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January-February 2011
Integration, Assimilation & Cooperation Integration in ‘The World’s Happiest Country’ - Maria Ovesen ‘An Audacious Act of Appropriation’ - Nadja A. Janssen Post-Conflict Rule of Law Construction - Wouter van Cleef Biography: Joseph Bonnano - Daniëlle Wiersema Book & Author: Phil Nerges - Elke Weesjes
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CREDITS Editor-in-Chief: Elke Weesjes
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CONTENTS FOCUS
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EDITORIAL
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ARTICLE ONE Integration in ‘The World’s Happiest Country’ By: Maria Ovesen
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ARTICLE TWO ‘An Audacious Act of Appropriation’ By: Nadja A. Janssen
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ARTICLE THREE Engaging Local Power Brokers By: Wouter van Cleef
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Post-Conflict Rule of Law Construction 55
BIOGRAPHY Joseph Bonanno (1905-2002) By: Daniëlle Wiersema 73 BOOK & AUTHOR Phil Nerges - Iraq Journal & They Must Be Hungry By: Elke Weesjes GET PUBLISHED
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January/February
EDITORIAL Integration, Assimilation & Cooperation
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e have entered an era where an increase in racially motivated attacks, “Islamophobia”, the recession, the growing popularity of extreme right groups and political parties are putting community cohesion all over the world at risk. In many countries the increase of racism and negative attitudes towards immigration are intrinsically linked to the recession. However, the international ‘war on terror’ has also led to Muslims, in particular, being widely discriminated against and persecuted. Throughout the world people are witnessing unsettling changes. Non-Muslims and Muslims alike became victims of terror and violence by people pretending to act “in the name of Islam”. Misunderstanding and prejudice is still growing on both sides. The media plays a big role in this, since it helps shape how we see the world. Most western media are using the war on terror to sensationalize the news and capture bigger audience shares. Islam is being depicted as “fundamentalism”, “extremism” and radicalism”. Of course, in the modern world where the role of media is central, the image of reality can be manipulated to misrepresent the actual facts. Muslims are represented as “terrorists” posing a threat to western
EDITORIAL
security, this threat is then used to justify the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In the past decade this approach has led to the emergence of “Islamophobia”. Little effort has been made to respond to these negative campaigns. The political co-option of every study or statement by scholars, experts and media commentators in the post 9/11 period has created a minefield for policymakers and the general public as they search for answers to questions like: “What are the causes of radicalism and anti-Americanism?”. “Is Islam compatible with democracy?”, “What do Muslim women think about their status in Islam?” Women and Islam has been an especially debated topic in the last two years. In April 2011, France introduced a law against covering your face in public. Muslim women in full-face veils, or niqab, are now banned from any public activity, including taking the subway, walking on the street or picking up their children from school. Politicians who supported the ban said they were acting to protect “gender equality” and the “dignity” of women. But
nine months after the law was introduced, the result is a mixture of apathy and confusion. Muslim groups report a worrying increase in discrimination as well as verbal and physical violence against women in veils. Kenza Drider, a 32 year old mother of three, was courageous enough to appear on French television to oppose the law before it came into force. She refuses
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to take off her niqab - “My husband doesn’t dictate what I do, much less the government”- but she says she now lives in fear of being attacked. “I still go out in my car, on foot, to the shops, to collect my kids. I am insulted about three to four times a day, “ she says. Most say, “Go home”. One said: “We’ll do to you what we did to the Jews.” The worst attack she recalls involved a man trying to run her over in his car. Drider explained: “I feel that I now know what Jewish women went through before the Nazi roundups in France. When they went out in the street they were identified, singled out, they were vilified. Now that’s happening to us.” This comparison between Jews and Muslims seems a valid one. In many ways Muslims are the new Jews, meaning it has become socially acceptable to denigrate and attack Muslims on nothing more than prejudice, ignorance and plain lies. Within this context the Croation Imam of Zagreb and Professor of Islamic History Mirza Mešić, made some interesting remarks during a recent lecture on the perception of Islam and Muslims in the me-
dia: ‘The representation of Muslims in the western media has to change and “Interculturalism” has to replace “Islamophobia”. We need to educate non-Muslims about Islam and Muslims about other faiths to establish mutual understanding and tolerance”. [...] Our world’s durability depends, to a great extent, on the promotion of intercultural dialogue. The establishment of dialogue environments is a means to appreciate diverse opinions and eliminate the stereotypes often assigned to “Others”.’ These issues are explored in detail in this current journal. From a variety of angles, contributors discuss the problems surrounding integration, the search for an identity, the role of the media in shaping how we look at the world, the assimilation versus integration debate and how to establish successful working relationships between western and non-western authorities.
ARTICLE ONE
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INTEGRATION IN ‘THE WORLD’S HAPPIEST COUNTRY’ BY: MARIA OVESEN
ARTICLE ONE
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ccording to the OECD the Danes are the happiest people in the world. This is of course a qualified truth as the Danes are also heavy users of Prozac and have been in the top ten in the suicide statistics for years. The contradiction, however, is probably a good illustration of some of the complexities that Danish society represents. In some respects it is a land flowing with milk and honey but at the same time it is a country facing some profound challenges. In this article I will look into some of these challenges – namely the ones having to do with immigrants living in Denmark and their integration – or the lack thereof. I will describe the background regarding immigration to Denmark in recent times and the way Danish society has handled the presences of the immigrants so far. After that I will discuss how I think my own field of psychology can contribute to the current challenges using an example from my PhD project about school-home collaboration with parents of ethnic minority children.
Background on Immigration to Denmark in Recent Times After WWII, economic growth created a strong demand for labour in most Western European countries. Up until the late 1960s this demand was met by the influx of women to the labour market and workers who had left agriculture in Denmark. When this was no longer the case, Danish industry started employing foreign workers. The immigrants arriving were mainly younger men from non-western countries such as Yugoslavia, Pakistan and Turkey. Danish immigration policy in that era made it quite easy to get into Denmark and obtain a work and residence permit. This changed in the early 1970s when the economic crisis and the post-war baby boomers’ entry to the job market created a fear of unemployment all over Western Europe. Denmark’s immigration policy was tightened twice before a permanent halt on labour immigration from third world countries was introduced in 1973. By making these changes the
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Danish government, as well as unions and industry, hoped that the immigrants would return to their native countries so that the proportion of foreigners in Denmark would decrease.1 With the benefit of hindsight, the idea of using people’s aspirations for a better life to make them move to another part of the world to work and then expect them to leave once their labour is no longer needed can perhaps be characterized as somewhat naive.2 It turned out that a large number of the labour immigrants from third world countries preferred to stay in Denmark. If they obtained permanent residency they were allowed to bring their spouses and children (and from 1983, their parents) to the country. In addition, wars and disturbances all over the world caused an influx of asylum seekers to Western Europe. Denmark mainly received refugees from Sri Lanka, Lebanon, Iran, Yugoslavia, and 1 Mikkelsen, F. (2008) Indvandring og integration. Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag. 2 The expectation of the immigrants returning to their native country is clearly reflected in the concept “tourist migrants” introduced in 1953 by OECD. Jensen, B. (2005). Indvandringen til Europa. Velfærdsstat og integration. The Rockwool Foundation Research Unit, p 54.
Somalia. Thus, labour immigration was replaced with other types of immigration due to humanitarian concerns; meaning that the proportion of non-westerners kept increasing during the 1980s and 1990s.3 But what was the situation in Denmark when the immigrants arrived and how did they – as well as the Danes - adapt to the new reality? Do We Have a Problem? The Immigrants and the Danish Welfare System In the 1950s Danish politicians introduced a welfare strategy consisting of an expanded safety net and an improvement of the situation of the weakest through education. For several years this worked quite well: social security improved significantly while at the same time people with lowincome jobs stayed in the labour market. This changed in the early 1970s when the economic crisis in Europe set in and unemployment began rising in Denmark. This development meant that the immigrants arriving in the late 1960s had no trouble finding unskilled jobs. In fact, their 3 Jensen, B. (2005).
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‘What was the situation in Denmark when the immigrants arrived and how did they as well as the Danes - adapt to the new reality?’ presence was a prerequisite to sustain the strategy of raising the educational level of the Danes. Being some of the most disadvantaged in the Danish working class, however, made the immigrants vulnerable and therefore they were the first to be affected when unemployment began. From the mid 1970s both the immigrants already living in Denmark and the ones arriving were unable to compete with Danes for employment. On one hand they did not pos-
sess the necessary qualifications and on the other hand the above mentioned welfare strategy meant that the types of jobs they were actually qualified for either did not exist anymore or were not worth doing because the wage was less than welfare.4 The result was that a large propotion of immigrants living or arriving in Denmark from the mid 1970s onwards received welfare. This was obviously a costly solution for the country and it also meant that the immigrants became part of a welfare dilemma that the Danes had been familiar with for years – the difficult balance of creating conditions for equality without undermining people’s ability and motivation to support themselves. This situation did not change much during the 1980s. Overall, men were still unable to compete with Danes for jobs. In addition, quite a large number of women coming to Denmark were not looking for a job at all due to traditional family patterns and many refugees arriving in the 1980s were not able to work due to physical or 4 Ibid
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mental illness. What was changing, on the other hand, was the fact that Denmark developed into a far less homogeneous country, representing a number of different values, cultures, religions and lifestyles. Despite this and although the media did sometimes exacerbate the presence of immigrants in the 1970s it was not before the mid 1980s that Danes really began perceiving Denmark as an immigrant country facing challenges related to immigration.5 The immigrants were referred to as guest 5 Mikkelsen, F. (2008).
workers for many years and the idea of them just staying temporarily might have been part of the reason why almost two decades of immigration passed before immigration and integration became topics of discussion. Many Danes simply expected them to return to their native countries and when it turned out not to be the case they hoped that the immigrants would start acting like and perceiving themselves like Danes over time – and enter the labour market. In addition to this the humanitarian perspective which characterized Danish immigration
ARTICLE ONE
policies throughout the 1980s might also have led to an ignorance of the challenges related to immigration because it was politically incorrect to deal with them.6 Whatever the reason, the consequence of the Danish attitude towards immigration was that the task of integrating non-westerners (or ‘ethnic minorities’) into Danish society was underestimated for a number of years. When politicians (and researchers) finally put integration on the agenda, the challenges in Denmark were profound and the topic soon generated a fierce public debate. People were particularly concerned with the large proportion of immigrants outside the labour market and receiving welfare, but other concerns such as religion, crime, ghettos, language, and cultural differences were part of the discussions as well. Political Initiatives in the New Millennium: Humans or Economics, Integration or Assimilation? Like many other European countries, Den6 There were critical voices during the 1970s and 1980s e.g. represented by a very popular right wing party, Fremskridtspartiet (The Progress Party) but overall people did not consider immigrants a problem.
mark was and still is in a situation where the number of people retiring exceeds the number of people starting to work. Thus, on one hand the number of immigrants in Denmark not working while receiving welfare is a threat to the welfare system while on the other hand this work force (or someone else’s) is needed in order to maintain it. Therefore most people agreed that the biggest challenges Denmark was facing had to do with getting a larger proportion of immigrants into the labour market now and in the future. But it is one thing to agree on what constitutes the biggest challenges and another thing to agree on how to meet them. The unemployment rate among immigrants was obviously tied to a number of other challenges, some of which had probably just as much to do with the Danes and their reception of the immigrants as it had to do with the immigrants’ adaptation to Denmark. In other words, there were – and still are - many perspectives on who was responsible for the integration and many perspectives on what successful integration actually meant. Thus, the debate about integration not only highlighted some
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of the differences between Danes and immigrants but also revealed large differences within the group of ethnic Danes as profound disagreements on how to meet and prioritize the challenges as they arose. The concrete means to meet the challenges related to immigration have been manifold and somewhat shifting, depending on the government in office and the research perspectives dominating at different times.7 One of the overall strategies during the 2000s has been to try to prevent the integration challenges and the economic crisis from growing bigger by keeping the proportion of poor and non-educated immigrants down while at the same time attracting well-educated people. Thus, the policies for family reunifications and asylum 7 In 2001 a right wing government was formed after 8 years with a center-left government. This was replaced by a new center-left government in the fall 2011. Many experts have argued that the integration debate played a central part for the result in 2001 and that the recent change of government was possible because integration of immigrants became a less important theme in this election campaign due to the financial crisis.
seekers have been tightened somewhat while other parts of the legislation have been eased, making it easier to study and work in Denmark provided you have the right qualifications.8 It is an ongoing discussion whether this is fair from a humanitarian perspective but it is a strategy that can be seen in most Western European countries today . As intended, the result so far is that the number of foreigners in Denmark is increasing, but with a larger proportion - two-third - of well-educated people e.g. from the EU, China and India.9 Other initiatives obviously aim at the unemployed immigrants already living in Denmark and the descendants in the Danish school system who underachieve, compared to ethnic Danish children.10 Some of these are supposed to create positive incentives to work and study, helping immigrants who wish to do so but need support in order to 8 Jensen, B. (2005) 9 Indvandrere I DK 2011 (2011). Danmarks Statistik. (www.dst.dk/Publ/Indvandrereidk) 10 TranĂŚs, T. (red.) (2008). Indvandrerne og det danske uddannelsessystem. Gylling: Gyldendal.
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succeed. Others are directed against going for wefare benefits and the above mentioned dilemma, in an attempt to make it more attractive to work by lowering welfare.
These initiatives are of course just a few examples of the things that have been and are being done to improve the integration of immigrants in Denmark. It is fair to say
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that a large part of the discussions – and research for that matter – on the subject have been taken and done from an economic perspective like the ones described here. This is probably not surprising, given the situation Denmark (and Europe) finds itself in. Integration into the labour market is indeed important and employment can probably raise quality of life, e.g. by leading to a social network, recognition, and improved health behavior etc. Nonetheless, I think economic perspectives have been given too much attention in the integration debate. The initiatives presented above and the Danish integration debate as a whole are characterized by focusing very much on immigrants’ adaptation of the Danish
not acting like us and how can we make them more Danish? This has, among other things, led to a number of discussions about how to preserve or even protect Danish culture and values, as well as discussions about whether social cohesion in Denmark is threatened by the presence of immigrants. These discussions are reflected in decisions such as making a cultural canon, withdrawing of financial support for mother-tongue language teaching of first generation children, and testing how much the immigrants know about Danish culture when they apply for Danish citizenship. I also believe that it is a very problematic way of practicing integration, because it takes the responsibility away from the
lifestyle and not so much on the Danes’ adaptation to the immigrants’ lifestyle. In other words, even though the debate is being referred to as an ‘integration debate’, it has to a large extent translated into an assimilation debate.11 Why are immigrants
Danes, thereby not inviting the dialogue which is necessary in order to achieve
11 It is itself a huge theoretical debate what the concepts in integration research refer to – especially be-
cause most of them have been politized to an extent where they have lost their original meaning. However there is an overall agreement that integration normally refers to a process of mutual adaptation, whereas assimilation refers to a process where the minority gives up their old values and lifestyle in order to adapt to the majority (Mikkelsen, 2008).
