Resisting Violence and Victimisation

Resisting Violence and Victimisation
Author: Joel Hodge
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 255
Release: 2016-03-23
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1317064984

The reality and nature of religious faith raises difficult questions for the modern world; questions that re-present themselves when faith has grown under the most challenging circumstances. In East Timor widespread Christian faith emerged when suffering and violence were inflicted on the people by the state. This book seeks a deeper understanding of faith and violence, exploring how Christian faith and solidarity affected the hope and resistance of the East Timorese under Indonesian occupation in their response to state-sanctioned violence. Joel Hodge argues for an understanding of Christian faith as a relational phenomenon that provides personal and collective tools to resist violence. Grounded in the work of mimetic theorist René Girard, Hodge contends that the experience of victimisation in East Timor led to an important identification with Jesus Christ as self-giving victim and formed a distinctive communal and ecclesial solidarity. The Catholic Church opened spaces of resistance and communion that allowed the Timorese to imagine and live beyond the violence and death perpetrated by the Indonesian regime. Presenting the East Timorese stories under occupation and Girard's insights in dialogue, this book offers fresh perspectives on the Christian Church's ecclesiology and mission.

Reflections on War, Diplomacy, Human Rights and Liberalism

Reflections on War, Diplomacy, Human Rights and Liberalism
Author: Adam Hughes Henry
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 276
Release: 2020-12-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1527563251

For most people, the idea that extremist ideologies glorify themselves through warfare, and commit crimes against humanity and genocide, is the natural extension of their moral and philosophical failings. As this volume outlines, liberal democracies such as Australia, and others, also glorify in war and they may also, at various times, engage in, support, or turn a blind eye to crimes against humanity or genocide. However, liberal democracies such as Australia, the US, and the UK, among others, routinely present themselves as arbiters of liberal values, defenders of human rights, and guardians of virtue. This book explores the obvious contradiction between the ideals of liberalism and how liberal democracies ignore, and at times even justify, their failure to uphold the principles they espouse.

Obstacles to Democratization in Southeast Asia

Obstacles to Democratization in Southeast Asia
Author: E. Paul
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 239
Release: 2010-04-09
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0230275265

Paul comprehensively analyzes the meaning of democratization in Southeast Asia's nation-states and how it relates to the development of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN.) In doing so, he questions the viability of ASEAN and its potential to move towards a common market and community.

The Great Big Show

The Great Big Show
Author: Justin Lowe
Publisher: Lulu.com
Total Pages: 421
Release: 2007
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 1847532349

An epic poetic narrative set against the backdrop of East Africa in The Great War by the acclaimed Sydney poet Justin Lowe.

The Kennedy Myth

The Kennedy Myth
Author: James S. Wolfe
Publisher: Author House
Total Pages: 360
Release: 2013-07-29
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 148177848X

In The Kennedy Myth, Jim tells the Kennedy story from John Kennedy’s presidential campaign through Robert Kennedy’s assassination and analyzes it in terms of archaic, historic, and modern types of civil religion. From Robert N. Bellah, Professor of Sociology, Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley, author of Religion in Human Evolution: The assassination of a president has been a deeply traumatic event in American history, perhaps above all in the case of Lincoln. However, much closer to our own time, the assassination of John F. Kennedy shook the nation to its foundations. Such an event opens up levels of meaning that are well below the surface most of the time. Wolfe helps us in this book, which is about Kennedy's life as well as his death, to understand the depth dimension of the nation in which we live.

Mortal Follies

Mortal Follies
Author: Alexis Hall
Publisher: Del Rey
Total Pages: 377
Release: 2023-06-06
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0593497570

