Journal articles on the topic 'Speeches, addresses, etc., Nigerian'

Language is one of the greatest media through which human beings globally communicate express and pass thoughts and ideas to fellow human beings. It can be used to glorify and degrade an individual, group of individuals, tribe or tribes, nation and nations etc. thus the importance of language cannot be over-stressed. It is in this perspective that the paper examines the use of language in political rallies and campaigns in Nigeria and shows how the language use in passing the contents to the audience or populace can enhance or destroy peace, security and the electoral process. In achieving this, samples of languages used in campaigns and rallies were gathered and analysed to show how they can enhance of destroy peace, security and electoral process in Nigeria. Some of the issues addressed by the paper include hate speeches, tribal and religious bigotry, regional superiority or aberration and others. At the end suggestions on how to enhance peace, security and perfection of the electoral process through the use of language is proffered.

This study investigates how the non-professional politicians: the military, when they become Heads of State, use the linguistic resources and devices of grapho-syntax to convey their political ideas and thoughts. It is therefore, a part of the objectives of this study, to find out which of the components of grapho-syntactic features are most prominent in the speeches. It is also meant to unravel the thematic roles played by these prominent features in the realization of the political intentions of the speakers. The data used for the work is based on some selected political speeches of the military Heads of State that ruled the country from 1966 to 1983. The data or speeches were analysed from the perspectives of the Linguistic stylistic approach and linguistic framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics. It is discovered from the analysis that the language of the military political rulers is permeated with sparsely use of punctuation marks (open use of punctuation marks). This is in tune with swift and quick style they carry out their administrative duties. Besides, their language in political addresses is mainly of simple declarative sentences. This style, too, is concomitant with their simple and unbureaucratic way of governing.

Studies in stand-up comedy in Nigeria have recently begun to gain serious attention. Several articles that describe the psychological and socio-cultural contexts of joke texts of stand-up comedy in Nigeria have appeared within the last few years (Orhiunu 2007; Imo 2010; Adetunji 2013; Filani 2015, 2016, etc.). However, one aspect of the phenomenon that is yet to be explored is the function of a multimodal generic framework and its contributions to the humorous content of the genre. While it is important to maintain the spoken text as many writers have done, the “multiple embodied modes” (Norris 2008: 13) that amplify the spoken text must be given due consideration. This study, therefore, examines the Nigerian stand-up comedy from the perspective of a multimodal-ESP theory to genre analysis. This theory takes cognizance not only of joke-texts, but also the visual features that enhance the performance. The material for analysis is videoed data of a popular stand-up comedy show in Nigeria, “A Nite of a Thousand Laugh.” The study demonstrates that stage management, nonverbal cues (e.g. gesture, movements, and gaze), speeches, body postures, and music/sounds contribute to the communicative value and the production of the genre. Also, it shows how plausible multimodal-ESP approach to genre is in the description of stand-up comedy in the Nigerian context and how the knowledge can be integrated into the teaching and learning of technology-mediated communications (TMC), such as using English for entertainment purposes.

The paper examines curriculum overload in junior secondary schools in Nigeria and how it is becoming a problem to quality teaching and learning process. It discusses the concept of curriculum and factors affecting the implementation of curriculum in Nigeria. It also addresses problems associated with curriculum overload which include denial of rest, academic workload etc. the paper provided solutions to curriculum overload ranging from merging related subjects, teaching more practical skills etc. The paper concludes that Packaging the right subjects to face challenges of the future may allow for more progressive approach to teaching and learning which will transcend to hands on activities, experiment and projects in the classroom thereby projecting teachers as facilitators and transforming junior students into becoming early problem solvers. The paper suggests that Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council should intensify efforts on merging subjects. Merging should not just be a policy but ensures that subjects merged should be taught as one and Educational stakeholders should publish books carrying merged subjects.

Th e article addresses the issue of theatricality, especially the way of creating this cultural phenomenon in the dramaturgical text and in the narrative artistic text. Theatricality understood as a cultural and aesthetic aspect is combined in some types of speeches with theatricality in life, especially in prose. If in the dramaturgical text its structure (dialogue — stage directions) constitutes a first element of theatricality, then the theatrical techniques from the show (ad spectatores, the monologue, the actor’s corporeality, etc.) are elements that can also be found in the narrative literary text in the form of authoriality, of various forms of psychology, etc. In this context, an important role in the creation of theatricality is played by intermediality as the interaction of codes specific to certain artistic or non-artistic discourses. We investigate the relationship between theatricality and intermediality from a theoretical and methodological point of view, with some examples from artistic texts or performances.

Despite the substantial advances made in cross-Strait relations during Ma Ying-jeou's (Ma Yingjiu) first term, the ROC president's rhetoric varied considerably as he grappled with the difficult reality of implementing campaign and inauguration pledges to establish better relations with China while striving to maintain national respect and sovereignty. In this article, we put forward a framework for measuring, analysing and explaining this variation in President Ma's first-term discourse. Analysing a very large number of Ma's speeches, addresses, etc., we provide empirical assessments of how the content of Ma's public pronouncements has developed over time, how his rhetoric varies according to the strategic context and timing of a speech, and how his discourse compares to that of his predecessor, Chen Shui-bian (Chen Shuibian). In addressing these questions, the article contributes a quantitative perspective to existing work on political discourse in Taiwan and to the growing methodological and applied literature on how to systematically analyse Chinese political text.

The knowledge of lexical, grammatical, stylistic, and syntactic can help with political speeches allowing deconstructing the principal messages originally laid down in the address. The right uses of tolerance help to create an idea of a political leader, including based on their verbal manifestations. The use of frame analysis is relevant in modern linguistics since the world is undergoing considerable transformations. The formation of an idea of the discourse of tolerance in the modern world is necessary for every member of society, since through political texts and the introduction of implicit meanings in them, one can achieve a considerable influence on the audience. Framing analysis is the young method in the world of mass information that helps to form framing with public opinions. With this method there is the opportunity to manipulate people, when there is a potential threat or important information. The decoding of linguistic mechanisms allowed forming the main semantic, grammatical, and stylistic guidelines for the identification and interpretation of symbols, images, and meanings in a political context. The purpose of this study was to investigate the meaning of tolerance evoked by frames in particular contexts, to form the principal semantic prototypes within the political text and their structural implementation. The subject of the study was the final address of B. Obama (2016a) at the United Nations (UN) General Assembly, on September 20, 2016, considered from the standpoint of the discourse of tolerance. To understand the genealogy of the discourse of tolerance there were used other political speeches of B. Obama. For the research were used such methods as discursive (for evaluation of final address of the B. Obama speeches), linguistic (analyse of verbal constructions), contextual and frame analysis, which include such stages as content analysis to quantify tolerance, framing each form of tolerance and context analysis. Semantic elements of tolerance with practices and knowledge became the main problem of this research. In the basis of the article lie Fillmore’s views that frames activate background knowledge containing scenes and situations; scenes are related to texts; word semantics is connected with text semantics. The research is designed systematically to locate tolerance and its forms quantitatively, contextually to textual interpretation which incorporates analysis of linguistic, discursive, pragmatic, and rhetorical elements. Also, it was defined that in the speeches B. Obama used four concepts of tolerance: in positive (A) (is a product of other human value) and negative (B) (emphasizes to tolerate) meanings, verbs in passive voice (C) (direct object) and adjective (D) (describe object founded around the world). Another feature of reference is the specification of a particular type of tolerance resulting from another human virtue, i.e., respect. In this utterance conjunctions of extension: two types of variation: alternative and replacive conjunctions are used. The following groups of synonyms are distinguished: “patience”, “forbearance”, “admittance” categories, etc.; hyponyms are arranged as “superior” and “inferior” components. In componential analysis, respect is in inferior relation to tolerance. However, in current utterance, respect is in superior relation to tolerance. The complex nature of tolerance discourse, showcasing its multifaceted linguistic expression, was investigated. Through various linguistic forms and contextual cues, the tolerance frame activates scenarios of conflict and crisis, offering itself as a solution against negative trends like intolerance. The research outlined how tolerance is strategically implemented into political addresses, invoking principles of respect, diversity, equity, and human rights to address challenges, including religious conflicts and societal disparities. The results of the research further can be used to create programs for semantic prototyping, placing frame markers in automatic mode, and developing language patterns.

Oligarchical collectivism that supports totalitarianism silences freedom of speech, privacy, assembly, etc. both personal and communal through horrific pain or plentiful pleasure. Authors write literary works to remind readers of this situation through novels, poems, plays, political essays, and or satire. In today's life, it seems these two ways of totalitarianism are being practiced in life singly or combined in different parts of the world. This can be seen in a number of countries where the government does this both in disguise and addressed to a certain group of members of society such as in Nigeria and in real terms such as in Nicaragua. This is also done in total for a country such as Ukraine by Russia. Two of those great anti-utopia literary works are novels that raise the issue of restrained freedom of life in Huxley's Brave New World and Orwell's 1984. These two anti-utopian novels raise the issue of the freedom of life that is confined but in different ways. Using Marxist psychoanalytic criticism, this paper discusses this issue seen in both novels by the two authors. The focus is on how both authors show totalitarianism being practiced both personally, and in the society found in these novels – how they are treated to follow rules that confine personal and societal freedom in totalitarianism.

Due to the growing rate of the Muslim population in Nigeria put forward the need to gain a better understanding of the cultural influences of Islamic faith and health related perceptions. The research has been done in discovering the experiences of Muslim women as recipients of healthcare or in different professional settings, with little attention paid to the challenges Muslim women face as service providers within healthcare. The study also help inform healthcare organizations, practitioners, policy makers, and educators about the unique challenges Muslim women healthcare professionals face in the Nigerian environment. The paper also addresses the issues of Muslim women as healthcare practitioners in order to help initiate changes that can lead to more opportunities and exposure for Muslim women in the world and enable these professionals to provide more culturally meaningful, competent, and sensitive care personnel. The paper will provides historical development of Islam in Nigeria and also the grounds and conditions for female health workers from Islamic Perspectives; it would discuss the activities of female in healthcare centres and their impacts and the opinions of the Islamic scholars. This research work adopts analytical method. The sources include journals, published works, works of other researchers etc where consulted. It is significant to all by creating awareness among the Muslims Ummah.

