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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political control & freedoms > Political control & influence > Political oppression & persecution > General
Award-winning journalist Elizabeth Becker started covering Cambodia in 1973 for "The Washington Post," when the country was perceived as little more than a footnote to the Vietnam War. Then, with the rise of the Khmer Rouge in 1975 came the closing of the border and a systematic reorganization of Cambodian society. Everyone was sent from the towns and cities to the countryside, where they were forced to labor endlessly in the fields. The intelligentsia were brutally exterminated, and torture, terror, and death became routine. Ultimately, almost two million people--nearly a quarter of the population--were killed in what was one of this century's worst crimes against humanity."When the War Was Over" is Elizabeth Becker's masterful account of the Cambodian nightmare. Encompassing the era of French colonialism and the revival of Cambodian nationalism; 1950s Paris, where Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot received his political education; the killing fields of Cambodia; government chambers in Washington, Paris, Moscow, Beijing, Hanoi, and Phnom Penh; and the death of Pol Pot in 1998; this is a book of epic vision and staggering power. Merging original historical research with the many voices of those who lived through the times and exclusive interviews with every Cambodian leader of the past quarter century, "When the War Was Over" illuminates the darkness of Cambodia with the intensity of a bolt of lightning.
In 1945, remnants of the Polish Home Army re-formed to counter brutal Soviet repressions. In July of that year, more than 7,000 HA freedom fighters were arrested in the northeastern Augustow region and held in barns, pigsties and warehouses where they were beaten and tortured. Two thousand of them were never seen again-their whereabouts remain a mystery. Seventy-five years later, their relatives still search for answers and the location of their mass burial. This book examines the fateful events of the Augustow Roundup (a.k.a. "little Katyn") through eyewitness testimonies.
This is a comprehensive, detailed and humane account of the thousands who came into custody during the years of the Northern Ireland conflict and how they lived out the months, years and decades in Irish and English maximum security prisons. Erupting in 1969, the Northern Ireland troubles continued with terrible intensity until 1998. The most enduring civil conflict in Western Europe since the Second World War cost almost 4,000 lives, inflicted a vast toll of injuries and wrought much destruction. Based on extensive archival research and numerous interviews, this book covers the jurisdictions of Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and England, providing an account of riots, escapes, strip and dirty protests and hunger strikes. It paints a picture of coming to terms with sentences, some of which lasted for two decades and more. Republicans and loyalists, male and female prisoners, officials and staff, families, supporters, clergy and politicians all played a part - and all were changed. The narrative includes some of the most remarkable events in prison history anywhere - mass breakouts, organised cell-fouling and prolonged nakedness, and hunger striking to the death; there are also accounts of the prisoners' very effective parallel command structure. The book shows how Anglo-Irish and intra-Irish relations were profoundly affected and how the prisoners' involvement and consent were critical to the Good Friday Agreement that ended the long war. The final part of a trilogy dealing with Irish political prisoners from 1848 to 2000 by renowned expert Sean McConville, this is an essential resource for students and scholars of Irish history and Irish political prisoners; it is also a major contribution to the study of imprisonment.
This Scholastic Classics edition of George Orwell's classic dystopian novel is perfect for students and Orwell enthusiasts alike. Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past. Winston Smith has always been a dutiful citizen of Oceania, rewriting history to meet the demands of the Ministry of Truth. But with each lie that he writes, Winston starts to resent the totalitarian party that seeks power for its own sake and punishes those that desire individuality. When Winston begins a secret relationship with his colleague Julia, he soon realises it's virtually impossible to escape the watchful eye of Big Brother... Totalitarianism, identity and independence, repression, power, language, rebellion, technology and modernisation are some of the themes that run throughout this novel.
A comprehensive analysis of the role that prison policy can play in the reduction of terrorism, this book examines the experience of three western Europe jurisdictions: Northern Ireland, Italy and the Spanish Basque Country. It looks at the role of the prisons both as tools for counter-insurgency and as part of a process of conflict resolution. It looks in detail at each jurisdiction and then compares the experience of the three conflicts.
