Liberalism and Republicanism

Not-guilty verdicts, mistrials, and impunity for the Bundy family and many of their supporters in the armed confrontations over public land use in Nevada and Oregon. Expanded access for private oil, gas, mining, and logging industries and the downsizing of national monuments such as Bears Ears lead by Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke. A number of highly contentious debates and sensationalized events have again focused attention on land held in the public domain by the United States. This essay argues that federal land policy as a form of colonial administration has been constitutive for the logic of expectation as property in what is now the United States. From the state land cessions negotiated on behalf of the Articles of Confederation to the preemption acts (1830–1841) to the homestead acts (1862–1916) to present-day demands for land transfer, the acquisition and disposal of the so-called public domain have been central to westward colonization, the consolidation of the nation-state, and the promise of land ownership as the ostensible foundation of individual liberty. These dynamics are evident in contemporary conflicts over public lands and arguments for the transfer of public lands to either state or private ownership. Approaching the Bundy occupations as flashpoints that illuminate competing interpretations and claims to land within the history of westward colonization, this essay seeks to demonstrate the ways in which expectation emerges from particular economies of dispossession of indigenous peoples that have historically worked through and across the division of public and private property.

מאמר זה בוחן את המושג רפובליקניזם, בפרט אל מול המושג לאומיות, ומסיק שישראל זקוקה לתודעה רפובליקנית אך כזו המחזקת את הלאומיות ולא באה תחתיה.
חלקו הראשון של מאמר זה (סעיפים א-ג) מתאר את ליבת העמדה הרפובליקנית ואת הגרסאות השונות לה זכתה במחקר ובהגות הנאו-רפובליקנית בעשורים האחרונים. עיון זה מלמד שהעמדה הרפובליקנית איננה בהכרח חלופה ללאומיות ובגרסאות מסוימות שלה היא אף השלמה נדרשת עבורה.
בחלקו השני (סעיפים ד-ה) המאמר בוחן את את היתכנותו של רפובליקניזם לאומי מתוך המסורת היהודית ומתוך המחשבה הציונית. הוא מתאר את קיומם של יסודות רפובליקניים במחשבה היהודית אך גם מבהיר מדוע נדרש מאמץ פרשני וחינוכי לשם הטמעתם בחשיבה הישראלית.
חלקו השלישי של המאמר (סעיפים ו-ז) מנתח את השימוש הכושל בשיח על רפובליקניזם סביב הדיון על לימודי האזרחות בישראל, וכן בוחן את המשמעות המיטיבה האפשרית של תודעה רפובליקנית עבור מיעוטים במדינת לאום ובפרט עבור ערביי ישראל.

Despite being anchored in the cultural ethos, the law, and public opinion, Israel’s definition as the nation-state of the Jewish People has been at the heart of public and intellectual discussion for many years. However the literature on the subject lacks systematic discussion of the varied justifications emerging from political thought as the basis for the nation-state. This paper comes to fill this void by clarifying the differences between the various justifications and presenting each one within a broad conceptual framework. The article covers the following claims:
1. The nationalist-cultural claim
2. The politico-institutional claim
3. The republican and communitarian claim
4. The libreral-individualistic claim
5. The utilitarian claim
6. The democratic claim
7. Claims unique to specific cases
Presentation of the claims is not intended to replace discussion of each claim’s significance as regards its relevance to the Israeli context or to other cases, and the question of whether they outweigh counterclaims against the nation-state. However such presentation of the claims provides the necessary basis for the aforementioned discussion on a deeper level and from a broad perspective.

This essay examines the evolution and development of the ritual and lessons of the three Elu degrees: the Elu of the Nine, the Elu of the Fifteen, and the Elu of the Twelve, as conferred by the Scottish Rite SMJ. Published in "Quinta Essentia," the Journal of the Supreme Council for the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Edited and translated into Dutch by Dr. Willem Sinninghe Damste (Utrecht University).

How life is not a singularity, how you can truly be free, and how the conservative ideology is indeed illogical and antihuman. A thesis By: Shin-Ae Ahn Dedicated to: Steven Hawking (RIP) and those open minded enough to open up a book (that isn't a bible or some conservative hogwash), and read, instead of bullying someone to the brink of suicide (which is what conservatives do on a daily bases).

