Political Events through Films: The Death of Stalin

 

For the political scientist and historian of mentalities, films are a very useful - and sometimes, entertaining - tool to read past and current political events. The ways in which political events are related in films may be indicators of opinion switches for or against certain situations and events. Sometimes, the so-called turns may be just a proof of lack of proper documentations. 

Personally, I am a big consumer of such movies and I often recommend them to those interested in expanding or diversifying their studies in a specific mentalities/history-related field, alongside with literary renditions.

The Death of Stalin, a French-British-Belgian co-production based on French graphic novel (oh, graphic novels are actually my favorite medium of choice for political and historical stories) directed by Armando Iannucci, is a completely different level of comedy. 

Set in 1953, in the days following the death of Stalin, the movie is highly ironically reproducing the murderous struggle for power within the Council of Ministers of the late Soviet Union. You can have it all, the petiness of power and its humble servants, the show offs and the hunger for power, as much as possible, at any costs. 

I really enjoyed the movie, and laughed out very very loud. The characters seem to be historically relatable, except that I could not match the deep British accent of the cast of characters and the elegant British outfits and manners of the ladies.

Otherwise, it is a highly recommended view for any Soviet researchers looking for a break from heavy reading, without actually leaving the field. The movie is forbidden in Russia. 

´When They Call You a Terrorist´. A #BLM Memoir

I will probably write a little bit later about the current wave of protests that took over the US and some European universities as well. The events are unfolding and as for now, I would rather observe and analyse the tactics and the situation in its entirety. 

On the other hand, one cannot avoid noticing that in fact, the content of the messages and the pattern of protests can be traced couple of years back, before and after the Blak Lives Matter #BLM movement. Thus, better understanding the mindset of the creators of this movement may shed more light on the current protests on campus.

Patrisse Khan-Cullors is together with Alicia Garza and Aya (former Opal) Tometi one of the founders of BLM. With a vocation of political activism, born in a poor single-mother household Khan.Cullors is a brand name for contemporary civil rights movements. And with the fame comes also the controversy, although being able to overcome one´s poor upbringing is not a crime.

When They Call You a Terrorist, that Patrisse Khan-Cullor5s wrote together with Asha Bandele - with a foreword by Angela Davis, is an important testimony to the genesis of the movement, as well as for larger political takes within the American policy, such as carceral policies and discrimination. At the same time, it also offers very important personal accounts on healing, being queer and overcoming one´s family boundaries.

The book is a first person memoir chronologically accounting Khan-Cullors life, but it also can be considered the evolution of an idea, a mindset and in the end, of a movement. I do have another memoir that may be relevant to my understanding, by Angela Davis, and hopefully soon I can have a bigger picture on this phenomenon.

There is definitely much more to be said about BLM and there are critical points to be touched upon that are not included in the memoir - but there are always limitation of the I-story because in such contexts the focus is on remembering, not on re-considering, and re-evaluating. Nevertheless, memoirs are an important part of any story, as they offer a good ground for a critical evaluation.

Rating: 3.5 stars

A Dynamic History of the Cold War

Cold War is far from being a completely known story and as we are advancing into our multi-polar, close to chaos world, available information - archives and independent researches in specific domains - are showing a world far from being fully bipolar. However, once one is entering into the many details - previously less discussed in the media and academic circles, it is easy to notice that the world during the Cold War was far from being easy, and based on a synchronicity between one world - the communist, Soviet managed block of countries - and the other - the liberal, democratic one.

In reality, there were an enormous number of actors interacting within or outside the given narrative, creating alliances, cooperating, fighting for supremacy, including within the two block themselves. At least for the communist block, the inimities between the Soviets and Yugoslavia, as well as the changing waves of influence - switching between East and West at least several times in some cases -in Latin America, are only few examples of such alternatives.

Organiser le Monde - Organising the world, in my own translation - by Sandrine Kott suggests an interesting analysis into the Cold War through the various interactions that took place between representatives of the two blocks and the ideological systems represented, within the framework of international organisations. 

