Showing posts from category: Inter-ethnic relations
Charlie Chan, Murder Mystery-Buster Extraordinaire: A Positive Asian Stereotype or an Oriental “Uncle Tom”?
One of the favourite characters of the American moviegoing public in the 1930s and 1940s was the affable but inscrutable Chinese detective from Honolulu, Charlie Chan. Some 44 black and white (mostly B) movies were made by Fox Film Corp (20th Century Fox) and later Monogram Pictures spanning the years 1931 and 1949. Budgeted at $200,000 to $250,000 per film Chan pictures regularly returned a million dollars in profit for Fox (‘China and the Chinese in Popular Film: From Fu Manchu to Charlie Chan: 9781350985681, 9781786730640’, (2017), www.dokumen.pub). Bargain-basement Monogram made their Chans for much less than this.
The producers used three non-Chinese actors to fill the eponymous role over the course of the series – a Swede, Warner Oland and two Americans, Sidney Toler and Roland Winters. This recourse to non-Asian white actors presuming to play Asians fuelled vitriolic criticism much later (and rightly so), but back around circa 1940 this was what Hollywood got away with without discernible objection or diminution of the character’s popularity🅐. Before the Fox series started up in 1931 there had been three earlier (1920s) representations of Charlie Chan on screen, two of which were played by Japanese actors.
It all starts in Honolulu: The life of the literary “Charlie Chan” begins with a midwestern United States writer on holiday in 1920. Earl Derr Biggers, who had already had a measure of success as an author, was relaxing on a beach in Hawaii when he concocted the bare bones of a murder mystery. As for the character of “Chan” himself, Biggers stitched together composite attributes based on what he learned about a brace of real-life Chinese-Hawaiian detectives𖣓. The end-product was Biggers’ novel The House Without a Key, the first Charlie Chan detective fiction, published in 1925. The author explained how he envisaged the character of the brilliant fictional oriental master-sleuth: “I had seen movies depicting and read stories about Chinatown and wicked Chinese villains, and it struck me that a Chinese hero, trustworthy, benevolent, and philosophical, would come nearer to presenting a correct portrayal of the race” (Barbara Gregorich, ‘Earl Derr Biggers’, Harvard Magazine, 03-Jan-2000). Biggers’ intention was an anti-racist creation, an antidote to the villainous yellow peril persona commonly constructed for the screen (as typified by the archetypal Dr Fu Manchu).
The first four films of the Charlie Chan series including the first in the Fox franchise featuring Warner Oland, Charlie Chan Carries On, are all lost (destroyed in a vault fire), so of the remaining films in the sub-genre, critics generally rate these among the best: Charlie Chan at the Opera, Charlie Chan in London, Charlie Chan at the Circus,Charlie Chan in Shanghai, Charlie Chan at the Olympics, (all Oland); Charlie Chan in Honolulu, Castle in the Desert, Charlie Chan at Treasure Island, Dead Men Tell (all Toler). The quality dropped off alarmingly the longer the series went, especially after Monogram, the “Poverty Row” studio, with its low-budget approach and inferior production values, took charge of the films🅑.
Pseudo-Confucian wisdom: One of the standard tropes of the CC films is Charlie’s habitual indulgence in oriental fortune cookie-style aphorisms, intoned deadpan in his characteristically truncated syntax. Some of the more memorable ones include “Accidents can happen, if planned that way”; “A soft word does not scratch the tongue”; “Caution sometime mother of suspicion”; “Tongue often hang man quicker than rope”; “Mind, like parachute, only function when open”; “Fish in sea like flea on dog – always present, but difficult to catch”; “Grain of sand in eye may hide mountain”; “If you want wild bird to sing, do not put him in cage”; “Innocent act without thinking, guilty always make plans”; “Motive like string, tied in many knots, end may be in sight but hard to unravel”; “Opinion like tea leaf in hot water – both need time for brewing”; “Optimist only see only doughnut, pessimist see hole”; ”Person who ask riddle should know answer”; “Talk cannot cook rice”; “Waiting for tomorrow is waste of today”; “When money talk, few are deaf”; “Bad alibi like dead fish – cannot stand test of time”. Another stock phrase of Chan’s, oft-repeated in every film, is “Contradiction, please!” Followed by observations such as “Case still open like swinging gate”.
Sons No. 1, 2 and 3: The honourable Inspector Chan is a family man with multiple offspring (the Chan clan numbering 14 at the last count!), but it is his three eldest sons, #1, #2 and #3, that mostly get to share the spotlight with their father, and even play a role (sometimes inadvertently) in the solving of the particular case in question, whilst irritating the bejesus out of Chan. In most of the Warner Oland films Charlie is paired with Son #1, Lee Chan (played by Keye Luke). In the Sidney Toler films Chan is joined by Son #2, Jimmy (portrayed by Victor Sen Yung). By Charlie Chan in the Secret Service (1944) Son #3, Tommy (Benson Fong) is on board, opposite Toler in several of the Chan movies. After the CC baton is passed to Roland Winters in the late Forties, Keye Luke🅒 returns as Son #1 for the last few entries in the sequence. The favourite sons act as foils to Charlie, emphasising the generation gap between themselves and their “Pop” by demonstrating how thoroughly as Chinese-Americans they have assimilated into the dominant white culture (Tino Balio, “Balio on Charlie Chan ‘Grand Design’”, Some critical perspectives on Charlie Chan, (University of Missouri – St Louis) www.umsl.edu). African-American actor Mantan Moreland injected moments of comedy relief (usually working in unison with one of the numbered sons), appearing in 15 of the later mystery whodunnits in the 1940s as Chan’s jittery chauffeur Birmingham Brown.
