THE CREOLE MALAISE IN MAURITIUS

Although they are the most geographically close to their continentof origin, the African diasporas of the Indian Ocean are amongthe most culturally remote from it. In Mauritius, where a highlydeveloped form of multicultural pluralism has become the modusvivendi of the ‘rainbow society’, Creoles of Africandescent have developed the weakest sense of group identity amongthe various components of island society. Yet for that veryreason Creoles are arguably the ‘most Mauritian’of islanders: they alone trace their origins and ancestral languagepurely to their island of birth. In a society where the senseof nationhood is so weak this may be more of a handicap thanan asset. Only in recent years has a sense of Creoleness begun to develop,one which incorporates Africanity. The Creole programme includesa reinterpretation of the meaning of slavery in modern societyand attempts to give the anniversary of abolition the statusof a national holiday. It also encourages the recognition ofAfrican folkways in island culture. It does so, however, inthe face of anti-African prejudices, shared by many Creolesthemselves. Extension of nascent trade and business linkageswith the African mainland is critical to correcting the currentCreole malaise.     

Exemptions from Compulsory Income Management: A Short “History of the Present”

The historical study of exemptions has focused on escape from protectionist policies designed to control and monitor Aboriginal people in Australia — restricting their freedom of movement, intruding into their family life, and reducing their ability to participate on equal terms in the labour force. In this paper, we consider a contemporary policy — income management — which primarily restricts the freedom to dispose of personal income and has targeted Aboriginal people and communities, both directly and indirectly. Provisions for individual exemptions have been incorporated inconsistently within the many iterations of income management, and Aboriginal people are significantly less likely than others to be granted an exit from this form of financial control. The study reported here is an example of mixed-methods social research, rather than an historiography. We use techniques of historical comparison to illuminate contemporary practices and identify the ongoing influence of settler-colonial governance in the lives of Aboriginal people.     

Another Form of Aboriginal Exemption — Employment as Protection Against Removal

The Queensland Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897, which introduced the system of exemption certificates, also initiated another form of “exemption” — one based on employment. The Act permitted “lawfully employed” Aboriginal people to be “excepted” from forcible removal to reserves. Those placed on an Aboriginal reserve faced a restrictive life of disconnection from Country, kin networks, and traditional practices and way of life. Many Aboriginal people found employment in the pastoral industry and thus avoided the Act's provision of removal to a reserve. This paper interrogates government records and reports to provide an understanding of the development and implementation of this legislation and the racial ideologies underpinning it. The 1898 diary of a Queensland pastoralist who employed Aboriginal men on his station is also examined to obtain an understanding of the roles, experiences, and position of Aboriginal people in the pastoral industry during this period. These findings reveal that despite hardships faced in the pastoral industry, Aboriginal people found advantages in this form of employment. Through their highly sought-after pastoral skills and expertise, and strategic engagement with Europeans, Aboriginal people excelled in the pastoral industry, and many achieved significant levels of freedom and success.     

Palestinian Political Prisoners: Hunger Strikes and the Battle for Dignity

Thousands of Palestinians have been imprisoned in Israeli jails since 1948, reflecting an objective of Israel's occupation of Palestine to break the spirit of Palestinians in their struggle for liberation. A form of protest often undertaken by Palestinians in response to their political imprisonment is hunger strike. Indeed, when considered in relation to governance as an enactment of power upon people in prison, hunger strikes are an attempt of powerless prisoners to exercise some level of power over their circumstances. Concepts around hunger strike as form of protest are complex and multidimensional, and may reflect the interests of an individual or group, and/or speak more to the broader rights of people. Of interest to this study is the relationship between hunger strike and human dignity as manifest as a form of protest by Palestinians incarcerated in Israeli jails. Specifically, this study aimed to investigate the extent to which the concept of human dignity is a fundamental principle guiding Palestinian political prisoners' initial decision to hunger strike and then to continue to hunger strike. To facilitate the investigation, a stratified sampling approach was used to support the collection of quantitative data via a survey of 29 expolitical prisoners who had participated in hunger strikes during their imprisonment in Israeli jails. The collected data were related to three core dimensions of the protest construct: motivations for undertaking the protest (hunger strike); personal feelings when undertaking protest; and the experienced responses to/outcomes of the protest. Analysis of the participants' responses and the reporting of the main findings was informed by reference to key theoretical frameworks developed by Habermas, Kant, Sartre, and Durkheim. This study found that Palestinian political prisoners often considered human dignity to be more important than food. They therefore believed that hunger strike was a way to express that they would not surrender their dignity nor stray from their resistance. This article contributes to the important debate on the extent to which the hunger strike is an effective way to protest against the loss of human dignity experienced as a Palestinian political prisoner.     

