Heterogeneity, Politics of Ethnicity, and Multiculturalism What is a Viable Framework for Indonesia?

Indonesia is a plural society that consists of several hundred ethnic and sub-ethnic groups. One of its generic characteristics is heterogeneity. In the last ten years after the implementation of regional autonomy, we have witnessed the emergence of strong ethnic and religiously flavoured local identity politics in various places in Indonesia that created open and vicious conflicts. This periodical violence exploded especially during the election of district and provincial heads. The intimate relation multiculturalism, with the actual political praxis of everyday life as an alternative to the existing paradigm of the “homogenization” of nationhood, has not been discussed. I believe it is time to discuss the strategic junctures between heterogeneity, politics of ethnicity (and religion) and multiculturalism as well as their possible realization at the local and national levels in order to find a viable framework for a future Indonesia

The Juridical Status of Privileged Combatants Under the Geneva Protocol of 1977 Concerning International Conflicts

Centralized control and coordination of the connections in a wireless network is not possible in practice. To keep the delay from measure-ment instants to actuating the decisions, distributed control is required. This paper focuses on the uplink (from mobiles to base stations) and dis-cusses distributing the decision of when and when not to transmit data (distributed scheduling) to the mobiles. The scheme, uplink transmission timing, utilizes mobile transmitter power control feedback from the base station receiver to determine whether the channel is favorable or not compared to the average channel condition. Thereby, the battery consumption and disturbing power to other connections are reduced. The algorithm can be described as a feedback control system. Some transient behaviors are analyzed using systems theory, and supported by wireless network simulations of a system with a WCDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access) radio interface as in most 3G systems

Philosophy of Media Manipulation in the Globalization Era: Options for Countering

Corporative global media cannot be an instrument of the culture of peace, because they have made widespread individualistic values of the consummative society. Through their symbolic power, they successfully dominate over every sphere of existence of a society: politics, economic life, social ties, national culture, human communication and private life. Traditional media could not be a factor in the promotion and development of culture of peace, simply because they are proponents of corporative economic and political interests. It is in the interest of citizens to counter the activities of “rapacious capitalism” (SCHMIDT 1998), of local comprador political and economic elites, and the practice of robbery of their work; to bridle the proliferation of weapons and acts of aggression

Survival of the Fixed-est: Alien Invasion of Human Identity in Octavia Butler\u27s Dawn

While many definitions for science fiction have been offered over the years since the genre’s inception, Robert A. Heinlein’s definition, with its easy-to-follow five-point format, remains one of the most specific and comprehensive. Heinlein argues that, in a science fiction story: 1. The conditions must be, in some respect, different from here-and-now, although the difference may lie only in an invention made in the course of the story. 2. The new conditions must be an essential part of the story. 3. The problem itself—the plot —must be a human problem. 4. The human problem must be one which is created by, or indispensably affected by, the new conditions. 5. And lastly, no established fact shall be violated, and, furthermore, when the story requires that a theory contrary to present accepted theory be used, the new theory should be rendered reasonably plausible and it must include and explain established facts as satisfactorily as the one the author saw fit to junk. (17, emphasis in original) Octavia Butler’s Dawn fits Heinlein’s definition of science fiction because it takes place in an apocalyptic future, the conditions of which are important to the story; it centers on the human problem of how to maintain a distinctly human identity in the face of genetic, social, sexual, Pretzer 2 emotional, and psychological manipulation and domination by an alien race; and it avoids scientific implausibility by explaining its violations of usual facts

COLONIALISM TOWARDS CHINESE SOCIETY IN W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM’S THE PAINTED VEIL

In this thesis, the writer is interested to analyze colonialism in William Somerset Maugham’s The Painted Veil. The purposes of the thesis are to analyze how the British colonization works during the cholera epidemic in China, to analyze how the response of China society about British colonization, and to analyze the perspective of the Western toward the Eastern which is implied in The Painted Veil. In doing this research, the writer uses method of library research. The object of the thesis is William Somerset Maugham’s The Painted Veil and the supporting data are any information related to the analysis of the object which are taken from the library or internet. The writer also uses postcolonial approach to help explain the issues in The Painted Veil. To investigate the issues, the writer uses colonialism theory by Ania Loomba. The results of the thesis is that British colonialism in China has three purposes. Those are: gold which is related to the economy domination, gospel or christianization, and glory which is related to domination of a nation. The colonialism results in positive and negative response from the Chinese. There is also the view from the Western toward the Eastern. The negative views from the West are stereotypes on how the West looks at the East. The Western thinks that their culture, appearance, manner, belief, and education are better than the Eastern. There is a line boundary between the West and the East. The line boundary makes a nation is different from the other

Transforming Power Relationships: Leadership, Risk, and Hope. IHS Political Science Series No. 135, May 2013

Chronic communal conflicts resemble the prisoner’s dilemma. Both communities prefer peace to war. But neither trusts the other, viewing the other’s gain as its own loss, so potentially shared interests often go unrealized. Achieving positive-sum outcomes from apparently zero-sum struggles requires a kind of riskembracing leadership. To succeed leaders must: a) see power relations as potentially positive-sum; b) strengthen negotiating adversaries instead of weakening them; and c) demonstrate hope for a positive future and take great personal risks to achieve it. Such leadership is exemplified by Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk in the South African democratic transition. To illuminate the strategic dilemmas Mandela and de Klerk faced, we examine the work of Robert Axelrod, Thomas Schelling, and Josep Colomer, who highlight important dimensions of the problem but underplay the role of risk-embracing leadership. Finally we discuss leadership successes and failures in the Northern Ireland settlement and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Marxism and Cultural Studies in the Development of Axel Honneth’s Theory of Recognition

This essay analyses the interaction between Marxism and Cultural Studies in the genesis of Honneth’s theory of recognition. I reconstruct the passages through which Honneth, by drawing on the writings of some of the major cultural theorists and in reference to the works of the young Marx, develops the conceptual foundations of his paradigm (I), with special attention to the themes of social labour and the relationship between work and recognition (II). I then point out the epistemic and practical qualities of Honneth’s theory in relation to its origins in Marxism and Cultural Studies; notably its capacity of detecting even the forms of social protest which have not yet reached the threshold of public expression, and its providing an explanation for those revolts which would otherwise seem to be only led by destructive rage (III)