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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political control & freedoms > Political control & influence > Political oppression & persecution

Religion, Empire, and Torture - The Case of Achaemenian Persia, with a Postscript on Abu Ghraib (Hardcover): Bruce Lincoln Religion, Empire, and Torture - The Case of Achaemenian Persia, with a Postscript on Abu Ghraib (Hardcover)
Bruce Lincoln
R2,739 Discovery Miles 27 390 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

How does religion stimulate and feed imperial ambitions and violence? Recently this question has acquired new urgency, and in "Religion, Empire, and Torture, "Bruce Lincoln approaches the problem via a classic but little-studied case: Achaemenian Persia.
Lincoln identifies three core components of an imperial theology that have transhistorical and contemporary relevance: dualistic ethics, a theory of divine election, and a sense of salvific mission. Beyond this, he asks, how did the Achaemenians understand their place in the cosmos and their moral status in relation to others? Why did they feel called to intervene in the struggle between good and evil? What was their sense of historic purpose, especially their desire to restore paradise lost? And how did this lead them to deal with enemies and critics as imperial power ran its course? Lincoln shows how these religious ideas shaped Achaemenian practice and brought the Persians unprecedented wealth, power, and territory, but also produced unmanageable contradictions, as in a gruesome case of torture discussed in the book's final chapter. Close study of that episode leads Lincoln back to the present with a postscript that provides a searing and utterly novel perspective on the photographs from Abu Ghraib.

Justice Matters - Legacies of the Holocaust and World War II (Hardcover): Mona Sue Weissmark Justice Matters - Legacies of the Holocaust and World War II (Hardcover)
Mona Sue Weissmark
R1,989 Discovery Miles 19 890 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

In the fall of 1992, in a small room in Boston, MA, an extraordinary meeting took place. For the first time, the sons and daughters of Holocaust victims met face-to-face with the children of Nazis for a fascinating research project to discuss the intersections of their pasts and the painful legacies that history has imposed on them. Taking that remarkable gathering as its starting point, Justice Matters illustrates how the psychology of hatred and ethnic resentments is passed from generation to generation. Psychologist Mona Weissmark, herself the child of Holocaust survivors, argues that justice is profoundly shaped by emotional responses. In her in-depth study of the legacy encountered by these children, Weissmark found, not surprisingly, that in the face of unjust treatment, the natural response is resentment and deep anger-and, in most cases, an overwhelming need for revenge. Weissmark argues that, while legal systems offer a structured means for redressing injustice, they have rarely addressed the emotional pain, which, left unresolved, is then passed along to the next generation-leading to entrenched ethnic tension and group conflict.

In the grim litany of twentieth-century genocides, few events cut a broader and more lasting swath through humanity than the Holocaust. How then would the offspring of Nazis and survivors react to the idea of reestablishing a relationship? Could they talk to each other without open hostility? Could they even attempt to imagine the experiences and outlook of the other? Would they be willing to abandon their self-definition as aggrieved victims as a means of moving forward?

Central to the perspectives of each group, Weissmark found, were stories, searing anecdotes passed from parent to grandchild, from aunt to nephew, which personalized with singular intensity the experience. She describes how these stories or "legacies" transmit moral values, beliefs and emotions and thus freeze the past into place. For instance, it emerged that most children of Nazis reported their parents told them stories about the war whereas children of survivors reported their parents told them stories about the Holocaust. The daughter of a survivor said: "I didn't even know there was a war until I was a teenager. I didn't even know fifty million people were killed during the war I thought just six million Jews were killed." While the daughter of a Nazi officer recalled: "I didn't know about the concentration-camps until I was in my teens. First I heard about the [Nazi] party. Then I heard stories about the war, about bombs falling or about not having food."

At a time when the political arena is saturated with talk of justice tribunals, reparations, and revenge management, Justice Matters provides valuable insights into the aftermath of ethnic and religious conflicts around the world, from Rwanda to the Balkans, from Northern Ireland to the Middle East. The stories recounted here, and the lessons they offer, have universal applications for any divided society determined not to let the ghosts of the past determine the future.

