membership & movements

Theory and passion draw closer when we discuss mass movements of our day.
Friday 19th November

Civil resistance and the language of power

Jack DuVall, 19 November 2010
“If you want to build a ship, don’t gather your people and ask them to provide wood, prepare tools, assign tasks. Call them together and raise in their minds the longing for the endless sea.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The trifecta of civil resistance: unity, planning, discipline

Hardy Merriman, 19 November 2010
Three attributes can make the difference between success and failure for nonviolent movements around the world: unity, planning, and nonviolent discipline.
Wednesday 17th November

Red lenses on a rainbow of revolutions

Cynthia Boaz, 17 November 2010
Given continued strikes in Iran and the freeing of Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma, neither the Burmese nor Iranian struggle for democracy is a story that should be characterized as an example of a failed movement and successful repression. But it is up to us - the global audience - to understand our responsibility in this dynamic.

The Anishinabe and an unsung nonviolent victory in late twentieth-century Wisconsin

Tom H.Hastings, 17 November 2010
In the wake of the civil rights movement in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s, many Native Americans adopted civil resistance to fight for rights supposedly guaranteed in the 19th century by the government's treaties with their tribes. This true story is how one tribe in Wisconsin, using nonviolent strategies, prevailed in that fight.

Upsurge in repression challenges nonviolent resistance in Western Sahara

Stephen Zunes, 17 November 2010
Sahrawis have engaged in protests, strikes, cultural celebrations, and other forms of civil resistance focused on such issues as educational policy, human rights, the release of political prisoners, and the right to self-determination. They have also raised the cost of occupation for the Moroccan government and increased the visibility of the Sahrawi cause.
Monday 15th November

People power and the new global ferment

Stellan Vinthagen, 15 November 2010
People power does not lend itself to the geo-strategic interests of empires or warlords, since it is based on collective action and civic unity, as well as the refusal to comply with existing power-holders. Any movement that opts for civil resistance has to encompass and attempt to represent diverse social groups.

Civil Resistance and the New Global Ferment: read on

15 November 2010
Tuesday 8th October

The need to connect - a response to Roger Scruton

Adam Lent, 8 October 2002
Roger Scruton is right to bring fox-hunting and gay rights into a common frame of reference, but his political partiality blinds him to the changing character of protest movements in the context of history and global politics.
Tuesday 1st October

Popular protest in the 21st century: living in time

Tim Jordan, 1 October 2002
The politics of protest, from the Inuit and Aborigines to England’s Countryside Alliance, cannot be understood through old left–right categories. To explain where a movement is heading, we should ask: is its source of energy in the past, present or future?

Tomorrow the world? The rocky path of social movements

Adam Lent, 1 October 2002
From Stop the War to Save the Whale, from Liberty and Livelihood to Globalise Resistance, popular movements of protest and advocacy are a key feature of the political landscape. Why do they grow or fail? How will the movement for global change respond to the lessons of its early years?Tomorrow the world? The rocky path of social movements

When is a 'popular protest' popular?

Roger Scruton, 1 October 2002
The packaging of ‘new’ protest movements by modern leftist intellectuals reveals a selective focus on favoured causes – feminism, racism, gay rights. This post–1968 template evades concerns, such as fox–hunting, that animate masses of ordinary people. From shallow argument it generates a politics without principle.
Tuesday 17th September

The duty to disobey

Sophie Jeffreys, 17 September 2002
The Countryside March across London on 22 September will be a massive demonstration of resistance to unjust power. One marcher explains how a story that starts with love ends in civic outrage.
Wednesday 13th June

Mr. Town meets Mr. Country

Richard Rogers and John Jackson, 13 June 2001
From BSE to foot & mouth, from hunting to the Countryside Alliance, from Maff to Defra - out of crisis the countryside has moved to the top of the political agenda. But where is the Urban Alliance? Are the cities losing their way? And how can the fractured relationship of the last decade be healed in the next?
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