Poppy Politics: American Agents,Iranian Addicts and Afghan Opium, 1945–80

This paper surveys the history of American support for Iranian counter-narcotics policy between 1945 and 1989. In particular, it explores the general failings of Tehran's attempt to ban the domestic production and consumption of opium. The significance of this period is two-fold. First, this essay argues that American-backed efforts to combat the opium trade in Iran highlighted the detrimental effects narcotics had upon both state and society in Iran. Second, it suggests that the Iranian ban upon narcotics helped to stimulate a rise in Afghan opium production before the Soviet invasion of 1979.     

Afghanistan and the Opium World Market: Poppy Production and Trade

The Afghan poppy cultivation is presented here as a case in point to exemplify the linkages between external influences and local effects. World market and power relations have influenced cultivation patterns, processing, and trafficking. At the same time, poppy cultivation pinpoints an internal development which is strongly linked to deteriorating state control, warlordism, and regional power politics. Opium production has served as a major source of revenue for the upholding of disparate political structures which reflect the present political map of Afghanistan. Poppy cultivation in Afghanistan gained a substantial push during the last quarter century, from an annual production of 200 tons in 1979 to 4,200 tons in 2004, making use of former development efforts in creating irrigated oases in Helmand and Nangarhar. Prices rose after the Taliban's 2001 ban on production, raising farmers' incomes substantially and turning opium into an unrivalled cash crop. Fairly new production zones have been added in recent times; for example, Badakhshan—the stronghold of the Northern Alliance—has gained the third position with major increases in the last few years. Afghanistan's poppy cultivation and opium production has to be interpreted in terms of globalization and fragmentation. Drug trafficking affects the neighboring states, namely, Iran, Tajikistan, and Pakistan, as they function as consumer markets as well as trade routes for contraband drugs heading towards the West. Consequently, the Afghan poppy cultivation is interpreted in a holistic manner.     

The growth of antinuclearism in New Zealand

This paper explores the transformation of antinuclear opinion in New Zealand into a more durable and structured political orientation. Antinuclear opinion first gripped a large portion of the New Zealand public after that nation's government banned the entry of United States nuclear warships in 1984. At that time, the public rallied behind the government's action. This consolidation effect, however, showed signs of being impermanent by 1986; antinuclear opinion appeared to be on the wane. Surprisingly, by 1989 this sentiment had finned into a more structured attitude, regardless of the fact that the government responsible for the nuclear ships ban had become very unpopular. The youthful cast to antinuclearism in New Zealand suggests that this orientation is in the process of becoming a fixture of that country's political culture. Political socialisation experiences best explain the continuation and growth of this orientation. The database used in this study comes from a series of national surveys—the most pertinent of which are polls conducted in 1985 and 1989.     

Conflicting viewpoints on opium prohibition: Radical changes to opium policy in the late Qing dynasty

The ban on opium at the end of the Qing dynasty was larger and more influential than ever before. Opinions differed on opium prohibition between the court and society. The intelligentsia and government believed in a set of policies, while opium farmers and traders resisted them. Subsequent conflicts became more and more intense, especially when opium farmers began protesting the ban on planting opium. The reactions of officials and commoners towards this backlash against the opium ban were very complex. The rehabilitation plans and measures following the backlash proved ineffective, leaving a confused situation out of control. __________ Translated from Wen-shi-zhe (Journal of Literature, History & Philosophy), 2004:2     

Our Schools,Our Country: American Evangelicals,Public Schools,and the Supreme Court Decisions of 1962 and 1963

American evangelicals have long maintained a tense and paradoxical relationship to mainstream American culture. This article explores the effect of the 1962 and 1963 United States Supreme Court school decisions on that perennial tension. Unlike many conservatives, conservative evangelicals greeted the court's 1962 Engel decision to ban state‐written prayer in public schools with cautious approval; however, evangelicals saw the 1963 Schempp decision to ban Bible reading and the Lord's Prayer from those schools as an affront. The unique relationship between evangelical belief and America's public school system forced evangelicals to reconsider their special place in both schools and society as a whole. They concluded with surprising unanimity that those school decisions had done more than forced evangelical belief out of America's public schools; the decisions had pushed evangelicals themselves out of America's mainstream culture.     

