Homeland - Various Connotations

Various Connotations

• The Soviet Union created homelands for some minorities in the 1920s, including the Volga German ASSR and the Jewish Autonomous Oblast. In the case of the Volga German ASSR, these homelands were later abolished and their inhabitants deported to either Siberia or the Kazakh SSR. In the case of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast this was not necessary, since it had been created from the start at the far-Eastern end of Siberia, where no Jew had ever lived.
• In the United States, the Department of Homeland Security was created soon after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, as a means to centralize response to various threats. In a June 2002 column, Republican consultant and speechwriter Peggy Noonan expressed the hope that the Bush administration would change the name of the department, writing that, "The name Homeland Security grates on a lot of people, understandably. Homeland isn't really an American word, it's not something we used to say or say now".
• In the apartheid era in South Africa, the concept was given a different meaning. The white government had designated approximately 13% of its territory for black tribal settlement. Whites and other non-blacks were restricted from owning land or settling in those areas. After 1948 they were gradually granted an increasing level of "home-rule". From 1976 several of these regions were granted independence. Four of them were declared independent nations by South Africa, but were unrecognized as independent countries by any other nation besides each other and South Africa. The territories set aside for the African inhabitants were also known as bantustans.
• In Australia, the term refers to relatively small Aboriginal settlements (referred to also as 'Outstations') where people with close kinship ties share lands significant to them for cultural reasons. Many such homelands are found across Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland. The 'homeland movement' gained momentum in the 1970s. It is estimated that homeland numbers range around 500 to 700, with not all homelands being permanently occupied owing to seasonal or cultural reasons.
• In Turkish homeland, especially in the patriotic sense is "ana yurt" (motherland) while "baba ocağı" (father's home) is used for one's hometown and practically means the house of one's parents where s/he grew up. (Note: The Turkish word "ocak" has the double meaning of home and fireplace, like the Spanish "hogar".)