What made Charlie Chan so popular with Waspish America?🅓 Chan’s portrayal in a positive light (as intended by Biggers) made him something of a novelty for white audiences accustomed to negative depictions of Asians on the screen. Chan was different, it seemed incongruous, here was a rotund, humorous Chinese man who held the senior position of police inspector and the obvious respect of his peers. Endowed with Sherlock Holmes-like acute powers of observation, he solves baffling crimes that no one else can (Elaine Kim ‘Images of Asians in Anglo-American Literature’, Some critical perspectives on Charlie Chan, (University of Missouri – St Louis) www.umsl.edu). Another appealing factor was the movies’ variety of settings…though based in Honolulu, the usual format sees globe-trotting Charlie Chan following the murder trail to a host of exotic international locations—London, Paris, Monte Carlo, Río, Egypt, Shànghâi, Panama, Mexico, Berlin, etc—for a spot of outreach sleuth work. The regular changes of locale/scenery helped to maintain the interest of moviegoers.
Is Chan a transitional figure bridging the divide in cultures?: The Charlie Chan persona has certainly polarised critics in America. Some see the character as having been a positive for changing the perception of Asian and specifically Chinese people. Hitherto American audiences were exposed to the notion of Orientals as “heathen Chinee”, denizens of the squalid opium den or as nondescript types who worked solely in damp, dingy laundries. Det. Inspector Chan is a very different Oriental, his attributes, intelligence, diligence, good humour and loyalty, are qualities much valued in the American cultural ethos. In this context the Chinese-Hawaiian shamus is seen as a good stereotype, countering the bad Oriental stereotype so long ingrained in US cinema. (Sandra Hawley, ‘The Importance of Being Charlie Chan’, www.enotes.com).
Charlie Chan as “showcase” representative of a “model minority”: Other critics take a more trenchant view of why Americans of the day so readily accepted Charlie Chan. They see Chan as one-dimensional, subservient, kowtowing to white authority, merely a subject for satire. Even when he is demonstrating his superior intellectual powers, meek of demeanour Chan is self-effacing and apologetic (“so sorry to disagree”), he never challenges the power imbalance in the Caucasians’ favour🅔. Culturally assimilated, Chan knows his place in white American society as the “benevolent Other”…always stoical, he cheerfully accepts his assigned status (Shilpa Dave et al, East Main Street: Asian American Popular Culture, and Jeffrey Crean, Fear of Chinese Power: An International History, (both cited in Wikipedia); Kim, ‘Images of Asians’). Some critiques see the Chan character as an emasculated figure, a pernicious racial stereotype blocking the articulation of “more credible, self-determined enunciations of Asian American identity” (‘The Hardboiled and the Haunted: Race, Masculinity and the Asian American Detective’, Calvin McMillin, (2012), www.academia.edu). Philippa Gates sees Chan as “existing in a liminal space between Chinese and American culture symbolized by his home: the mid-Pacific territory of Hawaii” (Philippa Gates, “‘Asian’ Detectives. An Overview”, Crime Culture, www.crimeculture.com).
Resuscitating “Yellowface“ in a more racial diverse and inclusive era: The Charlie Chan films worked for their time and cultural context. Attempts to revive the Charlie Chan mystique in remakes a generation later with The Return of Charlie Chan (1973), and the lame Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen (1981), still committing the sin of casting Caucasian actors in the title role, misfired badly and were called out for their cultural insensitivity and political incorrectness🅕. The Curse of the Dragon Queen provoked a vociferous backlash from Asian-Americans who labelled Chan “a yellow Uncle Tom” and organised protests against the film, beginning even before it into production (‘Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen’ (1981), AFI Catalog, www.catalog.afi.com).
Sceptical police inspector: Aren’t you jumping to conclusions? Chan: No, conclusions are jumping at me.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Charlie Chan in London)
𖣓 for more on this see ‘Chan and Chang: The Origin and Cultural Vicissitudes of the Most Famous Chinese-American Literary and Screen Detective’, posted July 2020 on this site
🅐 from the Forties right through to the Sixties Hollywood westerns dished up to the public Italians, Hungarians, Russian actors with three-day growths, passing them all off as American “Indians”, anyone it seemed was used other than actual native Americans
🅑 relating to the films in the later phase of Toler and his successor Winter
🅒 the popular Luke scored a solo turn in the Chinese-American detective whodunnit caper in Phantom of Chinatown (1940)
🅓 intriguingly Chan was also very popular in China during the 1930s, even seen as a Chinese hero. Warner Oland was feted like royalty when he visited the country. Homegrown versions of the Charlie Chan movies were made in Shànghâi and Hong Kong
🅔 although as Fletcher Chan notes, Charlie doesn’t always passively accept the doormat position. In The Chinese Parrot, confronted with egregious racism he reacts with discernible anger and displeasure towards the offending white person (Fletcher Chan, ‘Charlie Chan: A Hero of Sorts’, California Literary Review, 26-Mar-2007, www.calitreview.com)
🅕 Hollywood’s casting of a “yellowface” Charlie continued into television, a 1957 series, The New Adventures of Charlie Chan, saw fit to feature an American of Irish heritage in the lead role
Australia’s Early Colonial Outpost Experiment in the Top End Wilderness
In an isolated, off-the-beaten track northern peninsula in the Northern Territory, all that’s left of an early 19th century British outpost are the remnants of several buildings and a few crumbling cemetery headstones. This was once the Victoria Settlement (aka “New Victoria”) at Port Essington, founded in 1838 on the traditional lands of the Madjunbalmi clan.
⌂ Location of Cobourg Peninsula & Victoria Settlement (red arrow)
Britain’s motives for establishing an outpost on the northern coast of the continent were both military and commercial. A garrison guarding the northern approach to Australia would, it was hoped, be a deterrent to any colonial ambitions nurtured by Britain’s imperial rivals, France and Holland. Britain from the early 1820s on had an inkling of France’s intention to claim part of northern Australia (‘Victoria Settlement 1838–1849’, www.pastmasters.org.au)𝟙. British ambitions for the settlement, protected by an armed garrison, included the hope that it might develop into a trading hub along the lines of Singapore (‘Ruined Dreams of Victoria Settlement’, Julie Fison, 20-Sep-2022, www.juliefison.com). The British also hoped to benefit from the lucrative trade in trepang (sea cucumber), which had brought Makassan fishermen from the East Indies to Pt Essington for centuries. Unfortunately for them this remained unrealised as the Makassans continued to trade exclusively with the Dutch (‘The doomed attempt to claim Australia’s north for the British Empire’, Georgia Moodie, ABC News, Upd 03-Dec-2019, www.amp.abc.net).
