Journal articles on the topic 'Compromise settlements; Peace; Military'

In his recent book, French war aims against Germany, 1914–1919, David Stevenson comes to the heart of the problem relative to the diplomatic prolongation of World War I. ‘No Government’, he asserts, ‘was willing to jettison its war aims in the interest of a compromise peace, or to place itself at the enemy's mercy while a chance of victory remained’. His work is to be applauded, therefore, for he has given us the first succinct and judicious account of the course of official French war aims from 1916 to 1919, enlarging upon a topic heretofore treated in scholarly articles. Using the wealth of archival documentation now available, and the private papers of numerous participants, Stevenson has made a major and much-needed contribution to our knowledge of the subject by tracing the relationship between official war aims policy, peace diplomacy and the diplomatic impact of allied policy on French war aims from their inception to the Versailles settlement.

For more than a quarter-century, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has been one of the most important factors influencing the political map of the South Caucasus. On 12 May 1994, Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia, and Azerbaijan signed a cease-fire agreement that ended military operations in the conflict zone and has been observed until recently. Negotiations for a peaceful settlement have been underway within the framework of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Minsk Group co-chaired by the USA, Russia, and France since 1992, but society and the elite in Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh, and Azerbaijan remain largely unprepared for compromise. Considering the settlement process a zero-sum game, they have generally accused one another of escalating the conflict and of a lack of willingness to restore peace. Other countries and international organizations involved in the negotiations do not share a vision of the future and frequently pursue their own interests. Accordingly, the Karabakh conflict could remain unresolved for decades more. The aim of the paper is a general assessment of the current stage and dynamic of this conflict and the impact of new trends and old obstacles on the prospects for further settlement.

AbstractThis article is concerned with explaining why peace endures in countries that have experienced a civil armed conflict. We use a mixed methods approach by evaluating six case studies (Burundi, East Timor, El Salvador, Liberia, Nepal, Sierra Leone) and survival analysis that allows us to consider 205 peace episodes since 1990. We find that it is difficult to explain why peace endures using statistical analysis but there is some indication that conflict termination is important in post-conflict stabilisation: negotiated settlements are more likely to break down than military victories. We also consider the impact of UN peacekeeping operations on the duration of peace but find little evidence of their contribution. However, in situations where UN peacekeeping operations are deployed in support of negotiated settlements they do seem to contribute to peace stabilisation.

Abstract This article presents four case studies in which peace was negotiated between governments and political opposition parties, and in which major armed groups involved in the conflict were excluded from some or all of the negotiations. The inclusion of opposition political parties and exclusion of some armed actors in these cases derived from the desire of mediators and some of the parties to foreground political concerns (at the expense of military considerations). Opposition political parties were able to play a role in bringing armed groups into peace settlements under some conditions, although strong international pressure and support helped to create the preconditions for this role. This evidence suggests a challenge to arguments that major armed groups must be included in peace negotiations if they are to abide by the resulting peace settlement.

Civilians who have fled violent conflict and settled in neighboring countries are integral to processes of civil war termination. Contingent on their attitudes, they can either back peaceful settlements or support warring groups and continued fighting. Attitudes toward peaceful settlement are expected to be especially obdurate for civilians who have been exposed to violence. In a survey of 1,120 Syrian refugees in Turkey conducted in 2016, we use experiments to examine attitudes towards two critical phases of conflict termination – a ceasefire and a peace agreement. We examine the rigidity/flexibility of refugees’ attitudes to see if subtle changes in how wartime losses are framed or in who endorses a peace process can shift willingness to compromise with the incumbent Assad regime. Our results show, first, that refugees are far more likely to agree to a ceasefire proposed by a civilian as opposed to one proposed by armed actors from either the Syrian government or the opposition. Second, simply describing the refugee community’s wartime experience as suffering rather than sacrifice substantially increases willingness to compromise with the regime to bring about peace. This effect remains strong among those who experienced greater violence. Together, these results show that even among a highly pro-opposition population that has experienced severe violence, willingness to settle and make peace are remarkably flexible and dependent upon these cues.

Abstract Scholars typically associate leader turnover with a high risk of military conflict. This article shows that under some conditions, a higher likelihood of leader turnover in the future fosters peace today. When states take costly peaceful measures (e.g., arming to deter adversaries), the range of settlements preferable to war shrinks and the risk of conflict rises. If peace costs are onerous, potential leader turnover in adversaries promotes peace by introducing uncertainty about the future need for and costs of deterrent measures. When locked in a costly peace with minimal chance of leader turnover in the adversary, states attack. When locked in that same costly peace but with high prospects for leader turnover, states endure an unfavorable peace today given the potential for a favorable one tomorrow. Asymmetric consequences of future shifts in peace costs ensure the relationship holds even if costs do not change in expectation and could rise. Quantitative analyses of the prospects for future leader turnover, military spending, and war initiation among rivals accord with the hypothesized relationships. In theory and practice, expectations of leadership volatility make it prudent to exercise peaceful forbearance.

According to Israel's Guide to the Mideast Peace Process, charges regarding the illegality of Israeli settlements in the 1967 Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) have no foundation in international law. Peace efforts between Israel and Palestine will have no chance of success as long as Israel uses its prolonged military occupation to promote and protect its annexation-in-disguise of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. John Dugard has passed on this hard truth consistently as Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the OPT. The international community should take the same hard line towards the Guide as it has done towards the Hamas Charter. If it wants to establish a just and lasting peace in the Middle East, it should not allow Israel to bend the truth any more in respect of the legality of the Israeli settlements in the OPT as Hamas has done in respect of the illegality of Israel.

AbstractThis paper blends recent research on hierarchy and democratization to examine the theoretical and empirical costs of treating regime type exogenously in the literature most identified with studying its impact on international politics. It argues that the apparent peace among democratic states that emerges in the aftermath of World War I is not caused by domestic institutional attributes normally associated with democracy. Instead, this peace is an artifact of historically specific great power settlements. These settlements shape subsequent aggregate patterns of military conflict by altering the organizational configuration of the system in three critical ways—by creating new states, by altering hierarchical orders, and by influencing regime type in states. These claims are defended with a series of tests that show first how the statistical relationship between democracy and peace has exhibited substantial variation across great power orders; second, that this statistical relationship breaks down with theoretically motivated research design changes; and third, that great powers foster peace and similar regime types within their hierarchical orders. In short, the relationship between democracy and peace is spurious. The international political order is still built and managed by great powers.

Abstract When do rebel leaders “sell out” their constituents in the terms of peace by signing agreements that benefit group elites over the rebel constituency, and when do they instead “stand firm,” pushing for settlement terms that benefit the public they claim to represent? This article examines variation in the design of civil war settlement agreements. It argues that constituents, fighters, and rebel elites have different preferences over the terms of peace, and that rebel leaders will push for settlements that reflect the preferences of whichever audience they are most reliant on and accountable to. In particular, leaders of groups that are more civilian-reliant for their military and political power are more likely to sign agreements that favor broad benefits for civilian constituents, while leaders who do not depend on civilian support for their political and military power will sign agreements with fewer public benefits. We test this argument using original data on the design of all final peace agreements reached between 1989 and 2009, and several proxies for the group's level of reliance on civilian supporters. Using a variety of statistical tests and accounting for nonrandom selection into peace agreements, we find strong support for our hypothesis.

The defence and foreign policy communities in the Global South should learn from the lessons of security governance that followed the 13-year United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH). To better inform the academic and policy debate, this article extrapolates ideas from the case study of Chile, one of the ‘big four’ Latin American peacekeeping providers in Haiti, along with Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. The article examines Chile’s finished compromise with the MINUSTAH in order to shed light on conflict intervention strategies and its peace operations in Colombia and the Central African Republic. It argues that military policies for peace intervention purposes should undergo a critical reassessment in light of the state steering away from the past use of long-term brute force. Today’s changing security environment favours a set of different human security policies that have become more prevalent for peacekeeping policymaking. Engaging in scenarios of war and peace thus demands a more focused, experienced and tactical use of military and diplomatic resources than governments in the developing countries currently possess.

During the second term of President Barack Obama, US-Israeli relations sharply deteriorated. After a positive visit by President Obama to Israel in March 2013, major disagreements erupted over the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, over the nuclear deal with Iran and, especially, over the construction of Jewish settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Making matters worse, personal recriminations crept into the Israeli-American dialogue on the disputes. While the two countries signed a major military assistance agreement in September 2016, Israeli settlement expansion after the election of Donald Trump as the US President in November 2016 led to a further deterioration of relations between the Obama Administration and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, which was demonstrated by the Obama Administration’s failure to veto a UN Security Council Resolution condemning Israeli settlements.

“Reconciliation” and “justice” are key concepts used by practitioners as well as authors of conflict-management and peacebuilding textbooks. While it is often recognized that there may be contradictions between the implementation of justice and truth-telling, on the one hand, and an end to organized violence, on the other, the ideal of a seamless fusion of these diverse goals is widely upheld by, among other things, reference to the rather utopianconcept of “positive peace” (Galtung). One difficulty arises from the fact that discourses usually focus on (post-)conflict settings that resemble a victory of one conflict party, whereas peace settlements are often negotiated in a context more similar to a military or political stalemate – a more ambiguous and complicated scenario. This essay discusses these problems against the background of an empirical case study of the peace accord between the government and the rebels in the West Nile region in north-western Uganda.

AbstractPeace negotiators concentrate their mediation efforts on leaders of armed factions in their pursuit of political agreements to stop a civil war, and they exclude noncombatants and interest groups that can "spoil" the bargaining. This practice of exclusion often creates agreements that fail during implementation. Track two diplomacy efforts can overcome this failure by providing channels to include other interest groups and active parties. In Tajikistan, participants in a sustained dialogue intervention provided crucial influence to the negotiation of a civil war settlement, but the agreement itself only created a greater centralization of political power and institutions that excluded public political participation. However, participation in the dialogue transformed members and even some observers into effective practitioners developing a large number of public associations committed to conflict resolution. Therefore, the Inter-Tajik Dialogue in Tajikistan illustrates a successful strategy for overcoming the dynamics of exclusion that drive political settlements between military leaders. More importantly, sustained dialogue demonstrates possible strategies for building peace by stimulating the development of a more inclusive civic culture.

This research provides insights into regional middle powers’ postures and constraints, showing evidence of a gradually structured peace dividend resulting from networking economic development in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Using three case studies, Turkey/Israel, Iran/Pakistan, and Turkey/Iran, this research demonstrates that external regional constraints and internal capacity needs have facilitated strategic economic relations, including joint electricity, gas, and water projects, joint infrastructure and technology initiatives, and joint R&D and military industries. In turn, this strategic networking of economic development projects has restricted these states’ reactions to tension and conflict, prompting them to negotiate and engage in diplomacy to resolve bilateral disagreements so as to not compromise their mutual economic interests. This research contends that the security dilemma faced by middle power states in MENA is a motivator for economic integration even when there is no clearly expressed desire for peace. Economic integration increases their bargaining leverage with the West, while simultaneously resulting in bilateral conflict reduction behaviour patterns. This research further discusses the implications of categorising regional middle power states as regional stability facilitators, since economic integration can satisfy their security concerns, maintain their middle power statuses, and restrain the possibility of war.

Transformations of Derry/Londonderry’s medieval city walls during the twentieth century have shaped an urbanism of segregated settlements within a city of religious confrontation. The heritage of military blockades, peace lines and watchtowers imposed upon the city’s Walls has influenced the disintegration of public space and created areas of no man’s land around the peripheries of the monument. The aim of this paper is to examine physical transformation and trace the consequences of urban planning regarding the historic city Walls. This change includes the shifting of residential settlements in the Bogside/Fountain areas and the movement of Protestant settlements towards the Waterside of Derry/Londonderry. The history and heritage of the Walls are analysed by focusing on four periods: 1600, when the first medieval walls were constructed; the housing crisis of 1948; the 1968 urban area plan and the beginning of the ‘Troubles’; and the present day. This analysis offers an understanding of the spatial relationships between enclaves and the monument over key moments of conflict and political change. The paper reveals that the manifestations of the Walls have aided in the further division of religiously segregated communities in Derry/Londonderry.

The purpose of this study is to answer the following question: ‘Does US foreign policy undermine peace efforts in the Occupied Palestinian Territories?’ Careful observations of US foreign policy during the Oslo Process reveal that the United States has indeed undermined peace efforts in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The American position substantially departed from United Nations Resolutions 242 and 338, which the Palestinians were promised would serve as the basis for negotiations. Although the American–Israeli alliance underwent periodic adjustments, American foreign policy has, over the last decade, helped to create a framework in the Middle East wherein only Israeli needs have legitimacy. During the Oslo Process, the United States and Israel have tried to impose Israel's plans on the Palestinians, ignoring United Nations resolutions and the international community. The evidence reveals that US foreign policy was based on double standards and unfair terms. Further, the seeming link between the aid provided by the United States to Israel and the latter's aggressive policies toward the Palestinians makes it appear as though Washington is ‘rewarding’ such policies, that is, as if Washington is enabling Israel to deny Palestinians’ legitimate rights, violate United Nations resolutions and principles of international law, keep its military occupation forces, and expand Jewish settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

In the difficult process of ending civil wars, granting amnesty during conflict is seen as a useful option, with an underpinning assumption that trading justice for peace is effective. However, is the case? This article tries to bring some clarity to when and how amnesty given during conflict has an impact. Amnesty should have different effects on diverse conflict endings: negotiated settlement, rebel victory, government victory, or conflict reduction. The article also disaggregates amnesties to test direct impacts as an incentive or through reducing the commitment problem, and indirect effects that give military advantage to the government. Using a cross-national data set of amnesties in dyadic conflicts from 1975 to 2011, the research finds that amnesty’s strongest effect is, surprisingly, not as an incentive but rather to reduce commitment problems. It can lead to negotiated settlements but also to government military advantage. The results have implications for negotiations and conflict resolution.

In the post—cold war period, civil wars are increasingly likely to end with peace settlements brokered by international actors who press for early elections. However, elections held soon after wars end, when political institutions remain weak, are associated with an increased likelihood of a return to violence. International actors have a double-edged influence over election timing and the risk of war, often promoting precarious military stalemates and early elections but sometimes also working to prevent a return to war through peacekeeping, institution building, and powersharing. In this article, we develop and test quantitatively a model of the causes of early elections as a building block in evaluating the larger effect of election timing on the return to war.

Regional conflicts have played a major role in American interpretations of Soviet foreign policy. They have affected judgments about Soviet intentions and have served as a barometer of Moscow's competitiveness. This study looks at the change in Soviet policy under Gorbachev. It proposes a strategic framework for the analysis of Soviet behavior and then examines Moscow's actions in terms of military support, active involvement, and the terms for peace. Special attention is paid to Soviet behavior in Southwest Asia. The study finds that Soviet behavior changed but in ways that were more subtle than often realized. Moscow pulled back having achieved partial success through compromise more often than it retreated in defeat. The shift to a strategy of detente had numerous causes, but a simple American peace-through-strength explanation that stresses external constraints and Soviet internal weakness is inadequate. Such explanations underestimate the importance of changing perceptions of threat and mistakenly affirm a deterrence conception of reciprocity (i.e., that force begets restraint). The evidence in regional conflicts suggests that a spiral model of reciprocity (i.e., that escalation begets escalation) is more apt.

The article provides reflexive analysis of the key factors of the cessation of armed conflict in the East of Ukraine and the return of the temporarily occupied regions of Donetsk to Lugansk oblasts under the authority and jurisdiction of our sovereign state. As the oldest works on war and peace (Sun Tzu) are known, the longer the armed struggle is, the more difficult it ends with a just world, therefore, a wide range of approaches are usually proposed for resolving the armed conflict in the Donbass: from a compromise with the aggressor to victorious plans and strategies for a military solution to the liberation of captured territories. In the pre-election period, Ukrainian political parties, without theoretical justification, propose such populist approaches to solving difficult military-political problems. Our approach is based on the identification of the causes and consequences of the occupation of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the ORD and LO, the importance of adhering to the principles of international law, humanism and progress in the conduct of state policy, recognition of the factors of the key - activity factor of the peacemaking of multinational forces whose phenomenon is not explicated, theoretically unclear as to the peculiarities of the socio-political and humanitarian situation in the Donbass. Peacekeeping as a relatively new international legal and humanitarian phenomenon is attributed to the peaceful measures of the world community, which, according to the UN Charter, is taking "other measures" for the restoration of peace and the prevention of humanitarian catastrophes. His controversial nature follows from the fact that, on the one hand, the United Nations does not interpret its Statute, as "the right to intervene in cases that are essentially within the competence of any state, and on the other hand, it must take all measures for the establishment and preservation of peace. He peculiarity of the use of multinational peacekeeping forces in the East of Ukraine is its work on the basis of the UN Charter, the synthesis of humanitarian, political, social missions, military and civilian control over the humanitarian situation, which could lead to disaster.

