Sociopolitical Origins Research Articles

THE GHADAR MOVEMENT: IGNITING THE FLAME OF FREEDOM IN INDIA

The study attempts to explore the Ghadar Movement, a pivotal revolutionary organisation in the early 20th century that played a significant role in India's struggle for independence. It aims to understand the socio-political origins of the Movement, to analyse its key figures and strategies, to assess its impact on Indian nationalism, and to evaluate its global impact and enduring legacy. The study employs a historical and analytical methodology, using primary and secondary sources to gather data, which is then interpreted and contextualised. In-depth examination of archival documents revealed the influences of colonial oppression, global events, and the sentiments of the Indian diaspora in igniting the Ghadar Movement. The study identifies key figures, their motivations and the strategies they employed, such as direct revolts and protests, as well as indirect approaches like propaganda and international networking. The research finds that the Ghadar Movement significantly influenced the rise of Indian nationalism and other revolutionary movements, shaping the course of India's freedom struggle. It also managed to garner notable international support, leaving a lasting impact beyond India's borders. It finds that the movement though unsuccessful in its immediate goals, left an indelible legacy in post-independence India, influencing its socio-political fabric and contributing to the narrative of India's struggle for independence.

Contemporary Narratives of Leftist Islam Movements in Indonesia and Turkey: A Comparative Analysis

This research analyses the contemporary narratives of leftist Islam movements being developed as a counter-narrative to dominant Islamic discourse in Indonesia and Turkey. These leftist Islam movements were introduced under different circumstances in the two countries. In Indonesia, leftist Islam was initially promoted by Islamic scholars who were interacting with Marxist references. This was shown in the cases of Haji Misbach, who was one of Indonesia’s – and the world’s – first leftist Muslim figures. In the case of Turkey, some leftist Islamic movements were inspired by the modern Turkish Marxist movement, which emerged in the middle of the twentieth century and was eventually combined with Islamic elements. This research argues that as both Indonesian and Turkish governments are consolidating their modes of authoritarian neoliberal governance, combined with increasing religiosity, the narratives of leftist Islam are re-emerging as a way to provide socio-political criticisms and to formulate alternative ideas on the role of Islam in improving the livelihood of Muslims in Indonesia and Turkey. This research engages with several cases of leftist Islamic movements in Indonesia and Turkey. In Indonesia, this research takes the examples of FNKSDA (Nahdliyyin Front for Natural Resource Sovereignty) and its media outlet Islam Bergerak (Islam on the Move) which have had an important role in organising leftist Islamic movement in Indonesia during the 2010s. In the case of Turkey, we examine the role of Antikapitalist Müslümanlar (Anti-Capitalist Muslims), also known as Kapitalizmle Mücadele Derneği (Association for Fight against Capitalism). This research identifies the socio-political origins, main ideas, goals, and strategies of the contemporary leftist Islam movements in Indonesia and Turkey.

