When Man is a Cause: The Undecidability of Belonging in Kanafani's Returning to Haifa

The focus of my article is on the undecidability of Dov's/ Khaldun's identity throughout his conversations with Said X., his 'biological father', along with some significant selective semiotic referents in Ghassan Kanafani's novella Returning to Haifa. These aspects are highlighted to elicit/ trace Kanafani's implied symbolism of Palestine, the land, and the undecidability/ conflict of its belonging to critique (healthy self-criticism) the submission of the Palestinians as being guilty of ceding with their land then keep crying to restore it. The novella has been previously tackled from a variety of perspectives: parody, intertextuality, characterization, among others. However, the key parts of the novella that show the conflict between father/ son, self/other, right/loss are the conversations between Dov/Khaldun and Said X. To achieve the article's goal, Derrida's conception of undecidability is employed to indicate the inability to take a decision due to factors beyond the focal character's, Dov/Khaldun, means. This state of freeplay makes it impossible to settle to any side/identity. In Dov's/ Khaldun's case, it is the indeterminate area between the biological Palestinian identity and the acquired Jewish identity. Given that, this view of undecidability is supplemented by other related philosophical aspects such as identity of the 'I', the conception of belonging, and the symbolic reflection between the Dov/ Khaldun: the Jew/ the Palestinian: the Colonizer/ the Colonized (both Man and the land). The analyses of the novella reveal that a state of bewilderment and vortex of undecidable identity opens once Dov Iphrat Koshin, the Israeli soldier, knows he was born Khaldun Said, the Palestinian citizen. Dov's/ Khaldun's words to Said X. show a defensive attitude whereas his semiotic behavior reflects the pain of the truth, and that since that moment, he will not be able to settle; his identity is undecidable between Israel/ Palestine, Zionists/ Palestinians, Colonizer/ Colonized, Judaism/ Islam... Kanafani provides a criticism of the Self, here. As the Palestinians of 1948 escaped from their homes forsaking their land to the foreign occupation and then they (with the Arabs and Muslims) did nothing to restore it but waiting and weeping. Kanafani's self criticism is healthy as being the first step towards profoundly diagnosing the problem, the loss of Palestine, so as to find practical final solutions for the problem.

Evgenij Anan'in and the Problem of the Italian Renaissance

Статья посвящена участию русского историка-медиевиста Евгения Аркадьевича Ананьина, проживавшего в Италии, в дебатах вокруг концепции итальянского Ренессанса в первой половине XX в., его попыткам очистить поле ренессансных исследований от укоренившихся клише (в первую очередь от постулируемой антитезы Сред-невековья и Возрождения и представления о Ренессансе как возвращении к античности). Значительная часть публикаций Ананьина в итальянских научных журналах – полемические статьи и рецензии, раскрывающие панораму ренессансных концепций в Европе 1920–1930-х гг. Русский исследователь выступал против зарубежных историков, обесценивающих оригинальность итальянского Возрождения, и в целом против попыток использовать понятие Ренессанса ad usum proprium. В настоящей статье речь пойдет о некоторых ренессансных концепциях и их авторах (Буркхард, Бурдах, Папини, Вальзер, Забугин, Нейман, Нордстрем), о которых говорит (или же, наоборот, умалчивает) Ананьин, и о его собственных взглядах, скрывающихся за критическими замечаниями. В статье затрагивается кампания против оккупации иностранцами поля ренессансных исследований, развернутая в Италии в середине 1930-х гг., и связанное с этой кампанией открытое противостояние Ананьина итальянскому мыслителю и литератору Джованни Папини, ставшему во главе открывшегося во Флоренции в 1937 г. Национального института ренессансных исследований. The reevaluation of the dogmas and canons rooted in the Renaissance historiography was а сommon direction of the studies in this field in the first half of the 20th century. At that time many original concepts emerged that corrected or completely refuted the previous ones. The present article is devoted to the participation of the Russian historian Evgenij Anan’in, who lived and worked in Italy, in the debates around the notion of the Italian Renaissance and to his attempts to contribute to the elimination of cliché from the field of Renaissance studies (primarily to abolish the postulated antithesis of the Middle Ages and Renaissance and the idea of the Renaissance as the revival of antiquity).A significant part of Anan’in's publications in Italian scientific journals consists of polemic articles and reviews, which reveal a panorama of Renaissance concepts in Europe of the 1920-1930s. The Russian researcher was strongly opposed to foreign historians who denied the originality of the Italian Renaissance; he also was against all the kind of attempts to use the concept of the Renaissance ad usum proprium (national, ideological etc.). The article focuses on the Renaissance concepts and their authors (Burkhard, Burdach, Papini, Walser, Zabughin, Neumann, Nordström), which Anan’in analyzed (or, conversely, clearly ignored) in his texts and on his own views that are hidden behind critical remarks. The publication also deals with a company deployed in Italy in the mid-1930s against the foreign «occupation» of the Renaissance field (the primacy in which was believed to belong to Italians) and the case of an open confrontation of Anan’in and Giovanni Papini, who became the head of the National Institute of Renaissance studies opened in Florence in 1937.

China's Participation in the Second Hague Conference and the Concept of Equal Sovereignty in International Law

Despite the Qing Empire's formal inclusion as a member of the Eurocentric community of states by the turn of the 20th century, its lack of full sovereign status was frequently reasserted in practice. This included proceedings where legal norms were unilaterally applied to it as an object of regulation, provoking a pursuit of agency. In particular, the unprecedented foreign occupation and administration of China after the Boxer crisis of 1899–1901 spurred efforts in pedagogy, legal reform, and diplomacy. Several such efforts subsequently overlapped at the Second Hague Conference in 1907. There, Qing diplomats for the first time influenced multilateral negotiations, and discovered a nascent solidarity with other “weak” states in Latin America and Asia. Joint struggle against great power initiatives sparked new conversations about the equality of states, however, major questions about the implications of sovereign status for genuine agency, and the contingent forms of international legal “progress,” remained unresolved.

