Unity Movement Research Articles

“Unity and Refinement”. Paths and Quests for Organizational and Ceremonial Unity in the First Half of the 20th Century

This article explores the efforts of the Hungarian Reformed Church in the first half of the 20th century to achieve uniformity and refinement in its worship practices. The desire for a unified Hungarian Reformed worship service had been a hallmark of previous centuries, leading to a long journey of development in the 20th century. The standardization of the liturgical praxis aimed to create a sense of shared identity and eliminate historical variations in regional worship practices and customs. The movement for liturgical unity had been ongoing for centuries, with earlier attempts including church district agendas published in the 19th century. The publication of the Liturgical Book [Istentiszteleti Rendtartás] in 1930, which is the first official Agenda for the whole Reformed Church in Hungary, marked a culmination of efforts towards liturgical unity. The paper highlights the tension between achieving uniformity and preserving diversity within a religious tradition. Keywords: liturgics, history of liturgy in the Reformed Church in Hungary, liturgical book, 20th century, worship practices

Guyana: Myth of capitalist resource extraction as development

Guyana has been subjected to the myth of capitalist resource extraction as “development” both as a colony and well after it gained independence. Guyana's colonial history, its history of structural adjustment, and its ongoing situation of foreign domination have all made “development” an elusive goal for the country. This article discusses why it is unlikely that oil will “develop” Guyana, and Guyanese frustration with foreign dominance in the oil and gas sector as is seen through various lawsuits raised against the government and ExxonMobil. I argue that oil presents a new opportunity in Guyana for a reignited and transformed movement for racial and national unity, which was not previously present in other extractive industries like sugar or mining. Whereas the aforementioned extractions allowed for some redistribution – via a decentralization of the power brokers in those sectors to include Guyanese – that opportunity is not present with oil. Oil extraction requires a lot more equipment and specialized knowledge – which has shut out small and local producers present in the other sectors– thus has, and will continue to, place Guyanese in confrontation with foreign capital in the oil and gas sector. Today, successful legal mobilizations in Guyana means that direct political mobilizations are unlikely to occur.

Reflecting on a Decolonial educational praxis in South African public schools

The continuing educational crises and the recurrent discourse on educational reform in South Africa foreground critical questions on what constitutes a viable philosophical and pedagogical strategy for the country. This article examines the transformative praxis of a dissident teachers' organisation, the Teachers' League of South Africa (TLSA or the League), and how the development of its distinctive non-racist and non-collaborationist worldview provide meaningful possibilities for present-day educationists seeking a progressive educational alternative. The article draws on decolonial and critical education theories to engage the views of TLSA teachers and non-League education activists. Documentary material on the TLSA and its umbrella body, the Unity Movement, provide key primary sources for the article. In addition, secondary information linked to the broader liberation movement offers valuable insights and perspectives on what could be defined as an alternative educational praxis. Overall, the article examines whether the coexistence of the TLSA's holistic educational outlook and 'egalitarian oriented' counter-consciousness, offers tangible possibilities for exploring an emancipatory decolonial education.

ABUL KALAM AZAD’S IDEA OF RELIGIOUS PLURALISM FOR AN INCLUSIVE INDIAN NATIONALISM: A CIVILIZATIONAL REVISIT

Abul Kalam Azad (1888-1958), the first Minister of Education in independent India, was a towering figure in the modern subcontinent. A freedom fighter against British colonial rule following the steps of Syed Ahmad Khan (1817-1898), an Islamic thinker, and a champion of Hindu-Muslim unity, Azad was an intellectual-activist advocating an inclusive Indian nationalism. This article focuses on Azad’s idea of religious pluralism based on the doctrine of unity of religions (wahdat al-adyan) and how he related it to his vision of an inclusive Indian nationalism. It discusses the main ideas embodied in this vision, especially the interrelated ideas of national unity and integrity, communal solidarity and harmony, cultural cohesion, and the need for a comprehensive education system that would serve national unity and the well-being of all Indians. Azad’s idea of unity of religions is articulated in his well-known exegetical work The Tarjuman al-Qur’an, especially in his commentary on the “Opening Chapter” (Surah al-Fatihah) of the Qur’an. This article also shows that Azad emphasized on common religious and cultural values as a means of embracing others for partnership in a national unity movement.