The Israeli-Palestinian Declaration of Principles of September 13, 1993 (the “DOP”), which establishes the framework for the settlement of the conflict between the parties, sets the stage for a gradual transition towards a peace settlement, or the “permanent status” as referred to in the DOP. The interim arrangements outlined in the DOP provide for a step-by-step assumption of responsibilities by Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The Agreement on the Gaza Strip and the Jericho Area, signed in Cairo on May 4, 1994, prescribes at length the arrangements for the first steps to be taken towards that goal. During the period of the interim arrangements, the Gaza Strip (excluding Israeli settlements and military installations) and the “Jericho Area” are to be administered by a “Palestinian Authority” (PA), a body established under the Cairo Agreement, which is distinct from the PLO.

The Küçük Kaynardzha Peace Treaty of 1774, which sanctioned joining of Kabardia and Ossetia to Russia and formal independence of the Kuban Nogais, once again confirmed that the solution of the question of the international legal status of the North Caucasus was the prerogative right of great powers and did not belong to the sphere of Russian-Caucasian relations. Since the 1770s, military lines in the form of fortification chains and some Cossack settlements were built in the region. Access to the Black Sea at the end of the 18th century and joining of the Crimea to Russia became important events in international life and politics. They raised the authority of Russia in Europe and at the same time heightened tensions with the Turkish Empire. The people’s liberation movement under Sheikh Mansur’s command caused a massive public outcry in the North Caucasus due to common goals of the local peoples in the liberation struggle. The Treaty of Jassy of 1791 only confirmed the terms of the peace treaty of 1774 without any new territorial changes in the region. During the period under consideration, the Russian authorities hardly took any actions in regards to the local peoples. The actions of the Russian administration in the region did not go beyond external control and encouragement of trade and economic ties between the local population and immigrants from the central provinces of Russia. The control was carried out by the military authorities actively introduced into the geographical area of the region (construction of fortresses, creation of new garrisons and places of deployment of Russian troops). The creation of the civil administration of the region (vicarious authority, government, police force) was also started.

Recent events in Sudan reiterate the fact that genocide is still a real threat in the modern age, despite important developments in international law. The aim of this article is to discuss ways in which churches can help to prevent genocide. The central theoretical argument is that military and legal preventative measures cannot address the underlying causes of genocide. Social factors that usually contribute to genocidal behaviour are difficult living conditions, nationalism, ethnocentrism, collectivism, authoritarianism, a culture of impunity and the distortion of morality. The most effective way to prevent genocide is to change the moral fabric of genocidal societies by fostering caring societies that emphasize individual moral responsibility, respect for life and the universal dignity of all human beings. As a moral institution the church can play an important role in changing the moral habits of societies. Churches must not compromise themselves by seeking political power or serving secular ideologies. The Bible must be interpreted in a responsible way that does justice to the message of the gospel. Churches must also foster individual moral responsibility; proclaim reconciliation, justice and peace; try to be active bystanders in conflict situations; address difficult life conditions and promote respect for life.

The research in this paper leads to peace education in Poso. Local wisdom approach focus to achieve it. Local wisdom in question is a tradition of cultural in sintuwu maroso and padungku. Researchers considered that culture sintuwu maroso and padungku a primal's hospitality owned Poso then and now. The distinctive feature of this research center at the local wisdom area. That approach is not without reason. Social unrest conflicts that have occurred in Poso, leaving wounds that are difficult unresolved grudges. Seventeen years ago the conflict was going on, now remaining trauma and feels haunted. Yet the return of all refugees to their original place, not awakening back all the buildings or houses in the former debris destruction mass, separation is expressly settlements Islamic-Christian, social community is still limited, and military approach that is very dominant, not apart from monitoring the author. Watched it is balanced with the security situation, a conducive atmosphere andhospitality of the people of Poso today. Objectives achieved in this study were (1) to find out how the understanding and meaning of the Poso community’s hospitality (2) to find out ways of appreciation and practice of cultural sintuwu maroso and padungku as a form of tradition's hospitality in Poso and (3) to determine the role and the application of hospitality in traditions of cultural sintuwu maroso and padungku for peace education in addressing the conflict in Poso. The data collection process is conducted qualitatively. Interviews and observations is his method, followed by a description of the data. Analysis of data using analytical approachto Theology-CRE (Christian Religious Education). This approach was chosen because they are the research student of CRE. After conducting research and data analysis as a whole, the picture of hospitality in Poso this time will be presented in a straightforward and unequivocal. Likewise, appreciation and practice of cultural sintuwu maroso and padungku in everyday life. In the end, the author proposes an approach to education for peace in Poso, that is approach through cultural traditions in sintuwu maroso's hospitality and padungku Key words: Hospitality, Sintuwu Maroso, Padungku, Peace Education.

One of the many problems facing the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 was the future of the conquered German and Turkish territories in Africa, the Pacific, and the Middle East. Widespread anti-imperialist sentiment in Europe and the United States opposed direct annexation of the possessions, but wartime agreements and the security interests of the Allies prevented returning the conquered areas to their former rulers. In particular, many British leaders wanted to ensure that Germany could never again attempt world domination and were convinced that the restoration to Germany of its overseas possessions would pose a “grave political and military menace” to Britain's vital maritime connections with South Africa and India. After a long, often acrimonious debate, the Conference agreed on a compromise that placed the former German colonies and Ottoman provinces under the supervision of the League of Nations. This solution gave the Allies control of their acquisitions as “mandates” within a framework of international accountability. Great Britain received the most mandates, including Germany's largest colony of German East Africa. For the British leaders who had always advocated transforming German East Africa into a British colony, the new system seemed to make little practical difference. For the colonial officials in London and at the highest levels of colonial administration within the conquered possession, however, the mandates system presented serious problems and was not simply a disguise for annexation.

Palestinians need a strategy that will lift them out of their seemingly unending dilemma of prolonged Israeli settler-colonial occupation. Palestinian strategy needs to be re-positioned, to be part of a published strategic vision for a lasting solution that needs a national consensus on the requirements.The Palestinian struggle to achieve a viable independent state can be attained by engaging in a contest of credibility generating a long term sustainable advantage responding to the opportunities and threats, to achieve our objectives through capturing international political signals; or as Edward Said described it “Capturing the Imagination of the world”.The purpose of strategy is to gain some form of advantage; to maintain or protect assets or interests. Strategy is about gaining or maintaining an advantage or denying an advantage to the Israeli Occupation.To set a strategy, one usually employs past experience tactics whereby future probabilities, gains and losses are approximated in a given situation (game theory). A strategy is not routinely changeable or is quickly reversible. Nevertheless, a strategy must not stand still in the face major international events. On the contrary, a solid strategy must be capable of responding to changing events[1] in a manner whereby tactical threats could be turned into gains or opportunities. It is also necessary that a strategy ought to be, when formulated, based upon the strengths whist remaining mindful of weaknesses in order for it to deal with arising threats or challenges.For over two decades, since the signing of the Oslo Accords between the Palestinian Liberation Organization and Israel, the Israeli military occupation, land confiscation and destruction, expansion of settlements, denial of Palestinian right to self-determination and control over natural resources remain in place.Israel continues with its settler-colonial project undeterred by the Palestinian resistance or the condemnation of most countries in the world. That has undermined the so-called “Peace process” and its ultimate objective of a two-state solution, leaving the Palestinians with a prospect of prolonged occupation, which leaves them helpless and hopeless.

The path of Bosnia and Herzegovina towards NATO membership began after its entry into the Partnership for Peace in November 2006. In just a few years, Bosnia and Herzegovina has achieved an intensive dialogue with NATO (2008) and the launch of negotiations on the Membership Action Plan (2010), which was however activated in December 2018. In the meantime, there have come to a discord between the key internal political factors in Bosnia and Herzegovina and particularly clear distinction between the Bosniak and Croat elites that unequivocally support NATO membership, and representatives of Serbs at the state level and the Republic of Srpska who are currently against it. Moreover, in October 2017, the National Assembly of the Republic of Srpska took a stand by which it proclaimed the military neutrality of this entity and in that regard insisted on consultations with the neighboring state - the Republic of Serbia. However, in March 2018, the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina adopted a five-year strategic foreign policy document which stipulates that NATO membership is one of its foreign policy foundations. This document only added to the confusion regarding BiH?s membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Following the general elections held in October 2018, this issue has now posed a specific problem over the formation of the Council of Ministers. Neighbors of Bosnia and Herzegovina - Serbia, Croatia and Montenegro have different opinions concerning the possibility of membership of this country in NATO. Accordingly, Croatia declaratively expresses support and emphasizes its interest in integrating BiH into NATO to prevent cross-border security challenges. Serbian officials are quite restrained about BiH?s entry into NATO, saying that this should be the result of the compromise of the elites of the three constituent nations. The global race between the United States and the Russian Federation represents a turning point in terms of BiH?s membership in NATO. The United States strongly supports this process, believing that it will secure the post-conflict Western Balkans project, while Russia retains the explicit position that any new enlargement poses a problem for its security.

<p>Ilias Anagnostakis and Anna Lambropoulou</p><p>An instance of the implementation of the Byzantine institution of asylum in the Peloponnese: the Slavs seek sanctuary in the Church of St Andrew of Patrai</p><p>The events which took place in the Peloponnese in the early ninth century (c. 800) are recorded in later sources, mostly of the tenth century. Following the establishment of the theme system of territorial administration and the securing of ecclesiastical order in the region, the emperor Nikephoros I, in implementing his new fiscal and economic policy, took steps to increase the number of inhabitants by systematically encouraging the settlement of new population groups from outside the area. It was within this general context and during this same period that the rebellion of the Slavs in Achaia, as described by Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, needs to be viewed. Clearly, also, the phenomenon needs to be seen within the context of the specific social climate of the region where radical change was taking place and significant breaks with the past were occurring. During the repression of the rebellion the Slavs sought sanctuary in the church of the Apostle Andrew. As a result of this move, however, the rebels were given special treatment as they were viewed as having repented their actions. This was an occurrence whose more general implications are worthy of further study. Looked at from the broader ecclesiastical and political perspective, there are certain characteristic features to be noted in the attitudes towards asylum and the priority ascribed to ecclesiastical over civil law in Constantinople at the end of the eighth and the beginning of the ninth centuries. At the beginning of the ninth century, during the reign of Nikephoros I and while Tarasios was on the patriarchal throne (784-806), the flight of the defeated Slavs to the Church of St Andrew and the relative leniency that was shown them by the state suggest that here we are dealing with an instance of the workings of the institution of sanctuary in Byzantium. While the sources bring in a host of hagiographie and miraculous elements -the standard baggage of accounts of Christianisation and repentance-he flight of the Slavs to the church of the patron saint of the city constitutes, in our opinion, in instance of mass asylum. Moreover, it is interesting to observe that the respective terminology which was used in Porphyrogenitus' account and was in all likelihood included in the sigillion of Nikephoros I relies, in our view, directly on Byzantine legislative reforms concerning sanctuary.</p><p>This is the first recorded instance of mass asylum and resort to church sanctuary in the middle Byzantine period in the Peloponnese. An effort was made both on the part of the church and the state to find a compromise solution: the former sought recognition of the institution of sanctuary while the latter was concerned to maintain the authority of its judicial and penal organs. The Slavs, who had sought sanctuary in the church, while normally liable to the punishment reserved for insurrection, were in the end granted special treatment. A compromise was found: despite the Slavs' attempt to rebel against the Byzantine authorities, the institution of asylum was fully implemented with the imposition of a number of restrictions and sanctions against the Slav population. The economic side of this treatment, which was generally a feature of the institution of ecclesiastical asylum both in Byzantium and the medieval West, has been well investigated. Indeed, monasticism and land ownership in the region of Bithynia are thought to have developed thanks to the institution of monastic asylum and the geographical boundaries of asylum, and this appears to be the case in the Peloponnese, too, where we see privileges and sigillia being granted for new monasteries and metropoleis in the ninth century. It is particularly interesting to note that the limits of 'rural asylum', i.e. the legal delimitation of the concepts of asylum and imperial donations, are lumped together with the estates of the church or monastery. The transfer of the exploitation of cultivable land to the workers of the monastery or church very often led to the development of settlements in the area. Seen in this light, the introduction of the institution of asylum and its legal delimitation in the case of the ecclesiastical estates of Achaia are directly related to the settlements of the early ninth century. It is probable that in contrast to the case of Syria and Bithynia asylum was not the catalyst behind the gradual settlement of the region of Achaia. However, and more importantly, it did offer solutions to the problems arising from the settlements. In the case of Patrai groups of unruly and discontented peasant populations developed an allegiance to the metropolis and were subsequently integrated to the point that they became entitled to protection from every epinoia adikos ('unjust design').</p><p>Subsequent to the Patrai episode - as far as the evidence allows us to construe- the Empire turned its military operations to the unsubdued, mountainous and more southerly regions of the Peloponnese. By contrast, the Slavs of Achaia were granted sigillia guaranteeing protection from any unapproved measures or epinoia adikos of the metropolitan. The flight of the Slavs to the Church of St Andrew following the miraculous intervention of the Apostle Andrew and the repression of the revolt, as well as the special treatment that they then received at the hands of the Byzantine authorities on account of their seeking sanctuary in the church, can be seen to constitute a form of asylum that is entirely consistent with the political and social climate and with the concept of asylum of the age of Nikephoros I.</p><p> Further investigation of the sigillia and their authenticity and reliability as sources may help to improve our understanding of the implementation and development of the institution of asylum in Byzantium during the reign of Nikephoros I.</p><p> </p>

