2. Violence in Countermovements Internationally: What are the Patterns?
3. We are talking about movement/countermovement and state/movement interactions this week. Below is an article about deaths and murders in labor movements internationally.
Violence is one category that would have much documentation particularly because it is almost always deemed 'newsworthy' or would always leave a legal trail (we hope).
I imagine you could do an interesting international study on the 'locations of violence in social movements/countermovements' and what kind of conditions facilitate it.
It would make an interesting study--if morbid though perhaps redeemingly useful--to find out where are the most violent forms of protest are internationally right now--and perhaps from that inductive data, to describe deductively why it is so.
Violence is a topic we talked about in terms of Korean 'brinksmanship' as well as, I assumed, forms of culture.
However, these are just suppositions and words. The best way to test these hypotheses of the causes of violence in social movements and countermovements is by comparative analysis of violence and the same factors in other countries--potentially in all countries.
Deaths during protests or protest organizing of social movements is a good measure of extremes.
The deductive explanations would intersect I imagine with chosen repertoires, emotion, and possibly types of organization of state (political opportunity structures) and/or SMOs, and cultural boundaries.
Below: sobering news on how repressive state-backed countermovements are against labor internationally in our neoliberal era--though they have always been INCREDIBLY violent forms of countermovements against labor social movements. Korea is no extreme there. the U.S. saw hundreds of deaths by federal troops called into stop strikes in some cases. I don't know about European labor unrest though I assume that Europeans in general had a much more violent labor unrest than the U.S.
You might even extend all this to analyze forms of repression in core, semiperiphery and periphery states to see if these socioeconomic categories or concepts are 'real world' demarcations of styles of repression or otherwise.
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# 16 Annual Survey on Trade Union Rights in Top 25 Censored Stories for 2009
Source: International Trade Union Confederation website, September 2007 Title: “2007 Annual Survey of Violations of Trade Union Rights”
Student Researchers: Carmela Rocha and Elizabeth Allen
Faculty Evaluator: Robert Girling, PhD
The first Annual Survey of Violations of Trade Union Rights to be published by the year-old International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) documents enormous challenges to workers rights around the world.
The 2007 edition of the survey, covering 138 countries, [there are 192 states] shows an alarming rise in the number of people killed as a result of their trade union activities, from 115 in 2005 to 144 in 2006.
Many more trade unionists around the world were abducted or “disappeared.”Thousands were arrested during the year for their parts in strike action and protests, while thousands of others were fired in retaliation for organizing.
Growing numbers of trade union activists in Africa, the Americas, Europe, Asia, and the Pacific are facing police brutality and murder as unions are viewed as opponents of corporatist governments.
Colombia is still the deadliest country in the world for trade unionists. In 2006, seventy-eight people were murdered because of their union activities, an increase of eight from the previous year.
There is strong and disturbing evidence of government involvement in these killings. Of 1,165 recorded crimes against trade unionists in Colombia, just fifty-six went before the courts, and only ten resulted in sentences.
In Mexico, two miners died and forty-one were injured when 800 police officers were sent to confront 500 striking miners and began a brutal evacuation of the mining company’s premises.
Violent scenes erupted in Ecuador when police and the army aggressively repressed a union-organized protest against the negotiation of a free trade agreement with the US, leaving fifteen seriously injured. [think open, violent repression dealing with national elites, like Jennifer Karl implied was more common strategy when national elite policy was involved.]
Employers in the Export Processing Zones (EPZ) of Central America have managed thus far to thwart workers’ efforts to organize.
[Channeling:]
In the United States, a National Labor Relations Board ruling deprived millions of the right to organize by expanding the definition of the term “supervisor.”
Across Africa, the use of disproportionate force and mass dismissals in retaliation for strike action were a frequent occurrence in 2007. In Kenya, over 1,000 workers on a flower plantation were dismissed after going on strike over workplace injuries and discrimination.
Mass dismissals were also reported at a diamond mine in Botswana and at a road-construction site in Cameroon.
In Egypt, Libya, and Sudan, the single trade union system prohibits effective bargaining or representation, while in Equatorial Guinea the dictatorship is too absolute to allow organizing. [i.e., violence thus occurring really when there are assumed to be political openings and they fail drastically or are repressed; the violence of intimidation or lack of mobilization thus ironically might bias the data to ignore where the most violent regimes are of countermovements--the places where 'no one is killed' may be more violent a repressive context because people terrified to think about change. Something to think about.
In the Middle East, some governments took steps towards the recognition of trade union rights, but overall, workers in the region still have fewer rights than anywhere in the world. For example, in Jordan, Kuwait, Yemen, and Syria, laws impose an ineffective single trade union system. [similar to Korean channeling pre-1980s of the pro-state 'official unions'?]
In Palestine, hostilities with Israel have made the organizing of trade unions virtually impossible. Migrant workers still make up the most vulnerable group in the region. At least twenty migrant workers at two factories in Jordan were arrested and deported for demanding improved wages and working conditions.
In Saudi Arabia, the total lack of workers’ rights and protection means that migrant workers, particularly women, are frequently subjected to blatant abuse, such as nonpayment of wages, forced confinement, rape, and other physical violence.
There were more mass dismissals and arrests in response to collective action in Asia than in any other region in the world in 2007.
[Channeling:]
In Bangladesh, the phased introduction of (limited) trade union rights in EPZs got off to a poor start, as employers routinely harassed, suspended, and fired leaders of Workers’ Representation and Welfare Committees during the year.
In one incident, police opened fire on strikers at an EPZ garment factory, killing one worker and injuring others.
In Malaysia police used batons, dogs, and water cannons to disperse a workers’ protest.
The Philippines stand out as the most violent country in the region. In an attempt to crush popular protests against the president’s rule, labor leaders were among those targeted as “enemies of the state.”
