Knotted memories of a betrayed sacrifice: Rethinking trauma and hope in South Africa

Different groups within South African society express disillusionment with the present through a discourse of betrayal in relation to the liberation movement-cum-governing-party of the African National Congress. This article focuses on a particular articulation of this discourse within two memory communities in the Western Cape (Bonteheuwel and Crossroads) who were embroiled in violence and political struggle during apartheid and continue to suffer conditions of structural violence in the post-apartheid era. It analyses the shared memory narrative of a ‘betrayed sacrifice’ to demonstrate a proposed theoretical concept of ‘knotted memories’ which describes the way in which past and present memories of suffering knot together to produce a lived affective condition of despair. It further considers what these everyday experiences of ‘knotted memories’ mean for re-thinking the nature of trauma and hope in relation to post-apartheid despair.

‘Interrupting the Present’

A sense of repetition pervades contemporary South African political and cultural debate. Several recent studies have drawn attention to the fact that the renewed student protests since March 2015 parallel several features of the resistance and liberation movements of the 1970s and 1980s. At a pivotal position between the two moments of political struggle stands the ‘miracle’ of the peaceful transition in 1994. Within this set of circumstances a group of curators, artists, and writers, Gabi Ngcobo and Kemang Wa Lehulere, amongst others, formed a collective under the name CHR (Center for Historical Reenactments) in Johannesburg in 2010. The CHR has pursued several questions that interrogate the complexity of a shared memory bridging segregated Apartheid legacy: how do readings of the past inform contemporary urgencies, and what are the political potentials of artistic interpretations of histories? How do they participate in the formation of new subjectivities?

Commercial fishing, Inuit rights, and internal colonialism in Nunavut

This paper considers the degree to which the concept of ‘internal colonialism’ accurately describes the political economy of Nunavut’s commercial fisheries. Offshore fisheries adjacent to Nunavut were initially dominated by institutions based in southern Canada, and most economic benefits were captured by southern jurisdictions. Decades of political struggle have resulted in Nunavut establishing a role for itself in both the management of offshore resources and the operation of the offshore fishing industry. However, key decisions about fishery management are made by the federal government, and many benefits from Nunavut’s offshore fisheries continue to accrue to southern jurisdictions. The concept of internal colonialism is therefore a useful concept for understanding the historical development and contemporary conflicts over offshore fisheries. By contrast, Nunavut’s inshore fisheries were established as community development initiatives intended to promote economic well-being and stability. While inshore fisheries primarily benefit Inuit community economies, the growth of inshore fisheries has been hampered by small profit margins, inadequate marine infrastructure, and a dearth of baseline data. The federal government’s failure to support the expansion of inshore fisheries is a manifestation of internal colonialism, insofar as it reflects an unequal distribution of public infrastructure and research.

Reading Images and Practices through Diversities in Freud’s Psychoanalytic theory, Marxism, Feminism, Art and their Political Aesthetics

The key goal of this essay was to elaborate the diversities in Marxist, Psychoanalytic and feminism art interpretation and their political aesthetics. Additionally, the essay was arguing whether the aspects of art interpretation had to act on self-interest or psychoanalytical perspective and enchantment or would deliberately deliver social, political or global changes. According to the researched conducted previously, it could be told that almost all of the approaches of the painting would be viewed in conjunction to the specific political or psychic issues. However, it was also found that personal issues could also largely contribute to the social and political goals, as, psychoanalytically, the human nature is accentuated to reach out for suppressed feelings or desires which could lead to the contribution to a social and political struggle as well.

Technologies of Manipulation During the Presidential Elections of 1999 in Ukraine

The article examines the election campaigns of the late twentieth century. in Ukraine and proved, that they operated manipulation technologies. The state was democratizing the political system, adoption of new election legislation, transition to a mixed electoral system; political pluralism was formed, the number of parties has increased significantly, the struggle for power intensified. With each subsequent election campaign (presidential, parliamentary), the political struggle intensified, and voter engagement technologies have become more vulnerable. The author proves, that the ways and purposes of application of technologies depend on motivations of subjects of the power, as: obtaining, exercising and retaining power; the desire to achieve political and social results, most profitable for pragmatic actors, although this may run counter to collective goals. In Ukraine, democratic processes are not yet complete, traditions of democracy and stable political institutions are absent. Instead, manipulation technologies, electoral engineering, which are aimed at limiting the actions of competitors and creating favorable conditions for their own victory. This prevents the formation of certain restraints, barriers to manipulation technologies, familiar to many civilized democracies.

