Mikhail
Gorbachev
A sense of national identity
The need to
define
US identity in danger
Kosovo in search for identity
South African identity to be promoted
Wales and St David’s Day
Britain's splitting headache
Singapore's mosaic
Uganda, teaching in vernacular
So this State won’t wither
American? Maybe. But not `United States-ian'
Genocide; is it a question of national identity?
Headscarves Decide National Identity
Keeping up with the future
See also
US identity in danger
Kosovo in search for identity
South African identity to be promoted
Wales and St David’s Day
Britain's splitting headache
Singapore's mosaic
Uganda, teaching in vernacular
So this State won’t wither
American? Maybe. But not `United States-ian'
Genocide; is it a question of national identity?
Headscarves Decide National Identity
Keeping up with the future
See also
By Janet Daley 18/02/2008
British national identity is becoming more and
more like the weather:
everybody talks about it but nobody can do anything about it. And come
to think of it, it is especially like British weather: so tepid most of
the time that it is difficult to describe. This is not necessarily a problem: having a sense of your own country's character as a vague, largely invisible thing which hums away quietly in the background. Until, of course, the woolly, taken-for-granted conception is challenged by an internal threat which makes use of precisely that amorphous lack of definition to create malignant - potentially lethal - social divisions.
And that is where we find ourselves. Last week's report from the Royal United Service Institute went so far as to say that Britain's lack of clear conviction over the value of its identity and political culture had left it a "soft target" for terrorism - which is not the same thing as being soft on terrorism, as some sections of the media concluded.
The British security services are among the few national agencies not lacking a clear set of objectives. They are not soft on terrorism.
The real argument of the RUSI study was that Britain was leaving itself open to the recruitment of Islamist terrorists by its failure to instil a confident, graspable sense of what this nation believes and stands for, and of what exactly it means to belong here.
In fact, the defence experts said - as have so many others that by now the statement has become almost platitudinous - that the philosophy of multiculturalism and the diversity which it has consciously encouraged have helped to fragment society.
So officially, everybody is pedalling furiously away from multiculturalism. Not only government ministers and opposition leaders but even figures such as Trevor Phillips of the Equality and Human Rights Commission have proclaimed the need to dismantle it.
But somehow all of this opprobrium does not filter down to the classroom or to public sector agencies (such as the BBC, local government bureaucracies and the NHS), which are still explicitly committed to "diversity programmes" that positively encourage the continuing separateness of ethnic communities.
It would be easy to see this as simply an accident, a kind of absent-minded philosophy creep in which the original good intentions just got out of hand, as things so often do when they are administered by bureaucrats. So deeply entrenched - and so embedded in the employment practices of the public sector - was the idea of "tolerating differences" that nobody noticed for the longest time that it had slipped over into "encouraging differences".
If that were the case, this would be a relatively easy problem to solve: a few stern ministerial guidelines and departmental directives ("URGENT: the word 'diversity' to be replaced by 'unity' in all official policy pronouncements") could, over a period of a year or two, turn the situation round.
But everybody recognises that it is not that simple. Which is to say that everybody knows that we have a far more profound dilemma: Britain does not have a unified, coherent, identifiable self-image, either as a people or as a political entity, which it can offer to incomers as an inspiration and a ready-made value system.
There is a reason why all the attempts to define Britishness seem to end in fatuity: not only because they dribble off into nebulous virtues such as tolerance and decency, which should be common to all civilised people, but because the British opinion-forming classes tend to find the whole concept of national identity either sinister or risible.
And it is perfectly plausible to see this as a virtue: a strong, cohesive sense of national loyalty certainly can transmogrify into blood-and-soil nationalism of a horrifying kind, and the ironic distance which the British maintain from even their most important historical institutions has the unmistakeable ring of grown-up wit.
Even in my more sentimental American-expatriate moments, I can see why, to most British eyes, flag-waving US patriotism seems childlike and naïve. In many respects, the American model is peculiarly unhelpful, even though it is the one to which Gordon Brown and now Jack Straw cleave as they desperately seek a way out of the crisis that their own party's policies have created.
Mr Straw hinted only last week that perhaps the written constitution idea was the way out of our mess since it seemed to be so successful in the US at implanting what he called an "enviable notion of civic duty". Indeed it does. But that is there, and we are here.
Americans are unlike almost all other peoples of the world in that they all either are themselves, or are descended from, people who went to the country as an act of will (apart from those who were taken there against their will whose descendants, unsurprisingly, have had more difficulty in assimilating than almost all later migrant groups).
This makes them ideal subjects for the great 18th-century Enlightenment experiment: a newly invented country with a carefully devised written constitution and a self-conscious assumption of an identity that was defined in deliberate rebellion against an old aristocratic order.
To settle in the US is, in effect, to sign the "social contract" that the founding fathers envisaged: accept the rules and the principles on which this country is established and you can belong here. That's the deal that is spelt out very clearly to every prospective citizen and, for the most part, it works. Older nations that chose to redefine themselves by overthrowing their history - such as France, where the revolution turned into the Terror - have had less happy results.
Britain is particularly ill-suited to adopting the apparatus of a revolutionary republic. You know what a Brown-Straw (not to say Cameron) written constitution would look like, don't you? A list of bland aspirations with a presumptuous and irritating "Bill of Rights" attached.
Britain's historical identity has been produced by accretion, subtle accommodation and fudge: to define it is impossible because it has had no consistent conscious intent. Which is fine, because we don't need to define ourselves, we just need to stop hating ourselves.
What is at the heart of the aggressive form of "multiculturalism", as most ordinary people suspect, is not tolerance but self-loathing: the deprecation of our own culture and history that elevates almost anybody else's values above our own. It is not the indoctrination of some mystical sense of Britishness that is required but a restoration of the quiet pride and conviction that used to enable Britons to maintain the highest standards of civil behaviour in the world.
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By Amy Chua 17 02 2008
U.S.
immigration policy must be tolerant, but tough
The greatest empire in history, ancient Rome, collapsed when its cultural and political glue dissolved.
If you don’t speak Spanish, Miami really can feel like a foreign country. In any restaurant, the conversation at the next table is more likely to be Spanish than English. And Miami’s population is only 65 percent Hispanic. El Paso, Texas, is 76 percent Latino. Flushing is 60 percent immigrant, mainly Chinese.
Chinatowns and Little Italys have long been part of America’s urban landscape, but would it be all right to have entire U.S. cities where most people spoke and did business in Chinese, Spanish or even Arabic? Are too many Third World, non-English-speaking immigrants destroying our national identity?
For some Americans, even asking such questions is racist. At the other end of the spectrum, conservative talk show host Bill O’Reilly fulminates against floods of immigrants who threaten to change America’s “complexion” and replace what he calls the “white Christian male power structure.”
But for the large majority in between, Democrats and Republicans alike, these questions are painful, and there are no easy answers. At some level, most of us cherish our legacy as a nation of immigrants. But are all immigrants really equally likely to make good Americans? Are we, as Samuel Huntington warns, in danger of losing our core values and devolving “into a loose confederation of ethnic, racial, cultural and political groups, with little or nothing in common apart from their location in the territory of what had been the United States of America”?
My parents arrived in the United States in 1961, so poor that they couldn’t afford heat their first winter. I grew up speaking only Chinese at home. For every English word accidentally uttered, my sister and I got one whack of the chopsticks. Today, my father is a professor at Berkeley, and I’m a professor at Yale Law School. As the daughter of immigrants, a grateful beneficiary of America’s tolerance and opportunity, I could not be more pro-immigrant.
Nevertheless, I think Huntington has a point. Around the world today, nations face violence and instability as a result of their increasing pluralism and diversity. Across Europe, immigration has resulted in unassimilated, largely Muslim enclaves that are hotbeds of unrest and even terrorism. The riots in France last month were just the latest manifestation. With Muslims poised to become a majority in Amsterdam and elsewhere within a decade, major West European cities could undergo a profound transformation. Not surprisingly, virulent anti-immigration parties are on the rise.
Not long ago, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union disintegrated when their national identities proved too weak to bind together diverse peoples. Iraq is the latest example of how crucial national identity is. So far, it has found no overarching identity strong enough to unite its Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis.
The United States is in no danger of imminent disintegration. But this is because it has been so successful, at least since the Civil War, in forging a national identity strong enough to hold together its widely divergent communities. We should not take this unifying identity for granted.
The greatest empire in history, ancient Rome, collapsed when its cultural and political glue dissolved, and people who had long thought of themselves as Romans turned against the empire. In part, this fragmentation occurred because of a massive influx of immigrants from a very different culture. The “barbarians” who sacked Rome were Germanic immigrants who never fully assimilated.
Does this mean that it’s time for the United States to shut its borders and reassert its “white, Christian” identity and what Huntington calls its Anglo- Saxon, Protestant “core values”?
