“If You Want to Be Russian Go to the United States”

Abstract

The latest and largest group of Russian immigrants arrived in the United States after 1983, when the Soviet Union collapsed. This was the first time in over seventy years that Russia's Jews were allowed to leave Russia. Unlike many other immigrants, this group had lived in a country where little or no contact had been allowed with the outside world. Not unlike Plato's characters living in a cave, the Russian Jews saw the outside world only as it had been portrayed in Russian propaganda. Mistrust of the Soviet regime led to fantasies and confusion about it.

Understanding this group of immigrants requires knowing something of Jewish life in Russia during the last hundred years. In an enclosed, totalitarian, oppressive society, individuals developed character traits that were necessary for survival. Some of these will be discussed in this article. Lack of knowledge on the part of the immigrants as well as on the part of American human services professionals has often led to culture shock for both groups. Misunderstandings, unrealistic expectations, and difficulties with language have caused frustration, anger, and hurt.

Increased cultural knowledge has been necessary to open up communication between immigrant clients and American service providers. Many signs have begun to point the way to different attitudes and greater     

“You Don’t Have to Ride Jim Crow”: the Freedom Riders of 1961 and the Dilemma of Mobility

This article offers an exploration of what it meant to move under “cramped conditions” for African Americans and their compatriots during an era of often violent racial discrimination and segregation in the 1950s and 1960s in the USA. As the example of the Freedom Rides shows, these conditions included both moments of closure and entrapment determined by the rule of law as well as acts of resistance resulting from a century-long legacy of resistances. Particularly, I try to understand the complex “constellations of mobility” as a fragile entanglement of the politics of movement, representations of movement, and the embodied practices of movement. This paper proposes an approach to mobility that takes both historical forms of mobilities and immobilities seriously. On the one hand, my analysis relates to regulatory power and technologies used by state and non-state actors in order to retain white privilege over issues of mobility during the period preceding and accompanying the Freedom Rides. On the other hand, I argue along the lines of “mobility as resistance” by showing the strategies used to transgress written and unwritten laws and normative standards of the Jim Crow era.     

Under Which Constitutional Arrangement Would You Still Prefer to be Unemployed? Neoliberalism,the Peace Process,and the Politics of Class in Northern Ireland

This article seeks to critically examine the political economy of the Northern Irish “peace process.” When the principal paramilitary organizations in the region declared cease-fires in 1994, it was widely assumed that political progress would be followed by economic prosperity. However, this “peace dividend” has never fully materialized. Those working-class communities that were at the center of the Troubles have derived little economic benefit over the last two decades. Indeed, if anything the already substantial class divisions in the six counties have become more pronounced over the course of the peace process. The article concludes by suggesting that these widening socioeconomic disparities have the potential to undermine the prevailing political settlement in Northern Ireland.     

Nationalist Jāhiliyyah and the Flag of the Two Crusaders,or: ISIS,Sovereignty, and the “Owl of Minerva”

This article argues that by understanding Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) state-building processes we are able to understand how ISIS has developed while also developing a united citizenship body built from people in Iraq and Syria and those making hijra. The fragmentation of Iraq and Syria resulted in conditions that would prove conducive to the group's expansion and identifying these conditions is imperative to understanding Sunni extremism in the Middle East. The article argues that ISIS builds citizenship in two ways: first, by developing asabiyya—group feeling—among Sunni and second, by securitizing the Shi'a threat. Identifying and engaging with the concepts of sovereignty and citizenship helps to develop much stronger policy responses.     

“Purity of Arms,” “Preemptive War,” and “Selective Targeting” in the Context of Terrorism: General,Conceptual, and Legal Analyses

Selective targeting (or targeted killing) of terrorist leaders is a legitimate mode of operation and part of a state's counterterrorism, anticipatory, self-defense activities that are designed to prevent the continuation of terrorism. Paradoxically, this counterterrorism measure is the best way of preserving the military ethical conventions of “purity of arms.” The concept refers to moral rules advocating the exercise of restraint and compassion in the course of a confrontation with the enemy. The “purity of arms” concept is debated extensively in democracies. Selective targeting of terrorist activists is a measure designed to hurt the real enemy while minimizing civilian casualties. Terrorist leaders and planners are targeted and an attempt is made, trying to avoid so far as possible, “collateral damage” that often accompanies any general military offensive. Customary international law permits targeting the enemy, provided that the criteria of necessity and proportionality of the attack are maintained. The relationship between the threat of terrorist attacks and the actual attacks carried out is shown in this study. The results contribute to reinforcing the legality of selective targeting as a preemptive mode of operation because they show that one should relate to a threat of an attack as to an imminent danger.     

