The Limits of the State: Student Protest in Egypt,Iraq and Turkey, 1948–63

Student youth have been at the centre of social and political unrest in the Middle East since the era of reforms under the Ottoman Empire. However, although nationalist and revolutionary leaders encouraged students to actively participate in politics ‘for the sake of the nation’ during the first half of the twentieth century, revolutionary regimes progressively sought to ‘depoliticise’ them, once again ‘for the sake of the nation’, throughout the second half of the century. This article explores both dynamics while seeking to account for the failure of attempts to depoliticise the student body ‘from above’ in Egypt, Iraq and Turkey between 1948 and 1963.     

The 2011 Egyptian revolution chants: a romantic-Muʿtazilī moral order

While most literature on the 2011 Egyptian Revolution chants highlights the revolutionary role of poetry, little attention has been paid to the role that theology plays within this domain. This article argues that reading Abu al-Qassim al-Shabbi’s poem, ‘Life’s Will’ (1933), which inspired the chant for the fall of the regime, through the lens of Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age (2007) sheds light on the political relevance of the theological theme within this poem. The essay re-reads al-Shabbi’s investment in the Islamic mu?tāzilī doctrine of free will in terms of the creative role that Taylor gives to romantic poetry in creating a community’s ‘moral order’. Such an analysis brings to light the contribution that a comparative theological-literary framework can have to the political deliberation on the Arab Spring revolutions, especially the 2011 Egyptian Revolution.     

Croatian Anti‐Fascism in the Second World War: An Australian Perspective

The historiography of the Second World War in Yugoslavia rests on the dichotomous resistance/collaboration paradigm pitting “Yugoslav” resisters against extreme nationalist collaborators. This historiography also presents us with a Balkanist interpretation of the war as exceptionally savage and brutal. The collapse of Yugoslavia led to the collapse of the Partisan Epic. It also led to the rise of nationalist historiographies of the war and the rehabilitation of collaborators, notably the Serbian Chetniks. A corrective to the exceptionalism of many standard studies of the war in Yugosalvia may be found in an analysis of the experiences of Australian Yugoslavs and their perceptions of resistance and collaboration. Based almost entirely on hitherto underutilised archival sources, this article traces the differences between two rival Yugoslav groups in Australia: (mostly Serbian) royalist supporters of the Chetniks and the old centralist regime, and Croatian supporters of Tito's Partisans and the idea of a new, federative Yugoslavia. It demonstrates that both groups were adept at mobilising opinion and actively engaging in the political process to advance their cause. However, the Croats and their organisational structures had a wider reach. Furthermore, they were able to demonstrate that they were contributing more to the Allied cause — which was their own — than their rivals. This had an impact on their standing in Australian society and on attitudes towards Yugoslavs and Yugoslavia. Finally, this article sheds new light on the Australian home‐front, revealing the generally civil and tolerant attitude of state and commonwealth governments towards “friendly aliens” in their desire both to be connected to their country of birth and integrated into their adopted homeland.     

Peuple,patrie et nation: les mots et les idées dans le Discours parlementaire portugais du dix-neuvième siècle

SUMMARY

In this article Maria Manuela Tavares Ribciro analyses how the Portuguese Republicans of the later nineteenth century drew inspiration from the ideas and the symbols of the Revolution of 1820 in Portugal. The subsequent liberal regimes located sovereignty in the Nation, which they distinguished from the People, who only shared in the exercise of sovereignty through voting. The will of the Nation was expressed through the elected deputies and was distinct from the will of the People and superior to it. Against this the Republicans set the revolutionary concept of the ‘Patrie’, distinct from the Nation and the direct embodiment of the collective will of the People. It was by drawing on the revolutionary concepts and symbolism of the 1820s that the late nineteenth-century Republicans articulated their claim that by setting up a republic, the People would re-invigorate the moribund liberal Nation by their direct, collective action and fashion a new and better Nation in its place.     

Revelation or revolution: a Gramscian approach to the rise of political Islam

This article seeks to conceptualise the contemporary phenomenon of ‘political Islam’, or Islamic fundamentalism as it is usually classified in the West. This paper takes the view that those movements that utilise the ideology of political Islam are not primarily religious groups concerned with issues of doctrine and faith, but political organisations utilising Islam as a ‘revolutionary’ ideology to attack, criticise, and de‐legitimise the ruling elites and the power structure on which their authority and legitimacy is based. Since the one‐party authoritarian state is the norm in most of the Middle East, only Islam has been able to provide the marginalised, alienated, and disgruntled masses with an oppositional force capable of articulating their specific grievances and general displeasure with these regimes. A Gramscian framework helps to demonstrate that these organisations classified as ‘political Islam’, and promulgated by the core Islamic scholars of the twentieth century, are authentic counter‐hegemonic movements focussed on the overthrow of these despotic regimes and the acquisition of political, economic, and social power.     

