Struggle For Political Independence Research Articles

Anton de Kom and his role in Suriname’s political struggle for Independence

Anton de Kom and his role in Suriname’s political struggle for Independence

The Niger Delta Crisis and National Integration in Nigeria

This paper examines the causes of the Niger delta crisis in Nigeria and assesses the impact of the crisis on the effort at building a strong and virile state where every citizen will have an undoubted feeling of belonging. The amalgamation of over 350 ethnic-nationalities into one nation state, Nigeria in 1914 marked a watershed in the history and politics of the country. Three other phenomena namely the struggle for political independence by the nationalists, the emergence of the oppressed and dominated minorities in the political and economic arrangements of the country , and the struggles for self-determination and resource control by the minority groups, particularly in the Niger-Delta region of the state became central issues. Communities in the Niger-Delta since independence are faced with political instability, ecological degradation, and wide spread poverty; leading to lack of allegiance to the country. Ethnic suspicion and antagonism which has grievous implications for national integration became the order of the day in Nigeria. This paper submits that enduring peace and stability in the Niger delta region of the Nigerian state is a major factor for sustainable national integration. This could only be accomplished with a resolute political will and determination by the citizens and government at all levels of governance in the country to see and treat Nigerians as the same people irrespective of the place of birth or ethno-regional affiliation.

„Chrześcijańska krucjata” w Chinach. Tajpingowie w świetle relacji Johna Scartha

W artykule zostaje poruszona kwestia religii tajpingów w oparciu o pracę Johna Scartha z 1860 roku, czyli jeszcze przed klęską odniesioną przez Hong Xiuquana. Jest to specyficzne ujęcie tematu, z tego względu, że autor nie ukrywa się z sympatią w stosunku do przedstawicieli tego ruchu. Stoi on w kontrze do dominującej wówczas narracji przedstawiającej tajpingów jako rewolucjonistów i bandytów. Do teraz ten obraz jest często obecny, marginalizując przy tym rolę religii w ich ruchu lub przedstawiając ją w przerysowany sposób jako dziwaczną synkretyczną religię. Scarth łagodzi ten przekaz, skupiając się przede wszystkim na chrześcijańskich korzeniach tej doktryny, obalając przesądy oraz wyjaśniając nieporozumienia. Nie ma jednak wątpliwości, że jego życzliwa postawa często ma związek z niewiedzą na temat szczegółów teologii tajpingów. Obraz, który przedstawia, łączy się z jego specyficzną wizją soteriologii i działania Boga w ludzkiej historii. W tym kontekście rewolucja Hong Xiuquana miała rangę nie tylko polityczną i niepodległościową w stosunku do Mandżurów, ale była to rewolucja religijna, obalająca władzę legitymizującą bałwochwalstwo.

Między Rosją a Czechosłowacją: Ruś łemkowska w polityce międzynarodowej w dobie starań o podmiotowość polityczną, 1918-1921

Between Russia and Czechoslovakia: Lemko Rus’ Struggle for Political Independence in the Years 1918-1921 and International PoliticsThe events in Lemko Rus had, in the years 1918-1921, a subjective and political character, and were the result of Lemkos’ own initiatives and activities, and not just external influences. They proved to be the national maturation of the Lemko community. However, it cannot be said that the newly created Lemko councils aimed at or constituted their own Lemko state with the headquarters in the village of Florynka. It becomes clear after analysing the chronology of Lemko political postulates in the context of events in the regional and global plane. None of the subsequent stages of the process of specifying their nationality by the Lemkos was connected with the idea of a separate Lemko statehood. Formally speaking, i.e., from the perspective of law and international relations, the Lemko region first wanted to belong to the Russian state, then to Czechoslovakia, always strongly rejecting the notion of being part of the resurgent Poland and the then-created Ukraine. Czechoslovakia was not an alternative to Russia for Lemko politicians, but only a tactical necessity against the momentary, as it was believed, impossibility to implement the original Russian option. It was a case created by a coincidence of ad-hoc circumstances. Be the Lemkos’ own country in the national sense, that is, they met both the political and cultural criteria of belonging there, which were important to their community. The Czechoslovak option somehow forced, or rather made possible the second option – striving to create a local state with a wider formula than just the Lemko region, connecting all Rusyns living in Austria-Hungary, that is also those from Eastern Galicia, Bukovina and Hungary. Such a Carpatho-Ruthenian republic was supposed to be a substitute, necessary for formal reasons, as an autonomous element in the federal structure of the Czechoslovak state, and for political reasons, as a safeguard for the national aspirations of the such a Carpatho-Rusyn and a guarantee of their future unification with democratic Russia. While Russia, both tsarist and liberal, guided by its national doctrine, was willing to unconditionally include all Austro-Hungarian Ruthenians in its borders, including also westernmost Lemkos, Czechoslovak leaders wanted to bite only as much as they could chew economically and politically, i.e. – include only regions rich in cities or natural deposits. The poor and non-urbanized Lemko region was treated only as a convenient item in their subversive game of borders with Poland.

