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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political control & freedoms > Political control & influence > Political oppression & persecution > General
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.
The Unlikely Mr Rogue is the story of the quiet man behind the so-called ‘rogue unit’ at SARS, who has become a lightning rod for so many in politics today. It takes the reader on a journey – Ivan’s growing up in Merebank, KZN, his politicisation, his friendship with Pravin Gordhan and his running of Operation Vula from Lusaka, reporting to Oliver Tambo. In some ways, the setting up of SARS was Operation Vula revisited. Many of the same operatives were now working for a higher purpose. And this higher purpose, of providing the money to reduce inequality in the state, was a daily mantra for Gordhan, Pillay and others. They really believed in it. Groenink tells of the early 1990s in Lusaka, of their falling in love, of the insecurity in coming back to the country, and the times when Ivan was in charge of stationery in the bowels of Shell House. This is the story of a good man, an unlikely man, a quiet man, determined to use SARS to fund the post-liberation nation-building, and his downfall at the hands of his enemies and a scurrilous Sunday Times.
Slavoj Zizek's prolific comments on anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, scapegoating, popular nationalism, the refugee crisis, Eurocentrism, the War on Terror, neocolonialism, global justice, and rioting comprise a dizzying array of thinking. But what can we pull out of his various writings and commentaries on race in the contemporary world? Is there anything approaching a Zizekian philosophy of race? Zahi Zalloua argues here that there is and that the often polemical style of Zizek's pronouncements shouldn't undermine the importance and urgency of his work in this area. Zalloua not only examines Zizek's philosophy of race but addresses the misconceptions that have arisen and some of the perceived shortcomings in his work to date. Zizek on Race also puts Zizek in dialogue with critical race and anti-colonial studies, dwelling on the sparks struck up by this dialogue and the differences, gaps, and absences it points up. Engaging Zizek's singular contribution to the analysis of race and racism, Zizek on Race both patiently interrogates and critically extends his direct comments on the topic, developing more fully the potential of his thought. In a response to the book, Zizek boldly reaffirms his theoretical stance, clarifying further his often difficult-to-work-out positions on some of his more controversial pronouncements.
Illustrated with prints from a unique archive of glass and celluloid negatives from the Aegean island of Anafi, this book deals with the life of people who were sent into internal exile under the Metaxas dictatorship (1936-1942). Like others before and after, this regime used imprisonment, internal deportation and exile as a means of containing and isolating a wide variety of people who were thought to be 'public dangers'. Drawing on published and unpublished memoirs and on firsthand accounts of former exiles, it gives a vivid picture of a by no means unified collection of people, facing a common set of problems on an island at the borders of the Greek State. During the Occupation, the Anafi exiles faced privation, hunger and finally the dissolution of the commune. This is a human drama which will interest a wide range of readers.
During and after World War II, millions of people in Central and Eastern Europe were uprooted and deported from their ancestral homelands in an unprecedented series of ethnic cleansings. The expulsion of minorities created more homogenous states than had previously existed in the region but caused massive social and psychological problems that lasted for generations. These nine case studies, written by Russian, German and Austrian scholars and based on archival findings, should shed new light on deportations and resettlement in Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Germany. The introduction places forced migration throughout the region in a broad historical context.
Exploring the way urbicide is used to un/re-make Palestine, as well as how it is employed as a tool of spatial dispossession and control, this book examines contemporary political violence and destruction in the context of colonial projects in Palestine. The broader framework of the book is colonial and post- urban destruction urbanism; with a working hypothesis that there are links, gaps and blind spots in the understanding of urbicide discourse. Drawing on several examples from the Palestinian history of destruction and transformations, such as; Jenin Refugee Camp, Hebron Old Town, and Nablus Old Town, a methodological framework to identify urbicidal episodes is also generated. Advancing knowledge on one historical moment of the urban condition, the moment of its destruction, and enhancing the understanding of the Palestinian Israeli conflict from urbanistic/ architectonic and Urbicide / Spacio-cide perspectives through the use of case studies, this book will be essential reading for scholars and researchers with an interest in Urban Geography and Middle East Politics more broadly.
