Union of the Comoros is experiencing chronic political instability since its independence in 1975. From coups attempts to coup, from constitutional developments to national reconciliation, the Union ...is fragile and tries to resist with an endemic balkanization. It is embodied with the political affiliation of the fourth island of the Comoros archipelago, Mayotte, in the French Republic and with the separatist attempts of Anjouan and Moheli. In this tense political context occurred on March 25, 2008 the landing in Anjouan of an international force under the aegis of the African Union to overthrow President Mohamed Bacar. Union of the Comoros illustrates the obstacles of a national cohesion within a multi-insular state wrestling with heavy political difficulties and persistent economic and human development problems.
De l’accession de la République Démocratique du Congo à la souveraineté nationale (1960) jusqu’à la prise du pouvoir par le Haut Commandement Militaire (1965), la province du Kasaï (d’où émergera ...plus tard entre autres, la province de Luluabourg) disposait d’une Assemblée provinciale propre. L’antagonisme, en effet, entre les idées belges et congolaises aboutit à une Table Ronde politique tenue à Bruxelles du 20 janvier au 20 février 1960. Les participants s’entendirent sur la date de l’accession du Congo à l’indépendance. Elle est fixée au 30 juin 1960. L’image politique que la première constitution, copiée sur le modèle belge, institua pour le nouvel Etat sera un régime de la démocratie parlementaire. La loi fondamentale inspirée par les résolutions de la Table Ronde fixa les institutions centrales et provinciales, lesquelles doublées de confusion aux niveaux provincial et central, conduisirent le pays à la crise. Cette crise politique entraîna à son tour le démembrement du pays. De ce fait, l’ancienne province du Kasaï et même son Assemblée Provinciale connaîtront la balkanisation. Ainsi, les principes de la démocratie parlementaire n’étaient pas bien appliqués dans notre pays et partant dans la province du Kasaï. Les années qui suivent l’indépendance du Congo, se firent ainsi remarquer par un désordre total sur toute l’étendue de la République. Toutefois, la Province du Kasaï reste la zone la plus troublée du territoire congolais.
L’Etat précolonial Téké en Afrique Centrale, appelé abusivement Royaume Makoko, est peu connu du public en raison de son enclavement. Le peu d’informations disponibles viennent non seulement de la ...tradition mais également des écrits partiels étrangers, spécialement les missionnaires capucins et les explorateurs. Pourtant, cette période renferme beaucoup de secrets qui auraient dus nous guider. La terre et la langue constituent les seuls vestiges qui n’ont pas changés. Mais, l’organisation socio-politique connut de la déformation à cause de l’oralité et du changement de l’Etat dû à l’influence brutale de la colonisation européenne. L’Etat Téké précolonial couvrait territorialement, une partie de la RDC (120.000Km2) et une partie de la République du Congo (80.000Km2) ainsi qu’une partie du Gabon (20.000Km2) et a existé avant la colonisation belgo française de 1885. Le peuple Téké se localise actuellement dans les trois pays à savoir : la République Démocratique du Congo, le Congo Brazzaville et le Gabon. Cet Etat avait été balkanisé par les pseudos traités Makoko de PS De Brazza et accords présentés par HM Stanley entre 1880-1885. Tous deux explorateurs sans qualité ni mandats officiels des Etats étaient venu proposer aux anciens dirigeants de l’Etat précolonial, de pourparlers aux fins d’établir des relations commerciales aux années 1880-1883. Les anciens dirigeants de l’Etat précolonial n’avaient pas trouvé d’inconvénients pour l’ouverture de leur Etat au monde. Et ce, sans savoir lire ni écrire les langues des explorateurs ci-dessus. Ces derniers les ont embarqué dans un mensonge extrême jusqu’ aux atteintes matérielles à l’existence de l’Etat précolonial après la conférence de Berlin sur le partage arbitraire de l’Afrique. Ces pseudos traités et accords dits de cession de souveraineté et de suprématie étaient contraires à la coutume de Ntsié, c’est-à-dire de la constitution téké consacrant l’inaliénabilité sacrée de Ntsié et ne pouvaient pas engager les Téké, ni l’Etat. Donc, ces accords sont nuls au regard de la coutume de Ntsié. Dans le droit public téké, la violation du principe sacré de Ntsié est imprescriptible. Et l’action revendicative se transmet de génération en génération. La ratification des traités dits Makoko par la France relève non seulement du dol et de la contrainte mais également hors du droit international.
In her new book Early Cinema, Modernity and Visual Culture. The Imaginary of the Balkans, Ana Grgić defines the region as a cultural entity captured at the turn of the twentieth century – a period ...marked by the culture of modernity sweeping Europe and the emergence of the moving pictures. This methodological approach contributes to breaking a longstanding tradition in the field of early and silent cinema studies focused on the ‘national’.
