Okinawa, 1952–1958: Solidarity under the Cover of Darkness

Alegal ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 65-87
Author(s):  
Annmaria M. Shimabuku
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Social Protest ◽  
Political Protest ◽  
Sex Industry ◽  
People's Party ◽  
The People ◽  
Political Forces ◽  
The Masses ◽  
The U.S

This chapter charts the position of the sex industry amidst mass social protest known as the “all-island struggle” from 1952 to 1958. The U.S. military attempted to contain this resistance by issuing off-limits orders on base towns that paralyzed the Okinawan economy. As a result, base town workers were pitted against popular political protest. This chapter addresses the sex worker as a subject who could not be mobilized under a political platform before the state, i.e., the lumpenproletariat. Instead of dismissing the lumpenproletariat as non-political and therefore not useful, it repositions politics as the interplay between a radical heterogeneity (i.e., alegality) attuned to the immediate struggle for life and political representation oriented toward an idealistic goal by examining the activities of Kokuba Kōtarō in the underground communist party. It was under the cover of darkness that this chapter locates moments of solidarity between women involved with G.I.s and Okinawans resisting U.S. military repression. This solidarity, however, dissolved along with the introduction of ethno-nationalism of pro-reversion political forces such as the Okinawa People’s Party. Kokuba’s understanding of politics as the merely instrumental representation of the masses was replaced by the assumption of a spiritualistic communion between the people and Japanese state.

scholarly journals Voices From Among the “Silent Masses”: Humble Petitions and Social Conflicts in Early Modern Central Europe

2001 ◽  
Vol 46 (S9) ◽  
pp. 11-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Würgler
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Great Majority ◽  
Social Protest ◽  
Socioeconomic Conditions ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
The People ◽  
Historical Processes ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
The Masses

Social historians have quite frequently referred to the “silent masses” in history. They have thereby hinted at the problem that most preserved documents derive from a tiny elite. The great majority of the people, being illiterate, only very rarely left private letters, diaries, autobiographies and testaments, or official acts, charters, statistics, and reports. Besides the source problem, this view reflected concerns of structuralism and Marxism, both very fashionable among social historians up to the 1970s, who related the masses' interests to socioeconomic conditions. Ordinary people thus appeared rather as objects of economic structures than as subjects of historical processes. Though some German-speaking social historians integrated the anthropological category of “experience” into their studies in the 1980s, they assumed that ordinary people had interests in, and experiences of, but still no influence on historical processes. Merely local and reactive early modern social protest thus remained historically unimportant – in sharp contrast to the nineteenth-century working class movement. During the 1990s, studies of social conflict focused on the concept of agency and discussed the influence historical actors had on processes such as modernization.

Place of the Indigenous and the Western Systems of Medicine in the Health Services of India

1979 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 511-519 ◽  
Author(s):  
Debabar Banerji
Keyword(s):  
Health Services ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Basic Premise ◽  
Alternative Health ◽  
Alternative Health Care ◽  
The People ◽  
Political Forces ◽  
Privileged Class ◽  
The Masses ◽  
Political Weapon

The interrelationships of the indigenous (traditional and western (modem) systems of medicine are a function of the interplay of social, economic, and political forces in the community. In India, western medicine was used as a political weapon by the colonialists to strengthen the oppressing classes and to weaken the oppressed. Not only were the masses denied access to the western system of medicine, but this system contributed to the decay and degeneration of the preexisting indigenous systems. This western and privileged-class orientation of the health services has been actively perpetuated and promoted by the postcolonial leadership of India. The issue in formulating an alternative health care system for India is essentially that of rectifying the distortions which have been brought about by various forces. The basic premise for such an alternative will be to start with the people. Action in this field will lead to a more harmonious mix between the indigenous and western systems of medicine.

A Necessary but Impossible Political Practice: Althusser between Machiavelli and Marx

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-113
Author(s):  
Fabio Bruschi
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Practice ◽  
The People ◽  
Theory Of History ◽  
The Masses ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract Althusser’s Machiavelli and Us has often been considered as the French Marxist’s first step on the path beyond Marxism. This article opposes this interpretation by showing that, while Machiavelli helps Althusser to renounce any attempt to deduce a communist political practice from the necessity portrayed by a theory of history, Althusser was mindful not to identify the relationship between the communist party and the masses with the relationship between the Prince and the people. From a Marxist perspective, a communist political practice must further the autonomous political initiatives of the masses that delineate a tendency towards the withering-away of the state and cannot merge with a practice of governing the people. This is why Marxism must not forsake its theory of history but employ it in the process of the subtraction of the party to its becoming-state by detecting the conditions of impossibility of the duration of a communist political practice.