Palestinian Paranoia and the Colonial Situation

Palestinian Paranoia and the Colonial Situation Zahi Zalloua (bio) Evoking Palestinian paranoia comes with a risk. It could easily resonate with right-wing Zionists, confirming their racist depictions of Palestinians as pathological bodies, psychically and morally deficient, and thus unfit to join the community of civilized human beings. But paranoia does seem to mark the Palestinian condition. Uprooting and paranoia go hand in hand for Palestinians. The experience of collective displacement plunges the exilic Palestinian into a zone of precarity and hypervigilance, "where everyone not a blood-brother or sister is an enemy, where every sympathizer is an agent of some unfriendly power, and where the slightest deviation from the accepted group line is an act of the rankest treachery and disloyalty," writes Edward Said (2000, 178). For Palestinians, non-Palestinians are a priori an object of suspicion. As "paranoid subjects," Palestinians anticipate betrayal from others, that is, complicity with Israel. But not unlike "Black paranoia," Palestinian paranoia resists easy pathologization and rash dismissal. In fact, Palestinian obsession about a looming betrayal sounds more like reasoned extrapolation than irrational speculation. If you are a Palestinian, you've witnessed first-hand the ideological sham of the "peace process." While promised "land for peace," as per the 1993 Oslo Accords, Palestinians in the Occupied Territories saw a massive expansion of illegal settlements, the uninterrupted ethnic cleansing of their neighborhoods, the strategic fragmentation of their people, a numbing increase in humiliating and dangerous checkpoints, devastating attacks on a besieged Gaza, Israel's flagrant defiance of international law, an uptick in serious talks of annexation of Palestinian land in Israeli political discourse, the passing of the Nation-State Law and the continuing disenfranchisement of Palestinian citizens of Israel, and the symbolic relocation of the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.1 To the betrayal from without, a betrayal from within also [End Page 281] plagued Palestinians: the "Abraham Accords" (Goodman 2020), the premature normalization of diplomatic ties between a number of Arab countries and Israel, who self-interestedly suspended their demand for Palestinian self-determination as a precondition for such normalization. And yet, there is something hermeneutically apt about drawing on the concept of paranoia as long as we locate paranoia's roots in politics rather than biology, in the violent and visceral world of what Fanon calls the "colonial situation" (2004, 233) instead of some abstract or ahistorical notion of a pathologized "Palestinian mind." The contemptuous accusation of "Palestinian paranoia," prevalent among political Zionists and far-right supporters of Israel, displays the latter's (mis)understanding of this psycho-pathology. In its Palestinophobic form, the accusation naturalizes the mental [End Page 282] disorder, obscuring its socio-political origins, making the paranoia of the Indigenous population an ontological or essential problem, a permanent feature of their biological or cultural DNA, discounting and disregarding, in turn, their daily humiliation and land-based grievances. If, according to Israeli propaganda, Palestinians are so delusional, intolerant of Jewish difference, and prone to irrational bursts of violence, how, then, can you make permanent and meaningful peace with them?2 In this ideological light, occupation is recast as an Israeli self-protecting policy (it is an existential question of survival) rather than an expression of the Jewish state's expansionist and imperialist desire. The charge of "Palestinian paranoia" thus implicitly obfuscates another paranoia, a Zionist paranoia, whose origins lie in Western Orientalism. Said draws our attention to Orientalism's paranoid tendencies: "Psychologically, Orientalism is a form of paranoia, knowledge of another kind, say, from ordinary historical knowledge" (2003, 72). As a style of thinking, Orientalism is about the West's paranoid construction of the Orient as an object of knowledge and mastery, and in this respect, its racial stereotyping—exemplified in the figure of the bloodthirsty, irrational Palestinian—always tells us more about the anxious psyche of the Zionist/Western knower than its putative object of study. Israel traffics in paranoid knowledge, emblematized in its narrative about the imminent danger of coming undone, repeatedly framing the Palestinian people as an existential threat to its identity and its people. Wanting to end Israel as a Jewish state (a state only for Jews) means wanting to end of the Jewish...

Toplum Kendini Savunur: Biyopolitikanın Covid-19 Çıkmazı, Hayatın Tekilselliği ve Toplumsal Kara Delikler

This essay focuses on the existential conflict between society and politics that has once again come to the fore in the sense of biopolitical theory with the Covid-19 outbreak. It attempts to demonstrate where and how the theory of biopolitics is insufficient at understanding the individual, who has reset all relationships under the circumstances of the pandemic, while providing a certain viewpoint based on true and logical facts. The essay considers this insufficiency as a common deficiency of the various types of biopolitical theory and correlates this to a historical deficiency that has lacked a concept of absolute singularity (i.e., singularity of existence) that would precede the compromises and necessities associated with life in identifying socio-political origins. Thus, the article argues the theory of biopolitics to have persisted in this sense within the theories of classical order, particularly the Hobbesian theory of social contract, based on replicated historical deficiency. Therefore, the key issue of the essay is whether a non-relational moment of existence exists for any nature or framework that refutes all the responsibilities, concessions, or regularities attached to it such that it cannot be appropriated. The essay affirms this issue through a theoretical probability and attempts to view the circumstances present in the Covid-19 phase not as the moment itself but as its signals, messages, and indications. This moment is conceptualized as a social black hole. Thus, the essay examines the destructive and constitutive role of the moment in which life sinks into social black holes.

