Migratia externa a populatiei

Migration and New International Actors

Migration and New International Actors: An Old Phenomenon Seen With New Eyes

Edited by

Maria Eugenia Cruset

Migration and New International Actors: An Old Phenomenon Seen With New Eyes,

Edited by Maria Eugenia Cruset

This book first published 2012

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Copyright © 2012 by Maria Eugenia Cruset and contributors

All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or

otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

ISBN (10): 1-4438-3457-2, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-3457-5

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction ................................................................................................. 1

Non-state Multi-level Diplomacy and the Basque Diaspora ....................... 5 Gloria Totoricagüena

The Argentine Basque Diaspora: Origin, Role and Political Participation............................................................................................... 23 Cesar Arrondo

The Palestinian Community in South America: The Diaspora that Was Not ....................................................................... 37 Ariel S. González Levaggi

Arabs and Muslims in Mexico: Paradiplomacy or Informal Lobby? ........ 51 Zidane Zeraoui

Galician in the Tropics: The History of Immigration in Brazil ................. 91 Érica Sarmiento da Silva

Migration, Collective Organisation and Socio-Political Intervention: Notes on the Role of the Galician Community in Argentine in the Modernisation of Galicia (1900-1936) .......................................... 109 Ruy Farías

Armenian Diaspora and the “Motherland”: Convergences and Divergencies in Dynamic and Complex Bonds ................................ 131 Nélida Boulgourdjian-Toufeksian

Diplomacy and Diasporas: The Irish-Argentine Case ............................. 143 Maria Eugenia Cruset

Peace and Reconciliation in Northern Ireland: The Role of Diaspora..... 153 Maria Eugenia Cruset

INTRODUCTION

MARIA EUGENIA CRUSET

For quite a while we have been able to study old phenomena such as migration from a point of view which no doubt enhances and deepens our knowledge of both the past and the present, not only in the context of scientific knowledge, but also of the political praxis of many contemporary migrants’ organizations, particularly because it lets them maintain and defend the right to continue participating in, and influencing, both their country of destination, and of origin.

These realities, which have been catalyzed from globalization and the greatest ease in mass transport and communication through the new technologies, are not something new, as is frequently thought. The studies we present in this book will be necessary to understand them not only as a photograph but also as a film, which will give us a richer and more complex vision of reality.

Recent studies on migration have been given a new focus and theoretical framework. The so-called “political dimension” of the Diasporas, and their action at the international level as agents of para-diplomacy, as well as the introduction of analysis of the trans-national character of the migratory phenomenon, allow us to dig deeply into the field of our investigations, taking us out of the narrow frame of the nation-state.

We know that the global aspect—the process—of the phenomenon of migration has been little studied, because the analytical frame of reference was the “nation-state” in its role as “receptor society,” highlighting concepts like “effective assimilation,” or “national integration”. It was presupposed that assimilation to the receptor society necessarily implied a break with a migrant’s original cultural identity, at least with reference to political matters. This was so especially in the historical moment when moving difficulties turned trips almost unidirectional.

This belief was maintained up to the mid-1980s, when migratory studies started to examine both origin and destination, asking new questions about the process of migration, incorporating relations, ties and practices that go beyond national territories. An analysis of the process of

Introduction 2

migration, taking into account the practices migrants continue not only in the destination countries but also with respect to the relations (familial, cultural, economic, political and religious) that they maintain with their place of origin. These studies show that there is a synergy, with common objectives and agendas, between the migrant groups and those who have stayed behind.

Beginning in the 1990s, in an effort to understand these global phenomena, trans-nationalism was introduced as a theoretical framework together with the concept of Diaspora as an international actor. So, following Portes and Bach, immigration can be defined as “a process of construction of networks which depends on, and successively reinforces, social relations through space”.1 And within these networks, employment, capital, goods, services, information and even ideologies are organized between sending and destination communities.

A. Transnationalism

The advantage of the transnational focus on the study of migration is that the former is understood as a process in the social, cultural, economic and political environments. This gives a dynamic character to both the sending and receiving societies,and even to the moving itself.

The separation between sending and receiving countries turns them into communicating vessels: the communities of immigrants create ties “here” and “there”, constituting themselves as transnational communities or Diasporas. The migrant, by himself, and through the institutions he creates, lives simultaneously in the sending country and in the receiving country, which raises questions about citizenship.

On the other hand, these groups create their own transnational practices which encompass the economic—e.g. the sending of remittances or favouring managerial investments; the social-civic—e.g. participation in community development; the cultural—consumption of products of origin; religious practices; and the political; thus they have goals in both their country of origin, and of destination. In short, they try to improve their quality of life in all these spheres.

Regarding the political, the lobbying and the incidence in origin and in destination are important. What are often sought are a short or medium term ends, but at other times the Diasporas are looking for degrees of autonomy (even complete sovereignty). This is particularly evident in

1 Rodriguez Manzano, Irene. Las Migraciones en el contexto internacional. In: Revista Española de Desarrollo y Cooperación, N°19, 2007, p.32 and 33.

Maria Eugenia Cruset 3

those places with strong nationalist movements, and here the Diasporas turn into agents of paradiplomacy.

This implies participation in political parties, or the creation of their own parties in associations or churches, informal support networks, NGOs, etc. A political bi-directionality, very little studied up to now, is achieved.

The works we present here are from different disciplines, which undoubtedly enrich the mixture.

From Political Sciences and International Relations, Gloria Totoricagüena analyzes the Basque Diaspora as a whole, and its relationship with the homeland in particular, since the re-establishment of democracy in Spain after the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, focusing on the work done by the Government of the Basque Autonomous Community in connection with the centres of the Basque communities across the world. Cesar Arrondo complements the work by meticulously analyzing the associative Basque organization at a world level, but centring on Argentina. He describes the historical migratory process in the country and its later development up to the present day.

Ariel Gonzalez Levaggi introduces the Arab case, specifically in South America. To aid understanding of the migratory process he tells us about the reality of the Middle East and the “Arab-Israeli” conflict. Continuing this theme, Zidane Zeraoui analyses the Mexican case, its diversity, the differences within it, and great adaptability, as a host nation, to immigrants, which turns it into an interesting case for study as unusual and almost unique.

Erica Sarmiento da Silva discusses Brazil’s policies towards immigrants, immigrants’ fundamental characteristics and their role in the construction of the country. The Galician immigration, which she analyses more as a phenomenon of “migratory chains” than of state politics, is inscribed in this order. As to the Galicians that migrated to Argentina, Ruy Farias introduces us to the strong political and union activities that they developed on both sides of the Atlantic.

The Armenian Diaspora is among the most ancient ones. Nélida Boulgourdjian-Toufeksian studies the Argentinian case, stressing their deep ties with the homeland, and the central role of the church in maintaining them. The context of the “Cold War” and its repercussion on the community is particularly interesting.

I, myself, am the author of two works about the Irish Diaspora. The first is on the active participation by the Argentine-Irish in the “Easter Rising” of 1916. This is something acknowledged by the community in the country but little studied at a global level. The second one shows the Diasporas have acted as agents of paradiplomacy to attain political

Introduction 4

objectives. For this we will study the Irish-American Diaspora’s modality of action and degree of success in the signing of the “Good Friday Agreement” (1998) which helped end the confrontations in Northern Ireland.

With all these contributions we embrace a number of situations, both historical and contemporary, which open the field to new studies from a transnational perspective and help us to understand the problems of the migrant in the context of globalization.

NON-STATE MULTI-LEVEL DIPLOMACY AND THE BASQUE DIASPORA

GLORIA TOTORICAGÜENA

Amateur diplomats have gained significance, credibility and agency at various levels in international relations, and the traditional inter-state governmental order has a growing number of actors in today’s multi-level diplomacy. Central governments, non-central governments, and non-governmental organizations intersect and interact in various ways in this multi-stakeholder environment. Non-central government activities, such as those in Diasporas, are parallel structures that attempt to accomplish via other avenues what they cannot accomplish inside the existing hierarchical structures of state-to-state relations and diplomacy. Contrary to the arguments of different authors, this article argues that non-state actors are not a threat to the state system, and have generally been involved with it, and supported it. During the present phase of globalization, states are reorganizing and restructuring their powers and responsibilities. Wolfram F. Hanrieder has argued that “it is not a new type of international politics which is ‘dissolving’ the traditional nation-state but a new nation-state which is ‘dissolving’ traditional international politics" (Hanrieder 1978: 147). He discussed the changes in diplomacy being access rather than acquisition, presence rather than rule, penetration rather than possession. The focus is no longer only on getting the attention of other states, but now also on getting economic attention in commerce and recognition in the media (Hanrieder 1978), and this serves the strategies of Diasporas well.

Today’s diplomacy is a system of multi-level governmental and non-governmental interactions, and the non-state actor—such as the Catholic Church or multinational corporation—has always been present in the Westphalian system of international relations. They have been, and are, powerful influences on the system. Diplomacy is not linear and has many points of entry and manipulation, and finding the appropriate opening is essential to gaining agency. Diasporas as non-state actors operate outside

Non-state Multi-level Diplomacy and the Basque Diaspora 6

the bounds of states and territoriality; they are multi-centric and are often focused on identity politics as they search for the appropriate entry point in international politics. Which entry points for influence are most likely to be the most effective for Diasporas? Those in local politics, in central government, or those in international institutions? Are NGOs likely to be useful for gaining attention to Diaspora issues? How might academic institutions be used? The United Nations and Amnesty International?

When analyzing the Basque Diaspora, a stateless Diaspora, we can look at the characteristic forms of Basque Diaspora activity intended to influence public policy, and then separate the attempts to influence mass mobilization from those that target elite involvement. We can see intellectual efforts attempting to reshape the language of the debate about the Basque Country and its independence or autonomy inside the European Union and/or Spain and France, and to use the positive social status of Diaspora Basques to counter the negative image of “Basques as terrorists” resulting from media coverage of political violence. The January 10, 2011 ETA announcement of a permanent and internationally verifiable cease-fire affects the Diaspora as much it does the homeland, and the cautiously good news can be used to regain the positive status to open doors for trade and cultural exchange abroad.

Today, Diaspora trans-state networks exemplify a model of self-empowerment for social movements on the international stage, and we will focus on the Basque Diaspora as a relevant case study. According to the 2007 International Association of Communications and Media Research/UNESCO report,

“The emergence of new international actors (IGOs, NGOs and dynamic partnerships, coalitions and alliances mobilized both online and offline) is giving rise to new perspectives on the conduct of foreign policy focused on the control of access and the production of cultural industries as well as on the way various publics are implicated (national, subnational, transnational, indigenous, and diasporic). Emerging modes of governance have a bearing on media and have implications for international integration for global governance in the audiovisual and related media and communication sectors” (UNESCO 2008: Reference number CI/EO/2008/RP/1).

Basques living away from their homeland, Euskal Herria—which includes three territories in the French state and four territories in the Spanish state—have not utilized confrontational strategies such as angry demonstrations, hunger strikes, or physical violence against persons or property in order to gain agency. They have used the media, the Internet, and their own institutional and elite contacts in order to move within

Gloria Totoricagüena 7

established channels. Though infrequently, they have, for example, targeted powerful individuals in central governments such as national congressional Deputies in Argentina, United States Senators, Representatives and state Governors, and well-known writers, artists, and business leaders. Basques living in New York and on the U.S. east coast organized peaceful rallies in front of the United Nations building in Manhattan in order to draw attention to Spanish dictatorial abuses of human and civil rights, and later from the Transition to democracy beginning in the late 1970s, to continuing non-democratic policies and events in Spain.

When a Diaspora’s agenda conflicts with the host country’s politics, they may have to change strategies and/or target a different audience, as the Basques have had to do. The post-9/11 George Bush-José María Aznar (Spanish Prime Minister, 1996-2004) alliance, and the US-Spanish relationship, encouraged Basques to bypass U.S. central government channels, those Basques in New York to organize events again at the United Nations, and those in California to go to Amnesty International for assistance and attention (Totoricagüena 2007: 250-251). Generally, smaller and lesser known and equipped Diasporas must use any open door as an opportunity to gain access to decision makers, their unofficial activities often going unrecorded. Gabriel Sheffer argues that the lack of data on the influence of Diaspora on host country and homeland politics is not accidental, and that “in most cases the problem stems from deliberate policies of homelands and host governments intended to suppress or falsify information about modern diasporism, that is, to conceal its actual impressive magnitude, rapid growth, and emerging significance (Sheffer 2003: 99). Attempting to estimate accurate counts of numbers of various ethnic groups in different countries is extremely difficult, yet not doing so allows policies of ignoring needs and demands. Demographic data has been used for horrific purposes in western Europe in the past, and today’s negligence in collecting accurate information may be used still for political purposes to deny groups recognition and specific rights and privileges.

Departing Euskal Herria and Immigration to the New World

The history of Basque homeland-Diaspora relations involves centuries of emigration and outward commerce including Basque whalers trading off the coast of Newfoundland, Basque mariners and shipbuilders working as a part of the monarchies of Castile, and later the Kingdom of Spain, in their colonial quests in the Americas and the Philippines throughout the 16th – 19th centuries. Basques continued migrating as colonists and then


immigrants to the newly independent American countries, with heavy flows to Mexico, Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Chile, Argentina and Uruguay. Basques also sought their luck in the 19th century gold-rushes in Australia and the western United States; and with the railroad connecting the east and west coasts, they could now cross the ocean by water to New York, and then cross the continent by land in order to get to the opportunities of the American west—a much cheaper, faster and safer travel route than going the long way round by sea.

Basque associationism in the Diaspora communities emerged with their immigration in the New World. Founded in 1612 in Lima, Peru was the Ilustre Hermandad de Nuestra Señora de Aranzazu de la Nación Vascongada, whose first statutes are dated 1635. Basques in Mexico followed with the founding, in 1681, of the Hermandad or Cofradia de Nuestra Señora de Aranzazu de México; and in Madrid, Basques who had left the Basque territories for central Spain established the Real Congregacion de Naturales y Oriundos de las Tres Provincias Vascongadas in 1715. In Mexico again, the Colegio de las Vizcainas was initiated in 1732. The membership and participation in the Real Sociedad Bascongada de los Amigos del País spread throughout the Americas by the mid-18th century. By the second half of the 19th century, Basque hotels and boarding-houses were being established in Argentina and the United States, and Basque cultural associations were being founded in South America by the immigrant and first generation born in the new host country. The setting up of communication between boarding-houses helped immigrants find employment and social networks in other geographical settings. They formed socorros mutuos, or mutual benefit societies, with insurance programmes for each other, including unemployment, health, death, and repatriation benefits.

As additional immigrants stayed for longer periods of time, and eventually permanently, they built or purchased their own homes and moved away from the Basque boarding-houses. These people wanted to continue their social networks and eventually helped form the cultural associations, or Basque centres, euskal etxeak (literally, Basque homes). The next wave of Basque Diaspora associationism began in Cuba in 1868 with the establishment of an Americas network of Basque identity and cultural maintenance associations; followed by Uruguay (1876), Argentina (1877), Brazil (1881), Mexico (1907), The United States (1908), Chile (1915), and so on to today’s approximately 200 entities spread throughout 22 countries. Africa and Antarctica are the only two continents without a single known Basque centre.


During these centuries, migrants maintained contact with their Basque families and homeland churches, and established commercial and business networks—just as do other ethnic Diasporas. Two Spanish civil wars in the 1800s affected and encouraged departures. In the 20th century, the homeland suffered the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and its repercussions both in the south Hegoalde (the southern four territories of the Basque Country in today’s Spain), and in Iparralde (the three northern territories in today’s France), and, of course, in the Diaspora. Thousands of refugees and political exiles fled the dictatorship of Francisco Franco (1939-1975), as did a short-lived independent Basque government, which would continue to function in exile for decades.

This Basque government-in-exile created a model for relations with Basque communities throughout the Americas, the Philippines, Australia and in Europe.1 By involving high status Basque and sympathetic non-Basque individuals—and sometimes the actual Basque centre institutions—they used public relations and para-diplomacy to make personal contacts with high level governmental officials, as well as Catholic Church leaders in the countries where Basques had immigrated, in order to encourage anti-Franco foreign policies, trade embargoes against Spain, and a push for the removal of Franco and a return to democracy. The first President of the first autonomous government of Euskadi, José Antonio Aguirre, had Presidential offices in Paris, London and New York in the late 1930s and 1940s, and had Basque delegation offices throughout Europe and the Americas. The Basque government-in-exile returned to its main offices in the Basque Country in southern France after the end of the German occupation and World War II, and continued there during the 1950s-1970s.

The Basque Centres and Basque Government of Euskadi

Over the past century and half, these centres have generally maintained a non-partisan approach to their activities and declarations, Argentine Basque groups being the exception as the most politicized and partisan of the Basque Diaspora communities. Most Basque Diaspora organizations’ activities focus on culture and the arts including dance, music, theatre, literature, sport, cuisine, and preservation of the language. Though the Basque centres have also generally claimed to be “non-political,” they were heavily involved with the Basque government-in-exile (1938-1975), and, since the transition to democracy, with the recent Basque governments.

1 See Totoricagüena 2007, and Castro and Ugalde 2004.


After Franco’s death, and the subsequent return of democracy, the Basque Autonomous Community of Euskadi (one of seventeen autonomous communities which make up today’s state of Spain) passed a series of laws pertaining to its Diaspora and also reached out to the Diaspora communities with the intention of increasing the frequency of communications and influencing the content of those interactions. These policies resulted in the creation of the Directorate of Relations with Basque Collectivities Abroad. This directorate was first established in 1984 inside the Basque Department of Culture, was eventually moved to the Office of the Presidency, and given its present name in 2011.

“The General Secretariat of Foreign Action was created under the Office of the Presidency in 1990, and the Service for Relations with the Basque Centers was transferred there in order to consolidate foreign relations in one office. Doing so also served to emphasize the expected importance of international affairs. By the end of 1991, there was a clear effort to use community leaders of the Basque Diaspora to facilitate meetings between Basque government officials and those in the highest levels of host-country governments. Using these local contacts, the Basque government established political and economic ties with several hostland politicians at the national level and below. President Ardanza was received with the same protocol and prestige as a head of state while in Chile, Mexico, Cuba, Argentina, and Uruguay. He also met with then Vice President Gore and Congressional leaders in the United States…” (Totoricagüena 2005: 520-521).

Until the 1980s, relations between the Basque government and its Diaspora communities were mostly symbolic and cultural, though this changed with the transfer of the Directorate from the Department of Culture to the Office of the Presidency. In 2011, however, grants are still mainly made for cultural and social science research projects.

The entire Diaspora grants appropriations in 1987 totalled 5,000,000 pesetas (40,650 U.S. Dollars). Basque Government subsidies funded specific projects, such as building maintenance and renovation, cultural celebrations and promotions, language courses, expenses for travel for centre groups, dance troupes, and athletes, conferences and academic research on Basque Diaspora themes. By 2010, the Government’s Diaspora budget included 1,000,000 Euros for activities and functions, and 429,395 Euros for infrastructure (a total of 1,882,500 U.S. Dollars); and the total 2010 budget for all government expenses for the Basque Autonomous Community was 10,315,200,000 Euros (14,106,099,264 US Dollars).

During the thirty years of its activity, various directors have been quite successful at separating partisan politics from their Diaspora projects.


There have not been any known quid pro quo programmes involving government grant funds, nor any particular pushes by employees in the Directorate to register Diaspora Basques to vote for the governing party, nor to campaign to those already with double citizenship and qualified to vote in homeland elections.2. There is no specific Diaspora representation in the Basque Parliament, as there is for other Diasporas in their homelands, such as in Armenia, or in Croatia—which reserves 12 out of 127 votes in her national parliament for winners of Diaspora elections.

Law of Relations with the Basque Communities in the Exterior: Public Law 8/1994

The single most influential piece of Basque parliamentary legislation related to homeland-Diaspora relations has been the passage of Public Law 8 in 1994, the Law of Relations with the Basque Communities in the Exterior, Ley 8/1994. Ley 8/1994, was passed by the Basque parliament of Euskadi in May 1994, establishing a qualitative change in the relations between the institutions of the homeland and those of the Basque communities abroad. It was described by parliamentarians as being a means of repaying “our historic debt to Basques overseas” (Sainz de la Maza speech 1994: 14). President José Antonio Ardanza also described the law as a starting point that would mark a new direction in relations between the Basque Country and Basques living around the world.

Article 1 of the law states the desire to preserve and reinforce links and to support and intensify relations between the Basque government and other homeland institutions with the Basque populations in the Diaspora. It discusses strengthening the networks which link Basques abroad with the Basque government and various academic, cultural, economic, and religious institutions in the homeland. It specifies the promotion of Diaspora projects which would spread, stimulate, and develop Basque culture and the homeland economy, and it also establishes a permanent annual budget line for Diaspora grants. However, treated separately from the Basque centres, are Basque government-funded trade missions in Chicago, Shanghai, Caracas, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Brussels, and in

2 In Euskadi and in Nafarroa, political parties do not actively campaign for the parliament outside of their respective autonomous communities because the Basque Diaspora vote does not make an electoral difference. It simply is not yet large enough in numbers. This differs from the autonomous community of Galicia, where in each election since the 1990s, the vote of those resident abroad has made the difference for the winning Presidential candidate.


early 2011, another planned office in Boise, Idaho. Ley 8/1994 provides for a registry of Basque centres that are officially

recognized by the Basque Autonomous Government, and it establishes the requirements for members of those centres to also register with the Basque Government and be recognized for possible benefits for individual persons. Organizations must prove that they comply with the requirements of democratic organizational structures, and the associations must request their own recognition and follow the procedures to obtain it. They must have a valid constitution filed with the judicial system of their host country, and their organizational objectives must include the maintenance of Basque culture and ties with the Basque Country, its people, history, language, and culture. Each centre is required to collect the names, birthplaces, ancestral town names, languages spoken, and citizenships held by its members.3 Public Law 8/1994 grants to the individual members of Basque institutions that are registered with the Basque government various material benefits including, among other things, the eligibility to attend universities in the Basque Country, receipt of senior citizens’ pensions, qualification for public housing in Euskadi (only the three territories Araba, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa), and being able to apply for grants for the Diaspora community’s projects.

Once a Basque centre is officially recognized by the government in Euskadi, it is qualified to receive grants and subsidies for projects and programmes. The law specifically mentions support for the operating costs of centres, maintenance of the infrastructure of their buildings, the promotion of activities and programmes related to the homeland, and economic assistance for especially needy members (Article 8, section 3). The statutory benefits specifically given to registered Basque Diaspora organizations in Ley 8/1994 include:

A) Access to information of a public nature, with a social, cultural, or economic content; B) The right to participation in different forms of expression of Basque homeland social, cultural, and economic life that contribute to the external Diaspora projection of such; C) Treatment identical to that of homeland associations; D) The right to ask the Basque Autonomous Community to participate in activities organized by a Diaspora centre to promote Basque culture; E) Centre participation in programmes, missions, and delegations organized by Basque homeland

3 Because of numerous complaints first from the United States Basques and later from others regarding rights to privacy and their not trusting the Spanish government and the possibility of this information falling in to the hands of right-wing Spanish parties or governments, this requirement has been relaxed and is often overlooked.


institutions in the centre’s territorial area; F) The right to request and receive advice on social, economic, or labour matters in the Basque Country; G) The right to a supply of material designed to facilitate the transmission of knowledge of Basque history, culture, language, and social reality; H) Collaboration in activities of communication centred on the Autonomous Community, such as EITB, and Euskal Etxeak, the journal; I) The right to be heard via the advisory council and to attend the World Congresses of Basque Collectivities; J) The organization of courses to learn the Basque language (Article 8, section 1 of Ley 8/1994).

Ley 8/1994 establishes a World Congress of Basque Collectivities to be gathered once every four years, following which a “Four-Year Plan of Institutional Action” is then established for the next four years. The First Congress of Basque Collectivities was held in Vitoria-Gasteiz in 1995, and this five-day event facilitated horizontal exchange amongst Basques from different countries, as well as fortifying the vertical ties between each Diaspora Basque centre and the Office of the Presidency of the Government of Euskadi. The delegates established personal friendships, their own exchanges of dance groups and athletes, and Internet communications that have evolved into institutional ties. In 2011, there were almost 200 Basque Diaspora associations in 22 different countries, and over 160 of them have been officially recognized by the Basque Autonomous Government.4

The law also lists specific rights for individual members of Diaspora organizations, which include access to such aspects of homeland cultural heritage as libraries, archives, museums, and cultural patrimony. The question of the principle of territoriality has been raised when determining who would qualify for these privileges: it is the taxes and government of Euskadi that are funding the benefits, which includes only the three provinces of Araba, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa. Nafarroa, or Navarre, is its own autonomous community, and the three Basque territories in France do not have any autonomous rank in France. The Government of Euskadi has determined that anyone born in one of the seven provinces and who returns to one of the three provinces in the jurisdiction of Euskadi will qualify for these services. The members of Basque communities to whom the benefits and rights apply are defined under Article 7, section 2 of the Statutes of Autonomy: persons “who specifically request it shall enjoy the same political rights as those living in the Basque Country, if their last

4 There are Basque centres which are newly established which have not registered with the Basque Government, or have requested registration and have not yet received their acceptance, or were registered in the past but have since dissolved as an organization.


legal residence in Spain was in Euskadi, and provided they retain their Spanish nationality [citizenship]”.

The law does not distinguish among specific host country influences used in their Basque Diaspora identity maintenance in regards to content or processes. For example, as mentioned above, the Basques in Argentina are accustomed to, and are knowledgeable regarding discussions of, homeland partisan politics, while Basques in Australia or the United States much prefer cultural activities.5 English being the language of later generation Basques living in those Anglo-colonized countries, and their consequent probable inability to follow homeland news in Basque, French or Spanish, is only one factor in the differences amongst these Basques. Defining Basque “homeland” institutions also becomes complicated when taking into consideration that there are actually three different political administrations dividing the cultural Basque Country: Euskadi is one autonomous community in Spain, Navarre is another, and Iparralde is included in the French department of Pyrénées-Atlantiques. As there is no Basque state, to which political administration would Diaspora individuals and institutions give their loyalty? Euskadi? Navarre? Pyrénées-Atlantiques? Like the Basque homeland, the Basque Diaspora is heterogeneous and de-centralized.

Identity and Mobilization

How does the Basque Diaspora effectively mobilize and generate domestic and international sympathizers and constituencies? What resources can and do they use? What are the issue contents of their political activities? The positive social status linked to Basqueness, has been significant in South American cultures where colonizers’ and independence movement elites’ surnames were often Basque, and in communities with high numbers of Basque immigrants. In Australia and the United States, perhaps in small communities with high numbers of Basques, Basque identity is recognized and appreciated; otherwise there is general ignorance about the Basque Country and its people in those two countries. Basques use their reputations as “honest,” “trustworthy,” “frugal” and “entrepreneurial” in order to gain access to host country politicians and 5 In my 1995-2000 fieldwork in United States, Peru, Argentina, Uruguay, Australia and Belgium, anonymous questionnaire data from nearly 900 participants demonstrated that Basques in Argentina were significantly more interested in, and knowledgeable about, current politics in the homeland including details about the different political parties. There are Diaspora branches of three Basque political parties in Argentina, though not in the other countries.


opinion leaders in order to draw attention to non-democratic policies in Spain. They also ask for recognition and attention to the endangered Basque language and Basque culture.

Though “Basque” in South American and several North American communities generally enjoyed either an unknown, neutral, or a positive connotation related to Basque immigrants’ reputation until the 1970s, violence from Euskadi ‘ta Askatasuna, or Basque Homeland and Liberty (ETA), negatively affected that positive reputation, and “Basque” in media reports was now tied to political troubles in Spain. In order for influential Basques living outside of the homeland to engage in promoting Basque issues in their own host communities, they had to address the negative news associated with political conflict in the Basque territories. The fact that Basques have had a positive status in their communities for so long is beneficial to lobbying efforts. Activists might consider that lobbying their governments to open their doors to the non-state Basque Government and its programmes and projects does not mean that they have to close their doors to Spain. An approach of “either/or” might be against their host country’s existing policy and interest with Spain, and therefore self-defeating for the Basques. Diasporas are more successful if they use human and civil rights issues for entry into the international political scene and media attention, and not themes of nationalism, rights to self-determination or political violence, which are much more complex and require time and attention to understand.

During the 1930s-1990s Basque homeland and Basque Diaspora international political mobilization tended to highlight issues of self-determination, Spanish central government abuses of civil rights and human rights of Basque political prisoners, and the need for the Spanish central government to follow through with the negotiated hand over of powers to the Basque Autonomous Community’s government. Civil rights questions regarding the closing of Basque language newspapers and the prohibiting of specific Basque nationalist political parties followed in the new millennium. Basque Diaspora initiatives extending these issues to the international scene and specifically to their own respective host country media and opinion leaders were sporadic, generally not coordinated, and usually came from individuals and not the Basque centres as institutions.

What are the typical targets for Basque Diaspora mobilization? The de-centralization mentioned above is a factor in the disparate activities and varying targets. Attempting to influence their own host country’s policies toward Spain, and gaining attention in favor of Basque culture and identity, the main focus of activity has been gaining the sympathy of host country opinion leaders and politicians, and of the media outlets. The


Basque Government itself has taken the approach that deeds are more powerful than words. Their campaign to elites and decision makers has focused on the economic “miracle” of the Basque Country and its conversion from an industrial to a service sector knowledge economy, following the competitive strategies and innovation clusters models of Harvard professor Michael E. Porter.

Diaspora leaders have complained that the Basque centres and Diaspora networks are not being used to capacity, and that the Basque Government has actually only engaged them for symbolic and cultural activities, and left the serious political and economic issues to the trade missions, or their own foreign affairs secretaries. While Diasporas are versatile and ready to act, it is also true that some do so often without caring about the consequences because they are not really accountable to anyone for any actions; there are no elections to worry about, there is no civil audit. Homeland-Diaspora relations are often hampered by the homeland population’s ignorance of their own abroad, and this is also the Basque case. Until 2005, there was not a single university course at any Basque Country university that had as its focus Basque emigration, Basques in the New World, Basque paradiplomacy, Basque Diaspora, etc., or any course with the Basque Diaspora as its focal point of research or study.6 Homeland interest in Basque emigrants’ lives is also often described by the emigrants and later generations themselves as lacking. In various fieldwork studies of the Basque communities in the United States, Mexico, Argentina, Uruguay, Peru, Chile, Brazil, Australia and Belgium, those emigrants who departed the homeland often report that their homeland families and friends not only do not know much about their experiences in their new host countries, but worse, they do not care, or, they show no interest.7

The Basque Diaspora provides an external dimension for Basque Country foreign affairs. Multi-locality itself is an agency and mobilization asset for Diasporas attempting to influence policy at various political points. Multi-locality of the Diaspora communities increases possibilities for access to many different policy-makers of differing levels and branches of government, to businesses and media outlets. Effects and opportunities of globalization are also restructuring the relationships between public and private actors in foreign affairs. Functions that used to be central to the 6 See Totoricagüena III World Congress of Basque Collectivities Inaugural Address 2003. 7 The Office of Relations with Basque Collectivities initiated a series of research publications titled Urazandi: Basques Across the Seas, 22-volume collection that describes and investigates Basque identity in the Americas, Australia, and Europe.


state have devolved or been assumed by other non-central government actors or even outsourced to private businesses. The typical diplomat, formerly an educated professional who was sent to represent a state’sinterests, might now be an individual who represents an NGO, a business, or a specific Diaspora’s ideology; or a lobbyist.

Since the 1970s, the political initiatives coming from the United States toward relations with the Basque Country have arisen mainly from individuals in the States of Idaho, California, Nevada and New York. U.S. Congressmen, Secretaries of State, and legislative representatives from Idaho, a Governor and Senator from Nevada, politicians from California, and numerous influential people in New York, have publically protested, introduced legislative memorials and resolutions, or called on their elected representatives to investigate events in Spain, and used their freedom of speech—and right to protest—at the United Nations and with media leaders in order to affect U.S. relations with Spain. These efforts have generally been individual initiatives and not by U.S. Basque organizations themselves, because these centres are adamant about non-partisanship and what they deem to be “non-political” activity. Individuals will sign petitions, and individuals will testify at the legislative hearings, but the president of a Basque organization or the president of the North American Basque Organizations have rarely acted on behalf of an organization, or in their official capacities in the organization. In Mexico, Uruguay and Argentina it has been different. Basques in those countries have been involved with government relations towards Spain, have been quite partisan and political, have signed documents in an official capacity of a Basque organization, or the organization itself has been named as an actor in a petition or media report.

Where might Diasporas begin their lobbying? There are advantages to approaching the executive branch rather than the legislative branches in several countries, and especially the State Department in the US, and many Diasporas now approach their host country’s appropriate foreign affairs department or ministry directly. For instance, the Jewish Diaspora at first concentrated its lobbying on the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. Now much of the lobbying is conducted directly at the executive branch of the administration and with the various pertinent Departments. The Israeli government itself also prefers to deal directly with the executive rather than with the Congress. Calculations and strategy differ for different Diasporas, but there do need to be calculations and a strategy if successful influence is expected.

Depending on the issue, many Diasporas understand that it might be more effective to lobby at a different level, such as at the United Nations,


and to establish a relationship with the United Nations rather than to lobby at the host country’s central government executive branch. During the administration of Lehendakari José Antonio Ardanza Garro (1985-1999) there were quite energetic Basque efforts to lobby the United Nations, using intimate contacts of U.S. Basques within the Mexican Delegation. The fact that Basques have no state creates disequilibrium in power and prestige, yet opens doors for numerous states to be influenced from within by their Diaspora immigrant communities.

Conclusions

The organizational structure of the Basque Diaspora is of general global de-centralization and state-by-state organization. There are federations of Basque Centres which co-ordinate activities and efforts in Argentina, Uruguay, Venezuela and North America (United States and Canada), mainly because of the large numbers of centres in each country. Internationally, though there are leaders in each country who do know each other, and regularly communicate with each other, there is no established centralized organism used to streamline programmes or to create a specific Basque Diaspora policy: not even the Basque government itself attempts to do this with its Diaspora communities. When a Diaspora is well organized, with central organizations, it is easier for the host country to follow and engage with what their communities and individuals in the Diaspora are doing. There is additional consistency and efficiency to identity politics based simply on scale, and the one-size-fits-all approach is sometimes easier politically. In some cases it is more beneficial to not have central or hierarchical organizations of the Diaspora, and to encourage a large variety and diversity in the points of leadership and activity in ideology, in geography, and in how they manifest their identity.

This de-centralization makes it more difficult for the homeland to try to control or manipulate its Diaspora, and Diasporas continue with particular and specific host country influences in their identity maintenance content and processes. English being the language of later generation Basques living in those Anglo colonized countries, and one’s consequent inability to follow homeland news in Basque, French or Spanish is only one factor in the differences amongst these Basques. Defining Basque “homeland” institutions also becomes complicated when taking into consideration that there are actually three different political administrations dividing the cultural Basque Country: Euskadi is one autonomous community in Spain, Navarre is another separate autonomous community in Spain, and Iparralde is included in the French department of Pyrénées-Atlantiques. As


there is no Basque state, to which political administration would Diaspora individuals and institutions give their loyalty? Euskadi? Navarre? Pyrénées-Atlantiques?

What points of entry for influence are available to Diaspora politics? Local level, state level, international level and all the combinations with branches within governments, individual non-governmental actors and NGOs are open opportunities. Actors must also question themselves as to which is more likely to directly affect a successful outcome from Diaspora intervention; the number of people involved and supporting the issue, or the status and influence of the specific people who participate in the network? Quality or quantity, or does it depend on the particular issue and/or host country culture and political environment?

