Splinter Groups Research Articles

Between Yesterday and Tomorrow: German Visions of Europe, 1926–1950, by Christian Bailey

Between Yesterday and Tomorrow: German Visions of Europe, 1926-1950, by Christian Bailey. New York, Berghahn Books, 2013. xiv, 259 pp. $95.00 US (cloth). In his fascinating political history of German visions of Europe from the 1920s through to the 1950s, Christian Bailey sets out to complicate the history of European unity. Thanks to a large and growing body of scholarship, we know a great deal about how the European Union was formed. In recent years scholars have focused on the project's extensive intergovernmental negotiations. This includes the examination of how countries manoeuvred for the advantage, the defense of perceived national interests, and the balance of making sufficient concessions to its negotiating partners to prevent the project's collapse. Bailey brings a refreshing perspective to this hard-headed realist history. An example of this is his revival of the history of ideas approach that seriously considers how politically-active Europeans conceived of a united Europe before the political agreements that serve as historical milestones: the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation, the Schuman Plan, the European Coal and Steel Community, the failed European Defence Community, and the Rome Treaties. This history of ideas approach is best exemplified by the work of Walter Lipgens and his collaborators, who sought to trace the historical origins of European federalism. This method was largely abandoned because of its presumed inability to explain why European integration took the precise form it did when it did. As Bailey's study shows, there are good reasons to return to this earlier approach. Its value lies not so much in identifying the lineages of the European Union, as in making clear that Europe was not simply an instrument of international cooperation and progress for some of its most fervent proponents on both the political left and right. Perhaps the most intriguing argument in the book concerns attitudes toward parliamentary and majoritarian democracy. Bailey examines the case of the Internationaler Sozialistischer Kampfbund (ISK), a splinter group founded in the 1920s and situated between the German socialist and communist parties. He argues that the ISK leaders, several of whom would assume prominent roles in the post-war German Social Democratic Party (SPD) (among them Willi Eichler), distrusted parliamentary democracy because of their belief that the masses could be too easily manipulated. This distrust was fuelled by the breakdown of the Weimar democracy, beginning in the late 1920s, followed by the experience of the Nazi regime with its popular/plebiscitary practices. Democracy might be judged preferable to dictatorship for Germany, but it had to be a democracy capable of curbing the masses. …

Demonizing ISIL and Defending Muslims: Australian Muslim Citizenship and Tony Abbott's “Death Cult” Rhetoric

In the lead-up to Australia committing military resources and personnel to the coalition opposing the Islamic State in the Levant (ISIL), Prime Minister Tony Abbott consistently categorized the al-Qaeda splinter group as a “death cult.” Examining Abbott's official rhetoric on ISIL and the threat it poses to Australia and the world, this article argues that his use of the term “death cult” reflects patterns in Western political demonology and demonizing enemies, namely, creating adversaries as monsters by highlighting the atrocities they commit in order to garner support for (often lethal) actions against them. In traditional political demonology, establishment representatives often target minority or marginal groups as these pariahs. However, in demonizing ISIL, Abbott deliberately made distinctions between it and its members and the majority of Muslims, including Australian Muslims, and utilized political demonology differently. In so doing, he affirmed this religious minority's status within the parameters of Australian citizenship. This is indeed commendable. However, Abbott rarely mentioned Muslims outside of references to terrorism. Despite the fact that Abbott acknowledges that only a comparative handful of Muslims are indeed violent, he has not yet fully engaged with the broader notions of Australian Muslims’ contributions to Australian society and their citizenship.

