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.     

The Information Research Department,British Covert Propaganda,and the Sino-Indian War of 1962: Combating Communism and Courting Failure?

Britain's post-war interventions in former colonial territories remain a controversial area of contemporary history. In the case of India, recent releases of official records in the United Kingdom and South Asia have revealed details of British government anti-communist propaganda activity in the subcontinent during the Cold War period. This article focuses attention on covert or unattributable propaganda conducted in India by the Foreign Office's Information Research Department (IRD). It specifically examines the 1960s: a time between the outbreak of the Sino-Indian border war in 1962, and the Indian general election of 1967, when IRD operations peaked. The Indian government welcomed British support in an information war waged against Communist China, but cooperation between London and New Delhi quickly waned. Britain's propaganda initiative in India lacked strategic coherence, and cut across the grain of local resistance to anti-Soviet material. The British Government found itself running two separate propaganda campaigns in the subcontinent: one focused on Communist China, and declared to the Indian government; and a second, secret programme, targeting the Soviets. In this context, Whitehall found it difficult to implement an integrated and effective anti-communist propaganda offensive in India.     

The City Evita Built. Cinematic Childhood and Peronism in Luis César Amadori’s Soñemos (1951)

This article examines the under-studied film productions known in Peronist Argentina as “docudramas”. Placing documentary elements within a fictional plot, docudramas marked a significant change in the state propaganda machine and were used as a new vehicle to influence social habits. I focus particularly on Soñemos [Let’s Dream], a short film directed in 1951 by Luis César Amadori to showcase urban reforms. Through an analysis of Amadori’s docudrama in regard to its representation of the Children’s City built by the Eva Perón Foundation, I discuss relationships between entertainment, the constitution of a political hegemony, and modernisation. With film techniques such as the dissolve, Soñemos depicts the Children’s City as an enterprise capable of delivering material happiness and amplifies the narrative of a fairy tale come true promised by Evita’s social service programmes. Ultimately, the docudrama affirms the central role played by the state in the definition of the “right to a home” – from supportive benefactor to constitutive replacement.     

The Battle of Sha’iba, 1915: Ottomanism,British Imperialism and Shia Religious Activism during the Mesopotamian Campaign

This article analyses relations among the Ottoman Empire, British imperialism and Shia religious proto-nationalism in the period before and after the battle of Sha’iba of 1915, one of the pivotal engagements of the Mesopotamian campaign. It illustrates how the narrow victory of the British at the battle led them to draw a number of over-optimistic conclusions regarding their role in Iraq and their ability to co-opt the Arabs of the province against their ‘Turkish’ overlords. The victory at Sha’iba and in particular the ambivalent role played by a number of the Arab mujahidin volunteers led the British to conclude that there had never been any real enthusiasm for the jihad declared by the Ottomans against the British occupiers. However, this was based on the false perception that lack of commitment to Ottomanism could be equated with sympathy for British imperialism. In particular, the British failed to recognise that the Ottoman summons to jihad had strengthened the developing forms of Shia proto-nationalist consciousness led by various mujtahids influenced by the Iranian Constitutional Revolution.     

Show solidarity,live solitarily: the Nazi ‘New Europe’ as a ‘family of peoples’

Abstract

This chapter first investigates how the German Nazis used the term ‘European solidarity’ and demonstrates that the term meant political loyalty between European ‘peoples’ (Völker) in National Socialist discourses. Second, assuming that the Nazis’ objective in showing solidarity with or demanding loyalty from other nations was to increase strength in what they believed to be a conflict with ‘international Jewry’, it examines the logic of the Nazis behind including other European countries into their own camp in that conflict. It will be argued that the Nazis developed a sense of belonging with non-German Europeans based on three ideas: (1) the racist myth that all Europeans belonged to the ‘Aryan race’; (2) a Europe-wide consensus of the extreme Right on anti-Communism, antisemitism, and anti-democratic and ultra-nationalist worldviews; and (3) the existence of cross-border relations within Europe which led to shared experiences. The article draws on primary sources as well as on secondary literature about National Socialist concepts of Europe and about transnational academic, cultural and social relations in the National Socialist sphere of influence.     

