Western Propaganda Research Articles

Western Religious Propaganda in the Holy Land in the Correspondence of V.N. Khitrovo and K.P. Pobedonostsev in the 1880s

The author has examined the correspondence of socio-religious figure and founder of the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society (IOPS) V.N. Khitrovo with Chief Procurator of the Holy Synod K.P. Pobedonostsev in the 1880s; the problem of propaganda of the Catholic and Protestant churches in the Holy Land is explored. It is shown that in his detailed reports, historical essays and letters V.N. Khitrovo informed K.P. Pobedonostsev about threats to Orthodoxy in the Holy Land. V.N. Khitrovo rightly supposed that the success of Western propaganda was due to the Western powers’ implementation of their national interests. The religious policy of France and the Protestant powers (England and Germany) was a “tool” for promoting their national interests. “Propaganda” and religious penetration of Western faiths manifested themselves in religious and political forms, which was embodied in the creation of educational institutions, hospitals, the spread of semi-secular women’s orders, and the education of the local population. V.N. Khitrovo associated the success of Catholicism with the activities of Latin Patriarch I. Valerga. A special way of penetration into the Holy Land was biblical research, one example of which was the activities of Victorian General Gordon. V.N. Khitrovo considered that the weakening of Orthodoxy in the Holy Land was due to not only modest funding, but also insufficient coordination of secular and church institutions of the Russian Empire in the implementation of state religious policy. The author comes to the conclusion that the correspondents had trust-based relations and similar views on major religious and political issues.

Polaroidisation

Based on the work of the Polish photographer Wacław Nowak, who had the opportunity to photograph with an American Polaroid camera in the midst of the Cold War, this article focuses on the political entanglement of various materials and things identified with Western culture. Polaroidisation, as used in the title of the text, is the equivalent of the terms McDonaldisation or Coca-colonisation, which appear in treatises on American economic and political expansion. The subject of the text has become the entanglement of instant photographic techniques in the cultural rivalry of warring blocs of states. Like the famous exhibition The Family of Man (MoMA, 1955), which toured the world, repeatedly crossing the borders of the Iron Curtain, Polaroid materials and process were used as a tools of Western propaganda, promoting American values and technological inventions.

ПУТИ СОВЕРШЕНСТВОВАНИЯ КУЛЬТУРНО-ДОСУГОВОЙ РАБОТЫ С КУРСАНТАМИ В УСЛОВИЯХ РОСТА СОЦИАЛЬНОЙ НАПРЯЖЕННОСТИ В ОБЩЕСТВЕ

The processes of organizational and leisure work with cadets during the period of aggravation of social contradictions in the Russian cultural society were studied. It is substantiated that the crisis in Ukraine not only completely rejected the integration processes in the world, but also determined the intensification of the hybrid information war of Western countries against Russia. The intensifying confrontation with the West during the military operation in the United States determines not only the growth of social instability in Russian society, but also calls for the need to strengthen the ideological orientation of cultural and leisure work in general and with cadets of military institutes in the kingdom. The most important component with the expected cultural and leisure work with cadets who are concerned about the ideologization of these events. In the new conditions of organizational and leisure work for cadets, one side should be aimed at opposing Western propaganda, and the other side should be focused on preserving traditional Russian cultural values, norms aimed at behavioral interaction, and the development of students' analytical creative abilities. Achieving data involves centralizing the management of this type of educational activity, tightening state control over all observed educational work with cadets, as well as integrating the management system of military institutes, as well as a system for managing cultural and leisure work.

