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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.
Baker argues that the purpose of the 2014 military coup was not only to end the influence of the radical Thaksin forces, but also to entrench authoritarianism. He stresses the role of 'the professional and official elite' in promoting the coup and examines authoritarian tendencies in Thai politics and in Bangkok's middle class.
Brief Historical Association study giving historical context and referring to historiographical debates, noting ‘Cambridge school’ argument that internal weaknesses of the British Administration main cause of independence, and ‘subaltern studies’ school which stresses autonomous resistance of peasants and workers.
Examines the 1956 Revolution primarily from standpoint of role of the workers, with emphasis on the workers’ councils, pp. 124-87.
Shows Palestinians frequently resorted to nonviolent tactics, especially when these were framed as a practical strategy rather than just as a moral preference.
Examines campaigns by the Ojibwa Indians against mining and over land tenure and the role of multinationals in Wisconsin.
Discusses post-Franco development of feminist movement and legislative results.
Numerous protests took place round the world contemporaneously with the global economic crisis, but the left in Europe as a whole failed to organize. This gap should be filled by Blockupy, a European network of activists composed of trade unionists, political parties and different social movements. The article traces the history of this organization and assesses how far Blockupy has the power to create a new left movement in Germany.
This book draws on a range of theoretical traditions emerging from feminism, criminology, and sociology, to challenge the narrow idea that domestic violence and sexual assault are phenomena of interpersonal violence perpetrated by men. The authors highlight the diversity of women’s experience, discuss the role social structures play, and include discussions of workplace and state violence. The first section develops the conceptual and contextual framework, and the following three sections focus on types of victimization: interpersonal, in the workplace, and by the state. Accounts of individual experiences are used throughout to personalize the issues discussed.
Describing China’s feminist activists in relation to their political and historical circumstances, the author elucidates the development of China’s feminist movement and discusses China’s history from a feminist perspective.
Arendt is one of the most eminent political philosophers often cited by theorists of nonviolent resistance, especially in relation to her 1963 book On Revolution, and also a major theorist of totalitarianism. This book contrasts Arendt's concept of total domination under totalitarianism with the testimonies of both well known and lesser known intellectuals and writers who survived the concentration camps of Auschwitz and Buchenwald, as well as those of unknown survivors of the holocaust. Aharony argues that Nazi domination was less total than Arendt posited (in her 1951 book On Totalitarianism), and that morality and individual choice exist even in the most extreme conditions.
This is a special issue on women’s organized resistance to the extraction of natural resources that has a damaging impact on their lives and environment. Articles cover movements in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Mexico and also Ghana, focusing on the importance of water as a vital resource, and also on women’s embodied experience of suffering from water pollution and scarcity. The articles also discuss gendered critiques of extraction.
In the context of discussing the importance of public spaces where citizens can protest and make public speeches, this article examines how the Lebanese demonstrators have used and reshaped multipupose public spaces such as streets, open public spaces such as gardens, and abandoned urban facilites such as a partially built cinema.
Takes up the challenge that ‘most academic theories of social movements are not prepared to explain the full range of protest goals and activities, especially those of privileged rather than oppressed citizens’, specifically drawing on the US environmental, anti-nuclear energy, and animals rights movements.
See also Laurie Nathan, Force of Arms, Force of Conscience: A Study of Militarisation, the Military and the Anti-Apartheid War Resisters’ Movement in South Africa, 1970-1988, Bradford, University of Bradford, 1990 .
Nathan was a leading activist in the End Conscription Campaign.
Chapter 5, pp. 95-122, ‘Social Movements enter the Twenty-First Century’, takes as its starting point the January 2001 text message in Manila, ‘Go EDSA, Wear black’ and goes on to discuss the relationship between social movements and communications technology with further details on unrest in Manila.
Includes references to role of ‘truly peaceful resistance’ in 1983.
Brief article which details evolution of strike from 10-16 August.