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31. The Hindu Rights Action Force and the Malaysian Indian Minority after the 2018 General Election in Malaysia

Author:
Arunajeet Kaur
Publication Date:
12-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Abstract:
The Hindu Rights Action Force (HINDRAF) came out from a series of controversial actions perceived by the Malaysian Indian community as discriminatory. The issues were topical occurrences such as the errant destruction of Hindu temples and the body-snatching cases of Tamil Hindus, thought to have been converted to Islam, as well as the state of poverty confronted by the Tamil Hindu community in Malaysia. From a protest rally in November 2007, led by mainly Malaysian Tamil lawyers, the Malaysian Indian community framed its demands in legal terms and questioned the position of not only the Malaysian Malay-Muslim majoritarian government but also the decolonising decisions of the departing British colonial authorities at the point of Independence in 1957. The 2007 event become known as the HINDRAF rally. It had an overwhelming impact internationally, in drawing attention to the plight of Malaysian Tamil Hindus. Inside Malaysia, by garnering the support of non- Malays, mainly the Chinese, to unite with the Indians, it affected the Malaysian general election in 2008, as the ruling Barisan Nasional government lost its two-thirds majority in Parliament. There was also an unprecedented number of Malaysian Indians who were elected into Parliament in 2008. However, this paper will demonstrate that by the subsequent two Malaysian general elections of 2013 and 2018, the Tamil Hindus, as represented by HINDRAF, had not achieved their goals. Enduring heavy-handed treatment by the Malaysian authorities previously and troubled by internal strife and leadership issues within HINDRAF, this movement of Tamil Hindus in Malaysia stands diluted and divided. After the 14th general election of 2018, it seems that the leadership has also accepted a compromised position. Malay-Muslim majoritarianism remains dominant and the “New Malaysia” appears less than that heralded in the early days of the new Pakatan Harapan government.
Topic:
Human Rights, Religion, Governance, Discrimination, and Decolonization
Political Geography:
Malaysia and Asia

32. Decolonizing Leadership Studies: Overcoming Obstacles Toward an Intercultural Dialogue Between Knowledges

Author:
Toni Jimenez-Luque
Publication Date:
03-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Studies of Changing Societies Journal (SCS)
Institution:
Studies of Changing Societies Journal (SCS)
Abstract:
The academic discipline of leadership has developed in Western countries over the past decades with a US/Western Europe-centered perspective, implying that leadership theory is universal regardless of different cultural perspectives that go beyond the Western canon. In fact, current mainstream leadership theories are rather ethnocentric and local, and many of them still reflect a Eurocentric colonial mentality of dominance and power. Therefore, the purpose with this paper is to explore the effects of Modernity and colonialism on society’s relationships to identify the causes that hinder an effective intercultural dialogue in postcolonial contexts. This paper considers Decolonial Leadership as a new model that goes beyond Eurocentric approaches in the field and points to further research that is needed to fully develop a broader and more inclusive paradigm of leadership.
Topic:
Post Colonialism, Leadership, Decolonization, Academia, and Intercultural Dialogue
Political Geography:
Europe and United States of America

33. 70 Years to the UN vote on Partition: Looking back, looking ahead

Author:
Emmanuel Navon
Publication Date:
11-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS)
Abstract:
The 70th anniversary of the UN resolution on the partition of British Palestine is an opportunity to debunk a myth about this resolution, and to rethink Israel’s policy toward the United Nations. The General Assembly (GA) vote on 29 November 1947 was a recommendation and not a binding decision (like all GA resolutions). It became moot the moment it was rejected by the Arab League. The Security Council did not act to implement the GA resolution, even though it knew that the Arab League opposed the resolution and that it was preparing for war. Israel would not have become independent had the Jews not built a society and an economy for decades, and had they not won the war imposed on them by the Arab League. In 1947, Israel got lucky at the UN: Stalin wanted to end Britain’s presence in Palestine (to him, any British and Western retreat was a victory); Truman was determined to override the State Department (“Dealing with them was as rough as a cob” he said); and France was eager to give Britain a taste of its own medicine (the French blamed the British for the independence of Syria and Lebanon in 1944). There were very few independent Arab and Muslim states back then (Africa, the Middle-East, and Southeast Asia were mostly under European colonial rule). Decolonization and the Cold War changed this configuration to Israel’s disadvantage. The number of Arab and Muslim states rocketed, and the Soviet Union successfully recruited them to fight “imperialism” (Soviet foreign policy became openly pro-Arab in 1953, and Egypt became a Soviet ally in 1955). After the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the Arab world used not only the oil blackmail but also its “automatic majority” at the UN to isolate Israel. This diplomatic warfare culminated in the November 1975 GA resolution that condemned Zionism as a form of racism. Despite the end of the Cold War and peace agreements between Israel, Egypt, and Jordan, the political hijacking of the UN never abated. The 2001 UN Conference against Racism in Durban turned into an anti-Israel festival, and the replacement of the Human Rights Commission by the Human Rights Council (HRC) in 2006 only made things worse for Israel (and for human rights). Special UN agencies such as UNESCO are still manipulated by the Palestinians and the Arab states to gang-up against Israel. Yet Israel is not helpless, and there are ways of taming the hijacking of the UN.
Topic:
International Cooperation, United Nations, Territorial Disputes, Conflict, and Decolonization
Political Geography:
Middle East and Israel

