A Theological Response to ‘The Case for a Pre-emptive Strike’

Abstract

After the enlargement of the European Union at the beginning of 2007, Western Europe has seen an enormous migration of East European Roma people begging in the streets. In this article, I will focus on some juridical as well as moral dilemmas these street beggars, mostly Romanian Roma, have raised in the EU territory and especially in the Nordic countries. I will also reflect on the historical facts and on past legislation where it is necessary to provide the background for the current situation. I shall argue that to hinder the right to free movement of Roma beggars in the European Union territory by criminalizing their begging and camping violates their fundamental rights. Moreover, such treatment in this case is tantamount to ethnic discrimination.     

The Dissolution of a Monetary Union: The Case of Malaysia and Singapore 1963–1974

The abrupt separation of Singapore and Malaysia in 1965 set these two states on separate political trajectories, but the economic ties proved more difficult to untangle. This article explores the nine years of transition required to complete the separation of the monetary systems of the two territories based on new archival evidence. It argues that, while socio-political hostility raged between the two partners, common economic interests prolonged an intimate monetary relationship that extended the interdependence of the two states for many years beyond their formal separation.     

The Baha'is and the Constitutional Revolution: The Case of Sari,Mazandaran, 1906–1913

Accounts of the Constitutional Revolution in Iran have tended to ignore the role of the Baha'is in that event. This paper looks at the case of Sari, capital of Mazandaran province, where the Baha'is of the city played a major part in initiating the move towards Constitutionalism and in educating people about the reforms envisaged and about the modern world. They also led the way in carrying out some of these reforms. In particular, the Baha'is established the first modern schools in the town. In this process, they were opposed by the Muslim ‘ulama in the town, who equated Constitutionalism and the Baha'i Faith, and persecuted the Baha'is of the town relentlessly for both reasons, leading eventually to the killing of five of the leading Baha'is of Sari in 1913. A brief account is also given of the attitude of the Baha'i leader ‘Abdu'l-Baha (1844–1921) towards the Constitutional Movement and the role of the Baha'is in it. This paper follows the events of the seven years 1906–13 in Sari and describes seven swings of the pendulum of power in the town alternating between the Baha'is and Constitutionalists on the one hand and the ‘ulama and the royalist forces supporting Muhammad ‘Ali Shah on the other. It points out that the neglect of the Baha'i aspect of these events by historians has led to a failure to account adequately for some of the events of these years.     

The Dynamics and Evolution of Local Industries—The Case of Linköping,Sweden

This article aims to analyse how innovative, individual actions influence the evolution of local industries according to three stages. When discussing the evolution of industries or economies, the concept of path dependency is often a central element. Its vague nature makes it however difficult to be used as an interpretative lens when studying the evolution of local industries. In order to limit the broad concept, several aspects have been identified for discussion; all are explicitly linked to path dependency in economic geography literature and all are acknowledged to be of significance for stimulating the evolution of local industries. Based on a review of the evolutionary economic theory literature, the following three stages have been identified: first, the entering of new knowledge which may, or may not, be the starting point for a new local industry; second, the formation of the new local industry; third, the anchoring process of the new local industry. All three stages are intertwined and include the question how the new emerging industry and the existing local structures relate to each other. The three stages will be illustrated through the discussion of the evolution of the IT industry in Linköping, Sweden.     

‘What the Men are Crying Out for is Leadership’: The Khartoum Police Strike of 1951 and the Battle for Administrative Control

The British administrative elite in Sudan represented the Khartoum Police Strike of 1951 as a ‘mutiny’, the result of a combination of both outside provocation and of the character failings of both Sudanese policemen and their British officers. This article will demonstrate that these convenient interpretations concealed a series of wider tensions within the colonial state itself, between modernising legal professionals and colonial administrators who cherished their personal control over the police. These tensions dictated debates about the status of the police in the build up to the strike, and the manner in which the heavily politicised enquiry into it was conducted. The Sudan Political Service employed an ‘otherisation’ of Sudanese culture to argue that the country was unsuited for a modern system of policing. Meanwhile, Sudanese policemen and other nationalists attempted to seize from the British the values of ‘civil’ policing that the colonisers preached but rarely practised. Nevertheless, in spite of the identification of the police strikers with other branches of the nationalist and labour movement, their own association with the government ensured that support for the strike was only limited.     

The Shots that Reverberated for a Long Time, 1916–1932: The Irish Revolution,the Bolsheviks and the European Left

Abstract

This article explores the interaction between the Irish Revolution and the October Revolution within the wider context of the First World War and the Paris Peace Conference. From an Irish republican perspective, it was clear that neither Wilsonian principles nor Bolshevik theories and statements could be relied upon. Self-determination for Ireland became the object of heated debates among newspapers and leading personalities of the Left and far-Left in Europe while the Easter Rising and the execution of James Connolly were used to settle accounts between various factions of the European Left and far-Left well into the interwar period.     

What Accounts for the Resilience and Vulnerability of Clusters? The Case of Istanbul's Film Industry

In this paper, the film cluster in Turkey's cultural capital, Istanbul, is examined with the ultimate purpose of contributing towards a better understanding of the dynamics shaping the resilience and vulnerability of clusters. The paper seeks to shed light on the issue of how and why, in the face of a similar set of threats, Hollywood has proved so resilient but Istanbul's film cluster so vulnerable. Scrutinizing the emergence and the subsequent lock-in of the particular path followed by the Istanbul cluster and investigating the attributes of the proximate business environment that have been shaped along the way reveal that sustainability of a cluster seems to depend on three interrelated factors: how the cluster participants strategically respond to the upcoming threats, the structural capacity of the cluster to overcome such threats, and finally, the macro-socio-economic conditions (both at the national and global levels) against which the challenges occur and which mitigate or exacerbate them.     

