Lighthouse MT 2016 by Oxford International Relations Society

This was printed by Anchorprint Group Ltd on 120gsm UPM fine. All of the pieces included in the journal were written by University of Oxford students and edited by student editors. The artwok included are a mixture of student, faculty and public domain art. Lighthouse accepts pitches for submissions at the beginning of every term between 0th and 2nd weeks. We recruit our editorial team near the end of every term, with applications for positions due at the end of 7th week. The best way to stay up to date with the publications is to subscribe to our mailing list via our website oxirsoc.com, or to like us on Facebook: facebook.com/irsoc.

Lighthouse

the

Oxford International Relations Society Journal The Lighthouse (formerly Sir) Michaelmas 2016, Issue 13 oxirsoc.com facebook.com/irsoc editor-in-chief@oxirsoc.org

Sponsored by:

C O N T E N T S the tea leaf changed history 6 How Meera Sachdeva in China: How the characters on propaganda posters created the Chinese People 8 Made William Gardner to understand North Korea as a Westerner 11 Attempting Edward Howell a voice through photography: My Stealthy Freedom in Iran 14 Finding Rebecca Vitenzon be stuck in the past: Bulgaria's communist monuments 17 ToMartin Vasev on the front lines: The tale of a Ukrainian-American soldier 20 Identity Anna Seccombe Civil war and peace politics in Colombia 23 Unforgivable? Sasha Skovron Champs Élysées: Tolerance, terrorism, and Enlightenment France 26 Aux Elliot Grogan populism, and democracy across borders: An interview with Brian Klaas 29 People, Katherine Pye A lens on humanity 32 Portraiture: Mazelle Etessami

38 40 43 46 49 51

SYMPOSIUM: THE ARTS & IR

Reconstituting abstract expressionism in the Cold War Jeffrey Ding Concerts not conferences: The role of jazz diplomacy in the Cold War Ella Hill Poetry and politics in Russia Marianna Hunt Skopje 2014: Statue and nation building in The Republic of Macedonia Joanna Nayler International harmony: How music conducts the diplomatic stage Jasmin Yang-Spooner The power of crayons: Children’s art, war, and politics Fergus Peace

FOREWORD

elcome to The Lighthouse, Oxford International Relations Society’s bright and rebranded journal. We really enjoyed putting the journal together and we hope that you find it engaging, informative, and perhaps even challenging.

Right from the start, we both knew that we wanted this issue to consider the place and importance of culture in International Relations, something that both of us have long been interested in and we feel gives important insight into how international politics is both affected by and influences artistic output and cultural attitudes . We hope this issue highlights how culture, kept reassuringly undefined, can inspire and influence the general public as well as international figureheads. The title of this issue is People, and we hope that this goes some way to encompassing the range of pieces. The articles consider how people, our culture, our traditions, our art and our behaviour affect international politics. This issue of Lighthouse places the human aspects of global relations at its heart. From tea politics in Asia to a historical perspective on tolerance in France, we have covered ideas of how people and their cultural output in all corners of the world influence our perspectives and the ways in which we ourselves and our governments interact. Our symposium focuses in on the theme of The Arts and IR. Art and creative expression have long been used as key levers of state power and mediums of political projection, as explored in “Reconstituting abstract expressionism in the Cold War,” “American jazz diplomacy in the Cold War,” and “Skopje 2014,” while global diplomatic relations are explored in “International harmony: How music conducts the diplomatic stage.” Finally, “The power of crayons: Children’s art, war, and politics” draws on art as a means of communicating the more personal, emotional, and intimate aspects of International Relations, tying into our focus throughout the magazine, people.

EDITORIAL TEAM Editors

Sophie Dowle Oliver Ramsay Gray Editor-in-Chief

Haley Lemieux Deputy Editor

Ella Hill

Sub Editors

Katherine Pye Lucy Valsamidis Laura Whetherly

We hope you enjoy reading The Lighthouse. Sophie Dowle & Oliver Ramsay Gray Michaelmas 2016

Graphic Designer

Adam Zibak 5

How the tea leaf changed history

BY Meera Sachdeva

to Britain. While tea was originally reserved for the elite, it soon made its way into London coffeehouses where it was described as the “China drink.” Whilst their population back home was falling in love with tea, the British Empire was looking to expand its stronghold in Asia. They soon realized that China – which had been producing and drinking tea for centuries – was a key marketplace for the procurement of the tea leaf, as well as other prized goods. The British approached China for the first time in 1793 but were refused a trade agreement by the Qing Emperor. Following a number of diplomatic missions, the Chinese eventually yielded to the persistence of the British in the early 19th century. This was the first time China had opened itself up to the West, breaking with its practice of trading solely with its neighbours. In return for tea and other goods, Britain gave China opium – a drug they were growing plenty of in India. While the trade proved immensely profitable for the British and satiated

ou might wonder what the link is between the Opium Wars, the American Revolution, and women’s suffrage, and you would be forgiven for not realizing that the link is in fact the tea leaf. From the Indian train station, to the Buddhist ashram, to the British teahouse, tea has been uniting people across continents for centuries. The drink is itself an amalgamation of places: tea leaves are believed to have been discovered in China; teabags were invented by an American; varieties of tea are often named after the region of their origin (think: Assam or Darjeeling); and milk was first added to tea by the Dutch. In India, chai wallahs crowd train platforms, greeting tired travellers with hot cups of tea. In China, a girl accepts tea from her partner’s family to confirm an engagement. Buddhist monks drink tea to stay awake during meditations. Meanwhile, in Britain, as in many other places across the globe, an invitation for a cup of tea can start a friendship. In Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin’s book Three Cups of Tea, a village chief in Baltistan, Pakistan comments, “Here we drink three cups of tea…the first you are a stranger, the second you become a friend, and the third, you join our family.” Apart from being a key part of cultures all around the world, tea has also changed the course of history in more ways than one. It was the British love for tea that precipitated the First Opium War in 1839, taxes on tea that sparked the American Revolution in 1773, and the creation of teahouses that contributed to the success of women’s suffrage in Great Britain. The Opium Wars began centuries before the first shot was fired. When Britain’s Charles II married Princess Catherine of Braganza of Portugal in 1662, she brought a love of tea with her

Opium ships at Lintin, China by William Huggins 1824

their desire for tea, the Chinese soon realized they were facing a problem of mass intoxication. With so much opium coming in, it didn’t take very long for vast swathes of the Chinese popula-

tion to become addicted to the drug. Productivity plummeted, and the fact that opium was smoked in groups caused the rulers to fear a threat to their authority. In response to this, they banned the drug altogether, seizing and burning thousands of chests of opium in a few days in June 1839. Britain was angered by China’s attempt to close this lucrative market, and tensions between the two countries escalated. In an effort to maintain their profits and to preserve their primary source of tea, Britain waged the First Opium War with China between 1839-42. A swift British victory led to the ceding of Hong Kong – which Britain would not give up until 1997 – and a significant increase in British trade and influence in China. Having been defeated by a foreign power, the Chinese people saw their rulers as having lost the “mandate of heaven” – a key part of the Qing Dynasty’s claim to authority. This inability to protect the country contributed to the downfall of the dynasty in 1911 and the rise of the Communist Party soon after. In its own way, the British love for tea (and their desire for a monopoly over its trade) had a small yet instrumental role in paving the way for Communism in China. However, China is not the only power that has had its history changed by tea. The history of America was also greatly influenced by the humble tea leaf. The British East India Company started exporting tea directly to America, which was still a British colony, in the early 18th century. However, desperately needing to make profits, they decided that the tea would carry a tax, which many Americans objected to on the grounds that they were being taxed by a government that did not represent them. Outraged by the tax and by the Company’s tight monopoly on the distribution of tea, the Americans decided to stage a protest. When the Company’s ships reached American shores in 1773, the townspeople stormed the ships, grabbed chestfulls of tea and overturned them into the sea, resulting in what is today known as the Boston Tea Party. This encounter was the culmination of American resistance to British rule; the inci-

dent sparked the chain of events that lead to the American Revolution, which allowed America to gain independence from the British in 1783. While tea changed the course of history for Britain’s empire, it also altered history for Britain’s women. Tea, or more specifically teahouses, held a special role in the women’s suffrage movement. In the 19th century, there were few places outside the home where middle-class women were allowed to go freely, without any social censure. Coffeehouses and pubs were seen as men’s domain and were socially barred to respectable women. The creation of teahouses however provided a space where women could gather and exchange views openly. Many teahouses were designed specifically for women, had public restrooms for women, and employed female staff. Having found a place where a woman’s presence was not seen as a sexual invitation, suffragettes started using teahouses to hold meetings and organize activities. Teahouses became places of protest where women sometimes distributed leaflets and made speeches, as they did in 1913 to protest the government’s treatment of suffragette prisoners. It was in another tearoom that the Suffragettes planned the famous window smashing campaign of 1910 to protest Parliament’s disregard for the Conciliation Bill, which would have extended the vote to women. Teahouses provided the elements that are the key to the mobilisation of any protest movement: the ability to congregate and to organize. Again and again throughout history, tea has been the catalyst for seismic change. Perhaps, given the magnitude of the historical events in which tea has played a part, that oft used Anglicism “a storm in a teacup” might be seen in a new light altogether.

Made in China

How the characters on propaganda posters created the Chinese People BY William Gardner

“There is no such thing as the Han people: it is a combination of many minor ethnic groups.” Gu Jiegang’s 1932 analysis is unequivocal. It was based on more than 2,400 years of Chinese tradition dividing the population into fifty-five peoples. Yet when the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rose to power in 1949, it saw a future of unity. The CCP used propaganda posters to construct the idea of a Chinese people. Poster 1, from 1954, reads, “Chairman Mao gives us a happy life.” As in English, the rhetorical effect of the inclusive ‘us’ is powerful. Yet the use of ‘us’ to address the whole of China was especially important. ‘Us’ was no longer exclusively used to refer to one’s townspeople. ‘We’ came to mean the united people of a new China. Here, a mother, father, daughter, son, and baby are all presided over by Chairman Mao. Mao’s portrait hangs above an empty seat next to the father, who gestures to the Chairman. A full spectrum of colours is united, an image of a dove represents peace, and the food is plentiful – the family is wealthy. ‘We’ are all a part of this ‘happy life.’ The turbulent years of revolution from 1911 to 1949 fractured the family unit so

Poster 1

important to Chinese culture. Progressive younger generations clashed with their conservative parents and grandparents. Before a united Chinese people could be created, these basic building blocks had to be repaired. Yet the CCP had to conceptually unify the country as well as the family. Poster 2, from 1957, reads, “Long live the great unity of all the peoples of the whole nation.” The characters for ‘whole’ and ‘every’ are both used, when the same meaning could be expressed using only one of them. The women on the poster represent the fifty-five peoples of China. The many-coloured clothes, flags and balloons reiterate their differences. Yet they are brought together in Tiananmen Square, the emblematic heart of the nation, by being Han. That these messages of unity could be read and understood is another demonstration of the homogenisation of the Chinese people. In 1949, education was restricted to the

By giving the Chinese people the same tool of expression, the CCP still ensure that the culture they express must also be the same. Poster 2

Poster 4, from 1990, shows another individual personified as the sun. But this time it is not Mao, but Lei Feng. Lei was the poster boy soldier of the People’s Liberation Army. He studied the writings of Mao, devoted his energies to revolution, and ultimately gave his life in service, dying at an untimely 21. His story, however apocryphal, emphasised a loyalty to the Par-

wealthy. Today, 97 percent of China is literate in Putonghua, the ‘common language’ based on the Beijing dialect. By giving the Chinese people the same tool of expression, the CCP still ensures that the culture they express must also be the same. In 2000, then-Premier Jiang Zemin said that Putonghua was key to state sovereignty and socialist progress. Laws state that only Putonghua may be spoken in classrooms and newsrooms. Insofar as Putonghua represents the unification of the people, any expression in it is a display of national unity. Poster 3, from 1965, represents a third stage in the process of unification, the moulding of the culture of the Chinese people around Maoist ideology during the Cultural Revolution. In 1957, Han culture was represented through differences. Now, however, people from all walks of life are all a part of Party culture, wearing uniforms and sharing the same stage. The three branches of the military, work teams, children, and even politicians are unified in red, the colour of Maoism. Sun-like, Mao himself illuminates the scene. The text reads “The East is Red,” the name of one of China’s most famous folk songs, tying the new Chinese people to the idea of historical unity. The song was itself only written under Mao, however. The folk tradition of unity was the invention of the CCP.

