2019 and History

Another year comes to a close, and not only is there a new year on the horizon, but also a new decade. 2019 has seen many anniversaries and events which have parallels in history, so we'll be discussing some of them today. As always, I'm more of a modern historian so I will be gearing this towards more recent history, and I cannot cover everything which has happened this year. Let's see what happened over this year, and what parallels we can find.

100 Years since the Spartacist Uprising

We discussed the Spartacist Uprising back in January, and its legacy would impact the Left for the next century. By the end of the First World War the German Empire was collapsing - setbacks in the war, continued censorship, and rising mortality due to the British blockade was causing civil unrest. Marxist and socialist writers found new audiences in downtrodden and angered masses, and in October 1918 at the port city of Kiel sailors joined with local socialists taking over the city. This started a chain reaction where city after city saw the establishment of workers' councils, the soviets, across Germany. The newly established Spartacists under Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht saw this as the steps to bringing about a revolution, as what recently happened in Russia, so formed the Communist Party (KPD). On January 5 1919 protests in Berlin against the censorship by the new republic of Friedrich Ebert, who opposed revolution, quickly escalated into an armed uprising by workers. However, things did not go well for the Spartacists. Despite earning support from working-class Berliners the uprising was opposed by Berlin's wealthier communities. Splits within the Spartacists and less radical parties weakened them, and soon Ebert made an alliance with the Freikorps - a hard-right paramilitary whose members would later join the Nazis. The Freikorps would murder Luxemburg and Liebknecht, throwing their bodies into the Landwehr Canal. The two would become martyrs on the Left - especially Luxemburg being a Jewish, disabled, woman having to fight antisemitism, misogyny, and ableism. In the short term German socialism was taken over by more authoritarian Marxist-Leninists. Most of the libertarian Marxists were killed in the uprisings or fled to the Soviet Union where they would later be purged by Stalin, although there were still libertarian socialists around - most notably Clara Zetkin and Walter Benjamin. In the long-term the Spartacists offered guidance to new paths to an equal society, and Luxemburg has become a feminist icon.

China's Anniversaries

This year China has seen three anniversaries which offers a troubling legacy for president Xi Jinping. The first is the centenary of the May Fourth Movement. Inspired by the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, and the overthrow of the Chinese emperor in 1912, students and intellectuals began an ambitious and radical movement to fundamentally change China. New theorists, such as Lu Xun, began radically critiquing society and started demanding a new China. The abolition of the Confucian social system, anti-imperialism, feminism, policies against footbinding, and socialism all were advocated, and at times implemented. Through this movement the Communist Party (CPC) emerged. This brings us to the second anniversary, the founding of the People's Republic. In October 1949, seventy years ago, the CPC finally won the decades long Civil War as Mao Zedong declared the new system in Beijing. Coming from the ideological roots of the May Fourth Movement it began a radical transformation of Chinese society. The final anniversary is the thirtieth anniversary of the Tienanmen Square Massacre. By the 1980s officials in the CPC had began a series of reforms adopting aspects of market capitalism, enriching themselves in the process. With future job prospects uncertain, and inspired by pro-democracy protests in the Eastern Bloc, beginning in April students started protesting. This was deeply embarrassing for the ruling CPC - while Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev visited students went on hunger strike, and despite the CPC trying to paint the protesters as Western stooges they sang the world socialist anthem, The Internationale. However, the movement was heavily divided about what its aims were, they were united by their opposition to corruption and authoritarianism. Eventually the government cracked down on June 4 - the resulting reprisals killed many, possibly in the thousands. 

These legacies have proved problematic for the Chinese government. Since the 1980s China has dropped socialism, only keeping the aesthetic of socialism, so the CPC has the staggering paradox of having billionaires being members. An authoritarian, state capitalist party had to, therefore, celebrate two moments in history which aimed for the opposite (their achievements can be debated), and trying to suppress any memories of the third. Just as in the past the CPC has recently faced its own crisis of authority. Protesters have found new ways to criticise the state - consequently Winnie the Pooh is banned due to people comparing Xi Jinping to Winnie - resulting in embarrassments for the state. Marxist and Maoist students have been arrested for protesting the government; social media hashtags were shutdown because they were inadvertently revealing intense pollution in rivers; and since 2008 has been facing an underground Maoist movement. The liberatory rhetoric of May Fourth and Mao, (although in practice after 1949 he stopped this), comes at odds with China's current policies in restricting feminist activism, removing LGBT rights, and attempting to destroy Uighur culture through new policies and concentration camps. Xi Xinjing and the CPC, therefore, have to face this stark contrast in legacies.

Bolivia

I want to discuss Bolivia in a wider context of protests globally, but the YouTuber Bad Empanada discussed it well. I have put the link to his video here and I would recommend watching it.

The Death of Mugabe

On September 6 Zimbabwe's aged former dictator Robert Mugabe died aged 95. Mugabe leaves an uncertain legacy for Zimbabwe and the ruling ZANU-PF party. Before Zimbabwe's official independence in 1980 the country was ruled by one of the most unequal societies in the world during that time. A white minority settler government held the land, judiciary and government leaving the majority black African population landless, disenfranchised, and impoverished. With the exception of a few families who managed to get an education, the majority of the black population were excluded from society. Political repression led to a guerrilla war. Mugabe himself became a martyr for the amount of time he spent in prison, and he later became a key figure in the guerrilla movement coming to lead ZANU. When the war came to an end in 1980 he was elected president, and began an ambitious reform policy reducing unemployment, gave Zimbabweans easier access to education, and started tentative land redistribution. However, immense power was given to Mugabe, and he was hampered by how much economic power the settler population had. Land reform was further hampered as it could only happen when Britain paid Zimbabwe to redistribute land. Mugabe himself made things worse. He quickly moved to stamp out opposition - in 1983 he used a new force called Fifth Brigade to destroy the opposition party, Zapu, in what has been known as the Gukurahundi. As parties fell along ethnic lines this led to a genocidal campaign against the Ndebele killing 20,000. Corruption, especially from the 1990s, crept in where war veterans were left without land or employment so Mugabe could enrich his loyalists. The next almost thirty years was characterised by spikes in inequality, corruption, and poverty until Mugabe was ousted in a coup in 2017. His death now leaves a conflicting legacy. Mugabe was the one who broke white settler power in Zimbabwe, but he also snatched its future for his own greed. The current president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, has been described as 'Mugabe's bodyguard', so the future of Zimbabwe has uncertainty in it.