Cool,funky and creative? The creative class and preferences for leisure and culture

It is a core element in Richard Florida’s popular theory on growth to be able to attract the creative class to a geographical area. But Florida is not very specific on which kind of amenities are important for attracting and keeping the creative class. The purpose of this paper is to analyse which kind of cultural activities the creative class is actually using. Which kind of cultural activities does the creative class use more intensively than other groups in society? This paper presents new empirical results on preferences for leisure and culture. Richard Florida’s theory can be, and has been, criticised – especially on the issue of causality. The analyses presented in this paper show that being part of the creative class has an independent and significant role in explaining preferences for leisure and culture.     

The Managerial Equation and Innovation Platforms: The Case of Linköping and Berzelius Science Park

This paper explores the political and economic origins of a science park in Linköping, Sweden. It shows how different “innovation platforms” emerged to develop the medical industrial sector. An innovation platform is a foundation for growth corresponding to a given set of organizations or networks that incubate and sustain innovative teams tied to a given sector. Large firms and incubator-linked science parks represent different kinds of innovative platforms. The paper centres on the concept of the “managerial equation”, arguing that growth projects like science parks build on coalitions and networks linking innovative resources, acquired knowledge tied to a given sector and power linked to decision-making power and financial resources. Changes within these elements of the equation explain the rise and fall of innovative platforms. Failures in learning in one platform lead to the rise of another. An absence of power (such as supporting resources) can also account for platform changes. Regional development decisions do not simply reflect path dependent specializations as regions use related capacities to break into “new” sectors. Commitments to Triple Helix formations linking universities, corporations and the government reflect changes within each branch of the Helix and political decision-making creating a diversity of development pathways.     

Edmonton,Amiskwaciy Wâskahikan,and a Papaschase suburb for settlers

The Papaschase Indian Reservation outside Edmonton, Alberta was established as part of Treaty 6 in 1877, but annulled in 1888. A significant portion of the land was later assembled in Canada's first land bank and sold at below-market prices to create “Mill Woods,” an idealistic vision for a planned mixed-use suburb. Settler Colonial Theory is introduced to explore the history of the Papaschase Cree and the Reservation. This testifies to the process of dispossession, settler colonial occupation, and respatialization of the Canadian landscape. Canadian suburbia is not placeless. Methods for examining such “erased spaces” and layers of previous occupation are discussed. Canadian urban historical geography and suburban research have not sufficiently examined settler colonial dispossession. This is an opportunity for geographers to contribute to Canadian reconciliation between Settler and Indigenous cultures.     

The Making of a “Freud Basher,” or Reflections of a “Supercilious Neurotic…”

A well-known critic of Freud discusses in frank terms the features of psychoanalysis that still attract scholarly interest, and the polemics that deform research and defames criticism. The author defends Freud criticism from ad hominem charges and outlines serious problems with scholarship in the field, including fraud, bad faith, and a disregard for professional standards. But he also indulges and explores the supposedly “pathological” undercurrents of Freud criticism. His surprising conclusion: in a way the field of Freud Studies is sick, and does bring out the worst in everyone.     

The intergovernmental platform for biodiversity and ecosystem services (IPBES) – a role for heritage?

Following establishment in 2011, the Intergovernmental Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) has begun to produce outputs. The initial development of a conceptual framework was an important step in the platform’s development. That conceptual framework identified nature, its benefits to people, the contribution to a good quality of life of those benefits, and drivers of change, as the key areas of work for the Platform. While heritage is not specifically mentioned in the framework, it is by implication. And several of the papers dealing with elements of the programme of work for IPBES, as well as the first Assessment (accepted by the Platform at its meeting in 2016), have explicit mention of heritage and heritage activities. Helping elucidate and contribute to the range of knowledges within the IPBES conceptual framework is an important role for heritage professionals, who can play a key role ensuring heritage issues are appropriately and accurately portrayed in IPBES outputs. In turn, as those outputs produce outcomes they will have lessons for future natural and cultural heritage practice and communication. It is timely, therefore, for heritage professionals to explore ways of interacting with IPBES and its work programme.     

What is a museum for? The Magüta Museum for the Ticuna people,Amazonas, Brazil

Abstract

After working for several years in the Ethnography Section of Brazil's National Museum, Maria JussaraGomes Gruber helped found the Magüta Museum in the town of Benjamin Constant, in Amazonas (close to Brazil's border with Peru and Colombia). Jussara Gruber believed that an ethnographic museum, with objects selected, displayed and explained in ways that made sense to the Ticuna Indians of the area, would help them to sustain social and cultural values in the face of continuing colonization by non-Indian society. The Ticuna are one of Brazil's most populous indigenous groups, with some 95 villages mainly scattered along the banks of the Upper Solimões River and its tributaries. Ticuna efforts to establish land boundaries and reclaim their own territory have met substantial opposition from non-Indian loggers, landowners and storekeepers. In this article (compiled from a letter and subsequent telephone interview translated by Maria Renata Franco Peters and edited by Bill Sillar) Constantino Ramos Lopes explains his role as director of the museum and its significance for the Ticuan people.