Socio-economic and Socio-political Origins of Technocratic Populism in the Czech Republic and Nativism in Hungary

Abstract This article investigates the socio-economic and socio-political origins of populism in the Czech Republic and Hungary, discussing the reasons for the national specificity of the populism. Despite the similar triggers that had led to the strengthening of the populists, the nature of the populism in these countries is different. In the Czech Republic, populism has a technocratic nature, while in Hungary—a nativist. I presume that the rise of the unemployment rate as the result of the 2008 Great Recession contributed to the decline in the confidence towards the national and the EU parliament as well as to the rise of the negative attitudes towards migrants. In their turn, the lower level of institutional trust and the negative attitudes towards the migrants correlate with the voting for the populist parties on the national and the European elections.

Sociopolitical Origins and Legal Outcomes of Official Multilingualism - Janny H. C. Leung, Shallow Equality and Symbolic Jurisprudence in Multilingual Legal Orders (New York: Oxford University Press: Oxford Studies in Language and Law, 2019) pp 320. Hardcover $99.00.

Sociopolitical Origins and Legal Outcomes of Official Multilingualism - Janny H. C. Leung, Shallow Equality and Symbolic Jurisprudence in Multilingual Legal Orders (New York: Oxford University Press: Oxford Studies in Language and Law, 2019) pp 320. Hardcover $99.00. - Volume 7 Issue 1

Athenian Democracy at War by David M. Pritchard

Reviewed by: Athenian Democracy at War by David M. Pritchard Roel Konijnendijk David M. Pritchard. Athenian Democracy at War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. Pp. xxiv, 287. $105.00. ISBN 978-1-108-42291-8. In this work, Pritchard brings together the fruits of fifteen years of research on Classical Athens. The result is a loose collection of chapters based on his earlier publications—some of them summarised, some reprinted, some substantially revised and brought up to date. The title expresses its general theme but should not be taken too literally. There is little discussion of military tactics or strategy and only the most cursory account of Athens' many wars. Pritchard's insistence that Greek land warfare was a ritualised contest (193-194) suggests that he has little interest in new interpretations of such matters. He explicitly distances himself from a version of Athenian history that rests on military determinism (22-27). Instead, his focus is on "war and society": the socio-political origins of armies, the status and values of warriors, and the place of warfare in Athenian cultural and political life. The studies of different forms of military service that take up the first half of the book are primarily concerned with social background, muster, and pay. After these, there is a chapter on attitudes to trireme crews, followed by multiple shorter chapters on state finance and the abstract association of sport with war. Since the origin of the work is in a range of other books and articles, there is no central argument or conclusion, and a great deal of overlap between chapters. There is much repetition of claims and phrases; Pritchard reminds the reader again and again of the meaning of relevant Greek words and of the abbreviations used for monetary values, despite the presence of a glossary at the end. But this repetition makes the book particularly useful as an introductory reference work, since it allows each chapter to be read in isolation. Under each heading, Pritchard lays out the ancient evidence in clear language—paying due attention to epigraphy as well as literary sources—and guides the reader through several modern controversies. Nearly every claim is backed by a footnote. The relevant scholarship is all there in the twenty-six page bibliography. Since there is no other monograph specifically devoted to the armed forces of Classical Athens, having all this material concentrated in one easily accessible place makes the book a valuable resource for both new and experienced students of the subject. If there is no new overarching thesis, there are nevertheless some themes that recur throughout the work. Pritchard repeatedly makes the points that democracy helped make Athens more successful in war; that Athenian wealth and military experimentation transformed Greek warfare; that Classical Athens spent many times more on war than on anything else; that the Athenians held their rowers in as high regard as their hoplites. Not all of these larger points (and many smaller ones) may be equally persuasive. For example, the argument that Old Comedy saw the hoplite as the default citizen warrior because it was "simply traditional" (120) seems facile, while the claim that Athenian sources had nothing bad to say about athletics (184-185) ignores the widespread notion that it was no good preparation for war. The work aligns itself with the more celebratory side of modern scholarship on Athenian democracy, and readers may question whether this ancient society is indeed "rightly revered" (4) for anything, or that its ability to wage war should be a further cause for admiration. But in such cases, this book will still serve as a useful point of departure for further debate. [End Page 374] Pritchard set himself the ambitious goal of producing an aid to future interdisciplinary comparative studies in ancient history and political science (19-22). Time will tell if he will succeed in that goal. But for students of Athenian democracy and Greek warfare in their own right, this is already a helpful contribution. Roel Konijnendijk Leiden University Copyright © 2020 The Classical Association of the Atlantic States, Inc.

