1,840 research outputs found
The 2003 defence statement: the failure to marry politics and policy
No full textThe recently released defence document Australia\u27s National Security: A Defence Update, was intended to present the implications for national security policy assessed as the result of recent changes in Australia\u27s strategic environment, most notably the emergence of global terrorism. Derek Woolner argues that this statement has delivered little. It does not mention the contentious issue of pre-emptive strike and provides no criteria for assessing the case for participation in distant coalitions (read, with the United States)
Nobel Prize-winning Author Derek Walcott to Speak March 28
No full textOXFORD, Miss. - Nobel Prize-winning author Derek Walcott is a featured lecturer March 28 at the University of Mississippi
A conversation with Dr. Derek Schuurman about developing responsible technology
No full textIn this episode, I am joined by Dr. Derek Schuurman, professor of computer science at Calvin University and co-author of a new book entitled A Christian Field Guide to Technology for Engineers and Designers with IVP Academic. Today, we talk about how to responsibly develop technology in light of the Christian worldview
Derek Mahon as translator
No full textDerek Mahon has devoted much of his productive life to translation, especially from the French. This paper studies his handling of French texts, distinguishing those which he has freely recreated from those which he has assimilated to his own style and those where he has made himself subservient to the character of the original author. Attention is drawn to his inventiveness, his wit, his moderation and rationality, his concern for effective and relevant communication with the reader, his rhythmic sense and his concern for emphasis and coherence. It is argued that the practice of translation affords Mahon the opportunity to write "at one remove" from direct feeling, and in so doing to combine breadth of feeling and of cultural reference with self-awareness and self-discipline
Interview with Derek Nikitas, part 1 of 2 [video]
No full textDerek Nikitas is a faculty member in the Creative Writing MFA Program and author of two recent mystery novels, The Long Division (2009) and Pyres (2007). Nikitas\u27 first novel was nominated for the prestigious Edgar award, and has been optioned for film adaptation by Vox3 Films. His second novel, The Long Division, is receiving rave reviews
Interview with Derek Nikitas, part 2 of 2 [video]
No full textDerek Nikitas is a faculty member in the Creative Writing MFA Program and author of two recent mystery novels, The Long Division (2009) and Pyres (2007). Nikitas\u27 first novel was nominated for the prestigious Edgar award, and has been optioned for film adaptation by Vox3 Films. His second novel, The Long Division, is receiving rave reviews
A critical edition of Derek Walcott's Omeros
No full textThe thesis is a Critical Edition of Derek Walcott’s Omeros, consisting of a Critical
Introduction and Annotations. The Critical Introduction analyses:
- Narrative
- Settings
- Metaphor and Paronomasia
- Symbolism
- Historiography
- Intertexts
- Dualism
- Autobiography
- Dialects
- Prosody.
The Annotations comment on more than 1000 references that may be obscure and on
specifics of narrative, language and prosody.
This study presents new conclusions about some aspects of Omeros:
- It challenges the prevailing view that the work is written substantially in a
variation of terza rima and shows that regular quatrains predominate.
- It demonstrates ways in which the metrics follow the sense of the narrative and
takes a more balanced position on the use of Caribbean as opposed to classical
metrics than that put forward previously.
- It identifies a paragraphic structure to the verse.
- It proposes a new prosodic structure for the significant Chapter XXX/iii.
- It extends Walcott’s recognised use of numerology into word counting the
names of characters.
- It develops the idea of Walcott’s dualism and his use of pairing and
contradiction as a dialectical method.
- It defines his wide use of paronomasia and shows that many of the puns have a
metaphorical aspect beyond mere word-play.
- It analyses some of Walcott’s symbolism.
- It identifies intertextual links to his earlier works and to some thirty other
writers, and suggests homage to Hemingway and possibly Heaney.
- It provides the first complete analysis of Walcott’s rhyme types in Omeros.