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a mutual respect and understanding. My PHD Project: An Attempt to Re-introduce Integration in Integration Research and Practice The employment rate for non-western immigrants has improved between the mid 1990s and 2008 but there is still a big difference between non-western immigrants and ethnic Danes. The non-western immigrants and descendants are also better educated than their parents so the difference between this group as a whole and ethnic Danes has also become smaller. However, it still exists and risks placing the ethnic minorities in a disadvantaged situation within the labour market in the future.12 Thus, there is still a lot that needs to be changed and after 15 years or so with the same types of overall perspectives on immigration and integration in Denmark I think it is appropriate to broaden the spectrum of solutions. My own PhD project tries to contrib12 Indvandring i DK 2011 (2011)
ute new perspectives on the integration debate in several ways. First,the project is inspired by and made from a psychological point of view, meaning that I’m looking into how to use the resources and knowledge of a group which has not been adequately taken into account in previous integration initiatives. Secondly the project is revolving around the use of a model which intends to respect the original meaning behind the term ‘integration’ by seeking to establish an equal dialogue between Danes and immigrants, thereby making successful integration a shared responsibility. The focus of the project is not economic issues but a curiosity towards immigrants’, teachers and psychologists perceptions of the subject in question – that is conversations which take place as part of the school-home collaboration. School-home collaboration is currently considered a central way to promote ethnic minority children’s school success
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ARTICLE ONE
and their integration into Danish society.13 This collaboration is first and foremost supposed to take place between parents and teachers, but if the children have special needs a psychologist will be involved as well. Psychologists have also been given the task of supporting the teachers’ general collaboration with parents as part of prevention efforts.14 School-home collaboration is a focal point in the Danish school system, assigning a central role for the parents in relation to their children’s schooling. It has turned out to be difficult, however, to establish a successful collaboration with many immigrant parents. To a certain extent this is due to challenges such a language differences and lack of knowledge about the Danish school system, but it also seems to be due to less tangible factors such as different views on what constitutes learning and who is responsible for the children to achieve that goal. Many immigrant parents 13 The Danish Ministry of Education. (www.uvm.dk) 14 The Danish Ministry of Education (2001). Vejledning om PPR – pædagogisk psykologisk rådgivning. Copenhagen.
do not think it is their job to support their children’s schooling and if they do they are often insecure about how to take part in the school home collaboration – especially if they do not speak Danish. This means that they are not using the existing democratic possibilities to influence their children’s schooling and it means that the immigrant children often have to navigate between different cultures and values at home and in school which often negatively affects their well being as well as their grades.15 With ten percent of the children in Danish elementary schools being immigrants and descendants of immigrants, many school psychologists are in daily contact with immigrant families both as part of the special education system and in the regular school system. However, until now no research has been carried out regarding the collaboration between psychologists and immigrants families. This means that 15 Willumsen A-M. & Thomassen, L. (2007). Skolehjem samarbejdets vanskelige udgangspunkt – om etniske minoritetsforældres møde med den danske folkeskole. University of Copenhagen: Thesis.
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we do not know whether the current efforts work as intended or how they might be optimized. Yt also means that the psychologists are basically left on their own trying to figure out how to meet challenges related to the collaboration with these parents. The collaboration between immigrant families and psychologists is particularly interesting because school psychologists are currently trying to replace their former role as experts with a more process-oriented role - often referred to as consultative methods. The consultative methods are intended to be more democratic because they seek to acknowledge parents as experts on the subject of their own children. This is thought to broaden the understanding of the children’s situation thus creating more solutions. The problem is, however, that if the psychologists do not manage to create a trusting atmosphere with mutual respect, consultative methods risk working as a ‘pseudocollaboration’ which can be more difficult to oppose than the traditional expert opinions because it can be hard to understand what is going on when the conversations
are presented as democratic. As a part of my PhD project I am investigating whether the use of a “dialogue based model’ has a positive impact on the collaboration between psychologists, teachers and parents of bilingual children. The dialogue model was first used by a school psychologist who is working in an area of Denmark that is densely populated with immigrant and refugee families.16 The psychologist was in need of a model which could support the psychologists in establishing a more equal dialogue between the teachers and the children’s parents after having experienced several years of a lack of dialogue, placing ethnic minority children in a number of dilemmas. She had also experienced how the teachers would often talk most of the time during the meetings, leaving very little room for the parents to express their opinions. She had experienced how the conversations often turned into mutual blame and an unproductive fo16 Eriksen, H.P. (2008). Et bud på en dialogbaseret integrationsmodel. Pædagogisk Psykologisk Tidsskrift. Nr. 1.
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cus on the past. Therefore she wanted to design a model which could help the participants in the conversations to keep focus on the child’s situation and potentially show the parents and teachers the importance of collaborating. To accomplish this she wanted to translate psychological theories into a dialogue promoting model. The content of the model is first and foremost based on a general psychological theory of human motivation which stresses the way the social relations (in the case of school children especially parents and teachers) influence the child’s motivation and well being. With inspiration from consultative methods including system theories, the idea was to have psychologists use the model as a common reference point and mediate between parents and teachers during the conversations. In other words, both the content in the model and the way it was used were supposed to support the dialogue and equality. During the course of fourteen months a group of school psychologists have been using the dialogue model as a consultative tool whenever it
seemed necessary or advisable to set up meetings between teachers and immigrant parents. Afterwards I interviewed parents, teachers and psychologists about the use of the model as well as their understanding of successful school-home collaboration. The interviews have been inspired by a phenomenological approach because I first and foremost wanted to know how the participants experienced taking part in the conversations. The dialogue model can only truly be described as a ‘dialogue model’ if everyone participating in the conversation had the experience that a dialogue was actually taking place. In a broader perspective I believe that successful integration must include a phenomenological perspective because you cannot claim that people are well integrated if they do not feel that way themselves. My analysis is not yet complete, but so far I can conclude that using the model has definitely created some different conditions for school-home collaboration – conditions which most of the participants experienced as promoting respectful and equal con-
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versations. This is reflected by statements saying that the time allotted for speaking was more equally shared between parents and teachers and that the parents felt that they were being heard. The parents also liked the fact that the model worked as an agenda for the meetings because it meant that they knew what was going to happen – and using the model in several conversations also created a sense of security. The teachers liked the fact that the psychologists took care of mediating the conversations because it made it easier for them to focus on and listen to the parents’ point of view. For the psychologists, using the model meant that it was easier to talk about some of the subjects related to the children’s schooling which seem relevant but could be difficult to bring up. The model also helped broaden the perspectives on the child’s difficulties because it connects the motivation and abilities to learn with other factors besides cognitive capabilities, such as social well being and role models. The dialogue model is of course no miracle that will solve the problems which
‘Being the happiest people in the world does not guarantee that you are dealing successfully with integration.’ currently exist in relation to immigrants and education in Denmark. It takes a lot of training to use it because you have to be very familiar with its theoretical background and for some parents (and teachers) it did not seem to make much of a difference. I think however, that projects like the one described here are important due to the concrete difference they can make for immigrant parents and children involved, while also helping broaden the Danish integration debate. With this article I sought to illuminate some of the challenges that Danish society
ARTICLE ONE
is presently facing in relation to the immigrants staying in the country – challenges which in some respects are similar to the challenges other European countries are facing, while in others are probably a result of specific Danish history, values, immigration policies and overall mentality. Being the happiest people in the world does not guarantee that you are dealing successfully with integration. However, I do believe that such developments are going in the right direction, with Danes taking the challenges seriously and at the same time accepting that a large part of the responsibility for the current situation is ours. Hopefully this means that in only a few years immigrants in Denmark will be the happiest in the world.
MARIA OVESEN has an MA in Psychology from Aarhus University and is currently working on a PhD project with the title “How can psychology contribute to the integration of ethnic minority children in the Danish school system�, which will be completed in the winter 2013. Working with this project has made it possible to combine a lot of her professional interests such as qualitative methods, integration of ethnic minorities, the relations between the field of psychology and society, the relations between theory and practice and theory of science. As part of the project it has been investigated how school psychologists working with immigrant families on a daily basis can contribute to the integration of ethnic minority children by using both their professionel experience and their theoretical knowledge to improve home-school collaboration. The project was undertaken in collaboration with a group of school psychologists and can be described as a practice development project.
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ARTICLE TWO
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‘AN AUDACIOUS ACT OF APPROPRIATION’ BY: NADJA A. JANSSEN
JEWISH INTELLECTUALS, THE LEGACY OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR AND THE EMERGENCE OF NEOCONSERVATISM
ARTICLE TWO
ABSTRACT The 1930s and the 1940s were characterised by intense bigotry and some of the most concerted efforts in the American Jewish experience to exclude Jews from mainstream American society. Yet, in the aftermath of the Second World War a more inclusive and universalistic approach to Americaness in which particularistic identities, while still subordinated, came to play an ever-larger role. In the growing pluralistic Zeitgeist of post-Second World War America, particularistic contributions to American culture and life came to be understood not only as desirable but necessary, especially in light of the developing struggle with the Soviet Union. Within this context, and in reaction to the Second World War and especially the Holocaust, Jewish communal debates of the 1950s and 1960s became defined by efforts to develop patterns of identification, which would bring further integration, while at the same time provide possibilities to be openly and outwardly Jewish. One such pattern, to emerge fully in the late 1960s and early 1970s, was that of neoconservatism, directly and consciously opposing widespread ideas that American Jewish identity was directly related to a politically liberal outlook. The author shows how the Second World War and the Holocaust played an important role in defining debates of integration, assimilation and identity amongst a number of Jewish intellectuals, who moved within the realm of so-called New York intellectuals, and some of whom would later become known as neoconservatives. While many of these intellectuals remained silent while the Holocaust unfolded, they began to reclaim both their Jewish and American identities emphatically in the immediate aftermath of the war – a process that was accompanied by an often-divisive discussion of the Holocaust and its lessons for the American scene and especially for
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American Jews. Renegotiating their Jewishness and their Americaness simultaneously, they began to promote a rigid and hyper-nationalist defence of the American status quo as well as an highly defensive and ethnocentric approach to Jewish identity based almost exclusively on concerns with Jewish safety and vulnerability. Scrutinising how they discussed the Holocaust and the Second World War demonstrates that American Jews – as is often contended - were far from silent in discussing the Holocaust in the immediate aftermath of the war. Moreover, in the case of budding neoconservative intellectuals, analogies of the Second World War and the Holocaust foreshadowed an argumentative repertoire which became an integral part of neoconservative thought in an effort to promote neoconservative ideas, justify the conservative turn and convince fellow Jews to follow Jewish neoconservatives’ example in breaking with the left.
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hen the Contemporary Jewish Record held a symposium entitled “Under Forty: American Literature and the Younger Generation of American Jews” in 1944, which explored the impact of Jewishness on theintellectual evolution of Jewish writers and intellectuals in the U.S. the ongoing carnage of European Jews was barely mentioned. According to historian Stephen Whitfield, there did not seem any “sense of
obligation” on behalf of New York Jewish intellectuals, such as Alfred Kazin, Lionel Trilling, Delmore Schwartz, and Clement Greenberg “to incorporate the experience of persecution and mass murder in their depiction of human actuality”.1 Moreover, their apparent disinterest in anything Jewish was guided partially by their perception 1 Stephen J. Whitfield, Voices of Jacob, Hands of Esau: Jews in American Life and Thought (Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1984), p. 33.
ARTICLE TWO
that Jewish culture in America was uninspiring, “suffocatingly middle-class”, and “provincial”, directed only at being “safe, in all the Babbitt warrens”.2 These reactions were representative of how a majority of Jewish intellectuals dealt with issues bearing on their Jewish background and the ongoing destruction of European Jewry. They generally avoided discussing these matters publicly or relating them to their own existence as intellectuals. Yet, as historian Nathan Abrams has noted, their contribution to a symposium with specific focus on Jewish identity, nevertheless, signified a growing willingness, however cautious, to ponder Jewish themes as part of their work. Previously, these intellectuals had avoided discussing the relevance of Jewish matters at all.3 After the war, this shift away from a univer2 Clement Greenberg and Alfred Kazin cited in Norman Podhoretz, “Jewishness & the Younger Generation”, Commentary, April 1961, p. 307. 3 Nathan Abrams, “‘America Is Home’: Commentary Magazine and the Refocusing of the Community of Memory, 1945-1960”, in ‘Commentary’ in American Life, ed. Murray Friedman (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2005), pp. 9-37.
salistic approach toward a more particularistic paradigm would intensify amongst a number of them and lead some to embrace not just a more ethnocentric, even jingoistic, attitude to Jewish identity, but also a more conservative outlook in terms of politics and society generally. Moreover, within the context of the emerging conflict with the Soviet Union, many of them became providers of “the philosophical ammunition for the Cold War” and some of them transformed intoapologists for the American status quo.4 During the war, only a few, such as Sidney Hook and Melvin Lasky, articulated their outrage at what was happening in Europe. While the fact that a majority of Jewish intellectuals dealt with the Holocaust as it was unfolding mostly in silence did not mean, that they were unconcerned by it, it did indicate the extent to which they felt uncomfortable to approach anything related to being Jewish publicly for reasons, which flowed from the American environ4 Richard H. Pells, The Liberal Mind in a Conservative Age: American Intellectuals in the 1940s and 1950s (New York: Harper & Row, 1985), p. 76.
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ment of the time, as well as from their selfperception as intellectuals. It is from how they remembered their reaction to the Holocaust retrospectively and how their posture toward being Jewish underwent a radical change at war’s end, that we can infer the magnitude of the impact it had on their self-understanding. These responses help us discern, how, in the words of Whitfield, “constant has been the pressure of the Holocaust, how forcefully it has exerted itself on the memory and imagination” of these intellectuals.5 This paper discusses the ways in which the Second World War and the Holocaust impacted profoundly on New York Jewish intellectuals’ self-conception as American Jews and as intellectuals, making memory of the Holocaust “the touchstone of their identities”.6 As these intellectuals simultaneously sought to integrate into broader American society and the organised Jewish community in the aftermath of the war, 5 Whitfield, Voices of Jacob, Hands of Esau, p. 39. 6 Stuart Svonkin, Jews Against Prejudice: American Jews and the Fight for Civil Liberties (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), p. 17.
they contributed seminally to communal and national debates relating to the lessons of the Holocaust, to ways in which to ensure collective Jewish survival in light of unprecedented integration into American society, and to the positions Jews should take toward the emerging Cold War consensus as well as the burgeoning civil rights movement. The contributions of a number of New York Jewish intellectuals as developed in the pages of Commentary magazine will be the focus of this paper. Overarching these discussions was the central question of what it meant to be an American Jew in a post - Holocaust era, which many New York Jewish intellectuals began to define in highly defensive and “zero sum groupthink” terms, constantly referring to imagery of Jewish victimisation and thereby laying the groundwork for their turn away from progressive liberalism toward a politics that has become known as neoconservatism.7 Most scholars have treated Jewish 7 Nancy MacLean, Freedom Is Not Enough: The Opening of the American Workplace (Cambridge, Ma.: Harvard University Press, 2006), p. 198.
ARTICLE TWO
identity politics only as secondary to the evolutionary history of New York Jewish intellectuals as well as to the emergence of neoconservatism. A number of scholars have begun re-evaluating only recently how the process through which these intellectuals gradually began to reclaim their Jewish identity, primarily defined in ethnic terms, deeply influenced their intellectual maturation and the turn away from the political left towards a neoconservative position amongst a number of them. Yet, often these studies are driven by political agendas and/or focus too closely on specific actors at the expense of scrutinising the ideas of New York Jewish intellectuals as part of a broader, Jewish communal discourse about Jewish identity after 1945. Moreover, while they concede the centrality of Jewish identity politics, they tend either to overlook the role played by early Holocaust consciousness or fail to investigate the subject in any meaningful and comprehensive way, generally discussing the issue in dissociation from the communal debates about the meaning of Jewish American
identity in a post-Holocaust world. Lastly, these interpretations tend to give far too much weight to pro-Zionist ideas in the intellectual development of New York Jewish intellectuals. While concern with Israel’s security and its strategic importance to the U.S. would take on great importance for those New York Jewish intellectuals who became neoconservatives, they, nevertheless, were and continue to be concerned primarily with the state of American power and democracy, as well as Jewish security therein.8 Investigating the repercussions of the Holocaust and the Second World War on New York Jewish intellectuals and the positions they developed within the context of Jewish intra-communal discussions of the post-war era also revises the traditional interpretation according to which the Holocaust was, in the words of Gabriel Schoen8 Murray Friedman, The Neoconservative Revolution: Jewish Intellectuals and the Shaping of Public Policy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Jacob Heilbrunn, The Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons (New York: Doubleday, 2008); Nathan Abrams, ‘Commentary’ Magazine 1945-1959: “A Journal of Significant Thought and Opinion” (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2006).
