History thread

[Hugo]

The premise of the thread is that it will be a place where the history buffs of the bored can post historical tidbits, curiosities and miscellany as they see fit, based on what they have read, researched or come across. Basically things that may be of interest to other posters. It may or may not foster discussion but at the least it will cause people to investigate further into a subject and broaden their historical horizons.

Anything of historical importance can be posted, be it geopolitical in nature or otherwise. Types of things you could post about are an election or political campaign, a battle or siege, a natural disaster, a terrorist attack, an exploration, a scientific discovery, a sporting triumph that had social or political implications etc. If we could just abide by a few parameters that would be great:

a) confine posting to pre 21st century history. Given the polarised nature of the modern world it's not advisable to put anything that has happened in this millennium under the microscope lest the thread degenerate into just another culture war type of conversation. There is an over abundance of these in the world, we don't need another one.
b) Please provide links/sources for any information that you cite.
c) Make suggestions for further reading, book suggestions, provide links to documentaries and such.

I will endeavour to update the OP as a kind of table of contents where I will list in chronological events that have been posted about.

[Hugo]

The Barbary wars were two wars that were fought by the fledgling United States against the Barbary states of North Africa - Morocco, Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli in the early 19th century.
These wars were significant in that they were the first wars that the United States fought outside of North America and the first wars involving the US Navy.

Barbary pirates that were affiliated to the Barbary states would attack and capture merchant ships in the mediterranean and then demand ransom for the release of their prisoners. The European sea powers were in the habit of paying these ransoms, in fact Britain and France actually tacitly encouraged their activities because it was detrimental to the shipping of smaller, rival sea faring nations. In addition to attacking merchant vessels the barbary pirates were renowned for attacking coastal settlements in Spain and Italy and capturing people to be later sold as slaves.

The Barbary wars happened at a time when tolerance for the activities of the pirates was on the wane and it is reported that after losing the two wars to the United States their activity ceased entirely after the French conquest of Algeria in 1830.

Barbary Wars, 1801–1805 and 1815–1816
The Barbary States were a collection of North African states, many of which practiced state-supported piracy in order to exact tribute from weaker Atlantic powers. Morocco was an independent kingdom, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli owed a loose allegiance to the Ottoman Empire. The United States fought two separate wars with Tripoli (1801–1805) and Algiers (1815–1816), although at other times it preferred to pay tribute to obtain the release of captives held in the Barbary States.


The Barbary Wars
The practice of state-supported piracy and ransoming of captives was not wholly unusual for its time. Many European states commissioned privateers to attack each others’ shipping and also participated in the transatlantic slave trade. The two major European powers, Great Britain and France, found it expedient to encourage the Barbary States’ policy and pay tribute to them, as it allowed their merchant shipping an increased share of the Mediterranean trade, and Barbary leaders chose not to challenge the superior British or French navies.

Prior to independence, American colonists had enjoyed the protection of the British Navy. However, once the United States declared independence, British diplomats were quick to inform the Barbary States that U.S. ships were open to attack. In 1785, Dey Muhammad of Algiers declared war on the United States and captured several American ships. The financially troubled Confederation Government of the United States was unable to raise a navy or the tribute that would protect U.S. ships.

In contrast to the dispute with Algiers, U.S. negotiations with Morocco went well. Moroccan Sultan Sidi Muhammad had seized a U.S. merchant ship in 1784 after the United States had ignored diplomatic overtures. However, Muhammad ultimately followed a policy of peaceful trade, and the United States successfully concluded a treaty with Morocco in 1786. However, Congress was still unable to raise enough funds to satisfy the Dey of Algiers.

In an attempt to address the challenge posed by the Dey of Algiers, Thomas Jefferson, then U.S. Minister to France, attempted to build a coalition of weaker naval powers to defeat Algiers, but was unsuccessful. However, the Kingdom of Portugal was also at war with Algiers, and blocked Algerian ships from sailing past the Straits of Gibraltar. As a result, U.S. merchant ships in the Atlantic Ocean remained safe for a time and temporarily relieved the U.S. Government from the challenges posed by the Barbary States.

In 1793 a brief Portuguese-Algerian truce exposed American merchant ships to capture, forcing the United States, which had thus far only managed to conclude a treaty with Morocco, to engage in negotiations with the other Barbary States. In 1795, The U.S. Government dispatched diplomats Joel Barlow, Joseph Donaldson, and Richard O’Brien to North Africa and successfully concluded treaties with the states of Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli. Under the terms of these treaties, the United States agreed to pay tribute to these states. The treaty with Algiers freed 83 American sailors.

The adoption of the Constitution in 1789 gave the U.S. Government the power to levy taxes and to raise and maintain armed forces, powers which had been lacking under the Articles of Confederation. In 1794, in response to Algerian seizures of American ships, Congress authorized construction of the first 6 ships of the U.S. Navy. In 1801, the Pasha of Tripoli, Yusuf Qaramanli, citing late payments of tribute, demanded additional tribute and declared war on the United States. The United States successfully defeated Qaramanli’s forces with a combined naval and land assault by the United States Marine Corps. The U.S. treaty with Tripoli concluded in 1805 included a ransom for American prisoners in Tripoli, but no provisions for tribute.

In 1812, the new Dey of Algiers, Hajji Ali, rejected the American tribute negotiated in the 1795 treaty as insufficient and declared war on the United States. Algerian corsairs captured an American ship several weeks later. In accordance with an agreement between the Dey and British diplomats, the Algerian declaration was timed to coincide with the start of the War of 1812 between Britain and the United States. The war with Britain prevented the U.S. Government from either confronting Algerian forces or ransoming U.S. captives in Algiers. Once the Treaty of Ghent ended war with Britain, President James Madison requested that Congress declare war on Algiers, with Congress authorizing the use of force on March 3, 1815. The U.S. Navy, greatly increased in size after the War of 1812, was able send an entire squadron, led by Commodore Stephen Decatur, to the Mediterranean.

When the U.S. naval expedition arrived in Algiers, a new ruler, Dey Omar, was in power. Omar wished to restore order after several years of political instability and was acutely aware that he could no longer count on British support against the Americans. Decatur had already defeated two Algerian warships and captured hundreds of prisoners of war, and was in a favorable position for negotiation. Dey Omar reluctantly accepted the treaty proposed by Decatur that called for an exchange of U.S. and Algerian prisoners and an end to the practices of tribute and ransom. Having defeated the most powerful of the Barbary States, Decatur sailed to Tunis and Tripoli and obtained similar treaties. In Tripoli, Decatur also secured from Pasha Qaramanli the release of all European captives. The U.S. Senate ratified Decatur’s Algerian treaty on December 5, 1815. Dey Omar repudiated the treaty, but another U.S. squadron arrived after a combined Anglo-Dutch bombardment of Algiers, and U.S. commissioner William Shaler dictated terms of a new treaty which contained essentially the same provisions as the old one. Shaler concluded his negotiations on December 23, 1815, but the Senate, owing to an accidental oversight, did not ratify the treaty until February 11, 1822.

The Barbary States, although they did not capture any more U.S. ships, began to resume raids in the Mediterranean, and despite punitive British bombardments did not end their practices until the French conquest of Algeria in 1830.

https://history.state.gov/milestones/18 ... rbary-wars

[assfly]

Currently ploughing my way through Cecil John Rhodes' autobiography (Founder by Robert Rotburg).

Given his recent resurgence in (un)popularity, figured I'd educate myself, especially he's a figure that has had such a big indirect impact on my life.

Fascinating so far. Didn't realise he came from fairly modest background, and how he started out getting his hands dirty in the Kimberly mines. For all his faults, his ambition is quite admirable in his early days.