"Soft power", "color revolution" and "hybrid war": public diplomacy vs political technology

"Color revolutions" are a form of "hybrid war" unleashed by the global hegemon against uncontrolled states in order to maintain its dominance in the world. Today they are becoming the main destabilizing factor both for a single nation and for the system of international relations as a whole. A comparative analysis of the "color revolutions" since the collapse of the USSR allows us to conclude that the theses spread by Western propaganda about the positive impact of the "soft power" on the "progress of democracy" are unfounded. Despite the presence of real socio-economic diffi culties and the so-called "protest potential” in the impacted countries "color revolutions" are primarily staged and controlled from abroad. As a rule, the main object of infl uence in the preparation of "color revolutions" are traditional family values, historical memory and the country's top political leadership as a guarantor of national sovereignty. The key actors of color revolutions are foreign-funded NGOs and the media which broadcast values and meanings alien to national self-consciousness into the information space and also “heat up” protest relations in the society. The point of application to seize control within the "color revolution" is the election of the country's national leadership or referendums on socially signifi cant issues. Accordingly, the most crucial task of sovereign states is to protect the electoral process from external interference, the spread of false information about elections and their discredit. An important factor in protecting the electoral rights of citizens and legitimizing state power is public observation of voting. Tools and resources of “soft power” are underestimated and poorly used by the post-Soviet states to defend national interests, protect the sovereign choice of the people and counteract attempts of external interference into domestic political processes. Promising directions for expanding infl uence on international relations are concentrated in the information, communication and political fi eld of the Internet which is still a territory of relative legal “freedom”. Among the main areas of protection "information sovereignty" are the following: expansion of Russian jurisdiction to representative offi ces of foreign IT platforms operating within the Russian Federation, development of media literacy and critical thinking of citizens, the need for constant refutation of "fakes", introduction of special programs that can recognize them and determine their distributors, prohibition of anonymity in social media, increasing legal liability for the production and distribution of "fakes".

János Kádár’s Government and the Refugees of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956

During and following the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, approximately 200,000 people fled the country, the majority of them to Austria and others to Yugoslavia. After the suppression of the Revolution, the Hungarian authorities targeted the refugees with two simultaneous measures: on the one hand, they sought to persuade those who were willing and those whom the official propaganda considered as “misguided” to repatriate; and on the other hand, the said authorities did everything in their power to compromise “hostile” emigrant circles and persons, thereby weakening their influence among the refugees. In order to encourage and facilitate the repatriation, Hungary proclaimed amnesty and established a Hungarian–Yugoslav joint committee as well as a repatriation office in Vienna; however, the widespread repatriation propaganda of the Hungarian government was largely unsuccessful. Moreover, those returning after 31 March 1957 were meticulously screened and many repatriation requests were rejected, mostly for fear that Western intelligence might have planted spies among the applicants and repatriates. Initially, Hungarian leaders regarded the emigration of 1956 as a threat for fear that Western propaganda might use the migrants to influence Western public opinion and the foreign policy of other governments towards Hungary; they only changed their stance in the summer of 1958, when the Political Committee of the Central Committee of the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party established a commission in charge of emigration affairs, which was to pay particular attention to financially supporting the repatriation of certain categories of 1956 emigrants. In 1960, “consular passports” were introduced to enable the relatives of “dissidents” to go abroad for family visits, and under certain conditions, “dissidents” were also allowed to visit Hungary. In 1963, the Hungarian repatriation policy reached a turning point with János Kádár’s proclamation of a general amnesty. From that period onward, maintaining relations with Hungarian emigration became an integral part of government policy, and the political system made concessions with regard to the perception and treatment of emigration circles, which were also showing signs of division.

Fake WMDs all over again? How Dutch newspapers supported western propaganda on an alleged chemical attack in Syria

History shows that wherever there is war, there is propaganda. In part for that reason it is often difficult to discover the truth about events that take place during war. For instance, many initially believed the western assertions that a chemical attack took place in the Syrian city of Douma in April 2018 and that the Syrian government was responsible. Yet it has become increasingly clear that it is more likely than not that the alleged attack did not occur and was instrumentalized for western political purposes. By way of a content analysis and a Critical Discourse Analysis this article investigates how the two most reputable Dutch newspapers reported and commented on the alleged attack in 2018. In particular, it explores the extent of the newspapers’ reliance on western sources and to whom the newspapers assigned responsibility for the alleged attack. The results show that the newspapers heavily depended on western sources and promoted western propaganda by uncritically providing it much prominence. Despite a lack of evidence and before any investigation had taken place, the newspapers often held the Syrian government responsible for the alleged attack.

