Engineering confederalism for Iraq

This article examines Iraqi political developments in the last few years. It argues that unless a constitutional mechanism for proper dispersal of political powers across Iraq's regions and branches of its government is developed quickly, it may become too late for defeating Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, stemming the sectarian and ethnic conflicts, overcoming its perpetual crises of governance or for keeping Iraq united. We suggest that a confederal structure is a better and lasting political solution for Iraq than federal or other structural configurations. We also argue that power-sharing and consensus must be intertwined directly into the constitutional fabric of the political structure.     

2009年世界民族问题热点回眸及原因与特点分析

回眸已成为历史的2009年,世界政坛波谲云诡,金融海啸继续冲击着各国经济,在此影响之下,世界民族问题热点不断.巴以之间再起战火,奥巴马新政府的战略给伊拉克局势、伊朗核问题、阿富汗和巴基斯坦局势带来新的动向,印巴关系出现新走向,南奥塞梯问题、苏丹达尔富尔和平进程、泰同南部暴力活动、塞浦路斯希土两族等问题成为2009年世界民族问题的热点.世界民族问题在多种因素的影响下涌现出新的热点和特点,值得我们对此倍加关注、认真思考、缜密分析,进而在汲取经验教训的基础上采取相应对策,为构建和谐世界尽责尽力.     

De-politicization of the partisan forces in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq

ABSTRACT

The paper explores possible means to achieve reform in the highly politicized security sector of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq. We maintain that the de-politicization of the KRG’s security forces is crucial for the future stability and prosperity of an independent Kurdish state. One option is to accomplish reform as part of a unified, state-building process supported by an outside actor, specifically the United States. Alternatively, the KRG would preserve the existing, de-facto division between the ‘KDP dominated zone’ controlled by Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and a ‘PUK dominated zone’ controlled by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Gorran Movement. The two zones would agree to a federal arrangement, working together to gradually develop shared policies on issues of national security, economic development, and foreign policy, while maintaining autonomy over local issues. Our article seeks to situate the KRG case study within the literatures of post-conflict environments, state building, and state security reform (SSR). The approaches we have suggested here for the depolitization of KRG security forces will be relevant for the foreseeable future if KRG continues to be a part of federal Iraq or becomes an independent state.     

The problem of Iraqi nationalism

This article analyses the development of a tenuous Iraqi national identity since the creation of the Iraqi state in 1920. Informed by the ideas of Anthony D. Smith, Benedict Anderson and Eric Hobsbawm, it argues that various political actors in Iraq have sought to reshape historical memory and thus forge a national identity. Despite many setbacks and a long series of authoritarian regimes seeking to appropriate Iraqiness for their own political purposes, and recently the threat from Kurdish irredentism, this article nevertheless contends that an Iraqi cultural ‘ethnicity’ has been created over the past nine decades.     

Mysticism,Migration and Clerical Networks: Ahmad al-Ahsaʾi and the Shaykhis of al-Ahsa,Kuwait and Basra

Ahmad al-Ahsa?i (1753–1826), the spiritual father of the mystical strand of Twelver Shiism, known as the Shaykhiyya, became an important religious figure in Iraq and Iran. But the Shaykhiyya also spread in his birthplace in Eastern Arabia and among migrants from al-Ahsa in Kuwait and Basra. The quietist and apolitical teachings of al-Ahsa?i suited the Shia in Eastern Arabia, who periodically suffered from political insecurity and religious persecution. Several scholars from al-Ahsa studied with al-Ahsa?i and with his successor as leader of the Shaykhiyya, Kazim al-Rashti. Thereafter, they returned to al-Ahsa or moved to Kuwait and Basra and set up hawzas to spread Shaykhi teachings. In the early twentieth century, the Shaykhis of al-Ahsa developed closer ties with the al-Usku?i, a family of maraji? of the Tabrizi School of the Shaykhiyya. The al-Usku?i also resided in al-Ahsa and Kuwait throughout the twentieth century. The Shaykhis of Basra, on the other hand, became followers of the rival Kermani School. In both Basra and Kuwait, migrants from al-Ahsa retained strong group identities because their common geographical origin was coupled with the Shaykhiyya.     

How political migrants' networks differ from those of economic migrants: ‘strategic anonymity’ among Iraqi refugees in Jordan

The study of migrant networks has led scholars to believe that political migrants, including refugees and asylum seekers, utilise social networks in similar ways to economic migrants. This assumption is based on empirical investigations of South–North migration in which the Western receiving context is held constant. I argue that the utility of social networks is influenced by the reason for displacement and regional geopolitical frameworks. Like economic migrants, political migrants believe that they would benefit from networks; however, some political migrants must exercise caution in the face of potentially harmful new relationships in receiving countries. These political migrants practise strategic anonymity to navigate social networks. This refers to proactive acts of withholding personal information to maintain security for oneself and one's family. I rely on 30 interviews conducted between 2009 and 2010 with Iraqi refugees in Jordan displaced after the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.     