Loin des tentatives classiques de construction d’une histoire homogene du republicanisme, cet ouvrage demultiplie les analyses de cas aussi riches que diverses, s’inscrivant ainsi dans la litterature contemporaine qui voit le republicanisme non comme un programme, mais comme un langage. Le republicanisme est ainsi apprehende comme un projet multiple qui a su faire face a des contextes historiques varies et qui peut fournir des reponses a des problematiques contemporaines : solidarite, laicite...

"In a sweeping reassessment of early American literature, The Gender of Freedom explores the workings of the literary public sphere—from its colonial emergence through the antebellum flourishing of sentimentalism. Placing representations of and by women at the center rather than the margin of the public sphere, this book links modern forms of political identity to the seemingly private images of gender displayed prominently in the developing public sphere. The 'fictions of liberalism' explored in this book are those of marriage and motherhood, sentimental domesticity, and heterosexual desire—narratives that structure the private realm upon which liberalism depends for its meaning and value. In a series of bold theoretical arguments and nuanced readings of literary texts, the author explores the political force of these private narratives with chapters on the Antinomian crisis in Puritan Massachusetts, early national models of gender and marriage in the works of Charles Brockden Brown and Hannah Webster Foster, infanticide narratives and nineteenth-century accounts of motherhood in the work of Harriet Beecher Stowe and Lydia Maria Child, and 're-arranging' marriage in the poetry of Emily Dickinson."

Free Sample Chapter (Introduction): http://www.sup.org/pages.cgi?isbn=0804758476&item=Introduction_pages&page=1

Stanford UP catalogue: http://www.sup.org/book.cgi?id=836

Google books: http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Gender_of_Freedom.html?id=UuPsKmi46tsC

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Contents: The Gender of Freedom

Acknowledgements

Introduction: The Gender of Freedom and Women in Public

1. Gender, Liberal Theory, and the Literary Public Sphere

2. Puritan Bodies and Transatlantic Texts

3. Contracting Marriage in the New Republic

4. Sociality and Sentiment

Coda: Queering Marriage—Emily Dickinson and the Poetics of Title

Notes

Works Cited

Index

El presente artículo tiene como objetivo mostrar cómo la presencia de dos ideas en el pensamiento político de muchos filósofos modernos y contemporáneos, ha producido como efecto un desplazamiento del concepto de ciudadano como categoría filosófico política. Tales ideas son, por un lado, la de concebir al sujeto político como una entidad colectiva y, por otro lado, la idea de concebir el ámbito de lo político como conflicto. La propuesta de este trabajo consiste en un llamado a la reflexión en torno a la importancia del concepto de ciudadanía como categoría político filosófica que, aun hoy, puede ayudarnos a interpretar el escenario político, e incitar la reflexión filosófica.

Aunque Clara Campoamor no es una desconocida, hasta tiempos muy recientes su figura no ha comenzado a recibir la atención que merece. Este artículo trata de analizar, de forma objetiva y equilibrada, los aspectos más controvertidos de su biografía, profundizando tanto en su aportación personal y doctrinal al feminismo, como en su papel de cronista de la andadura del Frente popular, el levantamiento militar y los primeros meses de la retaguardia en Madrid. El último apartado resume las lecciones que representa su legado.

Publicado en Javier Moreno Luzón (ed.), Alfonso XIII. Un político en el trono, Madrid, Marcial Pons Historia, 2003, pp. 151-186. "Hace años ya que el pueblo ve en su Rey (a un) demócrata y liberal que encarna totalmente sus aspiraciones, y es el Rey quien, recogiéndolas en su corazón de español, designa los Gobiernos que, sucesivamente, las satisfagan y cumplan". Gerardo Doval 1 "En el trato de los reyes pasa como con el trato de los niños: que se siente uno inclinado a dejarles hacer lo que quieran, aun convencido de que no hay modo de hacerles más daño". Amós Salvador 2 La historia de las relaciones entre los liberales monárquicos y Alfonso XIII es la historia de una cruel paradoja. Por un lado, los hombres del Partido Liberal, uno de los dos pilares gemelos que sustentaban el sistema político de la Restauración, se consideraban herederos de la tradición progresista del XIX y deseaban incorporar a la monarquía constitucional nacida en 1876 los principios avanzados que habían definido su propia identidad desde los tiempos del Sexenio revolucionario. Cuando al iniciarse el siglo XX dio comienzo el reinado personal de don Alfonso, y tras haber cumplido con algunos de sus viejos ideales en los años previos, los políticos liberales perfilaron un nuevo programa que aspiraba a modernizar España sobre la base de una decidida defensa del poder civil y una mayor intervención del Estado en la vida ciudadana. Se trataba de ensanchar los apoyos sociales del régimen monárquico, de atraer hacia él a los republicanos más templados y, al mismo tiempo, de aproximar a aquel país atrasado y pobre a las potencias más desarrolladas de la Europa occidental. En sus versiones radicales, este ideario acogía incluso las orientaciones del nuevo liberalismo europeo, que había dejado atrás definitivamente el individualismo ochocentista, y ampliaba su horizonte con la futura 1 Palabras pronunciadas en el Congreso por Doval, diputado del Partido Liberal, DSC, 24 de junio de 1916, p. 821. 2 Discurso de Salvador, senador del Partido Liberal. Salvador (1919): 14.