This book examines the refugee phenomenon, specifically refugees in inter-war Europe, and international responses to that phenomenon. In Part I, the causes and consequences of refugee movements throughout this century are explored. In Part II, international responses to European refugee movements from 1919 until 1939 are presented and analysed. In Part III, the impact of international efforts on government policy toward refugees is evaluated. The major argument of this book is that international assistance efforts of the inter-war era composed an international regime, and this regime had - and continues to have - significant impact on refugee policy.
The years 1918-1925 were the most turbulent in recent Irish history, a time of momentous constitutional change and widespread political unrest. Faced with armed insurrection and revolutionary claims to democratic legitimacy, the British government responded with increasingly harsh emergency powers. These measures provided the model for the governments which emerged following the partition of the country into the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland. In this scholarly and compelling book Dr Colm Cambell offers a detailed legal analysis of emergency powers and assesses their impact upon the outcome of political conflicts. Drawing upon extensive archival materials, the author examines the effect of emergency law on the battle for legitimacy in three jurisdictions: Ireland under British rule 1918-1921; the Irish Free State 1922-25; and Northern Ireland 1921-25. By identifying and discussing three core areas of emergency law in all three jurisdictions, such as special powers of arrest and detention, special courts and internment without trial, the author brings out the historical continuity in the development of these powers. The role of the judiciary in co-operating with laws which helped to marginalize them is also discussed. Carefully researched and cogently argued, this book will appeal not only to historians but also to constitutional lawyers, political scientists, and scholars interested in civil liberaties and the history of laws relating to political violence.
1970s South Korea is characterized by many as the "dark age for democracy." Most scholarship on South Korea's democracy movement and civil society has focused on the "student revolution" in 1960 and the large protest cycles in the 1980s which were followed by Korea's transition to democracy in 1987. But in his groundbreaking work of political and social history of 1970s South Korea, Paul Chang highlights the importance of understanding the emergence and evolution of the democracy movement in this oft-ignored decade. Protest Dialectics journeys back to 1970s South Korea and provides readers with an in-depth understanding of the numerous events in the 1970s that laid the groundwork for the 1980s democracy movement and the formation of civil society today. Chang shows how the narrative of the 1970s as democracy's "dark age" obfuscates the important material and discursive developments that became the foundations for the movement in the 1980s which, in turn, paved the way for the institutionalization of civil society after transition in 1987. To correct for these oversights in the literature and to better understand the origins of South Korea's vibrant social movement sector this book presents a comprehensive analysis of the emergence and evolution of the democracy movement in the 1970s.
During World War II, thousands of American servicemen were taken prisoner by the Axis powers. They were beaten and tortured; over half never reached home again. Of those who did, many never fully recovered from what they saw, what they lived through, and the feelings that so racked their lives. Almost all have or had a drinking problem. Some suffer such consistently extreme flashbacks that they are forced to use sleeping medication just to help them make it through the night. The ten interviews included in this work were chosen from dozens of contacted POW accounts. Theirs are stories of hardship, pain, survival, and, at times, enlightenment. From the introduction to Mario Garbin's interview: "Mario was one of the more fortunate POWs who put to use in his later life what he learned from his incarceration. At present, he is retired from over twenty years' service with the Chrysler Corporation, where he was a high-ranking vice president within the company, reporting directly only to the chairman of the board. Although powerful and charismatic, he still cried uncontrollably during one portion of the interview". Hidden in the tales of these men is a message we can all relate to, making this book a read not only for the ex-POW or World War II history buff, but for any reader who cares about the purest meaning of life.
Against All Hope is Armando Valladares' account of over twenty years in Fidel Castro's tropical gulag. Arrested in 1960 for being philosophically and religiously opposed to communism, Valladares was not released until 1982, by which time he had become one of the world's most celebrated "prisoners of conscience." Interned all those years at the infamous Isla de Pinos prison (from whose windows he watched the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion), Valladares suffered endless days of violence, putrid food and squalid living conditions, while listening to Castro's firing squads eliminating "counter revolutionaries" in the courtyard below his cell. Valladares survived by prayer and by writing poetry whose publication in Europe brought his case to the attention of international figures such as French President Francois Mitterand and to human rights organizations whose constant pressure on the Castro regime finally led to his release.