British ideas,American parliamentarism. Republican and Liberal echoes in the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention of 1787

The process of building the American Constitution had a powerful impact on society and politics by empowering the people. It acknowledged their sovereignty and the exercise and protection of their rights into the future. What stands out from a review of the original constitutions of the founding states is their repeated reliance on the principles of natural law and the widespread understanding that individuals are entitled by nature to enjoy of certain natural or inalienable rights. The Philadelphia Constitutional Convention of 1787 drafted the constitution of the United States based directly on natural rights, including life, liberty, property and happiness as theorized by John Locke. At the same time, the people had an inherent right to live under a republican government, and possessed an inalienable right to reform or abolish governments that failed to secure these rights, or ruled without the consent of the governed: the framers relied on the classical republicanism of James Harrington (1611–77) which celebrated the ideals of virtuous citizenship in a republic. It is only in recent times that popular participation in constitution-making has been accommodated. Traditionally, as typified by the Constitutional Convention, attention is paid to the sovereignty of the people; if sovereignty is indeed vested in and flows from the people it is natural that they should determine how it should be delegated and exercised. From the Convention, key elements of the modern parliamentary system evolved to a more modern form of governmental system, a new constitutionalism. The idea that a written constitution spells out the supreme law of the land and sets limits on the ruling authorities has become the most significant element of American modernity.     

Social capital, social liabilities, and political capital: Social networks and informal manufacturing in Nigeria

This article addresses the question of why social networks havefailed to promote economic development in Africa when they havebeen associated with economic growth in other parts of the world.Detailed field research traces the role of social networks inthe economic organization of two dynamic informal enterpriseclusters in the town of Aba in south-eastern Nigeria, an arearenowned for the density of its popular economic networks andfor the rapid development of small-scale manufacturing underNigeria’s structural adjustment programme. Focusing onthe role of embedded social institutions and their restructuringamid the competitive pressures of rapid liberalization, I considerthe extent to which social networks in Aba constitute ‘socialcapital’ capable of promoting economic development inthe context of ongoing liberalization, ‘social liabilities’that undermine accumulation through a social logic of redistributionand parochialism, or ‘political capital’ throughwhich popular forces are incorporated into the ‘shadowstructures’ of predatory states. This article challengesthe essentialism of much of the contemporary literature on Africansocial networks, arguing for a sharper focus on the specificinstitutional capacities of indigenous economic institutions.It calls for greater attention to the role of rapid liberalizationand state neglect in explaining the developmental failures ofAfrican informal enterprise networks.     

The civilian target in Sierra Leone and Liberia: Political power, military strategy, and humanitarian intervention

This article traces one of the logics of the ongoing war inthe Mano River region of West Africa. It argues that, in thewake of humanitarian interventions in Sierra Leone, combatantswho moved on to fight in Liberia were more likely to use attacksagainst civilians in their military strategy. It suggests, however,that such tactical military choices are to be understood interms of local contexts of meaning, most notably about the natureof political power. The author's own ethnographic work withthe kamajor militia in Sierra Leone and with Liberians Unitedfor Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) in Liberia serves asthe basis for this analysis, and he advocates a participant-observationfield methodology for the study of contemporary conflict.     

The collapse of the Palestinian-Arab middle class in 1948: The case of Qatamon

Tyrannicide, that is, assassinating one's own leader in order to take over the government and/or to dramatically influence policy, carries multiple difficulties and mortal perils for the people involved. One of them has to do with a latent danger which may only come into view after a successful assassination, followed by a takeover of the government by the assassin or people ideologically close to him; the new elites, after overthrowing the old ones, may be exposed to the same fate of violent removal. This may open a Pandora's Box of murders and counter-murders that tyrannicide perpetrators will undoubtedly wish to avoid. Given this fact, some assassins (and/or their ideological cohorts) invested a lot of time and effort to rigorously explain why this specific leader, and no other, could and should be killed. Why their assassination is unique and justified, while similar behaviour by others is not. Hence, the ideological structures behind tyrannicide are not only intended to justify it in the simple sense of the word, but also to prevent it from repeating itself endlessly. These elaborate ideological structures, and, more specifically, the form they took in the thought of two Egyptian radical Islamic writers, Sayyid Qutb and Abd al-Salam Faraj, are the locus of our discussion in the present paper.     

