Our African Territories

This article represents the second half of a speech made ata combined meeting with the Royal Empire Society, on the 27thFebruary. Mr. Creech Jones was deputising, at short notice,for his chief, Mr. George Hall, with Lord Harlech in the chair.The first part of the address was devoted to a general statementof British Colonial principles.     

On Grunfeld's “roof of the world”

Abstract

In his article Mr. Grunfeld claims to be a scholar and to treat the material scholarly. A critical reader cannot help but suspect the author of supporting the Chinese Communist claims and propaganda regarding Tibet, and of using the scholar's disguise to do so. A few examples should clarify this statement.     

Town Planning in West Africa

This article represents the major part of an address given toa combined meeting with the Royal Empire Society on the 26thJune. From the Chair, Mr. A. R. I. Mellor explained that Mr.Fry will be returning to West Africa to continue the work, eventhough his post as Adviser has expired.     

Secret Intelligence And Escape Clauses: Australia and the Indonesian Annexation of East Timor, 1963-76

In September 2000 the Australian government declassified thousands of pages of documents concerning the Indonesian invasion and annexation of East Timor in 1975. Some 68,000 pages of documents were released. About 2,600 pages of diplomatic documents were withheld, along with Cabinet papers, intelligence materials, and Defence Department records. The documents cover only the period from early 1974 to mid-1976 and do not document the Indonesian war and its human costs. What they do document is the process whereby Australia acquiesced in the Indonesian annexation of East Timor. Above all, they show that secret briefings by the Indonesians kept the Australian government closely informed of Indonesian intentions and operations at every step. In the light of these secret briefings and related documents, it is clear that Prime Minister Gough Whitlam's claim that he wanted to see a “genuine act of self-determination” by the East Timorese is and always was hollow. This was a fig leaf covering his desire to see East Timor incorporated into Indonesia as West Papua had been in the 1960s. Its patina of moral responsibility and legal respectability were his alibi or, as Richard Woolcott put it in late 1974, “escape clause,” if and when Indonesian actions led to accusations of Australian complicity with Jakarta. Mr. Whitlam was complicit. The record is clear.     

Interview: Ismail Abu Shanab

Mr. Abu Shanab is a founding member and a current leader of Hamas, the Islamic resistance movement. The following interview was conducted on November 18, 1997, at his home in Gaza City by Roger Gaess, a free-lance journalist based in New York.     

Corrigendum

In the short note published in the last issue, ‘The SeventiethAnniversary of the Founding of the Royal African Society’it was erroneously stated that Mr Swanzy had been editor ofthe Society's journal ‘for many years before 1944’and Alan Gray from 1944 to 1966. Mr Swanzy points out that his editorship ran from 1944 to 1954,when he was succeeded by Alan Gray. It was in fact he who renamedthe journal African Affairs to differentiate its content fromthat of the International African Institute, and who institutedthe valuable, though exacting, feature ‘Quarterly Notes’. Mr Swanzy himself contributed to the 1951 Jubilee number animportant review of the Royal African's Society's history tothis date. The editors much regret these substantial errors and omissions,and are glad to be reminded of them.     

African Music

The writer, of St. Mark's College, Mapanza, Northern Rhodesia,is the author of an essay on African music published by theRhodes-Livingstone Institute at Livingstone. He is a keen supporterof the African Music Society recently founded at Johannesburgby Mr. Hugh Tracey. Although he deals specifically with musicin Northern Rhodesia, he suggests there is evidence to showthat his statements apply in principle also to South and toWest Africa.     

朝鲜作家柳梦寅散文引中国文化典故研究

朝鲜著名作家柳梦寅热爱中国传统文化,熟悉其中的各类语典和事典,并以正用、反用、明用、暗用、单用、叠用等各种形式将这些典故引入自己的散文。这些典故使他的散文更具权威性,更有说服力;更具形象性,表达效果更鲜明;更加委婉含蓄、意味无穷;表达更典雅、更有文化意蕴。而少数的典故堆砌也让其散文表现出冗长拖沓和难懂的不足。大量运用中国文化典故,既说明柳梦寅熟悉并热爱中国文化,也表现了他不甘被埋没而努力炫耀才华的心理。     

Whither Mr Abe's Japan?

This article reviews Japan's strategic options and policy initiatives under Prime Minister Abe, taking into consideration strategic changes in the region; chiefly a rising China and a United States approaching geopolitical retreat, and the policy implications of these developments. Mr Abe's announced goal is to restore Japan to its once great power status, and thus far success is proving elusive.

MAIN ARGUMENT

Hurdles in Mr Abe's path include the differing perceptions between Japan and its neighbours regarding Japan's history, and the deeply entrenched nature of these differences pose a significant barrier. A related aspect is the territorial disputes. A second task is to be a “normal” nation, that is exercising greater independence in security matters and matters of economic policy, and here differences arise with Japan's main ally, the United States. Furthermore Mr Abe also needs to convince the Japanese public as well as Japan's prospective allies about his views regarding Japan's security role in the region. A third task is to increase Japan's economic weight by turning around the Japanese economy from its existing stasis to sustained, robust growth.

