Like many of you I’ve been disgusted and appalled by the recent deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery. They’re just the latest in a long string of racist incidents in the United States. As an individual, I feel powerless, and I’ve struggled with how we in the Cold War Studies community can make a difference. I haven’t come up with any easy answers, but I’ve decided on two baby steps that I hope will lead to more substantive action. 

In today’s post, I’ll pass on some resources that I hope will help us all examine our attitudes and actions. Our community is diverse and international so I know that there’s not ‘a one size fits all’. We’re all in a different place on our social justice journey. But I hope you find something in this listing that is relevant to where you find yourself now and where you want to be. After I lay out some resources, I’ll suggest an action that we might take, targeting especially our American readers.  

Here’s my list. It’s in no particular order, and was recommended to me by the black scholar and activist, Bryan Massingale, the James and Nancy Buckman Chair in Applied Christian Ethics at Fordham University. 

(In full transparency, if you choose to purchase any of these items through our affiliate links, Cold War Studies will receive a small commission. We thank you!)

White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son (2007) is a book by activist and writer Tim Wise that has also been made into a documentary. According to the film site Kanopy, the documentary explores race and racism in the US through the lens of whiteness and white privilege. The reviewer goes on to say that “Wise offers a fascinating look back at the race-based white entitlement programs that built the American middle class.” He argues that our failure as a society to come to terms with this legacy of white privilege continues to perpetuate racial inequality and race-driven political resentments today. You can watch the trailer below. Watch the full film on Kanopy.

Just Mercy (2014) is a powerful true story about the potential for mercy to redeem us. Amazon says that the book is a clarion call to fix our broken system of justice—from one of the most brilliant and influential lawyers of our time. Bryan Stevenson is the executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama, and a professor of law at New York University Law School. He has won relief for dozens of condemned prisoners, argued five times before the Supreme Court, and won national acclaim for his work challenging bias against the poor and people of color. He has received numerous awards, including the MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Grant. The book has also been made into a movie. You can watch the trailer below and the full film on Amazon Prime Video or Apple TV.

I Am Not Your Negro (2016) is a documentary film directed by Raoul Peck, based on James Baldwin’s unfinished manuscript Remember This House. Narrated by actor Samuel L. Jackson, the film explores the history of racism in the United States through Baldwin’s reminiscences of civil rights leaders Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr., as well as his personal observations of American history.  It was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 89th Academy Awards and won the BAFTA Award for Best Documentary. You can watch the trailer below. The full movie is available on Amazon.

13th (2016) explores the history of racial inequality in the United States, focusing on the fact that the nation’s prisons are disproportionately filled with African-Americans. It gets its name from the American Constitution’s 13th amendment, which reads: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.”  You can watch the trailer below. The film is available on YouTube and on Netflix.

White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism (2018) is a New York Times best-selling book that explores “the counterproductive reactions white people have when their assumptions about race are challenged, and how these reactions maintain racial inequality.” I’ve just checked this book out of the library, but haven’t started reading it yet. Have any of you read it? 

If you have suggestions, I’d love for you to enter them in the comments. And, just as an aside, I noticed this morning that Netflix has a good selection of movies that they’ve put in a Black Lives Matter section on their site. You might want to take a look.

Now for the action item. The 2020 elections are coming soon. Regardless of your preferences, I think we can all agree that it’s really important for everyone to vote, so here’s the action item I mentioned earlier. Voter suppression is a ‘hot’ issue and a group called Reclaim Our Vote is tackling that problem. I’m suggesting that you go to their nonpartisan website and check them out. Volunteer if you’re so inclined.They’re  currently working to inform and motivate voters of color in Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Texas. You can sign up to make phone calls or send postcards.

My very best wishes to you all. Let’s work together to stand for change!

Photograph by Lisa Reynolds Wolfe

Hong Kong protesters shelter behind a thin barrier – and umbrellas – as police fire tear gas and encircle a group of demonstrators.
AP Photo/Vincent Yu

Paul Monod, Middlebury

Hong Kong may seem like an unlikely place for a revolution. In this relatively affluent and privileged city, young people might be expected to be more concerned with making money than with protesting in the streets. Yet day after day, demonstrators in Hong Kong risk injury and death confronting security forces backed by the massive power of the Chinese government.

Among their demands are democratic elections for the city’s Legislative Council and chief executive. Their desire for fundamental change has mounted, and they increasingly see their own lives as lacking meaning unless circumstances change.