The beginning of the economic crisis in our country, the emergence of new elements against state security, led to the adoption in the year 1929 of the Lawfor the organization of the general state police and the Law on the organization of the rural gendarmerie. The role of policemen and gendares has intensified, both as activity and accountability. The mission of the two institutions was to ensure the maintenance of public order and security, enforcement of laws in urban and rural areas. In their jurisdiction they had: prevention of crime, investigation and prosecution of all offences provided by civil, military law, gathering of information on state security and reporting to the upper management. Regarding the police-gendarmerie relationship, very important were the Instructions of July 1930 to establish service links between the two institutions, drawn up by the General Inspectorate of Gendarmerie and approved by the Ministry of Interior. Close collaboration had to be in the interest of the service, order and public safety, without regard to other aspects. A good collaboration existed with the other local authorities. At the level of the Buzau county was constituted in the year 1931 the Administrative Cooperation Council, of which were part: the county prefect, the Chief of Police, the commander of the Legion of Gendarme, the commander of the Garrison. In the meetings were discussed the most important problems in Buzau County, as well as the measures taken. Police and gendarmerie reports record certain special events in Buzau County, such as: theft, insults, scandals, beatings, injuries, suicides, murders, accidents, fires, prunings, epidemics, disappearances, desertion, vagrancy. Measures were taken to prevent railroad attacks in order to ensure peace and public safety around the elections in order to prevent any acts of brutality on voters or supporters of one party or another. Among the powers of police and gendarmerie are the control of foreigners from towns and villages, their activity being closely supervised, and suspicious personswere banished from the country. They were checking even the Romanian citizens coming to the area, asking for information about their past from the policies of the cities where they had their last home. Police and gendarmerie received clear orders regarding the actions they had to undertake if the Communists attempted to provoke revolutionary movements and attacks against the authorities. At the same time, they informed the upper management about all meetings, congresses, meetings held in the village and the city. They reported information on how the events were, the number of participants, the people taking the floor.A number of documents deal with the legionary problem, the work carried out by the “Everything for the country“. We find that the police and gendarmerie authorities have taken repressive measures against the Legion organization. There have been searches at the home of the heads and members of the legionaries, they have confiscated weapons and various brochures, manifests. Some have been arrested, brought to military courts or been established as forced residence in other counties. Very important are the reports on the state of mind of the population, which include aspects relating to economic, social, political, minorities and religious sects. It was recorded the general dissatisfaction of the population due to the expensive clothing, footwear and food, felt in all social layers, but especially among the retired. About the minority population we learn that it consisted of: Hungarians, Bulgarians, Russians, Germans, Serbs, Polons, Turks, Greeks, Italians, Armenians, Albanians, Austrians. Among them there were people suspected of espionage. Police officers in collaboration with the Gendares played an important role in the withdrawal, control and supervision of refugees from Bessarabia and Northen Bukovina in the year 1940. For their verification, they were asked for maximum attention, some of whom may have been sent as spies. Research and supervision were difficult because of the large number of refugees and that some of them did not respect the home settlements fixed. By studying the archive documents I wanted to highlight the collaborative relations between the two structures, the cooperation missions, the formation of mixed patrols, the raids, the way to act according to the events that marked the history of Romanians.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY / ICTY) has indicted Jadranko Prlić, Bruno Stojić, Slobodan Praljak, Milivoj Petković, Valentin Ćorić and Berislav Pušić. Indictees are charged with individual criminal responsibility (Article 7 (1) of the Statute) and criminal responsibility of a superior (Article 7 (3) of the Statute) for crimes against humanity: persecution on political, racial and religious grounds; killing; rape; deportation; inhumane acts; inhumane acts (forcible transfer); inhumane acts (conditions of detention); imprisonment, violations of the laws or customs of war: cruel treatment; cruel treatment (conditions of detention); illegal physical labor; reckless destruction of towns, settlements or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity; destruction or willful damage to institutions dedicated to religion or education; looting of public and private property; unlawful attack on civilians (Mostar); unlawful terrorism of civilians (Mostar); cruel treatment (siege of Mostar), violations of the Geneva Conventions: willful deprivation of life; inhuman treatment (sexual abuse); unlawful deportation of civilians; illegal transfer of civilians; unlawful detention of civilians; inhuman treatment; inhuman treatment (conditions of detention); destruction of large-scale property that is not justified by military necessity, and was carried out illegally and recklessly; confiscation of property that is not justified by military necessity, and was performed illegally and ruthlessly. The trial began on April 26, 2006. The Trial Chamber's judgment of 29 May 2013 concluded that the conflict between the Croatian Army / Croatian Defense Council (HV / HVO) and the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH) was of an international character. The factual evidence unequivocally showed that HV forces fought together with HVO members against ARBiH, and that the Republic of Croatia exercised general control over the armed forces and civilian authorities of the Croatian Community/Croatian Republic (HZ/HR) of Herceg-Bosna. The Council also found that there was a joint criminal enterprise (JCE) with the ultimate goal of establishing a Croatian entity, partly within the 1939 Croatian Banovina, to enable the unification of the Croatian people. The ultimate goal was the annexation of this area to the territory of the Republic of Croatia in case of disintegration of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (which corresponded to great state claims), or alternatively to make this area an independent state within Bosnia and Herzegovina, closely connected with Croatia. As early as December 1991, members of the HZ Herceg-Bosna leadership (including Mate Boban, president of HZ/HR Herceg-Bosna) and Croatian leaders (including Franjo Tuđman, president of Croatia) assessed that in order to achieve the ultimate goal of establishing a Croatian entity it is necessary to change the national composition of the population in the areas that were calculated to be part of it. JCE participants knew that achieving this goal means removing the Bosniak population from the area of the so-called Herceg-Bosna and that it is in contradiction with the peace negotiations that were held in Geneva. Numerous crimes committed from January 1993 to April 1994 indicate an obvious pattern of behavior where the commission of a crime was the outcome of a plan prepared by JCE participants. The Trial Chamber found that all persons covered by the Indictment made a significant contribution to the implementation of the JCE and that their contribution indicated that they had the intent to pursue a common criminal purpose. Following consideration of the Appeals filed by the Prosecution and the Defense of the Convicts, the ICTY Appeals Chamber issued a final Judgment on 29 November 2017 against Jadranko Prlić, Bruno Stojić, Slobodan Praljak, Milivoj Petković, Valentin Ćorić and Berislav Pušić, declaring them liable for the joint criminal enterprise in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This appellate judgment upheld the convictions handed down by the ICTY Trial Chamber in May 2013. In addition to participating in a joint criminal enterprise, the Appeals Chamber upheld responsibility for killings, persecution on political, racial and religious grounds, deportations, unlawful detention of civilians, forced labor, inhumane acts, inhumane treatment, unlawful and wanton destruction of large-scale property not justified by military necessity, destruction or willful damage to institutions dedicated to religion or education, unlawful attacks on civilians and unlawful terrorism of civilians, and individually for rape and sexual abuse. The verdict confirmed that the participants from Croatia in the joint criminal enterprise were Franjo Tudman, Janko Bobetko and Gojko Šušak. From the presented evidence it was concluded that the leaders of HZ/RHB, including Mato Boban, and the leaders of the Republic of Croatia, including Franjo Tudjman, in December 1991 assessed that the long-term political goal was to achieve the unification of the Croatian people entities, within the borders of the Banovina of Croatia from 1939, it is necessary to carry out “ethnic cleansing” in the territories that were claimed to belong to the HZ/RHB. Evidence confirms that a joint criminal enterprise has been established to achieve the political goal. In this context, it was established that Franjo Tudjman advocated the division of Bosnia and Herzegovina between Croatia and Serbia by annexing part of Bosnia and Herzegovina to Croatia or, if this was not possible, by establishing an autonomous Croatian territory that would be closely connected with Croatia. Prlić, Stojić, Praljak, Petković, Ćorić, and Pušić were convicted of crimes against humanity, violations of the laws or customs of war and grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, specifically murder, willful deprivation of life, persecution on political, racial and religious grounds, deportation, unlawful detention of civilians, forced labor, inhumane acts, inhuman treatment, unlawful and wanton destruction of large-scale property not justified by military necessity, looting and confiscation of public and private property under the third category of liability for participation in JCE destruction or intentional infliction damage to institutions dedicated to religion or education, unlawful attacks on civilians and unlawful terrorism of civilians. In addition, Prlić, Stojić, Petković and Ćorić were convicted of rape and inhuman treatment (sexual abuse). Ćorić was additionally convicted for several crimes for which he is responsible as a superior.

Summary:The aim of this study is to analyse the Roman-Parthian relations under Artabanos II and Tiberius, and the political role played by Armenia, focusing on the agreement between the Roman prince Germanicus and Artabanos II. A scrutiny of military and diplomatic measures taken by Rome, Parthia, and minor kings of Kappadokia, Pontos and Armenia suggests a new perspective of the Roman and Parthian policies towards Armenia under Tiberius and Artabanos II. Artabanos II's triumph over Vonones compelled Rome to revise her policy toward Parthia. Artabanos agreed on a compromise with the ruler of Kappadokia Archelaos, a Roman client king, that involved installing Archelaos' stepson, Zeno, on the throne of Armenia. Germanicus' intervention in Armenia in A.D. 18 led to the conclusion of a compromise settlement between Rome and the Parthians, securing over a decade of peace between the two powers. Zeno Artaxias' coronation at the hands of Germanicus was commemorated by the issue of a set of meaningful silver coins.

Abstract In an era of increasingly public diplomacy, conventional wisdom assumes that leaders who compromise damage their reputations and lose the respect of their constituents, which undermines the prospects for international peace and cooperation. This article challenges this assumption and tests how leaders can negotiate compromises and avoid paying domestic approval and reputation costs. Drawing on theories of individuals’ core values, psychological processes, and partisanship, the author argues that leaders reduce or eliminate domestic public constraints by exercising proposal power and initiating compromises. Employing survey experiments to test how public approval and perceptions of reputation respond to leaders’ strategies across security and economic issues, the author finds attitudes toward compromise are conditioned by the ideology of the audience and leader, with audiences of liberals being more supportive of compromise. In the US case, this results in Republican presidents having greater leeway to negotiate compromises. The article’s contributions suggest that leaders who exercise proposal power have significant flexibility to negotiate compromise settlements in international bargaining.

Conclusions about the potential for peace via power-sharing are mixed. For some, power-sharing does little to overcome the commitment problem characterizing a transition from conflict, while others argue that such concessions provide signals of parties’ willingness to incur costs. This article develops and tests a new theory, aiming to shed light on the mechanisms through which power-sharing bargains help to overcome the commitment problem. I argue that government parties tend to hold an electoral and military advantage, which heightens incentives for rebel leaders to defect from a settlement prior to conceding their capacity to use violence. Where settlements provide discrete guarantees that offset the risks of electoral defeat and the co-optation of forces, these incentives for pre-emptive defection should be mitigated. I offer a novel disaggregation of provisional power-sharing subtypes, distinguishing between long-term and short-term arrangements. The analysis rests on an original, cross-national dataset of government-and-rebel dyads to negotiated settlements signed between 1975 and 2015 (N = 168). The logistic regression results clearly indicate that power-sharing settlements stipulating ‘consociational’-style reforms are significantly more likely to resolve conflict between settlement dyads, all else equal. Meanwhile, standard conceptualizations of power-sharing, which include transitional coalitions and troop integration, appear unlikely to secure rebel commitment beyond the transition period, which helps to explain the contradictory findings in existing research.

This paper argues that the violation of justice in Palestine began in 1948 and was deepened in 1967 with the further occupation and de-development of Palestine which continues to this day. For forty two years, international law has been defied by Israel with one excuse after another that few people accept. Israel has persistently built more and more settlements and separations that make the basic human right to education and health near impossible for the Palestinians. Whilst international aid has been necessary, it has been politically ineffective in halting the capture and annexing of more and more Palestinian land. More Palestinians are removed from Jerusalem every day as violence upon violence is piled on the people of Palestine. This paper argues that this is unacceptable for the international family of higher education. It argues that universities around the world should take a political lead in response to the call from Palestinian and other peace workers to build the Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions movement in global civil society. This paper moves the position that history has built up to a point where justice for Palestine is now an undeniable global issue for people of conscience everywhere. The situation is such that universities cannot step back and leave it to politicians. Academics and students must speak out and take a lead in ending the day to day abuse of basic Palestinian rights.

The term negativity in communication science refers to a news factor and to a tendency of media coverage. To put it simply, negativity as a news factor means that negative events (like controversies, conflicts, aggression, damage and so on) or so-called ‘bad news’ is more newsworthy than good ones (e.g., Galtung & Ruge, 1965). However, negativity is quite a complex concept and it is defined differently in research depending on the focus of the study. Lengauer et al. (2011) differentiate between actor-related and frame-related dimensions of negativity. At the ‘actor level’, negativity describes the tonality directed towards individual actors (for example political representatives or their organizations) in media coverage. At the ‘frame-related level’, negativity describes, for example, the overall tonality of the news story (predominantly negative), a pessimistic outlook in the story and/or a story focus on conflict or incapability and misconduct (Lengauer et al., 2011, pp. 183-185). Field of application/theoretical foundation: Negativity is widely analyzed in communication studies. The focus of this article lies on negativity in election (campaign) coverage. Furthermore, negativity (as a news factor) is often analyzed in news value studies respectively studies that analyze journalistic news selection criteria, in news bias studies as well as in video/media malaise or framing research (and others). References/combination with other methods of data collection: The analysis of negativity in media coverage may be combined or compared with journalist and population surveys (for example in news value studies or in framing research) as well as with so called “extra media data” (Rosengren, 1970, p. 96) (for example in news bias research). Furthermore, experimental studies that analyze the potential effects of a negative tonality of news coverage on recipients are possible. Example: The concept of negativity lacks an agreed-upon operationalization. Lengauer et al. (2011) review and systematize existing concepts and provide a set of coding instructions, which are cited below. Regarding the coding unit, Lengauer et al. (2011) suggest that coding should focus on the story level (instead of statement or paragraph level). Coding instructions (direct quotation) by Lengauer et al. (2011, pp. 195-197): Level of negative tone towards political actors (persons or institutions) Does the report convey primarily a positive/affirmative, negative/critical or balanced/neutral impression of a specific political actor or are no clear indications referring to the positive or negative tone towards political actors identifiable? Indications of a prevalent negative tone toward a specific political actor are depictions of individual failure, fiasco, disaster, crisis, frustration, miscarriage, collapse, flop, rejection, neglect, default, defeat, deterioration, resignation, disdain, received critique, criticism, attacks, scandal, moralizing accusation, allegations of misconduct, charge of wrongdoing, mistrust, accusation of incompetence or negative traits. Indications of a prevalent positive tone toward a political actor are depictions of individual victory, win, triumph, success, achievement, accomplishment, problem solutions, improvement, advance, prosperity, laudation, asset, sustainability, commendation, accordance of competence, compliment, portrayals of merit, esteem, trust or positive traits. If a report does not reflect indications of negative tonality or of positive tonality towards the specific actor, then it has to be coded as ‘neutral’. The variable has three codes: -1 = predominantly negative tone towards the actor 0 = balanced/ambivalent/neutral tone towards the actor +1 = predominantly positive tone towards the actor Level of negative tonality What is the overall tone of the story? Does the report convey primarily a positive, negative, balanced or neutral impression of politics, political records, conditions or views? Indications of negative tonality are the framing of the story as political failure, fiasco, disaster, crisis, frustration, collapse, flop, denial, rejection, neglect, default, deterioration, resignation, skepticism, threats, cynicism, defeatism or disappointment. Indications of positive tonality are depictions of political success, problem solutions, achievement, improvement, advance, prosperity, accomplishment, enthusiasm, hope, benefit, gain, sustainability, gratification or accomplishment. If a report does not reflect indications of negative tonality or of positive tonality, then it has to be coded as ‘neutral’. The variable has three codes: -1 = predominantly negative tonality 0 = balanced/ambivalent/neutral +1 = predominantly positive tonality Level of pessimistic outlook Does the story convey primarily optimistic, pessimistic or balanced outlooks on politics or are no indications referring to political outlooks identifiable? An optimistic depiction is given when the framing of the report generates the intersubjective impression that positive developments in politics are realistic, possible, or at hand (depictions of optimism, positive outlooks and scenarios, hopeful views, prosperous developments, potential gains, potential solutions or promising expectations). In contrast, pessimistic depictions are given when the framing of the report generates the impression that negative developments in politics are realistic, possible, likely or at hand (depictions of pessimism, negative outlooks and scenarios, hopeless views, critical developments, negative expectations or potential threats). If a report does not reflect indications of pessimistic or of optimistic outlooks, then it has to be coded as ‘not applicable’. The variable has three codes: -1 = predominantly pessimistic outlook 0 = balanced/ambivalent/not applicable +1 = predominantly optimistic outlook Level of conflict-centeredness Does the report convey primarily conflictual, consensus-centered or balanced impressions of politics, political records, conditions and views or are no indications referring to political conflict and consensus identifiable? The conflict dimension refers to at least two-sided depictions of (attempts, initiation, completion of) dispute, disagreement, discordance, confrontation, clashing positions and views or controversy. The consensus dimension refers to at least two-sided depictions of (attempts, initiation, completion of) consensus, accordance, consonance, conformities, dispute settlements, agreement, willingness of cooperation, willingness to compromise, approval or reconciliation. If a report does not reflect indications of conflict-centered or of consensus-centered depictions, then it has to be coded as ‘not applicable’. The variable has three codes: -1 = predominantly conflict centered 0 = balanced/ambivalent/not applicable +1 = predominantly consensus centered Level of incapability and misconduct Does the report convey primarily indications of incapability, capability or balanced impressions of politics or are no elements referring to political incapability and capability identifiable? The misconduct dimension refers to unidirectional and unilateral depictions of critique, criticism, attacks, allegations of misconduct, moralizing accusations, charge of wrongdoing, accusation of incapability or incompetence, affronts and insults. The competence dimension comprises unilateral depictions of commendation, accordance of capability or competence, compliment, acclaim, portrayals of merit or effectiveness. If a report does not reflect indications of incapability or of capability, then it has to be coded as ‘not applicable’. The variable has three codes: -1 = predominantly incapability centered 0 = balanced/ambivalent/not applicable +1 = predominantly capability centered References Galtung, J., & Ruge, M.H. (1965). The structure of foreign news. The presentation of the Congo, Cuba and Cyprus crises in four Norwegian newspapers. Journal of Peace Research, 2(1), 64-91. Lengauer, G., Esser, F., & Berganza, R. (2011). Negativity in political news: A review of concepts, operationalizations and key findings. Journalism, 13(2), 179-202. Rosengren, K. E. (1970). International News: Intra and Extra Media Data. Acta Sociologica, 13(2), 96-109.

