Firing Squad Research Articles

Accountability for International Crimes within Insurgent Groups

In Syria, dozens of women and men are held in unofficial ‘prisons’ run by some of the armed groups fighting ISIS or the Syrian Government. The detainees are accused of a variety of offenses, including war crimes, and wait to be tried by one of the several, competing courts established by different groups. Some courts are presided by former judges and others by clerics or military leaders. They apply anything from a “Unified Arab Criminal Code” prepared by the Arab League, to the judge’s own personal interpretation of the Sharia. Trials are quick, and punishment is often death. In a similar fashion, in the rebel-held part of Ukraine, two men were accused of sexual assault and tried by the ‘First People’s Court’ established by pro-Russian insurgents. On the basis of a public vote in the town hall at the conclusion of a ‘trial’, one man was condemned to death by firing squad, the other to serve on the front line to “redeem his honour in combat”. This mirrors the practice of insurgents in other wars in Sri Lanka, El Salvador, Nepal, Sierra Leone, Colombia, Rwanda, Congo, Sudan, Kosovo, and many other places where irregular tribunals were created.What are the reasons that push a non-state armed group to establish a court that ostensibly includes within its jurisdiction the sanction of violations of international humanitarian law? Can it be said of insurgent groups that they have a self-interest in ensuring accountability of their members, in a manner that parallels what has been suggested with respect to the armed forces of the state? There are at least four related but distinct bundles of questions that arise from a consideration of the practice of insurgent courts in the context of an armed conflict. First, are there legal standards that explicitly or implicitly legitimize or prohibit the establishment of courts by an armed non-state actor? Second, if such courts could be lawfully created, what are the conditions required under international law for them to exercise their jurisdiction validly? Third, if an insurgent court is lawfully created and has exercised its jurisdiction in compliance with international law, what recognition is to be accorded to its judgments? And fourth, what does this reflection on the possibility and conditions of insurgent justice tell us about our conception of the rule of law and, more broadly, the concept of law? These are vast and complex questions that call for a detailed exploration of existing international legal standards spanning international humanitarian law, international criminal law, international human rights law, and general public international law. What’s more, in order to offer a meaningful critique of the suggestion of insurgent justice, the study must be grounded in a fair appreciation of the reality of the practice of non-state armed groups in this respect, something on which little research has been systematically carried out. As a result, this essay will not seek to offer answers to all these complex questions, much less to the overall legality of insurgent justice, but rather will attempt to map as comprehensively as possible the questions that must be explored in each of the four bundle of issues identified in the previous paragraph.

Meditations on Mary Elizabeth Massey

Meditations on Mary Elizabeth Massey Catherine Clinton (bio) In this season of remembrance,Trying to distinguish “fact from fable,”Sorting the she from herself,Did she know herself? As able as anyone out of Arkansas,Arriving on Christmas Day 1915.Out of sync, in an era of husband-hunting,Biding her allotted time, avoidingSinkholes into which she dared not, could not,Would not,Disappear.Visibility, ability, and moving beyond appearances:She forced the seed, in the little bit of dirt she’d scraped together,Blossoming into a “lady scholar.” Drawing strength from the daughters of Mnemosyne,Choosing her muse carefully, [End Page 421] Investing in she who would cheat time,Making her future the past. Don’t forget your manners, bidding for a place at high table,Ideas dancing from fingers to fonts,From smooth pages to card catalogues—Days and nights filled with research, research, research. Visions of sugarplums replaced by gilt letters on leather,Titles glittering on library shelves,Immortalized in bibliographies.Language and time, remembering and forgetting.Books rather than blood . . . in the long run.But how long is this proverbial run? Forgotten causes of the Civil War,Buried deep in scholars’ shuffles.Displaced mothers and childrenweigh heavily in the balance.Refugees of war, casualties of history.Hanging onto a pendulum,waiting to be rescued from malignant neglect. Contents may have shifted during flight.Disciple of Clio removes her sharpened pencilFrom behind an unadorned ear,To transcribe storiesSleeping within the foldsLabeled “Not of political interest.”Reversing fortunes with deliberate strokes,Research, research, research,Turning trash into treasure. Bobbing and weaving, from normal to extraordinary—only a little wiggle room.Girdling her loins against the catcalls of preening, leonine gatekeepers,With wide-jawed yawns, lazing under Tarheel skies,Nonchalantly swatting Herself sideways. [End Page 422] While bouncy bow-tied cubs,Snap their braces to propel themselves across theDixie landscape, into magnolia-scented campus suitesthey knew they deserved.Plying their trade to eagerly upturned ids. Hers was not to question why,But why not?Straying from appointed spheres,White gloves are not just for Sunday best, butDonned in the archives.Research times three gave her momentum:Exile along the Chesapeake,Then recalled to the Carolinas, to a softer berth at Rock Hill.Where young Palmetto women of Winthropmight yawn as well,but then they arched their backs,uncurling as they stretched,Like their unfurling professor,Dr. Massey.Stretching herself. Herself publishing a pioneering study that earned good reviews, but more important, made students and fellow scholars alike reach for the dictionary (See “ersatz”). Herself preventing the Civil War Centenary from becoming a stag affair and publishing the one, the only—“not your grandad’s” Civil War Centennial Series volume. Herself worming her way behind closed doors—Councils, committees and chair, oh my! Perhaps, unable to part with precious tokens, trappings, titles—She flew solo.Edging her way up the ladder, and onto the tightrope.Unwilling to peer down or sideways, [End Page 423] Dead straight ahead,Herself. Alone.Performing under pressure. After the long hard slog,So easy to slip . . .and without a net (or network). Even the surface can’t break your fall,as you somersault into the dreaded sinkhole,stuck in the primordial ooze claimed “always been that way.” She spread her wings aboard the SHA.Enjoying moments in the sun:Fontainebleu in ’62.Holding courtHerself:Madam President in seventy-two at Hollywood at the Beach. “Unshackle your mind and spirit,” like the feminist in the making she was . . .Put down your pedestals, ladies,Proceed with caution:May be a danger to your health. HerselfPrematurely robbed of her fifty-eighth birthday,Dead on Christmas Eve, a year and a month after herSplashdown presidential address,sinking into the waves.Whether braving Civil War Round Tables orFacing a firing squad of feminist interrogations,She, as a first, will always lurk just below the surface. Laid to rest, but her mantra remains:Research, research, research:Remapping the contours of Civil War history,Recovering lost lives and forgotten landscapes [End Page 424] Rediscovering silenced voices and unvisited graves.Could she have foreseen a Thavolia,Marching across contested terrain...