A Year of Protest

Across the world this year we have seen protests against the reversal of rights, or against the status quo. Many of these movements have been led by young or marginalised peoples, and can be compared to the protests which broke out in 1968 worldwide. Then, as today, young and marginalised people took to the streets worldwide to protest capitalism, racism, misogyny, and the complacency of an entrenched elite. This year we have seen protests against aged leaders, (Algeria, Sudan); corruption and economic inequality (Chile, Lebanon, France, Haiti); imperialism (West Papua); racism and the reversal of rights (Bolivia, Hong Kong, India); authoritarianism (Iran); or a mixture (the UK, Brazil, Ecuador). These protests have purposefully created links to the past, or their origins can be found in the past. For example, protests against Algeria's Abdelaziz Bouteflika have described themselves as finishing the Revolution of 1962, the war which liberated Algeria from French rule. Within the last month strikes in France have led to monumental protests and strikes led by radicals, and have directly linked themselves to both the Yellow Vests of last year, and France's radical past ranging from the 1789 Revolution to 1968. Protests in India and Hong Kong have arisen thanks to attempts to centralise authoritarian state power. India's far-right Narendra Modi over this year has removed the autonomy of Jammu and Kashmir, attempted to isolate that region, and has recently had laws passed which threatens to remove the citizenship of Assamese and non-Hindus, mainly Muslims. As a result, protests have erupted across India opposing this which have been compared to the fight for independence. Quite telling is that one of those arrested is India's most important historian Ramachandra Guha. In Hong Kong an extradition bill was passed which could allow people from Hong Kong to be taken to court in China. Over a million have came out since June to have this reversed, but splits in the movement have meant that they still drag on. A more radical branch, inspired by the anti-colonial riots of 1967, want to make it the start of a more equal and democratic Hong Kong, while others want the status quo - some controversially calling for US aid or waving colonial flags. 

There have been a wave of anti-colonial protests as well. The situation in Assam, Kashmir, and Jammu are legacies of the arbitrary nature of how Britain divided empire. Hindutva, Hindu nationalist, groups, like the far-right RSS, have tried in Assam to forcibly convert the indigenous people to Hinduism. As a result, the protests in these regions have been a way to fight continued colonial attitudes to indigenous peoples. West Papua has similarly come back into attention for the Indonesian government's imposition of militarised forces in the region resulting in deaths. In Latin America, indigenous communities have been out to protest the neo-liberal, or authoritarian, states in which they live as they were most impacted by these policies. Indigenous activists took over Ecuador's capital of Quito forcing the government to evacuate themselves; Mapuche in Chile flew their flags from prominent places in the capital; and indigenous peoples have recently protested against Bolivia's new and openly white supremacist government which came to power when Aymara president Evo Morales was ousted in a coup. Linking this to the past, Mapuche in Chile decapitated a statue of Christopher Columbus and placed the head in the arms of a statue of a Mapuche leader. 1492 still affects indigenous peoples today. Gay pride, worldwide, has become increasingly radical as we have seen the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, which we discussed here, and communities across the world have reminded us how much we still need to fight. While there has been successes, (this year Ghana had its first gay pride, Botswana legalised homosexuality, and Austria legalised gay marriage), there have been major setbacks. Transphobia has become socially accepted in the UK in particular, which has been the focus of a new young generation of activists to resist - inspired by Stonewall.

Climate Crisis

It is not surprising that climate change is drastically changing the planet. As I am writing this fires have swept Australia and have already claimed 400 million animals - it is almost certain that we might see the extinction of several species within the decade, including the koala. Intense hurricanes have hit the Caribbean, floods devastated South Asia, and northern England (where I'm from) saw destructive floods as flood systems failed. Intense weather conditions are being caused by climate change, something being caused thanks to the activities of humans. When we discussed the Little Ice Age we saw how climate change deeply impacts societies. Flooding and bad rains destroy crops, drier temperatures cause other crops to fail, and the impact this has on natural habitats destroys local communities. As natural resources fail, just like in the 1600s, this creates conflict. We have already seen this recently. ISIS in Syria managed to recruit from young, unemployed men who had recently moved to the countryside because harsher weather had made farming less profitable. If human-caused climate change is not tackled this could become worse. The future is not too bright. The UK, Australia, US, and Brazil have noted opponents of reform, or outright climate change deniers, in power - Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro purposefully burned the Amazon this year. Consumption in the economically wealthy states means that climate change continues - India and China produce so much carbon dioxide largely to feed the needs of the global north, and the Amazon was burnt to make way for farming to feed the global north. There is a small beacon of hope. Inspired by Greta Thunberg, millions have since taken part in Climate Strikes across the world demanding states act to reduce their carbon output. Key politicians, such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the US, have pledged to create a 'Green New Deal' to tackle climate change. 

