*It cannot be reiterated enough that the following 'conversational' notations, observations, opinions etcetera are mainly of an ad hoc personal nature thus being subjectively 'off-the-cuff'. Therefore, it is strongly encouraged to be discerning and to impeccably reference reputable sources to hopefully gain a lucid, in-depth understanding of any mentioned subject as what is fluidly discussed is from the point of view of being fluctuating 'starting points' rather than having any such analysis as being stratified 'final summations'. Again, all the best. NN. P.S. what will be of personal interest to me in the future is to see if I make any recalibration of a political character as one has discovered what one today sees as just may in the future prove to be an error thus one has to re-evaluate one's outlook which is important to do in any case so that one does not end up becoming an ideological fossil in order to keep seeking out from a human perspective what is truly just which is what matters more so than wrongly or embarrassingly or even criminally clinging to what will be proven to be a discredited political loyalty...which is somewhat pertinent when the traditional left-right political spectrum seems to be breaking down and fragmenting to bring up new quantum fields of political realities.
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General
1. Heart of the Universe is an etching based on a sketch of a coastal rock at Gordons Bay. Sydney. The image has been slightly cropped so is a detail of the etching although nearly all of it is on view on the cover. It is by the author who is a printmaker. (One may wish to even see the title as an inverse of the notion of ‘heart of darkness’).
2. ‘Light of Paradise.’ Cooks River. Sydney. This B&W photograph in the frontispiece is by the author. Cooks River is a waterway in suburban Sydney. The original Aboriginal name of Cooks River is Goolay’yari.
3. Dedication. ‘Vags’ (a nickname shortening a surname) was an Australian-Latvian school friend who had an interest in Lord of the Rings & in history. Ironically the author has been to Lithuania & even spent a year there but the closest he has been to Latvia is to view a forest from the border with Lithuania as this country neighbours it.
4. Author’s Acknowledgement. Although this acknowledgement was written in February 1993 a variation of a couple of sentences towards the end of it were made in May 2017. Yet the general sentiment of gratitude definitely remains the same. Cathy is a neighbourhood friend who along with her brother I have known since early childhood. Decades ago Cathy once worked at the Australian Film Commission as a secretary and in her own time would type up most of the original manuscript which was considerably longer. It was at a time in the early 1980s that was well before digital word processing even existed let alone be ubiquitous. This original manuscript which I had ‘thesis bound’ with a hard cover was used as the basis for the final form which was brought into existence with word processing.
5. Black Fez Poetry Night. Curiosity Café. Balmain. I thank the likes of Doug Wakefield & David Fenwick who more so than the author instigated these evenings. Famously started in the cushioned backroom at Emads Lebanese restaurant in Chippendale as a one-off poetry night it continued for many years – usually three or four times annually – being held in homes or cafes which were usually closed on Sunday night; establishments such as the Curiosity Café in Balmain and Weba’s in Stanmore would open with the ‘guarantee’ of at least twenty to thirty people turning up. The evenings were intimate as well as having a real sense of community; they were always unplanned and democratically consisted of people reciting their own writing or the writing of their favourite author or poet; artists would explain their pieces; actors and musicians were also welcome as Doug would often perform; on one memorable night people were amazed by the poignant, bluesy guitar playing of David Delves. There are also memories of being entranced by ethnic singing, blues harmonica playing etcetera. The back porch of a friend’s old house in the Sydney suburb of Drummoyne (now torn down and replaced with apartments) that overlooked the river was another favoured venue for the poetry evenings. There was also often a quirky, voodoo unpredictability to the poetry nights as one was never sure what the night would bring: one’s soul stays sustained to this day.
6. Looking into the Future is also an etching by the author. The rough hewn textures one can view in the print intimates to the weathered ancient coastal rocks that can be found on any Australian beach.
7. a. Firstly, it had been the original intention of the author to directly quote from the writings of both Arthur Koestler & Fyodor Dostoyevsky but instead have indirectly paraphrased them (perhaps awkwardly) in this prelude statement to sincerely not bring on any copyright transgression. One may wish to peruse the two books mentioned (Koestler’s Darkness at Noon & Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov) to review what these two grand authors have actually scribed.
(As an aside while religion is often seen in a negative sense when one thinks only of a severe theocratic state or fundamentalist evangelism one can also have in mind how Tibetan Buddhism (with for instance its faith in the spiritual leadership of the Dalai Lama) plays a positive role in Tibet’s independence struggle against China’s oppressive occupation; how the 1960s U.S. civil rights movement would have - until his assassination - the reverend Martin Luther King as a leader; while in Latin America liberation theology has also had a positive social and cultural effect in working towards overcoming social, economic and political oppressions).
b. Secondly, I now mention the third literary reference which is to Milan Kundera that was only recently added as I did not know of it when I first only thought to include the Koestler and Dostoyevsky musings. To state again what is referenced by Milan Kundera is in his novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Milan Kundera directly mentions communism along with fascism thus what I have written is a little different and maybe seen more so as commentary rather than as an actual paraphrase (in any strict sense); thus I highly recommend reading what Milan Kundera wrote in full that is only partially noted by me and with a personal emphasis (although hopefully seen as truly representative of what Milan Kundera intended to express) which involves a female character who does not know how to explain to her Parisian friends that she could not stay on the rally with them which was a protest against the Soviet invasion of her country for the underlying reasons as stated by Milan Kundera and which I mention.
c. Another literary piece one may wish to think about it is Vasily Grossman’s Life & Fate (1960). It is a novel which has been regarded as the Soviet Union’s ‘War & Peace’ and revolves around the Battle of Stalingrad which Grossman witnessed as a Soviet war correspondent. From my reading of this expansive novel I took away from it the tragedy of how ordinary human beings were trapped within either one or the other totalitarian state (Nazi & Stalinist) having to fight against the other state which would not grant them personal freedom in any case but grant them at least human survival.
In Antony Beevor’s book about Vasily Grossman - A WRITER AT WAR Vassily Grossman with the Red Army 1941-1945. (Harvill Press London. 2005 edited and translated by Antony Beevor and Luba Vinogradova) – it is mentioned that the original objective of the Sixth Army- as part of Army Group South’s 1942 summer southern offensive codenamed Operation Blue - Army Group B was to not take Stalingrad but to only head towards it so as to guard the Wehrmacht’s flank while Army Group A swept towards the oilfields of the Caucasus (which had for now replaced Moscow as the Wehrmacht’s main objective in its invasion of Russia codenamed Operation Barbarossa. July 1941). However, Hitler who had taken over ultimate command had some of the Fourth Army move back to supporting the Sixth Army to actually take Stalingrad which would eventually allow for the Soviet Union’s surprise counteroffensive [Operation Uranus] in November 1942 which would encircle and entrap the Sixth Army in Stalingrad. The Sixth Army would finally be defeated in February 1943 and it is seen as the major turning point of the Second World War. This starting point of the Allies road victory which would end up by April-May 1945 in Berlin was followed up by Army Group Centre’s defeat at Kursk in July 1943.
9. a. the end of the world. The absurdist mood this poem may convey, in particular the italic stanza, was influenced & inspired by Dadaist poetry. While modern culture can thank Samuel Beckett for the term ‘godot’.
b. Additionally, to make an appropriate acknowledgement regarding the italic stanza which references an irrational man who is engulfed by the sand he is blindly smiling at is not at all an original allusion but somewhat paraphrases or rather echoes part of a line of prose from ‘Dada and Surrealism’. C.W.E. Bigsby. (The Critical Idiom series). Methuen & Co. Ltd. 1972 which in turn the author makes mention of two Samuel Beckett plays Happy Days and Waiting for Godot. (Specifically, if interested see Chapter 6 Origins, Aesthetics and Ethics). Notably, in an original typed copy of this poem – as it was written before home computers and laptops were common place this particular verse is in red ink while the rest of the poem is in black text. Please keep in mind this sanguine act of literary appropriation within the poem written by the author occurred when he was still a teenager (misspellings and self-manufactured words included). 1
10. APPENDIX. The Appendix has at the beginning a black and white photo of a small sculpture that is only a few inches high of German soldiers under a Moscow sign in Russian. They are advancing towards the Russian capital expectant of victory. This prop was given to the author on his fiftieth birthday as an ironic reminder to the national hubris and tragic futility of war. So there is no confusion for incorrect interpretation this little sculptural piece is definitely both a visual anti-war and anti-imperial statement. (Nevertheless, with the failure of the Nazi German invasion in mind which would lead in turn to the long lasting Russian occupation of so much of Continental Europe - which would also include a part of Austria until 1955 – it really doesn’t hurt to reiterate yet again that for East Europeans who lived under Russian occupation from 1945 onwards the Second World War perhaps did not really end for them until decades later when the Soviet Union etc. collapsed over the late 1980s-early 1990s).
11. Auschwitz. This photograph was taken by the author at the very end of the twentieth century in late December 1999. It shows the railway which led to the disembarkation point where people were taken off the train and selected for either immediate death in the gas chambers or to work in labour groups where the average life span was usually no more than six months. William Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich provides a harrowing account of a gassing. It’s been said this extermination camp along with the nuclear mushroom cloud over Hiroshima will remain as the two enduring images of World War II and possibly of the twentieth century.
I was at Auschwitz with some other Australian friends living respectively in both Germany and Lithuania on working holidays. We had all met in Krakow to soon welcome in the new millennium. Auschwitz was a poignant reminder of the bestialities of the century that was about to end and before the Age of Terror there was still the hope that the new century that was about to start would prove to be more civilized. Amidst the snow we walked amongst the derelict wooden huts, the guard towers and the concrete remnants of the crematorium and death chambers. It was especially interesting for me as I had previously visited Auschwitz in the Spring on my first ever visit to Krakow. On that day it had been strange to go through the death camp on a beautiful, sunny day and so the subdued winter tones of this second visit seem to capture for me the truly murderous genocidal historical mood of this abominable site. In the museum section were the piles of shoes and other garments of the many victims in small cubicle rooms behind large glass walls.
After Krakow there would be a brief time in Lithuania and with an Australian-Lithuanian friend would visit Druskininkai which is a town in southern Lithuania. It is where the national icon of Lithuania – the mystical painter and composer M.K. Ciurlionis (1875-1911) – spent his childhood. Druskininkai is surrounded by forest and I could feel nature’s ‘spiritual sense’ - which Ciurlionis himself would have felt - while walking through these beautiful Lithuanian woods. So it was here I ended up doing a sketch of some winter trees as I was struck by the way the branches were all spread out in the manner of the many pronged Jewish candle candelabras which I had seen at Auschwitz. I still cherish this drawing in my small square sketch book and consequently also did an etching titled Winter Trees (which can be sighted on the author’s website). Thus, I am always reminded that amidst such natural beauty I was reminded of the human reality of maintaining one’s faith at a time of insurmountable tragedy. Perhaps, a poignant counterpoint is to read Viktor E. Frankl’s classic Man’s Search For Meaning written after his nightmarish experiences in the concentration camps – including Auschwitz- and is considered a masterpiece to hope.
Ancestral Visitations
1.a. Thus, the Fall of the Serpent who in this case being Satan had tempted Adam and Eve to eat of the forbidden fruit. However, it should also be noted that the serpent as a creature who regularly sheds its skin to then have new skin can represent the cycle of life then death then regeneration is a natural process which can occur in the natural realm which Adam and Eve enter into after being cast out of Eden. The serpent in other biblical contexts also represents...’...genuine wisdom (Mathew 10:16) or of healing (Numbers 21: 9) just as it was in Greek mythology.’ Pg. 148. THE GREAT CODE. The Bible as Literature by Northrop Frye. Academic Press. Toronto. Canada. 1981. See also pg. 110 re: the serpent as symbol of the mortal cycle). As an aside in sacred descriptions of the creation of existence there can be mention of light triumphantly overcoming darkness. Hopefully, the kernel of ‘humane light’ within each human spirit along with an accompanying human intellect will overcome the vast tyrannical darkness which often curses humanity; to return to the Christian tradition - being the one I am familiar with - there is John 1: 5 where upon it is inferred in such ‘plain English’ modern translations as the New International Version of how the light shines in the darkness of which the darkness cannot overcome (in the King James Version it is such that the darkness cannot comprehend the light…).
Plato’s Shadows and Authoritarianism. *
1b. There is also the Ancient Greek mythological notion of shadows as being physical markers of human souls. It could be suggested it is the struggle of the philosopher to focus human comprehension away from such darkly apparitions of reality which are actually transitory in their illusory nature so as to enlighten the human mind to what reality truly is which in Platonic terms is somewhat founded on the ‘absolute forms’ which exist on a metaphysical level; being eternal and unchanging and thus by this philosophical implication form the basis of everything that exists here on earth and the cosmos. 1
services those ‘fatefully’ destined to ‘properly’ govern over their ‘inadequate’ selves; thus one may choose to critically argue that it is from an elitist point of view by which particular popularized philosophical statements made by Socrates at the very least may first need to be filtered through so as to gain some contemporary insight in regards to what arguably may have possibly been their original societal value as supposedly intended by Socrates which may have had an antithetic social meaning that may purposely markedly differ from any modern day egalitarian perspective of human liberation. Politics can define ethics.
There is Plato’s Cave of Shadows allegory whereby in part it mentions chained slaves who are forced to face only one direction to singularly perceive as being real those shadows of actual things cast on the cave wall by a fire while having never seen the three-dimensional object world outside the cave. It brings to mind how on one late night while watching SBS – an Australian television channel with multicultural programming – there was at the start of a 1970 Italian movie Lady Caliph – which revolved around a factory strike - a quote coming up on a black screen and attributed to Socrates which states that his true struggle is against shadows.
Thus, to reiterate it appears to us to be the philosopher’s role to make others aware that what is envisaged as the real world which humanity has placed its faith in is only a ‘shadow’ when there is a true world beyond which consists of the Absolute Forms; with this world merely being a distorted reflection.2 Yet appearances can be deceiving and so on this point it could be implied that Plato would agree as to him the ‘world of the metaphysical’ was always superior to the ‘world of appearances’3; nevertheless, one may also like to speak of ‘ideological appearances’ that can deal with one’s presumptive mind rather than just sensory appearances which deal with one’s physical senses.
To compare ancient times with the modern era the public ‘others’ can presently be an ‘every-person audience’ for the writings of Plato can now be widely published and so what Socrates said – at least according to Plato - can be easily accessed; while in fifth century Athens Socrates actually preferred the undemocratic ‘others’ which was the aristocrat class with oligarchical tendencies to be his main audience. Apparently, such nobles due to having a high social position was ‘evidence’ enough that they superiorly had more well refined souls and simply needed to be philosophically encouraged to self-reflect to seek after wisdom so as to exclusively ‘expertly’ lead the polis in a manner that maybe envisaged as a ‘just paternalism’ that would idealistically supposedly veer rightly well away from the political temptation of tyranny. As for ‘ordinary’ citizens who ‘obviously’ had ‘lesser souls’ it was ‘logically reasoned’ that they would not at all be capable to fully comprehend the universal Good; so actually it was of no use that they self-examine themselves other than perhaps to possibly dimly comprehend their ‘pre-destined’ role to support by their labour and other ‘menial’ skills andservices those ‘fatefully’ destined to ‘properly’ govern over their ‘inadequate’ selves; thus one may choose to critically argue that it is from an elitist point of view by which particular popularized philosophical statements made by Socrates at the very least may first need to be filtered through so as to gain some contemporary insight in regards to what arguably may have possibly been their original societal value as supposedly intended by Socrates which may have had an antithetic social meaning that may purposely markedly differ from any modern day egalitarian perspective of human liberation. Politics can define ethics.
The Noble Lie. Nevertheless, what is of immediate interest is the Socratic suggestion that to ensure that this stable world does not face social rupture or outright rebellion there needs to be mesmerically inculcated into the mass psychology of the citizenry a diligent state assured sense of fate that decisively leaves them unequivocally accepting rather than ‘ungratefully’ querying their particular social position; thus, the so called ‘noble lie’ where upon it is spoken as if the citizens have the earth itself as mythically6 being their mother to have it reverently come to pass and apparently with divine attribution that there be a founding generation differentially imbued with various metals which will have with a few with the rare metal of gold in their perfect souls to qualify for a high status so as to therefore ‘of course’ be destined to be philosopher rulers; while in societal terms directly below them and so with a wider social base will be the defending auxiliaries whose perfecting souls will be imbued with silver and lastly with the largest social base will be the majority of citizens and ‘naturally’ enough they will have predestined within their ‘imperfect natures’ only ordinary abundant metals such as iron and brass; thus for the designers of this supposed socially flawless society duplicitously enabling a definition of their lives to be as servants of the Good rather than as being either rulers or protectors of it.
As it is with every ‘wise’ meritocracy whether it be a religious, economic or racial one – to mention just three societal variances that can lead to a political sifting of the population to be either favourably heralded as ‘deserved’ or unfavourably maligned as ‘undeserved’ - there can be a foundational ‘noble lie’ to immorally rhetorically rationalize any social hierarchy that will ‘unquestionably’ validate the ideologically entrenched power base of a privileged elite.
Heaven on earth is the political promise. Yet there will only be a false harmony at best – as typified by Plato’s imaginary ‘utopia’ - and a true hell at worst – as typified by real world authoritarian or totalitarian states such as Nazi Germany being the one referred to being the main one historically mentioned in this novella.7
Stephen in the novella was loyal to a regime which politically infused him to believe the ‘noble lie’ that it was striving to better the human cause and that the war was a ‘necessary work’ in order to defeat ‘aggressive inhuman forces’ that would only lead humanity to a bestial fate until he was directly confronted through his war experience first in Greece and then in Rumania that he was no heroic ‘noble Aryan’ but actually an atrocious unwitting human cog in the cynical service of human beasts.8 There was only the abyss. Stephen’s ultimate resistance was thus a moral ‘stepping back’ from the very edge of such an abyss and really there was no choice for him if he was seeking to at least give himself a chance to achieve personal redemption. A personal nihilism was all that would otherwise await him. Stephen would morally atone for his political sin of following National Socialism although tragically it would come at the sacrificial cost of his very life. In general, in political terms, it is always the human dilemma as a social being whether to know one is living for a lie and do nothing to survive and even thrive or knowingly take the risk to oppose it to then not only face losing everything but in the extreme case if also existing in a wholly totalitarian state to inevitably also die.9
In the novella with its underworld is the description of the inner sanctuary of Ashur’s capital city Telsh known as Sheol which comes across as a human made ‘heaven on earth’…as one of the scholars explains in Chapter Two A Question of Balance:
“Sheol has no one seeking heaven when her citizens live so well here in this world. Sheol is with authority, philosophy, culture and science for those who wish to be knowledgeable and wise throughout their long lives.”
Of which the enigmatic stranger - falsely labelled as the messiah - also observes when escorted by soldiers through Sheol as a prisoner:
‘His eyes were startled by the white marble buildings the escort passed, and he was amazed by the smooth skins of the people who walked amid these serene streets. Their well-proportioned bodies befitted the perfect harmony of this human paradise which he nevertheless felt was cold, sterile and unnatural.’
As it is I duly undermine the underlying hubris behind the scholar’s proud claim in regards to this supposed utopia as the biblical name Sheol - which is of Hebrew origin – more or less refers to an underworld which is a still, dark place of the dead; while in a Christian sense it may be argued that Sheol can translate to mean Hell.
Although I knew of it I had not yet fully read Plato’s Republic 10 when I wrote this novella but on a subconscious level at least I certainly seemed to have been mindfully channelling against the authoritarian zeitgeist of this major philosophical hallucination. The way I see it Sheol with its illusion of justice would be the pristine sheathed world of ‘philosopher’ rulership and military guardianship with the producing workers in the outer city of No-Sear only to endure impoverished living conditions with their labour-intensive existence and in the most bitter ironic sense to ‘necessarily’ build up, provide and support Sheol’s ‘civilized’ grandeur and luxury comfort (on whose ‘essentially esteemed’ occupants Ashur’s existence, its future and thus ‘very survival’ apparently ‘depended’ on). 11 No-Sear is ‘reason’ spelt backwards and of course there is no reason that can justify any society - especially a strict hierarchical class based one - of having an extreme unequal disparity of wealth distribution which inevitably so often also comes with an equally extreme unequal disparity of social value and political nous.12 The high quality of life in Sheol would if fully known about9 be envied by the hard working occupants of No-Sear but the socialised ‘noble lie’ at work that inhibits social rebellion from occurring seems13 to malevolently operate on eugenic class-based meritocratic principles with the still somewhat necessary ‘spiritual’ backing of a historically diminished chief priesthood which duplicitously still finds by such unashamed theocratic compliance some high level of social and political relevance by doing so in what by all first societal appearances is now more so a highly secular ‘rational’ come ‘scientific’ society with a well ensconced militarized ruling elite with an accompanying loyal state apparatus that is all judiciously in overall authoritarian control.
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*These preliminary notes are subjectively a personal reflection & should be clearly critiqued as not having any academic authority; the same can be said with the associated footnotes which it is felt only really provide a ‘sketch overview’ not being sufficiently ‘in depth’. Thus, further research is advised in regards to any matter raised that may pique one’s intellectual curiosity and which will possibly lead one to variously different perspectives and opinions from what is pensively presented here without the fullest knowledge of the subject matter. Apologies for the inevitable repetition of some commentary points sprinkled throughout various footnotes. Lastly, in the interests of transparency my view of Plato and the Socrates that is known which is perhaps mythical, literary and historical all at once critically tends towards the negative although it is hoped one appraisal has a nuanced aspect. Amongst one’s reading I am particularly impressed by the following academically well measured paper Socrates as Political Partisan. Neal Wood Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue canadienne de science politique. Vol. 7, No. 1 (March. 1974). pp. 3-31 (29 pages). Published by: Canadian Political Science Association and although one is not certain of everything stated within it one accepts its general outlook and duly acknowledge some of its astute points ‘surfacing’ in the notes to both influence and provide them with their somewhat critical slant that is not really in regards to any pure Socratic or Platonic philosophy per se but rather more so to what one may term as their ‘political philosophy’ or ‘ideological outlook’ of which on a personal level I find much cause to disagree with while at the same time one acknowledges there can be commentators far more academically versed and intrinsically well informed on both Plato and Socrates who hold a more amiable position as one has found out has been the case throughout history with Socrates actually proving to be a polarizing character with his detractors and admirers both being equally certain with the authenticity of their opposing attitudes. In short, it is best that one simply judges for one’s own self. (Apologies also to Mr Wood if I have at all misinterpreted or read him the wrong the way). Best regards. NN.
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Endnotes
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General Notes
9b (1) At the same time the author wrote the following ‘1970s zeitgeist’ poem which perhaps also was inspired by an immature schoolboy interest in an alternative cultural reality as envisaged by both Dada and Surrealism. As it is it is only Dada and especially the version as typified by Marcel Duchamp that deeply interests me these days. Note the many references to the atomic bomb which would not be seen as out of place during the Cold War era.
A Surrealist Poem
Down from the sky come the four legged arms
To land in a field of yellow machine guns.
Hour by hour come the four legged arms...
To praise and worship the cerebrum of a Broken Doll
Which stands silhouetted upon a prole
Only to be hidden by the epochal second of an echoing atom bomb.
And so the four legged arms come and go
Still praising the cerebrum of a Broken Doll...
But up above the planet Venus
The moon still hides the sun
Chained by a reference to the plectrumical drum
And so the four legged arms come and go
Still praising the cerebrum of a Broken Doll
Come...
For in the seventh second of a disgusting pun
Emerges a hand without no existence
To simply become a pestilence...
And so the four legged arms come and go
Still praising the cerebrum of a Broken Doll
From which are cast a thousand knives
From which are cast into the rock like surface
Of some unclarifiable, unusable thing...
Alas the embodiment
Alas...
...the four legged arms which come and go
WHIZ! BANG! POP! goes the cerebrum of a Broken Doll
Oh...
Alas...the four legged arms and a broken doll
A baby crying from her soul
What of machine guns? What of the BOMB?
AND WHAT OF ECLIPSES UNFINISHED BY GOD?
And so...a baby crying from her soul Unfinished? POEM
And so the four legged arms still come and go
Still praising the cerebrum of a Broken Doll.
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Notes Frontispiece.
Preamble
As a general disclaimer the following notations, observations, opinions etcetera of a fleeting, surface skimming nature of many various deeply complex issues and topics are mainly of an ad hoc personal nature that certainly are subjectively embedded with my own perspective although I do sincerely attempt to be objective and even-handed as much as humanly possible. (Yet, one knows how difficult it can be to not self-deceive and to speak even more generally, and being organic creatures, every human being can have the mutable tendency to increasingly vary their outlook on the world during the whole course of a lifetime. Thus I persuade myself to look outwardly from a humanitarian point of view rather than from an ideological one which as Hannah Arendt once stated can be a blinding one. A remark by her which I often aptly refer to more than once…almost as if a mantra…also one cannot help but feel that the somewhat static ‘straightjacket’ binary of ‘left-right’ as originally envisaged at the time of the French Revolution seems to be breaking down even further these days in the multi-polar aftermath of the Cold War as one’s per usual traditional political binary position depending on the issue at hand may now be more randomly open to an unpredictable ‘quantum super-positioning’ outlook towards human reality). Thus I strongly encourage the reader to be cautiously discerning and to impeccably reference reputable sources to hopefully gain a lucid, in-depth understanding of any subject that is looked at in this now lengthy discourse. As it is the information presently compiled invariably also includes many other discussion points not directly related to the novella (but have arose from first looking at notions originally associated with it) have led to an addendum that is much longer in length than what was initially expected and is one reason why it seems best to provide it as a digital entity. I should make it clear that what is written in these notes is not essential reading and - as already said - especially when a sizeable percentage of these notes are not always wholly relevant to the novella per se – at least on first sight. Nevertheless, amongst a wide range of topics it may at least intrigue the historically curious that for instance I do look a little more in depth at German anti-Nazi resistance during the Third Reich period. (In regards to to anti-Nazi resistance and Eastern Europe there is also the Polish officer and resistance fighter Witold Pilecki being a heroic case in point who deliberately ventured into the hell that was Auschwitz to then also escape from it so as to report on what was happening there to the Allies; who after the war during what would be the first years of the Cold War would be in Poland to deal with another adversary i.e. the Russians who would capture and execute him).Inevitably, what is presented here is to be seen as being as if ‘in conversation’ which then may more so elucidate further research into any any matter looked at rather than to view what has been written down here as a ‘final word’; especially when in the years to come there will become available further readings, documents, historiographies etcetera to enhance or negate to what is presently perceived as known or understood in regards to any particular issue. (Towards this end is the inclusion of many links, references which may simply serve as ‘jumping off points’ to further knowledgeable, detailed discourses which may also share multi-viewpoints). Thus to reiterate, especially in regards to the endnotes, at ‘first writing’ of them as well as the other notations there was a sincere intent to be restrictive to what what was only directed to the novella and yet it is clear to see that I have wantonly wavered away from this original aim such is the nature and freedom to write in the digital space which is a temptation I have fallen for and thus I dearly apologise for doing so. To also re-instate, I do not expect the reader to steadfastly go through the whole of this diverse discourse but rather to selectively peruse what arbitrary musings maybe found of interest. Also apologies for the somewhat rushed quality of the writing and it is also the case that while one can only work within the bounds of one’s own technical ability it can become apparent that inadequate expression can lead to finer or nuanced points from not being properly explained which may lead to misunderstandings (thus it can be sorely felt that any literary inadequacy may actually work against adding - to thus detract – to a deeper, common understanding of the matter at hand. Hopefully, such a misgiving is mostly avoided in these notes and within this ‘smorgasbord’ of notations there are a few streaks of enlightenment amongst it all. An interesting quote to reflect on is one that was attributed to Marcus Aurelius but is apparently not by him but one can understand why it was thought so and it merely refers to the notion that – and to slightly paraphrase - everything we hear may only be an opinion and thus not a fact and so everything may only thus be seen as a perspective and not the truth). Lastly, it should be mentioned that unless otherwise stated that nearly all of the photos, etchings and any other images are by me. All the best. NN.
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1. The Meditations. Marcus Aurelius. Book Two.
An internet archive of The Meditations with this page being Book Two.
https://classics.mit.edu/Antoninus/meditations.2.two.html
However, the reader may want to scour around for a particular translation that they prefer. As for me I like the Penguin Classics version that is translated by Maxwell Staniforth. MEDITATIONS. Marcus Aurelius. Penguin. (First published 1964).
