Sexual Slander and the 1965/66 Mass Killings in Indonesia: Political and Methodological Considerations

Indonesia has been haunted by the “spectre of communism” since the putsch by military officers on 1 October 1965. That event saw the country's top brass murdered and the military attributing this putsch to the Communist Party. The genocide that followed was triggered by a campaign of sexual slander. This led to the real coup and the replacement of President Sukarno by General Suharto. Today, accusations about communism continue to play a major role in public life and state control remains shored up by control over women's bodies. This article introduces the putsch and the socialist women's organisation Gerwani, members of which were, at the time, accused of sexual debauchery. The focus is on the question of how Gerwani was portrayed in the aftermath of the putsch and how this affects the contemporary women's movement. It is found that women's political agency has been restricted, being associated with sexual debauchery and social turmoil. State women's organisations were set up and women's organisations forced to help build a “stable” society, based on women's subordination. The more independent women's groups were afraid to be labelled “new Gerwani ” as that would unleash strong state repression. This article assesses the implications of these events for the post-1998 period of Reformasi and reviews some recent analyses of 1965, state terrorism and violence and reveals blind spots in dealing with gender and sexual politics. It is argued that the slander against Gerwani is downplayed in these analyses. In fact, this slander was the spark without which the bloodbath would not have happened and would not have acquired its gruesome significance.     

When the Walls Come Crumbling Down: The Monarchy and Thai-style Democracy

Although many people date critical commentary on the Thai monarchy to Paul Handley's explosive biography The King Never Smiles: A Biography of Thailand's Bhumibol Adulyadej, this article demonstrates the existence of a consistently critical body of work, in the English language, that emerged contemporaneously with the king's growing stature from the 1980s. It also considers the conditions that have led to wider and more vocal criticisms since the coup of 2006. The primary focus is an exploration of new contributions to this critical commentary by the authors of the edited collection Saying the Unsayable: Monarchy and Democracy in Thailand. It identifies tensions across the chapters, including different emphases on liberalism and conservatism, and on the symbolic functioning of the monarchy.     

Nothing personal: explaining the rise and decline of political machines in Ukraine

This article is the first to explore and compare the dynamics of party-building between the three main political forces that competed for power during the last decade in Ukraine – Viktor Yushchenko's Nasha Ukrayina (Our Ukraine), Yulia Tymoshenko's Batkivshchyna (Fatherland), and Viktor Yanukovych's Partiya Rehioniv (Party of Regions). We show that their political trajectories can be explained by differences in their organizational structure and distribution of resources within the party's leadership. When a party depends on resources linked primarily to one individual, it will develop a personalized decision-making structure advantaging its leader, and the party's fortunes will be tied to the popularity (or lack of same) of the leader. By contrast, when a party relies equally on resources from several groups, a more consociational style of decision-making is likely to emerge. Using Ukraine as a case study, the article shows that personality-led parties will be more vulnerable to defections and less capable of absorbing potential competitors. On the other hand, coalition-led parties are better capable of surviving defeats, maintaining internal cohesion, and merging with like-minded parties.     

Class or Citizenship? Debating Workplace Conflict in China

While a new working class is in the process of remaking itself in China, the latest trend in labour studies has rejected the Marxist tradition which sees the social relations of production as the point of departure for analysing workplace conflict. According to the new current, influenced by post-structuralism, class is only one of the identities articulated by workers, and it can be understood only with reference to their discourses. By critically evaluating an important book by Ching Kwan Lee (Against the Law: Labor Protests in China's Rustbelt and Sunbelt), this article suggests that her approach generalising workers' protests with the notion of citizenship cannot satisfactorily explain the changing pattern of labour protests in China since 2004. By using fieldwork data and connecting the analysis of the social relations of production with the changing patterns of workers' struggle, this paper argues that migrant workers protests are a significant part of the emerging class conflict in China.     