Egzegetsko-teološko čitanje teksta Iz 30, 1-17 (TM) u svjetlu „unity movement“ pristupa za čitanje Knjige proroka Izaije

The Book of Isaiah has been truly complex for bible researchers for years. The primary difficulty arises from the poetic way of expressing the author, and this is of course associated with the difficulty of connecting different historical epochs described by the Book of Isaiah in its completeness. Lately, this book has been approached in a unitary way. This will say that it is sought to be read in its wholeness of parts, rather than dividing it as it has long been a trend, into three parts: Is 1-39; 40-55; 56-66. This so-called “unity movement” in research on the Book of Isaiah shows us how the Book can nevertheless be approached whole. Therefore, in this paper, we will seek to analyze the text of Is 30:1-17 (TM) in light of the so-called “unity movement” approach to the Book of Isaiah. It should be said however that the methodological path of this work will be primarily the so-called “close reading” of the text and then also will be given some possible intertextual echoes which link Is 30, 1-17 with other parts of the Book of Isaiah. At the end author will also try to depict a possible historical and theological message of the same biblical text.

A Trauma Reading of Isaiah 1–12 from the “Unity Movement” Perspective

In this contribution we focus firstly on the “unity movement” which has changed the face of Isaianic studies over the last 30 or more years, having been characterised by the Duhmian interpretation of three separate books for nearly 100 years. The unity movement focusses on the book of Isaiah as a literary unity, but it does not deny the historical growth of this literary masterpiece which took place over centuries. Secondly, we give a brief overview of the use of trauma theory as a reading lens in biblical studies and its implication for reading the book of Isaiah in this manner. In the third part we focus on three themes which are important from the perspective of the unity of the book of Isaiah (specifically in Isaiah 1–12 which is the first major subsection within the larger composition of the book of Isaiah). These three themes are important for a trauma reading of the book of Isaiah, as will be indicated in this contribution: the concept of the we-group (remnant), the woe oracles, and the theme of the “day of YHWH // this day.” These themes are briefly dealt with within Isaiah 1–12, although they have major implications for a more detailed study of the book of Isaiah (read as a literary unity) from a trauma theoretical perspective.

Editors’ Introduction

Editors’ Introduction

The Party for Justice and Development’s “Specialization” in Politics: Metamorphosis and Contradictions

Abstract Based on empirical research, this article analyzes “the specialization” of the Moroccan Party for Justice and Development and the internal tensions between its political and religious vocations. The latter is one of the Islamist parties with the longest political experience in the Maghreb area which started its “professionalization” in politics at an early stage, at least since 1997–1998. However, little is known in the literature if this pragmatic decision led to the reformation of the movement’s classical ideology. In fact, the “inclusion-moderation hypothesis” showed that the institutionalization of the Islamists parties does not necessarily entail their ideological moderation. By analyzing the contradictions of the structural reform between the party and the Movement for Unity and Reform this article argues that some practices could question the “specialization” thesis. It highlights that despite the “specialization,” the pjd did not reform its core beliefs which are preserved for both religious and political reasons.

A Gendered Approach to the Yu Chi Chan Club and National Liberation Front during South Africa's Transition to Armed Struggle

