scholarly journals Esoteric Theravada Buddhism in Burma/Myanmar

2013 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 55-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niklas Foxeus
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
Theravada Buddhism ◽  
World War ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Asian Nation ◽  
Insight Meditation ◽  
The Government

The achievement of independence in 1948 was in many ways a watershed in Burma’s history. At this time, a variety of Buddhist movements emerged that were part not only of a ‘Burmese Buddhist revival’, in which even the government was involved, but also a general re-enchantment of Asia. In the period following World War II, projects of nation-building and further modernization were implemented in many newly independent Asian nation states. The theories of modernization adopted by the rulers had presupposed that a new, rationalized and secularized order that had set them on the path of ‘progress’ would entail a decline of religion. However, instead there was a widespread resurgence of religion, and a variety of new, eclectic religious movements emerged in Southeast Asia. In the thriving religious field of postcolonial Burma, two lay Buddhist movements associated with two different meditation techniques emerged, viz.; the insight meditation movement and the concentration meditation movement. The latter consisted of a variety of esoteric congregations combining concentration meditation with esoteric lore, and some of these were characterized by fundamentalist trends. At the same time, the supermundane form of Buddhism became increasingly influential in the entire field of religion. The aim of the present article is to discuss how this supermundane dimension has reshaped the complex religious field in Burma, with particular emphasis on the esoteric congregations; to present the Burmese form of esoteric Theravāda Buddhism, and to situate the fundamentalist trends which are present in these contexts.

The Politics of Decolonization in French and British West Africa

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick Cooper
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Local Governance ◽  
Political Movements ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
World War ◽  
Economic Equality ◽  
Pan African ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The Government ◽  
Territorial States

At the end of World War II, Britain and France tried to find new bases for the legitimacy of empire. Their hesitant moves created openings that African political movements exploited. Scholars have tried to capture the excitement of this process, first focusing on the drive to create nation-states, then exploring other possibilities, both regions within territorial states and federations among them. Historians have drawn on archives and interviews as well as a wide variety of texts produced by political movements. Although Africans had long conducted politics through both local idioms and pan-African connections, the postwar openings led political movements to focus on arenas where they could achieve results. In French Africa, this entailed a partially successful struggle for French citizenship, representation in both the French and territorial legislatures, and social and economic equality with other French citizens. Eventually the French government tried to diffuse claim-making by devolving internal autonomy to territorial governments. When Guinea obtained independence in 1958 and other African leaders differed over whether they should create a francophone African federation within a Franco-African confederation or participate as equals in a French federation, the movements shifted to seeking independence and a new relationship with France. Britain failed to get African politicians to focus on local governance. Instead, politicians demanded power in each colony. Meanwhile, Britain tried to appease African social movements with a program of economic development only to face escalating demands and heightened conflict. Although fearful of disorder and corruption, the government decided that the best it could hope for was to have attracted Africans to a British way of life and to achieve friendly relations with African governments that, led by Ghana, came into power.

scholarly journals Obóz narodowy wobec koncepcji federacyjnej w czasie II wojny światowej

2018 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 256-274
Author(s):  
Dariusz Miszewski
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
International Cooperation ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Global Level ◽  
World War ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Government ◽  
Post War

During World War II, the national camp preached the idea of imperialism in Central Europe. Built peacefully, the Polish empire was supposed to protect the independence and security of countries in Central Europe against Germany and the Soviet Union, and thus got the title ‘the Great Poland’. As part of the empire, nation-states were retined. The National camp was opposed to the idea of the Federation, promoted by the government-in-exile. For the ‘National camp’ idea of federation in the regional, European and global level was an anachronism. Post-war international cooperation was based on nation-states and their alliances.

The national question, identity and the crisis in South Sudan

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dylan Yanano Mangani ◽  
Richard Rachidi Molapo
Keyword(s):  
Political Identity ◽  
South Sudan ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
Political Control ◽  
Social Patterns ◽  
Political Landscape ◽  
Liberation Movement ◽  
Nation States ◽  
National Question ◽  
The Government

The crisis in South Sudan that broke out on the 15th of December 2013 has been the gravest political debacle in the five years of the country’s independence. This crisis typifies the general political and social patterns of post-independence politics of nation-states that are borne out of armed struggles in Africa. Not only does the crisis expose a reluctance by the nationalist leaders to continue with nation-building initiatives, the situation suggests the struggle for political control at the echelons of power within the Sudanese Peoples Liberation Movement.  This struggle has been marred by the manufacturing of political identity and political demonization that seem to illuminate the current political landscape in South Sudan. Be that as it may, the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) hurriedly intervened to find a lasting solution however supportive of the government of President Salva Kirr and this has suggested interest based motives on the part of the regional body and has since exacerbated an already fragile situation. As such, this article uses the Fanonian discourse of post-independence politics in Africa to expose the fact that the SPLM has degenerated into lethargy and this is at the heart of the crisis.

