David Berry | ukwatch.net

Anarchist Scholarship

tim — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 16:44:33 +0000

Thanks for taking some time to answer these questions today, David. For starters, could you tell us about the Anarchist Studies Network: what work does it do and what do you hope for it to achieve?

The ASN was basically established, I suppose, to do two things: create and foster links between the growing number of people doing research on anarchism (whether they were students/academics or not); and, building on that, to promote further research in the area and help disseminate the results. A group of us (lecturers and postgraduate research students) in the Politics Department at Loughborough University who were working on various aspects of anarchist history, politics, and theory were keen to raise the profile of research on anarchism—because, without wanting to be paranoid, it’s still difficult to get scholarly (i.e. properly researched) work on anarchism taken seriously within the education system in Britain.

Some of us belonged to the Political Studies Association, which allows its members to create “Specialist Groups” on all kinds of subjects, so we set up a Specialist Group for the Study of Anarchism, which means that we get a certain amount of funding from the PSA. The name was later changed to ASN. With the help of our more techie members, we’ve since set up a wiki web site and an e-mail discussion list. There have also been a couple of annual meetings where all the members got together to discuss plans. The PSA funding (which has no strings attached so long as it’s used to do what we want to do in any case, i.e. promote the study of anarchism) has allowed us to fund various seminars, workshops, and conferences, and to give financial support to members who needed help to be able to attend these events—not to mention the forthcoming ASN conference in Loughborough this September.

In its succinct definition of anarchist studies, the ASN states “For a number of us, what we are calling ‘anarchist studies’ no longer necessarily takes anarchism as its object of study but as a standpoint from which to study the world. Anarchist contributions to thought are making a reappearance in a number of fields, challenging established orthodoxies. Perhaps, against all odds, we are witnessing the emergence of a new anarchist paradigm in academia.” Can you describe some current examples of how anarchist ideas are informing new approaches to the imposing challenges leveled by capitalism in recent years? And what is the relationship of anarchist studies to the ongoing revolutionary project to achieve anarchy?

Plenty has been said and written over the last few years about the resurgence of interest in anarchist ideas, and the influence of anarchist modes of organizing within social movements, trade unions, worker co-ops, and popular protests of all kinds, as well as in the broader alter-globalization “movement of movements.” There are still debates to be had there about the nature of the relationship between some contemporary anarchisms and earlier anarchist movements, and this relationship clearly varies from country to country (the situation in the States, say, is different from that in France). But the remarks you quote in your question could probably be read in two ways.

One reading could be that “anarchist studies” is not just about the study of anarchism, but that it is about bringing an anarchist perspective to bear in doing research on any subject. Sharif Gemie, for example, once described himself to me as an anarchist historian rather a historian of anarchism. In international relations, someone informed by an anarchist methodology might reject the state-centric approach of most analyses in that field (see Alex Prichard’s recent PhD on Proudhon and international politics). And I’ve just seen a call for papers for a panel at the Association of American Geographers’ 2009 annual conference that proposes to explore the possible contribution of anarchist theory and practice to a radical geographic theory (Kropotkin and Elisée Reclus were, of course, geographers). Barry Pateman (in his introduction to the forthcoming AK Press edition of my book) also talks about “that critical grey area between independent anarchist scholarship and the academy.”

His concerns have to do with “what we are doing when we research the history of anarchism and anarchists. Some recent scholarship appears to suggest that the lives of anarchists—their hopes, fears, contradictions and, yes, moments of inspiration—are no more than objects for intellectual experimentation.” On the other hand—although I understand the healthy skepticism towards many academics whose research (and teaching, for that matter) is entirely divorced from any political commitment—I do get a bit weary of those “activists” who draw a clear distinction between themselves on the one hand and “academics” on the other, refusing to see any value or use whatsoever in scholarly research. As if the fact that some of us happen to earn our living working as teachers in universities and colleges means that we can’t also be politically active in other ways.

Tell us about the ASN Conference happening September 4-6, 2008.

This isn’t the first conference that ASN members have been involved in organizing or that the ASN has subsidized, but it’s the first ASN conference as such. The point of it was really to bring together as many people as possible who are doing some kind of research on any aspect of anarchist history, politics, or theory: partly just to find out what’s going on out there, because so many people working in these areas are more or less isolated. And we’ve been quite pleased with the response: there are going to be around 100 talks and I think over 140 people are now registered. Whereas we were originally thinking mostly in terms of developing networks within the British Isles, there are going to be participants from Canada and the US, and from right across Europe as well as/including Turkey.

We’ve also managed to attract a good mix of well-established researchers (such as Martin Miller, who published his study of Kropotkin in 1979 and David Goodway, who’s been writing radical history for many years and whose recent Anarchist Seeds beneath the Snow is the culmination of fifteen years of work), post-grads, and people outside the education system (although it can’t be denied that money has been a problem in some cases, despite a system of bursaries).

You are also the reviews editor for the Anarchist Studies journal. Tell us a little about the journal (for those unfamiliar) and what you look for as reviews editor? What books have recently caught your eye that you endeavored to feature?

The ASN is kind of semi-officially linked to AS—not just because that would seem logical anyway, but because AS actually grew out of the Anarchist Research Group (ARG), a precursor of the ASN. There were a couple of successive History Workshop Conferences in the early 1980s (HW, dominated by New Left Marxists, was interested in “history from below”) at which the anarchist strand was the second-best attended strand after feminism/women’s history That success encouraged us to set up the ARG, with more or less regular seminars in London, and subsequently a journal: Anarchist Studies.

