Series Of Revolts Research Articles

The politics of public land dispossession in Egypt: 1975–2011 and beyond

AbstractThis article examines changes in the allocation of urban land in Egypt between 1975–2011 with the rise and incorporation of state authoritarianism and neoliberal economics in what I call ‘authoritarian neoliberalism’. Authoritarian neoliberalism in Egypt transferred ownership of urban lands from public wealth to an affluent class of local and foreign capitalists – often in a non-transparent fashion. The article focuses on the government's legally sanctioned practices of subsidisations, privatisations and evictions as they relate to what I call, inspired by David Harvey's formulation, the accumulation of wealth by dispossession. Dispossession of public urban land, I maintain, generated widespread resentment that played a vital, but inadequately discussed, role in the series of revolts that culminated in the 2011 uprising in Egypt. Social tensions engendered in this authoritarian neoliberal regime, I argue, endure under the administration of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who continues to transfer public urban lands, from lower to higher socioeconomic classes, at an even faster pace than his predecessor.

ВОССТАНИЯ РАБОВ-МУСУЛЬМАН И КРИСТАЛЛИЗАЦИЯ ГРАЖДАНСКОГО ПЛЮРАЛИЗМА В БРАЗИЛИИ

The article considers a series of revolts and rebel movements of black slaves in Brazil during the first third of the 19th century. The role of the Muslim community in the abolitionist processes of the largest South American state is highlighted. The author explores the process of formation of a multi-ethnic and multi-religious civil society in Brazil as a result of the revolutionary activity of enslaved African immigrants. A panoramic view of the search by the black population for new dimensions of identity and cultural genealogy of Afro-Brazilian religious practices is given.

창군기 한국군 정훈의 도입 과정과 중국국민당 정공의 변용

The U.S. Military Government launched the ‘Korean Constabulary,’ which became the foundation for the Korean(South Korean) Army. It was supposed to maintain political neutrality. The political situation of recently liberated Korea was murky at best at the time, so the soldiers were not to disclose their political aspirations or preference, and also not to use the military for their own political agendas. But ironically, this ‘political neutrality principle’ turned out to be what eventually allowed elements from the South Korean Labor party to slip into military ranks. Increased ideological frictions amongst officers started to appear in the form of minor commotions, or incidents of soldiers crossing the border to go over to North Korea. Ultimately, even a series of revolts (usually called as the “Yeosoo-Sunchun Rebellion”) began to break out.BR In response to such incidents, Minister of National Defense Lee Beom-seok ordered the installation of a ‘Troop Infornation&Education’ system, based upon his own experiences with the political warfare of the Kuomintang of China. This Chinese “Jeong-gong” system was from the Party’s own Leninist commissar legacy, and was designed to apply Fascist methods in army operations, for Anti-Communist purposes. Lee also inserted ‘Korea National Youth Corps’ agents -named after the Chinese training specialists- inside the units’ TI&E bodies, in order to train Korean troops just as the Kuomuntang did with their own soldiers.BR But unlike the Chinese situation, the Korean political arena was composed of multiple parties and there was a notion of the aforementioned ‘political neutrality.’ So the Korean army’s TI&E had to be modified from the Chinese model before being applied to the Korean situation. Instead of building Party-controlled troops, the Korean system developed an administrative structure and through that enforced ideological conditioning of the soldiers. This kind of approach to troops orientation has so far been understood as a Fascist approach to the matter, but this seems like an issue that would have to be evaluated not only in terms of its implications in the Cold-war and U.S. interests and all, but also in terms of how the South Korean regime and society dealt with the constant possibility of civil disturbances in a ‘Northeast Asian way.’ Some might say it was not an ineffective methodology.

From Byzantine to Islamic Egypt: Religion, Identity and Politics after the Arab Conquest by Maged S. A. Mikhail

