaria, Germans still held a majority of the officer positions within the Greek army as late as 1839 (Kostis 2018, 82). Additionally, policies of disarmament for local “irregular” troops – those outside the state military – ensured that the German-run state military would maintain a monopoly on military presence and state-sanctioned violence. 

Germany also reorganized education, architecture, archaeology, and urban planning; reforms that demonstrated their commitment to cultural governance and provided an opportunity for German philhellenistic influence. German influence was particularly widespread within the Greek University. Perhaps the best example of this phenomenon was the establishment of Athens Othonian University in 1837, according to principles of the German educational model codified by Friedrich von Thiers (1784-1860), a classical scholar and educationist, and Christian August Brandis (1790-1867), a philologist and historian of philosophy (Kokkinos et al. 2016, 154). German intellectualism completely dominated intellectual discourse within Greek educational institutions for the majority of the nineteenth century. At the time of the Athens Othonian University’s founding, virtually the entire personnel of the new university consisted of either German professors or Greek expatriates who had studied at German universities and institutions, (ibid.). Even as late as 1870, over half of the university’s Greek faculty had graduated from German or Austrian universities (ibid.). German intellectual influence extended beyond just Greece’s educational system, with firm presences in fields ranging from technology and mechanical engineering to science, medicine, and public health (ibid.). However, it was in the fields of architecture and urban planning that German intellectualism most significantly impacted the national identity of the new Greek state. 

Archaeology, Architecture, and Urban Planning

During the War of Independence, ruins and other material antiquities – physical symbols of both ancient Greece’s cultural legacy and modern Greece’s national self-determination – had become significant as “symbolic capital, to be exchanged for national legitimacy” (Athanassopoulos 2002, 292). Ownership over these antiquities, therefore, meant a claim on Greek national identity, thus necessitating protections of such items. In the pre-Independence era, foreign archaeologists had often simply appropriated their finds, claiming their own countries and institutions were better equipped to both preserve and appreciate such items; during the War of Independence, however, these antiquities’ newfound importance as national symbols necessitated the introduction of formal legislative protections (ibid.). The Greek revolutionary government passed various decrees between 1825 and 1829 safeguarding antiquities by limiting (or prohibiting) their foreign sale and exportation, though these decrees were frequently reevaluated and altered due to mounting pressure from other European powers (Voudouri 2017, 77-78). 

This heightened importance of material antiquities continued after the war ended. Ruins and antiquities gained newfound significance in the midst of the architectural nation-building project in the newly-independent Greece. Particularly within Athens, archaeology played a crucial role in German-led government policy and urban planning (Athanassopoulos 2002, 294). Greece’s first national archaeological legislation was introduced in 1834, and proclaimed that “all antiquities within Greece, as works of the Greek people, shall be regarded as national property of all the Greeks in general” (Voudouri 2017, 78-79). Despite the law’s practical limitations, which included various provisions for legal ownership of antiquities, the law still held great symbolic significance, and codified Greece’s establishment of a national cultural heritage (ibid.). After the ascension of King Otto, archaeological projects and urban planning initiatives involving material antiquities were increasingly state-supported due to Otto’s own classical education and philhellenic inclinations. Three individuals – Eduard Schaubert, Leo von Klenze, and Ludwig Ross – illustrate the various ways that this German intellectualism shaped both state policy and conceptions of Greek national identity. 

A Prussian architect who, along with the Berlin-educated Greek architect Stamatios Kleanthes, was first commissioned to remodel Athens’ urban landscape, Eduard Schaubert (1804-60) was one of the first individuals responsible for the introduction of German philhellenism to the Greek archaeological sphere. The two architects wedded their modern urban planning with archaeological excavation, both preserving uncovered ancient monuments and ensuring that no modern buildings were constructed on top of them (Athanassopoulos 2002, 294). To Schaubert, the preservation of ancient monuments was just as important as the construction of new buildings. This philhellenic-inspired architectural policy came to characterize the entire post-liberation building effort in Athens and was appropriated by Leo von Klenze in his subsequent policies. 

Von Klenze (1784-1864), the court architect of the Bavarian King Ludwig I, was commissioned by Otto in 1834 to oversee urban planning efforts in Athens. As the principal architect of archaeological and urban planning projects in Athens, von Klenze became one of the best representatives of the classical conservationism and revivalism that characterized the post-liberation nation-building movement in Greece. Two main goals characterized von Klenze’s subsequent state urban policies: (1) the excavation and conservation of antiquities, and (2) the removal of post-classical monuments and architectural elements. Von Klenze enacted measures to restore and preserve the Acropolis from modern construction, rejecting proposals to build new major buildings there (including a royal palace) and instead advocating to restore the Parthenon and other Acropolis monuments (Roche 2018, 559). German efforts to preserve and reconstruct Greece’s classical past, however, also necessitated the deconstruction of its post-classical past. Deconstructionist policies went hand in hand with preservationist ones. Von Klenze supported the removal of Byzantine and other post-classical monuments from the Acropolis and the greater Athens (Athanassopoulos 2002, 294); efforts to rebuild the temple of Athena Nike required the demolition of the existing Turkish rampart (Athanassopoulos 2002, 297). The urban planning of Athens increasingly reflected the German devotion to aesthetic principles: ancient buildings were separated from modern ones and were preserved as monuments rather than as functional parts of the city (Athanassopoulos 2002, 294-295). 

Another classically-educated German, Ludwig Ross (1806-59), became Curator, and later Director, of Greece’s first Archaeological Office in the Ministry of Education, overseeing the restoration of the ancient monuments in Athens (Fatsea 2017, 65). As Director, he became the carried out the policies developed by von Klenze, including restoration work on the Acropolis and the demolition of numerous post-classical monuments. Ross occupied his directorship from 1834-36 before resigning and becoming the newly-founded University of Athens’ first professor of archaeology (Athanassopoulos 2002, 295). His Manual of the Archaeology of the Arts, an “epitome of his combined interests in art, architecture, archaeology, history, and culture,” aimed to guide the future study of ancient archaeology (Fatsea 2017, 66). In the work, Ross aimed (1) to circumscribe the field of archaeology, which had, in the last few decades, become increasingly intertwined with philology in the German intellectual landscape, and (2) to examine the art of antiquity for its aesthetic qualities, rather than as just objects representative of historical craft (Fatsea 2017, 66). In the Manual, Ross also shaped the future neoclassical discourse by formulating different methods of classical artistic emulation, while still arguing the supremacy of the classical Greek art form (Fatsea 2017, 67). 

As nation-building became the priority of the Greek architectural and archaeological projects, the influence of Winckelmann’s original aesthetically-minded philhellenism was palpable. Winckelmann’s work “aimed at completeness and (neo-)classicizing integrity as it successfully restored the narrative of ancient art” (Orrells 2011, 173).By conserving Greece’s classical monuments and purging its post-classical ones, the Germans reestablished this unbroken narrative, strengthening the legitimacy of the modern Greek nation state while also maintaining an arguably slavish adherence to ancient Greek ideals. This adherence limited Greece’s potential for constructing a new and innovative national identity. To build a new, modern royal palace on the Acropolis near the Parthenon would have sent a powerful message about the continuous narrative of classical Greek history, but von Klenze’s rejection of such proposals in favor of restoring the Parthenon indicated that German ideological statecraft preferred to formulate Greek national sovereignty by excavating and emphasizing its ties to its ancient past. The Germans continued to conceive of Greek cultural value as being embodied by ancient relics. 

The intellectual priorities of these German-driven state policies in architecture and urban development again exposed the liminality of the modern Greek cultural identity. German construction of Greek national identity depended on the excavation and elevation of Greece’s ancient monuments. This process, however, assumed a seamless narrative between the new modern Greek state and its ancient past that did not exist. The presence of architectural elements from intervening periods of Greek history, whether Byzantine, medieval, or Ottoman, undermined the strength of one continued Greek national identity empowered by ideological formulations such as the “continuity thesis.” To the Germans, these previously unacknowledged periods of Greek history made Greece “both holy and polluted…holy as the mythic ancestor of European culture and polluted by the taint of the Turks, viewed by Europeans as the embodiment of barbarism and evil” (Athanassopoulos 2002, 280). To reestablish this continuity, palimpsest monuments needed to have their non-classical elements erased. 

However, numerous prominent Greeks were influenced by German philhellenism in their own actions and policies. Ross’ successor as director of the Archaeological Office, an Athenian autocthon named Kyriakos Pittakis (1798-1863), despite lacking formal archaeological training, had developed an apparently unmatched zeal for antiquities, due to his extensive collaborations with German and other European archaeologists (Athanassopoulos 2002, 295). Besides serving as Director of the Archaeological Office, Pittakis also helped found the Archaeological Society of Athens, and singlehandedly saved various antiquities across Athens and Attica from modern infrastructure developments (Athanassopoulos 2002, 296). Similarly, Alexandros Rizos Rangavis, a heterecthon from Constantinople educated in Munich and Bucharest, held positions at both the Ministry of Education and the University of Athens, and was also a founding member of the Archaeological Society. In a speech at the Society’s inaugural meeting, he echoed the prevailing German view of Greece as a continuous narrative of classical grandeur interrupted by a lengthy “period of enslavement”, the remains of which “had no place in the cultural heritage of the new nation” (Athanassopoulos 2002, 297). 

The best personification of the integration of German intellectual and philhellenic ideals into Greek national identity in the nation-building period was Stephanos Koumanoudis (1818-99). An Adrianopolic Greek who had studied at German universities in Berlin and Munich, Koumanoudis became a prominent figure in the intellectual circles of Othonian Athens due to his “pro-classicist views, consisting of an amalgam of European rationalism, German Idealism, and Greek nationalism” (Fatsea 2017, 69). His works, which explicitly invoked Winckelmann, argued that a glorious Greek revival and the development of resilient modern Greek national identity required a return to the artistic forms of classical Greece, accessible via neoclassicism, as formulated by western European authors. His “bipolar” conceptions of Greek art distinguished between the ancient, “western,” “Greek,” and the Byzantine, “eastern,” “non-Greek” (ibid.). For Koumanoudis, a Greek artistic revival was not possible without the subversion of the latter category. 

Phasing out the German

Although Greece still remained highly dependent on the support of European powers, as the nineteenth century wore on, Greeks gradually assumed greater degrees of leadership within their own country, and the Germans were gradually phased out of the state apparatus. As mentioned previously, many of the Bavarians and other Germans who had arrived in Greece to manage the new state did not remain long. Additionally, domestic rebellions soon undermined the German influence embodied by King Otto’s absolute monarchy. Of the various rebellions that occurred during the Othonian period, two are particularly notable for their results: the first, which occurred in September 1843, resulted in the creation of a representative legislative body and a constitutional charter of monarchical authority, both of which effectively limited King Otto’s authority and transformed the Greek monarchy from an absolute one to a constitutional one. The second rebellion resulted in the deposing of King Otto on October 10, 1862 and the overthrow of the Bavarian dynasty in Greece. This was perceived by many as a symbolic reclamation of national Greek self-determination. 

For many Germans, the symbolic overthrow of German hegemony – via the deposing of King Otto – removed any hope of future German-led excavations in Greece (Bohotis 2017, 122); however, despite Otto’s expulsion, the Greeks would continue collaborating and maintaining close, if somewhat tenuous, ties with the Germans, particularly in fields such as archaeology. In the post-Othonian era, the increased prominence of parliamentarism in Greece and growing nationalist sentiment prompted Germans to adopt a more clientelist attitude toward Greece: archaeological projects were typically organized as collaborations between the two countries, had occurred largely at German expense, and would guarantee at least most of the finds to Greece. Despite these less-than favorable conditions, the Germans still enjoyed increasingly preferential treatment in archaeological matters relative to other European powers. 

Perhaps the best example of these changing political dynamics was the German excavations at Olympia, which began in October 1875 after more than two decades of negotiations and postponements due to European geopolitical upheavals. The Prussian historian and archaeologist Ernst Curtius (1814-96) led the excavations with support from both the Prussian King Wilhelm I and the Reichstag, which signifies a shift toward a new era of “grand-scale” archaeology and “cultural diplomacy” between Greece and Germany (Marchand 1996, 84). Through providing the Germans with exclusive digging rights at Olympia, Greece secured a closer political relationship with this major European power as well as secured for Greece a “future friendly position toward Greek demands regarding the Eastern question:” the method of partitioning former Ottoman territories as the empire continued to decline (Bohotis 2017, 125-126). German excavations at Olympia would continue until 1881, and they remained a symbol of Greco-German cooperation. 

For German intellectuals and philhellenes, the establishment of the Modern Greek nation represented the realization of a dream several generations in the making. Spurred on by the promise of a grand revival of ancient Greece and its cultural legacy in the form of the newly-independent Greek state, German intellectuals, who occupied many of the highest positions within the Greek state apparatus, exerted a particularly strong influence in fields such as education, archaeology, and urban planning. Influenced by the German philhellenism of its leaders, the Greek state enacted policies of classical conservationism and revivalism, which shaped the development of Greek national identity in accordance with this same German intellectualism; throughout the nation-building period, however, German direct influence in Greece declined as Greeks gradually assumed control over their own government. Despite this decline, the Greco-German relationship was still collaborative, especially within the realms of archaeology. The next period of Greek history characterized by the overt imposition of German ideological hegemony was in the context of armed conflict with Nazi Germany, which was on a much greater scale than before. The racial ideology touted by Germany’s Nazi regime appropriated and manipulated the cultural peculiarities of the Greco-German relationship that had developed since the advent of German philhellenism itself. 

V.   Nazism and the Occupation Era

Creating a Racial Ideology

Wickelmann’s veneration of Ancient Greece laid the foundation of German philhellenism and shaped decades of subsequent neoclassical discourse, in turn inspiring many Germans to support Greece during its War of Independence. His obsession with Greek aesthetics also created a reductive, and therefore potentially dangerous, form of philosophy predicated on admiration of Greek visual ideals. Furthermore, his anthropological conception of Greek art as an organic product of Greek cultural civilization included explicit appeals to a racialized notion of Greek identity which Winckelmann saw as superior to that of its peer-nations. For example, his considerations of intermarriage between Greeks and other races like Georgians and Kadardinskians ascribed a moral and productive quality to the Greek race: one that was diluted and lessened by intermarriage with non-Greek peoples (Winckelmann 1766, 20-21, 25-26).^[4]Wolf held similarly anthropological and racialized views of Greek superiority, and this was reflected in his conception of classical philology. Wolf explicitly excluded other ancient cultures such as the Egyptians and Persians from his Altertumswissenschaft, on account of their purported inferior Geistescultur (“intellectual culture”) compared to that of the Greeks or Romans (Marchand 1996, 20-21). 

Between the rise of the Nazi regime and the German Occupation of Greece in 1941, the intellectual landscape that shaped so much of Germany’s foreign policy changed greatly. The Germans had abandoned their singular humanistic obsession with the Greek form in favor of racial politics that centered on the supremacy of the “German man,” as “antiquity, under the National Socialist regime, no longer represented the source of European norms, but had become merely a storehouse of forms to be ransacked for aesthetic effect or political self-legitimation…the culmination of the antihistoricist pedagogy and aestheticizing Winckelmania of the late 1920s” (Marchand 1996, 341). The regime’s funding of a complete edition of Winckelmann’s works that was to be read as part of Nazi youth education only underscored both the racialized elements of Winckelmann’s formulations and their renewed importance in the Nazi era (Roche 2018, 550). German racial science, in its asserting of a doctrine of blood kinship between the ancient Greeks and modern German race, had cast the former as “pure Aryans”, and the latter as the heirs to Greek antiquity (Roche 2018, 547). The fusion of German intellectual contemplations of the Greek aesthetic ideal and contemporary racial science mutated the Neoclassicist philosophy shaped by German scholars such as Ludwig Ross into a “liberal-minded cult of the Germano-Greek body” (Marchand 1996, 341). 

Although classical philology as a field declined in Germany after the rise of the Third Reich, many Germanophiles stressed the spiritual commonality and shared prehistorical blood ancestry of Germans and Greeks, granting a certain degree of security to classicists, especially since Hitler himself was an ardent admirer of Greek art and architecture (Marchand 1996, 350). Nevertheless, antiquity was only useful for Nazism insofar as it contributed to the Aryan historiography utilized by the Nazi regime. Accordingly, the intellectual and academic landscape in Germany was filtered and homogenized: numerous professors of classical philology in Germany, whose approaches to philology differed from the newly-proliferated theories of German prehistory and Nazi racial policies, were removed from their posts; others were removed simply on account of their race or religion; still others left voluntarily, preferring the safer academic environments of nations such as the United States or elsewhere in Western Europe (Marchand 1996, 345; Altekamp 2018). 

Classicists increasingly required state patronage to secure their jobs and ability to disseminate their works, and thus became increasingly pressured to align politically–and even intellectually–with the regime (Marchand 1996, 343). Within German schools and in the field of classical pedagogy, teachers increasingly conceived of ancient literature as a means of communicating to youth the present political importance of topics such as martial valor and racial purity (Roche 2018). Meanwhile, in the field of archaeology, the Nazis similarly appropriated the Winckelmannian ideal Greek male, with his white marble construction and characteristic musculature and masculinity, as the exemplary Aryan man who formed the foundation of Nazi racial politics. Just as had been the case in the late eighteenth century with Winckelmann, Germans had appropriated ancient Greek ideals and amplified their corporeal aspects.

As aforementioned, Greco-German interactions following the overthrow of King Otto and the Bavarian dynasty had continued, particularly in the field of archaeology. Additionally, prior to the German invasion of Greece, under the Nazi regime, German scientists had made numerous expeditions to Greece for paleontological, geological, and anthropological research, with hopes to identify the feasibility of German “modern colonization,” which would work to further German economic interests in the Balkans (Zarifi 2016, 218). German scientists would continue their examinations of the Greek landscape over the course of the next decade, frequently seeking out colleagues in Greek organizations like Athens University and the Athenian Academy of Science for collaboration (Zarifi 2016, 225-226). The most overt display of pre-invasion cultural dialogue between Greece and Germany occurred in the form of the 1936 Berlin Olympics. 

The Berlin Olympics were an ideological spectacle that showcased both Nazi propaganda – illuminating conceptions of German self-image – and German prowess. The 1936 Olympics also introduced the torch relay, now a staple of the modern Olympics, which consisted of lighting the Olympic torch in Greece, and relay to and arrival at the Olympic stadium in Berlin. In fact, the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda developed this torch relay specially for the 1936 Olympics (Wildmann 2018, 74). Leni Riefenstahl’s subsequent documentary on the Berlin Olympics, Olympia – The film of the 11^th Olympic Games Berlin 1936, best represents how the Germans, under the Nazi regime, appropriated Ancient Greek ideals, using them as philosophical and ideological foundations of Nazi thought, while simultaneously showcasing how these foundations were manipulated to serve the goals of German hegemony. 

The regime commissioned Riefenstahl – one of the most famous filmmakers of the period and an ardent Nazi sympathizer – to create numerous propaganda films, including Olympia. The first part of the film, entitled “Festival of Nations,” opens with the ruins of the Acropolis and ancient statues, before transitioning into athletic performances of a living athlete, played by the German decathlon-champion Erwin Huber (Riefenstahl 1938). These ancient statues include representations of Greek gods, mythical heroes, and great historical figures. The introduction of Huber’s character occurs after a transition from a shot of the famous statue of the Myron discus thrower, whose position Huber assumes (see Appendix, Figure 1). The progression of antique figures is presented as “a genealogical sequence culminating in Huber himself” (Wildmann 2018, 68). Similarly, Riefenstahl’s portrayal of the torch relay culminates with the immolation of a “Greek” torchbearer and accompanying female athletes, followed by his symbolic rebirth from the flames, which occurs in the Olympic stadium in Berlin (see Appendix, Figure 2). Each of the two depictions illustrates one half of the Nazi conception of the Greco-German relationship: in the former, the physical prowess of the German athlete is presented as both the modern incarnation of and heir to the mythical greatness and aesthetic grandeur of Greek antiquity. In the latter, the Olympic flame in Berlin is the site of rebirth for the prototypical “classical” Greek. As expressions of German self-image, the 1936 Berlin Olympics and Reifenstahl’s Olympia showcased and celebrated a national German ideology rooted in the intellectual appropriation of Ancient Greece and its ideals. 

By early 1941, it had become apparent that Germany intended to aid its fellow Axis power, Italy, by invading Greece, which had been at war with Italy since October of the previous year and had succeeded in both repelling Italian advances from Albania and in capturing portions of Albania itself. The Greek response to the threat of invasion and occupation was a mixture of fear and national pride. Perhaps journalist Georgios Vlachos expressed the most important articulation of these sentiments in the period immediately leading up to the German Occupation in his March 8, 1941 “Open Letter to A. Hitler,” which today is widely considered as the most moving work of Greek journalism, and is read by practically every Greek citizen.^[5] To Vlachos, despite its relatively small size and “naive” status as a modern nation, Greece displayed a powerful obedience to its own historical and cultural legacy through resisting the impending German invasion. His allusion to the Berlin Olympics of 1936 indicates both the Greek awareness of the cultural relationship with Germany and the freshness of the event in Greek national consciousness: the Germans had, through their assumption of the Olympic torch, appropriated the ancient Greek custom of the Olympics, and now intended to turn this same custom against its creators. His characterization of Greece also indicates great national pride and self-awareness of Greece’s status as the cradle of civilization and the architect of democratic principles. Just as ancient Greece had served as a model for the Western world, now the modern Greek state was to be a model of resistance against tyranny and a foreign empire that had appropriated Greek culture. The work’s cemented status within Greek national consciousness only confirms the national resonance of Vlachos’s words. 

The Greek spirit and commitment to oppose the German offensive was also characterized by the brevity of Prime Minister Koryzis’s February 18 response to the Germans via Alexander Rangavis, his ambassador in Berlin: “We will fight” (Stassinopoulos 1997, 81). The words of both Vlachos and Koryzis recall the famous reply of the ancient Athenians to the envoys of the invading forces during the Persian Wars, described by the ancient historian Herodotus: “We know of ourselves that the power of the Mede is many times greater than our own…Yet we have such a hunger for freedom that we will fight as long as we are able” (Herodotus 1987, 610). Like Herodotus’s Athenians, Vlachos represents the Greeks as militarily outmatched, yet fiercely defiant against an impending invasion by a foreign imperial power; while Greece has little hope of success against the foreign invaders, its defiance against oppressive hegemony is significant. 

The German Occupation of Greece

The Occupation of Greece began with Germany’s invasion of the country from Bulgaria and Yugoslavia on April 6, 1941. The German invasion of Greece resulted in the country’s swift capture within two months, though German forces notably suffered more damages and casualties than had been predicted by either side. Greece was subsequently divided into three occupied areas, split among Germany, Italy, and Bulgaria. Germany itself retained control over some of Greece’s most strategically important areas, which included Athens and Attica, Crete, the Aegean islands, and Central and Western Macedonia. The Occupation lasted until October 1944, and was marked by intense retributive cruelty against the Greeks, particularly in Crete, the last site of Greek resistance: entire villages were burned; German confiscation of agricultural products led to widespread starvation (now known in Greece as the Great Famine); Axis demands in 1942 for a massive loan of 1.5 billion drachmae per month from the Bank of Greece led to rampant inflation, crippling the Greek economy.^[6] The German reign of terror was systematic and efficient, and it is estimated that out of a total population of roughly 7,500,000, around 300,000 Greeks perished during the Occupation (Kostis 2018, 302). With the Greek state being subsequently run by a series of collaborationist governments, the task of resistance fell chiefly on the Greek people themselves via spiritual defiance and organized resistance groups. 

Besides the various tools of oppression typically employed by the Nazi regime in occupied countries – economic devastation, widespread famine, corruption of the media and other public institutions– the Greeks suffered from additional cultural humiliations imposed by the occupying German forces. The conceived spiritual and blood kinship between the Nazis and the ancient Greeks “resulted in a widespread presumption that Germans had a right to control Greek heritage, even in its most tangible forms” (Altekamp 2018, 312). In practice, this resulted in massive encroachments on Greek national sovereignty by the occupiers. Once again, German archaeological projects flourished as the conquerors, headed by the efforts of individuals such as the German Archaeological Institute’s president Martin Schede, sponsored renewed campaigns of archaeological excavation, preservation, and restoration (Marchand 1996, 353). Now these excavations often occurred without Greek government approval, even sometimes going against its wishes, encouraging the theft of antiquities, and, in extreme cases, even threatening Greek national security interests. One particular collaboration between the German Archaeological Institute and the German air force resulted in the German acquisition of over 11,000 aerial photographs of Greek territory (Altekamp 2018, 312). 

The liberation of Greece and the end of the Occupation began with the German retreat from Athens on October 12, 1944 and its later retreat from the remainder of the mainland by the end of that month; the economic devastation, widespread loss of life, and symbolic cultural indignities endured by the Greek people at the hands of the Germans would, however, remain seared into the Greek national consciousness for generations to come. Both Greece and Germany would undergo profound political and economic changes before their eventual cultural and ideological conflict would be reignited by the onset of the Euro Crisis in the early 2010s, dredging up the hallmarks of Greek suffering in the minds of Greek people by once again pitting Greece against Germany and its ideological hegemony. 

VI.   The Euro Crisis: A Greco-German Collision Course

Pre-Crisis Ascendancy

Despite various domestic destabilizations and periods of unrest – including a Civil War and a military dictatorship – as the twentieth century wore on, Greece gradually continued on its course of economic growth and political integration with Europe. In 1981, Greece became the tenth member state of the European Economic Community (EEC); with the signing of the Treaty of Maastricht on February 7, 1992, Greece, along with the other eleven European member states that comprised the EEC at the time, became a member of the newly-established European Union. Just nine years later on January 1, 2001, Greece adopted the euro single currency. Throughout this period of integration, access to the European Single Market facilitated massive capital flows into the country, leading to steady real per capita income growth and a decline in unemployment (Tsafos 2013, 43-44). The pre-Crisis trajectory of Greek growth and integration with Europe was hailed as a sign of Greek national progress and was a great source of national pride for the Greek people: upon Greece’s accession to the EEC, then-prime minister Georgios I. Rallis, a primary negotiator of the accession, proclaimed Greece that “no longer [was] the ‘missing Balkan country’, ignored by everybody, and [now it had become] equal [sic.] to the great countries of the West” (Kostis 2018, 365); regarding the adoption of the euro currency, then-Finance Minister Ioannis Papandoniou proclaimed that these changes would “place Greece firmly at the heart of Europe” (BBC News 2001). 

