Issue 37 Oppression and Resistance

OPPRESSION

and

R E S I S TA N C E

I S S UE 37 - JANUARY 2021

MODERN WESTERN

OLIVE MORRIS AND A LEGACY OF TRANSIENT POLITICS Welcome to Issue 37 of the Manchester Histo rian! We produced this edition in our generation’s annus horribilis, a year characterised by COVID-19, catastrophe and grief. In many countries, those who face oppression, eco-

movement swept around the world in react ion to the death of George Floyd by police.

In Nigeria, the EndSARS movement took to the streets. In the UK, calls to defund police were echoed by protestors alongside demands to face our imperialist history and remove colon ial-

Oppression and resistance have for centuries been given prominence by historians and theorists in sculpting history. From the 19th Cent ury, those who subscribed to the Great Man theory understood ‘great’ men, many of whom were oppressors, to be key to the understan ding of history. Conversely, for Marx, it was not indivi duals but the struggle between classes which drove historical change. However, it was only from the mid-20th Century that the voices of oppressed people were brought to the fore within mainstream historiography, through movements for history from below such as the History Workshop. Simultaneously, wom en’s, LGBTQ+ and labour history also gained favou r. More recently, the global south has received increased attention in political, economic and intellectual history in response to presiding eurocentrism. This edition was collated in a spirit of history from below and aims to highlight the lives, culture and acts of resistance of oppre ssed people throughout history.

In that vein, this edition opens with an articl e in memory of community activist and UK Black look at the Black Cultural Archives and the importance of public history in providing comm unities authority over their histories. Ethnic and Queer erasure within modern historiography is brought into focus by two articles on dominant narratives of Ancient Greece. Other articles highlight Christian witch hunts, prostitution in 15th century Germany, and Japanese-Ame rican internment. Introducing Liberation theology in South America, we tackle the contradictions between the ideology of the Vatican and that of the radical liberation theologians. Finally, we end with an article from Decolonise UoM on their campaign to Decolonise the University.

Many thanks to Kerry Pimblott, the University of Manchester History Department, the Unive rsity of Manchester Graphics Support Work shop and the whole team here at The Histo rian who had to pick up their roles mid-pandemic and who are yet to meet in person! Thanks also to all those who showed interest or have writte n for this edition. The increase in writership has allowed us to produce this extended online edition. As always, it is a pleasure to showcase your work.

Olive Elaine Morris (b.1953) was a grassroots and radical Black feminist, likely known for her constant resistance to racism, sexism, and class oppression.

Olive campaigned against racism, and in support of both women’s rights, international rights, and squatters’ rights. It is clear that she sought to unpick the interconnected systems which upheld the discriminatory structures in social, political, and economic arenas.

Morris was also well known as a community activist, an avid traveller, an internationalist and perhaps most interestingly, a ‘challenger’. Given that she spent the majority of her life resisting racial, gender, and social inequalities, it comes as no surprise that her friends often referred to her as ‘Tallawah’ - the Jamacian Patois word which refers to someone small but feisty.

Born in St. Catherine, Jamaica, Morris migrated to England in 1961 to live in London with her parents - who had

come to Britain as part of the Windrush generation - and three siblings. Upon leaving secondary school, Olive was not she attended college during the evenings to obtain her O and A levels. By 1968, she was a core member of the ‘UK Black Panthers Youth Collective’, an organisation dedicated to the study of Black history, politics, and culture. The UK Black Pan-

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

and community services to the people in South Manchester.

with, the American Black Panther Party, who understandably did not represent the Black British experience. In 1969, aged 17, she was subject to a case of police brutality for intervening in what she believed to be an unjust police altercation.

When Morris passed in 1979 she was 27 years old. Shared memories of Morris in the Speak Out! newsletter describe her as ‘a very strong and fearless Black sister’ as well as someone who ‘could not sit on the fence or shout empty slogans From 1975-1978, Morris studied a degree at injustices’. They illustrate her as a selfin Economics and Social Sciences at the less sister, evident in her ‘total dedication University of Manchester, and it was durto the struggles for liberation, democing this time that she travelled worldwide, racy and socialism of all oppressed campaigning alongside the ‘National Coor- and exploited people throughout the dinating Committee of Overseas Student’ world.’ Morris was a staunch believer for the abolition of overseas student fees. in housing as a human right and ‘squatShe also visited China as part of a trip with ting as politics’ and in the same year as the Society for Anglo-Chinese her passing, a photo of Morris scaling Understanding (SACU), who a building during an attempted eviction are still up and running today. of a squat featured on the 1979 cover Upon her return, Olive wrote of Squatters’ Handbook. In 2015 Morris about the impact of classism was voted by the public to become the and gender on working in face of the Brixton Pound (B£), a local China, describing the anti-imcurrency to support business and trade perialist struggles of Chinese in South London. women in an article entitled ‘A Sister’s Visit to China’, which Manchester boasts the largest student was published in Speak Out! population in Europe. This includes The Brixton Black Women’s those Manchester born and bred, those Group newsletter. travelling from right across the UK and international students who join us from Whilst in Manchester, Olive abroad. In the three years that Morris was active in Manchester’s resided in Manchester, she left a legacy Moss Side area, but she also kept close ties with the two She demonstrated the powerful impact groups she had set up in of engaging in local politics and the Brixton, the Black Women’s power of this to link communities across Group and the Organisation of locations. For someone whose heart Women of Asian and African belonged to Brixton, Morris left a mark Descent (OWAAD). upon the world, and her legacy exempliShe was a strong believer in education for all, and campaigned for a better quality of education for Black children. Morris also supported Black parents in Moss Side to establish a much-needed supplementary school. Morris

2

was a key member of the Black Women’s Mutual Aid Group and the Manchester Black Women’s Co-operative. The Co-operative sought to address employment inequality in Manchester and in 1980 was renamed by Morris’ associate Kath Locke, the Abasindi Co-operative. Today, the Kath Locke Community

it is perhaps really important for students feeling daunted at university by the prospects of new spaces, places, and faces to remember that we may feel likkle, but we tallawah.

PARISE CARMICHAEL-MURPHY

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

3

MODERN WESTERN

OLIVE MORRIS AND A LEGACY OF TRANSIENT POLITICS Welcome to Issue 37 of the Manchester Histo rian! We produced this edition in our generation’s annus horribilis, a year characterised by COVID-19, catastrophe and grief. In many countries, those who face oppression, eco-

movement swept around the world in react ion to the death of George Floyd by police.

In Nigeria, the EndSARS movement took to the streets. In the UK, calls to defund police were echoed by protestors alongside demands to face our imperialist history and remove colon ial-

Oppression and resistance have for centuries been given prominence by historians and theorists in sculpting history. From the 19th Cent ury, those who subscribed to the Great Man theory understood ‘great’ men, many of whom were oppressors, to be key to the understan ding of history. Conversely, for Marx, it was not indivi duals but the struggle between classes which drove historical change. However, it was only from the mid-20th Century that the voices of oppressed people were brought to the fore within mainstream historiography, through movements for history from below such as the History Workshop. Simultaneously, wom en’s, LGBTQ+ and labour history also gained favou r. More recently, the global south has received increased attention in political, economic and intellectual history in response to presiding eurocentrism. This edition was collated in a spirit of history from below and aims to highlight the lives, culture and acts of resistance of oppre ssed people throughout history.

In that vein, this edition opens with an articl e in memory of community activist and UK Black look at the Black Cultural Archives and the importance of public history in providing comm unities authority over their histories. Ethnic and Queer erasure within modern historiography is brought into focus by two articles on dominant narratives of Ancient Greece. Other articles highlight Christian witch hunts, prostitution in 15th century Germany, and Japanese-Ame rican internment. Introducing Liberation theology in South America, we tackle the contradictions between the ideology of the Vatican and that of the radical liberation theologians. Finally, we end with an article from Decolonise UoM on their campaign to Decolonise the University.

Many thanks to Kerry Pimblott, the University of Manchester History Department, the Unive rsity of Manchester Graphics Support Work shop and the whole team here at The Histo rian who had to pick up their roles mid-pandemic and who are yet to meet in person! Thanks also to all those who showed interest or have writte n for this edition. The increase in writership has allowed us to produce this extended online edition. As always, it is a pleasure to showcase your work.

Olive Elaine Morris (b.1953) was a grassroots and radical Black feminist, likely known for her constant resistance to racism, sexism, and class oppression.

Olive campaigned against racism, and in support of both women’s rights, international rights, and squatters’ rights. It is clear that she sought to unpick the interconnected systems which upheld the discriminatory structures in social, political, and economic arenas.

Morris was also well known as a community activist, an avid traveller, an internationalist and perhaps most interestingly, a ‘challenger’. Given that she spent the majority of her life resisting racial, gender, and social inequalities, it comes as no surprise that her friends often referred to her as ‘Tallawah’ - the Jamacian Patois word which refers to someone small but feisty.

Born in St. Catherine, Jamaica, Morris migrated to England in 1961 to live in London with her parents - who had

come to Britain as part of the Windrush generation - and three siblings. Upon leaving secondary school, Olive was not she attended college during the evenings to obtain her O and A levels. By 1968, she was a core member of the ‘UK Black Panthers Youth Collective’, an organisation dedicated to the study of Black history, politics, and culture. The UK Black Pan-

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

and community services to the people in South Manchester.

with, the American Black Panther Party, who understandably did not represent the Black British experience. In 1969, aged 17, she was subject to a case of police brutality for intervening in what she believed to be an unjust police altercation.

When Morris passed in 1979 she was 27 years old. Shared memories of Morris in the Speak Out! newsletter describe her as ‘a very strong and fearless Black sister’ as well as someone who ‘could not sit on the fence or shout empty slogans From 1975-1978, Morris studied a degree at injustices’. They illustrate her as a selfin Economics and Social Sciences at the less sister, evident in her ‘total dedication University of Manchester, and it was durto the struggles for liberation, democing this time that she travelled worldwide, racy and socialism of all oppressed campaigning alongside the ‘National Coor- and exploited people throughout the dinating Committee of Overseas Student’ world.’ Morris was a staunch believer for the abolition of overseas student fees. in housing as a human right and ‘squatShe also visited China as part of a trip with ting as politics’ and in the same year as the Society for Anglo-Chinese her passing, a photo of Morris scaling Understanding (SACU), who a building during an attempted eviction are still up and running today. of a squat featured on the 1979 cover Upon her return, Olive wrote of Squatters’ Handbook. In 2015 Morris about the impact of classism was voted by the public to become the and gender on working in face of the Brixton Pound (B£), a local China, describing the anti-imcurrency to support business and trade perialist struggles of Chinese in South London. women in an article entitled ‘A Sister’s Visit to China’, which Manchester boasts the largest student was published in Speak Out! population in Europe. This includes The Brixton Black Women’s those Manchester born and bred, those Group newsletter. travelling from right across the UK and international students who join us from Whilst in Manchester, Olive abroad. In the three years that Morris was active in Manchester’s resided in Manchester, she left a legacy Moss Side area, but she also kept close ties with the two She demonstrated the powerful impact groups she had set up in of engaging in local politics and the Brixton, the Black Women’s power of this to link communities across Group and the Organisation of locations. For someone whose heart Women of Asian and African belonged to Brixton, Morris left a mark Descent (OWAAD). upon the world, and her legacy exempliShe was a strong believer in education for all, and campaigned for a better quality of education for Black children. Morris also supported Black parents in Moss Side to establish a much-needed supplementary school. Morris

2

was a key member of the Black Women’s Mutual Aid Group and the Manchester Black Women’s Co-operative. The Co-operative sought to address employment inequality in Manchester and in 1980 was renamed by Morris’ associate Kath Locke, the Abasindi Co-operative. Today, the Kath Locke Community

it is perhaps really important for students feeling daunted at university by the prospects of new spaces, places, and faces to remember that we may feel likkle, but we tallawah.

PARISE CARMICHAEL-MURPHY

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

3

MODERN WESTERN

MODERN WESTERN

THE BLACK CULTURAL ARCHIVES & THE IMPORTANCE OF PUBLIC HISTORY tory, historians such as David Olusoga have illuminated ways in

The BCA’s employment of public materials has allowed it to blossom into a unique space of cultural heritage. Here, Black Britons

Looking at data taken from Advance HE’s Equality Challenge

revealing a broader Black history within the UK but, more impor-

writing and teaching British history is revealed. This study found as a whole, are white. When compared to the percentage of whelmingly whitewashed, potentially elitist and overspecialised history becomes understandable. How then does such a whitewashed history allow Black Britons, and other ethnic minority groups, to not only see but to understand and relate to their pasts? This is where the importance of community-based public Archives. This article does not look to challenge the importance of academic historians, “accustomed to their prestige as histance of public history, creating a space in which Black British communities can discover their pasts and carve out identities.

The Black Cultural Archives (BCA), aptly located at 1 Windrush Square, Brixton, is the only national heritage centre committed to the collection, preservation and celebration of the “his-

cords and those of national and governmental archives, in which the experiences of ethnic minority groups are often excluded. which engage with both tools and historical actors that may not Waves exhibition actively encourages young Black Britons (between the ages of 14-21) to engage in and critically investigate stories of the Windrush generation. Moreover, another exhibition entitled Stories of Black Leadership II: Breaking Barriers includes oral history interviews of pioneering, yet often uncelebrated, Black British female leaders, such as Dr. Maggie Aderin-Pocock MBE and Dame Linda Dobbs OBE. Through its use and dissemination of such public history, the BCA has been able to create a personal archive experience, in which the voices of its records and exhibits are derived from the Black British community itself.

in 1981, the BCA’s iconic founder Len Garrison posed the The BCA’s overarching aim has been to amend the historical imbalance and portrayal of Britons of African and Caribbean ancestry, in a rebuttal to the narrative of invisibility exercised by mainstream historical curriculums, museums and archives.

At this moment in time, the BCA holds an online catalogue of over 3,500 records across a total of 41 collections, with materials ranging from personal papers to photographs and periodicals. The collection and analysis of these extensive resources work to overcome historical omissions and distortions of Black communities and individuals in British history. Principally, however, the BCA is not an insular body, and as the 2016 winner of the Community Organisation Award for Race, Religion and Faith, the BCA is emblematic of the importance of public history to ethnic minority groups.

Since its conception, the BCA has acted as a community archive the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (1984), the BCA endeavoured to empower Black Britons by confronting the lack of “poptions of oral histories, photographs and other archive materials.

However, such material did not emanate exclusively from re-

4

The importance of the BCA and its longstanding engagement with the Black British community, particularly in Brixton, is emblematic of the wider importance of public histories to ethnic minority groups in the UK. By collecting histories from shared authority over the rehabilitation of histories that have been neglected by mainstream narratives. Undoubtedly, further work must be done to correct the whitewashed, elitist histories that have permeated school curriculums and wider societal consciousness. Nonetheless, the BCA and other forms of public history must be celebrated for their role in both creating, and holding space for, meaningful and useable pasts for Black Britons and other ethnic minority communities in the UK.

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

SOPHIE STOCKWELL

FIGHTING FOR RECOGNITION: EFFORTS TO COMMEMORATE THE BL AC K PANTHER PART Y The civil rights movement was arguably one of the most important moments in American history, and both its legacy and its limits have been made evident through the resurgence of Black Lives Matter after the police murder of George Floyd in May 2020. Moreover, this period of history has become ingrained in popular memory as Black history is given more space on the memorial landscape. Popular memory has been bolstered through the creation of heritage sites such as statues and museums, with one of the most famous examples being the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, which opened in 2016. However, the Black Panther Party and Black Power as a whole, are often not given this space: they are deemed separate from the civil rights movement and thus, not worthy of commemoration. For instance, there are at least thirty statues of Martin Luther King across the United States, but none to Black Panthers.

racially motivated fears. The controversy over the memorial was

the Fraternal Order of Police, which is one of the biggest American police unions: in 1969, Black Panther Fred Hampton was shot and killed by the FBI in his Chicago Home. Chicago Alderwoman Madeline Haithcock supported an initiative to name a local street after Hampton, but the Fraternal Order of Police came out in strong opposition. There is no further news on the National Parks Project, and it is unlikely that we will see a National Panther memorial. Canterbury’s comments and subsequent rejection of the project indicate a desire to adhere to a nonviolent and easily digestible narrative of America’s racial history, one which ignores radicalism. Moreover, this legacy of state violence against the Panthers has not been investigated in memorial and heritage sites: The Panthers were brutally harassed for years by COINTELpress political groups deemed too radical. The violent relationship The Black Panther Party for Self Defence was founded in 1966 between the Black Panthers and the state explains why a national in Oakland California by Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton. This memorial does not exist. One of the main goals of the Panthers new Party aimed to end police violence and provide opportunities for Black communities across the country. Howevcans. Despite the continued relevance of this issue, the Panthers’ er, the Panthers are not remembered this way anti-police sentiments have led to their exclusion from the and despite the wide array of scholarship memorial landscape, ignoring the notion that for many on the Panthers, they remain a monolith Black Americans, arming themselves was the only in popular memory and public comoption within a white supremacist system. memoration: The Panthers armed themselves against police brutality Despite this rejection on the national stage, and therefore, the most common image of the Panthers is one of commemorate the Panthers. Most of violent revolutionaries. There is a these sites are located in Oakland, but the deeply ingrained fear of radical Black Panthers of Winston-Salem, North Black resistance, seen most Carolina, succeeded in 2012 in erecting recently in condemnations of an historical marker to the city’s branch Black Lives Matter protests, that have prevented commemoration the party in a southern state. The Winof the Panthers at public heritage ston-Salem marker emphasizes the Pansites. Nonetheless, there have been Panthers aimed to “put shoes on the people’s the Panthers and include them in the feet, put food in the people’s stomachs, and put national narrative. marker was met with contention. In 2015 a citizen of For instance, The National Park Service pulled Henderson, North Carolina created a petition to have the marker funding of over $100,000 intended for a national memorial removed but because the marker is protected by law, it will not to the Black Panthers in Oakland. The funding was awarded be removed. This site is the only historical marker to mention the to the University of California Berkeley and would honour the cultural legacy of the Panthers in the San Francisco Bay Area. Panthers and their legacy. However these heritage sites are batThe grant was rescinded after Chuck Canterbury, head of The tlegrounds of inclusion, and there is continued anxiety over who Fraternal Order of Police, wrote a letter to President Trump ex- to include in national commemoration. the United States should not honour groups that advocated violence against the Police, citing an incident in which a Black

morial landscape and a push to include radical resistance in this

Canterbury’s comments are testament to fear of the Panthers and their legacy of violence. Historian Jane Rhodes argues that the image of violence among the Panthers adheres to the allows for easy dismissal of the party by playing into historic,

oppressive and racist regime. Recent cries to dismantle white supremacy and policing will perhaps lead to more of these sites being created.

ANNE STOKES

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

5

MODERN WESTERN

MODERN WESTERN

THE BLACK CULTURAL ARCHIVES & THE IMPORTANCE OF PUBLIC HISTORY tory, historians such as David Olusoga have illuminated ways in

The BCA’s employment of public materials has allowed it to blossom into a unique space of cultural heritage. Here, Black Britons

Looking at data taken from Advance HE’s Equality Challenge

revealing a broader Black history within the UK but, more impor-

writing and teaching British history is revealed. This study found as a whole, are white. When compared to the percentage of whelmingly whitewashed, potentially elitist and overspecialised history becomes understandable. How then does such a whitewashed history allow Black Britons, and other ethnic minority groups, to not only see but to understand and relate to their pasts? This is where the importance of community-based public Archives. This article does not look to challenge the importance of academic historians, “accustomed to their prestige as histance of public history, creating a space in which Black British communities can discover their pasts and carve out identities.

The Black Cultural Archives (BCA), aptly located at 1 Windrush Square, Brixton, is the only national heritage centre committed to the collection, preservation and celebration of the “his-

cords and those of national and governmental archives, in which the experiences of ethnic minority groups are often excluded. which engage with both tools and historical actors that may not Waves exhibition actively encourages young Black Britons (between the ages of 14-21) to engage in and critically investigate stories of the Windrush generation. Moreover, another exhibition entitled Stories of Black Leadership II: Breaking Barriers includes oral history interviews of pioneering, yet often uncelebrated, Black British female leaders, such as Dr. Maggie Aderin-Pocock MBE and Dame Linda Dobbs OBE. Through its use and dissemination of such public history, the BCA has been able to create a personal archive experience, in which the voices of its records and exhibits are derived from the Black British community itself.

in 1981, the BCA’s iconic founder Len Garrison posed the The BCA’s overarching aim has been to amend the historical imbalance and portrayal of Britons of African and Caribbean ancestry, in a rebuttal to the narrative of invisibility exercised by mainstream historical curriculums, museums and archives.

At this moment in time, the BCA holds an online catalogue of over 3,500 records across a total of 41 collections, with materials ranging from personal papers to photographs and periodicals. The collection and analysis of these extensive resources work to overcome historical omissions and distortions of Black communities and individuals in British history. Principally, however, the BCA is not an insular body, and as the 2016 winner of the Community Organisation Award for Race, Religion and Faith, the BCA is emblematic of the importance of public history to ethnic minority groups.

Since its conception, the BCA has acted as a community archive the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (1984), the BCA endeavoured to empower Black Britons by confronting the lack of “poptions of oral histories, photographs and other archive materials.

However, such material did not emanate exclusively from re-

4

The importance of the BCA and its longstanding engagement with the Black British community, particularly in Brixton, is emblematic of the wider importance of public histories to ethnic minority groups in the UK. By collecting histories from shared authority over the rehabilitation of histories that have been neglected by mainstream narratives. Undoubtedly, further work must be done to correct the whitewashed, elitist histories that have permeated school curriculums and wider societal consciousness. Nonetheless, the BCA and other forms of public history must be celebrated for their role in both creating, and holding space for, meaningful and useable pasts for Black Britons and other ethnic minority communities in the UK.

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

SOPHIE STOCKWELL

FIGHTING FOR RECOGNITION: EFFORTS TO COMMEMORATE THE BL AC K PANTHER PART Y The civil rights movement was arguably one of the most important moments in American history, and both its legacy and its limits have been made evident through the resurgence of Black Lives Matter after the police murder of George Floyd in May 2020. Moreover, this period of history has become ingrained in popular memory as Black history is given more space on the memorial landscape. Popular memory has been bolstered through the creation of heritage sites such as statues and museums, with one of the most famous examples being the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, which opened in 2016. However, the Black Panther Party and Black Power as a whole, are often not given this space: they are deemed separate from the civil rights movement and thus, not worthy of commemoration. For instance, there are at least thirty statues of Martin Luther King across the United States, but none to Black Panthers.

racially motivated fears. The controversy over the memorial was

the Fraternal Order of Police, which is one of the biggest American police unions: in 1969, Black Panther Fred Hampton was shot and killed by the FBI in his Chicago Home. Chicago Alderwoman Madeline Haithcock supported an initiative to name a local street after Hampton, but the Fraternal Order of Police came out in strong opposition. There is no further news on the National Parks Project, and it is unlikely that we will see a National Panther memorial. Canterbury’s comments and subsequent rejection of the project indicate a desire to adhere to a nonviolent and easily digestible narrative of America’s racial history, one which ignores radicalism. Moreover, this legacy of state violence against the Panthers has not been investigated in memorial and heritage sites: The Panthers were brutally harassed for years by COINTELpress political groups deemed too radical. The violent relationship The Black Panther Party for Self Defence was founded in 1966 between the Black Panthers and the state explains why a national in Oakland California by Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton. This memorial does not exist. One of the main goals of the Panthers new Party aimed to end police violence and provide opportunities for Black communities across the country. Howevcans. Despite the continued relevance of this issue, the Panthers’ er, the Panthers are not remembered this way anti-police sentiments have led to their exclusion from the and despite the wide array of scholarship memorial landscape, ignoring the notion that for many on the Panthers, they remain a monolith Black Americans, arming themselves was the only in popular memory and public comoption within a white supremacist system. memoration: The Panthers armed themselves against police brutality Despite this rejection on the national stage, and therefore, the most common image of the Panthers is one of commemorate the Panthers. Most of violent revolutionaries. There is a these sites are located in Oakland, but the deeply ingrained fear of radical Black Panthers of Winston-Salem, North Black resistance, seen most Carolina, succeeded in 2012 in erecting recently in condemnations of an historical marker to the city’s branch Black Lives Matter protests, that have prevented commemoration the party in a southern state. The Winof the Panthers at public heritage ston-Salem marker emphasizes the Pansites. Nonetheless, there have been Panthers aimed to “put shoes on the people’s the Panthers and include them in the feet, put food in the people’s stomachs, and put national narrative. marker was met with contention. In 2015 a citizen of For instance, The National Park Service pulled Henderson, North Carolina created a petition to have the marker funding of over $100,000 intended for a national memorial removed but because the marker is protected by law, it will not to the Black Panthers in Oakland. The funding was awarded be removed. This site is the only historical marker to mention the to the University of California Berkeley and would honour the cultural legacy of the Panthers in the San Francisco Bay Area. Panthers and their legacy. However these heritage sites are batThe grant was rescinded after Chuck Canterbury, head of The tlegrounds of inclusion, and there is continued anxiety over who Fraternal Order of Police, wrote a letter to President Trump ex- to include in national commemoration. the United States should not honour groups that advocated violence against the Police, citing an incident in which a Black

morial landscape and a push to include radical resistance in this

Canterbury’s comments are testament to fear of the Panthers and their legacy of violence. Historian Jane Rhodes argues that the image of violence among the Panthers adheres to the allows for easy dismissal of the party by playing into historic,

oppressive and racist regime. Recent cries to dismantle white supremacy and policing will perhaps lead to more of these sites being created.

