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Organization of the course and
specific activities
Class meetings will be of three kinds.
1. One kind of activity will be
our discussions about assigned readings. I will assume you are
following the reading schedule. My lectures will be aimed at making the
readings intelligible to you. There may also be some additional reading
assignments on short notice. Stay on schedule. Come to class
prepared to discuss the readings.
2. A second kind of activity will
be the lectures. You will be expected to keep notes; material from the
lectures will directly bear upon the examination questions. Because I
am best informed on affairs in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, my lectures
will be biased to that part of the world but the relevance of the principles
discussed to other parts of the world will, I hope, be evident.
3. A third activity will be films
and guest lectures. Again, attendance will be taken and you will be
asked some questions about the films on the tests.
TENTATIVE SCHEDULE
Reading assignments Class activity
8/30/2011Tu
8/31/2011 W
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Introduction: Two
courses. Syllabus and Libguides.
Former students I hope you are not disappointed. Plan of the course. Books.
Emphasis on contemporary events; the specific topics we will be
taking up. The TAs – Heather
introduce herself. Assignments: expect changes. Assignment for next time: Elean
Gonzales. Q: what does it reveal? NB the word “objectified”; what
perspective on social affairs does this imply? What is the major point of this section
of the chapter? What do you surmise Sahlins’s larger point is?
Assignment after that:
Death … Start reading.
NB. References in
the libguides:
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9/1/2011 Th
9/2/2011 F *Sahlins: Elian discussion
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NB. References in
the libguides:
Elian Gonzales. Q: what does it reveal? NB the word “objectified”; what
perspective on social affairs does this imply? What is the major point of this section
of the chapter? What do you surmise Sahlins’s larger point is?
Assignment after that:
Death … Start reading.
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9/3/2011 S
9/4/2011 X
9/5/2011 M LABOR DAY
9/6/2011 Tu
9/7/2011 W
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News: Bahrain’s
demonstrations, contradictions “Large protests …”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/02/world/middleeast/02bahrain.html?_r=1
/An424311
New: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44405607/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44401337/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/t/libyan-spy-files-detail-gadhafi-regimes-collapse/
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*Sahlins:
Elian discussion
History
of Iran
9/8/2011 Th
9/9/2011 F
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News: Iran re Syria; Pakistan floods; Syrian
rebels ask for help
History of Iran.
Moqadam: Death … Discussion
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9/10/2011 S
9/11/2011 X
9/12/2011 M Moqadam: Death
… Film: Live from Tehran
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Bashar al-Assad's fall is
inevitable [Libguide News from the summer]
Political Cartoonist Whose Work Skewered Assad Is
Brutally Beaten in Syria [Week 1]
Large Protest in Bahrain After Boy’s Death [Week 1]
Syria's attorney general: Resignation or kidnapping?
[Week 1]
Syrian protesters call for foreign help [Week 2]
Iraqis mourn slain journalist amid protests [Week 2]
In Shift, Iran’s President Calls for End to Syrian
Crackdown [week 2]
Hi,
I have asked you to be ready
to talk about Death to the Dictator on Wednesday but I suspect a lot of the
discussion will spill over to Friday.
On Wed I want to ask you some questions about what you got from the
movie [we will watch the last few minutes also], and then I want to see how
you connect the events of 2009 with the events depicted in the film, from
1978-79. This connection is
important for us to make if we are to understand what's going on in Iran.
Also, of course, I want to
discuss the dynamics of social movements as we see them in both of these
cases, also the dynamics of social control/subjugation. What will you take away from these two
examples of popular movements? What
do you observe on how collective action works? What symbols, what rhetorical devices inform
the respective sides in these contests?
I will ask you to help get the issues entailed in these affairs out
in the open so we can examine them.
Best, RLC
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9/13/2011Tu
9/14/2011 W Moqadam:
Death … Discussion + Iranian history
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Finished Film, Discussed
it. Assigned discussion for Friday
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9/15/2011 Th
9/16/2011 F Moqadam: Death …
Discussion + Iranian history
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Libguides recent publications
Discuss “Death …”
The Issues:
What this course is about:
culture in practice
** What we mean by culture: Saussure parole/langue. parole in social life; langue in social
life; Langue and a cultural resource;
**Every event …; How history and culture
relate. Sedimentation of meanings
through history.
** Place of symbols in
social life. History and memory as
symbolically constituted. Selective
history, selective memory.
** Rhetoric in social
life: definition of the situation,
resonance of symbols. Implied
meanings other than the overt denotations.
