Planting Peace: The Greater London Council and the Community Gardens of Central London

‘Peace’ has not lent itself easily to emblematic or mnemonic forms of representation. In Europe’s furnished urban landscapes of the 19th century peace was often personified in female allegorical form. She can be seen in many of the sculpted memorials that commemorate distant battles fought on the edges of Empire. Invariably, however, the figure of ‘Peace’ had a more modest role in the allegory of commemoration than that of ‘Victory’ or ‘Triumph’. As an ideal, peace and pacifism is more often regarded as a process, a long‐term goal that cannot be captured in single static form. To this end, the promotion of peace has most often been realised through intervention, occupation, and fluid, temporal forms such as campaigns, marches, songs, dances and other extended programmes. Peace has also been promoted through slow, evolutionary forms such as designed landscapes, parks and gardens. Drawing on international parallels, this paper examines in detail two community gardens in central London. Each owes its origins to radical local agendas set within the political climate of the Cold War of the 1980s, but both were born out of grand visions for world peace, multilateral disarmament, and global accord. Twenty years after their creation, the author explores their current condition and examines their value as sites of political value and heritage.     

War and peace? An agenda for peace research and practice in geography

In 1885, Kropotkin called for geography to be ‘a means of dissipating [hostile] prejudices’ between nations that make conflicts more likely, and ‘creating other feelings more worthy of humanity’. As a body of scholars, we have risen far more ably to the negative task of ‘dissipating’ than to the positive charge of ‘creating’: Geography is better at researching war than peace. To redress that imbalance, we need both to conceptualise more clearly what we mean by peace, and make a commitment to researching and practising it. These arguments are made with reference to the broader literature and research along the Danish/German, Israeli/Palestinian and Kyrgyz/Uzbek interfaces.     

印度对日媾和政策探微

战后印度制定了它的对日媾和政策,其中要求中苏参加和会。这与美国的主张背道而驰。而后,印关间进行反复交涉,最终印度从本国利益和本国外交理念出发,拒绝参加旧金山和会。但它却于会后不久即同日本谈判和约之事。总之印度执行的是一种中间路线。     

The New Frontier Meets the White Revolution: The Peace Corps in Iran, 1962‒76

The Peace Corps brought an estimated 1,800 Americans to Iran from 1962 to 1976, coinciding with the unfolding of Mohammad-Reza Shah Pahlavi’s Enqelāb-e Sefid, or White Revolution. This article surveys Peace Corps Iran’s fourteen-year history by dividing it into three distinct moments defined by changing social and political conditions in Iran and shifting US?Iranian relations. Initially, the Peace Corps Iran experiment built on earlier American foreign assistance programs, while coinciding with the roll-out of the White Revolution. Second, during its heyday in the mid-1960s, the Peace Corps inevitably became entangled with the White Revolution’s unfolding, both experiencing a phase of expansion and apparent success. Finally, as Iranian social and political conditions moved toward instability by the 1970s, Peace Corps Iran also seemed to have lost its direction and purpose, which ultimately led to a vote by volunteers to terminate the program. Based on accounts by US Peace Corps volunteers and the Iranians with whom they worked, the Peace Corps Agency, and the US State Department, this article argues that, ultimately, the Peace Corps Iran experience left a more lasting legacy on individuals than institutions.     

和平发展:和谐社会强化"北京共识"

中国和平发展需要美国等发达国家的人们形成这样的认识;当今世界存在非西方型的自由民主,它能使有关国家实现发展且与各国共存共荣。“北京共识”的提出为此提供了可能。中国构建社会主义和谐社会将有力促进“北京共识”在美国等发达国家真正成为普遍共识。     

Mediating anti-political peace in Abidjan: Radio,place and power

After a decade of conflict (1999–2011), peace-building in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, focused on the local as a primary site of reconciliation. In addition to being local, peace was anti-political, seeking to separate place from politics as autonomous realms of public life. Through the example of local radio peace programmes, this article offers a critical, ethnographic account of anti-political peace as a spatial process. It links local peace and its justifications to the operations of governmental power, emphasising continuities of anti-political mediation and political domination. Such a historicised perspective challenges the framing of anti-political peace as the opposite of politics-as-conflict: they have long been two sides of the same coin in Abidjan and, as a binary “choice,” prevent the search for more democratic alternatives. Simultaneously, I argue that anti-political peace it is best approached as a field of contest. An ethnographic approach acknowledges the widespread rejection of politics in the Ivoirian metropolis, while resisting the collapse of institutional and everyday perspectives into a self-reinforcing consensus. I show that radio producers and Abidjanais residents could not quite pin down the meaning of politics, as that which ought to be shunned. Rather than bypass these hesitations through normative or ontological reasoning, I suggest (following others) that we might treat politics' irreducible polysemy as a source of continued struggle.     

