Die vorliegende Dissertation ist ein historiografischer Beitrag über ein internationales offizielles Stipendienprogramm sui generis in Form von Entwicklungshilfe im Bildungsbereich, das zwischen 1977 und 2012 auf der zweitgrößten Insel des kubanischen Karibikarchipels, der Isla de la Juventud, umgesetzt wurde. Auf der Grundlage von Archivquellen und Teilnehmerberichten wird die Motivation Kubas für die Organisation dieser Bildungshilfe diskutiert. Es wird gezeigt, dass Kuba seine Bildungshilfe auf die Bedürfnisse und Interessen der beteiligten Staaten und Personen ausgerichtet und dementsprechend strukturiert hat. Es wird nachgewiesen, dass neben der Bereitstellung von Ausbildungsmöglichkeiten massiv angelegte Stipendien für die Sekundarstufe I im Mittelpunkt des Programms standen und herausgearbeitet, dass diese Maßnahme angesichts der niedrigen Einschulungsraten in der Dritten Welt den entscheidenden Beitrag des Programms darstellte. Unter Berücksichtigung der wichtigsten Debatten über Entwicklungshilfe im Bildungsbereich stützt sich die Arbeit auf Studien über die Süd-Süd-Zusammenarbeit und die Geschichte der internationalen Stipendien, um zu argumentieren, dass Kuba sich sowohl in seiner ursprünglichen Motivation als auch in der Form der in der Umsetzung des Programms aufgebauten Beziehungen sowie in den Endergebnissen desselben am Prinzip der Solidarität orientierte. Die vorliegende Arbeit kommt zu dem Schluss, dass die kubanische Politik der Entwicklungshilfe im Bildungsbereich die “nationale Entpersönlichung” der Geförderten überwinden konnte. Mit anderen Worten, die Teilnehmer des Programms auf der Insel der Jugend kehrten mit einem Gefühl der Zugehörigkeit zu ihrer Nation in ihre Heimatländer zurück und brachten dabei die in den ʽoffenen Lehrplänenʼ erworbenen Fähigkeiten und die in den ʽungeschriebenen Lehrplänenʼ vermittelten Einstellungen mit, welche in verschiedenen Arbeitskontexten relevant sind. / This dissertation is a historiographical contribution on a sui generis international scholarship program in the form of educational development aid that was implemented between 1977 and 2012 on the second largest island of the Cuban Caribbean archipelago, the Isla de la Juventud. Based on archival sources and reports of participants, Cuba’s motivation for organizing this educational aid is discussed. It is shown that Cuba structured its educational assistance according to the needs and interests of the countries and people involved. It is evidenced that, in addition to the offer of specialties, the program focused on the massive granting of scholarships for lower secondary education and that this measure represented the decisive contribution of the program in view of the low schooling rates in the Third World. Taking into account the main debates on development aid in education, the paper draws on studies of South-South cooperation and the history of official international scholarships to argue that Cuba was guided by the principle of solidarity both in its initial motivation and in the form of the relationships established in the implementation of the program, as well as in the final results of the program. This study concludes that the Cuban development aid policy in the field of education managed to circumvent the “national depersonalization” of the beneficiaries. In other words, participants in the Isla de la Juventud program returned to their countries of origin with a sense of belonging to their nation, taking with them the skills acquired in the ʽopen curriculaʼ and the attitudes conveyed in the ʽnon-written curriculaʼ, which are relevant in different work contexts.

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School readiness is a stage in a child's development when he learns easily and effectively. A child who is not yet ready for school on school entry is already at a disadvantage in the formal learning situation. This in itself can affect his school performance in the later years. The researcher, being a primary school teacher noticed that the children from the informal settlements that had no pre-school intervention arrived at school unready to learn. This investigation set out to evaluate the school readiness of children from an informal settlement without a pre-school programme. The school readiness of these children were compared against children from an informal settlement with a pre-school programme. Test and questionnaires were used to determine the five year olds' school readiness. The researcher used the idiographic method of research. The findings of the research were based on the interpretations of the tests and questionnaires. / Educational Studies / M. Ed. (with specialisation in Guidance and Counselling)

Text in English / This dissertation examines the missionary activities of Rev. J.L.R. Rammala of the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa (URCSA) which was formally called the Dutch Reformed Church in Africa (DRCA). Rev. Rammala worked among the Bushmen (San) of Botswana as a missionary from 1973 to 1980. The study examines how the DRCA as a·· product of Western missions, developed its own understanding of mission when judged through the mission activities of Rev. Rammala in Botswana as a case study. This understanding of mission is judged against the background of the survey of the debate on Third World missions, and the DRCA's involvement in intercultural mission. / Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / Th. M. (Missiology)

