Ethnic tensions in Macedonia

Russia’s more comprehensive information warfare concept is arguably a continuation of long-running Russian strategic thought and historical military doctrines that have been adapted to the cyber domain. The First Chechen War exposed substantial failings in Russia’s military doctrine, organizational structure, and strategy. Official Russian assessments of the conflict focused on the advantage the separatists gained through their employment of information warfare. Russian military and security services, bruised by the failure to counter Chechen use of information warfare, adapted relatively quickly in the three years interim before the start of the Second Chechen War. Lessons learned from the Chechen wars were incorporated into Russia’s 2000 Information Security Doctrine. In the Russian leadership’s view, the Color Revolutions were a component of Western information warfare intended to isolate and undermine Russia’s strategic interests within the region. Russian information warfare campaigns targeting the near abroad take the form of opportunistic reflexive control, with a specific focus on the fomenting of political and ethnic tensions.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, there was very little debate about the need to address Disability Hate Crime in England and Wales. Significant problematization and activism occurred to socially construct disability hostility as a problem worthy of political–policy attention. The introduction of new legislation addressing disability hostility is explored, noting the range of contributions to the securing of Section 146 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 and particularly the critical political interventions by ministers and other politicians behind it. A strategic coupling occurred between activism and the political arenas enabled by policy entrepreneurs, who identified a policy window of opportunity in the form of the development of the 2003 Act and successfully created a hate crime policy domain for Disability Hate Crime. In doing so, they homogenized Disability Hate Crime as simply another strand in the hate crime domain. Without significant problematization efforts by activists and critical interventions by some political actors, expansion of the hate crime policy domain to include disability hostility would not have occurred.

Commodifying Terrorism

In 2020, the Sino-Indian Line of Actual Control (LAC) witnessed several violent clashes between the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and the Indian military that resulted in a tense stand-off between the two highly mobilised armies and plunged Sino-Indian bilateral relations to its lowest point since the 1962 border war. Whilst confrontations between Chinese and Indian border forces are relatively commonplace, this recent crisis has proven remarkable due to the ferocity of the clashes and the alarming pace and degree to which established rules of engagement on the LAC have broken down. With both sides seemingly locked in a stalemate, it is prudent to reflect on the causes and significance of the current stand-off. This article argues that the crisis was largely precipitated by China’s calculation that India’s recent border infrastructure building activities and assertive domestic and foreign policy in the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir could threaten the PLA’s tactical advantage along the border, and eventually undermine China’s hold over the disputed Aksai Chin region. Acting on these perceptions and sensing that a ‘window of opportunity’ could be rapidly closing, the Chinese government authorised the PLA to initiate actions to consolidate its advantageous position on the LAC. Although both militaries are fully mobilised and in close proximity across the LAC, both sides clearly recognise the decision to go to war would not benefit either side. Hence, both sides will need to engage in some deft diplomacy going forward to resolve the current crisis and to reset bilateral ties.

The purpose of the article is to study Ukrainian culture of the middle of XVII — the end of XVIII centuries as a “window of opportunities” for full-fledged modernization, especially within the territorial and chronological boundaries of the newly emerged Ukrainian statehood — the Hetmanate.
 The metodology. In the article we used the theory of classic modernization as the transition of a certain society from the traditional, agrarian stage of development to industrial one due to complex, profound changes in all spheres of public life and culture. Based on the structural-systemic approach the main manifestations of opportunities for classical modernization in the Ukrainian lands at the beginning of the period were identifed, and then based on the historical method the most important results of their evolution at the end of XVIII century were considered. By the method of comparative analysis, these results were compared with the achievements of European societies.
 The results. It was concluded that the scale and duration of the innovations at the end of the XVIII century were insufficient to make a real modernization of the Ukrainian culture and to establish the foundations of a new industrial society, compared to the center or the semi-periphery of the Western economic world system. Regressive tendencies in all spheres without exception mutually blocked the “window of opportunities”.
 The scientific novelty of this article is a contribution to the innovative vision of the historical development of Ukrainian culture as a number of opportunities for successful modernization lost in different periods.
 The practical significance. It was shown, that the failures of modernization processes for Ukrainian culture are equal to the failures of national liberation struggles.

