Pluralism, Tolerance and Control: On the Millet System and the Question of Minorities

State accommodation of plural identity has remained very much subject to the contestations of a majority/minority paradigm, through which autonomy and tolerance are still negotiated and filtered. These social reconfigurations, including those oriented towards internal self-determination and minority rights regimes, reveal glimpses of a dark neo-colonial underbelly to state rule. A comparison between the Ottoman millet system and the Israeli control system illustrates that imperial modes of ‘divide and rule’, or ‘segmented pluralism’, continue to operate, and are sometimes even enhanced, through the deployment of minority rights. Using a selective Marxist reading, this paper will initially explore the parallels between imperial and modern state rule in the face of pluralism before discussing the methods used for hegemony-maintenance, including: segmentation; dependence; and cooptation. Finally, a socio-legal discussion on the ways in which the forces of hegemony are heavily guised and sustained will follow.

French Dis-integration: New identity formation processes in 30° Couleur

‘Integration’ expects immigrants to conform to a certain idea of Frenchness. While ‘integration’ has been and continues to be the watchword in French politics, recent directors contend that new and decolonized French identities are formed through different mechanisms. This article argues that Lucien Jean-Baptiste and Philippe Larue in 30° Couleur present a protagonist of Martinican descent who comes to terms with his previously compartmentalized Frenchness through a process that this research conceives as a process of dis-integration, challenging the perceived notion that ‘integration’ is the only valid path to being French. The process of dis-integration has three fundamental steps: (1) the physical dissociation of the protagonist from his space of integration, (2) the rediscovery and reconnection with a deep part of his identity that he had (un)consciously repressed and subsequently erased and (3) the acceptance of his double or plural identity and the creation of a space where these identities can co-exist without dominating or annihilating one another.

First Reel

This chapter discusses the opening scenes of David Cronenberg's Shivers (1975). The exteriors and interiors of Starliner Tower, where the film is located, are played by Tourelle-Sur-Rive on Nuns' Island, a late work of the Bauhaus architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. The structure of the building provides a physical framework for Cronenberg's choices in the film. The mise-en-scène and production design works with the shapes of the rooms made available to the production by their residents, and their existing décor, which the production had little budget to re-dress. This unity of location makes Shivers the last of three major Cronenberg films to begin, or double, as explorations of a built environment. The chapter then considers the film's plural identity as a Quebecois production made with English-Canadian state financing. It also introduces the characters of the story. In Shivers, as in most of Cronenberg's horror films, the source of the danger is private medicine, ‘private’ in both the ‘commercial’ and ‘personal’ senses.

Exploring the Infra-Ordinary (the “Oblique Glance” as Autobiographical Strategy)

This article aims at analyzing the relationship between intertextual and autobiographical memory in Georges Perec and Radu Cosaşu’s writings, revealing several of their characteristics, similarities and paradoxes. Starting from the assumption that almost every book Georges Perec ever wrote (regardless of whether essays, autobiographical accounts, travel sketches, screen plays or novels), carries the stamp of his struggle to construct a plural identity (trying to harmonize his Jewish-Polish origin, the legacy of traumatic past-experiences - his father’s death on the battle field when he was less than six, his mother’s deportation to Auschwitz and her subsequent death etc.), and that for Cosaşu the identity “quest” is central, too, I intend to demonstrate that obliquity represents in both situations a key-concept. Moreover, when reading their childhood recollections, Georges Perec’s notes on his journey to London or Radu Cosaşu’s account of his puzzling travel to Moscow in 1968, we notice that the strategy of the oblique glance gradually generates a sort of “industrial production” of screen-memories or rather the memory of a whole generation. Besides, we can envisage the possibility of understanding their exploration of the “infra-ordinary” as an occasion for reconsidering the various interplays between writing and remembering, intertextuality and imagination, or - as Perec puts it - between “space as inventory” and “space as invention”.

What Makes for a Valid Legal Argument?

Three intertwined threads run through many recent editorials of the Leiden Journal of International Law (LJIL). They tie together many debates within and beyond the board of editors. The threads are those of the Journal's plural identity, the conversation about methods, and the spicy theme of interdisciplinarity. They are related for obvious reasons. Methodology forms one – not the only and perhaps not the foremost – factor in assessing submissions. We need to have an idea of good methodology for such an assessment to be possible. At the same time such an idea must not go against the plurality of perspectives or the Journal's aspiration to provide a forum to new and possibly unsettling voices. Research that cuts across disciplines seems especially valuable in this regard. But it comes with its own methodological challenges and tests the Journal's identity which is – albeit plural– that of a Journal of international law. It is against the background of these intertwined threads that I wish to offer a discussion of a central question that mirrors these recent debates: What makes for a valid legal argument?

The Politics of International Law and the Perils and Promises of Interdisciplinarity

In the previous editorial, Larissa van den Herik and Jean d'Aspremont referred to LJIL's ‘special plural identity’. On the one hand, this plurality shows in its table of contents; on the other hand, the plural identity is equally – if not even more – treasured in terms of appreciating the plurality of voices within the legal discipline, as the editors-in-chief also highlight. Diversity and heterogeneity are an asset for academic debate, and LJIL as such seeks to provide a forum for scholars from different ‘paradigms’. The appreciation of diversity and plurality is also reflected in the interest of LJIL to look beyond the confines of the legal discipline itself and engage with external perspectives to foster discussions about international law. It is in light of this open-mindedness and the wish to reach out to non-legal audiences, and to the international relations community in particular, that I was invited to join the LJIL team some years ago. Whereas there is a growing audience of IR scholars genuinely interested in (theorizing) international law, LJIL is not very well known as a journal with that profile for its International Legal Theory section. As a leading scholar in IR once remarked: ‘LJIL is the best kept secret in IR’. So when the request came for me to write an editorial, it seemed only apt to reflect upon some of the perils and promises of interdisciplinarity from my experience as an IR scholar within the LJIL editorial board.

The challenge of plural identity

The complexity of collective existence is expressed through an awareness of its real identity, which then entails an appropriate attitude towards its own negativity. Within the hierarchically structured identity, different levels of its generality make it possible to consider them as factors of a plural reality. If negativity is raised to consciousness, then its dark side is dismantled. Thus, instead of being a factor of conflict, negativity becomes an element of complementariness and a factor in the construction of a shared identity at a higher level of generality.