Frontiers and Ghettos - State Violence in Serbia and Israel (Paperback): James Ron Frontiers and Ghettos - State Violence in Serbia and Israel (Paperback)
James Ron
R1,170 Discovery Miles 11 700 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

""Frontiers and Ghettos is based on the idea that when it comes to ethnopolitical conflict, lousy is better than horrible. How outcomes better than horrible arise, despite ideological imperatives, hatreds, and predatory opportunities, is brilliantly analyzed in this empirically rich, vividly written, and provocative comparison of Serbian and Israeli policies toward Croatians, Muslims and Palestinians. A terrific book!"--Ian S. Lustick, author of "Unsettled States, Disputed Lands

"Abusive governments try to avoid leaving fingerprints on acts of repression, often using paramilitaries or death squads for deniability. James Ron reveals that territorial boundaries can serve a similar function. Abuse is more likely, he shows, as one crosses the frontiers of established state power, obscuring the signature of official action. This original and insightful book encourages us to expose cross-border involvement in human rights violations and re-establish official accountability."--Kenneth Roth, Executive Director, Human Rights Watch

"With terrifying lucidity, Ron uses the experiences of Serbia, Kosovo, Bosnia, Israel, and Palestine to examine how a state's definition of the boundary separating its favored population from a different people authorizes, channels, or inhibits its use of force. This veteran participant-observer uses first-hand observation tellingly."--Charles Tilly, author of "Durable Inequality

""Frontiers and Ghettos represents a major step forward in social science's effort to understand state violence. James Ron shows that while all states use violence, they do so differently in their well-policed interiors and at their margins. This book is powerful, timely, and importantfor both scholars, policy-makers, and those who would advance respect for human rights."--Craig Calhoun, President, Social Science Research Council

"James Ron has written a strikingly clear and convincing study of the factors affecting controlled and uncontrolled state-directed violence in the current period, with an analysis that adds substantially to the sociology of the state. His book will be important for all those concerned--for scholarly reasons and for broader ones--with modern confrontations of world norms, state power and human rights. And its gripping accounts will be important for those concerned with the specific violent conflicts it examines, in Serbia and Israel."--John W. Meyer, Professor of Sociology, Emeritus, Stanford University

"This ingenious and courageous comparison of the types of violence used by nationalist regimes should transform the way we think about borders and state sovereignty. In demonstrating that even the most unsavory governments can be sensitive to international norms and the appearance of legality, Ron also strikes a serious blow at standard policy prescriptions -- from imposing sanctions and isolation on offending regimes to offering autonomy packages and soft borders for ethnic minorities. This book deserves wide circulation and serious reflection."--Susan L. Woodward, author of "Balkan Tragedy: Chaos and Dissolution after the Cold War

"As the horrific escalation of violence in Israel and the Palestinian territories grips international headlines, the inability of commentators to locate these tragic events in a comparative analytical frame is striking. This book is an impressive exception. Ron's elegant comparative analysis of Serbia andearlier periods of Israeli-Palestinian conflict makes the dynamics of the present conflict and its future possibilities comprehensible in a way that few others have managed to do. It is a signal contribution to our understanding of modern state violence."--Peter Evans, Eliaser Chair of International Studies, University of California, Berkeley

Mirrors of Destruction - War, Genocide, and Modern Identity (Paperback, Revised): Omer Bartov Mirrors of Destruction - War, Genocide, and Modern Identity (Paperback, Revised)
Omer Bartov
R1,700 Discovery Miles 17 000 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Omar Bartov argues that war, genocide and modern identity have been intimately linked. By comparing German, French and Jewish sources, this book demonstrates the need to view the Holocaust within the context of our era's predilection to resolve its conflicts over identity by massive application of destructive technologies.

The Tiananmen Papers - The Chinese Leadership's Decision to Use Force Against Their Own People - In Their Own Words... The Tiananmen Papers - The Chinese Leadership's Decision to Use Force Against Their Own People - In Their Own Words (Paperback)
Andrew Nathan, Perry Link; Edited by Liang Zhang
R480 R441 Discovery Miles 4 410 Save R39 (8%) Ships in 9 - 15 working days

THE TIANANMEN PAPERS, which contains documents unearthed from the guarded core of the Chinese Politburo, is the most important book on China published in decades. It reveals the highest-level processes of decision-making during the tumultuous events surrounding the terrible massacre in Tiananmen Square on 4 June 1989.
Drawn from about 2,000 documents, THE TIANANMEN PAPERS have been compiled and edited as part of an extraordinary collaboration between America's most prominent China scholars and a handful of Chinese people who have risked their lives to obtain them.
The Chinese pro-democracy demonstrations in 1989 were the longest lasting and most influential in the world. THE TIANANMEN PAPERS exposes the desperate conflict during the period among a few strong leaders, whose personalities emerge with unprecedented vividness. Its revelations of the most important event in modern Chinese history will have a profound impact not only in China, but in every country in the world that deals with China.
 

