A paper I had to redo (due to data loss, on my new laptop of all things), this work - while hastily rewritten and rearranged - was one of my favorites to research. I hope you like it, or get something from it, maybe.
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Law and the Role of Religion:
Historical Explanations,
Constitutional Goals
and Contemporary Analysis
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Introduction
The role of religion in influencing a nation’s practice of law can vary grandly. This is made doubly so when a country’s history has a deeply religious nature – especially when its Constitution states that it is a secular state. Saudi Arabia, for instance, utilizes the centuries-old Islamic religious law of shari’ah in dictating the basic statutes of its legal structure and proceedings; other religions are treated harshly and effectively banned from public. For years, Argentinean legal policy was heavily influenced by outside Catholic influences and semi-religious political parties were openly persecuted by the forces of dictator Juan Peron until the ascension of reformist President Raul Alfonsin in 1983, prompting a secularization of laws and a non-religious reimagining of the country’s Constitution. While officially secular, the legal system of India has no definitive “wall of separation” which pushes apart religion and the state; thus, the state interacts with different religious organizations and centers on a consistent legal level. Finland deals with religion in a liberal fashion, expressing the legal importance of religious freedom while at the same time endorsing a special relationship with the Finnish Orthodox Church.
Through a display and analysis of these and other examples of religion’s impact on national law, especially in pertinence to a country’s Constitution, proper comparisons between states can be made and the reasons for why these differences have emerged may be examined properly.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: Theocratic Courts
The starkest example of religion as indicative of the law’s treatment of an individual is Saudi Arabia, a staunchly conservative Islamic state which utilizes Sunni Islam-oriented Shari’ah law in determining the results of legal cases. The Saudi Constitution is, strikingly, the text of the Islamic holy book known as the Qur’an. This point alone is quite indicative of the role of religion in determining the judicial legacy of the state. The Hanbali fiqh of Shari’ah is put to use in Saudi courts as a means of determining, in a semi-inquisitorial way, the violations put forth by a suspect against the country’s religious law. Executed by religiously-trained judges with relatively little input from lawyers or defendants, Saudi courts use Islamic law as a means of regulating the private lives of the country’s subjects. Punishments are derived from sometimes centuries-old Islamic sources and are considered archaic or slanted by many, including international observer organizations such as the Human Rights Watch.
Saudi Arabia’s penchant for Shari’ah can be explained through an analysis of its formation and its intermingling with religious fundamentalists known as “Wahhabis”. Since the formation of Islam, the Arabian Peninsula had always been a place of conservative views due to the homogenous nature of peninsular Bedouin society and the isolation experienced by nomadic Muslims. The original Saudi state was a small tribal power in central Najd, a desert region of the modern nation, headed by Saudi patriarch Muhammad ibn Sa’ud. Sa’ud joined forces with Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab, a religious fundamentalist imam who had been ejected from another settlement due to his extreme conservatism, and began to strike out against those Muslims they considered non-orthodox. After the movement was quashed by the Ottoman Empire, the Saudi state remained stagnant until the turn of the twentieth century when Sa’ud’s descendent Abdul Aziz ibn Sa’ud began to use Ottoman funds to rally those remaining Wahhabi forces to reassert their power over the Najdi region and eventually the western Arabian region known as the Hedjaz. Conservative Muslims from across the Arabian Peninsula joined the burgeoning state, promoting views which would later be codified into Saudi law. Ibn Sa’ud’s utilization of conservative Islam as a rallying point for jihad , and as a central pillar for the formation of a state, laid the foundation for the propagation of strict Islamic law in modern-day Saudi Arabia.
Those defendants within Saudi Arabia that are non-Sunni Muslims, such as the country’s Shi’ah Muslim minority or the sizeable number of non-Muslim foreign workers from both the West and Asia, are either afford a slight degree of religious autonomy in determining the results of less serious cases or must submit fully to Saudi Shari’ah courts despite their religious standing. In some cases, harsher punishments, from both the courts and the Saudi police, are dealt to non-Sunni Muslims. As seen in these examples, religion dominates the legal proceedings of Saudi Arabia despite the desires of those involved in the cases. Secular courts are utilized in only specific cases which tend to pertain to complaints against government policies and automobile accidents, issues for which the country’s generally archaic Islamic law has no proper statutes. Due to the strictness of the state’s enforcement of religion and Arab culture, traditional Bedouin gender roles are reinforced: women are legally exempt from voting or being in public without a written excuse from a male relative, and cuckolded men have the legal right to assist in deciding the punishment for their wives. Hanbali Sunni Islam law is applied in all cases in which it can be and secular legal proceedings are utilized only when there are no Shari’ah-oriented precedents.
The Republic of India: Officially Secular, Realistically Prescriptive
India presents a unique example of an interaction between a state which is technically secular and the many religious issues which it faces. The modern-day nation of India encompasses the birthplaces of multiple religions – Hinduism was effectively “founded” in India’s northeastern city of Varanasi, and Buddhism was doctrinally formulated nearby – and came to interact with others including Islam and Sikhism. While it was conceived as a secular state and was only reinforced in this by later amendments to its Constitution, religion continues to be much-discussed issue in the courts of India.
Prior to Indian independence, the interaction between foreign authorities and their very religious Indian subjects contributed to eventual Indian secularism. British colonial domination of the region led to the banning of certain religious practices such as Sati , prompting a public response that the statesmen who would eventually become India’s founders preferred to avoid. During the rise of Gandhi and Indian nationalism, the British policy of regarding separate religious communities in judicially different ways came under criticism and led to new calls for secularism. The sheer amount of influence from other religions in the country would make it difficult for any one religion to have proper “authority” within the government, which prompted India to emerge as a secular state. For others, religion functioned as a rallying point which anti-colonialists could call upon as a means of resisting the British attempts to stabilize their colony. Despite the proposed secularity of the state, religion continued to play a major role in its development and often took center stage in political and legal disputes. Events such as the partitioning of colonial India into the secular Republic of India and the starkly Islamic Republic of Pakistan, as well as conflicts over religiously-disputed regions between those two states such as Kashmir, support of this concept.
An observation of Indian laws pertaining to religion, as well as the Constitution of India, shows the interesting relationship that the supposedly secular state has with its multiple faiths. Officially dictated by the country’s Constitution is, once again, the secular nature of the nation: discrimination as a result of religion is prohibited, unfair legal considerations on a religious basis are strongly disallowed and Indian citizens are allowed to profess any religious belief they choose. As noted by Tahir Mahmood, however, the state reserves the right to initiate, codify and enforce legal statutes which promote “social reform” that may or may not affect religion. Narenda Subramanian of McGill University states that early Indian statesmen, in an attempt to quell potential religious unrest, had homogenized Hindu beliefs by transferring them into the legally-applicable doctrine that would become part of the Indian Constitution of 1950; this led to the adoption of multiple religious laws in determining the country’s family law, starting with the Hindu Marriage Act of 1955. Other legal codifications of religious practices include the country’s Hajj Committee Act of 1959 and the judicial regulation of activities pertaining to Hindu and Islamic religious land trusts. “Secular” Indian civil law, too, is greatly affected by religion.
“Conversion to any religion other than Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, or [Sikhism] is seen as a civil offense also under each of the other three Hindu-law enactments of 1956, resulting in loss of succession, guardianship, maintenance, and adoption rights. Thus, parents ceasing to be Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, or Sikh lose guardianship of their minor children, while convert wives and children are deprived of their right to be provided maintenance by their husbands and parents, respectively.”
India’s official secularity, an important method of preventing any one of the country’s many religious factions from gaining overt influence, is tempered by its need for a method of regulation of its many faiths. The country’s subsequent incorporation of multiple forms of religious law in determining family law and civil law is simply an extension of India’s attempts at secularizing, or in this case ecumenicizing, its legal framework.
The Russian Federation: Resurgent Religion and the State’s Response
Contemporary Russia has emerged as a result of historical religious extremes. For hundreds of years, Tsarist Russia was an effective confessional state: strengthened in religious authority as a result of the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, the Russian Orthodox Church came to heavily influence all aspects of the Empire and dictated its policy of forced multireligious orthodoxy. Muslim and Protestant congregations operated at the behest of state religious authorities who, in some cases, codified and redefined religious laws in a way which ensured the loyalty of otherwise troublesome groups to the Empire. In contrast to Imperial Russia, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) – a state which overthrew the Tsar in 1922 – was staunchly atheistic and actively persecuted members of all state clergies. Soviet authorities forcefully disbanded religious communities and regularly demolished places of worship in an effort to redirect its citizens to identity with and support the state. This complex legacy led to the establishment of the Russian Federation in 1991.
The Russian Federation is a secular state but has been known to respond to religious forces in ways reminiscent of tactics employed by both the Tsarist Russia and the USSR. The Russian Constitution, established in 1993, promotes a distinct policy of state non-interference in religious affairs and a purely secular position. Any discrimination based on religious preferences, legal or otherwise, is also prohibited by the Constitution. Factually, the system is quite different. After emerging from its Soviet Era, the Federation saw a “boom” in religious expression from non-Russian Orthodox factions such as Muslims in Chechnya and Evangelical Christians in European Russia. Fearing the loss of social cohesion promoted by the Russian Orthodox Church, the State Duma nearly passed legislation which would have legally limited the legitimacy of non-Orthodox faith communities which had not been in the Russian Federation for over fifteen years (an impossible task, considering the state had only existed for six years by this point) or subsets by banning “religious dissension” (a very broad term). The act, which gained huge support from European Russians and passed the Duma almost unanimously, was vetoed by President Yeltsin on July 22nd, 1997; despite the fact that it was in open violation of not only the Russian Constitution but also the 1948 United Nations Declaration of Man. The potential legal ramifications of the act’s passing would have severely undermined the Constitution’s secular intentions. Since this occurred, the state has gone on to criticize and restrict religious organizations such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Jesuit missionaries on the basis that their religion may destabilize the faith-related unity of European Russia. This is in direction violation of the Russian Constitution, as the state has acted out against religious minorities in a fashion the Constitution specifically restricts.
A place where the Russian Federation’s secularist mission has completely failed is Chechnya, an organ republic of the Federation in the northeastern Caucasus Mountains. Populated mostly by Muslims, Chechnya had once been a rebellious territory of Tsarist Russia that regularly fought against attempts by Imperial authority to control the region’s ecstatic religious practices. During the Soviet Era, the region’s stubborn Islamic subjects had been forced to migrate to Central Asia or Siberia in order to disintegrate any cohesive religious movement between former residents. From 1994 to 1996, separatist forces fighting for an independent Ichkerian Chechnya managed to secure state sovereignty by disabling Russian state apparatuses in the region and later repelling military forces sent against them. Brotherhoods of Sufi Muslims, groups indicative of the region’s Islam and are normally non-political, had assisted in turning away the Russians and did so without much difficulty. After several years of nominal sovereignty, the Second Chechen War broke out and the state was effectively swallowed up and dismantled by Russian authorities. In an attempt to dissuade such events from ever occurring again, the Russian Federation appointed former Ichkerian Chechens loyal to the state, such as current Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, to positions of authority. At the same time, Russia refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of moderate or Ichkeria-aligned figures due to their perceived penchant for Islamic extremism.
To stabilize the region and ensure order, these new statesmen have effectively ignored the legal statutes put forth by the Federation’s Constitution. Stating that the official mission is to “blunt the appeal of hardline Islamic separatists,” Kadyrov has enforced strict Shari’ah law and endorsed more conservative elements of Chechen culture. Harsh interpretations of gender roles and property law have been reinforced by these authorities and in many cases are more conservative than when the region had been under non-Russian control. By legally endorsing such things, and “[encouraging] men to take more than one wife, even though polygamy is illegal in Russia,” the Chechen Republic has generally abandoned the non-religious goals of the Russian Federation in order to ensure some sense of stability in the fragmented Caucasus republic. The government has turned a blind eye to Kadyrov’s actions, setting a precedent that may be followed in other parts of the country if there is truly no long-term reaction to his use of state-supported Shari’ah law.
Finland: A ‘Special’ Religious Relationship
Home to two state-endorsed churches, Finland is a former province of not only the Swedish Empire but also the Russian Empire. In 1917, Finland established its own independence; during World War II, the Baltic state fended off a Soviet invasion with the help of highly-skilled partisan guerrilla and sniper regiments. Prior to the state’s independence, every subject of Finland – as a province of the Russian or Swedish empires – had to be registered as either a member of the Finnish Lutheran Church or the Finnish Orthodox Church. The Act of Nonconformity was passed in 1889, allowing for other denominations such as the Baptists to gain state recognition. Finland’s subsequent exposure to multiple denominations of Christianity led to a historical policy of general religious tolerance. In contrast to this, Finland has maintained its two churches as state-supported apparatuses paid for mostly through tax revenue collected from members of the congregations. In opposition to this is Finland’s Constitution, which states that the nation does not treat any religious entity different than any other; the general message of the Constitution is that religious equality, as opposed to separation of Church and state, is the Finnish goal.
While the state’s relationship with its two major religious appendages may be unequal or preferential, the idea religion as contributive to judicial practice in Finland is largely unrecognized. The state funds its two churches, but allows citizens to exempt themselves from paying for them; religious education is a legal obligation for secondary school students, but they have the legal right to replace such classes with non-religious ethics-related courses. Unlike “secular” India and Russia, Finland does not utilize unconstitutional methods in maintaining the religious status quo of its nation nor does it use religious preference as a determinant in restricting what an organization may do. The twin churches of Finland have been steadily losing membership each year, as non-state-supported religious congregations have been gaining adherence. The state has not responded to this in any authoritarian or prescriptive way, allowing for both other religious groups and the country’s atheist community to grow in recent years. Populations of Muslims have begun to emerge to urban Finland, prompting the state to introduce non-Christian religious education into the state-funded educational system.
The popularity of social liberalism in Finland has been attributed as a reason behind the country’s policy of honest religious tolerance. Sexual and gender equality are actively addressed in state-funded churches, prompting organizations such as FreedomHouse to label Finland as one of the most religiously free and liberal countries in the world. Since independence, the country has promoted a policy of religious tolerance which has attracted members of foreign religious groups such as Muslims to the country; this is in great contrast to some European countries, such as France and Switzerland where religious minorities are sometimes faced with legal restrictions to their worship. State offices actively host ecumenical conferences between different religious groups, promoting cohesive social action across religious lines. Finland’s policy of religious tolerance is cyclical: as new religious communities are founded or migrate to the nation, ecumenical relationships between them and existing groups are founded and continuously propagate a cohesive religious atmosphere. This is, unlike the other “secular” states mentioned in this term paper, a sign of Finland’s success as a nation promoting religious tolerance.
Conclusion
The information drawn from the four nations mentioned in this report – Saudi Arabia, India, Russia and Finland – amount to explanations as to how the relationships of states, and their prior colonial or pre-state polities, with religion assist in the determination of religion’s role within the nation. The foundation of Saudi Arabia as a staunchly Wahhabist Islamic state garnered it support from ultra-orthodox Arabian Muslims who later solidified their beliefs through policy once the state came into being, leading to the legally-sanctioned oppression of non-Muslims and Muslims alike. The prevalence of religion in Indian society prompted an attempt at secularism, which later resulted in the state codifying and ecumenicizing preexisting indigenous religious law in an effort to accommodate its populations. Russia’s policy of secularism, stained with authoritarianism and a bent for conserving important aspects of Russian culture, led to the distinct legal oppression and subjugation of non-Russian Orthodox religious groups of which the state is wary. Despite its historical support of multiple state religious institutions, Finland successfully promotes a policy of religious tolerance with no existing religious legal preference due to the traditionally high prevalence of social liberalism within the state.
The states all contrast to each other quite grandly. Both Russia and Finland have had historical state support for religious entities, but Russia’s legacy of effective authoritarianism has prevented its secular mission from succeeding in the same way as ultraliberal Finland. India’s attempts at secularism despite a high prevalence of religion led to an ecumenical approach to law, while Saudi Arabia’s existence as an entity endorsed by conservative religious authorities effectively collapsed any attempt at secularism within its legal system. One of the few things that can be truly established from this analysis is that two influences – the historical role of religion, and the state’s use or misuse of religion – have the ability to dictate how a modern state may operate. The role of religion in Russia as a unifying aspect of culture and authority or a basis for gaining popular support and regional recognition as in Saudi Arabia, shows the important result of what happens when a nation utilizes religion as an apparatus of the state. In Finland and India, the state actively attempted to promote interreligious relations: India saw the hostile reactions to British attempts at banning or dictating religious behavior, while Finland was split between powers which endorsed their own religious views upon the eventually independent nation.
Religion is a powerful tool for a state to utilize, but has many negative consequences if used inappropriately. Russia and Saudi Arabia, two authoritarian polities with little consideration for religious minorities and futures bound with future trials pertaining to religion, are examples of this. India stands at a middle point, while Finland has ascended to a high point of religious tolerance. Responsibility in the use of religion, it seems, dictates the future of a state.
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Works Cited
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Crews, Robert. “Empire and the Confessional State: Islam and Religious Politics in Nineteenth-Century Russia.” The American Historical Review 108.1 (2003): 50-83.
Dalrymple, William. The Last Mughal, The Fall of a Dynasty: Delhi, 1857. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007.
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All rewritten from scratch over the course of a few hours. Not bad.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Tanganyika: In Colonial Africa, Europeans are Scary Folks - Specifically Germans
Here is a long-time-coming update - a paper I wrote for Colonial Africa, about the foundation of their colony in East Africa. Karl Peters is hysterically interesting, and evil.
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The colonial territory of Tanganyika, an entity which would go on to become a major part of the Schutzgebiet Deutsch-Ostafrika , was a direct possession of the German Empire from 1891 to 1919. Prior to European colonization of the region, Tanganyika was a region split not only between many minor tribal entities: the Sultan of Zanzibar nominally claimed the coastal region and further inland as his territory, and the region fell under the British sphere of influence. As a result of years of nominal trade activity as well as the unsanctioned gathering of treaties by nationalist explorer Karl Peters, the German government was supplied was some claim to present at the Berlin Conference. Within days of the Conference’s decisions being passed down, the Germans moved quickly to establish control over the lands which they had gained “control” over through the further establishment of treaties as well as the use of military expansion and subjugation. Despite the treading of the German Empire’s colonial ventures along the boundaries of both regional powers such as the Zanzibari Sultanate and international ones such as Great Britain, Germany was able to forge the foundations of an economically exploitative colony in what is modern-day mainland Tanzania. The conclusion of constantly-shifting territorial demarcation treaties, the quashing of widespread rebellions as executed through the severe methods of the military-minded “Prussian” colonial administration, and the constant evolution of the East African colonial government throughout such events allowed for Tanganyika to develop into an economically prominent, if socially and racially repressive, German colony.