[handyman]

I would appreciate a recommendation for a book on South Africa's history. Not sure 1 book will cover all the angles, but open to suggestions.

[assfly]

I would appreciate a recommendation for a book on South Africa's history. Not sure 1 book will cover all the angles, but open to suggestions.

Any particular era?

[handyman]

I would appreciate a recommendation for a book on South Africa's history. Not sure 1 book will cover all the angles, but open to suggestions.

Any particular era?

Don't know if it's possible, but all of it. Mostly just to brush up on my general knowledge of our country's history.

[Paddington Bear]

I was yesterday years old when I discovered that the British government's 'buy a spitfire' campaign was a policy designed to fight inflation, not build spitfires.
The weapons they were asking for donations for (planes/subs etc) were largely built in the UK and so could be paid for in Sterling, therefore the government could always afford them. What they were more concerned about was the rising wages in civilian industry leading to inflation getting out of control, and found that significant voluntary donations back to the government was one of the most effective ways to do this.

From Dan Todman's Britain's War - Into Battle, which is well worth a read in it's own right.

[GogLais]

The premise of the thread is that it will be a place where the history buffs of the bored can post historical tidbits, curiosities and miscellany as they see fit, based on what they have read, researched or come across. Basically things that may be of interest to other posters. It may or may not foster discussion but at the least it will cause people to investigate further into a subject and broaden their historical horizons.

Anything of historical importance can be posted, be it geopolitical in nature or otherwise. Types of things you could post about are an election or political campaign, a battle or siege, a natural disaster, a terrorist attack, an exploration, a scientific discovery, a sporting triumph that had social or political implications etc. If we could just abide by a few parameters that would be great:

a) confine posting to pre 21st century history. Given the polarised nature of the modern world it's not advisable to put anything that has happened in this millennium under the microscope lest the thread degenerate into just another culture war type of conversation. There is an over abundance of these in the world, we don't need another one.
b) Please provide links/sources for any information that you cite.
c) Make suggestions for further reading, book suggestions, provide links to documentaries and such.

I will endeavour to update the OP as a kind of table of contents where I will list in chronological events that have been posted about.

Good idea. The C20 is my main interest. I tried to find out more about pre-Conquest Welsh history once but it just seemed to consist of various Llywelyns, Owains and Gruffydds killing each other.

[Hugo]

Sinan Reis (c. 1492-1546) was born to a Sephardic family that was expelled from Spain during the Expulsion of 1492 and settled in the Ottoman city of Smyrna. At the time, many Jews became pirates, attacking Spanish vessels both for revenge and to reclaim some of their confiscated wealth. Sinan joined the Barbary corsair pirates that sailed under the Ottoman flag. He became the right-hand man of the well-known pirate and Ottoman admiral Hayreddin Barbarossa. The two fought and won many battles against the Spanish and the Holy Roman Empire. The most famous was the Battle of Preveza in 1538. Barbarossa took Sinan’s military advice, leading to a magnificent Ottoman victory. Two years later, Sinan’s young son was captured at sea and forcibly baptized. The Christians refused to release him to the “infidels”, so Barbarossa led a fleet to bombard the Italian city of Piombino until Sinan’s son was finally freed. Barbarossa later dedicated his memoirs to Sinan, who was often referred to as Sinan Reis or Rayyis, Arabic for “chief”. Historical records from England describe him as “the famous Jewish pirate”, while the governor of Portuguese India at the time called him “the Great Jew”. Sinan went on to become Supreme Naval Commander of the Ottoman fleet.

https://www.jewoftheweek.net/2020/05/13 ... -pallache/

This is an interesting fellow, a Barbary pirate who was a Spanish Jew known as the "Great Jew" who sailed under the flag of the Ottoman Empire after his family had been expelled from Spain. After the Spanish had driven the Muslims out of Spain and unified the country Jews were expelled under the Alhambra decree and so Sinan became a pirate in part as a way of extracting revenge against the Spanish.

Another Barbary Pirate that was a convert was Jack Ward, an Englishmen who is said to be the inspiration for the Jack Sparrow character in Pirates of the Caribbean. Was a privateer during the reign of Elizabeth but when James moved away from supporting that activity he continued his piracy based in the Barbary states and converted to Islam.

Born in Faversham, Kent in about 1553, Jack Ward (or Birdy) spent his youth in the fisheries trade. Following the defeat of the Spanish Armada, he participated in privateering, an activity encouraged by Queen Elizabeth. With the accession of James I in 1603, Letters of Marque were no longer issued. Ward was pressed into the Royal Navy, but soon deserted with a group of other discontented sailors. They turned to piracy, sailing first out of the Isle of Wight and then transferring to the Mediterranean. Ward and his crew operated for a time out of Sale, Morocco. In 1606, he made an arrangement with Tunisian ruler Uthman Dey to use Tunis as his base, agreeing to give the Dey one-fifth of his proceeds from piracy. His flagship, the Reniera e Soderina, sank off Greece in heavy weather in 1607 with a loss of 400 sailors, Muslim and Christian, but Ward was not on board at the time. He attempted to obtain a royal pardon from King James I based on his supposed avoidance of attacking English ships and focusing his attention on so-called Papist ships (Italian and Spanish primarily). The King turned him down. Ward, converting to Islam, adopted the name Yusuf Reis. He eventually commanded a whole fleet of corsairs and became one of the most notorious of the Barbary pirates. A rich man, he died of the plague in Tunis in 1622.

https://www.maritimeprofessional.com/bl ... 1622-13326

[Hugo]

I would appreciate a recommendation for a book on South Africa's history. Not sure 1 book will cover all the angles, but open to suggestions.

Any particular era?

Don't know if it's possible, but all of it. Mostly just to brush up on my general knowledge of our country's history.

Yeah, I also would appreciate a book recommendation on the history of South Africa.

[Sandstorm]

Wilbur Smith

[Hugo]

Just finished the Crimean war by Orlando Figes. I would highly recommend it.

He talks about the importance of the Crimea to Russia from the point of view that it was there in Kievan Rus where Christianity first came to Russia. Given how central the Orthodox Church is to Russian national identity this is highly significant. Also, he explains about how the Russians perceiving it as a holy war felt that Britain and France betrayed Christianity by siding with the Turks - although of course their decisions were motivated mostly (entirely in the case of Britain) by geopolitical rather than theological considerations. He claims that this is at the heart of Russian distrust of the west, historically and today.

One of the most interesting things I learned was the extent and scale of Russophobia in Britain in the mid 19th century and the reciprocal Anglophobia in Russia. The sale of Alaska to the United States in 1867 was motivated in part by a desire on the part of Russia to undermine British North America/Canada. At that time and for the preceding ninety years Russia and the US had enjoyed a friendly, co-operative relationship.

[Globus]

I'm not too bad on my history of Oundle. It was known by the Anglo-Saxons as Undela. Pretty good too on the architecture here with lots of Grade Listed Buildings.

It's possible that St Wilfred was buried in my mate's garden. The spire of his church, St Peter's, is the tallest in Northamptonshire which overlooks his house.

Sorry to be parochial but my brain can only take so much.

[Big Nipper]

I'm not too bad on my history of Oundle. It was known by the Anglo-Saxons as Undela. Pretty good too on the architecture here with lots of Grade Listed Buildings.

It's possible that St Wilfred was buried in my mate's garden. The spire of his church, St Peter's, is the tallest in Northamptonshire which overlooks his house.

Sorry to be parochial but my brain can only take so much.