Independence is a central and recurring theme in Wollstonecraft’s work. This should not be understood as an individualistic ideal that is in tension with the value of community but as an essential ingredient in successful and flourishing social relationships. I examine three aspects of this rich and complex concept that Wollstonecraft draws on as she develops her own notion of independence as a powerful feminist tool. First, independence is an egalitarian ideal that requires that all individuals, regardless of sex, are protected to a comparable extent in all areas of social, political and economic life, no matter whether this is in the public or private sphere. Secondly, so long as this egalitarian condition is not compromised, independence allows for individuals to perform differentiated social roles, including along gendered lines. Finally, the on-going and collective input of both women and men is required to ensure that the conditions necessary for social independence are maintained. In Wollstonecraft’s hands, then, independence is a powerful ideal that allows her to argue that women must be able to act on their own terms as social and political equals, doing so as women whose perspectives and interests may differ from men’s.

Suddenly Don Quijote doubts his squire’s embassy. It would be miraculous for Sancho to have returned in just over three days because El Toboso is more than thirty leagues away, seventy-five miles or one hundred and twenty-five kilometers from where Don Quijote was in the Sierra Morena.

In this article, I suggest that it is plausible to argue that Skinner's methodology is inseparable from his intention to retrieve republicanism. This makes itself evident in the way he structures his critique of John Rawls. In line with Hobbes, this British historian interprets Rawls's A Theory of Justice as another example of theory being politically neutralized. I will present the main aspects of Skinner's analysis of Rawlsian liberalism from a neo-Machiavellian perspective, and discuss to what degree this analysis is or is not conclusive vis-à-vis the relationship between Rawls and republicanism. Finally, I will assess to what extent it is ideology that motivates the British historian to put his methodology in line with republicanism.

Hans Jonas’ philosophy of responsibility is a major contribution to environmental ethics and political theory, but aspects of it have proven controversial. Jonas’ critics, in particular Richard Wolin, have argued that his thought is deeply reactionary. By contrast, Nathan Dinneen has sought to show that Jonas’ apparent eco-authoritarianism is misunderstood. I argue here that Dinneen’s interpretation is probably too generous, but also that Wolin’s wholesale critique is fundamentally misguided. Rather, the vast majority of Jonas’ thought is of enduring value, including a nascent ecological republicanism which has thus far been overlooked by commentators.

Nell’immenso fondo documentario, bibliografico e artistico assemblato nei primi decenni novecenteschi dal collezionista Carlo Piancastelli – ed oggi conservato presso la Biblioteca Comunale Aurelio Saffi – vi sono anche ricchissime fonti iconografiche e propagandistiche (organizzate nelle “Carte Romagna”), capaci di offrire uno straordinario spaccato delle pluriformi tensioni che, lungo il primo dopoguerra, accompagnarono anche nel forlivese la travagliata transizione dal sistema liberal-parlamentare al regime dittatoriale.
La selezione antologica che qui si propone è sta- ta operata secondo un criterio filologico volto a restituire un affresco del clima di sfaccettata - e spesso controversa, se non contraddittoria - conflittualità avvolgente l’imposizione del fascismo nella città mercuriale, terra d’origine del futuro Duce. Si è inteso porre in evidenzia l’evolvere del pensiero e delle posizioni dei principali attori socio-politici attivi nell’arena cittadina, attraverso il concretarsi dei tornanti e delle cesure storiche che marcano l’autoritaria normalizzazione post- bellica.