In Search of Native Dissidence: RT Kawa’s Mfecane Historiography in Ibali lamaMfengu (1929)

Abstract

This article situates RT Kawa’s Ibali lamaMfengu (1929) as a canonical text of South African historiography, and mfecane historiography in particular. In Ibali lamaMfengu, Kawa attempts to give an account of the origins of amaMfengu clans, who were Mfecane refugees, as well as their political situation, when they were incorporated into the Gcaleka kingdom of King Hintsa in the 1820s and 1830s. Kawa’s work is significant in clarifying key disputes on the origins of amaMfengu although is not comprehensive in detailing their early life amongst amaXhosa. Although a key text, its analysis was not only excluded, but rejected by ‘‘mainstream’’ South African historians in the 1980s and 1990s. This omission resulted in dominant scholarly versions of the Mfecane dismissing the validity of the interpretations and analyses of African writers, in effect, rendering Mfecane historiography a ‘‘white-only’’ debate. I demonstrate in this article that Kawa’s work is in fact, a valid and persuasive history of amaMfengu, and is largely accurate on the basis of their origins, their life under chief Hintsa, and the reasons for their exodus from amaXhosa, that led to their loyalty pledge to the British in 1835.     

Crown and Cortes in Castile, 1590–1665

Summary

Preparations for the Estates General of 1789 constituted one of the last acts of the anclen régime in France. The accompanying elections have received relatively little attention, yet they bequeathed much more to the electoral practices and political mentalités of the Revolution than most historians have realised. Though separate orders were preserved at the final meeting of the Estates General, with disastrous consequences for the monarchy, custom was breached by the uniform fashion and broad franchise with which deputies were elected. When the National Assembly was created the orders were dissolved, but much of this semi‐traditional electoral system survived. Assemblies of voters, an indirect, two‐tier process of election and exhaustive balloting were all retained from the past. A pronounced aversion to declared candidatures and electoral canvassing remained equally entrenched. Moreover, radicals drew upon the old‐régime heritage, rather than upon Rousseau, in their use of mandates, oral voting and the pursuit of unanimity at the polls. The revolutionary experiment with elections ultimately faltered in face of apathy and cynicism among voters. This article concludes by suggesting how the electoral legacy of the anden regime inhibited the emergence of a ‘modern political culture’, which is currently hailed as the major achievement of the French Revolution.     

‘Fonder la République’. The French National Convention and the revolutionary government (1793–94)

SUMMARY

The article discusses the leading role played by the French National Convention in the process of nation-building, especially through the study of the main legislation adopted by the revolutionary government that was established during Year II of the French Republic. This article focuses on the acts and measures that led to the creation of a revolutionary government characterized by a strong ‘confusion of powers’, with the National Convention invested with both legislative and executive powers. More specifically, attention is paid to the Committee of Public Safety. This was established as a committee of the National Convention and, as a consequence of the influence of the most important political leaders of the Revolution – such as George Danton (1759–94), Maximilien Robespierre (1758–94) and Louis Antoine de Saint-Just (1767–94) – it ended up becoming the key institution in the intricate constitutional framework that was established to save France and the Revolution from domestic and external enemies. In this line of research, this article first of all outlines the premises that led to the creation of the revolutionary government. Secondly, it outlines the main political events that made it possible to introduce important legislation, such as the so-called Code of 14 Frimaire. This law accorded extensive powers to the Committee of Public Safety, thereby eventually facilitating the establishment of the Reign of Terror, until the Thermidorian Reaction brought both the Reign of Terror and the revolutionary government to an end.     

Survival Strategies Among the Mexican Rural Elite

This article focuses on a sector of society that has received comparatively little attention in the recent historiography of post‐revolutionary Mexican rural society: the local elite. Using the district of Zacapoaxtla in the Sierra Norte de Puebla as a case study, it explores the ways in which external agents of change challenged pre‐existing relationships between communities, classes, and ethnic groups. It shows how, in trying to retain their positions of local dominance, the elite displayed remarkable degrees of pragmatism and willingness to compromise on long‐standing prejudices. Above all, the article offers a detailed example of how political patronage at national and regional levels enabled local factions to overcome formidable opposition.     

