Editor’s Note From Rivera Sun
Here’s something to celebrate: Guatemala just inaugurated their new president, Bernardo Arevalo, thanks to Indigenous-led protests that pushed back attempts to discredit the election results and delay Arevalo from being sworn in. It’s a reminder of the power citizens have to make sure that fair and legitimate democratic processes are upheld. Another uplifting success happened in Washington State, where unionized student workers walked the snowy picket line for only a few hours before the university system conceded to their demands and agreed to a tentative agreement that benefits 1,800 students.
This week, Northern Ireland’s historic strike of teachers and public workers shut down the entire region, mobilizing around 150,000 people, or 80% of the public worker sector. Another article looks at how Quebec’s public worker strikes have mobilized a whopping 570,000 people in the past month – and more actions are in the works for 2024. In the United States, 400,000 people joined the March on Washington For Gaza. Another 200,000 marched in London.
Nonviolence News also has a number of constructive stories that show how we can build solutions, such as the home battery back-up power to Puerto Rico’s grid, or the huge battery that just took Hawaii’s last coal plant offline, or how cities are embracing ‘deconstruction’ versus demolition to keep building materials out of landfills.
One of my favorite stories this week was a piece by a video game enthusiast who reviewed dozens of games to find the 10 Best Nonviolent Video Games, each of which emphasizes exploration, building, problem-solving, cooperation, or competitions without violence (like car races). It shows that violence is not necessary for video games. On a similar tech note, our friends at Nonviolence Radio interviewed a disruptive technologies expert on how to make AI work for peace, rather than the default of war and violence.
Other reflective pieces invite us to learn from decades of experience, whether that’s on how Freedom Summer can inspire us in 2024 or the take-aways from the past ten years of Black organizing against police brutality and systemic racism. From the 20 most influential protest songs to how conspiracy theories erode social movements, Nonviolence News has a wealth of articles, stories, and reports for you to explore this week.
In solidarity,
Rivera Sun
Watching the world change … it’s amazing, isn’t it?
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‘A New Spring’: Guatemala’s Arevalo Becomes President After Congress Delays: Joy briefly turned into anger for supporters after Congress stalled the anticorruption crusader’s inauguration. On Sunday, close to midnight, Arevalo was finally sworn in as Guatemala’s president after months of efforts by the country’s long-ruling elite and a conservative-leaning Congress to derail his rise to power, despite his landslide win in an August run-off against businesswoman and former first lady Sandra Torres. Read more>>
A Huge Battery Has Replaced Hawaii’s Last Coal Plant: Plus Power’s Kapolei battery is officially online. The pioneering project is a leading example of how to shift crucial grid functions from fossil-fueled plants to clean energy. Read more>>
Workers at Jollibee Won Against A Multinational Fast-Food Giant: Fired after asking for a raise, minimum-wage workers at a Jollibee in Jersey City fought for back pay and reinstatement. After a nearly yearlong campaign against the fast-food chain, the workers won. Read more>>
Washington State University Students Win Strike In Hours: Unionized student workers were on the snow-covered picket lines for only a couple hours Wednesday morning at several Washington State University campuses before reaching a tentative agreement on their first labor contract. Workers say the tentative agreement benefits 1,800 students workers and includes several wins, such as a wage increases for all, better health benefits and lower deductibles, guaranteed partial fee remission and an extra two weeks of paid parental leave. Read more>>
Inside The Fight To Save Philly’s Chinatown From A New NBA Arena: Mohan Seshadri of the Asian Pacific Islander Political Alliance explains how protests, elections and culture intersect in the campaign against a proposed new home for the 76ers. Read more>>
Building Life: Housing Justice and Abolition: House Our Neighbors (HON!) organizers describe their efforts and victories in establishing a social housing developer in Seattle, influenced by an abolitionist framework, with the goal of providing affordable and dignified housing for all. Read more>>