2. I am not sure where I first came across Hannah Arendt’s remark as I believe it was on social media and have lost trace of it. Yet it may have been from her Origins of Totalitarianism. (1951). However, in regards to quotes by Hannah Arendt this common quotes website maybe useful to check out. (As it is I occasionally reference Hannah Arendt in the Notes).
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/12806.Hannah_Arendt
The following podcast may also be of interest to listen too:
Banality, deception and evil. ABC Radio National. Philosopher’s Zone with David Rutledge, Presenter. Guest: Matthew Sharpe. (Nov. 10. 2023).
https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/philosopherszone/banality-deception-and-evil/102961162
There are also these three other links that in different ways somewhat relate to the above link which may also be seen as worthwhile to peruse:
When is it right to call some act – or someone – “evil”? The Minefield. ABC. Radio National. (February. 2024).
https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/theminefield/when-is-an-act-or-person-evil/103422766?utm_campaign=abc_listen&utm_content=twitter&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_source=abc_listen
The end of good and evil | Slavoj Žižek, Rowan Williams, Maria Balaska, Richard Wrangham. The Institute of Art & Ideas. (February. 2024).
https://youtu.be/sEoPDfuycrE?si=G06dZdjvgQlwTkK-
Milgram Shock and Stanford Prison — what we misunderstand about the most infamous experiments in psychology. All in the Mind. ABC. Radio National. (October. 2022).
3. The following link is actually to a general page one webpage where the reader may peruse the available links to read about the morally troubling relationship between Australia and East Timor of which Gough Whitlam along with many other leaders, foreign ministers, politicians from both major Australian political parties played their fraught part for decades to come.
I actually recommend reading (or looking at references using the index) OIL UNDER TROUBLED WATER. Australia’s Timor Sea Intrigue. Bernard Collaery. Melbourne University Press. (2020) or other like books relating to this appalling saga of Australia’s many decades long betrayal of the East Timorese people of which I may say had in WWII done much - with many thousands having lost their lives - to aid Australian servicemen amid their terrain and sought after by Japanese troops of the Imperial Army.
4. There was Gough Whitlam’s infamous remark that he did not want thousands of ‘Vietnamese Balts’ coming to Australia who he thought as anti-communists their political leaning would be anti-Labor.1
5. It could be seen as ironic that while one ALP government straight after the Second World War provided refuge for many Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians who had escaped from Stalin’s military takeover of their countries that in the 1970s an ALP Prime Minister would recognize the Soviet Union’s annexation of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. On the 3rd of July, 1974 Prime Minister Gough Whitlam as acting Foreign Minister and without any forewarning granted de jureacknowledgement of the ‘incorporation’ of the three Baltic nations into the Soviet Union. 2 It goes without saying there was a critical response from Australia’s Baltic communities of which the following link historically provides mainly a Lithuanian point of view. Scrolls down to the English language section of this archived Baltic Herald.
https://www.spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1975/1975-06-09-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf
5. Gough Whitlam: Five ways he changed Australia. BBC. (2014). 3
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-29699576
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4. (1) ‘Balts’ refers to the Baltic peoples of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania whose countries were occupied by Stalin during and after WWII. After the war many ‘Balts’ who were in refugee camps made their way to Australia as their generally blonde, fair appearance was favoured by Australian immigration authorities* when Australia after the war implemented a large scale immigration drive by which Ben Chifley made his well known remark ‘Populate or Perish’ as it was thought that in regards to Australia’s WWII experience - when the country actually faced the possibility of being invaded for the first time by a powerful foreign invader - it was decided Australia needed a much larger population to build up its economy and national security capability. See this link for a quick overview:
Post-War Immigration Drive. National Museum of Australia.
https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/postwar-immigration-drive
*One may argue displaying an eugenic predilection to have those who shared a similar racial appearance to Anglo Australians gaining first preference to come to Australia.
While migrants from the United Kingdom were Australia’s first choice the next cohort immediately after the war that would be welcomed to Australia were the Baltic peoples from the three Russian occupied Baltic nations.
Nevertheless, as the man who buried once and for all the White Australia Policy and who brought in the Racial Discrimination Act and even withdrew the last Australian troops from Vietnam Gough Whitlam’s antipathy towards South Vietnamese refugees should not be perceived as evidence of any racial prejudice but rather it was them having a potential pro-LNP stance that seemed to really trouble hm. While Gough Whitlam rightly allowed Vietnamese students to stay in Australia it is troubling to find out that long serving Vietnamese staff working for the Australian embassy were abandoned as Saigon fell. It is also disturbing to find out that Gough Whitlam would not have a Royal Australian Navy ship come to the aid a refugee boat that apparently was in trouble in the South China Sea. *
*Which I first read about in OIL UNDER TROUBLED WATER. Bernard Colleary (pg. 170. Melbourne University Press edition. 2020) where it is also mentioned on the same page that in Whitlam’s time there was even an antipathy towards Eastern European refugees who were seen as likely to be anti-communist such as Soviet Jews escaping from the Soviet Union (so much so – as I read it - for Australia to even be suspected by a French Catholic NGO of undermining the secrecy involved with channelling such refugees through Poland to Sweden – which I presume involved being ferried over the Baltic Sea).
During the Whitlam period there was the lowest intake of refugees to Australia with on average 2,660 refugees coming to Australia annually during the whole term of his government.
Post-WW2 refugee arrivals to pass 950,000 in 2023. Relief Web.
Yet it should be mentioned that after the coup in Chile in September, 1973 when Pinochet overthrew Salvador Allende’s socialist government many Chileans who had to escape this right wing dictatorship were welcomed to Australia by the Whitlam government. Apparently at the very height of a ‘Chilean refugee wave’ nearly 19,000 Chileans had found sanctuary in Australia by 1981 according to an Australian Home Affairs broadsheet on the Chilean community. Which one supposes is some recompense when it is also apparent that Australia played an espionage role in Allende’s Chile.
Australia spies helped CIA in Allende's Chile, intel records show. France 24. (2021).
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210910-australia-spies-helped-cia-in-allende-s-chile-intel-records-show
However, finally to return to the issue of Vietnamese refugees here is a link to an installation The Boat which hopefully will be of interest:
The Boat. Dacchi Dang.
https://www.dacchidang.com/portfolios/theboat
(2a) It is interesting to come across this transcript of a press conference held with Gough Whitlam at the United Nations (New York. Oct. 1. 1974) which if scroll down far enough the decision to recognize the Soviet Union’s annexation of the Baltic states is talked out. Apparently, this inexplicable decision was done so in a ‘spirit of détente’ towards the Soviet Union. Gough Whitlam seems to see it as a ‘fate accompli’ that the three Baltic nations would remain a part of the Soviet Union and that it would involve a world war with the Soviet Union in which it lost for them to become independent nations.
Prime Minster’s Press Conference at the United Nations. Tuesday. 1. October. 1974. [TRANSCRIPT].
https://pmtranscripts.pmc.gov.au/release/transcript-3412
I am left with the impression that in regards to whatever insight such a point of view provides on the static Cold War mindset of the time that the world would stay as it was unless the grave risk was taken to initiate a major global war which no one wanted if it also meant bringing on a nuclear winter. Such a narrow-minded realpolitik attitude certainly blinds the political imagination as it could not be ‘realistically’ envisaged that what would occur towards the end of the twentieth century was that the Soviet Union would simply dissolve with little violence (although there would be lives lost most notably in Vilnius where Russian troops took a hardline approach to protests in January, 1991. See web link below which provides a retrospective from 2021).
One cannot help but think that in the name of averting the possibility of another ‘great war’ - and this time with what could have a nuclear weapon dimension - then smaller nations could be sacrificed with the ‘realistic justification’ that this was the preferred option than to have a destabilizing escalation that could result in such global scale human suffering. (It could also be cynically surmised that perhaps both superpowers could also make the cold calculation that a smaller level of human suffering could thus suffice as long as there was no overall diminishing of any national interest strategic advantages on an international level.
Thus for eastern Europe no decisive step would be taken by the West in regards to fully supporting the post-war partisan movements that fought against Stalin in countries such as the three Baltics, Ukraine and Poland or for no real substantial initiatives to occur in response to Hungary. 1956 and Czechoslovakia with its Prague Spring in 1968).
Thirty Years After Soviet Crackdown In Lithuania, Kremlin Accused Of Rewriting History. RFERL. (2021).
https://www.rferl.org/a/lithuania-soviet-crackdown-1991-kremlin-rewriting-history/31043914.html
(2b) It is interesting to also come across the story of a courageous Lithuanian sailor Simas Kudirka who in 1970 off the eastern coast of the U.S.A. attempted to defect from the Soviet Union by jumping from a Soviet fishing ship onto a U.S. ship in this edition of the Baltic Herald. It was headline news at the time but only learnt about it when I went to a Lithuanian organized viewing of the documentary based on his life at a Sydney cinema. The Jump. (2020).
A link to a movie trailer:
https://www.imdb.com/video/vi2346369817/?playlistId=tt6546810&ref_=tt_ov_vi
(3) Gough Whitlam reads Dante.
As a personal anecdote I had an opportunity to see Gough Whitlam in person at a public event when one Easter Sunday Gough Whitlam was invited - along with a host of other personalities (I have forgotten who they all were) to read from Dante in the Great Hall at Sydney University. A senior Gough Whitlam came towards the end of the day’s readings and I saw him slowly walk down the aisle with a walking stick and he briefly stopped beside me to have a short break. I would then witness this regal figure look down towards me for a moment like some majestic divinity - such as Zeus - curiously stopping to view this puny mortal. Gough Whitlam then proceeded on his elegant way to eventually amble up to the reading stand and for me to think that with the Dismissal in mind it was ingeniously appropriate that the selection from Dante that Gough Whitlam was asked to sonorously read was Brutus and Cassius who along with Judas would eternally be grinded in the the mouths of a ghastly three headed Satan. *
*See Canto 34 at the end of Dante’s Inferno. Judas who betrayed Jesus Christ is in the middle mouth with Brutus and Cassius who were two main assassins of Julius Caesar. (To also add I believe this anecdote is true that Gough Whitlam would write to the Australian Greens to ask on his behalf – without acknowledging the source – inquisitive questions aimed at the ALP government of the day as he was displeased (if not feeling outright betrayed) with its neoliberal shift away from his own social reformist agenda. I have seen this anecdote mentioned on social media but since coming across it – and not bookmarking – I have not been able to find any direct reference).
THE DISMISSAL
The Dismissal. National Museum of Australia.
https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/whitlam-dismissal
Why was Whitlam sacked and not just a double dissolution called? Parliamentary Education Office.
(3a) There is a focus on this fateful Remembrance Day in Australian history as it was not too many years afterwards that I wrote the novella. Although I was in senior high school when the Dismissal actually occurred it had no real direct personal effect on me at the time (to not even yet be of voting age) even more so that with the Whitlam government gone by the time I had started tertiary education in 1977 (to finally finish in 1981) I was also still able to typically enjoy as a then ‘political sleepwalker’ many of the social benefits that had emerged from the Whitlam era which then still existed such as going to university and teacher college for free.
Nevertheless, on a national level the Dismissal was a shock as although an election was soon held afterwards – by which the electorate would overwhelmingly validate Malcolm Fraser’s ascendency to the Prime Ministership - the undemocratic manner by which it had occurred whereby an appointed Governor-General had unconventionally dismissed an elected federal government seriously undermined the hitherto conventional ‘wisdom’ that Australia had a stable democracy. I would only begin to awaken to the full seriousness of the undermining of democracy that had occurred when and with some sense of whimsy I wrote a university essay (whether it was for Sociology or Political Science I truly no longer remember) which compared how Malcolm Fraser and Adolf Hitler had both in purely procedural terms had come to power by constitutional means – although, as I did, it could be argued that there was a distinctly anti-democratic ethos in what they had technically legally achieved.
I was certainly not arguing that Malcolm Fraser was anything akin to a nefarious Adolf Hitler but rather that he had unwittingly set a precedent that someone later on as politically manipulative as Adolf Hitler could come along to also opportunistically exploit constitutional protocols that may for instance during a political crisis deviously lead to the establishment of dictatorial emergency powers.
I was surprised to receive a very high mark (a high distinction) for what at the time still seemed to me in Australia at least a fantastical scenario but with the assured rise of an anti-democratic populism in many democracies and with the low moral calibre of politicians that one sees rising to powerful positions of leadership both here in Australia and overseas what once seemed fantastical now seems resolutely real; as strikingly evidenced by the mob storming of the Capitol in Washington D.C. in the United States on January 6th, 2020.
Also since the terrorist attacks on U.S. soil on September 11, 2001 it is a worry that in the two decades since there has been - and especially in Australia - a steady progression of national security legislation that can erode civil liberties and in Australia the right to protest which is a basic democratic right has also come under increasing threat. e.g.:
Right to Protest. NSW Council of Civil Liberties. (2023).
https://www.nswccl.org.au/right_to_protest
Furthermore, in Australia there are whistleblowers who face being imprisoned rather than being rewarded with official praise.
Jailing whistleblowers Richard Boyle and David McBride would ‘stain’ Australia’s reputation, crossbench MPs say. Sarah Basford Canales. Guardian. (September. 2023).
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/sep/13/jailing-whistleblowers-richard-boyle-and-david-mcbride-would-stain-australias-reputation-crossbench-mps-say
McBride’s guilty plea to have a chilling effect on whistleblowing and public interest journalism. Human Rights Law Centre. (November. 2023).
https://www.hrlc.org.au/news/2023/11/17/mcbrides-guilty-plea-chilling-effect-whistleblowing-journalism
While there was even legislation introduced to threaten teachers, health workers etc. employed in Australia’s offshore detention system with imprisonment if they publicly spoke out about the humanitarian deficiencies that they witnessed on both Nauru and Manus.
Law restricting detention centre whisteblowers ‘appalling’. RNZ. (June. 2015).
https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/275274/law-restricting-detention-centre-whistleblowers-appa In regards to January 6th, 2021 the following video weblink: Day of Rage: How Trump Supporters Took the U.S. Capitol. New York Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000007606996/capitol-riot-trump-supporters.html
Obviously the democratic architecture that exists today and is assumed that it will also exist tomorrow can no longer be taken for granted. At the very least there must be an ongoing active legislative and institutional effort to keep reinforcing democracy’s checks and balances so as to make it ever more difficult for the barbarians to smash down or hollow out democracy’s houses (much like it is seen as necessary to keep applying coats of lead free paint onto the Sydney Harbour Bridge which is made of steel to stop it from rusting away). Personally speaking and as a mere member of the general public I thus find it strange to this day that although every politician on appointment to elected office since the Dismissal has publicly vowed to not block supply - which initially brought on this far reaching political crisis - that no federal parliament since has actually sought to make whatever permanent change is needed in order to always financially guarantee budgetary supply to the government-of-the-day.
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National Socialist era
3b. The National Socialists who did not have a clear parliamentary majority (on March 5, 1933 obtaining 43.9% of the federal election vote to have 288 seats) could not govern by themselves still needing to be in a coalition which in this case was arranged with The German National People’s Party (52 seats, 8% of federal vote. As it was the Social Democratic Party (SDP) a major opponent to the Nazis had 120 seats via 18.3% of the federal vote with the Communist Party of Germany (KDP) with 81 seats of 8.3% of the federal vote. There were fourteen parties of a Reichstag with 647 seats with 324 seats needed to arrive at a majority. There was a high turnout of nearly 89% of the electorate for this 1933 election).
Although the Nazi party was the largest political entity in the Reichstag it is telling that it could still not achieve a majority-in-its-own right when it had unleashed - with SA brownshirts and SS troopers given free reign to terrorize - a campaign of intimidation against its left opponents which included the Social Democrats, trade unionists and communists with the latter to be especially singled out in the thousands to be arrested and imprisoned; this was all threatening, anti-democratic behaviour which was possible for the Nazis to carry out due to the already heightened sense of national crisis accentuated by the Reichstag Fire which rather ‘fortuitously’ occurred only a few days before the March 1933 election. An election that only came into play due to Hitler instigating it when he was appointed Chancellor by Hindenburg on January 30 and once appointed wanted to ‘urgently’ go on and ‘save the nation’ from the political ‘nihilism’ of the Left hoping to have the Nationalist Socialists govern Germany in its own majority right without having to tediously be in coalition with any other political parties even if they too were from the Right.
Hitler had become Chancellor on the advice of a recently former Chancellor Von Papen to Hindenburg who would become Vice-Chancellor all on the misguided belief that an underestimated Hitler could be controlled and real power could still lie as well as eventually ‘properly’ return to the old traditional conservative political class.
The Communists also believed that Hitler’s time as leader would also be short-lived due to what seemed at the time to be an ongoing unstable state of economic and political flux and thus the KDP would take advantage of the political vacuum that would occur after Hitler’s fall. None of this of course happened as Hitler outwitted all of his opponents and established total power.
Thus the National Socialists who did not have a majority would manufacture their ‘legal’ rise to supreme power by first being able to obtain Hindenburg’s blessing to appoint Adolf Hitler as Chancellor even though the Nationalist Socialists did not have a parliamentary majority in their own right; and then accommodating the National Socialist call to bring in the Reichstag Fire Decree immediately after the burning of the Reichstag which was ultimately blamed on a Dutch Communist who would be beheaded for his ‘crime’ (four others would be acquitted) but it is rightly speculated that it was such an opportune event for the National Socialists they were certainly the true arsonists; with it even alleged that a typically foolish Herman Goering once privately boasting during the war that he was the actual culprit.
(Fear...Arthur Miller’s The Crucible in which usually sane townspeople can be seen rushing around in panic…all distressed that they will be possessed by the devil…to kill an innocent defenceless woman…any witch hunt is justified when the hunters are so propagandistically imbued with the frightening thought of their own possible demise that would be brought on by their ‘malicious’ ‘prey’...thus immediate action must ‘necessarily’ be taken and for any irrational, murderous act to be seen as wholly moral so as to achieve a greater good. Yes, to ‘purify’ the world of ‘evil’ by committing an evil act).
Thus the National Socialists would annihilate democracy in the name of ‘defending democracy’.
Following the Reichstag Fire Decree that would do away with civil liberties from press freedom; the right to publicly assemble and to even bring on a loss of privacy rights in regards to both telephone and postal correspondence all of which was able to unquestionably happen as the supposed threat of a Communist plot to overthrow parliamentary democracy had by way of the National Socialists taken a traumatised hold in the national imagination.
The Enabling Act would follow which would allow the National Socialists to lay down legislation without the need of parliament with Hitler ruling by decree thus ‘validating’ what was now a fully fledged dictatorship.
The Enabling Act was ‘legalised’ by obtaining a two-thirds majority in parliament which only occurred by detaining both Communist members of parliament as well as some Social Democrat parliamentary representatives into detention camps which were now being filled with rounded up Communists deemed as a ‘national security threat’.
Apart from a remaining parliamentary Social Democrat bloc voting against the Enabling Act all other parties which were mainly conservative in their political character allied with the National Socialists thus providing the much needed majority.
The Supreme Court did not query the legality of a law which was passed with members of parliament detained and with SA and SS troopers present to intimidate the parliament. After all, what was of higher importance was that democracy was ‘under threat’ and now democracy was ‘saved’. It was all that mattered for without resorting to revolution the Fuhrer had ‘correctly’ followed constitutional processes to obtain ultimate power thus ‘legitimatising’ his rule.
Two web links (amongst so many that one may care to view) looking at the Reichstag Fire and its political ramifications:
Who Was Really Responsible For The Reichstag Fire? – Mythbusting Berlin. Matt Robinson. (August. 2020).
The True Story of the Reichstag Fire and the Nazi Rise to Power. Lorraine Boissoneault. Smithsonian Magazine. (2017).
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/true-story-reichstag-fire-and-nazis-rise-power-180962240/
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(3c) Malcolm Fraser had also worked within the constitutional framework although non-traditionally with blocking supply in the Senate and successfully bringing on the departure of a Prime Minister by way of a Governor-General willing to utilize his reserve powers. To further reiterate that while there was an election to to give credence to his Prime Ministerial ascendency what Malcolm Fraser had done was set a precedent that although he was in no way a ‘Fuhrer’ and had no ambition in establishing a dictatorship – far from it (a point which must be emphatically emphasised) – he had unwittingly laid down the historical groundwork for someone in the future who could by constitutional means make a ‘legal attempt’ to obtain totalitarian authority over the country.
Despite the economic malaise the country had found itself in and which was also unavoidably brought on by the global oil crisis at the time it would have been better for the long term national good if the Whitlam government had fulfilled its whole term which was only a few months away anyway. Instead there is now every election this ongoing display of every party or independent candidate avowing to not block supply if elected.
Although such a dystopian scenario had seemed fanciful it is disturbing to see that both domestically and globally in the decades to come a sort of incremental corrupting decline in democratic standards that had previously seemed unthinkable including the rise of strongmen who would be more than capable of constitutional manipulation.
After all, in what are presumed to be lesser developed democracies there have been authoritarian leaders who achieved what has appeared to be ‘legitimate’ total power not by destroying the check and balance pillars of judicial and executive governance that had been set up to accommodate a genuine liberal democracy but rather by hollowing them out to then fill them up with their own puppets who will loyally take their cue from a leader who diligently proclaims is ‘serving the people’ with a national security apparatus to back up such ‘public service’ while really only serving one’s own interests and the cronies who see the personal benefit in being on side and doing the bidding of someone who effectively has absolute power under the insidious guise of ‘managed democracy’.
(3d) Chile has a constitution that needs to be reformed to escape its Pinochet era legacy. Web links – again amongst so many - that can be found on this pertinent political matter:
Overcoming the Pinochet Factor in the Chilean Constitution Making Process. Rodrigo P. Correa G. CONSTITUTIONNET
https://constitutionnet.org/news/overcoming-pinochet-factor-chilean-constitution-making-process
Managing Deadlines: Constitution Making in Chile. 2021-2022. Melbourne Law School.
Chileans rejected the new constitution, but they still want progressive reforms. Ariel Dorfman. Guardian. September. 2022.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/06/chile-new-constitution-reject-pinochet
Chile votes to reject new conservative constitution which threatened rights of women. John Bartlett. Guardian. December. 2023.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/18/chile-votes-reject-conservative-constitution-referendum-womens-rights
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Author’s Afterword Footnotes
I
(1) In Australia it can be argued that in one schema or another (e.g. ‘work for the dole’; ‘mutual obligation’; ‘robodebt’) this unfounded negative attitude of the unemployed can still be reflected in federal government social welfare policy to this day. Furthermore, the Commonwealth Employment Service that existed at the time I was briefly unemployed is essentially no more in the neoliberal era with its ideological penchant towards privatisation (and casualization). Private employment services it is said also have an officially endorsed capability to profiteer off the jobless within a Kafkaesque administration that overall is punitively weighted unjustly against them. While welfare fraud does need to be outed it seems that while there every official effort is made to minimize the illegal procurement of social benefits by individual recipients on balance one may argue that there does not seem to be the same government zeal to at least officially identify and close down design irregularities within a privatised employment system which can place an unnecessary financial strain on the pubic purse. Along with growing concerns as to the moral adequacy of ‘mutual obligation’ there has also in recent times been an increasing call out to reintroduce the Commonwealth Employment Service which one assumes could shutdown a ‘profit motivation’ that can be perceived as a corrosive driver within the private job search arena. (Although government management would be eternally enticed into looking at ways to initiate cost-cutting budgetary measures at least there may also be more transparent oversight by way of senate estimates inquiries to avert the worse aspects of placing financial interests above any genuine interest to meet the social value needs of a various, wide ranging cohort of welfare recipients who desperately need help to get back on track with their lives which often through no real fault of their own have been economically derailed and not just by job unavailability but also by other negative extraneous variables such as health issues, domestic violence, accommodation difficulties etcetera). It should also be mentioned that in Australia unemployment benefits in particular also remain scandalously well below the Henderson poverty line which has been the perilous case for several decades. Yet during the recent Covid pandemic - which is actually still continuing - when there was a sudden mass upsurge in jobless numbers unemployment benefits were actually considerably raised for a set time which can be seen as an official admission that the financial support available was inadequate and with the rise there was actually a positive social effect. However, with this particular unemployment crisis nominally now over it has been seen fit to also have a financial reduction in unemployment benefits with even an incoming Federal ALP government choosing to maintain such a tight fiscal policy towards the disadvantaged, as was the case under the previous LNP federal administration – except, of course, for the brief Covid period - it may also be argued that during Covid the entire Australian body politic including government, the labour movement and social welfare NGOs perhaps missed a golden opportunity to experimentally introduce a Universal Basic Income if only on a trial basis. Furthermore, a government legislated protective regulatory regime that would provide adequate work rights, pay etcetera to all precarious workers in the so called ‘gig economy’ would also be welcome. (Think also halting wage theft and drastically improving the working lives of those slavishly involved with food and parcel delivery services; labour hire and thus general speaking all casual staff in the nation).
In regards to negative aspect of ‘work for the dole’ there is for instance the following news item:
'Pushes people into greater hardship': Well-known charity cuts ties with Work for the Dole. SBS News. (January. 2024).
II
3. (1a) For instance, one may think of women who have been victims of physical and sexual assault but in Australia many women have also been murdered by their partners and thus the disturbingly upward trend of femicide is a tragic social issue which needs to be publicly highlighted and urgently dealt with by both state and federal governments and other authorities as well as relevant services including welfare agencies and police forces.
(1b) Notably, instead of writing ‘gender’ one may have written ‘women’s rights’ which is vitally important to also focus on for women are not a ‘minority’ but a major cohort which in a way highlights how discriminatory a society can be that it can still treat one half of its population as second class citizens. (e.g. wage gap, lower superannuation etc.). Of course one may also think of any prevailing inequalities that relate to transgender issues.
(1c) One can also think how in recent years how marriage equality has become a prominent major social issue yet which is still not legally available world-wide to all single-sex/inter-sex couples.
(1d) Although one initially has in mind liberal democracies – such as Australia in this particular case - which will rhetorically claim that they maintain a high democratic bar when it comes to human rights etc. all government policies everywhere under every political system need to be critiqued in regards to political, economic, gender, racial, social etcetera freedoms. Some of the many reasons for which any government policy needs to be critically queried as well as to be seriously re-formed or done away with which will often need to include a change of government can as well simply be variously commonplace e.g. financial (budgets), ideological, electoral, apathy, bureaucracy, indifference, etcetera.
(1e) Thomas Pickett. Murray Bookchin. One may be interested in looking at the innovative musings of the following two ‘social science’ theorists (to use this term as there is a combination of various disciplines in their thinking to look at the possibilities that any liberal governance may progressively further develop so it does not fall into the social danger of stagnating etc. to then allow new despotisms to arise, but rather to regenerate along what may be seen as possibly ‘for the better’ along social democratic or direct democracy paths. I should add there is much other ‘thinking’ out there in this vast world but these two individuals in recent times and in different ways have caught my attention to provide some direction to my own thinking and maybe will also interest others.
After all, we should rely on various trains of thought (rather than just on one) to maintain an ongoing ever changing ‘organic flexibility’ to our thinking in order to deal in various multi-dimensional ways in regards to how we can have a more equitable and democratic global society to firstly emerge and secondly to be sustained, especially during (i) a hostile human induced planetary period of climate crisis and (ii) with the dangerous portent that only a further widening inhumane inequality will arise if we do not make the necessary social and political shifts to create a sustaining ‘good commons’ for all. All the best.
Thomas Picketty
i. CAPITAL in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Picketty. (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. 2014).
https://dowbor.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/14Thomas-Piketty.pdf
ii. CAPITAL in the Twenty-First Century. (2019). A documentary based on Thomas Picketty’s CAPITAL in the Twenty-First Century. Directed by Jason Pemberton. The following link is a trailer of the film which should be available on various streaming services or even maybe at a public library near you. (In Australia I came across it via SBS On Demand).
https://www.imdb.com/video/vi363118105/?playlistId=tt5723056&ref_=tt_ov_vi
Murray Bookchin
i.a. The Ecology of Freedom. The Emergence and Dissolution of Hierarchy by Murray Bookchin. Cheshire Books. California. (1982). Online pdf link via libcom. org :
https://files.libcom.org/files/Murray_Bookchin_The_Ecology_of_Freedom_1982.pdf
i.b. Another online link via the Anarchist Library:
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/murray-bookchin-the-ecology-of-freedom
ii. Murray Bookchin on Nature and Ideology. Youtube link:
https://youtu.be/w8L9p1LpkHc?si=9tePQtnXMr-9dTLk
The above also very much interests me as it is a well thought out retort to the ecofascist notion of the spurious 'overpopulation' argument. There is much other literature, articles, critiques, films etcetera one can come across in regards to both authors so the above links are merely introductions. Although I will also post this brief article on Social Ecology by Murray Bookchin.
iii. What is Social Ecology? Murray Bookchin. (A short article. The Anarchist Library. 1993).
