Gender and Security in the Mediterranean
Abstract This contribution explores security issues in the Mediterranean from a feminist perspective. Feminists have developed a broad and dynamic understanding of security and insecurity. This approach takes ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ issues as interconnected on the personal, national and international level. This allows for a comprehensive perspective on the basic human need for security. It is argued that EU policies that stress ‘soft’ security issues offer more sustainable and at the same time ‘realistic’ ways of establishing an ‘area of peace and stability in the Mediterranean’ [Barcelona Declaration, 1995] than those that stress ‘hard’ security issues. After discussing feminist and developmental perspectives on comprehensive security concepts, the contribution presents some important indicators of ‘Gendered Human Security’ in EMP countries. It argues that it is important to address the huge gaps in gendered human security in order to strengthen the civil and security dimension of the EMP. The contribution finally explores the possible positive effects of womens’ participation in the armed forces. Will these processes change militarized security cultures and help create a more comprehensive security approach?
Strategische Verschwisterung, multiple Feminismen und die Glokalisierung von Frauenbewegungen
Als die Vereinten Nationen Anfang der siebziger Jahre das Jahr 1975 zum „Internationalen Jahr der Frau“ erklarten, lauteten sie eine neue Epoche sowohl der Institutionalisierung als auch der Internationalisierung von Frauenpolitik ein (Pietila; Vickers 1996). Mit dem zunachst eher symbolischen Politikakt zur Steuerung offentlicher Aufmerksamkeit reagierten sie auf einen doppelten Problemdruck: einerseits waren neue politische Losungs-konzepte und Akteure zur Bewaltigung von Strukturproblemen der Entwicklung, vor allem der Armut und des damals offentlich stark dramatisierten Bevolkerungswachstums gesucht; zum anderen setzte die neue westliche Frauenbewegung staatliche- und UN-Institutionen unter Handlungsdruck. Aus dem „Jahr der Frau“ wurde ein Jahrzehnt, und die drei UN-Konferenzen, die Anfang, Halbzeit und Ende der Frauendekade markierten, wurden zum politischen Handlungsfeld, auf dem sich neue internationale Frauenbewegungen formierten.
The Invention of the Jewish People
'All modern nation states have a story of their origins, passed down through both official and popular culture, and yet few of these accounts have proved as divisive and influential as the Israeli national myth. The well-known tale of Jewish exile at the hands of the Romans during the first century AD, and the assertion of both cultural and racial continuity through to the Jewish people of the present day, resonates far beyond Israel's borders. Despite its use as a justification for Jewish settlement in Palestine and the project of a Greater Israel, there have been few scholarly investigations into the historical accuracy of the story as a whole. In this bold and ambitious new book, Shlomo Sand shows that the Israeli national myth has its origins in the nineteenth century, rather than in biblical times - when Jewish historians, like scholars in many other cultures, reconstituted an imagined people in order to model a future nation. Sand forensically dissects the official story - and demonstrates the construction of a nationalist myth and the collective mystification that this requires. A bestseller in Israel and France, Shlomo Sand's book has sparked a widespread and lively debate. Should the Jewish people regard themselves as genetically distinct and identifiable across the millennia - or should that doctrine now be left behind and if the myth of the Jewish state is dismantled, could this open a path toward a more inclusive Israeli state, content within its borders?'