Assassination Research Articles

El espectáculo de la violencia en el cine mexicano del siglo XXI by Guadalupe Pérez-Anzaldo

Reviewed by: El espectáculo de la violencia en el cine mexicano del siglo XXI by Guadalupe Pérez-Anzaldo Gerardo Cummings Pérez-Anzaldo, Guadalupe. El espectáculo de la violencia en e l cine mexicano del siglo XXI. México: Eón, 2014. Pp. 254. ISBN 978-6-07828-978-3. Guadalupe Pérez-Anzaldo’s El espectáculo de la violencia en el cine mexicano del siglo XXI powerfully analyzes three of the most representative films from recent Mexican cinema: Conejo en la luna (dir. Jorge Ramírez Suárez, Mexico, 2004), a paranoid-filled psycho-thriller; Casi divas (dir. Issa López, Mexico, 2008), a female-empowerment romantic comedy; and El infierno (dir. Luis Estrada, Mexico, 2010), a narco-drug, violence-centered comedy. Before exploring in depth the aforementioned films, the author offers in chapter 1 an overview of violence in Mexican history, including its independence movement, the Mexican revolution, and other upheavals (the Cristero War, Tlatelolco 1968, today’s daily drug-fueled violence, etc.). Pérez-Anzaldo’s thorough research addresses, among many other things, Porfirio Díaz’s devastating violent subjugation of indigenous communities, such as the Yaquis, Mayos, and Mayas. She references John Kenneth Turner’s México bárbaro, and even Díaz’s favorite phrase: “Mátenlos en caliente.” This phrase encapsulates, in my view, one of the major takeaways of this study: that Mexico’s philosophy towards life has been, is and will be crystallized by the José Alfredo Jiménez lyric “la vida no vale nada.” In chapter 2, “Violencia y censura en el cine mexicano,” Pérez-Anzaldo journeys through the history of censorship of films depicting violence. In my opinion, this chapter should be read in university courses dealing with Mexican cinematic history or popular culture. The research reveals a conscientious collaboration between El Estado and the Mexican filmmaking industry to deliver a certain “cinematic product” to the hungry masses. At times, the product has glorified violent episodes in Mexican history. At others, it has shied away from depicting violent rhetoric for fear of inciting revolutionary ideas. A critic that found similar connections between the Mexican government and the Mexican film industry was Emilio García Riera, long considered one of the preeminent Mexican cinema experts. García Riera’s research found that, on many an occasion, the Mexican government purposely supported certain cinematic genres over others, such as the period in the 1970s when—rather than funding the work of directors and screenwriters whose films could have motivated the masses to question their own government—the Mexican presidency of José López Portillo meddled in the film industry in order to support the sexycomedia films starring (in most cases) Sasha Montenegro, the then mistress of the president (and later, his wife). Chapter 3, “Teorizaciones: La diversificación de la violencia,” demonstrates the depth and breadth of the author’s research on gender violence. One particular section stood out to me. As Pérez-Anzaldo compares feminicidio statistics, she challenges popular misconceptions. Though Ciudad Juárez has been the focus of much of the violence, the Estado de México—especially under the then governorship of Enrique Peña-Nieto—has far surpassed the numbers of the northern border town. Pérez-Anzaldo presents information that media conglomerates in Mexico—such as Televisa—are and have been in cahoots with the PRI party that was poised to nominate Peña-Nieto for president for the 2012–18 cycle. It is only now that light is being shed on the astonishing increase of women murdered in the Estado de México. The fourth chapter centers on the film Conejo en la luna, and, rather than dealing with gender violence, explores [End Page 148] a different yet important representation of violence: magnicide. Pérez-Anzaldo, in her chapter, establishes metatextual connections between Hollywood films, such as The Count of Montecristo (Dir. Kevin Reynolds, USA, 2002) and Enemy of the State (dir. Tony Scott, USA, 1998), and this Mexican film. Ramírez Suárez’s film is masterful because it submerges the viewer into a world where the plot covers ideas like political assassination and familiar contemporary Mexican crisis, yet...

