Wissenschaftspreis an Prof’in Susan G. Pedersen verliehen

(Diese Untertitel wurden automatisch generiert.
These subtitles were automatically generated.)
The talk will have four parts.
I’ll speak first to the field of international history and the multifaceted understanding
it has yielded of the significance of the League of Nations.
And second to my own work on how the League sought
to reconcile internationalism and imperialism.
I’ll then discuss one crisis I wasn’t able to analyze in my book
the Italo Abyssinian War, the war that not only destroyed
the league’s collective security system, but which all argue was a legitimation
crisis and a tipping point for the international order as a whole.
I’ll look at the efforts of the powers
to resolve this crisis
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through the old imperial methods
and turn at the end
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to how publics mobilized
and do that effort.
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Let me now
turn to the new portrait of the league
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that has emerged over the past 20 years.
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Why did we start looking back
at the League of Nations?
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Well,
let’s remember the world of the 1990s.
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The wall had just come down.
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The Soviet Union had collapsed.
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The Cold War had ended.
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The U.S.
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was the only hegemon left,
but a weakening one for China
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and India were rising
and the European Union consolidating.
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So the world of the 1990s felt
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multipolar, uncertain, but hopeful too.
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A new world order seemed to be emerging.
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There were new democracies
and new democratic movements.
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There was a new language
of economic globalization,
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but also one of human rights.
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The world of the nineties
didn’t feel much like 1945,
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and our eyes were drawn back to 1919.
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Another moment of hope
and global remaking.
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And to the institutions it birthed,
especially the League of Nations,
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that scholarly
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turn to Geneva might have seen quixotic
because what we know about the league
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is that it was supposed to prevent
the Second World War
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and spectacularly failed to do so.
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We have explanations for why it failed
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because the Americans didn’t join,
because it was too idealistic,
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The talk will have four parts.
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because it promised collective security,
but had no military
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I’ll speak first
to the field of international history
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because its disarmament
conferences went nowhere.
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and the multifaceted understanding
it has yielded of the significance
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But in averting our eyes
from its failures, could we have paid
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too little attention to its longer
lasting effects?
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The First World War had thrown up
global problems of refugees,
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famine, cholera, financial collapse,
and states beset on all fronts.
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Through those problems at the league.
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A first dividend of this new research
was an awareness of the league’s role
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in generating new institutions, norms
and practices of global governance.
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It intervened to stabilize the Austria
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in the economy
after the failure of the credit on child.
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It pioneered development missions
to China and Liberia.
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And it sought to regulate
a host of other cross-border
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threats or traffic.
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I’m going to just show a couple of slides.
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This is the conference program
from Patricia and my conference.
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Okay.
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Cross-border traffics, radio waves, air
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travel, river navigation, capital flows,
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epidemic diseases, refugee is organized
crime, double taxation,
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prostitution, opium and so much else
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had the league’s budget by passed
the league’s budget by the late thirties.
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Went to such work, often done
in collaboration with what we would now
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call NGOs
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and the institutions
it built proved lasting.
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UNESCO’s ECOSOC,
the World Health Organization, the U.N.
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High Commission for Refugees,
the Bank of International Settlements
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and a host of other international bodies
grew out of league precedence.
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We paid attention to
to a second major innovation of the league
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the creation of an international civil
service.
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The peacemakers first imagined the league
as an alliance of great powers,
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and they thought that all
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substantive work would be done
by officials from those states.
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But the first secretary general,
the career British Foreign Office office
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official, Sir Eric Drummond,
remarkably broke with that vision.
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The secretariat, he decided,
would be organized by function,
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not nation, with separate sections
devoted to each part of the league’s work,
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that is, to disarmament,
economics, international law,
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information and social questions,
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health mandates and so forth.
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It would be staffed by an independent
bureaucracy drawn from all member states,
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open to equally to men and women
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and bound by an oath of loyalty
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to the league, to the covenant itself.
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This vision has lasted
into the United Nations
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and nothing
was more quietly revolutionary.
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Although the League Secretariat
had its time servers and spies,
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most visitors to Geneva
were struck by the idealism and competence
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of the Secretariat.
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Its members lastingly
loyal to the international project.
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They were appointed to uphold the,
says the league cartoonist
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Dussault and Kelan and
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the Secretariat,
the leaders of the Secretariat,
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the heads of the Secretariat,
Walking through the parted waves
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of all the crises
that are hitting the world
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in 1931,
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scholars have recovered to the extent
to which the league engaged the world
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peoples as they emerged
from a maelstrom of destruction.
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And while the league would disappoint,
this is because hopes ran so high,
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the league played to the crowd,
its public ness being,
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I think its third truly innovative aspect.
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The annual three week meeting of the
Assembly was an extravaganza
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covered closely by an enormous
German league press corps.
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That’s the Assembly story, an enormous
League journalists press corps.
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The information section
was the largest as well,
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and the league had its own radio station.
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It published its minutes and agreements
and it sent copies to anyone who asked.
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Plenty of people did ask.
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So popular, of course, was the league
that some 2 million private individuals
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joined one of a dozen of society, dozens
of societies formed for its defense.
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For these loyal supporters,
the league was a postbox to which
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anyone could send a complaint, a door
on which anyone could knock and knock.
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They did.
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In 1921, the African-American public
intellectual W.E.B.
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Dubois brought the demands of the second
Pan-African Congress to Geneva
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in 1923, chief desk of the Iroquois
Six nations
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arrived to contest Canada’s
claim to represent his people.
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A few years later, the Samoan independence
movement arrived, sent its leader, Olaf
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Nelson, to ask that New Zealand
be stripped of its right
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to rule their land.
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They brought heartbreak to Geneva,
to the people.
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In 1936, the Czech Stefan Locks
shot himself in the league assembly
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to protest its inaction in the face
of German militarism and anti-Semitism.
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It was
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these aspects of the league,
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its transnational nationalism,
its secretariat and its public ness
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that made it such a novel experiment
in international relations for the league
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didn’t so much solve problems
as internationalized them.
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But if this internationalization gave
the league
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its allure, it also made it unstable.
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For if the league was a popular cause,
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its policies were still set by states.
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There is often a tension in global
politics between transnational ideals
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and state interests, but with the league,
those tensions were particularly sharp,
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for if the league proclaimed itself
an alliance of equal and sovereign states.
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It was born in an age of empires at a time
where much of the world
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was still under imperial rule.
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And if the league was to keep the peace,
then that peace was
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a particular settlement
established by the imperial powers,
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riding a wave of anti-imperial feeling
and of claims for self-determination.
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The order they
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created was thus international,
but still imperial,
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one that articulated an ideal
of the sovereign of sovereign equality,
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but imposed what we might call
damaged sovereignty
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on some nations and denied sovereignty
to others altogether.
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How could those decisions be justified?
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I’ll turn to the second part of this talk.
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The league administered administered
to innovative
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and consequential receipt regimes
set up to do that.