In Canada over the last few years, a very positive attitude toward the use of Diaspora organizations in establishing better relations—especially economic relations with some of the countries from which they come—has developed. The Prime Minister of Canada has visited China, Russia and Ukraine with delegations of people who come from the Canadian Diaspora organizations of those countries, and used them because of their special knowledge of the homeland and language and also because of their cultural ties. Diplomacy now clearly includes the influence and participation of citizen diplomats and amateur diplomats, as in the above example. The Westphalian system has demonstrated the inability of the state system to promote a peaceful globe. The state system has also been unsuccessful in creating a global reality of social justice, human rights, and economic and environmental sustainability. Perhaps the democratization of diplomacy, together with today’s easier access to information and telecommunications, will influence the continuing development needed for ongoing democratic transformations. Immigrant and latter generation ethnic Diasporas are indeed using their own eyes to spot opportunities in the international landscape and to act to protect their identity interests.

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THE ARGENTINE BASQUE DIASPORA: ORIGIN, ROLE AND POLITICAL PARTICIPATION

CESAR ARRONDO1

The Basque

Even though their origin is uncertain, some studies say that the Basque people are submerged into prehistory and that thirty-five thousand years ago they were settled on both sides of the Pyrenees. The Basque called themselves Euskaldunak, “speakers of Euskera,” or Basque language. In spite of the fact that linguists and philologists have been speculating for five centuries on the possible ties between Basque and other languages, it has not been possible to show any conclusive bond. The enigma of the language, more than any other factor, has led known writers and researchers to describe the Basque as a mysterious people.2

Archaeological testimonies equally show differences at the time of their interpretation, since they admit a large margin of speculation. It is clear that the Basque country today, placed on the western Pyrenees, has known human occupation since the mid-Paleolithic era or at least since seventy thousand years ago. However, if the direct ancestors of the present Basques and their culture were developed “in situ” in the Pyrenees, or if they had migrated to this region, is unknown. Some authors suggest that the Basque are direct descendants of the cave painters who left great artistic treasures in places such as Lascaux as well as in the existing caves throughout the Basque territory. Others, more sceptical on that point, date the archaeological basis of the present Basques during the period of the Pyrenean culture to around 5,000 to 3,000 BC.3

The Basque language has a great vocabulary of terms, many of them pejorative, and it is said that it was spoken in the Pyrenean region around 1 Professor at La Plata University (Argentina)2 William A Douglass, Jon Bilbao and Roman Basurto Larranaga, “Los vascos en el Nuevo mundo,” University of Nevada, Publications Service of the University of the Basque Country, 1986, 35–36.3 Ibid., 37.

The Argentine Basque Diaspora: Origin, Role and Political Participation 24

7,000 BC. That they strive for a singular personality is not exclusive of the learned Basque people. The industrial workers of Bilbao, the countrymen of the mountains, or the fishermen of a coastal village share this same feeling.4

The Basque or Euskal Herria people cover an area of 20,664 km2 and at present are settled in two countries: France and Spain.

Iparralde, the Northern Basque Country, is formed by three historical territories or provinces:

(1) Lapurdi, with an area of 859 km2. Baiona is the capital city. (2) Zuberoa, with an area of 784 km2. Maule is the capital city. (3) Benafarroa, with an area of 1332 km2. Donibane Garazi is the capital city.

The total surface area of Iparralde is about 2,979 km2 and its population is approximately 300 thousand inhabitants. Its main feature, excepting the coast which is urbanised, is rural, and together with the Bearneses it forms part of the Department of the Atlantic Pyrenees in the French state.

Hegoalde, the Southern Basque Country, is formed by four Historical Territories or Provinces:

(1) Biskaia, with an area of 2,332 km2. Bilbo is the capital city. (2) Gipuzco, with an area of 1,997km2. Donostia is the capital city. (3) Araba, with an area of 3,046 km2. Gasteiz is the capital city.

These three historical territories now form the Basque Autonomous Community (CAV), whose approximate population is 2.2 million inhabitants.

The remaining historical territory of Hegoalde is Nafarroa, with an area of 10,321 km2. Iruña is the capital city. The total population of Nafarroa is about 500 thousand inhabitants. It has a political status of the Forum Community of Nafarroa in the Spanish State.

The Basque Diaspora

The Basque diaspora is formed by all Basques who, from different migratory processes, are found scattered throughout the world and who, in some ways, are institutionally organised. For many, the word diaspora implies the compulsory expansion found in the Old Testament, where it is

4 Ibid., 38.

Cesar Arrondo 25

stated that “expulsion to other lands” is the punishment of the people who have abandoned the right path and denied the old laws (Cohen 1996, 507).5 The concept of diaspora has latterly been transformed into a positive concept of scattered groups with connotations of multiculturalism and transnationalism as a result of globalisation.6

This term has been associated with the Hebrew tradition, though, in fact, it has a Greek origin, meaning to “sow extensively.” The Greek normally used the expression with positive connotations to describe military expansion, colonisation and immigration. As a contrast, the notion of “victims of the diaspora” better describes the Jewish, Armenian, African, Irish and Palestine dispersions (Cohen 1997, 31–54). Some of the Basque diaspora relates to the Greek definition whereas the dispersion of the exiled is associated to the negative diaspora of the victims.

Basque communities certainly define themselves in terms of the diaspora, and it seems clear that they fit into this category with a broad academic definition:

(1) dispersion from the country of origin, often in a traumatic way (2) alternatively, migration from the country of origin, looking for work, practice of commerce or because of personal or other types of ambition (3) a collective memory and a mythical ideal of the country of origin (4) an idealisation of the supposed land of the ancestors (5) a movement to return (6) a strong consciousness of an ethnic group maintained for a long period of time (7) a problematic relationship with the reception countries, often because of questions of dual loyalty, but in general, a problem for the state-nation and its population but not for the immigrant community (8) a feeling of solidarity referring to members of the same ethnic background (9) the possibility of a creative and enriching life in tolerant reception countries (Cohen 1997, 1809).7

Once the Government of the Autonomous Basque Community was constituted from the Gernika Statute of 1979, the relationship with the diaspora had a new impulse through the Secretary of Foreign Action of the 5 Ibid., 2.6 Gloria Totoricaguena Egurola, La identidad Vasca Diaspórica Contemporánea, Center for Basque Studies, University of Nevada, Reno, 2005, 2.7 Ibid., 3.


Government of the CAV, more precisely of the Direction of Relationships with Foreign Basque Centres. In this sense, to give a legal frame to the relationship, on May 27, 1994 the Basque Parliament approved the 8/1994 Law of Relationship with the Communities and Foreign Basque Centres of the Autonomous Communities of the Basque Country. The norm was promulgated by the Lehendakari Ardanza on June 7, 1994.8

At present, according to the information from the Registry of Basque Centres and Institutions Abroad dated May 2010, the World Diaspora is formed by: 5 federations and about 173 Basque institutions distributed in the following way:

Germany 1 USA 37 Andorra 1 France 3 Argentina 79 Japan 1 Australia 3 Italy 1 Brazil 2 Mexico 3 Canada 2 Paraguay 1 Chile 4 Peru 2 China 1 United Kingdom 1 Colombia 2 Dominican

Republic 1

Cuba 1 Uruguay 9 El Salvador 1 Venezuela 3 Spain 10

The Argentine-Basque Diaspora

The formation of what we today call “Basque diaspora” has been the product of successive immigration waves throughout the whole world and particularly towards Argentina. In this sense, we can distinguish three Basque immigration stages to Argentina:

(1) Non-institutionalised immigration. This took place from the formation of the Viceroyship of the Rio de La Plata up to the National Organisation. During this period we find Basque immigrants arriving in these lands as merchants, seamen, and shepherds This last activity was developed mostly in the Province of Buenos Aires since 1853 when there was a commercial phenomenon, “the wool trade,” because

8 Basque Government, Relationship of the Communities and Basque Centers Law in the Autonomous Community of the Basque country, 1994, 9.

Cesar Arrondo 27

the British market required the supply of these resources to support the development of the textile industry. Besides this is the Province of Entre Rios, an early Basque immigration which devoted itself mainly to rural work

(2) Institutional immigration. This took place between 1876 and 1930 when the National Immigration Law (Law 817) was approved in the Argentine Republic, whose aim was to attract people from Europe with the idea of peopling these great territories. In this sense, national legislation allowed the necessary frame for a migratory policy united to the interests of the national state. To that effect, offices were set up to attract those people to come and live in the country. To this migratory universe, some possibilities were offered, such as tickets and the promise of a plot of land to cultivate on arrival. It is during this period that the bulk of immigration to Argentina took place. About six million people arrived in the country, also the greatest volume of Basque immigration. It is important to point out Article 45 from the immigration law mentioned above, where it is stated that: “Any immigrant provided he proves enough good behaviour and amplitude for the development of any industry or useful craft will have the right to be lodged and provided for at the expense of the Argentine State during five days after disembarking.”

(3) Post Spanish war immigration. At this stage we can appreciate how immigration regained importance before the Franquist regime consolidated in the Iberian Peninsula. In view of this situation, many Basques had to take refuge in other countries such as the USSR, France and the United Kingdom. America was also a place chosen by the exiles and particularly the Argentine Republic, one of the main destinations.9 These Basque immigrants, together with the Argentine Basques, during different moments in the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries organised themselves institutionally, giving birth to the foundation of Basque centres. These Basque houses had several roles throughout history, being reception places and societies of mutual assistance. The oldest, dating as far back as the nineteenth century, was to welcome newcomers. With the passing of time, and when the great immigrations ended, they were brought up to date to become civil societies according to the legislation in force in each of the countries

9 Cesar Arrondo and Maria Elena Angione, Los Vascos en la Ciudad de La Plata, organización institucional y actividad social, 2004, 23–24.


where the organised Basque collective developed its activity, whose role was to preserve or divulge the culture and principles of the Basque people.

The organised Argentine Basque collective has its origin in the foundation of the present Basque Centre Laurak Bat of Buenos Aires in the nineteenth century. We can broadly identify three stages in the organisation of the Argentine Basque community:

(1) The first stage covers the foundation of the Laurak Bat in Buenos Aires at the end of the nineteenth century to the 1930s. An example of that period is the foundation, among others, of the Basque centres Laurak Bat in Buenos Aires, Necochea, Rosario, Iparralde and the present Basque Union in Bahia Blanca, where the members, at the time of the foundation, were almost exclusively native Basques.

(2) A second wave has as its main cause the end of the Spanish Civil War. As a consequence of that last immigration, the Basque Centres in La Plata, Mar del Plata, Lomas de Zamora, Pehuajo and Tandil were founded, among others. These centres have as their main goal the preservation of culture, before the prohibition of some cultural manifestations in Euskalherria.

(3) A third stage runs from 1980 to the present day where, mainly in the cities in the interior of the country, Basque centres begin to appear where their leaders and members are ethnically Basque of a second and third generation. In most cases, with a slight cultural formation in the Basque field but with a fundamental dose of Basque feeling, as the main identity feature. Examples of this last wave of Basque Centres are in General Villegas, Villa Mercedes, Rauch, Laprida, Chaco, Junin, Chivilcoy and Balcarce. From 1955, the Basque community in Argentina was organised through a Federation of Argentine Basque Entities (FEVA).10

Regarding the objectives of the Argentine Basque Federation in one of its articles, it resolves:

10 FEVA, Present Statute of the Basque Federation in Argentina, 1.

Cesar Arrondo 29

Third Article a) The Federation will try to establish the best harmony among affiliates, it will endeavour to obtain the union of all the Basques and Argentine Basque forces and it will contribute in the most effective way to the best knowledge of Euskadi (Araba, Benabarra, Bizkaia, Gipuzcoa, Lapurdi, Navarra and Zuberoa) in the Argentine Republic and to exalt and defend the unprescriptible rights of the Basque and Argentine people keeping institutional relationships with the governments of the Historical Territories and Intercontinental Basque Institutions.

The Argentine diaspora constitutes an ethical and political reserve to be taken in mind by Euskalherria. It is imperative, then, to study the history of the role these institutions have had, at least in the twentieth century.

We cannot speak of one diaspora but of several, because the role the diasporas had, and still do at present, has been and will continue to be diverse. The Argentine Basque collective has had an important role, not only as reception country at the end of the nineteenth century, but also after the end of the Spanish civil war. In that sense, thousands of Basques exiled at a time of total confusion found hope in Argentina. For those who remained in Hegoalde (South Euskadi), the situation was no better since suffering and oppression was an everyday reality

As an example, the dictator Francisco Franco banned all Basque cultural manifestations, among them the use of Euskara. Furthermore, most of the Basque children, whose only language was Euskera, were obliged to speak Spanish overnight. In this sense, corporal punishment to children was a common measure taken by the servile teachers of the Franquist regime, with the purpose of imposing the Spanish language which, for Basque children, was the language of foreigners.

These Basques, who went into exile when the civil war ended, thought they would return in a few years. Once the Basque Government in Exile was formed, and while the Second World War was in progress, the Basques took sides with the allies, offering intelligence services.11

The hypothesis of the government was that if the allies won, Germany, Japan and Italy would be defeated, and as a direct consequence, the Spanish Franquist regime would fall. This new panorama would make the return of the Republic of Spain possible and the re-establishment of the Basque Autonomous Government. In fact, when World War II ended, a

11 Mikel Rodriguez, “Basque Spies,” Txalaparta Editorial, Euskal Herria, 2004, 282–285.


new scene emerged called “bipolar world,” where, under the authority of the United States and the USSR, the nations of the world were aligned behind each. In this sense, the USSR formed an important block with its presence in the centre and south of Europe, Asia and Africa. This situation brought about the beginning of the “Cold War,” during which those nations confronted one another through conflict in other countries, such as Korea and Vietnam.12

Before this new frame, which made the presence of the USSR possible in the Mediterranean and the Near East, there was a reaction from the United States who would evaluate the possibility of Spain turning from enemy to ally. After the signature of the Treaty of 1953 between the USA and Spain, the latter offered the USA strategic locations to place their missile basis in return for economic help for its development and the possibility of coming out of international isolation. In this sense, the hypothesis of the Basque Government in exile crumbles, with the only alternative being a prompt political change in Franquist Spain. From there on, they counted on the moral and economic support of the American diaspora formed by the Basque centres and the exiled immigrants and their descendants.

In the following years and until Franco’s death in 1975, the Basque diaspora had a fundamental cultural and political role in the upkeep of the spirit of the Basque homeland. In this sense, Argentina played an important part, containing at the time half of the organised Basque institutions, while the USA, Venezuela and Uruguay also had an important part in keeping up the Basque national cause.

The exiles who, after much suffering, came to the American countries and who, mostly, had in mind a swift return to Euskadi, had to accept the reality that return was impossible. The actions of the USA in favour of Franquist Spain had destroyed that dream of many immigrants.13

The Basque and Argentine Basque collaborated in support of the Basque national cause, with many Basques creating extraordinary sums of money to keep up the action.

The activity of the Pro-Basque Immigration Committee, of which don Diego Ibarbia was a member, is also important. He was an Argentine of Basque origin who carried out the necessary actions and negotiations before the Argentine government of Dr Ortiz in facilitating the arrival of almost two thousand Basques from Iparrald, with no documentation and before the threats of Nazis and Falangists. The negotiations carried out by

12 Cesar Arrondo, La Nación Vasca ayer y Hoy, 13.13 Ibid., 14.

Cesar Arrondo 31

the committee were fruitful and even though Argentina had closed immigration, President Ortiz signed a Decree which would make it possible for the Basques in Iparralde to come to Argentina with the documents they had, or simply, with no documents at all.14

In spite of repeated pressures and complaints imposed by the Spanish Ambassador, the Decree was enforced in 1940 until the arrival to power of Peronism in 1946. Those Basque countrymen arrived in the country with only the guarantee of the members of the Pro-Basque Immigration Committee which attested to their honesty, and also that they were working people. Finally, the diaspora maintained its political role, not only for the facts already mentioned but also because it acted, since the end of the Spanish Civil war and up to Franco’s death, as the first moral and economic support of the culture and the Basque National Cause in moments of extreme seriousness for the future of the Basque Nation.

Another important reference of the cultural political role of the Argentine diaspora in the 1960s is a long conversation between Lehendakari Jose Antonio Aguirre and Dr Garciarena. That conversation took place on a railway trip between the cities of Buenos Aires and Mar del Plata, where Dr Garciarena offered the Lehendakari the monetary help that some seven “estancieros” of Basque origin needed to install a language laboratory in Iparralde to guarantee the survival of Euskera.15

Today, the argentine Basque diaspora has an important cultural role, where in each of the Euskal Etxeak, the culture, sport and other characteristic expressions of the Basque people are preserved and disseminated. The question that the Argentine Basque collective should ask itself today is: what should the role of the Basque diaspora be in the twenty-first century?

A quick look indicates that traditional centres have important cultural installations and carry out sport and cooking activities, and the teaching of Euskera. However, the experience of knowing “in situ” about sixty Basque institutions clearly shows that the greatest weight of cultural activity and access to the media is in the “small” Basque centres of the interior that have radio programmes and access to television and written media. They also teach Basque history in state schools, deliver lectures, take part in book fairs, have their bulletins and utilise the internet.

Politics has always been present in the Argentine diaspora. Historically the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), with an important root in the Basque Centres, settled in the most important cities such as Buenos Aires, Bahia

14 Ibid., 14.15 Ibid., 15.


Blanca, Mar del Plata and Rosario. In recent decades, other representations of Basque adherent policy have settled their bases in the country. In that sense, the Albertzale Left has a group of militants while Eusko Alkartasuna is organised with two headquarters, one in the city of Buenos Aires and the other called “Federal Alkartetxe,” gathering militants from the rest of the country.

The political question was always present in the Argentine Basque diaspora and witness to this is the visit of the Lehendakaris Jose Antonio Aguirre, Jesus Maria Lizaola, Carlos Garaikoetxea, Jose Ardanza and Juan Jose Ibarretxe, as well as public officials and Basque politicians who, either because of the bonds between Argentina and the Basque Autonomous community in a political campaign or participation in the National Basque Week, have always been present in the country, followed by the militants of each of the political groups to which they belong.

A great part of the collective need the complement of a Basque formation, from geographic to historical knowledge of the country, and also the origin of the Basque conflict as a nation without State. It is already quite difficult to explain that the Basque nation, in being settled in two states (France and Spain) and having three administrative political systems, that there are no French Basques or Spanish Basques—that Basques are simply Basques. Often when this is said, someone might reply with “that is politics.” This is true, but it is national politics not party politics, that which encourages the celebration of the Aberri Eguna, the attending of the Alderdi Eguna, the forming the extraterritorial of the PNV or the Alkartexe of the EA or the acting as a demonstrator of Batasuna.

If we refer to the FEVA statute where, in the second article it is stated that “the FEVA is apolitical,” it should be corrected and should say that the FEVA “follows no parties”:

The federation will try to establish the best harmony among its affiliates, it will seek the union of Basque and Argentine Basque forces and it will contribute, in the most efficient way, to the best knowledge of Euskadi (Araba, Benabarra, Bizcaia, Gipuzkoa, Lapurdi, Navarra and Zuberoa) in the Argentine Republic and to exalt and defend the umprescriptible rights of the Basque and Argentine peoples keeping institutional relationships with the governments of he Historical Territories and Basque Intercontinental Institutions.16

In this article of the Statute we find an unappealable political reference which does nothing but aid the ends of the FEVA. In this sense, if speaking of Zazpirak Bat is not a political definition, what is meant when 16 FEVA, Statute, 1.

Cesar Arrondo 33

we speak of politics? The statute will therefore have to be modified. Even more, in the last Basque World Congress, one of the workshops was given by members of the three diasporas of nations without state that are states today, i.e. Israel, Ireland and Armenia. It is to be imagined that their presence was a comment to the Basques on what the roles of these diasporas were when they were nations without state attempting to obtain auto-determination.17

In Argentina, a diffusion of the work of Basque national politics is carried out where people go around Basque communities explaining the origin and experiences of the Basque conflict. The same task is carried out in universities, schools, municipal governments and in the Argentine and Basque press.

To take the cultural and politic Basque theme to the universities has been more recent, where seminars on the historical political question of Euskal Herria are given, with important repercussions for the students and communities on where these universities are situated.

The challenge for the future of the eighth Herrialde, and the Argentine Basque diaspora in particular, will be to find a defined role on which the culture can survive and, from a political standpoint, to find the best way to inform the citizens on the Basque political situation.

The political changes in the Basque Autonomous Community, with the arrival of a non nationalist government, has sounded the alarm on the need to keep the cultural signs and flame of a militant nationalism alive which would join the claims of a right to peace and auto-determination which correspond to the Basque people.

The diaspora, in the short term, will be in the hands of Basque Argentines, since a new immigration of European Basques to the country is not expected. In that sense, the strategic value of the diaspora must be acknowledged in Euskal Herria, since it is a reserve of about six million people who can develop and coordinate political action in their respective countries to crystallise the goals of sovereignty of Euskal Herria.

It is clear that Basque centres are small embassies of the country. In that sense, when any city of the diaspora looks to Euskal Etxea, to the observer Euskal Herria is reflected on it. Thus, a net of small embassies could be formed to articulate a “lobby” in favour of the national Basque cause, to make the political reality of Euskal Herria known as, most of the time, the information the people receieve is fragmented or it does not reflect reality.

17 Basque World Congress, Gasteiz, 2003.


To make this possible, a plan has to be designed which departs from Euskal Herria. To that purpose, the unity of the arbertzal forces is necessary which must arrive at minimum agreements and then, add that task to the diaspora where work has already been done, as support to members of parliament, deputies and personalities of culture and sciences, etc.

However, to carry out a coordinated work, there must be a centralised programme overseen by people who know the subject, in Euskal Herria and in the countries where the diaspora develops Basque political activity. In this sense, with such a programme of construction of an international “lobby” in favour of the Basque cause, in each of the countries where the diaspora is present, a task of publishing and accumulation of backing and adhesion can be put in motion. This might come from artists, scientists, teachers, politicians, sportspeople etc., with the idea of creating a favourable current of opinion for the Basque cause. The European Basques must be convinced that an important part of the strength to obtain their sovereignty lies in the internationalisation of the conflict and, in that sense, the Basque diaspora is going to fulfil a fundamental role.

Final reflections

The Argentine Basque diaspora forms half the current total of world diaspora, and is in healthy and full expansion, at least as certified by the affiliation applications which constantly come into the FEVA. We know the general role the diaspora, and the Argentine diaspora in particular, had in the different moments of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when the diaspora was transformed into the only cultural and economical support of the Basque nation. What it is going to be in the future remains to be defined.

A phenomenon not yet tackled has been occurring in the Argentine diaspora from 1980, when in the interior of the country has been a flourishing of Basque centres where people and ethnically Basque collectives have organised themselves institutionally, often with little understanding, but with the fundamental “sentiment” of feeling they are Basque as much as someone born in Euskal Herria.

This phenomenon has brought a change to the composition of the Argentine Basque diaspora, which today is formed by some seventy-nine Basque Centres, with about thirty more proposed. In view of these new events, the Argentine diaspora is not the one of the great migratory waves, one of the reception and mutual assistance Basque centres or that of the economical support of the Basque government in exile. A new role of the

Cesar Arrondo 35

diaspora will have to be elaborated and the Basque centres and their leaders will be responsible for the adaptation of these Euskal Etxeas to the challenges of the twenty-first century.

A meeting to debate these subjects took place in the Basque Centre in La Plata in 2005 where the associates asked for functional and organisational changes, and in addition subjects such as the Basque lobby, a greater budget for culture, greater representation of medium and small Basque centres in the government of the federation have been added.

While all this will be subject for debate, the formation and training of leaders will continue as a priority. The Argentine Basque diaspora will have to define a new role for the twenty-first century and guarantee the survival of the Basque community. In this sense, subjects such as the participation and contribution to the resolution of the Basque conflict can be a bridge in the relationship between Euskal Herria and Argentina. They must be in the agenda and as the Lehendakari said on a visit: “you have to debate.”

The challenge seems to be that the result will come from the strength and capacity to work. The last Basque World Congress placed the Basque in front of a mirror in which to look at themselves, and saw that they needed to work in the image of Ireland, Israel and Armenia, diasporas of nations without state, who designed their role and helped in the consolidation of their nations into sovereign states.

THE PALESTINIAN COMMUNITY IN SOUTH AMERICA:

THE DIASPORA THAT WAS NOT

ARIEL S. GONZÁLEZ LEVAGGI1

Maybe we will be able to find countries that can contribute in kind. Chile, Argentina, etc (i.e. give land). —The Palestinian Papers2

The disruption suffered by the Arab people of historical Palestine after the “Independence War” of Israel (1948–1949) generated a great dispersion of a people that began to assume a double identity: Arab and Palestinian. Even though the Palestinian gentile was not the immediate auto-referential denomination, its social and economic life developed in the territories mentioned in the quote above, and territorial identification tied the inhabitants to historical Palestine. Around 1947, the “Palestinian,” non-Jewish population, that is to say, the sum of Muslims (around 1.1 million) and Christians (more than to 150,000) was almost twice that of the Jewish population (around 650,000), a doubling of the population in the territories since the 1922 Census.3

Owing to the consequences of the first Arab-Israeli war, an important part of the Arab population of Palestine (711,000 according to United Nations data) was obliged to leave or was voluntarily re-located and included in the registers of Palestinian refugees. Nowadays, three quarters of the Palestinian people find themselves in a situation of displacement, with more than half of them outside the boundaries of their historical home

1 Licentiate in International Relations (UAK), Master in Political Science and Sociology (FLACSO, in course), Coordinator of the Middle East of the Argentine Centre of International Studies / Centro Argentino de Estudios Internacionales (CAEI). 2 “Rice: Send Palestinian Refugees to South America,” CBS News, January 24, 2011.3 According to projections from the data of the 1932 census of the British Mandate: A Survey of Palestine: I, 141.

The Palestinian Community in South America 38

(Rempel 2007). Lebanon, Trans-Jordan, Egypt and Syria were the original destinations of the refugees who now number 4.8 million, of which 1.4 million are registered in fifty-eight refugee camps along the Palestine territories Jordan, Syria and Lebanon (UNRWA 2010).

One of the less studied aspects of this problem is the migration of Arab inhabitants in the Palestinian territories before and after the “Nakba,”4 to South America. In the first period, from the end of the nineteenth Century to 1948, there is a process of progressive migration, whereas after the first Arab-Israeli War, the moving of the Palestinian population changes into a diaspora of a regional (and secondarily global) character.

Even if, in recent years, there is a progressive advance of studies on Arab migrations in Latin America, in general (Akmir 2009; Klich 2006) the Palestinian migration/diaspora to South America has been studied only by case studies, whether in certain cities or countries, but without offering a global explanation on the subject. This work aims at explaining, from an attitude which combines certain contributions of the sociology of Anthony Gidden, the historical studies on the Palestinian problem and the “plastic” paradigm of international relationships—the “why” of Palestinian migration to South America.

In the first part of the work the concepts of migration and diaspora will be considered, understood as trans-national processes rooted temporarily in modernity. In the second part, a first approximation of the Palestinian migratory problem is begun, identifying the main migratory currents of the Arab world to South America, segmenting it into three temporal periods: Ottoman, Colonial and Post Colonial. Then the type of migration of the Palestinians in the Southern Cone will be evaluated, and a global explanation briefly describing the particular cases of Chile and Argentina will be given.

1. Understanding migratory movements

a. Migration as a modern social fact

Even though social facts, such as wars and migrations, can be partially explained from casual ties, this approach is not sufficient to understand the processes of construction and functioning. From Max Weber onwards, the

4 In Israel’s triumphant War of Independence (which Palestinians characterize as Al-Nakba, their “catastrophe”), Israeli gains expanded the territory ceded it by the original 1947 UN Partition Resolution by almost one-third, widening its cartographic waistline, evicting 750,000 of the 850,000 or so Arabs living within enlarged Israel in order to ensure a Jewish majority (Lentin 2008, 17).

Lic. Ariel S. González Levaggi 39

comprehensive method of social analysis has had a central place in social sciences since it allows the explanation of the sense and motivation of the individuals as well as the social phenomenon that they create (Weber 1978).

A novel contribution within the Weberian comprehensive tradition is Juan Recce’s plasticity theory. Plasticity is the capacity of adaptable change conditioned by the contingencies which have preceded it. Such conditioning comes about from the symbolic and material realities that have been “objectivised” along the history of social life (violence, scarcity and utility) (Recce 2010, 18–19). Reality is built by man through a combination of material and symbolic factors which operate, condition and modify everyday life. The symbolic, materialistic man, builder of symbols and manager of material reality as well as social institutions are constituently plastic realities (Recce 2010, 13).

Migration is a social and historical phenomenon based on the translation of the human being to a different geographical space from their own, which has allowed for the expansion of boundaries and the inhabitation of most of the Earth. However, migrations or forced demographic movements of pre-modernity were limited by the rudimentary means of transport, the inability to control nature, and the slowness of communications. With the eruption of modernity, its internal processes made an impact on migrations of a traditional order in the rhythm of change, the environment of change, on the social institutions with the strengthening of the nation state, the industrial production, the commercialisation of products, and the dislocation between urban and rural, among others (Giddens 1991). Modernity as a temporal and spatial process has, as its fundamental characteristic, a global, accumulative and expansive character, while it establishes itself historically and philosophically on reason (Revueltas 1990).

Modernity as a project of global rationalisation of the world and society, though it has only a few centuries of existence, has accelerated the times and has dynamised technical evolution and the knowledge of man over nature. Giddens says that: “the dynamism of modernity derives from the separation of time and space and their recombination in forms which permit the precise time-space ‘zoning’ of social life; the dis-embedding of social systems and the reflexive ordering and reordering of social relations in the light of continual inputs of knowledge affecting the actions of individuals and groups (Giddens 1991, 16). Owing to the impact of modernity on migrations, this historical phenomenon transforms itself into a modern phenomenon with peculiarities and characteristics of its own.

In this work, we will focus on the migratory phenomenon as a modern process, from its international and global nature, since it disconnects


individuals from their native land, connecting them with other territories. The actors of this process move to other nations owing to two motivations rooted in human anthropology: the search for security, or material well-being. In terms of the theory of international relations, the agents seek to ensure their own survival (defensive realism) or to increase the benefits in a long period (liberalism). However, these actors are conditioned and transformed by the structures that surround them.5 The detaching of the social systems, understood as the “lifting out” of social relations from local contexts of interaction, and their re-structuring across indefinite spaces (Giddens 1991, 21), generates a re-ordering and a re-definition of the actors’ identities through a process of subjective reconstruction. Migrations and diasporas are phenomena which impact transversally inter- and intra-continentally, generating a dumping of symbolic capital of slow settling and silent reciprocal assimilation (Recce 2010, 76–77). The migrants turn into carriers of belief and values divergent from the structures of the receiving country.

The definition of migration as an international phenomenon limits the extension of its study to three delimited spaces: (a) the agents, (b) the structure that limits them and (c) the inter-relation between both. In this work we will identify the “agents” or “actors,” the individuals of the Palestinian people who have migrated to South America for security (victim type diaspora), or in search of a greater socio-economical well-being. The structure will be associated to historical, social, political and international dynamics from the end of the nineteenth century to the end of the Cold War in 1989, marked by the so-called world of geopolitics of ideological frontiers (Recce 2010, 55). The interrelation between the agents and the structures will form the subjective reality, the object of this study.

The Palestinian migrations have been under the influence of the crisis to historical Palestine, generating a prevalence of the search for security over socio-economic welfare. However, Palestinian communities in South America will have a different course from the forced Palestinian migration in Middle East.

5 Even though structural “reality” is built and conditioned by the subject, two dimensions applied to the problematics of migrations in general can be identified: identitarian (political, economical and sociocultural) and extra-identitarian.


b. Migrations and Diasporas

The displacement of persons from a geographical place to another may be caused, from the point of view of individuals, by two reasons: violence and scarcity of resources. The search for welfare or security pushes the individual to leave their homeland and seek new horizons, and migration contain two processes: (a) immigration, defined as the movement of people into a country to settle; (b) and migration, the process by which a people leave a country to settle in another. They combine to produce global migration patterns linking countries of origin and countries of destination (Giddens 2006, 523). Whereas migration is identified with the voluntary search for welfare, the diaspora has two characteristic elements: external restriction and the search for security.

If migrations have a less violent bias, diasporas represent massive migrations for forced reasons. The term diaspora refers to the dispersal of an ethnic population from an original homeland into foreign areas, often in a forced manner or under traumatic circumstances (Giddens 2006, 525). This process creates new and different forms of social connections and interactions that are not bound by territory and are often trans-territorial. The sense of community is created and maintained through other means than official national identity connected to a sovereign space (Schultz and Hammer 2003, 11).

Robin Cohen identifies nine common features of diasporas which will be the basis to generate five “ideal types” (table 3.1 below). The common features are:

• dispersal from an original homeland, often traumatically, to two or more foreign regions • the expansion from a homeland in search of work in pursuit of trade or to further colonial ambitions • a collective memory and myth about the homeland, including its location, history, suffering and achievements • an idealisation of the real or imagined ancestral home and a collective commitment to its maintenance, restoration, safety and prosperity, and even to its creation • the frequent development of a return movement to the homeland that gets collective approbation, even if many in the group are satisfied with only a vicarious relationship or intermittent visits to the homeland • a strong ethnic group consciousness sustained over a long period and based on a sense of distinctiveness


• a common history, the transmission of a common cultural and religious heritage and the belief in a common fate • a troubled relationship with host societies suggesting a lack of acceptance or the possibility that another calamity might befall the group • a sense of empathy and co-responsibility with co-ethnic members in other countries of settlement even where home has become more vestigial • the possibility of a distinctive, creative, enriching life in host countries with a tolerance for pluralism (Cohen 2008, 17).

Table 1 - Ideal Types of Diaspora, examples and notes (Adapted from Cohen 2008, 18).

Main types of diaspora Examples Notes Victim Jews, Africans,

Americans Many contemporary refuge groups are incipient victim diasporas, but time has to pass to see whether they return to their homelands, assimilate into their host country, creolized or mobilize as a diaspora.

Labour Indentured Indians Another synonymous expression is “proletarian diaspora.”

Imperial British Other synonymous expressions are “settler” or “colonial” diasporas.

Trade Lebanese, Chinese Deterritorialised Caribbean peoples,

Sindhis, Parsis The expressions “hybrid,” “cultural” and “post-colonial” are also linked to the idea of deterritorialization without being synonymous.


2. Arab and Palestinian migrations in South America

Demographic movements (migrations and diasporas) developed since the birth of industrial modernity from the end of the eighteenth century to 1989 are inserted inside a centre-periphery model in which the main poles of power settle their disagreement in the world of geopolitics and ideological Frontiers (Recce 2010, 55), whereas the non European world lives under imperialist, military and/or economic pressure of the great nations.

In the Middle Eastern zone, in general, and Palestine in particular, we can identify three historical stages which correlate with the migratory currents towards South America:

• The Ottoman Period (1876 ascent of Sultan Abdul Hamid II to the throne of the Ottoman Empire to 1914). This stage is characterised by the dominion of the Ottoman Empire in the region, with a patrimonialist tradition increasingly challenged by European potencies. Period of boom in Arab migration to South America. • The Colonial Period (1918–1945). After the fall of the Ottoman Empire the responsibility shifts to the British Empire and France through the system of mandates of the League of Nations. Decreasing Arab migration to the South American region. • The Post Colonial Period (1945–1989). In the frame of a progressive post-colonisation there is a recovery of the autonomy and independence of the Arab nations even though one of them, Palestine, is subjected to a brusque political and ethnic modification. Low Arab migration to South America.

