A chief by the people: nation versus state in Lesotho

Africa ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
David B. Coplan ◽  
Tim Quinlan

The article explores the conflictual relationship among the Basotho chieftaincy, state, and nation in historical perspective. That history includes consideration of the recent and still unresolved political crisis in Lesotho. The current meaning of Sesotho, the ‘whole life process’ of the Basotho people, is examined in the context of the divergence between state and nation, between chiefs and people, between region and locality, and between modern and customary institutions and forms of organisation. Lesotho is unusual in Africa as a state attempting to emerge from an existing, monocultural nation rather than to build a not yet existing nation out of cultural plurality. It is this very peculiarity, and the state of seemingly endless political turmoil despite the absence of any ‘ethnic factor’ which provides the most telling commentary on more general relations between cultural and historical forms of political organisation in Africa.

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 31-34
Author(s):  
Senem Kaptan

This article analyses how governments have sustained their relationship with their citizens amidst pandemic restrictions brought about by coronavirus through a focus on the acts of the Turkish government. Specifically, by looking at presidential letters addressed to the nation as well as the government’s fundraising campaign, I demonstrate how the Turkish state tried to manage a public health crisis and govern the collective body at once. In doing so, I argue that letters, by serving as both tokens of gratitude to the people and reminders of their patriotic duties, were a powerful political tool used both to re-establish the governmental intimacy between the state and its citizens that was disrupted as a result of pandemic restrictions and to assuage the repercussions of a possible political crisis.


2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 389
Author(s):  
Lukman Santoso

Abstract: Pakistan, since independence, there are differences of opinion among the Muslims of Pakistan consisting of secularists, moderate Islamists about how should the implementation of the Islamic politics in Pakistan, giving rise to a prolonged political crisis when today. Pakistan's political turmoil unending birth Pakistani women politicians and thinkers, namely Benazir Bhutto. This paper will focus on the study of Benazir Bhutto thinking about the relationship between Islam and democration in Pakistan. Based on the results of the study, there are some findings: First, Benazir with thoughts that category substantivistik and relatively conflict with Muslim-majority Pakistan (traditionalists and fundamentalists), the ideas in tune with existence, articulation, and a manifestation of Islamic values are intrinsic in the climate modern democrations. Second, the idea of Benazir is a counter discourse to the idea that idealized which Islam should be the political system. Benazir thinking is in line with the paradigm who saw that Islam does not lay down a standard pattern of the theory of the political system must be organized by the people, except for the values and ethical principles. الملخص :كانت في باكستان – منذ حرّيتها – خلافات الآراء عند المسلمين بين العلمانيين والمتوسطين والإسلاميين عن كيفية تطبيق السياسة الإسلامية في باكستان حتى أدّت إلى النزاع السياسيّ الطويل إلى الآن. وظهرت في هذه الفترة النزاعية مفكّرة وسياسيّة بينزر بوطو. حاولت هذه المقالة التركيز في دراسة أفكارها عن التصالح الإسلامي والديموقراطية في باكستان. حصلت هذه الدراسة على النتائج : أولا، كانت بينزر بوطو بما لها من أفكار تميل إلى الأصالة وأفكارها متعارضة بأغلبية المسلمين التقاليديين والأصوليين، وكانت أفكارها موافقة بمكانة القيم الإسلامية الأصيلة وتمثيلها وتطبيقها في ضوء الديموقراطية الحديثة. ثانيا إن هذه الأفكار كردّ تجاه الفكرة المؤيّدة ليكون الإسلام أساسا للدولة. كانت هذه الأفكار تواكب بفكرة أن الإسلام لا يضع نظرية معيّنة لبناء الدولة يعتنقها المسلمون إلا الأسس العامة فقط  والقيم فيها. Abstrak: Pakistan, sejak kemerdekaannya, terdapat perbedaan pendapat dikalangan kaum muslim Pakistan yang terdiri dari kelompok sekular, moderat dan Islamis tentang bagaimana implementasi Islam politik di Pakistan, sehingga menimbulkan kemelut kekuasaan yang berkepanjangan hingga kini. Ditengah kemelut politik Pakistan yang tidak berkesudahan tersebut lahirlah politisi dan pemikir perempuan Pakistan, yakni Benazir Bhutto. Tulisan ini akan memfokuskan kajian pada pemikiran Benazir Bhutto tentang rekonsiliasi Islam dan demokrasi di Pakistan. Berdasarkan hasil kajian, terdapat beberapa temuan, yaitu: Pertama, Benazir dengan pemikirannya yang termasuk kategori substantivistik dan tergolong bertentangan dengan mayoritas muslim Pakistan (tradisionalis dan fundamentalis) ini, gagasannya selaras dengan eksistensi, artikulasi, dan manifestasi nilai-nilai Islam yang instrinsik dalam iklim demokrasi modern. Kedua, gagasan Benazir merupakan counter wacana terhadap pemikiran yang mengidealkan bahwa Islam harus menjadi dasar negara. Pemikiran Benazir ini selaras dengan paradigma yang melihat bahwa Islam tidak meletakkan suatu pola baku tentang teori sistem politik yang harus diselenggarakan oleh umatnya, kecuali nilai-nilai dan prinsip-prinsip etisnya.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 85-98
Author(s):  
F. A. Gaida