Turkish Actors Protest Government Censorship After TV Series is Banned: Turkish actors led by the Actors’ Union of Turkey organised a protest called “No to Censorship” in Istanbul on Wednesday calling for an end to government censorship of freedom of speech, art and TV channels. The protest was organised after a government agency in December fined Turkey’s FOX TV 9 million Turkish lira and imposed a two-week broadcasting ban on a popular drama series Kızıl Goncalar. Read more>>
The Femicide Of Julieta Hernández, a Venezuelan Migrant In Brazil, Sparks Protests Across South America: In the wake of the femicide of 38-year-old Venezuelan artist and cyclist Julieta Inés Hernández Martínez, activists, feminist movements, and cycling advocacy groups from across South America have highlighted the cruelty of the crime through tributes, street protests, and cyclists’ urban rides in more than 150 cities, especially in Brazil and Venezuela. Read more>>
Wave Of Transgender Slayings In Mexico Spurs Anger And Protests By LGBTQ+ Community: After transgender activist and politician Samantha Gómez Fonseca was slain in Mexico City, around 100 people marched chanting: “Samantha listen, we’re fighting for you” and carrying signs reading “your hate speech kills.” Another group of protesters earlier in the day spray painted the words “trans lives matter” on the walls of Mexico’s National Palace. At least three transgender women have been killed in January 2024 already. Read more>>
Several Thousand Russians Protest Jailing of Activist: Riot police fired tear gas and struck protesters with batons in the Russian republic of Bashkortostan on Wednesday after a leading local rights activist was sentenced to four years in a penal colony. Large protests in Russia are extremely rare because of the risk of arrest – especially since the start of the war with Ukraine – at any gatherings the authorities deem unauthorized. Read more>>
Québec Workers Conduct Largest Strike Ever: One of the largest strikes in North American history happened this winter and the struggle is ongoing. Together, around 570,000 workers, out of Québec’s population of 8.5 million, struck their employer, the government of Québec, led by center-right Premier François Legault. Read more>>
In San Francisco, Tenants Use Labor Tactics To Challenge Their Landlords: A small group of residents in San Francisco apartments are on a rent strike. Can a union model work for residents the same way it does for laborers? Read more>>
Massachusetts Teachers Illegal Strike Wave Rolls On: A wildly successful, illegal three-day strike by the Andover Education Association in November has reverberated statewide for educators in Massachusetts. The lowest-paid instructional assistants got a 60 percent wage jump immediately. Classroom aides on the higher end of the scale got a 37 percent increase. It has a sparked more ‘illegal’ strikes in its wake. Read more>>
Northern Ireland Teachers and Public Workers Strike: 16 unions took strike action in Northern Ireland, halting bus and train services. Most schools closed and there was disruption across health services. More than 100,000 public sector workers have been taking part in the action and there were rallies in Belfast, Londonderry, Omagh, Magherafelt and Enniskillen. Read more>>
Sri Lankan Hospital Workers Strike, Soldiers Sent To Care For Patients: Sri Lanka sent hundreds of soldiers to key hospitals to help look after patients on Thursday, as hospital orderlies and administrative staff launched a one-day strike nationwide over allowances. Read more>>
Inside The Last-Ditch Effort To Stop The Mountain Valley Pipeline: The project is over budget and behind schedule, with a lot of hard work left to do. Its opponents hope that makes fossil fuel companies think twice about building the next one. Read more>>
To Keep Building Materials Out Of Landfills, Cities Are Embracing Deconstruction: From Portland to San Antonio, cities have begun to mandate that old buildings be taken apart instead of demolished. How do these ordinances work? Read more>>
The New Mexico Co-op Breaking Up With Fossil Fuels: An 80-year-old electricity supplier goes all in on decarbonization. Kit Carson Co-op reached an important goal in 2022: Renewable energy now provides 100% of the year-round daytime electrical needs of its more than 30,000 members. Read more>>
Four Just Stop Oil Supporters Found Not Guilty: Judge Lloyd agreed that there was a lawful excuse for disrupting parliament, addressing the defendants directly she said that their motivations “could not be more important”. Read more>>
Puerto Rico Is Using Residents’ Home Batteries To Back Up Its Grid: The yearlong pilot could be the first step in creating a residential-storage virtual power plant larger than any in North America. Read more>>
Welcoming Relatives Home – A Ceremony for Salmon: The Colville Confederated Tribes are dedicated to “reuniting with old friends” by reintroducing fish to their shared waters and pronghorn to their ancestral lands. Read more>>