Before Tanganyika: Initial Interests and the Gesellschaft für Deutsche Kolonisation
Prior to the arrival of the Germans, the Swahili Coast, and by proxy Tanganyika, were linked to a much larger economic system which spread throughout the sea to its east. From the east coast of Africa, trading was conducted through the Arab-led Sultanate of Zanzibar up along the Arabian Peninsula as well as across the Indian Ocean to locales such as the Indian subcontinent. Known for its focus on the slave trade, the Sultanate of Zanzibar was an economically notable state which utilized its human resources in producing crops such as coconuts and cloves for export. This practice, though lucrative, drew the ire of the anti-slaving British Empire which had begun to gain influence in the East African coastal region due to its proximity to their trade routes to India. European powers were not completely hostile to the Sultanate for its practices: the British Empire established a consulate in Zanzibar City in 1841, as did France in 1844 and the German Hanseatic League in 1859. Missionaries and explorers used the Zanzibari Sultanate as a staging ground for inland expeditions, leading to geographical discoveries such as Mt. Kilimanjaro and linguistic developments like the translation of Kiswahili, the region’s common language, from Arabic script into Latin.
The call of the Berlin Conference heralded an enormous change in the vague interest that European had toward Tanganyika. By the 1880’s and the first inklings of the Berlin Conference, Sultan Barghash bin Said al-Busaid of Zanzibar found himself privy to the collapse of his nominal control over the Swahili Coast and his territories further inland. Trade-oriented city states declared their sovereignty from his rule at the same time as the great expansion of the Nyamwezi leader Mirambo, a military figure referred to as “the Napoleon of Africa” by Henry M. Stanley . Well before the Berlin Conference, procolonialist German statesmen had suggested East Africa as a potential venture for the newly unified state and, although Germany had the past option of economically dominating the ailing Zanzibari Sultanate, the state’s leadership refused the task in order to avoid sparking hostilities with Great Britain.
The Partitioning of Tanganyika: Peters, Zanzibar, and Dar es-Salaam
While the German state may not have readily acted out in favor of colonialism, at least one of its subjects touted an opposing view. Dr. Karl Peters, a German explorer and founder of the Gesellschaft für Deutsche Kolonisation , ventured into the coastal and semi-inland regions of Tanganyika at his own expense and, in 1884, began to establish treaties with local leaders that guaranteed economic access and effective ownership of large swaths of land to Peters himself. The contracts signed between Peters and local rulers are considered vague and heavily slanted by modern scholarship – so much so that Peters’ actions prompt authors such as Helmuth Stoecker to refer to Peters, an open admirer of British imperialist tactics, as a “psychopathic…criminal.” Despite the underhandedness of Peters’ methods, his efforts paid off: the lands between Lake Tanganyika and the Zanzibari Sultanate, which went far south enough to brush against the borders of Portuguese Mozambique, were now his property according to his treaties . At the next year’s monumental Berlin Conference, Germany nominated Peters’ agreements with local chiefs as evidence enough for German interest in the region and gained the committee’s approval for their colonization of the region. Peters’ Gesellschaft für Deutsche Kolonisation became the Deutsch-Ostafrikanische Gesellschaft (DOAG) , which operated the colony on an adminstrative and economic level as a protectorate of the German Empire.
The borders of Tanganyika fluctuated greatly over the course of its early years as the DOAG interacted with local polities. The colonial administration began to put pressure on the Sultanate of Zanzibar to give up its coastal territories in order to ensure the survivability of Tanganyika as a colony and, with British help, the Sultanate was coerced into leasing its coast at unfair costs for very long periods of time to the DOAG. New territories were added to Tanganyika as a result of treaties signed by Clemens Denhardt and Karl Juhlke, both associates of Dr. Peters, from within the territory of the Zanzibari Sultan (much to his displeasure). This allowed for the colonial company to expand its role past the few trading posts it administered and, with the use of gunboat diplomacy from both Germany and Portugal, new territories were gained and new borders emerged every several months after the establishment of the colony. To enforce the growing authority of the DOAG, mercenaries were hired and used to enforce the company’s authority; heavy taxes were levied against coastal trading villages within the German sphere of influence, leading to levels of unrest.
By 1890, the borders of Tanganyika and the rest of Deutsch-Ostafrika had stabilized through a series of treaties with the British – who acted not only in their own interest, but also in the interest of their semi-vassal the Sultan of Zanzibar – such as the Heligoland-Zanzibar Treaty of 1890, which led to the ceding of some German territories in exchange for more East African coast including Dar es-Salaam, the settlement which would come to act as Tanganyika’s colonial capital. As a result of these decisions, the German colony began to consolidate its power around a coastal city and acted economically while its greatest competitors – the Sultanate of Zanzibar and Great Britain – stood silent, either for inability to resist German efforts to usurp territory or unable to respond for diplomatic reasons .
The Abushiri Revolt: Unrest and Consequences
In establishing boundaries and cementing authority, the DOAG began to chafe against the coastal Arabs and inland Africans who had come under its initial colonial taxation. The colonial authority became known for its harsh treatment of local peoples in pertinence to human rights and religious practice. By 1888, these high levies and levels of mistreatment, as well as – according to Hatch – the German cooperation with the British effort to end the region’s prominent slave trade , led to unrest that became an open revolt. Helmuth Stoecker disagrees with Hatch’s assessment of the revolt and instead states that it had relatively little to do with German actions toward the slave trade, citing the participation of not only coastal Arabs but also inland tribal groups and urban aristocrats in opposing DOAG authority.
Led by the coastal Arab merchant Abushiri bin Salim, the “Abushiri Revolt” quickly spread across the southern portion of Tanganyika. DOAG agents were pushed out of their trading posts and villages and forced to flight from not only disgruntled city dwellers but also the thousands of Yao tribesmen who rallied against the German colonial presence. Characterized by German politicians as an “Arab rebellion” bent on collapsing the colony in favor of the slave trade , Chancellor Otto von Bismarck called for the spending of several million German marks and the appointment of Hermann Wissman, a veteran commander of mercenaries in Africa, to end the revolt; by 1890, the revolt had been quelled and Abushiri himself executed after being betrayed by local tribesmen.
The eventual end of the Abushiri Revolt led to major changes in Tanganyika. Wissman’s use of Sudanese mercenaries to fight Abushiri’s rebels had expanded upon his arrival to include the auxiliaries of smaller groups of local people. By the end of the conflict, several African rulers had begun to fight alongside the Germans; in the next few years, those chiefs would be afforded positions within the colonial government in a form of limited self-rule. Another major change came as a result of the DOAG’s failure to contain the Abushiri situation. This lapse in ability drew the ire of the German government, which saw the stability of Tanganyika as a matter of their own national prestige. The German government thus took state control of the Gesellschaft für Deutsche Kolonisation in 1891, consolidating its former territories – including Tanganyika – into the general Deutsch-Ostafrika administration. A final major change to take place after the Abushiri Revolt was the new emphasis on social promotion of the coastal people, who were mostly Afro-Arab Swahili people, through the use of a state-supported hierarchal system which employed maakida and majumbe to enforce German authority.
The Mkwawa Revolt: A Short Response to Early Administration
After the appropriation of Tanganyika into the German state’s colonial administration, a less major revolt conducted by the joined Hehe and Bena tribal confederations occurred. The Hehe and Bena had already been involved in fighting against German authority, as they had acted militarily against German coastal interests during the Abushiri Revolt. This particular unrest, though, was spurred on due to the perceivedly slanted preference afforded to the coastal peoples as opposed to the inland Africans who were largely removed from the emerging colonial power structure. The harshness of the colonial administration in achieving its goals – namely, complete economic productivity at the cost of the colonial subject’s well-being – led to the joining of the Hehe and Bena groups into a single resistant force against German forces in Tanganyika.
United by a leader known as Mkwawa in 1891, the unified Africans fought a prolonged guerrilla-style war against encroaching German colonial forces which lasted until 1898 despite the general surrender of a larger part of the tribal alliance in 1894. Mkwawa’s end came when he was betrayed by his forces after a new series of losses and, after being cornered by the Germans, committed suicide rather than submit to to the Europeans. His forces attempted to fight on, still displeased with the racist method in which they were being ruled, but were crippled in their efforts by the arrival of the rinderpest which decimated their herds and introduced a famine that would not be reduced in severity over the next few years.
The Maji-Maji Rebellion: Deutsch-Ostafrika’s Greatest Challenge
New methods of administration and governorship continued to gain unfavorable responses from the African colonial subjects of Deutsch-Ostafrika after the close of the Mkwawa Revolt. In 1898, the colonial administration – a body organized and run by former Prussian military governors, harsh in their methods and sometimes known for their overt racism - issued the “hut tax“, a demanded payment which punished those unable to afford it with forced labor. Financial matters were made more difficult with the appropriation of African lands for use by immigrants from Germany , who the colony readily accepted and incorporated into the hierarchal colonial framework – much to the chagrin of the readily-abused Africans. Yet another tax was levied against inland Africans, this time by the Afro-Arab maakida colonial forces who resided in higher social and administrative positions than any inland Tanganyikan. This left the Africans with less economic stability and assisted in the furthering of the idea that the colony would always possess a racist bent against African self-determination or accomplishment.
Taxation and suffering increased as the officers of Deutsch-Ostafrika began to solidify their goals as little more than purely economic. Within a short time, the colonial administration clarified that the hut tax had to be paid in colonial German marks, not in livestock or crops; this led to the effective dissolving of local product in Tanganyika, as colonial subjects were forced to sell their animals and produce at severely reduced prices to meet with strict colonial deadlines for the tax. When combined with the preexisting famine as a result of the rinderpest, this new hut tax plunged many colonial Africans into abject poverty and eventually forced labor as they were unable to consistently pay the high levy. The Africans were subsequently put to work on properties owned by German settlers, exacerbating the already tense racial situation in Tanganyika.
The simmering situation boiled over in July of 1905 when unrest broke out once more. The local Kilwa people grouped together into a confederacy, actively disassembling German authority through the destruction of colonial government outposts and the slaying of German settlers perceived to be government agents. According to the work of Prothero, this revolt was quite different from the others which had formerly occurred in Tanganyika: smaller tribes and villages unified into huge unions of African rebels, easily dwarfing the sizes of those groups which had acted against Germany in the past, and the Germans were actively blamed by the Africans for their unfair governance. John hatch disagrees, however, and states that the union of other groups such as the Ngoni into the main Rebellion did not occur in time, and the end result was to be expected even at the beginning of the conflict.
The Maji-Maji Rebellion, named for the maji used by its participants, was thus a striking out of inland Africans against not only Germans but also coastal Arabs and Africans who were viewed not only as general aliens to the region but also as oppressors and as instruments of the colonial government. According to John Hatch, Arab colonial agents were literally chased out of colonial settlements settlements in the Matumbi Hills by groups of African subjects .
The German response to the initial breakout of the Maji-Maji Rebellion was summarily brutal. Initially, colonial authorities commited wholesale slaughters of populations in response to similar actions by fighters among the rebels. Upon the spread of the rebellion to Dar es-Salaam, German authorities utilized the still young technology of machineguns in turning away the resistance, dispelling the myth of the maji and causing massive casualties. A scorched earth campaign was then conducted by the German forces, killing off the grand majority of the region’s cultivatable herds and crop goods. This came, as formentioned, at a time when the inhabitants of Tanganyika had already beens subject to the rinderpest as well as the forced underselling of the majority of African herds and the appropriation of African resources and land for the use of German settlers and colonial outlets. The result was a widespread famine which impacted not only the inland Africans but also those on the coast. Numbers of the African death toll varies: older sources such as Prothero list numbers as high as 120,000 casualties while more contemporary scholars like Khapoya claim that the number was closer to 75,000. Groups which were in regions that had seen much action during the Rebellion were hit the worst: the Pangwa tribesmen of Lake Nyasa had been reduced from approximately 30,000 people to less than 2,000 by the end of the Maji-Maji Rebellion.
German Response and Reform
The response of the German public to the conduct of colonial authorities in the Maji-Maji Rebellion led to a scandal and cries for a fairer form of colonialism. An investigation into the matter by the German government led to the exposure of gross misgovernment by colonial military officers which further shocked mainland Europe.
In accordance with its colonial failures, Germany immediately established a colonial office in Berlin, under the direction of Albrecht Freiherr von Rechenberg, which would revise and change the Empire’s colonial policies in East Africa. A distinct reformist, von Rechenberg put into effect sweeping changes as early as 1907 – the year the Maji-Maji Rebellion formally ended – such as the enforcement of more egalitarian methods of dealing with African colonial subjects and a promotion of African agricultural development with incentives for growing cash crops such as cotton. Also announced was a total ban on forced labor of African subjects, but this did not apply to public works projects for the colonial state. Military forces and colonial police would be bolstered by local auxiliaries, including sons and family members of local African chieftains, in order to further stabilize the colony and assist in the potential normalization of race relations.
von Rechenberg’s reforms were met with resistance from those Germans with a strong presence in Tanganyika. The Deutsch-Ostafrikanische Gesellschaft , the colonial company which had once ruled Tanganyika, was still quite prevalent in its economic activities and had established virtual monopolies over not only the region’s plantation economies but also had sway within the colonial administration. The DOAG was thus apprehensive about the reforms, which would place more economic power in the hands of the Africans who were generally outside of their own power structure. In addition, his acts were subsequently protested by German settlers in Tanganyika who claimed the new preference toward Africans disallowed their own economic productiveness. These complaints eventually led to von Rechenberg’s resignation. The impact of his work persisted, however, and the colonial administration he had reformed stayed in effect for the rest of Germany’s tenure in the region.
Conclusion
Repression and productivity are the two terms which best come to describe the process by which Tanganyika shifted from a barely defined treaty in the hands of a fierce nationalist explorer to the substantial colonial polity afforded to Germany at the beginning of the twentieth century. Local influences such as the Zanzibari Sultanate were pushed aside and marginalized in order to cement claims to the region, and peoples were suppressed via both machineguns and hut taxes. Famine seemed like a regular occurrence in German East Africa, in all cases brought on by the abuses of the colonial government. Ultimately, the economic productivity of the colony shone through as worth the trouble of constant rebellions – responses to the racist, repressive German method of colonial military government which killed untold thousands in the name of profit. Despite the additions of local people and new hierarchies throughout its existence, the German effort in Tanganyika would never achieve any form of the publicly-demanded egalitarian treatment. The colonial government, as short-lived in the grand scheme of Africa as it was, will always represent a panicked and violent period.
Works Cited
Hatch, John. Tanzania: a Profile. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1972.
Khapoya, Vincent B. The African Experience: An Introduction. New York: Longman, 2010.
Oliver, Roland and Anthony Atmore. Africa since 1800. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Prothero, G.W. (editor). German African Possessions (Late). New York: Greenwood Press, 1920.
Stoecker, Helmuth. “German East Africa 1885 – 1906,” in German Imperialism in Africa: from the Beginnings until the Second World War, edited by Helmuth Stoecker, 93-113. Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press International, 1986.
Stoecker, Helmuth. “German East Africa 1906 – 1914,” in German Imperialism in Africa: From the Beginnings until the Second World War, edited by Helmuth Stoecker, 148-160. Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press International, 1986.
Yeager, Rodger. Tanzania: An African Experiment. Boulder: Westview Press, 1982.
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There you go!
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The colonial territory of Tanganyika, an entity which would go on to become a major part of the Schutzgebiet Deutsch-Ostafrika , was a direct possession of the German Empire from 1891 to 1919. Prior to European colonization of the region, Tanganyika was a region split not only between many minor tribal entities: the Sultan of Zanzibar nominally claimed the coastal region and further inland as his territory, and the region fell under the British sphere of influence. As a result of years of nominal trade activity as well as the unsanctioned gathering of treaties by nationalist explorer Karl Peters, the German government was supplied was some claim to present at the Berlin Conference. Within days of the Conference’s decisions being passed down, the Germans moved quickly to establish control over the lands which they had gained “control” over through the further establishment of treaties as well as the use of military expansion and subjugation. Despite the treading of the German Empire’s colonial ventures along the boundaries of both regional powers such as the Zanzibari Sultanate and international ones such as Great Britain, Germany was able to forge the foundations of an economically exploitative colony in what is modern-day mainland Tanzania. The conclusion of constantly-shifting territorial demarcation treaties, the quashing of widespread rebellions as executed through the severe methods of the military-minded “Prussian” colonial administration, and the constant evolution of the East African colonial government throughout such events allowed for Tanganyika to develop into an economically prominent, if socially and racially repressive, German colony.
Before Tanganyika: Initial Interests and the Gesellschaft für Deutsche Kolonisation
Prior to the arrival of the Germans, the Swahili Coast, and by proxy Tanganyika, were linked to a much larger economic system which spread throughout the sea to its east. From the east coast of Africa, trading was conducted through the Arab-led Sultanate of Zanzibar up along the Arabian Peninsula as well as across the Indian Ocean to locales such as the Indian subcontinent. Known for its focus on the slave trade, the Sultanate of Zanzibar was an economically notable state which utilized its human resources in producing crops such as coconuts and cloves for export. This practice, though lucrative, drew the ire of the anti-slaving British Empire which had begun to gain influence in the East African coastal region due to its proximity to their trade routes to India. European powers were not completely hostile to the Sultanate for its practices: the British Empire established a consulate in Zanzibar City in 1841, as did France in 1844 and the German Hanseatic League in 1859. Missionaries and explorers used the Zanzibari Sultanate as a staging ground for inland expeditions, leading to geographical discoveries such as Mt. Kilimanjaro and linguistic developments like the translation of Kiswahili, the region’s common language, from Arabic script into Latin.