[Channeling in the 'socialist' pro-labor state:]
There was no change in China where the law does not allow for any independent trade union activity. Over one hundred workers were arrested and detained for involvement in collective protest, while the official “trade union” did nothing to protect them.
A recent report published by the social audit company Vigeo, based on a study of 511 enterprises in seventeen European countries, shows that less then 10 percent of European companies are committed to freedom of association and the promotion of collective bargaining.
Changes in labor legislation in several countries added to existing restrictions on trade union rights.
[Channeling:]
The most serious change was announced in Belarus, where a draft trade union law would make it virtually impossible to establish trade unions outside the state-controlled Federation of Trade Unions of Belarus. [That's almost the exact same name as the Korean Federation of State Unions that Korean "President" Park (no federal elections for him) oversaw being established in the 1960s-1970s.
Despite all these difficulties, millions of women and men remain firm in their commitment to, or are discovering the benefits of, trade union action.
2. What if you held a big protest and it was a big success--though no one from the media covers it? (If a protest group protests in the forest and no one hears it, is it a protest? Capacities to link to bystanders and others in sympathy and action mobilization are crucial in social movements)
3. Protests without access to the ability to change people's minds or change cultural meanings become superfluous. In the U.S., this protest, despite its high profile of importance, was entirely censored.
Remember we talked about the news cycles of corporate/private media.
Other things get censored in the USA. I know from experience, the U.S media regularly ignores international protests dealing with labor rights or environmentalism.
General strikes in France or Italy for instance, which happen regularity, are never reported to the Americans.
When I went to New Zealand and Australia several years ago, the completely different world of Austrlian/NZ television news was amazingly deep and conflictual about international politics.
In the U.S, on the contrary, conflict is served up only during football games or interpersonal love affairs between Hollywood stars.
The U.S. consolidated media is a bubble world and easy to dominate the news cycle with political repression of news.
Perhaps we can adapt the 'political opportunity structure' into a 'media opportunity structure' characterized equally by openness and closure to protest dynamics as explaining the styles of protest chosen in different countries as they attempt to get in the news in different media structures. I have not seen any social movements research thinking about political opportunity structure extending to the political economy of a country's media before...would be interesting.
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#9 Iraq and Afghanistan Vets Testify in Top 25 Censored Stories for 2009
Sources: Iraq Vets Against the War, March 13–16, 2008 Title: “Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan Eyewitness Accounts of the Occupations”
War Comes Home, Pacifica Radio, March 14–16, 2008 Title: “Winter Soldier 2008 Eyewitness Accounts of the Occupations” Co-hosts: Aaron Glantz, Aimee Allison, and Esther Manilla
One World, March 19, 2008 Title: “US Soldiers ‘Testify’ About War Crimes” Author: Aaron Glantz
The Nation, July 30, 2007 Title: “The Other War: Iraq Vets Bear Witness” Authors: Chris Hedges and Laila Al-Arian
Student Researchers: April Pearce, Erica Elkington, and Kat Pat Crespán
Community Evaluator: Bob Alpern
Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans are coming forward to recount the brutal impact of the ongoing occupations. An investigation by the Nation (July 2007) and the Winter Soldier hearings in Silver Spring, Maryland, in March 2008, which was organized by Iraq Veterans Against the War and brought together over 300 veterans, have made their experiences public.
Soldiers’ harrowing testimony of atrocities they witnessed or participated in directly indicate a structural problem in the US military that has created an environment of lawlessness. Some international law experts say the soldiers’ statements show the need for investigations into potential violations of international law by high-ranking officials in the Bush administration and the Pentagon.
Though BBC predicted that the Winter Soldier event would dominate headlines around the world that week, there was a near total back-out on this historic news event by the US corporate media. 1
[This is a repeat of the repertoire used during the Vietnam war, it is recycled for this war, testimony by soldiers directly to the public in a 'teach in' run by soldiers themselves against the war. Very difficult to brand these people as symbolically 'unpatriotic', eh? So they just ignore them in the media cycle.]
Dozens of veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan occupation publicly testified at the four-day Winter Soldier gathering about crimes they committed during the course of battle—many of which were prompted by the orders or policies laid down by superior officers.
Such crimes include targeting innocent, unarmed civilians for murder and detention, destroying property, desecrating corpses, severely abusing detainees (often torturing to death), and using corpses for medical practice.
Winter Soldier 2008 was organized to demonstrate that well-publicized incidents of US brutality, including the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and the massacre of an entire family of Iraqis in the town of Haditha, were not isolated incidents perpetrated by “a few bad apples,” as many politicians and military leaders have claimed.
They are part of a pattern, the organizers said, of “an increasingly bloody occupation.”
The veterans also stressed the similarities between the occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, “. . . units that are getting the exact same training and the exact same orders are being sent to both Iraq and Afghanistan,” explains a former US Army Medic.
The Nation investigation vividly documents the experiences of fifty combat veterans of the Iraq occupation.
Their testimonies reveal that American troops lack the training and support to communicate with or even understand Iraqi civilians.
They were offered little to no cultural or historical education about the country they control.
Translators are in short supply and often unqualified. Interviewed vets said stereotypes about Islam and Arabs that soldiers and marines arrive with, tend to solidify rapidly in the close confines of the military and the risky streets of Iraqi cities into a crude racism.
Veterans said the culture of this counterinsurgency war, in which most Iraqi civilians were assumed to be hostile, made it difficult for soldiers to sympathize with their victims—at least until they returned home and had a chance to reflect. Former US Army Sergeant Logan Laituri argues, “The problem that we face in Iraq is that policymakers in leadership have set a precedent of lawlessness where we don’t abide by the rule of law, we don’t respect international treaties, so when that atmosphere exists it lends itself to criminal activity.”