With Trump as a president of the US from January 2017 and his decisive actions, which have undermined many agreements reached by previous American administrations (like withdrawal from the TTP, the Paris climate agreement, the Iran nuclear deal, the UNESCO, etc.), the international system and regional subsystems are under serious reconfiguration and readjustments. This accentuates the necessity to systemize Trump’s actions and initiatives in the realm of foreign policy and foreign trade, to interpret these actions’ logic, and to evaluate the changes that Trump’s policies have brought about. It is of high importance to analyze Trump’s strategy in the Indo-Pacific which is the priority region in his foreign policy agenda and the region where two major threats to the US and its allies are coming from - the rise of China as a country that pursues unfair trade and economic policies and reveals assertiveness in securing its core interests, and the threat from the North Korea. The aim of the article is to analyze China’s place in Trump’s Indo-Pacific strategy. By studying American conceptual documents, Trump’s and other American high-level officials’ speeches, the article characterizes Trump’s free and open Indo-Pacific strategy, reveals its commonalities and peculiarities vis-à-vis Obama’s rebalancing to the Asia-Pacific strategy. The article also addresses the issue of Trump’s policies in the region on the economic front, because this is where Trump administration has introduces dramatic changes. Trump’s Indo-Pacific strategy is examined in the article in the context of its impact on the US-China relations. The relations between the two countries - without exaggeration, one of the most consequential for the world - may seriously deteriorate due to not only the evolving US-China trade war, but also contradictions between them over various issues in the IndoPacific region. The article analyzes the aggravation of tensions between the US and China in 2017-2018 over South and East China Seas, Taiwan issue, and North Korea issue.

<p><strong><em>Research purpose</em></strong><em> – </em><em>t</em><em>o analyze V. Zelensky’s inaugural address to identify technologies of hidden influence on mass consciousness.</em></p><p><strong><em>Research methodology.</em></strong><em> In the article, we applied methods of linguistic analysis of the text, synthesis and also descriptive and structural-semiotic ones.</em></p><p><strong><em>Results. </em></strong><em>Inaugural addresses are an integral part of political activities of state leaders. Such texts aim to the image building of a new manager and stand out by methods of a potential influence on mass consciousness. In the research, the essence and specificities of an inaugural address as a separate genre of political speech are described. It has been discovered that the technologies of manipulation involved in the inaugural address of the President of Ukraine V. Zelensky are based on the actualization of archetypes, the use of automatisms, mechanisms of social control, the appeal to the values and emotions of the audience. We have proved the complex nature of the mechanisms of the latent influence. Among those mechanisms, image building of the head of state has been a key one. There is a characteristic of revealed techniques: use of with contrast, «transferring a positive image», «anchoring technique», truisms, «just like the rest of us», etc.</em></p><p><strong><em>Novelty. </em></strong><em>The presented classifications of manipulative technologies are analyzed and the complex analysis of the techniques of the latent influence used in V. Zelensky’s inaugural address is filed. These latter are specific psychological techniques embodied in the text through the linguistic means.</em></p><p><strong><em>Practical implications.</em></strong><em> The results of our research illustrate an indicative application scheme for manipulative technologies, that can be adopted as a basis of new political speeches. The article indicates the potential of linguistic expressive means combined successfully with psychological and other methods of influence and can become an example of a rational approach to political communication for understanding the meaning of a particular text.</em></p><p><strong><em>Key words:</em></strong><em> political communication, inaugural address, manipulation, classification, technology.</em></p>

The call for this special issue was prompted by the International Conference on Women Empowerment deliberations. The conference, held on 10th December 2022 at International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM), was inaugurated by Dr. Maulana Akbar Shah @ U Tun Aung, Head of Research in the department of Fundamental and Inter-Disciplinary Studies, AbdulHamid AbuSulayman Kulliyyah of Islamic Revealed Knowledge and Human Sciences (AHAS KIRKHS), who delivered a welcoming speech, followed by opening remarks by Prof. Shukran Bin Abd Rahman, Dean of AHAS KIRKHS. The event also featured speeches by distinguished guests, including the Honourable Rector of IIUM, Professor Emeritus Tan Sri Dato’ Dzulkifli bin Abdul Razak and Mr. Thomas Albrecht, Representative of UNHCR, Malaysia, Prof. Abdul Aziz Berghout, the Dean of the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilisation (ISTAC), IIUM, and Prof. Dawood Al-Hidabi, Director of International Institute for Muslim Unity (IIMU), IIUM. The conference aimed to explore the social conditions of women refugees living in Malaysia with a focus on their social status, living conditions, domestic violence, the impact of criminal activities in their environment, and lack of access to education for their children. It also aimed to promote academic excellence, cultivate future leaders in various disciplines within the realm of Islamic revealed knowledge and human sciences, and encourage high-quality research, scholarship, and academic work in specific areas. The conference brought together experts and professionals from different fields to share their perspectives on the social status of refugee women. It was attended by over 200 participants and its success was attributed to the efforts of the organizers and the dedication of the speakers and participants. Participants presented innovative ideas, findings, and insights that contributed to advancing knowledge in their fields. The call for this special issue, released in the first quota of the year 2023, triggered a number of conversations with a broad number of people about the topic and ultimately resulted in many submissions. Submissions covered a diverse range of topics and came from contributors mainly from AbdulHamid AbuSulayman Kulliyyah of Islamic Revealed Knowledge and Human Sciences. The contributions that make up this special issue are as follows. First, Family empowerment and role transformation: Observations on the importance of religion. This paper is an examination of the concept of family empowerment and role transformation from an Islamic perspective, emphasising the need for integrated value-driven frameworks to address issues of family roles and empowerment. The authors, Abdelaziz Berghout and Ouahiba Saoud, believe that studies and research on family empowerment have increased in recent years, enshrining the discourse, and providing insights and solutions to the questions associated with family empowerment. They argue among other things that there are numerous efforts in the Islamic world to strengthen family empowerment. The article explains the main elements that comprise the Islamic perspective of family empowerment and the need for role transformation. The articles contends that Islam emphasises the importance of understanding the goals and roles of family as a social entity and agent entrusted with the mission of Istikhalf (vicegerency) and I‘mar (civilisation) on earth. Second, Crucial requirements for children’s empowerment: In this paper Kabuye Uthman Sulaiman sheds light on the important and mostly neglected role that parents play in raising their children, namely empowerment through character development, impartment of knowledge and skills. The key objective of this article is to enhance the understanding of the concept of empowerment of children from the Islamic perspective and the importance of character and values education in today’s society. The article is structured around six core sections describing the role of parents in children’s (1) virtues and character formation and development, (2) physical development, (3) emotional development, (4) mental development, (5) intellectual development, and lastly their role in preparing children for the realities of life and death. The focus of this paper is character formation and development. Character development and impartment of knowledge and skills are the three crucial and mandatory requirements for children’s empowerment. The paper outlines the ideas underlying character refinement or character education focusing on its meaning, aims, importance, and the role of parents, teachers, and community as character educators. It outlines some of the moral qualities of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) as the universal model of all virtues and goodness. This is qualitative research employing descriptive methods with literature review analysis. The primary sources of this paper comprise selected verses from the Qur’an and their exegesis (tafsir) and Hadith, both of which constitute the major source of guidance for Muslims. Its secondary sources consist of books, journals, and other materials. The main contention in this paper is that: first, knowledge, skills, and values or personality traits need to be combined for a thriving life; second, moral values are of paramount significance to peaceful coexistence and harmony in society. They are critical for sustainable living. Without them, there is no cohesion and solidarity among people. Hence, there is no civilization; third, learning is of little value and with no soul unless core ethical values are added to it. Hence, one of the aims of education is to graduate ethical individuals; fourth, the development of character in children is not just the responsibility of parents and schools, it is also the responsibility of those who come into contact with them; last but not least, character education should be included as a core component of schools’ curriculum. Third, A Critical Analysis of Bent-Rib Metaphor Ḥadīth: Embracing Women's Uniqueness and Empowerment. The authors, Nurul Jannah Zainan Nazri, Nurul Mukminah and Mohd Arif assert that the Bent-Rib Metaphor ḥadīth can be interpreted as a symbol of diversity, complexity, and complementarity between genders, rather than justifying women's subordination. By promoting a more nuanced understanding of the ḥadīth, this study advocates for a broader role for women in religious, social, economic, and political spheres. Fourth, A critical need for breastmilk collection centres for high-risk premature babies: In this paper Zainol Abidin and Wan Mazwati write that premature babies are very vulnerable and exposed to various life-threatening diseases. According to the report of World Health Organization, they quote, many premature babies are saved from morbidity and mortality when they are fed with breastmilk starting from within the first hour after their birth. They believe that: firstly, the rate of premature birth in Malaysia has increased exponentially since 2018. Therefore, hospitals should have enough supplies of breastmilk to save the lives of the precious premature babies. Secondly, only one hospital in Malaysia provides supplies of breastmilk on demand. Hence, the study argues for the establishment of breastmilk collection centre. It examines the concept of maqāṣid al-sharīʿah to justify the proposal for the establishment of breastmilk collection centres in hospitals throughout Malaysia to save the lives, intellects, and progenies of the at-risk premature babies. Fifth, Empowering Mothers Against a Malaysian Societal Convention: An Islamic Perspective: In this paper Nur Jannah Hassan believes thar: firstly, having greater women participations in the workforce potentially enhances the country’s prospects for growth; secondly, various agencies work towards increasing women’s participations in the labour force; thirdly, women’s contribution to the family’s and the nation’s income is significant. However, it is observed that the race to get women to ‘roll-up their sleeves’ economically is not without worrying downside trends, even at the current rate of only 55.5% of Malaysian women in the labour force. The paper deliberates on how this affects individuals’ and families’ well-beings, thus putting constrains on the family, society and the Nation at large. The paper draws guidance from the Qur’an and Prophetic traditions to propose a more realistic and well-balanced approach to empowerment of mothers. According to Nur Jannah, the demand to get women’s economic participation towards National growth is real. However, this should not endanger and threaten personal, familial, and societal holistic well beings. She adds, the role of motherhood, especially early motherhood must be included in the equation. Thus, the necessity to empower women. Sixth, Women Empowerment from Quranic perspective. The authors, Radwan Jamal, Rahmawati, and Ziyad Alhaq highlight present-day scenario of problems faced by women in education, social status, in job market, domestic violence, sexual assault etc. and presented a balanced Qur’anic approach to empower women. Seventh, Empowering Thinking and Moral Formation in Muslim Women Through the Philosophical Inquiry (PI) Approach: The authors of this paper, namely Norillah Abdullah and Mohamed Abdelmagid believe that much of what has been said about the social problems involving Muslim women in Malaysia is due to the lack of thinking skills and religious understanding. For this reason, this study is an attempt to highlight the PI method which integrates the Socratic questioning approach to help address the issue and lead to moral formation. This, according to them, would allow women to explore their thoughts and generate rational ideas and choices to achieve understanding and sound judgments (hikmah) and finally empower them in executing their roles and tasks. Eighth, The Role of Faith (Iman) in Women Empowerment: While the role of women in any development is undeniably very essential, the author of this paper Abdul Latif believes that there are women who are being side-lined; their role is being marginalized and consequently, they are being denied their rights. The purpose of his paper is to elaborate on the role of Iman in women empowerment. Abdul Latif describes a good believer as the one who upholds all the three integrated conditions that make the person strong and tranquil, namely profession by the tongue, conviction by heart and practice by limbs. He contends that true belief in Allah is the solution to many of the problems faced by women today. Ninth, The Role of Women in Achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Islam. Rownok Jahan and co-authors analyzed the role of women in achieving sustainable development goals according to Islam. The Islamic approach emphasizes a balanced realization of human rights, consumer welfare, social justice, ecological balance, and economic progress. Achieving these aims is not possible without the active involvement of women. Tenth, The Moral-sexual Empowerment of Women and Children in Hadith Literature: In this paper, Bachar Bakour describes sex as a human innate disposition and a basic need for the survival of the human race, and marriage as the primary appropriate avenue for satisfying sexual desire and living a moral and peaceful life. This article aims to briefly delineate the salient features of women and child sexual empowerment within the specific epistemic and cultural soil of Islamic tradition. Eleventh, A Close Study on Domestic Violence Against Women: Islamic Perspectives and Remedies: The authors of this paper, Maulana Akbar Shah @ U Tun Aung and Phoo Pwint Thu Aung, define women empowerment as: firstly, the process of giving women the power to take control of their lives, rights, and decision-making; secondly, the creation of a society where women are treated equally, with respect, and have access to the same opportunities as men. This, in their view, involves promoting women’s education, encouraging their participation in politics and breaking down gender stereotypes. Twelfth, Women’s Empowerment and Participation in Islamic Financial Planning Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: Evidence from Maqasid al-Shariah. Its authors Mohammad Habibullah, Rusni Hassan, and Nor Razinah Mohd Zain assert that it is imperative to consider the role played by women in the financial sector and their contribution to economic progress. Using an experiment, this study examined the relationship between confidence, gender, and race in relation to dealing with a financial planner among various groups and races with color and creed. The study demonstrates how women plan financially for retirement based on psychological concepts and sociodemographic variables, highlighting the importance of financial management and planning for women. Thirteenth, Muslim Women in Politics: Does it Align With Shari‘ah Parameters? In this paper Ahmad Akram Mahmad Robbi, Saidatolakma Mohd Yunus and Mohamad Faiq Mohamad Sharin examine the views of Muslim scholars regarding women's political participation. They opine that political participation is essential for women empowerment. Fourteenth, Empowerment and Faith: Unraveling the HUI Women’s Mosques in China: In this paper Mai Jianjun describes the Hui Muslims as the largest Muslim minority group in China and their mosques as a very unique phenomenon within the broader Muslim world. They (mosques) stand as a testament of the remarkable resilience of the Hui Muslims in preserving their Islamic faith and Muslim identity in a predominantly non-Muslim society heavily influenced by Confucian culture. Mai Jianjun argues that the previous studies on Hui women’s mosques left two crucial questions unanswered, i.e., why did Hui women’s mosque emerge exclusively in the eastern and central regions of China and not in northwestern region where the concentration of Hui Muslims’ population is higher? Why was this phenomenon limited to the Hui Muslim community and not observed among other Muslim ethnic groups in China? This study employs historical, analytical and contexture analysis approaches to accomplish three research objectives. Firstly, it aims to re-examine the historical background of the Hui Muslims and the emergence of Hui women's mosques during the Ming and Qing dynasties within this particular ethnic group. Secondly, the study seeks to address the aforementioned questions and reidentify the possible causes for the emergence of the Hui women’s mosques in specific regions in China. Thirdly, the study intends to provide an Islamic perspective to illuminate the unique phenomenon of Hui women's mosques in China. Fifteenth, Qadaya al-Mar’ah wa Anwa`uha fi daw’ al-Sunnah al-Nabawiyyah. Its author, Saad Eldin, sheds lights on various topics related to women's issues and their types, such as women's rights, sermons, the hadith concerning the deficiency of intellect and religion, and other issues related to women's rights in general. It also addresses the issue of the mahram (forbidden relationships) for women. Sixteenth, Dawr al-Mar’ah fi al-Marwiyyat al-Hadithiyyah: Mafahimuha wa Masaqatuha. Ahmed Elmogtaba in this article deals with the efforts of women in the narration of Hadiths, with a focus on the six major Hadith collections and the topics related to their narrations. It was found that the narrations of female scholars contributed to various areas of jurisprudence in general, and family laws in particular. The above observations and discussions are intended to prompt critical reflection on the current state of women and children and prompt researchers to consider areas where future research is needed. Editorial Team Associate Professor Dr. Kabuye Uthman Sulaiman, HOD, FIDS, AHAS KIRKHS, IIUM Associate Professor Dr. Maulana Akbar Shah @ U Tun Aung December 5, 2023

