Strength & Solidarity

Standing in solidarity with those whose rights are being abused sounds like an easy choice. But when you get up close, it can look more complicated. What seems an obvious strategy to those in the frontline bearing the brunt of abusive treatment, might look aggressive and risky to someone in a support organization. So who gets to decide? Should it be up to each organization to decide how to support those who need their help? Or should those at the sharp end be able to set the strategy and expect others to follow? Two allies in South Africa’s human rights movement - S’bu Zikode, President of shack-dwellers movement Abahlali baseMjondolo, and Nomzamo Zondo, Executive Director of the Socio-Economic Rights Institute – sit down with host Akwe Amosu to explain how they work, and who gets the last word when they disagree. And in the Coda, exiled human rights lawyer Tutu Alicante expresses his excitement about the young musicians of his country Equatorial Guinea, who are using their art to fight dictatorship and corruption. 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

For Tutu Alicante, human rights lawyer and long time activist against dictatorship and corruption in Equatorial Guinea, it has sometimes felt like an uphill struggle. But there are some new kids on the block – young artistes who are using their music to condemn the illegitimate wealth of the president and the shocking poverty of the country’s people. And it’s giving Tutu hope.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

How should we describe the state of the global struggle for women’s rights? It is surely impossible to make a single overarching assessment– even as battles are won on one front, major challenges remain – or emerge - on another. Yet if it is hard to generalize about progress, we can at least note that conditions are scarcely favourable. To pick only three global trends - authoritarian rule, identity-based exclusion and economic instability - none of these help advance women’s freedoms. As International Women’s Day 2023 approaches, we invite three feminist leaders to assess this moment in their respective fields. 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

On January 21, 2023, human rights lawyer Thulani Maseko was murdered in Swaziland. He was a remarkable advocate for rights and democracy, a commitment that brought him into direct confrontation with his country’s absolute ruler, King Mswati III over decades. His family, friends and fellow citizens are grief-stricken and the international human rights and justice community is outraged. Maseko had been due to spend a week with a group of human rights activists and leaders in our Symposium on Strength and Solidarity for Human Rights. We met to celebrate his work and decided to share this audio recording of the event. For a list of supplemental readings and additional information, please visit https://strengthandsolidarity.org/podcasts/ Send your ideas and feedback to pod@strengthandsolidarity.org

It is now more than a decade since Egypt’s January 25th Revolution, otherwise known simply as “Tahrir Square.” All over the world in 2011, people watched the footage from Cairo in amazement at the scale of the mobilization, the creation of community and a remarkable range of services in the square, and the eventual ejection of the Mubarak regime which opened a path to elections. But it was all over in less than three years when General Al-Sisi’s counter-coup restored military dictatorship. What has life been like for activists and rights defenders in the years since, and what is left of the passionate activism that powered the revolution? In 2011 Mohammed Lotfy had been working abroad for Amnesty International but he came home to help build a new society. Now the executive director of the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms, he sees, at first hand, the daily reality of those who made the revolution and, in his own family, the cost of defending rights in Egypt today. And in our Coda, a Nigerian activist tells us how Audre Lorde has transformed his approach. 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

Two years ago, Nigerian environmental rights campaigner, Ken Henshaw, had never heard of black lesbian feminist, Audre Lorde or her lecture, The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House. But when someone gave him a copy of Lorde’s fiery take-down of white feminist academics for avoiding discomfort and hanging on to their privileged connection with the white patriarchy, Ken was transfixed. Could he apply the ‘Master’s Tools’ metaphor to his own activism? Had he really been challenging the oil companies and the government, or was he working within limits they prescribed?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 United Nations, sponsor of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights stands as the most important protector of rights in the world today. Under the authority of its councils, its agencies and its convenings, standards are set, treaties are ratified and complaints are heard. But as much as we have seen vital progress in the definition and assertion of rights, that is only one side of the story. The other, darker truth is that, time and again, people in desperate need of protection are abandoned to the cruel bullying and violence of powerful actors -most often states that are members of the UN. Akila Radhakrishnan, is the director of the Global Justice Center which does a lot of work in the UN’s corridors, fighting for gender equality and justice. She spoke late last year with host Akwe Amosu about why civilians in places like Syria and Myanmar don’t get the same kind of attention as those in Ukraine. And in the Coda, a moving reflection on Seamus Heaney’s poem, Casualty, born of the troubles in Northern Ireland. 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

This famous poem of the Northern Ireland Troubles tells the story of an event that followed Bloody Sunday, the day in 1972 when British soldiers shot dead 13 unarmed civilians in Derry as they were protesting internment without trial. Criminal defense lawyer Chris Stone reads the poem and reflects on its brilliance, and the profound impact it had on him.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

Building a protest movement massive enough to topple a president used to take years, even decades. The internet changed that, as we discovered over in the Arab Spring. In this episode someone who was at the heart of a mass mobilisation in his home country, Guatemala, explains how an almost accidental series of choices and connections in 2015 put him and a small group of others at the head of a movement that - under the slogan, Justicia Ya! - Justice Now! - forced the country’s president to resign. Gabriel Wer tells host Akwe Amosu of his initial bewilderment at what he and fellow organisers had unleashed, his determination to achieve its goals, and then the growing recognition that long-term change was going to need a different approach.  And in the Coda, a social justice activist in Hong Kong explains how rock climbing gives him a powerful metaphor for weathering defeat and nurturing resilience. 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

When human rights and social justice activist Johnson Yeung wants a break, he exchanges Hong Kong’s forest of skyscrapers for the real thing, a nearby forest of trees and a rockface that he and fellow climbers can scale, finding trust in mutual reliance, the resilience to fall and recover, and - on reaching the top - a breathtaking view.For a list of supplemental readings and additional information about this episode’s content, visithttps://strengthandsolidarity.org/podcasts/Contact us at pod@strengthandsolidarity.org