Christian Humanitarianism, Refugee Stories, and the Making of the Cold War West

TY - JOUR

T1 - Christian Humanitarianism, Refugee Stories, and the Making of the Cold War West

AU - Brydan, David

N1 - Funding Information: But it was Cuban refugees who were the first group from outside of Europe to provoke a mass relief campaign in the West. Refugees began to leave in large numbers after Castro's regime won power in 1959, another example of Christians fleeing communist rule. In contrast to Hungary, however, these refugees continued to arrive over an extended period of years rather than in response to a single moment. Also unlike the Hungarian case, where refugees initially arriving in Austria were eventually settled across the West, the vast majority of Cuban refugees sought to settle in the south-eastern United States, although many initially went to Spain as will be discussed later in the article. Settlement of Cuban refugees in the United States was supported by the federal government's Cuban Refugee Program. But once again much of the relief and resettlement work on the ground was carried out by religious NGOs, funded both by private donations and by federal resources. Principal among those were the NCWC, reflecting the Catholic faith of the vast majority of refugees, working alongside the Church World Service, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, and nominally secular groups such as the International Rescue Committee. Together, they provided medical, housing, and employment services in Florida, as well as helping to resettle refugees elsewhere in the United States. By 1966, 200,000 Cubans had arrived in the United States, rising to almost half a million by 1973. Publisher Copyright: Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press.

PY - 2023/6/16

Y1 - 2023/6/16

N2 - This article argues that refugees and the Christian humanitarian organizations supporting them, particularly Catholic ones, helped to construct the Cold War West. Christian NGOs valued these refugees, not only for their needs or their suffering, but for the power of their stories. Refugees' stories served to encapsulate and dramatize the horrors of communism, transforming it from an abstract ideological threat to a vivid personal danger. Their suffering and sacrifice, and the efforts to relieve this suffering, helped to forge ties of solidarity across Western Europe and North America. Christian groups fuelled this solidarity through the dissemination of information about communist persecution and the courage of refugees seeking to escape it, mobilizing the faithful to contribute through donations, prayers, and relief campaigns. The vision of the West which emerged from these campaigns emphasized religious freedom as the cornerstone of Western societies. It promoted solidarity across national borders by emphasizing Christian unity, although there were tensions between different denominations and Catholics were often the most active supporters of anti-communist humanitarianism. It also, strikingly, had little to say about democracy, something that becomes particularly evident when we examine the participation of Franco's Spain in Christian refugee relief.

AB - This article argues that refugees and the Christian humanitarian organizations supporting them, particularly Catholic ones, helped to construct the Cold War West. Christian NGOs valued these refugees, not only for their needs or their suffering, but for the power of their stories. Refugees' stories served to encapsulate and dramatize the horrors of communism, transforming it from an abstract ideological threat to a vivid personal danger. Their suffering and sacrifice, and the efforts to relieve this suffering, helped to forge ties of solidarity across Western Europe and North America. Christian groups fuelled this solidarity through the dissemination of information about communist persecution and the courage of refugees seeking to escape it, mobilizing the faithful to contribute through donations, prayers, and relief campaigns. The vision of the West which emerged from these campaigns emphasized religious freedom as the cornerstone of Western societies. It promoted solidarity across national borders by emphasizing Christian unity, although there were tensions between different denominations and Catholics were often the most active supporters of anti-communist humanitarianism. It also, strikingly, had little to say about democracy, something that becomes particularly evident when we examine the participation of Franco's Spain in Christian refugee relief.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85160832188&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1017/S0018246X23000079

DO - 10.1017/S0018246X23000079

M3 - Article

SN - 0018-246X

VL - 66

SP - 689

EP - 714

JO - HISTORICAL JOURNAL

JF - HISTORICAL JOURNAL

IS - 3

ER -