32
‘The near destruction of
European Jewish life relocated the demographic and cultural centre of world Jewry from Europe to America, confronting communal leaders with the responsibility of creating affirmative patterns of Jewish identification, which would ensure collective Jewish survival.’
feld, “shrouded in taboo and seldom discussed in public or print” up until the later 1960s.9 Traditional narratives interpret the emergence of Holocaust consciousness amongst American Jews as the result of processes of ideational and emotional realisation, set in motion by the Adolph Eichmann trial in 1961 and the Six Day War in 1967.10 While it is true that both events contributed seminally to making the Holocaust into an official symbol for collective American Jewish identity, they did not initiate discussions about the meaning and relevance of the Holocaust amongst 9 Gabriel Schoenfeld, “Death Camps As Kitsch”, The New York Times, March 18, 1999. 10 The idea that the Holocaust was little discussed amongst Jews before the mid-1960s is widespread in generic histories of American Jewry after 1945. See for example Edward S. Shapiro, A Time for Healing: American Jewry Since World War II (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), p. 123; Peter Novick argues that the Holocaust was “hardly talked about for the first twenty years or so after World War II”. The Holocaust in American Life (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999), p. 1. Debunking the “myth of silence” was the aim of a recently published in depth study of how the Holocaust was integrated into communal activities from 1945 onwards. Hasia R. Diner, We Remember With Reverence and Love: American Jews and the Myth of Silence after the Holocaust, 1945-1962 (New York: New York University Press, 2009).
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American Jews. As demonstrated below, these issues were bitterly debated long before the mid-1960s. The Eichmann trial and the Six Day War only reinforced consolidation of the Holocaust as a marker of Jewish identity and rendered the communal discussions relating to the Holocaust and identity politics generally even more divisive than they already were. Moreover, scrutinising the evolution of early Holocaust consciousness amongst a number of Jewish intellectuals demonstrates that the reassertion of their Jewish identities through the prism of the Holocaust, had a politically conservatising effect on a number of them. The process of breaking with the left and moving toward a neoconservative position was undergirded at each step by a specific type of Holocaust analogising, which ultimately contribute not only to establishing widely-shared conceptions about the presumed lessons of the Holocaust for American Jewish life but also to define the Holocaust as “a negative markers of American identity” from the 1980s onwards. In what historian Peter
Novick has referred to as the “Americanization of the Holocaust” the near destruction of European Jewry and the system that made it possible were turned into markers that stood for everything the United States was not when the nation was “at its best”.11 The Second World War was a cataclysmic event for American Jews, introducing what is often referred to as ‘the Golden Age’ of American Jewry. The near destruction of European Jewish life relocated the demographic and cultural centre of world Jewry from Europe to America, confronting communal leaders with the responsibility of creating affirmative patterns of Jewish identification, which would ensure collective Jewish survival.12 While public expressions of anti-Semitism had been wide11David B. Macdonald, Thinking History, Fighting Evil: Neoconservatives and the Perils of Analogy in American Politics (Lanhman, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2009); Peter Novick, “Is the Holocaust An American Memory?”, Ernst Fraenkl Vorträge zur Amerikanischen Politik, Wirtschaft, Gesellschaft, Geschichte und Kultur, eds. Susanne Rohr und Sabine Sielke (Berlin, Germany: JFK Institut für Nordamerikastudien der Freien University Berlin, 2002), p. 9. 12 U.O. Schmelz, Terms of Survival: The Jewish World Since 1945, ed. Robert S. Wistrich (Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005), pp. 42-55.
34
spread and uninhibited in the U.S. during the 1930s and early 1940s, they began to recede relatively quickly after the war. Exclusionary measures against Jews in certain colleges and universities, the housing sector and the business world were gradually dismantled over the next two decades. Furthermore, a more pluralist approach to American democracy began to replace the pre-war and wartime tendency toward accommodationism, allowing Jews to begin perceiving themselves as an integral part of American mainstream society, while retaining their Jewish attachments.13 Hence, the main task facing mainstream communal leaders was to redefine Jewish American identity within this changing set of circumstances, in ways that would enable Jews to be full participants in mainstream society, and yet remain a distinct group. It should be noted that there was at not time 13 Leonard Dinnerstein, Uneasy At Home: AntiSemitism and the American Jewish Experience (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987); Leonard Dinnerstein, Antisemitism in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994); Edward S. Shapiro, We Are Many: Reflections of American Jewish History and Identity (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2005), pp. 68-86.
a single ideological position that marked a “normative” Jewish stance. Indeed, in his work on Jewish American political culture Arthur Goren demonstrated that “Organizational diversity, ideological ambiguity, and even contentiousness appear to be endemic to the communal experience of American Jewry.14 This would remain the case after the Second World War, even as, or maybe because, American Jewish society became more homogenous and experienced unprecedented levels of integration into mainstream society, raising a new and different set of concerns to grapple with. As Whitfield pointed out, the ancient danger of persecution that had characterised Jewish Diasporic existence and self- understanding for centuries was in post-Second World War America replaced by issues relating to collective continuity and survival, driven not by persecution but by the imminent lack thereof.15 Before investigating how the Second 14 Arthur A. Goren, The Politics and Public Culture of American Jews (Bloomington, In.: Indiana University Press, 1999), p. 29. 15 Whitfield, Voices of Jacob, Hands of Esau, p. 98.
ARTICLE TWO
World War and the Holocaust impacted on New York Jewish intellectuals and how they discussed the Holocaust in analogy to present times, it is important to look at the point of departure from which these intellectuals journeyed. Irving Howe, himself a New York intellectual, referred to them as “perhaps the only group America has ever had that could be transcribed as an intelligentsia”. They were united by “a common political outlook”, which nevertheless as “marked by ceaseless internecine quarrels”. Furthermore, all of them were in the past, and some continued to be in the present, “anti-Communist…radicals”, with “a fondness for ideological speculation” and “literary criticism with a strong social emphasis”. According to Howe, “they strive self-consciously to be ‘brilliant’; and by birth or osmosis, they are Jews”.16 Membership in the group was informal and its boundaries porous. A core group, which spanned roughly three generations, was accompanied by a large number of 16 Irving Howe, “The New York Intellectuals: A Chronicle & A Critique”, Commentary, October 1968, p. 29.
sympathisers, all of which contributed to magazines, such as the Partisan Review, Menorah Journal, the New Leader and later Commentary, the Public Interest, and Dissent. As indicated above, they were not all of Jewish descent but those who were, were mainly offspring of Eastern European Jewish immigrants and had grown up in predominately Jewish neighbourhoods in New York and in Chicago. Its main proponents were Lionel and Diana Trilling, Elliot Cohen, Sidney Hook, Saul Bellow, Delmore Schwartz, Hannah Arendt, Phillip Rahv, William Phillips, William Barrett, Mary McCarthy, Dwight Macdonald, Alfred Kazin, Clement Greenberg, Robert Warshow, Daniel Bell, Melvin Lasky, Irving Kristol, Irving Howe, Nathan Glazer, Norman Podhoretz, and Midge Decter.17 17 Alan M. Wald, The New York Intellectuals: The Rise and Decline of the Anti-Stalinist Left From the 1930s to the 1980s (Chapel Hill, N.C.: The University of North Carolina Press, 1987); Alexander Bloom, Prodigal Sons: The New York Intellectuals And Their World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986); William Phillips, A Partisan View: Five Decades of the Literary Life (New York: Stein and Day, 1983); William Barrett, The Truants: Adventures Among the Intellectuals (New York: Doubleday, 1982); Terry A. Cooney, The Rise of The New York Intellectuals: ‘Partisan Review’ and
36
While a number were academic scholars, most liked to think of themselves as public thinkers. According to scholar and neoconservative pundit, Ruth Wisse, they were a “literate street gang”, willing to employ “whatever tactics they had at hand in defense of their shifting territory”.18 Many of the original and second-generation New York intellectuals were Trotskyites in politics and embraced modernism in literature and art, seeking to upend the WASP-dominated hierarchy of cultural values. During the inter-war period this self-conscious cadre of intellectuals existed on the margins of American as well as Jewish cultures. The overall attitude that characterised them was one of double alienation, partly enforced, partly self-imposed. Many felt suspended between a home, which they no longer belonged to and a society in which they did not yet feel at home. Due to their leftist politics and to the fact that they were not yet completely part of the intellectual Its Circle, 1934 -1945 (Madison, Wisc.: University of Wisconsin Press, 1986). 18 Ruth R. Wisse, “The New York (Jewish) Intellectuals”, Commentary, November 1987, p. 29.
establishment, they looked upon American society with suspicion. In the words of Norman Podhoretz, who has been described as the “mandarin general of neoconservatism” and functioned as editor in chief of Commentary from 1960 to 1995, “They did not feel they belonged to America, or that America belonged to them”.19 The perceived parochialism of their Jewish heritage interfered with the cosmopolitan leftist communities they aspired to be part of, leading them, in the words of Howe, “to subordinate [the] sense of Jewishness to cosmopolitan culture and socialist politics”/ He claimed that they “did not think well or deeply on the matter of Jewishness – you might say we avoided thinking about it”. However, as opposed to what they wrote and discussed, there was also, again Howe, “what we felt, and what we felt was rarely quite in accord with what we wrote or thought”. With respect to ev19 Sidney Blumenthal, The Rise of CounterEstablishment: From Conservative Ideology to Political Power (New York: Union Square Press, 2008), p. 121; Norman Podhoretz, Making It (New York: Random House, 1967), p. 117.
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eryday life, “the fact of Jewishness figured much more strongly than we acknowledged in public”.20 As self-professed public thinkers andTrotskyites, they preferred, not to discuss their Jewish heritage publicly, for fear that it might impact negatively on their intellectual credibility. Moreover, perceiving themselves as cosmopolitans, they considered ethnic and religious expressions of Jewishness as the stronghold of a complacent and chauvinistic bourgeoisie. Even though most New York Jewish intellectuals did not “deny its presence or seek to flee its stigma”, they discarded the idea that their Jewish background had any significant influence on their thinking. In light of the fact that Jews were popularly perceived as “a race apart” in American society of the 1920s and 1930s, they had experienced Jewishness as limiting, since it held them from entering broader society and for a number of them, it interfered with pursuing 20 Irving Howe, A Margin of Hope: An Intellectual Autobiography (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982), p. 251.
academic careers.21 As a consequence, in relation to their Jewishness, many “felt no particular responsibility for its survival or renewal. It was simply there”.22 Within this context, most New York Jewish intellectuals refrained from publicly voicing a sense of special responsibility for the fate of European Jewry during the war. Up until the Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1939 and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, many of them initially refused to support either the Allies or the Axis powers, preferring to maintain a “third camp” position which held out hope for the establishment of a democratic socialist alternative in the U.S. after the war.23 This double alienation underwent radical change at war’s end. The outcome of 21 Eric L. Goldstein, The Price of Whiteness: Jews, Race and American Identity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006); Karen Brodkin Sachs, How Jews Became White Folks And What That Says About Race in America (New Brunswick, N.J.L Rutgers University Press, 1998); Eric L. Goldstein, “‘Different Blood Flows in Our Veins’: Race and Jewish SelfDefinition in Late Nineteenth Century America”, American Jewish History, Vol. 85, No. 1 (March 1997), pp. 29-55. 22 Howe, A Margin of Hope, p. 151. 23 Heilbrunn, They Knew They Were Right, p. 43.
38
the war and the public exposure of the magnitude of the Holocaust caused many of them to repudiate long-held ideas about American society and Jewish identity. It forced them to reconsider their allegiances to bother their Jewish as well as their American legacies and to look for new ways in which to reconcile the two. According to Wisse, the end of the war confronted them with performing “an audacious act of appropriation, to take a kind of responsibility for American culture, and to do so without necessarily relinquishing their identity as Jews”.24 Many felt that the Holocaust, in the words of Podhoretz, had demonstrated once and for all “the inescapability of Jewishness” and therefore set in motion efforts to take responsibility for their heritage.25 Most concluded that since leftist cures had failed as bulwarks against the rise of totalitarianism, of both the left and the right, it was essential to move toward a renewed appreciation of American style democracy
and culture, while simultaneously developing a more assertive approach to their Jewish identities. Kazin, who, in the past, had proclaimed the revolt against Jewish chauvinism, described the Holocaust as “the allconsuming event in my life”, the memory of which “will haunt me to my last breath”.26 Since, “but for an accident of geography we might also now be bars of soap”, Howe concluded that, “blessing or curse, Jewishness was an integral part of our life”. He referred to the Holocaust as “the most horrible moment in Human history”, which, for him, introduced “timid reconsiderations of what it meant to be Jewish”.27 The patriotic sentiment that swept America after the Second World War also overwhelmed its intellectuals. The former mouthpiece of disaffected Trotskyite intellectuals, Partisan Review, for instance, devoted two successive issues to a symposium entitled “Our Country and Our Culture” in 1952 where New York intellectuals
24 Wisse, “The New York (Jewish) Intellectuals”, p. 36.
26 Alfred Kazin, New York Jew (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978), p. 26.
25 Podhoretz, Making It, p. 118.
27 Howe, A Margin of Hope, p. 253.
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declared that they no longer felt alienated from American mass culture.28 Luminaries such as Lionel Trilling, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jacques Barzun, Sidney Hook, Reinhold Niebuhr, Leslie Fiedler, and David Riesman voiced their newly arrived-at appreciation of the American system. They believed that their formerly ‘non-conformist’ stance had to be overcome in light of the Second World War and the onset of the Cold War. Many of the contributors expressed regret for the positions they had embraced in the past and recognised that the new threat posed by communism and the Soviet Union – perceived in analogous terms to Nazism – left them no choice but to reconsider previously held leftist beliefs about culture, politics and the role of intellectuals in society.29 The war had diminished the perceived 28 “Our Country, Our Culture: A Symposium”, Partisan Review, May-June 1952; “Our Country, Our Culture: A Symposium”, Partisan Review, September-October 1952. 29 Hannah Arendt’s concept of totalitarianism and comparisons between communism and Nazism were highly influential amongst New York Jewish Intellectuals. Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1951).
conflict between their identities as Americans and as Jews. According to Diana Trilling, New York Jewish intellectuals came to believe that the near destruction of European Jewry demanded of them “to find their Jewish identities” and to create “a home for the Jews who had been made homeless by Hitler”.30 It was now of utmost importance, they felt, not only to fight anti-Semitism decisively, but also to take responsibility and stimulate the development of a proud and lively Jewish community in the United States. To these intellectuals, America now became central - not as a force of ‘evil’ but as a force of ‘good’. On the backdrop of the Holocaust and with the onset of the Cold War, a number of these former Trotskyites would come to champion not only a hardline anti-communism but also a hyper nationalism that aimed not simply at containing communism at home and abroad but also at actively promoting American values 30 Diana Trilling, Oral History Interview with Gertrude Himmelfarb (Bea Kristol), February 29, 1976, 21, Box 48, Folder 9, Diana Trilling Papers, 1921-1996, Columbia University Rare Books and Manuscript Library, New York.