This narrative of Greek economic and political ascendancy culminated in Greece’s hosting of the 2004 Summer Olympic Games in Athens.^[7] Various aspects of the Games, ranging from its motto, “welcome home”, mascots and other visual symbols, and opening ceremony emphasized the triumphant expression of Greece’s cultural legacy: at long last, the Olympics had returned to their birthplace (The International Olympic Committee 2004). The Olympics were also a landmark demonstration of Greek productive capabilities – this was the first time a “small country was faced with such a complex organizational and technological project” – and facilitated the improvement of infrastructure in Athens as well as around other parts of the country (Kostis 2018, 385). In the eyes of the Greek people and international community, Greece had finally achieved the levels of development, integration, and cultural pride it had sought since its establishment as a modern nation. As an exclusive member of the ongoing European Union, Greece had joined the ranks of the Europe’s most developed and influential nations as a marshal of a future of European integration and progress, triumphantly reclaiming its cultural patrimony, which it showcased while hosting the countries of the world at the 2004 Olympics. This sweeping narrative of Greek ascendancy overlooked brewing financial problems that did not concretely manifest until five years later, when the economic fallout from the global financial crisis provided the sufficient triggers to push Greece, along with the rest of Europe, into crisis. 

Greek financial instability had been growing long before the rising borrowing costs and declining access to financing connected to the global financial crisis occurred, making Greece’s national debt levels unsustainable. Among its principles of integration, the Treaty of Maastricht had outlined “fiscal convergence criteria” for EU member states that would facilitate the successful adoption of the euro (Council on Foreign Relations, 2018): Greece had been unable to adopt the euro currency during its initial launch in 1999, as it had not met this pre-established criteria.^[8] Even Greece’s belated welcome to the eurozone in 2001 was allowed only via exemption from the fiscal convergence criteria which, Greece – with its higher levels of inflation and public spending at that time – had still not met.^[9] Greece’s budget deficit doubled between 2000 and 2004, and its debt-to-GDP ratio rose due to decreased state revenues stemming from lower taxes, rising public spending and the costs of the 2004 Athens Olympics.^[10] Some of these issues, as well as Greece’s growing trade deficit, were at least partly attributable to the institutional structure of the eurozone (Tsafos 2013, 44). Due to its inclusion of both more-productive northern European and less-productive southern European economies, the eurozone facilitated the development of large trade imbalances between the two groups. To finance mounting trade deficits, southern European countries such as Greece increasingly turned to foreign lending, leading to the substantial buildup of sovereign debt. 

During this period of growth, the Greek political party system was dominated by two parties, New Democracy (ND) and Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK), who alternated power. After the reinstitution of democracy, conservative ND governments enacted policies that prioritized trade protectionism, widespread nationalization of failing firms, and inflation containment, despite an ongoing economic slowdown indicating the conclusion of the postwar growth period. These government policies overburdened the state-controlled banking system and caused the overall size of the public sector to swell. Widespread trends in economic liberalization, heightened calls for social change, and the broad appeal of PASOK to the “petty bourgeois social constellation” of Greek society enabled a landslide PASOK victory in the 1981 elections (Kalyvas 2015, 131). The PASOK government adopted a strategy of expansionary fiscal policy and public sector growth, leading to huge benefits for both farmers and low-income wage earners (Kalyvas 2015, 144). However, these policies also bolstered aforementioned problems surrounding mounting trade deficits, soaring inflation, and public debt: problems which subsequently persisted over the next two decades under both parties’ governments. 

The Euro Crisis

After government elections in October 2009, the new administration under prime minister George Papandreou revised previous estimates of that year’s public deficit from 6 to 12.7 percent, resulting in a swift downgrade of Greek bonds by international credit-rating agencies. This, in turn, “accelerated an exodus of mostly foreign investors in Greek government debt” (Kostis 2018, 392). With the government thus unable to service its debt, Greece risked sovereign default, prompting experts and public officials to consider a range of options, which included the very real possibility of a “Grexit” from the eurozone. Due to its inclusion in the eurozone, Greece’s options for crisis resolution were limited: its use of the euro single currency prevented Greece from exercising independent monetary policy, while the lack of an analogous eurozone fiscal policy meant there were even fewer methods of addressing potential sovereign default (Kostis 2018, 404). Greek financial instability also prompted a critical reexamination of the European integration project, which hitherto had been considered a widespread success, despite concerns about its economic sustainability present before the introduction of the euro (Frieden 1998). 

These underlying structural factors and constrained policy options set Greece, which now considered itself “an entity dominated by mechanisms of financial and political control”, on an ideological collision course with its creditors: in particular, Germany, the economic hegemon of the eurozone, whose banks were some of Greece’s primary creditors (Kalantzis 2015, 1042; Bulmer 2014). Within the eurozone, Germany occupied many of the most prominent positions of authority in both the supranational structure of the EU and the so-called “troika” of the EU, the ECB, and the IMF, whose 2010 “Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies” outlined a solution for resolving Greek debt. Under the terms of the Memorandum, Greece’s government would receive financial sponsorship of its debt from the ECB in exchange for the implementation of austerity, which included various structural reforms such as tax hikes and expenditure reductions: measures that were politically unpalatable to Greece and its people (Kostis 2018, 409). Citing the argument of ‘moral hazard’, Germany was also quick to dismiss other forms of crisis mitigation such as debt forgiveness or the implementation of ‘haircuts’ on investments by Greece’s creditors, which included German banks, preferring methods of crisis resolution that resembled its own domestic strategies (Tzogopoulos 2012, 6). 

Greece was certainly not the only country whose domestic crisis threatened the stability of the eurozone, being one of the group of at-risk countries derogatorily known as ‘PIIGS’ (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain); however, compared to that of its fellow European countries, the Greek crisis triggered a uniquely “unprecedented clash between the Hellenic Republic and Germany on both political and public opinion levels”, characterized by continuous cultural hostility between the two countries (Tzogopoulos 2013, 133-134). Crisis-era acrimonious relations between Greece and Germany were derived not just from disputes over economic policy and political hegemony, but also originated from culturally-supported blame narratives that ascribed essential qualities to both the Greek and German peoples, purporting to explain the characteristics of the ongoing crisis (Sierp et al. 2017, 1). Accordingly, Greco-German cultural dialogue during the Euro Crisis was unique in its production of, and reliance on, national cultural stereotypes, which both countries employed to contextualize the conditions of the current crisis both at home and abroad. These stereotyping phenomena were pervasive throughout all levels of Greek and German society, ranging from the most senior politicians to ordinary citizens. 

The Role of Mass Media

Since the earliest stages of the Greek crisis, German media has distinguished itself from its fellow European countries in terms of the volume of German journalism about Greece (see Appendix, Figure 3), as well as the nature of such content: from 2009-13, when compared their American, British, French, and Italian counterparts, Germany’s news institutions were some of most outspoken critics of Greece. Germany was also an outlier in terms of its production of satirical, offensive, and even hostile content about Greece: Germany’s media institutions were one of only two of the aforementioned nations whose media institutions suggested that Greece reduce its debt by selling its cultural monuments and islands (Tzogopoulos 2013, 103-105, 129). German cultural representations of the Greek crisis relied primarily on negative stereotypes of the Greek people, who became scapegoats for the ongoing crisis. German individuals and institutions ascribed a host of derogatory qualities to the Greek people, such as laziness, corruption, and profligacy. Greece was cast as the ‘black sheep’ of Europe, and this was reflected in the country’s portrayal in the international press (Kostis 2018, 393): German media outlets, such as the tabloid magazine Bild, amplified the thoughts and opinions of German citizens who, convinced that the Greek crisis was attributable to the Greek people, were resolved not to pay a single cent to help resolve it (Tzogopoulos 2013, 80). This resolve permeated throughout German society, as demonstrated by the results of a March 2010 poll on the first Greek bailout by the French company IFOP, which reported that almost 80 percent of German respondents were opposed to providing Greece with financial aid in the interests of European solidarity (Tzogopoulos 2013, 59). 

In addition to negative characterizations of Greece and its people, German individuals and institutions sought to contextualize these stereotypes using explanatory narratives of Greek culture. Bild provided pseudo-sociological accounts of Greek methods of corruption such as tax evasion (Tzogopoulos 2013, 110-111), while Der Spiegel, another German mainstream magazine, stressed the moral qualities of the ongoing crisis and prescribed austerity measures, which were presented as necessary disciplinary measures imposed on a ‘misbehaved’ populace. The failures of austerity were presented in a similar manner and were attributed to their lack of effective enforcement in Greece (Mylonas 2015, 259-260). German media institutions even compared the two countries directly, offering cultural explanations for Greece’s ongoing crisis and its greater severity compared to the crisis in Germany: in March 2010, the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung published a letter directed to former Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou which, in addition to articulating various stereotypes of the Greek people, described perceived cultural differences between Greek and German habits. These alleged differences included Germany’s longer working hours, lack of widespread corruption such as bribe culture, lower volume of pensions, and respect for the EU’s allocation of subsidies (Tzogopoulos 2013, 114-115). In all, the ongoing Greek crisis was seen in increasingly cultural terms: German media treated Greece’s financial woes treated as the product of elements of Greek culture itself, and thus was attributed to essential qualities of the Greek people writ large. 

The second component of German cultural representations of the Greek crisis was the simultaneous elevation and degradation of Greek cultural symbols. In an interview with Bild magazine, Josef Schlarmann, a senior member of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats, and Frank Schaeffler, a finance policy expert in the Free Democrats, addressed possible solutions for Greece’s public debt, proclaiming “[s]ell your islands, you Broke Greeks … and the Acropolis too!” (Bild 2010; Mylonas 2012, 650-651). The German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung expressed similar sentiments in a 2010 article entitled “Who will buy a Greek island?”, which commented on the value of various state-owned assets, such as the Acropolis and Greece’s approximately 3000 islands, and their potential sale, questioning, “is there a market for white ruins from ancient times?” (von Petersdorff 2010). Besides being generally callous and disrespectful of Greek culture and national identity, these statements implied that the sole objects of value in modern Greek society were its antiquities, national property, and cultural symbols. Furthermore, these statements reduced these national symbols to mere commodities and preached that, in order to save itself, Greece must sell off its cultural symbols and national sovereignty. 

By the summer of 2011, most Greeks had considered the 2010 Memorandum a failure, interpreting Germany’s insistence on conditional lending policies, promises for structural reforms, and austerity measures as not just ineffective, but as actively malicious. When referring to German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble in a February 15, 2012 interview, Greek President Karolos Papoulias proclaimed, “I don’t accept that my country is vilified by Mr. Schäuble. I don’t accept it as a Greek person. Who is Mr. Schäuble to humiliate Greece?” (Tzogopoulos 2012, 7). In this particular statement, Papoulias’s disagreement with Schäuble derives from his identity as a Greek citizen. Negative characterizations of German hegemony became omnipresent across the Greek political spectrum, ranging from the right-wing party LAOS’s leader George Karatzaferis’ descriptions of a “German domination” to the left-wing SYRIZA’s leader Alexis Tsipras’s descriptions of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s “economic chauvinism” (ibid.). 

By far the most provocative characterization of Germany – by both Greece and the international community writ-large – describes contemporary Germany as a rebirthed Nazi state. The legacy of German atrocities during the Nazi era is ingrained in the national identity and historical consciousness of several European countries, while accusations of renewed Nazism in response to German conduct have periodically been voiced throughout Europe since the fall of the regime itself (Droumpouki 2013, 190; Rosenfeld 2019). Nevertheless, the conditions of the euro crisis stoked and intensified anti-German sentiment predicated on characterizations of renewed Nazism: Greek citizens compared the limitation of Greece’s sovereignty under the conditions of the 2010 Memorandum to the Nazi occupation itself (Adler-Nissen 2017; Sierp et al. 2017), while German influence on the EU’s crisis response stoked fears of an impending economic “Fourth Reich”, with data from a VPRC poll in February 2012 indicated that 79 percent of polled Greeks had a negative view of Germany, 32.4 percent associated Germany with Nazism and the Third Reich, and 77 percent feared that Germany’s policies aimed at the creation of a Fourth Reich (Rosenfeld 2019, 274-275, 279; Tzogopoulos 2013, 134). Greek protests frequently invoked Nazi symbols to describe German actions: depictions of Angela Merkel during her October 9, 2012 visit to Athens for austerity talks depicted her with bloody fangs in full Nazi uniform (Sierp et al. 2017; Adler-Nissen 2017, 208), while a group of protestors, clad similarly in ‘Nazi’ uniforms, drove a makeshift Wehrmacht vehicle through the crowd (Kalantzis 2015, 1060). For some Greeks, insinuations or even explicit mentions of Nazism have become a defensive mechanism against foreign (read: German) criticism. The 2015 Greek referendum on the acceptance of the third bailout package even employed the same rhetoric used by the Greek people and press in the Second World War when Greece was faced with the prospect of Axis invasion in 1940 – “ΟΧΙ” (“NO”) – thus ascribing the refusal of the bailout package with the historical resonance of the Greek defiance against the Axis invasion (Mavrogordatos 2010, 132). 

Greek accusations of renewed Nazism have also infiltrated the more sober landscape of Greco-German economic dialogue via intensified Greek demands for wartime reparations. Although Greece received limited reparations from West Germany in 1960, Greeks have periodically argued the existence of vast sums of unpaid reparations still owed by Germany (Adler-Nissen 2017, 210). In the era of the euro crisis, these claims have been advanced even by high-ranking Greek politicians (Rosenfeld 2019). Former deputy prime minister Theodoros Pangalos implicitly attributed the Greek plight to historical German maltreatment, proclaiming “[the Nazis] took away the Greek gold that was in the Bank of Greece, they took away the Greek money and they never gave it back … I don’t say they have to give back the money necessarily but they have at least to say ‘thanks’” (Knight 2013, 154; Michealidou 2017, 97). As a defensive rhetorical tool that gives Greece economic leverage over Germany, claims of overdue German reparations augmented Greek anti-German cultural arguments with economic legitimacy by suggesting that the economic conditions of the current crisis could be contextualized and explained by cultural history. Although such arguments generally proved ineffective, they nonetheless reinforced public notions of the current crisis as a conflict between two nations, rather than as a systemic European problem. Portraying the euro crisis in this way was useful for both sides of the conflict: for Greece, explaining Greek debt using claims of unpaid reparations absolved it of its own financial mismanagement; for Germany, public perceptions of the Euro Crisis as a two-country conflict absolved it of its role in creating the flawed design of the eurozone. 

Just as Greek representations of the euro crisis emphasized its historical parallels with past crises such as the German Occupation, Greek characterizations of “oppressors” were distinctly “(poly)temporal”.(Knight 2013, 153). Germany’s exercise of hegemonic, “Nazi” policies was presented as a return to form, and as an expression of essential qualities of “German-ness” rooted in the oppression of its fellow European countries, Greece in particular (Sierp et al. 2017, 3). In one extreme example, a Greek conspiracy theory implied that in addition to her supposed affinity for Hitler, Angela Merkel was actually his genetic relative. In such views, “Merkel, as a contemporary national leader, belongs to an aesthetic and blood lineage of German-ness that includes Nazism as an inherent trait and depicts Hitler as an archetypical agnate” (Kalzantis 2015, 1053). Using the extreme historical stigma of Nazism, Greeks undermine contemporary German behavior by ascribing perceived defining characteristics of the German people to both explain and immediately discredit their current conduct. Referring to the ongoing crisis, a Trikala resident remarked: “[i]t is history repeating itself. The Germans do not want to compromise and will take everything they can from us. They caused us famine before; they will cause it again now. They treat Greece as their private ciftlik [colony]…It is another colonization” (Knight 2013, 154-155). The conservative politician Panos Kammeros proclaimed, “[w]e are Greeks…We defeated [the Germans] in the [Second World] War. We will also beat them in the Fourth Reich that they are attempting to push through” (Rosenfeld 2019, 279). 

In these cultural and historical understandings of the Greek financial crisis, we can see the vast toll of Greek history on its modern national identity. Ordinary Greek citizens contextualized the recent crisis as the latest expression of German and European cultural dominance over Greece, part of a cultural narrative that has persisted since the founding of the modern Greek state. Appeals to unpaid German war reparations and cultural cycles of German violence derive from formulations of Greek nationalism predicated on the notion of Greek victimhood at the hands of Germany. Greek oppression by outside forces has ingrained itself in Greek national identity: as one Kalampaka resident remarked,“[w]e are all descendants of the people who worked these plains…[n]ow I can begin to understand what my ancestors went through…It is exactly the same. Our fields are being ruled by outside forces…Greece has become the ciftlik of Europe” (Knight 2013, 154). These formulations of Greek national identity are cumulative and are a product of two centuries of repeated imposition of German intellectual, cultural, and ideological hegemony on Greece. 

Additionally, mass media is significantly influential as it is a space filled with constructive institutions, which, in addition to conveying national thoughts and opinions, actually create and shape them (Tzogopoulos 2015, 6). Visual representations of Greece showcasing antiquated, historical, or trivializing stereotypes have become ubiquitous in international mass media. The February 22, 2010 cover of the German tabloid magazine Focus depicted the famous Greek statue Aphrodite of Milos, clothed from the waste-down in a torn and dirty Greek flag, raising her middle finger. The title of the magazine, translated, reads: “Cheater in the Euro-Family”; the subtitle: “Greece is robbing us of our Money – and what about Spain, Portugal, Italy?” A subsequent May 3, 2010 cover depicted the same statue, again clad in the torn flag, but this time with her hand outstretched, the title reading, “Greece – and our Money!”, and the subtitle reading, “What to expect from Her” (see Appendix, Figure 4). Greece, represented by a classical statue, initially projects rude defiance, then demonstrates supplication; it begins as a heckler, cheating on its European “family” by not adhering to eurozone regulations and maintaining unsustainably high levels of public debt, but swiftly becomes a beggar coming to Germany for money, an action particularly pathetic given the magazine’s earlier depiction of Greek defiance. The sequential nature of the two covers aims to emphasize both the pathetic irony of this defiance, and of Europe’s subversion caused by Greek financial woes; the depiction of Greece giving the middle finger during the daytime, followed by its begging at dusk, highlights this reality while also reflecting the country’s worsening economic situation. 

Other graphic details of these two covers also reveal far more nuanced, personal sentiments about Greece, as expressed by a form of media catering to the views of ordinary German citizens. The depiction of Greece as Aphrodite is almost certainly no accident: among the deities of the Ancient Greek pantheon, Aphrodite is notorious for both her egocentrism and infidelity (Heinrich et al. 2017, 118), an aspect of her identity only reinforced by the February cover’s characterization of Greece as the “cheater” in the EU “family.” Notably, the text of these covers portrays the crisis as a “nation-state affair only,” rather than as a situation between Greece and the EU that affects the latter’s growth and development (Heinrich et al. 2017, 120) The February cover addresses the possibility of economic contagion by invoking specific EU member states, while the May cover depicts Greece as begging for German (rather than European) money. This method of portrayal could, of course, be a symptom of mass media’s tendency to simplify complex issues (in this case: the economic and political dynamics of the euro crisis) in order to make coverage of those issues more palatable to consumers. However, these portrayals seem to go beyond visual pragmatism, and reflect a cultural mindset. A common German intepretation of the euro cisis is less as a conflict between a foreign nation and a supranational governing structure and more as a conflict between two nations: the Federal Republic of Germany and the Hellenic Republic.

In both cases, the classical rendering of the statue’s façade contradicts the actions depicted. While statuesque representation of Greece’s ancient past still characterized views of the nation, that past has been corrupted: the statue’s posture and expression, typically noble and austere, are perverted and mocked through the addition of uncouth, pathetic gestures, while the serene grace of the white marble contrasts sharply with the tattered and sordid Greek flag covering its genitalia. These two covers portray Greece, in essence, as a perversion: a once-noble, yet damaged, ancient statue debased and corrupted by the addition of modern gestures and garments. While ancient Greece may have been the pinnacle of art and culture, the modern nation is defiant and suppliant, representative of an uncouth present only highlighted by its juxtaposition with its past. 

Another German magazine, Der Spiegel, published an issue in May 2012, entitled “Akropolis Adieu!” Its subtitle reads: “Why Greece has to leave the Euro now,” and the cover depicts the remains of an ancient column, topped with a shattered euro coin, half of which lies on the ground; the image is set against a backdrop of Greek ruins (see Appendix, Figure 5). The magazine issue’s title refers to a 1971 chanson that “describes the nostalgic farewell from Athens as an unrealistic dream location” (Heinrich et al. 2017, 120). Taken together, the cover and title’s message are clear: Greece’s glory, embodied by its antiquities, has been lost and can never be regained; the modern Greek reality is one of devastation, a decrepit version of its former glory that now threatens the destruction of the entire euro system, represented by the broken euro coin. As a whole, these three examples of German graphical media represent modern Greeks as a sort of “failed offspring” of their glorious ancient predecessors, whose financial instability is presented as not just dangerous to the entire eurozone, but also indicative of an inferior culture (Herzfeld 2016a, 12). 

Meanwhile, Greek citizens’ graphical depictions of German cultural stereotypes, while arguably less nuanced in their characterizations and methods, are equally illustrative. The German salvo in the form of the February 2010 Focuscover ignited a war of media stereotypes between the two countries; and in the context of this war, Greece has been perhaps an equally active participant. Characterizations of German politicians and other prominent figures as Nazis form the bedrock of stereotyping or censure of Germany by the Greek media. Just one day after the February 2010 Focus cover, the Greek conservative newspaper Eleftheros Typos answered with an article entitled: “The financial occupation of … the Fourth Reich is spreading.” The accompanying photo depicts Berlin’s Victory Column, a representation of the goddess Victory (a Roman analogue of the Greek goddess Nike) clasping a raised swastika (see Appendix, Figure 6). The newspaper cover’s inclusion of a small reproduction of the original Focus cover demonstrated the tit-for-tat nature of the Greek response: the Greeks were prepared to communicate using the same visual, trope-reductionist discourse as the Germans. This depiction of a German national symbol mocks the very foundations of German national identity, positing it as being rooted in Nazism, while also demonstrating how Greeks themselves have internalized German conceptions of national identity that are rooted in classical symbols. 

On February 10, 2012, just after the Greek government agreed to a second bailout conditioned upon similar mandates of increased austerity, budget cuts, and structural reforms, the Greek newspaper Dimokratia published an issue with a cover article entitled “DACHAU!” with the subtitle, “Memorandum Macht Frei” (“Memorandum Makes You Free”), an adaptation of the Nazi slogan “Arbeit Macht Frei” (“Work Makes You Free”), which was written above numerous concentration camps during the Second World War. The cover also featured an image of Merkel, depicted in Nazi uniform (see Appendix, Figure 7). Aside from its more obvious accusations, such as Merkel’s supposed embodiment of renewed Nazism, the article depicted the German-led second bailout as tools to extract Greek labor, ensuring suffering, and death through its austerity measures. By likening the Second Memorandum to the Dachau concentration camp, the article also construed German policies as being racially motivated: just as the Nazis aimed at the persecution and destruction of the entire Jewish race, so too were contemporary Germans attempting to do the same to the Greeks. As with past examples of graphical media during the euro crisis, this cover contributed to Greek public perceptions that the crisis demonstrated historical continuity with prior German domination over Greece.

VII.   Conclusion

A History of Mutual Misunderstanding

Greek understandings of the Greco-German relationship emphasize history: the formation of the modern Greek state that was achieved with the support of German intellectualism. Greece’s new state apparatus was filled with German intellectuals who became the architects of Greek state policies that shaped the new nation according to German conceptions of Greek identity. During the Second World War, Germans appropriated ancient Greek culture to create  racialized ideological foundations that supported the Nazi goal of European conquest, which Germany in turn used to brutally suppress Greece under the Occupation. To Greeks in the euro crisis, German-designed EU bailout packages, with their mandated austerity policies and structural reforms, simply represented the latest manifestation of German domination over Greece that has characterized the Greco-German relationship since its inception. Greek crisis-era criticisms of Germany appeal to this historical legacy of German dominion over Greece to explain the current Greek plight: Germans oppressed Greece during the crisis with their current economic ideology because, throughout modern Greek history, Germans have always oppressed Greece with their ideology, be intellectual, philhellenic, racial, military, or other ideologies.

Meanwhile, German understanding of the Greco-German relationship emphasizes culture: German philhellenism fixated on the supremacy of ancient Greek culture, and the German philhellenes contributed to the Greek War of Independence in hopes of orchestrating its rebirth in the form of the modern Greek state. Germans who arrived in Greece, however, were greeted by Greeks whose culture paled in comparison to the ancient predecessors whose art had served as the foundations of contemporary German intellectualism. In response, Germans sought to remake the new Greek nation in accordance with this supposedly superior culture. During the Second World War, Germans appropriated elements of ancient Greek culture to serve their own racial ideology, one which conceived of the modern Greeks as wholly inferior to their ancient forebears. Finally, in the euro crisis, Germans viewed Greek financial instability as a betrayal of European values — values shaped by the Germans themselves through their stature, both economic and political, within the project of European integration. German media then fixated on perceived elements of modern Greek-ness, such as “laziness,” “profligacy,” and “corruption,” to explain why the Greeks had descended into crisis. These characterizations were supported by equally reductive and stereotypical accounts of Greek behavior that explained this “degenerate” culture — a culture so far removed from that of the ancient Greeks, whose monuments serve as perennial reminders of lost grandeur. For the Germans, the modern Greek nation has always failed to live up to its cultural legacy, chiefly due to conceptions of the modern Greek state were born out of idealizations of ancient Greece. 

At its core, modern Greek history is a history of pseudo-colonialism, and appropriate interpretations of it demand acknowledging the numerous ways the Greek state, its people, and national culture and consciousness have been shaped by the hegemonic, oppressive, even brutal actions of Western civilization. The Greco-German relationship itself epitomizes this dynamic of pseudo-colonization: throughout the last two and a half centuries of Greco-German cultural interaction, Germany has continued to impress its own ideology, policies, and conceptions of Greek identity upon the Greeks themselves, without appropriately accounting for the features of modern Greek identity that affect the capacity of the Greeks to live up to these antiquated, idealized conceptions. This dynamic has forced Greece to carry the burden of its incalculable contributions to human cultural development while simultaneously exiling the country to Europe’s economic and geopolitical margins. 

