Military Wing Research Articles

Latvia's Democratic Resistance: a Forgotten Episode from the Second World War

In summer 1943 politicians representing the four main political parties of Latvia's democratic years came together to establish a movement which would both resist the German occupation and prevent the return of the Red Army. They considered the key to re-establishing Latvia as an independent democratic state was to make contact with Britain, and they hoped to do this by a combination of military and diplomatic activity. Once contact with Sweden had been established this Latvian Central Council planned to combine a diplomatic offensive abroad with an insurrection within Latvia. The diplomatic offensive was partly obstructed by the Foreign Office, but that did not prevent the Latvian Central Council working closely with the British Secret Service as it first brought out of Latvia potential members of a Government in Exile, and then began to prepare for an insurrection. Planned to coincide with the arrival of the Red Army and the withdrawal of the Germans, the military wing of the Latvian Central Council intended to seize part of the Courland coast and hold it until British or Swedish forces intervened to prevent them being crushed by the Red Army, thus forcing the Soviets to negotiate about the future status of Latvia. The plans of the Latvian Central Council relied heavily on stories circulating in Sweden that the British were indeed about to intervene in the Baltic, and it is argued here that there was more to this than mere loose talk. The dilemma of whether or not to stage an insurrection was resolved by the Germans, who arrested General Kurelis, the leader of the insurrection and the man designated the interim leader of independent Latvia. The surviving forces of the Latvian Central Council established themselves as an underground army and waited for news from Britain that the time had come to rise. When no such message had come by summer 1945, many underground groups started moves towards a national uprising; to prevent this the Latvian Central Council used its surviving organization to instruct its underground fighters not to take up arms against the Soviets but to wait on diplomacy.

The Elite and Political Process in Nigeria

Nigeria's crisis-ridden political history shows how it survived multiple military dictatorships, and had only three short-lived civilian-led political dispensations until the Fourth Republic. The article considers the concept of African elite and progresses to unravel the Nigerian elite and its role in the scuttling of the First and Second democratic projects/experiments. The role of the military wing in the Third Republic also highlighted and the weakness of the civilian wing against it is also considered. It argues that despite the transition from military rule to democracy in 1999 Nigeria may have become a crippled giant, and considering its post-1999 political class and leadership, the mistakes of the past may be repeated in the future. Africa Insight Vol. 38 (2) 2008: pp. 50-61

On Women, Bodies, and Nation: Feminist Critique and Revision in Zoë Wicomb's David's Story

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. The Griqua are an ethnic group within the larger Khoi population of South Africa. They have mixed race origins resulting from relations between the native Africans and European colonisers dating back to the seventeenth century and aligning them with the coloureds of the apartheid era. Andrew Andries Stockenstrom Le Fleur, often referred to as the Reformer, led the Griqua rebellion against the British in 1898 and the 1927 trek from Kokstad. 2. David would also like to include, against his narrator's wishes, Krotoä-Eva, the first indigenous woman to appear in official Cape records. Unlike Baartman, Krotoä ultimately has a minimal presence in the text; however, she has also achieved iconic status in South Africa and her inclusion at all in Wicomb's novel is significant. See Kai Easton's article ‘Travelling through History, “New” South African Icons’ for a consideration of Krotoä, as well as Baartman, in relation to David's Story. 3. Numerous scholars have written about Baartman, colonial discourse on the Hottentot, and the Hottentot as icon. For example, see JM Coetzee's White Writing (1988), Saul Dubow's Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa (1995), Sharpley-Whiting's Black Venus (1999), and Sander Gilman's essay in ‘Race’, Writing and Difference (1986). Baartman's story has also been fictionalised in Barbara Chase-Riboud's novel Hottentot Venus (2003) Chase-Riboud, Barbara. 2003. Hottentot-Venus: A Novel, NY: Doubleday. [Google Scholar], the title poem of Elizabeth Alexander's debut collection of poetry The Venus Hottentot (1990), and Suzan-Lori Parks's 1997 play Venus. 4. Baartman died at the age of twenty-five from small pox and alcoholism, five years after agreeing to exhibit her body in exchange for money and a return trip home to Cape Town. She was not the only African woman put on display in Europe in the nineteenth century but has become the most famous, due largely to Cuvier's work. Baartman's jarred remains were exhibited in Paris's Musee de l'Homme along with a plaster cast of her body until 1974. Her remains were finally returned to South Africa for burial in 2002. 5. The MK refers to the Umkhonto we Sizwe (translated as Spear of the Nation), the guerrilla military wing of the ANC, established in 1961 when the ANC split from its non-violent past in order to become ‘the fighting arm of the people against the government and its policies of race oppression’ (ANC 2006 African National Congress (ANC). 2006. Manifesto of the Umkhonto we Sizwe. Official Website of the African National Congress. 7 July <www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/manifesto-mk.html> [Google Scholar]). 6. Steatopygia, a genetic characteristic of Khoi women, is a high degree of fat accumulation in and around the buttocks. It is sometimes accompanied by an elongated labia. These bodily features, pathologised by Europeans, rendered Saartje Baartman a spectacle as the Hottentot Venus. 7. To readers of Kate Chopin's The Awakening, this scene starkly contrasts Edna Pontellier's discovery of and claiming a sense of power and sensuality in her body through learning to swim. Wicomb here may be criticising the trope of ‘awakening’ that Chopin's text established as central in the western feminist literary canon but that cannot accommodate the complexities of race and the postcolonial condition.

