No name
Veteran Israeli leftist explores relations between moderates and militants, and gives special emphasis to rise of an autonomous women’s movement, especially Women in Black and their weekly vigils. With glossary of political parties and groups.
Campaign of the U’wa people of Colombia to prevent oil drilling.
The author was secretary of Brent Trades Council in London when the non-unionised women strikers at the mail-order plant contacted him for help in 1976, and became a member of the strike committee. He also wrote an obituary of the inspirational leader of the strike, Jayaben Desia, when she died 23 December 2010 (Guardian, 29 Dec 2010, p.30). (For a celebration of Desia’s role and life see also Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, ‘Remembering an unsung heroine of our modern history’, Independent, 3 Jan 2011, p.5.)
Explores women’s fight against oil extraction in the Bolivian Tariquía Reserve and the threat against forms of self-governance, of dispossession from the land and the environment this constitutes. The authors bring into the analysis the false division between the public and the private sphere. The threat of dispossession, in fact, is projected in daily life, as when women have to endure divisions within their families, occurrence that is considered a form of private and public violence.
Studies how the focal points of resistance by prisoners, hunger strikes, are made possible by longer term lower key strategies. These included encouraging forms of communication between prisoners, development of political education, and by less dramatic acts of ‘everyday’ noncooperation, for example with strip searches or some prison routines. The article is based on interviews with former Palestinian prisoners in the West Bank and some interviews with lawyers and NGOs supporting prisoners.
In this interview Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and UN Special Envoy on Climate Change, talks about the Mary Robinson Foundation-Climate Justice. She discusses how climate change disproportionately affects women, especially through undermining food security, and notes that many women are farmers in developing countries.
See also: Editorial spotlight: Climate action with women, UN Women, 13 September 2019.
https://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2019/9/spotlight-climate-action-with-women
Link to women-led initiatives in Bolivia, the Caribbean and Cambogia to tackle climate change.
See also: Empowering women on the frontlines of climate change, UN Environment Programme, 8 March 2019.
https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/story/empowering-women-frontlines-climate-change
Brief introduction to “Promoting Gender-Responsive Approaches to Natural Resource Management for Peace”, a Sudanese project implemented by UN Environment, UN Women and the United Nations Development Programme.
With a yearly figure of 251 activists assassinated in Colombia in 2020, and an average of 4 every week since the Paris agreement’s adoption in December 2015, indigenous activists in Colombia have risen against violence and environmental destruction with protests beginning in Bogota last month in October 2020.
Article discussing Kyrgyz protests in 2019 against migrant Chinese workers (both illegal and legal), in the context of alarm about Chinese government treatment of ethnic Kyrgyz inside China. The author considers how far fears of large numbers of migrants could be substantiated and what the relationship was between protesters and state bodies.
Introduces radical geography perspective on spatial components to sites of resistance. Chapter 1 looks at the developing resistance to aspects of economic development (industrialization, dams, deforestation) and the numerous movements since independence among tribal peoples, peasants, women and squatters. Chapters 3 and 4 analyse the Baliapal movement against a missile testing range, and the Chipko movement against logging.
Contributors provide case studies of Morocco, Uganda, People’s Republic of Congo, South Africa, Ghana, Liberia, Kenya and Swaziland.
After sketching in Taiwan’s earlier history and the evolution of the KMT, chapter 3 describes Taiwan’s political development up to 1986, including a brief summary of the birth of opposition (pp. 66-72). Chapter 8 looks at political reform in 1986-89, the founding of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party and the rise in protest.
An account of sit-ins or work-ins to prevent workplace closures in Britain in early 1970s, and an examination of subsequent experiments in workers’ control.
Covers resistance by Cree and Inuit, supported by Kayapo Indians in Brazil and transnational green groups, to major hydro-electric project in Quebec.
Chapters include: ‘Kent State: How the War in Vietnam became a War at Home’; ‘Congress and the Anti-War Movement’; ‘US Presidential Campaigns in the Vietnamese Era’; ‘Opposing the War in Vietnam – the Australian Experience’; ‘Vietnam War Resisters in Quebec’; ‘Anger and After – Britain’s CND and the Vietnam War’.
This is an acadmeic contribution to memory studies, but shows how preserving knowledge and stories of past movements affects present politics, and how nonviolent activists can learn from past campaigns. Examples examined include the suffragettes, Greenham Common, Polish Solidarity, US struggles against racism and Australian aboriginal campaigns. The authors also illustrate how one movement can influence others and stress the need to make archival and other sources (films, music, etc.) available.
The authors from the Chinese University of Hong Kong interviewed a random sample of 1011 to assess the role of social media in the Umbrella Movement. They found a positive correlation between support for the movement and reliance on social media for news and that this group also distrusted the Hong Kong authorities, the police and Chinese Government.
Dr Fahmi outlines the early months of protest in both Sudan and Algeria, and discusses parallels with 2011 in terms of being 'nationwide, sustained over time, political in nature and interconnected', with the movements encouraging each other.
The author argues that Indian agricultural policy, devised in response to food shortages in the 1960s, relied on a mix of technological solutions to increase yields and a range of pricing measures to support farmers. These policies are out of date, but changing the overall policy is difficult as farmers believe their livelihoods are at stake. This paper considers the issues behind the protests and suggests ways forward.
Shows how Rustin’s gay lifestyle was repeatedly brought up by public enemies intent on discrediting the movement and by political rivals wanting to marginalize him.
This article aims to review the strategic experience of individuals and human rights organizations for human rights, women's rights, gender equality and social justice in Bangladesh. Following an empirical research methodology, this article has been written on the four themes: education, engagement, empowerment, and advocacy. The organizations were selected because of their creative concepts, innovative approaches, achievements and impact on the public. The study focuses on how the “Unite for Body Rights” program provides education related to Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights (SRHR); how men from local community engage themselves in promoting gender equality and social justice; how “acid survivors” transform themselves into “survivor ambassadors” and empower themselves as women’s rights activists; and how the five leading human rights organizations in Bangladesh contributed to “banning the ‘two-finger test’ on rape survivors.”
In the last decade of the Cold War, during the 1980s, the Peace Movement in Vancouver, BC, gained an unprecedented amount of traction. However, was short-lived as peace activists dwindled in the 1990s and beyond. In this article Christine Kim explores what were the factors that caused the peace movement in Vancouver to fail and whether its legacy is one that supports the value of political activism as a powerful agent for change. The author interviews students, professors, and activists from the Vancouver Peace Movement of the 1980s in an hour-long radio documentary.
Critical assessment of today's 'military industrial complex' and also the role of drones in the US wars in Afghanistan and in targeting 'terrorists'. Cockburn documents the technological failings of drones, often unable to distinguish targeted individuals from others nearby, and the 'trigger-happy' attitudes of some soldiers using them. Both led to numerous mistaken deaths.
See also: Frew, Joanna, 'Drone Wars: the next generation', Peace News , 2618-2619, June-July 2018, p. 4.
Frew summarizes a new report, issued by Drone Wars UK, on development and use of armed drones by a 'second generation' of nine states (including China, Iran and Turkey) and several non-state actors developing and using armed drones. (The first group was the US, UK and Israel.) The report also estimates that a further 11 states would soon be deploying drones, and that China was increasing export of them. Frew stresses the urgent need for international controls, and queries whether existing controls on exports (already being undermined in the US) were adequate.