Activism Archives - Toward Freedom

Art and Activism: Danai Gurira’s Play, “Eclipsed,” Is More Relevant Than Ever

Lesley Becker May 7, 2021 Lesley Becker

Activism and Art are a potent combination for addressing problems that are both enduring and unendurable. The play, Eclipsed, transports the audience into the intimate dwelling of women struggling to survive while living as sexual slaves in a rebel forces encampment at the end of the Liberian civil war in 2003. The story follows a 15-year-old African girl as she escapes from the encampment to become a child soldier in the rebel forces.

The World is My Country: A Stunning New Film about World Citizen Garry Davis

Toward Freedom Editor April 28, 2021 Toward Freedom Editor

He was best known as “World Citizen # 1.”.He was a former WWII bomber pilot who was so pained about having bombed a civilian city that, in 1948, he gave up his US national citizenship and declared himself a citizen of the world. Many more acts of defiance would follow, landing him in prison 34 times. Now, the late Garry Davis (1921-2013), whose obituary appeared on the front page of the New York Times, is the subject of a newly released documentary by Arthur Kanegis and Melanie N. Bennett called The World is My Country. It is now airing on public television stations across the country -- including Vermont broadcasts on May 2.

Hunting in Yemen, Hunger Striking in Washington DC

Kathy Kelly April 15, 2021 Kathy Kelly

We all have a responsibility to listen for the screams of children gunned down as they flee in the darkness from the rubble of their homes. We all have a responsibility to listen for the gasps of little children breathing their last because starvation causes them to die from asphyxiation. “It’s not normal for people to live like this,” says Iman Saleh, now on her 17th day of a hunger strike demanding an end to war in Yemen.

Tunisia’s Spring Has Not Delivered Real Change — Special Report

Alessandra Bajec March 15, 2021 Alessandra Bajec

Throughout the month of January, nightly demonstrations rocked underprivileged neighborhoods in the capital and many cities across the country for more than a week. Scores of youths between the ages of 15 and 30 clashed with security forces. Some incidents of looting and vandalism were reported. The military and police responded with excessive use of force and mass arrests of over 1,600 mostly- young people, one third of whom are minors.

Bolivia’s Five-Hundred-Year Rebellion

Peter Lackowski February 28, 2021 Peter Lackowski

In 1781, the Bolivian indigenous leader Tupac Katari led a rebellion in which La Paz, the Spanish colonial capital of “Upper Peru,” was besieged for 109 days. The siege ended with the arrival of a Spanish army. Katari was captured, he and his wife, Bartolina Sisa, were gruesomely executed, and thousands of indigenous people were massacred. For many years this was treated as a minor event in history books, but in the latter half of the twentieth century Katari and Sisa have been celebrated as symbols of the resistance to oppression by the indigenous majority, and as martyrs in a national revolution whose time has finally come.

Why Indian farmers are so angry about the Modi government’s agricultural reforms

Bhavani Shankar February 21, 2021 Bhavani Shankar

India’s farmers have been protesting since the autumn, with a growing intensity that culminated in a violent breaching of barriers in the Red Fort in Delhi during India’s Republic Day celebrations on January 26. Although reforms introduced by the Modi government in September are ostensibly about empowering farmers, there is deep concern that they will largely boost private agribusiness to the detriment of the livelihoods of small farmers. The bills propose new market channels that are largely unregulated, potentially leaving farmers at the mercy of powerful private sector players.