Hate speech is one of the basic concepts of linguistics and political rhetoric. In political speech, language expressions of hate speech are often decisive for the acceptance or rejection of the ideology and main theses of a politician’s. Since politics is mainly implemented through language: speeches, debates, addresses, etc., the linguistic manifestations of hate speech have a great deal of content and influence in them. The purpose of this study is to identify the main linguistic means of hate speech in American and Armenian political speech.

For more than five decades, Nigeria has witnessed series of efforts toward development which have been largely unsuccessful. With the aid of secondary data from various sources, this paper discusses the issue of Nigeria’s development aspiration in relationship to its security problems. The paper contends that the absence of good governance and insecurity have engendered elements of unaccountability, political division, disunity, violence, deprivation of infrastructural facilities, unemployment, etc. which constituted obstacles to the country’s development aspirations. Good socio-political and economic systems are identified as the key objectives to Nigeria’s development in the 21st century. In this dispensation, Nigeria has failed to fashion out its own development brands, while a successful development can only be achieved through a home-grown strategy and not necessarily through imported ideas or theories. The elements of good governance that guarantee freedom of speech, transparency and accountability, political stability and effectiveness, rule of law, etc. have not been given much recognition. The paper concludes that the persistent institutional uncertainty, weak rule of law, political deceit, infrastructural decay, unemployment, monumental corrupt practices and insecurity need to be addressed for Nigeria to make progress, and that adequate effective measures are required from the political stakeholders to safeguard Nigeria’s future and achieve development. Recommendations for better security system and development attainment are proffered.

Public addresses constitute potent platforms through which public figures review their policies and articulate their plans. They provide insights to the priorities of the government, elicit public sympathy and support for the government. Contrarily, there has been a seeming dissonance between the national addresses of President Muhammadu Buhari and the reality of the Nigerian citizenry. To this effect, this research purposed to conduct a critical discourse analysis of President Buhari’s national addresses against the backdrop of development in Nigeria between 2015 and 2021. The research explicated the interplay between the concepts of language and ideology in text, for the enactment of human development. The general population of this research comprised all the 27 televised speeches delivered by President Muhammadu Buhari in Nigeria from 2015-2021. The targeted population of 20 national addresses were adopted using a purposive sampling technique. The addresses are the Inaugural Day address of 2015, all New Year’s Day addresses, Democracy Day addresses and all Independence Day addresses. Coding sheet was used to gather data directly from the original full text discourses of the President, as presented to the citizenry. The research findings show that the President’s discourses framed national development issues as direct and key responsibilities of the government which require strategic, sincere and effective interventionist policies. They also revealed nine recurrent themes in the President’s discourses to depict the President’s intense focus on national development in tandem with his pre-election campaign slogan of Security, Economy and Anti-corruption (SEA). The research uncovered linguistic frames comprising pragmatic speech acts of locution, illocution and perlocution in the President’s discourses, to highly and frequently reiterate his ideologies in ensuring national growth and development. The findings also revealed that the President’s discourses framed and propagated ideologies, dissimilar to his military antecedents, for the advancement of his national development interventionist policies. The research concluded that the interplay among President Muhammadu Buhari’s ideology and human development policies in the text of his national addresses between 2015 and 2021, consciously construed his administration’s interventionist policies for the enactment of socio political development against the excruciating challenges in the Nigerian nation. Thus, this research recommended that political leaders should ensure that subsisting problems and those envisaged as the foundation of social order in their societies; the value systems appropriate for social justice, wealth creation and distribution, social efficiency with moral sensitivity and concern for the common good, as deduced from the knowledge of shared values with their citizenry, are pragmatically tackled not only in the discourses, but as well experientially. This research also recommended that politicians and their speech writers should effectively and positively adopt the use of discourse framing to promote societal progressive growth.

This paper offers an overview of a "specifically American genre" – the American jeremiad, whose origins lie in the Puritan political sermon and which, with certain historical and cultural modifications, exists to this day. This overview, like most studies of this rhetorical form, is based on the work of Sacvan Bercovitch, who established it as a genre and offered the most exhaustive interpretation of its structure and meaning to date. The American jeremiad aims to homogenize the American community, and to steer it towards a common national goal, as reflected in its three-part structure: an evocation of the ideal/the ideal state of the community, a denunciation of its current state, and an affirmation of the goal and a vision of progress. As, according to Bercovitch, the American jeremiad despite historical and social changes retains the cultural hegemony of the symbol of America, later studies have tested this thesis by looking at political speeches, public addresses, American films, etc., through the concepts of the contemporary secular jeremiad, historical, Afro-American, film jeremiads, etc., and almost without exception conclude that this symbol, in one form or another, is alive and well.

This paper offers an overview of a "specifically American genre" – the American jeremiad, whose origins lie in the Puritan political sermon and which, with certain historical and cultural modifications, exists to this day. This overview, like most studies of this rhetorical form, is based on the work of Sacvan Bercovitch, who established it as a genre and offered the most exhaustive interpretation of its structure and meaning to date. The American jeremiad aims to homogenize the American community, and to steer it towards a common national goal, as reflected in its three-part structure: an evocation of the ideal/the ideal state of the community, a denunciation of its current state, and an affirmation of the goal and a vision of progress. As, according to Bercovitch, the American jeremiad despite historical and social changes retains the cultural hegemony of the symbol of America, later studies have tested this thesis by looking at political speeches, public addresses, American films, etc., through the concepts of the contemporary secular jeremiad, historical, Afro-American, film jeremiads, etc., and almost without exception conclude that this symbol, in one form or another, is alive and well.