International law expert Benjamin Ferencz, who served as chief prosecutor of Nazi War Crimes at Nuremberg after World War II, told OneWorld that none of the veterans who testified at Winter Soldier should be prosecuted for war crimes.
Instead, he said, President Bush should be sent to the dock for starting an “aggressive” war.
“Nuremberg declared that aggressive war is the supreme international crime.”
He said the United Nations charter, which was written after the carnage of World War II, contains a provision that no nation can use armed force without the permission of the UN Security Council.
Many Iraq and Afghanistan veterans return home deeply disturbed by the disparity between the reality of the occupations and the way they are portrayed by the US government and American media. The occupation the vets describe is a dark and even depraved enterprise, one that bears a powerful resemblance to other misguided and brutal colonial wars and occupations, from the French occupation of Algeria to the American war in Vietnam and the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory.
Although international and independent US media covered Winter Soldier ubiquitously, there was an almost complete media blackout on this event by US mainstream media (see Chapter 12).
Citation
1. “Why Are Winter Soldiers Not News?” Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting, March 19, 2008.
UPDATE BY AARON GLANTZ, AIMEE ALLISON, AND ESTHER MANILLA
The veterans who spoke at Winter Soldier could have stayed silent.
They could have accepted parades and accolades of heroism and blended back into society, and the world would have never known about the terrible atrocities they committed or witnessed in Iraq or Afghanistan.
By coming forward to share their stories at considerable risk to their honor, however, these veterans have done a great service, permanently changing the historical record of “what happened” in the war zones.
While their testimony continues to be largely ignored by the mainstream media (to date the New York Times, CNN, ABC, NBC, and CBS have failed to cover it), their words were not in vain.
Our three-day broadcast led to a Capitol Hill hearing in front of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
During our March broadcast, we brought on the Caucus’s co-chair, Congresswoman Barbara Lee, as a guest by phone from California and allowed two veterans to join us in conducting the interview.
In opening remarks at Winter Soldier on the Hill, Lee referenced that interview.
“I remember one of the persons I talked with wanted to know why there weren’t any members of Congress there,” she said. “And someone asked me over the interview ‘Well, what about having a hearing in Washington, DC?’ And I said ‘Right.’”
On May 15, 2008, nine Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans stood before the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which is co-chaired by Lee and Congresswomen Lynne Woolsey.
A half dozen other Congress members also participated and or listened to the three-hour testimony.
[Note this social movement has elite sponsorship here and symbolic support as well by holding its revelations in D.C.]
Many of the representatives in attendance were visibly moved by it and Congresswoman Maxine Waters applauded the veterans for their bravery. KPFA and Pacifica Radio broadcast the hearing live.
Just as importantly, our three-day live broadcast showed many veterans they were not alone.
During the course of both broadcasts, we were deluged with phone calls, e-mails, and blog posts from service members, veterans, and military families thanking us for breaking a cultural norm of silence about the reality of war.
[See lots of sympathetic people, who are not 'action constituents' though are 'conscience constituents.']
Since then, we have heard from many veterans about the importance our broadcast and how it impacted them personally.
One soldier, Sergeant Matthis Chiroux, said learning about Winter Soldier caused him to refuse his orders to deploy to Iraq.
Before Winter Soldier, Chiroux said he was suicidal. “I just sat in my room reading news about Iraq and feeling completely hopeless, like I would be forced to go and no one would ever know how I felt,” he said. “I was getting looped into participating in a crime against humanity and all with the realization that I never wanted to be there in the first place.”
The turning point, Chiroux said, came when one of his professors at Brooklyn College in New York suggested he listen to a broadcast of March’s Winter Soldier hearings.
[Think emotions of despair and isolation in an individual transformed into affirmation and solidarity and better feelings collectively:]
“Here’s an organization of soldiers and veterans who feel like me,” he said. “All this alienation and depression that I feel started to ease. I found them, and I’ve been speaking out with them ever since.”
Since Silver Spring in March, regional Winter Soldier hearings have been organized across the country. New veterans are stepping forward to tell their stories and those who spoke in Maryland are revealing more about the reality of their service.
[Without a national 'media opportunity structure', they are going into different regions with the same repertoire to get the message out 'around' the consolidated media.]
To date, regional hearings have been held in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Gainesville, Florida.
In Seattle, 800 people gathered to hear veterans’ testimonies.
[Beginnings of a novel form of decentralized 'truth telling' calling on people from the local area. Think McAdam's cycles of insurgency.]
Many more are expected to be organized in the future.
With their continued testimony, veterans’ stories have become their most powerful weapon.
For more information and to listen to the testimonies from March and May 2008, please visit http://www.warcomeshome.org or http://www.ivaw.org.
1. Martine Ibsen 2. PAD protesters block access to main airport
3. Wow, this demonstration in Thailand which started out just a couple of days ago contains a lot of the elements we discussed this semester. It was actually my roomy that told me about it when I came home today, she had read an article about it in Chinese. I then wanted to find some different perspectives on the net. This article show how the PAD is trying everything they possibly can to get the government to resign. Throughout six month they have tried different strategies, and now they fight the government at one of the sorest spots they can, the tourism! By blocking the international airport it is a brilliant idea to get their word out to the world and hit the government powerfully. However a lot of people in Thailand depend upon tourism, so that is probably why a lot of PADs supporters now are waning. Something else I find interesting is that Queen Sirikit is supporting PAD, and this could be one of the reasons why this movement has become so strong. Thai people really respect and orner the royal people. Take also a look at this video, which frames the demonstrators in a very violent way, and as a bunch of people showing group insanity rather then a people speaking up for their rights: http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20081125/video/811250314 Is it really like this? Or could it just be the government trying to lower the support from the population and the world in general by contributing to a media like this? I think it is hard to tell when you are not in the eye of the storm. How can we get the best and most valid information about the world news? Is it possible at all?