Death in the Congo: murdering Patrice Lumumba. By Emmanuel Gerard and Bruce Kuklick

Death in the Congo captures a striking portrait of an international crisis in the early Cold War caused by one post-colonial nationalist's rise to power. It meticulously details the way Patrice Lumumba was subsequently ousted and how his murder was encouraged by western powers. In many ways, it is a character study of the political leaders who instigated and backed Lumumba's murder and the men in the lower ranks who carried it out. The surprising ignorance of the key decision-makers and the amateurishness of much of their plotting is well documented. In a moving end to the book, the former Prime Minister and two comrades are handed over Pontius Pilate-style to his separatist enemies and clumsily killed by a mixed firing squad of Belgian and Congolese security men. Much of the book's narrative relies on documentary sources and witness testimony recorded during a Belgian investigation into the murder in 2001 and by the Church Committee's investigation of American intelligence activities in 1975–6. Thanks to these, there is a strong beginning and ending to the book, with detailed coverage of Lumumba's rise to power, the chaotic decolonization of the Congo and of the cover-up in the aftermath of the assassination. The authors have also drawn some detailed character portraits of famous contemporary international leaders. Figures captured in the book include a callow young King Baudouin, an ageing and grumpy President Eisenhower and a humanitarian but cunning UN Secretary General in Dag Hammarskjöld, who was to meet his own suspicious end in the Congo shortly after Lumumba's death. The personage of a young Joseph Mobutu lurks in the background, but in the end he is not central to the Prime Minister's cruel fate.

An eye for an eye: a global history of crime and punishment

Since the dawn of mankind, humans have demonstrated a remarkable capacity for violence, deceit and mayhem. With the advent of civilization and the creation of laws to uphold our sense of security and retribution, the notions of crime and punishment have come to play significant roles in societies the world over. But how and why do we penalize certain activities over others, and how effective are these penalties in punishing the wrongdoers and bringing a sense of justice to victims? An Eye for an Eye covers everything from petty wrongdoings to sexual offences, serial homicide, piracy and organized crime. Perhaps the most important development in the attempt to safeguard citizens was the birth of the prison and incarceration; today, the philosophy of rehabilitation is gaining increasing momentum. This book also explores execution throughout history, variously considered barbaric or justified by different cultures and societies: punishments such as stoning, hemlock, firing squad and lethal injection can incite abhorrence and support in equal measure. Written by an expert in the field, this book attempts to overcome the lack of historical written documentation, especially in non-Western cultures, by using an interdisciplinary approach that ranges from anthropology and archaeology to folklore, classical literature and oral traditions. It reveals that there is a remarkable continuity throughout history in what crimes are committed as well as the sanctions used to punish them. Perfect for students, academics and general readers alike, this book provides a fascinating insight into criminality and its consequences on a global scale.

