47th Linz Conference: Is One World Possible? Practices of International Solidarity and International Development

The purpose of the Conference 2011 is to discuss Solidarity and Development at international level as practiced by social movements, organizations and states acting in the tradition of the Labour Movement. International Solidarity is perceived as a concept for dealing with others on the basis of common interests and concerns, genuinely rooted in the traditions of the Labour Movement. International Development is perceived as a transformation of society by means of deliberate active intervention to achieve certain objectives like “Modernisation” or, alternatively, “Socialism”. Both concepts were realized through transfers: transfers of concrete resources, knowledge, working and living modes as well as norms and standards. Solidarity, at least conceptually, can be described as a reciprocal transfer process, Development as a unilateral transfer process. These transfers were operated by solidarity activists, (party and union-) internationalists, development workers and experts.

The universal concepts of Solidarity and of Development basically aimed at the creation of one (single) world in which the material standards, working conditions, orders of social justice, and ways of living according to the yardstick of the “most highly developed” societies were to apply. Every individual and every society can develop the entrepreneurial spirit, and the attitudes and practices linked to it, leading to prosperity, is the credo of those who fundamentally believe that “development” is tantamount to increasing material prosperity. Every society and every individual can be set on a “socialist developmental path” which, based on a planned economy and collectivisation under the leadership of the Party, will lead to an “all-round development” of individuals and collectives would be the credo of a competing concept of development as progress towards socialism. We are pursuing a struggle on the basis of a joint social position political stance and interests, would be a stance based on “Solidarity”.

The question is if the implementation of these distinct concepts converged in practice. The contributions discuss situations in which practices of Solidarity and Development were actively conceived and implemented. They further concentrate on forms of transfer: material assistance, trade at preferential conditions; personal commitment; collective actions and campaigns. At an institutional level, “development aid” and “socialist aid” – also referred to as “international solidarity” – as competing systems for Development and Solidarity in the “Third World” in the era of global systems competition are at the centre of attention. Temporal focus is the post-colonial era in the second half of the 20th century.

Venue: Bildungshaus Jägermayrhof, Römerstraße 98, 4020 Linz, Austria

Organized by the International Conference of Labour and Social History and the Chamber of Labour of Upper Austria, kindly supported by the Federal Ministry of Research, the Provincial Government of Upper Austria, the City of Linz and the Friedrich Ebert-Foundation

Preparatory Group
Berthold Unfried (Co-ordinator, ITH & Institute of Economic and Social History, Vienna University), Anja Kruke (Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Bonn), Eva Himmelstoss (ITH), David Mayer (Institute of Economic and Social History, Vienna University), Jürgen Mittag (Institute for Social Movements, Ruhr University of Bochum), Marcel van der Linden (International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam), Raquel Varela (Instituto de História Contemporânea, Universidade Nova de Lisboa)

 

PROGRAMME (26.9.2011)

Simultaneous translation: English – German

Thursday, 29 September 2011

9.00 – 22.00
Registration of the participants at Jägermayrhof

13.00 – 15.00
Meeting of the Executive Committee and the International Scientific Committee of ITH

15.00: Break

15.30 – 17.30
Annual General Meeting of the Member Institutes of ITH

17.30: Aperitif

18.00
Conference Opening by the President of ITH, Berthold Unfried, Annliese Schweiger from the City of Linz, and our host, Mr Erwin Kaiser, from Jägermayrhof

18.30
Keynote Address by Vijay Prashad (Hartford, Connecticut): The Agonies of International Solidarity

19.00
Welcome reception by the Mayor of Linz at Jägermayrhof

20.30
Conferring of the René Kuczynski Prize 2011 for outstanding publications on the field of social and economic history to Tanja Penter for her book „Kohle für Stalin und Hitler. Arbeiten und Leben im Donbass 1929 bis 1953“

Friday, 30 September 2011

9.00
Introduction into the Conference by Berthold Unfried (Vienna)

9.30
PANEL I (Concepts, Outline and Practices of Solidarity and Development)
Chair: Berthold Unfried

David C. Engerman (Waltham, Massachusetts): Between Socialism and Modernization: Indian Economic Development in Cold War Context

10.30 – 11.00 Coffee break

Chair: Marcel van der Linden

Reinhart Kößler (Bayreuth): “Development” and “Solidarity”
Susan Zimmermann (Budapest): Grenzüberschreitende Intervention im Dienste der „guten Sache“ und solidarischer Internationalismus: Ein Widerspruch in sich?

