TECHNICAL TRAINING TOOLS USED IN FIRE TRAINING CLASSES AT UNIVERSITIES OF THE MINISTRY OF INTERNAL AFFAIRS OF RUSSIA IN THE PROFILE OF THE DISTRICT COMMISSIONER OF THE POLICE

Technical training tools used in fire training classes are devices that partially or fully imitate the actions of the trainee when firing a shot with a real combat weapon. Their purpose is mainly aimed at developing and improving shooting skills in conditions where training with combat weapons is difficult, or for a number of reasons impossible. On the other hand, the use of shooting simulators makes it possible to significantly diversify the training process while reducing the consumption of ammunition.

‘I Am the Law’: District Commissioner Fiction and the State of Exception

Chapter Two identifies and anatomizes an important subgenre in the adventure tradition in literature: District Commissioner fiction. This subgenre is significant because, while in the nineteenth century the colonial hero was typically represented as a buccaneer outside the law, District Commissioner fiction repositions the hero within and as the law. Edgar Wallace’s Sanders of the River series is read alongside works by Arthur E. Southon in relation to theories of the state of exception, to demonstrate how the District Commissioner and the policy of indirect rule that he represents are figured exceptionally, standing outside the law as the force of law.

‘Seeking a Legal Form’: Joyce Cary’s

Chapter Three examines a later incarnation of the District Commissioner in Joyce Cary’s Mr Johnson. The chapter shows how, despite the novel’s ironic critiques of the figure of the District Commissioner and the policy of indirect rule, Cary reinstates the heroized exceptionalism dramatized in earlier popular District Commissioner fiction. The chapter also explores the precarious position of Mr Johnson himself as educated southerner within the administration of the North. The chapter presents the novel in terms of its animation of legal questions and the state of exception that underpinned indirect rule. The chapter’s discussion is contextualised through reference to W. R. Crocker’s scathing memoir of colonial service, Nigeria: A Critique of British Colonial Administration (1936).

Imagined States

Imagined States examines the significance of the law in colonial and postcolonial fiction from and about Nigeria between 1900 and 1966. The book argues that in the discrete period of the final half-century of British colonialism in Nigeria through into the early years of independence prior to the Biafran War, the law provided a key site for fiction’s negotiations with the increasingly complex realities of the colonial project. Attending to the representation of the law in that fiction provides important insights not only into the realities of the historical period but, equally importantly, into the dominant and emergent discourses and ideologies that shaped those realities. Imagined States explores a range of texts including popular, middle-brow and acclaimed postcolonial novels, as well as newspaper stories and memoirs, by both British and Nigerian authors (including Chinua Achebe, Joyce Carey, Cyprian Ekwensi and Edgar Wallace), focusing in particular on how the state of exception and ideas of civilisation were negotiated imaginatively in the law and fiction. These explorations are organised chronologically and thematically, moving from the law ‘upcountry’ (focusing on pre- and inter-war British representations of the District Commissioner), through the law in the city (focusing on late colonial and early postcolonial Nigerian fiction), to law and politics (focusing on postcolonial Nigerian representations of treason and violence).

ILLICIT EXCAVATION: THE TRIAL OF ALESSANDRO PALMA DI CESNOLA IN CYPRUS IN 1878

The prosecution in Cyprus of an Italian citizen for illicit excavation in 1878 is a very early case in modern cultural heritage law. In taking over from the Ottoman empire the administration of Cyprus in June 1878, Britain inherited the Ottoman legal system, including its 1874 law on antiquities. Four months later, the British arrested Alessandro Palma di Cesnola for flouting a newly announced ban on excavation. The evidence of official, confidential records reveals the steps leading to the Italian’s arrest, trial and conviction in court. His trial followed Ottoman legal procedures, but the verdict was decided by the district commissioner, a British military officer unfamiliar with local law and languages. Alessandro Palma di Cesnola’s claims of American citizenship and a diplomatic status are shown to have been invalid. A closing review suggests that the British Museum was influential in prompting the ban on excavation and that moral and financial pressures led Alessandro Palma di Cesnola to ignore it.