Without courage, the other Cs will crumble

national monument stands in St Martin’s Lane, London, to a First World War heroine who saved hundreds of Allied soldiers from capture during the First World War. Edith Cavell (18651915) was a British nurse working in Brussels when the German army swept through Belgium in 1914, an act that brought the UK into the war. She is celebrated for nursing soldiers from both sides and for her bravery in helping some 200 Allied troops escape. The night before Nurse Cavell faced the firing squad, she told a chaplain: ‘Patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness for anyone.’ Her courage was not only about making the best of a difficult situation, but she had a strong sense of duty, a duty to alleviating the pain and suffering of those she cared for in their darkest hour. Her courageous devotion to helping the sick and injured extended to caring for those who became hunted and threatened. There are many ways to show courage. The healthcare assistant and assistant practitioner (HCA and AP) is often called on to show courage. Standing up and showing that you care, acting in the best interests of others is courageous and it can also be very difficult. Tough choices often require courage to motivate change. In 1963, Dr Martin Luther King Jr said: ‘The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.’ It could be suggested that out of all of the 6 Cs, without courage the other remaining 5 Cs will crumble. The NHS Commissioning Board Chief Nursing Officer and DH Chief Nursing Adviser (2012) suggest courage enables us to do the right thing for those we offer care to, to speak up for them when we have concerns and the personal strength and vision to innovate. The HCA and AP should have the courage to challenge others when they see wrongdoing or when they hear things that compromise their values and beliefs; this is moral courage. Stand up for your beliefs and values and you will improve care and gain peace of mind. Edith Cavell chose this course of action over inaction. To speak out when you see something that is unkind, unfair or wrong is the right thing to do, but this requires courage. When people do not speak out, bad things will continue to happen and people (often the most vulnerable in our society) will continue to get hurt and the harm does not stop. In order to be courageous, speak out when you see poor care, the hasty discharge of an elderly patient with no social support and limited resources and challenge things that you know make you feel uncomfortable: speak up when others remain silent. With some people, being brave may not make you popular, as this reveals their weakness. Being courageous requires you to have the personal strength and vision to innovate and embrace new ways of working. The HCA or AP may have to be courageous in taking the next steps in their careers, for example, having the confidence and courage in taking on personal challenges and stepping into the unknown: be strong, be courageous. Be courageous and: Do the right thing When things are wrong, speak up and question Be influential: when cynics are around, face up to them Be open to those who may challenge you Be brave and make things happen, be innovative Lead by example Do not give up At the end of the day, you have to be able to put your hand on your heart and say, ‘I have done this in the best interests of the patient’. Advocating for a person’s best interests can bring challenges and risks, but the HCA and AP must resolve to uphold their ethical obligations. BJHCA

LAS DEPURACIONES DE FUNCIONARIOS COMO ELEMENTO DE CONTROL POLÍTICO: EL CASO DE GUADALAJARA = THE PURGES OF CIVIL SERVANTS AS A POLITICAL WAY OF CONTROL: THE CASE OF GUADALAJARA

Habitually, when we talk about Francoism repression we tend to think about firing squad executions and prison sentences. Obviously, Franco’s justice meant much more than that and intended to reach labour purges. Those who were not dead or in prison had to face their job loss now. To know how this repression machine worked, the records related to the civil servant purges have been consulted, both in the City Council and the County Council of Guadalajara. On the basis of the law that regulated this process, the cases related to these two institutions have been analysed, establishing the parts that formed these files and the functioning of both courts. Fruit of this analysis, it will be seen how in some cases there is a change of “cards”; purged civil servants in 1936 could recover their positions, while those who had taken on their post in July 1936 were now barred.

Translation Betrayals: The Photographs of El 10 de Febrero

In 1907 the anonymous book El 10 the Febrero started to circulate in Colombia. The book compiled the documentation —including photographs—of the attempted assassination of Colombia’s current president Rafael Reyes and the subsequent public execution by firing squad of the conspirators. It is well known today that the photographs of the assassination attempt were staged and that the execution images were taken during the actual event. However, the publication makes no difference between the images, treating them as equally valid, and therefore investing the staged images with a sense of facticity that otherwise they would lack. Through the concept of translation, this text will look into the ways in which veracity is invested from one image to another and how through this process, the anonymous author (now considered to be the president himself) takes advantage of photography’s capacity to depict reality as such.

The Birth of a New Journal

Growing up in eastern Nigeria, there was a sense, all around me, of our enduring engagement with our collective history. I vividly recall the words and dance steps of two children’s play songs—one in the English language, and the other in my mother tongue, Igbo—that outlined the assassination ofNigeria’s secondmilitary head of state, General Murtala Ramat Muhammed. The English melody was a clapping song; the Igbo, a clapping, foot and dance song of sorts called oga. Both lyrics captured in graphic detail the events of the morning of February 13, 1976, “when thewicked devilDimka killed our head of state.” The oga song and dance even reenacted the execution of the coup leader, Lieutenant Colonel Buka Suka Dimka by firing squad; the reenactment saw its young players channel all of their contrived aggression into loud applause, followed by high pitched screaming in echoed unison: “FIRE nu Dimka! Ticham kpom! kpom! kpom! kpom! kpom! ticham kpom!” At ages six and seven, I doubt that any of us understood the true meaning of what we were singing, nor the contested history behind the lyrics. For us, the catchy tunes were simply play songs that had the ability to work us up into lighthearted, and at the same time, exhilarating frenzies. Memories of those children’s play and dance songs remain some of the most intense childhood recollections for me; capturing seamlessly, albeit unintentionally, interactions; interplays, really, betweenWest African history and everyday children’s realities. That I would become the founding editor-in-chief of a journal ofWest African history almost forty years later is something that I could not have contemplated at the time. That young child would first grow up to become a West Africanist gender and oral historian. Shewould publish scholarly work that documented the lived experience of a people she knew intimately: a reality that she lived. Her expressed aim was to see herself in that history. Then in 2012, James Pritchett, at the time director of African Studies at Michigan State University, and present EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION