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/murray-bookchin-what-is-social-ecology
iv. The Philosophy of Social Ecology. Murray Bookchin (The Anarchist Library. 1995).
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/murray-bookchin-the-philosophy-of-social-ecology
III
1. (1a) Well, with the above ‘broad sweep commentary’ in mind (which I feel is very poorly expressed but am not able to explain such potential political manipulation in a much better, nuanced intelligent way) In regards to what I am trying to say I draw the reader’s attention to the following informative book ASYLUM BY BOAT. Origins of Australia’s Refugee Policy by Claire Higgins (UNSW Press. September 2017) which looks at Australian refugee policy. It points out there was once a far more compassionate approach towards refugees in the 1970s compared to the demonizing that would come at the turn of the century especially after the Tampa saga. (In August 2001. Below is one article amongst many that can be discovered by way of a preliminary internet web search).
The Tampa affair, 20 years on: the ship that capsized Australia’s refugee policy. Ben Doherty. The Guardian. (August 2021).
Although not about the Tampa this article maybe of interest which I found and deals with the way language in regards to refugees started to turn politically towards the pejorative
‘Queue jumpers’ and ‘boat people’: the way we talk about refugees began in 1977.’ Klaus Neumann. The Guardian. (2014).
(1b) Nevertheless, overall in the 1970s it was federal policy to present a sympathetic view of refugees who at the time were mainly coming from Indochina after the end of the Vietnam War so as to have them socially accepted to a wary Australian population. In the 2000s federal policy was to be distinctly unsympathetic towards boat refugees with the development of a hard line approach. e.g. indefinite offshore detention playing on an underlying ever lurking xenophobia in the colonial mindset of White Australia and all for the political opportunity to stay in power. It is a moral darkness on apparently Australia’s enlightened democracy that innocent lives were lost and many other innocent lives were devastated – and still are - by such a coercive policy and all made much worse with so called liberal democracies in Europe keenly looking towards the harsh ‘Australian solution’ to ‘resolve’ the unwanted movement of refugees over land and sea from Africa, the Middle East and Asia towards their countries. (e.g. in the U.K. there is the atrocious ‘Rwanda policy’ reminiscent of Australia’s Nauru and Manus Island gulag approach which was about illegitimately shifting boat refugees away from the Australian mainland to cut off their legal opportunity to claim asylum and safely reside in Australia - as they are legitimately entitled to under international law; such criminal mistreatment of human beings becomes far more ‘politically acceptable’ when they are dehumanized).
What Happened Here Should Have Been A Warning, Not An Inspiration. Emilie McDonnell. Human Rights Watch. (Dec. 2023) web link:
https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/12/20/what-happened-here-should-have-been-warning-not-inspiration
ASYLUM BY BOAT. Origins of Australia’s Refugee Policy web link:
https://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/books/asylum-seeker-policy/
(1c) As a teacher I have worked in what are called Intensive English Centres where for a few terms students of non-English speaking backgrounds – usually migrants and refugees - can learn English before going to a high school.* Exclusively learning the host language first and by way of most of the subjects that they would be taught in a high school gives them a far better chance to academically achieve. These centres were established in the 1970s and I only mention them as they are seen as a progressive element of the public education system (although one feels and this is only my personal subjective opinion which others may disagree with that these days they also have to deal with funding issues and have even become financially corrupted from their original mission by also taking in fee paying international students) yet one sincerely cannot imagine that such centres would be established in the early 2000s with today’s political and social mood seemingly being far less sympathetic. It is a peculiar situation that while Australia to its credit will take in refugees annually (although the intake should be greater) that it also maintains a zero tolerance policy towards refugees who have the same legitimate international right to seek asylum but because they have ventured to try to come to Australia by boat they are treated inhumanely and as criminals. Yet, it is overlooked that official channels for adequate refugee movement have be seen to be inadequate thus the desperate compulsion to take the life-or-death risk to go to sea to finally reach a country of sanctuary where it will be possible to resume a fully dignified life. It is often overlooked that in Indonesia where refugees have no work or education rights many thousands still languish waiting for the official opportunity to be properly resettled.
Refugees live in destitution in Indonesia: Years of limbo and suffering leads refugees to protests for many weeks now for resettlement. Refugee Council of Australia. (2022).
https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/refugees-live-in-destitution-in-indonesia/#
*Going from memory originally it was four terms then cut back to three terms although a student can have their time extended if need be and in some cases even up to five terms. However, I personally think it would be best to go back to a mandatory four term time period.
(1d) It is argued that Malcolm Fraser also had a ‘stop the boats’ attitude and yes that may well be true but in the 1970s there was the implementation of an adequate resettlement program that alleviated the probability of the need to risk one’s life of going onto a rickety boat. An equally effective resettlement program needs to be established this day. As a first step Australia could fully restore its international reputation of being a responsible actor by immediately resettling the last cohort of refugees that still remain victims of a morally discredited offshore detention policy and as well look at the feasibility of increasing its official intake of refugees and which could also include some of the many still living in limbo in Indonesia.
Another article by Klaus Newmann that I came across may also be of interest. Oblivious to the obvious? Australian asylum-seeker policies and the use of the past. Klaus Newmann. (2007).
IV
2. (1) Or even in another third language which would not be so unusual in Europe but is not so much the case in Australia with its mono-linguist reliance on English. (Although there are Australians who do learn other languages it is also typical that many bilingual speakers usually have an overseas family background. One supposes that it is rare to meet an Australian who can fluently speak an Aboriginal language i.e. outside perhaps particular anthropological, ethnographic or even within some artistic circles although there is at least an attempt in recent decades to have landmark and place names more often re-labelled or more commonly referred to by their original indigenous pre-colonial names. e.g. Cooks River a Sydney waterway which obviously refers to Captain James Cook who came by Botany Bay in 1770 may these days be also referred to - by those who wish to be more familiar with the cultural and historical aspects of this waterway - as ‘Goolay’yari’ in reference to the Pelican Dreaming narrative associated with the river (of which, incidentally, this once pristine waterway is still environmentally recovering from the industrial pollution that had occurred during white settlement). Learning the original indigenous name may become a way in to also learning about the original cultural framing of the landscape so as to also gain an insight and new found respect for the first society on Australian land that was territorially usurped.
In his Artist’s Statement which is on site Joe Hurst (1960-2022) points out that bark canoes were used in Sydney’s waterways including Cook River and that they were made from the Yellow Stringybark trees that lined these waterways and were used for fishing. You can read the full artist’s statement here:
NAWI. Joe Hurst.
Biography of Joe Hurst (1960-2022). Please note for anyone of indigenous background an image of Joe Hurst appears.
https://boomalli.com.au/artist/joe-hurst/
As for Cooks River there is a plaque at neighbouring Steele Park which mentions that the Gadigal, Kameygal and Bidigal peoples would fish this waterway making it a main source for food. However, by the end of the nineteenth century due to industrialisation the river had become too polluted and this environmental delinquency on the part of European settlement is yet to be fully rectified.
V
2a. (1) In regards to Bakunin’s view of the state the following webpage maybe of interest.
The Immorality of the State. Michail Bakunin. via the Anarchist Library where it is stated that this essay is in The Political Philosophy of Bakunin. SCIENTIFIC ANARCHISM. G.P. Maximoff. (The Free Press of Glencoe. Collier-MacMillan. Ltd. London. 1953).
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/michail-bakunin-the-immorality-of-the-state
An online version of the above book The Political Philosophy of Bakunin. SCIENTIFIC ANARCHISM can be found via this libcom link:
https://files.libcom.org/files/Maximoff%2%20The%20Political%20Philosophy%20of%20Bakunin.pdf
2b. (1a) Great Britain would be reduced to a lesser status with many of its former overseas territories also seeking out to be independent nations. Most notably India in 1947. Yet Churchill did still strive to have Great Britain be influential in Europe such as the ‘percentages agreement’ he made with Stalin that was to allow Great Britain have Greece and the Mediterranean region remain as its sphere of influence while other areas of south east Europe such as Rumania, Hungary and Bulgaria would fall within a Soviet sphere of influence. (As it was Yugoslavia although it would become Communist under Tito’s leadership would end up steering its own independent path). Thus Greece which had a strong left-wing partisan force would ultimately lose out to its nationalist opposition in the Greek civil war. Stalin would not materially support the left-wing partisan groups as he strategically thought that the West would never allow for the eastern Mediterranean to fall under Soviet influence. (Stalin did have a point as Churchill’s push to have North Africa, then Sicily, followed by Italy to be wrestled back from the Germans and to then have British forces go into Athens as the Germans started to roll back their forces towards the end of the war was actually part of a Mediterranean strategy to make sure Great Britain rather than the Soviet Union in some way had greater regional influence). The Greek Left would also fallout with Tito when after Tito and Stalin officially split with each other in 1949 the Greek left chose to remain loyal to Stalin even though it had been the Yugoslavs during WWII who had actually provided much support to Greece’s left-wing partisans including even using the Yugoslav side of the border as a sanctuary but by maintaining their loyalty to the Soviet Union the last vestiges of Yugoslavian support ended in 1949. The nationalist army fighting the communists would eventually gain the upper hand both materially and on the battlefield and win the war. The United States under Truman would take over from Great Britain as the main supporter to those fighting the Greek communists and it was actually the first expression of the ‘Truman Doctrine’ whereby in this new post-war world the United States would not be isolationist but become more proactive in supporting countries that were deemed to be under Communist threat (although in the case of Greece it could be argued that Truman had both misunderstood or misread Stalin’s intention or simply could not fathom that Stalin would do all that he could to support the communist cause in Greece. Yet, one may also subjectively surmise that Stalin now saw it as a lost cause).
The Marshall Plan, the Truman Doctrine, and the Division of Europe. Stephen McGlinchey. E-International Relations. (2019).
https://www.e-ir.info/2009/10/13/the-marshall-plan-the-truman-doctrine-and-the-division-of-europe/
The Greek Civil War is seen as the first proxy war between the U.S.A. and the Soviet Union yet there is the irony that Stalin for his own pragmatic reasons had no desire to strategically pursue an activist policy in Greece thus abandoning the Greek communists to their dire fate. (Much like a fickle Ancient Greek deity would leave Hellenic soldiers to suffer defeat. In the Cold War decades to come one may like to argue that Henry Kissinger as a ‘political deity’ perhaps became one of the most ruthless realpolitik exponents of U.S. foreign policy of his day which was rhetorically akin to the Truman Doctrine (Chile, Cyprus, Timor-Leste, Indochina, Bangladesh etc. are some of the examples among many that first come to mind) which involved Kissinger strategically maintaining that the United States keep having the upper hand over the Soviet Union (or China) despite the nefarious inhumane effects that would occur by way of his interventions or support of internal anti-democratic forces whose only ‘legitimacy’ was that they were U.S. aligned.
(1b) With the Cold War which was essentially this many decades long Mexican stand off between two nuclear armed superpowers it was often ‘Hollywood’ framed as the Free World versus the Communist world. Yet, what was simplistically perceived as a binary ‘good vs evil’ scenario (which also ignorantly ignored the history of liberation struggles that had their beginnings well before 1945 going back even to previous centuries thus having nothing to do with such a global ideological binary until co-opted or enmeshed within it by local or international actors) was really more akin – and especially in the Global South - of being a singular amoral (or immoral) one when one sees how many of the governments within the so called ‘Free World’ were authoritarian in their political nature but despite often being far right and militarist were simply not communist - which was the ‘greater evil’ and so such ‘lesser evil’ despotic regimes with an anti-communist stance could be ‘tolerated’ while also willing to be U.S. aligned (while no matter their political complexion non-aligned countries such as Sukarno’s Indonesia could not be tolerated in case they eventually aligned with the Soviet Union and so it was tolerated when Sukarno in 1965 was overthrown by a general such as Suharto who was willing to ally with the ‘Free World’ and which came at the human cost of an estimated 500,000 Indonesian citizens losing their lives having been accused of being communists and years later in December 1975 for Timor-Leste to be invaded and occupied by Suharto which in so many cases could occur ‘in the name of freedom and democracy’ the somewhat Orwellian doublethink rhetorical banner that became so particularly prevalent during the Cold War.
INDONESIAN PERFORMANCE ART: LITSUS by DADANG CHRISTANTO
https://youtu.be/vKfWhJN_QEk?si=lYB2xbc1j5trxgcw
LITSUS by DADANG CHRISTANTO.
A performance art piece by DADANG CHRISTANTO (Indonesia)
Bringing to public attention to the Indonesian massacres of 1965/66
In which it was estimated that up to 500,000 so called communists were murdered.
This performance art piece was part of the 48HR INCIDENT
Happening at the 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art. Haymarket.
Held from 6PM Fri May 29. 2015 to 6PM. Sun. May 31. 2015.
48HR INCIDENT
https://archive.4a.com.au/48hr-incident-2/
Dadang Christanto’s piece was the last ‘incident’ on Sunday night.
Here are several links dealing with the events of 1965/66:
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_killings_of_1965%E2%80%9366
Inside Indonesia: http://www.insideindonesia.org/the-killings-of-1965-66
The Conversation: http://theconversation.com/breaking-the-silence-around-the-1965-indonesian-genocide-32280
(1c) After 1945 and more so from way of emerging available opportunities rather than by way of global strategic initiation there would eventuate economic or military assistance from Moscow for such liberation struggles which like in other parts of the world - depending on the level of commitment by both superpowers to support competing sides - would be ideologically reframed as ‘proxy hot wars’ within the overarching global framework of the Cold War. (Although with the Cuban Missile Crisis there directly was with the two superpowers the near thing of an all out nuclear war). Although there was Soviet support in Latin America during the Cold War by revolutionary movements against U.S. sponsored reactionary governments the hysterical rhetoric by extreme minded U.S. war hawks in regards to say the Central American Wars of the 1980s where upon it was was argued that once the ‘dominos’ of El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua had fallen Soviet sponsored Marxist revolutionaries would next have Mexico in their sights and then once on the U.S. border the commies would soon be coming to retake the Alamo and whatever else they could get just north of the border and so on. (I remember seeing on the Honduran Nicaraguan border in 1986 a red and black poster of a profile of Augusto Sandino who was Nicaragua’s national hero from the 1920/30s - who fought the Yanquis – standing over the words SOVIET IMPERIALISMO which was pure propaganda as the Nicaraguan Revolution which ousted a local dictator had nothing to do with Soviet foreign policy). Yes, Central American guerrilla movements did have a Marxist strain in their political character and yes there had even been a democratically elected President in Chile who had an ideological disposition towards Marxism but there had not been Soviet cadres clandestinely travelling over to Latin America to educate such revolutionary minded Latin Americans about the tenets of Lenin Marxism but as was the case internationally and especially after the Bolsheviks successfully came to power in 1917 there would be leaders of other revolutionary struggles and liberation movements throughout the course of the twentieth century (and to this day) that would independently look towards Marxist theory to substantiate their own political rationales; whether adopting a Marxist rationale – rather than say a more local or indigenous one – was actually the best approach in order to gain independence as well as to secure human liberty was the best approach for any revolutionary struggle can be debated yet so often to adopt a Marxist outlook was a local choice not a foreign introduced one; to state otherwise is to deny the political agency of local actors. If to be critical it could be suggested that there perhaps arose e a misguided hopeful aura around a hard line pseudo-Marxist version of revolution after the Bolshevik takeover - even though what befell in Bolshevik Russia under Leninism was a dictatorial approach to ‘freeing the workers from their chains’ which was ruthlessly even more methodically refined by Stalinism. What is not really in question is Marxist economic theory which one can argue is mostly still valid in a globalized 21st century but rather what is debatable is how to best politically apply Marxist economic theory when able to do so. Personally, in post-WWII Europe it is a pity the social democratic spirit of Rosa Luxemburg that died with her murder did not have a chance to take the lead over Lenin’s anti-democratic ‘philosopher-king’ path. Striving towards human liberation was the rhetorical claim of every revolutionary credo which was to bring about a new society here on earth. Nevertheless, in Central America after the horrendous civil wars of the 1980s no satisfactory new society emerged although there were briefly intimations of one in the short reign of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua when there was a pluralistic approach to political power which unfortunately eventually gave way to full Sandinista control which would not have really been a problem except that Daniel Ortega was leader and it can be argued that he was not someone who when the contra war was ever over (as the economy etc. was negatively skewed by it with for instance an emphasis on defence spending) would steer Nicaragua towards a fully blossoming democracy. After all in Nicaragua with the electoral return to power of Daniel Ortega in the 2000s he has unfortunately only brought about in reality the return of yet another Latin American caudillo or strongman who is a ‘Sandinsta’ in marketing brand name only and who has, for instance arrested or forced into exile the so called ‘real Sandinistas’ who have been critical of Daniel Ortega’s betrayal of the original liberating spirit of the Sandinista Revolution; having also hollowed out Nicaragua’s judicial and democratic institutions to singularly secure his long term authoritarian rule.
Daniel Ortega, Nicaragua’s Nov. 6 Election, and the Betrayal of a Revolution. Dan La Botz. New Politics. (2016).
https://newpol.org/daniel-ortega-nicaraguas-nov-6-election-and-betrayal-revolution/
While to make a general observation on Cuba where in the popular imagination a new society of sorts in Latin America has been instituted (although there is the criticism that it somewhat imitates an Eastern European Soviet model under a tropical sun) a defender of the Cuban Revolution would point out that along with there being a popular overthrow of a military dictator there had also been an improvement in major social indices such as education (high literacy rates) and healthcare (universal, free) as well as to add a lack of a real homelessness problem by which to argue how the lives of Cubans had commonly improved despite ongoing economic hardships (not helped by a U.S. embargo). Yet, on the negative side of the revolutionary ledger to mention just one major issue there is for civil society still a lack of democratic space with restrictive measures on freedom of expression remaining in place for all citizens. e.g. Reporters Without Borders ranks Cuba as having the lowest press freedom in Latin America.
Cuba. Reporters Without Borders. (2023).
https://rsf.org/en/country/cuba
While Cuba’s education and health sectors are not exactly in their best state at the moment.
Cuba health and education hollowed out as staff join emigration exodus. Ed Augustin. Guardian. December. 2023.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/06/cuba-health-education-workers-leaving
However, the only point for now that is to be really made is that Marxist orientated liberation movements such as in Latin America were not initiated by the Soviet Union but such Marxist inclined guerrilla groups when they emerged in the twentieth century would mostly turn to the Soviet Union for support and the Soviet Union took up the opportunity to provide it. 1
(1d) Yet it was not always inevitable as I do remember reading once long ago how Fidel Castro first attempted to have a genuine rapprochement with his giant imperial capitalist hostile neighbour the United States but alas to no avail so he then strengthened Cuba’s relationship with the Soviet Union which from the point of view of the U.S.A. could be seen as a political ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’ and which would eventually draw in the two superpowers to near nuclear mutual destruction with the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962. It was a near thing with JFK’s generals wanting a ‘surgical strike’ and to invade Cuba and even mooted on the deployment of nuclear weapons. Yet, JFK would not dare give way to the insanity of his generals and the naval blockade around Cuba - which would quarantine it from Soviet ships with military supplies reaching the island - that JFK had put in place was a creative lateral way to stand up to the Soviet Union without having to necessarily escalate to a nuclear option. A negotiated diplomatic settlement with Khrushchev became a viable option to de-escalate the crisis and so it was eventually mutually agreed that Soviet missiles would be removed from Cuba if U.S. missiles were removed from Turkey which neighboured the Soviet Union and that there was also an assurance that Cuba would not be invaded.
Inside JFK’s Decision making During the Cuban Missile Crisis. Martin J. Sherwin. TIME magazine. October. 2020.
https://time.com/5899754/jfk-decisionmaking-cuban-missile-crisis/
A very interesting article on this matter but which may not be easily accessible (it was when I first came across it) is:
JFK vs. the Military. The Atlantic. Robert Dallek.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/08/jfk-vs-the-military/309496/
(I couldn’t help but think of Stanley Kubrik’s Dr Strangelove film while reading the above article).
(1e) Tito’s Yugoslavia split away from Stalin and in western Europe also during the Cold War in countries such as Italy, France and Spain there did emerge Eurocommunism which would not directly follow any Moscow line.
(1f) As to the actual political merit of such revolutionary groups (be they Marxist, nationalist, ‘non-Western’ etc.) in relation to human liberty that is yet another matter as it can be seen at times that despite the best intention of wanting to bring on a ‘new society’ the overthrow of one form of authoritarianism may in the end only lead to the (unintended or otherwise) establishment of another form of authoritarianism. (For instance in the last hundred odd years there are many tragic examples of such an unwanted dismal political result). This is not to suggest that liberation struggles should not be initiated as it is a first priority that social oppression wherever it may occur be overcome but it is a matter of being aware that usually in the embryonic period of any ‘new society’ that long lasting societal democratic institutions that separates power be established and that will survive any immediate or later attempt to undermine any singular attempt to return to authoritarian rule no matter its political complexion.
(1g) It is so often the case a leader who has the military skills to organise a well disciplined force to defeat a seemingly more powerful regime may not necessarily also have the political skills that are needed that will allow for a pluralistic civil society to thrive. You could argue it is not always so much a deficiency of ideology but rather of a human nature that has socially evolved along hierarchical lines especially with the rise of socially complex human environments that can if unchecked undermine any long lasting egalitarian quest for universal human freedom.
Democracy as it is known today also strictly maintains a social hierarchy with a difference being that institutionally an arbitrary time limit is often mutually set so power becomes temporal and then such executive power is further institutionally limited with parliamentary and judicial checks and balances while also even then power is verified not abstractly by a ‘divine will’ but concretely by the ‘people’s will’ and on a regular basis with the accepted availability of other candidates so that such temporal power does not automatically devolve back into an autocratic or monarchic form of life-long absolute power which ultimately will also have all checks and balances removed (what need for ‘God’s chosen ruler’ to seek after any human approval…?). In the latter autocratic scenario (or oligarchical whereby absolute power is shared by a few rather than just by one) a dissatisfied or inevitably oppressed population is only left with taking up a revolutionary alternative rather than an electoral one to have any transfer of power and, as well, ideally, for it to be from the few to the many. Yet, even then it is the case of trusting whoever – individual or elite that leads such a popular revolution – which will still leave such a freshly liberated society with hierarchical settings - is not interested in power per se but will allow for the universal accommodation of power and so accordingly will establish the necessary institutions in such a ‘new society ‘so the ‘people’s will’ flourishes rather than to be suffocated. Although I am talking generally and somewhat abstractly in regards to the issue of state power it does come up in the novella or at least it was on my mind when I wrote it. The following whether rightly or wrongly are some of the countries or movements that arbitrarily came to mind while presently writing and which a reader (who definitely can think of other examples) may wish to review by way of some introductory articles that are a random collection. Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, Ortega’s second Nicaraguan presidency; Sukarno’s Guided Democracy then Suharto’s New Order both in Indonesia; post-Mandela’s ANC, Mao & Xi’s China, Khomeni’s Iran, Said’s Tunisia, Orban’s Hungary, Sisi’s Egypt, Modi’s India and Colombia’s FARC. Notably many countries are from the Global South (or what was more commonly referred to as the Third World thus reflecting the world wide process of decolonisation that occurred after the end of the WWII.
____________________________________________________________________________________
"Let Freedom Reign..." - especially for the 'Global South' (and elsewhere).
To make a general remark on what is politically complex (and looking over what I have already written which has been rushed and clumsy): decolonisation is welcome but what is not welcome is when an oppressive colonial elite is only replaced by an oppressive local elite (which may have also been nurtured by the coloniser & which is too often the case to be equivalently coercive or in many cases much worse which calls for a further effort by a populace and perhaps by any means possible - although by non-violent, mass democratic means is preferred - to eventually be truly liberated in economic, political, cultural and social spheres.
In regards to the term ‘third world’ there is Hannah Arendt’s comment that the ‘third world is not a reality but an ideology’ has also come to mind.
____________________________________________________________________________________
To make yet another off hand comment in previously referencing Reporters Without Borders one has also randomly come across how Vietnam in 2023 ranks as the third worst in in imprisoning journalists.
https://rsf.org/en/country/vietnam
From the above link one can scour the webpage to look at other countries and it is of interest to see that with Australia the sanguine observation is made that press freedom is fragile:
https://rsf.org/en/country/australia
General information links to some of the countries previously mentioned (links that one has come across after doing a less than exhaustive randomised web search. Thus one is aware that one is held captive to the information that the algorithms readily provide while always holding back other web links. Thus one may wish to surmise that although information is more readily available to the general public by way of the internet it is still not wholly a neutral, objective space. One also imagines if similar web search was initiated at another point of time a different set of results would occur. It should also be kept in mind tht the subjective unconscious/conscious biases of the author have to also be taken into account even though there is a mindful nominal attempt to be objective):
Zimbabwe's Mugabe: from liberator to oppressor Reuters. (September. 2019).
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN1VR0HO/
Guided Democracy. Sukarno. Country Studies.
https://countrystudies.us/indonesia/18.htm
Soeharto: the giant of modern Indonesia who left a legacy of violence and corruption. The Conversation. 2021.
Old state and new empire in Indonesia: debating the rise and decline of Suharto’ s New Order. Mark. T. Berger. Third World Quarterly. Vol 18, No 2, pp 321-361, 1997. https://library.fes.de/libalt/journals/swetsfulltext/11220681.pdf
The Political Economy of Oligarchy and the Reorganization of Power in Indonesia. Vedi R. Hadiz and Richard Robison. (2013).https://ecommons.cornell.edu/bitstream/handle/1813/54629/INDO_96_0_1381338354_35_58.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
Feudalism in Indonesian Democracy. Indra Fauzan and Fernanda Putra Adela Universitas Sumatera Utara, Medan, Indonesia. (2020).
https://www.scitepress.org/Papers/2019/100021/100021.pdf
ANC corruption is a major cause of South Africa’s failure – and the polls will show it. William Gunede. Guardian. 2019.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/08/anc-corruption-south-africa-failure-polls
FARC . Colombia. Insight Crime. 23 (Nov. 2023)
https://insightcrime.org/colombia-organized-crime-news/farc-profile/
Et Tu, Daniel? The Sandinista Revolution Betrayed. Roger Burbach. NACLA (2009). https://nacla.org/news/et-tu-daniel-sandinista-revolution-betrayed
The Arab Spring: why did things go so badly wrong? Adam Roberts. Guardian. (Jan. 2016)
Egypt: A Move to Enhance Authoritarian Rule. Human Rights Watch. 2019.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/02/12/egypt-move-enhance-authoritarian-rule
In Tunisia, Ticking the Authoritarian Checklist. Under President Saied, Demonstration Banned, Foreign Critics Expelled. Human Rights Watch. March. 2023.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/03/13/tunisia-ticking-authoritarian-checklist
Does Hungary Offer a Glimpse of Our Authoritarian Future? Andrew Marantz. New Yorker. June 2022.
The Authoritarian Roots of India’s Democracy. Tripurdaman Singh. Journal of Democracy. (July. 2023).
https://journalofdemocracy.org/articles/the-authoritarian-roots-of-indias-democracy/
Khomeini Factcheck: Forty Years of False Promises in Iran. IRANWIRE. Feb. 2021.
https://iranwire.com/en/fact-checking/68822/
China: Back to Authoritarianism. Ian Johnson. China File. September. 2022.
https://www.chinafile.com/library/nyrb-china-archive/china-back-authoritarianism
Iran: 1988 Mass Executions Evident Crimes Against Humanity. Human Rights Watch. June. 2022.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/06/08/iran-1988-mass-executions-evident-crimes-against-humanity
The Kurdish Roots of a Global Slogan. Shukriya Bradost. /First Person Iran. New Lines Magazine. December. 2022.
https://newlinesmag.com/first-person/kurdish-roots-of-a-global-slogan/
New Lines Magazine which I discovered by way of social media can be a starting point to read up on current issues relating to the Middle East although I see that its journalism can also extend beyond this particular region. (I say 'starting point' as one may not always agree with everything that is presented which, of course, can apply to all media).
As an example of an article which takes up a local view versus a view that is not local but uncritically treated as valid - or even more so - is the following whereby a Syrian academic criticizes analysis by Noam Chomsky who is based in the United States.