Applying these stages to the Chilean case:

Arab immigration is distinguished in three stages: the first phase developed between 1900 and 1914. In this period more than half the Arab immigrants arrived in Chile, some 56% of Palestinian origin, 27% Syrians, while 60% Lebanese, settled in the country between 1910 and 1913. The second stage extends between the two World Wars from 1920 to 1940 and the third phase which started after the world war, in which the Syrian and Lebanese group diminished with respect to the mandates of France and England, which improved the conditions of Christians after the Ottoman Empire. However, the conditions of Palestine did not improve in the hands of Zionists which favored to continue Palestinian immigration. (Rashed 2006, 39)


The studies on Arab migration in South America and Latin America have generally centered on the migratory process, the strategies of communal insertion, demographic characteristics of migrants, the spaces of labour insertion, intra- and inter-ethnic labour relations, the assimilation processes and the local distribution of migration (Dimant 2010; Klich 1996; Fawsett de Posada 1991; Baeza 2006). Arab migration had as its main destinations the South American countries, especially Brazil, Argentina and Chile, though small communities were formed in Colombia, Uruguay, Ecuador, Paraguay and Peru. During the first two periods (Ottoman and Colonial) more than 200,000 Arab speakers arrived in South America (see table 4.2 below). The main “export” zones of migrants were Syria, Lebanon and on a smaller scale, Palestine. Because the greatest part of the migration came in the times of the Ottoman Empire, the registers on the nationality of immigrants, especially in the Palestinian villages, are complicated.

Table 3.2: Number of Arabs in Latin America during the first third of the twentieth Century (Akmir 2009, 20)

Country Year Number Mexico 1930 15.000 Brazil 1926 162.000 Venezuela 1926 3.282 Colombia 1926 3.767 Ecuador 1926 1.060 Chile 1930 6.703 Argentina 1914 64.369 Cuba 1930 9.000

The migratory process took place between the end of the nineteenth and the first third of the twentieth century due to the demographic explosion in the Levant zone, the lack of economic opportunities, religious persecutions and the multiple political difficulties of a region under complex structural contradictions. Globally, the great concentration of Syrian, Palestinian, Lebanese immigrants and their descendents are found in Brazil, Chile and Argentina. It is estimated that in Latin America there are some twenty-five million. Palestinian migration was an integral part of this movement in Syria. The fundamental factor which caused the migration was the deteriorating economic and political condition which left its mark on all sectors of the population, Christian and Muslim alike (Musallan 2006).


As most immigrants arrived in the time of the Ottoman Empire, they were taken as Turks (Klich 1996), generating confusion on the identity of the migrants to the interior of the American societies. For the inhabitants of Palestine, the confusion added an extra ingredient owing to the non-existence of a territorial space of support.

The Palestinian people experienced an abrupt change in 1948 when the State of Israel was formed. This political act generated an international conflict between the Arab world and Israel. Syria, Trans-Jordan, Egypt, Iraq and Lebanon sent troops to eliminate the State of Israel, though with little success. Israel’s victory was devastating and increased from 56% to 78% its total territory, leaving Arab Palestine only 22%. Gaza would be administered by Egypt until 1967 and Cis-Jordan would be in the hands of Trans-Jordan. In 1949 Syria, Trans-Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon signed armistices recognising the situation. The first Arab-Israeli war had finished and the Palestinian people dispersed.

During these events, known as the Al-Nakba (the “catastrophe,” or “disaster”), the Palestinian people began to suffer the problem of the refugees. Since the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict, the Palestinian people have been living in a diaspora, challenged by sociopolitical dynamics in their homeland and in different Arab regions where 4.7 million are currently registered in the Middle East regions as refugees, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

The Palestinian community in South America is relatively small. There are no exact figures though it is estimated that a total of 40,000 Palestinians migrated to Latin America, Chile being the main destination. Palestinian migration to the Americas has a long history but there is very little scholarly knowledge on the Palestinian communities there. The Americas community has been constituted by family-related chain migration and is not directly related to the Nakba like that of most other migratory processes (Schultz and Hammer 2003, 78–79).

The greatest amount of Palestinians migrated from the end of the ninteenth Century until 1918, with Turkish passports, from the ports of Beirut, Haifa and Alexandria and also Genoa and Marseilles. Another important migratory wave was generated after the creation of the State of Israel and the displacement of the population established in the territory of historical Palestine. This demographic movement was quite inferior to that of the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century, owing to the relative standstill of the Latin American economies, the massive displacement of Palestinians to similar national places (Jordan, Lebanon or Egypt), the religious question and the hope of occupying their historical land again. Most of the Palestinian migration to South America was


Christian, especially from villages such as Bethlehem, Beit Jala and Beit Sahour

The main historical motives by which they modified their “natural habitat” were the escape from the Ottoman Empire and especially military service, since being Christian they had some limits to professional growth and suffered ill-treatment. Added to this were the pressures of the constant economic crisis, the political and administrative instability of the Ottoman Empire, the Palestinian crisis after the Balfour Declaration, the creation of the State of Israel and the Al-Nakba, the Six Day War, and finally the intifadas at the end of the 1980s and beginning of the twenty-first Century (Rashed 2006).

The Palestinian diaspora, suffered after the Al-Nakba, can be catalogued, in spite of certain theoretical objections, (Cohen 2008, 1) as “victim diaspora,” owing to the importance of the strength factor in the displacement of its population. That diaspora, however, did not affect the poor flow of migration to South America, because the population which moved there from Palestine cannot be considered as a diaspora, being part of another historical process prior to 1948.

This has also been demonstrated at the level of political participation. The Latin American Palestinians have not been so active in nationalist politics but have been fairly accommodationist and, despite noticing resentment vis-à-vis the Palestinian community, the research on the Palestinians in the Americas emphasises integration as a defining characteristic of Palestinians in Latin and Central America (Gonzalez 1992). Integration has been the most important characteristic of the Palestinian population in the region (Schultz & Hammer 2003, 80) though, in recent years, social mobilisation of its bases has grown in Chile and Argentina.6 We will take these two cases to make a brief reference to the Palestinian migratory processes in the countries mentioned.

Argentina, from 1880 to the First World War, had an intense migratory process with a great number of immigrants from Syria and Lebanon. However, the Palestinians did not place great importance in that first wave. Later testimonies show that, according to data of the Jordan Ministry of Foreign Relations, the Palestinians in Argentina, whether they had passports of that country or other countries, numbered approximately 3,000 in the 1980s (Klich 2006, 69). The most important Palestinian

6 Some of the institutions that foster the participation on Palestine in the national debate are: Palestinian Federation of Chile, General Union of Palestinian Students of Chile (UGEP Chile), Asociation of Youths for Palestine AJPP, Argentine Association of Solidarity with Palestine (AARSOPAL), and the Palestinian Centre of Rosario, among others.


community in the country is in the city of Rosario. Presently, there are not be more than seventy Palestinian families living in Argentina compared to the Jewish colony of 500,000 inhabitants (Rashed 2006, 9).

Table 3.3. Percentage of immigrants by nationalities in Argentina (1891–1926) (De Luca 2006, 16).

Period Spanish Italians Frenc1h Russians Turks Others 1891–1900

20.31% 65.66% 3.95% 2.69% 1.79% 5.60%

1901–1910

36.99% 45.63% 1.96% 4.22% 3.78% 7.43%

1911–1920

48.89% 28.83% 2.09% 4.71% 4.87% 10.61%

1921–1926

27.51% 40.92% 1.21% 3.47% 1.89% 25.12%

Chile has received the greatest Palestinian population. In 1941, the “Personal Census of Arab speakers in Chile” included in the “Social Guide of the Arab Colony in Chile” estimated 6,590 as the number of Palestinians in Chile (Mattar 1941, 378). 81% of the Arabs who arrived were between ten and thirty years old (Inostrosa 2008). The cultural offering also came from the hands of the immigrants—in 1912 Al Muerched, the first Chilean newspaper written in Arabic appeared. The Arab and Palestinian community was mainly formed by the descendents of the immigrants from the 1940s. While in 1941, 85% of the Arabs were immigrants and 15% descendents, in 1970 this proportion had practically inverted itself, with 14% immigrants and 86% descendents, while in 2001 there were no immigrants at all. The Palestinian community was able to insert itself in a highly stratified society, devoting itself to multiple activities such as commerce, industry or the diverse range of professional trades such as medicine, journalism and teaching. An important element is the active participation of certain members of the community in Chilean politics, which has made it possible to occupy government positions during democratic periods as well as Pinochet’s dictatorship.

The cases of Argentina and Chile show that the communities have a traditional migratory nature, far from being part of a forced diaspora. In spite of its origin, the Palestinian community has appeared more and more active in developing support actions to the Palestinian diaspora, not only due to its identity, but also the common destiny of the Palestinian people.


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Cohen, Robin. Global Diasporas: An introduction. London and New York: Routledge, 2008.

De Luca, Julián. “La inmigración sirio-libanesa en la Argentina,” Seminario Permanente de Migraciones - Instituto de Investigaciones Gino Germani (UBA). (2006),

Dimant, Mauricio. “Los inmigrantes de Medio Oriente en las zonas de frontera en conflicto en América Latina. El caso de la Patagonia, Argentina-Chile, 1900-1945.” 2010 Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, October 6–9, 2010.

Fawcett de Posada, Louise. Libaneses, Palestinos y Sirios en Colombia, CERES – Universidad del Norte, 1991.

Flores Torres, Mariela. “Comunidad palestina en Argentina: una aproximación teórica.” ANMO: África del Norte y Medio Oriente 1 (1) (2011): 29–44.

Giddens, Anthony. The Consequences of Modernity. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1991.

—. Sociology (5th edition), Cambridge: Polity Press, 2006 González, Nancie. Dollar, Dove and Eagle: One Hundred Years of

Palestinian Migration to Honduras. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992.

Inostroza, Felipe. El Islam en Chile. Breve reseña histórica, actualidad y desafíos. IslamHoy.org, 26 March 2008.

Klich, Ignacio & Jeffrey Lesser. “Introduction: ‘Turco’ Immigrants in Latin America.” The Americas 53 (1) (1996): 1-14.

Klich, Ignacio. Árabes y Judíos en América Latina: Historia, representaciones y desafíos, Siglo XXI Iberoamericana, 2006.

Lentin, Ronit. “Introduction: Thinking Palestine.” In Thinking Palestine, edited by R. Lentin, 1–22. London: Zed Books, 2008.

Mattar, Ahmad Hassan. Guía Social de la Colonia Árabe en Chile. Ahues Hermanos, 1941.

Musallam, Adnan. “La diáspora palestina en América Latina: Las etapas formativas, siglo 19 a los primeros años del siglo 20.” II Encuentro cultural colombo-árabe, November 23, 2006.


Rashed, Sundus Nasser. “La emigración de los palestinos a América Latina con especial atención en la emigración a Chile”, Fachbereich Sprachen - Fachhochschule Köln, 2006.

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Rempel, Terry. “¿Quiénes son los refugiados palestinos?” Revista Migraciones Forzadas (27) (2007) 5–7.

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Weber, Max. "Sobre algunas categorías de la sociología comprensiva" in Ensayos sobre metodología sociológica. Amorrortu, 1978.

ARABS AND MUSLIMS IN MEXICO:PARADIPLOMACY OR INFORMAL LOBBY?

ZIDANE ZERAOUI1

Analyzing Arab and Muslim communities in Mexico, and in particular their ties with the Middle East, entails several problems. First, most Arabs in Mexico are Syrian-Lebanese and predominantly Catholic or more precisely Maronite,2 making them closer to the national Catholic community than to the political problems of the Middle East. In addition, their concerns have been more cultural than political, in contrast to the Jewish community that has been more active in support for the Jewish migration to Palestine first, and the interests of the State of Israel later.

Furthermore, the Islamic national community is made up by a large number of converts in addition to Muslims of origin. They are more involved in national problems than changes in the Middle East. And their bonds to the main Islamic centers are due either to economic needs (financial support) or to nostalgic relations (as in the case of Torreon´s Shi´ite Muslims).

This makes the Arab and Islamic participation in Mexican foreign policy more difficult to apprehend. On the one hand, there are no formal lobbies to protect their members´ interests and, to the extent that many Muslims are converts, they have no foreign country of origin. Their actions are focused on national issues rather than interests further afield.

1 Professor and researcher at the Monterrey Institute of Technology, director of the Research Chair on “Regionalization and New International Actors,” and author of several books about Arab immigration such as: Árabes y musulmanes en Europa. Historia y procesos migratorios, (San José: Universidad de Costa Rica, 2006); Arab Immigration in Mexico in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Assimilation and Arab Heritage, (Austin: Augustine Press, 2003); Islam y política. Los procesos políticos árabes contemporáneos, (Mexico: Trillas, 2008); and Islam en América latina, (Mexico: Limusa, 2010).2 Maronites represent around 20% of the Lebanese population, but in Mexico they cover 60% of the Arab community. See Zeraoui, Arab immigration.

Arabs and Muslims in Mexico: Paradiplomacy or Informal Lobby? 52

These particular characteristics of both communities explain the limited literature on this topic. This chapter is aimed at analysing the concepts of paradiplomacy and lobby as well as their role in national communities. We then focus our attention to the Arab and Muslim communities themselves.

1. Paradiplomacy and Lobby

In an increasingly globalised world, the traditional nation-state has gradually lost its presence and power, giving up part of its sovereignty and privileges. Cities and regions, as well as sub-national groups, have more autonomy and activity on the international stage, consolidating economic, cultural and political relations with other sub-national entities. According to Bell, “the nation-state is too small for big things and too big for small things.”3 Today, regions and cities have new competencies against the nation-state. Provincial cities are emerging, building international relations with governments of other regions, and sub-national groups act more openly to protect their interests against the nation-state or other groups.

Therefore, foreign relations are no longer an exclusive privilege of the nation-state. International politics has become more complex in a way in which we cannot understand international relations as those interactions only between nation-states (if they were once conceptualised this way). Even though they have always been present and have influence on the international sphere, new non-state international actors are present on the international environment.4

Both in centralised countries and in federal states there are contradictory pressures over leading foreign policies: on the one hand, there are centralising forces to achieve a single voice on the international stage; on the other, there are also decentralising forces that allow sub-national actors to act in the international system.

These international activities of sub-regions and non-state actors have been called paradiplomacy or parallel diplomacy. Although this concept has been present on International Law since the 1960s, it was not until the 1970s that the term appeared on International Relations (IR) for the analysis of the world system and its interactions.

3 Bell quoted by Jáuregui Bereciartu, Gurutz. Los Nacionalismos Minoritarios y la Unión Europea: ¿utopía o ucronía?, (Madrid: Ariel, 1997).4 Arts, B., Noortmann, M., Reinalda, B. Non-State Actors in International Relations, (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001).

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Paradiplomacy is not new, but since a decade, it seems to be popular to open offices abroad, to get involved with international organizations or to be present in conferences without a break. This activity has produced results such as the introduction of the EU concept of decentralized cooperation in the IV Lomé Convention (with the ACP countries—Africa, the Caribbean, and the Pacific), which allowed organizations beyond the central government to use resources addressed by the (European) Commission for cooperation.5

There are 250 regions in Europe that hold one third of the EU budget, which means 213 billion Euros to promote their image internationally for cultural, social, economic and political purposes.

Turning regions into the main level of government was an idea that boomed in the EU in the 1980s when several countries, such as Spain, promoted the regionalisation of their internal policies, expanding the European regional policy. This is the context in which the German Länder6 achieved the creation of the EU Committee of the Regions. Since the Maastrich Treaty,7 representatives of sub-regional or sub-state organisations participate in national delegations at the Council of the Union negotiations. For example, representatives of the Belgian communities and regions, the governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, the Spanish autonomies, the German and Austrian Länder as well as the Portuguese autonomous regions, participate in the sessions of the EU Council of Ministries.

Although it is practiced daily, parallel diplomacy continues to be an unknown phenomenon for both specialists and the public in terms of theoretical analysis. Most literature is focused on its process, but not its explanation and, even less, in looking for a fundamental concept:

Paradiplomacy continues to be unknown, but the phenomenon it represents has become common: the city of San Francisco penalizes a foreign country that does not respect human rights; the Government of Quebec inaugurates a cultural season in Paris; Flemish and Walloon sub-state entities make up

5 Mateos, Raquel. “La recette de la paradiplomatie,” in Cafébabel.com. Le magazine européen, http://www.cafebabel.fr/article/11414/la-recette-de-la-paradiplomatie.html (acessed July 8, 2010).6 Germany is a federation made up of 17 Länder (Land as “country” or “State”). Länder are subject to international law, and posses their own state personality. Although diplomacy is represented by the federal government, several Länderhave signed international agreement and offices in the main European cities.7 The Maastrich Treaty of 1992 was key for Europe by introducing the Common Market, the change of name from the European Economic Community to the European Union, and the introduction of the euro as the common currency.


the Belgian delegation at the World Trade Organization; Australian states are part of the Australian governmental representation at the United Nations conference on development and environment; the Baden-Württenburg Lander participates in peace recovery operations in Bangladesh, Russia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Burundi and Tanzania; Jordi Pujol, President of Catalonia, meets President George Bush (father).8

On the other hand, paradiplomacy, considered a global phenomenon, exercises a low profile in the mass media due to its complex and diffuse nature, though it is a trending topic in academic spheres.

1.1 A theoretical approach to paradiplomacy

The international policy of regions and sub-national actors has become a point of interest in the academic literature, particularly for Political Science and IR. Nevertheless, this intellectual concern suffers from certain weaknesses. “The first and most important is the absence of a general theoretical perspective that explains how regional governments achieve an international political agenda and what [factors] condition its international policy, global relations and negotiating behavior; the second is the lack of an approach to build a general analytical framework as a guide for studying paradiplomacy.”9

Thus, the regions´ international activity has been analysed from a double perspective: Comparative Politics (CP) and IR. While CP specialists tend to see the problem in terms of how the internal situation extends to the division of powers and cultural diversity, internationalists center on the world structure and the anarchical international system that allow the emergence of parallel diplomacy.

For André Lecours, four structures at the national level determine the international policy of sub-national entities. The first is related to the formal constitutional framework, in this case, the prerogatives that the central government grants to the regions. The second has to do with relations between local and central governments. Some states are troubled in their internal relations, while others are prone to cooperation. The third is related to the regions´ representation at federal institutions. The last

8 Paquin, Stéphane “Paradiplomatie identitaire et diplomatie en Belgique fédérale : le cas de la Flandre,” Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique 36 (3) (2003): 621–642.9 André Lecours, “Paradiplomacy: reflections on the Foreign Policy and International Relations of Regions” in International Negotiation 7 (1) (2002): 91–114.

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structure is involved with the national agenda and the interests of the regions, in other words, between “high” and “low” politics.10

At the international level, paradiplomacy has been developed by a combination of factors, particularly the new structure of the international system. Indeed, new international organisations allow regions to have more presence in the world, for example, la francophonie among the French-speaking regions such as Quebec and Wallonia. Also, central states are providing direct support to other countries´ sub-state entities for historic, cultural, ethnic or linguistic reasons. For their part, free trade and regional integration agreements are a driving force for regions’ international activity to the extent that economics can displace politics and weaken central powers. Finally, the new international context is more appropriate for an increase of the regions’ international activities by promoting themselves against the limits of their own central state.

1.3 Paradiplomacy and decentralised cooperation

Parallel diplomacy is also an important driving force for decentralised cooperation. This phenomenon has not been studied at length because it is relatively new, and the concept of paradiplomacy itself is still debatable. Considering several authors, we can define it as the activity developed by sub-state entities. Stéphane Paquin adds that we can talk about paradiplomacy when “a mandate has been granted to official representatives of a sub-state government in order to negotiate with international actors.”11 On the other hand, José Luis Rhi-Sausi considers parallel diplomacy as “the participation of non-central governments in international relations by establishing ad hoc contacts with private and public entities abroad, with the objective of promoting socioeconomic and cultural affairs as well as any other external dimension of its constitutional competencies.”12 In other words, constituent diplomacy is the development of international relations by sub-state entities.

10 Ibid.11 Stéphane Paquin, Paradiplomatie et relations internationales. Théorie des stratégies internationales des régions face à la mondialisation, (Québec: P.I.E.-Peter Lang, 2004).12 José Luis Rhi-Sausi, “La cooperación internacional en los proceso de descentralización y regionalización de los países Latinoamericanos: La experiencia Italia-región de Atacama” in http://www.subdere.gov.cl/paginas/programas/pugr/paginas/globalizacion/sausi.pdf (accessed October 20, 2008).


This parallel diplomacy is a mandate given to local governments for negotiating with other international actors. “Economic and trade policy; the promotion and attraction of foreign investment and decision-making centers; the promotion of exports, science and technology, energy, environment, education, immigration and persons mobility, multilateral relations, international development and human rights, are all part of the main issues of parallel diplomacy. Paradiplomatic actors usually lose interest in military matters, but not totally.”13

A second level of a region´s international action is represented by identity paradiplomacy, which is “a sub-state foreign policy that is aimed to reinforce or build a minority nation in a multinational country.”14

However, this international policy can rapidly turn to protodiplomacy,15

whose main goal is to achieve the minority nation´s independence from the central state.

In classical IR, paradiplomacy is usually underestimated due to the fact that sub-state entities are not considered international actors. This idea comes from the hegemonic realist approach in IR theory, which affirms that states are the only or at least the most relevant international actors.

Nevertheless, the development of paradiplomatic actions can no longer be undervalued because they are even more present at the international stage. Kincaid takes the example of the American states, which form part of a quite centralised country: “the states of the United States have approximately 183 offices in foreign countries (only three states had offices abroad in 1970); all states have at least one relation with another “brother state” abroad; and more than 1.100 municipalities posses around 1.775 “sister cities” in 123 nations.”16 Therefore, we can affirm that paradiplomatic actors are now taking a more important place among governments and non-governmental organisations and that their actions are gradually becoming permanent, decisive, intensive, and autonomous from central states. They enjoy a relevant presence due to their important

13 Stéphane Paquin, Paradiplomatie identitaire en Catalogne, (Québec: Les Presses de l’université Laval, 2003), 11.14 Ibid., 12.15 In the case if the Iraqi Kurdistan, it is more protodiplomacy than identity paradiplomacy to the extent the local authorities demand their right for independence. In contrast, Catalonia is half the way. There is a clearly defined identity paradiplomacy, to recover and construct a Catalan nation; but sometimes, its discourse is closer to protodiplomacy. The line that splits these two ideas is so thin that it is possible to pass from one to the other in an imperceptible manner. 16 Kincaid quoted by Rhi-Sausi, “La cooperación internacional.”

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resources, consolidating their autonomy and increasing their influence on international politics.

For its part, Catalonia has developed an original paradiplomatic concept—a “sports country”17—as an element to promote itself internationally and consolidate its “country-brand.”18 Thus, sport has becomes an instrument of parallel diplomacy, particularly to expand the image of the region worldwide. The Declaration of the First International Sport Countries Conference held in Barcelona on April 5, 2003 states that “sport is the base of national identity.” In deed, on March 2007, Joseph-Luís Carod-Rovira, Vice-President of Catalonia, proposed to the President of the International Olympic Committee, in Lausane, the organisation of a “sports tournament for stateless nations.”

Another concept that evolved within the idea of regional international policy is Constituent Diplomacy,19 which is used to express that a state´s foreign policy is a result of a combined action between the central state and sub-regional units, and not a confrontation between two powers. Constituent diplomacy not always represents political convergence between the center and the periphery, but it also does not include permanent confrontation. These two directions of regional international policy coexist with state foreign policy. Sometimes they are complementary and at others contradictory, according to the interests of actors.

Local, city and state administrations can promote themselves at regional and international levels. Their external actions and international relations expand beyond the nation-state´s centralised framework, adopting their own initiatives and decisions. In other words, we are talking about “[t]he involvement of non-central governments on international relations through the establishment of formal and informal, permanent or ad hoccontacts with foreign publics and private entities, with the aim of

17 Jordy Xifra, “Building Sport Countries’ Overseas Identity and Reputation: A case Study of Public Paradiplomacy,” American Behavioral Scientist 4 (53) (2009): 504–515.18 The concept “country-brand” has recently been developed regarding the strategies that some nations use to promote themselves in the global stage. In fact, “sport country” is a term that belongs to this nationalist marketing to create a nation-concept.19 Theodore H. Cohn & Patrick J. Smith, “Subnational Government as International Actors: Constituent Diplomacy in British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest,” The British Columbian Quarterly 110, Summer 1996; Raoul y Arnold Koller, Federalism in a changing world. Learning from each other, (Québec: McGill-Queens University Press, 2003); and Rob Jenkins, “India’s States and the making of Foreign Economic Policy: The limits of the Constituent Diplomacy Paradigm,” Publius 33 (4) (2003): 63–81.


promoting socioeconomic, political or cultural affairs as well as any other external dimension of its constitutional competencies.”20

There is no doubt of the central-state´s foreign policy supremacy, but there is also a debate about an increasing importance of paradiplomacy and its collateral effects. There are multiple changes after the end of Cold War as well as new patterns of world order today, and one of them is an increasing participation of non-state actors. In addition, with continuous democratic transition in many parts of the world and the expansion of communication technologies, local administrations and even companies and institutions are taking more foreign initiatives on their own.

Certainly, there are different types of paradiplomatic actions. At a governmental level, they can be run by one basic local administration or by a group of states or provinces of a country, acting for the same purpose and “looking for external ties that are supposed to contribute to the improvement of institutional capacities for attracting resources and the necessary talent to create its own development.”21

Therefore, it is more appropriate to call international actions or international relations to the acts of sub-national groups such as the Mexican Arab community. This is because this group is neither a sub-state unit nor a new nation. However, although this is the most suitable term to the extent that the Arab community is not institutionalised, except for cultural reasons as the case of the Clubes Libaneses, we cannot talk about an international action. In fact, the Arab community is more integrated to Mexican society and their interests reflect their political and economic participation in Mexico´s national life. In very few occasions, the Arab community has participated not as a pressing group, but as simply trying to make their voice heard, as in the cases of the Palestine partition of 1947, the Lebanese civil war or the opposition to the Israeli bombing against Lebanon.

20 Noé Cornago, “Exploring the global dimensions of paradiplomacy: Functional and normative dynamics in the global spreading of subnational involvement in foreign affairs” (2001) in Foreign Relations of Constituent Units, Forum of Federations/Forum des Fédérations, quoted by Ferrero, Mariano, http://www.ciff.on.ca (accessed June 20, 2002); “La globalización en acción: regionalismo y paradiplomacia en Argentina y el Cono Sur Latinoamericano,” VII National Congress of Political Science, Sociedad Argentina de Análisis Político, November 2005.21 Pedro Carreón, “Paradiplomacia y su desarrollo en el mundo,” in Protocolo Foreign Affairs & Lifestyle, http://www.protocolo.com.mx/articulos.php?id_sec=3&id_art=2548&id_ejemplar=0 (accessed April 29, 2008).

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On the other hand, sub-national groups generally act as lobbies to achieve their goals in international politics. In the United States, this activity is legal and it is regulated as part of these interest groups’ behavior. Nonetheless, in Mexico their official existence is denied, though in practice there are lobbies that protect and promote their interests. Regarding this country´s Arab community, their involvement in Mexican life since three or four generations ago has entailed demands that are more addressed to protect their interests in Mexico rather to solve concerns about the situation in Lebanon, Syria or Palestine.22

2. The Mexican Arab community

Studying Arab immigration to Mexico is not easy. Data from the governments is not reliable. National censuses are incomplete and become reliable only after the Mexican Revolution. The systematic registration of immigrants began in 1926, but in an incomplete way because immigrants change their names when they register at the Mexican Ministry of Interior (Secretaría de Gobernación).

2.1 Mexican immigration policy

The change of names among Arab immigrants can be explained initially by the fact that custom officials registered their last names according to the pronunciation they heard (Apedole instead of Abdallah) or according to their similarity to Spanish names (Pérez instead of Férez). Second, this change of names was sometimes necessary to speed up their integration to Mexican society and to allow Arabs not to be seen as foreign elements in the country, although these same immigration laws were designed to accept some immigrants and not others in a discriminatory manner. According to a document of the 1930s

[s]ince 1927, there has been a restrictive immigration policy. The trend is to make an exception to specialized technicians, according to governmental authorities, as well as to graduate professionals … The entrance of individuals of yellow and black races has been absolutely prohibited, except for the Japanese, Koreans, Filipinos, and Hawaiians … There is a trend to avoid the entrance of Abyssinians, Afghans, Arabs, Armenians, Albanese, Algerians, Bulgarians, Egyptians, Greeks, Lithuanians, Palestinians,

22 The case of Carlos Slim Helú, fighting against local broadcasting companies and the government in regards to the telecommunication networks conflict, clearly shows that his economic interests are in Mexico despite his Lebanese origin.


Polish, Romanians, Russians, Syrians, Turks and Yugoslavians, etc., according to a decree project found in the first paragraph of articles 5th and 64th of the current immigration law.23

This is the reason why the first generations of Arab immigrants did not play a key role in this country´s political life or influenced its foreign policy. They tried to go unnoticed with these patronymic changes and looked for an apparent integration into Mexican society. This appearance can be explained by the fact that, although outwards they adopted Spanish names, within their families they continued to use their real names, married with members of their own community, and continued to maintain their own cultural and culinary values. Therefore, their political activity was practically non-existent except for the Palestinian partition issue.

In contrast, population policies were more benign particularly during the Porfirio Díaz regime. These laws were enacted in order to facilitate the arrival of foreigners considering the low immigrations flows of the time. Despite its huge territory, Mexico was not a colonising land during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries:

Even though one of the first demographic measures taken by the independent governments in order to encourage immigration `was to offer opportunities for foreigners who came to restore the mining industry ruined by the Independence War,´24 by recommending local authorities to grant good treatment and providing them certain prerogatives for obtaining [Mexican] citizenship, these efforts did not work for several reasons; one of them is that the United States, Argentina, Brazil and Canada had a stronger force of attraction among immigrants and most of them moved to these countries.25

Because of its instability, Mexico was not an attractive destination among immigrants during the nineteenth century. Indeed, small countries like Cuba and Uruguay received more immigrants. The main immigration wave to Mexico did not occur until the 1920s when other countries started to apply restrictions and Mexico began its oil boom in Tampico. Despite the liberal laws of the Díaz government, Mexico was not considered a viable country for massive immigration. There were very few cases

23 Gilberto Loyo, La política demográfica de México, Secretaría de Prensa y Propaganda, 1935, 375–376.24 Moisés T. de la Peña, "Problemas demográficos y agrarios" in Problemas agrícolas e industriales de México 2 (3–4) (1950): 154, quoted by Julio Duran Ochoa, "La población extranjera y nacional de México" in Población, July 1955, 150.25 Duran Ochoa, Población, 150.

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despite the low arrival restrictions. In fact, Mexican citizenship was easily granted in order to promote foreigners to set up in national territory. The Immigration and Citizenship Law of May 28, 1886 stated in article 12 that: “at least six months before applying for citizenship, a written request should be present at the city hall in the [immigrants] residence place, expressing the desire to become a Mexican citizen and resigning to [his] foreign nationality.”26 In addition, the time of residence in Mexico required before applying was two years.

Considering that Mexico was perceived as an under-populated country, particularly because of the Revolution, further laws were established with the objective of promoting the arrival of new immigrants chosen according to their cultural affinity. One example of this was article 15 of the March 13, 1926 Immigration Law that granted authority to “Mexican consuls (who) have the obligation to issue individual identification cards, attending a written request of those (immigrants) who have to present documented proof regarding their nationality, civil status, morality, previous labor contract, etc., in order to demonstrate their legal condition to migrate into the country.”27 Additionally, article 32 allowed foreigners who received their citizenship card, the opportunity to bring their parents, children, and even their younger brothers or sisters. The Law of 1930 ratified this policy making the identification card issued by the Immigration authorities, “the preferred identification mean.”28

The ease of immigration and non-existent controls did not allow for reliable assessment of the number of foreigners arriving in the country. It was not until the 1933 Immigration Law regulation that reliable data about immigration to Mexico starts to exist. This document states in article 228 that “all foreigners who are 15-years-old or older and who have been living in the country before May 1, 1926 are required to register.”29

Nonetheless, many foreigners living in the country for several years did not register according to this regulation.

The 1936 and 1947 laws were more specific about Mexican immigration policy. While the goal was to attract foreigners to populate to country, at the same time restrictions for certain nationalities were set out: “[A]ccording to the requirements and conditions established in each

26Diario Oficial. Congress Decree 9,542, May 28th, 1886, Ley de Extranjería y Naturalización, Chapter. III "De la Naturalización."27Diario Oficial, Ley de Migración of March 13, 1926.28 Ley de Migración of August 30, 1930, art. 42, Diario Oficial 61 (53) August 1930.29 Reglamento de la Ley de Migración, article 228, Diario Oficial 72 (37) June 14, 1933.


generic case and for solving ethnic problems or filling economic or cultural needs,” section II of article 7 of the 1936 Law aimed “to promote the arrival of foreigners of the nationality, race, sex, age, civil status, occupation, education, and ideology considered appropriate in number and for the time needed, with the possibility of granting immigrants economic assistance for their set up.” However, section IX defined the scope of the law by providing “opportunities to assimilable foreigners and whose integration is more convenient for the races of the country.”30 These measures were clearly designed for the total integration of immigrants, which was not totally achieved. While the most accepted groups such as Germans, French, and Italians created their separate communities in the towns of San Rafael (French), Chipilo (Italians) or Puerto Juárez (Germans), Arabs wanted to become unnoticed, at least among the first two generations. Also, several immigrants thought their stay in Mexico was temporary, so did not request citizenship despite living in the country for several decades. Therefore, their role on national life or foreign policy issues was totally inexistent.

In this manner, the government´s ethnic concerns responded to discriminatory criteria towards certain human groups (for example, Chinese and Blacks) and to attract Europeans, particularly Spaniards, to the extent that their integration to Mexican society was eased by a common history. The 1947 Law was more specific for reaching this goal. To achieve a population increase, they envisaged the support of a natural increase and facilitation of immigration (art. 4). However, art. 7 specified that “collective immigration will be facilitated to foreigners … that are easily assimilable to our milieu, for the benefit of the species ….”31

Restrictions envisaged in these laws were not fully applied for two reasons: the right of those who obtained citizenship for bringing their families and the lack of an efficient control before 1932.

2.2 Arab Immigration

Despite selective opportunities, foreign immigration to Mexico had a small effect on this country´s population increase. In addition, the absence of reliable data from the nineteenth century to 1926 does not allow for the creation of an accurate study on human movements to Mexico.

30 Ley General de Población, article 7, Sections 2 y 9, Diario Oficial 97 (52).31 Ley General de Población of December 23, 1947, articles 4 and 7, Diario Oficial145 (47).

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The analysis of Arab immigration to this country32 included 7,533 individuals in addition to the 657 Palestinians, totaling 8,190 persons who arrived from the Middle East until 1950. To the extent that the first records of the Ministry of Interior were made up to 1926, and data prior to year does not match exactly, despite the Arab immigration trends they reflect. In fact, many who arrived at the end of the nineteenth century adopted Mexican names and did not register because of their illegal arrival present in many cases. Also, we have to consider a 1% margin of error in the handling of the cards for several reasons: errors from data capturing at the National General Archive (NGA) to computer programming.

The first data captured, the gender of non-Palestinians, reflects a strong presence of women (2,523 persons or 33.5%). Men represented two-thirds with 4,973 persons. This data was complemented by the civil status category. Actually, 3,428 were married with foreigners. This number reflects that most Arabs (45.5%) married with someone from their own community. Nevertheless, if we only take men, 68.9% of Arabs married with one of their own ethnic group considering that women came to the country to marry their fiancé or to join their husbands. Men were usually the first to arrive and, once set up in the country, decided to bring their wives. The fact that 2,558 registered themselves as single reasserts this situation. In addition to children, many celibates were waiting for their fiancé to come from the Middle East. Among them, only 897 (11.9%) married with Mexicans. This attitude, very common within immigrant communities, reinforced the group but constrained them from full integration in the Mexican population.