Trump's Impeachment

Very recently the US House of Representatives voted on December 18 to impeach Donald Trump making him the third president, and only member of the Home Alone 2 cast, to be impeached. The first was Andrew Johnson in 1868; he was Lincoln's vice-president who got the role when his predecessor was assassinated. Johnson had sympathies with the former slave holding planters in the South so had worked to block legislation which would have given increased rights for the former slaves. A tired Congress put him on trial, but he never ended up being formally impeached by both houses. The Senate, twice, failed to vote to impeach him, and the trial was adjourned. As the election was underway, and Congress knew that Johnson wasn't running, impeachment by both houses was abandoned. The second president to be impeached was not actually Richard Nixon (the president I believe is most like Trump), as he resigned before impeachment proceedings could formally happen. Instead, the second one was Bill Clinton for obstructing justice and lying under oath about his affair with Monica Lewinsky in 1998. Again, the Senate failed to vote about whether to impeach so only the House was the only one to impeach him. As the Republicans currently have a majority in the Senate, and a two-thirds majority in favour of impeachment is required, but then there is also not enough for an acquittal.

Thank you for reading and that's the last blog post for not only 2019 but also the 2010s. What 2020 will bring we cannot be certain, but until then I hope the rest of your 2019 is good. For future blog updates please see our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby.

2017 and History

Another year has passed, 2017 has come to a close, and we wait to see what 2018 holds. 2017, however, has seen the anniversaries of several important historical events, and many other events which can be explained through history. For 2017's final blog post I thought it would be a good opportunity to look at historical anniversaries and some of 2017's headlines to see how they fit in world history. Due to the amount of things which have happened over the last year I cannot talk about everything and I'll only talk of events which I feel that I can (somewhat) accurately explain. As my specialty are the nineteenth and twentieth centuries most of what I'll discuss will be from these two centuries.

The Reformation 500 Years On

Luther and the Reformation

The first event which we're going to look at is the Reformation. On October 31, 1517 Martin Luther supposedly nailed his criticisms of the practices of the Catholic Church - his 95 theses - on the door of the Wittenberg Church - although it is far likelier that he sent them to prominent bishops and theologians. This started the split between the Western Christian church between Catholics and Protestants. A detailed look at the Reformation can be found in one of my recent blog posts here. Luther was not the only critic of the Church to emerge. In Switzerland Huldrych Zwingli and John Calvin emerged, in England Henry VIII formed his own movement when the pope refused to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, and across Europe people sided with either the pope or the reformers. Despite how long ago the Reformation was it still greatly shapes the world we live in. For example, several historians have argued that the Wars of Religion helped lay the groundwork for secularization. The many wars, (such as the Thirty Years War, 1618-48, and the French Wars of Religion, 1562-98), forced a compromise between the warring factions. Limited religious tolerance was offered in the peace treaties which ended the wars; although of course it was only tolerance for the religious sects which fought one another, some of the worst persecution of Jews until the Second World War in Western and Central Europe occurred during the Wars of Religion. In Britain the wars resulted in the strengthening of the parliament, first with Cromwell's rule and later with the 'Glorious Revolution' of 1688/9. In many areas of Europe, and the world, the Catholic/Protestant divide is still very prevalent and shapes thought. For example, Northern Irish politics is extremely divided on sectarian lines with the DUP - who are currently in coalition with the Conservative party - running on a very strict Protestant platform. 

India's Two Anniversaries

India witnessed two traumatic anniversaries this year which greatly influenced the forming of today's India. The first was the 1857 Indian Rebellion - although you may also see it referred to as the First War of Indian Independence, Indian Mutiny, the Indian Uprising, or Great Rebellion. For years resentment towards British, and the East India Company which was ruling India. 1857 the resentment spilled over. The East India Company (and Britain) had been using Indians in the army and had introduced a new rifle, the Enfield, which required the user to bite a greased cartridge. A rumor abounded that beef and pork fat were being used which led to many Indian soldiers to refuse to use the rifle. As a result on May 9 the commanding officer of the Third Bengal Light Cavalry in Meerut sentenced 85 troopers to ten years' hard labor and publicly humiliated them. This caused a widespread rebellion from Indian soldiers in Northern India which spread to the Indian masses. Some soldiers around Delhi declared the aged Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah, emperor of all of India. Indian soldiers massacred British citizens when they took towns, cities, and barricades which enraged British troops who committed bloody atrocities against Indians in revenge. By November 1, 1858 the rebellion had been put down costing the lives of up to 806,000 through massacres, battles, disease and famine. Despite early victories the rebellion was defeated for several reasons. The East India Company had three armies - the Bombay, Madras and Bengal - and only the Bengal army mutinied. In fact, some parts of the Bombay and Madras armies were used to fight the rebels. As the Bengal army had helped conquer a Sikh princely state Sikhs were widely used to put down the rebellion in the Punjab. The 1857 Rebellion was only confined to northern India, but if it had happened across India there was a strong possibility that British rule could have ended in India. The rebels were also very divided. When soldiers declared that Bahadur Shah's power had been restored this deterred Hindus, Christians and Sikhs from supporting the rebellion, (the Mughals were a Muslim power). With a divided rebellion it prevented it from being a success. Following the Uprising Indian-British relations were changed. The brutal crushing of the rebellion greatly soured relations and it remained prevalent in imperial (and indigenous) records for the following century. The East India Company was dissolved, Victoria made Empress, the three armies were merged into one, and Indians were declared subjects. Declaring Indians subjects also raised questions for many Indians. Many asked, if we are subjects why do we lack the same rights as the British? Indian nationalism would grow exponentially after 1857.