Chomsky’s America-Centric Prism Distorts Reality. Yassin al-Haj Saleh. New Lines Magazine. (Review. Syria. June. 2022).
https://newlinesmag.com/review/chomskys-america-centric-prism-distorts-reality/
A couple of links to Haiti has also been included as the Haitian Revolution which was an African slave revolt against the French plantation owners who exploited them should be as well known as the American and French Revolutions. However, although it was successful it would be a case of the oppressed becoming the oppressors due to a mixture of domestic and international causes. Although the colonists had been defeated the inherited colonial social structure basically remained (while there had also been much economic carnage had also occurred during the prolonged duration of this resistance; financial restraints, threat of invasion etc. from powerful nations who saw the success of this black revolt as a threat would also further impede any possibility of social progress on the island. The reader is encouraged to further examine Haiti’s history as the social crisis that exists today can be traced back to its historical roots).
Haiti's revolution was betrayed by greed, graft. The East African. (August. 2023).
The Haitian Revolution: The Slave Revolt Timeline in the Fight for Independence. Matthew Jones. History Co-operative. (Nov. 2023).
https://historycooperative.org/the-haitian-revolution/
Although the democratizing knowledge project Wikipedia is not always seen as a reliable source by its critics a look at the Wikipedia article on the Haitian Revolution does seem to provide a general overview including the aftermath. (In fact on all the subject matter mentioned in these notes the reader may wish to refer to wikipedia and other online encyclopaedia websites to garner further information).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Revolution
The novel The Kingdom of this World by Alejo Carpentier (1949) captures some of the dictatorial mood of this historical period. Haiti – like all nations - has a complex history which a co-opted ‘reductionist romanticism’ of its initial revolutionary success does it no service to the island and its people.
(1f) It is refreshing to come across a guerrilla leader like who has had the self-awareness to realise that a successful military leader may not always be the best political leader. I am talking about Xanana Gusmao who was the leading guerrilla commander in the East Timorese independence struggle against occupying Indonesia military forces.
East Timor resistance heroes look to the younger generation. Mark Dodd. Sydney Morning Herald. (January. 2000) by way of the East Timor and Indonesia Action Network.
http://etan.org/et2000a/january/1-7/3ethero.htm
Xanana Gusmao led FALANTIL which was the East Timorese military faction which fought against the Indonesia TNI (Indonesian National Military) certainly had stronger democratic credentials to bring about a pluralistic democracy than FRETILIN whose leadership ended up being mainly in exile and which was authoritarian in its political character having a Marxist-Leninist outlook of which has so often been the case such ‘avant-guard’ (or elite) minded parties tended towards an autocratic rather than multi-party approach to national governance. Thus there was a philosophical schism in the political approach between FALANTIL & FELENTIL on how a liberated Timor-Leste should be governed and thus it is worthwhile if the reader is able too to peruse - for instance - the following two chapters: 10 ‘Independence for Timor-Leste & 11 The FALANTIL Tragedy in Bernard Collaery’s OIL UNDER TROUBLED WATER. In these two chapters one also learns how the Australian government preferred FELENTIL to govern Timor-Leste as it was perceived to be more feasible to gain an advantageous position in regards to any negotiations over energy resources in the waters between Timor-Leste and Australia. As it was Mari Alkatiri from FRETILIN would be the new country’s first Prime Minister and Xanana Gusmao would be the first President.
Two other references arbitrarily selected from many other links to look at:
The Origins and Onset of the 2006 Crisis in Timor-Leste. Ruth Elizabeth Nuttall. (February. 2017).
https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/117527/2/Nuttall%20Thesis%202017.pdf
Divided leadership in a semi-presidential system. Dennis Shoesmith. Asian Survey. ProQuest. (2003).
https://www.proquest.com/openview/07537f82df9274f974d119059c26f5cd/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=35614
(1g) Counter-revolutionary movements that are inevitably anti-democratic include 1918-19 Germany which although there would afterwards be a return to a fragile semblance of parliamentary democracy it did rely on the Freikorps to ruthlessly suppress the German Revolution a right-wing militia that can be viewed as a fascist precursor to the Nazis; there is General Franco in Spainand General Pinochet in Chile both of which had pre-emptively militarily overthrown elected left-wing republics while the Whites that fought the Reds in the Russian Civil War if they had won and as well inevitably an autocratic, monarchy or military faction gained the upper hand - rather than adopting any alternative social democrat position - there was then no certain guarantee that there would be a straightforward return to the embryonic parliamentary democracy of the Provisional Government which, in any case, was for the long term an untenable union between Left and Right and had by near its end taken on an increasingly authoritarian tone under the foolhardy, incompetent leadership of Alexander Kerensky who would help to inadvertently widely open up the way for not only a professional political autocrat like Lenin to easily grab power and which even Bill Hayden’s proverbial ‘drover’s dog’ could have done so as well.*
*With Australia in a state of economic malaise making the LNP government increasingly unpopular Bill Hayden had publicly stated a dog could have led the then ALP opposition into government when he publicly announced he had relinquished the ALP leadership to Bob Hawke who would soon enough commandeer a landslide ALP victory over the LNP then led by Malcolm Fraser in 1983).
___________________________________________________________________________
CYPRUS
"Once upon a time a Cypriot told me..."
- Chapter Ten. The Old Man.
(Ih) CYPRUS.
The Greek Cypriot guerrillas EOKA that initiated a military campaign in the 1950s to have the British leave Cyprus was nationalist in its political character so it always important to keep in mind (if there is a need to do so) that an anti-colonial movement is not necessarily left-wing. In fact, in the case of EOKA it could be argued that it was not wholly anti-colonial as EOKA’s aspiration was that when the British were gone there would actually be a Pan-Hellenic enosis (union) with Greece which from EOKA’s point of view was perceived as a common national sentiment and encouraged by the Greek Orthodox Church on the island that went all the way back to Greece’s independence from Ottoman rule in 1821. *
* From what I have read an initial military campaign of so called harassment involving bombings aimed mostly at British army targets (along with Greek Cypriot collaborators which basically meant anyone working with the British) to make the ‘Cyprus problem’ so troublesome as to prompt a diplomatic settlement with Great Britain would widen out to terrorist acts with all perceived ‘traitors’; Greek leftists; Turkish Cypriot policemen as well as British army personnel and civilians to be counted amongst the victims. George Grivas a war veteran who had fought as a right-wing partisan led EOKA along with Archibishop Makarios it was more so the latter who wanted the campaign against the British to be limited to acts of sabotage with fatalities kept low while Grivas was willing to do whatever had to be done to win Cyprus’s freedom so paradoxically it could then be entwined with ‘Mother Greece’.
There was no all out parallel campaign against Turkish-Cypriots from the start of hostilities with the British as EOKA did not want the Turkish to have any cause to propose partition although EOKA publicly claimed that it had no dispute with Turkish-Cypriots and only saw the British as the enemy. Yet independence with enosis with Greece was certainly not welcome by the Turkish-Cypriots as it was feared they would be entrenched as second class citizens which would lead also to them having to leave Cyprus for mainland Turkiye. If EOKA (by way of leaflets) was saying it was not its intention to fight against the Turkish-Cypriot community it certainly was not fighting for them as the Turks at the moment preferred to live under British jurisdiction.
As it is there would inevitably be the killing of Turkish-Cypriot policemen who were recruited by the British and it is said that from the inter-communal violence that ensued had worked to EOKA’s short term tactical advantage by drawing British troops way from hunting them down to have to deal with this civil crisis.
In 1958 a Turkish paramilitary group the Turkish Resistance Organisation (TMT) would form to oppose EOKA and as well advocate for ‘takism’ which called for a separate state in northern Cyprus for Turkish Cypriots.
It should be noted that along with Greek nationalists calling for enosis there were also Turkish nationalists who desired that all of Cyprus should ‘return’ to Turkiye and so for them at least through their ‘Ottoman eyes’ partition was seen as a reasonable compromise.
As to why there were ethnic tensions between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots in the first place it is argued that actually for hundreds of years both communities had basically tolerated each other’s differences and which were mostly viewed through a cultural/religious perspective during the time of the Ottoman Empire (1571-1878) which was when Turks started coming to Cyprus in substantial numbers. Cyprus has been dominated by many empires from time immemorial e.g. Mycenaean, Assyrians, Ptolemaic Egyptians, Romans, Crusaders, Franks, Venetians, Ottomans, British + but apparently this was the first time that an empire had directly transmigrated a substantial cohort of its own citizens onto the island.
+ After all, it is said the name Cyprus probably case from the word copper a mineral on the island coveted by many thus this island was to be a victim of the so called resource curse along with being cursed at such a strategic position in the Mediterranean Sea.
Cyprus-Island of Copper. The Met
Resource Curse. Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse
It was only under British rule (1878 to 1960) that grievances started to occur as the two communities started to perceive each other through competing nationalist points of views which first emerged in Greek Cypriot communities with the national notion of enosis and then in Turkish communities with the rise of Turkish nationalism in the 1940s. However, the British were against such nationalist sentiments and would downplay Greek-Cypriot ambitions for independence - from which it was hoped would then be political union with Greece. Turkish-Cypriots were obviously against enosis so welcomed the suppression of Greek-Cypriot nationalist aspirations by the colonial ruler and this, of course, would lead to resentment from Greek-Cypriots towards Turkish-Cypriots.
Yet although there was now an increase in ethnic tension between Greeks and Turks there was no ensuing communal violence until EOKA killed Turkish policemen who had been recruited by the British as part of a divide and rule strategy that became increasingly apparent when EOKA began its guerrilla war.
At first Turkish policemen were killed by EOKA not because they were Turkish but because they were policemen working on the behalf of the British just as a Greek Cypriot policeman could be killed for the same reason.
George Grivas only started to deliberately target Turkish policemen so as to provoke the Turkish-Cypriots to riot against the Greek Cypriots in towns etc and so British forces would have to be diverted from hunting down EOKA and instead deal with such civil strife.
As for the British they would claim they Turkish Cypriots had to be employed into the police force due to EOKA intimidation towards the Greek-Cypriot community - which included Greek members of the police force - thus they could no longer be trusted etc. while an understanding could still exist with Turkish-Cypriots to extend British interests. *
Here is one take on the issue of the British employment of Turkish-Cypriots into the police force.
The First Demarcation Line. Military Histories. The Green Line.
https://www.militaryhistories.co.uk/greenline/first
*Depending on one’s point of view both explanations come across as plausible so perhaps the actual truth is somewhere halfway in between as ‘divide and rule’ is a known colonial tactic and intimidating host communities is also a common terror tactic as after all Greek policemen who were perceived as collaborating with the British along with Greek public servants and civilians were lethally targeted by EOKA. The reader may wish to differ and thus the liberal employment of links – on this subject and some others - so as to come to one’s own summation and that is understandable when looking at anything complex on a basically introductory level as I am now doing). Nevertheless, having Turkish-Cypriot policemen employed by the British would have certainly exacerbated already increasing inter-communal tensions which ultimately led to the take up of two polarising nationalist positions: enosis vs takism.
Cyprus, British Colonialism and the Seeds of Partition: From Coexistence to Communal Strife. Christos Ionaddes. The Journal of Modern Hellenism. (Note this article is only accessible as a download PDF).
https://journals.sfu.ca/jmh/index.php/jmh/article/view/12
Christopher Hitchens is mentioned a couple of times in the above article which reminded me of how he had an interest in Cyprus so will present here a couple of links that I found. A documentary as well as a critique of Henry Kissinger in regards to the events of July 24, 1974 which is when Turkish troops landed on Cyprus after the Greek junta coup over Achbishop Makarios’s national government.
Christopher Hitchens, Cyprus stranded in time. BBC. Frontiers. (1989).
https://youtu.be/2ckyukTwMZw?si=RLOCVudsL4uPaXBB
A nation betrayed. Christopher Hitchens. Guardian. (February. 2001).
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2001/feb/26/extract.features11
Furthermore, intimidation also inhibits moderate voices from being able to have a say which allows the extremist to appear to be the only valid point as well as appearing to also have consensual community approval when the reality may actually be the exact opposite.
Apart from the ideological antipathy that EOKA had against Greek-Cypriot Communists that would incite EOKA to kill them it is interesting to find out that one strategy that had occurred to the Greek Left to bring about an end to British rule was to adopt a non-violent approach with strikes and street demonstrations. Persuasion is the tactic of the moderate by which moral capital can also be built up while fear is the tactic of the extremist whereby moral capital ran the risk of being drawn down. (It had occurred to EOKA to not run an outright terror campaign on the Turkish-Cypriot community but George Grivas was a war veteran who fought against the German occupation and thus presumably could only think in military terms to fight as well against the British although British rule was relatively benign compared to Nazi rule. However, the British counter-insurgency response would not always be benign as is so common the case that terrorism can inculcate a savage response from those it is aimed at and as Great Britain was an imperial power it had been militarily ruthless to get its way. However, with Cyprus which had been handed to them by the Ottomans and officially annexed without any resistance from the Ottomans having lost in World War One there was no real reason to harshly deal with the local population which had not had any say who would rule over them anyway and by which the Greek-Cypriot majority actually thought there was a possibility to diplomatically reason with the British to achieve enosis. It is when it was clear that the British would not accept enosis that British-Greek-Cypriot relations became fraught as was the case after the 1931 rioting in Cyprus which was instigated by nationalist advocates for enosis which after being put down led to a more autocratic approach by the British.
1931-Cyprus Revolt. Antony Antoniou.
https://cyprus.trellows.com/1931-revolt-cypriot-history/
EOKA would have the British to respond in a ruthless manner which led to the use of torture.
Technologies of emergency: Cyprus at the intersection of decolonisation and the Cold War. Chatzicharalampous, M.P.; Stolte, C.M. Institute for History, Leiden University, PO Box 9515, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands. Cambridge University Press. (2022). Please see pages 14 onwards.
https://scholarlypublications.universiteitleiden.nl/access/item%3A3391013/view
Fighting EOKA. The British Counter Insurgency Campaign. Cyprus. 1955-1959. David French. Research Gate. [Link to download PDF].
In regards to the geopolitics of the Cold War - which would disadvantage the Greek Cypriots as in raw realpolitik terms Turkiye was a greater strategic NATO asset to the United States than what Greece could be - brings to mind a Special Report which I first read decades ago from the 1975 Encyclopaedia Britannica Year Book. Defense: Cyprus and the Great Power Balance. Robert. J. Ranger. Pages 216-217. However, it is a matter of downloading the whole Year Book 1975 to access the article.
Cyprus and the Great Power Balance. Robert. J. Ranger. Special Report. Encyclopaedia Britannica Year Book. 1975.
https://dokumen.pub/qdownload/britannica-book-of-the-year-1975.html
Due to the strong anti-communist stance of EOKA it was inevitable that Greek Cypriot leftists would also be targeted while invariably U.K. citizens were indiscriminately lethally caught up in the ongoing military campaign against British sovereignty.
Yet in regards to the Turkish-Cypriot community which was spared from direct EOKA attack for so long points out how it is important to understand that with such ‘strategic discernment’ in mind how there is method in regards to how a hostile actor behaves no matter that it does not always appear so at the time and which does not necessarily follow any pre-conceived expectation. As it was the intercommunal strife that did result was in the long term counter-productive as it did raise the spectre of partition and because of the civil strife that ensued EOKA apparently also lost support from the Greek-Cypriot community. *
*As suggested towards the end of this article on EOKA:
65th Anniversary of the commencement of the EOKA struggle for the liberation of Cyprus. NEOS KOSMOS. April. 2020.
…it is also implied in this review towards the end as well in regards to Chapter 8 that Greek Cypriot support for EOKA should not be taken as a given. As well support for enosis was also uneven.
Fighting EOKA: The British Counter-Insurgency Campaign on Cyprus, 1955-1959
David French. Reviewer: Dr Andrekos Varnava
https://reviews.history.ac.uk/review/1901
By the end of the 1950s and although EOKA had been militarily weakened in the first year of the next decade 1960 would see Cyprus become an independent nation as Archbishop Makarios had decided it seemed increasingly improbable that it would come about that it was best for now to dispense with any demand for enosis in order to (i) have the British leave Cyprus which they were satisfied to do after securing for themselves two army bases which has allowed Great Britain to maintain a strategic footprint in the Mediterranean and which became a significant achievement after the debacle of the Suez Crisis in 1956 when it was no longer viable for Great Britain to have a military presence in Egypt.
The Suez Dispute and the Death of Empire. Peter Boyce. Australian Institute of International Affairs. 2016.
https://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianoutlook/the-suez-dispute-and-the-death-of-empire/
(ii) to avert any chance of partition and allaying Turkish fears of there being any immediate possibility of an extension of Hellenic power into the eastern Mediterranean.
Great Britain, Greece and Turkiye also committed to security guarantees to assure the peace on the island along with Greek and Turkish troops to be stationed on Cyprus. Significantly, it was also agreed that Cyprus would not be able to join politically or economically with any other state which, of course, also included Greece.
Yet, the future of Cyprus had apparently been decided with Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots unable to have any substantial input on the particulars of what that future should be while EOKA could only apparently accept with a ‘heavy heart’ that the end of British sovereignty had not come with enosis and it could be presumed that the TMT would have been displeased that partition had not been realised. Nevertheless, there was more so displeasure on the Greek Cypriot side that Turkish Cypriots had achieved political gains and municipal rights which seemed disproportionate to their otherwise minority presence on the island. Some features of the constitution were (i) the President would be Greek-Cypriot the Vice-President would be Turkish-Cypriot and both with veto rights (ii) three of the ten cabinet positions would be Turkish-Cypriot of which significantly one of their ministries would have to be either defence, finance or foreign affairs (iii) 30% of the public service would be made up of civil servants from the Turkish-Cypriot community which was a generous ratio as at the time Turkish-Cypriots made up 18% of the population. As for the House of Representatives there would be 50 seats with 35 to Greek Cypriots and the other 15 seats to be reserved for Turkish Cypriots.
(As not to ignore mentioning them 4% of the Cypriot population was made up of other minorities such as Maronites, Armenians and Latin Catholics. One cannot help not to ignore).
Thirteen Amendments. However, in November 1963 Archbishop Makarios called for thirteen amendments to the constitution so as to rebalance its provisions to favour more the Greek-Cypriot community. *
*Apparently, this was in response to a political paralysis that occurred over issues relating to municipalities, taxation etc. with the Turkish Cypriots using the legislative veto power (or rather a majority of the 15 parliamentarians had to agree on for legislation to succeed) to ensure the passing of reforms that favoured their community but which the Greek Cypriots were slow to act on such as fulfilling the 70:30 % public service ratio and so there would be a deadlock on a personal income tax bill that could not be passed in full due to dissatisfaction on the Turkish Cypriot to perceived Greek Cypriot constitutional intransigence; take also for instance how there was a legislative and judicial impasse over the issue of separate municipalities which were meant to be established but the Greek Cypriots did not want and even though the Supreme Court judged in favour of the Turkish Cypriots who had started to set up separate municipalities anyway (a pre-emptive action also seen as unconstitutional) the Greek-Cypriots would still not set down legislation to properly legitimate their existence. A constitution that was set up to guarantee the minority interests of one ethnic group from being subjugated by the majority interests of another ethnic group seemed to be by such constitutional separatism only to be increasing a tense sense of divide rather than mutually encouraging any hoped for result of increasing mutual co-operation between the two ethnic groups.
The Turkish-Cypriot minority which was basically pleased with the 1960 constitution were certainly displeased with what Archbishop Makarios was recommending as handing over extra power to the Greek-Cypriot majority would in their eyes open up the way for them to be second class citizens which is what they always feared and a possible return to the prospect of enosis which for them would be a further negative impact. The essence of what Archbishop Makarios called for was to not have mixed representation rather than proportional representation throughout all levels of the Cypriot polis from the Presidential level down to the municipal one as well as to have the public service more representative of the actual population mix which would be ideal if there were an equal mix in the Cypriot population but with the Greek-Cypriot community making up nearly 80% of Cyprus’s populous it is hard to see how genuine Turkish-Cypriot interests could be guaranteed and grievances could be addressed thus the obvious displeasure from this minority group. Yet, from the Greek Cypriot point of view there was frustration that it’s majority interests could be stymied by a minority cohort as if to feel hostage to it. (There was even the case that while Archbishop Makarios wanted an integrated army the Vice President Fazil Kucuk wanted a separate ethnic entity and so he vetoed the possibility of a non-segregated national army forming). *
* If able a good article to read is: THE FIRST REPUBLIC OF CYPRUS: A REVIEW OF AN UNWORKABLE CONSTITUTION. T.W. ADAMS. Washington D.C. The Western Political Quarterly. Volume 19. Issue 3 (September, 1966). Accessed via JSTOR but if do not have an account it may then only be accessed by an institution, library etc. Unfortunately many worthwhile articles do not seem accessible to the general public online.
However, a PDF can be viewed via online by going to the following link:
THE FIRST REPUBLIC OF CYPRUS: A REVIEW OF AN UNWORKABLE CONSTITUTION. T.W. Adams. Sage Journals.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/106591296601900303
Thus depending on one’s point of view what Archbishop Makarios was recommending was a genuine attempt to fairly rebalance the constitution or it was an ingenious attempt to tip the scales of political power firmly on the side of the Greek-Cypriot community. In any case, the Turkish government in particular and then the Turkish Vice-President rejected Makarios’s proposals as for them it was a too obvious case of the latter especially when it was felt that Archbishop Makarios was not wholly committed to an equal bi-communal development of the island but rather that Greek Cypriot interests would in time solely gain the upper hand and which of course included enosis. Yet in such a polarising environment it could be said that – rightly or wrongly - Greek Cypriots may have also increasingly felt a sort of ‘defacto takism’ was also on the political cards if every Turkish Cypriot ‘separatist demand’ had to always first be met before any legislative proposal could be followed through to a satisfactory end – even though at first Turkish Cypriots were only asking for what had apparently been agreed on at the time of bringing about an end to British rule. (Agreements that Makarios probably only abided to accept due to a growing concern that with enosis appearing increasingly unlikely the ongoing presence of the British on Cyprus may still lead to something even worse: partition).
It seems complexity rather than simplicity in the myriad checks and balances of such embryonic governance were leading only to confusion or subterfuge which could only add to mutual resentment rather than to reduce mutual mistrust. It would not take long for intercommunal violence to flare up after President-Archbishop Makarios’s amendment letter to the Vice-President Fazil Kucuk. Despite any early optimism political independence if it ever really existed for Cyprus was inertly still-born. 1960 had brought about a Cyprus that physically existed without a foreign power directly in control of it but with three foreign powers still very much still politically invested in what would develop between the two main communities on the island and with mutual mistrust never fully nullified there would only be political suffocation rather than a political blossoming; so unable to fully breathe as if still on life support to be tentatively alive rather than to be fully living there would suddenly begin in 1963 a slow detioration of the body politic that would literally be split in two at its death knell in 1974 first by way of a foreign power inspired coup and secondly by way of a foreign power invasion and by which to this day there still appears to be no way to stitch the two separate polities together to bring about as if miraculously a full body national resurrection.
Bloody Christmas. 21 December 1963. From what I can gather on December 21 there was an incident whereby in the Turkish quarter of Nicosia (apparently within the old Venetian walls) Greek Cypriot police patrol were checking the identification papers of passengers in a taxi driven by a Turkish taxi driver leading to a dispute which attracted a hostile crowd which would end up leaving two Turkish-Cypriots being killed by the Greek Cypriot police. One of the dead was the taxi driver and the other was his ex-lover who fatefully turned up on the scene.
Bloody Christmas. 1963. Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Christmas_(1963)
Cypriot intercommunal violence. Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cypriot_intercommunal_violence
In north Nicosia the Turkish Cypriots protested next day possibly encouraged by the TMT and by the evening there was open hostility with gunfire between Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots which would develop on and off over the next few days with militias opportunistically taking advantage of the sudden crisis to accentuate it while there was also attempts to negotiate ceasefires. In a town by northern Nicosia an EOKA veteran led a small Greek-Cypriot force which would end up with a massacre of Turkish Cypriots being committed.
The street battles in Nicosia would by Christmas Day develop an international dimension with Turkish fighter jets flying over in support of the Turkish Cypriot side.
Battle of Omorphita. Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Omorphita
Another account of Bloody Christmas and its aftermath but in essence two Turkish-Cypriots were dead killed by Greek-Cypriot police and this was the spark for inter-communal violence.
Bloody Christmas. 1963. Military Histories. The Green Line in Cyprus.
https://www.militaryhistories.co.uk/greenline/xmas63
It is not surprising that such fighting broke out so quickly as militant groups on both sides had stockpiled their weapons since independence in the interest of finally bringing on either enosis or takism. The compromises that had been reached that had been arrived at for independence to occur had really only benefited the British who would end up with two major army bases (notably both in southern Cyprus) while the underlying reasons for the intercommunal tensions that had substantially increased by the end of the 1950s had not really been resolved.
A newly formed Cyprus in tatters. Nikolaos Prakas. Cyprus Mail. (December 2023)
https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/12/17/a-newly-formed-cyprus-republic-in-tatters/#disqus_thread
The Green Line.
A critical point had quickly been reached and British troops would have to be sent in as the only way to establish a permanent ceasefire. * A green line drawn through Nicosia by the leading British officer using a green wax pencil would serve as the demarcation line between opposing fighting forces of the two communities. Turkish Cypriots to the north and Greek Cypriots to the south.
*Although one can read in certain articles that there were also Greek and Turkish peacekeepers on the whole Greek and Turkish troops were kept to a minimum compared to the number of British troops (in one report: 6,000 British, 1,000 Greek and 800 Turkish) as Greek and Turkish troops could not be trusted to be employed as ‘neutrals’ to help bring an end to the fighting, in fact, such troops were more likely to help their respective side to fight the opposing force.
U.N. Peacekeepers. March. 1964.
By March 1964 at the request of Archbishop Makarios U.N. peacekeepers would be brought in to keep the peace especially with Greek-Cypriots fearing that the island would be invaded by Turkiye which would do so to support Turkish-Cypriots of whom up 25,000 to 30,000 were already moving to protected enclaves in northern Cyprus due to the escalation of anarchic violence from militant actors. Thus a de facto partition was coming into existence. The U.N. peacekeeping force was about 6,500 strong and it should be mentioned that the Australian Federal Police were to play a UN role on Cyprus.
A documentary about The Green Line and issues at the time:
The Green Line. Cyprus.
https://youtu.be/SFw1KTEoplk?si=nRbCienBLBjilNdW
However, in summary with this outbreak in intercommunal violence there was only a downward spiral in the relationship between the two communities as evidenced by the return of George Grivas from Greece to lead Greek-Cypriot forces on the island. Ultimately, there would be up to 20,000 Greek troops stealthily sent to Cyprus and although one may argue this was to offset the possibility of a Turkish invasion this heightened military presence helped raise the prospects of enosis.
As well as Turkish-Cypriots removing themselves to safer areas in the north they ha also removed themselves from government soon after the refusal of the thirteen amendments. The experiment of a bi-communal approach to national governance had spectacularly collapsed.
The presence of a UN peacekeeping force had allayed fears of a Turkish invasion which was to occur to support Turkish-Cypriots. Nevertheless, due to the Turkish threat Archbishop Makarios had instigated the formation of a Greek Cypriot National Guard and it is with this prospect of a war between Greece and Turkiye that Greek troops were shipped to this fraught island. As well a Greek Cypriot National Guard was formed which would be led by Greek officers with as mentioned this overall force to be led by George Grivas the former EOKA leader and whose one overriding political yearning was that enosis would finally be achieved. Perhaps up to 10,000 armed Turkish-Cypriots would defend the enclaves that had been established and there was again a threat of Turkish invasion but U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson strongly dissuaded Turkiye from taking such an action in June 1964 one reason being that he wanted to avoid a war between two NATO allies.
The Battle of Tillyria (Kokkina). August 6th-10th. 1964.
Although an all out war had been avoided and the U.N. would play its role in more-or-less keeping the peace there would still be one major outbreak of hostilities in August, 1964 under Grivas’s pro-active command. It had occurred to the Greek-Cypriots that Turkish arms were being smuggled onto Cyprus from the Turkish mainland to Kokkina which was in Turkish-Cypriot hands in northern Cyprus towards the western end of the island.
Kokkina. Wikepedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kokkina
Thus there was a military attempt to take it and in response there would end up being a limited Turkish intervention with the use of jet fighters against Greek-Cypriots (which would also cause civilian casualties) to aid the under-manned Turkish-Cypriot forces. It would take U.N. involvement to avoid any escalation. The battle lasted from the the 6th-10th August and although the Greek-Cypriots did not take Kokkina there would be a blockade that helped to nullify its military significance.