The spam, the spam…like a meteor shower it comes, unceasing like the tides, unrelenting in its desire to save me, to lift me from my slumber, misfit that I am, sitting in the darkness waiting to be delivered from my faltering biology, my feeble credit rating, my meagre education. It comes every day, unbidden, from the Outside, from the Interior, from some networked techno-Badland where the righteous fear to tread. I don’t know who it comes from, they have never met me, they will never meet me. Their addresses are botched, their names are fake, Orientalized, Africanized, garbled beyond decryption. Their websites are down, their phones are off the hook, they route their missals through hapless foreign email servers whose gatekeepers have foolishly left their relays open. As soon as I set up filters to innoculate myself, their algorithms mutate and new strains develop, more wily and Protean than the last. And now, the hybrids are everywhere. Hungry free-ranging email-bots blithely pillaging the websites of the world for valuable identity-capital. Virtual Nigerian millionaires, who despite their legitimate business practices have become trapped in hostile economic ghettos. HGH addicts, greedily sucking back, mugwump-like, the life-juices of virtual human nervous-systems produced in suburban hormone-banks across the United States and Eastern Europe. A revitalized Third-Age, the golf courses of the world reeling under the onslaught of this new breed of energized, radiant octogenarians. A vast and growing horde of new entrants to the ranks of the stupendously well-endowed. How many others are there like me, out there, weltering under the unceasing weight of this crazed cyborgian storm, this cornucopia of inventiveness and perversion? We number in our millions, we unwitting receivers of the raw and bleeding edge of quackery; we are an Us, and they are a Them. We span the globe, worlds virtual and real, from the towering heights of corporate monoliths to the crumbling edges of the Hotmail slums. It doesn’t matter who we are! We are all equal here, we are all equal under Spam. Spam is the Great Leveller. Together, we are end-points, we are destinations, we are enormous potential-capital, we are a great numbers-game, we are fantastic odds. Here we all sit, crammed together in identical folders on $49 CD-ROMs. We toil together at the coal-face of the Trash bin, fingertips worn bare, Delete buttons sticky with the blood of the unwanted. And you know what? We outnumber them millions to one! These blond beasts of prey, these feeders on the bandwidth of the oppressed, these wanton exploiters of Microsoft’s Achilles heels, these teenage manipulators of the inviolable principles of global finance. Their margins so low, their reach so vast, their frequency irrelevant; they hardly even need to exist to do their job, their numbers are so small. They could so easily just be a glitch in the system, a forgotten semicolon here, a missing bracket there, and suddenly WHAM, zinging across the datasphere; Increase Your Bust Size! Prevent Employment Stagnation! All Natural Pheromones, Attract Sex! But isn’t it about time I gave in? Surely I could do with a larger penis. 23-67% larger in 6 months. An extra ¾” of girth in 10 months. Shoot 16 feet! Impress your friends! Surely now is a good time to start imbibing daily doses of Human Growth Hormone, in some weirdly cannibalistic ritual of geno-pharmacology. Surely now is the time to deal with my incipient baldness. Surely now is the time to develop a taste for teen barnyard frolics. I want to meet them, these machine-writers , these Home Based Workers. I want to meet a spammer, I want to check their palms. I want to look into their eyes and guage the soul of this particular brand of Internet Entrepreneur. I want to meet them for their blatant idiocy. I want to meet them because their business model is perfect. I want to meet them because they want to rip me off and they’ve never even seen my face. I want to meet them because they seem to know my name. I want to meet them to see if anything they say is true: “I was approached many times before but each time I passed on it. I am so glad I finally joined just to see what one could expect in return for the minimal effort and money required. To my astonishment, I received total $610,470.00 in 21 weeks, with money still coming in.” “We have been on the spray for just 3 weeks now, and besides the tremendous energy we both feel, my husband’s allergies and spells of depression have lifted. I am healing extremely fast after an accident and have lost 7 lbs. without trying!” “Got to tell ya I really was impressed with the results after a month - I didn’t have any problems to speak of but was interested in improving my control and size. I went from a 6.5/7.0” length to a full 8.0” - the big deal was not the size increase but the improved circulation I received - the head increased a full inch in diameter and along with this more enjoyment with every stroke as it is hyper sensitive when erect due to the increased surface area. The program was worth every penny - feel sorry for those that don’t know about this information.” But who are these people? It’s getting very personal. They call me by name, they tell me stories about their lives, inspiring stories of amazing success, of against-all-odds, of business miracles, of youth regained, balding abated, penises sprouting anew like fresh corn from good soil. What kind of subjectivity can we assign to these chimeras, these fictions of a hopeful science? They materialize only on-screen, they inhabit a realm yet-to-come. Their hawking cries hail me from beyond the abyss of faith; they have already leapt, already broken through. Doppelgängers of the net.art avant-garde, these over-people, these reachers-forth, their lives played out on a lightning stage between the soaring peaks and the Trash bin. Are they authors? Are they artists? Are they…real? Pah! What was I thinking?! Reality is a tool of the bureaucrats, of the biologically homeostatic, of the devious puppetmasters of offline media. No reality for them, these dare-devils of the multi-level marketing scheme, re-programmers of genetic destiny, they who write the future of the Human in bold red 18-point font. And no reality for us either, the potential consumers, demographically profound, fundamentally troubled; aging, lonely, single, furiously masturbating, high cholestorol, high blood pressure, overweight, in debt, badly mortgaged, un-insured, uneducated, exercise hating, impotent, suspicious, broke, balding, poorly endowed, small breasted and dog, dog tired. So perhaps we are all a little fictional, all a little speculative. But so what! A full inch in diameter! $620,000 in 6 months! Who would not sacrifice a little verifiability for such riches? This magnificent spray that decelerates Time and accelerates Body and Mind. This mystical information that increases Control and Size. How could my current state not be found wanting? How can I ignore the call? And with such a mainline into the future, what need have I of the machinations of the mainstream dot-economy? What difference does it make to me whether the nano-agents busily connecting synapses in the Amazon.com brain-in-a-tank can predict my favourite books and music? What difference do any of these massively-funded personalisation programs make, when daily I receive exhortations to feed fetishes I never even dreamed I had? I am interpellated anew, I have received messages from the Enlightened, the joyful consumers of the Word; once cynical, once suspicious, now laughing. Take me, I’m yours, de-subject me, re-subject me, I’m bubbling over, I’m full to the brim, I’m ready to suck the juice out of life and stay on to get the marrow. I’m right around the corner from just handing over my credit card details to the first one who asks nicely: “Fill out all requested information. You need to enter your credit card number for age verification - this protects under 18's from accessing explicit hardcore pornography. We have only listed the largest, most publicly operated porn sites that we KNOW can be trusted with this information. YOU WILL NOT BE CHARGED FOR THE FREE PASSWORD. If you don't believe me, just read their terms and conditions.” Citation reference for this article Substitute your date of access for Dn Month Year etc... MLA Style Cooke, Grayson. "A Spam Scam Slam" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture< http://www.media-culture.org.au/0308/08-spamscam.php>. APA Style Cooke, G. (2003, Aug 26). A Spam Scam Slam. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture, 6,< http://www.media-culture.org.au/0308/08-spamscam.php>

