tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/kidnapped-25449/articlesKidnapped – The Conversation2022-08-11T15:24:48Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1868422022-08-11T15:24:48Z2022-08-11T15:24:48ZNowhere to run: the plight of Eritrean refugees in Ethiopia<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474282/original/file-20220715-22-da64l1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Eritrean refugee children in Ethiopia.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Eduardo Soteras/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ethiopia has hosted large numbers of Eritrean refugees for years.
Before the recent conflict, about <a href="https://www.unrefugees.org/news/ethiopia-s-tigray-refugee-crisis-explained/">100,000</a> Eritrean refugees lived in camps in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region. </p>
<p>They have fled some of the <a href="https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/313615_ERITREA-2021-HUMAN-RIGHTS-REPORT.pdf">worst human rights</a> conditions in the world, including widespread persecution and forced military conscription. Eritrea is a highly authoritarian country. Those who speak out, or are even suspected of opposition to government policy, have been jailed for years, tortured, executed, and disappeared. </p>
<p>However, since late 2020, these Eritrean refugees found themselves caught up in the conflict between Tigrayan forces, the central government, and other regional armed groups. The conflict quickly spiralled into a full-fledged civil war, with dangerous <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-61009077">ethnic dimensions</a>. It has made many parts of Ethiopia unsafe for the refugees. </p>
<p>There has been progress toward peace, but the humanitarian need for Ethiopians and refugees that it hosts is still great. In fact, the World Food Programme just <a href="https://www.wfp.org/news/wfp-unhcr-rrs-appeal-funding-continue-feeding-over-750000-refugees-ethiopia">announced</a> that it could run out of food for refugees as soon as October if action is not taken.</p>
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<p>I’m <a href="https://www.refugeesinternational.org/sarah-miller">an expert</a> on refugee issues and published a <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/506c8ea1e4b01d9450dd53f5/t/621fe06b67fab200e77dd641/1646256236952/Eritrea+Brief+-+March+2022+%281%29.pdf">recent report</a> to highlight the specific needs of Eritrean refugees. It pulls together data from interviews with refugees, UN, NGO, government and civil society individuals.</p>
<p>I’ve found that Eritrean refugees in Tigray and other parts of Ethiopia have been attacked by nearly all fighting groups.</p>
<p>Before the conflict, Ethiopia was considered a safe place for refugees. It hosts one of the <a href="https://data.unhcr.org/en/country/eth">largest refugee populations</a> in Africa, and is among Africa’s economic <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/africa-in-focus/2019/03/26/ethiopia-africas-next-powerhouse/">powerhouses</a>. But, it is now clear that Eritrean refugees, as well as other populations of refugees and some internally displaced groups, are struggling to find safety in Ethiopia. </p>
<h2>Nowhere to run</h2>
<p>Eritrean refugees have been attacked by the Ethiopian Defense Forces, Eritrean troops (that have invaded and remain in northern Ethiopia), Tigrayan groups, Amharan militia, among others. </p>
<p>In some cases they were inadvertently caught in harm’s way. In other cases, they were explicitly targeted because of their ethnicity. Eritreans can easily be confused with Tigrayans, both of whom speak Tigrinya, and thus be targeted by those attacking Tigrayans. They have also been attacked by Eritrean troops, in some cases even <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/12/11/disturbing-un-says-safety-of-eritrean-refugees-greatly-at-risk">kidnapped</a> and taken back to Eritrea.</p>
<p>The UN and wider aid community – even with the conflict subsiding – have no means to <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/news/briefing/2022/1/61ea6fe74/deteriorating-conditions-eritrean-refugees-grave-risk-tigray.html">guarantee their</a> <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/news/briefing/2022/1/61ea6fe74/deteriorating-conditions-eritrean-refugees-grave-risk-tigray.html">safety</a>, let alone reach them with consistent and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/international-news-eritrea-abiy-ahmed-ethiopia-united-nations-344e7156295eb1801f9441a9359c2dab">adequate aid</a>. </p>