Poster 3

ang and Inner Mongolia, natives are referred to as “foreigners,” second-class citizens, by Han Chinese. Individuality and self-expression are censored in the press and on the internet to prevent the formulation of self and group identities outside of the Party. The unification campaign was so successful that during the Cultural Revolution celebrated state historian Fan Wenlan, using the same literature as Gu Jiegang, came to the opposite conclusion, stressing “the centrality and superiority of the Han people in Chinese history.” It is only in Western academia that this stance has been contested. The Maoist version of history remains popular in China today. Fan’s book is categorised as an “academic authority” by reviewers on the Chinese internet. The people still believe in, and identify with, the superiority of the Han people – despite there being “no such thing.” Poster 4

ty different from Mao’s. Mao was deified and intangible. Lei was recognisable and relatable; an everyman’s hero. Countless posters like this were printed in the ‘Study Lei Feng’ campaign. In schools, teachers used Putonghua to teach children how to be loyal, like Lei Feng. In work units, Putonghua radio broadcasts inspired the workers with stories of Lei Feng’s self-sacrifice. The text reads, “Study Lei Feng, Serve The People Wholeheartedly.” The same character ( quán) used in Poster Two for ‘whole nation’ is used for ‘wholeheartedly.’ The individual was redefined as the servant of the party; the peoples of China became not only a homogenous group, but also a single obedient soldier. Even today, the construct of the homogenous Han people remains central to Chinese culture and politics. In the ethnically and culturally distinct autonomous regions of Xinji-

Attempting to understand North Korea as a Westerner BY Edward Howell

pertinent to the study of North Korea. Whilst the decline of North Korean Studies has been posited, a greater appreciation of culture may serve to dampen such negative spirits. The study of North Korea has become academically marginalised within the field of area studies and political geography. North Korea has been viewed as an ‘outlier’ state, a haphazard, irrational, and volatile regime. Such assertions have not been free from their fair share of criticism, but how can we bring our analyses of North Korea into a more prominent (and less marginal) domain in the international sphere? One means is through understanding the importance of, rather than overlooking, culture and language. Rodong Sinmun – the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Korean Workers’ Party of the DPRK – is, indeed, translated into English. Nevertheless, it must be emphasised that with no understanding of Korean as a language and culture, words on a page – even in one’s native English – remain merely that and little else. Debates on the associations between lan-

orth Korea: a land bestowed with the titles of ‘the darkest place on Earth,’ ‘the hermit kingdom,’ the last true totalitarian state. Latest events have not only exacerbated the intense threat that the country poses to its neighbour south of the 38th parallel, but also to the world. Can an Anglophone academic at a university in the West really analyse the intricacies of the mindset and culture of the North Korean citizen in the face of the Kim regime? Can they analyse the extent to which the defection of a North Korean diplomat to the South was a spontaneous strategy or a clear plan at the culmination of his tenure as Deputy Ambassador? Such questions often form the backbone of curiosity about the state, yet is the Anglophone academic – with little to no cultural or linguistic understanding of ‘Korea,’ let alone North Korea – going to offer the best response? Questions like these justify the call for greater attention to be devoted to the relationship between the language and culture of the area under study, and this is especially

guage, culture, and studying North Korea are not new, and have been frequently discussed within North Korean studies. A claim posited on NK News, an independent and informative online journal about North Korea, has been that a Korean janitor, cleaning after a conference on the DPRK, may be better positioned to comment on the intricacies of the DPRK than a Westerner. Hyperbolic, yes, but this argument does bear some fruit. Indeed, it reinforces the increasingly overlooked domain of understanding the Korean language and the merits this brings to research on the Korean Peninsula. Translation errors are not uncommon, and direct translation from Korean to English is not always feasible. Moreover, if one has never set foot in Korea – North or South – to truly experience the uniqueness of the culture, to experience the Korean people, their ideologies, beliefs, and values, understanding a complex phenomenon such as North Korea, is increasingly arduous. Language and culture offer a means of addressing area studies by inverting the gaze from the West, to the non-Western ‘area.’ By looking at North Korea from below, the wider context, framed by culture and language, of individuals in the state can be seen more accurately. Moreover, the hidden meaning behind words such as juche – deemed to be the ideological underpinning of the North Korean citizen – (often mistakenly translated as ‘self-reliance’) can only emerge with knowledge of (North) Korean culture, and language. Testimonials from North Koreans, whether victims of crimes against humanity in the DPRK or defectors, not only offer a useful, direct insight in the global plight towards accountability for human rights abuses, but also offer insight on a much smaller scale, in understanding what it means to be a North Korean. Nevertheless, to better gauge such experiences, where better to start than with some understanding of Korean language, culture, ideology, and values. These firsthand accounts take on a truly enriched meaning with improved cultural and linguistic awareness, offering a springboard to a wealth of related questions, ranging from whether North Korea should be viewed as a ‘country’ or ‘region,’ or whether juche actually has any implications on everyday lives in the hermit kingdom.

North Korea – and the Korean Peninsula – is situated at the vanguard of the global stage: who can forget the provocations by the North in April 2013, as the CNN reporter asserted that Seoul “could become the next Ground Zero?” As the bellicose rhetoric reaches unprecedented heights in the hermit state, as defections become evermore prevalent, as North Korea’s hidden ‘information revolution’ takes hold, whereby access to information from the ‘outside world’ is not as arduous as it once was, with the ‘black box’ of North Korean control on information slowly eroding, these are all signs calling for increasing awareness, focus, and scholarship on this state, which understanding language and culture will significantly enhance. May the decline of North Korean studies only serve to be a claim, not a truth.

Finding a voice through photography:

My Stealthy Freedom in Iran BY Rebecca Vitenzon

time a photograph is posted. Many of the photographs posted to these pages are taken in secluded areas such as forests and fields. More recently, however, the number of photographs taken in urban centres has increased. In a political climate in which noncompliance with the dress code can result in imprisonment and harassment by the Morality Police, such photographs are an act of true courage. Considering the constant publicity given to arrests by the Morality Police, which are ostensibly enacted to maintain moral order in Iran, many of the photographs taken in busy areas of the city show an image of Iran that contrasts to the message promoted by the regime. Iranian State propaganda leads women to believe that there is a general cultural consensus that women must wear the hijab. However, in the background of these photographs, men can be seen reacting either indifferently or positively to women bearing their heads. In fact, according to a 2015 poll conducted by IPOS, a private research company, 42% of Iranians believe that the hijab should be voluntary, 15% of Iranians believe that women should wear the hijab only because it’s the

ince 1983, the law in Iran has forbidden women from going out in public without a headscarf, a policy seen by many in the country as a means of safeguarding against westernisation. Today, the women of Iran are fighting back against this restriction through a popular photography and social media movement called ‘My Stealthy Freedom.’ Run by Iranian journalist Masih Alinejad, this campaign compiles photos that women have taken of themselves without hijab and uploaded to social media in an effort to subvert the oppression of women that is enacted by the regime. The public nature of the ‘My Stealthy Freedom’ Facebook page gives the individuals who send in their photographs a space in which to protest, and a means through which they may amplify their otherwise muted voices. Begun on 3rd May 2014, the movement garnered over 140,000 ‘likes’ on Facebook within a week, demonstrating the mass appeal of such a public protest space. As of 25th October 2016, the movement’s Facebook page has over a million followers as well as its own website and Instagram account, which receive thousands of ‘likes’ and shares every

law, 38% believe it should be mandatory for religious reasons, and a further 5% said they simply did not know. Clearly, a significant portion of the population believes in a women’s right to choose rather than be ruled by the government’s dress code. By actively sharing these photographs, Alinejad is acting both to dispel governmental propaganda and to promote discussion about the ways in which the Iranian government seeks to repress women. In addition to photographs of women taking off their hijabs, ‘My Stealthy Freedom’ has recently begun posting photographs sent in by men who put on the hijab in order to challenge ideas of gender roles. In the spring of 2016, the hashtag #MenInHijab became popular on Twitter. Photos of men wearing the headscarf next to their bare-headed wives accompanied the hashtag, representing a new direction for the movement, as men began to show their support for the cause in a novel way. In response, the state media claimed that all the photographs posted were fakes, demonstrating that this show of solidarity between men and women had made the regime uncomfortable. Most recently, the ‘My Stealthy Freedom’ page has become a focal point in the campaign to free Narges Mohammadi, a journalist and human rights activist who was sentenced to 16 years imprisonment this October for her protest activities. Following Alinejad’s post asking for photos, thousands of men and women have sent in photographs of themselves with the words ‘Free Narges’ written on the palm of their hand. Thousands more have shared or liked the photos that Alinejad has posted. Considering that Narges has been imprisoned for speaking out against the regime, the courage of thousands to speak up and share photos of themselves on ‘My Stealthy Freedom’ is a truly remarkable sign of unity.

Although it has become common for global human rights groups like Amnesty International to criticise human rights abuses and oppression in Iran, ‘My Stealthy Freedom’ is equally important as a local form of opposition. The movement gives an authentic voice to the women pictured on its page, combining the power of social media with the visual impact of the photographic image. As an outlet through which the people of Iran may protest (albeit one limited to those with internet access), the movement has spanned demographics, welcoming Iranians of all ages and genders to make their voices heard.

