THE INTERNMENT OF JAPANESE AMERICANS DURING WORLD WAR II: A CASE STUDY OF NATIONAL TRAUMA AND INSTITUTIONAL VIOLENCE

The events set in motion by the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbour wereamong the more consequential events in the history of the world (Toland, 1982).The subsequent development of the atomic bomb and its use at Hiroshima andNagasaki permanently changed the conditions under which men and women live(Selden and Selden, 1989) and provided a dramatic illustration of what humanbeings are capable of doing to each other (Lifton and Markusen, 1988). Theimmediate effects of the surprise attack on the United States (US) were traumatic asthe nation entered a war for which it was not prepared. The long range-effectsinclude the imprinting of the surprise attack in collective memories and a nationaldetermination by the US to never again be caught unprepared militarily (Neal,2005). Both political leaders and journalists drew upon the memories of PearlHarbour as they attempted to make sense out of the surprise terrorist attack ofSeptember 11, 2001 (9/11), and to mobilize the nation for an effective response

A Meditation on Confronting the Legacy of African Slavery in the US

The presence of African slaves in the Americas is older than the United States, but there is yet to be general agreement on what trans-Atlantic slavery means to the contemporary American nation. Instead, racialised acrimony characterises the manner in which the discourse is approached. The argument developed in this article suggests that the institution of slavery be understood in the racialised terms it adopted and adapted if the acrimony is to be confronted, noting that President Obama’s offi cial position on the legacy of slavery, including reparations, has reinforced the racialised spaces that describe the nation. This position, despite Congress’s recent historic apology for slavery, perpetuates the racialised acrimony and, in the absence of a more meaningful and robust political confrontation, leaves the legacy of slavery as unfi nished business.AFRICA INSIGHT Vol 42 (1) – June 201

Indigenous People in Africa : Contestations, Empowerment and Group Rights

This volume is an attempt to provide this intersectional and reflexive space. The thinking behind the book began in Lamu in mid-2010. It was a time when growing community resistance emerged towards the Kenyan government's plan to build a second seaport under a trans-frontier infrastructural project known as the Lamu Port- South Sudan-Ethiopia Transport Corridor (LAPSSET). The editors agreed that a book that draws community activists, academics, researchers and policy makers into a discussion of the predicament of indigenous rights and development against the backdrop of the Endorois case was timely and needed. Assembled here are the original contributions of some of the leading contemporary thinkers in the area of indigenous and human rights in Africa. The book is an interdisciplinary effort with the single purpose of thinking through indigenous rights after the Endorois case but it is not a singular laudatory remark on indigenous life in Africa. The discussion begins by framing indigenous rights and claims to indigeneity as found in the Endorois decision and its related socio-political history. Subsequent chapters provide deeper contextual analysis by evaluating the tense relationship between indigenous peoples and the post-colonial nation-state. Overall, the book makes a peering and provocative contribution to the relational interests between state policies and the developmental intersections of indigeneity, indigenous rights, gender advocacy, environmental conservation, chronic trauma and transitional justice