[Un Pilier]

I'm not too bad on my history of Oundle. It was known by the Anglo-Saxons as Undela. Pretty good too on the architecture here with lots of Grade Listed Buildings.

It's possible that St Wilfred was buried in my mate's garden. The spire of his church, St Peter's, is the tallest in Northamptonshire which overlooks his house.

Sorry to be parochial but my brain can only take so much.

How many times did we tell Wilfred not to lie about in that pile of leaves? Would he listen?

[Sandstorm]

Any particular era?

Don't know if it's possible, but all of it. Mostly just to brush up on my general knowledge of our country's history.

Yeah, I also would appreciate a book recommendation on the history of South Africa.

Frank Welsh: A History of South Africa...has all the important stuff. Well since the beginning of Western Province Rugby anyway.

https://www.worldofbooks.com/en-gb/book ... o0EALw_wcB

[Calculon]

Hermann Giliomee
The Afrikaners: Biography of a People (Reconsiderations in Southern African History)

I thought it a good read

[Line6 HXFX]

Hitler's Jet Plane
the ME262 story
by Mano Zeigler.

It is staggering how closely we came to losing the war.
Just lots of stupid decisions by Hitler stopped them having hundreds of these.

[Line6 HXFX]

Anuerin Bevan by Micheal foot.

[Hugo]

Don't know if it's possible, but all of it. Mostly just to brush up on my general knowledge of our country's history.

Yeah, I also would appreciate a book recommendation on the history of South Africa.

Frank Welsh: A History of South Africa...has all the important stuff. Well since the beginning of Western Province Rugby anyway.

https://www.worldofbooks.com/en-gb/book ... o0EALw_wcB

Thanks Sandstorm. Will stick it on my christmas list.

[Ali Cadoo]

Really enjoyed Max Hastings 'All Hell Let Loose' - thought it was refreshingly honest about the shit-show that was the British Empire. Had a copy of 'Catastrophe' lying around somewhere, meant to get started on that one, too.

A mate of mine provided the singing voice for Emperor Nero in the Horrible Histories Movie. This seemed like the thread to mention it.

[Globus]

I'm a veritable expert on Oundle! I do tours. It's original name was Undela. That's what the Anglo-Saxons called it.

We have four Grade I buildings and an awful lot of Grade IIs. I have access to places the tourists never get to see. It's great fun.

[Uncle fester]

The black death increased living standards because of the consequent labour shortage and increased wages.

[GogLais]

Anuerin Bevan by Micheal foot.

I should know more about Bevan but I wonder whether a biography by Foot will be a bit biased. I've just read The World After the War by Derek Lebaert, a history of UK-US relations from 1945-56, in it Bevan comes over as more of an anti-Soviet hardliner than I would have expected.

[Enzedder]

Good thread

NZs day of shame https://nzhistory.govt.nz/occupation-pa ... t-parihaka

This is a short precis

Invasion of pacifist settlement at Parihaka
5 November 1881


Armed Constabulary units at Parihaka, 1881 (Alexander Turnbull Library, PA1-q-183-19)

About 1600 troops invaded the western Taranaki settlement of Parihaka, which had come to symbolise peaceful resistance to the confiscation of Māori land.

Founded in the mid-1860s, Parihaka was soon attracting dispossessed and disillusioned Māori from around the country. They were impressed by the kaupapa of its main leaders, Te Whiti-o-Rongomai and Tohu Kākahi, both of the Taranaki and Te Āti Awa iwi.

When in May 1879 the colonial government moved to occupy fertile land on the Waimate Plains that had been declared confiscated in the 1860s, Te Whiti and Tohu developed tactics of non-violent resistance.

Ploughmen from Parihaka fanned out across Taranaki to assert continuing Māori ownership of the land. The government responded with laws targeting the Parihaka protesters and imprisoned several hundred ploughmen without trial.

Following an election in September 1879, the new government announced an enquiry into the confiscations while sending the ploughmen to South Island gaols, where some died. In 1880 the West Coast Commission recommended creating reserves for the Parihaka people. Meanwhile, the government began constructing roads across cultivated land. Men from Parihaka who rebuilt their fences soon joined the ploughmen in detention.

The prisoners were released in early 1881. After ploughing resumed in July, John Hall’s government decided to act decisively while Governor Sir Arthur Gordon was visiting Fiji. A proclamation on 19 October gave the ‘Parihaka natives’ 14 days to accept the reserves offered or face the consequences.

On 5 November, about 1600 volunteers and Constabulary Field Force troops marched on Parihaka. Several thousand Māori sat quietly on the marae as singing children greeted the force led by Native Minister John Bryce. The Whanganui farmer had fought in the campaign against Tītokowaru (see 9 June) and viewed Parihaka as a ‘headquarters of fanaticism and disaffection’. Bryce ordered the arrest of Parihaka’s leaders, the destruction of much of the village and the dispersal of most of its inhabitants. The Sim Commission which investigated these events in the 1920s was told that women were raped by troops, with some bearing children as a result.

Pressmen, officially banned from the scene by Bryce, were ambivalent about the government’s actions, but most colonists approved of them. Te Whiti and Tohu were detained without trial for 16 months. The government managed to delay for several years the publication in New Zealand of the official documents relating to these events.

View the film Tatarakihi: the children of Parihaka (NZ On Screen):

[Lemoentjie]

One for our Irish posters:



Irish Transvaal Brigade. Fought in Second Boer War.

[Line6 HXFX]

Anuerin Bevan by Micheal foot.

I should know more about Bevan but I wonder whether a biography by Foot will be a bit biased. I've just read The World After the War by Derek Lebaert, a history of UK-US relations from 1945-56, in it Bevan comes over as more of an anti-Soviet hardliner than I would have expected.

Foot is a terrific writer.
He does admit at the beginning that he isn't one for hero worship, but Bevan is an exception.
Bevan is probably the greatest politician the UK has produced though, and the fact that this isn't widely known...that he and churchill are not always mentioned in the same breath..well maybe we should all start being a little biased?

[Hugo]

There's a great Netflix documentary on the assassination of Malcolm X and the dubious circumstances surrounding it. The only person who was involved in the assassination who was prosecuted and imprisoned was Talmadge Hayer, his four accomplices were not identified or investigated. Two innocent men (that Hayer homself said were not involved) spent 20+ years in prison for a crime that they had no role in. The killing was not properly investigated either by the FBI or the NYPD, dozens of witnesses were not interviewed and the crime scene was not secured - the ballroom that he was killed in was used for a dance just hours after the murder. One of X's primary bodyguards was an undercover NYPD officer who had infiltrated his organisation and he performed CPR on Malcolm right after he was shot. His testimony was never sought, in fact the NYPD homicide investigator had not the faintest idea that this guy even existed. No question the US govt. had no interest in properly investigating this crime and had a vested interest in obscuring the facts and the identity of the killers. A half decent article on it from Time magazine earlier this year:

Friday marks 55 years since Malcolm X, one of the 20th century’s most important black figures, was assassinated at age 39 while speaking at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem, New York, on Feb. 21, 1965. In the more than half a century since, what happened that day has remained the subject of debate. Three members of the Nation of Islam (NOI) — Talmadge Hayer or Thomas Hagan (a.k.a Mujahid Abdul Halim), Norman Butler (a.k.a Muhammad Abdul Aziz) and Thomas Johnson (a.k.a Khalil Islam) — were convicted of his murder in 1966. The NOI is an African American religious and political organization formed in 1930 with the goal of improving the economic and spiritual conditions of the African American community in the United States. Malcolm X joined the group in 1952. Law enforcement at the time framed Malcolm’s assassination as the result of an ongoing dispute between him and the NOI; Malcolm had left the group in 1964 on bad terms. In the years since, popular narratives have largely followed suit. (The NOI declined to comment on the record for this piece.) But Butler (Aziz) and Johnson (Islam) have consistently professed their innocence, and scholars who have studied the case have raised doubts about the killing’s circumstances. On Feb. 7, following the recent premiere of a Netflix documentary series that reexamines the case, Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance announced that his office will review the case.

