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Published in:
Act 1. Shahrazad: Disarming Charm Read chapter Read first chapter

2020 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

Act 4. Caliban and the Nuclear Ban

Author : Matthew Breay Bolton

Published in: Imagining Disarmament, Enchanting International Relations

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

The humanitarian discourse used to ban indiscriminate weapons has colonial undertones, suggesting that “civilized nations” abstain from “barbaric” ways of killing. This same “standard of civilization” language was used to justify conducting nuclear testing in Pacific communities. Portraying Pacific peoples as “primitive” and nuclear weapons as evidence of a country’s “civilization,” colonialism and nuclear testing were intricately intertwined. This chapter uses Shakespeare’s The Tempest to demonstrate how a demeaning “tropical island imaginary” shaped colonizers’ interactions with Pacific peoples. But in the character of Caliban, one sees possibilities of “talking back” to the oppressor. In pursuing nuclear disarmament, Pacific intellectuals, diplomats and advocates have flipped the “standard of civilization” script. The chapter questions the territorialist assumptions of international relations (IR), exploring the contributions of post-colonial theory.

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previous chapter Act 3. Lysistrata: Meaningful Human Control
Footnotes
1
Note on names: I deliberately draw attention to the fluctuation and hybridization of colonial and indigenous legacies in the Pacific. When covering the colonial period, I use English or French name places, such as “Christmas Island” and “Gilbertese.” When referring to contemporary post-colonial states where there is wide consensus on names, I will use their naming and spelling conventions, such as “Kiritimati” and “I-Kiribati.” Where there is a persistent dispute over names, I will use both, listing first the widely used indigenous name, followed by its legally recognized name, such as “Maohi Nui/French Polynesia.” For “Moruroa,” I use the indigenous Maohi spelling, rather than the French “Mururoa,” since that is also the conventional spelling in English.
 
2
Elements of the argument in this chapter were explored in Bolton et al., (2016) and Bolton (2018a).
 
3
In some versions of the text, editors have assigned these lines to Prospero.
 
4
“Boffin” is British slang for a scientist or intellectual.
 
5
The rest of this section is adapted from Bolton (2018b).
 
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Metadata
Title
Act 4. Caliban and the Nuclear Ban
Author
Matthew Breay Bolton
Copyright Year
2020
Book
Imagining Disarmament, Enchanting International Relations

Print ISBN: 978-3-030-17715-7

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-030-17716-4

Copyright Year: 2020

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17716-4_4