Collecting on their investments,one woman at a time: Economic partnerships among Caribbean immigrant women in the United States

ABSTRACT

This article treats rotating savings and credit associations (ROSCAs) from a constructive cultural perspective. The female-based African-Jamaican tradition of paadna (partnership) is examined within the theoretical scope of womanist (Black feminist) thought, a seminal discourse intersecting both the African diaspora and women's studies. Across the multiple scholarly approaches within women's and African diaspora studies, academic theory acquires cogency through legitimate correspondences with tangible liberating practices and traditions that can be documented and interrogated for conceptual insights. The practice of economic partnering is one such tradition that substantiates the ethical directives and imperatives of womanist theory and practice. A womanist reading of paadnas is proposed, not because the participants have any self-conscious commitment to feminism/womanism, but because of the institution's efficacy in enhancing the socioeconomic standing of Black families through a relatively small-scale capital enterprise. Through paadna networks, Jamaican women have transplanted a flexible self-help tradition to America that is arguably one of the most reliable sources of social and economic mobility among groups of African descent in the United States.     

Hunger

Abstract

Books about hunger and its causes are nothing new, as anyone who follows development literature is well aware. This is probably because hunger itself has been around as long as people have been writing books. Nevertheless, 1974 was the year of a “world food crisis”: the United Nations saw fit to convene a world food conference in Rome, and a spate of new books has appeared in its aftermath to discuss the problem. Why a crisis should have congealed in 1974 from the world's perennial hunger is one of the subjects ably considered by Collins and Lappe's Food First and Susan George's How the Other Half Dies. Why so much has been written about it is a subject worth considering here.     

The Soviet Union and the International Trade Regime: A Reply

An international economist and United Nations executive replies to a critique of his paper devoted to the anticipated Soviet participation in the GATT. The author's rebuttal is focused on his opponent's perception of the GATT as an exclusive club and the suggestion that Soviet membership would be costly to the West. Several new arguments are marshaled to substantiate the initial premise that planned economies attempting to reform should be incorporated in the international trade regime. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: 027, 124, 420.     

Anti-immigrant mobilization in Russia's regions: local movements and framing processes

This article argues that increased anti-immigrant mobilization (the targeting of ethnic migrants to limit their rights and/or promote their resettlement) in Russia's regions is a consequence of local social movements adopting an anti-immigrant frame as part of their efforts to promote recruitment, acquire resources, and advance their movement's particular cause. Using the cases of Sverdlovsk's Gorod Bez Narkotikov (City Without Drugs) and Krasnodar's Cossack groups, it develops the argument and demonstrates specific ways in which an anti-immigrant frame is taken up by local movements. As a complement to existing studies of anti-immigrant sentiment or far right ideology, these cases highlight the practical politics of mobilizing support for anti-immigration causes in contemporary Russia.     

La représentation politique dans les doctrines et dans les institutions au XVIIIème et au XIXème siècles en Europe et aux Etats‐Unis: Une recherche en cours

SUMMARY

In this article Cristiana Senigaglia seeks to elucidate Hegel's conception of the coup d'état. This is necessary because Hegel did not systematically expound his view in this writings, notably it is not treated in his central work, Die Philosophie des Rechts. But a consistent view can be found in his historical and philosophical writings. The article suggests that Hegel did consider there were circumstances in which a use of force to change an existing political order, or lack of it, were justified. He cited the political chaos in early modern Italy, or the constitutional instabilities in France in his own time as examples where the forces of history justified illegal and forceful interventions, be they from above or below, or the intervention of the decisive historical individual, a Caesar or a Bonaparte. To be justified, in Hegel's view, such irregular actions must be consistent with the contemporary underlying forces driving the historical process: they must have the effect of creating a new, acceptable legal order to replace that which is overthrown; and in consequence must result in a new normalization. In order to be justified, and thus to succeed in the long term, the exceptional situation created by the coup must be temporary and limited. Hegel saw Robespierre and Bonaparte as examples where a justified coup was initiated, but then the will of the initiators became an obstacle to a new normalization.     

Re-Imagining Identity: The Transformation of the Alevi Semah

Until the early 1990s, the Alevi community, a heterodox Islamic sect in Turkey, actively avoided explaining their beliefs to outsiders and were against permitting non-Alevis to enter their cem rituals. By the mid-1990s they began to hold their rituals publicly in the cemevi (lit. cem house) in Turkish cities and in their cultural centres in the diaspora. Almost all Alevi associations or the cemevis in the diaspora and ‘at home' have a semah group educated and organized by the executive. As opposed to rural/traditional cem rituals in which everybody may take part in the dance, the semahs performed in the urban cems are carried out by the semah groups consisting of young men and women. Moreover, these semah groups also perform in the non-ritual context. Thus, if the predominance of semah within the Alevi cem ritual is a ‘fact' to be studied, then differences in their present interpretations in Turkish cities and in the diaspora is another. This article examines these differences in the context of the transformation of the semah from the representation of religious identity to that of ethno-political identity.     

