On Music,Censorship, and Globalization

Malik Bendjelloul’s music documentary, Searching for Sugar Man (2012), uses the narrative of its central figure, American rock “n” roll musician Sixto Rodriguez, to allegorize South Africa’s emergence from censorship and isolationism to a post-apartheid and increasingly transnational dispensation. I look at the cultural politics of apartheid-era censorship in attempt to account for Rodriguez’s cult appeal in South Africa, despite his artistic shortcomings and his obscurity in the USA. I then focus on the film’s final concert sequence, featuring Rodriguez’s first South African performance, which Bendjelloul subtly positions as a moment of celebration over the new possibilities enabled by the demise of apartheid and the rise of an increasingly integrated global culture.     

International Norms and the End of Apartheid in South Africa

This article examines the interface in the post-World War II era between expanding global movements supporting human rights and traditional great power concerns regarding global security, and asks why an international alliance of actors mobilized to pressure the Western powers, particularly the USA, to politically isolate and economically sanction South Africa in the midst of the cold war. We argue that in the international struggle against apartheid, humanist (human rights) ideology emanating from social movements in global civil society clashed with traditional realist ideology regarding what constituted state security in the global polity. The norms of self-determination of nations and anti-racism together fueled global activism and challenged powerful Western states. Facing mass protests and lobbying efforts from citizens, democratic states across the Western world found greater security in upholding their own professed human rights principles than in maintaining close economic ties to the apartheid regime.     

Ernest Cole: the perspective of time

Ernest Cole’s photographs reveal the contradictions and paradoxes of apartheid South Africa. At a very young age, and with little formal instruction Cole instinctively produced a significant documentary photo-book titled House of Bondage (1967). This article makes a close reading of some of Ernest Cole’s photographs in relation to the historical circumstances of apartheid and how they can be perceived through the lens of hindsight in postapartheid South Africa. The work offers a potent argument for the power of perception to uncover overlooked moments of the period. As an African, Cole’s photographs construct a narrative of apartheid from the position of an “invisible” black insider. In so doing, they tellingly reveal how he used the system of apartheid to his own advantage in his photographic practice. His photographs ask us to consider his modus operandi and the courage it took to make them at that time, offering the opportunity to behold moments that cut across gaps of space and time.     

The gender-apartheid analogy in the transnational feminist imaginary: Ms. Magazine and the Feminist Majority Foundation, 1972-2002

Abstract

This article considers the rhetorical implications of transnational exchange between feminist activists in the late twentieth century. It uses Gloria Steinem’s Ms. Magazine (est. 1972) and the Feminist Majority Foundation (FMF) as a lens through which to understand the emergence of the gender-apartheid analogy in the 1990s. During the 1970s and 1980s, Ms. demonstrated knowledge of and commitment to the anti-apartheid movement. However, when the FMF and Ms. began using apartheid as an analogy for gender-based oppression in the Middle East after the fall of the apartheid regime, the limitations of transnational understanding became fundamentally apparent. This article traces the historical and rhetorical foundations for the use of race-based analogies in women’s rights activism. It then examines the journalistic and foreign policy perspectives espoused toward the South African apartheid regime and women’s rights abuses under fundamentalist Islamic regimes. At the turn of the twenty-first century, this article argues, the transnational feminist imaginary was shaped by a process of inspiration and appropriation which delimited solidarity and understanding across transnational networks of feminist activists.     

Che,Chevys, and Hemingway's Daiquiris: Cuban Tourism in a Time of Globalisation

In Cuba over the past two decades, diverse and apparently contradictory aspects of tourism have emerged along with state‐led development and market‐driven initiatives. This ethnographic account examines the complex ways in which Cubans and international visitors experience tourism as an economic and cultural force. Despite the unintended consequences of tourism, which has produced growing social inequality and illicit trade, tourism has met surprising success in appealing to desires for both pre‐revolutionary pleasures and enduring revolutionary culture and politics.     

The South African Life and Afterlife of Jim Reeves

This article considers the overwhelming and lasting popularity of the country singer, Jim Reeves, in South Africa. Interpreting the press and radio coverage of his two tours to the country (1962 and 1963) and two recent biographies, it considers the ways in which this representative of the Nashville Sound was constructed to appeal to particular sectors of the South African community. Reeves’s habitus was constructed – despite all evidence and behavior to the contrary – as respectable, devout, and loyal to Afrikaner nationalist ideology. The argument considers the ways in which this conservative demeanor bridged the bucolic imaginary and aspirant modernism of apartheid South Africa.     

Modernization theory and the Cold War

In this article the structural, political and intellectual context in which a specific discourse of development emerged is examined. In the context of the Cold War, the prolonged effort of American intellectuals in advising and attempting to redirect the process of development in India and its consequences for a particular version of modernization theory is analyzed. A general sociology of knowledge approach is deployed to examine the complex configuration of events that contributed to a specific discoursed that owes its intellectual lineage to the Comtean vision of social science.     

"新冷战"问题探析

近来"新冷战"问题成为国际社会关注的新热点.新冷战是一种围绕利益、势力和权力的国际性遏制、对峙和对抗.尽管俄美之间的关系出现紧张状态,目前的冲突具有某些冷战的特征,但新冷战并没有发生,也并不表示世界已经进入新冷战时代,或新冷战必然发生.同时,新冷战的可能性也不能完全排除.从总体上看,近期内中美俄关系发生剧变或陷入新冷战的可能性不大.金融危机的发生进一步削弱了这种可能性.     