The power of place,or powerless places? Hybrid attitudes towards Soviet symbols in post-Soviet Georgia

This article explores the hybridity of commemoration by analysing people’s attitudes to three types of contested Soviet symbols in post-Soviet Georgia. I draw on 62 in-depth qualitative interviews conducted in 2012–2013 with Georgians in Tbilisi, Georgia. These interviews focused on what people thought about places of memory, Soviet symbols in public space, and memory politics and policies in contemporary Georgia. I examine their opinions of three different types of reminders of the Soviet past in public space: general Soviet symbols; street names; and the Stalin monument in Gori. This analysis reveals their diverse understandings of place and highlights the hybridity of their responses to the different elements of Soviet symbolism. This not only prevents one from creating ideal typologies when considering places of memory, but also highlights the impact of the form and location of the symbol. I also identify two ways that people conceptualize place, one that recognizes the power of place, and the other that perceives place as powerless.     

Political suicide among Korean youth

Abstract

A striking aspect of the South Korean political protest movement of the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s was the frequent self-immolation of young Korean activists. This trend toward political suicide—politically motivated voluntary death—began with the laborer Chun Tae-il's suicide in 1970 and increased dramatically in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It is estimated that in the 1980s alone nearly one hundred young Koreans put an end to their lives as a form of antigovernment protest! This article explores why so many young people in Korea have chosen to take their own lives in this way.     

Pinyin Roumaji to Wade-Giles conversion table

Abstract

Ben Kiernan and Chanthou Boua, in collaboration with numerous Khmer people, have produced a unique, scholarly volume about Kampuchea that endeavors to answer the critical question of “why?” What are the events that precipitated the rule of the Khmer Rouge and why did they turn against their own people? This book is a collection of well-documented essays, arranged in chronological order, that examines the long-term, endemic conditions that resulted in Kampuchea's dark age of 1975–79. Much of the work was translated from original Khmer sources, and two of the Kampuchean writers, Hou Yuon and Hu Nim, were prominent socialists who were executed by the Khmer Rouge after 1975. Well-known and sometimes obscure events are described through the eyes of witnesses interviewed in Kampuchea, Thailand, Australia and France. This book is not a diatribe against the unspeakable horrors that befell the Kampuchean people. The facts have their own grim eloquence.     

Socio-economic differentiation in the post-communist rural Baltics: the case of three kolkhozes

This paper uses longitudinal quantitative data to examine socio-economic differentiation in the rural Baltic areas after decollectivization. It argues that the rural social structure in the post-Soviet Baltics is best determined by two criteria: source of income (income from farming entrepreneurship or income from salaries) and land holdings. Four rural groups are identified: people getting their main income from farming can be differentiated into large landowners engaged in the commercial production of agricultural goods and people with small or medium-sized farms; and people earning their main income from wages can be separated into people with no farming activities and people who are still keeping small or medium-sized farms. The paper also finds that the importance of farming activities in the countryside decreases while importance of wage income tends to increase.     

Knowledge production and the construction of ‘Africa(ns)’ in the Caribbean

Abstract

There is a considerable lack of awareness of the interrelated nature of human activities due to insufficient information. A community without relevant information or public sensitivity to participation, in fostering a sense of personal environmental responsibility and greater motivation towards achieving personal goals, becomes problematic. Using the poststructuralist theory, this article takes a qualitative approach to analyse discourses and people's reaction to an ‘insecure’ environment within South African communities. It examines organisations which provide support to empower communities through education in Cape Town. One assumption here is that people gain knowledge about themselves, their environment and others around them, if they are empowered. The focus thus is on educational schemes and activities that communities and organisations undertake to challenge, accept and negotiate their ideological positions. The inventiveness and responses of the organisations considered, through the local communities and pupils, are therefore significant as they enable an understanding of the challenges encountered in democratic South Africa, including the causes of xenophobia. Ultimately, the consequences of ignorance about one's environment are detrimental to both neighbouring communities and people at large. The local communities considered expressed this sentiment while implicating the government's role in depriving its people of vital socio-cultural and politico-economic information.     

Contradictions of market socialism in China (part II)

This article uses three social science treatises to render an understanding of how people are repressed, and how, conversely, those people can attain restitution (that is, gain their freedom from their government). The three works used to explore repression and restitution are Coleman's Power and the Structure of Society, Hirschman's Exit, Voice, and Loyalty, and Michels' Political Parties. Together these classics provide insight into the process by which governments repress citizens and powerful advice as to how people can, for example, use countervailing organizations to escape, or at least ameliorate, the repression.