Celebrating May 1: Visual Propaganda from Different Perspectives in Communist Hungary

Celebration has been a key idea in the disciplinary fields of Mentalitätsgeschichte and anthropology: my paper aims to introduce this in the specific context of May Day parades and marches in Hungary in the 1950s and 1960s, focusing on the educational nature of the communist system. For decades, verbal and visual propaganda tried to indoctrinate students and their parents and teachers by transforming perceptions of everyday reality through cultural practices and quasi-religious rites. From the perspective of theories about political religion, statues and symbols intended for the unification of leaders and masses in ceremonial- festive surroundings were meaningful elements with both continuous and changing characteristics. I would like to analyse this kind of message associated with May 1 through photographs of official processions in Budapest, choosing a concrete place as a starting point and adding verbal sources and different dimensions to the interpretation. First, party documents, minutes, and preparations establish the basic level of my approach, showing the original (and contemporary hidden) intentions of the ruling power to organize and execute International Workers’ Day. Next, propaganda and photographs of children and students demonstrate how the main celebration of the communist era was staged in order to legitimize its acceptance and popularity. The discussion concludes with a counter-narrative compiled from reports of the US legation and archives of Radio Free Europe, presenting an anti-communist view and a construction of Western propaganda.

Болевые точки Пекина – 3 (Смена экономической модели и внешнеполитические риски)

The consequences of COVID 19, both inside and outside China, especially in the countries – major importers of Chinese products, have negatively impacted the Chinese economy. These negative socio-economic consequences forced Beijing to accelerate the transition to a relatively new economic development model, which was marked in the early 2000s. The main component of this model is the expansion of domestic consumption and, accordingly, a further increase of the contribution of this indicator to the Chinese GDP itself and of its growth rate. However, this does not mean that China will abandon economic expansion and the implementation of its foreign economic and initiatives. Their importance as structural parts of the new economic model will continue and even grow. The acceleration of the transition to the dominance of domestic consumption in economic development is additionally conditioned by the foreign policy deadlock in which China found itself at the end of 2020. Despite the world’s fastest economic recovery from the COVID 19 pandemic, China has been unable to take advantage of this advantage effectively. Chinese “mask” diplomacy did not bring the desired results for Beijing – the PRC was not able to raise the leader’s torch temporarily lost by the United States. On the contrary, under the influence of Western propaganda, the contradiction in the perception of China as “our own” in the market sphere and “an alien” in the sphere of ideology has intensified. At the same time, due to increased competition in high-tech markets, in particular, 5G communication technologies, the ideological “alienation” of China is beginning to be used by Western countries in market wars in their favor. The forecast of economic development both by international and Chinese experts assumes the growth rate of China’s GDP in 2021 will be in the range of 6–8%. In our opinion, this is an overly optimistic estimate, and the corresponding figure will probably be 5–6%. The PRC is entering the 14th Five-Year Plan amid greater uncertainty: the prospects for the recovery of the world economy as a whole and, in particular, of the main Chinese trading partners, are not clear; limited instability is possible due to the accelerated change in the model of economic development; the volume of Chinese GDP has reached more than 15 trillion USD, therefore, each percent of its growth has become significantly “heavier” and more difficult to achieve. At the same time, the primacy in economic recovery and the continued potential for the expansion of the Chinese middle class bring positive contribution to the economic prospects of the PRC.

