Month: April 2022

Ricardo Flores Magón

Published April 30, 2022 by Amy Weitzman

Ricardo Flores MAGÓN (1874–1922) was an indigenous Mexican anarchocommunist whose activism helped lead to the Mexican Revolution. He was born during the military dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz, the porfiriato, which greatly shaped his career. He and his two brothers founded Regeneración, a newspaper meant to unveil the injustices under the porfiriato. Magón independently authored countless articles and stories about anarchism as a solution to the ills of capitalism.

Magón’s writing often used fiction to illustrate anti-capitalist uprisings and ended with vehement calls to action. Not only did he support an uprising, but he more generally supported workers’ rights, elimination of private property, and anti-clericalism. He questioned the need for government entirely; however, he described his radically anarchocommunist works as liberal to gain wider approval. Magón’s popularity prompted the formation of a radical political party to oust the porfiriato—the Mexican Liberal Party (PLM). The PLM initiated several uprisings. Although Díaz was ousted and replaced with a liberal, Magón still expressed doubts. He believed that only the workers themselves could obtain workers’ rights.

FURTHER READING

“A world without borders” in New York, 2006

Magón Flores Ricardo, Chaz Bufe, and Mitchell Cowen Verter. Dreams of Freedom: A Ricardo Flores Magón Reader. Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2005.

Magon, Ricardo Flores. “Government?” The Anarchist Library, August 4, 2020. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ricardo-flores-magon-government.

Magon, Ricardo Flores. “Land and Liberty.” The Anarchist Library, June 14, 2018. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anarchist-communist-group-land-and-liberty.

Archivomagon.net. “Archivo Digital de Ricardo Flores Magón | Archivo Digital Del Trabajo Histórico de Ricardo Flores Magón,” 2021. http://archivomagon.net/.

Leave a Comment

Indigenismo

Published April 30, 2022 by Amy Weitzman

Indigenismo (approx. 1930–1970) was a political and literary movement throughout Latin America, but particularly significant in Brazil, Mexico, and Peru. Indigenismo advocated for the preservation of indigenous rights and culture. Significantly, many thinkers associate it with socialism due to the poor economic conditions of indigenous communities. The movement critiqued the political systems and cultural deterioration that separate indigenous peoples from the nation-state as a whole.

The Mexican Revolution was one example of an event that lent itself to Indigenismo. A regime change meant an opportunity for reform, leading activists to call for indigenous inclusion. For example, Ricardo Flores Magón was a popular journalist and contributor to the political movement in Mexico. Meanwhile, in Peru, the movement built momentum due to rising modernization at the cost of indigenous livelihoods. José María Arguedas was a novelist and contributor to the literary movement in Peru. Both Magón and Arguedas wrote extensively in support of property rights for indigenous communities. It is still relevant to Latin America as indigenous communities continue to advocate for themselves.

FURTHER READING

Marentes, Luis A. “Latino Indigenismo in a Comparative Perspective.” Oxford Bibliographies Online Datasets, 2013. https://doi.org/10.1093/obo/9780199913701-0040.

Rodriguez-Peralta, Phyllis. “Ciro Alegria: Culmination of Indigenist-Regionalism in Peru.” Journal of Spanish Studies: Twentieth Century 7, no. 3 (1979): 337–52. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27740901.

Tarica, Estelle. “Indigenismo.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199366439.013.68.

Leave a Comment

Yamakawa Kikue

Published April 29, 2022 by Franchesca Johnson

YAMAKAWA Kikue (1890-1980) was a renowned socialist, activist, and advisor to the Sekirankai throughout 1921. Born to a prominent family of former samurai, she attended a women’s academy, where she formulated her progressive philosophy. Through encounters with socialist literature, the hypocrisies of capitalist society, and her future husband and founder of the Japanese Communist Party, Yamakawa Hitoshi, Yamakawa Kikue cultivated a belief in the necessity of socialist revolution to attain freedom which transferred to her work with the Sekirankai.

In Mikiso Hane’s Reflections on the Way to the Gallows: Rebel Women in Prewar Japan, Yamakawa’s unique perspective emerges within her memoir. Via descriptions of her formative experiences, she demonstrates a desire to denounce labor abuses and the governmental oppression of women through a cooperative organization. Hence, even without being active in the Sekirankai’s political demonstrations, she engaged with the group through a unified desire to acquire female liberties by overthrowing capitalism. Therefore, despite her eventual disappointment with the Sekirankai’s dissolution, Yamakawa’s revolutionary views influenced the socialist ideology of the collective, which demonstrates feminine resistance throughout the modern period of Japan.

FURTHER READING

Hane, Mikiso. 1998. “The Sekirankai.” In Reflections on the Way to the Gallows: Rebel Women in Prewar Japan, 161–74. University of California Press.

Leave a Comment

Hashiura Haruko and the Photographic Legacy of Protest

Published April 29, 2022 by Franchesca Johnson

Hashiura Haruko at the Second May Day Protest, 1921

HASHIURA Haruko (1898-1975) was one of the pivotal figures of the Sekirankai. While not a prominent leader of the small feminist collective, she is recognized for her acts of protest with the group, especially for her work in the second May Day Protest. Moreover, as she was born to a family of active socialists, she learned at an early age about socialist principles despite later embracing a nihilist perspective later in life.

