More on Africa's lack of communists.

A number of people have posited orthodox Marxist interpretations for the lack of communists in Africa during the 20th century. That is they have pointed out the lack of a European style working class. But, Lenin basically removed this criteria from Marxism. There was only a small working class in Russia in 1917. Likewise China in 1949, North Vietnam in 1954, and Cuba in 1959 were not anymore industrialized than most of Africa. So I do not buy this explanation as satisfactory. The country in Africa that most closely followed the Soviet model of development was Ethiopia. It had one of the smallest working classes in Africa in 1974 when Mengistu came to power. So why were there so many more Asian communists compared to African communists in the 20th century when both continents were largely pre-industrial and had experienced European colonialism? Surely somebody has done some research on this topic? If anybody knows any useful publications on this point could you please cite them in the comments?

Why were there so few communists in Africa?

Today I had a pretty good discussion in class about why there were so few communists in Africa during the 20th century compared to Europe and Asia. We did not come up with any definitive answers, but it was good to see the students thinking about an issue and attempting to come up with possible explanations. If anybody would like to speculate on the reasons for the lack of African communists feel free to leave a comment.

Open Thread on Ethnic Minorities in the USSR

I do not expect anybody to actually comment. But, feel free to if you want. I am more convinced than ever that the structural practice of the special settlement regime towards deported nationalities and South African apartheid have far more similarities than differences. I think I can get another journal article out of this idea.

Good News

It looks like I am going to get my plane ticket to Ghana reimbursed soon by the administration. If I get the arrears paid from the single spine adjustment that the government has promised University of Ghana lecturers as well then I will be doing very well. I hope I get the money soon.

Hey where did all the bots go?

According to my stat counter my hits have been declining since December whereas before that they were rising. I am not sure if that means anything since I think most of those hits were by spam bots rather than humans. Other than the six people who have ever commented here and my mother I can not verify that I have or have had any other actual live readers. But, if I do have any actual readers perhaps they can provide some advice on how to move my audience up to double digits?

Coup in Mali

Evidently there was a military coup in Mali on Thursday, but I have not heard anybody here say anything about it. Indeed I just found out about it by accident on the Internet now. Despite idle speculation by American "experts" quoted in the various news stories I read that this may cause regional instability, I am guessing that the coup will have close to zero influence on events in Ghana.

UTAG Strike Officially Over

On Thursday the UTAG strike officially ended. Although the union leadership never told most of the membership either that it had started last Friday or that it ended on the following Thursday. During this time I did not teach any classes at the main campus in Legon. But, I did teach one on Tuesday at City Campus in Accra. It would have been nice if the UTAG leadership had told us when the strike started and when it ended. We had to find out through the Ghanaian mass media. For an organization representing about 2500 faculty including 800 here in Legon it could do a lot better job of informing its membership of what the leadership is up to. But, the UTAG leadership does talk to the press and from the various news reports on the Internet I have garnered the following information. It appears that payment of the arrears will come. But, for some reason Winneba will get paid first before Legon. Optimistically lecturers in Winneba will have their money in a little over a week. I have no idea when we will get our arrears paid here in Legon, but I hope it is before June.

Blackouts

We seem to be having a lot of electrical blackouts recently. Last night the power went down at 7:30, came back on for twenty minutes at 9:10, and then went out again until sometime after midnight. It is really hot at night in my room if the ceiling fan is not working. This morning there was power when I woke up, but then we lost it for about an hour between 10:30 and 11:30. We seem to be losing power more frequently and for longer recently. Maybe because it is hotter this time of year and there is more strain on the electrical grid from the running of air conditioning units.

Reconstruction

For the last couple of weeks they have been remodeling the entire second floor of the History Department. They are adding a large number of new offices. I don't know where they are going to get the faculty to fill all the new offices, but we will have a lot of new office space.

The worst organized strike ever

Well evidently adherence to the strike is voluntary which means it is not really a strike. The Head of my Department told me today I had the option of striking or not, but if it went on for more than a week the administration would probably extend the academic year to make up for the lost teaching. He suggested returning to teaching, he never left, so that I could finish my classes without losing any vacation time. In at least one other department nobody stopped teaching. Since it is evident that the whole call by the UTAG leadership was badly planned I will return to teaching tomorrow. A strike is only effective if everybody adheres to it.

The Strike and the Blogosphere

Left wing academic blogs like to pretend they support the rights of people of color, labor, and academics. But, none of them has written anything about the ongoing UTAG strike here in Ghana. Nor did they cover the UTAG strike in October 2010. However, they have lots of blog posts on labor issue pertaining to mostly white academics in the US. I find this total non-coverage of what is probably the largest labor action by any faculty union currently in the world to be quite telling. If a similar strike were taking place in the US, UK, Canada, or Australia I am quite sure it would get lots of coverage on the left wing academic blogs. But, for some reason left wing academics despite all their claims of being anti-racist just do not seem to care as much about people in Africa as they do about people in North America, Europe, and Australia.

Strike

UTAG (University Teacher's Association of Ghana) called for its members to stop teaching this morning. We recently got a substantial raise due to the previous activities of UTAG. The raise was supposed to be retroactive for up to two years. The strike is over the payment of the arrears. So this afternoon I did not teach my two classes and it is unlikely I will be teaching Monday morning. This is the first time I have been involved in a strike. I hope it is resolved by Monday afternoon.

Power Outage

The power was out in Legon today from 10:48 to 6:48 and it was very hot. So I tried sitting in my dark and very hot office reading. But, I ended up going home early to take a nap.

Ethnic Theory and Practice in the USSR and the Republic of South Africa

It has become apparent to me that in both theory and practice that there are a lot of similarities between Soviet nationalities policies and South African apartheid. In practice this is most apparent in the treatment of the deported peoples who were placed under the apartheid like restrictions of the special settlement regime. Restrictions that the Stalin regime decreed to be for all eternity "navechno" on 26 November 1948. But, even under the reformist post-Stalin regime legal restrictions on the freedom of residency remained on Soviet citizens of German nationality until 3 November 1972. This practice rested upon a theory that ethnoses are immutable groups into which people are born into and can not ever leave even after generations of acculturation have eliminated all actual cultural distinctions between the stigmatized groups and their larger host populations. While real cultural traits such as language may disappear during this time ascribed negative traits such as inherent disloyalty due to having an ancestral homeland abroad are considered to be innate and effectively eternal. I consider the permanent ascription of negative traits to people based upon their membership from birth into immutable categories of people defined by the state to be racist, but apparently I am among a very small minority of people with PhDs to take this position.

Ethnic theory in the USSR upon which the classification of people into different nationalities was based rests on the idea of essentialized and primordial groups tied forever to particular pieces of soil from which individuals could not escape through the process of cultural assimilation. Descendants of German immigrants to the US became simply Americans in a few short generations. In Russia and Central Asia people whose ancestors came from Central Europe to the Russian Empire as early as 1764 and who have almost completely lost all connections with their ancestral culture are still considered completely German in their essence. Such a situation has far more in common with racial formation in places like the US or even more so South Africa than it does with maintaining ethnic (i.e. cultural) identity. The ethnic theory that racialized nationality in the USSR in fact has a lot of similarities with the volkekunde used to provide a theoretical basis for apartheid.

