The Origins of Anti-Authoritarianism

189 Pages·2018·4.6 MB·English

by  Nina Witoszek

The Origins of Anti-Authoritarianism
This book discusses the ongoing revolution of dignity in human history as the
work of “humanist outliers”: small groups and individuals dedicated to compas-
sionate social emancipation. It argues that anti-authoritarian revolutions like
1989’s “Autumn of the Nations” succeeded in large part due to cultural and
political innovations springing from the work of such small groups.
The author explores the often ingenious ways in which these maladapted and
liminal “outliers” forged a cooperative and dialogic mindset among previously
resentful and divided communities. Their strategies warrant closer scrutiny in the
context of the ongoing 21st century revolution of dignity and efforts to (re)unite
an ever more troubled and divided world.
Nina Witoszek is currently research professor and director of the Arne Naess
Programme on Global Justice and the Environment at the Centre for Develop-
ment and the Environment, Oslo University.
Routledge Studies in Modern History
https://www.routledge.com/history/series/MODHIST
37. Transnational Encounters between Germany and East Asia since 1900
Joanne Miyang Cho
38. The Institution of International Order
From the League of Nations to the United Nations
Edited by Simon Jackson and Alanna O’Malley
39. The Limits of Westernization
American and East Asian Intellectuals Create Modernity, 1860–1960
Jon Thares Davidann
40. Liberalism in Pre-revolutionary Russia
State, Nation, Empire
Susanna Rabow-Edling
41. Informal Alliance
The Bilderberg Group and Transatlantic Relations during the Cold War,
1952 – 1968
Thomas W. Gijswijt
42. The Muslim Reception of European Orientalism
Reversing the Gaze
Edited by Susannah Heschel and Umar Ryad
43. Authoritarianism and Corporatism in Europe and Latin America
Edited by António Costa Pinto and Federico Finchelstein
44. The Origins of Anti-Authoritarianism
Nina Witoszek
45. Agrarian Reform and Resistance in an Age of Globalisation
The Euro-American World and Beyond, 1780–1914
Edited by Joe Regan and Cathal Smith
46. The Catholic Church and Liberal Democracy
Bernt T. Oftestad
The Origins of
Anti-Authoritarianism
Nina Witoszek
Firstpublished2019
byRoutledge
2ParkSquare,MiltonPark,Abingdon,OxonOX144RN
andbyRoutledge
52VanderbiltAvenue,NewYork,NY10017
RoutledgeisanimprintoftheTaylor&FrancisGroup,aninformabusiness
©2019NinaWitoszek
TherightofNinaWitoszektobeidentifiedasauthorofthisworkhasbeen
assertedbyherinaccordancewithsections77and78oftheCopyright,Designs
andPatentsAct1988.
Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthisbookmaybereprintedorreproducedor
utilisedinanyformorbyanyelectronic,mechanical,orothermeans,now
knownorhereafterinvented,includingphotocopyingandrecording,orinany
informationstorageorretrievalsystem,withoutpermissioninwritingfromthe
publishers.
Trademarknotice:Productorcorporatenamesmaybetrademarksorregistered
trademarks,andareusedonlyforidentificationandexplanationwithoutintent
toinfringe.
BritishLibraryCataloguing-in-PublicationData
AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Names:Witoszek,Nina,author.
Title:Theoriginsofanti-authoritarianism/NinaWitoszek.
Description:London;NewYork,
NY:Routledge/Taylor&FrancisGroup,2019.|
Series:Routledgestudiesinmodernhistory;volume44|
Identifiers:LCCN2018033209(print)|LCCN2018038998(ebook)|
ISBN9781315164540(Ebook)|
ISBN9781138057975(hardback:alk.paper)
Subjects:LCSH:Europe,Central--History--20thcentury.|
Authoritarianism–Europe,Central--History--20thcentury.|
Revolutions--Europe,Central--History–20thcentury.
Classification:LCCDAW1050(ebook)|
LCCDAW1050.W582019(print)|
DDC943.0009/048--dc23
LCrecordavailableathttps://lccn.loc.gov/2018033209
ISBN:978-1-138-05797-5(hbk)
ISBN:978-1-315-16454-0(ebk)
TypesetinGalliard
byTaylor&FrancisBooks
Contents
Acknowledgements vi
Introduction: The revolution of dignity and its drivers 1
1 The second renaissance in 20th-century Europe 22
2 Re-enchanting modernity: Comparative perspectives on the legacy
of 1968 46
3 Friendship and revolution: The Eros and ethos of the Workers’
Defence Committee (KOR) 69
4 Three weddings and a funeral? The “dialogic revolutions” of 1980
and 1989 92
5 The power of the hinterland 115
6 The power of Sanctum 137
7 The power of women 158
Epilogue 172
Index 176
Acknowledgements
This book would have been impossible without the inspiration of humanist out-
liers such as Leszek Kołakowski, Ryszard Kapus´cin´ski, Czesław Miłosz, Jacek
Kuron´, Seweryn Blumsztajn, Karol Modzelewski, Agnieszka Romaszewska,
Konstanty Gebert, Adam Michnik, Václav Havel, and two extraordinary women:
my late friend Wisława Suraz.ska and my own mother, Alodia. I am grateful to
David Sloan Wilson and the Evolutionary Institute for inspiring me write a book
about the “unselfish gene”. I also wish to thank my editors, Mathew Little, Peter
Stafford and Philip Stirups for their intelligent interventions. Finally, I am
indebted to my husband, Atle Midttun, for his sobering Norwegian approach to
the Polish wilderness.