In its analysis of Omeros and in the Annotations it has included commentary from
across the critical literature, to provide some sense of other views on Walcott’s
writing, and has included as many as possible of Walcott’s own comments on Omeros
and on the writer’s task, as a background to understanding the poem
War by other means
No full textThe political process is being used to wage a civil war in Iraq, writes Derek Woolner
WHY are Australian troops in Iraq? Currently the government argues, along with its coalition partners, that they are there to prevent the situation worsening. Australian Defence Force deployments are part of a presence that is building local security capability, buying time for the development of democracy and averting the prospect of civil war.
This is true enough, but is increasingly irrelevant. Events in Iraq have been unfolding according to their own logic. Those events will probably deliver a representative parliament and effective security forces but these will not be institutions to build a united country. Neither will Iraqi democracy be of the liberal democratic model that the Bush Administration had thought would inspire a wave of change throughout the Middle East.
Current coalition strategy aims to empower the locals to take control of Iraq, by developing Iraqi security forces to defeat the ongoing insurgency and by placing them under the control of a representative democratic government. The US military campaign against a largely Sunni insurgency in the central ‘Sunni triangle’ is a holding action, buying time until this happens.
The United States cannot do otherwise. It lacks the resources to prosecute an effective counter-insurgency campaign. When the British put down a Shia insurgency in Mesopotamia in the 1920s it had a soldier to population ratio of 1:23. In Iraq today the coalition ratio moves around 1:174. Consequently, every American claim of success is confounded as the insurgents regroup, restructure and improvise.
The reality is that a civil war is already growing, fuelled by the realignment of political power. On 16 September the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, declared war against Shiite Iraqis. The declaration was probably intended to exploit resentment amongst Sunnis at their increasingly apparent exclusion from national decision-making, the draft national constitution.
On 15 October Iraqis voted on a document that proposed a federal system around strongly autonomous territories amalgamating provinces on sectarian criteria. The constitution will see revenues from all new oil developments retained by these regional governments. None of this suits the Sunni living in regions with few oil reserves and with their co-religionists in oil-rich Kirkuk threatened with ejection from a Kurdish autonomous region. Unsurprisingly, when the draft constitution appeared, the response was civil unrest across Sunni communities.
The subsequent acceptance of the constitution showed not a victory for secular democracy but rather how deep is the ethnic and sectarian divide in Iraq today. The total vote split roughly along the 80:20 proportion of Shia and Kurds to Sunni Arabs. Gaining 90 percent approval in some Shia provinces, the proposal was rejected by over 80 percent in Saddam Hussein’s home province of Salahuddin and by over two-thirds in Anbar, the seat of the Sunni insurgency. The constitutional proposal was carried when Nineveh, with large Sunni and Kurdish populations, rejected the proposal but only by 55 to 45 percent.
A condition enforced by the US in launching its democratisation project was that the constitution would fail if rejected by a two-thirds majority in any three provinces. Obviously, few among the Sunni were influenced by the last minute and largely cosmetic concessions offered to Sunni politicians in the week before the vote. On the other hand, most Shia continue to follow their Grand Ayatollah who instructed his people on their religious duty to vote for the constitution.
In effect, since Saddam’s defeat Iraq’s Shia leadership has been running a civil war through the medium of politics. They are fortunate that their revered leader, the Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani, has acute strategic insight. At a time when the US thought implanting democracy would produce a secular, cohesive Iraq Sistani recognised that it would deliver power to the Shia. The most important force now shaping Iraq is not the mesmeric, continual violence, but the requirement of the Ayatollah that Shias support democratisation.
Despite tribal and political differences, the Shia have followed their religious leadership in avoiding diversions from the democratic process. Consequently, their cohesion has captured the US occupation. America was already heavily enmeshed with the Kurds (for whom they provided the two-thirds/three provinces rule as a constitutional safeguard of Kurdish autonomy) as the Sunni insurgency grew. The last thing the US could afford was a Shia uprising. Since the entire American strategy presupposes democratic development, the US could not prevent the Shia’s demographic dominance and sectarian unity controlling the process.
