scholarly journals On Zionism and the Concept of Deferral

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Y. Stern
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
History Of ◽  
Political Vocabulary ◽  
Christian History

Abstract This paper offers a set of conceptual reflections on the politics of deferral. Beginning with an examination of this idea in analyses of colonialism, human rights, and liberalism, the paper turns to Gershom Scholem’s well-known opposition between Jewish messianism (“life lived in deferral”) and Zionism (concrete political action). The paper troubles this distinction by tracing the concept of deferral back into Scholem’s earliest writings on messianism and by showing the term’s genealogical reliance on the theological-political vocabulary of sovereignty. Against this critical background, the paper returns to the present, in order to reframe Scholem’s distinction and suggest that, far from negating messianic deferral, Zionism and Israeli colonial rule capture and redeploy its logic as a secular modality of power. The paper concludes by inscribing this secular, political theology of Zionism within a Christian history of deferral, messianism, and empire.

POSSIBILITY AND CONSTRAINT: AFRICAN INDEPENDENCE IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

2008 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-196 ◽  
Author(s):  
FREDERICK COOPER
Keyword(s):  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Fiftieth Anniversary ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
African History ◽  
Historical Inquiry ◽  
Ambiguous Event ◽  
History Of

ABSTRACTOn the fiftieth anniversary of an ambiguous event – the referendum giving French Africans the choice of immediate independence or a new status within a ‘French Community’ – this article points to the alternative forms of political action which opened up at certain moments in African history and how, at other moments, some of those alternatives closed down. It assesses concepts, issues and arguments used in writing the history of Africa, now that the recent African past – spanning the last years of colonial rule and the years of independence – is becoming a focus of historical inquiry.

2 The protection of rights in Britain and the protection of rights in its territories during colonial rule and at independence

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Parkinson Charles
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
European Convention ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
History Of ◽  
International Obligations ◽  
Constitutional Thought ◽  
Overseas Territories ◽  
The Impact

This chapter sets out the intellectual history of the protection of rights in English constitutional thought from 1689 to present, and how this approach to protecting rights was translated to the British overseas territories. It then assesses how the mechanisms for the protection of rights in the overseas territories operated during times of emergency and considers human rights violations in the colonial territories. The impact upon the British attitude to human rights in its colonial territories as a result of Britain's international obligations under the League of Nations and the United Nations as well as the European Convention on Human Rights is considered. Finally, the use of constitutionally entrenched rights in former colonies granted independence prior to 1950 is described.

How the Bible Feels

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 27-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dorina Miller Parmenter
Keyword(s):  
Affect Theory ◽  
Material Object ◽  
Bodily Harm ◽  
The Bible ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Senses ◽  
Christian Leaders ◽  
Christian History

Despite Christian leaders’ insistence that what is important about the Bible are the messages of the text, throughout Christian history the Bible as a material object, engaged by the senses, frequently has been perceived to be an effective object able to protect its users from bodily harm. This paper explores several examples where Christians view their Bibles as protective shields, and will situate those interpretations within the history of the material uses of the Bible. It will also explore how recent studies in affect theory might add to the understanding of what is communicated through sensory engagement with the Bible.

Utopophobia

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Estlund
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Ideal Theory ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
Sound Theory ◽  
Theory Versus ◽  
History Of ◽  
Practical Guidance

Throughout the history of political philosophy and politics, there has been continual debate about the roles of idealism versus realism. For contemporary political philosophy, this debate manifests in notions of ideal theory versus nonideal theory. Nonideal thinkers shift their focus from theorizing about full social justice, asking instead which feasible institutional and political changes would make a society more just. Ideal thinkers, on the other hand, question whether full justice is a standard that any society is likely ever to satisfy. And, if social justice is unrealistic, are attempts to understand it without value or importance, and merely utopian? This book argues against thinking that justice must be realistic, or that understanding justice is only valuable if it can be realized. The book does not offer a particular theory of justice, nor does it assert that justice is indeed unrealizable—only that it could be, and this possibility upsets common ways of proceeding in political thought. The book's author engages critically with important strands in traditional and contemporary political philosophy that assume a sound theory of justice has the overriding, defining task of contributing practical guidance toward greater social justice. Along the way, it counters several tempting perspectives, including the view that inquiry in political philosophy could have significant value only as a guide to practical political action, and that understanding true justice would necessarily have practical value, at least as an ideal arrangement to be approximated. Demonstrating that unrealistic standards of justice can be both sound and valuable to understand, the book stands as a trenchant defense of ideal theory in political philosophy.

Islam and Colonial Rule in Lagos

1995 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-80
Author(s):  
Olakunle A. Lawal
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Muslim Community ◽  
Tropical Africa ◽  
Southwestern Nigeria ◽  
Urban Settlement ◽  
Islam And Politics ◽  
British Rule ◽  
History Of ◽  
Process Of Urbanization

IntroductionThis essay provides an explanation of the dynamics of the interactionbetween Islam and politics by placing emphasis on the role played byMuslims in the collision of traditionalism and British rule as colonialismtook root in Lagos. The focus is on the development of a political schismwithin the nascent Muslim community of metropolitan Lagos at the startof the twentieth century up until the end of the 1940s. It highlights therole of Islam in an emerging urban settlement experiencing rapid transformationfrom a purely rural and traditional center into a colonial urbancenter. The essay is located within the broader issues of urban change andtransition in twentieth-century tropical Africa. Three major developments(viz: the central mosque crisis, the Eleko affair, and the Oluwa land case)are used as the vehicles through which the objectives of the essay areachieved.The introduction of Islam into Lagos has been studied by T. G. O.Gbadamosi as part of the history of Islam in southwestern Nigeria. Thisepic study does not pay specific attention to Lagos, devoted as it is to thegrowth of Islam in a far-flung territory like the whole of modem southwesternNigeria. His contribution to a collection of essays on the historyof Lagos curiously leaves out Islam’s phenomenal impact on Lagosianpolitics during the first half of the twentieth century. In an attempt to fillthis gap, Hakeem Danmole’s essay also stops short of appreciating the fundamentallink between the process of urbanization, symbolized in this caseby colonial rule, and the vanguard role played by Muslims in the inevitableclash of tradition and colonial rule in Lagos between 1900 and 1950.

Zainichi (Korean Residents in Japan)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kiyoteru Tsutsui
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Korean Peninsula ◽  
International Norms ◽  
Japanese Government ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Citizenship Rights ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
History Of

This chapter examines the complicated history of Zainichi, Korean residents in Japan, who came to Japan during the colonial era. After 1945, Zainichi lost all citizenship rights and had to fight for many rights, but the division in the Korean peninsula cast a shadow over Zainichi communities, hampering effective activism for more rights in Japan. Focusing on the issue of fingerprinting—the most salient example of rights violations against Zainichi—the chapter demonstrates how, since the late 1970s, global human rights principles have enabled Zainichi to recast their movement as claims for universal rights regardless of citizenship and to use international forums to pressure the Japanese government, leading to the abolition of the fingerprinting practice. Zainichi achieved similar successes in other areas of rights except for political rights, where international norms do not clearly support suffrage for noncitizens. Zainichi also contributed to global human rights by advancing rights for noncitizen minorities.

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