The call of the Berlin Conference heralded an enormous change in the vague interest that European had toward Tanganyika. By the 1880’s and the first inklings of the Berlin Conference, Sultan Barghash bin Said al-Busaid of Zanzibar found himself privy to the collapse of his nominal control over the Swahili Coast and his territories further inland. Trade-oriented city states declared their sovereignty from his rule at the same time as the great expansion of the Nyamwezi leader Mirambo, a military figure referred to as “the Napoleon of Africa” by Henry M. Stanley . Well before the Berlin Conference, procolonialist German statesmen had suggested East Africa as a potential venture for the newly unified state and, although Germany had the past option of economically dominating the ailing Zanzibari Sultanate, the state’s leadership refused the task in order to avoid sparking hostilities with Great Britain.
The Partitioning of Tanganyika: Peters, Zanzibar, and Dar es-Salaam
While the German state may not have readily acted out in favor of colonialism, at least one of its subjects touted an opposing view. Dr. Karl Peters, a German explorer and founder of the Gesellschaft für Deutsche Kolonisation , ventured into the coastal and semi-inland regions of Tanganyika at his own expense and, in 1884, began to establish treaties with local leaders that guaranteed economic access and effective ownership of large swaths of land to Peters himself. The contracts signed between Peters and local rulers are considered vague and heavily slanted by modern scholarship – so much so that Peters’ actions prompt authors such as Helmuth Stoecker to refer to Peters, an open admirer of British imperialist tactics, as a “psychopathic…criminal.” Despite the underhandedness of Peters’ methods, his efforts paid off: the lands between Lake Tanganyika and the Zanzibari Sultanate, which went far south enough to brush against the borders of Portuguese Mozambique, were now his property according to his treaties . At the next year’s monumental Berlin Conference, Germany nominated Peters’ agreements with local chiefs as evidence enough for German interest in the region and gained the committee’s approval for their colonization of the region. Peters’ Gesellschaft für Deutsche Kolonisation became the Deutsch-Ostafrikanische Gesellschaft (DOAG) , which operated the colony on an adminstrative and economic level as a protectorate of the German Empire.
The borders of Tanganyika fluctuated greatly over the course of its early years as the DOAG interacted with local polities. The colonial administration began to put pressure on the Sultanate of Zanzibar to give up its coastal territories in order to ensure the survivability of Tanganyika as a colony and, with British help, the Sultanate was coerced into leasing its coast at unfair costs for very long periods of time to the DOAG. New territories were added to Tanganyika as a result of treaties signed by Clemens Denhardt and Karl Juhlke, both associates of Dr. Peters, from within the territory of the Zanzibari Sultan (much to his displeasure). This allowed for the colonial company to expand its role past the few trading posts it administered and, with the use of gunboat diplomacy from both Germany and Portugal, new territories were gained and new borders emerged every several months after the establishment of the colony. To enforce the growing authority of the DOAG, mercenaries were hired and used to enforce the company’s authority; heavy taxes were levied against coastal trading villages within the German sphere of influence, leading to levels of unrest.
By 1890, the borders of Tanganyika and the rest of Deutsch-Ostafrika had stabilized through a series of treaties with the British – who acted not only in their own interest, but also in the interest of their semi-vassal the Sultan of Zanzibar – such as the Heligoland-Zanzibar Treaty of 1890, which led to the ceding of some German territories in exchange for more East African coast including Dar es-Salaam, the settlement which would come to act as Tanganyika’s colonial capital. As a result of these decisions, the German colony began to consolidate its power around a coastal city and acted economically while its greatest competitors – the Sultanate of Zanzibar and Great Britain – stood silent, either for inability to resist German efforts to usurp territory or unable to respond for diplomatic reasons .
The Abushiri Revolt: Unrest and Consequences
In establishing boundaries and cementing authority, the DOAG began to chafe against the coastal Arabs and inland Africans who had come under its initial colonial taxation. The colonial authority became known for its harsh treatment of local peoples in pertinence to human rights and religious practice. By 1888, these high levies and levels of mistreatment, as well as – according to Hatch – the German cooperation with the British effort to end the region’s prominent slave trade , led to unrest that became an open revolt. Helmuth Stoecker disagrees with Hatch’s assessment of the revolt and instead states that it had relatively little to do with German actions toward the slave trade, citing the participation of not only coastal Arabs but also inland tribal groups and urban aristocrats in opposing DOAG authority.
Led by the coastal Arab merchant Abushiri bin Salim, the “Abushiri Revolt” quickly spread across the southern portion of Tanganyika. DOAG agents were pushed out of their trading posts and villages and forced to flight from not only disgruntled city dwellers but also the thousands of Yao tribesmen who rallied against the German colonial presence. Characterized by German politicians as an “Arab rebellion” bent on collapsing the colony in favor of the slave trade , Chancellor Otto von Bismarck called for the spending of several million German marks and the appointment of Hermann Wissman, a veteran commander of mercenaries in Africa, to end the revolt; by 1890, the revolt had been quelled and Abushiri himself executed after being betrayed by local tribesmen.
The eventual end of the Abushiri Revolt led to major changes in Tanganyika. Wissman’s use of Sudanese mercenaries to fight Abushiri’s rebels had expanded upon his arrival to include the auxiliaries of smaller groups of local people. By the end of the conflict, several African rulers had begun to fight alongside the Germans; in the next few years, those chiefs would be afforded positions within the colonial government in a form of limited self-rule. Another major change came as a result of the DOAG’s failure to contain the Abushiri situation. This lapse in ability drew the ire of the German government, which saw the stability of Tanganyika as a matter of their own national prestige. The German government thus took state control of the Gesellschaft für Deutsche Kolonisation in 1891, consolidating its former territories – including Tanganyika – into the general Deutsch-Ostafrika administration. A final major change to take place after the Abushiri Revolt was the new emphasis on social promotion of the coastal people, who were mostly Afro-Arab Swahili people, through the use of a state-supported hierarchal system which employed maakida and majumbe to enforce German authority.
The Mkwawa Revolt: A Short Response to Early Administration
After the appropriation of Tanganyika into the German state’s colonial administration, a less major revolt conducted by the joined Hehe and Bena tribal confederations occurred. The Hehe and Bena had already been involved in fighting against German authority, as they had acted militarily against German coastal interests during the Abushiri Revolt. This particular unrest, though, was spurred on due to the perceivedly slanted preference afforded to the coastal peoples as opposed to the inland Africans who were largely removed from the emerging colonial power structure. The harshness of the colonial administration in achieving its goals – namely, complete economic productivity at the cost of the colonial subject’s well-being – led to the joining of the Hehe and Bena groups into a single resistant force against German forces in Tanganyika.
United by a leader known as Mkwawa in 1891, the unified Africans fought a prolonged guerrilla-style war against encroaching German colonial forces which lasted until 1898 despite the general surrender of a larger part of the tribal alliance in 1894. Mkwawa’s end came when he was betrayed by his forces after a new series of losses and, after being cornered by the Germans, committed suicide rather than submit to to the Europeans. His forces attempted to fight on, still displeased with the racist method in which they were being ruled, but were crippled in their efforts by the arrival of the rinderpest which decimated their herds and introduced a famine that would not be reduced in severity over the next few years.
The Maji-Maji Rebellion: Deutsch-Ostafrika’s Greatest Challenge
New methods of administration and governorship continued to gain unfavorable responses from the African colonial subjects of Deutsch-Ostafrika after the close of the Mkwawa Revolt. In 1898, the colonial administration – a body organized and run by former Prussian military governors, harsh in their methods and sometimes known for their overt racism - issued the “hut tax“, a demanded payment which punished those unable to afford it with forced labor. Financial matters were made more difficult with the appropriation of African lands for use by immigrants from Germany , who the colony readily accepted and incorporated into the hierarchal colonial framework – much to the chagrin of the readily-abused Africans. Yet another tax was levied against inland Africans, this time by the Afro-Arab maakida colonial forces who resided in higher social and administrative positions than any inland Tanganyikan. This left the Africans with less economic stability and assisted in the furthering of the idea that the colony would always possess a racist bent against African self-determination or accomplishment.
Taxation and suffering increased as the officers of Deutsch-Ostafrika began to solidify their goals as little more than purely economic. Within a short time, the colonial administration clarified that the hut tax had to be paid in colonial German marks, not in livestock or crops; this led to the effective dissolving of local product in Tanganyika, as colonial subjects were forced to sell their animals and produce at severely reduced prices to meet with strict colonial deadlines for the tax. When combined with the preexisting famine as a result of the rinderpest, this new hut tax plunged many colonial Africans into abject poverty and eventually forced labor as they were unable to consistently pay the high levy. The Africans were subsequently put to work on properties owned by German settlers, exacerbating the already tense racial situation in Tanganyika.
The simmering situation boiled over in July of 1905 when unrest broke out once more. The local Kilwa people grouped together into a confederacy, actively disassembling German authority through the destruction of colonial government outposts and the slaying of German settlers perceived to be government agents. According to the work of Prothero, this revolt was quite different from the others which had formerly occurred in Tanganyika: smaller tribes and villages unified into huge unions of African rebels, easily dwarfing the sizes of those groups which had acted against Germany in the past, and the Germans were actively blamed by the Africans for their unfair governance. John hatch disagrees, however, and states that the union of other groups such as the Ngoni into the main Rebellion did not occur in time, and the end result was to be expected even at the beginning of the conflict.
The Maji-Maji Rebellion, named for the maji used by its participants, was thus a striking out of inland Africans against not only Germans but also coastal Arabs and Africans who were viewed not only as general aliens to the region but also as oppressors and as instruments of the colonial government. According to John Hatch, Arab colonial agents were literally chased out of colonial settlements settlements in the Matumbi Hills by groups of African subjects .
The German response to the initial breakout of the Maji-Maji Rebellion was summarily brutal. Initially, colonial authorities commited wholesale slaughters of populations in response to similar actions by fighters among the rebels. Upon the spread of the rebellion to Dar es-Salaam, German authorities utilized the still young technology of machineguns in turning away the resistance, dispelling the myth of the maji and causing massive casualties. A scorched earth campaign was then conducted by the German forces, killing off the grand majority of the region’s cultivatable herds and crop goods. This came, as formentioned, at a time when the inhabitants of Tanganyika had already beens subject to the rinderpest as well as the forced underselling of the majority of African herds and the appropriation of African resources and land for the use of German settlers and colonial outlets. The result was a widespread famine which impacted not only the inland Africans but also those on the coast. Numbers of the African death toll varies: older sources such as Prothero list numbers as high as 120,000 casualties while more contemporary scholars like Khapoya claim that the number was closer to 75,000. Groups which were in regions that had seen much action during the Rebellion were hit the worst: the Pangwa tribesmen of Lake Nyasa had been reduced from approximately 30,000 people to less than 2,000 by the end of the Maji-Maji Rebellion.
German Response and Reform
The response of the German public to the conduct of colonial authorities in the Maji-Maji Rebellion led to a scandal and cries for a fairer form of colonialism. An investigation into the matter by the German government led to the exposure of gross misgovernment by colonial military officers which further shocked mainland Europe.
In accordance with its colonial failures, Germany immediately established a colonial office in Berlin, under the direction of Albrecht Freiherr von Rechenberg, which would revise and change the Empire’s colonial policies in East Africa. A distinct reformist, von Rechenberg put into effect sweeping changes as early as 1907 – the year the Maji-Maji Rebellion formally ended – such as the enforcement of more egalitarian methods of dealing with African colonial subjects and a promotion of African agricultural development with incentives for growing cash crops such as cotton. Also announced was a total ban on forced labor of African subjects, but this did not apply to public works projects for the colonial state. Military forces and colonial police would be bolstered by local auxiliaries, including sons and family members of local African chieftains, in order to further stabilize the colony and assist in the potential normalization of race relations.
von Rechenberg’s reforms were met with resistance from those Germans with a strong presence in Tanganyika. The Deutsch-Ostafrikanische Gesellschaft , the colonial company which had once ruled Tanganyika, was still quite prevalent in its economic activities and had established virtual monopolies over not only the region’s plantation economies but also had sway within the colonial administration. The DOAG was thus apprehensive about the reforms, which would place more economic power in the hands of the Africans who were generally outside of their own power structure. In addition, his acts were subsequently protested by German settlers in Tanganyika who claimed the new preference toward Africans disallowed their own economic productiveness. These complaints eventually led to von Rechenberg’s resignation. The impact of his work persisted, however, and the colonial administration he had reformed stayed in effect for the rest of Germany’s tenure in the region.
Conclusion
Repression and productivity are the two terms which best come to describe the process by which Tanganyika shifted from a barely defined treaty in the hands of a fierce nationalist explorer to the substantial colonial polity afforded to Germany at the beginning of the twentieth century. Local influences such as the Zanzibari Sultanate were pushed aside and marginalized in order to cement claims to the region, and peoples were suppressed via both machineguns and hut taxes. Famine seemed like a regular occurrence in German East Africa, in all cases brought on by the abuses of the colonial government. Ultimately, the economic productivity of the colony shone through as worth the trouble of constant rebellions – responses to the racist, repressive German method of colonial military government which killed untold thousands in the name of profit. Despite the additions of local people and new hierarchies throughout its existence, the German effort in Tanganyika would never achieve any form of the publicly-demanded egalitarian treatment. The colonial government, as short-lived in the grand scheme of Africa as it was, will always represent a panicked and violent period.
Works Cited
Hatch, John. Tanzania: a Profile. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1972.
Khapoya, Vincent B. The African Experience: An Introduction. New York: Longman, 2010.
Oliver, Roland and Anthony Atmore. Africa since 1800. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Prothero, G.W. (editor). German African Possessions (Late). New York: Greenwood Press, 1920.
Stoecker, Helmuth. “German East Africa 1885 – 1906,” in German Imperialism in Africa: from the Beginnings until the Second World War, edited by Helmuth Stoecker, 93-113. Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press International, 1986.
Stoecker, Helmuth. “German East Africa 1906 – 1914,” in German Imperialism in Africa: From the Beginnings until the Second World War, edited by Helmuth Stoecker, 148-160. Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press International, 1986.
Yeager, Rodger. Tanzania: An African Experiment. Boulder: Westview Press, 1982.
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There you go!
Friday, May 15, 2009
Somali Pirates: Some Answers
As an undergrad at some state college, I found myself horrified at the sheer lack of correct information about the Somali pirates disseminated within Western media over the course of the last few months. If the information was so utterly available to me, was it very hard for pundits or policymakers to crack open any ol' book on Somalia? Apparently so. I wrote this not only to fill a paper requirement but also for the purpose of spreading it around so people can actually understand what the situation in Somalia is what it is.
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In contemporary times, it is sometimes difficult to sift through all the information available in order to find the cold facts – the reality – of current events. This is made even more difficult due to the Internet, a source that is so perfect in its ability to disseminate data and educate its users yet so flawed as a result of the sheer amount of incorrect material within it. After months of close attention to the issue of the Somali pirates and a devotion to the general topic of contemporary Somalia, the reasons behind the actions of the Horn of Africa’s “buccaneers” still seemed to be steeped in myth and conflicting narratives. Branded as savage criminals by those unfamiliar with Somali history (i.e., most of the West), it is very unsurprising to see American media display such a woeful lack of knowledge on the subject of why the Somali pirates exist. This short essay was written with the intent of simply explaining the conditions that contributed to the birth of the Somali pirate ‘movement’; the information used in its composition was drawn from the most reliable sources on the subject in an attempt to ensure accuracy, a feat that the Western media has not been able to accomplish in its explanation of the Somali crisis in recent months.
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The residents of the self-destructing Somali Republic were in a dark situation upon the formal collapse of the state. Siyad Barre, the harsh dictator who had effectively enabled the collapse of the Republic through his supporting of clan violence and manipulation of Somali cultural norms through the doctrine of Scientific Socialism, had fled the country amidst a rebel invasion of the former capital at Mogadishu in 1991; after draining the treasury dry, Barre failed in his attempts at reestablishing power and was forced to flee to Kenya and eventually Nigeria. The organization which pushed Barre’s government out of Mogadishu – the United Somali Congress, led by former Somali National Army general Muhammad Farah Aideed – made an attempt at supplanting the ‘Supreme Revolutionary Council’ (SRC) of Barre with their own armed authority. This new government was populated primarily by members of the Hawiye clan, a group persecuted heavily due to their perceived opposition to Barre’s own Marrehan clan; the former government’s policy of arming pro-SRC clan militias had resulted in savage culling of groups such as the Mogadishu-based Hawiye and the northern coastal Isaq for their perceived disloyalty – a move which sparked the creation of a multitude of rebel groups that had not existed in any capacity until Barre’s attempts at clan cleansing .
Despite attempts at stabilization, the Somali Republic completely fragmented in the face of the old regime’s dissolution. Battles between the rival USC forces of General Aideed and Ali Mahdi, his chief official rival, led to the organization’s fall from power in Mogadishu; soon, the capital was claimed by multiple factions and city-wide fighting led to a virtual depopulating of the locale . The rest of the region followed suit as warlord-led rebel groups consolidated their power, establishing centers of authority across the former Somali nation through combat; the Somali National Movement, originally an Isaq militia formed in response to attacks from Barre supporters, gained enough influence in the war-torn northwest to declare the formation of an independent state based around the former administrative center of Hargeisa. This autonomous polity, Somaliland, remained unrecognized by the international community after its formation in 1991; later instability in eastern Somaliland led to declarations of independence by local militia groups – including the Somali Salvation Democratic Front, another anti-Barre defensive group formed to protect members of the local Majerteen clan – and the eventual establishment of the Puntland governate in former northeastern Somalia. The two powers became fast rivals as their declared territories overlapped, leading to diplomatic difficulties in the north and even occasional skirmishes.