⌂ Part of town remains today (photo: ABC RN/Georgia Moodie)
The fledgling colony was beleaguered by many obstacles and setbacks. A cyclone in 1839 wreaked much havoc and destruction, precious stores were lost𝟚, the jetty was wrecked as well as damage to buildings and moored ships. The water supply was inadequate, proving a vexing problem in the dry season (Garig Gunak Barlu National Park, ‘Victoria Settlement’, http://nt.gov.au).
⌂ Explorer Ludwig Leichhardt visited remote Victoria Settlement during his 1844-45 northern expedition
Malaria was a regular companion of the colony’s inhabitants, eventually claiming the lives of nearly a quarter of the residents. Allied with outbreaks of dysentery, influenza and scurvy, the illnesses inflicting the garrison often confined much needed labour to the hospital’s sick bay. The lack of skilled labour and poor quality resources resulted in a lot of substandard dwellings. The exacting climate, the harsh conditions of Port Essington, made the colony an unattractive prospect to new settlers the government had hoped to lure from the south or from the “old country”. Visiting scientist Thomas Huxley’s description of Port Essington as “most wretched, the climate the most unhealthy, the human beings the most uncomfortable and houses in a condition most decayed and rotten” didn’t help the cause.
⌂ Sketch of Port Essington by Commandant John McArthur
The royal marine corps, led by Commandant John McArthur, and most unsuitably attired (heavy wool uniforms) for the region’s conditions, struggled to adapt to life the tropics. A sign of the residents’ despair at their situation can be gleaned from McArthur’s habit of signing all his letters “John McArthur, World’s End”. The settlement struggled on for eleven years, the British authorities having given up on its prospects as a viable colony, maintained it for several years only as a strategic outpost to discourage the possible plans of other European colonial powers in that part of the continent (Moodie). Finally, Victoria Settlement’s failure was evident and the outpost was abandoned in 1849 and the marines returned to Sydney.
⌂ History information board at site (photo: John Baas)
Footnote: Indigenous–White interactions In stark contrast to the tragic and violent colonial interactions characterised by Aboriginals and Europeans elsewhere in the Great Southern Land, a refreshingly good relationship formed between the settlers and the local clans𝟛 – the White settlers in time came to develop a respect for the area’s Blacks and their unique culture (Moodie). And without the crucial local knowledge and advice provided by the Madjunbalmi people at the onset of the settlement, it would likely have folded within a couple of years.
⌂ Map of 1820s–1830s historic settlements (source: Northern Territory Library)
𝟙 there had been two prior, unsuccessful British attempts at colony made at nearby Raffles Bay and Melville Island in the 1820s
𝟚 stores—sourced from various locations, Sydney, Timor, Java, India (Darwin wasn’t established until 1869)—were often in short supply, especially medical supplies
𝟛 the small White population was a factor in the peaceful accord
The ‘Fascism Minimum’ Hypothesis and the Case of Thai Politics in the Second World War Years
Authoritarian regimes modelled on Italian Fascism and German Nazism in the interwar period were conspicuous in Europe, but by no means confined to that continent. Asia had its share of emerging political movements and regimes that were attracted to the clarion call of Euro-fascism and the German Nazi phenomena in particular. The nationalist Kuomintang in China had its New Life Movement and the Blue Shirt Society. There was the militaristic, ultranationalist Shōwa Statism associated with the Empire of Japan. In Syria the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, formed with the aim of restoring Syrian independence from its colonial master France, borrowed its ideas and symbols from Nazi ideology.
Another Asian country in the 1930s that was inspired by the Euro-fascist movement to venture down the right-wing authoritarian path was Thailand. Army officer Plaek Phibunsongkhram, better known as Phibun (or alternately transliterated, Pibul), rode to power on the back of his domination of the military faction of the People’s Party (Khana Ratsadon), becoming prime minister of Siam in 1938. Phibun, one of the most controversial figures in Thailand’s turbulent, coup-prone political history, consolidated his power by establishing a de facto dictatorship during the Second World War. Whether Phibun or his regime was fascist has been a topic of debate by scholars. But before we look at whether the fascist tag sticks to the Thai kingdom in the period of the Phibun ascendancy (1938–1944), we need to hit on a working definition as to what is meant when we refer to a political organisation or movement as “fascist”.
This is far from a straightforward task given the complexity of the concept of fascism, one not helped by the fact that “fascist” is a catch-all word in everyday speech for spontaneously describing in a pejorative fashion any individual or organisation which vexes us even for a fleeting moment. The term is so loaded and problematic that a universally acceptable definition remains elusive…as historian and political theorist Roger Griffin notes, “with the possible exception of ‘ideology’, there can be no term in the human sciences which has generated more conflicting theories about its basic definition than ‘fascism’” [Roger Griffin, ‘Staging the Nation’s Rebirth. The Politics and Aesthetics of Performance in the Context of Fascist Studies’, Library of Social Sciences, (1996), www.libraryofsocialsciences.com]. A broad and simple answer might be that fascism is a totalitarian entity – defining “totalitarianism” as an extreme form of authoritarian rule where the state has complete control over its citizens, using coercion to suppress individual freedoms𝟙. The problem with “totalitarianism” is that it can be applied equally to either extremity of the political spectrum – the far right, fascist regimes like the Nazis and the Italian Fascists, and to systems on the far left, ie, to the Marxist communist regimes of the Soviet Union and Red China, and to contemporary North Korea under the Kim dynasty.