Shifting the debate on land reform,poverty and inequality in Zimbabwe,an engagement with Zimbabwe's Land Reform: Myths and Realities 1

Zimbabwe's land reform: myths and realities 2 2. Zimbabwe's Land Reform: Myths and Realities by Ian Scoones, Nelson Marongwe, Blasio Mavedzenge, Jacob Mahenehene, Felix Murimbarimba and Crispen Sukume, Woodbridge, Suffolk, James Currey, 2010, 304 pp., ISBN 9781847010247. purports to overturn the western media and academy's ‘myths’ of agrarian failure and cronyism in Zimbabwe's fast-track land reform with a study rooted in the ‘reality’ of its outcomes in the Masvingo area. Yet the positivist picture painted by Scoones, Marongwe, Mavedzenge, Mahenehene, Murimbarimba, and Sukume is another position in portrayals of a complex process entangling many local material struggles–including those seen as successful examples of the yeomanry admired by the authors–with the equally important processes of authoritarian nationalism they side-line. ‘Myth making’ is not counter to ‘reality’, but positions particular claims within it. By concentrating on the ‘local’ and celebrating what they see as non-technocratic successes, the authors ignore the context and politics of the state–which they later invoke to develop adequate supportive policy and stability for the new farmers. Their reality ignores as much as the myths they try to challenge, and thus fails to assist to develop the policies they would like.     

On Tourism and the Constructions of ‘Paradise Islands’ in Central America and the Caribbean

A comparative perspective of the tourism industry in the islands of Colón, Panama and Carriacou, Grenada is presented in this article. The islands have long histories of association with colonial powers, coupled with more recent histories of ‘discovery’ as tourist destinations. The historical constructions of ‘paradise islands' and the appropriation of tourism for nation‐building purposes in these territories are analysed. The discussion assesses the underlying reasons for the differing responses by African Caribbean populations toward tourism development, in spite of similar colonial and postcolonial histories.     

Imagining a dialectical African modernity: Achebe's ontological hopes,Sembene's machines,Mda's epistemological redness

In Chinua Achebe's book of essays Hopes and Impediments, he asserts that Nigeria's failure to ‘develop’ and ‘modernise’ like Japan is because of a ‘failure of imagination’. Yet for many Africans, modernity is a tainted ‘gift’ because it was introduced into the African continent along with European colonial capitalism which simultaneously caused an ontological crisis of self. Although many Africans want to ‘catch up’ with the West, how is it possible when Western technological superiority was equated with white racial superiority? Achebe declares that, as Africans ‘begin their journey into the strange, revolutionary world of modernization’, literature should function as guide. Hence, I examine Ousmane Sembene's novel God's Bits of Wood which depicts Africans laying claim to ‘race-less’, ‘language-less’ ‘machines’. But does (Western) technology change culture? Can African culture appropriate technology to form a dialectical African modernity? If so, what role does ‘tradition’ play? In Zakes Mda's The Heart of Redness, we witness the emergence of a traditional modernity made possible by a dialectical epistemology.     

Confederates and Yankees under the Southern Cross

Following the Civil War in the United States of America, colonies that were predominately ‘Yankee’ and Confederate sprang up in Brazil. In contrast to the subject's historiography, we seek to show how these colonies were the result of in the first case, the actions of Imperial diplomacy and in the second case, spontaneous interest by Southerners due to the existence of slavery in Brazil. This proposition is supported by primary sources, as they indicate the presence of significant teams of slaves in the Confederate colonies in Brazil, while slavery was prohibited in their ‘Yankee’ counterparts.     

Ziya Gökalp’s idea of cultural hybridity

This paper is a reflection on the distinctiveness and scope of the ideas of Ziya Gökalp (1876–1924), who played a key role in the formation of the ideology of the Turkish Republic created in 1923. Gökalp is generally cast by interpreters as a ‘Westernist’ or ‘modernist’ nationalist thinker, like many other thinkers in late developing societies, whose chief concern was the establishment of a modern Turkish nation-state and who, therefore, tried to combine Western knowledge with the culture of his own society. Contrary to received wisdom, I argue that Gökalp developed not just a model of modernity befitting Muslim Turks but also a distinctive general theory of social life, according to which the cultures of all societies are hybrid, i.e. blends of other (past and present) cultures. If this is correct, then Gökalp’s social thought is more than a mere specimen of late nationalist ideologies; it is applicable to all forms of social life just as much as the ideas of the European social theorists he cited.     