POLICY IMPLICATIONS

Mr Abe is making urgent policy efforts in all directions and the rather uneven outcome experienced thus far has not deterred him, thus creating uncertainty for Japan, and enhancing the feeling of insecurity in the region. The ostensible policy choice facing Mr Abe now is to either persist with his existing policies, hence entrenching the increasing tensions in the region, or to accept a rapidly rising China and formulate policies more accommodative of that development.     

The Putin Thesis and Russian Energy Policy

A specialist on Russian politics and society analyzes Russian President Vladimir Putin's academic work on mineral resources in the Russian economy. Mr. Putin defended a kandidat dissertation in economics and subsequently published an article outlining his view of the appropriate role of the Russian state, and of vertically integrated financial-industrial groups, in the mineral resource sector, and particularly in the oil and gas industry. Connections are drawn between the views expressed in Mr. Putin's publications and policy during his second presidential term.     

Perils of pork‐barrel politics: The birth of the Murayama government

In August 1993, Morihiro Hosokawa's coalition government brought an end to the “1955 Regime” of Liberal Democratic Party‐dominated politics in Japan. Since then, Hosokawa himself has been brought down, as has his successor Tsutomu Hata. After years of stability, Japanese politics are now marked by confusion and indecision that show no signs of abating. In this article, IIPS Research Director Seizaburo Sato, who is also professor of political science at Keio University in Tokyo, points out that whatever happens to the not‐so‐strange bedfellows of the present governing coalition, Japan as a nation is at a historical crossroads, and the decisions it makes in the next few years will have far‐reaching implications.     

Northern Rhodesia and Federation

A Joint Metting was held on Thursday, May 29th, 1952, when theCommissioner for Northern Rhodesia spoke in his private capacity.The Chair was taken by Mr. R. S. Hudson, Head of the AfricanStudies Branch in the Colonial Office.     

Rejoinder

Abstract

Many of Mr. van Walt's criticisms are based solely on fabrications of his own making. For example, I am accused, twice, of referring to myself as a “scholar” and to my article as “scholarly.” I could find no trace of either. I am further accused of considering all Tibetan refugee accounts as “unreliable.” To be sure, I believe that one cannot base the study of historical events solely on refugee accounts, but that does not make all of these stories “unreliable.” After all, Dawa Norbu, a refugee himself, wrote in Red Star Over Tibet, “I never saw or heard of any case of misconduct by a Red soldier.” I would never argue that this statement was unreliable. We are further told that I refer to Tibetans as Chinese when in the second paragraph of my review I wrote, “… Tibetans [are] only one of 56 minority nationalities.” Chinese citizens yes, ethnic Hans no. A final example, although there are many more, is Mr. van Walt's attempt to attribute to me the opinion that

… the only importance to the Western academic world is that the situation in Tibet can teach us how to eliminate a “mystical religion” and that “it gives clues as to how Peking will integrate a capitalist Taiwan into a Communist China in the future”. (emphasis added)     

Correction

A thorough-going protest has been made to the Uganda referencesin April (pp. 101–2) but on inquiry they boil down toan inadequate summary of the Kingdon report, which is acknowledgedwith regret. In the July number, the same correspondent pointsout that it is not the Police that has been expanded but thePolice Service Unit; while the special restriction on assemblyis limited to certain gazetted areas, at present 4 gombololasin Kyadondo County. Another mistake, pointed out by H. B. Thomas,is a reference on p. 283 to 5000 square miles being alienated,instead of 500. I have also been asked to say that the Rev.Michael Scott's passport has not been cancelled; the referencehere (p. 200) was based on a report of Dr. DQnges statementon the 27th April: "The question arose as to how the Governmentcould prevent the abuse of a cancelled passport as in the caseof the Rev. Michael Scott, who, when asked to hand in his passport,slipped over the border and took a plane from Rhodesia". Forhis part, Mr. E. B. Kirkman has complained of a reference toa transit welfare centre for miners in the Northern Gold Coast(p. 189). Although this was based on a statement by the Chairmanof a Mining Company, the opportunity is gladly taken of imputingno Macchiavellian intentions to the men who planned and builtthe centre.      

THE ASSYRIANS IN WORLD WAR ONE AND THE 1933 MASSACRE: NEW DISCOVERIES IN THE RSAA ARCHIVES

The recent discovery of a bundle of documents in the archives of the Royal Society for Asian Affairs has shed more light on the history of the Assyrian Christians of Iraq from the time of the First World War up to the Simele massacre in 1933. The documents are accounts and correspondence written primarily by a number of leading British players including Major-General Dunsterville, Sir Henry Dobbs, Colonel J.J. McCarthy, and also the Assyrian Patriarch Mar Shimun. They also shed further light on the role played by Leo Amery, Secretary of State for the Colonies. The documents appear to have been compiled by Sir Percy Sykes, the then Secretary of the Royal Central Asian Society (as the Royal Society for Asian Affairs then was) as part of an investigation into the situation of the Assyrians. This article introduces the newly-discovered collection of documents and discusses how they advance our understanding of this period.     