Who was Malcolm X?
Malcolm X was born in Omaha, but moved around the country during his early years. His father died when Malcolm was 6 years old and, while the death was ruled to be a streetcar accident, it’s believed by historians that he was killed by members of the Ku Klux Klan. As an adult, Malcolm became a minister and activist for the African American community, known for his strong beliefs in black self-determination and empowerment. By the late 1950s, he was among the most influential figures associated with the civil rights movement. While in prison in the late 1940s for charges of larceny and breaking and entering, Malcolm converted to Islam and, when he was released in 1952, joined the NOI. He became one of the group’s most important speakers and leaders. Malcolm’s positions on black freedom were seen as controversial in mainstream America, as he focused on black people creating their own power, structure and wealth, and dismissed the then-dominant ideas of integration and racial acceptance. He also believed strongly in the idea of self-defense as an alternative to nonviolent resistance. “He did not preach violence, he preached self-defense,” says historian Zaheer Ali, the lead researcher for Manning Marable’s 2011 biography Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention. “America has never been nonviolent with black people so instead of accusing Malcolm of being violent, we need to ask America about its violence.” Ali says that Malcolm stood out from other black leaders at the time in large part because of his complicated background. “This was someone who had come out of prison [and] emerged as a major leader of a growing organization at a time when most civil rights organizations did not even have a prison program, much less [would] hire a convict to be their spokesperson,” Ali tells TIME. “Malcolm represents this belief and hope in black potential, wherever that potential may be.” Ali also says that Malcolm saw the plight of black people in a much larger frame. “He always imagined black freedom transcending the boundaries of the United States,” Ali explains. “He always saw himself as a citizen of the world, and connected to black people around the world.”

What were the circumstances leading up to his assassination?
In 1964, Malcolm X left the NOI. Several incidents had led him to question his relationship with the organization. Malcolm had become uncomfortable with NOI leader Elijah Muhammad’s extramarital affairs, according to Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention, and strongly disagreed with the NOI’s decision not to respond to acts of violence against Muslims at the hands of the Los Angeles police department. In what has widely been interpreted as the last straw with regards to his relationship with the NOI, Malcolm was also “silenced” by the organization’s leadership after he spoke out regarding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in November 1963. Muhammad had laid down a rule that the NOI not comment on Kennedy’s death; flouting this, Malcolm described the president’s assassination as “the chickens coming home to roost.” The fallout from his leaving the NOI was serious. Many members viewed him as a traitor of the organization, and he received multiple death threats from within the group. Malcolm went on to start two new organizations, Muslim Mosque, Inc (MMI) and the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU). As was the case for many civil rights organizations and activists, Malcolm was under near-constant surveillance by the federal and New York state governments. The FBI first opened a file on Malcolm in March 1953, and closely monitored him over the next decade using surveillance and informants in the NOI, OAAU and MMI. On June 6, 1964, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover sent a telegram, which later became public, to the FBI office in New York City that said “do something about Malcolm X.” The New York Police Department (NYPD) had, at the time, a special unit called the Bureau of Special Services (BOSS) that had infiltrated many New York political organizations, including Malcolm’s. Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention describes the NOI, MMI and OAAU as “virtual rats nests of conflicting loyalties” due to the number of informants positioned among their members’ ranks. Law enforcement agencies “saw him as a threat,” Ali says. “They worked to undermine his efforts, to create and exacerbate conflict and really hastened the circumstances that would lead to his death.” Just a week before his assassination, Malcolm X’s home in the New York City borough of Queens was firebombed while he, his wife Betty Shabazz and their four children were asleep inside. No one was ever charged related to the incident. Though no one was injured, it became obvious to Malcolm and those around him that he was in serious danger.

What happened on the day of the assassination?
Prior to speaking at the Audubon Ballroom on Feb. 21, 1965, Malcolm had asked his security personnel not to perform security checks at the entrance. These searches of attendees were a longstanding practice enacted by the NOI at their rallies and one that Malcolm had initially continued after he left the organization. By January 1965, however, he had put a stop to them, though he retained a personal security detail. “[Malcolm] wanted to break away from the image” the searches represented, Peter Bailey, a former member of OAAU and associate of Malcolm’s is quoted saying in Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention. There were about 400 people in attendance for Malcolm’s speech, but no prevalent law enforcement presence was visible inside the Audubon Ballroom. This was unusual since police were typically highly visible at his rallies. When Malcolm took the stage to begin his address, an apparent dispute broke out among the audience. As Malcolm and his security team tried to calm the commotion, an individual ran onto the stage, approached Malcolm and shot him. Two other people then ran up to the stage and fired as well. Malcolm was shot a total of 21 times.

What happened with the investigation into Malcolm X’s assassination?
Talmadge Hayer was shot in the leg by a bodyguard and apprehended by members of the crowd as he tried to escape before police arrived. The other two suspects, Butler and Johnson, were arrested a week later after witnesses allegedly identified them as being the other gunmen. Butler and Johnson were prominent members of the Harlem NOI. The NYPD’s narrative “was that the Nation of Islam killed Malcolm,” Ali says. “They thought this was just some small-time crime between two rivals.”
However, during the ensuing trial, both Johnson and Butler maintained their innocence. Hayer admitted to being a part of the plan to assassinate Malcolm, but testified that Johnson and Butler were not involved, according to a New York Times article from March 1, 1966. At the time of the trial, Hayer did not name any other culprits. There was no evidence linking Butler or Johnson to the crime. Butler even had an alibi for the time of the murder: He was at home resting after injuring his leg; a doctor who had treated him took the stand during the trial. Nonetheless, all three men were found guilty in 1966 and sentenced to life in prison. Liz Mazucci, the former Chief Researcher on the Malcolm X Project, which is part of the Columbia University Center for Contemporary Black History, says law enforcement did not investigate the case thoroughly. The scene of the crime was processed so quickly, for example, that a dance party happened at the Audubon Ballroom just hours after the shooting. “It seemed convenient to pin the murder charge on [Butler and Johnson],” Mazucci tells TIME, “even though they didn’t quite fit the story shared with [police] through eyewitness reports and FBI informants.” In 1977 and 1978, Hayer submitted two affidavits in which he continued to assert that Butler and Johnson were not involved in the assassination. Hayer did, however, name four men — all members of the NOI’s Newark chapter who he alleged had begun planning Malcolm X’s murder in May 1964. He said that he was approached by two of the four men who told him that Malcolm X should be killed. They later met with the other two men and discussed how they would commit the crime. “I had a bit of love and admiration for the Honorable Elijah Muhammed,” Hayer later said according to Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention, “and I just felt that like this is something that I have to stand up for.” Five days after the assassination, Muhammad denied any involvement with the assassination, but said that “Malcolm X got just what he preached.” Law enforcement never pursued investigations into these men and the case was never reopened. Butler was paroled in 1985. Johnson was released in 1989 and died in 2009. Hayer was released in 2010.