The Way Forward

The very existence of modern Greece will always carry with it the burden of yearning to live up to the grandeur of the nation’s ancient cultural history. While there may be no clear path to reconciling Greece’s past and present, Greece and Germany must continue to move beyond their own “eternal recurrence” (a concept considered by both ancient Greek philosophers and the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche) of misunderstandings that have characterized their relationship throughout modern history, and these powers must work toward a durable rapprochement. Worsening economic conditions in Greece exacerbated much of the cultural hostility in both countries, so it follows that as Greece continues its path of economic recovery, these sentiments should subside. In this respect, Greece has made great progress, having hit several financial benchmarks in the ‘post-crisis’ era: Greece received its final crisis-oriented loan disbursement from its European creditors via the European Stability Mechanism in 2018 and reentered the international capital markets in 2019 with its first sale of bonds since 2010, before the first bailout. Additionally, the severity of the crisis in Greece was exacerbated by the lack of European policy options to facilitate Greece’s economic recovery; as Europe moves toward further integration, it can be hoped that the use of financial tools such as Eurobond issuance will shield Greece from a future financial collapse and renewed conflict with Germany.

These recent economic developments do not, however, change the fundamental nature of the Greco-German relationship. After all, the conflict between the two countries during the Euro Crisis had followed a period of calmer Greco-German relations. The Euro Crisis laid bare longstanding cultural tensions between the two countries, rooted both in diverging views of history and flawed perceptions of culture. One of the most important steps toward Greco-German rapprochement is challenging the cultural biases, stereotypes, and misinformation that distorted the Euro Crisis into a culture war between the two countries. For example, not enough people know that despite how some stereotypes regard Greeks people as “lazy,” Greeks worked more hours per week on average both before and after the Crisis than their German counterparts (Eurostat 2020). 

Within both countries, governments and media institutions should seek to present sympathetic, open-minded accounts of both their own national policies and their understanding of their counterpart nation. Similarly, national representatives on both sides should seek greater collaboration and mutual understanding, instead of resorting to cultural scapegoating. Most importantly, both countries must strive to cultivate an understanding of modern Greece as a country whose ancient legacy is the source of much cultural pride, but whose ancient and modern identities are markedly distinct. While modern Greece may fail to reflect the idealized culture of its ancient counterpart, the Greek people are undeniably entitled to be the principal determinants of their national identity, and they deserve to do so in their own way.

Appendix

Figure 1.         The Myron discus thrower and German decathlon-champion Erwin Huber from Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia – The film of the 11^th Olympic Games Berlin 1936

Figure 2.         The “Greek” torchbearer from Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia – The film of the 11^th Olympic Games Berlin 1936

Figure 3.         European Media Coverage of Greece in political opinion-forming newspapers

Newspapers Represented: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Süddeutche Zeitung (Germany), The Times and The Guardian (UK), Le Figaro and Le Monde (France), Il Corriere della Sera and La Repubblica (Italy)

Figure 4.         Focus covers from February 22, 2010 (no. 8) and May 3 (no. 18).

Figure 5.         Der Spiegel cover from May 14, 2012 (no. 20).

Figure 6.         Eleftheros Typos issue from February 23, 2010.

Figure 7.         Dimokratia issue from February 10, 2012.

References

^[1] Winckelmann’s views on Ancient Greece and its art are perhaps best summarized: “From all this it appears, not only that Greece furnished the noblest and most graceful models for perfecting the arts now under consideration, but that the Painters and Sculptors had, from the turn of the Grecian manners, and the nature of their public institutions, the best possible opportunities of deriving from these models all the instruction they were adapted to administer. These opportunities returned constantly with their shews, games, and festivals, which were very numerous” (Winckelmann 1766, 31-32). 

^[2] See Marchand 1996, 29: “[Humboldt] argues that the Greeks had developed the most natural, and at the same time, the most ideal sculpture; poetry that like no other raised reality to ideality; religion stripped of idolatry and idealizing man; universally enviable mores; and a polity that fostered good breeding and wealth without plunging itself into oligarchy or plutocracy.”

^[3] See Penn 1938, 642: “His sympathy and generosity made Munich one of the most active centres of propaganda and relief work. He encouraged Greek studies, the publication of Greek news, gave money, assisted refugees, allowed his officers unlimited leave of absence to serve in the war, and was generous in the matter of educating Greek children…During 1827 King Louis gave 100,000 francs in addition to sums contributed previously, and also in addition to funds being collected in Geneva. Nor did his interest flag as the struggle grew more and more protracted.”

^[4] See, also, Marchand 1996, 10: “Winckelmann described the art of the Greeks as an entity unto itself, with its own rules and properties. Making art dependent on its surrounding climate and geography, as well as on the political culture in which it developed, Winckelmann implied that only certain nations of temperate climate and suitable racial stock could produce beautiful art; and only certain facial types, he argued, made fit subjects for beautiful art.”

^[5] See excerpt from Vlachos 2005: “You – they always say – will try to invade Greece. And we? We are a naive nation still and we do not believe this. We do not believe that an army with a long history and tradition – which even its enemies do not deny – will want to soil itself with a horribly wretched act. We do not believe that a heavily armed State of 85 million people fighting to create “a new world order” will ask for an attack on a small Nation that is fighting for its freedom against an Empire of 45 million…If called upon, the army of Greece, whatever it is that remains free, will stand in Thrace the way it stood in Epirus. It will fight in Thrace as it did in Epirus. It will fight hard. It will die. And it will await the return from Berlin of the runner who came here five years ago and took with him the flame from Olympia, only to return with a torch to light a fire that threatens this land which may be small but is also great. This land that taught the world to live will now teach it how to die.”

^[6] In March 1942–an era characterized by Germany and Italy’s demand for Greek loans–Greek budgeted yearly income was roughly 14 billion drachmae. The ensuing inflation continued until Greece’s liberation from occupation, and is estimated to have been even more severe than the inflation in Germany during the Weimar Republic (Stassinopoulos 1997, 148).

^[7] Greece had previously hosted the Games in Athens in 1896 – the first occurrence of the modern Olympic Games – making Athens one of only four cities to have done so twice.

^[8] The fiscal criteria required national inflation below 1.5 percent, a budget deficit below 3.0 percent, and a debt-to-GDP ratio below 60 percent. At the time of the euro currency launch, Greece’s national inflation was 2.1 percent (Council on Foreign Relations, 2018; International Monetary Fund 2020). 

^[9] At the time of Greece’s adoption of the euro, national inflation was around 4 percent; despite being publicly proclaimed to be 1.5 percent, the actual Greek budget deficit was 8.3 percent; and Greek debt-to-GDP ratio was 116 percent (Little 2012; Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development 2019). Greece’s financial misrepresentations would not be revealed until 2004, when then-Finance Minister George Alogoskoufis revised Greece’s 2000 budget deficit from 2 percent to 4.1 percent, and indicated that Greek deficit figures had increased by at least 2 percent each succeeding year (Carassava 2004). 

^[10] Greece’s debt-to-GDP ratio had increased from 80.1 percent in 1992 to 102.9 percent by the conclusion of 2004; the Athens Olympics cost Greece a total of 8.954 billion euros, approximately 4.6 percent of Greek 2004 GDP (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development 2019; Embassy of Greece 2004). 

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Vlachos, Georgios. “An open letter from Kathimerini founder Georgios Vlachos to Hitler.” Ekathimerini.com. Last modified October 31, 2005. https://www.ekathimerini.com/35532/article/ekathimerini/news/an-open-letter-from-kathimerini-founder-georgios-vlachos-to-hitler.

von Petersdorff, Winand. “Wer kauft eine griechische Insel?” [Who will buy a Greek island?] Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Last modified April 25, 2010. https://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/konjunktur/staatsbankrott-wer-kauft-eine-griechische-insel-1969140.html.

Voudouri, Daphne. “The legal protection of antiquities in Greece and national identity.” In Ancient Monuments and Modern Identities: A Critical History of Archaeology in 19th and 20th Century Greece, edited by Sofia Voutsaki and Paul Cartledge, 77-94. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2017.

Wildmann, Daniel. “Desired Bodies: Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia, Aryan Masculinity and the Classical Body.” In Brill’s Companion to the Classics, Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, edited by Helen Roche and Kyriakos Demetriou, 60-81. Brill’s Companions to Classical Reception 12. Leiden, NL: Koninklijke Brill, 2018.

Winckelmann, Johann Joachim. Reflections Concerning the Imitation of the Grecian Artists In Painting and Sculpture. In a Series of Letters. By the Abbe Winkelman. Glasgow, UK: printed for Robert Erie, 1766.

Zarifi, Maria. “Planning a ‘Modern Colonization on European Soil’? German Scientific Travels and Expeditions to Greece during National Socialism.” In Nazi Germany and Southern Europe, 1933–45: Science, Culture and Politics, edited by Fernando Clara and Cláudia Ninhos, 217-31. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.

Greek citizens gather in Syntagma Square on July 5, 2015 to protest the proposed third bailout (photos by Robert Crystal)

This piece was published in the Acheson Issue, Volume 11

Abstract

Between 2012 and 2015, Pussy Riot and Petr Pavlensky gained international fame as artist-activists who used provocative art to call attention to political causes in Russia. While they succeeded in mobilizing attention and discussion outside of Russia, some Western portrayals of their work simplified and obscured important nuances and considerations. By analyzing a corpus of 20 articles from Western media sources, I show how international coverage of both artists reinforced a rhetorical binary that pitted East against West. Artistic interventions were read as a struggle between the values of a liberal West and a backward, unenlightened Russia. Shoehorned under the catch-all of “anti-regime” activists, Western discourse tended to construct Pussy Riot and Petr Pavlensky as essentially “Western” in sensibility and in practice: Pussy Riot was viewed largely as a Russian version of America’s riot grrrls, while Pavlensky’s engagement with the complex dynamics between state and citizen was all too often framed as straightforward anti-regime protests. A literature review of existing scholarship on Pussy Riot and Pavlensky, however, highlights that both artists consciously combine both international and Russian inspirations in their work. I argue that this hybridity is the key to the artists’ international appeal: although Western media may overlook important dimensions of their work, Pussy Riot and Pavlensky still maintain agency in shaping and presenting their work to different viewers. Thus, we should view both artists as conscious translators who actively interpret and present their work for global audiences.

Introduction

During what was widely perceived as an authoritarian turn in Russian politics from 2012 to 2015,^[1] Pussy Riot and Petr Pavlensky gained international fame as activists who used art to call attention to political causes at home. Pussy Riot, a feminist art collective, catalyzed a media storm in 2012 when they were arrested for a performance in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, during which they protested the increasingly close ties between the church and the state. Their trial and subsequent incarceration, widely deplored as a biased and farcical exercise of state power, received widespread coverage by Western press.^[2] Western media tended to frame Pussy Riot as fearless critics – and, after they were indicted on charges of hooliganism, as guiltless victims – of an authoritarian state. Although such coverage did contribute to a widespread awareness of Pussy Riot and its goals, it also obscured important nuances in Pussy Riot’s performance. Pussy Riot was widely misunderstood as a punk band rather than as a deliberately provocative performance art group. These generalizations contributed to skewed, or at least fragmentary, impressions about both the lineage of their work and the nuances of their criticism.  

A similar misapprehension arose in the international coverage of Petr Pavlensky’s artistic interventions. Pavlensky, a performance artist drawing on a history of post-Soviet actionist interventions, gained attention for his self-harming actions,^[3] the most infamous being фиксация, or Fixation (2013), during which he stripped naked and nailed his scrotum to the cobblestones of the Red Square. While Pavlensky’s actions never garnered the same level of attention and international support as Pussy Riot’s 2012 performance, they were nevertheless scrutinized — and in many cases, lionized — by Western media outlets. As with Pussy Riot, the art publications that were drawn to Pavlensky’s work tended to overemphasize the anti-government, anti-regime bent of his work. While Pavlensky garnered a more academic reception, being recognized as an artist working in the conceptualist and performance-based tradition, commentators nonetheless took a selective view of his approach. Often, their analyses were limited to exploring how Pavlensky’s work eroded the legitimacy of the institution of Russian government while overlooking his critique of individual apathy in such a society. Applied to both Pussy Riot and Pavlensky, the term “anti-Kremlin activist”^[4] became a convenient catch-all that collapses the nuances and specificities that distinguish the two artists, making them interchangeable stand-ins for anti-state resistance in Russia.  This paper aims to understand the limitations and blind spots of this interpretation. I ask: How did Western media understand Pussy Riot and Pavlensky, and what was lost in the dominant Western interpretation of their work? 

To answer these questions, I first describe the most important protest actions by Pussy Riot and Pavlensky. Following this, I conduct a discourse analysis of 20 media articles about the two artists to understand how their works were received by Western commentators. In doing so, I show that Western media coverage of Pussy Riot and Petr Pavlensky tended to ascribe liberal, Western ideas to the artists while ignoring the Russian histories and traditions driving their art. This coverage, I argue, ultimately reinforces the binary of a backward, authoritarian Russia that stands in direct opposition to a liberal, enlightened West. By contrasting my analysis against a brief literature review of key works on Pavlensky and Pussy Riot, I highlight the nuances that are missed in this simplistic, “East-versus-West” account of Russia’s protest artists. Ultimately, I contend that both Pussy Riot and Pavlensky understand this binary and consciously “translate” their work for Western audiences by self-consciously incorporating Western influences and perspectives in their work and public statements. 

The Protest Actions of Pussy Riot and Pavlensky

Pussy Riot first gained notoriety for their performance of “Punk Prayer: Mother of God, Drive Putin Away,” staged just three weeks before the presidential elections in which Putin ran for (and ultimately won) a third term in power. On February 21, five members of Pussy Riot entered the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, the seat of the Orthodox Patriarch of Moscow, Patriarch Kirill.^[5] Clad in colorful balaclavas, loose dresses, and tights, the five members crossed the gate that separated the nave from the iconostasis^[6] and the sacred altar,^[7] an area from which women have traditionally been barred,^[8] to sing and dance wildly. While the members were removed from the altar in under 2 minutes, having only performed about 50 seconds of the song, they later uploaded an edited, 2-minute YouTube video that gave the impression of a complete performance. In this video, live footage was combined with a prerecorded version of the song, which alternated between supplications to Mary and denunciations of the Russian government. The structure and style of the song, according to Yngvar Steinholt, comprised

[a] church choir theme, mimicking Russian Orthodox liturgical song. The clear voices remain true to generic demands and carry no audible spite or irony […] The punk parts of the song follow the established Pussy Riot standard with drums, distorted bass, and guitar on mini-amps. Their vocals are enhanced by shouts of “Sran’ gospodnia!” (“Shit of the Lord!”), directed at Putin and his retinue. The voices directed at Virgin Mary sound earnest and respectful; verbal aggression is reserved for Putin and his government.^[9]

A week after the performance in the cathedral, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, three of the five performers, were arrested and charged for hooliganism. Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina would later be convicted under the charge of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment in a penal colony.^[10] While Pussy Riot’s protest action itself had generated limited coverage, their indictment and subsequent imprisonment prompted a frenzy of media attention and recrimination. Western audiences, in particular, decried the trial as a thinly-veiled crackdown on free speech. The ensuring media furor sparked the support of governments, high profile artists, and celebrities alike, precipitating a slew of solidarity protests worldwide that put balaclava-sporting demonstrators on the streets of New York, Edinburgh, and Toronto. 

It was in this context of widespread transnational support for Pussy Riot in the West that the next internationally-lauded Russian activist-artist, Petr Pavlensky, came into the spotlight.  Pavlensky staged his first action, Stitch (Шов) at a protest in support of Pussy Riot in 2012, standing outside the cathedral with a sign that made a biblical justification of Pussy Riot’s protest action.^[11] The image that made headlines, however, was of his stitched-up lips, which had been sutured together with red thread, ostensibly to protest the Russian state’s ‘silencing’ of its victims. The brutality of his protest action prompted law enforcement officials on the scene to call an ambulance rather than arrest him. This first action illustrated two defining elements of Pavlensky’s practice: first, the use of shocking and often brutal self-mutilation, and second, the incorporation of state officials into his performance. The same elements were at work in Туша, or Carcass (2013), which followed the implementation of laws banning “homosexual propaganda” and restricting NGO action.^[12] During his action, Pavlensky entrapped his naked body within a cocoon of barbed wire and stationed himself in front of the main entrance of the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly. Here again, law enforcement officials were unwittingly transformed into actors in Pavlensky’s performance as they cut him out of the cocoon. A similar dynamic may also be observed in Фиксация, Fixation (2013, on Russia’s National Police Day), during which Pavlensky nailed his scrotum to the cobblestones of Red Square and awaited the arrival and intervention of law enforcement officials.^[13]Indeed, Pavlensky’s actions often articulated a relationship with, and even a dependence on, agents of state power. On a structural level, his performances were bookended by the arrival of police officials. On a substantive level, these officials had to decide whether to arrest Pavlensky or to arrange for medical intervention, and thus became primary actors in determining the outcome of each action. Pavlensky anticipated and actively courted state reaction through his artistic interventions, as seen with Угроза, or Threat (2015), where, after setting fire to the doors of the Lubyanka Building, he repeatedly requested the police officials on scene to apply the heavier charge of terrorism instead of vandalism. Where Pussy Riot’s performance was prematurely cut short and interrupted by police officials, Pavlensky’s actions were purposely designed to involve the participation of state officials, whose actions – as I discuss in the literature review that follows – took on new meanings in the context of his art. Pavlensky’s art, designed to trigger and then disrupt ‘normal’ procedures of policing and arresting, subtly enmeshed state officials within the artistic and philosophical vocabulary of his actions. 

Considered together, both Pussy Riot and Petr Pavlensky, working within the broad approach of staging unsanctioned and public artistic interventions, developed distinctive artistic and visual approaches to express their criticisms of contemporary Russian society. They deployed distinctive visual strategies to express their particular preoccupations: for Pussy Riot, their raucous church performance condemned the increasingly close ties between the state and the Orthodox church, and also subverted gendered orders of the church by occupying spaces that were off-limits to women. Their costumes, while striking, intentionally effaced vestiges of the individual, obscuring individual features and emphasizing the commonality of the collective. Pavlensky, on the other hand, repeatedly drew on the vulnerability and dependence of his naked body to interrogate the condition of the “social body” of Russian society and its complicated relationship to the state.^[14] These clear differences in their respective artistic practices attest to fundamentally diverging , not all of which can be neatly encapsulated within the category of ‘anti-Kremlin sentiment.’ [CZ2] 

Discourse Analysis

Scholars such as Andrey Makarychev and Alexandra Yatsyk have claimed that the “human rights focus, as well as the fervent art practices of its articulation” of protestors like Pussy Riot and Pavlensky were “not only noticed but well understood in Europe and the West (emphases mine).”^[15] I challenge this argument, employing a discourse analysis of 20 Western media articles to show that extensive coverage did not amount to extensive understanding. Indeed, I argue that Western media coverage of Pussy Riot and Pavlensky emphasized particular readings of their art but did not engage fully with the scope and substance of the artists’ goals and practices. As a result, popular discourses surrounding Pussy Riot and Pavlensky reflected only a partial understanding of their protest art.

Though Pussy Riot and Pavlensky pursued distinctive approaches and artistic considerations in their respective practices, these nuances tended to be overlooked by Western media. Articles in Western media sources on Pussy Riot and Petr Pavlensky, admittedly, were not meant to provide a full understanding of all aspects of each artist’s work, but were rather attempts to make Russian protest art, in general, intelligible to Western readers. Consequently, they tended to refract Russian artists through the “discourses and products of the Western gaze.”^[16] This Western gaze produced a series of truths and distortions, which I highlight through an analysis of 20 articles – mostly opinion or commentary sources – from publications in the United States and the United Kingdom. 

The scandal of Pussy Riot’s arrest, widely considered to be an overreaction issued directly from the upper echelons of the Kremlin, precipitated a flurry of criticisms of the Russian state, and  particularly of Putin, who was widely assumed to be responsible for the arrests of Pussy Riot members.^[17] Western support of Pussy Riot was often expressed through an “East-versus-West” binary, praising Pussy Riot for its association with Western values and Western artists, while denouncing the Russian state as the antithesis of liberal and egalitarian ideals. Carole Cadwalladr, in covering the court trial of Pussy Riot for The Guardian, wrote: “It’s extraordinary what Pussy Riot have done. How they have taken feminism to one of the most macho countries on Earth.”^[18] Declaring that feminism had been “taken” to Russia, Cadwalladr suggested that feminism was essentially foreign to Russia’s hostile and “macho” regime, and furthermore that Pussy Riot, with its feminist ideals and activism, was fundamentally Western in its outlook. 

Beyond ascribing essentially Western beliefs to the work of Pussy Riot, news agencies often framed the very mediums of Pussy Riot’s artistic expression as “Russian” equivalents of existing Western movements. Journalists like John Harris, for example, emphasized the similarities between Pussy Riot and the 1990s riot grrrl movement in the United States: 

The heritage of protest and provocation on which Nadezhda Tolokonnikova was drawing was confirmed as soon as I saw her picture […] it was as if she had been plucked from the Anglo-American subculture known as riot grrrl circa 1992, and dropped into modern Russia.^[19]

Like Cadwalladr, Harris suggests that Pussy Riot’s ideals and artistic expression are fundamentally Anglo-American in nature. Framing their similarity as a transplant from West to East , Harris argues that Pussy Riot’s aesthetics have been “plucked from” Anglo-American history and “dropped into modern Russia.”^[20] Here, Pussy Riot’s feminism and its punk aesthetic, then, are all seen as part of an existing canon of ideas and subcultures that, having originated from the West, were simply grafted onto Russian movements. The contrast between “subculture […] circa 1992” and “modern Russia,” for example, reinforces the division between an enlightened West and “backward” Russia that has belatedly heralded a decades-old American movement. Pussy Riot members are thus portrayed as the persecuted champions of Western ideals, with scant mention of other Russian contexts and influences in their performance. 

In constructing Russia as a politically and socially inferior counterpart to the West, commentators often casted Pussy Riot as blameless victims of the Russian state. Masha Lipman, writing for the New Yorker, interprets the trial thus: “But at the end of the day [the trial of Pussy Riot] boils down to an unapologetic demonstration of force by the state. The three women, members of a punk-rock band who fell victim of the state’s repressive machine, showed, in contrast, spiritual and moral strength.”^[21] Lipman’s pronouncement places Pussy Riot and the entire apparatus of the Russian state within a clear normative binary, stressing that Pussy Riot was unfairly and undeservedly persecuted by the state. However true these critiques might have been in general, the rhetorical strategies, which set out a clear delineation between aggressor and victim, persecutor and persecuted, flattened out important issues of intention and of agency. Such perspectives tended not only to reduce the Russian government to a Putin-controlled monolith, but also to minimize the agency of Pussy Riot members. In the scramble to decry Pussy Riot’s trial and to absolve Pussy Riot of any potential guilt, some publications downplayed the calculated provocativeness of Pussy Riot’s protests. This approach may have made Pussy Riot more sympathetic victims, but missed out the fact that Pussy Riot members had explicitly stated that illegality is a defining characteristic of their performance art. This difference highlights an underlying contradiction between popular imaginations of Pussy Riot and the group’s self-defined mission and goals. Nowhere was this misalignment clearer than in characterizations of the group’s nature and aims. Despite the fact that Pussy Riot had no real connections to the punk or music scene in Russia,^[22] commentators, hoping perhaps to underscore the popular influence or judicial innocence of Pussy Riot, tended to portray them as nothing more than an all-female punk band. Pussy Riot was, in their words, a “pop crossover […] a brilliant brand,”^[23] or alternatively “a band that has yet to release an album.”^[24]Their performance, too, was reduced to “lip-syncing to a punk song in a church for 40 seconds”^[25] or a “raucous anti-Putin ditty.”^[26] The term “anti-Putin ditty”^[27] in particular reduces Pussy Riot’s considered performance to nothing more than a song. It also implies that it was only Pussy Riot’s lyrics that had caused offense, when much of the uproar had centered around their incursion into an Orthodox church. In reality, many witnesses had never even heard the lyrics of the Punk Prayer, since the members had been swiftly removed from the altar. By writing about Pussy Riot as only a punk band, Western sources obscured other important elements of Pussy Riot’s performance: the political and gendered significance of the cathedral, for example, crucially complicated the meaning of Pussy Riot’s performance. In framing Pussy Riot as faultless victims of Putin’s regime, Anglo-American media not only reinforced normative binaries between Russia and the West but also fundamentally misconstrued the character and purpose of the group.

If Pussy Riot members’ punk rock aesthetics, feminist attitude, and political persecution made them palatable “ideal activists”^[28] for media outlets, the tone of popular coverage for Pavlensky was decidedly more ambivalent. Pavlensky’s art, which more frequently pushed the boundaries of legality, public decency, and well-understood forms of protest, did not receive the same level of mainstream media attention and praise. Three important differences made Pavlensky a less sympathetic dissident character. First, there were few well-known Anglo-American predecessors to which Pavlensky could be compared. Pussy Riot’s work, having been assimilated into a history of American feminist protest, was made more intelligible to a Western audience. By contrast, Pavlensky’s work was more directly influenced by Russia’s ‘actionist’ performance art tradition, which was harder to contextualize for a foreign audience. Second, Pavlensky’s activism represented a shift from the references and ideas of mass culture to the rarefied frameworks and vocabularies of high art. Not only was Pavlensky invoking a far less familiar body of work, he was also employing a more abstracted, theoretical approach in his art. While his work was by no means esoteric or inaccessible, the intensity and extremity of his art shocked and confused audiences instead of generating widespread support or personal sympathy. Third and more specifically, Pavlensky’s art practice involved crossing general standards of public morality and decency while directly courting arrest and imprisonment. As his actions were often deliberately provocative or illegal, Pavlensky was a less compelling ‘victim’ of the state, though he was no less appreciated as an anti-regime dissident. Thus, while Pavlensky’s numerous interventions did not receive the same level of attention and support as Pussy Riot’s punk prayer, they were nonetheless keenly analyzed by art and culture critics, who analyzed his actions as criticisms of the Russian government. 

As with Pussy Riot, the dichotomy between the West and Russia framed and directed analyses of Pavlensky’s actions. This dichotomy was most strikingly deployed in Jonathan Jones’ article for The Guardian, which describes Pavlensky’s 2015 action, Threat, during which Pavlensky set fire to the doors of Lubyanka building. Responding to Pavlensky’s arrest and subsequent trial, Jones writes: 

This puts our own fears of spies (or lack of such fears) into perspective. In Britain the intelligence services are accused of intruding on privacy. In Russia they are suspected of political murder. […] Behind that burning door lies the true horror of state surveillance (emphases mine).^[29]

Like many media commentators on the Pussy Riot case – Jones compares the United Kingdom to Russia to delineate the dichotomy between a liberal, democratic order and an authoritarian regime. In this view, Pavlensky’s actions are direct responses to a repressive state; by his estimation, Russia is exactly the antithesis of the United Kingdom. The threat posed by Britain’s own organs of surveillance is, by this comparison, neutralized: it is the Russian state that represents the “true,” ultimate horror of state surveillance. Pavlensky’s activism is thus framed as a response to an oppressive Russian autocracy, one that is defined against Western democracies. Indeed, Jones further suggests that Pavlensky has “[set] Russia’s evil history ablaze,” adding a normative dimension to the West versus Russia binary. 