Introduction Nun habe ich Euch genug geschrieben, diesen Brief wenn sei [sic] lesen würden, dann würde ich den Genickschuß bekommen.Now I have written you enough, this letter if they would read it, I would get the neck shot. (M., all translations from German sources and quotations by the author) When the German soldier Otto M. wrote these lines from Russia to his family on 3 September 1943 during the Second World War, he knew that his war letter would not be subject to the National Socialist censorship apparatus. The letter contains, inter alia, detailed information about the course of the war on the front, troop locations, and warnings about the Nazi regime. M., as he wrote in the letter, smuggled it past the censorship via a “comrade”. As a German soldier, M. was a member of the Volksgemeinschaft—a National Socialist concept that drew a “racist and anti-Semitic borderline” (Wildt 48)—and was thus not socially excluded due to his status. Nevertheless, in the sentence quoted above, M. anticipates possible future consequences of his deviant actions, which would be carried out by “them”—potentially leading to his violent death. This article investigates how social and societal exclusion is brought forth by everyday media practices such as writing letters. After an introduction to the thesis under discussion, I will briefly outline the linguistic research on National Socialism that underlies the approach presented. In the second section, the key concepts of agency and dispositif applied in this work are discussed. This is followed by two sections in which infrastructural and interactional practices of exclusion are analysed. The article closes with some concluding remarks. During the Second World War, Wehrmacht soldiers and their relatives could not write and receive letters that were not potentially subject to controls. Therefore, the blunt openness with which M. anticipated the brutal sanctions of behavioural deviations in the correspondence quoted above was an exception in the everyday practice of war letter communication. This article will thus pursue the following thesis: private communication in war letters was subject to specific discourse conditions under National Socialism, and this brought forth excluding agency, which has two intertwined readings. Firstly, “excluding” is to be understood as an attribute of “agency” in the sense of an acting entity that either is included and potentially excludes or is excluded due to its ascribed agency. For example, German soldiers who actively participated in patriotic service were included in the Volksgemeinschaft. By contrast, Jews or Communists, to name but a few groups that, from the perspective of racist Nazi ideology, did not contribute to the community, were excluded from it. Such excluding agencies are based on specific practices of dispositional arrangement, which I refer to as infrastructural exclusion of agency. Secondly, excluding agency describes a linguistic practice that developed under National Socialism and has an equally stabilising effect on it. Excluding agency means that agents, and hence protagonists, are excluded by means of linguistic mitigation and omission. This second reading emphasises practices of linguistic construction of agency in interaction, which is described as interactional exclusion of agency. In either sense, exclusion is inextricably tied to the notion of agency, which is illustrated in this article by using data from field post letters of the Second World War. Social exclusion, along with its most extreme manifestations under fascism, is both legitimised and carried out predominantly through discursive practices. This includes for the public domain, on the one hand, executive language use such as in laws, decrees, orders, court hearings, and verdicts, and on the other hand, texts such as ideological writings, speeches, radio addresses, folk literature, etc. Linguistic research on National Socialism and its mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion has long focussed on the power of a regulated public use of language that seemed to be shaped by a few protagonists, most notably Hitler and Goebbels (Schlosser; Scholl). More recent works, however, are increasingly devoted to the differentiation of heterogeneous communities of practice, which were primarily established through discursive practices and are manifested accordingly in texts of that time (Horan, Practice). Contrary to a justifiably criticised “exculpation of the speakers” (Sauer 975) by linguistic research, which focusses on language but not on situated, interactional language use, such a perspective is increasingly interested in “discourse in National Socialism, with a particular emphasis on language use in context as a shared, communicative phenomenon” (Horan, Letter 45). To understand the phenomenon of social and societal exclusion, which was constitutive for National Socialism, it is also necessary to analyse those discursive practices of inclusion and exclusion through which the speakers co-constitute everyday life. I will do this by relating the discourse conditions, based on Foucault’s concept of dispositif (Confessions 194), to the agency of the correspondents of war letters, i.e. field post letters. On Agency and Dispositif Agency and dispositif are key concepts for the analysis of social exclusion, because they can be applied to analyse the situated practices of exclusion both in terms of the different capacities for action of various agents, i.e. acting entities, and the inevitably asymmetrical arrangement within which actions are performed. Let me first, very briefly, outline some linguistic conceptions of agency. While Ahearn states that “agency refers to the socioculturally mediated capacity to act” (28) and thus conceives agency as a potential, Duranti understands agency “as the property of those entities (i) that have some degree of control over their own behavior, (ii) whose actions in the world affect other entities’ (and sometimes their own), and (iii) whose actions are the object of evaluation (e.g. in terms of their responsibility for a given outcome)” (453). Deppermann considers agency to be a means of social and situational positioning: “‘agency’ is to capture properties of the subject as agent, that is, its role with respect to the events in which it is involved” (429–30). This is done by linguistic attribution. Following Duranti, this analysis is based on the understanding that agency is established by the ascription of action to an entity which is thereby made or considered accountable for the action. This allows a practice-theoretical reference to Garfinkel’s concept of accountability and identifies agentive practices as “visibly-rational-and-reportable-for-all-practical purposes” (7). The writing of letters in wartime is one such reflexive discursive practice through which agents constitute social reality by means of ascribing agency. The concept of semantic roles (Fillmore; von Polenz), offers another, distinctly linguistic access to agency. By semantic roles, agency in situated interaction is established syntactically and semantically. Put simply, a distinction is made between an Agent, as someone who performs an action, and a Patient, as someone to whom an action occurs (von Polenz 170; semantic roles such as Agent, Patient, Experiencer, etc. are capitalised by convention). Using linguistic data from war letters, this concept is discussed in more detail below. In the following, “field post” is considered as dispositif, by which Foucault means a thoroughly heterogeneous ensemble consisting of discourses, institutions, architectural forms, regulatory decisions, laws, administrative measures, scientific statements, philosophical, moral and philanthropic propositions – in short, the said as much as the unsaid. Such are the elements of the apparatus [dispositif]. The apparatus [dispositif] itself is the system of relations that can be established between these elements. (Foucault, Confessions 194) The English translation of the French “dispositif” as “apparatus” encourages an understanding of dispositif as a rather rigid structure. In contrast, the field post service of the Second World War will be used here to show how such dispositifs enable practices of exclusion or restrict access to practices of inclusion, while these characteristics themselves are in turn established by practices or, as Foucault calls them, procedures (Foucault, Discourse). An important and potentially enlightening notion related to dispositif is that of agencement, which in turn is borrowed from Deleuze and Guattari and was further developed in particular in actor-network theory (Çalışkan and Callon; Gherardi). What Çalışkan and Callon state about markets serves as a general description of agencement, which can be defined as an “arrangement of heterogeneous constituents that deploys the following: rules and conventions; technical devices; metrological systems; logistical infrastructures; texts, discourses and narratives …; technical and scientific knowledge (including social scientific methods), as well as the competencies and skills embodied in living beings” (3). This resembles Foucault’s concept of dispositif (Foucault, Confessions; see above), which “denotes a heterogeneous ensemble of discursive and nondiscursive elements with neither an originary subject not [sic] a determinant causality” (Coté 384). Considered morphosemantically, agencement expresses an important interrelation: in that it is derived from both the French agencer (to construct; to arrange) and agence (agency; cf. Hardie and MacKenzie 58) and is concretised and nominalised by the suffix -ment, agencement elegantly integrates structure and action according to Giddens’s ‘duality of structure’. While this tying aspect certainly contributes to a better understanding of dispositional arrangements and should therefore be considered, agencement, as applied in actor-network theory, emphasises above all “the fact that agencies and arrangements are not separate” (Çalışkan and Callon) and is, moreover, often employed to ascribe agency to material objects, things, media, etc. This approach has proven to be very fruitful for analyses of socio-technical arrangements in actor-network theory and practice theory (Çalışkan and Callon; Gherardi). However, within the presented discourse-oriented study on letter writing and field post in National Socialism, a clear analytical differentiation between agency and arrangement, precisely in order to point out their interrelation, is essential to analyse practices of exclusion. This is why I prefer dispositif to agencement as the analytical concept here. Infrastructural Exclusion of Agency in Field Post Letters In the Second World War, writing letters between the “homeland” and the “frontline” was a fundamental everyday media practice with an estimated total of 30 to 40 billion letters in Germany (Kilian 97). War letters were known as field post (Feldpost), which was processed by the field post service. The dispositif “field post” was, in opposition to the traditional postal service, subject to specific conditions regarding charges, transport, and above all censorship. No transportation costs arose for field post letters up to a weight of 250 grams. Letters could only be sent by or to soldiers with a field post number that encoded the addresses of the field post offices. Only soldiers who were deployed outside the Reich’s borders received a field post number (Kilian 114). Thus, the soldiers were socially included as interactants due to their military status. The entire organisation of the field post was geared towards enabling members of the Volksgemeinschaft to communicatively shape, maintain, and continue their social relationships during the war (Bergerson et al.). Applying Foucault, the dispositif “field post” establishes selection and exclusion mechanisms in which “procedures of exclusion” (Discourse 52) become manifest, two of which are to be related to the field post: “exclusion from discourse” and “scarcity of speaking subjects” (Spitzmüller and Warnke 73). Firstly, “procedures of exclusion ensure that only certain statements can be made in discourse” (Spitzmüller and Warnke 73). This exclusion procedure ought to be implemented by controlling and, ultimately, censoring field post letters. Reviews were carried out by censorship offices (Feldpostprüfstellen), which were military units independent of the field post offices responsible for delivery. Censorship initially focussed on military information. However, “in the course of the war, censorship shifted from a control measure aimed at defence towards a political-ideological review” (Kilian 101). Critical remarks could be legally prosecuted and punished with prison, penitentiary, or death (Kilian 99). Hence, it is assumed that self-censorship played a role not only for public media, such as newspapers, but also for writing private letters (Dodd). As the introductory quotation from Otto M. shows, writers who spread undesirable information in their letters anticipated the harshest consequences. In this respect, randomised censorship—although only a very small proportion of the high volume of mail was actually opened by censors (Kilian)—established a permanent disposition of control that resulted in a potentially discourse-excluding social stratification of private communication. Secondly, the dispositif “field post” was inherently exclusive and excluding, as those who did not belong to the Volksgemeinschaft could not use the service and thus could not acquire agentive capacity. The “scarcity of speaking subjects” (Spitzmüller and Warnke 73) was achieved by restricting participation in the field post system to members of the Volksgemeinschaft. Since agency is based on the most basic prerequisite, namely the ability to act linguistically at all, the mere possibility of exercising agency was infrastructurally restricted by the field post system. Excluding people from “agency-through-language” means excluding them from an “agency of an existential sort” (Duranti 455), which is described here, regarding the field post system, as infrastructural exclusion of agency. Interactional Exclusion of Agency in Field Post Letters In this section, I will elaborate how agency is brought forth interactionally through linguistic means on the basis of data from a field post corpus that was compiled in the project “Linguistic Social History 1933 to 1945” (Kämper). The aim of the project is an actor-based description of discursive practices and patterns at the time of National Socialism, which takes into account the fact that society in the years 1933 to 1945 consisted of heterogeneous communities of practice (Horan, Practice). Letter communication is considered to be an interaction that is characterised by mediated indexicality, accountability, reflexivity, sequentiality, and reciprocity (Dang-Anh) and is performed as situated social practice (Barton and Hall). The corpus of field letters examined here provides access to the everyday communication of members of the ‘integrated society’, i.e. those who were neither high-ranking members of the Nazi apparatus nor exposed to the repressions of the fascist dictatorship. The corpus consists of about 3,500 letters and about 2.5 million tokens. The