The European Union, in its constitutional project, had abandoned the idea of setting up Christianism as the foundation of a common identity. The reason of this choice was not only the distinction ...within the Christian religion between divergent forms, but also, during the long history of Europe, the presence of other religions, although in minority in this part of the world. Amongst them, Islam: «The tragical events in Bosnia showed the general public the existence, at the gates of western Europe, of a Slavonic-speaking Moslem population come from an ill-understood past and an almost unknown religious process: the past is that of Ottoman Rumelia; the process that of the conversion to Islam of some Balkanic peoples between the end of the Middle Ages and our time». Where does European Islam come from, be it Slavonic, Albanian or Türk, when it is older than the recent immigrations? The answer seems obvious: from the Ottoman Empire, when Istanbul replaced Constantinople. The Islamisation came either with the transportation of settlers from Anatolia or with the conversion of the natives to the new religion of the State. But how did this conversion come about? Its precedents are here observed, the existence in the Balkans since the Middle Ages of a faith which its believers told was Christian, even «true Christian», but which the contemporaneous clergymen branded as Manichean. The relation between this faith, in its various assemblies, and European Islam has been disputed. This study tries to present some elements for the debate. Beyond, will be left to ask what makes unity or division in human societies. For, notwithstanding the term, Balkanisation is not special to the Balkans.
The resurgence of nationalist tendencies around the world has brought new attention to the problem of smaller regions seceding from larger states. While research exists regarding the contagious ...nature of self-determination, ethnic conflict and civil wars, the interrelationships among various secessionist conflicts have not been systematically studied. We show that the circumstances of secession conflicts in different countries are interconnected by the perceptions of elites and that outcomes in one case may, therefore, influence expectations, motivations, strategies and outcomes in others. We also identified several indicators of interconnectivity among secessionist conflicts in the Western Balkans and visualised the strength of the links among them using social network analysis tools (Pajek - Spider). After the outbreak of a secession conflict, several inter-secession effects will be directly transferred to the most interconnected cases, and the greatest domino risk results from the combined impacts of direct and indirect nth-order effects.
The Wild Hunt Monroe, Alexei
Third text,
11/2/2018, 2018-11-02, Volume:
32, Issue:
5-6
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
'Brexit' is a shocking new political-cultural-psychological archetype, so rich in metaphorical potential that it is difficult to know how to 'hunt' its deeper meaning. Therefore, it seems fitting to ...look backwards and seek folkloric parallels to illuminate the gathering cultural darkness. The 'Wild Hunt' is a pan-European myth that is also present in English culture. Applied to Brexit, it symbolises the vengeful, bloodthirsty unleashing of euphoric violence, reflecting some of the (so far) mostly unspoken desires of Brexit ideologues. This article argues that Brexit represents not just a pre-modern, but a neofeudal love of the chase and the kill as ends in themselves. Specific goals and policies are simply decorative elements similar to the animal furs that adorned the halls of feudal warlords. Brexit embodies pure political chaos and is the first time that Balkanising 'National Anarchist' tendencies have manifested so clearly in the former Western bloc.
This article throws light on migration from Africa to Europe which happens on African soil. The Comoros Archipelago comprises Anjouan, Grande Comore, Mohéli and Mayotte, which has been part of France ...since 1975, and since January 1st 2014, an ultra-peripheral region of the European Union. This explains measures like the introduction, in 1995, of the Balladur Visa, which is commonly called "Visa de la mort" Visa of Death for inhabitants of the other three Islands. The privileged status of Mayotte has caused massive risky 'migration', which on the one hand is considered 'illegal' while on the other hand, is also regarded as 'internal' movement, given the historical ties among the peoples of the Archipelago. Constructing an argument from the works of two 'francographe' writers; Nassur Attoumani from Mayotte, and Soeuf Elbadawi from the Grande Comore; this paper challenges discourses on migration crisis and creates a venue for the visibility of critical texts by authors outside the main circuits of literary legitimation. Also, the analysis explores fertile points of dialogue between the economy of literature, history and sociopolitical geography by emphasizing the ambiguous relationship between Mayotte and Europe, while delving into conjectures on critical geography in order to understand an essential human concern: identity.
This article illustrates how discourses on 'state fragility' have been instrumentalised by the Indonesian military in order to consolidate its political and economic power after the fall of Suharto. ...In the wake of Indonesia's transition to democracy violent conflicts escalated in East Timor, Aceh, Papua, the Moluccas and Sulawesi. Most notably East Timor's successful secession spawned fears over the potential 'balkanisation' of Indonesia. In this context the Indonesian military, which had been shunned for its involvement in Suharto's New Order, managed to re-establish itself as the 'guardian of the nation'. Based on fieldwork in Indonesia, the article describes how post-9/11 discourses over a potential break-up of Indonesia were used by the Indonesian military to reconsolidate its power in the post-Suharto era. The research findings illustrate that, against the looming threat of state disintegration, attempts to revoke the military's prerogatives have either failed or have been aborted during the planning stages.
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