The article discusses the activities during the period of late Stalinism of Justas Paleckis, the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of Soviet Lithuania. The paper puts forward the premise that from 1944 to 1953, Paleckis balanced between indigenous (local) communism and attitudes characteristic of some Central European national communists. To be more precise, he tried to emphasise the specifics of the historical development of Lithuania, and its differences from other Soviet republics, in which the formation of the Soviet regime started earlier. According to him, its tradition of statehood made Lithuania a unique republic, and this circumstance should be taken into account when making Lithuania Soviet. Paleckis was convinced that in order to make Soviet rule more attractive to the Lithuanians, it was necessary to cooperate with the nation’s cultural elite, that is, with the interwar Lithuanian intelligentsia. In his writings and speeches, he tried to merge organically the liberation of the Lithuanian nation from the ‘yoke’ of the exploiters, with the no less important liberation from the ‘national yoke’ or national revival of the Lithuanians. Social and national ‘liberation’, according to him, was crowned with the establishment of the socialist order in Lithuania. This ‘organic’ understanding of history was characteristic of other national communists in Central Europe. Finally, Paleckis tried to incorporate national elements into the system of symbols in Soviet Lithuania. The Lithuanianisation of symbols of Soviet rule was meant to strengthen the legitimacy of the authorities. However, this analysis shows that the Lithuanian Party leadership did not support Paleckis’ ideas and efforts. He was often strongly criticised in communist forums. It can be argued that in the period of late Stalinism, the ‘window of opportunity’ for national communism in Lithuania was finally closed. Tendencies towards unification and Russification became increasingly prevalent in politics. Thus, in this political-cultural context, Paleckis represented the type of communist that could be called an indigenous Lithuanian communist.

The article evaluates ethnosocial processes in Russia through the prism of inter-ethnic tensions. The authors consider the nature of these processes in relation to the polyethnic, multicultural region - the South of Russia - on the basis of research data collected by well-known scientists in the field of regional studies and Caucasus history. The purpose of the article is to assess ethno-social processes in Russia in the context of ethnic tension. The article reviews the studies on ethnicity, ethnosocial processes, interethnic tensions carried out by leading Russian research centers. Ethnosocial interethnic tension development vectors are described. They are associated with the degree of ethnic mosaic of the population of the South of Russia. The article identifies the nature of ethnosocial processes in the Russian society in the context of implementation of the project aimed at forming civic nation, civic identity and civic unity. The authors use the following approaches in the study: a primordial approach, an instrumentalist approach, a constructivist approach. The approaches to the ethnicity do not exhaust the whole variety of conceptual scenarios for the study of ethnicity as well as formation and functions of ethnic groups. It should be noted that the dynamics of ethnic processes is directly related to inter-ethnic contacts. Identification of the mosaic ethnic composition of the population helps simulate the orientation of ethnic and social processes, predict potential centers of ethnic tension.

This article addresses a way of thinking which has entered the current literature on democratization and which I call the new nationalism. The main argument of this approach is that a certain kind of nationalism is essential for the future of democracy. It is conceptualized variously as ‘civic nationalism’, ‘national identity’, ‘esprit general’, ’constitutional patriotism’ or even ‘post‐nationalism’ and is contrasted with conventional forms of nationalism marked by ethnic hatred. The ‘new nationalism’ rejects Marxist internationalism, which it sees as nullifying the importance of the nation‐state for democracy. I shall explore the arguments put forward in this mode by Ignatieff, Kristeva and Habermas; criticize the national chauvinism which continues to run through them; reassess their criticisms of Marxism; and compare them with the more critical approach of Hannah Arendt. I shall, finally, argue that the ‘new nationalism’ is an inadequate framework for theorizing democracy in the modern age.

Triggered by differing responses of Columbia University School of Social Work students to a recent hate crime at neighboring Teachers College, this paper explores evidence that parts of the student body may, through lacking awareness of its own prejudiced tendencies, be acting out subtle racism and perpetuating the very ethnic divides that fuel racist aggression. The paper argues that fear and an underrepresentation of minority students impede the real dialogue necessary to overcome such aversive racism – but contends that the introspective and emotionally honest debate which has followed in the wake of the hate crime offers a window of opportunity for change. Steps need to be taken to build the self-reflection witnessed in ensuing forums into the school curriculum and ensure that all graduating students are similarly provoked to the necessary understanding of our individual role in sustaining or combating prejudice and segregation. Only in this manner can we hope to overcome racism as a whole and become the social work practitioners we aspire to be – capable of resolving the conflicts and tensions within us, as well as around us.