СИБИРСКИЙ ПЕДАГОГ И БИБЛИОГРАФ М.А. СЛОБОДСКИЙ (1874–1937)

The article is the first detailed research into the biography of Mikhail Alexandrovich Slobodskiy (1874-1937), a famous Siberian philologist, pedagogue, bibliographer, author and editor of a number of publications. His professional activity was associated with educational institutions of Tomsk (1899-1918), as well as with the Ministry of Public Education of the government of A.V. Kolchak (1918-1919) and the Bibliographic Bureau (1919-1922) of both Siberia Research Institute and Tomsk State University. In the Bureau he worked together with the famous-to-be Russian researchers M.K. Azadovskiy and N.V. Zdobnov. As a member of the Society for the Study of the Tomsk Territory under the Tomsk Museum of Regional Studies (1925-1928) M.A. Slobodskiy led active regional studies and bibliographic work. He was elected the Tomsk corresponding member of the Central Bureau of Regional Studies (1926) - a public organization in charge of regional studies coordination. He published the first overview and schedule article on the ethnographic study of the Russian and native population of the Tomsk-Narym Ob area (1929), the territories in the limits of the modern Tomsk Oblast. He stated the insufficiency of human resources in the ranks of Siberian ethnologists, actively supported organization of specialized training of researchers of native cultures, including foundation of the Ethnology Department in Tomsk University. M.A. Slobodskiy is the organizer of the reference and bibliographical service for library users in various Tomsk institutions. In 19291930, when an investigation process faked against the intelligentsia class, commonly known as the Academicians' case, raged in the USSR, M.A. Slobodskiy was subjected to repression. In 1937, he was once again arrested under the pretext of a non-existent case Union for salvation of Russia and executed by a firing squad on the accusation of being a member of a counter revolutionary cadet-monarchic organization. From the archives of Tomsk State University, a letter of M.A. Slobodskiy dated 1919 is published, addressed to the prominent researcher and public activist A.V. Adrianov, which vividly depicts the negative perception of the Bolsheviks by a part of the Siberian intelligentsia class.

Ireland’s Exiled Children: America and the Easter Rising by Robert Schmuhl

Reviewed by: Ireland’s Exiled Children: America and the Easter Rising by Robert Schmuhl Claire A. Culleton (bio) IRELAND’S EXILED CHILDREN: AMERICA AND THE EASTER RISING Robert Schmuhl, New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. 199xvii + pp. $29.95. The years leading up to 2016, and 2016 itself, saw the publication of dozens and dozens of critical, academic books focused on the events and history of the Easter Rising, its planners and fund-raisers, its sites, its martyrs, its legacies, and so forth, one hundred years later during this decade of centenaries. Notre Dame Professor Robert Schmuhl’s contribution, Ireland’s Exiled Children: America and the Easter Rising, examines the American response to the Easter Rising as news of it made its way slowly across the Atlantic, referencing in his book’s title the line from the Proclamation that the Ireland the signatories were proclaiming was a vision of Ireland “supported by her exiled children in America” (15). He writes in his prologue, “To a large extent, the roots of the Rising grew in U.S. soil and … the American reaction proved critical to determining its consequences” (2) by shaping public opinion, especially after fury swept through America when fourteen rebel leaders were executed by a firing squad that May. Schmuhl focuses his book on four Americans who were crucial in shaping America’s, and especially Irish-America’s, response: John Devoy, Eamon de Valera, Joyce Kilmer, and Woodrow Wilson. He explains: For Devoy, a naturalized American living in New York, the Rising, which he helped to plan and to fund, was the culmination of a half-century struggle to free the place of his birth from British rule. The Rising established de Valera, who was born in New York, as an Irish leader, one who somehow escaped execution to launch a political and governmental career that spanned nearly six decades. … A journalist and poet, Kilmer was quick to put into words for American readers what the rebels had done. By contrast, Wilson did his best to avoid committing to a stand on an international and domestic situation loaded with what he viewed as political dynamite. (13) Schmuhl serves these four key figures well, except that Kilmer seems like the odd man out with no Irish or Irish-American background. The chapter on Kilmer’s importance to the Rising, and to the American response to it, is not entirely convincing, whereas the other three chapters are expertly argued, especially the opening chapter on Devoy and “his unbending commitment to ‘bloody sacrifice’” (19). The chapters on Wilson and de Valera are excellent and provide a wealth of fresh research. As Schmuhl explains early in his book, each chapter “uses an individual to tell the larger story of what happened in each phase: the preparation, the fighting, and the aftermath. Thus, each chapter is principally a biographical essay, combining personal [End Page 155] details and fitting them within the context of the Rising and the greater Irish-American connection” (12). This smartly structured book, then, explains the main figures and all of their connections: the author brings together a wealth of information on people readers would expect to find in a book on this topic—Roger Casement, Michael Collins, Thomas J. Clark, James Connolly, Joseph Mary Plunkett, John Quinn, Joseph McGarrity, and a host of Woodrow Wilson’s aides and chiefs of staff such as Joseph Patrick Tumulty, though Schmuhl notes that Wilson often preferred to keep his own counsel and “could never seem to disentangle himself from the Irish Question” (93): The American Irish were led to believe the president understood their viewpoint in seeking remedies to their problems and the larger resolution of Ireland’s future. In private, however, Wilson operated differently. What he said or did showed a deliberate resolve to keep at arm’s length almost every matter explicitly related to Irish-American interests. (89) In fact, Schmuhl argues that Wilson kept dodging the topic publicly and fulminated about the Irish Question privately. Though it was “an issue that demanded a definite policy stand, the president decided to do nothing” (117). Chapter 4 on de Valera is interesting but is full of repetition. On almost every third or...