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The first was the minorities protection
regime applied to a host of new polities,
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carved out of defeated or
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dissolving land
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empires of Central and Eastern Europe.
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Those states were
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born as nation states,
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states of Hungarians or Czechs or Poles.
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But because one couldn’t unscramble
the ethnic mosaic of Eastern Europe,
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of Central Europe,
most were anything but homogeneous.
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Only 70% of those in reconstituted
Poland, for example, were ethnic Poles.
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As the price of
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sovereignty, the allies thus required
these states be granted
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cultural and linguistic write,
grant, cultural
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and linguistic rights
to their ethnic minorities,
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who they hoped would then be loyal
to their new governors.
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But by identifying minorities
as the bearers of rights,
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the regime also stoked minorities
grievances,
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thus undermining the very borders
they sought to stabilize.
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By the mid-thirties,
the minorities regime was in tatters.
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The second regime,
the mandates regime, was applied
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to those Ottoman and German territories
seized in the First World War.
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The victors did not want to hand
those territories back,
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but nor did they wish to accede to demands
for self-determination.
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At the peace conference
in at San Remo in 1920,
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the Allied States
agreed on their disposition.
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They allocated the former
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Ottoman
Middle East to Britain and France, East
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00:11:20,000 –> 00:11:24,200
Germans, Germany’s African territories,
to Australia,
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to Britain,
France, Belgium and South Africa
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and Germany’s Pacific Territories
to Australia, New Zealand
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and Japan.
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Most reluctantly,
they also set up an apparatus
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to supervise their administration.
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My most recent book,
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about which you’ve heard
already, is a history of that system.
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What I argue in that book
is that the mandate system
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was not a halfway house
between imperial rule and independence.
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It was something different
an attempt to construct
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an international order
that remained an imperial order.
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That is to subject imperial rule
to international agreement
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and international norms based on the
assumption that most of the nonwhite world
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was incapable of self-government
and would remain so for a long time.
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The British led this effort
convinced that their model of indirect
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rule and paternalistic government
was generalizable at best.
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Indeed, the norms
which the system sought to generalize
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of paternalistic administration
and the principle of the open door
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free trade were those
which the British were most comfortable
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to the
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imperial powers
who promised to abide by those norms.
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The league offered approval.
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Their rule, legitimized
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as a sacred trust
exercised on behalf of those.
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As Article 22 of the Covenant
put it, not yet ready
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to stand by themselves under the strenuous
conditions of the modern world.
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And yet the league system
again was unstable.
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Why was that?
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Well, it was because the very process
of internationalization of opening up
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the imperial order to discussion
didn’t just
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facilitate imperial collaboration.
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It facilitated public discussion
and anti-imperial collaboration as well.
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No one could have expected, for example,
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that the members of the permanent Mandates
Commission,
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the body appointed to review
the Mandatory Powers Administration
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and question them about their work,
would become a troublesome body,
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for it was composed
largely of former colonial governors.
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And as you can tell from this picture,
it was no group of wild eyed radicals.
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But simply through its dogged work,
it uncovered much folly and corruption.
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And it was supported, moreover,
by a diligent staff
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who researched tricky questions,
wrote reports and sent
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the commission’s minutes and decisions
to anyone who would ask
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worse from the imperial powers
point of view.
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Under pressure from humanitarians,
the league insisted on a petition process
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through which people under mandate
or interested outsiders
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could appeal to the league
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if they felt the system’s
principles were being violated.
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Meet, for example, the members of the zero
Palestinian Congress
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gathered in Geneva in 1921
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to expose France’s
dictatorial rule in Syria,
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or meet Dante’s Belga Card, Haiti’s
delegate to the league,
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who leapt to his feet at the 1922 assembly
to denounce South Africa’s bombing of
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African pastoralists in the mandated
territory of South West Africa,
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acting as a magnet for complaint.
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Covered by a vigilant press,
the mandate system
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thus became an engine
for publicity and scrutiny.
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The league couldn’t
force empires to govern differently,
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but it made their rule
visible and contested.
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When Germany entered the league in 1926.
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00:15:09,360 –> 00:15:13,880
Criticism grew more stringent for Germany
couldn’t get its colonies back.
241
00:15:14,120 –> 00:15:16,880
It wanted to make sure
that none of the powers now
242
00:15:16,880 –> 00:15:19,360
holding
them would profit from them either.
243
00:15:20,120 –> 00:15:23,880
By the late 1920s,
the system was thus behaving in a manner
244
00:15:23,880 –> 00:15:27,960
its founders had never intended
as an awkward alliance
245
00:15:27,960 –> 00:15:32,160
of genuine internationalists
and resentful Revisionist states
246
00:15:32,520 –> 00:15:37,560
force the League Council to rule
that mandatory powers were not sovereign
247
00:15:37,560 –> 00:15:41,720
in territories under mandate
and to defend the economic rights
248
00:15:42,840 –> 00:15:45,680
of entry to entry by other league states.
249
00:15:46,640 –> 00:15:47,120
Germany
250
00:15:47,120 –> 00:15:51,680
moved swiftly to purchase its former
plantations to build up its trade
251
00:15:51,680 –> 00:15:55,920
and to expose any and all cases
of MIS government in the territories
252
00:15:55,920 –> 00:15:58,920
at once held in this period
253
00:15:58,920 –> 00:16:01,560
which Zara Steiner called the hinge years.
254
00:16:01,920 –> 00:16:05,000
I think we see the postwar world
of governance
255
00:16:05,000 –> 00:16:07,720
through markets
rather than empire emerging.
256
00:16:08,400 –> 00:16:11,480
But the depression
and then the rise of the Nazi regime
257
00:16:11,480 –> 00:16:16,160
forced a change of course
as economic conditions were worsened.
258
00:16:16,520 –> 00:16:20,560
Not only did the revisionist states,
Germany and Italy, demand
259
00:16:20,560 –> 00:16:25,720
colonial territories of their own,
but the imperial powers too drew their
260
00:16:25,720 –> 00:16:28,560
colonial territories and dependencies
261
00:16:28,920 –> 00:16:31,040
closer into their economic web.
262
00:16:31,800 –> 00:16:35,680
It was in this context
that Japan moved into Manchuria
263
00:16:35,920 –> 00:16:39,960
and Italy into Ethiopia, both claiming
they were doing nothing
264
00:16:39,960 –> 00:16:44,680
but bringing order to lawless lands
just as Britain and France had done.
265
00:16:45,400 –> 00:16:48,960
They’d be happy, they said, to administer
their own conquest
266
00:16:48,960 –> 00:16:53,360
under mandate norms,
since they too were civilizing powers.
267
00:16:54,720 –> 00:16:55,160
I don’t
268
00:16:55,160 –> 00:17:00,960
tell the story of the Manchurian crisis
or the Italo Abyssinian war in my book.