Why do some scholars want to reopen the case?
Scholars and historians have raised questions about Malcolm’s death for years. Some have alleged, furthermore, that law enforcement was well aware that Malcolm’s life was in danger but that, because the government had such an interest in undermining his work, they did not intervene to help him. Others have suggested that the government’s refusal to investigate the other suspects named by Hayer is evidence of a “more sinister” role, as Ali puts it, in the assassination.
“The Nation of Islam was no friend of the U.S. government, and the U.S. government was no friend of the Nation of Islam,” Ali says. “So the question has to be put on the table: why would the U.S. government not pursue all viable leads into who was actually responsible for Malcolm’s assassination?'” Garrett Felber, an African American history professor at the University of Mississippi, agrees that the government’s potential role in the assassination is worth investigating. “The narrative that [the assassination] was an internal gang feud traffics is this racist black-on-black violence trope that gets played out over and over, and the state gets to be off the hook,” he says. The NYPD’s BOSS investigation file on Malcolm X officially ends in 1964. Felber argues, however, that it’s inconceivable that they stopped following that year, as Malcolm was still a very active figure. Mazucci adds that the NYPD must release all their records in order for the case to be properly reviewed. The FBI has released some files on the case, many of which are included in the 1995 Clayborne Carson book Malcolm X: The FBI File. A lot of the details, however, remain redacted. For example: [BUREAU DELETION] did not know who shot MALCOLM nor did he see any firearms. [BUREAU DELETION] appeared to him there was a definite lack of security at this rally. In addition [BUREAU DELETION] there did not appear to be enough guards in the front of the hall nor any guards near the exits. Many have advocated for Malcolm’s case to be reviewed under the FBI’s 2006 Cold Case Initiative, and the ensuing 2008 Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act, which allowed for violent crimes suspected to have been a result of racial animus to be reopened and investigated. Malcolm’s case was not considered, however, because it wasn’t viewed as a crime of racial injustice. Ali says that is a mistake. “We should always hold the assassination of Malcolm X in our minds of examples of state complicity, duplicity or active acts against the black community,” he says. In February, however, Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance announced that his office will review the case, working with the Innocence Project, a nonprofit that works to exonerate innocent people. “[Vance] has determined that the district attorney’s office will begin a preliminary review of the matter,” the DA’s office said in a statement sent to TIME, “which will inform the office regarding what further investigative steps may be undertaken.” This decision came after the release of the Netflix documentary Who Killed Malcolm X, which premiered on Feb. 7. Butler — who is now being represented by the Innocence Project — is featured in the documentary. “Given the historical importance of this case and the fact that our client is 81 years old, we are especially encouraged that Mr. Vance has assigned two highly respected prosecutors, Peter Casolaro and Charles King, to work on this re-investigation,” Barry Scheck, Innocence Project co-founder and special counsel said in a statement.

What is Malcolm X’s legacy?
“Malcolm X’s legacy is all of the social justice movements that sprung up in the wake of his death. It’s the Black Panther Party. It’s Black Lives Matter,” Mazucci tells TIME. “Malcolm was an organic intellectual who loved black people profoundly; he sacrificed his life helping them find ways to uplift and defend themselves.” “He was always a man of faith,” Ali adds. “He had a deep belief in a power greater than himself that motivated him and allowed his imagination to dream for freedom of black people that was not readily apparent at the time.”

https://time.com/5778688/malcolm-x-assassination/

[Hugo]

Good thread

NZs day of shame https://nzhistory.govt.nz/occupation-pa ... t-parihaka

Thanks for that Enzedder, a pretty familiar tale of indigenous people being displaced and brutalised and all too often this stuff is swept under the rug and airbrushed out of the mainstream accounts of history.

[Paddington Bear]

Anuerin Bevan by Micheal foot.

I should know more about Bevan but I wonder whether a biography by Foot will be a bit biased. I've just read The World After the War by Derek Lebaert, a history of UK-US relations from 1945-56, in it Bevan comes over as more of an anti-Soviet hardliner than I would have expected.

Labour only really became a safe space for tankies after the Cold War.

[Woddy]

The black death increased living standards because of the consequent labour shortage and increased wages.

Controversial. Life expectancy (which must be a reasonable barometer for living standards) in the 13thC was much higher than the 14thC (obviously, due to the Black Death) but also compared to many centuries thereafter. Some experts contend they did not recover to 13thC heights until the late 19thC.

So higher wages, greater individual freedoms (all relative...) came about and England (and Wales and Scotland) never saw serfdom imposed as strongly as elsewhere in Europe, but not necessarily better living conditions.

[Enzedder]

WW2 POW Massacre at Featherston, NZ

https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/massacre- ... n-trending

MASSACRE AT FEATHERSTON
In February 1943, an astonishing series of circumstances aligned to set the scene for the most alarming and tragic wartime event on New Zealand soil in the 20th century. Though still shrouded by the fog of war and military censorship, what really happened at 1PW Featherston is gradually coming to light.

A guard in the Coastwatchers—a unit of civilian and military surveillance personnel in the Pacific—Owen had been captured by the Japanese on nearby Maiana Island in the spring. After three days tied to a tree on Betio, the westernmost islet in the Tarawa Atoll in what is now Kiribati, Owen and 21 other prisoners were interned in the Tarawa Central Hospital’s ‘native lunatic enclosure’.

From their cells, the captives would have heard the regular bombing raids being conducted in the area by the United States Air Force. Several months after the Allied forces’ violent and decisive victory at Midway, they were pressing their advantage in the South Pacific.

IN 1942, ALLIED forces launched Operation Watchtower, a combined-arms offensive at Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. Six months of intense fighting saw the US Army recapture the island, taking prisoners from the Japanese Army, Navy and imperial workforce in land and naval battles.

Prisoners taken by the Americans were dispersed to facilities in nearby Allied Pacific countries, such as Australia and New Zealand. At the request of the US Army, Prime Minister Peter Fraser, head of the New Zealand war cabinet, re-established the defunct Featherston military camp on September 4, 1942. Formerly the largest training camp in New Zealand, processing approximately 60,000 troops during World War I, the Featherston camp was demolished in the late 1920s by a war-fatigued government. Few buildings remained on the original site, but, 70 kilometres from Wellington, the location served well geopolitically.

Contractors had just one week to build the camp. Four compounds were constructed, rectangular and surrounded by barbed wire. Temporary cooking and bathing shelters were erected along with tents for the incoming prisoners. They were originally intended to house around 450, but by 1943, the camp held more than 800.

One hundred and twenty-two New Zealand soldiers were deployed to guard the facility, drawn for the most part from green reservists unsuitable for overseas service. “They had received no special training for managing prisoners of war,” writes Mike Nicolaidi in The Featherston Chronicles. “Nor had they been forewarned they were about to come face to face with the enemy on home ground.”

By contrast, more than 250 of the Japanese captives at the camp were military veterans, thoroughly aware of the imperialist nation’s fierce military code, the Senjinkun (Instructions for the Battlefield). A pocket-sized manual issued to Japanese soldiers in the Pacific war, the Senjinkun contained directives for troop conduct in every area, from the battlefield through to the veneration of Japanese sovereignty and unwavering loyalty to the Emperor.

“Never live to experience shame as a prisoner,” it reads. To be captured was to experience spiritual death; physical death was the only reprieve.

This ideology required that enemy prisoners be treated as sub-human, cowardly and without rights. It guaranteed brutal treatment at the hands of the Japanese, who murdered, mutilated, tortured and raped millions of POWs and non-combatants during World War II. Cruelty was sanctioned and encouraged by the Japanese armed forces, and in some respects, they expected the same in return.

As the first of the prisoners from Guadalcanal arrived at 1PW Featherston in September 1942, they were surprised and suspicious of the comparatively kind treatment they received. Ill and malnourished POWs were given medicine and food, and the administration allowed a democratic selection process to take place among the prisoners to elect representatives.