Sergei Shirokogorov's work turns out to be one of the primary intellectual foundations of South African volkekunde. The literature freely acknowledges this fact. He was a student of Lev Shternberg, one of the most important early ethnographers in the USSR. Shirokogorov later went into exile in China, but his work continued to be influential not only in the USSR, but also Germany, and later South Africa. Despite being an emigre Shirokogorov's work remained central to Soviet ethnic theory as developed by Yulian Bromley. But, Shirkogorov's ideas were not ever alien to the USSR. The idea of primordial ethnicity which was put into rigid legal practice by the NKVD in 1938 was shared by a number of early Soviet ethnographers including Shternberg and his close collaborator Vladimir Bogoraz.

It is true that the Soviet ethnographers unlike those in Nazi Germany always defined ethnoses on the basis of things other than genetics. But, so too did the South Africans. Culture has since Boas served as a very convenient substitute for biology in the construction of immutable groups defined by ancestry. It is telling that although Hirsch makes numerous references contrasting Soviet and Nazi theories that her book Empire of Nations does not once mention Shirokogorov. An investigation into scholars positively citing his work shows not only similarities, but the actual intellectual influence of Soviet ideas of ethnicity in the construction of the theoretical basis of South African apartheid. The South Africans both in theory and practice erected a system of racial discrimination that thus had far more in common with Soviet nationalities policies than it did with Nazi Germany.

Yet, Hirsch and Weiner defend the USSR from the charge of racism by pointing out its differences from Nazi Germany as if that were the only example of racism in world history. If the Soviet national deportations are not racist because they were justified along lines of ethnicity stressing historical, cultural, and geographical differences rather than genetic ones than it seems impossible to claim that apartheid was racist. It too was justified along a rationale very different from the biological one of Nazi Germany. Indeed defenders of apartheid pointed out that 'separate development' was based upon providing for the different needs of ethnicities defined by differences in  history, culture, and geography not genetic inferiority. Nobody of course took the defenders of apartheid seriously even though they may have sincerely believed what they were saying. So why do most US scholars of the USSR buy the line that there was no racial discrimination in the USSR towards the deported peoples because the Stalin regime called racialized groups nationalities and like South Africa defined them along cultural rather than genetic lines?

Remodeling

They are still remodeling the upstairs of the department. But, it is coming along much faster than I expected. I am curious to see what the finished product will look like.

Shirokogoroff (Shirokogorov) a common link in the theoretical construction of Soviet nationalities policy and South African apartheid

It appears that the similarities between Soviet and apartheid era South African anthropology are not coincidental. They stem from the common influence of Sergei Shirokogorov who in turn was a student of Lev Shternberg on both Soviet and South African scholars particularly with regards to theories of ethnicity. I was not aware of the influence of Shirokogorov or as it appears in the South African literature Shirokogoroff on volkekunde until recently. Evidently the writings of Shirokogorov formed a very important part of the theoretical basis of South African volkekunde.  But, given the similarities and resemblances between the Soviet and the South African literature it is not surprising.

Looking for old issues of RAIN

Last night I saw an interesting end note in an old piece by Richard Jenkins. I have quoted the note below.

The intellectual resemblance between South African volkekunde and Soviet anthropology is too complicated a matter to discuss here: see, however the controversy in the pages of RAIN (Royal Anthropological Institute News), numbers 35, 36, 37 and 38 (1979-80).

I would love to get my hands on those issues of RAIN. I thought I was the only person in the world who noticed the similarities between Soviet and apartheid era South African anthropologists in focusing on a primordial conception of ethnicity. Current US scholars of the USSR certainly completely ignore these resemblances.  A preliminary search in the electronic catalog of the Balme Library did not turn up anything that looked remotely promising. If anybody knows where I might be able to acquire copies of the relevant articles please let me know.

OSU

Today to avoid the crowds in Legon I went with a friend to Osu. He thought we might be able to find a Lebanese or Indian place there. But, we did not succeed in this task. I had never been to Osu before. I was not overly impressed. Other than having high prices and a lot of Obrunis it did not look any different from any other region of Accra. It had a lot less to see than Makola Market, James Town, or other more authentically indigenous areas of the city. I guess the fact that it has a KFC attracts a lot of Obrunis. Accra, however, still has no McDonald's.

Recent events

University of Ghana is having its graduation ceremony today and the campus is very crowded. I am going to try and find some place away from the crowds. They are reconstructing the history department offices so that is not an option. In addition to having no power to run any computers we have workmen pounding away upstairs. I hope they can get the power back by Monday. We have had three working days so far without it.

Happy International Women's Day

Everybody have a Happy International Women's Day today. It has to be better than International Women's Day for the Balkars in 1944. On that day Stalin celebrated the holiday by deporting almost the entire Balkar population including nearly all the women as special settlers from their Caucasian homeland to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

How I spent my Holiday

Today was Ghanaian Independence Day and I did not accomplish much work wise.

Tomorrow is Ghanaian Independence Day - 55 Years Ago

Ghana got its independence from the UK on 6 March 1957. It was the first African colony south of the Sahara to gain independence.

Africa is hot today

Legon feels really hot today. I had to make a long trip on foot today and now I am covered in sweat. According to the Internet the temperature is only 30 C with 66% humidity. But, it feels like it is around 40 C.

Why do they train specialists for generalist work?

The task of writing a PhD dissertation is almost completely opposite of what university lecturers do in the class room. In graduate school you write a detailed work on a limited subject. My own dissertation was a comparative study of about a half century of modern history of three national groups with a total combined population of less than three million people. As a lecturer you teach the broad history of whole continents for periods of time stretching for centuries. Writing a dissertation on the comparative experiences of internal exile in Kazakhstan, Central Asia, and Siberia of Russian Germans, Crimean Tatars, and Meskhetian Turks is probably not the best possible preparation for teaching nineteenth century European history.  I think Soviet, Russian, or maybe even Ottoman history might actually have a more direct relationship with the subject of my PhD dissertation. Had I known I was going to be teaching European history despite the topic of my dissertation and publishing record I would have spent more time in Arivaca reading about England, France, and Belgium. Back then I thought I would be teaching the history of the Islamic world.  It turns out that the specialist approach favored in academia for dissertations and publications has almost no application in the classroom. There the more general, particularly regarding breadth of time and space, the better. A working knowledge of all the important events of world history from Middle Ages on is more useful in university teaching than specialization in anything.

Racial Discrimination in the USSR Once More

I know that I am the only one of three people in the world who believes this, but I still fail to see how the Soviet deportations of whole nationalities was not racist. Just because the Soviet government used the term natsionalnost rather than race does mean the actions were not in effect racist. In practice the term natsionalnost meant the exact same thing as race when it came to the treatment of the deported peoples. In these cases the category functioned exactly like the term 'race' and was even constructed along similar historical and cultural lines as existed in apartheid South Africa with regards to restricting freedom of residency and movement. Yet a Google scholar search on "racial discrimination in the USSR" shows only two articles. The first is my recent publication in Human Rights Review. The second is an article on Jews from 1977. The more I think about it the more I come to the conclusion that Hirsch's argument that there was never any racial discrimination by the Stalin regime against the deported peoples to be extremely weak. The racist function of institutions like the 'special settlement regime' is not dependent upon what term is used to describe the division of humans into immutable groups based upon ancestry. It is the differential treatment by the state of humans divided into such groups that constitutes racial discrimination. Why is it scholars are able to recognize this for every other case in the history of the world, but still claim that racism never existed as an official policy in the USSR towards groups like the ethnic Koreans, Germans, Chechens, Kalmyks, and Crimean Tatars?  Strangely enough a number do claim that official racism existed against Jews even though the Soviet government never subjected Jews as a group to the apartheid like restrictions that greatly reduced the life chances of the above mentioned groups during the 1940s and 50s.

