Solidarity with the Students and Workers of SOAS

Demonstrations at SOAS

I did both my MA and PhD at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. Nobody in the US has ever heard of the place, especially not American academics, but it is very well known in the former British colonies throughout Africa and Asia. It was at one time the premiere institution of higher education in the English speaking world for the study of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Now the administration is seeking to cut 184 courses and the students are protesting. The local unions, most notably Unison have been in full support of the students over this issue. This has been happening at the same time as a major labor dispute at SOAS over the pay and conditions for the cleaning staff. This has led the administration to retaliate by suspending Unison branch secretary Sandy Nicoll from his IT job at the university. Cutting the courses at SOAS is stupid. Nicoll should not have been suspended and should be reinstated. I actually knew Sandy Nicoll. I can recall a conversation with him where he strongly argued with a third person that the advances in medical care and education in Cuba since 1959 in no way justified its political dictatorship and repression of dissidents. It was a very low bar. After all even the capitalist UK had state provided medical care and at that time still education. I bring this up because it is the only conversation I can remember having with Sandy Nicoll although I am sure there were a couple of others and it demonstrated to me that he was a morally serious person.

Some very good news (Centre for the Study of Asia at University of Ghana, Legon)

Today I got a letter from the Dean that the proposed Centre for the Study of Asia would encompass all of Asia and not just the Pacific rim. This means that Central Asia will be part of the mandate of the centre. This is very good news. It means that I will potentially be able to use the facilities and resources of the centre to assist in my research, writing, and teaching on the area. It remains to see how this plays out in practice. But, my initial fear that Central Asia was going to be deliberately, permanently, and completely excluded from the mandate and mission statement has now passed. The centre will be dedicated to the study of all areas of Asia including Central Asia. Since a lot of my work deals with Central Asia I am very happy about this outcome.

Can somebody decipher these numbers for me?

Okay something strange has been going on with my cite meter for the last week. Usually the largest number of hits come from the US followed by Ghana. The Ghanaian ones almost all being my own. But, the country division of hits on this blog for the last week shows Russia almost outnumbering the US by two to one. Here is the ranking of hits by country for the last week.

Russia       406
US             274
France         99
Ghana         52
Germany     38
Canada        23
China            9
UK                7
Austria          5
Ukraine         5

It would be flattering to think that the Russian FSB has assigned a living breathing agent to monitor my blog. But, I seriously doubt I am considered important enough for them to ever consider such surveillance. I am also not sure what is going on with the high number of hits from France.

NGO Parasites and High Housing Costs in Accra

I saw recently that American NGO parasites coming to Ghana get around $1200 a month just for rent. Lecturers at the University of Ghana get $75 a month for rent and our monthly salary is only three quarters of the rent subsidy that the parasites receive. This has resulted in the rents in the greater Accra region, particularly in the centre of the city, skyrocketing to London and Manhattan levels and driving many professionals many miles away into exurbs and even other cities. Many people commute to Accra from as far away as Winneba, driving four hours to work and four hours back everyday. The housing crises and with it the attendant transportation problems of traffic, pollution, and motor vehicle fatalities is in significant part driven by the neocolonial settlement of the centre of Accra by rich NGO parasites and the creation of a housing market that only they and the small indigenous elite that collaborates with them can afford.

UTAG (University Teachers Association of Ghana) Affairs

Today I voted in the elections for new leaders for our faculty union, UTAG. Only one of the four positions had more than one person running for it. So it was not a particularly robust example of union democracy. More importantly is the fact that despite not getting our book and research allowance which is now 15 months late the union leadership did not renew the strike on 30 September 2015 like it promised. So we have been working and still have not received last year's book and research allowance. This year's book and research allowance which was due at the end of July hasn't even made it into round one of negotiations with the government. I hope that the new UTAG leadership is better at communicating and representing the interests of the rank and file membership than the old one was. The union really needs to make it a priority that the book and research allowance is paid into every members bank account by 31 July each year or we go on strike until the money is received.

Peter Norman: The Forgotten Man in the Photograph

Today, I learned something new, and not something trivial either. The iconic photograph from the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City award cermony for the 200 meter race has three men in it. Like most Americans I could only identify two of them. I knew who the gold medal winner, Tommie "The Jet" Smith and the bronze medal winner, John Carlos, both African American athletes were. I did not know who the third man on the podium was. The white silver medal winner was also to me just background. It turns out he was a lot more. He was an integral and largely forgotten part of the protest as well as being one of Australia's greatest athletes and a strong life long advocate for human rights and a fighter against racism. This article by Riccardo Gazzaniga goes a long way to reviving the memory of the forgotten man in the photograph.

