Political Awakening Research Articles

А. БАЙТҰРСЫНҰЛЫ ЖӘНЕ «ҚАЗАҚ» ГАЗЕТІНІҢ МАЗМҰНЫ ЖАЙЛЫ

This article examines the contribution of Akhmet Baitursynuly to the development of Kazakh journalism and the role of the «Қазақ» newspaper in the social and political life of Kazakhstan at the beginning of the 20th century. A. Baitursynuly actively used journalism to awaken the national self-awareness of the Kazakh people, modernize their culture and carry out social reforms. He intended to achieve these goals by creating and managing the Kazakh newspaper. The article analyzes the main topics raised in the «Қазақ» newspaper, in particular, issues of national identity, cultural revival, political awakening of the Kazakh people, social reforms. The newspaper's articles widely discuss current problems of Kazakh society, the social status and culture of the people. The editorial policy of A. Baitursynuly and his approach to journalism as a means of education and social mobilization are analyzed. The role of the «Қазақ» newspaper as a platform for expressing and strengthening Kazakh national identity, as well as its importance in educating and informing Kazakh society, is emphasized. The study shows the influence of the editorial activities of Akhmet Baitursynuly on the development of public opinion and political activity in Kazakhstan. The article examines in detail how Baitursynuly supervised the content of the newspaper and his contribution to the spiritual and cultural development of Kazakh society.

Siphiwe Mpye: Black Empowerment Through the Eyes of an Earnest Editor

ABSTRACT This article traces the career of journalist Siphiwe Mpye, as a public intellectual and the editor of two South African men’s magazines. Mpye edited BL!NK in 2004, a publication started with funding from the National Empowerment Fund and intended to provide progressive reading material for a post-apartheid generation of black men. It was a publication intended to entertain but also uplift through cultures of literacy focused on representing modes of masculine citizenship. In 2020 Mpye returned to the men’s press with the online publication notedman.com, this time a literary response to an even more “woke” articulation of masculine subjectivities. His interest in “positive masculinity” is contrasted with a career marked by forthright, albeit hopeful, realism. Through a content analysis of Mpye’s career, writing and the two publications he edited, one gains some understanding of how black empowerment is narrated in the men’s press, a stable notorious for its neoliberal politics and bourgie interest in luxury but used by Mpye to cultivate Left-leaning but inclusive digital literacies. The emphasis is less on Black Economic Empowerment as a governmental initiative and more on black empowerment as something achieved spontaneously but also deliberately from “below”. How do men in media addressing a cis-hetero audience, define, enact and problematise “empowerment”, if at all? Telling this story is important because it demonstrates the awakening conscience of a nation briefly lulled into patient complacency by a narcotic faith in democracy and its long-term bedfellow, capitalism. Whether this faith was misplaced is not the point; rather, the discursive analysis of specifically the digital platform notedman.com in this article is designed to show how middle-class masculinities can negotiate political awakening, even online, with honesty and a sense of responsibility.

From other-representation to self-representation: exploring identity and activism in historical news media writing

This study addresses a significant gap in our understanding of self-representation in historical news media reporting. It focusses on one significant historical publication: the first nationally distributed Indigenous Australian newspaper written and edited by First Nations people – The Australian Abo Call: The Voice of the Aborigines (hereafter The AAC). The AAC was published in six editions in 1938, the year of the 150th anniversary of invasion of the continent now known as Australia. The corpus consists of all (non-fiction) articles from all six editions of this newspaper, which was founded, edited and largely written by Yorta Yorta man J.T. (Jack) Patten. As such, the study offers a synchronic ‘snapshot’ of a particular moment in Australian history. The study uses corpus-assisted discourse analysis to explore the linguistic construction of self-representation – how First Nations people write about themselves and the communities they represent. I proceed from inductively identifying group-based identity labels to categorising these labels in terms of their positionality in relation to ‘self’ and ‘other’. Using concordances, the study also qualitatively examines these identity labels through transitivity analysis. The results suggest that The AAC was a site of political awakening directed at both Indigenous and white Australians, calling on the former to mobilise, on the latter to listen, and on both to act. The analysis also shows that this activism sits very much within the dominant Western/Colonial frame, reflecting the historical settler-colonial context of the period in which this newspaper was published. The study has broader implications for corpus-assisted discourse analysis, by indicating the insights we gain by shifting our gaze away from ‘other’-representation in mainstream newspapers towards ‘self’-representation in community-led publications.

