Tyrone Grainger and the dilemma of blackness in London

Europe as terminus of Black dispersal holds much significance for the study of Black identity in the Diaspora due to its role in colonizing the African continent. More specifically, England was a major contender in the race to take control of human and natural resources in Africa and the Caribbean prior to and after the European slave trade. During the first 50 years of the twentieth century, Great Britain successfully lured Black West Indians to its shore with hopes of social, cultural, and economic freedom denied them in their homelands. This article explores the dilemma of Blackness and formation of African Diasporan identities in London during the twentieth century. It also examines the complexities of transnationalism and the impact of cultural memory and globalization on identity formation in Beryl Gilroy's novel Boy Sandwich (1989) through the experiences of Tyrone Grainger.     

From hero worship to organized oblivion: representations of the People’s Front in Tajikistan’s national memory

The People’s Front of Tajikistan (PFT), one of the parties to the country’s civil war, was instrumental in bringing the government of President Emomali Rahmon to power. The article examines the official strategies of memorialization of the PFT from the early 1990s to the present. It discusses the emergence of a canon of the PFT heroes and martyrs and locates it within the nascent national mythology after independence. It argues that the maintenance of this canon was rendered impossible by the imperatives of consolidating presidential authority and securing national reconciliation following the 1997 peace deal. It concludes with an examination of the growing tension between the official line of historical amnesia on the one hand and resurgent social memory on the other. People in Tajikistan are increasingly interested in revisiting the events and protagonists of the war to develop a sense of the past, and remembering the PFT forms an essential part of their search for shared history and a sense of identity.     

Cosmopolitanism and National Tradition: The Case of Slovenia

This paper discusses the contradictions of maintaining national identity in the age of globalization. It investigates the central relevance of the concept of citizenship in light of the encroaching forces of economic and cultural globalization, on the one hand; and ethnic, nationalistic, and religious fundamentalism, on the other. The paper argues for the need to recognize not only the meaning of national identity, derived mainly from works of art and literature in a given tradition, but also its potential to head off forms of reductionism, be they economic or ethnic. In this regard, the paper calls for a theoretically subtle approach to the contemporary dilemmas of small nations, caught between the fundamentalist temptation (nationalism) and global corporate homogeneity. The case of Slovenia is used here to spell out the necessity to develop a cosmopolitan attitude, characterized as it is by both local cultural tradition and international codes of expression. Such an attitude may best be developed in a civic sphere that provides the mediating ground between the solipsistic pursuit of individual happiness and governmental political regimentation.     

Nationalism and Cultural Memory in Poland: The European Union Turns East

The eastern expansion of the European Union confronts the process of European integration with the phenomenon of cultural and ethnic nationalism. This paper examines the situation of Poland, using Jan Assmann's theory of cultural memory to reconstruct the historical dimension of Polish nationalism which underlies the current constructions of the Polish nation. Understanding itself as the antemurale Europae christianiae, Poland owns an old tradition of resistance. This tradition allowed this country to survive times of division and oppression but now turns against the European Union.     

Responsibility and National Memory: Israel and the Palestinian Refugee Problem

How are Israelis to incorporate the Palestinian refugee problem in their national memory? Scholarly historical accounts of the 1948 period can play an important role in this regard. Benny Morris's account allows them to take responsibility while maintaining the integrity of their national identity. Shabtai Teveth's account allows them to avoid responsibility, but at the cost of ignoring mountains of evidence. Nur Masalha's account in contrast, burdens them with a responsibility that jeopardizes their national bond. It is reasonable to expect them to adopt the first and reject the second, but it is unreasonable to expect them to adopt the third, irrespective of its scholarly merits.     

Fighting for the Soviet Union 2.0: Digital nostalgia and national belonging in the context of the Ukrainian crisis

This paper focuses on the use of Soviet-era symbols, myths, and narratives within groups on VKontakte social media site over the initial stage of the Ukraine crisis (2014–2015). The study is based on qualitative content analysis of online discussions, visual materials, and entries by group administrators and commentators. It also applies link-analysis in order to see how groups on social media are interrelated and positioned online. It reveals that these online groups are driven primarily by neo-Soviet myths and hopes for a new version of the USSR to emerge. Over time, the main memory work in these groups shifted from Soviet nostalgia and “pragmatic” discourse to the use of re-constructed World War II memories in order to justify Russian aggression and to undermine national belonging in Ukraine. Reliance on the wartime mythology allowed for the labelling of Euromaidan supporters as “fascists” that should be eliminated “once again.” This powerful swirl of re-created Soviet memories allowed effective mobilization on the ground and further escalation of the conflict from street protests to the armed struggle.