Dilemma 10 – Recht en opleiding

Regelmatig zijn binnen en buiten de juridische discipline pleidooien gehouden om in de rechtenstudie meer plaats in te ruimen voor vakgebieden zoals de sociologie, de psychologie en de economie. Een breder opgeleid jurist zou beter bij de huidige complexe samenleving passen. Meer aandacht voor deze niet-juridische vakgebieden gaat echter ten koste van specifiek juridische vakken. Aldus komt de rechtenfaculteit voor het dilemma te staan:

meer aandacht in het onderwijs voor andere dan juridische disciplines en dus minder op de rechtspraktijk gericht onderwijs of weinig aandacht voor andere dan juridische disciplines en dus meer op de rechtspraktijk gericht onderwijs.

Recht te voet – Nawoord & Personalia

• door: Herco Uniken Venema

Wandelen door Juridisch Utrecht
We hebben gewandeld door Juridisch Utrecht. Het was doelgericht en tegelijkertijd ontspannen. De routes liepen van A naar B en we zijn op een prettige wijze bij de hand genomen om na te denken over een aantal belangrijke, voornamelijk juridische, thema’s. Onderweg kwamen we portretten tegen van markante Utrechtse historische figuren. Het waren wandelingen en geen dwalingen. Dat is voor mij als rechter een geruststellende gedachte.

De redactie stond voor ogen dat in dit boek een aantal schrijvers aspecten van ordening van de samenleving zouden behandelen in een voornamelijk juridische context door de eeuwen heen, tegen de achtergrond van historisch Utrecht. De schrijvers hebben daarbij vooral naar de Utrechtse geschiedenis gekeken maar de onderwerpen zijn net zo goed van toepassing op de rest van Nederland en over de grenzen heen. Het zijn soms beladen thema’s maar de benadering is lichtvoetig. Lichtvoetigheid komt de lezer goed van pas bij het afleggen van de in het boek beschreven wandelroutes. Die leiden langs plaatsen in de prachtige binnenstad van Utrecht, waar historische gebeurtenissen hebben plaatsgevonden. Dit zijn vaak gebeurtenissen met een juridische dimensie, maar daarmee niet alleen interessant voor juristen. Zo prikkelt een bezoek aan historische plaatsen, waar moord en doodslag of belangrijke politieke gebeurtenissen hebben plaatsgevonden, immers niet alleen de fantasie van juristen. Dat weten we allemaal als we als toerist een vreemde stad bezoeken.

Het is een lezenswaardig boek geworden, dat ik met plezier heb gelezen. Het boek heeft daarnaast iets van juridische reisgids, een soort Lawyer’s Planet Utrecht. Je gaat de stad met andere ogen zien. Dat de NSB in 1931 is opgericht in een zaaltje aan het Domplein 25 (pag. 119) wist ik niet. Het boek nodigt uit om er eens een kijkje te nemen. Datzelfde geldt voor De Lichte Gaard no. 8, waar in 1935, op de zolderverdieping boven het eerste Chinese restaurant van Utrecht, in een opwelling van woede de kok een kelner keelde (pag. 81). Voor juristen interessant is de geschiedenis van de Gertrudiskapel en de historische context waarin deze zich afspeelt (pag. 166). In deze kapel en het daarmee verbonden kleinschalige, gastvrije zalencentrum “De Driehoek“ vinden tegenwoordig veelvuldig symposia en andere bijeenkomsten van rechters plaats, niet alleen van de rechtbank Midden-Nederland maar ook landelijk. En wie wist dat aan de “achterkant” van het Centraal Station, tussen het Station en de Jaarbeurs, bij de Croeselaan een gedenksteen te zien is voor brigadier Arie Kranenburg, die daar op 22 september 1977 werd doodgeschoten door Knut Volkerts, lid van de Rote Armee Fraktion (pag. 34). Zijn proces, in de oude rechtbank aan de Hamburgerstraat, waarvoor de halve binnenstad werd afgezet, zullen veel mensen zich nog herinneren. Het zijn maar een paar voorbeelden. Read more

African Activist Archive Project

The African Activist Archive is preserving and making available online the records of activism in the United States to support the struggles of African peoples against colonialism, apartheid, and social injustice from the 1950s through the 1990s. The website includes:

– growing online archive of historical materials – pamphlets, newsletters, leaflets, buttons, posters, T-shirts, photographs, and audio and video recordings
– personal remembrances and interviews with activists
– an international directory of collections deposited in libraries and archives

The African Activist Archive Project is collaborating with activists across the U.S. who supported African liberation struggles to create this online archive of more than 5,000 items. The project also assists individuals and groups to deposit their collections in public repositories, including the African Activist Archive collections in the Michigan State University Libraries.

