scholarly journals Rohingya: The History of a Muslim Identity in Myanmar

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacques Leider
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Military Operations ◽  
Political Struggle ◽  
Muslim Identity ◽  
Shared Identity ◽  
High Commissioner ◽  
Ethnoreligious Identity

The name Rohingya denotes an ethnoreligious identity of Muslims in North Rakhine State, Myanmar (formerly Burma). The term became part of public discourse in the late 1950s and spread widely following reports on human rights violations against Muslims in North Rakhine State during the 1990s, and again after 2012. Claims for regional Muslim autonomy emerged during World War II and led to the rise of a Rohingya ethnonationalist movement that drew on the local Muslim imaginaire, as well as regional history and archaeology. To explore the historical roots of distinctive identity claims and highlight Buddhist-Muslim tensions, one must reach back to the role of Muslims in the precolonial Buddhist kingdom of Arakan and their demographic growth during the colonial period. Civic exclusion and state harassment under Burma’s authoritarian regimes (1962–2011) put a premature end to political hopes of ethnic recognition, and yet hastened a process of shared identity formation, both in the country and among the diaspora. Since the 1970s, refugees and migrants turned to Bangladesh, the Middle East, and Southeast Asian countries, forming a transnational body of Rohingya communities that reinvented their lives in various political and cultural contexts. A succession of Rohingya nationalist organizations—some of whom were armed—had negligible impact but kept the political struggle alive along the border with Bangladesh. Although Rohingya nationalists failed to gain recognition among ethnic and religious groups in Burma, they have attracted increasing international acknowledgment. For postdictatorial Myanmar (after 2011), the unresolved Rohingya issue became a huge international liability in 2017, when hundreds of thousands fled to Bangladesh following military operations widely interpreted as ethnic cleansing. In December 2017, the United Nations’ high commissioner for human rights acknowledged that elements of genocide may be occurring.

“The heart above the ruins”: Miriam Waddington’s Poetry, the Spanish Civil War, and Jewish Canadian Literature

1969 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Robins Sharpe
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
World War ◽  
Canadian Literature ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The Subject ◽  
War Consequences

The Jewish Canadian writer Miriam Waddington returned repeatedly to the subject of the Spanish Civil War, searching for hope amid the ruins of Spanish democracy. The conflict, a prelude to World War II, inspired an outpouring of literature and volunteerism. My paper argues for Waddington’s unique poetic perspective, in which she represents the Holocaust as the Spanish Civil War’s outgrowth while highlighting the deeply personal repercussions of the war – consequences for women, for the earth, and for community. Waddington’s poetry connects women’s rights to human rights, Canadian peace to European war, and Jewish persecution to Spanish carnage.

Hassan al-Turabi’s Religious Discourse on Faith, Renewal, and Ijtihād

2015 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-94
Author(s):  
Gubara Said Hassan ◽  
Jabal M. Buaben
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Legal Reasoning ◽  
Religious Discourse ◽  
Religious Movement ◽  
Political Leader ◽  
Political Struggle ◽  
Religious Ideology ◽  
Religious Symbolism

The role of Islamic intellectuals is not confined to elaborating on the religious ideology of Islam. Equally important is their role in setting this religious ideology against other ideologies, sharpening and clarifying their differences, and thereby developing and intensifying one’s commitment to Islam as a distinct, divinely based ideology. Islam, as both a religion and an ideology, simultaneously mobilizes and transforms, legitimizes and preserves. It can be an instrument of power, a source and a guarantee of its legitimacy, as well as a tool to be used in the political struggle among social classes. Islam can also present a challenge to authority whenever the religious movement questions the existing social order during times of crisis and raises a rival power, as the current situation in Sudan vividly demonstrates. Throughout his political career, Hassan al-Turabi has resorted to religious symbolism in his public discourse and/or Islamic rhetoric, which could often be inflammatory and heavily reliant upon the Qur’an. This is, in fact, the embodiment of the Islamic quest for an ideal alternative. Our paper focuses on this charismatic and pragmatic religio-political leader of Sudan and the key concepts of his religious discourse: faith (īmān), renewal (tajdīd), and ijtihād(rational, independent, and legal reasoning).

