Tag Archives: SNP

SEN News on Sunday: July 14-21, 2013

Britain to offer military training to Burma to help end ethnic conflicts: An ethnic Rakhine man holds homemade weapons as he stands in front of a house that was burnt during fighting between Buddhist Rakhine and Muslim Rohingya communities in Sittwe

* BBC Radio 4 (15/07/13) features a broadcast which provides an in depth look into the historical roots and present ambitions of the Scottish National Party (SNP).

* The Asia-Pacific Journal (15/7/13) features an analysis of the re-branding of Japanese nationalism by current Prime Minister, Abe Shinzo.

* France24 (15/7/13) reports that Sri Lanka has stopped a French cultural festival in its country after it screened a local film that the military considered insulting. The film, Flying Fish, is set against the backdrop of the country’s brutal civil war, and director Sanjeewa Pushpakumara discusses his reactions to the ban with the BBC.

* Euronews (15/07/13) reports on protests in Israel claiming ethnic cleansing, following the government’s decision to relocate 30,000 Bedouins from the Negev Desert in southern Israel.

* The Telegraph (14/7/13) reports that the United Kingdom has offered Burma (Myanmar) military training as a way of helping the country develop a more democratic system and resolve ethnic tensions.

* AskAKorean.blogspot.hk (11/07/13) featured a blog last week which argued against popular science writer Malcom Gladwell’s “ethnic theory of plane crashes” that connected Korean culture to plane crashes, which was elaborated on in his best-selling book, Outliers : The story of success. In response, Gladwell offered his retort to the blog, which can be read here.

 

Stay tuned for SEN Article Spotlights, which will be posted later in the week.

News compiled by Karen Seegobin.

If you would like to write a response to any of these news stories, please email us at sen@lse.ac.uk.

Article Spotlight: Secessionist movements through Ramon Maiz’s ‘Making Opportunites’

Manifestacion en defensa do GalegoThe BNG’s (Bloque Nacionalista Galego) rise to being the second largest regional force in Galicia’s autonomous parliament can be attributed to a political structure which provided favourable opportunities to nationalist parties. Similarly, the SNP’s rise was due to favourable circumstances created by devolution. In his article Ramon Maiz cites the complex organisational work and clear ideological moderation of the BNG as its way of eliminating immediate rivals, a framework in which the SNP has also operated. Maiz points out that decentralisation was clearly responsible for policies which led to the promotion of Galician culture, language and economy. In the United Kingdom, as in Spain, decentralisation seems to be a key step in in the secessionist process. Read more in: 

‘Making Opportunities: Contemporary Evolution of Galician Nationalism in Spain (1982-2001)’ by  Ramon Maiz  – Vol.3 No.2 2003