Microaggressions in Clinical Training and Practice.

Microaggressions in Clinical Training and Practice.

Arab Patriotism: The Ideology and Culture of Power in Late Ottoman Egypt

Arab Patriotism: The Ideology and Culture of Power in Late Ottoman Egypt

The culture of art in 1880s Ireland and the genealogy of Irish modernism

ABSTRACTThe emergence of Irish modernism over recent decades as a distinct sub-field within modernist studies and Irish studies has frequently seen the alignment of advanced aesthetics with various quests for cultural progress. This emphasis on the socio-political origins and ends of many art works and artists from the 1890s through to the mid-twentieth century, however, largely draws on a narrow characterisation of late-nineteenth-century Ireland as a terrain of cultural turmoil and fracture, marked by linguistic decline and agrarian conflict. This constitutes a partial evidential and ideological basis for tracing a genealogy of Irish modernism. Among various occlusions, such a construction elides the ideology of the aesthetic itself, as well as its attendant cultures and institutions, as they operated in Ireland. Focusing on the institutionalisation and mediation of the nineteenth century’s culture of art, this article considers the specific terms in which aesthetics and politics were already imbricated in writing on the visual arts in Ireland during the 1880s. It seeks to illustrate how aesthetic ideologies and desires also constituted, alongside other social and political conditions, the field of cultural production from which Irish modernism emerged.

Of Bosal and Kongo: Exploring the Evolution of the Vernacular in Contemporary Haiti

Author(s): Pressley-Sanon, Toni | Abstract: In this article, I trace the multiple layers of meaning behind the words “bosal” and “kongo” in contemporary Haiti. I read the sociopolitical origins of the two terms, both of which issue from the slave era, and trouble the attributes that scholars traditionally ascribe to them. I also explore how two Haitian folklore characters, Uncle Bouki and Ti Malis, reflect and comment on historical and contemporary class divisions. Then, using interviews as a basis for my discussion, I explore the two terms’ varied meanings within popular culture before analyzing them as terms not only of denigration but also of empowerment. To do this, I compare popular uses of the terms with the appropriation of the term “nigger” in African American popular culture.

Performing the Egyptian Revolution: Origins of Collective Restraint Action in the Midan

In January/February 2011, the world watched with admiration the Egyptian revolution that toppled President Housni Mubarak. The demonstration in Midan al-Tahrir (Liberation Square in central Cairo), which was the nucleus of the revolution, highlighted a largely spontaneous, civil and peaceful political performance. However, this performance was temporary, contradicting subsequent bloody conflicts in post-revolutionary Egypt. This article examines the socio-political origins of the Midan performance. It argues that the demonstrators exercised collective restraint, which was temporary but necessary, in order to topple Mubarak. Building on Norbert Elias’ civilising process theory and social movements literature, it is argued that the origins of this performance are found in a collective knowledge of regime strategy and narrative, Egyptian socio-political values and existing repertoires of contention. Drawing on primary sources and semi-structured interviews, the article contends that the demonstrators exercised collective restraint to reframe regime narrative and draw public support for the revolution.