The autonomous province of Vojvodina in Serbia is little-known in the English-speaking world, even though it is a territory of high significance for the development of Serbian national identity. Vojvodina's multi-ethnic composition and historical experience has also encouraged the formation of a distinct regional identity. This book analyses the evolution of Vojvodina's identity over time and the unique pattern of ethnic relations in the province. Although approximately 25 ethnic communities live in Vojvodina, it is by no means a divided society. Intercultural cohabitation has been a living reality in the province for centuries and this largely accounts for the lack of ethnic conflict. Vassilis Petsinis explores Vojvodina's intercultural society and shows how this has facilitated the introduction of flexible and regionalized legal models for the management of ethnic relations in Serbia since the 2000s. He also discusses recent developments in the region, most notably the arrival of refugees from Syria and Iraq, and measures the impact that these changes have had on social stability and inter-group relations in the province.
This book brings together in a systematic manner three discrete areas of interest pertaining to refugees. Asylum is explored through studies on the evolution of legal instruments in Europe, the harmonisation process of European policies, and the broader spectrum of factors underpinning decisions on asylum. Reception and settlement of refugees are analysed through a comparative study of national programmes in France and Britain and in addition a survey of local authority policies. A typology for refugees is developed and tested by a comparison between Chilean and Vietnamese associations in France and Britain.
This book investigates what impact gender equality has on genocide in Africa, to verify whether it is a missing indicator from current risk assessments and models for genocide prevention. Examining whether States characterised by lower levels of gender equality are more likely to experience genocide, Timmoneri adds gender indicators to the existing early warning assessment for the prevention of genocide. Moreover, the book argues for the formulation of policies directed at the improvement of gender equality not just as a means to improve women's conditions but as a tool to reduce the risk of genocide and mass atrocities. Using case studies from Nigeria, Ethiopia, Angola, Uganda, and Burundi, Timmoneri analyses recent atrocities and explores the role of gender equality as an indicator of potential genocide. Gender Equality and Genocide Prevention in Africa will be of interest to students and scholars of political science, genocide studies, and gender studies.
Black Religious Landscaping in Africa and the United States uses the prism of spatial theory to explore various aspects of Black landscapes on the African continent and Black Atlantic diasporic locations. The volume explores the ways in which Black people in Africa and in the Diaspora have identified obstacles and barriers to Black freedoms and have constructed counter-landscapes in response to these obstacles. The chapters in the book present diverse representations of the Black creative impulse to form religious landscapes and construct social, economic and political spaces that are habitable for Black people and Black bodies. These landscapes and spaces are physical, psychological and conceptual. They are gendered and racialized in ways that are shaped by their specific religious, geographic and socio-historical contexts. These contexts are influenced by colonial systems and institutions of modern slavery. The landscapes that people of African descent struggle to construct, reshape and inhabit are intended to counter the effects of these oppressive systems and institutions and often include attempts to reclaim and adapt sources, concepts, tools and techniques that are indigenous to specific geographical contexts or ethno-racial groups. The contributors hope in this volume to offer a look at how the cartographic struggles and constructive engagements within these Black-inhabited spaces are rooted in Black movements that support the emancipation of Black lives and Black bodies from the oppressive forces of dominant geographies.
From 2007 to 2011 South Korean filmmaker and newspaper reporter Hark Joon Lee lived among North Korean defectors in China, filming an award-winning documentary on their struggles. Crossing Heaven's Border is the firsthand account of his experiences there, where he witnessed human trafficking, the smuggling of illicit drugs by North Korean soldiers, and a rare successful escape from North Korea by sea. As Lee traces the often tragic lives of North Korean defectors who were willing to risk everything for their hopes, he journeys to Siberia in pursuit of hidden North Korean lumber mills; to Vietnam, where defectors make desperate charges into foreign embassies; and along the 10,000-kilometer escape route for defectors stretching from China to Laos and to Thailand.