De Facto Power, Democracy, and Taxation: Evidence from Military Occupation During Reconstruction

How important is the enforcement of political rights in new democracies? We use the enfranchisement of the emancipated slaves following the American Civil War to study this question. Critical to our strategy, black suffrage was externally enforced by the U.S. Army in ten Southern states during Reconstruction. We employ a triple-difference model to estimate the joint impact of enfranchisement and its enforcement on taxation. We find that occupied counties where black voters comprised larger shares of the electorate levied higher taxes compared to similar non-occupied counties. These counties later experienced greater declines in taxation after the troops were withdrawn. We also demonstrate that in occupied counties, black politicians were more likely to be elected, and political murders by white supremacist groups occurred less frequently. These findings provide evidence on the key role of federal troops in limiting the elite capture by force during this period

Radical Experience and the Surveillance State

Radical Experience and the Surveillance State Elizabeth Faue (bio) Howard Brick and Christopher Phelps. Radicals in America: The U.S. Left since the Second World War. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015. 361 pp. Illustrations, bibliography, and index. $24.99. Andrea Friedman. Citizenship in Cold War America: The National Security State and the Possibilities of Dissent. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2014. 288 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, and index. $80.00 (cloth); $25.95 (paper). Jacob Kramer. The New Freedom and the Radicals: Woodrow Wilson, Progressive Views of Radicalism, and the Origins of Repressive Tolerance. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2015. 236 pp. Notes, bibliography, and index. $79.50. William J. Maxwell. F.B. Eyes: How J. Edgar Hoover’s Ghostreaders Framed African American Literature. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2015. 384 pp. Illustrations, notes, works cited, and index. $29.95. Kenyon Zimmer. Immigrants against the State: Yiddish and Italian Anarchism in America. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2015. 320 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, and index. $95.00 (cloth); $30.00 (paper). The recent presidential campaign has brought into public debate some of the central political issues of the past century: how democracy and radicalism are defined, how political change originates in and emanates from the marginalized Left, and how the state both constrains and shapes the margins seeking to become mainstream. While the politics of gender and race equality have infiltrated broadcast news and twitter feeds, so too has radicalism—on the left and the right—drawn reporters and crowds. Antiestablishment candidates prosper, as national polls suggest a genuine disenchantment with politics as usual. A socialist garnered significant support in the Democratic Party; white supremacists endorsed the Republican candidate. There is an open and heated debate about who belongs and does not belong in our democracy and who [End Page 136] may be kept out by a wall or denied a voice through voter identification laws. The margins have overtaken the mainstream. Understanding the relationship between radical social movements and change, and between radicals and the existing state apparatus, has long occupied historians of the Left. In these five volumes, we revisit the questions of how radical activism shaped and was shaped by the state and the discourse and practice of citizenship within that state. From covering the arguments and deeds of Italian and Yiddish immigrant radicals and the creation of the national security state under the Wilson administration, to exploring mid-century anticommunism and today’s Black Lives Matter movement, these recent studies show us how responses to radicalism not only transformed the state but also continually redefined freedom and democracy from the political margins. At heart, they offer a collective exploration of how radical ideas and practices have transformed our political culture and the meanings and consequences of that transformation. Kenyon Zimmer’s Immigrants against the State is a case in point. Anarchism in the United States has a bifurcated history. Native-born individualist anarchism dates back to the nineteenth century, when William Lloyd Garrison and Henry David Thoreau positioned themselves against state-sanctioned slavery. Its heirs today are allied with libertarianism and its pro-capitalist followers. Communist—or collectivist—anarchism, an ideology that veered from authorizing political assassination to pacifist resistance to state-sanctioned violence, has been understood as chiefly European in origin, with its roots in the ideas of Charles Fourier, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, and Mikhail Bakunin. It also has been viewed as an immigrant ideology, not only foreign in origin but also in advocacy. Immigrant communities among Yiddish- and Italian-language speakers gave shelter to anarchists and supported radical political activities, cultural and educational institutions, and newspapers and journals. It is this world that Kenyon Zimmer captures in his account of Progressive Era Yiddish and Italian anarchists. His attention to detail is at times overwhelming, as names, networks, community organizations, and places are stacked like firewood against forgetting. Still, in trying to resurrect an anarchist movement that has been largely ignored and marginalized, the weight of information matters. And while Zimmer treads some familiar ground here—in particular, the work of Michael Miller Topp and Jennifer Guglielmo—his mapping of immigrant anarchism goes beyond these scholars to an account that covers not only the...