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gillian MacNaughton ◽  
Mariah McGill
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Right To Health ◽  
Social Rights ◽  
Limited Capacity ◽  
United Nations High Commissioner ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
High Commissioner ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The Right

For over two decades, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has taken a leading role in promoting human rights globally by building the capacity of people to claim their rights and governments to fulfill their obligations. This chapter examines the extent to which the right to health has evolved in the work of the OHCHR since 1994, drawing on archival records of OHCHR publications and initiatives, as well as interviews with OHCHR staff and external experts on the right to health. Analyzing this history, the chapter then points to factors that have facilitated or inhibited the mainstreaming of the right to health within the OHCHR, including (1) an increasing acceptance of economic and social rights as real human rights, (2) right-to-health champions among the leadership, (3) limited capacity and resources, and (4) challenges in moving beyond conceptualization to implementation of the right to health.

The Origins of Human Rights in Global Health

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence O. Gostin ◽  
Benjamin Mason Meier
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Global Health ◽  
International Law ◽  
Right To Health ◽  
Right To Health Care ◽  
Global Standards ◽  
The Right

This chapter introduces the foundational importance of human rights for global health, providing a theoretical basis for the edited volume by laying out the role of human rights under international law as a normative basis for public health. By addressing public health harms as human rights violations, international law has offered global standards by which to frame government responsibilities and evaluate health practices, providing legal accountability in global health policy. The authors trace the historical foundations for understanding the development of human rights and the role of human rights in protecting and promoting health since the end of World War II and the birth of the United Nations. Examining the development of human rights under international law, the authors introduce the right to health as an encompassing right to health care and underlying determinants of health, exploring this right alongside other “health-related human rights.”

Human Rights Naturalized

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allen Buchanan
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Economic Conditions ◽  
World War ◽  
Human Rights Movement ◽  
The Status ◽  
Naturalistic Theory

This chapter helps to confirm the explanatory power of the naturalistic theory of moral progress outlined in previous chapters by making two main points. First, it shows that the theory helps to explain how and why the modern human rights movement arose when it did. Second, it shows that the advances in inclusiveness achieved by the modern human rights movement depended upon the fortunate coincidence of a constellation of contingent cultural and economic conditions—and that it is therefore a dangerous mistake to assume that continued progress must occur, or even that the status quo will not substantially deteriorate. This chapter also helps to explain a disturbing period of regression (in terms of the recognition of equal basic status) that occurred between the success of British abolitionism and the founding of the modern human rights movement at the end of World War II.

The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe and Other European Fora on Migration

1994 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 580-590
Author(s):  
Jan Niessen
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
The United States ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
Scientific Cooperation ◽  
High Commissioner ◽  
Protection Of Human Rights ◽  
Prevention Center ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
General Secretary

In the 1970s, during the Cold War era, European and North American states began a dialogue in Helsinki which became known as the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), or the Helsinki process. For Western states the CSCE served as a platform to raise questions related to security in Europe and the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms. Eastern European states considered the CSCE as a means to secure the postwar borders and an opportunity to discuss economic and scientific cooperation. Today, 51 European States, plus the United States of America and Canada, participate in this process. Notwithstanding the many and often intense political tensions between the West and the East during those twenty years, quite a number of conferences, seminars and other meetings were held and a great many agreements were adopted and documents issued, dealing with matters related to CSCE's three main areas of concern: security in Europe; cooperation in the fields of economics, science, technology and environment; the promotion of human rights. In response to the fundamental changes in Europe in the late 1980s, the CSCE was given a new impetus and its operational framework was broadened. CSCE offices were established in Prague (CSCE Secretariat), Vienna (Conflict Prevention Center) and Warsaw (Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights) with the aim to strengthen and monitor compliance with CSCE commitments, especially in the area of human rights. A Parliamentary Assembly was established and met twice, first in Budapest and then in Helsinki. A General Secretary and a High Commissioner on Minorities were appointed, with offices in Vienna and The Hague, respectively.

II. Policy Formulation for National Security

1949 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 534-543 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sidney W. Souers
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
National Security ◽  
Economic Effect ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
Policy Formulation ◽  
Military Operations ◽  
World War ◽  
War Aims ◽  
Military Campaign

The National Security Council, created by the National Security Act of 1947, is the instrument through which the President obtains the collective advice of the appropriate officials of the executive branch concerning the integration of domestic, foreign, and military policies relating to the national security. An outline of the genesis of this new governmental agency will indicate in part its present rôle.Even before World War II, a few far-sighted men were seeking for a means of correlating our foreign policy with our military and economic capabilities. During the war, as military operations began to have an increasing political and economic effect, the pressure for such a correlation increased. It became apparent that the conduct of the war involved more than a purely military campaign to defeat the enemy's armed forces. Questions arose of war aims, of occupational policies, of relations with governments-in-exile and former enemy states, of the postwar international situation with its implications for our security, and of complicated international machinery.

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