口岸市场上中外鸦片的竞争与替代（1877-1912）--基于芜湖海关资料分析

芜湖为近代皖省的唯一通商口岸。在1877—1912年间,外国鸦片一直是芜湖海关进口价值最高的商品。在这种长期趋势下,外国鸦片进口数量具体呈现出三个阶段性的波动。在第一阶段,芜湖口岸开放,以及税厘成本的比较优势,刺激外国鸦片进口数量上升;在第二阶段,在财政安稳的考量下,官府对本土鸦片全面弛禁,替代作用进一步发挥,外国鸦片进口数量下降。在第三阶段,国内外舆论对中外鸦片的毒品性质进行抨击,促成中英签订禁烟条款,1913年,芜湖海关中外鸦片进口竞争的历史正式结束。可见,在近代中国,鸦片问题始终有着国际因素的影响和考量,是半殖民地经济的典型缩影,深刻地影响着国民的身心健康与经济发展。     

阿富汗毒品问题的历史考察

罂粟种植与人类文明相伴而生。随着世界交往的不断扩大以及地区性交往向全球性交往的转变,罂粟种植与鸦片的使用开始在全球范围内传播。阿富汗出现鸦片最早可以追溯到公元前1世纪,20世纪70年代末至90年代初,阿富汗毒品问题产生,在此后20余年的内战中毒品问题进一步发展,对阿富汗的政治、经济和社会诸层面产生了深刻的影响,并且对国际社会形成了巨大的压力和挑战。阿富汗现代化的挫折是毒品问题形成的根本原因,阿富汗独立不结盟地位的丧失是毒品问题形成的直接原因,适宜的气候条件则是毒品问题形成的必要条件。从历史发展的视角来考察,阿富汗毒品问题的解决将是一个长期的过程,并且只有在国际社会通力合作的情况下才能实现。     

Perspectives on Australian foreign policy, 2005

The year 2005 was notable for the Howard government's embrace of China. Spectacular resource deals were accompanied by the government's optimistic public declarations that China's rise could be accommodated in the current Asia–Pacific power structure. Alliance relations, which were the cornerstone of the Howard government's foreign policy, were boosted further by the decision to strengthen the Australian Defence Force's capacity to contribute to future US operations. The central challenge for this government arising from its decision-making in 2005 was to manage both major power relations in tandem. This was a year where the connection between international policy and domestic issues stood in stark relief. Terrorism concerns provided the context for the government's foreign policy but it also drove stringent domestic legislation. Australia's relationship with Indonesia improved but the commitment to Iraq remained problematic. Not the least of these difficulties stemmed from the exposure of the Australian Wheat Board's corporate dealings in Iraq which had operated counter to the government's international policy.     

Women,Nation and Decolonisation in Papua New Guinea

This paper explores the question of women, decolonisation and nation-building. It argues that the inclusion of women within the nation of Papua New Guinea (PNG) was problematic partly because women had rarely experienced mainstream colonial rule — an experience that elsewhere provided a basis for participation in the post-colonial state. The paper also investigates how women were perceived and represented by male writers at independence. While the Pangu Pati attempted to include women in state-building, these efforts were not adequately supported. PNG's achievement of independence coincided with the globalisation of second-wave feminism, and this was to prove critical for PNG's female citizens in their efforts to be included in the new state, for PNG's membership in the United Nations provided an external push to raise women's participation in the nation. Nevertheless, the government's dependence on international organisations to push the women's agenda also hampered the development of an autonomous women's movement in the country. The paper argues that, for PNG's female citizens, colonisation, independence and decolonisation occurred simultaneously after 1975.     

Relative Pleasures: Drugs,Development and Modern Dependencies in Asia's Golden Triangle

As opium cultivation is increasingly controlled in the Golden Triangle, producers and traffickers have created new markets for methamphetamines (ATS) amongst highland and lowland populations. At the same time, evolving forms of drug abuse also reflect a larger order of social change that directly shapes the consumer market. This article explores how demand for methamphetamines in mainland Southeast Asia emerges in sync with changing value systems fostered by development trajectories within a globalized commodity culture. The primary focus is on Akha highlanders in northwestern Laos for whom dual processes of opium eradication and village relocation directly encourage the currently prominent uptake of ATS. As Akha move into the lowlands to engage in modern capitalist systems of production, increased methamphetamine use emerges as a means to facilitate a greater reliance on sedentization and petty commodity trade. Rather than the uptake of heroin that took place in neighbouring countries, the transition from opium to methamphetamines is a highly charged sign of new social and material relations adopted by the Lao Akha as they enter primitive forms of capital accumulation and wage‐labour.     