AbstractSouth Africa's anti-apartheid struggle reflected an ideal of heroic masculinity that ignored and depreciated women as active political agents. This has contributed to a post-apartheid social order that accepts formal gender equality but that perpetuates gender inequality by discounting women's experiences. This article examines the little-known and short-lived Yu Chi Chan Club (YCCC) and National Liberation Front (NLF). Tiny Cape Peninsula-based breakaways from the Non-European Unity Movement – an African National Congress rival – the YCCC and NLF were exceptional amongst early 1960s underground groups in their systematic attempts to theorize guerrilla struggle and assess its applicability to South African conditions and, in the NLF's case, to build a cell structure through political education. Although the NLF's idealized notion of revolutionary life was premised on an abstract individual with traits then associated with public and vocal male activists, nonetheless women participated as equal abstract individuals. The NLF's relatively horizontal cell structure, small cell size, and lack of hierarchy made participation easier for both women and men, allowing women to operate equally within the political space. From their gendered upbringing and early experiences in hierarchical organizations to their brief experience of equality within the YCCC and NLF, the women were then forced into a prison system with an extremely rigid and unequal gender divide. Subjected to the state's regendering project, the political space available to the NLF's women prisoners shrank far more than it did for their male comrades, whose prison experiences became the measure of anti-apartheid politics.

Rebel rivals: reinterrogating the movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa and the roots of Al-Qaeda-Islamic State Infighting in the Sahel

ABSTRACT Terrorist group rivalries have become widely studied since Islamic State (IS) and al-Qaeda-loyal groups began clashing in Syria. While existing literature finds such rivalries increase terrorist groups’ lethality and longevity, there are few case studies of IS provinces and al-Qaeda affiliates operating in the same geographic area outside the Middle East. One such province-affiliate rivalry that has only recently begun to be explored is between Islamic State in Greater Sahara (ISGS) and Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) in the Sahel. This article utilises various primary sources, including group members’ interviews and written statements, to trace the ISGS-JNIM rivalry’s roots to their common Sahel-based predecessor, Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (English: MUJWA; French: MUJAO) and finds literature has under-estimated MUJWA’s split from al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) on ISGS’s emergence and inheriting a trafficking and non-scholarly legacy that merged with IS’s uncompromising strategic culture. Building on terrorism studies literature concerning rebel rivalries globally and Sahel-based area studies literature concerning intra-communal tensions, ethno-nationalism, and jihadism, the article argues that despite ISGS’s aspirations to supersede JNIM, the latter’s approach, which reflects AQIM theologians’ restraint and al-Qaeda’s coalition-building, will enable JNIM to become a fixture in the Sahel for the longue durée. Furthermore, the article demonstrates how local conditions and international alliances affected ISGS and JNIM’s conduct of their insurgencies and dialogue with both each other and state actors.

문선명 선생의 종교일치운동을 통한 평화운동 연구

문선명 선생의 종교일치운동을 통한 평화운동 연구

Race, racialisation and colour-caste

Since race categories do not pick out biologically significant divisions of humanity, their use can be misleading and offensive. Yet racialisation – society’s viewing and treating South Africans as though they comprised different races – has generated real societal groups which are significant from the perspectives of justice and identity. In the philosophy of race, these facts make for a conceptual conundrum. Is common-sense race thinking right that races, if they exist, are human groups differing in significant, inherent and heritable ways, in which case there are no races? Or has common-sense race thinking failed to grasp races’ socially constructed nature, and should we say races are the really existing groups generated by racialisation? The same facts confronted the Non-European Unity Movement (NEUM) – a mid-20th-century South African liberation movement – with an organisational and theoretical challenge. Given its uncompromising non-racialism, how could it justify a federal structure which effectively divided its membership into African, Coloured, and Indian sections? If this was not race-based division, what was it? A former NEUM member, Neville Alexander, provided the Unity Movement with the conceptual resources to answer this challenge. I argue that his major work, One Azania, One Nation, is also a contribution to the philosophy of race. Alexander first contends that social constructionists cannot, without equivocation, claim that common-sense thinking about race in one sense has created races in a quite different sense. He then shows that introducing a second concept, ‘colour-caste’, can preserve the insights of the constructionist approach. While races are unreal, colour-castes are real social identities which need to be overcome.

