Description
Book SynopsisThis book highlights the complexities of nationalism and the struggles of different groups left unaddressed within the nation-states of a postcolonial world. The central question is what happened to the worldly and radical visions of freedom, liberty, and equality that animated intellectual activists and policy makers from Woodrow Wilson in the 1920s? This book analyzes the outcome of lumping disparate groups of people together under one nation-state and holding them together against the knowledge of the incompatibility theory of plural states. In a world of arbitrarily and colonially mapped sovereign states, groups, and nations with distinctive histories and cultures trapped within the borders of sovereign states want the freedom to decide their own destinies. This book challenges, deconstructs, and decolonizes Western epistemologies related to postcolonial state formation and maintenance. In examining the freedom concept that no human group ought to be determining the independence of
Trade ReviewIntra-state ethnic conflict remains a topic of perennial interest, not least because most of the world’s states have ethnically diverse populations. Fonkem Achankeng’s volume presents both theoretical analyses of national conflicts in post-colonial contexts as well as a diverse collection studies from Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Europe, and the Americas. The volume provides a valuable service to the comparative study of nationalism by emphasizing lesser-studied case studies whose peculiarities bring forth new perspectives. -- Alexander Maxwell, Victoria University of Wellington
In this most relevant and significant book, two conflict-causing applications of ‘nationalism’ are courageously addressed. Post-colonial power elites still use it as an imported rationale behind top-down attempts to unify population groups within a ‘state’. At various times and places, however, suppressed groups use it as a banner in their bottom-up struggles to acquire self-determination. The widely spread problem of reconciling national(ist) aspirations is frankly discussed in the foreword, four general chapters and eighteen case-specific chapters (covering five continents). Some questions inevitably have to remain open, but meaningful guidelines towards resolving these extremely complex conflicts are given – especially to the groups who ‘themselves hold the key to their freedom’. -- Jannie Malan, The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes
Table of ContentsPART ONE: GENERAL AND CONCEPTUAL ISSUES Chapter 1: Political Self-Determination as an International Norm: History, Content, Scope, and Status in Contemporary International Law Carlson Anyangwe Chapter 2: Chasing the Shadow: Myths of Nation-building in Postcolonial States Tatah-Mentan Chapter 3: Nationalism, Power Politics, and Pluralism in Divided Societies Ali R. Abootalebi PART TWO: AFRICA Chapter 4: The Pot and the Kettle: Failed States and the Terrorization of the Western Sahara Peace Process Jacob Mundy Chapter 5: Betrayal and Abandonment: Memory, History and Conflict Emotions in the Narratives of British Southern Cameroons’ Nationalists Fonkem Achankeng Chapter 6: Ethnocentrism First and Nationalism Second: Colonial/Postcolonial Constructions of Conflict in Kenya Daniel Karanja Chapter 7: Ethnic Nationalism and Identity Politics: Reminiscences of Biafra and the Quest for Self- Determination Donald O. Omagu Chapter 8: Ethnic & Nationalist Mobilization in South Sudan Solomon Losha Chapter 9: Somaliland and the Crisis of the Somali Nation Hassan Khannenje Chapter 10: British Southern Cameroons in Cameroun Republic: A Salad Bowl with Unmitigating Distinctive Ingredients Michael T. Ndemanu PART THREE: THE MIDDLE EAST Chapter 11: From Victims to Victors: The Kurdish Challenge to the State in the Middle East Ofra Bengio Chapter 12: Kurdish Nationalism and Conflict in Postcolonial Iraq Michael Gunter Chapter 13: Democratization and Ethnic Conflict: Transformation of Turkey’s Kurdish Question Ozum Yesiltas PART FOUR: ASIA Chapter 14: Methodological Nationalism, Subalternity and Critical Race Theory: Competing Narratives of National/Ethnic/Racial Identity in Iran. Alireza Asgharzadeh Chapter 15: Identity and Representation: Marma People in the Chittagong Hills, Bangladesh Chipamong Chowdhury Chapter 16: Myanmar: Nationalism, Security, and Resilient Insurgents Marie Olson Lounsbery PART FIVE: EUROPE Chapter 17: The Basque Conflict Globally Speaking: Material Culture, Media and Basque Identity in the Wider World J. P. Linstroth Chapter 18: Catalonia's Struggle for Self-Determination: From Regionalism to Independence Klaus-Jurgen Nagel PART SIX: THE AMERICAS Chapter 19: Brazilian Nationalism and Urban Amerindians: Some 21st Century Dilemmas for Indigenous Peoples Living in the Urban Amazon and Beyond J. P. Linstroth Chapter 20: Colonial vs National Self-Determination in the Falkland (Malvinas) Islands Lowell Gustafson Chapter 21: Puerto Rico: “The United States’ Unacknowledged Colony in the Caribbean” Margaret Power PART SEVEN: TOWARD RESOLUTION Chapter 22: Resolving Nationalism Conflicts in the Postcolonial World Fonkem Achankeng