** History and the
creation of cultural icons, i.e., forms that have meanings that resonate
with members of a community. In
Iran: green, Neda
Aga-Sultan
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9/17/2011 S
9/18/2011 X
9/19/2011 M *Contemporary readings on Iran and
“Arab spring”
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Reading schedule [we’re a
day behind]
Eve’s film on the
Estonian revolutionary break from the Soviet Union
News: Libya, Yemen, Syria
For discussion, if we get
time:
N Y Times magazine
[date?] by Anthony Shadid "The sons of no
one: Syria's rebel youth have had to teach themselves everything."
New York Review of Books
Feb 24, 2011. Wm Pfaff. "Uprisings: From Tunis to Cairo" p14.
New York Review ... Mar
24, 2011. Max Rodenbeck. "Volcano of Rage" pp 4-7.
New York Review ... April
7, 2011. Nicolas Pelham. "The Battle for Libya". pp 77+
New York Review [Ap 7, 11] Haleh Esfandiari.
"Iran: The State of
Fear"
pp 31+
Today’s lecture:
Iran: “Death …”, and Elian Gonzales: compare
“objectified”: can you see instances in “Death …”?
Definitions of
culture:
Leslie White:
[234] "Culture
... is a class of things and events, dependent upon symboling,
considered in an extrasomatic context."
NB: symbol: a
form/meaning construct
NB: extrasomatic
Clifford Geertz:
"... it denotes an historically
transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited
conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate,
perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward
life."
NB: embodied, expressed, forms; historically
transmitted, perpetuated;
Culture and Event
Marshall Sahlins: “Every
event has a distinctive cultural signature.”
NB:
Sedimentation of meanings in events/ history
NB: Definition of event [vs
happening]
Definition of the
situation
Arises
out of sedimented meanings in place;
arises
in the moment of contestation;
establishes
understandings of the future
Contemporary examples:
From “Death …”
From the cases in the press: Esfandiari
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http://vimeo.com/13589149
http://csfilm.org/films/fruit-of-our-labor/
http://csfilm.org/films/fruit-of-our-labor/#light
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9/20/2011 Tu
9/21/2011 W *Contemporary readings on Iran and
“Arab spring”
LECTURE
NOTES FOR TODAY:
http://artsci.wustl.edu/~canfrobt/TALKOUTLINEAPRIL52011.htm
9/22/2011 Th
9/23/2011 F *Coll: We’re going to die here. Afghanistan / Pakistan comparative
chronology: http://artsci.wustl.edu/~canfrobt/AfghPakmatchingChronology.htm
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Libguides:
Assigned readings:
from NYR, FP
Discussion next time: Pakistan/Afghanistan war. Coll: We’re
going to die here. Also, Riedel:
Deadly Embrace, Chapter 1. I will
give you a list of terms to begin watching out for that could appear on the
exam
Our topics: Events compared :
common terms, issues: “objectify”, symbolic forms,
layers of meaning in a cultural form, representations [symbols] of
interest, definition of the situation,
Elian:
competing interested communities [Fla,
Cuba], competing narratives, competing images and associations [ex: the
empty chair in school]
Iran: mark
on the forehead, green, Allah o Akbar, dress, Neda
Agha-Soltan, street demonstrations. The rhetoric of definition. The rhetoric of common purpose [basijis, the crowds]
Arab spring:
iconic images, events that become iconic/emblematic,
multiple meanings, associations of a symbolic form.
New Issues:
various Islamic groupings
Sunni/Shia, Alawi, Drews, Salafi,
Muslim Brotherhood.
Modern
History of the Middle East [link]
Assign for next
time: Coll
“We’re going to …” plus
Chapter 1 of *Deadly Embrace.*
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9/24/2011 S
9/25/2011 X
9/26/2011 M Reidel: ch 1,
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Libguide page and current
developments
History
of Afghanistan and Pakistan
Map of
Pakistan, Political boundaries and transport facilities
Map
of Pakistan, provinces
Map of
Afghanistan
http://artsci.wustl.edu/~canfrobt/Picture1.jpg
http://artsci.wustl.edu/~canfrobt/Picture3.jpg
In Riedel ch
1 Key terms to begin following: Benazir Bhutto, Lashkar-e
Tayba, Taliban, Al Qaeda, Muhammad Ali Jinna, Deobandi, Shi Muslim, Sayyid Abu A’ala Mawdudi, ISI, Zulfikar Ali
Bhutto, Karachi, Peshawar, A. Q. Khan.