<p>Early in the conflict, <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/506c8ea1e4b01d9450dd53f5/t/621fe06b67fab200e77dd641/1646256236952/Eritrea+Brief+-+March+2022+%281%29.pdf">Eritrean troops entered</a> Ethiopia and destroyed Ethiopia’s northern Eritrean refugee camps of Hitsats and Shimelba. Tens of thousands of Eritrean refugees were forced to flee further into the Tigrayan warzone. Others were killed or kidnapped back to Eritrea, and some <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/09/16/ethiopia-eritrean-refugees-targeted-tigray">became the targets</a> of other groups, as well. </p>
<p>While some have managed to reach other camps in Ethiopia, or neighbouring countries like Sudan, most remain without anywhere to go and adequate <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/news/briefing/2022/1/61ea6fe74/deteriorating-conditions-eritrean-refugees-grave-risk-tigray.html">assistance</a>. For example, Eritrean refugees in the newly constructed Alemwach camp <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/jul/28/eritrean-refugees-claim-arbitrarily-arrested-beaten-detained-in-ethiopian-camps-unhcr?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other">report</a> dangerous conditions and a lack of food and medicine.</p>
<h2>Devastating war</h2>
<p>To be clear, the wider population of Ethiopia’s Tigray region, as well as parts of Amhara and Afar, have also been in dire straits over the course of the conflict. </p>
<p>Famine has been used as a <a href="https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/29548/in-the-tigray-war-weaponized-starvation-takes-a-devastating-toll">weapon of war</a> in Tigray, with devastating <a href="https://apnews.com/article/africa-united-nations-only-on-ap-famine-kenya-0598a26af21928d11d5734b7b826e988">consequences</a>. According to the World Food Programme, <a href="https://nation.africa/africa/news/to-fight-hunger-us-envoy-s-visit-to-ethiopia-must-emphasise-peace-and-accountability-3894686">two million people</a> are severely hungry.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/04/06/crimes-against-humanity-and-ethnic-cleansing-ethiopias-western-tigray-zone">Human rights violations</a>, including <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/08/ethiopia-troops-and-militia-rape-abduct-women-and-girls-in-tigray-conflict-new-report/">sexual violence</a>, massacres and widespread detention, have also been widely reported over the course of the conflict. Making matters worse, Ethiopia is now facing a crippling drought that could be the <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/04/1116872">worst in 40 years</a>. </p>
<p>This unfolding scenario is already affecting the entire region, and refugees – already in a vulnerable state – will face further suffering, as well.</p>
<h2>A safe place</h2>
<p>Even if the Ethiopian government were to renew its commitment to protecting and assisting refugees on their territory – as it is bound to do under <a href="https://www.refugeesinternational.org/reports/2021/6/9/from-displacement-to-development-how-ethiopia-can-create-shared-growth-by-facilitating-economic-inclusion-for-refugees">domestic</a> and <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/protect/PROTECTION/3b73b0d63.pdf">international law</a> – would it be able to ensure protection and assistance for displaced groups amid such a fractured political, security, and ethnic landscape? </p>
<p>The reality is that even if peace were achieved today (and there are still some major <a href="https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/horn-africa/ethiopia/long-last-ethiopia-prepares-peace-talks">obstacles</a> to overcome before a peace deal is reached) and humanitarian assistance was exponentially increased, Ethiopia will struggle to provide adequate protection and assistance to Eritrean refugees in the coming years.</p>
<p>While Ethiopia is first and foremost responsible for protecting and assisting refugees on its territory, the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/ethics-and-international-affairs/article/abs/normative-terrain-of-the-global-refugee-regime/3F91A61887D7748A525CD7103FFEEFCA">global refugee regime</a> dictates that the rest of the world – states, NGOs, the UN, civil society and others – also have a duty to help Eritrean refugees caught in the crossfire. They need help finding safety elsewhere in the form of a durable solution whereby they can live in dignity and support themselves.</p>
<p>The traditional refugee solutions of returning to their home country or locally integrating into the host country offer little for Eritreans at this stage. Thus resettlement to other countries, including the United States, must be increased.</p>