Lions Tamed? An Inquiry into the Causes of De-Radicalization of Armed Islamist Movements: The Case of the Egyptian Islamic Group

This article examines the factors that may lead previously radical and militant Islamist movements to de-radicalize, and in so doing alter their ideologies, strategies, and objectives. In particular it will focus on the process of de-radicalization of the Egyptian Islamic Group, a former ally of al-Qa'ida. It will conclude with a tentative framework explaining the causes behind de-radicalization as well as policy recommendations. In July 1997, the historical leadership1 of Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, the Islamic Group (IG), the largest armed Islamist movement in Egypt, declared a unilateral ceasefire that surprised many observers, officials, and even many IG members. The ceasefire declaration contradicted the unwaveringly militant literature of the group, the vows of its leaders to continue the armed struggle until it toppled President Husni Mubarak's regime, and the increasingly violent tactics that the IG affiliates have used since the late 1970s. In 2002, the leadership of the IG not only dismantled its armed wings, but also renounced its radical literature, published new books, and replaced its curricula with those of the relatively moderate Muslim Brothers (MB).2 Members of the shura (consultative) council of the IG issued several tracts explaining its new non-violent ideology, a move which indicated a de-radicalization process that took place not only on the behavioral (strategic/tactical) level but also on the ideological level. This process, as I shall demonstrate in the article, was relatively successful, as it took around 15,000 to 20,000 IG militants away from the Salafi-Jihadi3 camp currently led by al-Qa'ida.4 In addition, other Islamist movements have shown observable rhetorical, behavioral, and ideological changes. Like the IG of Egypt, the military wing of the Algerian Islamic Salvation Front (FIS),5 the Islamic Salvation Army (AIS), declared a unilateral ceasefire in 1997. The ceasefire led to disarmament and demilitarization processes that aimed for the reintegration of the AIS members as well as other armed Islamist factions into the Algerian civilian society. The demilitarization process included subgroups from the notorious Armed Islamic Group (GIA). In Tajikistan, the Islamic Renaissance Party (IRP) that led the United Tajikistani Opposition (UTO) in the civil war of 1992-1997, re-led the UTO again into a peace agreement, albeit fragile, with the Tajik regime. Similar to the IG in Egypt and the AIS and other militant factions in Algeria, the IRP called for jihad in 1992 and then for a ceasefire, a compromise, and a peaceful resolution of the conflict in 1997. In other predominantly Muslim states, several Islamist movements have been engaging in electoral politics. Those movements include the Muslim Brothers in Egypt; the Islah (Reform) Party in Yemen; the Popular National Congress in Sudan; the Islamic Society6 and the Islamic Union7 in Afghanistan; al-Da'wa (The Call) Party, the Islamist Party, and the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). In addition, moderate Islamist movements have been leaning towards a relatively liberal trend8 like the Justice and Development Parties in Turkey (AKP) and alWasat (The Center) group in Egypt. Given these changes within movements that have long glorified violent struggle and upheld continuity, the main research question that this article will attempt to answer is: why do radical Islamist militants revise their ideologies, strategies, and objectives and initiate a de-radicalization process?9 In other words, can militant, Islamist radicals turn into relatively peaceful groups that accept the other, and if so, under what conditions? In an attempt to answer this research question, I begin by providing definitions of key terms and concepts as well as a typology of Islamists. In the second section, I provide a brief synthesis of some of the literature on the causes of radicalization and moderation of Islamists. Then, I underline what I perceive as gaps in the literature and situate the article and its expected contribution. …