Refugees after Partition

This brings us to the second anniversary: the Partition of India. Britain continued with the East India Company's policy of divide-and-rule which set different ethnicities, religions and castes against one another instead of creating a united force against the British. More can be found about on my post on Partition here so I shall try and give a brief summary. Thanks to divide-and-rule policies different religions formed their own nationalist, or reform, movements. Two which emerged were the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League. Mohandas Gandhi became involved with Congress and turned it into a mass movement attracting millions of supporters. Slowly the movements managed to obtain limited constitutional reforms from the British. However, due to Hindu domination of Congress (something accidentally caused by Gandhi) many Muslims feared Hindu domination in a post-independence India, including Muhammad Ali Jinnah of the Muslim League. In 1933 nationalist Choudhry Rahmat Ali coined the name Pakistan and Muslim activists championed this idea. Until recently it had been believed that Jinnah drove a wedge between Muslims and Hindus leading to Partition, but recent historiography, such as by Ayesha Jalal, has argued that it was a desperate attempt to get compensation out of Congress. Following the Second World War British rule in India collapsed so Britain opted to haphazardly divide India using out of date maps and censuses in August 1947. This left millions of people trapped on the wrong side of the border. A refugee crises emerged as massacres and rapes took place in an attempt to ensure areas were part of India or Pakistan. Around 2% of India's population remained refugees in 1951. This division has drastically shaped the Indian subcontinent since 1947.

Israel/Palestine

On December 6 Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, something which has been vetoed by the UN, causing another wave of protests across Palestine and the world. This came a month after the centenary of the Balfour Declaration which was signed by British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour. This can largely be seen as the event which set the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into motion. During the late-nineteenth century nationalism was widespread across Europe and the Middle East. Discrimination of Jews was prevalent across Europe so Jewish intellectuals, primarily in Central and Eastern Europe, thought of an idea called Zionism. If Jews were to stop being persecution they needed their own homeland, and that they had a homeland before but had been expelled by the Romans. They wanted to reform Israel (as a republic not a kingdom) in Palestine. They also assumed that the Arabs would accept them being a fellow Semitic people, and that they would want 'civilizing' by Europeans (Social Darwinism was very prevalent in the 1800s). Especially thanks to the intense antisemitism of the Dreyfus Affair - where a blatantly innocent French Jewish officer Alfred Dreyfus was wrongfully convicted of being a German spy - support for Zionism grew. At this early stage the proposed Israel was meant to be a state for Jews - the Balfour Declaration even uses the phrase 'national homeland for the Jews' - not a Jewish state. In 1917 Arthur Balfour declared that Britain would help form a Zionist state despite opposition from Palestinians, non-Zionist Jews, and the fact that Britain had already promised Palestine to Hussein bin Ali to be part of the pan-Arab state. Palestine was declared a British mandate and Britain implemented divide-and-rule policies in the region. Eventually, in 1948 two states were meant to be formed: Israel and Palestine. In the first Arab-Israeli War - sometimes called the Israeli War of Independence or the Nakba - saw Palestine divided between its neighbors. Following the 1967 Six Day War Israel annexed the West Bank and Jerusalem. For political reasons it was largely agreed to recognize Tel Aviv as Israel's capital and Ramallah as Palestine's, or West Jerusalem as Israel's and East Jerusalem as Palestine's, to respect both Israel and Palestine. By recognizing Jerusalem as being Israel's capital this ignores Palestine's claims.

You may be hearing on the news about talks of a Third Intifada. There were two intifadas - the first 1987 to 1991 and the second 2000-5 - which were periods of intense Palestinian uprisings against Israel. Some have argued that Trump's relocation of the embassy to Jerusalem and the IDF's brutal crackdown on Palestinian protesters may cause a Third Intifada.

Climate Change

This summer saw some of the most intense climate events in recent years which included Hurricane Harvey; Irma; floods in Niger, India, and Nepal; intense wildfires in California; and cold winters across the northern hemisphere. These intense bouts of intense weather have been attributed to climate change caused by global warming. Not too long ago I wrote about the Little Ice Age which brought intense climate change caused by a drop in global temperatures. Among these were hailstorms which wiped out crops, frozen lakes in June, and even the Thames freezing over. Understanding the Little Ice Age helps us understand how we can face climate change. Geoffrey Parker in particular has written about how adverse weather and climate affected societies worldwide in the 'Crisis of the Seventeenth Century.' In China the Ming were bloodily overthrown; religious wars ravaged Europe; succession wars hit the Mughals, Ottomans and the Kongo; and famines, floods, and droughts plagued all the world. Although bad weather did not cause these conflicts it made these conflicts worse. As humans continue contributing to climate change by looking at the Little Ice Age we can understand how to cope with global warming.

Centenary of Russian Revolutions

Lenin and the Masses

In 1917 Russia saw two revolutions: the February and the October. These two revolutions shook both Russia and the world. For over a century Russia had been trying to slowly reform itself. In 1905 a revolution caused by frustration over defeat in the Russo-Japanese War caused the creation of a parliament, the Duma, although it was extremely weak and gave the tsar large amounts of power. The First World War brought issues to a head. On International Women's Day Social Revolutionaries handed pamphlets to women in Petrograd (St Petersburg) waiting in line for bread. This escalated into a protest and strike, and eventually into a revolution which caused the overthrowing of the tsar. The new Russian republic began many widespread reforms - including emancipating Jews and women - but it soon became unpopular. Many in Russia, especially the peasantry, wanted a clean break with tsarist Russia, different nationalities wanted increased autonomy, and many wanted an end to the war. Then the Bolsheviks rose to prominence. Under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin the Bolsheviks were originally a faction of the Social Revolutionaries deeply inspired by Marxist theory. The Bolsheviks and Lenin promising peace, bread, land and autonomy struck a chord with soldiers, urban workers, peasants and some minorities. Following the crushing of the Bolsheviks during the July Offensive and the arrest of certain leaders, including Leon Trotsky, sympathy for the Bolsheviks rose. Eventually by November (October in Russia which was still using the Julian calendar), the Bolsheviks under Lenin rose up and seized the Winter Palace in Petrograd. Lenin, walking into the Duma, declared 'We shall now proceed to construct the socialist order.' Thus the most influential revolution of the twentieth century took place inspiring millions around the world to do the same from Mexico to China. Many people today are influenced by Marxist theory - including myself, although I am more influenced by Rosa Luxemburg and Antonio Gramsci than Lenin and Trotsky - and the October Revolution helped contribute to this. Although clearly bias I would highly recommend Trotsky's own account, called The History of the Russian Revolution, which is a gripping read detailing the events of both revolutions.