Against this East-West binary, commentators in art and cultural publications as in mainstream news have tended to read Pavlensky’s work as critiques of a dysfunctional Russian state. A 2017 article for the Economist frames Pavlensky as “an artist whose work is aimed against an authoritarian regime known for its use of entrapment and blackmail to neutralize its opponents.”^[30] The article, which discusses the conflicting perspectives on ongoing sexual allegations against Pavlensky, casts Pavlensky as an artist whose work explicitly and exclusively addresses the Russian government, here seen as “an authoritarian regime” that may have been conspiring against him. More tellingly, the article is filed under the header “Enemies of the Kremlin,” which plainly positions Pavlensky as – similar to the Pussy Riot members – a potential victim of the Russian state, and as a political activist whose work directly challenges the institution of Russian government. 

Such a view of Pavlensky is common among art publications, who view Pavlensky purely in terms of his resistance to the Russian government. Matthew Sedacca’s 2015 article for Vice, for instance, portrays Pavlensky as a representative protest artist of contemporary Russia. Sedacca asserts that Pavlensky “is speaking out for many of his countrymen scared into their unwillingness to take […]  an opinionated anti-government stance.” He further argues that Pavlensky can be considered to be the voice of Russians who dare not speak out about their reservations against a government that actively silences its citizens. Further, Sedacca juxtaposes this image of Pavlensky as an artist-spokesperson for an intimidated Russian people against a discussion on the conservatism and repression in Russia: the article alludes to a “predominantly bleak situation for expression in Russia” and to strict “Kremlin-sanctioned confinements of censorship.”^[31] The contrast between Pavlensky’s “speaking out” against the silence enforced by a “highly conservative government” closely follows the patterns of discussion for the Pussy Riot protestors, in that both artists are framed as lone wolves railing against a dystopic and repressive state. 

A similar dynamic is at work in Bloomberg’s interpretation of Pavlensky’s art as a criticism of Russia’s laggard economy. The controversial Fixation was used as the lead-in for a pessimistic forecast of Russia’s economic policies, becoming a symbol of Russia’s dysfunction: “the apathy and fatalism [Pavlensky] so dramatically depicted is clear in the Russian economic ministry’s long-term development forecast.” Here, too, the vocabulary of development and economic growth is used to highlight the differences between the United States and Russia. Insinuations of an economically backward Russia abound throughout the article, which argues that “Russia will keep lagging behind other developing nations” and “will only […] reach 66 percent of the U.S.’s productivity level” by 2030.^[32] The measure “66 percent of the U.S.’s productivity level” emphasizes Russia’s struggle to keep up with America; against this backdrop, Pavlensky’s action is once again seen as an attack against the Russian government, this time against “apathy and fatalism” of its economy. Here, too, Pavlensky is seen primarily as a dissenter against the Russian state: his art, in this view, is directed only at the Kremlin, and highlights failures specific to the Russian government. 

However, as many analyses rightly point out, the perspective that Pavlensky is primarily an anti-Kremlin political activist presents an incomplete account of Pavlensky’s art. A 2016 article in the BBC, for instance, undermines the argument that the Russian state apparatus is acting uniquely or especially repressively against Pavlensky in describing the performance of Threat: “Unsurprisingly, he was arrested – I can’t think of a country where he wouldn’t have been – and is [was] currently standing trial.”^[33] Another article by Dasha Filippova in ArtSlant outlines this nuance at length, countering the media tendency to interpret Pavlensky and the Russian government as two opposing entities: 

International news headlines on Russian activism tend to evoke outdated, Cold War-inspired notions of repression, and unfortunately miss the subtlety of terms that make up Pavlensky’s conceptual methodology and the specificity of his notions of freedom. 

[…] This way of framing Pavlensky suggests his innocence in an evil machine, and yet most of his actions […] would be prosecuted in the finest specimens of the First World’s judiciary institutions, as is his intent to show.^[34]  

Filippova shifts from the tendency to view Pavlensky’s art purely as a critique of the Russian government and instead highlights the more philosophical preoccupations that underlie Pavlensky’s work. She points out that the opposition between a “victimized” artist and an “oppressor” state is not clear-cut, given that Pavlensky – just like Pussy Riot – intentionally sought out state intervention with his actions, which would have pushed the boundaries of legality in any other country. Yet these details, as in the case of Pussy Riot, tended to be occluded in Western commentaries, which generally focused more on the anti-government character of the artists’ interventions. Despite extensive and often erudite analysis of Pavlensky’s diverse artistic influences and preoccupations, his work was frequently categorized within the same “anti-government” mold as Pussy Riot. The “anti-Kremlin protestor” moniker, used to define both artists as anti-regime activists, elided the specificities and expansiveness of their respective artistic practices. Instead, it spoke to what Filippova calls the “Cold War-inspired notions of repression,” emphasizing a view of Russia that is defined by its alienness from the Anglo-American world, and invoking a binary between a backward, oppressive Russia and a free, enlightened West. 

Literature Review: Lost Contexts of the “East-versus-West” Binary

The images of Pussy Riot and Petr Pavlensky that emerge from an analysis of Western media sources are strikingly similar. Western media narratives tended to see the two artists as proponents of purportedly “Western” ideals of liberty and, in the case of Pussy Riot, feminism. More importantly, they were also understood in opposition to the Russian government, as predominantly anti-regime agitators that were railing against a repressive state. This coverage yielded paradoxical perceptions of Pussy Riot and Pavlensky that were at once Western and foreign: the artists were Western in that they were imagined as the torchbearers of “Western” ideals of feminism and freedom. At the same time, such narratives also emphasized the exoticism and opacity of the artists’ Russian identities: if the two “anti-regime” artists embodied enlightened Western ideals, then their Russia was an exotic, inscrutable “other,” defined only as the absence of said ideals.^[35]

A similar tension can be seen in existing scholarship on the two artists. For Pussy Riot, works in cultural and music studies on one hand restored Russian contexts and influences to Pussy Riot’s art. On the other hand, scholarship in communication studies and political science continue to emphasize the transnational nature of Pussy Riot’s appeal by examining the ways in which Pussy Riot’s work engaged with Western ideas and audiences. For Pavlensky, art historians highlighted the more philosophical concerns that undergird his practice and also explored both Russian and international influences in his work. Yet these analyses continued to rely on “East-versus-West” narratives to contrast Pavlensky’s work against what was seen as the particularly repressive and undemocratic nature of the Russian state. In short, academic literature on both artists highlighted contesting, and often contradictory, elements of the artists’ craft and points of view. For Pussy Riot, the tension is between national and transnational interpretations of their church performance. For Pavlensky, on the other hand, the tension resides in the question of whether his work addresses only the Russian state or if it articulates a general philosophical criticism of the relationship between states and citizens. It is precisely this heterogeneous mix of ideas and influences, I argue, that defines Pussy Riot and Pavlensky as part of a new generation of Russian performance artists who seek out and address both local and international audiences.

Responding to the limitations of mainstream media coverage, analyses of Pussy Riot’s performance in the field of music studies and religious studies restored Russian contexts to Pussy Riot’s work. Western media had interpreted Pussy Riot’s performance in terms of its Western parallels and inspirations, overlooking the collective’s cognizance and incorporation of Russia’s religious traditions in their performance. Indeed, scholars like Ingvar Steinholt and Nicholas Denysenko contended that religion, a little-discussed aspect of Pussy Riot’s work, was in fact central to their performance. Denysenko, in particular, pointed out that Pussy Riot’s performance was influenced by the Russian Orthodox tradition of holy foolery. Pussy Riot, with their unabashedly provocative stance, can be seen^[36] as a modern Holy Fool (Юродивый), a figure whose appearance, speech, and activities are counter-cultural and offensive, but belie a deep spiritual conviction and prophetic understanding.^[37] Going one step further, Bruce points out that the very timing of Pussy Riot’s performance suggested an awareness of the significance of Holy Foolery. Pussy Riot staged their performance during Lent, a period that was, in medieval times, a carnival season where commoners were permitted to disrespect or mock church authorities.^[38] In fact, Bruce contends that Pussy Riot’s incorporation of Rachmaninov’s Ave Maria in their performance references a long historical tradition of praying to Mary in times of national crisis – in other words, Pussy Riot’s supplication to Mary was an attempt to reclaim the church space from the conservative, pro-Putin views advocated by Patriarch Kirill. In this light, the religious elements of Pussy Riot’s performance should be seen as considered and deliberate elements of their performance, contrasting the dominant view among Western journalists, who generally regarded the charge of blasphemy as a pretext for an essentially politically motivated trial against Pussy Riot. Given the significance of religious traditions of the performance, Pussy Riot’s performance should not be seen as a purely political reaction against Putin, bereft of any cultural meaning other than the literal content of their song, but as a protest that drew extensively on longstanding religious traditions to decry the political capitulation of Russia’s Orthodox Church and its leaders. 

While some commentators focused on the Russian influences that were critical to Pussy Riot’s performance, scholars in political science interrogated the ideas and symbols that made Pussy Riot so appealing to Western audiences. All of them pointed out fissures in Pussy Riot’s apparent “Westernness,” revealing an artistic practice that included both Russian and Western ideas and symbols that were constantly shifting in their meaning. Valerie Sperling, for example, highlights that Pussy Riot was neither the forerunner nor the representative of the feminist movement in Russia. Drawing on interviews with feminist groups and individuals in Russia, Sperling demonstrates that Pussy Riot’s feminism did not necessarily resonate with those of other Russian feminists, who took issue with Pussy Riot’s copious use of gender normative and homophobic insults in their lyrics.^[39] In a similar vein, Marina Yusupova, in analyzing why Pussy Riot had failed to catalyze greater support for feminism in Russia, highlights the difficulty of translating Western feminist ideals across cultures. Just as the Russian contexts of Pussy Riot’s work often eluded Western commentators, Yusupova argues, so the perceived “Westernness” of Pussy Riot prevented their ideas from being fully communicated to Russians. Yusupova points out that the name “Pussy Riot” is in English; therefore, its meaning may not immediately be obvious to Russians, and may further emphasize the foreignness of “Western” feminist ideas and value systems. Yet these ideas itself – as Sperling shows – are only imperfectly or selectively conveyed in Pussy Riot’s performance, which many Russian feminists regarded as flawed or problematic assertions of feminist beliefs. ^[40] The complications raised by Sperling and Yusupova suggest that Pussy Riot places itself at the intersection of Western and Russian influences – their art does not fully belong to either culture and loses parts of its meaning before different audiences. 

 A similar dynamic is at work in visual analyses of Pavlensky’s art. While the “East-versus-West” binary was not as frequently used in media and academic discussions about Pavlensky, most academics still considered his work within a predominantly anti-Kremlin framework. Craig Stewart Walker, for instance, argues that Pavlensky’s actions deliberately destabilize the control of the Russian government. By proclaiming his actions art, Walker argues, Pavlensky effectively disrupts the meanings produced by Russia’s criminal code, according to which his public exposure is both criminal and undesirable. In doing so, Pavlensky suggests a second field of meaning for his actions, pulling away from state-driven understandings of his work and suggesting that his “criminal” action has aesthetic and conceptual value. To Walker, this process is targeted mainly at the Russian government, ultimately aiming to “[show] how [the symbolic field embodied in the Russian Criminal Code] inevitably perpetuates injustice.”^[41] Walker, despite astutely analyzing the ways in which Pavlensky uses art to assert the autonomy of an individual in society, ultimately places his argument in an “anti-Putin” framework. To him, Pavlensky’s art directly targets the system of law in Russia, a system that Walker assumes to be fundamentally and irreducibly oppressive.  

At the same time, scholars acknowledged that Pavlensky’s art often arose out of more complicated conceptual and philosophical considerations, even as they undermined the specific institutions and laws of the Russian state. Ingrid Nelson, for instance, acknowledges Pavlensky’s own statement that his 2013 Fixation was as much a protest against the apathy and political indifference of Russian citizens.^[42] The performance, staged on National Police Day, was an embodied expression of Russian citizens’ acquiescence to the routines, value systems, and beliefs about criminality and autonomy that have been imposed by the state. The intention of Pavlensky’s performance, which the artist himself had explicitly stated,^[43] had often been ignored by commentators, who instead took his art as a criticism levelled towards the Russian government. Though the state was certainly a key preoccupation of his work, in this case Pavlensky’s art grappled specifically with the condition of civil and mass society in Russia. For Pavlensky, the relationship between state and citizen is, if not equal, then at least reciprocal. Fixation drew attention to the culpability of a populace that, it would seem, remained passive and immobile in response to government repression. As art critics like Banu Bargu suggest, Pavlensky’s deliberate acts of self-harm can be taken as an indictment of a self-defeating populace: using his body as a medium, Pavlensky depicts the self-destruction wrought by political apathy and indifference. In doing so, Pavlensky claims the position as the body politic of Russia and, through his extreme act of self-harm, illustrates the absurdity of its acceptance of a coercive, oppressive state apparatus.^[44] In this light, headlines like “Artist mutilates self as Putin paralyzes Russia,” fundamentally misunderstood the substance of Pavlensky’s work. It implied instead a causality between Putin’s apparent ineptitude and Pavlensky’s action, once again reverting to the assumption that Putin was the single, natural target of Pavlensky’s action. 

While it may be argued that criticizing an apathetic populace and denouncing an authoritarian government are two sides of the same coin, Walker – along with Ingrid Nordgaard, Banu Bargu, Andrey Makarychev, and Sergey Medvedev – show that Pavlensky’s art ultimately goes beyond mere criticism of “Putin’s Russia,” speaking to a more abstract, philosophical interest in the relationship between the individual and the state. ^[45]  While Pussy Riot’s performance might be considered more “topical” in explicitly railing against specific policies or political outcomes, Pavlensky’s actions tended to explore a more conceptual tension between individual freedom and the exercise of state power and control. Banu Bargu, Andrey Makarychev and Sergey Medvedev, for example, understand Pavlensky’s work as “biopolitical art.” Drawing on Foucault’s concept of biopolitics, they argue that the state polices and politicizes individual, material bodies in society: biopower “normalizes and regulates the private lives and corporeal practices of individuals,”^[46] incorporating citizens into a system of laws and control. Critically, citizens are subjugated not through coercive action or “extra-institutional” methods of repression, but through the status quo regulations and structures that order their bodies, activities, and aspirations in society. Such control is total and biological, and Pavlensky’s art, especially his deliberately self-harming actions, aims to disrupt this system of control, and reclaim his bodily autonomy from the state.^[47] In the words of Bargu, 

The artist’s body is not wounded in order to unsettle the subjectivity it embodies but to problematize that subjectivity’s political self-expression and psycho investments in the structures of power that materialize on that body. In these performances, the body is reclaimed as the expression of an irreducible materiality that is the wellspring of a deeply political and, indeed, recalcitrant subjectivity, one that counters the relations of power that engulf it and resists being subsumed by them.^[48]

The act of intentional self-harm enables the artist – in this case Pavlensky – to wrest control back from the state in two ways: first, by behaving in a way that is irrational or criminal according to the logic of state regulations, the individual expresses an ungovernable agency over their own, material body. Second, by proclaiming such action art, Pavlensky subverts the normal, often state-prescribed, systems of meaning – such as medical insanity or criminality – that are ascribed to such acts of self-mutilation. Importantly, Pavlensky’s critique of a government’s biopolitical control over its citizens implicates not only Putin or Russia, but underscores a general discomfort with state control over the individual sovereignty of its citizens. In this light, the assumption that Pavlensky’s work responds to a uniquely repressive Russian state bears revisiting, given that he has performed similar actions^[49] in a “freer” France, where he was granted political asylum in 2017. Instead, we are perhaps better served by considering also the philosophical ideas that underpin Pavlensky’s art, which consistently reveals a deep-seated suspicion towards mechanisms of state power regardless of the specific state or country in which they are put to use. As in the case of Pussy Riot, Russian contexts of Pavlensky’s work coexist with other influences – in this case, with philosophical concerns about reclaiming individual sovereignty against the meanings and controls imposed by state policies.  

How, then, can we reconcile the different contexts and ideas in Pavlensky’s and Pussy Riot’s work, which is at once Russian and Western, philosophical and reactive? Research in communication studies offer important insights in understanding both Pussy Riot and Pavlensky as artists who consciously address both Western and Russian audiences in their work, in the process generating varying interpretations of their work. Caitlin Bruce, for instance, analyzed Pussy Riot’s signature balaclava as a transnational icon and an “affect generator” that took on different meanings for different audiences. On the most basic level, Bruce argues, Pussy Riot’s practice combines both Russian and Western frames of reference, and “draws on transnational frameworks for feminism, human rights, and GLBTQ recognition, using and extending national repertoires for protest, including Russian oriented political and nationalist iconography.”^[50] This eclectic and sometimes contradictory blend of Western and Russian influences is what catapulted Pussy Riot to the status of a protest icon – instead of a fixed, core identity, Pussy Riot comes to represent different values and identities depending on their audience. Bruce’s work focuses specifically on how the balaclava, which transformed into a symbol of solidarity with Pussy Riot, retains meaning and operates across national contexts as a representation that indexes a particular group, while remaining generic enough to facilitate identification with different groups.^[51] Her idea of the balaclava’s power as an “affect generator,” however, can also be applied to the art of Pussy Riot and Pavlensky in general. Bruce defines an “affect generator” as “a supercharged image that enables multiple claims and performances of solidarity and identification to take place.”^[52] Like Bruce’s “affect generator,” the diverse influences in Pussy Riot’s and Pavlensky’s art, alongside their own explanatory comments about their work, lend themselves to different interpretations across various cultural contexts. For example, Katharina Wiedlack argues that Pussy Riot selectively and critically incorporated riot grrrl and Bikini Kill inspirations into their work, and intentionally emphasized these influences in interviews with Western publications.^[53] By highlighting their punk rock influences and Anglo-American predecessors, Pussy Riot made their dissent, which had been anchored in Russian contexts, accessible to Western audiences. 

In a similar way, it may be argued that Pavlensky has also actively curated his persona to a Western audience, frequently participating in interviews and clarifying the perspectives and intents of his actions. While a comprehensive review of his interviews and of the views that he emphasized falls outside of the scope of this paper, it is clear that Pavlensky was keenly aware of the Western interest in his work, and his earlier statements about the Russian government affirmed pre-existing perceptions about the repressiveness of the Russian government. Yet his later interviews, particularly after he had left Russia, reflected a far more general, latent distrust of state power. In a recent interview, for instance, he declared that all governments are essentially instruments of repression, and use but different techniques to control its citizens.^[54] According to Ingrid Nelson, who situates Pavlensky and Pussy Riot within the lineage of post-Soviet Actionists, this mode of conscious self-presentation and explanation is what distinguishes Pavlensky and Pussy Riot as internationally-oriented performance artist-activists. In designing actions that could be easily, though always incompletely, interpreted by audiences in different cultural contexts, Pavlensky and Pussy Riot can broadly be considered as a generation of artists whose protest actions against the Russian government also incorporate Western perspectives, allowing them to capture the attention, shock, and support of international audiences. 

Conclusion: Towards “Transnational” Political Art

Western media coverage of Pussy Riot and Petr Pavlensky constructed a valorizing but incomplete understanding of the two artists, who are swept into the narrative of defiant “anti-Kremlin activists.” Closer analysis, however, shows that even as they are limited and defined by their resistance to a purportedly evil, repressive machine, these artists use these “East-versus-West” binaries to their advantage by devising actions and interpretations that also resonate with Western onlookers. The art of Pussy Riot and Petr Pavlensky, which often integrates a variety of different influences and concerns, allows them to take on different meanings and capture international recognition, solidarity, and support. Thus, while Western media coverage tended to essentialize and reduce the art and preoccupation of Pussy Riot and Pavlensky, both artists drew on these tendencies to strengthen international support for their art. In other words, Pussy Riot and Pavlensky interpolated and interjected in the conversations and interpretations of their art, creating multiple and overlapping narratives about the meaning and intention of their work. Despite this, it should be noted that the process of “cultural translation” is far from straightforward. Future research on the two artists may consider how Western audiences respond to the two artists when their art criticizes not only an exoticized Russia, but also the liberal Western institutions that are supposed to be antithetical to Russia’s repressive state instruments. There appears to be limits to the extent that Pussy Riot and Pavlensky can incorporate Western influences and histories while retaining the support of Western commentators. Pussy Riot drew criticism for their 2015 music video, I can’t breathe, which referenced the case of Eric Garner,^[55] and connected police brutality in the United States to the experience of state-sanctioned violence in Russia. This time, commentators asserted that it was impossible for Pussy Riot to understand the experiences of persons of color in America.^[56] Likewise, Pavlensky was widely denounced for his 2020 action in which he published an intimate video of Benjamin Griveaux, who was then running for mayor in Paris. Many suggested that he had been aided by the Russian government, ^[57] or even that he was a secret agent for Putin.^[58] Although both artists successfully mobilized the “East-versus-West” binary to gain Western attention, they tread a delicate balance, which may be disrupted if they either criticize or borrow too much from the West. To what extent did international support for the two artists depend on an exoticized view of a peculiarly repressive and backward Russia? Can political artists completely shed “local contexts” and become truly “international” in their art? Researching the changes and continuities in the practices of Pussy Riot and Pavlensky, particularly as their work increasingly began to respond directly to Western contexts, will be a promising first step to answering these remaining questions.         

References

^[1] Storch, Leonid. “The Pussy Riot Case: Anti-Westernism in the Paradigm of the Beilis Trial.” Russian Politics & Law 51, no. 6 (2013): 11.

^[2] Lipman, Masha. “The Absurd and Outrageous Trial of Pussy Riot.” The New Yorker, August 7, 2012. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-absurd-and-outrageous-trial-of-pussy-riot.

^[3] By “action,” I refer to Pavlensky’s term, акция, which he uses to distinguish his work, inspired by actionism, from performance. 

^[4] Pussy Riot was described as an “Anti-Kremlin protest group,” in a 2018 article, ‘It’s Not Putin’s Russia – It’s Our Russia.’ Pussy Riot Members on Protests, Poisonings and Politics in Time, whilst Pavlensky has been called an “anti-Kremlin protestor” by Dazed Digital in their 2017 article, Russian artist Petr Pavlensky sets fire to Paris bank.

^[5] The church is also seen as a site of the unstable, shifting negotiations of the relationship between the church, state, and citizenship. The building was dynamited in 1931 under Stalinist rule. Discussions over reconstructing the church in the 1990s saw contesting perspectives towards Russia’s Soviet and tsarist past. In the 2000s, it has overseen several political events, and was the site where the first Russian president, Boris Yeltsin, lay in state before burial. 

^[6] Bruce, Caitlin. “The balaclava as affect generator: Free Pussy Riot protests and transnational iconicity.” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 12, no. 1 (2015): 51.

^[7] Steinholt, Yngvar B. “Kitten Heresy: Lost Contexts of Pussy Riot’s Punk Prayer.” Popular Music and Society 36, no. 1 (2013): 123.

^[8] Sperling, Valerie. “Russian feminist perspectives on Pussy Riot.” Nationalities Papers 42, no. 4 (2014): 598.

^[9] Steinholt, “Kitten Heresy,” 123.

^[10] Esslemont, Tom. “Pussy Riot Members Jailed for Two Years for Hooliganism.” BBC News. BBC, August 17, 2012. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-19297373

^[11] The sign, “Выступление Pussy Riot было переигрыванием знаменитой акции Иисуса Христа (Мф 21:12-13)”, is translated thus: “Pussy Riot’s performance replayed a famous action by Jesus Christ (Matthew 21:12-13).”

^[12] These laws were, respectively, the law “for the Purpose of Protecting Children from Information Advocating for a Deniial of Traditional Family Values” and “On Amendments to Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation regarding the Regulation of the Activities of Non-profit Organizations Performing the Functions of a Foreign Agent.” The first law banned the dissemination of “homosexual propaganda” in media, while the second required NGOs that were receiving aid from non-Russian sources to register themselves as “foreign agents.”

^[13] Bargu, Banu. “The Corporeal Avant-Garde: Petr Pavlensky.” Bodies of Evidence: Ethics, Aesthetics and Politics of Movement (2018): 104.

^[14] Nordgaard, Ingrid. “Documenting/Performing the Vulnerable Body: Pain and Agency in Works by Boris Mikhailov and Petr Pavlensky.” Contemporaneity: Historical Presence in Visual Culture 5 (2016): 99-101.

^[15] Makarychev, Andrey, and Alexandra Yatsyk. “Refracting Europe: Biopolitical conservatism and art protest in Putin’s Russia.” In Russia’s Foreign Policy, pp. 150. Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2015.

^[16] Wiedlack, Katharina. “Pussy Riot and the Western Gaze: Punk Music, Solidarity and the Production of Similarity and Difference.” Popular Music and Society 39, no. 4 (2016): 411.

^[17] These assumptions are captured by article headlines like “Pussy Riot digs its claws into Putin,” “Putin’s religious war against Pussy Riot,” and more illuminatingly, “Putin v.  the Punk Rockers.” Both titles directly pit Pussy Riot against Putin and suggest that Pussy Riot’s trial was personally initiated and sustained by Putin. Even more explicit were articles that assume that Pussy Riot’s sentence was predetermined: Anna Politkovskaya, writing for the Financial Times in a 2012 article titled “Pussy Riot can rock the Kremlin to its foundations,” argues, “Congratulations Vladimir Putin. […] Few can doubt that the Kremlin had a hand in the decision to sentence Pussy Riot to two years in prison.”

^[18] Cadwalladr, Carole. “Pussy Riot:  Will Vladimir Putin Regret Taking on Russia’s Cool Punks?” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, July 28. 2012. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jul/29/pussy-riot-protest-vladimir-putin-russia.

^[19] Harris, John. “From Pussy Riot, a Lesson in the Power of Punk | John Harris.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, August 19, 2012. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/aug/19/pussy-riot-power-of-punk.

^[20] In other parts of the article, Harris emphasizes interviews in which Pussy Riot members credited Bikini Kill and bands in the riot grrrl movement, declaring Pussy Riot’s songs “a product of exactly the same aesthetic.”

