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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political control & freedoms > Political control & influence > Political oppression & persecution
This volume focuses on population displacement in Northeast Africa. For many people, flight across an international border occurs repeatedly and is not a uniquely traumatic event. For many more, displacement has occurred within their own countries. The contributors suggest that in situations of such long-term upheaval, notions of flight into refuge and repatriation to a homeland cease to have much meaning. These populations have received minimal assistance from international organizations and have lacked protection from oppressive governments and marauding guerillas. Their plight has largely been ignored. North America: Africa World Press
Jacana Media is proud to make this important book available again, now with a completely new introduction. First published by Oceanbooks, New York and Melbourne and University of Natal Press, Pietermaritzburg in 2001, the book was short-listed for the Sunday Times Alan Paton Award in 2002. In the public imagination the struggle that saw the end of apartheid and the inauguration of a democratic South Africa is seen as one waged by black people who were often imprisoned or killed for their efforts. Raymond Suttner, an academic, is one of a small group of white South Africans who was imprisoned for his efforts to overthrow the apartheid regime. He was first arrested in 1975 and tortured with electric shocks because he refused to supply information to the police. He then served 8 years because of his underground activities for the African National Congress and South African Communist Party. After his release in 1983, he returned to the struggle and was forced to go underground to evade arrest, but was re-detained in 1986 under repeatedly renewed states of emergency, for 27 months, 18 of these in solitary confinement, because whites were kept separately and all other whites apart from Suttner were released. In the last months of this detention Suttner was allowed to have a pet lovebird, which he tamed and used to keep inside his tracksuit. When he was eventually released from detention in September 1988 the bird was on his shoulder. Suttner was held under stringent house arrest conditions, imposed to impede further political activities. He, however, defied his house arrest restrictions and attended an Organisation for African Unity meeting in Harare in August 1989 and he remained out of the country for five months. Shortly after his return, when he anticipated being re-arrested, the state of emergency was lifted and the ANC and other banned organisations were unbanned. Suttner became a leading figure in the ANC and SACP. The book describes Suttner’s experience of prison in a low-key, unromantic voice, providing the texture of prison life, but unlike most ‘struggle memoirs’ it is also intensely personal. Suttner is not averse to admitting his fears and anxieties. The new edition contains an introduction where Suttner describes his break with the ANC and SACP. But, he argues, the reason for his rupturing this connection that had been so important to his life were the same – ethical reasons – that had led him to join. He remains convinced that what he did was right and continues to act in accordance with those convictions.
Acclaimed author Andrey Kurkov gives powerful insight into life in Kyiv following the 2013 protests and before the 2022 Russian invasion. -16 DegreesC, sunlight, silence. I drove the children to school, then went to see the revolution. I walked between the tents. Talked with rev olutionaries. They were weary today. The air was thick with the smell of old campfires. Ukraine Diaries is acclaimed writer Andrey Kurkov's first-hand account of the ongoing crisis in his country. From his flat in Kyiv, just five hundred yards from Independence Square, Kurkov can smell the burning barricades and hear the sounds of grenades and gunshot. Kurkov's diaries begin on the first day of the pro-European protests in November 2013, and describe the violent clashes in the Maidan, the impeachment of Yanukovych, Russia's annexation of Crimea and the separatist uprisings in the east of Ukraine. Going beyond the headlines, they give vivid insight into what it's like to live through - and try to make sense of - times of intense political unrest, on the path to the current crisis.
From the author of "Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder," "Calamities of
Exile" combines three gripping narratives that afford a sort of
double CAT scan into the natures of both modern totalitarianism and
timeless exile.
This is a study of South African literature through the prism of narratives of sexual violence. While most incidents of sexual assault in South Africa are not interracial, narratives of interracial rape have dominated the national imaginary. South African literature has again and again circled back to images of "black peril" (representations of the rape of white women by black men) and "white peril" representations that show the rape of colonised women by colonising men. Taking an historical and comparative perspective, the book uses as theoretical underpinning Michel Foucault's ideas on sexuality and biopolitics and Judith Butler's speculations on race and cultural melancholia. Avoiding a simplistic feminist perspective, the book examines the complex ways in which race, gender and class work together in the literary texts under examination. Where relevant, it examines the production, dissemination and reception of the selected texts. The books argues for an ethically responsible and dialectical approach that recognises high levels of sexual violence in South Africa, but also examines the racialised inferences and assumptions implicit in representations of bodily violation.