Zimbabwe

Mugabe

In November long-term president of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, was forced to resign after being in power since 1980. Earlier I wrote about Mugabe if you are interested so I'll do a brief summary here. The prime reason why Mugabe was forced to resign by the military was his replacement of Emmerson Mnangwa with his wife, Grace Mugabe. However, Mugabe remains popular in Zimbabwe, and the opposition leaders and military have stated that because of his legacy they chose to go through legal procedures to oust him. Mugabe was one of the key figures in the War of Independence against the minority, white-rule government with his party, ZANU-PF, being incredibly popular with many Zimbabweans. The first few years of Mugabe's premiership were very well received and if he had resigned in the mid-1980s he may even have been popular in the West; after all he was even knighted by the Queen. It is quite telling with the North Atlantic viewpoint that Mugabe was only criticized for his treatment of white farmers in Europe and the USA, and not his period of ethnic violence called the Gukurahundi. One thing to note about the recent resignation is something which has been prevalent in Zimbabwean politics since 1980: the treatment of veterans. Many critics of Mugabe have noted his abandonment of veterans of the independence war leaving many with no job prospects. Mnangwa is also a veteran so his replacement by Grace Mugabe was seen as an even greater affront.

Japan and Korea

Throughout 2017 North Korea has been in the news for testing nuclear missiles. Although this has partially been thanks to Trump's bellicose rhetoric, including this tweet which I thought was satire by The Onion when he was in Vietnam. You may have noticed that Pyongyang has been firing missiles over Hokkaido. We all know by now why Korea is divided so I thought it would be more interesting to look at why there is hostility between North Korea and Japan. When Japan started to get involved in international politics after 1868 they felt threatened by European and American imperialism so began a course of imperialism themselves. They soon turned on the small Kingdom of Korea to the north; first they muscled China out of the way and began influencing Korean politics to prevent Russian interference. Japanese thinkers believed that Asia had to unite, but only the Japanese were capable of uniting Asians. In 1910 they annexed Korea and began a process of 'Japanizing' Koreans. From 1910 to 1945 Japanese politicians started implementing policies to 'Japanify' Korea including banning Korean in Japan; banning Korean dress; attempting to replace Korean names with Japanese ones; and having Japanese landowners buy land in Korea. I would highly recommend watching the Korean romantic thriller The Handmaiden to see this in effect. During the Second World War Koreans were forcibly conscripted into the Japanese army, forced to work in factories producing arms, and Korean women were forced to be 'comfort women' for Japanese soldiers. Korea was split after 1945 between the communist DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) under Kim Il Sung, and the capitalist ROK (Republic of Korea) under Syngman Rhee. The legacies of Japanese rule, and a lack of apology for said rule, has meant that animosity continues to pervade not only DPRK-Japanese relations but also ROK-Japanese ones. 

Shinzo Abe

This year Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called a snap election, and unlike the UK's snap election which caused Theresa May to lose her majority, Abe's Liberal Democratic party swept the board. The DPRK helped with this victory. After Japan's defeat in the Second World War the Allied powers wanted to make sure that Japan could not threaten them again. On May 3, 1947 (another anniversary) Japan had a new constitution implemented where Article 9 dissolved the Japanese military and forbade Japan from declaring war. Instead Japan would have a Self-Defense Force in case a country declared war on it. This was largely accepted by everyone in Japan: the left as it made pacifism in the constitution itself while the right liked it as it let them focus on getting foreign investment to fuel capitalist growth. Abe ran on a platform of reversing Article 9 where in the light of North Korean missile tests made Japanese voters sympathetic to. Whether it will be passed we'll find out in 2018.

Something in the USA

Much has happened in the USA this year. We could compare Trump's travel bans to the Chinese Exclusion Act and anti-immigration acts; how the Confederate statues link to the South's dark past where millions were enslaved; or how Trump's banning of transgendered soldiers and talks at prominent homophobic events links to the LGBTQ+ community's struggle for rights. We could also compare the Democrats emphasis on Russian interference in the election and anti-Russian hysteria to that of Cold War hysteria (I've seen a few people suggest that Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein being Russian stooges), or how the USA has also interfered in elections (including the 1996 Russian election). However, I want to focus on this one giant mess which Trump caused.

Again, I thought this initially was a joke

In November at an event honoring the Navajo Code Breakers Trump made a Pocahontas joke about Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren in front of a painting of Andrew Jackson. I must admit part of me died hearing that, and there's lots to unpack here. First off Pocahontas. Pocahontas has been deeply involved with America's cultural heritage, but she has become a figure of myth. Pocahontas was the daughter of Wahunsenacawh (called Powhatan by Europeans), the paramount chief of Tsenacommacah. English settlers had arrived in Virginia and by 1607 conflicts over land had caused tension between the settlers and Powhatan. In American lore Pocahontas stopped her father from executing explorer John Smith by jumping over his body before the killing blow. Historians believe this to be fabricated, especially as in his diaries this happens several times. Pocahontas was captured by the settlers in 1613 where she converted to Christianity, we are not entirely sure though if she was forced to or not. In order to create peace Pocahontas, at the age of 17, was married off to tobacco planter John Rolfe in 1614. Rolfe seemed to genuinely love Pocahontas (who went by the name Rebecca) and her accounts seem to suggest that she respected but did not love him. Pocahontas was eventually taken to Britain where she was paraded around as a 'civilized savage' (a precursor to what would happen during later European empires in the nineteenth century). She would never again see Virginia; aged either 20 or 21 she would pass away to be buried at Gravesend.

