Split Allegiances: Cultural Muslims and the Tension Between Religious and National Identity in Multicultural Societies

By Liza Hopkins and Cameron McAuliffe

Volume 10, Issue 1, pages 38-58

Abstract

Second generation Australians from a Muslim background have appeared on the political radar recently as a group at risk of disengagement due to their potentially split allegiances. For these young Australians, the traditional tension over diasporic allegiances between the homeland and the country in which they live is further complicated by religious identity. This paper offers two case studies of the second generation of two mainly Islamic, but otherwise very different, ethnonational communities in Australia, Turkish and Iranian. It examines the responses of these groups to the rising essentialisation and ethnicisation of Islam, at the expense of ethnic and sociocultural difference. In particular, the paper focuses on the way secular practice and religious identity converge into ‘cultural Islam’. We use the term cultural Islam as a way of describing those, particularly of the second and third generations in Australia, who proudly claim their Islamic heritage while choosing not to participate actively in religious life.

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Competing Nationalisms, Euromaidan, and the Russian‐Ukrainian Conflict

By Taras Kuzio

Volume 15, Issue 1, pages 157-169

Introduction

Although Ukraine is a regionally diverse country, it had succeeded in peacefully managing inter‐ethnic and linguistic tension between competing nationalisms and identities. However, the rise of the openly pro‐Russian Party of Regions political machine after the Orange Revolution, whose leader came to power in 2010, and the evolution of Vladimir Putin’s regime from proponent of statist to ethnic nationalism, heightened Ukrainian inter‐regional and inter‐state conflict. Viktor Yanukovych’s policies provoked popular protests that became the Euromaidan. His unwillingness to compromise and his fear of leaving office led to violence and the breakdown of state structures, opening the way for Russia’s interventions in the Crimea and Eastern Ukraine. This article investigates the sources for the violence during and after the Euromaidan and Russia’s interventions. It argues that domestic and foreign factors served to change the dynamics of Russian speakers in Ukraine from one of passivity in the late 1980s through to the 2004 Orange Revolution; low‐level mobilization from 2005 to 2013; and high‐level mobilization, crystallization of pro‐ and anti‐Ukrainian camps, and violent conflict from 2014.

The first section integrates theories of nationalism with competing Russian and Ukrainian nationalisms and Russian speakers in Ukraine and the former Soviet Union. The second section analyses ethnic Ukrainian and east Slav nationalisms (Shulman 2005), as well as Soviet and post‐Soviet portrayals of Ukrainian nationalism as ‘fascism’. The conclusion analyses three influences on Ukrainian national identity arising from the Euromaidan and Russia’s interventions.

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‘Papa’– Nursultan Nazarbayev and the Discourse of Charismatic Leadership and Nation‐Building in Post‐Soviet Kazakhstan

By Rico Isaacs

Volume 10, Issue 3, pages 435-452

Abstract

Taking a critical perspective on the Weberian concept of charisma this article examines elite and citizen discourse regarding the perceived charismatic leadership and nation‐building achievements of the post‐Soviet president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev. Using a number of ideal type features of charismatic leadership based on the typology developed by Roger Eatwell, the article argues that Nazarbayev’s leadership does not fit neatly the concept of charisma. Rather, in this instance, Nazarbayev’s perceived charismatic leadership as the father of the Kazakhstani nation, and the single politician capable of meeting the challenges of post‐Soviet nation‐building, is a constructed discursive force projected from above at the elite level, which resonates with public attitudes towards him at the societal level. Charisma represents a discursive mechanism that emphasises President Nazarbayev’s centrality to the unity, prosperity, and stability of the nation. This charismatic discourse has aided Nazarbayev in consolidating his authoritarian regime and illustrates the existence of a distinct form of post‐Soviet charisma.

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From Registers to Repertoires of Identification in National Identity Discourses: A Comparative Study of Nationally Mixed People in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom

By Anne Unterreiner

Volume 15, Issue 2, pages 252-271

Abstract

As nationally mixed people have parents born in different countries, they can potentially identify with multiple national reference groups, allowing the researcher to study national identification processes. The analysis of approximately one hundred people of nationally mixed background living in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom highlights different registers of identification. There are important differences in how nationally mixed people articulate them, which leads to the identification of different national repertoires of identification. In France, a strong French national identity was emphasized, whereas German national identity seems more fragile because it depends mainly on cultural socialization. In the United Kingdom, non‐national identities are developed in a context where the national community is not clearly defined, while ethnicity is publicly recognized. The register and repertoire of identification concepts thus allow the researcher to analyse identity discourses and then explain national differences through international comparison.

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Generating Martyrdom: Forgetting the War in Contemporary Algeria

By Judith Scheele

Volume 6, Issue 2, pages 180-194

Abstract

Nationalist displays and rhetoric invoking the Algerian war of independence from France (1954–1962) are omnipresent in contemporary Algeria. Yet personal memories of the war of independence are conspicuously absent locally, although the war generation is still alive, and although all current power‐holders and their contenders tend to refer to the war as the supreme source of political legitimacy. This article explores this apparent paradox with special reference to Kabylia, a Berber‐speaking area in northeastern Algeria. It argues that the local absence of war history is crucial for its functioning as a national myth; that this local indeterminacy allows for an implicit and constant re‐negotiation of local hierarchies although they superficially refer to moral absolutes; but that it also imposes an inherently restrictive model of political legitimacy and protest.

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