Years Of Nationhood Research Articles

Susanna Moodie: Roughing It in the Bush by C. Shields and P. Crowe

Shields, Carol and Patrick Crowe. Susanna Moodie: Roughing It in the Bush, adaptation by Willow Dawson, illustrated by Selena Goulding. Second Story Press, 2016.The long genesis of this graphic novel began more than two decades ago, when Governor General’s and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Carol Shields began collaborating with Patrick Crowe to produce a screenplay based on Susanna Moodie’s classic account of pioneer life in early Victorian Upper Canada. Shields’ death in 2003 led Crowe to abandon the project, only to revive it a decade later in this illustrated format. Story editor Willow Dawson has extracted the most significant episodes from the screenplay, and Selena Goulding has provided running illustrations that fairly reflect the landscapes, buildings, home interiors, costumes, and technology of the period 1830–1867. Her style—not inappropriately—is reminiscent of the Classics Illustrated school of comic book art. This reviewer’s only criticism is the very occasional failure of the illustrations to accurately depict things referenced in the text.Appearing at a time when Canada celebrates 150 years of nationhood, this handsome production serves to provide older children and young adults with an appreciation of the hardships overcome by Canada’s pioneering women, such as Moodie, and her sister and fellow immigrant Catherine Parr Traill, whose very survival sometimes depended upon aid from their First Nations neighbours. As a succinct précis of Moodie’s classic memoir, it may even stimulate interest in reading the longer, original text. The Introduction provided by CanLit doyenne Margaret Atwood, alongside the content attributable to Carol Shields, render the book suitable not only for public and school libraries, but also for academic libraries and all serious collectors of those authors.Highly Recommended: 4 out of 4 starsReviewer: Merrill DistadHistorian and author Merrill Distad enjoyed a four-decade career building libraries and library collections.

THE IMPACT OF RELIGION ON A SECULAR STATE: THE NIGERIAN EXPERIENCE

Nigeria, in her 55 years of nationhood, is the most populated black nation in the world. She has to her credit a written Constitution being operated for the effective democratic governance of her population, comprising peoples of different religious freedom and cultural backgrounds. In Nigeria, Christianity, Islam and traditional religions are most widely practised. Religion is a faith-based process that is capable of impacting on governance and the behavioural attitudes of every believer. Nigeria is a secular state. Since interaction theory provides avenues for exchanges of nonmaterial goods and materials, we used this theory as the most appropriate in the conduct of this study. This article explores the impact of religion on Nigerians living within a secular state.

The impact of religion on a secular state: the Nigerian experience

Nigeria, in her 55 years of nationhood, is the most populated black nation in the world. She has to her credit a written Constitution being operated for the effective democratic governance of her population, comprising peoples of different religious freedom and cultural backgrounds. In Nigeria, Christianity, Islam and traditional religions are most widely practised. Religion is a faith-based process that is capable of impacting on governance and the behavioural attitudes of every believer. Nigeria is a secular state. Since interaction theory provides avenues for exchanges of nonmaterial goods and materials, we used this theory as the most appropriate in the conduct of this study. This article explores the impact of religion on Nigerians living within a secular state.

Civic Engagement in Public Policy Making: Fad or Reality in Ghana?

Ghana's 55 years of nationhood have largely been lived under successions of undemocratic rule. There is the perception that the undemocratic governments, among others, excluded Ghanaians from the public policy‐making process. However, many now believe the reintroduction of constitutional rule since 1993 has democratized policy decision making in ways that have engaged civil society actors via consultation and open public participation. The analysis of two cases (Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy I and Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy II) enables this study to determine if this perception is correct. I conclude that although a gradual shift to participatory decision making has occurred and improved policy processes and outcomes, it is bedeviled by several structural challenges that place premium on elite preferences to the neglect of those of unorganized and marginalized rural folk. This finding leaves important question marks surrounding some of the fundamental principles of the good governance mantra.Related Articles Elliot‐Teague, Ginger. 2011. “ .” Politics & Policy 39 (): 835‐861. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1747‐1346.2011.00318.x/abstract McBeth, Mark, Donna L. Lybecker, and Kacee A. Garner. 2010. “.” Politics & Policy 38 (): 1‐23. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1747‐1346.2009.00226.x/abstract Danso, Alex. 1991. “.” Southeastern Political Review 19 (): 117‐144. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1747‐1346.1991.tb00052.x/abstract Related Media: Documentary . 2010. “.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fjhz57Tv1Q0&noredirect=1 . 2012. “.” http://www.ghananewsagency.org/details/Politics/Former‐Botswana‐President‐Mogae‐lauds‐Ghana's‐Democratic‐Credentials/?ci=2&ai=50363#.UKIT2I4gPIY Anaman, Kwabena A. and Felix Agyei‐Sasu. 2012. http://www.thebftonline.com/feature/1997‐is‐the‐performance‐of‐business‐firms‐in‐ghana‐affected‐by‐national‐elections‐and‐democratic‐political‐transition