In this article I pursue two main lines of argument. First, I seek to delineate two distinctive modes of justifying imperialism found in nineteenth-century political thought (and beyond). The 'liberal civilizational' model, articulated most prominently by John Stuart Mill, justified empire primarily in terms of the benefits that it brought to subject populations. Its proponents sought to 'civilize'lthe 'barbarian'. An alternative `republican' model focused instead on the benefits - glory, honour and power above all - that accrued to the imperial state. Less concerned with spreading civilization, its proponents concentrated on fortifying the imperial polity. Second, I offer a 'republican' interpretation of the writings of the historian and public moralist J.A. Froude (1818-94), arguing that he both diagnosed the problems of modern Britain and prescribed imperial solutions to those problems, based on his reading of the fate of the Roman republic.

This book explores the relationship between truth and freedom in the free press. It argues that the relationship is problematic because the free press implies a competition between plural ideas, whereas truth is univocal. Based on this tension the book claims that the idea of a free press is premised on an epistemological illusion. This illusion enables society to maintain that the world it perceives through the press corresponds to the world as it actually exists, explaining why defenders of the free press continue to rely on its capacity to discover the truth, despite economic conditions and technological innovations undermining much of its independence. The book invites the reader to reconsider the philosophical foundations, constitutional justifications, and structure and functions of the free press, and whether the institution can, in fact, realise both freedom and truth. It will be of great interest to anyone concerned in the role and value of the free press in the modern world.

In the nineteenth century a group of “labor republicans” argued that the system of wage-labor should be replaced by a system of cooperative production. This system of cooperative production would realize republican liberty in economic, not just political, life. Today, neo-republicans argue that the republican theory of liberty only requires a universal basic income. A non-dominated ability to exit is sufficient to guarantee free labor. This essay reconstructs the more radical, labor republican view and defends it against the prevailing the neo-republican one. It argues that neorepublicanism lacks an adequate conception of structural domination, which leaves it without theoretical resources to address certain forms of economic domination. The concept of structural domination allows us to comprehend the coherence of the nineteenth century, labor republican view and identify its relevance to modern labor markets. Labor republicanism takes us beyond a universal basic income to a concern with control over productive assets and workplace organization. As such, it shows us how the republican theory of liberty can support an argument for the transformation of work, not just the escape from it.

Constitutional democracies have allowed for patterns of accumulation of wealth at the top, leading to acute inequality and dangerous oligarchization of power. Moreover, the theoretical tools that liberal constitutionalism offers are inadequate to recognize systemic corruption and structural forms of domination that are enabled by law or its absence. As an alternative, the article proposes a material methodological approach to the study of constitutions. In the first section, it offers a critical analysis of the intellectual foundations of liberal constitutionalism, engaging with the right to property, political representation, and separation of powers. In the second section, it presents the intellectual foundations of plebeian constitutionalism in the works of Machiavelli, Condorcet, and Marx. Finally, it proposes a material approach to assessing constitutions, identifying the shortcomings of contemporary legal frameworks to materialize social rights, as well as new avenues for institutional anti-oligarchic innovation.

Recent scholarship on John Stuart Mill has illuminated his arguments about the normative legitimacy of imperial rule. However, it has tended to ignore or downplay his extensive writings on settler colonialism: the attempt to create permanent “civilized” communities, mainly in North America and the South Pacific. Mill defended colonization throughout his life, although his arguments about its character and justification shifted over time. While initially he regarded it as a solution to the “social problem” in Britain, he increasingly came to argue that its legitimacy resided in the universal benefits—civilization, peace, and prosperity—it generated for humanity. In the final years of his life Mill seemed to lose faith in the project. Finally recognizing the prevalence of colonial violence and the difficulty of realizing his grand ambitions, yet refusing to give up on colonization altogether, his colonial romance gave way to a form of melancholia.

