Textbook Conflicts in South Asia

2010 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 29-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deepa Nair

The aftermath of World War II saw the emergence of many new nation-states on the Asian geopolitical map and a simultaneous attempt by these states to claim the agency of nationhood and to create an aura of a homogenous national identity. Textbooks have been the most potent tools used by nations to inject an idea of a national memory - in many instances with utter disregard for fundamental contradictions within the socio-political milieu. In South Asia, political sensitivity towards transmission of the past is reflected in the attempts of these states to revise or rewrite versions which are most consonant with the ideology of dominant players (political parties, religious organizations, ministries of education, publishing houses, NGOs, etc.) concerning the nature of the state and the identity of its citizens. This paper highlights the fundamental fault lines in the project of nation-building in states in South Asia by locating instances of the revision or rewriting of dominant interpretations of the past. By providing an overview of various revisionist exercises in South Asia, an attempt will be made to highlight important issues that are fundamental to the construction of identities in this diverse continent.

Author(s):  
Dijana Jelača

This bibliographical collection offers a selection of works that reflect both the major historical developments in Yugoslav and Post-Yugoslav Cinema, as well as some of the central themes that have dominated the robust body of scholarly work on this particular cinematic tradition. Yugoslav cinema was in its nascent form in the early parts of the 20th century (in what was then the Kingdom of Yugoslavia) and received its most ambitious development during the socialist period after the end of World War II. Throughout the length of Yugoslavia’s existence, its film industry saw the development of several endemic cinematic styles and trends: from the World War II epics to Yugoslav New Film and its radical strain, the Black Wave, to a rich tradition of socially engaged documentary filmmaking, to Animated Film, to radical avant-garde and neo avant-garde cinema—as discussed in Levi 2012 and Daković 2003 (cited under Yugoslav Experimental and Avant-Garde Cinema)—to late socialism’s cinema, whose emphasis was on the personal as covertly political. Some of the Yugoslav era’s most notable and internationally recognized filmmakers include Dušan Makavejev, Živojin Pavlović, Puriša Đorđević, Aleksandar Petrović, Želimir Žilnik, Krsto Papić, and Emir Kusturica. The post-Yugoslav period saw the dispersal of the formerly transethnic film industry into smaller ethno-national cinemas whose gaze largely turned to the exploration of ethno-nationalism and war, as well as to the question of memory and identity in the aftermath of the devastating wars that precipitated the emergence of new nation-states in the wake of Yugoslavia’s demise. Some of the most notable post-Yugoslav filmmakers include Danis Tanović, Aida Begić, and Jasmila Žbanić (Bosnia-Herzegovina); Dalibor Matanić, Branko Schmidt, and Anton Arsen Ostojić (Croatia); Milcho Manchevski and Teona Strugar Mitevska (Macedonia); Srđan Dragojević (Serbia); Maja Weiss (Slovenia); and Isa Qosja and Arben Kastrati (Kosovo). While this article treats films made during the Yugoslav period as strictly Yugoslav rather than as belonging to separate ethno-national spaces that have emerged since the end of Yugoslavia, the latter sections examine some of the controversies over the ownership of Yugoslav cinema in light of the country’s breakup, as well as a recent scholarly emphasis on ethnocentric interpretations of post-Yugoslav filmmaking, often at the expense of a more trans-ethno-national view. For biographical sources that came out during Yugoslavia’s existence and that are written in the local language, this article uses the then-standard term Serbo-Croatian. For post-Yugoslav bibliographical sources in the same language, the bibliography uses the currently preferred term BCS (Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian).


2021 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 84-125
Author(s):  
Charlotte Grech-Madin

Abstract For much of human history, water was a standard weapon of war. In the post–World War II period, however, nation-states in international conflict have made concerted efforts to restrain the weaponization of water. Distinct from realist and rationalist explanations, the historical record reveals that water has come to be governed by a set of intersubjective standards of behavior that denounce water's involvement in conflict as morally taboo. How did this water taboo develop, and how does it matter for nation-states? Focused process-tracing illuminates the taboo's development from the 1950s to the 2010s, and indicates that (1) a moral aversion to using water as a weapon exists; (2) this aversion developed through cumulative mechanisms of taboo evolution over the past seventy years; and (3) the taboo influences states at both an instrumental level of compliance, and, in recent decades, a more internalized level. These findings offer new avenues for research and policy to better understand and uphold this taboo into the future.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
James V. Wertsch

The chapter begins with an illustration of a “mnemonic standoff” between the author and Vitya, a Soviet friend from the 1970s, over the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The two are stunned that they had such different accounts of “what really happened,” and this leads to three general questions: 1. How is it that there can be such strong disagreement between entire national communities about the past? 2. Why were Vitya and I so certain that our accounts of the events in 1945 were true? 3. What deeper, more general commitments of a national community led to the tenacity with which we held our views? The remaining sections of the chapter address why national memory, as opposed to other forms of collective memory, deserves special attention, what a “narrative approach” to national memory is, and how disciplinary collaboration is required to deal with such questions. It then turns to three illustrations that help clarify the conceptual claims. The first involves American and Russian national memory of World War II, the second focuses on differences between Chinese and American memory of the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999, and the third examines how Russian national memory is used as a lens for interpreting contemporary events in Russia and Georgia. Final sections of the chapter introduce the notion of narratives as “equipment for living” in national memory.