对日和约与朝鲜停战谈判

朝鲜战争的爆发迫使美国最终确定了单独媾和的对日和约新方针,并且期待战局好转而实现对日媾和;美国为了阻止中国出席旧金山会议,在对日和约签订之前采取了拖延谈判的策略;旧金山会议后美国急于停战,而因对日和约在远东陷入困境和被动局面的苏联和中国却决心在停战谈判中坚持强硬的和不妥协的立场,以便在朝鲜战场吸引和消耗美国的力量。这就是在冷战大背景下对日和约与朝鲜停战谈判之间的微妙关系。     

试论西安事变中何应钦的主战

西安事变中,南京政府内部在如何解决事变的问题上产生了意见分歧,分裂成"主和"与"主战"两派,时任军政部长的何应钦坚决地站在"主战"的阵营。长期以来的史学观点认为,他是为趁乱炸死蒋介石或假张、杨之手杀掉蒋介石,"取蒋而代之",这有失偏颇。何应钦当时的主战,其目的是"以战逼和"营救蒋介石。促成他在当时"主和"与"主战"两种营救蒋介石的途径中选择并坚持后者的原因,主要是:冥顽的反共立场;维护国民党集团利益和自身个人权力的需要,以及日本施加的压力。他的"讨伐军事"对西安事变的和平解决具有客观上的积极意义。     

Human rights and the development of a twenty-first century peace architecture: unintended consequences?

The ‘long peace’ of the last twenty-five years has linked various forms of intervention—from development to peacebuilding and humanitarian intervention—with human rights. This ‘interventionary system/order’ model has premised its legitimate authority on expanded versions of human rights, connected to liberal frameworks of democracy, rule of law, and capitalism in order to connect peace more closely with justice. Human rights offer a tactical way forward for those interested in conflict resolution, but this has led to unintended consequences. Unless conceptions of rights are continually expanded as new power structures and inequalities are uncovered and challenged, philosophical and material matters of distributive and historical justice will remain.     

Contested migration and settler politics in Cyprus

Immigration and settler literatures provide contrasting approaches to the evaluation of conflict between ‘newcomers’ and ‘indigenous’ groups. On the one hand, immigration studies emphasize that newcomers, particularly migrants, almost never fight civil wars; on the other hand, studies on settlers in contested territories expect inherently unstable relations between settlers and native populations affected by colonization projects. While each provides strong evidence to support its argument, neither literature has adequately accounted for hybrid cases where the settler and migrant categories have become almost indistinguishable. The article focuses on Cyprus as a paradigmatic such case. Specifically, it looks at populations transferred from Turkey to the northern part of the island after 1974 described either as settlers or immigrants by rival accounts in the Cypriot conflict. While colonization constitutes a violation of international conventions and a major obstacle to peace, settlers in such places as Cyprus, Tibet or Western Sahara often meet the profile of migrant populations more interested in daily survival issues than in territorial politics. In contrast to other historical or contemporary cases of settler colonialism such as Algeria (France) or West Bank and Gaza (Israel), what is particularly puzzling in Cyprus and elsewhere is the absence of mobilization and politicization among settlers despite perceived discrimination and fear of relocation following a negotiated peace agreement. Addressing this puzzle is essential to bridging the gaps between immigration and settler literatures and in mediating the tensions between conflicting claims over space, land and the political geography of peace settlements in deeply divided societies.     

“The noble pirate”: The Voice of Peace offshore radio station

This article analyzes the case of Abie Nathan's “Voice of Peace” – an offshore pirate radio station that began broadcasting in 1973 off the coast of Tel Aviv. Although the station reflected the diffusion of this type of media transmission into the Middle East from Europe, particularly in its identification with pop music, the Voice of Peace was distinct in its political and ideological aims and in its positive reception. I argue that public enthusiasm for the Voice of Peace reflected not merely the yearning for pop music but the search for a “normal” life within the turmoil of Israel. By “tuning in” to the Voice of Peace, listeners found an escapist heterotopia – an alternative to Israel's hegemonic national characteristics.     

