Hizbullah’s ʿAshura Posters (2007–2020)

Author(s):  
Sarah Hamdar

Abstract This article examines Hizbullah’s annual ʿAshura posters. It focuses on the campaigns created between 2007 and 2020 and places them against a backdrop of contemporary political events to demonstrate how the posters act as a significant site of political contestation and nationalist manifestation. By linking ʿAshura to contemporary politics in an ongoing reinterpretation of Imam Husayn’s martyrdom, Hizbullah places the Karbala battle at the center of its ideological identity, political actions and resistance activities, ultimately elevating its own fighters to Husayn’s position during Karbala. While Husayn is a figure mostly venerated within Shiʿa Islam, the article also demonstrates how Hizbullah utilizes the ʿAshura narrative to elevate Husayn—and ultimately the party’s fighters—to a transnational context by transforming the Karbala battle into a model for global resistance and victory. This is manifested in the posters’ meanings but also within the visual transformations whereby aesthetic changes reveal Hizbullah’s attempts at broadening its reach to a wider audience.

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 509-525
Author(s):  
Laura Filardo-Llamas

Abstract In this article I start from an understanding of songs as socio-cultural discourses which may also perform a political function. This political function can be reflected in the promotion of particular world-views about given socio-political events and/or in the attempt by the singer to make the audience perform given political actions. To prove this, I will look at the re-contextualisation process undergone by a well-known song by U2: “Sunday, Bloody Sunday” (1983). This song was originally written to respond to the violence of the Northern Irish conflict, but it has been later used to react to other socio-political events. By relying on a cognitive approach to the study of songs, this paper tries to answer two questions: (i) how can we explain the re-contextualisation process undergone by the song and why is it possible? and (ii) how is politics embedded in musical performances?


Neohelicon ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ngozi Obiajulum Iloh

AbstractThis article discusses the Ivorian writer, Fatou Fanny-Cissé’s novel, Madame la présidente, published in 2015. The novel offers a fundamental critique of African democracy and the contemporary politics in Africa. The Republic of Louma is an imaginary country that show-cases electoral crises in an imaginary contemporary continent. The plot about a female dictator has a strong feminist inclination. The feminisation of presidential elections is a caricature of the dictatorial tendencies of African leaders. The themes discussed are true to contemporary political events in Africa as well as other parts of the world. The presentation reveals a lucid picture of feminine dictatorial politics.


Leadership ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yiannis Gabriel

What, if anything, does opera tell us about leadership, leaders and followers, that social research or indeed other art forms do not tell us? This is the question I address here. I argue that opera is a highly political genre, able to depict political events involving leaders and followers in sharply illuminating ways. In particular, through the device of the chorus it is able to represent the political actions and sentiments of large multitudes of people in their complexity and ambiguity. It is also capable of portraying many of the contradictions of leadership in a critical light. In particular, I argue that opera offers powerful insights into the psychology of leaders confronted by crisis and strife. It highlights the sacrifices they make, the distance and isolation that frequently afflicts them, the different ways in which they wield power and handle conflicts and the tensions between their private and public lives. In showing them meting out favours and punishments, opera warns of rulers’ perennial temptation to abuse their power and highlights some of the dark sides of leadership.


2000 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florian G. Kaiser ◽  
Anders Biel

Summary: The General Ecological Behavior (GEB) scale was developed for cross-cultural applications ( Kaiser & Wilson, in press ). The present study compares ecological behavior in Sweden and Switzerland. Questionnaire data from 247 Swedish and 445 Swiss participants are presented. Reliability and internal consistency analyses revealed that the GEB scale was applicable to both the Swedish and Swiss samples. In general, Swiss behave more ecologically than Swedes. Nevertheless, several ecological behaviors turned out to be easier to conduct in Sweden than in Switzerland and vice versa. The GEB scale takes differential behavior difficulties into account that are most likely caused by situational influences. At the same time, the proposed behavior measurement approach guides the search for potentially useful political actions that make it easier for people to behave ecologically in some societies and, thus, can be adopted by others.