269
00:17:01,240 –> 00:17:03,760
The book was too long already
270
00:17:04,080 –> 00:17:06,360
and I had to keep
the project under control.
271
00:17:06,920 –> 00:17:12,000
But I always felt that the Italo
Abyssinian crisis was part of my story
272
00:17:12,440 –> 00:17:15,200
for when Italy attacked Ethiopia, claiming
273
00:17:15,200 –> 00:17:17,760
it was also just civilizing the savage
people.
274
00:17:18,280 –> 00:17:23,160
The league architects and supporters
suddenly saw the mandate system for what
275
00:17:23,160 –> 00:17:27,600
it was a mode of legitimating alien rule,
not of reforming it.
276
00:17:28,240 –> 00:17:33,000
The imperial order could survive this
crisis politically, but not ideologically.
277
00:17:33,880 –> 00:17:38,360
The Italo Abyssinian war
was, in other words, the tipping point
278
00:17:38,600 –> 00:17:41,960
between a world of empires
and a world of unequal states.
279
00:17:42,600 –> 00:17:46,040
The rest of this talk will seek
to persuade you of this argument.
280
00:17:47,320 –> 00:17:48,560
Let me remind you of the
281
00:17:48,560 –> 00:17:52,280
bare outlines of the story
for the Imperial powers.
282
00:17:52,320 –> 00:17:54,480
Abyssinia was a problem from the start.
283
00:17:55,040 –> 00:17:56,760
Why was that?
284
00:17:56,760 –> 00:18:00,800
It was because it was one of only
two independent black states in Africa.
285
00:18:00,840 –> 00:18:03,000
Between the wars Liberia being the other.
286
00:18:04,320 –> 00:18:06,000
But Abyssinia was free.
287
00:18:06,000 –> 00:18:09,960
In a way, Liberia was not for
it had no white protector.
288
00:18:10,120 –> 00:18:13,120
Emperor Menelik,
the second having electrified the world
289
00:18:13,120 –> 00:18:16,160
by defeating Italy in 1896
290
00:18:17,160 –> 00:18:20,600
to the imperial powers
holding territory in the Horn of Africa,
291
00:18:20,640 –> 00:18:25,960
that is Britain, France and Italy, that
the defeat was anomalous and an affront.
292
00:18:26,160 –> 00:18:29,520
And over the next two decades,
they would repeatedly meet
293
00:18:29,880 –> 00:18:32,480
to try to bring this state to heel.
294
00:18:32,480 –> 00:18:34,480
Geopolitical interests drove them.
295
00:18:34,560 –> 00:18:36,320
France needed a railway.
296
00:18:36,320 –> 00:18:38,600
Italy wanted an economic zone.
297
00:18:38,600 –> 00:18:41,440
But once the league was formed,
humanitarian
298
00:18:42,000 –> 00:18:46,680
humanitarianism played its role, too,
with Britain’s delegate to the league
299
00:18:46,680 –> 00:18:50,240
in 1921
suggesting that Abyssinia be placed
300
00:18:50,240 –> 00:18:54,320
under mandate
so as to stamp out its slave trade.
301
00:18:55,440 –> 00:18:56,200
Abyssinia
302
00:18:56,200 –> 00:19:01,560
showed it could adopt this language
too, though, arguing that as a civilized
303
00:19:01,560 –> 00:19:04,480
and Christian power encircled by heathens,
304
00:19:04,880 –> 00:19:07,560
it should be a member of the league.
305
00:19:07,560 –> 00:19:10,520
In 1923, Abyssinia was admitted
306
00:19:10,520 –> 00:19:14,080
to the league, encircled
307
00:19:14,080 –> 00:19:19,440
by avaricious colony,
by colonies of avaricious empires.
308
00:19:19,440 –> 00:19:24,840
It sought to modernize fast its forward
looking regent Rastafari.
309
00:19:24,840 –> 00:19:29,360
Later, highly Selassie invited
foreign dignitaries and the foreign press
310
00:19:29,360 –> 00:19:33,240
into Addis Ababa for his coronation
as Emperor Haile Selassie.
311
00:19:33,680 –> 00:19:37,120
He brought in foreign
advisers, Belgians to train his army,
312
00:19:37,120 –> 00:19:40,920
the French to run his schools,
and he sent envoys to Japan
313
00:19:40,920 –> 00:19:44,120
to solicit economic investment
and military supplies.
314
00:19:45,120 –> 00:19:48,960
And in 1931, he invited the British
Anti-Slavery Society
315
00:19:48,960 –> 00:19:51,960
in to construct a plan
for the suppression of slavery.
316
00:19:53,040 –> 00:19:57,760
Had the global depression not intervened,
the strategy might have been successful.
317
00:19:57,800 –> 00:20:01,920
This is a very similar strategy
to what King Chulalongkorn is
318
00:20:02,400 –> 00:20:07,760
pursuing in Siam,
and it retains its independence.
319
00:20:08,000 –> 00:20:12,120
But after this, after the slump,
all imperial powers
320
00:20:12,120 –> 00:20:15,560
turned to protect their own
economic and territorial sphere.
321
00:20:16,440 –> 00:20:20,040
The Nazi threat changed
European calculations, too.
322
00:20:20,520 –> 00:20:23,040
By early 1935,
323
00:20:23,040 –> 00:20:27,000
France was happy
to sacrifice Ethiopia to keep Italy
324
00:20:28,240 –> 00:20:30,120
in the Allied camp.
325
00:20:30,120 –> 00:20:34,200
And when meeting with the Italians
that April 1935,
326
00:20:34,520 –> 00:20:38,240
British Prime Minister
Ramsay MacDonald was so unclear,
327
00:20:38,240 –> 00:20:43,600
or perhaps just so senile that Mussolini
thought Britain had signed off too.
328
00:20:44,400 –> 00:20:48,760
By the time he learned otherwise,
he was too reckless to change his mind.
329
00:20:50,040 –> 00:20:53,440
This is Ethiopia’s problem.
330
00:20:53,440 –> 00:20:56,400
It’s surrounded by these
331
00:20:56,720 –> 00:21:00,560
colonies of other powers.
332
00:21:01,040 –> 00:21:03,760
On October 3rd, 1935,
333
00:21:03,760 –> 00:21:07,240
Italian troops
struck into Ethiopia, struck
334
00:21:07,240 –> 00:21:11,160
into Ethiopia, and by May 1936,
they were in Addis Ababa.
335
00:21:11,840 –> 00:21:15,600
These are just a few slides
of that conquest.
336
00:21:17,000 –> 00:21:18,840
The Italo Ethiopian conflict
337
00:21:18,840 –> 00:21:22,360
thus landed in Geneva with Ethiopia,
appealing to the league.
338
00:21:22,360 –> 00:21:25,440
On October 5th, 1935, two days
339
00:21:25,440 –> 00:21:28,960
after the attack,
this was the league’s test case.
340
00:21:28,960 –> 00:21:31,360
The only case in which the procedures
341
00:21:31,360 –> 00:21:34,920
laid out in Article
16 of the Covenant were followed.
