Politicians of the Sacred Grove: Citizenship and Ethnicity in Southern Senegal

Africa ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-220 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ferdinand de Jong

AbstractThis article examines the traditional initiation of the former Senegalese Minister of Agriculture. At the age of fifty-five the Catholic Minister was initiated into the secrets of the sacred grove and thus acquired the status of adult man. The article demonstrates that Jola ethnic discourse, in which male initiation has become an important symbol, forced the Minister to enter the grove. His initiation turned him into a full member of the Jola ethnic group and qualified him as a trustworhty man capable of representing the people. In the campaign of the Socialist Party internal elections the Minister's initiation nevertheless became a major issue. The electorate did not show unswerving loyalty to ‘their’ Minister and nominated a non-initiate. The electorate suddenly changed their standards of apt political representation. The article contributes to the contemporary debate on citizenship and primary patriotism by showing that the Senegalese easily shift their position from subject to citizen, and thus empower themselves vis-à-vis elusive politicians. It also shows that politicians penetrate Jola practices of secrecy and thereby further the Jola's integration into the national public sphere.

Author(s):  
Shafqat Hussain

The Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) region in northern Pakistan, formerly known as the Northern Areas of Pakistan, has a long history. The people of the region, described as Dards, are mentioned by classical Greek and Roman historians and in sacred Hindu texts. This early history (3rd century ce–10th century ce) of the region shows it as ruled by the Kushan, Chinese, and Tibetan empires. In the 7th-century accounts of Chinese travelers and 8th- and 9th-century Arabic and Persian chronicles, the region is named as Palolo or Bolor in Arabic. It is also mentioned in the 10th-century Persian chronicle Hodud al-ʿĀlam, the 11th-century Kashmiri classic Rajatarangini, and the 16th-century Tarikh-e-Rushdi of Mirza Haider Dughlat, a chronicler of the Mughal emperor Akbar’s court. The colonial history of the region began with the forays of the Dogra generals of Gulab Singh, the Raja of Jammu in the first half of the 19th century. It is this history of foreign invasions and local rebellions that lies at the heart of the confusion that surrounds the legal, political, and constitutional status of the region to this day. The successive invasions of local Rajas from Jammu and later on from Kashmir, then of the British, as well as the region’s attachment to Pakistan have resulted in multiple claims and counterclaims of sovereignty. Today, the region is mired in the intractable dispute between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. At one point in the late 19th century, the Kashmir state, the British, and the Chinese all simultaneously laid claim on the small kingdom of Hunza. Between 1947 and 1974, the Pakistani government administered GB in much the same way as the British had done, that is, without political representation of the region in the national Parliament. The history of GB since Partition has been essentially a history of its struggle to become a full member of the Pakistani state. This history is fascinating as a case of graded sovereignty. Some piecemeal reforms and agonizingly slow implementation of those reforms since the 1950s has occurred. The hope of the local people in 1947 that they would join the Pakistani federation as a province, as other regions of the country, has essentially remained unrealized.


2019 ◽  
pp. 270-295
Author(s):  
Aileen McHarg

Scotland’s devolved Parliament and Government were established in 1999 under the Scotland Act 1998. The current devolved arrangements build upon earlier institutional arrangements for the distinctive governance of Scotland, elements of which date back to the Union of 1707. By creating both a distinct legislature and separate institutions of political representation for Scotland, the 1999 reforms were nevertheless of profound constitutional significance. This chapter traces the development of devolved government in Scotland, arguing that the history of Scottish devolution is best understood as a response to nationalist sentiment: the assertion of the right of the people of Scotland to self-governance and self-determination. The historical trajectory has been one of increasing autonomy and constitutional recognition, and this pattern has continued since 1999 (culminating in an—unsuccessful—referendum in 2014 on the question whether Scotland should become wholly independent of the United Kingdom). However, despite the extensive powers enjoyed by, and the political importance of, the Scottish Parliament and Government, the status of devolution within the United Kingdom constitution is ambiguous and contested. The chapter also explores the constitutional status of devolution across two dimensions: the juridical—i.e. how the powers of the Scottish Parliament and Government are understood and interpreted by the courts; and the political—how the devolved Scottish institutions relate to their counterparts at UK level. The chapter ends by exploring how the tensions between Scotland’s powerful political claims for constitutional recognition, yet weak legal protection, have played out in relation to Brexit, and may play out in future in a Scottish political context still dominated by the independence question.


Author(s):  
Victoria N Osuagwu

Human beings have always left signs of their activities behind them. These signs take both tangible and intangible forms, including buildings, sites, sculptural works, antiquities, rock art paintings, belief systems, and traditions. The people of this millennium have recognized the remains of our fore-bears namely archaeological, architectural monuments, sites, and cultural works as an integral part of the cultural heritage of all humanity. They also recognized the fact that heritage is an invaluable source of information about the lives and activities of human beings and their artistic and technical capabilities over the centuries. The Nigerian Ancient Art Tradition which spans eight thousand years is a product of diverse artists from Dufuna, Nok, Igbo-Ukwu, Ife, Owo, Benin, Tada, etc. Also remarkable are the sculptural works created by late Susanne Wenger (an Austrian) and her New Sacred Art Movement in Osun-Osogbo Sacred Grove, which gave meaning to open spaces within the grove. This paper examines the role played by these artworks to project Nigeria to the global art world. The benefits to Nigeria and the global art traditions and recommendations on how to revive this dwindling economic resource will also be examined. The approach used was to study the artworks produced by some of these artists. Some of the findings were that the works were carefully done with suitable materials that have withstood climate change.