40
and power worldwide. One central agent for what Howe had critically described as the new “Age of Conformity” amongst intellectuals was Commentary magazine, founded in 1945 under the aegis of the American Jewish Committee (AJC). Commentary wanted to refocus American Jews on their Jewish heritage, while simultaneously engaging in a process of harmonising Jewish and American values and culture.31 Elliot Cohen, the first editor of Commentary, saw the journal as “an act of faith in our pos31 A number of New York intellectuals, however, did not agree with this overly optimistic celebration of the American status quo. Out of the 24 intellectuals writing for the symposium, Irving Howe, Norman Mailer, and C. Wright Mills, while appreciative of the new inclusiveness they found within mainstream culture, disagreed with what he considered a new conformism. Irving Howe claimed to be disturbed by “the eagerness of former radicals to join in the national mood of celebration”. Irving Howe, “This Age of Conformity”, Partisan Review, January - February 1954; Howe, A Margin of Hope, pp. 214-216. In reaction to what he perceived as the conformism of fellow intellectuals, he and Lewis Coser founded Dissent magazine in 1954. The magazine’s aim was to “dissent from the bleak atmosphere of conformism that pervades the political and intellectual life in the United States”. Douglas T. Miller and Marion Nowack, The Fifties: The Way We Really Were (New York: Knopf Doubleday, 1977), p. 239.
sibilities in America”. Since European Jewry had been obliterated, he believed that “there falls upon us in the United States a far greater share of responsibility for carrying forward…our common Jewish cultural and spiritual heritage”.32 Cohen’s objective was to “harmonise heritage and country into a true sense of at-home-ness in the modern world”. He concluded, “Surely, we who have survived catastrophe can survive freedom too”.33 According to Podhoretz, who would take over editorship of Commentary in 1960, Cohen intended to create “a kind of Jewish Harper’s, only more scholarly” – a general-interest magazine, which sought to “exemplify the intellectual dignity of Judaism”.34 In order “to normalize” Jewish existence in the U.S., Commentary’s main strategy was to refashion what it meant to be Jewish in America. Its main message was that 32 Elliot E. Cohen, “An Act of Affirmation”, Commentary, November 1945, pp. 1-3. 33 Ibid., p. 2. 34 Podhoretz, Making It, p. 128; Elliot Cohen, Interview in Time, January 29, 1951.
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Jews were an integral part of the American Jewish polity and that their security here and around the world war intricately tied to the perseverance of American capitalist democracy.35 Commentary therefore set out to demonstrate a synergy between both cultural heritages, expressing the belief that Jews could contribute something valuable to American society and that Jewishness facilitated rather than detracted from being a ‘good’ American. Previously, Cohen had spelled out his vision of what a Jewish magazine should to for Jews in the U.S., which called for nothing short of a “complete rehabilitation of the Jewish tradition and the most thoroughgoing reconstruction of Jewish intellectual values”.36 Under the leadership of Cohen, a number of New York Jewish intellectuals, such as Sidney Hook, Robert Warshow, Irving Kristol, Nathan Glazer, and Clement Green35 Abrams, ‘Commentary’ Magazine 1945-1959, p. 14; Lionel Trilling, “Young in the Thirties”, Commentary, May 1966, p. 46. 36 Elliot Cohen, “The Age of Brass”, Menorah Journal, October 1925, pp. 425-47.
berg, led the way in this is home’ and that the Jewish experience in America “must be at once unique and universal”.37 Reconsidering their Americaness and their Jewishness through the prism of the Second World War and the Holocaust, these intellectuals came to realise the radical difference between their situation and that of European Jewry, rendering them buoyantly optimistic about the Jewish future in the U.S. As such, Commentary became, in the words of historian Michael Staub, “fairly obsessed with how to dramatise the synergy of Jewish and American values and traditions”, which it organised around the alleged abhorrence of both cultures for communism.38 Jews, according to Commentary contributors, made the best and most loyal Cold War Americans precisely because they had suffered mass annihilation that had taught them to defend U.S. democracy ardently against the excesses 37 Israel Knox, “Is America Exile Or Home?: We Must Begin To Build For Permanence”, Commentary, November 1946, p. 408. 38 Staub, Torn At the Roots, p. 38.
42
of totalitarianism in all its forms. Moreover, Jewish religious and cultural traditions presumably were antithetical to communism and their full and explicit inclusion would strengthen American democracy in the face of totalitarian adversity.39 The process by which these Jewish intellectuals began to re-assert their American and Jewish identities enthusiastically was, according to Kazin, “made slightly hysterical by the need to cast off Marxist ideology”.40 A case in point was the Rosenberg trial. When Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were arrested in 1950, brought to trial in 1951 and eventually executed for conspiring to pass atomic secrets on to the Soviets in June 1953, Jewish leaders were alarmed by the potentially negative repercussions the case could have for Jews.41
Major Jewish defence agencies such as the American Defense League (ADL) and the AJC had been battling “the Jew-ascommunist-canard” since the First World War.42 With the onset of the Cold War, it seemed more vital than ever to dissociate Jews from communism in the public mind. The Rosenberg case, according to historian Deborah Dash Moore, was crucially instrumental in making “opposition to communism a criterion” of whether one was part of the Jewish community or not.43 Even though many Jewish leaders remained ever watchful of the potential threat emanating from certain extreme forms of anti-communist activity for American Jews, a majority believed, nevertheless, that liberal anti-communism could function as a
39 Sidney Hook, “Why Democracy Is Better: The Three Pillars of Our Civic Heritage”, Commentary, March 1948, pp. 195-204.
actuality guilty of espionage. The exact nature of the secrets passed on remains, however, unclear. Walter Schneir and Miriam Schneir, “Cryptic Answers”, The Nation, August 14-21, 1995.
40 Alfred Kazin, “Introduction: The Jew as Modern Writer”, in The Commentary Reader: Two Decades of Articles and Stories, ed. Norman Podhoretz (New York: Athenaeum, 1966), p. xxii. 41 After the end of the Cold War, new evidence has led to the emergence of a consensus amongst historians, which opines that at least Julius Rosenberg was in
42 Svonkin, Jews Against Prejudice, p. 114. 43Deborah Dash Moore, “Reconsidering the Rosenbergs: Symbol and Substance in SecondGeneration American Jewish Consciousness”, Journal of American Ethnic History, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Fall 1988), p. 26.
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44
vehicle for further integration.44 As opposed to the ambivalence felt within leading Jewish organisations about how to position themselves within the anti-communist consensus, Commentary was one Jewish voice that expressed little qualms about subscribing to and emphatically supporting hard anti- communism. As opposed to the majority of the Jewish establishment, Commentary and its writers located themselves further to the right on the issue of anti-communism. Irving Kristol, for instance, taunted the relatively moderate AJC for being far too lenient on communists and communist sympathisers and for not being able to “make what I would 44 Marc Dollinger, Quest For Inclusion: Jews and Liberalism in Modern America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), p. 130. For more information on anti-communist activity of national Jewish organisations, see: Svonkin, Jews Against Prejudice, pp. 113-134; The ADL, for example, often considered to be a relatively conservative organisation in terms of politics, received much criticism from conservative Jews for its repeated critique of extreme forms of anticommunism. In 1951, for instance, Eugene Lyons of the National Review challenged ADL for its “vicious attacks” against the American Jewish League Against Communism. Eugene Lyons, “Our New Privileged Class”, American Legion Magazine, September 1951, p. 37.
have regarded…as the necessary distinctions within American liberalism, of what was worthy of support and what was not”. He, therefore, believed that the AJC’s “exaggerated liberalism” dangerously interfered with protecting American democracy and Jewish security therein.45 Similarly, a number of Commentary articles dealing with the Rosenberg case charged fellow Jews with allegedly not drawing the appropriate conclusions from the Holocaust. Lucy Dawidowicz, for example, accused the Rosenbergs and their supporters of abusing their Jewish heritage and specifically the legacy of the Holocaust. Commentary argued that by implying antiSemitism on behalf of their accusers, the Rosenbergs were manipulating their identities as Jews in order to divert from their ‘real’ identities as communists. Dawidowicz, therefore, condemned the appeals to rabbis and secular Jewish communal leaders on the Rosenbergs’ behalf as insincere 45 Irving Kristol, Interview for the William E. Wiener Oral History Library, February 13, 1980, Tape 1, Transcript, 16, Dorot Jewish Division, New York Public Library, New York.
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and part of a communist strategy to de-legitimise the case against them by linking it to anti-Semitism. The Holocaust rhetoric used by the Rosenbergs and their supporters and the fact that Ethel Rosenberg likened the behaviour of Jewish leaders toward them to that of the Judenräte in war-torn Europe, was according to Dawidowicz nothing but an attempt to “pick up sympathy and support from individual Jews who may be suckers for this particular bait”.46 She contended, further, that this strategy constituted a communist propaganda effort, which sought to convince the world that the U.S. was turning into Nazi Germany and “that the conviction of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg for espionage is a 1952 Reichstag fire, prelude to an American version of Auschwitz”.47 Their agenda of “fabricating evidence of anti-Semitism” and equating anti-communism with anti-Semitism, she concluded, was dangerous and deceitful,
since it ran the risk of making all Jews appear potentially guilty of communist sympathies.48 The Rosenbergs, Robert Warshow argued, were impostors who had taken on the role of victimised Jews that the communist machine “demanded of them”.49 Implying that the Rosenbergs were not to be considered as real Jews, Commentary began to articulate the message that being Jewish was no longer compatible with being a communist or even sympathising with communists. It is generally assumed that the Holocaust and its lessons emerged as a central topic of debate and as a symbol for collective American Jewish identity during the later part of the 1960s.50 Yet, as the debate surrounding the Rosenberg case shows,
46 Lucy S. Dawidowicz, “Anti-Semitism and the Rosenberg Case: The Latest Communist Propaganda Trap”, Commentary, July 1952, p. 44.
50 Peter Novick, The Holocaust in American Life (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1999); Charles E. Silberman, A Certain People: American Jews and Their Lives Today (New York: Summit, 1985), pp. 182-183.
47 Ibid., p. 41.
48 Lucy S. Dawidowicz, Reprint: “False Friends and Dangerous Defenders”, The Reconstructions, May 1, 1953, Box 8, Folder 13, Lucy Schildkret Dawidowicz Papers, 1938-1990, American Jewish Historical Society, New York, cited hereafter as LDP. 49 Robert Warshow, “The ‘Idealism’ of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg: ‘The Kind of People We Are’”, Commentary, November 1953, p. 417.
46
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‘As Jews we live with this fact: 4,750,000 of 6,000,000 Jews of Europe have been murdered. Not killed in battle, not massacred in hot blood, but slaughtered like cattle’ the Holocaust was referred to repeatedly and in analogous terms in intra-communal debates during the 1950s. Historian Jeffrey Shandler demonstrates that the 1940s and 1950s not only saw Holocaust memorialisation on behalf of Holocaust survivors and individuals personally affected by it, but also “the writing of the first hundreds
of personal and communal memoirs, the establishment of the earliest memorials. Moreover, the Holocaust was much more present on American television long before the 1960s than conventional wisdom remembers.51 Scrutinising early issues of Commentary, therefore, contributes to a revision of traditional interpretations of when and how Holocaust consciousness emerged in the U.S. Far from being silent during the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s, Jewish commentators of diverse politics used Holocaust analogies or invoked its supposed 51 Jeffrey A. Shandler, While America Watches: Televising the Holocaust (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 46-47; Jeffrey A. Shandler, “Aliens in the Wasteland: American Encounters with the Holocaust on 1960s Science Fiction Television”, in The Americanization of the Holocaust, ed. Hilene Flanzbaum (Baltimore, Md.: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), pp. 33-44; On the usage of early Holocaust analogies in a national context: Kirsten Fermaglich, American Dreams and Nazi Nightmares: Early Holocaust Consciousness and Liberal America, 1957-1965 (Waltham, Ma.: Brandeis University Press, 2006). Fermaglich shows how the socio-scientific usage of Holocaust analogies by Stanley Elkins, Betty Friedan, Stanley Milgram and Robert Jay Lifton reflected a seminal trend during the 1950s and 1960s to use comparisons between the U.S. and Nazi Germany in order to address fears of alienation and conformity in modern mass society
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lessons when debating domestic and international issues. While the Holocaust had not yet emerged as a dominant symbol of collective American Jewish identity and no one seemed to agree about what the actual lessons of the Holocaust were, the idea that there were lessons for the present, nevertheless, appeared to be relatively universal and widespread. The perceived need to prove that Jews were ‘good’ Americans and loyal Cold Warriors was connected intricately to Commentary’s mission to create a bulwark against potential future holocausts. The magazine’s creation was in itself a direct answer to the murder of European Jews. In the first issue, Cohen wrote, “As Jews we live with this fact: 4, 750, 000 of 6, 000, 000 Jews of Europe have been murdered. Not killed in battle, not massacred in hot blood, but slaughtered like cattle, subjected to every physical indignity – processed…At this juncture…we light our candle, Commentary.52 Hence, the near destruction of Eu52 Cohen, “An Act of Affirmation”, pp. 1-2.
ropean Jewry and the Nazi killing machinery were discussed in almost every issue during the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s. The traumatic events were debated from every possible angle, along with the conditions that had caused them, and how reoccurrence could be avoided. Cohen published “wide-ranging analyses of the Nazi era and its consequences for the post-Nazi world” and Commentary thereby framed, according to Dawidowicz, “more than any other medium…our contemporary outlook on Hitler’s Germany”.53 Many of the pieces, such as “The Common Man and the Nazis” and “The Complex Behind Hitler’s Anti-Semitism”, tried to psychologically and sociologically understand National Socialism and the mechanics of extermination.54 Commentary was also the first 53 Lucy S. Dawidowicz, Aborted, unfinished manuscript for Commentary Symposium, drafted August 4-6, 1985, 1, Box 49, Folder 7, LDP. 54 For example Salo Baron, “The Spiritual Reconstruction of European Jewry,” Commentary, November 1945, pp. 4-12; Martin Greenberg, “The Common Man and the Nazis,” Commentary, December 1946, pp. 501-506; Leo Srole, “Why DP’s Can’t Wait: Proposing an International Plan of
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American magazine to print excerpts from The Diary of Anne Frank in 1950.55 Since it was Commentary’s mission not only to understand, to remember and to memorialise but also to create meaning Rescue,” Commentary, January 1947, pp. 13-24; Irving Kristol, “The Nature of Nazism,” Commentary, September 1948, pp. 271-282; Gertrud M. Kurth, “The Complex behind Hitler’s Anti-Semitism: A Psychoanalytic Study in History,” Commentary, January 1948, pp. 77-82; Solomon F. Bloom, “The Dictator of the Lodz Ghetto: The Strange History of Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski,” Commentary, February 1949, pp. 111-122; H.R. Trevor-Roper, “Is Hitler Really Dead?: A Historian Examines the Evidence,” Commentary, February 1951, pp. 120130; Joseph Leftwich, “Songs of the Death Camps: A Selection with Commentary,” Commentary, September 1951, pp. 269-274; L. Poliakov, “The Mind of the Mass Murderer: The Nazi Executioners – and Those Who Stood By,” Commentary, November 1951, pp. 45-459; H.L. Trefousse, “German Historians’ Verdict of Hitler: This Time No ‘Stab-in-the-Back,’” Commentary, September 1953, pp. 264-270; Hal Lehrman, “The New Germany and her Remaining Jews: A Reporter’s Notebook,” Commentary, December 1953, pp. 513-524; Herbert Luethy, “The Wretched Little Demon That Was Hitler: He Possessed the ‘Mass Soul’ of the Third Reich,” Commentary, February 1954, pp. 129-138; Theodore Frankl, “My Friend Paul: One Who Survived,” Commentary, February 1957, pp. 147-160. 55 “The Diary of Anne Frank: The Secret Heart Within the Secret Annex”, Commentary, May 1952, pp. 419-432; “The Diary of Anne Frank II: First Love and Finis”, Commentary, June 1952, pp. 529-544.
out of chaos and destruction and to avoid future holocausts, the articles debating the issue of the Holocaust per se diminished throughout the 1950s. Intending to be a creative force in the wake of the devastation of European Jewry, Commentary shifted its focus toward discussing its lessons for the American context. While the magazine had initially connected the fight against anti-Semitism with the struggle against other forms of bigotry, especially white racism, it quickly began to address the Holocaust and anti-Semitism almost exclusively in terms of the fight against communism at home and abroad. The rhetoric of citing Holocaust analogies in support of the burgeoning civil rights movement gave way to analogies between Nazism and communism by the early 1950s.56 Commentary argued repeatedly, for 56 For example Charles Abrams, “Homes for Aryans Only: The Restrictive Covenant Spreads Legal Racism in America”, Commentary, May 1947, pp. 421-427; Felix S. Cohen, “Alaska’s Nuremberg Laws: Congress Sanctions Racial Discrimination”, Commentary, August 1948, pp. 136-143; James A. Wechsler and Nancy F. Wechsler, “The Road Ahead For Civil Rights”, Commentary, October 1948, pp. 297-304.