The journal is multidisciplinary and, as Ruth Kinna confirmed in a recent editorial, we don’t have an editorial line: we judge everything we’re sent on its merits (properly researched, well written, convincingly argued, etc) and publish or not accordingly. As for the role of reviews editor, I probably ought to be pleased, but I’m currently extremely frustrated because there are so many books appearing that I would like us to review, but we can’t fit them all in!

I’d like to ask you a few questions about your book, A History of the French Anarchist Movement, 1917-1945. What started you on your path to researching anarchism in France during this period?

Having been totally alienated from Leninism by my experiences as a school student in the Trotskyist Workers’ Revolutionary Party, I first became interested in anarchism when I was an undergraduate studying French and German. When I decided to continue into post-grad study, I also decided to move away from literature and towards politics or history. It was at Sussex that I first became involved with a group of anarchists (which included, coincidentally, the philosopher Alan Carter), and I approached Professor Rod Kedward (who published The Anarchists in 1969) as a possible PhD supervisor. I originally wanted to do something on anarchism and May ‘68, but he persuaded me that the subject had been done to death. (The basic criteria for a successful PhD are that the thesis has to produce new material or to present an original interpretation of material already known, so you have to make certain pragmatic decisions about what you can research.)

An enormous amount has been published on the French anarchist movement up to 1914, because it was extremely influential, whereas the inter-war period was dominated by studies of the nascent communist movement (partly for understandable reasons—the importance of the French Communist Party in the history of the country— but also because labor history tended to be dominated by Marxists of one kind or another). So, studying the anarchist movement after what is generally seen as its heyday seemed the logical thing to do, and it turned out to be an extremely interesting, key period in the movement’s development in the twentieth century.

You mention in the Introduction that “although this is a study primarily at the level of ideology and organization, I have endeavored to avoid producing a history dealing solely with leaders or faceless organizations. I have tried—as far as the sources permit—to emphasize the feelings, the beliefs and the commitments of ordinary ‘grassroots militants’ to show them struggling with new and difficult situations, to rescue the memory of these otherwise unknown militants…” Did you set out with this goal in mind or was it the result of your extensive research?

My first exposure to history and historians was in the History Department at Sussex University, which contained a number of people who were quite prominent in the History Workshop movement. I was naturally attracted to the idea of “history from below” —a concern with ordinary working-class activists and the movements in which they participated, and the rejection of the idea that “history is the story of great men.” But the degree to which I was able to say much about the everyday lives of the relatively unknown activists I learned about was determined to a large extent by the available sources: such people tend, by definition, not to write books or articles, or leave much correspondence behind. Police files were sometimes useful, but very uneven and often of dubious accuracy.

Oral history was of limited use because of the period being studied. Using movement newspapers as a major primary source also tended to encourage a focus on organizations and political-ideological debates, rather than on individuals, since the most important of them were the official organs of particular organizations. Having said that, even when analyzing the debate over, say, how anarchists should react to bolshevism in 1920, it was interesting to see how individual activists writing in these papers developed different ideas and different responses, and how the arguments and positions adopted evolved in response to national and international events—something made possible by the openness of debate in these groups and their willingness to publish all shades of opinion. So, yes, I started out with a very bottom-up approach to history, but what is possible is to some extent dictated to you by the available material.

Could you summarize for readers the rise of anarchist communism during this period and the “increased distance both in terms of ideology and practice between anarchist communism and individualist anarchism”? What were the most apparent distinctions between these two orientations towards anarchism?

Anarchism as a tendency developed in France in the 1840s, but it was only really in the 1880s that it became an identifiable, autonomous movement whose program and tactics differed clearly from those of other socialist currents. By that stage, the vision of the future society to which most French anarchists subscribed had already become an anarchist-communist one: i.e. advocating the socialization of all property except for that which was for genuinely personal use, operating on the basis of need. Tactically speaking, French anarchist-communists accepted the need for organized, collective direct action, notably (though not exclusively) through labor unions. However, before the Great War there was still a significant individualist current within the broader movement, which was characterized by a rejection of the communist economic model and of the collectivist ethos, by an interest in anarchism (or “anarchy” as they often preferred to put it) as a philosophy and a way of life for the individual, and also by an impatience with the less “advanced” majority of the population—an impatience which often tended to lead to feelings of superiority and a disdain for the unliberated “mass” or “herd” (as some individualists put it).

However, most anarchists were turned against individualism: first by the futility and entirely negative consequences of the brief wave of anarchist terrorism in 1892-94; and later by its association with the indiscriminately violent (and equally futile) actions of the Bonnot Gang. When a national federation of French anarchist groups was finally created in 1913, it declared in favor of anarchist-communism and individualists were barred from the founding conference. What I concluded from my research was that anarchist-communists and anarcho-syndicalists on the one hand, and anarchist individualists on the other hand could no longer be said to belong to the same movement after the First World War. The gap between individualists and what we now call social anarchists was increased by the combined effects of the war and the 1917 Russian revolution. The first of these two events demonstrated that the anarchists’ decades long antimilitarist campaigns had failed to prevent the draft and war; the second brought home the fact that in France—universally seen, up until 1917, as the homeland of the revolutionary tradition—had not seen a social revolution (to complete the work of 1789).