Joe Hill: Red November, black November

A pamphlet, no matter how good, is never read more than once, but a song is learned by heart and repeated over and over – Joe Hill Joe Hill, born Joel Hägglund, was an IWW organiser, songwriter, troubadour, and cartoonist. Immigrating from Sweden to the US around the turn of the century, Joe Hill travelled the land as an itinerant worker, hopping trains and picking up jobs across the country. At some point, he found the IWW and soon became a prominent member, travelling widely, organising workers, and using his music to spread the word of the IWW. He contributed greatly to Wobbly culture, writing such songs as ‘There is Power in a Union’, ‘The Rebel Girl’, and ‘The Preacher and the Slave’ – in which he coined the phrase ‘pie in the sky’, referring to the illusory promises of street preachers who discouraged workers from organising for better conditions in this life. An immigrant, an itinerant worker, and an IWW member, Joe Hill was the perfect scapegoat. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to death by firing squad INTERNATIONAL union rights Page 20 Volume 22 Issue 4 2015 Red November, black November, Bleak November, black and red. Hallowed month of labour’s martyrs, Labour’s heroes, labour’s dead. Labour’s wrath and hope and sorrow, Red the promise, black the threat, Who are we not to remember? Who are we to dare forget? Black and red the colours blended, Black and red the pledge we made, Red until the fight is ended, Black until the debt is paid. — By Ralph Chaplin F or Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) members and radical labour activists, November is a particularly sombre month. And this past November particularly so, as it marks the 100th anniversary of the 1915 execution of Joe Hill by the state of Utah. Red November, black November IN MEMORY ❐ JOEL HÄGGLUND (‘JOE HILL’) BRIAN LATOUR is the Press Officer of the IWW and currently lives in Canada Joe Hill memorial mural, by Heidi and Josh Belka of Salt Lake City. INTERNATIONAL union rights Page 21 Volume 22 Issue 4 2015 Eventually, Joe Hill made his way to Utah where he was accused of the murder of a grocer. Despite the fact that the state had only circumstantial evidence, as an immigrant, an itinerant worker, and an IWW member, Joe Hill was the perfect scapegoat. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to death by firing squad. Many unionists fought for clemency for Joe Hill; resolutions were passed urging the state of Utah to free Hill by union bodies throughout North America, Europe, and Australia. Even President Woodrow Wilson urged the governor of Utah to grant Joe Hill clemency, but it was all to no avail. Joe Hill was murdered by the state of Utah on 19 November 1915. His ashes were sent to IWW locals, members, and sympathisers around the world and were spread throughout the land. Red November, Unfortunately, Joe Hill was not the first or the last union organiser to meet an untimely end. The month of November is one where too many unionists and IWW members became labour martyrs. Albert Parsons, August Spies, George Engel, and Adolph Fischer, four Chicago anarchists were executed on 11 November 1887, for advocating for the eight-hour day and became known as the Haymarket martyrs. A fifth, Louis Lingg, committed suicide in his cell the day before. This was followed a few days later by the Thibodeaux massacre, in which anywhere from a few dozen to possibly 300 striking African-American sugar cane workers were murdered in Louisiana. The Everett massacre took place on 5 November 1916, when a group of deputy sheriffs opened fire on a steamship carrying IWW members to Everett to participate in a free speech fight. 11 were killed and 27 wounded. On 11 November 1919, an IWW hall in Centralia was attacked by legionnaires. IWW members who fought back in self-defense were jailed and one, Wesley Everest, was kidnapped from his cell, castrated , lynched, and shot full of holes. November 1919 was also the time of ‘Bloody Bogalusa’, where, in a show of solidarity in the face of the racism of...