Introduction I am a transmigrant who has moved back and forth between the West and the Rest. I was born and raised in a Muslim family in a predominantly Muslim country, Bangladesh, but I spent several years of my childhood in Pakistan. After my marriage, I lived in the United States for a year and a half, the Middle East for 5 years, Australia for three years, back to the Middle East for another 5 years, then, finally, in Australia for the last 12 years. I speak Bengali (my mother tongue), Urdu (which I learnt in Pakistan), a bit of Arabic (learnt in the Middle East); but English has always been my medium of instruction. So where is home? Is it my place of origin, the Muslim umma, or my land of settlement? Or is it my ‘root’ or my ‘route’ (Blunt and Dowling)? Blunt and Dowling (199) observe that the lives of transmigrants are often interpreted in terms of their ‘roots’ and ‘routes’, which are two frameworks for thinking about home, homeland and diaspora. Whereas ‘roots’ might imply an original homeland from which people have scattered, and to which they might seek to return, ‘routes’ focuses on mobile, multiple and transcultural geographies of home. However, both ‘roots’ and ‘routes’ are attached to emotion and identity, and both invoke a sense of place, belonging or alienation that is intrinsically tied to a sense of self (Blunt and Dowling 196-219). In this paper, I equate home with my root (place of birth) and route (transnational homing) within the context of the ‘diaspora and belonging’. First I define the diaspora and possible criteria of belonging. Next I describe my transnational homing within the framework of diaspora and belonging. Finally, I consider how Australia can be a ‘home’ for me and other Muslim Australians. The Diaspora and Belonging Blunt and Dowling (199) define diaspora as “scattering of people over space and transnational connections between people and the places”. Cohen emphasised the ethno-cultural aspects of the diaspora setting; that is, how migrants identify and position themselves in other nations in terms of their (different) ethnic and cultural orientation. Hall argues that the diasporic subjects form a cultural identity through transformation and difference. Speaking of the Hindu diaspora in the UK and Caribbean, Vertovec (21-23) contends that the migrants’ contact with their original ‘home’ or diaspora depends on four factors: migration processes and factors of settlement, cultural composition, structural and political power, and community development. With regard to the first factor, migration processes and factors of settlement, Vertovec explains that if the migrants are political or economic refugees, or on a temporary visa, they are likely to live in a ‘myth of return’. In the cultural composition context, Vertovec argues that religion, language, region of origin, caste, and degree of cultural homogenisation are factors in which migrants are bound to their homeland. Concerning the social structure and political power issue, Vertovec suggests that the extent and nature of racial and ethnic pluralism or social stigma, class composition, degree of institutionalised racism, involvement in party politics (or active citizenship) determine migrants’ connection to their new or old home. Finally, community development, including membership in organisations (political, union, religious, cultural, leisure), leadership qualities, and ethnic convergence or conflict (trends towards intra-communal or inter-ethnic/inter-religious co-operation) would also affect the migrants’ sense of belonging. Using these scholarly ideas as triggers, I will examine my home and belonging over the last few decades. My Home In an initial stage of my transmigrant history, my home was my root (place of birth, Dhaka, Bangladesh). Subsequently, my routes (settlement in different countries) reshaped my homes. In all respects, the ethno-cultural factors have played a big part in my definition of ‘home’. But on some occasions my ethnic identification has been overridden by my religious identification and vice versa. By ethnic identity, I mean my language (mother tongue) and my connection to my people (Bangladeshi). By my religious identity, I mean my Muslim religion, and my spiritual connection to the umma, a Muslim nation transcending all boundaries. Umma refers to the Muslim identity and unity within a larger Muslim group across national boundaries. The only thing the members of the umma have in common is their Islamic belief (Spencer and Wollman 169-170). In my childhood my father, a banker, was relocated to Karachi, Pakistan (then West Pakistan). Although I lived in Pakistan for much of my childhood, I have never considered it to be my home, even though it is predominantly a Muslim country. In this case, my home was my root (Bangladesh) where my grandparents and extended family lived. Every year I used to visit my grandparents who resided in a small town in Bangladesh (then East Pakistan). Thus my connection with my home was sustained through my extended family, ethnic traditions, language (Bengali/Bangla), and the occasional visits to the landscape of Bangladesh. Smith (9-11) notes that people build their connection or identity to their homeland through their historic land, common historical memories, myths, symbols and traditions. Though Pakistan and Bangladesh had common histories, their traditions of language, dress and ethnic culture were very different. For example, the celebration of the Bengali New Year (Pohela Baishakh), folk dance, folk music and folk tales, drama, poetry, lyrics of poets Rabindranath Tagore (Rabindra Sangeet) and Nazrul Islam (Nazrul Geeti) are distinct in the cultural heritage of Bangladesh. Special musical instruments such as the banshi (a bamboo flute), dhol (drums), ektara (a single-stringed instrument) and dotara (a four-stringed instrument) are unique to Bangladeshi culture. The Bangladeshi cuisine (rice and freshwater fish) is also different from Pakistan where people mainly eat flat round bread (roti) and meat (gosh). However, my bonding factor to Bangladesh was my relatives, particularly my grandparents as they made me feel one of ‘us’. Their affection for me was irreplaceable. The train journey from Dhaka (capital city) to their town, Noakhali, was captivating. The hustle and bustle at the train station and the lush green paddy fields along the train journey reminded me that this was my ‘home’. Though I spoke the official language (Urdu) in Pakistan and had a few Pakistani friends in Karachi, they could never replace my feelings for my friends, extended relatives and cousins who lived in Bangladesh. I could not relate to the landscape or dry weather of Pakistan. More importantly, some Pakistani women (our neighbours) were critical of my mother’s traditional dress (saree), and described it as revealing because it showed a bit of her back. They took pride in their traditional dress (shalwar, kameez, dopatta), which they considered to be more covered and ‘Islamic’. So, because of our traditional dress (saree) and perhaps other differences, we were regarded as the ‘Other’. In 1970 my father was relocated back to Dhaka, Bangladesh, and I was glad to go home. It should be noted that both Pakistan and Bangladesh were separated from India in 1947 – first as one nation; then, in 1971, Bangladesh became independent from Pakistan. The conflict between Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) and Pakistan (then West Pakistan) originated for economic and political reasons. At this time I was a high school student and witnessed acts of genocide committed by the Pakistani regime against the Bangladeshis (March-December 1971). My memories of these acts are vivid and still very painful. After my marriage, I moved from Bangladesh to the United States. In this instance, my new route (Austin, Texas, USA), as it happened, did not become my home. Here the ethno-cultural and Islamic cultural factors took precedence. I spoke the English language, made some American friends, and studied history at the University of Texas. I appreciated the warm friendship extended to me in the US, but experienced a degree of culture shock. I did not appreciate the pub life, alcohol consumption, and what I perceived to be the lack of family bonds (children moving out at the age of 18, families only meeting occasionally on birthdays and Christmas). Furthermore, I could not relate to de facto relationships and acceptance of sex before marriage. However, to me ‘home’ meant a family orientation and living in close contact with family. Besides the cultural divide, my husband and I were living in the US on student visas and, as Vertovec (21-23) noted, temporary visa status can deter people from their sense of belonging to the host country. In retrospect I can see that we lived in the ‘myth of return’. However, our next move for a better life was not to our root (Bangladesh), but another route to the Muslim world of Dhahran in Saudi Arabia. My husband moved to Dhahran not because it was a Muslim world but because it gave him better economic opportunities. However, I thought this new destination would become my home – the home that was coined by Anderson as the imagined nation, or my Muslim umma. Anderson argues that the imagined communities are “to be distinguished, not by their falsity/genuineness, but by the style in which they are imagined” (6; Wood 61). Hall (122) asserts: identity is actually formed through unconscious processes over time, rather than being innate in consciousness at birth. There is always something ‘imaginary’ or fantasized about its unity. It always remains incomplete, is always ‘in process’, always ‘being formed’. As discussed above, when I had returned home to Bangladesh from Pakistan – both Muslim countries – my primary connection to my home country was my ethnic identity, language and traditions. My ethnic identity overshadowed the religious identity. But when I moved to Saudi Arabia, where my ethnic identity differed from that of the mainstream Arabs and Bedouin/nomadic Arabs, my connection to this new land was through my Islamic cultural and religious identity. Admittedly, this connection to the umma was more psychological than physical, but I was now in close proximity to Mecca, and to my home of Dhaka, Bangladesh. Mecca is an important city in Saudi Arabia for Muslims because it is the holy city of Islam, the home to the Ka’aba (the religious centre of Islam), and the birthplace of Prophet Muhammad [Peace Be Upon Him]. It is also the destination of the Hajj, one of the five pillars of Islamic faith. Therefore, Mecca is home to significant events in Islamic history, as well as being an important present day centre for the Islamic faith. We lived in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia for 5 years. Though it was a 2.5 hours flight away, I treasured Mecca’s proximity and regarded Dhahran as my second and spiritual home. Saudi Arabia had a restricted lifestyle for women, but I liked it because it was a Muslim country that gave me the opportunity to perform umrah Hajj (pilgrimage). However, Saudi Arabia did not allow citizenship to expatriates. Saudi Arabia’s government was keen to protect the status quo and did not want to compromise its cultural values or standard of living by allowing foreigners to become a permanent part of society. In exceptional circumstances only, the King granted citizenship to a foreigner for outstanding service to the state over a number of years. Children of foreigners born in Saudi Arabia did not have rights of local citizenship; they automatically assumed the nationality of their parents. If it was available, Saudi citizenship would assure expatriates a secure and permanent living in Saudi Arabia; as it was, there was a fear among the non-Saudis that they would have to leave the country once their job contract expired. Under the circumstances, though my spiritual connection to Mecca was strong, my husband was convinced that Saudi Arabia did not provide any job security. So, in 1987 when Australia offered migration to highly skilled people, my husband decided to migrate to Australia for a better and more secure economic life. I agreed to his decision, but quite reluctantly because we were again moving to a non-Muslim part of the world, which would be culturally different and far away from my original homeland (Bangladesh). In Australia, we lived first in Brisbane, then Adelaide, and after three years we took our Australian citizenship. At that stage I loved the Barossa Valley and Victor Harbour in South Australia, and the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast in Queensland, but did not feel at home in Australia. We bought a house in Adelaide and I was a full time home-maker but was always apprehensive that my children (two boys) would lose their culture in this non-Muslim world. In 1990 we once again moved back to the Muslim world, this time to Muscat, Sultanate of Oman. My connection to this route was again spiritual. I valued the fact that we would live in a Muslim country and our children would be brought up in a Muslim environment. But my husband’s move was purely financial as he got a lucrative job offer in Muscat. We had another son in Oman. We enjoyed the luxurious lifestyle provided by my husband’s workplace and the service provided by the housemaid. I loved the beaches and freedom to drive my car, and I appreciated the friendly Omani people. I also enjoyed our frequent trips (4 hours flight) to my root, Dhaka, Bangladesh. So our children were raised within our ethnic and Islamic culture, remained close to my root (family in Dhaka), though they attended a British school in Muscat. But by the time I started considering Oman to be my second home, we had to leave once again for a place that could provide us with a more secure future. Oman was like Saudi Arabia; it employed expatriates only on a contract basis, and did not give them citizenship (not even fellow Muslims). So after 5 years it was time to move back to Australia. It was with great reluctance that I moved with my husband to Brisbane in 1995 because once again we were to face a different cultural context. As mentioned earlier, we lived in Brisbane in the late 1980s; I liked the weather, the landscape, but did not consider it home for cultural reasons. Our boys started attending expensive private schools and we bought a house in a prestigious Western suburb in Brisbane. Soon after arriving I started my tertiary education at the University of Queensland, and finished an MA in Historical Studies in Indian History in 1998. Still Australia was not my home. I kept thinking that we would return to my previous routes or the ‘imagined’ homeland somewhere in the Middle East, in close proximity to my root (Bangladesh), where we could remain economically secure in a Muslim country. But gradually I began to feel that Australia was becoming my ‘home’. I had gradually become involved in professional and community activities (with university colleagues, the Bangladeshi community and Muslim women’s organisations), and in retrospect I could see that this was an early stage of my ‘self-actualisation’ (Maslow). Through my involvement with diverse people, I felt emotionally