This perception of failure triggered in most French anarchists a profound self-questioning. It made some receptive to the siren-song of the nascent international bolshevik movement with its base in the only European country which had succeeded in making a revolution; it made many others argue that what was needed, in the interests of efficacy, was a more ideologically and organizationally cohesive anarchist movement. This latter debate had of course begun many years before, but it was 1914-1917 which really gave it impetus. And, whereas Alexandre Skirda and others tend to emphasize the role of the Makhnovites (in exile in Paris), in fact when they published their Organizational Platform in 1926 they were pushing at an open door as far as many French militants were concerned: the argument for greater organization, the move away from what came to be seen as an absolutist emphasis on the autonomy of the individual was a result of lessons drawn from practical experience.

This “revisionist” tendency was linked to a new determination to see the anarchists once more playing a central role in the broader labor movement, and the historical evidence suggests that, in practice, anarchist-communists in the 1920s and 30s had far more to do on a day-to-day campaigning basis with syndicalists, left-wing socialists, unorthodox Marxists, and Trotskyists than with the comparatively much smaller number of individualist anarchists. The latter showed little interest in “the social question,” being more interested in interpersonal relations and what we would today call lifestyle issues. Relations between the two currents seem at times to have been extremely hostile.

Despite bitter disagreements amongst the various camps of organized anarchists, the inter-war years saw a massive growth of the movement, whether it was in labor union activity, anti-fascist action, or—in many ways a culmination of both—support for the Spanish revolution. Could you give readers an idea what you mean by “anarchist” when describing this growth and roughly how expansive it was?

Thanks to their strong opposition to the war effort in 1914-18, and to the reformist and “class-collaborationist” leadership of the CGT, the anarchists enjoyed a brief resurgence of popularity during the revolutionary situation that arguably existed in several European countries at the end of the Great War. But that didn’t last long for a number of reasons: notably, the creation of the Communist Party in 1920 and the Communists’ growing control over the revolutionary syndicalist movement; but also (according to the anarchist-communists’ self-diagnosis) their own inability to hold on to new supporters because of their disorganization and theoretical paucity.

The real growth in support for the anarchist movement was in 1936-37. This was caused by the anarchists’ consistent antimilitarism (which attracted some increasingly disillusioned former Communists); their radical stance with regard to the Popular Front government (their insistence on direct action and their attempt to push the general strike towards “generalized expropriation”); but, above all, by their association with the CNT-FAI and their high profile campaign in support of the Spanish revolution and the Republican forces. The tendency within the broader movement that benefited most from this was the mainstream, anarchist-communist Anarchist Union (AU), which had, in the interests of solidarity (in public at least), muted its criticisms of the CNT’s ministerialism.

We have to see the growth in support in perspective, of course: the anarchist movement was still very small in comparison with the Socialist Party or even the Communist Party. Nevertheless, the AU had around 2,500-3,000 paid-up members in 1938, and in the same period was printing around 20,000 copies of its weekly newspaper, Le Libertaire. They printed 100,000 copies of a special issue for May Day 1937. At the same time, the anarcho-syndicalist CGTSR had around 5,000-6,000 members, and the “revolutionary individualist” French Anarchist Federation claimed to be printing 6,500 copies of its fortnightly Terre Libre.

What this enables us to conclude about the number of “anarchists” or “supporters” or “sympathizers” there were in France at that time is unclear. Jean Maitron (the first serious historian of French anarchism) suggested that it might be possible to calculate the approximate number of anarchist sympathizers or supporters (depending on how you define those terms) by analogy with the known 1:20 ratio between Socialist Party members and voters: thus adding up UA and CGTSR membership would give us around 8,000 paid-up, active members, and suggest that we might assume about 160,000 sympathizers or supporters. There are several objections that could be raised about this idea, though, and it’s basically impossible to give anything like precise figures.

You place great emphasis on the incredible impact of both the Russian and Spanish Revolutions on the French movement—an impact they had on movements the world over. Can you tell us what particular challenges these brought to anarchists in France and how they attempted to meet them?

The Russian and Spanish revolutions represented moments of doctrinal crisis for the anarchist movement. It was confronted for the first time with actual revolutions in which anarchists played a significant role. On both occasions, the anarchists were provoked into questioning their own theories and their own visions of the Revolution. Significant sections of the movement found anarchism as a revolutionary doctrine and practice severely lacking. Important aspects of anarchist doctrine and practice were questioned and rejected, or so modified that it was difficult to perceive any clear and significant distinction between anarchism and other sectors of the revolutionary socialist movement.

The much-vaunted “specificity” of anarchism became somewhat problematic: what exactly was it that distinguished the socialist varieties of anarchism from non-anarchist socialisms? In the 1920s, this aggravated existing debates about anarchist organization and tactics, and led to the debate about Platformism; in the 1930s, French anarchists were in a dilemma about how or whether to criticize Spanish comrades (over “ministerialism”) who were in a very tricky situation—and, of course, that debate about the tactical/strategic choices made in Spain in 1936-37 is still alive amongst Spanish anarchists and syndicalists. On a practical (rather than doctrinal) level, anarchists in France were faced with the growing influence of Leninism, then Stalinism, in the labor movement, and were ultimately completely marginalized, despite their best efforts.

Your book relies almost exclusively upon French-language sources. Can you recommend English-language studies of anarchism from the same time period that complement your work?

There is very little available in English on the French anarchist movement, at least not in this period. There’s Richard Sonn’s book on the anarchists around the fin de siecle. And there are some excellent studies of French syndicalism (e.g., Jeremy Jennings and Wayne Thorpe). But if someone wanted to read something complementary to my History of the French Anarchist Movement, the best thing to do would probably be to read the historical overview provided in one of the general survey books like Peter Marshall’s Demanding the Impossible.