ANNE STOKES

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

5

AFRICAN, ISLAMIC AND ARABIC

LIBERIAN WOMEN & POLITIC AL RESIS TAN CE countries that remained independent of European colonial rule on the continent. The founding of Liberia can be traced back to as the American Colonization Society which was responsible for helping establish the young nation. As a result, Liberia became the second independent black country founded by former slaves, following Haiti in 1804. In time, Liberia developed a stable political economy and was a beacon of hope for suppressed Blacks around the world. This was an irony in itself for anyone remotely familiar with Liberian society. The country was plagued by deep-rooted class discriminations between the descendants of former slave settlers and the indigenous ethnic groups. Black

lations in slave-America evoked the same techniques of direct disenfranchisement on indigenous groups. This would later bening of the Liberian Civil War which threatened the security of the entire West African sub-region. 2003 brought an end to decades of civil unrest. The war coming to an end is largely attributed to the grandmothers, mothers, sisters, aunts, female zoes (traditional chiefs), and market women who banded together to form the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace campaign.

The practice of sex strikes dates back to ancient Greek times wide debate whether this method advances or hurts the feminist movement, I would argue the use of this technique—especially in Africa—where women battle for equality has been uniquely limited due to cultural structures more so than their counterparts elsewhere, is a fundamental tool of women’s protest.

Liberian women confronted then-president Charles Taylor to attend peace discussions with the other leaders. This was facilitated by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), a subregional economic and political group. A small group of the women protesters travelled to Accra, Ghana where the ECOWAS meeting was being held, to continue their activism.

When the peace group discovered that negotiations were going nowhere—because they felt the male leaders were wasting the opportunity to socialise with colleagues—the women upped their approach. They waited for the negotiators in corridors and outside of the building as they entered and exited meeting rooms during breaks, blocking exit points and forcing them back into the negotiation rooms to continue talks. Leymah Gbowee, a leader of the peace group for which she won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2011, and the group of women used a nuclear tactic that is considered to be the ultimate militant protest, level of profanity, and curse on men in African custom—for a woman to expose her negotiators to remain in the room until they reached a resolution.

W. Bush administration, the Liberian President Charles Taylor

Peace Studies as an academic discipline began in the aftermath ideology and recorded contributions of men. However, the changing landscape of women’s peacebuilding roles developed a theoretical framework for the inclusion of women in peace processes. The theoretical perspectives on women and peace argues two main points. First, women are naturally averse to war due to their biological nature in nurturing children. Second, the women nurturing feminine trait has been devalued because it is superior to the male counterpart and therefore provides for better cooperation for peace. I can’t endorse either school of thought, but I am convinced that there is a need for stronger decision-making roles for women in peace processes especially since women have delivered successful contributions to peace as evident in Liberia.

In 2003 thousands of women of all religious backgrounds dressed in uniform white clothing gathered in protest to sing, pray, and sit in the government district of the capital city of Monrovia as captured in the award- winning documentary, Pray the Devil Back to Hell. This drew international media coverage as it was amazing to see women of Christian, Muslim, and other traditional religious the peace process. A key component of their protest involved a sex strike, where women on the frontline of the protest and those who joined silently across the country withheld sex from their husbands and partners as a part of their strategy to secure peace.

6

14-year civil war came to an end. International organisations stepped in to lead Liberia’s transition and provide support in the peacebuilding processes. Liberian women’s continual peace of voting. The Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace momale head of state, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf in 2005 and 2012.

Liberia’s jour ney to peace is one example of how a group of African women’s participation made resistance and negotiations more successful in the peace processes. Women deserve a seat at the decision-making table.

CHANTAL VICTORIA BRIGHT

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

AFRICAN, ISLAMIC AND ARABIC

AR TIS TIC REVOLUTION & THE ARAB SPRIN G Oppressive regimes have always been threatened by art. It is visceral communication, delivering a message and a mood in an instant. It sustains culture, bunds society together, and gives it the viewer back at them with more clarity. It can kindle revolution. people were at the vanguard of the movement, so youth cul-

Ihral, in Tahrir Square during the 25 January Revolution, basing it on the chants and rhythm of the protesters and played it repeatedly in the square for weeks. Huge crowds would turn out to see him. Here, art and protest are indistinguishable. there is no space in society for other forms of political op-

of the Arab uprisings were rap and rock tracks, and the visual It also interacts with MENA’s history of calligraphy and poetry by the internet and social media. The revolutionary generation were multicultural, multilingual, educated and alienated, and the rift between them and the dominant patriarchal cultures of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries had been growing since the 1990s. Tensions surrounded poverty, corruption, police brutality, the concentration of wealth and power among a political elite, systemic human rights abuses, and the suppression of political opposition. The cultural dislocation came to a head in December 2010, when Tunisian street vendor Mohamed

(see Tunisan artist eL Seed), producing powerful written work, ti is easily reproduced: in 2011, the phrase ‘be with the revas being outside of governmental control, undermining a state’s sense of public security. When in 2012 the ‘Martyr’s wall’ in Cairo was painted over, it meant the balance of power shifting back to the state. Indeed, the trigger for the Syrian revolution was the arrest and torture of a group of children for writing anti-government slogans on their school walls.

across the Arab world, ultimately resulting in the toppling of four goverments, four civil wars, and a death toll of over 60,000.

Before the Arab Spring, the region had a rich but fraught relationship with the arts. Egypt, Lebanon and Syria were patron states with strong links to the Western art world. Islam furthered calligraphy, poetry and architecture. Protest art was also spearheaded

by Palestinian citizens of Israel, with multiple resistance theatres the West Bank and Gaza. However, religion and conservatism have stunted the arts. Some societies self-police, with Islamic extremists attacking artists considered to be anti-Islamic, such as with the 1994 assault on Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz, and there have been varying degrees of censorship enforced by er achieved the ‘safe space’ character of western art scenes, which makes producing art all the more revolutionary of an act.

The Arab Spring demonstrated the inexctricable link between protest and art. In Tahrir Square (Martyr Square), the heart of the Egyptian revolution, each crackdown produced more material, and more art. Street artist Amor Eletrebi enlisted local residents and children to help repaint carcasses of burned out military vehicles with vibrant, positive images. Ashraf Foda took stones thrown at activists by police and had the activists sign them, creating irrefutable proof of the day’s events. Protest is a performative act, so art during a revolution is self-sustaining.

Certain types of art were more suited to a revolutionary environment than others. The institutions of ‘high art’ were unsuitable: undemocratic and elitist, not to mention unsafe to visit in person in more volatile areas. Rather, the prevailing art forms of the uprising were those of the people. Youth culture was already organised around musical subcultures, and technology meant production and distribution was cheap, easy, independent of institutions, anarchist and revolutionary. Rap music was particulary suited, already well-established in the region, and political in its origins. One of the most well-known exports was ‘the anthem of the Jasmine revolution’, Tunisian rapper El Général’s Rais Lebled (Head of State), released a week before Bouazizi’s death. Precisely because he was an amateur rapper, his lyrics were easy to learn, to then chant at riot police in unison. Egyp-

The uprising changed the artistic landscape, focusing the rerecur all the same. Egypt’s government is squeezing out its strict online activity. Despite being a household name just after the revolution, Ramy Essam can no longer perform in his own country. El Général abandoned the movement for the rising tide of islamism in Tunisia, and the governments of Morocco and Bahrain began sponsoring potential threats like Don Bigg and Fraire, essentially making them court rappers. Inside the borders, history repeats itself, whilst outside the region, Arab art sells. Societies across the MENA region are slowly rebuilding themselves, but in many countries their elites are on trial, in exile or in hostile governments, so money for art patronage is scarce. Instead, the scene is increasingly located in the Gulf states, where the Louvre Abu Dhabi opened in 2017, and Dubai co, as does Tunisian rap and Lybian literature. Egyptian street artists paint all over the world, and the revolution keeps on.

ANNA RABINOWITZ

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

7

AFRICAN, ISLAMIC AND ARABIC

LIBERIAN WOMEN & POLITIC AL RESIS TAN CE countries that remained independent of European colonial rule on the continent. The founding of Liberia can be traced back to as the American Colonization Society which was responsible for helping establish the young nation. As a result, Liberia became the second independent black country founded by former slaves, following Haiti in 1804. In time, Liberia developed a stable political economy and was a beacon of hope for suppressed Blacks around the world. This was an irony in itself for anyone remotely familiar with Liberian society. The country was plagued by deep-rooted class discriminations between the descendants of former slave settlers and the indigenous ethnic groups. Black

lations in slave-America evoked the same techniques of direct disenfranchisement on indigenous groups. This would later bening of the Liberian Civil War which threatened the security of the entire West African sub-region. 2003 brought an end to decades of civil unrest. The war coming to an end is largely attributed to the grandmothers, mothers, sisters, aunts, female zoes (traditional chiefs), and market women who banded together to form the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace campaign.

The practice of sex strikes dates back to ancient Greek times wide debate whether this method advances or hurts the feminist movement, I would argue the use of this technique—especially in Africa—where women battle for equality has been uniquely limited due to cultural structures more so than their counterparts elsewhere, is a fundamental tool of women’s protest.

Liberian women confronted then-president Charles Taylor to attend peace discussions with the other leaders. This was facilitated by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), a subregional economic and political group. A small group of the women protesters travelled to Accra, Ghana where the ECOWAS meeting was being held, to continue their activism.

When the peace group discovered that negotiations were going nowhere—because they felt the male leaders were wasting the opportunity to socialise with colleagues—the women upped their approach. They waited for the negotiators in corridors and outside of the building as they entered and exited meeting rooms during breaks, blocking exit points and forcing them back into the negotiation rooms to continue talks. Leymah Gbowee, a leader of the peace group for which she won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2011, and the group of women used a nuclear tactic that is considered to be the ultimate militant protest, level of profanity, and curse on men in African custom—for a woman to expose her negotiators to remain in the room until they reached a resolution.

W. Bush administration, the Liberian President Charles Taylor

Peace Studies as an academic discipline began in the aftermath ideology and recorded contributions of men. However, the changing landscape of women’s peacebuilding roles developed a theoretical framework for the inclusion of women in peace processes. The theoretical perspectives on women and peace argues two main points. First, women are naturally averse to war due to their biological nature in nurturing children. Second, the women nurturing feminine trait has been devalued because it is superior to the male counterpart and therefore provides for better cooperation for peace. I can’t endorse either school of thought, but I am convinced that there is a need for stronger decision-making roles for women in peace processes especially since women have delivered successful contributions to peace as evident in Liberia.

In 2003 thousands of women of all religious backgrounds dressed in uniform white clothing gathered in protest to sing, pray, and sit in the government district of the capital city of Monrovia as captured in the award- winning documentary, Pray the Devil Back to Hell. This drew international media coverage as it was amazing to see women of Christian, Muslim, and other traditional religious the peace process. A key component of their protest involved a sex strike, where women on the frontline of the protest and those who joined silently across the country withheld sex from their husbands and partners as a part of their strategy to secure peace.

6

14-year civil war came to an end. International organisations stepped in to lead Liberia’s transition and provide support in the peacebuilding processes. Liberian women’s continual peace of voting. The Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace momale head of state, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf in 2005 and 2012.

Liberia’s jour ney to peace is one example of how a group of African women’s participation made resistance and negotiations more successful in the peace processes. Women deserve a seat at the decision-making table.

CHANTAL VICTORIA BRIGHT

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

AFRICAN, ISLAMIC AND ARABIC

AR TIS TIC REVOLUTION & THE ARAB SPRIN G Oppressive regimes have always been threatened by art. It is visceral communication, delivering a message and a mood in an instant. It sustains culture, bunds society together, and gives it the viewer back at them with more clarity. It can kindle revolution. people were at the vanguard of the movement, so youth cul-

Ihral, in Tahrir Square during the 25 January Revolution, basing it on the chants and rhythm of the protesters and played it repeatedly in the square for weeks. Huge crowds would turn out to see him. Here, art and protest are indistinguishable. there is no space in society for other forms of political op-

of the Arab uprisings were rap and rock tracks, and the visual It also interacts with MENA’s history of calligraphy and poetry by the internet and social media. The revolutionary generation were multicultural, multilingual, educated and alienated, and the rift between them and the dominant patriarchal cultures of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries had been growing since the 1990s. Tensions surrounded poverty, corruption, police brutality, the concentration of wealth and power among a political elite, systemic human rights abuses, and the suppression of political opposition. The cultural dislocation came to a head in December 2010, when Tunisian street vendor Mohamed

(see Tunisan artist eL Seed), producing powerful written work, ti is easily reproduced: in 2011, the phrase ‘be with the revas being outside of governmental control, undermining a state’s sense of public security. When in 2012 the ‘Martyr’s wall’ in Cairo was painted over, it meant the balance of power shifting back to the state. Indeed, the trigger for the Syrian revolution was the arrest and torture of a group of children for writing anti-government slogans on their school walls.

across the Arab world, ultimately resulting in the toppling of four goverments, four civil wars, and a death toll of over 60,000.

Before the Arab Spring, the region had a rich but fraught relationship with the arts. Egypt, Lebanon and Syria were patron states with strong links to the Western art world. Islam furthered calligraphy, poetry and architecture. Protest art was also spearheaded

by Palestinian citizens of Israel, with multiple resistance theatres the West Bank and Gaza. However, religion and conservatism have stunted the arts. Some societies self-police, with Islamic extremists attacking artists considered to be anti-Islamic, such as with the 1994 assault on Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz, and there have been varying degrees of censorship enforced by er achieved the ‘safe space’ character of western art scenes, which makes producing art all the more revolutionary of an act.

The Arab Spring demonstrated the inexctricable link between protest and art. In Tahrir Square (Martyr Square), the heart of the Egyptian revolution, each crackdown produced more material, and more art. Street artist Amor Eletrebi enlisted local residents and children to help repaint carcasses of burned out military vehicles with vibrant, positive images. Ashraf Foda took stones thrown at activists by police and had the activists sign them, creating irrefutable proof of the day’s events. Protest is a performative act, so art during a revolution is self-sustaining.

Certain types of art were more suited to a revolutionary environment than others. The institutions of ‘high art’ were unsuitable: undemocratic and elitist, not to mention unsafe to visit in person in more volatile areas. Rather, the prevailing art forms of the uprising were those of the people. Youth culture was already organised around musical subcultures, and technology meant production and distribution was cheap, easy, independent of institutions, anarchist and revolutionary. Rap music was particulary suited, already well-established in the region, and political in its origins. One of the most well-known exports was ‘the anthem of the Jasmine revolution’, Tunisian rapper El Général’s Rais Lebled (Head of State), released a week before Bouazizi’s death. Precisely because he was an amateur rapper, his lyrics were easy to learn, to then chant at riot police in unison. Egyp-

The uprising changed the artistic landscape, focusing the rerecur all the same. Egypt’s government is squeezing out its strict online activity. Despite being a household name just after the revolution, Ramy Essam can no longer perform in his own country. El Général abandoned the movement for the rising tide of islamism in Tunisia, and the governments of Morocco and Bahrain began sponsoring potential threats like Don Bigg and Fraire, essentially making them court rappers. Inside the borders, history repeats itself, whilst outside the region, Arab art sells. Societies across the MENA region are slowly rebuilding themselves, but in many countries their elites are on trial, in exile or in hostile governments, so money for art patronage is scarce. Instead, the scene is increasingly located in the Gulf states, where the Louvre Abu Dhabi opened in 2017, and Dubai co, as does Tunisian rap and Lybian literature. Egyptian street artists paint all over the world, and the revolution keeps on.

ANNA RABINOWITZ

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

7

AFRICAN, ISLAMIC AND ARABIC

ANCIENT AND PRE-HISTORIC

THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS (1966) about authenticity and realism have surrounded the medium. These questions loom large over The Battle of Algiers, a Algerian Independence. As if composed of a lost set of newsreels, it evokes an observational truth similar in style to guerilla truth through meticulous reconstruction, using real life locations, such as rebuilding bombsites, and non-professional actors, including petty thieves and a former National Liberation Front (FLN) leader. This, and the fact it was made only 3 years after Algeria’s independence, contribute to the palpable sense of outrage that permeates the screen. Moreover, despite being set in a condensed period, the impact of over a century of oppression is felt in every frame.

adherence to truth go far beyond the production process. Whilst committing to showing the atrocities of French torture, Pontecorvo gives equal weight to the FLN’s use of bombs, often spending time to highlight the faces of those amidst the chaos of war.

This approach, although never compro-

provides a greater sense of authenticity and balance, making the spectator question the cost of resistance. Whilst never condemning the acts, it highlights funand contexts, leading the viewer toward the Algerian cause. Similarly, although the story is clearly an Algerian narrative, many scenes shift perspective and reveal the motives of the French. For example, the systematic removal of the FLN’s leaders during an 8 day strike leads the colonel to state “The FLN is decapitated… and surrounding scenes represent a performance of ideology - the belief that the

superior French intelligence and strategy will always prevail. For a brief moment, this pervasive imperial myth appears to ring true. Yet two years later, Algeria rises again and takes to the streets - hoards of the French carrying guns. The audible cry of a united Algeria drowns out any notion of French superiority and undermines their belief that they can destroy the independence movement by removcations of the French camera perspective are reversed through handheld crowd people. Pontecorvo again highlights faces, imposing onto the spectator a lifetime of oppression and resistance and a re-

reconstructs reality, ultimately, the most powerful takeaway is its fundamental call for freedom and liberation - a sentiment that needs only humanity for it to succeed.

ANCIENT AND PRE-HISTORIC

DANIEL COLLINS

ETHNIC ERASURE IN ANCIENT GREEK HISTORY

the modern world is. As historian Rebec-

Classical Greece has long been perceived by modern Western countries as the birthplace of democracy, and has been used to shape and justify Eurocentric concepts of identity and political thought. When asked to imagine the Ancient Greek world, images of beautifully carved white marble statues, mythology, philosophy and grand architecture instantly come to mind. These ideas have fuelled a collective imagination of the Ancient Greek world, which has in-

broader importance of his writing, which was to challenge the elements of an assumed ‘white’ and ‘Western’ heritage.

Bernal and Black Athena became the centre of a political and racial debate in America. Regardless of controversy, Bernal was inherently successful in bringing to light the unsettling depth to which racism and prejudice has tainted not only historical narratives, but also modern visions of democracy, beauty and civilisation.

and Hollywood representation of the ancient civilization. It is no surprise that both are a result of constructed white narratives by early historians and artists.

Racism within classical scholarship can be seen through many common historical myths. A key example of this is that a large amount of research regarding the ethnic origins of multiple Greek cultures stems from primarly pre-Nazi German scholars looking to attach German roots to the Dorians (or Spartans). Many Germans (Hitler included) have long used this hereditary myth to justify Aryan supremacy.

And whilst modern scholars have moved away from these misconceptions, much of the general population has not. It is easy to understand how obviously problematic the representation of Classical Greece in

In 1997 Martin Bernal published a book entitled ‘Black Athena’, in which he examined the African heritage of Ancient Greek culture, as well as calling to account the early classic scholars of the 18th and 19th century, who had white washed the historical narrative. At the time of publication, many scholars focused primarily on discrediting the archaeological evidence provided by Bernal, perhaps missing the

8

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

identities in Ancient Greece often result in the exclusion of peoples from a history that is as much theirs as it is anyones by allowing ‘white’ people to ‘lay claim to it’.

The racism surrounding popular and professional knowledge of Ancient Greece is blatant and still unwavering even decades on from the research of Martin Bernal.

It calls us to question why we have not moved on from such obviously discriminatory assumptions? Surely historians do in fact ‘know better’? For many of us, the Ancient worlds are introduced into our education from as early as primary school and feature heavily in our day to day perceptions of the modern world. It is my belief that it is the responsibility of historians to actively push for more inclusive and diverse narratives of Ancient Greece, both in the national curriculum, as well as in the entertainment industry. By doing this, heritage myths, hoarding of histories, and nally end.

DARCY ADAMS

RES TORIN G SAPPHO AS A QUEER IDENTIT Y In perhaps Sappho’s most quoted fragment, a preoccupation with her reputation to prosperity is immediately and ironically apparent. Most likely addressing a lover, Sappho writes: ‘someone will remember us / I say / even in another time,’ (trans.

Carson). Yet the ways in which Sappho’s work has been interpreted and conceptualised throughout time has been anything but straightforward, simultaneously frustrated by her work’s fragmentation and by the complexities of identity politics.

Today Sappho’s name is synonymous for queer female desire, and her homeland is the etymology behind the English word mously uncontested. In reality, Sappho’s sexuality has been subject to scrutiny within academia for centuries, and the effort to have her voice recognised as a queer one is ongoing.

An early example of this is the work of classical scholar Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker, whose ‘vindication’ of Sappho’s character

gestion of queerness from her historical and cultural position.

To defend Sappho’s queer identity, let’s return to the only evidence we have of her that is not founded on conjecture – her work. As Haselswerdt compellingly argues, Sappho’s queer potential is not (and has never been) biographical, but in the fact that her work expresses ‘an embodied desire that is free from the gendered hierarchies that saturate both of our [ancient and modern] societies.’ In a classical canon dominated wards ‘queering’ the established conventions created by other surviving texts. In essence, her poems are structurally queer, using form as well as content as a radical tool for undermining rigid gender binaries. Even the ambiguity of Sappho’s language, although often used to dismiss lesbian interpretations, as an example, the subject of the speaker’s ‘longing’ is de-

nineteenth century. In Welcker’s view, Sappho’s love for women sequently nothing ‘punishable’ in her poems. In other words, it would be erroneous to interpret Sappho’s perspective on women as anything other than a depiction of platonic friendship.

That Welcker felt the necessity for such a fervent defence of Sappho’s morality, as DeJean points out, implies that Sappho’s work was read with acknowledgement of its subversive potential even prior to 1816. However, the immediate popularity of Welcker’s theory also indicates a disciplinary anxiety to bring Sappho back within the realm of the respectably heterosexual.

Perhaps surprisingly, Welcker’s neutralisation of female sexuality is not as unforgiving to queer readings as some theories that have abounded in contemporary academic circles. Whilst his perspective concretely erases the queer possibilities of Sappho’s work, it at least recognises that her poems represent tenderness between women, even if he does not concede that this tenderness is romantic or erotic. By contrast some twentieth century arguments can seem especially unforgiving, some sug‘persona’ created by a man. Admittedly, this is not the most widely accepted of the theories that deny the possibility of a lesbian Sappho. Perhaps most pervasive is the argument that she writes her verses from a collective and choral perspective. Lardinois, for instance, interprets her poems to be about ‘the general attractiveness’ of ‘the girl’, rather than a personal expression of nothing more radical than a vague aesthetic appreciation.

Dissatisfying as these theories can be to those invested in queer history, there is simply no evidence to prove or disprove them. Questions about Sappho’s biography can never be answered with certainty, and therefore cannot be absolutely refuted. What we can point to, however, is the double-standard within historiography that has for so long put the work of marginalised voices under such unbalanced and intensive scrutiny. We can point to the critics who use fragments with ambiguous Greek to argue in favour of heterosexual interpretations, whilst conveniently choosing to overlook texts (like Fragment 94) where homoeroticism is more overt. Selectively constructing Sappho’s identity in this way suggests not only an -

scribed with a word that could equally be translated as ‘boy’ or ‘girl’. Sappho omits the use of a gendered article that would conventionally make this distinction, thereby confronting us with a subject that is simultaneously male and female, an imder, especially through the lens of desire, remains unequivocally queer regardless of long-lost and inscrutable authorial intention.

Even prior to the relatively recent construction of ‘sexuality’ as an identity category in the nineteenth century, queer peowithin a legitimising context. Sappho has provided self-idenrepresenting a rare historical precedent for many without direction. For historians looking back for evidence of this oft-unspoken (and therefore undocumented) history, the endeavour searching for subtext between coded lines, but an inevitable

AMBER BARRY

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

9

ANCIENT AND PRE-HISTORIC

RES TORIN G SAPPHO AS A QUEER IDENTIT Y In perhaps Sappho’s most quoted fragment, a preoccupation with her reputation to prosperity is immediately and ironically apparent. Most likely addressing a lover, Sappho writes: ‘someone will remember us / I say / even in another time,’ (trans.

Carson). Yet the ways in which Sappho’s work has been interpreted and conceptualised throughout time has been anything but straightforward, simultaneously frustrated by her work’s fragmentation and by the complexities of identity politics.

Today Sappho’s name is synonymous for queer female desire, and her homeland is the etymology behind the English word mously uncontested. In reality, Sappho’s sexuality has been subject to scrutiny within academia for centuries, and the effort to have her voice recognised as a queer one is ongoing.

An early example of this is the work of classical scholar Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker, whose ‘vindication’ of Sappho’s character

gestion of queerness from her historical and cultural position.

To defend Sappho’s queer identity, let’s return to the only evidence we have of her that is not founded on conjecture – her work. As Haselswerdt compellingly argues, Sappho’s queer potential is not (and has never been) biographical, but in the fact that her work expresses ‘an embodied desire that is free from the gendered hierarchies that saturate both of our [ancient and modern] societies.’ In a classical canon dominated wards ‘queering’ the established conventions created by other surviving texts. In essence, her poems are structurally queer, using form as well as content as a radical tool for undermining rigid gender binaries. Even the ambiguity of Sappho’s language, although often used to dismiss lesbian interpretations, as an example, the subject of the speaker’s ‘longing’ is de-

nineteenth century. In Welcker’s view, Sappho’s love for women sequently nothing ‘punishable’ in her poems. In other words, it would be erroneous to interpret Sappho’s perspective on women as anything other than a depiction of platonic friendship.

That Welcker felt the necessity for such a fervent defence of Sappho’s morality, as DeJean points out, implies that Sappho’s work was read with acknowledgement of its subversive potential even prior to 1816. However, the immediate popularity of Welcker’s theory also indicates a disciplinary anxiety to bring Sappho back within the realm of the respectably heterosexual.