How racism and discrimination have been central to democracies from the classical period to today As right-wing nationalism and authoritarian populism gain momentum across the world, liberals, and even some conservatives, worry that democratic principles are under threat. In The Spectre of Race, Michael Hanchard argues that the current rise in xenophobia and racist rhetoric is nothing new and that exclusionary policies have always been central to democratic practices since their beginnings in classical times. Contending that democracy has never been for all people, Hanchard discusses how marginalization is reinforced in modern politics, and why these contradictions need to be fully examined if the dynamics of democracy are to be truly understood. Hanchard identifies continuities of discriminatory citizenship from classical Athens to the present and looks at how democratic institutions have promoted undemocratic ideas and practices. The longest-standing modern democracies -France, Britain, and the United States-profited from slave labor, empire, and colonialism, much like their Athenian predecessor. Hanchard follows these patterns through the Enlightenment and to the states and political thinkers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and he examines how early political scientists, including Woodrow Wilson and his contemporaries, devised what Hanchard has characterized as "racial regimes" to maintain the political and economic privileges of dominant groups at the expense of subordinated ones. Exploring how democracies reconcile political inequality and equality, Hanchard debates the thorny question of the conditions under which democracies have created and maintained barriers to political membership. Showing the ways that race, gender, nationality, and other criteria have determined a person's status in political life, The Spectre ofRace offers important historical context for how democracy generates political difference and inequality.
Winner of the Sunday Times Literary Award for non-fiction.
‘A truly stunning book.’ - Jacob Dlamini Sunday, 9 November 1952. It should be remembered as a day of infamy in South Africa’s history but few know of a brutal massacre when police opened fire on people at an ANC Youth League-organised event in Duncan Village in East London. The official death toll was eight people killed by police gunfire and bayonet and two killed in retaliation, including an Irish nun and medical doctor, Sister Aidan Quinlan, who lived and worked in Duncan Village. Today it is believed that between 80 and 200 died that day, most buried quietly by their families, who feared arrest if they sought help at hospitals. In the cover-ups and long silences that followed, the real facts of this tragedy at the height of the ANC’s Defiance Campaign were almost lost to history. Bloody Sunday follows the trail of the remarkable Sister Aidan into the heart of a missing chapter in our country’s past – and what was one of the most devastating massacres of the apartheid era.
Dark Days in the Newsroom traces how journalists became radicalized during the Depression era, only to become targets of Senator Joseph McCarthy and like-minded anti-Communist crusaders during the 1950s. Edward Alwood, a former news correspondent describes this remarkable story of conflict, principle, and personal sacrifice with noticeable (r)lan. He shows how McCarthy's minions pried inside newsrooms thought to be sacrosanct under the First Amendment, and details how journalists mounted a heroic defense of freedom of the press while others secretly enlisted in the government's anti-communist crusade. Relying on previously undisclosed documents from FBI files,
along with personal interviews, Alwood provides a richly informed
commentary on one of the most significant moments in the history of
American journalism. Arguing that the experiences of the McCarthy
years profoundly influenced the practice of journalism, he shows
how many of the issues faced by journalists in the 1950s prefigure
today's conflicts over the right of journalists to protect their
sources.
A memoir of a political prisoner from Mexico's 'dirty war' of the 1970s, this book provides an inside story of guerrilla activities and a gripping tale of imprisonment and torture at the hands of the Mexican governemnt.