IV.ProsecutorvThomas Lubanga, Decision of Pre-Trial Chamber I of the International Criminal Court, 29 January 2007

On 29 January 2007, Pre-Trial Chamber I of the International Criminal Court (the ICC) handed down its decision confirming the charges brought against Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, the first defendant to appear before the Court. In this and earlier decisions in the case, the Chamber has said a number of interesting things about the admissibility of cases before the Court, the elements of the war crime of child recruitment and the modes of liability under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (the Rome Statute).140More generally, however, the Chamber's actions also say much about the role the judges of the ICC see themselves as undertaking in the Court's proceedings.Thomas Lubanga is a national of the Democratic Republic of Congo (the DRC). He describes himself as a politician. It is alleged that from its foundation in 2000 he has been the leader of theUnion des patriots congolais(the UPC) and commander-in-chief of its military wing, theForces patriotiques pour la liberation du Congo(the FPLC). From mid-2002 to the end of 2003, the FPLC was engaged in fighting in the region of Ituri in the DRC. During the conflict, the UPC/FPLC is alleged to have committed numerous atrocities, including the widespread recruitment of children into its ranks.141The DRC had become a party to the Rome Statute on 11 April 2002 and, accordingly, the Statute entered into force for it on 1 July 2002, the date of the Court's establishment. Following strong hints from the Prosecutor,142on 19 April 2004 the President of the DRC referrred to the Court ‘the situation of crimes within the juris- diction of the Court allegedly committed anywhere in the territory of the DRC since the entry into force of the Rome Statute’.143On 23 June 2004, the Prosecutor opened an investigation into the situation, the ICC's first.144On 19 March 2005, Lubanga was arrested and detained by the DRC authorities, and charged with genocide, crimes against humanity, murder, illegal detention and torture in relation to crimes alleged committed between May 2003 and February 2005. On 17 March 2006, Lubanga was transferred from Congolese custody to that of the ICC.

Conceptions of Authority in Iraqi Shi’ism

One of the most obvious differences between recent Shi’ite and Sunni political activism is the dominance of clerical leadership in the former and lay leadership in the latter. This article examines the reasons for this difference, analysing the authority theories of three contemporary Iraqi Shi’ite clerics. Ayatallah Baqir al-Hakim, until his death in 2003, was the ideologue of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the military wing of which is the Badr Corps. Ayatallah Kazim al-Ha’iri is considered the successor of the late Ayatallah Sadiq al-Sadr; the latter was the ideological inspiration for the Mehdi Army led by Sadiq al-Sadr’s son Muqtada al-Sadr. The relationship between Ha’iri and Muqtada has been tested in the recent past, and the two have distanced themselves from each other. In 2004, Ha’iri officially announced that Muqtada is not his representative in Iraq. Hence the analysis in this article represents the tradition of Shi’i thought from which Muqtada has emerged, rather than the specific doctrine to which he subscribes. Muqtada’s legal doctrine is difficult to ascertain given that he has not yet written a comprehensive work of jurisprudence. Grand Ayatallah Ali Sistani is certainly the most internationally respected of the three scholars. Considered the leading Ayatallah in Iraq (and perhaps the Shi’ite world in general), Sistani successfully negotiated the end to the occupation of Najaf by the Mehdi Army and is credited with masterminding the success of the United Iraqi Alliance in the Iraqi elections of January 2005. This article compares and contrasts the three thinkers’ theories of religious and political authority, including their differing conceptions of the ulama (scholarly elite) and their power within the community. This leads on to a brief consideration of the political theories of Baqir al-Hakim and Ha’iri.

RELIGION, REPRESSION, AND REBELLION

Societies that abuse the religious rights of their subjects are likely to suffer damaging consequences; the experience of minorities under persecution is a major contributor to the failure of some processes of nation-building. The persecution of minorities can contribute to political unrest and instability because groups under siege often go underground and learn to operate clandestinely, possibly developing ideologies that justify violence, and even creating effective military wings. Persecution also influences the power dynamics within a particular movement, concentrating power in the hands of a few clerics, and fostering sympathies with co-religionists abroad, while deconstructing national identity.

