Gendering the millennium: globalising women

As the century has just changed for the Western calendar it should be borne in mind that for a vast part of the world the centuries are rolling at a different time and under different conditions. So, although we live and trade in a "global village", we are yet divided by time, space, and ideologies. The hope is that the 21st century will enable us to have a closer look at each other and that the global networks, the web sites, and the electronic mailing systems, will work as a bridge rather than as a new means of widening the gaps. This article is a plea for a better understanding of the different priorities and views that Islamist women have of themselves, of their place in history, and what it is that they need to fight for. It is also a call for the universality of sisterhood and a wish that the solidarity that was forged in the latter part of the 20th century will not be fragmented into smithereens in the new millennium.     

Sustainable development challenges in a war‐torn country: Perceived danger and psychological well‐being

The laborer's physical and mental health, well‐being, and happiness are among the major indicators for measuring each nation's sustainable development. A conflictive and hostile external environment (war zone) poses considerable difficulty and psychological distress to workers and nonworkers. Therefore, working in such a physically dangerous business environment may hurt worker's well‐being and happiness that in turn may reduce the workers' productivity at the workplace. A high level of laborers' productivity in public and private sectors is essential for achieving sustainable development in the long term. Therefore, this paper examines the effects of perceived danger on employees' psychological well‐being in war‐torn Afghanistan, an issue being addressed for the first time. We tested the moderating role of social support from coworkers on this effect in order to have a broader vision of which individuals are healthier and happier in a physically dangerous working environment. Two survey data sets were collected from 190 employees working in various small private and public businesses in Herat, Afghanistan. Our results reveal the negative impact of perceived danger on employees' psychological well‐being and that employees who receive little or no social support from their peers feel the negative effects of a physically dangerous working condition even more acutely.     

Anomie at public organizations: How can the quality of work life help?

Will enhancing the quality of work life impact the reduction of anomic behaviors at work in public sector organizations? To answer this question, we examined the impact of three structural, managerial, and social dimensions of the quality of work life, including the employees' anomie behaviors at the workplace. A cross‐sectional survey data were collected from 250 employees working in the public sector organizations located in the Kerman Province, (southeast) Iran. Our findings support the negative effects that the three dimensions of quality of work life have on employees' anomic behaviors. The results of this study highlighted the importance that the quality of work life has on reducing unethical and immoral behavior among employees in public organizations.     

Destroyed by Love: nation,memory, and humanity in South Asia

Remembered experiences of violence, humiliation, and loss suffered in the 1971 war of Bangladesh offer a site for writing a new contemporary history in South Asia. Love, not for humanity but for nation, in survivors' memories was the site of violence in the war. The state's history-writing project cultivated hate against neighbors deemed enemies and encouraged violence against them. More than four decades later, the awareness of intersubjective relationships leads survivors—victims and perpetrators—to search for meaning beyond their national labels. The quest leads to the renewal of insāniyat, a South Asian concept of humanity, which survivors suggest is the site of human freedom from violence.     

The Tyranny of the Majority in Bangladesh: The Case of the Chittagong Hill Tracts

This article analyzes how the construction of a national ideology in Bangladesh has been achieved through a style of majoritarianism based on “positional dominance.” This has resulted in the construction of a national identity that is based on a particular form of Bengali identity that subsumes and indeed delegitimizes other claims to identity within the state, including claims made by indigenous communities to their own distinctive, place-based identity. Although a formal peace treaty has been signed, peace remains elusive due to the cultural hegemony of Bengalis over the indigenous peoples in the name of the supremacy of the national state.     

Muslim women and the burden of ideology

The patriarchal nature of Islam has led to the total submission and exploitation of female muslim workers. Although involved in the process of production muslim women are separated from the sphere of circulation and remain rooted in the sphere of domesticity. The double exploitation and enslavement of these women undermines the prospect of emancipation through competition in the labour market and makes them vulnerable to the lure of idealised images of motherhood and domesticity projected by the resurgent Islamic ideology.     

Feminisms, Islamophobia and Identities

There has been a tendency of late to conflate all Muslims as belonging to a single nation and aspiring to a single political aim. This effect has been achieved by some authors so as to accommodate Islamophobia, but by others to generate a sense of inclusive unity that encloses all Muslims. We contend that in the post 9/11 climate of Islamophobia women wearing the scarf, the mohajabehs, are making a political choice. They are publicly branding themselves as Muslims at a time when such a label carries the potential fear of making them vulnerable to open hostility. But the Islam that they embody is distinct and different from the stark, gendered divides envisaged by protagonists on both side of the Islamophobic divide. The unity demanded by some of the highly vocal and visible Islamic groups marginalises the contestations posed within these groups by women who may be described as feminists. The specificities demanded by those who envisage Islam primarily as an antagonistic political force in the UK are very different from the flexibility that many women envisage. They aspire to belong to the Umma or people of Islam, conceptualised as crossing ethnic, racial, geographical and political boundaries, an identity that is primarily inclusive rather than exclusive. The multiplicities of identities of many mohajabehs sit more easily within the permeable unbounded umma than the constrained gendered boundaries of the combative male political Islamism.