Editor’s Note from Rivera Sun
It was a huge week in global protest movements. There was so much going on, in fact, that it took an extra day this week simply to read up on the global protests. I wanted to dig beneath headlines and slants to gain a clearer picture of what was happening. Here’s some of what I found:
Bolivians are rising up against the anti-indigenous, right-wing military coup that forced President Evo Morales to resign and flee to Mexico. In Zimbabwe, doctors have been on strike for 3 months and are faced with getting fired for continuing to demand fair pay. Mass demonstrations are happening in Iran, Czech Republic, Algeria, Lebanon, and Argentina. In Iraq, a month-long protest campaign has been met with violent repression from the government; over 320 people have died. In a series of protests (albeit with incidents of violence), Chileans won major concessions from the government, but protesters are skeptical of false promises and are still deliberating whether to accept the plans to rewrite the Pinochet-era constitution.
If you’re in the United States, like me, you won’t see headlines in mass media reporting on these mass actions. Nonviolence News also digs beneath the mass protests to find other types of nonviolent actions and practices rooted in nonviolence. In our Success Stories section, you’ll find out that the world’s largest public bank divested from fossil fuels in a major win for the planet. In the Nonviolence and Children section, you’ll hear about how a “nonviolent playground” is providing safe playing space in an under-resourced neighborhood. In the Climate Action section, you’ll see that those merry pranksters, Extinction Rebellion, sailed a floating house down the Thames River to protest rising sea levels. In Gender Justice, you’ll discover that a medical tattooist (who helps breast cancer patients) protested her blocked Facebook posts by inflating a giant pink breast balloon at company headquarters.
These stories remind us that our fellow human beings are showing tremendous courage and creativity as they strive for justice. Share these stories with your friends. It helps us see humanity in a different light.
All the best,
Rivera Sun, Editor
Photo Credit: Students take part in an anti-government protest in Basra, Iraq, Monday, Oct. 28, 2019. Protests resumed in Iraq after a wave of demonstrations earlier in October were violently put down. The placard in Arabic, center, reads, “Leave.” (Nabil Al-Jurani, AP)
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Here’s what you’ll find in
this week’s Nonviolence News:
Victory! Success Stories
Actions & Campaigns
Climate Action
Gender Justice
Peace Action
Nonviolence & Children
Creative Action
Knowledge & Reflection
Calls-to-Action
World’s largest public bank ditches oil and coal in victory for the Climate Justice Movement. Read more >>
How a Transition Town campaign transformed an unloved bus circle into a beloved community “village green”. Read more >>
This Australian parking garage transforms into a homeless shelter at night, including beds and showers. Read more >>
Nurses dress up newborn babies as Mr. Rogers in honor of World Kindness Day. Read more >>
Zimbabwe’s government threatens to fire striking doctors if they do not return to work. The doctors have been on strike over poor pay and work conditions for nearly three months. More than 200 junior and middle-level doctors have been fired so far. Read more >>
Will the people of Bolivia reverse the coup? Here’s how the Indigenous and others are holding mass demonstrations, general strike, and refusing to allow the coup to continue unopposed. Read more >>
Thousands of Bolivians are currently occupying Plaza San Francisco Luis in the historic center of La Paz for the second day in a row in protest against the far-right military coup. Within a few hours the 24-hour deadline given by the Bolivian Workers Central (COB) will expire for the coup organizers to leave power, otherwise the country’s largest trade union central will call an indefinite general strike. Read more >>
Thousands march in Argentina in support of Evo Morales and Bolivians and against the right-wing coup. Read more >>
Also in Venezuela, opposing crowds demonstrated; one against the Maduro government, the other in solidarity with Evo Morales and the people of Bolivia. Editor’s Note: this article does not mention (and probably should mention) US sanctions on Venezuela, which are considered to be a major contributor to the economic challenges in the country.Read more >>
Iran protesters opposing gas price hikes take to the streets in largely nonviolent demonstrations, punctuated by clashes with police that left at least one dead and many injured. Editor’s Note: This situation is rapidly changing. As of this newsletter, there are social media reports of up to 28 people dead from the violent crackdown of the police. Read more >>
