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Political Thought on the Just Rebellion, parts 9 & 10

We’ve talked about just war, and we’ve used just war the­o­ry as a tem­plate for dis­cussing just rebel­lion. And we’ve talked about the jus­tice that enables a rebel­lion to take place. And we’ve also talked about what is just con­duct with­in that rebel­lion, in both cas­es bor­row­ing from just war the­o­ry. What hap­pens, how­ev­er, if rebel­lion uses war as one of its instru­ments to achieve its aims?

Political Thought on the Just Rebellion, part 8

Today we’re going to have a dis­cus­sion about what I call lib­er­a­tion ped­a­gogy. And by this I mean a sec­u­lar ver­sion of lib­er­a­tion the­ol­o­gy which takes for­ward the same val­ues. The same val­ues of inde­pen­dence, the same val­ues of cre­ativ­i­ty, the same val­ues of the integri­ty of the indi­vid­ual per­son, even if that per­son is a peas­ant, even if that per­son is illit­er­ate, even if that per­son is not ful­ly formed in the mod­ern sense.

Political Thought on the Just Rebellion, part 7

Hegel was a young lec­tur­er at a German uni­ver­si­ty at the time of the Napoleonic Wars. And the French armies were lay­ing siege to his city and he had to evac­u­ate. And he wrote to his friends after­wards, say­ing, I have seen the future. The future comes on horseback.”

Political thought on the Just Rebellion, part 6

Last week we looked at the Māori rebel­lion in New Zealand, and we began look­ing at the nature of syn­cret­ic thought, thought from dif­fer­ent cul­tures put togeth­er to estab­lish a frame­work from which rebel­lion might be pos­si­ble. I want to con­tin­ue that par­tic­u­lar theme this week by look­ing at a num­ber of rebel­lions that you might loose­ly call mag­ic rebel­lions,” mythologically-based rebel­lions, but all the same look­ing at patholo­gies that are either gen­uine­ly very old, or which have been espe­cial­ly cre­at­ed for the pur­pose of rebellion.

Political Thought on the Just Rebellion, part 5

In 1840, when the first offi­cial British pres­ence touched down in New Zealand, it was led by a very ide­al­is­tic young naval cap­tain, Captain Hobson. And he gath­ered togeth­er rep­re­sen­ta­tives of most of the tribes in New Zealand. And at the Treaty of Waitangi he agreed that there should be cer­tain rights that would be inher­ent with­in the Māori nation if they pledged alle­giance to Queen Victoria.

Political Thought on the Just Rebellion, part 4

When we talk about rebel­lion, we’re usu­al­ly talk­ing about thought that is couched against the sup­posed ratio­nal­i­ty of the great rev­o­lu­tions of the mod­ern era.

Political Thought on the Just Rebellion, part 3

This part is going to be cen­tered on modern-day Iran. Or, that ter­ri­to­ry that sits where ancient Persia used to sit. The great empire that chal­lenged Greece. The great empire that chal­lenged Rome, often extreme­ly suc­cess­ful­ly. The coun­try that freed the Hebrew slaves to return from Babylon. The coun­try that insti­tut­ed the first writ­ten char­ter of human rights to do with free reli­gious worship.

Political Thought on the Just Rebellion, part 2

We’re going to have a brief excur­sion to one ele­ment of what Fred Halliday would’ve called cul­tur­al con­di­tions,” cul­tur­al thought that leads to rebel­lion. We’re going to have a look at lib­er­a­tion the­ol­o­gy, and what that has to say about rebellion.

Political Thought on the Just Rebellion, part 1

Is there a com­mon­al­i­ty of rea­sons for why you rise up? The idea of what is just can be very much inter­ro­gat­ed from do you mean in terms of jus­tice?” And then who’s con­cep­tion of jus­tice? What philo­soph­i­cal, what eth­i­cal back­ground of jus­tice are you refer­ring to? Or are you talk­ing about justified? What jus­ti­fi­ca­tion leads you to rebel?

Religion and World Politics part 20
ISIS and the Fight for Westphalia

As we enter May 2017, the city of Mosul, held stub­born­ly by ISIS forces, has still not fall­en. What has become a siege of the city is now a fight almost on a street-by-street basis for the old city.