"Denial of Equality of Opportunity Is Immoral": The Black Queer Radical Feminism of Ernestine Eckstein

Abstract: This article examines the African American queer radical feminist activist, Ernestine Eckstein, a daughter of the South born in the urban cultural center of Memphis, Tennessee and raised in the Midwest in South Bend, Indiana. This work explores the numerous barriers Eckstein faced due to her multiple intersecting identities. Drawing on oral history, archival records, magazine articles, and newspaper articles, as well as secondary literature, this work contributes to and enhances our understanding of Black and queer histories. I investigate the radical tools of resistance Eckstein employed to challenge systems of oppression constructed by white supremacy including racism, sexism, and misogynoir. Spanning a short historical era, from the mid-to-late 20th century, I explore Eckstein's political awakening and crucial role in the fight against sexual and racial discrimination. Centering Eckstein's life and activism expands ideas and understandings of Black womanhood and highlights discrimination within African American and gay and lesbian communities. In this article I center Eckstein as a fighter for equality in her own narrative rather than at the margins of queer white history and heteronormative Black women's history.

In His Own Words: Reflections on a Scholarly Career with Rene Lemarchand

What is the role of scholars in envisioning the continent and bearing witness to historic events? This paper is based on an interview with Professor Rene Lemarchand, renowned scholar of the former Belgian colonies of the African Great Lakes. His earliest book Political Awakening in the Belgian Congo is based on fieldwork conducted in 1960 as the country was undergoing decolonization and describes the political crises of early independence. In the 1970s, he explored the concept of clientelism and role of ethnicity in Central Africa. As events unfolded in Burundi and Rwanda, Lemarchand became an expert on genocide. His career an Africanist has been devoted to understanding political violence in Central Africa while envisioning a better future for its people. The piece will explore reflections not only on his long career, but also its contribution to our understanding of the history of ethnic violence and genocide in the Great Lakes and beyond.

Anticolonial Audiences and Revolutionary Theater in the Vietnamese Maquis

A common theme conspicuously emerges from the few translated and published narratives of Vietnamese who participated in resistance against French colonialism in the 1950s. These narratives tend to identify moments of being an audience member to theater as having significant roles in these individuals’ political awakening and desire to sacrifice themselves for anticolonial struggle. Drawing on these narratives, this essay shows how some audience members engage in an empowering kind of political theorizing that elicits cross-cultural revelation, is progressive, generates feelings of solidarity, and inspires them to engage in political action. In showing how being an audience member can lead to revolutionary action, these cases exceed the expectations of theorists of revolutionary theater such as Bertolt Brecht and Augusto Boal. They also offer a direct refutation of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s famous claim that being an audience member at a theatrical performance is politically and morally enervating.

Regionalism in the Life of Grigorii Gurkin

The problem of the disintegration of our country has arisen several times: the first time — as the disintegration of the Russian Empire, the second time — as the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Since the situation of disintegration has been consistently repeated, this process cannot be regarded as accidental. Among its causes is the ideology of regionalism. It emerged in the 19th century as a response to the colonial policy of the centre towards the outlying territories. Regionalism was inseparably linked to the life of Grigory Ivanovich Gurkin (1870–1937), the first painter of the Altai landscape, having affected him three times. For the first time, at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, regionalism helped a representative of the minority from the Altai to become a professional artist. The work of the spiritual mission in the Altai, with all its peculiarity, was objectively the embodiment of regionalists’ dream about elementary education of national minorities. Gurkin’s painstaking mastering of literacy and icon painting, allowed him not only to develop creative abilities, but also to get acquainted through A. V. Anokhin with the leader of the Siberian regionalists G. N. Potanin. Friendship with Potanin, Anohin, and other representatives of the Siberian regionalism, promoted political awakening of the Altai landscape painter. After October events of 1917, Gurkin turned from assimilation of ideas of regionalism to their direct realization in political activity. For the third time, the ideas of regionalism were actualized at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries, when the national elite of the Altai Republic transformed Gurkin into a key figure of ethnic solidarity.