The last eight months have seen the rise of a protest movement without precedent in the history of Algeria. Millions of citizens have taken to the streets, since February 2019, in wilayas (provinces) across the country. Here’s why people are protesting. Read more >>
Calling for the resignation of the president, who is accused of fraud, 200,000 Czech protesters mark the 30th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution with a mass demonstration. Read more >>
Iraq will never be the same following the weeks of demonstrations sweeping its capital and south, its top Shiite cleric said Friday, giving a major boost to anti-government protests with his most emphatic endorsement to date. Over 320 people have died in the protests. Read more >>
French riot police are forcibly removing Catalan pro-independence protesters who are blocking both sides of a motorway linking Spain and France. Read more >>
Chileans mass protests win concession to revise Pinochet-era constitution, but many are skeptical and the organizers are considering continuing the mass actions. Editor’s Note: The Chilean protests are reported as “sometimes violent”, which is true, but also undermines how many of the protesters are not. I am including this story to acknowledge the efforts of the many nonviolent protesters who were a part of this effort.Read more >>
South African police disperse 150 refugees who protested recent attacks on migrant populations. Read more >>
Strike begins at South Africa’s state-owned airline as workers fear nearly 1,000 job cuts. Read more >>
Lufthansa’s airline strike forced the cancellation of 1,500 flights. Now the company is holding talks with the union to avoid further strikes. Read more >>
Williams College students urge boycott of English department over failures to address racism and other injustices. Read more >>
Libraries join nationwide boycott of two publishing houses for jacking up ebook prices to libraries in the United States. Read more >>
#BoycottUber hashtag trends after CEO trivializes Jamal Khashoggi murder. Read more >>
UMass Amherst protects the right to hold a “Criminalization of Dissent” conference that included Boycott, Divest, Sanctions, and faced opposition from pro-Israel groups. Read more >>
A large crowd of advocates and elected officials gathered outside the transit hub Monday to stand behind Elsa, a woman who four NYPD officers handcuffed and confiscated a cart from for selling churros at the station days earlier. Read more >>
BART riders hold lunchtime eat-in demonstration in protest of a man being detained for eating a sandwich on the platform. Read more >>
To protect and strengthen a “democracy in peril”, more than 150 US civil rights organizations on Thursday released a policy platform aimed at pressuring policymakers and 2020 candidates to prioritize voting rights. Read more >>
Inspired by telescope protests, another group of Hawaiians blocks delivery of turbine parts for massive wind farm in Kahuku, Hawaii. Protesters say they are not against wind power – but they are against this particular plan for giant turbines. Read more >>
Extinction Rebellion members blockaded a private jet terminal used by wealthy elites in Geneva. Read more >>
40 members of Fossil Fuel Divest Harvard (FFDH) and Extinction Rebellion staged an oil spill in Harvard’s Science Center Plaza to call attention to the university’s complicity in the climate crisis. Read more >>
XR sails “Sinking House” down the Thames River to show solidarity with all those who have lost their homes to rising seas and to call for immediate climate action. Read more >>
XR burst into Barclay’s Bank branches and started “cleaning up their act” for them using mops, brooms, and scrub brushes. Read more >>
Daniel Hunter is an organizer and strategist who works widely across the globe supporting organizing and direct action for social movements. He is currently the Global Trainings Coordinator for 350.org, an organization fighting climate change. He talks to Metta Center’s Nonviolence Radio about nonviolence, organizing, and his latest, The Climate Resistance Handbook. Read more >>
Offices put up pictures of Greta Thunberg in the kitchen/cafeteria to discourage people from using plastic. Read more >>
A medical tattooist inflated a giant pink breast balloon outside Facebook offices. She draws nipples on women who have lost them due to mastectomies, and says she’s being blocked on social media after her work is being mistaken for pornography. Read more >>
Roman Polanski is facing calls for a boycott of his new film in the wake of the latest rape accusation against the controversial director. Read more >>
