Introduction

A large number of elections are held each year with the specific purpose of promoting peace. However, there is an increasing appreciation of the obstacles involved in electoral processes in war-torn societies. Elections are often postponed for security reasons. When elections are held, they are often fraudulent, and marred by violence and boycotts. Former warring parties frequently play a key role in war-shattered societies and the very issues that caused the armed conflict are often reflected in the electoral contestation. An increasing body of literature on war-torn societies has concluded that elections can even increase the risk of violent conflict. The parliamentary elections in Macedonia and Sierra Leone in 2002 and in Burundi in 2005 served the purpose of sealing the respective peace agreement and established a new order of governance. However, several other elections held after a peace agreement, such as the ones held in Angola 1992, Cambodia 1993 and the Congo 2002, were followed by armed conflicts. These cases raise a pertinent question about post-accord elections. Why do some war-torn countries manage to hold elections without subsequent armed conflict, whereas elections in other countries are followed by such conflicts?

The study is motivated by three reasons. First, there is a policy need for improved knowledge on the role of elections in building peace. Election is not only a key component of democratization efforts, but has also become part of the peacebuilding agenda.

Can more psychology help us to understand something more of the 9/11 terrorist ‘attack on democracy’? Or is psychology already too much around us, leading us in the wrong direction as we try to make sense of these ‘strange times’? Psychology generally invites us to think about what people are thinking and why they do what they do, people as torn from social context; but psychological ways of thinking are also in the language we use when we articulate different ways of accounting for what is going on in the world. Some psychological theories are more tempting than others. A case in point is psychoanalysis, even when, and perhaps especially when, it seems to account for group psychology at times of war.

The search for a personal response to the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks is one of the easiest things to do in this culture, easier even than the search for the one person responsible; but both kinds of search are driven by an underlying assumption that the most important causes and effects of such an event are to be found deep inside individuals. And some kind of psychology is always already at hand here to help us target what we feel and open it up for others to see. More difficult is an understanding of the material conditions which structure that search and make it seem as if the individual is source and destination of what has been going on since 11 September.

RW: What is now the main priority of your movement – sending back the refugees first or stepping up the movement for democracy in Bhutan?

Gazmere: Clearly the priority for us now is to send back the refugees rather than wait for changes to take place in Bhutan. This is an issue, which divides the ‘pro-repatriation forces’ and the ‘pro-democracy forces’ in our movement today. There are those amongst us who argue that unless the problem that led to the creation of the refugee crisis is taken care of, it is no use sending back the refugees. But, I would like to see the repatriation of the refugees first rather than wait endlessly for democratic changes to take place – the repatriation of the Bhutanese refugees should not be entangled with the movement for democracy, which may take years to materialize.

Nowhere is the biomoral character of Bengali medical discourses and their shaping within a cosmopolitan medical market more clearly marked out than in the texts on what has come to be called the dhat syndrome in psychiatric literature. Most available histories of this affliction, however, have been framed by the debate amongst psychiatrists over whether it can be called a ‘Culture Bound Syndrome’ (hereafter CBS) or not. These histories, therefore, follow contemporary medical practice in assuming dhat to be a single, unified, pathological reality, be it an independent category or part of some larger denomination. This means that the phenomenon is thought to have a fixed set of symptoms located in the human physiology, and a clearly defined vocabulary to distinguish these.

We will argue, however, that the Bengali physicians in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had not conceptualized it as a unitary pathological reality. We will argue that they had conceptualized it as a shifting cluster of ideas. The specific form the cluster took and the vocabulary that was deployed to describe it could often vary. What were described as symptoms in one text could be described as a related illness in another. Moreover, words and categories used could change—slightly or more drastically. New categories could be added or old ones discarded. Following Deleuze and Guattari thus, we suggest that the reality of the dhat complaints in these texts should be conceptualized as a rhizoid reality.

India is generally considered as a generous host to the refugees compared to her neighbouring states. But, there is hardly any place for complacence. In recent years, government policies have become more stringent and discouraging. This is evident in the case of Sri Lankan Tamils (particularly after the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi) and also in the case of Bhutanese refugees of Nepalese origin, who had been detained and then sent back to Nepal. It is time to review the situation of the external shelter seekers in India. But equal, if not more attention must be devoted to the alarmingly increasing number of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in India, who have lost their homes on various accounts.