The BBC and Indian Partition

Mon, 27 Aug 2007 12:55:01 +0000

This summer the BBC broadcast a number of programmes under the title 'India and Pakistan 07' on both television and radio to mark the sixtieth anniversary of the Partition of India on August 14th 1947, with the creation of Pakistan emerging as Indian-territory was subsequently reduced in size. There are a number of interesting issues arising from the coverage of both India and Pakistan that we would like to address in this comment. Firstly we shall focus on the BBC's coverage of Pakistan looking specifically at the presentation of the 'other' Pakistan, mostly unknown to Western viewers. Then we shall comment partly on some of the content presented on India but mostly on what was omitted from the BBC's television coverage. Therefore we would like to use this space as an opportunity to comment on an oft neglected part of the Indian story, namely the strife ridden North-Eastern region of India with its numerous rebel groups fighting an armed conflict against the Indian Government and the 'victims' of the partition in Bengal.

The two episodes on Pakistan presented by Saira Khan, called 'Pakistan Adventure', were highly revealing because Khan deliberately set out to present the 'other' Pakistan; that's the one unknown to Western viewers - the one minus the apparent ubiquitous evil fundamentalists and/or terrorists, potential or otherwise. This was a lecture; a foray into epistemology and Khan used the pulpit to press home a matter of the highest educational importance and in many ways it served equally as a stinging critique of the predicable and stereotypical representations of Pakistan in many parts of the British mainstream media, including, somewhat ironically, the BBC. Khan's presentation of Pakistan was to show a society not only deeply misunderstood but one that is also fascinating and complex.

In Britain, Pakistan is portrayed mostly as a country brimming with 'Muslim Fundamentalists' who apparently epitomise the 'clash of civilisations' dreamt up by Samuel P. Huntington who once argued that the source of the post-war conflict would not be economic or ideological difference, but rather cultural difference. Even though some thinkers have linked Huntington's views to Oswald Spengler, wrongly, well at least in its entirety, it's worth noting that the formers' sense of impending Western decline is neither primarily based on technology nor decadence but difference. Nowhere has cultural difference been more apparent than in the recurring image of the former teacher turned 'London Suicide Bomber', one Mohammed Sidique Khan whose video broadcast, from Pakistan, was featured regularly in the British media. Images that convey such cultural difference and cultural estrangement go a long way to justify supporters of Huntington's view that 'traditionalism' is the main obstacle to 'modernisation', 'reason' and 'enlightenment'.

Saira Khan deliberately set out to confute and reject this fixed image of Pakistan and amongst other matters, a key part of the two episodes showed that modernisation and progress ala Western ideals certainly exist. Artists with critical views, TV hosts (one was a male cross dresser), fashion photographers, Sufi Muslims with their transcendental mysticism and hypnotic music and almost sexually charged dancing, amongst others were shown to prove a point; to show that Pakistan is complex, progressive, modern and traditional. For neo-conservatives such complexities and paradoxes may not be convincing as they turn to Huntington who had argued that some societies were 'Torn Countries' with split cultural personalities and dysfunctional value-systems; no doubt that theory would be applied to Pakistan as it attempts to 'affiliate' to other 'civilisations', and one criteria being acceptance of new values by the people - a step too far for Huntington's lot perhaps at this moment in time. This was the importance of Khan's presentation to dispel the myths of not only the British media but also other Western media that pigeon hole Pakistan and equally to confront the bigotry of reactionary neo-cons and Huntington's warped sense of the 'other'.

Turning now to India, the BBC screened three programmes on the 'Ganges'; the British comedian Sanjeev Bhasker presented a number of programmes travelling and commenting on various parts of India, with the exception of the North East, although he did get close by visiting Kolkata (Calcutta) and Darjeeling. On Tuesday August 14th 2007 the BBC screened 'The Day India Burned: Partition', but predictably the focus was entirely on what was once 'West Pakistan' (now Pakistan proper) with hardly a mention of what was 'East Pakistan' (Bangladesh since 1971) and the political issues governing the North East at this present time. On Monday August 20th the BBC screened 'Mumbai Uncovered' (Bombay). The emphasis was an uncritical appraisal of the celebration of celebrity but more importantly of the rise of consumerism in Mumbai and by implication other parts of India. In sum, it was a celebration of India's rise as a 'global power', of 'progress' and 'modernisation'. The BBC's 'Man in India', Mark Tully, is rightly sceptical of this 'new India', condemning it in the second episode presented by Bhaskar as a imitation of the USA and losing its sense of 'Indianness' in the process.

Many people in the UK bemoan the fact that most High Streets are identikits of each other with the ubiquitous StarBucks, MacDonalds, etc., and Mumbai is quickly becoming just another clone with the usual suspects lining up to profit. Right-Wing economists gloat at the prospect of India's 'development' but we have been here before, the country is called Brazil. What 'consumerism' and 'development' really means in India and Brazil for that matter is the continuation of high levels of poverty, of a small middle class able to prosper, a political class in cahoots and/or kow-towing to the needs of Big Business and huge returns on profits for Western companies; it's all so familiar, but you would never assume this judging by the way Mumbai was presented to us by the BBC.

The BBC did present a programme on the North East titled 'Manipur's Bloody Conflict' (Thursday, August 9th) but unfortunately it only focused on the state of Manipur, therefore neglecting the other five states with similar stories, and it was 'relegated' to BBC Radio 4. The reporter Tanya Datta stated that it is a story 'rarely heard in the West', and even though it was incomplete it's a shame that it wasn't included in the partition story on television that broadcasts to a wider audience. This is important mainly because of the new image of India that is emerging in the West, which is incomplete; it's one of a new prosperity, of a new modernising India that is experiencing an economic boom. However, the economic boom doesn't reach out to the North Eastern regions and in many senses it remains a closed society; closed off mainly due to the Indian government's reluctance to allow outsiders witness what is actually occurring there, but it is not beyond the realm of possibility for the media in general to cover the entire region.