Battle of Tillyria. Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tillyria
Professor Andrekos Varnava on the Cypriot Civil War 1963-67, a paper co-authored with Tim Mansueto.
https://youtu.be/y2cacCLECmI?si=FwxXi6Cp7joJyAYC
1967.
Cyprus was an island akin to being a simmering volcano always ready to erupt with the nationalist ambition of enosis still a major subterranean force that would also reinforce the countering nationalist need to crystallize partition into a collective whole which since 1964 was still in an early splintered enclave stage throughout northern Cyprus. This nationalist embryo was still to fully form to be born. Ironically, it would be points of departure among the Greek Cypriots themselves that would bring about an opportunity for taksmi to be realised. One presumes that Archbishop Makarios who had always advocated for enosis could see no possibility under present circumstances and saw that with the establishment of Turkish enclaves there was actually more a need to steer Cyprus towards restoring trust between the two communities to have Cyprus resume as a whole national entity. Yet, nationalists such as Grivas thought otherwise and would persist in their enmity towards the Turkish Cypriot community and now saw Archbishop Makarios as an impediment to Cypriot union with Greece.
In November 1967 George Grivas with the Cypriot National Guard mounted an attack on Turkish Cypriots in southern Cyprus in the vicinity of Larnaca at two villages Kofinou and Ayios Theodorous (which was a mixed village and I wonder if it is my father’s village which if it is when I visited for a few weeks in 1982 – and with not ever learning of its recent historical significance - was from what I saw no longer mixed. As for my father who left Cyprus in the 1950s he had a positive view of the Turkish-Cypriots and you can read many anecdotes of Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots getting on well on a personable level so despite an apparent encroaching historical polarization between the two communities on a general level everyday reality can be quite mixed especially if you shift away from extremist narratives from both sides. Having met Turkish-Cypriots albeit outside Cyprus there have been no issues and anything close to concern was when I was at Gallipoli and befriending a couple of English speaking Turkish guys with whom I played backgammon with and who assumed I was Australian but then mentioned my parents were Greek Cypriots they smiled and mentioned not to publicize that fact although any real threat would’ve been non-existent; my hosts certainly were not fussed). The TMT had road blocks at Kofinou which made it difficult for Greek-Cypriots to travel along the Limassol to Nicosia road without UN escorts and this restriction on the freedom of movement was certainly seen by Greek Cypriots as a provocation. Over 20 Turkish Cypriots died in the ensuing hostilities including civilians. However, all that this attack achieved was to escalate the tensions over Cyprus back to the international stage as Turkiye again threatened invasion. To defuse the crisis George Grivas and most of the Greek troops on the island eventually returned to Greece. (Interestingly, George Grivas would back in Athens would be involved in the next two years in a clandestine movement to try and restore democracy to Greece. However, this resistance group was found out before it could start its militant operations which led to Grivas returning to Cyprus to set up EOKA B which was aimed at overthrowing Archbishop Makarios (who must have also been seen as an ‘anti-democrat’ in Grivas’s eyes due to denying the Greek-Cypriot people there right to enosis as well as in the spirit of the non-alignment movement having developed national ties with the Soviet Union. It should also be noted that there were several assassination attempts on Archbishop Makarios).
Kofinou. Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kofinou
UNFICYP. 1967 Crisis. Cyprus. United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus..
https://unficyp.unmissions.org/1967-crisis
A turning point in the history of Cyprus: The events of Kofinou… (Cyprus Today/Alithia. 2005).
https://www.cyprus-forum.com/cyprus21404.html
Cyprus Crisis. 1967. ONWAR.COM.
https://onwar.com/data/cyprus1967.html
Georgios Grivas. Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgios_Grivas
EOKA B. Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EOKA_B
*Nationalist hostility towards Archbishop Makarios had also accentuated due to his non-alignment stance which would see him court the Soviet Union to strengthen his domestic position as for instance the Soviets would provide military aid in 1965. The Soviet Union had an interest in Cyprus remaining a ‘neutral’ independent nation as the Soviets did not want NATO’s strategic influence to be strengthened further either by way of Turkiye or Greece in the eastern Mediterranean although NATO was already present in Cyprus with two British bases on the island. The Soviet Union also attempted to discourage the Turkish from invading the island while after 1967 it saw that Greece would be a threat to Cypriot neutrality. There was also a strong communist party in Cyprus which of course worried the United States and which the Soviets took into account but there was no real intention on the part of Moscow to want Archbishop Makarios ousted from power as he still seemed to be the best guarantor to maintaining regional stability especially in resisting enosis with Greece. (Yet as the article below infers the Soviet Union’s positive focus shifted from Cyprus to Turkey after Brezhnev replaced Khrushchev
in October 1964).
What was also preferred was to have the ‘Cyprus problem’ be an issue that would allow for NATO’s southern flank to be destabilized which is what the U.S. feared with its efforts to dissuade its two NATO allies Greece and Turkey from going to war. (Noting the Soviet Union’s interest in encouraging friendly relations with Archbishop Makarios they would foolishly accuse the President of Cyprus as being the Castro of the Mediterranean. Yet surely, the US would have had to realise that stability in this region was still best assured by someone who was now working to be a moderate bulwark in between the still vibrant opposing extremist nationalist forces of enosis and taksmi.
The Soviet Union, Turkey and the Cyprus Problem, 1967-1974. John Sakka, Nataliya Zhukova.
https://www.cairn.info/revue-les-cahiers-irice-2013-1-page-123.htm#pa8
What is interesting from the above article is that Turkiye after it had been dissuaded by the United States to invade Cyprus in the 1960s would develop its foreign policy to take into account countries in its region as well as the Soviet Union so as to not only see its international relations through a western perspective which perhaps would allow it to be independently adaptive in the present multi-polar world with the Cold War over whereby although Turkiye is still in NATO it does not always align its national interests to that of its respective allies which predictably causes tensions such as stalling on Swedish membership to NATO (to have some argue that Turkiye is an internal wildcard of NATO); yet by not seeming to be fully aligned with the West it can also diplomatically play the role of a go between as has happened with a grain deal which occurred between the two warring states of Ukraine and Russia.
Food crisis: Ukraine grain export deal reached with Russia, says Turkey. BBC. July. 2022.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62254597
A grain deal which in 2023 Russia chose to no longer be involved with.
What was the Black Sea Grain Deal and Why Did it Collapse? Patrick WIntour. (July. 2023).
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/20/what-was-the-black-sea-grain-deal-and-why-did-it-collapse
How is Ukraine exporting its grain now the Black Sea deal is over? BBC. (September 2023)
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-61759692
Matters also become complicated when Turkiye is hostile towards the Kurdish PKK which seeks separation or at least autonomy as well as to the Kurds (YPG) in Syria that allied with the United States to fight ISIS although the Kurds feel betrayed by the US with ISIS defeated for not pushing back on Turkiye attacking them.
Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present). Wikipedia
ISIS and the false dawn of Kurdish statehood. Omer Taspinar. December. 2019.
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/isis-and-the-false-dawn-of-kurdish-statehood/
Turkey attacks Syrian Kurds, the U.S. partner in fight against ISIS. PBS NEWSHOUR. December 2022.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/turkey-attacks-syrian-kurds-the-u-s-partner-in-fight-against-isis
Donald Trump criticised over decision to abandon allied Kurdish-led forces that defeated IS caliphate. ABC (Australia). October. 2019.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-08/donald-trump-threatens-turkey-withdrawal-troops-syria-is-defeat/11581298
Kurdish politician among nine civilians shot dead by pro-Turkey forces in Syria. (Guardian. October 2019).
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/13/female-kurdish-politician-among-nine-civilians-killed-by-pro-turkey-forces-in-syria-observers-say
Hevrin Khalaf: Death of a peacemaker. BBC. (January. 2020)
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-middle-east-51068522
The above links are just a few amongst so many in relation to the Kurds that one can peruse by doing a rudimentary web search while below is a webpage associated with New Lines Magazine with many articles on the Kurds.
https://newlinesmag.com/?s=kurds
However, from a Cypriot point of view it is an irony that Turkiye is dealing with a non-Turkish separatist movement while it supports a separatist impulse in Cyprus due to it being Turkish. As for the Kurds it is not just a matter of dealing with the Turkish but if Kurdistan was to exist its territory would cover regions now occupied by Turkiye, Syria, Iran and Iraq. As for the war against ISIS there was another irony when for awhile Iran and US shared a mutual interest to destroy ISIS.
Iran and US face common foe in effort to stop Isis fighters in Iraq. Ian Black. Guardian. 2014.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/15/iran-iraq-us-isis-fighters-sunni-jihadi
Where Is Kurdistan? The Kurdish Project.
https://thekurdishproject.org/kurdistan-map/
Kurdistan. Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdistan ]
1974
George Grivas was to die of a heart attack at a safe house in Limassol and EOKA B would then be directed by Ionaddis of the Greek military junta who was committed to have Cyprus as part of Greece. The ‘Red Priest’ as Ioannides had pejoratively nicknamed Archbishop Makarios (Ioannides was nicknamed the ‘Invisible Dictator) forced his hand when Archbishop Makarios announced that the Greek officers who led the Greek Cypriot National Guard would have to return to Greece due to the obvious threat they had become to his government. Thus there was a Greek junta inspired coup against Archbishop Makarios on 15th July, 1974 by these very same officers which nearly cost the Archbishop his life but he was able to escape to Paphos at the furthest western tip of the island and the British would safely take him to one of their bases and eventually he would end up in London; by the 19th of July Archbishop Makarios would be speaking at the UN:
Cyprus, a call for help to the UN from Makarios. CYPRUS SCENE. (2013).
https://cyprusscene.com/2013/07/16/cyprus-a-call-for-help-to-the-un-from-makarios/
Makarios III. Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makarios_III
The coup would install Nikos Sampson as the new President who was an EOKA veteran and who had been associated with the massacre that had occurred in Omorphita in northern Nicosia back in 1963. Turkiye took this moment with the ousting of Archbishop Makarios and the instalment of an EOKA man to power to claim that as a signatory to the 1960 Treaty of Guarantee that it had the right to invade Cyprus which it did on July 20 to nominally protect Turkish-Cypriots before they too became fully embroiled with lethal consequences in this Hellenic civil dispute. As it was there would be both Turkish-Cypriot and Greek Cypriot civilians killed. (See a list of massacres in Cyprus below and in the following link there is also mention of human rights violations including also missing people and to reiterate there were women who were also sexually abused and children would also die).
Turkish Invasion of Cyprus. Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_invasion_of_Cyprus
Military operations during the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_operations_during_the_Turkish_invasion_of_Cyprus
INTERNATIONAL LAW ON THE TURKISH MILITARY INTERVENTION OF CYPRUS: The Argument from the Treaty of Guarantee . Dr Iacovos Kareklas CCW Visiting Research Fellow. June 2022.
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/55faab67e4b0914105347194/t/62d01ffa55951d03df9a7ed4/1657806843466/Iacovos+Kareklas+-+International+Law+on+the+Turkish+Military+Intervention+of+Cyprus.pdf
The coup would turn out to be a political disaster for the Greek junta which would soon collapse along with the Nikos Sampson presidency. Five months after the coup Archbishop Makarios would return to Cyprus as its legitimate leader. Turkiye would militarily acquire 33% of northern Cyprus and thus the Greek military junta coup which was meant to lead to enosis had - in the end in the spirit of taksmi - achieved for the Turkish-Cypriots an official partition of the island with a Turkish-Cypriot republic declared but which to this day remains only recognised by Turkiye.
Greek Cypriots in northern Cyprus suddenly became refugees with up to maybe 160,000 moving from north to south with 50,000 Turkish-Cypriots from the south enabled with the opportunity to move to the north. Greek Cypriots were also disappointed that the United States did not attempt to stop the Turkish invasion.
Kissinger owed and apology to Greece and Cyprus. Greek Reporter. November. 2023.
https://greekreporter.com/2023/11/30/kissinger-greece-cyprus-turkish-imperialism/
Verbatim record of Kissinger’s meetings over the Cyprus crisis four days after the Turkish invasion of the island in 1974. Neos Kosmos. Dec. 2023.
https://neoskosmos.com/en/2023/12/01/features/verbatim-record-of-kissingers-meetings-over-the-cyprus-crisis-four-days-after-the-turkish-invasion-of-the-island-in-1974/
Yet it is argued maintaining a stable NATO southern flank which had Tukiye right beside the Soviet Union meant sacrificing Cyprus especially when it now looked a war between the two NATO allies could be avoided.
(As for the Soviet Union which perhaps could have taken advantage of such a war - if it had happened - it would have been pleased that the threat of a Hellenic enosis had been extinguished - thus for the Soviet Union this time the invasion of Cyprus was to its advantage especially when its relationship with Turkiye had by now improved with an improving diplomatic relationship occurring along with increased economic ties).
Archbishop Makarios like before whereby he lurched from dealing with one national crisis, then the next one and then the next one after that and so on worked until his death (from a heart attack in 1977 at age 63) towards uniting the country but to no avail and with democracy restored to both Greece and Cyprus world opinion shifted to sympathising that Cyprus should not remain partitioned.
While Turkish-Cypriots had at last achieved partition it has in nationalist terms been a mixed blessing with Turkiye having encouraged a transmigration of mainland Turks to northern Cyprus to ‘Turkify’ the north which has not always been welcome by Turkish-Cypriots. In any case, as far as one understands the status quo achieved in 1960 at the point of independence is what the 1960 Treaty of Guarantee was meant to protect not to secure a partition but to secure and establish the national circumstances whereby the country’s unity would only be strengthened by mutual co-operation (rather than to be sabotaged by competing actors) and thus to state the obvious mutual trust has to again return to again reach a final resolution for all that live on this island with their civil, political, human rights equally secured.
A Soviet model helicopter hovering over Esteli for security reasons on the day of the 7th anniversary of the success of the Sandinista Revolution over the Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza. Yet Nicaraguan resistance to the Yanqui goes back well before the Soviet Union existed. e.g. in 1912 there were U.S. marines in Nicaragua. (Photo taken by the author. July 19, 1985).
Banner at a Free Cyprus Rally. Sydney.*
*Annually on a Sunday nearest to July 20 there is a large well attended wreath laying service at the Cenotaph. Martin Place held by the Greek-Cypriot community. (One should also note that a suburban brass band from southern Sydney plays many well known tunes beforehand as well as having a trumpeter who eloquently plays the Last Post and Reveille). After the wreath laying service there used to be a march from Martin Place up to Sydney Town Hall a few blocks along the CBD’s main thoroughfare George Street, perhaps about a kilometre, but unfortunately since the establishment of a light rail along George Street it does not seem possible to rally along the street. It was usually a silent march by a few hundred people (notably many of a senior age and I should add slogans would be called out by some but one remembers mostly a solemn silence) and would certainly catch the attention of passers-by for a international trauma issue that is perhaps not well known by many in the general community. [This photograph and the one below is by the author.
The extreme quest for enosis had only led to partition which has also had Cypriots born of a post-1974 generation to live on an island mostly with no experience of living with the other culture. An accentuated nationalism had thus only led to hostile division when if there could have been the opportunity for a moderated pluralism to prosper there could have been national unity. *
*Yet when extreme causes are allowed to set the political agenda then moderate opinions are not allowed to be emphatically voiced in the mainstream which may thus become hostage to extremist actors who will often maintain their political ascendency by way of violence and intimidation and as well as by populist means to propagate historical prejudices that work to the advantage of an extremist agenda; especially when it can present a charismatic leader to ‘validate’ its nihilist views and ‘solutions’.
While the relative peace that existed between the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities for centuries is perhaps not wholly unblemished it is nevertheless such a human tragedy that nationalist impulses had come to the fore in modern times to wholly vandalise national unity and multi-ethnic harmony as evidenced by the following table of massacres that have happened on Cyprus noting as well the many atrocities committed by both hostile sides on one another since independence.*
*Note that as the table states this list is incomplete and it should also be noted that there were also Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots who did not buy into this madness – which it should also be stated included rape - and would warn and help each other out so as to not become victims of it. There are also many victims still deemed as missing and I was given some insight into this still ongoing issue after reading the following novel which was gifted to me The Island of Missing Trees. Elif Shafak. Viking Press. 2021).
List of massacres in Cyprus. Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_Cyprus
Civilian casualties and displacements during the Cyprus conflict. Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_and_displacements_during_the_Cyprus_conflict#External_links
A question posed at a Free Cyprus Rally. Sydney.
While the interest in enosis apparently died down after the tumultuous events of 1974 there is still a far right nationalist impulse that exists in Cyprus which needs to be noted much like in many other countries today where anti-democratic populist approaches to deal with perceived social and economic ills have come to the fore. While in the eastern Mediterranean an old fashion competition over resources may lead to heightened international tensions.
Greek Cypriot Nationalism of the 21st Century: How Did the Far-Right Rhetoric Affect It? Burak. Kurtcebe. 2022.
https://www.europeanproceedings.com/article/10.15405/BI.20221101.6
Four videos from a Youtube account titled The Cold War which provides a general overview of the Cyprus issue from the time of the post-war world through to 2022. (Sifting through the catalogue of this account there are many other videos relating to the Cold War.
How Cyprus Kicked Out the British - Cyprus Conflict Origins. The Cold War. (2021?).
https://youtu.be/5v22DC_8l74?si=ZuW1HaskjgHlZ5z2
Cyprus Conflict - Political Aspects - Cold War DOCUMENTARY. The Cold War. (2023).
https://youtu.be/olo_lh09wf8?si=jrgsNptnZ2xKqXHS
Cyprus Crisis 1974 - COLD WAR DOCUMENTARY. The Cold War. (2019).
https://youtu.be/DPxyCuzFGOQ?si=zT8z8jGs17OLcuW6
Future of Cyprus - Post Cold War DOCUMENTARY. The Cold War. (2023).
https://youtu.be/er-iPJ8o_Cg?si=xWfrJ9WMXeKiDOW-
Other videos randomly selected amongst so many - but not part of the above series:
The Cyprus Problem (Lecture) - Professor Innes Keighren. RHUL. Geography. (January. 2023).
https://youtu.be/mGQ5pc3kQuc?si=UaOEyn7B11B4s6IU
The Green Line. - Cyprus. Compass. Channel Four. (1985).
https://youtu.be/SFw1KTEoplk?si=VpfxJLWGdwyIRcDo
Turkish invasion of Cyprus | A divided Cyprus | This Week | 1974. Thames TV. (1974).
https://youtu.be/yB1xwOfHYsM?si=G_ZivS71tBZxPevY
1974: Turkish Invasion of Cyprus Captured Up Close. ITN Archive. (1974).
https://youtu.be/Zb7wrbXfh_o?si=J0eUfSe-slfUzqmC
‘I feel like I’m stuck.’ : Living in Europe’s last divided capital. France 24. (28/06/2023).
Three other links:
In Their Own Words. The Cyprus issue in quotations. (Greek Cypriot/Turkish Cypriot/UN/US/British/Miscellaneous). Lobby for Cyprus. (London based NGO).
https://lobbyforcyprus.wordpress.com/in-their-own-words/?s=09#misc
The Green Line. Nicosia’s Urban No Man’s Land. Google Arts & Culture.
https://artsandculture.google.com/story/the-green-line-nicosia-s-urban-no-man-s-land/qQLy4s1nBVyoKA
When in Cyprus in 1982 I went to Nicosia to see how the city was divided in two and the main area I remember now was a street devoid of people divided by a high corrugated iron fence where there were also still bullet holes in the buildings nearby this particular division. The Berlin Wall still existed but this intricate wide barrier with its concrete walls, obstacles, guard towers, minefields etc. would all be down by the end of the end of the decade while Nicosia still remains separated in two halves. (The above link is one of many that focus on Nicosia’s dividing line and this one intrigued me as it mentions how plants and animals have taken over where humans once thrived).
Nicosia, Cyprus: the last divided capital in Europe | Divided Cities. The Guardian. (2019).
https://youtu.be/bMA6QyuhrsU?si=3UGyRPGr9aKLMb1f
The above video ends up focusing on the issue of conscientious objection on both sides of the Green Line which piqued my interest. When I went to Cyprus in 1982 (my father was already there on a long term visit) I was there for six weeks and it was interesting for me to realise that although I was Australian born I was seen as a Greek Cypriot first no matter the passport I held. I thus understood how on a brief return stay to Cyprus in 1986 catching the ferry from Haifa, Israel to go to Athens I was told at the port I disembarked that as I had stated that I was of Greek Cypriot heritage I was eligible for national service even though I was not officially a Greek Cypriot citizen. I had to go to Nicosia for an exemption which I did not bother to do. A couple of weeks later when I went to catch a ferry to head towards Athens I actually came across the same official and he saw that I had not sought the exemption and gave me a stern warning as he actually remembered me from two weeks before yet for a moment I thought I would be detained on the island but this did not eventuate but such was the seriousness of the security situation on the island at the time which a visitor cannot always appreciate as one’s everyday experience seemed peaceful on the surface. (I cannot recall being asked to gain an exemption in 1982, perhaps I did while I was there having had gone to Nicosia).
Another interesting experience was a day when an elderly British tourist couple (judging from the accents of these English speakers) had obviously decided to go for a day trip to a nearby village which just so happened to be my father’s and I was sitting with some local young males and they watched the two tourists walk by who were simply walking down a main village street oblivious to the social effect they were having on those who observed them who as those nearby were wondering as to why they were in the village and I realised that what seemed to be a public space was a communal private space in the eyes of the villagers and so it was as if these two outsiders were actually walking through someone’s house uninvited and ignoring the people in the house. I mention as it brings to mind how territorial space is envisaged differently by people and this can have an effect on how territorial issues are either resolved or accentuated. It was an interesting insight I gained that day which helped make me aware of private/communal spaces in later overseas travels.
Cyprus peace process. Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyprus_peace_process
Cyprus Flag. The Cyprus flag is designed by a Turkish-Cypriot - which I must admit I did not know - and the olive branches under a copper coloured Cyprus are symbols of hope to represent peace between the two ethnic communities.
The above links along with many others in this Cyprus overview have been randomly selected for as one knows the internet - as in the case of the so called Cyprus Problem - is akin to Pandora’s Box that once opened it can reveal a never ending number of links on its troubles. I have probably satisfied no one and I am sure some presuppositions in what has been presented can be challenged. Thus, I invite the interested reader to use this general and somewhat disjointed discussion on modern Cyprus as merely a starting point for it is basically superficial and as is the case with all aspects of human history a more in-depth study is always needed to gain some inkling of understanding to its true underlying complexities. As for me I have learnt some more that I did not know before and as it is knowledge is the only way to overcome ignorance and knowledge when properly utilized may also help to bring on human resolution. Thus, let us also remember that at the bottom of Pandora’s Box there is hope and may that also be the case with Cyprus.
Although there has been a relative peace in Cyprus post-1974 there have been violent and lethal incidents mainly in the vicinity of the Buffer Zone. One incident that stands out is in August 1997 the death of Solomos Solomou who was shot at and killed by Turkish soldiers when trying to climb a flagpole to take down a Turkish flag. This incident occurred when there was a demonstration after the funeral of another Greek-Cypriot Tasos Isaak had been beaten to death in the buffer zone by Turkish Cypriots who apparently belonged to a Turkish group the Grey Wolves. These incidents and others are mentioned in the following 1997 Amnesty International Report for Cyprus:
https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6a9fe50.html
One notable protest was when hundreds of Greek-Cypriot women marched into the Buffer Zone in 1987.
GREEK CYPRIOT WOMEN MARCH IN TURKISH HELD LAND. Chicago Tribune. November. 1987.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1987-11-23-8703280266-story.html
Cyprus-‘Women Walk Home’. Video.
https://youtu.be/AbMLVo6cw0M?si=j5kDH0WO-8z4x0DL
__________________________________________
In regards to extreme vs moderate one can think of that area to the east of Cyprus the Levant where Palestinians and Israelis have disputed over whereby there are the extremists (or ‘maximalists’) who desire that only one entity should have total occupation of the land while there can be also moderates who are willing to equivalently partition the land and co-exist with the other group on an equal footing.
Once this war between Israel and Hamas is over, a deeper conflict looms. A lasting peace has to become thinkable again. And it will be –if extremists on both sides are shunned. Jonathan Freedland. Guardian. November. 2023.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/03/war-israel-hamas-conflict-peace-extremists
The Likud Party which under Prime Minister Netanyahu which with its present coalition (2023) has followed a hard right agenda as well as face the accusation of undermining Israeli democracy to stay in power can trace its political roots back to the Irgun.
Irgun. Jerusalem Story.
https://www.jerusalemstory.com/en/lexicon/irgun
Irgun. Jewish Virtual Library.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/background-and-overview-of-the-irgun-etzel
Likud. Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Likud
Israel’s Netanyahu facing off against the supreme court and proposing to limit judicial independence – and 3 other threats to Israeli democracy. Boaz Atzili. The Conversation. Jan. 2023.
https://theconversation.com/israels-netanyahu-facing-off-against-the-supreme-court-and-proposing-to-limit-judicial-independence-and-3-other-threats-to-israeli-democracy-197096
In regards to Hamas is the following article:
Sabotaging the Peace: The Politics of Extremist Violence. Andrew Kydd and Barbara F. Walter. 2002. https://library.fes.de/libalt/journals/swetsfulltext/13833234.pdf
Finally, to return to Cyprus - and not to discount Turkish war criminalities committed towards Greek-Cypriots - one cannot help but still note that in 1974 one of the worse cases of outright extremist violence was committed by EOKA B:
Maratha, Santalaris and Aloda massacre. Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maratha,_Santalaris_and_Aloda_massacre
On the question of terrorism in order for instance to work towards a political goal such as national liberation one can see no morality in a military exercise that will deliberately involve the killing of innocent civilians and that can extend from a bus bombing or plane hijacking (militia terror) through to the carpet bombing of a whole city (state terror) as first well exemplified by the Condor Legion bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War. It can also be seen as counter-productive when amongst the innocents who have been killed there could have been people actually in sympathy of the cause for which such a heinous act was committed. There is also the issue of counter-terrorism where in the particular case of Cyprus the British would end up acting criminally themselves such as torturing captured EOKA militants which would lead to deaths.
Tortured to death: the 14 Cypriot men killed by the British in the 50s uprising. Guardian. (2020).
With the British there is also the infamous situation that it was they during the Boer War that concentration camps first came into modern existence with the rounding up of Boer civilians so as to break up home support to the Boers fighting the British. Many thousands would die in the harsh conditions of these camps. Perhaps not ‘terrorism’ per se but it is still a deliberate oppressive act that victimized non-combatants.
South African concentration camps. NZ History.
https://nzhistory.govt.nz/media/photo/south-african-concentration-camps
Women and Children in White Concentration Camps during the Anglo-Boer War, 1900-1902. South Africa History Online.
https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/women-and-children-white-concentration-camps-during-anglo-boer-war-1900-1902
One also thinks of the strategic hamlets policy inflicted on Guatemala’s rural population to deny left-wing guerrillas civilian support.
Guatemala Builds Strategic Hamlets. Washington Post. (1984).
Of course, there are the many victims of authoritarian states and to individual terror groups but I have chosen to highlight the British as it is meant to be a liberal democracy (although many of those from its former colonies may question that description as well as within Northern Ireland) where within its own bounds much like Ancient Athens its citizens would not expect to be badly treated in the same way as has been the case in its overseas territories. (I suppose it can also be argues that there is a concentration camp ethos in regards to the reservations set up for North American Indians and Aboriginals in Australia). mentality It is one of the troubling aspects of post- ‘9/11’ that along with the secret rendition of terror suspects to so call black hole sites (often, as it turns out, there have been many innocents caught up in such security swoops and to even end up at Guantanamo Bay’s detention sites with many years of their lives wasted away) which is not validated by international law is also the spate of domestic national security laws that can have citizens arbitrarily treated in the same anti-democratic fashion.
20 Extraordinary Facts about CIA Extraordinary Rendition and Secret Detention. Open Society Justice Initiative. (2013).
https://www.justiceinitiative.org/voices/20-extraordinary-facts-about-cia-extraordinary-rendition-and-secret-detention ]
Albert Camus & Algeria.