Samir Das and Sabyasachi Basu Ray Chaudhury in a very useful article seek to fill this gap, at least conceptually. In ‘Population Displacement in India: A Critical Overview’, they propose a very important ‘Typology of Internal Displacement’, which is immensely helpful, especially for beginners: both academics and activists. The authors classify this phenomenon into five broad categories and hold insightfully: ‘The fact that some communities are perpetually vulnerable to displacement than some others speaks of a deep – yet undeclared divide within the Indian society between the so-called “nationalist mainstream” and the outside’.

Introduction

How can donors and other external actors help to bring about durable peace and systems of governance based on democratic institutions and norms in developing countries that have experienced devastating civil wars? Democratization has become an integral part of contemporary peacemaking efforts to end civil wars. Because issues of failed governance and exclusive and discriminatory politics often are the root causes of internal conflicts, democracy is seen as the cure that may both resolve the issues at stake and simultaneously build the foundation for a peaceful postwar political order. The logic behind the view that democracy is a powerful peacebuilding device after intrastate war is that a democratic society is based on overarching principles, such as the right of all parties to exist and have a say, mutually agreed rules for the contest for power and a renunciation of violence as a method for resolving conflicts. As such, it enlarges the number of possible outcomes beyond losing the war or winning it. In theory, therefore, building peace through democracy is the ultimate route to sustainable peace and development in weak and war-torn states.

However, the empirical record of postwar democratization following the end of the Cold War era has demonstrated that this arranged marriage between peace and democracy has, in many cases, experienced serious difficulties, setbacks or even reversals. We argue that one of the key reasons for this oftentimes troubled relationship is the structural characteristics of the state itself in many parts of the developing world, which makes it difficult for the democratic project to work “as intended“.

INTRODUCTION

Throughout the years since 1983 in which military conflict between the Sri Lankan security forces and the Tamil militant groups has been the order of the day, we have witnessed a never-ending saga of a people forced into nomadic existence fleeing the areas of active conflict in search of a more secure and settled existence. Initial displacement of persons was a result of anti-Tamil campaigns in the southern parts of Sri Lanka in 1958, 1977 and 1978, which forced many Tamils to leave their homes in the Sinhala dominated parts of the country and move to the north and in the plantation areas in the late 1970s. Many of these people from the central highlands of Sri Lanka settled in the Vavuniya and Kilinochchi Districts of the Northern Province. Muslim and Sinhalese people living in Tamil majority areas have also been forced to leave due to threats against them.

[…] The question of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Sri Lanka is one of the main challenges for the humanitarian and human rights communities.

CATEGORIES OF IDPs IN SRI LANKA

The IDPs can at present be categorized under different headings to get a clearer understanding of the problem and the extent of resultant suffering, namely:

• IDPs living in government controlled areas in the North and the East;

• Internally displaced Tamils living in the North and East in territories held by the militants;

• […]

The refugee situation is one of the burning issues in today's world, where refugees make up more than 1 per cent of the whole population.1 Moreover, a great majority – of over 80 per cent – of refugees are women and their dependent children. The world's refugee situation is thus strongly manifested in and lived through the gendered experiences of women refugees. Yet, even in the face of the telling figures there however exists a striking disparity between the reality of the refugee situation and the business-as-usual of the refugee regime – refugee women's experiences are deemed to fundamental otherness. According to UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), ‘(H)istorically, the refugee definition has been interpreted through a framework of male experiences’. […]

Without taking into account refugee women's experiences, it is not possible to understand the refugee situation in a comprehensive and integrated manner. Omitting women's experiences leads to a deficient and incomplete refugee regime and results in inadequate and often even faulty responses to the refugee situation. […]

It is also of importance and interest to elaborate on the argument on a broader plain. It is possible to connect the argument for example to feminist historiography. In this connection, the argument for the importance of moving towards a more complete refugee regime through listening to women's experiences can be strengthened by the notion that ‘a representative history can only be written if the experience and status of one half of humankind is an integral part of the story’.

