Strength & Solidarity

Strength & Solidarity Season 6 will start in November. Meanwhile we’re repeating some of our favourite shows from past seasons. This week we're revisiting episode 39, first released, December 21, 2023. Original Episode Description from December 2023: The ⁠Universal Declaration of Human Rights⁠ (UDHR) turned 75 on the 10 December 2023. Passed by the UN General Assembly in the wake of two brutal world wars, it expressed an aspiration for a new world, one in which every human being’s rights would be acknowledged and respected, and international law would regulate the actions of states and hold them accountable for violations. That vision is as powerful today as it was then and it has sometimes, and in some places, been realized. But the failures are many. Despite their pledge, governments have repeatedly abandoned principle to pursue their own interests, leaving ordinary people – sometimes an individual, sometimes millions – without protection from brutal mistreatment or immiseration and lacking any recourse. Why does the the global human rights system fail? And can it be made to work? A group of moderators from the Symposium on Strength and Solidarity for Human Rights get round a table to argue it out. For a list of supplemental readings and additional information about this episode’s content, visit ⁠https://strengthandsolidarity.org/podcasts/⁠ Contact us at pod@strengthandsolidarity.org

Strength & Solidarity Season 6 will start in November. Meanwhile we’re repeating some of our favourite shows from past seasons, starting with episode 40,  first released,  January 11, 2024. Original Episode Description from January 2024: It is now three months since the October 7 brutal attack by Hamas on targets in Israel which triggered the Israeli bombardment of Gaza in which a reported 21,000 people have so far been killed. In the US, as much as widespread condemnation was expressed after the Hamas attack, the subsequent death toll in Gaza and suffering of surviving civilians have shattered whatever remained of a consensus on Israel. Polls show rising public criticism of Israel’s actions, and of the Biden Administration for continuing to supply Israel with arms. Week after week there are protests, and present in large numbers among the diverse crowds are Jews carrying signs that say, “Not in my name.” One of several organisations mobilising those protests is Jewish Voice for Peace. JVP’s Executive Director Stefanie Fox explains how they have built their movement against the grain of mainstream US politics. And in the Coda, a human rights lawyer talks about her artistic practice and how it connects with her work supporting communities to seek justice. For a list of supplemental readings and additional information about this episode’s content, visit: https://strengthandsolidarity.org/podcasts/ Contact us at pod@strengthandsolidarity.org

Podcast explores Kenya's grassroots movement against government tax proposals, highlighting the power of citizen activism and the historical context of resistance against colonial rule. The episode delves into the challenges faced by the Social Justice Centres movement, including fundraising issues and internal conflicts. It also touches on the importance of storytelling and resilience in driving social change.

Although women were, and still are, deeply involved in Burma’s fight against  military rule, their contributions were often invisible.. Activist and advocate Debbie  Stothard recalls that when she started paying attention, she discovered that “the auntie making our tea in the kitchen was a former resistance fighter.” She began getting women to write down their stories, with remarkable results.https://strengthandsolidarity.org/podcasts/Contact us at pod@strengthandsolidarity.org

Back in 2020, a hashtag - #MilkTeaAlliance – began appearing across the Internet. Netizens in Hong Kong and Taiwan, Thailand, Japan and the Philippines seemed to be building a cross-regional solidarity movement to support pro-democracy activists, like the young people defying the generals who launched Myanmar’s coup in 2021.  Even though the hashtag was so visible online, it was hard to see an actual movement in the real world.  Did it really exist?  How did it come about and who did it represent? And with the apparent waning of the hashtag’s use, is it about to disappear? We talk to Marc Batac, co-founder and facilitator of the Milk Tea Alliance (Friends of Myanmar). And in the coda… Why does a Malaysian human rights leader moonlight as a TV script writer? https://strengthandsolidarity.org/podcasts/ Contact us at pod@strengthandsolidarity.org

Sevan Doraisamy started writing film scripts when he was still a student and despite a shift into social justice activism and – eventually – leadership,  he has never stopped.  He explains why it’s important to him and how it helps him to avoid burning out. https://strengthandsolidarity.org/podcasts/Contact us at pod@strengthandsolidarity.org

In 2022 the United States’ Supreme Court ruled that there is no constitutional right to an abortion, triggering a flood of measures in multiple states to restrict reproductive rights. But further south, that same year, Colombia’s Constitutional Court ruled in the opposite direction.  Colombian feminists had mounted a massive campaign and legal strategy to get abortion removed from the penal code and although they didn’t fully achieve that goal, abortion was decriminalized up to 24 weeks - a huge victory for the reproductive rights movement.  Catalina Martínez Coral, Vice-president in Latin America for the Center for Reproductive Rights recalls the strategy behind the campaign.  And in the coda… a library becomes an inspiration and a home for Germany’s black and diaspora community.  https://strengthandsolidarity.org/podcasts/  Contact us at pod@strengthandsolidarity.org   

Racial justice activist Daniel Gyamerah celebrates the foresight of an Afro-German woman who over the course of her lifetime collected hundreds of books by black authors and bequeathed them to Berlin’s black and diaspora community to create the library that became EOTO – Each One Teach One.  https://strengthandsolidarity.org/podcasts/  Contact us at pod@strengthandsolidarity.org 

The podcast explores the powerful organizing efforts of Abahlali baseMjondolo in South Africa, defending communities against eviction despite violence and corruption. It also delves into the importance of unity, political education, and collective action in empowering marginalized populations, and highlights the challenges faced in electoral processes and the call for alternative political strategies for empowerment.

Eleanor Thompson, a Sierra Leonean human rights lawyer and social justice activist in Freetown has been reading an essay by Audre Lorde, written during a period of heightened awareness of her mortality. Lorde reflects on the ways we avoid speaking our truth in case we provoke anger or rejection and comes to see that our fear may in fact be a guide to our purpose, a powerful insight for Eleanor.   https://strengthandsolidarity.org/podcasts/ Contact us at pod@strengthandsolidarity.org