Yahoo!News/The Lookout January 31, 2011, with Dr. Stephen Zunes
As mass demonstrations continue to threaten Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak’s grip on power, the country’s powerful military is emerging as perhaps the crucial player in determining the course of events in the Middle East’s most populous nation… The Lookout asked Stephen Zunes about how the Egyptian military might respond, and how that response might influence events…
Category: Nonviolent Action
Nonviolent Action
Obama’s Shift on Egypt
Truthout January 31, 2011; Also in Huffington Post
The administration has yet to issue an explicit call for the authoritarian President Hosni Mubarak to step down, at least in public. However, yesterday, for the first time, Secretary of State Clinton and other officials began calling for “an orderly transition” to democracy. The apparent change in the administration’s approach comes from the belated realization that nothing short of a Tienanmen Square-style massacre would probably stop the protests…
US Continues to Back Egyptian Dictatorship in the Face of Pro-Democracy Uprising
Truthout January 27, 2011. Also in Huffington Post
Washington’s continued support for the Egyptian dictatorship in the face of massive pro-democracy protests is yet another sign that both Congress and the Obama administration remain out of touch with the growing demands for freedom in the Arab world. Just last month, Obama and the then-Democratic-controlled Congress approved an additional $1.3 billion in security assistance to help prop up Hosni Mubarak’s repressive regime.
The United States and the Prospects for Democracy in Islamic Countries
Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies January 21, 2011. Also in Common Dreams and Eurasia Review
Many in the West are familiar with the way unarmed pro-democracy insurrections have helped bring democracy to Eastern Europe, Latin America, and parts of Asia and Africa. But they discount the chances of such movements in Islamic countries, despite Tunisia being far from the first. Meanwhile, the United States… continues to actively support authoritarian governments…
U.S. Backs Tunisian Dictatorship in Face of Pro-Democracy Uprising
Foreign Policy in Focus/Institute for Policy Studies, Jan. 13, 2011
Also in Accuracy.org, UncommonThought.com and Huffington Post, Jan. 14, Updated May 25, 2011:
The regime of U.S.-backed Tunisian dictator, Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, has been the target of a nationwide popular uprising in recent weeks, which neither shooting into crowds of unarmed demonstrators nor promised reforms has thus far quelled…. In recent decades, largely nonviolent insurrections such as this have toppled corrupt authoritarian rulers in the Philippines, Serbia, Bolivia, Ukraine, the Maldives, Georgia, Mali, Nepal and scores of other countries and have seriously challenged repressive regimes in Iran, Burma and elsewhere…
Upsurge in repression challenges nonviolent resistance in Western Sahara
Open Democracy November 17, 2010
On November 8, Moroccan occupation forces attacked a tent city of as many as 12,000 Western Saharans just outside of Al Aioun, in the culminating act of a months-long protest of discrimination against the indigenous Sahrawi population and worsening economic conditions. Not only was the scale of the crackdown unprecedented, so was the popular reaction: In a dramatic departure from the almost exclusively nonviolent protests of recent years, the local population turned on their occupiers, engaging in widespread rioting and arson. As of this writing, the details of these events are unclear, but they underscore the urgent need for global civil society to support those who have been struggling nonviolently for their right of self-determination and to challenge western governments which back the regime responsible for the repression…
Israel’s Latest Violation
Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies, June 2, 2010; also Antiwar.com, CommonDreams, Huffington Post, OpEd News, Truthout & ZNetwork
Every time Israel’s right-wing government engages in yet another outrageous violation of international legal norms, it is easy to think, “No way are they going to get away with it this time!” And yet, thanks to the White House, Congress and leading American pundits, somehow, they do. Israel’s attack on an unarmed flotilla of humanitarian aid vessels in the eastern Mediterranean — resulting in more than a dozen fatalities, the wounding of scores of passengers and crew, and the kidnapping of 750 others — has so far proven no different. [source]
Interview: Gaza Freedom Flotilla Attack (audio)
Talk Nation Radio: Listen at Archive.org
The Other Occupation: Western Sahara and the Case of Aminatou Haidar
Alternet, December 5, 2009 Aminatou Haidar, a nonviolent activist from Western Sahara and a key leader in her nation’s struggle against the 34-year-old U.S.-backed Moroccan occupation of her country, has been forced into exile by Moroccan authorities. She was returning from the United States, where she had won the Civil Courage Award from the Train Foundation. Forcing residents of territories under belligerent occupation into exile is a direct violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, to which both the United States and Morocco are signatories. Her arrest and expulsion is part of a broader Moroccan crackdown that appears to have received the endorsement of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton…
A Tale of Two Human Rights Awardees
Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies, December 2, 2009
The annual Robert F. Kennedy Award ceremony took place at the White House this year for the first time in its 28-year history… This year’s winner was the group Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA)… This show of support from President Obama is particularly important in light of the trial of the two WOZA activists, scheduled to begin next week… [source]