Non-violence or Violent Extremism: Young Refugees’ Propensities Pending the Resolution of the Conflict in Western Sahara

This article explores the likelihood of seeing the younger generation of Western Sahara refugees have recourse to violent extremism in lieu of a non-violent political struggle for independence. It ...

Anglicanism, Uhuru and Ujamaa: Anglicans in Tanzania and the Movement for Independence

AbstractThe Anglican Church in Tanzania emerged from the work of the Universities’ Mission to Central Africa (UMCA) and the Australian Church Missionary Society (CMSA). The Anglican missions had goals which stood against colonialism and supported the victory of nationalism. Using archives and interviews as sources, this article considers the roles and reaction of the Anglican missions in the struggle for political independence in Tanganyika and Zanzibar, the effects of independence on the missions and the Church more broadly, and the responses of the missions to ujamaa in Tanzania.

Mining for Goals

This article explores the complex relationship between football (soccer) and social change in late colonial Zambia (formerly known as Northern Rhodesia). Based on archival and oral sources collected over two years in Zambia, it argues that by the time the colonial state and mining authorities expanded access to the game through new postwar welfare schemes intended to “detribalize” Africans and control them more effectively, black miners on the Copperbelt, one of colonial Africa's richest industrial areas, had already found ways to make British football their own. Self-administered leagues of black workers and sport administrators entertained crowds and provided ethnically diverse Zambians with a valuable opportunity to create new urban social networks, communities, and identities. Ordinary fans founded organized supporters' clubs that attempted to make coaches, club directors, and mine management accountable to the public by demanding success on the pitch as well as greater access to facilities and equipment. Assertive managerial participation in the game enabled some men to gain leadership experience that indirectly helped fuel the growing struggle for political independence. This study demonstrates how and why the sociability of miners and other wage-earning Africans had important political and cultural implications for sport and society in colonial Zambia.

The police and the urban ‘dangerous classes’: the culture and practice of public law and order in Milan after national unity

ABSTRACT:The city of Milan during the second half of the nineteenth century is the field of observation for this study, which focuses on urban policing and social control in a situation that ultimately caused problems for the whole country. The case of Milan, which has not received enough attention in this regard, is particularly interesting, given its status as the northern metropolis. It was the second largest population centre in Italy and the most important economic one, a leader in the late struggle for political independence and an opponent at that time of the centralizing policies of the nation-state.1

Social media networks and the discourse of resistance: A sociolinguistic CDA of Biafra online discourses

This study focuses on how Social Media Networks (SMN) have been used in recent times to champion social protests and resistance against oppression and political power abuse. Hence, ‘discourse of resistance’ takes a cue from the current waves of resistance and political revolutions in North Africa and the Arab world, which have been largely attributed to the vibrant SMN. In Nigeria, SMN have been used to mobilize support and active participation in popular efforts to achieve socio-political reforms. The corpus comprises mainly blogs and discussion forums hosted by the Biafra Online Campaign Groups (BOCG). The BOCG consist of persons and groups of the Igbo ethnic group of Nigeria, living in and outside of the country, that advocate a separate nation for the Igbos and accuse the government of Nigeria of marginalizing them. The study applies a sociolinguistic-based Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to investigate how sociolinguistic issues such as virtual community, identity, language variations and social interaction are used to project self-determination and the struggle for political independence. It further examines how ideology is reflected in this context via the discourses produced by BOCG in relation to the Nigerian state.

