On this day in 1786, the newly minted United States faced its greatest domestic challenge when Daniel Shays led an armed uprising in western Massachusetts against the federal government known as “Shays’ Rebellion“.
Shays was a veteran of the American Revolutionary War who saw combat in several major battles and was wounded in action. Like most people in the fledgling country of roughly three million, he was a subsistence farmer just scrapping by; most residents of rural Massachusetts had few assets beyond their land, and often had to rely on bartering or debt from urban merchants.
Like most revolts, there were many complex ideological, political, and economic factors that drove Shays and four thousand others to take arms against their purportedly representative government. The majority of veterans received little pay for their service, and still had difficult getting the government to pay up. Compounding this problem were mounting debts to city businessmen and higher taxes by the state government, which happened to be dominated by the same mercantile class. Mounting bankruptcies and repossessions, coupled with the ineffectiveness of the democratic process in addressing these issues, finally boiled over to well organized efforts to shut down the courts and prevent more “unjust” rulings. Over time, the protests morphed into an outright insurrection that sought the overthrow of the Massachusetts government. Things really came to a head in 1787, when Shays’ rebels marched on the federal Springfield Armory in an unsuccessful attempt to seize its weaponry for their cause. The national government, then governed by the Articles of Confederation, did not have the power nor ability to finance troops to put down the rebellion; it came down to the Massachusetts State militia and even privately funded local militia to put an end to the rebellion, at the loss of nine lives in total.
Most participants were ultimately pardoned, including Shays himself, who ultimately died poor and obscure in 1825. But the legacy of the conflict far outlived its relative blip in modern history: Though it is still widely debated, the rebellion may have influenced the already-growing calls for the weak Confederation to be replaced by a federal system under a new constitution. Among other things, the event is credited with creating a relatively more powerful executive branch, as it was believed one single president would have a better chance at acting decisively against national threats. Some delegates felt that the uprising proved the masses could not be trusted; the proposed Senate was already designed to be indirectly elected (as it would remain until the early 20th century), but some wanted even the House of Representatives to be removed from the popular vote. Regardless of its effects, if any, on the course of our constitutional and political development, the causes, sentiments, and public debates around Shays’ Rebellion (and the response to it) are no doubt familiar to many of us today; depending on how you look at it, that is either reassuring (things are not so uniquely bad after all) or depressing (things are *still* pretty bad over two centuries later).
Among the four paintings prominently displayed in the U.S. Capitol is the Surrender of Lord Cornwallis by John Trumbull (known as the “Painter of the Revolution” for his many iconic depictions of the war and period; you’ll recognize many of them if you look him up).
Wikimedia.org
The painting shows the British surrender at Yorktown in 1781, which marks the decisive end of the American Revolution. Flanked on one side of the defeated general are Americans carrying the Stars and Stripes, and on the other French soldiers beneath the banner of France’s monarchy—the two forces portrayed as equal combatants. Trumbull’s decision to show French and Americans as identical victors reflected widespread acknowledgement that the U.S. owed its independence to the Kingdom of France. (Ironically, the world’s first modern republic was birthed with the help of one of its oldest and most absolute monarchies—more so than Great Britain’s!)
Almost as many French troops took part in the final battle as Americans; one of the two military columns that secured victory was entirely French. Meanwhile, the French Navy had kept British ships from coming to Cornwallis’ aid, prompting him to surrender—and the British to sue for peace. Even this already-critical contribution is just one example of decisive French aid.
Well before the Declaration of Independence, the Founders actively sought an alliance with France: While the French monarchy was everything the revolution stood against—heck, it was more authoritarian than even Britain’s—the Patriots were pragmatic enough to recognize that only the French had both the motive and means to take on the British, to whom they lost all their North American colonies just a decade before, in the Seven Years’ War (to say nothing of centuries of rivalry and mutual enmity).Indeed, France’s foreign minister urged the king to support the Americans, arguing that “[destiny] had marked out this moment for the humiliation of England.”
Hence why the Founders pursued a two-year diplomatic mission, led by noted Francophile Benjamin Franklin, to court the French for as much aid and support as possible.
Wikimedia.org
The alliance was not merely opportunistic: Most of the Founders were avid consumers of French political philosophy, which promoted ideals of individual liberty and political representation. As far back as the 1760s, it was trendy for Americans to favor France over their English overlords; as one historian notes, “It became almost a patriotic duty for colonists to admire France as a counterpoise to an increasingly hostile England”. France’s powerful monarchy helped spur many French thinkers to explore better political alternatives—and in the process, inspire Americans across the Atlantic.
Patrick Henry’s famous exhortation, “Give me freedom or give me death!”, which convinced the colonists to prepare for war, echoed French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who opened his influential 1762 work, The Social Contract, with the words “Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains”. Rousseau’s core argument—predating the American Revolution by over a decade—is familiar to us now: Sovereignty rested not in a monarch, but in the people, with laws needing to reflect the common good, not the whims of an aristocratic elite. These ideals were channeled by Thomas Jefferson—another avid reader and noted Francophile—in the language of the Declaration of Independence. The U.S. Constitution may have drawn from the even older work of Baron de Montesquieu, who forty years before published “The Spirit of the Laws”, which laid out many familiar principles: That the executive, legislative, and judicial functions of government should be separated, so that each branch can keep the other in check; that laws should ensure a fair trial, presumption of innocence and proportional punishments; and that people had the freedom of thought, speech and assembly (he also argued against slavery, though sadly that did not take root until much later).
Lafayette (right) depicted alongside George Washington at Valley Forge. John Ward Dunsmore (1907)
In any event, the admiration was mutual: Many French, including those who directly aided and fought in the American Revolution, were reeling under the monarchy and sought change; many of the political philosophers beloved by the Founders, including Rousseau and Montesquieu, faced persecution and even exile for their writings. To many in France, the nascent American republic signified their ideals made real, an experiment they wanted to succeed so it could perhaps be a model to their own efforts. (It is no coincidence that the French Revolution—which was bolder but bloodier than our own—would occur less than two decades after America’s.)
But as important as the ideological support was the practical kind. Even the most noble efforts require money to succeed, and France—then one of the world’s wealthiest countries—provided open-ended credit to the tune of billions of dollars. American troops, who initially lacked even basic goods like boots and winter jackers, received those supplies and more: By some measures, 90% of American gunpowder was of French origin, as were a similar proportion of U.S. armaments at Yorktown.