13.00
Reception by the Provincial Governor of Upper Austria at Jägermayrhof

14.30
PANEL II (Labour as a Governmental Actor)
Chair: Anja Kruke

Sara Lorenzini (Trento): Clash between Ideals and Realities – GDR Policies in Africa: Theory and Practice
Berthold Unfried (Vienna): Instrumente und Praktiken von „Solidarität“ Ost und „Entwicklungshilfe“ West

16.30 – 17.00 Coffee break

Hubertus Büschel (Gießen): „Hilfe zur Selbsthilfe“ und „Internationale Solidarität“: West- und ostdeutsche Diskurse und Praktiken zu „guter Entwicklung“ in Afrika 1960-1975

18.00
Intermediary Inventory
Anja Kruke (Bonn): Which Tracks of Interpretation have been Pursued?

18.30
Dinner at Jägermayrhof

20.00
Public Panel Discussion
Internationale Solidarität. Idee und Praxis
Venue: Wissensturm der VHS Linz, Kärntner Str. 26
Organizers: ITH, Chamber of Labour of Upper Austria, Adult Education Centre of Linz
Podium: Michael Bohnet (Bonn), Karin Fischer (Linz), Franz Nuscheler (Linz), Sepp Wall-Strasser (Linz)
Moderation: Peter Huemer (Vienna)

Please notice: The discussion will be held in GERMAN without simultaneous translation!

Saturday, 1 October 2011

9.00
PANEL III (Labour as a Societal Actor)
Chair: Jürgen Mittag

Babacar Fall (Dakar): The CGT and the Unions in Francophone Africa, 1920-1956
Françoise Blum (Paris): Doctrines and Practices of French Christian Union Solidarity in the 1960s
Annie Watson (London): The “Solidarity” Experience of the UK Trade Union Movement

11.00 – 11.30 Coffee break

Chair: Raquel Varela

Antonio Muñoz Sanchez (Bonn): The Friedrich Ebert Foundation and the Iberian Socialists

13.00
Lunch at Jägermayrhof

14.00
PANEL IV (Social Movements: Solidarity Movements, Solidarity Brigadists, and Liberation Movements as Actors)
Chair: David Mayer

Ulrich van der Heyden (Berlin): Die FDJ-Brigaden der Freundschaft aus der DDR – die Peace Corps des Ostens?
Kim Christiaens (Leuven): Orchestrating Solidarity. The Impact of Third World Actors on Solidarity Movements in Belgium during the Cold War (1960s-1980s)

16.30 – 17.00 Coffee break

Fritz Keller (Vienna): Probleme der Algerien-Solidaritätsbewegung
David Mayer (Vienna): An Essay of Synthesis

18.00
Concluding Discussion

19.00
Lunch at Jägermayrhof

Sunday, 2 October 2011

Departure of the participants after breakfast

Vijay Prashad (International Studies, Trinity College, Hartford/Connecticut)
The Agonies of International Solidarity

The Global South emerged as a concept around the time of the deliberations of the Brandt Commission, which failed in its mission, and then it was sharpened in the South Commission, which also failed in its mission. These failures occurred because the Commissions were not able to overcome the Global North’s thrust to reconstruct the new world order from the 1970s to its advantage. New intellectual property regimes and new financial regimes swept the advantages of history and the new geography of production to the side of the Global North’s crème de la crème. Out of these narrowed corridors emerged India, Brazil, South Africa (IBSA) and other formations to push the interests of the South, or at least to push for Neoliberalism with Southern Characteristics. The problem faced by movements from below, it is my sense, is that the objective conditions for international solidarity do not exist as long as subsistence wages remain linked to the national containers. The vital subjective call for such solidarity exists, but absent an engagement with the constraints to it “solidarity” will devolve into pure voluntarism.

