The Birth of Vietnamese Political Journalism : Saigon, 1916-1930

Philippe M. F. Peycam completes the first ever English-language study of Vietnam's emerging political press and its resistance to colonialism. Published in the decade that preceded the Communist Party's founding, this journalistic phenomenon established a space for public, political contestation that fundamentally changed Vietnamese attitudes and the outlook of Southeast Asia. Peycam directly links Saigon's colonial urbanization to the creation of new modes of individual and collective political agency. To better justify their presence, French colonialists implemented a peculiar brand of republican imperialism to encourage the development of a highly controlled print capitalism. Yet the Vietnamese made clever use of this new form of political expression, subverting colonial discourse and putting French rulers on the defensive, while simultaneously stoking Vietnamese aspirations for autonomy. Peycam specifically considers the work of Western-educated Vietnamese journalists who, in their legal writings, called attention to the politics of French rule. Peycam rejects the notion that Communist and nationalist ideologies changed the minds of "alienated" Vietnamese during this period. Rather, he credits colonial urban modernity with shaping the Vietnamese activist-journalist and the role of the French, even at their most coercive, along with the modern public Vietnamese intellectual and his responsibility toward the group. Countering common research on anticolonial nationalism and its assumptions of ethno-cultural homogeneity, Peycam follows the merging of French republican and anarchist traditions with neo-Confucian Vietnamese behavior, giving rise to modern Vietnamese public activism, its autonomy, and its contradictory aspirations. Interweaving biography with archival newspaper and French police sources, he writes from within these journalists' changing political consciousness and their shifting perception of social roles. Annotation Thomas Philipp's study of Acre combines the most extensive use to date of local Arabic sources with commercial records in Europe to shed light on a region and power center many identify as the beginning of modern Palestinian history. The third largest city in eighteenth-century Syria -- after Aleppo and Damascus -- Acre was the capital of a politically and economically unique region on the Mediterranean coast that included what is today northern Israel and southern Lebanon. In the eighteenth century, Acre grew dramatically from a small fishing village to a fortified city of some 25,000 inhabitants. Cash crops (first cotton, then grain) made Acre the center of trade and political power and linked it inextricably to the world economy. Acre was markedly different from other cities in the region: its urban society consisted almost exclusively of immigrants seeking their fortune. The rise and fall of Acre in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Thomas Philipp argues, must be seen against the background of the decay of central power in the Ottoman empire. Destabilization of imperial authority allowed for the resurfacing of long-submerged traditional power centers and the integration of Arab regions into European and world economies. This larger imperial context proves the key to addressing many questions about the local history of Acre and its peripheries. How were the new sources of wealth and patterns of commerce that remade Acre reconciled with traditional forms of political power and social organization? Were these forms really traditional? Or did entirely new classes develop under the circumstances of an immigrant society and new commercial needs? And why did Acre, after such propitious beginnings as a center of export trade and political and military power strong enough to defy Napoleon, give way to the dazzling rise of Beirut in the nineteenth century? For centuries the object of the Crusader's fury and the trader's envy, Acre is here restored to its full significance at a crucial moment in Middle Eastern history "Peycam looks at how the journalism that came out of colonial Saigon became a powerful tool for political activism, and a vehicle for mobilizing and unleashing popular forces. The manuscript covers the evolution of Vietnamese journalism in colonial Saigon from its inception (before 1916) to its transformation beginning in 1930, with the impact of the Great Depression on the one hand and the onset of mass protest movements on the other. Inspired by Habermas, the author argues that what contemporary Vietnamese called the "newspaper village" journalism created an unprecedented public sphere in which all sorts of issues could be and were debated. He also traces its gradual shift from a forum for advocacy and debate to a vehicle for popular mobilization, as many of those who became journalists saw newspapers more as vehicles for the expression of opinions than for the dissemination of information. By looking at the links between colonial capitalism and new possibilities for self-expression and nationalism, Peycam illuminates the role of the colonial state in setting the parameters for journalistic activities, subsidizing those it wished to use as its propaganda instrument and fighting those it deemed inimical to its interests."--Publisher's description.

an Important Contribution To The Discussion Of The Arab Lands Before European Hegemony And A Detailed Study Of A Region And Power Center Many Scholars Identify As The Beginning Of Modern Palestinian History.

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philipp Provides A Local History Of The City Of Acre On The Syrian Coastthe First Region In The Arab East To Be Closely Linked To The Modern European World Economy. Philipp Describes The Highways, Sea Lanes And Populations Of Southwest Syria In The Eighteenth Century; The Political History Of Acre; The Unique Economic And Trade Opportunities In The Area, The Ways In Which They Were Used, And How They Contributed To The Political Developments Of The Region; The Shaping Of The Military And The Government Of Acre; And The Urban Society Which Evolved In Acre. Annotation C. Book News, Inc., Portland, Or (booknews.com)

Contents Acknowledgments Maps Introduction Part 1. The Origins of Saigon’s Public Sphere 1. Social Order in the Colonial City 2. French Republicanism and the Emergence of Saigon’sPublic Sphere Part 2. The “Newspaper Village” as a Political Force 3. In Search of a Political Role (1916–1923) 4. Scandals and Mobilization (1923–1926) 5. The Limits to Oppositional Journalism (1926–1930) Conclusion Abbreviations Notes Bibliography Index Social order in the colonial city French republicanism and the emergence of Saigon's public sphere In search of a political role (1916-1923) Scandals and mobilization (1923-26) Limits of oppositional journalism (1926-30). The Arab lands of the eastern Mediterranean region had first been incorporated into the Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the sixteenth century.