Michael Ignatieff

This article is about the Canadian politician. The balalaika virtuoso is under Mikhail Ignatieff to find

Michael Ignatieff (2011)

Michael Grant Ignatieff [ ˈmaɪkəl grɑ: nt ɪɡˈnɑːtʃəf ] (born May 12, 1947 in Toronto , Ontario ) is a Canadian historian , author , journalist and politician . From 2008 to 2011 he was the chairman of the Liberal Party of Canada and thus opposition leader .

Ignatieff wrote novels and political reports after several years of research. He also worked as a publicist and political commentator for the British Broadcasting Corporation . Before entering politics, he was also a professor at the University of Cambridge , the University of Oxford , Harvard University and the University of Toronto .

In January 2006 Ignatieff was elected to the Canadian House of Commons in the Etobicoke-Lakeshore constituency in southwest Toronto . In December of the same year he ran for the office of party chairman, but lost in the fourth ballot to Stéphane Dion . The general election in October 2008 ended under Dion's leadership with a defeat for the Liberals, whereupon he resigned and Ignatieff was temporarily appointed chairman. The party congress in May 2009 confirmed this appointment. In the general election in May 2011 he was defeated in his constituency, whereupon he announced his resignation as party chairman.

biography

Family background

Ignatieff's signature

Michael Ignatieff is the older son of Russian- born Canadian diplomat George Ignatieff and his wife Jessie Grant. His mother's ancestors are of Scottish - English descent and can be traced back to Nova Scotia as far back as the late 18th century . His two maternal great-grandfathers are George Monro Grant , Dean of Queen's University , and the author George Robert Parkin , and his uncle is the philosopher George Grant .

On his father's side, Ignatieff comes from the Russian nobility. His grandfather Pavel Ignatjew was education minister under Tsar Nicholas II , whose reputation as a liberal reformer spared him from the persecution of the Bolsheviks . His great-grandfather was Nikolai Ignatjew , Minister of the Interior under Tsar Alexander II , who made a major contribution to Bulgaria's independence . Ignatieff descends from Field Marshal Mikhail Kutuzov through the latter's wife .

In his books The Russian Album and True Patriot Love Ignatieff takes a detailed position on his numerous known ancestors, although he firmly rejects ethnocentrism and Russian nationalism . Ignatieff is Russian Orthodox ; he is fluent in English and French (with a French rather than a Québec accent). Ignatieff has been married to the native Hungarian Zsuzsanna Zsohar since 1999. From his first marriage, which lasted from 1977 to 1998, to the Englishwoman Susan Barrowclough, he has a son and a daughter.

Youth and Studies

Since father George Ignatieff worked as a diplomat in various places abroad, the family moved frequently. When he was eleven, Michael Ignatieff was sent back to Toronto, where he attended Upper Canada College as a boarding school student. There he was president of the student council, captain of the soccer team and editor-in-chief of the yearbook. In the 1965 general election, he helped campaign the Liberal candidate in the York South constituency . In 1968 he was active in the youth organization of the Liberal Party and supported the election of Pierre Trudeau as the new chairman as a party congress delegate .

After graduating from high school, Ignatieff studied history at Trinity College, University of Toronto . In the fourth year he shared a room with Bob Rae , who later became Prime Minister of the Province of Ontario . Ignatieff continued his studies at the University of Oxford , where he was significantly influenced by the historian and philosopher Isaiah Berlin , about whom he later wrote a biography. During his time in Toronto, Ignatieff worked part-time for The Globe and Mail newspaper in 1964/65 . In 1976 he was awarded at the Harvard University doctorate in history ( Ph.D. ).

Scientific and journalistic activity

From 1976 to 1978 Ignatieff was an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia . He then moved to Great Britain , where he did research at King's College in Cambridge until 1984 . He then worked increasingly as a writer and journalist in London , during which time he traveled a lot. He has lectured at various universities in Europe and North America and has taught at the University of Oxford , the University of London , the London School of Economics , the University of California and France .