David C. Engerman (Dept. of History, Brandeis University, Waltham/Mass.)
Between Socialism and Modernization: Indian Economic Development in Cold War Context

This paper will examine the path of Indian economic development from independence in 1947 through the completion of the Third Five-Year Plan in 1965. It will explore the ways in which the ruling Congress Party sought to build a “socialist pattern of society” through industrialization and central planning, focusing on the economic vision of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his planner-in-chief Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis. It will also examine the international politics of Indian planning, showing how diplomats and economists in the superpowers sought to alter the direction of Indian economic policy, turning India’s Five-Year Plans into hotspots in a new kind of Cold War.

Reinhart Kößler (Institut für Soziologie der Universität Münster & Arnold Bergstraesser-Institut Freiburg im Breisgau)
„Entwicklung“ und „Solidarität“

Beide Termini umfassen jeweils ein breites semantisches Feld, das hier nicht ausgeleuchtet werden kann, aber einen wichtigen Hintergrund bildet.
Im Papier geht es zunächst um den verbreiteten Konsens des Wertes und der Wünschbarkeit nachholender Entwicklung. Damit verbindet sich zum einen die Vorstellung einer globalen Verallgemeinerung hegemonialer Lebensformen und die Frage von kultureller Angleichung und Vielfalt, zum andern aber die Erfahrung und Beobachtung eines trotz unverkennbarer Dynamik nach wie vor hierarchisch verfassten Weltzusammenhangs. Diese Hierarchie zeigt nach wie vor die Tendenz zur regionalen, auch nationalstaatlich abgegrenzten Konkurrenz. Hinzu kommen mannigfache, ebenfalls nationalstaatlich artikulierte Formen der physischen Abgrenzung gegenüber den Folgen der bezeichneten Dynamik, zumal in Form unterschiedlicher Ausprägungen der transnationalen Migration. Insgesamt erweist sich die Vorstellung nachholender Entwicklung zwar nicht in jedem einzelnen Fall als illusionär, aber die Annahme ihrer Verallgemeinerbarkeit dennoch in hohem Maße ideologisch.
Die programmatische Vorgabe der Solidarität hat sich seit etwa 50 Jahren eng mit Vorstellungen einer gerechten Weltentwicklung verknüpft. Auch hier ging und geht es um die Spezifizierung eines auch noch in der Version der „internationalen Solidarität“ sehr breiten Konzeptes. Es soll im Papier versucht werden, Entwicklungslinien einer auf „Dritte Welt“ orientierten „internationalen Solidarität“ nachzuzeichnen, die Probleme zu umreißen, die sich daraus ergeben, dass hier eine Vielzahl unterschiedlicher Akteursgruppen miteinander in Beziehung gesetzt werden, und dies schließlich auf aktuelle Perspektiven einer kritischen Haltung zum Globalisierungsprozess zu beziehen.

Susan Zimmermann (Dept. of Gender Studies, Central European University, Budapest)
Grenzüberschreitende Intervention im Dienste der „guten Sache“ und solidarischer Internationalismus: Ein Widerspruch in sich?