Megan Rapinoe wins “Woman of the Year Award”; thanks Colin Kaepernick and acknowledged the ways he has been punished for also speaking truth to power. Read more >>
US Senate passes bill with funds for investigating and stopping violence toward Indigenous women, thanks to the efforts of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women movement. Read more >>
Teen directing play on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. Read more >>
A lesbian student who was punished and tormented for years by school administration to keep her from having a girlfriend spoke out, and then 200 of her classmates staged a walk-out protest to support her. Read more >>
After town council voted down rainbow crosswalks, citizens took matters into their own hands and painted 16 of them. Read more >>
School of the Americas Watch returns to Fort Benning, GA, to protest US involvement in supporting and training the perpetrators of atrocities, torture, wars, violence, and coups throughout the Americas. Read more >>
Seven peace activists were arrested for walking onto a US drone base wearing black veils, carrying limp dolls and posters of children killed by drones, and reading a statement. Read more >>
Gandhi Institute in Rochester, NY, designs and builds a “nonviolence playground” to counter the lack of play spaces in their neighborhood. Read more >>
Instead of holding birthday parties, parents are teaching their kids how to protest. Read more >>
The Chilean singer Mon Laferte bares her breasts and exposes a solidarity message during a broadcast of the Latin Grammys, in the latest of a string of high-profile shows of support for anti-government demonstrators in Chile. Read more >>
Joy Harjo, the US’ first Native American Poet Laureate, discusses how poetry can counter hate. Read more >>
Art installation will open communication between El Paso, Juarez residents via beams of light. Read more >>
Chileans use multiple laser pens to bring down surveillance drone. Read more >>
Massive sculpture of 120,000 ribbons commemorates Fall of Berlin Wall. Read more >>
Grad student defends her dissertation in a paper “rejection letter skirt” to normalize rejection and failure, saying “it’s all part of the process”. Read more >>
The artistic designers of “Strike: A Game of Worker Rebellion” talk about their creative process. Read more >>
Planet Earth is too big to fail: connecting nonviolence and the New Story for a big picture view of how to transform this crisis. Read more >>
Understanding the protests in Lebanon – they’re deeper than just “government corruption”. Read more >>
People are rising up all over the world … why aren’t citizens in the USA taking to the streets, too? Read more >>
Disturbing Pentagon document reveals how the US military was surveilling groups protesting family separation. Read more >>
An in-depth look at how immigrants at Amazon fulfillment centers took on inhumane holiday working conditions with flash strikes and walk-outs. Read more >>
A nonviolent activist looks back at the Battle of Seattle, 20 years later. Read more >>
Extinction Rebellion launches Global Hunger Strike on Nov 18th. Read more >>
Coca-Cola workers in Haiti, Indonesia, Ireland, and the USA ask for your support in opposing unsafe and unjust labor practices. Read more >>
Take action to stop harmful US sanctions on Venezuela. Read more >>
Join #FireDrillFridays with Jane Fonda in Washington, DC, to oppose militarism and the climate crisis. Read more >>
Boycott PUMA sportsware! Over 200 Palestinian teams and athletes are calling for a boycott of PUMA because the sportsware company is the largest sponsor of the Israeli Football Association (IFA). The IFA is in breach of Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) regulations which prohibit member associations from holding competitions on occupied territory without permission. Find out more and sign up for action here.
Sunrise Movement offers chance to get skills to make your next strike, rally, or sit-in visually stunning and ready to capture attention in the media. Apply to join the Sunrise Action Art Skills Training, December 13-15 in Kansas City, Missouri. Read more >>
Feb 3-7, 2020, Black Lives Matter At School Week – engage your local school in participating! Read more >>
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Nonviolence News is a sister project to Nonviolence Now. The Nonviolence Now campaign is intended to introduce and share stories of nonviolence, and to ignite the potential of principled nonviolence globally.
Author/Activist Rivera Sun has written many books and novels, including The Dandelion Insurrection and The Way Between. She is a nationwide trainer in strategy for nonviolent movements and her essays are published in journals across the country and around the world. www.riverasun.com