Discourses of the Vanishing: Modernity,Phantasm, Japan by Marilyn Ivy

Abstract

Discourses of the Vanishing has been anticipated for several years now; it won't disappoint. Despite the rising number of authors who seek to “explain” Japan or attack its essentialism, Ivy is one of the few who have the understanding of modernity and the methodological tools to excavate the celebration (Japanese and American) of Japan's “uniqueness.” Discourses is by far one of the most sophisticated inquiries into what Ivy calls—properly I believe—the “Japanese thing.” The juxtaposition between the singular, thing, and plural, discourses, suggests her overall theme: to discuss the always incomplete reconfigurations of the many pasts that have existed within the archipelago into a singular ideology of Japan.     

To loosen and bind: Khomeini,Rafsanjani, and supplementary governance in the Islamic Republic

ABSTRACT

Despite attention to Khomeini’s Guardianship of the Jurist (1970) and to Sunni iterations of ma?la?a, there is a dearth of Western scholarship on what Iranian scholars and journalists recognize as indispensable to governance in the Islamic Republic. With a comparative approach to modern perceptions of ma?la?a from inside and outside Iran, this article reveals a new perspective on how the outcome of debates in the earliest years of the Islamic Republic between the parliament and the Guardian Council went against the grain of traditional discussions on reconciling new laws with the shari‘a’s principles. Using academic literature, Sunni and Shi‘i jurisprudence, and, most significantly, one of Ayatullah Hashemi Rafsanjani’s (d. 2017) final interviews, this article shows that in these debates, Rafsanjani invoked the welfare of the state and national interest using the traditionally legal and limited concept of ma?la?a to justify new laws. Khomeini, on the other hand, re-imagined ma?la?a as necessary for Islamic Republic’s existence. Curiously, Khomeini’s re-imagining bears unexpected parallels with Jacques Derrida’s ‘supplement’, which, unlike ma?la?a, maintained human existence while the latter maintained political existence. Both ma?la?a and the supplement, however, provide a means and explanation for the defence of political and human existence during a real or perceived crisis.     

Japan's rights in Manchuria

The Chinese ‐ a Study of a Hong Kong Community. By Cornelius Osgood. University of Arizona Press, Tucson, Arizona, 1976 (3 vols.). Pp. 1264. Preface. Appendix. Illus‐. Index. $45.00.

The Government and Politics of Hong Kong. By N. J. Miners. Oxford University Press (East Asian Social Science Monographs), Hong Kong 1975; New York, Melbourne, London, 1976. Pp. xiv+288. Appendices, Bibliog. Index. £8.50 (£5.95 paperback).

Chinese Labour under British Rule. By Joe England and John Rear. Oxford University Press (East Asian Social Science Monographs) Hong Kong, 1975; New York, Melbourne, London, 1976. Pp. xvi+368. Appendices. Index. £10.00 (£7.50 paperback).     

Individuals,Parties and the Parliamentary Record in the 1690s

SUMMARY

In this article Colin Brooks reviews the historical writing of the last thirty years on British history between 1688 and 1714. This has offered a variety of interpretations which give priority to a number of different factors. The problem now facing historians is how to synthesize these interpretations into a coherent account. The article suggests that while it is possible to reconstruct from the surviving source materials what happened in the House of Commons, the incompleteness and the ambiguities of the evidence make it much more difficult to determine why it happened, or what were the motives of the individuals taking part. The nature of the source materials requires that they be interpreted with more caution than they have often received: they have as much to tell about individual perceptions as about what actually happened.     

The ignoble savage in urban Yerevan

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on a recent development in the Armenian capital, Yerevan, described by its urban population as a ruralization process. I explore what it means to call something or someone ‘rural’ or ‘urban’, and I compare the social category of ‘rural people’ with the social category of the (old) urban intelligentsia. This includes an analysis and reconsideration of the traditional ‘nature–culture dichotomy’ and its meaning for the architecture and urban planning of Yerevan. It also interrogates the classification of people into newcomers from the countryside, urban dwellers, new elites, and young men called rabiz.     