342
00:21:35,440 –> 00:21:39,680
The aggressor named a League Coordination
committee set up
343
00:21:40,040 –> 00:21:43,840
sanctions on Italy
imposed by 51 member states.
344
00:21:44,960 –> 00:21:47,920
Of course, the league action was partial
for the Suez
345
00:21:47,920 –> 00:21:52,080
Canal was never closed and Italy’s oil
supplies were never cut off.
346
00:21:52,960 –> 00:21:57,120
Separate great power negotiations
considered continued along side
347
00:21:57,120 –> 00:22:00,640
to yielding in December, a joint British
348
00:22:00,640 –> 00:22:06,440
French proposal under which Abyssinia
was asked to cede significant portions
349
00:22:06,440 –> 00:22:12,440
of its territory to Italy and to place
further portions in an Italian zone.
350
00:22:12,600 –> 00:22:14,760
This is the horror level plan.
351
00:22:16,000 –> 00:22:20,040
These horror level proposals
were supposed to stop the war,
352
00:22:20,040 –> 00:22:23,760
but they evoked such a public outcry
that they had to be abandoned.
353
00:22:24,200 –> 00:22:27,040
The result was the worst of all possible
worlds.
354
00:22:27,480 –> 00:22:30,520
Ethiopia was destroyed,
but Italy left the league
355
00:22:30,520 –> 00:22:32,920
and moved into alliance with Germany
anyway.
356
00:22:33,520 –> 00:22:36,960
The league was fatally weakened,
but nothing was put in its place.
357
00:22:37,480 –> 00:22:40,280
The world in 1937 was a distinctly
358
00:22:40,280 –> 00:22:43,520
more dangerous place
than it had been in 1934
359
00:22:44,080 –> 00:22:46,520
for the great powers, certainly, but
360
00:22:46,520 –> 00:22:51,000
especially for the many and vulnerable
and small states
361
00:22:51,000 –> 00:22:53,960
who had looked to the covenant
to safeguard their independence.
362
00:22:55,280 –> 00:22:56,400
The damage to the
363
00:22:56,400 –> 00:23:00,280
European security system caused by
this episode is well understood,
364
00:23:01,200 –> 00:23:05,280
but the crisis also affected
the project of imperial legitimation
365
00:23:05,280 –> 00:23:08,520
and reform
that the league was trying to pursue.
366
00:23:09,240 –> 00:23:12,480
Italy’s war on Ethiopia
called what we might call
367
00:23:12,480 –> 00:23:16,400
framework trouble precisely
because Italy insisted
368
00:23:16,400 –> 00:23:19,560
that her war, too,
was a civilizing endeavor
369
00:23:19,560 –> 00:23:22,520
against a backward,
disorganized slave trading state.
370
00:23:23,160 –> 00:23:26,760
It insisted
that is that Italian rule fit perfectly
371
00:23:26,760 –> 00:23:30,160
within the framework of the mandate system
and the sacred trust.
372
00:23:30,760 –> 00:23:33,600
Imperial powers
and publics were forced to ask
373
00:23:33,600 –> 00:23:36,280
then whether that claim was right.
374
00:23:36,720 –> 00:23:39,840
Was Italy’s behavior
no different from their own?
375
00:23:40,400 –> 00:23:43,880
The powers and the peoples
answered this question differently.
376
00:23:44,200 –> 00:23:47,600
Let me take them in turn.
377
00:23:47,600 –> 00:23:50,120
When we think of the betrayal of Abyssinia
378
00:23:50,120 –> 00:23:53,240
by the great powers,
we usually think of the Laval pact.
379
00:23:53,400 –> 00:23:58,560
Again, the secret agreement
worked out by British Foreign Secretary
380
00:23:58,560 –> 00:24:02,320
Sir Samuel Hoare
and the French Premier, Pierre Laval.
381
00:24:02,880 –> 00:24:07,320
Since everyone knew
Laval would do anything to keep Italy out
382
00:24:07,320 –> 00:24:12,120
of the German camp, the agreement
destroyed horse reputation in particular.
383
00:24:12,720 –> 00:24:15,440
He was forced to resign
and would go down in history
384
00:24:15,440 –> 00:24:17,960
as the man who
had sold highly Selassie out.
385
00:24:19,280 –> 00:24:20,760
If we look closely at the
386
00:24:20,760 –> 00:24:24,080
diplomatic record, though,
this characterization falls apart.
387
00:24:24,800 –> 00:24:29,680
For Hoar was appointed in July 1935
to stiffen up British policy
388
00:24:29,960 –> 00:24:31,680
after four years of Sir
389
00:24:31,680 –> 00:24:35,320
John Simon, possibly
the worst foreign secretary in history.
390
00:24:36,160 –> 00:24:39,680
Simon had been so eager
to keep Mussolini friendly
391
00:24:39,920 –> 00:24:42,840
When Hawke came to the Foreign Office
and read through the record,
392
00:24:42,840 –> 00:24:45,760
he was shocked by his predecessor’s
defeatism.
393
00:24:46,360 –> 00:24:50,360
Britain had left let Mussolini off
far too lightly, Horse said.
394
00:24:50,680 –> 00:24:55,680
And if it allowed Italy to move against
Ethiopia, millions of colonial subject was
395
00:24:55,680 –> 00:24:59,080
subjects would rightly lose all confidence
in British rule.
396
00:24:59,840 –> 00:25:03,000
On taking office, Hoar
met with the service chiefs
397
00:25:03,000 –> 00:25:05,880
to make sure Britain was prepared for war
with Italy.
398
00:25:06,360 –> 00:25:09,600
And at the League
Assembly in September 1935,
399
00:25:09,600 –> 00:25:13,080
he proclaimed that Britain would fulfill
its obligations under the covenant
400
00:25:13,920 –> 00:25:19,440
when Italy attacked anyway, he argued
in cabinet and to Laval for oil sanctions.
401
00:25:19,960 –> 00:25:22,480
Hoar, in other words, became the fall guy
402
00:25:22,680 –> 00:25:26,320
for a policy of appeasement
that he had not authored.
403
00:25:26,840 –> 00:25:30,400
Others had worked it out
before Mussolini even attacked.
404
00:25:30,920 –> 00:25:31,760
Who did that?
405
00:25:32,880 –> 00:25:33,600
Especially
406
00:25:33,600 –> 00:25:36,440
important was none other than Sir
Eric Drummond,
407
00:25:36,840 –> 00:25:40,680
the league’s first secretary general,
who had left Geneva
408
00:25:41,040 –> 00:25:46,080
in 1933 in exhaustion
to become British ambassador to Rome.
409
00:25:46,840 –> 00:25:48,120
Here we have a puzzle.
410
00:25:48,120 –> 00:25:51,600
How could Drummond, a man
who had given the best years of his life
411
00:25:51,600 –> 00:25:55,080
to the league,
make the case for appeasing Italy?