Intellectuals and Political Power in Social Movements: The Parallel Paths of Fadlallah and Hizbullah

This article examines the intellectual impact of Ayatollah Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah (1935–2010) on Hizbullah's political behaviour. Many depicted Fadlallah as the ‘spiritual guide’ and ‘oracle’ of Hizbullah, while others accentuated his socio-political independence and the potential he represented as an ‘alternative’ to Hizbullah and Iran. This study argues that Fadlallah directly influenced Hizbullah's political worldviews, but the Islamic movement's socialisation in Lebanon, its dependence on Iran and its war with Israel have led it to pursue a separate path from Fadlallah. But despite the separation, the Ayatollah shared a common world vision with Hizbullah and the Islamic Republic, and would not have formed an alternative. The article is divided into two sections. The first examines the socio-political origins of Fadlallah and Hizbullah as an intellectual and a political movement, respectively, and conceptualises the discursive and political fields that motivate the behaviour of the two actors. The second section assesses the impact of Fadlallah's ideas on Hizbullah by focusing on three main themes: (1) Islamic liberation and resistance against injustice; (2) the Islamic state and Lebanon; and (3) Wilayat al-Faqih and Islamic Iran.

Dell Hymes's Construct of “Communicative Competence”

Cazden reflects on theoretical and sociopolitical origins of Hymes's construct of communicative competence in events occurring just before and after 1960 in the U.S. She comments on Hymes's emphasis on competence not as abstract systemic potential of a language, but as capability located in individual persons; and she explores competence as both individual repertoire and group reservoir. She reminds us that Hymes's “appropriateness” is primarily about emergent, creative, non‐situationally determined use of language.[Dell Hymes, communicative competence, appropriateness, individual capability versus systemic potential]

Post-Islamist Trends in Postrevolutionary Iran

Today's Iran under the Islamic state represents the most complex forms of post-Islamism in the Muslim world. The unintended consequences of the Islamic Republic have empowered and enlightened the public, transformed the people from subjects to citizens, and in effect have undermined the intellectual, political, and social foundations of the Islamic state. Post-Islamism in postrevolutionary Iran signifies the paradoxes of the Islamic state. This article examines the nature and the diversity of post-Islamist trends in today's Iran symbolized by the current Green Movement. It conceptualizes and contextualizes post-Islamist discourses in Iran and then analyzes the sociopolitical origins of three intellectual trends of post-Islamism in postrevolutionary Iran: quasi/semi-post-Islamism, liberal post-Islamism, and neo-Shariati's post-Islamist discourse. The conclusion problematizes the potential future of post-Islamism in the country.

The sociopolitical origins of the American Legion

The American Legion was one of the most politically consequential organizations in the twentieth-century United States. It was a local bedrock of anti-communism in two post-war red scares and throughout the cold war. It also built a lavish and cross-nationally unique welfare state for American veterans. In this article, I examine the origins of the American Legion and demonstrate that it was organized by rentier capitalists acting in their intraclass and interclass interests. Most importantly, the Legion was an organization that fought the “battle over class” by denying the importance of class as a social concept and proposing “Americanism” as an alternative. I also argue that the Legion’s extreme anti-communism combined with its dedication to welfare provision for American veterans altered the course of American welfare state development.

Chapter Three: Objectives and Strategy

From 2003 to 2008, the Sunni Arab insurgency in Iraq posed a key challenge to political stability in the country and to Coalition objectives there. This paper explains the onset, composition and evolution of this insurgency. It begins by addressing both its immediate and deeper sociopolitical origins, and goes on to examine the multiple ideological strands within the insurgency and their often conflicting methods and goals. Despite organisational incoherence due to the existence of a large number of competing groups, the insurgency in Iraq sustained a particularly high tempo of operations between 2004 and 2006, causing considerable military and civilian casualties. Some insurgent groups focused on attempting to foment civil war between two of Iraq's major communities, the Sunni and Shia Arabs and, by late 2006, they had come close to unraveling Iraq and presenting the Coalition with a major defeat. The adoption of a new approach by the US in 2007 helped reduce the level of violence in Iraq. In addition, deep fissures within the insurgency itself, between those fighting for more practical, immediate goals and the transnational Islamists and their local allies fighting for wider-reaching goals – including the promotion of sectarian strife – contributed to the insurgency's diminution. It remains to be seen whether there will be a widespread recognition among Sunni Iraqis of the need to work with the Coalition to facilitate their community's reintegration into the new Iraqi body politic.