Chinese students’ access to media information in Australia and France: a comparative perspective

The ongoing growth of China’s economy and the premium attached to quality education within its culture has seen students from China become one of the largest groups of international students enrolling in schools and institutes of higher education around the developed world. Given the rising numbers of these students in overseas higher education institutions, their experiences in their host countries deserve more nuanced research. Little is known about what sources of information they rely on; whether, as students coming from a country with non-transparent access to information, their views and media habits are challenged, transformed or consolidated during their overseas experience; and whether they consider overseas media as a trustworthy source to expand their knowledge on China or an instrument of Western propaganda. Drawing from research conducted in Melbourne in 2016/2017, this article explores why Chinese international students in an Australian university, despite the impact of their international experience, prefer Chinese media sources, especially when looking for information about China. This contrasts with Chinese students enrolled in a university in France. Where does the broad scepticism about the reliability of non-Chinese media in reporting Chinese news come from? What do students mean when they refer to an ‘alleged incapacity of foreign media to understand what is good for China?’ In our conclusion, we propose some possible ways to address the perceived biases and offer some ideas to foreign media on how to better engage Chinese international students’ communities.

“Tugev Balti natsionalistlik keskus” ning Nõukogude välispropaganda teel sõjast rahuaega ja külma sõtta [Abstract: “The strong Baltic nationalistic centre” and Soviet foreign propaganda: from war to peace and toward the Cold War

“Tugev Balti natsionalistlik keskus” ning Nõukogude välispropaganda teel sõjast rahuaega ja külma sõtta [Abstract: “The strong Baltic nationalistic centre” and Soviet foreign propaganda: from war to peace and toward the Cold War

Islam and Democracy: A Critical Reappraisal of Adaptation and Contrast Theories

With the expansion of Islamism, a wave of Islam phobia was launched by western Orientalists and intensified subsequent to September 11 Attacks. Theoretically, the subject of adaptation and compatibility or contrast between Islam and democracy has drawn the attention of academic circles. Using a comparative and analytical research procedure, the current article seeks to provide an answer to this question: In the area of Adaptation and Contrast Theories, what is the nature of the relationship between Islam and democracy? The research’s hypothesis is that: from Contrast perspective, adaptation between democracy and Islam is not possible due to ontological and epistemological differences. In contrast, given the existing rational and democratic potentials within the framework of genuine Islamic fundamentals, democratic empirical examples such as democratic attitudes and demands in Islam world and democratic governance in the Middle East countries and Islam world, adaptation oriented parties believe in the existence of contextualized democracy within the framework of Islam. Using a critical reappraisal, it must be noted that, in spite of some deficits, Adaptation is more tenable, while Contrast and Essentialism are not sufficiently tenable due to some causes including failure to make a distinction between Islam’s basic fundamentals and history of Islam, the performance of authoritarian regimes and radical Islamists, universalization of liberal-secular democracy discourse and its combination with western ethnic chauvinism and propaganda of Islam phobia and defamation to Islam.

«Советская делегация считает целесообразным вступление Советского Союза в состав членов фонда»: СССР и Международный валютный фонд в 1943-1946 гг

The paper based on the Soviet documents previously not included in scientific circulation and little-known American documents focuses on the evolution of the Soviet Government's position in relation to USSR participation in the International Monetary Fund in 1943-1946. The present study is intended not only to close the significant gap in the domestic and foreign historiography, but also to reveal the true attitude of the Soviet government to international economic cooperation, greatly distorted in the 1950s-1980s by both Soviet and Western propaganda. Stemming from principles of historicism and scientific objectivity, having carefully analyzed Soviet documents and compared them with those of the U.S., the author concludes that in the initial phase of post-war international economic and trade cooperation the Soviet government attached great importance to the participation of the Soviet Union in the formulation of the principles of this cooperation and was ready to make significant concessions for the opportunity to work on the formation of international economic policy and maintain the image of an influential actor in the international arena. However, in the autumn of 1945 the Soviet government's position began to change due to the multiplicity of reasons of exclusively political nature. In particular, the Soviet Union was drawn into a big economic and political game between Washington and London, which resulted in false premises for all Soviet representations of participation in international economic cooperation in late 1945 and early 1946 and, consequently, all decision taken by the Soviet leadership. This fact has become one of the key reasons for the refusal of the USSR to join the IMF in that period.