Resume history of Middle
East: especially events of late
1970s in Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan; 1979
Period of tumult, change in 1970s
Terms to remember from Riedel, Chapter 2:
William Casey, M. Zia al-Haq,
mujahedin, Abdul Rasul Sayyaf,
Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, A.Q. Khan, Islamic Jamaat-i Islami Party,
General Akhtar, Durand Line, Sipah-e-Shoaba, [Mullah] Muhammad Omar, Northwest Frontier
Province, Federally Administered Tribal Areas [FATA], M. Yousaf, The Kashmiri Project, Charlie Wilson, Hamed Gul, Arab volunteers
[Afghan Arabs], Abdallah Azzam,
Muslim Brotherhood, Hindu Kush, ummah, Khalid
Sheikh Muhammad, Abu Musaib al Zarqawi, Abu Mus’ad al-Suri.
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9/27/2011 Tu
9/28/2011 W Reidel: ch 2
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The context of 1950s-1980s: A bipolar world
Churchill’s speech: Iron curtain March 5, 1946.
American commitment to the Middle East: esp Saudi Arabia and Iran : oil
The role of the Shah after 1953: Nixon: “Protect me”
More on developments in 1970s
and 1980s.
Carter’s problems
1980s and the Afghan
mujahedin
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9/29/2011 Th
9/30/2011 F Riedel 3 Film:
Return of the Taliban
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Riedel Ch 3: Benazir Bhutto, Nawaz
Sharif, Taliban, Mullah Muhammad Omar, Kashmir, Gulbuddin
Hekmatyar, Ahmad Shah Massoud,
Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ali Zardari, Gen Pervez Musharaf, Kargil offensive,
UNOCAL, Northern Alliance, Osama Bin Laden, Kandahar, Abu Zubaydah, Abu Musaib al Zarqawi.
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10/1/2011 S
10/2/2011 X
10/3/2011 M Reidel: ch 4
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In chapter 4 many of the key
terms have already been identified, and should be tracked through these
affairs. I’m not sure that the
following have been included so I note them here: Quetta, FATA, Lashkar-e
Tayba, Jaish-e-Muhammad,
Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, Asif Ali Zardali, Baluchistan, NorthWest
Frontier Province, Panjsher Valley, Lal Masjid [Red Mosque], [NB
the vocabulary “100 years of Crusader British aggression…:]
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10/4/2011 Tu
10/5/2011 W Reidel: ch 5 Film: Benazir
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Ch 5: Mumbai, Kargil
War, Line of Control, David Colman Headley, Human Khalil
Abu Mulal al Balawi
[Abu Dujannah al Khorasani],
Lashkar-e Jangvi and Sipah-e-Sohaba [anti-Shia], Faisal Shahzad, Anwar
al Awlaki
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10/6/2011 Th
10/7/2011 F Reidel: ch 6 [Benazir film 2]
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Ch 6: Punjab, Muttahida
Qaumi Movement [MQM], Bangladesh
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A working list of terms we have encountered [from
which terms will be drawn on the exam]
Punjab,
Muttahida Qaumi
Movement [MQM], Bangladesh, Mumbai, Kargil War
[or Kargil Offensive], Line of Control, David
Colman Headley, Human Khalil Abu Mulal al Balawi [Abu Dujannah al Khorasani], Lashkar-e Jangvi and Sipah-e-Sohaba [anti-Shia], Faisal Shahzad,
Anwar al Awlaki, Quetta, Lashkar-e
Tayba, Jaish-e-Muhammad,
Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, Asif Ali Zardali, Baluchistan, NorthWest
Frontier Province [NWFP], Panjsher Valley, Lal Masjid [Red Mosque],
Benazir Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif, Taliban, Mullah
Muhammad Omar, Kashmir, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Ahmad Shah Massoud,
Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, Gen Pervez Musharaf,
UNOCAL, Northern Alliance, Osama Bin Laden, Kandahar, Abu Zubaydah, Abu
Musaib al Zarqawi., William Casey, M. Zia al-Haq, mujahedin, Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto,
A.Q. Khan, Jamaat-i Islami
Party, General Akhtar, Durand Line, Sipah-e-Shoaba,
Federally Administered Tribal Areas [FATA], M. Yousaf,
The Kashmiri Project, Charlie Wilson, Hamed Gul, Afghan Arabs, Abdallah Azzam, Muslim Brotherhood, Hindu Kush, ummah, Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, Abu Mus’ad al-Suri, Al Qaeda,
Muhammad Ali Jinna, Deobandi,
Shi Muslim, Sayyid Abu A’ala
Mawdudi, ISI, Karachi, Peshawar, Sunni, Shia, Alawi, Drews, Salafi, green,
Allah o Akbar, dress in Iran, Neda Agha-Soltan, North Teheran, South Teheran.
Added:
Ruhollah Khomeini, Ali Khameini,
basijis, SAVAK, Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad.