Read more: http://africanactivist.msu.edu

Van Linschoten’s Itinerario 1598, First Book, Chapter One: Discours of Voyages into y East & West Indies

• by: J.H. van Linschoten

Frontispiece: Gerard Mercator’s map of the Arctic, published in his atlas of 1595. This map explains why the Dutch, discovering Spitsbergen, believed they had run into Greenland.

Being young and living idly in my native country, sometimes applying myself to the reading of histories and strange adventures, wherein I took no small delight, I found my mind so much addicted to see and travel into strange countries, thereby to seek some adventure, that in the end to satisfy myself I determined and was fully resolved for a time to leave my native country and my friends (although it grieved me). Yet the hope I had to accomplish my desire together with the resolution taken in the end overcame my affection and put me in good comfort to take the matter upon me, trusting in God that he would further my intent. Which done, being resolved, I took leave of my parents who as then dwelt at Enkhuysen, and being ready to embark myself I went to a fleet of ships that as then laid before Texel, weighing the wind to sail for Spain and Portugal. I was determined to travel to Sevilla, where as then I had two brothers that had gone there several years before; so to help myself the better and by their means to know the manner and customs of those countries and also to learn the Spanish tongue.

And the 6th of December in the year of our Lord 1576 we put out of Texel with about 80 ships and set course for Spain. 9 December we passed between Dover and Calais […]. Upon Christmas Day we entered into the river of St. Lucas de Barameda [Sanlucar de Barrameda] where I stayed two or three days and then traveled to Sevilla. On the first day of January I entered the city where I found one of my brothers. And although I had a special desire presently to travel further, yet for want of the Spanish tongue, without which one can hardly pass the country, I was constrained to stay there. In the mean time it chanced that Don Henry, the King of Portugal died, which caused great consternation and debate in Portugal for reason that the said King by his will and testament made Philip King of Spain, the son of his sister, lawful heir to the throne of Portugal. The  Portuguese, always deadly enemies to the Spaniards, were wholly against it and elected to their King Don Antonio, Prior de Ocrato, brother’s son to the King that died.

The King of Spain upon receiving this news prepared himself to go into Portugal to receive the crown, sending the Duke of Alva before him to cease the strife and pacify the matter. In the end, partly by force and partly by money, he brought the country under his subjection. Thereupon many men went out of Sevilla and other places into Portugal, where they hoped to find some better means. All was quiet in Portugal and Don Antonio was driven out of the country. My brother fell sick to a disease called Tuardilha, which at that time reigned throughout the whole country of Spain, whereof many thousands died; and among the rest my brother was one [died]. Not long before the plague had been so great in Portugal that in the timespan of two years 80,000 people died in Lisboa; after which plague, the said disease ensued which wrought great destruction.

On 5 August, having some understanding in the Spanish tongue, I placed myself with a Dutch gentleman who was determined to travel into Portugal to see the country. We departed from Sevilla on 3 September and after eight days arrived at Badajos, where I found my other brother following the Court. At the same time died Anne of Austria, Queen of Spain, the King’s fourth wife; sister to Emperor Rodolphus and daughter to the Emperor Maximilian. This caused great sorrow through all Spain: her body was conveyed from Badajos to the cloister of Saint Lawrence in El Escorial, where with great solemnity it was buried. After having traveled by several towns we arrived at Lisboa on 20 September, where at the time we found the Duke of Alva being Governor for the King of Spain; the whole city making great preparation for the coronation of the King. While staying in Lisboa I fell sick through the change of air and corruption of the country. During my sickness I was seven times let blood, yet by God’s help I escaped. […] About the same time the plague, not long before newly begunne, began again to cease, for which cause the King till then had deferred his entrance into Lisboa.