Afromie

There is a popular brand of ramen noodles here called Indomie. They are imported from Indonesia. I have taken to eating them in a quick approximation of Ghanaian light soup. Basically I serve them in a broth of tomato paste, ketchup, and shito sauce. Sometimes I add a sriracha style chili and garlic sauce if I can find it. The result is a spicy tomato broth similar to light soup, but containing ramen noodles rather than fufu. I call this concoction Afromie. It is quite tasty.

Rethinking Life

Given the strange trajectory of my life in the last decade or so I definitely over think the contingencies that brought me here. I should dwell less on the failures of my own past and concentrate more on succeeding in the future. I can be a successful lecturer here in Africa and that is a greater contribution to overall human good than many people make.

Sixty Four Years since the Christiansborg Crossroads Shootings

Today is the 64th anniversary of the Christiansborg Crossroads Shootings. On 28 February 1948 a British police officer fired on a demonstration by Gold Coast veterans of WWII. The initial shooting killed three men. Later violence resulted in twelve more deaths over the next five days. The British colonial government then detained without trial the six most prominent leaders of the United Gold Coast Convention including future Ghanaian president Kwame Nkrumah.

Source: F.K. Buah, A History of Ghana: Revised and Updated (Oxford: Macmillan, 1998), pp. 154-155.

Teaching schedule

For some reason this semester I have a teaching schedule that does not agree with my bio-rhythms. I have to teach from 3:30 to 5:30 on Fridays then go to Accra to teach from 6:30 to 8:30 and don't get home until about 9:30. Then I have to teach again at 7:30 am on Monday mornings. I would prefer to have all my classes closer to the middle of the day.

Publishing norms?

I have now finished sending off my paper on cotton in German Togoland. It is my second publication dealing at least in part with an African subject. Since I have started working at the University of Ghana a year ago I have had one peer reviewed journal article and one book chapter accepted for publication. The journal article is available online now at SpringerLink, but I do not know when the print version will be out. I also noticed that six encyclopedia articles for three different volumes that I wrote before coming here were published last semester. That gives me eight small publications this academic year. I am not sure what the average is for most history lecturers in the world. I suspect at US universities it might be much, much, higher, but I do not really know. I would, however, like to know how I rank in terms of productivity compared to the average starting lecturer in the US or Europe. Can anybody give me an idea how much a starting assistant professor publishes each year at a typical US institution of higher learning? Am I way behind the US and European norms for publishing?

Alternate Bio

I just finished sending off the cotton paper. These things usually ask for a short autobiography and I try and keep them as short and simple as possible. But, just once I think it would be fun to send something like the following.

J. Otto Pohl has finally gotten a position as a lecturer seven years after earning his PhD. He spent two years of that time living in the deserts of Arivaca eating moths and beetles. During this time he wasted a huge amount of effort and postage applying for jobs in the US. Instead he should have been looking for jobs in Africa. From 2007 to 2010 he lived and worked in Central Asia. But, he still wasted time and energy that he will never get back looking for a job in the US instead of looking in Africa where it would have done him a lot more good. Now he is not wasting any time or calories attempting to get a job at a US university and as a result was able to write and edit this book chapter on cotton in German Togoland.

I did not explode

Yesterday at lunch I was eating banku and okra stew at the night market. I also had two bags of water to wash it down with. The woman across the table from me, however, was making a lot of strange hand gestures at me in a panicked way. At first I thought she might be a witch trying to curse me with juju.The man sitting next to her, however,  said she was dumb as in mute and was trying to tell me not to eat and drink water at the same time or my stomach would explode. Apparently this is a widely held Ghanaian folk belief.

Sixty Eight Years since the Deportation of the Chechens and Ingush

Today is the 68th anniversary of Stalin's deportation of the Chechens and Ingush to special settlement restrictions in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Beria carefully oversaw this mass uprooting of humanity which ultimately resulted in over a quarter of the Chechen and Ingush population perishing during the next five years. On 26 November 1948, the Stalin regime decreed the exile of the Chechens, Ingush, and other deported peoples to be permanent. I still maintain that the deportation of an entire group defined by an ethnicity assigned by the state at birth to restricted territories forever is a racist act. I also maintain that the very act of deporting to unprepared territories an entire national group consisting in the majority of women, children, and the elderly during war time conditions in the middle of winter shows an intent to kill off a large portion of them regardless of stated motives. I am well aware that the orthodox position in American academia is that the Soviet action was neither racist or genocidal, but I stand by my position.

"Soviet Apartheid: Stalin's Ethnic Deportations, Special Settlement Restrictions, and the Labor Army: The Case of the Ethnic Germans in the USSR" available online

I am pretty sure that the number of people who read this blog who might possibly have access to full text articles on SpringerLink is probably pretty limited. But, just in case one or two comes across here by accident, my most recent peer reviewed journal article has been available online since 15 January 2012. The title of the article is "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. 

Ethnic Complexity

I had thought that the North Caucasus was ethnically complex before I came to Ghana. But, today after hearing another presentation on ethnic conflict in northern Ghana I am convinced that the ethnic divisions in the Caucasus are rather simple and straight forward compared to those in north-eastern Ghana. I am pretty sure that neither the Germans or the British actually fully figured out the ethnic divisions in this region during colonial rule and that this lack of understanding was one of the reasons for conflict in the area.

Cotton Paper Revisions

Today after I finished teaching my 7:30 am class on European history from 1789 to 1945 I did some work revising my paper on cotton in German Togoland which is due early next week. I met with my co-author this morning and I finished changing the citations into Harvard style and the spelling into British ones today. Tomorrow I hope to finish writing up the revisions so I can send it off before the end of the week.

More on GKO Order 1281ss

GKO Order 1281ss ordered the forced mobilization of Russian-Germans living in the eastern regions of the USSR before 1941 into the labor army. Yesterday I posted a translation of the decree itself. Here are some links to earlier posts on the subject. The first post is a brief history of the implementation of this decree. By April 1942 the Soviet government had inducted 40,864 additional Russian-German men into the labor army with this decree. Next is a post on the mobilization of ethnic Germans in Kyrgyzstan under this and later decrees for work in the labor army. Among those mobilized were a large number of Mennonites, particularly from the Talas region.

Seventy Years Since GKO Order No. 1281ss

"On Mobilizing Germans- Men of Conscript Age from 17 to 50 Years, Permanently Living in Oblasts, Krais, Autonomous and Union Republics."

Resolution of the GKO USSR No. 1281 ss from 14 February 1942.

The State Committee of Defense Resolves:

1. All Germans - Men of the ages from 17 to 50 years, capable of physical labor, permanently living in Arkhangelsk, Vologoda, Ivanova, Molotov, Penzen, Svedlovsk, Tambov, Chita, Cheliabinsk, Chkalovsk, Yaroslav, Kirov, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Kubyshev, and Irkutsk oblasts, Primore, Khabarovsk, Altai, and Krasnoiarsk krais, Bashkir, Mordvin, Mari, Tatar, Udmurdt, Chuvash, Buriat-Mongolian and Komi ASSRs, Kazakh, Turkmen, Tadzhik, Kirgiz and Uzbek SSRs - are to be mobilized into work columns for the entire duration of the war and handed over to the NKVD USSR for use in the construction of rail roads.