The Role of Civil Wars and Elections in Inducing Political Assassinations

ABSTRACTPolitical assassinations can dramatically impact political and social dynamics, especially in times of violent political conflicts or electoral competition. The current study explores if and how specific social and political events facilitate the occurrence of political assassinations. After an examination of the logic of political assassinations, a theoretical framework is presented, which explains the role of civil wars and electoral processes as facilitators of different types of political assassinations. The theory is tested via a dataset of political assassinations worldwide between the years 1946–2013. The findings confirm that different sets of structural and contextual factors facilitate assassinations against heads of state, legislators, and leaders of opposition movements/parties. In addition, the findings illustrate the tendency of elections, especially in nonliberal settings and in polarized societies, to facilitate political assassinations rather than to calm the political environment. In contrast, civil wars have a more limited impact on the probability of assassinations, and their intensity and endurance mainly enhance the risk of assassinations of legislators.

Shakespeare, Easter 1916, and the Theatre of the Empire of Great Britain

AbstractIt is a commonplace to speak of the dramatic qualities of the Easter Rising; the staging of rebellions inevitably attracts theatrical comparisons. In the case of 1916, the dramatic aspect has arguably been overplayed. Either the focus is on amateur dramatics and improvization, with the Rising itself as a piece of theatre, which plays down the history and politics as well as the rich theatrical traditions behind the Rising, or the emphasis is on a drama of martyrdom and grand gesture, a political passion‐play with Padraig Pearse at its centre, which erases many of the conflict's complexities. That 1916 also coincided with the three‐hundredth anniversary of Shakespeare's death – events in Dublin interrupted planned celebrations there by the English playwright's Irish admirers – prompts us to reflect on an approach to history as drama – and drama as history – that does not see theatre merely in terms of spectacle or violence, a theatricality that goes beyond caricature, character assassination, pantomime, or the politics of a Punch and Judy show. This article suggests that a reading of 1916 in the context of the ongoing critical debate around Shakespeare's dramatic depictions of the Irish has more to teach us than invocations of theatricality of a more limited kind.

The Politics of Assassination in Democratic Nigerian Society: An Appraisal of Ahmed Yerima's Play, The Angel

As an effective medium of communication, playwrights use drama as a viable tool for socio-political commentaries. This paper uses Ahmed Yerima's play, The Angel, to critically x-ray the precarious nature of the political climate in Nigeria vis-a-vis the affirmation of the widely held view that in the enterprise of politics, there are neither permanent friends nor enemies but only permanent interests. Against the backdrop of politics, in broad ramifications, being dubbed a 'dirty game,' the paper explores the various degrees of sordid and heinous acts that politicians unscrupulously indulge in to outwit rivals perceived as, somewhat, formidable encumbrances. These include conspiracy, bribery, betrayal, blackmail, kidnap, and at its most political assassination amongst other forms of political violence which are all indices of threat to Nigeria's democracy and national development. The paper concludes that although politics is a sine qua non to political leadership positions in the country, it does not necessarily have to be a do or die affair or a vicious battleground for wanton bloodshed. This, therefore, can be possible and become a reality if and only when political actors truly embrace politics that is premised on ethics and integrity, and having utmost regard for human life and for the people they want to lead.