Education, Propaganda, and the People: Democratic paternalism in 1930s Siam

2015 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 1122-1142 ◽  
Author(s):  
ARJUN SUBRAHMANYAN
Keyword(s):  
Small Group ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
Limited Capacity ◽  
Constitutional Democracy ◽  
Top Down ◽  
People's Party ◽  
The People ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Masses ◽  
Second Category

AbstractOn the morning of 24 June 1932 the ‘People's Party’, a small group of civil and military bureaucrats, toppled the Thai absolute monarchy and introduced constitutional democracy. This article discusses the establishment of democracy as an endeavour in ‘democratic paternalism,’ by which is meant the Party's attempt to establish a new moral and intellectual leadership that had as its main goal the creation of a depoliticized democratic citizenry. To implement their programme for democracy, the Party embarked on an ambitious plan to modernize education and explain popular sovereignty through countrywide lectures and radio programmes. The democratic paternalist effort had mixed results. State weakness limited the reach of the educational and propaganda campaigns, and further the ‘people’ in whose name the revolution was staged, constituted two different groups: a largely illiterate peasantry and a small, incipient new intelligentsia. Because of its limited capacity, the People's Party tasked the second group with assisting in democratic mentorship of the masses, but many in this second category of people had a broader conception of democracy than the Party's ‘top-down’ model and criticized the Party for its paternalist constraints on popular sovereignty. Democratic paternalism and frustration with the limits imposed on popular democracy are two central aspects of this period of history that have endured in Thai society.

scholarly journals The Mass Line Is the Core Ideas and Values of the Communist Party of China

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 37
Author(s):  
Jiayue Quan ◽  
Liqiong An
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Value Theory ◽  
Truth Theory ◽  
Communist Party Of China ◽  
Mass Line ◽  
The People ◽  
Comprehensive Development ◽  
Theory Of Value ◽  
The Masses ◽  
High Degree

The mass line is the concentrated reflection of world outlook, the outlook on life and values of the communist party of China. From the epistemological dimension, the party's mass line is the Chinese Communist Party, according to the general principle of the Marx doctrine, closely combining the actual China, gradually formed in long-term revolution, construction and reform practice in the process of correctly handling the relationship between the party and the masses of the people the route; From the theory of value dimensions, the party's mass line adhere to the basic value goal, “for the people", pay attention to the reality needs of people, put together happy concern members of society rich, achieve comprehensive development of human freedom as the ultimate value pursuit. The party's mass line is the unity of the truth theory and value theory, a high degree of unity consciousness and firm hold to productivity standard and people's interests standard is the inevitable requirement of the practice of the party's mass line.

scholarly journals POWER AND «OPIUM OF THE PEOPLE»: ANTI-RELIGIOUS AGITATION AND PROPAGANDA IN SOVIET UKRAINE IN 1944–1991

2018 ◽  
pp. 291-307
Author(s):  
Антон Олександрович Сичевський
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Central Committee ◽  
Communist Labor ◽  
Organizational System ◽  
The People ◽  
The Media ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Harsh Criticism ◽  
The Masses

The article analyzes the implementation mechanism and organizational system of anti-religious agitation and propaganda in Soviet Ukraine. The author recorded a conflict between the republican and all-union centers for religious cults regarding the implementation of religious policies and atheization of the population. It is analyzed how the change in the state leadership of the USSR in 1954 led to a radical reassessment of the ideological struggle with religion as a relic of class formations in the minds of people.It was established that in the 1960s cinematographic works were actively involved in anti-religious propaganda. The actual number of regional commissioners to the Council for Religious Affairs also increased, committees for assistance were set up in all cities and districts of the regions, public councils for the coordination of anti-religious work were organized under the regional committees of the Communist Party of Ukraine. It was found out that within the framework of the atheistic education of society, the Soviet leadership introduced the concept of Soviet «non-religious» holidays and rituals, honoring the leaders of communist labor. The structural formalization of organizations responsible for the introduction of the new Soviet rituals in the 1970s is analyzed.The article describes the employment of the media resource and state publishing houses that published millions of copies of atheistic periodicals and literature for the sake of «eradicating the religious consciousness of the masses» by the party leadership. The reduction of state influence on the affairs of believers since the mid-1960s and the harsh criticism of the liberal course in relation to religion at the All-Union Conference of Commissioners for Religious Affairs in 1972 are analyzed. It is proved that, despite the «Perestroika», the idea of religion as a reactionary ideology and the need to transform the society of mass atheism into a society of general atheism prevailed in atheistic education.The author found out that in the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine a discussion on the importance of rethinking the strategy of religious policy to establish a dialogue with churches and guaranteeing believers the possibility of religious freedom began only in 1990.

