Posts – Page 69 – Nassef Manabilang Adiong, PhD

Book Review: Kaldor, Mary (2007): Human Security: Reflections on Globalization and Intervention, Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

This stimulating book stipulates the evolution of humanitarian intervention and heridea on human security as a paradigm. It also includes essays that explained the impact of globalization on the emerging shift of traditional to human security. She regarded human security as an encompassing notion that includes both securitization and development. Further, this new paradigm involves interrelated types of security from health, economic, political to environment. She doesn’t want to use the term humanitarian intervention because according to him it’s a narrow way of looking human security by calculating threats and often not successful for crisis management and human development.

She defined human security as the security of individuals and communities rather than security of states, and it combines both human rights and human development. In one of the chapter of the book, she presented the origin or history of how the term ‘human security’ emerged and evolved. In relation with the aforementioned statement, Kaldor argued that human security have developed into two directions. (1) The approach taken by the Canadian government, which in her own words was “adopted and established a network of like-minded states who subscribed to the concept,” i.e. responsibility to protect, and was published in the 2005 Human Security Report. (2) The UNDP approach which was also reflected in the work of the United Nations High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change. This approach according to Kaldor emphasized the interrelatedness of different types of security and the importance of development as a security strategy.

In her view it is imperative to combine these two approaches to put emphasis on the security of the individual and the interrelated character of security. In short, the concept is both ‘freedom from fear’ and ‘freedom from want’. In setting out on how to implement her version of human security into practice, she made five principles that are relevant to both security and development. This was done to further her explanatory claim and elaborate her case on human security as a paradigm. The first one was the primacy of human rights which distinguished human security approach from the traditional state security. In this principle, she meant for the avoidance of killing unless it is necessary and legal.

To continue reading, download it from here.

Finding Basic Comparison(s) between Islamism and Zionism

This essay simply presents limited findings of understanding whether there are elements of comparison between Islamism and Zionism. It will first introduce their history very briefly, then, survey some of selected thinkers and their contributions to the literature, and lastly, finding elements of tangency or mutual comparisons from their extracted histories and thinkers’ contributions between them. Further, the representation of findings are delimited due to the author’s ‘still’ lack of extensive knowledge regarding the field of Zionism and readers may find it having unequal treatment between the two concepts – mea culpa.

A Brief Historical Introduction and Evolution

One climatic historical event that caused discords and decline of a 6-century Islamic scholarship that later paved the way for the triumphant of legalistic interpretation of Islam, which later gave birth to a political ideology, i.e, Islamism, was the Mongolian invasion to Muslim lands in early 13^th century. Although at the latter part, Mongols eventually converted to Islam. Islamic philosophy and mysticism became dormant while Islamic jurisprudence gradually dominated the debates and earned recognition and millions of followers particularly from major groups and sectors of Sunni and Shi’a.

The intensification of legalistic interpretation intermittently increased and materialized as result of exogenous events such as the colonial regimes of Western powers to Muslim lands, post-Nasserism era (the failure of Pan-Arabism), 9/11 event, the US-led ‘War on Terror’ against non-state terrorists groups and its networks and state-sponsored terrorism across the Broader Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) regions to Southeast Asia, which all had led to the ramifications and evolution of a new radical understanding often referred to as Political Islam movement and/or Islamism.

As for the Zionist movement, this transgressed over the canonical Jewish laws to political movements as a result of the increasing anti-Semitism experienced by Jews in European countries in the late 18^thto early 19^th centuries. It is a religious and spiritual struggle for more than 2,000 years of living in Diaspora and belief of a Messiah who will lead them to salvation from their current unpleasant state and conditions of having an oppressed and marginalized life. Zionism has many faces and forms, be they be religious, labor, revisionist, green or political, all conform to the same denominator of claiming a return to the Zion (Jerusalem) and taking what they have before, i.e., the Eretz Israel (land of Israel) as promised to them by God.