Perhaps surprisingly, Welcker’s neutralisation of female sexuality is not as unforgiving to queer readings as some theories that have abounded in contemporary academic circles. Whilst his perspective concretely erases the queer possibilities of Sappho’s work, it at least recognises that her poems represent tenderness between women, even if he does not concede that this tenderness is romantic or erotic. By contrast some twentieth century arguments can seem especially unforgiving, some sug‘persona’ created by a man. Admittedly, this is not the most widely accepted of the theories that deny the possibility of a lesbian Sappho. Perhaps most pervasive is the argument that she writes her verses from a collective and choral perspective. Lardinois, for instance, interprets her poems to be about ‘the general attractiveness’ of ‘the girl’, rather than a personal expression of

scribed with a word that could equally be translated as ‘boy’ or ‘girl’. Sappho omits the use of a gendered article that would conventionally make this distinction, thereby confronting us with a subject that is simultaneously male and female, an imder, especially through the lens of desire, remains unequivocally queer regardless of long-lost and inscrutable authorial intention.

Even prior to the relatively recent construction of ‘sexuality’ as an identity category in the nineteenth century, queer peo-

nothing more radical than a vague aesthetic appreciation.

within a legitimising context. Sappho has provided self-iden-

Dissatisfying as these theories can be to those invested in queer history, there is simply no evidence to prove or disprove them. Questions about Sappho’s biography can never be answered with certainty, and therefore cannot be absolutely refuted. What we can point to, however, is the double-standard within historiography that has for so long put the work of marginalised voices under such unbalanced and intensive scrutiny. We can point to the critics who use fragments with ambiguous Greek to argue in favour of heterosexual interpretations, whilst conveniently choosing to overlook texts (like Fragment 94) where homoeroticism is more overt. Selectively constructing Sappho’s identity in this way suggests not only an -

representing a rare historical precedent for many without direction. For historians looking back for evidence of this oft-unspoken (and therefore undocumented) history, the endeavour searching for subtext between coded lines, but an inevitable nevertheless at hand, albeit in fragments, and in the willingness to engage with their text without biographical preconceptions.

AMBER BARRY

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

9

ASIAN

ASIAN

PARADISE LOS T : JAPANESE INTERNMENT IN HAWAII

INDIA AND IT S GEN OCIDAL CLIMATE

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on the 7th December 1941, thousands of people of Japanese descent were rounded up by the United States’ army, FBI and local police. Those detained included leaders of the immigrant community such as Buddhist priests, language teachers, a handful of women, Nisei (Japanese Americans whose parents were immigrants) and Kibei (Japanese Americans who received their education in Japan). The Kibei were seen as some of the most dangerous Japanese Americans as people were fearful that their time spent in Japan would make them disloyal to America. The people detained were often told they would only be gone for a few hours, but the vast majority ended up being detained for the entirety of the second world war.

Arundhati Roy, an Indian Author best known for her novel, The God of Small things, stated in an interview with DW lims and Hindus in India is ‘approaching genocidal.’ She emphasised the need to raise awareness of this issue, and how ‘it should not be taken lightly.’

From her interview, it can be inferred that the government has played a major role in the provocation of violence against Muslims, notably, under the governance of Hindu nationalist, Narendra Modi.

Those detained were primarily sent to the Honolulu Immigration Station where they were granted hearings as a privilege and were asked who they would support if war ensued between Ja-

carpenter, and helped out in the kitchen. He noted that each day he had to count the number of spoons given out to the internees to make sure that they were all collected at the end of meal time, given that one man, whilst at Sand Island, had sharpened a spoon and tried to stab himself with it. For each hour worked, the internees would receive ten cents which they could save up the opportunity to buy cigarettes, juice, and other such items.

Some internees cultivated a vegetable garden outside of the enclosure of Honouliuli under the watchful eyes of the guards simply to be on the other side of the barbed wire. Additionally there was an opportunity for the internees to become ‘Taiki butai’ (standby troops) who voluntarily cut down Koa (native Hawaiian trees) to try and reduce the number of mosquitoes in the camp as well as to leave the camp for a few hours.

In 2001, Modi became the chief minister for Gujarat, he retained this position until 2014. On the 27th February 2002, a train with several hundred passengers set on , killing around 60 people. The train carried a large number of Hindu pilgrims returning from a religious

ceremony. In his public statement, Modi declared this to be a ‘terrorist attack’ planned and orchestrated by local Muslims, something which set the scene for the Gujarat riots. However, this was not the case for many. Martha Nussbaum summarises the scholarly thought of the time, stating: “There is by now a broad consensus that the Gujarat violence was a form of ethnic cleansing, that in many ways was premeditated, and that it was carried out with the complicity of the Whilst Modi’s personal involvement continues to be debated, it is not something you would consider implausible of him, especially with his ties to BJP and the RSS - political parties both associated with to right-wing Hindu nationalism. Clearly, fostering an environment of hate, like the British did in colonial times to ‘divide and conquer’ would successfully lead to this ‘nationalist country,’ they so desire.

the presidency of Narendra Modi there has been a rise in Anti-Muslim protests.

More recently, in 2020, was the violence in India’s capital, Delhi. This massacre of Muslims was the aftermath of a Hindu nationalist rampage, stoked by the rhetoric of Narendra Modi’s populist government.

43 Muslims were killed, beaten, bruised, lynched, and burnt alive. This is clearly an alarming political climate, which highlights the intensity of the crisis. It also calls into question the silence of many politicians who shake hands with Modi, yet remain silent on the more pressing issues hidden beneath s Statesman’s façade.

Lastly, Arundhati Roy mentions that amidst this struggles posed by Covid-19, the government of India are using the virus ‘like the Nazi’s used Typhus against the Jews’ - to ‘ghettoise’ Muslims and to ‘stigmatise them’ further. To this day, Muslims are still being persecuted and

Since the Gujarat riots in 2001, and under

K.T.

THE OPPRESSION OF C OM M U N I S T S I N I N D O NE S IA The close family of internees were allowed to visit once or twice a opened on the 8th December 1941. The camp housed approx- month. Visitors were not permitted to bring items such as money, imately 300 Issei (Japanese born men), Nisei, as well as a few food, or cameras, they were searched on arrival to ensure that women. Sand Island served as the principal transfer and hold- such items were not brought onto the site. Although the visits lifted the spirits of the internees many noted that the worst part the camp closed in March 1943. The remaining one hundred of being detained was the breakdown of family structure. Sam and forty-nine detainees were taken to a new facility: Honouliuli. Nishimura mentioned his family in his diary with regularity and made note of the birthdays and holidays he had missed, as well Honouliuli Internment Camp opened in 1943 and was Hawai’i’s as his pains at having to watch his children grow up from afar. largest and longest operating internment camp. It was spread After the war ended a national survey was completed and Sanacross approximately 160 acres and contained 175 buildings, sei (third generation Japanese American) who’s fathers had been fourteen guard towers and four hundred tents. Built in a hidden interned scored lowest on the positive impact scale of the war. removed Japanese Americans from plain sight and due to its remote location it was only rediscovered in 2002. President gan to be released. Hawaiian internment camps were being Barack Obama proclaimed the camp a national monument in phased out as it seemed unlikely that the Japanese would at2015. Honouliuli has often been referred to as Hell Valley by for- tack Hawaii once more. Before the internees were released, they had to attend a hearing and be cleared for probationary this also led to a large population of mosquitoes in the camp. release. If they failed to be cleared, they would be transferred to a camp on the mainland, the conditions of which were The internees were housed in barracks which each held much harsher than on the Islands. After their release internees - were either told to visit their parole sponsor once a week or den cultivated by the internees. Those who were not ar- report to the military government once a month at Iolani Palrested until later in the war, such as Shomei Kaneshiro, lived ace. Those on probationary release had to inform the state of in tents until other internees were transferred to camps on what they were doing and request permission if they wanted to the mainland such as Tule Lake, California and Santa Fe, leave their area. The majority of Japanese American internees New Mexico, due to an overwhelming number of internees. in Hawaii were released just before the end of the war in 1945.

Although the internees did not have to endure forced labour, most carried out multiple jobs to pass the time. One such ex-

10

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

SOPHIE STANFORD

The oppression and mass killing of the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) in 1965 – 1966 occurred due to the threat they posed to both western, and Suharto’s, intentions in the region. The suppression of the PKI occurred between 1965-1966, and saw communists rounded up and systematically killed by both the military and the general public.

This public purging of communism was created through a mass propaganda campaign by the military, following the September 30th Movement. The movement saw communist leaders kidnap,

USA and Indonesia, the west ensured hegemony within the region. This hegemony acted as a limit on both USSR and Chinese power. Indeed, the success of communist and socialist regimes within the region, such as China and Vietnam, posed a huge threat to the west. Therefore, the alliance with Indonesia and removal of communists within it, present-

with the military response being to kill all communists. The removal of communists

the extent of western power globally, and their desire for regional hegemony.

west through ensuring a capitalist ally in Southeast Asia. The Cold War saw the division of the world into two spheres, communist and capitalist. Indonesia only gained independence in the late 1940s, aid, and politically, through providing legitimacy and backing in intergovernmental organisations. Indeed, these spheres tween both the USA and USSR to occur.

Through creating an alliance between the

The mass killing of communists, not only removed the threat of communism, but also discouraged the ideology entirely.

The suppression of communism also harto. The PKI group acted as an umbrella organisation, with support extending eration, agricultural associations, youth programmes, all subscribed to the communist ideology. This huge base was demonstrated in the 1955 election, where it gained sixteen percent of the national vote. This concentration of power posed a huge threat to the Suharto regime. This regime was young, in a nation divided by a plethora of problems such as ethnicity and religion. The government’s perceived threat of the PKI can be seen in

their ferocity in killing and attacking them.

The September 30th Movement was the starting point for changing public attitudes towards communism. Through a widespread propaganda campaign, the military were able to remove most communists. Indeed, the military campaign saw forced conscription and forced killing of communists. Estimates place the number of those killed at above 500,000.

Through this, the Indonesian government created complicity in killing the communists. This complicity saw citizens inextricably linked to the government, and unable to oppose them through fear of repercussions of their actions. The removal of communists secured governmental power through eliminating opposition.

To conclude, the killing and suppression of communists in Indonesia was the result of both local and western intentions within the region. The west used Indonesia to extend hegemony in the region during the Cold War. The removology and sent a clear message to the wider communist threat. Local governments removed opposition to power by killing the PKI, ensuring their hegemony and political authority in the region.

ELLIE THOMPSON

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

11

ASIAN

INDIA AND IT S GEN OCIDAL CLIMATE Arundhati Roy, an Indian Author best known for her novel, The God of Small things, stated in an interview with DW lims and Hindus in India is ‘approaching genocidal.’ She emphasised the need to raise awareness of this issue, and how ‘it should not be taken lightly.’

From her interview, it can be inferred that the government has played a major role in the provocation of violence against Muslims, notably, under the governance of Hindu nationalist, Narendra Modi.

In 2001, Modi became the chief minister for Gujarat, he retained this position until 2014. On the 27th February 2002, a train with several hundred passengers set on , killing around 60 people. The train carried a large number of Hindu pilgrims returning from a religious

ceremony. In his public statement, Modi declared this to be a ‘terrorist attack’ planned and orchestrated by local Muslims, something which set the scene for the Gujarat riots. However, this was not the case for many. Martha Nussbaum summarises the scholarly thought of the consensus that the Gujarat violence was a form of ethnic cleansing, that in many ways was premeditated, and that it was carried out with the complicity of the Whilst Modi’s personal involvement continues to be debated, it is not something you would consider implausible of him, especially with his ties to BJP and the RSS - political parties both associated with to right-wing Hindu nationalism. Clearly, fostering an environment of hate, like the British did in colonial times to ‘divide and conquer’ would successfully lead to this ‘nationalist country,’ they so desire.

Since the Gujarat riots in 2001, and under

the presidency of Narendra Modi there has been a rise in Anti-Muslim protests.

More recently, in 2020, was the violence in India’s capital, Delhi. This massacre of Muslims was the aftermath of a Hindu nationalist rampage, stoked by the rhetoric of Narendra Modi’s populist government.

43 Muslims were killed, beaten, bruised, lynched, and burnt alive. This is clearly an alarming political climate, which highlights the intensity of the crisis. It also calls into question the silence of many politicians who shake hands with Modi, yet remain silent on the more pressing issues hidden beneath s Statesman’s façade.

Lastly, Arundhati Roy mentions that amidst this struggles posed by Covid-19, the government of India are using the virus ‘like the Nazi’s used Typhus against the Jews’ - to ‘ghettoise’ Muslims and to ‘stigmatise them’ further. To this day, Muslims are still being persecuted and marginalised in India. In an India where there was once harmony between Muslims and Hindus there now lies turmoil.

TH E O P P R E S SION OF K.T. C OM M U N I S T S IN INDONE S I A The oppression and mass killing of the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) in 1965 – 1966 occurred due to the threat they posed to both western, and Suharto’s, intentions in the region. The suppression of the PKI occurred between 1965-1966, and saw communists rounded up and systematically killed by both the military and the general public.

This public purging of communism was created through a mass propaganda campaign by the military, following the September 30th Movement. The movement saw communist leaders kidnap,

USA and Indonesia, the west ensured hegemony within the region. This hegemony acted as a limit on both USSR and Chinese power. Indeed, the success of communist and socialist regimes within the region, such as China and Vietnam, posed a huge threat to the west. Therefore, the alliance with Indonesia and removal of communists within it, present-

with the military response being to kill all communists. The removal of communists

the extent of western power globally, and their desire for regional hegemony.

west through ensuring a capitalist ally in Southeast Asia. The Cold War saw the division of the world into two spheres, communist and capitalist. Indonesia only gained independence in the late 1940s, aid, and politically, through providing legitimacy and backing in intergovernmental organisations. Indeed, these spheres tween both the USA and USSR to occur.

Through creating an alliance between the

The mass killing of communists, not only removed the threat of communism, but also discouraged the ideology entirely.

The suppression of communism also harto. The PKI group acted as an umbrella organisation, with support extending eration, agricultural associations, youth programmes, all subscribed to the communist ideology. This huge base was demonstrated in the 1955 election, where it gained sixteen percent of the national vote. This concentration of power posed a huge threat to the Suharto regime. This regime was young, in a nation divided by a plethora of problems such as ethnicity and religion. The government’s perceived threat of the PKI can be seen in

their ferocity in killing and attacking them.

The September 30th Movement was the starting point for changing public attitudes towards communism. Through a widespread propaganda campaign, the military were able to remove most communists. Indeed, the military campaign saw forced conscription and forced killing of communists. Estimates place the number of those killed at above 500,000.

Through this, the Indonesian government created complicity in killing the communists. This complicity saw citizens inextricably linked to the government, and unable to oppose them through fear of repercussions of their actions. The removal of communists secured governmental power through eliminating opposition.

To conclude, the killing and suppression of communists in Indonesia was the result of both local and western intentions within the region. The west used Indonesia to extend hegemony in the region during the Cold War. The removology and sent a clear message to the wider communist threat. Local governments removed opposition to power by killing the PKI, ensuring their hegemony and political authority in the region.

ELLIE THOMPSON

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

11

ASIAN

ASIAN

VIETNAM WAR: COLONIAL, CIVIL, OR COLD WAR? The Vietnam War occurred from 19551975, pitting North Vietnam and Viet Cong against South Vietnam who infamously received vast amounts of aid from the USA. The war can be seen as a battle between the Communist ideology of the North and the capitalist ideology of the South. This can lead to the belief that it was a proxy war within the cold war as the North Vietnamese received aid from the USSR and China who had their own agendas, much like the USA. However, this view weakens when one considers that the war continued after America withdrew their troops in 1973, proving it was a war primarily fuelled by nationalism rather than foreign interference with this nationalist spirit being what caused the North Vietnamese victory in 1975. Robert McNamara, Defense Secretary of the USA at the time admits himself that “we saw Vietnam as an element of the Cold War, not what they saw it as:

to see as, by 1979, 480,000 American troops were in Vietnam, and the war is estimated to have cost America $168 billion. How could it be a civil war when one side was mostly funded, equipped and given ground troops by another country?

What is visible is seeing the Vietnam War as a colonial war wherein Vietnam is resisting colonial oppression from America.

is also important to note that America’s interference was in juxtaposition with the values of liberty and protection that they were claiming, solidifying that their involvement was due to their own agenda. This is clear in America’s infamous use of chemical weapons that mostly hurt civilians including agent blue which was sprayed over crops to decrease food supply and napalm gel that set people alight. Henceforth, it is clear that the Vietnam War was primarily a colonial war.

country to expel their colonial power when the French were forced to leave in 1954.

It is also certain that America was exerting their power to propagate capitalism due to their belief in the domino theory, wherein they thought the fall of one country to Communism would cause a domino

Beginning in 1956 with the speech On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People, the Hundred Flowers Campaign aimed to allow people to vent their criticisms of the government, particularly regarding the First originates from a poem describing the Spring & Autumn Period of Chinese History, a period which gave rise to China’s greatest philosophers: “Let a hundred flowers bloom,

SIMRUN NIJJAR

THE VIETNAM WAR TOLD THROUGH SONG If modern cinema is to be believed, the Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Fortuproduced without the distinctive twang sounding as a helicopter soars over Vietnamese grasslands. Some 50 years after the height of Vietnam music, it is tempting to view such songs as relics representative of a bygone era of CND badges and hippies, forgetting to listen to what the lyrics say to us in perhaps the most enduring form of war protest. Through the evolving popularity of Vietnam music, distinct segments of the war are visible, culminating in Woodstock 1969 when US intervention was at an all time high.

It is no coincidence that in the four years that Johnson increased American presence in Vietnam tenfold, songs referring to the Vietnam war began to dominate the charts like never before. Whether intentional or not, Woodstock became an epicentre for anti-war artists and protes-

12

tors to join together in outrage, revelling in the cathartic words sung on stage.

In the early war years, songs of patriotism or a wilful longing to return home dominated the Vietnam realms of the charts.

Johnny Wright’s Goodbye My Sweetheart, Hello Vietnam is the embodiment of this sentiment. However, as the war persisted and more American lives were lost, national perspective changed. The most enduring songs of the Vietnam era are from the late 1960s, when the war was truly out of control and American lives were lost at an exponential rate.

The late sixties saw The Gulf Tonkin, Tet other failures and tragedies which turned many Americans against the war, thus encouraging more anti-war songwriters and listeners. The popularity of such music surged in these years, making criticism of the war a mainstream concept.

Many Vietnam war songs of this era shy

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

time and time again, the Chinese rolled a boulder up that steep slope of progress towards utopia, only for it to roll back down and crush millions of lives with it.

The Hundred Flowers Campaign is but another flashpoint in this path, one of many visions of utopia that ended up tormenting the Chinese people further.

South Vietnamese as only functionaries for American strategies and policies. Even Americans themselves tired of their level of involvement as Nixon won the presidential race in 1969 with his promise to end the

ASIAN

WAS THE HUNDRED FLOWERS CAMPAIGN TRULY DESIGNED TO PROMOTE THE FLOURISHING OF ARTS AND SCIENCE?

away from the melancholic tone present in most traditional war music. They opt for a more satirical tone and energizing musical accompaniment to essentially mock the government’s choices to wage such a fruitless and deadly war. Songs such as Country Joe’s I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-ToDie-Rag and Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Fortunate Son focus on rejecting the idea of patriotism that renders enthusiasm for the anti-communist crusade. The satirical nature of the lyricism and upbeat backing tracks make for comparatively lighthearted songs, that were perhaps more digestible than traditional war songs.

Vietnam war music allows listeners today to hear the words of contemporary proVietnam for the American people. The visibility of Vietnam in the charts equates to the presence of Vietnam in the American mind, making them a vital tool for understanding the implications of war on US soil.

LUCY AGATE

mere year after the campaign was launched, Mao and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched the anti-rightist campaign, cracking down on those who spoke out and sending them to thought reform camps. Therein lies a question - was the Hundred Flowers Campaign a well-meaning attempt by Mao to promote a flourishing of arts and sciences or was it designed to entrap critics of the regime?

elements in the party and red army. None were spared from the lowliest soldier to the most prominent Communist figureheads such as Zhang Guotao, those who opposed him were marginalized, humiliated and ultimately purged.

Therefore, interpreting Mao’s words as supporting the expression of dissent is naive at best and foolish at worst.

Furthermore, when examining Mao’s ideological stances over the years, it seems that he, above all, valued his own place in power, jumping from left to right as it suited him.

For example, during the Encirclement Campaigns of the 1930’s where the Guomindang (GMD) threatened to annihilate CCP-controlled Soviets, the leadership of the CCP advocated fighting pitched battles. Mao, believing in the wisdom of guerilla warfare, denounced the ‘leftist adventurism’ of the leadership. Later, when confronted with the horrors of the Great Leap Forward during the Lushan Conference in 1959, Mao declared that ‘I now support conservatism… it is essential to be right opportunists’. With these ideological flip-flops and his intolerance to dissent, it would not be uncharacteristic of Mao to use his ambivalent political stance to deliberately entrap critics. In fact, in his later speech Things are Beginning to Change, he says “Why is such a torrent of reactionary, vicious statements being allowed to appear in the press? To let the people have some idea of these poisonous weeds and

In On the Correct Handling of Contradictions, Mao suggested that dissent was a manifestation of the conflict between as such, like the growth of weeds in a field, could not be suppressed. In the speech, he suggested that China was es and failures of the party. Perhaps this was a sign that Mao and the CCP were willing to improve on their mistakes and tolerate a diversity of opinion. After all, Mao was a part of the New Culture Movement of the 1920’s, which saw a

To lend a more sympathetic view to Mao, one could plausibly argue that rightist conservatism was threatening to drag China away from the path of socialism. With the GMD just across the Taiwan Strait and the CCP being in power for less than ten years, there was likely a genuine risk that counter-revolutionaries would take over. To add to these external fears, turmoil within the Communist bloc, from Khrushchev’s Secret Speech to the Hungarian Revolution, may have exacerbated fears of backsliding towards Capitalism.

period that Mao had helped co-found the fledgling CCP. However, it is also abundantly clear in his writings of the period that Mao tolerated no path other than Socialism.

The entire campaign was couched in the rhetoric of dialectical materialism: besides framing dissent as a conflict between the superstructure and the economic reality, Mao also argued that the purpose of dissent was to proachieve synthesis. At no point did Mao suggest that criticism could lead to change towards a direction other than of the party. Furthermore, Mao dedicates a large portion of his speech to deflecting criticism of the persecution of dissidents, dismissing calls for greater liberalization. Yes, Additionally, Mao had a terrible track record towards dissent - from the early days of the Jiangxi Soviet, he engaged

Left-leaning optimism was not unwarranted - the First Five Year Plan had increased China’s productivity massively: should it not continue on this path to socialism? One could plausibly dismiss Mao’s past track record of intolerance to dissent as a desperate measure to ensure the unity and survival of the fledgling CCP, which was faced time and again with the prospect of annihilation. Now that the CCP had a firmer grip on power and things were looking up, it would not be unreasonable to assume that the party would allow a greater degree of freedom and encourage dissent. But alas, it was not to be. With the anti-rightist movement, the axe fell, the voices were silenced, and that Sisyphean boulder rolled back down the slope once again.

GABRIEL CHAN

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

13

ASIAN

ASIAN

VIETNAM WAR: COLONIAL, CIVIL, OR COLD WAR? The Vietnam War occurred from 19551975, pitting North Vietnam and Viet Cong against South Vietnam who infamously received vast amounts of aid from the USA. The war can be seen as a battle between the Communist ideology of the North and the capitalist ideology of the South. This can lead to the belief that it was a proxy war within the cold war as the North Vietnamese received aid from the USSR and China who had their own agendas, much like the USA. However, this view weakens when one considers that the war continued after America withdrew their troops in 1973, proving it was a war primarily fuelled by nationalism rather than foreign interference with this nationalist spirit being what caused the North Vietnamese victory in 1975. Robert McNamara, Defense Secretary of the USA at the time admits himself that “we saw Vietnam as an element of the Cold War, not what they saw it as:

to see as, by 1979, 480,000 American troops were in Vietnam, and the war is estimated to have cost America $168 billion. How could it be a civil war when one side was mostly funded, equipped and given ground troops by another country?

What is visible is seeing the Vietnam War as a colonial war wherein Vietnam is resisting colonial oppression from America.

is also important to note that America’s interference was in juxtaposition with the values of liberty and protection that they were claiming, solidifying that their involvement was due to their own agenda. This is clear in America’s infamous use of chemical weapons that mostly hurt civilians including agent blue which was sprayed over crops to decrease food supply and napalm gel that set people alight. Henceforth, it is clear that the Vietnam War was primarily a colonial war.

country to expel their colonial power when the French were forced to leave in 1954.

It is also certain that America was exerting their power to propagate capitalism due to their belief in the domino theory, wherein they thought the fall of one country to Communism would cause a domino

Beginning in 1956 with the speech On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People, the Hundred Flowers Campaign aimed to allow people to vent their criticisms of the government, particularly regarding the First originates from a poem describing the Spring & Autumn Period of Chinese History, a period which gave rise to China’s greatest philosophers: “Let a hundred flowers bloom,

SIMRUN NIJJAR

THE VIETNAM WAR TOLD THROUGH SONG If modern cinema is to be believed, the Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Fortuproduced without the distinctive twang sounding as a helicopter soars over Vietnamese grasslands. Some 50 years after the height of Vietnam music, it is tempting to view such songs as relics representative of a bygone era of CND badges and hippies, forgetting to listen to what the lyrics say to us in perhaps the most enduring form of war protest. Through the evolving popularity of Vietnam music, distinct segments of the war are visible, culminating in Woodstock 1969 when US intervention was at an all time high.

It is no coincidence that in the four years that Johnson increased American presence in Vietnam tenfold, songs referring to the Vietnam war began to dominate the charts like never before. Whether intentional or not, Woodstock became an epicentre for anti-war artists and protes-

12

tors to join together in outrage, revelling in the cathartic words sung on stage.

In the early war years, songs of patriotism or a wilful longing to return home dominated the Vietnam realms of the charts.