No One is Disposable: Migrant Justice as Abolitionist Organizing: Angélica Cházaro argues that the Migrant Justice movement and the Abolitionist movement must be intertwined because the system of oppression they face is one and the same. Read more>>
6 People Purchase Historic Tribal Robe, Donate It Back to Native Heritage Center: Six people have purchased an historic naaxein (Chilkat robe) at auction and donated it to Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI), where it can be studied by artists to perpetuate this ancient and endangered art form. The robe, estimated to be at least 150 years of age, has great historical significance because its design appeared on the first robe of its kind traded from the Tsimshian to the Chilkat Tlingits in Klukwan. Read more>>
We Were Transformed, But Was the World? Reflecting on a Decade of Black-Led Movement: A majority of U.S. adults believe that the “Black Lives Matter” phenomenon or movement has been effective at “bringing attention to racism against Black people in the U.S.,” with the highest support for this claim among Black people, according to a 2023 Pew Research study. A small minority, only eight percent, however, believe it has been effective at improving the lives of Black people, and fourteen percent believe it has been effective at improving police accountability. Where does the movement go next? Read more>>
When Describing Japanese American Incarceration During WWII, Language Matters: A descendant of concentration camp survivors argues that using the right vocabulary can help clarify the stakes when confronting wartime trauma. Read more>>
400,000 Marched In Washington DC Against Biden’s Complicity In Israel’s Genocide: Hundreds of thousands marched in Washington, DC to demand an immediate ceasefire and protest Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza. Read more>>
In London, 200,000 Protesters Marched Against Israel’s War on Gaza: Around 200,000 protesters marched across central London on Saturday to protest against Israel’s continuing assault on Gaza and the U.K. government’s involvement in arming, funding, and providing diplomatic cover to Israel. Read more>>
Mennonite Action Holds Prayer For Ceasefire In Capitol Rotunda – 130 Arrested: A historic peace church, Mennonites have mobilized and began engaging in mass nonviolent action calling for a ceasefire and release of hostages/captives. Hundreds of Mennonites from around the US came to Capitol to lobby. 130 were arrested while they engaged in a prayer service for a ceasefire in the Congressional Cannon Rotunda. They sang beautiful 4-part hymns and displayed quilts that read ”Let Gaza Live” and ”Food Not Bombs.” Read more>>
Documentary On Relatives Of Drafted Russian Soldiers Reveals Increasing Anti-War Sentiment: Public protests by the relatives of soldiers that were drafted and sent to the front lines with Ukraine have been going on in Russia since the “partial” military draft began in September 2022. However, if in the beginning they were concentrating on “helping” the drafted soldiers with demands to provide them with ammunition and “better” conditions to fight, now some women publicly express a clear anti-war position. Read more>>
How To Make AI Work For Peace: Disruptive technologies expert Heather Ashby discusses the urgent need to orient AI toward supporting peacebuilding and nonviolence. Read more>>
Protest At Trident Submarine Base In Honor of Martin Luther King, Jr: Members of the Resist US-Led War Movement and Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action were present, on January 13, at the demonstration against Trident nuclear weapons at the Bangor Washington submarine base. Read more>>
Hundreds Of People Blocked The Entrance To The Port Of Oakland Over Gaza War: The crowd gathered before dawn, trying to prevent port workers from getting to their jobs at a port the protesters say is being used to ship weapon to Israel. “We absolutely will not allow our own port to be complicit in this genocide by allowing the transport of arms and military equipment to Israel.” Read more>>
The 10 Best Nonviolent Video Games: A video gamer reviewed ten video games that do not include violence, and sometimes emphasize active nonviolence. Read more>>
Bloodied Baby Dolls Left Outside White House to Protest Biden’s Complicity in Gaza: As part of a worldwide day of action protesting the ongoing military assault on Gaza by Israel, activists in Washington, D.C. left a pile of bloodied baby doll parts outside the White House on Saturday as they denounced U.S. complicity in the military campaign that has left over 23,000 Palestinians dead, including over 10,000 children and babies. Read more>>