The following interview took place over a five-hour period at Bresson's (1901–1999) home on Île St Louis in Paris, shortly after L'Argent (Money) shared the 1983 Grand Prize for creative cinema at the Cannes Film Festival. It was conducted in both English and French, all of which I myself later translated. Parts of this interview have previously been published in other places; this is the first appearance, in print, of the entire, uninterrupted conversation between me and M. Bresson.

Yes, that's fine. Why not?

The title came from my desire to give the donkey a Biblical name. So I named him after one of the Three Wise Men. The title itself is the motto of the nobles of Baux, who claimed to be heirs of the Magie Balthazar; their motto was indeed “Au hasard Balthazar.”

[…] I was asked to speak on ‘forced migration and trafficking’ terms, which have now become major international law concerns. Recent debates in international agencies have sensationalized migration by linking it to trafficking in arms and drug smuggling and terrorism, to AIDS/HIV. The migrant, whose labour has served to build the wealth of other countries, has been reduced to a carrier of crimes and disease.

The use of the word ‘forced’ is, of course, susceptible to many complex nuances of interpretation that serve different interests or reflect different perspectives. It is indeed a contentious issue between countries of origin and destination, and government responses have been both contradictory and hypocritical. While countries of origin welcome foreign remittances from workers, they do little to facilitate their terms and conditions of employment. […] The more powerful countries such as the US have gone to the extent of using trade sanctions against the country of origin. At the same time the US has tempted migration through the sale of lotteries.

On the other hand, for ordinary citizens, freedom of movement is a choice for survival. Migration can be forced by political and economic circumstances in the country of origin, but administrative controls in the country of destination also force migrants into exploitative relations. […] While migration may be seen as a strategy for survival by families or an escape route for individuals, or even as presenting new opportunities, the human rights of migrants and their security are at risk from state controls, exploitation of the market and social exclusion. […]

This section contains five articles. The first two reflect on the problems and prospects of refugee representation in creative literature as well as in the media. The business of representation is drawing keen theoretical attention in recent years. Modes of representation are being seen as arenas for textualizing and performing subjectivity. Essentially, ‘representation’ is a work of substitution. The process of representation substitutes somebody/something for the other, in order to re-present somebody/something with an ‘original’ point of reference. Thus, in the process, it becomes a kind of un/intentional distortion/deformation of ‘the original’, whatever might be the amount (lesser/greater) such distortion/ deformation.

The risk of such distortion/deformation runs through all attempts of representation. This can be done by an ‘outsider-powerful’ or an insider/self-representative. This point occupies the centre of a debate, which began since the publication of Edward Said's Orientalism (1978). In this seminal work, Said famously quotes a line from Marx's The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, to describe the desire of the ‘outsiderpowerful’ (in this case, the Western ‘Orientalist’ scholars) to represent the (mute and weak) Orient: ‘They cannot represent themselves; they must be represented’. This desire to represent the mute Orient led the Orientalists to rebuild/refashion the Orient according their (imperialist) imagination.

Although the postcolonial self-representation (of the formerly colonized) seeks to invert the colonial/imperialist (distorted) representation of the native, the same theoretical objections can be raised against an indigenous self-representation, since it reintroduces the problem of the theoretical impossibility of simply producing a ‘true’ representation.

Psychologists are usually very skilled at separating out what happens inside other people and what they themselves think and feel. This is not easy. When they carry out laboratory experiments they get tangled up in many rhetorical tricks, turns of phrase that refer to the others as the ‘subjects’ when those others are being treated as if they were objects. And in this kind of situation the experimenter, who is really the subject of the narrative – ‘I asked such and such people to perform this task in these different conditions’ – disappears altogether. Although the experimenters did it and write about what they did, they are not allowed to write in the first person. Psychology students learn quickly that there is no place for the ‘I’, for personal experience or reflection on their position in experimental reports, and they are often penalised for making themselves present in essays or any other kind of writing in psychology journals.