Johnny Wright’s Goodbye My Sweetheart, Hello Vietnam is the embodiment of this sentiment. However, as the war persisted and more American lives were lost, national perspective changed. The most enduring songs of the Vietnam era are from the late 1960s, when the war was truly out of control and American lives were lost at an exponential rate.

The late sixties saw The Gulf Tonkin, Tet other failures and tragedies which turned many Americans against the war, thus encouraging more anti-war songwriters and listeners. The popularity of such music surged in these years, making criticism of the war a mainstream concept.

Many Vietnam war songs of this era shy

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

time and time again, the Chinese rolled a boulder up that steep slope of progress towards utopia, only for it to roll back down and crush millions of lives with it.

The Hundred Flowers Campaign is but another flashpoint in this path, one of many visions of utopia that ended up tormenting the Chinese people further.

South Vietnamese as only functionaries for American strategies and policies. Even Americans themselves tired of their level of involvement as Nixon won the presidential race in 1969 with his promise to end the

ASIAN

WAS THE HUNDRED FLOWERS CAMPAIGN TRULY DESIGNED TO PROMOTE THE FLOURISHING OF ARTS AND SCIENCE?

away from the melancholic tone present in most traditional war music. They opt for a more satirical tone and energizing musical accompaniment to essentially mock the government’s choices to wage such a fruitless and deadly war. Songs such as Country Joe’s I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-ToDie-Rag and Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Fortunate Son focus on rejecting the idea of patriotism that renders enthusiasm for the anti-communist crusade. The satirical nature of the lyricism and upbeat backing tracks make for comparatively lighthearted songs, that were perhaps more digestible than traditional war songs.

Vietnam war music allows listeners today to hear the words of contemporary proVietnam for the American people. The visibility of Vietnam in the charts equates to the presence of Vietnam in the American mind, making them a vital tool for understanding the implications of war on US soil.

LUCY AGATE

mere year after the campaign was launched, Mao and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched the anti-rightist campaign, cracking down on those who spoke out and sending them to thought reform camps. Therein lies a question - was the Hundred Flowers Campaign a well-meaning attempt by Mao to promote a flourishing of arts and sciences or was it designed to entrap critics of the regime?

elements in the party and red army. None were spared from the lowliest soldier to the most prominent Communist figureheads such as Zhang Guotao, those who opposed him were marginalized, humiliated and ultimately purged.

Therefore, interpreting Mao’s words as supporting the expression of dissent is naive at best and foolish at worst.

Furthermore, when examining Mao’s ideological stances over the years, it seems that he, above all, valued his own place in power, jumping from left to right as it suited him.

For example, during the Encirclement Campaigns of the 1930’s where the Guomindang (GMD) threatened to annihilate CCP-controlled Soviets, the leadership of the CCP advocated fighting pitched battles. Mao, believing in the wisdom of guerilla warfare, denounced the ‘leftist adventurism’ of the leadership. Later, when confronted with the horrors of the Great Leap Forward during the Lushan Conference in 1959, Mao declared that ‘I now support conservatism… it is essential to be right opportunists’. With these ideological flip-flops and his intolerance to dissent, it would not be uncharacteristic of Mao to use his ambivalent political stance to deliberately entrap critics. In fact, in his later speech Things are Beginning to Change, he says “Why is such a torrent of reactionary, vicious statements being allowed to appear in the press? To let the people have some idea of these poisonous weeds and

In On the Correct Handling of Contradictions, Mao suggested that dissent was a manifestation of the conflict between as such, like the growth of weeds in a field, could not be suppressed. In the speech, he suggested that China was es and failures of the party. Perhaps this was a sign that Mao and the CCP were willing to improve on their mistakes and tolerate a diversity of opinion. After all, Mao was a part of the New Culture Movement of the 1920’s, which saw a

To lend a more sympathetic view to Mao, one could plausibly argue that rightist conservatism was threatening to drag China away from the path of socialism. With the GMD just across the Taiwan Strait and the CCP being in power for less than ten years, there was likely a genuine risk that counter-revolutionaries would take over. To add to these external fears, turmoil within the Communist bloc, from Khrushchev’s Secret Speech to the Hungarian Revolution, may have exacerbated fears of backsliding towards Capitalism.

period that Mao had helped co-found the fledgling CCP. However, it is also abundantly clear in his writings of the period that Mao tolerated no path other than Socialism.

The entire campaign was couched in the rhetoric of dialectical materialism: besides framing dissent as a conflict between the superstructure and the economic reality, Mao also argued that the purpose of dissent was to proachieve synthesis. At no point did Mao suggest that criticism could lead to change towards a direction other than of the party. Furthermore, Mao dedicates a large portion of his speech to deflecting criticism of the persecution of dissidents, dismissing calls for greater liberalization. Yes, Additionally, Mao had a terrible track record towards dissent - from the early days of the Jiangxi Soviet, he engaged

Left-leaning optimism was not unwarranted - the First Five Year Plan had increased China’s productivity massively: should it not continue on this path to socialism? One could plausibly dismiss Mao’s past track record of intolerance to dissent as a desperate measure to ensure the unity and survival of the fledgling CCP, which was faced time and again with the prospect of annihilation. Now that the CCP had a firmer grip on power and things were looking up, it would not be unreasonable to assume that the party would allow a greater degree of freedom and encourage dissent. But alas, it was not to be. With the anti-rightist movement, the axe fell, the voices were silenced, and that Sisyphean boulder rolled back down the slope once again.

GABRIEL CHAN

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

13

E A R LY M O D E R N

E A R LY M O D E R N

‘REVOLTIN G PROS TITUTES’: THE EXPLOITATION OF ELS VON EYSTETT IN 15TH CENTURY The year is 1471, and sitting in the middle of Germany’s Romantic Road is a tranquil village – Nördlingen. Yet, like most German towns, Nördlingen was home to a licensed brothel. The brothel wasn’t just the home of 12 prostitutes, it was of substantial economic value. The revenue the brothel generated provided the authorities with a stable tax income, with further income possible if they sold food and drink, or rented rooms.

The social utility of prostitution was also important in Medieval society. Although Christianity’s grip on society was at an all-time high, prostitution was tolerated as it helped to prevent the greater evils of rape, sodomy and masturbation. In the words of Augustine of Hippo, “if you expel prostitution from society, you will

describe the sudden abdominal pain Eystett endured, which caused Eystett to miscarry a male foetus, which Els estimated to be 20 weeks old. Els confided in one of her clients about what had happened, which caused rumours to spread around the village – of course leading to the investigation by the council.

But this was not the only line of enquiry, an investigation was also summoned into the working condition of the prostitutes.

All 12 women provided accounts of their treatment. The first came from Anna von Ulm. She stated “the brothel-keepers and “they force us to earn money at inappropriate times, namely on holy Saturday nights when we should honour Mary, and -

privilege male sexuality held in society.

It was ultimately the abortion which made this extreme case domino effect into an unravelling investigation onto the working conditions of these sex workers. Financial and physical exploitation were common in medieval brothels, but this of course begs the question – how representative can this single case be?

Well, not all is bad – following the interrogation Barbara was found guilty of causing the abortion of Eystett’s child.

Although Nördlingen’s town law had no overt reference to abortion, convictions usually resulted in expulsion of the guilty party. As a result, Barbara was banished across the Rhine, after being branded cross the forehead. Lienhard was also dismissed from his position as brothel

– brothels provided a sense of balance and harmony for male sexual impulses.

Despite this toleration, when compared to wives and daughters, prostitutes were still considered disreputable and ungodly. But throughout the 15th century, any woman who was suspected to be involved in any illicit sexual activity – referred to by Ruth Mazo Karras as ‘whoredom’ – could still be placed into a brothel by force by the authorities (who played a major role in policing women’s sexual behaviour at all levels of society).

Nonetheless, the voices of prostitutes themselves are still virtually unknown.

What we know about the world of late medieval prostitution comes from the words of literate and wealthy male observers. However, a criminal investigation carried out in winter 1471 by Nördlingen town council would provide us with a raw and honest testimony, giving us a insight into prostitution, from the perspectives of prostitutes themselves.

Following an investigation into the brothel keeper, Lienhard Fryermut, and his partner, Barbara Tarschenfeindin, and also the interrogation of all 12 prostitutes working there at the time, it was found the kitchen maid, a woman named Els von Eystett, had been forced into a prostitution. As a result, Eystett had become pregnant by one of her clients.

Els complained to Barbara of abdominal pains as a consequence. She was first told that she was suffering from amenorrhea, to which Barbara mixed together a few market ingredients and forced Eystett to drink – with the mixture reportedly being an abortifacient, to bring about menstruation. Several witnesses

14

THE DEVIL IN THE SHAPE OF A WOMAN: CHRISTIAN INFLUENCE ON WITCH PERSECUTION The study of the persecution of witches is not a new idea – the almost morbid fascination with women’s persecution in the form of witch trials has permeated our imaginations for decades. Indeed, the image of the witch has long been a the comical and exaggerated depictions in popular media and children’s literature lies a very real history, with arguably quite disturbing ties to medieval Christianity and the persecution of women more generally.

The witch trials of the Middle Ages did not solely focus on women. However, the persecution of fringe groups, though equally simple fact that they were not Christian. away. The turmoil Europe faced towards the start of the witch hunts led to an unusual set of circumstances that culminated in the campaign against women. The religious wars, revolts, disease, and more made it easy for the populace to turn their fear and hatred towards witches once the seed of persecution had been planted.

en claimed that they had been sold into the brothel, and were all in great debt to Lienhard. It was also recorded that Barbara “forced us to let men come to them, and when we do not want to we are beaten […] and even when we are menstruatThose who came after Anna added to the picture, Els von Nürnberg stated that when she entered the brothel all of her clothes were confiscated from her. She also stated the brothel-keepers overcharged them for food, drink and rent, leading to many of them being in debt to Lienhard.

This contrasts to the prevalent image of late medieval prostitution in popular culture. They are painted as sensual, sanitised environments, which provided luxurious furnishings and courtly love. This, quite frankly, paints a rose tinted perspective. It ignores the exploitative working conditions and the

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

keeper. In addition, 1472 saw the introduction of Frauenhausordnung, a series of new provisions introduced to prevent the abuses of prostitutes which were reported in the investigation. The extent to which these laws were enforced is up for debate, but it is definitely the first law of its kind. The first example we see of the protection of sex workers, in both Germany and Europe in the Middle Ages.

Yet, during the 16th century, as the Reformation approached and the characteristics of medieval urban life vanished, it is reported that Bartholme Seckler, a later keeper of the same brothel, also had charges of assault brought against him by the women working for him. The testimony of the Nördlingen women provided only a brief insight into the struggle for acceptance and respect faced by sex workers for centuries following.

LEWIS JONES

In order for Christianity to triumph, the church leaders had to come up with an idea to convert pagans across the world.

This involved throwing any belief that was not Christian into the realm of the kingdom of Satan. This, in turn, contributed to the way the devil was depicted in medieval art.

Without a standardised image, the devil took on attributes from pagan gods such as cloven feet, horns, and a quasi-animal form. We can see these features in Pan/ Faunus of the Greek/Roman pantheon, as well as in the Celtic god Cernunnos.

Consider then, the witch confessions.

Despite their ambiguous nature – often through the suggestion of Inquisitors or judges – there were references to worshipping a horned god. It is natural that a Christian Inquisitor would take this image and focus on the elements now associated with the devil. Suddenly, women with even vague pagan ties were easily associated with devil worship: one of the main characteristics of a witch.

Yet there is another reason that women in particular came to be associated with the devil. Women had, for a long time, been

closely linked with nature. They knew the

further evidence for the total destruction of

had been seen as magical healers prior to the spread of Christianity. The church did not take issue with the belief in magic itself, but it was the fact that magical miracles were being performed by the

woman: she was pure, free from sin, and the most-holy mother of Jesus. Nothing about her depiction is reminiscent of real women – she had been removed from humanity and placed on a pedestal that told real women they were inherently sinful.

problem. Folk medicine was almost exclusively practiced by women. The apparent and bad, magic did not yet exist within folk practices. Instead, it was Christianity that divided magic up. The church’s need to be the dominant force in society created a binary opposition within women’s healing magic, then took the positive side for itself. Miracles had to be done in the name of God, thus these women must have been creating evil. Women’s long standing place in society, and her connection to nature, had been severed, and she had been placed in league with the devil.

Even in the heavens, women had been thrust out of their traditional place by men.

Pagan gods replaced matriarchal goddesses, and later even they were replaced by a singular Christian God. It is not surprising then, that long standing misogyny found its way into the method of the demonisation of women. In a patriarchal even evil had to be headed by a man. Enluding to the worship of a horned beast.

Some have argued that the Christian Church revered women, and point to the Cult of the Virgin Mary as evidence. Yet the idolised status of Mary simply serves as

The church turned the idea of a woman into two opposing sides. Mary acted as one half of the binary. If she was the pure soul, the witch was the evil body.

Sexual desire, menstruation, power, and personal freedom were sinful and improper. Quietness, subordination, and motherhood were the ideal. Woman’s very nature became taboo. Mary became a desexualised spiritual woman, reduced solely to her ability to produce children (and even this in a sinless, sexless way).

The witch was her exact opposite: the childless, lust-driven creature of evil.

Patriarchal and misogynistic society existed long before the witch hunts of the Middle Ages. Yet the spread of Christianity and the turmoil within Europe at this time fear and hatred of women ran within it.

Witches were created out of well-meaning, knowledgeable women to further the domination of the church. They were then further subjugated to men in the form of the devil, and stripped of any connection to nature they had traditionally held.

Today, the repercussions of witch hunts remain, with women across the world

ELEANOR MAHER

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

15

E A R LY M O D E R N

E A R LY M O D E R N

‘REVOLTIN G PROS TITUTES’: THE EXPLOITATION OF ELS VON EYSTETT IN 15TH CENTURY The year is 1471, and sitting in the middle of Germany’s Romantic Road is a tranquil village – Nördlingen. Yet, like most German towns, Nördlingen was home to a licensed brothel. The brothel wasn’t just the home of 12 prostitutes, it was of substantial economic value. The revenue the brothel generated provided the authorities with a stable tax income, with further income possible if they sold food and drink, or rented rooms.

The social utility of prostitution was also important in Medieval society. Although Christianity’s grip on society was at an all-time high, prostitution was tolerated as it helped to prevent the greater evils of rape, sodomy and masturbation. In the words of Augustine of Hippo, “if you expel prostitution from society, you will

describe the sudden abdominal pain Eystett endured, which caused Eystett to miscarry a male foetus, which Els estimated to be 20 weeks old. Els confided in one of her clients about what had happened, which caused rumours to spread around the village – of course leading to the investigation by the council.

But this was not the only line of enquiry, an investigation was also summoned into the working condition of the prostitutes.

All 12 women provided accounts of their treatment. The first came from Anna von Ulm. She stated “the brothel-keepers and “they force us to earn money at inappropriate times, namely on holy Saturday nights when we should honour Mary, and -

privilege male sexuality held in society.

It was ultimately the abortion which made this extreme case domino effect into an unravelling investigation onto the working conditions of these sex workers. Financial and physical exploitation were common in medieval brothels, but this of course begs the question – how representative can this single case be?

Well, not all is bad – following the interrogation Barbara was found guilty of causing the abortion of Eystett’s child.

Although Nördlingen’s town law had no overt reference to abortion, convictions usually resulted in expulsion of the guilty party. As a result, Barbara was banished across the Rhine, after being branded cross the forehead. Lienhard was also dismissed from his position as brothel

– brothels provided a sense of balance and harmony for male sexual impulses.

Despite this toleration, when compared to wives and daughters, prostitutes were still considered disreputable and ungodly. But throughout the 15th century, any woman who was suspected to be involved in any illicit sexual activity – referred to by Ruth Mazo Karras as ‘whoredom’ – could still be placed into a brothel by force by the authorities (who played a major role in policing women’s sexual behaviour at all levels of society).

Nonetheless, the voices of prostitutes themselves are still virtually unknown.

What we know about the world of late medieval prostitution comes from the words of literate and wealthy male observers. However, a criminal investigation carried out in winter 1471 by Nördlingen town council would provide us with a raw and honest testimony, giving us a insight into prostitution, from the perspectives of prostitutes themselves.

Following an investigation into the brothel keeper, Lienhard Fryermut, and his partner, Barbara Tarschenfeindin, and also the interrogation of all 12 prostitutes working there at the time, it was found the kitchen maid, a woman named Els von Eystett, had been forced into a prostitution. As a result, Eystett had become pregnant by one of her clients.

Els complained to Barbara of abdominal pains as a consequence. She was first told that she was suffering from amenorrhea, to which Barbara mixed together a few market ingredients and forced Eystett to drink – with the mixture reportedly being an abortifacient, to bring about menstruation. Several witnesses

14

THE DEVIL IN THE SHAPE OF A WOMAN: CHRISTIAN INFLUENCE ON WITCH PERSECUTION The study of the persecution of witches is not a new idea – the almost morbid fascination with women’s persecution in the form of witch trials has permeated our imaginations for decades. Indeed, the image of the witch has long been a the comical and exaggerated depictions in popular media and children’s literature lies a very real history, with arguably quite disturbing ties to medieval Christianity and the persecution of women more generally.

The witch trials of the Middle Ages did not solely focus on women. However, the persecution of fringe groups, though equally simple fact that they were not Christian. away. The turmoil Europe faced towards the start of the witch hunts led to an unusual set of circumstances that culminated in the campaign against women. The religious wars, revolts, disease, and more made it easy for the populace to turn their fear and hatred towards witches once the seed of persecution had been planted.

en claimed that they had been sold into the brothel, and were all in great debt to Lienhard. It was also recorded that Barbara “forced us to let men come to them, and when we do not want to we are beaten […] and even when we are menstruatThose who came after Anna added to the picture, Els von Nürnberg stated that when she entered the brothel all of her clothes were confiscated from her. She also stated the brothel-keepers overcharged them for food, drink and rent, leading to many of them being in debt to Lienhard.

This contrasts to the prevalent image of late medieval prostitution in popular culture. They are painted as sensual, sanitised environments, which provided luxurious furnishings and courtly love. This, quite frankly, paints a rose tinted perspective. It ignores the exploitative working conditions and the

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

keeper. In addition, 1472 saw the introduction of Frauenhausordnung, a series of new provisions introduced to prevent the abuses of prostitutes which were reported in the investigation. The extent to which these laws were enforced is up for debate, but it is definitely the first law of its kind. The first example we see of the protection of sex workers, in both Germany and Europe in the Middle Ages.

Yet, during the 16th century, as the Reformation approached and the characteristics of medieval urban life vanished, it is reported that Bartholme Seckler, a later keeper of the same brothel, also had charges of assault brought against him by the women working for him. The testimony of the Nördlingen women provided only a brief insight into the struggle for acceptance and respect faced by sex workers for centuries following.

LEWIS JONES

In order for Christianity to triumph, the church leaders had to come up with an idea to convert pagans across the world.

This involved throwing any belief that was not Christian into the realm of the kingdom of Satan. This, in turn, contributed to the way the devil was depicted in medieval art.

Without a standardised image, the devil took on attributes from pagan gods such as cloven feet, horns, and a quasi-animal form. We can see these features in Pan/ Faunus of the Greek/Roman pantheon, as well as in the Celtic god Cernunnos.

Consider then, the witch confessions.

Despite their ambiguous nature – often through the suggestion of Inquisitors or judges – there were references to worshipping a horned god. It is natural that a Christian Inquisitor would take this image and focus on the elements now associated with the devil. Suddenly, women with even vague pagan ties were easily associated with devil worship: one of the main characteristics of a witch.

Yet there is another reason that women in particular came to be associated with the devil. Women had, for a long time, been

closely linked with nature. They knew the

further evidence for the total destruction of

had been seen as magical healers prior to the spread of Christianity. The church did not take issue with the belief in magic itself, but it was the fact that magical miracles were being performed by the

woman: she was pure, free from sin, and the most-holy mother of Jesus. Nothing about her depiction is reminiscent of real women – she had been removed from humanity and placed on a pedestal that told real women they were inherently sinful.

problem. Folk medicine was almost exclusively practiced by women. The apparent and bad, magic did not yet exist within folk practices. Instead, it was Christianity that divided magic up. The church’s need to be the dominant force in society created a binary opposition within women’s healing magic, then took the positive side for itself. Miracles had to be done in the name of God, thus these women must have been creating evil. Women’s long standing place in society, and her connection to nature, had been severed, and she had been placed in league with the devil.

Even in the heavens, women had been thrust out of their traditional place by men.

Pagan gods replaced matriarchal goddesses, and later even they were replaced by a singular Christian God. It is not surprising then, that long standing misogyny found its way into the method of the demonisation of women. In a patriarchal even evil had to be headed by a man. Enluding to the worship of a horned beast.

Some have argued that the Christian Church revered women, and point to the Cult of the Virgin Mary as evidence. Yet the idolised status of Mary simply serves as

The church turned the idea of a woman into two opposing sides. Mary acted as one half of the binary. If she was the pure soul, the witch was the evil body.

Sexual desire, menstruation, power, and personal freedom were sinful and improper. Quietness, subordination, and motherhood were the ideal. Woman’s very nature became taboo. Mary became a desexualised spiritual woman, reduced solely to her ability to produce children (and even this in a sinless, sexless way).

The witch was her exact opposite: the childless, lust-driven creature of evil.

Patriarchal and misogynistic society existed long before the witch hunts of the Middle Ages. Yet the spread of Christianity and the turmoil within Europe at this time fear and hatred of women ran within it.

Witches were created out of well-meaning, knowledgeable women to further the domination of the church. They were then further subjugated to men in the form of the devil, and stripped of any connection to nature they had traditionally held.

Today, the repercussions of witch hunts remain, with women across the world

ELEANOR MAHER

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

15

E A R LY M O D E R N

BLOODY MARY: A NAME SHE JUSTLY DESERVES? dor Queen, murderous ghosts in mirrors, or the eponymous ly 300 Protestants she burned for heresy – a fate that earned them instant martyrdom. The condemnation of such a perical. However, arguably, Mary was given this nickname not solely due to these burnings. The following centuries of English religion and the implications of her gender must be conMary’s deep-seated detestation of Protestantism came from a tion had been harsh on Mary personally. Her religion was now being undermined and it cost her parents their marriage, and her place in the succession. From 1534 to 1543 she was known as Lady Mary, a title she never recognised. Mary was also barred from seeing her mother, Catherine of Aragon, and from her funeral in 1536: cruel acts on Henry VIII’s part, designed to break Mary’s spirit and to get her to acknowledge her illegitimacy. It is understandable that she grew to resent reformist doctrine and those who favoured it. Whilst Anne Boleyn and Thomas Cromwell were dead by 1553, Thomas Cranmer – who annulled her parents’ marriage – was alive and had been increasingly religiously radical in Edward VI’s reign. Mary’s refusal to pardon Cranmer, like other Protestants who recanted their faith, was because he had wronged her. Personal vendettas are a sign of humans, not monsters – after all, it was common in the 16th century for those who fell from favour to lose their lives.

worse than him? Though Henry’s 81 Protestant executions over 38 years pales in comparison to Mary’s record, was it simply more acceptable for a King to sign death warrants than a Queen?

Considering that even fairly recently women who kill are treated as more shocking than the men who do the same (such as the Moors Murderers), this argument perhaps is not so farfetched.

Mary’s gender did her no favours in the 16th century. Many feared that whoever she married would make England a satellite state of their own country, as a man inherited everything a woman had upon marriage. Whilst a treaty was passed through Parliament in 1554, ensuring Philip II of Spain was unable to dominate England, he remained unpopular, damaging Mary’s

It is also important to remember that English society, after Mary, grew increasingly anti-Catholic. Although Elizabeth I would inianti-Catholic stances. This expanded after the Tudor era with the commemoration of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, continuing until the 1850s. A century after Mary, England was governed by a Puritan, and the next Catholic King was dethroned

by Parliament. Increasingly, being Catholic was seen as being anti-English or anti-British: as being loyal to the Pope, not the monarch. History remembered by such a society was undoubtedly going to portray Mary – the Catholic Queen who burnt her opponents – as disturbed. When Mary ascended in 1553, did not fully embrace the radical reforms of Edward’s reign (as the Western Rebellion of 1549 exhibited). The England of the future, however, was not so fond of Catholicism. Retrospectively, Mary is regarded as trying to hold back the inevitable were a Protestant Queen executing Catholics? Was singling Mary out for such an evocative nickname simply anti-Catholic?

England in her own right. There are countless examples in history and literature of powerful, violent women depicted as morally inferior to male counterparts. Whilst modern opinion towards Henry VIII may not be overwhelmingly positive, he has no nickProtestants and Catholics on religious grounds, as well as those closest to him (including two wives). What made Mary distinctly

16

for her and Mary’s inability to conceive. Being forced to name Elizabeth as heir was viewed as a personal failing as a woman and monarch – it sealed Mary’s reign as a short blip before Elizwhose reign was long and varied enough that she is remembered for more than religious persecution. Also, Elizabeth better Finally, the most common misconception about Mary’s character is when and why she executed Lady Jane Grey. Surprisingly, it was not the moment she was deposed -- as Mary recognised she had been a pawn -- but after Jane’s father was would have executed her straight away, for daring to take her Reports she was a hardworking monarch who respected the Parliament’s authority are not as striking as burning 300 peoa changing concept. This is not to justify the infamous Marian Persecutions, but reputations are not always so simple.

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

REBECCA SMITH

E A R LY M O D E R N

E A R LY M O D E R N

BLOODY MARY: IS THIS A NAME SHE JUSTLY DESERVES?