Today's Failure

I pretty much failed to convince anybody that the Asian Studies Centre should have all of Asia as its mandate rather than just China, Japan, South Korea, and a separate Chair for India at the Academic Board meeting today. That is because these are the states whose governments have provided or promised funding to the university. But, I may have convinced the administration that they need to change the name of the institute to the Pacific Asian Centre in order to permanently exclude the study of Central Asia. Ironically, while they don't want to include much of actual Asia as a subject for study since their government's haven't coughed up any money they are okay with including Australia. They figure the Australians unlike the Uzbeks, but like the Chinese, South Koreans, Japanese, and Indians can be convinced to give money. Any pretense of doing anything for scholarship rather than money has permanently dissapeared here.

Asian Studies at the University of Ghana and the Deliberate Exclusion of Central Asia from its Mandate

The University of Ghana is proposing to establish an Asian Studies Centre. But, unfortunately they have limited their definition of Asia to only those states with a Pacific coastline. This has gotten some push back from people who study India. They are proposing that a chair in Indian Studies be included in the Asian Studies Centre even though India of course like many Asian states has no Pacific coast. They, however, are perfectly fine excluding all the rest of Asia outside India and the Pacific Asian states which are limited to China, Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, Thailand, Singapore, and the Philippines. Apparently deliberately excluded because unlike China or India there is not the immediate expectation of any funding from their governments is all of former Soviet Central Asia including oil and gas rich Kazakhstan. I am going to protest this matter at the Academic Board meeting this Friday morning since I am the history department representative. But, I am not optimistic I can prevail in this matter.

University of Ghana History Department Seminar Schedule

History Department Seminars

Fall  2015

9:30 am Wednesdays

History Department Library

Date	Speaker	Topic
30-9-15	J. Otto Pohl: University of Ghana, Legon	Ethnic Germans in Kyrgyzstan 1882-1992
7-10-15	Eric Nketiah: University of Education, Winneba	Ghanaian Women in Parliament
14-10-15	TBA	TBA
21-10-15	Emmanuel  Ababio Ofosu-Mensah: University of Ghana, Legon	The Impact of Mining on Akyem Abuakwa
28-10-15	Kwame Adum-Kyeremeh: University of Ghana, Legon	The Rawlings Revolution of 1979 - Extracts from the Daily Graphic and the Ghanaian Times newspapers
4-11-15	Ishmael Annang: University of Ghana, Legon	Kpone: Growth and Expansion of an 18th Century Ga-Adangme Trading town
11-11-15	TBA	TBA
18-11-15	Joseph Adjaye: University of Pittsburgh and University of Ghana, Legon	The African Diaspora and the Black Atlantic: Contours, Theories, and Historiographical Implications
25-11-15	TBA	TBA

More Russian-German Publications

Here are some more publications (book chapters) by me dealing with Russian-Germans that are available for free on the internet.

J. Otto Pohl, “A Caste of Helot Labourers: Special Settlers and theCultivation of Cotton in Soviet Central Asia: 1944-1956” in Deniz Kandiyoti, ed., The Cotton Sector in Central Asia: Economic Policy and Development Challenges, (London: School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 2007).

J. Otto Pohl, “Suffering in a Province of Asia: The Russian-GermanDiaspora in Kazakhstan,” in Mathias Schulze, James M. Skidmore, David G. John, Grit Liebscher, and Sebastian Siebel-Achenbach, eds., Germanic Diasporic Experiences: Identity, Migration, and Loss (Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2008).

J. Otto Pohl, “Loss, Retention, and Reacquisition of Social Capital by Special Settlers in the USSR,1941-1961” in Cynthia Buckley, Blair Ruble, and Erin Trouth Hofmann, eds., Migration, Homeland and Belonging in Eurasia (Washington DC: Woodrow Wilson Center and Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 2008).

J. Otto Pohl, “Ethnic Erasure: The Role of Border Changes in Soviet EthnicCleansing and Return Migration” in Eero Medijainen and Olaf Mertelsmann, eds., Border Changes in 20^th Century Europe, vol. 1 Tartu Studies in Contemporary History (Berlin, Germany: Lit-Verlag, 2010).

Articles on Crimean Tatars

Here is a list of publications by me dealing with Crimean Tatars available for free on the internet.

J. Otto Pohl, “Socialist Racism: Ethnic Cleansing and Racial Exclusion inthe USSR and Israel,”Human Rights Review, vol. 7, no. 3, April-June 2006. 

J. Otto Pohl, “A Caste of Helot Labourers: Special Settlers and theCultivation of Cotton in Soviet Central Asia: 1944-1956” in Deniz Kandiyoti, ed., The Cotton Sector in Central Asia: Economic Policy and Development Challenges, (London: School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 2007).