^[21] Lipman, Masha. “The Absurd and Outrageous Trial of Pussy Riot.” The New Yorker. The New Yorker, August 7, 2012. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-absurd-and-outrageous-trial-of-pussy-riot. Later in the article, Lipman also connects the trial to the political trials of Soviet dissidents, casting an even more rigid moral binary between the dissidents and the prosecutors: “Then as now, those in the dock were voices of reason, honesty and morality, while their prosecutors were cruel, absurd, and ultimately immoral.” 

^[22] Currie, Janus C. “Like a Prayer: The Dissensual Aesthetics of Pussy Riot.” Rock Music Studies 4, no. 2 (2017), 93.

^[23] Elder, Miriam. “Pussy Riot Trial: ‘We Are Representatives of Our Generation’.” The Guardian. The Guardian News and Media, August 17, 2012. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/aug/17/pussy-riot-trial-representatives-generation

^[24] Ibid.

^[25] Idov, Michael. “Opinion | On Trial, Putin v. Pussy Riot – The New York Times.” The New York Times. The New York Times, August 7, 2012. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/07/opinion/on-trial-putin-v-pussy-riot.html

^[26] Politkovskaya, Anna. “Pussy Riot Can Rock the Kremlin to Its Foundations.” Financial Times. Financial Times, August 20, 2012. www.ft.com/content/e4fbca60-eab7-11e1-984b-00144feab49a

^[27] Ibid.

^[28] This idea was invoked in Joe Nocera’s 2014 article, Pussy Riot Tells All, for The New York Times: “You couldn’t ask for more appealing activists. Not only had their prosecution been unjust, but they were young and attractive and intelligent and fearless.” 

^[29] Jones, Jonathan. “Pyotr Pavlensky Is Setting Russia’s Evil History Ablaze.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, November 9, 2015. www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2015/nov/09/pyotr-pavlensky-is-setting-russias-evil-history-ablaze

^[30] S., N. “Petr Pavlensky, Accused of Sexual Assault, Flees Russia.” The Economist. The Economist Newspaper, January 20, 2017. https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2017/01/20/petr-pavlensky-accused-of-sexual-assault-flees-russia.

^[31] Sedacca, Matthew. “Russian Actionist Petr Pavlensky Talks Censorship in the Motherland.” Vice. Vice Media, September 18, 2015. https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/78e7v4/a-russian-artist-poked-the-bear-and-almost-got-away-with-it.

^[32] Bershidsky, Leonid. “Artist Mutilates Self as Putin Paralyzes Russia.” Bloomberg Opinion. Bloomberg,  November 12, 2013. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2013-11-11/artist-mutilates-self-as-putin-paralyzes-russia. 

^[33] Gompertz, Will. “Pushing the Art of Protest to New Limits.” BBC News. BBC, April 28, 2016. www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-36163543.

^[34] Filippova, Dasha. “The Russian Terrorist: Petr Pavlensky.” ArtSlant. ArtSlant, June 20, 2016. https://www.artslant.com/ny/articles/show/46065-the-russian-terrorist-petr-pavlensky.

^[35] This dynamic closely parallels ideas about narrating the other in subaltern studies. Edward Said, in particular, addresses this idea in arguing that European identity was strengthened when it was defined against ideas about the Orient: “that Orientalism makes sense at all depends more on the West than on the Orient, and this sense is directly indebted to various Western techniques of representation that make the Orient visible.” Further insights that subaltern studies will contribute to our reading of Pussy Riot and Petr Pavlensky are, unfortunately, outside the scope of this paper. 

^[36] In fact, Tolokonnikova herself had directly connected the practice of holy foolery to Pussy Riot’s 2012 performance.

^[37] Denysenko, Nicholas. “An appeal to Mary: An analysis of Pussy Riot’s punk performance in Moscow.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 81, no. 4 (2013): 1063. A more detailed account of holy foolery in this article also argues that “[b]y virtue of his inner freedom, through his laughter and his playfulness, he ‘mocks’ and calls in question any attempt to reduce the Christian life to the level of respectability and conventional moral standards. He mocks all forms of legalism that turn Christianity into a code of “rules” […] he bears witness to the preeminent value of persons rather than rules.”

^[38] Bruce, Caitlin. “The balaclava as affect generator: Free Pussy Riot protests and transnational iconicity.” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 12, no. 1 (2015): 52.

^[39] See for example Sperling, Valerie. “Russian feminist perspectives on Pussy Riot.” Nationalities Papers 42, no. 4 (2014): 591-603.

^[40] Another example of this, which does not fit into the discussion at present, is Makarychev’s and Medvedev’s admission that Pussy Riot had expressed deep reservations with Western societies  — Tolokonnikova, for example, had exchanged letters with Slavoj Žižek which were “sympathetic to a highly critical view of capitalist Europe as being in a state of decline and crisis, unable to tacke its domestic troubles effectively and even less capable of a well-thought-out strategy towards its neighbours,” even going so far as to declare that Pussy Riot members intended to make art against consumerist capitalism.   

^[41] Walker, Craig Stewart. “Madness, Dissidence and Transduction.” Palabra Clave 20, no. 3 (2017): 697.

^[42] Nelson, Ingrid. “Artist for a New Age: Dissident Russian Performance Art and the Work of Petr Pavlenskii.” Russian Literature 96 (2018), 287.

^[43] On the topic of his performance, Pavlensky has said: “my idea was to tell people, ‘You will have Police Day for the rest of your life if you don’t act.’” On his website, Pavlensky described his action as “a metaphor of the apathy and political indifference and apathy of the modern Russian society.”

^[44] Bargu, Banu. “The Corporeal Avant-Garde: Petr Pavlensky.” Bodies of Evidence: Ethics, Aesthetics and Politics of Movement (2018): 101-19.

^[45] Nordgaard, “Documenting/Performing the Vulnerable Body,” 101.

^[46] Makarychev, Andrey, and Sergey Medvedev. “Biopolitical art and the struggle for Sovereignty in Putin’s Russia.” Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe 26, no. 2-3 (2018): 165.

^[47] Nordgaard, “Documenting/Performing the Vulnerable Body,” 98-99.

^[48] Bargu, “The Corporeal Avant-Garde,” 106-7.

^[49] In 2017, for example, Pavlensky set fire to the doors of the Banque de la France on Place, echoing his 2015 action, Threat, staged at the Lubyanka Building.

^[50] Bruce, “The balaclava as affect generator,” 45.

^[51] Ibid.

^[52] Bruce, 45.

^[53] Wiedlack, Katharina. “Pussy Riot and the Western Gaze: Punk Music, Solidarity and the Production of Similarity and Difference.” Popular Music and Society 39, no. 4 (2016): 410-3.

^[54] In his 2020 interview with The New York Times, Pavlensky states: “all governments, whether French or Russian, “are instruments of repression. The mechanics of power are the same everywhere, only the techniques are different.”

^[55] Mathias, Christopher. “Eric Garner Said ‘I Can’t Breathe’ 11 Times — Now Activists Are Making 11 Demands In His Name.” HuffPost. HuffPost, December 12, 2014. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/eric-garner-protests-demands_n_6308956

^[56] Dzero, Irina, and Tatyana Bystrova. “Pussy Riot and the Translatability of Cultures.” Transcultural Studies 13, no. 2 (2017): 282.

^[57] Collet, Benoît, and Afp. “Affaire Griveaux : Pavlenski ‘a sans Doute Été Aidé’, Estime Ndiaye.” RTL.fr, February 17, 2020. https://www.rtl.fr/actu/politique/affaire-griveaux-pavlenski-a-sans-doute-ete-aide-estime-ndiaye-7800108390.

^[58] Costa-Kostritsky, Valeria. “What Is Pyotr Pavlensky Playing at?” Apollo Magazine, April 9, 2020. https://www.apollo-magazine.com/pavlensky-playing-benjamin-griveaux/

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources

Pussy Riot

1. Cadwalladr, Carole. “Pussy Riot: Will Vladimir Putin Regret Taking on Russia’s Cool Punks?” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, July 28, 2012. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jul/29/pussy-riot-protest-vladimir-putin-russia.
2. Clover, Charles. “Subscribe to the FT to Read: Financial Times Pussy Riot Dig Claws into Putin.” Pussy Riot Dig Claws into Putin. Financial Times, March 16, 2012. http://www.ft.com/content/8efa1f1e-6f82-11e1-b3f9-00144feab49a.
3. Elder, Miriam. “Pussy Riot Trial: ‘We Are Representatives of Our Generation’.” The Guardian. The Guardian News and Media, August 17, 2012. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/aug/17/pussy-riot-trial-representatives-generation.  
4. Esslemont, Tom. “Pussy Riot Members Jailed for Two Years for Hooliganism.” BBC News. BBC, August 17, 2012. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-19297373. 
5. Harris, John. “From Pussy Riot, a Lesson in the Power of Punk | John Harris.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, August 19, 2012. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/aug/19/pussy-riot-power-of-punk.
6. Idov, Michael. “Opinion | On Trial, Putin v. Pussy Riot – The New York Times.” The New York Times. The New York Times, August 7, 2012. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/07/opinion/on-trial-putin-v-pussy-riot.html. 
7. Friedman, Ann. “Pussy Riot Grrrls.” The New Yorker. The New Yorker, June 18, 2017. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/pussy-riot-grrrls.
8. Lipman, Masha. “The Absurd and Outrageous Trial of Pussy Riot.” The New Yorker. The New  Yorker, August 7, 2012. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-absurd-and-outrageous-trial-of-pussy-riot.
9. Lipman, Masha. “Putin’s Religious War Against Pussy Riot.” The New Yorker. The New Yorker, June 18, 2017. http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/putins-religious-war-against-pussy-riot. 
10. Mackey, Robert, and Glenn Kates. “Russian Riot Grrrls Jailed for ‘Punk Prayer’.” The New York Times. The New York Times, March 7, 2012. http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/07/russian-riot-grrrls-jailed-for-punk-prayer/.  
11. McDonnell, Evelyn. “Pussy Riot and the Politics of Grrrl Punk.” Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, September 13, 2012. https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/posts/la-et-ms-pussy-riot-and-the-politics-of-grrrl-punk-20120912-story.html.    
12. Nocera, Joe. “Pussy Riot Tells All.” The New York Times. The New York Times, February 8, 2014. www.nytimes.com/2014/02/08/opinion/nocera-pussy-riot-tells-all.html.
13. Pelly, Jenn. “‘We Are All Pussy Riot’: Kathleen Hanna Speaks on the Jailed Feminist Punk Group.” Pitchfork. Pitchfork, August 15, 2012. http://pitchfork.com/news/47516-we-are-all-pussy-riot-kathleen-hanna-speaks-on-the-jailed-feminist-punk-group/.  
14. Politkovskaya, Anna. “Pussy Riot Can Rock the Kremlin to Its Foundations.” Financial Times. Financial Times, August 20, 2012. www.ft.com/content/e4fbca60-eab7-11e1-984b-00144feab49a.
15. Pussy Riot. “We Wish Nadia and Masha Well – but They’re No Longer Part of Pussy Riot | Pussy Riot.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, February 6, 2014.  www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/06/nadia-masha-pussy-riot-collective-no-longer.
16. Walker, Shaun. “Voices within Russia Join Outcry over Pussy Riot Sentence.” The Independent. Independent Digital News and Media, August 12, 2012. www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/voices-within-russia-join-outcry-over-pussy-riot-sentence-8061486.html.
17. Haynes, Suyin. “Pussy Riot’s Activists on Protests and Russia’s Politics.” Time. Time, November 2, 2018. https://time.com/5442791/pussy-riot-russia-poisoning-olga-kyrachyova-veronika-nikulshina/.

Petr Pavlensky

1. Balmforth, Tom. “Russian Protest Artist Pavlensky Loses Award.” RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty. Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, July 11, 2016. www.rferl.org/a/pavlensky-havel-prize/27847886.html.
2. Bennetts, Marc. “Acts of Resistance: Pyotr Pavlensky on Performance Art as Protest.” The Calvert Journal, December 1, 2014. www.calvertjournal.com/articles/show/3373/pavlensky-performance-art-protest.
3. Bershidsky, Leonid. “Artist Mutilates Self as Putin Paralyzes Russia.” Bloomberg Opinion. Bloomberg, November 12, 2013. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2013-11-11/artist-mutilates-self-as-putin-paralyzes-russia.
4. Cafolla, Anna. “Russian Artist Petr Pavlensky Sets Fire to Paris Bank.” Dazed. Dazed Digital, October 17, 2017. https://www.dazeddigital.com/politics/article/37783/1/russian-artist-petr-pavlensky-sets-fire-to-paris-bank.  
5. Collet, Benoît, and Afp. “Affaire Griveaux : Pavlenski ‘a sans Doute Été Aidé’, Estime Ndiaye.” RTL.fr, February 17, 2020. https://www.rtl.fr/actu/politique/affaire-griveaux-pavlenski-a-sans-doute-ete-aide-estime-ndiaye-7800108390.
6. Cook, Fiona. “Petr Pavlensky v Vladimir Putin.” Dazed. Dazed Digital, July 26, 2012. https://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/14077/1/petr-pavlensky-v-vladimir-putin. 
7. Costa-Kostritsky, Valeria. “What Is Pyotr Pavlensky Playing at?” Apollo Magazine, April 9, 2020. https://www.apollo-magazine.com/pavlensky-playing-benjamin-griveaux/. 
8. Eberstadt, Fernanda. “The Dangerous Art of Pyotr Pavlensky.” The New York Times. The New York Times, July 11, 2019. www.nytimes.com/2019/07/11/magazine/pyotr-pavlensky-art.html.
9. Eshun, Ekow, et al. “The Naked Truth: the Art World Reacts to Pyotr Pavlensky’s Red Square Protest.” The Calvert Journal, November 14, 2013. www.calvertjournal.com/articles/show/1768/pyotr-pavlensky-russian-artist-nails-red-square.
10. Filippova, Dasha. “The Russian Terrorist: Petr Pavlensky.” ArtSlant. ArtSlant, June 20, 2016. https://www.artslant.com/ny/articles/show/46065-the-russian-terrorist-petr-pavlensky. 
11. Higgins, Andrew. “An Artist Who Aspires to Be ‘a Bone in Everyone’s Throat’.” The New York Times. The New York Times, February 28, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/28/world/europe/pyotr-pavlensky-interview.html.  
12. Gessen, Masha. “The Protest Artist Who Stumps Putin.” The New Yorker. The New Yorker, June 19, 2017. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-protest-artist-who-stumps-putin.  
13. Gompertz, Will. “Pushing the Art of Protest to New Limits.” BBC News. BBC, April 28, 2016.www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-36163543. 
14. Guelman, Marat. “Why Russia Produces (and Quashes) so Much Radical Art.” CNN. Cable News Network, November 27, 2017. http://edition.cnn.com/style/article/russia-protest-art-saatchi-gallery/index.html?sr=twCNN112717undefined1147AMStory.  
15. Jones, Jonathan. “Pyotr Pavlensky Is Setting Russia’s Evil History Ablaze.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, November 9, 2015. www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2015/nov/09/pyotr-pavlensky-is-setting-russias-evil-history-ablaze.
16. Le Point, magazine. “Griveaux : Qui Est Piotr Pavlenski, L’artiste Russe Qui a Mis En Ligne La Vidéo Intime ?” Le Point, February 14, 2020. www.lepoint.fr/politique/griveaux-qui-est-piotr-pavlenski-l-artiste-russe-qui-a-mis-en-ligne-la-video-intime-14-02-2020-2362713_20.php.
17. Liscia, Valentina Di, et al. “Released from a Yearlong Detention, Artist Petr Pavlensky Now Faces 10 Years in Prison.” Hyperallergic, October 17, 2018. http://hyperallergic.com/463704/artist-petr-pavlensky-now-faces-10-years-in-prison/.   
18. Morissard, Aurelien. “Affaire Griveaux : Qui Sont Piotr Pavlenski Et Alexandra De Taddeo ?” France Bleu, February 17, 2020. www.francebleu.fr/infos/politique/l-artiste-russe-piotr-pavlenski-affirme-avoir-mis-en-ligne-les-videos-attribuees-a-benjamin-griveaux-1581673263.
19. S., N. “Petr Pavlensky, Accused of Sexual Assault, Flees Russia.” The Economist. The Economist Newspaper, January 20, 2017. https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2017/01/20/petr-pavlensky-accused-of-sexual-assault-flees-russia.
20. Sedacca, Matthew. “Russian Actionist Petr Pavlensky Talks Censorship in the Motherland.” Vice. Vice Media, September 18, 2015. https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/78e7v4/a-russian-artist-poked-the-bear-and-almost-got-away-with-it. 
21. Sneider, Noah. “Body Politics.” 1843, July 27, 2016, www.1843magazine.com/features/body-politics.
22. Walker, Shaun. “Petr Pavlensky: Why I Nailed My Scrotum to Red Square.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, February 5, 2014. www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/feb/05/petr-pavlensky-nailed-scrotum-red-square.

Other

1. Mathias, Christopher. “Eric Garner Said ‘I Can’t Breathe’ 11 Times — Now Activists Are Making 11 Demands In His Name.” HuffPost. HuffPost, December 12, 2014. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/eric-garner-protests-demands_n_6308956.

Secondary Sources

1. Bargu, Banu. “The Corporeal Avant-Garde: Petr Pavlensky.” Bodies of Evidence: Ethics, Aesthetics and Politics of Movement (2018): 101-19.
2. Bruce, Caitlin. “The balaclava as affect generator: Free Pussy Riot protests and transnational iconicity.” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 12, no. 1 (2015): 42-62.
3. Currie, Janus C. “Like a Prayer: The Dissensual Aesthetics of Pussy Riot.” Rock Music Studies 4, no. 2 (2017): 89-101.
4. Denysenko, Nicholas. “An appeal to Mary: An analysis of Pussy Riot’s punk performance in Moscow.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 81, no. 4 (2013): 1061-1092.
5. Dzero, Irina, and Tatyana Bystrova. “Pussy Riot and the Translatability of Cultures.” Transcultural Studies 13, no. 2 (2017): 264-286.
6. Glisic, Iva, and Biljana Puric. “Art as a Living Archive: Post-1989 Performance Art in Serbia and Russia.” Third Text 33, no. 2 (2019): 213-234.
7. Kananovich, Volha. “Progressive Artists, Political Martyrs, or Blasphemous Hussies? A Content Analysis of the Russian Media Coverage of the Pussy Riot Affair.” Popular Music and Society 39, no. 4 (2016): 396-409.
8. Kobets, Svitlana. “From the Tabennisi nunnery to Pussy Riot: female holy fools in Byzantium and Russia.” Canadian Slavonic Papers 60, no. 1-2 (2018): 87-107.
9. Makarychev, Andrey, and Alexandra Yatsyk. “Refracting Europe: Biopolitical conservatism and art protest in Putin’s Russia.” In Russia’s Foreign Policy, pp. 138-155. Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2015.
10. Makarychev, Andrey, and Sergey Medvedev. “Biopolitical art and the struggle for Sovereignty in Putin’s Russia.” Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe 26, no. 2-3 (2018): 165-179.
11. Miller, Andrew. “Perfect Opposition: On Putin and Pussy Riot.” Public Policy Research 19, no. 3 (2012): 205-207.
12. Nelson, Ingrid. “Artist for a New Age: Dissident Russian Performance Art and the Work of Petr Pavlenskii.” Russian Literature 96 (2018): 277-295.
13. Nordgaard, Ingrid. “Documenting/Performing the Vulnerable Body: Pain and Agency in Works by Boris Mikhailov and Petr Pavlensky.” Contemporaneity: Historical Presence in Visual Culture 5 (2016): 85-107.
14. Schuler, Catherine. “Reinventing the show trial: Putin and Pussy Riot.” In Anthropology, Theatre, and Development, pp. 286-302. Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2015.
15. Sperling, Valerie. “Russian feminist perspectives on Pussy Riot.” Nationalities Papers 42, no. 4 (2014): 591-603.
16. Steinholt, Yngvar B., and David-Emil Wickström. “The Pussy Riot Complex: Entering a New Stage of Academic Research into a Viral Russian Controversy.” (2016): 393-395.
17. Steinholt, Yngvar B. “Kitten Heresy: Lost Contexts of Pussy Riot’s Punk Prayer.” Popular Music and Society 36, no. 1 (2013): 120-124.
18. Storch, Leonid. “The Pussy Riot Case: Anti-Westernism in the Paradigm of the Beilis Trial.” Russian Politics & Law 51, no. 6 (2013): 8-44.
19. Wiedlack, Katharina. “Pussy Riot and the Western Gaze: Punk Music, Solidarity and the Production of Similarity and Difference.” Popular Music and Society 39, no. 4 (2016): 410-422.
20. Walker, Craig Stewart. “Madness, Dissidence and Transduction.” Palabra Clave 20, no. 3 (2017): 686-701.
21. Yusupova, Marina. “Pussy Riot: a feminist band lost in history and translation.” Nationalities Papers 42, no. 4 (2014): 604-610.

This piece was published in the Acheson Issue, Volume 11

Introduction

When tanks and transports loaded with heavily armed soldiers rolled into Buenos Aires early in the morning of March 24, 1976, to depose Isabel Perón and suspend Argentina’s democracy, hardly anyone was surprised. It was a surreal sight, as the military was met with disinterest or outright support by much of the Argentine public. The famed author Jorge Luis Borges spoke for a significant portion of the middle class when he claimed, “[n]ow we are governed by gentlemen.”^[1] The major radio stations ignored the history unfolding in real-time, civilians ran errands and went to work, and nobody offered any meaningful resistance. This calm beginning belied the global implications of the military’s coup and the tremendous strife that would grip the country over the next seven years.^[2]

The diplomatic clash between the United States and Argentina that followed the coup represented something new in the history of US-Latin American relations and the history of U.S. human rights policy. The Argentine junta that rose to power in 1976 abused human rights in a far more widespread and systematic way than most other military regimes in the region had. It was met by a U.S. administration that claimed to be willing to criticize right-wing allies and advocate for human rights to a far greater degree than any other administration had to that point. Early in President Jimmy Carter’s term, it was possible to imagine that this advocacy would be a catalyst for a broader rethinking of U.S.-Latin American relations. Within four short years, however,  the Reagan administration was collaborating with the Argentine junta to support the infamously brutal Contra paramilitaries in Nicaragua. Carter’s quest to reshape America’s role in the hemisphere seemed to have failed, and business as usual had been restored. Understanding the limits on the Carter administration’s human rights policies in Argentina has significant implications for the study of the American human rights movement.

My research focuses on the structural challenges that the Carter administration faced in its efforts to improve human rights in the wake of the Argentine coup, and I argue that these factors seriously hampered Carter’s efforts to break with the unhealthy patterns that had previously characterized U.S.-Latin American relations, particularly during the Cold War. I choose to take Carter at his word that he truly wanted to fundamentally rethink US foreign policy. Working from this premise, I seek to explore why he was unable to bring about this change in the case of America’s response to the flagrant human rights abuses that followed the 1976 coup. First, I argue that clientelism in the U.S. Department of the State, and bureaucratic intransigence more generally, seriously damaged the implementation of Carter’s policies. Second, I point out how national security concerns in the region took on greater importance in bureaucratic and public discourse during the latter half of Carter’s presidency. These concerns left a weakened and increasingly unpopular Carter administration less able to justify significant human rights pressure on Argentina. My account differs from existing narratives of this process in its focus on the structural factors that influenced the outcome of Carter’s human rights campaign in Argentina. Instead of examining the Carter administration’s policy decisions in-depth, I will focus on how the bureaucratic and political environment in which these decisions were made circumscribed the potential success of Carter’s human rights advocacy in Argentina.

The Roots of the Coup: 1973-1976 

It was evident leading up to the coup that the military was preparing to seize power from the embattled civilian government. The coup of 1976 was the culmination of a years-long conflict against left-wing domestic terrorists and decades of debate about the proper state of Argentine civil-military relations. The immediate seeds of the coup were planted in 1973 when Juan Perón, the infamous messiah-like leader of the peronismo movement, was permitted to return to Argentina following an 18-year exile in Spain that had been forced upon him by the Argentine military. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, two left-wing militant organizations, the Montoneros and the ERP, began to target the military regime that ruled the country at that time. They used violent tactics, such as robberies, kidnappings, assassinations, and acts of terror, to destabilize the military government. They demanded that democratic elections be held and that a peronista candidate be permitted to run for president. After several years of growing violence and calls from civilian political figures to step away from politics, the military decided to allow elections to be held in 1973. Héctor Cámpora, a peronista and a stand-in candidate for Perón was elected, paving the way for Perón’s return to power.^[3]

Peronismo was an alliance of left-wing and right-wing populism shakily held together by the persona of Perón himself. The Montoneros and ERP represented a militant leftist strain of peronismo that had hoped Perón’s return would bring back some of the pro-labor policies that had been curtailed under military rule. Upon his return to power, however, Perón made it clear that his sympathies had shifted toward the right-wing of his movement. He publicly criticized the Montoneros and refused to appoint Montonero-approved candidates to government positions. The ERP and Montoneros resumed their violent attacks against government forces shortly after Perón’s return to Argentina, and the violence was only inflamed by a newly formed paramilitary force of right-wing peronista terrorists, the Triple A.^[4]

This low-level violence exploded into a significant insurgency following the death of Perón. The militant left and right sought with renewed vigor to dominate the political future of the nation by attacking each other and opposing public figures. Perón’s widow and successor to the presidency, Isabel Perón, proved incapable of containing the violence. 