An investigation into how indigenous rights are conceived in legal language and doctrine In the twenty-first century, it is politically and legally commonplace that indigenous communities go to court to assert their rights against the postcolonial nation-state in which they reside. But upon closer examination, this constellation is far from straightforward. Indigenous communities make their claims as independent entities, governed by their own laws. And yet, they bring a case before the court of another sovereign, subjecting themselves to its foreign rule of law. According to Jonas Bens, when native communities enter into legal relationships with postcolonial nation-states, they "become indigenous." Indigenous communities define themselves as separated from the settler nation-state and insist that their rights originate from within their own system of laws. At the same time, indigenous communities must argue that they are incorporated in the settler nation-state to be able to use its judiciary to enforce these rights. As such, they are simultaneously included into and excluded from the state. Tracing how the indigenous paradox is inscribed into the law by investigating several indigenous rights cases in the Americas, from the early nineteenth century to the early twenty-first, Bens illustrates how indigenous communities have managed-and continue to manage-to navigate this paradox by developing lines of legal reasoning that mobilize the concepts of sovereignty and culture. Bens argues that understanding indigeneity as a paradoxical formation sheds light on pressing questions concerning the role of legal pluralism and shared sovereignty in contemporary multicultural societies.
Recent revelations about government surveillance of citizens have led to questions about whether there should be better defined boundaries around privacy. Should government officials have the right to specifically target certain groups for extended surveillance? United States municipal, territorial, and federal agencies have investigated religious groups since the nineteenth century. While critics of contemporary mass surveillance tend to invoke the infringement of privacy, the mutual protection of religion and public expression by the First Amendment positions them, along with religious expression, comfortably within in the public sphere. This book analyzes government monitoring of Mormons of the Territory of Utah in the 1870s and 1880s for polygamy, Quakers of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) from the 1940s to the 1960s for communist infiltration, and Muslims of Brooklyn, New York, from 2002 to 2013 for suspected terrorism. Government agencies in these case studies attempted to understand how their religious beliefs might shape their actions in the public sphere. It follows that government agents did not just observe these communities, but they probed precisely what constituted religion itself alongside shifting legal and political definitions relative to their respective time periods. Together, these case studies form a new framework for discussions of the historical and contemporary monitoring of religion. They show that government surveillance is less predictable and monolithic than we might assume. Therefore, this book will be of great interest to scholars of United States religion, history, and politics, as well as surveillance and communication studies.
State-sponsored torture and peacebuilding encapsulate the essence of many of the current conflicts in Indonesia. Papua in particular provides a thought-provoking example of the intricacy and complexity of building peace amidst enduring conflict and violence. This book examines the complex power relations that have constructed the gruesome picture of the fifty-year practice of torture in Papua, as well as the ongoing Papuan peacebuilding movements that resist the domineering power of the Indonesian state over Papuans. Conceptualising 'theatres of torture and peace', the book argues that torture in Papua is performed in public by the Indonesian state in order to communicate its policy of terror towards Papuans - it is not meant for extracting information, gaining confessions or exacting punishment. A Torture Dataset is provided, codifying evidence from a broad range of cases, collected through sensitive interviews. In examining the data, the author crafts a new, more holistic framework for analyzing cases of torture and employs an interdisciplinary approach integrating three different theories: Foucault's theory of governmentality and sovereignty, Kristeva's theory of abjection and Metz's theory of memoria passionis (the memory of suffering). The book successfully establishes a new understanding of torture as 'public theatre' and offers a new perspective of strengthening the existing Papuan peacebuilding framework of Papua Land of Peace. It will be of interest to academics working on Southeast Asian Studies, Peace and Conflict Studies, Transitional Justice, Peacebuilding, Human Rights and Anthropology of Violence.
Zionism in Arab discourses presents a ground-breaking study of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Through analyses of hundreds of texts written by Arab Islamists and liberals from the late-nineteenth century to the 'Arab Spring', the book demonstrates that the Zionist enterprise has played a dual function of an enemy and a mentor. Islamists and liberals alike discovered, respectively, in Zionism and in Israeli society qualities they sought to implement in their sown homelands. Focusing on Palestinian, Egyptian, Syrian and Jordanian political discourses, this study uncovers fascinating and unexpected Arab points of views on different aspects of Zionism; from the first Zionist Congress to the First Lebanon War; from gardening in the early years of Tel Aviv to women's service in the Israeli Defence Forces; from the role of religion in the creation of the state to the role of democracy in its preservation. -- .