Attlee,Bevin, and Political Warfare: Labour's Secret Anti-Communist Campaign in Europe, 1948–51

Clement Attlee's Labour Government oversaw the emergence of a vigorous anti-Communist discourse and the establishment of an anti-Soviet Western alliance in the early Cold War. In January 1948, the Prime Minister authorised the Information Research Department to launch a political warfare offensive designed to combat the spread of Communism in Europe. Two years later, against the wishes of his Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, Attlee set up a high-level interdepartmental committee to oversee the subversion of the Soviet Union's position in Eastern Europe. These developments forced Whitehall to re-fight the bureaucratic battles of the Second World War over who actually controlled covert warfare. Bevin, like his predecessor Anthony Eden, fought unsuccessfully to maintain exclusive ownership of national security strategy in this area. Attlee ended his monopoly by making a rare but significant intervention in his Foreign Secretary's domain in the search for a new central machine to fight the Cold War.     

Steel of Victory,Scrap of Defeat: Mobilizing the French Home Front, 1939–40

This article traces the implementation, execution, and results of the French Ministry of Armaments’ scrap iron collection drive from September 1939 to June 1940. This collection drive was a belated effort to mobilize patriotic sentiment and raw materials for France’s war effort. By the late 1930s, the French government realized that it did not have — and, more importantly, would not be able to acquire — enough metal to meet ambitious armament plans. In September 1939, Raoul Dautry, the Minister of Armaments, began moving toward a controlled economy by setting up central distribution organizations, preventing the movement of stocks, and organizing the national scrap drive, modelled, in part, on Germany. Despite a rural distrust of the state and cases of individuals hoarding metal, most people responde­d to the call. Yet logistical difficulties in finances, manpower, and transportation hampered efforts. By May 1940, half of the 85,000 tons collected remained piled on the platforms of railway stations. With the invasion, the Germans immediately confiscated this metal. With the defeat of France, this failed drive came to symbolize France’s defeat and humiliation, as well as the impotence of the Third Republic.     

广播电视宣传与新农村建设

作为大众传媒的广播电视,在推进社会主义新农村建设过程中,承载着引导正确舆论导向,营造良好舆论氛围的重大政治责任。为此,广播电视媒体要按照新农村建设的要求,明确宣传思路,把握宣传主题,充分发挥好广播电视媒体对新农村建设的宣传作用。     

An analysis of Islamic State’s Dabiq magazine

This article analyses Dabiq magazine to explore the strategic logic of Islamic State (IS) appeals to English-speaking Muslims. It offers the field a conceptual framework through which to analyse IS’s communications strategy and a top-down empirical study of Dabiq’s contents. This paper argues that Dabiq appeals to its audiences by strategically designing in-group identity, Other, solution and crisis constructs which it leverages via value-, crisis- and dichotomy-reinforcing narratives. By fusing identity- and rational-choice appeals, IS provides its audiences with a powerful ‘competitive system of meaning’ that is designed to shape its readership’s perceptions, polarise their support and drive their radicalisation.     

From Propaganda to ‘Information’: Reforming Government Communications in Britain

Since the 1980s, several studies of post-war British propaganda have been published. While many of these have focused on developments abroad, some have explored domestic work carried out under the auspices of the Central Office of Information. Established in 1946, the Central Office of Information provided a range of services to government departments, including advertising and public opinion polling, but it was just part of a wider system of official communications that has tended to attract less attention in the historiography. Reorganised by Clement Attlee’s post-war Labour governments, this system was presented to the public as a means of disseminating impartial and apparently non-controversial ‘facts’ about government policy. Few commentators today accept that justification, but little is known about why it emerged after the Second World War or what impact it had on existing communications machinery. Taking a broad view of the subject that considers the inter-war and wartime antecedents to the post-war communications system, this paper seeks to fill in some of the gaps that have emerged in the literature. Focusing on shifts in official nomenclature and departmental practice, it explores the relationship propaganda shared to government policy and its broader legacy in the twentieth century.