The carrying out of the mobilization is to be entrusted to the NKO (comrade Shchadenko) together with the NKVD USSR. The mobilization is to be completed by 25 March 1942.

2. Requires the NKPS and the Administration of military communications of the NKO to provide transport to the mobilized Germans with accountable delivery of them to their place of work as announced by the NKVD USSR not later than 30 March.

3. Distribute the order of mobilization and upkeep of the mobilized Germans, established by the resolution of the GKO from 10 January 1942 No. 1123 ss points 2,3,4, again to all mobilized.

4.  Requires the Peoples' Commissariat of Food Industry, Peoples' Commissariat of Meat and Milk Industry, Peoples' Commissariat of Procurement, Peoples' Commissariat of Fish Industry to assign for the month of March and second quarter to the GULAG NKVD USSR at their expense the remaining food goods from these industries, according to the addendum.  Forward to the Peoples' Commissariat of Trade of the USSR the provision of food and industrial supplies for the mobilized on the basis of point 6 in resolution of the GKO No. 1123 from 10. 1. 42.

5. People's Commissariat of Finance USSR together with NKVD USSR are to provide for in the finance plan of the NKVD USSR the necessary funds to pay for the transport of the Germans and other expenses to the officials in charge of providing their supplies.

Chairman of the State Committee Defense

I. Stalin

Source: A.A. German, T.S. Ilarionova, I.R. Pleve, Istoriia Nemtsev Rossii: Khrestomatiia (Moscow, MSNK Press, 2005), pp. 272-273.

Translation from Russian to English by J. Otto Pohl

Arizona turns 100 years old

Arizona was the last state in the lower 48 to join the union. It officially became a state exactly a century ago on 14 February 1912. Of all the places in the US I have lived I liked Arizona the best.

Tired

Last night I stayed up until eleven pm to take my malaria medicine. Then I got up in the night twice before having to get up at six am for my seven thirty am class. So now after a weekend bought of malaria and insufficient sleep last night I am tired. I am going to go home soon and take a nap.

Power Cord

Wednesday night the power cord to my laptop died. I had to go get a new one. I was going to do it on Thursday, but ran out of time and money after buying new shoes and then finding out all the ATM machines were down. Then on Friday between going to the hospital and teaching four hours with malaria I not only had no time, but did not feel well enough to do it on Saturday. Finally, today I purchased a new power cord from Maxi Mart for 45 cedis. It is currently charging the battery on my laptop.

Surviving Malaria

Last night and earlier today I did not feel so well. But, now the anti-malarial drugs seem to have kicked in and I feel pretty good. My first experience with malaria was not nearly as bad as I expected it to be. I found out as a result of a routine blood test and did not feel any symptoms until hours after I had started the treatment course. I had expected to have a raging fever and splitting headache when I inevitably first contracted malaria like almost everybody else in Ghana. Instead I had some flu like symptoms for one night and one day. Considering the disease used to kill the vast majority of white people that landed on these shores I think I have fared pretty well.

Weekend plans delayed

I think I am going to have to scale back my grandiose plans for the weekend due to having contracted malaria. Next weekend I should be physically able to perform much better. This weekend I will try and take it easy.

Running Man

Yesterday I spent most of my time running around. I walked so much my feet hurt. Fortunately, on my last trip a man calling out "white man," "white man," "white man" was selling trainers. He had a pair of black shoes at least claiming to be Nike in my size for 35 cedis. They have a lot thicker soles than my other pair of shoes and my feet do not hurt when I walk over the rocky dirt roads just outside of campus.

Lebanese Cuisine

Today I ate lunch at the Lebanese cafe in Maxi Mart. The food was good, but way over priced.

The wrong team won today

Today Ghana lost to Zambia 0-1 in the semi-finals of the Africa Cup of Nations. The Black Stars had a good run. On Sunday they will play the loser of the Mali vs. Ivory Coast game for third place.

Syllabus for Aspects of World History since 1945

Aspects of World History since 1945

HIST 418

Spring 2012

Department of History

University of Ghana

J. Otto Pohl, Ph.D.

Meeting Time: 3:30-5:30 Fridays in JQB no. 9

Course Description: This course is a survey course of world history since the end of World War II in 1945. It examines the history of the world from 1945 to 1991 in the context of the Cold War between the US and the USSR. The course will focus on the foreign policies of the US and USSR and their effect on other regions of the world. Among other events the course will cover the reconstruction of Europe after World War II, the Arab-Israeli wars, the Vietnam War, and the emergence of newly independent states in Africa. Within the Soviet – US conflict the course will pay special attention to the socialist emphasis on the collectivization of agriculture versus traditional forms of agriculture. The course will look at the extension of collectivized agriculture influenced by the extension of the Soviet model to the Baltic States and Western Ukraine, Vietnam, and parts of Africa. The course will also deal extensively with the displacement of large numbers of people due to war and ethnic cleansing and the long term ramifications of such forced migration. In particular the course will look at forced migration in Europe and the Middle East. Other themes we will touch on are economic development, the emergence of international organizations, and the collapse of European colonialism in Asia and Africa.

Requirements: The goal of this class is to give students a general frame work of the history of the conflict between the US and USSR and other major international events from 1945 to 1991. Students need to attend class regularly and do the assigned readings. Material from both the readings and the lectures will appear on the final exam. No mobile phones are to be visible during class. They are to be out of sight and turned off. Finally, I have a significant hearing loss and may have to ask people to repeat their questions or statements from time to time. You can minimize this by speaking loudly and clearly. This syllabus is tentative and subject to change.

Readings: The readings are taken mainly from three books. These books are Geoffry Hosking, The First Socialist Society: A History of the Soviet Union from Within, Second Enlarged Edition (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), Martin Walker, The Cold War: A History (NY: Henry Holt and company, 1993), and Robert McMahon, The Cold War: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford UK: Oxford University Press, 2003). There are also a number of shorter readings, mostly journal articles. The instructor has copies of all the assigned readings and will make them available to the students. The shorter readings are listed below.

Clapham, Christopher, “Revolutionary Socialist Development in Ethiopia,” African Affairs, vol. 86, no. 343, (April 1987), pp. 151-165.

Esber, Rosemarie, “Rewriting the History of 1948: The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Question Revisited,” Holy Land Studies, vol. 4, no. 1 (2005), pp. 55-72).

Hayden, Robert M., “Schindler’s Fate: Genocide, Ethnic Cleansing, and Population Transfers,” Slavic Review, vol. 55, No. 4 (Winter 1996), pp. 727-748.

Khalidi, Rashid, “Observations on the Right of Return,” Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Winter 1992), pp. 29-40.

Luke, Timothy, “Angola and Mozambique: Institutionalizing Social Revolution in Africa,” The Review of Politics, Vol. 44, No. 3 (July 1982), pp. 413-436.

Raymond, Chad, “The Insoluble Internal Conflicts of Agricultural Collectivization in Vietnam,” Crossroads: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, vol. 15, no. 2 (2001), pp. 41-70.

Statiev, Alexander, “Motivations and Goals of Soviet Deportations in the Western Borderlands,” The Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 28, No. 6 (December 2005), pp. 977-1003.

