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21. The Druze Vote for the Twentieth, Twenty-First, and Twenty-Second Knesset Elections

Author:
Salim Brake
Publication Date:
11-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies
Abstract:
Dr. Salim Brake, in the current issue of Bayan, analyzes the considerations and voting patterns of the Druze in the Knesset elections. The Druze generally vote on utilitarian considerations, such as voting for parties expected to be included in the coalition and to influence government policy. Few of them vote for ideological motives. Social networks voiced fierce criticism following two legislative acts that have hurt Druze over the past year: Kaminitz Law and Nation State Law. Despite this, the Druze artificially separated their stance on these laws and voted for parties that supported those laws. The Blue-White party spoke against the Nation State Law in its current form, and as a result, drew significant support from the Druze community. However, Blue-White is only committed to amending the law and including a clause referencing equality within it, and not eliminating it as Druze hoped. The increase in support for the "Israel Beitenu" party is due to the fact that the Druze representatives in the Likud are not seen as representing the real interests of the Druze community. In addition, the Druze candidate in the "Israel Beitenu" party expressed opposition to the Nation State Law.
Topic:
Government, Politics, Minorities, Elections, Ethnicity, and Druze
Political Geography:
Israel and Palestine

22. A Sustainable Policy for Rohingya Refugees in Bangladesh

Author:
International Crisis Group
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
Bangladesh is hosting nearly a million Rohingya refugees who have little hope of going home any time soon. The government should move to improve camp living conditions, in particular by lifting the education ban and fighting crime. Donors should support such steps. What’s new? Two years after atrocities in Myanmar’s Rakhine State drove a wave of Rohingya refugees into Bangladesh, prospects for repatriation remain dim. Frustrated Bangladeshi authorities refuse to plan for the long term, have introduced stringent security measures at refugee camps, and may move some refugees to a remote island, Bhasan Char. Why did it happen? The Bangladeshi government is struggling with growing security challenges near the refugee camps and domestic political pressure to resolve the crisis. It is also irritated by the lack of progress in repatriating any of the estimated one million Rohingya refugees on its soil. Why does it matter? Dhaka’s restrictions on aid activities prohibit its partners from building safe housing in the Rohingya camps or developing programs that cultivate refugee self-reliance. Combined with heavy-handed security measures, this approach risks alienating refugees and setting the stage for greater insecurity and conflict in southern Bangladesh. What should be done? While pressing for eventual repatriation, Bangladesh and external partners should move past short-term planning and work together to build safe housing, improve refugees’ educational and livelihood opportunities, and support refugee-hosting communities. Dhaka should also roll back its counterproductive security measures and plans for relocations to Bhasan Char.
Topic:
Security, Minorities, Refugees, Ethnic Cleansing, and Rohingya
Political Geography:
Bangladesh, Asia, and Southeast Asia

23. Peace and Electoral Democracy in Myanmar

Author:
International Crisis Group
Publication Date:
08-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
Myanmar’s 2020 polls are a chance to consolidate electoral democracy in the country. Yet many ethnic minorities doubt that voting gives them a real say. To preempt possible violence, the government and outside partners should work to enhance the ballot’s inclusiveness and transparency. What’s new? Myanmar will go to the polls in late 2020. Political positioning has begun in earnest, affecting important governmental decision-making. In ethnic-minority areas, particularly Rakhine State, there is growing disillusionment with electoral democracy that could fuel escalating violence. Why does it matter? The pre-election period of political contestation will likely exacerbate ethnic tensions and conflict risks, particularly in the country’s periphery. At the same time, balloting will be a crucial opportunity to consolidate gains in electoral democracy – an important if insufficient step toward long-term peace and stability in Myanmar. What should be done?  To bolster ethnic minorities’ faith in elections, the government should signal its intention to appoint state chief ministers from the winning party in each state, rather than imposing National League for Democracy-led governments everywhere. More transparent decision-making about the likely cancellation of voting in conflict-affected areas would also help.
Topic:
Minorities, Elections, Democracy, and Peace
Political Geography:
Southeast Asia and Myanmar

24. Palestinian Engagement with the Black Freedom Movement prior to 1967

Author:
Maha Nassar
Publication Date:
06-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
This article examines early Palestinian engagements with multiple facets of the Black American struggle for freedom through a content analysis of influential Palestinian press outlets in Arabic prior to 1967. It argues that, since the 1930s, Palestinian intellectuals with strong anti-colonial views linked anti-Black racism in the United States to larger imperial and Cold War dynamics, and that they connected Black American mobilizations against racism to decolonization movements around the world. This article also examines Mahmoud Darwish’s early analytical writings on race as a social construct in both the U.S. and Israeli contexts. Understanding these early engagements sheds light on subsequent developments in Black-Palestinian transnational solidarity and on Palestinian Afro-Arab cultural imaginaries.
Topic:
International Affairs and Minorities
Political Geography:
Palestine

25. Troubling Idols: Black-Palestinian Solidarity in U.S. Afro-Christian Spaces

Author:
Taurean J Webb
Publication Date:
10-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Abstract:
This article claims that insofar as they continue to omit analyses of colonialism and racialization, retellings of the biblical Exodus and of twentieth-century Black-Jewish relations—two massively significant narratives in the U.S. Black Christian imaginary—will inevitably continue to fuel the Zionist impulse that prevents much of Afro-Christianity from intentionally engaging Palestinian justice. Furthermore, the religious trope of chosenness, along with the dominant narration of the European Jewish Holocaust moment, have provided a politico-ethical basis for a unique type of dispensation that filters the two aforementioned retellings to ultimately deselect non-Jewish Palestinians from a recognizably complex humanity. The tools of the Black radical tradition, however, coupled with a reimagining of coalitional politics, carve out a radical Black Christian sensibility that is best equipped to speak to the devastations of military occupation and racist exclusion and forge life-giving relationships within the freedom struggles against them
Topic:
Race, International Affairs, and Minorities
Political Geography:
Palestine