Isabel Perón declared a state of siege as outlined by the Argentine constitution November 6, 1974, giving the military more latitude to deal with the insurgents. She expanded the freedom of the military to act as it pleased twice over the next two years to great effect. The ERP was critically damaged during the campaign in Tucumán province in 1975, losing 160 fighters out of an organization numbering in the hundreds. The Montoneros were somewhat larger and more threatening, but they were also seriously weakened over the course of 1974 and 1975. The military used the freedom it had been granted ruthlessly. It employed torture, extralegal killings, and persecution of civilians to eliminate what it saw as a subversive threat.^[5]

The Argentine military was subject to a variety of influences during its counterinsurgency efforts throughout this period. Its importance in manufacturing and employment along with the isolation of its officers from civilian life nurtured an attitude of self-importance. The military elite tended to view themselves as the most vital, devout, and exemplary segment of Argentine society. This self-importance was further strengthened by the ideological training provided to much of the officer class by the U.S throughout much of the Cold War by administrations of both parties. While this training often included traditional operational instruction, the primary impact was ideological. Argentine officers were told they were an integral component of a global war against Communism and that they must always be hypervigilant for any signs of subversion within their society. These teachings were given to a military class that had already begun to see peronismo, and leftist politics in general, as threats to national unity. Furthermore, French military analysts added doctrinal insights they had developed during their counterinsurgency experiences in Vietnam and Algeria to this ideological orientation. As part of the capitalist alliance during the Cold War, French advisers were keen to support the Argentine military in their fight against leftist forces. With the help of French advisers and books such as Trinquier’s La Guerre moderne, the Argentine military began to develop a decentralized counterinsurgency apparatus that would become infamous for secret abductions and torture during the Dirty War — the military’s name for the violent counterinsurgency it launched against leftists agitators. The result of these endemic and foreign influences was an Argentine military that believed the Montoneros and ERP represented a fundamental threat to the Argentine way of life, and that completely rooting out the insurgency would require a much more forceful set of actions than a civilian government would permit.^[6]

Military coups were not particularly rare events in recent Argentine history. The 1976 coup was the sixth since President Hipólito Yrigoyen had been deposed by the military in 1930.^[7] Political actors, including the leftist guerrillas, had developed expectations of what coups entailed and strategies for dealing with the new regime. The regime that took power in 1976, however, had far more radical goals than previous juntas. The military now believed that the guerrillas were an existential threat not just to Argentina, but to Western civilization in general. Not a single so-called “subversive” could be allowed to survive. The military had no intention of seizing power to stabilize the immediate crisis and then handing it back to civilians. In fact, the military seized power at a point in the conflict when it appeared that the terrorists were being contained and the crisis was passing.^[8] Their main goal was to resolve the guerrilla problem once and for all, by killing every remaining subversive and eliminating what they saw as the root causes of subversion.^[9]

After seizing power, the junta acted rapidly to enact its anti-subversion agenda. Applying experience from the Tucumán campaign, it set up a national intelligence network tasked with gathering the names and whereabouts of supposed subversives and vested regionally distributed officers with the authority to strike against subversives. To a careless observer, it may have seemed as though nothing strange was happening at first. Beneath the surface, however, Argentina had rapidly become one of the foremost violators of human rights on the world stage.

The United States and Human Rights in the 1970s

Like every other observer in Argentina and across the world, the U.S. government was aware that the coup was coming. A telegram from U.S. Ambassador to Argentina, Robert Hill, to the State Department in Washington D.C. illuminates just how informed U.S. officials were of the coming coup. On March 16, less than a week before the coup began, Hill recounted that he had met with Admiral Eduardo Massera, the head of the Argentine Navy and the man who would later serve as the strongest voice for expanding the Dirty War in the military junta. Massera reportedly told Hill that, “it was no secret that military might have to step into political vacuum very soon” (sic)

Right-leaning military coups were nothing new in the region, which had transformed into yet another front in the global Cold War. The U.S. foreign policy establishment had developed a set of general practices that structured their response to these sorts of regimes. In the recent past, the executive branch had been perfectly willing to collaborate with the military regimes that had seized power in Brazil and Chile, while ignoring — and at times facilitating — the flagrant abuses that characterized both regimes. The realpolitik of Nixon and Kissinger gave no attention to the internal crimes of allied regimes, provided they continued to support the narrow, realist view of U.S. national interests. More broadly, U.S. administrations, both Democrat and Republican, had shown little compunction in consistently supporting murderous, right-wing leaders like Trujillo in the Dominican Republic and the Somoza family in Nicaragua. One could be forgiven for suspecting that the initial willingness to accommodate the new Argentine regime in 1976 was a sign that the U.S. would once again be either a passive or active accomplice in the flagrant abuses of one of its Latin American allies.

Just as the Argentine military had altered its perceptions of what actions would be necessary to eliminate subversion, the U.S. government in 1976 had changed its benchmarks for what actions it would be willing to accept from its allies. The global human rights movement had profoundly influenced how Americans and their elected representatives by extension thought about America’s role in the world. Mark Philip Bradley points out how the growth of international business, communication networks, and travel in the late 1960s and early 1970s contributed to a more globally cognizant citizenry, especially in Europe and North America.^[10]

The American public of the early 1970s found itself particularly open to the ideas of the growing human rights movement. Following Nixon’s exit from office, Congress began to reassert itself in the foreign policy arena.^[11] They designated foreign aid as the primary mechanism for enacting a human rights agenda and following several years of vigorous dispute with the Ford administration, Congress passed several key pieces of human rights legislation in 1976. At the same time, the striking campaign against the Pinochet regime in Chile led by Amnesty International and other international NGOs created a clear association in the minds of the public and policymakers between Latin American military regimes and human rights abuses.^[12]

It was in the context of a newly reinvigorated congressional human rights movement and public demand for accountability from America’s more repressive Latin American allies that Carter assumed the presidency January 20, 1977. A Washington outsider and devout Christian, Carter promised to restore an element of morality to U.S. foreign policy and build on the congressional model of human rights advocacy. The role of human rights in this process was best encapsulated in his farewell speech to the nation in 1981, when he said, “America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense, it is the other way round. Human rights invented America.”^[13] Rather than acting as a power above the bothersome restrictions of the international community, Carter would seek to transform the U.S. into just another nation within the international system, with merely the privileges and all the responsibilities of any other nation. In Carter’s vision, human rights would not be a new tool for merely expanding American power in the world, but rather they would be used to contain American power within the universal ideals of the international community. His personal interest in Latin America, developed during previous travels throughout the region, as well as his desire to reorient U.S. foreign policy away from its all-consuming focus on competition with global communism led him to strongly reexamine America’s role in the Western Hemisphere. 

From the earliest days of the Carter administration, there was a particular focus on the abuses committed by the new Argentine regime. In keeping with Carter’s principles of treating Latin America as “just another region of the world” whose “security value to the U.S. would no longer be exaggerated,” the administration declined to resist congressional mandates to elevate human rights concerns in the area of foreign aid to Argentina.^[14] Carter instructed the State Department to continuously report on the abuses occurring in Argentina and appointed a passionate activist, Patricia Derian, to the recently created position of Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs. He told American representatives to various international financial institutions (IFIs), such as the IMF and IDB, to vote against loans to Argentina.^[15] In February of 1977, it was announced that military aid to Argentina would be reduced from $48.4 million to $15 million due to human rights concerns. Outraged by this public embarrassment, the junta announced it would not accept any aid from the U.S.^[16]

From the very beginning of the Carter administration, the stage was set for a diplomatic standoff between the U.S. and the Argentine junta. This tension represented a break from the traditional pattern of U.S. Cold War strategy in Latin America. Argentina was nominally an ally in the fight against Communism, and the links between the militaries of the two countries were well-established. For this reason, Argentina provided an excellent opportunity for Carter to begin his effort to reorganize U.S. policy in the region. His new foreign policy would evaluate partners based on their fidelity to international standards of human rights, rather than purely to U.S. standards of anti-Communism. Such a fundamental shift, however, would face significant obstacles.

Bureaucratic Challenges: 1976-1977

Carter’s inability to effectively utilize the relevant bureaucratic agencies to enact his human rights agenda greatly impeded his goal of restructuring America’s relationship with Argentina, and with the world in general. To achieve his lofty vision of establishing a U.S. foreign policy based on upholding internationally accepted standards of behavior, Carter needed to institutionalize human rights advocacy throughout the agencies responsible for enacting U.S. foreign policy day in and day out. To bring about a change as fundamental as the one he sought, Carter needed to find a way to integrate human rights concerns into the workflows of the hundreds of diplomats, intelligence analysts, military officers and other bureaucrats who collectively create America’s foreign policy. His failure to accomplish this prevented human rights from becoming the catalyst for the radically new foreign policy that he sought.

Resistance from DC

The most prominent agency relating to foreign policy is the State Department, and it was there the Carter administration worked the hardest to institutionalize human rights. By appointing Derian, who had been a close advisor throughout his presidential campaign, to coordinator of the Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs division at the Department, Carter effectively placed a passionate activist with an impressive history of civil rights advocacy among the leadership at the State Department. Shortly after her appointment, Carter elevated her position to the assistant secretary level, placing her on equal footing with the Department’s highest-level leaders.^[17] Derian was acutely aware of the importance of seemingly banal office politics for the fate of her human rights agenda. In a 1996 interview, Derian describes the challenges she faced in attempting to gain respect for her new department in the inflexible and traditional bureaucracy of the State Department. She reports that materials from her department would often not reach the president despite her best efforts. She had difficulty getting face time with the president and other key White House officials in comparison with her peers. Carter, because of his personal relationship with Derian, repeatedly offered her opportunities to utilize backdoor arrangements to gain access. Derian, however, understood the importance of gaining procedural legitimacy for her department by working within the official process rather than relying on her personal relationship with the president. She states that her goal for the human rights agenda was “[t]o get it in the machinery in every possible way so that when I left, I didn’t want it to be Pat Derian’s policy.” She goes on to explain “a lot of time people have a great idea and they do a good job and then they leave and that’s the end of it. It seemed to me that this had nothing to do with me personally. It had to do with the duty to the country and to upholding the law. (…) That was one of the main things, to just get it in there and institutionalize it.”^[18] Derian understood that to bring about the fundamental shift that the administration was seeking, it was less important to score specific tactical victories on certain issues than it was to create a State Department where human rights concerns were respected to the same degree as more traditional foreign policy imperatives. Carter’s repeated offers to create back channels for human rights may indicate that he had less of a grasp than Derian on the importance of embedding his agenda within the foreign policy bureaucracy from top to bottom.

Beyond her difficulties in bringing her agenda to the White House, Derian also faced challenges in gaining respect internally at the State Department. For example, Derian’s office was initially not consulted for guidance on key human rights-related issues. Early in her term, Derian describes receiving a telegram about an unspecified human rights issue marked information only. Rather than merely filing it away, Derian decided to write a position memo on the issue and send it to the Secretary of State, Cyrus Vance, for consideration. She describes how an unnamed State Department employee quickly noticed her memo, and angrily tried to explain to her that Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs “was an information office (…) it’s always been an information office.”^[19] From the perspective of this man and likely much of the State Department, it was not the role of Derian and her division to take an active role in shaping policy, but rather to provide background information that could be either used or ignored by more important sections of the Department when making decisions. Although Derian was able to have her memo sent to Vance in this case, this anecdote illustrates the resistance she had to overcome as she sought to carve out a larger role for herself and her division within the Department. Derian was aware of this bureaucratic pushback to her agenda. As she explains, even after the first incident described above, “I do know that there were plenty of cables, which were relevant to our issues, where they tried to go around us. Just a lot of people in there who wanted [my] office (not) to work.”^[20]

At times, this pushback was seemingly driven by sexism as much as resistance to the concept of human rights. Derian describes a particularly striking instance when she discovered, “Who does this babe think she is? What does she know about this?” scribbled on the margins of a memo she had sent to the European Affairs Bureau requesting information.^[21] While it is outside the scope of this essay to fully examine the gendered perceptions of human rights, it is possible that the association of human rights with the feminine further increased resistance to human rights considerations within the hypermasculine, good old boys’ culture that pervaded the foreign policy establishment during this time. 

The successes Derian had despite the widespread resistance to her role should not be understated. From her 1996 interview, we can see that she played a large role in raising the profile of human rights at the State Department, and her appointment to a seventh-floor office at the Department was an important symbol of the value the Carter administration placed on human rights.^[22] On more concrete policy terms, she played a key role in pressuring the Argentine junta for its human rights abuses. She visited the country three times during her term, enduring the regime’s veiled threats while meeting with government officials. Her willingness to listen to the many impassioned pleas from friends and families of the disappeared played a role in lifting the spirits of Argentine activists and gathering key information on conditions in Argentina.^[23] But these successes were limited by the resistance Derian and her team encountered within the State Department itself. Without the support of the State Department in Washington, it was challenging to enact the fundamental shift in U.S. foreign policy that Derian and Carter were looking for.

Human Rights and Office Politics 

This resistance by large segments of the State Department doubtlessly hampered the implementation of the fundamental shift in foreign policy priorities that Carter hoped to bring about. One clear conclusion of Derian’s account is that it was difficult being a human rights advocate at the State Department during this period. Department staff who chose to align themselves with the administration’s human rights policies risked the ire of their colleagues and being branded as a poor team player. Victories were often circumscribed, and like-minded colleagues were not especially common. In this way, bureaucratic intransigence bred further intransigence. Isolated advocates like Derian were not sufficient to bring about a complete restructuring of U.S. foreign policy. Such fundamental shifts would have required widespread buy-in by key actors across the foreign policy bureaucracy. Without this level of buy-in, Carter’s vision was significantly impeded. 

Carter’s inability to institutionalize human rights advocacy at the State Department from the start of his term placed his human rights agenda toward countries like Argentina on shaky foundations. Derian’s account focuses mostly on the early Carter years, when his administration had the enhanced political capital that traditionally characterizes presidents at the beginning of their terms. As this political capital quickly began to vanish during the crisis-filled second half of his presidency, Carter’s human rights policies faced even more significant challenges.

The National Security Renaissance: 1978-1980

Starting around mid-1978, both the Carter administration and the Argentine junta encountered a changed strategic environment which led the Carter administration to place less and less pressure on the junta. Carter, faced with a growing number of foreign policy crises, could not muster the same level of political capital he had devoted to human rights policy earlier in his term. At the same time, the Argentine junta began to shift the priorities and methods of its Dirty War in such a way that continued human rights advocacy on the part of the U.S. became more onerous. The changing stance of the Carter administration after 1978 illustrates how national security concerns and the public outcry that accompanied them provided a structural obstacle to formulating a human rights-based foreign policy toward Argentina.

Carter Faces a Backlash

The political capital that had allowed Carter to begin implementing his human rights agenda began to rapidly evaporate around the halfway point of his presidency, when Carter suffered a number of serious embarrassments on the global stage. The Iranian Revolution in 1978 overthrew a key U.S. ally in the Middle East and culminated in the infamous hostage crisis that came to define Carter’s legacy for many Americans. The related oil crisis threw lofty foreign policy debates into sharp relief for voters across the country, affecting their wellbeing in tangible ways. The 1979 invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union further harmed Carter’s reputation in the foreign policy realm; from Washington insiders to regular voters, a broad swath of Americans was beginning to conclude that Carter’s attempts to fundamentally reorganize U.S. foreign policy were, at best, a distraction from the real issues and, at worse, a cause of America’s current challenges. William LeoGrande explains that as Carter’s presidency progressed, “to many Americans, he simply looked weak and ineffectual.”^[24] The challenges he faced during the second half of his presidency “appeared to represent a retreat by the United States from the summit of world power.”^[25]

This altered global environment was complemented by changes within Latin America and how U.S. policies in the region were perceived by domestic observers. Firstly, the administration received significant backlash for the flagship piece of its Latin America agenda — the Panama Canal treaties. For the Carter administration, these two treaties embodied the hope for a reconsideration of U.S. policy toward Latin America. Whereas U.S. policy in the region had been previously characterized by America’s all-consuming obsession with maintaining its regional dominance, Carter hoped to create a Latin American policy based on hemispheric consensus and respect for the sovereignty of all nations, even small nations like Panama. Carter explains his view on the issue of returning the Canal Zone to Panama in his memoir, saying, “I was convinced that we needed to correct an injustice. Our failure to take action after years of promises under five previous Presidents had created something of a diplomatic cancer, which was poisoning our relations with Panama.”^[26]

When it came time for Congress to ratify the treaties, there was an immense outpouring of public opposition, driven by conservatives who felt establishing a timeline for returning the Canal Zone to Panama threatened U.S. security and the prestige of the U.S. in the world more broadly. Natasha Zarensky casts the grassroots opposition to the treaties as a precursor of the New Right movement, and an example of the post-Vietnam anxieties about America losing its preeminent position in world affairs. She points out that the Canal Treaties issue provided fodder for conservative figures — such as Carter’s eventual successor, Ronald Reagan — to publicly criticize the administration’s stance toward Latin America as naive and misguided.^[27] Foreign policy analysts like Howard Wiarda made the case that in Latin America, Carter was too busy acting as a moral imperialist through his human rights advocacy and had neglected traditional security concerns in the region.^[28]

These critiques exploded into full-throated condemnation in the wake of the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua in 1978 and 1979. The FSLN, a Cuban-backed, leftist guerrilla better known as the Sandinistas, attacked and eventually overthrew the murderous Somoza family regime that had enjoyed largely unquestioned support from U.S. presidents for decades. Carter, as part of his larger break with U.S. orthodoxy in Latin America, had targeted the Somocistas with a public pressure campaign designed to curtail some of the flagrant human rights abuses that had long characterized the Somoza regime.^[29] The decision to target another traditional ally in the region, one facing an existential Communist threat no less, was evidence for conservatives that the Carter administration’s new approach to Latin America represented a threat to U.S. national security. 

These crises changed the strategic priorities of the Carter administration. Facing renewed dangers from Europe and Asia , and increased public scrutiny at home, the administration had less leeway to focus on its pressure campaign against Argentina. Examining accounts from administration figures illustrates the significant shift that occurred as Carter entered the latter half of his term. When questioned about human rights policy under Carter during a 1982 interview, William Odom, an aide to National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski focused on military affairs, explained, “I think the Carter administration essentially sailed in one direction for two years and slowly came back around to another direction the last two years.”^[30] Carter, himself, also provides some indications about how the foreign policy crises that he faced during the last two years of his administration impacted his work. In his memoir of the presidency, Carter explains how the Iran hostage crisis that gripped the nation for more than 400 days took over his schedule from the moment the embassy was seized in 1979. He explains, “The safety and well-being of the American hostages became a constant concern for me, no matter what other duties I was performing as President. I would walk in the White House gardens early in the morning and lie awake at night, trying to think of additional steps I could take to gain their freedom without sacrificing the honor and security of our nation.”^[31] While Carter doesn’t explicitly state that the hostage crisis distracted him from his human rights agenda, it is clear that he was too preoccupied with managing Iran and other foreign crises to devote the same level of attention to human rights around the world, and in Argentina specifically, as he had at the start of his term.

The Internationalization of the Dirty War

At around the same time that Carter began to face intensified pressure, the Argentine military was beginning to change its behavior regarding its human rights abuses. It reduced the number of disappearances within Argentina while ramping up its international operations. The new form that the Dirty War took made it even more difficult for the Carter administration to maintain its advocacy campaign, as doing so would have required a reconceptualization of what human rights meant and a willingness to forgo traditional national security concerns to a nearly unprecedented degree.

In contrast to the first two years of the regime, when the junta had been able to portray itself as under siege by left-wing terrorism, from 1978 onward it was clear to both domestic and international observers that terrorism had been all but eliminated as a serious security threat. By that time, it was clear that the junta was well on its way to ultimate victory over the leftist guerrillas that they had been using as their public justification for seizing power. Arguably, the guerrilla threat had been seriously weakened even before the military had formally taken power. The remaining guerrillas were steadily eliminated by the military’s brutal campaign until by 1978, when the Dirty War began to enter a new phase. During this phase, the imminent threat of domestic terrorism became less of a priority. After the final expulsion of the last Montonero leaders in 1979, the Dirty War was effectively over within Argentina, although not all elements of the junta were completely willing to recognize this fact.^[32] Understanding this strategic context casts the supposed improvement in human rights observed by the U.S. government in a different light. Having effectively consolidated its control of the country, the military had less reason to employ the same level of violence and brutality that it had used during its earlier years. 

The military, however, did not rest on its laurels. The national security doctrine that motivated the junta claimed Argentina’s counterinsurgency had been a key battle in a third world war against leftism. It was this belief, along with the links between Montonero leaders and guerrillas in other parts of the hemisphere, that motivated the military to begin exporting the Dirty War with all the abuses that entailed across the region. For the military leadership, geography was an irrelevant consideration in the war against communism. Communism was a transnational force, so their response had to be equally transnational. As Admiral Massera put it, “We have to reconquer the West. But what is the West? Nobody can find it on the map. Today, the West is an attitude of the soul that is not linked with any particular geography.”^[33] Armony explains that during this stage of the Dirty War, the junta saw itself taking the necessary steps to eliminate communism in the hemisphere — steps that the U.S. under Carter was unwilling to take. As he puts it, “Argentina, traditionally an aggressive actor in foreign policy, perceived empty spaces left by the Carter administration in the hemispheric anti-Communist conflict and took the opportunity to assume a position of leadership in that struggle.”^[34]

The Argentine military began this new, internationally focused, phase of the Dirty War in 1980 by providing key support to Bolivian general Luis García Marquez during the so-called “Cocaine Coup.” Following a series of elections, a left-wing, civilian coalition prepared to assume power in Bolivia in 1980.^[35] The presence of a leftist government on their border was distressing for the Argentine junta, particularly since many in the military blamed the campaigns of Che Guevara in Bolivia during the late 1960s for inspiring the formation of the guerrillas that had been their primary antagonist for the better part of the 1970s.^[36] To remove the threat of this new government, the Argentine military approached García Marquez and offered military advisors for a coup and hundreds of millions of dollars to replace the U.S. aid that would likely be canceled as a result of the coup. In July of 1980, García Marquez seized power and implemented a counterinsurgency campaign based on arbitrary detention and disappearances. The similarities between his campaign in Bolivia and the recently concluded Dirty War in Argentina were due in large part to the fact that Argentine military and intelligence personnel were heavily involved in implementing the campaign. The Argentines disappeared hundreds of Bolivians and detained thousands more over the course of the coup.^[37] In addition to a more satisfactory neighbor, the Argentine military received a portion of the proceeds from the cocaine sales of García Marquez’s associate, the drug trafficker Roberto Suárez Levy.^[38]

This money was in turn used to fund further international interventions that built on the junta’s experience in Argentina and Bolivia. The junta formed the Andean Brigade, which Carlos Raimondi, a former captain in the Argentine military, described as “a sort of secret foreign legion whose job was rooting out Communists wherever they happened to be, especially the Montoneros guerrillas and those assisting them.”^[39] This force was heavily involved in Argentina’s even more extensive intervention in Central America following the Nicaraguan Revolution. Like the U.S., the Argentine military had traditionally cultivated close relations with the Somoza regime. Since seizing power in 1976, the Argentine junta had regularly invited Nicaraguan military and police leaders to Buenos Aires for counterinsurgency training. Argentina became one of the principal suppliers for the Nicaraguan military, stepping up its commitment over time as the Sandinista threat became more serious and as the Carter administration cut back military aid to the abusive Somoza regime.^[40]

The fall of the Somoza regime in 1979 was seen as vindication for hardline elements of the Argentina junta who believed that a forceful, hemisphere-wide response to the subversive threat was required to ensure final victory in the Dirty War. The discovery that exiled Montonero leaders were among the Sandinistas who had toppled Somoza and the 1980 murder of Somoza in Paraguay by former members of the Argentine ERP only further inflamed the junta’s anxieties. Following the fall of the Somoza regime, the junta committed to supporting ex-Somoza paramilitaries through training, aid, and the deployment of advisors as they fought to regain control of Nicaragua. These paramilitaries would go on to become the contras who gained international infamy for their flagrant abuses throughout the 1980s.^[41]

In tandem with these efforts in Nicaragua, the Argentine junta also provided significant support to the abusive military regimes in El Salvador and Guatemala. From 1979-1981, Argentine military personnel facilitated and perpetrated kidnappings and assassinations across Central America, driven by a strategic formulation that intimately linked Argentine national security to the ideological struggles that wracked the region during this period. These operations grew in scope under the watch of hardliners such as the future president and architect of the invasion of the Falklands, Leopoldo Galtieri.^[42] These hardliners were even less compromising than the faction led by Videla in their views on returning power to civilian governments and in their relentless pursuit of subversives. From 1979-1981, the hardliners grew in influence and prosecuted the international Dirty War with greater and greater intensity. 

A Weakened Human Rights Policy

The growing intensity of the international Dirty War at the same time as the conflict was winding down within Argentina and the US was facing a rash of international crises in Latin America and the world more generally posed a serious challenge for the Carter administration’s human rights agenda toward Argentina. 

Carter’s Argentina policy had never been formulated with the goal of affecting its international behavior; instead, its focus had always been on the regime’s conduct toward its own citizens within the boundaries of Argentina. Beyond this fundamental challenge in responding to Argentina’s new, more aggressive foreign policy, Carter’s critical stance toward the military junta was rapidly costing more politically throughout the second half of his administration. Both at home and abroad, Carter faced serious pressure to relax his human rights policies toward Argentina. For these two reasons, during this period, the Carter administration gradually softened its stance toward the military junta, despite its continued disrespect for human rights.

We can see the shifting perception toward Argentina through recently released documents first made public as part of the Argentina Declassification Project that finished in 2019. From examining these documents, it is clear that starting around 1978, analysts from across the U.S. government continuously emphasized the improvement of human rights conditions within Argentina itself. A 1978 memo to the Secretary of Defense argues for the removal of the blanket ban on selling military equipment to the Argentine military, stating that “Argentina has taken some positive human rights steps.”^[43] A 1978 memo from National Security Council staffer Robert Pastor to National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski claims, “[w]hile Argentina still has the worst record in the hemisphere, there has been some improvement in recent months.”^[44]

These sorts of ambivalent statements, both giving Argentina credit for the improved human rights situation while continuing to acknowledge that abuses continued, were typical of executive branch communications and reports around this time. Gradually, praise became less qualified, and criticism less forceful, as the dirty war within Argentina continued winding down. The 1980 and 1981 strategy toward Argentina developed by the Interagency Group for Latin America again underscores the junta’s continued improvement on human rights and reported only 33 disappearances in 1980, with only 11 of those being confirmed.^[45] Tellingly, human rights are only discussed on the final page of this report. Taken as a whole, these documents indicate that in the second half of Carter’s presidency, there was a general consensus within the executive branch that the administration’s human rights pressure was working, and that a change in tack might be justified.

It is true that during this period, the number of disappearances was dropping drastically compared to the earlier years of military rule. This reduction, however, can largely be explained by the fact that the guerrilla threat had been all but completely suppressed by that point. The stance of the regime on human rights had not fundamentally changed, as illustrated by its international activities in Bolivia and Central America, as well as the fact that it was perfectly willing to employ disappearances in Argentina even during this period of supposed improving behavior. Even by 1978, when the earliest documents discussed above were produced, the junta was working with regimes such as the Somozas that had been labeled major human rights abusers by the Carter administration. It provided training and furnished supplies to these regimes so that they could implement Dirty War-style counterinsurgency tactics in their own countries. By 1980, around the time when Interagency Group for Latin America was lauding Argentina for its improved human rights record, Argentine soldiers were in Bolivia and Central America, directly violating human rights on an international scale.