Reductionist heuristics: A short search through the pages of Google will quickly confirm the nigh-on impossible challenge of pinning down a broad consensus as to an acceptable definition of this hyper-complex term. So perhaps enumerating the essential elements or characteristics that constitute fascism might prove a more fruitful exercise? I am somewhat taken by Griffin’s approach to the definition conundrum, seeking to identify “what all permutations of fascism have in common – what he terms the “fascist minimum”, reducing the slippery concept to its bare essentials. Griffin actually condenses his take on “fascism” to a single basic sentence, viz. “a genus of political ideology whose mythical core in its various permutations is a palingenetic form of populist ultra-nationalism” (‘Staging the Nation’s Rebirth’). This brief statement requires some fleshing out. Griffin identifies three elements that are central to the ideology of fascism: the first is the idea of palingenesis (national revival) which all genuine fascist movements carry in their baggage. This entails the perpetuation of a utopian urban myth which exalts “the regenerative national community which is destined to rise up from the ashes of a decadent society”𝟚. Through emphasising the societal decadence of the status quo (the second idea), the fascist can isolate and vilify the supposed enemies of society (eg, Jews, communists, Gypsies). The evoking of this palingenetic myth allowed fascist movements to attract large masses of voters who have lost faith in traditional parties and religion with their glittering promises. The third element, populist ultra-nationalism, “arises from seeing modern nation-states as living organisms which are directly akin to physical people because they can decay, grow, and die, and additionally, they can experience rebirth” [‘Ultranationalism’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org]. This palingenetic– ultranationalism fusion is what distinguishes Griffin’s “true fascism” from para-fascism and other authoritarian, nationalist ideologies [Roger Griffin, The Nature of Fascism (1991)].
A fascist or para-fascist checklist?: There are other characteristics evident in the praxis of fascist organisations and movements, including an opposition to or emasculation of parliamentary democracy; the leader’s cult of personality𝟛; (a revolutionary movement with a) belief in a natural hierarchical social order; an inordinately dominant or influential role played by the military in the state’s governance and in society as a whole; victimhood, suppression of targeted minorities in society (be it ethnic or religious); anti-communism; the all-powerful, all-seeing party as the vanguard of the fascist movement; a “cult of action for action’s sake” (Umberto Eco)…the square peg here is that these characteristics are not the exclusive domain of fascism or fascist politics as they feature in far-right authoritarian rulerships and sometimes in communist ones as well𝟜.
✑ ✑ ✑
If we turn now to look at Thailand at the end of the 1930s we see that Phibun consolidated his position as prime minister before embarking on the road to dictatorship. Moving quickly to neutralise political opponents, he had his chief army rival Phraya Song’s supporters eliminated and Phraya himself exiled, while curtailing the already restricted royal power. Parliament was reduced to a rubber stamp chamber, press censorship was rigorously imposed. With other parties outlawed, the principal opposition Phibun faced came from within his ruling People’s Party in the form of Pridi Phanomyong (Banomyong) who headed up the civilian faction of the party. Phibun expressed admiration for the major right-extremist powers, Nazi German, Fascist Italy and the Empire of Japan. Militarisation of Thai society was a major focus for Phibun, borrowing extensively from the fascist template he copied the Nazi Jugend (Hitler Youth) with his Thai youth organisations, Yuwachon for boys and Yuwanari for girls. Phibun also relied on propagandist techniques through his right-hand man Wichit Wathakan who acted as party ideologue and propagandist to the extent that he was known in some circles as the “Pocket Goebbels” [REYNOLDS, E. B. (2004). PHIBUN SONGKHRAM AND THAI NATIONALISM IN THE FASCIST ERA. European Journal of East Asian Studies, 3(1), 99–134. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23615170].
Phibun in power projected the image of a “charismatic national savour”, presenting himself as the Thai people’s one great hope to lift the country out of the straitjacket of its weak and subordinate global position and achieve modernisation and a strong national position. And he built a form of personality cult for himself…pictures of himself were ubiquitous; awarding himself a raft of high offices and titles (including field marshal of the army). Another manifestation of this was how the Thai people celebrated Phibun’s birthday as the nation’s phunam (leader), venerated his auspicious birth-colour (green) and his birth sign, etc (Reynolds). Phibun even named a province after himself, comprising Cambodian territory wrestled from the French.
”Thaification”, Phibun’s territorial expansion ambitions: Was Griffin’s core “palingenetic myth” an element of Phibun’s political ideology for Thailand? Phibun and those other Thais who espoused nationalist sentiments subscribed to a genuine belief in Thai exceptionalism which derived from the pride of Siam having been the only state in Southeast Asia to have retained its independence in the wave of European colonisation of the region, an exceptionalism which Thais presented as a heroic tale in promoting nationalism. The Thai situation seems however to lack a homegrown urban myth in which the phoenix of national revival arises out of a state of decadence, instead the prevailing ideology had an irredentist component which has been called Pan-Thaiism. [‘Thaification: from ethnicity to nationality”, Marcus Tao Mox Lim, Identity Hunters, 05-Dec-2020, www.identityhunters.org].
Ditching “Siam” for “Thailand”: Phibun pursued an expansionist foreign policy by which he hoped to reunite ethnically-related peoples under a “greater Thai race-based nation” (Tao Mox Lim). The name change from Siam to Thailand in 1939 had a dual function for Phibun – an intent to modernise the country and the creation of a new national identity𝟝. The name “Thailand” (Prathet Thai) symbolised a departure from the multi-ethnic identity of Siam, a device to assimilate other ethnic minorities (including the Chinese, a very significant minority in Siam𝟞) into a new construct, a national (homogenised) Thai identity – what Tao Mox Lim calls a “reimagining of a ‘Thai race’”. This was all a precondition to Phibun’s irredentist aspirations, allowing him to stake a claim on lost territories, mainly in French Indochina (Reynolds).
Under Phibun’s heavy authoritarian hand democratic rights and freedoms were restricted and the populace subjected to a series of cultural mandates dictating the modes of dress and behaviour to be adopted. The earlier pluralism of Thai society was squashed but the degree of coercive control over aspects of citizens’ lives never got close to the Orwellian “big brother” levels in totalitarian regimes in Nazi Germany and in some Cold War Eastern Block countries. Phibun did not secure a totalitarian hold over the Thai population during his six-year long regime𝟟 and Thailand didn’t experience the ideological journey of national destruction/rebirth process as prescribed by Griffin.