42% of Iranians believe that the hijab should be voluntary, 15% of Iranians believe that women should wear the hijab only because it’s the law, 38% believe it should be mandatory for religious reasons, and a further 5% said they simply did not know.

outside. Alinejad denied this story on her page, and women have continued undaunted in taking subversive photos of themselves and sending them to ‘My Stealthy Freedom’ to be shared with hundreds of thousands of people. Ultimately, Alinejad’s ‘My Stealthy Freedom’ provides a medium through which Iranians can express themselves in a society that limits such expression. Photography becomes a subversive form of protest when it is met with such fear and anger by the government. Partly in response to this movement, the Iranian Parliament passed a bill in October 2015 which strengthened the power of the Morality Police to persecute those wearing ‘bad hijab’ and not covering themselves enough. Clearly, the struggle between ‘My Stealthy Freedom’ and the government is far from over. While the movement and its photographs have been called ‘anti-Islamic,’ ‘anti-religious,’ and ‘anti-Iranian,’ by leaders across the country, the women and men pictured in these photographs defy those labels. They are Iranian, and Muslim, and religious, and they also want to be free.

Although there has been popular support for her movement, Alinejad has faced persecution from both the Iranian government and the state media. In posts to her website, Alinejad explains that she has been called a ‘traitor’ and a ‘whore.’ Even worse, the Iranian media has invented news stories in order to scare other women away from protesting in this manner. One particular story run by the Iranian state media fabricated an account claiming that Alinejad had been gang raped in front of her teenage son as a consequence for taking off her hijab

To be stuck in the past:

Bulgaria’s communist monuments BY Martin Vasev

When the Iron Curtain fell in 1989, the newly established countries in Eastern Europe faced a grand challenge: establishing independent institutions and ensuring social cohesion, while at the same time dealing with their communist legacy. As in any authoritarian regime, the communist regimes in Eastern Europe built multiple monuments in order to impose power; using memorials to reaffirm the official narrative of history and demonstrate the regimes’ power to the population. The monuments were meant as a physical manifestation of self-assurance about the eternity of the present, a way to commemorate the ideas, heroes and beliefs of the epoch. Quite naturally, when these values and heroes changed with the collapse of the Berlin Wall, a wave of iconoclasm spread across Eastern Europe.

n 17th June 2011, Sofia, the capital city of Bulgaria, woke up to a bizarre transformation of the Monument to the Soviet Army. Overnight, the grey faces of the Soviet soldiers had been replaced by the figures of Santa Claus, Joker, Robin, the Mask, and various superheroes, captioned ‘Abreast with the Times.’ Similar provocative acts followed again in 2013 and 2014, each time producing an avalanche of comments and opinions in the public sphere. What some people referred as despicable acts of vandalism, in fact, served to initiate a long-needed discussion on Bulgaria’s trouble past. Stuck between past trauma, present loyalties and future interests, Bulgaria never seemed to fully engage in a critical rationalization of its own history and its way forward until Santa Claus and Batman landed in the centre of its capital.

Michal Janček

simply because its past always comes in the way of its future development. Bulgaria cannot agree on a common narrative about its past. Just take the origins of the Monument to the Soviet Army, for example. It was built to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of 9th September 1944. What happened on this date? You will get different answers, based on the people you ask. The same people who cleaned the memorial would respond with “the victory of Bulgaria’s Socialist Revolution” or “the liberation of Bulgaria by the Soviet Union.” They would defend what Nietzsche describes as ‘monumental history’ – looking at the past to find examples to follow, to draw inspiration and energy for the future. These people often argue that the communist regime was a period of rapid development for Bulgaria’s industry, education and sport. They would often reminisce about the good old days and decry the current degradation. As Nietzsche points out, this narrative, however, “tone[s] down the difference in motives and events, in order to set down the monumental effectus,” sometimes fabricating a whole new narrative – a narrative that which is ignorant about the causes of these events. Such narrative does not question the intentions of the Soviet Union in “liberating Bulgaria,” crosses out the existence of concentration camps or the killings of intelligentsia members, replaces painful truth with oblivious myths in order to escape from the unpleasant reality. On the other hand, you have people who will view the date as ‘the 9 September coup d'état’ or as ‘the beginning of Bulgaria’s occupation by the Soviets.’ When they look at the communist memorials, they see nothing but the abominable remains of an oppressive and tyrannical regime. They would see their relatives locked up in concentration camps or killed simply because they had land or education. This is a narrative of what Nietzsche would call ‘critical history’ – “drag-

Bulgaria responded with mixed signals. Despite a few isolated actions, such as the arson of the Communist Party Headquarters in Sofia and the demolition of Georgi Dimitrov Mausoleum, the vast majority of communist monuments remained. A very unusual decision, given the “tragic” fate of most of such monuments around Eastern Europe either immediately upon the fall of the Iron Curtain or the following few years. Built in 1954 by the communist regime, the Monument to the Soviet Army still occupies a central place in Bulgaria’s capital city Sofia, but it was not until the recent transformations that the public discussion of the communist monuments’ destiny was initiated.

It is impossible to be completely free from the past. The appearance of Batman in 2011 wasn’t the last time that the memorial was used as a canvas for political expression. In 2013, it was painted in pink, with the words ‘Bulgaria apologises’ on it as a reference to the Prague spring of 1968, and a year later, it was first blue and yellow after Russia’s accession of Crimea, and then a few months later stood in red and white as a commemoration of the Katyn massacre. A splash of paint on the stone prompted a much needed discussion in the public sphere. One camp argued that these actions represented acts of vandalism, which was to be reproached and even punished. After that, they simply washed away the paint and cleaned the monument. Another camp applauded the actions, describing them as political protest and artistic expression. However, the transformations of the monument did more than to incite a discussion on what constitutes vandalism and what political protest. They revealed the tragedy of a divided society, unable to move forward,

ging the past before the court of justice, investigating it meticulously, and finally condemning it.” This is a narrative which belongs to the people wishing to break free with the past and live in the present. These people would see nothing deserving reverence or inspiration in the communist past; instead, they would demand the destruction of all monuments, of all remnants from the past. Ironically, precisely their sense of justice and vengeance always keeps them back and hinders their path forward. As Nietzsche warns us, we are products of the earlier generations, of their passions and aberrations, of their mistakes, even of their crimes. It is impossible to be completely free from the past. Doing away with the scars (monuments) does not undo the trauma or its cause (communist past). In fact, it makes us even more vulnerable to committing the same mistakes. Clearly, Bulgaria’s relation to its monuments and past has broad implications to its future. The first group of people still goes on the exact same monument on 9th September and honours “the fallen heroes in the fight against Fascism.” The second group uses the day to mourn the victims of the communist regime and demands a trial for the ones involved. The clash between ‘monumental’ and ‘critical’ history re-emerges every time when Russia is mentioned, and the society quickly regroups into Russophobes and Russophiles. What is more, these social divisions translate into the big scene of international relations. A firm member of the European Union and NATO, Bulgaria still too often turns to Russia for economic decisions and direction. Its politicians, just like its society, grapple with past dependencies and future interests. For Bulgaria, the only way to move beyond the past is to engage in a discussion about it. It will not be easy to overcome the trauma, but the transformations of the Monument to the Soviet Army in Sofia set in motion a long-needed process – the encounter of ‘monumental’ and ‘critical’ history, the discussion about Bulgaria’s collective memory.

Identity on the front lines:

The tale of a Ukrainian-American soldier BY Anna Seccombe

arkian Paslawsky was born an American citizen in New Jersey and died as a volunteer soldier in Ilovaisk, Ukraine. The path that led him to die in Eastern Ukraine in August 2014 was unusual, perhaps even unique, but the responses to his death clearly reflect cultural and political issues underlying the conflict in which he chose to fight. To Ukrainians in cemeteries in Kiev or museums in New York, he is a hero; to journalists writing for Russia Today, a Ukrainian ultranationalist. Paslawsky, a wiry 55-year-old, still spoke with a New Jersey accent as he talked to Simon Ostrovsky in an interview for Vice just weeks before his death. He caught the attention of Western media, especially when it was revealed posthumously that he was the soldier behind the Twitter account ‘bruce springnote,’ described by the New York Times as a “no-nonsense account of life on the front line” standing out from “the cacophony of voices on Twitter reporting facts, rumours and hearsay.” But Paslawsky also became a prominent figure in Ukraine after his death – his memorial ceremony in Kiev was attended by dozens of people, including Minister of Culture Yevhen Nyshcuk, and covered by internet television channel hromadske.tv. His memorial stone in Askoldova Mohyla park,

which reads, in Ukrainian, ‘Heroes don’t die!’ was decorated with the Ukrainian coat of arms, the tryzub, as well as the stars and stripes of the country where he was born.

This representation of Paslawsky makes him not only a Ukrainian-American hero, but also a piece of art. This is not the ordinary legacy of soldier (a private, in fact) killed in the war in Donbass. Hostilities between the government and pro-Ukrainian paramilitaries on one side and pro-Russian rebels and Russian soldiers on the other are estimated to have killed thousands since 2014. Paslawsky, though, has become a figure of contention and myth in pro-Russian, pro-Ukrainian and Western discourse. In the Ostrovsky Vice interview, Paslawsky, carefully and with deliberation, explained that his fight was against Ukrainian corruption and Eastern European ‘terrorism’ rather than Russia and Russian speakers. His measured explanations, however, are lost in the oppositional rhetoric deployed by both sides of the conflict, and the Peter Hudston

complex of motivations which led the 55-year-old to enlist in the Donbass volunteer battalion are reduced to pure nationalistic heroism on the one hand and anti-Russian hatred on the other. Thousands of miles from Kiev there is another memorial to Mark Paslawsky. Instead of a gravestone, however, this one takes the form of an exhibit dedicated to his memory in New York City’s Ukrainian Museum. Titled ‘Heroes for Freedom,’ the space reflects the diaspora’s integration of American liberty rhetoric and Ukrainian nationalism, within the universal framework of military heroism. The exhibit, comprising a selection of photographs and artefacts from his collection, is visible from the street and takes a prominent place in the museum, the rest of which is mainly dedicated to Ukrainian folk art. The categorisation of Paslawsky as ‘hero’ is unflinching and simple; in this approach, the exhibit fits into a longer line of exhibitions held at the museum during the conflict, with titles such as ‘The Price of Ukrainian Freedom’ and ‘We Are All Ukraine.’ This rhetorical simplification is also evident in the museum website’s description of the exhibit, where the Battle of Ilovaisk, an attempt to recapture the rebel-held Donetsk-oblast town, is instead described as an attempt by Ukrainian troops to defend it. This representation of Paslawsky makes him not only a Ukrainian-American hero, but also a piece of art. This cultural construction is part of a wider process of political myth-making. Paslawsky is a particularly potent figure in a conflict at which the stakes could not be higher on the question of national identity, given the symbolic power of his crossing the Atlantic, claiming Ukrainian citizenship and fighting for the country of his ancestors. It is unimportant, in this mythology, what Paslawsky’s motivations were or that he lived in Ukraine for twenty years prior to his death. His story is still a statement that Ukrainian identity is worth claiming and worth fighting for. The anxiety of post-World War Two wave of Ukrainian-American immigrants, such as the Museum’s director Maria Shust, to maintain and

