Common Dreams June 19, 2009
The growing nonviolent insurrection in Iran against the efforts by the ruling clerics to return the ultra-conservative and increasingly autocratic incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinjead to power is growing. Whatever the outcome, it represents an exciting and massive outpouring of Iranian civil society for a more open and pluralistic society…
Category: Self Determination
Self-determination
Telling the Lebanese How to Vote
Huffington Post, July 7, 2009, |Updated May 25, 2011:
In recent visits to Lebanon, both Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made clear that the United States would react negatively if the March 8th Alliance — a broad coalition of Islamist, Maronite, leftist, nationalist, and pan-Arabist parties — won the upcoming parliamentary elections. These not-so-subtle threats have led to charges of U.S. interference in Lebanon’s domestic affairs. What prompts U.S. concerns is that the largest member of this coalition is Hezbollah, the populist Shiite party which the United States considers to be a terrorist organization. [source]
Estonia’s Singing Revolution
Foreign Policy In Focus, June 4, 2008 [source]
In a remarkable new documentary, The Singing Revolution, filmmakers Maureen and Jim Tusty tell the little-known story of the Estonian people’s nonviolent struggle against decades of Soviet occupation, culminating in that country’s independence in 1991. The movement played an important role in the downfall of the entire Soviet Empire.
Nonviolent Action and Pro-Democracy Struggles
Foreign Policy In Focus, January 24, 2008 [source]
By John FefferStephen Zunes
The United States has done for the cause of democracy what the Soviet Union did for the cause of socialism. Not only has the Bush administration given democracy a bad name in much of the world, but its high-profile and highly suspect “democracy promotion” agenda has provided repressive regimes and their apologists an excuse to label any popular pro-democracy movement that challenges them as foreign agents, even when led by independent grassroots nonviolent activists…
Democracy and Double Standards: The Palestinian “Exception”
Foreign Policy In Focus, December 22, 2005
By John Gershman, Stephen Zunes [source]
At a time of year when Jews and Christians are celebrating the spirit of justice and peace inspired by events in the Holy Land many centuries ago, Congress has been working to ensure that the Holy Land of today experiences neither. Just prior to the Christmas recess, a bipartisan resolution in the House of Representatives and a letter signed by 73 of 100 Senators put Congress on record that the U.S. government, despite rhetoric to the contrary, does not take Middle Eastern democracy too seriously…
Lecture video: Occupation and the Attack on International Law
Talk by Prof. Stephen Zunes on “Occupation and the Attack on International Law” given December 9, 2005, in Seattle [57 mins.]
Noble Rhetoric Supports Democracy While Ignoble Policies Support Repression
Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies,
November 17, 2003, by Stephen Zunes [source]
President George W. Bush’s November 6 speech before the National Endowment for Democracy emphasizing the need for greater democracy and freedom in the Arab world, while containing a number of positive aspects, was nevertheless very misleading and all-too characteristic of the longstanding contradictory messages that have plagued U.S. policy in the Middle East. On the positive side, President Bush challenged the racist mythology that Islamic societies were somehow incapable of democracy and recognized that greater political pluralism need not follow a U.S. model…
The United States and Bolivia: The Taming of a Revolution, 1952-1957
The United States and Bolivia: The Taming of a Revolution, 1952-1957. Latin American Perspectives Vol. 28 No. 5 (September 1, 2001): 33-49. Also at SAGE Journals, JSTOR, ResearchGate.net, University of Saskatchewan, and FES.DE/bibliothek
UN Betrayal of Western Sahara
Foreign Policy In Focus, June 1, by Stephen Zunes [Source & Global Policy Forum]
When a country violates fundamental principles of international law and when the UN Security Council demands that it cease its illegal behavior, one might expect that the world body would impose sanctions or other measures to foster compliance. This has been the case with Iraq, Libya, and other international outlaws in recent years. One would not expect for the United Nations to respond to such violations by passing a series of new and weaker resolutions that essentially allow for the transgressions to stand…