The first intake were mostly non-combatants from the imperial workforce, who had been sent to Guadalcanal to build an airport. They lived in No. 1 Compound and were engaged in daily labour around the still-burgeoning camp: clearing gorse, cooking, gardening and cleaning the compounds. In November, however, a further 250 prisoners arrived, almost all of them military. Among the group were 120 Navy men from the warship Furutaka, which had been sunk by the Americans at Guadalcanal.

Many of these troops were unaware of the Geneva Convention adhered to by New Zealand and often gave false names to camp authorities in order that their families would not be disgraced by their capture. The men preferred that they be considered killed in action.

Within a month of their arrival, these soldiers began to accumulate rudimentary weapons, planning a violent rebellion for Christmas Eve. Lieutenant Toshio Adachi, of the Furutaka, argued against the uprising on behalf of the moderate POWs, mostly naval units, who feared they would be caught up in the revolt and punished.

Hoping to prevent conflict, a young naval officer reported the plot to the commanding officer, Major R. H. Perrett, and the plan was foiled. Had the reverse situation occurred in a Japanese POW camp, it isn’t unfair to speculate that every prisoner would have been executed in reprisal. But, as a signatory to the Geneva Convention, New Zealand could not harm the masters of the Japanese rebellion.

The threat of immediate violence passed, but the same Geneva Convention that extended protection to the Japanese also allowed for physically fit POWs to be put to work. The work corps, being civilian, took no issue with their duties around the camp. But many soldiers, in keeping with the Senjinkun, preferred death to forced labour. They numbered too few in December 1942, but February saw the arrival of more assertive prisoners, and the balance of power began to shift.

First they turned on their own, demanding their officers commit suicide to demonstrate the spirit of a Japanese soldier. Refusal was met with the threat of death. The workers, deemed too lowly to bother with ritual suicide, they intimidated and harassed.

On February 23, a Japanese NCO stood at the barbed-wire fence of No. 2 Compound, watching workers from No. 1 Compound labour outside. “Teki wo risurumaneha,” he called out—don’t work for the enemy.

The men dropped their tools and marched back to their hut, infuriating their New Zealand guards. Lieutenant Colonel Donald Donaldson, by that time camp commandant, issued an imperative which gave the prisoners three days to improve their conduct before order would be enforced. The next day, the 24th, Adachi and his men woke to a demand for more than double the regular number of prisoners for work duty. Aware the soldiers resented work, Donaldson had imposed forced labour on the men as a disciplinary measure.

Adachi pleaded with a camp interpreter. The request was impossible, he said. There were too many malnourished and injured men to supply that many workers. An uneasy impasse was reached. To the guards, the refusal represented open disobedience—the same sentiment that had inspired the foiled plot to riot the previous Christmas. They were on edge, ill-trained and badly suited to managing an increasingly hostile force of veterans. One guard, however, may have been particularly unhinged.

As the situation at Tarawa Atoll developed in late 1942, information began to flow back from the front. It’s possible that news reached New Zealand of the murder of the 22 POWs by Japanese forces in retaliation for the American attacks. Jack Owen, a guard at Featherston and one of the few New Zealand servicemen with direct and regular contact with the Japanese, may have learned during this time of the death of Charles, his younger brother. Denied the rights that Jack was obliged to extend to the captives under his care, Charles had been cut down unarmed.

By late February, many of the prisoners at Featherston were in a state of total defiance, and the tolerance of the camp guards was crumbling. It was a calamity in the making.

*

THE MORNING OF February 25, 1943, dawned clear over Featherston. At 6.00AM, the labourers began to stir in No. 1 Compound. As on every other day, roll call was at 6.30AM. The work party assembled, enjoyed their usual Japanese-style breakfast at 7.30AM, and left for their specific tasks. Nobody emerged from No. 2 Compound.

The men in No. 2, long averse to working as captives, were now in open revolt. A message emerged through the translators. The prisoners would not work, and the once-moderate Adachi demanded a meeting with Donaldson. He was refused, and instead negotiated alongside another officer, Nishimura, with the camp adjutant, Lieutenant James Malcolm. Inside the camp office, the men spoke for two hours. In the dusty yard of No. 2 Compound, 240 prisoners sat silent and cross-legged on the concrete floor.

Under orders from Malcolm, Jack Owen took a Thompson sub-machine gun—or Tommy gun—from the camp armoury and headed to No. 2 Compound, accompanied by 46 armed guards. Owen took a position on top of a roof on the eastern side of the compound, flanked on the right by a corporal named Dickson, positioned on the roof of the latrine, who was also armed with a Tommy gun. On a building to Owen’s left were two men with rifles. Other guards stood in an arc at ground level, rifles levelled at the prisoners.

When negotiations stalled inside the camp office, Malcolm ordered Adachi and Nishimura to return to their compound. There would be no contact with Donaldson, Malcolm insisted. The prisoners would parade, immediately. The Japanese refused. Isolated, ostracised and spiritually anguished, the extremist elements among the captives may have recognised their chance for an honourable death.

Adachi and Nishimura retreated, attempting to take refuge in the now-agitated crowd. Malcolm ordered their arrest, and several guards waded into the throng after the pair. The Japanese prisoners began to shout and push, advancing slowly on the guards. The atmosphere became nervous, and angry. As Nishimura reached the prisoners’ hut, a scuffle broke out and a Japanese NCO was stabbed in the leg with a bayonet.

“The non-commissioned officer who was stabbed winced with pain, and more or less spontaneously grasped the bayonet with both hands,” writes Mike Nicolaidi, quoting Adachi’s recollection of events much later. “The New Zealand soldier hurriedly pulled the bayonet up and out.”

The blade sliced clean through the tendon and bone of all 10 of the prisoner’s fingers. They dropped into a pool of blood on the ground. As the man screamed in pain, Malcolm attempted to take control of the situation. Grabbing a pistol, he fired a warning shot above the retreating Adachi.

“I decided upon a show of arms as my next move,” he told a court of inquiry a month later, “there being no remaining expedient apparent to me to get over the situation.”

Malcolm fired once more, the bullet tearing through Adachi’s shoulder and into the forehead of a prisoner behind, killing him instantly. Seeing an officer shot and another soldier killed, the Japanese became frenzied, throwing rocks and other improvised projectiles at the guards—among them shuriken, sharp throwing stars used by samurai that had been cut from roofing iron.

From the roof came a roar as Owen opened fire with his Tommy gun on automatic. A hail of bullets ripped through the air and tore into the tight contingent of prisoners. Forty-six guns followed suit as the guards reacted. Corporal Dickson picked off the men to Adachi’s left with his Tommy gun on single-shot.

Len James, a serviceman who had been ordered by Malcolm to arrest Adachi and Nishimura, had retreated to a position alongside another guard, Wally Pelvin. As the guns opened up, Pelvin turned from the prisoners and was struck in the back.

“It was a ricochet from a bullet…” James later told Nicolaidi. “The only person who had a chance of getting us was Corporal Owen.”

Despite screams to cease fire, the guns roared on for more than 20 seconds, bullets ricocheting off the concrete pad and searing into the guards themselves.

Then silence, followed by the moaning and screaming of the dying and mutilated men.

Thirty-one Japanese died instantly. Another 91 were wounded, 17 of whom would die in the coming days. Ten guards were injured, Pelvin fatally.

Jack Owen had opened fire first, Len James said in a 1991 interview. He was intending to kill Japanese in retribution for the beheading of his brother. It was Owen’s gunfire that spurred the other guards into action, a momentary group bloodlust.