Memory of War and National State Integration: Czech and German Veterans in Czechoslovakia after 1918

IN a speech in December 1918, Tomas Masaryk spoke of an occurrence that took place in the summer of 1918 in the United States. After the decision of Woodrow Wilson to support the Czechoslovak Legion in Russia, an American general asked what ‘Czechoslovaks’ meant. He was answered that it was a special form of the ‘Spanish influenza’. This anecdote shows that the founding of Czechoslovakia was not self-evident from the start. It was necessary to make the new state known — but also to give its existence legitimacy within and without the country. The First World War and its aftermath played an important role in establishing this legitimacy. By 1918, 100,000 Czechs and Slovaks had fought against the Monarchy in the so-called Czechoslovak Legions. Many of them had been living abroad before the war, but many others had deserted from the Austro-Hungarian Army or had been prisoners of war, who were recruited into the Legion from Russian or Italian POW camps. The legionaries, who had fought the Monarchy as the military wing of the Czech ‘resistance abroad’ were an exception. Most German and Czech soldiers from the Bohemian Lands experienced the war in units of the Austro-Hungarian Army. More than 1,400,000 soldiers of this army had belonged to the Czech or the Slovak nationality and several hundred thousand of them were Germans from the Bohemian Lands. The overwhelming majority of the Lands’ inhabitants did not experience the war through the eyes of the legionaries or the politicians in exile, but were influenced by developments on the front or in the hinterland.

Third Party Liability for Hezbollah Attacks against Israel

After an Israeli soldier was abducted in the south of the country in late June, Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) began Operation “Summer Rain” in Gaza in order to secure the safe return of the soldier. On 12 July 2006, Hezbollah forces captured two Israeli soldiers in Northern Israel and killed three more, triggering Operation “Just Reward”, which ended with the fragile cease-fire agreed upon under the terms outlined in U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701. The conflict between Israel and the Hezbollah had the potential of plunging the whole region in a wider war; as a matter of fact, it seems that Iran and Syria were fighting a proxy war against Israel. Hezbollah alone does not have the technological capabilities of hitting Haifa or Nazareth with their own Katjusha-type missiles, which essentially are not much more than slightly modified World War II weapons, yet Hezbollah struck deep inside Israel. On the last day of the war alone, with the cease-fire already in sight, 246 rockets were fired into Israel. Moreover, it appears that Israel was not hit only by Katjushot but also by other missiles with a longer range. Given their arsenal and longstanding support for Hezbollah, the assumption that Iran and Syria have actually delivered missiles or missile technology to Hezbollah is anything but farfetched. News reports during the conflict indicated that Hezbollah used Syrian 220mm-missiles against Israel and that weapons have been delivered to the Hezbollah from Iran, oftenviaSyria. Hezbollah's arsenal includes Iranian-made Zilzal-2 missiles with a range of 210 km, Russian-designed AT-5 anti-tank weapons which were produced in Iran, as well as Russian-made Kornet-E laser-guided weapons and Metis-M anti-armor weapons, both supplied by Syria. Most notorious was the use of Iranian Fajr-3 missiles against Israeli cities. Thousands of these missiles had already been provided to Hezbollah before the fighting began. The rockets that hit the town of Afula, south of Haifa, on 28 July 2006, and which was referred to by Hezbollah as Khaibar-1, likely were the first Iranian-made Fajr-5 missiles ever used by Hezbollah. Despite the destruction of the infrastructure in Lebanon during Operation “Just Reward”, Hezbollah continued to receive weapons. But Syrian and Iranian influence goes back a long time. Today's Hezbollah is the result of an Iranian-nurtured program that lasted for two decades and transformed a local guerilla group into a full-fledged army. Today, Hezbollah's military wing is no longer a group of partisans but an army comprising between 6,000 and 8,000 regular members, not counting reserves, divided into battalions of 250 men, as well as special forces. Not only was it the late Ayatollah Khomeni who provided the initiative for the foundation of Hezbollah, Iran continues to trains Hezbollah fighters and supports Hezbollah's army with weapons, such as the C-802 land-to-sea-missile that was used against the Israeli Naval Ship “Hanit” during the recent conflict.