Foreign influence would soon have a large impact upon the new power structure of the former Somali territories. While two states vied for power in the north, local Islamist forces – empowered with foreign support from hardline Islamic organizations – emerged from the tumult and managed to establish its own power bloc in the south . Consisting of many different Islamist organizations at first, the number of organizations joined together under a system of Islamic law to form the loose affiliation that would come to be known as the Union of Islamic Courts. Although very conservative in their theological outlook as strict supporters of shari’ah law, the Courts managed to gain large public support and were able to batter the warlord-led militias from their centers of power in the south by the mid-1990’s. The decisive victories of the Islamists assisted in garnering even wider encouragement due to the granting of weapons and money to the warlords by the American Central Intelligence Agency for the purpose of combating Somali ‘terrorism’ . The Islamist forces, despite incursions from Western-backed Ethiopia and occasional clashes with other foreign forces including those of the United States, have continued to expand their influence across southern and eventually central Somalia; other than the small enclaves of territory held by the Somali Transitional Federation Government, an entity largely unrecognized by the Somali public and existing solely due to foreign (namely Ethiopian) support, the politics of the south are driven largely by the Union of Islamic Courts.
Before and during this period, the quality of life in Somalia was facing a stark decrease. The varied infrastructure in the country as a result of its colonial past – the region was ruled over by multiple states who dealt with their holdings in varying degrees of support – was falling apart due to the expiration of the state; Siyad Barre’s Scientific Socialist programs, largely criticized due to their disagreement with Somali traditional customs but supported due to their positive impact on the nation’s infrastructure and economy, were no longer in effect . Aid from the Ogaden War’s influx of refugees into Somali territories had disappeared by 1991, leaving the country with a large amount of people who could not be supported by the crumbling Somali economy; the state’s collapse did nothing to help support the many new residents Somalia had gained in the last decade, leading to a massive increase in financial poverty and health issues . In addition, constant warfare between Somali factions and incursions from foreign entities (including the United Nations) had weakened the already unsupported infrastructure of the region. This allowed for an effective disintegration of the Somali economy; an increase in crime and militia activity for the purpose of survival soon followed. By this point, militias loyal to General Aideed had begun raiding aid convoys arriving from the coast, depriving any residents who would have received the food and contributing to the rapidly worsening regional food crisis . Undoubtedly, the fall of the government and the subsequent regional infighting played a massive part – if not contributing the most – in impoverishing the Somali public.
The collapse of the state not only heralded the beginnings of massive internal problems but also the arrival of new ones. Sensing opportunity in the troubled region, Western forces began to utilize Somalia and its nearby waters – now unguarded due to the complete lack of a Somali naval force – for a number of purposes, all of which harmed the effectively defenseless Somalis in varying degrees. According to an essay written by Somali entertainer and former Mogadishu resident Kanaan Warsame, European commercial organizations had begun to take advantage of Somalia’s political chaos by acquiring “dumping licenses” from regional warlords, including USC figure Ali Mahdi, which allowed them to deposit hazardous waste along and on the Somali coast . As stated by Johann Hari in the Huffington Post, many of the commercial organizations discovered to be dealing with Somali warlords for the purpose of dumping were business fronts used by reputable European companies to quietly (and frugally) dispose of their toxic materials; as is the case in the least with Ali Mahdi, the authority figures that Western sources dealt with in securing dumping contracts did not actually represent the areas where the material was dumped, leading to widespread pollution along the Somali coast in exchange for amounts of money that are very paltry (approx. $3/ton) in comparison to what the companies would have had to pay to legally dispose of the toxic material (approx. $1000/ton) . Respected European entities were not the only organizations utilizing Somalia as a place for hazardous dumping: according to retired United Nations Environmental Programme director Mustafa Tolba, La Cosa Nostra – the worldwide Sicilian crime ring well known for its participation in the disposal of Mediterranean chemical waste – contributed heavily to the pollution of Somali waters . Waste management facilities, hospitals and scientific facilities were the largest sources of the very chemicals which would wash up on Somali shores after the regional tsunami of 2005 – entire communities were inflicted with toxic sicknesses and several deaths from exposure to nuclear materials were reported .
While the dumping of toxic materials was taking place, another aspect of the West’s influence was felt by residents of the Somali coasts. By 1991, the global stock on free fishing had begun to dwindle due to overfishing and many foreign (from Asia and Europe specifically) suppliers had begun securing contracts with smaller coastal countries that did not have the capacity to fully utilize their own offshore stock in order to avoid profit loss . At the time of the state collapse, Somalia’s waters were rich with fish and largely utilized by local Somalis for substinence: state failure had turned fishing into an essential industry for most coastal Somalis since trade and most industries had been completely disabled. The waters around the Horn of Africa were also completely unguarded due to the lack of state authority; they quickly came under review by European companies who had begun to look away from traditional fishing locales due to a European Union-imposed restriction on overfishing. Reportedly, Russian and Spanish commercial fishing assessors began to research the capacity of Somalia’s offshore territory for commercial fishing and discovered that the region could prove to be immensely lucrative to their endangered industries .
By 1992, unmarked foreign ships illegally gathering large amounts of fish from Somali waters were an increasingly common sight. Soon enough, these alien crafts came into contact with Somali substinence fishermen; relations between the two groups quickly entered the realm of violence as the crews of the illegal ships battered and killed most fishermen with whom they came into contact. According to Kenyan analyst Mohamed Waldo, incidents of physical assault, sabotage of Somali fishing equipment and outright destruction of Somali fishing vessels came to characterize the relationship between the foreign fishermen and the Somalis . Over the course of the 1990’s, more varied ships began to arrive in Somali waters yet many followed a similar pattern: after driving off local fishermen, the vessels would overfish the areas and move on to the next most fertile territory before laundering their goods at Indian Ocean island polities such as the Maldives or the Seychelles . In denying the fishermen access to their regular fishing areas, the livelihood of coastal villages in Somalia began to falter and its residents not only suffered monetarily but also faced a new challenge due to a lack of food, as much of the fish was caught in order to simply feed the populations; at the same time, the foreign vessels were utilizing this desperately needed resource for their own profits, earning over $300 million (approx.) every year as a result of their illegal fishing .
The interference of foreign crafts into the Somali fishing industry – one of the few options that coastal residents could still turn to in order to survive – was a breaking point for some Somalis. For most of the 1990’s, the generally weak but still recognized Somali authorities had named the foreign destruction of the environment and interference in Somali substinence fishing as two chief concerns. The Somali public, too, regarded the issue of foreign damage done to the coasts as a major problem in the process of restabilizing the country: the overfishing removed a source of economic prosperity from the Somali commercial sector while the dumping generated widespread pollution that generated health problems along the coast . However, as acknowledged by famed linguist and lecturer Noam Chomsky, the global community had all but forgotten about the failed state of Somalia after the brutality experienced by United States Marines in the capital at Mogadishu in 1993 at the hands of rival militias and Islamists . Forced into poverty by violent instability and now foreign involvement, groups of coastal residents began to follow the model of the inland clan militias and armed themselves. Weapons were plentiful in every region of Somalia: dealers worked out of Mogadishu, readily shipping weapons north, and others traveled from Yemen to reap profits from the turf battles experienced across the Gulf of Aden . Supplied with weapons and already possessing boats, former Somali fishermen began to strike out against the foreign crafts responsible for the acts of dumping and illegal overfishing. These ‘pirates’ began to take control of any and all foreign vessels in Somali waters, bringing them to bases on land such as the city of Eyl and the former provincial center of Bosaso and demanding ransom for their return of the crafts themselves as well as their crews and supplies. The countries of origin of the many crafts brought in by the Somalis were quite varied: “Italy, France, Spain, Greece, Russia, Britain, Ukraine, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, India, Yemen, Egypt…” and even crafts from neighboring Kenya were captured and ransomed . The pirates were not all joined together into one central faction: three major rival blocs emerged, the strongest of which was the “Somali Marines” – a highly structured, well-armed faction possessing a veritable fleet of converted fishing crafts and skilled fighters . The funds brought in by the various pirate factions removed the difficulty of substinence living for the largely underprivileged coastal Somalis: by spending a generally small amount of money on weaponry and supplies in order to execute high-risk missions against foreign vessels, the pirates were obtaining comparably gigantic gains .
The Somali pirate factions immediately garnered the attention of the region’s Islamist groups. Stating that the piracy being committed by coastal Somalis is un-Islamic and not in accordance with their strict shari’ah law, the Union of Islamic Courts concluded that the threat of regional piracy needed to be ended in order for an Islamic Somali state to emerge . The contributions made by the burgeoning pirate economy toward the production and consumption of khat, an intoxicating herb considered by many Somalis to be a “social drug”, did not improve relations between the two power blocs . Drawing on the former funding of warlords by the US Central Intelligence Agency, the Union of Islamic Courts accused the pirates of being agents of foreign interest and, as dangers to the Islamic Somali state, those who had to be punished Islamic militias from the south moved into regions of Puntland to disrupt pirate activities, effectively cutting communications between the various nautical groups and pushing them out of their landed center of power at Eyl as well as the surrounding region. Sensing a threat in the expansion of Islamist authority, Ethiopian forces quickly entered the already occupied Puntlander territories, routing the ICU forces from the region; within just a few months, the pirates had returned and were more powerful (and popular) than ever before .
The impact of the pirates upon landed Somali was quite noticeable in all sectors of coastal life. The actions of the pirates produced massive profit – according to one source, at least $150 million a year – which quickly found its way back into the Somali coastal economy . ABCNews reported that the city of Harardhere, a village used the pirates as a place of resupplying due to its proximity to the shore, had a booming economy with many new jobs and active industries due to the highly profitable nature of their business; the 2008 hijacking of a Saudi Arabian oil megatanker – the MV Sirius Star – netted the pirates several million dollars, most of which was directed into local construction and luxuries . According to one Sugule Dahir, a businessman in the “pirate city” of Eyl in southeastern Puntland, the general public supports the pirates due to their economic impact which has allowed modern industries such as cellphone providers and even internet cafes to open in the region . The pirates began to garner even greater support among the people for their positive impact on the general anarchic state of Somali society.
Thus, the Somali pirates emerged due to the combination of internal state collapse and the threat imposed upon the coastal population by foreign marauders. Regardless of foreign opinion and even some local sentiment in the Islamist south (now controlled by competing organizations due to the failure of the Union of Islamic Courts in the face of direct Ethiopian assault in 2008), it is evident – as seen through the public support gained by the pirates and the integral nature of a criminal industry as central to the Somali coastal economy – that the issue of Somali piracy is an extremely complicated one that is most certainly not limited to simple, opportunistic criminal behavior. The situation in Somalia is a sudden focal point in local news due to the recent attack by pirates on the MV Maersk Alabama, a Danish ship crewed by Americans; recent calls have been made by the Somali Transitional Federal Government’s Prime Minister, Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke, in favor of a Western land invasion of central and northern Somalia to oust pirates from their ‘lairs’, drawing the worry of Somalis in the area whose only real livelihood is the piratical industry . A forceful hand will not prove useful in dealing with this situation – it is an informed mind that is required in reining in the Somalia issue.
Works Cited
Boukhars, Anouar. “Understanding Somali Islamism.” Terrorism Monitor 4 (10), 2006.
Chomsky, Noam. “The Somalia Syndrome.” Khaleej Times, December 23 2007, final edition, via http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?section=opinion&xfile=data/opinion/2007/december/opinion_december88.xml.
Dalton, Christopher and Richard Lobban. Providence Journal. December 18 2008, Opinions section. “Richard Lobban/Christopher Dalton: An action plan against Somali pirates.”
Freeman, Colin and Justin Stares. “Pirates fear the lash of shariah law.” Telegraph, January 6 2009, final edition, via http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1531507/Pirates-fear-the-lash-of-sharia-law.html.
Hari, Johann. “You Are Being Lied to About Pirates.” The Huffington Post, January 4 2009, final edition, via http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari.
Hassan, Mohamed Olad and Elizabeth Kennedy. “Somali Pirates Transform Villages Into Boomtowns.” ABC News Online, November 19 2008, final edition, via http://abcnews.go.com/International/WireStory?id=6288745&page=1.
Lewis, Ioan M. Understanding Somalia and Somaliland: Culture, History, and Society. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008.
Marchal, Roland. “Islamic Political Dynamics in the Somali Civil War Before and After September 11” in de Waal, Alex (ed.). Islamism and its Enemies in the Horn of Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004.
Scahill, Jeremy. “Putting Today’s ‘Pirate’ Attack in Context.” The Huffington Post, April 9 2009, final edition, via http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeremy-scahill/putting-todays-pirate-att_b_184752.html.
Waldo, Mohamed Abshir. “The Two Piracies in Somalia: Why the World Ignores the Other?” Wardheer News, January 8 2009, final edition, via http://www.wardheernews.com/Articles_09/Jan/Waldo/08_The_two_piracies_in_Somalia.html.
“Pirates attack US-flagged vessel.” Al Jazeera English, April 15 2009, final edition, via http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2009/04/200941535812735766.html.
“’Toxic waste’ behind Somali piracy.” Al Jazeera English, October 11 2008, final edition, via http://www.english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2008.
“Kenya ‘will try Somali pirates’.” BBC News, April 16 2009, final edition, via http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8003031.stm.
“Somalia’s pirates face battle at sea.” BBC News, September 29 2008, final edition, via http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7358764.stm.
“Somali pirates vow to stand and fight.” Times Online, October 5 2008, final edition, via http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article4882260.ece.
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It is important to stay informed about these sort of things, and that is why I did the paper. If you think anyone you know could use it, by all means send it to them - it's an interesting situation.
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In contemporary times, it is sometimes difficult to sift through all the information available in order to find the cold facts – the reality – of current events. This is made even more difficult due to the Internet, a source that is so perfect in its ability to disseminate data and educate its users yet so flawed as a result of the sheer amount of incorrect material within it. After months of close attention to the issue of the Somali pirates and a devotion to the general topic of contemporary Somalia, the reasons behind the actions of the Horn of Africa’s “buccaneers” still seemed to be steeped in myth and conflicting narratives. Branded as savage criminals by those unfamiliar with Somali history (i.e., most of the West), it is very unsurprising to see American media display such a woeful lack of knowledge on the subject of why the Somali pirates exist. This short essay was written with the intent of simply explaining the conditions that contributed to the birth of the Somali pirate ‘movement’; the information used in its composition was drawn from the most reliable sources on the subject in an attempt to ensure accuracy, a feat that the Western media has not been able to accomplish in its explanation of the Somali crisis in recent months.
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The residents of the self-destructing Somali Republic were in a dark situation upon the formal collapse of the state. Siyad Barre, the harsh dictator who had effectively enabled the collapse of the Republic through his supporting of clan violence and manipulation of Somali cultural norms through the doctrine of Scientific Socialism, had fled the country amidst a rebel invasion of the former capital at Mogadishu in 1991; after draining the treasury dry, Barre failed in his attempts at reestablishing power and was forced to flee to Kenya and eventually Nigeria. The organization which pushed Barre’s government out of Mogadishu – the United Somali Congress, led by former Somali National Army general Muhammad Farah Aideed – made an attempt at supplanting the ‘Supreme Revolutionary Council’ (SRC) of Barre with their own armed authority. This new government was populated primarily by members of the Hawiye clan, a group persecuted heavily due to their perceived opposition to Barre’s own Marrehan clan; the former government’s policy of arming pro-SRC clan militias had resulted in savage culling of groups such as the Mogadishu-based Hawiye and the northern coastal Isaq for their perceived disloyalty – a move which sparked the creation of a multitude of rebel groups that had not existed in any capacity until Barre’s attempts at clan cleansing .
Despite attempts at stabilization, the Somali Republic completely fragmented in the face of the old regime’s dissolution. Battles between the rival USC forces of General Aideed and Ali Mahdi, his chief official rival, led to the organization’s fall from power in Mogadishu; soon, the capital was claimed by multiple factions and city-wide fighting led to a virtual depopulating of the locale . The rest of the region followed suit as warlord-led rebel groups consolidated their power, establishing centers of authority across the former Somali nation through combat; the Somali National Movement, originally an Isaq militia formed in response to attacks from Barre supporters, gained enough influence in the war-torn northwest to declare the formation of an independent state based around the former administrative center of Hargeisa. This autonomous polity, Somaliland, remained unrecognized by the international community after its formation in 1991; later instability in eastern Somaliland led to declarations of independence by local militia groups – including the Somali Salvation Democratic Front, another anti-Barre defensive group formed to protect members of the local Majerteen clan – and the eventual establishment of the Puntland governate in former northeastern Somalia. The two powers became fast rivals as their declared territories overlapped, leading to diplomatic difficulties in the north and even occasional skirmishes.
Foreign influence would soon have a large impact upon the new power structure of the former Somali territories. While two states vied for power in the north, local Islamist forces – empowered with foreign support from hardline Islamic organizations – emerged from the tumult and managed to establish its own power bloc in the south . Consisting of many different Islamist organizations at first, the number of organizations joined together under a system of Islamic law to form the loose affiliation that would come to be known as the Union of Islamic Courts. Although very conservative in their theological outlook as strict supporters of shari’ah law, the Courts managed to gain large public support and were able to batter the warlord-led militias from their centers of power in the south by the mid-1990’s. The decisive victories of the Islamists assisted in garnering even wider encouragement due to the granting of weapons and money to the warlords by the American Central Intelligence Agency for the purpose of combating Somali ‘terrorism’ . The Islamist forces, despite incursions from Western-backed Ethiopia and occasional clashes with other foreign forces including those of the United States, have continued to expand their influence across southern and eventually central Somalia; other than the small enclaves of territory held by the Somali Transitional Federation Government, an entity largely unrecognized by the Somali public and existing solely due to foreign (namely Ethiopian) support, the politics of the south are driven largely by the Union of Islamic Courts.
Before and during this period, the quality of life in Somalia was facing a stark decrease. The varied infrastructure in the country as a result of its colonial past – the region was ruled over by multiple states who dealt with their holdings in varying degrees of support – was falling apart due to the expiration of the state; Siyad Barre’s Scientific Socialist programs, largely criticized due to their disagreement with Somali traditional customs but supported due to their positive impact on the nation’s infrastructure and economy, were no longer in effect . Aid from the Ogaden War’s influx of refugees into Somali territories had disappeared by 1991, leaving the country with a large amount of people who could not be supported by the crumbling Somali economy; the state’s collapse did nothing to help support the many new residents Somalia had gained in the last decade, leading to a massive increase in financial poverty and health issues . In addition, constant warfare between Somali factions and incursions from foreign entities (including the United Nations) had weakened the already unsupported infrastructure of the region. This allowed for an effective disintegration of the Somali economy; an increase in crime and militia activity for the purpose of survival soon followed. By this point, militias loyal to General Aideed had begun raiding aid convoys arriving from the coast, depriving any residents who would have received the food and contributing to the rapidly worsening regional food crisis . Undoubtedly, the fall of the government and the subsequent regional infighting played a massive part – if not contributing the most – in impoverishing the Somali public.