Grant Hays, a custodian at the National Army Museum at Waiouru, writes that a Red Cross inquiry in the immediate aftermath of the incident found Owen had fired most of the bullets.

The Featherston Incident was a singularity, the coincidence of many circumstances that converged upon a single moment. Charles Owen was one of approximately 400 New Zealand servicemen captured by Japanese forces in World War II. The Japanese, taken as prisoners in the first grand movement of the advance of Allied forces in the Pacific, would become the first (and only) victims of warfare on New Zealand soil since the New Zealand Wars between the British and Māori. The first fatal shot would be fired by Charles Owen’s big brother, an act of passion that could be argued was a war crime under the terms of the Geneva Convention that the guards were so determined to maintain. Ironically, one of Jack Owen’s bullets also cost a local serviceman his life, the first and only wartime killing of a New Zealander in this country since the 1870s.

Agents of the British government heavily edited the first incident report, fearing Japanese retribution against Commonwealth prisoners, so many of the details of the day, as recorded by the servicemen, were lost. The modified report emphasised the necessity of the guards’ collective actions, and perhaps exaggerated the danger they faced in order to downplay Japanese propaganda.

Neither the ashes of the 48 Japanese killed at Featherston nor the bodies of the 17 Coastwatchers and five civilians beheaded at Tarawa have ever been found.

All that remains in remembrance of the deaths at Featherston is a grove of small cherry trees. There are 68, arranged in rows. When the blossoms fall in the spring, they cover the grass briefly in pink. At the entrance to the grove is a small plaque, and on it is written the translation of a 17th-century haiku by Matsuo Bashō.

Behold the summer grass
All that remains
Of the dreams of warriors.

[Hugo]

Yesterday marked the 155th anniversary of the ratification of the 13th amendment of the US constitution - the one that outlawed slavery.

One of the most prominent abolitionists was Frederick Douglass, the most photographed American of the 19th century, an escaped slave who taught himself to read and write. He was a brilliant orator in an era known as the golden age of oratory, a period that encompassed approximately fifty years, from 1820-1870.

Here are some of his descendants reading excerpts from "What to the slave is the fourth of July?" a speech he delivered in 1852:

[Hugo]

This is an interesting one, it is the New York teachers strike of 1968 which is said to have been a landmark failure to integrate American public schools. It is significant in that it broke up the liberal coalition of Jewish/white educators and black community activists, it led to accusations of antisemitism by the teachers union and an interesting backstory of this is also the Jewish flight from Brownsville which turned it from a predominantly Jewish neighbourhood into an almost entirely black neighbourhood:

Marilyn Jacobs Gittell was especially known for her dedication to school decentralization and her role in the 1968 New York City Teacher Strikes. More than a decade after Brown v. Board of Education ruling, the state of school integration in New York City was failing. Beginning with the Intermediate School 201 in Harlem, was a period of community and union protest. Public School 201 was intended to be racially integrated; however, white families refused to send their children to the school (Berube & Gittell). Black families in turn decided that if it were not integrated, it should not be run by only white teachers and staff and boycotted the first day of school. This boycott was an event which Berube and Gittell described as marking, “the end of the school integration movement” (p.13).

At the heart of the protests were debates about community control and representation and divisions within in the civil rights community, “between those who embraced universal colorblindness and those who wanted color-conscious hiring” (Kahlenberg, p. 114) that matched the racial make-up of the student body. After the struggles at PS 201, the idea of refocusing efforts to integrate schools to hiring people of color and handing over control of schools to the community gained momentum. Gittell explained:

An outgrowth of the civil rights movement, the school-reform campaign and plan in New York City embodied the concept of community control. The community organizations that shaped and initiated the school reform were abandoning a failed school-integration agenda. They had been actively engaged in that struggle from the time of the Brown decision in 1954 (Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483, 1954) and were frustrated by the school system's resistance to change (Rogers 1968). (Gittell, Ecology of Local Games, 1994, pg 145)

In 1967, with the support of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), Ocean-Hill Brownsville in Brooklyn, the Two Bridges Model District in Manhattan (the lower east side) and the IS 201 school in Harlem were approved as demonstration districts.

However, nearly as quickly as it began, the partnership between the community and the UFT began to crumble. Tensions spiked over funding and staffing, culminating in two teacher strikes that pitted the unions and mostly white teachers interests against the communities they served. The two strikes: one in 1967 and one in 1968, after 19 teachers were fired, were orchestrated by the UFT. Click here for a timeline of events that led to the strikes at Ocean Hill-Brownsville, published in Confrontation at Ocean-Hill Brownsville. The controversy of the strikes eventually led to the abandonment of the project.

Public debates around decentralization

To get a sense of the public constructions/ debates regarding decentralization, see Marilyn's newspaper collection.

The school crisis in New York City made front page copy for every major newspaper in the country for over a month…Ocean Hill-Brownsville became a symbol for black people. . .They identified strongly with what they perceived as an assertion of black independence. Large segments of the white population, on the other hand, identified with the teachers. . . They resented the militancy of a black community which dared to change long-established precedents. These polarized responses were themselves a reflection of a fundamental conflict in American urban communities elaborately explored in the Kerner Commission report” (Gittell, Chronicle of Conflict, March 15, 1969)

https://gittell.newmedialab.cuny.edu/re ... r-teachers

[Hugo]

Oh, another one of the outcomes of this strike was the formation of the Jewish Defence League which is according to the SPLC "a radical organization that preaches a violent form of anti-Arab, Jewish nationalism".

The JDL's position with regard to Israel is denial of any Palestinian claims to land and the calling for the removal of all Arabs from the "Jewish-inherited soil." The group has orchestrated countless terrorist attacks in the U.S. and abroad, and has engaged in intense harassment of foreign diplomats, Muslims, Jewish scholars and community leaders, and officials.

In Its Own Words
"To turn the other cheek is not a Jewish concept. Do not listen to the soothing anesthesia of the establishment. They walk in the paths of those whose timidity helped bury our brothers and sisters less than thirty years ago." —Rabbi Meir Kahane, Jewish Defense League founder

"n the end — with few exceptions — the Jew can look to no one but another Jew for help and … the true solution to the Jewish problem is the liquidation of the Exile and the return of all Jews to Eretz Yisroel — the land of Israel."— Jewish Defense League's "Five Principles"

"It was the lack of discipline and Jewish unity that led continually to the destruction of the Jewish people. It is Jewish unity and self-discipline that will lead to the triumph of the Jewish people." — Jewish Defense League's "Five Principles"

Background
The Jewish Defense League was founded in 1968 by Rabbi Meir Kahane (born Martin Kahane). Its inception was part of the white backlash surrounding the New York City teachers' union strikes of 1968. The strikes brought to the surface racial tension between the predominantly Jewish teachers union, and black residents who were seeking greater control over their neighborhood schools. This, coupled with black demands for more civil service jobs, stirred the already hostile racial climate in Manhattan's neighborhoods and led working-class Jews in the outer boroughs to join the JDL. Kahane, who then wrote for The Jewish Weekly, an Orthodox periodical, flooded the tabloids with stories of blacks and Puerto Ricans terrorizing Jews in Manhattan. He dispatched JDL units to "patrol" predominantly Jewish areas, which ultimately led to an ethnic polarization of neighborhoods.