data were obtained by digitising letter editions using OCR scans and in cooperation with the field post archive of the Museum for Communication Berlin (cf. sources below). We combine qualitative and quantitative methods, the latter providing heuristic indicators for in-depth hermeneutical analysis (Felder; Teubert). We apply corpus linguistic methods such as keyword, collocation and concordance analysis to the digitised full texts in order to analyse the data intersubjectively by means of corpus-based hermeneutic discourse analysis (Dang-Anh and Scholl). However, the selected excerpts of the corpus do not comprise larger data sets or complete sequences, but isolated fragments. Nevertheless, they illustrate the linguistic (non-)constitution of agency and thus distinctively exemplify exclusionary practices in field post letter writing. From a linguistic point of view, the exclusion of actors from action is achieved syntactically and semantically by deagentivisation (Bernárdez; von Polenz 186), as will be shown below. The following lines were written by Albert N. to his sister Johanna S. and are dated 25 June 1941, shortly after the beginning of the German Wehrmacht’s military campaign in Russia (Russlandfeldzug) a few days earlier. Vor den russ. Gefangenen bekommt man einen Ekel, d.h. viele Gefangene werden nicht gemacht.One gets disgusted by the Russian prisoners, i.e. many prisoners are not made. (N.) In the first part of the utterance, “mitigation of agency” (Duranti 465) is carried out using the impersonal pronoun “man” (“one”) which does not specify its referent. Instead, by means of deagentivisation, the scope of the utterance is generalised to an indefinite in‑group of speakers, whereby the use of the impersonal pronoun implies that the proposition is valid or generally accepted. Moreover, the use of “one” generalises the emotional expression “disgust”, thus suggesting that the aversive emotion is a self-evident affect experienced by everyone who can be subsumed under “one”. In particular, this includes the author, who is implicitly displayed as primarily perceiving the emotion in question. This reveals a fundamental practice of inclusion and exclusion, the separating distinction between “us”/“we” and “them”/“the others” (Wodak). In terms of semantic roles, the inclusive and generalised formal Experiencer “one” is opposed to the Causative “Russian prisoner” in an exclusionary manner, implicitly indicating the prisoners as the cause of disgust. The subsequent utterance is introduced by “i.e.”, which marks the causal link between the two phrases. The wording “many prisoners are not made” strongly suggests that it refers to homicides, i.e. executions carried out at the beginning of the military campaign in Russia by German troops (Reddemann 222). The depiction of a quasi-universal disgust in the first part establishes a “negative characterization of the out-group” (Wodak 33) which, in the expressed causal relation with the second phrase, seems to morally legitimise or at least somehow justify the implied killings. The passive form entirely omits an acting entity. Here, deagentivisation obscures the agency of the perpetrators. However, this is not the only line between acting and non-acting entities the author draws. The omission of an agent, even the impersonal “one”, in the second part, and the fact that there is no talk of self-experienceable emotions, but war crimes are hinted at in a passive sentence, suggest the exclusion of oneself as a joint agent of the indicated actions. As further data from the corpus indicate, war crimes are usually not ascribed to the writer or his own unit as the agents but are usually attributed to “others” or not at all. Was Du von Juden schreibst, ist uns schon länger bekannt. Sie werden im Osten angesiedelt.What you write about Jews is already known to us for some time. They are being settled in the East. (G.) In this excerpt from a letter, which Ernst G. wrote to his wife on 22 February 1942, knowledge about the situation of the Jews in the war zone is discussed. The passage appears quite isolated with its cotext in the letter revolving around quite different, trivial, everyday topics. Apparently, G. refers in his utterance to an earlier letter from his wife, which has not been preserved and is therefore not part of the corpus. “Jews” are those about whom the two agents, the soldier and his wife, write, whereas “us” refers to the soldiers at the front. In the second part, agency is again obscured by deagentivisation. While “they” anaphorically refers to “Jews” as Patients, the agents of their alleged resettlement remain unnamed in this “agent-less passive construction” (Duranti 466). Jews are depicted here as objects being handled—without any agency of their own. The persecution of the Jews and the executions carried out on the Russian front (Reddemann 222), including those of Jews, are euphemistically played down here as “settlements”. “Trivialization” and “denial” are two common discursive practices of exclusion (Wodak 134) and emerge here, as interactional exclusion of agency, in one of their most severe manifestations. Conclusion Social and societal exclusion, as has been shown, are predominantly legitimised as well as constituted, maintained, and perpetuated by discursive practices. Field post letters can be analysed both in terms of the infrastructure—which is itself constituted by infrastructuring practices and is thus not rigid but dynamic—that underlies excluding letter-writing practices in times of war, and the extent to which linguistic excluding practices are performed in the letters. It has been shown that agency, which is established by the ascription of action to an entity, is a central concept for the analysis of practices of exclusion. While I propose the division into infrastructural and interactional exclusion of agency, it must be pointed out that this can only be an analytical distinction and both bundles of practices, that of infrastructuring and that of interacting, are intertwined and are to be thought of in relation to each other. Bringing together the two concepts of agency and dispositif, despite the fact that they are of quite different origins, allows an analysis of exclusionary practices, which I hope does justice to the relation of interaction and infrastructure. By definition, exclusion occurs against the background of an asymmetrical arrangement within which exclusionary practices are carried out. Thus, dispositif is understood as an arranged but flexible condition, wherein agency, as a discursively ascribed or infrastructurally arranged property, unfolds. Social and societal exclusion, which were constitutive for National Socialism, were accomplished not only in public media but also in field post letters. Writing letters was a fundamental everyday media practice and the field post was a central social medium during the National Socialist era. However, exclusion occurred on different infrastructural and interactional levels. As shown, it was possible to be excluded by agency, which means exclusion by societal status and role. People could linguistically perform an excluding agency by constituting a division between “us” and “them”. Also, specific discourses were excluded by the potential control and censorship of communication by the authorities, and those who did not suppress agency, for example by self-censoring, feared prosecution. Moreover, the purely linguistic practices of exclusion not only constituted or legitimised the occasionally fatal demarcations drawn under National Socialism, but also concealed and trivialised them. As discussed, it was the perpetrators whose agency was excluded in war letters, which led to a mitigation of their actions. In addition, social actors were depreciated and ostracised through deagentivisation, mitigation and omission of agency. In extreme cases of social exclusion, linguistic deagentivisation even prepared or resulted in the revocation of the right to exist of entire social groups. The German soldier Otto M. feared fatal punishment because he did not communicatively act according to the social stratification of the then regime towards a Volksgemeinschaft in a field post letter. This demonstrates how thin the line is between inclusion and exclusion in a fascist dictatorship. I hope to have shown that the notion of excluding agency can provide an approach to identifying and analytically understanding such inclusion and exclusion practices in everyday interactions in media as dispositional arrangements. However, more research needs to be done on the vast yet unresearched sources of everyday communication in the National Socialist era, in particular by applying digital means to discourse analysis (Dang-Anh and Scholl). Sources G., Ernst. “Field post letter: Ernst to his wife Irene. 22 Feb. 1942.” Sei tausendmal gegrüßt: Briefwechsel Irene und Ernst Guicking 1937–1945. Ed. Jürgen Kleindienst. Berlin: JKL Publikationen, 2001. Reihe Zeitgut Spezial 1. M., Otto. 3 Sep. 1943. 3.2002.7163. Museum for Communication, Berlin. Otto M. to his family. 16 Sep. 2020 <https://briefsammlung.de/feldpost-zweiter-weltkrieg/brief.html?action=detail&what=letter&id=1175>. N., Albert. “Field post letter: Albert N. to his sister Johanna S. 25 June 1941.” Zwischen Front und Heimat: Der Briefwechsel des münsterischen Ehepaares Agnes und Albert Neuhaus 1940–1944. Ed. Karl Reddemann. Münster: Regensberg, 1996. 222–23. References Ahearn, Laura M. “Agency and Language.” Handbook of Pragmatics. Eds. Jan-Ola Östman and Jef Verschueren. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2010. 28–48. Barton, David, and Nigel Hall. Letter Writing as a Social Practice. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2000. Bergerson, Andrew Stuart, Laura Fahnenbruck, and Christine Hartig. “Working on the Relationship.” Private Life and Privacy in Nazi Germany. Eds. Elizabeth Harvey et al. Vol. 65. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2019. 256–79. Bernárdez, Enrique. “A Partial Synergetic Model of Deagentivisation.” Journal of Quantitative Linguistics 4.1–3 (1997): 53–66. Çalışkan, Koray, and Michel Callon. “Economization, Part 2: A Research Programme for the Study of Markets.” Economy and Society 39.1 (2010): 1–32. Coté, Mark. “What Is a Media Dispositif? Compositions with Bifo.” Journal of Communication Inquiry 35.4 (2011): 378–86. Dang-Anh, Mark, and Stefan Scholl. “Digital Discourse Analysis of Language Use under National Socialism: Methodological Reflections and Applications.” Writing the Digital History of Nazi Germany. Eds. Frederike Buda and Julia Timpe. Boston, Berlin: De Gruyter, forthcoming. Dang-Anh, Mark. Protest twittern: Eine medienlinguistische Untersuchung von Straßenprotesten. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2019. Locating Media/Situierte Medien 22. 22 Sep. 2020 <https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839448366>. Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987. Deppermann, Arnulf. “Unpacking Parental Violence in Narratives: Agency, Guilt, and Pedagogy in Narratives about Traumatic Interpersonal Experiences.” Applied Linguistics 41.3 (2020): 428–51. Dodd, W.J. National Socialism and German Discourse. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2018. Duranti, Alessandro. “Agency in Language.” A Companion to Linguistic Anthropology. Ed. Alessandro Duranti. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2004. 451–73. Felder, Ekkehard. “Lexik und Grammatik der Agonalität in der linguistischen Diskursanalyse.” Diskurs – Interdisziplinär. Eds. Heidrun Kämper and Ingo H. Warnke. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015. 87–121. Fillmore, Charles J. “The Case for Case.” Universals in Linguistic Theory. Eds. Emmon Bach and Robert T. Harms. London: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968. 1–88. Foucault, Michel. “The Confessions of Flesh.” Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977. Ed. Michel Foucault. New York: Vintage Books, 1980. 194–228. ———. “The Order of Discourse.” Untying the Text: A Post-Structuralist Reader. Ed. Robert J.C. Young. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981. 51–78. Garfinkel, Harold, ed. Studies in Ethnomethodology. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1967. Gherardi, Silvia. “To Start Practice Theorizing Anew: The Contribution of the Concepts of Agencement and Formativeness.” Organization 23.5 (2016): 680–98. Giddens, Anthony. Central Problems in Social Theory. London: Macmillan Education UK, 1979. Hardie, Iain, and Donald MacKenzie. “Assembling an Economic Actor: The Agencement of a Hedge Fund.” The Sociological Review 55.1 (2007): 57–80. Horan, Geraldine. “‘Er zog sich die ‚neue Sprache‘ des ‚Dritten Reiches‘ über wie ein Kleidungsstück‘: Communities of Practice and Performativity in National Socialist Discourse.” Linguistik online 30.1 (2007): 57–80. 22 Sep. 2020 <https://doi.org/10.13092/lo.30.549>. ———. “‘Lieber Guter Onkel Hitler’: A Linguistic Analysis of the Letter as a National Socialist Text-Type and a Re-Evaluation of the ‘Sprache im/des Nationalsozialismus’ Debate.” New Literary and Linguistic Perspectives on the German Language, National Socialism, and the Shoah. Eds. Peter Davies and Andrea Hammel. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2014. 45–58. Kämper, Heidrun. “Sprachliche Sozialgeschichte 1933 bis 1945 – Ein Projektkonzept.” Sprachliche Sozialgeschichte des Nationalsozialismus. Eds. Heidrun Kämper and Britt-Marie Schuster. Bremen: Hempen Verlag, 2018. 9–25. Kilian, Katrin Anja. “Das Medium Feldpost als Gegenstand interdisziplinärer Forschung: Archivlage, Forschungsstand und Aufbereitung der Quelle aus dem Zweiten Weltkrieg.” Dissertation. Technische Universität Berlin, 2001. 22 Sep. 2020 <https://doi.org/10.14279/depositonce-322>. Reddemann, Karl, ed. Zwischen Front und Heimat: Der Briefwechsel des münsterischen Ehepaares Agnes und Albert Neuhaus 1940–1944. Münster: Regensberg, 1996. Sauer, Christoph. “1933–1945.” Handbuch Sprache und Politik: In 3 Bänden. Eds. Thomas Niehr, Jörg Kilian, and Martin Wengeler. Bremen: Hempen Verlag, 2017. 975–98. Schlosser, Horst Dieter. Sprache unterm Hakenkreuz: Eine andere Geschichte des Nationalsozialismus. Köln: Böhlau, 2013. Scholl, Stefan. “Für eine Sprach- und Kommunikationsgeschichte des Nationalsozialismus: Ein Programmatischer Forschungsüberblick.” Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 59 (2019): 409–44. Spitzmüller, Jürgen, and Ingo H. Warnke. Diskurslinguistik: Eine Einführung in Theorien und Methoden der transtextuellen Sprachanalyse. Berlin, New York: De Gruyter, 2011. Teubert, Wolfgang. “Corpus Linguistics: An Alternative.” Semen 27 (2009): 1–25. Von Polenz, Peter. Deutsche Satzsemantik: Grundbegriffe des Zwischen-den-Zeilen-Lesens. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1985. Wildt, Michael. “Volksgemeinschaft: A Modern Perspective on National Socialist Society.” Visions of Community in Nazi Germany. Eds. Martina Steber and Bernhard Gotto. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2014. 43–59. Wodak, Ruth. “Discourse and Politics: The Rhetoric of Exclusion.” The Haider Phenomenon in Austria. Eds. Ruth Wodak and Anton Pelinka. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2002. 33–60.