<p>Some 932 Eritrean refugees were <a href="https://eritreanrefugees.org/refugee-stats/">admitted</a> to the US in 2019, and <a href="https://eritreanrefugees.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Refugee-Arrivals-by-State-and-Nationality-as-of-30-June-2022.pdf">around 200</a> Eritrean refugees arrived in the US between October 2021 and June 2022. There are about <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwi3uPO9ptr4AhWHhIkEHRiJDbQQFnoECBcQAw&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.usatoday.com%2Fstory%2Fnews%2Fworld%2F2021%2F03%2F24%2Feritreans-us-worry-loved-ones-ethiopia-refugee-camps%2F6981923002%2F&usg=AOvVaw0XpNrCTe7qTYvRm_vs-g5A">35,000</a> Eritreans in the US to date. But this is a drop in the bucket compared to the level of need still in the region. </p>
<p>However, even if the US and other resettlement countries found resettlement places for much larger numbers of Eritreans and other refugees in need – scaling up staff is necessary to undertake the long screening process, which can sometimes take years for US-bound refugees – it will not be enough for those who need help now.</p>
<p>While increasing resettlement capacity in the US and other states is an important long-term response, there are other immediate steps that must be taken. <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/">UNHCR</a>, NGOs and others in the humanitarian community need to continue to insist on unfettered access to all parts of Ethiopia, including the beleaguered camps where Eritreans have fled or been forced to reside.</p>
<p>Humanitarians must also help Eritreans who seek to leave Tigray and they must work with parties to the conflict to find ways to secure the refugee camps in other parts of Ethiopia where Eritreans are staying.</p>
<p>Finally, the UN and US must continue to work toward lasting peace in Ethiopia, which includes accountability for denying humanitarian access and starving civilians. Without this broader context, Eritrean refugees in Ethiopia will never find safety or a solution to their displacement.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/186842/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Miller does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Eritrean refugees in Ethiopia are caught in a conflict in a country that was supposed to provide them refuge.Sarah Miller, Assistant Research Professor and Senior Fellow, Georgetown UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/727072017-02-14T14:00:55Z2017-02-14T14:00:55ZThe Shannon Matthews story: when personal tragedy becomes public spectacle<p>It’s fair to say that Moorside, a recent <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08dxvc0">two-part BBC drama</a> which chronicles the notorious kidnapping of nine-year-old Shannon Matthews has raised more than a few eyebrows in Britain.</p>
<p>Critics have claimed it’s too soon for such a programme to be made – Matthews disappeared from a housing estate in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, in northern England in 2008. Mathews’ own family <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/2017/02/08/moorside-good-idea-family-critics-viewers-reacted-shannon-matthews/">voiced similar concerns</a>. Shannon’s grandparents spoke out against the programme, <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4205954/Shannon-Matthews-family-fury-sick-BBC-drama.html">saying</a> it is “sick” that their family’s trauma was made into a TV show.</p>
<p>The BBC drama tells the story of how Shannon’s mother, Karen Matthews, together with her boyfriend’s uncle, Michael Donovan, orchestrated Shannon’s disappearance so they could claim the reward money once Donovan had “found” her.</p>
<p>Shannon herself is now living with a new family under a different identity. But there are fears that at only 18-years-old, Shannon might be further traumatised if she were to see the programme. It has been reported that <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/producers-warned-shannon-matthews-tv-9759790">she was warned in advance</a> about the TV drama featuring her ordeal by her social workers.</p>
<h2>Public trauma</h2>
<p>These anxieties about the possible fallout of the drama may appear overblown to an impartial observer. But their concerns are a testament to the long-lasting and sometimes devastating effects media discourses have on those directly involved in a personal or community tragedy.</p>
<p>Shannon went missing less than a year after the much publicised disappearance of four-year-old Madeleine McCann – who vanished while on holiday with her parents in Portugal. McCann’s parents have also <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/shannon-matthews-madeleine-mccann-parents_uk_589b3087e4b0a1dcbd0429e8">spoken out against the BBC drama</a>, calling it “very insensitive”.</p>
<p>Many comparisons were made between the two cases at the time. Despite the initial similarity in the cases, it was the McCann story that prompted high profile media campaigns across the British tabloid press – “find Madeleine” was on the front pages of many papers for several months. The media coverage of Shannon Matthew’s disappearance, however, was much more subdued. Stories in the broadsheet press <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2008/mar/05/whyismissingshannonnotget">questioned the lesser amount of media coverage</a> that her case was attracting. For some <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/missing-the-contrasting-searches-for-shannon-and-madeleine-790207.html">it was clearly a class issue</a>.</p>