No. The anti-immigration camp makes at least two critical mistakes.
First, it neglects the indispensable role that immigrants have played in building American wealth and power. In the 19th century, the United States never would have become an industrial and agricultural powerhouse without the millions of poor Irish, Polish, Italian and other newcomers who mined coal, laid rail and milled steel. European immigrants led the United States to win the race for the atomic bomb. Today, American leadership in the Digital Revolution — so central to our military and economic pre-eminence — owes an enormous debt to immigrant contributions. Andrew Grove (co-founder of Intel), Vinod Khosla (Sun Microsystems) and Sergey Brin (Google) are immigrants. Between 1995 and 2005, 52.4 percent of Silicon Valley start-ups had one key immigrant founder. And Vikram S. Pundit’s appointment to the helm of CitiGroup means that 14 CEOs of Fortune 100 companies are foreign-born.
The United States is in a fierce global competition to attract the world’s best high-tech scientists and engineers — most of whom are not white Christians. Just this past summer, Microsoft opened a large new software development center in Canada, in part because of the difficulty of obtaining U.S. visas for foreign engineers.
Second, anti-immigration talking heads forget that their own scapegoating vitriol will, if anything, drive immigrants farther from the U.S. mainstream. One reason we don’t have Europe’s enclaves is our unique success in forging an ethnically and religiously neutral national identity, uniting individuals of all backgrounds. This is America’s glue, and people like Huntington and O’Reilly unwittingly imperil it.
Nevertheless, immigration naysayers also have a point. America’s glue can be subverted by too much tolerance. Immigration advocates are too often guilty of an uncritical political correctness that avoids hard questions about national identity and imposes no obligations on immigrants. For these well-meaning idealists, there is no such thing as too much diversity.
The right thing for the United States to do — and the best way to keep Americans in favor of immigration — is to take national identity seriously while maintaining our heritage as a land of opportunity. U.S. immigration policy should be tolerant but also tough. Here are five suggestions:
1.) Overhaul admission priorities. Since 1965, the chief admission criterion has been family reunification. This was a welcome replacement for the ethnically discriminatory quota system that preceded it. But once the brothers and sisters of a current U.S. resident get in, they can sponsor their own extended families. In 2006, more than 800,000 immigrants were admitted on this basis. By contrast, only about 70,000 immigrants were admitted on the basis of employment skills, with an additional 65,000 temporary visas granted to highly skilled workers.
This is backward. Apart from nuclear families (spouse, minor children, possibly parents), the special preference for family members should be drastically reduced. As soon as my father got citizenship, his relatives in the Philippines asked him to sponsor them. Soon, his mother, brother, sister and sister-in-law were also U.S. citizens or permanent residents. This was nice for my family, but frankly there is nothing especially fair about it.
Instead, the immigration system should reward ability and be keyed to the country’s labor needs, skilled or unskilled, technological or agricultural. In particular, we should significantly increase the number of visas for highly skilled workers, putting them on a fast track for citizenship.
2.) Make English the official national language. A common language is critical to cohesion and national identity in an ethnically diverse society. Americans of all backgrounds should be encouraged to speak more languages. I’ve forced my own daughters to learn Mandarin (minus the threat of chopsticks) — but offering Spanish-language public education to Spanish-speaking children is the wrong kind of indulgence. “Native language education” should be overhauled, and more stringent English proficiency requirements for citizenship should be set up.
3.) Immigrants must embrace the nation’s civic virtues. It took my parents years to see the importance of participating in the larger community. When I was in third grade, my mother signed me up for Girl Scouts. I think she liked the uniforms and merit badges, but when I told her that I was picking up trash and visiting soup kitchens, she was horrified.
For many immigrants, only family matters. Even when immigrants get involved in politics, they often focus on protecting their own and protesting discrimination. That they can do so is one of the great virtues of U.S. democracy. But a mind-set based solely on taking care of your own factionalizes our society. Like all Americans, immigrants have a responsibility to contribute to the social fabric.
It’s up to each immigrant community to fight off an “enclave” mentality and give back to their new country. It’s not healthy for Chinese to hire only Chinese, or Koreans only Koreans. By contrast, the free health clinic set up by Muslim Americans in Los Angeles — serving the entire poor community — is a model to emulate. Immigrants are integrated at the moment they realize that their success is intertwined with everyone else’s.
4.) Enforce the law. Illegal immigration, along with terrorism, is the chief cause of today’s anti-immigration backlash. It is also inconsistent with the rule of law, which, as any immigrant from a developing country will tell you, is a critical aspect of U.S. national identity. But if we’re serious about this problem, we need to enforce the law against not only illegal aliens, but also against those who hire them.
It’s the worst of all worlds to allow U.S. employers who hire illegal aliens — thus keeping the flow of illegals coming — to break the law while demonizing the aliens as lawbreakers. An Arizona law that took effect on Jan. 1 tightens the screws on employers who hire undocumented workers, but this issue can’t be left up to a single state.
5.) Make the United States an equal-opportunity immigration magnet. That the 11 million to 20 million illegal immigrants are 80 percent Mexican and Central American is itself a problem. This is emphatically not for the reason Huntington gives — that Hispanics supposedly don’t share America’s core values. But if the U.S. immigration system is to reflect and further our ethnically neutral identity, it must itself be ethnically neutral, offering equal opportunity to Sudanese, Estonians, Burmese and so on. The starkly disproportionate ratio of Latinos is inconsistent with this principle.
Immigrants who turn their backs on American values don’t deserve to be here. But those of us who turn our backs on immigrants misunderstand the secret of America’s success and what it means to be American.
Amy Chua, a professor at Yale School of Law, is the author of “Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance — And Why They Fall.”
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Julian Borger Feb 18 2008
The
Kosovan government must find a way to resolve bitter inter-ethnic
tensions
Kosovo is waking up from its 24-hour independence party this morning with an almighty hangover, a lot of problems and no one else left to blame for them.
The government in Pristina will have to try to forge a nation out of the poor Balkan backwater, in the face of determined resistance of a sizable minority.
There will be a lot of practical problems – dealing with an unemployment rate of over 40%, infrastructure that has been neglected for decades, the hostility of Kosovo's former rulers in Belgrade and their Russian backers, all set against the soaring expectations of the ethnic Albanian majority.
But there is a more fundamental question that has to be answered – what kind of nation will the new Kosovo be. In theory, it is supposed to become a modern multi-ethnic society, but it is in a part of their world where the idea of nation is built on ties of kinship.
"This is the question we are trying to answer," said Migjen Kelmendi, a publisher and broadcaster who has been involved in a long and painstaking effort to construct a new national identity. "Should we be a society of values, or of blood, belonging and biology?"
Kelmendi says that Kosovo's Albanians have grown up looking towards Tirana for a sense of identity. They have adopted the standardised version of the language used in southern Albania, although Kosovars speak the quite different Geg dialect. The Kosovar dream was to one day merge into agreater Albania. That now has to be put aside if the new state wants international support and a peaceful neighbourhood. But it will not be easy.
Work is already under way towards hammering out a new identity on aparade ground in Pristina. On a brutally cold morning, a group of young military cadets goes through its paces on a concrete drill field. As dense clouds of jackdaws swoop and wheel above them, they run in perfect formation chanting their determination to defend the new-born nation.
"Bullets don't scare us," they shout. "A just war makes us even braver." The instructors trained for four years in South Carolina, they teach US-style military doctrine and the young trainees all speak English with the same well-disciplined optimism.
"There is no discrimination in our army," said Kadri Berisha, a 24-year-old who was a refugee in Doncaster during the 1998-99 war. "We are looking to the future. Our history is behind us."
Now, instead of saluting the blood-red Albanian banner emblazoned with a black double-headed eagle, they look up at unfamiliar colours. Kosovo's new blue flag, with the country's map in gold and six white stars denoting its main ethnic components, is designed deliberately to look like the EU, UN and Nato colours – a reflection of Kosovo's aspirations.
But history in this part of the world is not shrugged off so easily. The new flag are supposed to be ethnically inclusive, but on the drill field at least, there are no Serbs to salute it. "We tried to recruit Serbs. We went into the high schools to talk to them, but there was no interest," Captain Berat Shala, one of the instructors, said.
The new model army will embody many of the strengths and weaknesses of an independent Kosovo. It will be heavily supported and intensively monitored by the EU and the US to ensure that it sticks to its UN-designed democratic, multi-ethnic blueprint. But it has so far failed to draw meaningful participation from an angry and fearful Serb minority of roughly 120,000. Nor is it clear whether the Albanian majority is willing to give more than lip service to the ideals of the brand new nation.
Fadil Hysaj, a playwright who headed the commission that chose the new flag, admitted he was anxious about the public reaction. "Politically, the new flag is right, but it really doesn't have the emotional effect that a flag should have," Hysaj said. "Removing the eagle, for most Albanians, will be like a surgical operation."
