Anton Dumitriu,the ‘Axiomatic Culture’ and the ‘Crisis of the West’

Anton Dumitriu (1905–92) was a Romanian philosopher and logician who attempted to develop the more or less consistent theory of an ‘axiomatic’ tradition, referring to culture and civilisation in the ‘East’ (defined actually as Far East) vs. the ‘West’ (mainly Europe, both Western and East-Central) especially in the inter-war and post-war periods. Dumitriu's essays on Romanian culture or on Eastern vs. Western culture as published in his book Eleatic and Heraclitic Cultures (1987) will make the object of this study. This work is a revised version of his East and West (1943). It should be noted that most of the material discussed here is actually still available only in Romanian since Dumitriu's work on Logic is already translated into English, but his musings on culture and civilisation are available only in Romanian and are, consequently, almost unknown outside the country. This study attempts to make up for that and also to connect Dumitriu's views on culture and civilisation or East and West both to earlier Romanian views and currents in defining culture as well as to contemporary general European trends, while also taking into account the context of the Communist regime in which the second edition of his book was issued.     

‘Britishness’, Colonial Governance and Education: St Helenian Children in Colonial Natal in the 1870s

This article considers understandings of ‘Britishness’ in the Natal colony in the 1870s. Focusing on St Helenian children’s expulsion from ‘government’ schools that were ostensibly open to all racial groups, the article shows how competing definitions of race and ‘Britishness’ shaped the responses of colonial officials, settlers and the St Helenian community to the expulsion. The white settler population in Natal was concerned about St Helenian economic migrants’ inclusion in white, English society. In particular, the ambiguous racial status of St Helenians was seen as potentially harmful to white children. The focus on a group of recent incomers to the colony uncovers a process of racialisation unfolding in the context of migrations within the British Empire. The case highlights how movement and migration within the empire could bring these definitions of race and Britishness into conversation and conflict with each other.     

‘Gathered on the Point of a Bayonet’: the Negara Pasundan and the Colonial Defence of Indonesia, 1946–50

ABSTRACT

This article examines the rise of the Negara Pasundan, or Pasundan State: a distinct polity in West Java that was run by the Sundanese - with Dutch consent - during the Indonesian War for Independence (1945–9). The argument engages with several debates connected to decolonisation, examining colonial violence and its perpetrators, loyalty, and the often neglected role of indigenous agency. In contrast with cases where colonial coercion brought local elites and militias to the defence of the European authorities, Sundanese leaders themselves chose to support the Dutch. This support, however, should never be mistaken for loyalty to the Dutch or their empire. Rather, the Sundanese leadership unilaterally renegotiated the Dutch-Sundanese alliance as soon as the fortunes of war shifted. To safeguard the political future of their negara, the Sundanese proved willing to side with the party that initially set out to destroy them and the Dutch: the Republik Indonesia.     

Reassessing the ‘Crisis of Faith’ in the Victorian Age: Eclecticism and the Spirit of Moral Inquiry

This article examines both recent scholarship in the field of Victorian religion and conviction alongside new research on secularization that have cast doubt on an older historical narrative about the ‘crisis of faith’ and the ‘triumph’ of the secular. My discussion challenges the emergence of an alternative narrative of crisis that focuses on the ‘crisis of doubt’ rather than the ‘crisis of faith’. In particular, it answers the recent work of Timothy Larsen who argues that many past (and some present) approaches to Victorian religious culture have overemphasized doubt at the expense of considering enduring forms of Christian religiosity. By reappraising the career histories of the radical secularists (notably, Annie Besant) that Larsen uses to support his thesis, I test some of the key assumptions and conclusions of his influential account. My analysis questions the positioning of faith and scepticism as polar opposites and the usefulness of the idea of ‘crisis’ when examining either belief or doubt. Changes in individuals' convictions and practices might be better seen as part of their life-long quest for an all-embracing morality.     

‘Impressions of Weird Fate’: Revision and Crisis in ‘The Lady of Shalott’

Alfred Tennyson disliked the engraving of ‘The Lady of Shalott’ produced by William Holman Hunt for the 1857 Moxon edition of Tennyson’s Poems, accusing the artist of taking too many liberties in depicting the Lady’s hair and the threads of her weaving as ‘wildly tossing’ around her. This essay traces the histories of both Hunt’s image and Tennyson’s text, arguing that the poet’s objection is grounded in the fact the engraving reproduces the fierce agency that characterizes the Lady in Tennyson’s 1832 original but not his 1842 revision. That pattern of revision, I suggest, reflects the poet’s distress over the 1833 death of his beloved friend Arthur Hallam and is motivated by his new ways of thinking, in the wake of that catastrophe, about the crisis of desire and the perpetual trauma of communication between the living and the dead.     

