Lewis S. Feuer in New Caledonia

by Alex

To the extent that he is remembered at all, Lewis Feuer is remembered as an echt-Jewish leftie who (like “Karl Wittfogel”:http://www.riseofthewest.net/thinkers/wittfogel01.htm ) turned into a full-on HUAC style anti-communist in the 1950s. I gather that he is mostly remembered today for some early critiques of the Frankfurt school and his own work on J.S. Mill and the Philosophy of Science he isn’t much remembered.

One part of his career that certainly isn’t remembered is the time he spent during World War II in “New Caledonia”:http://www.newcaledoniatourism-south.com/home.cfm?&CFID=812434&CFTOKEN=61653876 where he became embroiled in the colonial politics of Asian indentured laborers in New Caledonia’s mines. Having just spent a week with a New Caledonian researcher who hadn’t heard of this brief but tantalizing literature, I thought I’d make a note of it here — it is certainly easy to miss.

*Lewis Feuer in New Caledonia*
(all articles are by Lewis Feuer)

1946. “Cartel Control in New Caledonia”. Far Eastern Survey XV (June 19), 184-187.

1946. “End of Coolie Labor in New Caledonia”. Far Eastern Survey XV (August 24), 264-267.

1982. “South Pacific Memoir”. The New Leader LXVIII (1) (January 9), 22.

1988. “Autobiographical Essay”. In Philosophy, history, and social action : essays in honor of Lewis Feuer. Edited by Sidney Hook, William L. O’Neill, and Roger O’Toole. Boston : Kluwer Academic Publishers, p. 20-26.

If for some reason there are more Lewis Feuerites out there who have other references to his New Caledonia do drop me a line in the comments.

*Update:*

Kathy Creely points out:

Ismet Kurtovitch 2000. A Communist Party in New Caledonia (1941–1948). Journal of Pacific History 35(2)

Abstract:

During and immediately after the Second World War, in common with all French colonies, New Caledonia experienced intense political upheaval. It is little known that both the political awakening of the native people and the successful questioning of colonial authority by immigrant Asian workers had their origins in a political movement with communist sympathies.. Led by strong and colour personalities – Jeanne Tunica y Casas, Florindo Paladini, Vincent Bouquet, Henri Naisseline, Henri Lemonnier – the Caledonian Communist Party, which had regular contacts with its Australian and French counterparts, knew how to present the first Kanak political claims and to set up an embryonic political organisation by and for Kanaks. The present article recounts this forgotten page of New Caledonian history: forgotton because the Christian missions, allied with the colonial administration, were quick to nip in the bud what appeared to be too radical a questioning of the established order.