In diesem Beitrag möchte ich zeigen, dass Geschichte und Gegenwart der humanitären Intervention in wesentlich höherem Maße von vielfältigen Auseinandersetzungen mit globaler Ungleichheit geprägt sind, als dies im mainstream der Forschungen zu diesem Thema sichtbar wird. Auf der Grundlage eigener Forschungen und unter Bezugnahme auf verschiedene kritische Forschungsansätze sowie historische Beispiele möchte ich einige zentrale Argumente vorstellen, die sich aus einer Betrachtung der Geschichte humanitärer Intervention ergeben, die deren Zusammenhang mit globaler Ungleichheit ernst nimmt und kritisch hinterfragt. Erstens lässt sich anhand der Geschichte der grenzüberschreitenden humanitären Intervention zeigen, dass die Vereinnahmung von Zielen humanitärer Politik für grenzüberschreitende Machtpolitik immer dann möglich wurde und stattfand, wenn diese Ziele auf eine ganz bestimmte Weise, unter Berücksichtigung ganz bestimmter Kriterien formuliert wurden. Zweitens hatte die ständige Expansion dieser Art von grenzüberschreitender „Reform“-politik weniger mit der „Zivilisierung“ zwischenstaatlicher Beziehungen und der Humanisierung oder Demokratisierung innerstaatlicher gesellschaftlicher und politischer Verhältnisse zu tun, als mit bestimmten Mustern ungleicher kapitalistischer Entwicklung im Weltmaßstab. Drittens beschäftige ich mich mit dem scheinbaren Paradox, dass sich die Formulierung grenzüberschreitender humanitärer Ziele seit dem 20. Jahrhundert zunehmend von ihrer offenen Einseitigkeit (von der „Zivilisierung der Barbaren“ zu den „Menschenrechten“ …) abgelöst und somit globalisiert hat, während die humanitäre Intervention doch weiterhin als Politik der globalen Ungleichheit zu charakterisieren ist. Abschließend gehe ich auf Fragen des strategisch-politischen Umgangs mit der Realität der humanitären Intervention in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart ein.

Sara Lorenzini (School of International Studies, University of Trento)
Clash between Ideals and Realities – GDR Policies in Africa: Theory and Practice

The paper will discuss the issue of the clash between ideal aims and national interests in GDR trade and aid policies, and study how this affected practices of aid in the late 1950s, in the 1960s and in the 1970s.
It will argue that the principle of mutual benefit, which was characteristic of the relations on equal footing popularized by the Socialist countries of Eastern Europe, was transformed throughout the years in order to adapt to increasing practical difficulties in application. It will also show how political interests were progressively turned down in favour of economic necessities.
The paper will focus on the solidarity and trade policies of the GDR in Africa. It will show how the GDR leadership and experts were confronted with the realities of aid on the basis of several specific examples (Mali, Guinea, Ghana, Zanzibar, Nigeria, Somalia, Ethiopia).
It will point out the lessons learned from the experience of dealing with dissatisfying results and with cultural hampers affecting bilateral relations.

Berthold Unfried (Institut für Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte der Univ. Wien)
Instrumente und Praktiken von „Solidarität“ Ost und „Entwicklungshilfe“ West

Dieser Beitrag versucht, Instrumente der Entwicklungspolitik in den letzten beiden Jahrzehnten der DDR solchen der BRD gegenüberzustellen. Die beiden deutschen Staaten stehen dabei als Beispiele für die globalen Systeme, in die sie eingebunden waren. Der Blick soll auf die praktischen Umsetzungen gerichtet werden. Auch die dahinter stehenden Konzepte sollen erörtert werden, wenn auch in diesem normativ hoch aufgeladenen Sektor nicht im Zentrum stehen soll, Ansprüche an Praktiken zu messen. Im Blickpunkt sollen besonders Transfers auf der Ebene des entsandten Personals stehen und die Probleme, die sich dabei ergaben.

Hubertus Büschel (International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture an der Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen)
„Hilfe zur Selbsthilfe“ und „Internationale Solidarität“: West- und ostdeutsche Diskurse und Praktiken zu „guter“ Entwicklung in Afrika 1960-1975

