text:
Talk:Transvaal Colony

Article opening paragraph
Dodger67 - Nice edit :) Resolved the factual problems in one go :) Zarpboer (talk) 12:59, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

The focus of this page
I'm worried about the (lost) focus of this page, and in particular its first paragraph. Is this an article about the Transvaal "area" (whatever this means), the South African Republic, the Transvaal Colony, the Transvaal Province, or what?

The page says Transvaal Colony? It is a simple fact that The Transvaal colony existed between 1902 and 1910 - and this page surely reflects that? Zarpboer (talk) 12:27, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Okay, the description of the page: Transvaal Colony - Now states the facts about the Transvaal colony. There seems to be a lot of confusion about the facts... So, I think we need to add more citations and references, there are so very many books on this topic... I have added Eybers, so that we can start with the fact the name Transvaal is a Cape Afrikaner and British name, so that the confusion with ZAR (which was a country by itself) is cleared up :) Zarpboer (talk) 12:54, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Earlier in the life of this article, it was clear that this article was about the Transvaal Province, with this province's history (including the SAR) outlined in the "History". Seperate articles, like South African Republic and Gauteng were about the previous and later reorganizations of this area, but this article focused on one period (1910-1994). We have now lost this focus, and it is no longer clear what belongs in this article and what belongs in the other articles...

Nyh (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 16:15, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I suggest this article is properly rewritten to describe the Transvaal Province (1910-1994) with proper references to other articles about the Transvaal region both in terms of political entities and geographical area. Important is to make a lay-out of the different articles, their content and focus and the way in which they are linked. This can prevent further confusion as with the recent changes in the infobox. Michel Doortmont (talk) 20:35, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I came back to this article 4 years later, and it's unfortunately even more a mess then it was before :( The focus of this article is now claimed to be about the "Transvaal Colony", and there's a new and separate and much shorter article on "Transvaal Province". But this makes little sense to me: First of all, "Transvaal Province" deserves more attention than "Transvaal Colony", both because it existed for more years (84 years vs 8 years), and because it is the most recent entity called "Transvaal" so most people remember it. So this, better, article should be about the province, not the colony. Second, we need an article about the Transvaal history as a whole - the situation before the Boer trek, to the ZAR, the transvaal colony, province, and finally its split. This history belongs in "Transvaal Province" (for the colony, the last things are its future, not history ;-)). Nyh (talk) 11:58, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
 * To add insult to injury, much of the content currently in Transvaal Colony is NOT related to the colony. The geography section is about the province (and gives names relevant to that era), and so is the "popular culture" section. I'm being bold and copying these things to the province article, but I'm NOT cleaning up this article at the moment.

Old comments

 * Wait Troy, I'm confused... how is it independent and a province? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tarquin (talk • contribs) 11:31, 18 January 2003 (UTC)

 * TODO: I want to add a paragraph about the pre-1850 history for the Transvaal. The old "Transvaal Province" included this paragraph which needs to be fact-checked: "Originally, the Sotha and Venda peoples settled there in what is believed to be the eighth century. In the 1830s, Boers departed on the Great Trek to escape British rule in the Cape Colony and settled in the Transvaal area.". Also perhaps link and talk about Voortrekkers and the Zulus which they fought (see Boer article). Nyh 07:48, 12 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Uhm, there existed not Transvaal province prior to 1850... so your TODO is to write a Novel :) Zarpboer (talk) 12:34, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

 * Why is this page unreachable directly? I can only get here via a redirect from Transvaal Province. Otherwise I get a blank. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.209.98.35 (talk • contribs) 23:44, 5 February 2004 (UTC)
 * this must have been some sort of transient problem, I can now get to "transvaal" with no problems.Nyh 13:45, 6 February 2004 (UTC)

On the settlers' ethnicity
Hi. A simple phrase like "Dutch settlers, known as Boers ..." was replaced by someone by an amazingly verbose, convolute and impossible to understand string of nationalities:

In the 1830s and the 1840s, descendents of Dutch settlers / French Huguenot refugees / German Prostestants / & smaller numbers of Belgians / Scandinavians / Scots / including an admixture of Indian, Khoi-Khoi & Malay, known as Boers (farmers) or Voortrekkers (pioneers), exited the British Cape Colony, in what was to be called the Great Trek.

I don't think that this can stay. How about saying "decscendents of Dutch and other settlers, known as Boers..."? This long detailed list should be listed in Boers, and whoever wants to see it can go there. Alternatively, you can write an entire paragraph about the ethnic composition of the Boers. But it simply cannot be one big slash-separated adjective - that looks horrible.

Nyh 14:44, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

Links
Hi Nyh, The links you restored are going to the wrong places. In the Geograpy heading it talks about the Transvaal province not republic or anything else.

Natal links to a disambig page while KwaZulu-Natal Province goes to the province itself. If you use Natal Province or Natal Colony they are redirected to KwaZulu-Natal.

Orange Free State links to the Orange Free State Republic and not the province where Free State Province is the province itself.

Need more clarity in where links must go to. --Jcw69 09:31, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * But, according to what I understand, Orange Free State is also the name of the 1910-1994 province of South Africa. Free State Province is the name of the post-1994 province, and is irrelevant because Transvaal is a pre-1994 province. Or am I misunderstanding something (I have to admit I am not a south african, just a fan)?? Also, Natal has the beginning of a description of the 1910-1994 Natal province. True, the description is one paragraph, and it acts as a disambiguation page, but still it is the only page on Wikipedia which describes the correct entity, namely the 1910-1994 province of South Africa. KwaZulu-Natal is the wrong entity - it is a post-1994 province that never coexisted with Transvaal so a link to it doesn't belong in the Transvaal entry.
 * But if I'm wrong, please help me understand why.
 * Nyh 12:01, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * In many situations (such as cities with different names in Roman times), we redirect to from the ancient name to modern, so the city's history is a continuous narrative. This works because the location is the same, the population is continuous usually, etc. For states and provinces with fluctuating borders and definitions, it works better to have multiple articles, and for each article to describe relationships both to modern units and to contemporaneous ones - consider articles like Gaul and Lusitania for instance. Stan 13:16, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * I agree with both of you. Maybe we should have seperate pages. Eg Pre-Whites, Natal Colony, Natal and KwaZulu-Natal. But in which one do we place the early history before whites arrived in South Africa and named the provinces. As for Transvaal there is Pre-Whites, Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek, Transvaal, (now divided up into smaller pieces).
 * So which way to go? --Jcw69 10:44, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I still don't understand the question. Please read the current page (I wrote most of it), and there is no question on what it discusses: the Transvaal Province of South Africa, the one that existed in 1910-1994. Like any page about a country or province, it begins its history section by mentioning how the region become a province, but the first paragraph makes it clear the focus of the article is the province, and not the Boor state or anything that preceded it - or the current (post-1994) provinces. So, in the Geography section, we must mention entities that existed at the time. Some of them had their name changed in the middle (which is why I mentioned both), but some names are clearly anachronistic and shouldn't be used - "KwaZulu-Natal" is an entity that never existed together with the Transvaal province, so it should not be mentioned (except perhaps as some sort of clarification, perhaps something like "... Natal (today's KwaZulu-Natal)."). Similarly, as I understand (and I didn't hear that disputed).

Consider for example the article on the Maya civilization. It makes sense to mention they lived in areas which noadays are in Mexico. But it does not make sense to say something like "The Maya empire bordered on the United States on the north". Since the United States did not exist at the time, it's an anachronism and it doesn't make any sense. I claim that it's just as strange to say that Transvaal bordered on KwaZulu-Natal - these entities never co-existed.

Nyh 10:57, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * Early history of an area usually starts from either general history of a country (History of South Africa) or continent (History of Africa). If there's a general principle, it's to use contemporary political and geographical divisions as starting points for history, with articles on historical divisions as specialized items restricting themselves to the period of their existence. It's not universally followed, but seems clear enough to use for decisionmaking about content. Stan 16:12, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Transvaal (The Hague)
There is also a 'wijk' in The Hague called Transvaal —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.68.130.200 (talk • contribs) 14:32, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

 * This is interesting. I'm presuming that 'wijk' is the same as Afrikaans 'wyk' meaning something like 'district'. Booshank 20:13, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

 * I added a mention at the top of the article. - Regards, Ev 01:03, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism or misguided additions - removed
Anonymous user 81.153.180.50 has changed the infobox beyond recognition and fiddled with dates etc. This is either vandalism or a completely misguided change. I undid the change. Michel Doortmont (talk) 20:22, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

colony vs. province
Some clarification/agreement is needed as to what this article is about. Someone has added 1994 as the disestablishment again (e.g. the dissolution of Transvaal Province); the result is that this article now states two years as disestablishment (see categories). That is at best confusing and at worst doesn't make sense. Either we need to clarify that this article is about both the Colony and the Province, or we need to spin out an article Transvaal (Province). Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 18:01, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

 * It is (or should be) about both. The problem is that we have never said about the 1910-1994 province apart from "In 1910, the Boer republics joined with the Cape Colony to form the Union of South Africa. Half a century later, in 1961, the union ceased to be part of the Commonwealth of Nations and became the Republic of South Africa. The PWV (Pretoria-Witwatersrand-Vereeniging) area in the Transvaal became South Africa's economic powerhouse, a position it still holds today."  What is needed is something more about these 84 years. Only then is it worth discussing where such information should be put.--Rumping (talk) 10:39, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Proposal to split
In the hatnote this article is described as covering the 1902-1910 British Colony but most of the actual content of the article lies outside of that period. There is no other article covering the 1910 - 1994 province. If this article really should be restricted to the Colony only then its name should not be the single word "Transvaal", it should rather be "Transvaal Colony" or "Colony of Transvaal" (use the official form, whatever it was). The single word title would be understood by most readers who have any knowlege of the place (such as basically all South Africans older than 20) to refer to the 1910 - 1994 Province. It is simply "unbalanced" that the article about the least significant period (a mere 8 years) of the territory's entire history should appropriate the single word name "Transvaal" that in fact was the official name of the province. The pre-1902 Republic's name was "Zuid Afrikaansche Republiek" in Dutch or "South African Republic" in English. Not to be confused with the 1961 - present "Republic of South Africa". I feel very strongly that all four 1910 - 1994 provinces should each have a proper separate article without confusing the issue with other periods.