Psalmy Dawidowe (Gdańsk 1616): przyczynek do recepcji Katechizmu Heidelberskiego w Polsce

This article attempts to reconstruct the circumstances surrounding the origination and the possible sources of the catechism included in the edition of David’s Psalms (Danzig 1616), i.e., the so-called Heidelberg Catechism, also known as the Palatinate catechism, published in 1563. During the translation work, Polish editors made an extensive use of the series of other the so-called Heidelberg Psalters (Heidelberg 1567, 1573, 1575; Neustadt 1584; Herborn 1595, 1598, 1609; Amberg 1604 and Dusseldorf 1612) that included the German language version of the Geneva psalter authored by the translator and the law reader at the University of Konigsberg Ambrosius Lobwasser (Leipzig 1573) combined with the abridged Church regulations for the Palatinate and a selection of prayers called the Heidelberg Catechism. The idea of the translation of the catechism was initiated by members of the Unity of the Brethren (Bohemian Brethren) who, at the time, were not aware of the already existing and widely used in practice Polish translation of the catechism (Vilna 1605). The above testifies to the fact that the representatives (members) of different factions and splinter groups of the Reformation groups in the Republic of Poland were not always well acquainted with the publishing output of their respective publishing endeavours. The Heidelberg Catechism, recommended by the synodal legislation, becomes in time the most fundamental publication for teaching in the Republic of Poland for both reformed unities and Bohemian brethren.

Geography of Insurgency—Contextualization of Ethno-Nationalism in Northeast India

Northeast India has been plagued by insurgency related violence and conflicts for many decades. The greater threat and concern have been, however, the rising regional tensions albeit promulgation of series of insurgency crack-down policies by successive central and state governments since the 1950s. To contain insurgency activities, new winning formulas have been announced occasionally, promising incentives or job to the surrenderees, with events of surrendering insurgent’s ceremonies yet several newer insurgents and splinter groups have been formed. The volatile state power relations intrigue the entire geopolitical condition and create space for development of newer geographical landscape of conflict thereby turning the region to one of the most sensitive regions in India. The paper is an attempt to examine the emergence of insurgency movements, the nature of contextualization insurgency activities and spatial conflict in Northeast India in the backdrop of the contesting state power relation.

Gender Matters: Eritrean Women and Mediated Messages of Foreign Television Channel

Eritrea is a tiny Northeast African country in the horn of Africa that was under series of colonial aggressions and conflicts. Italian, British, and Ethiopians have colonized Eritrea approximately for hundred years. Eritrean independence came at a heavy price, as Eritrea waged one of the bloodiest wars in the modern times. Two splinter groups, Eritrean People Liberation Front (EPLF) and Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) waged guerilla warfare to free Eritrea. 35% of the liberation army was women that played key roles and fought on par with men from beyond the trenches. Women are playing crucial role in the post-war reconstruction of the country. 50% of household in Eritrea are female headed today in the absence of men due to war and compulsory military service. Eritrean independence came at a time when the liberal policies of trade, economy and communication revolution were sweeping the countries of the world. Global media with its digital images started its operation in the Gulf Region had profoundly changed the way the people of Middle East and Africa used to view and interpret messages out of media, particularly from across the borders via satellites. War in the Gulf could get the digital media images from across the borders to the Gulf region via satellite and people could see the live telecast of the war on the Gulf. Middle East Broadcasting Company (MBC) started its operation with Dubai as its base. Eritrea, which is adjacent to the Rea Sea could capture these images and sounds and foreign TV Channels started beaming into Eritrea since 1996. Eritrea, a mosaic of religion, languages, geography and culture is exposed to a culture that is truly align and the Eritrean women that are nurtured in colonial aggression, revolutionary ideology and the orthodox patriarchal feudal set-up are exposed to the messages from across the borders. Following an exploratory survey, the researchers would like to examine the role of gender in perceiving the messages from foreign TV channels. The researchers are interested in exploring the way aspects like family norms, Lifestyles, Sexual norms, Social roles of Women and the Music preferences of the young Eritrean women in the age group of 18-25 are affected as a result of exposure to the mediated messages across borders.

