Cultural Education as Containment of Communism: The Ambivalent Position of American NGOs in Hong Kong in the 1950s

2010 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 3-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grace Ai-Ling Chou
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Cultural Significance ◽  
Educational Work ◽  
Governmental Organizations ◽  
Non Governmental Organizations ◽  
Strategic Value ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
A Site ◽  
The Cold War

This article discusses the ambivalent role of U.S. non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in shaping Hong Kong's institutions of higher education in the 1950s. Cold War concerns about Communist expansion induced the NGOs to pursue ideological goals that were not part of their main mission, even as they continued policy directions that superseded and sometimes unintentionally counteracted Cold War thinking and strategies. Hong Kong, as a site important but marginal to both China and Britain, had strategic value in the Cold War and as such impelled many different forces to contest it. By examining how U.S. NGO educational work in Hong Kong both reinforced and destabilized Cold War ideology, one gains a clearer picture not only of Hong Kong's cultural significance in Cold War politics but also the ambiguity of Cold War intellectual paradigms of culture and education.

Between Idealism and Pragmatism

2019 ◽  
pp. 46-72
Author(s):  
Jing Jing Chang
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Documentary Film ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Film Culture ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Integral Component ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
The Cold War

Chapter 2 traces the development of Hong Kong’s official film culture during the 1950s and 1960s within the contexts of the documentary film movement, the imperial legacy of the British Colonial Film Unit, and the colonial rhetoric of film literacy. In particular, it uses such Hong Kong Film Unit-produced short features as Report to the Gods (Dir. Brian Salt, 1967), starring local opera talent Leung Sing-por, as archival sources to argue that the colonial regime’s relationship with Hong Kong’s population was not a static vertical imposition of the “culture of depoliticization,” but one that was shifting and characterized by manipulation, misunderstanding, and negotiation amid bipolarized Cold War tension. I argue here that British Hong Kong’s involvement in filmmaking activities expose the top-down imposition of a colonial regime as well as the transformative nature of colonial rule during the Cold War period of the 1950s through 1960s. Official film culture should not be seen merely as tools of colonial governance or a means of indoctrinating subject audiences, but rather was part of an overall “strategy for survival” as well as an integral component in the process of screening the local Hong Kong “colonial” citizenry during the Cold War.

Labor, the UN and the Cold War

1957 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harold Karan Jacobson
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
San Francisco ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
World Federation ◽  
Governmental Organizations ◽  
Non Governmental Organizations ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Cold War

One of the significant structural differences between the organization of economic and social work under the League and under the United Nations is the extent to which non-governmental organizations (NGO's) have been allowed to participate. NGO's have been granted far greater privileges in the UN than they enjoyed in the League. Initially, they were formally recognized in Article 71 of the Charter, which gives the Economic and Social Council the right to make “suitable arrangements” for consultation with them. While defined in differing ways during different periods, consultative status under this article has, subject to various conditions, always included the right to participate in the debates of ECOSOC, its commissions and committees, and to propose items for inclusion in their provisional agenda. NGO's have made extensive use of these privileges. Their use, however, as well as the entire record of NGO action in the UN, has been inseparably linked with the cold war. Russian demands at San Francisco for privileges for the newly created, communist-controlled World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) were a contributing factor in the decision to include Article 71 in the Charter. The initial definition of this article resulted primarily from the interaction of pressures by the Soviet Union and the WFTU and the western response.

scholarly journals Field Diplomacy: A New Conflict Prevention Paradigm?

1997 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luc Reychler
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Conflict Prevention ◽  
Conflict Zones ◽  
Governmental Organizations ◽  
The North ◽  
Non Governmental Organizations ◽  
Religious Extremism ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
North And South ◽  
Very High

One of the most important challenges facing the global community in the next decade, is the prevention of destructive conflicts. Listening to the discourse in the United Nations and other governmental and non governmental organizations this may sound like kicking in wide open doors (Bauwens and Reychler, 1994). But the failure of conflict prevention and the high number of conflict zones, indicates that we still have a long way to go. A global survey of contemporary conflicts counts 22 high-intensity and 39 lowerintensity conflicts, and 40 serious disputes (PIOOM, 1995). In 1995 five groups were victims of genocides or politicides. The risks of future victimization of 47 communities in different parts of the world is assessed as high of very high (PIOOM, 1995). The growth of nationalist feelings at the end of the Cold War is only the beginning of more suffering. More conflicts are expected, with old and new causes, such as the unequal or unfair trade balances between North and South, unemployment in the North, the environmental pollution, religious extremism, mass immigration and the growing number of failed states. These problems could hurt people so much that they would be prepared to fight for them.