Ther, Philip, “The Integration of Expellees in Germany and Poland after World War II: A Historical Reassessment,” Slavic Review, Vol. 55, No. 4 (Winter 1996), pp. 779-805.

Grading: The grade for the class will be based upon a mid-term exam and a comprehensive final essay exam at the end of the semester. The mid-term will be worth 25%of the final grade and the final exam will constitute the remaining 70% of the grade. Attendance will be 5% of the grade.

Class Schedule:

Week one: Introduction and Review of Syllabus


Week two: The US and USSR after World War II and the Start of the Cold War


Read: Hosking, pp. 296-325; Statiev, pp. 977-1003; Walker, pp. 1-28; McMahon, pp. 1-15.


If possible this week I would like to show the movie Red Terror on the Amber Coast: Soviet Occupation – Lithuanian Resistance 1939-1993 since it covers much of the material in the Hosking and especially the Statiev.


Week three: Europe in the wake of World War II


Read: Hayden, pp. 727-748; Ther 779-805; Walker, pp. 28-58; McMahon, pp. 16-34.


Week four: Asia and the Middle East in the wake of World War II

Read: Raymond, pp. 41-70; Esber, pp. 55-72; Khalidi, pp. 29-40; Walker, pp. 59-82; McMahon, pp. 35-55.

Week five: The 1950s: Khrushchev vs. Eisenhower


Read: Hosking, pp. 326-362; Walker, pp. 83-135; McMahon, pp. 56-77.


Week six: Mid-term examination. The exam is worth 25% of the total grade.


Week seven: The 1960s: Cuba, Vietnam and other Conflict Zones


Read: Walker, pp. 136-206; McMahon, pp. 77-104.


Week eight: The USSR during the Era of Stagnation and the US at Home


Read: Hosking, pp. 364-445; McMahon, pp. 105-121.


Week nine: The Twilight of the Cold War


Read: Walker, pp. 207-277; McMahon, pp. 122-142.


Week ten: “Socialism” and Development in Africa


Read: Scott, pp. 223-261, Luke, pp. 413-436, and Clapham, pp. 151-165.


Week eleven: The End of the Cold War


Read: Walker, pp. 278-357; McMahon, pp. 143-168.


Week twelve: The End of the USSR


Read: Hosking, pp. 446-501.

Syllabus for European History 1789-1945

History of Europe 1789-1945

HIST 304

Spring 2012

Department of History

University of Ghana

J. Otto Pohl, Ph.D.

Meeting Time: 7:30-9:30 am Monday in Stat 200

Course Description: This course is a survey course covering the political, economic, and social history of Europe from the French Revolution until the end of World War II. It will focus primarily on the ‘Long 19th Century’ from 1789 until 1914. The course will concentrate on large European states such as Great Britain, France, Prussia, Austria, and the Russian Empire. But, it will also cover some events in smaller states such as the unification of Italy and the Balkan Wars. Major themes and events the course will cover are the Napoleonic Wars, industrialization, the rise of Germany, the development of democratic and socialist movements, the triumph of nationalism as the primary source of popular legitimacy for European states, World War One, the success of totalitarian movements in the 1920s and 30s, and World War Two.

Requirements: Students need to attend class regularly and do the assigned readings. Material from both the readings and the lectures will appear on the final exam. No mobile phones are to be visible during class. They are to be out of sight and turned off. Finally, I have a significant hearing loss and may have to ask people to repeat their questions or statements from time to time. You can minimize this by speaking loudly and clearly. This syllabus is tentative and subject to change.

Readings: The text for this class is David Thomson, Europe Since Napoleon, Second Edition, Revised, (NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982).

Grading: The grade for the class will be based upon a mid-term exam and a comprehensive final essay exam at the end of the semester. The mid-term will be worth 25% of the final grade and the final exam will constitute the remaining 70% of the grade. Attendance will count for 5% of the total grade.

Class Schedule:

Week one: Introduction and review of the syllabus.

Week two: The French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, 1789-1814.

Read pp. 1-58.

Week three: The Congress of Vienna, 1815

Read pp. 59-103

Week four: Revolutionary ferment and explosions, 1815-1850

Read pp. 107-210.

Week five: Redrawing the map of Europe, 1851-1871

Read pp. 211-318.

Week six: The development of modern political ideologies: Democracy, Socialism, and Nationalism.

Read pp. 319-422.

Week seven: The triumph of Empire, 1871-1914

Read pp. 423-508.

Week eight: Mid-Term Exam. The Mid-Term is worth 25% of the total grade.

Week nine: World War One and its aftermath, 1914-1923

Read pp. 509-608.

Week ten: The interwar period, 1924-1939

Read pp. 609-718.

Week eleven: World War Two, 1939-1945

Read pp. 719-772.

Week twelve: Wrap up and review of semester.

Ghana 2 Tunisia 1

Ghana beat Tunisia 2 to 1 in extra time yesterday. On Wednesday they play Zambia in the semi-finals. Ghana looks to have a shot to win the cup this year.

History Department Trip to the Volta

Between the afternoon of 1 February 2012 until this morning I was on a History Department retreat on the other side of the Volta. That is the part of Ghana that was part of German Togoland before World War One. We redid the entire curriculum of the department and discussed ways in which we could recover the position we enjoyed in the 1950s and 60s as the best History Department on the continent of Africa. Now that we have some resources we can advance in this direction. Ultimately we would like to increase our full time permanent faculty from five to thirty. If any of my friends with PhDs in history from legitimate institutions would like to join me here in Ghana please send me an e-mail. Trust me it is a lot better to work in a growing department in a former Third World country than to be unemployed in a former First World country.

Ghanaian Football Update

Ghana tied Guinea 1 to 1 on Wednesday evening and will be going on to the quarter finals. Ghana and Mali were the two teams from their group to advance to the next round. Tomorrow the Black Stars play Tunisia.

Start of the Semester

Evidently the staff of the University of Ghana have been on strike since yesterday. The faculty, however, are still working. We belong to different unions. Yesterday, I had my first class of the semester. Only three students showed up out of the more than 100 that are supposed to be in the class. Next Monday I suspect a few more will show up.

Ghana 2 Mali 0

Last night Ghana beat Mali in the Africa Cup of Nations 2 to 0. Next up is Guinea. I thought Ghana played much better against Mali than they did against Botswana.

Storm

I left the office to go get lunch today and managed to make it to the Night Market to get omo tuo with ground nut soup and chicken just before a torrential rain storm hit. On the way to the market the sky turned black and the wind blew leaves and red dust so thick I had trouble seeing. The storm was really heavy and I am glad I was under a tarp during the extended deluge. Had I not been I might very well have drowned.

Another plug for ICT at UG

Yesterday I took advantage of one of my nice fringe benefits here at the University of Ghana. I got the anti-virus software on my lap top renewed. I am told that my new software will update itself when online and is good until 2018. The ICT people here are amazingly good. They are technically competent and unlike some other things in Ghana very prompt. They took off the old software and installed the new software as soon as I showed up at their door with my laptop.

Ghana 1 Botswana 0

Ghana beat Botswana 1 to 0 today in the Africa Cup of Nations. Next up for the Black Stars is Mali and then Guinea.