The unravelling of a SE Asian dictator: As autocratic as Phibun was in running the country, the elephant in the room was his wartime relationship with Japan. Having steered Thailand to a neutral stance in the world war, he switched positions, committing to an alliance with the Japanese under the Greater East Asian Co-prosperity Sphere in the hope of realising his long-held goal of Thai territorial expansion. Unfortunately, the alliance proved to be very unequal and heavily in Japan’s favour. The Japanese with its occupying forces in Thailand wouldn’t allow the Thai army to participate in its invasion of Burma and the Thais were forced to hand back the limited territorial concessions it received from France at the war’s end. By 1944 Phibun—with Japan’s military fortunes on the slide and seen as its increasingly unpopular collaborator—was forced out of the prime ministership in which some describe as a parliamentary coup masterminded by his rival Pridi [‘The Fall of the Phibun Government, 1944’, Benjamin A. Batson, www.thesiamsociety.org].
𝟙 as Mussolini summed up the function of totalitario…”all within the state, none outside the state, none against the state“
𝟚 having sold the masses on the notion of the regenerative national community utopia, the masses convinced of its efficacy must (unquestioningly) follow its creator, the (fascist) leader, sowing the seeds for the leadership cult to develop
𝟛 ample examples exist of leaders who were not fascists who cultivated a personality cult, eg, authoritarian populist Juan Peron and communist supremo Stalin
𝟜 it’s quite plausible for authoritarian regimes to practice even extreme fascist tactics, but this of itself doesn’t necessarily make the political system a fascist one
𝟝 the word “Thai” means “free” in the Tai tongue (thus “land of the free”) which resonates with the idea of the country never having been colonised
𝟞 Phibun’s imposition of the Central Thai language on all citizens promoted Thai ethnocentricity after 1939, which together with the introduction of harsh laws had the outcome of lessening the inordinate economic impact of the Chinese community (Reynolds)
𝟟 Phibun in his second stint as PM (1948–57) was preoccupied with “trying to reinvent himself as a democrat” (Reynolds) and surviving several coup attempts before his ultimate removal and exile to Japan
Bharat, Türkiye, etc. What’s in a Name?: The Politics of Country Rebranding
In international news of late there’s been speculation by some pundits that the Republic of India might be planning to drop the name “India”—the name the world identifies the South Asian mega-state by—as the official title of the country. The conjecture stems from an apparent signal given by Modi’s government in issuing invitations in the name of the “President of Bharat” to attendees of the September 2023 G-20 summit held in New Delhi.
Why Bharat? Well, Bharat is already the other official name of India, enshrined in the nation’s constitutionᗩ, with a backstory stretching far back into the Sub-continent’s pre-colonial history. The word comes from ancient Sanskrit—Bhārata (“to bear or to carry”), a shortened form of Bhāratavarsa (first used in the 1st century AD)—as does the name Hindustān, also in currency among Hindi-speaking Indians as another name to describe the country as a whole. Some Hindu nationalists have advocated for the creation of Akhand Bharat (“Greater India”) which would unite India with all of its contiguous neighbours in a South Asian super-state.
Origin of “India”: It derives from the Sanskrit word Sindhu, a name for the Indus River and the lower Indus basin. Etymology: Ancient Greek Indikē, Latin Indía. The name “Hindu”, the predominant Indian religion and dharma, also relates to the Sub-continent’s paramount river, being an Old Persian adaption of “Sindhu”.
Modi’s nomenclature move has received endorsement by government officials and followers (no surprise!) who contend that the name “India” as a nation title is “tainted” with its past connotations of colonialism and slavery, echoing the sentiment that “British colonial rulers had coined the name India to overshadow Bharat and forge a British legacy” [‘India’s government has used another name on the world stage. What does ’Bharat’ mean?’ SBS News, 06-Sep-2023, www.sbs.com.au].
If Bharat has already been an official name for India since 1949, why has the Indian government decided to publicise it just now? One answer comes from the political opponents of the BJP who allege that the notion is a diversional tactic by Modi’s party to try to upstage the recent formation of the opposition’s “INDIA” alliance to contest upcoming elections (Rahul Gandhi, Congress Party). This move follows a BJP pattern in power of erasing Indian place names which reflect India’s Mughal (Muslim) and (British) colonial past. Critics accuse the government of “pursuing a nationalist agenda aimed at forming an ethnic Hindu state out of a constitutionally secular India” [‘India’s Modi gov’t replaces country’s name with Bharat in G20 dinner invite’, Aljazeera, 05-Sep-2023, www.aljazeera.com]
Disassociating with the bird: In 2022 the Republic of Turkey notified the international community that it repudiates the name “Turkey” as a descriptor for it, instead the country should be be referred to officially by all as Türkiye (pronounced “Tur-kee-yay”)ᗷ, the communique stated. The government foreign minister said the use of Türkiye would increase “the country’s brand value”, but reputedly, a reason for the name switch is the president, Recep Erdoğan’s dislike of the association of his country with the Meleagris, a large gallinaceous bird (and by extension with the whole American Thanksgiving thing)…compounding that aversion to the name, is “turkey’s” colloquial meanings, (a person who is) inept or stupid; a movie or play which is a dud.
Another motive of Erdoğan’s could be in play – a political one. The move fits in neatly with his wish to be “rid of a westernised, anglicised name that jarred with his neo-Islamist, nationalist-populist brand” [‘The Observer view on Turkey’s name change’, The Guardian, 05-Jun-2022, www.imp.theguardian.com]. Critics of the Erdoğan regime take an even more scathing view, that “the rebrand is another populist device that Erdoğan is exploiting to divert attention away from the country’s persisting economic woes and to galvanise nationalist voters ahead of (upcoming) crucial elections” ‘ Turkey is now Türkiye: What other countries have changed their name?’, Euronews 28-Jun-2022, wwweuronews.com].