This study is an attempt to critique the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission from a theological ethical perspective. The central critique and argument of this study will be that, it is impossible to reconcile the dispossessor and the dispossessed or the oppressor and oppressed in the way the South African TRC did. As such, it will be befitting to start off this study which explores some of the noticeable lessons and challenges emerging from the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (hereafter, the TRC) by elucidating that this study is an attempt to contribute to the on-going discussions on reconciliation. It is also vital to mention up front that this study attempts to contribute to the discussion on reconciliation which seeks to remove injustice at the root. It contributes to a discussion of the weeds of alienation and fragmentation, and it stands in contrast to the frequent use of reconciliation merely to reach some political accommodation and not to address the critical questions of justice, equality and dignity (Boesak & DeYoung 2012). It is also befitting to point out that two central themes – political pietism and Christian quietism – form the backdrop to this study (Boesak & DeYoung 2012). The study contends that reconciliation in South Africa was used merely to reach some political accommodation and did not address the three critical questions of justice, equality and dignity. These arrangements perpetually favour the rich and powerful but deprive the powerless of justice and dignity. Hitherto, this reconciliation is presented as if it does respond to the need for genuine reconciliation and employs a language that sounds like the truth, but it is in fact deceitful – and this we call political pietism. It is also vital to mention that “reconciliation” is a Christian concept, and as such, Christians’ measure matters of reconciliation with the yardstick of the gospel and therefore should know better. However, as it will be shown in this study, when Christians in South Africa discovered that the TRC was not really promoting reconciliation, they became complicit in a deceitful reconciliation. This may have been for reasons of self-protection, fear or a desire for acceptance by the powers that govern the world. Whichever way one looks at it, they tried to seek to accommodate the situation, to justify it and to refuse to run the risk of challenge and prophetic truth telling. As a result, they denied the demands of the gospel and refused solidarity with the powerless and oppressed. This is called Christian quietism (Boesak & DeYoung 2012:1). This study in its attempt to critique the South Africa TRC from a theological ethical perspective will point out that, the TRC which was obviously the product of the negotiated settlement needs to be understood against the background of the global struggle of particularly Third-World countries which were resisting authoritarian regimes put in place by the West for the benefit of the West. As such, this study will point out how the West, in their attempt to keep a grip on the Third-World countries – particularly on their resources – had to recommend and promote their notion of democracy. Democracy became the only option for Third-World countries as a result of the fall of the Soviet Union. It must, however, be mentioned that the problem is not democracy but the manifestation thereof under capitalism. This is because the notion of democracy was recommended to Third-World countries when capitalism was becoming global. As such, this presented some contradictions because democracy emphasizes joint interests, equality and common loyalties whilst capitalism is based on self-seeking inequality and conflicting individual and group interest (Terriblanche 2002). This means that a transition to democracy (especially constitutional democracy) means that the former oppressor or dispossessor will hold on to economic power. As such, the sudden interest of both the NP and the corporate sector in South Africa to a transition to democracy needs to be understood against this background. This study will argue and demonstrate how the ANC was outsmarted during the negotiations in that, at the formal negotiations, the ANC won political power whilst the NP/corporate sector in South Africa won economic power. This is mentioned to here to point out that both the elite compromise reached at the formal and informal negotiations and the influence of the Latin-American truth commissions led to the inability or unwillingness of the TRC to uncover the truth about systemic exploitation. As such, this study will argue and demonstrate that, on the one hand, reconciliation was not added to the truth commission for the purpose of confronting the country with the demands of the gospel and, on the other hand, the TRC was set up (from its inception) for failure. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / D.Th. (Theological Ethics)

This thesis examines the policies, positions, and perspectives of developing countries on the emerging norm of humanitarian intervention after the Cold War, focusing on the period between 1991 and 2001. In doing so, it questions the role of opposition that conventional wisdom has allotted to them as parochial defenders of sovereignty. Instead, the thesis reveals variation and complexity, which militates against defining the South, or the issues that humanitarian intervention raises, in simplistic either-or terms. Part I draws on insights about ‘sovereignty as what states make of it’ to break the classic pluralism-solidarism impasse that has otherwise stymied the conversation on humanitarian intervention and confined the South as a whole to a ‘black box’ labelled rejectionism. It reconstructs the empirical record of developing countries at large on six cases of military intervention (northern Iraq, Somalia, Haiti, Sierra Leone, Kosovo, and East Timor), revealing variation that defies easy categorization. It also charts a cumulative and dynamic trend within the South towards a grey area between pluralism and solidarism that shows how these were not diametrically opposed positions. Following from that, Part II looks in-depth at India and Argentina. Whereas Argentina accepted the idea of humanitarian intervention, India remained reluctant to countenance it and persistently objected to the development of a new rule in its favour. Part II argues that the level of congruence between the emerging norm and the two countries’ prevailing values, aspirations, and historically constructed ways of thinking played a key role in determining the different levels of acceptance that the idea found with them. Part III delves deeper into the substance of their views. It shows how neither country constructed mutually exclusive choices between pluralism and solidarism, sovereignty and human rights, and intervention and non-intervention. Rather, both exhibited an acute awareness of the dilemmas of protecting human rights in a society of states, and a wariness of yes-no answers. Cumulatively, this thesis thus points away from thinking about the South itself as a given category with clear, shared or pre-determined ideas, and towards a more nuanced and inclusive conversation on humanitarian intervention.