Blacklisted - A Journalist's Life in Central Europe (Hardcover, illustrated edition): Paul Lendvai Blacklisted - A Journalist's Life in Central Europe (Hardcover, illustrated edition)
Paul Lendvai
R1,766 Discovery Miles 17 660 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Paul Lendvai, born a Hungarian Jew, was arrested by the Nazis as a teenager, became a young communist activist in post-war Budapest, was arrested by the communists, again survived as one of the country's youngest political prisoners, and on his release was blacklisted as a journalist by the communist regime. After fleeing to Vienna following the 1956 Revolution, Lendvai was to become a leading journalist and commentator on eastern Europe. In this prize-winning memoir, he paints a picture of ethnic hatred, political turbulence and murderous anti-Semitism, as well as the swings between treachery and compromise which have characterized the history of 20th-century central Europe. There are descriptions of encounters with killers, torturers, onlookers and victims, traitors and heroes. In preparing the book, Lendvai had access to many previously unseen secret police files of Czechoslovakia, East Germany and Hungary.

Fire Under The Snow - Testimony of a Tibetan Prisoner (Paperback, New Ed): Palden Gyatso Fire Under The Snow - Testimony of a Tibetan Prisoner (Paperback, New Ed)
Palden Gyatso 2
R485 R436 Discovery Miles 4 360 Save R49 (10%) Ships in 9 - 15 working days

In 1992 the Venerable Palden Gyatso was released after thirty-three years of imprisonment by Chinese forces in Tibet. He fled across the Himalayas to India, smuggling with him the instruments of his torture. This powerful text is the story of his life and irrefutable testimony to the appalling suffering of the Tibetan nation at the hands of the Chinese.

Memoirs from the Women's Prison (Paperback, Reissue): Nawal El-Saadawi Memoirs from the Women's Prison (Paperback, Reissue)
Nawal El-Saadawi; Translated by Marilyn Booth
R995 Discovery Miles 9 950 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Often likened to Rigoberta Menchu and Nadine Gordimer, Nawal El Saadawi is one of the world's leading feminist authors. Director of Health and Education in Cairo, she was summarily dismissed from her post in 1972 for her political writing and activities. In 1981 she was imprisoned by Anwar Sadat for alleged "crimes against the State" and was not released until after his assassination. "Memoirs from the Women's Prison" offers both first hand witness to women's resistance to state violence and fascinating insights into the formation of women's community. Saadawi describes how political prisoners, both secular intellectuals and Islamic revivalists, forged alliances to demand better conditions and to maintain their sanity in the confines of their cramped cell. Saadawi's haunting prose makes Memoirs an important work of twentieth-century literature. Recognized as a classic of prison writing, it touches all who are concerned with political oppression, intellectual freedom, and personal dignity.

The Open Sore Of A Continent - A Personal Narrative Of The Nigerian Crisis (Paperback, Revised): Wole Soyinka The Open Sore Of A Continent - A Personal Narrative Of The Nigerian Crisis (Paperback, Revised)
Wole Soyinka
R172 Discovery Miles 1 720 Ships in 2 - 4 working days

From the moment, on November 10, 1995, that the Nigerian military government executed dissident writer Ken Saro-Wiwa along with eight other activists, Nigeria became an outcast in the global village. The events that led up to Saro-Wiwa's execution mark Nigeria's decline from a post-colonial success story to its current military dictatorship, and few writers have been more outspoken in decrying and lamenting this decline than Nobel Prize laureate and Nigerian exile Wole Soyinka. In The Open Sore of a Continent, Soyinka, whose own Nigerian passport was confiscated 1994, explores the history and future of Nigeria in a compelling jeremiad that is as intense as it is provocative, learned, and wide-ranging.