Walking, the body, and the pandemic: the public value of walking art in China

ABSTRACT In December 2022, the dynamic zero-COVID control policy came to an end, marking the conclusion of a three-year pandemic that affected 1.4 billion Chinese people. The pandemic and related policies created a unique, temporary, and historic social ecosystem where walking became more crucial than ever before. The pandemic not only severely restricted people’s movement in public spaces but also exposed the longstanding contradictions between human bodies, modern mobility, and urban space. Over the three years of the pandemic, walking became an aesthetic survival attempt by Chinese people to cope with their limited freedoms under the pandemic. As the pandemic stagnated and worsened over time, walking-dominant activities gradually became a widespread social phenomenon that encouraged urban residents to participate in rebuilding society across various fields such as politics, art, nature, etc. The development of walking as an artistic form during this period represents a new aesthetic strategy and political awakening while reflecting humans’ need to reconnect with land, social space, and their own bodies. This paper reviews how walking art has evolved historically through three periods – before, during, and after the pandemic – aiming to highlight both the public value of walking art and challenges within China’s social ecosystem.

Political Awakening in Kashmir through Urdu Newspapers from 1924-1975: A historical Study

This paper is intended to bring on limelight the role of some prominent political organizations in Jammu and Kashmir and their internal political development within the state. The paper is an attempt to look objectively into the role of such organizations in raising political awareness among Kashmiri masses through a variety of means and tools in the shape of newspapers, especially Urdu newspapers, which were crucial in raising political consciousness. In this context this paper will make a modest attempt to illuminate the press’s development from its beginnings and their contribution to the national awakening of Kashmir's masses. As we saw how the press encountered a number of challenges at the national level under colonial control, the state press likewise encountered a lot of challenges during this time and was opposed by the state government on every level. The Punjabi newspapers, on the other hand, were essential in raising the voice of Kashmir during early phase of the 20th century, which in turn helped the Kashmiri masses become more politically aware. Additionally, this paper would make a small attempt to investigate how these newspapers unite people socio-culturally and politically. There are large number of newspapers which cover wide-ranging issues so for as the Kashmir issue is concerned. There were a lot of newspapers published in Urdu, but most of them only lasted for about six months once they displayed their political leanings, which the government forbade.

“Moist, Living”: The Hydro-Logics of Red Tory

ABSTRACT In this essay, I offer a hydro-logical account of Red Tory (2019) and its critique of individualism’s contemporary capitalist forms. Drawing on the queer posthumanism of Astrida Neimanis, and the idea that we are all “bodies of water,” I examine the novel as a world comprising sexual, chemical, and political flows and the channels that organize them: pipes, reservoirs, Grindr, gay sex, metaphors, and, finally, MMT, the mysterious new drug referred to as the novel’s radical, communist “infrastructure.” MMT structures the psycho-sexual-political conversion of the novel’s protagonist, Tom, requiring him to conceive of embodiment not as a solitary, extractive activity but as sensuously inter-dependent, thus reconceiving the body as a dependence on infrastructure, in Judith Butler’s formulation. This sense of collectivity disavows the individualist metaphysics of neoliberal capitalism. However, this disavowal is not a smooth process. I argue that Tom’s political awakening involves a more specific concern about the heterogeneity of flows, and that his learning to embrace the failure of flows to dissolve into one another is central to the novel’s politics. Immiscibility makes far too visible our inter-dependence – and, in organizing the antagonistic interaction of flows, serves as Red Tory’s most insurgent infrastructure.

Nawab Bahadur Yar Jang: A Catalyst in the Formation of Pakistan

Nawab Bahadur Yar Jang was a prominent leader in the freedom movement in the State of Hyderabad, playing a significant role in the socio-political activities of his time. He is remembered for his inspiring speeches, delivered with fiery oratory skills in Urdu, that captured the attention of millions of people at the local and national level. During his 39 years of service to the nation from 1905–1944, he formed socio-political organizations to safeguard the interests of his community, including the State Muslim League, which protected the political rights of Muslims in the state of Hyderabad. Jang not only projected the demands of Muslims through this organization, but also played a pivotal role in carrying the message of the Muslim League to other states. Jang's dynamic role in generating political awakening and uniting the States Muslims under the platform of the Muslim League was crucial in cultivating social and political consciousness, which paved the way for the creation of Pakistan. This paper focuses on his invaluable services in cultivating the social and political consciousness of States Muslims, bringing success to the Muslim League in the Northwest Front. As far as the methodology of the present study is concerned, it is based on quantitative historical-descriptive approach. Various sources have been consulted for the present study including primary and secondary sources.