Poppies for medicine in Afghanistan: lessons from India and Turkey

This study examines India and Turkey as case studies relevant to the Senlis Council’s ‘poppies for medicine’ proposal. The proposal is that Afghan farmers are licensed to produce opium for medical and scientific purposes. Here it is posited that the Senlis proposal neglects at least three key lessons from the Turkish and Indian experiences. First, not enough weight has been given to diversion from licit markets, as experienced in India. Second, both India and Turkey had significantly more efficient state institutions with authority over the licensed growing areas. Third, the proposal appears to overlook the fact that Turkey’s successful transition was largely due to the use of the poppy straw method of opium production. It is concluded that, while innovative and creative policy proposals such as that of the Senlis proposal are required if Afghanistan is to move beyond its present problems, ‘poppies for medicine’ does not withstand evidence-based scrutiny.     

REGIONAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION'S EXPORT EARNINGS OUTSIDE THE FORMER SOVIET UNION AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR REGIONAL ECONOMIC AUTONOMY

The distribution of foreign export earnings by area of origin is analyzed for the Russian Federation, to convertible and non-convertible currency areas, as well as for four major commodity categories. The paper focuses on identifying, because of Russia's narrow export composition, oblast-level units (and commodities) that contribute disproportionately to the Federation's overall convertible currency earnings. It then explores the implications of the extremely uneven spatial districution of such earnings for the Russian government's efforts to devise a workable formula for distributing export revenues between the “Center” and the localities.     

邓廷桢与广东禁烟问题

1836-1839年两广总督邓廷桢在广东的禁烟活动,与鸦片战争前中英关系的演变具有直接联系。邓廷桢在1836年一度拥护许乃济提出的弛禁鸦片贸易的建议,并为此作了积极准备。在清廷决定实施严禁政策后,邓廷桢怀着犹疑、观望的态度执行道光帝的谕令,对冷仃洋鸦片趸船打击不力,但在切断内地鸦片贩子与鸦片趸船联系方面的努力却收到可观的效果,使持续多年的鸦片贸易模式遭受重创。这一结果却使得外国鸦片贩子加速寻求向中国东、北部沿海贩卖鸦片,并导致广州内河鸦片走私活动的复活,鸦片问题在总体上显得更为严峻。受到政治压力的邓廷桢利用因义士贩烟事件,迫使广州外侨总商会和英国驻华商务监督义律与其达成禁止广州内河鸦片走私的协议。但这一协议因清廷决定派遣林则徐赴粤采取更为严厉的禁烟措施而告终结。     

A proxy geopolitics of poppies,peasants, and national sovereignty: Turkey’s rhetorical resistance to America’s war on drugs

Nixon's self-declared war on drugs has been underway for over five decades. Not all aspects are well known, and many voices of those touched by the campaign were and remain unheard. In the early 1970s, the Turkish republic faced a political crisis. The military installed a post-coup leadership that acquiesced to longstanding American demands to halt all cultivation of the opium poppy. This was the first sustained battle in Nixon's war, and it had socio-economically devastating consequences for Anatolian peasants who had for generations farmed the crop for licit and illicit markets. To many Turkish citizens, the ban was the result of a new stage in Western imperialism and a direct consequence of their own leaders' failure to protect the country's rural poor majority, on the one hand, and their surrender of national sovereignty, on the other hand. Farmers' voices were rarely heard on this issue, apart from brief quotes in newspapers and in domestic and foreign governmental studies, but their plight attracted sustained popular attention due in part to the proxy geopolitics articulated on their behalf. Before the recently disenfranchised parliament that did not permit sustained discussion or debate of the poppy question, MPs nonetheless rendered impromptu testimonies protesting the ban, its impacts on farmers, the suppression of democracy, and nation's loss of sovereignty. Through an analysis of Turkey's parliamentary record and other contemporary sources, I approach this crucial episode in the histories of intoxicants and the war on drugs. In so doing, I demonstrate the potential and seeming success of proxy geopolitics echoed on behalf of a marginalized people and why engagement with such sources is essential in the wider practice of critical geopolitics.     

Drug or medicine? China's experience of Marx's opium thesis on religion

This paper tracks the changes in the influence of Marx's celebrated opium thesis in China. Marx's view that religion is “the opium of the people” was first introduced into China through propaganda associated with the Russian revolution. It became very influential among Chinese intellectuals and dominated the religious policy of the CCP for a long period. However, as the revolutionary party became the party in power after 1949, it was obvious that the opium thesis alone would be insufficient to deal with the religious situation in a socialist country. Although the “five natures” of religion thesis was proposed to explain the persistence of religion in socialist China, the opium thesis proved more powerful politically and resulted in a general attack on religion during the Cultural Revolution. Not until the era of reform and “opening up” was the opium thesis questioned. After the release of a major document entitled “The Basic Viewpoint and Policy on the Religious Question during our Country's Socialist Period” in 1982, the opium thesis was viewed as too simplistic an instrument for understanding “the problem of religion.” Scholars have argued that religion contains important cultural elements and can make a positive contribution to a socialist society in certain respects. After lengthy discussion, a consensus was reached that Marxist views on religion should keep up with the times and that the opium thesis was no longer compatible with contemporary Chinese society. Although different voices can still be heard on the issue, religion is no longer viewed as just a “drug” but rather as a kind of “medicine.” Marx's opium thesis has been replaced in China by a new theory, one that emphasizes that religion should and can adapt to the needs of a socialist society.     