Therefor I Propose that this article be split into two separate articles: Transvaal Colony for the period 1902 - 1910 and Transvaal for the 1910 - 1994 province. Roger (talk) 12:33, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

 * There really is not enough for 1902-1910 or 1910-1994 to be worth splitting.--Rumping (talk) 23:40, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

 * If the split is done the individual articles could easily be expanded. There is a truly massive ammount of material avalailable on the Province but I for one am not willing to add it to this mess of an article as it is now precisely because its scope is poorly defined and confused. A further consideration is that there is no article about the province on en.WP at all while the other 3 1910-1994 provinces do have substantial articles. Roger (talk) 11:25, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

 * I strongly concur that there are several potential articles, a good structure may be a page for Colony of Transvaal; which would cover all three incarnations of pre-union British rule in separate sections. Then a Transvaal Province article which covers the 1910-1994 province, and a Transvaal article which covers the geographic region. Aricci526 17:00, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Interwikis
The links to other languages are almost all incorrect. They link to articles about the Transvaal in the generic territorial or provincial sense and not to pages specifically about the Colony. I don't know if there is a specific procedure for fixing this problem. Roger (talk) 12:01, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * this is often done when the precise article does not exist; people pick "the next best thing". If any of the other wikipedias has an article specifically about the British colony (I suspect there won't be too many, then just link to there. Meanwhile, I'll just remove them all; it's seems they all link back the generic one in most cases. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 12:38, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Looks like only Polish is a match. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 12:41, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Anachronistic content
I have just (quite ruthlessly) stripped out content that was irrelevant to the period covered by this article. If it didn't happen or exist between the signing of the Treaty of Vereeniging on 31 May 1902 and the establishment of the Union of South Africa exactly eight years later on 31 May 1910, it does not belong here. Roger (talk) 14:11, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

I have added a citation to where the name Transvaal came from... The Cape Afrikaners and the British called it that, see Eybers citation with the actual signed 1881 and 1884 documents by Roberts et al. 12:34, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

I have also change the sentence order, like other editors above I have serious issues with all the fiction, non facts and unrelated facts that are all over this article. It is an article about the Transvaal Colony after all... Please discuss my edits before just undoing them? I also make mistakes but I am fact checking everything I am changing in multiple sources..., thank you :) Zarpboer (talk) 12:34, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

 * Hi Zarpboer - I have edited the lead section to properly comply with the Manual of style. Explaining the meaning of the word "Transvaal" does not belong in the lead - if it even belongs in this article at all it should be somewhere in the main body, not the lead. There is a disambiguation page at Transvaal which briefly mentions the etymology - perhaps the information you had here should go there. The current History section is a mess - it contains a load of stuff relevant to the ZAR, which is properly covered in a separate article South African Republic. The section needs to be stripped down to cover only the 1902-1910 period. BTW, welcome to Wikipedia - sorry your initial contact seems to have been a bit rough. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 13:02, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks Roger (Dodger67) :) Zarpboer (talk) 13:42, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

History
The "History" section seems to be quite unsatisfactory.

The "Transvaal Colony" supposedly existed between 1902 and 1910. And yet, there is not one single word about anything that happened during that time. The political process of transitioning from a state of war to a quasi-independent dominion in just 8 years must have been quite interesting, but there is not a word about it. Perhaps needs some attention from a knowledgeable person.Lathamibird (talk) 13:04, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

 * Indeed, the eight years (1902-1910) could probably be characterized as a period of military occupation, I don't think much actual colonisation occurred in this period. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 13:12, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

 * seconded :) Lathamibird and Roger (Dodger67) when these pages were created there was a lot of disinformation as history has been re-written. fortunately there are many books from the period that remained preserved, as well as original documents. - i think it is important that we add enough citations and references for some of these pages as there are many people that become confused with the facts and the true history. the good and the bad, it is what it is... i grew up listening to stories of my country - my great grandfather was a zarp (cop in zar) :) Zarpboer (talk) 13:19, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

 * There is actually nothing at all in the current History section that is worth keeping so I'm deleting it all and replacing it with a brief explanation. I'd like to suggest that we work together on a Draft History section here on the Talk page - wich we can move into the article once it has some decent relevant content. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 13:31, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I've put down a few key points as a skeleton to build on. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 13:50, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

 * Dude, in this edit you rock! Roger (Dodger67) - all factual and all correct sofar imho, and so cool that we build a draft history section in talk Zarpboer (talk) 13:53, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

 * What do we know about the economy, was there an organised post-war reconstruction effort? The agricultural sector was severely affected by the war as were the rural towns outside the Pretoria/Witwatersrand area. I have no idea how much gold mining was affected by the war - keeping up production would obviously have been a priority for the ZAR government but the sector's dependence on uitlanders would surely have been a problem during the war. What about transport infrastructure such as bridges and railways? Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 14:01, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

 * Louis Botha has some useful material (with sources) that we can use. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 14:16, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

 * Roger (Dodger67) looks good... what we have now is factual and correct and you should publish it? - it is a lot better than what was there :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zarpboer (talk • contribs) 14:20, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

 * Not yet, it needs a little more meat on the bones before we move it. I have no actual sources to reference, the bits and pieces I put down below so far are just what I gleaned from the article's infobox and a quick look at the Louis Botha article. Please take a look at the questions I pose above - do your sources offer some answers? Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 14:35, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

 * There's some more useful material at Alfred Milner, 1st Viscount Milner and William Palmer, 2nd Earl of Selborne that we can use to fill out the draft a bit more. The Milner article shows there was indeed an organised economic reconstruction effort. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 14:44, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Draft History section
When the Boer republics, the South African Republic ZAR and the Orange Free State, were defeated in the Anglo Boer War the Treaty of Vereeniging provided for direct British rule pending the eventual establishment of the Union of South Africa in 1910.

Alfred Milner was the first governor from 1902 to 1905, he was succeeded by William Palmer until the establishment of the new Union of South Africa, in 1910.

In 1907 the colony was granted responsible government, a form of limited self rule, led by the former Boer general, Louis Botha as Prime Minister.

Languages
Any objections if I add Sotho to the languages? bias is as bias does (talk) 08:39, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Ping User:htonl - Is there any census data available for the 1902-1910 period that we can use when writing about the territory's demographics? Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 14:46, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
 * No, but the Dutch language laws of the ZAR were among the laws repealed in the 1902 treaty, English was the only single official language. So, for npov, we should probably remove all the languages and/or have a multi cultural section? But if we do leave the languages for now, there were (and even today in the same area) many Sotho speakers and to remain neutral we should reflect that? Zarpboer (talk) 14:52, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Just for clarity- the voters, tax etc are available (1907) but the records, references, etc, 'estimate' the 'natives', orientals, etc. there are citations for Sotho speakers, i think the question is more whether we have a demographics section and/or what we reflect as 'official' language? It should probably just be English... anyway, not pushing any POV, just giving 2c Zarpboer (talk) 14:58, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

 * If the 1907 official records are sufficiently detailed that we can compile a decent paragraph or two on demographics we should do so. Even estimates are better than nothing. I have appended "(official)" to English in the infobox. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 06:38, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
 * cool, there were also 'coolies' (indians i think?) etc. anyway, I have also linked from the South African Republic to this page, can you have a look if you have 2secs pls? Zarpboer (talk) 07:51, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
 * The "coolies" would be the Chinese mine workers, not Indians. At that time Indians were still limited to the Natal Colony. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 08:49, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks, personally I am learning a lot about this period, if someone else has not added the demographics, then I will do it next week, I also want to add about the gold production, massive amounts of capital invested and employment, growth etc. in the period between 1902 and 1910 - so it will also go here, there are two figures which are not the same however, so am also waiting for the correct figures and citation to add - next week though... Zarpboer (talk) 10:05, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

History, Politics etc
imho ver good quality additions by @Conlinp, concerned with only the use of 1 Readers Digest Ref, we need to double check for npov, but it really looks great sofar, also will help when i get some time, want to look for good citations for the racial issues, to prevent any later reverts of this good work by conlinp stating pov or something. Is Are there other sections you are still going to add Conlinp ? Zarpboer (talk) 13:16, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
 * While the RD Illustrated History is well regarded as a popular history text, it is obviously not up to professional academic standards - though it's far better than the junk they used to feed us in school in the 1980s and before. It's a good start, but obviously will need verification through other sources. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 14:51, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, Dodger67 but it is a good neutral start, I am only working on two major pages atm (zar & another) and as soon as i am done i will also add additional citations (in the next week or so) Zarpboer (talk) 15:03, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for all your comments. Its a template to expand the article. Only have a bit more to add in the politics section concerning the Milner's attempts at anglicizing the Boer population and its failure and the attempt to stop the introduction of the South Africa Act through the English parliament. But give me a few more days to find the time to do that.Conlinp (talk) 08:30, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
 * @Conlinp - Propose to add to History the Vereeniging peace treaty items:

 * To eventually give the ZAR and the Orange Free State self-government again (eventually granted in 1906 and 1907, respectively).
 * To avoid discussing the enfranchisement issue until self-government had been given
 * To pay the Afrikaners Boers £3,000,000 in reconstruction aid.
 * To imprison only Cape Afrikaners and their leaders
 * To allow the use of high or proper Dutch in the schools and law courts.

