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Includes a wide range of experiences and viewpoints discussing the context and range of the Arab uprisings, and focusing on topics such as women and the Arab Spring, agents of change and the technology of protest and the impact of the Arab Spring on the Middle East. Highlights developments in Egypt.
Examines different types of action used by movement against evictions and how a range of people drawn into movement.
This article explores the ‘Black Protest’ demonstration in Poland against a proposed abortion law, which would have been one of the most restrictive in the European Union.
This paper describes the Middle East Nuclear Weapons Free Zone’s proposal, originally advanced by Iran and Egypt in 1974, as well as the extension of the concept in 1990 to include all weapons of mass destruction.
Ting, from the Department of Applied Social Sciences at the Polytechnic University in Hong Kong, focuses on the use of social media and mobile technology that allowed 'largely ad hoc and networked form s of pop-up protest', both in the protests against the Extradition Bill and against police brutality and abuse of human rights. The article elaborates on how protest repertories and movement goals have emerged.
Bartlett briefly traces the evolution of the movement. from high school students protesting about metro fare increases to major demonstrations in Santiago and across the country voicing numerous demands. The article analyzes both the socio-economic problems creating anger, and the neo-liberal nature of the Pinochet constitution, designed to maximize the role of private businesses and minimize the social and economic role of the state. It also notes the role of civil society groups in promoting public debate and crystalizing demands for a new constitution.
Focuses particularly on women crossing Israeli-imposed borders to maintain their sense of autonomy and freedom, and argues that although these actions are ‘framed’ as resistance to occupation they also covertly challenge patriarchal controls..
These are largely contemporaneous accounts, lightly revised from Pambazuka News, Pan-African Voices for Freedom and Justice, http://www.pambazuka.org. As well as interesting contributions on Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Morocco and Algeria (noted again under E.V), this book covers unrest in a number of Sub-Saharan countries:
‘People’s revolts in Burkina Faso’, February-April 2011, involving students, the broad population and army mutinies (unfortunately the mutineers did not make common cause with the civilian protesters), pp. 131-46.
A ‘Protest Diary’ from Cameroon in February 2011, by presidential candidate Kah Walla, blogs about strictly nonviolent protests brutally suppressed (pp.107-10).
In Swaziland (pp. 155-169) the 12-15 April 2011 popular demonstrations went ahead in the face of roadblocks and despite the arrests of virtually the entire leadership of the democratic association, perhaps signalling ‘the beginning of the end’ for the absolute monarchy.
See also the recent discussion between Amy Risley and Brysk, pp. 83-113, in Jeff Goodwin, James M. Jasper, Contention in Context: Political Opportunities and the Emergence of Protest (A. 6. Nonviolent Action and Social Movements) .
Account by participant in evolution of land seizures and of how MST eventually achieved legal possession.
This article, incorporating an interview with Tikhanovskya, the leader of the opposition to the Lukashenko regime in exile, provides a useful summary of the resistance to the rigged election in 2020 and the subsequent repression. Vock notes the ruthlessness of Lukashenko against the opposition internally and those in exile in EU countries, and his unscrupulous use of refugees from the Middle East to challenge the Polish/EU borders. He also indicates that the Belarus opposition, which initially did not challenge ties to Russia, has become explicitly hostile to Putin's backing for Lukashenko and more dependent on EU and western support. Vok also reports that a leaked poll from inside Belarus indicates that although Tikhanovskya has significant support, two of the jailed opponents of the regime, Babaryko and Kolesnikova, are more highly regarded.
Emphasizes local roots of movement. including development of ‘non-secessionist regionalism’ in Uttarakhand. The epilogue, written in 1998, adds historical perspective on the movement’s achievements and reports on-going struggles. Seeks to offer ‘corrective’ to romanticized western and ecofeminist interpretations.
Presents an 'ideal type' of nonviolence (the power of good) which synthesizes the approaches developed by the Catholic Hildegard Goss-Mayr, the Hindu Gandhi and the atheist de Ligt. Attempts to describe the common core of the various traditions of nonviolence: the conception of how nonviolent action typically works. Differentiates between nonviolence as a pattern of interaction, a model of behaviour and a human potential. 'The power of good' chiefly has an impact through action by committed individuals, 'contagion' and the evolution of both in mass noncooperation.
A year after the eruption of the #MeToo movement, historian Mary Beard traces the roots of misogyny in the West to Athens and Rome and explores the relationships between women and power and how this intersects with issues of rape and consent.
Examination of the history of how the US Federal Government mistreated the First Nations since the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee, brought right up to date, with an emphasis on the militancy of the 1970s and the subsequent improvements in the condition and role of Native Americans. The book ends with an account of the dramatic Standing Rock protest by a large gathering of different tribes over a proposed pipeline in 2016. This important history by a member of the Ojibwe, who is also a social anthropologist, appeared just after two Native American women were for the first time elected to Congress in 2018.
Conversation with Alfred Brownell, Liberian environmental lawyers recorded by Veronique Mistiaen. Brownell has been involved in a seven year campaign which succeeded in protecting half a million acres of Liberia's tropical rainforest from the Southeast Asia-based Golden Veroleum company, which had been granted the right by the government to clear and use the land to grow palm oil. He took up the cause of the indigenous community in Sinoe County whose forests and cultural sites were being destroyed by the company. The article outlines how the campaign succeeded and Brownell's wider role in creating the Alliance for Rural Democracy throughout Liberia to work for environmental justice. He had been forced by death threats to move with his family to the USA.
This brief but interesting commentary was written after the first week of protests in October 2019, in which 100 people were killed and over 6,000 injured. Dawood discusses the immediate causes of the protests and the longer term failings of the government under Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, elected as a compromise candidate between two Shiite coalitions a year earlier. The author notes that opposition groups like the Communist Party and the Sadrist movement (followers of the radical Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr) were not involved, but that the lack of leadership among the protesters (even within cities) was a weakness in making credible demands for change. Nevertheless, the government (despite its immediate authoritarian reaction) was making concessions by offering economic reforms and pressing for passage of anti-corruption bills before parliament.