Lessons from the Velvet Revolution
Huffington Post, November 9, 2009
The 20th anniversary of the 1989 Velvet Revolution that overthrew the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia was one of the most impressive civil insurrections in history. It was not the military might of NATO, but the power of nonviolent action by ordinary citizens which brought down the system. The popular uprising against the repressive system that had ruled their country for much of the previous four decades — along with comparable movements, which came to the fore that year in Poland, Hungary and East Germany — marks a great triumph of the human spirit. [source]
The Power of Nonviolent Action in Honduras
Yes! Magazine, November 8, 2009
The decision by Honduran coup leader Roberto Micheletti to renege on his October 30 agreement to allow democratically-elected president Manuel Zelaya to return to power was a severe blow to pro-democracy forces who have been struggling against the illegitimate regime since it seized power four months ago. The disappointment has been compounded by the Obama administration’s apparent willingness—in a break with Latin American leaders and much of the rest of the international community—to recognize the forthcoming presidential elections being held under the de facto government’s repressive rule…
The Indigenous Roots of Nonviolent Struggle: A Reply to Steve Weissman
After Downing Street, October 13, 2009
Steve Weissman’s article “How Washington Learned to Love Nonviolence,” which recently appeared on After Downing Street, is filled with misrepresentations, omissions, and just plain falsehoods…
Weapons of Mass Democracy
Yes! Magazine September 17, 2009
On the outskirts of a desert town in the Moroccan-occupied territory of Western Sahara, about a dozen young activists are gathered. They are involved in their country’s long struggle for freedom. A group of foreigners—veterans of protracted resistance movements—is conducting a training session in the optimal use of a “weapons system” that is increasingly deployed in struggles for freedom around the world. The workshop leaders pass out Arabic translations of writings on the theory and dynamics of revolutionary struggle and lead the participants in a series of exercises designed to enhance their strategic and tactical thinking.
These trainers are not veterans of guerrilla warfare, however, but of unarmed insurrections against repressive regimes…
A Response to Steve Weissman’s “Nonviolence 101”
Truthout June 28, 2009 and Baltimore Nonviolence Center,
Steve Weissman’s article “Iran: Nonviolence 101” was profoundly inaccurate and misleading, particularly in regard to the role of Peter Ackerman and the organization he co-founded, the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC), for which I chair the committee of academic advisers. All of Weissman’s arguments against US government involvement in training and related support for nonviolent resistance movements in Iran, which he put forward in his article, would be quite valid – if they were true. They are not, however…
The Iranian Uprising is Home-Grown, and Must Stay That Way
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…
Iran’s History of Civil Insurrections
Huffington Post, Jul 20, 2009 | Updated May 25, 2011
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. [source]
Echoes of Solidarity 20 Years after Tiananmen
Common Dreams June 4, 2009 & HuffingtonPost July 5, 2009:
Twenty years ago today, I was at Camp Thoreau in New York’s Catskill Mountains [with] volunteers huddled around the radio listening to incoming reports of the massacre then unfolding in and around Tiananmen Square in Beijing. Serving as the emcee for the concert that evening, I broke the news to the 300 or so singers, songwriters, and musicians assembled. I looked out upon an audience composed of amazing performing artists – Fred Small, Betsy Rose, Charlie King, Matt Jones, Pat Humphries, and many others – who had spent their lives singing songs about such struggles for freedom and justice. The shock, anger and despair was overwhelming. I reminded that, despite efforts by the corporate media to portray the student movement in China as some kind of campaign against socialism, it was in fact a campaign against the tyranny and injustice of Communist Party rule and for a more just and democratic society, a society where workers and peasants had power in reality, not only in name…
Presentation: Nonviolent Action in the Islamic World
Nonviolent-Conflict.org, March 11, 2010:
Dr. Stephen Zunes, Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco, discusses the long history of strategic nonviolent action throughout the Islamic world, in the Middle East and beyond. Based in part on the social contract implied in Islamic teachings which advocate the withdrawal of obedience from unjust authority, nonviolent civil insurrections have played a major role in the struggle for freedom and human rights for more than a century. Dr. Zunes, looks at case studies from Iran, Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon, Mali, Western Sahara, Indonesia, Pakistan, and others…
Fighting Corruption through Nonviolent Action
Huffington Post, Dec. 23, 2008, by Stephen Zunes [source]
There is a quiet revolution going on in the international struggle against corruption and for greater transparency in government. Two years ago, I attended my first International Anti-Corruption Conference (IACC), sponsored Transparency International and other groups, which takes place every other year. The location was Guatemala City, a country where the per capita annual income is only slightly more than the registration, hotel and air fare of most participants. Sponsors included Rio Tinto, Royal Dutch/Shell and other corporations whose own record of upholding legal and ethical standards is far from pristine.