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Thailand PAD protesters block access to main airport (0) 25.November 2008, 13:22 The People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) blocked roads to Bangkok's main airport Monday, the latest in a series of defiant measures taken to pressure the incumbent government to resign. According to opinion polls, the PAD, which threatened a "final battle" with the government this week, is losing support in the country as the conomy suffers.
Picture: DPA The PAD enjoys the backing of Bangkok's urban middle classes and elite, including Queen Sirikit Protesters blocked the expressway to Thailand's main international airport on Tuesday, the latest twist in an increasingly desperate six-month campaign to unseat the elected administration. Channel 3 television said the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) protesters had obstructed all but one lane of the multi-lane expressway to Suvarnabhumi airport, the main gateway for 13 million tourists who visit each year. Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat, who has rejected PAD demands he resign, is due to return on Wednesday from an Asia-Pacific summit in Peru. Earlier, the protesters surrounded Bangkok's old Don Muang airport, north of the city, where ministers have been running the country since the PAD invaded Government House in August. "It is time to make a clear-cut choice between good and evil, between those who are loyal and traitors," PAD leader Somsak Kosaisuk told 10,000 yellow-shirted supporters waving hand clappers and shouting anti-government slogans. Domestic flights were operating as usual from Don Muang, and there was no disruption to road or rail services despite a strike called by state sector unions in support of the PAD. Any serious labor disruption would deepen the economic impact of the long-running political crisis, which has stymied government decision-making and raised fears about the export-driven economy's ability to cope with a global crisis. The government forecast this week that the economy would grow just 4.5 percent this year, its slowest rate in seven years. However, Thai shares and the baht shrugged off the protests, with the main stock index up 1.6 percent as Asian bourses rose after the U.S. bailout of Citigroup. WANING SUPPORT The PAD, which billed this week's action as the "final battle", forced the government to postpone to next month a joint parliamentary session to approve international agreements for a regional summit starting in mid-December. But these latest protests are unlikely to deliver a knock-out blow to the People Power Party (PPP) government. Opinion polls show waning public support for the unelected coalition of royalist businessmen, academics and activists who accuse Somchai of being a puppet of his brother-in-law, Thaksin Shinawatra, ousted as prime minister by the military in 2006. Some analysts say the PAD's powerful backers in the Bangkok establishment are getting cold feet about the damage the political strife is inflicting on the economy. "The people who've been backing PAD in the background have got frightened that it's getting out of control. It's a threat to public order and even the structure of the state itself," historian and political analyst Chris Baker said. Tags • People's Alliance for Democracy • PAD • Thailand • Royalist • People Power Despite his ties to Thaksin, Somchai's bland, inoffensive personality has proved a hard target for the PAD. Police are eager to avoid a repeat of Oct. 7, when two protesters were killed and hundreds injured in street battles, the worst violence in Bangkok since the army opened fire on democracy protesters in 1992. Riot police have been carrying only shields and melting away when faced with PAD youths armed with iron bars, golf clubs and stakes. Bloodshed could trigger another coup only two years after the army removed Thaksin, but army chief Anupong Paochinda reiterated on Tuesday that a putsch would do nothing to resolve fundamental political rifts. The PAD enjoys the backing of Bangkok's urban middle classes and elite, including Queen Sirikit. Thaksin and the government claim their support from the rural voters who returned the PPP in a December election.
3. I found it hard to find a nice article for this week, since the most important and relevant topic was Thailand. Which was already used by another student. The article I chose is about a protest in Seoul. I understand why this topic finds great support. This because it is so extremely hard for korean citizens to find a descent job, and waiting 2 years for some security is a long time, so when governments want to extend this time to 4 years, I understand that this gives great concern to the public.
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Workers Rally to Protest Labor Law Revamp
Thousands of workers took to the street in Seoul Saturday to protest the government’s move to extend the required period for a part-time worker to be upgraded as a regular worker, Yonhap News reported Saturday.
Under the current law, employers are required to hire a temporary worker as a regular when he completes an initial two-year contract.
The protest organizer, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions and the police, estimate the number of protesters to be 3,000.
The Ministry of Labor and the ruling Grand National Party plan to extend the required period of employment to four years, inviting outcries from opposition parties and labor unions.
KCTU said it will launch “major efforts” to stop the government’s planned move.
South Korea has some 5.5 million part-time and temporary workers, about three times higher than the average of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries, a group of leading economies.
2.대운하 전위조직 ‘보수 환경운동단체’가 뜬다(Coming Right-wing Environmental Organization for Grand Canal Project)
3. While the prospect of cross country grand canal sufaces again as as the government's "4 river improvement plan" was passed, a right wing environment organization composed of former executives of the canal project. They argue wealth of the country promote environmental conditions, and thus the canal project should be resumed. These pro-MB cabinet, canal project supporters show a way that how the right-wing party uses repertoire of social movements.
한반도 대운하 재추진을 지지하는 전국단위의 보수 환경운동단체가 내년초 출범한다. 지난해 대선 당시 대운하 찬성 진영이 주축이다. 이 때문에 한반도 대운하 재추진 논란이 한층 커질 것으로 예상된다.
박승환 전 한나라당 한반도대운하특위 공동위원장은 28일 경향신문과의 통화에서 “기존 환경운동이 지나치게 이상에 치우쳐 국가발전에 걸림돌이 되고 있다”면서 “보수 환경운동 시민단체인 ‘부국환경포럼’을 내년 2월12일 공식출범할 계획”이라고 밝혔다.
‘부국환경포럼’은 ‘부강한 나라가 환경을 지킨다’는 의미로 다음달 10일 100여명 규모의 발기인 대회를 가진다. 개발과 보존의 동시추구를 내건 부국환경포럼은 그 일환으로 ‘국토 업그레이드’ 차원에서 대운하 운동도 주요 과제로 포함시켰다.