Public Broadcast Stations' Exclusion of Candidates from Debates: A Step Toward Political Independence?

Government-operated broadcast stations are in an anomalous situation in their continuing struggle for political independence. Not only must government stations meet the informational needs of their audiences, the stations must address the market-induced failures of commercial broadcasting. Controlling their programming is one facet of meeting these obligations. Nevertheless, government stations have been accused of violating the First Amendment when they have exercised their editorial discretion to exclude candidates from debates sponsored by the stations. This article explores political candidates' rights of access to debates in light of a United States Supreme Court decision that held that government stations may use subjective criteria to exclude candidates from debates. Although the Court's decision reinforced government stations' First Amendment rights to exercise editorial discretion, the decision did not significantly advance public broadcasting's struggle for political independence.

NÅR KULTUREN GÅR I KROPPEN: „Halve grønlændere" som begreb og fænomen

Bo Wagner Sørensen: When Culture Gets
 Embodied: The Notion and Phenomenon
 of Greenlandic “Halfies’’
 The article tries to make sense of the notion
 of Greenlandic “halfies” by showing how
 the notion is part of a cultural discourse
 which is expressed in terms of “between two
 cultures”. This discourse points both to
 people being split between cultures and to
 the cultures having materialized themselves
 in individual bodies. In light of recent
 critique of the concept of culture in anthropology
 it is reasonable to question the
 essentialism underlying the expression
 “between two cultures”, and also to imagine
 that individuals who invoke it are suffering
 from “false consciousness”. However, it
 seems that the discourse causes real pain in
 actual bodies, and therefore it needs to be
 taken seriously. In the article, the discourse
 is put in a larger historical, social and
 political perspective, showing how the idea
 has been established that Greenlandic and
 Danish culture and identity are rather
 incompatible entities. The Greenlandic
 struggle for political independence has been
 fought to a large degree in the field of
 culture, which implies that people in general
 are informed by dichotomy thinking.
 Individuals who do not match up with the
 acknowledged criteria for Greenlandic
 culture and identity are inclined to be caught
 between cultures and loyalities, the result
 being that the political cultural war is
 reproduced and reflected in individual
 bodies. Due to the widespread identityhealth
 model according to which the ideal
 identity is a clear-cut and fixed ethnic
 identity, these individuals are often believed
 to experience identity crises. The article
 suggests that the “problem” may not be one
 of incompatible cultural essences, though it
 is widely thought so, but rather that culture
 and identity get politicized.

A Torn Soul: The Dutch Public Discussion on the Colonial Past in 1995

The Dutch cherish a comforting self-image that presents the nation as a wellmannered, civilized, and tolerant community of burghers. Dutch history, as it is taught at school, reinforces this assumption. The Eighty Years War against Spain (1568-1648) is described as a struggle for political independence and as the defining conflict that served to establish the Protestant religion as the basis for public life. The rebellion against Spain was accompanied by a great freedom of expression, both in the printed form as well as orally, which attracted many dissenters from other countries to settle in the Dutch Republic.