Securing Hong Kong’s identity in the colonial past: strategic essentialism and the umbrella movement

ABSTRACT

The Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong is the most radical political movement to have taken place in the former British colony since 1967 anti-colonial demonstrations. Using empirical evidence obtained from activists who participated in the Umbrella Movement, this paper explains how Hong Kong’s youth are looking simultaneously to both the past and future to secure their identity in the colonial past even as some hope to achieve ultimate secession from Mainland rule. Racism and anti-Mainland hostilities in Hong Kong are the result of nostalgia and the insurrectionary impulse akin to the millenarianism of social movements founded on suffering and loss that continually seek the recovery of pasts of which they are now deprived. We illuminate how, to young activists, the Umbrella Movement presents hope for a future embedded in the past that remains one the territory and former colony may still aspire toward.     

The prostitute

Migrant domestic workers rarely take part in — let alone organize — public protests in the countries where they work. Public protests are virtually unheard of among migrant domestic workers in Singapore, Taiwan, and Malaysia, and especially in the Middle East and the Gulf States. Over the past decade and a half, however, migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong — mostly Filipinas and Indonesian women — have become highly active, organizing and participating in political protests. Hong Kong's migrant domestic workers protest in a place where they are guest workers and temporary migrants, denied the opportunity of becoming legal citizens or permanent residents. Increasingly, these workers, their grassroots activist organizations, and the nongovernmental organizations with which they are affiliated frame their concerns in terms of global, transnational, and human rights, not merely local migrant worker rights. This article takes the “Consulate Hopping Protest and Hall of Shame Awards” event — part of the anti-World Trade Organization protests in Hong Kong in 2005 — as an ethnographic example of domestic worker protest and as an entrée through which to ask what it is about Hong Kong and about the position of women migrant workers — whose mobility and voice is both a product and a symptom of globalization — that literally permits public protests and shapes their form and content. The article illustrates how migrant workers’ protests and activism have been shaped by domestic worker subjectivities, by the dynamics of inter-ethnic worker affiliations, and by the sociohistorical context of Hong Kong as a post-colonial “global city” and a “neoliberal space of exception.”     

China and Competing Cooperation in Asia-Pacific: TPP,RCEP, and the New Silk Road

Abstract

A big question looming large over policy and theory in Asian security is how China will use its newfound wealth and power in the region and with what consequences. The United States has concluded the negotiation of Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP); ASEAN has promoted the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). Both frameworks seek to shape China’s regional behavior and manage rising China. In late 2013, China inaugurated the new Silk Road initiative, which has rapidly gained momentum in the country and among China’s neighbors. American public and policy makers, however, are largely unaware or baffled by the new Silk Road. The article, based on field surveys and extensive documentary analysis, provides the first roadmap on how China views TPP, RCEP, and the new Silk Road. It offers important exploration of how China acts and reacts to regional contestation and what are implications for the region.     

Annual general meeting, 1967

General

Imperial Sunset. Volume 1: Britain's Liberal Empire 1897–1921. By Max Beloff. London, Methuen, 1969. Pp. 387. Maps. Chronology. Index. £3.25.

United Nations Peacekeeping, 1946–1967. Documents and Commentary. Part 2: Asia. By Rosalyn Higgins. London, Oxford University Press for Chatham House, 1970. Pp. xviii+486. Maps. Bibliog. Index. £4.50.

Colonialism in East‐West Relations: A Study of Soviet Policy towards India and Anglo‐Soviet Relations 1:0.17–1047. By Zafar Imam. New Delhi, Eastman Publications, 1969. Pp. xii+531. Bibliog. Index. Rs. 40.

India and the Soviet Union: The Nehru Era. By Arthur Stein. Chicago and London, University of Chicago Press, 1969. Pp. xiv+320. Bibliog. Index. £4.30.

Studies in Asian History: Proceedings of the Asian History Congress, 1961. Edited by K. S. Lal. London, Asia Publishing House, 1969. Pp. 530. Appendices. £4.25.

That Untravelled World. An autobiography. By Eric Shipton. London, Hodder &; Stoughton, 1969. Pp. 286. Illus. Maps. Index. £2.25.

