scholarly journals Religious Charlatanisms and the Vulgarity of power: A Postcolonial Reading of Bulawayo’s We Need New Names

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Esther Mavengano
Keyword(s):  
Religion And Politics ◽  
Traditional Healers ◽  
British Rule ◽  
Liberation Struggle ◽  
Political Freedoms

The end of British rule in Zimbabwe which happened through a protracted liberation struggle against the white regime was celebrated by many across Africa and beyond. The ascendancy of the late president Robert Gabriel Mugabe to the helm of power brought hope for the economic, religious, linguistic, and socio-political freedoms. The attainment of independence was indeed a moment of celebration after several decades of colonial suppression and brutalities against the indigenous black Zimbabweans. What is most troubling is that the euphoria that was triggered by the attainment of independence in 1980 gradually died as the realities of economic, religious, linguistic and socio-political problems resurfaced. This study seeks to interpret NoViolet Bulawayo’s depiction and thematisation of religion and politics in her debut novel We Need New Names. The study mainly focuses on how Bulawayo fictionalises and captures the sordid realities of the religious and socio-political problems that haunt the postcolonial subjects in Zimbabwe under Mugabe’s leadership. Postcolonial thoughts from Spivak and Achille Mbembe inform the readings of the text. The fictive landscape that is captured in the selected novel shows the hollowness of flag independence attained in Zimbabwe. The postcolonial period during the reign of Mugabe inscribes conditions of subjectivity and subalternity. The studied text also problematises religion and uncovers charlatanisms of the prophets and traditional healers who are portrayed as the biblical wolves in sheep’s cloth exploiting those in distress.

Islamic Topographies

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
John R. Bowen
Keyword(s):  
South Asian ◽  
Islamic Law ◽  
Religion And Politics ◽  
Political Movements ◽  
Opportunity Structures ◽  
Transnational Ties ◽  
British Rule ◽  
Teaching Learning ◽  
Religious Differences ◽  
Islamic Institutions

This chapter examines a second kind of pathway, one concerning ideas and practices of religion and politics. In India, British rule both validated religious governance of family affairs and drove Islamic leaders to carve out their own spaces for teaching, learning, and the administration of Islamic law. In postcolonial Britain, the same logics of religious governance and autonomy facilitate efforts to transpose Islamic institutions to London or Birmingham. British Islamic actors have employed three distinct processes to create these spaces: they reproduce South Asian religious differences in Britain, they adapt Islam to the opportunity structures found in Britain, and they maintain transnational ties to religious or political movements elsewhere. To some degree, these three processes—reinforcing boundaries, adapting locally, maintaining transnational ties—figure in all Islamic actors' practical schemas for shaping British Islam.

Health and Health Care Problems Among the Kumiai of San Antonio Necua and Their Indigenous Relatives in Baja California

2003 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 140-157 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Jill Fleuriet
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Baja California ◽  
San Antonio ◽  
Rural Poverty ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Traditional Healers ◽  
Medical Pluralism ◽  
Indigenous Groups ◽  
Health And Illness ◽  
Care Problems

The rural Kumiai community of San Antonio Necua is one of the few remaining indigenous communities in Baja California, Mexico. Necuan health and health care problems are best understood through a consideration of the effects of colonialism and marginalization on indigenous groups in northern Baja California as well as a tradition of medical pluralism in Mexico. The lack of traditional healers and biomedical providers in the community, high rates of preventable or manageable illnesses, and a blend of biomedical, folk mestizo, and traditional indigenous beliefs about health and illness reflect current conditions of rural poverty and economic isolation. Descriptions of health and health care problems are based on ethnographic fieldwork among the Kumiai, their Paipai relatives, and their primary nongovernmental aid organization.

Sinn Féin and the IRA

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mathew Whiting
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Sinn Fein ◽  
Peace Processes ◽  
British Rule ◽  
Irish Republicanism ◽  
The Republic ◽  
British State ◽  
State Responses

When Sinn Féin and the IRA emerged in Northern Ireland in 1969 they used a combination of revolutionary politics and violence to an effort to overthrow British rule. Today, the IRA is in a state of ‘retirement’, violence is a tactic of the past, and Sinn Féin is a co-ruler of Northern Ireland and an ever growing political player in the Republic of Ireland. This is one of the most startling transformations of a radical violent movement into a peaceful political one in recent times. So what exactly changed within Irish republicanism, what remains the same, and, crucially, what caused these changes? Where existing studies explain the decision to end violence as the product of stalemate or strategic interplay with the British state, this book draws on a wealth of archival material and interviews to argue that moderation was a long-term process of increasing inclusion and contact with political institutions, which gradually extracted moderate concessions from republicanism. Crucially, these concessions did not necessitate republicans forsaking their long-term ethno-national goals. The book also considers the wider implications of Irish republicanism for other cases of separatist conflict, and has significance for the future study of state responses to violent separatism and of comparative peace processes.

Religion and Mythology in the Chilembwe Rising of 1915 in Nyasaland and the Easter Rising of 1916 in Ireland: Preparing for the End Times?

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-66
Author(s):  
T. Jack Thompson
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Religious Motivation ◽  
Easter Rising ◽  
British Rule ◽  
The People ◽  
Head Of State ◽  
Interesting Difference ◽  
Racial Injustice ◽  
Book Of Daniel ◽  
End Times

Superficially there are many parallels between the Chilembwe Rising of 1915 in Nyasaland and the Easter Rising of 1916 in Ireland – both were anti-colonial rebellions against British rule. One interesting difference, however, occurs in the way academics have treated John Chilembwe, leader of the Nyasaland Rising, and Patrick Pearse, one of the leaders of the Irish Rising and the man who was proclaimed head of state of the Provisional government of Ireland. For while much research on Pearse has dealt with his religious ideas, comparatively little on Chilembwe has looked in detail at his religious motivation – even though he was the leader of an independent church. This paper begins by looking at some of the major strands in the religious thinking of Pearse, before going on to concentrate on the people and ideas which influenced Chilembwe both in Nyasaland and the United States. It argues that while many of these ideas were initially influenced by radical evangelical thought in the area of racial injustice, Chilembwe's thinking in the months immediately preceding his rebellion became increasingly obsessed by the possibility that the End Time prophecies of the Book of Daniel might apply to the current political position in Nyasaland. The conclusion is that much more academic attention needs to be given to the millennial aspects of Chilembwe's thinking as a contributory motivation for rebellion.

Empire Loyalism and Nationalism in Ukraine and Ireland

2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 88-106
Author(s):  
Taras Kuzio
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Comparative Study ◽  
The Other ◽  
History And Memory ◽  
Memory Politics ◽  
Irish History ◽  
British Rule ◽  
Five Factors ◽  
Post Colonialism

This is the first comparative article to investigate commonalities in Ukrainian and Irish history, identity, and politics. The article analyzes the broader Ukrainian and Irish experience with Russia/Soviet Union in the first and Britain in the second instance, as well as the regional similarities in conflicts in the Donbas region of Eastern Ukraine and the six of the nine counties of Ulster that are Northern Ireland. The similarity in the Ukrainian and Irish experiences of treatment under Russian/Soviet and British rule is starker when we take into account the large differences in the sizes of their territories, populations, and economies. The five factors that are used for this comparative study include post-colonialism and the “Other,” religion, history and memory politics, language and identities, and attitudes toward Europe.

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