_______ 'A history book that should be read by all' - Stylist. Set against the background of the campaign for women to win the vote, this is a story of the ordinary people effecting extraordinary change. 1913: the last long summer before the war. The country is gripped by suffragette fever. These impassioned crusaders have their admirers; some agree with their aims if not their forceful methods, while others are aghast at the thought of giving any female a vote. Meanwhile, hundreds of women are stepping out on to the streets of Britain. They are the suffragists: non-militant campaigners for the vote, on an astonishing six-week protest march they call the Great Pilgrimage. Rich and poor, young and old, they defy convention, risking jobs, family relationships and even their lives to persuade the country to listen to them. Fresh and original, full of vivid detail and moments of high drama, Hearts and Minds is both funny and incredibly moving, important and wonderfully entertaining.
It was a time of house burnings, mob violence, kidnapping, mass imprisonment, torture, endless trials, summary executions and secret burials. This was Iran in the early 1980s, and everyday reality for the Baha'is, Iran's largest religious minority. Headlines across America screamed out the story, Congress passed motions, President Reagan appealed to Iran. This detailed, eye-witness account of the persecution of Iran's largest religious minority in the 1980s is the story of one woman's experiences at the hands of the Iranian Revolutionaries. Amid the escalating pogrom, Olya Roohizadegan witnessed friends, neighbours and relatives being imprisoned, tortured and executed. For months she visited the prisoners, comforted their relatives, found clothes and shelter for the homeless, and smuggled news and photographs out of Iran to the outside world. And then it was her turn. The book culminates in her dramatic escape from the hangman's rope in a hazardous overland journey to Pakistan and the West.
Dear Leader contains astonishing new insights about North Korea which could only be revealed by someone working high up in the regime. It is also the gripping story of how a member of the inner circle of this enigmatic country became its most courageous, outspoken critic. Jang Jin-sung held one of the most senior ranks in North Korea's propaganda machine, helping tighten the regime's grip over its people. Among his tasks were developing the founding myth of North Korea, posing undercover as a South Korean intellectual and writing epic poems in support of the dictator, Kim Jong-il. Young and ambitious, his patriotic work secured him a bizarre audience with Kim Jong-il himself, thus granting him special status as one of the 'Admitted'. This meant special food provisions, a travel pass and immunity from prosecution and harm. He was privy to state secrets, including military and diplomatic policies, how the devastating 'Scrutiny' was effected, and the real position of one of the country's most powerful, elusive men, Im Tong-ok. Because he was praised by the Dear Leader himself, he had every reason to feel satisfied with his lot and safe. Yet he could not ignore his conscience, or the disparity between his life and that of those he saw starving on the street. After breaking security rules, Jang Jin-sung, together with a close friend, was forced to flee for his life: away from lies and deceit, towards truth and freedom.
George Soros is among the world's most prominent public figures. He is one of the history's most successful investors and his philanthropy, led by the Open Society Foundations, has donated over $14 billion to promote democracy and human rights in more than 120 countries. But in recent years, Soros has become the focus of sustained right-wing attacks in the United States and around the world based on his commitment to open society, progressive politics and his Jewish background. In this brilliant and spirited book, Soros offers a compendium of his philosophy, a clarion call-to-arms for the ideals of an open society: freedom, democracy, rule of law, human rights, social justice, and social responsibility as a universal idea. In this age of nationalism, populism, anti-Semitism, and the spread of authoritarian governments, Soros's mission to support open societies is as urgent as it is important.
Through detailed exploration of events in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Libya, Syria and Yemen, Sean Burns here breaks down the concept of professionalism within the armed forces into its component parts and demonstrates how variation in military structures determines their behaviour. In so doing, and by emphasising historical context and drawing on a wide range of political science theory, Burns sheds fresh light onto the ways in which military structure affects the potential for democratic transition or the course of civil war. With this book he presented a wide-ranging study of the Middle East which provides key tools to understanding the opportunities for democratisation, both during the Arab Spring and beyond, and which is therefore essential reading for anyone working on the Middle East, popular uprisings and the politics of repression.