The foreign policy bureaucracy, however, proved far less willing or able to push Argentina on the human rights abuses its military was committing beyond its borders. One significant obstacle to applying Carter’s human rights policy to a regime’s international actions was the dominant cultural narrative of what human rights abuses looked like. As Patrick Kelly points out, human rights had entered U.S. political discourse through the spectacular violence committed by Latin American military regimes in places like Brazil and especially Chile. These early models of human rights abusers, magnified by NGOs like Amnesty International, colored the understanding of human rights for both voters and policymakers. This association was part of the reason that Argentina became such a focus for the Carter administration while countries like Idi Amin’s Uganda received less pressure, despite their flagrant abuses. Importantly, however, this understanding was developed through widely broadcast images of violence committed by governments against their own people. The enduring image of the Pinochet regime that so influenced American understanding of human rights was the detention center at the estadio nacional. The system of covert, border-hopping death squads that would become known as Operation Condor was further from the public imagination. More broadly, the dominant perception of human rights at the time was that countries had fewer obligations to uphold the rights of those who were not their citizens. We can imagine that given America’s at the time recent record of abuses both in Latin America and the world more broadly, the Carter administration was all too happy to limit human rights discussions to Argentina’s domestic sphere.^[46]

America had another reason to overlook Argentina’s international adventures in Bolivia and Central America. Despite any disgust at the junta’s actions, for at least some factions of the U.S. foreign policy apparatus, Argentina became a more important part of America’s strategic goals throughout the second half of the Carter presidency. For many analysts across the U.S. government, the Nicaraguan Revolution and its implications for the spread of communism in the Western Hemisphere represented a full-blown crisis. Warnings of Cuban aggression had been a consistent theme throughout the Carter administration. A 1977 interagency intelligence memo reported that Cuban representatives were meeting with members of the Chilean leftist group, the Chilean movimiento izquierdista revolucionario, to discuss the group’s operations in Argentina.^[47] A 1979 CIA working paper repeats the widespread belief among the Argentine military leadership that “the Cubans control the Montoneros.”^[48] A State Department report from the last few weeks of the Carter administration provides an exhaustive overview of Cuba’s activities in the Hemisphere, linking them to leftist organizations from Nicaragua to Uruguay.^[49] For Cuba hawks, the rise of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua was a stark reminder of the ever-looming threat of leftist revolution in America’s own backyard. Conservatives, embodied by the rising star, Ronald Reagan, even attempted to link the revolution to Carter’s human rights advocacy in Nicaragua. They argued that his pressure had weakened the Somoza regime at a time when it had needed America’s unqualified support against Cuban-supported Communists.^[50]

All this unease about Nicaragua and the growth of leftism in Latin America made it more difficult for the Carter administration to justify consequences for the junta’s fight against communism regardless of the brutality of the methods they employed. It was one thing to criticize Argentina for overreaching in their fight against the Montoneros and the ERP — an issue of limited political salience in America and a conflict that the junta would realistically never lose. It was another thing altogether to criticize Argentina for helping a routed traditional U.S. ally stem the rising tide of communism in a country that many thought Carter had handed over to Cuba and the Soviet Union. 

The broader global situation facing Carter also prevented his administration from taking action to curtail Argentina’s international aggression during this period. Argentina had been originally selected as one of the principal targets for Carter’s new human rights policy in large part because, at the beginning of his term, it was a relatively unimportant ally. As détente began to unravel with the invasion of Afghanistan in the latter part of Carter’s presidency, however, unity among the Western world began to return to its earlier supremacy in U.S. foreign policy calculations.^[51]

In the specific case of Argentina, late in Carter’s presidency, the U.S. needed to secure the junta’s support for a grain embargo against the Soviet Union to undermine the war effort in Afghanistan after 1979. Argentina was a major supplier of wheat on the global stage, and despite the public anti-communism of the junta, it had been perfectly willing to export its wheat to be a trade partner to the Soviet Union. Argentina was no longer an expendable ally. Its participation in the grain embargo would be a key factor in the success of Carter’s response to Soviet aggression unfolding during a campaign season that saw him facing charges of weakness in the realm of foreign policy. The need to reintegrate Argentina into the anti-communist alliance was another key reason the Carter administration was unwilling to challenge Argentina’s interventions in Bolivia and Central America.

Far from simply refraining from criticizing the international expansion of the Dirty War, late in the Carter presidency, the U.S. began to actively cultivate Argentina as a partner and worked to soothe the junta’s anger following years of what it viewed as unfair persecution. This effort to reintegrate Argentina into the Western alliance culminated in the visit of American Army General Andrew Goodpaster to Buenos Aires in 1980. Visits from senior U.S. military personnel had been virtually non-existent for much of the Carter administration as part of the general cooling of relations. In desperate need of Argentine support, however, the Carter administration was, by this point, willing to treat the junta as it felt it should be treated. The military leadership in Argentina was overjoyed about Goodpaster’s visit. As Guest describes it, the visit “was a major boost for the Junta. An American general was back in Argentina! (…) Symbolically, (…) Goodpaster’s visit was momentous (…) Argentina was again deemed important to American security—vitally important.”^[52] Although the visit failed at winning Argentine participation in the grain embargo on the Soviets, it signaled the end of America’s pressure campaign on the junta. A State Department memo on Goodpaster’s meeting with Videla makes it clear that the goal of the visit was to return U.S.-Argentine relations to their state prior to the Carter administration. The memo reports that Goodpaster told Videla, “our goal was to restore relations to a normal level.”^[53]

Carter was less willing to challenge Argentina on human rights in 1980 than he had been in 1976 because the political situation facing his administration and the form the junta’s abuses took were vastly different than they had been. In 1976, he was a popular new president with all the political capital that entailed. In early 1980, he was an embattled incumbent preparing to meet the dynamic rising star, Ronald Reagan, in a campaign that would represent a referendum on his presidency. Reagan had an easy charisma that Carter never did. He spoke frankly on foreign policy to voters who were watching a new crisis or embarrassment pop up seemingly every month. He blamed Carter’s human rights policy for undermining key allies and allowing friendly governments to collapse in the face of popular revolution. He argued that Carter did not adequately appreciate the global threat Communism posed. In short, he claimed that Carter’s attempts to fundamentally reshape U.S. foreign policy using the mechanism of human rights was misguided.

Refocusing the human rights enforcement infrastructure on Argentina’s external policies would have been a difficult task even without these political pressures. Dominant perceptions of human rights did not have much space for analyzing a country’s foreign policy through a human rights lens, and Argentina’s actions in Central America had significantly greater implications for U.S. security interests than had their war against domestic guerrillas. The political pressure Carter and his administration faced in the latter half of his presidency compounded the structural barriers to a fundamental reorientation of U.S. foreign policy. As a result of the convergence of these two trends, the pressure the Carter administration placed on Argentina to reduce its human rights abuses lessened over the course of the period from 1978 to 1980. It is difficult to imagine any other realistic outcome, given the structural outcomes the policy faced.

Conclusion

Propelled in part by his forceful critiques of Carter’s attempts to reshape America’s role in the world, Reagan handily won the presidency in the 1980 election. After his inauguration at the start of 1981, he quickly began to implement more orthodox policies toward Argentina, and towards Latin America more generally. His administration negotiated a compromise with Congress to reverse Carter’s suspension of military aid to Argentina and several other Latin American dictatorships contingent on the continuous certification by the administration that there had been a marked improvement in human rights.^[54] Under Reagan, the U.S. took an active role in supporting Argentine intervention in Central America, providing funds to the Argentine military to support the training and supplying of right-wing paramilitaries in a preview of the Nicaragua policy that would capture the public’s attention during the Iran-Contra Scandal.^[55] America was once again willing to enable flagrant human rights abuses in Latin America without public critique. Four years after Carter’s inauguration, it was clear that his attempts to create a new paradigm of U.S.-Latin American relations had failed.

Reagan’s election, however, was the culmination of this failure rather than its cause. The effort to radically reorient U.S. foreign policy had faced serious obstacles from the beginning of the Carter administration. The foreign policy bureaucracy, particularly the State Department, exhibited a reflexive resistance to Carter’s attempts to include human rights as a key concern in formulating America’s policy agenda. Officials like Pat Derian that vigorously pursued a human rights-based agenda were the exception rather than the norm. This low level of buy-in across the State Department hampered the institutionalization of human rights and placed limits on the possible impact of the initiatives that were implemented. 

Because successes in the human rights policy toward Argentina were generally the result of individual action rather than institutional processes, the Carter administration’s human rights policies toward the junta began to crumble as extraneous factors placed greater pressure on the U.S. During the latter years of the Carter presidency, Argentina’s human rights abuses became more complex, more difficult to explain simply, and more closely linked to U.S. national security. Combined with the number of international crises and the domestic political opposition Carter faced during this period, this change in the form of the Dirty War from 1978 to 1981 prevented the U.S. from advocating for human rights as forcefully as it had done earlier in the Carter administration. Argentina was no longer the expendable ally it had been, and Carter no longer possessed the same latitude to choose his allies as he once had.

Carter’s focus on human rights had been intended to provide a new guiding impetus for American foreign policy at a time when it seemed that the traditional Cold War paradigm was outdated. Structural obstacles prevented it from serving this purpose in the case of Argentina. Instead, human rights were subsumed by the dominant Cold War and became another axis of East-West competition. Despite his initial hostility to the idea of a human rights-based foreign policy, Reagan soon began to use human rights as a weapon against Communists across the world and in Latin America specifically. He argued that Sandinistas and left-wing terrorists were the principal violators of human rights throughout the hemisphere and that for this reason, the U.S. ought to forcefully oppose such movements.^[56] Human rights would go on to play a key role in the rhetoric of U.S. administrations going forward, but it has typically not been the predominant strain in foreign policy decision-making that Carter hoped it would be. As the case of Argentina illustrates, structural factors have consistently prevented a human rights-based foreign policy from reaching its full potential.

Works Cited

Books

Andersen, Martin Edwin. Dossier Secreto: Argentina’s Desaparecidos and the Myth of the “Dirty War.” Boulder: Westview Press, 1993.

Armony, Ariel C.. Argentina, the United States, and the Anti-Communist Crusade in Central America, 1977– 1984. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1997.

Bradley, Mark Philip. The world reimagined Americans and humans rights in the twentieth century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016 .

Brennan, James. Argentina’s Missing Bones: Revisiting the History of the Dirty War. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2018.

Burns, Jimmy. The Land that Lost its Heroes. London: Bloomsbury, 1987.

Burzaco, Ricardo. Infierno en el monte tucumaño: Argentina, 1973– 1976. Buenos Aires: R. E. Editores, 1994.

Carter, Jimmy. Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President. New York: Bantam Books, 1982.

Dickey, Christopher. With the Contras: A Reporter in the Wilds of Nicaragua. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987.

Dinges, John. The Condor Years: How Pinochet and His Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents. New York, NY: The New Press, 2004.

Dumbrell, John. The Carter Presidency: A Reevaluation. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993.

Falcoff, Mark. A Tale of Two Policies: U.S. Relations with the Argentine Junta, 1976-1983. Philadelphia: Foreign Policy Research Institute, 1989.

Forsythe, David. Human rights and U.S. foreign policy. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1988.

Guest, Iain. Behind the Disappearances: Argentina’s Dirty War against Human Rights and the United Nations. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990.

Hodges, Donald C.. Argentina’s “Dirty War”: An Intellectual Biography. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1991.

Kelly, Patrick William. Sovereign Emergencies: Latin America and the Making of Global Human Rights Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018.

Kirkpatrick, Jeane. Dictatorships and Double Standards: Rationalism and Reason in Politics. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982.

LeoGrande, William. Our Own Backyard : The United States in Central America, 1977-1992. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1998.

Lewis, Paul H.. Guerrillas and Generals : The ‘Dirty War’ in Argentina, Greenwood Publishing Group, Incorporated, 2001.

Méndez, J.E., and M. Wentworth. Taking a Stand: The Evolution of Human Rights. St. Martin’s Publishing Group, 2011.

Novaro, Marcos and Vicente Palermo. La dictadura militar (1976–1983): del golpe de estado a la restauracíon democrática. Buenos Aires: Paidós, 2003.

Purnell, Susanna W. and Eleanor S. Wainstein. The Problems of U.S. Businesses Operating Abroad in Terrorist Environments, Santa Monica: Rand, 1981.

Quiroga, Hugo and César Tcach, eds. Argentina: 1976–2006: Entre la sombra de la dictadura y el futuro de la democracia. Rosario: Homo Sapiens, 2006. 

Sheinein, David M. K.. Consent of the Damned: Ordinary Argentinians in the Dirty War. Gainesville, FL: University of Florida, 2012.

Simpson, John and Jana Bennett. The Disappeared. New York: Penguin Books, 1985.

Søndergaard, Rasmus Sinding. Reagan, Congress, and Human Rights: Contesting Morality in US Foreign Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020.

Timmerman, Jacobo. Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number. New York: Penguin Books, 1982.

Verbitsky, Horacio. La última Batalla de la Tercera Guerra Mundial. Buenos Aires: Legasa, 1985.

Chapters

Armony, Ariel C.. “Transnationalizing the Dirty War.” In In from the Cold: Latin America’s New Encounter with the Cold War , edited by Gilbert M. Joseph and Daniela Spenser, 134– 68. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2008.

Flood, Patrick J.. “U.S. human rights initiatives concerning Argentina.” In David Newsom (Ed.), The diplomacy of human rights (pp. 129-140). Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1986.

Kirkpatrick, Jeanne. “Establishing a Viable Human Rights Policy” in Human Rights and U.S. Human Rights Policy: Theoretical Approaches and Some Perspectives on Latin America. Ed. Howard Wiarda. New York: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1987.

Wiarda, Howard. “Democracy and Human Rights in Latin America: Toward a New Conceptualization” in Human Rights and U.S. Human Rights Policy: Theoretical Approaches and Some Perspectives on Latin America. Ed. Howard Wiarda. New York: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1987.

Journal Articles

Brysk, Alison. “From above and below: Social movements, the international system, and human rights in Argentina.” Comparative Political Studies 26, no. 3 (1993): 259-285.

Cottam, Martha L. “The Carter Administration’s Policy toward Nicaragua: Images, Goals, and Tactics.” Political Science Quarterly 107, no. 1 (1992): 123-46. Accessed March 6, 2021. doi:10.2307/2152137.

Forsythe, David P.. “Human Rights in U.S. Foreign Policy: Retrospect and Prospect.” Political Science Quarterly 105, no. 3 (1990): 435-54. Accessed February 23, 2021. doi:10.2307/2150826.

Novaro, Marcos, and Alejandro Avenburg. “La CIDH En Argentina: Entre La Democratización Y Los Derechos Humanos.” Desarrollo Económico 49, no. 193 (2009): 61-90. Accessed February 27, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20627863.

Schmitz, David F., and Vanessa Walker. “Jimmy Carter and the Foreign Policy of Human Rights: The Development of a Post-Cold War Foreign Policy.” Diplomatic History 28, no. 1 (2004): 113-43. Accessed February 24, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24914773.

Zaretsky, Natasha. “Restraint or Retreat? The Debate over the Panama Canal Treaties and U.S. Nationalism after Vietnam,” Diplomatic History 35, no. 3, June 2011, 535–562, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7709.2011.00962.x.

Newspaper Articles

Dube, Ryan. “‘Tex’ Harris, U.S. Envoy who Exposed Argentina’s ‘dirty war,’ dies” Wall Street Journal (New York, NY). February 28, 2020, Retrieved April 11, 2021, from https://www.wsj.com/articles/tex-harris-u-s-envoy-who-exposed-argentinas-dirty-war-dies-11582834615.

Government Memos

Robert Pastor to Zbigniew Brzezinski and David Aaron. August 9, 1979. The National Security Council. Argentina: Your Questions. The Argentina Declassification Project, https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/icotr/Argentina-Carter-Regan-and-Bush-VP-Part-1.pdf, P.113.

Viron P. Vaky and Patricia M. Derian to the Secretary of State and the Deputy Secretary of State. August 3, 1979. The Department of State. Current Human Rights Situation in Argentina. The Argentina Declassification Project, https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/icotr/Argentina-Carter-Regan-and-Bush-VP-Part-1.pdf, P.55.

Government Reports

Agency unspecified. Argentina 1980/1981 Plan of Action and Other Issues. no author. no publisher. The Argentina Declassification Project. No date. https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/icotr/Argentina-Carter-Regan-and-Bush-VP-Part-1.pdf, P.71

CIA. Cuban Presence and Activities in Argentina. no author. Washington DC: CIA. Argentina Declassification Project, Argentina – Central Intelligence Agency, January 22, 1979.

CIA, Cuban Support for Nationalist Movements and Revolutionary Groups, no author, Washington DC: CIA, Argentina Declassification Project, Argentina – Central Intelligence Agency, July 1977.

United States Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs. Cubas Renewed Support for Violence in Latin America. Ed. Norman Howard. Washington DC: State Department. Argentina Declassification Project, Argentina – Central Intelligence Agency, December 14, 1981

United States Department of State. General Goodpaster’s Call on President Videla. no author. Washington DC: State Department, State Department Virtual Reading Room, O-2016-16244, January 1980

Congressional Testimony and Acts

U.S. Congress, House, An Act to amend the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and the Foreign Military Sales Act, and for other purposes, HR 13680, 94th Cong., 1st sess., introduced in House May 11, 1976, https://www.congress.gov/bill/94th-congress/house-bill/13680

U.S. Congress, House, House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Inter-American Affairs. Foreign Assistance Legislation for FY 1981 for Latin America: Hearings before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Inter-American Affairs 96th Cong., 1st sess., March 3, 1980. Argentina Declassification Project, Argentina – Department of Defense (Office of the Secretary of Defense Part 2), Document 13.

Interviews

F. Allen (Tex) Harris. By Charles Stuart Kennedy, December 10, 1999. Transcript. The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, https://www.adst.org/OH%20TOCs/Harris.F.Allen.pdf?_ga=2.119260170.2025463513.1592835145-1469950583.1591734251.

Patricia Derian. By Charles Stuart Kennedy, March 12, 1996. Transcript. The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, https://adst.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Derian-Patricia.19961.pdf.

Telegrams

Telegram 1751 From the Embassy in Argentina to the Department of State. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume E–11, Part 2, Documents on South America, 1973–1976. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76ve11p2/d38. Foreign Relations of the United States. US Department of State Office of the Historian. 

Telegram 227379 From the Department of State to the Embassy in Argentina. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume E–11, Part 2, Documents on South America, 1973–1976. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76ve11p2/d53#:~:text=The%20Harkin%20Amendment%20to%20the,benefit%20the%20needy%20people%E2%80%94%E2%80%9D.. Foreign Relations of the United States. US Department of State Office of the Historian. 

References

^[1] John Simpson and Jana Bennett, The Disappeared, New York: Penguin Books, 1985, P.33.

^[2] Ibid, P.33-34.

^[3] Guest, Behind the Disappearances. P.15-20.

^[4]  Ibid, P. 18-22.

^[5] Guest, Behind the Disappearances, P.19-20.

^[6] James Brennan, Argentina’s Missing Bones: Revisiting the History of the Dirty War, (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2018), P. 64-69.

^[7] Guest, Behind the Disappearances, P.12.

^[8] Paul H. Lewis, Guerrillas and Generals : The ‘Dirty War’ in Argentina, (Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, Incorporated, 2001), P.124.

^[9] Novaro and Palermo, La dictadura, P.19-25.

^[10] Mark Philip Bradley, The world reimagined Americans and humans rights in the twentieth century, (Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2016), P.132-160.

^[11] David P. Forsythe, “Human Rights in U.S. Foreign Policy: Retrospect and Prospect.” Political Science Quarterly 105, no. 3 (1990): 435-54. Accessed February 23, 2021. doi:10.2307/2150826.

^[12] Patrick William Kelly, Sovereign Emergencies: Latin America and the Making of Global Human Rights Politics, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018).

^[13] Jimmy Carter, “President Carter’s Farewell Address to the Nation,” Speech, Washington DC, January 14, 1981.

^[14] Guest, Behind the Disappearances, P.159.

^[15] David F. Schmitz and Vanessa Walker, “Jimmy Carter and the Foreign Policy of Human Rights: The Development of a Post-Cold War Foreign Policy,” Diplomatic History 28, no. 1 (2004): 113-43, Accessed February 24, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24914773.

^[16] Guest, Behind the Disappearances, P.164.

^[17] Patricia Derian, Interview by Charles Stuart Kennedy, March 12, 1996, transcript, The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project https://adst.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Derian-Patricia.19961.pdf.

^[18] Ibid, P.31. 

^[19] Ibid, P.37.

^[20] Ibid, P.38, parentheses in original.

^[21] Ibid, P.33.

^[22] Ibid, P.33.

^[23] Marcos Novaro and Alejandro Avenburg, “La CIDH En Argentina: Entre La Democratización Y Los Derechos Humanos,” Desarrollo Económico 49, no. 193 (2009): 61-90, Accessed February 27, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20627863.

^[24] William LeoGrande, Our Own Backyard : The United States in Central America, 1977-1992, (Chapel Hill, NC:The University of North Carolina Press, 1998), P.58.

^[25] Ibid, P.58.

^[26] Jimmy Carter, Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President, (New York: Bantam Books, 1982), P.127.

^[27] Natasha Zaretsky, “Restraint or Retreat? The Debate over the Panama Canal Treaties and U.S. Nationalism after Vietnam,” Diplomatic History35, no. 3, June 2011, 535–562, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7709.2011.00962.x.

^[28] Howard Wiarda, “Democracy and Human Rights in Latin America: Toward a New Conceptualization,” in Human Rights and U.S. Human Rights Policy: Theoretical Approaches and Some Perspectives on Latin America, Ed. Howard Wiarda. (New York: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1987), P.30-40.

^[29] Martha L. Cottam, “The Carter Administration’s Policy toward Nicaragua: Images, Goals, and Tactics,” Political Science Quarterly 107, no. 1 (1992): 123-46. Accessed March 6, 2021. doi:10.2307/2152137.

^[30] Zbigniew Brzezinski, Madeleine Albright, Leslie Denend and William Odom, Interview by James Sterling Young et al., transcript, The Carter Presidency Project, The Miller Center Foundation, February 18,1982, http://web1.millercenter.org/poh/transcripts/ohp_1982_0218_brzezinski.pdf, P.34.

^[31] Carter, Keeping Faith, P.347.

^[32] Ibid, P.163.

^[33] Quote in Horacio Verbitsky, La última Batalla de la Tercera Guerra Mundial. (Buenos Aires: Legasa, 1985), P.30. Translation by me.

^[34] Ariel C. Armony, Argentina, the United States, and the Anti-Communist Crusade in Central America, 1977– 1984, (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1997), P. 36.

^[35] Verbitsky, La última batalla, P. 75.

^[36] Armony, Anti-Communist Crusade, P.21.

^[37] Verbitsky, La última batalla, P. 76-77.

^[38] Ariel C. Armony, “Transnationalizing the Dirty War,” In In from the Cold: Latin America’s New Encounter with the Cold War , edited by Gilbert M. Joseph and Daniela Spenser, 134– 68, (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2008), P.150-151.

^[39] Quoted in Armony, Anti-Communist Crusade, P.31-32.

^[40] Armony, “Transnationalizing the Dirty War,” P. 145-146.

^[41] Ibid, P.146-147.

^[42] Verbitsky, La última batalla, P.70.

^[43] U.S. Congress, House, House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Inter-American Affairs, Foreign Assistance Legislation for FY 1981 for Latin America: Hearings before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Inter-American Affairs 96th Cong., 1980, Argentina Declassification Project, Argentina – Department of Defense (Office of the Secretary of Defense Part 2), Document 13, P.18.

^[44] Robert Pastor to Zbigniew Brzezinski and David Aaron, August 9, 1979, The National Security Council, Argentina: Your Questions, The Argentina Declassification Project, https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/icotr/Argentina-Carter-Regan-and-Bush-VP-Part-1.pdf, P.113.

^[45] Argentina 1980/1981 Plan of Action and Other Issues, The Argentina Declassification Project https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/icotr/Argentina-Carter-Regan-and-Bush-VP-Part-1.pdf, P.71.

^[46] Kelly, Sovereign Emergencies.

^[47] CIA, Cuban Support for Nationalist Movements and Revolutionary Groups, no author, Washington DC: CIA, Argentina Declassification Project, Argentina – Central Intelligence Agency, July 1977.

^[48] CIA, Cuban Presence and Activities in Argentina, no author, Washington DC: CIA, Argentina Declassification Project, Argentina – Central Intelligence Agency, January 22, 1979.

^[49] United States Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs, Cubas Renewed Support for Violence in Latin America, Ed. Norman Howard, Washington DC: State Department, Argentina Declassification Project, Argentina – Central Intelligence Agency, December 14, 1981.

^[50] Jeane Kirkpatrick, “Establishing a Viable Human Rights Policy” in Human Rights and U.S. Human Rights Policy: Theoretical Approaches and Some Perspectives on Latin America, Ed. Howard Wiarda, (New York:American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1987), P.86-93.

^[51] Dumbrell, The Carter Presidency, P.200.

^[52] Guest, Behind the Disappearances, P.181-182.

^[53] United States Department of State, General Goodpaster’s Call on President Videla, no author, Washington DC: State Department, State Department Virtual Reading Room, O-2016-16244, January 1980.

^[54] Guest, Behind the Disappearances, P.290.

^[55] Verbitsky, La última batalla, P.106.

^[56] Rasmus Sinding Søndergaard, Reagan, Congress, and Human Rights: Contesting Morality in US Foreign Policy, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020).

Carlos Salinas de Gortari, Mexico’s President from 1988 to 1994, was seated comfortably with close family and friends at a resort in Huatulco, Oaxaca the evening of December 31, 1994, celebrating after signing the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), an economic treaty with the U.S. and Canada.^[1] Media around North America praised NAFTA, describing the treaty as Mexico’s ticket to the first world. They, along with the Mexican government, stated NAFTA would promote conditions of fair competition, increase investment opportunities, facilitate cross border movement of trades and services, and boost the Mexican economy. President Gortari stated, “[t]oday, Mexicans have to migrate to where jobs are being created, the northern part of our country. With NAFTA, employment opportunities will move toward where the people live, reducing drastically migration within the country and outside of the country.”^[2] However, much of Mexico’s general population did not view NAFTA as the saving grace that forces in the media painted it to be.

