Struggle For Order Research Articles

William Elphinstone and the Kingdom of Scotland, 1431-1514: the Struggle for Order. By Leslie J. Macfarlane. Pp. xix + 517. (Published for the University of Aberdeen by Aberdeen University Press, 1985. £30)

<i>William Elphinstone and the Kingdom of Scotland, 1431-1514: the Struggle for Order</i>. By Leslie J. Macfarlane. Pp. xix + 517. (Published for the University of Aberdeen by Aberdeen University Press, 1985. £30)

L. J. Macfarlane, William Elphinstone and the kingdom of Scotland, 1431–1514: the struggle for order

L. J. Macfarlane, William Elphinstone and the kingdom of Scotland, 1431–1514: the struggle for order

Afghanistan in 1981: The Struggle Intensifies

THE YEAR 1981 proved to be more difficult and costly than the one preceding it for the Soviet military forces in Afghanistan. The position of the Soviets and their surrogate government under Babrak Karmal worsened precipitously during the year. As the Afghan people's civil and armed resistance grew in effectiveness, the Soviets and the Karmal government could not rightly claim any notable degree of popular support and justify their assertion that the estimated 85,000 Soviet troops were in Afghanistan only to defend the country against imperialist aggression backed by the United States, China, Pakistan, and Egypt. By the end of the year, the opposition forces (Mujaheedin) controlled most of the countryside and several important towns, and operated widely in many major cities, including Kabul, which was frequently isolated from the rest of the country. In fact, the Soviets and Karmalites appeared fairly desperate in their struggle to maintain even their initial hold on Kabul and some other main cities, notably Kandahar. Despite their heavy human and material sacrifice, however, the opposition forces were not in a position to achieve total victory and a military stalemate resulted. Yet, there was no sign of a political solution to the crisis either, for Moscow did not feel strong enough to sanction such a solution, as demanded by the international community, without losing all its influence in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the stalemate was reinforced by the apparent U.S. policy of favoring the continuation of the struggle in order to make the Soviet adventure as costly as possible, thereby discrediting Moscow internationally and restraining it in other trouble spots, especially Poland, El Salvador, and Iran, as well as exemplifying more assertive American foreign policy behavior. In its military intervention, starting openly in late December 1979,

Champ littéraire et champ du pouvoir : Les écrivains et l'Affaire Dreyfus

Comme le remarquait J.-P. Peter dans un article paru en 1961, l'historiographie de l'Affaire Dreyfus présente un paradoxe. Chaque année apporte son lot d'ouvrages, nouvelles synthèses, nouvelles thèses, nouvelles révélations diplomatiques, militaires, journalistiques, sans que jamais le fond de l'Affaire apparaisse. L'essentiel n'est pas de poser sempiternellement la question « qui est le coupable ? », mais de savoir pourquoi et comment ce problème d'histoire secrète ou judiciaire est devenu le scandale du siècle, un traumatisme de toute la société ou du moins de groupes sociaux entiers : armée, magistrature, intellectuels, journalistes, hommes politiques, petit peuple urbain, etc. Notre ambition est évidemment plus limitée. Nous voudrions apporter à cette question des éléments de réponse pour un groupe particulier, les écrivains et plus généralement certaines catégories intellectuelles.

Politics, a Need and Danger for Education

Education must keep itself beyond the reach of political conflicts and party struggles in order to place itself objectively at the service of all families; but its goal must be clearly defined and perceived by public opinion and the necessary means must be provided for it; this need cannot do without political support. When one is speaking about the relationship between politics and education one must be clear about words: if the word 'education' does not lend itself to ambiguity the same is not true, in French at least, for the word 'politique', which signifies at one and the same time the state of conflict resulting from competition between parties-what in popular parlance is termed 'la politique' ('politics')-and the art of conducting the affairs of the citizen community, which is expressed by 'une politique' ('a policy'), namely a doctrine elaborated to attain a social end. One may also distinguish 'un politique' ('a statesman'-Richelieu was a clever statesman), which is not the same thing as 'un politicien' ('a politician'-the French word is derogatory). Thus 'politique' as an adjective, 'politique' as a feminine noun and 'politique' as a masculine noun are three different things, without mentioning 'des politiciens' ('politicians') which will here be used in the non-pejorative sense that it has, for example, in the English language. An educational policy characterized by the definition of its social goal increasingly meets difficulty in obtaining general consent, for the ways in which economic and human relationships are patterned divide the various categories of groups concerned. It cannot ignore pressure groups or interest groups, which are bound up with the way the policy is organized. Teachers' professional associations are the natural defenders of corporate interests which do not always chime with those of pupils: from them may come pressure for overlong holidays or for a reduction of the teaching day. From them may also come a tendency to disguise under allegedly disinterested pedagogical considerations demands which aim above all at lightening the teacher's task, such as that for the reduction in the number of pupils per class below a certain level, which in turn will lead to a demand for a further reduction once it has been reached.