Feminism, Theology, and the Personal in American Studies

Feminism, Theology, and the Personal in American Studies Joanna Brooks I find it wonderful that Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s achievements in early American studies and women’s history are being celebrated by Marion Rust in “Personal History: Martha Ballard, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, and the Scholarly Guise in Early American Women’s Studies,” and perhaps even more wonderful to see them celebrated in connection with Ulrich’s identity as a Mormon feminist. It has meant something to our often misunderstood and sometimes embattled Mormon feminist movement to know that the Pulitzer Prize– winning historian of American women’s experience and author of the feminist bumper sticker and tote-bag-adorning phrase “Well-behaved women seldom make history” was one of us: an affirmation that Mormon feminism was not an oddly improbable splinter group of the real women’s movement to be regarded with curiosity if not suspicion by mainstream feminism, but, as Laurel herself has argued in “Mormon Women in the History of Second-Wave Feminism,” somewhere decidedly closer to the movement’s living core. Laurel’s graceful and understated but powerful presence and tremendous accomplishments in these multiple worlds have helped affirm to all of us in Mormon feminism that what may seem improbable or even accidental to others is no accident at all. In honoring her work we affirm our sense as women, as feminists, and as Mormon feminists that our lives are rich with meaningful and beautiful connections that reveal themselves if we pay attention and care for them. That apparent contradictions and accidents in human experience are imbued with the sacred possibility of meaning seems to me an article of faith basic not only to the lives of people of faith in general and Mormons in particular—as Laurel and I both are—but also to the lives of humanities scholars. In tracing out the connections between Laurel’s distinguished scholarly career and her “lifelong quest to reconcile her Mormon faith and her feminist convictions,” Rust does American studies a service by encouraging its practitioners to reflect on “our own ways of conducting scholarship” and perhaps thereby to arrive at a more conscious approach to our own work and its purposes (152). Laurel is gracious enough to credit important scholarly discoveries to “accident,” but this says more about her understated and pragmatic nature than it [End Page 173] does about the truth of how work gets done (qtd. in Rust 151). None of us goes to the archive without purpose, no matter whether the outcomes are discovery or disappointment. In a moment when the professional humanities needs to define and redefine its purposes, it seems like a good time for all of us to articulate more clearly what we expect to gain and what we expect others to gain by our work. What Rust sees in Laurel’s career of scholarly tending to the historic lives of American women is a continuity with the forms of women’s work and women’s handicraft that Laurel has always acknowledged through her scholarship: in Rust’s words, an honoring through care of the “simultaneous immensity and fragmentation” of human experience as it expresses itself in “mundanities” of daily life and “cumbersome states of being” (160, 161). I think this is a profound insight and one that resonates deeply with me. Just last month, at a Mormon feminist retreat in New Hampshire—Laurel is one of the historic retreat’s founding mothers, of course—I compared the work of assembling a scholarly anthology of Mormon feminist writing to needlepoint. That’s the handicraft I know best—I learned it from my Utah-born Mormon grandmother—and that’s what I always think of when I’m doing the curiously physical fine-pointed work that transcription, annotation, and other editorial tasks entail. Honoring through care and bringing coherence to the immensely meaningful fragments of experience suspended in the mundanity of time is a purpose shared by women’s work and humanities scholarship alike. Rust connects this work to the gendered idea of “roles” that come to us by “circumstance”—as gender itself often does—but which we play with grace and purpose nonetheless. This is one way of understanding the role...

The Fragmentation of a Sect: Schism in the Worldwide Church of God. By David V. Barrett. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013. xviii + 283 pp. $58.00 cloth.