Within organisations such as the UN or UNESCO, the countries from both sides of the Iron Curtain were able to communicate with each other, get to know and eventually act together on various issues of bilateral common interest. Economic organisations, or the dialogue open up by the Helsinki Charter were as many opportunities for dialogue and exchange. 

The research is systematic, adding the details following specific topics and a historical timeline. It is well documented both historically and by using various sources of information. However, I had the feeling that there were many important aspects left behind, that would have deserve more details, for instance the amount of ´soft power´ the US spent in the last two decades of the Cold War by the way of academic exchanges. 

The diversity of aspects and topics outlined in the book offer valuable inspiration and suggestions for further studies in the field of both international relations and Cold War history. It also helps to understand our current world and to trace the global, regional and international alliances.

Rating: 4 stars

Invisible Martyrs by Farhana Qazi

 

Farhana Qazi is the first ever Muslim woman working in US counter terrorism institutions, but first and foremost, her pioneering work was to focus on personal stories in addition to psychological profiles of women who chose to get involved in terrorism radical movements and ultimately, in suicide terrorist attacks. 

Invisible Martyrs. Inside the Secret World of Female Islamic Radicals is an interesting read - available as audiobook read by the author herself as well - as it puts the women involved in extremism act on the map of radical/extremist movements. 

She outlines several times, based on her own experiences in commenting various religious texts that Muslim women involved in such acts represent a small amount of the religious women as ´most Muslim women practice Islam peacefully´. However, since the 1970s onwards there is an increasing number of women fighting ´their oppressors´, alongside with men, and her mother, involved in various militant actions in the Kashmir, may be an example in this respect. 

Abu Musab al-Zarkawi was the first to encourage women to sacrifice for extremist political actions, but women were at certain extents already present in the field since the late 1980s. 

Qazi arguments and informations, also supported by other researchers in the field, such as Mia Bloom, who is also quoted in the book, is that women are alongside with men able to get involved in various militant episodes. They may be manipulated by men often, as accomplice or lover of men involved in terrorism. They can accompany them to death or do it for the sake of them and the promise of a heaven.

The important conclusion is that there are no general patterns and psychological profiles of women, but circumstances may be significantly important. Individual stories shared in the book of girls marginalized or being outside parental control - or maybe under a too stricter such control - can only diversify the angles and perspectives to consider in such situations.

The book is rich in examples and methods, making easier for researchers in the field to navigate a relatively new but increasingly important area of study. It offers guidance and directions, but given the novely of the area of study and the scarcity of current knowledge in this respect, I may expect different takes and conclusions for the time being. The merit of the book is nevertheless significant.

Rating: 4.5 stars

The Kinder of Hoy

Hoyerweda is a relatively small, once industrial town in Saxony, then a pearl of the industralization progress of the former GDR. Brigitte Reimann made the town famous as she, alongside with other authors at the time, went there and wrote several literary imbued reports that were published in the media at the time. I personally keep at high esteem such reports, because put aside the ideological passion, it turned the interest on people and their story, introducing a new style of journalism that nurtured a lot my own writing. It is a genre that deserves more consideration and appreciation, in my opinion.

Once communism was dismantled and Germany reunited, Hoyerweda, as many other densely industrialized places, went through several crisis: identity but especially economic crisis. Actually those two crisis, and many other who followed, were intermingled and outsourced each other. In 1991, several riots ignited by far right individuals and entities put the relatively unknown city - including within Germany - on a newly set up map of extremism and xenophobia, often afterwards associated with this part of the country - Saxony.

Grit Lemke, author, documentarist and film director, went back in time and collected various testimonies of people born and bred, or settling in Hoyerweda at certain moments of time, including former immigrants from ´friendly´ communist countries like Vietnam and Angola. Structured on historical stages, she collected an impressive amount of oral histories shedding light not only on the personal experiences, but in perspective, offers a global outlook on German history, particularly during the communist times.