Explain
the following phrases and how they relate to the material studied in this
class;
Definition
of the situation,
sedimentation
of meanings,
“Every
event has a distinctive cultural signature.”
Added: Iconic
symbols
What
is the connection between these two dates in our study? November 20, 1979; November 21, 1979.
What
was the empty chair in school in Cuba and in Florida supposed to represent,
from our reading?
The
rhetoric of Al Qaeda: “100 years of Crusader
British aggression…”; “war against Crusaders and Jews.”
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10/8/2011 S
10/9/2011 X
10/10/2011 M Review Lecture on rise of
Taliban, maps of FATA, etc.
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> 1980 The
formal opposition to the Soviets
> The 7 “parties” [political organizations]
> Gulbuddin Hekmatyar
> Ahmad Shah Massoud
> Abdul Haq
> CIA, American Ambassador and Ed McWilliams
> Afghan Arabs
> The 1980s:
Gorbachev and the weakening of the Soviet Union
> 1989: Feb: Soviets withdraw from Afghanistan
> 1991: August:
The coup attempt and Yeltsin’s challenge
> 1991: December End of the Soviet Union
> 1992, April: Najibullah’s
regime falls in Kabul
> War for Kabul between the Mujahedin:
> 1994: rise
of the Taliban: Mullah M. Omar
> Pakistan and American responses to the Taliban
> New Taliban:
Pakistani, Afghan youths trained in Wahhabi
schools in Pakistan in the 1980s
> Northern Alliance
> OBL Afghan Arabs return 1996 to Jalalabad
> 1998 Declaration of War against the US: Attach on
Nairobi and DarEsSalam
> Clintons missiles
> Oct 12, 2000.
Cole attack
> 2011
> Taliban receives more troops from Pakistan
> American response, Oct 7, 2001
> Iraq awakens al Qaeda
> Pakistan’s agendas and problems: India, Baluchistan, FATA
>
Taliban: MMO [Quetta shora], Haqqani network, Hekmatyar,
> Pakistan Islamists:
Jamaat-e Islam Party. Lashkar-e Tayba, Jaish-e Muhammad, Sapah-e Soheba,
> Current clash of interests
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10/11/2011 Tu
10/12/2011 W EXAM Lecture on rise of Taliban,
Pakistan’s increasing difficulties
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Significance of events described last time:
> The link between culture as resource and the
practical application of it to social affairs;
>
ambiguity and uncertainty in real life.
>
In the fluidity of affairs in Afghanistan/Pakistan in last 39
years, several kinds of cultural resources were used to cope with the
challenges: kinship-Tribal ties;
Islamic-religious ties. Agendas of
states [Pak struggle over Kashmir, control of Afghanistan].
Link to a chart on the history of the AF/PAK
relationship:
http://artsci.wustl.edu/~canfrobt/ChartMujTalibanAfPakHistory.pdf
Some resources on these topics:
On Benazir:
her autobiography *Daughter of the East*; *Reconciliation: Islam,
Democracy, and the West*.
On Pakistan’s deteriorating situation: A. Rashid: *Descent into Chaos.*
On Afghanistan:
D. Isby: *Graveyard of Empires*; Tomsen: *Wars of Afghanistan.* S. Coll:
*Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden,
from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001. E. Girardet: *Killing the Cranes: A Reporter's Journey
Through Three Decades of War in Afghanistan.*
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10/13/2011 Th
10/14/2011 F BREAK
10/15/2011 S
10/16/2011 X
10/17/2011 M *Denich: Yugoslavia Review
10/18/2011 Tu
10/19/2011 W *Denich:
Yugoslavia Film: Road to nowhere EXAM
10/20/2011 Th
10/21/2011 F *Denich:
Yugoslavia Notes
on the history of Yugoslavia
10/22/2011 S
10/23/2011 X
10/24/2011 M *Denich:
Yugoslavia Film: Road to Nowhere
10/25/2011 Tu
10/26/2011 W Gourevich Discussion Denich: Yugoslavia
10/27/2011 Th
10/28/2011 F Gourevich Discussion
10/29/2011 S
10/30/2011 X
10/31/2011 M Gourevich Discussion: Film: Valentina
11/1/2011 Tu
11/2/2011 W
Gourevich
Discussion
11/3/2011 Th
11/4/2011 F Gourevich Discussion
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Old notes
for exam preparation
[NB:
Human Rights watch has a site on precisely these questions. You may want to see it but please don’t
steal from it. Rather, I want you to
explain this in Gourevitch’s terms only. This is a test of your knowledge of the
book.]
On
Myth:
> Finley
(1980: 13) says, “The function of myth is to make the past intelligible and
meaningful by selection, by focusing on a few bits of the past which
thereby acquired permanence, relevance, universal significance.”