The arrival of young women at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning the twentieth century reasserts the idea that Arab migration was done in a “chain” process and, most of all, that the first immigrants brought their wives from their homeland. According to the files of the Ministry of Interior, María Bayud was fifteen when she arrived, Ana María de Farfán seventeen, María José García thirteen, Dora Sarraf fourteen, Eugenia Barquet ten, etc. On the other hand, the presence of young immigrants, such as the case of the six year old Cristina Abad in 1892, allows us to infer that her mother arrived the same year and her father some years before. These arrivals show a clear trend of marriages within their group during the first immigrant generations. Although these relationships consolidated their communities, they did not offer them visibility and a role over the country´s foreign policy. Far from playing a

32 The study of Arab immigration was made at the National General Archive during the 1990s.


key role on national issues, Arabs looked for reinforcing their community by intra-communitarian marriages and not to be present on the country’s political and social life or to interfere in Mexico’s foreign policy.

Arrivals to Mexico were linked to this country’s history and to the internal problems of Lebanon. Indeed, these arrivals began during the last decade of the nineteenth century and intensified during the first of the twentieth. However, because of the Mexican Revolution, immigration decreased from a mean of 143 annual arrivals to 71 during that tragic decade. From 1915 to 1919, only 157 Arabs came to Mexico, in contrast to the 3,862 (51.5% of the immigrants studied in this period) who arrived during the next decade.

The political situation of the Middle East and the beginning of the League of Nations mandate explained the massive departure of Syrian-Lebanese from their region. In addition, the new political condition in Mexico during the stabilising 1920s facilitated immigration flows to this country. In fact, this decade registered the highest percentages of the analysed period, particularly the years of 1923 (9%) and 1925 (8%). With the 1929 world crises, arrivals were at their lowest level, around 50 persons during the next decade.

If we compare the data of both the dates of arrival and registration, we can see that the first massive registration took place in the years of 1930 (2,103), 1932 (1,326) and 1933 (1,540). During these three years, 4,969 immigrants (66% of the studied cases) were registered. While the 1930s experienced a quite low registration (395 from 1934 to 1941, with a mean of 49 persons per year), registrations were done by a speed of 196 annually (1,570) during the same period.

Since 1941, a balance between arrivals and registrations was achieved, demonstrating a more efficient job from the Ministry of Interior and the Mexican public administration in general.

On the other hand, analysing religions among Arab immigrants offers some interesting data as well. From all immigrants studied according to the NGA data, 60% (4,529) were Catholic and probably most of them Maronite. 20% (1,505) were Jewish; but from this number, 18% (1,356) declared themselves as Israeli, 1.6% (122) Hebrew, and only 0.4% (27) Jewish. Muslims totaled 345 (4.6%), Druze 157 (2.1%) and Orthodox 467 (6.2%). (See table 4.1 below)

Zidane Zeraoui 65

Table 4.1: Non-Palestinian Arabs and their religion

Religions Number Percentage

Atheist 93 1.2 Anglican 4 0.1 Baptist 20 0.3

Catholic 4,529 60.1 Christian 45 0.6 Hebrew 122 1.6 Israelite 1,356 18.1 Jewish 27 0.4

Free thinker 28 0.4 Muslim 345 4.6 Masonic 3 0.0 Maronite 95 1.3 Orthodox 467 6.2 Protestant 49 0.7

Druze 157 2.1 Romanist 84 1.1

Other 108 1.2 TOTAL 7,533 100.0

Source: Data tabulated by the author based on the information collected from the National General Archive. The religion declared by immigrants was respected in order to interpret the reasons of their declaration.

This way we can say that most members of the Mexican Sephardi community originally come from the Arab world, and from Aleppo, Syria in particular. Their evolution in Mexico followed the global Arab flow trends with some specific features. As mentioned earlier, almost all Jewish immigrants registered as Israeli (1,356 from 1,505 or 90.1%) in the same way as most Lebanese Maronites declared themselves as Catholic (4,529) and 95 as Maronites only. By analysing these arrivals considering the religion category, we can study in depth this phenomenon. For example, we can say that Maronite immigration was the oldest in the country. In fact, during the nineteenth century and the first decade of twentieth, Catholic Lebanese represented more than 90% of all Arab immigrants in Mexico. The Arab community of Jewish religion began to establish a presence in this country in 1910 when immigration was decreasing. Its maximum peak took place in 1921 when one-third of all Arabs who arrived to Mexico were Jewish (32.8%). This trend was maintained during


the 1920s. In the next decade, the Israeli arrivals began to diminish but significantly increased in the 1940s when almost half of all Arab immigrants were Jewish: 38.9% in 1941, 52.7% in 1942, 40.1% in 1943, 44.4% in 1944 and 43.1% in 1945. The Semitic immigrant population in Mexico stabilised around one-fourth since this last year.

The beginning of World War II explains this immigration flow to Mexican coasts. Additionally, the Arab-Jewish community stance was not to enter Palestine as the Zionist movement planned, but to stay far away from the Middle East for economic reasons. In general, this was the attitude of the strong Jewish community of Aleppo that almost disappeared in Syria today.

The strong presence of Jews at the heart of the Arab community and their moral bonds with the Jewish community that was chased in Europe, explain their participation and involvement in political movements particularly with regards to the creation of the State of Israel. Although this was not a proper lobby, Israel newspapers were (and continue to be) very active to defend the Zionist thesis in comparison to a divided Arab population both in Lebanon (because of their inter-communitarian conflicts) and in Mexico (vis-à-vis over the Meso-Oriental problems).

Table 2: Religion of Palestinian immigrants

Religion Number of persons Percentage

Catholic 468 70.6 Muslim 54 8.2

Orthodox 61 9.2 Jewish 51 7.7 Atheist 11 1.6 Other 18 2.7

Source: Data tabulated by the author based on the information collected from the National General Archive. The religion declared by immigrants was respected in order to interpret the reasons of their declaration.

In the Palestinian case, we can see a clear decrease of Jewish migration, but with a stronger presence of Catholics compared to the Syrian-Lebanese. This religious fragmentation explains the low political participation of the Arab community, either Syrian-Lebanese or Palestine, on the debate over the Middle East situation. In addition, coming from the same region facilitated the commercial integration of both Jews and Arabs in Mexico. This can be seen in the city of Monterrey where, despite a strong presence of the Palestine community, their interests with Jewish

Zidane Zeraoui 67

entrepreneurs and their Catholic origin place them away from the Meso-Oriental controversy.

2.3 Arabs and the creation of the State of Israel

If Arabs did not try to influence national politics, the issue of the creation of the State of Israel was a driving force of a certain political behavior for the Meso-Oriental community. In fact:

several Israeli communities began to look for international support and intervention for their cause among governments, so in 1933 the Presidency of Mexico received a post requesting its moral support and, if it was the case, material assistance for reestablishing the Israeli nation in Palestine. J. Fed. Philippe, representative of the Israeli community of Mexico (in the 1930s), requested Mexican President Abelardo L. Rodríguez and Mexico to promote in the League of Nations the transfer of the British government mandate to another government, preferably the Mexican, to procure a declaration of absolute sovereignty for Palestine, and to recognise the Israeli nation immediately. In return for the help that our country could provide in any of these senses, Israel promised—Philippi writes—investment advantages and friendship from the Jewish nation.33

Mexico´s lack of experience, its desire to avoid conflict with Great Britain and its attachment to the principle of self-determination among nations, made the Ministry of Foreign Affairs refuse to support the wishes of the Mexican Jewish community.

In the face of this initiative, the Palestinian and Syrian-Lebanese increased their pressure, “arguing that ‘it was not the case to dispossess a nation to solve the problem of [Israel]’. The [Mexican] government was up to date about the messages and requests sent by both the Israeli and Arabs living in Mexico, but it never compromised to take a stance in favor of one of them.”34

Mexico´s position was to support the 1917 Balfour Declaration without taking side for one of the two parts. However, it emphasised that the Jewish home could not affect the rights of the rest of the Palestinian groups. The Mexican stance was due more to the national principles of its foreign policy than to pressures of any lobby:

33 Archivo Histórico Genaro Estrada de la Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, file III, 109–20.34 Ibid.


Antagonisms between Arabs and Israeli made Mexico to act cautiously with regards to establishing legations or appointing representatives. On June 11, 1949, shortly before the Israel entry into the UN, the government of Mexico authorized the accreditation of the Israeli representatives in national territory, [who] were charged to handle issues of possible migrants to that country. The first Consulate of Israel in Mexico was established in 1951. At the end of a one-year negotiation—July 1, 1952—the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs informed the decision of raising its offices to the rank of legation. Later, on May 1, 1956, Gustavo Ortiz Hernán was the first Mexican representative appointed to Israel, with the position of Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary; and in 1959 both representations became Embassies with Jorge Daesslé Segura as the first [Mexican] Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary at the Tel-Aviv mission.35

Nevertheless, the establishment of a Lebanese Embassy in Mexico happened earlier, in 1947, due to the presence of a strong cedar community in Mexico. However, relations between the Mexican Arab community and the Middle East were cultural (such as the Clubes Libaneses) or economical (such as the remittances sent to their relatives that stayed in Lebanon, though fewer because of the chain migration phenomenon).

Due to the strong presidential political system in Mexico that lasted throughout this period up to the presidential election of the year 2000, which also marked the end of the one-party-in-power regime, it was difficult for the Meso-Oriental community to make pressure over this country´s foreign policy. Most of the associations created by Arab immigrants were focused basically on promoting ties among their descendants and maintaining their cultural presence, especially the Lebanonese, the main country of origin of the Meso-Oriental community.

3. Islam and Muslims: The birth of a Mexican Islam.

The Muslim community has a long presence in Mexico dating back to the process of the Spanish colonisation itself:

Since the first moment of the Spaniard conquest of America, there were some sorts of (pre-) orientalist images. As a comparative resource, several modern authors have underlined in [their] chronicles a countless allusion of customs, institutions and natural phenomena of the “Moor” world to explain American realities. At the same time, we have the adaptation of Islamic names to Amerindian ones, theater plays or romance with the old themes of the Reconquista, references to the wars with the unfaithful, the

35 Ibid.

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usual appearance of Santiago, the anti-Islamic saint, in the Indian battles, etc.36

The Islamic presence also appeared with the first discoverers of the continent. To the extent that Christopher Columbus was looking for the Indies, it is highly probable that he brought Arab or Mozarab translators. “By 1545, it was said that in New Spain there were 1385 colonists from whom 300 were Jew or Moor.”37 Many of them were diluted among the local population because of the Inquisition and religious persecution. This taqiya38 has allowed Muslims to maintain their faith but remain hidden, in front of a Christian repression both in the Iberian Peninsula as well as in the New World.

From this perspective, we can identify:

three historical phases: 1) the taqiya or the compulsory faith dissimulation phase (that ranged from the Conquestto the triumph of the liberal Reform); 2) the necessary or pertinent dissimulation phase (from the triumph of the liberal Reform to the 1980s); and 3) the phase of re-islamization of Muslim immigrants and the conversion of non-Muslim, with the set up of the communitarian prayer (Salat al Yumua) and the preach of Islam (called in Arab daawa) since the 1980s.39

However, there is very little data about the Islamic presence in the country from the previous period of Arab-Muslim immigration, although there are references in the NGA and the municipal archives regarding cases of Muslims involved in commercial feuds40.

Despite the Islamic shadow in the New World, the Muslim presence in Mexican life remains marginal. According to Islamic media in Mexico,41

36 Hernán G. H. Taboada. La sombra del Islam en la conquista de América, México, FCE/UNAM, 2004.37 Seymour B Liebman, The Jews in New Spain, (Coral Gables: University of Miami Press, 1970), 42.38Taqiya was highly spread and legitimized both by Shi´ism (because of the Sunni persecutions against their leadership) and by Islam, in general, when Muslims were persecuted. Taqiya means to continue being Muslim but acting as if adopting another religious practice in public. 39 Felipe A Cobos Alfaro, “Los musulmanes de México en la Umma,” in Diario de Campo, Internal bulletin of researchers in the area of anthropology (96) (2008): 10. 40 For example, the author found in the city archive of Tampico that in 1926 “a Turk, Bambur” complained before the local authorities.41 Interviews with Omar Weston, director of the Islamic Center of Mexico and José Luis Sánchez García, ethno-historian from the Mexican National School of


there are between 2,000 and 3,000 Muslim practitioners and probably 8,000 individuals whose origin is from Muslim countries or from Muslim ancestry, but they are not devout. Many of them consider themselves as Muslim without necessarily praying or practicing Islamic rules. For Islam, there is a difference between the one who has the `iman´ (the faith) and `Islam´ (the practice). Many Muslim immigrants do not observe religious practice in either public or private. They simply accept their Muslim culture.

According to the NGA files, until 1950 only 345 followers of Allah among the Syrian-Lebanese arrived in this country (4.6% of all arrivals) and 54 among Muslim Palestinians (8.2%), which totaled 399 Muslims during this period.42 From this date on, it is reasonable to estimate a current total population of about 8,00043 due to some conversions to Catholicism, mainly among their descendants. Nowadays conversion to Islam has expanded, even in the rural and indigenous sectors, which means that this number might be higher.

3.1 Between Conservatism and a National Islam

Diversity of the Muslim population in present-day Mexico is vast, despite its reduced number. Besides the religious people that came from

Anthropology and History on August 8, 2009; and with Rachard Sabag Sabag from the mosque of Torreón, Mexico on August 14, 2009.42 Roberto Marín-Guzmán and Zidane Zeraoui. Arab Immigration in Mexico in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Assimilation and Arab Heritage, (Austin: Agustine Press, 2003).43 In many sources, dispersed data has been found the existence of 318,423 Muslims in the country, and many researchers usually confuse Arabs and Muslims when talking about the arrivals of the Syrian-Lebanese in their research focused to Islam. In addition, the percentage of Muslims that came from the Middle East (until 1950), according to the NGA data, was 4.89% (399 from a total of 8,196). In “Mexican Muslims in the Twentieth Century: Challenging Stereotypes and Negotiating Space” at Muslims in the West: from Sojourners to Citizens, (United States: Oxford University Press, 2006), Theresa Alfaro-Velcamp mentions 343 Muslims from the 8,240 Arabs who arrived in Mexico (4.16%), a similar number to ours. However, in her previous works, the percentage she handled was 10%. Cobos Alfaro (ibid.) mentions 14% without specifying particular sources. Wikipedia (by searching on “Islam in Mexico”) underlines that the Mexican 2000 census specifies the existence of 1,500 Muslims in this country, but the number would be between 1,500 and 2000 due to conversions and re-Islamization. In fact, the 2000 census states the existence of 1,412 Muslims in Mexico, at least the ones who declared themselves as such.

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Islamic countries to join this nation as immigrants, Muslims periodically set up in this country for a short period of time (usually four years), but some of them decide to stay. Nevertheless, the conversion phenomenon has been very important, particularly during the last two decades: according to some estimates, between 500 and 800 Mexican are converts. The main groups are the Tzotzil Indians of state of Chiapas, the Mexicans converts through Sufism, and those who embrace Mohammed´s religion for their personal interest or for an approach to the Arab language and Islam history.

On the other hand, Islam in Mexico is divided between Shi´ites44

(located basically in Torreón) and Sunni, with several leanings such as Wahabism, Murabitun, Salafism45 or Hanafism.

However, the true division of Islam in the country is between conservatism, those attached to one of the leanings (either radical or orthodox) of the Islamic and who follow it literally, and those who look for a Mexican form of Islam.

The large diversity of these Muslim groups and their origin—either diplomatic or convert—explain their low participation in Mexico´s politics. Their interest is focused in promoting their religious practicing rather protecting interests that are far away.

3.2 The Mexican Islamic Cultural Center

“I don´t want to be Pakistani, Saudi or Algerian, but `Mexican Muslim´ because I like hamburgers, tacos and everything that is ours,”46

emphasises Omar Weston, director of the Mexican Islamic Cultural Center, at his Dar El Islam in Tequesquitengo, Morelos. Omar (Mark), is an English immigrant who came with his parents at the age of five, and who worked selling instant photographic machines:

When I was nineteen years old I began to look for my life, and after passing through an Evangelic-Christian process, I met Islam through my brother (already convert). And in 1989 I became Muslim in the United

44 Followers of Ali, son-in-law and cousin of Mohammed, who divided Islam in 656. 45 Wahabism is the most radical branch of Islam and is practiced in Saudi Arabia, while Safalism is a leaning that looks for the true path found in the first practices of religion, according to the most orthodox Muslims. The Muribatun or Almoravidsconsider themselves as the guardians of Allah´s oneness. 46 Interview by the author with Omar Weston, director of the Mexican Islamic Cultural Center, in his mosque (Dar Es Salam)-hotel (Teques Inn, previously Hotel Oasis) of Tequesquitengo, on August 8, 2009.


States, and I came back to Mexico looking for more Muslims, but there were few. In those days there was a musala47 at the Club Egipcio48 in Polanco [neighborhood], Federal District [Mexico City], at Presidente Mazaryk [street], with very few Muslims. And there were two couches and we waited sitting [there] until Mohammed Rumi arrived, a Chilean who deliver the Jotba49 in Spanish. We tried to make an effort to open the musala on weekdays and not only on Fridays. In that time, we were more attached to the Tabligh, a movement from India, and we delivered talks and conferences because they left us the key of the musala. For example, we opened the place on Thursdays for the salat el asr.50 Pakistani and Arabs came, but we saw waves [of people] that arrived and departed, but not a permanent community.

The existence of a volatile Muslim group and not of an integrated and organised community explains this lack of Islamic presence as a pressing element on national politics or simply for defending the Muslim image.

Omar Weston studied Islam in Medina at the end of the 1980s before beginning his Daawa51 in Mexico. In 1992, he built his own musala (a 3m x 8m room) at his home in the Del Valle neighborhood (Mexico City). It was not until 1994 that he registered his center at Gobernación (the Ministry of Interior) thanks to the constitutional reform made in 1992 by President Carlos Salinas de Gortari that allowed churches to have legal existence, and state recognition equally among them. This decision to have his own space was due to the need to perform the salat everyday. Neither the Egyptian Center nor the Embassy of Pakistan, where the prayer place was changed, was available on weekdays.

The mid-eighties marked the beginnings of the Mexican Islamic Cultural Center:

The rising group of Mexican Muslims, headed by Omar Weston who recently arrived from the University of Medina, and with the help of the local Muslim community and from other countries, laid the foundations of the Daawa addressed for Mexicans. In 1993, the first Muslim office was

The prayer temple in Islam is the mosque (Masyid or Yami´). However, places that were not built as such but which allow prayer are called musala (the place to do the salat or prayer).

Actually, it was just a simple apartment available for Muslim prayer. The Egyptian musala was opened in 1986.

Jotba refers to the sermon (a word which really means speech in Arab) of every Friday, the holy day in Islam.50 The noon prayer.51 Daawa, the sermon of Islam, the spreading of the religious message.

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opened in Mexico with the support of brother Niaz and Riaz Siddiqui and Sohaib Irfan. The Salat was established there with its entire hour’s schedule, and courses on Islam and Arab were offered. However, the advent of the economic crisis times in Mexico prevented this office to maintain open. In August 1995, with the support of the local community and from other countries, Islam was legally born in Mexico52 under the name of “Centro Cultural Islámico de México, Asociación Civil,” known by the [Spanish] acronym of CCIM, in a 4m x 4m office53 that was mainly used as a prayer room and library at the Del Valle neighborhood in Mexico City. With the initiative of several members of CCIM, among them Abdullah Weston, Ali Ahmed Karim Salinas and Muhammad Abdullah Ruiz, and under the leadership of Omar Weston, CCIM opened spaces once closed for Islam, mainly in universities, as well as one event in Mexico typically for the entertainment among intellectuals called “Feria del Libro” [Book Fair]. Exhibitions and conferences about Islam were set up in these places. These activities, the individual attempt of the CCIM members to deliver Daawa, and the informational campaigns on streets allowed the expansion of Islam among Mexicans. In addition, a Spanish Web site was constructed for conveying Islam to the Spanish speakers of the Americas.54

Besides promoting Islam in several events in Mexico City, CCIM organises conferences, meetings and interviews mainly in Guadalajara, Monterrey and Veracruz where there are Muslim communities and even masalat today. The “Asociación Islámica del Norte” (The Northern Muslim Association) is found in Monterrey, and there is an association of ten55

Muslims in the latter city according to its internet site (Islam Veracruz). Thus, the main Muslim organisation in Mexico does not interfere in

either national or Middle East politics and does not pretend to be a voice for protecting the interests of the Meso-Oriental groups; but to promote Islam and to disclose the Faith of Allah in this country.

While Mohammed Abdullah Ruiz56 said CCIM was moved from Del Valle to the Polanco neighborhood at 512 Hegel Street, Omar Weston

52 As a matter of fact, the Muslim community of Torreón registered before their association at Gobernación (June 15, 1993) in the same way as Yerrahi, the Sufi organization of Mexico.53 4m x 8m according to Weston himself.54 Ruiz, Muhammed Abdullah “El Islam en México,” http://planet.com.mx/islam February 14, 1999 (accessed August 18, 2009).55 This number refers to practicing and not secular Muslims.56 Mohammed Abdullah Ruiz al-Meksiki (the Mexican), who sometimes identifies himself as Mohammed Abdullah al Salafi Ruiz, collaborated with Omar Weston during the first years of the CCIM. However, he later founded the Centro Salafi de


mentioned Musset Street (also in Polanco). The new temporary musalawas opened on January 1998 thanks to the support of the Saudi Embassy. And in June of that same year, the CCIM office was also moved to Polanco, taking advantage of the large facility.

According to Ruiz, the active Muslim community in Mexico City has 200 members from whom 50% are Mexican converts. In fact, they are the attendees of the prayers at CCIM and they do not include the Sufi, the Muslims of other organisations or the non-practitioners.

For Omar Weston, the goal was basically to spread out Islam and not to become a religious leader or someone who wants to have his own community. Nonetheless, it was difficult to obtain religious information for the interest of a non-Muslim public. In Polanco, he devoted himself to spreading out the message of Islam and not to get followers or to do politics.

For him, the most authentic movement of the Americas has been the Nation of Islam headed by Malcolm X and Elijah Mohamed; but he emphasised that although he does not totally share their ideas, he accepts this vision of a local Islam with national colors. In other words, he believed they had mistaken concepts, but they were a genuine movement.

In the face of a conversion boom during the last decades, both in Chiapas and through the Internet, Weston is skeptic about the Muslims´ role in this process. For him, most people that approached Islam have done it by themselves:

They are seekers and there is a reason that took them to Islam. They search on the Internet, for example, and they enquire more. There isn´t something properly of Muslims to attract them. You asked me why we built this center (of Tequesquitengo), and it is basically for that. Besides building a mosque, I looked for building it outside Mexico City in order to have more freedom to make the Duat57. The idea is to give Muslims a strong basis of Islam and not to get followers, so they can get back to their communities and disclose the message of Koran. The problem here is that we haven´t succeed in taking apart personalities, the role of wanting to be the leading persons. This has affected the Daawa. I reached a point of being indifferent. I mean, before I was more concerned of doing the follow-up of those who entered Islam. Today, I leave that to Allah, I focus in spreading the basic concepts of Islam, and God will decide the rest.

México (Mexican Salafi Center), breaking ties with the organization and radicalizing his religious stance.57 A kind of Islam prayer or recitation.

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In contrast, for José Luis Sánchez García,58ethno-historian from the Mexican National School of Anthropology and History (ENAH) and a convert Muslim since twenty years ago, there is documentation about Islam in Mexico at NGA, but little serious research:

In Mexico, Muslims are concerned about an Islamic cemetery as if the death index were high; but we don´t have a madrasa.59 That´s why there is a high level of Muslims dropping away. We need a school to educate Muslims. Mexicans are very religious. That is why other non-Catholic religions are growing. [This is] the same case of Islam that became a center for grasping religious refugees. Religion is a lifesaver. In Chiapas, the Tzotzils´ conversion was like a lifesaver that allowed them to survive from killings among them. There is a high level of desertion among them. In Mexico, people pay more attention to Daawa than to education.

Despite his closeness to CCIM, Omar Weston does not share José Luis Sánchez´s point of view. Far from centralising Islam education in a Madrasa, it should be spread, and examples are important.

The first prayer for Muslims from different places was made in Dar Es Salam on Sunday March 3, 2002 on an empty field. The mosque was built in 2003 in Xoxocotla, Tequesquitengo, Morelos. Its construction was planned in several stages in order to satisfy the religious needs of Mexican Muslims as a place for worship, education and cultural promotion. Besides being a religious center, the mosque has a hotel—Teques Inn (the former Hotel Oasis)—which offers hallal vacations, sojourns attached to Islam rules such as not eating pork or drinking wine, slaughtered animals according to Islam tradition, and prayer.

With the hallal food certificate required by Islam for exporting to Muslim countries, CCIM achieved a healthy financial autonomy. Sometimes, the center receives financial support such as the participation of Muslim Aid during the floods in Tabasco.

3.3 Mexican Sufism

In addition to the Mexican Islamic Cultural Center, the Sufi initiative in this country has its own Mexican features, though related to a Turkish order named the Yerrahi. The Porto Rican Sheija Amina Teslima al Yerrahi began the daawa among non-Mexican Muslims. Sufism, an Islam mystic branch, is widespread in several Muslim countries, although it has been persecuted in some, such as Saudi Arabia. This practice, that has its

58 Interview on August 8, 2009.59 Koran school.


origins in the Koran as well as in the mystical Christian and Hindu traditions, is considered heretic and contested by fundamentalist groups. Nevertheless, Sufism has always been well accepted in the West even during the Middle Ages. Several Spanish mystics, like San Juan de la Cruz, have a religious practice originating more from Sufism rather than from Christianity. Today, many conversions in Europe and Latin America have been through Sufism. This mystic approach has made many Christians adopt Islam.

The Mexican branch of the Halveti Yerrahi Sufi Order, headed by Amina, opened its teque60 in 1987 in the Roma neighborhood, where both the dhikr—the remembrance of the Holly name during several hours—and the ritual dance of the Yerrahi order took place. This tariqa, founded in the eighteenth century in Konya, the mystical city, was opened only for non-Muslims in 1978 when its Sheij, Muzaffer, founded the al Farha teque in New York.

Sheija Amina Teslima has broken the traditional stereotypes of Islam. Female, Muslim, inter-religious leader, pacifist and head of the Sufi Order in Mexico, she has made several pilgrimages to Mecca as well as to Medina, Jerusalem, and India. “Her Instituto Luz sobre la Luz [Light over Light Institute] promotes social action, the coexistence among religions and the training of pacifists. She also founded the first Inter-religious Council of Mexico, which wrote the Code of Ethics for Religious Associations, an unprecedented document in Latin America that summarises the principles for peace among religious communities.”61

With regards to her activity as feminist, being Muslim and Sufi, which seems contradictory, Amina states:

Feminism is a term that has different meanings in different fields. I think you can´t compare me with other feminists that began, after the war in the United States and Europe, a series of movements socially inclined to look for equal conditions of women that took them to achieve the right to vote and [other] series of legal rights sixty years ago. In the Islamic sphere, in the eighth century, a revelation of the Koran gave women the right to receive inheritance, to divorce on equal conditions as their husbands, and to live in a society with equal spiritual responsibility and standards as men. Then, saying “Islamic feminist” is a little tricky because that´s already

60 In Sufism, the place of the mystique practice is called teque, a Turkish word different from the mosque. 61 “Amina Teslima responde sobre el Islam”, interview with the sheija broadcasted by BBC on November 5, 2006 during her participation at the International Congress on Islamic Feminism, in Barcelona, in the site Web Islam, www.webislam.com/pdf/pdf.asp?idt=5834, retrieved on August 18, 2009.

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there; there is no need to pursue it or fight for it; what has to be done is to see if one is faithful in society in relation to the Koranic revelation; that´s what has been lost.62

For being a woman leading the prayers of the followers at the teque, Amina has been the target of criticism from fundamentalist groups in Mexico and abroad who propose that women cannot lead men. In fact, this stance is a mistaken interpretation of Islam because the hanafi63 juridical school accepts that women can lead the prayer at the mosque. Also, to the extent that there is no clergy or a central power that decides what is proper or not, there is freedom for the Islamic community for accepting or not a given practice.

3.4 Conservative or Traditional Islam

Regarding this inquiry of a Mexican Islam integrated to the reality of this country, several Islamic organisations in Mexico are characterised either by their religious radicalism (like the Chiapas Murabitun or the Salafi), their religious conservatism or traditional attitude (such as Shiísm in the La Laguna region), or by their political activism.

3.4.1 Shiísm of La Laguna

The mosque located at 1007 Guadalajara Street and the corner of 8th

Street in the Nueva Los Angeles neighborhood, in the city of Torreón, is an architectural jewel that began construction in 1986. This facility of 100 square meters has a prayer hall for 100 people, a minaret of 18.5 meters, and a dome with Koran verses engraved in Arabic. The mosque was inaugurated on November 22, 1989 with the name of Suraya to honor the memory of the daughter of Elías Serhan, Suraya, who was born on August 31, 1962 and died on November 22, 1986.

The funding of the mosque was the responsibility of Elías Serhan, who also sponsors its maintenance, and the architect of the project, sheij Hassan Zain Chamut, the current imam of the mosque. In contrast to all the religious centers of Mexico, the Muslim community of the Suraya Mosque is Shiíte and most of its members originally came from southern

62 Ibid.63 There are four juridical schools in Islam: Hanafi, Maliki, Shafii and Hanbali. Each has its own interpretation of the rules of religion. The first is the most liberal and the latter the most conservative. For more details, see Zidane Zeraoui, Islam y política.


Lebanon. During my visit to the Islamic center of La Laguna,64 all Muslims that were praying the salat el yumua were born in Lebanon. Some of them had been living in the country for forty-nine years while others for just a few months or years. The Islamic Community of La Laguna was registered at Gobernación on June 15, 1993 as a religious association. It is one of the oldest organisations authorised in the country with the sheij acting as its legal representative and Elías Serhan as its president.

The Arabs and Muslims arrival to Torreón began in 1885, but it increased during the 1920s and 1930s when the La Laguna region initiated its agricultural development with the participation of several Palestinian families. Nonetheless, in contrast to Shi´ites who came from southern Lebanon, almost all Palestinians who arrived there were from Bethlehem and, therefore, were Christians. Today, the Islamic community of the region is made up of:

35 to 40 families with 170 to 220 individuals. These [people] are Islam practitioners because [they are] the sons and grandsons of the first Muslims who came here. There are at least 200 families. Their last names are Nahle, Núñez (originally Yunes), Jalil, Hamis, Hechem, Harb, Mehde, Appes, Sabag, Braham, Karrum, Ramadan, Ale, Elías, Darwich, Chamut, Bugdud, Jalife, Zain, Mansur, Sobh, Chain, Fayad, Hamdan, Beder, Abraham, Serhan, Salum, Rachune, Charara, and others.65

Despite the importance of the community set up in La Laguna, the religious pressure in Mexico at the beginning of the twentieth century and the weight of Catholicism pushed the abandonment of Islamic practicing, though many of these Arabs were Maronites:66 “Before the foundation of the Syrian-Mexican school in 1912, there were professors who teach Arab to their sons. The religious issue was relegated due to fact that many of them married to Mexican Christians and they did nothing to preserve Islam within their families. However, they remained Muslim until the last days of their lives.”67

64 The author visited the Suraya Mosque on Friday August 14, 2009 to interview the persons in charge of the Islamic community of the Laguna region and the faithful of the mosque.65 Omar Weston, “Entrevista a Augusto Hugo Peña Delgadillo,” in Islam en tu idioma, (Mexico: Centro Cultural Islámico, 2006).66 Maronites are Roman Catholic apostolic Lebanese but who practice more Oriental rituals.67 Weston, “Entrevista a Augusto Hugo Peña Delgadillo.”

Zidane Zeraoui 79

Before the construction of the Suraya Mosque, the practicing of Islam in La Laguna was usually in houses or in small groups:

Hassan Chain, the imam or `leader´ of La Laguna community recalls that when he was a child, in 1940, there were various groups originally from the Middle East who lived and worked in the region, some groups around the Villa market, others around the Juárez market, some others around the Madero market, and some in small communities who worked on commerce, purchasing and selling items and appliances. But despite their common origin, the practicing of Islam was something very private that was done within the family.68

The decision to organise themselves as a community was made with reference to a particular international context. After a long absence on the world stage, Shiísm came to life again in 1979 when the Ayatollah Khomeini took down the power of the Shah of Iran and established an Islamic Republic. The Persian fundamentalist victory was the trigger for an awakening of the followers of Ali both in the Middle East as well as in other regions, including Mexico. In fact, the current sheij of the Suraya Mosque took the initiative in 1983. From thirty-five people who gathered in Hassan Chain´s house almost three decades ago, today the Islamic community of Torreón surpasses one-hundred people, even though only small groups attend the prayer on Fridays.

Despite the Shiíte origin of the Laguna community, the mosque is open to all Muslims, even to non-practitioners. In contrast to traditional worship places, its originality is based on the absence of the mihrab69

found in all Sunni mosques. But, unlike practices among the Muslims groups of Mexico City where the main issues were basically religious, much of the debate in Torreón was about the political matters of the Middle East: from the role of Hizbollah in Lebanon with a certain sympathy, to the denunciation against the supposed intervention of the Western powers in the electoral process of Iran. Their Shiíte condition, their ties with their country of origin and their sympathy to the Islamic Revolution of Iran politicised the Laguna community in a natural manner. In contrast, Muslims converts of Mexico City were strictly focused to religious matters.

68 Uribe Jiménez, Yohan “El Islam en La Laguna, una tradicional minoría religiosa” in El Siglo De Torreón, Torreón, Coahuila, August 10, 2008.69 The Mihrab found in all mosques is used to guide the faithful to Mecca during the prayer.


3.4.2 The Educational Center of the Muslim Community

While CCIM has attracted more converts because of its non-orthodox view of Islam, particularly the openness of its worship places to non-Muslims, the Saudi Embassy financed the opening of a musala in Polanco (Mexico City) in 1998. In addition, in response to a request of the Ambassador, the CCIM moved to that place. In 2000, the Imam Said of Morocco, who led the prayer, proposed to collect funds for building a mosque and acquiring a cemetery. In this way, a legal entity was created in 2001: el Centro Educativo de la Comunidad Musulmana A.C. (The Educational Center of the Muslim Community or CECM).

This CECM, of a Hanafi70 profile, opened its own musala in the Anzures neighborhood. It left its goal of looking for funds for the Islamic cemetery, at least temporarily, to focus on being the official representative of Islam in Mexico. The participation of Pakistani, Arab and Muslims of other countries of the Middle East and Africa made this center an important voice for the Islamic community of Mexico City. Their participation on their Friday’s salat is probably the most attended of all musala in this country, except for Chiapas. However, its location in Polanco does not allow many Muslims to attend, especially the ones who are in the south of the city or far away from the musala. Also, if Friday is a holy day in Muslim countries, in Mexico it is a working day. So this means that many believers cannot participate in the musalas´ religious activities.

Because of the presence of Muslim diplomats, CCEM has not tried to play a political role in this country´s life or interfere in the matters of the Middle East. Their participation on the debates about the Middle East is made individually, mainly by researchers (either Muslim or non-Muslim), and not as speakers of any particular community.

3.4.3 The Mexican Salafi Center

By accessing the Centro Salafi de México (The Mexican Salafi Center) website, there is an impression that we are in front of one of the largest Islamic organisations of the country. Nonetheless, attending on Friday the Salat el Yumua located at 77 South Street, almost on the corner of Boturini Street in a low-class neighborhood, it is disappointing. No one is in charge of the apartment that is used as a musala by the Salafi community during a

70 Among the four schools of Sunni Islam interpretation, Hanafi is the most liberal.

Zidane Zeraoui 81

very important time scheduled for prayer. They have a virtual perspective but not a real one.

