The Rise and Fall of Non-Aligned Mediation, 1961–6

From its inception, the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) considered itself to be a moderating force in the cold war and in the post-colonial world. In September 1961, in the wake of the Belgrade Conference and at the height of the Berlin crisis, it dispatched emergency missions to Washington and Moscow, with Sukarno and Keita journeying to Washington and Nehru and Nkrumah flying to Moscow. Yet, by the decade's end, the movement had moved away from that mission. Paying particular attention to key turning points of the mid-1960s such as the 1964 Congo crisis and the Americanisation of the Vietnam War, this paper interprets the abandonment of cold war mediation as a product of the Vietnam War, rising anti-colonial sentiment, and organised non-alignment's corresponding shift toward a more militant stance on the world stage. This shift helped to foster a newly antagonistic relationship between the United States and the NAM.     

The Rise and Fall of ‘Mediterranean Atlanticism’ in Italian Foreign Policy: the Case of the Near East

The article aims at studying the reasons for the new way of looking at the Palestinian-Israeli conflict by the Italian political world: the mutual recognition of Israel and the Vatican, the visit to Jerusalem by the leader of the formerly fascist party, Mr. Gianfranco Fini, and the beginnings of a movement of interest towards the Jewish State also within the political left. From a historical viewpoint, anti-Semitism in Italy found its origins in the Church's attitude toward the ‘deicide people’. Beginning with WWI, to this position was added the worry that the Holy Places might fall under Jewish control. From those times dates the Holy See's evermore manifest liking for the Arab populations of Palestine. Nowadays the line of conduct of the Church has as its basic objective the defense of Christian minorities in the Middle East, and for this reason it maintains dialogues with all actors in the region. The weight of the Church influenced also the attitude of the Italian State, even though from its inception the latter had to make adjustments because of other international requirements. This multiple subordination caused the different republican governments to always keep an official equidistant stance among the conflicting parties in the Near East. Behind this apparent neutrality, however, the feelings of benevolence for the Arab countries and the Palestinians have gradually intensified. Italian leaders have been trying to conduct a Mediterranean policy on the borders of the Western alliance, and their feelings have been oriented in consequence. During the 1970s, the governments went as far as to conclude a secret pact with Palestinian terrorists, to avoid terror acts on the Peninsula in exchange for some freedom of action. And in the mid-eighties the Craxi government did not hesitate to challenge the US in order to guarantee the continuity of that line of conduct. On that occasion Craxi, speaking in Parliament, compared Arafat to Mazzini. The end of the Yalta-established order has modified the traditional data of Italian foreign policy. However, the increased attention paid to Israel has also other causes: the changed attitude of the Church after the civil war and the Syrian occupation in Lebanon, events which both caused difficulties for the consistent Christian minorities; the hope that the Oslo process could reward the Italian ‘clear-sightedness’; last, but not least, the quarrelsome internal politics that make the Palestine conflict a mirror of the Roman conflicts. Lastly, the article connects the recent goodwill for Israel with the threats of Islamic terrorism in Italy. A political opinion trend would revisit the Middle Eastern conflict as the upturned perspective of a ‘clash of civilizations’ already existent nowadays. And a possible act of terrorism in Italy might give to this opinion a mass basis.     

The Rise and Fall of Hicky's Bengal Gazette (1780–2): A Study in Transoceanic Political Culture

The rise and fall of Hicky's Bengal Gazette (1780–82), India's first printed newspaper, is a narrative of prime importance to the history of Indian newspapers, and such is the context within which it has invariably been written. Previous works have approached Hicky's Gazette in a somewhat teleological and insular manner. These accounts have ignored the significance of foreign news among its content and fail to acknowledge Hicky's appropriation of political rhetoric from other parts of the British Empire. Through the contents of Hicky's Gazette we find Calcutta residents engaged in a transoceanic political discourse, criticising ‘nabobs’ with all the ferocity of the metropolitan British press; claiming the freedoms of Englishmen in common cause with the discontented, not only in Britain, but also in Ireland and America; and participating in discussions to regulate the governance of the East India Company through petitions of grievances. In the circulation of Hicky's paper throughout the presidencies and in the contributions of pseudonymous writers we find a platform for the politically discontented among the European community of Bengal whose voice is otherwise muted amidst the Francis-Hastings disputes and the steady stream of ‘official’ information between Calcutta and London.