We have to go to the nineteenth century to understand why it is vastly inappropriate to have a painting of Andrew Jackson when honoring the Navajo Code Breakers. Jackson was president from 1829 to 1837 and was very much like Trump: brash and racist. Other than supporting slavery Jackson loathed Native Americans; while fighting the British during the War of 1812 forced the Creek to give up 23 million acres of land to the United States. In 1816 he would also lead a campaign against the Seminole. Years later he brought his racial hatred with him to the White House. Throughout his presidency he had around 70 treaties made which forced Native Americans off of their land. Perhaps the most famous was the 1830 Indian Removal Land which allowed the president the ability to create treaties with the Five Civilized Tribes in the Southern US. This began the Trial of Tears where thousands of Native Americans were forced from their land to go to Oklahoma, mostly on foot. It is difficult to estimate but almost 20,000 died through famine, disease or exhaustion during the Trial of Tears. Just over 16,500 Cherokee were evicted from their land where between 2,000 and 6,000 died along the way. 

Star Wars

Star Wars fans in 1977

To finish this post I thought it would be best to talk about something on a lighter note. Recently The Last Jedi was released, the same year as the fortieth anniversary of Star Wars. This franchise perhaps the most influential film franchise of all time. Using groundbreaking effects mixing Westerns with samurai movies George Lucas brought us an epic which revolutionized sci-fi and the movie industry. Other than movies Star Wars has spawned toys, comics, TV shows, video games, and even a Christmas special. Star Wars is just as popular in 2017 as it was in 1977.

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed this post. For future blog posts please check out our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby. If you want to discuss any other of 2017's events please feel free to leave a comment. Have a Happy New Year!

When Presidents Lost the Popular Vote but won the Electoral College vote (and other peculiarities with the College)

2016's Electoral College result

While I am writing this it has been just over a week since the controversial election of Donald Trump. A big part of this controversy centers around the fact that more people voted for Hillary Clinton than Trump, but thanks to the Electoral College Trump will now be president. As of writing this is the fifth time the Electoral College has allowed someone who lost the popular vote to become president. This blog post is neither a call for the abolition of the Electoral College, nor a post supporting the College. Instead it is to show the peculiar scenarios in the past when the College has given people the presidency when they lost the popular vote, (and two other peculiarities which I thought would be fun to mention). First off though we have to know what the Electoral College actually is, and why the United States has it.

The What and Why

The Electoral College is somewhat unique to the United States. In most other countries when you vote in an election you vote for which party you want in power, and the party with the most votes, (and for the most part seats in the parliament, diet, Bundestag etc,), gets to chose the next leader of the country; normally this is the Head of the Party. In contrast, in the United States you directly vote for who you want to be president, (and vice-president), who so happens to represent a party whether it be Democrat, Republican, Libertarian etc. However, that is not entirely accurate. In the United States when you cast a vote you are not saying 'I want x to be president and y to be vice-president', but rather saying 'I want my elector in the Electoral College to vote for x to be president and y to be vice-president'. The Electoral College has 538 electors representing the 435 representatives, 100 senators, and 3 electors for the District of Columbia. These electors are spread across every state based on population and each state has a minimum of three electors. Currently California has 55 electors, Alaska has 3, Michigan has 16, and so on and so forth. With the exception of Maine and Nebraska in each state all the electors have to vote the same way. Say for example in Ohio 60% of the population votes for X and 40% votes for Y all 18 of Ohio's electors have to vote for X. Meanwhile, in Maine if 75% vote for X and 25% vote for Y then 3 of Maine's electors will vote for X, and one will vote for Y. To become president a candidate requires a minimum of 270 electoral college votes. You may be wondering, why was this implemented? For that we have to go back to the eighteenth-century.

Despite winning independence in 1783 the United States did not create the constitution we have today until 1787. It is here where the Electoral College was born. From the outset the plan was for the new republic to be a democracy. However, there was an issue with this. In days prior to the Industrial Revolution it could take days to communicate across an area the size of Great Britain nevermind the eastern coast of the United States. As a result it was difficult to count votes across a wide area using direct voting. Hence, the Electoral College was a quicker solution; people vote for electors who could easily find out who they should vote for. It was also done to limit both autocracy and democracy. Some Founding Fathers believed that direct democracy would lead to anarchy, (and the French Revolution a few years later would support their fears), so figures, like Alexander Hamilton, believed that voting directly for the president could lead to mob rule. On the other hand, there was a general fear that denying popular vote would lead the new republic to become the same autocracy which they had fought to free themselves from. Why fight against one autocracy on the other side of the Atlantic to install one at your doorstep? Hence, the Electoral College seemed a fitting compromise. To top it all off each state had a minimum of three electors so large states like New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, (today's West Virginia and Virginia), could not dominate the smaller ones like Rhode Island. In later years this would become an issue as votes in some less populated states started to be worth more than states with larger populations. Like all other institutes making up the United States government the Electoral College would evolve, (to an extent), over time. Now to discuss the main topic of this post. I shall skip over the 2016 election due to the fact it is on the news everywhere currently so we can focus on the last time the Electoral College allowed someone who lost the popular vote to win the presidency: the 2000 election.