Historians have long argued that revolutions are built not on deep misery but on rising expectations. Since the 18th century, societies, clubs and associations of intellectuals have been seedbeds of radical change in countries throughout the world. They provided leadership for the French Revolution in 1789, the European revolutions of 1848 and the Russian Revolution of 1905.

The situation in Hong Kong is revolutionary, too, although the history of past revolutions may not provide much hope of immediate change.

A look at Hungary

The most compelling parallel to Hong Kong may be the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, which attempted to wrest power from a communist regime. It, too, began with a student uprising in favor of democratic elections.

Within a few days, the communist government resigned and a reformist administration was formed under Imre Nagy, who allowed noncommunists to enter political office. This went too far for communist leaders in the Soviet Union. The USSR invaded Hungary, overthrew Nagy’s regime and secretly put him to death.

As with the Hong Kong protests today, the United States gave little official support to the Hungarian Revolution and was unwilling to offer material assistance. Keeping peace in Europe was of vital importance to U.S. policy in 1956, just as good relations with China are now central.

The Hungarian example may provide little solace to the Hong Kong protesters – except, perhaps, if they consider its long-term consequences.

In October 1989, with Soviet influence in Eastern Europe collapsing, the democratic Republic of Hungary was declared on the 33rd anniversary of the 1956 revolution. Those who died during that revolution are now remembered as martyrs.

In China’s own history

Chinese history supplies a more heartening example of a successful student-led uprising: the Revolution of 1911. It was fomented by young men returning from study abroad, who formed political societies to “revive” their country, often disguised as literary discussion groups.

The 1911 Revolution mobilized networks of intellectuals and students throughout China, but it also drew on other social groups: military officers, merchants, coal miners and farmers. The revolution erupted in many parts of China simultaneously and had various outcomes, from utter failure, to the massacre of ethnic Manchus to declarations of Mongol and Tibetan independence. A provisional government emerged by the end of the year in Nanjing.

The Hong Kong protests, however, are too limited in geographical scope and social support to repeat the success of the 1911 revolutionaries.

The subsequent Chinese revolution in 1949, like the 1917 Russian Revolution, followed Leninist theory and was spearheaded by professional party insiders, not by intellectuals. The communists regarded mass protests as potentially counter-revolutionary and as threats to the new order.

What’s next?

The young protestors in Hong Kong seek to avoid the fate of the student demonstrators of Tiananmen Square in spring 1989. Three decades ago, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of protesters were massacred after the communist government invoked martial law. The pro-democracy agenda of the Tiananmen protesters was vague, and they relied on reformers within the party apparatus, who finally betrayed them.

The Hong Kong crowds are focused on specific changes and lack illusions about the party. They will go down fighting desperately, not standing with faint hope in front of tanks. That may give pause to the forces of repression. As the Communist Party of China and any student of history knows, martyrs are the fuel of future revolutions.

Paul Monod, Professor of History, Middlebury

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Alex Bitterman, Alfred State College of Technology, The State University of New York and Daniel Baldwin Hess, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York

A key group of allies is missing in the U.S. effort to face the coronavirus pandemic: the American people.

In the wake of World War II and during the Cold War, the U.S. was the world’s best at planning and preparing for mobilizing the citizenry to take action in an emergency. In those days, the anticipated emergency was a nuclear attack on the U.S., likely resulting in a loss of national leadership that required local governments and members of the public to step up.

Every American was asked to help prepare for that possibility, storing extra supplies, planning to communicate with family members and developing survival skills.

Eventually, this type of “civil defense” planning grew to incorporate responses to other extreme events, such as hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes.

Over the latter half of the 20th century, the U.S. civil defense effort encouraged all Americans to be prepared to respond actively to a national emergency.

In recent years, however, Americans’ expectations have shifted from being ready to respond to passively waiting for help from a centralized, bureaucratic federal effort – usually led by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Civilian-led response after World War II

As professors of architecture and urban planning who study extreme events and historical forces shaping communities, we have firsthand experience in disaster response following Hurricanes Katrina and Maria. We have observed that federal emergency responses can often be poorly orchestrated and mismanaged, lacking the nimble effectiveness of local, citizen-organized efforts. That slows aid, and recovery.

But this was not always the case. Civil defense efforts once relied on the active efforts of citizens.

Created in 1947, the National Security Resources Board was charged with overseeing the nation’s civil defense preparations. The agency oversaw a coordinated communications effort that included reserving dedicated radio frequencies for broadcasting emergency information, issuing instructional posters and pamphlets. Its efforts also included producing short films for school-age children such as “Bert the Turtle” and “Duck and Cover,” which taught kids ways they could help keep themselves safe.