Any of the additional minor terms we should be adding? Zarpboer (talk) 07:11, 13 September 2014 (UTC) Soz, dudes, I swear not pov pushing, just a human error :) I know the Cape Afrikaners were not getting any bucks, if you look at no4 I am correctly mentioning their leader imprisonment, again sorry :( Zarpboer (talk) 07:14, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

 * We should have something about Milner's Kindergarten - a group of young people Milner recruited to manage various aspects of post-war reconstruction of the Transvaal and Free State. Many of them later rose to prominence in British and Imperial politics and business. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 07:35, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
 * ok, but we must just be careful to remain within the generally accepted academic view of history or supply acceptable academic and historical citations, as this could open the door to WP:FRINGE and the british secret societies - for which there are acceptable academic research citations, i am just commenting that this is difficult territory and the initial wording should be as neutral as possible - maybe simply state the facts and then build on it slowly? Zarpboer (talk) 07:58, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

 * I don't understand what you mean by "secret societies", there is no hint of that kind of thing anywhere. Suggest you read Milner's Kindergarten first before further discussion. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 11:13, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

 * Should modify some of your Vereeniging peace treaty items in line with the original document: - OFS should be Orange River Colony and add black or native in front of the "enfranchisement issue". Not sure about the "To imprison only Cape Afrikaners and their leaders" - I see imprisonment for those Boers guilty of acts contrary to "normal" acts of war ie. war crimes.Conlinp (talk) 10:46, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

title: Talk:Transvaal Colony


text:
Talk:Ligier

Elf
I remove Elf because wasn't a major partner of Ligier because Elf was a major partner of Renault so the firm didn't support Ligier when Ligier was powered by Renault competitors engines and when Elf or it's subsidiary Antar sponsored ligier it was always the second or the third bugdet in Ligier sponsors. It's also clear than Elf management was reluctant to support Ligier because of lack of results and was more interrested when Renault wasn't in competition to support a competitive British team.

Ericd

Eric, you should put that (what you just said) into the article. It is a valid part of Ligier's history, and interesting. Tannin

2 reasons :

- my English is somewhat limited I don't how to insert it in the article for now.

- this can be included in a more extensive chronology and I have to search some sources because Ligier history is very complicated.

Ericd

Fair enough. http://www.grandprix.com/gpe/con-ligie.html might help if you haven't found it already. But don't worry too much about your English. That's the great thing about Wikipedia: I write a bad sentence, someone comes along and fixes it up inside a day or two. I love it! Tannin

PS: If you want, just write it here in talk, and pop a note on my user:talk page. I'm not going to research anything for this (I'm only a little interested in F1) but I'm always happy to copy edit.

Thanks. Ligier history is interresting in that it has a lot of connections with political and industrial history in France. Ericd

Split off F1
The F1 team should be split from the carmaker. None of the other F1 teams have such a weird merged article. The association between the two units was severed before Ligier disappeared from F1. 70.51.8.110 (talk) 08:53, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Probably a good idea - See Ferrari and Alfa Romeo for suitable models. 4u1e (talk) 12:02, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I completely agree. The current microcar-producer Ligier has little to do with the F1 team, and it would make more sense to have separate articles. El monty (talk) 10:21, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
 * If the article is split, can I request that the F1 part gets to keep the name "Ligier" and the roadcar part gets the new name (e.g. "Ligier (automobile)" or something like that), since the vast majority of existing links to Ligier are F1-related. DH85868993 (talk) 11:24, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree with the split and DH85868993's suggestion. Ligier is most notable for the F1 team. - | | | antiuser 23:45, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I also agree. Cadan   ap   Tomos  18:40, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
 * All motorsport should be split. Just F1 would be a ignoring Ligier's sports car history, where they started with the JS1, JS2, and JS3, and current work on sports cars. The359 (talk) 10:31, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

So, who can do it now? Fsarmony (talk) 16:02, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Ligi
I see that "Ligi" redirects here, although I can't find any references to Ligi in the article. Is it a nickname or something? I ask because I want to start a new article called Ligi on a different subject, and I wondered if there was any reason to include a hatnote pointing to here.--Kotniski (talk) 11:25, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
 * It's a leftover from a long time ago when the Formula One driver results tables used 4-letter abbreviations for the car names, e.g. "Pors" for "Porsche", "Talb" for "Talbot", "Ligi" for "Ligier", etc. I tried to have these redirects deleted a couple of years ago (see here) but it was decided to keep them. Feel free to convert Ligi into an article without a hatnote to this article. DH85868993 (talk) 14:10, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

====Bought by Piaggio ? In the Wikipedia article of Piaggio, it is stated that Ligier has been bought by Piaggio,but there is no mention whatsoever in this article. So, it is better to find out if it is true and in this case, add it to this page.58.9.64.105 (talk) 14:20, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

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license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:Ligier


text:
Ache

Ache or Aches may refer to:

Ethnography

 * Aché, an indigenous people of eastern Paraguay
 * Aché language, the language of the Aché people
 * Ache language (China)
 * Aṣẹ (Cuban spelling: aché), a concept in Orisha belief

People

 * Aché Coelo (born 1985), Chadian sociologist and film
 * Barry Ache, American neuroscientist
 * Ragnar Ache (born 1998), German footballer
 * Steve Ache (born 1962), former American football player
 * ACHES (born 1994), professional Call of Duty player

Places
Numerous rivers are known as Ache in German, see Aach (toponymy):
 * Ache, a right tributary of the Saar (river) near Weidesheim, France
 * Ache, a right tributary of the Isar river, Bavaria, Germany
 * Berchtesgadener Ache, a tributary of the Salzach river, Bavaria, Germany
 * Königsseer Ache, a tributary
 * Ramsauer Ache, a tributary
 * Brixentaler Ache, a tributary of the Inn river, Tyrol, Austria
 * Fuscher Ache, a tributary of the Salzach, Salzburg, Austria
 * Kelchsauer Ache, Tyrol, Austria
 * Krimmler Ache, a right tributary of the Salzach, Austria
 * Leoganger Ache, a Salzburg, Austria
 * Leutascher Ache, left tributary of the Isar, Austria and Germany
 * Ötztaler Ache, a right tributary of the Inn, Tyrol, Austria
 * Stoißer Ache, a river in Bavaria, Germany
 * Windauer Ache, a mountain stream in Tyrol, Austria
 * Zeller Ache, a river in Upper Austria

Media

 * Ache, 1989 album by The Cateran
 * "Ache", 1992 song by Jawbreaker from Bivouac
 * "Ache", 1992 song by No Doubt from No Doubt
 * "Ache", 1993 song by Smashing Pumpkins from Siamese Dream
 * Ache (album), 1982 album by You've Got Foetus on Your Breath
 * Aché (album), 1982 album by Merceditas Valdés
 * Aché II (1988), Aché III (1989), Aché IV (1990), Aché V (1993), albums by Merceditas Valdés
 * Ache Records, a Vancouver-based record label
 * Aches and Pains, self-help book by Irish writer Maeve Binchy

Other uses

 * Ache, common word for a chronic pain
 * AChE, the enzyme acetylcholinesterase
 * Aché (company), a Brazilian pharmaceutical company; see Industry in Brazil

title: Ache


text:
Aceh

Aceh (, ; Acèh , Jawoë: اچيه), officially the Province of Aceh (Provinsi Aceh, Nanggroë Acèh, Jawoë: نڠڬرواي اچيه), is the westernmost province of Indonesia. It is located on the northern end of Sumatra island, with Banda Aceh being its capital and largest city. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the west, Strait of Malacca to the northeast, as well bordering the province of North Sumatra to the east, its sole land border, and shares maritime borders with Malaysia and Thailand to the east, and Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India to the north. Granted a special autonomous status, Aceh is a religiously conservative territory and the only Indonesian province practicing Sharia law officially. There are ten indigenous ethnic groups in this region, the largest being the Acehnese people, accounting for approximately 70% of the region's population of about 5.5 million people in mid-2023. Its area is comparable to Croatia or Togo.

Aceh is where the spread of Islam in Indonesia began, and was a key factor of the spread of Islam in Southeast Asia. Islam reached Aceh (Kingdoms of Fansur and Lamuri) around 1250 AD. In the early 17th century the Sultanate of Aceh was the most wealthy, powerful and cultivated state in the Malacca Straits region. Aceh has a history of political independence and resistance to control by outsiders, including the former Dutch colonists and later the Indonesian government.

Aceh has substantial natural resources of oil and natural gas. Aceh was the closest point of land to the epicenter of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, which devastated much of the western coast of the province. Approximately 170,000 Indonesians were killed or went missing in the disaster. The disaster helped precipitate the peace agreement between the government of Indonesia and the separatist group of Free Aceh Movement.

Name
Aceh was first known as Aceh Darussalam (1511–1945). Upon its formation in 1956 it bore the name Aceh before being renamed to the Daerah Istimewa Aceh (Aceh Special Region; 1959–2001), Nanggroë Aceh Darussalam (2001–2009), and back to Aceh (2009–present). In the past it was also spelled as Acheh, Atjeh, and Achin.

Prehistory

According to several archaeological findings, the first evidence of human habitation in Aceh is from a site near the Tamiang River where shell middens are present. Stone tools and faunal remains were also found on the site. Archeologists believe the site was first occupied around 10,000 BCE.

Pre-Islamic Aceh

The history of Aceh stretches back to the Lambri Kingdom. Several documented references indicate that Hindu-Buddhist culture existed in the area before its Islamization.