Peter Hudston

encourage links to their heritage motivates the desire to valorise the fight for Ukrainian identity in which Paslawsky, in this analysis, was engaged. In an interview with the author this April, Shust said that though she has no desire to live in Ukraine and has only visited once since leaving as a child, ‘I would always say I am a Ukrainian rather than an American.’ She went on to attribute the fierce identity-pride of her generation to experiences in displaced persons’ camps after the Second World War, to the experience of being a stateless, placeless person. This narrative celebrating Ukrainian identity has been, predictably, rebutted from a pro-Russian perspective. An RT ‘op-edge’ article written in the wake of Paslawsky’s death explicitly references the myth-making around him: Paslawsky was not an “ordinary Joe” from New Jersey with benign family connections to Ukraine who suddenly decided to help defend the motherland, he was the nephew of the notorious Nazi Mykola Lebed. Drawing on a dark chapter in Ukraine’s history, RT once again generalises the discourse from the individual Paslawsky to wider issues surrounding Ukrainian nationalism. Mykola Lebed was a member of a Ukrainian nationalist faction called the Banderists, which famously collaborated with Nazi occupiers during the Second World War, allegedly carrying out the ethnic cleansing of Poles in Eastern Galicia. The lack of journalistic integrity for which RT has been widely criticised by Western media establishments, as well as Western leaders’ criticisms of Putin and support for the Ukrainian government during the conflict, may incline us to dismiss the myths of Paslawsky-as-Nazi more easily than those of Paslawsky-the-hero. But throughout the conflict disturbing evidence of neo-fascist ideology has been seen among Ukrainian paramilitary organisations, which have also been accused of perpetrating torture against their enemies. However, without definitive evidence on

Paslawsky’s attitudes to Russians or his political beliefs, all that can be said with any confidence is that pro-Russian responses to the glorification of his sacrifice amount to the same process of political myth-making. Though the conspiracy theory tone of the RT article, with its insinuations that somebody has been trying to hide the true story of Mark Paslawsky, is off-putting and unpleasant for a western reader, its discursive framework actually operates in a similar way to the more palatable misrepresentations engaged in by the Ukrainian Museum. Both are motivated in their representations of the Ukrainian-American soldier by political agendas and perspectives on the war in Donbass. Calling Ukrainian paramilitaries Nazis is as much an act of self-justification as calling them heroes. Both too are grounded in age-old national enmity: the Ukrainian sense of being oppressed and subjugated is matched by the Russian sense of widespread Ukrainian Russophobia. Both have some grounding in historical fact and contemporary attitudes, and in the current context, importantly, are literally a matter of life and death for civilians in the east whose towns are held by rebels and besieged by Ukrainian forces. The truth is presented as black-and-white by each side in the conflict; for the neutral observer, then, it is necessarily grey. The outsider cannot resolve this greyness, but merely document its reflection in the conflicting representations of Markian Paslawsky. Finding any kind of truth in the fog of propagandistic discourse is an unenviable and perhaps futile task, but what we can and should emphasise are the implications of cultural representations of a political issue, and not only when they are obvious. Myth-making takes forms other than overt propaganda, and often that which we are ready to dismiss as misleading, biased and harmful is just as culturally and politically complex as the subtle myth that we are willing to accept.

Unforgivable?

Civil war and peace politics in Colombia BY Sasha Skovron

Narcos’ depiction of Medellín simply doesn’t do justice to a city which has made historic progress during the last thirty years, even being crowned ‘Innovative City of the Year’ in The Wall Street Journal in 2013. The economic and political developments of the decades since Escobar’s death do not, however, negate the very tangible effects of a civil war that has touched every Colombian family. This is seemingly what vexes Colombians the most; the country bears two paradoxical faces, neither of which has been accurately conveyed to onlookers. Whilst the nation follows a forward-looking trajectory to recovery and innovation, it is simultaneously reined back and rooted in a history of violence at the hands of rebel fighters. The civil war is no longer waged at the forefront of quotidian life, but it has continued to play out in the peripheries and localities, haunting a nation and a people in ways we cannot begin to imagine. The burden of war weighs heavier on the shoulders of civilians every day, as I found out when my boss narrated how she, her brother and father had all been kidnapped, and her brother murdered by a gunman. She revealed that she could never return to the village that she had grown up in before paramilitaries evicted her family from their lands, for fear of being killed.

The Colombian conflict has become a defining feature of the nation’s past and present. Strands of fighting between the Colombian government, crime syndicates, paramilitary groups, and guerrilla and terrorist organisations have woven a seemingly perennial web of civil war – a war which has waged constantly in the background of everyday Colombian life for over half a century. Cinematic and televised productions such as the well-known American series Narcos have illuminated the nature of the traumatic conflict, but their perpetuation of the image of Colombia as a war-torn and dangerously violent state is pointedly anachronistic. While working with locals in Medellín, the economic powerhouse of Colombia, the locals expressed their frustrations to me concerning the ways in which international media has portrayed Colombia as a drug-fuelled, gang-ridden nation, still stuck in the days of Pablo Escobar. The tendency of foreign media channels to continue to associate Colombia with its past without any real knowledge of the progressive workings and attributes of the present-day state is not only ignorant, but barring for those within the country who are trying to project a very different view to the rest of the world.

7,936,566 citizens have been registered as direct victims of the armed conflict (as of 1st October 2016), some forced to abandon their lands, others kidnapped, tortured, threatened or killed. The fifty-two year long war has resulted in the internal displacement of almost seven million people, and just under 268,000 recorded homicides. One of the major players driving the Colombian armed conflict are the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), left-wing rebels intent on overthrowing the government and establishing a Marxist regime. The FARC has terrorised Colombia’s population, ruthlessly targeting innocents to use as pawns in a chessboard game of attack against the government. Funded through kidnapping, ransom, extortion, murder and the perpetuation of the illegal drug trade, its actions have left harrowing physical and mental scars on the population. During the course of the last month, Colombia’s future has hung in the balance, the pendulum swinging between reconciliation and rivalry. A referendum put to the general public on October 2nd 2016 marked the final hurdle in what would have been a historic peace deal between the Colombian government and the FARC rebels, after four years of careful negotiation. The proposed agreement, or ‘peace treaty,’ would have seen the FARC incorporated into a political party, and a ceasefire bring an end to hostilities.Yet the hope of a just peace was dashed when, on October 2nd, a margin of 0.21% swung the pendulum decisively against peace – just 0.21% of voters standing between the termination of Colombia’s fifty year conflict, and its continuation. How could a population which has endured such great traumas and abuses, opt to outrightly reject peace? It was expected that a sweeping ‘Yes’ vote would result from the referendum. Its shock outcome crystallises a very raw and emotive reality. For now, pain and hatred trump forgiveness in determining Colombia’s future - for 50.21% of people, the wounds are too fresh to ignore. The FARC leader Timochenko’s apology to the nation and plea for forgiveness simply weren’t enough to justify a minimum of ten rebel seats in Congress. President Santos commented that, “swapping bullets for votes and weapons for ideas is the bravest and most intelligent decision that any rebel group could take,” but the investment of per-

sonal emotions polarised the national debate in such a way that many voters could not bring themselves to adhere to Santos’ democratic rationale. The Colombian peace process bears a striking resemblance to that of Northern Ireland following the Troubles. The Good Friday agreement of 1998 represented the end of three decades of sectarian warfare in Northern Ireland, whereby an executive would be set up with elected representatives from Sinn Féin, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, a paramilitary organisation responsible for the deaths of over 1700 people. The agreement was strongly opposed by those who saw the entry of terrorists into Irish parliamentary politics as governmental surrender, rather than victory. Michael Gove’s tract ‘The Case Against the Peace Process,’ although referring to the situation in Northern Ireland, is highly revealing of thought processes in Colombia today. He argued that “Terrorists have not gone legitimate. Terror has been legitimised… in pursuit of peace, a peace that still leaves hundreds beaten, mutilated or killed every year” and asserted, “This is a stunning advertisement for the efficacy of the use of force as a means of influencing our politics.” Whilst the complex peace processes in Northern Ireland and Colombia are highly nuanced, they both bring to light the difficulties of attempting to convert armed terrorists to democracy. The Colombian referendum for peace serves as a paradox: the proposed peace deal itself represents a historic advance in Colombian parliamentary politics and a move toward communication between rival groups, and its rejection signifies the reluctance of many to set Colombia’s future on a different path. The outcome raises important questions about whether such pivotal and decisive motions should be put to the general public - an issue also highlighted following the Brexit vote.

For terrorists, the end justifies the means, and with a cause worth fighting for and an ingrained belief system; there’s no backing down. Colombia has already been embroiled in internal conflict for over half a century: how many more innocent lives have to be lost, how much more blood spilled, before the population realises that this waiting game is proving fruitless? Colombians have failed to understand, and the government has failed to successfully communicate, that the government is making these concessions on their behalf; welcoming former terrorists into Congress is a price that has to be paid in order to protect the very people who have fallen victim to the FARC’s atrocities. It is this unwillingness to see that sometimes one step backwards can constitute ten, fifteen, or even a hundred steps forward, that sealed the fate of the referendum.

Aux Champs Élysées:

Tolerance, terrorism & Enlightenment France BY Elliot Grogan

be Marine Le Pen; a politician whose political ascent has been built upon the rising tides of anti-immigration sentiment. She is the oddson favourite to make it through to the second, head-to-head round of the election. At this point, Le-Pen will potentially be facing either an unpopular current President, or an even more unpopular former President, so anything goes… Yet hope remains. In the wake of the Charlie Hébdo attacks in 2015, a little-known book written in 1763 - around the same time as the building of the Palais de l’Elysée - sold-out nationwide, forcing publishers into an emergency reprint. The book: Voltaire’s Treatise on Tolerance. The work centres on the appalling torture and execution in Toulouse of a Protestant merchant, Jean Calas, who was erroneously charged with the murder of his Catholic son by a partisan judiciary. With his usual acerbic wit, Voltaire argued in favour of moderation and toleration in religious affairs, for after all “tolerance has never excited civil war; yet intolerance has laid waste to the entire world.” However, can the French philosophes of the 18th century really inform modern political discourse? It is easy to consign the ‘Age of Enlightenment’ to irrelevance; the period was not a tolerant Arcadia. Philosophers debated and disagreed on the inherent tensions between tol-

n early 2017, France goes to the polls for what could be one of the most significant presidential elections in the history of the French Fifth Republic. Whoever finds themselves moving into the 18th century Palais de l’Elysée in late May will have quite a job on their hands. They must take a major lead in re-calibrating the European Union in the wake of the UK’s Brexit vote; revive an ailing economy where close to 3 million people find themselves unemployed; and along with European partners, attempt to formulate a coherent policy which deals ethically with an ongoing refugee crisis and the security fears that this has entailed. This last point regarding the question of immigration and security in French political discourse is perhaps the most crucial. Whoever takes the helm after the elections will lead a deeply divided France; a France rocked by repeated terrorist attacks, a France unsure of herself and of her role in the today’s globalised world, and therefore a France where the politics of nationalism means she is falling back upon policies of the past as a means of preparing herself for the future. There is also a very real possibility that the person inhabiting the presidential palace – a stately home which once served as the official residence of Madame de Pompadour – will