NORTHERN MALI 2012: THE SHORT-LIVED TRIUMPH OF IRREDENTISM

Strengthened by weapons from Libya, the rebellion beginning in Mali incJanuary 2012 finally gave a Tuareg-dominated irredentist movement control of Northern Mali in the fourth rebellion since independence. The Movement for the National Liberation (MNLA) called this area Azawad, proclaiming it as independent. Although it was to be a multiethnic country, the MNLA remained dominated by the Tuareg. Discontent among Malian officers during the fight against the rebels produced a coup d'état, undermining the military command structure, which greatly contributed to the rebels' success. An unavowed alliance existed with AQIM (Al-Qaida of the Islamic Maghreb) and the Tuareg Islamist group Ansar Dine. The latter and the AQIM-offshoot, MUJAO (the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa), eventually drove the MNLA from Northern Mali. Increasingly, the Islamists imposed an extreme version of sharia, adding to the mass flight of refugees. Negotiations between the interim Malian government, the MNLA and the Ansar Dine still continued until the latter and AQIM moved towards Southern Mali. The perceived threat made the Malian government request French assistance. The intervention gradually drove the Islamists from the country, enabling the restoration of the state in Northern Mali. The conflict reveals underlying features of the political situation in Northern Mali, and highlights how the Tuareg and NorthernMalians have responded to the state's shortcomings through rebellion. Access to the state passes through privileged individuals. Rebels have been drawn closer to the state after conflicts, with only some benefitting from this arrangement. This is mirrored at a local level, with public figures and their followers enjoying the closest relation to the state. Producing widespread discontent, this situation is marked by insecurity because of a weak state presence. Misgivings have fed into new rebellions. Weak state control also allowed the AQIM to engage in hostage taking and for smuggling to expand. This volatile situation produced the latest rebellion. An improved connection to the state for Northern Mali and a strong state presence are necessary to counteract the factors responsible for repeated conflict.

Persis: Pergerakan Dakwah di Kota Medan Tahun 2010-2015

<em>This research aims to identify the Islamic unity movement in the North Sumatera in the field education, preaching, culture, and society environment. The research approach of this study uses case study to describe the development of Islamic Unity in the north sumatera. Techniques for collecting data uses observation, interview, and documentation by gathering the observation result, reduction, data description and result discussion. Commonly the Islamic Unity Movement is divided into two part, first, preaching (Da’wah) movement through the distribution of Islamic Unity’s bulletins in once a fortnight. Second, the establishment of zakat center community that serving distribution of zakat community and giving scholarship in 15% from zakat, infaq and shadaqah’s income.</em>

A Critical Analysis of the Unity Movement in Bangladesh: Shaikh Azizur Rahman’s “Unity in Diversity”

Muslims in Bangladesh are polarised and disunited, including among Islamist groups, who are supposed to be the symbol of Muslim Unity. Shaikh Azizur Rahman Nesarabadi (1915-2008) was a pioneering figure who propelled the theory and practise of uniting the people of Bangladesh. According to him, ittihad mal Ikhtelaf (Unity in Diversity) is the only solution to existent disunity. This paper analyses his discourse and his role in the politics and society of Bangladesh by textual analysis of primary and secondary data. After analysing Unity in Diversity itself, we provide a short biographical sketch of Shaikh Azizur Rahman, showing his exposure to both Shariah and Sufi education, and their impacts on his thought. The paper then focuses on his ideas on four stages of unity and analyses them in light of contemporary social realities in Bangladesh and the Muslim world. This paper concludes that Shaikh Nesarabadi’s thought and theory on unity depend upon three elements: moderation and mutual respect, focus on common interest, and the Tawhidic paradigm. These comprise the framework for Muslim unity whose adoption by Muslims can fulfil the command of Allah to enable the Ummah to resume a leading role in the world as a champion of justice.