Religious Intellectuals, the “Woman Question,” and the Struggle for the Creation of a Democratic Public Sphere in Iran

The ideas of the new generation of religious intellectuals in Iran have been the main engine for the call for reform. These intellectuals have attempted to locate their views about the way women are and should be treated in Islamic societies in their much broader—and to them more significant—attempt to offer a modernist religious understanding and a more democratic reading of the role of religion in modern polity. Iranian feminists, on the other hand, have begun to insist that the particular situation of women in Iran is in need of more attention. Religious intellectuals have responded by engaging in reluctant analysis of the way the woman question poses itself in the Iranian context. So far, their analyses fail to take into account the gender implications of the struggle against absolutism and traditional authority. However, the dynamic interaction of the reform project with demands and aspirations of various sectors of Iranian public life will not allow the issue to rest here. Religious intellectuals, in their attempt to recreate essential religious truth in the form of new intellectual concepts and systems, will increasingly have to deal with systemic gender inequalities in a more systematic manner.     

The emergence of the Kosovo “parallel state,” 1988–19921

David Saunders: Russia in the Age of Reaction and Reform 1801–1881, London‐New York: Longman 1992, xii, 386 S., £14.99. Longman History of Russia.

John D. Klier and Shlomo Lambroza, Pogroms: Anti‐Jewish Violence in Modern Russian History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993, xx, 393 pp. + ill., maps.

Kubiak, Hieronim, et al. (eds.) Mniejszosci Polskie i Polonia w ZSSR. Wroclaw‐Warszawa‐Krakow, Uniwersytet Jagielonski, Instytut Badan Polonistycznych: Osso‐lineum, 1992; 492 pp. + map.

Wzresinski,’ Wojciech (ed.) Polska‐Polacy‐Mniejszosci Narodowe. Wroclaw‐Warszawa‐Krakow: Ossolineum, 1992; 424 pp.

Jachymka, Jan (ed.) Mniejszosci Narodowe w Polskiej Mysli Politycznej XX Wieku. Lublin: Czas, 1992; 256 pp.

Marek Waldenberg. Kwestje Narodowe w Europie Srodkowo‐Wschodniej. Dzieje. Idee. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, 1992; 419 pp.

David Hundert, The Jews in a Polish Private Town: The Case of Opatow in the Eighteenth Century. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992, xvi, 242 pp. + ill.

Seppo Zetterberg: Finland After 1917, Helsinki: Otava Printing Works 1991. Translated from Finnish by Malcolm Hicks. 176 pp., FIM 135.

Derzhanii Tsentr Ukrains'koi Narodn'oi Respubliki v Ekzili: Stati i Materiiali (Kiiv, 1993), 476 pp., Index, n.p.

Jörgen Hedman/Lars Ahlander. Gammalsvenskby. Historien om Svenskarna i Ukraina [Gamsalsvenskby. The History of the Swedes in the Ukraine], Stockholm: Norstedts Forlag 1993, 351 S.

Dan V. Pleshoyano, Colonel Nicolae Plesoianu and the National Regeneration Movement in Walachia. Boulder CO: East European Monographs, 1991. x + 176 pp.

John F. N. Bradley, The Czechoslovak Legion in Russia, 1914–1920. Boulder, CO: East European Monographs (No. CCXXI); distributed by Columbia University Press, 1992, 156 pp.

Robert Aspeslagh, Hans Renner, Hans van der Meulen (Hrsg.), Mit einem Vorwort von Max van der Stoel, Im historischen Wurgegriff. Die Beziehungen zwischen Ungarn und der Slowakei in der Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunft, Baden‐Baden 1994, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 180 Seiten.

Georg Brunner/Hans Lemberg (ed.), Volksgruppen in Ostmittel‐ und Sudosteuropa, Baden‐Baden/Munchen 1994, (Südosteuropa‐Studien, Vol. 52), 58 DM.     

Fear of Islam in Greece: migration,terrorism, and “ghosts” from the past

The article explores the “fear of Islam” through a specific series of political debates about Islam and the future of the Greek-Orthodox national identity. The analysis is based on the method of qualitative content analysis, which makes use of thematic categories and draws on the proceedings of the Greek parliament. The main questions the article will try to address are: How have Greek political parties reacted to public demand for the construction of a mosque? What have been the rhetorical tropes they use? How have they capitalized on current and old fears about Islam? What have been the implications of this discourse on state policies toward Islam? Have there been any differences in this discourse over time? The analysis highlights the role of historical interpretations of Greek national identity and contemporary problems related to new waves of migration due to Greece’s place on the border with Turkey and with the broader Islamic world.     