The Comte de Rochambeau, who is pictured as Washington’s equal in the Surrender of Yorktown, led the French Expeditionary Force that helped secure American victory—and which remains the only foreign allied force ever to campaign on American soil. Other brilliant Frenchmen like the Marquis de Lafayette, Louis Duportail, and Pierre L’Enfant played leading roles in the war and were personal friends and aides to George Washington (L’Enfant even helped design the nation’s capital). Tens of thousands more French served as soldiers and sailors, with the latter making up the bulk of our naval force.
Beyond the military dimension, France’s diplomatic heft could not be understated: As the first country to recognize American independence, it provided considerable legitimacy to the Patriot’s cause; if one of the most powerful countries in the world saw something in these upstart Americans, why shouldn’t other nations? Sure enough, France managed to get other powers like Spain and the Dutch Republic to throw in their lot with the Americans—turning what could have been just another self-contained rebellion into a full-fledged world war that stretched British forces thin. France even helped broker the peace deal that finally secured British recognition of U.S. independence—the “Treaty of Paris”—after refusing Britain’s offer of a separate peace deal without the Americans (a pretty solid ally indeed).
The man in question was Talat Pasha—former grand vizier of the Ottoman Empire, and the main architect of the Armenian genocide—whom Tehlirian shot point blank in a busy Berlin street two months before. The assassination, though little remembered today, influenced everything from the creation of the crime of genocide, to laying some of the ideological groundwork for Germany’s own atrocities decades later.
The courtroom with all eyes of the world.
Like many Armenians at the time, Tehlirian came from the Ottoman Empire—namely the eastern half of what is now Turkey—which had been a major center of Armenian civilization for two thousand years. Before the First World War began in 1914, up to two million Ottoman subjects were Armenians—a significant proportion of the total population—who had historically occupied a tenuous and complex position in society: Armenians, as non-Muslims, were regarded as second-class citizens and stripped of many rights, but were nonetheless granted considerable autonomy and freedom of worship—often greater than they would have had under a rival Christian sect.
In the 19th century, the Ottoman government tried to implement Tanzimat, a series of reforms to modernize the waning empire across political, legal, and social dimensions—including by introduce concepts like equal rights regardless of religious or ethnicity. Suffice it to say that the effort largely failed, and circumstances gradually worsened for the Armenians and other minorities in the empire, culminating in one of the first genocides in modern history.
Whole books have been written about the genocide and the complex historical factors that led up to it; this post could not do it justice. But few debate the central role played by Talat Pasha, who was the de facto leader of the empire from 1913 until the end of the war in 1918. He headed the ironically named Committee of Union and Progress, which had begun in 1889 as a liberal reform movement, but by the time Talat rose to power was a nationalistic and autocratic political party. (In fact, the CUP government is considered the first example of one-party rule and may have even been a model for authoritarian parties across Europe leading up to the Second World War.)
Talat Pasha
Like many genocidal regimes, the CUP-dominated Ottoman Empire used war as both an excuse and a smokescreen for eliminating a target population—in this case, minorities like the Armenians deemed disloyal and incongruous to a pure Turkish and Muslim state. In 1915, just one year into the war, Talat ordered nearly all the empire’s Armenians to the Syrian Desert to die of exposure, hunger, or outright murder. Of 40,000 Armenians deported from Erzurum—Tehlirian’s home region—it is estimated that fewer than 200 reached their destination. When more Armenians survived than Talat had intended, he ordered more massacres the following year.
Talat coolly estimated that around 1,150,000 Armenians disappeared during the genocide. In 1918, he told a Turkish journalist “I assume full responsibility for the severity applied” during the Armenian deportation and, “I absolutely don’t regret my deed.” By the end of the war, the subsequent German ambassador Johann von Bernstorff described his discussion with Talat: “When I kept on pestering him about the Armenian question, he once said with a smile: ‘What on earth do you want? The question is settled, there are no more Armenians.”
Tehlirian’s hometown had 20,000 Armenians before he moved to Serbia before the war to study engineering; by the end of the war, it had none. After hearing about anti-Armenian atrocities, he joined the Armenian volunteer units of the Russian army, which was allied against the Ottomans in the First World War. As these units advanced west into the former Armenian homeland, they found the aftermath of the genocide. Realizing his family had been killed—he named 85 relatives in his memoirs—Tehlirian vowed to take revenge. He suffered from regular fainting spells and other nervous system disorders that were likely the result of what we now know is post-traumatic stress disorder; during his trial, he said they were related to his experiences during the genocide.
When the Ottoman Empire was defeated in 1918, Pasha and nearly all other major perpetrators fled abroad, mostly to allied Germany. In July 1919, the Ottomans established a special military tribunal that tried and convicted Talat and other CUP exiles in absentia for the “massacre and annihilation of the Armenian population of the Empire”, sentencing them to death. Yet because there was no international law on which they could be tried—indeed, the word genocide, let alone the concept, had not been invented yet—the genocide’s principal leaders remained immune so long as they were outside Turkey.
After it became clear that no one would bring Talat and his murderous cronies to justice, the Dashnaktsutyun—an Armenian political party founded in Russia and still active in Armenia and elsewhere—launched the secret Operation Nemesis, headed by Ottoman-born Armenians. The conspirators drew up a list of 100 genocide perpetrators to target for assassination, with Talat naturally at the top of the list. There was no shortage of volunteers for these dangerous missions—mainly young men who survived the genocide or lost their families. Nemesis operatives never carried out assassinations without confirming the identity of their targets, who were carefully tracked for weeks or even months before making a move;
Meanwhile, after the war, a vengeance-driven Tehlirian went to Constantinople and assassinated Harutian Mgrditichian, a member of the Ottoman secret police who facilitated the deportation of Armenian intellectuals on April 24, 1915 (widely regarded as the starting point of the Armenian Genocide.) This killing convinced Nemesis to entrust him with the assassination of Talat Pasha. His orders: “You blow up the skull of the Number 1 nation-murderer and you don’t try to flee. You stand there, your foot on the corpse and surrender to the police, who will come and handcuff you.