 Just hours after President Gortari’s celebrations in Oaxaca, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) engaged in their first revolt against the government. Armed with useless wood, guns, and machetes, 200 men and women[1]  seized control of five municipalities, released around 200 prisoners, and took the former Governor of Chiapas–a southern state in Mexico–hostage. This moment launched an ongoing revolution throughout Mexico against neoliberalism and the oppression of indigenous peoples.^[3]

While the President sat in his resort surrounded by expensive champagne, the people of Chiapas did not enjoy these same luxuries. Chiapas, a 75% indigenous area, is plagued with hunger, disease, and low life expectancies; half the population is illiterate, while 83% haven’t finished primary school. Eighty percent live in crowded quarters with dirt floors, deaths largely are from preventable diseases, and over 1.5 million Chiapans are without medical services. Despite these crippling conditions, the region produces half of Mexico’s electricity and has plentiful oil reserves and agricultural foundations.^[4] In other words, Chiapas was one of the richest states in Mexico in natural resources while its people were some of the poorest. The residents gained little benefit from the region’s bountiful resources, reflecting of the government’s amnesia for the plight of native populations since Mexico’s colonization.^[5] To the people of Chiapas, NAFTA–an economic policy that largely disregarded native populations[2] –was not a first class ticket to the developed world. Among other problems, the free trade agreement did away with import and export tariffs that the government could strategically deploy to help struggling populations. For example, in preparation for joining NAFTA, President Gortari demolished the Ejido system, a collective land tenure agreement, threatening the ability of rural and indigenous farmers to survive.^[6] NAFTA represented a “homogenizing and exclusionary government”^[7] that continued to force the entrance into the modernized world with debilitating, undemocratic policies.

These political, economic, and social conditions laid the foundation for the uprising in Chiapas by the Zapatista army. The force was formed in response to the neoliberalism that the Mexican government adopted in the 1980’s. After the Mexican government discovered the group in 1993, the government then began reinforcing their own army and intelligence in Chiapas covertly in order to protect their NAFTA negotiations. There remained no large conflict between the two armies until the signing of the new economic treaty.^[8]

The demands of the army, outlined in the First Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle, mostly involved indigenous and democratic rights: “[t]hey don’t care that we have nothing, absolutely nothing, not even a roof over our heads, no land, no work, no health care, no food nor education. Nor are we able to freely and democratically elect our political representatives, nor is there independence from foreigners, nor is there peace nor justice for ourselves and our children.”^[9] In response, the Mexican government launched a 12-day military campaign that murdered hundreds of innocent unarmed civilians, many of whom were women and children. The government committed several human rights abuses including murder and attacks against journalists. The relatively ambiguous army that remained masked during armed conflict and public affairs had a spokesperson: Subcomandante Marcos. Marcos released several communiques, in the forms of both articles and books, outlining the goals of the army and the revolution at large, informing the public on the world scale.^[10]

While Subcomandante Marcos was the revolution’s spokesperson, his main role befit his title, as he was second in-command. The true leaders of the revolution, the firsts in-command, were the indigenous women of Chiapas, such as Comandante Ramona and Comandante Ana Maria. The media at large focused on the male-led acts throughout the Zapatista movement, especially those of Subcomandante Marcos, since he was so vocal. Diverse newspapers such as BBC News, The Guardian, The New York Times, Vice, and Reuters dedicated several articles to Marcos, citing him as the army’s leader. However, Marcos himself described the Zapatista Women’s Revolutionary Laws as the uprising’s spark and continually referred to himself as a follower of his female leaders.^[11] These laws were the outcome of women’s internal political struggle within the Zapatista community, and granted rights to women regarding marriage, children, work, health, education, political and military participation, and protected women from violence. Although the media focused on Subcomandante Marcos’ work and male-led initiatives, indigenous feminists started and continue leading the ongoing revolution. Marcos’ resulting communiques uphold feminist ideals,  by recognizing the struggles and strength of indigenous women and promoting autonomy and equality. At the same time however, Marcos’ unwillingness to elaborate on the fight for women’s rights or to acknowledge the work of specific female leaders within his communiques is reflective of a country that recognizes female struggles but does not actively work to dismantle the patriarchy. Similar to the actions of the rest of Mexico, Marcos’ communiques are feminist in theory but not in practice.

As already stated, the Zapatista’s Women’s Revolutionary Laws[3]  were the beginning of the revolution: “[t]he first EZLN uprising happened in March of 1993, and was headed by the women. There were no casualties and they were victorious. Such are things in these lands”^[12] Women then continued to comprise the fighting force of the Zapatista’s. After the 12-day onslaught of the Mexican Army during the initial stages of the revolution, women returned to their villages first, often sending men into hiding. They became the first line of confrontation with the army after hundreds of their people had been murdered in the streets. They reclaimed their villages and continued to use autonomy as a practice of decolonization. After violence dissipated and the Mexican government agreed to meet with the Zapatista’s, it was women who led these meetings.^[13]While she was dying of cancer, Comandante Ramona participated in the peace dialogue at the San Andres accords.^[14] The women of Chiapas used the practice of autonomy to fight for social and political change throughout their own communities and Mexico, fighting alongside men in both the political arena and the jungle, nurturing the revolution by preparing food for marches, mending and distributing clothing, and housing Zapatista soldiers.^[15]

Indigenous Latin American feminism has been disregarded throughout colonial rebellion, indigenous revolutions, and workers rights movements up until the 1970s mainly because the majority of indigenous women were illiterate, resulting in a lack of documentation. Ideas were transmitted orally, such as the story of Anacaona’s colonial resistance, Taino chief of Jaragua Hispaniola, immortalized through songs sung by different women of Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico.^[16] While most genealogies trace origins of feminism to the social movements of the 60s and 70s centered around women’s liberation, ideas “founded in reflections on conditions of otherness” emerged during colonialism.^[17] Ultimately, “Latin American feminism is rooted in the social and political context defined by colonialism, the enslavement of African peoples, and the marginalization of Native peoples.”^[18] As a result of the growing dominance of neoliberalism that disproportionately impacted the most vulnerable parts of society, minorities, the lower class, and women, Latin American feminism is grounded in the material lives of people; it is the intersection between ideas of justice, equality, and political change for women, and political projects that focus on improving conditions of the working class.^[19]

A main difference between indigenous feminism and second wave “white” feminism is that the former understands the intersectionality between gender, race, and class while the latter concentrates on the needs of white upper- and middle-class women. Boosting women into traditional positions of power like Vice President or CEO isn’t inherently feminist because it only continues the exploitation of others under neoliberal policies. The indigenous Chiapans specifically focus on political exclusion, cultural discrimination, and antiracist policies by analyzing how women are treated in relation to men, working to remove barriers that cause the degradation of life for all people. For instance, during 20th century Latin America, one of Puerto Rico’s most famous labor leaders, Luisa Capetillo, developed feminist anarchism. Her ideas were “grounded in class politics” and show that “emancipation occurs at the nexus between labor empowerment and gender equality.”^[20] Through reading social and feminist theory to workers as they rolled cigars, her philosophies were shaped by her understanding of workers’ emancipation as a woman who labored in horrible conditions. This 20th century ideology of equality and justice framed women’s insistence on public access to education, which impacted both women and the impoverished. Liberation of women in Latin America directly translates to solving the socio-economic issues faced by the region because these issues are deeply rooted in the patriarchy.^[21]

The feminism of the women in Chiapas embodies trends in historical feminism throughout Latin America. These women have faced oppression from their community as a result of their gender and have also felt oppression from the government as a result of their indigeneity. This duality is what prompted them to both join the Zapatista army and begin the revolution with the Zapatista Women’s Revolutionary Laws as explained by Comandante Ramona: 

[why have the women suddenly demanded to participate?] Because women also are living in difficult situations, women are the most exploited of all, the most oppressed. Why? Because for so many years, for 500 years, they have not had the right to speak, to participate in assemblies, they have no right to education, nor to speak in public, nor to take cargos [religious and political posts] in their communities. No. The women are completely exploited and oppressed… and my message to all women who feel exploited, ignored, is to take up arms as a Zaptista.^[22]

Goals of this indigenous feminism centered around their right to education, a just salary, independence from marriage, freedom from domestic abuse, and freedom to participate in communal matters including legislature-drafting and armed forces.^[23]

The manner in which Zapatista women have both founded and nurtured the revolution is a feminist practice in itself. The Mexican government has coöpted the women’s rights movement, giving the appearance of rights while refusing any actual redistribution of power. In other words, they recognize the issues faced by indigenous women just enough to allow the government the power to have “a limited politics of recognition and a depoliticised use of gender as a technocratic language of modernity meant to limit rather than extend women’s ability to seek justice.”^[24] For example, after the San Andres Peace Accords, the Commission on Concord and Pacification (COCOPA), was formed to initiate constitutional reform in light of recognition of indigenous struggles. It was signed both by the EZLN and government officials. However, then-president Ernesto Zedillo rejected the plan on the claim “that women’s rights are not protected within traditional indigenous customs and practice.”^[25] That is, the government refused democratic constitutional reforms and indigenous autonomy on the grounds of gendered racism and exploited the view that indigenous communities are more oppressive and patriarchal towards women. Comandante Esther explains this flawed position of the government in her speech to the Mexican legislature in 2001: “[t]hat is simply the way of life, and death, for us indigenous women. And they tell us that the COCOPA law is going to cause us to be marginalised. It is the law now that permits them to marginalise and humiliate us. For this reason, we have decided to organise for the struggle as Zapatista women, in order to change our situation because we are already tired of so much suffering without having our rights.”^[26] In support of Comandante Esther, María de Jesús Patricio also spoke to the legislature that day, saying, [r]etaking the issue of whether customs and practices injure indigenous women in the pueblos, in the communities, we feel that it is not only a problem of indigenous people. No, it goes beyond that, it is all of civil society as well. Yet, only the negative is attributed to indigenous peoples. The problem is [the perception] that if the COCOPA initiative is approved, it is going to damage women. We say no. To the contrary, it will fortify the equitable participation of both men and women… I believe this implies that we need to be united as indigenous pueblos, civil society and all those who want to create an alternative response to this situation we are living in now. ^[27]

While the government continues push ingthe racist false narrative of indigenous communities being backward, non-modern, and more sexist, to prevent indigenous self-governance, indigenous feminists continuously remind everyone that women’s and indigenous rights go hand-in-hand.

To combat the government’s co-opting of women’s rights, Zapatista women began fighting for the ideals of autonomy, political participation, and complementarity [4] [5] between women and men. By gaining the right to self-government and control over their own bodies (bodily and political autonomy), indigenous women and indigenous communities can address problems the country has ignored for centuries. Women’s political participation in both indigenous communities and in national politics was historically forbidden and traditionally frowned upon.^[28] The EZLN uprising, which was fought and led by women, changed this; increased female political participation in turn brings female voices into women’s rights discourses. Similarly, indigenous Chiapans believe strongly in the complementarity between men and women. They don’t want strictly female meetings and discussions because, as explained by Maria de Jesús Patricio, “women should be stating directly to their husbands, or their brothers, or their fathers, the things that they do not like about the customs.”^[29] It’s apparent that these three goals of Zapatista feminism were fought both at the national level and the local level. Thus, they engage in a type of double activism, where debates about indigenous autonomy and women’s rights happen within both their own communities and national discourse.^[30]

The influence of indigenous feminism on the Zapatista revolution is seen throughout the writings of Subcomandante Marcos. Most prominently, his acknowledgement of the strength of women in his community and of the female soldiers he fights alongside shows the progress that has been made in a patriarchal society. His first communique, “The Story of Durito and Neoliberalism”, responds to a letter from ten-year-old Mariana Moguel. The letter addresses the child as Subcomandanta Mariana Moguel. Using the title Subcomandante not only recognizes her as part of the revolution, but shows that she is Marcos equal. He says, “I greet you with respect and congratulate you for the new rank you acquired with your drawing.”^[31] Here, Marcos does not talk down to the ten year old; he both thanks her for her work in contributing to the revolution, and makes the occasion a teaching moment. This respect for women and humility reflects the ongoing feminist revolution that began with the Zapatista Women’s Revolutionary Laws. The idea of gender equality is prevalent throughout the EZLN uprising and throughout most of his writing, Marcos’ character reflects that.

This is not the only time Marcos mentions or addresses women within his writings. In fact, he addresses every letter he writes to “Brothers and Sisters.” Additionally, when he tells an anecdote about history, communities, or a small gathering he does not use strictly male nouns and pronouns or gender neutral terms. For example, he says, “[t]here are also many other Mexican men and women who are unattractive because they can’t be priced in dollars… History is no more than the scribbling that men and women write in the sands of time… And so we would like to take advantage of this event to greet all those men and women who struggle for humanity through culture.”^[32] Today, many people use words that hold originally male meanings such as man or guys when referencing a group. His use of both men and women is reflective of the fact that the EZLN is a gendered revolution and acknowledges the work of women in a discreet way.

As the spokesperson for the revolution, Marcos is responsible for explaining the ideology of the movement. Most of these ideologies stem from previously established norms of indigenous feminism. Marcos’[6]  story Conversations with Durito, describes a beetle interested in education that Marcos meets in the jungle. “ ‘I’m studying neoliberalism and its strategy of domination for Latin America,’ he told me. ‘And what good is that for a beetle?’ I asked him. And he replied, very annoyed, ‘What good is it? I have to know how long your struggle is going to last and whether or not you are going to win. Besides, a beetle should care enough to study the situation of the world in which it lives… To know how long we beetles are going to have to take care that you do not squash us with your big boots.’ ”^[33] The beetle then goes on to describe several important aspects of the revolution to Marcos throughout various communiques, such as one regarding neoliberalism. The connection and relationship Marcos establishes with Durito the beetle parallels the connection between land and indigeneity. Indigenous life originates from, and is governed by, the land, yet the Mexican government continues exploiting and degrading the land on which the Chiapans live, and is the same government on its way to trample Durito.^[34] Thus, autonomy is the method by which the Zapatista army and Durito will preserve their life. Durito wants to focus on taking control of his situation through education to protect himself from trampling boots, while the EZLN wants political autonomy to address issues the government has ignored, yet amplified, for centuries. The idea of autonomy feminists such as Comandante Esther developed and argued for to achieve liberation for the individual and the community is thus a prominent theme throughout Marcos’ communiques.

In one of his more formally written communiques “Democracy, Liberty and Justice: Foundation for a New Political System in Mexico,” Marcos explores the idea of political inclusion and complementarity of women and men, elaborating, “[the problem of revolution] becomes rather a problem that concerns all those who see the revolution as necessary and possible, and in its realization everyone is important.”^[35] Here, Marcos focuses on the necessity of equal rights, responsibilities, and discussions where all members of the community participate, an idea stressed by indigenous women such as Maria de Jesús Patricio. This is a feminist idea because it recognizes the importance of political equality within indigenous communities despite differences of gender.

Although Marcos uses the word women throughout his writings, acknowledges women’s struggles, treats them as equals, and uses their ideas of autonomy and equality, he never directly addresses solutions to the struggles faced by women. His work focuses primarily on the debilitating political and economic policies of the Mexican government such as neoliberalism, classism, and racism, but does not delineate between the effects on the community and the effects on women. For example, he never mentions the goals of the Women’s Revolutionary Laws, and he never mentions specific female leaders by name in turn making himself appear more prominent. A communique that went into detail on the strength and contributions of women didn’t occur until 2000 with “The Story of the Air and the Night: Insurgentas! La Mar in March,” coming out six years after he began his writings.^[36] In this story, Marcos reflects upon the sexism women face daily in Mexico which makes their lives within the revolution that much harder. In it, he writes, “[t]he EZLN carries with it not just the hope of something better for everyone; it also drags along the world’s troubles and blindness that we want to leave aside. If, in the indigenous communities and in the cities, women must confront a world where being male is a privilege that excludes those who are different (women and homosexuals), in the mountain and as troop commanders, they must confront the resistance of the majority of the insurgents to take orders from a woman”^[37](268). Marcos knows that while the women in his community are the backbone of the revolution, they face continuous oppression at both the local and national level, and his stylistic writing choices reflect this consciousness. However, he leaves the work of dismantling the patriarchy to women. Thus, his work is feminist in theory in its use of female ideas and its acknowledgement  of sexism, but is not feminist in practice because he doesn’t actively acknowledge changes that can increase gender equality, and consistently forgoes mentioning strong female leaders.

The women of Chiapas continuously sacrifice themselves for the greater good of the state. While they remain the most important force behind the Zapatista Army, the media and male counterparts continually ignore their contributions and success by dominating the discourse and refusing to fight for women’s rights. Ultimately, the women of the movement are willing to put their individual interests beneath those of the community, while their male comrades refuse to do the same. Subcomandante Marcos’ rhetoric is an example of the progress the Chiapas community has made and their openness to women’s rights as a result of the tireless effort of indigenous feminists. However, it also serves as an example of men leaving the fight for women’s rights and gender equality up to women. The voice of a feminist revolution becomes muddled and lost when a man is heading the discourse. The Zapatista Revolution is a feminist movement operating withing a society that is fundamentally patriarchal resulting in the topic of women treated as less important than the topic of the community. 

Works Cited

Acción Zapatista Editorial Collective and Subcomandante Marcos, “The Story of Durito and Neoliberalism,” in Conversations with Durito: Stories of the Zapatistas and Neoliberalism (New York: Autonomedia, 2005).

Blackwell, Maylei. “The Practice of Autonomy in the Age of Neoliberalism: Strategies from Indigenous Women’s Organising in Mexico.” Journal of Latin American Studies 44, no. 4 (2012): 703-32. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23352622.

Carlos Salinas de Gortari, “Interview with David Frost for PBS” (October 28, 1993) Los Angeles Times, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-10-29-mn-51099-story.html

Castillo, R. Aida Hernandez. “Zapatismo and the emergence of indigenous feminism. (Report on Race and Identity).” NACLA Report on the Americas 35, no. 6 (2002): 39+. Gale OneFile: Informe Académico (accessed November 2, 2020). https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A87694952/IFME?u=29002&sid=IFME&xid=72305e89.

EZLN. “Zapatista Women’s Revolutionary Laws.” El Despertador Mexicano. January 1st 1994.                                           

Foran, John. “Studying Revolutions through the Prism of Race, Gender, and Class: Notes Toward a Framework.” In Race, Gender & Class 8, no. 2 (Apr 30, 2001): 117. (accessed October 26, 2020). https://search.proquest.com/docview/218857643?accountid=15172.                             

Gilbreth, Chris, and Gerardo Otero “Democratization in Mexico: The Zapatista Uprising and Civil Society.” In Latin American Perspectives 28, no. 4 (2001): 7-29. (accessed October 28, 2020). http://www.jstor.org/stable/3185136.                                                                               

Glueck, Meredith. “Comandante Ramona (1959?–2006).” In Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture, 2nd ed., edited by Jay Kinsbruner and Erick D. Langer, 539. Vol. 2. Detroit, MI: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2008. Gale In Context: World History (accessed November 2, 2020). https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3078901610/WHIC?u=29002&sid=WHIC&xid=e9a8935c.                                               

Glusker, Susannah. “Women Networking for Peace and Survival in Chiapas: Militants, Celebrities, Academics, Survivors, and the Stiletto Heel Brigade.” Sex Roles 39, no. 7 (10, 1998): 539-557. (accessed October 31, 2020). https://search.proquest.com/docview/225372329?accountid=15172.                                           

Grosso, Paula. “The many faces of the Zapatista women: Soldiers, gardeners, healers, teachers and nurturers – they are the hub of a community resisting and re-building in Chiapas, Mexico.” Briarpatch, March 2002, 3+. Gale OneFile: News (accessed November 2, 2020). https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A84165776/STND?u=29002&sid=STND&xid=f7bdac9a.       Jörgensen, Beth E. “Making History: Subcomandante Marcos in the Mexican Chronicle.” South Central Review 21, no. 3 (Fall 2004): 85-106. Quoted in Contemporary Literary Criticism, edited by Jeffrey W. Hunter. Vol. 343. Detroit, MI: Gale, 2013. Gale Literature Resource Center (accessed November 2, 2020). https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/H1100115195/LitRC?u=29002&sid=LitRC&xid=5a61a1fb.   

Jens Korff, “Meaning of Land to Aboriginal People,” Creative Spirits, May 21, 2020

Morales, Josefina. “Two Reviews: NAFTA and the Zapatistas.” In International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society 8, no. 2 (1994): 343-51. (accessed October 28, 2020). http://www.jstor.org/stable/20007192.                                                                                       

Ordóñez, Carlos Salvador. “Zapatista Rebellion.” In Encyclopedia of Race and Racism, 2nd ed., edited by Patrick L. Mason, 291-296. Vol. 4. Detroit, MI: Macmillan Reference USA, 2013. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints (accessed October 27, 2020). https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX4190600470/OVIC?u=29002&sid=OVIC&xid=51cba28f.

Orr-Álvarez B. “Masking Revolution: Subcomandante Marcos and the Contemporary Zapatista Movement.” In Beauchesne K., Santos A. (eds) Performing Utopias in the Contemporary Americas. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. (accessed October 30, 2020). https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56873-1_7                                                                                

Ortiz-Ortega, Adriana, and Mercedes Barquet. “Gendering Transition to Democracy in Mexico.” In Latin American Research Review 45, no. 4 (2010): 108-137. (accessed October 26, 2020). doi:10.1353/lar.2010.0039.                 

Rivera Berruz, Stephanie, “Latin American Feminism”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2020 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2020/entries/feminism-latin-america/>.                        

Rousseau, Stéphanie, and Anahi Morales Hudon. “Paths towards Autonomy in Indigenous Women’s Movements: Mexico, Peru, Bolivia.” Journal of Latin American Studies 48, no. 1 (2015): 33–60. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022216x15000802.

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References

^[1] Corwin, Adam. “Zapatista Exodus: A Departure from Traditional Revolution.” Order No. 1427231, California State University, Dominguez Hills, 2004.

^[2] Carlos Salinas de Gortari, “Interview with David Frost for PBS” (October 28, 1993) Los Angeles Times, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-10-29-mn-51099-story.html

^[3] Ordóñez, Carlos Salvador. “Zapatista Rebellion.” In Encyclopedia of Race and Racism, 2nd ed. edited by Patrick L. Mason, 291-296. Vol. 4. Detroit, MI: Macmillan Reference USA, 2013. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints.

^[4] Cornwin. “Zapatista Exodus: A Departure from Traditional Revolution.”

^[5] Cornwin. “Zapatista Exodus: A Departure from Traditional Revolution.”

^[6] Blackwell, Maylei. “The Practice of Autonomy in the Age of Neoliberalism: Strategies from Indigenous Women’s Organising in Mexico.” Journal of Latin American Studies 44, no. 4 (2012): 703-32. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23352622.

^[7] Cornwin. “Zapatista Exodus: A Departure from Traditional Revolution.”

^[8] Ordóñez. “Zapatista Rebellion.”

^[9] Zapatista Army. the First Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle. General Command of the EZLN. 1993

^[10] Ordóñez. “Zapatista Rebellion.”

^[11] Foran, John. “Studying Revolutions through the Prism of Race, Gender, and Class: Notes Toward a Framework.” Race, Gender & Class 8, no. 2 (Apr 30, 2001): 117.

^[12] Foran, John. “Studying Revolutions through the Prism of Race, Gender, and Class: Notes Toward a Framework.”

^[13] Foran, John. “”Studying Revolutions through the Prism of Race, Gender, and Class: Notes Toward a Framework.”

^[14] Glueck, Meredith. “Comandante Ramona (1959?–2006).” In Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture, 2nd ed., edited by Jay Kinsbruner and Erick D. Langer, 539. Vol. 2. Detroit, MI: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2008. Gale In Context: World History

^[15] Grosso, Paula. “The many faces of the Zapatista women: Soldiers, gardeners, healers, teachers and nurturers – they are the hub of a community resisting and re-building in Chiapas, Mexico.” Briarpatch, March 2002, 3+. Gale OneFile: News

^[16] Rivera Berruz, Stephanie, “Latin American Feminism”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2020 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)

^[17]  Rivera Berruz, Stephanie, “Latin American Feminism”

^[18] Rivera Berruz, Stephanie, “Latin American Feminism”

^[19] Rivera Berruz, Stephanie, “Latin American Feminism”

^[20] Rivera Berruz, Stephanie, “Latin American Feminism”

^[21] Rivera Berruz, Stephanie, “Latin American Feminism”

^[22] Foran, John. “Studying Revolutions through the Prism of Race, Gender, and Class: Notes Toward a Framework.”

^[23] EZLN. “Zapatista Women’s Revolutionary Laws.” El Despertador Mexicano. January 1st 1994.

^[24]  Blackwell, Maylei. “The Practice of Autonomy in the Age of Neoliberalism: Strategies from Indigenous Women’s Organising in Mexico.”

^[25] Blackwell, Maylei. “The Practice of Autonomy in the Age of Neoliberalism: Strategies from Indigenous Women’s Organising in Mexico.”

^[26] Blackwell, Maylei. “The Practice of Autonomy in the Age of Neoliberalism: Strategies from Indigenous Women’s Organising in Mexico.”

^[27] Blackwell, Maylei. “The Practice of Autonomy in the Age of Neoliberalism: Strategies from Indigenous Women’s Organising in Mexico.”

^[28] Blackwell, Maylei. “The Practice of Autonomy in the Age of Neoliberalism: Strategies from Indigenous Women’s Organising in Mexico.”

^[29] Blackwell, Maylei. “The Practice of Autonomy in the Age of Neoliberalism: Strategies from Indigenous Women’s Organising in Mexico.”

^[30] Rivera Berruz, Stephanie, “Latin American Feminism”

^[31]Acción Zapatista Editorial Collective and Subcomandante Marcos, “The Story of Durito and Neoliberalism,” in Conversations with Durito: Stories of the Zapatistas and Neoliberalism (New York: Autonomedia, 2005), pp. 41.

^[32] Acción Zapatista Editorial Collective and Subcomandante Marcos. Conversations with Durito pp. 154, 184, 289.

^[33] Acción Zapatista Editorial Collective and Subcomandante Marcos. Conversations with Durito pp 42-43

^[34] Jens Korff, “Meaning of Land to Aboriginal People,” Creative Spirits, May 21, 2020

^[35] Acción Zapatista Editorial Collective and Subcomandante Marcos. Conversations with Durito pp 92

^[36] Acción Zapatista Editorial Collective and Subcomandante Marcos. Conversations with Durito

^[37]  Acción Zapatista Editorial Collective and Subcomandante Marcos. Conversations with Durito pp 268