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31 Part I ‘Misconduct’ and disunity This first part of the book considers French behaviours under occupation that challenge the narrative of dignified suffering and patriotism.1 There is a temptation simply to label such behaviours ‘collaboration’, as certain historians have done.2 I believe that this should be avoided. Only very few members of the occupied population used the word in a negative sense,3 making its use anachronistic –although anachronistic terms can still be useful to historians. Yet the term is too associated in French cultural and historical
). Craze , J. , Tubiana , J. and Gramizzi , C. ( 2016 ), A State of Disunity: Conflict Dynamics in Unity State, South Sudan, 2013–15 , HSBA Working Paper 42 ( Geneva : Small Arms Survey ). de Waal , A. ( 2015 ), The Real Politics of the Horn of
This study considers the ways in which locals of the occupied Nord responded to and understood their situation across four years of German domination, focusing in particular on key behaviours adopted by locals, and the way in which such conduct was perceived. Behaviours examined include forms of complicity, misconduct, disunity, criminality, and resistance. This local case study calls into question overly-patriotic readings of this experience, and suggests a new conceptual vocabulary to help understand certain civilian behaviours under military occupation.
Drawing on extensive primary documentation – from diaries and letters to posters and police reports – this book proposes that a dominant ‘occupied culture’ existed among locals. This was a moral-patriotic framework, born of both pre-war socio-cultural norms and daily interaction with the enemy, that guided conduct and was especially concerned with what was considered acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. Those who breached the limits of this occupied culture faced criticism and sometimes punishment. This study attempts to disentangle perceptions and reality, but also argues that the clear beliefs and expectations of the occupied French comprise a fascinating subject of study in their own right. They provide an insight into national and local identity, and especially the way in which locals understood their role within the wider conflict.
This book will be useful to undergraduates, post-graduates and academics interested in an understudied aspect of the history of modern France, the First World War, and military occupations.
3 The struggle for control of the Durham Miners’ Association, 1890s–1915* Lewis H. Mates Introduction This chapter offers a case study from the era that saw the emergence of the Labour Party. It focuses on the various forms of division and cleavage that impacted on the functioning of the Durham Miners’ Association (DMA) as political activists sought to control it. This affords insights into three major forms of disunity: intra-organisational, inter-organisational and that between labour organisations and ‘spontaneous’ working-class protest. It explores two
therefore to put this disconcerting moment into historical perspective, to show that the present disunities are nothing new and are far from capturing every source of disagreement within the British labour movement. The British labour movement, from its inception, was never a homogeneous entity, not even in those rare phases when unity seemed to prevail over fracture and factionalism. Some moments appeared, at the time, as triumphs of class solidarity: 1906 and the formation of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP); 1926 and the Trades Union Congress’s (TUC)’s call for a
example major policy or presentational failures when in office – though common threads can again be detected. Labour often loses when it falls short in the areas outlined above as being preconditions for success: when it has been unable to rely on dislike of the Tory alternative; has struggled to counter the ‘fear factor’ over its intentions; or when it has failed to inspire credibility and trust. A short overview of Labour’s post-war losses also underlines the importance of two further key determinants: disunity and poor leadership. 12 David Howell, British Social
incontestable regimes, to be defended in their entirety. All other struggles, social, political, religious, were put aside.’6 I will suggest that, although there were many acts of unity, the occupied French did not engage in unqualified solidarity. Indeed, the experience of occupation offered opportunities for and even encouraged expressions of disunity among locals, beyond forms of misconduct examined thus far. Such a state of affairs may seem self-evident, but it has rarely been studied. Religious conflict Tensions between the Third Republic and Catholicism, especially
. 6 Like Hari Singh before him, Sheikh Abdullah lacked the skills to obtain independence for ‘Kashmir’. Similarly, he didn't realise that he had become politically redundant. In a blight on India's democracy, Karan Singh sacked J&K's elected Prime Minister in 1953. Abdullah's Government supposedly ‘had lost the confidence of the people’ 7 and its disunity ‘gravely jeopardized’ J&K, 8 but its popularity was not allowed to be tested in the J
Docklands area of the capital provided another example of political cross-over between different wings of the movement, but put into sharp relief many of the tensions and conflicts which hampered efforts at collaboration. Start-up funds for the centre had been provided through a joint Crass and Poison Girls benefit single, but relations between the anarchist punks, the London Autonomists group and others remained fraught and, although the venue hosted many gigs and a number of political events, the centre closed within a year. 24 Division and disunity still afflicted
the party. New policy initiatives may exacerbate disagreement within the party ranks and create an electorally damaging sense of party disunity. One problem likely to affect parties which have suffered a series of defeats is that those who remain inside the party as members will be the most resistant to change to counter opposing parties. Using Hirschman’s terminology (Hirschman, 1990), exit will remove those most susceptible to the appeal of a competing party. Those who remain display loyalty but their exercise of voice may be an impediment to reform. Moreover