Soghomon Tehlirian.
When he was caught and turned over to police, Tehlirian stated “I am not the murderer; he was.” His legal defense was funded by the Dashnaktsutyun, mostly from Armenians in the U.S.; the strategy was to put Talat on trial for the Armenian Genocide, and to argue that Tehlirian acted as a lone vigilante driven by the trauma of his loss. The prosecution sought to avoid “politicizing” the murder, and the trial was half as long as requested by the defense, many of whose witnesses were never called. Extensive evidence on the genocide was heard, and it became an international platform for the Armenian cause; media around the world widely reported on the trial, which brought attention and recognition to the Armenian Genocide.
Tehlirian’s testimony, though false—he claimed to have witnessed and experienced the genocide firsthand, when he had only seen the aftermath—was nonetheless based on the collective stories and experiences of his fellow Armenians. Tellingly, the prosecution never challenged the veracity of these claims, and the truth was not uncovered until decades later. (Though it certainly helped that there were plenty of documents, reports, and firsthand accounts to back up the atrocities claimed.)
Indeed, observers understood the trial to be more about the Armenian genocide than Tehlirian’s personal guilt—just as the defense had intended. News coverage reflected the tension between public sympathy for the Armenian victims of genocide and the value of law and order; as the New York Times reported, the jury faced a dilemma: by acquitting Tehlirian, they would condemn the Armenian atrocities, but also sanction extralegal killing—“All assassins should be punished; this assassin should not be punished. And there you are!”.
After the closing arguments were delivered, the judge asked Tehlirian if he had anything to add, to which he declined. After just an hour of deliberation, the twelve-person jury answered the question of whether Tehlirian was guilty of deliberate killing with one word: “No”. The verdict was unanimous, leaving no possibility of appeal. The audience burst into applause, and the international reaction was largely positive. Transcripts of the trial were purchased by Armenians around the world, with the proceeding covering the cost of Tehlirian’s defense and raising money for the Nemesis operation
Following his acquittal, Tehlirian was deported from Germany. He went to the U.K. and then the U.S., where he adopted an alias; he continued needing medical treatment for his PTSD. He settled in Belgrade, Serbia, where, appropriately enough, he had a reputation as a skilled marksman at a local shooting club. He later moved to Morocco, then France, and finally California, before dying there of a brain hemorrhage in 1960. He was buried in an Armenian cemetery in Fresno, where his monument-grave can still be seen—an obelisk with a gold-plated eagle slaying a snake on top.; reportedly, the original artist claimed the eagle was “…the arm of justice of the Armenian people extending their wrath onto Talaat Pasha,” symbolized by the snake.
Unsurprisingly, Tehlirian became a national hero for Armenians, with statues and memorials in Armenia and major Armenians communities worldwide. Operation Nemesis continued for another year, assassinating several other high-profile targets, include Talat Pasha’s co-ruler, a founder of the CUP, and an Ottoman governor with an alleged penchant for killing Armenian children. (Another major leader was killed in a later role by a Red Army unit commanded by an ethnic Armenian.)
The trial inspired Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin to coin the word genocide and campaign for its inclusion as an international crime.
The trial’s legacy was bigger than anyone at the time could have foreseen. German nationalists condemned the ruling as a judicial scandal and began justifying the genocide; arguments justifying mass extermination were not only widely accepted by nationalist newspapers, but were predicated on now-familiar claims about the racial characteristics of Armenians. Years later, a major Nazi ideologue, Alfred Rosenberg, claimed only the “Jewish press” welcomed Tehlirian’s acquittal, and that Talat’s action were justified by Armenians leading espionage against the Turk—not unlike the antisemitic “stab in the back myth” that formed a key basis for the persecution and later massacre of Jews.
Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin claimed that reading about the Armenian genocide and Talat’s assassination sparked his interest in war crimes. Lemkin asked his law professor why Talat could not be tried for his crimes in Germany, to which the answer was that national sovereignty meant governments could kill their own citizens, and that foreign intervention was unjust even then. Lemkin concluded that Tehlirian’s assassination was just, but worried about the excesses of vigilante justice, which prompted him to devise a legal framework for punishing genocide; this resulted in him coining the phrase in 1944—as no one knew quite what to call the Holocaust, let alone the earlier Armenian massacres— and in the near-universal ratification of the Genocide Convention in 1948.
Tehlirian’s trial was cited in later cases involving survivors of extermination meting out justice against perpetrators; these included Sholem Schwarzbard‘s assassination of Ukrainian anti-Jewish pogromist Symon Petliura in 1926, for which he was subsequently acquitting. One historian notes that the trials of Tehlirian and Schwarzbard were “the first major trials in Western Europe featuring victims of interethnic violence and state-sponsored mass atrocities seeking justice”. Hannah Arendt contrasted both cases with the later Eichmann trial—in which Israeli agents kidnapped Holocaust perpetrator Adolf Eichmann and brought him to Israel to stand trial—noting that both avengers sought a day in court to publicize the unpunished crimes committed against their peoples. Swiss lawyer Eugen Curti, defending the Jew David Frankfurter, who assassinated Swiss Nazi Wilhelm Gustloff in February 1936, cited Tehlirian’s act, presciently comparing the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany to the Armenian Genocide; only under pressure from Germany, was Frankfurter was convicted.
Future Nuremberg trial prosecutor Robert Kempner, who attended the Tehlirian trial as a law student, believed it marked the first time in legal history when it was recognized that “gross violations of human rights, and especially genocide that is committed by a government can be contested by foreign states, and that [such foreign intervention] does not constitute impermissible meddling”. The German lawyer, exiled for his Jewish heritage and opposition to Nazi policies, would later help the U.S. in prosecuting many perpetrators of the genocide, based on his familiarity with German laws and legal doctrines.
Setting aside my own globalist sentiments, is worth noting that all the top COVID-19 vaccines are products of international collaboration, and a testament to the fruits of globalization.
The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine (marketed in some places as Covishield) is the most straightforward example, as it was developed in a partnership between Oxford University in the U.K. and the British-Swedish multinational pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca.
The Pfizer vaccine, which was the first to be confirmed 90% effective, was developed by a German company, BioNTech, founded and led by a Turkish-born married couple of leading immunologists. Pfizer, which was founded in the U.S. by German immigrants, helped provide vital resources for logistics, clinical trials, and manufacturing.