Wilayat al-Faqih in Hizballah's Web of Concepts: A Perspective on Ideology

This study explores the use of a web of concepts as an analytical tool for investigating a movement's ideology. It locates wilayat al-faqih [guardianship of the jurisprudent] in Hizballah's web of concepts and identifies how wilayat al-faqih has been defined and used throughout the organization's history. Hizballah's web has always included a mix of Islamic, quasi-Islamic, and non-Islamic concepts. Wilayat al-faqih has been a source of legitimacy and authority for Hizballah and a unifying concept within the movement. Claiming allegiance to it has resulted in material and ideological support from Iran. However, the radical change in the national context required Hizballah to re-articulate the concept upon the end of the Lebanese Civil War. The death of Khomeini and intellectual contributions by Shia scholars enabled Hizballah leaders to separate political from religious authority and to decentralize the political power of wilayat al-faqih. By modifying the concept, Hizballah leaders were able to continue their revolutionary mission in a new way and in a new context.     

The Palestinian Fidâ'i as an Icon of Transnational Struggle: The South Lebanese Experience

How did the Palestinian Resistance build the key transnational figure of the fidâ'i and why did South Lebanon play a major role in this process? Assessing the hypothesis of the ‘Lebanonisation’ of this symbol of the Palestinian national struggle, this article will examine the role and the symbol of the fidâ'i in the context of Lebanon in the 1970s, through an analysis of the actions of the fidâ'iyyn and the values and ethics that fidâ'iyyn were supposed to embody. Drawing on interviews with former fidâ'iyyn and previous research on the topic, I will consider the two dimensions of the presence of the fidâ'iyyn: first, their location in South Lebanon and how this borderland became a significant part of their struggle in the political consciousness of the marginalised local population; and second, the nature of the symbol they began to represent for Lebanese groups, especially those who became involved in Resistance groups like the student brigade (al-katibe al-tullabiyya).     

A historical review of the critical judgement of Il Gattopardo (1958) on the Risorgimento

The Leopard (Italian: Il Gattopardo) is a novel by Prince Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa that chronicles the end of the Bourbons' kingdom and the beginning of the Savoy dynasty, the first sovereigns of the new Kingdom of Italy (1861). Published posthumously in 1958, it became the top-selling novel in Italian history and it is considered one of the most important novels in modern Italian literature. In 2012 The Observer named it as one of the ‘10 best historical novels’. The purpose of this article is to refute the negative image of the Risorgimento as presented in this novel. The Leopard, with its broad resonance, has strongly contributed towards distorting the historical judgement on the foundations of the Italian nation, above all by failing to do justice to Prime Minister Cavour's courageous and judicious political strategy in the choice of the leadership class – also Sicilian – in the newly created Kingdom of Italy (1860–61).     

Change and Conflict in Contemporary Omani Society: The Case of Kafa'a in Marriage

This article explores the conflict between Omani traditional culture1 ^?1 Bearing in mind the complexity of defining culture, it is defined in this article as what people in Oman think, value, believe and hold as ideas. Thus, culture in contemporary Omani society includes values that are derived from the long-established tribal and Ibadi religious institutions, social structural systems of life and behaviour. View all notes and modern change by examining the practice of kafa'a 2 ^?2 In Arabic, kafa'a literally means ‘equality’. In Islamic legal terminology, kafa'a in marriage refers to the equivalence of the man and the woman, as defined by certain criteria. Specifically, an aspiring husband should be equal or superior to the proposed wife in terms of socio-economic status in order to be accepted as a suitable husband in marriage. In practice, therefore, kafa'a actually perpetuates and indeed promotes inequality between people because it legitimates discrimination against people judged to have lower socio-economic status. Further information on kafa'a in marriage and its legal and historical development in Islamic tradition can be viewed in Amalia Zomeno, ‘Kafa'a in the Maliki School: A Fatwa from Fifteenth Century Fez’, in R. Gleave and E. Kermeli (eds), Islamic Law: Theory and Practice (New York: IB Tauris, 1997), pp. 87–105; and Farhat J. Ziadeh, ‘Equality (Kafa'a) in Muslim Law of Marriage’, The American Journal of Comparative Law, 6(4) (1957), pp. 503–511. View all notes in present-day Oman. kafa'a—which refers to the notion that the husband's family should be equal or superior in terms of social, religious or economic background to the wife's family if the marriage is to be accepted—exemplifies a type of social and legal inequality that is at odds with State rhetoric on equality but congruent with the type of hierarchical social structure traditionally valued by Omanis, which tolerates a high degree of inequality between individuals and groups. I argue that the recognition of kafa'a as a condition of marriage in Article 20 of the Omani Personal Status Law serves to, in effect, reinforce traditional tribal and religious cultural practices in Oman.     