The Mexican Salafi Center is “the first Spanish-speaking Salafi organisation and the only one in Mexico”71 now called the Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahab musala. According to this group´s own interpretation, their orientation follows the Salifi Saleh, in other words, the wisest Muslims such as Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahab (eighteenth Century) and Ibn Taimiyah (thirteenth Century), considered two of the most conservative renovators of religious interpretation. The first was the spiritual father of Saudi Arabia, today a Wahabi nation.

The Center´s stance is clear with their denouncement against the Hanafi orientation of the Anzures musala and their attachment to the “the wise Ahlu Sunnah and the Ulemah Consensus of Saudi Arabia.” In addition, Salafi condemn both the liberal and Hanafi ways of Islam as well as Sufism considered a non-Islamic element, a bid´a or innovation, following the Wahabi tradition.

The crisis between the Salafi center and other organisations began with the foundation of the Euclides’ musala. The Salafi leader, Ruiz, broke with the CECM. And when the Dar Es Salam mosque of Tequesquitengo was inaugurated and Omar Weston accepted to receive several Muslim groups (from different perspectives or simply non-practitioners) and approached the Centro Cultural, Ruiz stood apart from his former fellow, accusing him of being favorable to the bid´a and to other practices not close to the Saudi Salafiyah. According to him, “while the CCIM seemed on the way to become the first Salafi organisation in Mexico, it will be proved, for the grief of many, that he used the Salafiyah only as a source for getting support.”72

On February 2003, the Balbuena73(neighborhood in Mexico) musalawas opened as part of the CCIM activity. However, the crisis between the Salafi of Mohammed Ruiz and the board of the Islamic Center blew out. The followers of Omar Weston were expelled from the musala board on July and it was closed on September due to the struggles between these two versions of Islam. This caused the final breaking-up of the Salafi with Weston´s cultural center and the Euclides’ musala.

71 Words of Mohammed Abdullah Ruiz, sheij of the Salafi comunity, Mexican Salafi Center Internet site, http://www.islammexico.net, retrieved on August 15, 2009.72 Ibid.73 Located at 61–6 Fernando Iglesias Street and Calderón Street, Col. Jardín Balbuena, Mexico City.


Thus, the Salafi community decided “to establish bonds with other groups inclined to it in order to restore ties … which were highly damaged by many contradictions within the existing Islamic organisations … with the authorities and Islamic organisations of Saudi Arabia”74. This way, the Mexican Islamic Center set apart itself from the Saudi conservative stance, although Weston worked at the Saudi Embassy, and the Salafi Center became the speaker of Wahabism interests.

The Organización Islámica de México (The Mexican Islamic Organisation) was founded on October 2003, supposedly to follow the initial goals of CCIM. In the next year, it changed its name to Centro Salafi de México (Mexican Salafi Center) radicalising its position by eliminating elements such as the half-moon and the stars on its website. Due to some economic problems, the Mexican Salafi Center closed the “Al Markaz as Salafi” musala temporarily on February 2006. It reopened on September 10, 2006 as “Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahab” musala, located at Abraham González Street in the Juárez neighborhood, in Mexico City´s historic downtown. The cost of this pre-Revolution style building could not be maintained. So on November 2007, it was moved to the facility placed at 77 South and Boturini Streets, in an old residential building, without any musala sign board or the presence of the Salafi, even during the day of the salat del Yumua.

The leader of the Salafi Center clearly states his stance regarding other Islamic organisations in his document called “El Islam en México75” (Islam in Mexico). Among the branches condemned by Salafism were the Jawariy,76 Sufism and all the theological branches that deny predetermination such as the mutazalite Qadiriya. Also, it was publically called to disclaim the “WebIslam” Internet site owned by CCIM because:

(1) They reject and oppose the application of the Shariat. (2) They reject any government that pretends to establish Islam, labeling it as retrograde, dictatorial, anti-democratic and even terrorist, either Saudi Arabia or Iran. (3) They do not accept the use of hiyab as part of the Islamic norms and they promote its disuse by women. (4) They joined campaigns organised by the West against Islam, such as Amnesty´s against Nigeria´s Shariat.

74 Ibid..75Shaykh Ibn Qudaamah al-Maqdisee, Lum’ah al-I’tiqaad, refered by Muhammad Ruiz Al Meksiki “El Islam en México,” May 20, 2009 taken from http://www.islammexico.net (accessed August, 2009).76 This was the group that stood apart from Alí during the break-up of 656.

Zidane Zeraoui 83

(5) They have promoted campaigns against Muslims, like the FEERI proposal to chase Islamic entities in Spain. (6) They echoed Western propaganda against Islam and Muslims. (7) They brought suit against sheij Kamal and testified on the prosecution inside Spain. (8) They repeated anti-Islamic comments in their site [that are] extremely offensive for Muslims without stating the proper explanations. (9) They published in their site serious insults against sheij Kamal and other sheijs in general, even with racist and xenophobic comments. (10) They deny that Prophet (BPD) has made miracles. (11) They praise atheists and all atheist thinking, and they prefer it over the Islamic traditional thinking. (12) They support evolutionism and praise Darwin whose doctrine is essentially atheist and who is called “the serf of Allah”. (13) They pretend to create a new Fiqh, `andalusi´, based on the teachings of Averroes. (14) They hold that they are capable of making interpretations of Koran and emitting fatwas77 by their own account, opposing to all the rest of the Fiqh Schools.78

This long list of Salafi accusations clearly shows their attachment to the most conservative teachings of Islam, such as the Wahabi. Besides the writings of Ruiz, another Salafi, Musa Abdullah Reyes, denounces al-Ghazali in a translation for his proximity to Sufism, despite that the author of Ihya Ulum Ed-Din was one of the main advocates of Islam during the Middle Ages and opposed the philosopher’s stance in particular to Averroes, al-Farabi, Avicenna and all the followers of the Hellenic thinking of Islam.

On the other hand, their attacks against the Sufi movement and its Mexican version headed by sheija Amina, in particular, come from the Salafism rejection against women´s leadership during the Jotba. Using arguments and refutations from the Saudi Ulemas,79 they justify their position in front of the CCIM openness.

With its extremist stances, the Salafi Center has set itself apart from the Muslim national community, closing itself to a universe that is far from reality, and its interest is focused on Islamic controversies and not to

77 Religious decision or edict.78 Shaykh Ibn Qudaamah, Lum’ah al-I’tiqaad.79 The Hanbali school, especially with its Wahabi radicalization, does not accept any role of women, not even voting which is recognized by the Koran.


political participation. Thus, no Muslim community of Mexico City participates on the debate of political problems of the Middle East.

3.5 The Indigenous Islam

Since the 1990s, a phenomenon that revolutionised the idea of Islam in Mexico and draw attention worldwide has occurred: the Islamisation of the Tzotzil Indians of Chiapas. This began when two Spaniards from Granada—Aureliano Perez Yruela, Emir Mohammad Nafia, and Esteban López Moreno—arrived to San Cristobal in 1994, accompanied by an Islamised Mexican from CCIM, Luis García Miquel, in order to began the daawa in the context of the Zapatista uprising. The Center for Social Development for Muslims (Misión para el Da´wa, AC) was founded, and its rapid success was due to a traditional abandonment from Catholicism among indigenous people in the poorest state of Mexico. In fact, the Roman Catholic Church lost its predominance in this state in the middle of a serious competition against the Evangelic, Protestant and Baptist branches, and nowadays, against Islam. In addition, the Spaniards developed economic activities like food preparation (mainly bakery and pizzeria), carpentry, dressmaking, the “La Alpujarra”80 restaurant, and a madrasa or Koran school, in order to provide jobs to the indigenous converts. The prayer is done at the Al Kawthar mosque in La Hormiga neighborhood in San Cristobal de las Casas.

The success of this Islamisation process can also be explained by the fact that the 1995 daawa was carried on within the Protestant indigenous community that was violently expelled from San Juan Chamula in the 1970s. This group was set up in the surroundings of San Cristobal in the neighborhood of Nueva Esperanza, being marginalised by both its Catholic and recent Protestant conversion past. Their lack of origin and resources for survival took to them to adopt their new faith, allowing the Islamisation of 300 Tzotzil.

Their first adherents were indigenous Tzotzil families expelled from San Juan Chamula.81 Today [the community] is made up by a group of Spaniard and Mexican Muslims, among them a large number of Tzotzil and Tzetzal Indians. The anthropologist Gaspar Morquecho refers that the

80 It is a reference to the Spanish place where Muslim converts revolted between 1571 and 1579.81 In fact, one of the first persons Islamized was Domingo López Ángel, a political leader of the communities violently expelled from the town of San Juan Chamula to the surroundings of San Cristóbal de las Casas in the 1970s.

Zidane Zeraoui 85

leadership of the Mission has close ties with the board of the Murabitum World Movement82 headed by a Muslim convert from a Sufi tariqa, named Sheij Abdel Qadir (As-Sufi) Al Murabit whose goal is to expand his movement that conceives Islam as a perfect social system revealed by God to Mohammad and which explicitly expresses the conviction of making a proposal of an Islamic society with an economic and political plan that releases the community from the prevailing capitalist society, usury, and waged labor. The project, that had great acceptance within the indigenous society, was sketched on a personal letter from emir Nafia´to Subcomandante Marcos, leader of EZLN in 1995. The organization is hierarchically ordered on a patriarchal base headed and governed by men; and at the top, there is the emir (in this case, the Spaniard Nafia´), a religious guide or imam. To rule the indigenous converts, there is the position of a Chamula emir.83

A few years later, the break-up was inevitable. With a strict discipline and a lack of knowledge about the indigenous logic in particular, the Spanish Murabitun caused the departure of the first Islamised Tzotzil. As some Tzotzil have mentioned to CCIM, the Spaniards imposed bread in the meals instead of tortillas,84 and Yahia´s cousin, the Emir, taught them to wear suits as if they were European. One of the leaders, Mohamed Amin, disclaimed Emir Nafia, and tried (and failed) to obtain support directly from Spain. Nevertheless, the Islamic community of Chiapas is still present, though divided. Due to its indigenous origin and its lack of interest on the Middle East, a region totally away from their concerns, this community has no interest in influencing national life or mold the country´s politics.

Conclusions

The heterogeneous origin of both the Arab and Muslim communities in Mexico has entailed their absence in the national political debate over Meso-Oriental issues. The Arab community is basically Maronite and Lebanese, and their total integration into the economic life allows them to play a role in this country´s politics (several Mexicans of Arab-origin have been Governors or Ministers) but not in the Middle East. Their concerns

82 It is known in Spain as the Islamic Community, with headquarters in Granada.83 Diana Ibáñez Tirado, "La Da’awa en México,” in Zidane Zeraoui, El Islam en América latina.84 When the author visited San Cristobal in 1999, people talked about the presence of the Muribatun in the region. He had the chance to speak with the leaders of the movement who then had a bakery in the city.


are usually focused over cultural or social activities rather than political ones. And only an important debate between the Jewish and Arab communities, who tried to influence the stance of this country, took place during the creation of the State of Israel.

Even the Mexican community of Palestine-origin has been deeply integrated into the country. For example, their economic tie with the Jewish community of Monterrey makes them apolitical.

For its part, the Mexican Muslim community is even more diverse. Its feature of being integrated by many converts explains its low interest in foreign policy matters. In addition, the activities of almost all Muslim organisations, except of Torreón´s Shi´ite, are oriented towards Islam dissemination or simply to promote an understanding of Mahomet´s religion in a predominantly Catholic society.

Therefore, there is no Arab or Muslim lobby with regards to the interests of Meso-Oriental actors. In contrast, particularly at the heart of the Maronite community, the lobbying activity is focused on satisfying the interests of a totally Mexican group rather than to project a communitarian policy.

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GALICIAN IN THE TROPICS:THE HISTORY OF IMMIGRATION IN BRAZIL1

ÉRICA SARMIENTO DA SILVA2

The present-day composition of the population of Brazil is tied to immigration. The active participation of diverse people from four continents, with their distinctive customs and cultures, has contributed to the construction of Brazilian society which, from a historical process, is the union of many stories, from Portuguese, African, Japanese, Spanish, Lebanese and so on, without forgetting the indigenous populations prior to the arrival of settlers. Although immigration and miscegenation has come about since the days of colonialism, the contribution of multiculturalism and ethnic diversity prevailed in the late nineteenth century, with the process of modernisation becoming part of the system of capitalist production. Brazil was a country that maintained its economy based on the export of raw materials, but at the same time began to take the first steps into an urban economy, expanding the consumer market and means of transportation, the creation of first industries and the growth of the tertiary sector, changes that had been occurring since the nineteenth century in the federal capital. It was against this backdrop that Brazil received the largest number of immigrants in its history. There were no longer slaves to work on coffee plantations after abolition in 1888; it was necessary to change the master-slave model for the bourgeois-capitalist model. However, the economy continued to revolve around agriculture, specifically the main export of coffee, hence the need to seek manpower to supply slave labour through an immigration policy that would pay the fare of migrants, and theoretically offer advantages such as the possibility of acquiring land.

1 Translation by Marcos Valerio Melo Carneiro, a graduate in English Language, English & American Literatures from UERJ (Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro).2 Professor Erica Sarmiento, PhD from the University of Santiago de Compostela, Post-Doctorate from State University of Rio de Janeiro, Professor at the State University of Rio de Janeiro and Professor in the Masters program in History at Universidade Salgado de Oliveira

Galician in the Tropics: The History of Immigration in Brazil 92

The first attempts at subsidised immigration did not however come at the time of the coffee plantations of western São Paulo. Despite being the most significant period in terms of immigration to Brazil, it was before independence in 1822 that the first experiments in introducing a settlement model based on free family labour were made. One of them, the colony of Nova Friburgo in the province of Rio de Janeiro, brought in 1819 two-thousand Swiss immigrants who received a great deal of land and promises of prosperity from the Brazilian politicians and traders. This immigration policy initially had the goal of populating the country and developing an agriculture for supply, besides the intention of bringing immigrants skilled in arts and crafts for the building of cities. However, the promises were not kept by the recruiting traders, nor by the government: the difficulties of planting, the lack of medical care, poor harvests and media led to the removal of settlers, who went to other cities or returned to their home countries. Other colonies were founded before 1850, such as the city of Petropolis (Rio de Janeiro) with German immigrants, but the precariousness of the settlements and poor living conditions continued to exist. The hardship of these immigrants was better than that of the Swiss settlers in Nova Friburgo (Seyferth 2000, 11–43).

In 1840, the first attempts to introduce immigrants in large estates had already been initiated. That same year the landowner and politician Nicholas Vergueiro proposed a system of partnership, but only after the Proclamation of the Republic in 1899 that immigration is seen as a natural development in the transition from slavery to the free manpower.3 Large coffee plantations in the west of São Paulo and the Abolition of Slavery headed Brazilian immigration policy toward the calling of thousands of Europeans that could replace the former slaves. Immigration, which in the years prior to abolition had never exceeded an average of twenty-five thousand people, received 150,000 foreigners in 1889 (Mendonça Motta 1982, 38).

To complete the policy framework prior to mass immigration, the Land Law, enacted in 1850, confirmed that the interest of local elites was to maintain control over the properties and continue preserving the landholding system, and to not donate the land to the immigrant; instead, to sell it to them. To land oligarchy, the immigrant should only be a worker, not a landowner.

Southern Brazil was where small landowners mostly developed their settlement projects, due to subsidies by the central government. One such

3 The partnership system was a private initiative whose goal was to introduce manpower on coffee plantations, paying workers a percentage of the harvest.

Érica Sarmiento da Silva 93

colony was São Leopoldo, founded in the 1820s by German immigrants. By the end of Empire, about eighty German colonies had been founded in Brazil, located mainly in the south. The state of Santa Catarina was markedly colonised by Germans until the arrival of Italians and Poles. The south of Brazil sets an example of immigration based on small rural property and the subsequent construction of cities around these core lands.4 Urban development was exercised by the immigrants themselves, by those artisans and workers among them who brought technical expertise to develop small towns.

Brazilian immigration policy can be divided into two stages: the immigration for the sake of settlement and the subsidised immigration in the coffee plantations of São Paulo. The first aimed to populate the unoccupied areas of the Brazilian territory where they founded colonies with the recruitment of European immigrants, based on the regime of small farm polyculture. The second stage, in the 1880s, was a period of subsidised migration to the coffee plantations of São Paulo. These foreigners were used by the Government to settle the unoccupied areas under the program of small farming. The promises of land, working tools, and upkeep of their expenses by the Brazilian government were not met. Hence some countries banned migration to Brazil, such as Prussia in 1859, Italy in 1902 with the Prinetti decree, and Spain in 1910 (the latter two countries being already in the period of massive immigration) (Paschoal Guimarães 1988, 2–3).

The subsidisation of the state of São Paulo attracted thousands of immigrants, including many Spaniards willing to abandon their country to work on coffee plantations. This type of immigration provided new opportunities for the European colonist, such as it being free of fare charges for travel, subsidised by public funds. The São Paulo government footed the cost of the ticket partially, offering the immigrant the opportunity to bring their entire family, and promised numerous benefits of enrichment and land ownership. However, the reality was not as the government had said or as the new settlers wished. The Brazilian landowning policy, usually retained in the hands of a restrictive oligarchy, did not allow immigrants easy access to the land. In 1850, as a noteworthy example in the immigration policy of settlement, it was forbidden for any foreigner to acquire land if not by purchase. Apparently, any immigrant could buy land in Brazil, but they would have to come up with enough capital to do so. It was the law of the strongest. Competing with the

4 It includes the states of Parana, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul.


traditional oligarchic families, who manipulated the administrative and judicial systems, for a foreign newcomer whose only asset was a work force this was a task close to impossible (Fausto 1995, 108).

The first to arrive at the coffee plantations of western São Paulo were Italians and Portuguese. The Spanish arrived later, when in 1902 the Italian government prohibited migration to Brazil. The foreigners arrived in the State and were immediately taken to the Immigrant's Hostel where they would spend their early days until sent to a farm. Many of the Spaniards who migrated to this state were those who did not have the opportunity to go to other countries such as Argentina, due to the inability to purchase a ticket. This migration was mostly performed by the Andalusian peasantry, landless labourers who saw in these contracts a chance for better opportunities, the only reason to migrate. Unlike other groups of foreigners such as Germans and Swiss, few Spaniards managed to acquire properties in Brazil, because most had no capital to buy land and work in coffee plantations could not provide it. The move ended up as expensive for many immigrants, unprotected in the hands of landowners and forced to obey their commands, isolated under the control of the powerful Brazilian Colonels (González Martínez 1994, 84–85).

The expansion of coffee plantations had created wealth, and capital accumulation led to greater investment in cities and the federal capital, Rio de Janeiro, above all. Urban centres appealed to migrants in another way. If land was not accessible and agriculture did not provide the expected benefits, the cities offered an expanding service sector and opportunities for social advancement. That does not mean that all those who had been seeking opportunities in cities achieved their dream of richness, but they had certainly received an implicit proposal that there they could generate wealth though the expense of hard work. They also had the examples of those who made good progress and returned to their countries of origin to follow. It was a way to feed the idea that you could get rich in America, the means of justification chosen by the Galicians to migrate to Brazil. What differentiates them from the Andalusians is that they were not hired laborers; many of the Galician migrants were poor, but not proletarians. They were peasants who could barely live on land that was partially their own and partially rental. The Galician farmer would use property of their own or of their family to pay the mortgage for journey expenses (Vázquez 1988, 90). Regarding the mortgage, Alejandro Vázquez states that: "A good part of rural families who sent a member to America had some land of their own, although usually not enough to support travel costs, so they used to seek the assistance of one or more sureties, so the output of an


immigrant, hired or not, involved people who often do not belong to the same community, spreading new flows" (Vázquez 1999, 246).

The structure of the Galician agrarian society is quite complex. Though qualified as owners in the entries of the census or in the books of cottage contribution, Galician peasants are different from Southern Spanish proletarians only because the latter own some pieces of land and, thanks to useful locations, can drive agricultural exploitation in exchange for charter paid rental. Although not all farmers were tenants (some of them were leaseholders or shareholders), the condition of tenant was predominant. Within the very status of tenancy, internal levels were ranked, ranging from a large field exploiter to a housekeeper. It was a rural setting that came from the Old Regime or feudal times. There were not full owners, nor modern farms, nor internal social relations of a capitalist nature. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century this relative lag underwent major changes such as, for example, the suppression of forums, the decline of nobility, upgrades in land harvesting and the consolidation of small peasant landowners in Galicia (Villares 2000, 68–71).

The deeds provide some information about the sponsorship of the trip of the migrants. Such was the case of the deed of mandate from farmer Manuel Ameijeiras Blanco, a neighbour of the parish of San Vicente de Rial (Buxán County) which states that "having made the decision of leaving the city of La Habana … gives away to and confers on his brother all power, in behalf of the grantor, his actions and rights, to manage and rule the properties belonging to the grantor”5; or the case of farmer Jose Vazquez, from the Parish de Fontecada (Santa Comba), who left a deed of obligation to the owners of the steamboat Paloma Cantabria, Misters Fernandez Hermanos (La Coruña), to pay for the ticket of his son who was migrating to Buenos Aires: "to join a relative who had called him out.” In this case, the contract clearly specifies that "these payments will be precisely made in gold or silver.”6 This last example demonstrates two mechanisms used by Galicians to move from their country of origin: firstly, a relative calls out the immigrant, i.e. networks of solidarity and kinship; secondly, the way one travels, based on spontaneous migration, by means of family funding for the journey expenses.

This difference was crucial in making a decision in favour of migration because, at least at first glance, the migrant was independent in seeking the best way to earn a living and how they could get funding for tickets,

5 Historical Archive of University of Santiago de Compostela (AHUs). Protocol of public instruments, district of Negreira, 1870. Notary D. Angel Montero Torreiro, 19.6 Ibid., 247.


whether by mortgage of some assets, by loans or by savings. In addition, bad records of land policy had followed the Galician peasants who were victims of the forums, lease systems, high taxes and local patronage. Moreover, there were reasons to return to Galicia: their eagerness to purchase leased grounds, and to increase capital for the sake of their home village and family’s improvement. It would not be surprising if they should seek other forms of enrichment other than by agriculture. One was by migration, whether intrapeninsular to Castille, Andalusia or Portugal, or overseas to America, as later accomplished in the nineteenth century. Money from America was a complement to Galician economy, useful for the purchase of properties by small farmers. Until 1926, the Galician countryside was characterised by the charter system. Peasants longed for the redemption of the forums (i.e. the purchase of property by the primary users of the earth). In central and southern Galicia, America's money bought more significance to this process of charter redemption by banking turns from Buenos Aires and Cuba up to 1925, since these countries had greater meaning to micro-territorial Galician societies (Núnez Seixas 1998, 52).

The migrant flow to the state of São Paulo was intense and historically important, and perhaps is why there are many pioneering studies devoted to this episode of Spanish immigration in Brazil (Klein 1996; González Martinez 1994; Souza Martins 1988). However, the involvement of Galicians in urban centres throughout the twentieth century and the flow from Portugal-bordered south central counties of the Pontevedra province to Rio de Janeiro have produced a new perspective on migration. From 1830 onwards, an incipient and limited flow of Galician immigrants settled on American countries (Cuba, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil), feeding on the creation and dynamics of microsocial network ties with their origins: “The typical method of staff-hiring strung among the Galician immigrants in Cuba was called nephewry (sobrinismo): an ‘uncle’ paid for the trip and offered a job to a Galician countryman” (Vázquez 1999, 73). In the state of Rio de Janeiro, which hosted most of the Galician and Portuguese immigrants to Brazil between 1850 and 1880, the choice of destination is associated with the Portuguese influence, mainly through intrapeninsular migration from Pontevedra counties to the northern Portuguese towns and cities such as Lisbon and Porto.

It is not easy to distinguish how many spontaneous migrants there were from those who joined the driven migration, nor even what impact subsidised migration has made on the Galician flow, but we can show the number of immigrants who entered Brazil from 1884 to 1939, according to official data, in fig. 5.1 below.


Fig.5.1. Total of immigrants who arrived in Brazil (1884–1939)

Figure of immigrants Figure of Spaniards

Source: Revista de Imigração e Colonização, September 1944, n.3, Year V.

A decrease in the migration flow begins in 1914 as a consequence of the international scenario, the New York stock market crisis in 1929, the two World Wars and the Brazilian political situation, which in the 1930s was under the dictatorship of Getulio Vargas. The veracity of this source should also be questioned, because these figures do not show those who migrated illegally or who entered Brazil from Argentina or Uruguay.

The escape from military service also had a significant impact on the Galician migration within the peninsula, when the young men migrated to Portugal, Andalusia, Castille and the cities of Porto, Lisbon and Cadiz. During much of the 1830–1930 period, the Galician refugees continued migrating to other areas of the peninsula. With the opening and consolidation of migration to America, the destination of refugees is extended to the American countries. In the Cantabrian and Atlantic coasts of Galicia, streams of refugees who were heading to the most active and populous cities in Castille and Andalusia began to be replaced between 1840 and 1850 by those from Cuba and Rio de la Plata respectively. Within areas of the province of Pontevedra and its frontiers with Lugo, westside to La Coruña, and in the southern provinces neighbouring Portugal, the men were mostly oriented toward the main Portuguese cities


and, through them, towards Brazil. With more traditional migratory agendas, the Lugo and Ourense countrysides guided their destinations to Castille, Andalusia and Portugal. For many rural or bourgeois families, military service meant a void in household maintenance by losing "arms" for agricultural exploitation or for extra savings of seasonal migrations, and the youth’s deprivation in instruction or vocational training (in the case of wealthier families). The scarcity of economic resources of most Galician families decreased the chance of those summoned from getting exemption from military service, or at least paying for a replacement, the cheaper procedure costing between 500 and 1250 pesetas. According to data from Recruitment and Replacement Statistics, published from 1912–1920, the list of provinces with the highest rate of refugees were mostly Canary, Oviedo, La Coruña, Pontevedra, Almería, Ourense, Lugo, Málaga, Santander and Madrid. Between the years 1895–1933, Galicia was responsible for 29.85% of the refugees, compared with 13.71% of their Spanish neighbour; in 1914 the number of Galician refugees reached the maximum 50.67% compared to 22.09% of Spaniards. The wars that had occurred throughout the nineteenth century (for instance the War of Morocco, the Cuban War, the third Carlist war, the war in the Philippines), economic and social needs, together with the fascination for American countries, fomented for Galicia a high rate of refugees (Vázquez 1999, 290–315). Heading to Brazil between the years 1865 and 1920 there were 6,695 Spaniards from the French port of Bordeaux (Yáñez Gallardo, 1994, 127–128). In relation to Galicians, the file numbers of some farms in the Pontevedra counties of Gondomar, Pontevedra and Salvaterra do Miño, as analysed by Alejandro Vazquez, accounted for the sum of 63, 35 and 27 refugees respectively, in the first thirty years of the twentieth century (Vázquez 1999, 309).

Illegal immigration of youths who fled the military service may be proved in archival work conducted in the municipality of Santa Comba. The books of military expedients collected from 1901 to 1930 show a total of 2,984 boys enrolled in military service. Less than half of those who were called presented themselves; 65.28% were fugitives.


Table 1. Number of refugees in the municipality of Santa Comba (1901-1939)

Years Total of soldiers

Brazil (refugees)

Other American countries

(Argentina, Cuba and Uruguay)

Total of refugees

From 1901 to

1910

884 163 (36,54%) 218 (48,87%) 446 (50,45%)

From 1911 to

1920

886 97 (15,15%) 146 (16,47%) 640 (72,23%)

From 1921 to

1930

1214 31 (3,60%) 99 (11,48%) 862 (71,00%)

Source: Author's calculations from the military expedients, AMSC

It is quite a large number if we consider that more than half of the boys in this city did not comply with the obligations of military service. One problem with this source is that, starting from the 1920s, the notes become increasingly scarce, particularly those relating to the destination of the young men. We see that within the period 1901 to 1910, Brazil retained 36.54% of the refugees, declining to 3.6% in the 1920s. The difference in the number of refugees is related to the omission of the destinations in the documents, since the only information contained in them was “did not appear” or “unknown whereabouts,” rather than the name of the country left behind by the boys. From the book of the farms of the year 1910, the lack of information on the whereabouts of refugees is a constant factor; it is unknown whether it is the result of relatives’ ignorance about the boys’ destination or the lack of concern from official servants.7 In the military expedient of 1913, for example, from ninety-six young men called for enlistment, seventy-five (78.12%) do not attend and among that number of fugitives we only know the exact target destination of 36 (48%) of them.8

The decrease in the rate of refugees is not only evident in the case of Brazil, but also of countries with important migratory destinations for Santa Comba’s neighbors—Argentina, Uruguay and Cuba. However, the

7 In the 1930s and 1940s the destinations of the refugees has not been recorded.8 Fourteen refugees were registered in Brazil, eleven in Argentina, two in Uruguay, seven in Cuba, one in Madrid and one in Portugal.


total refugees has not decreased—on the contrary, it rose between the years 1911 to 1920, remaining above 70% a decade later, showing that a high number of youths at the age of military service from Santa Comba carried on migrating.

Many of these young people, primarily in the nineteenth century, went to Portugal, where they sought "an outlet to the sea." The interchange between Portugal and Galicia had started before the overseas migration and was part of migratory moves within the peninsula. Until the 1860s, refugees went predominantly to the neighbour country and for decades thereafter, due to Portuguese influence, decided to go for the former Lusitanian colony (Vázquez 1996, 139–175).

Some Galician counties in Pontevedra had a clear tradition of migration to certain cities and Portuguese lands. This is the case of the municipalities of Fornelos de Montes and Pontecaldelas, who migrated to Lisbon, and the municipality of Lama, who had a preference for the city of Porto. Decades later, following the Galician stream who went to South America, the inhabitants of these municipalities chose Brazil, particularly Bahia State, as a favoured destinations (González Lopo 2000, 269–298). There is little doubt that those who moved from Galicia to the interior of northern Portugal to work as construction workers, or those who went to urban areas such as Porto and took many different occupations, from servants to dealers, were influenced by local society, by the Portuguese returned from Brazil, or those who had migrated in search of better opportunities. Brazil would become part of the possible routes of the Galicians towards America and the stories of the naturalized Brazilians returning to Portugal would contribute to their choice of target place.

From Alto Minho in Portugal, between the years 1838–1860, a group of migrants moved to cities like Viana do Castelo to get a passport and leave for Brazil. Just as had happened to most Portuguese who landed in Brazil, it also demonstrated to the Galicians a distinctive destination, Rio de Janeiro, to where more than 81% of these went (Fernandes Rodrigues 1992, 179).

The Galician writer Xoan Neira Cancela, in one of his texts of the late nineteenth century titled The Brazilian, tells the story of “a young boy, raised in the rough mountains of Lugo, or in a hamlet in the province of Orense, near Portugal.”9 The reference to the neighbouring country is not a coincidence; it demonstrates the author's knowledge of the influence that received the Galicians from areas close to Portugal as regards the choice of their migratory destination, namely Rio de Janeiro. Studies related to the

9 Boldtyped by the author.


County of Melon (Ourense) indicate that from the period of 1651 to 1920, the figure of 48.9% of migrants went to Portugal. From 1851, the neighbours of this county began to migrate to different Latin American countries, among them Brazil as the second country of destination after Cuba, and the city of Rio de Janeiro as the first choice of place in Brazil (Fernández Rodríguez 1992, 170–172). Literature meets with the historical data relating the move of Galician municipalities to Portugal as a "bridge" for the subsequent migration to Brazil.

Among notarial protocols in the county of Santa Comba, references to migrants in Portugal confirm the route Galicia-Portugal-Brazil as that made by inhabitants from certain Galician counties with significant convergence on Rio de Janeiro, as was the case of Santa Comba. In 1870, journey-widow Josefa Barbeito Caamaño, neighbour of the parish of Mallon (Santa Comba), states before a notary that: “her son Manoel Currais Barbeito, resident in the city of Oporto, in the Kingdom of Portugal, with the purpose of taking over his life and providing livelihood to his mother, has decided to depart for South America and, as being the age of twenty-three and free of houses, so solicits the license of his mother to be admitted to the vessel has already hired and paid the freight.”10

Although the document does not specify which South American country Manuel Corral headed for, we know he went to Rio de Janeiro, because in 1873 he was admitted to the Spanish Hospital of this city. Moreover, several relatives of his, with the family name Barbeito and from the same parish, also entered the same institution. Along with another relative named Jose Anselmo Barbeito, he was among the first migrants from the parish of Mallon to enrol in the Spanish Hospital and possibly one of the pioneers of migration networks in the municipality of Santa Comba that began in the late nineteenth and spread throughout the twentieth century (until the 1960s).

In another county, Cotobade (Pontevedra), along with migration to Rio de Janeiro in the nineteenth century, intra-peninsular moves bound for the northern cities of Portugal also played an important role. A fugitive named Jose Gomez of Viascón Parish provides a representative example—in 1831, he moved from the city of Oporto to Rio de Janeiro, according to information provided by his family.11 A further example can be found in the case of families split between Portugal and Brazil, such as the brothers José Ignácio, Manuel and Antonio from the Parish of Valongo (Cotobade), 10 AHUS. Protocol of public instruments, district of Negreira, 1870. Notary D. Angel Montero Torreiro, page 91.11 Municipal Archive of Cotobade Town Hall (AMC). Farm Book, register 535 / 1, 1831.


the former two having migrated to Chaves (Portugal) and the latter to Brazil.12 All were fugitives and were absent from the Town Hall in 1831. In the nineteenth century (ranging from 1831 to 1880), Portugal received 72.6% of Cotobade refugees. In the following century, immigrants began to share their migratory destinations mainly between Brazil and Argentina.

The above examples illustrate the influence of intra-peninsular migration, present in the nineteenth century, with later migration to America. Former migration records of Galicians, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, help the municipalities set the choice of American targets, as was the case in Santa Comba, Cotobade and Melon: three municipalities in different provinces, which had destinations in common: Portugal-Brazil.

After the 30s

After the First World War (1914–1918), the national economy began to grow, especially after the 1930s. It settled the initial contours of deployment of a core of basic industries, and defined the new role of the state in economic matters, reinforcing plant production as a dynamic economy axis. With the rise of Getulio Vargas in 1930, the Brazilian state has advanced its process of constitution as a nationalist capitalist state, which culminated in Vargas’s dictatorship in 1937, called the “Estado Novo.” The national business class seeks an effective participation in the state-owned apparatus, in developing an industrialist program and in the making of a speech that will print their ideology.

In order to achieve these goals, the industrial elite had appropriated categories produced by theorists of authoritarian thinking, redefining them as support for modernisation, a strong, omnipresent state as one of its premises: "The industrial bourgeoisie played a significant role in the game of political alliances that formed in 1930, having little in common with the image of weakness and passivity to which they traditionally tend to be assigned" (Mendonça Motta 1982, 328–329). The nationalising state should assist in the assimilation of immigrants through education to join them to the traditions of the country. An immigrant when not integrated was seen as an agent of denationalisation. In this sense, the immigrant was only of some interest when committed to the creation of a national identity, taking part in building the future Brazilian worker, rather than as an element of disintegration and disorder. In the 1930s and 1940s, people disapproved the immigration of Jews, Japanese and Germans, elements

12 Ibid.


considered as unmixable and dangerous to national security. Preference was given to the Latinos, Portuguese, Italians and Spaniards, as they were seen as culturally close, and more assimilable (Pájaro Peres 1997, 57). Measures were taken to protect the domestic worker who eventually reached out to immigration. The Constitution of 1930 establishes the quota system for spontaneous immigration, i.e. the influx of immigrants could not exceed the 2% limit on the total of their national populations: "However, there is not an appreciable decrease in immigration; although it has fallen by almost two thirds, the immigration movement does not stop the entry of immigrants" (Diegues Júnior 1964, 61).