26. Representation of ‘The Other’: Tracing the ‘Otherized’ Segments of Contemporary Indian Society in Arundhati Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

Author:
Rizwan Mustafa and Zoya Jamil Chaudhry
Publication Date:
07-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
South Asian Studies
Institution:
Department of Political Science, University of the Punjab
Abstract:
This paper examines the post-colonial nation‟s history (India) from perspectives of marginalized minorities in Arundhati Roy‟s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness. The aim of this research is to explore the marginalization of “the Others” and traces the otherized segments of contemporary Indian society that are marginalized on the basis of being a hijra, a Dalit, a woman, a Muslim and an Untouchable. This paper analyzes „binarism‟ and the conflict between the center and periphery: between Hindus and Muslims, between male, female and intersex, between Touchables and Untouchables, as well as between the graveyard and the surrounding wider city. Anjum, an intersex, Revathy, a Maoist comrade, Dayachand, an Untouchable, Tilotamma, a wandering Syrian origin half-Dalit woman, Musa Yeswi, a forced Kashmiri freedom fighter– narrate the untold and unheard tales about failure of a secular democratic country. This paper tours the fault lines of India and highlights the struggle of socially excluded people of society, against the established standards of the culture hence challenging contemporary stereotypical representation of “the Others” and eventually resistance. Roy explicitly advocates religious, racial and territorial degenerative system and reflects the challenges of telling national narrative from a multiple minoritarian perspective. The novel has multi-layered and multi-dimensional plot-structure and investigate the causes behind Roy‟s attempt to give voice to the voiceless (Indians). This research is carried out applying Edward Said‟s theoretical framework of “The Self” and “The Other”, “Us” and “Them”, and “Binary Opposition”.
Topic:
Post Colonialism, Minorities, Women, and Inequality
Political Geography:
Pakistan, South Asia, India, Kashmir, and Punjab

27. Gender Gap as a Result of Political Socialization in Formation of Voting Behavior among Christian Minority in Punjab (Pakistan)

Author:
Shamaila Hamid
Publication Date:
07-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
South Asian Studies
Institution:
Department of Political Science, University of the Punjab
Abstract:
This article focuses on the gap that exists among the genders as a result of political socialization in the Christian religious minority within Punjab, Pakistan. A study in this regard was carried out in four major districts of Punjab namely Lahore, Faisalabad, Gujranwala and Rawalpindi. A sample of 400 was surveyed during Dec 2017-Jan 2018. The data were collected using multi stage sampling. The results of the study indicated that gender plays an important role in voting behavior. There is a huge difference in political awareness of men and women. Men are more politically aware and their level of knowledge surpasses that of women from their community. Where men are more independent in their decision making regarding whom to vote or not to vote, women are largely dependent on males of family in forming their political decisions.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Politics, Religion, Minorities, Elections, and Christianity
Political Geography:
Pakistan, South Asia, and Punjab

28. The Challenges of the Middle East

Author:
Haviland Smith
Publication Date:
09-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
It is clear that there are powerful people both in the United States and in Iran who would like to force a real confrontation between our two countries. What is completely unclear is whether or not those hawks on both sides want a modified Cold War type confrontation, built perhaps on cyber warfare, or an all-out military confrontation. What this situation, with all its incredibly profound dangers and possible disastrous outcomes, has done is once again prompt the question, “what is the United States doing in the Middle East and what precisely are our goals there?”
Topic:
Cold War, Islam, Religion, Terrorism, Minorities, and Ethnicity
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Syria, and United States of America

29. Negotiating Venezuela’s future: First agreement, then elections

Author:
Mikael Wigell and Mikko Pyhala
Publication Date:
02-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Finnish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
Venezuela needs a transition government with both pro-Maduro and anti-Maduro forces. Its function would be to renew the electoral institutions and negotiate a power-sharing agreement in order to lower the power stakes by protecting political minorities. Only then can presidential elections be held.
Topic:
Governance, Minorities, Elections, State Building, and Transition
Political Geography:
South America, Latin America, and Venezuela

30. The Sinification of China: How the minorities are being merged into one nation

Author:
Jyrki Kallio
Publication Date:
04-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Finnish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
The long-term aim of the Communist Party is to make China unified, and the most recent tool for this is the creation a Chinese nation. This term was included in the Constitution last year, which contradicts the definition of China as a multi-national state. Unifying China includes promoting a Chinese identity through history and culture. The current borders and ethnic composition of China are presented as the results of natural processes. History is written from the viewpoint of the Han Chinese and their relations with the border regions. Culture is discussed in a similar Han-centric manner. The Party has set “Chinese values” against “universal values” and religions. It demands religions to be Sinified in order to alleviate any risks they might pose to national unity. Most concretely, the creation of a Chinese nation is affecting the people in Xinjiang. This has given rise to concerns in other countries. The Sinification of minority nationalities may potentially become a new stumbling block in China’s relations with Western states.
Topic:
Human Rights, Nationalism, Culture, and Minorities
Political Geography:
China and Asia