Marc-William Palen
History Department, University of Exeter
Follow on Twitter @MWPalen

From Peru’s Truth and Reconciliation 20 years on to liberalism’s sinful Cold War birth, here are this week’s top picks in imperial and global history.

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Peru’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission: 20 Years Later

Tamara Feinstein
National Security Archive

On the 20th anniversary of the Peruvian truth commission’s final report, the National Security Archive posts a core collection of declassified U.S. documents chronicling 20 years of conflict across three presidential administrations along with records relating to the 2001 decision to establish a commission to investigate the violence. The collection includes previously unpublished cables and intelligence reports detailing the Peruvian government’s brutal “take no prisoners” counterinsurgency strategy and its efforts to shield from justice members of the security forces responsible for grave human rights abuses.

Among the newly published records is a State Department intelligence report from 1984 that presciently predicted that the Peruvian Army “may be tempted to try physically annihilating Sendero Luminoso by eliminating everyone suspected of being a member or sympathizer.” Another highly revealing intelligence report from May 1988 said that Peruvian Prime Minister Armando Villanueva had told top military officials “that he did not care if the military executed every Sendero Luminoso (SL) guerrilla it captured” as long as it was done “discreetly.” Villanueva told the officers that any attempt to investigate a recent peasant massacre in Ayacucho “would be immediately defeated.” [continue reading]

Family of former British PM apologises for enslaver past in Guyana

Agence France-Presse
Guardian

The descendants of the former British prime minister William Gladstone have apologised for their family’s past as enslavers in Guyana and urged the UK to discuss reparations in the Caribbean. Gladstone’s father was one of the largest enslavers in the parts of the Caribbean colonised by Britain. John Gladstone is also believed to have owned two ships that transported thousands of Asians from India and elsewhere to work as indentured labourers after the abolition of slavery in 1834. “Slavery was a crime against humanity and its damaging impact continues to be felt across the world today,” Charles Gladstone, the politician’s great-great-grandson, said at a launch for the University of Guyana’s International Centre for Migration and Diaspora Studies.

“It is with deep shame and regret that we acknowledge our ancestor’s involvement in this crime and with heartfelt sincerity that we apologise to the descendants of the enslaved in Guyana. We also urge other descendants of those who benefited from slavery to open conversations about their ancestors’ crimes and what they might be able to do to build a better future.” The Gladstones also apologised for their role in indentureship. [continue reading]

India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh all inherited over-centralized state monoliths with unitary ideologies of sovereignty from the British Raj

Ayesha Jalal
Diplomat

Despite glaring contradictions between stated ideals and ground realities, there is no greater legitimizing force in politics today than democracy. Yet the rhetoric of democracy remains starkly at odds with its manifestations the world over. The rise of right-wing demagogues using populist slogans to exclude migrants from the Global South or target religious minorities at home has provoked an outcry against the “democracy deficit.”

But such prejudicial and undemocratic practices are hardly a new occurrence. The historical antecedents of the contemporary disconnect between democratic aspirations and authoritarian repression are traceable to myriad sources, especially the legacies of colonialism. Colonial rule was notable for extractive institutions, paraphernalia of laws to preserve order, measures for social engineering, and deploying varying levels of coercive power against subject populations. [continue reading]

Asylum Barges in historical context: Britain’s prison hulks expose fault lines in today’s policy

Anna McKay
History & Policy

n April 2023, the UK Home Office announced plans to accommodate male asylum seekers in an accommodation barge in Portland, Dorset. Central to the decision has been cost: with a huge backlog in processing claims, estimates for hotel accommodation for asylum seekers amount to roughly £6 million daily. The number of people arriving in the UK who require accommodation has reached record levels, with more than 51,000 asylum seekers currently housed in hotels. Barges are one in a series of new sites based across the country designed to alleviate these costs; at time of writing, sites include RAF Scampton, MoD Wethersfield and Northeye, a former prison and military training centre in Bexhill. The Home Office claims that asylum seekers housed across these sites will be provided with basic, safe accommodation with 24/7 security, and will be as self-sufficient as possible, thus minimising the impact on local communities and services.

The Bibby Stockholm accommodation vessel was towed into Portland Port on 18 July 2023. The first group of 15 asylum seekers arrived on 7 Augus, but some refused to board the ship due to legal challenges. The policy is undoubtedly intended to act as a deterrent, and forms part of the rhetoric and action surrounding the 2023 Illegal Migration Bill, which aims to change the law so that people who come to the UK illegally will not be permitted to stay. The barge is owned by the Liverpool-based company Bibby Marine Limited; it can house up to 506 people in 222 en-suite bedrooms over three decks. It contains a gym, bar, restaurant and games room. Built in 1976, the ship has provided accommodation for various groups, including asylum seekers in Germany and the Netherlands, and construction workers in Scotland and Sweden. In July 2023, journalists accessed the ship and described the rooms as reasonably comfortable, with the basic facilities; a better standard than some of hotels housing asylum seekers. However, Amnesty International UK’s refugee and migrant rights director Steve Valdez-Symonds argues, ‘Reminiscent of the prison hulks from the Victorian era, the Bibby Stockholm is an utterly shameful way to house people who’ve fled terror, conflict and persecution. [continue reading]

Liberalism’s sin was born in the Cold War

Samuel Moyn
UnHerd

If the contemporary political scene is strewn with wreckage, it is clearer than ever that “neoconservatism” and “neoliberalism” did much of the damage. More than any other, these two ideologies have afflicted both the centre-right and centre-left, fostering the sense of decay to which Margaret Thatcher’s insistence that “there is no such thing as society, only individual men and women, and families” has now led. The public sector was abandoned, as if individuals and families could make it on their own.

How did these two movements succeed in tearing up the fabric of Western society? Neoliberalism envisioned governance for the sake of individual and corporate enterprise, rolling back redistributive and regulatory policy in the name of “freedom”. Neoconservatism, meanwhile, though later more famous as a foreign-policy doctrine, was initially rooted in a scepticism towards domestic class and racial justice. Under the auspices of both schools of thought, the state was reconceived and morality was “restored” to the private sphere of “family values”. [continue reading]