Prospect Top 50 Thinker of 2021 British Academy Book Prize Finalist PROSE Award Finalist "Provocative, elegantly written." -Fara Dabhoiwala, New York Review of Books "Demonstrates how a broad rethinking of political issues becomes possible when Western ideals and practices are examined from the vantage point of Asia and Africa." -Pankaj Mishra, New York Review of Books In case after case around the globe-from Israel to Sudan-the colonial state and the nation-state have been constructed through the politicization of a religious or ethnic majority at the expense of an equally manufactured minority. The model emerged in America, where genocide and internment on reservations created a permanent native minority. In Europe, this template would be used both by the Nazis and the Allies. Neither Settler nor Native offers a vision for arresting this process. Mahmood Mamdani points to inherent limitations in the legal solution attempted at Nuremberg. Political violence demands political solutions: not criminal justice but a rethinking of the political community to include victims and perpetrators, bystanders and beneficiaries. Making the radical argument that the nation-state was born of colonialism, he calls on us to delink the nation from the state so as to ensure equal political rights for all who live within its boundaries. "A deeply learned account of the origins of our modern world...Mamdani rejects the current focus on human rights as the means to bring justice to the victims of this colonial and postcolonial bloodshed. Instead, he calls for a new kind of political imagination...Joining the ranks of Hannah Arendt's Imperialism, Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth, and Edward Said's Orientalism, this book is destined to become a classic text of postcolonial studies and political theory." -Moustafa Bayoumi, author of How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? "A masterwork of historical comparison and razor-sharp political analysis, with grave lessons about the pitfalls of forgetting, moralizing, or criminalizing this violence. Mamdani also offers a hopeful rejoinder in a revived politics of decolonization." -Karuna Mantena, Columbia University "A powerfully original argument, one that supplements political analysis with a map for our political future." -Faisal Devji, University of Oxford
This book sheds light on the phenomenon of white rage, and maps out the uneasy relationship between white anxiety, religious fervour, American identity and perceived black racial progress. Contributors to the volume examine the sociological construct of the "white labourer", whose concerns and beliefs can be understood as religious in foundation, and uncover that white religious fervor correlates to notions of perceived white loss and perceived black progress. In discussions ranging from the Constitution to the Charlottesville riots to the evangelical community's uncritical support for Trump, the authors of this collection argue that it is not economics but religion and race that stand as the primary motivating factors for the rise of white rage and white supremacist sentiment in the United States.
The Jewish community in Turkey today is very diverse with extremely different views as to whether Jews are reluctant or enthusiastic about living in Turkey. Many see themselves primarily as Turks and only then as Jews, while some believe quite the opposite. Some deny there are any expressions of antisemitism in Turkey while others would call it xenophobia and would claim that the other non-Muslim communities in Turkey share the same antagonism. 'Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism in Turkey' provides a comprehensive history of the extent of antisemitism in Turkey, from the time of the Ottomans, through the establishing of the Turkish Republic, and up to recent times and the AK Party. It also provides an in-depth analysis of the effect of Israeli military operations on antisemitism, from the Second Lebanon War in 2006 to Operation Protective Edge in 2014. Much emphasis is given to the last decade, as scholars and local Jews assert that antisemitism has increased during this period. An illustrated overview of antisemitism in Turkish media, covering newspapers, books, entertainment, and education, is provided. The book also analyses Turkish society's attitude towards Jews in contrast with other minorities, and examines how the other minorities see the Jews according to their experience with Turkish society and government. A unique poll, data collected from personal interviews and the use of both Turkish and Israeli research resources, all help to provide a fresh insight into antisemitism in Turkey. This book will therefore be a key resource for students and scholars of antisemitism and anti-zionism studies, Turkish Studies and Middle East Studies.
This compelling book provides a meticulously documented account of officially sanctioned cannibalism in the southwestern province of Guangxi during the Cultural Revolution. Drawing on his unique access to local archives of the Chinese Communist Party and on extensive interviews with party officials, the victims' relatives, and the murderers themselves, Zheng Yi paints a disturbing picture of official compliance in the systematic killing and cannibalization of individuals in the name of political revolution and "class struggle."The treasure-trove of evidence Zheng Yi has unearthed offers unprecedented insights into the way the internecine, factional struggles of the Cultural Revolution reached a horrifying level of insanity and frenzy among the ethnic Zhuang people of Guangxi. Profoundly moving, acutely observed, and unflinchingly graphic, "Scarlet Memorial" is a shining example of a genre of investigative reporting that courageously and independently records obscure and officially censored historical events, revealing hidden dimensions of modern Chinese history and politics.
