Strength & Solidarity

Strength & Solidarity is taking a break until Season Five starts in October 2023. Meanwhile we’re repeating some of our favourite shows, continuing with episode 10,  first released,  June 17, 2021. This episode of the podcast steps onto tricky terrain with a conversation about identity, power and privilege. Mexican human rights lawyer Alejandra Ancheita tells host Akwe Amosu about building relationships of mutual respect with her clients - indigenous communities fighting against corporate encroachment on their land and livelihoods. And in the Coda, how the courage of Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero - assassinated in 1980 for standing up to a violent, repressive regime – confirmed US lawyer Jim Goldston’s commitment to a career in rights. In this episode: In Mexico – a lawyer navigating power and identity with her indigenous clients And in our Coda – the struggle for justice in El Salvador sets a young man’s course in life 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

Strength & Solidarity is taking a break until Season Five starts in October 2023. Meanwhile we’re repeating some of our favourite shows, continuing with episode 9,  first released,  June 3, 2021. In this first episode of Season two, host Akwe Amosu looks back to late 2020 and Nigeria’s massive #EndSARS protests against police brutality and impunity and asks youth organizer Samson Itodo to assess their impact. What is the role of leadership and organizing in a spontaneous upswell of citizen rage and who has to deliver it? And in the Coda, veteran human rights defender Suliman Baldo recalls the way poetry powered the revolution in his country, Sudan. In this episode: ● Converting protest into respect for right in Nigeria ● The Coda:  How poetry fuelled Sudan’s revolution 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

Strength & Solidarity is taking a break until Season Five starts in October 2023. Meanwhile we’re repeating some of our favourite shows, starting with episode 6,  first released,  March 10, 2021. 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

How does an organization weather hostile times? When a state repeatedly unleashes violence on whole communities, when activists get brutalized and locked up, is it inevitable that an organization aiming to defend rights and justice must weaken and lose power? If not, how does it find the resilience to survive the pressure and keep working towards its goals? Zimbabwe has been independent and free of racial tyranny for over forty years yet there has rarely been a time when rights and justice were not under attack by government and security forces. In this episode we ask Dzikamai Bere, National Director of ZimRights - the Zimbabwe Human Rights Association - how they have survived three decades of repression with a quarter of a million active members across the country. And in the Coda, US racial justice leader Vince Warren talks about the central role of music in his life and shares his “pandemic project” – an EP of songs he’s recently released. 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

Vince Warren is a renowned human rights lawyer and leader in racial justice who leads the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York. Like so many others, he found himself locked down during the pandemic. Disruptive and destabilizing though that period was, Vince was grateful to be able to take refuge in his lifelong passion for music. A drummer and performer over many years, he took the chance to write some new songs and has recently released them on an EP. He reflected on the connections between his human rights and musical identities.And in the Coda, US racial justice leader Vince Warren talks about the central role of music in his life and shares his “pandemic project” – an EP of songs he’s recently released.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

The death in March 2023 of US disability rights activist Judy Heumann provoked grief but also joyful celebration of a leader whose strategic instincts and sheer grit helped secure victories that improved peoples’ lives. Heumann never lost her faith in activism - building power at street level. She led persons with disabilities and their allies in blocking traffic, occupying buildings and often literally putting their bodies on the line for the cause. Three disability rights advocates – Catalina Devandas, Alberto Vasquez and Peter Torres Fremlin reflect on that history and ask whether activism is still a central tool for their community. They discuss factors like inclusion and identity as sources of both strength and division, and the pros and cons of integrating disability rights work in the wider human rights movement. 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

The election in 2010, of Hungary’s Prime Minister Victor Orban and his Fidesz party triggered a lurch to the right and authoritarian rule. It brought legal restriction, bureaucratic harassment and public vilification to the country’s civil society and human rights community. Official hostility made it difficult for NGOs to survive and made individual rights workers’ lives hell. The most marginalized and vulnerable groups – migrants, queer community members, Roma and others – have come under particularly sustained attack. It would not have been surprising if the net outcome of such targeting were a weakened human rights movement and a profound loss of confidence. And yet, says Stefánia Kapronczay, co-director of the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union, the outcome has been very different. And in the Coda, a poem by beloved Iranian poet Simin Behbahani and the story of her meeting with a young Tehran activist. 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

In recent months, a sustained uprising in Iran led by women, has inspired admiration and across the world. It is by no means the first time in over 40 years of fundamentalist Islamic rule – there have been repeated waves of courageous protest since 1979. The poem in this episode’s Coda is by beloved Iranian poet Simin Behbahani, and was written during a moment of rebellion in 2009 when citizens came out to reject election results they believed had been rigged. Human rights activists Farnoosh Hashemian reflects on what the poem – and its author – mean to her.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

Some people love change but, in most cases, the words, “we need to revise our strategy,” do not elicit cheers from a team. Whether it’s the upheaval and uncertainty, or the prospect of long, often fractious meetings to choose between alternative paths, most of us would like to get on with the job and stop tinkering. This episode is about a UK organization, Freedom From Torture, that faced up to the truth about their waning impact and made a major pivot, from their long-standing model to one in which they had little experience. Chief executive, Sonya Sceats, reflects on some tough debates and decisions and tells us how it all worked out. And in the Coda: Dilrabo Samadova reminds us that human rights were being advocated in Persian poems more than a thousand years ago, and delights in the way poetry shows up everywhere in the life of her country, Tajikistan. 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

Human rights advocate Dilrabo Samadova marvels at the way poetry get into absolutely every aspect of life in her country, Tajikistan, and notes that solidarity, justice, and equality feature in Persian verse as far back as the sixth and seventh centuries, proving these are not “western values.”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