Gultan Kisanak, a Kurdish journalist and former MP, was elected co-mayor of Diyarbakir in 2014. Two years later, the Turkish state arrested and imprisoned her. Her story is remarkable, but not unique. While behind bars, she wrote about her own experiences and collected similar accounts from other Kurdish women, all co-chairs, co-mayors and MPs in Turkey; all incarcerated on political grounds. The Purple Color of Kurdish Politics is a one-of-a-kind collection of prison writings from more than 20 Kurdish women politicians. Here they reflect on their personal and collective struggles against patriarchy and anti-Kurdish repression in Turkey; on the radical feminist principles and practices through which they transformed the political structures and state offices in which they operated. They discuss what worked and what didn't, and the ways in which Turkey's anti-capitalist and socialist movements closely informed their political stances and practices. Demonstrating Kurdish women's ceaseless political determination and refusal to be silenced - even when behind bars - the book ultimately hopes to inspire women living under even the most unjust conditions to engage in collective resistance.
The twentieth century witnessed genocides, ethnic cleansing, forced population expulsions, shifting borders, and other disruptions on an unprecedented scale. This book examines the work of memory and the ethics of healing in post authoritarian societies that have experienced state-perpetrated violence. Focusing on global memorialization practices and local specificities, the contributors explore trans-generational encounters, performances, rituals, and diverse forms of remembrance and reconciliation in the aftermath of violent historical events: WWII, the Holocaust and the fall of the Berlin Wall, Stalinism in post-Soviet Russia and Eastern Europe, collaboration in Vichy France, the Civil War in Spain, and apartheid in South Africa.
Solidarity Road tells the story of Jan Theron’s involvement in the Food and Canning Workers Union (FCWU) during apartheid South Africa. Part memoir, part history this fascinating tale will reveal what working conditions were like in the 1970’s. It outlines the very beginnings of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). Theron states, ‘Solidarity in a trade union does not simply mean standing by your members, or by organised workers. It means solidarity with your class. At the time, in 1976, the working class was fragmented. Working for a trade union was part of a project to unite a fragmented class, and to give it a voice. This was the historical project to which a number of people from a certain intellectual background were drawn. This would be our contribution to the struggle: what we did to end apartheid. It was a struggle for democracy, but democracy did not just mean everyone getting to vote every so often in national elections. People also had to eat. The most obvious way in which the working class was then fragmented was in terms of race. The Union put its commitment to solidarity into practice by uniting workers of different races in factories manufacturing food. To do so it had to overcome divisions among workers created by the ways in which government had structured employment, in terms of the law, which the bosses were able to exploit. Nowadays ‘bosses’ seems like a dated term, yet this is the term workers used to refer to the people for whom they actually worked. It is also no less important today than it was then to differentiate between those who control the factories and mines and those who operate at their behest.
What makes despotic leaders tick? How do they become despots? On a lesser (but far more common) scale: why are some people ruthlessly abrasive in the workplace? Why do some business leaders appear to lose their sense of humanity? How and why do they create a culture of fear, uncertainty and doubt in their companies? Lessons on Leadership by Terror attempts to discover what happens to people when they acquire power, and whether the abuse of power is inevitable. Manfred Kets de Vries examines the life of the nineteenth-century Zulu king Shaka Zulu in order to help us understand the psychology of power and terror. During his short reign, Shaka Zulu established one of the most successful regimes based on terror that has ever existed, from which the traits of despotic leaders are illustrated. Shaka's life history is a study in the psychology of terror, and he can be a proxy for the behavior of any despot, be it from antiquity or modern times. From his leadership behavior fifteen cautionary lessons are derived, offering valuable principles for contemporary leaders. The book also explores the characteristics of totalitarian states, and discusses what can be done to prevent despotic leaders from coming to the fore. Clear parallels are drawn between Shaka's behavior and that of other, more contemporary, leaders including Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot and Saddam Hussein. This fascinating and highly original book will be of enormous interest to a broad audience - from students and academics focusing on leadership, political science, and political psychology, to practitioners such as managers, executives, consultants, and leadership coaches.
This edited, one-volume version presents the first ever English translation of the report of The Guatemalan Commission for Historical Clarification (CEH), a truth commission that exposed the details of 'la violenca,' during which hundreds of massacres were committed in a scorched-earth campaign that displaced approximately one million people. |
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