Switching synonyms: While India and Turkey are topical examples of the inclination for nomenclature rebranding, the 20th century is dotted with instances of other such name changes. In 1989 the authoritarian military government in Burma—a country named after the Burmans, the dominant ethnic group—caught the world by surprise by suddenly changing the country’s name to “Myanmar”. The regime explained the switch as jettisoning a name inherited from its colonial past and choosing a new name that would foster ethnic unity by recognising it was a multi-ethnic state. In reality it was “linguistic sleight-of-hand” as in the Burmese language “Myanmar” is merely a more formal version of “Burma”. The Burmese regime, viewed as an international pariah after years of violent repression against its citizens was seeking to rebuild its PR standing, so you only needed to be slightly cynical to see the thinking behind such a cosmetic name change ploy [‘Myanmar, Burma and why the different names matter’, Kim Tong-Hyung & Hyung-Jin Kim, PBS News, 03-Feb-2021, www.pbs.org].
Czechs of Czechia: The Czech Republic (Česká republika) came into existence in 1993 when Czechoslovakia ceased to be a single political entity (splitting amicably into two countries, the Czech Republic and Slovakia). In 2016 a further name change, or more correctly, name addition, happened, the Czech government introduced a short-form title, “Czechia”, for communication in English, while retaining Česká republika as its full name. Though less controversial than other instances, the term “Czechia” was criticised by some Czechs for being confusingly too close in sound to the name of the internal Russian republic, Chechnya. This was the very reason the Kingdom of Swaziland, a landlocked southern African country, swapped names in 2018, becoming (the Kingdom of) Eswatini. The change occurred by royal fiat…with the stated reason that when Swazi tourists were overseas locals would mistakenly think they were from Switzerland.
”Resplendent” name change: The small island nation of Ceylon left the British Commonwealth and became a republic in 1972…at the same time the government affected a name change to “Sri Lanka“, which combines the honorific Sri meaning “resplendent” and the island’s original name Lanka which simply means “island”. The name “Ceylon”, based on an earlier Portuguese name, had been adopted by the British rulers after they had colonised the island in stages between 1796 and 1817 [‘Sri Lanka erases colonial name, Ceylon’, Charles Haviland, BBC News, 01-Jan-2011, www.bbc.com]. Prior to becoming a British colony the island comprised two entities, a Dutch Ceylan part and the native Sinhalese Kandyan Kingdom.
Regime change ➔ name change: In the case of the small Southeast Asian state of Cambodia the changing of the country’s name, throughout the 1970s and ‘80s, became something of a merry-go-round. In succession it went from (the Kingdom of) Cambodia to the Khmer Republic to Democratic Kampuchea to (the People’s Republic of) Kampuchea to (the State of) Cambodia back to (the Kingdom of) Cambodia, reflecting the state-level instability of ongoing regime changeᑢ.
Ping-pong nomenclature in Bangkok: Prior to 1939 Thailand was known by the name “Siam”, deriving from a Sanskrit word, syam. In 1939 Prime Minster Phibun changed the kingdom’s name from Prathet Siam to Prathet Thai or Mu’ang Thai (English: “Land of the Thais”). At the end of WWII Phibun having backed the losing Japanese side fell from favour and the succeeding Thai regime changed the name back to Siam to distinguish itself from the previous regime associated with the fascist Japanese invaders. In 1948 however Phibun returned to power and reinstated the name Thailand, which the country has retained to the present [‘Thai or Siam?’ P Juntanamalaga, (1988), Names: A Journal of Onomastics, www.ans-names.pitt.edu].
Footnote: Endonyms and exonyms When Turkish president Ergodan objected to the continued use of the name “Turkey” by outsiders to describe his country, he was in fact rejecting the convention of exonyms (or if you like, xenonyms) – the non-native name by which others refer to your country (cf. endonymsᕲ, the native name by which you refer to your own country)…for instance, what an English-speaker calls “China” (an exonym), a Chinese-language speaker would call Zhōngguó or Chung-kuóᘿ (an endonym). Imagine how unwieldy and confusing it would get if every country insisted on universal usage of their particular linguistic exonym?
ᗩ Article 1 of the Constitution, “India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States”
ᗷ not really a name change as the nation officially has been called Türkiye (Türkiye Cumhuriyeti) since 1923
ᑢ Cambodia” is the exonym, cf. the endonym of “Khmer”
ᕲ also called an autonym
ᘿ meaning “Central Demesne” or “Middle Kingdom” or “Central Nation”
Aiding and Abetting the Third Reich: Der Mitläufer, Passive and Not-so-Passive Followers and Sympathisers of the Nazis
As part of the Denazification process (German: Entnazifizierung) after the Second World War and to facilitate the Nuremberg war crimes trial proceedings, the German people were classified into five discrete groups:
• Major offenders (Germ: Hauptschuldige)
• Offenders: activists, militants, or profiteers (Germ: Belastete)
• Lesser offenders (Germ: Minderbelastete)
• Followers (Germ: Mitläufer)
• Exonerated persons (Germ: Entlastete)
Of the five categories, Mitläufer is the most contentious…it absolves the person concerned from having committed any formal Nazi criminal activity but acknowledges that he or she participated in some form of loosely defined, indirect support of Nazi crimes, which might be as minimalist as passively sympathising with Nazi aims and goals [‘Mitläufer’, Wikipedia, en.m.wikipedia.org]. The extent of the offence actually perpetrated however didn’t always equate with the category description – as will clear from the examples below.
The German term Mitläufer (fem: Mitläuferin)—literally meaning “with-walker” or “one walking with”—can be defined as “follower” or possibly a “passive follower”. Mitläufereffekt is derived from it, also called the Bandwagon-Effekt (effect), which refers to the effect a perceived success exerts on the willingness of individuals to join the expected success. A characteristic of the Mitläufer is he is not convinced by the ideology of the group followed but merely offers no resistance, such as for lack of courage or for opportunism (ie, giving in to peer pressure) (‘Mitläufer’).
Some observers make a further (slight) distinction from the Mitläufer typology, to allow for the Nazi Mitläufer, a fellow-traveller” (Mitreisende) who sympathised with the Nazis but only indirectly participated in Nazi atrocities such as genocide.