North Eastern India is largely known to the outside world as a land of rugged beauty, rich in animal life lush green river plain of the mighty Brahmaputra and a centre for tea production in Assam. For most Indians however the region is a secessionist inner land, distant in terms of hearts and mind from the rest of India. It is a puzzlement to ponder on the ideological anachronism posed by India's Northeast to the democratic ideals of Indian Nationhood. One wonders how India, nurturing a 60 years legacy of democratic ideals since the Partition, and seemingly standing at the threshold as a newly developing world power tolerates the Northeast where conflict appears to fly in the face of the democratic ideal.

The history of North East India from the mythical through recorded past to recent past is characterised by quite considerable population movements, both from west and east Asia with many entering the region as late as the 19th Century. The in-flow of people to North East India from various directions brought diverse racial and linguistic groups having distinct socio-cultural patterns and varied economic organisations. The diverse racial groups who were overwhelmingly Mongoloids settled in different localities and ecological settings of the region, which in course of time have been transformed into tribal and non-tribal entities. This has led to the conspicuous development of ethnicity in this region and in course of time it has come to play in many cases a decisive role in various political developments in Northeast India.

This cultural mosaic was made complex first as a result of the pre-independence British policy of 'importing' large numbers of administrators, plantation workers and cultivators from other parts of India. Secondly after Independence by a national government which first sought to homogenise their cultural identity under the single ambit of 'Indian Nationhood' and later by its effort to undo the wrong by granting political autonomy to every sub-national assertion.

The present situation of unrest has another vital root in the partition of India. The geographical redefinition of political boundaries gave rise to complex dynamics of conflicting loyalties between tribes and communities that were economic and political in nature. For instance, the huge exodus of refugees from Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) were already part of a society of capitalist formation when they settled in these sparsely populated and cultivable land, suddenly the pre-capitalist economic structure of this area suffered a serious setback. They also paved the way for an economic transformation that the simple economy found difficult to cope with. The situation worsened after the formation of Bangladesh when the exodus continued but this time illegally and sometimes under unofficial political patronage that saw them as 'voter-friendly' to their required needs.

The cumulative impact of these policies was a deepening of fissures between tribal and non-tribal populations, as well as a contrived and unsustainable exclusion of these regions from the processes of modernisation and democratisation. Inevitably, with the progressive and natural erosion of these artificial barriers, the local populations were brought into increasing friction with migrant populations that were far better adapted to the institutions and processes of the modern world, giving rise to a proliferation of conflicts throughout the region. The dichotomous administrative system both in the pre-and the post-Independence era, also produced wide variations between the pace of development in the hills and the plains, with the latter dominating the economic profile of the region, and the tribal areas lagging far behind. It is the wide swathe of the Brahmaputra Valley - comprising nearly 22 per cent of the region - that has long been the most economically active, with substantial plantation and industrial estates and reasonable infrastructure.

To highlight the complexity of the situation, the Indian Strategic Review, the weekly journal of the Institute for Strategic Research and Analysis, provides information on the many insurgent groups currently active in Northeastern India:

" The Assam United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) banned since November 1990.

" The Assam Tigers Force (ATF), which the police claim is another front for ULFA.

" The National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), formerly Bodo Security Force (BSF) banned since 1992.

" The National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), Karbi National Volunteer (KNV), Rabha National Security Force (RNSF), Bodo Liberation Tigers (BLT), Dima Halam Daoga (DHD), United People's Democratic Solidarity (UPDS), Muslim United Liberation Tigers Association (MULTA). All are active in Assam.

" The Bengali Tigers Force (BTF) who apparently exist to protect Bengali Hindus.

" The Meghalaya Achik National Volunteers Council (ANVC) and the Hynniewtrep Achik Liberation Council (HALC). Both have been banned since December 2000.

" The Tripura National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT), the All Tripura Tigers Force (ATTF), and the Mizoram Hmar People's Convention (HPC) who operate out of Arunachal Pradesh; a safe heaven for Assam and Naga militants where they have their training camps and protected hide outs.

" Nagaland National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN I-M) is banned but declared a truce with the government in 1997. However, the cease-fire does not extend to Manipur, Assam and, Arunachal Pradesh.

" The National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Khaplang) is banned, as is their archrival, NSCN (I-M).

" The state of Manipur has 12 frontline militant groups. The top six of them are the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (I-M), People's Liberation Army (PLA), People's Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak, United National Liberation Front (UNLF), Kuki National Front (KNF) and the Hmar People's Convention (HPC).

The three major issues of conflict that mar this region are firstly identity assertions of sub-national movements that resort to violence, secondly ethnic conflict that arises out of policy interventions of both the central and state governments plus the large scale internal displacement of people who are rendered homeless through a loss of livelihood. The region has borne witness to large-scale ethnic violence and insurgency (see Tables 1 & 2). The first table demonstrates the different ethnic groups which have clashed creating a large pool of displaced population and the second estimates the fatalities in insurgency and armed conflict in North Eastern India.