When Ignatieff lived in the UK, he became known to a wider audience as a television and radio host. Among other things, he moderated Voices on Channel 4 as well as the discussion program Thinking About and the cultural program The Late Show on BBC Two . In 1993 the multi-part documentary he produced, Blood and Belonging: Journeys into the New Nationalism, was broadcast. From 1990 to 1993 he was also a columnist for The Observer newspaper .

From 2000 to 2005 Ignatieff was director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University . After serving as a Member of Parliament, he became Professor of International Relations at the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs in 2012 . From 2012 to 2015 he also held the Centennial Chair at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs in New York. At the same time, he returned to his professorship at Harvard Kennedy School in 2013, where he became Edward R. Murrow Professor of the Practice of the Press, Politics and Public Policy in 2014 . Since 2016 he has been President and Rector of the Central European University in Budapest .

Career as a politician

In 2004 two representatives of the Liberal Party traveled to Cambridge, Massachusetts . They convinced Ignatieff (who was now widely known) to return to Canada, to run in the next general election and possibly to take over the party chairmanship if Paul Martin should resign. In November 2005, after months of rumors and repeated denials, Ignatieff confirmed that he would run in the 2006 general election and that he was therefore seeking nomination as a Liberal candidate in the Etobicoke-Lakeshore constituency in Toronto.

Some members of Ukrainian origin in the electoral district organization turned against the nomination because Ignatieff allegedly made anti-Ukrainian statements in the book Blood and Belonging , in which he addresses, among other things, the prejudices of Russians against Ukrainians. Other critics complained that Ignatieff had lived abroad for over 30 years and often referred to himself as an American. There were two other candidates, but this one was excluded due to a formal error. On January 23, 2006, Ignatieff achieved the best result in his constituency with 43.6% of the vote and moved into the lower house as a member of parliament .

The Liberal Party lost its status as the strongest force and went into opposition. Paul Martin announced his impending resignation as party chairman. On April 7, 2006 Ignatieff announced his candidacy for his successor and was supported by numerous MPs and former ministers. At the beginning of the party congress taking place in Montreal from November 29 to December 1, 2006 , Ignatieff was the favorite and was accordingly ahead in the first and second ballots. In the third ballot, however, he fell behind Stéphane Dion . Finally, Dion was elected chairman in the fourth ballot, rather surprisingly, after the most recently eliminated candidate, Bob Rae, had sided with him. Dion appointed Ignatieff as his deputy on December 18.

In the early elections on October 14, 2008, the Liberals lost further votes and share of the vote and achieved the worst result in their history. A month later, Ignatieff announced that he was again available as a candidate for party leadership. When the Liberal Party reached an agreement with the other opposition parties to form a coalition and overthrow the conservative minority government, Ignatieff was very reluctant to give his approval. Prime Minister Stephen Harper avoided his overthrow with a vote of no confidence by asking Governor General Michaëlle Jean to suspend parliamentary work until the end of January 2009. Thereupon Dion, who would have become the new prime minister if there had been a change of government, said he would only remain in office until a new chairman had been elected.

Two other candidates withdrew, leaving only Ignatieff left. On December 10, he was formally elected by the parliamentary group as the new chairman of the Liberal Party and thus also assumed the role of opposition leader. On May 2, 2009, an extraordinary Liberal party conference was held in Vancouver . 97% of the delegates confirmed Ignatieff's election as chairman.

On March 25, 2011, Ignatieff brought a vote of no confidence in the conservative minority government of Stephen Harper, which was successful with 156 to 145 votes. However, the Liberals recorded the worst result in their history and became only the third strongest force. In the election on May 2, 2011, Ignatieff was defeated in his constituency by the conservative Bernard Trottier . The following day he announced that he would step down as chairman. It finally happened on May 25th when Bob Rae was elected interim chairman.

Literary work

The British Council describes Ignatieff as an "exceptionally versatile author" in terms of both style and subjects. His novels Asya , Scar Tissue and Charlie Johnson in the Flames are about the life and travels of a Russian girl, a mother's suffering from a nervous disease and the memories that haunt a journalist in Kosovo . All three works contain elements from Ignatieff's own biography; for example, he worked as a journalist in Kosovo and Kurdistan . In his historical memoir, The Russian Album , he explores the history of his ancestors in Russia, their labors and ultimately their emigration as a result of the October Revolution .