Op klompen troch de dessa by Hylke Speerstra

68 WLT SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2015 There are several technical points that mar this work, the first of which can be attributed to neither the author nor the translator. Columbia University Press made the inexplicable decision to set the work in a sans serif font, which is difficult to read. Second, each page has a light gray circle in the center, echoing the one formed by the cover, that further distracts from the text. Third, each of the six chapters has, sequentially at the top of the first page, several of the steps necessary to fold an origami crane. There is certainly a connection between the atomic bombings and origami cranes, but this seems overly precious and disconnected from the literature. Erik R. Lofgren Bucknell University Hylke Speerstra. Op klompen troch de dessa. Gorredijk, Netherlands. Bornmeer. 2014. isbn 9789056153359 Friesland’s best-selling author has done it again; this time a collection of stories from survivors of the ill-advised and illfated attempt by the Dutch government to maintain colonial control of Indonesia. Shortly after the end of World War II, the Dutch sent one hundred thousand of their young men, many of them still in their teens, to gruesome combat in the jungles and rice fields of Indonesia. They went illprepared and ill-equipped. (The book’s title alludes to that: In wooden shoes through the rice fields.) They left behind siblings, parents, girlfriends, fiancées, and dreams of a future. Led to believe that they were fighting for a just cause, they discovered that they had been betrayed, that they were rather engaged in a guerilla warfare that would continue to haunt them with its shame and guilt. Hylke Speerstra, as he had done with Dutch emigrants who after World War II scattered across the globe (Cruel Paradise, 2005), searched out survivors of this dark chapter in Dutch history and gathered their stories. The story, for example, of Ale van der Meer who in the Depression years worked for a pittance, was picked up by the Germans in World War II and sent to a forced-labor camp (from which he walked back at war’s end weighing less than a hundred pounds), was pressed into military service and sent to Indonesia not long after that, became part of a firing squad carrying out executions, and shot a suspected sniper who turned out to be a young lad of twelve or thirteen: memories that tore at his soul the rest of his life. Survivors break their long silence in these stories. In the words of one: “I’m World Literature in Review eager to break the silence. I always kept it to myself, and it was as if I had built a wall around myself. But at last the wall collapses .” And the painful memories surface: of mass killings, including women and children; beheadings; finding the shallow graves of thousands of fallen young soldiers ; officers without a conscience sending their men into war-crime scenarios; seeing best buddies die; leaving behind lovers and their children when a political settlement was finally reached and they returned home. But what happened in the jungles of Indonesia came home with them, and they would never be the same. More than five thousand did not come home. Speerstra visits those stories, too, of bereaved parents whose grief never went away, or of fiancées who waited in vain. And though there is an inevitable similarity running through these stories, no two are the same. Speerstra’s storytelling powers are fully exercised here by varying the narrative techniques and by letting each subject tell his story in his own unique way. Characteristically, the author allows the stories their emotional dimension. In many of these stories, he listens to the heartbeat of a lost generation; in recording them, he makes sure that the war and its cost are no longer forgotten. Henry J. Baron Calvin College Goli Taraghi. The Pomegranate Lady and Her Sons. Sara Khalili, tr. New York. W. W. Norton. 2015 (©2013). isbn 9780393063332 Goli Taraghi, a renowned Iranian female author, now in her seventies, has lived in Iran, the US, and France and has written and published both before the Islamic Revolution...

The possibility of establishing causes of death on the basis of the exhumed remains of prisoners executed during the communist regime in Poland: the exhumations at Powązki Military Cemetery in Warsaw.

This study presents the results of the analysis of forensic examinations of the remains of 194 prisoners exhumed at Powązki Military Cemetery in Warsaw. In all probability, most of those buried there were judicially sentenced to death by firing squad or hanging in connection with activities of the Polish independence underground in its struggles with the postwar communist regime. Forensic medical research focussed on determining causes of death and reconstructing the mechanisms of injury leading to death. Most probable causes of death were found in 108 of 194 cases; of these, 76 were isolated gunshot wounds to the head, mostly directed to the occipital region. In 29 of 194 cases, only extensive skull fractures were observed, making it impossible to determine the mechanism of injury. The condition of these skulls do not permit the exclusion of injuries due to gunshots, which were very likely given the historical context of the studied location. In one case, it is assumed that the cause of death could be blunt force trauma to the head. In 86 of 194 cases, it was not possible to determine the cause of death. Of these cases, 20 skeletons were in such poor condition that erosive changes could have completely obliterated even very extensive head injuries leading to death. No injuries were observed that could be associated with execution by hanging.