What shall we do with the drunken king?

Opening ParagraphWestern scientific culture finds itself in a singular position with respect to the magico-religious system embodied in medieval culture from which, after strenuous resistence from the contemporary ecclesiastical authorities, it originally broke free. That is to say, it has still not succeeded in forming a theory concerning that very class of phenomena with which it was sometimes obliged violently to struggle in order to constitute itself as an autonomous discipline. And we, despite the proliferation of ethnographic and historical studies of extremely high quality, are hardly more advanced than in 1902, when Marcel Mauss and Henri Hubert (1950: 138) wrote: ‘Until now the history of religions has relied on a rag-bag of vague ideas … the science of religions does not yet possess a scientific nomenclature’.

Time and Change in African Traditional Thought

It has been suggested that an important difference between persons, cultures or religions is to be found in their sense of time. Tell me how a man thinks of time and I will tell you kind of person he is. In western culture time seems to be thought of generally as a line extending equally into past and future, marked off in units of hours, days, years, and centuries. There appears to be some uncertainty as to whether time moves or whether we move through time; at any rate, there is agreement that in some sense we are headed toward future. Men plan, work and struggle in order that may be better than past. Some look for a future life, after death, or for an end of age when God's kingdom will be made manifest, while others have a more secular vision of a new world. While men may not agree as to what will bring, they at least agree that it is important and worth arguing over! In other cultures, however, there appears to be a rather different view of time. Dr. John Mbiti has stimulated considerable discussion by his suggestion that in African there is a strong sense of past and present but the is virtually absent .... 1 He supports this view with evidence from his own language, Kikamba. While it is possible to speak of a distant past, one can only speak of a limited future, stretching to about six months, and in any case, not beyond two years from NOW. 2 The Kikamba language, according to Mbiti, is not able to deal with a more distant future. A similar statement has been made about Kiluba, a language of southern Zaire:

Discrimination and Class Oppression: An Example of Ifeoma Okoye’s The Fourth World

Discrimination is a social problem which has eaten deep into the social circles of different African societies. It is seen in public or private sectors; religious or traditional groups as individuals in a given society engage in endless class struggles in order to control socio-economic and political powers. In essence, discrimination divides humanity into different classes and thus encourages marginalization and oppression in many forms; hence leading to violent protests or demonstrations. This paper examines discriminatory actions in Ifeoma Okoye’s The Fourth World in order to ascertain the causes of discrimination which divides the society into the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’. In order to critically explore the different levels of discrimination and oppression in the selected novel, this research employs Marxism as the theoretical framework. In exploring the novel, the findings show massive exploitation of the proletariats by the bourgeoisie (government and rich individuals) who neglect a poverty stricken section of the society called the ‘Fourth world’ and thus cause untold hardship. This research therefore recommends that the government should bridge a gap between the rich and poor by providing basic social amenities in different areas of the society in order to enhance the living conditions of the poor. Government should also monitor sectors that manage government owned establishments for efficiency and accountability in order to protect the rights of poor citizens who are daily exploited. Key words: Discrimination, Oppression, Marxism, Class struggle, Disillusionment

Three-day hospitalization--a model for intensive intervention.

A PREVIOUS paper¹has described the theoretical rationale and planning for the development of an inpatient Emergency Treatment Unit (ETU) at the Connecticut Mental Health Center (CMHC). The ETU is designed to investigate the use of brief (three-day) intensive hospitalization as a model for providing inpatient care which is especially tailored to the type of problems presented by lower socioeconomic class patients. Such patients often present themselves at the emergency room of large city hospitals as being in the midst of an emotional crisis with which they cannot deal effectively. ETU admits such patients from the Yale-New Haven Hospital emergency room with the goal of helping the person focus on current life struggles in order to facilitate the individual's return to the level of functioning that preceded the disruption and crisis that led to his seeking hospitalization. Following discharge from the three-day hospitalization a one-month