Famous Deutsch Mitläufer and Mitläuferin
Martin Heidegger: one of the 20th century’s greatest philosophers for his pioneering work on existentialism and phenomenology, all of which has been overshadowed by his controversial association with the German Nazi Party. Heidegger joined the Nazi Party in 1933 – prior to this the philosopher was fundamentally apolitical. As rector of Freiburg University he delivered a number of speeches extolling the Nazi cause and publicly expressed antisemitic opinions. At the end of the world war the knives came out for Heidegger, he was forbidden to teach and lost his West German chair of philosophy (the ban was overturned just three years later). Heidegger, perhaps because of the lofty esteem he was held in as a leading intellectual, was never submitted to any harsher retribution (such as a term of incarceration). Critics have noted Heidegger’s complete failure after 1945 to “honestly reckon with the realities of Nazi Germany’s crimes, including the Holocaust, and his own role in lending support to the regime” [Jürgen Habermas in ‘Heidegger’s Downfall’, Jeffrey Herf, Quillette, 22-Feb-2023, quillette.com]. A very full account of Heidegger’s involvement with National Socialism makes it abundantly clear that he was neither a reluctant fellow-traveller nor (…) a nonpolitical scholar, a ‘child’ who got caught by the juggernaut of hideous political events [‘Heil Heidegger’, J.P. Stern, London Review of Books, Vol. 11 No.8, 20-April-1989 (Review of Martin Heidegger: Unterwegs zu seiner Biographie, by Hugo Ott), lrb.co.uk].
Leni Riefenstahl: a Berlin-born actress-turned-filmmaker, one of the few German women to direct a motion picture during the Weimar period. A favourite of Hitler, Riefenstahl was an important instrument of the Nazi propaganda machine, producing highly successful propaganda documentary films like Triumph of the Will and Olympia for the Third Reich. After the war Riefenstahl was arrested and found to be a Nazi fellow-traveller, sympathetic to the Nazi movement but not a party member[ᗩ] She however avoided being charged with any crime. Riefenstahl claimed she was an “apolitical naïf” and denied any knowledge of Nazi racial policies or the Holocaust, describing a concentration camp she had visited where the Roma and Sinti were detained as “a relief and welfare camp”[ᗷ] [‘Burying Leni Riefenstahl: one woman’s lifelong crusade against Hitler’s favourite film-maker’, Kate Connolly, The Guardian, 09-Dec-2021, amp.the guardian.com].
Wilhelm Stuckart: to the casual observer Wilhelm Stuckart’s steady progress up the Nazi hierarchy corresponds with that of the classic career Nazi. The Nazi lawyer and senior Interior Ministry official’s fingerprints were on some of the most nefarious Nazi concoctions against humanity (eg, co-author of the Nuremberg Laws, involved in the planning of the Final Solution). For someone involved fundamentally in the framing of genocidal policies Stuckart was absurdly classified as category IV (follower), copping a sentence of just three years from the tribunal. The leniency shown to Stuckart and other accomplices, Gruner attributes to the sophisticated defence strategies employed by former Nazis and their lawyers. Only a short time after Stuckart regained his freedom he was back drafting provincial German laws, one of which ended Denazification in Lower Saxony [Gruner, Wolf. The Journal of Modern History, vol. 86, no. 3, 2014, pp. 727–29. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.1086/676745. Accessed 10 July 2024].
Wilhelm Stuckart on his SS uniform. (source: Yad Vershem)
Footnote: As illustrated above, classifying someone as Mitlaüer was a good way of allowing them to avoid the more serious categories and their consequences. Some high-profile unofficial servants of the Nazi regime managed to avoid being categorised as a Mitlaüer altogther. One was famous Austrian conductor Karl Böhm. Böhm was never a member of the NSDAP and never brought before the Denazification tribunal. However, as the historian Oliver Rathkolb has remarked, he was the artist who “had presumably been the most active (non-party) member to provide propaganda for the (Nazis)” and was lavishly rewarded with plumb conducting positions, culminating in his appointment as director of the Vienna State Opera [‘Karl Böhm – Salzburg Festival’,salzburgerfestspiele.at].
[ᗩ] Nazi party membership of itself didn’t necessarily result in a more serious classification than Mitläufer…in the case of the celebrated Austrian conductor Herbert von Karajan joined the NSDAP twice (membership nos. 1607525 and 3430914), he was exonerated of illegal activity during the Nazi period at his Denazification tribunal hearing and classified as a Mitläufer
[ᗷ] trenchant critics in the West take an unflinching and unforgiving view of her role, labelling her an “unindicted co-conspirator” (Simon Wiesenthal Center), “a Nazi by association” (Sandra Smith) and “the glib voice of ‘how could we have known?’ defence” (Bach, Steven. “The Puzzle of Leni Riefenstahl.” The Wilson Quarterly (1976—), vol. 26, no. 4, 2002, pp. 43–46. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40260668. Accessed 11 July 2024)
The Vicissitudes of a Balkans Byzantine Successor State in the High Middle Ages: Despotate of Epirus and the Empire of Thessalonica
The turmoil and political upheaval in the wake of the sacking of Constantinople by crusaders in 1204 fragmented the unity of the vast Byzantine Empire into a patch-quilt of separate parts. Epirus«𝕒», a region which encompassed parts of modern Greece, Albania, Bulgaria and northern Macedonia, formed itself into one of these independent states, known by modern historiographic convention as the Despotate of Epirus✴︎. Its founder and first despot was Michael I Komnenos Doukas (a member of the deposed Byzantine imperial house of Angelos) with the state’s capital initially (and mainly) situated at Árta in N.W. Greece. Michael’s reign saw some expansion by conquest into neighbouring Thessaly at the expense of the Lombard lords and for a brief time, control over the Lordship of Salona. Michael’s realm also became a refuge and centre of resistance for Greeks opposed to the intrusions of the Latin Crusaders [‘Michael I Komnenos Doukas’, Wikipedia, en.m.wikipedia.org].