J. Otto Pohl, “Loss, Retention, and Reacquisition of Social Capital by Special Settlers in the USSR,1941-1961” in Cynthia Buckley, Blair Ruble, and Erin Trouth Hofmann, eds., Migration, Homeland and Belonging in Eurasia (Washington DC: Woodrow Wilson Center and Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 2008).

J. Otto Pohl, “Kirim Tatarlina Karşi Dűzmce Vatana Ihanet Suçlaamari [TheFalse Charges of Treason against the Crimean Tatars] trans. Selami Kaçamak, Emel, no. 230,  January-March 2010.

J. Otto Pohl, “Ethnic Erasure: The Role of Border Changes in Soviet EthnicCleansing and Return Migration” in Eero Medijainen and Olaf Mertelsmann, eds., Border Changes in 20^th Century Europe, vol. 1 Tartu Studies in Contemporary History (Berlin, Germany: Lit-Verlag, 2010).

J. Otto Pohl, “Colonialism in one Country: The Deported Peoples of theUSSR as an Example of Internal Colonialism,” Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Religion , vol. 5,  no. 7, May 2014.

J. Otto Pohl, "Soviet Ethnic Cleansing of the Crimean Tatars," Journal of International Crimes and History, issue no. 15, 2015.

World's Least Read Blog

Based on the number of comments this blog gets it appears that I have almost no human readers left what so ever.

The Difference Between US and African Universities

Unlike in the US my students here in Africa are thouroughly aware of the crimes of the Stalin regime. It takes up a big portion of my Aspects of World History, 1914-1945 class I teach every fall semester. Once you actually explain things like the Holodomor to students they are perfectly capable of understanding that the Stalin regime reached a level of evil that had few contenders.

Administration to Gut Curriculum of School of Oriental and African Studies

I have been posting a lot on Afro-Asian discourses recently. This has been primarily because of the recent conference here in Ghana, but it is also because I am an "Orientalist" teaching in Africa. I did my MA and PhD at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). I am thus very saddened to see that the administration at SOAS is completely gutting its curriculum and eliminating 184 courses including core courses in such subjects as Arabic, Turkish, and Persian. SOAS used to be the premier university for the study of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East in the English speaking world. It has been losing that edge for a long time because of the deliberate stupidity of its administration. But, this latest act is akin to institutional suicide. There was a reason SOAS was founded in 1916 and that mission will be extremely difficult to fulfil if these course cuts go through. What will be left will be a shell of what used to be one of the greatest small universities in the world.

Publications on Russian-Germans available on the internet

For people attempting to put together bibliographies or just looking for information in English on the subject here is a list of articles of mine that can be accessed for free.

J. Otto Pohl, Eric J. Schmaltz, & Ronald J. Vossler (2009) "In our hearts we felt the sentence of death": ethnic German recollections of mass violence in the USSR, 1928-1948, Journal of Genocide Research, 11:2 323-354.

J. Otto Pohl (2009) Volk auf dem Weg: Transnational migration of the Russian-Germans from 1763 to the present day, Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism, 9:2 267-286

J. Otto Pohl (2012) Soviet apartheid: Stalin's ethnic deportations, special settlement restrictions, and the labor army: The case of the ethnic Germans in the USSR, Human Rights Review, 13:2 205-224

J. Otto Pohl (2013) Hewers of wood and drawers of water: The Russian-Germans in the labour army, The Eurasian Studies Society Journal, 2:1

J. Otto Pohl (2014) Colonialism in one country: The deported peoples in the USSR as an example of internal colonialism, Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Religion, 5:7

Crimean Tatars and settler colonialism

The Crimean Tatars share a number of similarities with other forcibly displaced indigenous people subjected to racial discrimination during the last few centuries such as Native Americans, Black South Africans, and Palestinian Arabs. The people who dominate the study of Soviet nationality policies in the US like Francine Hirsch and Amir Weiner, however, militantly deny that there was ever anything racist about Stalin's deportation of the Crimean Tatars and other peoples. In part because of this systematic denial of Soviet racism in defense of the Stalin regime there has been almost no attempt by scholars in the Western world to compare the history of the Crimean Tatars with that of indigenous people victimized by settler colonialism in places like South Africa. This is one area where I think non-Western scholars should take the lead and work independently of the established Western orthodoxy. There are ideological reasons why people like Hirsch and Weiner defend the USSR from the charges of racism and genocide. But, those ideological reasons don't exist in Africa and Asia where the similarities between Soviet treatment of the Crimean Tatars and other cases of settler colonialism should be obvious. Not being tied by the ideological constraints that exist in US academia I believe that scholars in Africa and Asia can research these type of areas much more effectively despite their lack of resources.