erance, individual freedom and stately authority, authoritarian governments continued to constrain freedoms of speech and thought, and the rights of minorities were marginalised. Where Voltaire, along with Diderot, differed was in their idealism, in their message of hope, and in their unrelenting belief that the power of reason would prevail over base emotion; an optimistic appeal to hope and rationality that provided some small comfort amidst the chaos of the 2015 terror attacks. Voltaire reminds us that, “reason is gentle and humane. It inspires clemency, suppresses discord, and strengthens virtue; it has more power to make obedience to the laws attractive, than force has to compel it.” But in 2016, the digital revolution has precipitated a post-truth political environment, where it is conversely emotion which trumps reason in national discourse. Regrettably, those on the French right seem to have missed Voltaire’s memo. Marine Le Pen’s presidential programme reads like an exercise in intolerance, and it is one that would profoundly alter France’s standing in the world. Le Pen proposes a closing of France’s borders, a 20-fold decrease of immigration, the forced deportation of all illegal immigrants, a referendum on membership of the EU, an attack on “anglo-saxon multiculturalism” in favour of a French nationalism, and a fundamental shake-up of nationality requirements – quite literally, the re-definition of what it means to be French. Yet from Schengen to security, Nicholas Sarkozy’s manifesto follows in similar vein, perhaps not all that inadvertently. In a recent interview, the ex-President asserted that “the Republic does not have any difficulties with religion, instead it has difficulties with one particular religion”. Sarkozy wants to strengthen state control over imams, including the expulsion of radical imams and those purportedly “dispatched from foreign states” – a policy he may well have borrowed from John Locke, who similarly argued for the deportation of Catholic clergy in England in the 17th century. This rhetoric demonstrates the factitious nature of political debate in France, or in the prophetic words of Diderot’s Encyclopédie, how “the establishment of universal intolerance sets man against his fellow man.” Sarkozy has further committed himself to engaging in “a measured battle against multiculturalism.” Such intolerant views are not novel in France. Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the Front National from 1972 to 2011, propagated similar ideas. Prior to the 1998 World Cup, the former party leader labelled the French football team “artificial”, as

and the internationalists, between those who for Diderot “close their eyes to the evidence, and close their hearts to humanity,” and those who continue to strive towards the enlightenment ideals of rational, critical and humane thought. The last word, as always, is best left to Voltaire: “If you want us to tolerate your teaching, begin by being neither intolerant nor intolerable.”

to his mind, its multiracial composition meant that it was “not a real French team.” He was to be proved decisively wrong; French football’s World Cup triumph was a victory for a multicultural ideal, and following the competition, the Front National’s parliamentary voting share was decimated from 15% to 5%. Nevertheless, almost twenty years later, the rhetoric of the far-right appears to have re-infiltrated mainstream French political discourse. The nation undeniably faces incredibly complex issues, but this presidential debate is too significant to be left solely to the nationalists, or those who sow the seeds of intolerance – for these questions go to the heart of French identity, interrogating exactly what it means to be French, and will profoundly inform the way in which France engages with the wider world and faces its global responsibilities in the 21st century. History will be waiting in the wings this election season, as France faces two futures, two definitions of France – the France of Voltaire who demanded that the Grande Nation “be united by the universal principles of tolerance and of common humanity,” and an insular, nationalistic shadow of France. Between these two choices lies a fundamental split; a division between the wall-builders

People, populism, and democracy across borders:

An interview with Brian Klaas BY Katherine Pye

the country has this label they are doing what they are supposed to in the eyes of the West. Through a much more selective use of that word we can help make people believe in the real thing.” Proficient in French and Arabic with a doctorate from Oxford University, Klaas has travelled all over the world on research. He has interviewed a diverse range of political figures from junta leaders to senior politicians to political exiles from Tunisia to Belarus and East Africa. He has forged friendships across the world and his talk is peppered with memorable anecdotes. Yet throughout his research and travels an unyielding faith in democratic governance has prevailed. Untainted by much of the cynicism in today’s media, he maintained that the West must hold the democracy we promote around the globe to higher standards. He argued forcefully that democracy is not just good for respecting a basic human right to govern themselves, but also improves the ability of countries to modernise themselves and grow economically. However, the effects of democracy on basic human interaction can often be difficult to pinpoint. Whilst in the West its principles, language and institutions underpin our culture, our traditions and even how we behave towards each other in the workplace, the effect a democracy can have in newly democratised nations can seem harder to determine. Klaas, however, maintained that during his extensive

n a cold and rainy Wednesday evening, the audience in a busy St Anthony’s college lecture theatre settled into their seats. There was an uneasy atmosphere – it was the night of the third and final US election debate – and a sense that time was running out. This was quite literally the case for Klaas, the night’s speaker and a fellow in comparative government at the LSE. He squeezed in his talk before making appearances on Bloomberg to analyse the Trump/Clinton clash which would inevitably ensue. Time is also running out, Klaas argued in the opening to his talk, to reverse an alarming new trend; the global retreat of democracy. We all have a role to play, he claimed, in overcoming this threat.

"I think the idea that some countries or some cultures can’t have democracy is wrong" “The more we use the democracy label erroneously the more we incentivise leaders to simply do the bare minimum,” he described. During his talk he outlined a powerful new thesis, ‘the curse of low expectations’: “If democratising countries get the label of democracy then we can’t pull any of the levers of diplomacy like aid or the threat of sanctions because since

travels he saw a tangible effect on citizen interaction. “One of the problems with authoritarian rule is that especially in places where there are divided societies you often have a lid over what is happening underneath the surface. You have an ethnic coalition, or an ethnic leader who is in power who is actually suppressing a different religion or ethnicity. Often you take the lid off when the transition happens and then you see that you have two different societies.” He uses the capital of Tunisia as an example, describing firstly La Marsa, Tunis, which “could be a Mediterranean beach town in the South of France, with Dolce and Gabbana shops and mini skirts.” But then he recounts travelling inland only five miles to find “people in the hijab wearing very modest dress.” “There were two societies, a rich society that was affiliated with the ruling regime that was secular and then the devout Muslim society underneath. But when you have a democratic polity those two have to interact, not necessarily on a daily basis but on a political forum. This is more likely to produce compromise.” Despite these positive effects, Klaas did not shy away from the darker, self-destructive side to rule by the people. We discussed the rise of authoritarianism in democracies or fledgling democracies across the world; Putin’s Russia, Erdogan’s Turkey, the success of Trump in America. All three are, among vast sectors of the population, exceptionally popular. Surely, I asked, there is something intrinsically attractive about authoritarian populists to an electorate. Does authoritarianism appeal to certain elements intrinsic in human nature? Klaas’ response was carefully considered. “A lot of people respond to strength in diplomacy and strength in leadership and that does gravitate towards a more authoritarian setup because somebody who compromises can be seen as being weaker or sacrificing their principles. This is where I think people and popular culture need to be careful in democracies to articulate that this is not strength. A rebuke of Trump, for instance, if it was a historical landslide, would do a lot for American democracy to say actually this is not what strength in the US.” “But this is one of the rubs with how democracy functions because I think that if there was a free and fair election in Russia, Putin would probably win. He is not only staying in power because of his despotism, he is a genuinely popular leader. So the difficult question is how do you deal with a populist in a country where populism is appealing to many of the citizens. For me,

you could have a Putin in a democratic system but with more constraints on him, and that is critical. If the leader went too far you would have public recourse, it wouldn’t just be empty protests it would be meaningful input.” In international relations, Klaas argued, this issue is strikingly apparent, “Think about Pakistan in 1999; Perves Musharraf came to power in a coup as a general. Obviously the West shunned him. But fast forward two years to 2001 and all of a sudden Pakistan is crucial for the aim of capturing and killing Osama Bin Laden so instead of being an international pariah Musharraf comes on the Daily Show with John Stuart eating a Twinkie and becomes a darling of the West. That was a situation where the constituency in the West was demanding that politicians undermine democracy in Pakistan to pursue a different goal.” The way many voters even in established democracies can gravitate towards authoritarianism leads to an important question; is democracy instinctive to individuals in a natural state, or is it something we need to work hard to achieve? “We need to have democracies deliver because the principle of a democratic government is meaningless if the people don’t actually see a benefit from it. If people can put food on the table and they associate this with democratic governance people start to buy into the concept more, and it becomes a model that is replicable. Democracy is probably an unnatural human state that pursues good outcomes.” Despite travelling around the world to witness democratic principles play out in a variety of these cultural contexts, Klaas maintained democracy is blind to society, creed or religion. “I think the idea that some countries or some cultures can’t have democracy is wrong. Democracy is about people governing themselves. That’s not something that is specific to one region of the world or one religion or one cultural heritage.”

On accusations of Western cultural imperialism through spreading democracy Klaas’ response was simple. “People having a meaningful say in their own governance is not a cultural imperialist attitude to have. Muslims and Christians and Buddhists and everyone around the world can get behind the idea that they should be able to govern themselves. These decisions that are being made at the top in politics affect everyone in the society and the idea that those people have absolutely no recourse is morally wrong.” “Maybe a country has to warm up to democracy over time but even in places where they have a top-down cultural heritage there is still room for them to specifically decide how that heritage intersects with political life. This can only ever come through sustained consultation with the public.”

Portraiture: A lens on humanity BY Mazelle Etessami

hen there are no words that can adequately communicate an individualâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s story or reality, a portrait allows their face and their conditions to speak for themselves. As such, photography can be an invaluable tool in International Relations. In capturing a previously unknown or unseen reality through the lens of those living it, photography has an unparalleled ability to capture the attention of, or sometimes even mobilize, the masses. I have found that people's facesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;their wrinkles, smiles, watery eyesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;can truly tell you more about an individual than anything else. A simple portrait can pull at heartstrings unlike any other type of picture. You stop thinking about the statistics, the causes of the given situation, who is to blame, and you focus on the human beings at hand. This humanity is something that is unfortunately much too often absent in International Relations.