Mit Diskursen und Praktiken von „Hilfe zur Selbsthilfe“ und „Internationaler Solidarität“ konkurrierten beide deutsche Staaten im Kalten Krieg in Afrika um „gute“ Formen von Entwicklung. Im Rahmen der möglichst umfassenden Beteiligung von Afrikanern wurden Schulen, landwirtschaftliche Bildungseinrichtungen oder Dispensarien gebaut sowie Methoden der Düngung und Felderwirtschaft oder Dienste für Hygieneberatung eingeführt. Die Vorstellung war, dass die Menschen in Afrika lediglich dabei „beraten“ werden sollten, ihre eigenen Vorstellungen und Wünsche von der Verbesserung ihrer Lebensverhältnisse zur Geltung zu bringen und in Entwicklungsprojekten umzusetzen. Das sollte „Entwicklung“ von „Innen heraus“ und „von unten“ fördern, die als „besser“ für die lokale Bevölkerung und als nachhaltiger angesehen wurde.
Trotz aller Systemunterschiede wiesen – wie zu zeigen sein wird – die genannten Entwicklungskonzepte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und der DDR frappierende Ähnlichkeiten auf, die im Vortrag erörtert werden sollen. Ziel ist auch, die Aporien, Dilemmata, asymmetrischen Machtverhältnisse und selbst die Gewaltsamkeit jener ostentativ auf Partizipation und Zwanglosigkeit angelegten „guten“ Entwicklungskonzepte in Fallstudien zu analysieren.

Babacar Fall (Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar, Senegal)
The CGT and the Unions in Black Africa, 1920 – 1956

During the colonial period, the development of trade unions in Francophone Black Africa is largely indebted to the intervention of the CGT for the implementation of the metropolitan social legislation in the colonies. Thus, the day after WWI, when international labor solidarity stimulated a protest movement that had long evolved under the protective shadow of metropolitan unions. Statistics on unions membership in 1953 in Senegal show that of a total of 23,900 salaried workers, 12,000 or 50.2%, were affiliated with CGT. Hence, it is permissible to note that the heavy influence of the CGT, recognized by the colonial administration, like an “orchestra” of social life with periods of tension but also with multiple forms of reorganization and regrouping to avoid the traps of the administration.
This paper will analyze the actions of the CGT in Francophone Black Africa between 1920 and 1956, through the connections between the political training of union leaders, the support of CGT by extended unions, the organization of labor solidarity and the resistance to the colonial administration’s multiple pushes for the removal of African unions vise of affiliation with central metropolitan unions. The paper is based on primary sources and documents of colonial archives preserved in Dakar, notably the K series: Travail et Main d’oeuvre and 17G: Affaires politiques générales.

Françoise Blum (Centre d’Histoire Sociale du XXe siècle, Université de Paris I)
CFDT/CFTC Training Activities for African Trade Union Officials in the 1960s

This contribution will try to approach the doctrine and the practices of the French trade-unionist confederation CFTC (after a scission in 1964, part of CFTC became CFDT) concerning cooperation and solidarity with African workers. The trade-unionist Institute of international and technical cooperation ISCTI, a training organization for African trade union executives, will serve as example. After the independence of the African colonies, ISCTI took over CFTC’s overseas section before being integrated into CFDT’s cooperation section, in 1970. A particularity was that French and African trade-unionists together managed the institute and there was also joint teaching. Looking at its achievements, programs and trainees, we can understand better the networks and terms of a Christian (or, perhaps better: a “faith based”) trade-unionist cooperation and the main purpose of a doctrine inspired by “Economie et Humanisme” Dominicans and revisited by African trade-unionists. The most famous of them was the general secretary of the UPTC (Union panafricaine des travailleurs croyants), Gilbert Pongault. The contribution will show the links between ISCTI, UPTC, CFDT and the international Christian confederation of trade unions.
The basis of the cooperation theory closely linked to a development ideology is to be analyzed. The cooperation was also considered as a kind of reparation for colonization and as a duty of the ex-colonizers towards the ex-colonized. The cooperation was seen to guarantee a kind of balance with on one side a help for the development and on the other side the possibility to peacefully enjoy the acquired welfare. Beyond theory, the logistical and financial aid system in practice shall be scrutinized.
The contribution is based on material from trade union’s archives in France and in Congo (Brazzaville).