Reviewed by: From Byzantine to Islamic Egypt: Religion, Identity and Politics after the Arab Conquest by Maged S. A. Mikhail Brian Welter From Byzantine to Islamic Egypt: Religion, Identity and Politics after the Arab Conquest, by Maged S. A. Mikhail, 2016. London/New York: I.B. Taurus. 448 pp., £ 21.99. ISNB: 978-1-78453-481-3 (pbk) California State University professor Maged Mikhail attempts more than simply dismissing the centuries-old lie that seventh-century Islamic armies converted Christian North Africa by the sword. He characterises the Arab Islamic takeover of Egyptian society as slow and piecemeal, taking centuries. The old Byzantine order stayed surprisingly long in many areas, such as with the use of the Diocletian calendar well into the Islamic period. The implication seems to be that Muslim rulers had relatively limited reach into the mostly Christian villages for decades and even centuries. In From Byzantine to Islamic Egypt, Egypt's Christians are portrayed as surprisingly supportive of their rulers, whether Greek-Byzantine or Arab-Islamic. Theological disputes between pro- and anti-Chalcedonian theological traditions in the decades leading up to the Islamic conquest had not destroyed loyalty to Constantinople. The Christians maintained the same attitude towards the new sovereign: whether Christian or Muslim, rulers received their mandate from God. Mikhail points out that this belief "was predicated upon the influence of the New Testament Scriptures, which enabled the Christians of the pre-Constantinian era and those living under Sasanian rule to serve as faithful subjects to non-Christian emperors" (180). The author thus concludes: "Transitioning from Byzantine to Islamic rule did not require the majority of Christians (and presumably Jews) in Egypt to make a radical adjustment to their political ideology" (181). Ample evidence is provided for those still stuck in previous assumptions of Islamic violence. The melding of political power and God's will impacted church life, with the caliph soon taking on the role of choosing the Coptic patriarch. This latter, in turn, claimed authority "from God and the caliph" (185). This did not differ so terribly from imperial Germany or the Sun King's France, where the monarch appointed church leaders. Egypt's hierarchy, similar to those in Europe, did not always accept such meddling, and [End Page 235] found passive ways around it. This is where the author's explicit naming of important individuals and historical accounts to illustrate his arguments becomes helpful. Each case had its own unique characteristics. Whether at the Christian-Muslim or church-state level, relationships were not frozen. The author avoids the kinds of sweeping generalisations that have led to the western "spreading Islam by the sword" view of the Arab conquests of North Africa and the Near East. Islamic persecution of Christians was not the norm. Government-sponsored violence tended to be directed towards both Christians and Muslims. This is reflected in a series of revolts in which the old Coptic population and the newer Arab Muslims fought authority side-by-side. Mikhail argues that these rebellions were not last-ditch attempts by the Christians to regain their country. They were mostly tax-related, affecting farmers of both religions. "Eighth- and ninth-century insurrections," the author claims, "are best interpreted within their socio-political environment without dwelling on the religious or 'ethnic' affiliation of the rioters" (119). The author's wider social science approach frees us from a religious-only view of events which would pit Muslim against Christian. Living in an Islamic state did greatly influence the church, including ecclesiastical government at the highest levels. Perhaps because Islamic government officials wanted only one person to deal with as representative of the Christians, the Coptic patriarch grew in authority by the ninth and later centuries, even as he moved from Alexandria, the ancient seat, to Cairo. Egypt's growing Islamic identity led to greater Christian unity, the author shows. Mikhail never buys the Coptic self-image as the long-suffering victim, emphasising that these Christians had also had good relations with the Byzantine emperors, and had not welcomed the conquering Islamic armies as liberators, as was argued in the eleventh century and after. In fact, Mikhail's linguistic and papyrological knowledge goes a long way here...

Betriebliche Selbstverwaltung zwischen den Blöcken – und danach? Das jugoslawische Modell in Rückschau und Perspektive

AbstractThe article reconsiders the series of revolts that broke out in the Albanian provinces in 1910, 1911 and 1912 in paying attention to their nature, the place and position of the various actors involved as well as to the processes of repression and negotiation. Because of the changing context, of the harsh repression of summer 1910 and of the violent control of the electoral campaign of spring 1912, the uprisings, which were reactive, turned against the military and fiscal reforms, became active and multifaceted and led by different kinds of actors (local chiefs, former deputies opposed to the CUP, militaries, etc.). Their Albanian or pan-Albanian dimension was part of the contemporary debate and was a stake for their treatment.

THE REVOLT OF THE GENERAL KASSIANOS IN MESOTHYNIA (1306)

The first decade of the fourteenth century was a period of political, military and financial crisis in Byzantium. The inability of the government of Andronikos II Palaiologos (1282-1328) to resist the expansion of the Turcoman principalities caused the dissatisfaction of the Anatolian soldiers and resulted in a series of revolts and conspiracies. One of these was the revolt of Kassianos in Mesothynia in 1306. The analysis of this local rebellion contributes to the better understanding of the military developments in Asia Minor in the first decade of the fourteenth century.