For Albanian nationalists such as Albin Kurti, a former student leader who led a campaign against UN supervision, the new nation has bargained away its soul even before its creation. "A flag should have a history. I don't think people will identify with these ad-hoc flags," Kurti said. He is similarly dismissive of the new constitution, which is packed with safeguards for the Serb minority and the enclaves in which they live. "We're going to have a Serb entity, just like Bosnia," he warned.
If that separate entity does emerge, its centre of gravity will be in the north, along the border with the rest of Serbia and around the divided city of Mitrovica. There, Serb refusal to acknowledge the new state constantly threatens to lead to violence and, with Belgrade's encouragement, could bring about de facto partition. Nato has sent troops to the north to counter the threat, but it will be hard for them to tackle passive resistance.
More than half the Serb population lives south of Mitrovica, scattered in smaller enclaves some of which could be just as big a headache for the Pristina government and its international backers.
In the Lipjan area, near the centre of Kosovo, 10,000 Serbs live uneasily alongside a similar number of Albanians. The local municipality is, in theory, the sort of multi-ethnic paradigm the new country is meant to be, led by an Albanian mayor and a Serb deputy. The mayor, Shukri Buja, insists that he works hand in glove with the Serbs, and claims they are not bothered by the plethora of war mementoes he keeps in his office from his days as a guerrilla in the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).
Outside his office is a panel of photographs of determined young men, and one woman, carrying weapons and wearing KLA uniform. On closer inspection, however, it is clear that most of the faces have been digitally superimposed onto the soldiers' bodies. In fact six of them have exactly the same body. It is a clear case of myth-making by Photoshop; an attempt to build the future on the blood of martyrs.
Buja shrugs off quibbles about accuracy, pointing out that people did not have time to have their picture taken during the war. And he insists that all the KLA paraphernalia should not put off the Serb minority, despite the fact that the guerrillas carried out terrible reprisal killings after the Nato intervention. "They liberated not just us but the Kosovo Serbs too," Buja said. "I don't think any of this history can hurt integration."
A few steps down the corridor, however, his Serb colleagues told a different story. "We've complained to the deputy mayor, to the UN, to everyone, about all these pictures and things," said Lidija Ivanovic, who is in charge of minority affairs. "We don't want to be constantly reminded of the war."
In inter-communal rioting in March 2004, two Serbs were killed in Lipjan and many Serb houses and shops were set alight. There is widespread fear that the same could happen again. Zivorad Borisavljevic looks after a medieval orthodox church in the Serb district – an illustration of the cultural heritage that makes Kosovo such an emotional issue for the Serbs.
"If everything stays peaceful and no one touches us, and there is no repeat of the 2004 riots, the vast majority of us will stay," he said. But that was as far as he was willing to go. Even with a new flag and new national symbols, he is not ready to offer fealty to a nation built simply on shared territory and lofty ideas.
"I can't imagine ever saying I was a Kosovar," he said. "I will always say I am a Serb."
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Vivian Warby,Cape Town 14
Feb 2008
Efforts to improve social cohesion among all South Africans are being intensified, says Health Minister Manto Tshabala-Msimang.
Addressing a Social cluster briefing in Cape Town on Thursday, the minister said as part of popularisation of national symbols to promote national identity, 1 817 flags have been installed in schools.
She said indigenous music and oral history projects at schools will also promote positive values and national identity among learners.
The draft National Pledge/National Oath at schools has also been completed and national discussions involving communities on the oath will be held as part of promoting the South African national identity.
Minister of Arts and Culture Pallo Jordan said much of the negative sentiment regarding the proposed National Oath or pledge was uninformed.
The part which talks about the past and honouring those who sacrificed their lives for freedom, which has so far received most of the criticism, was a direct quote from the constitution.
"It is odd that people who have embraced the constitution have rejected that part in the oath. Perhaps it is indicative that they do not know what the constitution actually says," he said.
The pledge is set to be said at all schools. Minister Jordan said the question as to what would happen to schools that were non-compliant was something that the Education Department would have to answer.
The National Oath has been met with varying criticisms, and some fear of creating a nationalistic mentality.
The pledge reads as follows:
We the youth of South Africa
Recognising the injustices of our past,
Honour those who suffered and sacrificed for justice and freedom.
We will respect and protect the dignity of each person,
And stand up for justice
We sincerely declare that we shall uphold the rights and values of our Constitution
And promise to act in accordance with the duties and responsibilities
that flow from these rights.
Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika
Other ways to create social cohesion would take the place of nationwide public hearings on the standardisation of geographical name changing.
It is hoped that this will promote an over-arching sense of belonging to South Africa.
The implementation of a social cohesion framework is being intensified to address threats to social cohesion.
Some of the threats are the lack of a common purpose and shared values; and the lack of tolerance and respect for others' rights.
The aim is to create peaceful existence of citizens, free from deprivation, whether in terms of basic needs, human rights or in terms of culture, language and intellectual expression
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by Rhodri Clark, Feb 18
2008
A new law in Scotland could provide a model for St David’s Day to be declared a holiday in Wales.
For at least 15 years the UK Government has rejected requests from Wales for March 1 to be celebrated in Wales in the way St Patrick’s Day is in the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland.
From this year St Andrew’s Day will be an official holiday in Scotland, after the Scottish Parliament passed its own law on the subject.
Scottish employers are not obliged to give staff the day off but have the option of taking St Andrew’s Day instead of another bank holiday during the year.
Scottish ministers are urging businesses to consider giving staff a holiday on St Andrew’s Day.
Keith Evans, leader of Ceredigion County Council, has written to all other council leaders in Wales urging them to support the March 1 holiday campaign.
The idea is not universally supported, however.
John Davies, leader of Pembrokeshire County Council, said, “This matter was discussed at full council last year and unanimously rejected.
“The feeling was that St David’s Day should not be turned into yet another bank holiday but should be kept as a special day in the calendar. It was thought that children especially benefited from being in school on St David’s Day and taking part in all the activities organised to celebrate the occasion.”
The cabinet of Conwy County Borough Council rejected Ceredigion’s call because of the “practicalities in terms of transportation and financial cost, both in the provision of public services and to businesses”.
But on Wednesday the matter will go to the full council after Abdul Khan and two other Conwy councillors said the cabinet failed to consider cost-neutral alternatives and the potential benefits to Conwy.
Mr Khan said yesterday, “We’ve got so many English bank holidays we celebrate yet we’re not allowed to celebrate St David’s Day.
“We’ve had a St David’s Day parade in Colwyn Bay for years. It’s unofficial. I think Welsh people are being deprived of celebrating it.”
Like many other areas of Wales, Conwy has a major tourism and hospitality sector. Mr Khan said the benefits of extra activity in this sector would outweigh costs to business arising from a March 1 holiday.
“We’re rich in culture and history in Wales. That’s what we need to promote,” he said.
Mr Khan, a Muslim, said all people in Wales would wish to celebrate St David.
“He was a man of peace. Islam means peace. The Islamic population of Wales would more than welcome a St David’s Day holiday,” he added.
The One Wales manifesto of the Labour-Plaid Cymru coalition says, “We will continue to support the case for making St David’s Day a bank holiday.”
A WAG spokeswoman said the Assembly would need to approve a Legislative Competence Order which would then be subject to the agreement of the Secretary of State, UK Government and both Houses of Parliament.
“Such legislative competence would not in itself increase the number of bank holidays, which are statutorily a part of the minimum number of guaranteed paid holidays for workers in Wales. That is governed by the Working Time Regulations (as amended) 1998,” she said.
On Friday the Welsh Local Government Association will consider the issue.
A WLGA report says, “The St Andrew’s Day Holiday (Scotland) Bill ... aims to promote St Andrew’s Day on November 30 as a national celebration for Scottish identity and culture.
“It does not oblige employers to change their existing pattern of holidays and it does not add to the total number of designated local holidays.
“It does add a date ... to the schedule of bank holidays in Scotland. This provides the legal framework in which the St Andrew’s Day bank holiday can be substituted for an existing local holiday.
“It also gives employers the discretion to choose St Andrew’s Day as an alternative option.”
One small business said it could not give staff St David’s Day off unless there was an official holiday.
Garmon Gruffudd, of publisher Y Lolfa, said other people and companies would expect business as usual.
“Lots of our workers have children in schools. If it was a bank holiday they would want to be off because the children would be home from school.
“We would have to take whatever holiday was practical for schools.”
St David’s Day referendum
The question of an official holiday on March 1 could be settled by a referendum in Wales, an academic suggested yesterday.
Organisational psychologist Prof Cary Cooper said the holiday would not damage productivity, as long as it had widespread support in Wales.
“It’s about national identity and celebrating it,” said Prof Cooper, of Lancaster University.
“It’s not going to adversely affect anything, except if the majority of people don’t want it. You could do a kind of referendum – do you want a St David’s Day holiday?