The board was also the origin of the once-ubiquitous Emergency Broadcast System, meant to give the public accurate information and instruction in an urgent situation. Its tests, including a script declaring that “this is a test … this is only a test,” would precede an ear-splitting tone interrupting radio and TV broadcasts.

Other civil defense efforts encouraged citizens to practice air raid drills, including training students to shelter under their classroom desks. Volunteers were mobilized to stock and maintain provisions and medical supplies in a decentralized network of fallout shelters in the basements of public buildings. This was common practice until the late 1970s.

One elementary school near Roswell, New Mexico, was even built fully underground to double as a fallout shelter. Some homeowners even built and stocked fallout shelters in their own basements. These efforts were locally run, but coordinated under the umbrella structure of national civil defense.

Federal authorities take over

As the Cold War subsided, emergency management began to encompass other types of extreme events, which often required specialized equipment and expert training. That required a move to a more professional disaster response.

For instance, the Three Mile Island nuclear accident and the Love Canal contamination outpaced local resources and expertise. In their wake, President Jimmy Carter signed Executive Order 12148 in 1979, replacing a civilian-led civil defense organization with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The current system, run by FEMA, does not actively encourage community planning or citizen participation, though there are materials and videos available on the agency’s website.

The lack of civic coordination shifts responsibility away from citizens working collectively – and in fact has left people seemingly less prepared to respond to a crisis.

Schools have closed, and with no real backup plan, most teachers have been forced to learn on the fly about how to provide distance learning and online education.

State and local governments struggle to coordinate containment zones, enforce quarantines and orchestrate the movement of people and goods.

Without guidance, people are waiting for help to arrive. In the meantime, the uncertainty has fueled panic-buying that has emptied stores, leaving critical care workers – and those too poor to buy in bulk or in advance – without reliable access to key foods and supplies.

The American medical care system is overwhelmed, and state and federal governments are struggling to allocate supplies and distribute equipment. Large businesses and industries have been slow or reluctant to shift production to making critically needed supplies.

Local groups move fast

Small organizations are able to adapt: Many have quickly shifted to fill the immediate need. Small wineries, microbreweries and distilleries are making hand sanitizer. Garment and uniform companies are making masks. Schools are using 3D printers to produce face shields.

These examples demonstrate that small-scale approaches can be effective in producing big results. In contrast, larger organizations are more bureaucratic and slower to respond. These inverse economies of scale mirror civil defense efforts: Many working collectively but independently are sometimes more effective than a larger centralized effort.

When facing an unexpected crisis, some amount of disorganization is probably inevitable. But other countries, such as Estonia, Sweden, Finland, Nigeria and Australia, actively work to engage all citizens in disaster preparedness, first aid training and other efforts that give people clear and productive tasks to accomplish.

Following their example – and indeed the United States’ own history – could help create a system of federal oversight and coordination complemented by prepared and trained local responders. That could better prepare the public to pull together as a collective civic community when disaster next strikes.

[You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors. You can get our highlights each weekend.]

Alex Bitterman, Professor of Architecture and Design, Alfred State College of Technology, The State University of New York and Daniel Baldwin Hess, Professor of Urban and Regional Planning, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Today, just as in 1947, American foreign aid is a very contentious topic. So contentious, in fact, that the handling of military assistance to the Ukrainian nation in the summer of 2019 is at the core of an ongoing impeachment debate in the United States Congress. At first, though, when the Truman Doctrine of 1947 “put us on the front line, supporting two small, weak European countries, Greece and Turkey,” there was broad bipartisan support. (p.61) Congress agreed with President Truman’s administration in perceiving a need for military and economic assistance that would strengthen these nations against the sorts of external and internal pressures that would erode their status as reliable free world partners.

More recently, foreign aid has provided political support to countries where the US has a stake, bolstering regional security and promoting America’s policy goals. Moreover, what started as a bipartisan concern has become more unfocused. Currently, for some, the idea of using foreign aid to further democratic ideals has morphed into an effort to force reform and dismantle statist structures.

In the late 1940s, though, the idea of assistance for economic development appealed to both Democrats and Republicans, especially as related to Europe and Japan. These two countries had a legacy of industrialization and capitalism and, in the wake of World War II, it was believed that these institutions could be brought back to life with an infusion of dollars.