This chapter analyses the policy journey of Disability Hate Crime from agenda triggering to substantive agenda setting. The arrival of Section 146 on the statute books by the end of 2003 has been regarded as the birth of the Disability Hate Crime policy agenda. Section 146 was not enacted until 2005, however, and in the meantime, Disability Hate Crime came to be a way of conceiving of targeted victimization of disabled people that was in advance of the prevalent view of hate crime in 2003. Sharply awake to equality agendas after the Lawrence Inquiry, the criminal justice system was receptive to the new policy agenda. The arrival of the Disability Equality Duty applying to the public sector from 2004 shaped the ‘discovery’ of Disability Hate Crime by the criminal justice system. The Pilkington case opened a policy window of opportunity. In contrast to the agenda triggering phase where politicians determined the direction of travel, in Phase 2, policy officials take the lead and the policy agenda became set.

This paper aims to present the features of the Balkan cooperation of the left political forces during the years of World War II, respectively the project of the Balkan Headquarters, in the view of the Albanian communists. The idea of Balkan co-operation spread to all communist movements in the Balkan countries, the most active was the Yugoslav Communist Party, which aimed to create a "Balkan Headquarter" under the conditions of war and a "Balkan Federation" after its end. At the end of 1942, the Yugoslav Communist leadership established contacts with the Communist Parties of Bulgaria, Greece and Albania to coordinate actions in the fight against Nazi fascist forces. Taking in consideration that the Albanian communists had the orientation compass in those years the Yugoslavs, under their influence, tried to achieve the objectives of this project as far as possible. Thus within the anti-fascist alliance but also under the Yugoslav directives, especially during the German occupation, the links and cooperation between the Albanian national liberation movement and the liberation movements of Yugoslavia and Greece intensified, especially in the border areas. With the EAM and the National Liberation Army of Greece (ELAS), an important area of cooperation was the Konispol region and generally Cameria. Pursuant to the agreement reached between the General Council of the Albanian National Liberation Army and the Greek National Liberation Front, they were sent to these representative areas on both sides to propagate the common war goals in the population and to mobilize them in the mutual partisan formations. But it should be noted that the Albanian National Liberation Army combative co-operation with ELAS was limited. Within the framework of cooperation with the Yugoslav National Liberation Army, several joint operations have been undertaken, especially in border areas. The fact that Kosovo Albanians are engaged in the national liberation movement, which has contributed to the increase of cooperation in these areas, should be considered. Cooperation between the two liberation movements has been more visible in Macedonia's area.This paper aims to present the features of the Balkan cooperation of the left political forces during the years of World War II, respectively the project of the Balkan Headquarters, in the view of the Albanian communists. The idea of Balkan co-operation spread to all communist movements in the Balkan countries, the most active was the Yugoslav Communist Party, which aimed to create a "Balkan Headquarter" under the conditions of war and a "Balkan Federation" after its end. At the end of 1942, the Yugoslav Communist leadership established contacts with the Communist Parties of Bulgaria, Greece and Albania to coordinate actions in the fight against Nazi fascist forces. Taking in consideration that the Albanian communists had the orientation compass in those years the Yugoslavs, under their influence, tried to achieve the objectives of this project as far as possible. Thus within the anti-fascist alliance but also under the Yugoslav directives, especially during the German occupation, the links and cooperation between the Albanian national liberation movement and the liberation movements of Yugoslavia and Greece intensified, especially in the border areas. With the EAM and the National Liberation Army of Greece (ELAS), an important area of cooperation was the Konispol region and generally Cameria. Pursuant to the agreement reached between the General Council of the Albanian National Liberation Army and the Greek National Liberation Front, they were sent to these representative areas on both sides to propagate the common war goals in the population and to mobilize them in the mutual partisan formations. But it should be noted that the Albanian National Liberation Army combative co-operation with ELAS was limited. Within the framework of cooperation with the Yugoslav National Liberation Army, several joint operations have been undertaken, especially in border areas. The fact that Kosovo Albanians are engaged in the national liberation movement, which has contributed to the increase of cooperation in these areas, should be considered. Cooperation between the two liberation movements has been more visible in Macedonia's area.As would be seen from the subsequent actions of the Yugoslav leadership, during the Nazi-occupation period it prepared the ground for the post-war devastation of Albania within the Yugoslav Federal Republics, despite their failure to achieve this objective. During the research work of this case study, the qualitative method was generally applied by conducting a research: collecting, descriptive and explanatory, based mostly on historical facts and literature analysis.