New Shoes

Today I purchased a new pair of shoes for 25 cedis from a man who sells footwear outside Legon Annex. They fit well and are quite comfortable. My old shoes were about a year old and the sole had become separated from the leather. I am not sure how durable these new shoes are, but for their cost I can afford to buy a new pair every month if they wear out.

One Year in Africa

As of the day after tomorrow I will have been in Ghana for one year with the exception of one month in July and early August where I went back to Kyrgyzstan. During this year I have taught nearly 300 African students. I have also had two publications, one peer reviewed journal article and one book chapter, dealing with Africa in a comparative manner accepted for publication. I still have to revise the book chapter before submitting the final version in February. I think I have adjusted fairly well for somebody who knew almost nothing about Africa a year ago.

The amazing things you can do with a pocket knife

Yesterday I somehow managed to lock myself out of my room. Of course such things only happen on weekends and holidays when there is nobody working. I did, however, manage to find a graduate student who used his Leatherman to open the door. If we didn't have PhD students here I would still be locked out of my bedroom until Monday.

International Faculty

Yesterday there was a reception for international faculty at the International Programs nice new building. The dean had catered snacks and beverages for us. The largest contingent of foreigners at the University of Ghana unsurprisingly work teaching modern languages. There were two language instructors from China, two from Cuba, one from Hungary, and one from Kenya. The rest of us were spread around various departments, but included people from Germany, Canada, the US, Rwanda, the UK, Denmark, Norway, and Nigeria. I think in total there are about twenty of us. It is hard to tell, however, since not all the foreign nationals working at the university showed up to the reception. On a more serious note the the International Programs people including the dean have taken an interest in addressing the various challenges that foreign faculty have faced at the University of Ghana.

Another Cultural Difference Between Africa and Obrunistan

During the course of the last year I have become aware that in Africa people actually respect me and take me seriously. This is radically different from the rest of the world. Unlike the vast majority of North Americans and Europeans people do not summarily dismiss my opinions here. I suspect there is some historically rooted cultural difference that accounts for this discrepancy. Commentators are free to speculate in the comments.

My Kettle Lives!

This morning my kettle seems to have magically reanimated itself. Since it appears to be working now I am going to put off going to the store to buy a new one. I am not sure why it refused to work yesterday.

Another South African Kettle Dies

For the second time in a year I have had a South African electric kettle die on me. This one was manufactured by Mellerware and lasted a lot longer than the Logik one. But, still it did even make it through an entire year. South African electronics seem to be particularly shoddy even compared to stuff from China. Unfortunately, they seem to dominate the market here in Ghana and it is very difficult to find things like electric kettles that are not made in South Africa.

Returning Bottles

In Ghana they still have a version of the old bottle deposit system where you have to return the glass bottles when you finish with them. You don't have to pay a deposit, but if you don't return your empty bottles the vendor may refuse to sell to you in the future. So far I have remembered to return all my glass bottles.

None Dare Call it Treason

If any other country acted towards the US the way Israel does we would have invaded it already. From the Lavon Affair to the attack on the USS Liberty to the recent impersonation of CIA agents to recruit terrorists to kill Iranians, any of these acts by any other state would have resulted in severe sanctions. But, no US politician other than Ron Paul will even suggest that the US should reduce the billions of dollars in military aid we give Israel every year. Instead we hear US politicians pledge total support and loyalty to Israel no matter what it does. Placing the interests of a foreign state above the interests of the US is disloyal, unpatriotic, and just plain stupid.

My Perfect Record

Someday, somehow, somebody else writing on the Internet will unintentionally agree with something I have written. Now granted that day is probably decades away, but I think it is a distinct possibility. But, until then my record of complete disagreement with everybody else on everything on the Internet remains intact.

Graduate Students and Faculty

One thing I really like about my job is hanging out and talking to graduate students. Do people working at universities outside of Africa have this opportunity? Do they take advantage of it? Or do the faculty remain separate from the graduate students except when executing official duties such as advising? Although to be honest I am not sure why I am asking this question because I am 100% sure nobody is going to comment on it.

Commemorating the 70th Anniversary of GKO Order 1123ss

Today marks the 70th anniversary of GKO Order 1123ss ordering the first mass conscription of Russian-Germans into the labor army. This decree mobilized deported Russian-German men into labor columns. An excerpt of the actual text can be read here. The Soviet government inducted these forced laborers in the same manner as recruits for the Red Army. These men joined over 20,000 Russian-Germans already previously rounded up for forced labor from Ukraine and the ranks of the Red Army.  By April 1942 a total of 67,961 Russian-German men had been conscripted under the terms of GKO Order 1123ss into the labor army to work in labor camps devoted to industrial construction and logging. Most of these camps were located in the Urals. Another 25,000 worked for the Peoples' Commissariat of Transportation building railroads. These men worked under conditions very similar to prisoners in the GULag. On 14 February 1942 the Stalin regime issued GKO Order 1281ss extending the conscription of Russian-Germans to include men who avoided deportation in 1941 because they lived in Kazakhstan, Siberia, the Urals, and Central Asia. The death rates among all these men in the Ural camps were extremely high. Among these camps were Solikamsk, Bogoslov , and Usol'lag.  Other camps where Russian-Germans in the labor army worked were Karlag in Kazakhstan and Arkhanglesk in the Russian Far North.

Mystery novels

Today the campus bookstore finally opened again. It closed a few days before Christmas. Thus I was without  used crime fiction for two weeks. But, today I stocked up on the genre. I found two Patricia Cornwell novels I have not yet read, a Spenser novel by Robert Parker, and a novel by Karin Slaughter. I will probably spend a big chunk of this evening reading one of the Cornwell novels.

Racism and Culture

For those people who think racism can only be based upon biological categories and never on cultural ones please go to Google Scholar and type in "new racism" and culture. There has been a huge amount of scholarship on this topic and I have no idea why people studying the former USSR are completely unaware of it. A good scholar to start with on this subject is Etienne Balibar.

Racial Discrimination has Nothing to Do with Biology

The 1965 International Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) defines the term in the following words. Please note there is nothing in here requiring biological, physical, or genetic categorization. Discrimination on the basis of ethnic and national categories is legally racial discrimination under international law. There are no other definitions of racial discrimination that have any standing under international law.

1. In this Convention, the term 'racial discrimination' shall mean any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural  or any other field of public life.

Definitions of racial discrimination that require an exact imitation of Nazi practices basically make the term meaningless by excluding every regime except Nazi Germany from the charge of racial discrimination. Even South Africa under apartheid would escape the charge because their distinctions, exclusions, restrictions, and preferences were officially based upon ethnic origin not some biological category of 'race.'

Abstract for Soviet Apartheid article

This article examines the Stalin regime's treatment of the ethnic Germans in the USSR during the 1940s as a case study in racial discrimination.  After 1938, Soviet definitions of nationality became racialized. Systematic repression against certain nationalities in the USSR after this time clearly fit the definition of racial discrimination formulated by scholars in the post-war era. This article examines the separate and unequal institutions of the special settlement regime and labor army imposed upon the ethnic Germans in the USSR during World War II in the context of race as a category constructed along lines of primordial and essentialist views of culture. It also compares the construction of racialized groups and the practice of racial discrimination in the USSR with South Africa during the apartheid era.