“En Chile no hay liberalismo, todos son conservadores”, afirmaban los editores de un periódico obrero de Iquique a inicios del siglo XX. “No habiendo elecciones, no hay para qué buscar ideas liberales” había dicho otro publicista, en Copiapó, cinco décadas antes. Aunque la trayectoria de los liberales chilenos resulte opaca y en algunos pasajes hasta superflua, no sucede lo mismo con la historia del problema de las libertades y las reflexiones en torno al liberalismo como promesa de emancipación. Esa historia y dichas reflexiones han sido parte de discusiones sustantivas que desbordan los límites con que usualmente se dibuja el campo liberal. "Cuando íbamos a ser libres" reúne y contextualiza una serie documentos escritos en Chile entre 1811 y 1933 que da cuenta de los proteicos usos de la libertad como concepto político-filosófico y del liberalismo como corriente político-ideológica. Se trata de una compilación que visibiliza autorías y asuntos generalmente desestimados en las reconstrucciones canónicas, y ese criterio permite demostrar que la defensa de las libertades no ha sido patrimonio exclusivo del liberalismo, y que este ideario tiene una historia más disputada de lo que se sostiene. Mirando de reojo el presente, "Cuando íbamos a ser libres" reinstala preguntas ineludibles para sociedades que vuelven a pensar sus libertades mientras la intervención gubernamental se expande al alero de las crisis en curso.

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/colonial-capitalism-and-the-dilemmas-of-liberalism-9780190637293?q=ince&cc=us&lang=en#

By the middle of the nineteenth century, Britons celebrated their empire as a unique “empire of liberty” that propagated the rule of private property, free trade, and free labor across the globe. They also knew that the same empire had been made by conquering overseas territories, trading in slaves, and extorting tribute from other societies. Set in the context of the early-modern British Empire, this book paints a striking picture of the tensions between the illiberal origins of capitalism and its liberal imaginations in metropolitan thought. Ince investigates the construction of a liberal self-image for the British Empire in the face of the systematic expropriation, exploitation, and servitude that built its transoceanic capitalist economy. The resilience of Britain’s liberal image, Ince argues, owed in good measure to the liberal intellectuals of empire and their efforts to disavow the violent transformations that propelled British colonial capitalism. Moving across the colonization of America, the conquest of India, and the settlement of Australasia, Ince examines the metropolitan debates over property, exchange, and labor relations within the empire. At the center of Ince’s analysis are John Locke, Edmund Burke, and Edward Gibbon Wakefield as three liberal political economists who tried to navigate the ideological dilemmas arising from colonial land seizures, commercial imperialism, and colonial labor dispossession. Ince deftly dissects the theoretical maneuvers, rhetorical strategies, myths, and fictions through which these liberal intellectuals disavowed the originary violence of capitalism – what Karl Marx labeled “the primitive accumulation of capital” – so as to craft an essentially commercial, pacific, and free character for the British Empire. Weaving together intellectual history, critical theory, and colonial studies, Colonial Capitalism is more than a study in intellectual history. It is a bold attempt to reconceptualize the relationship between capitalism, liberalism, and empire in a key that continues to resonate with our present moment.

In this early paper, I demonstrate the eminent role of inner conflicts in Machiavelli's thought. Being his central concept to stabilize a republican order, Machiavelli distinguished useful and harmful conflicts. Following Machiavelli's arguments, the article scrutinizes how 'good' conflicts can be implemented by institutions.

- peer reviewed -

Liberalism is a term employed in a dizzying variety of ways across the humanities and social sciences. This essay seeks to reframe how the liberal tradition is understood. I start by delineating different types of response – prescriptive, comprehensive, explanatory – that are frequently conflated in answering the question “what is liberalism?” I then discuss assorted methodological strategies employed in the existing literature: after rejecting “stipulative” and “canonical” approaches, I outline a contextualist alternative. On this (comprehensive) account, liberalism is best characterised as the sum of the arguments that have been classified as liberal, and recognised as such by other self-proclaimed liberals, over time. In the remainder of the article I present an historical analysis of shifts in the meaning of liberalism in Anglo-American political thought between 1850 and 1950, focusing in particular on how John Locke came to be seen as a liberal. I also explore the emergence of the category of "liberal democracy". I argue that the scope of the liberal tradition was massively expanded during the middle decades of the twentieth century, such that it came to be seen by many as the constitutive ideology of the West. This capacious (and deeply confusing) understanding of liberalism was produced by a conjunction of the ideological wars fought against “totalitarianism” and assorted developments in the social sciences. Today we both inherit and inhabit it.