CROMWELL: LIBERATOR OR CRUEL DICTATOR?

dor Queen, murderous ghosts in mirrors, or the eponymous

It is widely argued that Oliver Cromwell was simply a ‘king in all but name’ and no better than the tyrannical regime he helped overthrow. His army credentials served to enforce the idea that the English Republic was a military dictatorship characterised by the banning of Christmas, strict Puritanism and widespread oppression, particularly in Ireland. The fact that Christmas was made punishable by the Long Parliament in 1647, before Cromwell took power, is just one of the many myths surrounding Cromwell. In fact, it is more accurate to associate Cromwell with religious liberation, peace and political stability. Even his suppression of royalism was contextually sound and was nowhere near as cruel as is often argued.

ly 300 Protestants she burned for heresy – a fate that earned them instant martyrdom. The condemnation of such a perical. However, arguably, Mary was given this nickname not solely due to these burnings. The following centuries of English religion and the implications of her gender must be conMary’s deep-seated detestation of Protestantism came from a tion had been harsh on Mary personally. Her religion was now being undermined and it cost her parents their marriage, and her place in the succession. From 1534 to 1543 she was known as Lady Mary, a title she never recognised. Mary was also barred from seeing her mother, Catherine of Aragon, and from her funeral in 1536: cruel acts on Henry VIII’s part, designed to break Mary’s spirit and to get her to acknowledge her illegitimacy. It is understandable that she grew to resent reformist doctrine and those who favoured it. Whilst Anne Boleyn and Thomas Cromwell were dead by 1553, Thomas Cranmer – who annulled her parents’ marriage – was alive and had been increasingly religiously radical in Edward VI’s reign. Mary’s refusal to pardon Cranmer, like other Protestants who recanted their faith, was because he had wronged her. Personal vendettas are a sign of humans, not monsters – after all, it was common in the 16th century for those who fell from favour to lose their lives.

worse than him? Though Henry’s 81 Protestant executions over 38 years pales in comparison to Mary’s record, was it simply more acceptable for a King to sign death warrants than a Queen?

Considering that even fairly recently women who kill are treated as more shocking than the men who do the same (such as the Moors Murderers), this argument perhaps is not so farfetched.

Mary’s gender did her no favours in the 16th century. Many feared that whoever she married would make England a satellite state of their own country, as a man inherited everything a woman had upon marriage. Whilst a treaty was passed through Parliament in 1554, ensuring Philip II of Spain was unable to dominate England, he remained unpopular, damaging Mary’s

1653. Having clearly attempted to work with others before taking matters into his own hands, reveals that he at least never intended a dictatorship. to be somewhat dictatorial, written by military man John Lambert and followed up with the subsequent rule of the Major Generals. The constitution was part of Cromwell’s quest for a ‘reformation of manners’ and was designed to punish ‘immoral’ behaviour among the general population.

Among other things, it aimed to reduce drunkenness and sexual promiscudepended on the will and zeal of the individual Major Generals in each region. Furthermore, when it became apparent that this was unpopular and evocative of military power, it was repealed in favour of a new constitution.

It is also important to remember that English society, after Mary, grew increasingly anti-Catholic. Although Elizabeth I would inianti-Catholic stances. This expanded after the Tudor era with the commemoration of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, continuing until the 1850s. A century after Mary, England was governed by a Puritan, and the next Catholic King was dethroned

by Parliament. Increasingly, being Catholic was seen as being anti-English or anti-British: as being loyal to the Pope, not the monarch. History remembered by such a society was undoubtedly going to portray Mary – the Catholic Queen who burnt her opponents – as disturbed. When Mary ascended in 1553, did not fully embrace the radical reforms of Edward’s reign (as the Western Rebellion of 1549 exhibited). The England of the future, however, was not so fond of Catholicism. Retrospectively, Mary is regarded as trying to hold back the inevitable were a Protestant Queen executing Catholics? Was singling Mary out for such an evocative nickname simply anti-Catholic?

England in her own right. There are countless examples in history and literature of powerful, violent women depicted as morally inferior to male counterparts. Whilst modern opinion towards Henry VIII may not be overwhelmingly positive, he has no nickProtestants and Catholics on religious grounds, as well as those closest to him (including two wives). What made Mary distinctly

16

Following the collapse of the failed regimes of the Rump Parliament and cepted the fact that seemingly only he could unite a country divided by

for her and Mary’s inability to conceive. Being forced to name Elizabeth as heir was viewed as a personal failing as a woman and monarch – it sealed Mary’s reign as a short blip before Elizwhose reign was long and varied enough that she is remembered for more than religious persecution. Also, Elizabeth better Finally, the most common misconception about Mary’s character is when and why she executed Lady Jane Grey. Surprisingly, it was not the moment she was deposed -- as Mary recognised she had been a pawn -- but after Jane’s father was would have executed her straight away, for daring to take her throne? Realistically, Mary will always be known as “Bloody Reports she was a hardworking monarch who respected the Parliament’s authority are not as striking as burning 300 peoa changing concept. This is not to justify the infamous Marian Persecutions, but reputations are not always so simple..

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

REBECCA SMITH

The Humble Petition and Advice, published in 1657, restored political moderation to the Republic. It reinstated an upper chamber, a heredtom of political instability, was instead, as Cromwell realised, the only way to restore unity. Furthermore, his refusal to be crowned showed his intent to prevent the return of royal tyranny and maintain the legacy of the civil war. Cromwell continuously proved himself able to compromise and ensure peace and prosperity in a dangerously volatile nation.

Cromwell would not, however, compromise on ‘liberty of tender consciences’, religious toleration in 17th century terms. Despite being a ‘puritan’ and being surrounded by Anglican political elites, Cromwell worked hard to liberate the new non-conforming strands of Christianity that had been growing in popularity throughout the civil war. In 1656 he used his re-enacting Christ’s entry into Jerusalem on a horse. Contrast this with the reign of Charles II in the next decade, when the 1662 Quaker Act was who did more for religious liberation. On top of this, in 1657, the Jews were readmitted to England where they had not been accepted since 1290. This religious toleration was only to last as long as the English Republic and the 1660s would be characterised by a series of penal laws designed to reverse this liberation and enforce compulsory Anglicanism.

The most contentious aspect of Cromwell’s rule is of course his suppression of royalist sentiment, namely his merciless approach to Ireland. It is often argued that the callousness with which he subdued Irish opposition was unprecedented, unnecessary and characteristic of a military dictatorship. If we take the massacre at Drogheda in September 1649, famously ordered byCromwell, this seems undeniably cruel. However, in accordance with military protocol at the time, particularly following the

thirty years’ war, if an army breached the defending walls, as Cromwell’s army did, then it was expected that the garrison would surrender, or lives would not be spared.

The Irish refused to surrender, meaning in the context ment that by the time of his death there was little desire to return to ‘normality’. Popular support for Cromwell was so strong that from his death in September 1658 until the recall of Charles Stuart in 1660, no fewer than seven regimes were set up and failed, revealing that the 1650s had been neither miserable nor a dictatorship. the leadership of George Booth in 1659, it failed almost immediately and proved that the return of the monarchy seemed to have come about more as a result of a desire for stability rather than any actual hardline royalism.

Cromwell managed to tread a middle path between the growing radicalism of the 1640s and concerns for a return to normality. He maintained peace at a time when the survival of any constitution was virtually impossible.

He compromised in the face of opposition and suppressed royalism justly in order to ensure political stability and the continued survival of the Republic. This Cromwell added through the introduction of radical religious toleration. The strength of the English Republic at the time of his death and his political achievements show that Oliver Cromwell was vital to England’s peace and ‘progress’ at that time. He was certainly no dictator.

ALEXANDRA LUXFORD

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

17

MODERN WESTERN

MODERN WESTERN

R E VOLUTION OF 1956: HUNGARY

Hungary had a rough 20th century –

beginning, and losing with an incredibly unjust peace treaty (Treaty of Trianon, 1920). The country was massively destabilised during the interwar period.They joined the second world war on the side of Nazi Germany, who had promised the lost territories back for Hungary. During the war, Hungary lost many battles, the Russians had occupied its territory from 1945 and after the end of the war, they posed a claim to incorporate Hungary into the Soviet Union and establish a Communist State there. From 1944, a communist dictatorship was being built by the advice and supervision of the USSR. A one-party system was established by 1950 and all decisions were made within the structure of the communist party, the MDP Magyar Dolgozók Pártja, Hungarian Working People Party (MDP). The party controlled all aspects of economical, political and cultural life and the government and parliament functioned only to masquerade the authoritarian decision-making of the Party.

By 1953, there were grave issues with the Hungarian economy. After the death of Stalin there was also a certain level of uncertainty in the air – people were removed from positions and states’ politics two major groups within the party were formed – reformers led by Imre Nagy, who was Prime Minister at the time, and Stalinists, led by the infamous Rákomany positive changes, such as people became able to leave from kolkhozes (collective farming facilities) and wages were raised.However, in 1955 Nagy was removed from his position and the new Stalinist government encouraged policies such as developing industry, speeding up collectivization and compulsory increase in agricultural storage. People were unhappy due to these radical changes, and the tension between party and people grew day by day. Not only national political decisions, but oth(such as the revolution in Poznan).

During the fall of 1956, academics and university students had been vocal about their desire for systematic changes. The Szövetsége, Association of Hungarian University and College Students

18

(MEFESZ) issued 16 points, aiming at 16 which they felt urgent to be dealt with. On the 23rd of October, the MEFESZ organised a solidarity march for Poznan, Poland.

Within a few hours, there were 200,000 people participating and the silent commemoration became an aggressive protest against communism. There were three main groups of insurgents – those who went and destroyed the statue of Stalin, city centre and occupied the building of the National Radio station and those who went to continue protesting peacefully in front of the parliament. The 16 Points were read out all across Budapest, and they became the slogan of Revolution.

On the 24th, soviet tanks arrived at Budasides became more intense. The news was spreading fast and many cities and villages in the countryside also protested against communism. People were shot dead at peaceful protests and people thought to be communist sympathisers were beaten to death. Imre Nagy was appointed as a new prime minister on the 24th of October and by the 28th, he decided to support the revolution. He encouraged the soviet tanks to leave Budapest, re-established pre-soviet symbols of democracy (for instance, the Kossuth-címer) and announced many other new plans for government reform. On the 31st, he announced that talks had begun for Hungary to leave from the Warsaw Pact. However, he did not know that due to international events (the Suez Crisis), the USSR has decided to destroy every possible element of resistance in Hungary.

By the 1st of November, there was news of forming soviet groups preparing to attack Budapest. Nagy announced Hungary’s seceding from the Warsaw Pact and declared independence. However, it was too late, and Hungary received no help from the West. On the 4th of November soviet forces started attacking Budapest and destroyed the ‘counter-revolutionaries’ (a name used to mark people participating in the Revolution of 1956).

The consequences of the revolution included a huge economic downturn, political instability and social crisis. The party changed direction in governance – led by János Kádár, the new prime minister, the

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

party was still communist but pursued anti-Stalinist policies. This change in leadership won over most of the communist and anti-communist parts of the population. Within a few years, the country recovered economically, politically, and socially from the revolution. Kádár encouraged policies which improved standard living conditions, and the atmosphere was calm and peaceful for years. This made it possible for the party to establish a steady rule for nearly three decades.

The 23rd of October is a national holiday in Hungary. Its symbol is a Hungarian bolising where participants cut out the communist state’s symbol. The music associated with the revolution is Beethoven’s Egmont Overture – which was one of the few records available on the Radio during the revolution. After the protesters occupied the main Radio Station, they played it often.

Culturally, the revolution still has a huge impact on today’s Hungarians - most young people have at least one family member who has direct connections to this revolution. They might not know them personally, but they know they were their grandparents or great-grandparents.

H OW S H O U L D W E LO O K AT A L E X A N D E R H A M I LTO N TO DAY ?

One of the founding fathers of the United States, Alexander Hamilton, has recently become a pop culture icon, with long waits to see his namesake play on Broadway. The musical being recorded and put up on Disney+ was a cause for celebration for so many around the world, with people memorising the lyrics to the famous raps. The musical portrays Hamilton as an individual who welcomed people of all cultures and ethnicities. However, should we not question the history behind Hamilton?

Was he actually an abolitionist?

women and two infants were found, buried nameless, all of whom are believed to have been owned by the Schuyler family.

However, there is a counter argument that during his time at King’s,

by Elias Boudinot, a prominent abolitionist of his time. In 1785, Hamilton was one of the founders of the society of promotion of manumission of slaves in New York. Although he did participate in this society, there is not much evidence to suggest that he played a dominant role, so much so that he didn’t even attend the inauguration meeting of the society.

Furthermore, while drafting the constitution Alexander Hamilton voted for the 3/5 th doctrine. This doctrine essentially allowed the upper class to be more dominant over the rest of

Today, people around the world are taking a stance against the exploitation of black people. Should we really be celebrating a man who allowing for the subjugation that today we want to eradicate from sobiography of Alexander Hamilton.

Hamilton was born in Charlestown,Saint Kitts and Nevis, and lived in St. Croix - both in the West Indies. St. Croix was an island town with 22,000 slaves and 2000 white families. During this time, the Transatlantic slave trade was in full force, and Hamilton was working to assist the importation of slaves. However, he felt like an outcast since his mother was a sex worker in St. Croix, meaning he slave owners.Furthermore, Hamilton despised the institution of slavery, despite he himself being a part of it. Seeing this, the slaves in the island pooled together money to send Hamilton to New York and receive an education at the King’s College (today known as Columbia University).

In 1773, Hamilton had made it to New York. During his period of education, the slave population in New York had nearly doubled, and many of his classmates in King’s themselves had slaves. He came up with the idea that: “All men have one common origin, have one common nature and consequently have one common right […] and there is no just reason one man should exercise any power over

SARA KATA

articles, and not for positive reasons.

The family were one of New York’s most prominent slave owners, and

er acted on these beliefs. This could be a direct consequence of the fact that enced by William Livingston, who was a part of a slave owning and trading family and one of the signatories of the American constitution. Through Livingston, Hamilton was able to become a part of the American Revolution and ended up working for George Washington.

During the American Revolution, Alexander Hamilton did want to not be on the wrong side of George Washington.

He had left King’s in 1775 to work under Washington, who was a slave owner himself, and had started drafting up Washington’s speeches. It is important to note that during this time Hamilton never spoke up against slavery in front of Washington, and the speeches of Washington written by Hamilton barely ever mention slavery or show any partisan stance on the subject.

Yet another nail against the idea of Hamilton being anti-slavery was that he ended up marrying Elizabeth Schuyler. The Schuyler family were known for shaping New York and New Jersey and were prominent traders. In recent years their name has re-appeared in journalistic

allowed for the protection of slavery whilst writing the constitution. He defended this by saying that this was to protect the union of the north and the south. It is believed that Hamilton was against slavery from a moral standpoint, but it was never his focus. He spoke against slavery when it was to his advantage (like getting the money to go to America from St. Croix), but not otherwise. His primary focus was on the agenda of property rights, promotion of America and personal ambition - none of which was deterred by his abolitionist thinking. Hence, I come back to my main question and leave it up to you to decide. Should we celebrate this man through a musical promoted for racial inclusion, when in reality his story may suggest the opposite? To what extent should we talk about Ale ander Hamilton with the pride in which we do? In today’s climate, with the BLM protests, should we even turn our attention to Disney+ to watch this man and rap with him?

SHIKHAR TALWAR

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

19

MODERN WESTERN

MODERN WESTERN

R E VOLUTION OF 1956: HUNGARY

Hungary had a rough 20th century –

beginning, and losing with an incredibly unjust peace treaty (Treaty of Trianon, 1920). The country was massively destabilised during the interwar period.They joined the second world war on the side of Nazi Germany, who had promised the lost territories back for Hungary. During the war, Hungary lost many battles, the Russians had occupied its territory from 1945 and after the end of the war, they posed a claim to incorporate Hungary into the Soviet Union and establish a Communist State there. From 1944, a communist dictatorship was being built by the advice and supervision of the USSR. A one-party system was established by 1950 and all decisions were made within the structure of the communist party, the MDP Magyar Dolgozók Pártja, Hungarian Working People Party (MDP). The party controlled all aspects of economical, political and cultural life and the government and parliament functioned only to masquerade the authoritarian decision-making of the Party.

By 1953, there were grave issues with the Hungarian economy. After the death of Stalin there was also a certain level of uncertainty in the air – people were removed from positions and states’ politics two major groups within the party were formed – reformers led by Imre Nagy, who was Prime Minister at the time, and Stalinists, led by the infamous Rákomany positive changes, such as people became able to leave from kolkhozes (collective farming facilities) and wages were raised.However, in 1955 Nagy was removed from his position and the new Stalinist government encouraged policies such as developing industry, speeding up collectivization and compulsory increase in agricultural storage. People were unhappy due to these radical changes, and the tension between party and people grew day by day. Not only national political decisions, but oth(such as the revolution in Poznan).

During the fall of 1956, academics and university students had been vocal about their desire for systematic changes. The Szövetsége, Association of Hungarian University and College Students

18

(MEFESZ) issued 16 points, aiming at 16 which they felt urgent to be dealt with. On the 23rd of October, the MEFESZ organised a solidarity march for Poznan, Poland.

Within a few hours, there were 200,000 people participating and the silent commemoration became an aggressive protest against communism. There were three main groups of insurgents – those who went and destroyed the statue of Stalin, city centre and occupied the building of the National Radio station and those who went to continue protesting peacefully in front of the parliament. The 16 Points were read out all across Budapest, and they became the slogan of Revolution.

On the 24th, soviet tanks arrived at Budasides became more intense. The news was spreading fast and many cities and villages in the countryside also protested against communism. People were shot dead at peaceful protests and people thought to be communist sympathisers were beaten to death. Imre Nagy was appointed as a new prime minister on the 24th of October and by the 28th, he decided to support the revolution. He encouraged the soviet tanks to leave Budapest, re-established pre-soviet symbols of democracy (for instance, the Kossuth-címer) and announced many other new plans for government reform. On the 31st, he announced that talks had begun for Hungary to leave from the Warsaw Pact. However, he did not know that due to international events (the Suez Crisis), the USSR has decided to destroy every possible element of resistance in Hungary.

By the 1st of November, there was news of forming soviet groups preparing to attack Budapest. Nagy announced Hungary’s seceding from the Warsaw Pact and declared independence. However, it was too late, and Hungary received no help from the West. On the 4th of November soviet forces started attacking Budapest and destroyed the ‘counter-revolutionaries’ (a name used to mark people participating in the Revolution of 1956).

The consequences of the revolution included a huge economic downturn, political instability and social crisis. The party changed direction in governance – led by János Kádár, the new prime minister, the

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

party was still communist but pursued anti-Stalinist policies. This change in leadership won over most of the communist and anti-communist parts of the population. Within a few years, the country recovered economically, politically, and socially from the revolution. Kádár encouraged policies which improved standard living conditions, and the atmosphere was calm and peaceful for years. This made it possible for the party to establish a steady rule for nearly three decades.

The 23rd of October is a national holiday in Hungary. Its symbol is a Hungarian bolising where participants cut out the communist state’s symbol. The music associated with the revolution is Beethoven’s Egmont Overture – which was one of the few records available on the Radio during the revolution. After the protesters occupied the main Radio Station, they played it often.

Culturally, the revolution still has a huge impact on today’s Hungarians - most young people have at least one family member who has direct connections to this revolution. They might not know them personally, but they know they were their grandparents or great-grandparents.

H OW S H O U L D W E LO O K AT A L E X A N D E R H A M I LTO N TO DAY ?

One of the founding fathers of the United States, Alexander Hamilton, has recently become a pop culture icon, with long waits to see his namesake play on Broadway. The musical being recorded and put up on Disney+ was a cause for celebration for so many around the world, with people memorising the lyrics to the famous raps. The musical portrays Hamilton as an individual who welcomed people of all cultures and ethnicities. However, should we not question the history behind Hamilton?

Was he actually an abolitionist?

women and two infants were found, buried nameless, all of whom are believed to have been owned by the Schuyler family.

However, there is a counter argument that during his time at King’s,

by Elias Boudinot, a prominent abolitionist of his time. In 1785, Hamilton was one of the founders of the society of promotion of manumission of slaves in New York. Although he did participate in this society, there is not much evidence to suggest that he played a dominant role, so much so that he didn’t even attend the inauguration meeting of the society.

Furthermore, while drafting the constitution Alexander Hamilton voted for the 3/5 th doctrine. This doctrine essentially allowed the upper class to be more dominant over the rest of

Today, people around the world are taking a stance against the exploitation of black people. Should we really be celebrating a man who allowing for the subjugation that today we want to eradicate from sobiography of Alexander Hamilton.

Hamilton was born in Charlestown,Saint Kitts and Nevis, and lived in St. Croix - both in the West Indies. St. Croix was an island town with 22,000 slaves and 2000 white families. During this time, the Transatlantic slave trade was in full force, and Hamilton was working to assist the importation of slaves. However, he felt like an outcast since his mother was a sex worker in St. Croix, meaning he slave owners.Furthermore, Hamilton despised the institution of slavery, despite he himself being a part of it. Seeing this, the slaves in the island pooled together money to send Hamilton to New York and receive an education at the King’s College (today known as Columbia University).

In 1773, Hamilton had made it to New York. During his period of education, the slave population in New York had nearly doubled, and many of his classmates in King’s themselves had slaves. He came up with the idea that: “All men have one common origin, have one common nature and consequently have one common right […] and there is no just reason one man should exercise any power over

SARA KATA

articles, and not for positive reasons.

The family were one of New York’s most prominent slave owners, and

er acted on these beliefs. This could be a direct consequence of the fact that enced by William Livingston, who was a part of a slave owning and trading family and one of the signatories of the American constitution. Through Livingston, Hamilton was able to become a part of the American Revolution and ended up working for George Washington.

During the American Revolution, Alexander Hamilton did want to not be on the wrong side of George Washington.

He had left King’s in 1775 to work under Washington, who was a slave owner himself, and had started drafting up Washington’s speeches. It is important to note that during this time Hamilton never spoke up against slavery in front of Washington, and the speeches of Washington written by Hamilton barely ever mention slavery or show any partisan stance on the subject.

Yet another nail against the idea of Hamilton being anti-slavery was that he ended up marrying Elizabeth Schuyler. The Schuyler family were known for shaping New York and New Jersey and were prominent traders. In recent years their name has re-appeared in journalistic

allowed for the protection of slavery whilst writing the constitution. He defended this by saying that this was to protect the union of the north and the south. It is believed that Hamilton was against slavery from a moral standpoint, but it was never his focus. He spoke against slavery when it was to his advantage (like getting the money to go to America from St. Croix), but not otherwise. His primary focus was on the agenda of property rights, promotion of America and personal ambition - none of which was deterred by his abolitionist thinking. Hence, I come back to my main question and leave it up to you to decide. Should we celebrate this man through a musical promoted for racial inclusion, when in reality his story may suggest the opposite? To what extent should we talk about Ale ander Hamilton with the pride in which we do? In today’s climate, with the BLM protests, should we even turn our attention to Disney+ to watch this man and rap with him?

SHIKHAR TALWAR

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

19

MODERN WESTERN

MODERN WESTERN

T HE PO IGN ANT S TORY OF T HE SILENT REBELLI ON It is hard to imagine what Franz Jägerstätter, a conscientious objector from Austria who was executed for his refusal to pledge his allegiance to Hitler during The Second World War, had to go through. his large family’s (Jägerstätter had a wife and three daughters) interests and give his life for a cause that only a few people could truly understand, A Hidden Life (2019) is a heartbreaking watch of a kind.

Malick, the acclaimed director of The Tree of Life (2011), is no less deep and thematically broad than his previous work.

Like no one else, he tells the story of a man whose ideals and principles contradict with those of the contemporary years of the character’s life, from 193943), with an unprecedented intimacy and huge respect to Jägerstätter’s legacy.

Within the almost three-hour-long project,

Malick does not show any brutal or violent behind the curtains), closely focusing on the main character’s relationship with his dearest wife Franziska and the agonizing inner struggle both of them experience. It is important to stress that Malick makes two of them the lead characters of the story as if they constitute a whole one carrying the burden of moral resistance. It would be unmeasurably harder for Jägerstätter to stick to his principles if there is no strong supporting system represented by Franziska, wholeheartedly dedicated to him and never doubting his beliefs and his truth. Even though God constantly gives Franz strength and courage to continue the moral battle with evil, it is Franziska who does not let her husband break when everybody in their village, even the closest relatives and neighbours, turn against him.

With help of his directorial mastery and skillfulness, Malick expands a private sto-

ry of silent rebellion onto a wider context and presents his understanding of such concepts as faith, fortitude, love, and loyalty. What is more, he does not just show the thorny path full of hardships Jägerstätter’s fate prepares for him. Instead, he uses that story to create a modern humanist manifesto. Using a lot of exand sequences of characters doing their household chores, he presents the idea that peace and war, calm and storm, always go side by side. Our mission as huwe can without losing ourselves, our family, and our connection with the Divine.

‘I am completely bound in inner union with the Lord’ — these were Franz Jägerstätter’s very last words. In 2007

IVAN DMITRIEV

SECCIÓN FEMENIN A VS THE

MUJERES LIBRES The upheaval of the Spanish political sphere in the 1930s saw the emergence of two opposing women’s movements—the nationalist Sección Femenina (Female Section) and the anarcho-syndicalist Mujeres Libres (Free Women)—the aims of which varied immensely.

Formed in 1934 and amalgamated with The Falange Española de las JONS Parwomen’s political movement of Francoist Spain. The movement grew in popularity, amassing an estimated membership of 580,000 women by 1939. During the 1936-39 civil war, members of the Sección Femenina took up wartime roles such as hospital work, and many were later decorated with the Recompensas ‘Y’ After the war, the Sección Femenina quickly became a vital tool in the reconstruction of the Nuevo Estado (New State). The Franco regime intended to return Spain’s former pre-republican, patriarchal society by reconstructing a conservative Catholic nation. The women of

20

the Sección Femenina became ambassadors for such a reformation and the movement became central to the readoption of strict conservative gender codes.