The most dramatic, revealing and little-known story in Turkey's history - which illuminates the nation 'Through the spellbinding career of a single, ill-fated leader, Jeremy Seal illuminates a bitterly divided country' Colin Thubron 'Read this book if you're interested in Turkey. Read it if you're interested in power, hubris and redemption. Read it' Christopher de Bellaigue, author of The Islamic Enlightenment In the spring of 2016 travel writer Jeremy Seal went to Turkey to investigate perhaps the most dramatic, revealing and little-known episode in the country's history - the 'original' coup of 1960, which deposed the traditionalist Prime Minister Adnan Menderes. The story of Menderes - to his adoring supporters the country's founding democrat; to his sworn enemies its most infamous traitor - goes to the heart of the feud that continues to rage between the Western and secular ambitions of a minority elite and the religious and conservative instincts of the small-town majority. A Coup in Turkey is a thrilling account of the events leading up to the coup and the trials and executions that followed, a story of political subterfuge and score-settling, courtroom drama, state execution, authoritarian intolerance and ideological division. Seal travels through President Erdogan's Turkey, tracking down eye-witness accounts from survivors of the Menderes era in Istanbul, the historic metropolis, and the new capital at Ankara. As he expertly guides us through this extraordinary story, so the compelling parallels between past and present become strikingly clear, and he illuminates this troubled nation with a deep sympathy and love for the people and places he writes about. By focussing on one key event - one which many Turks regard with shame - this evocative, gripping portrait of Turkey recentres our understanding of the past and makes sense of one of Europe's most bewildering yet intriguing neighbours. 'A wonderful writer' Robert Macfarlane
A new and chilling study of lethal human exploitation in the Soviet forced labor camps, one of the pillars of Stalinist terror In a shocking new study of life and death in Stalin's Gulag, historian Golfo Alexopoulos suggests that Soviet forced labor camps were driven by brutal exploitation and often administered as death camps. The first study to examine the Gulag penal system through the lens of health, medicine, and human exploitation, this extraordinary work draws from previously inaccessible archives to offer a chilling new view of one of the pillars of Stalinist terror.
Despite Cultures examines the strategies and realities of the Soviet state-building project in Tajikistan during the 1920s and 1930s. Based on extensive archival research, Botakoz Kassymbekova analyzes the tactics of Soviet officials at the center and periphery that produced, imitated, and improvised governance in this Soviet southern borderland and in Central Asia more generally. She shows how the tools of violence, intimidation, and coercion were employed by Muslim and European Soviet officials alike to implement Soviet versions of modernization and industrialization. In a region marked by ethnic, linguistic, and cultural diversity, the Soviet plan was to recognize these differences while subsuming them within the conglomerate of official Soviet culture. As Kassymbekova reveals, the local ruling system was built upon an intricate network of individuals, whose stated loyalty to communism was monitored through a chain of command that stretched from Moscow through Tashkent to Dushanbe/Stalinabad. The system was tenuously based on individual leaders who struggled to decipher the language of Bolshevism and maintain power through violent repression.
The arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the head of the Yukos oil company, on 25 October 2003, was a key turning point in modern Russian history. At that time Khodorkovsky was one of the world's richest and most powerful men, while Yukos had been transformed into a vast and lucrative oil company that was set to go global. On all counts, this looked like a success story, but it was precisely at this moment that the Russian authorities struck. After two controversial trials, attracting widespread international condemnation, Khodorkovsky was sentenced to fourteen years in jail. In this book, Richard Sakwa examines the rise and fall of Yukos, and the development of the Russian oil industry more generally. Sakwa analyses Russia's emergence as an energy superpower, and considers the question of the 'natural resource curse' and the use of energy rents to bolster Russia as a great power and to maintain the autonomy of the regime. Crucially this book also examines the relationship between Putin's state and big business during Russia's traumatic shift from the Soviet planned economy to the market system.It is a detailed analysis of one of the most dramatic confrontations between economic and political power in our era, full of human drama and moral dilemmas. It is also a study of political economy, with the market and state coming into confrontation. Above all, the 'Yukos affair' continues to shape contemporary Russian politics, with a weakened judiciary and insecure property rights. It traces the struggles of the Putin era as two visions of society came into conflict. The attack on Khodorkovsky had - and continues to have - far-reaching political and economic consequences but it also raises fundamental questions about the quality of freedom in Putin's Russia as well as in the world at large.