It all brings to mind Nietzsche’s still relevant warning that those who stare into the abyss to fight monsters may also become monsters. Specifically, in relation to modern terrorism one also thinks of Albert Camus’ remark that in the name of liberty if a bomb was placed on a bus which his mother was travelling on then he would not support liberty but rather his mother. He saw no justice in such an action that would leave his mother – a bystander in the war between the Algerian liberation movement and the colonial French - dead. As an Algerian of French heritage he wanted an Algeria that was free of the colonial vices inflicted upon Algerians by the French but also desired that Algeria be a part of France as he was both a Frenchman and an Algerian. To speculate: seemingly it was not that Camus the humanist still wanted France to dominate Algeria but that he thought ordinary Algerians could benefit by still being in the orbit of France rather than outside it and for any Algerian to be as an equal to any French person which would truly be an exemplary justice ideally based on moral principle rather than on national identity. Perhaps Camus did not have faith in an independent Algeria accommodating to its citizens a full spectrum of civic and human rights as was he felt could exist in France but as a French-Algerian (or pierd-noir to use the local term which means ‘black foot’ referencing either the black boots of French soldiers or coal covered feet of sailors on ships in the Mediterranean) he sought after a humanizing pluralism in response to competing nationalist instincts that were seemingly bringing on only violent injustices. As Camus also came from a poor background he perhaps also did not sense as much of being part of a privileged colonial minority as the pierd-noirs were perceived by those who fully opposed the French presence in Algeria. Of course, everything I have just said maybe wrong as in Algeria itself Camus is not held in the highest regard due to his opposition to independence but his opposition was not due to taking on board a colonial bias but rather that there could be an advantage in taking on board - rather than resisting - the benefits that could be made available by remaining in a relationship with the coloniser and the injustice that had to be fought was to breakdown the oppressive barriers that the coloniser still chose to keep in place that would keep Algerians as second-class citizens and perhaps to become fully French would certainly be a civic pathway to a full civil equivalence. For any Algerian to equally enjoy any perceived privilege that Albert Camus also enjoyed by the accident of birth of being a pierd-noir. *
Ideally, after independence there should remain the same possibilities for the once colonized afforded to them by the former colonizer who had materially benefitted from its previous exploitation; to have some right come from so much wrong and thus – and to again speculate - for Camus it was perhaps such an ideal he had in mind but chose to be silent and not express due to the deeply polarizing aspect of the Algerian war by which the French in their counter-terrorism strategy did behave monstrously leading to the death of many hundreds of thousands of Algerians. It was a brutal time and not a situation in which the pleasantries of pluralism could be coolly discussed.
Yet Algerian independence certainly would have been an ambition that Algerians could not have been dissuaded from achieving so perhaps it was wise for Albert Camus to keep quiet (although he was criticized as for some his ‘silence was deafening’) and yet one can also see why he abhorred the violence and could see no moral benefit in it and so –ideally speaking - it is also why there is always a need for both coloniser and colonised to seek out some resolution that befits each particular circumstance before violence is seen as the only approach to guarantee one’s interests especially when history shows that both colonial violence and revolutionary violence leaves any so called eventual victory coming at too often a too high human cost which leaves open also some unwanted scope for long lasting intergenerational trauma.
Algerian War. Wikipedia
Highly recommend viewing The Battle of Algiers directed by Gillo Pontecorvo which is a 1966 movie that still remains relevant today. (In recent times I saw it by way of a streaming service for free by use of my local library membership). As for Algeria politically it has had a troublesome time since independence being a one party state from he early 1960s through to the 1980s when a multi=party system was adopted but with the political rise of an Islamist party there would be a civil war which again cost hundreds of thousands of lives from 1992 to 2002. The following link provides one overview:
Sixty 'Glorious' Years After Independence, Can Algeria Withstand the Challenges Ahead? Andrew Farrand. Democracy in Exile. 2022.
https://dawnmena.org/sixty-glorious-years-after-independence-can-algeria-withstand-the-challenges-ahead/
In regards to Albert Camus in relation to the issues discussed here are some introductory links:
Videos.
An Ethical and Humanist Perspective on Civil War: Albert Camus and the Algerian Chronicles. (2021).
https://youtu.be/_SHC73uGqEQ?si=OFX8O2CLa8J3VT4H
Man of our times: Why Albert Camus matters. France 24. (2020).
https://youtu.be/gNTUkPjy1dQ?si=wAQ7qNqCJHJ6Wi3d
Camus and Algeria: "He praised nuance and that's always been seen as cowardice"
https://youtu.be/AuVZ_4v3VYQ?si=sPBMEYBPImC4lRNN. France 24. (2020).
Albert Camus, Algerian Chronicles. Harvard University Press. (2012)
https://youtu.be/BjDkXnOjnfM?si=YCNIsJUbkDo5qT9h
Articles.
The Colonist of Good Will: On Albert Camus. The Nation. (2013).
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/colonist-good-will-albert-camus/
Why is Albert Camus Still a Stranger in His Native Algeria?
Albert Camus, the outsider, is still dividing opinion in Algeria 50 years after his death. The Guardian/Observer. (2011).
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/feb/28/albert-camus-algeria-anniversary-row
Camus’s Stance on Algeria Still Stokes Debate In France. NPR. (2013)
Camus and France’s Algerian Wars. The New Yorker. (2012).
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/camus-and-frances-algerian-wars
A general overview of Albert Camus (which does include a section on Algeria).
Albert Camus. (1913-1960). Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. IEP.
https://iep.utm.edu/albert-camus/#H7
A commentary on a play written by Albert Camus which is also commonly titled as the Just Assassins looking at the issue of terrorism and morality.
The Just by Albert Camus (1949). Books an Boots. Reflections on Books & Art.
https://astrofella.wordpress.com/2017/09/23/the-just-albert-camus/
*I think along these lines as I think how it was to my parent’s advantage to migrate to Australia (separately, as they met in Melbourne) on British passports as they came out to Australia before Cyprus was independent which I assume was a benefit rather than a hindrance although at the time Australia was in the midst of a population drive so as to strategically improve its national security and national economic base so at the time it was much easier to gain entry and permanent citizenship. This is not to argue against independence but rather to explore a point of view that while the British Commonwealth is seen as a relic of an imperial past it can also work as a vehicle of opportunity for those once colonised; as what the coloniser has to offer has so often come about from what it originally took from those it colonised. One actually tires of the ideological trope (or ideological ‘wowerism’ i.e. a paternalistic moral crusading) that those who have been colonised are always victims which no doubt is certainly the case but what is so often ignored is that ordinary people from colonized entities are not always passive but can be personally pro-active in improving their lives by earnestly seeing what the colonizer has to offer rather than always reflecting on what the colonizer has taken away. This too is politics. (‘You’ve come to exploit us well, what can we exploit from you…?’. There are different ways to resist against the dominant paradigm or to simply outwit it. In post-war Australia, many migrants who came here to initially perform menial tasks, work in the factories etc. worked hard to build up the financial capital to acquire property so as to guarantee their economic security and in many instances encouraged their children to be well-educated to guarantee the possibility of them becoming upwardly socially mobile of which millions of migrants are appreciative of the opportunity in Australia to do so but a cultural insularity that in its worst elements was exemplified by suspicion, racism and even jealousy had to also be overcome along the way. (Something I was acutely aware of - in the 1960s and 1970s especially - being the son of a suburban milk bar proprietor in which there were many fights with this violence brought on by customers, usually youngish - eg. the bodgies - but not always, whose Saturday night ‘entertainment’ when bored was to vilify my father – nicknamed ‘Speedie’ for taking his time in serving which became adopted as a term of endearment - and as well on occasions my mother which was extraordinarily cowardly). I may also add such was the original prevalence of a mono-culture that somehow one had to explain how one could live in Australia between two cultures which as far as I was concerned was actually the problem of whoever asked such a question and what I should have asked back is how can anyone deny themselves the opportunity of personally experiencing a basic level of cultural pluralism such as entwining the best of two cultures – if not more – that can only enrich one’s life experience – and not limit it as if that was what was ignorantly implied. One also notes that in Australia it is so often the case that many bilingual speakers come from a migrant background while it should be par the course for everyone to learn another language including even an Aboriginal one). Multiculturalism when initiated may have not exactly wholly overcome a superior societal power dynamic that is still mainly dominated by Anglo-Australia (and associated ‘Australian values’ which at times when harshly critiqued stereotypically hark back to a ‘white bread’ era and a mythical classless egalitarianism) but it is at least a tentative start that has somewhat achieved a cultural pluralism of sorts if not a wholly political one.
Yet to be a little lateral in this discussion – as well as a little, somewhat light-hearted (I’m hoping that’s okay) - there is also the self-effacing Australian sense of humour so with all that said here’s the 1966 Australian light hearted film They’re A Weird Mob of an Italian man’s introduction to the Australian way of life back then:
They’re a Weird Mob. (1966).
https://youtu.be/yxTk2ishZJc?si=y25JDYXcV5J_ZrK4
They’re a Weird Mob. Trailer.
https://youtu.be/hUD9-RVHWig?si=xEUzAFi35S7SzFKq
However, Australia’s migration mix in the 21st century is very different as this article suggests:
Australasia rising: who we are becoming. George Megalogenis. SMH. (2019).
https://www.smh.com.au/national/australasia-rising-who-we-are-becoming-20190122-p50ssx.html
In this 2016 episode of the ABC’s The Minefield if memory serves me correctly I think George Megalogenis also makes some passing comments on early 21st century migration to Australia. As for the title of the episode it is still a relevant question today.
Are our political leaders out of ideas? ABC The Minefield. (2016).
There is also commentary by George Megalogenis on Australian migration in the following link:
White Australia policy. National Museum of Australia.
https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/white-australia-policy
White Australia Policy. Wikipedia.
It is also of interest to discover that the rights won at the acclaimed Eureka Stockade were not extended to the Chinese gold diggers. Rather than improve the labour rights of Asian and Pacific Islander workers so all workers would receive the same wage to undermine the employer preference for overseas cheap labour (which also includes outright slavery as in the case of Pacific Islanders on the sugar fields and Aboriginal domestic workers etc. who also often had their wages stolen) it was preferred to shut non-Europeans out of Australia by way of the White Australia Policy.
The riots history erased: reckoning with the racism of Lambing Flat. Guardian. (2018).
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/aug/07/the-riots-history-erased-reckoning-with-the-racism-of-lambing-flat
The Burrangong Affair. Jason Phu. John Young Zerunge. 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art. (2018).
https://4a.com.au/exhibitions/the-burrangong-affray-jason-phu-john-young-zerunge
Blackbirding: Australia's history of luring, tricking and kidnapping Pacific Islanders. ABC. (2017)
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-17/blackbirding-australias-history-of-kidnapping-pacific-islanders/8860754
THE WAGES OF SIN: COMPENSATION FOR INDIGENOUS WORKERS. UNSW Law Journal. (2009).
https://www.unswlawjournal.unsw.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/32-3-21.pdf
Slavery in Australia. Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Australia#:~:text=Many%20Aboriginal%20Australians%20were%20also,a%20practice%20known%20as%20blackbirding.
A final video link:
Talking about racism: Equality and social cohesion in Australia. University of Melbourne. (2012).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ibn5SCK_t9w
In the 1980s it seemed that an overt racism had somewhat subsided but then such personal optimism was cut short for it was as if out of the blue came the divisive rhetoric of Pauline Hanson who despite nominally being a minor player in Australian parliament has still appallingly had an outweighed influence on the Australian political class (although never publicly admitted) and which a racist effect has been compounded in the aftermath of the Tampa incident and the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 on U.S. soil of which the Muslim community has ever since had to mostly bear the brunt of a renewed xenophobia which has also been a curse on those refugees who have had attempted to seek sanctuary in Australia by attempting to come here by sea.
Tampa
Australian politics explainer: the MV Tampa and the transformation of asylum seeker policy. The Conversation. 2017.
Tampa Affair. National Museum. Australia.
https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/tampa-affair
The Tampa Affair, 20 years on: the ship that capsized Australian refugee policy. Ben Doherty. The Guardian. (2021).
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/aug/22/the-tampa-affair-20-years-on-the-ship-that-capsized-australias-refugee-policy
CHAPTER 3 The Pacific Solution: Australia’s Insular Approach to Asylum Seekers. Pushing Back Protection. (2021)
https://immigrantjustice.org/sites/default/files/content-type/research-item/documents/2021-11/Offshoring%20Asylum%20Report_Chapter3.pdf
(There is mention in the above link to a NY Times article “‘White Australia’ Policy Lives On in Immigrant Detention,” Behrouz Boochani, NY Times, September 20, 2020 that is worth a read if have access).
Pauline Hanson
The White Queen. (Extract). David Marr. Quarterly Essay. (2017).
https://www.quarterlyessay.com.au/essay/2017/03/the-white-queen/extract
Pauline Hanson's One Nation 'wouldn't last a week without her', David Marr says. Stan Grant. ABC News. (2017).
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-31/pauline-hanson-one-nation-david-marr-stan-grant-politics/8406364
Looking back and angry: what drives Pauline Hanson voters. David Marr. Guardian. (2017).
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/mar/27/looking-back-and-angry-what-drives-pauline-hansons-voters
‘The Great Australian Silence.’
Nevertheless, what is also truly a blight is the unjust fate of the original Australians who have been in this southern land for tens of thousands of years and who are yet to be really afforded their equal place in modern Australia after having first had to face genocide and territorial loss for over a century if not more when the English began their invasion in 1788 and while there have been some improvements in recent decades which have often had to be hard fought Aboriginal Australia is still being refused the necessary political avenues to fully self-determine its future for the better as the failure of The Voice referendum in 2023 has shown. Which also brings to mind when a friend asked me to accompany him to do some pamphlet letterbox dropping in western Sydney. However, I did not find it an encouraging experience as the mostly migrant community out there was not fully aware of the significance of the referendum for indigenous peoples and could well understand if they chose to be cautious and voted No not that they would be against more rights for Aboriginal communities in Australia but more so because they would hesitate to vote yes to a major constitutional change which they did not understand. (Of course I am going on a few hours of anecdotal interactions along with projecting my experiences as a teacher who all up have worked in Western Sydney for a few years where many people where in the particular area that we were letterboxing there was a large proportion of people mainly preoccupied in establishing their own lives in a new country. It would perhaps be useful to see what post-referendum polling says on the make up of people and seats that voted in the negative of which there were also many Australians who have been here for generations also voted No. Yet as a teacher on this day I could not help but think that many Australians have not been informed of the full scale of the devastation that had befallen Aboriginal society since 1788 and which along with a raised profile of Aboriginal culture in recent decades it may be presumed by many Australians that the many wrongs that have been committed towards Aboriginal peoples are now being corrected and perhaps then did not dwell that on a political rather than cultural level the Voice was still a necessary step towards still much needed restoration of Aboriginal rights. One can see on social media to the lead up to the Voice the virulent racism that still exists in Australia but at the moment I wish to focus on how ignorance rather than prejudice (which of course also go hand-in-hand) affected the referendum outcome. In the Welcome To Country of Jonathan Jones catalogue to his exhibition at Artspace titled: Jonathan Jones. Transcription of Country. Dec. 2023-Feb 2024.
http://www.artspace.org.au/exhibitions/jonathan-jones-untitled-transcriptions-of-country
The Aboriginal elder who wrote the Welcome To Country for the catalogue of this exhibition ( I do not mention his name as am not certain if it is appropriate for me to do so) who mentions the many ‘new Australians’ who came to Sydney after the Second World War with whom he worked with on the railways and with whom he felt there was a shared affinity between himself and those who came from a war torn Europe in regards to being racially affronted so that ‘wogs, dagos, balts’ had an inkling of what Aboriginal people had to negatively deal with from White Australia. Yet, in an ever expanding city with its ever changing demographics ongoing everyday contact between Aboriginal people and the wider Australian community outside say the well known suburban enclave of inner-city Redfern are now not so apparent. It is remarked with some certainty that the migrant newcomers to Australia would have also voted in favour in the 1967 Referendum yet it may have not been such a sure thing in the 2023 one where knowledge of Aboriginal society and what happened to it is filtered through an education system that while it does mention some negative aspects of the past (e.g. Stolen Generations) that came with the European takeover of this whole continent there is yet to be a full acknowledgement of the wholesale massacres that occurred with reached genocidal proportions and that assimilation only occurred as a stealthy genetic version of genocide when wanton mass murder had not finished off the Aboriginal race. In recent years the genocide and frontier wars have received greater attention but perusing through a school curriculum the full magnitude of the slaughter that went on is yet to be fully taught. The number 60,000 for the number of Aboriginals killed in Queensland alone is only coming to the light in recent times which is a similar number as Australian troops killed in the Great War. As many war memorials testify we are aware of the immense intergenerational trauma caused by such massive losses (I once read highest per capita of any nation in WWI) on the Australian population so there would have been a similar devastating effect on Aboriginal society and only to be further compounded by land dispossession, the stealing of children, ongoing mistreatment including rape and slavery and as well the rounding up different surviving tribes onto ‘gulag reservations’. A few links to what occurred:
Videos
‘'The Great Australian Silence' impacts what we are taught about our history | The Point | NITV
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8s6KYmFu608
How the Frontier Wars Shaped Australia | Studio 10
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHxhpBNLGSQ
The above video is an interview with film maker Rachel Perkins who did the documentary series The Australian Wars which deals with the frontier wars and in Australia should be found on SBS’s streaming service SBS ON DEMAND. (Anyhow try there first and there are educational resources for teachers).
Articles.
The Great Australian Silence. Australian Museum. (2021).
Friday essay: the ‘great Australian silence’ 50 years on. Anna Clark. The Conversation. (2018).
https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-great-australian-silence-50-years-on-100737
William Edward Hanley Stanner. Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Edward_Hanley_Stanner
The killing times: the massacres of Aboriginal people Australia must confront. Lorena Allam. Nick Evershed. Guardian. (2019).
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/mar/04/the-killing-times-the-massacres-of-aboriginal-people-australia-must-confront
As the toll of Australia’s frontier brutality keeps climbing, truth telling is long overdue. Paul Daley. Guardian. (2019).
Frontier Wars. Deadly Story.
https://deadlystory.com/page/culture/history/Frontier_wars
While this article below mentions that in 2023 in the NSW Syllabus there will be mention of the Frontier Wars. Despite this shift in the right direction it is an aspect of white settlement history that should have been integrated into the school curriculum at least a couple of generations ago if not earlier.
Updated NSW syllabuses to include Indigenous perspectives . SBS News. (NITV Education. August 2023)
https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article/updated-nsw-syllabuses-to-include-indigenous-perspectives/o5jz4z5au
It is also worthwhile pointing out that white explorer history which opened up the country beyond the first coastal settlements would not have been possible without Aboriginal trackers who knew the best ways to go inland – after all, Aboriginal tribes had been doing so for thousands of years – who are still to gain sufficient recognition; a point that is actually made in the following link:
NSW Aboriginal Education Consultative Group Inc. Submission: Review of NSW Curriculum.
While it is valuable that students are respectfully taught about Aboriginal culture there does need to be an equal emphasis in also educating students about Aboriginal perspectives of ‘living on country’ as well as looking at modern Australian history from an Aboriginal point of view and which also includes the Frontier Wars etc.
Yet in regards to the Johnathan Jones exhibition which examines the relatively unknown French expedition to Australia when Napoleon was in power there is on display hundreds of embroideries based on the native plants that were collected.
Flag of Cyprus. Wikipedia.
Many of these embroideries (although not all) were done in collaboration with women from western Sydney mostly of Afghan, Indian and Korean background (I am going from the notes in the catalogue so apologies if there are other nationalities) along with many other independent embroiders to produce what can be seen placed on the long wooden display shelves in the photos. I went to a panel discussion whereby some of the women spoke about how they gained a deeper understanding and appreciation of the original peoples of this vast continent and one sensed that the transmission of such knowledge along with the effects of colonization upon them is an example of how such cultural interaction can be utilized as a way of bringing together Australians (whether they be migrants or locally born) with Aboriginal peoples so as to both breakdown barriers as well as create relationships (the women also spoke of meeting various elders from Aboriginal communities) and what was learnt here and the processes involved could be utilized on a wider educational scale so as to overcome the cultural – and political - alienation that occurs.
Johnathan Jones on telling all the stories. Ocula Magazine. Dec. 2023.
https://ocula.com/magazine/conversations/jonathan-jones-on-telling-all-the-stories/
The exhibition catalogue: Johnathan Jones. untitled. (transcription of country). 2023. If not available at a bookshop as far as I know it can be purchased at Artspace. Woolloomooloo. Sydney. http://www.artspace.org.auProbably best to try here first as it is an ‘in-house’ publication.
First photo: Black Deaths in Custody March. Eveleigh Street. Redfern. Sydney. circa 1980s. Second photo: Jimmy Little & Neil Murray. Victoria Park. Broadway. Sydney. Mid. 2000s. Third photo: Ruby Hunter & Archie Roach. Survival Day Concert. La Perouse. Sydney. circa early 1990s.
Human rights report slams Australia's 'systemic discrimination' of Indigenous peoples. National Indigenous Times. (January 2024)
Bek-Jean Stewart - I Heard Bobbi Sykes Driving In My Car + +Language warning.
https://youtu.be/h2CwtjNtLWs?si=6RpPGHSvQwWduys7
Neil Murray singing about Myall Creek Maritime Museum Forecourt. Sydney (2014).
https://youtu.be/i97rgH-EK5I?si=fp_Cs9O3U6guOx2y
Band at the Block for Black Anzacs March. Redfern. 2013.
https://youtu.be/wv0gj3xUqQI?si=p-CfS5QrTyNj0L27
BLACK ANZACS Anzac Day March. 2013. (April 25). Redfern. Sydney.
https://youtu.be/OVE9iln_diM?si=CHCgeDwsRuA9rTLm
Coloured Diggers Anzac Day March Redfern Sydney April 25 2015.
https://youtu.be/SYlAuK3E7ZQ?si=QXMCQcG-KJ8h-wLm
REMEMBERING EDDIE MURRAY. JUNE 12. 2021. SYDNEY TOWN HALL.
https://youtu.be/lPtHfYFmtGk?si=WJG8ouCnd6T8AzZQ
JUST ANOTHER DAY IN THE COLONY. SYDNEY TOWN HALL. SORRY DAY RALLY MAY 26 2021.+
https://youtu.be/k-QM1vgj9cw?si=EeXwyf9DkuSA-KP9
+Note there is some language in this heart-felt, powerful speech (of whom the speaker is I do not know) which some viewers may find offensive.
Aunty Shirl. Aboriginal Deaths In Custody. Sydney Town Hall. April 10. 2021.
https://youtu.be/E1e5MTqYXi0?si=St3u1HfgOO8Ssn4W
VI
2f. (1a) Looking at the reference below one can read that there is an argument that Hitler was apparently upset that there had been no war with Czechoslovakia as he had wanted to test out the military capability of his forces and give them their ‘baptism of fire’. Yet, Chamberlain’s peace proposal which displayed a strong willingness to meet Hitler’s demands in regards to the German populous in Sudetenland (which was merely a diplomatic pretext for war) diffused the possibility of a major conflict. Yet when the rest of Czechoslovakia was taken and nothing happened just as nothing happened when the Rhineland happened Hitler saw fit to invade Poland thinking nothing would happen again to thus give him a free hand to militarily look only eastwards without worrying having to fight a two front war.
Yet from the Allied point of view when it seemed that it was becoming ever clearer that due to Hitler’s insatiable appetite for extra territory that war would become inevitable Czechoslovakia was sacrificed to gain extra time before there was no choice but to go to war with Nazi Germany.
Another point of interest is that it has even been mentioned that if a war with Czechoslovakia had occurred three German military leaders - two generals: Beck and Halder; one admiral: Canaris would attempt to arrest Hitler. I am not sure how feasible this would have actually been but one does also learn that Beck and Canaris were implicated in the July 20 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler and that Beck would’ve replaced Hitler if the assassination of him had been successful.
Why wasn't Czechoslovakia enough for Hitler? Did he think that the Allies would try to take it back once they got stronger? QUORA.
(1b) As an aside, I suppose one could argue a similar case in 2022 that the West should have thoroughly faced up to Putin’s Russia over the illegal occupation of Crimea in 2014 which may have diplomatically signalled to Putin that in his ultranationalist quest to renew the Russian Empire the fully unprovoked February 28, 2022 imperial invasion of Ukraine would not at all be tolerated as well as resisted in every way - to at least put sufficient doubt in his mind that along with sanctions etcetera there clearly may also be a measured, non-nuclear military response to directly aid Ukrainians to remove invading Russian troops from Ukraine. *
*Furthermore, one admits to using the term ‘unprovoked’ deliberately as those apologist commentators for Russian imperialism - especially the many who reside comfortably in the ‘far West’ (i.e. not next to a country that borders Russia) would – ‘armed’ with literal and visual disinformation and their bourgeoisie ideological delusionism - strenuously claim otherwise to large global audiences not intimately familiar with the intricate historicity of the region; yet for knowing populations in small nations such as the Baltics who stoically daily reside beside such an overbearing authoritarian modern power and who only recently had militarily occupied their lands for many decades would simply perceive such apologia as ‘ideological hallucination’. It is wildly extraordinary that vocal critics of the U.S.’s Monroe Doctrine do not unequivocally criticize other ‘largesse nations’ with equivalent exceptional imperial outlooks towards smaller nations (especially in what it is territorially determined to be a so called ‘sphere of influence’).
2g. (1). There is an Australian angle to blitzkrieg in that an Australian general John Monash* employed aspects of in the last year of the Great War involving the co-ordination of different battle elements e.g. artillery, armour, infantry, air force to mount an assault which emphasised a general military need to find innovative ways to break up the static arrangement of trench warfare of which the Germans would eventually come up with their ‘masterclass’ in the first years of the ‘Second Great War’.
The German Lightning War Strategy of the Second World War. Imperial War Museum. (IWM).
https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/the-german-lightning-war-strategy-of-the-second-world-war
*Thus it has been tempting to envisage the proto-type of blitzkrieg as utilized by the famed innovative Australian general John Monash as to have him as the original innovator of it although it is perhaps more beneficial to see him as one of the better adaptors of this emerging organic battle approach of which the Germans would - from their WWI battle experiences - fully develop (such as the utilization of storm troops to attack perceived weak spots in trench systems and ironically colonial troops such as the Australians would become used as storm troops on the Allied side).
Blitzkrieg. Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blitzkrieg
As for John Monash his war reputation as a highly respected Allied officer (Montgomery thought he was the best general on the Allied side) was somewhat cemented on the Western Front in the Battle of Hamel fought against the Germans with raw U.S. recruits fighting alongside battle hardened Australian soldiers on July 4, 1918. (A date diplomatically deliberately chosen by Monash due to the use of new U.S. troops. However, it seems the top brass of the American army such as General Pershing were not enthused at having any of their troops under Australian command and it seems less US troops were utilized than at first envisaged with units ordered to the rear before the assault but some U.S. troops actually did not support such a command. Thus, the ordinary doughboy was willing to fight alongside the Australians). This Allied shock attack involved impeccable timing and co-ordination between different combat elements such as artillery, communications, ground troops, armour, tanks and aircraft to both advance quickly and minimise casualties. 800 Australians would still die but such was the apocalyptic magnitude of the daily casualty rate in this so called ‘Great War’ that such a large number of deaths were seen as ‘light’. The whole assault apparently lasted only ninety-three minutes and the objectives sought after in and around the town of Hamel were obtained. The Germans were pushed back from their defence lines and writing now in a more speculative tone I do recall reading that the success of this attack had left a distinct impression on the German military leadership which was employed by an Allied officer who was Jewish (yet also had a Prussian background) a historical irony when one thinks that eventually it was in the service of the Nazis that blitzkrieg was fully realized.
General John Monash. Australian War Memorial.
https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/P11013307
John Monash. Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Monash
Battle of Hamel. Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hamel
Thus as an aside it is disgraceful in the case of Monash that he was not held in high esteem by Charles Bean the Australian official war historian who it seemed held a distinctly Anti-Semitic view of Monash and so with the journalist Keith Murdoch tried to undermine Monash and have him removed by Australia’s visiting Prime Minister Billy Hughes. However, Billy Hughes who apparently originally sided with Bean and Murdoch would go on to note the high regard Monash’s officers had of their leader and so changed his mind and did not remove him. Bean who for better or worse did so much to mythologize the Anzac fighting tradition etcetera apparently did not think Monash fitted in’ to his ideal of the heroic Australian soldier which one may suppose would have been of a WASP dispositionperhaps befitting of an audience on a home front which after becoming federated in 1901 would by the end of the year pass the Immigration Restriction Act which actually activated the White Australia policy. Anyhow as this online article shows there is actually a multicultural aspect to the WWI Anzacs:
A Look At The Multicultural Anzacs. April 25. 2013. SBS News. Australia.