connected with the concerns, hopes and dreams of my Muslim-Australian friends. Subsequently, I also felt connected with my mainstream Australian friends whose emotions and fears (9/11 incident, Bali bombing and 7/7 tragedy) were similar to mine. In late 1998 I started my PhD studies on the immigration history of Australia, with a particular focus on the historical settlement of Muslims in Australia. This entailed retrieving archival files and interviewing people, mostly Muslims and some mainstream Australians, and enquiring into relevant migration issues. I also became more active in community issues, and was not constrained by my circumstances. By circumstances, I mean that even though I belonged to a patriarchally structured Muslim family, where my husband was the main breadwinner, main decision-maker, my independence and research activities (entailing frequent interstate trips for data collection, and public speaking) were not frowned upon or forbidden (Khan 14-15); fortunately, my husband appreciated my passion for research and gave me his trust and support. This, along with the Muslim community’s support (interviews), and the wider community’s recognition (for example, the publication of my letters in Australian newspapers, interviews on radio and television) enabled me to develop my self-esteem and built up my bicultural identity as a Muslim in a predominantly Christian country and as a Bangladeshi-Australian. In 2005, for the sake of a better job opportunity, my husband moved to the UK, but this time I asserted that I would not move again. I felt that here in Australia (now in Perth) I had a job, an identity and a home. This time my husband was able to secure a good job back in Australia and was only away for a year. I no longer dream of finding a home in the Middle East. Through my bicultural identity here in Australia I feel connected to the wider community and to the Muslim umma. However, my attachment to the umma has become ambivalent. I feel proud of my Australian-Muslim identity but I am concerned about the jihadi ideology of militant Muslims. By jihadi ideology, I mean the extremist ideology of the al-Qaeda terrorist group (Farrar 2007). The Muslim umma now incorporates both moderate and radical Muslims. The radical Muslims (though only a tiny minority of 1.4 billion Muslims worldwide) pose a threat to their moderate counterparts as well as to non-Muslims. In the UK, some second- and third-generation Muslims identify themselves with the umma rather than their parents’ homelands or their country of birth (Husain). It should not be a matter of concern if these young Muslims adopt a ‘pure’ Muslim identity, providing at the same time they are loyal to their country of residence. But when they resort to terrorism with their ‘pure’ Muslim identity (e.g., the 7/7 London bombers) they defame my religion Islam, and undermine my spiritual connection to the umma. As a 1st generation immigrant, the defining criteria of my ‘homeliness’ in Australia are my ethno-cultural and religious identity (which includes my family), my active citizenship, and my community development/contribution through my research work – all of which allow me a sense of efficacy in my life. My ethnic and religious identities generally co-exist equally, but when I see some Muslims kill my fellow Australians (such as the Bali bombings in 2002 and 2005) my Australian identity takes precedence. I feel for the victims and condemn the perpetrators. On the other hand, when I see politics play a role over the human rights issues (e.g., the Tampa incident), my religious identity begs me to comment on it (see Kabir, Muslims in Australia 295-305). Problematising ‘Home’ for Muslim Australians In the European context, Grillo (863) and Werbner (904), and in the Australian context, Kabir (Muslims in Australia) and Poynting and Mason, have identified the diversity within Islam (national, ethnic, religious etc). Werbner (904) notes that in spite of the “wishful talk of the emergence of a ‘British Islam’, even today there are Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Arab mosques, as well as Turkish and Shia’a mosques”; thus British Muslims retain their separate identities. Similarly, in Australia, the existence of separate mosques for the Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Arab and Shia’a peoples indicates that Australian Muslims have also kept their ethnic identities discrete (Saeed 64-77). However, in times of crisis, such as the Salman Rushdie affair in 1989, and the 1990-1991 Gulf crises, both British and Australian Muslims were quick to unite and express their Islamic identity by way of resistance (Kabir, Muslims in Australia 160-162; Poynting and Mason 68-70). In both British and Australian contexts, I argue that a peaceful rally or resistance is indicative of active citizenship of Muslims as it reveals their sense of belonging (also Werbner 905). So when a transmigrant Muslim wants to make a peaceful demonstration, the Western world should be encouraged, not threatened – as long as the transmigrant’s allegiances lie also with the host country. In the European context, Grillo (868) writes: when I asked Mehmet if he was planning to stay in Germany he answered without hesitation: ‘Yes, of course’. And then, after a little break, he added ‘as long as we can live here as Muslims’. In this context, I support Mehmet’s desire to live as a Muslim in a non-Muslim world as long as this is peaceful. Paradoxically, living a Muslim life through ijtihad can be either socially progressive or destructive. The Canadian Muslim feminist Irshad Manji relies on ijtihad, but so does Osama bin Laden! Manji emphasises that ijtihad can be, on the one hand, the adaptation of Islam using independent reasoning, hybridity and the contesting of ‘traditional’ family values (c.f. Doogue and Kirkwood 275-276, 314); and, on the other, ijtihad can take the form of conservative, patriarchal and militant Islamic values. The al-Qaeda terrorist Osama bin Laden espouses the jihadi ideology of Sayyid Qutb (1906-1966), an Egyptian who early in his career might have been described as a Muslim modernist who believed that Islam and Western secular ideals could be reconciled. But he discarded that idea after going to the US in 1948-50; there he was treated as ‘different’ and that treatment turned him against the West. He came back to Egypt and embraced a much more rigid and militaristic form of Islam (Esposito 136). Other scholars, such as Cesari, have identified a third orientation – a ‘secularised Islam’, which stresses general beliefs in the values of Islam and an Islamic identity, without too much concern for practices. Grillo (871) observed Islam in the West emphasised diversity. He stressed that, “some [Muslims were] more quietest, some more secular, some more clamorous, some more negotiatory”, while some were exclusively characterised by Islamic identity, such as wearing the burqa (elaborate veils), hijabs (headscarves), beards by men and total abstinence from drinking alcohol. So Mehmet, cited above, could be living a Muslim life within the spectrum of these possibilities, ranging from an integrating mode to a strict, militant Muslim manner. In the UK context, Zubaida (96) contends that marginalised, culturally-impoverished youth are the people for whom radical, militant Islamism may have an appeal, though it must be noted that the 7/7 bombers belonged to affluent families (O’Sullivan 14; Husain). In Australia, Muslim Australians are facing three challenges. First, the Muslim unemployment rate: it was three times higher than the national total in 1996 and 2001 (Kabir, Muslims in Australia 266-278; Kabir, “What Does It Mean” 63). Second, some spiritual leaders have used extreme rhetoric to appeal to marginalised youth; in January 2007, the Australian-born imam of Lebanese background, Sheikh Feiz Mohammad, was alleged to have employed a DVD format to urge children to kill the enemies of Islam and to have praised martyrs with a violent interpretation of jihad (Chulov 2). Third, the proposed citizenship test has the potential to make new migrants’ – particularly Muslims’ – settlement in Australia stressful (Kabir, “What Does It Mean” 62-79); in May 2007, fuelled by perceptions that some migrants – especially Muslims – were not integrating quickly enough, the Howard government introduced a citizenship test bill that proposes to test applicants on their English language skills and knowledge of Australian history and ‘values’. I contend that being able to demonstrate knowledge of history and having English language skills is no guarantee that a migrant will be a good citizen. Through my transmigrant history, I have learnt that developing a bond with a new place takes time, acceptance and a gradual change of identity, which are less likely to happen when facing assimilationist constraints. I spoke English and studied history in the United States, but I did not consider it my home. I did not speak the Arabic language, and did not study Middle Eastern history while I was in the Middle East, but I felt connected to it for cultural and religious reasons. Through my knowledge of history and English language proficiency I did not make Australia my home when I first migrated to Australia. Australia became my home when I started interacting with other Australians, which was made possible by having the time at my disposal and by fortunate circumstances, which included a fairly high level of efficacy and affluence. If I had been rejected because of my lack of knowledge of ‘Australian values’, or had encountered discrimination in the job market, I would have been much less willing to embrace my host country and call it home. I believe a stringent citizenship test is more likely to alienate would-be citizens than to induce their adoption of values and loyalty to their new home. Conclusion Blunt (5) observes that current studies of home often investigate mobile geographies of dwelling and how it shapes one’s identity and belonging. Such geographies of home negotiate from the domestic to the global context, thus mobilising the home beyond a fixed, bounded and confining location. Similarly, in this paper I have discussed how my mobile geography, from the domestic (root) to global (route), has shaped my identity. Though I received a degree of culture shock in the United States, loved the Middle East, and was at first quite resistant to the idea of making Australia my second home, the confidence I acquired in residing in these ‘several homes’ were cumulative and eventually enabled me to regard Australia as my ‘home’. I loved the Middle East, but I did not pursue an active involvement with the Arab community because I was a busy mother. Also I lacked the communication skill (fluency in Arabic) with the local residents who lived outside the expatriates’ campus. I am no longer a cultural freak. I am no longer the same Bangladeshi woman who saw her ethnic and Islamic culture as superior to all other cultures. I have learnt to appreciate Australian values, such as tolerance, ‘a fair go’ and multiculturalism (see Kabir, “What Does It Mean” 62-79). My bicultural identity is my strength. With my ethnic and religious identity, I can relate to the concerns of the Muslim community and other Australian ethnic and religious minorities. And with my Australian identity I have developed ‘a voice’ to pursue active citizenship. Thus my biculturalism has enabled me to retain and merge my former home with my present and permanent home of Australia. References Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London, New York: Verso, 1983. Australian Bureau of Statistics: Census of Housing and Population, 1996 and 2001. Blunt, Alison. Domicile and Diaspora: Anglo-Indian Women and the Spatial Politics of Home. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005. Blunt, Alison, and Robyn Dowling. Home. London and New York: Routledge, 2006. Cesari, Jocelyne. “Muslim Minorities in Europe: The Silent Revolution.” In John L. Esposito and Burgat, eds., Modernising Islam: Religion in the Public Sphere in Europe and the Middle East. London: Hurst, 2003. 251-269. Chulov, Martin. “Treatment Has Sheik Wary of Returning Home.” Weekend Australian 6-7 Jan. 2007: 2. Cohen, Robin. Global Diasporas: An Introduction. Seattle: University of Washington, 1997. Doogue, Geraldine, and Peter Kirkwood. Tomorrow’s Islam: Uniting Old-Age Beliefs and a Modern World. Sydney: ABC Books, 2005. Esposito, John. The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality? 3rd ed. New York, Oxford: Oxford UP, 1999. Farrar, Max. “When the Bombs Go Off: Rethinking and Managing Diversity Strategies in Leeds, UK.” International Journal of Diversity in Organisations, Communities and Nations 6.5 (2007): 63-68. Grillo, Ralph. “Islam and Transnationalism.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 30.5 (Sep. 2004): 861-878. Hall, Stuart. Polity Reader in Cultural Theory. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994. Huntington, Samuel, P. The Clash of Civilisation and the Remaking of World Order. London: Touchstone, 1998. Husain, Ed. The Islamist: Why I Joined Radical Islam in Britain, What I Saw inside and Why I Left. London: Penguin, 2007. Kabir, Nahid. Muslims in Australia: Immigration, Race Relations and Cultural History. London: Kegan Paul, 2005. ———. “What Does It Mean to Be Un-Australian: Views of Australian Muslim Students in 2006.” People and Place 15.1 (2007): 62-79. Khan, Shahnaz. Aversion and Desire: Negotiating Muslim Female Identity in the Diaspora. Toronto: Women’s Press, 2002. Manji, Irshad. The Trouble with Islam Today. Canada:Vintage, 2005. Maslow, Abraham. Motivation and Personality. New York: Harper, 1954. O’Sullivan, J. “The Real British Disease.” Quadrant (Jan.-Feb. 2006): 14-20. Poynting, Scott, and Victoria Mason. “The Resistible Rise of Islamophobia: Anti-Muslim Racism in the UK and Australia before 11 September 2001.” Journal of Sociology 43.1 (2007): 61-86. Saeed, Abdallah. Islam in Australia. Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 2003. Smith, Anthony D. National Identity. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1991. Spencer, Philip, and Howard Wollman. Nationalism: A Critical Introduction. London: Sage, 2002. Vertovec, Stevens. The Hindu Diaspora: Comparative Patterns. London: Routledge. 2000. Werbner, Pnina, “Theorising Complex Diasporas: Purity and Hybridity in the South Asian Public Sphere in Britain.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 30.5 (2004): 895-911. Wood, Dennis. “The Diaspora, Community and the Vagrant Space.” In Cynthia Vanden Driesen and Ralph Crane, eds., Diaspora: The Australasian Experience. New Delhi: Prestige, 2005. 59-64. Zubaida, Sami. “Islam in Europe: Unity or Diversity.” Critical Quarterly 45.1-2 (2003): 88-98. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Kabir, Nahid. "Why I Call Australia ‘Home’?: A Transmigrant’s Perspective." M/C Journal 10.4 (2007). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0708/15-kabir.php>. APA Style Kabir, N. (Aug. 2007) "Why I Call Australia ‘Home’?: A Transmigrant’s Perspective," M/C Journal, 10(4). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0708/15-kabir.php>.