Moderna, which also ranks highly in efficacy (for what that’s worth), was co-founded by a Canadian and is led by a Frenchman. Its breakthrough was attributed to the pioneering work of a Hungarian biochemist who helped develop the world’s first genetically engineered vaccines—and who now works at BioNTech.
The Johnson & Johnson vaccine, like Pfizer’s, was also developed in Europe with the backing of American resources, by Janssen Vaccines in Leiden, Netherlands, and its Belgian parent company Janssen Pharmaceuticals, a subsidiary of J&J.
Heck, even Russia’s “Sputnik V” vaccine—which was technically the first to be developed—has turned out to be more efficacious than initially believed (much to my own surprised and that of many epidemiologists, apparently).
While the pandemic exposed the many perils of an interconnected world, it has also shown the even greater peril of trying to go it alone when it comes to major challenges and threats that disregard political boundaries and nationalities.
I’m hardly the first or only person to notice this: As long ago as 1851, when the Industrial Era helped rapidly globalize trade, travel, and war—and with them, more rapidly and widely spread diseases—the first of several “International Sanitary Conferences” was convened by the Ottoman Empire to coordinate containment strategies for infectious diseases—even among rivals and former enemies. It was the first time that a formal process of international collaboration was devised for public health; but as we’re learning, it remains even more relevant nearly two centuries later.
Of course, one doesn’t have to be a “globalist” to appreciate the logic of multilateralism (in public health and generally). One study in the medical journal BMJ examining the international response to COVID-19 argues:
The reasons for collaboration remain clear, logical, and have endured essentially unchanged from their original conceptualisation in the 1800s. Three of the most central are as follows. Firstly, the many ties between nations create collective health risks that are difficult to manage independently. The rapid spread of SARS-CoV-2 shows the close connections between countries, and the poorly managed economic and social costs are further evidence of their shared fate. Secondly, sharing knowledge and experience accelerates learning and facilitates more rapid progress. Information and knowledge on pathogens, their transmission, the diseases they provoke, and possible interventions are all areas in which researchers and public health professionals can benefit from the experience of others. Thirdly, agreeing on rules and standards supports comparability of information, helps establish good practices, and underpins shared understanding and mutual trust. All three reasons drive nations to collaborate and are reflected in their creation of WHO, a central authority, and its World Health Assembly (WHA), which serves as a forum for countries to share information, debate issues, and take collective decisions.
Little wonder why, despite the rise of nationalism and insularity (which predate the pandemic but was exacerbated by it), some global survey data suggest that a majority of people believe that more global collaboration would help reduce the impact of COVID-19. Far from idealistic, it is simply pragmatic to throw everything we have at his problem, regardless of which national jurisdiction the resources or knowhow happen to be located.
I’ll leave the final word to the above-mentioned study in BMJ, which I think makes a sober, evidence-based case for multilateralism, which is all too often treated as Utopian or naïve rather than realistic and practical:
The covid-19 pandemic painfully shows the reasons why nations are better off when they cooperate and collaborate in health, and also reveals the hazards of their incomplete commitment to doing so. Member states have prioritised themselves by restricting WHO from meaningful oversight of national information and endangered global health security by competing for vaccines rather than allocating them equitably. The inability to verify national data or advance its own estimates is just one of the many crucial dimensions in which WHO is prevented from maintaining the primacy of technical competence over the self-interested obfuscations of some member states. WHO’s independence is compromised also through the manipulation of its budget. The patchwork of institutions active in health reflects the limited, ad hoc agreement among powerful countries. Although generally global institutions have performed well in their missions, their often limited mandates leave the world’s people inadequately protected from new threats. In a pandemic, the cost is expressed in lives and livelihoods. More than 10, 000 people were dying daily at end of 2020, and the world economy was forecast to lose $5tn or more in 2020 alone. The imperative of finding collaborative and collective solutions—solidarity—has never been more obvious, or more urgent, for covid-19, climate change, non-communicable diseases, and the many other pressing and grave challenges that hinge on collective action.
Meaningful international collaboration is a critical part of the road ahead and calls for immediate action in three areas. Firstly, member states must end the systematic weakening of WHO—end ad hoc institutional fragmentation in global health and end budgetary manipulation. Secondly, they must support the independence of WHO—increase its core budget and build its authority over trade and travel related issues, including compulsory licensure for pharmaceuticals. Thirdly, states must uphold fairness, participation, and accountability by granting WHO powers to hold members accountable, including for overcoming deficiencies in national data, and by decolonising its governance to address the undue influence of a small number of powerful member states.
Contrary to popular belief, Cinco de Mayo is not Mexico’s Independence Day—which is celebrated September 16—and is not even an official or major holiday there.
It actually originates in the United States—most likely among Mexicans communities in 1860s California—and is more popular here than anywhere else in the world. Not unlike St. Patrick’s Day—which also took off mostly due to Irish immigrants in America—Cinco de Mayo has become both an opportunity to drink and party, and a testament to the widespread appeal of Mexican cuisine, music, art, and culture generally.
In fact, there are now major celebrations in places as distinct as Australia, Canada, France, the United Kingdom, Japan, Nigeria, and South Africa. As a reflection of the holiday’s U.S. roots, many foreign celebrations often invoke American or Mexican American culture specifically.
Nevertheless, Cinco de Mayo does have a major connection to Mexico itself, as the anniversary of the country’s shocking defeat of invading French forces in the Battle of Puebla in 1862.
Mexico had just emerged from a three-year civil war known as the Reform War, which was triggered in part by the passage of one of the world’s most progressive constitutions; it had enshrined freedoms of speech, conscience, the press, and assembly, and even the right to bear arms. It also reaffirmed the abolition of slavery—which Mexico was one of the first countries to ban, back in 1824—and of debtor prison, cruel and unusual punishment, and the death penalty.
Mural depicting the Franco-Mexican War (source unknown)
The pro-constitution faction, known as the “Liberals”, ultimately won against the “Conservatives”, who had opposed the subsequent weakening of the church, army, and landed elite. Led by Beninto Juarez (pictured on the right)—a poor orphan who was Mexico’s first indigenous leader—a battered Mexico had become heavily indebted to foreign nations namely France, Spain, and Great Britain. After declaring a pause on loan payments for two years, the European powers sent naval forces to pressure reimbursement; while Juarez was able to reach a settlement with the British and Spanish, France used the opportunity to take over the country and declare a new Mexican Empire under its control.