32 keeping spirits high. | Guangzhou, China An old man sings by his stall at the back of an antique market,

Having just had her teeth pulled, a young girl braves through the pain. The clinic was set up by the Himalayan Health Exchange, which provides services to rural communities in the Indian Himalayas. Ladakh, India

A woman takes a momentary break from washing clothes 33in a tub. She invited me into her home and was eager to introduce me to her family. | A small village near Tamale, Ghana

In the middle of a dance festival organized by village leaders to celebrate the beauty of the area, three young children sat down to rest. | Tamale, Ghana

Another young girl takes a break from the festivities against the wall of the all girls school she attends.| Tamale, 34 Ghana

A young boy, intimidated by the camera, finds refuge in the threshold of his home. After seeing the photos I took he was elated and posed for more. | Tamale, Ghana 35

A young shepherd turns back and faces the camera as he directs his flock back to his village. | Kumasi, Ghana

As her mother taught in the classroom next door, this36 toddler played with her lunch box outside Matitti Girls School. | Tamale, Ghana

has often been and continues to be considered transcendent. I see this as misguided and, in fact, a way of subverting the powerful voice art can be in global discussions about politics, economics, society, culture, religion and international relations. Aman Mojadidi

SYMPOSIUM: THE ARTS & IR

Reconstituting abstract expressionism in the Cold War

BY Jeffrey Ding

rom afar, one could mistake a Jackson Pollock canvas painting for messy gibberish. But up close, the impressive strokes come into focus and semi-random patterns of energy and motion are made visible. Step back again and consider the work’s larger context. Abstract Expressionism, which developed in the 1940s and 1950s as an art form defined by its lack of definition and emphasis on spontaneity, is often deemed the first American art movement to achieve international acclaim. While there is no doubt that works by artists such as Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Mark Rothko gained worldwide renown during the Cold War era, were there underlying political and cultural factors for the rise in appeal of Abstract Expressionists? If so, what are the implications for artistic communities engaged in the global sphere today? Just as with a Pollock painting, one only needs to look a little closer to find order within chaos, signals amidst the noise. Many scholars have highlighted the role of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in promoting American Abstract Expressionist painting as part of a propaganda war with the Soviet Union. Former officials have confirmed that the CIA’s promotion of such art was part of a policy to contrast the intellectual freedom and creative resonance of American art with the ideological constraints of Soviet art. The Congress for Cul-

tural Freedom, set up with CIA funds and managed by a CIA agent, sponsored touring exhibitions featuring works by Pollock, de Kooning, and others. Thomas Braden, the former head of the CIA’s International Organization Division, points out that many important works of art have benefited from the patronage of religious figures or business elites. Yet Braden ignores that businesses have an incentive to disclose their sponsorship while government intelligence agencies seek to obfuscate their intentions. For instance, one cannot visit London’s Royal Academy of Art’s current exhibition on Abstract Expressionism without seeing evidence of the lead sponsor BNP Paribas. But go back to the 1959 exhibition at London’s Tate Gallery, and it would be much harder to track external influence; millionaire Julius Fleischmann fronted the cash in his role as president of the Farfield Foundation, but the foundation was funded by the CIA. While other scholars have presented valid criticisms of the degree to which the CIA prioritised Abstract Expressionism works over other American art, the very existence of debate is proof that even apolitical art – purely expressive, fully autonomous art in the movement’s style – can fall prey to how artistic works are promoted and deployed by others. Along with exposing the myth that Abstract Expressionism was completely apolitical, it

drew from this method, which involves pouring coloured, powdered pigments onto a flat surface. Clyfford Still, another leading artist during this time period, visited Native American reservations in Washington State and painted complex studies of the Native Americans living there, one of the few depictions of Native Americans in Abstract Expressionist art. Dr. David Anfam, curator of the Royal Academy Abstract Expressionism exhibit, argues that Still’s direct contact with shamanistic culture influenced how he expressed spirituality through abstracted forms. Despite the efforts of a few exhibitions, the influence of Native American culture on the art movement has been largely ignored in mainstream depictions of the movement. Rethinking the factors behind the emergence of the movement must acknowledge the inspiration derived from Native American traditions of spirituality. Starting with this framework rather than viewing Abstract Expressionism as a tool to be weaponized allows us to appreciate the innovations of the movement’s individual painters in a more nuanced way. The popularity of Abstract Expressionism was mediated through the United States-Soviet Union propaganda war, the critical role played by immigrants from Europe, and the influence of Native American art. The lessons gained from these re-framings are relevant to contemporary artistic communities seeking to effect change throughout the world. First, the CIA’s deployment of art as propaganda serves as a reminder that other actors can co-opt the revolutionary potential of art, irrespective of the political intentions of the artists themselves. Additionally, the inclusion of immigrants and Native Americans into the Abstract Expressionist story exemplifies how artistic communities must continue to ground their work in intersectionality, across borders and time. When presented with a Pollock painting, get closer but don’t lose a wider perspective.

is necessary to debunk the idea that it was an exclusively American art movement that lifted New York to the center of the art world. In fact, many of the crucial figures were immigrants from Europe who brought ideas and techniques from across the Atlantic. De Kooning and Rothko were from the Netherlands, and Hans Hofmann - founder of a highly influential school in New York – was an immigrant from Germany. Hofmann’s school promoted techniques, theories, and principles of Abstract Expressionism, which were widely adopted by artists, advocates, and art critics alike. The immigrant experience is reflected in De Kooning’s charcoal works and Rothko’s colour fields; the fluidity of the art represents the artist who ceaselessly navigates between borders without a stable sense of home. In contrast to national propaganda’s view of Abstract Expressionism as belonging solely to America, this alternative view recognizes the mobility and transferability of ideas across national borders.

Even apolitical art – purely expressive, fully autonomous art in the movement’s style – can fall prey to how artistic works are promoted and deployed by others We must also take into account Abstract Expressionism’s past sources. Its artists were fascinated by the unconscious, and many found their innovation in Native American cultures. For example, Pollock would often use images associated with Native American ritual and decorative objects, including masks, amulets, and totem poles. After observing Native American sand-painting demonstrations in the 1940s, Pollock wrote that his famous ‘drip technique’

Concerts not conferences:

The role of jazz diplomacy in the Cold War

BY Ella Hill

1954 and 1959 around 140 groups of American musicians, dancers, singers, and athletes travelled on tours across the globe, from Africa to Eastern Europe. In the Soviet Union in particular, these tours of ballets, operas, and symphony orchestras were a wild success, with runs of sellout shows. However, the Soviets put forward a pervasive narrative about America: that it was a brash, commercialised country, devoid of a unique artistic culture of its own, where no value was placed on cultural heritage. This viewpoint proved difficult for the Americans to counter. To play Chopin sonatas in Poland and to dance Tchaikovsky ballets in Russia seemed self defeating – rehashing European artworks only served to prove the point that America was without its own culture. Adam Clayton Powell Jr., representative for Harlem (and the first person of African American descent to be elected to Congress from New York), suggested that one way of solving America’s image problem was to showcase what he called “The real Americana” – jazz music. With its origins firmly

ach November in the heart of the historic city of Krakow, Poland, a jazz festival is held. The All Souls Jazz Festival claims to be the oldest of its kind in Europe, with a history stretching back fifty years or more. To the outside observer, the proliferation of jazz festivals, bars, and clubs in Poland seems no surprise; it’s just like any other chic European city. However, in the context of the Cold War, the enduring popularity of jazz in Poland and in other former Soviet bloc countries takes on a greater significance. In 1954, Dwight Eisenhower called for the creation of a comprehensive programme of worldwide cultural exchange. In his view, the best way to win ‘hearts and minds’ away from the appeal of the Soviet project was to demonstrate the “freedom” and “inclusiveness” of American culture through the promotion of the United States’ leading performing artists and musicians. The initiative, known as “The Cultural Presentations Program,” was given $2,250,000 of sponsorship by the U.S State Department. Between

Apart from these internationally renowned musicians – known as the ‘Jazz Ambassadors’ - one of the most prominent figures to emerge in the worldwide spread of US jazz was the radio personality Willis Conover. In January 1955, Conover’s jazz show, Music USA, began broadcasting over short-wave radio. Listeners tuned in from both sides of the Iron Curtain in Europe, as well as from Africa, Asia, and even from Iran. The global reach of Conover’s show was of great significance to the US State Department’s cultural agenda. Though he was an independent actor, Conover acknowledged his belief in the power of jazz in parallel to the position of the US government, saying:

rooted in America’s past, albeit within some of the most fraught and painful episodes of its history, jazz represented something uniquely American. Jazz came to be the lifeblood of the ‘Cultural Presentations Program’ as US diplomats seized upon its symbolic power. The freedom to improvise and interpret that the form allows was thought to be an ideal representation of the liberty and freedom of expression granted by the American political system. Meanwhile, the prominence of black artists in jazz bands was viewed as a way of countering USSR propaganda that highlighted America’s racism and extolled the virtues of the Soviets in terms of ‘racial equality.’ Ironically, whilst black artists were at the forefront of this campaign, back home in the States they still suffered great prejudice as racist Jim Crow laws continued to be enforced until 1965.

“Jazz… [is] a musical reflection of the way things happen in America. … [P]eople in other countries can feel this element of freedom. They love jazz because they love freedom.”

Jazz came to be the lifeblood of the ‘Cultural Presentations Program’ as US diplomats seized upon its symbolic power.

Listening to jazz was indeed a subversive act in the Soviet Union, one that countered the government monopoly on cultural production and information. Jazz had to be listened to surreptitiously and in secret; radio signals from the West were sometimes jammed, and spies and secret police roamed the streets, listening for homes playing American music. In an interview with The Telegraph, concert pianist Kirill Gerstein recalled that even during his childhood in the 1980s, jazz still had the power to provoke debate in the Eastern Bloc. “My father listened to jazz on the radio, which was not approved of [in Russia]. It was associated with Western, liberal attitudes. There was a phrase, which rhymes in Russian, which went something like ‘today he’s playing jazz, tomorrow he’s selling his motherland.’” The power of jazz provoked the Soviets to try to beat the US at its own game: by subsuming jazz into their own cultural repertoire, the

One of the key elements of the Cold War ‘jazz offensive’ was a programme of tours by music legends such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Benny Goodman. The prominent platform and the political sway that these world tours granted these musicians allowed them to put pressure on the U.S. government with regard to civil rights. Following the Little Rock Crisis of 1957, during which the National Guard barred 9 black students from entering a high school, Louis Armstrong cancelled a tour to the Soviet Union in protest against the government’s poor treatment of the African American community.

Soviets hoped to show that the sense of ‘freedom’ embodied by jazz was not anathema to their regime. It was thus that governments in Eastern Bloc countries sought to domesticate jazz, producing local variants such as Polski jazz which had its own style, influenced by European musical motifs and Polish culture. However, it was always going to be difficult to for the Soviets to keep a lid on the production of jazz. Dr Rüdiger Ritter, an expert in Soviet era jazz, has discovered that from the 1950s onwards, avid listeners of Conover’s shows had been trying to get around signal-jamming by listening to the broadcasts in separate locations, writing down the music, and coming together to play it. Later, Conover began broadcasting jazz played by musicians from the Soviet Union in his programmes, demonstrating the fluidity of this cultural exchange. Jazz became something that was controlled neither by the American nor the Soviet agenda: it belonged to the people that played it, listened to it, and enjoyed it. ‘Jazz diplomacy’ did not ‘win over’ people in Eastern Bloc countries to the American ‘side’ in such a simplistic sense. Jazz, with its roots found in the music of African slaves, is by its very nature a musical form in which the expression of the individual is paramount. It was perhaps this freedom of expression (and not any crude linkages to an ‘American’ brand of freedom) that was the most powerful aspect of jazz for those living under Soviet rule.