Publicado en Historia y Biografía. II Congreso sobre el republicanismo en la historia de España, Priego de Córdoba, Fundación Patronato Niceto Alcalá-Zamora y Torres, 2003, pp. 49-74. Pasadas las dos de la tarde del 14 de abril de 1931, en casa del doctor Marañón, en Madrid, tuvo lugar una escena decisiva en la historia política española. Sus protagonistas fueron dos personajes que se conocían muy bien desde hacía más de tres décadas: por un lado, Álvaro de Figueroa y Torres, conde de Romanones (1863-1950), ministro de Estado y representante del rey Alfonso XIII; por otro, Niceto Alcalá-Zamora y Torres , presidente del llamado gobierno provisional de la República, el comité que aspiraba a derribar al régimen. Dos días antes se habían celebrado unas elecciones municipales que proporcionaron un triunfo abrumador a la conjunción republicano-socialista en la mayoría de las ciudades del país, un resultado que casi todos los testigos interpretaron como un plebiscito en contra de la monarquía y a favor de la república. La súbita movilización popular convenció a los monárquicos liberales, con Romanones a la cabeza, de que la corona no debía resistirse por la fuerza.

INTRODUCCIÓN as relaciones internacionales, más que conflictivas, son esencial-L mente de naturaleza cooperativa. Este es, en síntesis, el enfoque a partir del cual la teoría liberal y sus diversas acepciones como el liberalismo institucional sustentan sus postulados sobre la interacción entre los actores que componen a dicha disciplina.

In this paper, I propose a theory of social justice built from the insights of republican political theory. After critiquing the liberal structure of theories of social justice, I present a different argument drawn from the distinct commitments of republicanism. I argue that whereas liberal theory is limited by its emphasis on the concept of the individual good, private property, the ethical neutrality of the state, and an emphasis on equality of opportunity, republican theory provides us with a deeper, more satisfying set of political values and goals and can help construct a more robust theory of social justice. I argue that this theory of social justice seeks to maximize “democratic wealth” as opposed to “oligarchic wealth” and I elaborate a theory to construct a more just form of social and economic order which departs from traditional liberal principles. I then go on to argue for a series of principles which should guide what I term a “public economy” which would be able to maximize the concept of social justice as shaped by republican political theory. In the end, I argue that these principles should be seen as guiding the logic of political and economic institutions as well as the demands of social movements.

Liberalism is a defining feature of modern democracy, illustrated by the prevalence of the term 'liberal democracy' as a way to describe countries with free and fair elections, rule of law and protected civil liberties. However, liberalism – when discussed within the realm of IR theory – has evolved into a distinct entity of its own. Liberalism contains a variety of concepts and arguments about how institutions, behaviours and economic connections contain and mitigate the violent power of states. When compared to realism, it adds more factors into our field of view – especially a consideration of citizens and international organisations. Most notably, liberalism has been the traditional foil of realism in IR theory as it offers a more optimistic world view, grounded in a different reading of history to that found in realist scholarship.

Quedan rigurosamente prohibidas, sin la autorización escrita de los titulares del «Copyright», bajo las sanciones establecidas en las leyes, la reproducción total o parcial de esta obra por cualquier medio o procedimiento, comprendidos la reprografía y el tratamiento informático, y la distribución de ejemplares de ella mediante alquiler o préstamo públicos. © José Luis Martí © MARCIAL PONS EDICIONES JURÍDICAS Y SOCIALES, S. A. San Sotero, 6 -28037 MADRID ☎ (91) 304 33 03 ISBN: 84-Depósito legal: M. 2006

Shakespeare and the Fall of the Roman Republic explores Shakespeare's representation of the failure of democracy in ancient Rome This book introduces Shakespeare as a historian of ancient Rome alongside figures such as Sallust, Cicero, St Augustine, Machiavelli, Gibbon, Hegel and Nietzsche. It considers Shakespeare’s place in the history of concepts of selfhood and reflects on his sympathy for Christianity, in light of his reception of medieval biblical drama, as well as his allusions to the New Testament. Shakespeare’s critique of Romanitas anticipates concerns about secularisation, individualism and liberalism shared by philosophers such as Hannah Arendt, Alasdair MacIntyre, Charles Taylor, Michael Sandel and Patrick Deneen.

Todo cambio institucional requiere la creación de un nuevo cuerpo simbólico que permita diferenciarlo de la etapa anterior y le sirva como medio para aglutinar a la población en torno al nuevo régimen. La recuperación del Himno de Riego durante la II República es un hecho de importancia para valorar su orientación ideológica, probando que generaba un cierto consenso entre la coalición republicana al representar la lucha histórica contra la monarquía, lo que no fue óbice para que dicha coalición mostrara notables diferencias que generarían una singular polifonía hímnica 1 .