Hong Kong and the Cold War in the 1950s

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tracy Steele
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Competing Interests ◽  
British Policy ◽  
East And Southeast Asia ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
The Cold War

Despite periods of internal agitation and international tension, in the 1950s the British did not fear the imminent loss of Hong Kong, which they believed was of value to the Chinese Communists as it stood. Still, the British were never complacent. During times of tension in East and Southeast Asia, British defense planning for Hong Kong went into high gear, but the inescapable reality was that Hong Kong could not be held without American air cover. The divergent British and American approaches to recognition of the PRC and ROC made matters murkier. Actions by both Chinese governments caused multifarious problems that threatened to divide the British and Americans. Despite entreaties from Colonial officials in Hong Kong to rein in the Americans and their Nationalist allies, throughout the 1950s British policy makers usually placed greater emphasis on preserving harmonious Anglo-American relations. As the British balanced competing interests, while always bearing in mind the goal of retaining Hong Kong, the course they steered to accomplish this often appeared more contradictory and vague than it did clear and decisive. However confusing the tactics, the objective remained the same.

Overpopulation Debates in Latin America during the Cold War

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eve Buckley
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
The United States ◽  
Family Welfare ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Governmental Organizations ◽  
Non Governmental Organizations ◽  
The Cold War

From the 1950s to the 1970s, numerous academics and non-governmental organizations based in the United States generated alarm about political and ecological threats posed by human population growth. During the first half of the 20th century, improvements in nutrition, sanitation, and medical therapies had dramatically reduced infant mortality and contributed to increased life expectancy in many parts of the world. In the context of the Cold War, many leaders of Western industrialized nations viewed the rapid growth of poor Asian, African, and Latin American populations as a potential source of political instability. They feared that these poor masses would become fodder for revolutionary political movements, particularly communism. Combined with eugenicist views rooted in colonial racism, new understanding of ecological systems, and growing concern about overtaxing earth’s resources, these fears led many American and European scholars and activists to promote population reduction in the newly designated “Third World.” In Latin America, such efforts to curb human increase were met with skepticism or outright opposition by both Catholic Church leaders and many left-wing nationalists who saw the promotion of birth control as a form of racist imperialism. Although some physicians and even liberal priests viewed decreasing family size as important for public health and family welfare, the involvement of North American capitalists (such as the Rockefellers), U.S. government agencies, and former eugenicists in efforts to distribute contraceptive technologies made them deeply suspect in the eyes of many Latin Americans.

scholarly journals Institutionalizing cultural Europeanism: between transnationalism and national identity (1948-1954)

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. e009
Author(s):  
Luis Domínguez Castro ◽  
José Ramón Rodríguez Lago
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Cold War ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Council Of Europe ◽  
Multilateral Cooperation ◽  
European Centre ◽  
Model Based ◽  
Governmental Organizations ◽  
Non Governmental Organizations ◽  
The Cold War

Cultural Europeanism is a variant of the process of European integration attested within the framework of the Cold War. It will be mostly anti-communist, although it will couch elements favouring West-East dialogue. The governments will promote an intergovernmental model based on multilateral cooperation and national identity, and put into practice in institutions such as the Western Union or the Council of Europe. Non-governmental organizations, such as the European Movement, will be committed to a more transnational model based on the affirmation and promotion of the idea of Europe through institutions such as the College of Europe, the European Centre for Culture or the European Cultural Foundation. Within cultural Europeanism, networks of secondary institutionalization, such as educational seminars, ended up having as much or more impact than the primary entities from which they emerged.