The 2000 Election

Bush and Gore

The most recent time that the Electoral College, (prior to 2016 that is), allowed someone to lose the popular vote but win the College vote was in 2000. For the Democrat party Vice-President Al Gore ran, and for the Republicans George W. Bush, the son of former president George H.W. Bush, ran. Voter apathy meant that there was a low turnout, (quite similar to the most recent election), The race for the White House was somewhat close; Gore had a narrow lead in both the popular vote, and the College vote. The election rested on one state: Florida. Gore had 266 seats in the College so if he won Florida he would have got the popular vote, (by a small margin), and the College vote, (a large margin). Florida was the last state to count all the votes and Bush was in the lead by the time 85% of Florida's votes had been counted. Thanks to this many news broadcasters declared that Bush had won the presidency. However, Bush's lead dwindled rapidly when the rest of the votes started to come in, so much so that the news switched and declared that Gore won Florida. Then it was declared 'too close to call', and then Bush had won Florida. After heated debates the Supreme Court of Florida ordered a recount. As the recount was underway Bush took the matter to the federal Supreme Court asking for a stay of the recount as he argued it was unconstitutional. In Bush v. Gore the Supreme Court, (in a 5-4 decision), decided to stay the recount. As a result Florida's electors in the College gave Bush their vote, and the presidency by a very narrow margin, (he got 271 seats). Gore had narrowly won the popular vote but lost the College vote by a somewhat large margin. However, it is difficult to say if the recount would have swung the election: it could have either given Bush the popular vote or Gore the presidency.

Although there is some debate if JFK lost the popular vote in 1960 it is very ambiguous, and it is quite possible that he did win the popular vote so for that reason we shall move to the third time when the College swung the election. In was all the way back in the nineteenth century...

The Election of 1888

Cleveland v. Harrison

The third time the Electoral College allowed someone who lost the popular vote to become president was in the 1888 election. In this election incumbent Democrat President Grover Cleveland ran for re-election against Republican Benjamin Harrison. On a side note Harrison was the grandson of ninth president William Henry Harrison who, when elected, was the oldest president aged 68 until Reagan, (and now Trump). He also is the president to have had the shortest time in office serving thirty-two days before dying of pneumonia which he caught during his inaugural address. Back to 1888. Grover Cleveland was unfortunate enough to lose several swing states, including his home state of New York, which meant that Cleveland narrowly lost the popular vote but lost the College vote by a large margin. Also, when I mention popular vote I mean votes cast by people eligible to vote: in 1888 most states only allowed solely white men to vote, and even then some states only propertied white men could vote. In 1892 Cleveland had his own back on Harrison: he won both popular, and College votes becoming the only person so far to be president for two non-consecutive terms.

The second time which the College let someone to be president despite losing the popular vote was in 1876.

The Election of 1876

The Compromise of 1877

The election of 1876 came during a time of fracture, attempted reconciliation, and change in the United States. Following the end of the Civil War in 1865 the Republicans in the North wished to reconcile with the South, reconstruct the South's economy so it no longer required slavery, and somewhat improve the conditions for former slaves. This was called Reconstruction. It was a noble idea which for the most part failed miserably. Organizations like the Ku Klux Klan terrorized, murdered, and mutilated African-Americans and white Southerners who helped them (as well as Northerners); Black Codes in various states stripped the legal rights of African-Americans; opposition from Lincoln's successor, Andrew Jackson, prevented the dismantling of the plantation system; and opposition from Democrats and some Republicans caused many setbacks. Redemption governments sprang up in the South to oppose the new order, and the acts passed to help former slaves, (such as the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments), would only help northern African-Americans or civil rights campaigners in the future. Former Union general Ulysses E. Grant since coming to office in 1868 had vainly tried to enforce Reconstruction, (although he did successfully cause the Ku Klux Klan to go into decline), but it was in vain. The South disliked the Republicans, (how times have changed), and they were losing support in the North thanks to Grant failing to deal with corruption. The Republican nominee Rutherford B. Hayes was not in a good position, and his Democrat opponent Samuel Tilden managed to win the popular vote by over 200,000. However, Florida (again), South Carolina and Louisiana had both parties claim they won, and through a peculiar incident there was one seat available in Oregon. The Republicans made a deal with the Democrats in what has since been called 'The Compromise of 1877': the Democrats would let Hayes be president if the North removes their troops from the South, (ending Reconstruction), policies to be passed to industrialize the South, a Democrat to be in Hayes's cabinet, and transcontinental railroad to be built in the South. The Democrats let Hayes be president; legislation was passed removing all rights from African-Americans in the South (later called Jim Crow laws); and Reconstruction came to an end.

The first time the College let someone who lost the popular vote become president is peculiar. The person lost both the popular and College votes but still became president. This was the 1824 election.