>
some key distinctions: Myth,
history, ideology, intersubjectivity, culture
> ethnicity as a construction of
reality: “imagined”, “invented”,
“mythologized”
> The European imagination of
identity: racist
> to explicate this: intersubjective
forms through which collective experience is enabled.
>
NB the abuses in the past are also constructions of reality: Cf Colonel Logiest’s solution [59+]
Some old test questions:
> what do
we know/think about early relations among Hutus and Tutsis?
> What was
the difference in the way the Europeans thought about them?
> 61: “Hutu dictatorship masqueraded as
democracy”: What did he mean? What was the context?
> Define:
Hutu Power; the interahamwe, akazu, génocidaires, RTLM,
RPF, Kigali, FAR, Hamitic myth, “cockroaches”,
UNAMIR, RPF, dress rehearsals,
> The
following are place names. Briefly,
what happened there: Nyarubuye, Goma, Mokoto, Mugonero, Hôtel des Mille Collines.
>
Describe the significance of certain key figures in the genocide
such as the following:
Major Gen [Pres] Juvénal
Habyarimana [68]
Mrs
Agathe Kanzinga [wife]
Col Guy Logiest 59-60,
Gregoire
Kayibanda 60-1,
Foduald
Karamira 91, 92, 129
Leon Mugesera
96
Stanislas
Mbonampeka 97
Romeo Dellaire
102
unknown informant for Dellaire 102-3
Kofi Anan 105
Madeline Albright
Dominique Mbonyumutwa [58-9]
Paul Rusesabangina
112 +
Madame Agateh
Uwilingiyimana [Hutu PM] 114
Father Wenceslas 135 [of Sainte Famille church],
John Hanning
Speke [50+],
Hutu
Power: 18,23,
26, 53, 76, 77, 81, 82, 92, 93, 95, 99, 100, 101, 102, 104, 113, 114, 116,
121, 123, 127.
Speke: 50, 55, 67
Race
Science 50, 55
Flemish
priests 58
Democracy
58, 59, 60, 61, 66, 68, 69, 75, 82, 92
Treatment
of the educated, moderates 65,67, 22, 67, 69, 83, 111, 115, 121
Mwami
47, 49, 59, 54, 56, 66, 49,
Organization: 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 103, 104, 108,
109, 111, 113, 114, 115, 117, 123, 125,
Power of
myth: 97-98.
The
significance of events in Somalia and Bosnia: 102, 103.
What did
they do to organize the genocide?
In your essay emphasize: traditional conventions of
understanding; actions of leaders; ideology; organization/ planning/
collecting of materials/ organization of people; importance of fortuitous
events;
> Explain
how institutions of power shaped “memories of the past” in Rwanda.
>
Explain the significance and place of the following in the
genocide:
> interehamwe
> akazu
> planning and execution of the leadership
> Somalian
images;
> Belgian army and UN behavior;
> death of Habyarimana;
> fake attacks by RPF;
> role of radio in the genocide
>
dress rehersals:
> Explain how the following were
used in the genocide:
> the use of technology: media, machetes
> cadres already trained and equipped,
organized
> a culture of consent
> tradition of obedience to command
> an acceptance/compliance with Tutsi
blaming
> a myth that frames the moral order
> Hamitic myth
> “cockroaches”
> the obligation to kill in order to do
good
> What do
you learn about _[insert from below]______ in the instance of the
Rwandan massacres?
[the
way power is organized],
[the
way mythical images can be manipulated],
[the
way populations can be influenced ]
[NB all of the above are variations
on the same question: the relation
between power, social organization, symbolic manipulation]
>
Themes to emphasize:
traditional conventions of understanding; actions of leaders;
ideology; organization/ planning/ collecting of materials/ organization of
people; importance of fortuitous events;
Explain
the following statements:
> “Genocide ... is an exercise
in community building.”
>
“The genocide was a product of order, authoritarianism, decades of
modern political theorizing and indoctrination, and one of the most
meticulously administered states in history. And … the ideology – or what the Rwandans
call “the logic” -- of genocide was promoted as a way not to create
suffering but to alleviate it.”
Things to include in your
explanation
Myth,
public narratives
Conventions
of practice
Early,
under Bengians, after WWII
Leadership
Mwami’s influence
Belgian
leaders, two kinds in two different situations
Social
leverage of leadership, sources of their power/influence
Planning
Organization
Sequences
of events; chronology
Choices
in events: ranges of options, actual
decisions taken
> Describe
the key developments described by Gourevich in
order to track how they shaped the course of events in Rwanda. Indicate what the “culture” was at given
times, noting the key factors that created the “culture” for those times.