Wegbereiter der Shoah. Die Waffen-SS, der Kommandostab Reichsführer-SS und die Judenvernichtung 1939–1945. By Martin Cüppers. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. 2005. Pp. 464. €59.90. ISBN 3-534-16022-3.

To date, debates about the identity and motives of perpetrators of German extermination policies have focused on the Einsatzgruppen (mobile squads of the Security Police and the Security Service), concentration camp personnel, and the Order Police. Martin Cüppers now presents the first systematic study of one of the best documented, yet least publicized set of units that participated in the murder of European Jews. He explores three Waffen-SS brigades and some smaller units under the Kommandostab Reichsführer-SS. In some respects, the book's title is misleading. It does not cover the military wing of the SS as a whole and, if anything, it demonstrates that the Kommandostab was of minor importance since it was never really in command of anything. Serving as a transmitter of information and as an organizational tool, it further declined in importance after early 1942. In addition, just as with other perpetrator units, the Waffen-SS brigades did not murder only Jews; the book does deal with the brigades' other victims though the book title does not suggest it.

Eduardo Mondlane & the rise & fall of Mozambican Socialism*

However tempting an exercise it may be when contemplating the abrupt removal from the historical process of so exemplary and important a person as Eduardo Mondlane, speculation as to 'what might have been' had he lived is likely to be an exercise of only limited value. In the present case, this is true even for the analysis of the pre-independence period in which Mondlane both made his political contribution and also died. The tensions within Frelimo had been temporarily papered over at the 1968 Congress, but they were far from being resolved; indeed they may even have helped produce Mondlane's assassination. Had he lived, would he have been able to finesse the Kavandames and the Simangos more deftly and resolve more amicably the key strategic questions that were dividing the movement? And, if this were not possible (I rather doubt it was), would he at least have been able to orchestrate the rising ascendancy of those directly linked to the military wing of the movement (and to the dynamics of popularly-rooted guerrilla struggle) in a positive manner on at least two fronts: to have allowed the military struggle to advance successfully while also to have helped pre-empt the dangers of hierarchy and authoritarianism that the necessary militarisation of the Mozambican struggle seems, in retrospect, to have carried with it?

Rebels with a cause of their own: a personal reflection on my student years at Rhodes University, 1961-1965

Rebels with a cause of their own:a personal reflection on my student years at Rhodes University, 1961-19651 Edward Webster (bio) I arrived at Rhodes University in February 1961 to register for a BA degree. I had developed a deep interest in the study of history, partly because I had recently returned from a year hitch-hiking and working as a waiter, then rapidly promoted to barman at Battersea Park Funfair in London, and later a farm-hand in Europe. I had been deeply impressed by the visible depth of Europe's history as seen through its ancient monuments. I had continued home via North and East Africa. These travels had aroused my curiosity in the process of decolonisation that had begun in Africa reaching a climax in 1960 when 12 states were to become independent. The 'winds of change', Harold Macmillan dramatically announced in Cape Town in 1960, had reached the southern tip of Africa. Macmillan's speech made the future seem like a simple act of decolonisation - you pull down the Union Jack and you return 'home'. But this was not to be - and that is what made the journey I was about to embark on so much more difficult, more painful and, in the end, more challenging. Indeed, for me, it was the start of a long voyage, 'full of adventures, full of things to learn'. Because of the existence of a relatively large and cohesive settler population in Southern Africa, events were to prove a lot more complex, violent and bloody than Macmillan's gentle metaphor of a 'wind' evoked. Instead of a steady march to national liberation in Southern Africa, 1960 was the start of what the veteran scholar/activist John Saul has described as a 'thirty-year war', a ruthless counter-revolution that began in South Africa with the banning of the key political institutions of the national liberation movement and only ended in 1990 when Mandela was released. [End Page 98] But this moment of freedom in 1990 had been preceded by large scale sacrifices as the movements of national liberation in South Africa, Rhodesia, Portuguese East Africa and South West Africa embraced armed struggle and the settler communities of South and Southern Africa dug in their heels in defence of 'white civilisation'. Growing up in the Eastern Cape, and the Transkei in particular, and being a descendant of the first British settlers of 1820, meant that bloody conflict between coloniser and colonised was not unfamiliar to me. 'Kaffir wars', 'Frontier Wars', 'wars of colonial dispossession'; the words changed but the contested nature of our presence in Africa was part of my memory of growing up in 'settler country'. This was brought home to me sharply in my second year at Rhodes when a white family in my home village in the Transkei were brutally hacked to death by Poqo, the military wing of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC). Terror spread throughout the village as the small white community armed itself in anticipation of another 'kaffir war'! This is the context - and my memory of it - in my early years at Rhodes. Rhodes University was the logical place to be for someone from my social background. My parents were schoolteachers drawing modest salaries from the Cape Education Department and there were four children in the family; I was going to have to find my own way through university on bursaries and scholarships. I had matriculated from Selborne College in East London and, besides, Cecil John Rhodes conjured up the exploits of my 'heroic' ancestors. Today a 'gap year' is quite common; at that time it was considered unwise and I was warned that I would be bitten by wanderlust and not want to study. Quite the opposite was the case. I took to Rhodes like a duck to water. For the first time in my life I had a room of my own and time on my hands to read. I was fascinated by the insights that I gained from an outstanding generation of lecturers led by the indomitable Winnie Maxwell. Opinionated and demanding, she inspired me to read widely, encouraging me to go on to do an honours degree in...