34. DECOLONIZATION IN THE CONSTITUTIONAL SYSTEM: INDIGENOUS RIGHTS AND LEGAL PLURALISM, A COMPARATIVE STUDY BETWEEN BOLIVIA, COLOMBIA, AND ECUADOR

Author:
Sergio Miranda Hayes
Publication Date:
05-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The New School Graduate Program in International Affairs
Abstract:
In the academic world, scientific literature comes mainly from the western part of the globe. Ramón Grossfoguel believes that knowledge is determined by power relations in the "post-colonial" era (Grossfoguel, 2002: 16). This means that Western powers dominate the academic world. In constitutional law, this is not the exception. However, while we can accept that it is true that many constitutional provisions, doctrine, jurisprudence and theories of Western constitutional law have influenced Latin American countries, most of these countries have also developed their own constitutional systems that have specific and new features, whose unique identity differentiates them from other systems in the world. In this paper, I will try to study the special features that Bolivia, Ecuador, and Colombia have in the recognition of indigenous rights and legal pluralism, whose discursive axis entails a “decolonizing” spirit which is the retrieval of their own institutions against the trends of hegemonic governance of the western culture as I will explain later. Latin America has faced numerous problems concerning social differentiation. In the opinion of one of the most cited authors in Latin American constitutional law, Raquel Yrigoyen, the disadvantaged were left behind from the social, economic and political issues through legal measures created by people of a favored minority, in order to maintain privileges (Yrigoyen, 2011: 139). In the case of Latin America, many of the disadvantaged match to be those survivors of the brutal Spanish conquest; the native Indians. I have chosen these three countries since they have a significant indigenous population; more than 36.6 million indigenous people in the region. In Bolivia, the number rises to 4,115,222 natives, in Ecuador 1018176,and in Colombia 1392623. (World Bank, 2014: 24-25) The Constitutions of Colombia (1991), Ecuador (2008) and Bolivia (2009) reflect the new “decolonizing” ideology; Colombia through its jurisprudence, on the one hand, and Bolivia and Ecuador, proclaiming themselves "Plurinational”countries on the other. All made great strides in recognizing indigenous rights and, consequently, in gaining their social inclusion. (Gargarella, 2014: 175) Constitutional systems are a product of history and the struggle of peoples. In these cases, the effort to include indigenous peoples in the economic, political and social spheres resulted in these new constitutional models which can be understood through a comparative study.By understanding this, advantages and disadvantages of each country to improve social inclusion of indigenous peoples in all the mentioned spheres can be found. In the first title, I will talk about the meaning of legal pluralism. In the second, I will discussthe new models of statewhich are conditioned by legal pluralism and indigenous rights. In the third, I will address indigenous autonomies and jurisdictions that are the subject of our study. And in the remaining two titles, I will discuss the most distinctive features, and rights arising from the recognition of this unique legal pluralism. All this with the purpose of exposing the new constitutional spirit of "decolonization" of these countries.
Topic:
Human Rights, Post Colonialism, Legal Theory, Colonialism, Decolonization, and Economic Inequality
Political Geography:
United States, Colombia, South America, Latin America, North America, Ecuador, and Bolivia