Chapter One: Origins, Causes and Composition

From 2003 to 2008, the Sunni Arab insurgency in Iraq posed a key challenge to political stability in the country and to Coalition objectives there. This paper explains the onset, composition and evolution of this insurgency. It begins by addressing both its immediate and deeper sociopolitical origins, and goes on to examine the multiple ideological strands within the insurgency and their often conflicting methods and goals. Despite organisational incoherence due to the existence of a large number of competing groups, the insurgency in Iraq sustained a particularly high tempo of operations between 2004 and 2006, causing considerable military and civilian casualties. Some insurgent groups focused on attempting to foment civil war between two of Iraq's major communities, the Sunni and Shia Arabs and, by late 2006, they had come close to unraveling Iraq and presenting the Coalition with a major defeat. The adoption of a new approach by the US in 2007 helped reduce the level of violence in Iraq. In addition, deep fissures within the insurgency itself, between those fighting for more practical, immediate goals and the transnational Islamists and their local allies fighting for wider-reaching goals – including the promotion of sectarian strife – contributed to the insurgency's diminution. It remains to be seen whether there will be a widespread recognition among Sunni Iraqis of the need to work with the Coalition to facilitate their community's reintegration into the new Iraqi body politic.

Chapter Five: The Insurgency's Internal and External Problems

From 2003 to 2008, the Sunni Arab insurgency in Iraq posed a key challenge to political stability in the country and to Coalition objectives there. This paper explains the onset, composition and evolution of this insurgency. It begins by addressing both its immediate and deeper sociopolitical origins, and goes on to examine the multiple ideological strands within the insurgency and their often conflicting methods and goals. Despite organisational incoherence due to the existence of a large number of competing groups, the insurgency in Iraq sustained a particularly high tempo of operations between 2004 and 2006, causing considerable military and civilian casualties. Some insurgent groups focused on attempting to foment civil war between two of Iraq's major communities, the Sunni and Shia Arabs and, by late 2006, they had come close to unraveling Iraq and presenting the Coalition with a major defeat. The adoption of a new approach by the US in 2007 helped reduce the level of violence in Iraq. In addition, deep fissures within the insurgency itself, between those fighting for more practical, immediate goals and the transnational Islamists and their local allies fighting for wider-reaching goals – including the promotion of sectarian strife – contributed to the insurgency's diminution. It remains to be seen whether there will be a widespread recognition among Sunni Iraqis of the need to work with the Coalition to facilitate their community's reintegration into the new Iraqi body politic.

Chapter Two: Ideology

From 2003 to 2008, the Sunni Arab insurgency in Iraq posed a key challenge to political stability in the country and to Coalition objectives there. This paper explains the onset, composition and evolution of this insurgency. It begins by addressing both its immediate and deeper sociopolitical origins, and goes on to examine the multiple ideological strands within the insurgency and their often conflicting methods and goals. Despite organisational incoherence due to the existence of a large number of competing groups, the insurgency in Iraq sustained a particularly high tempo of operations between 2004 and 2006, causing considerable military and civilian casualties. Some insurgent groups focused on attempting to foment civil war between two of Iraq's major communities, the Sunni and Shia Arabs and, by late 2006, they had come close to unraveling Iraq and presenting the Coalition with a major defeat. The adoption of a new approach by the US in 2007 helped reduce the level of violence in Iraq. In addition, deep fissures within the insurgency itself, between those fighting for more practical, immediate goals and the transnational Islamists and their local allies fighting for wider-reaching goals – including the promotion of sectarian strife – contributed to the insurgency's diminution. It remains to be seen whether there will be a widespread recognition among Sunni Iraqis of the need to work with the Coalition to facilitate their community's reintegration into the new Iraqi body politic.