Women and Jihad: Combating Violent Extremism and Developing New Approaches to Conflict Resolution in the Greater Middle East

The subject of female participation in combative jihad has proved to be contentious in Islam. Whilst some extremist Islamist groups, such as the so-called Islamic State (IS), have advocated women’s direct engagement in fighting in defense of Islam, others, for example Al Qaeda, have endorsed only a supporting role for women, primarily for the purpose of producing the next generation of jihadis. Whatever the validity of this debate, most radical jihadi groups have deployed women for combative operations, including suicide bombings. This has been more in the Middle East, where a resolution of several conflicts requires a comprehensive political strategy as against a predominantly military approach. This article has three objectives. The first is to provide some clarification about combative jihad in conceptual terms. The second is to focus on IS and its underlying appeal to a range of foreign Muslim male and female enthusiasts and several other like-minded entities who have gone to Iraq and to Syria to serve IS for convictive or deceptive reasons. The third is to see what distinguishes IS from other extremist groups which are operational in various parts of the Muslim domain, and to harness some ideas about how to deal with violent Muslim extremism in the Greater Middle East.     

Muslims as Victims of Security Dilemma in the West

Islam is the second largest religion after Christianity in the world, and Muslims are the fastest-growing ethnocultural minority communities in the Western world. However, Muslims, especially living in Western countries, have increasingly become the victim of a contemporary form of racism and xenophobia—that is Islamophobia. Survey reports conducted across Western nations have underlined the fact that a significant number of respondents are critical of the Muslim minority community and that this negative trend poses a challenge for these Muslim minorities’ ethnocultural freedom and equality. Today, mainstream Muslims in the West are victims of both Islamic State of Iraq and Syria-like terrorism and Islamophobics. Within this context, this study analyses the causal relationship between the West’s sense of insecurity and Islamophobia through the lens of the realist concept of security dilemma using a qualitative approach.     

Finding your way into employment against all odds? Successful job search of refugees in Austria

Labour market entry poses enormous challenges for recently arrived refugees, ranging from language barriers, devaluation of human capital, unfamiliarity with customs of the job search process to outright discrimination. How can refugees overcome these challenges and quickly enter gainful employment? In this paper, we draw on interviews with 26 male and female refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran, conducted in 2017 and 2018, who came to Austria in 2015 and 2014 and who have successfully entered employment. We depict refugees’ own perspectives on and strategies for fast job entry and integration. Personal agency and a proactive approach of seeking and seizing opportunities are key for overcoming initial barriers and entering upon positive integration pathways. At the same time, refugees’ personal agency is essential for establishing social ties to the host society, which also play a crucial role in early labour market integration. Finally, institutions of the Austrian labour market (the ‘apprenticeship’-system) interact with refugees’ agency in most intricate ways, both setting up nearly insurmountable barriers but also providing specific opportunities for refugees.     

Releasing the “Terror Genie”: Man Haron Monis and the “Sydney Siege”

The threat of “Islamic terrorism” has become a feature of the Australian political landscape. This has taken the form of unconfirmed suggestions of promised beheadings by groups, the threat of lone-wolf attacks, and the radicalisation of Islamic youths fighting in Syria and Iraq. This paper argues that the Islamic terror genie has been used to effectively transform the Australian political landscape through a series of plotted suggestions. The excuse for such policy excludes the necessity for evidence in a public forum. Law and order issues that involve Muslim figures who so happen to embrace, erroneously, an Islamic stance, end up being swept up in this current. The Man Haron Monis hostage case (or the “Sydney Siege”) provided a classic example of this problem, illustrating the misunderstandings, deceptions and delusions that have come to characterise the response of Australia’s security and media establishment.     

Big fat Assyrian/Syriac weddings: rituals and marriage traditions among Middle Eastern Christians in Sweden

ABSTRACT

Weddings can be seen as ‘rites of passage’ and also as ‘symbolic struggles’ since their glamour appears to be a new indicator of status for many families, especially migrant ones. A mixture of traditional as well as reinvented wedding customs serves a community searching for ethnic identity markers that can help it to embrace all of its descendants. This article presents a case study of how Assyrian/Syriac wedding rituals and marriage traditions that are being performed and transformed in the migratory context of Sweden over the last 50 years. Among the Middle Eastern Christians, who have been emigrating from Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq since the 1960s, and which today numbers 120,000 individuals, marriage is a very serious business – a permanent union between spouses and their respective families. The purpose of the article is to analyse Assyrian/Syriac wedding rituals and to discuss how they have shaped the modern Assyrian/Syriac identity. It also explores how local marriages connect and reconnect migrants of this ethno-religious group(s) and how it differentiates them from their peers in the surrounding Swedish society – religiously, socially and even aesthetically.     