Multifaceted Islam: Malaysia

This paper analyzes the Islam’s impact on the Malaysian politics. Islam as an instrument of Malaysia’s foreign policy has been used by the political elite of the state for decades. Observers note the Islamization of the country’s foreign policy, especially during the premiership of Najib Razak (2008– 2018). However, the trend towards Islamization can be traced back to the moment Malaysia gained independence from Great Britain in 1957 and especially during the premiership of Mahathir Mohamad (1981–2003). The formation of such a foreign policy of Malaysia took place against the background of the Islamization of the political and social environment within the country, which, in turn, was the result of an internal political struggle. Thus, the projection of Malaysia’s identity into the outside world and the foreign policy corresponding to this identity was often motivated by the need to retain or attract the support of the malay-muslim majority in the domestic political arena. Since many of the issues raised in the article relate to identity both at the national and global level, a constructivist paradigm is used to conceptualize Malaysia’s foreign policy with a special emphasis on the identity of states. Particularly important in this process is the formation of domestic and foreign policy discourse. Malaysia’s Islamic identity is viewed externally in three dimensions: the Sunni state, the activist state in the Islamic world and the standard of moderate Islam. Consideration of these dimensions reveals quite obvious contradictions between them, as well as between rhetoric and real politics.

The Soviet Myth and the Making of Communist Lives in Italy, 1943–56

This article explores the emergence and consolidation of the Soviet myth, and the related myth of Stalin, within Italy's Communist culture, in the period between the upheavals of the Second World War and 1956. Countering the traditional top-down approaches, which have seen political myths as weapons in the political struggle and devices for deceiving ordinary people, it examines the Soviet myth as a narrative that encapsulated the meaning of the experiences of the Italian Communist Party rank and file, as well as its elite, in extraordinary times. Drawing on the social and cultural anthropology of Victor Turner, it examines the establishment and strength of the Soviet myth and argues that it emerged as a new marker of certainty for groups and individuals in response to the liminal conditions of political and existential uncertainty experienced during the Second World War.

Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK): The ANC’s Armed Wing, 1961–1993

Launched in 1961 by leaders of the African National Congress (ANC) of South Africa and the South African Communist Party (SACP), Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) was the military wing of the ANC until its disbandment in 1993. The initial stage of MK’s armed struggle involved sabotage against government installations and other symbols of the apartheid regime by a small group of operatives. Under increasing repression by the apartheid state, and thanks to the support received from African and socialist countries, MK adopted a strategy of guerrilla warfare as armed struggle assumed an increasingly central role in the liberation struggle, although the military was understood as an extension of political work, that is, linked to the reinvigoration of political struggle and organizations. Geopolitical constraints prevented MK from waging a conventional guerrilla war, and from the 1970s MK adjusted its strategy by turning to armed propaganda and people’s war. While debates on the role of MK in South Africa’s liberation are often reduced to the relative success or failure of military strategy and action, the history of MK remains a sensitive topic post-apartheid, carrying significant weight both symbolically and in the lives of thousands of people who served in its ranks, including women, who joined and participated in MK throughout the three decades of its existence.

“WOMEN's STRIKE”: THE PROBLEM OF ABORTION IN THE MIRROR OF POLITICAL STRUGGLE IN MODERN POLAND

The article attempts to trace the impact that the "women's strike" had on the positions of forces in the issue of abortion in modern Poland. The author draws attention to the reaction to the Constitutional Court of Poland and its changes over the past period. The author discovers that only political parties that do not play a significant role in political life are willing to support the protesters on the women's agenda, and that a significant opposition party, as a result of the tightening of the abortion legislation, is coming to an understanding of the need to revise its program in relation to abortion.