The entire enterprise was really designed to fulfill the imperial ambitions of French Emperor Napoleon III, the nephew and heir of Napoleon Bonaparte, who envisioned creating a massive “Latin” empire across the Western Hemisphere. The defeated Conservatives, many of whom were monarchists and nobility, collaborated for their own benefit, giving the French another edge. To top it all off, France was one of the preeminent powers of the time—and at one point had the backing of the U.K., Austria, and Spain—so the fact that Mexico was able to mount such a resounding victory became a cause for celebration.
Mexican forces at Pueblo, as elsewhere, were under-equipped and outnumbered, in this case by two to one. But under the leadership of General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín—who resigned as Mexico’s secretary of war just to lead the army—they surprised the world with their superior tactics, inflicting the first major defeat of a French army in fifty years.
As explained in the Washington Post, the Mexicans made the most of their homefield advantage in an era where armies were just figuring out how to use guns en masse?:
A young Mexican general, Ignacio Zaragoza, placed a small, tough force at Puebla and scoured the countryside for volunteers to bolster the defense. A long trench was added to the city’s existing fortifications. Some 4,500 men occupied this position on May 5, when 6,000 French troops under Major General Charles de Lorencez came up the valley.
The overconfident French nobleman ordered an immediate attack. Zaragoza’s riflemen found easy targets as de Lorencez’s soldiers charged the trenches. Those Frenchmen who survived the climb met savage hand-to-hand fighting at the Mexican trenches.
A second charge also failed. As Union and Confederate generals would soon learn on battlefields from Corinth, Miss., to Gettysburg, a ferocious foe in an entrenched position had a tremendous advantage. The bloody field filled with French bodies.
When a third charge also failed, Zaragoza unleashed his cavalry on both flanks of the retreating French. The battle became a rout, and de Lorencez fell back all the way to Veracruz, where he counted his losses (as many as 500 killed and wounded) and waited to be reinforced from back home.
Unfortunately for Mexico, it would be a short-lived, if still impressive, victor.y Zaragoza died of typhoid fever shortly after his victory, and the loss of such a brilliant young general helped pave the way for France to ultimately win the war and install an “emperor” beholden to their interests (and related to Napoleon III). But Mexican liberals and republicans, still led by Juarez, continued the fight against this imposed monarchy through guerilla warfare and resistance. They garnered enough popular support at home and abroad (including from the U.S.) to prevail against French forces and secure their independence in 1867.
Though they lost initial war, Mexicans had won the larger conflict, and remained proud that they were able to hold their own and eventually win their freedom. Hence the battle is still a point of pride for the small town of Pueblo—the only place that probably celebrates it as enthusiastically as Americans—and an ideal basis for a holiday celebrating Mexican culture.
But the U.S. connection does not end there; as some historians argue, the Mexican victory—which the embattled Americans had a vested interest in—may have changed the course of U.S. and world history:
The United States likely benefited more from the battle than did Mexico: the French were so occupied with Mexico that they were not able to significantly fund or assist the Confederacy during our own Civil War, despite the best of intentions. The Union, of course, was funded through a series of government taxes, including the Internal Revenue Act of 1862, the precursor to our modern tax system. Since the French were sympathetic to the Confederacy, had the French easily taken Puebla in 1862, freeing up military and other resources, the entire course of history might have been changed.
A similar take from the same WaPo article at the top:
Had a triumphant French army been raising the flag in Mexico City that summer, it might have made all the difference. The wavering Napoleon might have been emboldened to recognize the Confederacy, pulling the British along with him. Instead, the French army was licking its wounds, mangled by a smaller force of Mexican irregulars, and the emperor was momentarily chastened. Though France managed to topple the Mexican government the following year, its brief reign there came too late to help the South. The North had regained its momentum, and Lincoln was on his way to saving the Union.
Of course, such “what-ifs” are, by definition, difficult to put much stock in. But these events, like Cinco de Mayo itself, speak to just how intertwined our nations, cultures, communities, and histories are. For all the tumult and conflict—the Mexican-American War and our annexation of half of Mexico; hostilities centered on the Southern Border and immigration; and now “cultural anxiety” about the large Mexican/Hispanic communities generally—the two societies, for better or worse, share a mutual love for one another that transcends these things.
“They didn’t jump the border—it jumped them” Source: The Economist
Mexico is America’s second largest trading partner after Canada—third if you count the EU as a country—while America is Mexico’s top trading partner. Mexico is one of the top destinations for American travelers, as well as retirees; more Americans live there than anywhere outside the country (about 1.5 million). For its part, America has the largest Mexican community outside Mexico, at nearly 50 million; they make up over 11% of all Americans, more than half of all Latins, and a quarter of all foreign-born people. But the vast majority (71%) were born in the U.S., and most live in the American Southwest—which was formerly Mexican territory.
And as trite as it may seem, the mainstream appeal of Cinco de Mayo—and of Mexican culture generally—as well as the fact that most of the world seems to view it as a Mexican-American fusion, is just another example of the indelible connections between our nations.
Both Russia and China, among the world’s premier space powers, are now aiming for their own space stations, with the latter having already launched the first of several modules.
Half the ISS—which involves five space agencies and fifteen countries—is Russian-built and operated, and to this day Russia does most of the legwork in launching both crew and cargo. It was a rare and enduring example of cooperation between two erstwhile rivals, an interesting if fragile antidote to the petty politics on the ground. (Scientists and astronauts from both countries get along pretty well and have consistently collaborated even through the worst flareups of tensions and hostility.)
China was never part of the ISS—a notable absence given its hefty financial resources and technical knowledge—due to a controversial NASA policy implemented by Congress in 2011 that excludes any form of cooperation with any Chinese institution or organization. So I imagine its ambitious attempt at a national space station, like so many of its actions abroad, clearly has a triumphalist “We’ll show you!” aspect to it.
