Strength & Solidarity

An old proverb says that a trouble shared is a trouble halved. That idea underlies a project to support leaders in human rights movements and organizations - the Symposium on Strength and Solidarity for Human Rights. This project creates space for reflection twice a year, using case histories and readings from past struggles as provocation and invites those taking part to compare experiences. For eight days in February and March, some 20 leader-activists met online to discuss the challenges they face and how they might respond. In this episode, the Symposium’s four moderators reflect on the just-completed meeting and what issues seemed most critical to participants. In this episode: A space for human rights leaders to talk – and find support The Coda:  An Israeli activist finds new meaning in a poem by Marge Piercy For a list of supplemental readings and additional information about this episode’s content, please visit www.strengthandsolidarity.org/podcast Send us your ideas and your feedback at pod@strengthandsolidarity.org

Excerpted from Strength and Solidarity Episode 6. Brazilian activist Alessandra Orofino is enjoys the sly double-entendre of singer-songwriter Chico Buarque in his hit song against military rule.

In 2005, a small group of women began a campaign to make abortion legal in Argentina. While rich women might be able to find safe means to terminate their pregnancies, the poor were forced to seek backstreet abortions at grave risk of imprisonment, injury and death. As much as those building the movement believed in their cause, even they were stunned, a mere 13 years later, to see a million people in the streets of Buenos Aires supporting their demands. At the end of 2020, a vote in Senate brought final victory. In this episode, one of the organisers at the heart of the campaign shares the strategies that won the day. And, in this episode’s Coda, the Brazilian samba that seemed to be a lovers’ tiff but was a veiled attack on military rule. In this episode:  Feminist Victoria Tesoriero breaks down the brilliant, dogged campaign to legalise abortion in Argentina The Coda:  How a 1970 samba promised Brazilians a better future beyond dictatorship For a list of supplemental readings and additional information about this episode’s content, please visit www.strengthandsolidarity.org/podcast Send us your ideas and your feedback at pod@strengthandsolidarity.org

Excerpted from Strength and Solidarity Episode 5. A seventeenth century nun, philosopher, composer and poet Juana Inés de la Cruz wins the admiration of South African human rights lawyer Kayum Ahmed.

Ching Yin Johnson Yeung, a driving force in the Hong Kong democracy movement and former rights activist, discusses the quest for global solidarity in the face of decentralized protests. She reveals the challenges faced in garnering international support and highlights the vital role of the Hong Kong diaspora. Keum Ahmed, a South African human rights lawyer, shares a powerful poem from 17th-century feminist Juana Inés de la Cruz, connecting historical struggles with contemporary issues. Together, they examine the intersection of activism, gender, and democracy.

Excerpted from Strength and Solidarity Episode 4. Afghan champion of human rights Shaharzad Akbar shares a poem by American 19th century poet Emily Dickinson

When authoritarian governments want to hobble civil society and human rights activists, a favored strategy is to choke off their funding. Since money often comes from foreign donors, a law to limit access to support from abroad can hit activists hard. In China, where conditions were already very tough for rights defenders,  two such laws passed in 2016. Shawn Shih-hung Shieh, director of Social Innovations Advisory, tells us how affected groups are adapting and using innovative strategies to offset their lost income. In this episode: Host Akwe Amosu and her colleague Chris Stone consider whether leaderless movements are really leaderless Civil society researcher Shawn Shieh finds out how Chinese NGOs are coping without foreign funding The Coda:  How  a 19th Century American poem inspires hope in Afghanistan For a list of supplemental readings and additional information about this episode’s content, please visit www.strengthandsolidarity.org/podcast Send us your ideas and your feedback at pod@strengthandsolidarity.org

Excerpted from Strength and Solidarity Episode 3. US civil rights activist Charles Cobb Jr shares a song commemorating the day that US civil rights activists met an African anti-colonial fighter in 1963.

South African human rights lawyer Kayum Ahmed’s entire career has been spent defending and extending the rights of excluded and oppressed people, at home and abroad.  But this former CEO of the South African Human Rights Commission harbors considerable doubt about whether the human rights framework rooted in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights can meet the demands of radical black and brown activists. In this episode:  Host Akwe Amosu and her colleague Chris Stone talk about why police reform in Nigeria –and elsewhere –is so hard to achieve Interview with human rights lawyer Kayum Ahmed about radical activist critiques of the human rights framework The Coda: A song that commemorates the day that US civil rights activists met an African anti-colonial fighter in 1963 For a list of supplemental readings and additional information about this episode’s content, please visit www.strengthandsolidarity.org/podcast Send us your ideas and your feedback at pod@strengthandsolidarity.org

Excerpted from Strength and Solidarity Episode 2. Turkish human rights leader Murat Celikkan shares an Ariel Dorfman poem evoking the determination of the “disappeared” and their loved ones.