Religion

The Bhagavad‐Gita (first six chapters). Translated by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. London, Penguin Books, 1970.

Eastern Religion and Western Thought. By S. Radakrishnan. London, Oxford Paperback 1970 (first pubd. 1939).

Dimensions of Islam. By Frithjof Schuon, translated by P. N. Townsend. London, Allen and Unwin, 1970. Pp. 167. Index. £1.75.

Buddhism, a Non‐Theistic Religion. By Helmuth von Glasenapp, translated by Irmgard Schloegl. London, Allen &; Unwin, 1970. Pp. 208. Glossary. Index. £2.

Christian and Hindu Ethics. By Shivesh Chandra Thakur. London, Allen &; Unwin, 1969. Pp. 216. Bibliog. Index. £2.40.

The Indian Theogony. By Sukumari Bhattacharji. London, Cambridge University Press, 1970. Pp. 397. Bibliog. Index. £7.

The Buddhist Revival in China. By Holmes Welch; photographs by Henri Cartier‐Bresson. London, OUP for Harvard University Press. 1970. Pp. 385. Maps. Illus. Bibliog. Index. £5.75.

Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi. By Henry Corbin, translated by Robert Manheim. London, Routledge, 1970. Pp. 406. Illus. Bibliog. Index. £4.75.

The Field of Zen. By Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, edited by Christmas Humphreys. London, The Buddhist Society, 1969. Pp. xvii+105. Illus. Index. £1.05.

South Asian Politics and Religion. Edited by Donald Eugene Smith. London, OUP for Princeton University Press, 1970 (first issued 1966). Pp. 563. Index. £1.75.

The Politics of Untouchability: Social Mobility and Social Change in a City of India. By Owen M. Lynch. New York and London, Columbia University Press, 1970. Pp. 251. Maps. Illus. Glossary. Bibliog. Index.

Religion, Law, and the State in India. By J. Duncan M. Derrett. London, Faber and Faber, 1968. Pp. 615. Bibliog. Indexes. £4.50.

Middle East

The Middle East in Revolution. By Humphrey Trevelyan. London, Macmillan, 1970. Pp. 266. Index. £3.25.

The Game of Nations. The Amorality of Power Politics. By Miles Copeland. London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1969. Pp. 272. Bibliog. Index. £2.50.

Army Officers in Arab Politics and Society. By Eliezer Be'eri. London, Praeger, Pall Mall Press. 1970. Pp. 514. Illus. Bibliog. Index. £4.

The Chatham House Version and other Middle Eastern Studies. By Elie Kedourie. London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1970. Pp. 488. Bibliog. Index. £3.75.

The Struggle for the Middle East, 1958–68. By Walter Laqueur. London, Routledge &; Kegan Paul, 1969. Pp. 351. Index. £2.50.

East and West of Suez: the Suez Canal in History 1854–1956. By D. A. Farnie. Oxford, Clarendon Press 1969. Pp. 860. Maps. Bibliog. Index. £8.40.

An Arab Common Market. A Study in Inter‐Arab Trade Relations, 1920–67. By Alfred G. Musrey. New York, Frederick A. Praeger; London, Pall Mall Press, 1969. Pp. 274. Bibliog. £6.25.

The Life and Works of Jahiz. Edited by Charles Pellat; translated from French by D. M. Hawke. London, Routledge, 1969. Pp. xiv+286. Glossary. £3.15.

A Time in Arabia. By Doreen Ingrams. London, John Murray, 1970. Pp. 160. Map. Index. £2.25.

Middle Eastern Cities: a symposium on Ancient, Islamic, and Contemporary Urbanism. Edited by Ira M. Lapidus. Los Angeles &; London, University of California Press, 1969. Pp. 206. Index. £2.85.

The Islamic City: a colloquium. Edited by A. H. Hourani and S. M. Stern. London, Faber for Bruno Cassirer and University of Pennsylvania Press, 1970. Pp. 222. Maps. Illus. £2.10.