Detailed in her testimonies within Mikiso Hane’s Reflections on the Way to the Gallows: Rebel Women in Prewar Japan, Hashiura was famously photographed at the age of 23 while being arrested for participating in the socialist demonstration and assaulting a police officer. Depicting her with confidence and composure, this photograph was published by the Yomiuri Shinbun, which rallied members of the left and represented the power evoked by the Sekirankai. While Hashiura died displeased with the success of her photo, her writings indicate that she utilized the abuse and struggles she encountered to advocate for feminist reform.

FURTHER READING

Hane, Mikiso. 1998. “The Sekirankai.” In Reflections on the Way to the Gallows: Rebel Women in Prewar Japan, 131–38. University of California Press.

Leave a Comment

The Sekirankai

Published April 29, 2022 by Franchesca Johnson

The Sekirankai (1921), or Red Wave Society, was a Japanese women’s-rights organization born from leftist members of a Japanese newspaper group called the Seito circle. Established explicitly by Sakai Magara, Hashirura Haruko, Kutsumi Fusako, and Akizuki Shizue, these socialist figures assembled the group as a response to the Taisho government’s misogynistic policies, censorship, and increased militarism. Moreover, with the assistance of various political connections to the Japanese Communist Party and prominent advisors, Yamakawa Kikue and Itō Noe, the organization pushed for a reformist transformation of the Japanese government.

Overall, the Sekirankai is notable for its political rallies in support of feminism and its position as the first women’s socialist organization. Throughout 1921, the association participated in a variety of seminars, leftist book distributions, and public demonstrations, such as the prominent May Day Protest. However, following a surge in imprisonment and assassination of the leadership, the group eventually disbanded only six months after its inception. Regardless, the Sekirankai remains an organization that demonstrates the origins of organized female political resistance and reformist ideology within the Taisho period.

FURTHER READING

Hartley, Barbara. 2020. “Sakai Magara: Activist Girl of Early Twentieth Century Japan.” Girlhood Studies 13 (2): 103–18. https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.3167/ghs.2020.130209.

Hane, Mikiso. 1998. “The Sekirankai.” In Reflections on the Way to the Gallows: Rebel Women in Prewar Japan, 125-27. University of California Press.

Leave a Comment

José María Arguedas

Published April 29, 2022 by Amy Weitzman

José María ARGUEDAS (1911–1969) was a Peruvian novelist from a Quechua family. During his time at Peru’s National Agrarian University, he wrote many novels in defense of indigenous Andean culture. He was a significant participant in the Indigenismo movement who also identified as socialist. His novels represent indigenous culture challenged by modernization and capitalism.

Arguedas frequently uses language to express how modernization distorts culture. He includes blends of Spanish, English, Quechua, Aymara, and profane vernacular. His use of language communicates not only the diversity of Peru, but also the degradation of native tongues and appropriation of Western language. His central themes of indigeneity in the face of both modernization and capitalism are found in his final novel, a work of magical realism, The Fox From Up Above and the Fox From Down Below. It features fictional characters whose interactions symbolize industrialization and the resilience of indigenous culture despite a defiled physical environment.

FURTHER READING

Arguedas José María, Julio Ortega, Christian Fernandez, and Frances Horning Barraclough. The Fox From Up Above and the Fox From Down Below. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000.

Arguedas José María, and Frances Horning Barraclough. Deep Rivers. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 2007.

Sandoval, Ciro A., and Sandra M. Boschetto-Sandoval. José María Arguedas: Reconsiderations for Latin American Cultural Studies. Athens, OH: Ohio University Center for International Studies, 1998.

Leave a Comment

Gamal Abdel Nasser

Published April 1, 2022 by jeforte

Gamal Abdel NASSER (1918-1970) was an Egyptian politician who played a prominent role in shaping the region’s politics in the twentieth century. Starting his career in the Egyptian military, Nasser rose in rank and formed a close circle of allies (many of them fellow officers in the army). After participating in and surviving the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, in July of 1952 Nasser and 89 of his compatriots (the “Free Officers”) ousted King Farouk I in a coup, seizing control of the government. After some internal power struggles, Nasser emerged as Prime Minister in 1954, and quickly got to work instituting his policy platform, which would come to be known as Arab Socialism. Nasser’s policies aimed at modernizing Egypt, improving the material living conditions of its people, addressing inequality in land distribution, and instituted basic healthcare and welfare measures, as well as a minimum wage and provisions designed to help women. In 1956, the United States and Britain pulled out of an agreement to provide $270 million to fund the first stage of Nasser’s most ambitious public works project, the Aswan High Dam. In response, Nasser announced the nationalization of the Suez Canal, income from which Egypt could use to fund completion of the dam.