From ‘Landsman’ to ‘Seaman’? Colonial discipline,organisation and resistance in the Royal Indian Navy, 1946

In February 1946, 20,000 sailors of the Royal Indian Navy (RIN) mutinied over a number of grievances, from the poor quality of their food to demands for an independent India. Drawing on archival research in the UK and India, this paper uses this event, together with an examination of life in the RIN more generally, to explore how colonial discipline was organised and resisted in specifically maritime ways. By examining the practices and organisational structures of the RIN which attempted to discipline sailors, and in turn how these were resisted and negotiated, it is argued that the spatial politics of life in the Navy created distinctly maritime social and cultural relations. These maritime, naval understandings of space and place add to our understandings of the ways in which colonialism worked in practice. The paper therefore not only adds to work about colonialism's attempts to discipline and order its subjects but also contributes to debates on the geographies of the sea.     

Bakhtin,Boredom, and the ‘Democratization of Skepticism’

This article examines recent scholarly work on boredom by drawing on Mikhail Bakhtin’s account of modernity, irony, and mass skepticism. In The Arcades Project, Walter Benjamin noted that, beginning in the 1840s, Western societies had been gripped by an “epidemic of boredom.” He was referring to a peculiarly modern form of mass boredom, associated with the “atrophy of experience” in a mechanized and urbanized social life—a boredom Elizabeth S. Goodstein has characterized as the “democratization of skepticism.” Although Bakhtin says little about “boredom” directly, he probes the sociocultural conditions that give rise to it. Bakhtin, for example, celebrates the liberatory and egalitarian promise of modern vernacular speech, which displays a healthy suspicion of “monotonic” qualities of elite genres, and which springs not from the pulpit or the palace, but from the street, the marketplace and the public square. Bakhtin is concerned about the nihilistic implications of this disenchantment of the world and the threats it poses—indifference, reification and alienation—to the “participative” mode of social life he favours.     

‘Zero Plus Zero Plus Zero’: Pakistan,the Baghdad Pact,and the Suez Crisis

The Suez crisis of 1956 created a grave challenge to the fledgling Baghdad Pact. Each of the four Muslim members of the alliance, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, and Turkey, faced domestic pressures to withdraw after the United Kingdom joined Israel and France in attacking Egypt. For the Pakistani government, the crisis came at an important juncture in its national development. After a decade of championing pan-Islamic causes, Pakistani foreign policy had, by 1955, shifted to a much more openly pro-Western position, highlighted by Pakistan's joining ofboth the Baghdad Pact and the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization. The Suezcrisis threatened to undermine this new policy and the fragile coalition government led by Prime Minister Suhrawardy. After an initial period of equivocation, Suhrawardy emerged as a staunch defender of the Baghdad Pact, hoping to save his government, but in the process opening deep rifts within his own party.     

Tibetan livelihoods and the ‘Great Development of the West’:Modernization,pastoral resources,and the ‘urban future’ of the grasslands

1.Introduction Rural livelihoods in Tibet2 have,during the last fifteen years,undergone fast and profound processes of economic transformation and state-led modernization,both in the TAR and the Eastern parts of the Tibetan plateau.Local life styles have changed at a pace rarely seen in an area where people subsisted,until the late 1990s,almost entirely on nomadic mobile livestock production.New local socio-economic structures with peculiar characteristics have emerged.They include the decline of traditional livestock-based (mobile) pastoralism;the emergence of a ‘post-pastoral’ economy based on the extraction of medicinal fungi for Chinese and international markets;and the emergence,often from below,of new arrangements governing rangeland access and usage.     

A ‘Half-hearted Response’?: Canada and the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962

Whereas previous studies of Canada's actions during the Cuban Missile Crisis have argued that Ottawa was a half-hearted ally of the United States, recently released documents provide far different conclusions. Seeking to complement previous works, which are focused largely on military events, this study shows how Canadian diplomats responded to the crisis and sought to support their vital ally in the events of October and November 1962.     

Revisiting Bula Matari and the Congo Crisis: Successes and Anxieties in Belgium’s Late Colonial State

It is the era of decolonisation in central Africa: angry mobs in the streets; authorities struggling to contain agitation by communists and other subversives; reports of Africans strangled to death or dragged behind cars by European settlers; whites arming themselves. One might presume these scenes of disorder and abuse took place during the Congo crisis from 1960 to 1965, when events appeared to spin out of control in central Africa. In fact, they occurred during the years after the Second World War, when Belgians seemed to have affairs well in hand in their central African colony. The Congo crisis is almost always viewed in sharp contrast to the peaceful era that preceded it—as if the lifting of Belgian rule unleashed chaos—and the relative stability post-1965 that came with the Mobutu dictatorship. There is broad agreement that Congo’s independence was a fiasco, with the former colonial ruler, Belgium, largely to blame. This essay argues that the Belgian authorities were not as in control as has been believed. Historians have known for years now that things were not as rosy as they might have seemed at the time, in the years leading up to independence in 1960, but recently available archival documents reveal the situation was even more fluid than previously thought. Bula Matari was not as far-reaching as believed, and many controls signalled a nervousness inherent in the late colonial state more than they did its strength. Reports by administrators reveal a lack of domination in the 1950s and underlying tensions in the colony, even conflicts. The public impression that Belgians had affairs well in hand is due in part to post-Second World War propaganda depicting an idyllic Congo. Belgians wanted to build support for colonialism, bolster their authority, forestall foreign interference and combat their own anxieties. Images produced persuaded many that the Congo was more peaceful than it was. The shock at independence ought to be attributed less to events unfolding as of June 1960 and more to the impressions of tranquillity projected by the authorities beforehand.     