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example, that the Soviet system was especially cruel toward Jews and that a new holocaust was in the making behind the Iron Curtain. In “Hungary’s Jewry Faces Liquidation – Again the Concentration Camps”, former president of the Hungarian Independent Democratic Party, Bela Fabian,
cautioned American Jews that Stalin posed as much a threat to Central and Eastern Europe as Hitler had in the past. To drive home his point, he claimed that Stalin’s policies ran “parallel to the policy of Nazi extermination” – “the only difference”, he claimed, “is the denial that ‘Jews as Jews’
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are being mistreated, and the fact that, at the end of the line, instead of the extermination camps of Auschwitz and Treblinka, there are the slave labor camps of Karaganda and Kolyma and the cotton fields of Tashkent and Alma-Ata”.57 The ultimate conclusion of such reasoning was that if Jews were interested in their survival as Jews they had to reject any sort of association with communism. Repeatedly, articles cited the Holocaust as a reminder of what could happen if Jews remained “bystanders” or were unable to differentiate ‘friend from foe’ in the struggle against communism at home and abroad. The implication was that those who were supportive of communism or unwilling to dissociate themselves clearly from it were not only guilty of dishonouring the memory of those killed during the Holocaust but also posed a direct threat to Jewish secu57 Bela Fabian, “Hungary’s Jewry Faces Liquidation: Again the Concentration Camps”, Commentary, October 1951, p. 334. Also see George Lichtheim, “Will Soviet Anti-Semitism Teach the Lesson?: For Most Britishers It Has”, Commentary, March 1953, pp.221-226; Peter Meyer, “Stalin Follows in Hitler’s Footsteps”, Commentary, January 1953, pp. 1-18.
rity and collective survival.58 Throughout the 1950s, analogies between Nazism and communism intensified and were directed not only at the radical left but also specifically designed to target liberal Jews who, in the eyes of a number of Commentary writers, were willing to sacrifice Jewish concerns and interests when they conflicted with a left-wing agenda. Commentary repeatedly cautioned liberals, and especially Jewish liberals, not to be blinded by communist rhetoric and continually referred to Nazism and the Holocaust as a reminder of what could happen if Jews did not defend 58 The term Holocaust entered the public vocabulary during the later 1950s. In the 1940s and early 1950s, the campaign to destroy European Jewry usually was referred to as “the catastrophe”, “disaster”, or as “the destruction of European Jewry”. One early example of usage of the term “Holocaust” dates back to an address by AJCongress’ executive director to southern Jews in 1958. Referring to the Holocaust, Isaac Toubin called on southern Jewry not to be idle in the struggle for African American civil rights. Isaac Toubin, “A Message to Southern Jews: Recklessness or Responsibility”, Congress Weekly, March 17, 1958, pp. 5-6; For more information on the term’s etymology see Alvin H. Rosenfeld, ed. Thinking About the Holocaust: After Half A Century (Bloomington, In: Indiana University Press, 1997), p. 121; Zev Garber and Bruce Zuckerman, “Why Do We Call the Holocaust ‘The Holocaust’? An Inquiry into the Psychology of Labels”, Modern Judaism, Vol. 9, No. 2 (May 1989), pp. 197-212.
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Jewish interests more assertively and approach politics in terms of more narrowly defined group interests. As if Commentary wanted “to wash away the stain of guilt” that seemingly hung over American Jewry because of its perceived passivity during the war, the magazine began to urge Jews to no longer engage in inconspicuous political behaviour when Jewish interests were at stake.59 In a similar vein, Kristol drew parallels between communism and Nazism, implying that both end in mass murder, when reflecting on the trial of the State Department employee and Soviet spy Alger Hiss, who was convicted of perjury during 1950. “Many of us have known Communists, and most of them conveyed no impression of being conspirators”, he wrote. “But then, some of us have known Nazis too, and they conveyed no immediate association with gas chambers”.60 Leslie Fiedler
added that the Hiss case demonstrated the extent to which liberals were “unwilling to leave the garden of…illusion” because they seemingly refused to condemn communists and fellow travellers.61 Accusing liberals of being blue-eyed with regards to what Commentary contributors perceived as the imminent threat posed by communism abroad and especially at home, these writers wondered aloud how liberals would react if Nazis were allowed to promote their views freely and concluded that the issue at stake here were not the civil liberties of communists but rather the danger posed by domestic communism to American democracy and by extension to Jewish security. In the light of what Nazism had wrought, and because communism was equally dangerous, they surmised, removing communists and communist sympathisers from their government jobs therefore was entirely legitimate.62
59 Shapiro, We Are Many, p. 24.
61Leslie A. Fiedler, “Hiss, Chambers, and the Age of Innocence: Who Was Guilty – And of What?”, Commentary, August 1951, p. 119.
60 Irving Kristol, “Civil Liberties, 1952 – A Study in Confusion: Do We Defend Our Rights by Protectng Communists?”, Commentary, March 1952, pp. 234235.
62 Robert Bendiner, “Civil Liberties and the Communists”, Commentary, May 1948, pp. 430431; Sidney Hook, “Does the Smith Act Threaten
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As these examples show, participants on all sides of the political spectrum used reference to and imagery of the Holocaust and Nazism in order to sustain their arguments, always implying that they were thereby adhering to the lessons of the Holocaust and honouring the memory of the ‘six million’. Immediately after 1945, the Holocaust became a reference point with which pundits and activists underscored the moral righteousness of one position or another. Overarching discussions of the appropriate lessons of the Holocaust at each step were concerns as to the meaning and essence of Jewish identity in postSecond World War America. As the Cold War progressed and Jews became integral part of mainstream American society, one central question that came to dominate the agenda of the organised Jewish community was whether the essence of Jewishness lay in a commitment to social justice activism and progressive liberalism generally or whether this allegiance had become Our Liberties?: American Law and Communist Conspiracy�, Commentary, January 1953, pp. 63-73.
an unviable option for Jews. As the 1960s progressed, a number of New York Jewish intellectuals would come out to promote the idea that being Jewish in America after 1945 was no longer compatible with affiliation to causes of the radical or progressive left but rather demanded a more conservative approach to politics, one informed by ideas of Jewish group survivalism on the one hand and an excessive pro-Americanism on the other. Commentary took on a central role in propagating this critique of Jewish liberalism and progressive liberalism generally, thereby redefining Jewish interests in an ethnocentric, highly defensive, and narrow manner. As hard-line anti-communist liberals from the late 1940s onwards, a number of New York Jewish intellectuals began to contend that a perverted liberalism had taken over mainstream politics, which was anti-middle-class, anti-American and anti-Jewish in nature. Driven by the desire to fit in with American mainstream society and yet assert their Jewishness more aggressively, these intellectuals ultimately
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fashioned the rationale for what became known as neoconservatism in the 1970s. At each stage of developing their critique of American liberalism, the Holocaust and Nazism systematically served as ultimate reference points in support of their arguments, becoming such an integral part of neoconservative thought that critics have suggested that from a neoconservative viewpoint, we are constantly approaching 1939.63 Note: This article has been published previously in the University of Sussex Journal of Contemporary History (http://www.sussex.ac.uk/history/research/ usjch)
63 Sidney Blumenthal, The Rise of the CounterEstablishment: The Conservative Ascent to Political Power (New: Union Square Press, 2008), p. 119; Michael Lind, “A Tragedy of Errors�, The Nation, February 5, 2004.
NADJA JANSSEN received her DPhil in American Studies/History from the University of Sussex writing on the Jewish dimension of early neoconservatism. She has taught 19th and 20th century American history at the University of Sussex and the University of Sheffield and is currently teaching classical sociological thought and a course on Jewish London at the London Study Centre of Arcadia University. Her research focuses on modern liberalism and conservatism, the interaction of religion and national identity, and modern Jewish history. Presently, she is preparing an article on women and the anti-feminist backlash from the 1980s to the present, as well as working on a monograph based on her doctoral research. Her next research project will be a transnational study of the role played by religion in post-1945 political conservatism.
ARTICLE THREE
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ENGAGING LOCAL POWER BROKERS IN POST-CONFLICT RULE OF LAW CONSTRUCTION BY: WOUTER VAN CLEEF
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M
edieval rulers understood full well why they needed an army. They couldn´t imagine not being able to defend their dominions against forces from neighbouring lands. Sometimes they needed additional subjects to rule over while increasing their wealth, power and status. But what if we were to survey the present-day population of western democracies about the need for expensive, well-equipped armed forces? Some would argue the need for selfdefence legitimates extensive spending on air bases, navy frigates and modern artillery. Looking back at the past two decades however, most military deployments were not aimed at occupying foreign territories to take control of their resources and populations. Rather, military missions and development cooperation primarily sought to bring stability, peace, and even democracy. How can these lofty goals best be achieved? Is it realistic to expect British, Bulgarian and Belgian soldiers to bring social integration, peace and a new legal
order to a divided state like Bosnia? Can a foreign presence assimilate developing, post-conflict countries like Afghanistan in the world community of modern, democratic states? One crucial factor for achieving mission success is sustainable cooperation with local leaders when building a new order in their country. A just system built on laws and government institutions is key. Fragile bottom-up support in (parts of) Iraq and Afghanistan have led to intercommunal violence and doubts among politicians about the success of international military involvement. In this article, I will develop an argument for interacting with informal law and order mechanisms in rebuilding post-conflict societies’ legal institutions. It will seek to explore effective methods of cooperation between foreign (military) interventions and local, informal power holders in legal and political development in post-conflict nations, such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Rwanda. For that purpose, C.J. Lammers’
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theory of a sociology of foreign occupations will be discussed and elaborated on for use in a world where bringing stability is the prime objective of foreign (military) involvement. Contemporary Conflicts and Peace Building Since the end of the Cold War, military forces have changed their focus from large-scale, state-centric warfare, to interventions in conflict-zones worldwide and long-term missions aimed at providing assistance to fragile and post-conflict states. It is in places like East Timor, Rwanda, Haiti and Afghanistan that the shared values and capabilities of the developed world are put to the test. Cross-border problems like refugee flows, piracy, illicit drugs trade, terrorism and large-scale violence are important drivers of military interventions today. All elements of foreign policy – from military force to development cooperation – are deployed in order to tackle such cross-border problems emanating from non-state actors that thrive
in territories where the rule of law is fragile. Foreign involvement in collapsed states seems to directly contradict the classical notion of sovereignty or non-intervention in another country’s internal affairs. National sovereignty is going through a process of fundamental redefinition, as concepts like the Responsibility to Protect (United Nations, 2005) are adopted by the world community and the number of international criminal tribunals grows (e.g. Van Creveld, 1999). In post-conflict environments – where external actors are often involved in tough negotiations for a peace deals and perform subsequent peacekeeping (or peace-enforcement) operations – the all-important issue of drawing up new, legitimate rules to govern state and society has to be addressed. A sustainable peace can only be achieved if it is just and fair to all citizens and adequately addresses war crimes when they are alleged to have occurred. Rule of Law as a Cornerstone for Peace A state based on the rule of law, in which
ARTICLE THREE WHAT IS RULE OF LAW?
a democratically elected government is subject to laws and a constitution that has the best interest of its citizens as a founding principle, seems the best solution. In such a political and legal framework, strong states – the cornerstone of the international legal order – can flourish. On paper, bolstering the institutions of failed states is thus the most effective response to bloodshed, human trafficking and other problems commonly associated with state failure. For these reasons, the international community has sought to assist post-conflict states in establishing new governance systems over the past decades. Additionally, a state with an effective legal system will attract more foreign investors and serves as a building block for domestic economic growth.1 When entrepreneurs know their property and contract rights can be enforced, trust in a country’s economic 1 This case is made by (among many others) Kaufmann, Daniel, Kraay, Aart and Mastruzzi, Massimo, Governance Matters IV: Governance Indicators for 1996-2004 (May 2005). World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 3630. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=718081 or doi: 10.2139/ssrn. 718081
There are various schools of thought on what exactly the rule of law is. It was defined by Raz in its most basic form: “The rule of law means what it literally says: the rule of laws. Taken in its broadest sense this means that people should obey the law and be ruled by it.”1 This is a classic representation of what scholars call a “thin notion” of the rule of law. It doesn’t specify how laws should be made, nor how enforcement is to take place. Under this definition, even the most gruesome dictatorship can be a perfect rule of law based states. Other scholars adopt a “thick notion” on the rule of law. In their view, rule of law can not be separated from universal human rights standards and democracy. Only if the rule of law serves to enhance human rights and development can one speak of true rule of law. In rule of law reconstruction after violent conflict, international actors primarily focus on improving police forces, training judges and lawyers and assisting governments in developing new, just laws.2 1 HiiL report of 2007 p. 11. 2 Ibid.
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INFORMAL LAW AND ORDER MECHANISMS Societies need rules. Business and social interaction would be virtually impossible without rules and institutions enforcing them. In large parts of the world, modern state institutions like the ones that grew historically in Europe have never taken root. Where state institutions, like police forces and the judiciary are weak or absent, tribes, ethnic groups, clans, villages and other units of social organisation take over. With deeprooted ties, these systems are held together by shared moral, or religious convictions. From these principles, laws and governance systems are derived. In different developing countries, different sets of non-state, informal mechanisms exist. In Indonesia for instance, adat law is a customary legal tradition that evolved over centuries, even before the arrival of Islam and colonialism, adat was important in Indonesian society.1 In the tribal regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan, Pashtunwali and Jirga codes play an important role in conflict resolution and everyday governance and enforcement of rules. Here, tribal chiefs and elders, resolve conflicts in or between communities through ageold codes. In South Africa, the position of informal rulers was enshrined in the postApartheid Constitution. Customary courts have autonomous rule on cases relating to their own indigenous affairs. A recurrent political problem in engaging with customary, informal, traditional, nonstate or whatever other name one prefers to give to these institutions, is the fact that they are often perceived to be incompatible with universal human rights standards. Because of the fact that they have developed over centuries, corporal punishment, women’s rights and the protection of minorities remain controversial topics.