The people of Lambri were described by Marco Polo as "idolaters", who had a Maharaja as their ruler, a king in the Hindu political structure, likely meaning they were Hindus, Buddhists, or a combination thereof.

The inscription at Tanjore of Rajendra I documents the conquest of a land called "llämuridesam", located at the northern tip of Sumatra. The Nagarakritagama documents the possessions of the Imperial Majapahit, and states that they control Barat, identified as the western coast of Aceh. Chinese records indicate that Aceh was under the control of the Sriwijaya.

Though many temples were left abandoned or converted into mosques, such as the Indrapuri Old Mosque, some evidence remains, such as the head of a stone sculpture of Avalokiteshvara Boddhisattva was discovered in Aceh. Images of Amitabha Buddhas adorn his crown in front and on each side. Srivijayan art estimated 9th-century CE collection of National Museum of Indonesia, Jakarta. One of the few structural remains is the Indra Patra fort, which has several Hindu shrines. Historic names such as Indrapurba, Indrapurwa, Indrapatra, and Indrapuri, which refer to the God Indra, also indicate that Hinduism had a lasting and significant presence in this land.

Beginnings of Islam in Southeast Asia

Evidence concerning the initial coming and subsequent establishment of Islam in Southeast Asia is thin and inconclusive. The historian Anthony Reid has argued that the region of the Cham people on the south-central coast of Vietnam was one of the earliest Islamic centers in Southeast Asia. Furthermore, as the Cham people fled the Vietnamese, one of the earliest locations that they established a relationship was with Aceh. Furthermore, it is thought that one of the earliest centers of Islam was in the Aceh region. When Venetian traveller Marco Polo passed by Sumatra on his way home from China in 1292 he found that Peureulak was a Muslim town while nearby 'Basma(n)' and 'Samara' were not. 'Basma(n)' and 'Samara' are often said to be Pasai and Samudra but evidence is inconclusive. The gravestone of Sultan Malik as-Salih, the first Muslim ruler of Samudra, has been found and is dated AH 696 (AD 1297). This is the earliest clear evidence of a Muslim dynasty in the Indonesia-Malay area and more gravestones from the 13th century show that this region continued under Muslim rule. Ibn Batutah, a Moroccan traveller, passing through on his way to China in 1345 and 1346, found that the ruler of Samudra was a follower of the Shafi'i school of Islam.

After the initial appearance of Islam in Aceh, it further spread into the coastal regions by the 15th century. Aceh soon became a cultural and scholastic Islamic center throughout Southeast Asia. It also became wealthy because it was a center of extensive trade.

The Portuguese apothecary Tome Pires reported in his early 16th-century book Suma Oriental that most of the kings of Sumatra from Aceh through Palembang were Muslim. At Pasai, in what is now the North Aceh Regency, there was a thriving international port. Pires attributed the establishment of Islam in Pasai to the 'cunning' of the Muslim merchants. The ruler of Pasai, however, had not been able to convert the people of the interior.

Sultanate of Aceh
The Sultanate of Aceh was established by Sultan Ali Mughayat Syah in 1511.

In 1584–88 the Bishop of Malacca, D. João Ribeiro Gaio, based on information provided by a former captive called Diogo Gil, wrote the "Roteiro das Cousas do Achem" (Lisboa 1997) – a description of the sultanate.

Later, during its golden era, in the 17th century, its territory and political influence expanded as far as Satun in southern Thailand, Johor in Malay Peninsula, and Siak in what is today the province of Riau. As was the case with most non-Javan pre-colonial states, Acehnese power expanded outward by sea rather than inland. As it expanded down the Sumatran coast, its main competitors were Johor and Portuguese Malacca on the other side of the Straits of Malacca. It was this seaborne trade focus that saw Aceh rely on rice imports from north Java rather than develop self sufficiency in rice production. After the Portuguese occupation of Malacca in 1511, many Islamic traders passing the Malacca Straits shifted their trade to Banda Aceh and increased the Acehnese rulers' wealth. During the reign of Sultan Iskandar Muda in the 17th century, Aceh's influence extended to most of Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula. Aceh allied itself with the Ottoman Empire and the Dutch East India Company in their struggle against the Portuguese and the Johor Sultanate. Acehnese military power waned gradually thereafter, and Aceh ceded its territory of Pariaman in Sumatra to the Dutch in the 18th century.

By the early 19th century, however, Aceh had become an increasingly influential power due to its strategic location for controlling regional trade. In the 1820s it was the producer of over half the world's supply of black pepper. The pepper trade produced new wealth for the sultanate and for the rulers of many smaller nearby ports that had been under Aceh's control, but were now able to assert more independence. These changes initially threatened Aceh's integrity, but a new Sultan Tuanku Ibrahim, who controlled the kingdom from 1838 to 1870, reasserted power over nearby ports.

Under the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 the British ceded their colonial possessions on Sumatra to the Dutch. In the treaty, the British described Aceh as one of their possessions, although they had no actual control over the sultanate. Initially, under the agreement the Dutch agreed to respect Aceh's independence. In 1871, however, the British dropped previous opposition to a Dutch invasion of Aceh, possibly to prevent France or the United States from gaining a foothold in the region. Although neither the Dutch nor the British knew the specifics, there had been rumors since the 1850s that Aceh had been in communication with the rulers of France and of the Ottoman Empire.

Aceh War
Pirates operating from Aceh threatened commerce in the Strait of Malacca; the sultan was unable to control them. Britain was a protector of Aceh and gave the Netherlands permission to eradicate the pirates. The campaign quickly drove out the sultan but the local leaders mobilized and fought the Dutch in four decades of guerrilla war, with high levels of atrocities. The Dutch colonial government declared war on Aceh on 26 March 1873. Aceh sought American help but Washington rejected the request.

The Dutch tried one strategy after another over the course of four decades. An expedition under Major General Johan Harmen Rudolf Köhler in 1873 occupied most of the coastal areas. Köhler's strategy was to attack and take the sultan's palace. It failed. The Dutch then tried a naval blockade, reconciliation, concentration within a line of forts, and lastly passive containment. They had scant success. Reaching 15 to 20 million guilders a year, the heavy spending for failed strategies nearly bankrupted the colonial government. During the course of the war, the Dutch set up the Gouvernment of Atjeh and Dependencies under a governor, although it did not establish wider control of its territory until after 1908.

The Aceh army was rapidly modernized, and Aceh soldiers killed Köhler. Köhler made some grave tactical errors and the reputation of the Dutch was severely harmed. In recent years, in line with expanding international attention to human rights issues and atrocities in war zones, there has been increasing discussion about some of the recorded acts of cruelty and slaughter committed by Dutch troops during the period of warfare in Aceh.

Hasan Mustafa (1852–1930) was a chief penghulu, or judge, for the colonial government and was stationed in Aceh. He had to balance traditional Muslim justice with Dutch law. To stop the Aceh rebellion, Hasan Mustafa issued a fatwa, telling the Muslim population there in 1894, "It is Incumbent upon the Indonesian Muslim to be loyal to the Dutch East Indies Government".

Japanese occupation
During World War II, Japanese troops occupied Aceh. The Acehnese ulama (Islamic clerics) fought against both the Dutch and the Japanese, revolting against the Dutch in February 1942 and against Japan in November 1942. The revolt was led by the All-Aceh Religious Scholars' Association (PUSA). The Japanese suffered 18 dead in the uprising while they slaughtered up to 100 or over 120 Acehnese. The revolt happened in Bayu and was centered around Tjot Plieng village's religious school. During the revolt, the Japanese troops armed with mortars and machine guns were charged by sword wielding Acehnese under Teungku Abduldjalil (Tengku Abdul Djalil) in Buloh Gampong Teungah and Tjot Plieng on 10 and 13 November. In May 1945 the Acehnese rebelled again. The religious ulama party gained ascendancy to replace district warlords (Ulèëbalang) party that formerly collaborated with the Dutch. Concrete bunkers still line the northernmost beaches.

Indonesian independence

After World War II, civil war erupted in 1945 between the district warlords party, that supported the return of a Dutch government, and the religious ulama party that supported the newly proclaimed state of Indonesia. The ulama won, and the area remained free during the Indonesian War of Independence. The Dutch military itself never attempted to invade Aceh. The civil war raised the religious ulama party leader, Daud Bereueh, to the position of military governor of Aceh.

Acehnese rebellion
The Acehnese revolted soon after its inclusion into an independent Indonesia, a situation created by a complex mix of what the Acehnese regarded as transgressions against and betrayals of their rights.

Sukarno, the first president of Indonesia, had reneged on his promise made on 16 June 1948 that Aceh would be allowed to rule itself in accordance with Islamic Law. Aceh was politically dismantled and incorporated into the province of North Sumatra in 1950. This resulted in the Acehnese Rebellion of 1953–59 which was led by Daud Beureu'eh who on 20 September 1953 declared a free independent Aceh under the leadership of Sekarmadji Maridjan Kartosoewirjo. In 1959, the Indonesian government attempted to placate the Acehnese by offering wide-ranging freedom in matters relating to religion, education and culture.

Free Aceh Movement

During the 1970s, under an agreement with the Indonesian central government, American oil and gas companies began exploitation of Aceh natural resources. Alleged unequal distribution of profits between central government and the native people of Aceh induced Dr. Hasan Muhammad di Tiro, former ambassador of Darul Islam, to call for an independent Aceh. He proclaimed independence in 1976.