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<p>The McCanns, doctors in Leicestershire, were portrayed as articulate, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2008/mar/05/whyismissingshannonnotget">middle-class professionals</a>. Karen Matthews and her supporters, despite their attempts to engage with the press and create a positive campaign to find Shannon, could not easily escape their working-class origins. This made them less “media friendly”, which led to the public perception that the Moorside estate where Matthews lived was a place where bad things happened.</p>
<h2>Media portrayal</h2>
<p>It tends to be that when the media is covering a story, almost everyone can fall into a stereotype – if pushed hard enough – be they rich or poor, good or bad, deserving or undeserving. So when the people involved in a story do not fit these roles so well, the media struggles to create an acceptable narrative that conforms to preexisting prejudices.</p>
<p>This is undoubtedly what happened in the case of the Shannon Matthews. For a time coverage tentatively portrayed a downtrodden community coming together in a time of crisis. So, for a short time, at least, the residents of the Moorside were depicted as heroes.</p>
<p>But after the truth of the events came to light, some <a href="http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/61284/Scum-mum-from-hell">media outlets claimed to have been suspicious</a> of Karen Matthews’ involvement all along, and rapidly re-positioned both her and the community she came from in terms of accepted social prejudices.</p>
<p>This is the nature of media representation. On a good day it can have the effect of mobilising public support by keeping a story in the public sphere. It can also positively influence police activity and provoke political debate. This is why people at the centre of tragic events seek the support of the media.</p>
<p>But on a bad day it can cause devastation and damage to all involved. Because of this, communities such as Moorside are rightly suspicious about the media. They know exactly how they are typically portrayed in the press and subsequently viewed by the wider public. A view that has been reinforced time and time again. </p>
<p>So when Karen Matthews was found to be involved in her daughter’s disappearance, the public was ready to believe her guilt because she was always guilty of something – being a bad mother, being on benefits, being poor. The headlines are already in place for people like her.</p>
<p>Those depicted in high profile media stories can often come to be defined by the narrative created by the media discourse – for better or for worse. These narratives exist outside of reality because to capture public attention the media must exaggerate the often mundane truth. And in this regard Karen Matthews was, and still is, <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/karen-matthews-branded-pure-evil-363965">described as</a> “pure evil” by the police and media – because this narrative is easier to understand than any alternative explanation. </p>
<p>But the impact of this representation is wide ranging – on Matthews herself, who is never allowed to rehabilitate. On a daughter, who may never reconcile with her mother. And on a community, who might question their sense of togetherness for a second time round – after once again finding themselves the centre of attention for all the wrong reasons.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72707/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Siobhan Holohan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Reliving trauma on a national scale.Siobhan Holohan, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Keele UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/562332016-03-15T11:01:28Z2016-03-15T11:01:28ZThe Witch: the facts behind the folktales<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114973/original/image-20160314-11285-179pmk1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Witch, film poster.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BAf7dtMrSmI/?taken-by=thewitchmovie">The Witch/Instagram</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>From The Wizard of Oz to Harry Potter, Macbeth to Bewitched, witches have long been a part of popular culture. Witches are now regularly presented as <a href="http://flavorwire.com/192340/the-10-coolest-witches-in-pop-culture">cuddly feminists</a>, but Robert <a href="http://filmmakermagazine.com/people/robert-eggers/#.VubSOqiLQ4Y">Eggers’s</a> new film <a href="http://thewitch-movie.com/">The Witch: A New England Folktale</a> vividly reminds us of the horrors lurking behind the fantasy. </p>