Progress,power, and violent accumulation in Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe's recent travails have challenged the concept of progress as it is popularly conceived, as they have forced social scientists to revisit many of the verities of nationalist history and the initial euphoria of Zimbabwean ‘liberation’. Critics of ‘fast-track’ land reform and patriotism, however, have been as simplistic as the regime's academic praise singers, and often simply turn celebratory scholarship upside down. Historically rooted and specifically applied concepts of primitive accumulation can assist the understanding of the development of Zimbabwe's coercive networks of accumulation and their more recent manifestations, but they do not solve the problems of how to lessen violence and deepen democracy in the short term.     

‘There Can Be No Revolution without Culture’: Reading and Writing in the Bolivarian Revolution

Under Hugo Chávez's ‘Bolivarian Revolution’, the government made itself present in all stages of literary production, applying the official idea of reading and writing as ‘socialist practices’. The Bolivarian government envisaged a popular counter‐hegemony, courting popular support while delegitimising cultural elites and reinforcing class tensions. Bolivarian cultural policy is anachronistic in an age of global literary markets, while the emphasis on a national collective of writers over internationally promoted representative writers of the revolution is particularly radical.     

‘Heart-Beguiling Araby’ on the Frontier of Empire: Early Anglo-Arab Relations in Transjordan

In 1920 the British government of Palestine sent six officers to establish a British presence in Transjordan. Lacking military and financial support, they could not possibly control a country populated by more than 200,000 tribespeople, many of them members of powerful tribal confederacies. The key to explaining why the British chose this unorthodox way to takeover a new territory lies in the special attitude towards Arabia entertained by the British following World War One. British policy derived from an alleged cultural affinity between the British and the ‘Bedouin’, coupled with a colonial tradition of attributing British administrators with a ‘natural’ ability to rule over natives. These two myths gave the British an inflated belief in their ability to rule local society. Drawing on official reports, private papers and local accounts, this article shows that the British grossly misunderstood local conditions and could not deal with the tribal communities that frustrated their attempt to assert British influence.     

Half measures and incomplete reforms: the breeding ground for a hybrid civil Society in Ukraine

Abstract

In the space of 24 years, Ukraine has experienced three ‘revolutions’: the revolution for independence, the ‘Orange Revolution’ and the ‘Dignity Revolution’. On each occasion the event has been lauded as a triumph of democracy over authoritarianism and as evidence that Ukraine will soon be able to assume its rightful place as a free, democratic state in Europe. On two out of three occasions the reverse has occurred; while the people have taken to the streets to protest against flagrant corruption and abuse of power, the oligarchs have responded with only minor changes to the political system. The reins of political and economic power have remained firmly in their hands, and Ukraine’s prospects for political and economic development have deteriorated. The Dignity Revolution of 2014 is seen as different from preceding revolutions because civil society appeared to be much more active and it has succeeded, in part, in maintaining pressure on government for reform. It is important to understand, however, that despite periodic and dramatic demonstrations of outrage over the corrupt and authoritarian practices of the political elites, civil society has generally been classed as apathetic, weak and ineffectual. Thus, the current challenge for Ukrainian civil society is to overcome its own limitations so that it can better hold government to account.     

Regime Consolidation and Female Status in a Fledgling Theocracy: Khomeini's Vilayet-e-Fiqh, 1979–89

The Iranian Revolution, through Khomeini's consolidation measures, quickly morphed into an ‘Islamic Revolution’. Khomeini's regime abrogated popular legislation such as the Family Protection Laws of 1967 and 1975, which protected the rights of females, as the clerics sought to institute Shariah (Islamic) laws in an ‘Islamic Republic’. The historical record reveals that the precipitous legal transformation from secular to Shariah law under Ayatollah Khomeini's personal tutelage placed females in a dangerous predicament. Regressive gender policies, however, served to mobilize females to push back against the new social paradigm which had emerged under the rubric of Velayat-e-Fiqh. This article examines this misogynistic trajectory during Khomeini's rule and how it served to galvanize many Iranian women to ‘gender activism’.