“The permutations of English corruption in India were endless.”

~ Paul Scott The Jewel in the Crown

From the mid-century on, writers, thinkers, and artists sought modes of expression that were in many ways assaults on tradition and convention.  Even the discipline of history, which was long held to be objective (as if that is even possible) was scrutinized.  New methods of inquiry led to “revisionist history,” resulting in many myths and romanticized notions about historical events to fall away.

In the area of religion, Sartre’s atheist ideas sought to find a secular morality, one that was grounded in how we develop our sense of right and wrong that is not connected to some eternal reward (or punishment).  All we have is right now.  Shouldn’t we be good for the sake of goodness and not just because we get a reward for it?  To Sartre, being “end game” oriented can separate a person from his/her own sense of morality.

Art at mid-century went in countless directions.  Let’s listen to two art historians talk about Abstract Expressionism in the work of Jackson Pollock:

And one whose work can be very challenging, Mark Rothko:

Questions to consider:

• Define Abstract Expressionism.  What does it have in common with previous art genres?
• In a mid-century world noted for its growing impersonal and mechanical modality, what were these artists seeking in work that was so very spontaneous?  AND, odd?

*******************************************************************

Anticolonialism 

Muhammad Iqbal ( 9 November 1877 – 21 April 1938), widely known as Allama Iqbal, was a poet, philosopher and politician, as well as an academic, barrister and scholar.  in British India who is widely regarded as having inspired the Pakistan Movement. He is called the “Spiritual Father of Pakistan.”  He is considered one of the most important figures in Urdu literature, with literary work in both Urdu and Persian.

His poetry covers a broad base of themes.  He was skeptical of modernism and wary of imperialism.  After living most of his life under the British Imperial yoke, he had an astute perspective that came through in his poetry:

“Revolution”  (1938)

Death to man’s soul is Europe, death is Asia

To man’s will: neither feels the vital current.

In man’s hearts stirs a revolution’s torrent;

maybe our old world too is nearing death.

If you are interested, you may peruse more of Muhammad Iqbal poems.

The Indian Independence Movement was a series of activities with the ultimate aim of ending the British rule in India. The movement spanned a total of 90 years (1857–1947).

The first nationalistic revolutionary movement emerged from Bengal. It later took root in the newly formed Indian National Congress with prominent moderate leaders seeking only their fundamental right to appear for Indian Civil Service examinations in British India, as well as more rights, economical in nature, for the people of the soil. The early part of the 20th century saw a more radical approach towards political self-rule proposed by leaders such as the Lal, Bal, Pal triumvirate, and Aurobindo Ghosh, V. O. Chidambaram Pillai.^[1] The last stages of the self-rule struggle from the 1920s onwards saw Congress adopt Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi‘s policy of non-violence and civil disobedience, and several other campaigns. Nationalists like Subhash Chandra Bose, Bhagat Singh, Bagha Jatin, Surya Sen preached armed revolution to achieve self-rule. Poets and writers such as Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Subramania Bharati, Rabindranath Tagore, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay and Kazi Nazrul Islam used literature, poetry, and speech as a tool for political awareness. Feminists such as Sarojini Naidu promoted the emancipation of Indian women and their participation in national politics.^[1] B. R. Ambedkar championed the cause of the disadvantaged sections of Indian society within the more significant self-rule movement. The period of the World War II saw the peak of the campaigns by the Quit India Movement led by Congress and the Indian National Army movement led by Subhash Chandra Bose with the help of Japan.^[1]

The Indian self-rule movement was a mass-based movement that encompassed various sections of society. It also underwent a process of constant ideological evolution. Although the underlying ideology of the campaign was anti-colonial, it was supported by a vision of independent capitalist economic development coupled with a secular, democratic, republican, and civil-libertarian political structure. After the 1930s, the movement took on a strong socialist orientation. The work of these various movements ultimately led to the Indian Independence Act 1947, which ended the suzerainty in India and the creation of Pakistan. India remained a Dominion of the Crown until 26 January 1950, when the Constitution of India came into force, establishing the Republic of India; Pakistan was a dominion until 1956 when it adopted its first republican constitution. In 1971, East Pakistan declared independence as the People’s Republic of Bangladesh.

The 20th century is noted for global independence movements.  Khan Academy gives a quick synopsis:

************************

Civil Rights Movement

The civil rights movement (also known as the American civil rights movement and other terms)^[b] in the United States was a decades-long struggle by African Americans to end legalized racial discrimination, disenfranchisement and racial segregation in the United States. The movement has its origins in the Reconstruction era during the late 19th century, although the movement achieved its largest legislative gains in the mid-1960s after years of direct actions and grassroots protests. The social movement’s major nonviolent resistance campaigns eventually secured new protections in federal law for the human rights of all Americans.