By 1970, however, the JDL had changed its primary cause to the plight of Soviet Jews. From that point on, the main objective of the JDL was to terrorize Soviet establishments in the U.S. to influence the communist nation to change its anti-Semitic policies — specifically, its ban on emigration to Israel. The terrorism become so severe that President Richard Nixon feared JDL activity would threaten the Strategic Arms Limitations Treaty (SALT) II negotiations with the Soviet Union. In 1970 alone, the JDL committed five acts of terrorism, taking over the East Park Synagogue in Manhattan twice, in May and in November, to protest the Soviet U.N. Mission across the street. Throughout the 1970s and '80s, JDL members did everything from pouring blood over the head of a Soviet diplomat at a reception in Washington, D.C., to planting a smoke bomb in a Carnegie Hall performance of a Soviet orchestra. With each incident, the JDL claimed responsibility by phoning in its official slogan, in reference to the Holocaust, "Never again!"

Members of the Jewish community in Moscow, however, made clear that they did not appreciate the JDL's efforts in the U.S., which were made allegedly on their behalf. In a New York Times article headlined "Anti-Soviet Violence Here Upsets Jews in Moscow," Soviet Jews publicly made their case against the JDL. "A number of Jewish activists refused permission to emigrate … feel that [anti-Soviet] harassment in New York hurts their cause and may give Soviet authorities an excuse to become even more intransigent," the newspaper reported.

Though Soviets were their main victims, the JDL has targeted anyone it considers a threat to the survival of radical Jewish nationalism. This includes U.S. and foreign diplomats, domestic radical-right organizations, Arab and Muslim activists, journalists and scholars, and Jewish community members who are simply not "Jewish enough." In 1975, six JDL members forced their way into the office of the executive vice president of the San Francisco Jewish Welfare Foundation and assaulted four staff members, including one who had been crippled from time spent in a concentration camp. The break-in was to protest the "slow response" of the federation to community needs of Jews in San Francisco.

The following year, JDL members began targeting diplomats of all nations who had voted for a U.N. resolution equating Zionism with racism. Three members were charged with invading and vandalizing the Mexican consulate in Philadelphia, and were later convicted of obstructing foreign officials and their duties, damaging property of a foreign government, and conspiracy.

The JDL also pitted its radical agenda against that of Nazis. In 1981, 20 members of the JDL took over the offices of the American Civil Liberties Union in Atlanta to protest its representation of neo-Nazis in court. Later that year, eight members attacked National Socialist Party of America leader Harold Covington with steel pipes as he approached NBC studios in New York, which led Covington to state, later that evening on the "Tomorrow" show, that "all Jews should be gassed." Earlier that year, the JDL had terrorized Boleslavs Maikovskis, an accused Nazi war criminal. A representative from the JDL took responsibility for throwing four gasoline firebombs into the Latvian ex-Nazi's home in Mineola, N.Y.

The JDL has experienced waves of internal strife throughout its years of operation, first of all with Kahane's emigration to Israel in 1971. Kahane's successor, David Fisch, was a Columbia University student who could not maintain unity in the early years. Kahane returned to the U.S. in 1974 to name Russel Kelner international chairman. Kelner was a former U.S. Army lieutenant, trained in guerilla warfare and ready to direct the JDL's paramilitary camp. In 1990, an Egyptian-born Islamic extremist, El Sayyid Nosair, assassinated Kahane during a Zionist conference in New York City, again throwing the group into disarray.

The JDL got some unwelcome international attention in 1994, when Baruch Goldstein, a JDL member, massacred 29 Palestinian Muslims kneeling in prayer at a mosque in the West Bank city of Hebron. The JDL's website justifies Goldstein's mass murder by saying "Goldstein took a preventative measure against yet another Arab attack on Jews."

In 2002, then-JDL Chairman Irv Rubin was jailed while awaiting trial on charges of conspiracy in planning bomb attacks against the King Fahd Mosque in Culver City, Calif., and on the office of Arab-American Congressman Darrell Issa. Rubin slit his throat with a prison-issued safety razor, and fell or jumped off a balcony, sustaining injuries that led to his death several days later. Rubin's co-defendant in the case, Earl Krugel, met a similar fate in 2005 in a Phoenix prison when another inmate, reportedly, swung a bag containing a cinderblock into the back of Krugel's head, killing him. Krugel was murdered less than two months after being sentenced as part of a plea bargain.

In 2003, the Rubin family filed a wrongful death suit, citing allegedly suspicious circumstances. Upon the death of Rubin, Shelley Rubin, Irv's widow, named Bill Maniaci temporary leader of the JDL. In 2004, Rubin called for Maniaci to resign. When he refused, he was stripped of his title and membership, taking a large portion of the organization with him. After a lengthy legal battle over the JDL's intellectual property and website, Shelley Rubin won the title of permanent chairman and CEO of the JDL.

In 2009, never-before-seen FBI documents concerning Rubin's alleged confession and details about his death were published by the online news site TheEnterpriseReport.com.

The FBI deemed the league a right-wing terrorist group in their report "Terrorism 2000/2001," but its domestic influence has waned in the years since, and today the JDL has no active chapters in the U.S. The JDL continues to wield steady membership through its website and blog, which distort news stories in order to vilify politicians, academics, and community leaders as "anti-Semitic." One such attack was entitled "Carter the Jew Hater," and attacked the former president's book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. The JDL today has chapters in Eastern Europe, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Russia, and the United Kingdom.

https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate ... nse-league

[Hugo]

Just been doing some reading on the Balkans in prep for a deep dive on the breakup of Yugoslavia and came across the devshirme system:
https://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/primary-source ... pabilities.

Kids were taken from the Balkans, enslaved, converted to Islam and then put into academies where they were trained to be governors, bureaucrats, military commanders or soldiers in the Ottoman Empire. Due to the fact that they were groomed from a young age their loyalty to the Empire was essentially a given. The soldiers that came from this school were known as Janisarries.

The devshirme system was scrapped in the 17th century and the Janissary corps was eventually abolished in 1826 after a rebellion.

[Flockwitt]

Just been doing some reading on the Balkans in prep for a deep dive on the breakup of Yugoslavia and came across the devshirme system:
https://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/primary-source ... pabilities.

Kids were taken from the Balkans, enslaved, converted to Islam and then put into academies where they were trained to be governors, bureaucrats, military commanders or soldiers in the Ottoman Empire. Due to the fact that they were groomed from a young age their loyalty to the Empire was essentially a given. The soldiers that came from this school were known as Janisarries.

The devshirme system was scrapped in the 17th century and the Janissary corps was eventually abolished in 1826 after a rebellion.

The Janissaries are well worth reading up on. An essentially brilliant concept, the Christian janissary infantry and the Muslim noble cavalry. With the opportunity for merit based advancement to the highest levels the janissaries were guaranteed to be far more loyal to the Sultan than the nobles, while the nobles were still the higher class. Checks and balances that limited the constant issues of the Roman empire.

[Sandstorm]

[Insane_Homer]

Today, David Bowie would've been 74

[Hugo]

Watched this fascinating documentary about Freddie Scappaticci who was a high ranking IRA member (of Italian descent) responsible for rooting out members of the IRA who were informants for the British govt and executing them. The twist in the tail is that he himself was an informant for the British govt., codename - Stakeknife. The IRA eventually figured it out and ostracised him but did not have him executed because to do so would have meant a lot of embarassment for them. The IRA and him have kept up this charade where he denies being an informant so they can both save face, for example he refused the British govt. offer to relocate to the mainland.

Of course a lot of the people he had executed were British informants (like him) and so that put the British govt. in a place where if they knew that some of their informants were marked for death (at the hands of another informant that they were running) then they have complicity in the murder.


Anyway, its interesting because it puts the British govt., the IRA and Scappaticci himself all in the exact same boat. It benefits them all for the whole thing to be swept under the carpet and its the victims families who get shafted.

This is all covered in an excellent book called Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe which I recommended a few months back on the book thread.