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: Protest and Resistance
Protest and Resistance
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…
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
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.
The Power of Protest in the Maldives
Huffington Post, December 9, 2008, by Stephen Zunes [source]
The recent ousting of the corrupt and autocratic president of the Maldive Islands, Mahmoud Gayoom, marks another victory in the global struggle for rights and democracy. Gayoom was defeated in a nationwide election on 28 October after ruling the tiny Indian Ocean archipelago as his personal fiefdom for more than thirty years.
Sharp Attack Unwarranted
Foreign Policy in Focus/Institute for Policy Studies, June 27, 2008 [Source] By John Feffer, Stephen Zunes
Gene Sharp, an 80-year-old scholar of strategic nonviolent action and veteran of radical pacifist causes, is under attack by a number of foreign governments that claim that he and his small research institute are key players in a Bush administration plot against them. Though there is no truth to these charges, several leftist websites and publications have been repeating such claims as fact. This raises disturbing questions regarding the ability of progressives challenging Bush foreign policy to distinguish between the very real manifestations of U.S. imperialism and conspiratorial fantasies.
PETITION supporting Dr. Gene Sharp, foremost author-expert on Strategic Nonviolent Action
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…
Bring ‘Em Home, Bring ‘Em Home
Foreign Policy In Focus, May 14, 2007
by Emily Schwartz Greco, Stephen Zunes
Bruce Springsteen belts out an old peace movement standard. I first heard it while driving home from work on a college FM station. It was a song I had forgotten about but had known, with slightly different opening lyrics, in my childhood…