The firing squad synchronization problem on CA with multiple updating cycles

Classical cellular automata have a single, global clock that allows all the cells to update their states simultaneously at every clock cycle. Here, we overturn this assumption and we study cellular automata where different cells can use different clocks cycles and, as a consequence, they update at different times. We show how it is possible to solve the firing squad synchronization problem in this new setting and propose a synchronization algorithm operating in time linear with respect to the automata size.

A class of time-optimum FSSP algorithms for multi-dimensional cellular arrays

The firing squad synchronization problem (FSSP) on cellular automata has been studied extensively for more than fifty years, and a rich variety of synchronization algorithms has been proposed not only for one-dimensional arrays but also for two-dimensional arrays. In the present paper, we propose a new class of time-optimum FSSP algorithms for multi-dimensional cellular arrays. The algorithm is based on a simple recursive-halving marking schema and it can synchronize any two-dimensional (2D) rectangular arrays of size m×n with a general at one corner in m+n+max(m,n)-3 optimum-steps. The algorithm is a natural expansion of the well-known one-dimensional (1D) FSSP algorithms proposed by Balzer (1967), Gerken (1987), and Waksman (1966) and it can be easily expanded to three-dimensional (3D) arrays, even to multi-dimensional arrays. The algorithm proposed is isotropic concerning the side-lengths of multi-dimensional arrays and this isotropic property yields algorithmic correctness and easy verification for the multi-dimensional time-optimum FSSP algorithms designed.

The minimum firing time of the generalized firing squad synchronization problem for squares

For almost all variations of the firing squad synchronization problem for elementary geometric figures such as lines, rings, squares, rectangles, and cubes, minimal-time solutions are known. However, in 2012 Umeo and Kubo introduced a very simple variation of this type and pointed out that its minimal-time solutions are unknown. In that variation, a problem instance is a square array of n columns and n rows and the position of the general is arbitrary. For this variation they constructed a solution that fires at time 2n−2 for any position of the general and wrote that it is not known whether this solution is minimal-time or not. We determine the exact value of the minimum firing time of this variation. For some problem instances this value is smaller than 2n−2 and hence the 2n−2 time solution is not minimal-time. Our result does not solve the problem of existence or non-existence of minimal-time solutions of the variation. However the result gives one necessary condition for solutions to be minimal-time.

Asia-Pacific

In 2006, Hanky Gunawan, an Indonesian national, was sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment by a district court in Surabaya, Indonesia's second-largest city, for producing and distributing large quantities of ecstasy. Both the prosecution and Mr Gunawan appealed to the provincial high court, and his sentence was increased to 18 years. The prosecution appealed again, this time to the Supreme Court, objecting to the perceived leniency of the sentence. In 2010, the Court sentenced him to death by firing squad. However, the following year, the Court reopened the case and a new panel of judges re-examined it. The new panel reinstated the first instance sentence of 15 years, thereby saving Gunawan from death. It held that the death penalty was unconstitutional because the Constitution provided an absolute right to life. By initially imposing the death penalty, then, the Supreme Court had made a judicial error. To add weight to this finding, the new panel also pointed to Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights ('Everyone has the right to life...') and Article 4 of Indonesia's domestic Human Rights Law, which provides the same right.

Gunshot wounds (resulting from execution) of exhumed victims of the communist regime in Poland

This study presents the results of the analysis of the remains of 23 executed male individuals aged between 21 and 63 years, recovered from Osobowicki Cemetery in Wroclaw (Poland), field 83B, in 2012. In 1948 and 1949, prisoners sentenced to death by firing squad--most of them associated with the post-war anti-communist underground independence movement in Poland--were buried there. The aim of the study was to analyse fatal wounds and the method of execution, and to compare the results to data from archival documents. The results were also compared with studies concerning executions during a later period, i.e. 1949-1954. The research on the method of execution during this period of history carried out during the exhumations in Osobowicki Cemetery was the first conducted on such a scale in Poland. Forensic analysis revealed a wide variety of gunshot wounds inflicted during executions, revealing both gunshots to the head, especially single shots to the back of the head, and cases corresponding to the use of a firing squad, probably equipped with machine guns. The results of the research indicate that capital punishment by shooting was carried out in ways both similar to those the specified in the regulations and completely different.

Bruckberger: L’enfant terrible by Bernard and Bernadette Chovelon (review)