412
00:25:55,680 –> 00:25:59,280
Let me take you into Foreign Office files
to follow his thought.
413
00:26:00,760 –> 00:26:04,480
We need to recognize first
that Foreign Secretary John
414
00:26:04,480 –> 00:26:08,880
Simon told Drummond
that no Ethiopian question
415
00:26:08,880 –> 00:26:12,360
should be allowed to affect Anglo
Italian relations.
416
00:26:13,440 –> 00:26:15,360
The British Consulate in Addis Ababa
417
00:26:15,360 –> 00:26:20,400
strenuously disagreed with that policy,
arguing that if England and France
418
00:26:20,400 –> 00:26:25,640
didn’t firmly warn Italy against attack,
it would surely attack.
419
00:26:26,640 –> 00:26:29,080
But Britain and France did not warn Italy,
420
00:26:29,680 –> 00:26:32,000
not until May 1935,
421
00:26:32,400 –> 00:26:35,840
after Italy had moved hundreds
of thousands of troops and thousands
422
00:26:35,840 –> 00:26:41,640
of tonnes of ammunition through the Suez
Canal into Eritrea and Italian Somaliland.
423
00:26:42,040 –> 00:26:46,160
Was Drummond told to warn Mussolini
not to force Britain, quote,
424
00:26:46,200 –> 00:26:49,960
to choose between their old friendship
with Italy and the support their support
425
00:26:49,960 –> 00:26:50,640
of the league.
426
00:26:51,760 –> 00:26:52,800
But that very
427
00:26:52,800 –> 00:26:55,560
late morning Drummond reported to Simon
428
00:26:55,800 –> 00:26:58,800
just brought Mussolini
completely into the open.
429
00:26:59,520 –> 00:27:04,240
Abyssinia was not a European question,
Mussolini insisted, and the league’s
430
00:27:04,280 –> 00:27:08,560
collective security regime
should be confined to Europe alone.
431
00:27:09,480 –> 00:27:13,760
Abyssinia, Mussolini
added, was, quote, a blot on civilization.
432
00:27:13,760 –> 00:27:18,880
A collection of tribes all backward, some
he alleged, even cannibalistic.
433
00:27:19,720 –> 00:27:23,560
Abyssinia was not worthy
of being a member of the league at all.
434
00:27:24,120 –> 00:27:27,080
So the league should not object
if Italy tried
435
00:27:27,080 –> 00:27:30,120
to bring order and progress
to such a state.
436
00:27:30,840 –> 00:27:33,400
Italy was,
after all, just doing what the French
437
00:27:33,400 –> 00:27:35,800
had done in Morocco
and the British in Egypt.
438
00:27:37,120 –> 00:27:40,840
This is the imperialist argument
in its most unvarnished form,
439
00:27:41,160 –> 00:27:44,280
and Drummond
probably didn’t enjoy listening to it.
440
00:27:45,000 –> 00:27:48,120
But over the next ten days,
Drummond worked
441
00:27:48,240 –> 00:27:52,320
to fit Italy’s argument
into the logic of the sacred trust.
442
00:27:53,040 –> 00:27:55,320
On June 1st, 1935,
443
00:27:55,600 –> 00:28:00,040
he sent Simon a very long memo
arguing for concessions to Italy.
444
00:28:01,440 –> 00:28:03,000
Italy, Drummond began,
445
00:28:03,000 –> 00:28:06,600
thought it had received
less than its due at the peace conference.
446
00:28:07,240 –> 00:28:10,200
It thus claimed a right to colonial
expansion
447
00:28:10,200 –> 00:28:12,920
and blamed Britain and France
for holding it back.
448
00:28:13,800 –> 00:28:18,120
The British in particular, were seen
as hypocrites who secure in their vast
449
00:28:18,120 –> 00:28:22,200
empire, evoked general principles
to opposed Italy’s claim.
450
00:28:23,200 –> 00:28:27,920
The Italian people had also been prepared
assiduously for war through
451
00:28:27,920 –> 00:28:33,000
a press campaign harping on Abyssinia
as barbarity, slave owning and warlordism.
452
00:28:33,680 –> 00:28:37,920
Italy, in other words, now
justified its war as a civilizing mission.
453
00:28:38,280 –> 00:28:41,520
Using language
very like that of the league covenant.
454
00:28:42,920 –> 00:28:46,360
But Drummond
didn’t just explain Italy’s grievances.
455
00:28:46,360 –> 00:28:48,440
He justified them.
456
00:28:48,440 –> 00:28:50,680
Ethiopia had promised the Italians
457
00:28:50,680 –> 00:28:53,200
economic concessions,
but hadn’t followed through.
458
00:28:54,040 –> 00:28:58,480
The Italian colonies
found the Abyssinian unruly neighbors.
459
00:28:58,920 –> 00:29:02,760
And then there was that quote, question
of slavery and barbarism.
460
00:29:02,760 –> 00:29:07,840
Jim Drummond dilated on this classic
justification of empire
461
00:29:08,640 –> 00:29:12,120
that the Abyssinian were, quote,
in spite of their Christian beliefs.
462
00:29:12,120 –> 00:29:13,680
In essence, barbaric.
463
00:29:13,680 –> 00:29:18,520
Few, I imagine, will be ready to deny
Abyssinia was, quote,
464
00:29:18,520 –> 00:29:21,520
an extremely backward country, far
465
00:29:21,520 –> 00:29:24,240
more backward than Syria or Iraq.
466
00:29:24,840 –> 00:29:28,520
And the peace conference had placed
both Syria and Iraq
467
00:29:29,040 –> 00:29:32,640
under mandate
rule under Britain and France.
468
00:29:34,240 –> 00:29:35,840
Civilizational hierarchy
469
00:29:35,840 –> 00:29:38,880
mattered more
then than Ethiopia sovereign rights.
470
00:29:39,560 –> 00:29:43,440
The league did need to keep the peace,
Drummond argued, but it could only do
471
00:29:43,440 –> 00:29:47,000
so if great power interests were better
aligned.
472
00:29:47,520 –> 00:29:52,080
And territorial concessions
to the, quote, have not great powers
473
00:29:52,440 –> 00:29:55,200
was necessary
to bring about that alignment.
474
00:29:55,800 –> 00:29:59,840
Surely, Drummond wrote,
all British statesmen
475
00:29:59,840 –> 00:30:04,280
would willingly grant Germany colony peace
to bring it back to Geneva,
476
00:30:04,800 –> 00:30:09,120
and if so, Italy deserved a larger
empire as well.
477
00:30:10,120 –> 00:30:13,960
Admittedly, he said, turning Ethiope
Bhaiya a league member,
478
00:30:14,240 –> 00:30:18,520
into a dependency presented
and I quote, peculiar difficulties.
