Realizing sovereignty

Sovereignty has become controversial. The idea and practice of sovereignty are said to be increasingly undermined by the simultaneous transnationalization and localization of political, economic, and cultural space. Not only is the ability of states to control their boundaries gradually erased, but given political boundaries seem unable to account for or define the dynamics of social life. At the same time, sovereignty is indicted as supportive of inequality, internal oppression, external imperialism, racism, and ecological destruction, among other unsavoury features of international social life. In this view, sovereignty is condemned as an ethically deficient way of organizing the international community. This is a confusing and contradictory picture. On the one hand, the boundaries defined by sovereignty appear increasingly irrelevant to international society, and on the other, the very power of sovereignty to demarcate boundaries is decried.

EDITORIAL

This issue, like all the previous ones, opens with ‘AbdulHamid AbQSulaymsn’s“Guiding Light.” But this time we have given it a subtitle andwould like to invite our readers’ attention to the important issue addressedhere. AbiiSulaymSin quotes the Qur’an and the hadith to show that the constitutionalprocess of political authority and government in Islam isshiirii -decision making through consultation. The individual is required toparticipate seriously in the shuratic process and enjoin what is good andoppose what is evil through peaceful means. The Qur’an, AbQSulaymh asserts,requires patience and peaceful struggle in the face of internal oppression anddissension, but authorizes the oppressed to fight and use force against outsideaggression and occupation. Internally, force and violence have no placein solving political issues within the ummah. We hope that the author’s conclusionwill initiate a discussion, and we encourage our readers to respond.This is followed by Louay M. Safi‘s article on the purpose of an Islamicstate, its source of political legitimacy, and the scope of state power. He arguesthat a clear distinction should be made between the role and purpose of thestate and those of the ummah. Only through such a separation of objectives,writes Safi, we can properly observe the injunctions of the Shari‘ah and theprinciples of revelation.An Islamic state, according to Safi, should be identified with the systemof rules determining the quality of life in the political organs necessary forthe realization of Islamic ideals. Such an entity naturally presupposes a societycommitted to Islamic principles and norms.Eric A. Winkel deals with the paradigm shifts in political science inthe postmodern debate. Beginning with Kuhn’s belief that paradigm shiftsare mainly passive and the natural result of people realizing that the presentprevalent paradigm contains some anomalies, a belief which he does not share,Winkel goes on to show how that paradigm supports the ruling elite. Thisline is continued in his analysis of the views of Ashley and Gilpin, who arerepresentatives of opposing viewpoints. Taking the modern Western paradigm,which is built on a scientific worldview and self-interest, he shows how thisconstruct has been used to propagate the idea that the West has reached thepinnacle of civilization due to its scientific superiority vis-‘a-vis the rest ofthe world. He then looks at what the West has done with its advancement:genetic engineering (in effect changing reality to suit its desires), relegating ...

La discapacidad como forma de diversidad humana en la narrativa española actual. El significado de las imágenes de la discapacidad en Lectura fácil de Cristina Morales

The representation of the disability in the recent Spanish narrative raises several questions: by the role and place that the excluded occupy in the fictitious worlds, by the point of view and the tonality in which they are represented, by the reaction of the other participants of fiction. In the recent novel by Cristina Morales titled “Lectura fácil”, four protagonists are presented with intellectual disability. For his condition the metaphor of slavery is used, but it is not an internal oppression, but external and institutional one. The social system is much more oppressive and violent than the experience of the disease itself. They radicalize and oppose the therapeutic and normalizing attempts of society and thus question the dominant culture. The presentation of the disability made by Morales lacks the perspective of superiority, but also cedes from a different emotional perspective compared to the portraits of normative characters.