Radical, Dissident, Scholar, Spy: 50 years of Amsterdam’s Transnational Institute
Paris, October 1972. American-Parisian Susan George stepped under the ornate canopy of the Closerie des Lilas, a renowned haunt of Hemingway and Lenin. Her meeting that night would lead to the creation of a radical research institute that has continuously contributed to the evolution of progressive thinking around the world for 50 years – and it still exists right here in Amsterdam.
George had arranged a special dinner that night, with former White House staffer Marcus Raskin and State Department lawyer Richard Barnet. Also present were philanthropist Samuel Rubin and French political figures and intellectuals, all of whom opposed the war in Vietnam.
Raskin and Barnet had left the Kennedy Administration and founded the Washington DC based Institute for Policy Studies so they could more freely “speak truth to power.” Working with Susan George, they wanted to internationalize their efforts. Since then, the Transnational Institute (TNI) has weathered political assassinations and espionage scandals and earned a place at the vanguard of left-wing thinking.
Formally founded in Amsterdam in 1974, TNI has played host to notable names like Salman Rushdie, James Baldwin, Jonathan Steele, Thabo Mbeki and Ariel Dorfman. Former staff and fellows include several award-winning artists and documentary makers, as well as a former Prime Minister of Jamaica.
By the 1990s, many veterans of the Amsterdam squatters movement had become workers and associates of TNI, shaping its ethos and culture.
TNI has always been international, with deep roots in the Global South, but also very much in Amsterdam. Throughout its history, it has hosted events at Amsterdam (alternative) landmarks such as Filmhuis Cavia, De Balie, the American Book Centre, the Melkweg and Pakhuis de Zwijger. Its abundant archives are based at Amsterdam’s International Institute of Social History. By the 1990s, many veterans of the Amsterdam squatters movement had become workers and associates of TNI, shaping its ethos and culture.
Today, it is a hub of transformative new ideas about everything from the climate crisis to anti-racism to reforming international drug law. The institute’s staff frequently provides expert consultation to governments and international institutions, including Canada, Uruguay, Colombia, the European Parliament, and the UN office on drugs and crime.
Arguably, TNI’s biggest strength is its power to bring together activists and scholars, connecting the dots between justice issues such as climate, militarism, human rights and corporate power.
Its history evolved in parallel with the rise of neoliberalism, the end of the Cold War, and the emergence of the alter-global movements. Hundreds of people have found their political and intellectual home at TNI. Among them are radicals, dissidents, scholars and, yes, even spies.
Eqbal Ahmed, TNI’s first director, was a writer and activist from Pakistan. He was a participant in the Algerian revolution and was once accused of plotting to kidnap Henry Kissinger. He began the work of TNI with a whirlwind trip across Europe. He invited promising writers from around the world to become fellows, including Booker prize-winner John Berger, specialists like John Gittings, Richard Gott, Ernst Utrecht, Fred Halliday, Tariq Ali, Race and Class editor A. Sivanandan, Teodor Shanin, co-founder of the Journal of Peasant Studies, Luciana Castellina, co-founder of Il Manifesto, and Open Democracy founder Anthony Barnett. This international network of scholar-activists committed to social change, typifies TNI to this day.
Samuel Rubin, who attended that first dinner with Susan George, was a Moldovan Jewish émigré to the USA. Along with his daughter Cora, who was very involved with the anti-Vietnam war effort, and his son-in-law Peter Weiss, an activist against nuclear weapons, Rubin was instrumental in sustaining and guiding TNI in its first decades.
Orlando Letelier, TNI’s second director, was a member of Salvador Allende’s government in Chile before the coup. His impressive career as a politician, diplomat and activist was brutally extinguished when he was assassinated on Pinochet’s orders in Washington, DC.
Susan George, who convened the Paris meeting that created TNI in the first place, is TNI’s president today. Her works such as The Debt Trap, How the Other Half Dies and The Lugano Report led to a BBC series and brought about a paradigm shift in the study of poverty, trade and power.
For years, Satoko Kishimoto coordinated TNI’s work on public alternatives for essential services like water and energy. In 2022, she was elected as the first female mayor of Suginami, Tokyo.
Tom Nairn, an early and prescient advocate of European reform, shaped modern Scottish independence movements and was a key figure in the British New Left.
Hilary Wainwright, a journalist and academic, is co-founder of Red Pepper magazine, and was Ken Livingstone’s Deputy Chief Economic Advisor to the Greater London Council.
Basker Vashee, a Zimbabwean campaigner, imprisoned for his resistance to Ian Smith and white minority rule, was a pioneer of the student movement, and TNI’s second-longest serving director.
TNI had a feminist project in the 1980s involving Cynthia Enloe, Wendy Chapkis, Eileen Utrecht, Sheila Rowbotham and other leading figures of the second wave of feminism in the US and Europe. Since Fiona Dove became Executive Director in the 1990s, the organisation has been female-led.
Though neither staff nor a fellow, TNI sheltered the controversial CIA whistle blower Philip Agee, author of Inside the Company, which exposed the US government’s complicity with torture and political crimes in Latin America.
Every day, TNI staff communicate with allies globally, co-creating plans and sharing analysis, connections, and international policy access for social movements to challenge entrenched power and pursue real alternatives.
TNI has significantly influenced international drug policy developments and brought together growers of prohibited crops globally. Its efforts against corporate power and impunity have halted unjust trade treaties and spurred a UN process for real international regulation of transnational corporations. Over the past two decades, the institute has helped catalyse and connect movements working to reclaim and democratise public services through public-community relationships. TNI’s roots in anti-war movements persist, providing research on militarism and exposing the border industry. And it continues to support small-scale food producers to defend their land and resource rights.
Over the past two decades, the institute has helped catalyse and connect movements working to reclaim and democratise public services through public-community relationships.
Today is a time of great ferment. We are witnessing the decimation of the Palestinian people by the Israeli military, obscene levels of inequality and corporate monopolisation, and an existentially threatening environmental crisis. Popular discontent is manifesting in a far rightward shift, including here in the Netherlands. The struggles the world faces today are certainly no less daunting than those of the 1970s.
TNI continues its mission to work with people and movements around the world to address those struggles. Throughout 2024, the institute will stage events and happenings to celebrate its 50th year and to meet new people. Visit tni.org, Twitter @TNInstitute, or on instagram at @transnationalinstitute to help, in whatever way you can, give voice and movement to real alternatives.