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)The Fragmentation of a Sect: Schism in the Worldwide Church of God . By David V. Barrett . New York : Oxford University Press , 2013. xviii + 283 pp. $58.00 cloth.Book Reviews and NotesTracking the trajectory of schismatic groups and New Religious Movements (NRMs) is the closest thing to physics in the study of religion. There is a sense that scientific inquiry can answer the questions that arise: who assumes positions of leadership; who stays and who strays; and which group--the original or the various schismatic groups that emerge--are likely to survive, and why.Barrett takes readers through all of these questions with the Worldwide Church of God, an America-based Adventist-related religious organization founded by Herbert W. Armstrong in the 1930s with roots that dig deep into the nineteenth century. The work is half history of the organization and half analysis of how that organization (and its adherents) experienced changes--doctrinal and organizational--as they were introduced in the last few decades of the twentieth-century. After a cursory history of the group and its main ideological positions, Barrett explores the results of his own (admittedly limited) survey conducted among members of the various splinter groups created when Armstrong began modifying church doctrine in the years before his death (in 1986), and after Armstrong's successor (Joseph Tkach) transformed the ideology (and affiliation) of the organization from Adventist to more traditional evangelical orientation in the years after.There is no shortage of interesting detail in the history of this group, but doctrinal shifts, personality clashes, prodigal sons and treacherous friends, and sexual escapades provide only some of the energy fueling the shattering of the Worldwide Church of God, which incorporated more than most Adventist groups a strong self-identification with non-rabbinic Judaism and Old Testament practice, including observance of the seven major annual festivals of Judaism: Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread [also part of the Jewish observance of Passover], the Feast of Pentecost [known in Judaism as Shavu'ot], the Feast of Trumpets [Rosh HaShanah], the Day of Atonement [Yom Kippur], the Feast of Tabernacles [known in Judaism as Sukkot], and the Last Great Day [possibly the Jewish holiday of Simhat Torah] (Barrett, 33). It seems that, with a critical mass of what sociologists of religion would identify as Worldwide Church of God tension with the rest of American society--that is, the sense of being out of step with (or even opposed to) the dominant culture--it took very little of the other factors listed above not only to fuel the break-up of the organization, but as Barrett calls it in his title, to fragment it into almost countless bits.While the historical portion of the work is not weak, it is clearly present in the service of the second, sociological section of the work. This is not meant as a critique; like many schismatic groups and NRMs, the Worldwide Church of God--and more so its various post-Armstrong splinter groups--was small, and remains generally unfamiliar to most readers. …

AWAL RADIKALISME ISLAM: PENYEBAB KEMUNCULAN KHAWA<RIJ

<p>In Islamic history, the emergence of <em>khawarij</em> is considered to be the first seed of Islamic radicalism. Studies on this radical group cannot be separated from the period of early Islam when it emerged. As a political movement and school of theology, this group was shaped by the social and political constellations in its time. This article traces the historical root of this early radical group in Islam. Historians argue that the birth of <em>khawarij</em> was caused by political cleavage and tension upon Caliph Ali ibn Talib and Muawiya ibn Sufyan friction. However, the embryo of <em>khawarij</em> was in fact discovered during the time of the Prophet represented by Dhu al-Khuwaysirah in the course of the post Hunayn War. Various factors spurred the rise of <em>khawarij</em>, ranging from geographical factor, fanaticism, Shiffin War to provocation from Abd Allah ibn Saba’. <em>Khawarij</em> developed as one major stream in Muslim theology and broke into several extreme and radical splinter groups. The development of <em>khawarij</em> covers three phases: religious thought, political movement and political power.</p><p>Keywords: <em>khawarij</em>, developmental phase, opposition</p>

On Violence and Repression: A Relational Approach (TheGovernment and Opposition/Leonard Schapiro Memorial Lecture, 2013)

Oppositional violence and repression are closely related. In fact, repression often produces an escalation of violence rather than controlling it. Bridging social movement studies and research on violence, the article uses a small-N, most-different research design to analyse the working of a specific mechanism at the onset of different types of political violence: escalating policing. In particular, it indicates specific causal mechanisms, related to interactions between social movements and the state, which create the conditions for some splinter groups to move underground. In order to compare left-wing, right-wing, ethno-national and religious violence, the article presents empirical references to the author's own empirical research on Italy and the Basque Country as well as a secondary analysis of the conflicts that preceded the rise of al-Qaeda.

Student activism and democratic quality in Ghana’s Fourth Republic

Student activism has been pivotal in Ghana’s political and democratic history. Prior to Ghana’s Fourth Republic, student activism was highly confrontational and entailed student support or opposition to the various regimes depending on the extent to which the regimes were accepted by all as being rightful or legitimate. After 23 years of uninterrupted constitutional democracy, Ghana has earned the accolade of being a successful electoral democracy. However, in terms of democratic progression, the mere conduct of periodic elections that sometimes lead to alternation of power is described as elementary and a low quality democracy. Given that Ghana’s democratisation process since 1992 has not been static, some remarkable strides have been made in improving the nation’s democratic quality. Using a purely qualitative research design and interviews with some former student activists, this study argues that the modest strides made in the quest for high quality liberal democracy in Ghana cannot be meaningfully discussed without acknowledging the invaluable contributions of student activism. The study further suggests a relationship between democratic quality and student activism. It postulates that the shift from the usually oppositional and sometimes violent student activism in Ghana’s Fourth Republic could partially be attributed to the country’s strides made in the drive towards democratic maturity. For students to continue their role as vanguards of democracy in Ghana, the study recommends an amalgamation of all tertiary networks and other student splinter groups under the National Union of Ghana Students; and a shift in the modus operandi of the Union from confrontation to the use of dialogue and other peaceful democratic means to achieve its objectives. This could contribute to the restoration of the Union’s former glory as a united, national and independent mouth-piece of students in all national issues.