It is shown that power gravitates to “fictitious” actors. These actors are ruled by an oligarchy. The few people who make up that oligarchy subvert the goals of the organization and substitute the goal of the oligarchy's survival. For the oligarchy to survive, repression may be necessary. Repression, thus, is organizational and oligarchical. Restitution must be also.

The examples of the impending change in sovereignty of Hong Kong when it reverts to the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the massacre in Tiananmen Square on 4 June 1989 are used to investigate several concepts adduced by the three theories, to apply newly gained insights from the theories, and to render advice.     

Imperialism in China: An Exchange

Abstract

From the viewpoint of those in control of state power, few things can be more frustrating than the relative autonomy of the populace in whose name political power is exercised. However, when a large number, preferably the majority, of those who cherish this autonomy are in need, an unquestionable reason for intervention is provided. When this state of need can be linked, if only in formal terms, to the low productivity of labor, a specific field of intervention is clearly defined. Finally, when relative autonomy, low labor productivity, and need can be shown to coincide in specific groups or social classes, the State and its allies are provided with the social, economic, and political legitimacy to intervene. It is then that their solicitude knows no bounds. Getting people to work more efficiently, more productively, becomes the major goal of society. While this preoccupation has always been present whatever the form of State power, it stands as the raison d’être of all contemporary authoritarian regimes, whether of the left or the right.     

Portrait of the Accused as a Young Man: New Zealand’s Harsh Treatment of Young People who Commit Serious Crimes

Abstract

This article argues that although New Zealand’s unique youth justice system generally considers the whole picture of a young offender and responds holistically to the offending, in the case of those accused of serious crimes, the system draws a limited picture that depicts the young offender as a ‘young adult’. These young people are sentenced in adult courts, where their youth, inexperience and potential for rehabilitation are far less influential than they are in a youth court. The result is harsh treatment of some extremely vulnerable young people, which breaches New Zealand’s international obligations. That harsh treatment is particularly problematic, given its hugely disproportionate effect on Māori youth.     

Dueños,Duendes, Bichos: Non‐Human Agents and the Politics of Place‐Making in a Bolivian Guaraní Community

The article looks at the interactions between the inhabitants of a community of Guaraní people in the Bolivian eastern lowlands and spirit entities found in the forest that forms part of the community's lands. Understanding these interactions as a form of intra‐communal politics, the article engages with the issue of landownership as an ongoing process of negotiation between two different sets of owners. This presents a vision of the political relations between people and spirit beings that is opposed to the currently dominant ontological vision which would put these distinct entities into defined (apolitical) places within a unified cosmovision.     

The Nigerian Constitution

The new constitutional arrangements in Nigeria have been consideredat some length in previous numbers of this Journal; but readersmay like to have the benefit of Sir Bernard Bourdillon's maturedviews on the subject, as delivered at a combined meeting withthe Royal Empire Society on the 30th January, Lord Harley inthe Chair.     

Mining against the State? Gold Mining and Emerging Notions of Territoriality in Southeastern Venezuela

The current economic crisis in Venezuela has drawn members of Pemón communities to the practice of informal (illegal) gold mining, as mining, undertaken alongside other ‘traditional’ economic activities, is a more effective source of income than waged jobs. The increased involvement of Pemón people in informal mining has encouraged their partial retreat from the state's frontiers, and it reveals transformations in the ways in which local people imagine and relate to the Venezuelan state. These transformations are embodied in both a reorganisation of the space, and in burgeoning notions of land ownership.     

Social Alienation and Estrangement in Four Stories by Palestinian Writer cAlā Ḥlayḥal

This article examines the novella al-Sīrk (2001) and three short stories (?Zawjī Sā'iq Bā?', 2008, ‘Ta^cāyush’, 2008 and ‘al-Sajjāda’, 2003) by contemporary Palestinian writer ^cAlā ?lay?al (Ala Hlehel). These texts manifest a preoccupation with the breakdown of human relationships and related themes of failed communication and miscommunication between people. These themes articulate the alienation, isolation and estrangement of individuals from one another, from community and society. The purpose of the present study is an analysis of the portrayal of social decay, alienation and estrangement in these texts, revealing structural expressions of degeneration, as well as a deterioration of interpersonal relations articulated by stymied communication, miscommunication and neglect, often expressed textually through irony and hypocrisy. These particular works were chosen because of their preoccupation with the themes at hand, and also because these are masterfully written stories in their own right deserving critical analysis. While ?lay?al's stories resound with the theme of alienation which has marked Palestinian literature from its formative stages onwards, they reject a staunchly committed stance and do not issue moral imperatives or political slogans. The nuances of these texts are examined in light of other works of Palestinian literature, and especially considering the intertextual references therein.