Editor’s Note from Rivera Sun “Direct action gets the goods,” is a popular movement saying. And it’s true. This week’s Nonviolence News stories include some truly stellar examples. Yaqui women (Mexico) mobilized their entire community to dismantle an illegal pipeline. They took it apart with blow torches and sold it for scrap metal. In Scotland,…
Tag: pipeline
The Global Effort To Defend The Right To Protest & Use Nonviolent Action
Editor’s Note From Rivera Sun We rarely discuss it directly: is nonviolent action a right? Should the ability to strike, protest, boycott, engage in civil disobedience, etc. be considered a political freedom? Our governments could – and should – respect our rights to use these tools, making it easier and safer to organize for social…
Hummingbird Allies, Grandmother Trees & Sámi Forest Defenders
Editor’s Note From Rivera Sun Happy May Day! Today, workers around the world mark the long-standing importance of the global labor movement with strikes, protests, walkouts and more. We’ll have a full round-up of those stories next week. This week, Nonviolence News contains some extraordinary tales of tree-sits, forest defenders, and water protectors from Fairy…
Tackling Giants: Halting Coups, Big Oil, and Amazon
Editor’s Note From Rivera Sun It’s been a week of David and Goliath struggles with “little guys” around the world standing up to horrible regimes and destructive corporations. Haiti and Myanmar’s resistance to coups has been gaining international attention, but major struggles are also happening in Algeria (against austerity), First Nations in Canada (against fossil…
Love & Respect For Humanity: Myanmar Coup Resistance And Children vs. Tech Giants
Editor’s Note From Rivera Sun It’s impossible to read this week’s Nonviolence News and not feel a surge of love and respect for ordinary humans around the world. Low-income schoolchildren took on an Internet giant and won. Myanmar is rising up against (yet another) military coup. Japanese cosmetic customers are boycotting a racist company. Fifty…
300 Victories in 2020, Peru’s Farmer Protests, & India’s Record-Breaking Strike
Editor’s Note From Rivera Sun When I read that India’s farmers led a record-breaking, 250 million person strike against corporate agriculture laws, I cheered. Then I found out that Peru’s farmers rose up against a similar farmworker-abusing law and got it repealed. Double cheers! I come from a farming family. When I train people in…
Lobster Boycott, Tenants Blockade, & the Earth On Fire
Editor’s Note From Rivera Sun “You can’t lose if you never give up,” said Gene Sharp about waging nonviolent struggle. Bolivia just proved those words. After a right-wing faction contested last year’s election results, fomented confusion in the streets with protests, and took power with military backing, the people of Bolivia have spent the entire…
Supergirl, the Invisible House & Bringing Transit To A Grinding Halt
Editor’s Note By Rivera Sun I love it when people add a dash of strategy, a pinch of disruption, and a dose of creativity to our nonviolent actions. This week’s news highlights how powerful that combination can be. In Bangkok, Thailand, protesters (above) halted the entire transit system in its tracks. In Belarus, Supergirl (and…
Whale Rescues, Housing Occupations, & Dismantling and Rebuilding Police Stations
Editor’s Note from Rivera Sun Is property destruction “nonviolent”? This is a frequent question that comes up around nonviolence. The short answer is that it’s complicated. It’s situational. Gene Sharp, a nonviolent struggle researcher, categorized destruction of one’s own property as nonviolent, but not destruction of others’ property. Many acts of property destruction are viewed…
Love In Action: Nonviolence Tackles Hate
Editor’s Note from Rivera Sun This week’s Nonviolence News shares stories from around the world about how people are stopping wars, countering hate, challenging extremism, and dealing with bigotry. Using love, creativity, and persistence, these stories show the remarkable capacities of humans to use nonviolence to make a difference. One particular story to look at is…