The Election of 1824

Andrew Jackson

1824 was very different to the United States of 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016. For one, most of the USA at this time was under Mexican rule. Also, party politics had basically ceased to exist. The Founding Fathers believed that parties were signs of rot in a democracy, and following the 1816 election politics had gone back to how the Founding Fathers envisioned: people, not parties, running for election. I should also point out that political parties in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were not like the parties of today; instead they were more loose affiliations with loosely defined ideas. In 1824 John Quincy Adams, son of former president John Adams, the Secretary of the Treasury William Crawford, Speaker of the House Henry Clay, and war hero Andrew Jackson all ran for the presidency. The contest, however, was mainly between Adams and Jackson. When the election results came in Jackson won around 40,000 more votes than Adams, (it may not seem much but in 1824 the number of people who voted was around half the population of Washington D.C.), and he had the most seats in the College. He had more popular and College votes than Adams, Clay, and Crawford. However, he only had 99 seats when 131 was needed to win. As the person with the highest amount in the College did not have enough votes to become president the 12th amendment stipulated that the House of Representatives had to who would become president out of the top three candidates. The House had to decide between Adams, Jackson, and Crawford. Clay, who was left out, loathed Jackson saying 'I cannot believe that killing 2,500 Englishmen at New Orleans qualifies for the various, difficult, and complicated duties of the Chief Magistracy', (Jackson was famous for his victory over the British following the Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812. Although the battle actually took place after the war ended). Clay was vocal in his support for Adams who won the support from the House and John Quincy Adams became president. As a reward Clay was made Secretary of State causing Jackson supporters to accuse them of a 'corrupt bargain'. The next election saw Jackson roundly trounce Adams and after he led a government which caused the ethnic cleansing of thousands of Native Americans.

These were the times when the Electoral College inadvertently let the loser of the popular vote become president. However, there are two other peculiar elections, both involving the College, which I wish to discuss, and both were crazier than the 2016 election. The first take us back to 1800...

The Election of 1800

Thomas Jefferson and John Adams

In this election Vice-President, former Secretary of State, former French ambassador, and Founding Father Thomas Jefferson ran against incumbent president and George Washington's vice-president John Adams. This was the second time these two had ran against one another, 1796 being the first, and prior to the 1800 election whoever lost the election became vice-president. 1796 itself was a heated election: France threatened to invade, parties had emerged, and it was the first contested election (no one had ran against Washington). There were the Federalists, who Adams represented, who wanted a strong federal government, and another confusingly named party who Jefferson represented. Contemporaries, (and historians), have called them Anti-Federalists, Democrats, Republicans, and Democratic-Republicans, (they were neither the antecedents of the Democrats nor the Republicans). To avoid confusion we shall refer to them as Anti-Federalists, and they wanted increased state autonomy. In 1796 Adams won but in 1800 Jefferson fought hard. His campaign accused Adams of having 'hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman' so Adams responded saying that Jefferson was 'a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father'. Jefferson was painted as an atheist under the spell of Satan and France, while Adams was accused of being a warmonger, an autocrat, and of even being dead. When elections came around Jefferson chose Aaron Burr of New York to run with him and be his vice-president. This would in theory get both Northern and Southern votes. Jefferson easily beat Adams, but the first crisis of the Electoral College emerged from this. In 1800 electors had two votes so instead of voting for one person to become president they had to vote for two. The Anti-Federalists had planned for their electors to vote for Jefferson, and one or two to abstain from voting for Burr. What really happened was every Anti-Federalist elector voted for both Jefferson and Burr. Jefferson and Burr had equal seats in the College.

Initially if this was to happen the plan was for Burr to concede defeat and become vice-president, as planned. However, Burr decided that he would actually like to become president and refused to concede. What happened then was for the House of Representatives to decide who should be president. The new Anti-Federalist filled House would not convene until January/February of 1801 so Federalists, who hated both Jefferson and Burr, had to decide on the president. The House had to pick the candidate which they hated the least. Although he was not a Representative (despite what the musical says) Alexander Hamilton was an influential figure in deciding the president and although he disliked Jefferson he loathed Burr. As a result the House made Jefferson president, Burr vice-president, and passed the 12th amendment in 1804 to stop this from happening again. Needless to say Jefferson's and Burr's time together was not very warm. In 1804 Jefferson was re-elected easily and Burr shot Hamilton in an illegal duel. 

There is one last election which I wish to talk about. It was an election which fractured a nation but brought to power Trump's, Obama's, and Reagan's favorite president.

The Election of 1860

1860 the USA was in crisis over slavery. North and South were at each other's throats over the issue. The Democrats could not decide over a candidate and had split on North/South lines. Northern Democrats chose Stephen Douglas while Southern Democrats chose John Breckinridge. There was a newly formed party called the Constitutional Union party, represented by John Bell, whose stance on the major issue of the day, (slavery), was to consult the Constitution. Bearing in mind the Constitution mentions slavery twice: the first time never says 'slaves' but instead 'other Persons' and the other time is the Thirteenth Amendment which abolished slavery. Finally there was another newly formed party called the Republicans who had a certain figure representing them: Abraham Lincoln.

Lincoln

Lincoln was a political misnomer in 1860. He was little known outside his state of Illinois, he seemed to come from nowhere, and his views on slavery were not known. In fact historians are still debating his views on slavery in 1860. The Republican party in 1860 was made up of abolitionist, and those who merely wished to limit slavery's spread. Although historians debate his views on slavery at this moment in time the Deep South, where slavery was the backbone of society and the economy, viewed Lincoln as either an abolitionist, or as a tool of abolitionists. As a result in the 1860 election the Republican candidate never appeared on the ballot. When the results came in the Southern Democrats received virtually every vote in the Deep South, the Northern Democrats received Missouri, the Constitutional Unionists got the Upper South votes, and Lincoln got the votes from the Northern and two Pacific states. However, although Lincoln received only 40% of the vote he won both the popular and College vote. This infuriated the Deep South who believed that a possible abolitionist was now in prime position to abolish slavery. Starting with South Carolina the Southern slave states seceded one by one to form the Confederate States of America. Thus began the American Civil War, and by the end of 1865 four million slaves became free.

Thank you for reading and the sources I have used are as follows:

-Give me Liberty!: An American History by Eric Foner

-The Penguin History of the United States by Hugh Brogan

-The Civil War and Reconstruction by David Herbert Donald, Jean Harvey Baker, and Michael F. Holt

-America: A Narrative History by George Tindall and David Shi