Mistrusting Refugees (Paperback, New): E. Valentine Daniel, John Chr. Knudsen Mistrusting Refugees (Paperback, New)
E. Valentine Daniel, John Chr. Knudsen; Foreword by Lal Jayawardena
R1,083 Discovery Miles 10 830 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

The twentieth century has seen people displaced on an unprecedented scale and has brought concerns about refugees into sharp focus. There are forty million refugees in the world--1 in 130 inhabitants of this planet. In this first interdisciplinary study of the issue, fifteen scholars from diverse fields focus on the worldwide disruption of "trust" as a sentiment, a concept, and an experience. Contributors provide a rich array of essays that maintain a delicate balance between providing specific details of the refugee experience and exploring corresponding theories of trust and mistrust. Their subjects range widely across the globe, and include Palestinians, Cambodians, Tamils, and Mayan Indians of Guatemala. By examining what individuals experience when removed from their own culture, these essays reflect on individual identity and culture as a whole.

The Silent Escape - Three Thousand Days in Romanian Prisons (Hardcover): Lena Constante The Silent Escape - Three Thousand Days in Romanian Prisons (Hardcover)
Lena Constante; Translated by Franklin Philip; Introduction by Gail Kligman
R1,073 Discovery Miles 10 730 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

'I have lived, alone, in a cell, 157,852,800 seconds of solitude and fear. Cause for screaming! They sentence me to live yet another 220,838,400 seconds! To live them or to die from them' - from "The Silent Escape". Victim of Stalinist-era terror, Lena Constante was arrested on trumped-up charges of 'espionage' and sentenced to twelve years in Romanian prisons. "The Silent Escape" is the extraordinary account of the first eight years of her incarceration - years of solitary confinement during which she was tortured, starved, and daily humiliated. The only woman to have endured isolation so long in Romanian jails, Constante is also one of the few women political prisoners to have written about her ordeal. Unlike other more political prison diaries, this book draws us into the practical and emotional experiences of everyday prison life. Candidly, eloquently, Constante describes the physical and psychological abuses that were the common lot of communist-state political prisoners. She also recounts the particular humiliations she suffered as a woman, including that of male guards watching her in the bathroom. Constante survived by escaping into her mind - and finally by discovering the 'language of the walls', which enabled her to communicate with other female inmates. A powerful story of totalitarianism and human endurance, this work makes an important contribution to the literature of 'prison notebooks'.

In the Highest Degree Odious - Detention without Trial in Wartime Britain (Paperback, Revised): A.W. Brian Simpson In the Highest Degree Odious - Detention without Trial in Wartime Britain (Paperback, Revised)
A.W. Brian Simpson
R2,946 Discovery Miles 29 460 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

During the Second World War, just under two thousand British citizens were detained without charge, trial, or term set, under Regulation 18B of the wartime Defence Regulations. Most of these detentions took place in the summer of 1940, soon after Winston Churchill became Prime Minister, when belief in the existence of a dangerous Fifth Column was widespread. Churchill, at first an enthusiast for vigorous use of the powers of executive detention, later came to lament the use of a power which was, in his words, in the highest degree odious'.
This book provides the first comprehensive study of Regulation 18B and its precursor in the First World War, Regulation 14B. Based on extensive use of primary sources, it describes the complex history of wartime executive detention: the purposes which it served, the administrative procedures and safeguards employed, the conflicts between the Home Office and the Security Service which surrounded its use, the part played by individuals, by Parliament, and by the courts in restraining abuse of executive power, and the effect of detention upon the lives of individuals concerned, very few of whom constituted any threat to national security. Much of what was done was kept secret at the time, and even today the authorities continue to refuse access to many of the papers which have escaped deliberate destruction. This study is the first to attempt to penetrate the veil of secrecy and tell the story of the gravest invasion of civil liberty which has occurred in Britain this century.

The Gestapo and German Society - Enforcing Racial Policy 1933-1945 (Paperback, Reissue): Robert Gellately The Gestapo and German Society - Enforcing Racial Policy 1933-1945 (Paperback, Reissue)
Robert Gellately
R3,182 Discovery Miles 31 820 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

How were the Gestapo able to detect the smallest signs of non-compliance with Nazi doctrines, and how could they enforce their racial policies with such ease? Robert Gellately argues, controversially, that there was a three-way interaction between the Gestapo, the German people, and the implementation of policy; the key factor being the willingness of German citizens to provide the authorities with information about suspected `criminality'.