However, the political Zionist movement had dominated the debates and discourse in the Zionist literature and public life. Jews who long for emancipation and can no longer accept oppressions and humiliations they receiving from the Europeans have traveled from West to East and seek refuge to the former Ottoman controlled ‘Palestine’. The movement was also influenced by the idea of nation-state system referring to the Peace of Westphalia. They decided to take their destinies into their own hands and did not wait for divine intervention. Secular Zionist scholars like Theodor Herzl have led the movement and formed the first Zionist organization in 1890s. The primal aim of the organization is to seek a national homeland for Jews so as to transpire and materialize their aspiration for self-determination and security against the threats of anti-Semitism. They were also some small scale Zionist organizations formed in Muslim lands particularly in Morocco and some Jews from Spain and North Africa have contributed to the establishment of the city of Tel Aviv. Herzl further calls that without a national land and home for the Jews, they will always and never be secured.

To continue reading, download it from here.

2011 EUROSPHERE Summer Course

EUROSPHERE Summer Course (PhD and MA students)

Sabancı University, Istanbul, Turkey

July 18-22, 2011

Theme: “Is public sphere exclusively a nation-state phenomenon, or is it possible to observe transnational public spheres?”

This course consists of five thematic components: The first component presents the ongoing research within the EUROSPHERE Project and introduces a discussion of theories of public sphere. The second component offers lectures analyzing the status of everyday life and human imagination in people’s understandings and experiences of the public sphere. The third block elucidates the role of civil society and democratic institutions in public spheres, whereas the fourth conceives the public sphere with a focus on diversity and domination in public spheres. The final component offers two philosophical analyses of ethics in public sphere.

People in the back from left-to-right: Ejaz Muhammad (Norwegian School Of Business, Norway), Cristian Nitoiu (Loughborough University, United Kingdom), NassefManabilang Adiong (Middle East Technical University, Turkey), Mara Ochiros (Universitatea De Vest Timisoara, Romania), Mehmet Ali Okan Doğan (Bilkent University, Turkey), Tatyana Meikshane (Belarusian State University, Belorussia).

People in front from left-to-right: Parkkinen Laura (University of Jyväskylä, Finland), Ejona Shundi (University of International Studies of Trento, Italy), Laura Morosanu(University of Bristol, United Kingdom), Rosen Dimov (Centre International De Formation Européenne, France), Prof. Dr. Hakan G. Sicakkan (University of Bergen, Norway), Zafar Iqbal Mohsin (Hamdard University, Pakistan), Çağrı Özütürk (Istanbul Technical University, Turkey), Seda Onder (Istanbul Technical University, Turkey), Özlem Uluc (Marmara University, Turkey)

Lecturers (in alphabetical order):

Geoff S. Bove, Thompson Rivers University, Canada

Andras Bozoki, Central European University, Hungary

Wanda Dressler, FMSH-Paris, France

Jostein Gripsrud, University of Bergen, Norway

Gürcan Kocan, Istanbul Technical University, Turkey

Trond Kvamme, Norwegian Social Science Data Services, Norway

Yngve G. Lithman, University of Bergen, Norway

Ahmet Öncü, Sabanci University, Turkey

Hakan G. Sicakkan, University of Bergen, Norway

Slavko Splichal, University of Ljubliana, Slovenia

My participation was on July 19 where Prof. Dr. Jostein Gripsrud discussed about “Everyday Life, Imagination and Public Sphere.”

14:15 – 14:35
Andreea-Paula Ibanescu, Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca (PhD student)
Public Sphere and Culture. Representations of Cultural Diplomacy in Europe.

14:35 – 14:55
Tatyana Meikshane (female), Belarussian State University (PhD student)
What Events Do We Regard As Newsworthy and Socially Important?