479
00:30:19,240 –> 00:30:21,600
But Drummond wrote and again I quote,
480
00:30:21,840 –> 00:30:27,520
I submit that the situation is so grave
and the threat to the league so serious
481
00:30:27,880 –> 00:30:32,760
that every effort should be made to see
whether and if so, to what extent
482
00:30:33,240 –> 00:30:36,400
it is possible to assist senior Mussolini
483
00:30:36,960 –> 00:30:40,200
in the difficulties
in which he now finds himself
484
00:30:41,760 –> 00:30:43,160
to assist in your
485
00:30:43,160 –> 00:30:46,560
Mussolini, in the difficulties
in which he now finds himself.
486
00:30:47,040 –> 00:30:51,760
It seems worth pausing on this
fascinatingly indirect construction.
487
00:30:52,680 –> 00:30:56,080
Italian troops were poised on Ethiopia’s
borders. No.
488
00:30:56,200 –> 00:30:57,720
North and south.
489
00:30:57,720 –> 00:30:58,600
But it was Italy.
490
00:30:58,600 –> 00:31:03,360
Drummond insisted that found itself in
difficulties and deserved Britain’s aid.
491
00:31:04,200 –> 00:31:08,480
Drummond didn’t think the great powers
should just hand Ethiopia over,
492
00:31:09,120 –> 00:31:13,360
but he did think Italian hegemony
could be established by degree,
493
00:31:13,800 –> 00:31:18,640
save by replacing all foreign advisers
in Ethiopia with Italians
494
00:31:19,080 –> 00:31:22,280
and buying
allowing Italy to garrison troops there.
495
00:31:23,480 –> 00:31:26,040
Mussolini should thus be told that Britain
496
00:31:26,040 –> 00:31:29,440
would not tolerate
forcible contact conquest,
497
00:31:30,560 –> 00:31:32,800
but that it did want to help shift
498
00:31:32,800 –> 00:31:35,280
Ethiopia into Italy’s speaker.
499
00:31:36,320 –> 00:31:42,400
And it should make it clear to Ethiopia
that if the worst comes to the worst,
500
00:31:42,400 –> 00:31:47,400
neither Britain nor France, quote, has
the slightest intention of backing her up.
501
00:31:48,880 –> 00:31:51,000
Drummond’s memorandum, in other words,
502
00:31:51,000 –> 00:31:54,720
reconciled Italian ambitions
and league principles.
503
00:31:55,320 –> 00:31:58,960
If at the cost of making what is clear
504
00:31:58,960 –> 00:32:01,680
what internationalizing empire
505
00:32:03,520 –> 00:32:05,840
peace was, peace among the great powers.
506
00:32:06,280 –> 00:32:10,320
And if Ethiopia had to pay a price
for that comedy, so be it.
507
00:32:11,400 –> 00:32:13,520
There were hierarchies
of peoples and claims,
508
00:32:13,880 –> 00:32:17,880
and it had been a mistake to place
Ethiopia in the civilized camp.
509
00:32:18,720 –> 00:32:23,000
Drummond’s thinking echoed through
the cabinet, with Neville Chamberlain,
510
00:32:23,000 –> 00:32:28,320
noting that it wasn’t Italy’s desire
to rule Ethiopia, which was only natural,
511
00:32:28,920 –> 00:32:31,680
but rather the desire to achieve that
512
00:32:31,680 –> 00:32:34,120
through force that Britain objected to.
513
00:32:34,960 –> 00:32:39,120
Should we be surprised that it is
Chamberlain who would hand portions
514
00:32:39,120 –> 00:32:43,040
of Czechoslovakia to Germany to preserve
great power agreement?
515
00:32:44,320 –> 00:32:48,200
But Drummond’s effort at appeasement
failed, partly
516
00:32:48,200 –> 00:32:52,800
because Mussolini genuinely wanted war
an attack that October,
517
00:32:53,280 –> 00:32:55,680
but also because it aroused
518
00:32:56,080 –> 00:32:58,840
enormous international opposition.
519
00:33:00,120 –> 00:33:02,560
This is
the fourth and final part of this talk.
520
00:33:03,360 –> 00:33:04,800
So why was that?
521
00:33:04,800 –> 00:33:09,200
Of course, imperial atrocities
had aroused international censure before.
522
00:33:09,600 –> 00:33:12,280
Think of the campaign against Leopold’s
brutal regime
523
00:33:12,280 –> 00:33:16,040
in the Congo
or the outcry over the Amritsar massacre.
524
00:33:16,080 –> 00:33:18,520
There are many such cases.
525
00:33:18,520 –> 00:33:22,080
But these imperial scandals
were thought of as deviations from
526
00:33:22,080 –> 00:33:24,720
and not characteristic of imperial rule.
527
00:33:25,600 –> 00:33:29,600
The Italo Ethiopian war was different
for many.
528
00:33:29,600 –> 00:33:32,880
It had undermined the imperial order
as a whole.
529
00:33:33,600 –> 00:33:36,440
And it did this precisely
because of the public ness
530
00:33:36,680 –> 00:33:38,880
that lay
at the heart of the league project.
531
00:33:39,880 –> 00:33:43,680
For if Drummond’s
memoranda were secret and Hall
532
00:33:43,680 –> 00:33:47,000
Laval tried to keep their negotiations
secret,
533
00:33:47,640 –> 00:33:49,800
leak actions took place in public.
534
00:33:50,640 –> 00:33:52,960
Sanctions were imposed publicly,
535
00:33:52,960 –> 00:33:55,640
and the limits of those
sanctions were public, too.
536
00:33:57,000 –> 00:33:59,560
The war was a media extravaganza.
537
00:34:00,240 –> 00:34:02,480
200 Italian journalists
538
00:34:03,120 –> 00:34:08,840
were embedded, as we would now say,
with the Italian army, 170 accredited
539
00:34:08,840 –> 00:34:11,640
foreign correspondents were in Addis
when the fight began.
540
00:34:12,680 –> 00:34:15,440
The war was photographed and filmed,
and rival
541
00:34:15,440 –> 00:34:19,080
charges of atrocities
winged their way around the world.
542
00:34:20,240 –> 00:34:23,040
By May, the war was largely out.
543
00:34:23,320 –> 00:34:27,680
By May, as war was over
largely over, in part because of Italy’s
544
00:34:28,040 –> 00:34:31,320
use of bombardment and of poison gas.
545
00:34:32,200 –> 00:34:35,880
Italy, and I quote, would not have
obtained success before the rains.
546
00:34:36,240 –> 00:34:39,320
This is the British War Office, judging
547
00:34:39,640 –> 00:34:42,120
if they had not resorted to gas warfare.
548
00:34:43,680 –> 00:34:45,760
So Ethiopia lost the war
549
00:34:46,440 –> 00:34:49,400
with highly Selassie
taking exile in England.
550
00:34:50,080 –> 00:34:54,480
But the media war
that Ethiopia unquestionably won
551
00:34:55,680 –> 00:34:57,960
anticolonial and African diaspora
552
00:34:58,320 –> 00:35:01,640
groups protested early and in numbers.