Ukrainians And Russians Are At War. In Sacramento, They Protest Together: These protests aren’t your typical bullhorn fare. They have an artistic flavor that includes music, poetry, and flash mobs. The organizers say the protest art boosts morale at a tough time. Using art and creative online organizing, a striking number of the monthly protesters are anti-Putin Russian dissidents, and fled Russia for Sacramento. Together with Ukrainian refugees, they have sustained a robust campaign of resistance in Sacramento. Read more>>
How Freedom Summer Can Inspire Us In 2024: Freedom Summer transformed the country by transforming the South. To fight white supremacy and defeat fascists block by block and at the ballot box, we have to reflect on the work of the SNCC-fueled coalition and the innovations that made their work successful. Read more>>
Nonviolence May Be The Only Answer To A Potentially-Violent US Election: Professional peacebuilder Danielle Reiff reflects on the challenges as the US approaches an election. “Having worked on political transitions around the world, I am clear-eyed about the year ahead. Democratic institutions are intended to provide a nonviolent space for working through society’s differences, and ours have held up for centuries despite being tested time and time again. I hold out hope that our institutions will get us through the upcoming year as well.” Read more>>
Why Conspiracy Theories Are Corrosive To Social Movements — And What To Do About It: Antisemitic conspiracy theories on the fringe of the movement for a ceasefire in Gaza make it harder to effectively diagnose the problem and challenge power. Read more>>
20 Protest Songs That Changed History: Mainstream America has embraced anthems that spoke to rising or initially unpopular ideas, forming a rallying cry for counterrevolutions against everything from war to racism. In some cases, the songs became synonymous with their moment, inseparable from the times and the fight for peace, justice and equality. Here are 20 examples. Read more>>
Tell President Biden: Cut The Pentagon Budget! The president is putting the final touches on next year’s budget now, and with global tensions on a razor’s edge, “security” is sure to be a top priority. But for decades, the U.S. government has spent more on weapons and war than any other country on earth — and it didn’t make anyone, anywhere, any safer. Tell President Biden to cut the Pentagon budget. Learn more>>
Direct Action Series w/ Earth Quaker Action Team (EQAT): Learn the four roles of social activism, how to prepare for direct action, consent power, and more in this 6-part series on nonviolent action. Starts Jan 25. Learn more>>
Online Forum—Building a World Without Nuclear Weapons: An Urgent Imperative: Pax Christi Massachusetts is planning an online forum on January 27, 2024, 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm ET, entitled Building a World Without Nuclear Weapons: An Urgent Imperative, to examine the existential threat and moral implications of nuclear weapons, to enter into dialogue about solutions, and to urge prayer and action from individuals and groups. Learn more>>
Appalachians Against Pipelines Week of Action: AAP is calling for people all around the country to join the fight against the Mountain Valley Pipeline during the solidarity Days of Action, January 29-31. If you know you want to organize an action please let them know about it! Learn more>>
Free! Movement Ecology Workshop: This free workshop on Movement Ecology is about a framework to understand and analyze the 5 distinct strategies that arise when attempting to make social change. We can only have ecological thinking/action in social change if we know what makes the parts of the movement different in relation to one another. (Feb 20) Learn more>>
Read For Peace! All-Ages Book Group on The Crown of Light: Build a culture of peace through peace literature and readers of all ages! Bring your kids, grandparents, and friends of all ages to this lively, 4-week discussion group that explores an exciting fantasy novel about waging peace. Author Rivera Sun and youth facilitator Savanna Holden are co-facilitating a special intergenerational book club on The Crown of Light. (Feb 6-27) Learn more>>
Engaging Nonviolence II: Inner Skills & Outer Practices For Interpersonal and Social Conflict: In this new 6-week online course, you will explore the power of nonviolence in our relationships, communities, and daily lives. Engaging Nonviolence II explores skills for interpersonal conflicts, builds our inner awareness, and fosters our capacity to engage nonviolence in wider settings, such as interrupting harassment on the subway, or participating in nonviolent actions. (March 2024) Learn more>>
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