Conflict, Carnage, and Cats: Toward a Comic Cú Chulainn in Martin McDonagh's The Lieutenant of Inishmore

Acres will be dense with dead, as he mows battlefield, leaving a thousand lopped heads: these things I do not conceal. Blood spurts from soldiers' bodies, released by this hero's hand. He kills on sight, scattering Deda's followers and clan. Women wail at corpse-mound because of him--the Forge-Hound. --Fedelm, Tain Bo Cuailnge So all this terror has been for absolutely nothing? --Davey, The of Martin McDonagh is one of Ireland's (1) most visible and controversial theatrical exports, and perhaps none of his works has garnered as much controversy and critical discourse as The of (2001). McDonagh's plays can be seen as a bricolage of traditional Irish drama, imagery, folklore, and, interestingly, stereotypes, melded with films of Quentin Tarantino and John Woo; violence and humor commingle with an exaggerated image of stage Irish, resulting in a troubling tapestry of tradition and iconoclasm. A great deal of scholarship has been devoted to identifying his connections to earlier Irish playwrights such as Synge, O'Casey, Yeats, and Gregory. (2) However, while much has been made of these playwrights' affinities for folklore, oral tradition, and mythology, there have not been similar attempts to link McDonagh or his works to these ancient tales and traditions. That said, there are nonetheless certain thematic, ideological, and figural connections between Cu Chulainn, (3) epic of Tain Bo Cuailnge of Ireland's mythological Ulster Cycle, and Lieutenant's Padraic. In following pages, I will utilize mythology of Cu Chulainn as a lens through which to view McDonagh's contemporary exploration of Irish hero as it pertains to both theatrical and cultural spheres. Through a comparative study of two texts, I shall examine ways in which The of satirizes ideologies permeating sectarian conflict in Ireland during latter half of twentieth century. To that end, I will analyze McDonagh's comic subversion of Cu Chulainn's status as a symbol for Irish nationalism, leading to development and construction of a postmodern comic for a divided Ireland. (4) Briefly, The of Inishmore, set on titular island in 1993, tells story of Padraic, a rogue INLA member who, having splintered off from a smaller splinter group, returns to his father's, Donny's, cottage in after hearing that his beloved cat, Wee Thomas, has fallen ill. When he arrives, he finds that his cat is not sick, but has been killed and replaced with Mairead's orange cat, Sir Roger (who Padraic promptly shoots); Christy, a former colleague of Padraic, has seen to cat's death in order to lure Padraic to so that he might kill him. So begins a gruesome and bloody tale of revenge, or perhaps more accurately, vengeance. After unintentionally seducing Mairead through their mutual appreciation of violence, Padraic kills Christy and his two cohorts. Mairead discovers Sir Roger's corpse and kills Padraic in another act of revenge, adopting title of Lieutenant of Inishmore and vowing to mount a full investigation into cat's death. After all this slaughter, Wee Thomas enters cottage, alive and well--the original dead cat was a case of mistaken identity. Mairead's brother, Davey, and Donny, having survived massacre, try to kill Wee Thomas in retribution for all blood shed in his name, but cannot bring themselves to do so and instead feed him a bowl of Frosties as play ends. Written in 1994, but not performed until 20015 (presumably due to anxieties surrounding play's controversial material), is, to date, McDonagh's only overtly political work, set amidst and referring to violence of period known as the Troubles. (6) Indeed, play takes on form of a farcical living newspaper of sorts, where references to real-world violence meld with play's chaotic comic spirit; comic center of play is wildly unpredictable and bloodthirsty Padraic, who bears more than a passing similarity to mythological Cu Chulainn. …

Review of A chronicle of the work of the CPA 1938−2010.

