resistance – Pike & Hurricane

Boycott: A Silent Revolution

monta.nitisa — Sun, 11 Mar 2018 12:07:12 +0000

In the classic story of nonviolent resistance “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story”, Martin Luther King, Jr. states six principles of nonviolence. The first principle is as follows—nonviolence is a way of life for courageous people. It does take audacity to directly oppose anything, to stand against injustice. I had the opportunity to have a conversation with Ronnie Barkan, an Israeli human rights activist, who could be one of those people who King wrote about 60 years ago.

Ronnie Barkan defines himself as a privileged Israeli Jew. Besides being a human rights activist, Barkan is a co-founder of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement which is a global Palestinian-led campaign for freedom, justice and equality. It started in 2005, combining 170 different Palestinian organisations that signed up to a shared mission, which urges to put pressure on Israel until Israel acts in accordance with international law and respects fundamental human rights.

How Does a Boycott Work?

Barkan looks at the BDS campaign as a grassroots movement. He states that there is a way how boycotts can be something that everyone of us can participate in:

“When you choose where your money goes, you choose whether you buy products that are produced in a sweatshop or not, and you can also choose whether you buy products that come within the expense of oppressing Palestinians.’

Nonetheless, BDS goes far beyond economic consumer boycott; it also involves around cultural and academic spheres. One part of boycotting is divestment—the controlling of companies which fund, for example, pension funds. Students can ask universities not to invest in companies which are acting against human rights.

When talking about who is being boycotted, Barkan explains:

“For cultural and academic boycott, we have clear BDS guidelines, which make sure that we are not boycotting every Israeli simply because they are from Israel. We are only boycotting those that are the representatives of that state. We don’t boycott the individuals.”

Even Music Takes Part in Boycott

As and example of cultural boycott Barkan mentions the recent case with an artist from New Zealand, Lorde:

“There was a call on her not to perform there and she decided to hear the call and not to perform and this raised a lot of international attention. This is more about symbolism. The fact that a certain artist doesn’t perform in Israel doesn’t harm the economy or any individuals. It is just that some artists decide not to perform there but it really touches the nerve.’’

Nonviolent Resistance versus Arms

When being asked about the role of nonviolence, Barkan does not hesitate to share his thoughts on the present situation:

“I am not here to condemn Palestinian armed resistance, but it is not very effective. When you struggle to fight against the fourth of fifth largest nuclear superpower in the world, it doesn’t really make sense to resist with weapons. I am happy that I have the opportunity to not use weapons against anyone […] Our power as activists is gained by doing things transparently and not being ashamed by what we do.’’

The Unclear but Promising Future

Towards the end of the discussion, Barkan shifts towards the hopeful picture of the upcoming. He talks about reassuring signs that keeps his outlook on the future positive:

“Firstly, I am very optimistic about the media’s campaign to change the discourse and it is definitely happening. This discourse is slowly seeping into the mainstream media. Secondly, that I am optimistic about is the whole blockchain technology—cryptocurrency. There are a lot of discussions, misconceptions about that but we are just at the beginning with this revolution, which makes banks and authorities pretty much abundant. There are endless possibilities that come up with that—from the distribution of wealth to the redistribution of information.”

In the fast-paced world we live in today, it has become too effortless to accept the illusions of equity. Slipping out of this mindframe, re-evaluating our values is indeed challenging, but if nonviolence combined with courageousness is our hope, I think we are on the right path.

By Christiana Nitisa

Photo credits:

Gaza, Elvert Barne, 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)

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A New Hope –Not Only a Star Wars Story

Nina Kolarzik — Sat, 10 Mar 2018 18:01:59 +0000

When I heard about the theme of this edition, hope, the first thing that came to mind was Star Wars.

“But I cannot write about Star Wars in the UF magazine”, I thought.

“Why not?”, the others asked.

And they are right: fiction books and movies mirror what is happening in our world, and Star Wars has grown into a whole universe of stories, which deals with political and social issues we face in the real world. It is a reflection of recurring situations on Earth, only with planet systems instead of nation states.

How do I relate issues in real world politics to the first Star Wars movie “A New Hope”? In Star Wars, hope was materialised in the form of the Rebel Alliance’s successful strikes against the Galactic Empire. Rebellion is a recurring feature in most science-fiction stories. Rebellious groups represent the oppressed people’s hope for a better world. And so I asked myself, how justified is this hope? Do rebellions often succeed? And what do books and movies teach us?

Two Rebellious Movements: The Rebel Alliance vs Euromaidan

Rebellions are understood as armed resistance against an authority, a government or a leader. Star Wars movies and reality have their differences and similarities, comparing the Ukrainian Revolution of 2013-14 to the movie can help us to understand these.

For those who do not know Star Wars, the Rebel Alliance formed itself during the last wars, when the Galactic Empire arose. In “A New Hope”, it is fighting an insurgency war against the Empire to overthrow it and to create a new democratic Republic.

As a comparison, take the Ukrainian Revolution. It started of as a student protest against the Ukrainian government, who did not want to sign an EU association agreement. These protests then developed into a revolution, aiming to replace the ruling government.

Both cases are rebellions aiming to overthrow a ruling government. But while the Ukrainian Revolution started out peacefully, the Rebel Alliance was formed from pre-existent, violent resistance movements.

The main difference is that in reality things are not that clearly separated into the good and the bad. The relations between affected parties are far more complex, and the international community and law play a much bigger role, restricting parties’ use of violence and ability to manoeuvre.

At first sight, both rebellions were successful—the Empire got defeated, the Ukrainian president Yanukovych fled and a new parliament was elected. But you have to keep in mind that in recent years, new Star Wars episodes came out, with new rulers, new problems, and new rebels. The parliamentary elections in Ukraine and the Russian annexation of the Crimean peninsula were followed by riots and conflicts in Eastern parts of the country. This raises the question: at which point can a rebellion be called a success, when the long-term effects are not immediately visible?

Learning through Movies

Movies do not often deal with the long-term effects and how daily life continues after a happy ending. But we can still learn a great deal from movies and books, as dozens of Star Wars interpretations and analyses can point out. You can come across books, such as “Sex, Politics, and Religion in Star Wars” and “Harry Potter and International Relations”. The stories show us examples of courage and wisdom, of violence and cold bloodedness, and of political wit and military strategies.

According to Christine Cornea from Edinburgh University, writers draw inspiration from reality to their stories, and give us something new to learn about since “science fiction has become a significant and widely accepted element of cultural reality.”

With the heroic imagery of the rebels in movies, these stories can give us hope. Movie-rebels succeed far more often than rebels in reality. And no matter how small the chances of success are, there is always some hope. Of course, in reality rebellions can be either in the right or wrong—the government is not always on the dark side.

Whether rebellions in reality fail more often than in movies, and whether they actually create change socially or politically—hope is the one thing that drives them forward. Hope is what most people need. Governments and rebellious leaders know that. The more I learn about the complex interactions and dependencies in the world, the more often I think: is it worth the fight? Does it even make sense to fight a superior power? But the moment you want to give up, thinking it is useless to carry on, something you do not learn about at university, pushes you forward: hope.

By Nina Kolarzik

Photo Credit:

Soldiers of the Rebel Alliance: Michael Neel (CC BY 2.0)

Ukrainian Revolution: Ivan Bandura “Climbing the crane for a better view” (CC BY 2.0)

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