Denis Goldberg on librarianship and history: extracts from an interview

Denis Goldberg, one of the founding members of Umkhonto we Sizwe, which was the military wing of the African National Congress (ANC) in exile, was arrested in 1963 and convicted at the Rivonia trial with Nelson Mandela. He was released after serving 22 years in Pretoria Central Prison. After spending many years in England, Denis returned to South Africa to become an advisor in 2002 to Ronnie Kasrils, Minister of Water Affairs. During his time in prison, he completed several degrees through Unisa (University of South Africa), which included a degree in librarianship. This is an edited extract from an interview that Archie Dick conducted with Denis on 5 March 2003. Innovation No.28 2004: 17-21

The terrorists in their own words: Interviews with 35 incarcerated Middle Eastern terrorists**This research was conducted with the support of the Smith Richardson Foundation.

Using semi-structured interviews, 35 incarcerated Middle Eastern terrorists have been interviewed – 21 Islamic terrorists representing Hamas (and its armed wing Izz a-Din al Qassan), Islamic Jihad, and Hizballah, and 14 secular terrorists from Fatah and its military wing, PFLP and DFLP. The purpose of the research was to understand their psychology and decision-making in general, and with special reference to their propensity towards weapons of mass destruction.

Crossing Western Space, or the HooDoo Detective on the Boundary in Ishmael Reed's "Mumbo Jumbo"

Following publication of Mumbo Jumbo in 1972, Ishmael Reed proclaimed the best mystery novel of year (Shrovetide 132). Reed's statement, of course, seems out of place given that Mumbo Jumbo looks nothing like conventional detective novel. A composite narrative composed of subtexts, pre-texts, post-texts, and narratives-within-narratives (Gates 220), Mumbo Jumbo even includes such oddities as pictures, footnotes, and bibliography. But despite its unique appearance, central narrative, among novel's various intra-texts, does, in fact, include both detective, PaPa LaBas, and his classic search for both murderer as well as missing text, reminiscent of Poe's Purloined Letter. As Mumbo Jumbo opens, a psychic epidemic known as Grew is creeping across 1920s' America. Although Reed takes term Grew from James Weldon Johnson (who wrote that 'the earliest Ragtime songs, like Topsy, 'jes' grew' (qtd. in Mumbo 11), (1) he traces as far back as an ancient Egyptian da nce craze that reemerges in New Orleans in 1890s, flair-up which authorities thought they had neutralized by fumigating Place Congo. But they misunderstood nature of Grew--which Western science cannot even bring into focus or categorize (40)--and now is back again, sparking Renaissance, and has its carriers, or J.G.C.s, literally dancing in streets. Alarmed by these developments, Grew's enemies Atonists call out their military wing Wallflower Order defend cherished traditions of West (15). Grew is spreading for reason: Jes Grew is seeking its words. Its (6). must find its Speaking or strangle on its own ineloquence (34); however, where and what exactly this text is remains mystery, central mystery of novel. Ironically, text Grew seeks has come America in hands of an Atonist, Hinckle Von Vampton, or H.V.V.--a caricature of Renaissance patron Carl Van Vechten--who decides send out as chain book J.G.C. individuals scattered throughout Harlem (69). Unknown H.V.V., one of 14 J.G.C.s collects and gives anthology black Muslim Egyptologist Abdul Hamid translate. Anticipating completion of Abdul's work, Grew is on its way New York, where will cohabit with its text-unless Atonists get Text first; as Atonists see it, only way stop J.G. is destroy Text that seeks. Consequently, H.V.V. and his partner Hubert Safecracker Gould pay visit Abdul, demanding he surrender Text, and when Abdul refuses, they murder him. As fate, or convention, would have it, LaBas discovers body along with clue, cryptic note from Abdul. LaBas has the nagging suspicion...[the note] has something do with missing antholo gy (131). It reads: Stringy lumpy; Bales dancing / Beneath this center / Lies Bird (98). Clue in hand, LaBas, thus, begins his classic search for both murderers as well as location of missing text. But while Mumbo Jumbo has all makings, Reed's novel is no conventional piece of detective fiction. It is, rather, detective story which evokes impulse 'detect' ... in order violently frustrate it (Spanos 171). Nor is Reed's detective conventional sleuth. (2) Unlike his literary forerunners, who relied on ratiocination and science, LaBas is a jack-legged detective of metaphysical (212), a private eye practicing. . . NeoHooDoo therapy (211). In an obvious transgression of Western detective genre, LaBas does not depend solely on scientific reason or concrete evidence explain away mystery; contrary, he preaches turning to mystery, wonderment, or in Voodoo tradition, loas. (3) LaBas's very name, in fact, is taken from African deity Legba and his Haitian incarnation PaPa Legba, trickster figure who mediates between spiritual and material worlds. …