‘Operation Legacy’: Britain’s Destruction and Concealment of Colonial Records Worldwide

The end of the British Empire in the mid-twentieth century was accompanied by a large-scale rearrangement of sensitive colonial records worldwide. A great number of these records were destroyed and a sizeable portion sent to Britain to be kept secret. This article advances studies of this policy, eventually code-named ‘Operation Legacy’, by reading the ‘migrated archives’ that have been newly discovered and declassified in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) 141 series. It asks where the policy was decided, for what reason and how it was carried out. Sources suggest that the policy was not planned in the Colonial Office in London and delivered to the colonies in a hierarchical fashion, but, rather, significant elements of the policy were developed in the colonial governments overseas in response to each local context. The general idea was to save Britain’s honour and to protect its collaborators. However, the limitations in terms of time and manpower often prevented the officers from putting sufficient thought into the actual screening of the documents. At the same time, some officers demonstrated a level of historical awareness regarding their actions. The episode reminds us that the official mind as it relates to decolonisation is to be understood not only by reference to the highest levels of strategic planning but also in terms of how it worked at the lower levels, in the colonial administrations on the ground.     

‘Martial Races’ and ‘Imperial Subjects’: Violence and Governance in Colonial India, 1857–1914

This essay explores the specificity of colonial violence in India. Although imperial and military historians are familiar with several instances of such violence—notably the rebellion in 1857 and the 1919 massacre at the Jallianwalla Bagh in Amritsar—there is a broader, and arguably more significant, history that has largely escaped attention. In contrast to metropolitan European states, where sovereignty derived, at least in principle, from a covenant between subjects and government, the sovereign power of the colonial state was always predicated on the violent subjugation of ‘the natives’. However, while violence was integral to colonialism, such violence was never a purely metropolitan agency: most of those recruited to serve in the colonial military were, themselves, Indian. Exploring the history of the imperial military in South Asia after 1857, the paper outlines the complex and rather ambiguous relationship between the colonial state and its ‘native armies’.

résumé ?Cet article se penche sur la spécificité de la violence coloniale. Malgré des exemples familiers—comme la grande révolte de 1857 en Inde ou le massacre de Jallianwalla Bagh à Amritsar en 1919—il y a une histoire plus large et plus importante qui a échappée à l'attention des historiens. Contrairement aux états européens ou la souveraineté dérivait en principe du moins d'un contrat social entre les acteurs sociaux, le pouvoir souverain de l'état colonial restait fondé sur la subjugation violente des indigènes.     

Salutary Lessons: Native Police and the ‘Civilising’ Role of Legalised Violence in Colonial Australia

Over much of the nineteenth century, recurring problems of covert and opportunistic conflict between settlers and Indigenous peoples produced considerable debate across the British settler world about how frontier violence could be legally curbed. At the same time, the difficulty of imposing a rule of law on new frontiers was often seen by colonial states as justification for the imposition of order through force. Examining all the mainland Australian colonies from the 1830s to the end of the nineteenth century, this paper asks how this contradictory dilemma played out through deployment of ‘native police’ and the ‘civilising’ role of legalised violence as a strategy for managing the settler frontier. In light of wider debate about a humanely administered empire, Australia’s first native police force established in New South Wales in 1837 was conceived as a measure that would assist in the conciliation and ‘amelioration’ of Aboriginal people. In the coming decades, other Australian colonies employed native police either as dedicated forces or as individual assistants attached to mounted police detachments. Over time, the capacity they held to impose extreme violence on Aboriginal populations in the service of protecting pastoral investments came to reflect an implicit acceptance that punitive measures were required to bring order to disorderly frontiers.

By tracing a gradual shift in the perceived role of native police from one of ‘civilising’ Aboriginal people to one of ‘civilising’ the settler state itself, this paper draws out some of the conditions under which state-sanctioned force became naturalised and legitimated. It concludes that, as an instrument of frontier management, native policing reflected an enduring problem for Australia’s colonial governments in reconciling a legal obligation to treat Aboriginal people as subjects of the crown with a perceived requirement to bring them under colonial authority through the ‘salutary lessons’ of legalised violence.