While it is true that genocide prevention is not what tends to land on the front pages of national newspapers today, it is what prevents the worst headlines from ever being made. However, despite the post-Holocaust consensus that "never again " would the world allow civilians to be victims of genocide, the reality is that history is closer than ever to repeating itself. As many as 170 million civilians across the world have been victims of genocide and mass atrocity in the 20th century. Now that we have entered the 21st century, little light has arisen from the darkness as civilians still find themselves under brutal attack in the Sudan, Burma, Syria, the Central African Republic, Burundi, and a score of other countries in the world as they find themselves beset by state fragility and extremist identity politics. Drawing on over two decades of primary research and scholarship from a wide range of disciplinary perspectives, Confronting Evil: Engaging Our Responsibility to Prevent Genocide is grounded in the belief that preventing mass atrocity is an achievable goal, but only if we have the collective will to do so. This groundbreaking book from one of the foremost leaders in the field presents a fascinating continuum of research-informed strategies to prevent genocide from ever taking place; to avert further atrocities once mass murder occurs; and to prevent further turmoil once a society learns how to rebuild itself. Dr. James Waller challenges each of us to accept our responsibilities as global citizens - in whichever role and place we find ourselves - and to think critically about one of the world's most pressing human rights issues in which there are no sidelines, only sides.
When Pakistan was founded in 1947, it had a rich tapestry of different religious groups, ranging from Sunni and Shiite Muslims to Christians, Parsis, Hindus, and Jainists. Non-Muslims comprised 23 percent of the total population, and non-Sunnis comprised a quarter of the Muslim population. Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Pakistan's first president, proclaimed that the nation had a place for all of its citizens, regardless of religion. Today, non-Muslims comprise a mere 3 percent of the population, and in recent years all non-Sunnis have been subjected to increasing levels of persecution and violence. What happened? In Purifying the Land of the Pure, Farahnaz Ispahani analyzes Pakistan's policies towards its religious minority populations, both Muslim and non-Muslim, since independence in 1947. Originally created as a homeland for South Asia's Muslims, Pakistan was designed to protect the subcontinent's largest religious minority. But soon after independence, religious as well as some political leaders declared that the objective of Pakistan's creation was more specific and narrow: to create an Islamic State. In 1949, Pakistan's Constituent Assembly ratified this objective, and that in turn established the path that Pakistan would follow. The event that accelerated the pace towards intolerance of non-Sunnis, however, was the assumption of power by President Zia Ul Haq over a quarter century later, in 1977. His regime promoted a stricter version of Sunni Islam at the expense of other denominations, and by the end of his reign the Pakistani state was no longer a welcome place for minorities. Many people from religious minorities fled, but those who remained faced escalating persecution, both from state and non-state actors which enjoyed the tacit support of the regime. The years since 9/11 have been punctuated by recurrent pogroms against religious minorities, and thousands have died. Shiites have suffered the most assaults from Sunni extremists, but virtually every minority has been attacked repeatedly. Ispahani traces this history, and stresses how the contradictions at the heart of the Pakistani state-building project have fueled the intolerance. Originally created as a homeland for the subcontinent's Muslims, Pakistan was still religiously very diverse. Over time, efforts to 'correct' this problem radicalized significant segments of the Sunni population, setting in motion a self-reinforcing process of escalating persecution. Some elements of the ruling class exploited these prejudices in opportunistic fashion, while others were zealots themselves. In the end, what drove these elements did not matter much, as the result was the same: a state that ignored frequent attacks on religious minorities by increasingly radicalized Sunni groups bent on 'purifying' the nation. Concise yet sweeping in its coverage, Purifying the Land of the Pure will be essential reading for anyone interested in why this pivotal geopolitical player is so plagued by radicalism and violence.