Soon, however, the CIA had other ideas. A 1948 CIA assessment of the strategic implications of the breakup of colonialism noted:

[T]he good will of the recently liberated and emergent independent nations becomes a vital factor in the future strategic position of the US in the Near and Far East . . . [U]nless the US . . . adopts a more positive and sympathetic attitude toward the national aspirations of these areas and at least partially meets their demands for economic assistance, it will risk their becoming actively antagonistic toward the US. (p.62)

By the 1950s, some in Congress like John F. Kennedy (Democrat of Massachusetts), were pushing hard for legislation to provide more generous foreign assistance. The effort gained bipartisan support when John Sherman Cooper (Republican of Kentucky) joined with Kennedy to sponsor the Kennedy-Cooper Resolution, declaring that the US should organize an international mission to study the development needs of India.

At first the Eisenhower administration resisted, but they gave their support when the resolution was broadened to extend to all South Asian countries. Eisenhower’s opposition was based on his feeling that private investment, trade, and technical assistance were more important and “more reliable spurs to growth . . .” (p.63)

Eisenhower was not the only one committed to a relatively conservative philosophy. A full-fledged academic debate continued unabated throughout the 1950s and the early 1960s. In addition to economic concerns, there was disagreement about foreign policy objectives. Were we seeking to create democracies or did we just want to exert political influence over foreign governments? Still, by Eisenhower’s second term, political pressure to engage in the ‘aid business’ was overwhelming. This became apparent in Ike’s second inaugural address when he proclaimed:

We must use our skills and knowledge and, at times, our substance to help others rise from misery, however far the scene of suffering may be from our shores. For wherever in the world a people knows desperate want, there must appear at least the spark of hope, the hope of progress– or there will surely rise at last the flames of conflict. . . . (p.66)

Subsequently, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles unveiled the Development Loan Fund of April 1957 which was vigorously supported by Eisenhower. The fund would eventually distribute as much as $750 million a year, a move which Ike saw as a positive way to combat communism. He said:

The whole design of this defense against Communist conspiracy and encirclement cannot be with guns alone. For the freedom of nations can be menaced not only by guns but by the poverty that communism can exploit. (p.66)

Subsequently, the United States embarked on an ambitious program of foreign aid. Democrats supported the effort for its humanitarianism and on the basis of development theory. Republicans were motivated by fear of Soviet inroads into the Third World.

By the time the Cold War ended in 1991, “the net financial flow to aid-receiving countries since the mid-1950s, both commercial and concessional, had reached the phenomenal total of some $2 trillion in 1980s prices.” Interestingly, the results were mixed. (p.67)

Foreign assistance offered no assurance of political influence for the United States, and development showed no signs of ensuring either democracy or stability. According to Rodman:

. . . nothing seemed to work . . . The genuine generosity and anticolonialist intentions that lay behind much of the American contribution to Third World development seemed to be of no avail.(p.71)

Many Americans reacted by supporting a move toward neo-isolationism. While the popular book by William J. Lederer and Eugene Burdick titled The Ugly American (1958) told the story of an American ambassador in Southeast Asia “anguished by the insensitivity and clumsiness of much of our official presence abroad,” many in the US felt that “it was the foreigners who were ungrateful and undeserving, not the Americans who were guilty of insensitivity.” (p.72)

Currently, the US is facing the same dilemma. Americans are conflicted about the purpose of aid and the appropriateness of various behavior regarding its conveyance. These questions are not new. In 1986, a British writer, Barbara Ward, noted that some

Denounce the recipient people as ungrateful scoundrels who show no due appreciation of the magnificent generosity shown them . . . .

Yet is it logical to expect gratitude for steps taken openly and crudely in self-defense?

________________________________________

Photograph: Flickr/Creative Commons

Sources:

This post relies on information drawn from Peter W. Rodman’s book More Precious Than Peace (published by Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1994, pp. 61-74.)

Barbara Ward, “For a New Foreign Aid Concept,” New York Times Magazine, March 11, 1956, P.42.

I’ve decided to publish a post or two from the Cold War Studies e-mail course on Islam, since tensions in the Middle East highlighting the Sunni-Shi’a split are increasingly in the news. I’m thinking especially of the rhetoric surrounding President Trump’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia. I’m also reacting to this morning’s terrorist attack in Tehran. Today’s action marks the first time that the Sunni Muslim extremist group, ISIS, has claimed responsibility for an assault inside Iran, which is predominantly Shi’a.