Special Care Notice This paper discusses trauma and violence inflicted upon the Indigenous peoples of Tasmania through the process of colonisation. Content within this paper may be distressing to some readers. Introduction The decimation of the First Peoples of Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania) was systematic and swift. First Contact was an emotionally, intellectually, physically, and spiritually confronting series of encounters for the Indigenous inhabitants. There were, according to some early records, a few examples of peaceful interactions (Morris 84). Yet, the inevitable competition over resources, and the intensity with which colonists pursued their “claims” for food, land, and water, quickly transformed amicable relationships into hostile rivalries. Jennifer Gall has written that, as “European settlement expanded in the late 1820s, violent exchanges between settlers and Aboriginal people were frequent, brutal and unchecked” (58). Indeed, the near-annihilation of the original custodians of the land was, if viewed through the lens of time, a process that could be described as one that was especially efficient. As John Morris notes: in 1803, when the first settlers arrived in Van Diemen’s Land, the Aborigines had already inhabited the island for some 25,000 years and the population has been estimated at 4,000. Seventy-three years later, Truganinni, [often cited as] the last Tasmanian of full Aboriginal descent, was dead. (84) Against a backdrop of extreme violence, often referred to as the Black War (Clements 1), there were some, admittedly dubious, efforts to contain the bloodshed. One such effort, in the late 1820s, was the production, and subsequent distribution, of a set of Proclamation Boards. Approximately 100 Proclamation Boards (the Board) were introduced by the Lieutenant Governor of the day, George Arthur (after whom Port Arthur on the Tasman Peninsula is named). The purpose of these Boards was to communicate, via a four-strip pictogram, to the Indigenous peoples of the island colony that all people—black and white—were considered equal under the law. “British Justice would protect” everyone (Morris 84). This is reflected in the narrative of the Boards. The first image presents Indigenous peoples and colonists living peacefully together. The second, and central, image shows “a conciliatory handshake between the British governor and an Aboriginal ‘chief’, highly reminiscent of images found in North America on treaty medals and anti-slavery tokens” (Darian-Smith and Edmonds 4). The third and fourth images depict the repercussions for committing murder, with an Indigenous man hanged for spearing a colonist and a European man also hanged for shooting an Aborigine. Both men executed under “gubernatorial supervision” (Turnbull 53). Image 1: Governor Davey's [sic - actually Governor Arthur's] Proclamation to the Aborigines, 1816 [sic - actually c. 1828-30]. Image Credit: Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (Call Number: SAFE / R 247). The Board is an interesting re-imagining of one of the traditional methods of communication for Indigenous peoples; the leaving of images on the bark of trees. Such trees, often referred to as scarred trees, are rare in modern-day Tasmania as “the expansion of settlements, and the impact of bush fires and other environmental factors” resulted in many of these trees being destroyed (Aboriginal Heritage Tasmania online). Similarly, only a few of the Boards, inspired by these trees, survive today. The Proclamation Board was, in the 1860s, re-imagined as the output of a different Governor: Lieutenant Governor Davey (after whom Port Davey, on the south-west coast of Tasmania is named). This re-imagining of the Board’s creator was so effective that the Board, today, is popularly known as Governor Davey’s Proclamation to the Aborigines. This paper outlines several other re-imaginings of this Board. In addition, this paper offers another, new, re-imagining of the Board, positing that this is an early “pamphlet” on crime, justice and punishment which actually presents as a pre-cursor to the modern Australian true crime tale. In doing so this work connects the Proclamation Board to the larger genre of crime fiction. One Proclamation Board: Two Governors Labelled Van Diemen’s Land and settled as a colony of New South Wales in 1803, this island state would secede from the administration of mainland Australia in 1825. Another change would follow in 1856 when Van Diemen’s Land was, in another process of re-imagining, officially re-named Tasmania. This change in nomenclature was an initiative to, symbolically at least, separate the contemporary state from a criminal and violent past (Newman online). Tasmania’s violent history was, perhaps, inevitable. The island was claimed by Philip Gidley King, the Governor of New South Wales, in the name of His Majesty, not for the purpose of building a community, but to “prevent the French from gaining a footing on the east side of that island” and also to procure “timber and other natural products, as well as to raise grain and to promote the seal industry” (Clark 36). Another rationale for this land claim was to “divide the convicts” (Clark 36) which re-fashioned the island into a gaol. It was this penal element of the British colonisation of Australia that saw the worst of the British Empire forced upon the Aboriginal peoples. As historian Clive Turnbull explains: the brutish state of England was reproduced in the English colonies, and that in many ways its brutishness was increased, for now there came to Australia not the humanitarians or the indifferent, but the men who had vested interests in the systems of restraint; among those who suffered restraint were not only a vast number who were merely unfortunate and poverty-stricken—the victims of a ‘depression’—but brutalised persons, child-slaughterers and even potential cannibals. (Turnbull 25) As noted above the Black War of Tasmania saw unprecedented aggression against the rightful occupants of the land. Yet, the Aboriginal peoples were “promised the white man’s justice, the people [were] exhorted to live in amity with them, the wrongs which they suffer [were] deplored” (Turnbull 23). The administrators purported an egalitarian society, one of integration and peace but Van Diemen’s Land was colonised as a prison and as a place of profit. So, “like many apologists whose material benefit is bound up with the systems which they defend” (Turnbull 23), assertions of care for the health and welfare of the Aboriginal peoples were made but were not supported by sufficient policies, or sufficient will, and the Black War continued. Colonel Thomas Davey (1758-1823) was the second person to serve as Lieutenant Governor of Van Diemen’s Land; a term of office that began in 1813 and concluded in 1817. The fourth Lieutenant Governor of the island was Colonel Sir George Arthur (1784-1854); his term of office, significantly longer than Davey’s, being from 1824 to 1836. The two men were very different but are connected through this intriguing artefact, the Proclamation Board. One of the efforts made to assert the principle of equality under the law in Van Diemen’s Land was an outcome of work undertaken by Surveyor General George Frankland (1800-1838). Frankland wrote to Arthur in early 1829 and suggested the Proclamation Board (Morris 84), sometimes referred to as a Picture Board or the Tasmanian Hieroglyphics, as a tool to support Arthur’s various Proclamations. The Proclamation, signed on 15 April 1828 and promulgated in the The Hobart Town Courier on 19 April 1828 (Arthur 1), was one of several notices attempting to reduce the increasing levels of violence between Indigenous peoples and colonists. The date on Frankland’s correspondence clearly situates the Proclamation Board within Arthur’s tenure as Lieutenant Governor. The Board was, however, in the 1860s, re-imagined as the output of Davey. The Clerk of the Tasmanian House of Assembly, Hugh M. Hull, asserted that the Board was the work of Davey and not Arthur. Hull’s rationale for this, despite archival evidence connecting the Board to Frankland and, by extension, to Arthur, is predominantly anecdotal. In a letter to the editor of The Hobart Mercury, published 26 November 1874, Hull wrote: this curiosity was shown by me to the late Mrs Bateman, neé Pitt, a lady who arrived here in 1804, and with whom I went to school in 1822. She at once recognised it as one of a number prepared in 1816, under Governor Davey’s orders; and said she had seen one hanging on a gum tree at Cottage Green—now Battery Point. (3) Hull went on to assert that “if any old gentleman will look at the picture and remember the style of military and civil dress of 1810-15, he will find that Mrs Bateman was right” (3). Interestingly, Hull relies upon the recollections of a deceased school friend and the dress codes depicted by the artist to date the Proclamation Board as a product of 1816, in lieu of documentary evidence dating the Board as a product of 1828-1830. Curiously, the citation of dress can serve to undermine Hull’s argument. An early 1840s watercolour by Thomas Bock, of Mathinna, an Aboriginal child of Flinders Island adopted by Lieutenant Governor John Franklin (Felton online), features the young girl wearing a brightly coloured, high-waisted dress. This dress is very similar to the dresses worn by the children on the Proclamation Board (the difference being that Mathinna wears a red dress with a contrasting waistband, the children on the Board wear plain yellow dresses) (Bock). Acknowledging the simplicity of children's clothing during the colonial era, it could still be argued that it would have been unlikely the Governor of the day would have placed a child, enjoying at that time a life of privilege, in a situation where she sat for a portrait wearing an old-fashioned garment. So effective was Hull’s re-imagining of the Board’s creator that the Board was, for many years, popularly known as Governor Davey’s Proclamation to the Aborigines with even the date modified, to 1816, to fit Davey’s term of office. Further, it is worth noting that catalogue records acknowledge the error of attribution and list both Davey and Arthur as men connected to the creation of the Proclamation Board. A Surviving Board: Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales One of the surviving Proclamation Boards is held by the Mitchell Library. The Boards, oil on Huon pine, were painted by “convict artists incarcerated in the island penal colony” (Carroll 73). The work was mass produced (by the standards of mass production of the day) by pouncing, “a technique [of the Italian Renaissance] of pricking the contours of a drawing with a pin. Charcoal was then dusted on to the drawing” (Carroll 75-76). The images, once outlined, were painted in oil. Of approximately 100 Boards made, several survive today. There are seven known Boards within public collections (Gall 58): five in Australia (Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW, Sydney; Museum Victoria, Melbourne; National Library of Australia, Canberra; Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart; and Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston); and two overseas (The Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University and the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, University of Cambridge). The catalogue record, for the Board held by the Mitchell Library, offers the following details:Paintings: 1 oil painting on Huon pine board, rectangular in shape with rounded corners and hole at top centre for suspension ; 35.7 x 22.6 x 1 cm. 4 scenes are depicted:Aborigines and white settlers in European dress mingling harmoniouslyAboriginal men and women, and an Aboriginal child approach Governor Arthur to shake hands while peaceful soldiers look onA hostile Aboriginal man spears a male white settler and is hanged by the military as Governor Arthur looks onA hostile white settler shoots an Aboriginal man and is hanged by the military as Governor Arthur looks on. (SAFE / R 247) The Mitchell Library Board was purchased from J.W. Beattie in May 1919 for £30 (Morris 86), which is approximately $2,200 today. Importantly, the title of the record notes both the popular attribution of the Board and the man who actually instigated the Board’s production: “Governor Davey’s [sic – actually Governor Arthur] Proclamation to the Aborigines, 1816 [sic – actually c. 1828-30].” The date of the Board is still a cause of some speculation. The earlier date, 1828, marks the declaration of martial law (Turnbull 94) and 1830 marks the Black Line (Edmonds 215); the attempt to form a human line of white men to force many Tasmanian Aboriginals, four of the nine nations, onto the Tasman Peninsula (Ryan 3). Frankland’s suggestion for the Board was put forward on 4 February 1829, with Arthur’s official Conciliator to the Aborigines, G.A. Robinson, recording his first sighting of a Board on 24 December 1829 (Morris 84-85). Thus, the conception of the Board may have been in 1828 but the Proclamation project was not fully realised until 1830. Indeed, a news item on the Proclamation Board did appear in the popular press, but not until 5 March 1830: We are informed that the Government have given directions for the painting of a large number of pictures to be placed in the bush for the contemplation of the Aboriginal Inhabitants. […] However […] the causes of their hostility must be more deeply probed, or their taste as connoisseurs in paintings more clearly established, ere we can look for any beneficial result from this measure. (Colonial Times 2) The remark made in relation to becoming a connoisseur of painting, though intended to be derogatory, makes some sense. There was an assumption that the Indigenous peoples could easily translate a European-styled execution by hanging, as a visual metaphor for all forms of punishment. It has long been understood that Indigenous “social organisation and religious and ceremonial life were often as complex as those of the white invaders” (McCulloch 261). However, the Proclamation Board was, in every sense, Eurocentric and made no attempt to acknowledge the complexities of Aboriginal culture. It was, quite simply, never going to be an effective tool of communication, nor achieve its socio-legal aims. The Board Re-imagined: Popular Media The re-imagining of the Proclamation Board as a construct of Governor Davey, instead of Governor Arthur, is just one of many re-imaginings of this curious object. There are, of course, the various imaginings of the purpose of the Board. On the surface these images are a tool for reconciliation but as “the story of these paintings unfolds […] it becomes clear that the proclamations were in effect envoys sent back to Britain to exhibit the ingenious attempts being applied to civilise Australia” (Carroll 76). In this way the Board was re-imagined by the Administration that funded the exercise, even before the project was completed, from a mechanism to assist in the bringing about of peace into an object that would impress colonial superiors. Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll has recently written about the Boards in the context of their “transnational circulation” and how “objects become subjects and speak of their past through the ventriloquism of contemporary art history” (75). Carroll argues the Board is an item that couples “military strategy with a fine arts propaganda campaign” (Carroll 78). Critically the Boards never achieved their advertised purpose for, as Carroll explains, there were “elaborate rituals Aboriginal Australians had for the dead” and, therefore, “the display of a dead, hanging body is unthinkable. […] being exposed to the sight of a hanged man must have been experienced as an unimaginable act of disrespect” (92). The Proclamation Board would, in sharp contrast to feelings of unimaginable disrespect, inspire feelings of pride across the colonial population. An example of this pride being revealed in the selection of the Board as an object worthy of reproduction, as a lithograph, for an Intercolonial Exhibition, held in Melbourne in 1866 (Morris 84). The lithograph, which identifies the Board as Governor Davey’s Proclamation to the Aborigines and dated 1816, was listed as item 572, of 738 items submitted by Tasmania, for the event (The Commissioners 69-85). This type of reproduction, or re-imagining, of the Board would not be an isolated event. Penelope Edmonds has described the Board as producing a “visual vernacular” through a range of derivatives including lantern slides, lithographs, and postcards. These types of tourist ephemera are in addition to efforts to produce unique re-workings of the Board as seen in Violet Mace’s Proclamation glazed earthernware, which includes a jug (1928) and a pottery cup (1934) (Edmonds online). The Board Re-imagined: A True Crime Tale The Proclamation Board offers numerous narratives. There is the story that the Board was designed and deployed to communicate. There is the story behind the Board. There is also the story of the credit for the initiative which was transferred from Governor Arthur to Governor Davey and subsequently returned to Arthur. There are, too, the provenance stories of individual Boards. There is another story the Proclamation Board offers. The story of true crime in colonial Australia. The Board, as noted, presents through a four-strip pictogram an idea that all are equal under the rule of law (Arthur 1). Advocating for a society of equals was a duplicitous practice, for while Aborigines were hanged for allegedly murdering settlers, “there is no record of whites being charged, let alone punished, for murdering Aborigines” (Morris 84). It would not be until 1838 that white men would be punished for the murder of Aboriginal people (on the mainland) in the wake of the Myall Creek Massacre, in northern New South Wales. There were other examples of attempts to bring about a greater equity under the rule of law but, as Amanda Nettelbeck explains, there was wide-spread resistance to the investigation and charging of colonists for crimes against the Indigenous population with cases regularly not going to trial, or, if making a courtroom, resulting in an acquittal (355-59). That such cases rested on “legally inadmissible Aboriginal testimony” (Reece in Nettelbeck 358) propped up a justice system that was, inherently, unjust in the nineteenth century. It is important to note that commentators at the time did allude to the crime narrative of the Board: when in the most civilized country in the world it has been found ineffective as example to hang murderers in chains, it is not to be expected a savage race will be influenced by the milder exhibition of effigy and caricature. (Colonial Times 2) It is argued here that the Board was much more than an offering of effigy and caricature. The Proclamation Board presents, in striking detail, the formula for the modern true crime tale: a peace disturbed by the act of murder; and the ensuing search for, and delivery of, justice. Reinforcing this point, are the ideas of justice seen within crime fiction, a genre that focuses on the restoration of order out of chaos (James 174), are made visible here as aspirational. The true crime tale does not, consistently, offer the reassurances found within crime fiction. In the real world, particularly one as violent as colonial Australia, we are forced to acknowledge that, below the surface of the official rhetoric on justice and crime, the guilty often go free and the innocent are sometimes hanged. Another point of note is that, if the latter date offered here, of 1830, is taken as the official date of the production of these Boards, then the significance of the Proclamation Board as a true crime tale is even more pronounced through a connection to crime fiction (both genres sharing a common literary heritage). The year 1830 marks the release of Australia’s first novel, Quintus Servinton written by convicted forger Henry Savery, a crime novel (produced in three volumes) published by Henry Melville of Hobart Town. Thus, this paper suggests, 1830 can be posited as a year that witnessed the production of two significant cultural artefacts, the Proclamation Board and the nation’s first full-length literary work, as also being the year that established the, now indomitable, traditions of true crime and crime fiction in Australia. Conclusion During the late 1820s in Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania) a set of approximately 100 Proclamation Boards were produced by the Lieutenant Governor of the day, George Arthur. The official purpose of these items was to communicate, to the Indigenous peoples of the island colony, that all—black and white—were equal under the law. Murderers, be they Aboriginal or colonist, would be punished. The Board is a re-imagining of one of the traditional methods of communication for Indigenous peoples; the leaving of drawings on the bark of trees. The Board was, in the 1860s, in time for an Intercolonial Exhibition, re-imagined as the output of Lieutenant Governor Davey. This re-imagining of the Board was so effective that surviving artefacts, today, are popularly known as Governor Davey’s Proclamation to the Aborigines with the date modified, to 1816, to fit the new narrative. The Proclamation Board was also reimagined, by its creators and consumers, in a variety of ways: as peace offering; military propaganda; exhibition object; tourism ephemera; and contemporary art. This paper has also, briefly, offered another re-imagining of the Board, positing that this early “pamphlet” on justice and punishment actually presents a pre-cursor to the modern Australian true crime tale. The Proclamation Board tells many stories but, at the core of this curious object, is a crime story: the story of mass murder. Acknowledgements The author acknowledges the Palawa peoples: the traditional custodians of the lands known today as Tasmania. The author acknowledges, too, the Gadigal people of the Eora nation upon whose lands this paper was researched and written. The author extends thanks to Richard Neville, Margot Riley, Kirsten Thorpe, and Justine Wilson of the State Library of New South Wales for sharing their knowledge and offering their support. The author is also grateful to the reviewers for their careful reading of the manuscript and for making valuable suggestions. ReferencesAboriginal Heritage Tasmania. “Scarred Trees.” Aboriginal Cultural Heritage, 2012. 12 Sep. 2015 ‹http://www.aboriginalheritage.tas.gov.au/aboriginal-cultural-heritage/archaeological-site-types/scarred-trees›.Arthur, George. “Proclamation.” The Hobart Town Courier 19 Apr. 1828: 1.———. Governor Davey’s [sic – actually Governor Arthur’s] Proclamation to the Aborigines, 1816 [sic – actually c. 1828-30]. Graphic Materials. Sydney: Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW, c. 1828-30.Bock, Thomas. Mathinna. Watercolour and Gouache on Paper. 23 x 19 cm (oval), c. 1840.Carroll, Khadija von Zinnenburg. Art in the Time of Colony: Empires and the Making of the Modern World, 1650-2000. Farnham, UK: Ashgate Publishing, 2014.Clark, Manning. History of Australia. Abridged by Michael Cathcart. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1997 [1993]. Clements, Nicholas. The Black War: Fear, Sex and Resistance in Tasmania. St Lucia, Qld.: U of Queensland P, 2014.Colonial Times. “Hobart Town.” Colonial Times 5 Mar. 1830: 2.The Commissioners. Intercolonial Exhibition Official Catalogue. 2nd ed. Melbourne: Blundell & Ford, 1866.Darian-Smith, Kate, and Penelope Edmonds. “Conciliation on Colonial Frontiers.” Conciliation on Colonial Frontiers: Conflict, Performance and Commemoration in Australia and the Pacific Rim. Eds. Kate Darian-Smith and Penelope Edmonds. New York: Routledge, 2015. 1–14. Edmonds, Penelope. “‘Failing in Every Endeavour to Conciliate’: Governor Arthur’s Proclamation Boards to the Aborigines, Australian Conciliation Narratives and Their Transnational Connections.” Journal of Australian Studies 35.2 (2011): 201–18.———. “The Proclamation Cup: Tasmanian Potter Violet Mace and Colonial Quotations.” reCollections 5.2 (2010). 20 May 2015 ‹http://recollections.nma.gov.au/issues/vol_5_no_2/papers/the_proclamation_cup_›.Felton, Heather. “Mathinna.” Companion to Tasmanian History. Hobart: Centre for Tasmanian Historical Studies, University of Tasmania, 2006. 29 Sep. 2015 ‹http://www.utas.edu.au/library/companion_to_tasmanian_history/M/Mathinna.htm›.Gall, Jennifer. Library of Dreams: Treasures from the National Library of Australia. Canberra: National Library of Australia, 2011.Hull, Hugh M. “Tasmanian Hieroglyphics.” The Hobart Mercury 26 Nov. 1874: 3.James, P.D. Talking about Detective Fiction. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009.Mace, Violet. Violet Mace’s Proclamation Jug. Glazed Earthernware. Launceston: Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, 1928.———. Violet Mace’s Proclamation Cup. Glazed Earthernware. Canberra: National Museum of Australia, 1934.McCulloch, Samuel Clyde. “Sir George Gipps and Eastern Australia’s Policy toward the Aborigine, 1838-46.” The Journal of Modern History 33.3 (1961): 261–69.Morris, John. “Notes on a Message to the Tasmanian Aborigines in 1829, popularly called ‘Governor Davey’s Proclamation to the Aborigines, 1816’.” Australiana 10.3 (1988): 84–7.Nettelbeck, Amanda. “‘Equals of the White Man’: Prosecution of Settlers for Violence against Aboriginal Subjects of the Crown, Colonial Western Australia.” Law and History Review 31.2 (2013): 355–90.Newman, Terry. “Tasmania, the Name.” Companion to Tasmanian History, 2006. 16 Sep. 2015 ‹http://www.utas.edu.au/library/companion_to_tasmanian_history/T/Tasmania%20name.htm›.Reece, Robert H.W., in Amanda Nettelbeck. “‘Equals of the White Man’: Prosecution of Settlers for Violence against Aboriginal Subjects of the Crown, Colonial Western Australia.” Law and History Review 31.2 (2013): 355–90.Ryan, Lyndall. “The Black Line in Van Diemen’s Land: Success or Failure?” Journal of Australian Studies 37.1 (2013): 3–18.Savery, Henry. Quintus Servinton: A Tale Founded upon Events of Real Occurrence. Hobart Town: Henry Melville, 1830.Turnbull, Clive. Black War: The Extermination of the Tasmanian Aborigines. Melbourne: Sun Books, 1974 [1948].