As we can see in fig 5.2 below, between 1930 and 1950 there is a considerable decrease in Spanish migration to Brazil, coinciding with the Vargas Dictatorship, the Spanish Civil War and World War II. Since 1950, immigration was to regain strength, albeit with much lower figures compared to the early twentieth century.

Fig 5.2. Spanish migration to Brazil (1820–1972)

Source: Klein 1996, 143–147

In the 1930s and 1940s, in spite of the dictatorship, these immigrants had a positive image of Brazil. They analysed the story from their perspective,


of a foreigner in a country with a labour market lacking in manpower and in a period of economic growth. If they did not get involved with political issues and had the legal documentation, they could work freely in the country. Moreover, in both interviews, migrants reach a generally important point: safety. They make a comparison with earlier times and, from their perspectives, realise they are safer in a dictatorship than in a democracy. Thus they value, above any political regime, the ease of work and growth that the country offers, and the tranquillity of the capital’s neighbourhood during these times.

With the end of Vargas’ dictatorship in 1945, coinciding with the post-war period, migration becomes more selected with professional skills to contribute to the development of the country and to meet the shortage of national manpower at the technical level (Santos 1996, 95–97). Under the command of President Juscelino Kubitschek, there was great economic growth due to investments made by the State, especially in basic and automobile industries. The industrial development opened the doors to the skilled worker the country lacked. Due to legal requirements and the need for specific labour, it was necessary for an immigrant to prove his professional activity (mainly technicians for industry) through labour contracts (Martínez Gallego 1995, 23). Aiming to attract immigrants, Brazil became part of the International Committee of the European Migration (ICEM), and in 1957 a program for the migration of workers was established between Brazil and Spain. Those who migrated spontaneously had to justify their occupation before the consul general of Spain by a certificate, and those migrants who were claimed by relatives in Brazil had to submit a photocopy of Alien Registration at the family’s request. The ICEM provided a free license to those who entered through it (Gonzalez Martinez 2003, 206). The national policy on migration takes a more technical position, the migrant was the machine and the immigration process was the process of industrialisation (Pájaro Peres 1997, 65).

The requirements for migration after World War II also reveal how the migration chain that resumed after World War I took an urban and spontaneous character. In both periods, urban growth and industrialisation, with its new technical activities, contributed to the entry of immigrants in the Brazilian labour market. Industrial labour had a considerable share of foreigners, most of them Spaniards (27.4%), followed by Italians with 21.2% under the category of skilled workers. In the group of technicians, Diegues Junior (1964, 309) accounts for the years 1945–1958: 7,245 immigrants. Of this total, 20.2% were Italians, 11.8% Americans and 11.2% Germans. Spaniards appear to contribute 3.85% in this professional


group. Many took advantage of their technical training to enter the country and start their own business or to get a skilled job.

Although the state imposed certain conditions, the Galicians continued to migrate, regardless of whether or not they met the job requirements of the Brazilian policy. Even if the Brazilian economy demanded skilled workers and technicians, it could not prevent the entry of those who migrated by family regrouping, or those who violated the law by bearing false letters of employment and fake professional qualifications. Proof of this is that between 1945 and 1958, 37.6% of all immigrants in the country were on the professional staff of housekeepers, against 17.6% of skilled workers, which, on the one hand, may explain the greater presence of women migrants (Diegues Junior 1964, 317).

Table 2. Immigrants by occupational categories in Brazil (1945–1958)

Agriculture Housekeepers Skilled

Workers Technicians Trade*

Total of immigrants

149894 (24,10%)

234 066 (37,6%)

109352 (17,6%) 7245 (1,6%) 27745

(4,45%)Spaniards 21824

(14,60%) no available

data 26802

(27,4%) 279 (3,85%) 832 (3%)

* Data from 1953. Portuguese share of trade was of 21,806 immigrants. Total of immigrants: 622,584

Source: Diegues 1964, 304–310

Brazilian statistics pointed to the increase of immigrants qualified as technicians or skilled workers or for trade in the years after World War II. For the state of São Paulo, Diegues Jr. selects immigrants professionally from 1946 to 1951 and obtains the following results:

Table 3. Migrants in the State of São Paulo (1946–1951)

Years Farmers Skilled Workers

Unskilled Workers

Trade and Industry

1946 569 417 101 632 1947 1280 696 156 1069 1948 1519 1117 291 1546 1949 2490 2217 486 1841 1950 3168 3715 571 2690 1951 6628 7606 755 1687

Source: Diegues Júnior, 1964: 315


Note that from 1949 the number of skilled workers begins to rise and, as of 1947, the branch of trade and industry almost doubled. The data is not concerned with Spanish migration only, but helps to illustrate the new immigration policy in Brazil, seeking to attract technicians and workers to the factories. In trade and industry, the growth of this sector shows that immigrants occupied positions not required by the government, seeking work where their countrymen had already been established for decades. If it were not so, why would the Galicians still be working mostly in the sector of trade and/or hotel services? Despite representing the second group of immigrants with more skilled workers (27.4%) in the national total, in Rio de Janeiro most of them are concentrated in urban lodging and food services, according to the census of 1950. Behind only the Portuguese, the Galicians also predominate in the business of hotels, inns and restaurants (Diegues Jr. 1964, 317–318). This demonstrates the concentration and perpetuation of the Galician community in certain professional sectors, regardless of job vacancies offered by the government and the new immigration policies in Brazil. It was clear that the networks of solidarity, which included personal and professional contact, were worth more than any policy.

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MIGRATION, COLLECTIVE ORGANISATION AND SOCIO-POLITICAL INTERVENTION:NOTES ON THE ROLE OF THE GALICIAN

COMMUNITY IN ARGENTINA IN THE MODERNISATION OF GALICIA (1900–1936)

RUY FARÍAS1

“Considering that many of the evils that afflict our region have their origin in the indifference and apathy, causes of the ignorance in which our life, social as much as political develops within a selfish individualism harmful to the collective interests, and the foundation for the creation of the type of cacique among our people whom the villagers believe to be a demi-god, for these considerations and many others that it would be obvious to enumerate among them, religious fetishism which grows in the countryside thanks to exploitation … Being these causes confirmed, and being agriculture the only source of work of our region, all regeneration work should come from the peasants, to be effective and of positive advantages: it is for these Considerations that a nucleus of citizens creates a useful work for our region by creating the possible greatest number of agrarian societies in the villages to disinfect the licentious atmosphere in which the authorities of the rural town halls develop [,] first step of national politics and contribute with all their means to the farmers’ intellectual elevation. for these Considerations, the Committee of the Agricultural Societies of Puenteareas is founded, February 22/910.”2

Migration is the phenomenon that defines the history of Galicia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. No less than a million and a half Galicians migrated between 1836 and 1930, most of them to the Americas, and Galicia was among the countries with the highest migratory rates since 1 Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento, Universidad autónoma de Entre Ríos, Museo de la Emigración Gallega en la Argentina. 2 Archive FAGA-MEGA, Renovation Centre Fund of Puenteareas, Sub-fund Auxiliary Committee of Agrarian Societies of Puente Areas in Buenos Aires, Act Book, p. 2. All translations are the author´s.

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the 1880s.3 This had consequences on its society, economy and political structure. Despite multiple unpleasant individual experiences, migration implied the incorporation of Galicia to the world economy in a decisive phase of conformation of capitalism. At the same time, migration meant the utilisation of part of the resources generated in Galicia in order to face a relative but apparent transformation process. Almost nothing of what happened in Galicia in those years escaped the influence of migration. Phenomena such as the transformation of agriculture and the maritime infrastructure, the development of local banking, the political life, the promotion of cultural and educational initiatives4 were all, to a large extent, shaped by migration.

In the first third of the twentieth century, a series of important changes took place in Galicia. Some of the elements wrongly perpetuated during the nineteenth century (the foral system5 for example) were suppressed. At the same time, the process of industrialisation deepened and agriculture increasingly became involved in the market economy. By the time cities began to grow, the social structure changed and the Galleguista ideology6

and practice deepend. It would be hard to make sense of these processes without looking at the contemporaneous Galician migration to the Americas.7

3 On the general characteristics and consequences of Galician migration to the New World, see Villares and Fernandez (1996). 4 See Villares and Fernandez (1996, 44), Villares (2004, 327). 5 The foro is a type of land renting peculiar of Galicia, characterized by its long duration (“perpetually” or “to generations”). In fact, the tenant (forero) acquired an almost indefinitely renewable right to the use of the land. 6 Galleguismo is a movement that embodies the long and complex process of political claims of Galicia as a national entity, and the parallel genesis of a body of ideas that justify those claims. Its historical evolution is divided in three stages: provincialism, from 1840 to approximately 1885; regionalism, from 1885 to 1915; nationalism, from 1916/18 forwards. See Beramendi and Nuñez Seixas (1995, 17). 7 As Ramón Villares summarizes (2004, 308), the radical social, economic and political change in Galicia experiments is connected to three great processes: the development of an agriculture of small owners, integrated in the market and capable of building a strong associative net through agrarianism; the consolidation of an industrial network, centered on the Galician coast and linked with the exploitation of sea resources; and a deep cultural and political transformation, in which migration to America played an important role. Thus, the small landowner, the canning manufacturer, and the migrant are the three great sociological figures of Galicia of the first third of the twentieth century. See Villares (2004, 44 and 307) for a summary of Galician modernization of the first third of the twentieth century, with a specific mention to the role of the overseas migration.

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The great influence of migration in the configuration of Galicia prior to the Spanish Civil War can be synthesized in three elements: the economic remittances sent by the migrants to their families (material remittance); the cultural and educational remittances (particularly in the form of educational equipment)8; and the impact that the returned migrants had on the political and associative spheres.9 The two last are known as “immaterial remittance.” According to Xosé Manoel Núñez Seixas, the sociopolitical impact of migration was even greater than the economic impact of the remittances in Galicia.10 This is precisely the aspect in which the present work will be centred on, by focusing on the case of a colony settled in Argentina. The presence of numerous Galician communities in receptor countries, and the proliferation of associative forms at the local, county and regional levels, made possible the coordination of aid initiatives in favour of their localities of origin.11 We will now turn our analysis to this last aspect.

1. Galician migration in Argentina, local associationism and socio-political mobilisation

In quantitative terms, Argentina was in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the main destination of Galician migrants. According to statistical information gathered by Argentina, more than two million Spaniards arrived in this country between 1857 and 1930 and 54% remained permanently. It is considered that around half of this 54%, 500 thousand people, were Galician. Between 1900 and 1914, the arrival of immigrants to this country reached its peak. In fact, in 1914 the Galician community in Buenos Aires represented between 8–10% of the population of the city. In some industrial areas like Avellaneda this figure increased up to 13–14%.12

Núñez Seixas has stressed the need of taking into account two factors when considering the socio-political influence of the returned migration in

8 See the interesting graphic collection published in Conselleria de Educación (2002). 9 See Villares (2004, 331–2), A review of historic and sociological literature extant on transoceanic migration of return, and some notes on its historiographic and theoretical problems. See Nunez Seixas (2001b). 10 See Nuñez Seixas (2001b). 11 See Nuñez Seixas (1998, 21). 12 Noya (2004, 13), Nuñez Seixas (2010, 91). For a look at Galician immigration in this country, between the end of the eighteenth century and 1930, see Nuñez Sexas (2010).


the society of origin and the characteristics and modalities of their active and organised interventions. Firstly, we need to pay attention to the level of organisation, conscientisation and socio-political mobilisation that took place in the societies of arrival. Specifically, we need to look at the ways the community of migrants reproduced the diverse territorial levels found in their country of origin. In many cases, the communities of migrants became spaces of socialisation in which they shaped their image of the world. More importantly, they helped to shape the image of their country of origin. Those spaces were important not only in recreating but also in transforming the way the migrants related to their society of origin. In addition, the organised communities of migrants had an active social and political role upon the country of origin, and therefore provided a frame for the organisation and maximisation of the work of the returned migrants. Moreover, they provided support to social, political and economic projects that targeted the country of origin. These spaces of interaction were terrains in which different migrant elites, exiles, political projects and movements, and different social groups interacted. Thus, we need to consider the activities of the returned migrants not just as the accumulation of individual actions, but instead as a project somehow organised and boosted by associations in both the Americas and the country of origin.

The second factor noted by Núñez Seixas is the fact that the relation between the country of origin and the country or arrival was not uni-directional. Thus, this relation was not just a flowing of ideas, money and projects from the Americas to different places in Europe but a relationship working in both directions. Stimuli, influences and ideas from the Old World operated in the associative dynamics of the migrants, in their political configurations, and in the formulation of their new lives overseas. The country of origin provided the initiatives and programs that helped the communal and institutional organisation, and the migrant collective action in general. On the other hand, the migrant communities acquired levels of autonomy and development different from those in the country of origin. These ideas and stimuli were subjected to external factors, and they worked in social spaces different from those of the former country. Thus, in the median term, a constant or “symbiotic” feedback between the societies of origin and the communities that migrated took place.13

The first Galician regional association in Argentina was founded in Buenos Aires in 1879, and after a brief life disappeared in 1892. Despite the importance of the Galician community here, between that year and the

13 See Nuñez seixas (2001b, 26–8).

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arrival of the big waves of migrants prior to WWI, the capital of Argentina did not have any Galician mutual aid society. However, by 1907 a new Galician Centre emerged in Buenos Aires and soon went through a huge institutional development, reflected in the remarkable increase in the number of associates (57,000 in 1938). In fact, the Galician Centre was in 1930 the biggest mutual aid society, not only in Argentina but all of Spanish America. In the following thirty years, many other regional societies were funded, such as shelters, and cultural and political centres, etc. There were, according to a popular saying: “as many associations as days a year has.”14 With the emergence of these last associations, the Spanish and Galician societies acquired a new dimension: the micro-territorial. 15

The emergence of these micro-territorial associations is a characteristic of the Galician community in the context of Hispanic associationism.16

According to Núñez Seixas, these associative forms reproduced the Galician territorial organisations of a smaller scale than that of the province, that is, the parish, the municipality, and the region. They constituted actual places of recreation of the social space. This was a reflex and a consequence of the structure of the migratory chains, and the recreation of the network of same-village people meant to provide jobs, immediate protection to the newcomer and recreational spaces. The recently arrived migrants tended to seek the company of their neighbours, as well as to organise their social life and free time. This phenomenon provided the bases to create regional, local or parochial associations in the new home spaces of social interaction, familiar to the migrants. The endurance of these local solidarities, the high rates of return, and the usually short period that the migrants spent in the country of arrival, were factors that favoured the preservation of these ties with the parochial or municipal communities of origin.17

14 Cited in Moya (2004, 305). 15 See Nuñez Seixas (1999, 195, 202–3). For a typology of Galician societies in function of their territorial size, see Peña Saavedra (1991, 355–88). 16 As far we know, in 1904 the first micro-territorial society of instruction appeared in Buenos Aires. Since then, the creation of Galician societies in Buenos Aires—with parochial, municipal or district bases—boomed. Between 1904 and 1936 in Buenos Aires, no less than 327 instruction societies functioned, 123 from Pontevedra, 42 from Ourense, 49 from Lugo and 113 from A Coruña. In Argentina, 476 societies were founded between 1901 and 1933. See Nuñez Seixas (1999, 207–8). Cagiao Vila and Peña Saavedra (2008, 23). 17 See Nuñez Seixas (1999, 203–6).


At the turn of the twentieth century, Galician migrants, most of them from rural areas, frequently arrived at the crowded and cosmopolitan Buenos Aires without ever having visited the capital of their province. This represented a huge cultural shock that somehow pushed the migrants to ethnic solidarity in an attempt to absorb this impact, and to better adjust themselves to the new living conditions. At the same time, the impact of the migration produced a slow but continuous change in the way the migrants perceived the world and their interests. Going through the experience of migration helped to modify the mentality of many that crossed the ocean at both the individual and collective levels. Those peasants who took the road of migration to Argentina encountered a whole urban universe with a huge range of services, where upward mobility became a real and possible option. They also discovered a new world of social relations, framed by different experiences of class and labour confrontations. They learnt new economic strategies and new pro-active forms of organising collective action based on mutual collaboration and political and social activism. They did this not only through their participation in the labour movement but also in general associations of employees and clerks, leagues of commerce and cultural associations. The migrants’ participation and (mainly) observation of the working of a real democracy in an urban setting had similar effects. It was this awareness which prompted Galician migrants to value the advantages of association and thus the benefits of creating Galician societies at the local and regional level. Besides charity, mutual aid and leisure functions, these associations also began to promote a clearer objective that entailed implicit socio-political contents, which later became explicit18: to promote the education and instruction in their places of origin.19

From the perspective of their evolution and socio-political nature, these societies had very diverse characteristics. However, most of them presented

18 See Nuñez Seixas (2000, 351–2), Cagiao Vila and Nuñez Seixas (2007, 108–9, 120–3). 19 Usually, micro-territorial associations were referred to as instruction societies. Yet, strictly speaking the term refers to those that included among their goals the foundation or funding of schools in their places of origin. In general terms, the goals of these societies were: social benefits for their members, the promotion of primary instruction in their places of origin, the encouragement of agrarian and cattle breeding progress, the building of public and charitable works in their municipalities or parishes, the support to initiatives of an explicitly political type at a local level, which tended to a regeneration of political life, eliminating the power of the caciques by the mobilization and civic awareness of the countrymen, favoring the democratization and transparency of government.

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a moderate socio-political ideology, mostly related to a vague democratic progressive project and centred on issues related to local power. This project could be defined in general terms as an “anti-cacique” system and as “regeneration-oriented,” aimed at the building of a civil society. In most cases, these grandiloquent objectives were conceived in general and abstract terms, as well as in cross-class and communal costumes, that not always showed strong social and political alliances in an explicit way. However, it is possible to assert that the societies created since 1920 (particularly those whose members were from south Galicia) had a greater level of politicisation. This meant an explicit and concrete support to the seemingly apolitical or republican agrarian movement in the municipalities and parishes. Moreover, in the 1930s, some of these associations increasingly supported socialism. Less frequent was the case of societies with nationalist objectives since their very beginnings, or societies that had adopted an orientation closed to galleguismo. Other societies (mostly those founded before 1920) were largely devoted from the beginning to the encouragement of modernisation of the agriculture practices in their regions of origin. For this purpose, they gathered funds to help unions and agrarian societies regardless of their political orientation.20

However, the emergence of a Galician associative local frame, as well as the help provided by those societies to their compatriots in Galicia, were far from a spontaneous phenomena. They were actually determined by two interacting factors. Firstly, the existence of a Galician elite (formed by migrants who had accumulated economic wealth, but also by intellectuals, journalists, political activists and exiles that moved back and forth from Galicia to Argentina) concerned with the promotion and maintenance of those associative forms as part of their symbolic capital within the migrant Galician and Spanish community in both continents. The elite’s participation made the migrants conscious of the importance of their contribution to their own country.21 Secondly, we refer to the social and political dynamics that were also present in their place of origin that shaped the entities created in the Americas. There was a close and specific interrelation between socio-political mobilisation at the local level in Galicia during the first third of the twentieth century, and its transference to the migrants. This phenomenon determined that the migrants conformed

20 See Nuñez Seixas 1999, 218, 225–6, 229–30). A treatment with more details is in Id (1998). 21 An analysis of the management and leadership in the Galician community in Buenos Aires in the first third of the twentieth century, in Nuñez Seixas (2000, 359–74), Cagiao Vila and Nuñez Seixas (2007, 123–9).


to a kind of parallel community where they became key actors in shaping the dynamics present in rural and semi-urban areas in Galicia up to 1936.22

Thus, from the beginning of the century the migrants represented an important factor of modernisation for their places of origin, due to their economic help in funding public works as well as their charity activities (individually or collectively). In addition, migrants contributed to the articulation of the civil society in rural areas through their support to agrarian societies to fight the foral system and to promote the modernisation of agriculture. Added to this is their intervention in local political quarrels supporting factions they thought helped to extend participative democracy and to challenge the cacique system that predominated in rural areas.

2. Migration and the education system in Galicia

Looking at the socio-cultural profile and educational level of those who migrated between the last decade of the nineteenth and the first of the twentieth centuries, Vicente Peña Saavedra pointed out that many of the migrants that ended up in Havana, Buenos Aires or Montevideo had only a passive literacy. This is despite of the fact that among the hundreds of thousands of young people (mostly men) from rural areas that ended up in these destinations, the rates of illiteracy and semi-illiteracy were on an average smaller than those of the population that remained at home. In general, they arrived with a low educational level and an evident lack of professional and labour qualifications. The contrast between the achievements (types of jobs attained, for example) by those migrants with an education and those who had not made many migrants value the economic and labour benefits of an education that at least had to include a certain degree of literacy and some practical knowledge.23

The main objective of these sociedades de instrucción was to build or support schools in their places of origin. In fact, this was widespread in Galicia. Around 336 schools were built, equipped or funded with money provided by the Galician institutions in the Americas. At least 65 of the new 186 schools, mostly in Pontevedra and A Coruña, could be attributed to the action of the organisations based in Argentina. However, the implicit objective of these initiatives was to contribute to the individual regeneration of the peasants. The idea was to make them more conscious of their rights, capable of fighting for their emancipation and trained in practices of collective action that would help them finish with the cacique

22 See Nuñez Seixas (2006, 116–7). 23 See Peña Saavedra (1991, 163–225).

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systems and the religious fanaticism that affected their democratic rights (according with the ideology of those who promoted these initiatives).24

A relevant example of these initiatives is provided by the schools funded for societies at the municipal or parochial level of residents of the municipal government of Vedra (A Coruña) in Buenos Aires. The priority for these societies was from the very beginning the promotion of education and mutual aid among their members, as well as the promotion of agriculture and cattle farming in their places of origin. Thus, the 1920s and 30s witnessed the building of five schools thanks to the joint effort of the migrants and fellow peasants in their municipality. We also should take into account the pragmatic collaboration of the municipal governments that prioritised the educational needs of their people over the political differences they had with the societies of migrants. Nonetheless, it is true that there was an important gap between the educational ideal formulated by the associacionist elite in Vedra and the achievements of the organisations guided by them. The realisation of an ideal based on the education of the individual as the fundament of the moral and material prosperity of the people implied the provision of an educational infrastructure in Vedra’s parishes, with which to develop an innovative pedagogical project. This project needed to be more imbued with scientific methods and less dependent on religious practices and revealed knowledge, as was the norm in the Galician schools in at the time. Even though the ambitious goals of these societies were only partially achieved, they still managed to provide the buildings for the schools the municipality needed.25

3. The confluence with the agrarian movement

We have already mentioned the permanent or symbiotic feedback between the societies of origin and the migrant communities. This is particularly true in the case of the agrarian movement, which was the most important social movement in modern Galicia due to its degree of institutionalisation and its extent in the social fabric (also due to its ability to mobilise the most dynamic sectors of the rural world). The agrarian societies defended the economic needs of the family plots (collective purchase of supplies, rancher cooperatives, the diffusion of agriculture

24 See Nuñez Seixas (1999, 222–3), Id (2000, 375), Cagiao Vila and Peña Saavedra (2008, 53–6). 25 See Botana Iglesias and Cerdeira Louro (2010), Cerdeira Louro (2010, 89–101, 160–200). For other cases, see the seminal work of Peña Saavedra (1991).


innovations, the abolition of the foral system, the privatisation of the communal land, etc.), but they also contributed decisively to the conformation of a new political culture. This new political culture openly defied the old local elites by demanding an egalitarian distribution of the “consumption taxes,” the preservation of the communal resources, the building of public roads, fountains and cemeteries, as well as the organisation of political meetings, boycotts and violent actions against landowners and caciques.26

Since the mid-1880s to the Spanish Civil War, agrarianism was a conspicuous contemporaneous phenomenon of the Galician associationism in the Americas, a relationship benefitting both the Galician associations and the agrarian. It is worth noting that this interaction happened mostly at the individual level within societies of migrant and agrarian societies that belonged to the same parish or municipality.27 At the same time, even though the societies that emerged from migratory processes explicitly supported agrarian societies in their counties of origin, sometimes the latter encouraged the organisation of those living in the Americas.28

Miguel Cabo Villaverde has accurately explained the role played by the residents in the Americas in the development of the agrarian movement. Despite the existence of grievances and reasons for complaint in any given situation, this does not mean that political mobilisation is going to arise to challenge the status quo. The emergence of social movements depends on factors such as the structure of political opportunities or the availability of resources in order to support collective action. Around 1914, the agrarian movement had already spread throughout Galicia. In the origins of the Galician agrarianism, the migrants to America

26 See Soutelo Vazquez (2001, 200). A global interpretation of the Galician agrarian movement compared to other European sceneries, in Cabo Villaverde (1998). 27 The fact that the relationship between Galicians in Galicia and migrants was based upon such small territorial units is not a surprise. According to Núñez Seixas (2008, 15): “the parish was, until recently, the space of sociability closer to Galician countrymen. This can be explained by two factors. First, the ecclesiastical administrative organization … that had conformed community loyalties through rites, cults, festivities, and other activities centered around the parish church. Secondly, the existence of common resources that had to be collectively managed (mainly, common forests and water), the regulation of property … and the systems of reciprocal aid … Some authors refers to the ‘parish from here and there’ in order to describe the relationship within local communities separated by the ocean, which maintained their bonds, reinforced by epistolary communication, material remittances, and the periodical movement of migrants and returned migrants through the micro-social networks.” 28 Cabo Villaverde (2001, 169, 174–6).

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did not play a major role since there were few micro-territorial associations overseas. Yet, from 1920, the mobilisation of the agrarian movement was firmly supported by the associations in Argentina.29

This support can be divided into “measurable material resources,” “measurable non material resources” and “human resources.” The “measurable material resources” were the funding of the rotary printing press for the newspapers of the societies or federations, the premises, tools for a collective use, and building projects in general. The monies received from the Americas usually accounted for the differences between well-established societies, which offered to their members many benefits and cooperative services, and others that languished in a precarious existence.30 A case in point is the farmers’ associations of Ponteareas in the province of Pontevedra. Around 1903 the farmers began to associate, and in the next decade—with the funds provided by the society of Ponteareas migrants in Argentina and by some wealthy migrants returned to the village, the so-called indianos—they launched an active campaign of propaganda and agitation against the cacique system. From the early 1910s, an Auxiliary Committee of the Societies of Farmers of Puenteareas, created to promote rural associationism, functioned in Buenos Aires. The remittances of money from this Committee were crucial for the consolidation of the agrarian movement in the district of Puenteareas. Thanks to the Committee, and to the indianos living in the municipality, several activities were funded from 1911. Among these activities were the celebration of meetings, the hiring of experienced propagandists, the creation of new associations and agricultural unions, legal assistance and payment of fines imposed by the administration, the financing of the purchase of agricultural inputs by the cooperatives or the building of social houses for agrarian entities and schools in different parishes of Puenteareas.31 A similar case is that of the Society of Farmers of the Three Parishes of Dodro, working from 1912 to 1936. Since 1913, this Society received the support of the Buenos Aires organisation Sons of the Three Parishes of Dodro. In 1913, the Galician Society obtained 76% of their budget from the Buenos Aires branch; during its whole existence, at least a third of the annual budget was provided by funds from Argentina.32

A group of images, symbols, messages, and so on (what Cabo Villaverde refers as “non-measurable material resources”) contributed to 29 Ibid., 177–80. 30 Ibid., 181–2. 31 See Nunez Seixas (1998, 200–5) and Herves Sayar (1997, 219–20). 32 See Cabo Villaverde (2001, 181n). Other examples in Dominguez Almansa (1997), Nuñez Seixas (1998), Soutelo Vazquez (2007).


provide the participants of a social movement with a shared perception of themselves (a collective identity) and of their antagonists, therefore easing the integration and fighting centrifugal tendencies. In the elaboration and diffusion of these images, the associations, and in particular the Galician press in the Americas played an important role. The Despertar Gallego, the mouthpiece of the dynamic Federation of Galician Agrarian and Cultural Societies in Buenos Aires (FSG) in the 1920s served as a stimulus for the launching of agrarian societies in areas where agrarianism had, up to then, a weak structure.33 Lastly, as far as “human resources” are concerned, two things must be pointed out. Firstly, the familiar character of affiliation in the agrarian societies and the maintenance of the social and familiar links with their places of origin (and also the high number of returns) avoided a decline in the number of militants in the agrarian unions due to migration. Secondly, as we have already pointed out, the migratory experience—that is, the contact with the political, union and cultural reality of the Latin America big cities—transformed the Galician political leadership in the first third of the twentieth century. Traditionally, a landed-elite occupied political positions. Their careers began with a university degree and ended up in the administration with the support of their families’ control of a certain district. The increase in the number of associations and a greater mobilisation of the electorate made possible the appearance of new kind of leaders, whom Cabo Villaverde (following David Blackbourn’s analysis for Wilhelmina Germany) characterises as “popular tribune,” “nonconformist,” “notable adaptative” and “activist.” The “activist” devoted their time to organisation tasks (with the support of the most powerful agrarian organisations or of some associations of Galician migrants in Argentina) and to writing in the newspapers. These agrarian leaders were influenced by Anarchist and Socialist ideas and they usually had some experience as militants in the labour movement, from which they imitated their tactics and techniques.34

Already in the early 1980s, Ramón Villares’ seminal work hinted at the presence of Americanos amidst the local agrarian organisations, fighting the cacique system and the foros. They openly challenged the old political elites and demanded a greater role of the Galician peasant in the socio-political construction of Galicia before the 1936 war.35 Returned migrants played a major role in the shaping of collective action in Galicia during the first third of the twentieth century, both in the urban and rural world. 33 On the Galician press in Argentina (and in immigration in general) see the excellent Peña Saavedra (1998). 34 See Cabo Villaverde (2001, 182–7). 35 See Soutelo Vazquez (2001, 203).

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There was a positive correlation between the foundation of local and district societies of migrants in the Americas, the presence of returned migrants and the foundation of agrarian societies and trade unions. Local agrarian leaders were almost always returned Americanos, or proletarians in Galician cities. However, the creation of associations in Argentina did not always precede the associative movement in Galicia. Even though the returned migrants were the most dynamic sector of agrarianism, especially in non-politically affiliated agrarian societies and on those of republican orientation, it is possible to identify two patterns of behaviour. In those regions where agrarian mobilisation began in the 1900s, the Americanos did not play a significant role in the creation of agrarian societies although they did tend to occupy the top positions of these organisations since the second decade of the century. In those districts where the mobilisation began around the middle of the 1910s, they did play a foundational and active role, either as individuals or in alliance with liberal professionals and republican traders of the villages.36

The presence of the returned Americanos among the leaders of the agrarian organisations must be placed in relation with its already commented previous experience in social movements. The lives and experiences in Latin American cities of these Americanos had a great importance in the development of their “class consciousness,” mainly in contact with labour organisations with a permanent structure and forms of social and political action based upon republican or socialist ideology. When these men returned to their parishes of origin, they provided the agrarian movement with their personal experiences overseas, becoming an important stimulus for the agrarian organisations. A good example is the story of Ángel Martínez Castro, a Ponteareas born in the 1870s, who left for Buenos Aires when he was thirteen. In Buenos Aires he had several jobs and finally became a teacher at twenty-five, in the Argentine Socialist Workers Party. In 1909, he returned to Ponteareas. He used the little time he stayed there (he returned again to Buenos Aires in 1910) trying to found a school and collaborating with local agrarian groups. In the early 1920s he was one of the founders of the FSG and its first Secretary General. The 1929 economic crisis multiplied the number of returns of Americanos with a high degree of socio-political consciousness.37

The fact that these societies expressed the interests of small territories (“micro-territorial”) did not prevent the emergence of projects addressed to Galicia as a whole. Thus, projects such as the coordination of the 36 See Nuñez Seixas (1998, 333–6), Soutelo Vazquez (2001, 200). 37 See Soutelo Vazquez (2001, 211–214), Nuñez Seixas (1998, 101n), Diaz (2007, 234–5).


Galician agrarian movement or the federative plans envisioned in the 1910s and the 1920s overcame the traditional localism of these associations. The idea of creating a single encompassing association integrating all the local Galician associations of Buenos Aires was a permanent theme of discussion within the Galician community in the city in the 1910s. In 1921, the ambitious FSG was founded in Buenos Aires.38 Although it was originally shaped by agrarianism, the FSG was also influenced by socialism39 and republicanism and later by Galician nationalism. Its influence grew, and by 1927 it had gathered forty microterritorial associations. Since its beginnings, the FSG’s features were republicanism, its defence of Galician identity and culture, and a strong commitment to intervention in the political life of the country, beginning with the demand for suppression of the foros.40 The ideological and political relationship between the Buenos Aires’ institution and agrarianism was ended by the coup d’état of Miguel Primo de Rivera (1923) due to the different attitudes adopted in relation to dictatorship by the FSG and the Galician agrarians.41

4. The contribution to the organization of the Galician workers’ movement

Returned migrants played a lesser role than stonecutters or white-collar workers did in the beginnings of the Galician labour movement at the end of the nineteenth century.42 It is worth remembering that the role of Galician migrants in Latin American trade unionism was smaller than the Italian, Catalan or Andalusian. Nevertheless, Galician migrants participated 38 For a history of this institution, see Diaz (2007). 39 Many of their leaders were considerably influenced by Argentine socialism and syndicalism. 40 The FSG’s political program focused on several points: abolition and not redemption of the foros, greater commitment of agrarianism with reformist politics, vaguely situated between republicanism ideological and socialism, laicism, social reformism and cooperativism, and support for the socialists and left-wing republicans. 41 See Nuñez Seixas (1998, 253–300), Id. (1999, 232). Some time later, during the Spanish Civil War, the FSG displayed a hectic activity and constituted a specific organization (the Galician Central of Help to the Popular Spanish Front) in order to support the war effort of the legitimate Spanish government. This support did not finish with the defeat, in 1939, but it continued in favor of the exiles and refugees and, sometimes, of those who had suffered Franco’s reprisals. Some notes on that in Nuñez Seixas (1992, 300–5), Montenegro (1997), id. (2002). 42 See a general analysis of the lives of artisan and industrial workers in modern Galicia in Villares et al. (2007).

