Turks and Tatars in Bulgaria and the Balkans

Generosity is the thought that comes to mind after hearing and later reading the five studies first presented at a symposium in Toronto (2 October 2008) and published here in this issue of Nationalities Papers. My colleagues, who span the disciplines of history, literary criticism, and political science, have been generous with the time they spent in composing their essays and then traveling to Toronto to deliver them in person, and they have been particularly generous in conveying a spirit of constructive criticism and self-reflection that represent the best aspects of our common intellectual enterprise. To each of you – George G. Grabowicz, Taras Kuzio (who initiated this symposium), Serhii Plokhy, Alexender J. Motyl, and Dominique Arel – I express my deep appreciation for your generosity of mind and spirit.     

Yu-Rock in the 1980s: Between Urban and Rural

Two main myths constitute the founding basis of popular Polish ethnic nationalism: first, that Poland-Lithuania was an early Poland, and second, that the partitioning powers at all times unwaveringly pursued policies of Germanization and Russification. In the former case, the myth appropriates a common past today shared by Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Ukraine. In the latter case, Polonization is written out of the picture entirely, as also are variations and changes in the polices of Germanization and Russification. Taken together, the two myths to a large degree obscure (and even falsify) the past, making comprehension of it difficult, if not impossible. This article seeks to disentangle the knots of anachronisms that underlie the Polish national master narrative, in order to present a clearer picture of the interplay between the policies of Germanization, Polonization, and Russification as they unfolded in the lands of the partitioned Poland-Lithuania during the long nineteenth century.     

质证权语境下刑事案件证人的保护制 度简

刑事被告质证权有利于查明案件事实，可增强判决的可接受性和司法公信力。我国刑事诉讼法证人保护的规定过于原则、笼统，司法实践中证人及近亲属人身安全遭受侵害的现象极为严重。对于某些特定类型的案件，可运用远程作证，既节约了成本，又满足了“作证质证”的需要。     

Diamela Eltit: Clearing space for critical performance

Reggaeton's success in the international music scene has incited heated debates about the genre's genealogy. The dominant framework for discussing reggaeton's origin often relies on and reifies nation-based claims to the genre, overlooking how reggaeton resists being fixed to any single locale. In this paper I discuss the emergence of the reggaeton subgenre bhangraton (a mix of bhangra pop and reggaeton) and point to some of the ways that it challenged nationalist claims to reggaeton. Reggaetonera and Hindi-vocalist Deevani, in particular, complicates claims about racial, ethnic, and sonic purity that circulate within reggaeton by highlighting how race, gender, and affinity are performed and felt and by calling attention to the genre's multiple circuits outside the nation.     

The ‘Arab Spring’ in the historical perspectives of Middle East politics

Abstract

The events of the ‘Arab Spring’ appeared to be animated by slogans and objectives of universalist orientations to liberty, dignity and social justice, a departure from the ethno-religious nationalisms that dominated the politics of the region. They raised questions regarding the ‘exceptionalism’ of Arabs and Muslims, whom many observers and commentators considered to be tied to sentiments and solidarities of patrimonialism, tribe and religion. Yet, the forces that seemed to benefit from the transformations in Egypt and elsewhere were not those that made the ‘revolution’ but precisely religious and patriarchal parties which benefited from popular constituencies in elections. A consideration of the political history of the main countries concerned can throw some light on these transformations. The nationalist, often military, regimes which emerged from the independence struggles of mid-twentieth century headed ideological, populist, nationalist and ‘socialist’ movements and parties and authoritarian regimes which eliminated oppositional politics and social autonomies in favour of a corporatist welfare state. These regimes, facing economic and geo-political contingencies of the later decades were transformed into dynastic oligarchies and crony capitalism which broke the compact of welfare and subsidies leading to intensified impoverishment and repression of their populations. Popular strata were driven ever more into reliance on ‘survival units’ of kin and community, reinforcing communal and religious attachments at the expense of civic and associational life. These ties and sentiments come to the fore when the ruling dynasties are displaced, as in Iraq after the 2003 invasion or Egypt after the removal of Mubarak. The ideological and universalist politics of the revolutionaries appear to be swamped by those conservative affiliations.     

How Linguistically Divided Media Represent Linguistically Divisive Issues. Belgian TV-Debates on Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde.

In line with public sphere theory, media in federal political systems can be expected to provide a forum for federal debate on federal issues. However, as media in Belgium are organized at the level of the language communities this is not necessarily the case. This contribution analyses how political TV debates of the two public broadcasters in Belgium represented the issue of the split of the electoral district ‘Brussels–Halle-Vilvoorde’ (BHV), on which politicians of both language communities were divided. Results show that Dutch-speaking and French-speaking media in Belgium do not serve as a platform for federal debate where the contrasting viewpoints can be expressed, but rather echo and amplify the political consensus of their own language community.     