박 전 위원장은 “대운하 내지 치수 사업도 선진국형 환경사업으로 업그레이드 하는데 도움이 되면 해야 한다”면서 대운하 재추진의 이론적 배경 제공, 대국민 홍보·교육 작업을 주요 사업으로 꼽았다.
이처럼 부국환경포럼의 조직화는 이명박 정부 ‘100대 국정과제’에서 빠진 대운하 재추진 동력 마련이 주된 배경으로 보인다. 그간 친이계 의원들을 중심으로 “지방경제 활성화를 위해 4대강 정비사업만한 카드가 없다”면서 ‘4대강 치수사업’을 통해 대운하 불씨를 되살리려는 움직임과도 연결된다. 실제 부국환경포럼은 대선 당시 ‘한반도대운하추진국민운동본부’ 회원들이 대거 참여하고, 차명진·강승규·진수희 의원 등 4대강 정비사업 필요성을 강조해온 친이계와 낙동강 인근 지역구 의원들이 상임고문으로 동참할 예정이다.
이 때문에 대운하 논란은 다시 수면위로 부상할 조짐이다. 최근 친이 직계들이 “대운하는 한번 좌초된 것이기 때문에 자연스러운 여론 형성이 필요하다”고 입장을 정리한 대로 대운하 추진 전위단체로 해석될 수 있기 때문이다. 대운하를 반대해온 기존 환경·시민단체와의 갈등·대립도 불가피해 보인다.
3. Education has always been a hot issue in Korea. Especially opinions divide whether elite students should be educated separatedly from other students. This time the parents and teachers are against the state's plans to establish an international school. The parents try to legitimate their stance with the constitutional law. I really look forward to the judocal decision since I personally don't see any violation of the constitutional law.
-------------------------------- Int’l Middle School Plan Taken to Court
By Kim Rahn Staff Reporter
Parents and teachers groups filed a petition with the Constitutional Court, demanding the education authorities' permit for international middle schools in Seoul be nullified as they infringe upon the people's rights to equal education.
They have opposed the plan, claiming that the two designated middle schools will provide all classes in English and force more children to go to cram schools in order to gain admission.
They demanded the court halt Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education's plan to open the two schools next March. Last week, the office gave Younghoon Middle School and Daewon Middle School licenses to reopen as international schools from next semester.
The number of petitioners was 1,700, including residents near the two schools who oppose the conversion.
The groups claimed that setting up international middle schools is in violation of the right for equal education, the principle of free compulsory education and the right to pursue happiness.
``By designating the two schools as international schools, the authorities have made a specific education program and acknowledged a paid-in system for compulsory education,'' the groups said in their petition. ``Benefiting a limited number of students violates the right for equal education, parents' right to educate children and the dignity of man.''
``Most people oppose the special schools, which will add to the already fierce competition among children for admission, raise costs for private education, and widen the disparity in education between the rich and the poor. We hope the court will make a wise ruling on the matter,'' said a member of the National Association of Parents for True Education, one of the participating groups.
The groups said they would campaign to oust Kong Jeong-taek, superintendent of the education office, who strongly promoted the schools. Kong has claimed that the schools, where most lectures will be given in English, will be able to reduce the number of students going overseas to study English. School tuition is expected to cost approximately seven million won per year.
3. I believe this article gives a good chance to think about social movements in online world, which is enlarghing its power and range more and more in these days. According this article, people have more participated in online activism, but it has a lot of weak points, for example, it makes people to quit their act easily and it can't be the alternative movements to the off-line movements. I agree with it, but I think absolutely the on-line movements are more likely to affect to emerge the off-line movements. I've seen a lot of real examples of the social movements(like American beef protest) which started and gathered on the on-line first. Therefore I think, even though the on-line movements couldn't be the alternative act, but this could compelete our 'movements'.
-------------------------
By John Blake CNN
(CNN) -- The singer Gil Scott Heron once declared that "the revolution will not be televised."
It is, however, going online.
Social activism is being transformed by the Web. Some of the most creative forms of protest and philanthropy are taking place online.
Activists are conducting demonstrations on YouTube, holding virtual fundraisers and using social network sites like Facebook to change the world -- one mouse-click at a time.
These cyber-pioneers include a nonprofit group that uses animated 3-D characters to protest the global shortage of drinking water; a Web company that allows ordinary people to create their own personalized charity; and a Goodwill blogger who reshaped the thrift store's image so thoroughly she was invited to New York Fashion Week.
Ted Hart, co-author of "People to People Fundraising: Social Networking and Web 2.0 for Charities," says the Web has already become a crucial source for nonprofit fundraising. Americans donated $550 million online in 2001, but that number grew to $10.4 billion in 2007, he says.
"It's a new world for a lot of nonprofit organizations," Hart says. "No longer is it good enough to say give us some money. The rules have changed."
Yet some people warn that this new world offers people an excuse to engage in "drive-by activism," superficial forms of cyber-activism that require little commitment.
"The Internet makes it very easy for people to jump in and out of social activism," says Matthew Hale, assistant professor at Seton Hall University's Center for Public Service. "If all the activism is online, it is easier to quit than going to meetings every week."
Real change: online or in-person?
Yet the Web makes it easier for a nonprofit group to reach more people than a meeting ever could, one nonprofit group says.
WaterPartners International is a U.S.-based nonprofit group that created a global campaign to create safe drinking water. Another company may have flown a spokesperson to an impoverished village and hired a film crew to promote their campaign. But WaterPartners says it saved money and time by putting its campaign online -- through animated, virtual characters built from actual people, says Nicole Wickenhauser, a company spokesperson.
Daily Web traffic doubled to WaterPartners' Web site during the campaign and the campaign attracted support from around the globe, Wickenhauser says.
"Real change is most often accomplished by committed individuals working together for a cause they feel passionately about," Wickenhauser says. "Whether they work together virtually or in person is less important."