All roads lead to Johannesburg, remarks the narrator of Alan Paton's novel Cry, The Beloved Country. Taking this quote as her impetus, Loren Kruger guides readers into the heart of South Africa's largest city. Exploring a wide range of fiction, film, architecture, performance, and urban practices from trading to parades, Imagining the Edgy City traverses Johannesburg's rich cultural terrain over the last century. The "edgy city" in Kruger's exploration refers not only to persistent boundaries between the haves and have-nots but also to the cosmopolitan diversity and innovation that has emerged from Johannesburg. The book begins with the building boom, performances and uneven but noteworthy inter-racial exchange that marked the city's fiftieth-anniversary celebration at the Empire Exhibition in 1936. This celebration rapidly gave way to the political repression and civil unrest that characterized South Africa from 1950 to 1990. Yet poetry, drama, fiction, and photography continued to thrive, bearing witness not only against apartheid but to alternatives beyond it. In the late twentieth century, the not quite post-apartheid condition fired the artistic imaginations of film makers as well as novelists. Urban neglect, rising crime, and the influx of migrants inspired noir cinema-like Michael Hammon's Wheels and Deals-and fiction about migration from Achmat Dangor to Phaswane Mpe, and in the twenty-first, urban renewal has produced public art that incorporates the desire lines of newcomers as well as natives. Alongside well-known artists such as Nadine Gordimer, William Kentridge, and David Goldblatt, the book introduces many artists, architects, writers, and other chroniclers who have hitherto received little attention abroad. Ultimately, Johannesburg emerges as a city whose negotiation of the tensions between incivility and innovation invites comparisons with modern conurbations across the world, not only African cities such as Dakar, or other cities of the "south" such as Bogota, but also with major metropolises in North America and Europe from Chicago to Paris. A multi-faceted work that speaks to scholars in urban studies, literature, and history, Imagining the Edgy City is a rich example of interdisciplinary scholarship at its best.
This expose of the dark history of repressive police operations in American cities offers a detailed account of police misconduct and violations of protected freedoms over the past century. In an examination of undercover work in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and Philadephia as well as Washington D.C., Detroit, New Haven, Baltimore, and Birmingham, Donner reveals the underside of American law enforcement.
The searing accounts of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Evgeniia Ginsberg and Varlam Shalamov opened the world's eyes to the terrors of the Soviet Gulag. But not until now has there been a memoir of life inside the camps written from the perspective of an actual employee of the Secret police. In this riveting memoir, superbly translated by Deborah Kaple, Fyodor Mochulsky describes being sent to work as a boss at the forced labor camp of Pechorlag in the frozen tundra north of the Arctic Circle. Only twenty-two years old, he had but a vague idea of the true nature of the Gulag. What he discovered was a world of unimaginable suffering and death, a world where men were starved, beaten, worked to death, or simply executed. Mochulsky details the horrific conditions in the camps and the challenges facing all those involved, from prisoners to guards. He depicts the power struggles within the camps between the secret police and the communist party, between the political prisoners (most of whom had been arrested for the generic crime of "counter-revolutionary activities") and the criminal convicts. And because Mochulsky writes of what he witnessed with the detachment of the engineer that he was, readers can easily understand how a system that destroyed millions of lives could be run by ordinary Soviet citizens who believed they were advancing the cause of socialism. Mochulsky remained a communist party member his entire life-he would later become a diplomat-but was deeply troubled by the gap between socialist theory and the Soviet reality of slave labor and mass murder. This unprecedented memoir takes readers into that reality and sheds new light on one of the most harrowing tragedies of the 20th century.
'I beseech you to read this account' - Christopher Hitchens A magnificent, harrowing testimony to the voiceless victims of North Korea. Kang Chol-Hwan is the first survivor of a North Korean concentration camp to escape the 'hermit kingdom' and tell his story to the world. This memoir reveals the human suffering in his camp, with its forced labour, frequent public executions and near-starvation rations. Kang eventually escaped to South Korea via China to give testimony to the hardships and atrocities that constitute the lives of the thousands of people still detained in the gulags today. Part horror story, part historical document, part memoir, part political tract, this story of one young man's personal suffering finally gives eye-witness proof to this neglected chapter of modern history.
Capturing eloquent observations of the Napoleonic period's most politically outspoken woman, this edition of Dix Ann\u00e9es d\u00b4Exil is the powerful memoir of Germaine de Sta\u00ebl\u00b4s tumultuous years fleeing Napoleon. Translated by an award-winning scholar, Ten Years of Exile is the only unabridged English edition of this strong-minded and passionate woman\u00b4s personal and political journal. During the French Revolution, Mme. de Sta\u00ebl\u00b4s salon became a brilliant center of political and intellectual life. Sta\u00ebl herself helped to introduce Napoleon to French society, yet like other liberals in the Constitutional Club, she soon came to oppose the increasingly powerful general. He in turn banished her from Paris in 1803 for her liberal ideas. In exile, Sta\u00ebl continued to agitate against the new master of France. When Napoleon began his great Russian campaign, she fled across Austria and Poland to avoid his advancing armies. She arrived in Moscow only weeks ahead of Napoleon and then barely escaped to England. After Napoleon\u00b4s defeat, Sta\u00ebl returned to Paris and again received ministers, generals, and sovereigns in her revived salon. As the author of beloved novels and widely read works on literature, history, and politics, Sta\u00ebl knew and corresponded with many of the leading intellectuals and politicians of her day, including Talleyrand, Schiller, and Goethe. Her memoir provides penetrating insights into the society of Napoleonic Europe and vivid portraits of the leading figures of the age, including the emperor himself. Based upon the definitive 1996 French text edited by Simone Balay\u00e9 and Mariella Bonifacio, this edition includes a new introduction by Simone Balay\u00e9 and Avriel Goldberger. Supplemented with notes, a chronology, and a map of de Sta\u00ebl\u00b4s dramatic flight across Europe, Ten Years of Exile will intrigue readers interested in biography, French history, women\u00b4s studies, political and intellectual history, literature, and the Age of Napoleon.