“March 1 is a perfect time for a day off.”
Anglesey County Council has given staff St David’s Day off since it was formed in 1996.
Public-relations company Strata Matrix uses St David’s Day to take the staff from its Aberystwyth and Cardiff offices on a day out.
“We get a lot of benefit from it as a company,” said managing director Arwyn Davies.
St David’s Day off ‘no threat’ to school eisteddfodau
Teachers’ representatives dismissed the fear school eisteddfodau would be lost if St David’s Day was a public holiday.
Rhys Williams, of NUT Cymru, said, “Some people say there’s an eisteddfod on St David’s Day, but often now the school eisteddfod is on a day near St David’s Day.
“The school where my wife works had their eisteddfod last week. Because there’s more testing in terms of modules, very often the day St David’s Day falls on is inconvenient for the eisteddfod.
“Celebrating St David’s Day [with a holiday] would be a splendid thing.”
Dilwyn Roberts-Young of Ucac, the union for Welsh-medium teachers, said: “We think schools have a duty to explain St David’s story. That would happen on the days leading up to St David’s Day, as part of the curriculum.”
Ucac felt so strongly that its staff have a holiday on March 1, or Monday, March 3, this year.
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Jacqueline Maley, Feb 3,
2008
Nine days ago, Scottish drawing rooms echoed with the glorious, phlegm-sodden sounds of Robert Burns poems, recited loudly and at length.
Burns Night takes place every year on January 25, the presumed birthday of the adored Scottish poet. A haggis supper is optional, but recitation of Burns' most famous poem, the feisty Address to a Haggis, is not.
In it, he hails the "great chieftain of the pudding race", which is sneered at by the anglicised upper class but keeps the Scot strong: "The trembling earth resounds his tread."
Burns died in 1796, but his patriotic poem has more resonance than ever. Despite last year celebrating 300 years of its union with England, Scotland, along with parts of Wales and Northern Ireland, is restless.
The Scottish National Party, whose goal is Scottish independence, has won government for the first time ever, and there is talk of a referendum on the subject. Wales, which occupies a place in the English heart similar to that of Tasmania in Australia, also has its own independence movement. And despite a recent power-sharing agreement, the voices of nationalism in Northern Ireland are stronger than ever. Which leaves a very lonely England looking vulnerable as the last vestiges of its old empire are threatened.
"The European Union means people are becoming aware of the fact that Europe consists in large part of very small countries," says Alasdair Allan, a Scottish National Party MP in the Scottish Parliament.
"Scotland is an ancient country, with the institutions of an independent one. People are beginning to ask, 'Why are we not a properly independent country?"'
Since 1999, Scotland has had its own parliament, with dominion over education, health care, police and justice but, crucially, no revenue-raising or foreign policy powers.
Traditionally, Labour has enjoyed strong support north of Hadrian's Wall, but its supremacy was overturned last year when the SNP won minority government (with 47 seats out of 129, compared with 46 for Labour) in the Scottish elections. The shock was felt in Westminster, where the Labour Prime Minister is a proud (and famously dour) Scot.
The SNP win sent a strong message to England that the union of the two countries, which has existed since the Act of Union was signed in 1707, may not be the strongest of marriages. Since then, there has been talk of divorce.
The change in government was partly a reaction against what many Scots saw as the arrogance of the London-centric British Labour Party. According to stereotype, Scots are brave-hearted warriors, but the decision of Tony Blair's government to take Britain to war was enormously unpopular in Scotland.
As the Scottish First Minister, the head of Scottish government, Alex Salmond put it: "(Blair) managed to illustrate why it's probably a good idea to decide whether your troops should go off to war — because if you don't, some other idiot will."
The Iraq war coincided with a resurgence in the sense of Scottish identity, Allan says, and it's not all kilts and whisky-soaked Highland flings.
According to Professor David McCrone, co-director of the Institute of Governance at the University of Edinburgh, Scottish national pride has evolved.
"Britishness has withered away," he says. "It's not like we have some sort of rabid ethnic 'we-hate-England' nationalism, but people take pride in being open to immigrants in Scotland. In England, they worry about keeping them out, whereas we seek to attract immigrants.
"About 2% of the population is non-white. They are mostly Pakistani immigrants. According to our research, they call themselves Pakistani Scots or Muslim Scots. You find Sikhs wearing kilts and all sorts of things."
Thirty years ago, 65% of people in Scotland called themselves "Scottish". By 2005, this figure had leapt to 76%. In England, 41% of people declare themselves "very proud of being British" but only 23% of Scots feel the same way.
"Virtually nobody would describe themselves as more British than Scottish now," Allan believes. "One of the factors is the disappearance of one of the main bulwarks of Britain, which is empire.
"When it entered the union in 1707, Scotland became part of an empire with merchants and colonial governors, missionaries and soldiers and all of that. That doesn't exist any more."
As is often the case with marriages that have soured, there are also fights about money. In the past few months, there has been feisty public debate about the fact that public spending is higher per capita in Scotland than in the rest of Britain.
In the minds of some English, the miserly Scots are living large off the munificence of England's wealthy south-east. Some call their northern neighbours "subsidy junkies".
The National Health Service is also administered slightly differently in Scotland, meaning that Scots get free prescriptions and free personal nursing care for the elderly. The English get neither, a fact that creates some resentment.
But both major British parties are keen to preserve the union. On a recent trip to Scotland, the leader of the British Conservative Opposition, David Cameron, lashed out against the ugly stain of separatism seeping through the Union flag.
"The future of the union was looking more fragile — more threatened — than at any time in recent history," he warned.
The British Labour Party cites more practical, chiefly economic reasons for its opposition to Scottish separatism. But Scotland has rich oil reserves in the North Sea, which the SNP says would ensure its fiscal independence. If it has its way, there will be a referendum on the independence question in 2010.
"It will be up to the people to decide," Allan says.
But it's not just the northern natives who are restive — England also faces insubordination from their western neighbours, the Welsh. Normally the butt of jokes involving sheep and baritone singers, the small but culturally distinct region is pushing back.
In last year's elections for the Welsh Assembly, Plaid Cymru, the Party of Wales, won a record number of seats. It moved from opposition to forming a coalition government with the Labour Party.
Its stated aim is to "promote the constitutional advancement of Wales with a view to attaining full national status for Wales within the European Union".
"The big parties are all very London-based and London-centric and people are starting to see they don't deliver to the people of all corners of the UK," says Meinir Jones, a spokeswoman for Plaid Cymru. "That's why the nationalists are now in power in Scotland and Wales."
During the 1960s, a group called the Free Wales Army waged a bombing campaign to promote the cause of independence, but since then the road to greater autonomy has been peaceful.
"We're quite mellow and easygoing," says Jones of her countrymen. "People call us the land of the song. We like singing and rugby. Our identity is based on culture more than politics, very different to the Irish people."
Ireland's recent political history is famously bloody, but since last May, the Nationalists and Unionists have shared power in peace.
Ian Paisley, Ireland's Democratic Unionist First Minister, and his deputy, former IRA chief-of-staff Martin McGuinness, appear so jolly in public appearances that one Ulster unionist dubbed them the "chuckle brothers".
But the nationalist cause, which has been alive in some form or another since the time of Cromwell, is not about to fade out.
Last year, Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams said guardedly that the Northern Ireland devolution experiment was "a work in progress".
"I'm minded of when someone was asked what they thought about the French Revolution. They said it was too soon to tell."
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RENÉE LOTH Feb 18,
2008
More than just an economic powerhouse, Singapore is a petri dish for an experiment in social harmony that is beginning to catch the notice of other nations. Although the country's authoritarian streak isn't easily translated to Europe or elsewhere in the West, Singapore's approach to racial integration is a fascinating case study in identity politics.
With just 4.2 million residents, Singapore is an exotic, polyglot mix of Chinese, Malay, Indian, and European descendants, living in a carefully-crafted, peaceful coexistence. Less a melting pot than a mosaic, Singapore officially encourages each group to maintain its own language, customs, and religion, while taking tentative steps at defining a larger idea of "Singaporeanism."
It wasn't always the case. Communal violence was present at the birth of Singapore. In 1964, just before it became independent from Malaysia, fighting between mostly Muslim Malay and mostly Buddhist Chinese youths left 23 dead. In 1969 another, more deadly wave targeting Chinese residents in Kuala Lumpur killed nearly 200. The incidents are still very fresh in the memory of this young country, as is the threat of Islamic terrorism; Singapore sits at the edge of a regional tinder box. So the government exerts special effort to contain any expressions of bigotry or ill-will. "Harmony is not a natural state," foreign minister George Yeo told a group of visiting American journalists. "It's something that has to be worked on every day."