Poetry & politics in Russia

BY Marianna Hunt

citizen is able express their political discontent. Nevertheless, such dissent is not without its risks, in the words of Russian poet Mandelstam, “Only in Russia is poetry important: here, they kill you for it.” Throughout Russian history, the state and the poet have been locked in a battle of wills, each attempting to bring the other under its influence; the state by means of repression, censorship, and brutal purges; the poet through his influence on popular thought. As early as the 11th century, court poets, called skomorokhs, composed satirical verses in order to criticise the status quo. Their jibes against authority and particularly against the links between the Orthodox Church and the state - earned them severe persecution as well as the nickname of ‘devil servants.’ During the Decembrist Revolution of 1825, the boundaries between poet and rebel were again blurred as poets such as Kondraty Ryleev used their verses as a means of political dissidence. In his poem Nalevaiko's Confession, Ryleev paints himself as a Christ-like figure, taking all the sins of humanity upon himself. Attempting to light the flames of political revolt in

hroughout history, poetry has enjoyed a privileged status in Russian society. Not perceived merely as an ostentatious display of high-culture, poetry is instead viewed as a key tenet of national pride and identity in Russia. Even today, children in Russia are required to learn verses by heart, adults cite passages to one another in casual conversation, and even mainstream television is full of references to famous Russian poems. The Russian poet has traditionally carved himself in the image of a higher being, a messiah, endowed with a superior insight into humanity and society. Unlike in Western culture (where poetry has been expelled from mainstream society as ‘elitist’) in Russia, the prominence of the poet – and of poetry as a whole – has magnified the influence of the form, even encompassing the world of politics. Despite Seamus Heaney's famous assertion that, “No lyric has ever stopped a tank,” poetry, with its metaphors, Aesopian language, and ambiguity of meaning, in fact possesses a certain political power, offering writers a unique opportunity to bypass censorship. The poetic form is therefore one of the most effective vessels through which a

first husband executed by the Soviets, and both her second husband and her son languishing under imprisonment in GULAG labour camps, Akhmatova's work became the authentic voice of the Russian people suffering at the hands of the Stalinist regime. In her Requiem cycle of poems, Akhmatova employed the veiling devices of biblical stories and a focus on emotional states as a means of bypassing censorship, creating a poetry that was simultaneously universal and epic, and yet also deeply entrenched in personal experience.

the heart of society through his martyr's blood, the poet even declares his willingness to die for the liberty of the Russian people and “at the tyrant, aim the blow.”

"Only in Russia is poetry important: here, they kill you for it."

The government's recognition of the power of poetry is evinced by their attempts to reappropriate it for their own purposes. State-spon-

Fifty years later, these ties between poetry and revolution were as evident as ever in the poetry of Nikolai Nekrasov. When Chernyshevsky, a political radical and a friend of the poet, was tied to a pillar with a sign declaring him a ‘State Criminal’ on his chest, the possibility for Christ-like associations was already evident. In The Prophet, a poem dedicated to his politically persecuted friend, Nekrasov expands upon this similarity with Christ, stating, “He isn't yet on the cross but they will crucify him.” In other poems, Nekrasov turns the poet himself into a messiah figure who wears a crown of thorns and dies to liberate his people. Given the increasingly unstable political situation in Russia at the time, with mounting calls for reform and numerous attacks on the Tsar's life, Nekrasov's message to the people about the importance of political freedom was unmistakable. Another of Nekrasov’s poems from this period, The Peddlars, was printed on cheap paper specifically so as to be affordable for the poor masses, whose political cause the poet championed in his work. During the Soviet era, when critics of the state faced harsh repression equal to that found under the Tsars, people again turned to the ambiguous and multivalent world of poetry as a means of protest. Russia's most famous female poet, Anna Akhmatova, knew all too well the dangers of living under Soviet terror. With her

Nikolay Nekrasov by Nikolay Gay, 1872

sored propaganda poets were used as a kind of counter-attack in both Tsarist and Soviet eras. In the 1950s, under the auspices of the Soviet regime, poets such as Andrei Voznesensky and Yevgeny Yevtushenko became the rock stars of their day, performing their poetry to immense crowds that over-spilled concert halls and sports stadiums. The Soviet government used patron-

century, the poet Ryleev was executed by hanging, drawing, and quartering. Anna Akhmatova's first husband and fellow poet, Nikolai Gumilev, was executed by the Soviet regime in the 1920s. In more recent history, we have the exile of Joseph Brodsky in the 1970s and the harsh arrests of Pussy Riot in 2012 as evidence of the continued repression of poets in Russia. The on-going persecution of poets suggests not only the eternal relevance of poetry as a political instrument, but also the continued problem of substandard political freedom in Russia. Perhaps the lasting importance of poetry within Russian life lies not only in the quality of Russian poetry, but also in the way that poets continue to interrogate the inequalities of Russian politics today. Akhmatova by Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin,1922

age of such poets, developing their status as cult icons, in order to transform the status of poetry from a form of protest into a form of propaganda instead. Nevertheless, the influential legacy of poetry as protest still lives on today. The verses cried out against President Vladimir Putin in 2012 by Russian female protest group, Pussy Riot, were officially labelled “feminist protest punk.” However, these verses can also be seen as a continuation of the interaction between poetry and politics in Russia. In protest against the Orthodox Church's support of Putin, the group performed a ‘punk prayer’ in a Moscow church, beseeching the Holy Mother of Punk to “chase Putin away” In a denigration that starkly recalls the objections brought against Russia's early court poets by the Church hundreds of years ago, the current head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill I, declared Pussy Riot’s lyrics to be “the work of the devil.” Throughout history, the Russian state's reaction to literary dissidents has been marked by violence. The skomorokhs were persecuted throughout Russian court history. In the 19th

Gumilev by Olga Della-Vos-Kardovskaya, 1909

Skopje 2014:

Statue & nation building in The Republic of Macedonia BY Joanna Nayler

BY Joanna Nayler

ereignty is still often denied. The language spoken in Macedonia is similar enough to Bulgarian that Bulgaria refuses to officially recognise the existence of a separate language, seeing Macedonian as a dialect of Bulgarian. The nation state has also fostered tense relations with its southern neighbour, Greece, which still views Macedonia as one of its northern provinces. This has led to Greece attempting to control Macedonian identity though pressuring the government to alter the national flag, entering into disputes over Macedonia’s name and blocking Macedonian attempts at gaining EU membership. Yet throughout, a distinctive Macedonian cultural identity has persisted. The prolific building of quirky statues has undoubtedly helped to boost the international profile of both Skopje and Macedonia. Aside from attempts to encourage tourism to this relatively obscure European capital, the sculptures have a rather more complex motivation, having become the linchpin of government efforts to carve out and express a unique Macedonian national identity. The statues have been erected in tandem with other efforts, such as The Museum of the Macedonian Struggle, which promotes a carefully controlled sense of national pride; the

alk through the centre of Skopje, the capital of the Republic of Macedonia, and you cannot miss the hundreds of faux neo-classical statues which dominate the city. With some up to 22m tall, representations of national figures line bridges and float in life-sized pirate ships on the Vardar river. These monuments include everyone from nameless Macedonian women shopping to obscure ancient Macedonian writers. These sculptures form part of Skopje 2014, inaugurated by the Macedonian government in 2010 to boost Skopje’s international reputation and named after the year of the project’s planned completion, though the building process is yet to finish. Macedonia’s fierce sense of independence embodied in Skopje 2014 is deeply rooted in its past. The nation has been denied recognition throughout history, frequently incorporated into larger empires. The territory has formed a part of the Byzantine, then Ottoman Empires before it was placed under Serbian control following the Balkan wars. Absorbed into the Republic of Yugoslavia after the Second World War, Macedonia only became independent in 1991. Even after independence Macedonia’s sov-

museum is only available to visit with a guide. A 22m high bronze reincarnation of Alexander the Great atop a horse is the centrepiece of the Skopje 2014 project, looming large over the city centre. The statue is the largest in Skopje, and an imposing sight, surrounded by dancing fountains and triumphal music. Whilst it is euphemistically referred to as ‘Warrior on a Horse’, the resemblance to Alexander the Great is uncanny and striking. The monument is a clear attempt to reclaim a well-known aspect of south east European history which many Macedonians view as uniquely Macedonian. Or, as Antionio Miloski, former foreign minister of Macedonia, said in an October 2010 interview, “This is our way of saying [up yours] to them.” The history of Alexander the Great is complex and controversial. Alexander was born in Pella, capital of the ancient Kingdom of Macedon, leading many Macedonians to claim Alexander as the founding father of their nation. Greece argues that the modern Republic of Macedonia has nothing to do with the ancient Kingdom, pointing out it is unlikely Alexander the Great ever even set foot in the modern day territory of the Republic of Macedonia. Nevertheless, Macedonian pride in Alexander the Great extends past this singular statue; flying to Skopje you will land in Alexander the Great International Airport and then drive along Alexander the Great Highway. The waxworks of Alexander, his father, Philip II of Macedon and his mother, Olympias, are also centre stage in the recently opened Archaeological Museum of Macedonia. Mother Teresa is another world-renowned figure lauded as a Macedonian national hero immortalised through Skopje 2014. Plans have been unveiled for a 30m tall statue of her to be erected in Macedonia Square, near the Alexander the Great monument. This will be in addition to the already existing Mother Teresa Memorial House, complete with monument to her

outside, opened in 2009. However, cross the border into Albania and visit its capital, Tirana, where you can stand in Mother Teresa square, fly into Mother Teresa hospital and view several monuments dedicated to the saint across the city. Whilst the saint was born in Skopje, then part of the Ottoman Empire, her mother was an ethnic Albanian with roots in Kosovo and her father is presumed of the same heritage. The Mother Teresa monument in Skopje has attracted criticism from Albanians, who argue against the inscriptions in English and Macedonian, observing that she never declared herself a Macedonian. But whose history is being overlooked in the building of these statues?

So far the government has spent over 600 million euros on the Skopje statues. The figures impose a narrow and carefully controlled official vision of nationhood. They have been particularly criticised for perpetrating a narrative that overlooks the history and presence of the large group of ethnic Albanians and Muslims in Skopje. Skopje’s residents freely admit that they are not aware of who many of the obscure Macedonian heroes are; rumours circulate that some of the ‘famous’ Macedonians depicted in the figures are actually entirely fictitious. Whilst this is certainly an attempt by the state to artificially manufacture a national culture, it is not necessarily a vision accepted by the population. Many Macedonians both view the statues as pointless and do not believe the narrative that they create, making jokes about their expense. However, the works have also attracted much stronger criticism. So far the government has spent over 600 million euros on the Skopje statues. This has

caused derision amongst locals, who point to Macedonia’s mushrooming debt and patchy provision of social and welfare services. These feelings of discontent, exacerbated by a string of political scandals and an exclusivist political climate in Macedonia, have exploded into nationwide protest. Thousands have taken to Skopje’s streets this year in a movement dubbed ‘The Colour Revolution’, defacing many of the city’s statues by spraying them with colourful paint. Along with various official buildings, the figures have become the focal point for protesters who are voicing their discontent with the current political situation in Macedonia. If the Macedonian government has been trying to create a national narrative and regeneration through art, Skopje’s citizens have been using art to reclaim this. For many ordinary Macedonians, a sense of national pride revolves around more concrete and contemporary issues, such as being accepted into the EU or building a strong national social welfare network. However, with the building of Skopje’s statues showing no signs of stopping, neither will the debates surrounding identity and nationhood in Macedonia.