Palmyra: text by Kazimierz Michalowski, photographs by Andrzej Dziewanowski. London, Pall Mall Press, 1970. Pp. 129. Illus. £2.40.

Current British Research in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies. Compiled by Dr. Peter Beaumont. University of Durham, Centre for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, 1969. Pp. 89. Indices. £0.40 or $1.

A History of Persia. By Sir Percy Sykes. London, Routledge &; Kegan Paul, 1969 (3rd edn.) 2 vols: Pp. xxxix+563; xvii+616. Maps. Illus. Index. £7.50.

Persia. Introduction by James Morris. Photographs by Roger Wood. Notes on the Plates by Denis Wright. London, Thames &; Hudson, 1969. Pp. 216. Illus. Map. Index. £3.15.

Indian Sub Continent

Curzon in India. Volume Two: Frustration. By David Dilks. London, Rupert Hart‐Davis, 1970. Pp. 307. Illus. Bibliog. Index. £3.

Sardar Patel. By D. V. Tahmankar. Foreword by Lord Mountbatten. London, Allen &; Unwin, 1970. Pp. 299. Index. £3.

A View from New Delhi. By Chester Bowles. New Haven &; London, Yale University Press, 1970. Pp. 268. £1.40 (paper 90 np.)

The Partition of India ‐ Policies and Perspectives, 1935–1947. Edited by C. H. Philips and Mary Doreen Wainwright. London, Allen &; Unwin, 1970. Pp. 607. Maps. Bibliog. Index. £5.50.

National Communication and Language Policy in India. By Baldev Raj Nayer. NY, Praeger; London, Pall Mall, 1969. Pp. 310. Index. Bibliog. £5.25.

Opposition in a Dominant Party System. A study of the JanaSangh, Praja Socialist, and Socialist Parties in Uttar Pradesh, India. By Angela S. Burger. Berkeley, University of California Press, 1969. Pp. 325. £4.05.

Jana Sangh. A Biography of an Indian Political Party. By Craig Baxter. London, OUP for University of Pennsylvania Press, 1970. Pp. 352. Maps. Bibliog. Index. £6.

Land Control and Social Structure in Indian History. Edited by Robert E. Frykenberg. Madison, Wis., University of Wisconsin Press, 1969. Pp. x+256. Index. $10; £4.75.

Trade and Empire in Western India 1784–1806. By Pamela Nightingale. London, CUP, 1970. Pp. 264. Bibliog. Index. Maps. £3.5.

The Nagas in the Nineteenth Century. By Verrier Elwin. London, Oxford University Press (printed in India), 1969. Pp. xii+650. Illus. Map. £4.80.

The Nadars of Tamilnad: The Political Culture of a Community in Change. By Robert L. Hardgrave Jr. Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1969. Pp. xiv+314. Illus. Bibliog. Index. £4.20.

A Garland for E. M. Forster. Edited by H. H. Anniah Gowda. Mysore, The Literary Half‐Yearly, 1969. Pp. 132 + viii.

Southeast Asia

Sukarno and the Struggle for Indonesian Independence. By Bernard Dahm. Translated from the German by Mary F. Somers Heidhues. Ithaca &; London, Cornell University Press, 1969. Pp. 374. Glossary. Bibliog. Index. £7.15.

The Broken Triangle: Peking, Djakarta and the PKI. By Sheldon W. Simon. Baltimore, The John Hopkins Press, 1969. Pp. 210. Glossary. Index. £3.30.

The United States and Malaysia. By James W. Gould. London, OUP for Harvard University Press, 1969. Pp. xi+267. Index. £3.30.

The French Presence in Cochin‐China and Cambodia ‐ Rule and Response (1895–1905). By Milton E. Osborne. Ithaca and London. Cornell University Press, 1969. Pp. 379. Illus. Bibliog. Index. £4.55.

Vietnam and China 1938–1954. By King C. Chen. London, OUP for Princeton University Press, 1969. Pp. 436. Maps. Bibliog. Index. £6.

Burma. By F. S. V. Donnison. Pp. 263. Illus. Bibliog. London, Ernest Benn, 1970. £2.50.

