Journal of International Affairs articles from September 2006

Journal of International Affairs archives from September 2006

Editors' foreword.(Editorial)
September 22, 2006... Processes of reconciliation evoke humanity's highest peaks and darkest depths. As former warriors embrace magnanimity over conquest and victims opt for redress over vengeance, we marvel at how enlightened visions of the future could triumph...

Historical reconciliation: redress, rights and politics.(FOUNDATIONS)
September 22, 2006... Human rights--as a universal ideology and redress as a specific measure--have been the subjects of increased attention from activists around the globe. Seemingly, the two are in tension with each other: How could rights applicable to a...

Transitional justice: a holistic interpretation.(FOUNDATIONS)
September 22, 2006... In 1995, three volumes entitled "Transitional Justice" were published by the United States Institute for Peace, edited by Neil J. Kritz. The foreword was written by Nelson Mandela, who had assumed the presidency of South Africa the previous...

Depolarizing the past: the role of historical commissions in conflict mediation and reconciliation.(THE LEGACY OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR)
September 22, 2006... Building peace in the wake of large-scale historical injustices is difficult and sometimes dispiriting work. Rival groups often conjure vastly different memories of the same events, and these divergences reinforce cycles of violence and deepen...

Negotiating truth: the Holocaust, Lehavdil, and Al-Nakba (1).(THE LEGACY OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR)
September 22, 2006... As Americans are accustomed to remembering the "quagmire" of Vietnam, so Israelis have referred, since the debacle of the 1982 Lebanon War and its eighteen-year aftermath, to the "Lebanese mud." Many critics of Israel's recent adventure in...

Reconciliation as a dirty word: conflict, community relations and education in Northern Ireland.(THE DIFFICULT ROAD TO RECONCILIATION)
September 22, 2006... "I am not really interested in reconciliation. It is a term that has been so used and abused; it's a dirty word as Far as I am concerned." (1) The comment above emerged in fieldwork undertaken by one of the authors on the role of...

Sri Lanka's conflict: culture and lineages of the past.(THE DIFFICULT ROAD TO RECONCILIATION)
September 22, 2006... There are two ways to lose oneself." by a wailed segregation in the particular or by a dilution in the universal. --Aime Cesaire Walter Benjamin famously wrote, "History is the object of a construction whose place is formed not in...

Confederate memory and monuments: of judicial opinions, statutes and buildings.(THE DIFFICULT ROAD TO RECONCILIATION)
September 22, 2006... [I]t is well that we keep in mind the fact that not all of American history is recorded. In some ways we are fortunate that it isn't, for if it were, we might become so chagrined by the discrepancies which exist between our democratic ideals...

Reconciliation and economic reaction: flaws in South Africa's elite transition.(THE DIFFICULT ROAD TO RECONCILIATION)
September 22, 2006... Was South Africa's post-apartheid transition compromised by an intra-elite, so-called economic reconciliation that generally worsened poverty, unemployment and ecological degradation, while exacerbating racial, gender and geographical...

Is reconciliation between Hutus and Tutsis possible?(THE DIFFICULT ROAD TO RECONCILIATION)
September 22, 2006... April 1994: Rwanda, a little country in Central Africa, is propelled to the forefront of the international stage. It is the site of the greatest genocide in African history, the genocide of the Rwandans--essentially the Tutsis--who in three...

The politics of victimhood: historical memory and peace in Spain and the Basque region.(THE DIFFICULT ROAD TO RECONCILIATION)
September 22, 2006... Any society trying to transition from a history of violence to a future of peace struggles with reconciling the divisiveness of its violent legacy with the necessary cohesion and inclusiveness needed to build a peaceful future. The fields of...

Reconciliation in Rwanda: education, history and the state.(ANDREW WELLINGTON CORDIER ESSAY)
September 22, 2006... A group of school buildings about thirty kilometers from Butare, Rwanda's second largest town, was a place of education, then of refuge, then of horror. Today, it is a place of death and remembrance. Murambi was a technical school, with...

Speaking to reconciliation: perspectives from the field.(Interview)
September 22, 2006... Role of Education Education has a fundamental role to play not only in reconciliation but also in the reputation of the country, which has been hurt by conflicts of the past. Education is particularly important in the implementation of...

Social insecurity: a history of African Americans and the Welfare State.(Book review)
September 22, 2006... The Segregated Origins of Social Security: African Americans and the Welfare State Mary Poole (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2006), 272 pages. If you think reading a book on the history of Social Security may not be...