The collapse of the state not only heralded the beginnings of massive internal problems but also the arrival of new ones. Sensing opportunity in the troubled region, Western forces began to utilize Somalia and its nearby waters – now unguarded due to the complete lack of a Somali naval force – for a number of purposes, all of which harmed the effectively defenseless Somalis in varying degrees. According to an essay written by Somali entertainer and former Mogadishu resident Kanaan Warsame, European commercial organizations had begun to take advantage of Somalia’s political chaos by acquiring “dumping licenses” from regional warlords, including USC figure Ali Mahdi, which allowed them to deposit hazardous waste along and on the Somali coast . As stated by Johann Hari in the Huffington Post, many of the commercial organizations discovered to be dealing with Somali warlords for the purpose of dumping were business fronts used by reputable European companies to quietly (and frugally) dispose of their toxic materials; as is the case in the least with Ali Mahdi, the authority figures that Western sources dealt with in securing dumping contracts did not actually represent the areas where the material was dumped, leading to widespread pollution along the Somali coast in exchange for amounts of money that are very paltry (approx. $3/ton) in comparison to what the companies would have had to pay to legally dispose of the toxic material (approx. $1000/ton) . Respected European entities were not the only organizations utilizing Somalia as a place for hazardous dumping: according to retired United Nations Environmental Programme director Mustafa Tolba, La Cosa Nostra – the worldwide Sicilian crime ring well known for its participation in the disposal of Mediterranean chemical waste – contributed heavily to the pollution of Somali waters . Waste management facilities, hospitals and scientific facilities were the largest sources of the very chemicals which would wash up on Somali shores after the regional tsunami of 2005 – entire communities were inflicted with toxic sicknesses and several deaths from exposure to nuclear materials were reported .
While the dumping of toxic materials was taking place, another aspect of the West’s influence was felt by residents of the Somali coasts. By 1991, the global stock on free fishing had begun to dwindle due to overfishing and many foreign (from Asia and Europe specifically) suppliers had begun securing contracts with smaller coastal countries that did not have the capacity to fully utilize their own offshore stock in order to avoid profit loss . At the time of the state collapse, Somalia’s waters were rich with fish and largely utilized by local Somalis for substinence: state failure had turned fishing into an essential industry for most coastal Somalis since trade and most industries had been completely disabled. The waters around the Horn of Africa were also completely unguarded due to the lack of state authority; they quickly came under review by European companies who had begun to look away from traditional fishing locales due to a European Union-imposed restriction on overfishing. Reportedly, Russian and Spanish commercial fishing assessors began to research the capacity of Somalia’s offshore territory for commercial fishing and discovered that the region could prove to be immensely lucrative to their endangered industries .
By 1992, unmarked foreign ships illegally gathering large amounts of fish from Somali waters were an increasingly common sight. Soon enough, these alien crafts came into contact with Somali substinence fishermen; relations between the two groups quickly entered the realm of violence as the crews of the illegal ships battered and killed most fishermen with whom they came into contact. According to Kenyan analyst Mohamed Waldo, incidents of physical assault, sabotage of Somali fishing equipment and outright destruction of Somali fishing vessels came to characterize the relationship between the foreign fishermen and the Somalis . Over the course of the 1990’s, more varied ships began to arrive in Somali waters yet many followed a similar pattern: after driving off local fishermen, the vessels would overfish the areas and move on to the next most fertile territory before laundering their goods at Indian Ocean island polities such as the Maldives or the Seychelles . In denying the fishermen access to their regular fishing areas, the livelihood of coastal villages in Somalia began to falter and its residents not only suffered monetarily but also faced a new challenge due to a lack of food, as much of the fish was caught in order to simply feed the populations; at the same time, the foreign vessels were utilizing this desperately needed resource for their own profits, earning over $300 million (approx.) every year as a result of their illegal fishing .
The interference of foreign crafts into the Somali fishing industry – one of the few options that coastal residents could still turn to in order to survive – was a breaking point for some Somalis. For most of the 1990’s, the generally weak but still recognized Somali authorities had named the foreign destruction of the environment and interference in Somali substinence fishing as two chief concerns. The Somali public, too, regarded the issue of foreign damage done to the coasts as a major problem in the process of restabilizing the country: the overfishing removed a source of economic prosperity from the Somali commercial sector while the dumping generated widespread pollution that generated health problems along the coast . However, as acknowledged by famed linguist and lecturer Noam Chomsky, the global community had all but forgotten about the failed state of Somalia after the brutality experienced by United States Marines in the capital at Mogadishu in 1993 at the hands of rival militias and Islamists . Forced into poverty by violent instability and now foreign involvement, groups of coastal residents began to follow the model of the inland clan militias and armed themselves. Weapons were plentiful in every region of Somalia: dealers worked out of Mogadishu, readily shipping weapons north, and others traveled from Yemen to reap profits from the turf battles experienced across the Gulf of Aden . Supplied with weapons and already possessing boats, former Somali fishermen began to strike out against the foreign crafts responsible for the acts of dumping and illegal overfishing. These ‘pirates’ began to take control of any and all foreign vessels in Somali waters, bringing them to bases on land such as the city of Eyl and the former provincial center of Bosaso and demanding ransom for their return of the crafts themselves as well as their crews and supplies. The countries of origin of the many crafts brought in by the Somalis were quite varied: “Italy, France, Spain, Greece, Russia, Britain, Ukraine, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, India, Yemen, Egypt…” and even crafts from neighboring Kenya were captured and ransomed . The pirates were not all joined together into one central faction: three major rival blocs emerged, the strongest of which was the “Somali Marines” – a highly structured, well-armed faction possessing a veritable fleet of converted fishing crafts and skilled fighters . The funds brought in by the various pirate factions removed the difficulty of substinence living for the largely underprivileged coastal Somalis: by spending a generally small amount of money on weaponry and supplies in order to execute high-risk missions against foreign vessels, the pirates were obtaining comparably gigantic gains .
The Somali pirate factions immediately garnered the attention of the region’s Islamist groups. Stating that the piracy being committed by coastal Somalis is un-Islamic and not in accordance with their strict shari’ah law, the Union of Islamic Courts concluded that the threat of regional piracy needed to be ended in order for an Islamic Somali state to emerge . The contributions made by the burgeoning pirate economy toward the production and consumption of khat, an intoxicating herb considered by many Somalis to be a “social drug”, did not improve relations between the two power blocs . Drawing on the former funding of warlords by the US Central Intelligence Agency, the Union of Islamic Courts accused the pirates of being agents of foreign interest and, as dangers to the Islamic Somali state, those who had to be punished Islamic militias from the south moved into regions of Puntland to disrupt pirate activities, effectively cutting communications between the various nautical groups and pushing them out of their landed center of power at Eyl as well as the surrounding region. Sensing a threat in the expansion of Islamist authority, Ethiopian forces quickly entered the already occupied Puntlander territories, routing the ICU forces from the region; within just a few months, the pirates had returned and were more powerful (and popular) than ever before .
The impact of the pirates upon landed Somali was quite noticeable in all sectors of coastal life. The actions of the pirates produced massive profit – according to one source, at least $150 million a year – which quickly found its way back into the Somali coastal economy . ABCNews reported that the city of Harardhere, a village used the pirates as a place of resupplying due to its proximity to the shore, had a booming economy with many new jobs and active industries due to the highly profitable nature of their business; the 2008 hijacking of a Saudi Arabian oil megatanker – the MV Sirius Star – netted the pirates several million dollars, most of which was directed into local construction and luxuries . According to one Sugule Dahir, a businessman in the “pirate city” of Eyl in southeastern Puntland, the general public supports the pirates due to their economic impact which has allowed modern industries such as cellphone providers and even internet cafes to open in the region . The pirates began to garner even greater support among the people for their positive impact on the general anarchic state of Somali society.
Thus, the Somali pirates emerged due to the combination of internal state collapse and the threat imposed upon the coastal population by foreign marauders. Regardless of foreign opinion and even some local sentiment in the Islamist south (now controlled by competing organizations due to the failure of the Union of Islamic Courts in the face of direct Ethiopian assault in 2008), it is evident – as seen through the public support gained by the pirates and the integral nature of a criminal industry as central to the Somali coastal economy – that the issue of Somali piracy is an extremely complicated one that is most certainly not limited to simple, opportunistic criminal behavior. The situation in Somalia is a sudden focal point in local news due to the recent attack by pirates on the MV Maersk Alabama, a Danish ship crewed by Americans; recent calls have been made by the Somali Transitional Federal Government’s Prime Minister, Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke, in favor of a Western land invasion of central and northern Somalia to oust pirates from their ‘lairs’, drawing the worry of Somalis in the area whose only real livelihood is the piratical industry . A forceful hand will not prove useful in dealing with this situation – it is an informed mind that is required in reining in the Somalia issue.
Works Cited
Boukhars, Anouar. “Understanding Somali Islamism.” Terrorism Monitor 4 (10), 2006.
Chomsky, Noam. “The Somalia Syndrome.” Khaleej Times, December 23 2007, final edition, via http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?section=opinion&xfile=data/opinion/2007/december/opinion_december88.xml.
Dalton, Christopher and Richard Lobban. Providence Journal. December 18 2008, Opinions section. “Richard Lobban/Christopher Dalton: An action plan against Somali pirates.”
Freeman, Colin and Justin Stares. “Pirates fear the lash of shariah law.” Telegraph, January 6 2009, final edition, via http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1531507/Pirates-fear-the-lash-of-sharia-law.html.
Hari, Johann. “You Are Being Lied to About Pirates.” The Huffington Post, January 4 2009, final edition, via http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari.
Hassan, Mohamed Olad and Elizabeth Kennedy. “Somali Pirates Transform Villages Into Boomtowns.” ABC News Online, November 19 2008, final edition, via http://abcnews.go.com/International/WireStory?id=6288745&page=1.
Lewis, Ioan M. Understanding Somalia and Somaliland: Culture, History, and Society. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008.
Marchal, Roland. “Islamic Political Dynamics in the Somali Civil War Before and After September 11” in de Waal, Alex (ed.). Islamism and its Enemies in the Horn of Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004.
Scahill, Jeremy. “Putting Today’s ‘Pirate’ Attack in Context.” The Huffington Post, April 9 2009, final edition, via http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeremy-scahill/putting-todays-pirate-att_b_184752.html.
Waldo, Mohamed Abshir. “The Two Piracies in Somalia: Why the World Ignores the Other?” Wardheer News, January 8 2009, final edition, via http://www.wardheernews.com/Articles_09/Jan/Waldo/08_The_two_piracies_in_Somalia.html.
“Pirates attack US-flagged vessel.” Al Jazeera English, April 15 2009, final edition, via http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2009/04/200941535812735766.html.
“’Toxic waste’ behind Somali piracy.” Al Jazeera English, October 11 2008, final edition, via http://www.english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2008.
“Kenya ‘will try Somali pirates’.” BBC News, April 16 2009, final edition, via http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8003031.stm.
“Somalia’s pirates face battle at sea.” BBC News, September 29 2008, final edition, via http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7358764.stm.
“Somali pirates vow to stand and fight.” Times Online, October 5 2008, final edition, via http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article4882260.ece.
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It is important to stay informed about these sort of things, and that is why I did the paper. If you think anyone you know could use it, by all means send it to them - it's an interesting situation.
Cyborgs: Beyond the Realm of Robocop Fanfiction
For one of the more personally intensive courses I took this semester, I researched Donna Haraway's critical "cyborg theory", which commented on the futility of contemporary feminist theory due to the reality of changing identity in today's world. I applied this theory to suicide bombers, a subject of personal interest, through investigating how cyborgs were displayed in elements of popular media and news. Sound confusing enough? Wait until you read it!
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“A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century”, Donna Haraway’s extensive critical evaluation of feminist ideology and human identity, came to inspire many academic examinations within fields such as sociology and evolutionary theory. A large amount of scholarly research has been completed on the application of cyborg theory: analyses have been composed on the subject of figures ranging from comic book super heroes and movie characters to the modern military. Through such applications of cyborg theory, much is revealed about the contemporary world’s view on the subject of human-machine hybrids – namely, that they are questionable in nature due to their dangerous abilities and possess greater aptitude for survival at the loss of their morality. Sources promoting ‘cyborgization’ as a form of secondary evolution indicate that this fear of ‘cyborgs’, or cybernetic organisms, stems from humanity’s stark suspicion toward technology and the danger that could be posed by a combination of a human’s intelligence and a machine’s efficiency. Western society’s conclusion on the subject of suicide bombers – figures best described as weaponized humans, committing potentially massive damage at a literal loss of their humanity in order to ensure efficiency – is very much akin to the portrayal given to cyborgs within popular media. When scholarly analyses of cyborgs as depicted within entertainment outlets – written works, films and televisions shows – are compared to the way that suicide bombers are viewed by Western sources, it becomes evident that there are very many similarities in their depictions. A deeper investigation into Haraway’s view of the cyborgs themselves, as well as supporting documents on the use of the theory in analyzing the depiction of cyborgs by both popular media and scholarly sources, reveals that there is much potential for the accurate application of cyborg theory to suicide bombers.
Constructing the Cyborg, One Feminist Science
Fiction Character At A Time: Haraway’s Manifesto
The core document of cyborg theory is, as mentioned, Haraway’s “A Cyborg Manifesto”; within it are descriptions of beings similar in nature to the commonly depicted suicide bomber. Haraway describes her cyborg – to her, an ideal form of life for humanity in comparison to the constantly multiplying factors which prevent any sense of unity – as popularly viewed as superior due to their advanced states, completely unavailable to humanity, as well as their deserving suspicious due to their lack of moral standing . The differences between cyborgs and humans stems mainly through their use of technology as a major component of their identity, allowing for an end to sectarian rivalries and a new unity formed around the use of technology. Cyborgs effectively “mock” traditional Western morality and humanity itself through this ability to transcend the bounds of the basic person; as a result they are considered “without spirit” in comparison to a real human and not in possession of true human characteristics .
In investigating the depth of the cyborg, Haraway applies her theory to several figures in feminist-oriented science fiction. Citing the works of Audre Lorde, feminist identity activist and writer, Haraway identifies the character “Sister Outsider” – a recurring personality in several of Lorde’s essays – as a potential cyborg. Transcendent from the difficulties of human behavior, Sister Outsider’s uniqueness is perceived by normal humans to be threatening to the social status quo and potentially harmful to the safety of their various communities . Haraway also cites Cherrie Moraga’s seminal take on La Malinche, the Nahua informant and mistress to infamous Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes, as a cyborg due to her enigmatic position as an assistant in the conquering of her own indigenous people as executed in vernaculars titled by Haraway as “conqueror’s languages”, English and Spanish (within Moraga’s narrative) . Similar in both examples is the ambiguity of La Malinche and Sister Outsider by Haraway as well as the suspicion directed at both figures due to their positions of uniqueness.
In concluding her work, Haraway examines the roles played by machines and humans in the relationship between the two. The explicit, definite roles given to both categories have come to chafe upon those participating in the system of multi-group solidarity. Like the differences between many human groups, Haraway believes that the gap separating humans and machinery has begun to shrink. For the last several centuries, machines have been increasingly filling in the roles of humans in categories such as industrial work and military matters; at the same time, humanity has become increasingly mechanical in its behavior and its response to change . Within this framework and in support of this paper’s thesis, there is great potential for a human to act as an explosive weapon’s targeting system in place of a piece of technology due to the changing identity of humanity in relation to the role of machines. In the following passage, Haraway sums up her beliefs on the subject.
“It is not clear who makes and who is made in the relation between human and machine. It is not clear what is mind and what body in machines that resolve into coding practices. In so far as we know ourselves in both formal discourse (for example, biology) and in daily practice (for example, the homework economy in the integrated circuit), we find ourselves to be cyborgs, hybrids, mosaics, chimeras.”
“Hotties Can’t Be Terrorists”: Paradise Now and Its Reception
Haraway’s repeated expressions on the perceived ambiguity of the cyborg, and subsequently the fear aimed at a figure with such potential to interrupt the natural balance of things, is akin to the way in which suicide bombers are viewed by the Western media. The recent example of the film Paradise Now show succinctly that attempts to even vaguely humanize the efforts or identities of a suicide bomber – in this case, portraying the motives of a suicide bomber as challenging to the public view of such figures – have been met with stark hostility within the realm of public opinion. The Arabic-language film Paradise Now – released in 2005 by director Hany Abu-Assad – focuses on several days in the lives of Said and Khaled, Palestinian residents of the West Bank city of Nablus, who have been recruited for the purpose of suicide bombing against Israeli targets. The two characters are developed: they have a history of friendship and, as the movie progresses, poignant personal views on the subject of their mission. The movie ends ambiguously – in the true nature of a cyborg – with the viewers left to determine for themselves as to whether or not the actual act of suicide bombing ever took place.
The movie went on to win the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2005; it did so, however, amidst major criticism against the humanization of the suicide bombers. Critics stated that the suicide bombers in the film were unrealistic and incorrectly humanized for the purpose of garnering an anti-Israeli sentiment. Israeli movie reviewer Irit Linor labeled the production a “Nazi film”, denouncing the movie for its depiction of non-traditional suicide bombers – they were physically attractive and humble, instead of calculating and misguided – and its role as potential anti-Israeli propaganda as a result of the depth given to the humanity of the suicide bombers . Linor’s review speaks of a stereotyped suicide bomber: faceless and already dehumanized not only by the nature of their task but also their lack of regard for their own humanity. New York Times staff member Stephen Holden regarded the film’s main theme as paranoia, citing the overt fear felt not only by the terrorist network and the Israeli state toward one another but also focusing on internal suspicion: the suicide bombing handlers panicked as a result of a lack of communication between their agents, and an Israeli operative assisted the suicide bombers in gaining access to their sites of detonation . The following passage by Holden characterizes the negative critical views given to Paradise Now.