2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (188) ◽  
pp. 487-494
Author(s):  
Daniel Mullis

In recent years, political and social conditions have changed dramatically. Many analyses help to capture these dynamics. However, they produce political pessimism: on the one hand there is the image of regression and on the other, a direct link is made between socio-economic decline and the rise of the far-right. To counter these aspects, this article argues that current political events are to be understood less as ‘regression’ but rather as a moment of movement and the return of deep political struggles. Referring to Jacques Ranciere’s political thought, the current conditions can be captured as the ‘end of post-democracy’. This approach changes the perspective on current social dynamics in a productive way. It allows for an emphasis on movement and the recognition of the windows of opportunity for emancipatory struggles.


Author(s):  
I. Tsyperdiuk

<div><p><em>The milestones of the activity of the Ukrainian editorial office of Vatican Radio during its 80-year history are considered in the article. The reasons for the creation of the Ukrainian editorial office, the peculiarities of its work under the pressure of Soviet propaganda during the Cold War are analyzed. It was found that the broadcast of the Ukrainian editorial office of Vatican Radio was intended to help the faithful preserve unity with the church in the conditions of the destruction of the UGCC and the total onset of militant atheism. It was demonstrated that the work of the Ukrainian editorial office of Vatican radio was still aimed at defending the truth, although it was much easier to conduct evangelization in the conditions of confrontation between the USSR and the West. Rapid information and communication development of society has allowed everyone to speak publicly. At the same time, it made it possible to manipulate public opinion and to disseminate disinformation instantly and in the end contributed to the emergence of a post-truth phenomenon that not only replaced traditional propaganda but also made it part of it. The appeal to the foundations of the Christian being in a changing world distinguishes programs of the Ukrainian editorial office from materials of other broadcasters, the main focus of which is on socio-political events.</em> <em>The reform of the information system implemented by the Vatican has shown that there has been a shift from preaching in the conditions of aggressive propaganda during the confrontation between the two systems to counteracting post-truth, which destroys the objective perception of the world. It is shown that the main task of the editorial office is to unite Ukrainians around Christian values, to preserve and promote the key principles of human existence in the conditions of spreading populism, disinformation, secularization, and relativism of modern society. In its programs, the Ukrainian editorial office of Vatican Radio encourages the audience to cultivate faith, to rely on Christian values and beliefs, emphasizing its unchanging purpose of serving God, people, and the church.</em></p></div><p><strong><em>Key words: </em></strong><em>the Ukrainian editorial office of Vatican Radio, Vatican News, Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, post-truth, Christian values.</em></p>


2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonio Alejo

There is a pressing need to extend our thinking about diplomacy beyond state-centric perspectives, as in the name of sovereignty and national interests, people on move are confronting virtual, symbolic and/or material walls and frames of policies inhibiting their free movement. My point of departure is to explore migrant activism and global politics through the transformation of diplomacy in a globalised world. Developing an interdisciplinary dialogue between new diplomacy and sociology, I evidence the emergence of global sociopolitical formations created through civic bi-nationality organisations. Focusing on the agent in interaction with structures, I present a theoretical framework and strategy for analysing the practices of migrant diplomacies as an expression of contemporary politics. A case study from North America regarding returned families in Mexico City provides evidence of how these alternative diplomacies are operating.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-47
Author(s):  
Eduardo Acuña Aguirre

This article refers to the political risks that a group of five parishioners, members of an aristocratic Catholic parish located in Santiago, Chile, had to face when they recovered and discovered unconscious meanings about the hard and persistent psychological and sexual abuse they suffered in that religious organisation. Recovering and discovering meanings, from the collective memory of that parish, was a sort of conversion event in the five parishioners that determined their decision to bring to the surface of Chilean society the knowledge that the parish, led by the priest Fernando Karadima, functioned as a perverse organisation. That determination implied that the five individuals had to struggle against powerful forces in society, including the dominant Catholic Church in Chile and the political influences from the conservative Catholic elite that attempted to ignore the existence of the abuses that were denounced. The result of this article explains how the five parishioners, through their concerted political actions and courage, forced the Catholic Church to recognise, in an ambivalent way, the abuses committed by Karadima. The theoretical basis of this presentation is based on a socioanalytical approach that mainly considers the understanding of perversion in organisations and their consequences in the control of anxieties.


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