553
00:35:02,440 –> 00:35:07,440
A hands off Ethiopia movement
sprung up in Harlem, Chicago and elsewhere
554
00:35:07,920 –> 00:35:12,680
in London in the summer of 1945,
before the war had even begun.
555
00:35:13,000 –> 00:35:18,520
George Padmore, CLR James
and other Diaspora anti-imperialist,
556
00:35:18,520 –> 00:35:22,640
anti-imperialist intellectuals
formed the International African
557
00:35:22,640 –> 00:35:26,880
Friends of Abyssinia and later
the International African Service.
558
00:35:27,480 –> 00:35:31,320
But demonstrations of Support
and Solidarity campaign sprang up
559
00:35:31,320 –> 00:35:35,400
across the colonies, too, from Jamaica
to Cairo to Nutall,
560
00:35:36,160 –> 00:35:41,040
Colonial Secretary William ORMSBY-GORE
had warned that Britain’s failure
561
00:35:41,040 –> 00:35:44,960
to support Ethiopia would create,
and I quote, a sense of rankling
562
00:35:44,960 –> 00:35:49,720
injustice and bitter
anti-white propaganda throughout Africa.
563
00:35:50,760 –> 00:35:52,280
And it did
564
00:35:52,600 –> 00:35:57,080
for black anti-imperialist,
Though Italian aggression and Anglo-French
565
00:35:57,320 –> 00:36:00,160
collusion confirmed
what they already knew.
566
00:36:00,960 –> 00:36:04,880
But sympathy for Ethiopia
bubbled up in less expected quarters
567
00:36:04,880 –> 00:36:07,960
to the only arms that made their way
568
00:36:07,960 –> 00:36:11,000
to Ethiopia came remarkably from Germany,
569
00:36:11,560 –> 00:36:14,560
and the Japanese government
found it hard to prevent
570
00:36:14,560 –> 00:36:18,720
not just students but army officers
from supporting Ethiopia to
571
00:36:19,600 –> 00:36:22,320
the conflict
shattered the cherished assumptions
572
00:36:22,320 –> 00:36:25,280
long held by liberal internationalists
as well.
573
00:36:26,080 –> 00:36:30,240
Liberal Britons thought of their empire
as a defender of civilization.
574
00:36:31,080 –> 00:36:34,720
Now the Ethiopians were persuasively
claiming that role.
575
00:36:35,680 –> 00:36:39,920
Indeed, once the news of Italian
use of gas became widespread,
576
00:36:40,200 –> 00:36:44,880
it became hard to use the term
civilization, except, ironically,
577
00:36:45,640 –> 00:36:50,520
punch printed cartoons about the black
man’s burden or showing barbarism
578
00:36:50,520 –> 00:36:54,760
as a peaceful village and civilization
as a bombed and blighted moonscape.
579
00:36:55,600 –> 00:37:00,200
Even the Times put the words
civilizing mission in scare quotes
580
00:37:01,480 –> 00:37:01,840
when the
581
00:37:01,840 –> 00:37:05,960
Italians tried to resurrect that language
at the close of their conquest.
582
00:37:06,000 –> 00:37:08,160
And it just didn’t work.
583
00:37:08,160 –> 00:37:10,680
The French had urged Mussolini to promise
584
00:37:10,680 –> 00:37:14,200
to govern Ethiopia
according to mandate rules.
585
00:37:14,840 –> 00:37:20,800
So Count Ciano, Mussolini’s bombastic
son in law, wrote the league promising
586
00:37:20,800 –> 00:37:24,160
that Italy’s work in Ethiopia was, quote,
587
00:37:24,200 –> 00:37:27,440
a sacred mission of civilization.
588
00:37:27,440 –> 00:37:30,600
Italy would protect native
well-being and suppress slavery,
589
00:37:30,640 –> 00:37:34,200
he said, a blot of infamy
on the old regime.
590
00:37:35,120 –> 00:37:37,920
But against that note came
the personal appearance
591
00:37:37,920 –> 00:37:41,400
of Highly Selassie
at the Assembly on June 30th.
592
00:37:42,880 –> 00:37:47,520
The Italian advance had been achieved
primarily through gas attacks.
593
00:37:47,560 –> 00:37:50,960
Selassie pointed out a very refinement
594
00:37:50,960 –> 00:37:54,760
of barbarism
that had carried devastation and terror
595
00:37:54,760 –> 00:37:57,640
into the most densely
populated parts of the country.
596
00:37:58,440 –> 00:38:02,600
All states of the world had an interest
in repelling such brutality.
597
00:38:02,920 –> 00:38:07,520
For if it were allowed against Ethiopia,
it would be allowed against other nations
598
00:38:07,520 –> 00:38:10,520
as well, apart from the Kingdom of God.
599
00:38:10,680 –> 00:38:14,320
There is not on this earth
any nation that is higher than any other,
600
00:38:14,320 –> 00:38:16,880
Selassie said.
601
00:38:16,880 –> 00:38:19,560
Italy had done everything
it could to protect,
602
00:38:19,560 –> 00:38:21,960
prevent highly Selassie from speaking.
603
00:38:22,640 –> 00:38:26,640
Selassie was no longer a head of state
and represented no one, they charged.
604
00:38:27,240 –> 00:38:30,920
But the Assembly had not yet
recognized the Italian conquest.
605
00:38:30,920 –> 00:38:34,680
And when it became clear that the guilt
ridden delegates would not bar him.
606
00:38:35,160 –> 00:38:39,600
Ciano distributed whistles
to Italian journalists in the gallery.
607
00:38:40,160 –> 00:38:44,000
Selassie’s first words
were drowned out in piping and catcalls.
608
00:38:44,280 –> 00:38:48,840
But then the security officers
bundled the Italians out.
609
00:38:49,360 –> 00:38:51,400
Allah portly show.
610
00:38:51,400 –> 00:38:54,080
Show the barbarians, that is the Italians.
611
00:38:54,080 –> 00:38:56,560
The door shouted the Romanian delegate.
612
00:38:58,120 –> 00:39:01,320
We can be in the hall for this episode.
613
00:39:01,320 –> 00:39:03,560
So I want to show up.
614
00:39:03,560 –> 00:39:08,360
Just a newsreel clip,
if you can put it on.
615
00:39:08,520 –> 00:39:11,040
Okay.
616
00:39:13,960 –> 00:39:17,360
At the League of Nations a grave disturbance today.
617
00:39:17,360 –> 00:39:20,480
Haile Selassie comes to plead for his lost Empire.
618
00:39:20,880 –> 00:39:23,480
He wants them to make Mussolini give up Ethiopia.
619
00:39:23,800 –> 00:39:30,120
The Geneva crowds are for him but the exiled Emperor will need his imperturbable dignity before the day is over.