35. Decolonizing the Mainstreaming of Gender in Peacebuilding: Toward an Agenda for Africa

Author:
Heidi Hudson
Publication Date:
07-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Social Science Research Council
Abstract:
Peacebuilding is big business in Africa and the gendering of peacebuilding even more so—if the number of workshops and funding proposals with gen- der as their focus is anything to go by. As an academic enterprise, gender and peacebuilding have equally grown in stature and scope.1 But more often than not, gender acts as a proxy for women, especially because we are con- tinuously reminded that they must be included in all peacebuilding efforts because they make up more than half of the population and war and its aftermath affect them differently. So why bother with mainstreaming gen- der if it is actually just about adding women? Practice has shown that the rhetorical commitment to gender within peacebuilding programs (hailed as positive by some) has neither changed the generally widespread gen- der-blind nature of policy and practice nor led to more than an increased mainstreaming of women’s and girls’ needs based on a very narrow inter- pretation of male-female categories.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Decolonization, and Peace
Political Geography:
Africa

36. IR THEORY, DIFFERENCE AND SUBJECTIVITY: ON CONDITIONS OF THE POSSIBILITY OF POST-WESTERN IR THEORY

Author:
Muhammed A. Ağcan
Publication Date:
04-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Alternative Politics
Institution:
Department of International Relations, Abant Izzet Baysal University, Turkey
Abstract:
The question of difference and multiplicity in IR has been conventionally defined by the particularistic ontology of the sovereign-state based on a certain understanding of the relationship between humanity and socio-political community. In the last three decades by bringing gender, race, class, post-sovereign socio-political communities, cultural-civilizational identities etc. into IR, critical international relations theories have sought to rethink the international as being conscious of its historico-cultural settings and recognizing multiple ethico-political worlds and international imaginations in contemporary human societies. The recent debate on post-Western IR theory emerging within this conceptual-historical context seeks to problematize Eurocentrism in IR and to find ways to include non / post-western historico-cultural worlds, socio-political forms and international imaginations. Postcolonial account of this scholarly debate focuses on the colonial relations of international politics originated in the world historicity of European modernity / capitalism defending the co-constitution of self and other and accordingly develops the postcolonial subjectivity. This article critically engages with this debate on post-Western IR theory and specifically postcolonial standpoint by asking whether, how or to what extent we could conceptualize differences of non / post-Western subjectivities. Keywords: Post-Western IR, Eurocentrism, Postcolonialism, Non-Western Subjectivity.
Topic:
Post Colonialism, Capitalism, Decolonization, and Modernization
Political Geography:
Europe and United States of America

37. Une puissance parmi d'autres : évolution des enjeux et défis géostratégiques de la France en Océanie (One Among Many: Changing Geostrategic Interests and Challenges for France in the South Pacific)

Author:
Denise Fisher
Publication Date:
12-2015
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales (CERI)
Abstract:
France, which is both an external and resident South Pacific power by virtue of its possessions there, pursues, or simply inherits, multiple strategic benefits. But the strategic context has changed in recent years. China's increased presence; consequent changes in the engagement of the US, Japan and Taiwan; and the involvement of other players in the global search for resources, means that France is one of many more with influence and interests in a region considered by some as a backwater. These shifts in a way heighten the value of France's strategic returns, while impacting on France's capacity to exert influence and pursue its own objectives in the region. At the same time, France is dealing with demands for greater autonomy and even independence from its two most valuable overseas possessions on which its influence is based, New Caledonia and French Polynesia. How it responds to these demands will directly shape the nature of its future regional presence, which is a strategic asset.
Topic:
Political Economy, Natural Resources, Colonialism, Political Science, and Decolonization
Political Geography:
Japan, China, Taiwan, France, Australia, Australia/Pacific, and United States of America

38. The Decolonization of Chechnya: Reviving the UN Trusteeship Council

Author:
Julie M. Tremper
Publication Date:
05-2004
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Public and International Affairs (JPIA)
Institution:
School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA), Princeton University
Abstract:
The Russian-Chechen conflict represents an urgent problem for the international community. Domestic and regional efforts have failed to secure a satisfactory or lasting resolution to it, and terrorist activity, gross human rights violations, the proliferation of Wahhabism, and regional security concerns have led to the internationalization of the Chechen question. There are several potential statehood or non-statehood approaches to the resolution of the conflict. Given the history of hostility between Russia and Chechnya and the character of the current international environment, the best approach would be to revive the UN Trusteeship Council and give it responsibility for overseeing a transition leading to Chechen independence. This revival and application of UN trusteeship would require a redefinition of the trust system in a post-colonial context. In the case of Chechnya, the need for peace and stability should supersede the international community’s usual aversion to the creation of a new nation-state.
Topic:
United Nations, Conflict, Decolonization, and International Community
Political Geography:
Russia, Eurasia, and Chechnya