Looking for Alicia: The Unfinished Life of an Argentinian Rebel

Looking for Alicia: The Unfinished Life of an Argentinian Rebel

Walk with Me: A Biography of Fannie Lou Hamer by Kate Clifford Larson

Reviewed by: Walk with Me: A Biography of Fannie Lou Hamer by Kate Clifford Larson Leigh Ann Wheeler Walk with Me: A Biography of Fannie Lou Hamer. By Kate Clifford Larson. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021. Pp. viii, 322. $27.95, ISBN 978-0-19-009684-7.) More than forty years after it ended, Fannie Lou Hamer’s remarkable life is being rediscovered by scholars and filmmakers. Kate Clifford Larson’s Walk with Me: A Biography of Fannie Lou Hamer joins this wave of recent biographical attention to the inimitable civil rights leader, songstress, and maker of what fellow activist John Lewis called “good trouble.” The book [End Page 185] opens with Hamer’s inauspicious beginnings as the twentieth child of tenant farmers in order to highlight the unlikelihood of her later rise to local and national prominence. But even as Larson chronicles Hamer’s improbable trajectory, she emphasizes Hamer’s ordinariness as one of countless women whose grassroots organizing and everyday leadership made the civil rights movement in Mississippi. Hamer’s mother, Ella Townsend, set an example for her daughter that prioritized faith in God, pride and self-respect, storytelling and education, and protection of her family—by gun if necessary. But like so many Black children in the rural South, Hamer came up poor and left elementary school for field work. And like so many Black women in the rural South, Hamer found that she had been sterilized without her consent after seeking gyneco-logical care. It was to this experience—her “Mississippi appendectomy”—that Larson traces Hamer’s enraged political awakening, which Hamer enacted first through working with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, in the 1950s, and later with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Council of Federated Organizations (p. 48). Threats of violence, acts of actual violence, and injuries resulting from violence shadowed the rest of Hamer’s life. The brutal beatings she endured after being arrested for attempting to integrate a segregated bus depot in Winona, Mississippi, left her emotionally scarred and physically maimed but more determined than ever. Over and over again, she told her story, sharing excruciating details with the world when she testified on behalf of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in 1964. Larson skillfully explains the complex political maneuverings that under-cut the MFDP in 1964 but shows how early failure laid a foundation for greater success in 1968, ultimately feeding into a major party realignment that she alternately celebrates and laments. Even as the Democratic Party transformed from a “status-quo-oriented political machine into a multiracial and progressive voter movement”—a development that led to the election of a Black president and vice president in the twenty-first century—the Republican Party adopted a surprisingly durable “southern strategy” rooted in white fear of civil rights and Black voters that continues to shape conservative politics today (pp. 4, 223). Feminism and concerns about gender as it intersected with race also inspired Hamer’s activism. Aware that Black men faced greater and more certain violence, Hamer and other Black women often assumed positions of leadership in order to protect their men. Hamer also argued for gender equality at the DNC and extended that effort by joining with other women’s rights advocates to found the National Women’s Political Caucus in 1971. Hamer did not embrace all aspects of the day’s feminist agenda, however, and she made no secret of her opposition to birth control and abortion. Larson’s is not simply a cradle-to-grave treatment of Hamer’s life; it situates Hamer’s story in context, providing the reader with a rich understanding of relevant local and national events—including the impact of New Deal policies on Black tenant farmers in Mississippi and the effects of World War II [End Page 186] service on returning veterans—as well as events more directly related to civil rights. Walk with Me concludes on notes of despair but also hope. Hamer “waged a battle that cost her almost everything,” Larson admits, including “her health and personal relationships” (p. 4). On the upside, Hamer’s life shows us that...