<p>The is a horrifying tale of 17th-century New England, where witches roam the deep, dark forest kidnapping settlers’ children so they can boil down their fat and bones for <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/908398-the-botany-of-desire-a-plant-s-eye-view-of-the-world">ointments</a> which help them to fly. Witches were said to be able to fly on <a href="http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/why-do-witches-fly-brooms">broomsticks</a>, perhaps because the broom was a symbol of female domestication, and flying on it was the ultimate rebellion.</p>
<p>In the 1600s, in both new and old <a href="http://www.historyextra.com/feature/witches-dock-witch-trials-10-britains-most-infamous">England</a>, and across the European continent, people often believed witches were “difficult” women (sometimes difficult men) who hated their neighbours and cursed them with sickness and bad luck. </p>
<p>As in the film, witches were thought to be <a href="http://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/Witches-in-Britain/">attracted to children</a>, particularly by their innocence and corruptibility. Children’s small, soft bodies could easily be sickened by spells or possessed by demons and they were especially vulnerable before they had undergone the ritual of baptism, because they weren’t thought to be <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Qr6_q-chR6MC&pg=PA142&lpg=PA142&dq=witches+children+and+baptism&source=bl&ots=GdRy4vZ1pn&sig=wgg7KmNiqNzrRA3w7gUtnZAu2IY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiWzJnOqcDLAhWGTBQKHcESAcoQ6AEIKTAC#v=onepage&q=witches%20children%20and%20baptism&f=false">protected by the christian church</a>. </p>
<p>In the supposedly rational modern world, these superstitions may now seem ridiculous, but the fact that we still shudder when we hear such tales is a telling sign of the witches’ power. </p>
<h2>Toil and trouble</h2>
<p>Anxieties about children being kidnapped and murdered by witches were strongest in southern Germany, western France and the Alpine countries – and it was here that the <a href="http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/salem/witchhistory.html">persecutions</a> were carried out most enthusiastically. In these areas, witches were said to meet in groups of several hundred, worshipping the devil in the form of a man or a goat, <a href="http://witcombe.sbc.edu/davincicode/witches.html">holding orgies and plotting evil</a>.</p>
<p>In Britain and the American colonies, witches were more likely to be accused of <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=i1kKLrnjGsQC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false">less dramatic activities</a>, not necessarily devil-worship, but certainly murder and mischief on a smaller scale. They were not usually thought to be able to fly – so not much need for the baby-fat recipe – but every now and again, a truly horrific story was told. </p>
<p>In Lancashire in 1612, the teenage <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/domesday/dblock/GB-360000-429000/page/18">Grace Sowerbutts</a> explained how three women had transported her around the countryside, making her dance and have sex with strange black creatures. She added that they had broken into a neighbour’s house and murdered his sleeping baby by sucking its life out through the navel. </p>
<p>After the child’s burial, they dug up the body, boiled and roasted it. They ate some and saved the rest for flying ointment. The court rejected Grace’s evidence, however: her story was just too unusual in England – even in the age of the witch. It was explained away as the work of a renegade catholic priest making trouble for good protestants.</p>
<h2>Fire burn and cauldron bubble</h2>
<p>While it was easy for devout people then to imagine a malign devil lurking in the shadows, witchcraft was not immediately used to explain every misfortune. In America, the early protestant colonists felt protected by a “good” god – much like in the film.</p>
<p>The film’s settlers experience exactly the miseries endured by their real counterparts: crop failure, hunger, disease, animal attacks, loss of faith. Under the circumstances, they hold out pretty well. But once the first accusations of witchcraft are made, it becomes horribly easy for communities to <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Y2ZeU1RMYK0C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false">turn on each other</a>.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Evil comes in many forms.</span></figcaption>