> pre-contact society: what was crucial, worth emphasizing
> early contact: what to emphasize: Speke’s concept; race science
> post WWI: Belgian control; their emphasis on ethnic
categories; they instituted a new government; removed the old; favored
Tutsis; schools educated ethnic differences
> post-WWII: new activism: Flemish, Hutu intellectuals [1957]; Hutu
gangs [1959]; drive out Tutsis; Belgians abolish monarchy [1961]; Burundi rebellion: drive out Tutsis; new
abuses by Hutus
> 1973:
Habyarimana becomes pres [1973]; aid from France, Belgium, Swisse; akazu Hutu power forms around Habyarimana
[late 1980s]; Musaveni in Uganda [1986]; coffee
prices fall [1986]; Berlin wall falls [1989]; Tutsi’s invade from Uganda
[1990]; Hutu levies are required to kill Tutsi neighbors [1990]; Hutu power
is open [1992];
> 1993 +: Events leading up to the massacres: US Rangers are killed in Somalia [Oct,
1993]; UNAMIR arrive, prohibited from using force [Dec1993]; UNAMIR
discovers plot, cache, concerned about machetes arriving; Habyarimana and Pres of Burundi are killed [Ap1994]; gov’t blames Tutsis, calls on everyone to kill Tutsis.
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11/5/2011 S
11/6/2011 X
11/7/2011 M Prunier: Darfur
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Hi everyone,
A note to clarify the reading
assignments and the status of the course at this point.
I have at various points in
the course assigned a lot of pages per day and at other times few pages per
day. This reflects my surmises about
the difficulty of the reading assignments.
I spent extra time on the article by Denich
because it was written for a professional audience and was highly
compact. Also, it brought out some
key concepts of anthropologists and illustrated how anthropologists write
to each other. I assigned many more
pages per day of the book on Rwanda because it was written for the public
and was an easy read, even if the subject matter was difficult to
bear. Now we are into the book on
Darfur. I have worried that this was
too difficult for the time we have to give to it. This is why I have assigned pp 76-123
only. You should have read and
internalized these pages in the next three days because from these pages we
will take the exam questions. I
believe that you will need help, if you are to follow the point
clearly. So Make sure you check back
to the two glossaries at the beginning of the book to be sure you follow
the argument, because Prunier will use local
terms and abbreviations of the organizations in his discussion. I will try in the lectures to clarify the
argument and the way this part of the book fits into the rest of the
book. You should get a sense of what
I am after from the lectures, but the exam will mainly be taken from the
assignments.
Remember to bring your book
to class.
Note that for this exam we
will have three cases of social breakups based on socially produced
categorical distinctions. Those
distinctions require a certain amount of re-iteration in order to insure
that the societies retain their divided characteristics, to keep the
differences seeming "real" to the members of the
communities. Those devices of
reinforcement include: rules of social interaction, education, radio/TV
broadcasts, government announcements and formal declarations, forms of
language, dress, building construction, etc. -- all these are useful in
defining difference. But in each
society the circumstances are different and so the devices of opposition are
different. The case we now have is especially
difficult because the differences between the clashing populations are so
ambiguous: In fact, that is the story of the fighting in Darfur: The differences are ambiguous and the
clashes take place every which way, between various kinds of groups. But the defining categories are similar
throughout: Arab/Muslim/Center
peoples versus BackAfrican/slave/marginal
peoples. But some groups are
attacked as “Black …” by some “Arabs…” but they themselves turn against
their neighbors accusing their neighbors of being “Black…” thus claiming to
be “Arab …”, etc. And virtually all
sides scarcely differ from each other phenotypically.
Good Luck. RLC
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11/8/2011 Tu
11/9/2011 W Prunier: Darfur film: All about Darfur
11/10/2011 Th
11/11/2011 F Prunier: Darfur
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Review materials for the exam
*Identification
terms
Terms from Denich and Gourovich:
Ottomans, Slobodan
Milosevic, Kosovo , Field of birds, Franjo
Tudjman, Knin, religious affiliation of the
Serbs, of the Croats, Starčevic, Great
Croatia, Greater Serbia, Ustasha, Marshall Tito, šahovnica [chessboard],, Hamitic
myth, “cockroaches”, Hutu power;, interahamwe, , akazu,, RTLM
Radio Tel Libre de Milles Collines
, RPF, , Kigali, , FAR, , Hamitic myth, , dress
rehearsals, , Juvénal Habyarimana,
Mrs Agathe Kanzinga, Col Guy Logiest, Foduald
Karamira,, Romeo Dellaire,
John Hanning Speke, “race science,” northwest
Hutus, Nyarubuye, “Kanguka”
and “Kangura,” Hutu 10 Commandments, "tall
trees," “cabbages”
Terms from Prunier re
Darfur:
Hasan al Turabi, Janjaweed, Omar el-Bashir,
SPLA, The Black Book, Khartoum, Al Fashir
*Possible short
essay topics
Explain the involvement
of the French in Rwanda
What was the role of
the following in the Rwandan massacres: soccer clubs, the media, the lists,
intellectuals.