Holidays for all
Unlike Malaysia, where Islam is the official state religion, Singapore wrote a constitution that is explicitly secular. Lest any group feel marginalized, official national holidays include not just Independence Day (Aug. 9) and Christmas, but Chinese New Year, Deepavali (a Hindu celebration), Vesak Day (Buddhist), and Eid (Muslim). Museums are dedicated to micro-ethnicities. The latest is the Peranakan Museum of Singapore, slated to open later this year, devoted to the culture of the "locally born" mixed Chinese-Malaysian population.
Racial and religious balance is maintained through strict quotas in public housing and education. At the hulking Punggol North housing development, we learned of arcane rules for buying the government-subsidized apartments. Each housing block must maintain an ethnic and religious balance that mirrors the country as a whole: 77 percent Chinese; 14 percent ethnic Malay, and 8 percent Indian, and so on. If an owner of Indian descent, for example, wants to sell his unit, it must go to another Indian family unless a corresponding sale elsewhere in the block could offset the racial imbalance. In the case of intermarriage, the husband's race controls.
This obsessive focus on enforced racial and religious balance is in stark contrast to the "color-blind" philosophy in the United States, which aims to minimize differences across racial lines. The objective is the same - social harmony - but the methods couldn't be more different.
Brand diversity
The government of Lee Hsien Loong is also starting to realize that Singapore's ethnic mix is a marketable aspect of the country's image. At a meeting with the Ministry of Information, Culture, and the Arts, officials strained to express their mission to "build a sense of community, national identity and rootedness." Finally, deputy secretary Sim Gim Guam came up with this mouthful for Singapore: "a clean, green, cosmopolitan, multicultural meritocracy."
Comity is of course helped by prosperity; per capita GDP is about $30,000 (US dollars) in Singapore, unemployment is 1.7 percent, and most people feel they are doing better financially than they would be in their country of origin. But representatives of the French government recently toured Singapore's housing blocks to see if some of its social policies could be imported to the poor banlieues in suburban Paris that were engulfed in ethnic riots last year.
Convicted for convictions
The model's application to Western democracies is probably limited. Singapore's infamous censorship laws focus like a laser on content that might stir racial animus - more even than sex or political criticism. Hate speech is strictly monitored and prosecuted. In 2005, three young bloggers were convicted under Singapore's Sedition Act for posting insults to Malay Muslims. Such topics transgress the so-called OB markers for content that is officially "out of bounds." Even the vaguely parodic Speakers Corner, a frequently empty patch of green near Hong Lim Park, requires speakers to register at a nearby police station before they can exercise their right to free expression. Oh, and racial and religious topics are strictly prohibited.
Even westerners who share the goal of promoting diversity through government policy are likely to blanch at the level of state interference in the lives of citizens here. But Singapore officials have good reason to put their thumb on the scale.
In 1998, former Indonesian president B.J. Habibie pointed to a map of the region and dismissed Singapore as "a little red dot" compared to his sprawling nation. This oracular expression has become a point of pride in Singapore: look what the tiny red dot has achieved! But it is also a warning. Singapore's ruling People's Action Party is forever reminding citizens of the nation's vulnerability as a tiny secular nation - "a little red dot surrounded by a sea of green" - green being the traditional color of Islam.
Just last month three so-called home-grown jihadists - suspected terrorists who were not aligned with any formal group - were taken into custody as part of an alleged bomb plot. Few officials missed the chance to drive home the point. To "clean, green, multicultural" and all the rest, Singapore must add "careful."
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By Mary Amuge The New
Vision - Uganda. 17 Feb, 2008
I write in response to the article by Anselm Wandega titled: “Language policy hinders unity” that was published in The New Vision, January 28. Wandega analysed the language policy in a compelling manner. Anyone who engages in business or employment that enables them to interact with other communities in Africa will agree that this is not the time when the local languages should take precedence over national or international languages.
Earlier this year, I felt alienated from fellow East Africans at a conference in Nairobi when participants spoke in Swahili yet I could not talk beyond a mere greeting!
I have consulted about the current language of instruction approved for the lower primary pupils by the Ministry of Education and found that it is only urban (Kampala) schools that have choices to make between English and Luganda or any other local language preferred by the school management.
Other districts must choose from Luo, Ateso, Akarimojong, Runyakitara, Luganda, and Lugbara or any other language approved by respective District Language Board. However, the language must have a written orthography.
This implies that if Uganda has 81 districts, 81 languages or more could end up on different pupils’ curricula because some communities in the same district speak different dialects.
A language board in Kasese district may choose Lukonzho for their schools even though it is in the greater Toro region. Are we really promoting equal opportunities, especially now that we have the Equal Opportunities Commission in place?
Another dilemma arises in the case of intercultural marriages. If a female primary school teacher from Isingiro district marries a man from Amolatar district and relocates there, she would find it difficult to adapt to her new work station if the only option she has is to teach in Langi.
It would also be difficult for her to assist her Langi speaking children with their homework since she may not be conversant with the language in which her children are taught.
The timing of the policy was wrong. For most languages, there is no written material for teachers and pupils apart from what the curriculum development centre is trying to draft hurriedly with a lot of grammatical and orthographical errors.
The curriculum centre risks making assumptions. Take a case of the Bugisu region where all materials are in “Lumasaba” a common accent among the southern Bagisu.
An elder in Budadiri will view this as cultural invasion. This happened when the Bible was translated in Lumasaba and several people opposed this, questioning whether this was the appropriate language for each section of the community Bugisu region. The Ministry of Education has never made local languages part of the teacher-training curriculum (I need to be corrected if I am wrong).
How do they expect the teachers to teach what they have never been adequately oriented to? What they got at the launching of the current curriculum was a few weeks of discussions and they were commissioned to implement the language policy. Are we not killing education in the country?
Language is a sign of identity and a national language is a form of national identity.
When we communicate in English at an international conference, one can tell a Nigerian from a Ugandan, an Ethiopian from a Tanzanian, a South African from a Ghanaian on the basis of their articulation and accent. That already gives us identity and we should aim at fostering this uniqueness.
The education ministry should state the principles they based on to come with the current language policy for Primary One pupils.
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S. Narayan 18 Feb 2008
It is the appropriation of state resources by a few that subnational movements are fighting against
An article by Selig Harrison in the International Herald Tribune, reprinted in other papers, has captured attention here in Singapore. It foresees a gloomy future for Pakistan, suggesting that the country could eventually break up along ethnic lines. There is also much discussion about the unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo and Putin’s strong reaction to it. And then, there is Spielberg’s protest against the purported involvement of China in the Darfur conflict. Across the world, subnational entities are claiming their right for nationhood and statehood, facing repression resulting in violent upheavals. The last quarter of a century has seen a lot of this—Russia and the Central Asian Republics; Czechs and Slovaks, Macedonia, Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia. The European menace now seems ready to spread elsewhere, to South-East Asia, East Timor and other countries.
Events in Maharashtra indicate that there is some support for the anti-north Indian sentiment
The interesting, and perhaps worrying, part is that after creating a separate nation based on their cultural identity, these new, quite small, nation states seem to have done quite well for themselves. Most of the Central Asian republics are prospering, so are the Czechs and Slovaks, as well as several of the other countries mentioned above. Their GDP per capita has grown substantially, and human development index improvements have been more rapid than in India. There seems to be some strength to the argument that small states are better governed and able to take better advantage of their resources.
Could such trends emerge in India? What would be the consequences?
Recent and continuing events in Maharashtra indicate that though a political ploy, there is some support for the anti-north Indian sentiment. It is also now clear that there is sympathy for the Sri Lankan Tamils, even the most violent fractions of it, in Tamil Nadu. We saw the anti-Bihari sentiment in Assam. There is the Telengana movement in Andhra Pradesh. Of these, perhaps the Assam and Maharashtra sentiments are driven more by competition for economic development; the Tamil Nadu one is truly an ethnic sentiment.
Apart from these, there are also sub-national movements based on deep-rooted caste differences. There is an attempt to enlarge the footprint of the BSP across India; there have been earlier attempts to unite Yadavs of the country, and so on. A number of caste-based political parties are springing up and jockeying for position in coalitions that can be formed to rule, both in the states and at the Centre. Finally, there is the divide between the secular and the non-secular parties—itself an attempt to divide the citizens.
Running through all these fissures is the gap between the poor and the non-poor, expressing itself in violence and extremism in states with Naxalite activity.
Some broad observations are possible. First, this country has lived with differences for several thousand years, and its cultural identity, habits and regional influences, have coalesced into a national identity that is not easy to dissolve. Most movements mentioned here have been put together by groups seeking political power within the democratic framework. They recognize that this is an era of coalition politics, and that even small groups would have leverage in the coalition beyond their actual voting percentages. It is understandable that with the largest political parties unable to grow the democracy into a two-party system, other participants, based on different ideology or caste groupings, would emerge. Still, it has to be recognized that the political process is the path to economic influence, and the reservations, patronage and rent-seeking are likely to be the motivation for these small parties to survive and prosper.