An appraisal of the state fund and empowerment programme in Nigeria

This paper presents an appraisal of the Goodluck Jonathan’s policy on Subsidy Re-investment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P). Distributive politics is one of the most important and controversial aspects of the policy chain. In the Nigerian nation, more than anything else, the greatest obstacle to the nascent democracy is the pervasive insecurity of lives and property as evidenced by the spate of armed robbery attacks, political assassinations, and poor power distribution coupled with the seeming helplessness of security agencies to handle criminal acts. The situation is worsened by the increasing number of unemployed Nigerians some of whom are ready recruits for criminal activities. The above statement from an editorial comment by a national daily in Nigeria indeed epitomizes the central focus of this paper, the aim of which is to analyze the nexus between democratic nurturing, sustenance and eventually consolidation via-a-vis the battles with one of the major ills of the Nigerian nation. Fifty-two years after independence, Nigeria still battles with one of the major fall-outs of democratic dispensation: the politics of trying to appease all sectors of the polity. This paper highlights and assesses the nature, quality and value of particular issues and matters that have dominated the Nigerian federal polity and which have created untold unpleasant experiences and pains at one point or the other since independence. The SURE-P programme is aimed at alleviating the suffering of the teaming youths in Nigeria, especially those that was affected by the oil-spillage and jobless youths. However, the research employed as a focal point, a unique data to explain the implementation of the SURE-P programme. The paper painstakingly appraises many of these issues and concludes that all stakeholders in the federal polity should thread softly, be objective, rational, altruistic and magnanimous in order not to make the existence of true federalism (social, political and economic cohesive existence of the people, peace and tranquility) a fleeting illusion and a mirage. It also focuses on critical analysis of the SURE-P programme of the immediate past President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.Keywords: Political, Democracy, Corruption, Society, Nigeria, State

The Rhetoric of Occupation

The Rhetoric of Occupation

The weight of a portrait: Caricatura and industrial violence after the Charlie Hebdo attack

‘It’s vital’, Luz told his friend the publisher Alain David in mid-February 2015, when he called him. Luz’s book Catharsis, written in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo attacks, was completed in record time. The book revolves around an impossible drawing. It is the proper name of the event called ‘attack on Charlie Hebdo, January 7, 2015’. ‘The’ drawing, ‘ le dessin’ is what Luz cannot draw and translate, cannot express and figure without re-engaging the very nature of figurability. Luz converses with ghostly visitations, and while doing so, he re-enacts a foundation of the figuration process that Georges Didi-Huberman calls the ‘dialectique du visuel’ (1992: 53–84). The image breaks down the usual distinction between watching and being watched. This powerful act of refiguring after a violent de-figuration, this artistic redemption, is a political response to a political assassination that targets a regime of visibility while raising central questions about what it means to create a portrait in the age of industrial violence. In a way, Luz’s Catharsis is not a ‘testimony’: it is an attempt to redeem a visual horizon that was torn by the attackers of 7 January.

Hamlet: plea for a measure of normality

ABSTRACTThe author first considers issues in psychoanalytic interpretations of literary characters, especially the question of treating the character as fiction (the aesthetic illusion) or as a real person. The position he adopts is to interpret Hamlet as a potential person, created by Shakespeare and an expression of Shakespeare’s actual – and intuitive – view of man.With a synopsis of the tragedy and the context of its creation as background, the author then reflects on questions concerning the play. How does Shakespeare present the characters? Is Hamlet’s madness pretended or real? Which conflicts does he handle in the course of the play? Has Oedipal dynamics a role as motivational factor in his mind?Hamlet is irrational, impulsive, emotional, inhibited, brooding, suspicious, revengeful, condemning and much more. But, in the view of the author, he is all this in a human, ‘normal’ way. There is nothing convincingly pathological or constricted in his character. ‘Un-normal’ is his intelligence and his wit. Hamlet – an intelligent, reflected, resourceful prince in late Renaissance – who has wrestle with a madhouse of political intrigues, family murders and deceitful friends.Hamlet in Shakespeare’s text – a fairly normal person in quite a mad world.

The Art of Political Murder de Francisco Goldman y el policial de no-ficción entre Estados Unidos y Guatemala

This essay analyses the use of crime fiction in Francisco Goldman’s reportage The Art of Political Murder, and the contribution this makes to political change in the recent history of Guatemala. The aim of Goldman’s investigative report was not just to find a murderer, but above all to criticize the abuses of power perpetrated with impunity by the ‘State’, and the practices put in place to eradicate dissidence. To understand how the features of detective fiction are used in journalism to support the search for truth, the essay examines the social power of different typologies of Crime Novel. Goldman’s The Art of Political Murder is read from the viewpoint of literary Testimonio , against the Guatemalan and Central-American literary background, to see how it can contribute to the current struggle for identity.