Fetishised liberty,the fear of the other and the global juridical rule in Iraq

The US-led military invasion of Iraq in March 2003 was a further development in the global economy of violence which has progressively not only made Iraqis redundant as national-political subjects but has also stripped them of civility, without which no form of power can become legitimate, and turned them into a 'disposable population'. The projection of global disorder onto Iraqi national borders made the country a testing ground for the USA to establish its sovereignty in the global space that had become 'paranoid' in post-11 September 2001. The promotion of democracy and freedom, the ethical companions of this imperial expansion, was a global transposition of the national role assumed by the liberal state as the agent that constitutes free people. Thus, the Truth of the liberal state as the giver of liberty was deployed by the imperial power as the agent destined to turn the Truth into the Goal (Telos) of history, of which everyone, Iraqis or otherwise, becomes a subject at the expense of being a historical subject -- acting in history. Far from expanding, however, a democratic politics in which power and right are kept apart through recourse to the notion of legality, the military invasion was a juridical exercise of power in which right becomes the right of the ruler to rule. Without politics and a hegemonic construction of the universal mediated by association of citizens the fear of the Other remained uncivilised. While the global ruler has perpetuated and normalised this fear through recourse to the notion of 'just war' the Iraqi 'surrogates' for popular intervention have launched with a deadly consequence their own version of this notion.     

我国高校办学自主权研究的历史、现状与问题

我国关于高校办学自主权问题的研究从1979年开始,二十多年来这方面研究的专著很少,论文大多集中在大学与政府的关系方面。总的说来,从西方大学自治演变方面研究的多,从中国的文化渊源和社会背景方面研究的少;从宏观角度研究的多,从微观角度分析的少;理论思辨的文章多,实证的调查研究报告少。因此,我们需要从政治学、法学、社会学、经济学和管理学等多学科视角研究高校办学的自主权问题。     

作为人类学的藏学研究——人类学(民族学)的藏族及周边民族研究述略

人类学(民族学)的藏族及周边民族研究是一种研究视角或研究方法,是采取人类学的视角对藏族及周边民族社会进行的研究。本文对当前国内藏学研究机构及研究方向做了简要的综述,并就当前人类学(民族学)对藏族及周边民族社会研究的几个热点进行了评述,阐述了这一研究在藏学领域中的重要性和面临的机遇、挑战。     

英藏敦煌古藏文文献述要

本文对英藏敦煌古藏文文献的收藏、整理及研究情况作了介绍。在总结前人研究成果的同时,对今后应该加强的研究方向提出了自己的看法。     

滇藏缅印交角区泰-傣诸族群的迁徙流动及族际关系研究述论

关于泰-傣诸族群的问题,国内外学者已有了百余年的研究,主要侧重于环东南沿海直至与云南、东南亚相连接区域,且国别区隔明显。对于滇藏缅印交角地区泰-傣诸族群的研究,尚未得见系统、整体性的成果面世。本文拟围绕涉及该交角区泰-傣诸族群的族源、迁徙流动及族际关系等三个方面的零散研究进行梳理并加以评述,以期从整体联动性的视野对泰-傣诸族群在滇藏缅印交角区的研究空间做进一步深入拓展,同时,针对后续研究提出建议：族源问题有待进一步廓清;以地缘政治及文明交汇区域为整体历史背景的长时段探究有待开启;相关文献资料的搜集、翻译和整理有待深化;小尺度地域空间的微观研究有待推进;开展多学科交叉的综合研究。     

对国内国际移民理论研究的反思——以“蒙”苗人为例

中国的苗族被分为三到四个族群,他们所讲的语言相互不通,而且在当前来看他们在文化上几乎没有共同之处。这些族群中的一支自称为“蒙”（Hmong）。在过去200年里,“蒙”苗从广西和云南不断移入越南和缅甸,然后进入老挝和泰国,并在那里的山地建起了小村寨。整个过程里他们与来自云南的回族和汉族保持着贸易关系。本文作者于1981至1982年在泰国北部做田野考察时,老人们仍然会讲汉语云南方言,而现在的他们已经忘记了汉语,只会讲他们自己的“蒙”语以及他们当前居住国的主要语言,如泰语、老挝语或者越南语。     

藏族农牧民人权享有的人类学和民族法学探析

藏族农牧民是人权享有的主体,除了反映藏族人权状况的宏观研究外,还应选择对藏族农牧民人权享有的微观进行实证研究,以补充宏观研究之不足。由于微观研究的对象是以村落为代表的藏族小规模社会,所以适用于人类学和民族法学的理论与方法,以此证明藏族农牧民人权享有的真实性特征。     

1986～2005年土族、撒拉族研究文献统计分析

本文从全球最大的中文期刊全文数据库《中国期刊全文数据库》和中国国家图书馆图书"中文及特藏数据库"中,收集1986～2005年间有关"土族"和"撒拉族"研究的文献,进行研究主题、主要发文期刊、核心作者和研究机构四方面统计分析,试以文献资源为依据来看我国近二十年来的"土族"和"撒拉族"研究。