Perhaps this should be the cause for worry. The so-called subnational entities, unlike in other parts of the world, do not have (except a very few) a clearly defined region or geography to claim nationhood or statehood. But there is certainly a claim on public offices, public finance, public patronage, and indeed the spoils of office that these groups are strongly fighting for. It is this approach to appropriation of state resources by a few that the extremists are fighting against, and they are gaining ground.
It is important to recognize fissiparous tendencies and find solutions. At the individual level, there are opportunities for all.
One has only to look at the growing middle class, the young and the affluent. It is important to provide the same access to everyone, so that there is no need to seek niches to grow in. So one goes back to the importance of inclusive growth, of higher educational attainments, better access to skills and technology and the host of economic actions that are necessary to bring prosperity to the entire nation. If there are opportunities for growth and affluence for all, across the entire country, there would be pride in nationhood. One has only to look at the multicultural US to recognize this. The urgency for removing regional disparities, for improving the lot of agriculture, for providing opportunities for the poor and the backward, is thus no longer just an economic agenda —it is necessary if we are to keep the nation together after a decade.
S. Narayan is a former
finance secretary and economic adviser to the prime minister.
topSean Gordon, Feb 16, 2008
Some scholars believe North America is forging a unique culture. They call it `l'américanité'
The question, from an audience member, is asked in French. It is spontaneously translated into rapid-fire Spanish by the Québécois poet seated onstage and answered in faintly-accented English by the Mexican screenwriter.
The questioner, naturally enough, nods his head in understanding.
"I guess that question kind of answers why we're all here today," said Anai López, the Mexican screenwriter, a note of wonder in her voice.
Behold an extraordinary, idealized illustration of the North American dynamic, the by-product of a discussion on the unwieldy, ephemeral and weirdly sensitive subject that is culture.
The exchange took place this week in a hotel ballroom across from the stately campus of McGill University, whose Institute for the Study of Canada was considering a provocative theme at its annual conference: Are We American?
Among the questions being considered at the wide-ranging cultural symposium was a mildly subversive idea: Is the conventional wisdom regarding U.S. cultural imperialism wrong? What if the "American" identity were being nudged toward a trans-national, continental one by the influence of Canadian and Mexican cultural factors?
French-language scholars in Quebec and elsewhere refer to it as "l'américanité," an idea that beyond national boundaries, linguistic differences and divergent histories, the countries of North America have forged a distinctive continental culture.
"Are we American? In my eyes, yes," said Université du Quebec à Montreal sociology professor Jean-Francois Côté. "But that's not the same thing as being United States-ian."
In research he presented to one of the conference workshops, Coté discerned a continental sensibility in a literary genre he identified as "travel literature" – the greatest exemplar of which is Jack Kerouac, the U.S.-born child of French-Canadians who penned the seminal On the Road.
"It began before NAFTA and has gone a long way beyond it in cultural terms," he said.
Côté cited the common thread that unites authors as varied as Russell Banks, Dany Laferriere, Octavio Paz and many others – themes such as solitude and nativism, a preoccupation with border narratives and the search for a broader identity.
"These are all ideas that put into question political borders," he said. "They have evolved into a cultural space that is no longer national ... there is an ongoing rediscovery of the Americas in literary terms."
Poet and author Emile Martel – the impromptu Spanish translator – also broached the subject of "l'américanité."
"The word American has strong resonance, both positive and negative, depending on your point of view. American-ness also allows for significant differences ... labels like Canadian or Québécois offer a sort of protection," he said, speaking in French.
Martel also suggested that national identities in North America are often invoked less out of profound difference than as a political reaction when a country's sensibilities are offended, such as Canada's by the George W. Bush administration.
"We create a moral wall called Canada, or better yet, a refuge called Quebec," he said. Points of differentiation like language, geography and history "help distinguish us without reducing our shared American-ness," he added.
Those kinds of observations aren't likely to sit well with Canadian cultural nationalists.
Indeed, there were many in the various conference panels who argued that crucial differences between the countries make a broader identity next to impossible – and, more important, undesirable.
CBC Radio host Jian Gomeshi, one of the more than two dozen panelists who took part in the three-day conference, even took a run at defining the nebulous question of what it means to be Canadian.
"Fredericton reminds me of Moose Jaw, even though they're thousands of kilometres apart ... there are ties that bind despite the lack of a brash identity, which actually is our identity," said Gomeshi. "The biggest differences with the United States are in the arts and culture realm ... Canada is a disproportionately artistic country."
Gomeshi also suggested that "the collision and collusion of immigration, and maybe an inferiority complex" has created an "outsider" view of culture.
"With that comes patience, moderation, and sometimes artistry," he said.
Mexican screenwriter Lopez also cast a skeptical eye on the concept of an emerging continental identity. Even as she allowed that the dominant cultural medium in her country – television – has evolved away from imitating U.S. programming, she said language and other cultural considerations continue to set Mexico apart.
"We are a people that is conservative, superstitious, with a strong affinity for family ties and we're still fond of smoking," she said to audience laughter.
Poet Martel was more categorical on the question of Canadian identity, saying it is a country "that asks more questions than it answers" and whose general ethos could reasonably be summed up as "we're working on it."
So why did the organizers choose to ask such a loaded question, and why now?
Part of the answer lies in academic curiosity over the impact of new technology on the cultural marketplace, but, more importantly, the conference organizers were keen to reassess the impact of the North American Free Trade Accord, negotiated 15 years ago and signed in January 1994.
"The question is: Has cultural unification followed economic unification, or in fact, as some suggest, are we getting further apart?" asked Will Straw, acting director of the institute and the conference chair.
Straw, a cultural theorist who also teaches art history and communications at McGill, has his own ideas about cultural integration.
"Has new technology made things like NAFTA irrelevant? People in the music industry would probably say yes," he said.
"Maybe globalization is actually helping ... instead of dissecting everything into a kind of cultural Esperanto."
Straw suggested that at the same time that cultural industries are developing on a continental scale, there is a parallel phenomenon.
"It has become a more niche-oriented culture. We may never have another Seinfeld or I Love Lucy," Straw said in an interview. "Not to overstate things, but the niches and sub-cultures also tend to replicate independently in different places. If you went into an indie record shop in the U.S. or in Mexico or here, you would mostly find the same records."
The conference featured academics, media personalities, artists, businesspeople, political figures like U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins, and leading cultural thinkers from all three countries.
It looked at a variety of subjects ranging from the media's role in creating "cultural citizenship" to cultural branding, the prevalence of Canadian humour, the emergence of the music industry as a continental market, and the difficulties with measuring and observing cultural phenomena.
The discussion was also framed by a national poll commissioned by the institute, which found that while 65 per cent of respondents disagreed with the posit that "Canadian and U.S. culture are basically the same," fully 59 per cent supported the assertion that "all North Americans share certain values that are different from those of the rest of the world."
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By Eleni Fergadi, 30 Jan
2008
Last Saturday, the International Conference on Genocide against the Kurdish people commenced in Martyr Saad Adbullah's conference center here in Erbil.
The conference, which lasted for three days, began two weeks after the burial ceremony of the remains of the Anfal victims with the somewhat sober aim of "academic" remembrance of sorts; in a way to present the research that has been undertaken on this very black page of Kurdish history and at the same time "internationalize" these events with the hope that similarly to the national recognition it has received by the Federal High Court as genocide, the same would follow on an international level.
Scholars, writers, politicians and artists were invited to this conference to present their own perspectives and research on the Kurdish genocide from the Ba'athist government-simply put and in the words of the organizers-to present "a record" of the atrocities that began with the deportation of around 40,000 Kurds from areas surrounding Kirkuk on July 10, 1963, and the destruction of more than 800 Kurdish villages during that time. Much followed throughout Kurdistan, such as the bombardment of the cities of Qaladze (April 24, 1974) and Halabja (April 26, 1974), the chemical attacks during 1987-88, the infamous Anfal Campaign (1988), as well as the destruction of villages that were burned to the ground, the indiscriminate killing of civilians and the bombardment of refugee camps.
The daughter of the late Saad Abdullah, in whose memory the conference center was built, and current Minister of Martyrs and Anfal Affairs, Mrs. Chinar Saad Abdullah, presented a detailed account of crimes perpetrated against the Kurds, providing startling statistics: The province most affected by the atrocities was Dohuk (70.33%), with Suleimanya (42%), Kirkuk (22%) and Erbil (17%) following; in terms of nationalities and religious affiliations, those who suffered the most were Kurds (99%) and Muslims (98%). In gender terms, 66.61% of victims were male and 33.39% female. The minister, while stressing the abhorrence of the Anfal Campaign, stated that in its duration "all human rights and ethics were violated."