Correction

Professor Kenneth Robinson has written to African Affairs apologizingfora slip of the pen in his review of A. H. M Kirk-Greene'sBiographical Dictionary of British Colonial Governors, Vol.I (Africa) (p. 588 of the October 1982 issue): ‘I wrotethat ‘Sir Gerald Creasy did not accompany the Secretaryof State to West Africa in 1928 but the Parliamentary UnderSecretary, Mr Ormsby-Gore’. The visit was, of course,as the Dictionary correctly records, to Ceylon and Malaya. Ican only grovel.’     

President Roh Moo-Hyun’s Last Interview and the Roh Moo-Hyun Phenomenon in South Korea

This commentary discusses what is popularly regarded as the “Roh Moo-hyun Phenomenon” in today’s South Korean society, as an attempt to shed some light on an interview which the late President Roh Moo-hyun had with the author in December 2008. This interview is unique not only because it became Roh’s last interview conducted before his suicide on May 23, 2009, but also because it provides Roh’s candid critical self-assessment on his own presidency, especially regarding his role in both domestic politics and the inter-Korean relationship, and the Korea-US relationship during his term in office, as well as commenting on Japan’s approach to Northeast Asian regional politics. Reflecting on Roh’s star-like rise to the presidency and fall from grace, this commentary alerts readers that Roh’s last interview needs to be considered within the context of the Roh Moo-Hyun Phenomenon, especially in regard to the 2017 presidential election, because it will directly affect the fate of not just the “pro-Roh group,” with the largest share of the opposition in today’s Korean society, but the Korean people as a whole at a time when the country’s many leading civic groups are desperately seeking a “Great Transformation.”     

Contesting and upholding the rights of the Irish Parliament in 1698: the arguments of William Molyneux and Simon Clement

SUMMARY

This paper explores the constitutional relationship between England and Ireland at the end of the seventeenth century with a focus on the contemporary debate around the prerogative of the Irish legislature. It examines and contrasts the arguments developed in the pamphlets of William Molyneux of Dublin (1656–98), representing the ruling Irish Protestant nation, and of English Whig Simon Clement (1654?–1730?), asserting the rights of the English empire. Molyneux's The Case of Ireland's being bound by Acts of Parliament in England, Stated (Dublin, 1698) and Clement's An answer to Mr. Molyneux his case of Ireland's being bound by Acts of Parliament in England, stated: and his dangerous notion of Ireland's being under no subordination to the parliamentary authority of England refuted by reasoning from his own arguments and authorities (London, 1698) are compared and analysed in the context of renewed tensions around the woollen trade. These pamphlets highlight the nature, and the perceived nature, of the constitutional relationship between the two polities in the aftermath of the ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688. The main discussion was whether Ireland was a colony of England or an independent kingdom, and how its nature affected the relationship between both legislatures. Molyneux argued that Ireland, although sharing a monarch with England, was an independent kingdom. To Molyneux, Ireland's independence, as a kingdom, signified the independence of its legislature and the unconstitutionality of the English Parliament's claim to legislate for Ireland. Clement refuted Molyneux's assertions point by point, contending that Ireland was part and parcel of an empire. In Clement's opinion, Ireland's subjection to England meant that the English Parliament had a legitimate right to legislate for Ireland.     

INTERVIEW WITH JIHAD AL-KHAZEN

Mr. Khazen is the editor of al-Hayat, an internationally circulated Arabic-language daily published in London. The following interview was conducted on October 14, 1994, at Mr. Khazen's office in the Hammersmith district of London by Roger Gaess, a free-lance journalist based in New York.     

“These Few Small Boats”: Representations of Asylum Seekers During Australia’s 1977 and 2001 Elections

ABSTRACT

This paper compares the asylum-seeker discourses of prime minister Malcolm Fraser and his minister for immigration and ethnic affairs, Michael MacKellar, during Australia’s 1977 federal election campaign, with those of prime minister John Howard and his minister for immigration and multicultural affairs, Philip Ruddock, during the much-analysed 2001 election campaign. It argues that in 1977 Fraser was not an outspoken advocate for asylum seekers as he was later in life, but that his silence—when considered in conjunction with MacKellar’s emphatic and humanising statements—functioned to depoliticise boat arrivals and calm public concerns. Further, it demonstrates that the arguments prosecuted by the Howard government in 2001 were not new; similar arguments had been made in 1977 but were decisively rebutted by MacKellar at the time. This analysis ultimately suggests that while government discourses have the power to amplify the latent fears and hostilities that can lead to moral panics, they also have the capacity to defuse them.