“Given the explosive political climate in the Middle East, humanizing suicide bombers in a movie risks offending some viewers in the same way that humanizing Hitler does. Demons make more convenient villains than complicated people with their complicated motives. Especially after 9/11, it is easier for some in the United States to imagine a suicide bomber as a 21st-century Manchurian Candidate - a soulless, robotic shell of a person programmed to wreak destruction - than it is to picture a flesh-and-blood human being doing the damage.”
The critical reaction directed specifically at the humanization of suicide bombers in Paradise Now speaks volumes about the similarities between Abu-Assad’s Said and Khaled and Haraway’s cyborgs. The paranoia mentioned by Holden as exemplifying the atmosphere of the film, characterizing relations not only between the suicide bombers and the Israeli state but also between the suicide bombers themselves, is explicitly similar to the paranoia spoken of by Haraway as a major factor in the human perception toward the idea and eventual role of cyborgs in society. The challenge to the status quo presented by Haraway’s cyborgs is similar to the role filled by suicide bombers, and the attempts made by Abu-Assad in characterizing his suicide bombers in a way that transcended paranoid stereotypes was perceived to be morally volatile. The film’s ambiguous ending seems to be the only part of the movie approved of by critics: true to their nature, the Palestinian operative obviously completed their mission by completing a self-bombing and contributing to the accepted stereotype of the myopic suicide operative. While the unquestionable political nature of the film is at fault for a portion of the criticism leveled at Paradise Now – debates managed to break out even over the Golden Globes’ labeling of the film’s location of origin as “Palestine” – the director’s choice to depict suicide bombers as more human than Holden’s ‘mechanical killers’ contributed very much to the plentiful criticism directed at the film.
Of Iron Man and Martyrs: Alcoholic Mechanized Geniuses and Sympathetic Killing Machines
An ambiguous existence and a lack of morals as a result of technological superiority seem to be running themes in the many depictions of cyborgs within popular media. Mark Oehlert’s scholarly article “From Captain America to Wolverine: Cyborgs in Comic Books, Alternative Images of Cybernetic Heroes and Villains” elaborates upon the ways in which cyborgs are framed by the writers of comic books as the author groups all comic book cyborgs into one of four categories . The most poignant of these to the subject of suicide bombers would be “controller cyborgs” such as Wolverine and Iron Man: figures who are enhanced through surgical methods – Wolverine’s strengthened skeletal structure and adamantium claws – or through means that do not fundamentally change their biological structure, as seen in Iron Man’s utilization of metal suit that grants him superhuman capabilities while also sustaining his weakened heart . Oehlert’s controller cyborgs are the most similar of his examples to suicide bombers, as they do not modify their constitutive structures in order to excel through means of technology; instead, suicide bombers utilize “low-tech” cyborg mechanics in order to increase effectiveness.
In order to compensate for the cyborg’s ambiguous nature within comic books, they are brought to life not as unattainable beings but as emotive and humanized. The efficiency and abilities of a cyborg super hero in attaining goals is cited by Oehlert as a “double-edged sword” due to the systematic and assumedly inhuman way that cyborgs accomplish their missions; the struggles of many cyborg characters, most commonly between their moral human parts and the technological nature which has come to demonize them in the fearful eyes of the public, presents a problem of identity for cyborg super heroes. This viewpoint can certainly be applied to suicide bombers: the popularized simplistic view of a suicide bomber as little more than an ideologically-driven and commonly coerced individual prevents the possibility for suicide bombers to be considered fully human. In order to combat this general perception that cyborgs are morally aloof and obsessed with programmed directives, Oehlert states that cyborg super heroes have been brought down to an understandably human level through the institution of realistic storylines such as the ongoing difficulty of depressive alcoholism suffered by Iron Man and Shadowhawk’s eventual death by an AIDS-related illness . The personalization granted to Paradise Now’s Khaled and Said was enacted by the film’s creator to better elaborate upon the humanity and motives behind the bombers; this is similar to the actions put forth by comic books writers who attempted to establish a sense of humanity for their suspiciously regarded cyborg characters . The ambiguity of suicide bombers as a result of their detected lack of human qualities and heightened technological ability is equally shared by comic book cyborgs, a group to which cyborg theory has been thoroughly applied.
What Cavemen and Hamas Have In Common: Military Cyborgs
Cyborg theory has also been applied to the use of advanced technology in modifying human abilities and morality on the battlefield – a factor which would completely change the face of contemporary war. D.S. Halacy, Jr. ‘s study of cyborg theory, Evolution of the Superman, discusses this issue notably. Halacy states that one of the very first reasons that humans began to develop exosomatically – that is, beyond biological means through a use of tools and general technology – was in order to gain military superiority and ensure survival; in his words, “the caveman with a club was not particularly sophisticated unless we compare him with the unarmed caveman he attacked” . Later military developments including the formalization of technocentric battlefield figures such as the knight or cataphract – types of warriors whose effectiveness relied upon their use of technology such as heavy plate armor, long lances and advancing cavalry techniques – supports Halacy’s claim that cyborgization has placed an essential role in human development since its inception.
Only recently has true cyborgization – that is, the literal joining of human and machine to increase effectiveness as opposed to the otherwise simple utilization of advanced battlefield accoutrements – come to define human military development. Haley believes that great success has been seen in this advancement: the American Navy’s frogmen corps of World War II accomplished acts of lauded valor and achievement by using new technologies such as artificial lungs and water-safe plastic explosives in a way that would have been completely unthinkable only years beforehand . Due to these successes, military technology – as driven by government agencies, the largest proponents of military advancements in the world – has begun to incorporate distinctly cyborg-esque technologies into its bank of ideas. The United States Air Force, for example, has made ground in studying the legitimacy of assisting the assimilation of a human into the system as an integral part of the targeting mechanism for its aircraft . Haley suggests that the literal “wedding of living systems with artificial” for military means is most certainly an eventual goal due to the distinct advantages using such technology would bestow; it has already been used, to a lesser degree, in kamikaze planes and “Baka bombs” – vehicles piloted with the sole purpose of self-destruction in order to ensure efficiency .
By Halacy’s standard, the use of cyborg theory in analyzing military advancements directly supports the emergence of suicide bombing as a technology and a tactic. At its root, the suicide bomb is a complex weapons system which puts to use the abilities of a human targeting system in ensuring the most effective use of the armaments which that person possesses (in the case of a suicide bomber, an explosive device). Its emergence can be seen as the newest step in military technology, similar to Haley’s example of the Baka bomb, in that the weapon can be used to its most full extent as it is joined with a human. In attempting to explain the role of suicide bombing within modern warfare, Talal Asad cites political analyst Robert Pape’s belief that suicide bombers should be viewed as an integral part of the ever-changing face of contemporary war .
In order to counteract the superior technology of their opponents, the less prepared or technologically equipped combatants in a conflict improvise and work as effectively as possible with the equipment available. According to Diego Gambetta, editor of the Making Sense of Suicide Missions compilation, it is the “weaker side of a conflict” who utilizes suicide bombing as a means of necessary tactics . In order to succeed against a superior power, lesser forces utilize technology – becoming cyborgs – in order to exceed their own abilities and achieve their goals. This theory is supported by the following quote from Sheikh Ahmed Ismail Yassin, the co-founder of Hamas – a Palestinian paramilitary faction which consistently utilizes suicide bombing against Israeli civilians and military targets.
“Once we have warplanes and missiles, then we can think of changing our means of legitimate self-defense. But right now, we can only tackle the fire with our bare hands and sacrifice ourselves.”
Upon the assassination of Yassin, United States ambassador John Negroponte commented upon the ideology of Hamas as depraved and without morals. He specifically noted the late Yassin as a preacher of hatred and inhumanity, citing his words on the subject of suicide bombing as glorifying the killing of civilians . This can be equated to Haraway’s comments on the resistance faced by cyborgs for their refusal to adhere to societal norms – in this case, the United States’ opinion on the use of suicide bombing against Israeli targets.
The general perception to such tactics is one of horror and undeniable inhumanity. To Asad, this Western view of suicide bombing has come as a result of the sanitization of warfare through the promotion of “morally superior” computerized methods of fighting . In utilizing suicide bombing tactics, Asad states, the participants of such attacks may face dehumanization and accusations of moral ambiguity through “their deliberate transgression of boundaries that separates the human from the inhuman” . The concept of suicide bombers emerging as a result of constantly advancing human-machine hybridization in military technology and the subsequent moral denouncement of these figures for their transcendence of human bounds fits succinctly into cyborg theory.
The growing role of suicide tactics and material as a means of effective improvisational technology can be explained through the efficiency offered through such methods of cyborgization. The use of ‘cyborg’ technologies, namely the joining of human and machine in forming – in this case – a weapon, is seen by its users as a boon through displays of its effectiveness. Stephen Hopgood’s analysis of the suicide tactics of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) states that the use of a suicide truck bombing against a Sri Lankan government compound caused damage on a scale that was not possible with other weapons available to the LTTE; the strike allowed for enemy government troops to be overwhelmed immediately in a victory that would not have been achieved if it were not for effectiveness of suicide truck bombing . This feat was only possible through the Tamil Tigers’ use of cyborgization – combining their literal technology with a human participant. Another example of suicide bombing’s effectiveness through cyborgization is the more infamous attack upon American locales on September 11th, 2001. According to Kalyvas and Sanchez-Cuenca, the 2001 attacks on World Trade Centers and the Pentagon would not have been as efficient as they were if it had not been for their use of suicide as a tactic; this can be seen through the failure of the attempted bombing of the World Trade Centers in 1993 by conventional means . The efficiency of suicide bombing is a result of the general technological inability to prevent it: the uncomplicated nature of suicide bombing technology allows for easy use by almost any subject, and its general undetectability assists in its maximum effectiveness in terms of placement. This leads to a general sense of paranoia toward suicide technology as a result of its morally tenebrous position within wartime and terror tactics. The following quote by Kalyvas and Sanchez-Cuenca summarizes the subject.
“A person wearing a bomb is far more dangerous and far more difficult to defend against than a timed device left to explode in the marketplace. This human weapons system can effect last-minute changes based on the ease of approach, the paucity or density of people, and the security measures in evidence.”
Conclusion, Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and End The Paper
Through an analysis of the similarities shared between subjects deemed to be ‘cyborgs’ under Haraway’s theory and suicide bombers as a continuation of human military cyborgization, it is safe to say that cyborg theory can be applied to suicide theory and supported by the scholarly interpretations of its various roles in technology. If analyzed within the framework of the important role of public opinion toward cyborgs for their alternate identities, suicide bombers are regarded similarly: morally ambiguous and without the human standing to act properly, they are a threat to the status quo. The trend of cyborgization in terms of human military advancement shows equal amounts of similarity in that suicide bombers seem to be another step in the fabled direction of ultra-efficient and resourceful human-machine hybridization. Through an application of Haraway’s general cyborg theory to suicide bombers, it becomes quite evident that they are very much subject to the “Manifesto” and supportive cyborg-related academic documents.
Works Cited
1. Asad, Talal. On Suicide Bombing. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007.
2. Bloom, Mia. Dying to Kill: the Allure of Suicide Terror. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005.
3. Gambetta, Diego. “Can We Make Sense of Suicide Missions?” in Making Sense of Suicide Missions, edited by Diego Gambetta, 259-300. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
4. Halacy, Jr., D.S. Cyborg – Evolution of the Superman. New York/London: Harper & Row Publishers, 1965.
5. Haraway, Donna. "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century." in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature, 149-181. New York; Routledge, 1991.
6. Holden, Stephen. “Terrorists Facing their Moment of Truth.” The New York Times (October 2005). http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/28/movies/28para.html?_r=1&ex=1175486400&en=12f6093d0860ee9c&ei=5070 (accessed April 23rd, 2009).
7. Hopgood, Stephen. “Tamil Tigers, 1987-2002.” in Making Sense of Suicide Missions, edited by Diego Gambetta, 43-76. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
8. Kalyvas, Stathis and Ignacio Sanchez-Cuenca. “Killing Without Dying: The Absence of Suicide Missions.” in Making Sense of Suicide Missions, edited by Diego Gambetta, 209-232. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
9. Linor, Irit. “Anti-Semitism Now.” YNetNews.com (February 2006). http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3212503,00.html (accessed April 23rd, 2009).
10. Negroponte, John. “U.N. Must Condemn Hamas Terrorism as Well as Israeli Assassination, March 23, 2004”. United States Diplomatic Mission to Italy (March 2004). http://www.usembassy.it/viewer/article.asp?article=/file2004_03/alia/a4032408.htm (accessed April 23rd, 2009).
11. Oehlert, Mark. “From Captain America to Wolverine: Cyborgs in Comic Books, Alternative Images of Cybernetic Heroes and Villains,” in The Cyborg Handbook, edited by Chris Hables Gray, 219-232. New York/London: Routledge, 1995.
12. Shiloh, Scott. "Film Depicting Human Side of Suicide Bombers Wins Golden Globe.” Arutz Sheva (January 2006). http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/96814 (accessed April 23rd, 2009).
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I hope you got something out of it - I think I did.
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“A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century”, Donna Haraway’s extensive critical evaluation of feminist ideology and human identity, came to inspire many academic examinations within fields such as sociology and evolutionary theory. A large amount of scholarly research has been completed on the application of cyborg theory: analyses have been composed on the subject of figures ranging from comic book super heroes and movie characters to the modern military. Through such applications of cyborg theory, much is revealed about the contemporary world’s view on the subject of human-machine hybrids – namely, that they are questionable in nature due to their dangerous abilities and possess greater aptitude for survival at the loss of their morality. Sources promoting ‘cyborgization’ as a form of secondary evolution indicate that this fear of ‘cyborgs’, or cybernetic organisms, stems from humanity’s stark suspicion toward technology and the danger that could be posed by a combination of a human’s intelligence and a machine’s efficiency. Western society’s conclusion on the subject of suicide bombers – figures best described as weaponized humans, committing potentially massive damage at a literal loss of their humanity in order to ensure efficiency – is very much akin to the portrayal given to cyborgs within popular media. When scholarly analyses of cyborgs as depicted within entertainment outlets – written works, films and televisions shows – are compared to the way that suicide bombers are viewed by Western sources, it becomes evident that there are very many similarities in their depictions. A deeper investigation into Haraway’s view of the cyborgs themselves, as well as supporting documents on the use of the theory in analyzing the depiction of cyborgs by both popular media and scholarly sources, reveals that there is much potential for the accurate application of cyborg theory to suicide bombers.
Constructing the Cyborg, One Feminist Science
Fiction Character At A Time: Haraway’s Manifesto
The core document of cyborg theory is, as mentioned, Haraway’s “A Cyborg Manifesto”; within it are descriptions of beings similar in nature to the commonly depicted suicide bomber. Haraway describes her cyborg – to her, an ideal form of life for humanity in comparison to the constantly multiplying factors which prevent any sense of unity – as popularly viewed as superior due to their advanced states, completely unavailable to humanity, as well as their deserving suspicious due to their lack of moral standing . The differences between cyborgs and humans stems mainly through their use of technology as a major component of their identity, allowing for an end to sectarian rivalries and a new unity formed around the use of technology. Cyborgs effectively “mock” traditional Western morality and humanity itself through this ability to transcend the bounds of the basic person; as a result they are considered “without spirit” in comparison to a real human and not in possession of true human characteristics .
In investigating the depth of the cyborg, Haraway applies her theory to several figures in feminist-oriented science fiction. Citing the works of Audre Lorde, feminist identity activist and writer, Haraway identifies the character “Sister Outsider” – a recurring personality in several of Lorde’s essays – as a potential cyborg. Transcendent from the difficulties of human behavior, Sister Outsider’s uniqueness is perceived by normal humans to be threatening to the social status quo and potentially harmful to the safety of their various communities . Haraway also cites Cherrie Moraga’s seminal take on La Malinche, the Nahua informant and mistress to infamous Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes, as a cyborg due to her enigmatic position as an assistant in the conquering of her own indigenous people as executed in vernaculars titled by Haraway as “conqueror’s languages”, English and Spanish (within Moraga’s narrative) . Similar in both examples is the ambiguity of La Malinche and Sister Outsider by Haraway as well as the suspicion directed at both figures due to their positions of uniqueness.
In concluding her work, Haraway examines the roles played by machines and humans in the relationship between the two. The explicit, definite roles given to both categories have come to chafe upon those participating in the system of multi-group solidarity. Like the differences between many human groups, Haraway believes that the gap separating humans and machinery has begun to shrink. For the last several centuries, machines have been increasingly filling in the roles of humans in categories such as industrial work and military matters; at the same time, humanity has become increasingly mechanical in its behavior and its response to change . Within this framework and in support of this paper’s thesis, there is great potential for a human to act as an explosive weapon’s targeting system in place of a piece of technology due to the changing identity of humanity in relation to the role of machines. In the following passage, Haraway sums up her beliefs on the subject.
“It is not clear who makes and who is made in the relation between human and machine. It is not clear what is mind and what body in machines that resolve into coding practices. In so far as we know ourselves in both formal discourse (for example, biology) and in daily practice (for example, the homework economy in the integrated circuit), we find ourselves to be cyborgs, hybrids, mosaics, chimeras.”
“Hotties Can’t Be Terrorists”: Paradise Now and Its Reception
Haraway’s repeated expressions on the perceived ambiguity of the cyborg, and subsequently the fear aimed at a figure with such potential to interrupt the natural balance of things, is akin to the way in which suicide bombers are viewed by the Western media. The recent example of the film Paradise Now show succinctly that attempts to even vaguely humanize the efforts or identities of a suicide bomber – in this case, portraying the motives of a suicide bomber as challenging to the public view of such figures – have been met with stark hostility within the realm of public opinion. The Arabic-language film Paradise Now – released in 2005 by director Hany Abu-Assad – focuses on several days in the lives of Said and Khaled, Palestinian residents of the West Bank city of Nablus, who have been recruited for the purpose of suicide bombing against Israeli targets. The two characters are developed: they have a history of friendship and, as the movie progresses, poignant personal views on the subject of their mission. The movie ends ambiguously – in the true nature of a cyborg – with the viewers left to determine for themselves as to whether or not the actual act of suicide bombing ever took place.