The Pleasure and Pain of Passing as (Dis)abled: Rudi Dutschke’s Exile in the United Kingdom (1968–1971) and the Ableism of the West German Student Movement

In recent decades the world has experienced the rise of so-called ‘low intensity conflicts’. Unlike conventional wars these very bloody armed conflicts are no longer the affair of state governments and their armies. In their place appear police-like armed units,security services and secret services, groups and organizations of religious, political and social fanatics ready to resort to violence, ‘militias’, bands of mercenaries, or just gangs of thugs, led by the condottiere of the 21st century, consisting of militant charismatics, militia ‘generals’, ‘drug barons’ and ‘warlords’ of various kinds. They conduct wars in which the soldiers no longer wear uniforms and there is no meeting of armies in open battle. The armed organizations fight in urban agglomerations and in difficult, inaccessible regions. The combatants fight for religion and quasi-religious ideologies, for the ‘rights of the people’ or ‘national liberation’, for power, gain, and booty, and above all for recognition. For the practice of peace, this kind of war has far-reaching consequences. In this book the authors examine various paths to peace and reconciliation in low intensity conflicts. They look at processes of peace making from South Africa and the North of Mali to Indonesia and South East Asia. Common to most studies is that they stress the particular local contexts of peace making tied to the highly localized nature of most low intensity conflicts. The logic of peace has become a logic of local and regional power. The articles shed new light not only on ways and chances of interventions by the international community but also on the role of nongovernmental organisations in violent conflicts.