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<p>One heartrending 1662 tale from Hartford, Connecticut tells how eight-year-old <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=pASHBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA45&lpg=PA45&dq=Bethia+Kelly&source=bl&ots=R4w1qzISwF&sig=Ie5M9HnGMHgEv7qjop-VB96gqCo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiQvJCWtsDLAhWIThQKHe7YDh0Q6AEISjAL#v=onepage&q=Bethia%20Kelly&f=false">Bethia Kelly</a> died of an inexplicable disease, her last hours disfigured by fits and claims that an invisible spirit sent by her neighbour Goodwife Ayres was pressing her belly and bowels. Another girl, Ann Cole, then began to name further people as witches, including <a href="http://www.womenhistoryblog.com/2008/03/rebecca-greensmith.html">Rebecca and Nathaniel Greensmith</a>. In the end, even Rebecca came to agree that her husband Nathaniel was a witch. </p>
<p>Nathaniel had met strange creatures in the forest, Rebecca told the court, and although he was a small, weak man, he was suddenly capable of huge feats of labour. None of this could be natural, surely? Both the Greensmiths were executed, along with at least two fellow-accused. Others spent years in jail. </p>
<p>For these tight-knit communities, it was often incredibly hard to rebuild after the “touch of a witch”. Once accusations began, they quickly spread like wild fire. Sometimes it was just easier for “witches” to run away, than try to explain themselves. Even their own family would turn against them, and it was safer to drop everything and run.</p>
<p>The Witch allows us, modern viewers, to see how easy it would be for our ancestors, driven by misapplied faith and pressed by calamity, to believe in and persecute witches – and why people still do so in some places today. In fact, staring into the dark forests brought to life the film, it’s hard not to wonder why the early American colonists didn’t become even more obsessed with the mysterious forces and withccraft that may have been lurking within.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56233/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marion Gibson has received funding from the AHRC for research on American witchcraft. </span></em></p>Were evil witches really stealing children in the 17th century?Marion Gibson, Professor of Renaissance and Magical Literatures, University of ExeterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/556662016-03-04T09:35:02Z2016-03-04T09:35:02ZHow Robert Louis Stevenson’s reputation was shipwrecked by his inner circle<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113605/original/image-20160302-25908-1k6m4sr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">By John Singer Sargent in 1887</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/woolamaloo_gazette/3750633474/in/photolist-6HqYEo-bz5DcL-5UFg1k-bz5Bgd-4VRNZJ-e61Vhn-8GH2GG-gtATfw-6Hr14Y-bpbz6c-bgZiAp-7MyzYA-cWzsYq-dxYJzk-bcaFDZ-dNarwD-byBd4k-5MfXW9-9oQhGa-8TVcsJ-8PvMqj-dNfYS3-dt1mZR-61v2wd-61uZSj-61qRLT-61v1GQ-61qNdZ-61uZDJ-61v1UC-61qPsM-61qRfx-61qNnc-pLLGbq-BpSuMn-BpSyqe-soa6Un-xjWNvA-AzLbRK-AzLfPV-BuSn53-AYEqmR-AzL1yF-BpSMtt-BpToFH-s6GBWv-s6GSqv-soagpe-s6GJdt-soa8o4">Wikimedia</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ask most people about the heavyweights of late Victorian fiction and they will probably mention the likes of Thomas Hardy, George Eliot or Oscar Wilde. Raise Robert Louis Stevenson, however, and you’ll struggle to attract more than dusty affection: his work is usually seen as the stuff of old illustrated copies of boys’ adventures such as <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/120/120-h/120-h.htm">Treasure Island</a> and <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/421/421-h/421-h.htm">Kidnapped</a>, left in the forgotten corners of people’s attics.</p>
<p>It was very different in Stevenson’s lifetime. The Scottish writer was renowned as an essayist and belle-lettrist like <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-real-henry-james-will-never-stand-up-thats-his-greatest-legacy-55455">Henry James</a>, who himself regarded Stevenson as an equal in intellect and talent. Stevenson’s subsequent journey to the lightweight fringe was no accident either. You can trace it through a series of decisions and events that demonstrate an unsettling truth: once you are no longer here, there is little you can do to protect your literary reputation. </p>
<p>When Stevenson died aged just 44 on Samoa in December 1894, reportedly of a brain tumour, the Victorian literary world was reeling. James <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674387829">wrote of</a> the “ghastly extinction of the beloved RLS”. In Samoa, Stevenson had been known as “Tusitala”, the teller-of-tales, and his obituary in the Illustrated London News lamented his passing <a href="http://www.iln.org.uk/iln_years/year/1894.htm">as such</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>He is gone, our Prince of storytellers – such a Prince, indeed, as his own Florizel of Bohemia, with the insatiable taste for weird adventure, for diablerie, for a strange mixture of metaphysics and romance. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Sugared Stevenson</h2>