The movement had a small number of followers initially, and di Tiro himself had to live in exile in Sweden. Meanwhile, the province followed Suharto's policy of economic development and industrialization. During the late 1980s several security incidents prompted the Indonesian central government to take repressive measures and to send troops to Aceh. Human rights abuse was rampant for the next decade, resulting in many grievances on the part of the Acehnese toward the Indonesian central government. In 1990, the Indonesian government initiated military operations against GAM by deploying more than 12,000 Indonesian troops in the region.

During the late 1990s, chaos in Java and an ineffective central government gave an advantage to the Free Aceh Movement and resulted in the second phase of the rebellion, this time with large support from the Acehnese people. This support was demonstrated during the 1999 plebiscite in Banda Aceh which was attended by nearly half a million people (of four million population of the province). The Indonesian central government responded in 2001 by broadening Aceh's autonomy, giving its government the right to apply Sharia law more broadly and the right to receive direct foreign investment. This was again accompanied by repressive measures, however, and in 2003 an offensive began and a state of emergency was proclaimed in the province. The war was still ongoing when the tsunami disaster of 2004 struck the province.

In 2001, villagers from the North Aceh Regency sued ExxonMobil for human rights abuses at the hands of Indonesian military units hired by the company for security for its natural gas operations. ExxonMobil denied fault for the allegations. After a series of attacks against its operations, the company shut down its Arun natural gas operations in the province.

Tsunami disaster

The western coastal areas of Aceh, including the cities of Banda Aceh, Calang, and Meulaboh, were among the areas hardest-hit by the tsunami resulting from the magnitude 9.2 Indian Ocean earthquake on 26 December 2004. While estimates vary, over 170,000 people were killed by tsunami in Aceh and about 500,000 were left homeless. The tragedy of the tsunami was further compounded several months later, when the 2005 M8.6 Nias–Simeulue earthquake struck the sea bed between the islands of Simeulue Island in Aceh and Nias in North Sumatra. This second quake killed a further 1346 people on Nias and Simeulue, displaced tens of thousands more, and caused the tsunami response to be expanded to include Nias. The World Health Organisation estimates a 100% increase in prevalence of mild and moderate mental disorders in Aceh's general population after the tsunami.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, misjudging the intensity of the Sumatra earthquake, sent out a bulletin that no tsunami was expected following a magnitude 8.0 quake based on historical data. Only when more accurate measurements of the quakes >9.0 magnitude became available did scientists at the warning center realize they were dealing with a basin-wide tsunami across the Indian Ocean. When the tsunami hit, it was enormous, and the death toll in Aceh exceeded 100,000. There was no tsunami warning system in 2004. Tsunami warning systems have improved since the immense death toll drew international notice but in rural areas where many don't have internet access or cell phones it remains a challenge to communicate warnings in a timely manner. A warning system was put in place at the request of Aceh residents but it was disabled in 2007 after technical issues and a false alarm that caused a panic.

The population of Aceh before the December 2004 tsunami was 4,271,000 (2004). The population as of 15 September 2005 was 4,031,589, and in January 2014 was 4,731,705. The 2020 census produced a total population of 5,274,871, comprising 2,647,563 males and 2,627,308 females.

As of February 2006, more than a year after the tsunami, a large number of people were still living in barrack-style temporary living centers (TLC) or tents. Reconstruction was visible everywhere, but due to the sheer scale of the disaster, and logistic difficulties, progress was slow. A study in 2007 estimated that 83.6% of the population had a psychiatric illness, while 69.8% suffers from severe emotional distress.

The ramifications of the tsunami went beyond the immediate impact to the lives and infrastructure of the Acehnese living on the coast. Since the disaster, the Acehnese rebel movement GAM, which had been fighting for independence against the Indonesian authorities for 29 years, has signed a peace deal (15 August 2005). The perception that the tsunami was punishment for insufficient piety in this proudly Muslim province is partly behind the increased emphasis on the importance of religion post-tsunami. This has been most obvious in the increased implementation of Sharia law, including the introduction of the controversial Wilayatul Hisbah or Syariah police. As homes are being built and people's basic needs are met, the people are also looking to improve the quality of education, increase tourism, and develop responsible, sustainable industry. Well-qualified educators are in high demand in Aceh.

While parts of the capital Banda Aceh were unscathed, the areas closest to the water, especially the areas of Kampung Jawa and Meuraxa, were completely destroyed. Most of the rest of the western coast of Aceh was severely damaged. Many towns completely disappeared. Other towns on Aceh's west coast hit by the disaster included Lhoknga, Leupung, Lamno, Patek, Calang, Teunom, and the island of Simeulue. Affected or destroyed towns on the region's north and east coasts were Pidie Regency, Samalanga, and Lhokseumawe.

The area was slowly rebuilt after the disaster. The government initially proposed the creation of a two-kilometer buffer zone along low-lying coastal areas within which permanent construction was not permitted. This proposal was unpopular among some local inhabitants and proved impractical in most situations, especially fishing families that are dependent on living near to the sea.

The Indonesian government set up a special agency for Aceh reconstruction, the Badan Rehabilitasi dan Rekonstruksi (BRR) headed by Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, a former Indonesian government minister. This agency had ministry level of authority and incorporated officials, professionals and community leaders from all backgrounds. Most of the reconstruction work was performed by local people using a mix of traditional methods and partial prefabricated structures, with funding coming from many international organizations and individuals, governments, and the people themselves.

The Government of Indonesia estimated in their Preliminary Damage and Losses Assessment that damages amounted to US$4.5 billion (before inflation, and US$6.2 billion including inflation). Three years after the tsunami, reconstruction was still ongoing. The World Bank monitored funding for reconstruction in Aceh and reported that US$7.7 billion had been earmarked for the reconstruction whilst at June 2007 US$5.8 billion had been allocated to specific reconstruction projects, of which US$3.4 billion had actually been spent (58%).

In 2009, the government opened a US$5.6 million museum to commemorate the tsunami with photographs, stories, and a simulation of the earthquake that triggered the tsunami.

Peace agreement and contemporary history

The 2004 tsunami helped trigger a peace agreement between the GAM and the Indonesian government. The mood in post-Suharto Indonesia in the liberal-democratic reform period, as well as changes in the Indonesian military, helped create an environment more favorable to peace talks. The roles of newly elected president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and vice president Jusuf Kalla were highly significant. At the same time, the GAM leadership was undergoing changes, and the Indonesian military had inflicted so much damage on the rebel movement that it had little choice but to negotiate with the central government. The peace talks were first initiated by Juha Christensen, a Finnish peace activist, and then formally facilitated by a Finland-based NGO, the Crisis Management Initiative led by former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari. The resulting peace agreement, generally known as the Helsinki MOU, was signed on 15 August 2005. Under the agreement Aceh would receive special autonomy and government troops would be withdrawn from the province in exchange for GAM's disarmament. As part of the agreement, the European Union dispatched 300 monitors. Their mission expired on 15 December 2006, following local elections.

Aceh has been granted broader autonomy through Aceh government legislation covering special rights agreed upon in 2002 as well as the right of the Acehnese to establish local political parties to represent their interests. Human rights advocates protested that previous human rights violations in the province needed to be addressed, however.

Ecology and biodiversity
Aceh has the largest range of biodiversity in the Asian Pacific region. Among the rarer large mammals are the Sumatran rhinoceros, Sumatran tiger, Orangutan and Sumatran elephant. In 2014, there were 460 Sumatran elephants in Aceh including at least eight baby elephants. The area has been suffering from deforestation since the 1970s. The first wood pulp mill in Aceh was built in 1982. The government of Aceh intends a law by which 1.2 million hectares would be opened for commercial use. This proposal has caused many protests.

Government
Within the country, Aceh is governed not as a regular province but as a special autonomous province (daerah istimewa), an administrative designation intended to give the area increased autonomy from the central government in Jakarta. This has resulted in canings for crimes deemed to have violated sharia law such as gambling, drinking, skipping Friday prayers, and most notably homosexuality.

Regional elections have been held in Aceh in recent years for senior positions at the provincial, regency (kabupaten) and district (kecamatan) levels. In the 2006 elections, Irwandi Yusuf was elected as the provincial governor for 2007–2012 and in elections in April 2012, Zaini Abdullah was elected as governor for 2012–2017.

Law
Beginning with the promulgation of Law 44/1999, Aceh's governor began to issue limited Sharia-based regulations, for example requiring female government employees to wear Islamic dress. These regulations were not enforced by the provincial government, but as early as April 1999, reports emerged that groups of men in Aceh were engaging in vigilante violence in an effort to impose Sharia, for example, by conducting "jilbab raids," subjecting women who were not wearing Islamic headscarves to verbal abuse, cutting their hair or clothes, and committing other acts of violence against them. The frequency of these and other attacks on individuals considered to be violating Sharia principles appeared to increase following the enactment of Law 44/1999 and the governor's Sharia regulations. In 2014, a group of scholars who call themselves Tadzkiiratul Ummah, started to paint the pants of men and women as a call for heavier Islamic law enforcement in the area.

Upon the enactment of the Special Autonomy Law in 2001, Aceh's provincial legislature enacted a series of qanuns (local laws) governing the implementation of Sharia. Five qanuns enacted between 2002 and 2004 contained criminal penalties for violations of Sharia: Qanun 11/2002 on "belief, ritual, and promoting Islam," which contains the Islamic attire requirement; Qanun 12/2003 prohibiting the consumption and sale of alcohol; Qanun 13/2003 prohibiting gambling; Qanun 14/2003 prohibiting "seclusion"; and Qanun 7/2004 on the payment of Islamic alms. With the exception of gambling, none of the offenses are prohibited outside of Aceh.