International harmony:

How music conducts the diplomatic stage BY Jasmin Yang-Spooner

Jasmin Yang-Spooner

the rousing performance of Mstislav Rostropovich in front of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Born in Azerbaijan, the famous cellist suffered under Soviet oppression and was harassed by the state for advocating human rights. His impromptu solo of Bach’s Suite No. 2 took place at Checkpoint Charlie, the best-known crossing point between East and West Berlin. The symbolism of the venue as well as the international profile of the artist sent a powerful image around the world. Other musicians have gone further in trying to unite people from different countries. In 2000, cellist Yo-Yo Ma founded the Silk Road Ensemble, which takes its symbolic name from the trading route that united Asia, the Middle East and Europe through commerce and mercantile exchange. Founded in 2000, the aim of this loose group of around 60 multicultural musicians is to become a “catalyst for cultural citizenship” and a global “transformative power.” Yo-Yo Ma’s musical fame lends it media attention, and this helps to bring cultural exchange back into the newsfeeds of major newspapers and political magazines. The Boston Globe hails its relevance in the post 9/11 world as a “forceful rejoinder to the events of the daily news.” The Silk Road ensemble does not promote a political line itself, however. This project may

he encore of the West Australian Symphony Orchestra’s performance at the Beijing Music Festival this October was an adaptation of Yang Yong and Liu Hong’s ‘Mother Taught Me a Song’, written for the Chinese Communist Party. Taught across China in the national school curriculum, this well-known song is intended to promote the cultural and patriotic unity of the People’s Republic. It may seem bizarre that a westernised, non-Communist country would advocate such a controversial political line. However, this performance was neither an endorsement of Communism nor a show of Chinese patriotism. According to Min Yang, violinist and cultural advisor to WASO, the point of this cultural exchange was to “unite people for the same love of music, without the intrusion of politics.” Communication was conducted between musical management bodies, not politicians or diplomats. Instead of a military faceoff, or debate at an international convention, orchestra players and conductors become the central players of the diplomatic stage. Music has long brought cultures together, and helped to form genuine diplomatic relationships. One of the most iconic examples of music inciting apolitical emotional responses is

be contrasted with more explicitly political enterprises, such as the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, founded by multinational conductor and pianist Barenboim and post-colonial intellectual Edward Said in order to unite Palestinian and Israeli as well as other Arab musicians through playing together. Palestinian violinist Nabih Bulos shares his experience of playing alongside Israeli colleagues as a psychologically significant step in breaking down the boundary between ‘enemy’ and ‘friend.’ Nevertheless, this has not been without its setbacks. Resurgent conflict between Israel and Lebanon led to a number of Lebanese and Syrian musicians refusing to participate in the 2006 summer workshop. In 2007, the Orchestra was barred from performing at the Baroque Music Festival in the Gaza Strip, and a Palestinian musician was even detained from attempting to cross the border. The success of this project is still dependent on the unpredictable relations between the governments in the area, and it cannot operate entirely without their political goodwill. It would be naïve to expect that playing alongside musicians from a hostile nation would heal the fractured past of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Nevertheless, music is still important in recognizing humanity and possibility of partnership, which is the first step in gaining trust. This can sometimes go hand in hand with the traditional diplomatic process. WASO’s performance of ‘Mother Taught Me a Song’ in Beijing wasn’t just about bringing the two cultures together: it took place in the context of healing the recent souring of Sino-Australian relations. The current Australian government has opposed China’s claims to maritime areas in the South China Sea. Prime Minister Turnbull made it clear in the heated South China Sea Arbitration at The Hague in July that he did not recognise the historical rights (or ‘nine-dash line’) claimed by the Communist Party of China to be its borders. Chinese state media responded with

provocative rhetoric, calling Australia a “paper cat.” This rapid decline of the relations between two major trading partners would cause serious issues for both of their economies as well as the balance of power in the Asia-Pacific. However, the newly appointed Chinese Ambassador to Australia Cheng Jingye recently stressed the importance of maintaining co-operation, saying that the “core factor underlying this trajectory [of political and economic cooperation] is the deepening of political mutual trust and common interests.” They are both each other’s primary trading partners; sales to China alone accounted for almost 80% of all Australian export growth in value terms in 2013-14. If trade can build bridges between the two countries, then perhaps music also has the potential to create mutual understanding. It is through both these ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ tools of diplomacy that true trust may be gained; not only at the highest levels of politics, but down to the personal interactions between traders and corporate bodies, musicians and artists, in both nations. Music is by no means an alternative to traditional methods of political diplomacy. Cultural exchange inevitably has its limits, and even the artists who work to promote such interactions recognise this. Nevertheless, this non-political dimension of international relations can foster personal trust, and from this cultural exchange they can begin to build more complex relationships. It is by accepting one another as individuals on a personal level that we may strive to achieve large-scale cooperation.

The power of crayons:

Children’s art, war & politics

BY Fergus Peace

The drawings from the Terezín Ghetto are unusual in not being so clearly childlike. About forty miles north of Prague, Terezín was used by the occupying Nazis as a prison and transit camp for Jews from Czechoslovakia and Austria. Though it was straightforwardly a concentration camp, the Nazis tried to present it – in propaganda films, and for an investigative visit by the Red Cross – as a ‘model Jewish settlement.’ The children made their paintings under the tutelage of a respected Austrian artist. But elements of the horror of the ghetto still creep in. In the corner of a pencil sketch titled ‘Flowers,’ there are two stars of David with ‘Jude’ written in their centres. A teenager’s watercolour shows two figures facing each other from opposite sides of the river; one of them, his arm raised in warning, seems to be dressed in uniform. Almost all of the children, whose drawings have been preserved by the Jewish Museum in Prague, were murdered at Auschwitz. Their pictures are among the only things they left behind. In 2016, we are faced with the art of children still alive and suffering. Trips to Australia’s asy-

here’s the bright yellow sun in the corner of the page, rays heading off in all directions. Houses with neat triangles for roofs, and crossed squares for windows. Birds in the distance are rendered with the trademark two curved lines. These are instantly recognisable as drawings done by children, and they seem to convey the same colourful joy as children’s drawings anywhere. But in these pictures, there’s barbed wire in the background, a bomb falling from a plane towards those neat houses. These drawings are done by children in some of the most desperate circumstances we can imagine: held in detention camps fleeing their war-torn homes or victims of acts of atrocity. They shock us, quite viscerally, in a way that no number of statistics or tragic news stories seem to, and they feature prominently in political narratives as a result. We have developed an approach to humanitarian crises, as technical problems to be solved, which minimises their moral horror. The emotional and political power of these images comes from their ability to upset those settled ways of thinking.

made it out – to Turkey or Jordan, or as far as Italy. They more starkly depict the suffering the children have been through: people with guns, boats crammed full of people screaming for help. But some of these pictures more quietly show how absorbed into everyday life these children’s trauma has become. In one, by a student at the Free Syria School in Turkey, four figures play with a football in the garden outside their house. Above, in the opposite corner to the sun, a plane – with an angry face drawn on the cockpit – drops a bomb towards them. Given that there are still children in Australian asylum detention, and waiting to be resettled in overcrowded camps in Jordan and Turkey, it would be a grave error to overstate the impact seeing these drawings has made. But they do have obvious emotional power, and have gained at least some political traction as well. Senators from the Australian Greens have repeatedly brought drawings to parliamenta-

lum detention camps, on Nauru and on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea, have produced startling drawings by some of the children held there. Australia’s current policy is that people, including children, who attempt to come to Australia by boat will be held in offshore detention indefinitely and never settled on the mainland. One child, Artin, draws himself and his friends standing in a queue for malaria tablets, underneath a yellow sun with a smiling face. Another drawing has the classic materials, the sun, seagulls, a house – but the only person on the page is in the corner, behind bars, unsmiling. Some of the drawings ask for help. But the saddest just describe. “This is a boy. He is in the prison and waiting.” “My mum is crying and I am sad” – again, under a smiling yellow sun. In Syria, civil war has been grinding on for more than five years, and there are countless children whose voices people in the West will probably never have the chance to hear. Most of the drawings we’ve seen are by those who’ve

ry debates – they first revealed drawings from Manus in 2013, but years earlier had presented children’s art from a now-closed detention centre in mainland Australia – winning significant sympathetic coverage and putting government ministers on the defensive. Drawings from the Terezín Ghetto are given a prominent role in the Jewish Museum of Prague’s efforts to present and educate about the horrors of the Holocaust. Drawings by children fleeing from Syria have featured in advocacy material published by Amnesty International and the UNHCR; they’re frequently written up by major media organisations like NPR and the BBC, and are at the heart of a new awareness project called Inside Outside. Why? There are plenty of other sources testifying, in great detail, to the horror of conditions on Nauru or for Syrian refugees. So what’s the power of these pictures in particular? There are a few obvious answers. Art is always a uniquely expressive way of conveying a message, political or otherwise. The visual representation of suffering is almost inevitably more striking and moving than a description of it. Yet that can’t be the whole story: an artist held on Manus Island, who uses the pseudonym ‘Eaten Fish’, has released a series of cartoons about life in detention, to great artistic acclaim. Their message is far sharper than anything in a child’s drawing – a few months ago, Eaten Fish won an international prize for political cartoons – but they made barely a ripple. Nor is it just that they’re children. We might like to tell ourselves that children’s innocence is what makes us respond to their cries. The reality is much less flattering. When refugee children were brought from the camp at Calais to the UK in October, the mass-market tabloid press tried to deny they were really children rather than admit to their suffering or show any generosity to them. When a documentary showed refugee children giving details of their plight in Austra-

lian asylum detention, the governments of both Nauru and Australia accused them of being “coached” to lie about their conditions. Not everyone reacts so viciously. But these reactions illustrate something very human: when we feel under political attack, it’s frequently a first instinct to undermine or minimise, to say – even if we admit things are bad – that they aren’t quite that bad. Children’s drawings seem to sneak past that defence mechanism. That’s why it’s the ordinary drawings – more than the ones that explicitly cry out for freedom – that are so shocking. They’re not trying to tell us anything, let alone asking for something or attacking us. They’re just showing, quietly, how completely the horror and desperation of war and imprisonment can be integrated into a child’s view of the world. The drawings look like just any kids’ drawings; it’s just children drawing what they know and live. And their pictures make us realise, more viscerally than anything else, that what these children know and live is pure horror. When they come out and say so, something in us gets defensive and looks for ways not to believe. The power of this art is that there’s nothing to disbelieve, because it’s not saying anything. It looks us straight in the eye and makes us realise what lives we’ve created for them, whether by inflicting the horror on them or just by failing to help, and it leaves us nowhere else to look. You can find links to some of the drawings, projects and collections mentioned in this piece at http://bit.ly/2dMoyuu.

ADVANCED INTERNATIONAL STUDIES IN THE CAPITAL OF EUROPE Postgraduate education in international affairs taught in English by world-leading academics and experienced practitioners. • • • • • • • • •

Conflict and Security EU External Relations International and Human Rights Law International Migration International Relations Political Economy International Development Political Strategy and Communication Two Capitals Programme

Flexible study options – choose one or two specialisations for full or part-time study. Brussels based with internship and networking opportunities.

T: +32 2 641 1721 E: bsis@kent.ac.uk www.kent.ac.uk/brussels

Lighthouse

the

Oxford International Relations Society Michaelmas 2016