Turco-British relations,Cold War and reshaping the Middle East: Egypt,Greece and Cyprus (1954–1958)

This article tries to shed light on Turco-British relations in the early Cold War era. It focuses on the two states’ cooperation in Middle Eastern defence, as well as their interactions with Egypt and Greece. Immediately after the Second World War, the Soviet Union and communism were accepted as common threats directed against Turkey, Greece, Britain, the entire Western camp and a broad range of Middle Eastern countries. Washington and London were in search of alliances with regional actors; however, due to the anti-Western attitudes of Egypt in particular, and the anti-Israeli attitudes of the Arabic realm in general, the West was not satisfied with the defence system established in the region. In regard to the relations between the four abovementioned states, while Turkey and Britain joined forces against the Egyptian cause in the Suez issue and the Greek cause on the Cyprus issue, Greece and Egypt sided with each other against the British positions.     

Princes,Pashas and Patriots: The Kurdish Intelligentsia,the Ottoman Empire and the National Question (1908–1914)

Abstract

This article surveys the attitude of the Ottoman-Kurdish intelligentsia and the nascent Kurdish movement towards the issue of nationality in the period between the 1908 Constitutional Revolution and the outbreak of the Great War in 1914. The existing academic literature has tended to regard the Kurdish movement in this period as being primarily cultural and apolitical in orientation. However, while the majority of the Kurdish intellectual and professional classes were committed to the Ottoman polity, their activities were far from apolitical. This is not to suggest that the emergent Kurdish movement was unified. On the contrary, the often varied relationship between the Ottoman polity and different elements of the Kurdish elite resulted in a significant degree of factionalism. However, while some of this elite began to think of the Kurds as an oppressed 'minority' locked inside the Ottoman (read Turkish) 'prison house' of nations, most tended to regard the Kurds as both a distinct people and an integral part of the Ottoman 'nation'.     

New Methodism and Old: Churches,Police and State in Fiji, 2008–09

Abstract

Although Methodism has remained the dominant form of Christianity in Fiji, Methodist beliefs have been contested by a proliferation of Pentecostal/evangelical churches, but never more directly than by a new form of Methodism which flourished in the years up to 2009. This new church was called the New Methodist Church and, for a period in 2008 and 2009, the Fiji police forces were strongly encouraged to participate and finally to convert to it. This article is part of ongoing research that traces the alliances and challenges between Christianity and the state in Fiji.     

“Zimbabwe is Mine”: Mugabe,Murder, and Matabeleland

Searching for Sugar Man, the celebrated 2012 documentary of Sixto Rodriguez’s musical life, opens onto (but does not adequately address) important questions concerning musical circulation and reception. It is a story of two albums, Cold Fact (1970) and Coming From Reality (1971) that traveled in very different ways in the USA and South Africa and of how these travels were shaped by cultural politics and cultural circuits. But, it is also a story about the ways that the music industry complicated these cultural circuits by muddying and interrupting financial pathways—that is, by acting as a circuit breaker. Unfortunately, the film misses an opportunity to explore any of these stories in a sustained manner, crafting instead a narrative that engages them only to the extent that they help the director, Malik Bendjelloul, present a lost-and-found narrative of musical rebirth, featuring South African fans and audiences as the supporting cast. In choosing this entertaining, but myth-making path, the film itself configures new circuits and inaugurates additional circuit breakers that must be disentangled from and read in relation to Rodriguez’s musical life.     

Showing Character: Nehru,Reputation, and the Sino-Indian Dispute, 1957–1962

Abstract

In the approach to the Sino-Indian war of 1962, the Indian government made some surprising policy choices. Most significant was Nehru’s decision to contest what was viewed by him and his officials as unimportant territory in the western sector, rejecting in the process Chou en-Lai’s 1960 “package” offer. Instead, Delhi chose to initiate in 1961 the Forward Policy, in full awareness of the severely disadvantageous position of the Indian military in the disputed border areas. Using Indian primary documents, this article makes the case that reputational considerations—particularly Nehru’s fear that any concessions to China would be viewed as weakness and provoke further aggression—help explain the puzzling aspects of India’s intransigence on the Sino-Indian territorial dispute during this period.