After the American Civil War and the abolition of slavery in the 1860s, the Reconstruction Amendments to the United States Constitution granted emancipation and constitutional rights of citizenship to all African Americans, most of whom had recently been enslaved. For a period, African Americans voted and held political office, but they were increasingly deprived of civil rights, often under Jim Crow laws, and subjected to discrimination and sustained violence by whites in the South. Over the following century, various efforts were made by African Americans to secure their legal rights. In 1954, the separate but equal policy which aided the enforcement of Jim Crow laws was weakened with the United States Supreme Court‘s Brown v. Board of Education ruling and other subsequent rulings which followed.^[1] Between 1955 and 1968, acts of nonviolent protest and civil disobedience produced crisis situations and productive dialogues between activists and government authorities. Federal, state, and local governments, businesses, and communities often had to respond immediately to these situations, which highlighted the inequities faced by African Americans across the country. The lynching of Chicago teenager Emmett Till in Mississippi, and the outrage generated by seeing how he had been abused, when his mother decided to have an open-casket funeral, mobilized the African-American community nationwide.^[2] Forms of protest and/or civil disobedience included boycotts, such as the successful Montgomery bus boycott (1955–56) in Alabama; “sit-ins” such as the Greensboro sit-ins (1960) in North Carolina and successful Nashville sit-ins in Tennessee; marches, such as the 1963 Birmingham Children’s Crusade and 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches (1965) in Alabama; and a wide range of other nonviolent activities.

At the culmination of a legal strategy pursued by African Americans, the U.S. Supreme Court began, in 1954 under the leadership of Earl Warren, to find unconstitutional many of the laws that had allowed racial segregation and discrimination to be legal in the United States.^[3][4][5][6] The Warren Court made a series of landmark rulings such as Brown v. Board of Education (1954), Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States (1964), and Loving v. Virginia (1967) which banned segregation in public schools and public accommodations, and struck down all state laws banning interracial marriage.^[7][8][9] The rulings also helped bring an end to the segregationist Jim Crow laws prevalent in the Southern states.^[10] In the 1960s, moderates in the movement worked with Congress to achieve the passage of several significant pieces of federal legislation that overturned discriminatory practices and authorized oversight and enforcement by the federal government. The Civil Rights Act of 1964,^[11] which was upheld by the Warren Court in Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States (1964), expressly banned discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin in employment practices; ended unequal application of voter registration requirements; and prohibited racial segregation in schools, at the workplace, and in public accommodations. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 restored and protected voting rights for minorities by authorizing federal oversight of registration and elections in areas with historic under-representation of minorities as voters. The Fair Housing Act of 1968 banned discrimination in the sale or rental of housing.

African Americans re-entered politics in the South, and across the country young people were inspired to take action. From 1964 through 1970, a wave of inner-city riots in black communities undercut support from the white middle class, but increased support from private foundations.^[12] The emergence of the Black Power movement, which lasted from about 1965 to 1975, challenged the established black leadership for its cooperative attitude and its practice of nonviolence. Instead, its leaders demanded that, in addition to the new laws gained through the nonviolent movement, political and economic self-sufficiency had to be developed in the black community.

Many popular representations of the movement are centered on the charismatic leadership and philosophy of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who won the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial inequality through nonviolent resistance. However, some scholars note that the movement was too diverse to be credited to any one person, organization, or strategy.

Here is the most important text in the nation-wide debate over civil rights:  Letter from Birmingham Jail

Questions to guide your reading:

• To whom is the letter addressed?
• How does King present his own character, his own ethical bias?  What examples does he use and HOW DOES HE USE THEM?
• Would you characterized this letter as an emotional appeal or a rational appeal?  Why is a rational approach more effective?
• In what ways does King use Christian ideas and mores?
• So ultimately, if he is addressing this letter to “men of God” and using rationale ensconced in Christian values, how might it be possible for his audience to refute his argument?

*************************************

The Women’s Movement

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”  ~ Declaration of Independence

These words are a political stance, a reminder of a promise in the age of Enlightenment.  When a tyrannical power is in place, and stands in the way of equality, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, it is not just a right, it is a duty to abolish that tyrannical power.  Martin Luther King, Jr. reminded the United States of this promise.  And, the women’s movement pursued the fulfillment of that promise as well.

The online Encyclopedia Britannica offers an excellent overview of the movement, its major voices, and its successes and failures.  Please read here.

Questions to guide your reading:

• When and why was the National Organization of Women (NOW) formed and how did it get its cue from the civil rights movement?
• What were some various types of discrimination women experienced?
• The Women’s Movement had several waves and manifestations.  It wasn’t all radical.  But, how did the “Bitch Manifesto” fit into all this?
• The initial main goal for NOW was the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA).  What did the ERA ensure?

*************************************

Feminism in Poetry and Art

Here is a poem by Anne Sexton:

“Self in 1958”   (1966)