Attempting to indoctrinate the public into a new society, the
Bolsheviks staged show trials--legal trials that incorporated
theatrical elements such as coached defendants, memorized scripts
for confession, and grueling interrogatory rehearsals. The genre of
legal spectacle, whose origins lay in Soviet theater and cinema of
the 1920s, moved from mass public spectacles to the courtroom, as
the Bolsheviks sought to effect ever- greater social change.
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.
Mohandas Gandhi and Winston Churchill: India's moral leader and Great Britain's greatest Prime Minister. Born five years and seven thousand miles apart, they became embodiments of the nations they led. Both became living icons, idolized and admired around the world. Today, they remain enduring models of leadership in a democratic society. Yet the truth was Churchill and Gandhi were bitter enemies throughout their lives. This book reveals, for the first time, how that rivalry shaped the twentieth century and beyond. For more than forty years, from 1906 to 1948, Gandhi and Churchill were locked in a tense struggle for the hearts and minds of the British public, and of world opinion. Although they met only once, their titanic contest of wills would decide the fate of nations, continents, peoples, and ultimately an Empire. Here is a sweeping epic with a fascinating supporting cast, and a brilliant narrative parable of two men whose great successes were always haunted by personal failure - and whose final moments of triumph were overshadowed by the loss of what they held most dear.
"If there is anything in this country to be prized, it's the propagation of the bill of rights, free speech, and freedom of the press. Yet how strange, with all the success and prosperity we have achieved throughout the world, how rarely dissent and protest seem to be practiced in this country. The heroes of this book are the real Americans. This is a must-read for all of us."--Edward Asner, actor/activist "Throughout the 20th century, the U.S. government has targeted radicals and activists. "The Price of Dissent tells that story with unique and eloquent voices--and also documents some impressive and moving battles to expand our freedom."--Jon Wiener, author of "Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon FBI File ""The Price of Dissent is an inspiring history that includes personal memories by well-chosen participants. They reveal their private awakenings and accomplishments, and they also discuss their repression--by narrow-minded fellows and, more frequently, at the hands of authorities, such as the FBI and COINTELPRO."--Dave Dellinger, author of "From Yale to Jail "It is time we replaced the traditional heroes of our orthodox textbooks-the generals, the politicos, the industrialists-with those courageous people who fought for peace and justice, against great odds. This book goes a long way towards that goal, by letting us hear the voices of the great dissenters."--Howard Zinn, author of "You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train ""The Price of Dissent vividly chronicles the courage and impact of activists in the American labor, civil rights, and anti-Vietnam War movements. If this is the land of the free and the home of the brave, much credit goes to the freedom-fighting and braveryof the women and men featured in this inspiring book."--Nadine Strossen, President, American Civil Liberties Union; Professor of Law, New York Law School "In this splendid collection of annotated testimonies by American citizens repressed before and during the first 'red scare' and those still victimized forty years after the second scare, the Schultzes remind us that only those willing to pay the price of dissent can hope to achieve a true understanding of the value of democracy."--David Levering Lewis, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning two-volume "W.E.B. Du Bois "Vivid and revealing testimonies about the impact of political repression on American social justice movements. This fascinating book adds greatly to our understanding of a wide range of political movements."--Clayborne Carson, editor of "The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. "Gripping first-hand accounts provide human faces and engrossing details to what is often only an abstract and theoretical concern for human rights."--Robert Justin Goldstein, author of "Political Repression in Modern America "These women and men risked life, limb and freedom to protect our precious rights, paying a great price so that we'd not have to. We owe them our thanks and owe thanks to the authors for bringing their stories to us."--Julian Bond, Chairman, "NAACP |
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Hardcover
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