1 S. Clark and M. Stephens, (2011), “Reducing Injustice? A Grounded Approach to Strengthening Hybrid Justice Systems: Lessons From Indonesia�, in: Customary Justice: Perspectives on Legal Empowerment, Ubink, J. and McInerney, S. (eds), Rome: IDLODaalder, I. (2007), Iraq After the Surge, Brookings Institution, available via: http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2007/1208_iraq_daalder.aspx
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and financial system will increase. As history has shown, establishing a democracy and system based on the rule of law system is easier said than done. In postconflict countries, and related societies, the lack of stable legal and governance infrastructure, where even basic security is absent, international forces find themselves struggling to restore order. After the initial stabilisation phase, these international actors commonly also assume a role in rebuilding the rule of law and democracy, as has been the case in East Timor and Haiti. Experience shows that in such countries foreign state actors tend to emphasise and focus their efforts on building formal, Western-style institutions. The post-conflict societies themselves however, may attach more value to organically grown, informal law and order mechanisms. The classic image here is one of westerners building a courthouse in a village which is subsequently left unused, as judicial deliberations have always been held in the house of a village elder. Intervening powers generally, incorrectly, assume that working in a failed state means
working in an environment where politics and law don’t exist. Despite the absence of modern institutions, political relations and legal discourse is likely to have long been present, just not in the way that intervening actors commonly understand it. In Afghanistan, for example, strongly developed national institutions, like an organised police force, or a national army, hardly existed since the Soviet invasion. Before that, it was in a brittle position as well. Linkages between civil society and formal institutions were underdeveloped.2 Social order was maintained by loosely organised local leaders and power brokers. Informal Law and Order Mechanisms in Collapsed Societies In countries where the state can no longer provide basic services like the rule of law to its citizens, the importance of local, informal mechanisms in maintaining order soars. With ineffective state institutions, the risk of piracy, drugs trade, human trafficking 2 R.A. Millen (2005), Afghanistan: Reconstituting a Collapsed State, via: http://www. strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/pub600.pdf
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and large-scale violence increases. When state bodies collapse – as is the case in most of the world’s conflict-ridden areas – informal institutions become an important base of popular allegiance. Whereas in western countries the majority of citizens identify with the national state as a primary
source of political and legal allegiance, in many developing countries traditional mechanisms are more important than a state-appointed judge or police man. Since they are not part of the state system, they are often perceived as irrelevant, ineffective and therefore unworthy of
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investment. Authors like Chabal and Daloz (1999) and Kilcullen (2009) concluded however, that in large parts of the developing world, governance has always taken place beyond the reach of modern institutions, in a fairly efficient process. Not paying appropriate attention to these informal law and order mechanisms could antagonise a local population, the very group that international actors sought to assist in the first place. Foreign assistance should ‘exploit’ this bottomup resource of legitimacy and engage informal leaders as a part of the rebuilding of the state’s rule of law. This is an important method to create an effective new order in the long-run, by ‘welding’ society to the new state’s institutions.3 Informal mechanisms can also play an important role in transitional justice (the adjudication of crimes committed during violent conflict). One of the issues in the extensive political and academic debate on the relationship between peace and justice 3 D. Kilcullen, (2009), The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One, Oxford: Oxford University Press
is that victims sometimes feel a stronger connection to a local, more recognisable procedure, contrasting with a complicated lawsuit before an international court. After the Rwandan genocide, gacaca-courts were tasked with prosecuting vast numbers of génocidaires who were otherwise left untouched by the justice system. The international community however, criticised this development as the gacaca’s were deemed inappropriate institutions for dealing with crimes of this nature.4 The example of gacaca-justice demonstrates that international development workers and soldiers trying to help reconstruct social and legal order in a collapsed society, are often confronted with a clash (or, more optimistically ‘a meeting’) between different perspectives on rule of law and governance. With their own background in modern institutional thinking on the one hand and the importance of tribal, religious or other traditional systems of law and governance on the other, misunderstandings are bound to arise. This 4 Human Rights Watch, 2011.
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IRAQ: INVASION AND INSTABILITY Despite demonstrations in many countries, the US along with a number of coalition partners, invaded Saddam Hussain’s Iraq in March 2003 fearing its weapons of mass destruction programme. Although the initial invasion went relatively smooth from the US perspective, the subsequent stabilizing operation was a lot more difficult and led to more casualties. Soon after the fall of the Saddam-government, former regime elements (pre-dominantly Sunni Baathists) staged attacks against the American-led forces, backed by radical clerics. The US decision to purge the entire civil service of Baath party members meant public service delivery came to an abrupt halt. Former power brokers were unhappy with the consequences of democracy. The Sunni, all powerful under Saddam’s rule, lost power to the Shia who outnumber the Sunni. With a non-functioning state, a rising insurgency, and rapidly increasing sectarian tension between the three major groups within Iraq’s society, political deadlock betweennative elites resulted. Reconstruction of the Iraqi state came to virtual halt. Three years after the invasion, a full-blown civil war had erupted with recurrent sectarian bloodshed and violence against US-led forces. The Kurds, concentrated mainly in the North, decided to seek maximum autonomy given their long desire for independence and insulated themselves from the bloodshed. Shia and Sunni groups remained pitted against each other. Terrorist groups affiliated with al Qaeda entered the scene as well. For the US to maintain order required force, and lots of it. Some success was achieved with a US troop surge, initiated by General Petraeus. Part of this programme meant tribal groups in provinces were trained and armed to fight local terrorists. The surge succeeded in reducing violence, but political deadlock remains.1 The state’s weakness and the continued unwillingness to cooperate within new institutions make its future uncertain. With the pull-out of US forces completed since December 2011, many fear violence and bloodshed will return to Iraq.
1 I, Daalder, (2007), Iraq After the Surge, Brookings Institution, available via: http://www.brookings.edu/ opinions/2007/1208_iraq_daalder.aspx
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clash is a serious challenge in most of today’s post-conflict countries. In Afghanistan, Iraq and Rwanda (to name a few), one can observe how a lack of mutual understanding, respect and knowledge of traditional, informal mechanisms becomes a source of frustration and even violence between foreign actors and local power-holders. Proper ‘management’ of this clash can contribute to a smoother transition and lead to a more sustainable peace. It requires patience on the side of the international community and expert knowledge of the political and legal situation on the ground. Smarter engagement with local power-holders could dramatically reduce the costs (in lives and money) of foreign involvement in post-conflict countries.
western and traditional notions of law and governance in developing countries. From an institutional point of view, foreign interventions in post-conflict countries tend to focus on institutions they are most familiar with, i.e. parliaments, courts, municipal councils, ministries, etc. In many post-conflict countries with a strong tradition of informal governance by local rulers, such institutions don’t exist perform a rudimentary function. Actual political and judicial decision-making takes place outside the scope of these bodies. Jirga’s, tribal councils and other informal – and thus seemingly invisible – institutions are often neglected.
Historical experience has demonstrated that neglecting the value of ‘native elites’5 can undermine efforts to rebuild the rule of law in post-conflict countries. There are various differences between
Working with Native Elites. Lammers distinguishes between occupations that operate through ‘native elites’ and occupations that impose ‘loyal elites’. Native elites enjoy a prominent position among a social group in the occupied territory, which is the reason why they are recruited by the occupation regime. Loyal elites are domestic leaders who are
5 C.J. Lammers, (2003), ‘Occupation Regimes Alike and Unlike: British, Dutch and French Patterns of Inter-Organizational Control of Foreign Territories’, in: Organization Studies vol 24 (9) pp 1379-1403.
A Sociology of Foreign Occupations:
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newly-appointed by the occupation force, without bottom-up support in society. He concludes that occupation regimes relying on native elites are more sustainable over time and require less coercion than those employing loyal elites.6 6 Lammers, C.J. (2003), ‘Occupation Regimes Alike and Unlike: British, Dutch and French Patterns of Inter-Organizational Control of Foreign Territories’,
Lammers’ research dealt primarily with colonial governance and other occupations by France, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. He identifies specific differences between the three countries’ in: Organization Studies vol 24 (9) pp 1379-1403 & Lammers, C.J. (2006), Vreemde Overheersing: Bezetten en Bezetting in Sociologisch Perspectief, Amsterdam: Bert Bakker (in Dutch).
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occupation styles, with France relying primarily on loyal elites, whereas the UK and the Netherlands are more inclined to work with native elites. Going as far back as the 18th century War of the Spanish Succession in presentday Belgium, Lammers demonstrates how occupation regimes relying on native elites are “[less] prone […] to making use of punitive measures”.7 He argues this historical trend is related to an occupying country’s traditions and cultural traits. In colonial governance for instance, he found France, the Netherlands and Great Britain employed similar approaches over time to engage local powerbrokers, or native elites, as they did in earlier occupations. Counter-intuitive though it may seem, Lammers considered his framework applicable to ‘benign occupations’ – as he terms contemporary peace operations – as well. While the intention to run a prolonged occupation government is absent, post7 Lammers, C.J. (2003), ‘Occupation Regimes Alike and Unlike: British, Dutch and French Patterns of Inter-Organizational Control of Foreign Territories’, in: Organization Studies vol 24 (9) p. 1394.
conflict reconstruction often resembles an occupation when one looks at the extensive and intrusive foreign involvement that it requires (i.e. judicial and police support) to keep the peace during a transition period.8 In order to find the most effective ways of engaging native elites in present-day rule of law reconstruction, the dichotomy of native and loyal elites as developed by Lammers does not suffice. A New Typology of ‘Native Elites’ In contemporary benign occupations, as Lammers terms peace operations, two factors are of crucial importance. First, the extent to which native elites are willing to cooperate with each other in the development of new administrative and legal institutions varies. Ethnic tensions and long-standing conflicts can greatly impact willingness to cooperate in the postconflict phase. Continued blood-shed in the reconstruction phase, as in Iraq, reduces 8 Lammers, C.J. (2006), Vreemde Overheersing: Bezetten en Bezetting in Sociologisch Perspectief, Amsterdam: Bert Bakker (in Dutch) p. 263.
68 AFGHANISTAN: BUILDING A STATE THAT NEVER WAS Months after the September 11th 2001 attacks in the United States, Afghanistan was invaded to remove the Taliban from power, root out the terrorist group Al Qaeda, and make sure terrorist groups could no longer use the country as a training base. Politicians around the world quickly realised this entailed more than a short-term bombing campaign; a whole new state had to be built from the ground up. Historically, Afghanistan was more a collection of loosely governed tribal entities separating the Russian and British empires in South and Central Asia. After the Soviets attempted to install a communist regime and US-backed fighters successfully resisted, the country was largely forgotten. With the Taliban in power, Osama Bin Laden was allowed set-up Al Qaeda bases to train for terrorist attacks. The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), composed of NATO forces spread out across the countryside to bring peace, order and governance to areas that were traditionally governed by warlords, tribal chiefs and other types of local rulers. Their presence proved to be one of the greatest stumbling blocks for the mission. Cooperation with them often meant dealing with corrupt officials who were not selected on the basis of their professional qualifications, but rather served because of tribal lineage or control over a large group of fighters. On the other hand, foreign soldiers, development workers found they could not just ignore the presence of these native elites. Working without them inevitably meant antagonising local populations and powerbrokers. There were tensions on a personal level, but also on the political level. To what extent can foreign countries work with native elites that resist changes regarding women’s rights or corporal punishment? While parts of the international presence in the country aimed to rebuild, others focused on bringing the fight to the terrorists. These diametrically opposed goals caused confusion and often obstructed long-term institution building efforts. Ten years after the invasion, Afghanistan has seen some improvement, but it’s still too early to assess whether sustainable change in its governance system has evolved. Many observers argue that Afghanistan was, and still is, a patchwork of different tribal and ethnic groups where a strong, central state with a national army and legal institutions will never materialise.
ARTICLE THREE
native elites’ inclination to work with each other to build a new state. Secondly, the degree to which native elites are receptive to international assistance and their willingness to accept international standards varies. Some native elites in collapsed states embrace international standards on issues such as human rights and procedures meant to guarantee a fair trial. Others however oppose international standards and refute claims to universal values as paternalistic. In rural Afghanistan, where tribal chiefs and village elders have long had a predominant role in customary rule of law, native elites often resist international efforts aimed at bringing new governance standards. Experience since the 1990’s, when a new era of international interventions emerged, teaches us that the two trends described above are key issues for any reconstruction mission to be successful. Choosing the right strategy is essential if foreign interventions aim to minimise tension and violence. Lammers’ dichotomy devotes
insufficient attention to these two aspects of working with native elites in contemporary peace missions. A more differentiated framework is needed to develop a strategy for working with the various types of native elites in rule of law reconstruction efforts. Based on the facts of present-day post-conflict countries, a new sub-typology of native elites (an expansion of Lammers’ framework) is presented in the matrix above. It denotes four different operational environments along with policies which external actors could adopt vis-à-vis native elites in a specific operational environment of rule of law reconstruction. This matrix is a first attempt at systematically presenting how foreign actors can best engage different types of native elites in rebuilding political and legal order, along with policy options for foreign development workers and military forces. Further empirical research is required to assess the validity of this matrix and the policy options it proposes. It is however only a broad presentation of the facts of present-day peace building missions and
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Native elites willing to cooperate amongst each other in building new state’s legal institutions
Native elite unwilling to cooperate amongst each other in building new state’s legal institutions
Native elites receptive to international law and governance standards
Minimal foreign involvement needed, smooth transition
Focus on political engagement of elites, communicate long-term benefits of new structure
Native elites not receptive to international law and governance standards
Foreign actors focus on education and monitoring of legal and governance standards
Strong foreign involvement need, plus civic campaigns. Solid international backing required (incl. political and military support)
Table 1: Matrix of different forms of native elites, resulting in four types of operational environments describes intuitive policy options that seem to give the best chance of success under particular circumstances. Despite its broad scope, the above matrix can serve as a useful tool for foreign actors involved in rule of law reconstruction in post-conflict countries, as it can help them develop a strategy for engagement. To make this matrix applicable for actors in the field, careful anthropological study of local circumstances and deep-rooted conflicts are necessary. With a solid background knowledge of a specific postconflict situations, practical measures can
be decided upon and a long-term strategy for rule of law reconstruction can be set up. Conclusion In development economics there’s a strong push to keep donor-driven assistance to a minimum. Instead, outsiders try to operate as much as possible at the request of the local population, so as not to impose policies and measures. In more politically charged interventions in post-conflict countries, the same lesson – learnt through some particularly blood-stained experiences – is now sinking in. A beneficial end-goal –
ARTICLE THREE
an effective, democratic, modern state – is something that politicians and generals around the world now realize cannot be parachuted into a war zone.. Working with local power brokers and accepting a different development trajectory is a wiser approach. Lammers has shown that when trying to (re-)construct government administration in under governed areas, working with native elites is a necessity. To arrive at his conclusion, he used evidence from the days of great European powers, but his observations are equally valid today. A crucial element in today’s benign occupations, as Lammers terms peace operations, is that they focus on reconstructing a state as opposed to controlling other state’s territories. Reconstruction requires patience, understanding, cooperation and strategy. The last twenty years of post-Cold War peace missions have provided the world with some particularly sobering lessons on the pitfalls of foreign interventions in collapsed states. Let’s hope the next twenty years will bring less bloodshed and more peace.
WOUTER VAN CLEEF studied political science in the Netherlands and South Africa. As an intern at the Netherlands’ Prime Minister’s Office Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR), he provided research assistance to the research project From War to the Rule of Law. After his graduation Wouter took part in Japan Prizewinners Programme. From 2008 until 2011, he worked at the Hague Institute for the Internationalisation of Law (HiiL). Currently, he works as a journalist in the field of international relations.