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/a-look-at-the-multicultural-anzacs/ecl8nnhbg
As for the Immigration Restriction Act of December, 1901 it had its legislative antecedents such as with the aftermath of the Eureka Stockade as Chinese gold diggers would be excluded from the gains that were achieved by this rebellion. European gold diggers were hostile to the Chinese due to a mixture of racism and jealousy as the Chinese diggers who would often work co-operatively became proficient in discovering gold in places where their European counterparts had previously been unsuccessful. The Lambing Riots near Yass in NSW bear testimony to the hostility that Chinese workers had to deal with yet one also notes the act of kindness of one farmer who gave sanctuary on his land to the victims of these riots so as to escape further harm.
(2) When Russia mounted a full scale invasion into Ukraine in late February 2022 there would have been many in the West that would have had to re-evaluate their relationship with Russia which up to then had been hesitant to fully give up on any chance of bringing Russia into a greater European fold so as to fully extinguish on a politically framed conceptual level the sharply polarising distinction of a West/East Europe that ominously existed during the Cold War.* For instance Germany which from the time of West Germany had adopted a rapprochement policy towards Russia known as ostpolitik.
Various randomly selected links:
How Germany lost the trust of Eastern Europe. Lukas Paul Schmelter. International Politik Quarterly. (Jan. 2023).
https://ip-quarterly.com/en/how-germany-lost-trust-eastern-europe
Germany must shake off its torpor and play its full role against Putin. Simon Tisdall. Guardian. (April. 2022).
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/apr/10/germany-role-against-delusional-putin
The Nord Stream pipe dream: How an outdated Ostpolitik misguided Germany’s foreign policy towards Russia. The Korean Journal of International Studies. (August. 2023)
https://www.kjis.org/journal/view.html?uid=292&&vmd=Full
After Ospolitik. German Council of Foreign Relations. (Dec. 2023).
https://dgap.org/en/research/publications/after-ostpolitik
Germany Remains in Denial Over its Russia Policy. Matthew Boyce. Hudson. (Feb. 2023).
https://www.hudson.org/foreign-policy/germany-remains-denial-over-its-russia-policy
Although in 2014 the relationship between Russia and the West was strained there was for instance in Germany still an ongoing reliance on Russian gas as from how I understand it this would have been an admission of the failure of an attempted decades-long rapprochement with Russia. Crimea 2014 is often seen as Europe’s Czechoslovakia 1938/39 moment (I include 1939 when nothing was done by the Allies when Nazi Germany occupied all of Czechoslovakia after through diplomatic guile the Sudetenland was acquired by Hitler in 1938) when this should have been the moment to impose tougher sanctions as would finally occur after the full scale invasion in 2022 which would have given Russia greater cause to rethink is imperious foreign policy towards Ukraine. This link which discusses if the 2022 sanctions would actually be much better points out how the 2014 ones were not effective enough:
*Yet as previously stated the prestigious World Cup in 2016 would still go ahead in Russia and as already said the Russian gas that was fuelling for instance the German economy was still being bought. Putin would think Western Europe and the U.S.A. would not be willing to commit (i) to a full scale war and (ii) German dependency on Russian gas would also stay thus (iii) it was thought the gamble to invade Ukraine in what would be envisaged as a quick ‘three day’ takeover. There was really nothing the West could do in Putin’s mind other than another round of sanctions but – and to speak as a non-expert - any such economic cost would be offset by the domestic prestige of having returned Ukraine back to the Russian fold when since 2014 it had ‘threatened’ to ally itself to the West with talk of linking up with both NATO and the EU. As it is the West would not go to war over Ukraine but it has shown a willingness to supply Ukraine with war material – although it can be argued in not sufficient numbers – to aid the Ukrainian war effort which is occurring as although Putin was correct to surmise there would not be a major war there is an ongoing war in Ukraine as his ‘three day takeover’ has now lasted nearly two years and with no negligible territorial gains after what was gained in the first three days and with even a full retreat from what was gained on an advance towards Kiev from Belarus from the north. Also Germany which was originally criticized for being slow off the mark in fully supporting Ukraine has stepped up with the delivery of Leopard tanks and so forth and weaned itself off Russian gas; while NATO has expanded even further gaining two new members: Finland and Sweden. Furthermore, Russia has sustained heavy casualties which has come at great social cost to the Russians yet although it has not brought about any foreseeable threat to Putin’s hold on power it should be kept in mind that while the Russians in the Second World War famously tolerated the loss of tens of millions of its citizens to then finally achieve victory over Nazi Germany one of the drivers for revolution in 1917 in the First World War was the heavy losses the Russians were suffering which were not tolerated when it was seen that victory was not at hand. Thus while a long war of attrition may benefit Russia if Western military support begins to wane for Ukraine – which is what is feared – especially if in the United States support drops off – if Russia also keeps suffering high casualty rates over a lengthy time period then domestic pressure may finally build up to have perhaps a war strategy that is increasingly defensive in nature to limit war deaths.
As it is the only opposition that is occurring is coming from women worried about their loved ones as well as from regions of Russia which believe they are paying too high a human cost in providing recruits for the war. Such opposition, in general, is not yet openly rebellious against the war but the Kremlin may be worried. The Kremlin had immediately suppressed spontaneous anti-war protests after the invasion begun but if the scale of opposition grew substantially and became well organised then it would not be so easy to put down especially if the fighting in Ukraine reached the burdensome dimension of a so called ‘forever war’ i.e. a war seemingly without imminent end yet still costing an intolerable level of human lives. Of course, what I write is merely speculation but somewhat follows the parameters that brought down Tsar Nicholas when the population simply wanted an end to the fighting in WWI and which would ultimately also bring down the Provisional Government which stayed committed to the war. Putin’s authoritarian rule over the nation is remarkably still strong thus the talk of ‘speculation’ but always underneath not readily visible are tectonic social forces which are usually a long time in the making and can lead to sudden shifts and the few protests that occur now and especially in a country where a person can be threatened with imprisonment by simply holding up in public a blank piece of paper can be the first seismic murmurings of some grand social change that may yet occur if the opposition to Putin does actually grow and the military chooses to move with it and for its own reasons of survival. e.g. the security forces may shift their loyalty to someone else if Putin’s political downfall seemed inevitable even though he had done much to build up the security apparatus so as to survive and still thrive supporting someone who in a reciprocal relationship could each empower the other in Russia. Yet, as I keep saying such a scenario for now is speculation but it is interesting to see there is still some open dissent in Russia and there maybe more which does not get through to western media sources. However, one also reads how the cult of Stalin was encouraged upon Putin’s rise to power and one may also guess that with his association with the Great Patriotic War many ordinary Russians maybe prepared to put up with any increasing war-related hardship as it maybe seen as shameful not too when one thinks of the immeasurable worse suffering that the WWII generation went through in the war against the Nazis. (Thus, it has been of worth for Putin with the propaganda utilized to frame the ‘special operation’ in Ukraine in similar vein as a ‘pre-emptive war against fascism’ in a nationalist attempt to validate such obvious Russia aggression).
Putin weaponizes history with new textbook justifying Ukraine invasion. Atlantic Council. (August 2023).
Russia’s Never Ending War Against Fascism. Memory Politics in the Russian-Ukraine Conflict. IWM. (2015).
How Vladimir Putin sells his war against ‘the West’. Politico. (Feb. 2023)
Putin evokes act of ‘self-defense’ against ‘fascist Ukraine’ & ‘war unleashed against our homeland’. France 24. (May. 2023).
Prigozhin is mentioned in the above video who would have his Wagner forces briefly march towards Moscow until he inexplicably had them stop.+ It would not be long afterwards when the relationship between Prigozzhin and Putin had been restored that he along with his closest associates would be blown out of the skies on a private business plane flight between Moscow and St. Petersburg. Thus a link which implies that what had been a military threat to Putin’s power would ultimately help to stabilize Putin’s firm hold onto the leadership:
Putin restores power base with Prigozhin killed in plane crash. Bloomberg Special. (August. 2023).
+This ‘march onto Moscow’ including its bewildering and confusing aspect as to what it actually signified and was meant to achieve (e.g. was it after all, meant to oust Putin from power or was it aimed at having Putin force a change in the military leadership of which Prigozhin had recently become more vocal in criticizing…?) as well as how it all suddenly came to a full stop almost as if it was a nightmare fleeting apparition of Russia’s political soul is not so out of place when one looks back at recent Russian history and comes across General Kornilov’s 1917 ‘march on Petrograd which was also a confusing affair as depending on one’s point of view and who to believe it was either initiated to rescue the Provisional Government from a Bolshevik takeover (Kornilov’s view) or it was an attempt to mount a political coup over the Provisional Government by the Russian military (Kerensky’s view). It is an important chapter to look at in the eventual lead up to Lenin’s eventual takeover of power and worthy of a few references to look at but for now will simply leave here a Wikipedia link to at least be aware of the Kornilov affair which Kerensky n the short term succeeded in being victorious but in the long term unwittingly laid the political groundwork for the Bolsheviks to take power having relied on them to ‘save the provisional government’ as it only enhanced the prestige of the hard Left who before hand had been seen as political pariahs:
Kornilov Affair. Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kornilov_affair
In Russian politics – at least at that time – it seemed being seen as a hero or villain could wildly oscillate depending on circumstances and with such unpredictability possible nothing should really be taken for granted. (I should mention that I first came across the Kornilov Affair in Orlando Figes excellent book: A People’s Tragedy: The Russian Revolution. 1891-1924. (1996. Published by Johnathan Cape).
A link to a summary on Kerensky and Kornilov:
http://www.orlandofiges.info/section6_TheOctoberRevolution1917/KerenskyandKornilov.php
In Putin’s lifetime one cannot imagine that there would ever be a voluntary withdrawal of all Russian forces from Ukraine territory. [Especially at ‘time of writing’ the frontline has more or less entrenched itself into a WWI static line]. One imagines it would be too humiliating and it would only happen if there was the possibility of an overthrow of his leadership which for now seems unlikely due to the tight level of authoritarianism that he maintains over Russian society and how thus far there is a weak opposition with every potential alternative leader being effectively dealt with either by assassination:
Assassination of Boris Nemtsov. Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Boris_Nemtsov
or by internal exile:
(i) Alexei Navalny sentences to prison term for violating probaton as protesters detained. CBC News. (Feb. 2021).
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/russia-navalny-court-1.5897347
(ii) Russia’s Navalny describes harsh reality at ‘Polar Wolf’ Arctic prison. Reuters. (Dec. 2023).
As it is Alexei Navalny was to eventually die while imprisoned by the Kremlin at the Arctic Circle.
(iii) Alexei Navalny the daring Kremlin critic who died behind bars. France 24 English. (February 2024).
One should also keep in mind Kara-Muza Jr. (amongst others) an opposition figure who was sentenced to 25 years imprisonment for treason.
A Kremlin critic was transferred to a Siberian prison and placed in a ‘punishment cell,’ lawyer says. AP. (Sept. 2023).
What one has thus far stated is only theorizing as one does not know what the future holds as the rule of Putin is unique and will need to be thoroughly studied by historians in the future just as Lenin’s Russia was thoroughly unique from Tsarist Russia which came before it and which in turn Stalinism was itself unique in its own way which magnified and built upon the terrors of the regime which were already being established by Leninism and then to be followed by the uniqueness of a post-Stalin USSR with such leaders as Khrushchev (who would at least ‘de-Stalinise’ the USSR whose limited thaw would also have thousands return from the gulag and who also sought – compared to Stalin - to be less hard line towards the West with for instance Russian troops leaving Austria (along with other Four Powers occupying troops) with the guaranteed promise that it remain neutral (e.g. it not join NATO and even after the fall of the USSR it has thus far chosen not to do so) although there would also be the Cuban Missile Crisis and within Eastern Europe there would be the Russian military crackdown of a potentially reformist Hungary in 1956) and Brezhnev (who would not pursue further liberal reform leading back to repression but not to the ‘purge scale’ as was Stalinism and as well to economic stagnation while there was the Brezhnev doctrine of détente with the West which would for instance lead to significant nuclear arms treaties although defence spending did also escalate under Brezhnev and there was also an intolerance of internal dissent behind the Iron Curtain which would lead to the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 to put an end to the Prague Spring and then after a few short term leaders there was finally Gorbachev with eventually a glimmer of democratization with perestroika and glasnost (although the military was still hard line and politically there was still an intolerance towards any republic which sought national independence e.g. the Baltics) yet which unwittingly only brought down the downfall of the USSR. (It is interesting to see that the USSR did not have a fully predictable ‘monochromatic approach’ to foreign policy from 1945 onwards but there was some nuanced variation depending who was leader which is only pointed out as U.S. foreign policy has not also been uniform but a more aggressive or less adventurist approach depended on who was in the White House although it remains the case no matter the superpower a desire to be globally ascendant over any other competing power remains consistent but the nuances of each leader whether they be Russian, American, Chinese etcetera must also be taken into account.*
*After all, to specifically keep focusing on the USSR no matter the leader would not tolerate any sign of independence within the USSR or from any nation on its side of the Iron Curtain while at the same time it would commit to supporting national movements that wanted to be independent of colonial powers on the ‘Free World’ side of the Iron Curtain. While the United States would not tolerate such independence movements fearing they would end up entering into a Soviet orbit (which often sort of became a self-fulfilling prophecy) it was also reluctant to fully support several partisan movements behind the Iron Curtain in Stalin’s time and would not risk political stability in Europe (or a nuclear war) when the peoples of Hungary; then Czechoslovakia hoped there would be some material intervention from the West on their behalf - but there would be nothing; just as now there is after the unprovoked Russian invasion of Ukraine still an ongoing vital need for an activist President such as Zelensky to keep adamantly reminding the West of its importance to keep materially supporting Ukraine in its fight to throw out the invader Russia from all Ukrainian territory which also includes the eastern oblasts and Crimea. (If not for Ukraine’s sake at least for their own long term security interests.
After the USSR there would then be Yeltsin whereby along with a democracy of sorts there was also the economic rise of an oligarchic class and then followed by a full return to yet another Russified version of authoritarian rule with Putin as Russia’s latest Kremlin Tsar. As for the Tsar of 1917 he would eventually lose power when the St. Petersburg garrison aligned itself with the protesters in the streets who were demanding peace and bread while Putin will certainly hold onto power while the military supports his Ukraine venture and for now it does look like that it seems highly unlikely that it or even the elites will turn against him.
Why Russian elites are standing by Putin. Olga Khvostunova Foreign Policy Research Institute. (July 2022).
https://www.fpri.org/article/2022/07/why-russian-elites-are-hanging-together-for-now/
In the above article is a link to a book by Andrei Soldatov & Irina Bordgan. The New Nobility. The Restoration of Russia’s Security State & the enduring legacy of the KGB. Hatchette. (2010) which is worthy of mention. The following link is a review of the book:
The New Nobility. The Restoration of Russia’s Security State & the enduring legacy of the KGB. Book Review. Guardian. (September 2010).
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/sep/25/new-nobility-restoration-russia-security
Also some commentary by various experts – including from Olga Khvostunova - immediately after Prigozhin’s death and in relation to Putin’s hold on power.
Prigozhin’s Death and the Future of Putin’s Rule Foreign Policy Research Institute. (August. 2023).
A link to some other articles by Olga Khvustunova in relation to Russia which one may find of interest:
https://www.fpri.org/contributor/olga-khvostunova/
Furthermore, there is no modern day Lenin encamped in some European capital waiting for the anti-Putin moment to come back to Russia to spark an overthrow. (Perhaps, this is what Navalny had hoped to achieve after returning to Russia from Germany where he was restoring his health after being poisoned on an internal Russian flight but as it is his arrival back to Russia which as noted eventually had him in an Arctic high security prison to then - as many Putin critics point out - to then have been deliberately killed.
The link below which pictorially covers both 1917 revolutions points out how with the February Revolution there was an army mutiny which would lead Tsar Nicholas with no other choice but to abdicate. (Notably, in 1905 the military stayed loyal to the Tsar so he stayed in power although there was some reform such as the establishment of a State Duma).
In the Footsteps of Revolution. Radio Free Europe. Radio Liberty. (2017).
https://www.rferl.org/a/footsteps-of-1917-revolution/28311776.html
As an aside its interesting to come across this New Lines Magazine article which within it there is the cursory observation that Russia’s leaders never fully trusted their soldiers as they had always played an important role in any overthrow.
Inside Russia’s Secret Propaganda Unit. Andrei Soldatov. New Lines Magazine. (Dec. 2020).
https://newlinesmag.com/reportage/inside-russias-secret-propaganda-unit/
As the German invasion proceeded with its spectacular initial victorious results as mentioned Stalin had to rely on his political commissars to keep the army in check especially in this opening phase of the Great Patriotic War which was when the Soviet Union suffered its worse defeats (with the Russian winter to prove as the major saviour -rather than Stalin – as the Wehrmachtsteamrolled its way to such major cities as Leningrad and Moscow yet ultimately was not able to capture them).
It would be dangerous for the West to hope that there would be sufficient internal dissent in Russia to bring down Putin so as to hopefully have a moderate installed who would entertain the possibility of a Russian withdrawal from Ukraine.* As a lessening of any commitment to Ukraine – when actually the commitment should be increased – which would unthinkably lead to a Ukraine defeat would only embolden Russia with even a militarily aggressive approach being adopted towards ‘retaking’ other ‘lost colonies’ of its former empire that border Russia.
Winter is Coming: the Baltics and the Russian-Ukraine War. Implications & Policy Recommendations. LSE Ideas. (December. 2022)
https://www.lse.ac.uk/ideas/Assets/Documents/reports/2022-12-05-BalticRussia-FINALweb.pdf
Ex-PM Kasynov Warns Russian Victory In Ukraine Puts Baltics in Crosshairs. RFERL. (June. 2022).
https://www.rferl.org/a/kasyanov-warns-russian-victory-ukraine-baltics-next/31895774.html
*As it is Putin is playing his own waiting game hoping that with changes of governments, especially in the U.S. – as he hopes - there will be an abandonment of commitments to Ukraine.
As the Ukraine war enters a third year, Putin waits for Western support for Kyiv to wither. Associated Press. (Feb. 2024)
https://www.rochesterfirst.com/news/ap-as-the-ukraine-war-enters-a-third-year-putin-waits-for-western-support-for-kyiv-to-wither/
(3) Some articles on ‘sunk cost’ found by way of a basic web search so thus recommending also doing a web search to find other articles:
Why are we likely to continue with an investment even it if would rational to give up? The Sunk Cost Fallacy explained. The Decision Lab.
https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/the-sunk-cost-fallacy
The Sunk Cost Fallacy: How It Affects Your Life Decisions. Very Well Mind. (2023).
https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-sunk-cost-fallacy-7106851
Russia’s Bashkortostan protests: Separatism isn’t the real threat facing Putin
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/russias-bashkortostan-protests-separatism-isnt-the-real-threat-facing-putin/
Also province protests
e. Russian Women protesting on behalf of their men recruited to fight in Ukraine. 2023. This women’s protest in Russia is an interesting development as it has occurred during the so called ‘special military operation’ when due to heavy state censorship a person can otherwise be arrested and imprisoned for simply holding a blank piece of paper as an anti-war protest. Two web links:
i. In Russia, some women demand return of their men from Ukraine Front. Reuters. (December.2023).https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-some-women-demand-return-their-men-ukraine-front-2023-12-05/
ii. How To Return A Husband From War? Mikhail Khodorkovsky. (November 2023).
https://youtu.be/1GISSWxR0zo?si=0SbUWRSipIN6hl7Q
A Reflection On The Novella’s Dystopian Setting With An Alternative Historical World.
1.a. In regards to these sketches I do also include a somewhat detailed map of the Berlin Wall which is just as well as I have misplaced any photos if I took any). Perusing through these cursory observations I made of the ‘other side’ of the Iron Curtain which maybe of some historical I can’t help but muse to see how they have been written by a young, naïve ‘suburban boy’; (thus I suppose they should not be taken too seriously). I don’t think the illustrations are that particularly good as they were ‘done on the run’ before my mental memory buried them to some lower murkier level of my mind and in any case they were never meant for wide public viewing yet finally decided to include them. Anyhow, apologies for their poor quality.
Top Left: Sketch of hitch hiking sign with a hopping kangaroo and little Australia map so people would realise we were Australians. (I was with an Australian friend I had previously met by chance in my travels and we travelled together for some of our time in Europe as it was both she and I were surprised to discover we had mutual friends back in Sydney. In Hamburg had stayed with a German friend and family members such as parents and sister and although have long ago lost touch I do still remember her to this day firstly for her generous hospitality and secondly as well as for her extraordinary ability to nonchalantly roll a perfectly streamlined cigarette with one hand). As it was our second lift outside Hamburg that would take us to the West-East German border was with a truck driver who intended going to Australia for family reasons. Our long lift to West Berlin from which would come next would be with a delightful young woman in a green Renault car who was happy for me to play my Australian rock music cassette tape on the car’s cassette player system. Once a driver picked someone up from the West German border to cross over to East Germany to go to West Berlin the East German border guards at either end always did a head count to make sure that there was the same number of people and that no one had left the car at some point while in East Germany. Thus hitchhikers knew once they were picked up by a car they would get a straight through trip to West Berlin (and visa versa). Amongst the other travellers I met most went to and fro from West Berlin by train otherwise it was by car but would not be surprised if designated buses also went to and fro from West Berlin. The trip from the West German border to West Berlin was about three cassettes long and along the way we also listened to some German New Wave music. [A curious cultural difference is while just putting your finger out pointing downwards to the road is a way of hitching in Australia on the other side of the world signalling with your thumb seemed to be the preferred method].
Middle Left: A rough sketch of the Berlin Wall which includes obstacles and minefields etcetera. [A larger image next to the hitchhiking sign]. A photo I do remember taking of the Berlin Wall but on my second visit to West Berlin in 1985 was at Postdamer Platz where from a high vantage point where it was possible to look out across the Berlin Wall to see the no person’s land in between there were two young German guys – they may have even been teenagers - and one of them curiously enough had a tourist souvenir boomerang with him. I think they found it funny that I was from Australia and they obliged when I asked if I could take a photo of the both of them with the guy with the boomerang cheerfully holding it up in the air as if he was about to throw it over the Berlin Wall.
Top Right: Large road sign with a Soviet hand crushing a U.S. fighter jet. sketch of some of the Russian tanks and accompanying soldiers seen from the autobahn as going through the East German countryside.
Middle Right: A large propaganda road sign with a hand crushing a U.S. fighter jet.
Below: Russian tanks and soldiers sighted next to the autobahn while what is not drawn is army trucks and mobile missile carriers on the road with missiles. One gained the impression that some sort of small scale military exercise was on the way throughout the day.
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b. As for the actual car journey through East Germany which as stated was about ‘three music cassettes long’ I saw some wonderful forests (‘unreal’ is the word I use to describe them and I called them ‘fir forests’ although common tree species include spruce, birch, pine, fir, larch, ash, black alder and oak), plenty of old buildings, what appeared to be disused churches, people on bicycles as apparently they could not afford cars although there were many old cars about (much like what I would see in Havana in the early 1990s as well as in Damascus in the mid-1980s oddly enough while Havana is synonymous with old cars); however, I did feel with many of the cars I saw looking as if they were pre-1960 that it felt like I had gone back thirty years in time (although some of the cars that I may have seen may have been the East German Trabant which I had mistaken for being an older car model). Anyhow on the autobahn you ‘just knew’ that all the ‘up-to-date’ modern good cars on the road were West German cars going to West Berlin. There were many police cars everywhere and it was a MUST for drivers to keep strictly within the speed limits otherwise they would be heavily fined with all their highly valued West German marks benefitting the East German economy. (Yet, one now also caustically thinks that averting being fined for speeding is a troublesome ‘universal issue’ for every driver no matter the politics of the state they drive in). The only thing that seemed to be new from what one could see from the road was all the military hardware, truck convoys etc. and it felt like WWII had just ended yesterday. Near West Berlin were many tanks, army barracks and the countryside seemed to be teeming with Russian soldiers on army manoeuvres. There were missiles parked on the side of the road and I couldn’t help but think that the whole DDR economy was so structured as to maintain its military strength. It seemed to be such a tragedy that the wonderful landscape I could see from the highway was being used and controlled for the pursuit of war. It was like a breath of fresh air to finally get into West Berlin. (Yes, one is also distinctly aware of U.S. militarism but that was certainly not top of mind after passing through a subservient landscape that seemed so ‘over-the-top’ dominated by an opposing war machine that to me was emphatically surrounding West Berlin).
c. In regards to East Berlin it was usual to go on a one-day trip into this side of the city from then the Checkpoint Charlie border control. Along the way we had gone by Postdamer Platz and it must have been from there where sighted the Berlin Wall from a lookout which is actually two walls with a wide ‘no person’s land’ in between them where there are many obstacles, minefields and all covered by machine gun posts so could see that it would be virtually impossible to cross. At Checkpoint Charlie there was the usual passport procedure and the East German customs officers actually came across as pleasant enough to two Australian tourists. We walked the East Berlin streets noticing the drab greyness of the city which was actually accentuated due to it being a grey, cloudy day. Anyhow, it seemed time had stood still since WWII. I noted in my travel diary that this observation seemed so true as it really felt we had walked into a time machine and gone back 35 or so years…the style of clothes, cars old, 1940s buildings, nothing new, no ‘capitalist’ advertising, no colour, the only colourful lights were the traffic ones…grey buildings, no leaves on dark brown trees, grey skies, cold winds, khaki soldiers…a rather barren environment…historic building bombed out, constant reminder of ‘the war’. (Most of these observations straight from what is written in the travel diary. 1982. To think in a few years this whole world was going to change and be swept away yet it was hard to imagine on this day that it would ever disappear in one’s lifetime). After walking around for awhile it was decided to get rid of of our 25 East German marks [exchange rate was 1:1 when it actually can be up to 4 East German marks to 1 West German marks in West German banks]. We went to a restaurant and ordered the most expensive things on the menu, waiters, deco style all seemed to be set in a 1940s style. Had a good meal and spent time just sitting at our table talking and met an East German couple who was sitting on a table next to us and they could speak some English. They told us of their desire to leave East Berlin but the guy explained ‘bang, bang’ in reference to ‘the wall’. They graciously gave us apple schnapps to drink. After the restaurant we walked around some more and went to the tomb of the unknown soldier and saw the guards who were standing very still at attention and assumed they would have to do so for hours. We walked up backstreets, bought apples and chocolate at a fruit shop and walked back to see the wall from this side. At 8 pm it was darkening and it seemed as if we were in a ghost town, quite amazing knowing West Berlin was close by where there was a busy nightlife unlike in East Berlin where there seemed to be no night life at all. I tried to take a photo in an attempt to capture the silent urban atmosphere yet without much success. While we were standing at a corner we were spoken too by the police who stated we were loitering. Thus there was not much else to do but to head back to West Berlin and the contrast was incredible when comparing the differences between the two parts of the same city. In West Berlin to suddenly notice the colourful billboards, lights, people, theatre, music etcetera. To escape from the cold by going inside a place where Greek food was available to see the walls covered with cultural and political posters. To have Greek coffee. To be whimsically reminded of Glebe an inner-city suburb near Sydney University. To see a busker who was playing the blues. (To now be writing about where I was over forty years ago). To then head back to where we were staying.
c. While in West Berlin when looking out for residual signifiers of WWII to thus see the Russian war memorial at the Brandenburg Gate with its two T-34 tanks which appear as historical emblems while to also wistfully comprehend how on the other side of Berlin and beyond in East Germany they could still exist as an everyday reality. According to travel notes to have sighted not too far from the Reichstag by a river and the wall to see crosses for those who had tried to swim across it from the East Berlin side. The latest cross was dated 1980. To also visit close to Checkpoint Charlie the museum dedicated to escape attempts.
d. To come across a travel diary excerpt based on the impressions of the friend I was with when we eventually left West Berlin to go back to West Germany. A late night time trip that gave what was otherwise a straightforward journey a mysterious sense of surreal otherness; it was not a matter of hitchhiking but of having the fortunate opportunity to take up a lift offer due to where we were staying. On our arrival to West Berlin there had been a mix up over an accommodation possibility so as to end up at a community house for young male engineers (as it was the green Renault driver who was very helpful and patient with us took us to this place). We befriended in particular one young mining engineer who had quite a philosophical outlook on the world and when he said he was going on a visit West Germany he offered us a lift back; so at 1.30 am on a late March evening the three of us in his Alfa Romero drove through East Germany with this time only listening to eerie German new wave music while yet again watching out for speed radar traps. The Braunschweig approach (north-west Germany) was taken to leave East Germany and while crossing into West Germany we could sight spotlights shining on the so called ‘iron curtain’ e.g. wire fencing, guard towers etc. it was explained to us that to stop defectors there were sharpshooters, walls, barbed wire, five rows of mines, dogs, other military paraphernalia etc. It all sounded incredible to us. As it was there was an interesting collective reaction when we were finally on West German soil with all three of us independently letting out a sigh of relief with our driver also immediately fingering the volume knob on the car stereo so as to put the music up loud while also pressing his foot down on the accelerator; in our ‘capitalist car’ we realized how much we had not relaxed while driving through what seemed a politically ominous nightscape. (a) Or as mentioned from what I copied down ‘to sense the oppressiveness of the DDR’s environment, penetrating our western…attitudes’. (b) As to the speed traps from memory a 100 km speed zone would suddenly drop to 40 km so a driver had to be alert not to be caught out otherwise a heavy fine would entail. (c) ‘New wave’ is the best description I can come up with German rock music with an electronic sound. Although I have no written verification in my travel diary of having done my mind keeps recollecting that Kraftwerk’s Trans Europe Express (1977) and also recollect a distinctive 1980s anti-war song - by some other German band - of a German soldier lost or forgotten on the Eastern Front. Yet have failed to discover such a song in any search). (d) It is somewhat tragically ironic to now see since the downing of the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall which was built to keep people in there are now so many walls and other national barriers being built this time - along with maritime pushbacks - to keep people out. It could be cynically surmised that perhaps it was only in the Cold War that there were ‘good refugees’. (e) DDR stands for Deutsche Democratische Republik while GDR which can also be used for the former republic stands for in English for the German Democratic Republic.
