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.     

从“良渚全考古”到“良博全展示”——以良渚博物院2018年改陈策展为例

良渚考古工作历经八十余年,考古内涵不断丰富,考古价值不断提升,已进入到"良渚全考古"时代,是边发现、边研究、边保护、边利用、边传承的模式。2018年良渚博物院改陈,进入"良博全展示"阶段。现有的展览全面展示良渚考古成果,全面呈现良渚文化内涵,全面阐释良渚文明价值,全面解读良渚遗存信息。良渚的展示除了依靠文物本身或图文所呈现和传递的信息,还采用过程性展示、功能性展示、复原性展示、对比性展示、演变性展示、场景性展示等多种手段,多角度、全方位地解读和展示遗物,力图将良渚文物的故事讲清楚、讲明白。     

Judaism and communism: Hanukkah,Passover, and the Jewish Communists in Mandate Palestine and Israel, 1919–1965

This article explores the mythological, ritualistic, and symbolic aspects of the ways in which the festivals of Hanukkah and Passover were celebrated by the Jewish Communists in Mandate Palestine and the State of Israel. It illustrates how elements of Zionist-socialist culture were adopted by Jewish Communists and integrated in their cultural activities. In a gradual process starting in the1920s and culminating in the mid-1960s, the Jewish Communists created a combination of Marxist ideology and Zionist-socialist cultural practices. However, when a group of young Sabra activists reinforced the Zionist-socialist elements, the balance was undermined, contributing to the rift within Israeli communism.     

清末两级地方自治中的官治与自治模式

清末地方自治包括府厅州县和城镇乡地方自治两个层级,并建构了两个层级不同的官治与自治模式,即在城镇乡一级实行"以自治辅助官治",而府厅州县则实行"自治与官治合并"之制度。两种模式都借鉴了日本自治制度,但都有所不同。就清末城镇乡地方自治的运行来看,由于地方自治章程赋予官府监督自治之权,也由于自治团体为谋求地方利益,常常也会与官府对立,所以,官治与自治常常处于矛盾冲突之中。     

‘And now imagine her or him as a slave,a pitiful slave with no rights’: child forced labourers in the culture of remembrance of the USSR and post-Soviet Ukraine

This article examines the various components of the image of Soviet children, who were deported to Nazi Germany during the Second World War to perform forced labour, within the culture of remembrance of the USSR and post-Soviet Ukraine. In her analysis, the author emphasises that throughout the Soviet period the topic of forced labour had mostly instrumental significance and was used for a variety of propaganda tasks: during the war, to mobilise the population to struggle against the enemy; in its aftermath, to underscore and contrast the essence and policies of the post-war Western ‘democracies’ and the USSR; and, from the late 1960s, to accuse capitalist countries, above all the Federal Republic of Germany, of preparing for undertakings such as a new war or an arms race. With the collapse of the USSR, the Ostarbeiters' ‘territory of memory’ enlarged dramatically. In the new climate of democratic transformation, there were socio-legal initiatives which aimed to regulate the status of forced labourers, and the first steps were taken towards institutionalising Ostarbeiter associations. This, in turn, facilitated the process of analysing the construction and presentation of the image of the child Ostarbeiter on the level of state-legal regulation, institutional support, public interest and scholarly research that is taking place in contemporary Ukraine.     

Political chess and vernacular discursive strategies: A study of the late Qing Sichuan Railway Protection Movement

ABSTRACT

Interdisciplinary literary and historical studies of late Qing vernacular are rare, and the vernacular texts of the Sichuan Railway Protection Movement have been overlooked by academics. This paper focuses on this topic, arguing that the discursive strategies in such texts revolved around the movement's aim of “breaking the agreement and protecting the railway,” and primarily included discourses on constitutionalism, financial interests, patriotism, cultural order, and the late emperor, as well the ideas of “ridding the emperor of evil ministers,” borrowed from traditional Chinese political discourses, and “national subjugation,” within the context of the national crisis. None of these discourses were “anti-Manchu” or “revolutionary,” yet they were able to mobilize the people of Sichuan to devote themselves to the Railway Protection Movement, as well as attracting the “sympathetic understanding” of high-ranking Sichuan officials, such as Wang Renwen 王人文 and Zhao Erfeng 赵尔丰, thus lending discursive power to the railway protection camp in its game of political chess with the Qing court. Meanwhile, the government's weak discursive power was an important factor in the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty by the revolutionary tide triggered by the Sichuan Railway Protection Movement. The discursive strategies in vernacular texts on railway protection (including the particularly strategic discourse on the late emperor) spread, transformed, and were reborn to varying degrees over the course of history.     

DEPROVINCIALIZING THE STUDY OF EUROPEAN IDEAS: A CRITIQUE

Though the fourteen contributors to this volume bring varied perspectives on method, most striking is their common engagement with contextualist approaches. While some of the essays advocate a temporally and spatially extended, renewed history of ideas with debts to Arthur Lovejoy, and are critical of excessive contextualization, several either defend contextualism, or the culture concept, or offer a more robust materialist foundation for the history of thought and culture. This review focuses on the logic and metaphors used to criticize contextual methods and highlights problems with both the new history of ideas and the new materialist gestures.     

略论安徽地区的岳石文化遗存

安徽地区的岳石文化遗存可分为分布区和影响区。皖北中北部地区可归入其分布区,命名为南城孜类型,皖西北亳州可归入安邱堌堆类型。沿淮及江淮中部一带为岳石文化的影响区,岳石文化的影响南界徘徊于江淮分水岭南北两侧。岳石文化对南部的影响通过江淮东部、江淮中部和皖西北三条路径来实现。皖北地区岳石文化的相对衰落可归因于环境问题带来的人口减少。     

Sugar Consumption,Dental Health and Foodways in Late Medieval Iin Hamina and Early Modern Oulu,Northern Finland

This article examines the modernization of northern Finnish food culture, especially in 17th- and 18th-century urban Oulu, by applying the methods of archaeology and history research. During the 17th century, the food culture was still quite conservative. Coffee, sugar, wheat flour, and fruit began entering the diet of affluent northern Finnish people from the 18th century onwards. The food culture of Oulu inhabitants is studied by comparing dental material retrieved from Oulu Cathedral graveyard to data obtained from historical document sources. A comparison point to the early modern bone material of Oulu is provided by late Middle Ages material from Ii, which lies north of Oulu on the coast of the Gulf of Bothnia. Carbohydrate consumption is related to many dental conditions, such as caries and calculus, which can be traced in archaeological human skeletal remains. The diets of males and females, as well as the diets of adults and children, are compared, in order to retrieve information on the emerging consumption of sugar in different groups, such as gender and age groups. The relationship between carbohydrate consumption and class identity in northern Finland is discussed.     

Teaching energy geography? It’s complicated

The premise of this essay is that energy geographies are complicated, and this in itself presents some pedagogical difficulties. As someone who wants students to critically examine and confront the complexity of energy systems, it can be frustrating when students react to demonstrate frustration, apathy, or even confusion. In what follows, I will lay out three complications of teaching energy geography: (1) empirical complexity, (2) confronting fossil fuel “embeddedness,” (3) the energy culture fallacy.