✴︎ for accounts of the history of other Byzantine successor states see also the earlier articles on this site: Byzantine-Lite: The Empire of Trebizond under the Komnenos Dynasty and The 13th Century Empire of Nicaea: An Empire in Exile and the Restoration of Imperial Byzantine
Epirus imperial dreams – the Empire of Thessalonica: The Epirote State rulers soon found themselves embroiled in conflict with several of the other regional players, namely the other successor states, the Bulgarians (their former allies) and the Latins (Franks, Italians, etc). Michael I was assassinated in 1218 and replaced by his half-brother, Theodore Doukas, who extended the “empire” eastward, capturing Thessalonica from the Latins in 1224. Theodore duly established the “Empire of Thessalonica” and had himself crowned as emperor.
Battle of Klokotnitsa and aftermath: Theodore’s dream of ensconcing himself in Constantinople at the head of a greater Epirus-centred empire came crashing down at the Battle of Klokotnitsa in 1230. Theodore’s forces were attacked by both Bulgaria (under Tsar John Asen II) and the Nicene Empire (under John II Vatatzes) and comprehensively beaten. Theodore was captured, Bulgarian troops poured into Epirus and the despotate–cum–empire was reduced to vassal status vis-a-vís the Bulgarians. With Theodore imprisoned for seven years, the Epirote imperial leadership passed to his brother Manuel Komnenos Doukas, under whose reign the downslide continued, much of the earlier conquests in Macedonia and Thrace were lost. Meanwhile, in Epirus, Michael II, illegitimate son of the founder of Epirus Michael I, assumed control of a diminished Epirus and was recognised as despot (1230–ca.1267/1271). During Michael II’s rule the Epirote state was progressively reduced in size and power…in 1264 Michael was forced to recognise the suzerainty of Michael VIII Palaeologus whose rival successor state had ousted the Latins from Constantinople and restored the Byzantine Empire under the Nicene emperors.
Deposed Theodore returns as king-maker: In 1237 Theodore returned to Thessaloniki and deposed Manuel and installed his son John as emperor of Thessalonica. However, under pressure from the Nicaean Empire John was forced to abdicate in 1242 in favour of John III Vatatzes, the Nicaean emperor. In 1246 Thessalonica was lost to Nicaea for keeps. Over in Epirus Michael II was succeeded by his son Nikephoros I whose sovereign power was challenged by Charles I of Anjou and Sicily with whom he eventually entered into an alliance (Nikephoros acknowledged himself as Charles’ vassal). Later, Nikephoros allied himself with Charles’ son and successor Charles II, which led to conflict with the Byzantines.
Epirus’ fragile autonomy: Thomas I followed the same perilous path as his father Nikephoros after succeeding him in ca. 1297. Thomas clung precariously to power as Epirus lunged from alliance to conflict with both the Angevins and the Byzantines. Ultimately, Thomas was assassinated by his Italian-Greek nephew Nicholas Orsini, Count of Cephalonia (Ionian islands) in 1318. Nicholas, in control of southern Epirus, conspired with the Republic of Venice to retake the north including the city of Ioannina but was unsuccessful. In 1323 he was in turn usurped by his brother John II Orsini. The pattern of instability persisted…Epirus lost its independence to the Byzantine Empire in 1338 before briefly winning it back (with the assistance of Catherine I, Latin empress), only to lose it yet again to Byzantium, all within the space of two years. In 1348 it was the turn of the Serbs under (King) Stefan Dušan who incorporated Epirus and Thessaly into the Serbian Empire. After the Serbs came the Albanians…in 1367 the Despotate of Árta, an Albanian clan led by Pjetër Losha, attacked and besieged the Despotate of Epirus’ capital Ioannina.
Neapolitan ambitions for the Hellenes: Árta as a mainly autonomous despotate and then lordship persisted until 1416 when the incumbent despot’s rule was terminated by another Italian incursion. Neapolitan count, Carlo I Tocco (hereditary count palatine of Cephalonia and Zakynthos) took Arta as part of a systematic territorial expansion in Greece«𝕓». Carlo reached the limit of his expansion in the 1420s when the Byzantine emperor John VIII Palaiologos’ army cut short Carlo’s attempts to expand his influence into the Despotate of the Morea (the Peloponnese).
Epirus, the final chapter: Under Carlo I’s successor, Carlo II, the Tocco dynasty lost Ioannina in 1430 to the encroaching Ottoman conquest of Byzantine lands, as well as almost all of their possessions in Eripus by ca.1448«𝕔». At this time the fate of Epirus and the other post-1204 successor states of the Byzantine Empire had been well and truly sealed by an ongoing preoccupation with civil wars, conflict between themselves and religious disputes to the neglect of the greater threat posed by their common enemy from Asia Minor«𝕕».
Epirus, manoeuvring between east and west: Epirus, perched centrally between the east (Byzantium and Anatolia) and the west (western Europe), was in a special position, trying to carve its own niche in the region while competing for advantage and influence against the vested interests of more powerful players (namely Anjou, Venice, Sicily, Bulgaria, Serbia, Nicaea, Ottomans). The Epirote state’s despots through this era pursued two strategies for survival: it sought to protect its power base from its Latin enemies, while at the same time maintaining its independence from the rest of the Byzantine states. In a Byzantine world in which loyalty was a fluid commodity, Eripus found itself compelled by the power imbalances it faced to constantly swap its allegiances between the Latins and the Byzantines [Evangelos Zarkadas, ‘The Despotate of Epirus: A Brief Overview’, Mapping Eastern Europe, Eds: M.A. Rossi and A.I. Sullivan (accessed October 14, 2023), http://mappingeasterneurope.princeton.edu].
Postscript: Paucity of sources on Epirus Historians have long lamented the scarcity of surviving sources on Epirus, especially from the depostate itself. Probing this medieval Byzantine-Greek chapter has been hampered by an absence of historical narratives and biographies of the despots. The chronicles that do survive are those of Byzantine historians from Constantinople such as George Pachymeres (13–14th centuries) [Donald M Nichol, in Zarkadas].
«𝕒» or in the form some prefer, “Epiros”
«𝕓» adding it to Corinth and Megara captured by him earlier
«𝕔» Carlo II’s son Leonardo III ruled as the last Despotate of Eripus up to Epirus’ ultimate coup d’grâce by the Ottoman Empire
«𝕕» the last remnant of Epirus, Vonitsa, fell to the advancing Ottomans in 1479