The Dry Man of Europe—Ottoman Prohibition against British Domination

Chapter 8 examines temperance and prohibition history within the Ottoman Empire and secular Turkey. Drinking and viticulture were widespread throughout the empire, though the trade was often in the hands of non-Muslims. The Ottoman liquor traffic even became integral to the European-run Ottoman Public Debt Administration. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was among the drunkest leaders in world history, yet Atatürk and the secular Turkish government in Ankara embraced prohibitionism as a means of denying badly needed alcohol revenues to the Christians occupying their lands—most notably the British controlling Istanbul and the Greeks around Smyrna. Turkish prohibition expanded across Anatolia, as Atatürk liberated Turkey’s occupied territories. Only in 1924, with the end of foreign occupation, was the Kemalist prohibition rescinded, and replaced with a national alcohol monopoly, in which the financial benefits of the liquor trade would accrue to the Turkish state, not to foreigners.

History of the Romanian Lexicon

The history of the Romanian lexicon has been divided into periods in various ways: (a) the Latin of the Danubian provinces (from around the 2nd to around the 7th centuries); (b) common Romanian (româna comună, from 8th to 11th/12th centuries); and (c) preliterary Romanian (the centuries this period covers vary, from the 8th century at the earliest to the 14th century at the latest) and the rise of literary Romanian (start of the 16th century–1780). This latter period includes the most important stages in the process of unification and modernization of Romanian, and thus of its lexicon; (d) Modern Romanian (1780–1945); and (e) the contemporary era, including the socialist period (1945–1989) and current Romanian. A stand-alone section 7 discusses the numerous external influences of varied and complex origin: geographic contact, bi- and multilingualism, foreign occupation and/or domination, and last but not least, the strengthening of national conscience followed or accompanied by a cultural and political paradigm shift.

Sengo kenpo 1947 Vs. Meiji kenpo 1889: comparative study

This article is a comparative study between not only two manuscripts of constitutions of Japan, but also analytic research revealing all the cultural, ideological, and political aspects that led the Japanese authorities to adopt each of them. The Meiji Constitution was proclaimed in 1889 during the imperialistic phase of Japanese history where the country was named Empire of Greater Japan (大日本帝国), where Tokyo was a dominant world power. While the recent Constitution of Japan (日本国憲法) was issued in 1947 under the supervision of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP), which is eventually, a foreign occupation authority. Through the detailed analysis, premising, and reasoning this study will reveal the historical events that resulted those constitutions and will open the debate to discuss the future prospects of the Japanese armament attempts, which is confined and restricted by Article 9 (日本国憲法第9条).

Comparison between the two poets of Islam

The great Islamic poets ’Aḥmad Shawqī and Iqbāl both lived in one era and experienced the great events that have passed through the Islamic world, as they both have experienced the bitterness of foreign occupation and the suffering of Western colonialism. Both of them were proud of their religion, jealous of Islam and the Muslims to be attacked by their opponents. They were saddened by their failure to take the causes of strength, pride and glory. It was very painful to them to see the home lands of Muslims were occupied and their affairs were all dysfunctional, and both of them were influenced by the calls for reform and the movements of renewal that were attracted to high societies, the national press and the guiding books. Both of them wanted to extend their poetry and poetic message from the borders of their homeland to the extent of a wide horizon.

Concord between Palestinian Resistance and Literature: A Historico-Literary Analysis of Darwish’s Works

This research explores the last seventy years of the Palestinian Arabs’ political struggle for their recognition as a sovereign nation-state as reflected in the poetic and prose works of Palestinian national poet, Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008). Given the relationship between life and literature, the Palestinian situation can be best revealed through their own cultural productions, especially literature. Darwish has utilized his sense of exile and cultural memory to realize the ideals of Palestinian home and its requisite identity. His writings constitute an integral part of Palestinian resistance literature. His works are reflective of a deep aesthetic sense coupled with a profound political understanding of the ground facts within and outside Palestine. He contests the legitimacy of a sustained foreign occupation and at the same time stresses the need of preserving national cultural heritage. He stresses the need of both intellectual and political resistance to the gradual encroachment caused by the colonial settlement regime. The present research has sought to figure out the dimensions of Darwish’s poetic and intellectual contribution to the volatile geopolitical issue of the resistance to a hegemonic control.

8 Protection of Civilians

This chapter assesses the provisions of international law concerning the protection of civilians in armed conflict. The rules applicable in international armed conflict are highly developed and extensively codified. Of course, their scope of application is limited to conflicts of an international character, in particular armed clashes between states. Situations of foreign occupation are also international armed conflicts. The four Geneva Conventions, supplemented by their first 1977 Additional Protocol, constitute the heart of protections granted to civilians in international armed conflicts. Meanwhile, the law protecting civilians in non-international armed conflicts has been codified by Article 3 common to the four Geneva Conventions and the second 1999 Additional Protocol. Although these provisions are more summary in nature than the law on international armed conflicts, they contain important rules on the protection of civilians in an internal conflict. The chapter then considers the provisions concerning situations in which a party to an armed conflict comes into contact with civilians of the opposing side, especially with aliens on its own territory and with inhabitants of occupied territories.