De kleindochter van de alchemist Johannis Helvetius
Charlotte Elizabeth van der Lith (1700-1753);
Drievoudig gouvernante en
republikeinse leidster van Suriname


Inleiding

Alle onderzoekers naar de geschiedenis van Suriname raken meteen onder de indruk van de veelbesproken Charlotte van der Lith. Een dominees dochter die met drie Surinaamse gouverneurs was gehuwd en daarna twee dominee echtgenoten overleefde. Voordat zij in 1753, na een roerig politiek leven, sneuvelde aan de difterie. Sinds haar heengaan heeft geen enkele andere vrouw zich zo krachtig in de Surinaamse politiek geroerd. Om haar de juiste plek te kunnen geven in de Surinaamse geschiedenis dienen wij ons eerst te ontdoen van twee factoren die zeer storend aanwezig zijn in de Surinamistiek. De dominantie van de eurocentrische en neokoloniale halsband om de Surinamistiek waarbij Nederlandse onderzoekers de toon aan geven. Zij alleen hebben toegang tot de fondsen die onderzoek en uitgave van werken mogelijk maakt. Ten tweede is er de angst van de Surinaams-Nederlandse onderzoekers die zich als moderne huisnegers kennelijk volledig conformeren aan het ‘Vaderlandsche getrouwe’ karakter en de onderdrukkende bedrijving van de historiografie door Nederland. Het moet intussen duidelijk zijn dat een koloniserende mogendheid alle middelen zal aanwenden om haar wurggreep op het lijf en de geest van de onderdrukte naties te behouden. Zolang de onderdrukte, uitgebuite en geradbraakte naties dit niet doorziet is er geen hoop voor een werkelijk positieve, postkoloniale en bevrijdende Surinamistiek.
Volgens de koloniale visie was Charlotte van der Lith, om met de woorden van haar voornaamste tegenstander gouverneur Jan Jacob Mauricius (Amsterdam 6 mei 1692 -Hamburg 21 maart 1768) te spreken: ‘Een onbeschaamde oude vrouw die zich met bestuurszaken bemoeide.’ Hij noemde haar ‘Vetula Beata’ wat te vertalen is met ‘Dat zalige oude wijf.’ Mauricius was acht jaar ouder dan Charlotte. Het kan dat hij hiermee ook zinspeelde op de titel van het werk van haar grootvader, Johannes Frederik Helvetius (1625-1709), getiteld Vitules aureus […](Het gouden Kalf […]). Helvetius was een katholiek die vluchtte uit Pruisen vanwege de overgang naar het protestantisme als staatsgodsdienst. Het woord beata wordt echter het meest gebruikt in de zin van Beatea Mariae Virginis of De ‘Heilige Maagd Maria.’ Ook als Beatae memoriae of Zaliger gedachtenis. Vanwege alle onaardige dingen die Mauricius over haar levenswandel en zeden te zeggen heeft zijn alle associaties van toepassing.
Charlotte werd met de komst van Mauricius, samen met Samuel Paulus Pichot (  ) de de co-leidster van een planterspartij in Suriname. De gouverneur noemde hen een ‘cabale.’ Naar aanleiding daarvan duidde Mauricius haar aan als ‘het orakel der cabale,’ maar schrijft ook in 1747 aan de Staten Generaal van de Republiek dat deze groep zichzelf ‘Republikainsche’ noemt. Van der Meiden in zijn werk ‘Betwist Bestuur’ ( ) noemt Charlotte van der Lith acht maal en vermeldt dat Mauricius haar bij de eerste kennismaking in 1742 over een conflict met Herman van der Schepper een redelijk mens vond. Alle volgende verwijzingen plaatsen haar in de rol van geweldenaar, bedreiger, onbehoorlijk, stoker, verspreider van kwalijke geruchten en als libertijns. Van Sypesteyn drukt met het oog om inzicht in haar karakter te verschaffen een brief af van Charlotte’s stiefdochter, Catharine Eleonora Temming, weduwe Jacob de Cheusses, gedateerd Paramaribo, 5 februari 1735, die ook Charlotte’s schoonzuster was; waarin deze zich onder andere over Charlotte beklaagt. De twee hadden een verschil van mening over de verdeling van de erfenis.