Coming to terms with a difficult past: the trauma of the assassination of Hrant Dink and its repercussions on Turkish national identity

This paper takes as its subject the question of why some nations are less willing to acknowledge past atrocities. To answer that question, it focuses on the assassination of Hrant Dink – a Turkish‐Armenian journalist – and its repercussions on Turkish national identity. Scrutinising newspaper articles written before and after the assassination (2004–2007), it casts a detailed glance at the struggle between two carrier groups – pro‐ and anti‐acknowledgement groups – and argues that the assassination increased the likelihood of the acknowledgement of the mass killing of Armenians in 1915 by creating a cultural trauma informed by collective guilt. However, the relief generated by the funeral, combined with the strength of the master commemorative narrative regarding the mass killings, decreased that likelihood, and despite the huge public reaction created by the assassination there was no attempt at acknowledgement. As such, the paper contributes to our understanding of the trauma of perpetrators and claims that, in addition to other factors listed by earlier studies, cultural trauma is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for coming to terms with difficult pasts.     

Living with the past: the historic environment

Book revieved in this article:
Living with the past: the historic environment DAVID BAKER
Watching the seaside. Essays on maritime anthropology A. H. J. PRINS
Yorktown's captive fleet JOHN O. SANDS
Merchant Sailing ships 1815–1850-Supremacy of sail, DAVID R. MAcGREGOR
A history of naval architecture JOHN FINCHAM     

To not reinstate the past:

Abstract

Most interpretations stress a qualitative shift in colonial policy at the end of World War II, reflecting a major reorientation of outlook towards development, welfare and ultimately independence. There are, however, continuities before and after the war that call for a shift of emphasis.

Because the British Solomon Islands Protectorate is conventionally represented as an extreme case of backwardness and severity before the war, it should present the putative contrast sharply. On the contrary, the pre-war administration field staff had aspirations for a more progressive regime, but these were thwarted by the protectorate's poverty and were shelved by the eruption of the war. The war-time destruction prompted administrators to consider afresh the problems of colonial development, coinciding with Colonial Office demands for post-war development submissions. Proposals proved too ambitious for the limited imperial purse, but even the attenuated plans proved unrealistic given the acute shortages of material and human resources.

Thus, while ‘post-war thinking’ began well before the war, the era of ‘post-war development’ could not properly begin until several years after the end of the war.     

Surveying the surveyors: Richard Thornton and his publishers

Richard Thornton produced two outstanding large-scale plans of Manchester as the pinnacle of his work as a map surveyor. Yet, like the vast majority of nineteenth-century surveyors, little is known about him. This reflects the fact that most private surveyors were held in very low esteem, although the quality of Thornton’s work should have exempted him from any such scorn. His two plans, published in 1832 and 1851, are shown to be valuable and accurate depictions of the rapidly expanding town as it flourished as the groundbreaker of industrialization. Some new evidence about Thornton’s life and work has been unearthed, yet even the most assiduous searches have produced relatively little to flesh out his skeletal details. What is clear, however, is that the impact of Thornton’s two plans owes much to the respective support of Thomas Bancks - a local bookseller - and Joseph Adshead - estate agent, social campaigner and local politician - both of whom took the risk of publishing and promoting Thornton’s surveys in the very uncertain market for commercial maps.     

Richard Tawney: Moral Theology and the Social Order

Abstract

After noting the impressive scope of Tawney's contribution as an economic historian, labour theoretician and Christian moralist, attention is given to his three classic socialist texts: The Acquisitive Society, Equality, and Religion and the Rise of Capitalism. Tawney's critique of capitalism is rooted in his Christian convictions concerning the worth of each human person and also informed by his historical analysis of the evolution of capitalist social relations. His telling exposure of the transitory historical nature of so much of capitalism's vaunted absolutes has lent an authority to his contribution. Wealth, property and the mechanisms of the market are not sacrosanct, and must be subject to measures that will ensure more equitable social objectives. As a social theorist he straddled the Christian and secular humanism that formed the lifeblood of the labour movement, and this remains relevant to our more pluralist society, where agreement upon basic moral norms can help construct a social consensus that will promote a greater justice and human flourishing.