The Lublin castle has historical connections with the old town area. The castle hill was the seat of a stronghold and residence of the starost who ruled in the king’s name. Excavations led to discovery of traces of a 9th century settlement. The construction of a stone castle began in the 14th century. It was used as a prison in the 19th century and until 1954. In 1939‒1944, the Lublin Castle housed a prison of the Nazi secret police and security service, the Sicherheitsdienstpolizei and Sicherheitsdienst Lublin. The role of the Lublin Castle prison was particularly dreadful; dring the period of martyrdom and extermination of the Polish nation under the Nazi occupation of Poland. Even today, the castle is treated as a national symbol of the heroism and suffering of the Polish nation. Before they took flight, the Nazis organized a last execution on Jury 22, 1944: 286 prisoners were murdesed in the Castle. On that same day and on July 20, 1944, a further 800 prisoners were taken from the castle and executed at the concentration camp in Majdanek, a suburb of Lublin. On July 22, 1944, of the Polish Committee for National Liberation (PKWN) was created under Soviet pressure. It assumed power over the territory of Poland which had been taken by the Red Army after the flight of the Nazis. Organized armed forces known as the Home Army, ‒ operated in Poland troughout the war. They were subordinate to the Polish Government in Exile, residing in England. The Government in Exile was recognized by all counties except the USSR. Home Army troops refused to submit to the Red Army and PKWN. For this reason, the Soviet and Polish army, together with security services, started to disarm the Home Army troop. Mass arrests and deportations into the USSR began. A number of Home Army units were disarmed, among them the famous 27th Infantry Division. Troughoot the Lublin District, mass arrests of Home Army soldiers took place. The detainees were sent to the former concentration camp in Majdanek and the Lublin Castle prison. Arrested were also state oflicials ‒ delegates of the Polish Government in London. The Commander of the Home Army Lublin District, General Kazimierz Tumidajski, was detained during negotiations with Soviet authorities and deported to the USSR. Home Army soldiers who had been arrested and confined to Polish prisons, were subjected to investigations by the Soviet and Polish security service which involved the use of threats and a variety of tortures. Describing his ordeal, one of the prisoners stated he could not relate “all the atrocities” he had suffered from Soviet officers. The detained soldiers received no medical assistance; those who managed to survive the Castle prison nightmare described the appearance of battered Home Army soldiers and related their complaints. During the initial period discussed in this report, most Home Army soldiers were arrested by Soviet authorities without due judicial decision. They were interrogated in Russian, a language they did not speak. It was only 2 or 3 months later that the detainees were handed over to Polish authorities. Only then, Polish prosecutors issued formal decisions to remand them in custody, and the records of selected hearings were translated into Polish. The evidence gathered by Soviet security officers provided the grounds for indictments directed to military courts that operated in Lublin. III. In 1944, the indictments signed by Polish military prosecutors were lodged with the Military Court of the Lublin Garrison, commanded by a Soviet officer, Colonel Konstantin Krukovsky. Preceding the first-instance hearing was a closed sitting where the court, composed of three judges, confirmed the indictment; the trial followed on that same day. The copy the indictment was delivered to the detainee only after the hearing had started. The main charges contained in indictments were: membership in the Home Army, unlicensed possession of firearms, or evasion of military service ‒ acts threatened with capital punishment. There is evidence to show that the actual penalties were decided upon by the Mi1itary Courts Department of the Polish Army, headed by a Soviet ofIicer, Brigadier General Alexander Tarnovsky. The execution of the orders was the responsibility of the head of the court, Colonel Krukovsky, and the judges presiding over the case. In none of the cases did the Lublin Garrison Military Court took any evidence whatsover, whether on motion of the defendant or on its own initiative. The only hearing of evidence consisted of hearing the defendant’s statement; the defendants admitted their membership of the Home Army but refused to acknowledge any guilt. The various formulations they used were then quoted out of context to prove they had in fact been guilty of trying to subvert democratic system of Poland ‒ an assumption made well in advance. The trials were held at the Lublin Castle prison. They were closed sittings in which neither the counsel for the defence nor the prosecutor participated. The defendant’s family were not informed about the date of the trial as they knew nothing about his fate anyway, and the defendant himself did not learn about the trial until it started. Unqualified persons participated in deciding on conviction and sentence, or the court was formed inadequately. For example, the principle that the lay judges’ rank should not be lower than the defendant’s was commonly infringed upon. A glaring example of such infringement was the case of Colonel Edward Jasiński who was convicted by N.C.O. lay judges. Delivering the judgment, the court informed the defendant that the decision was final and not subject to appeal. Most defendants were sentenced to death. Many meritorious Home Army soldiers who had fought for independence throughout the Nazi occupation met death this way. The sentences were carried out upon confirmation by the Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Army (at that time, General Michał Rola-Żymierski) or his second in command (Generals Świerczewski and Berling), and sometimes by lower rank commanders. They were obliged to examine the justification of the sentences ex officio; they also had the right to grant pardon. Confirmation of the sentence and pardon were two separate institutions of the law of criminal procedure; thus pardon could be granted even if the sentence had been confirmed. In practice, no rules whatsoever were observed: confirmed sentences were carried out without pardon proceedings, or following such proceedings but without the proceedings aimed at review of the grounds. It should be added that under the law in force, pardon could only be refused by the President of the National People’s Council, Bolesław Bierut, while the army commanders had merely the right to grant pardon. In fact, they also refused pardon on numerous occasions. In practice, sentences were carried out basied on the order of Brigadier General Alexander Tarnovsky who informed the head of military court about the decision of Commander-in-Chief and ordered the need for immediate execution. Capital punishment was executed at the Castle prison, in the basement of the administration building, at various hours of day and night. The Report quotes the account of an execution provided by a surviving Lublin physician, and a numer of facts which, together with the now available reports from executions, tell about the identity of their participants. The grim record holders are two sergeants: within 50 minutes, one of them participated in the execution of 11, and the other one – of 12 Home Army soldiers. Until January 5, 1945, the bodies of the executed were secretly buried at a Lublin cemetery upon written of the prison warden Second Lieutenant Alojzy Stolarz; the orders have been preserved in the cemetery archives. There is no mention at all about subsequent burials although – as follows from the attached documents – Home Army soldiers were still executed at the Castle after that date. The soldiers kept on their dignity till the end; scant accounts of their demeanour were provided by prison chaplains, the only persons the convict’s family about hos death. Throughout both the preparatory and the judicial proceedings, valid legal provisions were violated. The system of military penal law contained provisions dating from the 1930’s and not yet quashed at the time of examination of the discussed cases. Such provisions were simply treated as non-existent. The Code of Criminal Procedure and the Military Code of the Polish Armed Forces in USSR, developed by the Political and Educational Board of the Polish Army in the USSR established in 1943 was adopted as the legal grounds for proceedings. As shown by the facts quoted in this report, the summary procedure was applied to defendants. It was provided for by the code of criminal procedure of the Polish Armed Forces in the USSR, but military courts competed with each other in breaking the law to the extent of not even observing the law that had been established in the USSR. Under the law then in force, none of the sentences discussed in the report ever became final and valid. Judicial proceedings glaringly infringed on all the principles of procedure: direct examination of evidence, impartiality, presumption of innocence, openness, adversary trial, right to defence, to appeal, and the right to apply for pardon. The Home Army soldiers mentioned in the report were convicted in defiance with the ban on retroactive force of law as the decree on protection of state under which they were tried had entered into force on November 4, 1944 with the binding force since August 15, 1944; most had been imprisoned for many weeks before the decree was actually introduced. VII. The extermination of Home Army soldiers at the Lublin Castle was kept secret for decades. Many attempts at revealing the tragic events failed, and the demands for posthumous acquittal, made by families of the executed, were rejected. It was only after June 4, 1989, as a result of extraordinary appeals or re-institution of proceedings, that the Supreme Court passed many decisions on acquittal, manifesting not only the groundlessness of convictions but also their function as a political disposal of opponents of the new authority – of the Home Army formed by the legitimate Polish Government to fight the Nazi invaders. The enormity of lawlessness of the discussed practices made the Parliament of Republic of Poland pass, on February 23, 1991, an act on the invalidity of the judgments in cases of persons victimized for their activities on behalf of a sovereign Polish state.