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BIOGRAPHY
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Joseph Bonanno (1905-2002) By: Daniëlle Wiersema ‘Tu vuò fa l’Americano’ (‘You want to be an American’: title of popular Italian song from 1950’s) For centuries, people have roamed this earth. This trek has mostly been instigated by necessity, whether people are in search of fertile land fleeing their country in search of political or religious freedom. At the beginning of the 20th century, New York City was a massive convergence point for groups from all over the world.. The integration of old values in a new environment has long been a phenomenon in a place like New York City. Among the depictions in popular media, one group in particular has been the source of many popular movies, television series and books:
the Sicilian mafia. Within the wider context of the integration of Sicilians into American society, this article, primarily based on his autobiography, explores the life of Joseph Bonanno. This infamous mobster was a poor Sicilian immigrant who arrived in New York in 1909 at the age of three. He is said to have lived the American dream, becoming one of the most powerful capo’s of New York. The Old Country To acquaint ourselves with the intricate workings of the Sicilian identity, we first have to go back in history, to the island in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. Its history is one of violence, oppression and poverty out of which a tough and resourceful people survived. Because of its central position, many cultures ruled the island through which dominance over the Mediterranean Sea, Europe, Central Asia and North Africa was established. Carthaginian, Phoenician, Greek, Roman and Byzantine lords ruled over Sicily.1 The Saracens and later 1 David Abulafia, De geschiedenis van de Middellandse Zee, Houten - Antwerpen: Uitgeverij
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the Normans from France brought splendor and prosperity until finally Sicily fell under the control of the Italian government in the second half of the 19th century. Tommasi Unieboek – Het Spectrum, 2011, pp 65-67,153, 234, 286, 355.
di Lampedusa, the Sicilian author of The Leopard dubbed Sicily ‘that America of antiquity’, a veritable smorgasbord of cultures. The island has an extreme climate, with relentless sun most of the year and endless showers in winter. Although the volcanic
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soil is fertile and the sweeping hills above the coastline are green, the inland mountain ranges are rocky and harsh. Centuries of over -cultivation have depleted the soil of its riches, the best land divided among the powerful, with the poor fighting each other for scraps.2 Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions from Mt. Etna have left their marks, destroying whole villages and decimating the population. A profound fear for the forces of nature and the superstitious nature of the Sicilians found a well embedded structure in the Roman Catholic Church, 2 David Abulafia, De geschiedenis van de Middellandse Zee, Houten - Antwerpen: Uitgeverij Unieboek – Het Spectrum, 2011, pp234, 571.
a faith still very much alive to this day. The consecutive rulers did not care much for the original inhabitants of the isle. In turn, the Sicilians distrusted and resented their rule. All offices of power were held by the oppressors and later by the deputies of the Central Italian government far away on the mainland. Prevented from participating in the rule of their own land, exploited and cheated, they created their own personal sense of justice. When treated wrongfully the Sicilians took matters into their own hands, settling scores and feuding with rival families. In his autobiography A Man of Honor Bonanno sums it up best when
BIOGRAPHY
he says: Sicilians have come to look upon poverty, scarcity and death as constants in their lives. The have-nots will do almost anything to escape this misery, and the well-todo will fight in order not to sink back into it.3 Out of necessity, they created a lifestyle of survival, a way of life that they would refer to as Tradizione or Tradition. Close knit and secretive, the capsule of Sicilian society is la Famiglia (with a capital F to distinguish itself from one’s immediate household or family). The Famiglia is a group of people, allied friends as well as blood relatives, held together by trust, who support each other in any way they can to prosper and avoid harm. The capo is the head of the Family, a father figure and a ‘man of honor’
An Orphan From Sicily Joseph Bonanno was born in 1905 in Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily. His father Stefano Bonanno was the head of the Bonanno clan, relatively wealthy influential landowners and the leading Famiglia in this little coastal town. When Joseph was three, his family moved to Brooklyn, New York. As the closest port to Europe and with Ellis Island as a gate to the land of possibilities, New York at the turn of the century was at the height of the immigration craze, attracting literally thousands of immigrants everyday from the impoverished European countries. These nationalities were all crammed into the melting pot of America, congesting the quickly expanding city of
who lives by the old Tradition. For his Family to prosper he needs a network of friends and allies in all places and at all levels. By performing favors he would seal the bonds of friendship and make himself indispensable.
New York. Like other groups, the Castellammarese immigrants remained a tight knit community in the New World: Other ethnic groups lived around in our neighborhood – Jews, Poles, Armenians. The cops were Irish The beer vendor were
3 Joseph Bonanno, A Man of Honor; the Autobiography of Joseph Bonanno, New York, St. Martin’s Paperbacks, 2003, p25
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German.4 In school Joseph (or ‘Joe’ as his new friends called him) spoke English but at home he spoke Sicilian. His father opened a pasta factory to meet the demands for fresh spaghetti and a tavern across the street where the homesick Sicilians would congregate. After ten years the family moved back to Castellammare because the rival Buccellato clan was growing more and more powerful. In Sicily Stefano took up his role of don (‘sir’ in English) of the Family and an uneasy truce prevailed. With the outbreak of Word War I, Stefano was drafted 4 Ibid p25
by the army and sent to the Austrian border where he was wounded. He died at home, leaving his widowed wife and only son in the care of ‘uncle’ Stefano Maggadino, who now became head of the Family. Unable to cope with the death of her husband, Joseph’s mother died five years later. Orphaned and living with his grandparents, he dreamt of a life as a sea captain. After finishing school, he went to the maritime college in Palermo, the capital city of Sicily, where he stayed in a boarding house. Young and rakish, he reveled in his freedom, roaming the streets and the harbor taverns, making eyes at the girls and
BIOGRAPHY
going to the opera. However, by the early 1920’s his carefree days were clouded by the Fascist Regime who had just come to power under Benito Mussolini. In his third year at college the Fascists demanded that the National hymn should be sung every morning before class and that every student should join the Fascist Party. These measures offended the fiercely proud Joseph and he became a political activist, protesting against the black-shirted fascists. His adolescent antics didn’t go well with the board and he was expelled from college. At the age of nineteen, Joseph decided to cross the sea and go back home, to New York. Old Values in a New World In the ten years he was gone the Sicilian immigrants of New York had snugly formed around five Famiglias or clans. As explained by Bonanno in his memoires …I am referring to an all-embracing way of life governed by certain values and ideas. One practical aspect of this way of life is the forming of clans, or Families, for the
mutual advantage of their members. It is this phase of my Tradition which Americans usually refer to as the Mafia.5” The five Families were the Masseria (the most dominant Family in New York), Mineo, Reina, Profaci and Maranzano. For Sicilian immigrants who came with high hopes but nothing in their pockets, this was as natural and safe a system as back home. True, America provided them with ample opportunities, but they had to learn the new ways, as incomprehensible as they might seem. For example, if an immigrant needed money he could not expect much help from a conventional bank. Most Sicilian immigrants could not show any credit or collateral for a loan. However, they had what they called the Italian bank. Some of their own countrymen had money to lend them…and these men acted as neighborhood bankers.6 Another thing that puzzled the immigrants was the ambiguous way the American government looked upon gambling. 5 Ibid p77. 6 Ibid p20.
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Many poor played in the ‘Italian lottery’, a cheap game that offered a big jackpot. It was incomprehensible to most immigrants and other poor folk that such a lottery was illegal. If you were rich and could afford to bet money in a gambling casino, or if you played the stock market [both regulated by the government, of course] you were safe from the law. If you were poor and bet a penny, it was illegal. It was a strange country.7 The Prohibition of liquor in 1920 also raised a few eyebrows: Americans were difficult to fathom. Drinking beer and whiskey was okay, but drinking wine, which Sicilians made in their basement stills, was considered the exotic habit of ‘foreigners’. We couldn’t imagine that someday they would be so foolish as to prohibit the drinking of alcoholic beverages altogether!8 For the pragmatic Sicilians: Prohibition provided a splendid and accelerated opportunity for immigrants to make money. It was the newcomers to this land 7 Ibid p20. 8 Ibid p20.
– the Jews, the Irish, the Poles, the Germans, the Sicilians – who took the lead in bootlegging.9 In those days, most Sicilians regarded gambling and bootlegging, illegal as it may be in America, as a passing phase in the urbanization of America. However, they drew the line at prostitution: [Prostitution] is one of the activities outlawed by my Tradition. It is unseemly and immoral for a man to make money off women.10 The ambitious Joseph, well connected through his family ties, with a keen mind, superior organizational skills and quick instincts, was accepted into the Maranzano Family. For immigrants, the fortune of Don Salvatore Maranzano was a classic American success story: He built up an import-export business, had real estate holdings and had considerable interests in the bootlegging industry. He recirculated his profits, becoming a financier. He made connections and soon had wellplaced friends in all circles of life.11 In 1927, Joe Masseria, boss of the 9 Ibid p64. 10 Ibid p165. 11 Ibid p74
BIOGRAPHY
leading New York clan, suspected the growing numbers of Castellamarese to detach themselves from his overall leadership. Violence erupted between major factions and developed into a full-blown war, known as the Castellamarese War, which lasted four years. Rising quickly through the ranks, Bonanno became right-hand man or ‘underboss’ to Maranzano. The war ended with Joe Masseria killed and Maranzano elected capo di tutti capi. This outcome and subsequent domination by Maranzano did not please the other gangsters and he was liquidated. At the age of 26, Joseph Bonanno was made boss of the Maranzano Family. Mafia Melting Pot Although popular belief about Italian ‘mobsters’ is highly colored from movies and television series, we need to understand the difficulties for these traditional people in adjusting to the new ways of American society. First and second generation Sicilian immigrants suffered from stereotypes and discrimination (even by other Italian
immigrants) because the mainstream culture was Anglo. Therefore, The Castellamarese tended to stick together… Not only did we all know each other but we were often related to one another. Among ourselves, we spoke Sicilian. English was handy, but often unnecessary to our lives. We asked nothing from anybody, we took care of our own.12 In America, the Sicilians soon began to dominate affairs among fellow Italian immigrants. Their numbers, imbedded social structure and the great solidarity coming from their clan system gave them great advantages over other groups, even over their Italian ‘cousins’ from the mainland. However, in the great melting pot of America even the Sicilians couldn’t prevent mixing with non-Sicilian groups. One example of this mixing is Al Capone, the notorious crime lord of Chicago. Capone originally came from Naples, on the mainland of southern Italy. Although Naples and Palermo were the ‘twin capitals’ of the Kingdom of the two Sicily’s (1850-1860) the islanders be12 Ibid p62
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lieved all Neapolitans “to be rascals”. Yet Al Capone, a non-Sicilian, was accepted into ‘their world’ although he was never a representative of their Tradition: Neapolitans, for example, went in for loud clothes, rough-house and maudlin outbursts of violence. The archetypical Sicilian, in contrast, is stoic, self-possessed and given to violence only to restore order, not out of display.13 Another example of the melting pot at work was when the reigning top Sicilian in Chicago, afraid of Capone’s swift rise to power, teamed up with the Irish Bugs Moran clique. “Such a SicilianIrish combination was a surrealistic turn of events possible only in America”.14 With the first-generation immigrants now firmly established in New York, a new generation emerged. Bonanno refers to mafioso Lucky Luciano as an example of an Americanized Sicilian: Charlie Lucky was a true American in that he was free of Tradition. He had grown up in lower Manhattan and had seen, perhaps bet13 Ibid p87. 14 Ibid p88.
ter than those of us who immigrated later in our lives, the new conditions prevalent in this country. Charlie Lucky believed in business. Without a tradition to guide him, he fell back for his system of values on the most primitive consideration: making
‘Neopolitans went for loud clothes, roughhouse and maudlin outbursts of violence. The archetypical Sicilian in contrast is stoic, self possessed and given toviolence only to restore order, not out of display’
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money…Men of my Tradition have always considered wealth a by-product of power. Men of the old Tradition were mainly in the people business…Luciano never imbibed the true spirit of our Tradition. In his personal life, for example, he was not a family man. He was a bachelor who conducted his business out of a suite in the Waldorf Astoria… Luciano was iconoclastic also in that he had no qualms about working with non-Sicilians. He had in his coterie Jews such as Meyer Lansky, Louis Lepke and Bugsy Siegel…15 Of course, the natural integration of any group is always established through each new generation growing up, living and embracing the new way of life. Luciano was just the kind of Americano all the young boys, immigrant or back home in Italy, were dreaming of. The popularity of the Italian song Tu vuò fa l’Americano in the 1950’s said as much: You want to be an American/ but you were born in Italy/drinking whiskey and soda/even if it makes you sick.
Assimilation In the meantime, new times called for new measures. After the bloody Castellamarese War and the killing of Joe Masseria, the Families, reluctant to experience another bout of instability and violence, installed a national commission in which each Family would be represented by their boss and to which each Family would owe allegiance. The Families would be largely autonomous in their designated area, but the commission would arbitrate disputes between gangs: The commission was not an integral part of my Tradition. No such agency existed in Sicily. The commission was an American adaptation.16 This democratic system, so unlike the feudal clan regimes from Sicily, led to a relative peace for nearly 30 years and the national organized crime scene flourished. Bonanno, apart from his many illegal activities, made profitable real estate investments. He branched out into legitimate businesses with interests in the gar-
15 Ibid pp162-163.
16 Ibid p159.
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ment industry (three coat factories and a laundry), cheese factories, funeral homes, and a trucking company. It was rumored that one of his funeral homes in Brooklyn was used as a front for disposing bodies of killed enemies: the funeral home’s clients were provided with double-decker coffins, and more than one body would be buried at once. By the time Bonanno became a US citizen in 1945, he was a multi-millionaire. Despite Bonanno’s upholding of the Sicilian way of life, there comes a turning point when every immigrant realizes that his move to a new country has changed him in more ways than he thought. In 1957, some thirty years after leaving Sicily as a young man, Bonanno returned to the island on vacation. He rejoiced at visiting the sights of his youth and seeing his old friends, but also realized a profound change in himself: My Italian vacation forced me to realize how different I had become. For better or worse, living in America had changed me. No matter how deeply I treasured memories of Sicily, I was Joseph Bonanno of
America. I was of Sicily, but not of that world anymore.17 His American-born children were grown, his eldest son studying law at university (of which he was exceedingly proud), his daughter just finishing college. He cherished his family life and spent more and more time in his house in Tucson, Arizona, far away from the dangers of New York. Tradition vs. Profit A shrewd man, Bonanno evaded the scrutiny of the American government for years and sailed his Family unscathed through the murky waters of the mafia quarrels. But within the commission all was not well. Five is not an easy number and the balance of power between the five families of New York was shifting, stirring trouble on a national scale. By 1951 the conservative faction, headed by men of Tradition like Bonnano, were faced with a new liberal faction of Americanized bosses who were determined to obtain power, influence and profit through any means they deemed neces17 Ibid p202.
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‘Whatever your opinion is of me, the truth is that I am the last survivor of an extinct species and of a bygone way of life’ sary. Come 1957, the violence spiraled out of control and the crime bosses of America, Canada and even Italy decided to hold a
meeting at the Apalachian estate, north of New York. This conference was raided by police and Bonanno was among those who were arrested. Until then, J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the FBI, had denied the existence of a ‘national crime syndicate’, but after the Appalachian conference he admitted publicly that organized crime was very much alive.18 Bonanno, along with the commission’s most powerful bosses, was from then on under the close scrutiny of the law. After the Apalachian conference power shifted to the liberal faction, with assassinations leading to new alliances. The bosses, already angered by Bonanno’s power and wealth, as well as growing arrogance and time spent away from the affairs in New York, replaced Bonnano with an underboss from his own Famiglia. Bonanno was outraged and started his own Family with loyal members of his clan. These two factions fought for dominance over next years until Bonanno, following a heart attack, finally ‘retired’ in 1968. 18 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apalachin_Conference
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Although he was one of the longest living mafia bosses in America, Bonnano was never convicted of serious crime, only interred for one year in 1985 for contempt of court after refusing to testify. After retiring as capo he lived out his life in Arizona with his family where he died of heart failure in 2002 at the age of 97. In his memoires ‘A Man of Honor: The Autobiography of Joseph Bonanno’, which he dedicated to his wife, children and grandchildren, he pays tribute to his immigrant status and the road he has traveled since coming to America: Whatever your opinion of me, the truth is that I am the last survivor of an extinct species and of a bygone way of life.19 A Man of Honor: The Autobiography of Joseph Bonanno by: Joseph Bonanno and Sergio Lalli In retirement Joseph Bonanno started writing his memoirs. Needless to say, the American government was very interested in what Bonanno had to say about 19 Ibid p13
the commission and the goings-on in organized crime. Many capo’s felt uneasy, fearing Bonanno to reveal too much and breaking the omertà, the code of silence. Technically, Bonanno gave no more information in his book than that which was al-
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ready know. Still, the outrage and disgust for the glimpses he offered into their world didn’t smooth things over with the mafia. The book is a fascinating document of a very closed community of immigrants, explaining their unique background and their rise in the new world. Packed with the most colorful crime bosses, crooks and gangsters of the 21st century, the book offers an intriguing account of the personal history of one man and his dealings with the mafia. The author deftly avoids any stains on his reputation, returning over and over again to this Tradition, his code of honor. A shrewd man, Bonanno doesn’t reveal much of himself in the book, if it wasn’t for his Sicilian pride, which comes through in every page. It certainly makes for entertaining reading, if you can look past the blood on his hands. Publisher: St. Martin’s Paperbacks (January 20, 2003) ISBN-10: 0312979231 ISBN-13: 978-0312979232
DANIËLLE WIERSEMA has a propaedeutic diploma in English and a master degree in communication science at the University of Amsterdam and has taken courses in journalism and in writing short stories at the Schrijversvakschool. Initially starting out in advertising she is currently working as a marketing manager at a magazine publishing house. As a freelance writer she finds the topics closest to her heart are history, literature, biographies and memoires, art and photography.