A Just Measure of Pain , Ignatieff's first published work as a historian, is a story of the prison system during the Industrial Revolution . His biography of Isaiah Berlin illustrates the influence that this philosopher had on him. Philosophical works include The Needs of Strangers and The Rights Revolution , which are heavily influenced by Isaiah Berlin. These in turn influence Ignatieff's political non-fiction books on national self-determination and the imperatives of democratic self-administration. Blood and Belonging explores the commonalities of nationalism in Yugoslavia and Northern Ireland . This book is the first of a trilogy on modern conflicts: Warrior's Honor deals with ethnically motivated conflicts, including in Afghanistan and Rwanda , while Virtual War describes the problems of modern peacekeeping, with a special focus on NATO's presence in Kosovo .

In The Rights Revolution , Ignatieff identifies three aspects of Canada's attitude towards human rights that affect the country's culture: 1) On moral issues, Canadian law is secular and more similar to European than American standards; 2) Canada's political culture is democratic and social and Canadians take it for granted that citizens are entitled to free health care and government assistance; 3) Canadians place particular emphasis on group rights, which is reflected, for example, in the language laws in Québec in contracts with indigenous people.

Ignatieff has written a lot about international cooperation, peacekeeping and the responsibility of the western world. In Empire Lite , he criticized the strategy of low risk, that the NATO in Kosovo War and during the Rwandan genocide practiced, and calls for more active participation of ground forces of Western countries in future conflicts in developing countries. In doing so, he tries to differentiate himself from neoconservatism , since the type of interventions that he has in mind are altruistically motivated.

Based on this opinion, Ignatieff was initially a prominent supporter of the Iraq war . The United States has created a global hegemony of free markets, human rights and democracy, which is enforced by the greatest military power in the world. The overthrow of Saddam Hussein is therefore in the interests of international security and human rights. Ignatieff believed that Iraq produced weapons of mass destruction . In addition, the attacks against Shiites and Kurds are reason enough to intervene in Iraq. Ignatieff began to change his mind in light of the wrongdoings of the George W. Bush administration and finally apologized for his earlier misjudgments in August 2007: “The spreading disaster in Iraq has condemned political judgment of one president, but it has also judged many damn others, including me, who supported the invasion as commentators. ” Ignatieff described his mistake as“ typical of academics and intellectuals ”.

Appreciation and awards

Ignatieff is a recognized historian who has written several books on international relations and nation building . His novels and non-fiction books have been translated into twelve languages ​​and he has written articles for renowned newspapers such as The Globe and Mail and The New York Times . The Canadian news magazine Maclean’s counts Ignatieff as one of the most influential people in Canadian society. His book The Russian Album, about the history of his family in 19th century Russia, won the Governor General's Award for best non-fiction book in 1987 and the Heinemann Prize of the British Royal Society of Literature . He received two further nominations in 1998 for the biography of Isaiah Berlin . In 2000 he was awarded the Orwell Prize for Best Political Nonfiction Book for Virtual War: Kosovo and Beyond .

Blood and Belonging: Journeys into the New Nationalism , a work on the dangers of nationalism in the post- Cold War era , was awarded the University of Toronto's Lionel Gelber Prize in 1994 . It was based on the 1993 television series of the same name that he produced and received the Gemini Award in 1993 . The Literary Review of Canada magazine ranked this book in 2016 as one of the 25 most influential books in Canada in the past 25 years.

The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror , a philosophical work analyzing the human rights situation in the world after September 11, 2001 , was nominated for the Lionel Gelber Prize ; it has received considerable attention for attempting to reconcile the democratic ideals of liberal Western societies with the limitations of the war on terror . The novel Scar Tissue was nominated for the Booker Prize .

In 2019 Ihnatieff received a Dan David Prize .