A young noblewoman must pair up with an alleged witch to ward off a curse in this irresistible sapphic romance from the bestselling author of Boyfriend Material. “Fresh and delightful . . . All the interpersonal drama of Jane Austen meets all the complex treachery of Greek mythology.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review) It is the year 1814, and life for a young lady of good breeding has many difficulties. There are balls to attend, fashions to follow, marriages to consider, and, of course, the tiny complication of existing in a world swarming with fairy spirits, interfering deities, and actual straight-up sorcerers. Miss Maelys Mitchelmore finds her entry into high society hindered by an irritating curse. It begins innocuously enough with her dress slowly unmaking itself over the course of an evening at a high-profile ball, a scandal she narrowly manages to escape. However, as the curse progresses to more fatal proportions, Miss Mitchelmore must seek out aid, even if that means mixing with undesirable company. And there are few less desirable than Lady Georgiana Landrake—a brooding, alluring young woman sardonically nicknamed “the Duke of Annadale”—who may or may not have murdered her own father and brothers to inherit their fortune. If one is to believe the gossip, she might be some kind of malign enchantress. Then again, a malign enchantress might be exactly what Miss Mitchelmore needs. With the Duke’s help, Miss Mitchelmore delves into a world of angry gods and vindictive magic, keen to unmask the perpetrator of these otherworldly attacks. But Miss Mitchelmore’s reputation is not the only thing at risk in spending time with her new ally. For the reputed witch has her own secrets that may prove dangerous to Miss Mitchelmore’s heart—not to mention her life.

Violence after War

Violence after War
Author: Michael J. Boyle
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 448
Release: 2014-04-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1421412586

Developing a better understanding of the dynamics of violence in post-war states can lead to a more durable peace. The end of one war is frequently the beginning of another because the cessation of conflict produces two new challenges: a contest between the winners and losers over the terms of peace, and a battle within the winning party over the spoils of war. As the victors and the vanquished struggle to establish a new political order, incidents of low-level violence frequently occur and can escalate into an unstable peace or renewed conflict. Michael J. Boyle evaluates the dynamics of post-conflict violence and their consequences in Violence after War. In this systematic comparative study, Boyle analyzes a cross-national dataset of violent acts from 52 post-conflict states and examines, in depth, violence patterns from five recent post-conflict states: Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo, East Timor, and Iraq. In each of the case studies, Boyle traces multiple pathways through which violence emerges in post-conflict states and highlights how the fragmentation of combatants, especially rebel groups, produces unexpected and sometimes surprising shifts in the nature, type, and targets of attack. His case studies are based on unpublished data on violent crime, including some from fieldwork in Kosovo, East Timor, and Bosnia, and a thorough review of narrative and witness accounts of the attacks. The case study of Iraq comes from data that Boyle obtained directly from U.S. Central Command, published here for the first time. Violence after War will be essential reading for all those interested in political violence, peacekeeping, and post-conflict reconstruction.

Overcoming Obstacles to Peace

Overcoming Obstacles to Peace
Author: James Dobbins
Publisher: Rand Corporation
Total Pages: 349
Release: 2013
Genre: History
ISBN: 0833078631

"This volume analyzes the impediments that local conditions pose to successful outcomes of nation-building interventions in conflict-affected areas. Previous RAND studies of nation-building focused on external interveners' activities. This volume shifts the focus to internal circumstances, first identifying the conditions that gave rise to conflicts or threatened to perpetuate them, and then determining how external and local actors were able to modify or work around them to promote enduring peace. It examines in depth six varied societies: Cambodia, El Salvador, Bosnia and Herzegovina, East Timor, Sierra Leone, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It then analyzes a larger set of 20 major post-Cold War nation-building interventions. The authors assess the risk of renewed conflict at the onset of the interventions and subsequent progress along five dimensions: security, democratization, government effectiveness, economic growth, and human development. They find that transformation of many of the specific conditions that gave rise to or fueled conflict often is not feasible in the time frame of nation-building operations but that such transformation has not proven essential to achieving the primary goal of nation-building -- establishing peace. Most interventions in the past 25 years have led to enduring peace, as well as some degree of improvement in the other dimensions assessed. The findings suggest the importance of setting realistic expectations -- neither expecting nation-building operations to quickly lift countries out of poverty and create liberal democracies, nor being swayed by a negative stereotype of nation-building that does not recognize its signal achievements in the great majority of cases."--Page 4 of cover.

Human Rights in Twentieth-Century Australia

Human Rights in Twentieth-Century Australia
Author: Jon Piccini
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 221
Release: 2019-10-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 110847277X

Human rights in Australia have a contested and controversial history, the nature of which informs popular debates to this day.