Regional economic policy under crisis conditions: the case of agriculture within SADCC

With the international economic crisis, the drought, and food production crisis in Africa, all of the economic indicators show a negative growth and a decrease in the quality of life of most African peoples. After two and one-half 'development decades' of the United Nations, the international community and the individual states have clearly failed in their goal. From the 'capitalist' model of development (Ivory Coast, Kenya) to the 'socialist' model (Ethiopia, Mozambique), the economies are in crisis. 'National' development no longer seems possible. Further, individual states find the colonial legacy of underdevelopment too difficult to transform in a period of international economic crisis. Even countries like Angola and Mozambique, who won national revolutions and began social revolutions to transform production relations, have found the inherited economic linkages an inimical barrier to development. Born in the struggle for political independence of Zimbabwe, the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC) brings together nine economies in the region (Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe) to address problems of their colonial legacy of underdevelopment, their vulnerability to present economic crises, and their dependence on the South African apartheid economy. This paper analyses the ability of SADCC, as an innovative model for regional cooperation, to coordinate their policies and set priorities for regional development. The first section briefly reviews the international economic crisis of capitalism and discusses the negative impact on developing countries of 'solutions' tried by the advanced capitalist states. The second section analyses the diversity of the SADCC nine, resulting from their different historical positions in the regional Southern African economy, for the contradictions among the nine are important obstacles to regional coordination. Finally, the study investigates SADCC planning in agriculture, coordinated by Zimbabwe. As a priority of SADCC, agriculture is the first productive sector that SADCC is trying to coordinate. There are some real successes for SADCC, ones which point to the idea that regional coordination may alleviate somewhat the long-term international economic

Venezuelan Regionalism and the Rise of Táchira

Venezuela underwent three great nineteenth-century revolutions. The first was the extended struggle for political independence from Spain (1810-1821), which transformed the colony into a sovereign state. The second was the Federal War (1859-1863), which, by stepping up sharply the trend toward social democracy, had a lasting effect on the conduct of Venezuelan politics. The third, and the least studied, was the 1899 Revolution of the Liberal Restoration, which integrated the Andes into the political mainstream of the nation.1

The Argentine Paradox

The Frondizi government in Argentina is com mitted to democratic principles and international co-operation, but the Argentine people are committed to rabid nationalism and political fragmentation. A permanent crisis in Argentina since 1930 has produced extreme fragmentation, as distin guished from pluralism, and has made it necessary for the military actively to protect the stability and integrity of what ever government holds office. Although the behavior of the Argentines is generally typical of the behavior of peoples in underdeveloped countries, Argentina has long enjoyed national independence and has been well developed. The middle class is large, and literacy is high. Argentine nationalism cannot be explained as a simple function of the struggle for political in dependence and economic development. Following the Perón debacle, however, Frondizi was compelled by economic neces sity to adopt unpopular policies of economic stability and austerity. The resistance of the people to these has increased the dependence of Frondizi upon the military. Unless great successes are obtained before the Frondizi term expires, the policies which have come to be identified with him will almost certainly be reversed, and a situation similar to that in Cuba may result. In the immediate future, the United States, with out being charged with interventionism, can only offer the help Argentina solicits. In the long run, the United States can advise and assist the Argentines, as Americans, in finding a solution for themselves.—Ed.

What Every American Should Know About the Suez Crisis

A history of the world during the last century might well start and end with the Suez Canal. It was in 1854 that the French engineer-promoter Ferdinand de Lesseps launched the project which led to the actual construction of the Canal (the idea of a canal across Egypt was, of course, much older). The first ships passed through on November 17, 1869. In 1888, the Great Powers drew up a treaty which has since remained the basis of the Canal's status in international law. The "big ditch" was crucial to the vast system of European imperialism which grew up after 1870. It played an important role in both world wars. It took on a new significance with the fantastic post-World War II development of the oilfields of the Middle East. And now, both materially and symbolically, it stands at the very center of the backward countries' struggle for political independence and economic development.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