A Chronicle of the Work of the CPA 1938-2010, by John B. Conway, Archivist & Historian of the CPA. Ottawa, ON: CPA, 2012, 462 pages, $30.00.Reviewed by JOHN B. CONNORSDOI: I0.1037/a003I558There are different types of history: military, social, intellectual, and organizational. This text is an organized history of the Canadian Psychological Association (CPA) and how and why it evolved to its present status today with over 4,000 members, several professional publications, task forces, alliances with other organizations, and an annual conference.Although the Canadian Psychological Association has been in existence since 1938, much of its history is unknown to psychology professors and especially their students in Canada. Formed as result of preparation for entrance into World War II, the CPA had its start with the Test Construction Committee for the Department of Defense and the National Research Council in personnel selection procedures. Founding members such as Ned Bott, John MacEachran, George Humphrey, Roy Liddy, Bill Line, George Ferguson, Whit Morton, and Chester Kellogg are little known today. An example is the famous M test given to military recruits in Canada modelled after the Army Alpha and Beta used in World War I. Even after the war, much of its early research was funded by the Defense Research Board and the National Research Council before the universities had developed separate funding sources such as the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.In standard History of Psychology texts and courses almost no mention is made of Canadian contributions with minor exceptions (i.e., Donald Hebb, Wilder Penfield). Much of the organization's work and efforts go unnoticed in the wake of the larger and better known American Psychological Association. In addition, a splinter group of research psychologists called the Canadian Society for Brain and Behaviour and Cognitive Science (CSBBCS) was formed in 1990 which holds its annual conference about the same time of the year as the CPA.The mission of CPA is taken from its website http://www .cpa.ca:Mission and Mandate of the Canadian Psychological Association (CPA)The CPA was organized in 1939 and incorporated under the Canada Corporations Act, Part II, in May 1950. Its objectives are:To improve the health and welfare of all Canadians;To promote excellence and innovation in psychological research, education, and practice;To promote the advancement, development, dissemination, and application of psychological knowledge; andTo provide high-quality services to members.CPA attempts to be French-English bilingual and has 32 separate sections (two are new for 2013) covering all areas of research and applied psychology but with only about 4,000 members. CPA is also an umbrella organization for each of the provincial psychological organizations which provide collegial and regulatory support for psychology as an applied profession.The section on the History and Philosophy of Psychology has less than 50 members but manages to present papers at every conference. Its mission is as follows:The purpose of this Section is to promote the development of History and Philosophy of Psychology as a special interest area in psychology. In pursuance of this purpose, the Section:1 ) provides information to members about current activities, events, research and practice developments in the area;2) organizes sessions at the annual CPA Convention that are of interest to members;3) represents the interests of the Section within CPA through initiating such activities as position papers, policy statements, and special meetings; and4) makes representations, on behalf of its members to external organizations or agencies with the approval of the Executive Committee of the CPA Board of Directors.However, only a small portion of papers presented at the History section specifically examine the contributions of Canadian Psychology to the discipline. …

Institutional weakness and organized crime in Mexico: the case of Michoacán

In the case of Mexico, the prevalence of organized crime and drug trafficking can be explained more as a consequence of the weak and insufficient institutional bureaucracy that impedes the application of the law than the demand for narcotics in the United States. In this context, a study was undertaken in the state of Michoacan, Mexico, the state where one of the most violent criminal groups, Los Caballeros Templarios (the Knights Templar), a splinter group of La Familia Michoacana (the family Michoacan), is located. This article, which draws upon LaFree’s ‘social control’ research, raises the question of the urgent need to strengthen state and municipal government within an integrated strategy to combat organized crime. Failure to reform bureaucracies and the continued lack of local and state institutions that guarantee a modicum of compliance with the law will result in an institutional environment which continues to favor impunity and delinquency.