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in the labour struggles in Argentina at the turn of the century and became involved in the strongly repressed Argentine anarchist movement. After these experiences in the Argentine labour movement, even as leaders, Galician returned migrants fulfilled active organisational tasks within the Galician labour movement. This involvement in labour activities was particularly intense after 1929, when the economic crisis forced many migrants to return to Galicia. Thus, the Americanos contributed to the introduction of new forms of labour unionism in some regions of Galicia, and were crucial in the process of strengthening and consolidation of workers organisations already existing.43

Examples of this phenomenon are abundant. Thus, Manuel Mariño Méndez, delegate of the Progressive Union of Salvatierra of Miño in Buenos Aires, and mayor of the municipality of Salvatierra de Miño (Pontevedra), in 1926 encouraged the entrance of seven societies of Salvatierra into the General Union of Workers (UGT). Jesús Domínguez Freijo, born in Castroverde (Lugo), arrived in Buenos Aires in 1908 where he became a member of the tanners and the tramways drivers’ unions. He also collaborated with the anarchist paper La Protesta. From 1932, he persuaded several Buenos Aires societies of migrants from the province of Lugo (particularly from Pol and Castro de Rei) to participate actively in the implantation of the UGT in the rural environment of Lugo. Finally, in the case of Ponteareas, former migrants were directly responsible for the creation of the Society of Various Trades (Sociedad de Oficios Varios), the first stable labour union in the municipality.44

As Ramón Villares states, the relationship between migration and the labour movement has not yet been duly studied, but a glimpse shows, once again, to what extent Galician society was integrated into the Americas.45

5. From the struggle against the caciques to the Statute of Autonomy

Beyond their participation in the agrarian and labour movements, migrants became involved in the building of political groups or municipal candidatures with the aim of eroding the power of the caciques. For

43 See Nuñez Seixas (1998, 342), Cagiao Vila and Nuñez Seixas (2007, 108–9), Villares (2007, 20). 44 See Nuñez Seixas (1998, 339), Penelas (1996, 81–2), Herves Sayar (1997, 220n), For a historical sketch on the societies of Pol and Castro de Rei in Buenos Aires, Diaz (2010, 184–8). 45 See Villares (2007, 20).


instance, in A Estrada or Vilalba, returned migrants encouraged the creation of anti-caciques parties and opposition newspapers. After the arrival of Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship, the agrarians supported by many returned indianos took over many municipal governments. The arrival of the Second Spanish Republic on April 14, 1931 meant the arrival of a regime characterised by its intense political socialisation. Political activity, in turn, caused the appearance of new leaders. The 1931 elections placed new figures in charge of the main municipalities and provincial deputations of Galicia. These new rulers came from the republican field, with little experience in politics. For them, migration or the participation in casinos or republican clubs was their school.46

The problems the government of the Second Republic had to deal with affected Galicia as well, but there were also some specific issues derived from the particular Galician circumstances within the Spanish context. Under the Republic, Galicia faced two main socio-economic issues: its particular “agrarian question”47 and the fight for regional autonomy.48 We will focus now on the latter, in particular on migrant support for Galician nationalism.

The “Pact of San Sebastian” and the Republican Constitution of 1931 attempted to satisfy Spain’s nationalities and regions by establishing “autonomous statutes” (that is, a set of rules that allowed regional self-government). In order to achieve autonomy, regions had to pass through a long and complicated process. First of all, municipalities had to draft a statute. Secondly, the draft had to be approved in a referendum in the region. Thirdly, the Cortes (the National Congress) had to revise and sanction the statute. To begin with, the Galician Autonomous Republican Organization (ORGA), founded in 1929 by Santiago Casares Quiroga, led the fight for autonomy. Later, ORGA gave up this objective and another group, the Galician Party (founded in 1931), led the campaign.49 In 1932, Santiago de Compostela’s municipal government submitted to the town hall a first draft of the statute, which was approved in December. Yet, due to complex political factors, the projected statute was not submitted to a

46 See Nuñez Seixas (1998, 338), Villares (2004, 335–40). 47 The 1932 Agrarian Reform Law excluded Galicia since it was conceived for lands where extensive agriculture and latifundio prevailed. In Galicia, the structure of landownership was based on the small owner or tenant and the cultivation of several crops devoted to self consumption. See Velazco Souto (2000, 110–11). 48 On the development of Galician nationalism during the II Republic, see Beramendi and Nuñez Seixas (1995, 143–64). 49 A synthesis of the acting of both political forces, in Velazco Souto (2000, 25–36, 75–82).

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referendum until June 28, 1936. In order to be approved, the statute had to be supported by two thirds of the votes. The support of the coalition of parties in power in the national government, the Popular Front, made this goal easier. On July 15, the representatives of the Central Committee for Autonomy (formed in late 1932) submitted the statute’s draft to Congress, but the process was interrupted by the attempted coup d’état on July 17 and the subsequent civil war.50

When it was obvious that Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship was doomed, galleguistas from Buenos Aires began the process of reorganisation of Galician nationalism in Galicia. Thus, soon after the formation of ORGA, the FSG and the group of people gathered by the remarkable cultural magazine Céltiga51 expressed their support for ORGA’s agenda (the Republic for Spain and autonomy for Galicia),52 and on May 1932 created the Argentine section of ORGA. A year later, in the Ordinary Congress of the FSG, the nationalists obtained the control of its Executive Committee and its newspaper, which became the non-official organ of the Galician republican nationalism in Buenos Aires. When the news of the proclamation of the Republic arrived in Buenos Aires, the mobilisation of the republican Galician in the Argentine capital extended to sectors previously unaffected by political activism.53 The FSG (without the socialist branch, which

50 The Statute of Autonomy reached Congress in 1938, but it was not passed due to the indifference or even the obstruction of some allegedly allied forces of Galleguismo. Ultimately, the Statute was passed in the Republican Congress in exile (Mexico) in 1945. It was never enforced. See Velazco Souto (2000, 117–32, 81–2). 51 Céltiga appeared fortnightly in Spanish and Galician between 1924 and 1932. Some of the most conspicuous representatives of the Galician culture in Buenos Aires, such as Eduardo Blanco Amor, Ramon Suárez Picallo or Eliseo Pulpeiro, contributed to the magazine. Céltiga was one of the most dynamic cultural enterprises of the Galician community in Buenos Aires. The ideas of the moderate nationalists were spread out to Galicians all over South America through its pages. From 1925, European galleguistas wrote in Céltiga. The magazine supported the creation of a federal republic in Spain, leaning towards the democratic-progressive wing of galleguismo.52 The penetration of nationalist ideas in the porteña Federation began in 1925 during its IV Congress, when several “celtigos” (headed by Suarez Picallo and Eduardo Blanco Amor) became directives of the Federation. 53 Even the Galician Centre of Buenos Aires, traditionally apolitical, was moderately opening to the acceptance of a moderate autonomist galleguismo; thus, it took an active part in the December 1932 Assembly of Galician Municipalities in favor of the Statute. A history of this institution, up to the end of the 1930s, can be found in Rodriguez Diaz (2000).


abandoned the organization in 192854) the ORGA from Buenos Aires and Céltiga decided to support the Republic and the autonomy of Galicia. The political mobilisation encouraged by the FSG, the ORGA and Céltigareached a peak when they sent a united representation to the Galician Centre of Montevideo. The FSG’s representatives were Antonio Alonso Ríos, Ramón Suárez Picallo and Pedro Campos Couceiro.55

Despite its internal division, the Galician FSG decisively acted in Galician politics during the Second Republic. The FSG delegates actively participated in the pro-Statute Assembly held in A Coruña in June 1931 and in the several elections celebrated during the Republican period, supporting republican and galleguistas candidates. Some of the FSG delegates became elected deputies in the Spanish Chamber. Suárez Picallo was elected deputy for the constituent Congress of 1931 as representative of ORGA, receiving the funding of the FSG. For the first time, the galleguistas sent their representatives to the Congress in Madrid, among them a returned migrant sent from Argentina in order to participate in this election.

Nevertheless, the FSG later broke its links with Casares Quiroga’s republicans, and joined as an “adherent entity” to the PG. The Buenos Aires branch of the ORGA became a branch of the PG with the name of the Galician Republican Nationalist Organization (ONRG after its Galician acronym). The FSG, in its VIII Ordinary Congress (1932) modified its principles, by defining Galicia as a national entity within the Spanish State and by defending the right of Galicia to the full enjoyment of its sovereignty in equal terms to the other peoples of Spain. The fight for a greater autonomy for Galicia became the fulcrum of its political activity. The FSG’s newspaper, renamed Galicia in 1930, focused on the propaganda of the autonomy, and kept a nationalist and moderate left-wing stance. The fluid relationship between the FSG and the PG, thanks to Suárez Picallo and Alonso Ríos’ commitment, meant that the PG was able to finance its campaign in February 1936 with funds from Buenos Aires. Later, the enthusiastic campaign in favour of the referendum of June

54 About the disputes between nationalists and socialists in the FSG, its division and co-existence with a pro-socialist Federation of Galician Societies of Buenos Aires. 55 See Beramendi and Nuñez Seixas (1995, 166–70), Nuñez Seixas (1998, 299–305), Peña Saavedra (1998, 128–30), Velasco Souto (2000, 25), Diaz (2007, 31–79).

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received the support of almost all Galician associations from Buenos Aires.56

The political awareness and willingness to participate in politics within the Galician community in Buenos Aires was greatly encouraged by the activities of Suárez Picallo and Alonso Ríos. They played an important political role in Galician nationalism and the agrarian galleguista movement.57 Antonio Hipólito Alonso Ríos was born in Silleda (Pontevedra) in 1887. He was trained as a teacher at the Normal School of Santiago de Compostela. He worked as a teacher for the prestigious Polytechnic Institute of Santiago and in the province of Mendoza (Argentina). From 1919 to 1931, he acted as Director of the Argentine Scientific Society. Since 1909, he was involved in the associative initiatives of Galician migrants. He participated in the foundation of the Sons of Silleda Society and of the FSG, where he edited El Despertar Gallego. His ideology, originally a blend of socialist, secular and liberal ideas, became progressively more galleguista due to contact with the young migrants who published Céltiga. In May 1930, he contributed to the establishment of the Argentine branch of ORGA. After the proclamation of the Second Republic, he was sent to Galicia in order to represent the migrants in the Republican Assembly of A Coruña, being appointed its president. In the early years of the Republican period, he directed the “Aurora del Porvenir” school (Tomiño, Pontevedra), funded with the aid of the migrants of Tomiño in the Americas. Disappointed with ORGA, he quit and in 1931 took part in the foundation of the PG, being elected member of the Permanent Council of the Party. From that position, Alonso Ríos played an important role in helping to consolidate the bonds between the PG and the migrants and the agrarian movement. He also organised a unified agrarian party in the province of Pontevedra—integrated into the Popular Front in 1936—and obtained a parliamentary seat as a candidate of that party. During the campaign in favour of the Statute of Autonomy, Alonso Ríos travelled throughout the country and, with other leaders of the PG, was actively involved in propaganda tasks.58

Suárez Picallo was born in Sada (A Coruña) in 1894. He worked in the fields from an early age and when fourteen went to the sea with his father. In 1912, he left for Buenos Aires, being employed in non-qualified jobs in his first years in the city. He was actively involved in politics and trade 56 See Nuñez Seixas (1998, 305), Id.(1999, 332), Beramendy and Nuñez Seixas (1995, 169–73). 57 See Cagiao Vila and Nuñez Seixas (2007, 140). 58 See Repertorio (2006, 13), Alonso (2008, 7–31). Other references in Vilanova Rodriguez (1966 II, 1361–2).


unions in Argentina, writing for various workers’ newspapers, being the director of Correo de Galicia and, between 1924 and 1932, co-director of Céltiga. In 1918, he was candidate for alderman in the city council of Buenos Aires and in 1919 candidate to the National Senate in the province of San Juan. In 1924 he entered the FSG and in 1931 he went to Galicia as a delegate of the organisation. He took part in the Republican Assembly of June 1931 and was elected for the Constituent Assembly, in the ORGA’s list. Nevertheless, in December 1931 he participated in the foundation of the PG, becoming—along with Alfonso Daniel Rodríguez Castelao—the most notorious figure of the party, and leading its left-wing. In fact, Suárez Picallo’s pressure led to the integration of the PG into the Popular Front in January 1936. In the last elections before the 1936 coup, he was elected deputy in the National Congress, and immediately after launched a long campaign in favor of the Statute of Autonomy.59

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Montenegro, Silvina (1997), “Republicanos, gallegos y socialistas en la Argentina: La organización de los Comités de Ayuda a la República durante la Guerra Civil Española”, Historia Nova IV, Asociación Galega de Historiadores, 267-80.

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—. (1998), Emigrantes, caciques e indianos. O influxo sociopolítico da emigración transoceánica en Galicia (1900-1930), Xerais.

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galeguismo, Comisión Irmáns Suárez Picallo.

ARMENIAN DIASPORA AND THE “MOTHERLAND”:

CONVERGENCES AND DIVERGENCIES IN DYNAMIC AND COMPLEX BONDS

NÉLIDA BOULGOURDJIAN-TOUFEKSIAN1

Introduction

The term “diaspora” was originally used to explain the forced dispersion of the Jewish people and, from that paradigmatic case, it was extended to others, such as the Armenian diaspora. A diaspora, prior to the Armenian Genocide of 1915, was identified as traders, militaries, and intellectuals as survivors integrated into a new context. This article focuses on the post-Genocide diaspora, and it proposes to identify, from a historical perspective, the paradigms and institutions which functioned as organising criteria for the Armenian collective. However, the central aim of this work is that of characterising the nature and modalities of the bonds which were established between the “Motherland” and the diaspora, as well as their historical vicissitudes. The main purpose here is to develop a hypothesis in which it is conjectured that during the period under study, there were three phases of a contrasting nature: the first historical phase which, for convenience, we can call “centripetal,” in which the Motherland primordially emits signals from the centre to the diaspora. In the second phase, which we will call “centrifugal,” bonds are established, predominantly in an inverse direction. Finally, in the third phase, now in course, the interaction between the Motherland and the diaspora is not promoted in one direction only; that is to say, the communication flows, the initiative, the proposals and information interchange can initiate and run in either direction. That is why, conceptually, we characterise this moment as the emergency of “symmetric ties.”

1 N. Boulgourdjian-Toufeksian, Phd. in History d Civilisation (EHESS); CONICET-UNTREF.

Armenian Diaspora and the “Motherland” 132

To generate evidence on this hypothesis we focus on community sources and documentation from the Republic of Armenia.

1. A Revision of the Notion of Diaspora Applied to the Armenian Case and the Distinction of Two

Historical Stages

To attain the object of these notes we will briefly revise the notion of diaspora itself. The Armenians see themselves as a people in diaspora because they dispersed to different European countries establishing small colonies in England (Manchester and Liverpool), France (Marseilles) and in East Europe (Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary). They settled also in the Middle East and in India where in 1997 they founded the first Armenian newspaper Aztarar in Madras. These migrants were mostly traders, cloth importers, soldiers and intellectuals who traveled in search of better economic opportunities, promoting the creation of new communities. Some of them disappeared, whereas others survived preserving their religious and linguistic identity.2

The dispersal of a human group from the centre to the periphery is defined under the generic name of diaspora, and it is interpreted in diverse ways. The French geographer Bruneau, for example, maintains that the diaspora has three prominent characteristics: (1) conscience and recovery of an ethnic or national identity; (2) existence of a political, religious or cultural organisation of the diasporic group (richness of associative life); (3) real or imaginary contacts with the country of origin. According to this author, the individual is part of the diaspora by election, by a voluntary and conscious decision.3

In another analytic register, Rogers Brubaker objects to the use of the notion of diaspora as a category of analysis which includes all persons living outside their country of origin (in the Armenian case to the persons of that origin who live outside Armenia). The author maintains that it is more precise to speak of “Diasporic project,” of Diasporic practice and how this project holds out, instead of speaking of “a diaspora” or “the diaspora” as an entity, a limited group or as an ethno-cultural fact.

2 Anahide Ter Minassian, “La diaspora arménienne,” in Diasporas, edited by Michel Bruneau (Montpellier: Reclus, 1995), 24–25.3 Michel Bruneau, “Espaces et territoires de diasporas,” in Diasporas, 8.

Nélida Boulgourdjian-Toufeksian 133

According to this definition, then, those who consider themselves part of a Diasporic project integrate the diaspora.4

Martine Hovanessian, from an anthropological perspective, proposes that diasporas are distinguished by their contribution to cultural generational transmission and, particularly in the Armenian case, for their capacity to develop a “culture of duration” or an “ideology of non dilution of the identity.”5

From our point of view, the Armenian case, starting from these readings, allows us to understand the changes that operated in the formation of the new Armenian communities after the Genocide of 1915. These traumatic changes, in the dimension of the individual, meant a break with the past and, at the same time, a need to recover the pre-genocide culture. In the collective dimension, however, the word diaspora was adopted to explain the dispersion of the Armenian people, its later community organisation, and its more or less close association with Soviet Armenia. To illustrate this early use of the notion of diaspora, we see that in the 1920s it was used in Sion, the review of the Armenian Patriarchy of Jerusalem with the equivalent denomination of spiurk.6 Later, the diaspora before the Genocide of 1915 was differentiated from the previous “Great Diaspora,”7 formed by survivors forced to reconstruct their lives in other places. Since then, the migration was practically total (very few remained in Turkey, Islamised and with Turkish-like surnames), and as the geographer Aida Boudjikhanian says, “there was an evolution from an elite diaspora to a refugees diaspora; and the ancestral land was emptied of its Armenian inhabitants.”8 From 1915, the definitive dispersion of all the social sectors was generalised, with no distinction, seeking refuge in other countries.

To synthesise this section, we observe that the notion of diaspora, in the Armenian community, far from being static and univocal, was acquiring different values in the course of history. That is to say that they presented

4 Rogers Brubaker, “The ‘diaspora’ diaspora,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 28 (2005): 1–19.5 Martine Hovanessian, “La notion de diaspora: les figures du territoire perdu,” in Les défis migratoires, edited by P. Centlives and I. Girod (Colloque CLUSE: Neuchâtel, 1998), 308.6 Claire Mouradian, L’Arménie. De Staline à Gorbatchev (Paris : Ramsay, 1990), 306. See also H. Meliksetian, Les relations de la diaspora avec la patrie et les rapatriements, 1920–1980 (Erevan : 1985).7 Aïda Boudjikhanian, “Un peuple en exil : la nouvelle Diaspora (XIX-XX ) , in Histoire des Arméniens, edited by Gérard Dédéyan, (Paris: Privat, 1982).8 Aïda Boudjikhanian, “Un peuple en exil : la nouvelle Diaspora,” in ibid., 626.


differential registers depending on the prevalence of different causes of the migratory process.

2. The Armenian Apostolic Church: An Institution Common to Armenia and the Diaspora

In this section we consider it relevant to examine the decisive role of the Armenian Apostolic Church in the whole Diasporic process. The Supreme Spiritual leader of the Armenian Church is the Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians, the worldwide spiritual leader of the Armenians in Armenia and the diaspora.9 The Apostolic church was recognised as the natural and legitimate bridge of the bond between it and the diaspora. Likewise, it was the only institution common to both spaces, being perceived as legitimating authority of the continuity in a Diasporic situation. However, during the Soviet stage, this centrality was threatened by an explicit weakening policy. The difficulties starting from the Sovietisation in the 1920s were followed by the Stalinist purges in the next decade. After the end of the Second World War, the central government approached the Armenian church.10 In spite of these contradictions, from the Armenian world the collective representations recognised the Apostolic church as a link between a centre (Armenia) and the periphery (the “communities” of the diaspora).

In the diaspora, on the other hand, the Armenian Apostolic Church set itself up in an environment of solidarity and expression of continuity and of “conscience of membership.” Several of the foundational myths of the Armenian collective are related to the Armenian Church, such as the early adoption of Christianity (first to adopt it as the state religion), the invention of an alphabet of their own by an Armenian bishop and a cleric, and the translation of the Bible into Armenian. These are all facts that show the convergence of “the religious” and “the national” in the history of the Armenian people and express the fidelity to an auto-cephalous and national church. 9 The spiritual and administrative See of the Armenian Church was established in 1441 in Echmiadzin, in the old territory of Vagarshapat where king Drtad, following St Gregory, promoted the adoption of the Christian faith in the Armenian people. J. P. Hornus, “Église arménienne et culture dans l’Arménie d’aujourd’hui. L’Église arménienne en URSS et le Catholicossat d’Echmiazín,” in Histoire des Arméniens, (Paris : Privat, 1982), 567.10 J. P. Hornus, “Église arménienne et culture dans l’Arménie d’aujourd’hui. L’Église arménienne en URSS et le Catholicossat d’Echmiazín,”Histoire des Arméniens (Paris : Privat, 1982), 572.


The religious buildings and the seats of the associations with architectonic elements11 that—at least in some cases—take them nearer to the Armenian styles, reflect the interest to keep with the traditions of their ancestry. These are places that express the collective memory of the diaspora, either because of the images exposed or for the community commemorations and patriotic holidays. The existence of a community around a place of worship is common to a great number of diasporas (among the oldest examples is how Judaism is organised around the synagogues), and in the case of the Armenian it is linked to the Apostolic church.12

This demonstrates a significant fact: in spite of the difficulties that the Armenian Apostolic church had to weather during the Soviet stage, it had a privileged place—as much for the Soviet government which, leaning on its legitimacy, aspired to build power in the diaspora, as for the dispersed Armenians who sensed it as a guarantee of their permanence.

3. Historical Development of the Diaspora and the Bond with Armenia

As has been stated, in this section we propose to identify and characterise each moment in which the link between “Motherland” and diaspora registers substantive changes. To this end, we will distinguish three phases that followed historically and which for convenience we will call “centripetal,” “centrifugal,” and “symmetric” bonds.

3.1. First phase: Centripetal Bonds

For the survivors of the 1915 genocide from Turkey, Soviet Armenia came to be the Motherland, because the Genocide, as well as the later Sovietisation of the Armenian territory in 1920, changed the relation from and to her, mainly after the Laussane treaty (1923) in which the Armenian claims were ignored and Soviet Armenia was legitimised as the only possibility.

11 Juan C. Toufeksian, Esquema de la arquitectura armenia, (Buenos Aires: Secretaría de Extensión Universitaria, Facultad de Arquitectura y Urbanismo, UBA), 1991.12 Nélida Boulgourdjian-Toufeksian, Los armenios en Buenos Aires. La reconstrucción de la identidad, (Buenos Aires: Edición del Centro Armenio), 1997, pp. 146–152.


The Soviet Government was interested in the diaspora. This was mostly because an important part of it established itself in geographic environments attractive to the Bolshevik, such as Europe, the Middle East, and the United States. But it was also because Armenia had to build a space of power which would allow her to confront and disarticulate her detractors so as to channel the help of those who considered her the only possible option. Among these was a sector of wealthy traders who supported Armenia economically although they did not share its politics.

The scheme of relations that Armenia knitted with those outside her borders was evolving according to the political changes of the USSR and in the receptor countries. In general, the relations were conflictive after the First World War with the establishment of Bolshevism and the consequent defensive attitude of the countries that received the refugees. After the Second World War, at least in the case in question, there was a wave to and from the USSR, caused by the flexibility of the politics of Joseph Stalin, which even opened the doors to those who wanted to establish in Armenia the process of “nerkaght” (repatriation).13

One method of approaching the refugees of the diaspora was the creation of a committee, Hai Oknoutian Komité or Committee to help Armenia (HOK), with numerous followers in France and in a smaller scale in Argentina. Branches of HOK were created in different cities to inform on the success reached by Soviet Armenia and thus attract followers that might help, especially economically.

To launch this program, the Soviet government took advantage of the famine that swept over Russia through a request for help to the world’s proletarians. At the same time, in Erevan, capital of Armenia, a similar movement, which ended in the creation of HOK, was promoted, whose object was to call Armenian communities of the diaspora to fight against hunger in the Motherland, to establish the Armenian refugees scattered throughout the world and to strengthen the bonds between both. The publication of the committee, also called HOK, in its first issue showed the life of the peasants and the workers of the Motherland to the workers of the Armenian “colonies,” so that they could differentiate both realities.14

During the years of its existence, the money collected through HOK was invested in the construction of public buildings (canals, train stations, hotels) in Armenia, in houses for the repatriate and, above all, in the foundation of new cities, which took the names of their villages of origin, 13 Claire Mouradian, “L'immigration des Arméniens de la diaspora vers la RSS d'Arménie, 1946-1962,” Cahiers du monde russe et soviétique 20 (1) (1979) 79–110.14 HOK 1, February 1933, 2.


with the addition of the adjective “nor” (new) as Nor Malatya, and Nor Arapkir, among others.15 For the foundation of these new cities, specific associations, the “Armenian compatriotic unions,” intervened, which were also another channel to win supporters for the reconstruction (verlek) of Armenia. In their origin, these associations had been created in the new places of settlement, so as to unite the people coming from the same village; they were also concerned with guiding the search for scattered relations and help for surviving orphans of the 1915Genocide.

HOK was the only institution created in this first phase with branches in the diaspora to centralise and propagate the contact between both. However, the opposed position among the Armenians of the diaspora towards the Motherland gave way to confrontations in some cases. The Ramkavar-Azatagan party (democratic-liberal), for instance, created in 1908 by the Armenian liberal bourgeoisie, had the support of rich merchants of liberal orientation. In its first Congress of 1922, it was decided that support would be given to the socialist government of Armenia in its reconstruction and thus secure the physical survival of the Armenian people.16

On the other hand, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation or Dashnaktsutiun (ARF), of socialist root, was extremely anti-communist and contrary to the Sovietisation of Armenia, considering it to be the cause of dilution of the national hopes. The ARF (founded in Tiflis in 1890) had occupied the main government functions in the Republic of Armenia, and having been displaced since then, confronted Soviet Armenia As regards the Hnchakian Party, founded in Geneva in 1887, even though it approaches the previous one in an ideological plane, in practice, they were confronted, since the latter considered Soviet Armenia as the only viable option.

The fact that not only Armenia but also the diaspora aspired to construct a space of power was added to their ideological differences. The institutions viewed the press as a channel for the diffusion of ideas, and constituted themselves sometimes as spaces of joint action, and others of conflict. Likewise, patriotic commemorations also gave place to disputes between opposed political groups, headed by the ARF and by HOK. At the same time, they were an opportunity for the respective States (Argentina in our case) to know the activities of their foreigners. Every November 29, the Sovietisation of Armenia was remembered and this was a cause of exaltation in cultural life, worrying those community leaders who were not 15 Mouradian, L’Arménie, 310.16 Nélida Boulgourdjian, “Le réseau associatif arménien à Buenos Aires et à Paris: entre tradition et intégration 1900-1950,” doctoral thesis, EHESS, Paris, 2008.


in sympathy with communist ideas, for fear of disturbing or annoying the Argentine authorities. The ARF, in opposition to this group, also had its celebrations, on February 18, 1921 in which the momentary recovery of power from the hands of the Soviet Union was remembered, and on May 28, the Independence Day of the Republic of Armenia. These acts promoted patriotic spirit while also being the cause of confrontation among sectors.

Even though the activity of HOK in Buenos Aires lacked the visibility it had in Paris, it is known that in South America (Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina), there were nine branches. In Buenos Aires, the HOK Ladies Committee was active and the group of workers, craftsmen and small merchants added to them. The branch in Buenos Aires had been able to increase the number of associates in spite of the opposition of the ARF and the Board of Directors of the Administrative Institution of the Armenian Church.17

From 1924–1925 HOK, until its dissolution by the Stalinist purges in 1937, became the first important organisation in the bond between Armenia and the Diaspora. It created 200 sections linked to the Central Committee in Erevan and declared at the start of 1930 around 100,000 members distributed in Soviet Russia, Transcaucasia, Iran, Egypt, and in the Armenian communities of Europe (Greece, Bulgaria, Rumania, Great Britain, Germany, France) and the United States. In short, during the Soviet stage, HOK was the first organisation created to articulate the bond with the diaspora. Even though its existence was short, this committee was the first expression of the interchange between the center and the communities.

In the second phase, Armenian politics modified themselves, at least in appearance. Instead of trying to control the institutions of the diaspora in a direct way, it looked for an approach with fellow countrymen. Likewise, Stalin’s death in 1953 promoted changes in the difficult bond between Armenia and the diaspora. One of the first measures was promotion of tourism towards the Motherland. The contact with the Armenian tourists of the diaspora reinforced the sense of belonging when the signs of assimilation were already evident.

To institutionalise and facilitate the bond of Armenia with the diaspora in 1964 the Committe of Cultural Relations with the Diaspora was created, which proposed the promotion of Armenian culture and language, and, above all, the idea of preserving the “Armenity” (haiabahbanum). Intellectuals, artists, university students, scientists and music groups

17 HOK, year 1, nº 1, February 1933, p. 56, Report from A. Keradjian.


traveled from one context to the other to promote closer ties. The contacts and cultural interchange were encouraged through the provision of textbooks and the invitation of intellectuals to Armenia. In this stage of Soviet dominion, Armenia was presented as the provider of the cultural supplies the Diaspora needed, to contribute to the preservation of the Armenian consciousness.

The following year, the remembrance of the fiftieth anniversary of the Genocide, brought Armenia nearer to the diaspora, above all because, until then, there was a sensation that the commemoration of the martyrs was only interested in the communities of the diaspora.

While the Soviet regime was in force, and until the Independence of Armenia in 1991, the bond with her was fluid and intense for some sectors.

Finally, the characterisation of this moment as a historical cycle where “centripetal” ties prevailed emphasises that in spite of all the vicissitudes, in the bonds between Motherland and diaspora the former was their main promoter.

3. 2. Second Phase: Centrifugal Bonds

Some analysts have pointed out the change in the bond between Armenia and the diaspora stemming from the 1988 earthquake, when the Armenian communities of the whole world were mobilised to help. If Armenia had presented herself as provider of cultural goods before, now the reality had changed, since she needed more than ever the economical aid of the diaspora. This movement was made concrete through individuals who sent money to their relations and from institutionally organised humanitarian aid, which in turn was chanelled into different levels and expressions of personalities that preside over such foundations (Aznavour pour l’Armenie, Lincy Foundation, of Kirk Kerkorian).18

The Fund for Armenian Relief was created after the earthquake to channel mainly medical and agricultural assistance to assist the victims of the earthquake directly. It continues to help regions with Armenian populations on the frontier with Georgia in the present day.

Few months after the creation of the Republic of Armenia, the “Haiastan” All Armenian Fund was founded, to support not only the rising republic but also the territory of Karabagh. This turned out to be the most important organisation in raising funds due to the integration of its

18 Aleksandr V. Gevorkyan and D. A. Grigorian, Armenia and its Diaspora, http://www.gomidas.org/forum/af10c1.pdf


directive council (from the President of the Republic of Armenia to the Supreme Head of the Armenian Church, representatives of the three Armenian political parties of the diaspora, and of their main associations), and by the characteristics of the work it promoted, such as the construction of the road that joins Armenia with Karabagh; the building of housing in shortage after the 1988 earthquake, and the construction of hospitals and educational buildings.

Since then, and particularly from the Independence of Armenia in 1991, the diaspora offered a great deal of aid that was strengthened thanks to the active presence of more organised communities of the diaspora, such as in the United States, Canada, France and Russia.19

The projects were implemented through a global net of twenty-one affiliated countries with a center in the United States (Los Angeles and New York), Canada (Toronto and Montreal), France, Great Britain, Germany, Austria, Holland, Switzerland, Australia, Brazil, Lebanon. Argentina (Buenos Aires and Cordoba), Greece, Cyprus, Syria, Uruguay, and Romania (the last six branches were opened between 2009 and 2010). The Armenian Fund in Argentina collaborated actively with this institution from its foundation, participating in several projects as the construction or re-construction of hospitals, laboratories, schools, housing, fresh water systems and roads.20

To summarise, this moment presented a historical cycle where “centrifugal” ties prevailed; this denomination tries to highlight that the ties between Motherland and diaspora had the second one as their main promoter in this instance. This time, the institutions, the living forces, and the personalities with a strong community leadership were the ones who mobilised those ties.

3. 3. Third Phase: Symmetrical Bond

In this section only the broader profiles of the present situation will be detailed. The bonds are more fluid, inter-dependent and they are related to a historical surrounding of intense and accelerated social, political and economical changes.

Even though the aid organisations created in the previous stage continue, in the last decade the Armenian government, aware of the potential of the scattered communities, organised lectures inviting delegates

19 Aleksandr V. Gevorkyan and D. A. Grigorian, Armenia and its Diaspora, http://www.gomidas.org/forum/af10c1.pdf20 I am thankful to the Armenian Found of Argentina for this information.


of the diaspora to discuss perspectives of cooperation between both. In October 2008, the government of Armenia created the Ministry of the Diaspora to plan, implement and improve state politics with reference to the development of the economical and cultural cooperation between the center and the peripheries. The aim is to improve the Armenia-diaspora cooperation to strengthen its state system and preserve the Armenian identity. To that purpose, and as part of a enticement policy of the diaspora, the Ministry organises Pan-Armenian meetings to discuss educational projects of protection and preservation of Armenian identity and economic projects. Among the concrete cooperation projects of the last decade, Ari tun proposes to make the young Armenians of the diaspora familiar with the Motherland through living with families, sharing their customs and traditions. Another of the projects in course and with a strong adhesion, are the Pan-Armenian forums of professionals (architects, people from justice) to strengthen the bond between Armenia and the diaspora.

In short, this moment we are living in reveals itself as extremely dynamic, in which the bonds established show, in contrast with the moments examined before, certain symmetry as regards the social actor that promotes them. That is to say, a State with a clear strategic and political vocation with respect to the diaspora is observed so that those interchanges are fluid and institutionalised. On the other hand, the Armenian communities of the diaspora have also been able to institutionalise their interests and their demands and it can be said that they are impossible to ignore in defining those bonds.

Final Reflections

The main purpose of this article was to put a hypothesis to the test regarding the bonds between the Motherland and diaspora, identifying that they were complex, dynamic and changing. To attain this goal we have given special attention to detect the social actor/s who took the initiative to establish the origin of those bonds. This exercise allowed us to define three phases: a first phase centered on the cultural and humanitarian activities; a second in which humanitarian aid was complemented with investment and business arrangements, and a third, in progress at the time of writing, in which there is an intention to revert this equation.

A few final reflections remain to be proposed: we have held that the notion of diaspora took different values according to historical moments; we have pointed and highlighted the role of the Armenian Apostolic Church in building the bond between Armenia and the diaspora, in the


measure that the bond was broadly perceived as guarantee of its permanence.

Finally, let us detect two great processes in the social construction of the bonds examined here: a convergence process, in which the strategy and interests of the “Motherland” and the diaspora came to be mutually functional and coincident, and another process of divergence, where such strategy and interests present themselves in diverse expressions of tension.

General bibliography

Bruneau, M. (ed.), Diasporas, Montpelier: Reclus, 1995. Fossaet, R. “Devenir et avenir des diaspora.” Hérodote 53 (1989). Lacoste, Y. “Géopolitique des diasporas.” Hérodote 53 (1989). Prévélakis, G. (ed.). Diasporas, Nicosia: Kyrem Cyprus Research Center,

1996. Shuval, J. T. “Diaspora Migration: Definitional Ambiguities and a

Theoretical Paradigm.” International Migration 38 (5) (2000).

Specific bibliography

Boudjikanian-Keuroglian, Aïda. “Un peuple en exil: la nouvelle diaspora (XIXXXe siècles).” In Histoire des Arméniens, edited by G. Dedeyan. Toulouse: Privat, 1986.

Boulgourdjian-Toufeksian, Nélida. Los armenios en Buenos Aires. La reconstrucción de la identidad (1900–1950). Buenos Aires: Edición del Centro armenio, 1997.

Hovanessian, Martine. Le lien communautaire. Trois génération d’Arméniens. París: Armand Colin, 1992.

Libaridian, Girair L. “Diaspora: Process and Program.” In La struttura negata: cultura armenia nelle diaspora, 32–35. Milán: ICOM, 1979.

Mirak, Robert. “La diaspora arménienne aux Etats-Unis.” In Les Temps Modernes, 504–505–506, 1988.

Mouradian, Claire. “l’Arménie soviétique et la diaspora.” In Les Temps Modernes, 504–505–506, 1988.

Ter Minassian, Anahide. “La diaspora arménienne.” In Diasporas, edited by M. Bruneau, 24–41. (Montpellier: Reclus, 1995).

DIPLOMACY AND DIASPORAS:THE IRISH-ARGENTINE CASE

MARIA EUGENIA CRUSET1

Current diplomatic affairs have allowed for new characters to surface. As nations’ borders appear to become more porous, new possibilities are growing. It is not the case that nation states are no longer the protagonists, but they are now allowing room for others. Nevertheless, what has been aided by telecommunications, economy and global culture has had important precedents. This is the specific case of the diasporas with their mother countries and the role they have played to consolidate their objectives.