Through the establishment of education programs, welfare centres, social campaigns and even the use of folklore, the Sección Femenina was essential to the is argued by historian Stanley G. Payne.

In stark contrast, the anarcho-feminist Mujeres Libres sought to break women from their subordinated societal positions. Established in 1936, over the course of the civil war the movement is speculated to have attracted between 20,000 and 60,000 women. The Mujeres Libres aimed to enlighten, empower, and mobilise Spanish women, particularly those within the anarchist movement.

Unlike the women of the Sección Femenina, at the outbreak of war women of the Mujeres Libres movement joined militias, and took up arms. Even on the anarchist front however, women were discouraged from joining the political sphere, often

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

the militias. Faced with slogans such as, “Men to the front, women on the home contradictions within the anarchist movement surrounding the roles of women and sought to oppose such marginalisation.

Like the falangist Sección Femenina, the Mujeres Libres opted to utilise programs of education to pursue their cause. However, while the Sección Femenina used education to entrench gender roles and feminine domesticity, the women of the Mujeres Libres recognised that educaMartha Ackelsberg argues that by educating women on topics such as birth control and motherhood while helping women to improve their literacy, women could break Despite using similar approaches to meet their aims, these analogous women’s movements were diametrically opposed.

The Sección Femenina served throughout the Franco era to entrench ideals of feminine domesticity while the Mujeres Libres advocated female empowerment and liberation.

ELYSIA HEITMAR

‘GHOST TOWN’ MUSIC AND CULTURE IN RESISTANCE TO THATCHERISM PHEOBE MYERS No British politician of the last century has provoked such a visceral response within the music community as Thatcher. Countless artists took aim at her directly, but Thatcher was more than just a common enemy, a target for the malwhose presence in music was felt if not seen. Artists used music to respond to societal rupture and economic deprivation at the hands of her government.

The formation of the Red Wedge in 1985 directly intertwined music and politics in opposition to Thatcher. Hoping to oust Thatcher in the looming 1987 election, a collective of left wing musicians fronted

by Billy Bragg, Paul Weller, and Jimmy Somerville formed. Although they took their name from a Russian communist poster of 1919, they were inextricably linked to the Labour Party. They launched in Westminster with MP Robin Cook in headquarters, in which they produced an election pamphlet entitled ‘Move on Up’, ite socialist Britain. Their success however was in their 1986 tour which involved not only the frontmen but popular musithe Smiths, and Elvis Costello. Frontman Somerville, himself openly gay, liaised with ‘Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners’ two years earlier to headline their raise money for striking miners and their families. With the Conservatives’ third election victory, it is hard to see how their 1986 tour amounted to any success at all. But as Bragg himself mused retrospectively, ‘in the darkest days of

the Thatcherite 80s, there was a feeling that something had to be done.’ In this sense, what was ‘done’ was the creation of a movement combining anti-Thatcherite music and political education, which political home in the Labour Party.

Afro Caribbean music was an equally important arm of musical protest against Thatcher. Thatcher’s Conservative party was merely one decade removed from Enoch Powell’s ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech.

Thatcher herself rode to power endorsing this sentiment, infamously quoted as claiming ‘people […] are really rather afraid that this country might be swamped by interview in 1978. The richness of musical protest to Conservative racism should not be underestimated. A ska revival of the late 1970s, spearheaded by Coventry label Two Tone records, put bands such as Madness and the Specials on the national scene. Two band members, Lynval Golding and Neville Staple, were Jamaican born, a part of the Windrush Generation. Their 1981 release ‘Ghost Town’ became an anthem of the era, and was speculated to be describing the band’s home town of Coventry, holding a mirror up to the experience of inner city life across Britain. Their canny re-release of Bob Dylan’s ‘Maggie’s Farm’ substituted Dylan’s reference to the National Guard for the National Front, updating the countercultural anthem of the 60s to attack Thatcher and the burgeoning far right.

Numerous artists were highly politicised by their experience of the 1980s and the social ills which accompanied it. However, the North/South divide was keenly felt and not everyone in the music industry was equally politicised by their experience of the 80s. The neoliberal moment trans-

don musicians. The ‘New Romantics’, including artists such as Boy George, Marc Almond, and Annie Lennox, produced apolitical pop anthems which some saw as jarringly far-removed from the material circumstances of others, particularly in the north. Others have argued that it is simplistic to assume that these artists espoused Thatcherite values, as they embodied counterculturalism in other clothing and Glam Rock style of music.

Joy Division’s late Ian Curtis also surprisingly voted for Thatcher in 1979. However, the band’s later incarnation New Order and the introduction of Acid House in the UK provided the escapism that many needed. Whilst not overtly political, it is no coincidence that the second summer of love in the late 1980s saw raves spring ern towns. Among the most famous of these was the ‘Joy’ rave in Rochdale in 1989, attended by tens of thousands and lasting for 24 hours. Although a far cry from some of the more pointed anthems which attacked Thatcher, rave culture induced a moral panic in Conservative ministers. This led to the implementation of anti-rave legislation past even Thatcher’s tenure, culminating in the ‘Criminal Justice and Public Order Act’ of 1994.

Thatcher was the establishment, and music was countercultural. The impact of her policies -whether socially conservative, or economically neoliberal, inspired an almost united front in the music industry against her. It almost seems like we’re experiencing a similar rupture today: the upheaval of a pandemic, a Conservative government employing ‘divide and rule’ tactics to withhold furlough money from the North, the potential for a culture war already poisoning discourse in the US. We’ve already had Stormzy’s bold pronouncements, and on the other hand an unsuccessful attempt to revive the spirit of the 80s with ‘Labour Live’. But it remains the essential paradox of our time that despite the undercurrent of rage at our circumstance and our government, we’re unable to physically gather to dance or play music as a creative outlet. No doubt the creative fervour is there for a musical protest to rival that of the 80s, but the uniqueness of our circumstances means it remains to be seen.

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

21

MODERN WESTERN

MODERN WESTERN

T HE PO IGN ANT S TORY OF T HE SILENT REBELLI ON It is hard to imagine what Franz Jägerstätter, a conscientious objector from Austria who was executed for his refusal to pledge his allegiance to Hitler during The Second World War, had to go through. his large family’s (Jägerstätter had a wife and three daughters) interests and give his life for a cause that only a few people could truly understand, A Hidden Life (2019) is a heartbreaking watch of a kind.

Malick, the acclaimed director of The Tree of Life (2011), is no less deep and thematically broad than his previous work.

Like no one else, he tells the story of a man whose ideals and principles contradict with those of the contemporary years of the character’s life, from 193943), with an unprecedented intimacy and huge respect to Jägerstätter’s legacy.

Within the almost three-hour-long project,

Malick does not show any brutal or violent behind the curtains), closely focusing on the main character’s relationship with his dearest wife Franziska and the agonizing inner struggle both of them experience. It is important to stress that Malick makes two of them the lead characters of the story as if they constitute a whole one carrying the burden of moral resistance. It would be unmeasurably harder for Jägerstätter to stick to his principles if there is no strong supporting system represented by Franziska, wholeheartedly dedicated to him and never doubting his beliefs and his truth. Even though God constantly gives Franz strength and courage to continue the moral battle with evil, it is Franziska who does not let her husband break when everybody in their village, even the closest relatives and neighbours, turn against him.

With help of his directorial mastery and skillfulness, Malick expands a private sto-

ry of silent rebellion onto a wider context and presents his understanding of such concepts as faith, fortitude, love, and loyalty. What is more, he does not just show the thorny path full of hardships Jägerstätter’s fate prepares for him. Instead, he uses that story to create a modern humanist manifesto. Using a lot of exand sequences of characters doing their household chores, he presents the idea that peace and war, calm and storm, always go side by side. Our mission as huwe can without losing ourselves, our family, and our connection with the Divine.

‘I am completely bound in inner union with the Lord’ — these were Franz Jägerstätter’s very last words. In 2007

IVAN DMITRIEV

SECCIÓN FEMENIN A VS THE

MUJERES LIBRES The upheaval of the Spanish political sphere in the 1930s saw the emergence of two opposing women’s movements—the nationalist Sección Femenina (Female Section) and the anarcho-syndicalist Mujeres Libres (Free Women)—the aims of which varied immensely.

Formed in 1934 and amalgamated with The Falange Española de las JONS Parwomen’s political movement of Francoist Spain. The movement grew in popularity, amassing an estimated membership of 580,000 women by 1939. During the 1936-39 civil war, members of the Sección Femenina took up wartime roles such as hospital work, and many were later decorated with the Recompensas ‘Y’ After the war, the Sección Femenina quickly became a vital tool in the reconstruction of the Nuevo Estado (New State). The Franco regime intended to return Spain’s former pre-republican, patriarchal society by reconstructing a conservative Catholic nation. The women of

20

the Sección Femenina became ambassadors for such a reformation and the movement became central to the readoption of strict conservative gender codes.

Through the establishment of education programs, welfare centres, social campaigns and even the use of folklore, the Sección Femenina was essential to the is argued by historian Stanley G. Payne.

In stark contrast, the anarcho-feminist Mujeres Libres sought to break women from their subordinated societal positions. Established in 1936, over the course of the civil war the movement is speculated to have attracted between 20,000 and 60,000 women. The Mujeres Libres aimed to enlighten, empower, and mobilise Spanish women, particularly those within the anarchist movement.

Unlike the women of the Sección Femenina, at the outbreak of war women of the Mujeres Libres movement joined militias, and took up arms. Even on the anarchist front however, women were discouraged from joining the political sphere, often

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

the militias. Faced with slogans such as, “Men to the front, women on the home contradictions within the anarchist movement surrounding the roles of women and sought to oppose such marginalisation.

Like the falangist Sección Femenina, the Mujeres Libres opted to utilise programs of education to pursue their cause. However, while the Sección Femenina used education to entrench gender roles and feminine domesticity, the women of the Mujeres Libres recognised that educaMartha Ackelsberg argues that by educating women on topics such as birth control and motherhood while helping women to improve their literacy, women could break Despite using similar approaches to meet their aims, these analogous women’s movements were diametrically opposed.

The Sección Femenina served throughout the Franco era to entrench ideals of feminine domesticity while the Mujeres Libres advocated female empowerment and liberation.

ELYSIA HEITMAR

‘GHOST TOWN’ MUSIC AND CULTURE IN RESISTANCE TO THATCHERISM PHEOBE MYERS No British politician of the last century has provoked such a visceral response within the music community as Thatcher. Countless artists took aim at her directly, but Thatcher was more than just a common enemy, a target for the malwhose presence in music was felt if not seen. Artists used music to respond to societal rupture and economic deprivation at the hands of her government.

The formation of the Red Wedge in 1985 directly intertwined music and politics in opposition to Thatcher. Hoping to oust Thatcher in the looming 1987 election, a collective of left wing musicians fronted

by Billy Bragg, Paul Weller, and Jimmy Somerville formed. Although they took their name from a Russian communist poster of 1919, they were inextricably linked to the Labour Party. They launched in Westminster with MP Robin Cook in headquarters, in which they produced an election pamphlet entitled ‘Move on Up’, ite socialist Britain. Their success however was in their 1986 tour which involved not only the frontmen but popular musithe Smiths, and Elvis Costello. Frontman Somerville, himself openly gay, liaised with ‘Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners’ two years earlier to headline their raise money for striking miners and their families. With the Conservatives’ third election victory, it is hard to see how their 1986 tour amounted to any success at all. But as Bragg himself mused retrospectively, ‘in the darkest days of

the Thatcherite 80s, there was a feeling that something had to be done.’ In this sense, what was ‘done’ was the creation of a movement combining anti-Thatcherite music and political education, which political home in the Labour Party.

Afro Caribbean music was an equally important arm of musical protest against Thatcher. Thatcher’s Conservative party was merely one decade removed from Enoch Powell’s ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech.

Thatcher herself rode to power endorsing this sentiment, infamously quoted as claiming ‘people […] are really rather afraid that this country might be swamped by interview in 1978. The richness of musical protest to Conservative racism should not be underestimated. A ska revival of the late 1970s, spearheaded by Coventry label Two Tone records, put bands such as Madness and the Specials on the national scene. Two band members, Lynval Golding and Neville Staple, were Jamaican born, a part of the Windrush Generation. Their 1981 release ‘Ghost Town’ became an anthem of the era, and was speculated to be describing the band’s home town of Coventry, holding a mirror up to the experience of inner city life across Britain. Their canny re-release of Bob Dylan’s ‘Maggie’s Farm’ substituted Dylan’s reference to the National Guard for the National Front, updating the countercultural anthem of the 60s to attack Thatcher and the burgeoning far right.

Numerous artists were highly politicised by their experience of the 1980s and the social ills which accompanied it. However, the North/South divide was keenly felt and not everyone in the music industry was equally politicised by their experience of the 80s. The neoliberal moment trans-

don musicians. The ‘New Romantics’, including artists such as Boy George, Marc Almond, and Annie Lennox, produced apolitical pop anthems which some saw as jarringly far-removed from the material circumstances of others, particularly in the north. Others have argued that it is simplistic to assume that these artists espoused Thatcherite values, as they embodied counterculturalism in other clothing and Glam Rock style of music.

Joy Division’s late Ian Curtis also surprisingly voted for Thatcher in 1979. However, the band’s later incarnation New Order and the introduction of Acid House in the UK provided the escapism that many needed. Whilst not overtly political, it is no coincidence that the second summer of love in the late 1980s saw raves spring ern towns. Among the most famous of these was the ‘Joy’ rave in Rochdale in 1989, attended by tens of thousands and lasting for 24 hours. Although a far cry from some of the more pointed anthems which attacked Thatcher, rave culture induced a moral panic in Conservative ministers. This led to the implementation of anti-rave legislation past even Thatcher’s tenure, culminating in the ‘Criminal Justice and Public Order Act’ of 1994.

Thatcher was the establishment, and music was countercultural. The impact of her policies -whether socially conservative, or economically neoliberal, inspired an almost united front in the music industry against her. It almost seems like we’re experiencing a similar rupture today: the upheaval of a pandemic, a Conservative government employing ‘divide and rule’ tactics to withhold furlough money from the North, the potential for a culture war already poisoning discourse in the US. We’ve already had Stormzy’s bold pronouncements, and on the other hand an unsuccessful attempt to revive the spirit of the 80s with ‘Labour Live’. But it remains the essential paradox of our time that despite the undercurrent of rage at our circumstance and our government, we’re unable to physically gather to dance or play music as a creative outlet. No doubt the creative fervour is there for a musical protest to rival that of the 80s, but the uniqueness of our circumstances means it remains to be seen.

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

21

MODERN WESTERN

MODERN WESTERN

FROM ROSA PARKS TO ROY HACKETT:

FROM WINDRUSH TO BLM: A (VERY) BRIEF HISTORY OF BRITISH RACE RELATIONS

In 1948, the MV Empire Windrush docked in sengers from the West Indies. They were

TRACING THE BRISTOL BUS BOYCOTT OF 1963 On hearing the phrase ‘bus boycott’, for most people, a certain plethora of images would spring to mind.. The determined Rosa Parks sitting next to a white passenger on the bus, white policemen conducting her subsequent arrest, Martin Luther King in his prime protesting on the streets of Montgomery, Alabama.

drive to recruit and enlist a Commonwealth workforce to help rebuild the country post-war by feeding into the labour of state-controlled services such as Transport for London (TfL) and the National Health Service (NHS). They were encouraged to

was the delyst that pushed Stephenson, Hackett and now Bailey into resisting their oppression,

and

into

example of resistance to oppression in modern Western history.

Replace those names and faces with the likes of Paul Stephenson, Guy Bailey and Roy Hackett. It’s probable that the they put a name to a face. And this is exactly the problem The Bristol Bus Boycott of 1963 has slipped out of mainstream modern history. It may be omnipresent in the minds of those who witnessed it upfront in Bristol, but is mostly absent from the minds of young historians and from school curriculums today, despite its position as one of the most symbolic moments in Black British history. This article aims to educate and shine a light upon the momentous event that is the Bristol Bus Boycott, and trace its origins to understand it further.

since the Windrush generation came to settle in big British cities during the late 1940s. The year before the boycott, there were around 3,000 African Caribbeans living in the poorer city centre did not receive the warm welcome they deserved, and were continually mistreated for years afterwards. Overt and covert racism, the bitterness of the Teddy Boys and ‘colour bars’, were what greeted Bristol’s Windrush generation and their descendants, and this enduring oppression over the decade arguably culminated in the organised protest that was the bus boycott.

The boycott of the buses commenced from April 1963, and theAfrican Caribbean community were joined by university students and other activists in city protests as well. It lasted for four months until the Bristol Omnibus Company conceded to mounting pressures from both the community and the press.

The events gained national and even international attention.

Tony Benn, the Labour MP for Bristol South East, helped to

to-be Prime Minister Harold Wilson, echoed Benn’s support, eventually lifted on August 28, the very same day that Marthe United States. Perhaps this is what makes the boycott most symbolic, and what is most regrettable about its erasure from mainstream history. The connection between Washington, and the West Country is wholeheartedly emblematic of the progress that was made for civil rights, across the globe.

The successes that stemmed from the dispute did not put an end to racial tensions and inequalities in Bristol, nor elsewhere. Systemic, institutionalised racism still prevails globally today. But the legacy and impact of the Bristol Bus Boycott did lead to legislative Race Relations Act of 1965, passed by new Labour Prime Minis-

The bus organisation in question was the popular, nationalised ‘Bristol Omnibus Company’. The Evening Post had exposed their racist policies in 1961, causing outrage throughout Bristol.

It was revealed that the company was adhering to a 1955 resolution, passed by the Bristol branch of the ‘Transport and General Workers Union’. This stated that ‘coloured’ people were banned from working as bus conductors and drivers, on the grounds that Black labour and the mixing of the races would limit productivity. The response was almost immediate. Having formed the ‘West Indian Development Council’ a few years before, activist the waters of the resolution, putting forward one of his pupils, 18 year-old Guy Bailey, for an interview at the bus company.

Bailey turned up to the interview and was immediately rejected on the grounds of his race, and the saddest fact of all was that it was perfectly within the manager’s legal rights to do so. This

1963. Discrimination on the grounds of race, and other factors, that preceded the boycott had been declared illegal. It was a parliamentary win for Paul Stephenson, Roy Hackett and others - and yet they understood that there was still work to be done.

Perhaps the events and protests in Bristol over the summer of 2020 can serve as an echo of the 1960s, in Britain and abroad.

It goes to show that resistance to oppression, whether that be in the form of boycotting or statue-toppling, can be successful, but also that the battle against racism will always persist. tasks, which has hopefully been tackled here, is to trace, historicise, and most of all remember, the iconic Bristol Bus Boycott.

EMILY HUNT 22

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

of Britain, being promised a better life and a higher standard of living upon arrival. This was far from true. Many were ostracised, excluded, and met with intense racial abuse from an unwelcoming and hostile Britain.

Hostilities manifested in a social and institutional sense. Landlords were corrupt, the police force was discriminatory, and the education system was far from racially equal - examples of ingrained systemic racism persist in contemporary society, even forty years on. Alongside these institutional aggressions lay a more social de facto racism, seen through the rise of the far-right and other nationalist groups alongside the street violence which later ensued. Tensions peaked in London with the 1958 Notting Hill Race Riots between the British-Caribbean communities and The Teddy Boys attacked Caribbean communities, instigating mob violence through the vandalism of Caribbean properties and businesses and multiple physical assaults. play the racially-charged aspects central of the Notting Hill police force believed those involved in the riots were merely seizing an “opportunity to indulge in hootance to recognise the racially-motivated violence against Caribbean communities both institutionally, through fabricated police reports and propagandistic media coverage which misreported the events, as well as socially through the relentless and persistent acts of physical aggression and threat incited by the Teddy Boys and other white nationalist groups. These included the White Defense League and Oswald Moseley’s Union Movement, both of which were allowed to operate due to

an absent and systematically racist police force. The same London police force that didn’t fully recognise institutional racism until the late 1990s, some thirty years on, following the death of Stephen Lawrence in 1993 and the Macpherson Inquiry in 1997.

A precursor to what we now know as the annual Notting Hill Carnival, then called the Caribbean Carnival, was organised and run by Trinidadian activist Claudia Jones, in response to the riots. Jones set up the event to empower the black diaspora through means of education, art, culture, and positive racial representation.

Nearly sixty years on, London’s annual Notting Hill Carnival is still vibrant and alive and has grown to become Europe’s largest street party. Today, the event epitomises London’s summer and the August bank holiday weekend, marking recognition and a celebration of the culture and resilience of London’s West Indian community, an undoubted cornerstone of British history and culture. Although, the makeup of the event has changed, becoming more heavily policed, commercial-

Following the unprecedented events of COVID-19, Notting Hill Carnival 2020 was public from the pandemic while still keeping the tradition alive. Artists, musicians, political speakers, and dancers showcased their talents virtually to similarly empower and celebrate the event’s driving and resilient spirit. The annual event was set amidst the street protests following the death of George Floyd in America earlier in May. thousands gathered all over West London to protest against systemic racism and police brutality which remains prevalent in the UK. Criticised for potentially breaking COVID-19 laws by the Metropolitan Police, event organiser Ken Hinds issued a legal challenge and all charges were dropped due to its status as a political protest.

17th-century slave trader responsible for the transportation of over 84,000 enslaved people, was pushed into the city’s harbour, prompting the Topple the Racists movement. The movement’s website provides a map of all statues and monuments in Britain which celebrate slavery and racism, exposing Britain’s nostalgia for the colonial past and the icons belonging to it.

statues from BLM protesters. This far-right rage was incited by former leader of the English Defense League, Tommy Robinson, who in a viral video encouraged his farments. Far-right anger was further triggered by the defacement of a Winston Churchill statue in Parliament Square. It was grafthough Churchill was a known racist, white supremacist and social Darwinist who believed the British were “a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly numbers to London. This alleged defence of statues spilled into violence and aggression, with Tommy Robinson’s supporters racially abusing BLM protesters and causing violent chaos on the streets of London.

Britain has a complex history regarding race relations between the 1948 arrival of the Windrush and the 2018 Windrush scandal which saw many British citizens threatened with deportation by Theresa May’s Conservative government. From the street violence of the Teddy Boys to the destructiveness of Tommy Robinson and his far-right supporters. From the 1958 Notting Hill Race Riots and the policy brutality which followed to the 1993 Stephen Lawrence case which highlighted the same issues of police neglect and the media’s

Black Lives Matter protests were consequently held all over the UK and statues

nings of Claudia Jones’ indoor Caribbean Carnival to the now world-famous Notting Hill Carnival. Britain has had and contintionship regarding race, with historic events seemingly repeating themselves within our modern and allegedly progresive society.

were toppled or petitioned to be torn down.

In Bristol, a statue of Edward Colston, a

RHIANNON INGLE

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

23

MODERN WESTERN

MODERN WESTERN

FROM ROSA PARKS TO ROY HACKETT:

FROM WINDRUSH TO BLM: A (VERY) BRIEF HISTORY OF BRITISH RACE RELATIONS

In 1948, the MV Empire Windrush docked in sengers from the West Indies. They were

TRACING THE BRISTOL BUS BOYCOTT OF 1963 On hearing the phrase ‘bus boycott’, for most people, a certain plethora of images would spring to mind.. The determined Rosa Parks sitting next to a white passenger on the bus, white policemen conducting her subsequent arrest, Martin Luther King in his prime protesting on the streets of Montgomery, Alabama.

drive to recruit and enlist a Commonwealth workforce to help rebuild the country post-war by feeding into the labour of state-controlled services such as Transport for London (TfL) and the National Health Service (NHS). They were encouraged to

was the delyst that pushed Stephenson, Hackett and now Bailey into resisting their oppression,

and

into

example of resistance to oppression in modern Western history.

Replace those names and faces with the likes of Paul Stephenson, Guy Bailey and Roy Hackett. It’s probable that the they put a name to a face. And this is exactly the problem The Bristol Bus Boycott of 1963 has slipped out of mainstream modern history. It may be omnipresent in the minds of those who witnessed it upfront in Bristol, but is mostly absent from the minds of young historians and from school curriculums today, despite its position as one of the most symbolic moments in Black British history. This article aims to educate and shine a light upon the momentous event that is the Bristol Bus Boycott, and trace its origins to understand it further.

since the Windrush generation came to settle in big British cities during the late 1940s. The year before the boycott, there were around 3,000 African Caribbeans living in the poorer city centre did not receive the warm welcome they deserved, and were continually mistreated for years afterwards. Overt and covert racism, the bitterness of the Teddy Boys and ‘colour bars’, were what greeted Bristol’s Windrush generation and their descendants, and this enduring oppression over the decade arguably culminated in the organised protest that was the bus boycott.

The boycott of the buses commenced from April 1963, and theAfrican Caribbean community were joined by university students and other activists in city protests as well. It lasted for four months until the Bristol Omnibus Company conceded to mounting pressures from both the community and the press.

The events gained national and even international attention.

Tony Benn, the Labour MP for Bristol South East, helped to

to-be Prime Minister Harold Wilson, echoed Benn’s support, eventually lifted on August 28, the very same day that Marthe United States. Perhaps this is what makes the boycott most symbolic, and what is most regrettable about its erasure from mainstream history. The connection between Washington, and the West Country is wholeheartedly emblematic of the progress that was made for civil rights, across the globe.

The successes that stemmed from the dispute did not put an end to racial tensions and inequalities in Bristol, nor elsewhere. Systemic, institutionalised racism still prevails globally today. But the legacy and impact of the Bristol Bus Boycott did lead to legislative Race Relations Act of 1965, passed by new Labour Prime Minis-

The bus organisation in question was the popular, nationalised ‘Bristol Omnibus Company’. The Evening Post had exposed their racist policies in 1961, causing outrage throughout Bristol.