Retour sur les « révoltes albanaises » de l’après 1908 / Reconsidering the « Albanian revolts » of the post 1908 period

Abstract The article reconsiders the series of revolts that broke out in the Albanian provinces in 1910, 1911 and 1912 in paying attention to their nature, the place and position of the various actors involved as well as to the processes of repression and negotiation. Because of the changing context, of the harsh repression of summer 1910 and of the violent control of the electoral campaign of spring 1912, the uprisings, which were reactive, turned against the military and fiscal reforms, became active and multifaceted and led by different kinds of actors (local chiefs, former deputies opposed to the CUP, militaries, etc.). Their Albanian or pan-Albanian dimension was part of the contemporary debate and was a stake for their treatment.

Paweł Machcewicz . Rebellious Satellite: Poland 1956 . Translated by Maya Latynski . (Cold War International History Project Series.) Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center. 2009. Pp. xx, 280. $55.00.

In Eastern Europe the year 1956 has been most often associated with the Hungarian Revolution that was brutally suppressed by the Soviet Union. Paweł Machcewicz, one of the leading Polish historians of the younger generation, tells us a less‐well‐known story: that of a powerful mass movement against Stalinism in Poland in 1956. The author argues that the Polish revolt (or rather a series of revolts, including a bloody one in Poznań in June 1956) was no less dramatic and dynamic than the Hungarian one. The end of the movement, however, was strikingly different: instead of Soviet invasion, the upheaval culminated in bringing to power a Polish national communist, Władysław Gomułka, who had been purged from the party during the Stalinist era for his alleged “nationalist deviation.” Supported by the majority of Polish society in 1956, Gomułka initiated enduring changes within the Polish communist system. Machcewicz seeks to challenge the dominant historiography of 1956, which focuses on political elites, by writing a history “from the bottom” with an eye on “how social movements influence ‘high’ politics during a major national crisis” (p. 3). Relying on newly accessible documents of the Polish secret police, Machcewicz focuses on ordinary Poles—workers, peasants, professionals, and students—who united against repressive policies and argued for fundamental human freedoms, social justice, and national independence. In this impressively detailed narrative, supported by colorful examples of popular action, Machcewicz leads us through the main landmarks of the Polish rebellion: the beginning of popular turmoil and public debate following Nikita Khrushchev's Secret Speech in February; the widespread emotional reactions to the sudden death of Polish Stalinist leader Bolesław Bierut, while attending the Twentieth Party Congress in Moscow; the workers' uprising in the city of Poznań in June that was suppressed by the Polish army and militia; the mass demonstrations and rallies in support of Gomułka's “Polish road to socialism” in October; and, finally, the slightly more open elections of January 1957, which allowed Gomułka to consolidate power, crack down on liberties won during October, and establish a communist system that would be relatively stable for another decade.

The New North African Syndrome: A Fanonian Commemoration

What better way to celebrate, commemorate, critically reflect on, and think through Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth fifty years after its publication with a new North African syndrome: Revolution—or at least a series of revolts that continue to rock regimes across North Africa and the region. Fanon begins The Wretched writing of decolonization as a program of complete disorder, an overturning of order—often against the odds—willed from the bottom up. Without time or space for a transition, there is instead an absolute replacement of one “species” of humanity by another. In periods of revolution, like the one we are experiencing today, such absolutes appear quite normal. Indeed, radical change becomes the “new normal” and the idea that revolutionary change is impossible is simply the rantings and ravings of the conservatives and reactionaries of the ancient regime. Too long buried under the weight of the tomes of academic discourse, Fanon has been resuscitated by the new dawn of North African revolutions. To celebrate Fanon, the revolutionary, all of a sudden seems contemporary and pertinent, while the musings of the critics who consigned him to postcolonial oblivion seem out of touch. But rather than continuing the painstaking work of exhuming Fanon from the postcolonial burial site, let us turn a commemoration of Fanon into an event. Indeed, why assume that a commemoration of Fanon after fifty years is not critical? Moreover why begin a contemporary engagement with Fanon assuming a priori the limits of his thought? Indeed, where to begin is a philosophic question. It is a question of “intention” as Edward Said puts it in one of his most radical and Vicoian works. Beginnings are revolutionary, implying return and repetition and, following Said, “a sort of historical dialectic that changes its character and meaning.” Vico, Said argues “said that the word human comes from root to bury” suggesting that “his humanistic philosophy” contained “elements of its own negation.”