Web-based activism not only enlarges the reach of social activists, it empowers ordinary people, its advocates say.
In another time, a person had to find a charity to give their time and money to. Now they can create their own charity through Web sites like "YourCause.com."
YourCause.com has been described as a MySpace for do-gooders. The new site allows a person to do everything a charity traditionally does -- raise money and awareness and recruit support -- all from a Web page designed especially for their needs.
Matthew Combs, the site's co-founder, says his site designs Web pages and vets charities for people who don't have the time or expertise to do it themselves.
"It's for people like the 73-year-old woman from New Jersey who created her own page to help out with a rare genetic defect she's suffering from," Combs says. "There's not a lot of 73-year-olds on MySpace. How do we make it easy as possible for them, but credible?"
Social network sites like MySpace are also throwing their support behind Web activists. MySpace has an "Impact" page that connects users with political and charitable causes. YouTube recently launched a "Nonprofits and Activism" channel.
'The reaction was priceless'
One of the most audacious forms of Web-based activism comes courtesy of Em Hall, also known by her blog name, the DC Goodwill Fashionista.
When Goodwill of Greater Washington wanted to expand its customer base, its leaders devised a campaign to reach out to a younger, hipper crowd.
The campaign's centerpiece was Hall. In her witty blog, She dispensed fashion advice, conducted an online virtual fashion show and sold Goodwill clothing on eBay (she once sold an $11.98 suit for $175 on eBay.)
Hall's blog averages 1,500 readers a week and has attracted readers from at least 100 countries, says Brendan Hurley, a Goodwill spokesman. Hall's blog became so popular she was invited in September to Fashion Week, a high-octane fashion show that features the world's most popular designers.
Hall still recalls how Fashion Week officials acted when she told them what clothing label -- Goodwill -- she represented.
"The reaction was priceless," she says. "A look of confusion came across people's faces as they desperately tried to figure out why Goodwill was at Fashion Week."
Despite the possibilities created by the Web, calling people to action still depends on people putting their bodies -- not just their mouse-clicks -- on the line, says Hale, the Seton Hall professor.
"All of the stuff you can do online ultimately has to show up in the real world," Hale says. "I don't see the Internet as a substitute [for social activism] but as a complement to it."
Paul Loeb, author of "The Soul of a Citizen,'' a book that examines the psychology of social activism, also says online activism can be powerful but limited. He tells a story from his book to make his point.
He says a friend took her kids to a protest against nuclear testing in front of the White House during the early 1960s. But she became dejected because only a few people joined her demonstration and then it rained.
Years later, the same woman attended a major march against nuclear testing. Benjamin Spock, the best-selling author and pediatrician who opposed the Vietnam War, was a featured speaker. He told marchers that he was inspired to join the march after seeing a small group of women huddled with their kids in the rain while marching in front of the White House years earlier.
"I thought that if those women were out there," Spock said, "their cause must be really important."
"He's seeing these ragged women in the rain and it touches his heart and he ends up getting changed by that," Loeb says. "That story couldn't exist in the virtual world."
A very down to earth* kind of guy. I'm an environmental sociologist interested in establishing material and organizational sustainability worldwide. I'm always looking for interesting materials/technologies, inspiring ideas, or institutional examples of sustainability to inspire others to recognize their choices now. To be fatalistic about an unsustainable world is a sign of a captive mind, given all our options.
*(If "earth" is defined in a planetary sense, concerning comparative historical knowledge and interest in the past 10,000 years or so anywhere...) See both blogs.
7 comments:
1. Mark Whitaker
2. Violence in Countermovements Internationally: What are the Patterns?
3. We are talking about movement/countermovement and state/movement interactions this week. Below is an article about deaths and murders in labor movements internationally.
Violence is one category that would have much documentation particularly because it is almost always deemed 'newsworthy' or would always leave a legal trail (we hope).
I imagine you could do an interesting international study on the 'locations of violence in social movements/countermovements' and what kind of conditions facilitate it.
It would make an interesting study--if morbid though perhaps redeemingly useful--to find out where are the most violent forms of protest are internationally right now--and perhaps from that inductive data, to describe deductively why it is so.
Violence is a topic we talked about in terms of Korean 'brinksmanship' as well as, I assumed, forms of culture.
However, these are just suppositions and words. The best way to test these hypotheses of the causes of violence in social movements and countermovements is by comparative analysis of violence and the same factors in other countries--potentially in all countries.
Deaths during protests or protest organizing of social movements is a good measure of extremes.
The deductive explanations would intersect I imagine with chosen repertoires, emotion, and possibly types of organization of state (political opportunity structures) and/or SMOs, and cultural boundaries.
Below: sobering news on how repressive state-backed countermovements are against labor internationally in our neoliberal era--though they have always been INCREDIBLY violent forms of countermovements against labor social movements. Korea is no extreme there. the U.S. saw hundreds of deaths by federal troops called into stop strikes in some cases. I don't know about European labor unrest though I assume that Europeans in general had a much more violent labor unrest than the U.S.
You might even extend all this to analyze forms of repression in core, semiperiphery and periphery states to see if these socioeconomic categories or concepts are 'real world' demarcations of styles of repression or otherwise.
----------------------
# 16 Annual Survey on Trade Union Rights
in Top 25 Censored Stories for 2009
Source:
International Trade Union Confederation website, September 2007
Title: “2007 Annual Survey of Violations of Trade Union Rights”
Student Researchers: Carmela Rocha and Elizabeth Allen
Faculty Evaluator: Robert Girling, PhD
The first Annual Survey of Violations of Trade Union Rights to be published by the year-old International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) documents enormous challenges to workers rights around the world.
The 2007 edition of the survey, covering 138 countries, [there are 192 states] shows an alarming rise in the number of people killed as a result of their trade union activities, from 115 in 2005 to 144 in 2006.