‘A reach greater than the grasp’: Israeli intelligence and the conflict in south Lebanon 1990–2000

This article examines the way in which intelligence was used by Israel in its war against Hizb'allah in south Lebanon. By using ideas drawn from the literature on strategic culture, it argues that in trying to replicate methods used in countering Palestinian insurgents, Israel's intelligence agencies failed to appreciate fully the finite political aims of Hizb'allah's guerrilla struggle. As such, the paucity in Israel's collective intelligence effort allowed operatives of Hizb'allah's military wing, al-Muqawama, to score notable intelligence triumphs over Israel, triumphs that did much force the IDF into a unilateral withdrawal from south Lebanon in May 2000.

Turkey and the Kurds

Abdullah Öcalan's arrest in February 1999 was a great success for the Turkish security forces. The removal of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)'s autocratic leader has also exposed potentially crippling divisions within the organisation. In particular, these include differences between the PKK's military wing (ARGK), led by hardline Marxists, and the European-based political organisation (ERNK), which has moved to a more nationalist and pragmatic position. Over recent weeks, the ERNK leadership has been purged by the hardliners. The PKK's decline may allow the emergence of a new, moderate and peaceful Kurdish movement. Far from helping the Turkish authorities, though, this could present them with a new danger. A democratic Kurdish organisation would be more likely to attract Western sympathy, and Turkish repression of such a movement might cause problems for Ankara not just with the European Union, but with its most important ally, the US.

Agricultural intensification and the decline of pastoralism: a case study from Kenya

AbstractUsing a case study, this article takes up the issue of the decline of pastoralism in Kenya's arable farming zones. It argues that this process should not be taken as self-evident, with a decline in stockholding seen as consequent simply upon the relative rewards of agriculture, population increase and environmental depletion. On the contrary, such a view ignores the fact that cattle were the first sector of the traditional agro-pastoralist societies of Kenya to become commercialised and, in the process, criminalised. Historically, cattle-raiding heroes soon became feared stock thieves, and it is this process which is essential to understanding the eventual decline of the pastoral sector and also to emerging patterns of inequality. The argument is based upon a longitudinal study of Kuria District in south-west Kenya, with survey data collected from the same homesteads in 1985 and 1995. Both surveys were designed to assess the effects of tobacco growing on emerging patterns of socio-economic stratification. Such a methodology is rare and challenges the interpretations that might be reached solely on the basis of cross-sectional survey data. Despite increasing differentiation of incomes over the ten-year period, there has been no straightforward consolidation of relative wealth and poverty. Rather, there are indications of significant equalising tendencies at work in the local economy. Over the ten years there had been a 50 per cent decrease in cattle ownership. Understanding the dynamics of this situation takes the argument in other directions and towards understanding the effects of commodification on the military wing of the pastoral economy. Agricultural intensification in Kuria has been accompanied by an upsurge in cattle raiding and it is this factor more than any other which has led to the decline of stock, as people divest themselves of cattle to forestall the depredations of raiders. At the same time, attitudes to the raiders themselves have hardened and evidence suggests that it is raiding families—rather than, say, the poor as such—who find it expedient to migrate and in the process sell their land, allowing some consolidation of land holdings by other members of the community.