1994 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 533-547 ◽  
Author(s):  
John P. Frendreis ◽  
Alan R. Gitelson

Few American political institutions have prompted as much research, controversy, and debate during the post-World War II era as have political parties. In turn, few institutions have seen their demise (Broder 1971; Sundquist 1982; Crotty 1984; Wattenberg 1990, 1991) and, alternately, their re-juvenation (Schlesinger 1985; Kayden and Mahe 1985; Pomper 1981; Price 1984; Gitelson, Conway, and Feigert 1984) reported so often in scholarly publications, textbooks, and the popular press. Gibson and his colleagues suggested in 1985 that “[t]he last twenty years have not been kind to American political parties” (1985, 139), and, as we approach the twenty-first century, many scholars would agree that the past four decades have been marked by a volatile and changing party system.


2009 ◽  
pp. 119-150
Author(s):  
Tommaso Piffer

- The essay shows the importance of the records of the partisan movements in writing the history of the Resistance in Italy in World War II. Using these records, it seems possible to write a partially different history from that written by the most important authors in the past decades. This essay is focused on the relationships between leadership and ranks in the bands, the political consciousness of the partisans, their relationship with political parties and the strategy of the political leaders. In conclusion, the author suggests the opportunity of a new synthesis of this period based on this material. Key words: Resistance movement in Italy, Italian partisan movement, Italian Resistance historical studies, World War II, political parties and partisan bands, partisan records.


1962 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
pp. 886-898 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Shoup

In the apocalyptic visions of Marx, the world revolution which was to destroy capitalist society was also to sweep away the entire system of nation-states, and in its place to substitute a world proletarian society, a new supra-national community ruled over by the victorious working class.Of all the prophecies of early Marxism, none proved more ill-founded than this belief in an international socialist order. The revolution, when it came, was confined to Russia. Only after the victories of the Soviet armies in World War II did it become possible to extend Communist rule beyond the borders of the Soviet Union. After less than two decades, this new international Communist community of nations has become divided into blocs of quarrelling states, and the goal of international Communism seems still distant. The Communists, like other universalistic movements of the past, have apparently proved incapable of surmounting the limits of the nation-state system they set out to destroy. Why?


2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  

For almost 20 years after the end of World War II, many Japanese women were challenged by a dark secondary hyper pigmentation on their faces. The causation of this condition was unknown and incurable at the time. However this symptom became curable after a number of new cosmetic allergens were discovered through patch tests and as an aftermath, various cosmetics and soaps that eliminated all these allergens were put into production to be used exclusively for these patients. An international research project conducted by seven countries was set out to find out the new allergens and discover non-allergic cosmetic materials. Due to these efforts, two disastrous cosmetic primary sensitizers were banned and this helped to decrease allergic cosmetic dermatitis. Towards the end of the 20th century, the rate of positives among cosmetic sensitizers decreased to levels of 5% - 8% and have since maintained its rates into the 21th century. Currently, metal ions such as the likes of nickel have been identified as being the most common allergens found in cosmetics and cosmetic instruments. They often produce rosacea-like facial dermatitis and therefore allergen controlled soaps and cosmetics have been proved to be useful in recovering normal skin conditions.


2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-77
Author(s):  
Doris Wolf

This paper examines two young adult novels, Run Like Jäger (2008) and Summer of Fire (2009), by Canadian writer Karen Bass, which centre on the experiences of so-called ordinary German teenagers in World War II. Although guilt and perpetration are themes addressed in these books, their focus is primarily on the ways in which Germans suffered at the hands of the Allied forces. These books thus participate in the increasingly widespread but still controversial subject of the suffering of the perpetrators. Bringing work in childhood studies to bear on contemporary representations of German wartime suffering in the public sphere, I explore how Bass's novels, through the liminal figure of the adolescent, participate in a culture of self-victimisation that downplays guilt rather than more ethically contextualises suffering within guilt. These historical narratives are framed by contemporary narratives which centre on troubled teen protagonists who need the stories of the past for their own individualisation in the present. In their evacuation of crucial historical contexts, both Run Like Jäger and Summer of Fire support optimistic and gendered narratives of individualism that ultimately refuse complicated understandings of adolescent agency in the past or present.


1990 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Reid

Since the end of World War II the study of Southeast Asia has changed unrecognizably. The often bitter end of colonialism caused a sharp break with older scholarly traditions, and their tendency to see Southeast Asia as a receptacle for external influences—first Indian, Persian, Islamic or Chinese, later European. The greatest gain over the past forty years has probably been a much increased sensitivity to the cultural distinctiveness of Southeast Asia both as a whole and in its parts. If there has been a loss, on the other hand, it has been the failure of economic history to advance beyond the work of the generation of Furnivall, van Leur, Schrieke and Boeke. Perhaps because economic factors were difficult to disentangle from external factors they were seen by very few Southeast Asianists as the major challenge.


1996 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 371-376
Author(s):  
Andrew Ludanyi

The fate of Hungarian minorities in East Central Europe has been one of the most neglected subjects in the Western scholarly world. For the past fifty years the subject—at least prior to the late 1980s—was taboo in the successor states (except Yugoslavia), while in Hungary itself relatively few scholars dared to publish anything about this issue till the early 1980s. In the West, it was just not faddish, since most East European and Russian Area studies centers at American, French and English universities tended to think of the territorial status quo as “politically correct.” The Hungarian minorities, on the other hand, were a frustrating reminder that indeed the Entente after World War I, and the Allies after World War II, made major mistakes and significantly contributed to the pain and anguish of the peoples living in this region of the “shatter zone.”


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