scholarly journals ARCHBISHOP STEPINAC, THE INDEPENDENT STATE OF CROATIA AND WESTERN ALLIES

1970 ◽  
pp. 272-293
Author(s):  
MILAN KOLJANIN ◽  
DRAGICA KOLJANIN
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Military Intervention ◽  
World War ◽  
Independent State ◽  
Holy See ◽  
Government Relations ◽  
The Government

There are various doubts and ambiguities regarding the dispatch of the memorandum by the Government of the Independent State of Croatia (ISC) to the Western Allies asking for military intervention in early May 1945, giving rise to different interpretations in historiography. These varying interpretations are related to the circumstances of the dispatch of the memorandum, its text, the actions of prominent representatives of the Ustasha government, relations between the new Yugoslav authorities and Western allies, especially the British and the role of Archbishop Stepinac and the Holy See in the ISC. In order to understand the memorandum, it is necessary to consider the most important political and military circumstances at the end of World War II in Yugoslavia, especially the politics of the new Yugoslavia and the Western powers, primarily the British. The representatives of the Holy See in the ISC and the Archbishop of Zagreb, Alojzije Stepinac, played an important role in efforts to preserve the Ustasha state. This paper was written based on unpublished and published archival sources and relevant historiographical literature.

scholarly journals It was Deliberate Way to a Famine

2018 ◽  
pp. 130-138
Author(s):  
Volodymyr Chornyi
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Rural Area ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Foreign Assistance ◽  
World War ◽  
Soviet Government ◽  
Great Famine ◽  
The World ◽  
The Government ◽  
Collective Farms

The article analyses one of the most grievous chapters in the history of Ukrainian nation – the Great Famine (Holodomor) of 1932–1933. It is referred to the massive famine that was deliberately organized by the Soviet authorities, which led to many millions hu-man losses in the rural area in the territory of the Ukrainian SSR and Kuban. Planned confiscation of grain crops and other food products from villagers by the representatives of the Soviet authorities led to a multimillion hunger massacre of people in rural area. At the same time, the Soviet government had significant reserves of grain in warehouses and exported it abroad, since without collectivization and Ukrainian bread it was impossible to launch the industrialization that demanded Ukrainian grain to be contributed to foreigners in return for their assistance. Ukrainian grain turned into currency. The authorities of that time refused to accept foreign assistance for starving people and simultaneously banned and blocked their leaving outside the Ukrainian SSR. The so-called “barrier troops” were organized in order to prevent hungry people from flee to the freedom and not let anyone enter the starving area. The situation is characterized by the fact that the idea and practice of barrier troops tested on Ukrainians were lately used on the battlefields of the World War II. Among three Holodomors, the government did not conceal only the first one (1921–1922), as it could be blamed on the tsarist regime that brought the villagers to the poverty, and post-war devastation. The famine of 1946–1947 was silenced, but the population generally perceived it as a clear consequence of two horrendous misfortunes – the World War II and dreadful drought. Especially rigid was position of the government regarding the very fact of genocide in 1933–1933 not only its scale. The author emphasizes that the Great Famine is refused to be admitted not because it was unreal but to avoid the assessment of its special direction against Ukraine and Ukrainian nation, saying instead that it affected the fate of all nations. The article describes the renovation of internal passports system and the obligatory registration at a certain address that took place in the USSR in 1932. Decree of the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR stipulated the fact that people living in rural areas should not obtain passports. Therefore, collective farmers of the Ukrainian SSR actually did not obtain passports. The villagers were forbidden to leave collective farms without signed agreement with the employer, that deprived them of the right to free movement. Even after the introduction of labour books the collective farmers did not obtain them either. The author describes the destruction of the collective farms system that his parents dedicated their entire labour life to. Instead of preserving productive forces, material and technical base and introducing new forms of agrarian sector management and the whole society to the development path, this system has been thoughtlessly destroying and plundering. Keywords: Holodomor, Ukrainian villagers, collectivization, genocide, confiscation, barrier troops.

scholarly journals The national camp and the concept of a federation during the Second World War

1970 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 256-276
Author(s):  
Dariusz Miszewski
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Global Level ◽  
World War ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Government ◽  
Post War ◽  
Second World

During the Second World War, the national camp preached the idea of imperialism in Central Europe. Built peacefully, the Polish empire was supposed to protect the independence and security of countries in Central Europe against Germany and the Soviet Union, and thus went by the name of “the Great Poland”. As part of the empire, nation-states were retained. The national camp was opposed to the idea of the federation as promoted by the government-in-exile. The “national camp” saw the idea of federation on the regional, European and global level as obsolete. Post-war international cooperation was based on nation states and their alliances.