All translations from the Polish into English are mine, unless stated otherwise.
Introduction
The revolution of dignity and its drivers
Living together with a monster
Inthelateautumnof1988,theleadingPolishwarcorrespondentandpoetRyszard
Kapus´cin´ski– author of acclaimedanatomiesofpowersuchas TheEmperor (1978)
and The Shah of Shahs (1982) – could be seen walking around Oxford in a state of
angst and agitation. He had been invited to England by the then prime minister
Margaret Thatcher, who wanted to know if her country was threatened by a
potentially revolutionary situation. The United Kingdom was boiling after she had
privatizedstate-ownedcompanies,slashedthepoweroftradeunions,andunveiled
the controversial poll tax – and Kapus´cin´ski was there to tell her if she should be
worried. As a political journalist, he had a legendary reputation of being an oracle
on revolutions. He had barely unpacked his suitcase upon landing in Zanzibar
when an insurrection broke out. He arrived in Honduras on the day when other
foreign correspondents left, and bombs started falling on Tegucigalpa. During his
first day visiting Tanganyika, a coup broke out.
But as soon as he set foot on British soil, Kapus´cin´ski realized he was in the
wrongcountry. “Nothingwas goingtohappen”, hesaid dejectedlyduringoneof
our walks in the grassy “thinking places” around Wolfson College. In an endless
conversation on where Europe and the world were heading, he predicted that
there would be three powerful cultural forces that would energize 21st century
responses to multiple economic and political crises: religious fundamentalism,
nationalism and racism. All three would be irrational and divide the world into
“infidelsandfidels”.Whethertotalitarianortribal,theywouldmarshaltheidealof
conformity and groupthink carried to the point where the interests of the indivi-
dualwouldbarelyexist.Butatthesametime,Kapus´cin´skiinsisted,therewouldbe
one revolution that would spasmodically defy the dehumanizing terror of the new
tyrannical orders: the revolution of dignity.1 This revolution would be less moti-
vated by economic predicament and more by oppressed people’s growing access
toinformationandthepossibilityofcomparingtheirdailyhumiliationswithbetter
andmoredignifiedliveselsewhere.Assoonaspeoplereducedtothestatusofserfs
realize that being human means being a free, autonomous agent, Kapus´cin´ski
argued, a revolution of dignity was bound to erupt. As a participant observer of
the anti-authoritarian movement started by the Polish Solidarnos´c´ in 1980 – and
2 Introduction
suppressed by the communist regime in December 1981 – Kapus´cin´ski was ada-
mant that the Polish revolution of dignity was not defunct. Not only was it an
ongoing, often subterranean process; in November 1988 he insisted it was ripe to
be relaunched, this time on a larger scale. Its main goal would not merely be
gaining better living conditions within, and extracting more political concessions
from,theSovietempire.Rather,itwouldbeanattempttoredefinewhatitmeans
to be human.
Human striving for dignity – a predominantly cultural and ethical project often
misunderstood by political analysts – has been inseparably tied to the ability for
reason, empathy and desire for respect. The empathy shone through the words of
Solon, who said that justice would not be achieved until those who are not hurt
feeljustasindignantasthosewhoare.Itelectrifiedgroupswhogatheredtolisten
to Christ of Nazareth, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. And it puzzled
President Lincoln who said to Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s
Cabin, “So you’re the little woman who started this big war!” In Kapus´cin´ski’s
view, the quest for the acknowledgement of human worth has been relentless
under all latitudes. In the 21st century it was bound to increase in force, if only
because the information age opened up the world and would keep provoking –
and seducing – the wretched of the earth with the alluring images of people who
enjoy security, freedom and recognition.
