The Head of State Debate: A Response to Sir David Smith and Professor David Flint

In the 1990s political leaders debated a constitutional amendment that would make Australia a republic. That debate continues to the present day. Republicans believe that becoming a republic means having an Australian as head of state instead of the Queen. Constitutional Monarchists see no need for Australia to become a republic since Australia, they argue, is already an independent nation‐state. They contend that the head of state, the Governor‐General, is an Australian citizen and has been since 1965, and that the Queen of Australia is the Sovereign. The purpose of this article is to provide a republican response to recent arguments of two leading Constitutional Monarchist, Sir David Smith and Professor David Flint.     

想象的地方性神圣历史——菲律宾阿拉安人的神话观

本文探讨了菲律宾原住民族阿拉安人主位式的神话观。笔者通过五次参与式田野调查,深入民都洛岛山区,搜集当地阿拉安人"活形态"的洪水神话、创世神话,调查原住民的神灵信仰。本文首先介绍了阿拉安人及其神话的基本情况;然后从学术史的角度回溯了"神话观"在民俗学研究中所涉及到的理论和方法;接着重点论述了阿拉安人把神话视为想象的、地方性的历史,作为当地重要的、神圣的"地方性知识",进行朴素而真实的讲述;最终提出神话在阿拉安人中是作为地方性的、神圣的历史而存在的,是原住民理解世界起源、人类起源、本民族起源的世界观和历史观,是原住民"地方性知识"系统中不可缺失的核心内容。     

Protecting the Sacred: Tunisia's Islamist Movement Ennahdha and the Challenge of Free Speech

Since the 2011 uprising, Tunisia's Islamist movement Ennahdha has proposed a political project based on reclaiming the nation's Arab-Islamic identity. At the heart of this is the issue of ‘protection of the sacred’, which seeks to define limits to freedom of expression to protect religious symbols from criticism. This is part of Ennahdha's post-Islamist evolution. The movement has drawn away from its earlier ambitions to Islamise the state and now seeks to reconstruct the role of Islam by asserting a cultural Islamic identity, which recasts religious norms as conservative values and which has yet to determine the precise limits of new individual freedoms. The result was to propose a new set of rules for the community under which Tunisians would freely express their religious belief in a way denied them under the former regime, but would also live under a state that defended and guaranteed their religious values.     

The great game: Russia's role in the Persian Empire and Tibet

Formerly Professor of History and Central Asian Studies at the Panjab University, Chandigarh, Parshotam Mehra has written largely on India's northern frontiers and relations with Tibet and China. His publications include The North‐West Frontier Drama 1945–47 (1998), An ‘Agreed’ Frontier, Ladakh and India's Northern Borders (1992) and The McMahon Line and After (1974). Two of his books, From Conflict to Conciliation: Tibetan Polity Re‐visited and The Younghusband Expedition, an Interpretation (2^nd edition), are due to appear later this year.     

Sacred Sovereigns and Punishable War Crimes: The Ambivalence of the Wilson Administration towards a Trial of Kaiser Wilhelm II*

Conventional wisdom characterises President Woodrow Wilson as a progressive internationalist in the making of foreign policy, sceptical of international practices such as secret diplomacy and balance-of-power theories. An examination of the Wilson Administration's record in quelling Allied attempts to punish Kaiser Wilhelm II after the end of the First World War provides a contrasting view. The White House, leading figures in the State Department and a large grouping of prominent lawyers argued that punishing the German sovereign for waging war in violation of treaties would destabilise international order and lose the peace. Current American reluctance to participate in the International Criminal Court and fears of an undue intrusion of an international judiciary on the merits of foreign policy make an understanding of these reservations timely.