Winners and losers: Industry policy and gender concerns in the clothing industry

This article is broadly concerned with the federal government's industry policy in relation to women machinists in the clothing industry. From analysis of various reports and a series of face‐to‐face interviews with 120 people representing government, business and unions, as well as workers in various sections of the industry, I argue that the government's approach to restructuring this industry has not adequately incorporated an understanding of the issues facing the women who make up the majority of employees. The federal government's current textile, clothing and footwear (TCF) industry plan has failed to sufficiently address women's frequently disadvantaged position. In regard to the clothing industry, I will show that although there have been gradual gains for women, major victories are scarce, particularly for the growing number of outworkers.     

Students: Are they really so conservative?

In order to test the proposition that students in the late 1970s were markedly more conservative than the students of the late 1960s, a sample of 550 University of Queensland students was surveyed in September 1979 employing a questionnaire similar to that administered to 272 Queensland students in 1969. The contemporaneous campaign against the Queensland government's ban on street marches, providing as it did frequent opportunities for participation in protest, facilitated comparison at the level of participation in protest as well as that of attitudes. Although students’ political party preferences had moved to the left, the pattern of attitude change was less consistent, the most marked and consistent change being the decline in confidence in political authorities. Although students’ views of protest politics were no less favourable, their preparedness to participate had declined. Perhaps the most striking change was, however, the rise in interest and participation in politics amongst women.     

Not suitable for children: the politicisation of conflict-affected children in post-2001 Afghanistan

The 2001 conflict in Afghanistan has attracted a great deal of international controversy. The impact of the conflict on Afghanistan's children has been no exception. The research conducted by the United Nations and child protection organisations on the experiences of Afghan children throughout the conflict paints a bleak picture. Accounts of children being directly targeted, accidently killed, abducted, actively fighting in armed groups, denied humanitarian assistance or simply struggling to be healthy, happy, educated and secure amid this conflict are a reminder that conflict devastates children's lives. However, while this research demonstrates that children are often war's innocent victims, the ways in which this research is narrated, particularly by belligerent parties to the conflict, are far from innocent. This article examines the political manipulation of research on Afghan children affected by armed conflict. It argues that Afghan children and their experiences have become a powerful moral symbol that is used by belligerents to advance political, military and strategic agendas.     

Space,identity politics and resource control in Indonesia's transmigration programme

Indonesia's recent history has revealed the fragility of a national unity created under a political authoritarianism that was itself underpinned by the country's relative economic success. The government's transmigration resettlement scheme has been one particularly powerful mechanism through which the New Order government (under President Soeharto) has sought to achieve unity amidst the country's disparate ethnic groups. By resettling Javanese people, Indonesia's largest and most politically central cultural group, the state has attempted to achieve a presence of the “centre” in the country's “margins”, and in turn, extend a particular imagined geography across the archipelago. This paper examines the spatial politics of this process in one particular region, where transmigration has been coloured by environmental authoritarianism and concerns over the activity of “illegal forest squatters”. It draws on Henri Lefebvre's concept of socially produced space to demonstrate how local people have challenged the spatial authority of the state, and the ways subtle forms of resistance are expressed in agrarian landscapes and livelihood practices in Lampung. The paper concludes by reflecting on the possibilities of linking such resistance to emerging social movements which are beginning to challenge the post-Soeharto government's authority outside Java.     

Dealing with the King's Enemies: The Drafting of the Communist Party Dissolution Bill 1950

Abstract

The lawyers called upon to draft a Bill which, if enacted, could validly give effect to the promise of the successful Liberal–Country Party coalition in the 1949 federal election to outlaw the Communist Party of Australia, faced a difficult assignment. Their political instructors faced a dilemma: should the new government take a less confrontational approach to communist disruption of the economy and risk undermining the government's popular support, or should it press ahead with the promised ban and risk having the High Court of Australia invalidate it? In a process in which the politics of pragmatism gave way to Cold War ideology, the choice of the latter path led to failure.