Responsibility for enforcement of the qanuns rests both with the National Police and with a special Sharia police force unique to Aceh, known as the Wilayatul Hisbah (Sharia Authority). All of the qanuns provide for penalties including fines, imprisonment, and caning, the latter a punishment unknown in most parts of Indonesia. Between mid-2005 and early 2007, at least 135 people were caned in Aceh for transgressing the qanuns. In April 2016, a 60-year-old non-Muslim woman was sentenced to 30 lashes for selling alcohol drinks. The controversy is that qanun is not allowed for non-Muslim person, and national law should be used instead as in other parts of Indonesia.

In April 2009, Partai Aceh won control of the local parliament in Aceh's first post-war legislative elections. In September 2009, one month before the new legislators were to take office, the outgoing parliament unanimously endorsed two new qanuns to expand the existing criminal Sharia framework in Aceh.

 * One bill, the Qanun on Criminal Procedure (Qanun Hukum Jinayat), to create an entirely new procedural code for the enforcement of Sharia by police, prosecutors, and courts in Aceh.
 * The other bill, the Qanun on Criminal Law (Qanun Jinayat), reiterated the existing criminal Sharia prohibitions, at times enhancing their penalties, and a host of new criminal offenses, including ikhtilat (intimacy or mixing), zina (adultery, defined as willing intercourse by unmarried people), sexual harassment, rape, and homosexual conduct. The law authorized punishments including up to 60 lashes for "intimacy," up to 100 lashes for engaging in homosexual conduct, up to 100 lashes for adultery by unmarried persons, and death by stoning for adultery by a married person.

However, the then proposed bylaws was met with widespread condemnations from all of Indonesia and then governor Irwandi Yusuf refused to sign the bylaw, thereby keeping it a law without legal force and, in some views, therefore still a law draft, rather than actual law. In March 2013, the Aceh government removed the stoning provision from its own draft of a new criminal code.

Caning

In practice since the introduction of the new laws, there has been a considerable increase in the use of the penalties provided set out in the laws. As an example, in August 2015 six men in Bireuën Regency were arrested and caned for betting on the names of passing buses. And it was reported that on just one day, 18 September 2015, a total of 34 people were caned in Banda Aceh and in the nearby regency of Aceh Besar.

Two gay men are to be publicly lashed 85 times each under sharia law after being filmed by vigilantes in Indonesia. An Islamic court in the province of Aceh passed down its first sentence for homosexuality on the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, 17 May 2017 in spite of international appeals to spare the couple.

Whipping is the common hudud punishment for gambling, adultery, drinking alcohol, and having gay or pre-marital sex. Typically the whipping has been done by men. In 2020, with increased enforcement and more crimes being conducted by women, Aceh authorities say they are trying to follow Islamic law, which calls for women to whip female perpetrators.

Administrative divisions
Administratively, the province now is subdivided into eighteen regencies (kabupaten) and five autonomous cities (kota). The capital and the largest city is Banda Aceh, located on the coast near the northern tip of Sumatra. When originally devised in 1956, the province comprised the city of Banda Aceh and six regencies – Aceh Besar, Pidie, North Aceh, East Aceh, Central Aceh, and West Aceh; however on 14 November 1956 a seventh regency (South Aceh) was created from the southeastern districts of West Aceh Regency. A second city (Sabang City) was separated from Aceh Besar on 10 June 1965 and Southeast Aceh Regency from part of Central Aceh on 4 June 1974; three additional regencies were formed in 1999 – Aceh Singkil from part of South Aceh Regency on 20 April, and Bireuen (from part of North Aceh Regency) and Simeulue (from part of West Aceh Regency) on 4 October.

The towns of Lhokseumawe and Langsa were given separate city status (from parts of North Aceh Regency and of East Aceh Regency respectively) on 21 June 2001, and five additional regencies were created on 10 April 2002 – Aceh Jaya and Nagan Raya (both from parts of West Aceh Regency), Aceh Tamiang (from part of East Aceh Regency), Gayo Lues (from part of Southeast Aceh Regency) and Southwest Aceh (from part of South Aceh Regency). Bener Meriah Regency was created on 19 December 2003 (from part of Central Aceh Regency), and Pidie Jaya Regency (from part of Pidie Regency) and Subulussalam City (from part of Aceh Singkil Regency) on 2 January 2007. Some other local areas are pushing to create new autonomous areas, usually with the stated goal of enhancing local control over politics and development.

The cities and regencies (subdivided into the 289 districts or kecamatan of Aceh), are listed below with their areas and their populations at the 2010 census and the 2020 census, together with the officially estimated population as at mid 2023. Note: UU is an abbreviation from Undang-Undang (the Indonesia statute of law).

Aceh is unique in Indonesia in grouping its villages into mukims. These are sometimes related to traditional indigenous communities. Beginning in September 2023, the Indonesian government provided legal recognition to the claims of some mukims over customary forests.

The province comprises two of Indonesia's 84 national electoral districts to elect members to the People's Representative Council. The Aceh I Electoral District consists of 12 of the regencies in the province (Simeulue, Aceh Singkil, South Aceh, Southeast Aceh, West Aceh, Aceh Besar, Pidie, Southwest Aceh, Aceh Jaya, Gayo Lues, Nagan Raya and Pidie Jaya), together with the cities of Bandar Aceh, Sabang and Subulussalam, and elects 7 members to the People's Representative Council. The Aceh II Electoral District consists of the remaining 6 regencies (East Aceh, Central Aceh, Bireuen, North Aceh, Aceh Tamiang and Bener Meriah), together with the cities of Langsa and Lhokseumawe, and elects 6 members to the People's Representative Council.

Economy
In 2006, the economy of Aceh grew by 7.7% after having minimal growth since the devastating tsunami. This growth was primarily driven by the reconstruction effort with massive growth in the building/construction sector.

The ending of the conflict, and the reconstruction program resulted in the structure of the economy changing significantly since 2003. Service sectors played a more dominant role whilst the share of the oil and gas sectors continued to decline. Note: ... = less than 0.5%

After peaking at around 40% in December 2005, largely as a result of the Dutch disease impact of sudden aid flows into the province, inflation declined steadily and was 8.5% in June 2007, close to the national level in Indonesia of 5.7%. Persistent inflation means that Aceh's consumer price index (CPI) remains the highest in Indonesia. As a result, Aceh's cost competitiveness has declined as reflected in both inflation and wage data. Although inflation has slowed down, CPI has registered steady increases since the tsunami. Using 2002 as a base, Aceh's CPI increased to 185.6 (June 2007) while the national CPI increased to 148.2. There have been relatively large nominal wage increases in particular sectors, such as construction where, on average, workers' nominal wages have risen to almost Rp.60,000 per day, from Rp.29,000 pre-tsunami. This is also reflected in Aceh's minimum regional wage (UMR, or Upah Minimum Regional), which increased by 55% from Rp.550,000 pre-tsunami to Rp.850,000 in 2007, compared with an increase of 42% in neighboring North Sumatra, from Rp.537,000 to Rp.761,000.

Poverty levels increased slightly in Aceh in 2005 after the tsunami, but by less than expected. The poverty level then fell in 2006 to below the pre-tsunami level, suggesting that the rise in tsunami-related poverty was short lived and reconstruction activities and the end of the conflict most probably facilitated this decline. However, poverty in Aceh remains significantly higher than in the rest of Indonesia. A large number of the Acehnese remain vulnerable to poverty, reinforcing the need for further sustained efforts at development in the post-tsunami construction period.

Demographics
The population of Aceh was not adequately documented during the Indonesia 2000 census because the insurgency complicated the process of collecting accurate information. An estimated 170,000 people died in Aceh in the 2004 tsunami which further complicates the task of careful demographic analysis. According to the most recent censuses, the total population of Aceh in 2010 was 4,486,570, in 2015 was 4,993,385, and in 2020 was 5,274,871. The official estimate for mid 2023 was 5,482,527 (comprising 2,753,176 males and 2,729,351 females); however, the sum of the official population estimates for the individual regencies and cities totalled 5,512,219 people.

Ethnic and cultural groups
Aceh is a diverse region occupied by several ethnic and language groups. The major ethnic groups are the Acehnese (who are distributed throughout Aceh), Gayo (in central and eastern part), Alas (in Southeast Aceh Regency), Tamiang-Malays (in Aceh Tamiang Regency), Aneuk Jamee (descendant from Minangkabau, concentrated in southern and southwestern), Kluet (in South Aceh Regency), Singkil (in Singkil and Subulussalam), Simeulue and Sigulai (on Simeulue Island). There is also a significant population of Chinese, Among the present day Acehnese can be found some individuals of Arab, Turkish, and Indian descent.

Languages

The Acehnese language is widely spoken within the Acehnese population. This is a member of the Aceh-Chamic group of languages, whose other representatives are mostly found in Vietnam and Cambodia, and is also closely related to the Malay group of languages. Acehnese also has many words borrowed from Malay and Arabic and traditionally was written using Arabic script. Acehnese is also used as local language in Langkat and Asahan (North Sumatra), and Kedah (Malaysia), and once dominated Penang. Aside from the Indonesian language, Acehnese is also designated as the co-official regional language of Aceh under Qanun Number 10 of 2022.

Alas and Kluet are closely related languages within the Batak group. The Jamee language originated from Minangkabau language in West Sumatra, with just a few variations and differences.

Religion

According to 2022 data of the Ministry of Religious Affairs, Aceh is overwhelmingly Muslim-majority where they dominate Aceh with more than 98%. Only 1.15% of population are Protestants, 0.13% Buddhism and 0.1% Catholics. Religious issues are often sensitive in Aceh. There is very strong support for Islam across the province, and sometimes other religious groups – such as Christians or Buddhists – feel that they are subject to social or community pressure to limit their activities. The official explanation for this action, supported by both the governor of Aceh Zaini Abdullah and the Indonesian home affairs minister Gamawan Fauzi from Jakarta, was that the churches did not have the appropriate permits. Earlier in April 2012, a number of churches in the Singkil regency in southern Aceh had also been ordered to close. In response, some Christians voiced concern about these actions. In 2015 a church was burned down and another attacked in which a Muslim rioter was shot, causing President Joko Widodo to call for calm.