Screening Communities

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jing Jing Chang
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Cultural Work ◽  
Film Culture ◽  
The Social ◽  
Hong Kong Cinema ◽  
Close Study ◽  
A Site ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Political Turmoil

Screening Communities uses multi-media archival sources, including government archives, memoirs, fan magazines, newspaper reports, and films to narrate the complexity of social change and political turmoil, both screened and lived, in postwar Hong Kong. In particular, Screening Communities explores the political, ideological, and cultural work of Hong Kong film culture and its role in the building of a postwar Hong Kong community during the 1950s and 1960s, which was as much defined by lived experiences as by a cinematic construction, forged through negotiations between narratives of empire, nation, and the Cold War in and beyond Hong Kong. As such, in order to appreciate the complex formation of colonial Hong Kong society, Screening Communities situates the analysis of the “poetics” of postwar Hong Kong film culture within the larger global processes of colonialism, nationalism, industrialization, and Cold War. It argues that postwar Hong Kong cinema is a three-pronged process of “screening community” that takes into account the factors of colonial governance, filmic expression of left-leaning Cantonese filmmakers, and the social makeup of audiences as discursive agents. Through a close study of genre conventions, characterization, and modes of filmic narration across select Cantonese films and government documentaries, I contend that 1950s and 1960s Hong Kong cinema, broadly construed, became a site par excellence for the construction and translation (on the ground and onscreen) of a postwar Hong Kong community, whose context was continually shifting—at once indigenous and hybrid, postcolonial and global.

scholarly journals Using Geopolitics in the Comparative Analysis of Two International Systems Based on Factors Considered Relevant

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 94-99
Author(s):  
Anca Dinicu
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International System ◽  
The State ◽  
International Governance ◽  
Governmental Organizations ◽  
Non Governmental Organizations ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
National Economies ◽  
International Systems ◽  
Objective Being

Abstract The international scene is still modeled on the states’ interests, despite the challenges of non-state actors, whose international policy intervention can not be described as new. The state still continues to play a central role in shaping the international system, even if it is forced to act in an environment where large corporations are designing many of the national economies of states whose nationality they do not have, and non-governmental organizations are at the outskirts of an emerging global civil society, which could jeopardize the state’s right and obligation to prevent injustice, and considering that at the global level there is no entity able to issue regulations in this regard, all of which amid testing international governance models. Looking retrospectively, during the Cold War, the state was much stronger and the threats which it had to face were characterized by a much higher degree of predictability. This paper aims to analyze the contemporary international system by reference to that specific to the Cold War, based on factors considered relevant, the objective being to identify the possibility of turning the present international system to a new Cold War.

The More the Merrier? The Effects of Having Multiple International Election Monitoring Organizations

2009 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Kelley
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Dominant Role ◽  
Organizational Politics ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Governmental Organizations ◽  
Non Governmental Organizations ◽  
Election Monitoring ◽  
The Cold War

As the pressure to invite international election monitors rose at the end of the Cold War, states refused to grant the United Nations a dominant role. Thus, today multiple intergovernmental, regional, and international non-governmental organizations often monitor the same elections with equal authority. This article examines the costs and benefits of this complex regime to highlight some possible broader implications of regime complexity. It argues that the availability of many different organizations facilitates action that might otherwise have been blocked for political reasons. Furthermore, when different international election monitoring agencies agree, their consensus can bolster their individual legitimacy as well as the legitimacy of the international norms they stress, and thus magnify their influence on domestic politics. Unfortunately the election monitoring example also suggests that complex regimes can engender damaging inter-organizational politics and that the different biases, capabilities, and standards of organizations sometime can lead organizations to outright contradict each other or work at cross-purposes.

scholarly journals Saints on Stage: Popular Hagiography in Post-WWII Italy

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 216
Author(s):  
Daniela Cavallaro
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Young People ◽  
Educational Goal ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Lives Of The Saints

This article brings to light several examples of the hagiographic plays staged in Italy during the 1950s and early 1960s in parishes, schools, and oratories. The article begins with a brief introduction to the continued tradition of staging the lives of the saints for educational purposes, which focuses on the origins, aims, and main characteristics of theatre for young people of the Salesians, the order founded by Don Bosco in 1859. Next, it offers a brief panorama of the pervasive presence of the lives of the saints in post-WWII Italy. The main discussion of the article concerns the hagiographic plays created for the Salesian educational stages in the years between 1950 and 1965, especially those regarding the lives of young saints Agnes and Domenico Savio. The article concludes that the Salesian plays on the lives of the saints, far from constituting a mere exercise in hagiography, had a definite educational goal which applied to both performers and audiences in the specific times of Italy’s reconstruction and the cold war.

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