But China’s Tiangong, or “Heavenly Palace”, which is set for completion in just a year, will have only one-sixth the mass of the ISS, and roughly a quarter of its habitable space. This isn’t to say it won’t be an impressive feat—especially for a developing country that remains a byword for cheap consumer goods—but its full potential is likely limited given the sheer costs and complexity of building (and regularly maintaining) a human habitat in space.
Source: South China Morning Post
Meanwhile, Russia’s plans are less clear: Though it holds many records in space stations—including launching the first one, having the most in total, and having the most experience with space walks and the like—it no longer has the financial resources to back this knowhow. (That’s what made the ISS so successful: What Russia lacked in America’s vast resources it made up for with its proven expertise, and visa versa.)
Even the otherwise prideful U.S.—albeit namely its pragmatic scientists at NASA—has now seemingly realized that space is too big, costly, and complex an endeavor for even superpowers to handle.
Aside from being a key founder of the ISS, which was created to replace a planned U.S. station that would have been too costly, NASA plans to return to humans to the moon for the first time in fifty years through the Artemis Program—a decidedly international effort.
While it will be led primarily by NASA and its mostly American commercial contractors, it will include personnel, tech, and resources from Europe, Japan, Canada, Italy, Australia, the United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates, Ukraine, and Brazil. (Believe it or not, those last three do carry a lot of technological heft in space; the UAE has a probe orbiting Mars as we speak, and India is notable for accomplishing many difficult space ventures at fairly low cost.) More countries have been invited and are are expected to join.
The Artemis Program not only aims to put humans (including the first woman) on the Moon by 2024, but has the long-term goal of establishing a lunar base that will be a launchpad for crewed missions to Mars.
Surprisingly, all this was promulgated during the tenure of a Trump-appointed, former Oklahoma congressman as NASA Administrator, who explicitly modeled the “Artemis Accords”, which broaden international participation in the program, on the United Nations Outer Space Treaty of 1967 (on which most space law is grounded).
To be sure, neither the Artemis Program, nor the Accords that essentially “internationalize” it, are without their criticisms. Many international legal scholars see them as a way for America to apply its own self-interested interpretation of space law that permits commercial exploitation of celestial bodies; as The Vergereports:
[The] Outer Space Treaty is pretty vague — purposefully so — which means there is a lot of room for interpretation on various clauses. The goal of the Artemis Accords is to provide a little more clarity on how the US wants to explore the Moon without going through the slow treaty-making process. “We are doing this in keeping with the Outer Space Treaty,” said Bridenstine, adding that NASA is trying to “create a dynamic where the Outer Space Treaty can actually be enforced.”
One big thing NASA wanted to make clear in the accords is that countries can own and use resources that are derived from the Moon. As part of the Artemis program, NASA hopes to extract lunar materials, such as the Moon’s dirt or water ice that’s thought to be lurking in the shadows of lunar craters. The Outer Space Treaty forbids nations from staking claim to another planetary body, but the policy of the US is that countries and companies can own the materials they extract from other worlds. “Article II of the Outer Space Treaty says that you cannot appropriate the Moon for national sovereignty,” Bridenstine said. “We fully agree with that and embrace it. We also believe that, just like in the ocean, you can extract resources from the ocean. But that doesn’t mean you own the ocean. You should be able to extract resources from the Moon. Own the resources but not own the Moon.”
It’s an interpretation of the Outer Space Treaty that not everyone may agree on. A pair of researchers writing in the journal Science last week have called on countries to speak up about their objections to this interpretation, and that the United States should go through the United Nations treaty process in order to negotiate on space mining. “NASA’s actions must be seen for what they are—a concerted, strategic effort to redirect international space cooperation in favor of short-term U.S. commercial interests, with little regard for the risks involved,” the researchers wrote in Science.
Still, the overall substance and spirit of the Accords — which at just seven pages, makes for an easy read) — seems like the sensible way forward. I know, I know count on the internationalist to reach that conclusion! But really, if we want to maximize humanity’s potential in space, we must do so as, well, humans: unified in our resources, knowhow, innovation, and vision. Given how much has been accomplished by just a handful of nations on their ow — and the number of countries joining the space club grows annually — imagine what a united front can offer?
Given that China and Russia have lunar aspirations of their own—including a joint lunar base that sort of speaks to my point—it will be interesting to see which vision will play out successfully: The Star Trek-style pan-humanist approach, or the more familiar competitiveness and nationalism that characterized the Cold War or even the colonial era.
Across different times, cultures, and places, food has always been a unifier. This is especially salient in space, where the tough environment and complete detachment from Earth makes a good meal both comforting and psychologically affirming.
Some endearing examples: pictured below are American astronauts holding what appear to be tubes of Russian vodka given to them by Russian cosmonauts in a gesture of goodwill. This followed the famous “handshake in space” of 1975, when the two political and scientific rivals docked one another’s flagship space vessels in an unlikely display of cooperation and mutual respect (notwithstanding continued rivalry in and out space). The “vodka” was actually Russian borscht, a sour but hearty beet soup.
Flashforward to this photo of a typical dinner night aboard the International Space Station, which by some measures is the largest and most expensive scientific project in history. Not much has changed otherwise.
Once again, the U.S. and Russia have come together in space exploration, despite their very real political differences, this time joined by Japan, Canada, and over eleven European nations. This makes the creature comforts of space all the more enjoyable, as Smithsonian Magazine notes:
One big perk of international cooperation on the station is the advancement of the space food frontier. Astronauts and cosmonauts regularly gather on both sides of the station to share meals and barter food items. Roscosmos’ contribution to the food rations is the unique assortment of canned delicacies from traditional Russian cuisine. Perlovka (pearl barley porridge) and tushonka (meat stew), dishes familiar to the Russian military veterans since World War II, found new popularity among the residents of the station. Cosmonaut Aleksandr Samokutyaev says his American counterparts were big fans of Russian cottage cheese.
The cosmonauts, meanwhile, have few complaints about sharing meals with a country that flies up real frozen ice cream (not the freeze-dried stuff made for gift shops), as the U.S. did in 2012. Ryazansky has also spoken fondly of the great variety of American pastries. “We should say,” he clarified, “our food is better than the Americans’…. Despite the variety, everything is already spiced. But in ours, if you wish you can make it spicy; if you want, you can make it sour. American rations have great desserts and veggies; however, they lack fish. Our Russian food has great fish dishes.” The cosmonauts’ cuisine benefits when European and Japanese crew arrive. Both agencies brought unique flavors from their culinary heritages—including the one thing the cosmonauts really wanted. “Japanese rations have great fish,” Ryazansky wrote.