In contrast to armchair theorizers of social change, Kapus´cin´ski was a witness
and chronicler of a multitude of social upheavals. Refreshingly free from the con-
straints of political correctness, and from progressive platitudes on the importance
of a magical “third” or “fourth” revolutionary way or strategy, he was largely
sceptical about creating a eudaimonic, perfect society on earth. In his view, the
realaimoftheloomingEuropeanupheavalattheendofthe1980swasneitheran
improved socialism nor switching to capitalism. Rather, it was to continue and
complete a re-humanizing project – a “second European Renaissance” – that had
begun in Poland in the 1970s.2 If the strategies and visions of the small group of
savants and activists that gave birth to Solidarnos´c´ were found inspiring by the
outsideworld,Kapus´cin´skiargued–iftheywereintelligentandpersuasiveenough
to withstand economic trepidations and avert the rise of nationalist xenophobia
and religious bigotry – Eastern Europe would provide a model of a modern
revolution of dignity for the rest of the world.
At the time, it seemed like a utopian project. Even a few months later, in April
1989, when the Poles became the first Soviet satellite to start their zig-zagging
transition to democracy, the revolution of dignity seemed fragile in the extreme.
True, in 1989, the imperial Soviet Union was wobbly and headed by the enligh-
tened “tzar” Mikhail Gorbachev. But it still possessed a myriad of warheads. The
prospect of the “oriental despotism” striking back seemed tangible even to Gor-
bachev’s enthusiasts. And the anti-Semitic slogans that suddenly mushroomed in
thefledglingPolishdemocracy,togetherwiththetriumphantclergyfreetobellow
virulent anti-communism from the pulpits, were chilly reminders of the stubborn
presenceofbarbarousintramuros:theforcesofreactionreadytoteartopiecesall
the noble clichés about solidarity, tolerance and democracy.
Introduction 3
But Solidarnos´c´ did radiate the revolution of dignity to other members of the
Soviet bloc. In the autumn of 1989, the term velvet revolution was coined to
describethepeacefullynegotiatedregimechangeinCzechoslovakia.Twentyyears
later, in the summer of 2009, the Islamic Republic of Iran staged a show-trial of
political leaders and thinkers accused of fomenting an enheleb-e makhmali – i.e. a
velvet revolution. And in 2011 in Cairo, the protesters at the Tahrir Square
demanded that their rulers give them back their work and their dignity (Danahar
2015: 3). The non-violent movement that articulates the “power of the power-
less”, and brings the authoritarian regime to the negotiating table, has become as
durable an aspect of the 21st-century modernity as its counterpart, the Popperian
“retribalizationoftheworld”(Popper1945).Whilethebattlebetweentheclosed
and the open society continues – in 2011, Time named “The Protester” as its
“Person of the Year” (Time, 14 December 2011).
***
There hasbeena wealthof studiesonthe resilience andsustainability of modern
social movements, networks and upheavals (e.g. Huntington 1993; Sharp 2012;
DellaPorta2014),thoughthe humansearchfordignityastheirpropellingforce
has been somewhat occluded. But it was Godno´sc´, Wolno´sc´ and Solidarnos´c´
(“dignity”, “freedom” and “solidarity”) that were the rallying cries of the anti-
communist Solidarity movement in 1980–81, in the 1989 revolution in Eastern
Europe and in the 2014 “Revolution of Dignity” in Ukraine. Similarly, the lea-
ders of the Hong Kong pro-democracy Umbrella Revolution in the same year
defined reclaiming human dignity as one of their chief objectives.3 The pro-
testers in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Syria invoked the mantras of “dignity”,
“liberty”, “freedom” and “bread” during the Arab Spring (e.g. Castells 2012:
67–68; Danahar 2015: 7, 9). The people who shouted these words – or posted
themontheInternet–refusedtobeperishablegoods,merchandiseinthehands
of dictators, corrupt politicians and bankers.
Most of these upheavals – initially edifying and intoxicating through the sheer
power of their moral effervescence – have suffered from the same disheartening
anti-climax. In the Middle East – and in countries like China – the cries for free-
domanddignitycamefromwhatturnedtobeaPandora’sBox,which,according
to some despondent observers, should have remained sealed. The dignity-starved
Egyptians – who ended Hosni Mubarak’s despotic reign through civil resistance
and non-violent mass demonstration – have been resubmitted to the brutalities
of a new military dictatorship. Libya, where scattered protests against Muammar
al-Qaddafi in February 2011 led to an armed rebellion and the NATO-aided
elimination of the dictator, lapsed into chaos and tribal strife. Syria, where Bashar
al-Assadbrutallycrackeddownonnon-violentdemonstrations,hasplungedintoa
long and vicious war, full of unspeakable bestiality and countless casualties. Even
Poland – the cradle of Solidarno´sc´ – managed to slide into a “state of indignity”.
In 2015 the Poles elected an illiberal, nationalist-socialist government that
assaulted democratic freedoms, starting with violations of the rule of law and
culminating in ideological purges in schools and state media.