Table 1: Number of internally displaced persons in North East India

State	Number Displaced	Maximum displaced	Displaced Groups	Participants to conflict
Assam	87000	250000	Santhal/Nepali	Bodo/Non Bodo
Assam	3500	60000	Bengali	Bodo/NonBodo
Manipur	NA	40000	Kuki	Naga/Kuki
Manipur	NA	15700	Paites	Kuki/Paites
Manipur/ Nagaland	20000	95000	Naga	Naga/Kuki
Tripura	39000	39000	Reangs	Mizo/reangs
Tripura	25000	200000	Bengali	Tribal/Bengali
Arunachal Pradesh	3000	3000	chakma	Tribals/ Chakma

Table 2 Fatalities in India's Northeast, 1992-2001

		Assam	Manipur	Meghalaya	Mizoram	Nagaland	Tripura	Arunachal Pradesh	TOTAL
1992	C	80	84	0	0	34	59	0	257	492
	SF	34	30	0	0	33	18	0	115
	M	19	51	0	0	29	21	0	120
1993	C	74	266	0	0	62	148	1	551	913
	SF	24	91	0	0	43	28	2	188
	M	33	66	0	0	68	7	0	174
1994	C	173	189	4	0	110	206	3	685	1058
	SF	35	98	0	0	26	22	0	181
	M	63	63	0	0	56	10	0	192
1995	C	170	183	7	0	80	178	3	621	1071
	SF	73	64	0	0	25	34	0	196
	M	27	74	0	0	108	45	0	254
1996	C	302	117	3	0	144	140	4	710	1235
	SF	87	65	4	4	48	31	1	240
	M	62	93	0	0	112	18	0	285
1997	C	285	233	3	0	104	205	9	839	1680
	SF	85	111	0	0	38	50	1	285
	M	167	151	1	0	218	19	0	556
1998	C	531	87	5	0	26	214	2	865	1431
	SF	72	62	14	0	14	25	2	189
	M	180	95	1	0	72	26	3	377
1999	C	214	89	5	2	26	240	2	578	1216
	SF	77	64	17	5	4	41	0	208
	M	212	78	0	0	118	22	0	430
2000	C	366	93	12	4	13	453	7	907	1701
	SF	65	51	7	4	4	16	3	162
	M	327	102	17	1	84	45	24	585
2001	C	264	70	24	0	25	239	40	662	1380
	SF	59	25	8	0	2	31	12	137
	M	283	161	8	0	76	42	11	581
Total	C	2459	1411	63	6	624	2082	72	6717	12181
	SF	611	661	50	16	237	297	21	1892
	M	1373	934	27	1	941	255	41	3572
CT State Wise		4443	3006	140	23	1802	2633	134	12181

(Cumulative Total (All Categories) M: Militants; SF: Security Force Personnel; C: Civilians. Both Table Sources (Estimates made by USCR of what it calls the 'hidden displacement' in NEI. Reproduced from USCR, 2000, with permission of the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, 1997).

Looking at the pattern of conflict in the region, which has been in the grip of separatist insurgencies since the partition and independence of India and throughout New India's experiences of state formation and nation building we can broadly categorise the following trends of conflict in this region. Movements for freedom from the Indian nation-state; movements for full-fledged states within the Indian Union; movements for autonomy within the Indian states; movements for reservation or special protection within the autonomous structures; strife between tribal population/groups for control over land or territorial supremacy and movement against 'outsiders', foreign nationals, Bangladesh immigrants and others from the Indian hindi-speaking mainland.

Whilst Western mainstream media produce representations of a new developing and modernising India, the uncomfortable reality is that the Northeast is a region of continual armed conflict and how that fits into the new image of India is certainly open to interpretations and perhaps interesting observations!

BBC Links

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/uk/05/london_blasts/investigation/html/bombers.stm#

http://www.bbc.co.uk:80/indiapakistan/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/crossing_continents/6930091.stm

John Theobald and the Media

Alex Doherty — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 18:41:39 +0000

Exclusive to ukwatch.net, an interview with David Berry of Fifth Estate Online on his late colleague John Theobald, one of the leading exponents of radical mass-media criticism.

What do you think John’s major contribution to radical mass media criticism (RMMC) was?

John’s major contribution towards understanding and formulating RMMC was fourfold: Firstly, his recognition of the contribution by the Austrian satirist Karl Kraus towards RMMC. John had noted that most academic writing concerning media criticism began with historical accounts of the Frankfurt School. Frederic Jameson had also noted that Kraus had been ‘shamelessly ignored’ from academic accounts concerning media criticism and John’s legacy is to alert us to that point.

Secondly, John was the first person, as far as I am aware, to begin to think in terms of developing an account of the ‘intellectual tradition’ of RMMC that can be traced back to the turn of the twentieth century to the present and this is what we both termed a ‘cultural genealogy’. I think we were in the third year of developing Radical Mass Media Criticism: A Cultural Genealogy when John decided to write, by email I believe, to Robert McChesney about our project. A year later McChesney with Ben Scott produced a book 2004 Our Unfree Press: 100 Years of Radical Media Criticism. John, and I for that matter, were greatly pleased that we had inspired the production of that book, which provides RMMC with a greater understanding of the contributions by American writers. You also have to remember that John was way ahead of the field, after all he had written ‘Radical mass media criticism: elements of a history from Kraus to Bourdieu’ (from Berry, 2000 Ethics and Media Culture: Practices and Representations) way before anyone else even contemplated such an account of RMMC.

Thirdly, John’s work The Media and the Making of History (2004) is the first works to begin to link the intellectual tradition of RMMC in any profound way. John would be the first to admit that it isn’t complete but it is the first attempt to unite a critical tradition regardless of nationality and it’s extremely thought provoking in the sense that it argues that the media is extremely powerful in the way it manages to shape events into historical fact and it’s broadly in this context that John was interested in critics who sought to challenge mainstream media hegemony in that context. Fourthly, was John’s contribution to the setting up of Fifth Estate Online, which I comment on more below.