The second instalment in a gripping memoir by Sakine Cansiz (codenamed 'Sara') chronicles the Kurdish revolutionary's harrowing years in a Turkish prison, following her arrest in 1979 at the age of 21. Jailed for more than a decade for her activities as a founder and leader of the Kurdish freedom movement, she faced brutal conditions and was subjected to interrogation and torture. Remarkably, the story she tells here is foremost one of resistance, with courageous episodes of collective struggle behind bars including hunger strikes and attempts at escape. Along the way she also presents vivid portraits of her fellow prisoners and militants, a snapshot of the Turkish left in the 1980s, a scathing indictment of Turkey's war on Kurdish people - and even an unlikely love story. The first prison memoir by a Kurdish woman to be published in English, this is an extraordinary document of an extraordinary life. Translated by Janet Biehl.
Beyond Fear is the testimony of Ebrahim Ebrahim, a revolutionary amongst revolutionaries, whose poignant and inspirational account of his years spent dedicated to bringing down the apartheid state is told in ways we have not heard. As one of the founding members of Umkhonto we Sizwe, he played a central role in directing the sabotage campaign of the early 1960s. Convicted for this, Ebrahim arrived on Robben Island in 1964, where for over 15 years he played a leadership role in the creation of the ‘University of Robben Island’, the university of revolutionary ideology. Soon after his release, Ebrahim became the head of the ANC’s Political Military Committee in Swaziland, and as such, his life was under constant threat. He was abducted in December 1986 by apartheid agents and taken to South Africa to be tortured at John Vorster Square. He was charged with high treason and sentenced to a further 20 years, which would be his second stint on the Island. Ebrahim was, however, released in February 1991. Beyond Fear also tells the story of his post-1994 life, where he travelled the world doing international conflict resolution work. He later served as South Africa’s deputy minister of foreign affairs. His great love story began at the age of 63 when he met his beloved Shannon Ebrahim with whom he had two children, who were, as he says his ‘greatest teachers’. Ebrahim Ebrahim passed away on 6 December 2021, having become one of South Africa’s most loved heroes.
In this engrossing analysis, Cavanaugh contends that the Eucharist
is the Church's response to the use of torture as a social
discipline. The author develops a theology of the political which
presents torture as one instance of a larger confrontation of
powers over bodies, both individual and social. He argues that a
Christian practice of the political is embodied in Jesus' own
torture at the hands of the powers of this world. The analysis of
torture therefore is situated within wider discussions in the
fields of ecclesiology and the state, social ethics and human
rights, and sacramental theology. The book focuses on the experience of Chile and the Catholic
Church there, before and during the military dictatorship of
General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, 1973-1990. Cavanaugh has
first-hand experience of working with the Church in Chile, and his
interviews with ecclesiastical officials and grassroots Church
workers speak directly to the reader. The book uses this example to
examine the theoretical bases of twentieth-century "social
catholicism" and its inability to resist the disciplines of the
state, in contrast to a truer Christian practice of the political
in the Eucharist. The book as a whole ties eucharistic theology to concrete eucharistic practice, showing that the Eucharist is not a "symbol" but a real cathartic summary of the practices by which God forms people into the Body of Christ, producing a sense of communion stronger than that of any nation-state.