Bruckberger: L'enfant terrible. By Bernard and Bernadette Chovelon. (Paris: Les Editions du Cerf. 2011. Pp. 286. euro20,00 paperback. ISBN 978-2-204-09240-1.)The French Dominican Raymond-Leopold Bruckberger (1907-98) described himself as an unworthy priest. But he also established a transatlantic reputation as cultural critic, renowned author, cinematic artiste, member of the French Resistance, bon vivant, and-as his successor in the Academie francaise put it-enfant terrible of the Church. Bernard and Bernadette Chovelon have written their biography Bruckberger: L'enfant terrible to convey to readers in the twenty-first century a sense of this turbulent priest's unconditional love for Jesus Christ that traversed the numerous and violent tempests of his life without ever weakening (p. 11).Bruckberger's life began in the southern French town of Murat, the fourth of five children bom to an Austrian industrialist father and the daughter of a local cafe owner. The family was left destitute when Franck Bruckberger was arrested in 1914 as an enemy alien. Poverty and shame clouded the remainder of Raymond's childhood. His mother's sorrow and bittemess were exacerbated by the fact that her husband never rejoined the family after the war, years passing before it was revealed that he had resettled in his native land. The authors emphasize young Bruckberger's conflicted relationship with his absent father and see in this early trauma the catalyst for his combative spirit, intense creativity, fervent patriotism, and restless search for love. His Catholic faith became a sure refuge within an otherwise rootless life.Entering the Dominican order in 1929, Bruckberger was ordained a priest in 1934. His work editing the Revue thomiste in Paris brought him into collaborative contact with French Catholic intellectuals such as the philosopher Jacques Maritain, who introduced him to the novelist Georges Bernanos, with whom he forged a deep and lasting friendship. Increasingly, Bruck craved the spotlight and would be drawn to the world of French letters and cinema. After serving with valor in the 1940 campaign, Bruckberger was taken prisoner by the Germans, escaped captivity, fled to Marseilles, and eventually joined the Resistance. He was captured and only saved from a firing squad by the personal intervention of his former commanding officer and erstwhile friend Joseph Darnand, later the commander of Vichy's paramilitary Milice. …

Malignant: How Cancer Becomes Us by S. Lochlann Jain (review)

Reviewed by: Malignant: How Cancer Becomes Us by S. Lochlann Jain Simon J. Craddock Lee S. Lochlann Jain, Malignant: How Cancer Becomes Us. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013. 304 pp. I had not intended to become a cancer anthropologist. I can say, without shame, that when I finished my first project, the intent behind my move to the National Cancer Institute (NCI) was to follow the money. Acknowledging the NCI as the 800-pound, pink ribbon-festooned, funding gorilla of the NIH, the epitome of Nixon’s War on Cancer, it was a move to understand one of the single, greatest public efforts to address human illness. I wanted to understand cancer disparities as an anthropological object, the dual construction of science and politics, a research agenda and grant portfolio made real by health scientist administrators who themselves would constitute my new “village” (Lee 2009a). It was also a four-year post-doctoral fellowship with full healthcare benefits. Cancer science and cancer care is truly an enormous configuration of contemporary American undertakings, and we should not overlook the (ancillary? derivative?) academic enterprise that grows alongside it, albeit dwarfed in scope and dollars. “Cancer may start as a series of dividing cells…but it is more richly understood as a rhetorical term that can powerfully organize relationships and as a key player in the broader history of the United States and elsewhere” (233). More simply, “cancer can’t be inside so many people and remain outside society” (221). It is in this light that Jain’s new text comes together as a meditation on cancer as part of a uniquely American contemporary landscape. Three previously published essays are adapted here in a new configuration with four new chapters, building new arguments while simultaneously weaving an analysis that draws on her prior projects in injury [End Page 255] and malpractice law (Jain 2006). To push the metaphor, Malignant started as an idea evolving into something new to progress and proliferate, to take a life of its own. Jain’s choice of title was not benign, which should tell you something about her thoughts on the matter.1 Jain describes her book as an effort to map out cultural containment strategies (221), exposing or calling into question how the organizing of information about cancer—even with the aim of finding cures—does violence to the lived experience of the disease and its effects. Malignant uses cancer as a framing device to present a different take on the downstream consequences of the rise of population thinking (Porter 1995). Scholarly writing offers an inherent challenge, none more so than anthropology. To be scholarly, the author has to immerse herself in the phenomenon, deeply, perhaps for years, such that the strangeness of the thing in question becomes familiar, thereby understandable. And then, in the moment of writing, an author must bring readers close enough to see that thing in stark relief, all the while conveying the daily-ness—the routine of what is, in truth, simply other people living their lives—such that readers are compelled to recognize how this account can only be true.2 Jain uses Maurice Blanchot to provide a philosophical vignette for “Living in Prognosis: The Firing Squad of Statistics” (Chapter 1). Her engagement with the Frenchman pivots on the juxtaposition, “I am alive. No, you are dead.” This is an interesting invitation that I take up because it helps me think about Jain’s positionality across the texts that she has assembled to create Malignant. Blanchot, who writes poignantly elsewhere about literature and the right to death, says of Thomas Mann’s fiction: …he does not respect the rule of nonintervention: he constantly involves himself in what he is telling, sometimes through interposed persons, but also in the most direct kind of way. What about this unwarranted intrusion? It is not moralizing—a stand taken against a certain character—it does not consist of illuminating things from outside—the thrust of the creator’s thumb as he shapes his figures the way he wants them. It represents the intervention of the narrator challenging the very possibility of narration—an intervention that is, consequently, an essentially critical one, but in the...