The article considers the interpretation of the concept “people” by the Constitutional Democratic Party supporters. This concept is of fundamental importance for the analysis of Cadet ideology. The concept “people” was of great political value for the Cadet party. The author correlates this concept with such notions relevant for the Party as society, nation, and nationality. The author examines the relations of “people” with the authorities, the state, the Cadet Party, the Parliament, and humanity. Special attention is paid to the evolution of ca­dets’ understanding of the concept “people” in connection with social processes, the develop­ment of the political crisis and revolutions of 1905—1907 and 1917. The author holds that already at the beginning of the revolutionary period, the Cadets substituted the triad “author­ity — society — people”, which was conservative in origin by the dichotomy “power — peo­ple”, which was democratic in nature. The “people” included the educated public and was opposed to the “authorities”. In its new meaning, “people” was seen as the “third class”, the future civil nation, called to construct a political system based on the idea of popular sover­eignty. In this sense, the Cadet ideology was revolutionary and implied a break from the An­cien régime. The “people” were not considered as some unique whole but rather as an integral part of humanity, developing together with it according to universal laws. The Cadet Party was considered by its supporters as a force representing the interests of the entire “people.” Cadet faction in the State Duma turned it into a popular representation. Although only the Constituent Assembly convened on the basis of universal suffrage can be considered to be a truly democratic representation. Broad democratization during the February Revolution cor­responded to the Cadet concept of people sovereignty. Moreover, the Cadets had no ideological grounds to oppose the further radicalization of the revolution.


Author(s):  
Mahmuddin Mahmuddin

This study discussed the involvement and the ideology of politics of Taliban, HUDA in the Aceh peace process. Since the emergence of the Rabithah Thaliban Aceh movement (which later briefed as RTA) on April 7, 1999, was inseparable from social and political turmoil when the issues of referendum developed widely in the community. The power built by Thaliban and HUDA has been able to bring considerable influence in the event of political accumulation when the issues of referendum and independence became a requisite for the process of resolving the Aceh conflict. The peace process realized in Aceh in 2004 by involving international parties to the realization of the peace agreement in Helsinki. Thaliban and HUDA again voiced and gave political ideas in the arena of social and political development in Aceh. The struggle was intensified when the wishes of the people were not the same as the needs of the State.


Asian Survey ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yun-han Chu

The year 2006 will long be remembered by the people of Taiwan as a year of political turmoil. Chen Shui-bian's escalating political crisis at home raised the risk of instability for Washington. Taiwan's economy registered another disappointing year with sluggish growth and a slew of poor statistics.


2008 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 559-567 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anupama Rao

In Society Must Be Defended, Michel Foucault characterizes the permanent, conflictual relationship that exists “between the two groups that constitute the social body and shape the State [as] in fact one of … permanent warfare” (2003: 88). Foucault argues that acknowledging that “race wars” constitute the substructure of the state enables a new conception of power, one that is simultaneously implicated in knowledge regarding the source of that power: re-conceptualizing the bases of power also demands a shift in knowledge practices. This problem (of power/knowledge) was administrative/managerial from the start: it constituted the conditions of possibility for the exercise of sovereign power, and was itself sovereign-like. “The administration allows the king to rule the country at will, and subject to no restrictions. And conversely, the administration rules the king thanks to the quality and nature of the knowledge it forces upon him” (ibid.: 128–29). Foucault asserts that historical knowledge is produced at precisely this juncture, as a form of counter-knowledge that is the outgrowth of a race war or class war, in which the nobility seek to defend society—their society—from new challengers, “the people,” for example, as well as from the sovereign himself. Thus, modern history germinated as a form of knowledge against absolutist sovereign power, but it was grafted onto the edifice of the state to buttress the sovereign's threatened legitimacy. Thus, “From 1760 onward we see the emergence of institutions that were roughly the equivalent of a ministry of history” (2003: 130 ff).