China

The Transformation of the Chinese Earth: Perspectives on Modern China. By Keith Buchanan. London, G. Bell &; Sons, 1970. Pp. xviii+321. Tables. Plates. Maps. Cartograms. Bibliog. Index. £3.25.

A Study of Chinese Communes 1965. By Shahid Javed Burki. Harvard East Asian Monographs no. 29. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1969. Pp. xvi+97. Tables. Index. $3.50.

Communist China's Agriculture. Its Development and Future Potential. By Owen L. Dawson. New York, Praeger; London, Pall Mall Press, 1970. Pp. xvii+317. £6.25.

Domestic Animals of China. By H. Epstein. Farnham Royal, Bucks., Commonwealth Agricultural Bureaux, 1969. Pp. 164. Bibliog. Plates. Index. £4.

Family and Kinship in Chinese Society. Edited by Maurice Freedman. London, OUP for Stanford University Press, 1970. Pp. 269. Index. £3.75.

Records of the Historian: Chapters from the Shih Chi of Ssu‐Ma Ch'ien, translated by Burton Watson. New York &; London, Columbia University Press, 1970. Pp. 356. £2.

Chinese Communist Politics in Action: edited by A. Doak Barnett. Seattle and London, University of Washington Press, 1969. Pp. 620. Illus. Index. £5.95 (cloth), £1.80 (paper).

Studies in the Social History of China and Southeast Asia. Essays in memory of Victor Purcell. Edited by Jerome Ch'en and Nicholas Tarling. Memoir by Sybille Van der Sprenkel. Cambridge University Press, 1970. Pp. 424. £4.50.

Sun Yat Sen and the Origins of the Chinese Revolution. By Harold Z. Schiffrin. Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1968. Pp. 412. Maps. Glossary. Bibliog. Index. £4.55.

The Cave Temples of Maichishan. By Michael Sullivan and Dominique Dubois. With an account of the 1958 expedition to Maichishan by Anil de Silva. London, Faber &; Faber, 1969. Pp. 77 + 104 of plates. £8.50.

Muscovite and Mandarin: Russia's Trade with China and its Setting, 1727–1805. By Clifford M. Foust. London, OUP for North Carolina Press, 1970. Pp. 424. Maps. Illus. Bibliog. Index. £4.75.

Far East

The Foreign Policy of North Korea. By Byung Chul Koh. NY, Praeger; London, Pall Mall Press 1969. Pp. xxi + 237. Charts. Bibliog. £5.20.

Book Pirating in Taiwan. By David Kasser. London. OUP for University of Philadelphia Press, 1969. Pp. 149. Index. £3.15.

Footprints in the Snow. By Kenjiro Tokutomi, translated and with biographical introduction by Kenneth Strong. London, Allen &; Unwin, 1970. Pp. xlvi+326. £3.25.

How the Conservatives Rule Japan. By Nathaniel B. Thayer. London, OUP for Princeton University Press, 1969. Pp. 349. Glossary. Bibliog. Index. £4.75.

The Izumi Shikibu Diary. Translated by Edwin A. Cranston. London, OUP for Harvard University Press 1970. Pp. 332. Bibliog. Indexes. £6.     

Colonial education and the shaping of Islamism in Sudan, 1946–1956

Abstract

This article assesses the role of British colonial education in Condominium Sudan in shaping the mindsets of Sudan’s first generation of Islamists between 1946 and 1956. Drawing on post-colonial theorists such as Nandy and Bhabha, it contends that the experiences of the pioneers of Sudan’s Islamic movement at institutions such as Gordon Memorial College and Hantoub Secondary School moulded their understandings of both ‘modernity’ and ‘tradition’. As a result of their colonial education, Islamists deployed discourses concerning both ‘progress’ and ‘cultural authenticity’ that bore remarkable parallels with colonial essentialism, even as they announced a decisive break with the colonial past. Much like the conventional nationalists, they used the space created by the colonial educational institutions to establish an ideological community that transcended the narrow ethnic and regional divides previously fostered by the British. At the same time, Islamists and colonialists alike shared a contempt for Marxists and ‘deculturated’ effendis, and Muslim Brothers’ aspirations to escape the ‘English jahiliyya’, however counter-intuitive this may seem, bore similarities with the worldviews of colonial officials concerned with preventing what they saw to be the excessive impact of urbanization and modern education on Sudan.     