Nightmare in Red - The McCarthy Era in Perspective (Paperback, New ed): Richard M. Fried Nightmare in Red - The McCarthy Era in Perspective (Paperback, New ed)
Richard M. Fried
R831 Discovery Miles 8 310 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

According to newspaper headlines and television pundits, the cold war ended many months ago; the age of Big Two confrontation is over. But forty years ago, Americans were experiencing the beginnings of another era--of the fevered anti-communism that came to be known as McCarthyism. During this period, the Cincinnati Reds felt compelled to rename themselves briefly the "Redlegs" to avoid confusion with the other reds, and one citizen in Indiana campaigned to have The Adventures of Robin Hood removed from library shelves because the story's subversive message encouraged robbing from the rich and giving to the poor. These developments grew out of a far-reaching anxiety over communism that characterized the McCarthy Era.
Richard Fried's Nightmare in Red offers a riveting and comprehensive account of this crucial time. He traces the second Red Scare's antecedents back to the 1930s, and presents an engaging narrative about the many different people who became involved in the drama of the anti-communist fervor, from the New Deal era and World War II, through the early years of the cold war, to the peak of McCarthyism, and beyond McCarthy's censure to the decline of the House Committee on Un-American Activities in the 1960s. Along the way, we meet the familiar figures of the period--Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower, the young Richard Nixon, and, of course, the Wisconsin Senator Joseph R. McCarthy. But more importantly, Fried reveals the wholesale effect of McCarthyism on the lives of thousands of ordinary people, from teachers and lawyers to college students, factory workers, and janitors. Together with coverage of such famous incidents as the ordeal of the Hollywood Ten (which led to the entertainment world's notorious blacklist) and the Alger Hiss case, Fried also portrays a wealth of little-known but telling episodes involving victims and victimizers of anti-communist politics at the state and local levels.
Providing the most complete history of the rise and fall of the phenomenon known as McCarthyism, Nightmare in Red shows that it involved far more than just Joe McCarthy.

Contemporary Peruvian Cinema - History, Identity and Violence on Screen (Hardcover): Sarah Barrow Contemporary Peruvian Cinema - History, Identity and Violence on Screen (Hardcover)
Sarah Barrow
R3,069 Discovery Miles 30 690 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

WINNER OF A CHOICE OUTSTANDING ACADEMIC TITLE AWARD 2019 The political violence that erupted towards the end of the twentieth century between the Peruvian state and militant group `Shining Path' left an indelible mark on the country that resonates even today. This study explores representations of the insurgency on screen, and asks what these tell us about the relationship between state, fiction cinema and identity in Peru. In the process, Sarah Barrow highlights the Peruvian experience as a paradigm for the wider study of film-making in societies faced with violence and terrorism. This book provides in-depth analyses of the pivotal films from the 1980s through to the present day that interpret the events, characters and consequences of the bloody conflict. Setting the films in the context of a time of turbulent transition for both Peruvian society and cinema - addressing developments in film policy and production - it reveals the attempts by filmmakers to reflect, shape, define and contest the identity of a fractured population. By interrogating important themes such as memory, trauma and cultural responses to terrorism, chapters explore local perception of nationhood, and highlight links to other Latin American cinemas and global issues. Featuring discussions of the work of Francisco Lombardi, Marianne Eyde, Fabrizio Aguilar and Josue Mendez, amongst others, this detailed investigation of the growing success and political importance of the industry's output traces the complexities of modern Peruvian history.

Inquisition and Medieval Society - Power, Discipline, and Resistance in Languedoc (Paperback): James B. Given Inquisition and Medieval Society - Power, Discipline, and Resistance in Languedoc (Paperback)
James B. Given
R810 Discovery Miles 8 100 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

James B. Given analyzes the inquisition in one French region in order to develop a sociology of medieval politics. Established in the early thirteenth century to combat widespread popular heresy, inquisitorial tribunals identified, prosecuted, and punished heretics and their supporters. The inquisition in Languedoc was the best documented of these tribunals because the inquisitors aggressively used the developing techniques of writing and record keeping to build cases and extract confessions.Using a Marxist and Foucauldian approach, Given focuses on three inquiries: what techniques of investigation, interrogation, and punishment the inquisitors worked out in the course of their struggle against heresy; how the people of Languedoc responded to the activities of the inquisitors; and what aspects of social organization in Languedoc either facilitated or constrained the work of the inquisitors. Punishments not only inflicted suffering and humiliation on those condemned, he argues, but also served as theatrical instruction for the rest of society about the terrible price of transgression. Through a careful pursuit of these inquires, Given elucidates medieval society's contribution to the modern apparatus of power.

