Burkina Faso: Jihadist landscape will become murkier

Significance These included the death of 53 gendarmes at Inata in November and an ambush that killed over 40 government-affiliated vigilantes near Ouahigouya in December. Public anger is producing protests and backlash that have put President Roch Marc Christian Kabore’s administration under intense pressure, including possible coup plotting exposed by arrests this week. Impacts Local dialogue efforts with jihadists may be inhibited by harder-line government policies. Kabore’s administration will struggle to define and pursue its ‘national reconciliation’ project. Burkina Faso’s 2021-25 national development plan may deliver modest improvements in growth prospects. Burkina Faso will have longer-term problems operationalising military cooperation with neighbours.

Francisco Franco Is Back: The Contested Reemergence of a Fascist Moral Exemplar

Based on long-term ethnographic research on contemporary exhumations of mass graves from the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), as well as analysis of the exhumation of Francisco Franco from the Valley of the Fallen, this paper looks at the ways in which the dictator’s moral exemplarity has evolved over time since his military victory in 1939. During the early years of his dictatorship, Franco’s propaganda machine built the legend of a historical character touched by divine providence who sacrificed himself to save Spain from communism. His moral charisma was enriched by associating his historical mission with a constellation of moral exemplars drawn from medieval and imperial Spain. After his death, his moral exemplarity dwindled as democratic Spain embraced a political discourse of national reconciliation. Yet, since 2000, a new negative exemplarity of Franco as a war criminal has come into sharp focus, in connection with the exhumation of the mass graves of tens of thousands of Republican civilians executed by his army and paramilitary. In recent years, Franco has reemerged as a fascist exemplar alongside a rise of the extreme right. To understand the revival of his fascist exemplarity, I focus on two processes: the rise of the political party Vox, which claims undisguised admiration for Franco’s legacy (a process I call “neo-exemplarity”), and the dismantling in October 2019 of Franco’s honorable burial and the debate over the treatment that his mortal remains deserve (a process I call “necro-exemplarity”).

Transborder Capitalism and National Reconciliation: The American Press Reimagines U.S.-Mexico Relations after the Civil War

The end of the Civil War did not eradicate Americans’ concerns regarding the fragility of their republic. For many years after Appomattox, newspapers from across the political spectrum warned that the persistence of sectionalism in the postwar United States threatened to condemn the country to the kind of interminable internal disorder supposedly endemic among the republics of Latin America. This article examines how, from the early 1870s onward, growing numbers of U.S. editors, journalists, and political leaders called on Americans to concentrate on extending their nation’s commercial reach into Mexico. In doing so, they hoped to topple divisive domestic issues—notably Reconstruction—from the top of the national political agenda. These leaders in U.S. public discourse also anticipated that collaboration in a project to extend the United States’ continental power would revive affective bonds of nationality between the people of the North and South. In making this analysis, this article argues that much of the early impetus behind U.S. commercial penetration south of the Rio Grande after the Civil War was fueled by Americans’ deep anxieties regarding the integrity of their so-called exceptional republic.

Race, Nation, and Resistance to State Symbolic Power in Rwanda since the 1994 Genocide

The social categories “Hutu” and “Tutsi” have long been central to Rwandan politics, though never more so than during the 1994 genocide, when they formed the ultimate divide: kill (Hutu) or be killed (Tutsi). Since then, the Rwandan government has sought to eliminate these categories and replace them with a new, national identity category of “Rwandan.” This chapter draws on theories of state symbolic power and legibility to analyze how top-down projects of remaking Rwandans are being received from below. Specifically, we examine ordinary Rwandans’ responses to gacaca, a community justice practice central to the state’s National Unity and Reconciliation Program, and find Rwandans resent efforts to “unmake race” in favor of “nation” because the state’s account of genocide in gacaca does not allow them to sincerely express their experiences; it activates traumatic pasts for what they feel is superficial national reconciliation; and it detracts from their material needs. These findings highlight the importance of distinguishing between compliance and conviction in research on state efforts to transform civilian subjectivities. They also suggest directions for further research. Namely, future research on state symbolic power should attend to how individual experiences with violence mediate topdown efforts at remaking civilian subjectivities, to how different forms of governance shape civilian resistance to state categorization and classification projects, and to what kinds of interests are likely to motivate people to alter their self-perceptions. We conclude by arguing for more work on state race and nation-making from the perspectives of its targets.

Chad’s president aims to ‘divide and rule’

Significance Key rebel groups have welcome Deby’s appeal. However, the Front for Alternation and Concord in Chad (FACT), which killed President Idriss Deby in April, has set conditions for their participation. Impacts A general amnesty would show that Deby is committed to a national reconciliation and that he is taking a different stance from his father. Deby is highly likely to resign from the military to enable him to run for president. France is almost certain to maintain some military presence in Chad even after the end of Operation Barkhane. The Deby government will keep relying on France’s military presence to help fend off rebel incursions.

Proces narodne sprave in vloga politične elite v njem: Slovenija kot izjema med državami srednje in vzhodne Evrope

The fundamental purpose of national reconciliation derives from recognition of the special nature of a human being, which makes them outstanding and excellent. Transitional justice processes have the main goal of achieving national reconciliation, which is connected with ensuring the highest possible realisation of human dignity. In this regard, Slovenia finds itself in a paradoxical position. Although usually perceived a successful former communist country, its process of introducing transitional justice was unsuccessful. This means the national reconstruction was not achieved in any meaningful way. The article deals with this paradox. The authors claim that the political elite plays a key role in the (non)implementation of transitional justice and hence has a decisive impact on national reconciliation. Accordingly, the primary reason for the lack of success of the national reconciliation is due to the reproduction of the elite and the ideological hegemony of the transitional left.

Indigeneity, Memory, and Postgenocide in Guatemala

Whereas scholars and activists have examined different aspects of causes and processes of the genocide against the Indigenous Maya community in Guatemala (1981–1983), its aftermath continues to be under-represented in the existing literature. This gap obscures the lingering effects and long-term repercussions of extreme forms of state violence and the reality of resistance by Maya communities. The chapter examines the role played by local archives in decolonizing dominant narratives, which silenced Indigenous Maya resistance against state violence in the wake of genocide in Guatemala in the early 1980s. In this sense, the recovery and preservation of local archives (maintained by Indigenous communities) can reveal alternative memories of resistance to state violence. The chapter considers what presentations of genocide in local archives suggest for the framing of current identities and understanding of indigeneity, and whether local archives might promote intra-community and national reconciliation in the context of persisting genocide legacies.