Often pointed to as the region’s model secular state, Turkey provides an instructive case study in how nationalism, in the name of conjuring ‘unity’, often produces the opposite effect. Indeed, the production of nationalism can create fractures amongst, as well as politicize, certain segments of a population, such as minority groups and women. This dissertation examines the long-term and present-day impacts on nationalist unity of a largely understudied event, the annexation of the border-city of Antakya from Syria in 1939, and its implications on the Arab Alawite population. In doing so, it deconstructs the dominant Turkish narrative on the annexation, rewrites the narrative drawing on oral history from the ground, and it shows how nation-building is a masculinist project that relies on powerfully gendered language through studying the national archives. The heart of the project, however, remains the investigation of the political, social, and religious subjectivity of Arab Alawite women, with an emphasis on resistance to the structures and practices sustained by the state and patriarchy. The Arab Alawites, once numerically dominant in the Antakya region, are now an ethno-religious minority group within the Turkish/Sunni-dominated state structure. Although Antakya was the last territory to join Turkey in 1939, ever since that time many of its Alawites have resisted assimilation through covert, yet peaceful, methods. Through this research, I show that a multiplicity of forces have increased the politicization of the Antiochian Alawite community and broadened their demands upon the Turkish state. My research highlights Alawite women’s leadership as a key driver of this process, thanks to the large-scale out migration of Alawite men, the increased socio-economic independence of Alawite women, and the perception of more progressive gender ideals being held by the members of this Muslim sect, when compared to those of nearby Sunni Turkish women. This dissertation relies on a postcolonial and feminist geopolitical analysis of the Turkish nationalist project to examine how the Turkish state has historically viewed Antakya and the Arab Alawites and how, in return, the experience and collective social and political memory of Alawites was formed. By utilizing innovative methodologies, this research shows how Alawite women are resisting/rewriting/reconfiguring political and social structures through everyday actions that shift the discourse on minorities and women on local and national scales.

<p>The UN Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm 1972 has been recognized as bringing political attention to environmental problems. Researchers have acknowledged the importance of NGO activities during the conference, initiating a trend of engagement of NGOs in official global meetings. But NGOs were not permitted to speak at the plenary or participate in working groups in the official Conference. The influence of NGOs could still be substantial but in another arenas delivering perceptions, knowledge and information to the general public and officials, directly or through the intense media coverage of the conference. NGOs engaged in these parallel activities and individuals in the official initiating process are central to this research. </p><p>The purpose of this study is to analyze how Swedish NGOs and their related networks influenced environmental discourses during and following the UN conference on the human environment in Stockholm 1972. The purpose is also to analyze how they in turn were effected by the conference process and the context in which NGOs function. </p><p>This study is concerned with how social movements became engaged in official global meetings and the effects of this process. It is a study of the interrelations between intergovernmental discourse framing and activist influence. To understand this we take in consideration what motivated the actions of relevant actors, how actors selected strategies to obtain there purposes and how diverse frames of understanding emerged.</p>

The purpose of this thesis is to do a critical review of the aid organization SOS Children’s Villages text- and video campaigns, from a postcolonial perspective. Our purpose is divided into two questions: Are there colonial values in the advertising campaigns? Which language- and image strategies are used by SOS Children’s Villages to put across their messages? Our material consists of 10 selected video clips, and four printed ads that are made up of an image and a short text, which are part of a campaign named: Inte ett enda barn ska behöva vara ensamt (translation: Not a single child should have to be alone). We have chosen to use text- and image analysis as a method in our review of the material. The main theoretical base in our thesis is postcolonialism, while”the Other” and ”whiteness” are two concepts we have chosen so that we can reach a deeper analytical level. We have analyzed some of the clips from the concept “The White Man’s Burden”, and have discovered that ”The Western World” tries to insert their own values and ideals into ”The Third World”. We have also discovered that the children, in some sequences, are presented as non-human and differentiated from the “white Westerners”. The last chapter in our thesis problematizes how modern technology, as Smartphones, applications and social media, are used to make it easier to give money to charity. We also discuss how “The Western World” can be seen as a contributor to the current situation in “The Third World”, which makes the aspect of high-technology even more interesting.

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