Many more trade unionists around the world were abducted or “disappeared.” Thousands were arrested during the year for their parts in strike action and protests, while thousands of others were fired in retaliation for organizing.
Growing numbers of trade union activists in Africa, the Americas, Europe, Asia, and the Pacific are facing police brutality and murder as unions are viewed as opponents of corporatist governments.
Colombia is still the deadliest country in the world for trade unionists. In 2006, seventy-eight people were murdered because of their union activities, an increase of eight from the previous year.
There is strong and disturbing evidence of government involvement in these killings. Of 1,165 recorded crimes against trade unionists in Colombia, just fifty-six went before the courts, and only ten resulted in sentences.
In Mexico, two miners died and forty-one were injured when 800 police officers were sent to confront 500 striking miners and began a brutal evacuation of the mining company’s premises.
Violent scenes erupted in Ecuador when police and the army aggressively repressed a union-organized protest against the negotiation of a free trade agreement with the US, leaving fifteen seriously injured. [think open, violent repression dealing with national elites, like Jennifer Karl implied was more common strategy when national elite policy was involved.]
Employers in the Export Processing Zones (EPZ) of Central America have managed thus far to thwart workers’ efforts to organize.
[Channeling:]
In the United States, a National Labor Relations Board ruling deprived millions of the right to organize by expanding the definition of the term “supervisor.”
Across Africa, the use of disproportionate force and mass dismissals in retaliation for strike action were a frequent occurrence in 2007. In Kenya, over 1,000 workers on a flower plantation were dismissed after going on strike over workplace injuries and discrimination.
Mass dismissals were also reported at a diamond mine in Botswana and at a road-construction site in Cameroon.
In Egypt, Libya, and Sudan, the single trade union system prohibits effective bargaining or representation, while in Equatorial Guinea the dictatorship is too absolute to allow organizing. [i.e., violence thus occurring really when there are assumed to be political openings and they fail drastically or are repressed; the violence of intimidation or lack of mobilization thus ironically might bias the data to ignore where the most violent regimes are of countermovements--the places where 'no one is killed' may be more violent a repressive context because people terrified to think about change. Something to think about.
In the Middle East, some governments took steps towards the recognition of trade union rights, but overall, workers in the region still have fewer rights than anywhere in the world. For example, in Jordan, Kuwait, Yemen, and Syria, laws impose an ineffective single trade union system. [similar to Korean channeling pre-1980s of the pro-state 'official unions'?]
In Palestine, hostilities with Israel have made the organizing of trade unions virtually impossible. Migrant workers still make up the most vulnerable group in the region. At least twenty migrant workers at two factories in Jordan were arrested and deported for demanding improved wages and working conditions.
In Saudi Arabia, the total lack of workers’ rights and protection means that migrant workers, particularly women, are frequently subjected to blatant abuse, such as nonpayment of wages, forced confinement, rape, and other physical violence.
There were more mass dismissals and arrests in response to collective action in Asia than in any other region in the world in 2007.
[Channeling:]
In Bangladesh, the phased introduction of (limited) trade union rights in EPZs got off to a poor start, as employers routinely harassed, suspended, and fired leaders of Workers’ Representation and Welfare Committees during the year.
In one incident, police opened fire on strikers at an EPZ garment factory, killing one worker and injuring others.
In Malaysia police used batons, dogs, and water cannons to disperse a workers’ protest.
The Philippines stand out as the most violent country in the region. In an attempt to crush popular protests against the president’s rule, labor leaders were among those targeted as “enemies of the state.”
[Channeling in the 'socialist' pro-labor state:]
There was no change in China where the law does not allow for any independent trade union activity. Over one hundred workers were arrested and detained for involvement in collective protest, while the official “trade union” did nothing to protect them.
A recent report published by the social audit company Vigeo, based on a study of 511 enterprises in seventeen European countries, shows that less then 10 percent of European companies are committed to freedom of association and the promotion of collective bargaining.
Changes in labor legislation in several countries added to existing restrictions on trade union rights.
[Channeling:]
The most serious change was announced in Belarus, where a draft trade union law would make it virtually impossible to establish trade unions outside the state-controlled Federation of Trade Unions of Belarus. [That's almost the exact same name as the Korean Federation of State Unions that Korean "President" Park (no federal elections for him) oversaw being established in the 1960s-1970s.
Despite all these difficulties, millions of women and men remain firm in their commitment to, or are discovering the benefits of, trade union action.
---
http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/16-annual-survey-on-trade-union-rights/
1. Mark Whitaker
2. What if you held a big protest and it was a big success--though no one from the media covers it? (If a protest group protests in the forest and no one hears it, is it a protest? Capacities to link to bystanders and others in sympathy and action mobilization are crucial in social movements)
3. Protests without access to the ability to change people's minds or change cultural meanings become superfluous. In the U.S., this protest, despite its high profile of importance, was entirely censored.
Remember we talked about the news cycles of corporate/private media.
Other things get censored in the USA. I know from experience, the U.S media regularly ignores international protests dealing with labor rights or environmentalism.
General strikes in France or Italy for instance, which happen regularity, are never reported to the Americans.
When I went to New Zealand and Australia several years ago, the completely different world of Austrlian/NZ television news was amazingly deep and conflictual about international politics.
In the U.S, on the contrary, conflict is served up only during football games or interpersonal love affairs between Hollywood stars.
The U.S. consolidated media is a bubble world and easy to dominate the news cycle with political repression of news.
Perhaps we can adapt the 'political opportunity structure' into a 'media opportunity structure' characterized equally by openness and closure to protest dynamics as explaining the styles of protest chosen in different countries as they attempt to get in the news in different media structures. I have not seen any social movements research thinking about political opportunity structure extending to the political economy of a country's media before...would be interesting.