Clash of Ideas and Sensibility in the writings of Joseph Conrad and Chinua Achebe

The topic of this case study is Clash of ideas and sensibility in writings of Joseph Conrad and Chinua Achebe. I have portrayed how both the authors have represented Africa in their writings. Joseph Conrad is a European whereas Chinua Achebe is an African. Both of them have contrary views about the people of Africa and Africa as a country. Both show some of the effects that the white colonists had on the area, and the influence they had on the natives. In Heart of Darkness, we see the influence of Kurtz over the natives at the Inner Station, where they revered him almost as a god. At the other stations, we also see the natives being affected by the white colonists, changing their ways of living around the station, and following what the white men's command, for the most part. In Things Fall Apart, we see this in Okonkwo’s home village, where the white colonists set up a District Commissioner (D.C), and the natives bend to the laws he sets, even helping him enforce them. This completely changes their previous way of life.

‘An augury of the world’s ruin’ and the making of the tragic hero in Chinua Achebe’s Arrow of God

Chinua Achebe’s Arrow of God has been adjudged by critics as a tragic work with Ezeulu as its tragic hero. However, none of these studies has paid detailed attention to the framing of Ezeulu in the historical context of his age. How he appears when compared to a classical Greek tragic hero has also been ignored. A major context giving rise to Ezeulu becoming a tragic hero is the period leading to the synthesis of two contrary histories, juxtaposed discourses and the collision of opposites and contraries in the sociocultural and political sphere of the villages of Umuaro and Okperi. This circumstance is captured by the narrator as ‘an augury of the world’s ruin’, by Nwaka as ‘the white man turned us upside down’ and by Ezeulu as ‘the world is spoilt and there is no longer head or tail in anything that is done’. Allen, an earlier District Commissioner in Things Fall Apart, but textually implicated in Arrow of God, terms it ‘great situations’. The above historical context requires more than mastery and acknowledgement by the tragic figure, in the absence of which he, a self-professed knowledgeable person, becomes a victim of what he failed to take into account. Consequently, he is set aside as a specimen for history and other men. This article will use Hegel’s and Aristotle’s theories of history and of tragedy, respectively, to explicate the above. It concludes that the tragic hero of Chinua Achebe’s Arrow of God is substantially the victim of the clash between Umuaro’s history and Hegel’s History.’n Teken van die wêreld se ondergang en die skepping van die tragiese held in Chinua Achebe se Arrow of God. Chinua Achebe se boek, Arrow of God, word deur kritici beskryf as ’n tragedie met die karakter Ezeulu as held. Niemand het egter noukeurige aandag geskenk aan hoe Ezeulu inpas in die gapings van botsende geskiedenisse soos vergestalt in die mens ten opsigte van hulle optredes, houdings, vrese en begeertes nie. Hoe hy voorkom in teenstelling met ’n klassieke Griekse tragiese held, is ook geïgnoreer. ’n Belangrike onderlinge verband wat aanleiding gee tot Ezeulu se status as tragiese held is die tydperk wat lei tot die samevoeging van twee verskillende geskiedenise naas diskoerse en die botsing van teenoorgesteldes in die sosiokulturele en politieke sfeer van die dorpies Umuaro en Okperi. Hierdie omstandighede is deur die verteller uitgebeeld as ’n teken van die wêreld se ondergang: deur Nwaka as: ‘the white man turned us upside down’ en deur Ezeulu as ‘the world is spoilt and there is no longer head or tail in anything that is done’. Allen, ’n vorige distrikskommissaris in Things Fall Apart, wat aansluit by Arrow van God, noem dit ‘great situations’. Bogenoemde historiese konteks vereis meer as die bemeestering en erkenning deur die tragiese figuur, ’n selfverklaarde kundige persoon, in die afwesigheid daarvan dat hy ’n slagoffer word van wat hy versuim het om in ag te neem. Gevolglik word hy tersyde gestel as ’n voorbeeld vir die geskiedenis en ander mans. In hierdie artikel sal Hegel en Aristoteles se teorieë van die geskiedenis en van ’n tragedie, onderskeidelik, gebruik word om bogenoemde uiteen te sit. Die gevolgtrekking is dat die tragedie held van Chinua Achebe se Arrow of God wesenlik die slagoffer van die botsing tussen die geskiedenis van Umuaro en Hegel is.