Photo by Spencer Davis on Unsplash ABSTRACT Current conceptions of solidarity impose a morality and sacrifice that did not prevail in the case of COVID-19 vaccine distribution. Notably, the vaccine distribution disparity revealed that when push came to shove, in the case of global distribution, self-interested persons reached inward rather than reaching out, prioritized their needs, and acted to realize their self-interest. Self-interest and loyalty to one’s own group are natural moral tendencies. For solidarity to be normatively relevant in difficult and emergency circumstances, solidarity scholars ought to leverage the knowledge of the human natural tendency to prioritize one’s own group. This paper recommends a nonexclusive approach to solidarity that reflects an understanding of rational self-interest but highlights commonalities among all people. A recommended task for future studies is to articulate what the account of solidarity informed by loyalty to the group would look like. INTRODUCTION The distribution of COVID-19 vaccines raises concerns about the normative relevance of the current conceptions of solidarity. Current conceptions of solidarity require individuals to make sacrifices they will reject in difficult and extreme situations. To make it more relevant in difficult situations, there is a need to rethink solidarity in ways that align with natural human dispositions. The natural human disposition or tendency is to have loyalty to those to whom one relates, to those in one’s own group (by race, ethnicity, neighborhood, socioeconomic status, etc.), or to those in one’s location or country. While some may contend that such natural dispositions should be overcome through moral enhancement,[1] knowledge about self-interest ought to be leveraged to reconceptualize solidarity. Notably, for solidarity to be more relevant in emergencies characterized by shortages, solidarity ought to take natural human behaviors seriously. This paper argues that rather than seeing solidarity as a collective agreement to help others out of a common interest or purpose, solidarity literature must capitalize on human nature’s tendency toward loyalty to the group. One way to do this is by expanding the group to the global community and redefining solidarity to include helping the human race when emergencies or disasters are global. The first section describes the current conception of solidarity, altruism, and rational self-interest. The second section discusses how the moral imperative to cooperate by reaching out to others did not lead to equitable COVID-19 vaccine distribution. The third section argues that solidarity should be rethought to align with natural human dispositions toward loyalty to groups and rational self-interest. The final section briefly suggests the global community be the group for nonexclusive solidarity. I. Solidarity: Understanding Its Normative Imperatives Solidarity literature is vast and complex, attracting contributions from authors from countries of all income levels.[2] Notably, the literature addresses how solidarity develops from interpersonal, then group to institutional, and how it is motivated and maintained at different levels.[3] Solidarity is unity among people with a shared interest or goal.[4] The term was popularized during an anti-communist labor movement in Poland.[5] While a show of solidarity traditionally meant solidarity within a group, for example, workers agreeing with and supporting union objectives and leaders,[6] it has come to include sympathy/empathy and action by those outside the group who stand with those in need. In bioethics, the Nuffield Council defines solidarity as “shared practices reflecting a collective commitment to carry financial, social, emotional, and or other ‘costs’ to assist others.”[7] As conceptualized currently, solidarity prescribes a morality of cooperation and may incorporate altruism. Solidaristic actions like aiding others or acting to enhance the quality of others’ lives are often motivated by emotive connections/relations. For this reason, Barbara Prainsack and Alena Buyx define solidarity as “a practice by which people accept some form of financial, practical, or emotional cost to support others to whom they consider themselves connected in some relevant respect.”[8] Although this description has been critiqued, the critics[9] do not deny that sympathy and understanding are the bases for “standing up beside” or relating to others. Political solidarity is a “response to injustice, oppression, or social vulnerability”[10] and it entails a commitment to the betterment of the group. “Rational self-interest” describes when parties behave in ways that make both parties better off.[11] They may be partly motivated by their own economic outcome. It may be that when some regions or groups act solidaristically, they are also motivated by shared economic goals.[12] Rational self-interest is not always opposed to the commitment to collectively work for the group’s good. Rational self-interest can intersect with collective action when parties behave in ways that make both parties better off. For example, one study found that individuals are willing to bear the burden of higher taxes in favor of good education policies that significantly increase their opportunities to have a good life.[13] Rationally self-interested persons may be partly motivated by their own economic outcome. It may be that when some regions or groups act solidaristically, they are also motivated by shared economic goals.[14] Specifically, individuals, organizations, and governments are driven to positively identify with or aid others because they feel connected to them, share the same interest, or would benefit from the same action. Cooperating with others on this basis guarantees their interests. Individuals will be less likely to help those with whom they do not feel connected. Respect, loyalty, and trust among solidary partners are equally grounded in this belief. “[S]olidarity involves commitment, and work as well as the recognition that even if we do not have the same feeling, or the same lives, or the same bodies, we do live on common grounds.”[15] Although individuals are more likely to exhibit solidarity with those to whom they feel connected, their lives and interests are still different. Some African philosophers describe solidarity as entailing reciprocal relations and collective responsibility.[16] The bases for positively acting to benefit others are communal relations and individual flourishing, similar to solidarity as it is described in the global literature. Common motifs and maxims typify this belief: the West African motifs like the Siamese Crocodile and the African maxims like “the right arm washes the left hand and the left arm washes the right arm”, and the Shona phrases “Kukura Kurerwa” and “Chirere chichazo kurerawo” ­– both meaning the group’s development is vital for the individual’s development.[17] As a reciprocal relation, solidaristic actions are instrumentalized for one’s self-affirmation or self-emergence. This view underlies practices in Africa like letsema, which is an agricultural practice where individuals assist each other in harvesting their farm produce. It is also the animating force underlying a favorable disposition towards joint ventures like the ajo (an African contributing saving scheme whereby savings are shared among contributors by rotation).[18] Furthermore, as entailing collective ownership, solidaristic actions become ways of affirming each other’s destiny because it is in one’s best interest to cooperate with them this way or help others realize their life goals given the interconnectedness of lives. One advantage of forming solidary union that reaches out to others is that they possess qualities and skills that one lacks. This application of solidarity is more localized than solidarity among countries or global institutions. Furthermore, solidarity also entails altruism, an idea that is particularly common in the philosophical literature of low-income countries. On this account, solidarity implies a voluntary decision to behave in ways that make individuals better off for their own sake. Here, it matters only that some have thought about solidarity this way. Moreover, this belief informs pro-social behaviors – altruism is acting solely for the good of others.[19] Altruistic behaviors are motivated by empathy, which is an acknowledgement of individuals who require aid, and sensitivity, which is a thoughtful response to individuals in need of help. Solidarity can seem to be a call to help strangers rather than a genuine feeling of uniting with people for a common cause. Altruism and solidarity appear similar although they are distinct in that solidarity is not merely helping others. It is helping others out of a feeling of unity. In some cultures in Africa, an indifference to the needs of others or a failure to act solely in ways that benefit others or society are often considered an exhibition of ill will.[20] Precisely, the phrases “Kukura Kurerwa” and “Chirere chichazo kurerawo” among the Shona people in Southern Africa morally compel one to play an active role in the growth and improvement of others. “The core of improving others’ well-being,” as explained, “is a matter of meeting their needs, not merely basic ones but also those relevant to higher levels of flourishing, e.g. being creative, athletic, theoretical.”[21] On this basis, self-withdrawal, self-isolation, and unilateralism, would be failures to be solidaristic. II. COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution Disparity And The Imperative To Reach Out The strength and benefits of cooperation are well documented. COVID-19 vaccine distribution did not reflect solidarity despite the use of rhetoric suggesting it. COVID-19 vaccine distribution disparity exemplifies how solidarity requires individuals to make sacrifices that they will refuse under challenging circumstances. Solidaristic rhetoric was not uncommon during the COVID-19 pandemic. This was expressed through maxims like “Stronger together”, “No one is safe until everyone is safe”, “We are all in this together”, and “Flatten the curve”, as well as cemented through actions like physical distancing, mask-wearing, travel restrictions, and limits on social gatherings. Before the pandemic, solidarity rhetoric informed alliances like the Black Health Alliance that was created to enable Black people in Canada to access health resources. This rhetoric and the global recognition of the vital importance of exhibiting solidarity had little if any impact on preventing vaccine distribution disparity. Notably, the World Health Organization set a goal of global vaccination coverage of 70 percent. The 70 percent figure was recognized as key for ending the pandemic, preventing the emergence of new variants, and facilitating global economic recovery.[22] The solidaristic rhetoric that no country was safe until all countries were safe did not result in enough vaccine distribution. Nor did the rational self-interest of common economic goals. The economic impact of the pandemic has been huge for most nations, costing the global community more than $2 trillion.[23] Vaccine distribution disparity across countries and regions undermined international efforts to end the COVID-19 pandemic. The disparity revealed that self-interested persons, organizations, and countries reached inward, prioritized their needs, and acted to realize their own self-interest. Empirical studies confirmed the disparity at the macro and micro levels. Some of the findings are worth highlighting. The number of vaccine doses injected in high-income countries was 69 times higher than that in low-income countries.[24] In fact, the UK had doubly vaccinated about 75 percent of its adult population by February 2022, while more than 80 percent of African nations had not received a single dose of the vaccine.[25] Precisely, the national uptake of vaccines in Uganda (which is a low-income economy without COVID-19 production capacity) was “6 percent by September 2021 and 63 percent by June 2022. The vaccination coverage in the country was 2 percent by September 2021 and 42 percent by June 2022. Yet both the national COVID-19 vaccination uptake and coverage were far below WHO targets for these dates.[26] Although a report which assessed the impact of COVID-19 vaccines in the first of year of vaccination showed that about 19 million COVID-19-related deaths were averted, they were mainly in the high-income countries rather than in countries that failed to reach the vaccine coverage threshold for preventing the emergence of new variants.[27] There were more than 250,000 COVID-related deaths in African countries.[28] Though this figure is significantly lower than reported COVID-19 deaths in North America (1.6 million), the report and other studies confirm that many of the deaths in Africa could have been prevented if the vaccines had been widely distributed in the region. [29] Still at the macro level, whereas 78 percent of individuals in high-income countries were vaccinated by February 15, 2022, only 11 percent of persons in low-income countries were vaccinated by the same date.