The Rise and Decline of Quakerism in the Monongahela Valley

THE RISE AND DECLINE OF QUAKERISM IN THE MONONGAHELA VALLEY By Levinus K. Painter* Before the Revolutionary War a few Friends from the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia joined the thin stream of hardy pioneers who followed the trail that Braddock and his men had cut across the mountains. Due to the failure of the Braddock expedition ( 1755 ), the Pennsylvania colonial government warned settlers that it was not in a position to assure protection to new communities west of the Allegheny Mountains. Indian raids, inspired by the French, slowed down the stream of Scotch-Irish settlers. But Indian war cries created no fears in the hearts of Quakers. Their "broad brims" afforded far surer protection than the methods of the lamented Braddock. Most of the early Quaker settlers in the Monongahela Valley came from the vicinity of Hopewell, Virginia (Fairfax Quarterly Meeting, later known as Warrington and Fairfax). While their neighbors were engaged in the struggle for political independence, Quakers found peaceful conquest of the lands beyond the mountains a very suitable alternative to military service. They could clear land, build homes and meetinghouses, establish schools, and start frontier industrial life while other men fought battles and set up the instruments of constitutional government . These pioneering Quakers in the Redstone area of the Monongahela Valley carved new communities out of the wilderness. About the year 1768 Henry Beeson settled at the junction of the two branches of Redstone Creek and laid out lots for a town. The settlement was first known as Beeson's Town but the name was later changed to Union Town. About the same time, Rees Cadwallader settled on Bridgeport Hill, overlooking the Monongahela River. After his death an attempt was made to give his name to the settlement. Perhaps the name was too great an effort for the human tongue. The name South Brownsville was adopted instead. * Minister in the Friends Meeting at Collins, New York. 24 Quakerism in the Monongahela Valley25 Other Friends crossed the Monongahela River and started a settlement at Westland, four miles west of Brownsville. This community apparently grew more rapidly than the Beeson and Cadwallader neighborhoods, so far as the number of Friends settling in the respective areas was concerned. In 1782 Westland Friends requested that a Preparative Meeting be set up by the parent Monthly Meeting at Hopewell, Virginia. After due deliberation the request was granted and Westland became the first organized Friends meeting west of the Allegheny Mountains. Other meetings were established during the next few years and in 1785 Redstone Monthly Meeting was set up, meeting alternately at Westland on the west side of the Monongahela River and at Redstone (South Brownsville) on the east side. By 1793 a sufficient number of meetings had been set up to make desirable two Monthly Meetings, the river providing a convenient dividing line. Four years later, in 1797, Baltimore Yearly Meeting gave approval to the setting up of Redstone Quarterly Meeting. At the turn of the century there were eleven meetings of Friends in the Redstone area of the Monongahela Valley. Located on the east side of the river in Fayette County were Bridgeport Hill (also known as South Brownsville and at times called Redstone), Sandy Hill, Center, Providence, and Stewart's Crossing (Connellsville); Sewickley in Westmoreland County, and Sandy Creek over the border in West Virginia. In addition to Westland meeting in Washington County, three other meetings had been set up on the west side of the river: Fallowfield (sometimes called Tallowfield), Pike's Run, and East Findley (also known as Head of Wheeling). A little later, a fifth meeting was established at Ridge or Muddy Creek, but the meeting was small and did not continue many years. A map showing the location of meetings in Ohio Yearly Meeting circa 1826 indicates that there was also a small group of Friends in Pittsburgh but not a regularly organized meeting.1 Redstone Quarterly Meeting had been transferred from Baltimore to Ohio Yearly Meeting when it was set up in 1813. 1 This map is reproduced in the Inventory of Church Archives: Society of Friends in Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: Friends Historical Association 1941), opp. p. 338. 26Bulletin of Friends Historical Association Concerned Friends established...

Egypt: The Transition Period

The Egytian problem presents two aspects. One concerns the purely political struggle for independence. The other has to do with the favored position of foreigners in Egypt under the régime of the Capitulations. The former was primarily a private concern between the two countries involved—Egypt and Great Britain. The other, while touching in a special manner the responsibilities accepted by the “occupying Power,” concerned in an important manner the several foreign nations which had come to have stakes of great importance in the country—interests of a commercial, professional, educational, religious and even semi-political character. The separate nature of these two aspects of the same problem is well illustrated by the fact that two entirely separate series of international negotiations were required to deal with them.