Tosh, Why History Matters

In his fascinating book on the place of history in modem society, John Tosh, a social historian at Roehampton University in the United Kingdom, begins with the 2003 invasion of lraq. Blithely ignorant of the historical forces and precedent in that region, Anglo-American citizens later would be surprised by Iraq's turmoil in the months and years that followed an apparently easy conquest. Other than the 1991 Gulf War, few had any inkling of past interventions or knowledge that British troops had fought their way to Baghdad during the First World War and, in the process of establishing its mandate, took heavy casualties in a series of revolts and insurgencies. The legacy to the modem world was an artificial state with Kurdish and Shiite majorities controlled by a Sunni Islam minority, multiple coups against dictatorial governments, and the ultimate dictator in Saddam Hussein. In Tosh' s view, those watching speeches by Tony Blair and George W. Bush were generally unaware of the narrative of Iraqi history. Without this perspective, citizens of these democracies were unable to participate rationally in the political debate. What makes Tosh's message especially interesting is that he places much of the blame for the uninformed citizen squarely on the backs of modem historians who "are strangely reluctant to adopt the role of expert" in ongoing political debates.

Corporatism, Neoliberalism, and the Failed Revolt of Big Business: Lessons from the Case of IEDI

Like many other Latin American business communities, Brazilian business leaders sharply increased their political mobilization in the 1980s. They were responding to the context of economic and policymaking uncertainty that emerged in the New Republic (1985), the regime following the end of military rule. Two broad concerns lay at the heart of their mobilizing efforts. First, business leaders had come to believe that Brazil needed a new strategic program for economic development. Import substitution industrialization was widely perceived as an exhausted model. Thus, a number of business leaders believed it was necessary to begin a dialogue about the country's developmental priorities. These business leaders, moreover, hoped to reverse the tendency under the Ernesto Geisel administration (1964-85) to exclude business groups from policy making. This belief led to their second concern. A wide array of business leaders had come to see Brazil's corporatist system of interest aggregation and representation as an obstacle to collective action by business (Diniz and Boschi 1993, 7; Kingstone forthcoming a, chap. 4; Weyland 1998; Schneider 1997, 101-4). As a result, a series of revolts, innovations, and reforms occurred in the late 1980s and 1990s within the structure of business representation (Diniz and Boschi 1990, 1993; Nylen 1992b; Kingstone forthcoming b; Schneider 1997, 105-10; Weyland 1998). One particularly important organizational experiment was the Institute of Industrial Development Studies, or IEDI. The IEDI formed in 1989 explicitly as an effort to engage the state in a dialogue about how to promote the country's development. It brought together 30 of the most influential business leaders from a wide range of industrial sectors. These leaders carefully and successfully organized to avoid the mistakes of existing corporatist organizations, notably FIESP (the Federation of Industry of the State of Sao Paulo). Thus they offered to take the lead in solving the business community's collective action problems. Given their individual influence, it was no surprise that IEDI quickly became an important political actor. Yet by 1993, the organization had reached its pinnacle of influence and had already begun to decline. By 1997, IEDI no longer mattered politically at all, even to its own members. poratism, Neoliberalism, and the iled Revolt ofBig Business:

The 1812 Aponte Rebellion in Cuba and the struggle against Atlantic slavery

In 1812, a series of revolts known collectively as the Aponte Rebellion erupted across the island of Cuba, comprising one of the largest and most important slave insurrections in Caribbean history. Matt Childs provides the first in-depth analysis of the rebellion, situating it in local, colonial, imperial, and Atlantic World contexts. Childs explains how slaves and free people of color responded to the nineteenth-century sugar boom in the Spanish colony by planning a rebellion against racial slavery and plantation agriculture. Striking alliances among free people of color and slaves, blacks and mulattoes, Africans and Creoles, and rural and urban populations, rebels were prompted to act by a widespread belief in rumors promising that emancipation was near. Taking further inspiration from the 1791 Haitian Revolution, rebels sought to destroy slavery in Cuba and perhaps even end Spanish rule. By comparing his findings to studies of slave insurrections in Brazil, Haiti, the British Caribbean, and the United States, Childs places the rebellion within the wider story of Atlantic World revolution and political change. The book also features a biographical table, constructed by Childs, of the more than 350 people investigated for their involvement in the rebellion, 34 of whom were executed.