Annie Watson (London)
The Experience of the UK Trade Union Movement

My presentation will analyse the practices and instruments that have been used in three historical periods: during and immediately after colonial rule; during and after the Cold War period; and in the last ten years. The practice and instruments used were influenced by the nature of requests from unions in the global south, the prevailing political climate and availability of development resources from UK government.
During and after colonial rule the Trades Union Congress (TUC) provided technical assistance to sister unions in the South – sharing expertise on labour administration, industrial relations and trade union education. The TUC also provided financial assistance to workers who were in dispute with their employers.
During the Cold War period and up until the end of the 20th century, practices and instruments included sending UK trade union experts on short and long-term placements to provide technical assistance, mainly on trade union education and Occupational Health and Safety. Overseas trade unionists were also invited on study visits to the UK, where they visited workplaces, participated in training courses and met community organisations. The TUC was in receipt of UK government funds for these programmes and also to provide support to trade unionists experiencing political repression, e.g. in apartheid South Africa.
In the more recent period, there have been fewer requests for technical assistance, trade unionists in the South having benefited from previous technical transfers. Instead, there have been more jointly-designed programmes to address particular challenges, for example around organising workers in the informal economy, promoting greater gender equity or dealing with issues affecting groups of vulnerable workers.

Antonio Muñoz Sánchez (Bonn)
The Friedrich Ebert Foundation and the Iberian Socialists

The Carnation Revolution put the whole process of European détente at risk. In order to defend Western interests, Bonn decided to get strongly involved in Portugal to stabilize the country. At the same time West Germany began also to worry about Spain. The only organized opposition to a dying regime was the communist party and it seemed not unlikely that after Franco the country follow a similar chaotic path as Portugal.
An essential element of this German “Südpolitik” was the strengthening of moderate socialist parties able to compete with the strong and good organized communists. This was the key of the success of work made there by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation. During the critical phase of the Iberian political transitions up to 1976/77 the Ebert Foundation worked in symbiosis with the socialist parties. Lacking of any experience and resources, local socialists gave the members of the Ebert Foundation in Madrid and Lisbon free hand to implement a comprehensive program aimed at creating a catch-all-party: build up the organization, trainee its members, organize electoral campaigns, pay salaries of party functionaries and hire of the central and regional offices, publication of propaganda. During the process of democratic consolidation after 1977, the projects of the Ebert Foundation in Spain and Portugal followed different paths. In Spain the FES kept concentrated in the support of the socialists in order to boost its conversion into a popular party able to reach power, what eventually happened in 1982. In the case of Portugal the socialists already in power involved the FES into projects aimed at strengthening the state structures or the modernization of the country.

Ulrich van der Heyden (Afrikahistoriker und Politikwissenschaftler; Seminar für Religions- und Missionswissenschaften, Humboldt-Universität Berlin)
Die FDJ-Brigaden der Freundschaft aus der DDR – die Peace Corps des Ostens?