620
00:39:30,120 –> 00:39:36,840
British Foreign Minister Eden Soviet delegate Litvinov on the left and French premier Blum and all the statesmen
621
00:39:36,920 –> 00:39:41,760
instead of helping Haile Selassie have decided to lift the sanctions against Italy
622
00:39:41,920 –> 00:39:44,960
The introduction of the Emperor in English
623
00:39:45,480 –> 00:39:51,040
“His majesty Menelik Haile Selassie, I call upon the first delegation of Ethiopia,
624
00:39:51,040 –> 00:39:56,040
the speech you are about to hear will be given in the Empiric language”
625
00:39:56,440 –> 00:40:01,480
In the shadows of the press gallery Italian newspaper men are ready for an outbreak against the Emperor
626
00:40:05,280 –> 00:40:08,440
whose country their country has taken waiting for his first words.
627
00:40:25,920 –> 00:40:28,720
Trying to quell the disturbance lights turned out
628
00:40:34,160 –> 00:40:39,760
again lights out the disturbers ejected arrested and he is able to make his appeal
629
00:40:54,480 –> 00:41:01,920
an ovation yes but he gets no help the league lifts the sanctions against Italy applause and that’s all.
630
00:41:03,760 –> 00:41:04,840
Okay.
631
00:41:05,640 –> 00:41:08,160
That’s
what happens when you use YouTube. But
632
00:41:10,240 –> 00:41:15,480
I think it’s a remarkable thing
just to have those clips.
633
00:41:15,480 –> 00:41:19,000
All of the Pathé
Archive is also up on the Web.
634
00:41:19,000 –> 00:41:20,640
So you have
635
00:41:21,000 –> 00:41:23,760
newsreels from everywhere
through this whole period.
636
00:41:25,120 –> 00:41:27,440
What we see perfectly performed here
637
00:41:27,600 –> 00:41:30,440
is that contradiction
the league couldn’t resolve.
638
00:41:31,080 –> 00:41:34,680
It was supposed to be an alliance of equal
and sovereign states,
639
00:41:34,680 –> 00:41:39,440
meaning openly and publicly to defend
common norms and international law.
640
00:41:40,160 –> 00:41:43,640
This is why Selassie
had to be allowed to speak.
641
00:41:44,520 –> 00:41:49,320
By the time he did, though, his country
was occupied for the league had no army,
642
00:41:49,320 –> 00:41:52,800
only the most powerful league states
could have intervened
643
00:41:53,400 –> 00:41:56,960
and they had concluded that they could
preserve their own security
644
00:41:57,320 –> 00:42:01,080
and their empires by,
letting Italy get away with it.
645
00:42:02,120 –> 00:42:03,320
Two years later, with
646
00:42:03,320 –> 00:42:06,360
the league system destroyed,
they would again purchase peace
647
00:42:06,360 –> 00:42:12,000
by forcing a small country
to cede territory.
648
00:42:12,000 –> 00:42:15,760
So I hope today I’ve persuaded you
of the importance of this crisis
649
00:42:15,760 –> 00:42:19,800
as a moment when the tensions
between a logic of equal sovereignty
650
00:42:19,800 –> 00:42:23,880
and a logic of empire was made visible
and delegitimized.
651
00:42:24,840 –> 00:42:29,240
I want to close, though, with a comment
about how the United Nations has
652
00:42:29,240 –> 00:42:32,280
and has not built on this league
precedent.
653
00:42:33,880 –> 00:42:37,080
I mentioned at the opening
that it has expanded
654
00:42:37,080 –> 00:42:39,880
international cooperation
and the Secretariat,
655
00:42:40,640 –> 00:42:44,160
but how has it handled
these methods, matters
656
00:42:44,160 –> 00:42:46,200
of security and sovereignty?
657
00:42:47,280 –> 00:42:49,240
Certainly the United Nations
658
00:42:49,240 –> 00:42:51,320
promoted decolonization
659
00:42:52,280 –> 00:42:57,240
and upheld the norm so unevenly applied
by the League of Self-government
660
00:42:57,240 –> 00:43:01,720
and State Sovereignty
for all peoples as a unit.
661
00:43:01,800 –> 00:43:02,760
As a result,
662
00:43:03,880 –> 00:43:08,440
the United Nations.
663
00:43:08,440 –> 00:43:09,160
Yeah,
664
00:43:10,120 –> 00:43:12,400
the United Nations
665
00:43:12,400 –> 00:43:14,760
has an enormous membership.
666
00:43:14,760 –> 00:43:18,440
192 members, unlike the league,
667
00:43:18,440 –> 00:43:23,040
which was between 40, about 45
668
00:43:23,040 –> 00:43:27,080
and about 58 most of the time.
669
00:43:27,080 –> 00:43:30,600
Nor do states
leave the United Nations with impunity.
670
00:43:31,680 –> 00:43:37,080
But if the league has sustained
sovereignty this is partly because
671
00:43:37,080 –> 00:43:44,360
the nature of sovereignty has changed
and it’s become more constrained.
672
00:43:44,360 –> 00:43:49,600
And if it’s managed to hold its members
even when they fight among each other,
673
00:43:50,360 –> 00:43:55,760
this doesn’t mean it has figured out how
to resolve those quarrels and conflicts.
674
00:43:56,280 –> 00:44:01,200
Yes, the United Nations, like the league,
has sometimes imposed sanctions
675
00:44:01,200 –> 00:44:04,720
on so-called rogue states
and has sent peacekeeping
676
00:44:04,720 –> 00:44:07,000
missions to conflict zones.
677
00:44:07,760 –> 00:44:10,880
But it has accepted, in fact,
if not in law,
678
00:44:11,400 –> 00:44:14,600
that security pacts will be regional,
not global.
679
00:44:15,200 –> 00:44:19,320
And it has ensured its survival
by finding a mechanism through which
680
00:44:19,320 –> 00:44:25,400
to give great powers a degree of license,
the degree of license they demand.
681
00:44:26,120 –> 00:44:28,680
This mechanism
is the Security Council veto.
682
00:44:29,560 –> 00:44:33,160
The Italian, Italian,
Ethiopian war broke the league
683
00:44:33,480 –> 00:44:37,360
not just because a great power subjected
a fellow league state,
684
00:44:37,880 –> 00:44:41,320
but because Italy was not able
to keep the conflict
685
00:44:41,360 –> 00:44:45,600
off the international table
as great powers later would do.
686
00:44:46,280 –> 00:44:49,840
If the measure of success
for international institutions
687
00:44:49,840 –> 00:44:55,120
is survival, the Security Council veto
was a brilliant innovation,
688
00:44:55,760 –> 00:45:00,960
but it had a cost, which is that
a small state attacked by a great power
689
00:45:00,960 –> 00:45:05,160
cannot really look to the United Nations
for mediation or salvation.
690
00:45:05,640 –> 00:45:09,000
And I will leave you to decide
whether this is progress.
691
00:45:10,520 –> 00:45:11,400
Thank you.