The road to Afghanada: militarization in Canadian popular culture during the war in Afghanistan

ABSTRACTThe Global War on Terror launched in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on the United States has had a series of perverse effects. At its most egregious, it has licensed the return of torture and political assassination (now known as ‘targeted killing’), as well as the widespread degradation of personal privacy. Closely tied to these effects has been a growing militarization of Western societies. In Canada this militarization has been most noticeable in public acts, such as the designation of a stretch of Canada’s busiest highway as ‘the Highway of Heroes’, and the escalating presence of the military at sporting events. It is, however, a much more widespread phenomenon. This paper explores the militarization of Canadian popular culture at two very particular sites: an ‘award-winning’ CBC Radio drama, Afghanada, and a children’s book, Road to Afghanistan. It concludes that the peacekeeping narrative, which traditionally was seen to define the Canadian military, is under sustained threat in a military landscape increasingly understood as complex and uncertain, and that there is an oddly conservative turn in the place of the feminine in this militarized Canada.

Risks to Professionals Who Work With Troubled and Alienated Parent-Child Relationships

ABSTRACTWorking with children who have irrationally rejected a parent is an emerging area of practice with unique risks. The dynamics that drive false allegations about a parent also drive accusations against professionals who participate in a process to reunify the children with that parent. This article discusses protective measures to reduce risks of false accusations, character assassination, harassment, and violence. Recommendations are offered for organizations charged with investigating complaints. Agencies that do an inadequate job of handling such complaints may harm the public by driving innovators from the field and reducing the availability of programs that have helped many families.

Lincoln’s Assassination by Edward Steers Jr., and: Lincoln and the War’s End by John C. Waugh (review)

Lincoln’s Assassination by Edward Steers Jr., and: Lincoln and the War’s End by John C. Waugh (review)

Character Assassination throughout the Ages. Edited by Martijn Icks, Eric Shiraev. 2014.

<i>Character Assassination throughout the Ages.</i> Edited by <b>Martijn Icks, Eric Shiraev</b>. 2014.

A Review of Some Ethical Issues in Nigerian Journalism Practice: Afghanistanism, Character Assassination and Junk Journalism

This study reviews some ethical issues in media practice in Nigeria: character assassination, junk journalism and Aghanistanism. The study made use of qualitative research method with the consultation of secondary sources such as books, journal articles and magazines. The study reveals among other things that Afghanistanism is the practice of concentrating on problems in distant parts of the world while ignoring controversial local issues, character assassination is damaging the reputation of an individual, while junk journalism otherwise known as sensationalism is the tendency to publish information that causes any interest or emotional reaction. Base on the study, these ethical issues are affecting journalism practice in Nigeria. The study recommends that sanctioning the defaulters of Aghanistanism, character assassination and junk journalism by NBC, NUJ, NPC will go a long way in curbing the menace of these practice among journalists. Keywords : Aghanistanism, character assassination, junk journalism, ethical issues, media practice

"For Some He is a Hero, for Others a Criminal” – Gavrilo Princip in Popular Culture a Hundred Years after the Assassination in Sarajevo

Autorica u ovom radu prikazuje kako se lik i djelo Gavrila Principa iskoristava u popularnoj kulturi usredotocujuci se na pjesme koje tematiziraju Sarajevski atentat dvaju bosanskohercegovackih bendova: Zoster i Djecak iz Vode. Kroz analizu pjesama i komentara na YouTube mreži, propituje se i istražuje uloga popularne kulture u drustvenom sjecanju.

The Crisis of Democracy in Nigeria: An Examination of Two Determining Factors

The Crisis of Democracy in Nigeria: An Examination of Two Determining Factors Temidayo David OLADIPO, Ph.D Abstract When one reflects about Nigeria’s democracy one cannot but wonder what is responsible for the inability of democracy to translate into development for the people. Why is democracy in Nigeria encountering so many troubles- insurgencies, corruption, ethnic rivalry, political assassination, among others? How come rather than solving so many social ills, it seems to be aggravating them? These are the major questions that provoked the reflections poured into this paper. Two factors are identified as being responsible for the inability of democracy to engender the promotion of the common good in Nigeria. The first is colonialism. The second is the nature of politics in Nigeria. The colonial contribution, it is argued, is that it shaped Nigeria into a country where, ultimately, politics is devoid of morality. It also made the Nigerian populace to perceive the government of the country as being alien in nature, and one that should be cheated. The nature of politics, as it is, is indicted as not creating an enabling environment for democracy to thrive. In the final analysis, what needs to be done, we conclude, is the re-examination of the principles informing governance and the relationship of the citizens with the state in order to provide a better footing for democracy in Nigeria. Full Text: PDF DOI: 10.15640/jppg.v4n1a1

