No name
Analyzes the rise of Syriza (formed in 2004) within its broader political context, and comments on the problems faced after its victory in the polls and the developments up to early 2015. Chapter 3 'Their Austerity and Our Resistance' focuses on popular resistance by students, strikes by workers, occupations of the squares, environmental struggle, opposition to racism and the major struggle sparked in 2013 by efforts to maintain the national broadcasting and television networks, leading to work place occupations across the country.'
(A Penguin Special and one in a series on Hong Kong)
The author charts the attitudes of the generation who grew up since 1997, arguing that they have a distinctive Hong Kong identity, detached from Britain's legacy and far from identifying with mainland China, but aware of pressure from Beijing. He follows the stories of 'activists turned politicians', 'artists resisting censorship' and. some connected with the world of high finance, making comparisons with other Asian countries he has covered as a journalist.
This paper argues for a conceptualisng denial of abortion as the patriarchal policing of women’s bodies and their sexuality. The authors briefly review international trends regarding abortion politics, including many thousands of abortion related deaths, injuries and loss of fertility, and then analyze women’s access to abortion in two countries, the United States and Bangladesh, which represent two very different contexts: the developed and developing world. They argue that abortion services are being constrained by misogynistic politics that deny women control over their bodies. Finally, the paper reviews recent international efforts to establish abortion rights in the context of human rights. In particular, a recent United Nation’s report describes moves to recriminalise both contraception and abortion in the U.S. and Europe as the deliberate denial of medically available and necessary services and hence a form of “torture.”
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
The authors comment on the impressive revival of Black LivesMatter in May/June 2020, reforms to policing already agreed in some cities and the new prominence of the demand to ‘defund the police’. They also discuss the importance of combining a range of approaches and tactics to complement direct action: doing research; making the ‘invisible visible’; using symbolic ritual (for example turning the fence around the White House into a shrine); and encouraging artistic creativity to promote joy and healing.
Account by journalist who gave prominent coverage to the women’s struggle during the strike.
Story of the 'Feminist Five' who were jailed in 2015 for a protest against sexual harassment, and the art and activism of their supporters. The book also examines the official gender equality policy of the Communist Party since 1949, and the recent suppression of dissidence and bans on foreign support for NGOs.
See also ‘Talking policy: Leta Hong Fincher on feminism in China’, World Policy, 2 June 2017: https://worldpolicy.org/2017/06/02/talking-policy-leta-hong-fincher-on-feminism-in-china/
Leta Hong discusses her book Leftover Women: The Resurgence of gender Inequality in China and the development of feminism in China from the post- socialist era up to today.
To read the first-hand account on the arrest of one activist of the ‘Feminist Five’ and other initiatives to free them, see this comprehensive article https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/08/feminist-stickers-china-backash-women-activists
See also https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2093973/fight-against-gender-violence-goes-chinas-feminist-five and https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2018/02/people-week-feminist-five/
Following the #MeToo movement and #TimeIsUp campaign, Rottenberg argues that the current neoliberal context that reduces everything to market calculation requires that a new wave of feminism should reorient and reclaim itself as a social justice movement.
Describes the history of the atom in the US and the UK; the combination of civilian/military use and how people and movement developed an understanding of the risks associated with nuclear power since the 1960s.
The authors note that the Cameroon government had announced the goal of restoring 12 million hectares of degraded land by 2030 and had applied for support from the Bonn Challenge and AFR100 initiatives. They argue that women, who constitute over 60% of the rural workforce in Central Africa, have a crucial role to play, and examine some forms of restoration so far undertaken by women’s groups in Cameroon.
This introduction to a substantial report on the latest phase in Kyrgyz politics provides an analysis of the events of October 2020 to February 2021 against the background of the recent political past, including the legacy of the anti-Uzbek violence in 2010.
Examines how a small group of radical pacifists (such as Dave Dellinger, A.J. Muste and Bayard Rustin) played a major role in the rebirth of US radicalism and social protest in the 1950s and 1960s, applying nonviolence to social issues and developing an experimental protest style.
Autobiography of his earlier years.
A critique of Chavismo from the libertarian left.
On Polish worker occupation to prevent closure of a factory, supported by local community and anarchist groups.
Statements by two anarchists in the draft resistance movement, who went underground and then to jail, commenting critically upon it. An introduction by Takver notes the important role played by individual anarchists and anarchist groups in the anti-war movement.
Views and experiences of US activists and their assessment of how much or little had changed since Stonewall.
The editors, two professors of government in Hong Kong, argue that although the Occupy Central movement did not achieve immediate specific results it did alter the nature of Hong Kong politics through the emergence of a new movement and repertoire of protest, and also changed Hong Kong's relations with China and its perceived identity internationally. Scholarly contributors from different disciplines assess the origins of the movement, discuss new participants and forms of protest, and the Hong Kong government's response. The book includes perspectives from China, Taiwan and Macau.
See also: Edmund W. Cheng, Wai-Yin Chan, Explaining Spontaneous Occupation: Antecedents, Contingencies and Spaces in the Umbrella Movement, 2017 , pp. 222-239
Recently, many women’s movements in Brazil sought internet as means of expression and claim, and held campaigns of national and international impact through it, disseminating information using the hashtags #meuamigosecreto (#mysecretsanta) and #meuprimeiroassédio (#myfirstharassment) to denounce situations of various types of harassment they have experienced. The authors of this study aimed to identify which are the elements that influence the intention of women’s participation in online feminist movements by surveying 185 Brazilian women who took part in the #meuamigosecreto campaign. The survey provides relevant information for better understanding of feminist movements online, demonstrating that the participants believe that the campaigns strengthen the feminist movement, assist in raising awareness of men about their macho attitudes, can result in a decrease of cases of violence against women and can contribute to the debate on violence against women.
Pittock, a well known Australian climate scientist, examines the scientific evidence for climate change, including new evidence in the 2007 Fourth IPCC Assessment Report of the rapid melting of arctic sea ice. He also covers the possibilities of investment in renewable technologies, and examines the role of the (in 2009) recently elected Australian government.
The authors look back to 2011 and the varied outcomes in four different contexts which shaped the possibility of and the reactions to mass protest. These are: the Maghreb (Tunisia and Morocco); Egypt; the Levant (Syria and Iraq) - states created out of the Ottoman Empire and then dominated by the colonial powers Britain and France; and the Gulf Arab monarchies. They then discuss 'whither the second wave?' in relation to Sudan, Algeria, Labanon and Iraq and draw some provisional conclusions.