Traditional Leaders In A Democracy - Resources, Respect And Resistance (Paperback): The Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic... Traditional Leaders In A Democracy - Resources, Respect And Resistance (Paperback)
The Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection
R1,480 Discovery Miles 14 800 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Post-1994, South Africa’s traditional leaders have fought for recognition, and positioned themselves as major players in our political landscape. Yet their role in a democracy is contested, with leaders often accused of abusing power, disregarding human rights, expropriating resources and promoting tribalism. Some argue that democracy and traditional leadership are irredeemably opposed and cannot co-exist.

Meanwhile, shifts in the political economy of the former bantustans - the introduction of platinum mining in particular - have attracted new interests and conflicts to these areas, with chiefs often designated as custodians of community interests. This edited volume explores how chieftaincy is practised, experienced and contested in contemporary South Africa. It explores how those living under the authority of chiefs, in a modern democracy, negotiate or resist these politics in their respective areas.

Chapters in this book are organised around three major sites of contest in the area of traditional leadership: leadership, land and law.

Connected by Commitment - Oppression and Our Responsibility to Undermine It (Hardcover): Mara Marin Connected by Commitment - Oppression and Our Responsibility to Undermine It (Hardcover)
Mara Marin
R2,846 Discovery Miles 28 460 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Saying that political and social oppression is a deeply unjust and widespread condition of life is not a terribly controversial statement. Likewise, theorists of justice frequently consider our obligation to not turn a blind eye to oppression. But what is our culpability in the endurance of oppression? In this book, Mara Marin complicates the primary ways in which we make sense of human and political relationships and our obligations within them. Rather than thinking of relationships in terms of our intentions, Marin thinks of them as open-ended and subject to ongoing commitments. Commitments create open-ended expectations and vulnerabilities on the part of others, and therefore also obligations. By this rationale, our actions sustain oppressive or productive structures in virtue of their cumulative effects, not the intentions of the actors.When we violate our obligations we oppress others. Over the chapters of her book, Marin applies her model of commitment to caregivers, marriage, and bargaining power between labor and employers, and examines three types of social relations: political-legal relations, intimate relations of care, and work relations. By linking habitual action to obligation, Marin argues that we should see our responsibilities within such relationships as political and as creating norms for behavior over time. Commitment both points to the support our actions give to oppressive structures and to the ways in which our actions can weaken the same structures. Connected by Commitment examines our obligations to transform structures of oppression and offers commitment as a model for solidarity across race, gender, and class.

Purifying the Land of the Pure - A History of Pakistan's Religious Minorities (Hardcover): Farahnaz Ispahani Purifying the Land of the Pure - A History of Pakistan's Religious Minorities (Hardcover)
Farahnaz Ispahani
R956 Discovery Miles 9 560 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

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.

Captive Revolution - Palestinian Women's Anti-Colonial Struggle within the Israeli Prison System (Hardcover): Nahla Abdo Captive Revolution - Palestinian Women's Anti-Colonial Struggle within the Israeli Prison System (Hardcover)
Nahla Abdo
R2,160 Discovery Miles 21 600 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Women throughout the world have always played their part in struggles against colonialism, imperialism and other forms of oppression. However, there are few books on Arab political prisoners, fewer still on the Palestinians who have been detained in their thousands for their political activism and resistance. Nahla Abdo's Captive Revolution seeks to break the silence on Palestinian women political detainees, providing a vital contribution to research on women, revolutions, national liberation and anti-colonial resistance. Based on stories of the women themselves, as well as her own experiences as a former political prisoner, Abdo draws on a wealth of oral history and primary research in order to analyse their anti-colonial struggle, their agency and their appalling treatment as political detainees. Making crucial comparisons with the experiences of female political detainees in other conflicts, and emphasising the vital role Palestinian political culture and memorialisation of the 'Nakba' have had on their resilience and resistance, Captive Revolution is a rich and revealing addition to our knowledge of this little-studied phenomenon.

Apartheid, 1948-1994 (Hardcover): Saul Dubow Apartheid, 1948-1994 (Hardcover)
Saul Dubow
R3,614 Discovery Miles 36 140 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

This new study offers a fresh interpretation of apartheid South Africa. Emerging out of the author's long-standing interests in the history of racial segregation, and drawing on a great deal of new scholarship, archival collections, and personal memoirs, he situates apartheid in global as well as local contexts. The overall conception of Apartheid, 1948-1994 is to integrate studies of resistance with the analysis of power, paying attention to the importance of ideas, institutions, and culture. Saul Dubow refamiliarises and defamiliarise apartheid so as to approach South Africa's white supremacist past from unlikely perspectives. He asks not only why apartheid was defeated, but how it survived so long. He neither presumes the rise of apartheid nor its demise. This synoptic reinterpretation is designed to introduce students to apartheid and to generate new questions for experts in the field.