For historians of recent history with a focus on the history of mentalities, this method although may be lengthly in time - including as establishing a level of trust with the subjects is needed in advance of starting the project - and requiring a considerable amount of resources, it is one of the best, in my opinion, for illustrating sudden social and political changes. Through personal testimonies the attentive and experienced eye of the researcher can figure out so many small details that may further help to reconstruct an era, one small piece at a time.

Kinder von Hoy is a recommended read to anyone looking to understand communist and post-communist Germany, by hearing the voices of first hand subjects of history. I would continue this year to explore more about this specific history that decades after the unification remains very much present in the structure of mentalities in the former Eastern but also Western Germany.

Rating: 5 stars

Reconciling Ugliness

 

In a first post-colonial critical approach on the Western standards of beauty within the German intellectual realm, from a multi-disciplinary perspective, Hässlichkeit (Ugliness, in my free translation) by Afghani-German artist and essayist Moshtari Hilal is an important contribution to the discourse on power games within the beauty industry.

What do we have in mind when we, as women, we are looking ourselves into the mirror? What do we see there? And, more specifically, who do we see there? In most cases, there are some given society standards and expectations that we take into consideration. We see ourselves and the other through those mindsets and we want to emulate in order to not disappoint, to feel desired and desirable, also from a social point of view. It is also a personal account of the reconciliation with the own body, reclaiming the own identity and unicity.

Moshtari´s journey through the perceptions and representations of the body in the Western culture - documented with philosophical, artistic and anthropological sources - reveals the mechanisms of acception and rejection, mediated by the body representation. The author is reflecting on her - and her family - direct experiences in perceiving the feminine body in the Western/White/European realm. 

There are many topics that may have deserved an extended and relatively more in-depth analysis, including in the larger context of the beauty industry, such as the case of beauty surgeries explicitly about the illusion of extended youth - but this book is definitely a great start if you want to evaluate the beauty standards from an ethnic/minority-focused perspective.

Delightfully, the book also contains illustrations - graphic and photography - by the author, an example of how this type of intellectual writing can be done in an artistically creative way.

Rating: 4 stars

´Africa Is Not a Country´

No matter which part of the Globe are you coming from, your region and/or country is marked by stereotypes. Human mind needs concepts - simplified often - in order to put the world into a certain pertainable order. More often we need to figure out the other(s) rather than really understanding them. Geography, conflictual histories, distorted media reports are influencing our way to figure out the world around it, to simplify it in an equally distorted way.

Africa - which is definitely not a country - is by far one of the most stereotypes-ridden part of the world. As VICE journalist Dipo Faloyin in his debut book - that I had access to in audiobookformat, in the lecture of the author - shows through different approaches - governance, history, artifacts looting, literary but particularly film representations - Africa - no nuances and even reliable knowledge considered. 

Each chapter brings more context to the topic and it helps to understand the many aspects of the topic, even by someone less familiar with the issue. Particularly for academics with a focus on disrepresented areas - such as ´Balkans´, ´Eastern Europe´ and the ´Middle East´ it offers a flexible framework of identification and research. When the region is used for describe specific countries, the same simpleminded sin is repeated over and over again.

The book is informed and relies on various specific examples and what is how a book talking about stereotypes should include. Only through examples one can really understand the differences. Personally, although I am explosed to different information about countries like Ghana or Nigeria, I was largely not familiar with specific ongoing ´success stories´ in Rwanda or the women-driven projects, including in the field of governance, in Tanzania.

Personally, I would have expect more representativity, including in the countries once within the French colonial power. A rather newly mentioned colonial power, Germany, is though deeply and sharply analysed, which is already an important contribution to the general debate about colonialism.

This book is recommended both to academics and journalists, for both the content and the format. Hopefully, there will be more such books dedicated to various countries from the African continent and elsewehere as well.

Rating: 4 stars