The minister also provided figures relating to the preferred targets of the attacks (see Table above) and stated that 17% of those who survived the attacks suffer from mental and physical illnesses, pointing out that many families, having lost all possessions, still have to live under dire conditions.
At the Conference, the Chief of Staff of the presidential office, Fuad Hussein, reiterated that the aim of such a conference is "not only to deal with questions, but also to discuss the genocide...from different angles," expressing his hope that the workshops and panel discussions "will lead us to the answer of the question why this genocide...happened." Mr. Hussein also stressed that "just as our language, geography, history...form part of our national identity, so the genocide against the Kurds is the most important aspect in the formation of the Kurdish Nation." He added, "This tragedy must not only form part of our history, but it must also become a guideline for us to build a society far removed from hatred and violence....In this way we hope that one day we can feel so sure of ourselves that we can tell our children...and all the future generations...that the killings...will never happen again."
Within the framework of the conference, a documentary film on the genocide against the Kurds (Kurdistan TV) was shown on the first day (visitors could then watch it in a special amphitheatre that was held for this purpose); a series of photographs and artwork were exhibited and singers Diyari Qaradaghi and Melek performed Kurdish songs about Anfal. More than 60 papers were received by the ministries organizing the event; however, the time limit only allowed 37 to be presented. The papers will be published in a book on the subject and another conference will take place in Europe in the near future.
On Monday, Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani visited the conference.
An interview
on trauma and national identity
The Globe spoke with Dr. Zafer Yörük, a lecturer at the University of Kurdistan-Hawler and a specialist in identity politics, about the Kurdish genocide and the process of Kurdish nation-building, and it was discovered that in a nation-building process, such as the one Kurdistan is currently undergoing, there is more than meets the eye.
Dr. Yörük, what do you think of the International Conference on the Genocide against the Kurds?
"A few weeks ago, we witnessed the burial ceremony of the remains of victims, and this conference that followed shows both that the genocide and particularly the memories of Anfal are still fresh... this makes me fairly confident that the genocide can be called what in psychoanalysis is a trauma and in this case a collective one."
What is collective trauma?
"Trauma is a medical word used widely in the field of orthopedics to refer to the moment to define the cause of a broken leg or arm. When used as a psychiatric term, trauma refers to the same moment or experience, with the only difference being that what is traumatized is the soul and therefore healing the wound requires much more than a mere cast for a couple of weeks. In the case of collective trauma, we are talking about a different kind of scar, more so, because it was experienced collectively." Dr. Yörük explained: "Traumas determine our behavior usually in the form of a personality disorder.
People repress their trauma; that is, they try to forget them and think that they never happened, but in reality the scars of the past traumas survive in our unconscious and come to the surface without us realizing it. For example, people who cannot cope with boundaries and authority in their adult lives definitely carry serious scars inflicted upon their souls by their fathers. Now, families and communities can share a collective trauma even though they have never experienced it themselves."
Can you be more specific?
"Older generations, who have experienced a trauma collectively, like the Kurds did, cannot repress; that is, they cannot simply ignore it, try to forget it and thus they 'speak it' to the younger generation in order to cope with it. This collective transmission is similar to what we call repression in the case of the individual. Vamik Volkan, an American psychiatrist, provides us with an interesting example when he discusses the Long March of the Red Indians.
When a reporter interviewed a Navajo Red Indian on the subject, it was as if the interviewee was referring to an event that had taken place yesterday, but the journalist soon realized that the Long March had actually occurred 125 years before. Volkan argued that, for the Red Indians, the Long March is as real as the rising sun in the morning, even though they might not have experienced it themselves, even if it was an event that took place more than a century ago...the older generations projected their experiences to the younger ones and thus shaped the latter. So much so that the trauma itself has become the major collective bond that united the Red Indian community together; it has become the major plaster of a social identity. The problem with this style of building collective/national identity lies in what I said above.
The scars of trauma have many negative effects on human behavior; they result in serious personality disorders. Therefore, if the genocide ends up as the most important factor of the Kurdish national identity, then there are dangers ahead...."
Are you implying that the Kurds should forget?
And what do you mean by dangers? What are they?
"No, no, on the contrary...Kurds should be invited not to forget; that is, to remember what happened. But they should also be invited to forgive. From the beginning of the history of the 'person' and of the 'word' we have learned that the best way of coping with trauma is remembering it; that is, not repressing it, but at the same time trying to find ways to forgive those responsible. The beloved Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, for example, who was murdered last year outside his office in Istanbul, was well aware of this problem. In every public interview he gave, Dink systematically called on his people not to rely on the Armenian genocide for the existence of the Armenian nation and that is because he knew very well the potential disorders of such a practice. What are those disorders, you may ask?
If you look at the emerging Turkish nationalist discourse preceding 1915, then you can see that the sole element that it relied on was some trauma that the Turkic-Islamic peoples of Central Asia, the Balkans and Caucasus had experienced during the 19th century. When these elements arrived in Anatolia from Russia and the Balkans, they not only brought with them a shared traumatic scar but also the feeling of revenge and compensation for what they had been through. It is precisely the reliance on a trauma in the Turkish nation-building that resulted in the Armenian genocide. The hatred and the consequent search for revenge and compensation were all projected onto the Christian peoples of Anatolia, particularly the Armenians, even though the only thing the Armenian population shared with the perpetrators of the past was that of religion; they were Christians. It is exactly this vicious circle, this chain of events that I am talking about.
What I have said so far can be summarized as follows: In the process of nation-building, a collective trauma may be 'selected' to play a positive bonding role, but such selection also means the emergence of 'collective personality disorders.' Simply put, if the Kurdish nation insists on building itself by relying on the trauma of the genocide, then the potential danger of seeking compensation is very real. The Kurds should definitely remember, but they should also forgive."
What would you propose then?
When we are talking of building a community, a nation, then peoples' minds usually go back to the beginning of the 19th century, when nation-states and nationalism were mushrooming. When nationalism emerged, there were particular circumstances, such as modernity, new technologies and alienation. Almost 30 years have passed since Benedict Anderson showed that the nation is not natural, something that existed and exists 'just like that'; rather, it is what he called 'an imagined community.' Hobsbawm defined nation as 'an invented community' and I would rather call it 'a fabricated community.'
Now, nationalism draws on both positive and negative aspects: The positive are usually a glorious past that is being reclaimed for today; for instance, Kurdish nationalist discourse refers to the glorious Med Empire, and the Kawa rebellion against the tyrant Dohak, and relates all these events to the Kurdish New Year (Newroz). It is these aspects that are imagined to be somehow shaping and determining the Kurdish identity of today. The Anfal and the genocide in general adds the traumatic dimension in play....No one should be allowed to deny that the genocide is as real as the rising sun, borrowing from Volkan's abovementioned example, but building an identity by emphasizing the genocide is a recipe full with traps.
I think that in the 21st century the best way of creating a polity isn't by relying on methods left over by the 19th century, but to seriously activate and promote the norms of citizenship, solidarity and trust, as the primary bonds to cement a community together as one, the precondition of which are participation, accountability and transparency."
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by Hilmi Toros Feb 4 2008
Turkey's Islamic-rooted governing party is moving ahead with hotly contested constitutional amendments that would lift the ban on headscarves at universities. Opponents see it as a danger-laden step undermining the currently rigid secular regime by introducing Islamic principles that may extend far beyond higher learning.
Critics of the government express the fear that Turkey, while aspiring for full EU membership, may actually slide into a restrictive, religious society. On the other hand, advocates of lifting the ban see it as a step towards freedom of expression of the kind Western universities enjoy.
The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), with its leaders originally from an Islamic party that was banned, have linked up with the Nationalists Movement Party to make the amendments lifting the ban. The two parties have enough votes to do so – 410, while 367 are required. The bill is already in a parliamentary commission on fast-track motion. It could be adopted within 10 days.
The main opposition Republican Peoples Party (CHP), founded by creator of secular Turkey Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in the 1920s, has announced it would seek annulment of the changes through the Constitutional Court.
Over 100,000 people marched in capital Ankara Saturday against proposed changes to lift the ban.
The proposed changes would lift restrictions only on what Turks call the "basortusu", a small headscarf worn by millions of women across the country of 70 million. It would not apply to a headscarf like a turban, considered a symbol of Islamic fundamentalism. Most wives of AKP members wear the 'turban'.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, once a firebrand member of an Islamic party and now heading a party and government on a platform of conservatism, had promised the party's devout Muslim powerbase it would lift the ban. He said the changes are aimed only at ending discrimination against female students at universities, and restoring their rights to university education.
"No basic human rights pose a threat to democracy or the fundamental values of the Republic," Erdogan declared. "The AKP government is a safeguard of our secular order."
"This is not a religious matter," said opposition CHP leader Deniz Baykal. "It is highly political." He accuses AKP of trying to pass the turban off as "basortusu", and says the turban is "not Turkish, but a foreign import" coming from the Wahabi sect in the Arab world.