From Revolt to Agitation: Beginning of the National Movement

The Revolt of 1857 was both a culmination and a beginning. No armed struggle of that magnitude against the colonial rule took place thereafter. It was, however, preceded by a series of revolts by displaced aristocracy and civil population in different parts of the country. Motivated by different reasons and shaped by local circumstances, but invariably linked to the hardships generated by colonial subjection, they embodied the early resistance against the alien rule. The peasants, tribals, zamindars and former rulers were all part of these unsuccessful efforts to prevent the consolidation of the British rule. Alive to the alien but not to the colonial character of the British rule they all remained isolated incidents and hence were easily suppressed. The Revolt of 1857, despite some coordination and communication among the leaders, was essentially a large scale enactment of earlier efforts. Its failure was a landmark in the political consciousness of the nation, as it heralded a new phase in the struggle against colonialism. ATTITUDE OF THE INTELLIGENTSIA The character of the new phase was reflected in the attitude of the intelligentsia towards the colonial rule. The emergence of a modern intelligentsia in India was integral to the social and economic policies pursued by the British rule. Products of Macaulayian ambition to create English minds in Indian bodies, the members of the middle class imbibed, through Western education, a political perspective rooted in liberalism. To them Britain represented the best of liberal tradition. More importantly, they viewed British rule as the instrument, ordained by God, for the dissemination of liberal enlightenment in countries like

Urban blight and religious uprising in Northern Nigeria

In recent years a number of urban centres in the predominantly Muslim parts of northern Nigeria have experienced religious uprisings. These revolts have led to enormous loss of life, destruction of property estimated in millions of Naira and to the rendering of thousands of people homeless. Between 1980 and 1985, five such eruptions have been witnessed, namely, at: Yan-Awaki, Kano in December 1980; Bulumkuttu, Maiduguri in October 1982; Rigasa, Kaduna in November 1982; Doubeli, Yola in February 1984; and at Herwa Gana/Pantami, Gombe in April and May 1985 (Fig. 1). These series of revolts were christened Maitatsine uprisings after Muhammadu Marwa Maitatsine, the religious fanatic who led the first revolt in Kano and who was presumed to be the spiritual leader of an Islamic millenarian cult with substantial following all over northern Nigeria and in neighbouring West and Central African countries. A number of pertinent questions have been raised in connection with the Maitatsine phenomenon. Who was Muhammadu Maitatsine? Who were his followers? How was he able to recruit, train and arm these insurgents? What is the religious basis of the rebellion? Why did the revolt erupt in the urban centres in northern Nigeria and nowhere else? How did the social conditions in these cities aid the growth of the Maitatsine movement? What part did the physical conditions in these cities play in facilitating these uprisings? In each case of uprising the government set up a commission of inquiry for the purpose of: (a) determining the immediate and remote causes of the disturbance; (b) assessing the extent of damage done to human life and property as a result of the uprising; (c) examining the nature of the revolt, background of the insurgents and their aims and objectives; (d) recommending to the government, short term and long term action to be taken to prevent future occurrence of similar revolts. The finding of two of the commissions of inquiry have since been published (Aniagolu, 1981; El Bedawy, 1982) and the government has issued white papers to implement some of their recommendations. In respect of the remaining revolts, copious information is available to the public through newspapers and radio reports of the proceedings of the panels of inquiry. However, the findings and recommendations of the panels still remain “classified information”. Nevertheless it is obvious that little or no attempt was made to investigate the

Economic Aspects of Indonesian Disunity

HE DECISIVE STEPS in the series of revolts between December i956 and March I957 which drastically reduced the authority of the Indonesian Government over most areas of the country outside Java were taken by senior Army officers. Their action was primarily motivated by dissatisfaction with the internal organisation of the Army and its relationship with the central government. At the same time, it is clear that the action of the local Army commanders in Sumatra, Kalimantan and east Indonesia was in conformity with local political aspirations and had the fullest support of local economic interests.' The action of the Army commanders immediately precipitated a major economic, as well as a political, crisis, but in any event the former was inevitable. Since the end of the Korean War the Indonesian economy has deteriorated, although world economic conditions have been generally favourable. Despite a plethora of plans of all kinds Indonesia, at the end of i956, was virtually unique in eastern and southern Asia in having no overall Plan for economic development in active implementation. At a time when almost every country in Southeast Asia has recorded substantial economic progress, Indonesia has stagnated. The few temporary rallies in the economy have not been sustained. By the end of i956 Indonesia's money supply had reached the record high level of almost I4,000 million Rupiahs. Mainly in consequence of a large budget deficit, the Bank Indonesia's ratio of reserves to deposits fell below the legal minimum of 20 per cent in September and again in December, when by a decision of the Monetary Board the Bank's minimum ratio of gold and convertible foreign currencies was lowered to i5 per cent. At present there seems little likelihood of restoring the old ratio; in April I957 the ratio was I7.8 per cent. The deficit in June I957