In der DDR, in der es offiziell keine „Entwicklungshilfe“, sondern „Solidarität“ gab, wurde das entwicklungspolitische Vorort-Engagement vornehmlich über so genannte Brigaden der Freundschaft realisiert. Da es dort kein eigenes „Entwicklungsministerium“, wie in anderen Ländern gab, war für die Auswahl und Schulung des zumeist jugendlichen Personals, für die Organisation und die Rechenschaftslegung der zentrale Jugendverband der DDR, die Freie Deutsche Jugend (FDJ), zuständig.
Die Brigaden der Freundschaft der FDJ begannen ihren Einsatz in der Dritten Welt etwa zu dem Zeitpunkt, als auch in den USA die Peace Corps aufgestellt wurden, allerdings mit eindeutiger Ausrichtung auf Entwicklungshilfe. Natürlich sollten die „Diplomaten im Blauhemd“ (blau war die Farbe der FDJ-Signien) auch ein positives Bild von der DDR zeichnen. Im Jahr 1963 gegründet, existierten bis 1989 insgesamt 22 „Freundschaftsbrigaden“ in 16 Ländern, wo sie über jeweils mehrere Jahre aktiv waren. Der Einsatz erfolgte nicht nur in befreundeten „sozialistischen Bruderländern“, wie Vietnam oder Kuba, sondern auch in solchen Ländern Asiens, Afrikas und Lateinamerikas, die zu denjenigen „Entwicklungsländern“ gehörten, die für die DDR eine progressive Innen- wie Außenpolitik verfolgten.
Das Referat bzw. der daraus entstehende Beitrag für einen Konferenzband soll mit dieser heute kaum bekannten Form des entwicklungspolitischen Engagements der DDR bekannt machen. Zudem wird, basierend auf den gemachten Erfahrungen, nachgefragt, inwiefern zur Zeit des Einsatzes sowie nach mehr als zwei Jahrzehnte nach dem Ende der DDR und ihrer „Entwicklungshelfer-Organisation“, der Versuch zur Schaffung „einer Welt“ durch das solidarische Engagement vieler Jugendlicher umgesetzt werden konnte oder gescheitert ist.
Für das Referat bzw. den daraus anzufertigenden Beitrag werden die verschiedensten Dokumente aus den Archivbeständen der Jugendorganisation der DDR (Bundesarchiv, SAPMO) und der Bundesbeauftragten für die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen DDR (BStU) sowie Erinnerungsberichte und nicht an das Archiv übergebene Dokumente von ehemaligen „Brigadisten“ sowie die allerdings nur in geringem Umfang vorhandene Forschungsliteratur herangezogen.

Kim Christiaens (Sub-faculty of History, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Flanders)
Orchestrating Solidarity. The Impact of Third World Actors on Solidarity Movements in Belgium during the Cold War (1960s-1980s)

During the 1960s till the 1980s, solidarity movements in support of so-called national liberation movements and revolutionary regimes in the Third World mushroomed across Western Europe. To date, mainstream accounts have highlighted as the primary axis of this mobilization the agency of activists in the ‘First World’ and the inspiration which propelled them to take action for issues in the Third World. Third World solidarity, then, is considered to be a spontaneously generated and endogenous phenomenon, driven by activists’ moral and political concerns about issues which transcended and in the same time challenged their own societies. Yet, scant attention has been devoted to the role played by Third World actors in the emergence and development of these solidarity movements. This contribution reveals the impact of Third World actors’ contributions on the ways in which overseas supporters gave shape to their solidarity. It argues that the strategies and contributions of Third World actors were a key element which determined not only the nature and outlook of solidarity, but also gave way to the emergence of networks which linked activists across borders. All this will be done by looking at three major cases of Third World solidarity mobilization in Belgian society during the Cold War, namely the mobilization for Vietnam, Chile and Nicaragua. By uncovering the networks which linked Belgian activists with countries more than thousands miles away from their own society as well as with their counterparts in other countries, this contribution offers a transnational revision of Third World solidarity movements, focusing on the agency of Third World actors and rejecting the view that these movements were solely an endogenous and spontaneous phenomenon.

Fritz Keller (Wien)
Problems of the Algeria-Solidarity Movement

If we look at the events surrounding the Algerian civil war from 1954 to 1962, we will quickly see that a number of phenomena have parallels with the present. I shall try to sketch out this sort of problems through questions demonstrating that no solution has been found.
• How can the Left in the industrialized countries cooperate with a Muslim-led nationalist movement?
• What does it mean, if the leaders of such a movement use the term “socialism”?
• What is the role of terrorism and of torture in a so-called “asymmetric” war?
• What are possible attitudes of solidarity groups when confronted with a situation, in which one organisation tries to push out all of its rivals out of the political scene by methods of blood and thunder?
• What can be done, when the victorious liberation movement starts to suppress ethnic minorities? (Kabyles, Tuaregs)
• How we can stop the spiral of violence and counter-violence?
• Is it a realistic goal to demand a democratic regime after the victory of a nationalist liberation movement?
But the times shown in the movie “Battle of Algiers” are over. Therefore we also face real differences between now and then. To give only one significant example: In Algeria – as in many under-developed countries – the regime in power (formally a product of a liberation movement) is now confronted with a new wave of religious inspired uprisings.