Accomplishments

Today I finally got my appointment letter for a permanent position as a lecturer in the Department of History at the University of Ghana. It is good until the end of July 2017 and renewable. I am permanently done with one year contracts. I also got the proofs for my journal article "Soviet Apartheid : Stalin's Ethnic Deportations, Special Settlement Restrictions, and the Labor Army: The Case of Ethnic Germans in the USSR" soon to be published in Human Rights Review. I sent the corrected proofs off this evening. The electronic version of the article should be in print soon followed by the print version. I will post the abstract tomorrow.

Question?

How many pages a week should I assign in my classes? Right now I am looking at around 60 pages a week in my 300 level class and 80 a week in my 400. The problem is that I have no idea what the standard is for 'world class universities' or even the average for a university in the US, Canada, or Europe. I would ideally like to assign as much reading as possible to my students.

Still Grading

I graded 24 exams today finishing off my Aspects of World History 1914-1945 class for the main campus. The class had 70 students. Tomorrow I will grade the section of the class I taught at the city campus.

Seeking Reading Suggestions for Nineteenth Century European History

This next semester I will be teaching European History 1789 to 1945. Does anybody have any suggestions for texts? I have one I will be using, but I need at least one more, preferably one with a nicely flowing narrative. In particular I am looking for stuff on the long nineteenth century. Any and all suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Happy New Year

Tomorrow is the first day of 2012. I hope all my readers have a Happy New Year. If you have any requests for the new year let me know in the comments.

More on my forthcoming publication

It will be a while before it is published. But, the recent journal article I had accepted for publication a few days ago does two things that one almost never sees in peer reviewed academic journal articles. First, it argues that Soviet policies towards the Russian-Germans and other deported peoples by Stalin constituted acts of racial discrimination. Almost all living US academics associated with the study of Soviet nationality policies vehemently deny that there were ever any racism involved in the deportation of whole peoples defined by their birth. Second, it specifically criticizes the strongest supporters of the idea that there was never any racism in the USSR, Francine Hirsch and Amir Weiner. Hirsch is probably the most publicly praised professor of Soviet history dealing with nationality issues currently alive. So getting a journal article that disagreed with her position through  peer review was not easy. Her opinion, although so obviously wrong that no non-academic would ever accept it, is regarded as Holy Writ by many in the academy. But, I finally did get a dissenting journal article through the gate keepers that control the academic peer review process. I will have more information about the publication when it comes out in print.

Is there anybody more annoying than a Zionist?

For some time I have debated with myself as to whether Internet Stalinists or Internet Zionists were more annoying. I have concluded that the Zionists are more annoying. There seem to be a lot more of them in the English language section of the Internet and they seem to have a disproportionate influence on US media, politics, and academia. Whereas the Stalinists are limited in the political realm largely to the former USSR and only have a significant influence in the US in academia.

The Development of the Concentration Camp

The concentration camp initially developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as way of suppressing resistance to colonial rule. It was used by the Spanish in Cuba, the British in South Africa, the US in the Philippines, and the Germans in Namibia. The conversion of the concentration camp from an instrument of colonial oppression to one of internal repression appears to be a Soviet innovation. Long before Hitler came to power the Soviet government first under Lenin and then Stalin pioneered the use of the concentration camp as an tool of political and social control in the RSFSR and USSR. The internal use of colonial technologies of control by the Soviet government is not as odd as it appears. The Soviet Union inherited not only most of the territory and population of the old Russian Empire, but most of its ethnic and racial prejudices as well. It was only a matter of time before disfavored nationalities such as the Russian-Germans, Russian-Koreans, Crimean Tatars, Kalmyks, Karachais, Balkars, Chechens, Ingush, Meskhetian Turks and others experienced the type of dispossession already imposed upon a number of colonial populations in the previous century.

New Publication Coming Soon

Christmas Eve I got an e-mail that the journal article I had been working on had been accepted for publication without any further need for sending it out for peer review again. I will post more about the article later. But, for now I will note that it will be my first peer reviewed publication dealing with an aspect of African history. It explicitly compares the Soviet special settlement regime to South African apartheid.

Happy Boxing Day

Happy Boxing Day everybody. Yesterday I had the hottest Christmas I have ever experienced. It is expected to cool off sometime in March.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everybody!

Thoughts on Totalitarianism in Light of Kim Jong Il's Death

It would not surprise me if the majority or even the vast majority of North Koreans really did quite literally worship Kim Jong Il. Stalin died in 1953 and yet the majority of Russians and Central Asians still revere him today despite his denunciation by Khrushchev at the 20th Party Congress. I do not expect a similar denunciation of Kim any time soon. Things that people in the US, Europe, and former European colonies like Ghana value highly such as individual freedom, tolerance, and basic human rights have very little support in Eurasia. Instead in most of the former USSR and North Korea they view racist nationalism, persecution of minorities and dissidents,   and personality cults in a very positive light. I am not sure there is any hope at all even in the very long run for any type of movement towards respect of individual and minority rights in that region of the world.

Marking Update

I have been slowly plodding along grading final exams. So far I have 38 done. I got delayed by having to extensively revise a journal article. But, this morning I got ten exams marked.

A whole slew of obits

Fortunately, I am a complete nobody so I am in good health. But, lots of famous people seem to have died recently. Cesaria Evora, Christopher Hitchens, Vaclav Havel, and Kim Jong Il. In terms of long term positive impact on the world I would rank them in the order of most to least as Evora, Havel, Hitchens, and Kim. Evora's music will still be listened to and provide enjoyment for people for decades and probably centuries. Havel was a very brave individual and helped contribute to the end of Communist rule in Czechoslovakia. He is also the only Czech politician to ever suggest that the expulsion of the Sudeten Germans was a crime. Hitchens I don't really care about one way or another. He once edited a decent collected work on Palestine with Edward Said, but other than that nothing he did really impressed me. Kim Jong Il was a ruthless despot, but surprisingly unlike his intellectual ancestors: Lenin, Stalin, and Mao he had very little support among American and European intellectuals. For a communist dictator this is a major failing. After all worship from western leftists is the major accomplishment that sets Stalin and Mao apart from failures like Hitler.

Why Communism Can Never Come to Ghana

If you go up to a market woman and tell her you are going to nationalize her food stall and take away her bible she will use her panga to cut off your ghoulies and that will be the end of your glorious proletarian revolution. Of course nobody here is stupid enough to try anything like that. But, I just want to assure everybody that socialism is completely incompatible with indigenous African values.

More on Soviet Apartheid

I know almost no US academics and certainly none on the Internet thinks that there were ever any racist policies in the USSR except for antisemitism, but looking at it from a point of view not dedicated to defending Moscow from the charge of racism things appear very different. If one looks at the legal restrictions of the special settlement regime in the USSR and apartheid in South Africa from a comparative point of view they appear very similar. When one notes that the construction of 'race' in South Africa after 1948 was in fact never officially justified along a model of genetically determined biological inferiority like Nazi Germany, but rather along lines of primordial ethnicity defined by anthropologists it looks even more similar. The problem is that some people calling themselves scholars automatically assume that because the Soviet government called the Kalmyks for example a nationality rather than a race that there was no racial component to their repression. They also assume wrongly that the South African system of racial classification was similar to that of Nazi Germany and based upon articulations of genetic inferiority rather than claims of cultural differences. This an instance where the total lack of comparative studies regarding the USSR has produced a lot of idiocy by tenured professors at big name US universities.

So to remedy this lack of comparative history I am presenting a brief summary of my findings on the similarities between Soviet 'racial' policies and South African 'racial' policies.