Human rights
Caning has increasingly been used as a form of judicial punishment in Aceh. This is backed by the governor of Aceh. At least 72 people were caned for various offences, including drinking alcohol, being alone with someone of the opposite sex who was not a marriage partner or relative (khalwat), gambling and for being caught having gay sex. The Acehnese authorities passed a series of by-laws governing the implementation of Sharia after the enactment of the province's Special Autonomy Law in 2001. In 2016 alone, 100 public caning cases were documented by human rights organizations.

In January 2018, the Aceh police, with support from the Aceh autonomous government, raided hair salons known to have LGBT clients and staff as part of an operasi penyakit masyarakat ("community sickness operation"). The police abused all LGBT citizens within the premises of the parlors and arrested twelve transgender women. The arrested trans women were stripped topless, had their heads shaved, and were forced to chant insults at themselves as part of a process "until they really become men". The intent of the incident was to reverse what officials deemed a "social disease" and that parents were coming to them upset at the increasing number of LGBT individuals in Aceh. The event was decried by human rights organizations local and worldwide, such as Amnesty International. Usman Hamid stated for the Indonesia branch of the organization that "cutting the hair of those arrested to 'make them masculine' and forcing them to dress like men are forms of public shaming and amount to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, in contravention of Indonesia's international obligations".

Traditional culture
Aceh has a variety of distinctive arts and culture.

Traditional weapon

 * Rencong is a type of dagger, a traditional weapon of the Acehnese people. The shape resembles the letter L, and when viewed more closely the form is bismillah calligraphy.

In addition to rencong, the Acehnese people also possessed several other special weapons, such as sikin panyang, peurise awe, peurise teumaga, siwah, geuliwang and peudeueng.

Traditional house
Aceh's traditional house is called Rumoh Aceh. This house is a type of house on stilts with three main parts and one additional section. The three main parts of the Aceh house are the seuramoë keuë (front porch), seuramoë teungoh (middle porch) and seuramoë likôt (back porch). Another additional part is the rumoh dapu (kitchen house).

Dance
Traditional Acehnese dances illustrate traditional heritage, religion, and local folklore. Acehnese dances are generally performed in groups, in which a group of dancers are of the same sex, and there are standing or sitting positions. When viewed from the accompanying music, the dances can be grouped into two types; namely accompanied by the vocal and percussion of the dancer's own body, and accompanied by an ensemble of musical instruments. Some dances that are famous at the national and even world level are dances originating from Aceh, such as the Rateb Meuseukat Dance and the Saman dance.

Food
Acehnese cuisine uses combinations of spices found in Indian and Arabic cuisine, include ginger, pepper, coriander, cumin, cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, and fennel. A variety of Acehnese foods are cooked with curry or curry spices and coconut milk, which are generally combined with meat, such as buffalo meat, beef, lamb, fish and chicken. Certain recipes have traditionally used cannabis as a seasoning; which is also found in some other Southeast Asian dishes such as in Laos, but now the material is no longer used. Dishes native to Aceh include nasi gurih, mie aceh, mi caluk and timphan.

Literature
Aceh has a tradition of oral literature, such as the folktale The king of the parakeets.

The oldest Acehnese manuscripts that can be found are from 1069 H (1658/1659 AD), namely Hikayat Seuma'un.

Before Dutch colonialism (1873–1942), almost all Acehnese literature was in the form of poetry known as Hikayat. Very little is in the form of prose and one of them is the Book of Bakeu Meunan which is a translation of the book Qawaa'id al-Islaam.

It was only after the arrival of the Dutch that Acehnese writings appeared in the form of prose, in the 1930s, such as Lhee Saboh Nang written by Aboe Bakar and De Vries. It was only afterward that various forms of prose appeared, but still remained dominated by the form of Hikayat.

Transportation
The 74-km Sigli–Banda Aceh Toll Road is currently under construction, as a part of the Trans-Sumatra Toll Road.

Railways in Aceh has started since the Dutch colonial era. In 1876 the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army (KNIL) started to build a 750-mm gauge railways known as Atjeh Tram, which began operating from 1882 to 1942 and later changed its name to Atjeh Staatsspoorwegen (ASS) in 1916. Its railways assets, now mostly inactive, is under the ownership of the Regional Division I North Sumatra and Aceh of Kereta Api Indonesia. Cut Meutia is a train that serves Krueng Geukueh to Krueng Mane in North Aceh Regency.

Airports in Aceh include Sultan Iskandar Muda International Airport in Aceh Besar Regency (serving Banda Aceh and surrounding areas) and Maimun Saleh Airport in Sabang.

title: Aceh


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Stephen Walt

Stephen Martin Walt (born July 2, 1955) is an American political scientist currently serving as the Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of international relations at the Harvard Kennedy School.

A member of the realist school of international relations, Walt has made important contributions to the theory of neorealism and has authored the balance of threat theory. Books that he has authored or coauthored include Origins of Alliances, Revolution and War, and The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.

Early life and education
Walt was born in Los Alamos, New Mexico, where his father, a physicist, worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory. His mother was a teacher. The family moved to the Bay Area when Walt was about eight months old.

Walt grew up in Los Altos Hills. He pursued his undergraduate studies at Stanford University. He first majored in chemistry with an eye to becoming a biochemist but then shifted to history and finally to international relations.

After attaining his BA, Walt began graduate work at the University of California, Berkeley and graduated with a MA in political science in 1978 and a PhD in political science in 1983.

Career
Walt taught at Princeton University and the University of Chicago, where he served as master of the Social Science Collegiate Division and deputy dean of social sciences. As of 2015, he holds the Robert and Renee Belfer Professorship in International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Other professional activities
Walt was elected a fellow in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in May 2005.

He spoke at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University in 2010. In 2012, Walt took part in a panel at the one-state solution conference at the Kennedy School, along with Ali Abunimah and Eve Spangler.

Walt spoke at Clark University in April 2013. He gave a talk at the College of William & Mary in October 2013: "Why US Foreign Policy Keeps Failing."

He delivered the 2013 F. H. Hinsley Lecture at Cambridge University.

American power and culture
On the twentieth anniversary of the war against Iraq, Walt characterized the rules-based world order as "a set of rules that we [the U.S.] had an enormous role in writing, and of course which we feel free to violate whenever it's inconvenient for us to follow them."

In the comprehensive 2005 article "Taming American Power", Walt argued that the U.S. should "make its dominant position acceptable to others—by using military force sparingly, by fostering greater cooperation with key allies, and, most important of all, by rebuilding its crumbling international image." He proposed for the US to "resume its traditional role as an 'offshore balancer,' " to intervene "only when absolutely necessary," and to keep "its military presence as small as possible."

In a late 2011 article for The National Interest, "The End of the American Era," Walt wrote that America is losing its position of world dominance.

Walt gave a speech in 2013 to the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies, "Why does US foreign policy keep failing?" The institute later described him as seeing "an overwhelming bias among US foreign policy institutions toward an activist foreign policy" and "a propensity to exaggerate threats, noting the chances of being struck by lightning have been far greater since 2001 than death by terrorist attack." He also characterized the US as lacking "diplomatic skill and finesse" and advised Europeans "to think of themselves and not rely on the US for guidance or advice on solving their security issues." Ultimately, he argued that "the United States is simply not skilled enough to run the world."

In 2013, Walt asked "Why are Americans so willing to pay taxes in order to support a world-girdling national security establishment, yet so reluctant to pay taxes to have better schools, health care, roads, bridges, subways, parks, museums, libraries, and all the other trappings of a wealthy and successful society?" He said that the question was especially puzzling given that "the United States is the most secure power in history and will remain remarkably secure unless it keeps repeating the errors of the past decade or so."

Foreign policy
A critic of military interventionism, Walt stated: "Hawks like to portray opponents of military intervention as 'isolationist' because they know it is a discredited political label. Yet there is a coherent case for a more detached and selective approach to U.S. grand strategy, and one reason that our foreign policy establishment works so hard to discredit it is their suspicion that a lot of Americans might find it convincing if they weren't constantly being reminded about looming foreign dangers in faraway places. The arguments in favor of a more restrained grand strategy are far from silly, and the approach makes a lot more sense than neoconservatives' fantasies of global primacy or liberal hawks' fondness for endless quasi-humanitarian efforts to reform whole regions."

Europe
In 1998, Walt wrote that "deep structural forces" were "beginning to pull Europe and America apart."

Walt argued that NATO must be sustained because of four major areas in which close co-operation is beneficial to European and American interest.
 * 1) Defeating international terrorism; Walt saw a need for cooperation between Europe and the United States in managing terrorist networks and stopping the flow of money to terror cells.
 * 2) Limiting the spread of weapons of mass destruction; Walt argued that anti-proliferation efforts are most successful when Europe and the U.S. work in concert to bring loose nuclear material into responsible custody. He cited the case of Libya's willingness to abandon its nascent fission program after being pressured multilaterally as evidence of this.
 * 3) Managing the world economy; lowering barriers to trade and investment particularly between the U.S. and the E.U. would accelerate economic growth. Notable differences in trade policy stem mainly in areas of agricultural policy.
 * 4) Dealing with failed states; failed states are breeding grounds for anti-Western movements. Managing failed states such as Afghanistan, Bosnia and Somalia require a multinational response since the U.S. has insufficient wealth to modernise and rebuild these alone. In this area, European allies are especially desirable because they have more experience with peacekeeping and "nation-building".

