Binational Society Research Articles

Anti-National Population Policy in the Ukrainian SSR during the 1960s–1970s: The Titular Nation of Ukraine as an Example

The article studies the anti-national population policy of the USSR taking as the example the titular nation of Ukraine during the 1960s –1970s. The author investigates inner republican effects of migration (increasing the number of mixed marriages and the displacement of the Ukrainian language by Russian) and studies official statistics – Union censuses in 1959, 1970, and 1979 which allow a comparative analysis of the dynamics of the Ukrainians and territorial distribution in different regions of the republic. The author has found that in the outlined period the USSR government always created anti-Ukrainian background at all levels, which formed a widespread anti-national population policy of Russification and assimilation of the Ukrainians; there was an artificial formation of national-ethnic structure of the Ukrainian SSR and forcing international convergence to create a “single Soviet people”. Any statement or reference to Ukrainian national problems was regarded as a ground for harassment and persecution by the Soviet authorities and accusation of “Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism”. It has been proved that Ukrainians were the dominant nation almost throughout the USSR in the outlined period. The number of Ukrainians increased exclusively trough natural population growth, while the number of representatives of the Russian nation increased as a result of internal migration. The article presents the idea that Ukraine was one of the centers of accumulation of immigration flows in the Soviet Union, and because of this fact the multicultural Ukrainian SSR society, which basically constituted of Ukrainians, gradually turned into a bi-national society, where the Ukrainian majority coexisted with the continuously growing Russian minority. Resettlements were carried out primarily for political reasons and their aim was to deprive the native people of their national characteristics – language, culture, and the like. Demographic, economic, and social processes that were spread under the slogan of “internationalist aid” substantially changed the proportion of native and settled populations in some regions.

Reforming Multiculturalism in a Bi-National Society: Aboriginal Peoples and the Search for Truth and Reconciliation in Canada

Since the 1960s, some Aboriginal theorists and political leaders have opposed principles of multiculturalism in Canada. They do so largely on the premise that they dilute Aboriginal legal rights and cultural distinctiveness. Multiculturalism and its promise of generic tolerance (within western institutions) and formal equality go against what many Aboriginal peoples desire from the federal state. Multiculturalism also fails to grapple with the continuing inequalities between Aboriginal and settler populations. This article argues that we need to work towards embracing a “syncretic multiculturalism,” which will involve adopting a “bi-national” perspective, focusing on the need for partnership between Aboriginal and Shognosh people, thus moving away from our current “mono-national” and “colonial multicultural” policies. Without acknowledgment of the harms that continue to be done by our state, and without a genuine effort to repair those harms, both multiculturalism and bilingualism buttress colonialism, and impede any form of genuine reconciliation with Aboriginal peoples.

PSYCHODYNAMIC GROUPS AS USED TO WORK THROUGH COLLECTIVE TRAUMA MEMORY

Abstract The Israeli-Polish Mental Health Association is a bi-national society of mental health professionals. Presentation of its twelve years experience in working through memories of traumatic past was rationale of the text. The traumatic past had been extermination of Jews, by Germans on Polish territory with witnessing Poles. Dynamic group technique had been employed in debate stimulated by theoretical lectures and research results presentations concerning background of anti-Semitism, hatred, Shoah, collective trauma consequences and intergenerational transmission of trauma. Obstacles in the process and suggested measures aiming to overcome these difficulties as described by participants were discussed. Author’s assessment of results of using therapeutic methods to solve mass trauma consequences in next generation of victims and witnesses conclude the essay.

A Binational Society: The Jewish-Arab Cleavage and Tolerance Education in the State of Israel

(2002). A Binational Society: The Jewish-Arab Cleavage and Tolerance Education in the State of Israel. Israel Affairs: Vol. 9, No. 1-2, pp. 97-120.