冷战后印尼对华政策的演变

由于受到国家利益需求的变化、对中国价值判断的变化、国内政治力量对比的变化、国际形势与环境的变化、中国自身的变化以及华人因素等诸多方面的影响,冷战后印尼的对华政策经历了复交和解期和友好发展期两个阶段.了解上述因素在不同时期如何发生影响,不仅有助于理解印尼对华政策的形成和实质,而且有助于把握两国关系的长期发展走向.     

冷战后越南对华政策的调整

本文认为从冷战结束后,越南开始实行睦邻友好、全面合作的对华政策,这是由越南的国家利益、地缘政治关系、国家环境以及中国的态度等多种因素决定的.关于未来越南对华关系的发展趋势,本文认为越南将会以面向未来、长期稳定为基本目标,但两国间仍然存在的一些矛盾也不容忽视.     

Explaining South Africa's Bill of Rights: an interpretive approach

Ideational approaches to politics are frequently criticised for indeterminacy. In comparative constitutional politics, critics have alleged that the ‘human rights revolution’ cannot explain why bills of rights were adopted in different places and different times. Ideational scholars have not responded convincingly. Focusing on the famous South African case study, and drawing on theories of belief formation and legitimation in interpretive political science, this paper argues that new beliefs can be explained by historically specifiable dilemmas. It uses process-tracing to show how scholars have mistakenly assumed that key players in the post-apartheid transition only adopted beliefs in rights in order to rationalise interests.     

冷战后缅甸的对华政策

在冷战期间,中国对缅甸采取党对党、政府对政府的双重政策。１９８８ 年缅甸发生政治动乱后,中国终止了对缅共的支持。１９８９ 年４ 月缅共因发生内讧而解体,年迈的领导人被遗弃,这一中缅关系中的敏感问题不复存在。鉴于共同的世界观,中缅双方高层人员往来频繁。双方高级将领也经常互访,以加强缅军与中国人民解放军之间的人事关系     

Liberal International Theory and Imagining the End of the Cold War

Liberal international theory foresaw neither the end of the east–west rivalry nor the fall of the Soviet Union. However, from the 1960s up through the 1980s, several liberal international theorists put forward insightful analyses of the evolution of the cold war, its changing importance in world affairs and the problems that increasingly confronted the Soviet Union. Well before the fall of the Berlin Wall, several liberal international writers sensed that the cold war was abating, that this abatement was important for world politics and that the Soviet Union was having serious problems in maintaining its status as a superpower with an Eastern European empire.     

试析冷战后老挝的对华政策

冷战结束后 ,老挝加快了对华方针和政策的调整 ,两国关系在经历曲折后得到了全面恢复和发展。老挝实施新的对华政策具有积极意义。未来老挝对华政策的总趋势将是继续促进两国睦邻友好和全面合作关系的平稳发展。     

冷战后东盟地区主义的发展与日本的应对

冷战后,东盟地区主义迅速发展。这不仅表现在东盟实现了大东盟的愿望,加强了东盟地区内部的各种合作,而且突出表现在东盟积极推动东亚合作和东亚一体化进程。在推动东亚合作和东亚一体化进程中,东盟对东亚地区唯一的发达国家日本寄予了厚望,但日本的表现与东盟的期待存在很大的反差。东盟和日本在东亚地区主义理念上的分歧是这一反差产生的根本原因。     

斯大林、苏联外交与冷战的起源

对安全的追求,对于形成斯大林在战前、二战中以及战后不同时期的政策起到了至关重要的作用。从国内政治看,这种政策不仅是动员苏联人民应对斯大林所认为的即将到来的、新一轮同西方的对抗的手段,而且也是巩固他在苏联最高决策层内地位和权力的一个手段。斯大林是苏联在战后关键问题上,诸如东欧的前途、德国问题以及对日占领问题上采取强硬政策的决策者。斯大林努力主导战后东欧国家的政治发展,其主要目标是要沿着苏联西部边界建立一个安全地带。斯大林认为,这一目标同与西方保持良好关系的需要并不矛盾。斯大林希望苏联在东欧的势力范围可以被英美所承认,以换取苏联承认西方在欧洲其他地区的影响。斯大林对东欧的控制,部分原因也是因为担心同英美的合作可能面临失败。然而,斯大林对东欧的控制最终还是被西方认为是挑战西方,从而产生了与他的愿望相反的结果。在这一过程中,苏联对自身安全与意识形态的追求,一方面同西方所坚持的所谓"民主、自决"原则产生了尖锐的矛盾;更为重要的是,苏联的目标同美国日益扩张的在全球的利益发生了严重的冲突,从而使欧洲逐步分裂成为两个敌对的集团。在同西方盟国打交道的过程中,斯大林在较少重要性的问题上,如的里雅斯特问题、其卫星国的赔偿问题以及托管地等问题上表现出灵活性,也愿意作出妥协。而在主要问题上,斯大林则毫不妥协。苏联在战争后期和战后初期对土耳其、伊朗的政策,成为以美国为首的西方国家遏制苏联的主要理由,成为导致冷战爆发的重要事件。就这样,苏联和美国这两个战时的盟友,领导着各自的阵营,开始了长达四十年的冷战。     

试析冷战初期杜鲁门主义在中国引起的反响

1947年3月,美国总统杜鲁门在国会的演说拉开了“冷战”的帷幕。杜鲁门主义成为当时世界舆论的焦点。本文意在把时空往前移至1947年的历史现场,利用亲历、亲见、亲闻的时人评论,探讨当时中国各界人士是如何看待杜鲁门主义、如何看待战争与和平,又如何看待美国的对华政策,使我们后人进一步走近历史,了解这一历史事件在中国所引起的反响,了解当时中国民众心里之所想,舆论之所在。