14:55 – 15:15
Oleksandr Svyetlov (male), Ukrainian Academy Of Sciences, Kyiv (PhD student)
The Role of Media for Public Protest. The Cases of Ukraine and Georgia

15:30 – 16:30
Discussion (Led by Jostein Gripsrud; Student opponent: Nassef Manabilang Adiong)

20th annual IIR seminar entitled "History and Philosophy of International Relations"

Participated by 28 graduate students mostly from Greece and spearheaded by two invited scholars Prof. Dr. John Mearsheimer and Prof. Dr. Knud Erik Jørgensen. This summer seminar is annually offered by the Institute of International Relations (IIR) affiliated with the Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences in Athens, Greece. However, it was held in the Island of Tinos from June 30 to July 3.

This photo was taken by Κοινόν Ωρωπίων.

Prof. Mearsheimer opened the discussion by presenting his offensive realism thesis and arguing that his theoretical framework has the best explanatory power. For a detailed information about his thesis, read his book entitled “The Tragedy of Great Power Politics”. Prof. Jørgensen discussed his nine perspectives in IR theorizing activity, these are: 1) identifying theories by means of maps (spatial) and decades (temporal), 2) deconstructing the relationship between theory and practice, 3) traditions of IR theories have all centered upon an aspect of “politics”, 4) distinguishing thoughts from traditional to complex, 5) deciphering the epistemology, 6) knowing how philosophy can be used as parameter, pointer, reference, and perspective in IR theorizing activity, 7) facing the challenge of hegemony of the US and UK scholars in IR theorizing activity, 8) choosing between monist or eclectic scholarship of IR theories, and 9) what’s left for the future IR theorizing activity particularly of the labelled ‘periphery’, i.e., non-Western (non-American/European) scholars.

Prof. Dr. Harry Papassotiriou oriented us about the ontology of IR as a discipline and Dr. Andreas Gofas gave us a unique lecture of making the relations of philosophy of science and IR historiography by comparing it with football games and terminologies of human afflictions and sensations. We ended the seminar by dividing the participants into four working groups tasked to synthesize and evaluate the whole seminar. My group presented the pathological observation of setting the agenda of the whole seminar. In to-to, it was a mix of learned experience from the shared knowledge of established scholars and enjoyable (networking) event from fellow participants.

with Prof. Dr. Knud Erik Jørgensen

with Prof. Dr. John Mearsheimer

with Prof. Dr. Harry Papassotiriou

with Dr. Andreas Gofas

METU Graduate Courses Performance Award 2011

Sayın Nassef Adiong
Uluslararası İlişkiler EABD

2009-2010 Akademik yılı, ODTÜ SBE Lisansüstü Ders Performans Ödülünü almaya, Doktora programında yedi dersinizi iki dönemde, EAB Dalınızdaki en yüksek GNO’lu öğrenci olarak tamamladığınız için hak kazandınız. Sizi bu başarınızdan dolayı kutluyorum.

Ödülünüz 02 Hazıran 2011 Perşembe Saat 15:00’de ODTÜ Mimarlık Amfisi’nde yapılacak Ödül Töreninde size verılecektir. Tören programı aşağıda verilmiştir.

Ödülü almaya hak kazandığınız için sizi tekrar kutlar, başarılarınızın devamını dilerim.

Prof. Dr. Meliha Altunışık
Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Müdürü

Tören Programı:
– Açılış
– Dinleti
– Rektör Prof. Dr. Ahmet Acar’ın konuşması
– Tez ödüllerinin verilmesı
– Ders Performans ödüllerinin verilmesi
– Poster Sunumu

Courtesy of Google translation with revisions.

Dear Mr. Nassef Adiong
PhD student in International Relations program

Congratulations!

You will be receiving the “Graduate Courses Performance Award” for completing all your required PhD courses in only two semesters with a high grade point average.

The awarding ceremony will be held on 02 June 2011 (Thursday) at the Amphitheater of Department of Architecture. The program is stated below.

We wish you continued success.

Prof. Dr. Meliha Altunisik
Dean, Graduate School of Social Sciences

Program:
– Opening Remarks
– Musical Presentation
– Prof. Dr. Ahmet Acar’s speech (METU’s President)
– Best Dissertation awards will be given.
– Graduate Courses Performance awards will be given.
– Poster Presentation