Every new cargo ship comes with fresh produce, filling the stale air on the station with the aroma of apples and oranges. Deprived of strong flavors in their packaged food, cosmonauts often craved the most traditional Russian condiment: fresh garlic. Mission control took the request seriously. “They sent us so much that even if you eat one for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, we still had plenty left to oil ourselves all over our bodies for a nice sleep,” Suraev joked on his blog.
There’s something endearing and downright adorable about astronauts — perhaps the world’s toughest and gruffest folks, one would think — excitedly exchanging meals with one another like kids trading candy on the playground. It almost makes you forget all the petty and vicious squabbles back on Earth. (As I understand it, scientists, space explorers, and visionaries of these nations tend to operate on a different level than their politicians.)
Gagarin’s Breakfast (2011), a whimsical take on the first man in space by Alexey Akindinov.
I was so busy reeling from the results of my cursed Bar Exam that I forgot April 12 was also a much happier occasion: International Day of Human Space Flight, which commemorates the 1961 flight of Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin—the first man to enter outer space and the first to orbit the Earth. He spent 108 minutes aboard the Vostok 1, which was basically one big cannonball with rudimentary, if resourceful, technology.
Gagarin subsequently became the most visible and iconic Russian in the world, a far cry from dour and disreputable figures that were more familiar to outsiders. His natural charm and friendliness—both personally and in every media spotlight—earned him the moniker “the Smiling Soviet“, as it contradicted the popular image of Russians as gruff and sullen.
Gagarin’s childhood home in the tiny town of Klushino.
How does one become the first human in space, especially as the son of peasants in a country as seemingly blighted as Soviet Russia? After personally enduring the grief and hardship of the Second World War—including having his home occupied by a German officer, and serving in the resistance—Gagarin returned to normal life; he loved math and science in school, and was fascinated with planes, building model aircraft and eventually a local flying club. Unsurprisingly, he joined the Soviet Air Force, where his confidence and knack for flying were matched only by his astute technical knowledge; as a youth, he worked in a steel factory and later went to vocational school, learning about industrial work and tractors.
As the Soviet space program went into high gear in the 1960s, Gagarin and other talented pilots were being screened for their fitness and aptitude as “cosmonauts”—something no one had ever been before. (There was only so much we could know about the effect of space travel on a human.)
When it came down to him and 19 other candidates, an Air Force doctor made the following evaluation of him:
Modest; embarrasses when his humor gets a little too racy; high degree of intellectual development evident in Yuri; fantastic memory; distinguishes himself from his colleagues by his sharp and far-ranging sense of attention to his surroundings; a well-developed imagination; quick reactions; persevering, prepares himself painstakingly for his activities and training exercises, handles celestial mechanics and mathematical formulae with ease as well as excels in higher mathematics; does not feel constrained when he has to defend his point of view if he considers himself right; appears that he understands life better than a lot of his friends.
Gagarin was also heavily favored by his peers—even those otherwise competing with him for the glory of first man in space. When the 20 candidates were asked to anonymously vote for which other candidate they would like to see as the first to fly, all but three chose him
Another favorable factor was, of all things, his short stature (at least partly a product of his rough and impoverished childhood). At just 5’2″, Gagarin could easily fit in the small, rudimentary cockpit of the Vostok 1. (Being the first into space is scary enough—imagine in something that cramped.)
As Valentina Malmy wrote beautifully in the book Star Peace:
He was like a sound amplified by a mountain echo. The traveler is small, but the mountains are great, and suddenly they merge into a single whole. Such was Yuri Gagarin. To accomplish a heroic exploit means to step beyond one’s own sense of self-preservation, to have the courage to dare what today seems unthinkable for the majority. And to be ready to pay for it. For the hero himself, his feat is the limit of all possibilities. If he leaves something “in reserve”, then the most courageous deed thereby moves into the category of work: hard, worthy of all glorification, but — work. An act of heroism is always a breakthrough into the Great Unknown. Even given most accurate preliminary calculations, man enters into that enterprise as if blindfold, full of inner tension.
I can’t wrap my head around being the first person to venture into something as unknown and terrifying as space—to be able put your thumb up in front of you and our big planet as small as your fingernail.
Little wonder why Gagarin became such a worldwide celebrity, touring dozens of countries in the years following his fateful flight. The geopolitical implications melted away in the face of this impressive feat, and the man’s genuine charm and affability—this was something all humankind could celebrate.
Of course, this was still the Cold War: As a living symbol of Soviet triumph, Gagarin could not be risked on another spaceflight, given their inherent danger even today, let alone fifty years ago. Ironically, he died unexpectedly just a few years later during a routine training flight, an event subject to much secrecy and rumor (one conspiracy theory is that newly installed Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev ordered his death due to being overshadowed by the gregarious cosmonaut at public events).
For his part, the “Smiling Soviet” seemed above such politics, notwithstanding his (likely symbolic) stint as a member of the Soviet legislature. As to be expected, being the first man in space really changes you and puts things in perspective; you’re literally looking down on everything you, and all your fellow humans, have ever known. I wonder if it was surreal or even lonely being the only person with that sort of view.
Despite being banned from the U.S. by the Kennedy Administration—perhaps because his popularity among average Americans undermined the competitive spirit of the Space Race—Gagarin was honored by the Apollo 11 crew (ironically the same mission that ended the race in America’s favor). Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin left a memorial on the surface of the moon commemorating him and fellow cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov, the first human to venture into Outer Space, and the first to die there. (Another memorial was left by Apollo 15 in 1971 to commemorate the Americans and Russians who died in space.)
Though untimely and cruelly ironic—an expert pilot dying from a routine flight rather than the first space mission—Gagarin is survived by one hell of a legacy: The almost banal regularity of human spaceflight in the 21st century is a testament to his courageous and spirited embrace of the ultimate unknown.