Cold War Psychology

How Reason Almost Lost Its Mind: The Strange Career of Cold War Rationality, by Paul Erickson, Judy L. Klein, Lorraine Daston, Rebecca Lemov, Thomas Sturm and Michael D. Gordin. Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 2013. viii, 259 pp. $35.00 US (cloth), $21.00 US (paper). The Open Mind: Cold War Politics and Sciences of Human Nature, by Jamie Cohen-Cole. Chicago & London, The University of Chicago Press, 2014. 397 pp. $45.00 US (cloth), $27.00 US (paper). The Cold War abounds with ironies of fighting in war room type, to paraphrase a gag from Kubrick's pitch-black nuclear satire, Dr. Strangelove. Perhaps most flagrant one is America's elaborate and expensive effort to rationally control a fundamentally irrational threat. How Reason Almost Lost Its Mind quotes George Kennan, one of America's most prominent strategists of containment, who said that nuclear bomb was the most useless weapon ever invented. It can be employed to no rational purpose (83). These two books elucidate roles academics played in military-industrial complex and creation of Cold War's liberal consensus, and how this altered academy, especially social or human sciences. Both books are from University of Chicago Press, and complement each other nicely. How Reason Almost Lost Its Mind unpacks ideas of an elite echelon of Cold War thinkers, action intellectuals working in hard and social sciences who circulated through universities, an alphabet soup of acronymic think tanks, government, and mainstream press. The Open Mind has much to say about these thinkers as well, but is more interested in way Cold War thought trickled down to general public, and was integrated into education and discourse. Cohen-Cole details promulgation of idea an open mind was best--and most American--intellectual disposition. Given that few North Americans, to this day, pride themselves on their closed-mindedness, popularization of open-mindedness is an example of an exceptionally efficacious Western propaganda campaign. How Reason Almost Lost Its Mind originated at Max Planck Institute's 2010 workshop on Strangelovian Sciences. It is work of an interdisciplinary team of six scholars specializing in history of science, economics, and philosophy. As interdisciplinarity was one of hallmarks of Cold War rationality--a feature of era's ethos that Cohen-Cole treats at length--their approach is a neat match for topic. The authors begin by distinguishing reason from rationality. Reason and arguments about it have a long history in West, culminating in Enlightenment enthusiasm for rule-based thinking as a superior replacement for tradition or superstition. But authors insist that Leibniz's declaration, let us calculate, gained new meaning and urgency after World War II, with development of computing power and in face of staggering logistical challenges such as Berlin Airlift (63). The delightfully-named Operation Vittles, which conveyed supplies to Berlin, gave birth to Project scoop, an acronym for Scientific Computation of Optimum Programs. Even though ibm had yet to produce a computer that could satisfy military's voracious demand for information and calculations, programming and algorithms became important components of, and models for, Cold War rationality. Algorithms did not suffer from fear, or any other potentially distorting feeling. Computational rationality was but one model researchers deployed. Game theory was another, and authors focus on its strange career in chapter five, explaining development of The Prisoner's Dilemma, and eventual diminution of game theory's sway. In sixth and final chapter, authors contend that rise of cognitive science, especially heuristics-and-biases work of Kahneman and Tversky, hastened collapse of Cold War conceptions of rationality. …

Comparative Analysis of the Representations of the Great Patriotic War: Generational Aspects (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus)

Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian peoples` (who has been considered fraternal for a long time) representations of the modern world currently due to many factors are subjected to complex processes of transformation. So the importance of the historical period of the Great Patriotic War in the life of all three peoples, the memory of which has an important means of confrontation western propaganda, is certainly true. The article presents the results of the study of Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian students’ and their parents’ representations of the Great Patriotic War. The study was being held in Peoples’ friendship University of Russia, immediately after the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the Great Victory.