Explain why the
following bear complex meanings: Pigeon Caves, Josenovac,
šahovnica [chessboard].
Explain how the
monument in Jasenovac and the šahovnica
[chessboard] came to mean different things to different people.
What was the plight of
the Kosovo Serbs as Miloshovic defined it?
What was the
significance of the museum at Josenovac? Why was it vandalized in 1991, and by
whom?
Explain how the “past
poisons the present” in the case of Yugoslavia and Rwanda in the 1990s.
Why was Kosovo
important to the Serbs?
What did the British do
at the end of WWII that became an issue in Yugoslavia in the 1990s.?
Local police in a
Dalmatian town precipitated the armed conflict in Croatia in 1991. Why?
What was the problem?
Why did Tito’s
Yugoslavia ban the performance of the play “pigeon’s caves”?
Explain how burial
sites became heavily invested with meaning after World War II.
Explain how the symbols
being deployed in the establishment of the Coat state under Tudjman came to
have contrary meanings for Serbs and Croats in the new Croatia. Identify some of those symbols.
*Possible long essay
questions:
The Yugoslavia case is
about the way “ethnic nationalism” was created and promoted in a particular
situation; Explain how a similar concept “ethnicity” was created and
promoted in the case of the Rwandan massacres.
The narrator in the
film Road to Nowhere that ethnic nationalism is: being master in your own
house [wanting freedom…]; the politics of fantasy; the dream of being one
people; a language of sacrifice; a rhetoric of excuses; a vocabulary in
which everyone shifts the blame.
Explain how these definitions relate to “ethnic” tribal concepts in
Rwanda in the 1990s.
Denich says that she is describing “the symbolic
processes that mediate the communication between leaders and populaces,
invoking them to think, feel, and act collectively according to its
premises” in the case of the formation of Croatia; explain how such
processes worked in the development of the genocide in Rwanda.
In Yugoslavia and
Rwanda we have encountered certain definitions of the situation that
“constructed” certain “realities” which were then factors in the course of
events. Explain the ways the
situations were constructed, to create certain “realities” that became the
basis of social relations in these two societies.
Explain how rhetoric
influenced the course of affairs in the creation of Darfur and the genocide
in Rwanda
Finley (1980: 13).
Thinking of Africa he says, “The function of myth is to make the past
intelligible and meaningful by selection, by focusing on a few bits of the
past which thereby acquired permanence, relevance, universal
significance.” How does this
statement seem fitting to both situations we have studied, in Yugoslavia
and Rwanda.
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11/12/2011 S
11/13/2011 X
11/14/2011 M Prunier: Darfur
|
The
point of the readings in this unit of the course:
The power of
rhetoric, of language to define situations, to make things “real”; and the
emotional meanings invested in specific objects.
Yugoslavia
Milosevic: and his rhetorical
devices
Field of birds
Appeal to
Serbs
Use of the
threat to Serbs in Kosovo as a metonym
Tudjman:
The symbols of
Croat national identity
The
inescapable power of memory:
Ustacha,
checkerboard,
the pigeon’s
caves, the mass graves
The
contrary meanings ascribed to objects, police insignias
Rwanda:
Conventions
of authority and obedience
European
ideas of race science
Belgian
ID cards
Use
of “Democracy” to justify violence
Use of “Development” to attract
outside funds and masque political abuses
Use
of documents to define the nature of the social situation
Hutu
10 commandmenta
Hutu
Manifesto
Use
of the media to promote a crisis:
Kanduka///?
Radio
Use
of Terms to identify the enemy:
Cockroaches,
tall trees, cabbages, seductive women
The
call for a moral cause: purify
Darfur
Turabi, now
presents himself as representing the neglected
Islamist
when in power, to appeal to Libyan money
When
pushed out of power he cultivates the periphery
Uses Darfuris, connects with his old enemies in the south
Frightened government, without
troops, who are tied up in the south and many of whom are Darfuris:
releases criminals,
pays them to attack in the West.
Persistent calls for peace talks in
order to distract from what they are actually doing in the west.
NB:
Power of conventional
meanings:
To enable
communication, cooperation, genocide
Power of symbolic forms
representing deep feelings.