Sustainable Development through Science and Technology

After 50 years of nationhood, about 60 million Pakistani citizens still live in absolute poverty which is a condition so debasing that it robs the poor of the very potential of their genes. Illiteracy, malnutrition, high maternal, child and infant mortality afflict more than 50% of Pakistan’s population of 144 million. Due to mismanagement of its human and natural resources Pakistan is in a vicious cycle of economic dependence (Figures 2 & 3) with high indebtedness, low growth rates of exports and GDP and a decaying education system. During the last two decades Pakistan has engaged in firefighting through external debt re-schedulings and increasing its dependence on the Bretton Woods institutions (World Bank, International Monetary Fund) and their richer shareholders. As a result the important development needs of the nation’s human capital have been grossly neglected. It has failed to develop its human capital, particularly its domestic scientific and engineering communities and thus is not ready to meet the growth challenges of the 21st century. It is postulated that Pakistan must, on a crash basis, develop a domestic scientific and technology (S&T) community and create a scientific infrastructure if it seeks to become economically and politically self-reliant.

The National Uncanny: Indian Ghosts and American Subjects

Although spectral Indians appear with startling frequency in US literary works, until now the implications of describing them as ghosts have not been thoroughly investigated. In the first years of nationhood, Philip Freneau and Sarah Wentworth Morton peopled their works with Indian phantoms, as did Charles Brocken Brown, Washington Irving, Samuel Woodworth, Lydia Maria Child, James Fenimore Cooper, William Apess, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and others who followed. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Native American ghosts figured prominently in speeches attributed to Chief Seattle, Black Elk, and Kicking Bear. Today, Stephen King and Leslie Marmon Silko plot best-selling novels around ghostly Indians and haunted Indian burial grounds. Renee L. Bergland argues that representing Indians as ghosts internalizes them as ghostly figures within the white imagination. Spectralization allows white Americans to construct a concept of American nationhood haunted by Native Americans, in which Indians become sharers in an idealized national imagination. However, the problems of spectralization are clear, since the discourse questions the very nationalism it constructs. Indians who are transformed into ghosts cannot be buried or evaded, and the specter of their forced disappearance haunts the American imagination. Indian ghosts personify national guilt and horror, as well as national pride and pleasure. Bergland tells the story of a terrifying and triumphant American aesthetic that repeatedly transforms horror into glory, national dishonor into national pride.

Singapore 1990: Celebrating the End of an Era

The year under review started on two very different notes: one announced a year of continuous celebration to mark 25 years of nationhood and the other affirmed a change of prime minister before the close of the year. Much of the cultural energy of the government was absorbed in organizing the celebrations. The political energy was channelled into formulating a proposal to protect the national wealth, which was accumulated during the long term of Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew's leader ship, from being spent by subsequent generations of government. The proposal took the form of the Elected Presidency Bill which will be made law in 1991. This Bill was part of a package of legislations, begun in 1984, that collectively may have the effect of steering Singapore politics to the middle ground. However, the year's most significant political developments happened outside Parliament. The first was the emergence of Malay professionals as an organized, visible community group that challenged the existing Malay leadership in the Malay community. The second was the ways in which the passing generation of the ruling PAP (People's Action Party) made their peace with ex-comrades turned political antagonists. The ban from entry to Singapore, imposed on the latter since 1966, was lifted as one of the last acts of Lee's government, followed by expressions of mutual respect for each other's integrity, sincerity, and beliefs. These gestures were becoming ways for a passing generation of socially and politically engaged individuals to settle their differences publicly.

Defense Policy in Barbados, 1966-88

When barbados became the fourth English-speaking Caribbean country to achieve its constitutional independence, in November 1966, one of its prime responsibilities was to assume defense of the new state. How Barbados approached this problem of defense planning and policy-making in its first 22 years of nationhood (1966-1988) will be the focus of this study. No previous study devoted exclusively to this subject has been published in all this time, a most surprising omission.Barbados defense policy may be divided into three phases which correspond, roughly, with the periods during which its two major parties — the Democratic Labor Party (DLP) and the Barbados Labor Party (BLP) — have alternated in power.

Attitudes towards Political Independence in Jamaica after Twelve Years of Nationhood

Attitudes towards Political Independence in Jamaica after Twelve Years of Nationhood

Independent Jamaica Faces the Outside World: Attitudes of Elites after Twelve Years of Nationhood

A re-study of attitudes toward global alignments among 83 leaders in 1974, 12 years after political independence, is compared with a study completed just before independence in 1961–1962 in the new Caribbean state of Jamaica. A striking decline in favorable attitudes toward Jamaica's alignment with Western nations occurred, from 71% of the leaders in 1962 to 36% in 1974. New and volunteered preferences were for alignment with Third World countries or with any country as long as Jamaica's self-interest was served. The social characteristics and differential roles of leaders affected their attitudes toward foreign affairs at both times. Older, middling educated, white and Chinese, relatively wealthy, and economic or religious leaders as opposed to political, labor, or other leaders were most likely to prefer the West in 1974. Also, the values of leaders affected their foreign-policy attitudes; Reactionaries and Conservatives, Nonegalitarians, non-Nationalists, to some extent Anglo-European identified leaders, and Authoritarians as opposed to Full Democrats were most likely to prefer the West. A path model containing six causal variables explains 54% of the variance in foreign policy attitudes in 1962 and 43% in 1974.