<p>The high praise was not to last. After Stevenson’s death his family, notably his <a href="http://stevensonmuseum.org/robert-louis-stevenson/the-life/family/fanny-stevenson/">wife Fanny</a>, and literary friends such as <a href="http://www.norwoodsociety.co.uk/articles/116-sidney-colvin-a-norwood-man-of-letters.html">Sidney Colvin</a>, began to manage and manipulate his legacy. When Colvin published Stevenson’s letters, he had redacted material they thought unsavoury, including the writer’s disputes with his family and his salacious youthful activities. </p>
<p>Probably motivated by a desire to protect the lucrative revenues from those boys’ adventures, this sanitised his image. It made him more palatable for a moralistic Victorian readership, securing his reputation as a non-controversial writer of children’s fiction. In 1901 Stevenson’s great friend, the poet and critic WE Henley, <a href="http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-1-349-24355-6_42">decried how</a> he had been turned into a “seraph in chocolate” and a “barley-sugar effigy”. </p>
<p>Stevenson quickly became a target for other leading writers. Joseph Conrad denounced him, <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Joseph_Conrad.html?id=rn-GQgAACAAJ&redir_esc=y">declaring</a> to his agent, JB Pinker: “I am no sort of airy RL Stevenson, who considered his art a prostitute and the artist no better than one”. The American writer Stephen Crane was particularly disparaging, <a href="https://archive.org/details/ancientlightscer00ford">claiming</a>: “That man put back the clock of English fiction fifty years”. Even HG Wells wrote that Stevenson’s interest in the romance tradition was a “pitiful instance of the way in which wrong-headed flattery, a feminine book market, and a man’s own talent may triumph over his genius”. </p>
<p>Whether they were inspired by Stevenson’s image-makers is unclear, but these writers were certainly in the vanguard of a new generation who felt the need to distance themselves from their Victorian forebears. Stevenson was also phenomenally successful, so professional jealously may also have been a factor. It set the tone for a long period in which he was frequently seen in the same kind of way. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113608/original/image-20160302-25879-1bj0z2q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113608/original/image-20160302-25879-1bj0z2q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113608/original/image-20160302-25879-1bj0z2q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113608/original/image-20160302-25879-1bj0z2q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113608/original/image-20160302-25879-1bj0z2q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113608/original/image-20160302-25879-1bj0z2q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113608/original/image-20160302-25879-1bj0z2q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113608/original/image-20160302-25879-1bj0z2q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Yo ho ho and all that.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/davidmasters/3587804365/in/photolist-6t3reX-pCoeqZ-mnbhJu-dXq6kH-ecia6C-eccuA8-eccvTe-axjnA9-okTKjW-okD586-5YivbC-axgFg6-w1KD5K-axgFsx-5Yiv7N-5YfTNX-hMGeYs-o4sihp-9uEFRh-7XYprG-74HbAh-67dFLK-59ScLt-qtbvg4-hX3xhJ-hMFRNC-7SBMKW-dUEnsT-dUKXNw-dUEnpi-oxk6Qm-bpbz6c-6F91jj-7WFehF-sPrkDT-aeYpVE-GMHiG-aeYraq-aeYrr9-wiGn8k-aeYqAq-6yVn3Z-aeYqMA-8yXuR6-aeVCAM-aeYqjq-8z1AWC-9hyBGa-ovvmGE-EuSSF9">David Masters</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The case for Robert Louis</h2>
<p>Stevenson’s work is actually far more complex and wide-ranging than these reductive assessments allow. For <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/42">Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde</a> alone, he should be regarded among the great British writers. A book of massive influence and endurance, Vladimir Nabokov <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8148.Lectures_on_Literature">believed that</a> it “belongs to the same order of art as […] Madame Bovary or Dead Souls”.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113604/original/image-20160302-25918-r6v3io.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113604/original/image-20160302-25918-r6v3io.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113604/original/image-20160302-25918-r6v3io.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113604/original/image-20160302-25918-r6v3io.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113604/original/image-20160302-25918-r6v3io.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113604/original/image-20160302-25918-r6v3io.