Psychologists are usually skilled at avoiding themselves then, but what happens when we try to train them up, to help them to become skilled in acknowledging their position? When the psychology degree was being rewritten at Manchester Polytechnic in the late 1980s, and interpersonal skills workshops were being introduced in the first and second years of the course, it seemed to be an ideal opportunity to change the way psychologists were taught to operate in relation to others.

Salford Masonic Hall has a notice board – it is in the entrance hallway, facing the men's toilets, at the back of the building, through the car park – on which visitors can learn how many freemasons there are in East Lancashire. Gone are the old days of secret networks and conspiratorial fraternities that guaranteed the success of many small businesses as capitalism developed; now the message to the public is one of transparency and goodwill in post-industrial cities like Manchester. And more secrets will be revealed on Tuesday evenings, for this is where the Manchester Circle of Magicians gets together to perform tricks and then show how they are done.

This circle was formed after splitting from the Order of the Magi and, unlike most other groups of magicians in the UK – the most prestigious being the Magic Circle – it does not require people to audition to join; instead, prospective members, it says on the website, ‘will simply be asked if they are seriously interested in magic’. The Manchester circle fights for its status – to be recognised as having members who are ‘real magicians’ – and has carved out a respectable space in the myriad of organisations that practice and protect magic. There are sometimes references to ‘jealous idiots’ who claim that there are no ‘real’ magicians who are members, and the key dividing line is between ‘the lay man’ outside and members who can recognise that there is a magic effect, and then ‘he is no lay person and entitled to find out how things work’.

Douglas Sirk's (1900–1987) career breaks down neatly into three parts. First is his German period (1934–42), which, starting with Zwei Genies (1934), comprises two dozen sophisticated melodramas and comedies of manners. His second phase began in 1943, after he emigrated to America, with the topical anti-Nazi drama Hitler's Madman (1943). During this time Sirk brought a high-art sensibility to programmers and European-style films like A Scandal in Paris (1946), for various companies. In 1950, with Mystery Submarine, he moved for good to Universal Studios where he made the films that secured his reputation as the premier 1950s melodramatist: All I Desire (1953), There's Always Tomorrow (1956), All That Heaven Allows (1955), Written on the Wind (1956), The Tarnished Angels (1958), and Imitation of Life (1959).

In Michael Stern's interview, which explores the latter two periods but also considerably more, two seemingly contradictory statements appear within a few sentences of each other: “We were deeply steeped in Art” and “For God's sake, no more Art.” These words represent, in some ways, the unique appeal of Sirk's work and the fascinating paradoxes it contains. On the one hand, he's the consummate studio craftsman, embracing the most conventional elements in cinema. His major films were all made for one of the biggest Hollywood studios, using best-selling source novels by the likes of Fannie Hurst and Lloyd C. Douglas, and featuring movie stars like Rock Hudson, Lana Turner, and Jane Wyman and “trashy” collaborators like producers Ross Hunter and Albert Zugsmith.

Hollywood pioneer Allan Dwan, who lived to be 96 and whose first films date back to 1911, famously told Peter Bogdanovich, “If you get your head up above the mob, they try to knock it off. If you stay down, you last forever.” Action! Interviews with Directors from Classical Hollywood to Contemporary Iran is our attempt to get 19 directors, working in a wide range of eras, genres, production styles, and budgets, to, “get their heads above the mob”–without, we trust, getting them “knocked off.”

It's fitting that this first collection of writings from Bright Lights is comprised of interviews with directors. I started the magazine in 1974 as an “auteurist, truth-and-light sheet,” in the words of early contributor Jeff Wise. Bright Lights' profile evolved over time according to the peculiar alchemy of my and the writers' interests. It continued to feature director studies and interviews while expanding into many other areas including genre studies, production histories, political screeds, explorations of marginalized realms like exploitation and queer cinema, and whatever other topics the writers found engaging. This diversity is represented in Action!

When compiling this collection, we asked ourselves, how do serious film fans experience cinema? What do they look for? Do they focus exclusively on specific directors, genres, high budgets or low budgets, European or Asian or American films? We believe that many viewers like to experience all that cinema has to offer–docs and features, indies and blockbusters, art films and exploitation.