BOOK & AUTHOR
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PHIL NERGES IRAQ JOURNAL & THEY MUST BE HUNGRY BY: ELKE WEESJES
ARTICLE ONE
A
fter nearly nine years of fighting, the war in Iraq drew to a quiet close on the 18th of December 2011. A simple ceremony took place at the edge of Baghdad’s international airport, not far from the highway along which US troops first fought their way into the Iraqi capital. After the ceremony, the last US troops left the country. In addition to troops from several countries, hundreds of thousands of civil-
ians worked for the Army in Iraq. One of them, Phil Nerges, worked as an inspector of services provided to base camps and convoy operations. He began working in 2004 and spent parts of the following three years there, based at four different camps. He felt disconnected after returning in 2007 and experienced difficulties adjusting to life at home. He contemplated accepting another contracting position overseas,
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Pict. 1. CONVOY STOP
but took a sabbatical to write instead. He noticed that books about civilian workers in Iraq tended to focus on unpopular contractors, such as Blackwater or Halliburton, or unpopular services, such as private security escorts (who carry weapons), and often
labelled them as “war profiteers”. Far less has been written about the larger group of workers who make up the majority: kitchen workers, electricians, plumbers, mechanics, and truck drivers. As a result, the public’s impression of these workers is based
ARTICLE ONE
on what has been written about a vilified minority. Wondering why not much has been written about daily life in camps for those who weren’t ‘mercenaries’ or profiteers,’ a friend asked a poignant question, “America doesn’t care about the soldiers, what makes you think they’d care about you?” Nevertheless Phil Nerges was determined to write about his experiences. Inspired by works like All for the Union: The Civil War Diary & Letters of Elisha Hunt Rhodes, Walt Whitman’s Memoranda During the War, and Marguerite Duras’ The War:A Memoir; he realized the value of meditating on the madness around him. Since returning from Iraq Phil has written two books: Iraq Journal: Sketches From the Contracting Life, an in-depth, remarkably honest and straightforward account of his experiences as a contractor during the height of the Iraq War. His other book They Must Be Hungry is fictional, and is a compilation of short stories about civilian workers. Both works provide a glimpse into life among the everyday workers, separate from the people and companies they work
for. The stories are written in a refreshing, no-nonsense, almost raw style, suitable for the topics discussed. Iraq Journal In Iraq Journal, the reader is invited to join Phil on his journey from his home in New Jersey, to the war zone in Iraq. Based on his emails home and notes taken whilst working, Phil describes his experiences but also those of other workers, resulting in a vivid account of camp life. He discusses his motivations for going to the war zone, a decision misunderstood by most of those close to him. Life in Iraq was colored by fear, boredom, rockets, doubt, heat, mortars, sandstorms, kidnappings, and recurring bouts of crud. Phil also describes the raw beauty of the land, the people, and the culture. After four months, Phil goes home for a ten-day R&R. His life had changed significantly. He had sold his home and was without a mortgage or credit card debt. The contrast between his experiences in Iraq and people’s presumptions at home about what was happening in the war zone, sud-
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Pict. 2 SADDAM
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denly became very clear. What Phil saw on the news and read in the newspapers, did not match the reality in Iraq: ‘Sometimes, I’m personally insulted by what I read in the news. I shouldn’t be, but I still am. Being lumped together with fraud and war profiteering is unfair and irritating. I haven’t witnessed anybody doing anything illegal, not that they would tell me if they were, but from what I can see, most people are just doing their jobs. [....] It’s hard to explain to the people back home what it’s like to work here. Conditions are nearly impossible at times. Some bases take mortars daily. Machine gun fire is so frequent that people stop listening to it, unless it’s directed at them. Local workers are terrorized, shot, kidnapped, beheaded, eyes gouged. The heat exceeds one hundred twenty-five degrees. Worker performance is gauged by whether or not they completed their paperwork correctly after the battle. That’s the madness of it.’ Regardless of these inhumane and dangerous circumstances, Phil’s journal makes it clear to the reader that there
was also an almost inexplicable attraction to life in the war zone. After his first stint in Iraq, during which his mother passed away and his relationship fell apart, Phil decided to work closer to home. He traded one disaster for another and started working on Hurricane Katrina recovery in Mississippi. Within ten days he was transferred to Key West after Hurricane Wilma damaged much of the island. After the Key West project finished in the spring of 2006, Phil signed up for another year in Iraq: ‘I wanted to go back to New Jersey more than I wanted Iraq, but it involved too much change: finding a new place to live, new job etc.’ The second year in Iraq was much harder for Phil. After four months at Tallil Air Base, he was transferred to Camp Scania. Mortar attacks, machine gun fire, and violence near the camp were part and parcel of life in Scania, which contributed to an overall feeling of fear, depression, insomnia and consequently exhaustion. Near the
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end of his contract, circumstances became so grim that Phil wondered what the hell he was doing in a war zone. His journal entries in this period underline the severe psychological impact of mortar attacks. During his first year, Phil wrote matter-of-factly when attacks occurred, but during his second year, in the last months, he started to fall apart: ‘We had a mortar attack close to 20.00 hours, ten rounds. I was in my bunk, reading. I rolled on the floor, pulled on pants and slippers, ran for the bunker, losing one slipper in the mud on the way. I cut around the back side of the bunker and a round exploded on the other side. I dropped onto the ground, curled into a fetal position, and squeezed against the sandbags, trembling like a sparrow. Someone kneeled down beside me and asked if I was hit. “I’m hiding. Get the fuck away from me” I answered. [...] He grabbed me by the collar, lifted me, and dragged me to the entrance of the bunker, then guided me inside. “You’re not going to last long acting like that,” he said. I sat down inside, wet, full of mud, missing one
shoe, humiliated.’ Phil wasn’t going to last much longer. In addition to wondering how many attacks in a row he would escape injury, the nature of his work also changed significantly. He describes how in the beginning, the work focused on services for the troops, activities like building camps and supplying fuel. He felt a strong sense of purpose. Later, as the news stories about tax dollar squandering by contractors increased, so did the bureaucratic oversight. Consequently, the simplest tasks now required individual reports and an extra layer of employees added to read them. One plumbing department manager instructed his staff to write a separate report each time they unclogged a toilet, which numbered in the dozens each day. The portion of time devoted to providing actual services decreased, while the portion devoted to writing reports and attending meetings increased. Phil concluded that he did not want to risk his life for this any further and decided to retire from the warrior business. Just before he left Iraq, Phil heard that Saddam was hanged,
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somewhere in Baghdad. He noticed no sense of victory in the camp. Don’t Feed the Cats in Iraq Back home, Phil looked for someone to write music for lyrics he wrote about MSR Tampa. He was introduced to Vic Ruggiero, the lead singer of the New York ska band The Slackers. The two started working on an album containing songs not about poli-
tics, but about everyday life. Phil chose to avoid writing protest songs, instead he wanted to give a voice to the workers who were in Iraq. Besides writing lyrics, Phil finished the unpublished novel he had already started writing in Iraq. He wrote a book of short stories next, first published in 2010 under the title, Don’t Feed the Cats in Iraq accompanied by an album produced by Ruggiero. They must be Hungry, Tales from the World’s Most Dangerous Highway, published in 2011, contains seven of the stories from the original Cats book plus two more written later. His short stories have appeared in Amoskeag, The Journal of Southern New Hampshire University and Foliate Oak Literary Magazine.
INTERVIEW WITH PHIL NERGES When you left for Iraq you were a fifty-four year old man without military experience, leaving
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a middle-class suburban life behind in New Jersey. What was it like to integrate into your new life in Iraq, a country so different from your own where you had to work with people from all over the world? “I was fascinated by most of it. The civilian workers in Iraq were like the United Nations - mostly Arabs, but also Pakistanis, Indians, Ghurkas, Bosnians, English, Dutch, Filipinos, Sri Lankans and Italians. For the most part, the groups didn’t mix, mostly due to language differences. I had contact with some workers through my inspection work and got to know them outside of work. I was intrigued at times, by the debates about the war; some workers sympathized with the insurgents, for example, during the battle of Fallujah. They told us what they thought and that was remarkable, because of the security concerns it raised, but they were largely dependable workers. Their views didn’t interfere with their jobs. I mean that in general, of course there were exceptions. Personally I found adjusting to the noise hardest. Diesel engines constantly droned, always loud. They turned the gen-
erators, pulled the trucks. Peace and quiet usually meant something was wrong.” This very mixed group of contractors and the army as a whole was working closely with Iraqi civilians but also Muslims civilians from other countries. In They Must Be Hungry you describe how fragile the working relationship with these workers was. When something happened, Iraqis were immediately accused. How would you, in more general terms, characterize the American attitude towards Muslims who they employed? “It’s like it is at home, some people are prejudiced, I don’t know how to quantify it, but many people are. That was one thing that bothered me when I came home, hearing people say demeaning things about Muslims. Most of our allies over there are Muslim. If you demean them, what do you tell the mother of the Muslim soldier or contractor who was killed defending our country? We are wildly outnumbered in this world, and some people in the US seem to think it is
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the other way round. I don’t see any reason to antagonize our allies; my impression of Muslims improved when I went over there. So many are just caught between a rock and a hard place.” In the story Dust Song, a contractor compares his work in Iraq with that of soldiers who fought in WWI, WWII Korea and Vietnam. His girlfriend doesn’t agree with the comparison and says: ‘’The Iraqi war isn’t the same and being a contractor isn’t like being a soldier.’ Which raises the question; where did contractors fit in? “Being a contractor isn’t like being a soldier, though many of them were soldiers. But soldiers see the work that contractors do. The public doesn’t see it. I don’t think the press does either. I get the impression that the public doesn’t understand the entire contracting process. A lot of people think contractors are gun slingers even though most of them are unarmed. Contractors are performing service functions that soldiers did in the past. And to answer your
‘Most of our allies over there are Muslim. If you demean them, what do you tell the mother of the Muslim soldier or contractor who was killed defending our country? ‘ question about where does a contractor fit in: they get lumped in with the companies they work for. The dishwasher and the truck driver get lumped in with the controller and the Chairman of the Board. The issue isn’t about who should cook the food or who should drive the trucks, the issue
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is: who will employ them, and what process should be used by the military to purchase goods and services. The rules for all that can be found in the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR). That’s bureaucrat stuff, but if you want to really understand what’s going on, start there.”
‘Writing kept me from obsessing about fear. It enabled me to stay much longer in Iraq’
Is a contractor’s life worth less? “To who? A contractor’s life is worth everything to his family. For the government, I’m less sure. I get the strong impression that it’s politically easier when contractors get killed because the people back home don’t find that as upsetting as when a soldier is killed. Contractor fatalities are not included in the death tolls. What conclusions can you draw from that?”
motes awareness of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). They focus mainly on counselling services to combat veterans, but they are now trying to incorporate contractors too. One of the people at Hidden Wounds read my jour-
This must have made the reintegration into American society even more difficult. I can imagine that many contractors who have spent time in a war zone have psychological problems. Is there anyone looking out for them? “The organisation Hidden Wounds pro-
nal and encouraged me to publish it. ‘The Social Work Department at the University of South Carolina is now training Social Workers to work with PTSD sufferers. The focus is primarily on veterans, but the treatments apply to anyone. They used one of my stories, The Writer’s Club in a graduate level class. The stu-
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dents were asked to pick out behaviours suggesting the protagonist suffered from PTSD. I thought that amusing because I wrote it to express the difficulty of returning home from a war zone.” One of the more autobiographical stories in your novel The Writers Club tells the tale of Willy Saddler, a contractor who experiences difficulties when trying to re-enter society after his last stint in Iraq. Willy goes to a exhibition of expressionist paintings created by German soldiers who fought in the trenches during World War I. The paintings make perfect sense to him, which was odd because the things depicted were so twisted that they shouldn’t make sense. Willy wants to do something too, but can’t paint, so he decides to start writing in an attempt to make sense of his experiences in Iraq. Was writing therapeutic for you? “Yes, it was. I’m not sure why. We go through life anticipating what will happen next, based on what already happened.
Our memory ends up being a pair of spectacles that we view the present through. Writing, painting, whatever art form you use, moves that memory to outside of us. It doesn’t erase it, but it helps us to see things differently. More clearly, I think.” Certain topics are revisited throughout They Must Be Hungry. Relationships, insomnia, exhaustion and fear are discussed in almost every story. A very interesting returning topic was ‘running away’. Based on your experiences in Iraq, what were people’s motivations to leave their home country? “I can only speak for myself, but I’ll speculate. Sometimes, it was a broken or dysfunctional relationship. I think you need some type sort of disconnection to leave your country in order to work in a war zone. If you have a steady job, you can’t go. You needed to be free for a year to go over there. People tended to be unemployed, or in some state of transition. The majority, maybe two thirds of them, were ex-military, so they were familiar with the work. A lot
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of ex-military and contractors have trouble So what kind of people end up working readjusting to life back home, so they opt to in Iraq? go back to the place they know best: Iraq.” “I would say that many people who go, have some sort of knowledge of the war zone, eiWhat about money? ther ex military or with a family member in “Money isn’t as good as people think. The the army. My brother is in the army and he majority of workers are from countries like was the person who suggested working in India and Pakistan and are paid wages that Iraq.” would be good in their homeland, but not by American standards. Americans are Your novel contains nine stories expaid more, but they are working twelve- ploring the lives of civilian workers, the hour days, seven days a week, three hun- characters are truck drivers, food workdred thirty days a year. You can do well ers and support specialists who proworking those hours at home. This doesn’t vide services to the troops. These men mean you make a lot of money per hour. and women come from different backPolice, nurses, and construction workers in grounds, have different jobs and their the northeast would make more hourly than experiences varied. What can you tell the majority of contractors. Whilst most sol- me about your research methods? Did diers actually let us know they appreciated you interview people? us, a few complained about the amount of “The stories are based on personal obmoney contractors made. Also, what is a servation. When you are crammed in with life worth? If you are lucky and don’t get people, day in and day out, you hear their killed the money is good. But death is very stories. Part of my job, and the part I liked random. Some people get killed the week most, was visiting different departments they arrive. But you know what the risks are and meeting so many people. I would go when you go over there.” and spend three or four hours and would
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speak not only about work but also about experiences. I got to know a lot of people. Also, I try to observe people and their habits closely. I read this book by Hemingway between my first and second year in Iraq. He says that when you go into a room, that you should be able to tell everything about this room when you come out. That is why I bought little black notebooks. I still have them, I just wrote everything down. I used a flashlight at night and writing kept me from obsessing about fear. It enabled me to stay much longer in Iraq. Listen to Tampa Road: http://www. myspace.com/tamparoad/music/songs/
PHIL NERGES worked as a quality inspector for services provided to the Army beginning in 2004. He spent parts of the next three years, twenty months total, in the war zone.His short stories have appeared in Amoskeag, The Journal of Southern New Hampshire University and Foliate Oak Literary Magazine. His website is: http://dustsong.com/.
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