Toleration is one of the most studied concepts in contemporary political theory and philosophy, yet the range of contemporary normative prescriptions concerning how to do toleration or how to be tolerant is remarkably narrow and limited. The literature is largely dominated by a neo-Kantian moral-juridical frame, in which toleration is a matter to be decided in terms of constitutional rights. According to this framework, cooperation equates to public reasonableness and willingness to engage in certain types of civil moral dialogue. Crucially, this vision of politics makes no claims about how to cultivate and secure the conditions required to make cooperation possible in the first place. It also has little to say about how to motivate one to become a tolerant person. Instead it offers highly abstract ideas that do not by themselves suggest what political activity is required to negotiate overlapping values and interests in which cooperation is not already assured. Contemporary thinking about toleration indicates, paradoxically, an intolerance of politics. Montaigne and the Tolerance of Politics argues for toleration as a practice of negotiation, looking to a philosopher not usually considered political: Michel de Montaigne. For Montaigne, toleration is an expansive, active practice of political endurance in negotiating public goods across lines of value difference. In other words, to be tolerant means to possess a particular set of political capacities for negotiation. What matters most is not how we talk to our political opponents, but that we talk to each other across lines of disagreement. Douglas I. Thompson draws on Montaigne's Essais to recover the idea that political negotiation grows out of genuine care for public goods and the establishment of political trust. He argues that we need a Montaignian conception of toleration today if we are to negotiate effectively the circumstances of increasing political polarization and ongoing value conflict, and he applies this notion to current debates in political theory as well as contemporary issues, including the problem of migration and refugee asylum. Additionally, for Montaigne scholars, he reads the Essais principally as a work of public political education, and resituates the work as an extension of Montaigne's political activity as a high-level negotiator between Catholic and Huguenot parties during the French Wars of Religion. Ultimately, this book argues that Montaigne's view of tolerance is worth recovering and reconsidering in contemporary democratic societies where political leaders and ordinary citizens are becoming less able to talk to each other to resolve political conflicts and work for shared public goods.
This book tells the story of three Black men--Z. K. Matthews, Nelson Mandela, and Stephen Biko--who committed their lives to win freedom for all South Africans. Using a sociopsychological retrospective, Juckes interweaves accounts of the lives of these three men with sociopolitical developments to reveal the complex interaction that occurs between social processes and individual actors, revealing how leaders come into being and how their actions influence social developments. Each man's political character captured the demands of the time and used the available resources of his age in the quest for freedom; the pressure--over time--from the activities of these three men and the movements they supported made liberation inevitable.
Dialectics of 9/11 and the War on Terror: Educational Responses examines how global financial and socio-political systems propagate a lopsided dialectic of current events that influences teachers' pedagogies of 9/11 and the War on Terror. The lopsided dialectic is one that encourages patriotism and militarism, conceals imperialism, and shuts out Muslim voices. Interviews with Muslim American students and high school teachers plus textual analysis of high school U.S. history textbooks demonstrate how curriculum and educators impact marginalized students' identities and sense of belonging. As Muslim students describe their isolation and fear, and teachers discuss the challenges they face, readers will also learn how "us versus them" rhetoric deflects attention from the erosion of democratic values and the underlying socio-economic reasons for the War on Terror. Dialectics of 9/11 and the War on Terror: Educational Responses is easy-to-read and directed toward teachers, scholars, and curriculum developers, and includes actionable suggestions for teaching these topics in a balanced and holistic way. The ultimate goal of Dialectics of 9/11 and the War on Terror: Educational Responses is to grow critical dialectical pedagogy (CDP), a new introduction to the field of critical pedagogy, in order to nurture the next generation of global citizens. Dialectics of 9/11 and the War on Terror: Educational Responses can be used in teacher training, curriculum and instruction, multicultural education, secondary social studies education, research in education courses, as well as other areas of instruction.
The aftermath of modern conflicts, deeply rooted in political, economic and social structures, leaves pervasive and often recurring legacies of violence. Addressing past injustice is therefore fundamental not only for societal well-being and peace, but also for future conflict prevention. In recent years, truth and reconciliation commissions have become important but contentious mechanisms for conflict resolution and reconciliation. This book fills a significant gap, examining the importance of context within transitional justice and peace-building. It lays out long-term and often unexpected indirect effects of formal and informal justice processes. Offering a novel conceptual understanding of 'procedural reconciliation' on the societal level, it features an in-depth study of commissions in Peru and Sierra Leone, providing a critical analysis of the contribution and challenges facing transitional justice in post-conflict societies. It will be of interest to scholars and students of comparative politics, international relations, human rights and conflict studies. |
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