语言·族群·意识形态

当代台湾的“母语立国”论述主要表现为一套后殖民主义话语:强调中国文化内部的族群差异与语言差异,并将中国历史上的文化“同化”理解为强势文化对弱势文化不断“殖民化”,并试图在此历史虚构上设计一套“台语立国”的政治-文化“革命”方案。而通过对中国现代性发生史的扼要回顾:从早期同盟会的血缘革命、种姓革命到成熟时期的共和理想,我们会发现,中国现代民族主义的主流是政治民族主义;追求民主、自由的共和理想,区别于德国式文化民族主义;追求血统与文化的纯洁性。     

Scotland Out the Union? The Rise and Rise of the Nationalist Agenda

The election of the Scottish National party as a majority government in 2011 is as challenging to the British state as it was unexpected. While explanations for SNP success focused on Labour's faulty campaign and poor leadership, the last half‐century has seen the rise and rise of the nationalist agenda in Scotland. Scotland's politics are now more different from England's than at any time since the 1950s. The Scottish parliament is the effect of that change rather than its cause, while party competition between Labour and the SNP north of the border has shifted political gravity centre‐left in contrast with England. It is not inevitable, however, that Scots would vote for Independence in a referendum. Nevertheless, Scotland is a more semi‐detached country than at any point in the history of the Union, and the future of the British state, at least in its present form, cannot be taken for granted.     

The Limits of Tolerance: Nation–State Building and What It Means for Minority Groups

Abstract

When we think of the most egregious forms of intolerance directed against minority communities we tend to associate them with particularly despicable regimes, such as Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia, where racism, ideology or some special route to development is often held to blame, or where ultra-nationalism swamps positive tendencies towards democracy and a civil society. In this essay Levene proposes a partial corrective to this view with reference to the supposedly ‘good’ nation–state derived from the western liberal model. He considers the behaviour of two such states at their inception, Poland and Israel, with regard to two minorities, Jews and Arabs, with the Jews providing linkage between the two state trajectories. Levene charts their respective rejections of bi-national or multinational development, and suggests that the fact that both states today maintain a modicum of tolerance towards their residual Jewish and Arab minorities is more the result of (paradoxical) good luck than of conscious, benevolent design. In conclusion Levene proposes that the very nature of the modern nation–state militates against genuine pluralistic tolerance, a goal that requires a massive structural re-ordering of contemporary society away from global economies to a sustainability of human scale.     

Ethnic Cleansing in Silesia 1950-89 and the Ennationalizing Policies of Poland and Germany

The rise of nationalism in Central Europe in the nineteenth century had dire consequences for Silesia, the far-flung, multi-ethnic frontier region of Prussia/Germany, bordering on Austria-Hungary and Russia. The dividing up in 1921 of Upper Silesia between Germany and the newly established Polish nation-state, and the ensuing ennationalization of both regions, triggered off population movements of 300,000 persons before 1939, when Berlin seized the whole of Upper Silesia and embarked on a policy of thorough Germanization. After 1945 this was succeeded by Polonization as Moscow granted most of the German territories east of the Oder-Neisse line (including almost the whole of Silesia) to Poland. In consequence, almost the entire Lower Silesian population either fled, was evacuated in 1944-5 or expelled by 1948, and the region was repopulated by Poles. The same was true in Upper Silesia but to a more limited degree as Warsaw decided to retain most of the local population: as 'Poles', they would 'justify' incorporation of the region into Poland, and they would continue to run the Upper Silesian industries so badly needed for the country's reconstruction. Although officially recognized as Poles, Upper Silesians were treated as second-class citizens. Whereas, by 1960, almost all of the remaining Lower Silesian Germans had been allowed to leave, this option was not available to Upper Silesians who, as a result, became more alienated, more German-orientated and even more deeply identified with their specific ethnic groups. Consequently, although Warsaw could not recognize them as non-Poles as it would contradict the offical myth of the state's ethnic homogeneity, an increasing number were allowed to leave for West Germany, especially after Bonn's major concessions to the Polish Communist regime in 1970 which had the dual effect of making hard-to-come-by goods more available for 'real' Poles, and of replenishing the conservative electorate in West Germany. On the other hand, those who stayed successfully defied Poland's ennationalizing policies by the establishment of various German organizations. The emigration of 1950-89 was in fact an 'ethnic cleansing' as it was originally set off by discrimination on ethnic grounds; the growing disparity in living standards between West Germany and Poland was accompanied of a similar gap in the granting of civil and human rights.