AKP member Husnu Tuna has said "the target is to lift the ban everywhere," leading to criticism that the AKP may have a hidden Islamic agenda despite claims to the contrary.
"The real problem is the danger of this freedom (of wearing the headscarf) spreading to all public areas, and also contaminating primary and secondary schools, hospitals and the judiciary as time passes," says Mehmet Ali Birand, a liberal commentator on Turkish affairs for the widely circulated Posta.
"The real danger is to breed turbaned male and female judges, prosecutors or doctors, and to be confronted with instances of female doctors refusing to examine male patients or female patients refusing to be examined by male doctors."
The academic world, directly affected, is divided.
"We are warning those who support this measure and those who remain silent that it would erode the gains of the Republic and that the secular order will come to an end," president of the Inter-University Council and head of the Akdeniz (Mediterranean) University Prof. Mustafa Akaydin said after an extraordinary meeting of the council. "It would inevitably transform the Turkish Republic into a religious state."
The senate of Istanbul University, the largest in the country with 50,000 students, issued a statement saying: "Political interests and choices, disguised as freedom of religion, cannot be allowed to threaten scientific freedom in the universities. Turkey will not be a scene for Sharia games and abuse of religion. We cannot turn a blind eye to those who voluntarily or ignorantly undermine our social order."
Prof. Ural Bulut, rector of the prestigious Middle East Technical University in capital Ankara, said in an interview with CNN Turk: "If adopted, radical Islamists will put pressure to have the ban lifted in lower schools and other fields. Those who don't wear the headscarf will come under pressure."
But his faculty member, Prof. Ihsan Dagi, disagreed with him in a joint television interview. "Universities should be concerned not with bans but freedoms and education," he said. He has launched a petition to lift the ban, and said it was supported by more than 600 faculty members in universities across the country within 24 hours.
The powerful Business and Industry Association and the Women's Entrepreneurial Organisation both oppose a lifting of the ban on the grounds that the government is focusing on the headscarf issue at the expense of broader reforms on human rights issues demanded by the EU. There are also fears that a perceived erosion of secular values may supply further ammunition to the anti-Turkish mood in the EU.
Prof. Ilter Turan, former rector of Istanbul's leading private Bilgi (Knowledge) University and professor of political science, told IPS that "there will be confusion, and further polarisation, with possibility of the conflict escalating."
The military, which has overturned four civilian governments, one of them an Islamist one since 1960, and sees itself as the guardian of a secular regime has issued no comment, saying its position on the subject is well known. This was an apparent reference to a statement in April last year when the military called itself "an interested party" in the secular debate, and vowed to take action to defend secularism when necessary.
"The military will keep a low profile if things don't get out of control -- and I don't see any danger of that now," Istanbul-based French analyst Jerome Bastion told IPS.
The ban came into force in 1989 when a court ruled that the headscarf violated Article 2 of the Constitution on the unchangeable secular nature of the republic. Before then, most women came to university campuses with their head uncovered, or wearing a minimal basortusu. But through the wave of conservatism in the 1990s, female students contested the ban. Those not complying with it were barred from university campuses.
Rather than complying with the ban, Prime Minister Erdogan sent his daughters to schools abroad. President Abdullah Gul's daughter covered her headscarf with a Western-style wig. His wife, now the first First Lady of the secular republic to wear a headscarf, once sued the Turkish state at the European Court of Human Rights over the right to wear a headscarf. She withdrew the case after her husband became a leading figure in the government.
In a separate case, the EU court has ruled that Turkey's ban is in compliance with its laws.
Millions of Turkish women cover their heads now, and the practice is more and more visible even in swank Istanbul, a city of 12 million. Veils are also more to be seen. The "burka" covering most of the face and flowing down to feet, as worn in some Arab countries, Iran, and Afghanistan, is still rare.
The amendment motion goes as far as to define the contours of an admissible headscarf. It has to be small enough to leave the face uncovered for identification purposes, with a knot under the chin.
If the amendments take effect, university administrators dealing with admissions may have to inspect headscarves first.
"Are we to employ fashion designers at universities to check on students?" constitution expert Ergun Ozbudun said in a television discussion. Columnist Fatma Diski of the pro-AKP daily Zaman, who has a photograph wearing the turban-style headgear accompanying her columns, says government definition of allowable headscarf through legislation is "state interference" in attire.
As things stand, neither the First Lady nor the Prime Minister's wife would qualify for admission into a Turkish university. Their headgear is not tied under the chin, it wraps back to the neck.
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BBC 15 Feb 2008
When the writer of Prime Suspect, Peter Berry, started a new TV drama set in a "near future" Britain that's become a security state, he didn't expect current events to overtake his imagined plot.
It might have been 20 years ago when I noticed two men on the platform at Euston station. They were businessmen, heavy overcoats, bound for Manchester. The larger of the two picked a thread from the overcoat of the smaller man, as if he owned him.
The smaller man looked powerless and I knew that it was this relationship I wanted to explore in The Last Enemy: the power of the state over the individual; the power of the official who stops you in the street and demands to see your papers; to check your data, your private history.
Yet when I finally sat down to start the script, four years ago, the contrast in pace couldn't have been more pronounced.
A trick that script writers use to help focus their story is to think up the slogan for the movie poster. As I embarked on the first draft in 2005 there was a debate getting underway about ID cards and whether or not we were sleepwalking into a surveillance society.
I set the story in the future at a time when ID cards were compulsory and we were all under greater surveillance after a terrorist attack in the UK. I didn't want to write science fiction; I wanted reality set just around the corner.
So writ large across my poster was: "The Future is Closer than You Think". It was a slogan that turned out to be horribly true; I delivered the script a month before the London tube bombings.
After 7 July, anti-terrorist legislation was brought in with breathtaking speed: ID cards linked to a central database, the dilution of habeas corpus, constraints on the rights of freedom of speech and of freedom of assembly; reality was threatening to overtake my "futuristic" story.
Taken for granted
Technology was also rapidly changing: in an early script I had CCTV cameras that could not only listen but lip-read. I edited this out because it was thought too fanciful, yet such cameras and software are now installed in our cities.
But I didn't want the "villain" of the piece to be power-mad politicians or an intelligence service hell bent on curtailing our civil rights. That's not a realistic picture.
We are all responsible for the state in which we live. I wanted to write about us, the sleepwalkers. My central character, Stephen Ezard, returns to Britain having spent some years in China, and this gives him a clear perspective of just how much his homeland has changed.
Britain is no longer the country he had always taken for granted; the tolerant liberal democracy that is our default setting. Our perceptions have perhaps become dulled by living here.
Ezard discovers a country that has come under increasing terrorist attack and has now has a high level of surveillance with more aggressive policing.
Confusion over cards
Five million CCTV cameras, more cameras than any other country and a centralised database of all your personal details linked to an ID card.
It's not the Britain he knew a few years ago, but to those who live here it doesn't feel so different because the changes have been gradual.
Terrorist attacks have shown that the individual has never been potentially so dangerous and at the heart of the story is the question of how much information the state should know about us and in what form. There now seems to be confusion over ID cards: will it be a voluntary system, and if so, what purpose might that serve?
Or will cards become compulsory through stealth - a necessity for travel, banking, employment, or to access health and welfare?
A comparison is often made with ID cards on the Continent, yet they are nothing like the UK ID card because they hold far less information.
Mass of information
Plans for the UK ID card are that it will be linked to the National Identity Register, a centralised data bank that can hold up to 50 categories of personal information: current and any subsequent places of residence, fingerprint details and other biometric information, national insurance number and driving licence details. (See internet links, above right, for a full list.)
ID CARDS
- First ID cards to foreign nationals this year
- From 2010, all passport applicants will be issued with ID cards
- MPs will vote on whether to make them compulsory
- Ministers say ID cards boost national security, tackle identity fraud, prevent illegal working and improve border controls
- Critics say they are an infringement of civil liberties and a waste of money
- They will contain a photo, name, address, gender and date of birth. A microchip will hold biometric information
And there's a similar laziness in the belief it's only the guilty who have something to lose; the innocent have nothing to hide. To many the perils of a surveillance society seem abstract, a load of "what ifs" that will never have much bearing on most of our lives.
Yet the innocent do have something to hide - their privacy, and that is linked to dignity. The innocent will have to prove every day that they are innocent by what is on their card.
The purpose of The Last Enemy is of course to entertain; hopefully at the end of five-and-a-half hours there will also be a resonance.
See also
Being British
Defining Britishness
Younger Scots and Welsh more likely to support Nationalist parties
Multiculturalism
Teaching nationalism
The British Empire
'An English parliament would be a good step'
European muslims
Anti Americanism
Academics attack government untruths on ID
Anti imperialism considered
US election and racism
Invaders of Iran
Readers
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