The Power of the Powerless

Author(s): Václav Havel

Editor(s): Jan Vladislav

In: Václav Havel, Jan Vladislav, Living in Truth: 22 Essays Published on the Occasion of the Award of the Erasmus Prize to Vaclav Havel, London, Faber, 1987 , pp. 36-122

(Also available in other collections.)
Influential analysis of ‘post-totalitarian’ society and politics in the Soviet bloc in the 1970s and eloquent argument for individual integrity and acts of dissent by lead Czechoslovak playwright and dissident, who became President after 1989. This text inspired many activists in Eastern Europe and others round the world, including Aung San Suu Kyi, leading figure in the nonviolent resistance in Burma from 1988.

Nukewatch – a Scottish Perspective

Author(s): Jane Tallents

In: Peace News, No 2620-2621, 2018, pp. 11ff

Nukewatch focuses on monitoring road convoys carrying nuclear warheads from the Aldermaston Weapons Research Establishment near Reading to missile bases.  The campaign began in the 1980s, and in the 1980s and 1990s Nukewatch also tried to publicize the convoys to the local population by protests along the route. From the 2000s stricter Ministry of Defence controls to ensure secrecy and speed, and Nukewatch’s own concerns about possible acts of terrorism against convoys, led them to limit the information they put on the web.  However, given the growth of social media and publicity about convoys on it, they joined in from 2015, whilst still using information with discretion.

See also article by Jane Tallents ‘Warhead Accidents on our Roads – Who’s Responsible?’, p.10. of the same issue of Peace News.

The Occupy Handbook

Editor(s): Janet Byrne

Back Bay Books, New York, 2012, pp. 560

Includes discussion of why the 1% have such a dominant economic position.

Zimbabwe – Unarmed resistance, civil society and limits of international solidarity

Author(s): Janet Cherry

In: Howard Clark, People Power: Unarmed Resistance and Global Solidarity (A. 1.b. Strategic Theory, Dynamics, Methods and Movements), pp. 50-63

Account written during the post-electoral negotiations in 2008, but primarily assessing the role of community-based organisations (unions, professional associations, urban community groups and women’s groups) in the broad resistance movement. Draws on extensive interviews with activists. In the same volume see: April Carter, Janet Cherry, Worker solidarity and civil society cooperation: Blocking the Chinese arms shipment to Zimbabwe, April 2008, In Howard Clark, People Power: Unarmed Resistance and Global Solidarity (A. 1.b. Strategic Theory, Dynamics, Methods and Movements) London, Pluto Press, 2009 , pp. 191-192 .

Gewaltfrei Widerstand und urbaner Raum

Author(s): Markus Bayer, and Janet Kusawe

In: Wissenschaft und Frieden, 2016-2: Stadt im Konflikt - Urbane Gewalttraeume, 2016, pp. 29-31

Nonviolent resistance is a mass phenomenon that can challenge corrupt and autocratic regimes.  This form of resistance and  its symbiotic relationship to cities is not at all new: the plebeians in the Roman Republic used this kind of struggle when they abandoned the city until their demands were met.  But how do modern cities as conflict spaces favour  nonviolent resistance?  The authors systematically analyse the relationship between the urban sphere and nonviolent resistance.

South Korea’s abortion reform. A model for others

Author(s): Janet Walsh

Human Rights Watch2019

A ruling by South Korea’s Constitutional Court in April 2019, that the country’s abortion laws were unconstitutional, effectively decriminalised abortion. The court required the National Assembly to reform the law by December 2020.

See also https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-47890065; https://time.com/5567300/south-korea-abortion-ban-ruling/ and https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/south-korea-court-strikes-down-six-decade-old-abortion-ban/2019/04/11/0200f028-5c43-11e9-842d-7d3ed7eb3957_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.66acd94bf340

Available online at:

https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/04/15/south-koreas-abortion-reform-model-others

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