Pigeons caves
The role of leadership in
defining situations; the role of followers
NB: polarized situations: beyond the power of individuals to
control
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11/15/2011 Tu
11/16/2011 W Review
11/17/2011 Th
11/18/2011 F EXAM
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Assignment
for Monday: Begin Reading Tutu, the
first 30 pages.
|
11/19/2011 S
11/20/2011 X
11/21/2011 M Special presentation: Kimjangilia. Read: Tutu pp 1-33
11/22/2011 Tu
11/23/2011 W THANKSGIVING
11/24/2011 Th THANKSGIVING
11/25/2011 F THANKSGIVING
11/26/2011 S
11/27/2011 X
11/28/2011 M Tutu Read
pp 35 – 87
|
A new and final task:
Tutu
The challenge ahead:
a take-home exam in the form of a paper on Tutu: I will give you the final wording on the
last day of class. Papers due: Email
copy: Dec 16 at 8:59 a.m. NB: This is earlier than previously
announced;
Hard copy: due Dec 19 [postmarked
this day, or in McMillan 112 with my name on the cover page].
Current
topic: How can societies
formerly at war, establish peace?
>
A common theme:
definition of the situation:
what was it? Why didn’t they have the same definition of the
situation?
>
Agreeing on a common story, a myth of common interest:
cf. Yugoslavia, Rwanda,
Afghanistan/Pakistan, Darfur, Elian Gonzales.
> The South
African project: an unusual attempt
>
Your project: explain
how apartheid system could have worked; explain the attempts to reconfigure
the society so as to enable integration of all the populations, all of whom
are profoundly wounded. How bring
order and peace out of bitterness/ hatred.
>
Exact wording of the assignment on the last day.
> Why South Africa is worth looking at in these
terms.
My comments on the events
Consider the time [marches Sept, 89; “epoch-making
changes in Feb ’90.]
Consider the attitudes after apartheid: “forgetfulness” [cf. Denich]
Consider events leading up to the changes of ’90: what had happened?;
why did the new statement of the situation work?
Note to AN4045 students
The date due for this last paper in the course is the
same due-date for your other paper [on Congo].
|
11/29/2011 Tu
11/30/2011 W Tutu Film: Read Tutu pp 91-150
12/1/2011 Th
12/2/2011 F Tutu Read pp 151-213
|
The concept of hegemony
... is distinct in its refusal to equate consciousness with the
articulate formal system which can be and ordinarily is abstracted as
"ideology." ... Instead it sees the relations of domination and subordination, in their
forms as practical consciousness, as in effect a saturation of the whole process of living -- not only of
political and economic activity, nor
only of manifest social activity, but of the whole substance of lived identities and relationships, to such
a depth that the pressures and limits of what can ultimately be seen as a
specific economic, political, and cultural system seem to most of us the
pressures and limits of simple experience and common sense. ....
It thus constitutes a sense of
reality for most people in the society, a sense of absolute because experienced reality beyond which it is
very difficult for most members of the society to move, in most areas
of their lives. It is ... in the
strongest sense a "culture", but a culture which has also to be
seen as the lived dominance and
subordination of particular classes.
|
12/3/2011 S
12/4/2011 X
12/5/2011 M Tutu Film:
Read pp 217-287
12/6/2011 Tu
12/7/2011 W Tutu Review
Tutu.
|
Write
a paper on the social history of the “social engineering” of South Africa
since the inauguration of apartheid in 1948.
·
Explain
how the society was “engineered” so as to make apartheid seem “natural,” an
ordinary “reality”; and
·
explain
the conditions that brought an end to apartheid; and
·
explain the terms of the Truth and Reconciliation
Commission, which represented a new project of social engineering.
Hint: I will be reading for: whether/how well they read the book; how
well the understood the social/political situation in the key periods
involved [apartheid, restructuring of the society, TRC period]; how well
they explain/put together their argument.
Give
concrete examples and make use of particular statements in Tutu’s
book. Draw your material from Tutu
only, or from the films shown in class; nothing from any other source. Among the particulars that maintain these
social systems you should include such topics as the following: the exercise of force, the structure of
institutions, the informal relations and practices that made apartheid seem
natural, that made change seem necessary, even right to do, etc.
|
12/8/2011 Th
12/9/2011 F LAST CLASS
Due dates:
Final Take-assignment: As
indicated above [12/7/11]. Length: 5
pages. Email version is Due December 16 at 8:59 a.m.; Hard copy
version is due Dec 19 [at McMillan 112, or postmarked this date].
All
papers by AN4045 students: due [email]
Dec 16, 8:59 a.m.; Dec 19 [hard copy, as above]
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