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113604/original/image-20160302-25918-r6v3io.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113604/original/image-20160302-25918-r6v3io.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">No more Mr Nice Guy …</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/woolamaloo_gazette/3750633474/in/photolist-6HqYEo-bz5DcL-5UFg1k-bz5Bgd-4VRNZJ-e61Vhn-8GH2GG-gtATfw-6Hr14Y-bpbz6c-bgZiAp-7MyzYA-cWzsYq-dxYJzk-bcaFDZ-dNarwD-byBd4k-5MfXW9-9oQhGa-8TVcsJ-8PvMqj-dNfYS3-dt1mZR-61v2wd-61uZSj-61qRLT-61v1GQ-61qNdZ-61uZDJ-61v1UC-61qPsM-61qRfx-61qNnc-pLLGbq-BpSuMn-BpSyqe-soa6Un-xjWNvA-AzLbRK-AzLfPV-BuSn53-AYEqmR-AzL1yF-BpSMtt-BpToFH-s6GBWv-s6GSqv-soagpe-s6GJdt-soa8o4">byronv2</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Treasure Island itself is more than meets the eye. It is actually a deeply subversive story of betrayal and divided loyalties, which deserves close reading. And beyond these household names, Stevenson also produced groundbreaking work that the likes of Wells and also 20th-century literary scholars unaccountably overlooked. Published in the year that he died, <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1604/1604-h/1604-h.htm">The Ebb-Tide</a> is a dark tale of tyranny and imperial mismanagement, which anticipates Conrad’s <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/219/219-h/219-h.htm">Heart of Darkness</a> and signals how Stevenson was beginning to question the morality of European interference in the Pacific. Together with the similarly themed <a href="http://www.enotes.com/topics/beach-falesa">The Beach of Falesá</a>, it shows that had Stevenson lived, he could have gone on to rival even Conrad as an imperial sceptic. </p>
<p>Stevenson incidentally had a strong influence on his literary critics. Conrad and Ford Madox Ford used the opening page of Treasure Island as the model for the first sequence of their collaborative 1903 novel, <a href="http://www.palgrave.com/page/detail/joseph-conrad-and-h.-g.-wells-linda-dryden/?K=9781137500113">Romance</a>, actively seeking his fame and fortune whilst diminishing his art.
As for Wells, The Ebb-Tide is a considerable inspiration for <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29981.The_Island_of_Dr_Moreau">The Island of Doctor Moreau</a>, while <a href="http://www.bartleby.com/1003/">The Invisible Man</a> owes a great debt to Jekyll and Hyde. Put these arguments together and you begin to see why he was never denigrated in the same way overseas. Particularly in America, France and Italy, he has always been seen as a great writer. </p>
<p>Some more recent writers were kinder about Stevenson. Ernest Hemingway <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ijOsBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA31&lpg=PA31&dq=%22ernest+hemingway%22+%22the+suicide+club%22&source=bl&ots=mIwiFYEnis&sig=EGakJPDuqSoytfiJSCgW-_5_rbk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjT9pj5tKTLAhWGPBoKHWSMDRgQ6AEITzAI#v=onepage&q=%22ernest%20hemingway%22%20%22the%20suicide%20club%22&f=false">was a fan</a>, for instance. Jorge Luis Borges <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=axSlBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA42&lpg=PA42&dq=borges+on+stevenson&source=bl&ots=pDOg4UORWo&sig=PRJPW6jr7OFGHw5qGVKrl2mLb7w&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi-leuKuKTLAhWCExoKHYzGBPY4ChDoAQgmMAI#v=onepage&q=borges%20on%20stevenson&f=false">considered him</a> “among the greatest literary joys I have experienced”. In the 1990s he began to be welcomed back into the fold in literary academic circles. This was led by the likes of <a href="http://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9780333620670">Alan Sandison</a> and the rise of cultural studies, which argues that “high” and “low” culture are completely interdependent and don’t fit into separate boxes. </p>
<p>More than a century after his death, it finally feels like we have reached the point where Stevenson is fully gaining the reputation he so richly deserves. We at Edinburgh Napier University are playing our part with the Mehew Robert Louis Stevenson Collection of his books and papers, which officially opens to the public on March 17. For one of Scotland’s greatest writers, his homecoming is long overdue.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/55666/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Linda Dryden received £34,000 from The Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland to create the RLS website, which she administers. She is also co-founder of RLS Day in Edinburgh.
</span></em></p>For too long the Scottish writer was seen as a populist pedlar of boy’s own adventures. This didn’t happen by accident.Linda Dryden, Professor of English Literature, Edinburgh Napier UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.