Has Capitalism Defeated Socialism Yet?—Kornai's Turnaround on Liberalism, and the Evaporation of Myths about Eastern Europe

The Hungarian economist Janos Kornai has warned the West of the possibility of a reversal of liberalization in Eastern Europe. He advocates a new policy of containment aimed at countries such as Russia and China. This prompts us to investigate the truth concerning the transition in Eastern Europe. After 1990 the West recalculated economic data from the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (FSUEE thereafter) before 1990, for creating an illusion that “shock therapy” had made progress in FSUEE. However, the Eastern Europeans including the Hungarians, who were enthusiastic for liberalization from socialism, soon discovered that joining the European Union (EU) was damaging the interests of the majority of people in Eastern Europe, while Western Europeans also came increasingly to oppose the financial burdens imposed by EU enlargement and immigration inflows. The short-sighted transition strategy carried out in Eastern Europe and the preoccupation with geopolitical interests have in fact exacerbated the EU's economic crisis, triggering a civil war in Ukraine and causing Russia to become disillusioned with the West. Kornai's theory of soft-budget constraints as well as his anti-Keynesian policies during the transition recession, is responsible for the economic downturn triggered by rapid liberalization in Eastern Europe. The reversal of the liberalization trend in Eastern Europe and the change in the mass psychology of Eastern Europeans towards the West together constitute an important rebuff to utopian capitalist thinking in China. Has capitalism defeated socialism, as Western propaganda claims? The success of China's autonomous open-door policy and the failure of Eastern Europe's unilateral opening indicate that the collapse of the FSUEE occurred mainly for political rather than economic reasons.

Discontent and Uncertainty in the Borderlands: Soviet Moldavia and the Secret Speech 1956–1957

This article examines reactions to de-Stalinisation in Soviet Moldavia between February 1956 and March 1957. The article is based on evidence from the archives of both the former Communist Party of Moldavia and the Moldavian KGB. It highlights the uncertainty there was at local levels because of the denunciation of Stalin. Local party reports demonstrate concern about the activities of religious activists, Western propaganda, nationalism and disaffected youth. The Hungarian revolution of 1956 caused the party to change tack, and to begin a clampdown. These reports highlight that Soviet rule had very shallow roots in Moldavia.

From Bridge to Divide: East–West Relations and Christianity during the Second World War and Early Cold War

This article explores the use made of Christianity during the Second World War and the dilemmas created for the Allies by Stalin's religious record. It is particularly concerned with the way in which Christianity appeared for a while to become a bridge between East and West, with the explicit promise of continued post-war co-operation. However, in the immediate aftermath of the war, Anglo-American policies in particular switched from using Christianity to rehabilitate the adverse image of the Soviet regime to what had been the inter-war policy of using religion to demonise it. Inter-war demonisation held up the Soviet Union as a model not to be emulated. Post-war demonisation pointed to the Soviet Union as an expansionist threat bent on world domination. The article examines Stalin's responses, and Allied perceptions of those responses, to the changes in Western religious policy and propaganda from the Second World War to the emergence of the cold war. The article seeks to show how both sides used religion for political purposes, but that in the final analysis Western reluctance to relinquish what was perhaps its most emotive means of indicting and containing Communism meant that Christianity, instead of becoming a bridge, became a divisive factor that contributed to both the onset of the cold war and public acceptance of it.