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 96
Author(s):  
Khristianto Khristianto ◽  
Widya Nirmawalati

The novel RDP came out in 1982, when the new order regime was still firmly established. One of the important criticisms in the work was the "incorrect" handling of communism by the government at that time following the eruption of the G30S/PKI history. The author of the novel tries to bring a different view of the issue. This paper tries to present how the original Banyumas personified the political turmoil-how the laypeople interpreted the events that had consumed them as victims, or the sacrificed. Based on the recurrent reading of the Indonesian-language RDP novel and Javanese language Banyumasan, the authors firmly state that the people of Dukuh Paruk are merely victims of the outside world. People of the hamlet have no idea what they are doing, other than that they want to perpetuate the tradition they are proud of, ronggeng. Nor do they blame or think that there are people outside of those who have committed crimes against them. The disaster that befall them is none other due to their mistakes do not run the rituals that must be done before performances ronggeng. Their elders also realized that the pageblug had been signaled by the appearance of the latitude of the cubes (comets), and they had ignored the cue. Thus, pageblug should be accepted. Against the innocence of clean thought, the author asserts that something is wrong with them, systematically practiced by the regime at that time. He agreed that the coup was false; but the way in which the state deals with such problems is also unjustifiable. The state has clearly punished many Indonesians without trial, and killed thousands of innocent people.


2014 ◽  
pp. 30-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Grigoryev ◽  
E. Buryak ◽  
A. Golyashev

The Ukrainian socio-economic crisis has been developing for years and resulted in the open socio-political turmoil and armed conflict. The Ukrainian population didn’t meet objectives of the post-Soviet transformation, and people were disillusioned for years, losing trust in the state and the Future. The role of workers’ remittances in the Ukrainian economy is underestimated, since the personal consumption and stability depend strongly on them. Social inequality, oligarchic control of key national assets contributed to instability as well as regional disparity, aggravated by identity differences. Economic growth is slow due to a long-term underinvestment, and prospects of improvement are dependent on some difficult institutional reforms, macro stability, open external markets and the elites’ consensus. Recovering after socio-economic and political crisis will need not merely time, but also governance quality improvement, institutions reform, the investment climate revival - that can be attributed as the second transformation in Ukraine.


2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 352-366 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Baugh

In Bergsonism, Deleuze refers to Bergson's concept of an ‘open society’, which would be a ‘society of creators’ who gain access to the ‘open creative totality’ through acting and creating. Deleuze and Guattari's political philosophy is oriented toward the goal of such an open society. This would be a democracy, but not in the sense of the rule of the actually existing people, but the rule of ‘the people to come,’ for in the actually existing situation, such a people is ‘lacking’. When the people becomes a society of creators, the result is a society open to the future, creativity and the new. Their openness and creative freedom is the polar opposite of the conformism and ‘herd mentality’ condemned by Deleuze and Nietzsche, a mentality which is the basis of all narrow nationalisms (of ethnicity, race, religion and creed). It is the freedom of creating and commanding, not the Kantian freedom to obey Reason and the State. This paper uses Bergson's The Two Sources of Morality and Religion, and Deleuze and Guattari's Kafka: For a Minor Literature, A Thousand Plateaus and What is Philosophy? to sketch Deleuze and Guattari's conception of the open society and of a democracy that remains ‘to come’.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-115
Author(s):  
Munawir Munawir

Non-Muslim leadership becomes a problematic issue in the context of inter-religious relations in Indonesia, especially for Muslims in conducting religious-social-political relations with non- Muslims. The problematic position of this non-Muslim leadership issue is the state constitution allows but the religious constitution (based on the textuality of the Qur'an) forbids. How does M. Quraish Shihab respond as well as answer the problematic of the people in the case? It is this core issue that will be tested by the answer through this research. Using the descriptive-inferential method and the philosophical-historical approach (philosophical and historical approach), the conclusion that M. Quraish Shihab in interpreting the verses (ban) of non-Muslim leadership (Surat al-Maidah: 51, QS Ali 'Imran: 28, and QS al-Mumtahanah: 1) is contextual, or in other words, the verses are understood to be sociological and not theological. Therefore he allows non-Muslim leadership as long as the non-Muslims are not of a hostile group of Islam, even he does not allow the leadership of a Muslim if a Muslim is actually injurious Islam and harms the interests of Muslims.


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