Some authors speak of conflict resolution in a national arena by studying it as a “game of three levels,” and others even speak of a fourth level, where the diaspora becomes the “variable of adjustment.”2 Ivo D. Duchanek calls these activities “para-diplomacy,” and it consists of the relationship of these groups with foreign states in the commercial as well as industrial and cultural spheres. Often times these new “subjects” begin to have different discourses and interests to those of the central government (this can happen quite frequently), and even with their “nations of origin,” though this is less common.3

Minority or identity nationalisms are strongly linked to their diasporas and intensify the “Mother Country” discourse. Those who have had to migrate stay in close contact with the relatives who remain in their place of origin and a bond of affection with the place that witnessed their births. These groups quickly and in an almost natural and spontaneous way seek to join together as a means of preserving customs and traditions. Over

1 Professor, researcher and director of the Chair on “Irish Studies” La Plata University (Argentina)2 Brian Hocking, Localizing Foreing Policy: Non-Central Governments and Multiplayer Diplomacy, (London and New York: Macmillan and St. Martin´s Press, 1993.3 Gloria Totoricaguena, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, (EEUU, Taylor and Francis Inc., 2005).

Diplomacy and Diasporas: The Irish-Argentine Case 144

time, leaders among them come to the fore seeking a more formal contact with the homeland they have left, generating a mechanism of feedback and mutual aid between the people here and there, and in the interests of both.

These non-state diasporas and their agents can act as third parties in conflicts between their nationalities and their central governments, and they are more effective the more success they have in involving the states where they live in their interests. The more numerous, rich, powerful and influential this group is, the greater chance there is of achieving this.

The Irish Argentines

The immigration of Irish people to Argentina went through various stages. Since colonial times, there were families who settled along the River Plate. Also, the English invasions left prisoners of Irish origin in this region who, in time, integrated through marriage and the formation of their own families. This immigration continued after independence. The largest amount of immigrants from Ireland were linked to migratory chains through family, friends and neighbour relationships. These chains began mainly with ex-prisoners and deserters from the English invasions of 1806–07 (in the case of Westmeath, Longford and Offaly), and through the settlement of businessmen in Buenos Aires (in the case of Wexford and Dublin). The total number of immigrants to Argentina can be estimated at around forty or forty-five thousand.4 Of these, almost half returned to Ireland or went on to other destinations such as the United States. The majority of information we have on this subject is thanks to the research carried out by Eduardo Coghlan. His work is based on those who left descendents in order to develop a genealogical catalogue.5

Ireland maintained a diplomatic presence in Latin America from 1919 to 1923, particularly in Argentina and Chile. These people, sent by Sinn Féin, did not have official credentials before the governments but they did for the Irish communities in their respective countries. These representatives were Eamon Bulfin for the former and Frank Eagan for the latter. This demonstrates an early interest in maintaining contact with the diasporas in these countries, though this relationship was difficult given the enormous distances, the poor means of communication of the time and the cultural and language differences with these South American countries.

4 Patrick McKenna, “Nineteenth Century of the Irish in Argentina.” In Devenir Irlandésedited by Edmundo Murray, (Buenos Aires, EUDEBA, 2004).5 Eduardo A. Coghlan, Los Irlandeses en la Argentina: Su Actuación y Descendencia, (Buenos Aires, edición privada, 1987).


During the negotiations which took place between Eamon DeValera and the British Prime Minister Lloyd George, the first international Irish congress was organised as a means of showing the world what was happening in the country. This was also the case of Paris in 1922 whose organiser and main ideologist was Thomas Hughes Kelly of New York.6

In order to prepare and with the aim of unifying strategies it was necessary, as a first step, to organise the Irish communities in the different countries where they were to be found. For this reason, the Irish government sent special missions to South America, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Russia and the United States during 1921. It is within this context that Laurence Ginnell arrived in Buenos Aires as the Republic of Ireland’s representative to cooperate with Eamon Bulfin, who was already at work on this issue. Finally, on November 29, 1921 the first congress of the Irish race was held in Buenos Aires. More than fifty organisations sent their representatives and a new Federation was founded. The number is not a minor detail. It illustrates the large amount of Irish immigrants, their distribution and also, in a certain way, their organisational fragmentation. There, five delegates were chosen to go to the meeting in France.

The Easter Rising

The events of Easter 1916 quickly had repercussions in Argentina. What was happening in Dublin was eagerly followed within the community and they tried to support this as much as possible.

Gerald Foley, editor of The Southern Cross added to the first news to arrive, mainly through wires from London, by seeking out information from local sources and giving the information a strong positive connotation. Through editorials and meaningful headlines like “Sensational News from Ireland,”7 he set a tone of optimism and support for the cause.

It must also be said that the diaspora not only kept up to date but also acted correspondingly, setting up support clubs and even carrying the tricolour to the Plaza de Mayo. On October 25, 1920 the mayor of Laprida, Timoteo Ussher ordered the flag to be raised at half-mast as a sign of mourning for the death of the “heroic” mayor of Cork, Terrence Mc Sweeney: “Considering that he has died in Brixton Prison, England … after heroically enduring a 72-day hunger strike and that it is the duty of

6 Carolina Barry, “La Primera Convención de la Raza Irlandesa en Sudamérica.” In The Southern Cross 129 (5883) (January 2004): 3.7 The Southern Cross, April 28, (1916): 13.


governments to honour the memory of those men who sacrifice themselves for the ideals they believe will forge the freedom of their people.”8

The very important issue of financing was also present. In 1921, an aid committee was created: The Irish Argentine UIT Cross, and during many months the list of people who contributed and the amounts donated were published.

For example:

For the victims of the Revolution in Ireland Appeal to the Irish-Argentine Community

Mrs. Edward O`Brien (Buenos Aires) $200… Fr. Patrick O`Grady (Capilla) $50…. Rev. John M. Sheehy (Rosario) $20 Mr. Guillermo Murphy (Salta) $20 Mr. Thomas O`Reiley (Flores) $10 Mrs. Maria Clara O`Reilly (Flores) $10 Rev. Francis Meaghes (Rosario)$10 Mrs. Meaghes (Rosario) $10 ...9

The list is very interesting because it allows us to observe some of the characteristics of the Irish-Argentines and how they collaborated. Firstly, it must be said that some contributed significant sums initially through their generosity, and also because they were able to. For example, $200 was the equivalent of a police officer’s monthly salary, one of the best-paid public servants of the time.

The geographic distribution of the people who collaborated is also interesting. If indeed they are from all over the country—as we can see there are contributions from as far afield as Salta—the majority are from the capital, Rosario and the north of the province of Buenos Aires. That is to say, they coincide with the distribution of the foremost communities.

There is also important information on gender. It has been said that women did not play an important role in the rising. This is true, but what is significant is not the amount of women, but that there were any who contributed in the first instance. This is important information in evaluating women’s participation in a historical context. In fact, if we look at the list, women contribute equally. We see marriages where the spouses contribute 8 Carolina Barry, “El nacimiento de una terrible belleza.” In The Southern CrossAño 131 (915) (August 2006): 12.9 The Southern Cross May 19 (1916): 13.


separately with equal amounts. This leads us to believe that the wives had their own money and made use of it in a society where the law established the husband as administrator of family assets and where the few women who did work (mainly teachers) could not collect their salary, their fathers, brothers or husbands doing so for them.

In the chart below you can see a list with information about teachers.

SURNAME NAME AGE PLACE OF BIRTH

MARITAL STATUS

PLACE

BENT MARIA PURCELL

50 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

WIDOW LA PLATA

DONNELLY LILY 27 ENGLAND SINGLE BUENOS AIRES

FLOOD ELLEN 67 IRELAND WIDOW BUENOS AIRES

GANEN ELIZA 30 ENGLAND SINGLE S. ANDRES DE GILES

GANNON ELIZABETH 33 ENGLAND SINGLE BUENOS AIRES

GEOGHEGAN ELLEN 20 IRELAND SINGLE MERCEDES HUGHES MATILDE 29 ENGLAND SINGLE BUENOS

AIRES KILLION RACHEL 55 IRELAND SINGLE BUENOS

AIRES LUCAS FLORENCE 25 ENGLAND SINGLE ENTRE

RIOS MACKIN ELLEN 46 ENGLAND MARRIED SALTO MORROW ELIZA 19 IRELAND SINGLE MERCEDES MURPHY EMILY 28 ENGLAND SINGLE SANTA FE MURTAGH ROSE

ANNE 22 IRELAND SINGLE MERCEDES

O `DWYER ALICE 22 ENGLAND SINGLE BUENOS AIRES

YORK MARIA 40 ENGLAND WIDOW BRANDSEN Sources: Edmundo Murray based on data provided by Eduardo Coghland in his book "The Contribution of the Irish to the formation of the nation Argentina" (Buenos Aires, 1982) and national census data from 1895 .

Another interesting piece of information has to do with the clergy. While the rising received lukewarm support from the Church in Ireland, in Argentina Catholic priests were not afraid to make contributions. The same occurs with the Protestant clergy who collaborated and were as nationalist as the Catholics.


In summary, the Irish community got involved in what was happening in the “Mother Country”: it got information, organised itself and supported what was happening there. To illustrate this, I would like to discuss the Irish-Argentine who raised the flag above the G.P.O. during the Easter Rising as mentioned above, Eamon Bulfin.

Eamon Bulfin was born in Buenos Aires in 1892, the son of William Bulfin, who immigrated to Argentina at twenty years old. In this country, he became a writer, journalist, editor and owner of The Southern Cross. He helped the republican cause economically and with publicity through his paper. He returned to Ireland with his family in 1909 and died there a year later. Eamon actively participated in the uprising and it was he who placed the flag on the roof of the G.P.O. Once the uprising had ended, an English martial court sentenced him to death. Nevertheless, the fact he was an Argentinean citizen saved his life. He was deported to Argentina and, some years later, was appointed consul by Eamon de Valera in 1919. His job consisted of drumming up support within the Irish community and Argentinean public opinion and thereby gathering funds and arms for the cause. He was finally able to return to Ireland in 1922 where he settled and passed away in 1968.

Analysed objectively, it can be said that the Argentinean experience was not as successful as that in the U.S. There are several reasons for this: the distance together with the enormous difficulties in maintaining fluid communication was a huge obstacle, and also the divisions within the Irish community in the country.

The Rising and Argentinean Society

The year 1916 was also significant in Argentinean history. On October 12 that year, Hipólito Yrigoyen became president thanks to the Sáenz Peña Law (1912), which established universal, secret suffrage for all Argentinean males of age. A period of Argentinean history known as “the radical era,” 1916 to 1930 (the year of the first military coup), began with Yrigoyen’s first presidency. During this period a sector of society, which had been completely forgotten by previous rulers, came to prominence: the middle class.

The foreign policy of Radicalism proposed a policy whose objective was to increase Argentina’s standing abroad through a neutral and pacifist mission, which insisted on morality and law as the bases of international relations, and which sought to exercise a kind of regional leadership in opposition to the U.S. If indeed the last representative of the conservative period, Victorino de la Plaza, was still in power at the time of the uprising,


society was already showing signs of the deep changes that would result in Yrigoyen coming to power.

The events in Ireland had a lot of repercussions in the local press. Though what was happening in Europe with the First World War was closely followed with great interest, there was also prominent coverage of the uprising.

Undoubtedly, one of the most important newspapers of the time was La Nación. The Southern Cross accused it of being “extremely nationalist,” with an ultra Anglo-Saxon viewpoint and ignorant of Irish history.10 Yet besides these comments, La Nación was a conservative newspaper that could not approve of any revolutionary movement and regarded what it considered to be the act of a small group of radicals with suspicion:

Slowly but surely the rebellion is being extinguished. The admirable organisation of the British troops who were sent to smother to revolutionary movement has effectively contributed to this … The great precision of the orders from the English command has triumphed against the rebels.11

Other newspapers seem to have been more comprehensive in their coverage. Such is the case of La Prensa which not only based its information on the cables arriving from England but also from others originating in New York, and from newspapers. For example, it transcribes an interview from The New York Tribune of an Irishwoman who has arrived in the United States:

Otherwise, the priests behaved admirably. They heard confessions and gave the last rites in the midst of the bullets, and the rebels respected them … Even the most radical made their confession before going into combat and did not bother those who went to mass. The women fought with more energy than the men and when the fighting stopped, they could be seen preparing food for the rebels.12

We can glimpse the hand of the powerful North-American diaspora and its influence on public opinion behind this account which is infused with an epic and meaningful nationalist discourse.

It is hard to know exactly what influence the Irish community had on general public opinion regarding the events of 1916. It is possible that it was stronger in smaller places in the interior than in Buenos Aires. As

10 The Southern Cross, April 28 (1916): 1311 La Nación, May 2 (1916), 8.12 La Prensa, May 3 (1916), 9.


there was no such thing as a “Readers’ Letters” section, it is difficult to know what consequences the dissatisfaction towards La Nación seen in the pages of The Southern Cross had, for example. What is certain is that until the news coverage of the uprising ended, a little over a month later, the editorial line was maintained.

It is known that the richer, more powerful and more influential a diaspora is, the easier it can involve the host country in working for the interests of their “Mother Countries.” This has been widely studied in the case of the U.S., nevertheless, there is still an outstanding debt in the case of the “Irish-Argentines.”

Conclusion

The introduction of Diasporas as a category for study in Social Science in general, and of Political Science and International Relations in particular, allows for newer and richer approaches to the theme. Without a doubt, this is something new and will require further study. The analysis of the Irish Diaspora and its interaction with others will allow us to broaden our knowledge of history. The role of the Irish-Argentines in the Easter Rising of 1916 was not a leading one, that is clear, yet it would be unfair and untruthful to say they had none or if we minimised it. This theme requires study in greater detail. It will be important to research the relationship of the Diaspora in Argentina with Ireland and that with other important Diasporas in the country such as the Galician, the Basque, etc.

Bibliography

Barry, Carolina. “La Primera Convención de la Raza Irlandesa en Sudamérica.” En The Southern Cross 129 (2004): 5883.

—. “El nacimiento de una terrible belleza.” En The Southern Cross 131 (2006): 5915.

Coghlan, Eduardo A. Los Irlandeses en la Argentina: Su Actuación y Descendencia. Buenos Aires: edición privada, 1987.

Cruset, Maria Eugenia. Diplomacia de las Naciones sin estado y de los estados sin nación. Argentina e Irlanda una visión comparativa. La Plata: IRI, Serie Tesis, 2007.

Cruset, Maria Eugenia. “Irlandesas, vascas, argentinas”. (In: Cruset y Ruffini (coord.) NACIONALISMO, MIGRACIONES Y CIUDADANÍA. Buenos Aires, 2009).


Hocking, Brian. Localizing Foreing Policy: Non-Central Governments and Multiplayer Diplomacy. Londres/New York: Macmillan and St. Martin´s Press, 1993.

Mckenna, Patrick. “Nineteenth Century of the Irish in Argentina.” En Devenir Irlandés. Buenos Aires: EUDEBA,2004.

Mulhall, Marion. Los Irlandeses en Sudamérica. Buenos Aires: Elaleph,2009.

Murray, Edmundo. Devenir Irlandés. Buenos Aires: EUDEBA,2004. Murray, Thomas. The Story of the Irish in Argentina. New York: PJ

Kennedy and Sons, 1919. Sabato, Hilda and Karol, Juan Carlos. Cómo fue la inmigración irlandesa

en la Argentina. Buenos Aires: Plus Ultra, 1981. Totoricaguena, Gloria. Nationalism and Ethnic Politics. EEUU, Taylor

and Francis Inc., 2005

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PEACE AND RECONCILIATIONIN NORTHERN IRELAND: THE ROLE OF DIASPORA

MARIA EUGENIA CRUSET1

On April 10, 1998 the Good Friday Agreement was signed, ending years of confrontation in Northern Ireland. This pact, celebrated throughout the world, is the work of four protagonists: England, Gerry Adams as the leader of Sinn Fein, David Trimble for the protestant unionists, and the Irish Diaspora. However, a little more than ten years after the signing, the society of Northern Ireland is still deeply segregated and violent. There is much still to be done to allow the agreement, signed by the political structure, to “spread” into civil society. For this to happen, deep changes must be made in three areas: education, police and reparation to the victims.

The agreement represents a significant victory on the way to peace. For this reason, Irish, English and even North American intellectuals focus on those achievements rather than consider a deeper analysis of a complex and far from settled situation, as this French journalist comments:

The end of violence does not necessarily mean peace … The silence of arms will not erase the dichotomy in that part of Ireland, where two collective identities polarized at all costs, a catholic nationalist one, the other protestant and unionist, rub themselves without interchange … Name, surname, address, school, press, jargon, accent, festivities, football teams, about forty very precise identity signs let the individuals see the differences among them … 75% of the inhabitants of those six counties live in quarters (here we use, in an eloquent way the term “communities”) peopled 90% by coreligionists, which are still forbidden zones for the “enemy.” The Irish of the north spends part of his life in detours, going by a roundabout way to avoid streets and villages. (Governeur, 2000).2

1 Professor, researcher and director of the Chair on “Irish Studies” La Plata University (Argentina).2 Céedric Gouverneur, Le Monde Diplomatique 7 Enero (2000): 8–9.

Peace and Reconciliation in Northern Ireland: The Role of Diaspora 154

The concept of “peace” is difficult to define because of its deeply subjective connotations. Some authors speak of a difference between “negative peace” (the absence of direct violence) and “positive peace” (including social injustice and cultural violence). “Negative peace” is the first step (Galtung, 1975).3 In this work, we intend to outline some variables that should be modified to obtain lasting peace.

Irish Nationalism

Irish history is signified by the fight against the invader. Often this fight has meant a more or less dissembled resistance, and at other times a straightforward revolutionary movement, but it has never been in a state of submission.4

These uprisings in several cases coincided with what some authors call the bourgeois revolutionary circle (Hobswam 1987), or more recently Atlantic revolutions (Lettieri 2001), the most important being the revolutionary movements of 1798 and 1848 and the Easter Rising of 1916. This last one in particular has great symbolic meaning as it precipitated the end of British dominion over a large part of the island after seven hundred years.5

From 1919 to 1921, the so-called “Anglo-Irish War” or “Independence War” was fought between the Royal Irish Police, the British army and the paramilitary group Black and Tans on one side, and the Irish Republican Army (IRA) on the other. It originated from the formation of the Irish parliament unilaterally created by the majority of members of the British Parliament in Westminster. This parliament, known as the First Dáil, and its ministry, known as the Aireacht, declared Irish independence. The IRA as the “army of the Irish Republic” was obliged, according to some members of the Dail Eireann, to go to war on British administration.

Conflict ended with a truce in 1921 and there followed the negotiation of the Anglo-Irish Treaty and the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922.

3 J. Galtung, Peace: Research, Education, Action 1 (25) (Copenhagen: 1975), 29–46. 5 Traditional Irish dances are quite well known where dancers dance with their arms stuck to their bodies. According to tradition, they do it so that the English will not notice their joy. In a way, humour, happiness and music turn into methods of resistance.5 Eric J Hobsawm, Las Revoluciones Burguesas (The Age of Revolution), (Barcelona: Labor, 1987); A. Lettieri and L. Garbarini, Las Revoluciones Atlánticas (1750-1820), (Buenos Aires: editorial longseller, 2001).


A minority of those involved in the Independence War refused to accept the treaty and caused the Irish civil war, which lasted until 1923 and cost the lives of some of the independence movement leaders, especially Michael Collins and Rory O’Connor. The consequences of the treaty which, in turn, were the fundamental causes of the civil war, were Ireland’s autonomy with the status of dominion within the British Commonwealth and the separation of the northern counties. In 1948, a republic was finally declared in the south of Ireland and in 1949 the country abandoned the Commonwealth.

From the end of the 1960s to the signing of the 1998 agreement, a succession of violent attacks known as “The Troubles” took place. During those thirty years, the Unionist sector, close to the dominion of Great Britain, and the Nationalist sector which looked for annexation with the Irish Republic, were violently opposed. The conflict began in 1968 when groups defending catholic civil rights began with demonstrations and disturbances. The escalating violence drove the Prime Minister to ask for direct intervention from England. From this confrontational stage between Unionists and the IRA emerged the so-called “Bloody Sunday” in 1972, in which a Catholic demonstration ended in violent repression with fourteen people (some only children) were killed by the British army, and a hunger strike in 1981 headed by the prisoner Bobby Sands.6

In 1978, more than thirty Republican prisoners refused to use convict clothes and to get out of their cells, covering themselves only with a blanket. Their protest centred on five demands:

(1) the right to wear their own clothes (2) the right to abstain from prison work (3) the right of freedom of organisation (4) the right to recreation and education facilities (5) restoration of the right of remission of punishment.

Finally, and before the refusal of the authorities to grant these rights, in October 1980 seven prisoners started a hunger strike. This strike ended after fifty-three days when they were allowed to wear their own clothes. However, on March 1, 1981, Bobby Sands, then leader of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, (IRA-P) began a hunger strike at Maze prison. During the following weeks and months, other prisoners joined the strike

7 These two examples serve as an illustration of the depth and violence of the conflict, but it is not our intention in this work to develop a detailed history of the facts.


in an organised way. It should be taken into account that Sands had also been elected to British Parliament during this period.

The hunger strike grew and on May 5, Sands was the first to die—it is estimated that 100,000 people attended his funeral. The strike finally ended on October 3, 1981 with three people dead. Following this, the prison regime was modified and their petitions granted.

The Good Friday Agreement

The Good Friday Agreement was signed, as stated, on April 10, 1988 between the government of Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland. It was accepted by almost all Northern Ireland political parties. It was also submitted to referendum in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland on December 2, 1999.

Table 9.1.

Participation Yes No Total

Northern Ireland

81% 676,966 (71%)

274,879 (29%)

951,845

Republic of Ireland

56% 1,442,583 (94%)

85,748 (6%)

1,528,331

Source: BBC News, 1998: http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/may/23/newsid_2504000/2504387.stm

The most important points in the Agreement established the creation of a Legislative Assembly of their own with autonomic jurisdiction:

2. An Assembly of 108 members will be elected by PR (STV) from the electoral districts existing in Westminster. 3. The Assembly will exercise full legislative and executive authority with regard to those matters at present under the responsibility of the six Departments of the Government of Northern Ireland. 4. There will be protection to guarantee that all the sectors of the community will be able to participate and work together in a successful way.


a) The assignation of the presidency, ministers and members of the committee proportional to the forces of the party

(Gobbi, 1993).7

Other notable aspects were:

• The creation of a British-Irish Council with representatives of all parts. • The modification of the Irish constitutional demand on Northern Ireland. • The elimination of the Irish Government Act of 1921 on the part of the British Parliament wherein the partition of Ireland was proclaimed. • The official acknowledgement of the Irish language in Northern Ireland. Also included are:

• The transformation of the militarised Ulster Royal Police into a civil police service. • The withdrawal of British troops. • The liberation of the paramilitary prisoners belonging to the organisations who honoured the stop fire and the demilitarisation of their groups.

The Role of President Clinton and the Diaspora

During the negotiations, Bill Clinton, the President of the United States of America, strongly pledged himself with the peace process, urging and pressing the parties involved. He named a “peace envoy,” George Mitchell, who was to lead the International body of Decommission of Weapons (IBDW). This same commission was later in charge of supervising and keeping regular contact with the IRA. Mitchell’s work was so important that he was decorated numerous times in his country and the Red Cross and Gentleman of the British Empire were granted to him, as well as being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

The traditional policy of the United States in relation to “The Troubles” was to consider them an internal affair of Great Britain. This changed during Clinton’s presidency, and the sending of a commissioner

7 Non-official translation summarized in: Gobbi, Hugo, Estado, Identidad yLibertad, Buenos Aires: Abeledo-Perrot, 1999, 304.


was one of his electoral campaign promises. In this matter, he had the strong support of senator Joseph P. Kennedy and sixteen other congressmen, even though this had to wait until the disarming of the IRA and Sinn Fein leader Jerry Adams’ petition for the active intervention of the USA, as in South Africa and the Middle East. There are two fundamental causes for President Clinton’s involvement in these matters: the president’s own agenda of his vision of Foreign Politics, and the strength of the Irish North American diaspora.

The history of North American foreign politics can be characterised by the use of Realism and Idealism in an interchangeable way since the 1823 Monroe doctrine which, for some authors, is the first expression of the latter, leading to Wilson’s ideas and the period after 1915, with Realism more evident after 1945. The idealists tend to universalise humanitarian ideas and moral principles, advocating support to international organisation, international law, armament control, human rights and, above all, democratic government. Idealists believe in the possibility of creating a most prosperous, sure and just world order. These are the ideals which influenced Clinton’s administration to intervene in different conflicts as mediator.

The Irish-Americans

Irish immigration to the United States has always been a strong and numerous group with nationalist tendencies. This group gradually came to be known as Irish American.8 Irish nationalism in the United States underwent three stages:

(1) The first was based on the ethnic factor as “nation in exile” or “diaspora nation.” They continued to have basic as well as political, cultural or religious characteristics—even their leaders were those who had led anti-British movements in Ireland. The efforts to support nationalist recovery were strong and constant. (2) The second period was characterised by the continuous nationalisation of immigrants and their conversion into American citizens, the beginning of the “Irish-Americans.” Nationalism lost strength as it integrated into the welcoming society. (3) In the third stage, nationalism inside the Irish-American community decreased and became more marginal, transforming into a kind of nostalgia, manifesting itself on special occasions such as St Patrick’s

8 North Americans of Irish origin.


Day. Much of this phase has to do with the presidency of John F. Kennedy and the resultant prestige in North American civil society.

In relation to the groups and associations formed, those in the first stages most consciously defended Irish independence. Their members were mainly first generation immigrants and political refugees. Those in the latter stages were responsible for the most violent activities against the London government.

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the impact of Irish immigration was not very significant, being only a small and rarely influential sector. According to statistical data from 1790, there were a little more than forty thousand Irish Catholics in the former colonies. The associations formed in this first stage were of mutual aid and mainly religious characteristics. The first of them was the “Irish Charity Society,” founded in Boston in 1737. At the end of the century, the associations tended to unite around the national factor appealing to Celtic tradition, and they began to be called “Hibernian.” The Scotch-Irish Americans were Presbyterians who arrived in the United States in the early eighteenth century, in time forming an important political force—Senator Joseph R. McCarthy and President Ronald Reagan are good examples from the twentieth century.

The second stage was marked by the features of the “Fenian Brotherhood,” created in 1858 and also known as the “Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood,” becoming the more radical “Clan na Gael” in 1867. The groupings were based on the ethnic characteristics of the Irish-Americans and they stressed American nationalism, for instance the “American Association for the Recognition of the Irish Republic,” the “Friends of Irish Neutrality in America,” and the “American Committee for Irish studies.” As stated, the religious variable was important in the development of Irish nationalism in the United States. Immigration created a small Catholic group, different and differential from the protestant Anglo-Saxon nucleus which had inhabited the country from its origins. This first Catholic element established itself near Baltimore, Maryland and New York, and later in Boston and Philadelphia.

With nationalism undergoing a similar development in Ireland itself, the migrant communities in the United States turned into a refuge for many members and leaders of the nationalist movement. This happened especially after the frustrated attempt of the “Young Irish” in 1848. From there the migrants, because of political reasons, grew enormously. These groups soon began to act and had favourable conditions since the community was numerous and was unified in racial and religious terms.


In 1858, the Republican Irish Brotherhood was founded in Dublin, owing to the initiative of the North American immigrants. Soon a sister association was born with the same name in New York. These groups with Fenian orientation tended to become radicalised, and some even became illegal. For this reason, and to evade proscription in 1867, the “Clan na Gael” was founded. These radical groups controlled the newspapers “Irish Nation” and “United Irishmen,” while moderate nationalists published “The Pilot” in Boston and “The Irish World” in New York.

Summing up, it must be stressed how important a role the Irish community played in relation to the main Irish leaders, and the privileged position it had. To have an idea of the importance of this phenomenon we have to remember that from July 1919 to December 1920, the president of the Dail Eireann, Eamon de Valera, made a journey through the United States to raise funds, awake consciousness, and strengthen bonds with the powerful Irish community in America, and to make their position known in public opinion and to politicians in particular. With the idea of evading internal divisions, he founded the “Association for the Recognition of the Irish Republic.” From 1922, delegates of the first level were sent with the same purpose, and the first diplomatic legation was that of the United States in 1924. The arrival of John F. Kennedy to presidency marked a peak. His tragic death did not mean a drawback, since his family, strongly politicised, continued his task. On the other hand, it is important to note that the electorate of Irish origin was always congenial with the Democrat Party, the same to which Clinton ascribed.

With these antecedents, it was not difficult for the congressmen of Irish origin in particular, and the Irish lobby in general, to involve President Clinton by presenting participation in the conflict as something with low costs and great benefits, and besides which it chimed with his own international agenda and was even part of the platform of his campaign. The importance of the American role in the success of the peace process is difficult to measure, but it was definitely significant. It is also not possible to measure the importance of the diaspora in obtaining participation of the national state, but again it has to be acknowledged that it was important.

The detailed analysis of this event may advance the study of the diaspora as diplomacy agents and their success or failure in these activities. The facts of foreign politics are complex and so is their analysis, but as a conclusion it can be said that the success of the diaspora is mostly determined by the synchronisation of their own agendas with those of the states that receive them and their rulers.


The Three Anchors and the Peace Agreement

The peace agreement was very important in promoting development in Northern Ireland and cannot be underestimated. However, this covenant carried out by the political structure must spread into civil society so that it implies a long-term success.

1. The Educational System

Since the agreement, the educational system in Northern Ireland has been reformed twice—in 1989 and 2007. However, an overwhelming majority of children are still educated in confessional schools, Catholic or Protestant, where segregation perpetuates itself. Many of these children will only integrate with someone of another religion when they work together or when they reach university. By then, they will have formed their value system, which to an extent determines their outlook and friendships.

In 2006, the Management Committee of Catholic Schools presented a document on diversity and inclusion as a formation policy for catholic schools. However, as the document itself explains, those ideas were not shared by everybody inside and outside the schools:

Central to the identity and mission of the Catholic school is faith in Jesus Christ and a commitment to a way of living and a vision of the world that is informed by the Catholic tradition. The Catholic Church believes that young people formed in the tradition—where a central tenet is “love your neighbour as yourself”—are well prepared for meeting the challenges of a divided society. This view is not universally shared.9

On the other hand, even though all financing comes from London, it is done in separate funds for each kind of school, and the financing for Catholic schools is smaller and, as a consequence, is reflected in the educational quality of such schools. It is clear that the poorer the education, the fewer jobs are obtained, and few of those students reach university. In this way, an unjust situation which is hundreds of years old 9 Bishop John McAreavey: “Central to the identity and mission of Catholic schools is faith in Jesus Christ and the commitment with the way of life and the vision based on Catholic tradition. The Catholic Church believes that young people formed in this tradition—where a central tenet is ‘love your neighbour’—are well prepared to face the challenges of a divided society. This view point is not universally shared.” http://www.onlineccms.com/current-issues/5/ (accessed 22/1/2011)


is allowed to continue, where Protestants have the best possibilities to the detriment of Catholics. Furthermore, education in Northern Ireland is compulsory up to the age of sixteen, whereas in England it is up to eighteen. In a way this fact, which is not only cultural but also economic, marks the difference inside Great Britain.

2. The Police

Another key point of the agreement is the creation of an acceptable police force for both parties. For this reason, British Prime Minister Tony Blair asked for a report on the police situation from the ex-Hong Kong Governor, Chris Patten, filed in September 1999. However, up to now, his recommendations have not been completely enforced.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI, its initials in English), created in 2001, is the successor of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, a police force accused by Catholics of partiality in the conflicts. The two main problems it has to confront are its bad reputation and its almost exclusive constitution of Protestants, which reinforces that opinion.

It is clear that there are still many things to be addressed in the police for it to be seen as a universal force.

3. Without truth there is no justice, without justice there is no peace.

In Chapter 6, in the item Reconciliation and victims of violence, it says:

(11) The participants believe that it is essential to recognise and point out the suffering of the victims of violence as a necessary element for reconciliation. (12) It is acknowledged that the victims have the right to remember and also to contribute to the transformation of the society. A peaceful and just society will be the legitimate evocation to the victims of violence. (13) … An essential aspect of the process of reconciliation is the promotion of a tolerant culture in all levels of society … (Gobbi, 1999, 310 and311).

Following this line, in 2005 the police created a service of historical research to solve 3,269 murders, which have remained unpunished up to now.


In spite of that initiative, the agreement looks to the future but without recourse to the past. Nothing is said of reparations to the victims of either party. The matter is beginning to be timidly discussed by small academic circles and by human rights activists, but even in these cases a monetary compensation is spoken of, rather than a legal or judicial one. One of these organisations, perhaps one of the strongest, is the Healing through Remembering Project, born in 2002 by the initiative of some help groups to the victims of violence, and with the advice of Dr Alex Boraine, a member of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee of South Africa. Up to now, his merit has been in bringing to the discussion a subject which has been virtually set aside:

What we need is measured and reasonable debate on these issues. The experience is that honest and inclusive debate in an appropriate environment can bring agreement on reconciliation, truth and justice by those who hold opposing views and opinions.10

At first sight there seems to be a contradiction between peace and justice. However, the latter is indispensable for the peace process to be sustained. That is why judicial and non-judicial mechanisms are necessary. This also implies that all actors who are part of the problem must also be part of the solution. Not to include one of them, or any partiality, will only bring an outbreak of violence.

Conclusion

The Good Friday Agreement was a step of great importance at the time in securing a ceasefire and to open the road to reconciliation between rivals historically opposed. However, it will take a long time to impact the daily life of all citizens of Northern Ireland. It is necessary to modify centuries of hate, which can only be achieved through education and justice. Until the school system is changed, until the outrages are repaired and until the main matter of the future juridical status of Northern Ireland (the annexation to the Irish Republic, the continuation within the United

10 Kate Turner’s words, director of a NGO. In Bulletin 5. Summer 2009. Available from the website of the institution: http:healingthroughremembering.info/imagesuplods/HTR_Newsletter_-_Summer 2009.pdf. “What we need is a moderate and reasonable debate on these subjects. HTR’s experience is that honest and open debate in an adequate environment may obtain an agreement on reconciliation, truth and justice for those who think differently” (accessed 22/1/2011)


Kingdom, the creation of a nation-state) is solved, it will be difficult to find peace.

Peace processes are always an opportunity for a new civil contract and to face the iniquities and separations-exclusions which caused the conflict. However, it will not be possible until all the actors commit themselves to the process, and especially in civil society.

Bibliography

Bruneau, M. (ed.), Diasporas, Montpelier: Reclus, 1995 Cella, Susana. Irlandeses. Buenos Aires: Alianza, 1994. Cohen, Robin. Global Diasporas: An introduction. London and New

York: Routledge, 2008. Galtung, Johan. Tras la violencia 3R: reconstrucción, reconciliación,

resolución. Afrontando los efectos visibles e invisibles de la guerra y la violencia. Bilbao: Bakeaz/Guernika Gogoratuz, 1998.

Gobbi, Hugo. Estado, Identidad y Libertad. Buenos Aires: Abeledo-Perrot, 1999.

Gouverneur , Cédric. “Paz sin reconciliación en Irlanda del Norte.” En Le Monde Diplomatique,8. Enero, 2000.

Hobswam, Eric J. Las revoluciones burguesas (The Age of Revolution). Barcelona: Labor, 1987.

Lettieri, A., Garbarini, L. Las Revoluciones Atlánticas (1750-1820).Buenos Aires: Editorial Longseller, 2001

McAreavey, John . En: http://www.onlineccms.com/ tomado enero 2011. Shuval, J. T. “Diaspora Migration: Definitional Ambiguities and a

Theoretical Paradigm.” International Migration 38 (5) (2000). Turner, Kate. En: Boletín 5. Verano 2009. Disponible en la web de la

institución. http://healingthroughremembering.info/images/uploads/HTR_Newsletter_-_Summer_2009.pdf.

Websites Consulted

http://www.ibe.unesco.org/ http://www.psni.police.uk/

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