2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 313-328
Author(s):  
Fathul Aminudin Aziz

Fines are sanctions or punishments that are applied in the form of the obligation to pay a sum of money imposed on the denial of a number of agreements previously agreed upon. There is debate over the status of fines in Islamic law. Some argue that fines may not be used, and some argue that they may be used. In the context of fines for delays in payment of taxes, in fiqh law it can be analogous to ta'zir bi al-tamlīk (punishment for ownership). This can be justified if the tax obligations have met the requirements. Whereas according to Islamic teachings, fines can be categorized as acts in order to obey government orders as taught in the hadith, and in order to contribute to the realization of mutual benefit in the life of the state. As for the amount of the fine, the government cannot arbitrarily determine fines that are too large to burden the people. Penalties are applied as a message of reprimand and as a means to cover the lack of the state budget.


Author(s):  
Janusz Adam Frykowski

SUMMARYNon-city starosty of Tyszowce was located in the province of Belz and received the status of royal land in 1462. Its territory included the town of Tyszowce and villages: Mikulin, Perespa, Klatwy and Przewale. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the starosty suffered from a significant increase of various negative phenomena. The crown lands had bitterly tasted devastating fires, epidemics, contributions, requisitions, robberies and field devastations. All these disasters were caused mainly by war and military activities. Marches of soldiers and quartering of troops greatly contributed to the situation and were usually associated with the need of maintaining the soldiers. The requisitions of food, alcohol, cattle, horses and poultry were particularly burdensome for the people. The greatest economic devastation as regards the resources of the starosty and its people was caused by monetary contributions, usually several times higher than the financial capacity of the town and its inhabitants. This work focuses on damages to the starosty caused by the royal cavalry. According to the literature, it is clear that the behavior of the troops in Tyszowce Starosty was not different from the behavior of soldiers in other areas of Poland. It must be admitted that the reprehensible behavior of the army was influenced by many conditions, from the recruitment of people from backgrounds often involving conflict with law, as well as foreigners, to the accommodation system under which the soldiers were forced to supply themselves “on their own.”


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeya Sutha M

UNSTRUCTURED COVID-19, the disease caused by a novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), is a highly contagious disease. On January 30, 2020 the World Health Organization declared the outbreak as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. As of July 25, 2020; 15,947,292 laboratory-confirmed and 642,814 deaths have been reported globally. India has reported 1,338,928 confirmed cases and 31,412 deaths till date. This paper presents different aspects of COVID-19, visualization of the spread of infection and presents the ARIMA model for forecasting the status of COVID-19 death cases in the next 50 days in order to take necessary precaution by the Government to save the people.


Author(s):  
Patrick Sze-lok Leung ◽  
Anthony Carty

Okinawa is now considered as Japanese territory, without challenge from most world powers. However, this is debatable from a historical viewpoint. The Ryukyu Kingdom which dominated the islands was integrated into Japan in 1879. The transformation is seen by Wang Hui as a process of modernization. This chapter argues the issue from an international law perspective. It shows that Ryukyu was an independent State as demonstrated by the 1854 Ryukyu–US Treaty, although it sent regular tributes to China. The Japanese integration by coercion is not justifiable. The people of Ryukyu were willing to continue being a tributary State rather than part of Japan. Britain, as the greatest colonial power, did not object. China and the US attempted to intervene in this affair, but no treaty has so far been concluded. Therefore, the status of Ryukyu/Okinawa remains unresolved and may need to be revisited, while putting the history context into consideration.


Author(s):  
Caroline Fleay

Throughout the past forty years various leaders from both major political parties in Australia have categorized the arrival by boat of people seeking asylum as a “crisis” and the people themselves as “illegal.” This is despite Australia being a signatory to the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, and receiving relatively few people who seek asylum compared with many other countries. Punitive government policies and processes have further reinforced these representations, such that “crisis” and “illegal” can now be understood as both categories of analysis and practice. The repeated use of such categories may be helping to produce and reproduce prejudice and racism and obscure the needs and experiences of people seeking asylum.


2021 ◽  
pp. 003802612110294
Author(s):  
Shaoying Zhang

In this article, I examine the moral review councils (MRCs) established in China’s rural areas since the early 1980s. I show that MRCs create a liminal plebeian public sphere in the context of a civilising offensive that deals with the uncivil behaviours of individuals and disputes between neighbours. In this plebeian public sphere, the MRC incorporates techniques of the Maoist mass meeting, the democratic election, traditional mediation and a pedagogy of exemplars, all of which are depoliticised into purely technical instruments. Their institutional legitimacy comes from organised virtues based on councillors’ male seniority and the democratic method of their selection. MRCs, as an instrument of a civilising offensive, are a kind of paternalistic technology, which involves a complex strategy of a hybridity of acts, relationships, thoughts, desires and temptations of village residents in the context of the reform era. The people targeted in this civilising offensive often experience two levels of stigmatisation and their participation determines the effectiveness of the operation of MRCs.


2021 ◽  
Vol 59 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-157
Author(s):  
Alma Bezares Calderon ◽  
Pierre Englebert ◽  
Lisa Jené

AbstractAfrican regimes commonly use strategies of balanced ethnic representation to build support. Decentralisation reforms, often promoted in order to improve political representation and state access, can undermine such strategies. In this article we use the example of the DR Congo to show the extent to which the multiplication of decentralised provinces is upending a political system largely based until now upon collective ethnic representation in the state. Not only are Congo's new provinces more ethnically homogeneous than their predecessors, but many of them have also witnessed political takeover and monopolisation by the province's dominant ethnic group. In addition, the increased number of Congolese who now find themselves non-autochthonous to their province of residence heightens their vulnerability and the potential for local conflict. Decentralisation, whose intent was proximity to governance, might well end up excluding more Congolese from the benefits of political representation. The article uses original empirical evidence on provincial ethnic distributions to support its claims.


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