It was revealed that the company was adhering to a 1955 resolution, passed by the Bristol branch of the ‘Transport and General Workers Union’. This stated that ‘coloured’ people were banned from working as bus conductors and drivers, on the grounds that Black labour and the mixing of the races would limit productivity. The response was almost immediate. Having formed the ‘West Indian Development Council’ a few years before, activist the waters of the resolution, putting forward one of his pupils, 18 year-old Guy Bailey, for an interview at the bus company.

Bailey turned up to the interview and was immediately rejected on the grounds of his race, and the saddest fact of all was that it was perfectly within the manager’s legal rights to do so. This

1963. Discrimination on the grounds of race, and other factors, that preceded the boycott had been declared illegal. It was a parliamentary win for Paul Stephenson, Roy Hackett and others - and yet they understood that there was still work to be done.

Perhaps the events and protests in Bristol over the summer of 2020 can serve as an echo of the 1960s, in Britain and abroad.

It goes to show that resistance to oppression, whether that be in the form of boycotting or statue-toppling, can be successful, but also that the battle against racism will always persist. tasks, which has hopefully been tackled here, is to trace, historicise, and most of all remember, the iconic Bristol Bus Boycott.

EMILY HUNT 22

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

of Britain, being promised a better life and a higher standard of living upon arrival. This was far from true. Many were ostracised, excluded, and met with intense racial abuse from an unwelcoming and hostile Britain.

Hostilities manifested in a social and institutional sense. Landlords were corrupt, the police force was discriminatory, and the education system was far from racially equal - examples of ingrained systemic racism persist in contemporary society, even forty years on. Alongside these institutional aggressions lay a more social de facto racism, seen through the rise of the far-right and other nationalist groups alongside the street violence which later ensued. Tensions peaked in London with the 1958 Notting Hill Race Riots between the British-Caribbean communities and The Teddy Boys attacked Caribbean communities, instigating mob violence through the vandalism of Caribbean properties and businesses and multiple physical assaults. play the racially-charged aspects central of the Notting Hill police force believed those involved in the riots were merely seizing an “opportunity to indulge in hootance to recognise the racially-motivated violence against Caribbean communities both institutionally, through fabricated police reports and propagandistic media coverage which misreported the events, as well as socially through the relentless and persistent acts of physical aggression and threat incited by the Teddy Boys and other white nationalist groups. These included the White Defense League and Oswald Moseley’s Union Movement, both of which were allowed to operate due to

an absent and systematically racist police force. The same London police force that didn’t fully recognise institutional racism until the late 1990s, some thirty years on, following the death of Stephen Lawrence in 1993 and the Macpherson Inquiry in 1997.

A precursor to what we now know as the annual Notting Hill Carnival, then called the Caribbean Carnival, was organised and run by Trinidadian activist Claudia Jones, in response to the riots. Jones set up the event to empower the black diaspora through means of education, art, culture, and positive racial representation.

Nearly sixty years on, London’s annual Notting Hill Carnival is still vibrant and alive and has grown to become Europe’s largest street party. Today, the event epitomises London’s summer and the August bank holiday weekend, marking recognition and a celebration of the culture and resilience of London’s West Indian community, an undoubted cornerstone of British history and culture. Although, the makeup of the event has changed, becoming more heavily policed, commercial-

Following the unprecedented events of COVID-19, Notting Hill Carnival 2020 was public from the pandemic while still keeping the tradition alive. Artists, musicians, political speakers, and dancers showcased their talents virtually to similarly empower and celebrate the event’s driving and resilient spirit. The annual event was set amidst the street protests following the death of George Floyd in America earlier in May. thousands gathered all over West London to protest against systemic racism and police brutality which remains prevalent in the UK. Criticised for potentially breaking COVID-19 laws by the Metropolitan Police, event organiser Ken Hinds issued a legal challenge and all charges were dropped due to its status as a political protest.

17th-century slave trader responsible for the transportation of over 84,000 enslaved people, was pushed into the city’s harbour, prompting the Topple the Racists movement. The movement’s website provides a map of all statues and monuments in Britain which celebrate slavery and racism, exposing Britain’s nostalgia for the colonial past and the icons belonging to it.

statues from BLM protesters. This far-right rage was incited by former leader of the English Defense League, Tommy Robinson, who in a viral video encouraged his farments. Far-right anger was further triggered by the defacement of a Winston Churchill statue in Parliament Square. It was grafthough Churchill was a known racist, white supremacist and social Darwinist who believed the British were “a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly numbers to London. This alleged defence of statues spilled into violence and aggression, with Tommy Robinson’s supporters racially abusing BLM protesters and causing violent chaos on the streets of London.

Britain has a complex history regarding race relations between the 1948 arrival of the Windrush and the 2018 Windrush scandal which saw many British citizens threatened with deportation by Theresa May’s Conservative government. From the street violence of the Teddy Boys to the destructiveness of Tommy Robinson and his far-right supporters. From the 1958 Notting Hill Race Riots and the policy brutality which followed to the 1993 Stephen Lawrence case which highlighted the same issues of police neglect and the media’s

Black Lives Matter protests were consequently held all over the UK and statues

nings of Claudia Jones’ indoor Caribbean Carnival to the now world-famous Notting Hill Carnival. Britain has had and contintionship regarding race, with historic events seemingly repeating themselves within our modern and allegedly progresive society.

were toppled or petitioned to be torn down.

In Bristol, a statue of Edward Colston, a

RHIANNON INGLE

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

23

MODERN WESTERN

MODERN WESTERN

ECONOMIC WARFARE In the wake of Salvador Allende’s victory in the 1970 Chilean presidential election, an enraged President Nixon called CIA di-

their highly visible nature. In Vietnam, the

the results of the election fail, Nixon ordered Helms to take a new approach in Chile - to ‘make the economy scream’.

that cost thousands of American lives and destroyed support for leaders at home. nam was an abject failure, and the 1963 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba did nothing to impact Fidel Castro’s control of the island.

Three years later, Allende committed suicide as Chilean military forces descended upon the presidential palace in the coup of September 11, 1973. His replacement as leader of Chile was the commander of the armed forces, General Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet’s US-backed military junta embarked on a 25 year-long neoliberal dictatorship, characterised by extreme repression and economic despair.

Economic embargoes provided a very different approach. Thanks to their position on the global stage, and the importance of the American dollar in international trading, the US has been able to wage economic warfare against governments who do not align with their interests. Without the images of American soldiers invading and dying in a foreign land or the dramatic rise in defence budget needed to sustain a hot

likely to lead to greater poverty and desperation amongst the lower classes.

The hidden nature of economic blockades can often mean they are neglected in mainstream political discourse, particularly in the west. While some blockades, such as the one against Allende’s Chile, ers have lasted for decades. For example, the Caribbean island of Cuba has existed under an American economic blockade for the past sixty years, since Fidel Castro’s Communist Party came to power. Despite the harsh conditions, Cuba has managed to develop a society with strong healthcare and education, something lacking in many of its Caribbean neighbours.

Nevertheless, it is clear that the permaed the nation’s growth and prosperity.

The apparent goal of American blockades may be regime change, but the long-running nature of many of these consequence. Through the economic devastation of anti-American states, the US maintains its position as the global hegemon. All too often, socialist states are judged as failures, without recognising the economic chokehold placed upon them by the world’s largest superpower for large parts of their existence.

Despite not involving themselves militarily, as they had done previously in Vietnam, Korea, and Cuba, the United States had achieved their aim of destroying the democratic socialist government of Allende and replacing it with one more suited to their interests in Latin America. They had done this through a precise economdependent largely on copper exports to the US and other major partners. As a result the US had succeeded in turning popular opinion in Chile against Allende and sowing discontent among Chile is not the only nation that has felt the full force of America’s economic might. As the US tussled with the in the decades following the second world war, the economic blockade became an increasingly popular strategy among America’s key policy-makers.

Military interventions were costly and ran the risk of harming public opinion due to

24

war, American economic blockades have been able to avoid the domestic backWhere military interventions can lead villages and faceless soldiers massablockades are generally much less pronounced, yet no less sinister. Blockades can be a literal death sentence for many to America’s global dominance, the US can pressure other countries into ceasing relations with the impacted nation, leading to further economic isolation.

Often proclaimed by American policy-makers as a ‘humane’ option, economic blockades supposedly target bloodthirsty dictators who rule their peopoorest and most vulnerable people of a blockaded state that feel the greatest impact. In corrupt countries, an economic chokehold is unlikely to impact the elites of society, and is much more

These characteristics have allowed US economic embargoes to become a widely accepted and easily ignored part of global politics. In reality, they are perhaps the primary exertion of American power, and therefore need to be recognised and discussed in greater depth and detail.

Equally, the intersections of race and gender cannot be forgotten when analysing economic expressions of American imperialism. US blockades almost always target the global south, where people of colour, and particularly women of colour, will bear the brunt of whatever impact blockades have on their homeland.

Living inside the imperial core, it is important to develop cogent and audible criticism of American economic imperialism, which can so often go unnoticed in comparison to more visible forms of oppression. We are also able to put pressure on our own leaders through organising and protesting, as American blockades carry less weight without the support of the United Kingdom and other major capitalist powers. In essence, we should not ignore the human impact that such economic policies have, and we should who are hurt most by these blockades.

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

ZACHARY MACPHERSON

Q U E E R I N G E D U C AT I O N I N

BRAZIL

In Brazil, LGBTQ+ movements work to resist the discrimination experienced by our community. Annual reviews reveal a high and constant level of violence and lethal attacks, particularly targeted towards trans back against the violence, the focus here is to consider the impact of queering educational policies in Brazil during past decades.

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2010) by the Brazilian people since the Military Dictatorship (1964-1985). Receiving support from LGBTQ+ and feminist groups, together there was a push for national programmes against violence, discrimination, and inequities based on gender and sexuality. During this time (2006-2010), the Ministry for universities, NGOs, and charities to organise and deliver training on Gender, Sexuality and Diversity for teachers in state, alongside developing research, community-based interventions, and courses for teacher-trainees. This joint work between institutions, organisations and local governments was an efficient approach to improving outcomes for LGBTQ+ communities. However, actions were not always distributed equally across the country.

Consequently, in 2011, the Federal government introduced a new programme called School without Homophobia which aimed to distribute teaching materials and learning

resources for all state secondary and high schools. Unfortunately, the programme

years old. However, reports show that trans -

(2011-2016) before launching, due to lobbying from religious and conservative polment updated and reviewed the Gender, Sexuality and Diversity programmes more two times, 2012 and 2014.

their studies. Following years of pressure by trans movements, in 2018 the Nationals Human Rights and Education Councils recommended that schools and universities should recognise gender self-determination. That is also a formally guaranteed right

“ANNUAL REVIEWS REVEAL A HIGH AND CONSTANT LEVEL OF VIOLENCE AND LETHAL ATTACKS, PARTICULARLY TARGETED TOWARDS TRANS PEOPLE.” Meanwhile, during the last decade, LGBTQ+ movements have also created community-based preparatory courses for LGBTQ+ people who were unable to tion within the timeframe due to discrimination and violence experienced as students.

They studied for National Exams, which allow access to Federal and some State’s universities (which are free of fees due to their nature) and also for scholarships and loans for private and philanthropic universities. These initiatives also received support from universities, trade unions, professional associations, city councils, and left-wing politicians. Finally, some of those initiatives training, shelter for individuals in vulnerable situations, and social support.

Accessing Higher Education training is strategic for LGBTQ+ people. The Federal Constitution (1988) and the Education Law (1996) recommend job stability for workers in state’s institutions (including they cannot be dismissed because of their gender or sexuality. Professional stability would be one of the reasons why many LGBTQ+ people, despite experiences of discrimination, would return to education researchers.

Schools, indeed, could and should be spaces for protection and recognition. By law, local governments must guarantee a place in schools for children from 4 up to 17

in many regions through local regulations.

In the same year, the Brazilian Supreme Court ruled that trans adults can change however, this procedure still has expensive fees, thus it is not accessible for everyone.

At present, Brazil is under an extreme-right, neofascist, and conservative federal government, with many nefarious consequences.

The current president, Jair Bolsonaro, is supported by the same religious and conservative politicians and movements which cancelled the School without Homophobia Programme in 2011 and supported lence encountered by LGBTQ+ people is rising, while at the same time the government is dismantling the policies which have been working to reduce this. Worse, some parts of LGBTQ+ activism supports and even accepts positions in this government. Critical social movements, however, alliances look fundamental for resistance.

Since the rise of the extreme-right, they are organising support networks and communi-

producing campaigns, culture and arts, just and Brazilian LGBTQ+ movements are not ready to go back to the closet in schools and universities, not today, and not ever.

LUAN C. B. CASSAL

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

25

MODERN WESTERN

MODERN WESTERN

ECONOMIC WARFARE In the wake of Salvador Allende’s victory in the 1970 Chilean presidential election, an enraged President Nixon called CIA di-

their highly visible nature. In Vietnam, the

the results of the election fail, Nixon ordered Helms to take a new approach in Chile - to ‘make the economy scream’.

that cost thousands of American lives and destroyed support for leaders at home. nam was an abject failure, and the 1963 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba did nothing to impact Fidel Castro’s control of the island.

Three years later, Allende committed suicide as Chilean military forces descended upon the presidential palace in the coup of September 11, 1973. His replacement as leader of Chile was the commander of the armed forces, General Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet’s US-backed military junta embarked on a 25 year-long neoliberal dictatorship, characterised by extreme repression and economic despair.

Economic embargoes provided a very different approach. Thanks to their position on the global stage, and the importance of the American dollar in international trading, the US has been able to wage economic warfare against governments who do not align with their interests. Without the images of American soldiers invading and dying in a foreign land or the dramatic rise in defence budget needed to sustain a hot

likely to lead to greater poverty and desperation amongst the lower classes.

The hidden nature of economic blockades can often mean they are neglected in mainstream political discourse, particularly in the west. While some blockades, such as the one against Allende’s Chile, ers have lasted for decades. For example, the Caribbean island of Cuba has existed under an American economic blockade for the past sixty years, since Fidel Castro’s Communist Party came to power. Despite the harsh conditions, Cuba has managed to develop a society with strong healthcare and education, something lacking in many of its Caribbean neighbours.

Nevertheless, it is clear that the permaed the nation’s growth and prosperity.

The apparent goal of American blockades may be regime change, but the long-running nature of many of these consequence. Through the economic devastation of anti-American states, the US maintains its position as the global hegemon. All too often, socialist states are judged as failures, without recognising the economic chokehold placed upon them by the world’s largest superpower for large parts of their existence.

Despite not involving themselves militarily, as they had done previously in Vietnam, Korea, and Cuba, the United States had achieved their aim of destroying the democratic socialist government of Allende and replacing it with one more suited to their interests in Latin America. They had done this through a precise economdependent largely on copper exports to the US and other major partners. As a result the US had succeeded in turning popular opinion in Chile against Allende and sowing discontent among Chile is not the only nation that has felt the full force of America’s economic might. As the US tussled with the in the decades following the second world war, the economic blockade became an increasingly popular strategy among America’s key policy-makers.

Military interventions were costly and ran the risk of harming public opinion due to

24

war, American economic blockades have been able to avoid the domestic backWhere military interventions can lead villages and faceless soldiers massablockades are generally much less pronounced, yet no less sinister. Blockades can be a literal death sentence for many to America’s global dominance, the US can pressure other countries into ceasing relations with the impacted nation, leading to further economic isolation.

Often proclaimed by American policy-makers as a ‘humane’ option, economic blockades supposedly target bloodthirsty dictators who rule their peopoorest and most vulnerable people of a blockaded state that feel the greatest impact. In corrupt countries, an economic chokehold is unlikely to impact the elites of society, and is much more

These characteristics have allowed US economic embargoes to become a widely accepted and easily ignored part of global politics. In reality, they are perhaps the primary exertion of American power, and therefore need to be recognised and discussed in greater depth and detail.

Equally, the intersections of race and gender cannot be forgotten when analysing economic expressions of American imperialism. US blockades almost always target the global south, where people of colour, and particularly women of colour, will bear the brunt of whatever impact blockades have on their homeland.

Living inside the imperial core, it is important to develop cogent and audible criticism of American economic imperialism, which can so often go unnoticed in comparison to more visible forms of oppression. We are also able to put pressure on our own leaders through organising and protesting, as American blockades carry less weight without the support of the United Kingdom and other major capitalist powers. In essence, we should not ignore the human impact that such economic policies have, and we should who are hurt most by these blockades.

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

ZACHARY MACPHERSON

Q U E E R I N G E D U C AT I O N I N

BRAZIL

In Brazil, LGBTQ+ movements work to resist the discrimination experienced by our community. Annual reviews reveal a high and constant level of violence and lethal attacks, particularly targeted towards trans back against the violence, the focus here is to consider the impact of queering educational policies in Brazil during past decades.

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2010) by the Brazilian people since the Military Dictatorship (1964-1985). Receiving support from LGBTQ+ and feminist groups, together there was a push for national programmes against violence, discrimination, and inequities based on gender and sexuality. During this time (2006-2010), the Ministry for universities, NGOs, and charities to organise and deliver training on Gender, Sexuality and Diversity for teachers in state, alongside developing research, community-based interventions, and courses for teacher-trainees. This joint work between institutions, organisations and local governments was an efficient approach to improving outcomes for LGBTQ+ communities. However, actions were not always distributed equally across the country.

Consequently, in 2011, the Federal government introduced a new programme called School without Homophobia which aimed to distribute teaching materials and learning

resources for all state secondary and high schools. Unfortunately, the programme

years old. However, reports show that trans -

(2011-2016) before launching, due to lobbying from religious and conservative polment updated and reviewed the Gender, Sexuality and Diversity programmes more two times, 2012 and 2014.

their studies. Following years of pressure by trans movements, in 2018 the Nationals Human Rights and Education Councils recommended that schools and universities should recognise gender self-determination. That is also a formally guaranteed right

“ANNUAL REVIEWS REVEAL A HIGH AND CONSTANT LEVEL OF VIOLENCE AND LETHAL ATTACKS, PARTICULARLY TARGETED TOWARDS TRANS PEOPLE.” Meanwhile, during the last decade, LGBTQ+ movements have also created community-based preparatory courses for LGBTQ+ people who were unable to tion within the timeframe due to discrimination and violence experienced as students.

They studied for National Exams, which allow access to Federal and some State’s universities (which are free of fees due to their nature) and also for scholarships and loans for private and philanthropic universities. These initiatives also received support from universities, trade unions, professional associations, city councils, and left-wing politicians. Finally, some of those initiatives training, shelter for individuals in vulnerable situations, and social support.

Accessing Higher Education training is strategic for LGBTQ+ people. The Federal Constitution (1988) and the Education Law (1996) recommend job stability for workers in state’s institutions (including they cannot be dismissed because of their gender or sexuality. Professional stability would be one of the reasons why many LGBTQ+ people, despite experiences of discrimination, would return to education researchers.

Schools, indeed, could and should be spaces for protection and recognition. By law, local governments must guarantee a place in schools for children from 4 up to 17

in many regions through local regulations.

In the same year, the Brazilian Supreme Court ruled that trans adults can change however, this procedure still has expensive fees, thus it is not accessible for everyone.

At present, Brazil is under an extreme-right, neofascist, and conservative federal government, with many nefarious consequences.

The current president, Jair Bolsonaro, is supported by the same religious and conservative politicians and movements which cancelled the School without Homophobia Programme in 2011 and supported lence encountered by LGBTQ+ people is rising, while at the same time the government is dismantling the policies which have been working to reduce this. Worse, some parts of LGBTQ+ activism supports and even accepts positions in this government. Critical social movements, however, alliances look fundamental for resistance.

Since the rise of the extreme-right, they are organising support networks and communi-

producing campaigns, culture and arts, just and Brazilian LGBTQ+ movements are not ready to go back to the closet in schools and universities, not today, and not ever.

LUAN C. B. CASSAL

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

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NON-WESTERN AMERICAN

NON-WESTERN AMERICAN

THE MIRABEL SIS TERS: A S YMBOL OF R ES IS TAN C E RHIANNON CHILCOTT Between 1930 and 1961, Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina ruled the Dominican Republic under a regime that has often been described as one of the bloodiest in Latin America. The dictator created a cult of personality in the Caribbean naeven changing the name of the capital city Santo Domingo to Ciudad Trujillo. In this environment of severe oppression, the Mirabal sisters were a symbol of courage and resistance.

The three decades of Trujillo’s rule were characterised by fear and violence. In 1937, the dictator was responsible for the brutal massacre of thousands of Haitians along the Haitian-Dominican border in a racially fuelled attack intended to rid the nation of Haitian immigrants. Throughout the dictatorship, Trujillo’s extensive military intelligence service oppressed and controlled the Dominican population, with any action deemed to be subversive resulting in arrest and torture at one of the regime’s infamous prisons. The intelligence service was notorious for murdering its enemies and announcing the deaths in state controlled newspapers as road accidents or suicides.

The regime was also characterised by patriarchal power and machismo, and Trujillo used sex as a means of control. The wives of his collaborators, the daughters of those who had wronged him, and many young girls were forced into his bedroom, unable to refuse for fear that their families would be tortured and executed.

Trujillo’s spies closely watched the population during the 30 years of the regime, searching for the slightest hint of opposition. Even failing to display a portrait of the dictator in the home was considered subversive. In this environment the few attempts that were made to assassinate Trujillo were immediately shut down. However, underground resistance people.

Minerva, Patria, Dedé and María Teresa Mirabal were four Dominican sisters and political activists who played an important role in the underground resistance of the regime. Minerva, the most politically active of the four sisters, along with her husband, was a leader in the Movimiento Revolucionario 14 de junio (14th of June Revolutionary Movement), a resistance organisation planning for

26

an armed rebellion to oust the dictator. Her sisters, Patria and María Teresa also joined the movement after witnessing increased violence from the regime and Minerva’s commitment to the cause. They distributed pamphlets and transported and hid weapons for an eventual guerrilla movement. The sisters’ nom de guerre during their participation in the resistance was Las

1949 when she refused the sexual advances of the dictator at a party that she had been ordered to attend. She went on to study law at the University of Santo Domingo, but Trujillo denied her licence to practice because of her refusal. This was imprisoned multiple times for her involvement with the resistance. María Teresa was also arrested after joining the movement, along with her husband, Leandro Guzmán and Minerva’s husband, Manolo Tavárez Justo. national criticism of the regime, Trujillo is said to have confessed that he only had two political problems to resolve: the church, who had violence and injustices of the regime, and the Mirabal sisters.

On 25th November 1960, Minerva, Patria and María Teresa were driving home along the coast after visiting their husbands in prison when their car was intercepted, and they and their murdered by members of Trujillo’s intelligence service. Their bodies were put back into their road in an attempt to claim their murder was a road accident.

The murder of the Mirabal sisters was a turning point in the regime, and resistance increased in the months following their deaths. The Dominican population could not accept that the regime had murdered three women, particularly as the Mirabals had become a much loved symbol opposition to the regime led to the assassination of the Dominican dictator on 30th May 1961. His car was intercepted on the highway outside Santo Domingo by a group of former collaborators and he was shot and killed.

The Mirabal sisters were three among thousands of Dominicans who were murdered in the brutal 31-year rule of Rafael Trujillo, but their names became a symbol of the resistance and have been written into Dominican history for their courage and In 1994 she opened the Mirabal Sisters Museum in the house they grew up in in Salcedo Province, which has since been

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

LIBERATION THEOLOGY: A MARXIS T C HRIS TIANIT Y? JACK COLLICUTT “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the Marx on religion’s societal role criticises the masses’ self-generated addiction to religion, as a method of dealing with capitalist society’s brutal inequalities. As Peter Thompson argues, criticism of the church often accompanied criticism of structural injustice for Marxist scholars. With this regular association between religious institutions and entrenched hierarchies authoritarianism’s enemies in their advocacy for civic and poand its disregard for the poor? This article introduces liberation theology in South America.

The Catholic Church was implanted into South America in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries alongside the Spanish coa crucial role in exerting control over the continent’s indigenous people. The Pope and Vatican actively endorsed this violent expansion, issuing papal bulls to both Spanish and Portuguese kings, with associated territorial and ecclesiastical rights over demonstrates that the ultimate goal of “the extension of the violence and the extinguishing of indigenous cultures, beliefs and people. It was from these roots of Eurocentric political and cultural oppression that Reverend Gustavo Gutierréz, widely credited as founding liberation theology, saw many of South America’s contemporary socio-economic inequalities stemming from. In the book ‘A Theology of Liberation’, he highlighted South America’s unjust social structures as the source of its issues, also positing that his education in European theolowhere, at the time of publishing in 1973, sixty percent of the population lived in poverty.

The neoliberal reforms of the late twentieth century only exacerbated pre-existing inequalities, as a programme of economic liberalisation and free trade accompanied brutal authoritarianism and a suppression of dissident voices in the political sphere. Notable examples such as Pinochet’s Chile from 1973 to 1990, and Videla’s Argentinian junta from 1976 to 1981, essentially acted as testing sites for the economic policies designed by Milton Friedman’s ‘Chicago Boys’ at the University of Chicago. The infamous ‘Operation Condor’, a United Statesbacked campaign of state violence against political dissidents, accompanied this neoliberal turn, and consumed South America. As many as 60,000 people were killed from its establishment on the 25th of November 1975- Pinochet’s 60th birthday.

Within this context, liberation theologians carried out numerous grass-roots actions, centred primarily around the creation of ‘base communities’. These local Christian groups intertwined religious education and discussion with the provision of parishioners’ immediate needs, such as water, food, and electricity.

The example of the health program introduced within base communities in Nova Iguaçu, Brazil, demonstrates the transformative role of these bottom-up structures which could respond

social responsibility extended also to marginalised indigenous groups throughout the continent. Victims to electoral exclusion, military abuses and exclusion from public services, liberation theologians aided tribes such as the Gurupa and Tapeba in Brazil in developing stronger bases for collective activism and munity’ being mobilised to resist a move for land expropriation challenged by an asymmetrical balance of power, liberation theology devised and delivered on a framework for community activism which was sorely lacking prior to its creation.

