Is not the Pashtun amenable to love and reason?
He will go with you to hell if you can win his heart,
The article investigates recurrent narratives in the cultural historiography of the early twentieth-century nonviolent movement of the Pashtuns, known as Khudai Khidmatgar (1929–1948). Commentaries and studies of this movement are ridden with three inter-connected problems: first, a cultural stereotyping of the Pashtuns, labeling acts of nonviolent resistance as an aberrant phase in a culture branded as inherently violent; second, a denial of the indigenous roots of the movement, viewing it as a provincial offshoot of Gandhianism; and third, an elitist privileging of the principles of nonviolence over concrete acts and practices. Employing a close reading of media reports and historical accounts, I argue that the Khudai Khidmatgar movement offered an example of radical nonviolent action, drawing from Islamic principles, and dialectically engaging with transnational debates. I propose a careful examination of the foreclosures and oversights in the historical narratives of nonviolent resistance movements.
In 1915, over one thousand women from warring and neutral nations met at The Hague to protest against the First World War. In 1919, some of them met again in Zurich to discuss ways of building a sustainable peace. Focusing on the concepts of human security and positive peace, this article compares these activists' vision of a gendered peace with the principles underlying UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000) and considers whether the barriers and obstacles to women's participation in formal peace negotiations have been overcome. It also considers whether the Hague women's work for peace was informed by a discourse of human rights. The comparison works to improve our historical understanding as well as revealing how attitudes to war, peace, and gender have developed over the intervening period. The experience since passage of UNSCR 1325 has shown that UN Resolutions alone do not guarantee women's effective inclusion in peacebuilding. The failure since 2000 to tackle gender-based violence, sexual trafficking, and rape during and after conflict also shows the limitations of a human rights discourse that does not explicitly address the differences between men's and women's experiences.
]]>Focusing on a case study from Nepal, this article argues that as the private sector is a heterogeneous constituency consisting of a variety of actors who can perform in favor of or against peace, generalizing the entire sector as either a builder or spoiler of peace can be deeply misleading. Instead, this article proposes an alternative approach that may help to understand the personal and structural dimensions that make up a business response to peace and conflict. These two dimensions, which can be better understood in terms of a business actor's self-interests, motivations, and the economic incentive structures and mechanisms, are central in shaping businesses' attitudes and responses toward peace and conflict. The personal and structural dimensions may provide an analytical framework that distinguishes between business actors who might want to benefit from political instability and conflict and those who may want to support peace initiatives. In this article, these two categories of the private sector are referred to as “conflict profiteers” and “pro˗peace entrepreneurs” respectively. While the business activities of a conflict profiteer may exacerbate conflict dynamics, by contrast a pro-peace entrepreneur can contribute to building peace in Nepal.
]]>This article recounts former president Herbert Hoover's secret efforts to avert war between Japan and the United States in 1941, culminating in his behind-the-scenes intervention to encourage an eleventh hour modus vivendi just a few days before Pearl Harbor. Throughout the spring, summer, and fall of 1941, Hoover believed he had inside information about Japanese–American relations through his unique access to Japan's Ambassador Kichisaburo Nomura. Hoover's close associates William R. Castle (former undersecretary of state) and John C. O'Laughlin (publisher of the Army-Navy Journal) both talked regularly with Nomura and reported back to the “chief.” Hoover's last-minute involvement in December was facilitated by Raoul Desvernine, an attorney for the Japanese embassy. Hoover's failure to avert war confirmed his belief that FDR's rigidity amounted to “sticking pins in tigers” and guaranteed U.S. entry into World War II via the Pacific “back door.” This essay will assess Hoover's secret, if sometimes misguided, efforts to prevent a war that neither he nor his successor could stop.
]]>Despite the common assumption that conflicts over value commitments are intractable, research on the narratives of activists associated with the Triratna Bauddha Mahasangha Sahayaka Gana (TBMSG) challenges such assumptions in many significant ways. For Dalit (literally broken or downtrodden in Sanskrit) ex-untouchables of the TBMSG, dialogue presents an important solution to such assumptions of intractability. Claiming that inter-caste dialogue processes provide a unique opportunity and relatively untapped discursive space for Dalits to overcome the historical legacy of low-caste marginalization, this article is aimed at integrating insights from ethnographic work with research on the psychodynamics of narrative creation of collective worldview (here understood as an interpretive framework through which people interact with the world). While one might assume that sensitive dialogue processes around caste should take place incrementally given the long and brutal history of caste discrimination in India, this article challenges this assumption by arguing that a measured approach to inter-group interaction is laden with veiled identity threats and under-attended worldview commitments which conspire to reify caste oppression rather than overcome it. Inter-caste dialogue is the most viable means to both create social change for Dalits and ensure their stories of marginalization are heard alongside ongoing processes of neo-Buddhist identity creation.
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