1. The legal restrictions imposed upon deported peoples in the USSR bear a close similarity to the apartheid laws of South Africa. The special settlement restrictions imposed upon these nationalities closely fits the model of apartheid constructed a few years later in South Africa. In both cases immutable groups of people defined by ethnicity at birth were subject to severe restrictions upon their residency and movement. To enforce these restrictions both regimes created a system of pass laws.

2. The construction of natsional'nost in the USSR bears a close similarity to the construction of 'race' in apartheid South Africa. Both were based upon primordial ethnicity and immutable cultural groups rather than any biological or genetic conception of difference. Both were also forms of racism that relied upon the sciences of anthropology and ethnography rather than biology and genetics.

3. The terms natsional'nost, narodnost, volk, ethnicity, nationality, and culture when used by both regimes were interpreted by the population in racial and indeed racist ways. They supported and validated a vast unofficial racist discourse. In the Soviet case this is evident in the vast array of racist jokes, insults, stereotypes, and even violence that connected directly to the official classifications of natsional'nost or narodnost. People in the USSR viewed these categories in the same way that people in South Africa viewed racial categories.

There is a Gecko Living in my Office

There are lots of geckos in my house. But, I think there is only one in my office. Right now he is running around the walls. I like geckos. They eat bugs.

New Speed Record at the Hospital

Today I got my medical file, got my blood pressure taken at the nurses station, and saw an MD who wrote me a new prescription all in a mere 40 minutes. I have heard that in some places in the US like Fresno that it can take up to nine hours to see a doctor at a hospital. It is amazing how well the national health care system works in Ghana.

Omelet Sandwich

Last night behind Legon Annex I discovered a woman who cooks omelet sandwiches. I saw her after purchasing a can of lychee juice at the nearby chemist shop and was going to walk to the night market to get something to eat. But, after seeing the omelets she was frying I decided to try an egg sandwich instead. She fried me an omelet with sausage, onion, green pepper, and tomato. She then served it to me inside half a loaf of whole wheat bread. It was quite tasty. The sandwich cost me two cedis which is about $1.30. Given the extreme proximity of this vendor to my house I think I will be ordering more omelet sandwiches in the future.

Slightly Different Census Figures

I have gotten conflicting figures on how many people the British actually found in Palestine in 1922. But, this looks pretty official. They found 83,794 Jews, 590,890 Muslims, and 73,034 Christians. The Muslims and Christians would have been Palestinian Arabs. So the total Arab population would have been 663,914 a little bit less than the figure cited below.

New record on posts

I just thought I would note that I made more posts in 2011 than any other year in this blog's existence. The previous record was held by the year 2005. Those are the only two years I managed to make more than 300 posts to this blog.

Correction

The figures in my last post come from the source cited on the bottom. But, they appear to be in conflict with the 1922 British census of Mandate Palestine. The census gives a figure of 668,258 Arabs which is close to Jabbour's figure of 700,000. The figure for Jews, however, is listed at 83,790 with no breakdown between native and European Jews. This is a ratio of about eight Arabs for every Jew. I am not sure where Jabbour's figures came from since he does not seem to list a source for them.

More on Gingrich and Palestine

I see Gingrich is going all out to prove he can be the nuttiest Israel firster in the history of the world. This is a difficult challenge, but one he seems well placed to win. The first Zionist colony in Palestine, "Rishon le zion", was only established in 1882. This is the same year that the first Mennonite colonies appeared in the Talas Valley of Kyrgyzstan. Before that time there are no European Jewish colonies in Palestine and only a few thousand mostly native and thus Arabized Jews. By 1920 the total Jewish population of Palestine is only about 5,000 of which less than 2,000 were Ashkenazi settlers from Europe versus almost 700,000 Arabs. That is less than a century ago the territory currently controlled by Israel had 140 Arabs for every Jew.  While both Palestine and Israel are invented concepts just as are all nations, the basis for the invention of Israel in 1948 was historically quite weak. A few decades before that time there were almost no Jews what so ever in Palestine compared to hundreds of thousands of native Palestinian Arabs. This is one reason why the Zionists have had to resort to misinterpreting the Bible. The demographic and social history of Ottoman Palestine clearly favor the Palestinian claims.

Source: George Jabbour, Settler Colonialism in Southern Africa and the Middle East (Khartoum and Beirut: University of Khartoum & PLO Research Center, 1970), p. 49.

Grading update

This morning I graded 16 scripts including my last three obruni exams. I already went and collected my money for grading the foreign students.

Demonstrations in Russia

I see that there are mass demonstrations against Putin in Russia today. I do not think the regime is in any actual danger. But, feel free to disagree with me in the comments.

Marking Time

I now have over 200 final exams to grade. My last final was yesterday (Saturday) morning at 7:30 am. Out of 109 students registered for the class only 105 showed up to take the test. Calculating the final grades for the four missing students will be easy. The final exam counts for 70% of the total grade.

Gingrich and Palestine

Newt Gingrich's recent claims about Palestine make me wonder if he ever learned anything about historical processes when he got his PhD. All peoples and nations are invented. This is true most of all of the Israelis whose existence is a lot more recent than the idea of a distinct Palestinian identity. No collective identity has come into existence naturally as a fully formed ethnic or national group, not even the Jews. They are all inventions.

His rehashing of Golda Meyerson's claim that the Palestinians did not exist as a separate people in 1948 ignores the fact that nations and states are two different things. There was no Israeli state before 1948 either. Indeed a much better argument could be made that there was not an Israeli nation before 1948 then the claim that there were not a Palestinian nation. Being under Ottoman rule from 1516 to 1918 does not negate the development of Palestinian nationalism in the 19th and 20th centuries during the same time that nationalism developed in most of Europe including Jewish nationalism. One might as well claim there is no such thing as a  Czech nation because they were under Austrian rule until after World War One. 

It is a bit late in the day for Israel's supporters to be attempting to erase the native population of Palestine from popular discourse. There is a collective national entity whose members call themselves Palestinians. They are the people who were living in the territory that became the British Mandate of Palestine when the Ottoman Empire collapsed. Their continual presence in this territory predates that first Jewish Aliyah from Europe to Palestine by many centuries. As such their moral claims to the land are far stronger than the European colonists that started settling in the territory in the 1880s, much later than the settlement of South Africa, North America or even Australia. 

Summary of Suprun and Dudarev Verdict

All right due to my haste in reading and posting I made a number of mistakes earlier which I corrected in short order on the blog posts below. But, here is the corrected summary. Both Suprun and Dudarev were found guilty. They were convicted of violating different articles of the criminal code, however. Suprun received no punishment and Dudarev a suspended sentence and probation. This case establishes that it is illegal to collect and publish "personal and family secrets" from the Russian archives. These secrets apparently being the personal files identifying individual prisoners and special settlers repressed by the Soviet government. The Russian government has clearly sent a message to historians dealing with Stalinism that it does not like the narrative of ethnic Germans being victims of a Russian dominated government during the time of the Great Fatherland War. Indeed I suspect it does not like any narrative that focuses on the victims of the Stalin regime, but especially not ethnic Germans and especially not during World War II. Such things detract from the narrative of a great USSR under the glorious leadership of Stalin triumphing over the ultimate evil of German fascism that has served as the primary source of legitimacy for the Soviet and now the Russian government since 1945.