The general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple ere the battle is fought. — Sun TzuWorld War II saw a proliferation of maps. From command posts to the pages of National Geographic to the pages of daily newspapers, they were everywhere (Schulten). The era also saw substantive developments in cartography, especially with respect to the topographical maps that feature in our selected films. This essay offers a preliminary examination of the battle-map as depicted in two films about the Second World War: Franklin J. Shaffner’s biopic Patton (1970) and Jack Smight’s epic Midway (1976). In these films, maps, charts, or tableaux (the three-dimensional models upon which are plotted the movements of battalions, fleets, and so on) emerge as an expression of both martial and cinematic strategy. As a rear-view representation of the relative movements of personnel and materiel in particular battle arenas, the map and its accessories (pins, tape, markers, and so forth) trace the broad military dispositions of Patton’s 2nd Corp (Africa), Seventh Army (Italy) and Third Army (Western Europe) and the relative position of American and Japanese fleets in the Pacific. In both Patton and Midway, the map also emerges as a simple mode of narrative plotting: as the various encounters in the two texts play out, the battle-map more or less contemporaneously traces the progress of forces. It also serves as a foreshadowing device, not just narratively, but cinematically: that which is plotted in advance comes to pass (even if as preliminary movements before catastrophe), but the audience is also cued for the cinematic chaos and disjuncture that almost inevitably ensues in the battle scenes proper.On one hand, then, this essay proposes that at the fundamental level of fabula (seen through either the lens of historical hindsight or through the eyes of the novice who knows nothing of World War II), the annotated map is engaged both strategically and cinematically: as a stage upon which commanders attempt to act out (either in anticipation, or retrospectively) the intricate, but grotesque, ballet of warfare — and as a reflection of the broad, sequential, sweeps of conflict. While, in War and Cinema, Paul Virilio offers the phrase ‘the logistics of perception’ (1), in this this essay we, on the other hand, consider that, for those in command, the battle-map is a representation of the perception of logistics: the big picture of war finds rough indexical representation on a map, but (as Clausewitz tells us) chance, the creative agency of individual commanders, and the fog of battle make it far less probable (than is the case in more specific mappings, such as, say, the wedding rehearsal) that what is planned will play out with any degree of close correspondence (On War 19, 21, 77-81). Such mapping is, of course, further problematised by the processes of abstraction themselves: indexicality is necessarily a reduction; a de-realisation or déterritorialisation. ‘For the military commander,’ writes Virilio, ‘every dimension is unstable and presents itself in isolation from its original context’ (War and Cinema 32). Yet rehearsal (on maps, charts, or tableaux) is a keying activity that seeks to presage particular real world patterns (Goffman 45). As suggested above, far from being a rhizomatic activity, the heavily plotted (as opposed to thematic) business of mapping is always out of joint: either a practice of imperfect anticipation or an equally imperfect (pared back and behind-the-times) rendition of activity in the field. As is argued by Tolstoj in War and Peace, the map then presents to the responder a series of tensions and ironies often lost on the masters of conflict themselves. War, as Tostoj proposes, is a stochastic phenomenon while the map is a relatively static, and naive, attempt to impose order upon it. Tolstoj, then, pillories Phull (in the novel, Pfuhl), the aptly-named Prussian general whose lock-stepped obedience to the science of war (of which the map is part) results in the abject humiliation of 1806:Pfuhl was one of those theoreticians who are so fond of their theory that they lose sight of the object of that theory - its application in practice. (Vol. 2, Part 1, Ch. 10, 53)In both Patton and Midway, then, the map unfolds not only as an epistemological tool (read, ‘battle plan’) or reflection (read, the near contemporaneous plotting of real world affray) of the war narrative, but as a device of foreshadowing and as an allegory of command and its profound limitations. So, in Deleuzian terms, while emerging as an image of both time and perception, for commanders and filmgoers alike, the map is also something of a seduction: a ‘crystal-image’ situated in the interstices between the virtual and the actual (Deleuze 95). To put it another way, in our films the map emerges as an isomorphism: a studied plotting in which inheres a counter-text (Goffman 26). As a simple device of narrative, and in the conventional terms of latitude and longitude, in both Patton and Midway, the map, chart, or tableau facilitate the plotting of the resources of war in relation to relief (including island land masses), roads, railways, settlements, rivers, and seas. On this syntagmatic plane, in Greimasian terms, the map is likewise received as a canonical sign of command: where there are maps, there are, after all, commanders (Culler 13). On the other hand, as suggested above, the battle-map (hereafter, we use the term to signify the conventional paper map, the maritime chart, or tableau) materialises as a sanitised image of the unknown and the grotesque: as apodictic object that reduces complexity and that incidentally banishes horror and affect. Thus, the map evolves, in the viewer’s perception, as an ironic sign of all that may not be commanded. This is because, as an emblem of the rational order, in Patton and Midway the map belies the ubiquity of battle’s friction: that defined by Clausewitz as ‘the only concept which...distinguishes real war from war on paper’ (73). ‘Friction’ writes Clausewitz, ‘makes that which appears easy in War difficult in reality’ (81).Our work here cannot ignore or side-step the work of others in identifying the core cycles, characteristics of the war film genre. Jeanine Basinger, for instance, offers nothing less than an annotated checklist of sixteen key characteristics for the World War II combat film. Beyond this taxonomy, though, Basinger identifies the crucial role this sub-type of film plays in the corpus of war cinema more broadly. The World War II combat film’s ‘position in the evolutionary process is established, as well as its overall relationship to history and reality. It demonstrates how a primary set of concepts solidifies into a story – and how they can be interpreted for a changing ideology’ (78). Stuart Bender builds on Basinger’s taxonomy and discussion of narrative tropes with a substantial quantitative analysis of the very building blocks of battle sequences. This is due to Bender’s contention that ‘when a critic’s focus [is] on the narrative or ideological components of a combat film [this may] lead them to make assumptions about the style which are untenable’ (8). We seek with this research to add to a rich and detailed body of knowledge by redressing a surprising omission therein: a conscious and focussed analysis of the use of battle-maps in war cinema. In Patton and in Midway — as in War and Peace — the map emerges as an emblem of an intergeneric dialogue: as a simple storytelling device and as a paradigmatic engine of understanding. To put it another way, as viewer-responders with a synoptic perspective we perceive what might be considered a ‘double exposure’: in the map we see what is obviously before us (the collision of represented forces), but an Archimedean positioning facilitates the production of far more revelatory textual isotopies along what Roman Jakobson calls the ‘axis of combination’ (Linguistics and Poetics 358). Here, otherwise unconnected signs (in our case various manifestations and configurations of the battle-map) are brought together in relation to particular settings, situations, and figures. Through this palimpsest of perspective, a crucial binary emerges: via the battle-map we see ‘command’ and the sequence of engagement — and, through Greimasian processes of axiological combination (belonging more to syuzhet than fabula), elucidated for us are the wrenching ironies of warfare (Culler 228). Thus, through the profound and bound motif of the map (Tomashevsky 69), are we empowered to pass judgement on the map bearers who, in both films, present as the larger-than-life heroes of old. Figure 1.While we have scope only to deal with the African theatre, Patton opens with a dramatic wide-shot of the American flag: a ‘map’, if you will, of a national history forged in war (Fig. 1). Against this potent sign of American hegemony, as he slowly climbs up to the stage before it, the general appears a diminutive figure -- until, via a series of matched cuts that culminate in extreme close-ups, he manifests as a giant about to play his part in a great American story (Fig. 2).Figure 2.Some nineteen minutes into a film, having surveyed the carnage of Kasserine Pass (in which, in February 1943, the Germans inflicted a humiliating defeat on the Americans) General Omar Bradley is reunited with his old friend and newly-nominated three-star general, George S. Patton Jr.. Against a backdrop of an indistinct topographical map (that nonetheless appears to show the front line) and the American flag that together denote the men’s authority, the two discuss the Kasserine catastrophe. Bradley’s response to Patton’s question ‘What happened at Kasserine?’ clearly illustrates the tension between strategy and real-world engagement. While the battle-plan was solid, the Americans were outgunned, their tanks were outclassed, and (most importantly) their troops were out-disciplined. Patton’s concludes that Rommel can only be beaten if the American soldiers are fearless and fight as a cohesive unit. Now that he is in command of the American 2nd Corp, the tide of American martial fortune is about to turn.The next time Patton appears in relation to the map is around half an hour into the two-and-three-quarter-hour feature. Here, in the American HQ, the map once more appears as a simple, canonical sign of command. Somewhat carelessly, the map of Europe seems to show post-1945 national divisions and so is ostensibly offered as a straightforward prop. In terms of martial specifics, screenplay writer Francis Ford Coppola apparently did not envisage much close scrutiny of the film’s maps. Highlighted, instead, are the tensions between strategy as a general principle and action on the ground. As British General Sir Arthur Coningham waxes lyrical about allied air supremacy, a German bomber drops its payload on the HQ, causing the map of Europe to (emblematically) collapse forward into the room. Following a few passes by the attacking aircraft, the film then cuts to a one second medium shot as a hail of bullets from a Heinkel He 111 strike a North African battle map (Fig. 3). Still prone, Patton remarks: ‘You were discussing air supremacy, Sir Arthur.’ Dramatising a scene that did take place (although Coningham was not present), Schaffner’s intention is to allow Patton to shoot holes in the British strategy (of which he is contemptuous) but a broader objective is the director’s exposé of the more general disjuncture between strategy and action. As the film progresses, and the battle-map’s allegorical significance is increasingly foregrounded, this critique becomes definitively sharper.Figure 3.Immediately following a scene in which an introspective Patton walks through a cemetery in which are interred the remains of those killed at Kasserine, to further the critique of Allied strategy the camera cuts to Berlin’s high command and a high-tech ensemble of tableaux, projected maps, and walls featuring lights, counters, and clocks. Tasked to research the newly appointed Patton, Captain Steiger walks through the bunker HQ with Hitler’s Chief of Staff, General Jodl, to meet with Rommel — who, suffering nasal diphtheria, is away from the African theatre. In a memorable exchange, Steiger reveals that Patton permanently attacks and never retreats. Rommel, who, following his easy victory at Kasserine, is on the verge of total tactical victory, in turn declares that he will ‘attack and annihilate’ Patton — before the poet-warrior does the same to him. As Clausewitz has argued, and as Schaffner is at pains to point out, it seems that, in part, the outcome of warfare has more to do with the individual consciousness of competing warriors than it does with even the most exquisite of battle-plans.Figure 4.So, even this early in the film’s runtime, as viewer-responders we start to reassess various manifestations of the battle-map. To put it as Michelle Langford does in her assessment of Schroeter’s cinema, ‘fragments of the familiar world [in our case, battle-maps] … become radically unfamiliar’ (Allegorical Images 57). Among the revelations is that from the flag (in the context of close battle, all sense of ‘the national’ dissolves), to the wall map, to the most detailed of tableau, the battle-plan is enveloped in the fog of war: thus, the extended deeply-focussed scenes of the Battle of El Guettar take us from strategic overview (Patton’s field glass perspectives over what will soon become a Valley of Death) to what Boris Eichenbaum has called ‘Stendhalian’ scale (The Young Tolstoi 105) in which, (in Patton) through more closely situated perspectives, we almost palpably experience the Germans’ disarray under heavy fire. As the camera pivots between the general and the particular (and between the omniscient and the nescient) the cinematographer highlights the tension between the strategic and the actual. Inasmuch as it works out (and, as Schaffner shows us, it never works out completely as planned) this is the outcome of modern martial strategy: chaos and unimaginable carnage on the ground that no cartographic representation might capture. As Patton observes the destruction unfold in the valley below and before him, he declares: ‘Hell of a waste of fine infantry.’ Figure 5.An important inclusion, then, is that following the protracted El Guettar battle scenes, Schaffner has the (symbolically flag-draped) casket of Patton’s aide, Captain Richard N. “Dick” Jenson, wheeled away on a horse-drawn cart — with the lonely figure of the mourning general marching behind, his ironic interior monologue audible to the audience: ‘I can't see the reason such fine young men get killed. There are so many battles yet to fight.’ Finally, in terms of this brief and partial assessment of the battle-map in Patton, less than an hour in, we may observe that the map is emerging as something far more than a casual prop; as something more than a plotting of battlelines; as something more than an emblem of command. Along a new and unexpected axis of semantic combination, it is now manifesting as a sign of that which cannot be represented nor commanded.Midway presents the lead-up to the eponymous naval battle of 1942. Smight’s work is of interest primarily because the battle itself plays a relatively small role in the film; what is most important is the prolonged strategising that comprises most of the film’s run time. In Midway, battle-tables and fleet markers become key players in the cinematic action, second almost to the commanders themselves. Two key sequences are discussed here: the moment in which Yamamoto outlines his strategy for the attack on Midway (by way of a decoy attack on the Aleutian Islands), and the scene some moments later where Admiral Nimitz and his assembled fleet commanders (Spruance, Blake, and company) survey their own plan to defend the atoll. In Midway, as is represented by the notion of a fleet-in-being, the oceanic battlefield is presented as a speculative plane on which commanders can test ideas. Here, a fleet in a certain position projects a radius of influence that will deter an enemy fleet from attacking: i.e. ‘a fleet which is able and willing to attack an enemy proposing a descent upon territory which that force has it in charge to protect’ (Colomb viii). The fleet-in-being, it is worth noting, is one that never leaves port and, while it is certainly true that the latter half of Midway is concerned with the execution of strategy, the first half is a prolonged cinematic game of chess, with neither player wanting to move lest the other has thought three moves ahead. Virilio opines that the fleet-in-being is ‘a new idea of violence that no longer comes from direct confrontation and bloodshed, but rather from the unequal properties of bodies, evaluation of the number of movements allowed them in a chosen element, permanent verification of their dynamic efficiency’ (Speed and Politics 62). Here, as in Patton, we begin to read the map as a sign of the subjective as well as the objective. This ‘game of chess’ (or, if you prefer, ‘Battleships’) is presented cinematically through the interaction of command teams with their battle-tables and fleet markers. To be sure, this is to show strategy being developed — but it is also to prepare viewers for the defamiliarised representation of the battle itself.The first sequence opens with a close-up of Admiral Yamamoto declaring: ‘This is how I expect the battle to develop.’ The plan to decoy the Americans with an attack on the Aleutians is shown via close-ups of the conveniently-labelled ‘Northern Force’ (Fig. 6). It is then explained that, twenty-four hours later, a second force will break off and strike south, on the Midway atoll. There is a cut from closeups of the pointer on the map to the wider shot of the Japanese commanders around their battle table (Fig. 7). Interestingly, apart from the opening of the film in the Japanese garden, and the later parts of the film in the operations room, the Japanese commanders are only ever shown in this battle-table area. This canonically positions the Japanese as pure strategists, little concerned with the enmeshing of war with political or social considerations. The sequence ends with Commander Yasimasa showing a photograph of Vice Admiral Halsey, who the Japanese mistakenly believe will be leading the carrier fleet. Despite some bickering among the commanders earlier in the film, this sequence shows the absolute confidence of the Japanese strategists in their plan. The shots are suitably languorous — averaging three to four seconds between cuts — and the body language of the commanders shows a calm determination. The battle-map here is presented as an index of perfect command and inevitable victory: each part of the plan is presented with narration suggesting the Japanese expect to encounter little resistance. While Yasimasa and his clique are confident, the other commanders suggest a reconnaissance flight over Pearl Harbor to ascertain the position of the American fleet; the fear of fleet-in-being is shown here firsthand and on the map, where the reconnaissance planes are placed alongside the ship markers. The battle-map is never shown in full: only sections of the naval landscape are presented. We suggest that this is done in order to prepare the audience for the later stages of the film: as in Patton (from time to time) the battle-map here is filmed abstractly, to prime the audience for the abstract montage of the battle itself in the film’s second half.Figure 6.Figure 7.Having established in the intervening running time that Halsey is out of action, his replacement, Rear Admiral Spruance, is introduced to the rest of the command team. As with all the important American command and strategy meetings in the film, this is done in the operations room. A transparent coordinates board is shown in the foreground as Nimitz, Spruance and Rear Admiral Fletcher move through to the battle table. Behind the men, as they lean over the table, is an enormous map of the world (Fig. 8). In this sequence, Nimitz freely admits that while he knows each Japanese battle group’s origin and heading, he is unsure of their target. He asks Spruance for his advice:‘Ray, assuming what you see here isn’t just an elaborate ruse — Washington thinks it is, but assuming they’re wrong — what kind of move do you suggest?’This querying is followed by Spruance glancing to a particular point on the map (Fig. 9), then a cut to a shot of models representing the aircraft carriers Hornet, Enterprise & Yorktown (Fig. 10). This is one of the few model/map shots unaccompanied by dialogue or exposition. In effect, this shot shows Spruance’s thought process before he responds: strategic thought presented via cinematography. Spruance then suggests situating the American carrier group just northeast of Midway, in case the Japanese target is actually the West Coast of the United States. It is, in effect, a hedging of bets. Spruance’s positioning of the carrier group also projects that group’s sphere of influence around Midway atoll and north to essentially cut off Japanese access to the US. The fleet-in-being is presented graphically — on the map — in order to, once again, cue the audience to match the later (edited) images of the battle to these strategic musings.In summary, in Midway, the map is an element of production design that works alongside cinematography, editing, and performance to present the notion of strategic thought to the audience. In addition, and crucially, it functions as an abstraction of strategy that prepares the audience for the cinematic disorientation that will occur through montage as the actual battle rages later in the film. Figure 8.Figure 9.Figure 10.This essay has argued that the battle-map is a simulacrum of the weakest kind: what Baudrillard would call ‘simulacra of simulation, founded on information, the model’ (121). Just as cinema itself offers a distorted view of history (the war film, in particular, tends to hagiography), the battle-map is an over-simplification that fails to capture the physical and psychological realities of conflict. We have also argued that in both Patton and Midway, the map is not a ‘free’ motif (Tomashevsky 69). Rather, it is bound: a central thematic device. In the two films, the battle-map emerges as a crucial isomorphic element. On the one hand, it features as a prop to signify command and to relay otherwise complex strategic plottings. At this syntagmatic level, it functions alongside cinematography, editing, and performance to give audiences a glimpse into how military strategy is formed and tested: a traditional ‘reading’ of the map. But on the flip side of what emerges as a classic structuralist binary, is the map as a device of foreshadowing (especially in Midway) and as a depiction of command’s profound limitations. Here, at a paradigmatic level, along a new axis of combination, a new reading of the map in war cinema is proposed: the battle-map is as much a sign of the subjective as it is the objective.ReferencesBasinger, Jeanine. The World War II Combat Film: Anatomy of a Genre. Middletown, CT: Columbia UP, 1986.Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacra and Simulation. Ann Arbour: U of Michigan Press, 1994.Bender, Stuart. Film Style and the World War II Combat Genre. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013.Clausewitz, Carl. On War. Vol. 1. London: Kegan Paul, 1908.Colomb, Philip Howard. Naval Warfare: Its Ruling Principles and Practice Historically Treated. 3rd ed. London: W.H. Allen & Co, 1899.Culler, Jonathan. Structuralist Poetics. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975.Deleuze, Gilles. Cinema 2: The Time-Image. London: Continuum, 2005.Eichenbaum, Boris. The Young Tolstoi. Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1972.Goffman, Erving. Frame Analysis. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1976.Jakobson, Roman. "Linguistics and Poetics." Style in Language. Ed. T. Sebebeok. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1960. 350—77.Langford, Michelle. Allegorical Images: Tableau, Time and Gesture in the Cinema of Werner Schroeter. Bristol: Intellect, 2006.Midway. Jack Smight. Universal Pictures, 1976. Film.Patton. Franklin J. Schaffner. 20th Century Fox, 1970. Film.Schulten, Susan. World War II Led to a Revolution in Cartography. New Republic 21 May 2014. 16 June 2017 <https://newrepublic.com/article/117835/richard-edes-harrison-reinvented-mapmaking-world-war-2-americans>.Tolstoy, Leo. War and Peace. Vol. 2. London: Folio, 1997.Tomashevsky, Boris. "Thematics." Russian Formalist Criticism: Four Essays. Eds. L. Lemon and M. Reis, Lincoln: U. Nebraska Press, 2012. 61—95.Tzu, Sun. The Art of War. San Diego: Canterbury Classics, 2014.Virilio, Paul. Speed and Politics. Paris: Semiotext(e), 2006.Virilio, Paul. War and Cinema: The Logistics of Perception. London: Verso, 1989.