2b. 1. It is no wonder that Russian hackles were raised and claims of ‘NATO expansion threatening Russian sovereignty’ were made when in reality it was the case of the Baltic nations wanting to join a security framework which would defensively dissuade any Russian interest to ‘reclaim’ territory of a lost empire. Perhaps one way to compare is to imagine Mexico and the many nations of Central America formed a defence pact to offset the possibility of the United States actually wanting to not only interfere in the domestic politics of these nations to suit its interests but to also invade and occupy them and reduce their nationhood status to that of republics or states of the U.S.A to only then have the U.S.A. cry out that it was in imminent threat of being invaded by such a defence pact whose combined military arsenal would be trounced within the first week of any such invasion by the overly superior military might of the United States.
After all if Russia was to face another invasion from the West it would have to involve a military force comparable to what both Napoleon and Hitler mustered which is not the case. Having been invaded by the West twice before Russia has in nominal historical terms good cause to be wary of the possibility of a third invasion but it will not come by way of a western Europe that has previously attempted to link its economies to Russia as a fuel source and which has no strongman on the horizon that will unite and militarize Europe to a level of the required millions of troops needed to move onto Russian territory and occupy it...as well as for what ultimate purpose and for what gain…? Adolf Hitler’s justification for the conquest of the then Soviet Union was for ideological, territorial and racial reasons as defined by his hostility towards what he saw as ‘subhuman species’ i.e. Slavs, Jews and to gain space (lebensraum) for new German colonies to be established for his thousand year old Reich; yet, there is no one of such 'visionary' expansionary ilk in European politics today and rather ironically those on the far right who would share some of the extremist racist values of the Nazis have more so befriended rather than turned away from a Russian leadership which has all the hallmarks of pursuing its own ultranationalist agenda; albeit since the Russian invasion of Ukraine there are those of the far right have had to distance themselves from previous relationships with Putin although judging from this article La Pen in France has not been as successful as it would like:
Le Pen’s far right served as mouthpiece for the Kremlin, says French parliamentary report. France 24. (June. 2023)
https://www.france24.com/en/france/20230603-le-pen-s-far-right-served-as-mouthpiece-for-the-kremlin-says-french-parliamentary-report
This article points out how there has previously been a cultivation in the relationship between certain far rights groups and Russia:
Exclusive: Russia Backs Europe’s Far Right. New Lines Magazine. (March. 2022).
https://newlinesmag.com/reportage/exclusive-russia-backs-europes-far-right/
It’s also been argued that Russia weaponised refugee migration to the West from Syria which maybe more of the case that Russia has opportunistically seen such a mass movement of refugees as a means for political destabilization which also enables the far right in Europe to make gains by way of a rise in xenophobia which it will also inflame for its own political benefit. (At this point it should be noted that such opportunism fits the same strategic template as in the Cold War whereby the Soviet Union did not bring about the anti-colonial movement that emerged in the Global South but rather saw how there could be an alignment between itself and local actors that would benefit both domestic and international goals with the aim of outplaying the United States wherever possible on the global stage as well as having newly established revolutionary governments that would ideologically benefit the Soviet Union. Now there is the mirror image of a nationalist Russia which did not bring about far right movements in Europe but can also see how it can opportunistically benefit from them if democracies hostile to Russia can be undermined. Thus a rise in xenophobia can benefit Russia if it means there is an increase in popularity of any far right party which sees Russia as an ideological ally).
Forthcoming are several articles on the issue of refugees in relation to Russia and the first one is of the opinion that Russia did not deliberately set out to cause a mass migration stream to Europe but it can benefit from it. As to Syria Assad and Russia were not bombing civilian populations in order to cause a refugee problem which was simply a terrible by-product of heinous war crimes but as it turned out that there would be a mass exodus it is easy to see how Russia can utilize propaganda narratives and it is not helped that as stated elsewhere in these endnotes the West has actually often behaved inhumanely towards such vulnerable people in order to stem any mass refugee flow despite international law stating that refugees should be granted ‘safe harbour’. Nevertheless, where there clearly has been outright ‘refugee weaponization’ by a state actor has been the introduced influx of refugees in Belarus with such unfortunate human pawns encouraged to try and cross into countries that border Belarus. It is all inhumane leaving human beings stranded in an in-between in a no person’s land…a cruel twilight zone where death awaits those physically unable to survive. Anyhow, a few randomly selected articles by which by looking at these and others to gain some insight or opinion on this inhumane geopolitical human rights issue matter.
Allegations of Russian weaponized migration against the EU. Militaire Spectator. (July. 2019).
https://militairespectator.nl/artikelen/allegations-russian-weaponized-migration-against-eu
Is Russia ‘Weaponizing Refugees’ To Advance Its Geopolitical Goals?” RFERL. (Feb. 2016).
https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-weaponizing-syrian-refugees-geopolitical-goals/27562604.html
Refugees are becoming Russia’s weapon of choice in Syria. Simon Tisdall. Guardian. (Feb. 2016).
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/16/refugees-are-becoming-russias-weapon-of-choice-in-syria
Migrant crisis: Russia and Syria ‘weaponising’ migration. BBC. (March. 2016).
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35706238
Belarus-EU.
In limbo: the refugees left on the Belarusian-Polish border – a photo essay. Guardian. (Feb. 2022).
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/feb/08/in-limbo-refugees-left-on-belarusian-polish-border-eu-frontier-photo-essay
Belarus/EU: New evidence of brutal violence from Belarusian forces against asylum seekers and migrants facing pushbacks from the EU. Amnesty International. (December 2021).
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/12/belarus-eu-new-evidence-of-brutal-violence-from-belarusian-forces-against-asylum-seekers-and-migrants-facing-pushbacks-from-the-eu/
EU Eastern Borders: Migrants Along Belarus-Polish Border Suffer as Winter Sets In Amid Extension of Internal Border Checks Along Poland-Slovakia Border, Hungary Launches Another Anti-EU National Consultation, Finland and Estonia Say Russia Using “Shameful” Approach of Migrant Instrumentalisation. European Council of Refugees and Exiles. (November. 2023).
https://ecre.org/eu-eastern-borders-migrants-along-belarus-polish-border-suffer-as-winter-sets-in-amid-extension-of-internal-border-checks-along-poland-slovakia-border-hungary-launches-another-anti-eu-national-consu/
Violence and Pushbacks at Poland-Belarus Border. Human Rights Watch. (June. 2022).
https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/06/07/violence-and-pushbacks-poland-belarus-border
2b. (2). With the audacious Baltic Way in mind it can be of interest to briefly reflect on the matter of cultural resistance towards the occupier. In Lithuania one was astounded to come across what is known as the Hill of Crosses which represented national opposition to the Russian occupation.
Hill of Crosses. Wikipedia. (Lithuania). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_of_Crosses
2g. (1) Annual Baltic commemoration in Sydney of Stalinist Deportations.
Deportation commemorative service. Latvian Hall. Sydney. It has been held annually for many years. Note the three national flags together in the background. On the stage would perform singing groups usually in traditional folk outfits and in the languages of Estonian, Latvian & Lithuanian from all three communities. Speeches would be said (in English) beforehand while on the back wall there is always an exhibition of the recent history of occupation, deportations, liberation. In recent years the Ukrainian flag has also been included in solidarity with that country having been invaded by Russia.
Left: In the elongated, front foyer there is always an exhibition of Baltic art at the time of this special event such as the following woodcut titled ‘The Refugees’. Right: Members of an accomplished Lithuanian folk song singing group.
Here is an image of an Australian-Estonian website invitation which provides some general background information regarding the deportations:
When it comes to the matter of Baltic commemorations due to Russian aggression there is this photo that I took when attending a ceremony to remember the Lithuanians who were killed by Russian troops during the ‘January Events’ in 1991 of which I only learnt about while being in the country a few years later and which revolved around the ongoing insistence of Lithuanians to be independent from Russia to which in this lethally tumultuous historical moment was outright Russian military resistance. An introductory article below:
January Events. Wikipedia.
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Some articles on the Sandinista Defence Committees. *
*There are many articles and one may like to look them up but for now have only chosen to highlight a handful
Sandinista National Liberation Front. Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandinista_National_Liberation_Front
Sandinista Defence Committees. Encyclopedia. com.
Nicaragua: Omar Cabezas Appointed National Coordinator Of Sandinista Defense Committees
Deborah Tyroler. LADB. (September 1988).
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/227719461.pdf
Nicaragua. CDS: Revolution in the Barrio. Envio. (September 1989).
https://www.revistaenvio.org/articulo/2738
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II
Vilum Flusser’s Media Theory as stated for instance in his Towards A Philosophy of Photography.
Yet why this sudden interest in an image…no matter what it maybe…? As a starting point one has taken an interest in the media theories of Vilum Flusser as stated in his Towards A Philosophy of Photography (Reaktion Books. 1983) as randomly discovered one day in a second hand bookshop and which immediately intrigued me.
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A pdf copy of this book Towards A Philosophy of Photography by Vilum Flusser can be accessed by way of the following link:
http://imagineallthepeople.info/Flusser_TowardsAPhilosophyofPhotography.pdf
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A short book which one could say – as what follows is a personal perception as well as response (which may be deemed as inadequate) to what I have read of this visionary book - deals with visual literacy or perhaps with a modern day lack of it as humanity - as it is suggested – enters a new epoch whereby in regards to human communication the image once more is becoming ascendant over text which in turn had been the major cultural transmission of human thought when writing was invented several thousand years ago which beforehand images had for the first time dominated. I have to say when I started reading this book I actually thought it was recently published well within the new internet age so was surprised it was written way back in 1983 as for me so much of what it states seems prophetic and easily applicable to the present digital realm.
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Other commentary by Vilem Flusser.
Thought and Reflection. Vilem Flusser. Flusser Studies 01.
Line and Surface. Vilem Flusser.
https://monoskop.org/images/f/f4/Flusser_Vilem_1973_Line_and_Surface.pdf
There are also various articles that provide an explanation of Visum Flusser’s media theory including the following:
How to Orientate Oneself in the World: A General Outline of Flusser’s Theory of Media.
Bram Ieven. February. 2003. IMAGE [&] NARRATIVE. Online Magazine of the Visual Narrative.
Issue 6. Media Theory.
https://www.imageandnarrative.be/inarchive/mediumtheory/bramieven.htm
Notes on Vilém Flusser’s Philosophy of Photography: Chapter 1, the Image. Joseph Weissman.
October. 2007. Fractal Ontology.
The polysemy of Vilem Flusser’s concept of illusion. FRANCESCO RESTUCCIA, Sapienza - Università AN-ICON. Studies in Environmental Studies. Issue Number 2. 2022.
https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/anicon/article/view/17655/17772
Vilum Flusser - The Pinocchio. Theory. shaviro.com
https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/anicon/article/view/17655/17772
Vilém Fluser: A brief introduction to his media philosophy. Siegfried Zielinski. Vilem Flusser Archive. Introduction II. Flusser’s view on art. mecad online seminar._
https://film7000.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/flusser.pdf
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III
Commentary. (i.e. various ad hoc comments).
Thus in the following collection of personal commentary although somewhat expansive is initially a response to some of Vilum Flusser’s insights on media issues so it should be declared that some of his points of view are embedded within it. It should also be stated that the following discussion mainly focuses only on that photography which it could be said is beholden to a political dimension looking at the possibility of blinding any human reality rather than revealing it; with that said it should also be made clear there is much photography that serves a positively instructive humanizing purpose such as one sees at the World Press Photo exhibition that one attends every year which can be particularly educative on various aspects of the human experience in relation to many political, social, environmental etcetera issues. It is a matter of recognizing that as the image seemingly prevails evermore over text in this modern era that the viewer simply not be passive but develop a critical eye on what one sees in order to discern what is true; as it has to be understood that photography which can be generally assumed to be an objective creative form can have a subjective quality to it (both intentional and unintentional) which could adversely affect one’s perspective on believing what is real and thus it is simply a matter of keeping this possibility in mind when viewing a photograph and how as well the viewer also has a responsibility of realising that one may even project one’s own views onto an image which may even be vastly different from the viewpoint of the photographer. In essence, photography is often seen as a window on reality but the window may only be revealing a certain cropped aspect of it, rather than what it may fully be. Thus, in relation to political-orientated imagery a distorted reading may then unfortunately result and which can be especially dangerous when any simplistic or populist point-of-view is allowed to be significantly affirmed, so as to insidiously over-ride the actual contextual social, cultural, political and historical complexities of any milli-second visually presented situation. Not to only (visually) make human memory, but to change it.
As it is one possible reason that media such as images and texts exist is so humanity can symbolically make sense of the world around it which is otherwise chaotic and perhaps even without meaning. Although one may argue that as humanity’s consciousness lays down its own cultural template onto the surrounding world to make sense of it there is the paradox that while seeking out for what is real humanity will only achieve in defining reality on its terms; especially when the human imagination seemed at first to be more so involved to mystically provide the world with spiritual or metaphysical meaning rather than to fully rationally understand its physical forces as well as its mechanical and biological operations; thus to have visionary supposition predominate over cognitive analysis rather than say for there to be a dynamic balance between intuition and logic and thus leading, in hindsight, at least, to an instinctive self-reflection whereby humanity to this day must question whether our comprehension of reality – including what reality is - is actually subjective rather than objective.
Religion. Science. Ideology. Theology. Morality. Politics. Medicine. Architecture. Agriculture. Engineering. Mathematics. Design. Strategy. Language. Literature. Poetry. Astronomy. Art. Education. Psychology. Philosophy. So many countless various strands of human thought and activity that highlight for us how there are multiple psychic aspects of human knowledge (being within the human mind) that ceaselessly avails to learn what is validly true.
Truth. Reality. To shift from hypothesis or speculation to data and fact. One may say that one aspect of human history is an ongoing learning by study and experience to progressively bring on human advancement; yet, regressively as well there has been and still is human failure; for human healing and human cruelty seemingly go so much hand in hand which has always perplexed and cursed the human species despite also the many blessings. One of these blessings has been able to communicate symbolically such as by way of pictorial imagery as cave paintings in Europe e.g. of animals and perhaps also ‘capturing’ human memory with psychic narratives associated with such animals transferred by hand onto a cave wall to serve various purposes whether it maybe ritual, spiritual, instructional or even historical.
Nevertheless, I speculate as I am not referring to any anthropological studies or theories and yet I will suggest to an uneducated modern audience what is portrayed on cave walls may along with any religious purpose may also have concrete applications to those who originated them involving various biological, social and cultural aspects of daily life through to any possible communal and internalized spiritual processes that linked human beings to the environment in which they lived proving to be essential not only for their survival but also to protecting and respecting their surroundings which also needed to be regenerative for the survival any prehistoric human society.
Images can be produced so as to help human beings to find their way around the world as well as their place in it. However, already being once removed from the world such images which can both symbolize or represent can as Flusser has suggested be maps but also be screens between us and the world which we wish to orientate ourselves in and from what I gather this may come about when the image is allowed to interpret the world for us as a function of distortion rather than simply describing it as a function of accuracy and thus the image may present the world as it might be and which may have control over us rather than simply being a visual tool to be used by us to act in the world as is.
As previously mentioned cave paintings often depicted animals far more so than humans (with, mysteriously, only human hand prints actually being most common in regards to human representation) and as well the animals represented were not always necessarily those that were hunted for prey which implies the possibility that such images may have played some sort of ritualistic role rather than just being initial attempts to record observable reality. Although it is now likely that the portrayal of animals could also have had a pragmatic motive in terms of informational record keeping as next to some depicted species there have been found as a sort of proto-writing with a row of dots which according to the hypothesis may actually be calendars referencing animal behaviour such as when they mated which hunters obviously saw as useful to know i.e. animals with a row of dots beside them symbolised lunar month cycles when breeding occurred and if so this would be a very early form of pictograph which over thousands of years was to eventually develop into linear writing.
Yes, human observation was essential in order to accurately paint the animals depicted but the purpose of these images involved psychologically requiting the human imagination which may have been interpreting reality on an abstract level so as perhaps defensively cope with a world of motion with its changing seasons and weather that was seemingly brought on by unseen natural forces while amidst this natural wilderness were animals such as those depicted on cave walls who could survive as if being part of nature and not separate from it while human beings had to rely solely on their intelligence rather than falling back on their biology as animals could to stay alive. After all, animals are biologically equipped to live in the natural world while humans in their naked state are not. Thus, to hunt to eat that which may have also been revered.
It is not fully understood what motivated our distant ancestors to paint these animals within these deep caves but one could hypothesize that these images of ‘natural beings’ may have served as symbolic conduits to the natural forces that had such a major influence on humanity’s chances of liveability. That which is unseen as spirit and thus to accommodate the spirit world would suit a vulnerable humanity seeking guarantees to preserve its ongoing existence. Religion as a human abstract to authenticate a humanity instinctually implementing observable human practices to achieve the survivability of the species in this seen world.
As it is after survival there would be ascendency.
Art in the caves (presumably along with ephemeral shamanistic and communal cultural practices that have not survived the passage of time) played a significant social function and so it can be hypothesized that although from a human perspective there may have been a belief that human culture was being underpinned from an objective reading of the world it is clear that what was being deemed as real was coming by way of a subjective point of view.
Thus, one could presume that the images would change as the society would change and as it is as religious interpretations of the world would stay dominant the previous realistic ritualistic depiction of animals would culturally metamorphize to symbolically become mythical representations of gods who held unquestionable sway over the natural order of which they had even created and would have as their ‘human conduits’ aristocratic leaders of increasingly urbanised societies which along increasingly patriarchal lines had developed strict hierarchical social structures with a priestly caste that sanctioned the absolute power of a warrior ruler who was emphatically seen as ‘blessedly’ bestowed with divine authority. (Although with the Ancient Greeks they seemed to more so than other ancient societies to have distinctly humanized their divinities).
Reality could be thoroughly shaped by those in power and so images would be utilized towards this overarching end which were to theocratically verify the ‘objectivity’ of such an overtly subjectified political supremacy. One of course, speaks generally, yet, as it is: it is common knowledge that art can serve an ideological purpose which is the case to this day and can extend its propaganda influence not only in the political realm but also in accompanying economic and social spheres of our human world.
Nevertheless, it is of interest that at the zenith mythological height of political illusion that as existed in ancient times (although the totalitarian regimes of these mostly secularized modern times may equally measure up to those absolutist kingdoms of the past in regards to the totality of their ideological capture of reality) it became vital as societies became more complex that there develop for the purposes of smoothly securing the state’s ongoing prowess and existence a transportable form of recorded human communication that could actually objectively verify most human activity within its borders as well as with other states. e.g. to keep accurate accounting records of the transactions of goods.
Human calculation to overcome or supersede human imagination.
Writing came about to serve an utilitarian function which was the everyday acquisition of essential information that the state needed so as to properly function. A new linear symbolic structure would evolve which was at first pictorially based (much like images visually ‘capturing’ objects from the actual world) and then to eventually be replaced by phonetically based alphabets based on the actual language word use of human oracy; along with ‘capturing’ sounds that are unseen there would also come the accompanying symbolic ‘capture’ of human conceptual thinking which is also unseen i.e. ideas. Thus, while text would initially serve a factual purpose (and which it still does) it too would also eventually serve an ideological purpose (which of course it still does to this day).
However, a media theoretician such as Vilum Flusser - assuming I have read him correctly; would state that text would for centuries come to predominate over the image and which apparently also brought into the human psyche a sense of linear progression which can be perceived as historical consciousness until the advent of photography which now apparently supersedes text as the prime carrier of human communication so much so as to even directly affect human action as evidenced in this modern age with its ubiquitous saturation of the visual so much so whereby human behaviour has changed to the extent that it deliberately devises to act in a way simply for the benefit of a photograph to be taken.
To have a photograph no longer passively or arbitrarily documenting the human world but actually directly affecting the human world so it may then be deliberately recorded for some social (or propaganda) purpose.
(Notably, a photo is meant to have the ‘upper hand’ on truth with the assumption that it can technically provide humanity with an objective ‘window’ onto reality which for instance other visual forms such as painting, printmaking readily cannot).
A photograph can capture a historical moment that can now exist out of linear time or as Flusser would say to now rise up into a state of transcendence which is where all other art could be said to exist and so one could also presume that whatever the original meaning may have been applied to the photograph by those who first saw it may actually change in the years ahead by later generations who could view it differently depending on how it will be contextually reframed. In other words, the photographer had one reason (or attitude) as to why the photograph was taken but an observer may have another reason to view it to even perhaps confirm an attitude that may even be opposite to what the photographer had intended.
Yet, to return to this already much observed human world by way of Flusser who in one chapter of his discussion - The Reception of Photographs in Towards A Philosophy of Photography – he mentions what our response could be towards a typical war scene in Lebanon which maybe in a newspaper. Although there is accompanying text which may involve the actual complex historical circumstances that have brought about a tragically horrific war scene that we are presently witnessing for a few seconds through the photograph taken by a photographer who is immersed in the reality that he visually depicts it is usually the case that our moral judgement of this war scene will be mostly devised by what we see rather than by what we read as we seek out to understand the human drama before us in a simpler binary way wanting to determine that which is good and that which is bad in terms of who is responsible in a casual (or cause or effect) way; our opinion is not necessarily formulated from the article of which we may not trust or agree with anyway but rather by seeking out visual cues from the photograph because it is ‘real’ which can ‘verify’ what is our already pre-determined view of the war and who it is that is at fault and thus should be blamed as well who we should support to mete out punishment on the wrong side. In other words: there is a preference or inclination to a one-dimensional aspect of reality rather than to a multi-dimensional one which can be more readily accommodated by an image rather than by any textual analysis. It is not to suggest that everyone en masse only looks at a picture and ignores the article but to point out that this maybe the case when an especially polarizing news item is brought to our attention which such as one involving a war.
After all, one feels confident to say that war is a heinous topic that is often a highly charged emotional matter...while those directly involved may take a predictable partisan stance and view any media article (as well as documentary, discussion or photo essay) from a highly prejudicial point of view as the moral clarity of the war is obvious to them for outside ‘neutrals’ it can more be the case of having to mentally venture through a ‘moral haze’ which they hope various news items will be able to mindfully disperse for them especially if genuinely interested in seeking out the truth of the war situation (thus one suspects such apparent neutrals who, as well, will often only have a superficial comprehension of a particular conflict would be the ‘target audience’ of any disingenuous, well-organised social media disinformation campaign which may - or not be meted out - by both - or more - of the opposing warring sides and it is so often presently the case that the image can be the pre-eminent rhetorical weapon in such disinformation campaigns which aim to have their narrative gain the moral high ground with human emotion often utilized so much more so as to trump over human logic in order to manipulatively acquire an audience’s allegiance).
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Thus while photography may have been hopefully perceived as a reliable new format to record historical events objectively human choice is still involved in the selection and production of an image thus it can still have a subjective quality which is not an issue in of itself but unlike a painting whereby it is clear that what is presented - no matter how pictorially accurate the image maybe of an event, landmark, building, landscape or person - one is still aware that another human being was involved in producing it; to thus understand that what one sees is at least one step removed from reality; yet, with a photograph where upon the viewer is presented with a direct revelation of a historical reality of any subject matter (although it may at first have only been a monochrome version) there is a greater sense that what is being viewed - and which has also relied on the laws of science to miraculously come into existence rather than by a painterly human hand – is assumed to have a neutral quality even though it is mindfully known (if even only on a subconscious level) that a photographer with a particular camera format produced this apparently lifelike reproduction of the world.
It may not always occur to the viewer that by uncritically looking at any technical reflection of the world which has been taken from the exact point of view as the photographer that what is also being captured is the viewer’s loyalty to the photographer’s vision of reality. It is not that such acceptance is an issue but rather that it be assumed there is no need to query a photograph especially when it so much affirms what one believes reality to be (as against what it may actually be).
It does seem if there was any modern day hope of dispassionately affirming reality over illusion by way of the ‘technical image’ (Flusser’s term for the photograph) it has not adequately been realised.
It should also be mentioned that in the ubiquitous digital era of social media - which can have a greater societal effect than the previous analogue period of mass media - there has been for politically driven propaganda purposes so as to undermine any opposing narrative the malicious use of manipulative digital techniques to create false technical images whereby such bad faith actors insidiously betray any initial trust in the photograph being a truthful window on reality.
To assuredly discern the real which has been a human dilemma since prehistory when the first cave painting appeared being the first intimations of when human beings in good faith began to abstractly reflect on the physical world around them it does still seem remain so to this day that even with the increase in human knowledge that has been acquired over the many tens of thousands of years since and with our many scientific and medical advances in some ways we still do not really know what the real is in much the same way that ephemeral mental universe we know as the mind - with which is human consciousness - essentially remains a mystery.
There is the quantum realm with its wave-particle duality which seemingly defies classical physics and so one cannot but think of Vilem Flusser pointing out during an interview in Budapest that as scientists in their reductive attempt to calculate the universe down to its fundamental element - which for now in the Standard Model is the quark a subatomic particle within the neutron of an atom - which despite a quark apparently being indivisible there is still an interest in exploring the subatomic realm; which may yet prove to be an infinite proposition when any human sense in regards to the materiality of matter becomes dealing ever more with immaterial qualities and so much so that a theoretical or mathematical ambiguity may arise whereby as Flusser had envisaged that there could be the worrisome quandary that what may no longer be studied is reality itself but rather a human projection of it; which may speculatively only take us back to wondering about the natural forces of the universe as well as it composition with a human sensation strikingly reminiscent of instinctual Neolithic interpretations of those same natural forces that were to cave painters visibly in evidence in a primal world of a primal universe.
Thus against all expectations to have to comes to terms with a loop metaphysical ‘understanding’ of the physical order if a cohesive unity that may exist between a space-time continuum with its three dimensions and a quantum multi-dimensional realm remains beyond our mental grasp while being unable to measure or observe if it all exists.
To only have faith in the unknown if it cannot be discovered due to an ongoing inability to directly observe may have us exploring in a ‘no person’s zone’ of human knowledge where there may not be a fusion but at least a sounding out between science (human vision) and philosophy (human instinct).
In much the same way a hunter may know where to find prey but inevitably will still rely on instinct to thrust one’s spear if what is sought after remans hidden in the terrain.
It could be mused humanity in its ongoing mediation to acquire further knowledge has to deal with the shadows of a seemingly infinite micro subatomic or cosmic dark matter underbrush that still stealthily camouflage the outer fields of matter on both such micro and macro levels of all reality.
It was the science fiction writer Isaac Asimov who mused that science does not necessarily exactly hand out absolute truth but it is a human discipline that can work as a mechanism that allows us to keep trying to enhance our knowledge of nature. Thus presumably for Asimov the scientific method as a system - with its process of hypothesis and experimentation - allows us to test our thoughts against the universe to see if what we presume about the cosmos does match up with what we discover; thus for our lives what we envisage as imagination can be re-envisaged as real and Asimov was of the belief that people would want to know that what they assumed to know about the character of the universe was accurate, in any case at the very least know as much as humanly possible about what the universe is really like.