试析尼印《和平与友好条约》签订的历史背景

1950年尼泊尔与印度缔结的《和平与友好条约》有着复杂的历史背景。悠久的文化联系、开放的边界以及密切的经济和政治交往,是该条约签订的基础。从尼泊尔方面来看,在稳定国内政治局势以及发展经济方面求助于印度,是它签订该条约的现实考虑;对印度而言,该条约可用来对尼泊尔国内的政治改革施加必要的影响,进而在地区安全构想方面,让尼泊尔成为其南亚安全框架的一部分,并借此抵制中国在这一地区的影响,这是它此时对尼外交政策的指导思想。     

从"第四点计划"到和平队:美国对发展中国家援助理论与实践的转变

肯尼迪政府组建和平队,以志愿者的形式,向不发达国家提供所谓“中等人力资源”,进行技术援助,实际上是对战后美国对外援助工作反思的结果,同时也为美国对外援助注入了新的内容。它所涉及的更为深层的考虑,则是广大不发达国家未来的发展道路问题,即这些国家以什么样的方式实现现代化,是以美国为代表的资本主义发展模式,还是以苏联或中国为代表的社会主义发展模式。肯尼迪政府希望,通过和平队的工作,向第三世界国家展示美国的现代化经验和技术,诱导第三世界国家走美国式的现代化道路。     

古代希腊城邦自治观念与霸权兴衰——试析公元前386至公元前371年斯巴达与雅典的称霸

古代希腊的城邦自治（autonomia）观念始于公元前5世纪,及至《大王和约》发展为希腊城邦处理相互间关系的准则。就公元前4世纪霸权的兴衰、更迭和发展进程而言,城邦自治原则的最终确立影响极大。该原则虽为强邦所滥用,在一定程度上沦为实现霸权的工具,但也阻止了联盟作为一种霸权向帝国的发展。城邦自治观念与霸权所呈现出的这种相反相成的复杂关系,是梳理希腊城邦邦际政治史的一条重要线索。     

论中国对越美和谈态度的转变及其对中越关系的影响(1968～1971年)

中国领导人对越南战争的态度在1968～1971年间发生了转变,即1968年初至1969年上半年,坚决反对越南与美国谈判;1969年下半年至1970年8月,从不干涉越美和谈转变为支持越南谈判;1970年9月后,态度鲜明地支持和谈。中国前后两种立场都引起越南的强烈不满。虽然中国没有以牺牲越南的利益来换得中美关系的缓和,而且在自己并不富裕的条件下,仍给予了越南大量的无偿援助,但这些努力都没有改变越南对中国的不满、疑虑与不安。在中美缓和与越美谈判的进程中,中越关系却不断恶化,这为后来双方的冲突埋下了隐患。     

“Let us create space”: Reclaiming peace and security in a Kenyan Somali community

This article pushes for a postcolonial, feminist critique of “anti-terrorist” securitization, that makes space for transformative peace-building. The post-9/11 securitization of the African continent builds on a long legacy of colonial conquest and racist Othering. Somalia is regularly centered here, portrayed in media and state narratives as a volatile failed state, one that produces terrorist bodies and acts. But rather than building peace, we follow others in arguing that the projects of securitization have stoked violence, intensifying discrimination against the Somali diasporic community (Mohamed, 2017; Wairuri, 2020). To counter this dominant narrative, we centre the Somali-Kenyan Awjama Cultural Centre, in the Eastleigh neighborhood of Nairobi, Kenya. A particularly rich and instructive case study of peace-making through community activism, we ask: How do Somalis who use the Centre subvert racist, Islamophobic narratives and reclaim their own modes of representation? And how do these new narratives disrupt systemic violence and build peace? Demonstrating the insights of a feminist, postcolonial geographic approach, we argue that spaces like the Awjama Centre provide interpersonal support and new kinds of (self-) representation. These fundamentally disrupt single stories of Africa and of terrorism, with greater possibilities for establishing long-term embodied peace than projects of geopolitical securitization.     

北宋御辽战略的演变与"澶渊之盟"的产生及影响

北宋初确定了通过北伐收复燕云地区,以扭转被动局面的御辽战略思想。宋太宗在两次北伐失败后,放弃以往的主动战略,转而实施全面防御的部署。宋真宗朝继承了“守内虚外”的思想,因此最终与辽达成“澶渊之盟”。“澶渊之盟”的订立,固然维持了长期的北部和平局面,但却给宋朝的国防战略带来了极大的消极影响,使宋廷过分依赖议和的手段,轻视了武备建设,从而令边防陷入长期被动挨打的境地。