Review: Chinatown Film Culture: The Appearance of Cinema in San Francisco’s Chinese Neighborhood, by Kim K. Fahlstedt

Review: <i>Chinatown Film Culture: The Appearance of Cinema in San Francisco’s Chinese Neighborhood</i>, by Kim K. Fahlstedt

Review of “Koreatown, Los Angeles: Immigration, Race, and the American Dream”

Koreatown in Los Angeles now attracts locals and tourists to experience unique ethnic cultural experiences from food to nightlife in a section of the global L.A., where diverse cultures are celebrated and appreciated. Yet, for Koreans both in the United States and in South Korea, Koreatown in LA is a symbol of Korean America far from their homeland, reflecting their successes and struggles as a racialized minority group in urban United States. In fact, the past memories of urban unrest and Black-Korean conflicts of the 1990s are still alive and have lingered in their minds, resonating collective memories of painful loss and ruins, where their American Dream was destroyed overnight. In Koreatown, Los Angeles, Lee introduces how Koreatown in LA has evolved by engaging with both local and global contexts across the Pacific Rim from the 1960s to the current era, including the urban riots in the 1960s and ‘70s, the 1965 Immigration Act, white flight, disinvestment in inner-cities, spatial segregation of Black urbanites, globalization, and more recent foreign investments since the late 1990s. Past research on Koreatown and Korean American communities in the United States can be broken down into two main categories: (1) ethnic enclave economy debates from the 1970s to 1990s and (2) Black-Korean conflicts of the 1980s and ‘90s, such as the LA riots and Black boycotts against Korean merchants, and its consequent political awakening of Korean Americans. Lee uniquely and interestingly marinates the two major research agendas in Korean American studies and reminds and reconnects readers of the recent past of the pain and loss that have often been overshadowed by more recent redevelopment of the space, characterized by the construction of luxurious high-rise buildings. Impressively, the author not only emphasizes local contexts in the United States but also shows the deep understanding of transnational influences in overseas Korean communities, particularly economic structural changes in South Korea and foreign investment after the Asian financial crisis of 1997.

Humanity in Purananooru

The Purananooru Thokai is unrivaled among the Tamil treasures compiled and preserved by ancient Tamil scholars. It describes the system of rule of the kings of the Sangam age. It makes us aware of the history and culture of the ancient Tamils. The Purananuru helps us to realize the glories of public life. A closer look helps us to understand the position of the Tamils of the time in the fields of political education, ethics, science, literature, music, and fine arts. The Purananooru beautifully highlights the excellence of the Tamils of that time in qualities such as love, grace, friendship, valour, honour, and charitableness. This book highlights the greatness of Kadayezhu Vallals, poets, crowned kings, leaders of small lands, petty chiefs, poets, brave people, etc. Many songs refer to eighteen Chera kings, thirteen Chola kings, and twelve Pandya kings. The Purananooru mentions the good social life of the Tamils, political awakening, hospitality, high morality, firm principles, wearing mangal sutra, installing the middle stone, fasting during widowhood, the shortening of the meal, the burial of the dead in the thali (pot), and the climbing of the funeral pyre of the husband.

From Australia to Italy and Palestine

From Australia to Italy and Palestine

Gender and Nationalism: Political Awakening of Muslim Women of the Subcontinent in the 20th Century

This paper explores the conflicting relationship between feminism and nationalism by probing into the perception which views women as merely symbols of biological repository of a nation. This formulation is temporarily suspended during nationalist struggles, where women’s support was needed to show unity of identity driven by common objectives. Once independence was achieved, women were expected to stop being comrades in the nationalist struggle and return to being biological and ideological repositories of the nation itself. The political struggles of the Muslim women in the pre and post-independence Pakistan have been used as a case in point. The 20th century social reform movement, the Pakistan Movement and post-independence political struggles, till the end of the century, reflect how a masculine nation-state attempts to limit women’s political and legal rights: the same nation-state that was born as a result of the struggles of women alongside their men.

From Commissionerate to Governor Province, the Role of Muslim League and Congress in the Political Reform Movement of NWFP in British India

This article explains the role of the Muslim League and Congress in the struggle of the frontier people for the introduction of reforms in NWFP. The time span of the study i-e the era discussed in the article is mainly from 1901, when the Commissioner Province of NWFP was established, to 1931 when it was granted the status of Governor Province. The article discusses the general outlook of the province, the attitude of colonial masters, the political awakening of the people, the struggle of the Muslim League and Congress in demanding introduction of reforms for the province and finally the proceedings of the Round Table Conferences. The conclusion of the article is that the British agreed to the introduction of reforms because the Indian Political leaders and masses were unanimous in their demand for reforms in NWFP.

Hizballah: Between Iran and Lebanon

Hizballah: Between Iran and Lebanon