Britain and France did not take this well, resulting in the armed conflict known as the “Suez Crisis.” Although the Egyptian air force was decimated in this conflict, Nasser and Egypt emerged from the conflict with great prestige and appeared to be a model for how Arab countries could stand up to and resist domination by imperial powers. Nasser’s dream of an Arab socialist republic did not last, however, and following Egypt’s defeat in the 1967 war against Israel, many in the Arab world came to see Nasserism and socialism as failed solutions, especially given the economic struggles the Soviet Union was facing around this time, and accordingly looked to other alternatives, paving the way for the real rise of Islamic radicalism.

FURTHER READING

Gettleman, Marvin E., and Stuart Schaar. The Middle East and Islamic World Reader. New York, NY: Grove Press, 2012.

Leave a Comment

The Meiji Restoration

Published April 1, 2022 by Franchesca Johnson

Throughout most of Japanese history, monarchies and feudal military dictatorships ruled the country. However, after a coup d’etat in January 1868 that stripped Tokugawa Yoshinobu of authority, Japan entered a tumultuous and revolutionary period known as the Meiji Restoration (1868-1912). Following hundreds of years under the rule of the Tokugawa Shogunate, the country was forced to construct a new government that appealed to the people. Moreover, as this period marked the continuation of Japan’s new relations with foreign countries for the first time in centuries, there was tremendous pressure to pursue distinct ideologies from foreign governments.

Therefore, the Meiji Era enabled vastly different perspectives to propose courses of action for economic, social, and cultural development. From socialism rooted in Christianity to Japanese Marxism, various systems were posited as options for the new centralized government. Thus, this section explores the numerous perspectives of Japanese resistance against the former government and the dominant ideologies that persisted throughout the era.

FURTHER READING

Beasley, William G. 1972. The Meiji Restoration. ACLS Humanities EBook. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.00345.

Theodore, William, Carol Gluck, and Arthur E Tiedemann. 2005. “The Meiji Restoration.” In Sources of Japanese Tradition. Vol. 2. New York: Columbia University Press.

Leave a Comment

Nakano Shigeharu

Published April 1, 2022 by Franchesca Johnson

NAKANO Shigeharu (1902-1979) was a Japanese author and activist that utilized his writings to advocate for Marxist philosophy. Following the teachings of Fukumoto Kazuo and other Japanese Communist Party leaders, he crafted poetic critiques that employed the traditional tanka format to spread radical ideas throughout the 1920s.

Specifically, much of Nakano’s work lies in Miriam Silverberg’s translated compilation, Changing Song: The Marxist Manifestos of Nakano Shigeharu. Within pieces like “Farewell Before Daybreak” and “Imperial Hotel,” Nakano utilizes poetry to comment on the daily suffering of Japanese workers and illustrate an aversion to the effects of Westernization that accompanied foreign influence on Japan. Therefore, while many activists worked to expose the hypocrisy of the Japanese government with Marxist beliefs, Nakano Shigeharu championed radical change through his literature. While his advocacy for the Marxist ideology already exhibits opposition against Western democracies in Japan, his poetry also displays how culture was a vital tool of resistance against the hostile regime during the Meiji Restoration.

FURTHER READING

Silverberg, Miriam Rom. (1999) 2019. Changing Song: The Marxist Manifestos of Nakano Shigeharu. Princeton Legacy Library.

Theodore, William, Carol Gluck, and Arthur E Tiedemann. 2005. “Socialism and the Left.” In Sources of Japanese Tradition. Vol. 2. New York: Columbia University Press.

Leave a Comment

Edward Said

Published April 1, 2022 by jeforte

Edward SAID (1935-2003) was an outspoken critic of the field of orientalism and was hugely influential in redefining how scholars approach the field. Born to Palestinian parents in Jerusalem, Said attended the Egyptian branch of Victoria College in Cairo and then North Field Mount Herman in Massachusetts. As an Arabic-speaking Palestinian in these heavily English-dominated schools, Said frequently felt like an outsider, caught between identities in a space that denied his very existence. These boyhood experiences proved highly formative for Said, and by the time he graduated from Princeton in 1957 Said had become an insightful literary critic.

His most famous work is Orientalism (1978), a deconstruction of the field of “oriental” scholarship, which had long been dominated and shaped by western interpreters. Said’s primary argument is that the very notion of the “Orient” presupposes certain assumptions about the superiority of the west and deprives people who actually live there (“Orientals”) from telling their own stories, by means of a process of othering, in which non-western peoples come to be understood as “other” and fundamentally different or lacking in some way (compared to Westerners), often culminating in the elevation of trivial (superficial and/or cosmetic) differences to the level of constituting different natures. In this manner, people who have been “othered” can cease to be considered human and lose any associated human rights and dignities. Because this Orientalists perform this othering subconsciously, Said takes it upon himself to demonstrate the various ways in which these presupposed power-relations have shaped the west’s creation of the “Orient,” in large part through contrast to the West (or “Occident”). Said’s goal in writing Orientalism was to change discourse within the field of orientalism and more broadly, so as to allow “Oriental” voices to be heard and enable those voices to take the lead in shaping how their history is taught and understood, through new, authentic perspectives. After all, shouldn’t a people be allowed to shape its own legacy?

FURTHER READING

Said, Edward W. Orientalism. London, UK: Penguin Books, 2019.

Leave a Comment