Ukrainian nationalism in the 1990s: a minority faith

Andrew Wilson. Ukrainian Nationalism in the 1990s: A Minority Faith. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. xviii, 300 pp. Maps. Tables. Notes. Select bibliography. Index. $59.95, cloth. $23.95, paper. Andrew Wilson from the University of Cambridge is an expert on the post-Soviet era, specializing particularly in Ukraine. He has written extensively on various aspects of Ukrainian politics. His present volume's overriding argument is that the appeal of Ukrainian nationalism is severely limited by the country's inherited regional, ethnic, linguistic and religious differences. Before coming under Soviet rule, the regions of western Ukraine had been for many centuries part of various East-Central European states. Most notably Galicia, Transcarpathia, and northern Bukovyna had known neither Russian nor Soviet rule until World War II. During the interwar period Volhynia also remained outside Soviet borders. By contrast, other regions have been under very strong Russian influence. This is especially true of eastern and southern Ukraine, as well as the Crimea, which Russia acquired from the Tartars in the 18th century and which was settled by Ukrainians and Russians. As a result, there has developed a profound dichotomy between western Ukraine and the rest of the country. The dichotomy is clearly seen in the regional distribution of ethnic Russians. In no region of the western half of Ukraine, excluding Kyiv (i.e., Kiev), the Russian minority exceeds 10 percent of the population. By contrast, in southern and eastern Ukraine ethnic Russians make up respectively 24 and 36 percent of the population, while in Crimea they dominate numerically with 67 percent. Even more telling is the regional distribution of Russophones. While in no western region, excluding Kyiv, Russian speakers exceed roughly one quarter of the population, in the remaining regions they are either in the numerical majority or at about par with Ukrainophones. Across the country, the nationalist movement followed differing paths of historical development. Outside of the western regions the mainstream Ukrainian nationalist movement tended as a rule to be more cautious and moderate, seeking autonomy within the Russian and later Soviet state rather than outright independence. This approach was the corollary of a low level of national consciousness among the masses of local Ukrainians, and of the strong Russian control of, and influence in, the area. By contrast, Ukrainians of liberal Austrian Galicia achieved a high level of national consciousness and built the foundations of a bold and vigorous national movement. Subsequently, in interwar Poland, Galician and Volhynian Ukrainians developed two nationalist traditions. On the one hand, the Ukrainian national-- democratic party was strongly represented in parliament; on the other, a very influential underground terrorist network, the OUN, was created. The latter, along with its military wing, the UPA, led the nationalist movement in the region during World War II and its aftermath. Though eventually stifled by the Soviets, west Ukrainian nationalism was never completely uprooted, and many a dissident in Soviet Ukraine hailed from that region. Thus, various nationalist traditions were created in the country, resulting in a considerable diversity of Ukrainian nationalist political parties active in the 1990s. They can be divided into two groups: national-democratic and ultra-nationalist. The most popular nationalist party was Rukh, a national-democratic front. The other two important national-democratic parties were the Ukrainian Republican Party and the Democratic Party of Ukraine. Ultra-nationalist parties tended to be smaller but more numerous. Emigre veterans of the OUN were influential in establishing the most popular among them, the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists. The second in importance was the Ukrainian National Assembly with its paramilitary wing, the Ukrainian Self-Defence Force. …

The Jews of South Africa

WhenJoe Slovo died two years ago, tens of thousands of mourners, the majority of them black, came to a Soweto stadium to hear him eulogized by a weeping Nelson Mandela. A white man, and the longtime head of the African National Congress's military wing, Slovo had directed the military campaign against the apartheid regime; during the I98os and '9os, he was perhaps the ANC's second most powerful leader, after Mandela himself. His credibility with the ANC's radicalized commandos was so great that Mandela chose Slovo to announce