Notes from the Underground: The Rise of Nouri Al-Maliki and the New Islamists

Notes from the Underground: The Rise of Nouri Al-Maliki and the New Islamists

A Trotskyist's Tale

Trotskyism has rarely achieved significant influence in labour movements: Bolivia, France, Sri Lanka, Vietnam are limited but typically ephemeral exceptions. Since it emerged from the Communist Party (CPGB) in 1932 Trotskyism has remained marginal to British politics. In the 1930s tiny, persecuted, mutually hostile groups of Trotskyists provided compelling critiques of Stalinism. Centred on revolutionary opposition to the ideology and practice of ‘socialism in one country’ and the consolidation of a ruling elite in Russia, such critiques were accessible to few and palatable to fewer on the British left, given the CPGB’s resources, its monopoly of Soviet Communism and its patent on ‘anti-fascism’. At the end of World War Two the unified Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) promised greater influence. By 1949 it had collapsed. It was only from the 1960s that British Trotskyism re-emerged in the context of the youth radicalization, trade-union militancy and, later, Labour Party entrism. Its brief florescence was facilitated by the weakness of Maoism and of autonomism, the belief that workers could force change through direct action without resorting to trade unions or political parties, which blossomed in other countries. Trotskyism became a small but visible and voluble aspect of the left in the shape of the Socialist Labour League/Workers Revolutionary Party; (SLL/WRP); the International Socialists/Socialist Workers’ Party (IS/SWP); the Revolutionary Socialist League/Militant; and more briefly, the International Marxist Group. The leaders of the biggest groups, Gerry Healy, Tony Cliff and Ted Grant, were veterans of the RCP and irreconcilably antagonistic. At their zenith none of these organizations enrolled more than 5,000 active members, and the numerous splinter groups considerably less. Prominence was purchased by hyperactivism; influence in the labour movement has always been restricted.

Defeating Colombia's Oldest Insurgency

The decision to enter into peace negotiations with the FARC represents the latest in a series of attempts by Colombia's Santos administration to prioritise political over military activities in seeking an end to the country's internal conflict. Yet despite favourable political conditions, a number of major challenges remain which could prevent a meaningful peace settlement from coming to fruition. Matt Ince argues that the single largest obstacle in this regard is the potential for the talks to cause fragmentation within the FARC, an outcome that could impede its leaders in negotiating a settlement viewed as legitimate by the entire organisation, while opening the door to the emergence of FARC splinter groups in the period ahead.

The Crisis Model for Managing Change in African Christianity: The Story of St John’s Apostolic Church

Abstract St John’s Apostolic Faith Mission, founded by Christinah Nku (also known as Mme Christinah) and all its splinter groups can be theorized as presenting a crisis model for managing change. These churches provide their members with a well worked out path of inclusion through baptism and related rituals, as well as, alleviation of crisis through an assortment of healing, cleansing and deliverance rituals. There is also a strong element of maintaining a person’s healing through an assortment of rituals of celebration and ideological reinforcement. They do this through a process of resource mobilization from both Christianity and African Religion to set up a religion that adequately responds to both the existential and spiritual needs of their members.

The Black Book

The Black Book

The Cambridge Companion to Malcolm X ed. by Robert E. Terrill (review)