However, the relationship between these liberation theologians and the hierarchy of the Catholic Church was one often characterised by tension. The Vatican itself has until recently played

also objected to the intertwining of Marxist class-struggle analysis and religion, with the later Pope Benedict XVI desig-

with the Pinochet regime, The Church’s siding with Nicaraguan dictator Somoza Debayle, or the current Pope Francis’ aiding of an Argentinian Navy project to hide political prisoners from a human rights delegation- in his own holiday home- the institutional Church throughout this period of dictatorship was often deeply complicit. This demonstrates the extent to which liberation theologians acted in contravention of an unjust status quo at great personal risk.

This history of grassroots resistance to authoritarianism and a desire to address issues of inequality and poverty is arguably as important in some South American nations today as it was historically. The Red Eclesial Pan Amazónica forum held in the Vatican last year to discuss the destruction of the Amazon and the indigenous communities who inhabit it was criticised by supporters of the far-right President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, as a gathering of “meddlesome lib country’s security service Abin has been mobilised to monitor priests who attended. Such disproportionate responses to an attempt to give agency to the marginalised in a sense exemplify the movement’s relevance, as one piece of the complex South America.

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

27

NON-WESTERN AMERICAN

NON-WESTERN AMERICAN

THE MIRABEL SIS TERS: A S YMBOL OF R ES IS TAN C E RHIANNON CHILCOTT Between 1930 and 1961, Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina ruled the Dominican Republic under a regime that has often been described as one of the bloodiest in Latin America. The dictator created a cult of personality in the Caribbean naeven changing the name of the capital city Santo Domingo to Ciudad Trujillo. In this environment of severe oppression, the Mirabal sisters were a symbol of courage and resistance.

The three decades of Trujillo’s rule were characterised by fear and violence. In 1937, the dictator was responsible for the brutal massacre of thousands of Haitians along the Haitian-Dominican border in a racially fuelled attack intended to rid the nation of Haitian immigrants. Throughout the dictatorship, Trujillo’s extensive military intelligence service oppressed and controlled the Dominican population, with any action deemed to be subversive resulting in arrest and torture at one of the regime’s infamous prisons. The intelligence service was notorious for murdering its enemies and announcing the deaths in state controlled newspapers as road accidents or suicides.

The regime was also characterised by patriarchal power and machismo, and Trujillo used sex as a means of control. The wives of his collaborators, the daughters of those who had wronged him, and many young girls were forced into his bedroom, unable to refuse for fear that their families would be tortured and executed.

Trujillo’s spies closely watched the population during the 30 years of the regime, searching for the slightest hint of opposition. Even failing to display a portrait of the dictator in the home was considered subversive. In this environment the few attempts that were made to assassinate Trujillo were immediately shut down. However, underground resistance people.

Minerva, Patria, Dedé and María Teresa Mirabal were four Dominican sisters and political activists who played an important role in the underground resistance of the regime. Minerva, the most politically active of the four sisters, along with her husband, was a leader in the Movimiento Revolucionario 14 de junio (14th of June Revolutionary Movement), a resistance organisation planning for

26

an armed rebellion to oust the dictator. Her sisters, Patria and María Teresa also joined the movement after witnessing increased violence from the regime and Minerva’s commitment to the cause. They distributed pamphlets and transported and hid weapons for an eventual guerrilla movement. The sisters’ nom de guerre during their participation in the resistance was Las

1949 when she refused the sexual advances of the dictator at a party that she had been ordered to attend. She went on to study law at the University of Santo Domingo, but Trujillo denied her licence to practice because of her refusal. This was imprisoned multiple times for her involvement with the resistance. María Teresa was also arrested after joining the movement, along with her husband, Leandro Guzmán and Minerva’s husband, Manolo Tavárez Justo. national criticism of the regime, Trujillo is said to have confessed that he only had two political problems to resolve: the church, who had violence and injustices of the regime, and the Mirabal sisters.

On 25th November 1960, Minerva, Patria and María Teresa were driving home along the coast after visiting their husbands in prison when their car was intercepted, and they and their murdered by members of Trujillo’s intelligence service. Their bodies were put back into their road in an attempt to claim their murder was a road accident.

The murder of the Mirabal sisters was a turning point in the regime, and resistance increased in the months following their deaths. The Dominican population could not accept that the regime had murdered three women, particularly as the Mirabals had become a much loved symbol opposition to the regime led to the assassination of the Dominican dictator on 30th May 1961. His car was intercepted on the highway outside Santo Domingo by a group of former collaborators and he was shot and killed.

The Mirabal sisters were three among thousands of Dominicans who were murdered in the brutal 31-year rule of Rafael Trujillo, but their names became a symbol of the resistance and have been written into Dominican history for their courage and In 1994 she opened the Mirabal Sisters Museum in the house they grew up in in Salcedo Province, which has since been

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

LIBERATION THEOLOGY: A MARXIS T C HRIS TIANIT Y? JACK COLLICUTT “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the Marx on religion’s societal role criticises the masses’ self-generated addiction to religion, as a method of dealing with capitalist society’s brutal inequalities. As Peter Thompson argues, criticism of the church often accompanied criticism of structural injustice for Marxist scholars. With this regular association between religious institutions and entrenched hierarchies authoritarianism’s enemies in their advocacy for civic and poand its disregard for the poor? This article introduces liberation theology in South America.

The Catholic Church was implanted into South America in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries alongside the Spanish coa crucial role in exerting control over the continent’s indigenous people. The Pope and Vatican actively endorsed this violent expansion, issuing papal bulls to both Spanish and Portuguese kings, with associated territorial and ecclesiastical rights over demonstrates that the ultimate goal of “the extension of the violence and the extinguishing of indigenous cultures, beliefs and people. It was from these roots of Eurocentric political and cultural oppression that Reverend Gustavo Gutierréz, widely credited as founding liberation theology, saw many of South America’s contemporary socio-economic inequalities stemming from. In the book ‘A Theology of Liberation’, he highlighted South America’s unjust social structures as the source of its issues, also positing that his education in European theolowhere, at the time of publishing in 1973, sixty percent of the population lived in poverty.

The neoliberal reforms of the late twentieth century only exacerbated pre-existing inequalities, as a programme of economic liberalisation and free trade accompanied brutal authoritarianism and a suppression of dissident voices in the political sphere. Notable examples such as Pinochet’s Chile from 1973 to 1990, and Videla’s Argentinian junta from 1976 to 1981, essentially acted as testing sites for the economic policies designed by Milton Friedman’s ‘Chicago Boys’ at the University of Chicago. The infamous ‘Operation Condor’, a United Statesbacked campaign of state violence against political dissidents, accompanied this neoliberal turn, and consumed South America. As many as 60,000 people were killed from its establishment on the 25th of November 1975- Pinochet’s 60th birthday.

Within this context, liberation theologians carried out numerous grass-roots actions, centred primarily around the creation of ‘base communities’. These local Christian groups intertwined religious education and discussion with the provision of parishioners’ immediate needs, such as water, food, and electricity.

The example of the health program introduced within base communities in Nova Iguaçu, Brazil, demonstrates the transformative role of these bottom-up structures which could respond

social responsibility extended also to marginalised indigenous groups throughout the continent. Victims to electoral exclusion, military abuses and exclusion from public services, liberation theologians aided tribes such as the Gurupa and Tapeba in Brazil in developing stronger bases for collective activism and munity’ being mobilised to resist a move for land expropriation challenged by an asymmetrical balance of power, liberation theology devised and delivered on a framework for community activism which was sorely lacking prior to its creation.

However, the relationship between these liberation theologians and the hierarchy of the Catholic Church was one often characterised by tension. The Vatican itself has until recently played

also objected to the intertwining of Marxist class-struggle analysis and religion, with the later Pope Benedict XVI desig-

with the Pinochet regime, The Church’s siding with Nicaraguan dictator Somoza Debayle, or the current Pope Francis’ aiding of an Argentinian Navy project to hide political prisoners from a human rights delegation- in his own holiday home- the institutional Church throughout this period of dictatorship was often deeply complicit. This demonstrates the extent to which liberation theologians acted in contravention of an unjust status quo at great personal risk.

This history of grassroots resistance to authoritarianism and a desire to address issues of inequality and poverty is arguably as important in some South American nations today as it was historically. The Red Eclesial Pan Amazónica forum held in the Vatican last year to discuss the destruction of the Amazon and the indigenous communities who inhabit it was criticised by supporters of the far-right President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, as a gathering of “meddlesome lib country’s security service Abin has been mobilised to monitor priests who attended. Such disproportionate responses to an attempt to give agency to the marginalised in a sense exemplify the movement’s relevance, as one piece of the complex South America.

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

27

NON-WESTERN AMERIC AN HISTORY

NON-WESTERN AMERIC AN HISTORY

BOOK REVIEW: ‘PASSION OF THE PEOPLE’ BY TONY MASON Many European football fans view South America as the ultimate embodiment of football as much more than just a game, with incredible fan culture and intimate relationships between football and politics. In Passion of the People (1994), Tony Mason seeks to study the origins of the beautiful game in the continent and examine the accuracy of this romanticised depiction.

In Brazil, where attendances were as high as 70,000 by 1940, leading clubs excluded the working and middle-classes from the sport. Mason describes how Fluminese led the way, aiming for football to be ‘separate’ from ‘social and economic life’ and vesting power in wealthy members, however, put pressure on elites while the growth of professional footballers – who were overwhelmingly working-class – fought for pensions and via unions. Therefore, football was viewedby politicians as such as General Pinochet as Chile went as league going. Mason argues that

football changed from a site of oppression and elitism to resistance and populism. He emphasises that it ‘did not become part of popular culture without struggle’,noting attempts to exclude workers and black people from the game.

The key question is whether football can be truly labelled as the passion of the people, in a continent where dictators and the media have been keen to sustain this image for popularity and sales respectively. This narrative is absorbed by European audiences. For Mason, the people of South America are clearly more ‘football-mad’ than anywhere else in the world. In Argentina,

He references a Brazilian cartoon where a group of hungry supporters are bewildered when they are served a football instead of food by the chef. It’s the ultimate example of how football can unite everyone for 90 minutes but in between, fans – like everyone else – are not blind to reality.

In a continent that suffers from high levels of poverty, racism and American imperialism, it is no wonder that football, which can be played barefoot in the street as well as in packed out international stadia, has captured the imaginations of so many.

JAMIE GREER

CHILDLESS MOTHERHOOD In this oppressive climate, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo demanded answers to the whereabouts of their disappeared

political and ideological dissidents of the junta. General Iberico Saint Jean, governor of the Buenos Aires Province encapsulates the bloodthirsty nature of the regime “First, we will kill all the

Vincenti and 14 mothers of desaparecidos gathered in the public square outside the presidential palace in Buenos Aires. Wearing white scarves embroidered with their children’s names and ernment ban on gatherings of more than three people to bring the disappearance of their children and other desaparecidos to public attention. Protesting weekly, the Mothers gained national attention through word of mouth, and international recognition which prompted an InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights report. The report brought to light illegal detention centres, torture, and clandesties committed against the disappeared.

Compounding the systematic murder of an estimated 30,000 individuals, the state abused its power to erase the documents and identities of its victims, the desaparecidos (the disappeared). By indiscriminately targeting all perceived enemies of the state and censoring the media, the junta regime created an atmosphere of terror, hoping to break the bonds of solidarity to ensure its survival.

28

group to protest against the human rights violations of the junta.

Despite selling few paintings during her lifetime, feminist icon Frida Kahlo continues to be widely celebrated for her boundary-pushing work. Through her art, most notably her self-portraits, Kahlo created images of female beauty which diverged from early twentieth outlet to share personal trauma, exploring taboo themes from a raw, feminist perspective. Kahlo’s depictions of herself are an empowering example of a woman publicly expressing her own image, independent of patriarchal constructions. Her brand of activism drew on concepts popularised during emergence of second-wave feminism, highlighting Kahlo as a true progressive.

Physical trauma punctuated Kahlo’s life.

She endured operations, numerous miscarriages, and abortions due to compli-

long banners would span one half of the stadium, while the ‘barras bravas’ would confront the opposition fans opposite to create intimidating atmospheres. It is easy to portray football as merely an ‘opiate of the people’, used by the elites to keep everyone distracted from such worries, releasing ‘intense emotions not provided by the daily routine’.

After three previously unsuccessful attempts, the Argentine military overthrew the internally divided Peron government as part of the US-backed Operation Condor, and established a military junta in March 1976. Thus began the National Reorganization Process– the

FRIDA KAHLO

Mothers worked with teams of geneticists to test the DNA of discovered bodies in order to identify them and undo the erasure imposed by the regime. Moreover, the new democraticgovernment started to collect testimonies about the disappeared and prosecuted ex-me bers of the regime, commencing with the Trial of the Juntas in 1985.There have since been over 1,000 trials on the human rights abuses during the junta regime, resulting in 700 sentences.

Motherhood and gender issues were central to this movement, and the success of the Mothers is more remarkable when considering the male dominated military regime they were protesting against. By incorporating their identity as mothers into the struggle against oppression, they opened new ways into civic participation and challenged the notion of female passivity, all while being committed to, and in some cases, achieving their cause: justice for their children. is-

Since the end of the regime in 1983, the

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

LAUREN KELLY

injuries sustained in a life-threatening bus accident. It was during the long initial recovery from this accident that Kahlo began to focus on painting. Much of her work centred on these experiences of physical and emotional pain, prominently her inability to have chil-

1940 Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair, which shows her in a man’s suit holding scissors, her freshly cut hair on

dren, which plagued her until her death in 1954. Her piece The Broken Column particularly highlights some of these themes. In this painting Kahlo depicts herself in barren terrain, her semi-nude

clearest expression of Kahlo’s rejection temporary Mexican culture placed huge value upon long hair. It seems apparent that Kahlo felt constrained by strict social constructs of gender, usingher work to openly challenge them. Frida

penetrated by a Romanesque column. This self-portrait is frequently interpreted as representing Kahlo’s experiences of pain. Many of her other works, for example My Birth, highlight exclusively female experiences of pain. This foregrounding of both pain and the physical form may suggest a belief that feminine identity is largely shaped by

through her work, drawing from deeply personal experience to create pieces that women can relate to generations after her lifetime. She boldly strayed from gendered norms, depicting her own body on her own terms. Arguably, it is the progressiveness and continued relevance of her work that is key to Kahlo’s iconic status. Her unapologetic self-expression certainly proves a persistent inspiration for modern feminists.

Art was a medium through which Kahlo was able to celebrate her idea of feminine beauty, highlighting characteristics that patrichalsociety deemed undesirable. Heavily involved in politics from her youth, she was uncomfortable with Mexico’s traditional cultural conceptions of gender, and transgressed from them in her personal life and art. Sexual ambiguity was a central theme in Kahlo’s work, most famously expressedthrough the exaggeration of her monobrow and facial hair in self-portraits. Gender subversion is especially clear within her

G RO U P S / C A M PA I G N S

DECOLONISE UOM The voices of thousands of students in Manchester are silenced by the colossal capitalist machine that was built upon the graves of Black lives. The wellbeing and lives of these students are at the whims of the landlords and the vulture capitalists of academia. Manchester is feeling the barbaric power that Her Majesty’s State imposes upon her royal subjects: in this pandemic, she is turning in onto itself, and she is attacking the very citizens she once disgustingly deemed as of a higher caste than those that makes the body attack its own organs.

What is exactly the goal of Decolonise UoM in this epoch of postcolonial and neocolonial relations and literature across the global political economy?

It is more than just education of the University of Manchester’s historical along colonial lines, both inside the ‘core’ of England and the ‘periphery’

29

of Africa, Asia and South America. As Dinu Ratnasinghe recently wrote on the Decolonisation of the curriculum at Manchester, “A successful and sustainable involve the creation of an exhaustive is extremely important in the process of decolonisation: the racial master/ slave dialectic must be overcome. This means to destroy the coloniser/colonised dynamic that manifests itself in everyday, interpersonal interactions. Science cannot escape the manifestation of master/ slave dialectic: Iqra Choudhry writes, “To me, Science was something cold, clinical, and removed from the world outside of the lab. Science was ‘objective’ and far as I was concerned. And why would

CATHERINE CUNNINGHAM The labour of the academic is stolen at an alarmingly increasing rate, while productivity skyrockets every year that we continue to trace power along colonial lines. It is not enough to topple the colonial statues that cast a dreary shadow over our university, we must stand by those at risk of becoming victims of barare indispensable to education. University bureaucracy, which reproduces old still fueled by (post)colonial cash, is still perfectly functioning today. COVID-19 has not broken the university bureaucracy, for it functions by constantly breaking of rent and tuition fees.

But this machine is not without its leakages! We, at Decolonise UoM, are one bureaucracy. Through education, and

The labour of the academic is stolen at an alarmingly increasing rate, while productivity skyrockets every year that we

through radical reading, we can change the fuel of this engine and create a more sustainable university for all.

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

NON-WESTERN AMERIC AN HISTORY

NON-WESTERN AMERIC AN HISTORY

BOOK REVIEW: ‘PASSION OF THE PEOPLE’ BY TONY MASON Many European football fans view South America as the ultimate embodiment of football as much more than just a game, with incredible fan culture and intimate relationships between football and politics. In Passion of the People (1994), Tony Mason seeks to study the origins of the beautiful game in the continent and examine the accuracy of this romanticised depiction.

In Brazil, where attendances were as high as 70,000 by 1940, leading clubs excluded the working and middle-classes from the sport. Mason describes how Fluminese led the way, aiming for football to be ‘separate’ from ‘social and economic life’ and vesting power in wealthy members, however, put pressure on elites while the growth of professional footballers – who were overwhelmingly working-class – fought for pensions and via unions. Therefore, football was viewedby politicians as such as General Pinochet as Chile went as league going. Mason argues that

football changed from a site of oppression and elitism to resistance and populism. He emphasises that it ‘did not become part of popular culture without struggle’,noting attempts to exclude workers and black people from the game.

The key question is whether football can be truly labelled as the passion of the people, in a continent where dictators and the media have been keen to sustain this image for popularity and sales respectively. This narrative is absorbed by European audiences. For Mason, the people of South America are clearly more ‘football-mad’ than anywhere else in the world. In Argentina,

He references a Brazilian cartoon where a group of hungry supporters are bewildered when they are served a football instead of food by the chef. It’s the ultimate example of how football can unite everyone for 90 minutes but in between, fans – like everyone else – are not blind to reality.

In a continent that suffers from high levels of poverty, racism and American imperialism, it is no wonder that football, which can be played barefoot in the street as well as in packed out international stadia, has captured the imaginations of so many.

JAMIE GREER

CHILDLESS MOTHERHOOD In this oppressive climate, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo demanded answers to the whereabouts of their disappeared

political and ideological dissidents of the junta. General Iberico Saint Jean, governor of the Buenos Aires Province encapsulates the bloodthirsty nature of the regime “First, we will kill all the

Vincenti and 14 mothers of desaparecidos gathered in the public square outside the presidential palace in Buenos Aires. Wearing white scarves embroidered with their children’s names and ernment ban on gatherings of more than three people to bring the disappearance of their children and other desaparecidos to public attention. Protesting weekly, the Mothers gained national attention through word of mouth, and international recognition which prompted an InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights report. The report brought to light illegal detention centres, torture, and clandesties committed against the disappeared.

Compounding the systematic murder of an estimated 30,000 individuals, the state abused its power to erase the documents and identities of its victims, the desaparecidos (the disappeared). By indiscriminately targeting all perceived enemies of the state and censoring the media, the junta regime created an atmosphere of terror, hoping to break the bonds of solidarity to ensure its survival.

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group to protest against the human rights violations of the junta.

Despite selling few paintings during her lifetime, feminist icon Frida Kahlo continues to be widely celebrated for her boundary-pushing work. Through her art, most notably her self-portraits, Kahlo created images of female beauty which diverged from early twentieth outlet to share personal trauma, exploring taboo themes from a raw, feminist perspective. Kahlo’s depictions of herself are an empowering example of a woman publicly expressing her own image, independent of patriarchal constructions. Her brand of activism drew on concepts popularised during emergence of second-wave feminism, highlighting Kahlo as a true progressive.

Physical trauma punctuated Kahlo’s life.

She endured operations, numerous miscarriages, and abortions due to compli-

long banners would span one half of the stadium, while the ‘barras bravas’ would confront the opposition fans opposite to create intimidating atmospheres. It is easy to portray football as merely an ‘opiate of the people’, used by the elites to keep everyone distracted from such worries, releasing ‘intense emotions not provided by the daily routine’.

After three previously unsuccessful attempts, the Argentine military overthrew the internally divided Peron government as part of the US-backed Operation Condor, and established a military junta in March 1976. Thus began the National Reorganization Process– the

FRIDA KAHLO

Mothers worked with teams of geneticists to test the DNA of discovered bodies in order to identify them and undo the erasure imposed by the regime. Moreover, the new democraticgovernment started to collect testimonies about the disappeared and prosecuted ex-me bers of the regime, commencing with the Trial of the Juntas in 1985.There have since been over 1,000 trials on the human rights abuses during the junta regime, resulting in 700 sentences.

Motherhood and gender issues were central to this movement, and the success of the Mothers is more remarkable when considering the male dominated military regime they were protesting against. By incorporating their identity as mothers into the struggle against oppression, they opened new ways into civic participation and challenged the notion of female passivity, all while being committed to, and in some cases, achieving their cause: justice for their children. is-

Since the end of the regime in 1983, the

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LAUREN KELLY

injuries sustained in a life-threatening bus accident. It was during the long initial recovery from this accident that Kahlo began to focus on painting. Much of her work centred on these experiences of physical and emotional pain, prominently her inability to have chil-

1940 Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair, which shows her in a man’s suit holding scissors, her freshly cut hair on

dren, which plagued her until her death in 1954. Her piece The Broken Column particularly highlights some of these themes. In this painting Kahlo depicts herself in barren terrain, her semi-nude

clearest expression of Kahlo’s rejection temporary Mexican culture placed huge value upon long hair. It seems apparent that Kahlo felt constrained by strict social constructs of gender, usingher work to openly challenge them. Frida

penetrated by a Romanesque column. This self-portrait is frequently interpreted as representing Kahlo’s experiences of pain. Many of her other works, for example My Birth, highlight exclusively female experiences of pain. This foregrounding of both pain and the physical form may suggest a belief that feminine identity is largely shaped by

through her work, drawing from deeply personal experience to create pieces that women can relate to generations after her lifetime. She boldly strayed from gendered norms, depicting her own body on her own terms. Arguably, it is the progressiveness and continued relevance of her work that is key to Kahlo’s iconic status. Her unapologetic self-expression certainly proves a persistent inspiration for modern feminists.

Art was a medium through which Kahlo was able to celebrate her idea of feminine beauty, highlighting characteristics that patrichalsociety deemed undesirable. Heavily involved in politics from her youth, she was uncomfortable with Mexico’s traditional cultural conceptions of gender, and transgressed from them in her personal life and art. Sexual ambiguity was a central theme in Kahlo’s work, most famously expressedthrough the exaggeration of her monobrow and facial hair in self-portraits. Gender subversion is especially clear within her

G RO U P S / C A M PA I G N S

DECOLONISE UOM The voices of thousands of students in Manchester are silenced by the colossal capitalist machine that was built upon the graves of Black lives. The wellbeing and lives of these students are at the whims of the landlords and the vulture capitalists of academia. Manchester is feeling the barbaric power that Her Majesty’s State imposes upon her royal subjects: in this pandemic, she is turning in onto itself, and she is attacking the very citizens she once disgustingly deemed as of a higher caste than those that makes the body attack its own organs.

What is exactly the goal of Decolonise UoM in this epoch of postcolonial and neocolonial relations and literature across the global political economy?

It is more than just education of the University of Manchester’s historical along colonial lines, both inside the ‘core’ of England and the ‘periphery’

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of Africa, Asia and South America. As Dinu Ratnasinghe recently wrote on the Decolonisation of the curriculum at Manchester, “A successful and sustainable involve the creation of an exhaustive is extremely important in the process of decolonisation: the racial master/ slave dialectic must be overcome. This means to destroy the coloniser/colonised dynamic that manifests itself in everyday, interpersonal interactions. Science cannot escape the manifestation of master/ slave dialectic: Iqra Choudhry writes, “To me, Science was something cold, clinical, and removed from the world outside of the lab. Science was ‘objective’ and far as I was concerned. And why would

CATHERINE CUNNINGHAM The labour of the academic is stolen at an alarmingly increasing rate, while productivity skyrockets every year that we continue to trace power along colonial lines. It is not enough to topple the colonial statues that cast a dreary shadow over our university, we must stand by those at risk of becoming victims of barare indispensable to education. University bureaucracy, which reproduces old still fueled by (post)colonial cash, is still perfectly functioning today. COVID-19 has not broken the university bureaucracy, for it functions by constantly breaking of rent and tuition fees.

But this machine is not without its leakages! We, at Decolonise UoM, are one bureaucracy. Through education, and

The labour of the academic is stolen at an alarmingly increasing rate, while productivity skyrockets every year that we

through radical reading, we can change the fuel of this engine and create a more sustainable university for all.

J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 T H E M A N C H E S T E R H I S T O R I A N

E ditors S a rah Cundy K i r st e n MacDo n ald H e a d s of D esign M e g a n Han n afo rd M a rto n Jasz D e s ign Team Fr e ya Ja ckso n -D uffy Fr e ya Ke nnedy Harper R e b e c c a B ou lto n S ya n a Wibowo H e a d s of Marketin g E l e a n or Tho mpso n Pa l lav R oy

Heads of O nline Hannah Speller Har r y Eddy Heads of Copyedit ing Philippa Terry Erin Taylor Copyedit ing Team Eleanor Maher Geor gia McGee Elysia Heitm ar Natasha Par sons Tillie Quattrone Abraham Ar m str ong