The discourse of civic pride: Hawleri identity as one of the oldest Kurdistani cities in the Middle East

Local identity and civic pride have not been comprehensively taken into consideration as the main parameters in the previous studies related to discourse and identity, especially in most of the developing countries. In other words, discourse analysts have not thoroughly studied the mentioned parameters, and systematic data on this path are very scarce. For that purpose, a critical discourse analysis approach was used to study the city identity of “Hawleri” people of Erbil city which is the capital and the most populated city in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region, and known as a center for the worship of the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar. Thus, the ultimate goals of this study are to first understand how urban residents tend to group themselves according to the cities and communities they live in, and then to show how they proudly affiliate themselves to geographical regions. The data are taken from the city social media and through a survey distributed among people in Erbil. In order to achieve the goals of this study, the author attempted to investigate (i) how civic pride and urban identity are formed, (ii) in what ways people try to group themselves in the cities, (iii) what is the role of culture in shaping the community identity, (iv) who is called Hawleri, and (v) does the language variety have an impact on speakers’ civic identity, through studying the place, experience, emotions, history, culture, beliefs and language variety of Hawleri people. Additionally, the total number of participants is 809 people (236 people from the online community and 573 people from the survey). This study concludes that civic pride and city identity are found in the discourse of most people. Hawleri people, as the residents of the oldest city in the Middle East, tend to show this feeling and belonging through speaking a local variety of Kurdish language, their textiles and their common culture, history and geographical birthplace. These sentimentalities sometimes lead to discrimination, bias and racism among different ethnicities living in the city.

Civic pride and tax compliance in Kenya

Every government aspires to foster voluntary tax compliance; thus, the need to understand what citizens think about paying taxes other than taxes being a legal requirement. This paper analysed data collected through a nationwide survey on tax compliance. An ordered probit regression model was employed to examine the relationship between civic pride and tax compliance in Kenya. The findings indicated that tax compliance pertains to the relationship between individuals and the state. Individuals who are proud to be Kenyan and have faith in both the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) and the government depicted higher levels of compliance than those who were not proud and did not have faith in the institutions. Other factors that were found to significantly influence voluntary tax compliance in Kenya included age, gender, satisfaction with democracy, corruption in government and a fair tax system. Therefore, to improve voluntary tax compliance, the government and tax administration should adopt strategies aimed at increasing taxpayers’ confidence in the system. This include improved service delivery to the citizenry especially health and education, fair and equitable distribution of resources, fair treatment to all, eradication of corruption and having a fair tax system.

Bowling for Communism

This book illuminates how civic life functioned in Leipzig, East Germany's second-largest city, on the eve of the 1989 revolution by exploring acts of “urban ingenuity” amid catastrophic urban decay. The book profiles the creative activism of local communist officials who, with the help of scores of volunteers, constructed a palatial bowling alley without Berlin's knowledge or approval. In a city mired in disrepair, civic pride overcame resentment against a regime loathed for corruption, Stasi spies, and the Berlin Wall. Reconstructing such episodes through interviews and obscure archival materials, the book shows how the public sphere functioned in Leipzig before the fall of communism. Hardly detached or inept, local officials worked around centralized failings to build a more humane city. And hardly disengaged, residents turned to black-market construction to patch up their surroundings. Because such “urban ingenuity” was premised on weakness in the centralized regime, the dystopian cityscape evolved from being merely a quotidian grievance to the backdrop for revolution. If, by their actions, officials were demonstrating that the regime was irrelevant, and if, in their own experiences, locals only attained basic repairs outside official channels, why should anyone have mourned the system when it was overthrown?

How do school-based ceremonies contribute to adolescents’ identity design? A case study in two Druze high schools

This article discusses the contribution of school-based ceremonies in two Israeli Druze schools to shaping identity and deepening the sense of citizenship among Druze students. The Druze have a unique position in Israel as opposed to other Arabic-speaking Israelis, serving in the army and generally maintaining high levels of patriotism. State ceremonies, especially the memorial ceremonies of the IDF (Israel Defense Forces), have gradually come to occupy a central place in the Israeli education system since 1948. The memorial ceremonies combine the cognitive and emotional dimensions. The historical information conveyed through them is combined with feelings of bereavement and loss and with stories of heroism and sacrifice. The study found that great emphasis is placed on these activities in the two Druze schools studied and that they strengthen the students’ Druze Israeli identity and sense of civic pride and responsibility, together with their unique Druze identity.

Glasgow's new town hall: imperialism, nationalism and civic pride, 1877–1889

Nineteenth-century Glasgow was widely imagined and presented as the proud ‘Second City of the Empire’. This article investigates the implications of this identification with the empire by analysing Glasgow's great town hall, built 1883–89, as the main manifestation of the city's civic pride. It shows how the building's architectural style, sculpture and inauguration ceremonies created a specific image of ‘imperial’ Glasgow which emphasized loyalty to Union and empire. Instead of undermining each other, the layered political allegiances of civic pride, nationalism, unionism and imperialism were mutually reinforcing, shaping the town hall still in use today.

Poggio Bracciolini and the Re(dis)covery of Antiquity: Textual and Material Traditions

This collection draws strength from its cross-disciplinarity, featuring contributions by scholars who investigate Bracciolini's contribution to many fields of knowledge in the Western tradition, spanning across politics and historiography, material and print culture, philology and manuscript studies, calligraphy and palaeography. The essays touch upon intertwined aspects of early Renaissance in its recovery of the classical tradition where the concept of humanitas extends to the manuscript itself. “This distinguished collection of essays adds a wealth of scholarly detail to our understanding of the myriad-minded Renaissance humanist Poggio Bracciolini. And, in doing so, it also managed to capture much of the range and flavour of this extraordinary figure: his learning, his passionate interest in antiquity, his civic pride, and his brilliance in calligraphic design, as well as his ceaseless self-promotion , his enmities, his taste for obscenity, and his penchant for moralizing. Poggio's startling energy and the energy of the whole period course through these pages" (Stephen Greenblatt)

A British or an Irish city? The identity of Victorian Belfast

Nineteenth-century Belfast was an Irish city unlike any other. The only Irish city to experience the industrial revolution, it enjoyed unprecedented levels of growth while other Irish cities declined. During and after the Famine, the divergence between Belfast’s fortunes and those of other Irish towns and cities became increasingly obvious. Keenly aware of its distinctive position in Irish society, Victorian Belfast - ‘Linenopolis’ - developed a civic identity based on its industry and prosperity. It projected an image of economic strength, independence and energy and consciously allied itself with British industrial centres. At the same time, however, Belfast’s unusual situation gave rise to confusion about civic and national identity. Was Belfast British, or Irish? This chapter brings together the themes of civic identity and national identity, exploring how they interacted for this social group. Through an examination of the city’s identity, image and civic pride in the post-Repeal, pre-Home Rule period, it addresses the question of what made Belfast a distinctive culture.