The Roma are one of the EU’s ethnic minorities that most often are victims of prejudice and social exclusion. Discriminatory actions against Roma have a long history in Europe. The EU Agency for Fundamental Rights has alerted that the situation of discrimination and intolerance (hate crime included) in the EU has worsened considerably. While the European Court of Human Rights has, to some degree, started to protect against discrimination based on birth or nationality, the protection against discrimination on the basis of race until 2005 has been of dubious quality. Upon reviewing the jurisprudence of the Court of Strasbourg, one finds that since the Belgian linguistic case (1968), the Court’s interpretation adheres to the original English version of Art. 14 (ECHR), which states that the exercise of rights and liberties should be assured “without discrimination” and argues that equality should be interpreted as non-discrimination, while clarifying that this provision does not prohibit differential treatment, such that, in the eyes of the Court, this principle is only violated when preferential treatment implies “a discriminatory treatment”. We analyze here in detail the Court’s jurisprudence and the shortcomings of the European Court of Human Rights’ approach to discrimination on the basis of racial or ethnic origin. The fact that during decades plaintiffs had to prove their cases beyond a reasonable doubt limited the effect of the Court’s jurisprudence on discriminatory actions based on race or ethnic origin; for this reason, it is not unexpected that in time criticism and dissidence arose, even within the Court itself. A good example of this is given by Judge Bonello in the decision Anguelova versus Bulgaria (2002). Here we study important decisions that affect Roma minorities, specially the case Munoz Diaz versus Spain (2009) where the Court considers that the point is not to give preferential legal treatment to the Roma, but that they should not be treated worse than other persons who are in the same situation. The Court brings back the idea that the new “international consensus” of the Council of Europe to recognize the particular needs of minorities and the obligation to protect their security, identity and ways of life, not only protects the interests of members of said minorities, but also preserves cultural diversity that benefits all of society. Here we try to reflect about the need for a new political perspective on the problem of racism in Europe that understands democracy as a society in which diversity is not perceived as a threat, but as a source of wealth.