What did John consider to be so valuable in Karl Kraus’s work?

John had a wonderful sense of humour and I think what attracted him to Kraus was the fact that he wrote in a very humorous and extremely clever way. Kraus was also a university dropout who was self-taught and I think that John found this very endearing and appealing. In this context I remember informing John that Frank Zappa, who I greatly admire once said that ‘If you want to get laid go to university; if you want to learn something go to a library’. For John, Kraus was very much in that radical mould, always attempting to subvert the established conventions of society. John was fluent in German (and French) so he was able to familiarise himself profoundly with the work of Kraus. I think he found a kindred spirit in Kraus who was capable of using language to articulate a critique of journalism in a most extraordinary fashion. Kraus was exceptional in the sense that he was one of the first writers to put his head above the parapet and critique mainstream journalists for their ingratiating nature towards the existing system in which they operated and also scathing of the abuse of language they invariably used to convey a self-interested discourse. As far as Kraus was concerned for many journalists the ‘public’ were merely viewed as a mass to which they would feed contaminated information, which in turn fed their own deluded self-interest. Moreover, for John there was a subtle, perhaps more profound difference between the way Kraus perceived how the power of language could seduce its audience as opposed to the Frankfurt School’s. To highlight this point allow me to quote a passage from ‘Radical mass media criticism: elements of a history from Kraus to Bourdieu’:

‘We are not, it should be added, dealing with an early advocate of the “hypodermic syringe” theory of media effects, wherein it is assumed that the media can inject a passive public mind with attitudes or ideas; rather, we are looking at a more stealthy process of gradual confusion and erosion of faculties by the press’s substitution of the pure water of information with the seductive perfume of the cliché. Once the cliché, or resonant phrase takes over, argued Kraus, then a gap has opened up between language and the communication of unadulterated news; the link between the event and its understanding by the public has been broken. Once this has happened, the lie or the distortion can be presented and accepted as truth, a whole structure of misinformation can be presented and believed, comment, propaganda and titillation can be subtly mixed with fact, values and priorities can be surreptitiously intermingled with description such that, over a period, readers’ perceptions are able to be moulded, their views of the past, present and future shaped, through the linguistic hegemony of those maintaining control of the dominant medium. Kraus is clearly not positing here an a priori passive audience, he is asking us to observe the long-term, continuous process of distraction and “passivication” of an audience which could otherwise be active.’

In the closing chapter of Radical Mass Media Criticism: A Cultural Genealogy’ John begins by quoting Edward Said: ‘There’s only one way to anchor oneself, and that is by affiliation with a cause, with a political movement. There has to be identification … with matters involving justice, principle, truth, conviction.’

What causes did John consider himself affiliated to? What were his broader political values?

John was involved with European Nuclear Disarmament (END) and was vehemently against the existence of nuclear weapons. During a discussion on Iran’s nuclear programme a colleague of ours stated that the USA was right to fear the ‘imminent’ Iranian capability, whilst John reminded him that the only country to ever use nuclear weapons was the USA on Japan in 1945. John was broadly speaking a Socialist, although surprisingly perhaps, John had never read a great amount of Marx, which was a great shame because there is no doubt that he would have related to Marx’s ideas, particularly on ‘alienation’. In that sense I would say that he was a ‘humanist’ in the Marxist use of the term. He admired Gandhi and Mandela for fighting against oppressive forces but there wasn’t a ‘political philosophy’ so to speak, but there’s no doubt that in conversations I had with John, he had a ‘sense’ of justice and equality that equated with Socialist thought.

What did John think a good media would be like, in terms of both its structure and its focus?

For John, a ‘good media’ in the context of an unequal system such as we have today would be one that confronts power and challenges the position of the establishment. In his view it had failed miserably. Ultimately the media would need wresting from commercial structures, be genuinely diverse and serve a plurality of interests on an equal playing field. Monopoly would therefore be something outlawed and quite rightly so.

John was co-founder of Fifth Estate Online, what were his (and your) intentions when setting it up? What were his hopes for it?

John’s baby was the book that we both co-edited and he had been cultivating this idea for sometime. When we met we immediately knew we had shared interests so we put it into production. You know the book took six years to produce which is astounding because it’s neither empirically based nor a single-authored text. The real reason for the delay was the word ‘Radical’! We took this book to Pluto Press which seemed to us the obvious choice given its publication record. One year later, denied. Then we took it to Sage Publications who said they would consider publication only if we removed the word ‘Radical’ and replaced it with the word ‘Critical’. Their reason for this was due to the event of Tuesday, September 11th, that’s not Tuesday September 11th 1973 when the American backed Pinochet forces overthrew the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende in Chile, but the destruction of the twin towers in New York 2001. They argued that the word ‘Radical’ was, well too radical and it may affect market sales. I remember we took it to Zed Books and others before finally Black Rose Books in Montreal, Canada agreed to publish it with great enthusiasm and support I may add. When it finally was published I then proposed to John that we produce a hard copy journal based on Radical Mass Media Criticism before finally suggesting an e-journal, which is Fifth Estate Online. The site was designed and is maintained by my good friend and colleague Mel Bray (webmaster). We both knew that this was a very productive way of continuing the work of RMMC. And this is its purpose.

What kind of a man was John? What was he like to work with?

