Violence and Piratical/Surreptitious Activities Associated with the Chinese Communities in the Melaka–Singapore Region (1780–1840)
The chapter hopes to examine the Chinese as an exogenous and endogenous group who had either settled or intermittently infiltrated the Melaka–Singapore region in the Malay Archipelago. The Chinese in the archipelago had often been associated in Western sources with “rather positive” traits such as hardworkingness, astute business acumen, etc., characteristics which could help European colonizers sustain newly founded settlements. The chapter probes the shady world in which disparate subgroups of this ethnicity or creole ethnicity, whether these were related to one another, were engaged in surreptitious activities, or in banditry acts on the seas, which contributed indirectly and sometimes directly to general violence in the region. Overall, whether the Chinese were a more “peaceful” group interested in pecuniary relative to other interests and whether they contributed indirectly to militarization and tensions in the Malay Archipelago are re-examined.
Batavia, 1619–1740: The Rise and Fall of a Chinese Colonial Town
The rise and fall of a Chinese colonial town within Batavia was closely related to the transmutation in Batavia's function as a capital. In the early seventeenth century it was founded as the headquarters to a — mainly inter-Asian — maritime trading East Indies Company at war with the Iberian enemy. As the staple town to the Company, “het magazijn van derzelven producten”, it served both strategic and mercantile goals. From the late seventeenth century onwards a structural change took place. Wars with European rivals were over and trade with the motherland became emphasized at the expense of the Asian “country trade”. On Java, the Company gradually transformed itself into a territorial power, which derived its main income from a system of contingenten and verplichte leverantiën, or tributary payments. Consequently, Batavia lost most of its dynamic function as a headquarters to a maritime trade empire. The adaptation of the city into its new role, e.g., to function as a capital to a territorial hinterland, did not progress smoothly.
Cultural constraints on the delivery of HIV/AIDS prevention in Ireland.
HIV appeared in Ireland following an opiate epidemic in the early 1980s. Initially, however, the gay community mounted the only response to the spread of the virus while the implementation of early actions by the government was hampered by the constructions of the disease within Irish society. This paper considers the influence of the religious hierarchy in both the development of AIDS policy and in the shaping of public perceptions of the disease and those affected. A qualitative methodology is used to examine the role of such cultural constraints in an evaluation of the social context within which the prevention of HIV infection occurs. Three key issues pertinent to the policy context in Ireland are explored in depth. These are the role of the Catholic Church, the influences on health education programmes, particularly information giving, and the development of services and other interventions. These findings are discussed within the social and political contexts in which health policy is formulated.