The Great Game and the evolving nature of political talk shows on Russian television

ABSTRACT

Much has been written about the specific way in which the Russian government under President Vladimir V. Putin uses television to propagate pro-government views on domestic and international politics by influencing what is aired. This paper examines the first season of The Great Game (Bol’shaya Igra in Russian), a television talk show that appears on Russia’s national television network Channel One, as an example of the government’s effort to shape public opinion. A content analysis suggests The Great Game differs from the typical Russian talk show genre in that it delivers political messages without much entertainment, providing cerebral discussions of issues that nonetheless back up all nine of the core “neoconservative” concepts underlying recent Russian political strategy. This suggests that the Russian government and television executives innovate to determine how best to use television to win over skeptical citizens to the Kremlin’s point of view.     

Review essay: Agrarian transformation,agrarian struggles,and Marxist analyses of the peasantry

Abstract

After some years of living in an Indian village, on family land that by the standards of most Marxist scholars puts us in the category of “capitalist farmers” or “kulaks,” I find myself taking scholarly discussion of “agrarian transformation” and “agrarian class structure” quite personally. There is something that jars against the reality of a daily life that includes hauling water for household use in the morning, enduring frequent blackouts or “load sheddings,” trying to decide whether to purchase first a TV or a refrigerator or a washing machine and not really being able to afford any of them, to be told that in moving from a salaried position in a U.S. university to an Indian village one has made a class jump upwards, from a section of the “expanded working class” or at worst “petty bourgeoisie” to membership among the capitalists and even (according to some scholars) participation in India's “ruling bloc.”     

The Prisoner Dilemma: Britain,Germany, and the Repatriation of Indian Prisoners of War

Abstract

Between October 1914 and December 1915, nearly 135,000 Indian riflemen—known as sepoys—fought in the trenches of France and Belgium at the battles of Ypres, Festubert, Givenchy, Neuve Chapelle, Second Ypres and Loos, suffering some 34,252 casualties. At a prisoner of war camp outside Berlin, Indian revolutionaries and emissaries from the Ottoman Empire attempted to convert the allegiances of the sepoys in their custody with a combination of pan-Islamic and nationalist appeals. Although this campaign ultimately failed, it profoundly shaped British repatriation policy at the end of the war when, cautioned Secretary of State for India Austen Chamberlain, the British could not allow men who had been exposed to ‘strongly hostile influences’ to return home unmonitored. The 1918 armistice and British repatriation policy therefore presented a host of new challenges to Britain’s colonial subjects from South Asia as they navigated the post-war imperial landscape and secured what was most important to them—safe transportation home.     

Islam and politics in a Malay state: Kelantan 1838–1969

Abstract

The contention of this book is that it is necessary to study political activity at the level of the common individual. This position is in clear contrast to the common assumption that individuals are ineffectual in asserting their political rights, unaware of political issues and unimportant in the course of national history. Bowen has aimed his study deliberately at the actions and associations of the commoners involved in the Meiji popular rights movement. He focuses upon three gekka jiken (“incidents of intensified violence”)—the Fukushima Incident of 1882 and the Kabasan and Chichibu incidents of 1884—seeking “to learn why they happened; what they tell about general social, economic, and political conditions; and what consequences they had for society and politics as a whole” (p. 6).     

Mass media and politics in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region

Before the transfer of sovereignty of Hong Kong from Britain to the People's Republic of China, many people of Hong Kong and observers were pessimistic regarding freedom of the press in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR). After July 1, 1997, however, press freedom in the HKSAR appears to persist and it seems as if the optimistic scenario of media autonomy has been neglected by many Hong Kong residents and observers. Nevertheless, media autonomy in the HKSAR is dependent on a number of factors. This article suggests that a contingency perspective can be adopted to comprehend the dynamics of media autonomy in the HKSAR.     