The Christian Science Monitor has a great and topical piece examining the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on rights and freedoms across the world. As probably the only event in history to affect the entire world more or less equally—even the Spanish Flu and world wars were less widespread in their impact—the pandemic served as something of a social and political experiment: How is humanity as a whole responding? What are the distinctions across societies, cultures, and systems of government concerning this perennial challenging balance safety and security with individual and community freedom?
“That tension is long-standing, liberty versus security. Are they complements or substitutes?” says Marcella Alsan, professor of public policy at Harvard Kennedy School, who studies public health and infectious diseases. “What’s interesting about the current situation, and particularly prior to the development of the vaccines – when all countries basically have the very same rudimentary toolkit of these NPIs, these nonpharmaceutical interventions – was basically, How willing were people to go along with these restrictions? What were they willing to sacrifice and what were they not willing to sacrifice?”
Ms. Alsan oversaw a November study that surveyed over 400,000 people across 15 nations about their attitudes toward civil liberties during the pandemic. More than 80% were agreeable to giving up some freedoms during a crisis. A closer look at the results, however, reveals gradations between citizens of different nations. Those surveyed in the United States and Japan were far less willing to relax privacy protections, sacrifice the freedom of press, and endure economic losses than those in China. Citizens in European countries occupied a middle ground between those two poles. Respondents in India, Singapore, and South Korea were more willing to suspend democratic procedures for the sake of public health.
According to Human Rights Watch, 83 governments restricted free speech and free assembly in the name of pandemic protections. Enforcement of those measures could be harsh. Youths in the Philippines were locked in dog cages following curfew violations, says Ms. Pearson. In India, police physically assaulted 10 journalists who reported that a COVID-19 roadblock in the southeast was preventing villagers from reuniting with their families. South Africa enforced a ban on cigarettes and alcohol by setting up roadblocks to search cars for contraband.
“Freedom House has been tracking a decline in [global] democracy for the past 15 consecutive years, and what we found is that COVID-19 has really exacerbated that decline,” says Amy Slipowitz, research manager for Freedom House, a U.S.-based nonprofit that tracks civil liberties worldwide.
Frightening stuff, and not entirely surprising: The Spanish Flu of the early twentieth century, which ranks second only to COVID-19 in its reach and impact, saw similar concerns, controversies, and conflict related to lockdowns and their political and civil ramifications. Over a century later, we are faced with very familiar problems—only this time, governments are exceedingly more technologically sophisticated.
One country that stands out in the report is Taiwan, whose highly effective response to the pandemic—as a developed and vibrant democracy—has led its star to rise like never before in the global community. Apparently, its excellent job at minimizing the spread and death toll of the virus did not come at the severe cost of its citizens’ freedoms, now or into the future.
[Some] countries, including Sweden and South Korea, placed a high value on maintaining a fairly open society. Taiwan did so by forging a state-society collaboration. Prior to becoming one of the world’s freest democracies, the small island nation had been subject to martial law and single-party rule from 1947 until the late 1980s. That relatively recent experience colored the Taiwanese response to the pandemic. Taiwan’s Centers for Disease Control had legal authority to implement stringent measures, but it didn’t declare a state of emergency. Schools and stores remained open. In those instances when Taiwan did curtail liberties – including a track-and-trace program that included strict border controls – it employed a humane touch. Individuals placed under mandatory 14-day home quarantine received meal deliveries and trash disposal services. A hotline was set up for their mental health. And in response to concerns that those penned inside a digital fence could be watched by Big Brother long after the pandemic, the state promised to erase that cellphone data.
“The government recognized that, because the people’s freedom of movement is temporarily suspended, it is the responsibility of the government to take care of those individuals who had to be isolated for the sake of the public,” says Tsung-Ling Lee, an assistant professor of law at Taipei Medical University. “The government is seeking broad-based social support in that a lot of our measures that have to be implemented in the epidemic are relational.”
Taiwan’s government also favored persuasion over coercion. Case in point: its handling of one of the world’s three largest religious ceremonies, the Dajia Mazu Pilgrimage. Every April, tens of thousands join in a nine-day parade that originates at the Zhenlan temple and proceeds through a large swath of the island. Taiwan’s Centers for Disease Control has broad legal leeway to institute emergency measures such as prohibiting large public gatherings. Instead, the minister of health and welfare approached the temple’s chairman, a former opposition party member of the country’s legislature. The minister persuaded the temple to change its plans and delay the parade by several months. The temple went even further – it donated its parade budget to the Central Epidemic Command Center. In turn, the minister later appeared at a temple ceremony as a gesture of grateful appreciation to the worshippers.
“It’s better to foster a bottom-up approach toward where the boundaries should be versus having a top-down authoritarian approach of where the boundary should be,” says Ming-Cheng Lo, a professor of sociology and East Asian studies at the University of California, Davis, in a phone call from Taiwan.
All this is a huge turnaround from nearly a decade ago, when Taiwan was an epicenter of the 2003 SARS outbreak, to which it responded with political infighting, polarization, and social fragmentation and cynicism. While that virus infected fewer than four hundred people, and left “only” 73 dead, it exposed some very troubling rifts in Taiwanese society and government that could have made its COVID-19 cousin even deadlier.
Instead, Taiwan appears to have learned its lesson: While political divisions are no better than eight years ago, citizens and politicians alike have set them aside for the greater good. Media across the political spectrum emphasized the “importance of societal collaboration and compassion”. One Taiwanese sociologist credits the “traumatic” experience of the SARS outbreak with helping “Taiwanese to fundamentally reassess the boundaries between personal choice and civic duty during this emergency”. As she told the CS Monitor:
To have that consensus, then eliminates the need, or at least minimized the need, of having to send police to patrol the streets to see if people who are under quarantine are actually breaking the rules. Citizens deliberated among themselves and said, “This is a sacrifice that we should all make in order to protect the greater good of all of us.”
So did an internationally isolated nation that has only been democratic for roughly thirty years crack the code of balancing liberty and security, personal freedom with public health, and all the other complexities that come with maintaining a democracy? If so, what does that say about the role of cultural and community values in helping society navigate the precarious balance of safety and freedom? What are your thoughts?
Taiwan: A global model for balancing the inherent tensions within a democratic society?
My visual rendition of an excellent article in the Washington Post that appeals to all my (obvious) sensibilities and interest in globalization and international relations generally.