The attack shouldn’t have been surprising. In late March, the Islamic State published a rare video in Persian, calling on Iran’s Sunni minority to rise up against the Shi’a-dominated Iranian establishment. Analysts have suggested that the group’s ideology holds little appeal for Sunni Iranians, who are estimated to compose 5-10 percent of a total population of 81 million and are routinely discriminated against or harassed. Yet some reports and increased warnings by Iranian officials suggest that the extremist group has managed to recruit among Iranians.

If you want to learn more, there’s a sign-up for the entire e-mail course at the bottom of the post.

The Split: Sunni and Shi’a

The Islamic community is divided into two major branches, Sunnis and Shi’as or Shi’ites. They differ in terms of who should hold the political leadership of the Islamic community and what the religious dimension of that leadership should be.

Sunni Islam is the doctrine of power and achievement. Shi’a Islam is the doctrine of opposition. It begins in defeat — the defeat of Ali and his house — so its primary appeal is to the defeated and the oppressed. It has often been the rallying cry for the underdog in the Muslim World.

Central to Shi’ism’s appeal, especially for the poor and dispossessed, is the theme of suffering and martyrdom. For Shi’ites, the kin of the Prophet — especially his daughter Fatima, her husband Ali, and their two sons Hassan and Husain — are a Holy Family in almost the Christian sense of the phrase.  Husain was massacred at Karbala. To Shi’as, the passion of Husain is virtually equivalent to the crucifixion of Christ, especially with respect to passion plays and processions. I’ll talk more about that later in this article.

Sunni Muslims accept the legality of the ‘rightly guided’ caliphs we talked about last time. They also accept the legitimacy of their successors, the Umayyids and Abbasids. They acknowledged the caliphs as mortal beings with no divine powers. So, although the caliphs represented the religious leadership of the community, their authority was temporal, and they left matters of doctrine and jurisprudence to the ulama. These were learned men who spent much time in the study of holy law. The interpretations they provided became the basis of Muslim law or Shari’a.

The caliphs were responsible for upholding the Shari’a and ensuring that opportunities for the fulfillment of an Islamic way of life prevailed within the community. The term Sunni means tradition or custom and refers to those Muslims who followed the custom of the community. Today, they constitute the vast majority of Muslims in the world.

Today’s Shi’ites live mostly in Iran, but they also comprise a majority of the Arabs in Iraq as well as a minority in Turkey, India, Pakistan, Lebanon, the Arab Gulf States — including Saudi Arabia — and in Afghanistan. They believe that the rightful leadership of Islam passes through the line of Ali in a kind of apostolic succession of Imams.

After Ali’s death, the leadership of the Shi’at Ali or the ‘party of Ali” passed to his two sons Hassan, and Husain, who were also Mohammad’s grandsons. Husain was motivated by a desire to reverse the secularizing and materialist tendencies of many of the more mainstream Muslims. He wanted to redirect the community along the path that Mohammad had prescribed for it. But he lacked sufficient popular support.

In 680, as mentioned before, Husain was massacred with his family in the battle of Karbala. His death cemented the already existing divisions in the ummah, the Islamic community.

To the Shi’a, Husain’s death took on the aura of martyrdom. Karbala developed into the holiest shrine of Shi’ism, and the annual rites of mourning for Husain at that site became the most important religious ceremony in the Shi’a calendar.

Husain’s death became a symbol of his family’s suffering and oppression, and highlighted the Shi’a belief that the right to rule of the Prophet’s family had been usurped.  To reemphasize, suffering and martyrdom emerged as central to Shi’ism, a religion grounded in the defeat of Ali and his house by the mainstream branch of Islam, the Sunnis. Consequently, Shi’ism’s primary appeal has always been to the downtrodden and the oppressed.

As Shi’a doctrine evolved in the decades after Husain’s martyrdom, a succession of Imams were accorded a special role. Shi’ism maintains that the divine inspiration granted Mohammad was in turn transmitted to Ali and then passed to designated Imams after him. While not equal to the Prophet, these men possess unquestionable spiritual authority and are the vessels through which God provides his uninterrupted guidance to human society. They are regarded as having been divinely inspired and possess esoteric knowledge not granted to other humans, including insight into the hidden meanings of the Quran.

Events involving the 12th Imam, Mohammad al-Mahdi, are especially important. We talk about him next.

P.S.

This lesson is part 4 of our free email series called Introducing Islam. Want to start from the beginning? Learn more about the course and sign up here.

Photograph by Essam Al Hedek (Flickr).