Making a Movement

Making a Movement Marcia Chatelain (bio) When does a moment become a movement? Is it in when the wails of grief over a person gunned down by police or a neighborhood vigilante become a rallying cry for change? Is it when a three-word slogan or sixteen-character hashtag deftly represents the fight to dismantle racial injustice, to uproot economic inequality, and to end state violence? Or does the transformation begin when organizers appear on cable news, are evoked by presidential candidates, or are welcomed to the White House? Since the late summer of 2014, when police officer Darren Wilson killed teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, the world has witnessed the evolution of an unprecedented movement. At every moment of this process, this movement has elicited a number of questions and debates about social change in the twenty-first century. The movement that calls itself Black Lives Matter has provided new models of a freedom struggle—from what leaders look like to what direct action requires to how the seeds of a struggle are planted in ground fertilized by social media. As a historian of African American people in the twentieth century and an admirer of Black Lives Matter, I’m often asked if I think that this movement “measures up” to the so-called Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. This line of inquiry—whether it comes from a place of wonder or is wrapped in a tone of dismissiveness—reveals why accessible scholarship on social movements is desperately needed. Although recent monographs on black freedom movements have used nuance and texture to dispute a sanitized, Hollywood version of the 1950s and 1960s, it is still common to hear misunderstandings of Civil Rights and how movements coalesce and define themselves. These constant mischaracterizations imperil rich storytelling and the process of building a truly democratic state. So, I relish the opportunity to participate in this special issue devoted to the critical work of social movements and to provide a few reflections on a momentous movement. We are not without texts that allow us to answer questions about the current activism landscape, from Barbara Ransby’s groundbreaking biography of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee founder Ella Baker to Danielle Maguire’s masterful reconsideration of civil rights as a resistance movement against the sexual exploitation of black women. Recent scholarship that has centered women and gender analysis in the history of civil rights has provided an important warning call to activists about the way sexism can undermine the most principled of movements. Women’s and gender studies gives us the critical frames for scholars to demand an accounting for the women seen and not heard in movement leadership. These intellectual forces have sparked creative writers, historians, and documentarians to capture the stories of activists who struggled with the seemingly disparate aims of feminism and anti-racism. The tensions that sparked the introduction of the “woman question” into the mid twentieth century race moment have not disappeared, but the ability to articulate an intersectional justice movement is due, in part, to the rewriting of the master narrative of great men leading great movements. Similarly, the thoughtful inclusion of violence against transgendered women within the Black Lives Matter platform highlights just how unbound today’s activists are by earlier movements’ dependence on only welcoming bodies that comply with normative, and even heroic, standards. The brilliance of Black Lives Matter is its resistance from the character assassination of the victims of state violence and their insistence that black lives are substantive and valuable. In a piece for The Feminist Wire, movement co-creator Alicia Garza wrote: Black Lives Matter…goes beyond the narrow nationalism that can be prevalent within some Black communities, which merely call on Black people to love Black, live Black and buy Black, keeping straight cis Black men in the front of the movement while our sisters, queer and trans and disabled folk take up roles in the background or not at all. Black Lives Matter affirms the lives of Black queer and trans folks, disabled folks, Black-undocumented folks, folks with records, women and all Black lives along the gender spectrum. It centers those that have been marginalized within Black liberation...

Postcolonial Interpretation on Films Setting in the Japanese Colonial Period : Analyzing My Way and Assassination by Using Discourse of Frantz Fanon

Postcolonial Interpretation on Films Setting in the Japanese Colonial Period : Analyzing My Way and Assassination by Using Discourse of Frantz Fanon