The Soul of C hina: A Durkheimian Perspective on Religion and the Mainland

The Soul of China: A Durkheimian Perspective on Religion and the Mainland Keith Kerr and Bai Juntao “The old gods are growing old or are already dead, and others are not yet born.” ([1912] 1965: 475)—Emile Durkheim I write this from Pu Tong University (pseudonym), a sprawling school of 30,000 students in China's northwest, where I am living and working as a visiting professor of sociology. My “regular” job is an assistant professor at a private, liberal arts school in the northeast United States. This is my sixth trip to China, although my first to work and live here for so long. Undoubtedly, each trip has brought new personal and cultural discoveries. But a “war” is a first for me. From past experiences traveling here, I knew Americans held many misperceptions about China, especially regarding religion. Despite popular belief, religion is not banned in China (well, sort of…like everything here…it's complicated). What is certain is that unlike in the United States, religion is not often discussed. This is in part an outgrowth of Chinese culture that is indirect and “polite” and due in part to religion's history in China during the twentieth century when religion was violently suppressed. Hence, my shock and paranoia when my first day on campus I was asked by the administrator overseeing my stay a frank question I had never been asked in my five previous trips: “Are you a Christian?” The tone was not the friendly tone of inquisitiveness. It was the bureaucratic tone that warned I may need to select my next words carefully. Caught off guard by this unusual question, unsure myself whether I fell into this category or not, I was at a loss for words. I was born into a Christian family, raised in Texas, and so was certainly of a Christian culture, but did not identify with the changed theological and political face of Christianity. As I struggled to formulate a coherent statement that would capture this, the administrator filled the silence, “It doesn't matter, just don't try to convert the students. You can talk about religion, you just can't minister to them.” I did not know how to respond. Part of me was offended and resistant to being told what I could and could not talk to my students about—not that conversions had ever replaced my lectures. And if it had, I am not at all certain what I would convert the students to. But my first response was resistance to overt control over my freedom in the classroom. But mostly, I was confused. I was confused by the unusual directness from a Chinese person, and confused by the motivation behind the statement. Part of me wondered whether my observations had been incorrect. Perhaps the reports of religious persecutions that I had read about and the rumors that were told to me by my evangelical friends in Texas (friends, mind you, who had never been to China) were correct. I was not naïve. I knew that restrictions existed; I knew that for some in China, religion had brought trouble, but I had long concluded these were historical artifacts, and in contemporary China, overblown and bordering on Western propaganda and paranoia. In many ways, the visible pluralities of religion one sees on Chinese streets are greater than what would be experienced in most US cities. Mostly, though, I was confused because I knew from previous experience that many religions have a strong and visible presence here. Catholic churches are well represented, although they are barred from recognizing the Vatican's authority. Likewise, open and underground evangelical Christian churches are well known, although members run the risk of arrest from government officials for failure to register their religious organizations. In fact, recent numbers indicate that anywhere from 20 to 100 million Chinese identify themselves as Christian (US Department of State ). Judaism, although to a much lesser degree, also exists in the Mainland, although it is not officially recognized by the government. But Buddhism is by far the most visible of the traditional religions. Monks are a common sight on Chinese streets, especially near towns with large temples. And temples...

Negotiating agency and human rights in Islam: A case of Muslim women in Kenya

AbstractHuman agency is a basic human right. Just as humans are entitled to basic human needs, they are also entitled to agency i.e. freedom of choice. Human dignity is centered on this simple fact. Sometimes cultures and religions have infringed upon this basic right. In Kenya, for instance, Muslim women continue to be conflicted between upholding their basic rights as human beings, and adhering to their religious expectations. This conflict mostly manifests in matters related to sexuality and gender roles. While some Muslim scholars have asserted that human rights principles are at the heart of Islam, others have devalued human rights arguing that they are foreign, and western propaganda intended to destroy Islam. Muslim women in Kenya are caught in this dilemma. In this article, I explore the possibility of negotiating agency and human rights in a Muslim context. I draw illustrations from surveying and interviewing thirty Muslim women from Kenya, to highlight the challenges they face, as they attempt to claim human rights. It is my argument that human rights are human entitlements, which are compatible with Islamic teachings. Muslim women should be able to negotiate agency and human rights entitlement within Islam.

The Arab Spring: A View from Israel

The Arab Spring is one of the most complex and surprising political developments of the new century, especially after a decade of anti-Muslim and anti-Arab western propaganda. While is too early to properly evaluate the process and its various national apparitions, it is important to see it in a historical context. This article places the Arab Spring firmly within the history of pan Arabism, and the threat it posed to the west and Israel in its earlier, Nasserist phase. The work of Amin, Marfleet and others, is used to frame the current developments, and present the limited view offered from an Israeli perspective, where any democratisation of the Arab world is seen as a threat. This is so despite the obvious influence the Arab Spring had on protest in Israel in Summer 1011, a protest which has now seemingly spent itself; it is fascinating to note that the only protest movement in the Middle East not involving violent clashes with the regime it criticised, is also the one which has not achieved any of its aims.