Containment

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Preston
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Political Conflict ◽  
World War ◽  
Land War ◽  
The Government ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Cold War Consensus

Assessing the application of the liberal consensus idea to postwar foreign policy, this chapter contends that myths about the bipartisan spirit of U.S. foreign policy have too long found ready acceptance from historians. Politics did not stop at the water’s edge, even when bipartisanship was at its supposed zenith during World War II and the early Cold War. While there was unanimity during the post-war era that the growth of international communism was a threat to U.S. interests, this did not mean that foreign policy was free of political conflict, and partisan charges that the government of the day was losing the Cold War were commonplace. Meanwhile, non-elite opinion evinced little support for confrontation with the main Communist powers, reluctance to engage in another land war like Korea, and concern about survival in the nuclear era. The divisiveness wrought by Vietnam was supposed to have brought an end to the “Cold War consensus,” but uncertainty over its meaning was evident well before this.

Maintaining Modernity

2018 ◽  
pp. 169-205
Author(s):  
Michitake Aso
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
Industrial Agriculture ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
World War ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Building Projects ◽  
Imperial Power ◽  
Indochina War

Rubber trees helped structure the violent transition from empire to nation-state during nearly thirty years of conflict on the Indochinese peninsula. Chapter 5 focuses on the struggle over plantations that took place in Vietnam and Cambodia between 1945 and 1954. During the First Indochina War, plantation environments served as a key military battleground. In the fighting that took place immediately after the end of World War II, many plantation workers, encouraged by the anticolonial Việt Minh, attacked the rubber trees as symbols of hated colonial-era abuse. Slogans placing the culpability of worker suffering on trees show how plantation workers often treated the trees themselves as enemies. Despite their colonial origins, plantation environments were important material and symbolic landscapes for those seeking to build postcolonial Vietnamese nations. French planters claimed to struggle heroically against nature, Vietnamese workers saw themselves as struggling against both nature and human exploitation, and anticolonial activists articulated struggles against imperial power structures. Industrial agriculture such as rubber was vital to nation-building projects, and by the early 1950s, Vietnamese planners began to envision a time when plantations would form a part of a national economy.

Stranded Modernity

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daishiro Nomiya
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Developmental Pattern ◽  
World War ◽  
Historical Process ◽  
Post World War Ii ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Nation States

High modernity claims that the modernity project gave rise to institutional organs of modern nation states, culminating in an emergence of ultra-military states with wartime economy in the early twentieth century. It also argues that the same developmental pattern continued to dominate in the post-World War II period. This chapter examines this high-modernity thesis, employing Japan and Hiroshima as cases to be analyzed. Against the high-modernity thesis, many believe that Japan had a historical disjuncture in 1945, being ultramilitary before the end of World War II and a peaceful nation after. Examinations show that, while the modernity project controlled a large-scale historical process in Japan, it met vehement resistance, and became stranded in Hiroshima.

Mapping the Pilgrimage Network

2021 ◽  
pp. 58-88
Author(s):  
Marion Grau
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
World War ◽  
Post World War Ii ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Local Officials ◽  
Religious Meaning

This chapter outlines the author’s approach to research and method, as well as the scope and timeline of participant observation. The redevelopment of the Norwegian pilgrimage network comes on the heels of the post–World War II European efforts to build transregional and transnational peace. Historic pilgrimage routes become part of this network but are slow to begin in Protestant contexts. In contemporary pilgrimage, embodiment and relations to other pilgrims are central ingredients. It is through physical relations to landscape and people that sacred, transforming encounters are sought. Ritual creativity features strongly in how such encounters are facilitated by pilgrim priests, hosts, government, local officials, artists, and scores of volunteers. Religious meaning-making and secular nation-building are closely intertwined in these efforts to lift up and preserve, if not stage, local heritage. A consistent ambivalence is the overlap between pilgrims and tourists, and questions of spirituality and consumption. As Norway’s population has become more diverse religiously and ethnically, actors continually adjust the pilgrimage network to the needs of a changing population and a wide range of social issues.

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