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Examination of violence from a gender perspective by academic specializing in women’s political participation in Turkey.
Huge historiography which uncovers the role of civil servants in resisting the deportation of Jews during WWII occupation in France; based on several years of archival and interview-based research.
This paper connects aspects of public sexual violence against women generally, and politicized sexual violence in 21st-century Egypt in particular, arguing that successive political regimes in Egypt have produced and maintained a spatial culture of humiliation and subordination as a political tool to silence and oppress women and prevent opposition. This paper assesses the successes and failures of public feminism in Egypt in addressing this culture of female humiliation and isolation in public spaces, with a particular focus on fighting politicized forms of sexual violence directed against women since 2011. It also argues that sexual violence against women, and the repression of public feminism in Egypt, are parts of the failure of the processes of democratic transition.
Analysis of the new small unions that are mobilizing workers not previously organized, such as domestic workers (often migrants), and older unions extending their reach to cover young workers in fast food chains, delivering food or driving for Uber. The contributors discuss what is distinctive about the style of the unionism - for example its decentralised leadership and willingness to en gage in occupations, and its support from other campaigning groups. The focus is on the UK but within a context of global solidarity with similar campaigns. There is also a timeline from 2008 to 2018 highlighting key struggles including by the long established major unions.
Volpi explores the advantages and disadvantages of leaderless mass movements such as the Hirak. Their ability to challenge the 'pseudodemocratic' mechanisms used by authoritarian elites is a strong point, but a key weakness is inability to create alternative institutional approaches. He also argues that the December 2019 election ensured the ruling elite remained in power, but undermined their legitimacy.
Account by Communist Party leader close to Dubcek of internal Party politics leading up to the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, personal account of the Kremlin ‘negotiations’ after the abduction of top leaders, and his resignation from the Party.
Includes both an account of the protests and the authorities’ response, and scholarly essays interpreting the context. Extensive bibliography.
Examples of nonviolent action from the 1950s to the 1990s. Brief extracts illustrate tactics such as boycotts, courting arrest, funerals, graffiti, ostracism, prayer, resisting removal, voluntary exile and ‘wading-in’ (against segregated beaches).
Leftist academic discusses sympathetically the role of the left and armed revolution in the countryside, but also explores the ‘legal, semi-legal and clandestine mass struggles in the cities’. Notes the creation by 1975 of a militant workers’ movement and the 1975 year-long wave of over 400 strikes, as well as networks among Catholics, professionals and students.
Includes a sympathetic analysis of the Peace People pp. 30-38. See also: https://civilresistance.info/challenge/effective.
Since the Supreme Court seems likely to reverse Roe v. Wade, the landmark abortion decision, American debate appears fixated on clashing rights. This work draws attention to an entirely different and unexpected shift in the terms of debate: instead of simply championing their own rights, those on opposing sides debated about the policy costs and benefits of abortion vs. the laws restricting it. This mostly unrecognized development deepened polarization. Whilst maintaining their constitutional demands, pro-choice and pro-life advocates increasingly disagreed about the basic facts. Drawing on unexplored records and interviews with key participants, Ziegler challenges the view that the Supreme Court is primarily responsible for the escalation of the conflict and charts social-movements divides and crucial legal strategies.
Laffin, a Plowshares activist and member of the radical Catholic Worker organization, gave this talk to 100 supporters of the seven protesters on trial that week for entering the Kings Bay naval submarine base in Georgia in 2018 and symbolically damaging weapons systems. They were found guilty of conspiracy, damaging government property and trespassing. The first Plowshares protest in 1980 involved eight Catholics trespassing on the General Electric Nuclear Missile facility in the King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, and taking action that became characteristic of later protests: they damaged nuclear warhead cones and poured blood on files, before publicly announcing their actions and being arrested. Laffin notes that Plowshares (drawing on the biblical injunction 'beat your swords into plowshares') grew out of the Catholic protests at draft offices during the Vietnam War, when draft records were destroyed. The Berrigan brothers took part in both.
See also: Cohen-Joppa, Jack, ‘They Came to Stop a Crime: The Trial of the Kingsbay Plowshares 7’, Peace News, 2636-2637, Dec. 2019-Jan. 2020, p.7.
(Article first published on 10 Nov. 2019, on Beyond Nuclear International: beyondnuclearinternational.org)
The article provides brief background on Plowshares and outlines the testimony by defendants during their trial. It also records the jury decision to convict each of the seven on four counts: trespass, destruction of government property, ‘depredation’ of government property on a military installation; and conspiracy to commit these illegal acts.
One of the co-founders of the hashtag Black Lives Matter in 2013, Garza outlines in this book a long term strategy for social change. It is based on her own years of experience in community organizing. She has moved on from the Black Lives Matter organization (although still close to the other co-founders) to create the Black Futures Lab. She has developed a policy platform (based on a major cross-party survey of Black people in the US in 2018) that focuses on central, widely supported demands. These include raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, broadening opportunities for Black home ownership, and removing the police presence from schools that often leads to pupils being jailed. She has campaigned in the 2020 US election on her agenda. Her book also argues the need to abandon outdated models of individual leadership from the Civil Rights Movement, as well as cautioning against over-reliance on celebrity activists and the role of the internet.
See also: Mahdawi, Arwa, ‘Move Fast and Fix Things’, Guardian Weekly, 23 Oct. 2020, pp. 34-7.
An extended interview with Alicia Garza.
This review provides a useful overview of the deep divisions in Thai politics between the supporters of the radical populist Thaksin and the strongly opposed conservative royalist groups, leading to the 2006 coup and conflict between the 'Red Shirts' and 'Yellow Shirts'.
See also: Funston, John, ed. , Divided Over Thaksin: Thailand's Coup and Problematic Transition, Singapore, Silkworm Books, 2009, pp. 203.
The book grew out of seminars on Thai politics at the Australian National University in 2006 and 2007; it has six chapters on the 2006 coup and constitutional issues arising, four on the sources of the growing radicalism in the rural and Muslim south of the country, and three on economic issues.
Political theorist and Gandhi scholar Parekh has also written a brief account of Gandhi’s life and work: Bhikhu Parekh, Gandhi, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1997 , pp. 111 .
Examines contribution of environmental activism to ‘an immanent civil society’. Chapters on Hungary, Poland, Romania and Russia.
Specifically on Otpor’s demonstrations at police stations to mark the arrest of activists.
dedicates a section with articles from leading US-based social movement theorists, including Mario Diani, William Gamson, Jack Goldstone, and Jeff Goodwin – ‘Why we were surprised (again) by the Arab Spring’, pp. 452-6 – with Sharon Erickson Nepstad on ‘Nonviolent Resistance in the Arab Spring: The Critical Role of Military-Opposition Alliances’, pp. 485-491.