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Relevant for background to the events of 2011.
Part 1 covers France’s defence policy since 1945 – including the wars in Indo-China and Algeria, and De Gaulle’s decision (supported by the major political parties) to develop a French nuclear bomb. Part 2 focuses on anti-nuclear critiques and movements in the 1980s, including a military critique of French defence policy by Admiral Sanguinetti and Claude Bourdet on the ‘The rebirth of the peace movement’.
This document was developed by the leaders of the Otpor movement, which inspired civil resistance against Milosevic in Serbia in the 1990s. It examines a strategic approach to nonviolent struggle presented in four thematic sections: definition and analysis of the framework of nonviolent struggle; elaboration and planning of the struggle; the techniques of nonviolent combat; and measures to resist repression.
This chapter provides an overview of Brazilian feminist and women's movements since the 1970s, showing how dialogues with the state began and eventually led to the establishment of Women's Policy Agencies at different governmental levels, as well as in the different branches of government. It demonstrates that, despite these setbacks, state feminism in its participatory form continues to be an important instrument in the fight for gender equality in Brazil. The chapter deals with a periodization of feminist struggles in Brazil, tracing the emergence and consolidation of state feminism and the challenges it encountered up to more recent years. It examines how state feminism in Brazil has furthered women's struggles in combating their underrepresentation in formal politics, confronting violence against women, and advancing state support for the exercise of women's reproductive rights, focusing on the legalization of abortion.
This special supplement in the paper focusing especially on the homeless (and sold by them) takes up the climate crisis and the role of youth activism. Features young people arguing for climate change to be on the school curriculum, and interviewing the UK Environment Secretary, Michael Gove, Caroline Lucas (the sole Green MP in the UK Parliament), and representatives of Marks and Spencer about their clothing and recycling policies. Includes interviews with young naturalists and activists in different parts of the country.
A detailed history and sympathetic analysis of the development of a new kind of politics in the autonomous administration created rebel held territory in northern Kurdistan in Syria. Rojava’s ideology (a reaction against the previous Marxist-Leninist beliefs of the Kurdish PKK) rejects centralized state control and emphases local communal organizing and promotion of ecological and feminist goals. Their armed groups, which include women's units, played a major role in opposing ISIS.
See also: Dirik, Dilar, 'Unbowed" New Internationalist, July/August 2020, pp.22-4.
The author notes the 'remarkable progress' made by the Autonomous Administration in Northern and Eastern Syria since July 2012 in promoting women's rights in all spheres. Turkish troops and their proxies occupied parts of Rojava -Afrin in the north in 2018 and the area bordering Turkey in 2019 - expelling hundreds of thousands of Kurds, shutting down all women's organizations and allowing armed groups to terrorize women. Nevertheless, women were continuing to organize more informally and were committed to resist the permanent extinction of their basic rights, and in northern Syria had held protests and rallies.
Analysis of background and context of elections, the regime’s role and actions of the opposition.
This article explains the new laws which are the focus of the farmers' protest, describes the initial protest journey to Delhi and explains the spirit and organization of the protests and the building of solidarity with other groups, for example by celebrating International Women's Day and May Day to link with women’s and workers' struggles. Singh then engages in an analysis of 'disaster capitalism' including the revision of the labour laws. It concludes that the farmers' movement has become a struggle for 'a more just future for India's dispossessed'.
Focuses on 1974-75, and provides more detailed references in both Portuguese and English.
Sympathetic account of the ‘Cedar Revolution’ by journalist of mixed Lebanese-American parentage.
Analysis of how organization, tactics, political context and ‘framing’ of the issue affect outcomes, based on 15 campaigns in 8 US cities.
Survey from early concerns about conservation through the ‘second wave’ 1945-72, and the campaigns of 1973-83 up to the subsequent professionalization of the movement. Chapter 4 ‘Taking to the Streets’ covers ‘green bans’ and the anti-uranium campaigns; ‘Taking to the Bush’ looks at direct action on a number of issues, culminating in the 1982 blockade of the Franklin Dam; and Chapter 6 ‘Fighting for Wilderness’ assesses further protests around Australia. Chapter 8 considers the role of the Green Party.
Argues radical left never had a cohesive centre and that when movement most confrontational, its liberal wing was working most effectively with the political system. Suggests the movement became associated with social and cultural iconoclasm, which appeal to sections of middle classes, but that the broader public eventually opposed both the war and the antiwar protest, because ‘both seemed to threaten the established social order’.
Assessment by a Marxist sociologist in Ukraine who demonstrated in 2000 against the Kuchma regime. Topics include: the role of the far right in Euromaidan (he argues that an organised and effective minority was promoting nationalist slogans); the changing of the social composition of protesters; the interim goverment; the cultural roots of the eastern Ukrainian uprisings for independence, and the election of President Poroshenko.
In 2012 Uruguay became the second country in Latin America to decriminalize abortion during the first trimester. Drawing on original field research, this article argues that the reform was due to the existence of a strong campaign for decriminalization. The women’s movement framed their case to resonate within civil society, gathered support from key social actors, and collaborated closely with sympathetic legislators. Success was also due to the limited influence of the Catholic Church, a president open to abortion reform, and a highly institutionalized party system creating a strong leftist coalition.
After experiencing the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in August 1945, Chinese-ink painter Iri Maruki and oil painter Toshi Maruki began their collaboration on the Hiroshima Panels in 1950. During the Allied occupation of Japan when reporting on the atomic bombing was strictly prohibited, the panels made known the hidden nuclear sufferings through a nationwide tour. In 1953, the panels began a ten-year tour of about 20 countries, mainly in East Asia and Europe, and disseminated the Hiroshima stories in the age of the US-Soviet arms race. The Marukis embarked on a new direction in the 1970s, with their emphasis on complex realities of war in which the victim/perpetrator dichotomy was not clear-cut, and explored other forms of violence such as pollution and discrimination.
This hundredth issue of CO Update (which brings together a number of news items already published by WRI in June 2020 as separate stories) begins by noting that the annual International Conscientious Objection Day on 15 May 2020 was celebrated round the world mostly by actions online. This issue includes the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement's condemnation of the new draconian bill designed to enforce conscription (referenced above), and the Council of Europe's reiterated appeal to Turkey to recognize conscientious objection (noted in the Introduction). It also covers court cases to oppose EU financing of Eritrean development projects that employing conscript labour; the Azerbaijan government's parliamentary announcement about a prospective Alternative Service Law (promised to the Council of Europe in 2003 but not delivered); the suspicious death of a Turkish air force conscript; and two opposing bills in the US Congress: to extend draft registration to women, or to end draft registration.
See also other monthly issues of CO update for detailed news from around the world.
Wu, a university teacher of English educated in the US, returned to China in 1951. This is a personal account of his experiences. The Hundred Flowers campaign is covered pp. 47-72.