What Does the “Terrorist” Label Really Do? Measuring and Explaining the Effects of the “Terrorist” and “Islamist” Categories

Many scholars and practitioners claim that labeling groups or individuals as “terrorists” does not simply describe them but also shapes public attitudes, due to the label's important normative and political charge. Yet is there such a “terrorist label effect”? In view of surprisingly scant evidence, the present article evaluates whether or not the terrorist label—as well as the “Islamist” one—really impacts both the audience's perception of the security environment and its security policy preferences, and if yes, how and why. To do so, the article implements a randomized-controlled vignette experiment where participants (N = 481) first read one out of three press articles, each depicting a street shooting in the exact same way but labeling the author of the violence with a different category (“terrorist”/“shooter”/“Islamist”). Participants were then asked to report on both their perceptions and their policy preferences. This design reveals very strong effects of both the “terrorist” and “Islamist” categories on each dimension. These effects are analyzed through the lenses of social and cognitive psychology, in a way that interrogates the use of the terrorist category in society, the conflation of Islamism with terrorism, and the press and policymakers' lexical choices when reporting on political violence.     

“Orbiting the Core”: Politics and the Meaning of Dialect in Chinese Linguistics, 1927–1957

In 1956, the Chinese Communist state launched its official language policy, which included the promulgation of a standard spoken language, called Putonghua. Their justification for this policy and their methods for implementation were guided by intellectual and ideological frameworks that formed during decades preceding the policy's rollout. In particular, Communist language reform was predicated on the conceptualization of Putonghua as a holistic language meant to serve the national body—and of local dialects, called fangyan in Chinese, as dependent on Putonghua for their very definition. This article interrogates the history of this framework. Focusing on dialect surveys from the 1930s, Chinese interpretations of Marxist linguistic theory in the early years of the Communist state, and methods of Putonghua promulgation in the late 1950s, this article reconstructs the epistemological regimes that gave meaning to the concept of independence and autonomy as they related to language in modern China.     

Do You Wish to Prosecute the Person Who Assaulted You?: Untested Sexual Assault Kits and Victim Notification of Rape Survivors Assaulted as Adolescents

In jurisdictions across the country, sexual assault kits (SAKs) have not been consistently submitted for testing and many cities are now submitting large quantities of SAKs for forensic DNA testing. As a result, some survivors will be asked to re-engage with the criminal justice system, a process that may raise complex issues for victims who were adolescents at the time of their assaults. The authors examine the experiences of 15 adolescent victims whose SAKs were not tested, and their decision-making pathways regarding reengagement with the criminal justice system years after the initial investigation. Findings reveal that characteristics of the initial assault, victim-blaming experiences, and the social support appear to be related to the decision to re-engage with law enforcement years after the initial assault. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.     

北极“百年”,暂且“文斗”

各方热衷"文斗"的主要原因是联合国特别委员会已经决定在2020年确定北极点周边地区的划分方法。     

“少年”中国,“老年”中国

<正>作为一个正在复兴的文明古国,如今的中国无疑是梁启超笔下的"少年中国"。而当人口老龄化问题向中国走来时,一个"老年中国"也在成真。国际上通常的看法是,当一个国家或地区60岁以上老年人口占人口总数的10%,或65岁以上老年人口占人口总数的7%,即意味着这个国家或地区的人口处于老龄化社会。据民政部发布的2009年民政事业发展统计报告,中国60岁及以上老年人口16714万人,比上年增长了4.53%,占全国总人口的12.5%。全国老龄工作委员会办公室     

“红丑闻”,“蓝丑闻”

近两三年来,共和党在桃色丑闻上急起直追,更糟糕的是不少共和党人有断袖之癖,加上新近一系列罗曼史,奠定了共和党在"好色"领域后来居上的领先地位。有趣的是,共和党桃色丑闻主角只要善于痛哭"悔罪",不难咸鱼翻身,而民主党主角则无此宽贷。     

1994,“珠三角”产权“革命”

在中国近15年的改革开放历程中,“先行一步”的珠江三角洲无疑是探索和创新的代名词。这块充满灵气的土地总是喷涌着说不完的新鲜话题,创造着举世皆惊的经济奇迹,散发出难以抵挡的独特魅力。不论是它的成功还是失误,似乎都能很自然地成为世人激动和兴奋的理由。 然而,1994年的春天,当人们的目光再次向珠江三角洲聚焦,透过繁华喧闹的外表,     

挖“文山”,填“会海”

“文山会海”,是当前机关的“公害”。我看原因有四个:第一,缺乏处理信息的能力;第二,缺乏传递信息的能力;第三,根本不重视信息;第四,信息传递手段落后。这就关系到我们某些领导干部的专业水平、口头及书面表达能力、与有关部门的沟通协调等,特别重要的是责任心。现代社会信息越来越多,单纯用精简会议、减少文件的办法来解决“文山会海”的问题,恐怕难以收到良好的效果。根本途径在于重