Baltic Theater 1995–2005: Processes and Trends

During the decade from 1995 to 2005 theater in the Baltic region widened its repertory borders, created a new system of management and renewed its artistic language. It lost its ideological significance and intellectual leadership. The new system of contracts gave more freedom to theater managers in changing the inner structure of theaters, and in forming smaller and more dynamic theater companies. The self-identifying process appeared in all three Baltic theaters, as seen in such productions as Alvis Hermanis's Latvian Stories (2004), Priit Pedajas’ performance of Andres Kivirahk's Estonian Funeral (2002) and Rimas Tuminas’ production of Marius Iva?kevi?ius’ Madagaskaras (2004).     

Necropolitics in the Jungle: COVID-19 and the Marginalisation of Brazil's Forest Peoples

COVID-19 has been particularly damaging to already vulnerable social groups, such as forest peoples. In Brazil, indigenous, Afro-Brazilian quilombolas and other racialised communities have suffered disproportionately under Bolsonaro's hands-off policy during the pandemic. We argue that, far from happenstance, this policy fits into a form of necropolitics towards forest peoples. Drawing from Achille Mbembe's seminal work, this article analyses how underlying (and sometimes overt) racism, cultural depredation, and government-supported deforestation constitute an assault now catalysed by the pandemic. Understanding forest peoples' disproportionate deaths in perspective is critical for addressing their growing vulnerability and the broader politics currently at play.     

Women's Organisations and the Politics of Gender in Cuba's Urban Insurrection (1952–1958)

This article sheds new light on Cuba's urban insurrection to oust Fulgencio Batista by focusing on two all‐women's anti‐Batista groups. It charts the origins and developments of the groups, explores their conceptions about the importance of women's political action and examines the impact that participating in the insurrection had on group members. The article complicates long‐standing assumptions about women's low levels of participation in the insurrection and the absence of demands for gender equity among those who did participate by noting that some older women militants had histories with the feminist movement of the 1930s, and that many younger women were forced by the circumstances of the insurrection to confront and challenge contemporary gender norms.     

Unburied Bodies — Hungarian National Identity 1989-2020

The erection of historical monuments is always an extension of national dentity — imagined by the ruling power. The current rehabilitation of Kossuth Square around the Budapest Parliament is intended to recreate its appearance as it was in 1944. The re-configuration of urban space includes removal and exchange of current monuments and statues, as well as the erection of new ones. I will analyze the case of three statues and monuments that represent distinct events in Hungarian collective memory. The construction of the Memorial of National Unity and the erection of the Memorial for the Victims of the German Occupation are both seemingly attempts to cope with separate and intertwined national traumas, that are still haunting the collective memory. The removal of the Statue of Imre Nagy is also a telling example of the transformation of national identity, and an indication of how the 1956 revolution's status has changed within the nation's collective memory since 1989. These three monuments illustrate the transformation of Hungarian national identity after the system change, and point to possible further changes in the future.     

Challenging Bipolarity: The Socialist International and the ‘Chilean Democratic Cause’ during the Cold War

This article analyses, the Socialist International's (SI) new international positioning strategies from a transnational perspective, through its relationship with the Chilean cause in the context of the Cold War détente. Focus will be placed on the SI's strong commitment to the Chilean democratic cause after the coup and its sustained activism during the military regime. Drawing from primary sources in various international archives, this article's main goal is to shed light on the SI's positioning regarding Latin America as a way to challenge the bipolar order.