Eastern Europe and Russia
In 2015, Walt wrote that extending invitations for NATO membership to countries in the former Soviet bloc is a "dangerous and unnecessary goal" and that nations such as Ukraine ought to be "neutral buffer state(s) in perpetuity." From that perspective, he believed that arming Ukrainian armed forces after the annexation of Crimea by Russia "is a recipe for a longer and more destructive conflict."

Middle East
Walt said in December 2012 that America's "best course in the Middle East would be to act as an 'offshore balancer': ready to intervene if the balance of power is upset, but otherwise keeping our military footprint small. We should also have normal relationship with states like Israel and Saudi Arabia, instead of the counterproductive 'special relationships' we have today."

An article by Walt entitled "What Should We Do if the Islamic State Wins? Live with it." appeared on June 10, 2015, in Foreign Policy magazine. He explained his view that the Islamic State was unlikely to grow into a longlasting world power on Point of Inquiry, the podcast of the Center for Inquiry in July 2015.

Israel
Walt has been a critic, along with his co-author John Mearsheimer of the offensive neorealism school of international relations, of the Israel lobby in the United States and the influence he says that it has on its foreign policy. He wrote that Barack Obama erred by breaking with the principles in his Cairo speech by allowing continued Israeli settlement and by participating in a "well-coordinated assault" against the Goldstone Report.

Walt suggested in 2010 that State Department diplomat Dennis Ross's alleged partiality toward Israel might make him give Obama advice that was against U.S. interests. Robert Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), defended Ross and criticized Walt in a piece published by Foreign Affairs, which had published Walt's piece a few days earlier. Satloff wrote that Ross's connection to WINEP is innocuous (Ross was a distinguished fellow at WINEP throughout George W. Bush's administration, and Mearsheimer and Walt's book described WINEP as "part of the core" of the Israel lobby in the United States) and that Walt mistakenly believes that the U.S. cannot simultaneously "advance strategic partnership both with Israel and with friendly Arab and Muslim states."

After the Itamar attack, in which a Jewish family was killed on the West Bank in March 2011, Walt condemned the murderers but added that "while we are at it, we should not spare the other parties who have helped create and perpetuate the circumstances." He listed "every Israeli government since 1967, for actively promoting the illegal effort to colonize these lands," "Palestinian leaders who have glorified violence," and "the settlers themselves, some of whom routinely use violence to intimidate the Palestinians who live in the lands they covet."

Walt criticized the U.S. for voting against a Security Council resolution condemning Israel's West Bank settlements and called the vote a "foolish step" because "the resolution was in fact consistent with the official policy of every president since Lyndon Johnson."

Iran
Walt has frequently criticized America's policy with respect to Iran. In 2011, Walt told an interviewer that the American reaction to an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in the United States "might be part of a larger American diplomatic effort to put Iran on the hot seat."

"Washington continues to insist on a near-total Iranian capitulation," wrote Walt in December 2012. "And because Iran has been effectively demonized here in America, it would be very hard for President Obama to reach a compromise and then sell it back home."

Walt said in November 2013, "Americans often forget just how secure the United States is, especially compared with other states," thanks to its power, resources, and geography, and thus "routinely blows minor threats out of all proportion. I mean: Iran has a defense budget of about $10 billion... yet we manage to convince ourselves that Iran is a Very Serious Threat to U.S. vital interests. Ditto the constant fretting about minor-league powers like Syria, North Korea, Muammar al-Qaddafi's Libya, and other so-called 'rogue states.'" Therefore, whatever happens in the Middle East, "the United States can almost certainly adjust and adapt and be just fine."

Libya
After visiting Libya, Walt wrote in Foreign Policy in January 2010 that while "Libya is far from a democracy, it also doesn't feel like other police states that I have visited. I caught no whiff of an omnipresent security service—which is not to say that they aren't there. . . . The Libyans with whom I spoke were open and candid and gave no sign of being worried about being overheard or reported or anything like that. . . . I tried visiting various political websites from my hotel room and had no problems, although other human rights groups report that Libya does engage in selective filtering of some political websites critical of the regime. It is also a crime to criticize Qaddafi himself, the government's past human rights record is disturbing at best, and the press in Libya is almost entirely government-controlled. Nonetheless, Libya appears to be more open than contemporary Iran or China and the overall atmosphere seemed far less oppressive than most places I visited in the old Warsaw Pact."

David E. Bernstein, Foundation Professor at the George Mason University School of Law, criticized Walt in 2011 for accepting funding from the Libyan government for a trip to Libya in which he addressed that country's Economic Development Board and then wrote what Bernstein called "a puff piece" about his visit. Bernstein said it was ironic that "Walt, after fulminating about the American domestic 'Israel Lobby' " had thus become "a part of the 'Libya lobby.' " Bernstein also found it ironic that "Walt, a leading critic of the friendship the U.S. and Israel, concludes his piece with the hope 'that the United States and Libya continue to nurture and build a constructive relationship.' Because, you know, Israel is so much nastier than Qaddafi's Libya."

Under the headline "Is Stephen Walt Blind, a Complete Fool, or a Big Liar?", Martin Peretz of the New Republic mocked Walt for praising Libya, which Peretz called a "murderous place" and for viewing its dictator as "civilized." Peretz contrasted Walt's view of Libya, which, Peretz noted, he had visited for less than a day.

Syria
In August 2013, Walt argued that even if it turned out that Bashar al-Assad of Syria had used chemical weapons, the U.S. should not intervene. "Dead is dead, no matter how it is done," wrote Walt. "Obama may be tempted to strike because he foolishly drew a 'red line' over this issue and feels his credibility is now at stake. But following one foolish step with another will not restore that lost standing."

Asia
Walt posits that offshore balancing is the most desirable strategy to deal with China. In 2011, Walt argued that China will seek to gain regional hegemony and a broad sphere of influence in Asia, which was comparable in size to the U.S. position in the Western Hemisphere. If that happens, he predicts that China would be secure enough on the mainland to give added attention to shaping events to its favour in far flung areas. Since China is resource-poor, it will likely aim to safeguard vital sea lanes in areas such as the Persian Gulf.

In a December 2012 interview, Walt said that "the United States does not help its own cause by exaggerating Chinese power. We should not base our policy today on what China might become twenty or thirty years down the road."

Balance of threat theory
Walt developed the balance of threat theory, which defined threats in terms of aggregate power, geographic proximity, offensive power, and aggressive intentions. It is a modification of the "balance of power" theory, whose framework was refined by neorealist Kenneth Waltz.

Snowden case
In July 2013, Walt argued that Obama should give Edward Snowden an immediate pardon. "Mr. Snowden's motives," wrote Walt, "were laudable: he believed fellow citizens should know their government was conducting a secret surveillance programme enormous in scope, poorly supervised and possibly unconstitutional. He was right." History, Walt suggested, "will probably be kinder to Mr Snowden than to his pursuers, and his name may one day be linked to the other brave men and women—Daniel Ellsberg, Martin Luther King Jr., Mark Felt, Karen Silkwood and so on—whose acts of principled defiance are now widely admired."

Books
In his 1987 book The Origins of Alliances, Walt examines the ways in which alliances are made and "proposes a fundamental change in the present conceptions of alliance systems."

Revolution and War (1996) exposes "the flaws in existing theories about the relationship between revolution and war" by studying in detail the French, Russian, and Iranian Revolutions and providing briefer views of the American, Mexican, Turkish, and Chinese Revolutions.

Taming American Power (2005) provides a thorough critique of US strategy from the perspective of its adversaries. Anatol Lieven called it "a brilliant contribution to the American foreign policy debate."

The Hell of Good Intentions: America's Foreign Policy Elite and the Decline of U.S. Primacy was published on 16 October 2018.

The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy
In March 2006, John Mearsheimer and Walt, then academic dean of the Harvard Kennedy School, published a working paper, "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" and an article entitled "The Israel Lobby" in the London Review of Books on the negative effects of "the unmatched power of the Israel Lobby." They defined the Israel lobby as "the loose coalition of individuals and organizations who actively work to steer U.S. foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction." Mearsheimer and Walt took this position: "What the Israel lobby wants, it too often gets."

The articles, as well as the bestselling book that Walt and Mearsheimer later developed, generated considerable media coverage throughout the world. Contending that Walt and Mearsheimer are members of a "school that essentially wishes that the war with jihadism had never started," Christopher Hitchens concluded that "wishfulness has led them to seriously mischaracterize the origins of the problem." Former U.S. ambassador Edward Peck wrote that the "tsunami" of responses condemning the report proved the existence of the lobby and "Opinions differ on the long-term costs and benefits for both nations, but the lobby's views of Israel's interests have become the basis of U.S. Middle East policies."

Personal life
Walt is married to Rebecca E. Stone, who ran for Massachusetts House of Representatives in the 2018 election. They have two children.

Titles and positions

 * 1999–present – Belfer Professor of International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard University
 * 2002–2006 – academic dean, Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard University
 * January 2000 – visiting professor of strategic studies, Institute for Defense and Security Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
 * 1996–1999 – University of Chicago, deputy dean of social sciences
 * 1995–1999 – University of Chicago, professor
 * 1992–2001 – Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, board of directors
 * 1989–1995 – University of Chicago, associate professor
 * 1988 – The Brookings Institution, guest scholar
 * 1986–1987 – Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, resident associate
 * 1985–1989 – World Politics, Board of Editors
 * 1984–1989 – Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School, assistant professor
 * 1981–1984 – Harvard University, Center for Science and International Affairs, research fellow
 * 1978–1982 – Center for Naval Analyses, staff

title: Stephen Walt