Islam,radicalism, and violence in Southern Thailand: Berjihad di Patani and the 28 April 2004 attacks

Abstract

Violence in Thailand's deep South centers on Muslim unrest, which has been simmering since World War II. What was once a low-level secessionist insurgency has now developed into a full-scale conflict and violent campaign that has claimed hundreds of lives in the three southern border provinces. This amounts to the most serious political violence in recent Thai history. The main argument of this article is that the separatist struggle, which was initially based on a Malay national liberation struggle, has taken on undertones of a radical Islamist ideology, and the discourse of the separatist struggle has significantly shifted to that of radical Islamist politics by calling for a jihad against the Thai state, its local agents, and their Muslim allies. This shift is exemplified by a document entitled Berjihad di Patani, which appears to have helped inspire the violent incidents of 28 April 2004. To a large extent, what is happening in southern Thailand follows similar developments elsewhere, both at the regional level and in other parts of the Muslim world. Factors affecting the changing discourse and practice of the separatist politics are both external and internal: the failures of secularist development projects in the past decades, the influence of Islamic radicalism abroad, and the Islamic resurgence and fragmentation of religious establishment at home.     

Introduction to “two languages,two souls”

Abstract

Morisaki Kazue is a poet, essayist, and chronicler of the lives and histories of Japan's minorities. One of her recent books, Karayuki-san (Asahi Shimbun, 1976), an oral history of the lives of the prostitutes who followed the Japanese armed forces during World War II, became a widely praised bestseller. The article that follows describes what must be understood as the central experience in Ms. Morisaki's life: her birth and childhood in Korea and the permanent influence this had on the structure of her life and thought.     

Father,son, and holy ghost: Pye,Solomon, and the ‘spirit of Chinese politics’

Abstract

Mao's Revolution and the Chinese Political Culture structurally is two books. The first (parts I and II pp. 1-159) is a discussion of Chinese psychological characteristics based on the author's 1966 dissertation for MIT, The Chinese Revolution and the Politics of Dependency: The Struggle for Change in a Traditional Political Culture. The second (parts III and IV pp. 160-526) is a competent if somewhat narrow think-tank piece written in 1969 on the Hundred Flowers, the Great Leap, and the early phase of the Cultural Revolution.     

Taiwan: National Identity and Democratization,by Alan M. Wachman

Abstract

How does the national identity problem affect the process of democratization? Is consensus on national identity a prerequisite for democratization? Alan Wachman writes about the most intractable problem in Taiwan and its implications for understanding democratization in general. He contends that previous studies suggesting the importance of a consensus on national identity for building a democratic system are inapplicable to Taiwan. From 1991 to 1993 Wachman interviewed prominent political figures and scholars of various backgrounds in Taiwan regarding five general questions: (I) Is it possible to distinguish between Chinese culture and Taiwanese culture? What are the sources of cultural identity for Taiwanese and Mainlanders? (2) How should we regard China in the present era? Is it a culture, a people, or a place? (3) To what degree is democracy compatible with Chinese culture? (4) How should the matter of Taiwan's political status be resolved? Is democracy a means or an end? (5) To what degree does the inability to resolve the matter of national identity impede the development of democracy in Taiwan?     

The attentive spectators: Political participation of the Hong Kong Chinese

Based on a large-scale territory-wide questionnaire survey, this study purports to delineate the pattern of political participation of the Hong Kong Chinese. It is found that though the overall level of participation remains low, political activism has nonetheless increased since the early 1980s. Political participation in Hong Kong is primarily parochial and conventional in nature, yet there also exists a significant expressive and unconventional component. The mode of participation is fragmented and largely individualistic. Hong Kong Chinese are increasingly inclined to take collective actions, but participation mobilized by political groups is still limited. Hong Kong Chinese however pay much attention to politics. In view of the coexistence of high cognitive participation and low behavioral participation, Hong Kong Chinese can be appropriately described as “attentive spectators.” He is the author ofSociety and Politics in Hong Kong (1982) andHong Kong Politics in the Transitional Period (in Chinese, 1993)