Reviewed by: The Cambridge Companion to Malcolm X ed. by Robert E. Terrill Robert Eddy Robert E. Terrill , ed. The Cambridge Companion to Malcolm X. New York: Cambridge UP, 2010. 194 pp. $26.00. With the recent publication of Manning Marable’s important and controversial biography of Malcolm X, the politics of representation in work about Malcolm X is a crucial part of the national nonconversation about cross-racial [End Page 476] communication and the retreat from racial equity. The opening page of this book describes itself as presenting “new perspectives on Malcolm X’s life and legacy in a series of specially commissioned essays by prominent scholars from a range of disciplines.” The book’s intention is to be “a source of information on his life, career and influence and as an innovative substantive scholarly contribution in its own right, the book also includes an introduction, a chronology of the life of Malcolm X, and a guide to further reading.” Contributor and editor Robert Terrill, in his Introduction to the volume’s fourteen individually authored chapters, after summarizing each, ends by insisting on several crucial points: in spite of many transformations, Malcolm “never abandoned his commitment to Islam, a religion that has been denigrated repeatedly since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon”; Malcolm “never endorsed simple assimilation”; he “never described the political system in the United States as anything other than thoroughly and institutionally corrupt”; finally, “as long as there remains a racial hierarchy, the model of personal and political development that Malcolm X presents will remain relevant” (9). In Claude Clegg’s dynamic first chapter of the book, “Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad,” he explains the deep fictive kinship of the two men and the crucial ways in which each required the other’s influence to do his work. What finally broke the relationship was not simply the jealousy toward Malcolm of the Nation of Islam’s inner circle in Chicago, however deep, or the surveillance and misinformation campaign of the FBI, however effective, and Elijah’s “creeping conservatism” (20), as Malcolm’s militant transnational commitments strengthened. What finally and fully broke the relationship was Malcolm’s embracing of Sunni Islam, since Elijah Muhammad feared that his groomed successor—seventh son Wallace—was moving in the same direction, a path that would discredit the Nation of Islam as a “Muslim” group, and make Elijah’s claim to being the “Messenger of Allah” false, in the eyes of the thereby expanding international and orthodox Islam. In chapter eight, “Malcolm X and youth culture,” Richard Brent Turner explores the “progressive political and religious legacy that Malcolm X created in the last year of his life” (101). Turner pursues this analysis by exploring the antiracist rapping of the “transnational Pan-African ‘hip hop umma,’ a version of the Muslim umma—the global community of Islam that Malcolm experienced during his hajj” (103). Often, the raps focus on the international and multiracial elements of Malcolm’s experience of the hajj. The pan-African hip hop umma is transnational in its focus and commitment, and so, not surprisingly, it demonstrates the “ascendancy of Sunni Islam in black youth culture” (102), rather than the race-based theology of the Nation of Islam, or its splinter group, the Five Percenters. In “Womanizing Malcolm X,” Sheila Radford-Hill does a fascinating job of helping us see the “impact of women’s agency on his life and work” (64) and “gender as a unit of analysis in the politics of black radicalism” (65). The Nation of Islam’s ideal of women as “nurturers practicing virtue, modesty, and humility” (67) became increasingly complicated in Malcolm’s consciousness in the last years of his life, especially through his visits to Africa where he met women “whose leadership skills gave them professional opportunities and influence in African affairs of state” (67). Radford-Hill insists that Malcolm “remade his masculine subjectivity in ways that allowed him to see women as agents of social change” (68). One powerful piece of evidence for this claim of Malcolm’s moving toward gender equality, is that two months before his murder, he introduced Fannie Lou Hamer as “one of the world...

The “Apparel of Innocence”: Toward a Moral Economy of Terrorism in Late Imperial Russia

On February 2, 1905, Ivan Kaliaev did not throw a bomb. He and his fellow members of the Combat Organization of the Russian Socialist Revolutionary SR Party had been tracking their target, the Grand Duke Sergei Aleksandrovich, for months, but Kaliaev aborted the mission at the last moment because he had glimpsed a woman and two children sitting with him in the carriage. Two days later, however, he did throw it, killing the Grand Duke and his driver. Hanged in May 1905, Kaliaev became a mythic figure for the Left, a selfless hero who murdered and sacrificed his life for the revolution and yet who had also refused to kill innocent children. On August 12, 1906, in contrast, three members of an SR splinter group, the Maximalists, drove up to the summer residence of Prime Minister Petr Stolypin intending to detonate their bombs during his reception hours, a time when members of the public would be present in addition to Stolypin’s family. When the Maximalists were challenged, they blew themselves up, killing two dozen people outright and seriously wounding many others, including two of Stolypin’s children; a further six people would die of their injuries. Had the Maximalists made it inside the building, the number of casualties would have been still higher. Stolypin himself was unharmed. These two acts, which marked pivotal moments in the wave of violence that engulfed Russia at the turn of the twentieth century, represent different models of terrorism: the first belongs to a tradition of political assassination in which lines were drawn between combatants and noncombatants—the guilty and the