The movie went on to win the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2005; it did so, however, amidst major criticism against the humanization of the suicide bombers. Critics stated that the suicide bombers in the film were unrealistic and incorrectly humanized for the purpose of garnering an anti-Israeli sentiment. Israeli movie reviewer Irit Linor labeled the production a “Nazi film”, denouncing the movie for its depiction of non-traditional suicide bombers – they were physically attractive and humble, instead of calculating and misguided – and its role as potential anti-Israeli propaganda as a result of the depth given to the humanity of the suicide bombers . Linor’s review speaks of a stereotyped suicide bomber: faceless and already dehumanized not only by the nature of their task but also their lack of regard for their own humanity. New York Times staff member Stephen Holden regarded the film’s main theme as paranoia, citing the overt fear felt not only by the terrorist network and the Israeli state toward one another but also focusing on internal suspicion: the suicide bombing handlers panicked as a result of a lack of communication between their agents, and an Israeli operative assisted the suicide bombers in gaining access to their sites of detonation . The following passage by Holden characterizes the negative critical views given to Paradise Now.
“Given the explosive political climate in the Middle East, humanizing suicide bombers in a movie risks offending some viewers in the same way that humanizing Hitler does. Demons make more convenient villains than complicated people with their complicated motives. Especially after 9/11, it is easier for some in the United States to imagine a suicide bomber as a 21st-century Manchurian Candidate - a soulless, robotic shell of a person programmed to wreak destruction - than it is to picture a flesh-and-blood human being doing the damage.”
The critical reaction directed specifically at the humanization of suicide bombers in Paradise Now speaks volumes about the similarities between Abu-Assad’s Said and Khaled and Haraway’s cyborgs. The paranoia mentioned by Holden as exemplifying the atmosphere of the film, characterizing relations not only between the suicide bombers and the Israeli state but also between the suicide bombers themselves, is explicitly similar to the paranoia spoken of by Haraway as a major factor in the human perception toward the idea and eventual role of cyborgs in society. The challenge to the status quo presented by Haraway’s cyborgs is similar to the role filled by suicide bombers, and the attempts made by Abu-Assad in characterizing his suicide bombers in a way that transcended paranoid stereotypes was perceived to be morally volatile. The film’s ambiguous ending seems to be the only part of the movie approved of by critics: true to their nature, the Palestinian operative obviously completed their mission by completing a self-bombing and contributing to the accepted stereotype of the myopic suicide operative. While the unquestionable political nature of the film is at fault for a portion of the criticism leveled at Paradise Now – debates managed to break out even over the Golden Globes’ labeling of the film’s location of origin as “Palestine” – the director’s choice to depict suicide bombers as more human than Holden’s ‘mechanical killers’ contributed very much to the plentiful criticism directed at the film.
Of Iron Man and Martyrs: Alcoholic Mechanized Geniuses and Sympathetic Killing Machines
An ambiguous existence and a lack of morals as a result of technological superiority seem to be running themes in the many depictions of cyborgs within popular media. Mark Oehlert’s scholarly article “From Captain America to Wolverine: Cyborgs in Comic Books, Alternative Images of Cybernetic Heroes and Villains” elaborates upon the ways in which cyborgs are framed by the writers of comic books as the author groups all comic book cyborgs into one of four categories . The most poignant of these to the subject of suicide bombers would be “controller cyborgs” such as Wolverine and Iron Man: figures who are enhanced through surgical methods – Wolverine’s strengthened skeletal structure and adamantium claws – or through means that do not fundamentally change their biological structure, as seen in Iron Man’s utilization of metal suit that grants him superhuman capabilities while also sustaining his weakened heart . Oehlert’s controller cyborgs are the most similar of his examples to suicide bombers, as they do not modify their constitutive structures in order to excel through means of technology; instead, suicide bombers utilize “low-tech” cyborg mechanics in order to increase effectiveness.
In order to compensate for the cyborg’s ambiguous nature within comic books, they are brought to life not as unattainable beings but as emotive and humanized. The efficiency and abilities of a cyborg super hero in attaining goals is cited by Oehlert as a “double-edged sword” due to the systematic and assumedly inhuman way that cyborgs accomplish their missions; the struggles of many cyborg characters, most commonly between their moral human parts and the technological nature which has come to demonize them in the fearful eyes of the public, presents a problem of identity for cyborg super heroes. This viewpoint can certainly be applied to suicide bombers: the popularized simplistic view of a suicide bomber as little more than an ideologically-driven and commonly coerced individual prevents the possibility for suicide bombers to be considered fully human. In order to combat this general perception that cyborgs are morally aloof and obsessed with programmed directives, Oehlert states that cyborg super heroes have been brought down to an understandably human level through the institution of realistic storylines such as the ongoing difficulty of depressive alcoholism suffered by Iron Man and Shadowhawk’s eventual death by an AIDS-related illness . The personalization granted to Paradise Now’s Khaled and Said was enacted by the film’s creator to better elaborate upon the humanity and motives behind the bombers; this is similar to the actions put forth by comic books writers who attempted to establish a sense of humanity for their suspiciously regarded cyborg characters . The ambiguity of suicide bombers as a result of their detected lack of human qualities and heightened technological ability is equally shared by comic book cyborgs, a group to which cyborg theory has been thoroughly applied.
What Cavemen and Hamas Have In Common: Military Cyborgs
Cyborg theory has also been applied to the use of advanced technology in modifying human abilities and morality on the battlefield – a factor which would completely change the face of contemporary war. D.S. Halacy, Jr. ‘s study of cyborg theory, Evolution of the Superman, discusses this issue notably. Halacy states that one of the very first reasons that humans began to develop exosomatically – that is, beyond biological means through a use of tools and general technology – was in order to gain military superiority and ensure survival; in his words, “the caveman with a club was not particularly sophisticated unless we compare him with the unarmed caveman he attacked” . Later military developments including the formalization of technocentric battlefield figures such as the knight or cataphract – types of warriors whose effectiveness relied upon their use of technology such as heavy plate armor, long lances and advancing cavalry techniques – supports Halacy’s claim that cyborgization has placed an essential role in human development since its inception.
Only recently has true cyborgization – that is, the literal joining of human and machine to increase effectiveness as opposed to the otherwise simple utilization of advanced battlefield accoutrements – come to define human military development. Haley believes that great success has been seen in this advancement: the American Navy’s frogmen corps of World War II accomplished acts of lauded valor and achievement by using new technologies such as artificial lungs and water-safe plastic explosives in a way that would have been completely unthinkable only years beforehand . Due to these successes, military technology – as driven by government agencies, the largest proponents of military advancements in the world – has begun to incorporate distinctly cyborg-esque technologies into its bank of ideas. The United States Air Force, for example, has made ground in studying the legitimacy of assisting the assimilation of a human into the system as an integral part of the targeting mechanism for its aircraft . Haley suggests that the literal “wedding of living systems with artificial” for military means is most certainly an eventual goal due to the distinct advantages using such technology would bestow; it has already been used, to a lesser degree, in kamikaze planes and “Baka bombs” – vehicles piloted with the sole purpose of self-destruction in order to ensure efficiency .
By Halacy’s standard, the use of cyborg theory in analyzing military advancements directly supports the emergence of suicide bombing as a technology and a tactic. At its root, the suicide bomb is a complex weapons system which puts to use the abilities of a human targeting system in ensuring the most effective use of the armaments which that person possesses (in the case of a suicide bomber, an explosive device). Its emergence can be seen as the newest step in military technology, similar to Haley’s example of the Baka bomb, in that the weapon can be used to its most full extent as it is joined with a human. In attempting to explain the role of suicide bombing within modern warfare, Talal Asad cites political analyst Robert Pape’s belief that suicide bombers should be viewed as an integral part of the ever-changing face of contemporary war .
In order to counteract the superior technology of their opponents, the less prepared or technologically equipped combatants in a conflict improvise and work as effectively as possible with the equipment available. According to Diego Gambetta, editor of the Making Sense of Suicide Missions compilation, it is the “weaker side of a conflict” who utilizes suicide bombing as a means of necessary tactics . In order to succeed against a superior power, lesser forces utilize technology – becoming cyborgs – in order to exceed their own abilities and achieve their goals. This theory is supported by the following quote from Sheikh Ahmed Ismail Yassin, the co-founder of Hamas – a Palestinian paramilitary faction which consistently utilizes suicide bombing against Israeli civilians and military targets.
“Once we have warplanes and missiles, then we can think of changing our means of legitimate self-defense. But right now, we can only tackle the fire with our bare hands and sacrifice ourselves.”
Upon the assassination of Yassin, United States ambassador John Negroponte commented upon the ideology of Hamas as depraved and without morals. He specifically noted the late Yassin as a preacher of hatred and inhumanity, citing his words on the subject of suicide bombing as glorifying the killing of civilians . This can be equated to Haraway’s comments on the resistance faced by cyborgs for their refusal to adhere to societal norms – in this case, the United States’ opinion on the use of suicide bombing against Israeli targets.
The general perception to such tactics is one of horror and undeniable inhumanity. To Asad, this Western view of suicide bombing has come as a result of the sanitization of warfare through the promotion of “morally superior” computerized methods of fighting . In utilizing suicide bombing tactics, Asad states, the participants of such attacks may face dehumanization and accusations of moral ambiguity through “their deliberate transgression of boundaries that separates the human from the inhuman” . The concept of suicide bombers emerging as a result of constantly advancing human-machine hybridization in military technology and the subsequent moral denouncement of these figures for their transcendence of human bounds fits succinctly into cyborg theory.
The growing role of suicide tactics and material as a means of effective improvisational technology can be explained through the efficiency offered through such methods of cyborgization. The use of ‘cyborg’ technologies, namely the joining of human and machine in forming – in this case – a weapon, is seen by its users as a boon through displays of its effectiveness. Stephen Hopgood’s analysis of the suicide tactics of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) states that the use of a suicide truck bombing against a Sri Lankan government compound caused damage on a scale that was not possible with other weapons available to the LTTE; the strike allowed for enemy government troops to be overwhelmed immediately in a victory that would not have been achieved if it were not for effectiveness of suicide truck bombing . This feat was only possible through the Tamil Tigers’ use of cyborgization – combining their literal technology with a human participant. Another example of suicide bombing’s effectiveness through cyborgization is the more infamous attack upon American locales on September 11th, 2001. According to Kalyvas and Sanchez-Cuenca, the 2001 attacks on World Trade Centers and the Pentagon would not have been as efficient as they were if it had not been for their use of suicide as a tactic; this can be seen through the failure of the attempted bombing of the World Trade Centers in 1993 by conventional means . The efficiency of suicide bombing is a result of the general technological inability to prevent it: the uncomplicated nature of suicide bombing technology allows for easy use by almost any subject, and its general undetectability assists in its maximum effectiveness in terms of placement. This leads to a general sense of paranoia toward suicide technology as a result of its morally tenebrous position within wartime and terror tactics. The following quote by Kalyvas and Sanchez-Cuenca summarizes the subject.
“A person wearing a bomb is far more dangerous and far more difficult to defend against than a timed device left to explode in the marketplace. This human weapons system can effect last-minute changes based on the ease of approach, the paucity or density of people, and the security measures in evidence.”
Conclusion, Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and End The Paper
Through an analysis of the similarities shared between subjects deemed to be ‘cyborgs’ under Haraway’s theory and suicide bombers as a continuation of human military cyborgization, it is safe to say that cyborg theory can be applied to suicide theory and supported by the scholarly interpretations of its various roles in technology. If analyzed within the framework of the important role of public opinion toward cyborgs for their alternate identities, suicide bombers are regarded similarly: morally ambiguous and without the human standing to act properly, they are a threat to the status quo. The trend of cyborgization in terms of human military advancement shows equal amounts of similarity in that suicide bombers seem to be another step in the fabled direction of ultra-efficient and resourceful human-machine hybridization. Through an application of Haraway’s general cyborg theory to suicide bombers, it becomes quite evident that they are very much subject to the “Manifesto” and supportive cyborg-related academic documents.
Works Cited
1. Asad, Talal. On Suicide Bombing. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007.
2. Bloom, Mia. Dying to Kill: the Allure of Suicide Terror. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005.
3. Gambetta, Diego. “Can We Make Sense of Suicide Missions?” in Making Sense of Suicide Missions, edited by Diego Gambetta, 259-300. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
4. Halacy, Jr., D.S. Cyborg – Evolution of the Superman. New York/London: Harper & Row Publishers, 1965.
5. Haraway, Donna. "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century." in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature, 149-181. New York; Routledge, 1991.
6. Holden, Stephen. “Terrorists Facing their Moment of Truth.” The New York Times (October 2005). http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/28/movies/28para.html?_r=1&ex=1175486400&en=12f6093d0860ee9c&ei=5070 (accessed April 23rd, 2009).
7. Hopgood, Stephen. “Tamil Tigers, 1987-2002.” in Making Sense of Suicide Missions, edited by Diego Gambetta, 43-76. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
8. Kalyvas, Stathis and Ignacio Sanchez-Cuenca. “Killing Without Dying: The Absence of Suicide Missions.” in Making Sense of Suicide Missions, edited by Diego Gambetta, 209-232. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
9. Linor, Irit. “Anti-Semitism Now.” YNetNews.com (February 2006). http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3212503,00.html (accessed April 23rd, 2009).
10. Negroponte, John. “U.N. Must Condemn Hamas Terrorism as Well as Israeli Assassination, March 23, 2004”. United States Diplomatic Mission to Italy (March 2004). http://www.usembassy.it/viewer/article.asp?article=/file2004_03/alia/a4032408.htm (accessed April 23rd, 2009).
11. Oehlert, Mark. “From Captain America to Wolverine: Cyborgs in Comic Books, Alternative Images of Cybernetic Heroes and Villains,” in The Cyborg Handbook, edited by Chris Hables Gray, 219-232. New York/London: Routledge, 1995.
12. Shiloh, Scott. "Film Depicting Human Side of Suicide Bombers Wins Golden Globe.” Arutz Sheva (January 2006). http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/96814 (accessed April 23rd, 2009).
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I hope you got something out of it - I think I did.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
The Finest Diplomat: Olearius In Muscovy
I had some fun writing this piece; it's similar to that of one I did about a year ago on the subject of a scholar I regarded as a Tsarist apologist (if I remember correctly) in that his writings were easy to tear to shreds. Holsteinian diplomat Adam Olearius fares no better: I found him to be hypocritical, ignorant and far too self-righteous to even consider himself vaguely diplomatic, let alone an actual diplomat.
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Adam Olearius was a German ambassador, secretary and translator who traveled Eurasia during the seventeenth century per the request of Duke Frederick III of Holstein-Gottorp. He was tasked with, essentially, the future of the new German settlement “Friedrichstadt”: a locale founded by Dutch settlers with Frederick III’s blessing in hopes of fostering international trade within the territorial bounds of Holstein-Gottorp. As the lead diplomat, Adam Olearius was tasked with forging trade routes and completing monetary agreements with powers that would have links to lucrative trade to the East such as Persia and Muscovy. Despite years of effort on the part of Olearius, Friedrichstadt would not garner the sort of economic activity that Frederick III hoped it would achieve and the diplomat returned to work as the duke’s archivist.
Olearius’s real contributions were historical works, most notably his narrative “Moskowitische und Persische Reise: die Holsteinische Gesandtschaft beim Schah, 1633-1639“which described the foreign peoples he encountered while traveling with his entourage across Eurasia. His entertaining commentary on the state of the Russian people under Muscovite rule, including physical features and social behavior, is very detailed and useful for a scholar hoping to garner foreign views of the Eastern Slavs throughout their historical journey. Outside of this context, however, the writings of Olearius on the subject of the Muscovites can be seen as fairly bigoted: despite the necessity that Muscovy plays in his diplomatic task, he shows little appreciation or understanding of the people or their culture. Olearius directs much criticism and abject insults upon the population of Muscovy which includes – as he sees it – rowdy and murderous slaves, sex-crazed peasants and hypocritical, foul-mouth authority figures. As will be displayed in this piece, Adam Olearius’s work is extensive and well-written yet remains uninformed as a result of the author’s inability to make sense of or draw comparisons to Russian culture. Several examples of this will be investigated, but by no means can the entire document be analyzed and picked apart: it would require a piece of at least the length of Olearius’s to do so.
The biggest flaw put forth by the German diplomat in his dealings with the Muscovites is his stark inability to regard them as possessors of a legitimate and unique way or life. The first example of this can be seen only sentences into the work when Olearius labels the Russians as having skin pigmentation similar to that of ‘other Europeans’ – an interesting statement on the base level that, with the continued exposure of Western Europeans to the Russians and the insurmountable level of difference between them, a Holy Roman diplomat would consider Russians to be Europeans . It is notable that the scholar Olearius is willing to consider the widely-reviled Muscovites as fellow Europeans – especially notable due to the history of hostility between the Russians and Western Christians observable in events such as the Baltic Crusades (in which the Germans Teutonic Order faced the Poles, who Olearius repeatedly compares to the Muscovites).
In equating the Russians with ‘other’ Europeans, Olearius seems to ignore the uniqueness of Russian culture and development that unquestionably sets Russians apart from their counterparts to the West. Russian culture is not truly European: although it is influenced by European sources such as Rurik and his Varangians who founded the famed Rus’ trading center Novgorod, Russian culture is influenced by much more. The steppe – a region that originated a way of life that can be seen as the polar opposite of settled Western Europe – had a major impact on Russian culture in that it delivered unto the divided Rus’ new military techniques, court behavior, a revamped geographical dispersion of its people as well as new concepts for taxation and legal statues. As reasoned by the historian Isabel de Madariaga, the infamous Oprichnina of Muscovy’s Ivan IV can be seen as one of the many continuing legacies of the steppe’s influence upon the Russian people – in this case, through the influence of Ivan’s second wife, Maria Temrjukovna . The influence of Byzantine culture can be seen readily in Muscovite art by observing their use of traditionally Byzantine religious icons and the Muscovite adherence to Orthodox Christianity which possesses intense historical and cultural links to the Byzantine Empire. Olearius himself notes this, but does it demeaningly by stating that the Russians go out of their way to imitate the Greek way of life in an effort to give themselves legitimacy as a people. Olearius cites the Russian practices of mimicking Byzantine appearances in the practices of wearing ‘traditional’ Greek clothing and growing out ones’ hair in order to express shame. In contrary to Olearius’s accusations, it is worth noting that within the general Christian tradition the growing of a man’s hair was considered a sign of dismay – thus, it was mostly certainly not a practice limited to the Byzantines .