[30] By February 15, 2022, high-income countries like Lithuania and Gibraltar (a UK territory) had more than 300 percent of doses required for vaccinating their population, while low-income countries in Africa had only managed to secure about 10 percent of the necessary vaccine doses for their people. Burundi had vaccinated less than 1 percent of its population by December 2022. The disparity between countries of similar income levels was also evident. For example, among 75 low- and middle-income countries, only about 14 countries reported vaccinating at least 50 percent of their population. And, while high-income countries like Qatar had secured more than 105 percent of doses for their people, other high-income countries like Liechtenstein had only managed about 67 percent vaccination coverage by December 2022.[31] Within countries, vaccination coverage gaps were also evident between urban and rural areas, with the former having higher vaccination coverage than the latter.[32] There were many tangible solidaristic efforts to cooperate or reach out through schemes like the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX), African Vaccine Acquisition Trust (AVAT) and Technology Access Pool (C-TAP). Notably, the schemes were testaments of the global recognition to lift others as we rise and not leave anyone behind. Both high-income and low- and middle-income countries supported the programs as an expression of solidarity. Indeed, many low- and middle-income countries secured about 800 million doses through these schemes by the end of December 2021. Nonetheless, this was still far below these countries’ two-billion-dose target by the same date. The wealthier countries’ rhetoric of support did not lead to delivery of enough vaccines. The support by high-income countries seems disingenuous. While high-income countries at first allocated vaccines carefully and faced shortages, they had plentiful supplies before many countries had enough for their most vulnerable people. Thus, these schemes did very little to ensure the well-being of people in low- and middle-income countries that relied on them. These schemes had many shortcomings. For example, COVAX relied on donations and philanthropy to meet its delivery targets. In addition, despite their support for these schemes, many high-income countries hardly relied on them for their COVID-19 vaccine procurement. Instead, these high-income countries made their own private arrangements. In fact, high-income countries relied on multilateral agreements and direct purchases to secure about 91 percent of their vaccines.[33] These solidaristic underfunded schemes had to compete to procure vaccines with the more highly resourced countries. Arguably, many factors were responsible for the uneven distribution of COVID-19 vaccines. For example, vaccine production sites facilitated vaccine nationalism whereby countries prioritized their needs and enabled host states like the UK to stockpile vaccines quickly. Regions without production hubs, like many places in Africa, experienced supply insecurity.[34] The J & J-Aspen Pharmacare deal under which a South African facility would produce the J&J COVID vaccine did not improve the local supply.[35] Companies sold vaccines at higher than the cost of production despite pledges by many companies to sell COVID-19 vaccines at production cost. AstraZeneca was the only company reported to have initially sold vaccines at cost until it replaced this with tiered pricing in late 2021.[36] Moderna estimated a $19 billion net profit from COVID-19 vaccine sales by the end of 2021. Pricing practices undermined solidaristic schemes designed to help low-income countries access the doses required for their populations.[37] The unwillingness of Western pharmaceutical companies like Johnson and Johnson, Pfizer-BioNTech, and Moderna to temporarily relinquish intellectual property rights or transfer technology that would have eased vaccine production in low-income countries that lacked production capabilities even when taxpayers’ money or public funding accelerated about 97 percent of vaccine discovery is another example of acting without solidarity. South Africa and India proposed the transfer of essential technological information about COVID-19 vaccines to them to increase local production.[38] The EU, UK, and Germany, which host many of these pharmaceutical companies, opposed the technology transfers.[39] Corporations protected their intellectual property and technology for profits. There were many other factors, like vaccine hoarding. Although the solidaristic rhetoric suggested a global community united to help distribute the vaccine, COVID-19 vaccine distribution demonstrates that individuals, institutions, regions, or states will prioritize their needs and interests. This leads to the question, “What sort of behaviors can reasonably be expected of individuals in difficult situations? In what ways can solidarity be re-imagined to accommodate such behaviors? Ought solidarity be re-imagined to accommodate such actions? III. COVID-19 Vaccine Disparity: Lessons For Solidarity Literature COVID-19 vaccine distribution disparity has been described as inequitable and immoral.[40] One justification for the negative depiction is that it is irresponsible of individual states or nations to prioritize their own needs over the global good, especially when realizing the global interest is necessary for ensuring individual good. Although such contributions to the ethical discourse on COVID-19 vaccine disparity are essential, they could also distract attention from vital conversations concerning how and why current solidarity conceptions can better reflect core human dispositions. To clarify, the contestation is not that solidaristic acts of reaching out to others are morally unrealistic or non-realizable. There are historical examples of solidarity, particularly to end a common affliction or marginalization. An example is the LGBT support of HIV/AIDS-infected persons based on their shared identities to confront and end the stigma, apathy, and homophobia that accompanied the early years of the crisis.[41] Equally, during the apartheid years in South Africa, Black students formed solidarity groups as a crucial racial response to racism and oppression by the predominantly White government.[42] Additionally, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) director, Tedros Ghebreyesus cited solidarity and its rhetoric as the reason for the resilience of societies that safely and efficiently implemented restrictive policies that limited COVID-19 transmission. To improve its relevance to emergencies, solidarity ought to be reconceptualized considering COVID-19 vaccine distribution. As demonstrated by the COVID-19 vaccine distribution disparity, individuals find it difficult to help others in emergencies and share resources given their internal pressing needs. Moreover, humans have a natural tendency to take care of those with whom they identify. That may be by country or region, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, type of employment, or other grouping. By extension, the morality that arises from the tendency towards “the tribe” is sometimes loyalty to one’s broader group. Evidence from human evolutionary history, political science, and psychology yields the claim that “tribal [morality] is a natural and nearly ineradicable feature of human cognition, and that no group—not even one’s own—is immune.”[43] Tribal morality influences mantras like America First, South Africans Above Others, or (arguably) Brexit. These conflict with solidarity. As another global example, climate change concerns are not a priority of carbon’s worst emitters like the US, China, and Russia. In fact, in 2017, the US pulled out of the Paris Agreement, a tangible effort to rectify the climate crisis.[44] Droughts experienced by indigenous people in Turkana, the melting ice experienced by the Inuit, the burning bush experienced by the aboriginal Australians, and the rise in ocean levels that remain a constant threat to the Guna are examples of the harm of the changing climate. In the case of climate action, it appears that governments prioritize their self-interests or the interests of their people, over cooperation with governments of places negatively impacted. In the instance of COVID-19 vaccine distribution disparity, loyalty to the group was evident as states and countries kept vaccines for their own residents. Solidarity has a focus on shared interests and purpose, but in its current conceptions it ignores human nature’s loyalty to groups. In emergencies that involve scarcity, solidarity needs to be redefined to address the impulse to keep vaccines for one’s own country’s population and the choice to sell vaccines to the highest bidder. For solidarity to be normatively relevant in difficult and emergency circumstances, solidarity scholars ought to leverage the knowledge of human natural tendency to prioritize one’s own group to rethink this concept. IV. Rethinking Solidarity For Challenging Circumstances In the globalized world, exhibiting solidarity with one another remains intrinsically valuable. It makes the world better off. But the challenge remains ensuring that individuals can exhibit solidarity in ways that align with their natural instincts. Rather than helping those seen as other, or behaving altruistically without solidarity, people, governments, and organizations should engage in solidarity to help others and themselves as part of the global community. A rational self-interest approach to solidarity is similar, while altruism is distinguishable. Solidarity can be expanded to apply when the human race as a whole is threatened and common interests prevail, sometimes called nonexclusive solidarity.[45] That is distinguished from altruism as solidarity involves seeing each other as having shared interests and goals – the success of others would lead to the success of all. For example, cleaner air or limiting the drivers of human-made climate change would benefit all. Warning the public, implementing social distancing and masking, and restricting travel are examples of global goals that required solidaristic actions to benefit the human race.[46] Arguably, this conception of solidarity could apply to a scarce resource, like the COVID-19 vaccine. Notably, the solidarity rhetoric that this gives rise to is that COVID-19 vaccine equitable distribution is a fight for the human race. Solidarity has been applied to scarcity and used to overcome deprivation due to scarcity. In the case AIDS/HIV, there were many arguments and then programs to reduce drug prices and to allocate and condoms to countries where the epidemic was more pronounced and continuing to infect people. Similarly, a solidarity-inspired effort led to treatments for resistant tuberculosis.[47] Summarily, I suggest that we cannot tackle global health problems without exhibiting solidarity with one another. Humans can exhibit solidarity in ways that align with their natural instincts. To do this, nonexclusive solidarity described in this section, is required. Although the nonexclusive solidarity recognizes difference, it avoids the “logic of competition that makes difference toxic.”[48] Without necessarily requiring every country's leaders to prioritize global citizens equally, the nonexclusive solidarity at least, prohibits forms of competition that undermine initiatives like COVAX from securing the required vaccines to reach the vaccine coverage target. CONCLUSION COVID-19 vaccine distribution disparity does not create a new problem. Instead, it reveals an existing concern. This is the disconnect between dominant human psychological makeup and the sort of solidarity expounded in current literature or solidaristic actions. Notably, it reveals a failure of current solidarity conceptions to reflect the natural human tendency to prioritize the interests of one’s own group. As such, the disparity requires rethinking or reconceptualization of solidarity in ways that align with the dominant human tendency. As conceptualized currently, solidarity enjoins a form of morality that many found very difficult to adhere to during the COVID-19 pandemic. Notably, they perceived solidarity as a call to help strangers. Humans are linked by something that is far more important than a relationship between strangers. The unbreakable bond among humans that this idea gives rise to would necessitate genuine concern for each other’s well-being since we are implicated in one another's lives. The exact ways a conception of solidarity that applies to the global community can inform guidelines and policies in emergencies and difficult situations when individuals are expected to be solidaristic is a recommended task for future studies. - [1] Ingmar Persson & Julian Savulescu 2019. The Duty to be Morally Enhanced. Topoi, 38, 7-14. [2] M. Inouye 2023. On Solidarity, Cambridge, MA, Boston Review. [3] Barbara Prainsack & Alena Buyx 2011. Solidarity. Reflections on an Emerging Concept in Bioethics. Summary. 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