One Korea again: when, if and how?(Divided Korea: Toward a Culture of Reconciliation)(Book review)
September 22, 2006... Divided Korea: Toward a Culture of Reconciliation Roland Bleiker (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005), 224 pages. Roland Bleiker, former Swiss delegate to the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission in Panmunjom at the...

The understated solution.(One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse)(Book review)
September 22, 2006... One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse Ali Abunimah (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006), 240 pages. Taking sides is endemic to the discourse on Israel-Palestine. A word like "complex" may mask basic realities,...

Africa through the looking glass.(Researching Conflict in Africa: Insights and Experiences)(Book review)
September 22, 2006... Researching Conflict in Africa: Insights and Experiences Elizabeth Porter, Gillian Robinson, Marie Smyth, Albrecht Schnabel, and Eghosa Osaghae (New York: United Nations University Press, 2005), 184 pages. It is a profound indictment of...

Testing the scales: reconciliation and justice in the case of Uganda.(Trial Justice: The International Criminal Court and the Lord's Resistance Army)(Book review)
September 22, 2006... Trial Justice: The International Criminal Court and the Lord's Resistance Army Tim Allen (New York: Zed Books, 2006), 230 pages. Jan Egeland, the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, once commented that northern...

Between Vengeance and Forgiveness: Facing History After Genocide and Mass Violence.(FURTHER READING)(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2006... BETWEEN VENGEANCE AND FORGIVENESS: FACING HISTORY AFTER GENOCIDE AND MASS VIOLENCE Martha Minow (Boston: Beacon Press, 1998), 214 pages. In this 1998 text, Harvard Law School Professor Martha Minow examines the challenges presented by mass...

Unspeakable Truths: Facing the Challence of Truth Commissions.(FURTHER READING)(Book review)
September 22, 2006... UNSPEAKABLE TRUTHS: FACING THE CHALLENCE OF TRUTH COMMISSIONS Priscilla B. Hayner (Oxford: Routledge, 2000), 344 pages. Unspeakable Truths explores the complex mechanisms and conditions that influence truth commissions--their establishment,...

The Guilt of Nations: Restitution and Negotiating Historical Injustices.(FURTHER READING)(Book review)
September 22, 2006... THE GUILT OF NATIONS: RESTITUTION AND NEGOTIATING HISTORICAL INJUSTICES Elazar Barkan (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 456 pages. Conducting a thought-provoking theoretical discussion on issues of morality, restitution...

Reconciliation in the Asia-Pacific.(FURTHER READING)(Book review)
September 22, 2006... RECONCILIATION IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC Yoichi Funabashi, ed. (Washington, DC: U.S. Institute of Peace Press, 2003), 238 pages. As demonstrated by the massive Spring 2005 protests in China about Japanese textbooks that allegedly whitewashed...

Kashmir: Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace.(FURTHER READING)(Book review)
September 22, 2006... KASHMIR: ROOTS OF CONFLICT, PATHS TO PEACE Sumantra Bose (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003), 320 pages. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has assessed the dismal relationship between India and Pakistan as "one of the most perilous...

Fratricide in the Holy Land: a Psychoanalytic View of the Arab-Israeli Conflict.(FURTHER READING)(Book review)
September 22, 2006... FRATRICIDE IN THE HOLY LAND: A PSYCHOANALYTIC VIEW OF THE ARAB-ISRAELI CONFLICT Avner Falk (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004), 271 pages. In Fratricide in the Holy Land, Avner Falk, an Israeli psycho-historian, contributes a...

Kosovo: Facing the Court of History.(FURTHER READING)(Book review)
September 22, 2006... Kosovo: FACING THE COURT OF HISTORY Branislav Krstici-Brano, translated by Ivanka Grkovici (Amherst: Humanity Books, 2004), 462 pages. In his book, Kosovo: Facing the Court of History, Branislav Krstici-Brano fore-goes presenting a...

Buried Secrets: Truth and Human Rights in Guatemala.(FURTHER READING)(Book review)
September 22, 2006... BURIED SECRETS: TRUTH AND HUMAN FRIGHTS IN GUATEMALA Victoria Sanford (Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 307 pages. It is a sadly common history: a poor indigenous population caught between a revolutionary guerilla movement and a...

The Changing Presentation of the American Indian: Museums and Native Cultures.(FURTHER READING)(Book review)
September 22, 2006... THE CHANGING PRESENTATION OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN: MUSEUMS AND NATIVE CULTURES W. Richard West, Jr. (Washington DC: National Museum of the American Indian, 2004), 119 pages. The Changing Presentation of the American Indian is a collection of...