Europe at the crossroads of three worlds

Subtitle:alternative histories and connections of European solidarity with the Third World, 1960s-1970s

Over the past few years, there has been growing interdisciplinary interest in the history of European solidarity movements that mobilized on behalf of the Third World in the wake of the post-war decolonization process. Focusing on European campaigns against the Vietnam War and Pinochets Chile, this article aims at positioning these international solidarity movements in the broader history of NorthSouth and EastWest exchanges and connections in Europe during the Cold War. It explores some key ideas, actors and alternative networks that have remained little studied in mainstream accounts and public memories, but which are key to understanding the development of transnational activism in Europe and its relevance to broader fields of research, such as the history of Communism, decolonization, human rights, the Cold War and European identity. It delves into the impact of EastWest networks and the Communist First World in the discovery of the Third World in Western Europe, analyses the role of Third World diplomacy in this process, and argues how EastWest and NorthSouth networks invested international solidarity campaigns on global issues with ideas about Europes past and present. Together, these networks turned resistance against the Vietnam War, human-rights violations in Pinochets Chile, and other causes in the Third World into themes for détente and pan-European cooperation across the borders of the Iron Curtain, and made them a symbol to build a common identity between the decolonized world and Europe. What emerges from this analysis is both a critique of West-centred narratives, which are focused on anti-totalitarianism, as well as an invitation to take NorthSouth and EastWest contacts, as well as the role of European identities, more seriously in the international history of human rights and international solidarity.

Publication year:2017

Keywords:A1 Journal article

BOF-keylabel:yes

Authors from:Higher Education

Accessibility:Closed