Values and Public Sociology: A Tension Between Unity and Pluralistic Social Movements

Values and Public Sociology: A Tension Between Unity and Pluralistic Social Movements

The Discourse of the New Unity Movement: Recalling Progressive Voice

This paper provides insight into how the discourse of the New Unity Movement (NUM) can potentially contribute to educational development in the context of South Africa’s social inequality. It describes the political lens of the NUM and how its discourse countered the oppressive forces of a capitalist-apartheid system, in a struggle for an alternative world order. NUM’s discourse is posited as a progressive voice whose educational analysis and sound pedagogic principles could be recalled towards transforming education in South Africa today. Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is applied to recontextualise the societal role of teachers and the role of critique in what Fairclough (2010) describes as evaluating society and possible ways to change it. The analysis of the NUM’s writing also draws on Gramsci’s (1971) concept of hegemony that enables further insight into cultivating an educational philosophy that is emancipatory.

Terrorism: An Impediment To Socio-Economic Integration In Economic Community Of West African States (ECOWAS)

Nations are seeking avenues to play bigger role in the global economy and the world at large. One of such quests led to the formation of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in 1975 by a – 15 – member nation to promote socio-economic integration among member countries. As a result, this body has encountered numerous challenges in its quest to move West African countries to the desired direction. One of such challenges which reared its ugly head not too long ago is terrorism. The emergence of terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (Mujoo), the Niger Delta Avengers, Ansar – Dine, Boko Haram and Juma’ata Ansarul Muslimina (Ansaru) and their activities within and around West Africa have become a matter of serious concern to governments and citizens of the region as their activities, being violent in nature, had negatively affected the flow of commerce and socio-economic interaction among Member States. This, of course has been identified by ECOWAS leaders as a major threat to the integration effort of the body. To this end, several regional mechanisms and instruments for enhancing security, development, good governance and counter terrorism activities were adopted by the body to stem the tide of crime and terrorism in the region. Among the security tightening measures to forestall terrorism and other forms of insecurity within the region include effective police to police co-operation in borderless communities, enhancement of police co-operation with the international police organization (INTERPOL), soliciting some intelligence agencies of the western world, as well as regional cooperation among security and intelligence agencies against terrorism. These measures, it is believed, would go a long way to check-mating the activities of terrorist groups and criminal gangs in the region, thereby enhancing and promoting the socio-economic interaction among member states. This paper work concludes that regional integration in ECOWAS is necessary if West African countries must play crucial role in the global economy and occupy a crucial position among the committee of nations. The paper recommends among others that ECOWAS as a body must re-strategize and enhance its security and intelligence apparatus for more proactive response to all forms of security threats and terrorism.

'Everything is Plastic': The Faith of Unity Movement and the Making of a Post-Catholic Religion in Uganda

One of David Chidester's long-term fascinations in the academic study of religion is his nuanced scrutiny of the sensorial features of contemporary religious life. Chidester uses an approach of multi-sensorial imagination of matter to investigate the plasticity and elasticity of religion to innovate and accommodate changing religious and spiritual desires and how such adaptions ensure the popularity of religious participation in a contemporary, technology-saturated society. Based on an ethnographic investigation of a new religious movement in Uganda, this essay mobilizes some of the analytical concepts developed by Chidester to think through the material dynamics of African religious life in the context of changing socio-economic, cultural, and political contexts of Africa.

The Black Peoples Unity Movement and Friends: The Brief Emergence of an Interracial Black Power Movement in Camden, New Jersey, 1968

Abstract This article examines the interracial alliances forged in 1968 in Camden, New Jersey, between Black and white clergy, the urban Black Peoples Unity Movement (BPUM), and the suburban Friends of the Black Peoples Unity Movement (FBPUM). This coalition complicates the histories of Black Power militancy and Christian nonviolence by highlighting points of intersection and cooperation during the long civil rights movement in a secondary city. Even though militant rhetoric pervaded the movement in Camden, activists organized across race and despite ideology. This finding is compelling because the prevailing research demonstrates that other cities, even those nearby, could not sustain interracial cooperation after the widespread dissemination of Black Power politics in the mid-1960s. Camden’s story, while seemingly unique, is potentially suggestive of a larger, less visible aspect of the movement. In the wake of urban renewal, a shifting economy, and lack of adequate homes and schools, Black militants and nonmilitant Black and white Christians alternately compromised and reconfigured their own values to promote the shared goal of equality in their community.