John was a very kind and gentle man. He was in every sense of the word a ‘good’ man. He adored his family and valued friendship. Strangely our working relationship worked well, I say that because in many ways, and I speak of personalities here, we were complete opposites, but it seemed to benefit rather than hinder. Of course it’s not that often when you can work with someone and see eye-to-eye on most political matters and that’s one of the reasons that I will miss him so much because John was very much my kindred spirit.

'Dear Mr Bush...'

eddie — Mon, 06 Mar 2006 15:30:59 +0000

Niall Ferguson, author of Empire: How Britain Made The Modern World, currently Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University is also a columnist for the new look, revamped Sunday Telegraph, the bastion of the British Conservative establishment. Another of the establishment newspapers, The Times, once described Ferguson as: ‘The most brilliant British historian of his generation’. What will the conservative pundits in the UK and the neo-conservatives in the US say of his journalism I wonder?

For instance, following in the footsteps of the New York Times (see Reg Lee’s ‘“The U.S. Media and Latin American Revolutionary Activity”:http://www.fifth-estate-online.co.uk/comment/usmedia.html’), Ferguson issued a warning to George W. Bush about the revolutionary activity currently underway in Latin America. As revealed in the New York Times the US establishment have for sometime been alarmed by the neglect of the Bush government of what is often referred to as the ‘US backyard’. Ferguson, who is a part of the British establishment with useful US contacts no doubt has decided to join in the chorus for action against the turn to Socialism in Latin America.

Under the headline: ‘Meanwhile have you seen what’s been happening in the Bush’s backyard?’ (Sunday Telegraph February 12th 2006) Ferguson compiled what at times is quite evidently a British tabloid rant against the changes currently underway in Latin America. Added to the heading is the sub-title: ‘While the White House and the world focus on the Middle East, much of South America is turning against the US’.

Ferguson also claims that whilst the world’s headlines have focused recently on the Danish cartoons and their impact on the Islamic-Western relations ‘a region much closer to home has been quietly spinning out of American control’. It’s an interesting use of the word ‘home’ used within the context of a British Sunday newspaper but with clear reference to the US and Latin America. As far as Ferguson is concerned Denmark may well be geographically closer to the UK, but ideologically and politically it is the US that Ferguson perceives as the spiritual ‘home’.

In the true spirit of tabloid subtlety he refers to the legitimately elected President of Bolivia as ‘coca-chewing populist Evo Morales’. Ollanta Humala of Peru is a ‘militant’ and Andrés Manuel López Obrador is ‘staunchly anti-gringo’. As the Glasgow Media Group’s research on the British media’s approach to employment disputes revealed, trade unionists were often referred to as ‘militants’, whilst the management were positively ‘moderate’ and ‘reasonable’. Ferguson’s smear tactic is an old tried and tested formula to discredit alternative political theories to established norms, but clearly it’s also an overt attempt to join the propaganda chorus currently urging the leaders of the West to take action on what is happening ‘closer to home’.

At the time of writing, perhaps Ferguson was unaware of the recent media developments that have taken place throughout parts of the region. For instance the Venezuelan based pan-American Telesur news channel was launched with the financial backing of Argentina, Venezuela and Cuba and this is a clear indication that alternative perspectives towards society and development are not simply a flash in the pan. Of course the development of Telesur signifies not only opposition to US political and economic dominance but also it signifies a new struggle of ideas. A new historical moment is certainly developing in the dialectic.

Writers such as Ferguson will detest this latest attempt to entrench Socialism and produce an alternative viewpoint to Fox News, CNN etc., and in many ways this development of a pan-American TV channel is a manifestation of the debate concerning who controls not only the means of communication but also the means of production. This is alluded to by Ferguson who alerts us to the threat posed to the basic tenets of Liberal theory in the ‘US Backyard’ where he states that:

‘you don’t need to go all the way to the Middle East – where Palestinians have just voted overwhelmingly for the zealots of Hamas – to find evidence that democracy doesn’t always produce liberal governments. Sometimes it can produce governments that explicitly promise to violate property and political rights’.

Earlier in his article he states that Latin American governments are out to ‘repudiate existing contracts’ or to put it another way, perhaps Latin American governments want only to rethink the process of exploitation by Western companies with the explicit support of their respective governments.

Ferguson has every reason to be concerned because his defence of ‘private property’ and all that entails is increasingly under threat. For Ferguson the large scale ownership of property is a ‘political right’, but in Latin America it has created a huge gulf between rich and poor – large profits for companies who have this ‘right’ pitted against inhumane levels of poverty.

In Bolivia, which is the poorest country in the region, this has led the Morales government to renegotiate prices with big business to alleviate the hardship that the poor have to endure on a daily basis. If talks fail, there is the possibility that land redistribution and nationalisation will be the only option for the Bolivian government.

Take the issue concerning the privatisation of water that started in 1997, increasing prices in the process in a society where seventy per cent of the population live beneath the poverty line. The American company Bechtel was previously responsible for the Cochabamba region and the French company Suez, which partly owns Aguas del Illimani, is responsible for La Paz and the El Alto region. As Jim Shultz has already stated the ‘World Bank made privatisation of water a condition of a loan to the Bolivian government’ (See ‘The Second Water War in Bolivia’ at ZNet). Suez has already initiated legal action against the Bolivian government (See www.funsolon.civiblog.org) for wanting a renegotiation of water charges with a view to producing affordable prices, so that the poor can access clean water rather than having to capture rainwater in the crevices of tin sheeting to survive!

So Mr Ferguson, is it any wonder change is underway in a region where liberal and neo-liberal policies has failed miserably to rid people of the poverty they currently have to endure in order to satisfy profits of foreign companies who seek to exploit Latin Americans?