Democracy Now!Samira Ahmedbeyli, IWPR.net, April 22, 2011Azerbaijan’s opposition activists pledge to keep staging protests, even though their attempts to emulate the mass demonstrations in the Arab world have flopped. Police officers thronged central Baku around...
Kieron Monks, Al Jazeera, April 26, 2011In Mubarak's recently concluded era, trade unions were a state plaything, a semblance of representation that was used to coerce workers into accepting appalling pay and conditions. Now, in the aftermath of revolu...
Global Voices, April 21, 2011Although outnumbered by the Bengali population, the close to one million indigenous and aboriginal population of Bangladesh live mainly in the Chittagong Hill Tracts.The voices of the indigenous people are rarely heard in ...
Christopher Szabo, Digital Journal, April 25, 2011Tensions in northern Tibet have increased to ‘critical’ levels following the beating to death of two elderly Tibetans by Chinese police after a government crackdown on a monastery where a young Tibe...
In the UK, four Iranians seeking asylum have sewn their mouths shut with fishing wire and have launched a hunger strike, which has now continued for more than 20 days. As the Daily Mail reports: The British government is planning on sending them back to Tehran, but the men claim that their lives would be
President Ali Abdullah Saleh has agreed to a proposal from Gulf Arab mediators that calls for him to transfer power and resign within 30 days. But thousands of angry demonstrators have rejected the 30-day succession plan, with huge crowds taking to the streets in the capital Sanaa to demand Saleh’s immediate resignation. In Syria, at
Happy Easter everyone! I hope and pray that each one of us can be reenergized this Easter season to welcome the nonviolent Jesus' resurrection gift of peace and go forward in faith, hope and love to do new work for peace with justice. Resurrection mean...
On Friday, during a protest against the use of armed drones at Hancock Air National Guard Base in Syracuse, New York, some activists chose to violate the conditions of their permit and lie down on the road, blocking entrance to the base. 37 were arrested. Syracuse’s YNN network gives just one short paragraph to explain the protesters’
I was on Russia Today (RT), Russia’s 24/7 English-language news channel, on Friday to discuss the use of drones in Libya, the growing financial cost of the war and its impact on oil prices.
As Lent ends and the Holy Triduum begins, my mind turns to Resurrection. Perhaps a bit too soon as the Good Friday death of Jesus and his descent into darkness is still impending. But I can’t help myself. I cling to the hope of Resurrection even as I know the death-plunge is imminent – in
‘Effervescence of the crowd’ is a term used to describe the tendency of people to feed off of a momentary sense of excitement, taking to the streets and appearing briefly to be mobilized for a cause, only for the initial excitement to wear off and for the energy to dissipate (or
In nonviolent conflict intervention (also known as third party nonviolent intervention), interposition is the act of literally getting in between conflicting parties to deter them from using violence against one another. Commonly, it is assumed that interposition owes its effectiveness to the conflicting parties’ unwillingness to harm an innocent
The Patna Surrender was an event that took place during the time from 1922 to 1924 that Gandhi was in prison. A disagreement among Congress Party members over how to proceed in his absence led to a split that threatened to divide the party, and Gandhi surrendered to the opposing
Non-embarrassment is a nonviolent strategic principle employed by Gandhi. “Embarassment,” in this context refers to the alternate definition of embarrass, “to confuse, flummox.” The principle states that one should never persist actively in a nonviolent resistance campaign towards an opponent while that opponent is distracted. There are two main reasons,
‘Reference public’ is the term used to describe those who stand to have their views on a given issue influenced through witnessing a nonviolent struggle; it is particularly used in relation to the paradox of oppression.
Literally “New Education” one of the eighteen projects in Gandhi’s cosntructive program. The Gandhian approach to basic education is a holistic one, where all aspects of the individual—intellectual, physical, social, and spiritual—are cultivated in a curriculum that integrates learning with hands on work that prepares young people for their life