Political positions

Ignatieff meets Barack Obama (February 2009)

Ignatieff argued that Western democracies would have to accept “lesser evils” such as the indefinite detention of suspects, targeted assassinations and preventive wars in order to combat the “great evil” of terrorism. Western societies would need to strengthen their democratic institutions to prevent these "lesser evils" from becoming as dangerous as the dangers they should avert. Prominent human rights activists criticized this stance because it creates a form of moral language that justifies torture . Ignatieff later made it clear that he supported a comprehensive ban on torture.

After his election to the House of Commons, Ignatieff was one of the few opposition politicians who supported the deployment of Canadian troops as part of the United Nations support mission in Afghanistan . Prime Minister Stephen Harper , who did not have a majority, requested an extension of the station in May 2006. During the debate, Ignatieff expressed his "unequivocal support for the troops in Afghanistan, the mission, and also the renewal of the mission". He argued that the mission will test the success of Canada's transition from the "peacekeeping paradigm to the peace enforcement paradigm," the latter combining "military, constructive and humanitarian efforts." The Liberal faction was split: 24 in favor of the extension, 66 against and 12 abstained. Ignatieff and Scott Brison were in favor of the candidates for party leadership at the time. The bill was accepted extremely narrowly with 149 to 145 votes. In a subsequent campaign appearance, Ignatieff confirmed his views on the mission in Afghanistan: "With regard to Afghanistan, Canadians must understand that the era of peacekeeping as in the time of Lester Pearson is long over."

Works

Non-fiction books:

• A Just Measure of Pain: Penitentiaries in the Industrial Revolution , Pantheon Books, New York 1978, ISBN 0-394-41041-6
• co-editor with István Hont : Wealth and Virtue: The Shaping of Political Economy in the Scottish Enlightenment , Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1983, ISBN 0-521-31214-0
• The Needs of Strangers (1984)
  • German: What does man live on. What it means to live in society in a human way , translated by Hans Jörg Friedrich, Rotbuch, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-88022-799-3
• with A. Voznesenskij The Russian Album , Russkij al'bom: semejnaja chronika , Žurnal Neva, Sankt Petersburg 1987, ISBN 5-87516-060-8
• Blood and Belonging: Journeys Into the New Nationalism (1994)
  • German: Journeys in the new nationalism , translated by Werner Schmitz , Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1996, ISBN 3-518-39139-9
• Warrior's Honor: Ethnic War and the Modern Conscience (1997)
  • German: The civilization of war. Ethnic conflicts, human rights and media , Rotbuch, Hamburg 2000, ISBN 3-434-53071-1
• Isaiah Berlin: A Life (1998)
  • German: Isaiah Berlin: Ein Leben , translated by Michael Müller, Bertelsmann, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-570-15073-9
• Virtual War: Kosovo and Beyond , Picador, New York 2001, ISBN 0-312-27835-7
  • German: Virtual War. Kosovo and the consequences , Rotbuch, Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-434-53085-1
• The Rights Revolution (2000)
• Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry , Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ 2001, ISBN 0-691-11474-9
  • German: The politics of human rights , translated by Ilse Utz, European Publishing House , Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-434-50527-X
• Empire Lite: Nation-Building in Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan , Vintage, London 2004
  • German: Empire "light" , Europäische Verlagsanstalt, Hamburg 2003, ISBN 3-434-50567-9
• The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror , Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 2004, ISBN 0-7486-1872-4
  • German: The lesser evil. Political Morality in an Age of Terror , Philo, Hamburg and Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-86572-524-4
• American Exceptionalism and Human Rights , Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ 2005, ISBN 0-691-11648-2
• After Paradise (2007)
• True Patriot Love (2009)

Novels:

• Asya (1991)
  • German: Asja. Roman , translated by Werner Schmitz, Insel, Frankfurt am Main 1992
• Scar Tissue (1993)
  • German: The lights on the bridge of a sinking ship. History of a family , translated by Werner Schmitz, Insel, Frankfurt am Main 1995, ISBN 3-458-16684-X
• Charlie Johnson in the Flames (2005)

Scripts:

• Onegin (1999, with Peter Ettedgui )
• Nineteen Nineteen (1985, with Hugh Brody)

literature

• Peter C. Newman : When the Gods Changed: The Death of Liberal Canada . 2011.