“(7) For man ought not to have his head covered, as he is in God’s image and glory…
(14) Does not nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a dishonor to him…”
Olearius continues to display his incomprehension of Russian culture throughout the piece. It is true that the Russians have what may be considered an aversion to outside culture – an almost humorous observation when one considers the large amount of foreign substance that the Rus’ have adapted to their own use and added into the sphere of their own society. Olearius’s view on the subject of Russian xenophobia seems to shift drastically throughout the piece: for example, at one point he is stern in his accusations of the Russians as mimics of the Greeks (as seen above). Later in the piece, he states that the Russians have few similarities with them especially in terms of language or art . This is entirely incorrect: while the Russians did conform the Byzantine religious practices to their own dialect, that would not insinuate that the Russians have ignorance to the Greek language but would actually suggest the utter opposite. The Russian Orthodox Church and Russian culture in general adapted much from Byzantine art, drawing from influences such as Christian icons and architectural practices. In stating that the Russians did not regard Greek culture, he seems to try to convince the reader that the residents of Muscovy are undeserving of carrying on the Roman and Greek legacies in the form of Orthodox Christianity, Byzantine-esque court politics and ‘Eastern’ design. In the same section of his narrative, Olearius cites examples of the Russian aversion to Classical avenues of effort such as the sciences: a Russian chancellor misunderstands the scholar’s attempts to stave off boredom through scientific antics as sorcery and brand a musically-inclined Dutch barber in a windy chamber as a heretic when the skeleton on his wall begins to move under ‘supernatural’ influence . These examples of Russian ignorance to foreign behavior are in contrast to Olearius’s constant branding of almost every Russian behavior he mentions as against the will of God and shameful to not only themselves but to their divine lord – a woefully hypocritical viewpoint from the learned Holsteinian.
It is possible that the only comparisons of substance Olearius can make are those between the uncivilized Muscovites and his own cultured German people. He cites the example of one ‘Nikita Ivanovich Romanov’, a wealth Russian xenophile whose appreciation for German culture goes misunderstood by Moscow’s Patriarch, who tricks him into removing the his European garb and disavowing it; to start the next paragraph, Olearius brands the Russians as barbarians and later says that the Russian people put little thought into foreigners . He later goes on to discuss the validity of holding skeletons for medical use (a more that Germans engaged in yet one the Russians were wary of, as can be seen above), the persecution of foreigners by Russian judges and the inability of Muscovites to regard foreigners as anything but a victim of their wiles. Going on, the ambassador states in one instance that they are a clever folk who do nothing but attempt to backstab and shame their rivals, be they neighbors or strangers, while gaining as much as possible. In the words of Jakob Ulfeldt as quoted by Olearius, Russians are “divorced… from all virtue”; he goes on for quite some time in his narrative describing the dishonesty of the Russians in attempting to achieve societal esteem and court positions . Further on, Olearius states that the Russians “are by nature cruel and fit only for slavery, [so] they must constantly be kept under a cruel and harsh yoke of restraint…” , regarding Russia’s tendency toward authoritarianism and absolutism as a show of their lack of civility. These qualities are not solely Russian traits but can be seen across the West: even a cursory knowledge of then-contemporary Italian political science piece Il Principe is a prime example, suggesting cruelty and fear as viable methods of rule in what Olearius would call ‘civilized Europe’. In addition, Olearius is not in Muscovy for the simple reason of cultural observation or societal analysis: he is among the Muscovites in order to secure politically-motivated financial matters with their ruling class. In his criticism of the Muscovites as particularly voracious toward foreigners in their attempts to gain things from them, he seems ignores the fact that he is doing the exact same thing and further invalidates himself. Olearius goes on: he compares the Russians’ lack of honor to the Germans in discussing the Muscovite inability to duel honorably as well as the offenses to the senses that no true German could bear that are commonplace in Moscow; the Muscovite tendency to disavow wine for cruder liquors is also discussed as an example of their barbarity . As an aside, he criticizes the Russian tendency to drink several times throughout his piece; he does not mention, however, the lack of refinement that almost every pre-modern society (including the Germans) shows upon the imbibing of illicit substance.
The true hypocrisy and bias of Olearius comes to pass in an observation he makes in one of the many comparisons between Muscovite and European (specifically German) civilization. In this statement, he suggests that the Russians are “very receptive” toward German techniques in the schools of artistic expression and science – a direct noncorrelation to his previous expressed beliefs that the Russians were in no way interested in such things. Olearius continues, assuming that Muscovite observers to Western forging and artwork will do all they can to steal the methods of foreigners . Olearius disregards the Western tendency to mimic technology and artwork throughout history: from the Romans putting to use Greek naval techniques to medieval Europeans copying Chinese and Middle Eastern use of gunpowder, Western Europe has had a massive history of ‘copycat’ behavior. It is possible that this statement is the opus of Olearius’s hypocritical and bigoted beliefs: while the Russian people are entirely unreceptive to all foreigners and lack culture in entirety, they are nevertheless enamored with German civilization and do all they can to plagiarize it for their own use.
Olearius’s work shines in its total inability to even touch upon the legitimacy of Muscovy’s culture outside of it being a copycat amalgamation of most groups that border the Russians. According to Baron’s translation, Moscow is populated by drunks and rogues who do nothing but cheat themselves and others out of money that will only be spent on earthly vices. Every cultural practice of the Muscovites, according to Olearius, seems to be stolen from either Western Europe or the Byzantine Empire – an entity whose legacy the Western Europeans and the Russians were competing to uphold. The German shows complete bias in his piece through constant compliments toward his own people followed by what are essentially insults against even the idea of Russian ‘culture’, stating that barbarians of the Muscovite variety possess little more than the practice of banditry and will leave it as their sole legacy. As can be seen in the provided opposing examples, the exact opposite is true: Muscovite civilization was a unique, non-European way of life that was apparently baffling to the unreceptive and fairly ignorant Olearius.
Works Cited
1 Auty, Robert and Dimitri Obolensky. Companion to Russian Studies, Vol. 1: An Introduction to Russian History. Cambridge University Press: 1976.
2. Trans. New World Translation Committee. New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures. Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York: Brooklyn, 1984.
3. Olearius, Adam; trans. Samuel H. Baron. The Travels of Olearius in Seventeenth-Century Russia. Stanford University Press: Stanford, 1967.
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While I value Olearius's observations on cultural and court matters in Muscovy, everything he says has to be taken with a grain of salt because he's extremely prejudiced. His writing has the potential to skew a reader's views on Russian society which, despite its 'frontier' nature to the Europeans, was similar enough to life in most of Europe; essentially, Olearius had no real grounds to insult the Muscovites as he does repeatedly. I would love to get hold of his writings on the Persians with whom he also associated, as the cultural differences must produce even greater nigh-comedic prejudice.
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Adam Olearius was a German ambassador, secretary and translator who traveled Eurasia during the seventeenth century per the request of Duke Frederick III of Holstein-Gottorp. He was tasked with, essentially, the future of the new German settlement “Friedrichstadt”: a locale founded by Dutch settlers with Frederick III’s blessing in hopes of fostering international trade within the territorial bounds of Holstein-Gottorp. As the lead diplomat, Adam Olearius was tasked with forging trade routes and completing monetary agreements with powers that would have links to lucrative trade to the East such as Persia and Muscovy. Despite years of effort on the part of Olearius, Friedrichstadt would not garner the sort of economic activity that Frederick III hoped it would achieve and the diplomat returned to work as the duke’s archivist.
Olearius’s real contributions were historical works, most notably his narrative “Moskowitische und Persische Reise: die Holsteinische Gesandtschaft beim Schah, 1633-1639“which described the foreign peoples he encountered while traveling with his entourage across Eurasia. His entertaining commentary on the state of the Russian people under Muscovite rule, including physical features and social behavior, is very detailed and useful for a scholar hoping to garner foreign views of the Eastern Slavs throughout their historical journey. Outside of this context, however, the writings of Olearius on the subject of the Muscovites can be seen as fairly bigoted: despite the necessity that Muscovy plays in his diplomatic task, he shows little appreciation or understanding of the people or their culture. Olearius directs much criticism and abject insults upon the population of Muscovy which includes – as he sees it – rowdy and murderous slaves, sex-crazed peasants and hypocritical, foul-mouth authority figures. As will be displayed in this piece, Adam Olearius’s work is extensive and well-written yet remains uninformed as a result of the author’s inability to make sense of or draw comparisons to Russian culture. Several examples of this will be investigated, but by no means can the entire document be analyzed and picked apart: it would require a piece of at least the length of Olearius’s to do so.
The biggest flaw put forth by the German diplomat in his dealings with the Muscovites is his stark inability to regard them as possessors of a legitimate and unique way or life. The first example of this can be seen only sentences into the work when Olearius labels the Russians as having skin pigmentation similar to that of ‘other Europeans’ – an interesting statement on the base level that, with the continued exposure of Western Europeans to the Russians and the insurmountable level of difference between them, a Holy Roman diplomat would consider Russians to be Europeans . It is notable that the scholar Olearius is willing to consider the widely-reviled Muscovites as fellow Europeans – especially notable due to the history of hostility between the Russians and Western Christians observable in events such as the Baltic Crusades (in which the Germans Teutonic Order faced the Poles, who Olearius repeatedly compares to the Muscovites).
In equating the Russians with ‘other’ Europeans, Olearius seems to ignore the uniqueness of Russian culture and development that unquestionably sets Russians apart from their counterparts to the West. Russian culture is not truly European: although it is influenced by European sources such as Rurik and his Varangians who founded the famed Rus’ trading center Novgorod, Russian culture is influenced by much more. The steppe – a region that originated a way of life that can be seen as the polar opposite of settled Western Europe – had a major impact on Russian culture in that it delivered unto the divided Rus’ new military techniques, court behavior, a revamped geographical dispersion of its people as well as new concepts for taxation and legal statues. As reasoned by the historian Isabel de Madariaga, the infamous Oprichnina of Muscovy’s Ivan IV can be seen as one of the many continuing legacies of the steppe’s influence upon the Russian people – in this case, through the influence of Ivan’s second wife, Maria Temrjukovna . The influence of Byzantine culture can be seen readily in Muscovite art by observing their use of traditionally Byzantine religious icons and the Muscovite adherence to Orthodox Christianity which possesses intense historical and cultural links to the Byzantine Empire. Olearius himself notes this, but does it demeaningly by stating that the Russians go out of their way to imitate the Greek way of life in an effort to give themselves legitimacy as a people. Olearius cites the Russian practices of mimicking Byzantine appearances in the practices of wearing ‘traditional’ Greek clothing and growing out ones’ hair in order to express shame. In contrary to Olearius’s accusations, it is worth noting that within the general Christian tradition the growing of a man’s hair was considered a sign of dismay – thus, it was mostly certainly not a practice limited to the Byzantines .
“(7) For man ought not to have his head covered, as he is in God’s image and glory…
(14) Does not nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a dishonor to him…”
Olearius continues to display his incomprehension of Russian culture throughout the piece. It is true that the Russians have what may be considered an aversion to outside culture – an almost humorous observation when one considers the large amount of foreign substance that the Rus’ have adapted to their own use and added into the sphere of their own society. Olearius’s view on the subject of Russian xenophobia seems to shift drastically throughout the piece: for example, at one point he is stern in his accusations of the Russians as mimics of the Greeks (as seen above). Later in the piece, he states that the Russians have few similarities with them especially in terms of language or art . This is entirely incorrect: while the Russians did conform the Byzantine religious practices to their own dialect, that would not insinuate that the Russians have ignorance to the Greek language but would actually suggest the utter opposite. The Russian Orthodox Church and Russian culture in general adapted much from Byzantine art, drawing from influences such as Christian icons and architectural practices. In stating that the Russians did not regard Greek culture, he seems to try to convince the reader that the residents of Muscovy are undeserving of carrying on the Roman and Greek legacies in the form of Orthodox Christianity, Byzantine-esque court politics and ‘Eastern’ design. In the same section of his narrative, Olearius cites examples of the Russian aversion to Classical avenues of effort such as the sciences: a Russian chancellor misunderstands the scholar’s attempts to stave off boredom through scientific antics as sorcery and brand a musically-inclined Dutch barber in a windy chamber as a heretic when the skeleton on his wall begins to move under ‘supernatural’ influence . These examples of Russian ignorance to foreign behavior are in contrast to Olearius’s constant branding of almost every Russian behavior he mentions as against the will of God and shameful to not only themselves but to their divine lord – a woefully hypocritical viewpoint from the learned Holsteinian.
It is possible that the only comparisons of substance Olearius can make are those between the uncivilized Muscovites and his own cultured German people. He cites the example of one ‘Nikita Ivanovich Romanov’, a wealth Russian xenophile whose appreciation for German culture goes misunderstood by Moscow’s Patriarch, who tricks him into removing the his European garb and disavowing it; to start the next paragraph, Olearius brands the Russians as barbarians and later says that the Russian people put little thought into foreigners . He later goes on to discuss the validity of holding skeletons for medical use (a more that Germans engaged in yet one the Russians were wary of, as can be seen above), the persecution of foreigners by Russian judges and the inability of Muscovites to regard foreigners as anything but a victim of their wiles. Going on, the ambassador states in one instance that they are a clever folk who do nothing but attempt to backstab and shame their rivals, be they neighbors or strangers, while gaining as much as possible. In the words of Jakob Ulfeldt as quoted by Olearius, Russians are “divorced… from all virtue”; he goes on for quite some time in his narrative describing the dishonesty of the Russians in attempting to achieve societal esteem and court positions . Further on, Olearius states that the Russians “are by nature cruel and fit only for slavery, [so] they must constantly be kept under a cruel and harsh yoke of restraint…” , regarding Russia’s tendency toward authoritarianism and absolutism as a show of their lack of civility. These qualities are not solely Russian traits but can be seen across the West: even a cursory knowledge of then-contemporary Italian political science piece Il Principe is a prime example, suggesting cruelty and fear as viable methods of rule in what Olearius would call ‘civilized Europe’. In addition, Olearius is not in Muscovy for the simple reason of cultural observation or societal analysis: he is among the Muscovites in order to secure politically-motivated financial matters with their ruling class. In his criticism of the Muscovites as particularly voracious toward foreigners in their attempts to gain things from them, he seems ignores the fact that he is doing the exact same thing and further invalidates himself. Olearius goes on: he compares the Russians’ lack of honor to the Germans in discussing the Muscovite inability to duel honorably as well as the offenses to the senses that no true German could bear that are commonplace in Moscow; the Muscovite tendency to disavow wine for cruder liquors is also discussed as an example of their barbarity . As an aside, he criticizes the Russian tendency to drink several times throughout his piece; he does not mention, however, the lack of refinement that almost every pre-modern society (including the Germans) shows upon the imbibing of illicit substance.
The true hypocrisy and bias of Olearius comes to pass in an observation he makes in one of the many comparisons between Muscovite and European (specifically German) civilization. In this statement, he suggests that the Russians are “very receptive” toward German techniques in the schools of artistic expression and science – a direct noncorrelation to his previous expressed beliefs that the Russians were in no way interested in such things. Olearius continues, assuming that Muscovite observers to Western forging and artwork will do all they can to steal the methods of foreigners . Olearius disregards the Western tendency to mimic technology and artwork throughout history: from the Romans putting to use Greek naval techniques to medieval Europeans copying Chinese and Middle Eastern use of gunpowder, Western Europe has had a massive history of ‘copycat’ behavior. It is possible that this statement is the opus of Olearius’s hypocritical and bigoted beliefs: while the Russian people are entirely unreceptive to all foreigners and lack culture in entirety, they are nevertheless enamored with German civilization and do all they can to plagiarize it for their own use.
Olearius’s work shines in its total inability to even touch upon the legitimacy of Muscovy’s culture outside of it being a copycat amalgamation of most groups that border the Russians. According to Baron’s translation, Moscow is populated by drunks and rogues who do nothing but cheat themselves and others out of money that will only be spent on earthly vices. Every cultural practice of the Muscovites, according to Olearius, seems to be stolen from either Western Europe or the Byzantine Empire – an entity whose legacy the Western Europeans and the Russians were competing to uphold. The German shows complete bias in his piece through constant compliments toward his own people followed by what are essentially insults against even the idea of Russian ‘culture’, stating that barbarians of the Muscovite variety possess little more than the practice of banditry and will leave it as their sole legacy. As can be seen in the provided opposing examples, the exact opposite is true: Muscovite civilization was a unique, non-European way of life that was apparently baffling to the unreceptive and fairly ignorant Olearius.
Works Cited
1 Auty, Robert and Dimitri Obolensky. Companion to Russian Studies, Vol. 1: An Introduction to Russian History. Cambridge University Press: 1976.
2. Trans. New World Translation Committee. New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures. Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York: Brooklyn, 1984.
3. Olearius, Adam; trans. Samuel H. Baron. The Travels of Olearius in Seventeenth-Century Russia. Stanford University Press: Stanford, 1967.
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While I value Olearius's observations on cultural and court matters in Muscovy, everything he says has to be taken with a grain of salt because he's extremely prejudiced. His writing has the potential to skew a reader's views on Russian society which, despite its 'frontier' nature to the Europeans, was similar enough to life in most of Europe; essentially, Olearius had no real grounds to insult the Muscovites as he does repeatedly. I would love to get hold of his writings on the Persians with whom he also associated, as the cultural differences must produce even greater nigh-comedic prejudice.
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