Even better for the Shia and Kurds, whilst Sunni tribal fighters come under US attack, political control has allowed them to retain their militias and develop them into powers within the state. Both US and British officials have conceded that the regulation of militias has passed to the Iraqi government. The 90,000 strong Kurdish pesh merga are a guarantee of ongoing independence and Kurdish political leaders will not surrender them to a unified Iraqi security force. The newly accepted constitution legitimises this situation.
Although there are many Shiite militias the major forces are Badr and the Mahdi army. The (then) Badr Brigade was the military arm of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, whose leader, Abdul Aziz Al-Hakim is a key power broker behind the Shiite majority in the National Assembly. It was re-named the Badr Organisation in June 2003 and claims to no longer have a military roll.
Yet, when the Australian Army group arrived in Al Muthanna in April, the local Badr chief proclaimed his armed supporters ensured provincial security. Sunni leaders such as Adnan Pachachi, former Foreign Minister, voice concerns that Badr is taking control of the security services. With public support from President Talabani and Prime Minister Jaafari and former official Bayan Jabr, now Interior Minister, Badr is well placed for this operation.
The Mahdi army, under the control of the radical Imam Muqtada al-Sadr, is active both in the south and in the slums of Baghdad’s Sadr City. It has heavily infiltrated security forces in Basra. Police chief General Hassan al-Sade claimed that the militia made up half his force, that he could trust only a quarter of his offices and that some were involved in assassinations.
Other reports claim that 90 per cent of security forces in the region owe primary allegiance to Shiite militias. Together they have turned the south of Iraq into what critics claim is an Islamic republic not unlike Iran.
The growing influence of these politically sponsored militias with their factional loyalties now questions the viability of the strategy to build nationally focused security forces. The significance of the recent British attack on a Basra police station and the crowds’ retaliation is that both Prime Minister Jaafari and Interior Minister Jabr, while talking-up ongoing cooperation with Britain, supported the actions of the Basra police.
The path forward in Iraq is not entirely clear. Elections in December for the first full Iraqi government may not be dominated by Shia parties. Creating further uncertainty is the prospect of a power struggle amongst the Shia militias. Tension and conflict are emerging. Al-Sadr, with his power base in Baghdad, has no interest in a federated Iraq. Badr and the Mahdi army have clashed in Basra, the Mahdi succeeded in buying-out Badr’s control of the Basra internal affairs department and they recently have begun to receive assistance from Iran. As often happens in revolutions, there may soon be an attempt to purge fellow radicals, possibly exploiting any uncertainties around the December elections. Yet the most probably outcome is that the Shia religious leadership will remain in control.
Events in Iraq are approaching their logical conclusion. Democracy will triumph, but not in the support of western interests. The security forces will gradually become (brutally) effective but operate for sectarian rather than national interests. The Sunni triangle will be given little but the prospect of further violence, increasingly from Shia dominated security forces. For its contribution to this outcome, Australia currently has allocated more than $1.2 billion dollars for all ADF deployments to Iraq. •
Derek Woolner is a visiting fellow at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University. An earlier version of this article appeared in the Canberra Times
A partnership in the Maghreb: the first ten years of the Peace Corps in Tunisia
No full textIn 1962, Tunisia became the first Arab country to receive Peace Corps volunteers. Traditional scholarship has focused on the Peace Corps as a uniquely American experience; volunteers’ engagement with host country nationals is often reduced to a list of accomplishments and obstacles. Archival documents and volunteer testimony indicates, however, that the relationship between volunteer and host in the Tunisia Program’s first ten years was both fluid and complex. Volunteers did not perform their work in a vacuum and the Peace Corps was far from a one-way experience. Tunisia was a newly post-colonial society and its citizens oftentimes had conflicting visions for their development. Volunteers had to work themselves into Tunisian life, and in doing so, found that they learned as much—if not more—than they had taught.M.A.Includes bibliographical referencesIncludes vitaby Derek Khoudj
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