On the first day of May, 1581 the King entered with great triumph and magnificence into the city of Lisboa, where above all others the Dutch had the best and greatest commendation for views, which was a bridge that stood upon the river side where the King must first pass as he went out of his galley to enter into the city, being beautified and adorned with many costly and excellent things most pleasant to behold, every street and place within the city being hanged with rich clothes of tapestry and arras. In the same year on 12 December died the Duke of Alva in Lisboa in the King’s palace. During his sickness over a period of fourteen days he received no sustenance but only women’s milk. […]

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Rock Art Research in South Africa

• by: Mary Lange

Therianthropes and trance dance from artwork painted by Kalahari artist, the late Vetkat Regopstaan Kruiper (with permission)

Ethno-archaeology: Oral narratives and rock art
The focus of my research is on the method of recording oral narratives and their link to, and possible use in, the interpretation of rock art, specifically rock engravings. Research on indigenous knowledge and artefacts falls within a contentious area of indigenous archaeology associated with colonialists’ geographic and intellectual imperialism. It is necessary for my contextual approach to include, as in the exploration of myths, the theoretical setting of ethno-archaeology within which my research takes place. In the discipline of archaeology the use of ethnography falls under what Renfrew and Bahn (1991: 339) call ‘What did they think?’ The use of ‘they’ points not only to ethical issues of ‘othering’, the negative artificial construction of two camps of cultures and the corresponding approaches of scholars and present day descendants of the artists, but also to the time gap between the artists of the past and the present (Lewis-Williams & Pearce, 2004).

The rock paintings situated in caves, shelters and on portable stones, mostly in the mountainous regions in South Africa, and rock engravings situated predominantly in the plateau areas, on boulders on hills or near rivers, date mostly from within the last few thousand years. However, small mobiliary painted stones from Apollo 11 Cave and an engraved ochre piece from Blombos Cave date from some 25 000 and up to 70 000 years ago respectively (Lewis-Williams & Pearce, 2004).  This considerable antiquity complicates any attempts at interpreting the rock art by way of oral narratives, even those recorded by the earliest colonialists. Furthermore, our views and therefore theories on art, oral narrative and methodology are constantly changing (Bahn, 1998).

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Tiny Bouts Of Contentment. Rare Film Footage Of Graham Greene In The Belgian Congo, March 1959

• by: Michael Meeuwis
• enclosure: http://rozenbergquarterly.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/GG_titles_08092013_25MB.mp4 22801408 video/mp4

Graham Greene in the Belgian Congo

My purpose in this contribution is to present and contextualize the only film footage ever recorded of the novelist Graham Greene (1904-1991) in the Belgian Congo in 1959. The footage was filmed with an 8mm camera, which did not record sound. It belongs to Mrs. Édith Lechat (née Dasnoy;1932-) and her husband, the leprosy specialist Doctor (later Professor) Michel Lechat (1927-2014).

From 1953 through 1960, Dr. Lechat was head of the leper hospital and colony of Iyonda, a village and mission station some 15 kms south of the city of Coquilhatville (now, Mbandaka) in central-western Congo. Greene stayed a number of weeks in Iyonda and other mission stations in the region in search of inspiration, a setting, and material for a new novel. The novel, A Burnt-Out Case, appeared in 1960, and was dedicated to Dr. Lechat. Greene occupied a room in the house of the missionary fathers in Iyonda, but spent long parts of his days with the doctor and his family. The film reached me through the hands of Édith Lechat, who had it transposed to a DVD-playable format, and via my friend Hendrik (a.k.a., “Henri” or “Rik”) Vanderslaghmolen (1921-), who was a missionary in the region at the time. As he was one of the only Belgian missionaries there with some knowledge of English, he often accompanied Graham Greene during his trips from one mission station to another. Rik Vanderslaghmolen and the Lechats are still close friends today.

Much of the information I offer below stems from conversations I had with both Rik Vanderslaghmolen and Édith Lechat in July and August 2013. Regrettably, Dr. Michel Lechat’s poor health condition did not allow me to probe his memory, but an interview he gave for the Brussels-based weekly The Bulletin on the occasion of Greene’s death in 1991 is available (Lechat 1991), as well as a closely similar talk he gave at the 2006 Graham Greene Festival in Berkhamsted, published in the London Review of Books in August 2007 (Lechat 2007). Édith Lechat has given me the kind permission to share the film with the readership of Rozenberg Quarterly and to add the necessary contextual information on both the historical situation and the contents of the film.

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