Creating Cultural Identity in China

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Wertmann
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Target Groups ◽  
The Past ◽  
The People ◽  
Economic Transformations ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Masses

In recent years, China has experienced social, cultural, political and economic transformations. In order to stabilise the country in the midst of dramatic change and to legitimise the continuing rule of the Communist Party, the government has promoted nationalism and the building of a common sense of cultural identity among the people. One of the most familiar and available means to do this is to remind people of China’s ancient past. This chapter focuses on the field of archaeology to show how growing interest in cultural heritage work has produced new ways of bringing the past to the people. New ways of making the past accessible to the masses will be introduced in this chapter. These include the construction of new museums, the popularisation of archaeological discoveries, and focus on new target groups through mobile digital museums.

Serge Moscovici's "Réflexions sur la popularité des conspiracy mentalities"

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olivier Klein
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Social Representations ◽  
Social Representation ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The People ◽  
Social Representation Theory ◽  
The Masses

This is a pdf of the original typed manuscript of a lecture made in 2006. An annotated English translation will be published by the International Review of Social Psychology. I this text, Moscovici seeks to update his earlier work on the “conspiracy mentality” (1987) by considering the relationships between social representations and conspiracy mentality. Innovation in this field, Moscovici argues, will require a much thorough description and understanding of what conspiracy theories are, what rhetoric they use and what functions they fulfill. Specifically, Moscovici considers conspiracies as a form of counterfactual history implying a more desirable world (in which the conspiracy did not take place) and suggests that social representation theory should tackle this phenomenon. He explicitly links conspiracy theories to works of fiction and suggests that common principles might explain their popularity. Historically, he argues, conspiracism was born twice: First, in the middle ages, when their primary function was to exclude and destroy what was considered as heresy; and second, after the French revolution, to delegitimize the Enlightenment, which was attributed to a small coterie of reactionaries rather than to the will of the people. Moscovici then considers four aspects (“thematas”) of conspiracy mentality: 1/ the prohibition of knowledge; 2/ the duality between the majority (the masses, prohibited to know) and “enlightened” minorities; 3/ the search for a common origin, a “ur phenomenon” that connects historical events and provides a continuity to History (he notes that such a tendency is also present in social psychological theorizing); and 4/ the valorization of tradition as a bulwark against modernity. Some of Moscovici’s insights in this talk have since been borne out by contemporary research on the psychology of conspiracy theories, but many others still remain fascinating potential avenues for future research.

Together in the Same Boat: Exiled Nationalist State and Chinese Civil War Exiles in 1950s Taiwan

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Dominic Meng-Hsuan Yang
Keyword(s):  
Oral History ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Local Population ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Population Movement ◽  
Popular Belief ◽  
Mainland Chinese ◽  
The People ◽  
Main Factors

Abstract When the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) came to power, one million mainland Chinese were forcibly displaced to Taiwan with Chiang Kai-shek's regime. Today, this event is still largely considered as a relocation of government or a military withdrawal operation instead of a massive population movement. Contrary to popular belief, many of the displaced mainlanders were not Nationalist elites. Most were common soldiers, petty civil servants, and war refugees from different walks of life. Based on newspapers, magazines, surveys, declassified official documents produced in 1950s Taiwan and contemporary oral history, this article uncovers the complicated relationship between the regime in exile and the people in exile. It argues that the interdependency between the two, in particular between the migrant state and the socially atomized lower class migrants, was formed gradually over a decade due to two main factors: wartime displacement and the need to face an unfriendly local population together.

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