In the contemporary urban environment of mass transit, it falls to a small group of public officers to keep large number of travellers safe. The small size of their force and the often limited powers they exert mean that these public safety ‘transit officers’ must project more authority and control than they really have. It is this ambience of authority and control which, in most situations they encounter and seek to influence, is enough to keep the public safe. This paper examines the ambience of a group of transit officers working on the railway lines of an Australian capital city. We seek to show how transit officers are both influenced by, and seek to influence, the ambience of their workplace and the public spaces they inhabit whilst on duty, and here we take ambience to apply to the surrounding atmosphere, the aura, and the emotional environment of a place or situation: the setting, tone, or mood. For these transit officers to keep the public safe, they must themselves remain safe. A transit officer who is disabled in a confrontation with a violent offender is unable to provide protection to his or her passengers. Thus, in the culture of the transit officers, their own workplace safety takes on a higher significance. It affects not just themselves. The ambience exuded by transit officers, and how transit officers see their relationship with the travelling public, their management and other organisational work groups, is an important determinant of their work group’s safety culture. Researching the Working Lives of Transit Officers in Perth Our discussion draws on an ethnographic study of the working lives and communication cultures of transit officers (TOs) employed by the Public Transport Authority (PTA) of Western Australia (WA). Transit officers have argued that to understand fully the challenges of their work it is necessary to spend time with them as they undertake their daily duties: roster in, roster out. To this end, the research team and the employer organisation secured an ARC Linkage Grant in partnership with the PTA to fund doctoral candidate and ethnographer Christine Teague to research the workers’ point of view, and the workers’ experiences within the organisation. The two-hundred TOs are unique in the PTA. Neither of the other groups who ride with them on the trains, the drivers and revenue protection staff (whose sole job is to sell and check tickets), experiences the combination of intense contact with passengers, danger of physical injury or group morale. The TOs of the PTA in Perth operate from a central location at the main train station and the end stations on each line. Here there are change lockers where they can lock up their uniforms and equipment such as handcuffs and batons when not on duty, an equipment room where they sign out their radios, and ticket-checking machines. At the main train station there is also a gym, a canteen and holding cells for offenders they detain. From these end stations and central location, the TOs fan out across the network to all suburbs where they either operate from stations or onboard the trains. The TOs also do ‘delta van’ duty providing rapid, mobile back-up support for their colleagues on stations or trains, and providing transport for arrested persons to the holding cell or police lock up. TOs are on duty whenever the trains are running–but the evenings and nights are when they are mainly rostered on. This is when trouble mostly occurs. The TOs’ work ends only after the final train has completed its run and all offenders who may require detaining and charging have been transferred into police custody. While the public perceive that security is the TOs’ most frequent role, much of the work involves non-confrontational activity such as assisting passengers, checking tickets and providing a reassuring presence. One way to deal with an ambiguous role is to claim an ambience of power and authority regardless. Various aspects of the TO role permit and hinder this, and the paper goes on to consider aspects of ambience in terms of fear and force, order and safety, and role confusion. An Ambience of Fear and Force The TOs are responsible for front-line security in WA’s urban railway network. Their role is to offer a feeling of security for passengers using the rail network after the bustle of the work day finishes, and is replaced by the mainly recreational travels of the after hours public. This is the time when some passengers find the prospect of evening travel on the public transport rail network unsettling–so unsettling that it was a 2001 WA government election promise (WA Legislative Council) that every train leaving the city centre after 7pm would have two TOs riding on it. Interestingly, recruitment levels have never been high enough for this promise to be fully kept. The working conditions of the TOs reflect the perception, and to an extent, the reality that some late night travel on public transport involves negotiating an edgy ambience with an element of risk, rubbing shoulders with people who may be loud, rowdy, travelling in a group, and or drug and alcohol affected. As Fred (all TO names are pseudonyms) comments: You’re not dealing with rational people, you’re not dealing with ‘people’: most of the people you’re dealing with are either drunk or under the influence of drugs, so they’re not rational, they don’t hear you, they don’t understand what you’re saying, they just have no sense of what’s right or wrong, you know? Especially being under the influence, so I mean, you can talk till you’re blue in the face with somebody who’s drunk or on drugs, I mean, all you have to say is one thing. ‘Oh, can I see your ticket please’, ‘oh, why do I need a fucking ticket’, you know? They just don’t get simple everyday messages. Dealing with violence and making arrest is a normal part of this job. Jo described an early experience in her working life as a TO:Within the first week of coming out of course I got smacked on the side of the head, but this lady had actually been certified, like, she was nuts. She was completely mental and we were just standing on the train talking and I’ve turned around to say something to my partner and she was fine, she was as calm as, and I turned around and talked to my partner and the next thing I know I ended up with her fist to the side of my head. And I went ‘what the hell was that’? And she went off, she went absolutely ballistic. I ended up arresting her because it was assault on an officer whether she was mental or not so I ended up arresting her.Although Jo here is describing how she experienced an unprovoked assault in the early days of her career as a TO, one of the most frequent precursors to a TO injury occurs when the TO is required to make an arrest. The injury may occur when the passenger to be arrested resists or flees, and the TO gives chase in dark or treacherous circumstances such as railway reserves and tunnels, or when other passengers, maybe friends or family of the original person of concern, involve themselves in an affray around the precipitating action of the arrest. In circumstances where capsicum spray is the primary way of enforcing compliance, with batons used as a defence tool, group members may feel that they can take on the two TOs with impunity, certainly in the first instance. Even though there are security cameras on trains and in stations, and these can be cued to cover the threatening or difficult situations confronting TOs, the conflict is located in the here-and-now of the exchanges between TOs and the travelling public. This means the longer term consequence of trouble in the future may hold less sway with unruly travellers than the temptation to try to escape from trouble in the present. In discussing the impact of remote communications, Rubert Murdoch commented that these technologies are “a powerful influence for civilised behaviour. If you are arranging a massacre, it will be useless to shoot the cameraman who has so inconveniently appeared on the scene. His picture will already be safe in the studio five thousand miles away and his final image may hang you” (Shawcross 242). Unfortunately, whether public aggression in these circumstances is useless or not, the daily experience of TOs is that the presence of closed circuit television (CCTV) does not prevent attacks upon them: nor is it a guarantee of ‘civilised behaviour’. This is possibly because many of the more argumentative and angry members of the public are dis-inhibited by alcohol or other drugs. Police officers can employ the threat or actual application of stun guns to control situations in which they are outnumbered, but in the case of TOs they can remain outnumbered and vulnerable until reinforcements arrive. Such reinforcements are available, but the situation has to be managed through the communication of authority until the point where the train arrives at a ‘manned’ station, or the staff on the delta vehicle are able to support their colleagues. An Ambience of Order and Safety Some public transport organisations take this responsibility to sustain an ambience of order more seriously than others. The TO ethnographer, Christine Teague, visited public transport organisations in the UK, USA and Canada which are recognised as setting world-class standards for injury rates of their staff. In the USA particularly, there is a commitment to what is called ‘the broken windows’ theory, where a train is withdrawn from service promptly if it is damaged or defaced (Kelling and Coles; Maple and Mitchell). According to Henry (117): The ‘Broken Windows’ theory suggests that there is both a high correlation and a causal link between community disorder and more serious crime: when community disorder is permitted to flourish or when disorderly conditions or problems are left untended, they actually cause more serious crime. ‘Broken windows’ are a metaphor for community disorder which, as Wilson and Kelling (1982) use the term, includes the violation of informal social norms for public behaviour as well as quality of life offenses such as littering, graffiti, playing loud radios, aggressive panhandling, and vandalism.This theory implies that the physical ambience of the train, and by extension the station, may be highly influential in terms of creating a safe working environment. In this case of ‘no broken window’ organisations, the TO role is to maintain a high ‘quality of life’ rather than being a role predominantly about restraining and bringing to justice those whose behaviour is offensive, dangerous or illegal. The TOs in Perth achieve this through personal means such as taking pride in their uniforms, presenting a good-natured demeanour to passengers and assisting in maintaining the high standard of train interiors. Such a priority, and its link to reduced workforce injury, suggests that a perception of order impacts upon safety. It has long been argued that the safety culture of an organisation affects the safety performance of that organisation (Pidgeon; Leplat); but it has been more recently established that different cultural groupings in an organisation conceive and construct their safety culture differently (Leith). The research on ‘safety culture’ raises a problematic which is rarely addressed in practice. That problematic is this: managers frequently engage with safety at the level of instituting systems, while workers engage with safety in terms of behaviour. When Glendon and Litherland comment that, contrary to expectations, they could find no relationship between safety culture and safety performance, they were drawing attention to the fact that much managerial safety culture is premised upon systems involving tick boxes and the filling in of report forms. The broken window approach combines the managerial tick box with managerial behaviour: a dis-ordered train is removed from service. To some extent a general lack of fit between safety culture and safety performance endorses Everett’s view that it is conceptually inadequate to conceive organisations as cultures: “the conceptual inadequacy stems from the failure to distinguish between culture and behavioural features of organizational life” (238). The general focus upon safety culture as a way of promoting improvements in safety performance assumes that compliance with a range of safety systems will guarantee a safe workplace. Such an assumption, however, risks positioning the injured worker as responsible for his or her own predicament and sets up an environment in which some management officials are wont to seek ways in which that injured worker’s behaviour failed to conform with safety rules or safety processes. Yet there are roles which place workers in harm’s way, including military duties, law enforcement and some emergency services. Here, the work becomes dangerous as it becomes disorderly. An Ambience of Roles and Confusion As the research reported here progressed, it became clear that the ambience around the presentation of the self in the role of a TO (Goffman) was an important part of how ‘safety’ was promoted and enacted in their work upon the PTA (WA) trains, face to face with the travelling public. Goffman’s view of all people, not specifically TOs, is that: Regardless of the particular objective which the individual has in mind and of his motive for having this objective, it will be in his interests to control the conduct of the others, especially their responsive treatment of him. This will largely be through influencing the perception and definition that others will come to formulate of him. He will influence them by expressing himself in such a way that the kind of impression given off will lead them to act voluntarily in accordance with his own plan. (3)This ‘influencing of perception’ is an important element of performing the role of a TO. This task of the TOs is made all the more difficult because of confusions about their role in relation to two other officers: police (who have more power to act in situations of public safety) and revenue project officers (who have less), as we now discuss. The aura of the TO role borrows somewhat from those quintessential law and order officers: the police. TOs work in pairs, like many police, to support each other. They have a range of legal powers including the power of arrest, and they carry handcuffs, a baton and capsicum spray as a means of helping ensure their safety and effectiveness in circumstances where they might be outnumbered. The tools of their trade are accessibly displayed on heavy leather belts around their waists and their uniforms have similarities with police uniforms. However, in some ways these similarities are problematic, because TOs are not afforded the same respect as police. This situation underlines of the ambiguities negotiated within the ambience of what it is to be a TO, and how it is to conduct oneself in that role. Notwithstanding the TOs’ law and order responsibilities, public perceptions of the role and some of the public’s responses to the officers can position these workers as “plastic cops” (Teague and Leith). The penultimate deterrent of police officers, the stun gun (Taser), is not available to TOs who are expected to control all incidents arising on duty through the fact that they operate in pairs, with capsicum spray available and, as a last resort, are authorised to use their batons in self defence. Furthermore, although TOs are the key security and enforcement staff in the PTA workforce, and are managed separately from related staff roles, they believe that the clarity of this distinction is compromised because of similarities in the look of Revenue Protection Officers (RPOs). RPOs work on the trains to check that passengers have tickets and have paid the correct fares, and obtain names and addresses to issue infringement notices when required. They are not PTA employees, but contracted staff from an outside company. They also work in pairs. Significantly, the RPO uniform is in many respects identical to that of the TO, and this appears to be a deliberate management choice to make the number of TOs seem greater than it is: extending the TO ambience through to the activities of the RPOs. However, in the event of a disturbance, TOs are required and trained to act, while RPOs are instructed not to get involved; even though the RPOs appear to the travelling public to be operating in the role of a law-and-order-keeper, RPOs are specifically instructed not to get involved in breaches of the peace or disruptive passenger behaviour. From the point of view of the travelling public, who observe the RPO waiting for TOs to arrive, it may seems as if a TO is passively standing by while a chaotic situation unravels. As Angus commented: I’ve spoken to quite a few members of public and received complaints from them about transit officers and talking more about the incident have found out that it was actually [RPOs] that are dealing with it. So it’s creating a bad image for us …. It’s Transits that are copping all the flak for it … It is dangerous for us and it’s a lot of bad publicity for us. It’s hard enough, the job that we do and the lack of respect that we do get from people, we don’t need other people adding to it and making it harder. Indeed, it is not only the travelling public who can mistake the two uniforms. Mike tells of an “incident where an officer [TO] has called for backup on a train and the guys have got off [the train at the next station] and just stood there, and he didn’t realise that they are actually [revenue protection] officers, so he effectively had no backup. He thought he did, but he didn’t.” The RPO uniform may confer an ambience of power borrowed from TOs and communicated visually, but the impact is to compromise the authority of the TO role. Unfortunately, what could be a complementary role to the TOs becomes one which, in the minds of the TO workforce, serves to undermine their presence. This effect of this role confusion is to dilute the aura of authority of the TOs. At one end of a power continuum the TO role is minimised by those who see it as a second-rate ‘Wannabe cop’ (Teague and Leith 2008), while its impact is diluted at the other end by an apparently deliberate confusion between the TO broader ‘law and order’ role, and the more limited RPO revenue collection activities. Postlude To the passengers of the PTA in Perth, the presence and actions of transit officers appear as unremarkable as the daily commute. In this ethnographic study of their workplace culture, however, the transit officers have revealed ways in which they influence the ambience of the workplace and the public spaces they inhabit whilst on duty, and how they are influenced by it. While this ambient inter-relationship is not documented in the organisation’s occupational safety and health management system, the TOs are aware that it is a factor in their level at safety at work, both positively and negatively. Clearly, an ethnography study is conducted at a certain point in time and place, and culture is a living and changing expression of human interaction. The Public Transport Authority of Western Australia is committed to continuous improvement in safety and to the investigation of all ways and means in which to support TOs in their daily activities. This is evident not only in their support of the research and their welcoming of the ethnographer into the workforce and onto the tracks, but also in their robust commitment to change as the findings of the research have progressed. In particular, changes in the ambient TO culture and in the training and daily practices of TOs have already resulted from this research or are under active consideration. Nonetheless, this project is a cogent indicator of the fact that a safety culture is critically dependent upon intangible but nonetheless important factors such as the ambience of the workplace and the way in which officers are able to communicate their authority to others. References Everett, James. “Organizational Culture and Ethnoecology in Public Relations Theory and Practice.” Public Relations Research Annual. Vol. 2. Eds. Larissa Grunig and James Grunig. Hillsdale, NJ, 1990. 235-251. Glendon, Ian, and Debbie Litherland. “Safety Climate Factors, Group Differences and Safety Behaviour in Road Construction.” Safety Science 39.3 (2001): 157-188. Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life. London: Penguin, 1959. Henry, Vincent. The Comstat Paradigm: Management Accountability in Policing, Business and the Public Sector. New York: Looseleaf Law Publications, 2003. Kelling, George, and Catherine Coles. Fixing Broken Windows: Restoring Order and Reducing Crime in Our Communities. New York: Touchstone, 1996. Leith, David. Workplace Culture and Accidents: How Management Can Communicate to Prevent Injuries. Saarbrücken: VDM Verlag, 2008. Leplat, Jacques. “About Implementation of Safety Rules.” Safety Science 29.3 (1998): 189-204. Maple, Jack, and Chris Mitchell. The Crime Fighter: How You Can Make Your Community Crime-Free. New York: Broadway Books, 1999. Pidgeon, Nick. “Safety Culture and Risk Management in Organizations.” Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 22.1 (1991): 129-140. Shawcross, William. Rupert Murdoch. London: Chatto & Windus, 1992. Teague, Christine, and David Leith. “Men of Steel or Plastic Cops? The Use of Ethnography as a Transformative Agent.” Transforming Information and Learning Conference Transformers: People, Technologies and Spaces, Edith Cowan University, Perth, WA, 2008. ‹http://conferences.scis.ecu.edu.au/TILC2008/documents/2008/teague_and_leith-men_of_steel_or_plastic_cops.pdf›. Wilson, James, and George Kelling. “Broken Windows.” The Atlantic Monthly (Mar. 1982): 29-38. WA Legislative Council. “Metropolitan Railway – Transit Guards 273 [Hon Ed Dermer to Minister of Transport Hon. Simon O’Brien].” Hansard 19 Mar. 2009: 2145b.