Web links

Commons : Michael Ignatieff  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Michael Ignatieff in the catalog of the German National Library
• Michael Ignatieff in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Michael Ignatieff - biographical information on the website of the Canadian Parliament (English)
• Biography with a focus on writing
• Ignatieff in an interview about Isaiah Berlin

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ed Pilkington: He's been incredibly brave to take his ideas from the seminar room and try to apply them in practice. The Guardian , December 12, 2008, accessed September 25, 2009 . 
2. ↑ Michael Valpy: Being Michael Ignatieff. The Globe and Mail , April 6, 2009, accessed September 25, 2009 . 
3. ↑ CV Michael Ignatieff (2017). Retrieved May 23, 2018 . 
4. ↑ John Geddes: Rainmaker's Son Backs Ignatieff. Maclean's, September 4, 2006, accessed September 25, 2009 . 
5. ↑ Toronto group opposes Ignatieff's election bid. CTV , November 27, 2005, accessed September 25, 2009 . 
6. ↑ Campbell Clark, Jeff Sallot: Dion surges to victory, defeating Ignatieff. The Globe and Mail, December 2, 2008, accessed September 25, 2009 . 
7. ^ Ignatieff tapped as Liberal deputy leader. CBC News Online, December 18, 2006, accessed September 25, 2009 . 
8. ^ Les Whittington: Ignatieff vows a new course. Toronto Star , November 14, 2008, accessed September 25, 2009 . 
9. ^ Newly named Liberal Leader Ignatieff ready to form coalition. CBC News Online, December 10, 2008, accessed September 25, 2009 . 
10. ↑ Ignatieff slams Harper for 'failure to unite Canada'. CBC News Online, May 2, 2009; accessed September 25, 2009 . 
11. ↑ Canada watches its democracy erode. Theaustralian.com, March 30, 2011, accessed May 3, 2011 . 
12. ^ Ignatieff quits as Liberal leader. CBC News, March 30, 2011, accessed May 3, 2011 . 
13. ↑ ^{a b} Contemporary writers: Michael Ignatieff. (No longer available online.) British Council, 2002, archived from the original on September 4, 2006 ; accessed on September 26, 2009 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.   
14. ^ Michael Ignatieff: The Rights Revolution . House of Anansi Press, Toronto 2000, ISBN 0-88784-656-4 .
15. ↑ Michael Ignatieff: Empire Lite: Nation-Building in Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan . Vintage, New York 2003, ISBN 0-09-945543-9 .
16. ↑ Michael Ignatieff: The Year of Living Dangerously. The New York Times, March 14, 2004, accessed September 26, 2009 . 
17. ↑ Michael Ignatieff: The American Empire; the burden. The New York Times, January 5, 2003, accessed September 26, 2009 . 
18. ↑ Michael Ignatieff: Getting Iraq Wrong. The New York Times, August 5, 2007, accessed September 26, 2009 . 
19. ^ The Prospect / FP Top 100 Public Intellectuals. infoplease.com, accessed September 26, 2009 . 
20. ^ Lionel Gelber Prize ( Memento from June 29, 2011 in the Internet Archive ). University of Toronto. Retrieved September 26, 2009
21. ^ Worldbeaters: Michael Ignatieff. (No longer available online.) New Internationalist, 2005, archived from the original on October 6, 2009 ; accessed on September 26, 2009 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
22. ↑ Michael Ignatieff: Lesser Evils. The New York Times, May 2, 2004, accessed September 26, 2009 . 
23. ↑ Michael Ignatieff: If torture works… Prospect Magazine, April 2006, accessed on September 26, 2009 . 
24. ↑ F. Abbas Rana, Angelo Persichilli, Bea Vongdouangchanh: Afghanistan vote leaves federal Liberals flat-footed. The Hill Times, May 22, 2006, accessed September 26, 2009 . 
25. ^ The London Free Press: Challenges to unity many, Ignatieff says. May 20, 2006.