Economic Liberalization and Political Violence - Utopia or Dystopia? (Paperback): Francisco Gutierrez, Gerd Schoenwalder Economic Liberalization and Political Violence - Utopia or Dystopia? (Paperback)
Francisco Gutierrez, Gerd Schoenwalder
R837 Discovery Miles 8 370 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Globalization is lauded by some as a tool for spreading peace and prosperity, and decried by others as a harbinger of conflict and war. This book challenges both views. Narrowing down globalization to the more manageable notion of neoliberalism, "Economic Liberalization and Political Violence" studies the effect of neoliberalism on violent conflict and war-making. The sophisticated analysis includes statistical work and a set of qualitative case studies from Latin America (Colombia, Peru, El Salvador, and Guatemala) and sub-Saharan Africa (Cote d'Ivoire, Sudan, and Uganda). The findings demonstrate that the shift to neoliberal policies has produced widely diverging outcomes in different contexts. An invaluable source for students of political economy, development studies and international relations this book shows that neoliberalism can help to end violent conflict as well as bringing about new, criminal forms of violence.

Bad Men - Guantanamo Bay And The Secret Prisons (Paperback): Clive Stafford Smith Bad Men - Guantanamo Bay And The Secret Prisons (Paperback)
Clive Stafford Smith 2
R420 Discovery Miles 4 200 Ships in 9 - 15 working days

Explosively personal account by a British lawyer who defends Death Row prisoners and Guantanamo Bay detainees. Clive Stafford Smith is the 46-year-old human-rights lawyer who has famously - some would say notoriously - spent more than twenty years in the United States representing prisoners on Death Row. His clients include many detainees in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, and he established the London-based charity Reprieve, developed to defending human rights in 1999. His book is quite simply, devastating, and many will laugh and cry reading it: laugh in disbelief, and cry in despair at the utter inhumanity and lack of imagination wrapped up in hypocrisy so enormous that it beggars understanding. Yet even in the face of insurmountable odds, Clive Stafford Smith remains an optimist. Few could maintain his capacity for work and his commitment to his clients if he allowed frustration or despair to divert him. His experiences, graphically recounted in this book, have enabled him to shine a bright, unblinking light into the darkest corners of illegality that are being justified by governments in the name of the War on Terror.

The Guantanamo Files - The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America's Illegal Prison (Paperback): Andy Worthington The Guantanamo Files - The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America's Illegal Prison (Paperback)
Andy Worthington
R1,006 Discovery Miles 10 060 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

In 2006, four years after the illegal prison in Guantanamo Bay opened, the Pentagon finally released the names of the 773 men held there, as well as 7,000 pages of transcripts from tribunals assessing their status as 'enemy combatants'. Andy Worthington is the only person to have analysed every page of these transcripts and this book reveals the stories of all those imprisoned in Guantanamo. Deprived of the safeguards of the Geneva Conventions, and, for the most part, sold to the Americans by their allies in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the detainees have struggled for five years to have their stories heard. Looking in detail at the circumstances of their capture, and at the coercive interrogations and unsubstantiated allegations that have been used to justify their detention. Stories of torture in Afghanistan and Guantanamo are uncovered, as well as new information about the process of 'extraordinary rendition' that underpins the US administration's 'war on terror'. Who will speak for the 773 men who have been held in Guantanamo? This passionate and brilliantly detailed book brings their stories to the world for the first time.

The Israeli Palestinians - An Arab Minority in the Jewish State (Hardcover, New): Alexander Bligh The Israeli Palestinians - An Arab Minority in the Jewish State (Hardcover, New)
Alexander Bligh
R4,573 Discovery Miles 45 730 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

One of the most crucial issues to affect national policy in the state of Israel is that of relations between its Jewish and Arab citizens. The confrontation of October 2000 demonstrated the explosive potential of the unresolved dilemmas posed by these relations.
This edited collection offers the academic community and the general public a comprehensive analysis of the most significant factors to have contributed to current conditions. The writers are all leading experts in their respective fields, covering history, sociology and politics and offering a variety of viewpoints and methodologies. This should prove useful reading for all concerned with Israeli-Arab relations in the Jewish state for years to come.

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