-----------------
#9 Iraq and Afghanistan Vets Testify
in Top 25 Censored Stories for 2009
Sources:
Iraq Vets Against the War, March 13–16, 2008
Title: “Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan Eyewitness Accounts of the Occupations”
War Comes Home, Pacifica Radio, March 14–16, 2008
Title: “Winter Soldier 2008 Eyewitness Accounts of the Occupations”
Co-hosts: Aaron Glantz, Aimee Allison, and Esther Manilla
One World, March 19, 2008
Title: “US Soldiers ‘Testify’ About War Crimes”
Author: Aaron Glantz
The Nation, July 30, 2007
Title: “The Other War: Iraq Vets Bear Witness”
Authors: Chris Hedges and Laila Al-Arian
Student Researchers: April Pearce, Erica Elkington, and Kat Pat Crespán
Community Evaluator: Bob Alpern
Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans are coming forward to recount the brutal impact of the ongoing occupations. An investigation by the Nation (July 2007) and the Winter Soldier hearings in Silver Spring, Maryland, in March 2008, which was organized by Iraq Veterans Against the War and brought together over 300 veterans, have made their experiences public.
Soldiers’ harrowing testimony of atrocities they witnessed or participated in directly indicate a structural problem in the US military that has created an environment of lawlessness. Some international law experts say the soldiers’ statements show the need for investigations into potential violations of international law by high-ranking officials in the Bush administration and the Pentagon.
Though BBC predicted that the Winter Soldier event would dominate headlines around the world that week, there was a near total back-out on this historic news event by the US corporate media. 1
[This is a repeat of the repertoire used during the Vietnam war, it is recycled for this war, testimony by soldiers directly to the public in a 'teach in' run by soldiers themselves against the war. Very difficult to brand these people as symbolically 'unpatriotic', eh? So they just ignore them in the media cycle.]
Dozens of veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan occupation publicly testified at the four-day Winter Soldier gathering about crimes they committed during the course of battle—many of which were prompted by the orders or policies laid down by superior officers.
Such crimes include targeting innocent, unarmed civilians for murder and detention, destroying property, desecrating corpses, severely abusing detainees (often torturing to death), and using corpses for medical practice.
Winter Soldier 2008 was organized to demonstrate that well-publicized incidents of US brutality, including the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and the massacre of an entire family of Iraqis in the town of Haditha, were not isolated incidents perpetrated by “a few bad apples,” as many politicians and military leaders have claimed.
They are part of a pattern, the organizers said, of “an increasingly bloody occupation.”
The veterans also stressed the similarities between the occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, “. . . units that are getting the exact same training and the exact same orders are being sent to both Iraq and Afghanistan,” explains a former US Army Medic.
The Nation investigation vividly documents the experiences of fifty combat veterans of the Iraq occupation.
Their testimonies reveal that American troops lack the training and support to communicate with or even understand Iraqi civilians.
They were offered little to no cultural or historical education about the country they control.
Translators are in short supply and often unqualified. Interviewed vets said stereotypes about Islam and Arabs that soldiers and marines arrive with, tend to solidify rapidly in the close confines of the military and the risky streets of Iraqi cities into a crude racism.
Veterans said the culture of this counterinsurgency war, in which most Iraqi civilians were assumed to be hostile, made it difficult for soldiers to sympathize with their victims—at least until they returned home and had a chance to reflect. Former US Army Sergeant Logan Laituri argues, “The problem that we face in Iraq is that policymakers in leadership have set a precedent of lawlessness where we don’t abide by the rule of law, we don’t respect international treaties, so when that atmosphere exists it lends itself to criminal activity.”
International law expert Benjamin Ferencz, who served as chief prosecutor of Nazi War Crimes at Nuremberg after World War II, told OneWorld that none of the veterans who testified at Winter Soldier should be prosecuted for war crimes.
Instead, he said, President Bush should be sent to the dock for starting an “aggressive” war.
“Nuremberg declared that aggressive war is the supreme international crime.”
He said the United Nations charter, which was written after the carnage of World War II, contains a provision that no nation can use armed force without the permission of the UN Security Council.
Many Iraq and Afghanistan veterans return home deeply disturbed by the disparity between the reality of the occupations and the way they are portrayed by the US government and American media. The occupation the vets describe is a dark and even depraved enterprise, one that bears a powerful resemblance to other misguided and brutal colonial wars and occupations, from the French occupation of Algeria to the American war in Vietnam and the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory.
Although international and independent US media covered Winter Soldier ubiquitously, there was an almost complete media blackout on this event by US mainstream media (see Chapter 12).
Citation
1. “Why Are Winter Soldiers Not News?” Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting, March 19, 2008.
UPDATE BY AARON GLANTZ, AIMEE ALLISON,
AND ESTHER MANILLA
The veterans who spoke at Winter Soldier could have stayed silent.
They could have accepted parades and accolades of heroism and blended back into society, and the world would have never known about the terrible atrocities they committed or witnessed in Iraq or Afghanistan.
By coming forward to share their stories at considerable risk to their honor, however, these veterans have done a great service, permanently changing the historical record of “what happened” in the war zones.
While their testimony continues to be largely ignored by the mainstream media (to date the New York Times, CNN, ABC, NBC, and CBS have failed to cover it), their words were not in vain.
Our three-day broadcast led to a Capitol Hill hearing in front of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
During our March broadcast, we brought on the Caucus’s co-chair, Congresswoman Barbara Lee, as a guest by phone from California and allowed two veterans to join us in conducting the interview.
In opening remarks at Winter Soldier on the Hill, Lee referenced that interview.
“I remember one of the persons I talked with wanted to know why there weren’t any members of Congress there,” she said. “And someone asked me over the interview ‘Well, what about having a hearing in Washington, DC?’ And I said ‘Right.’”
On May 15, 2008, nine Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans stood before the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which is co-chaired by Lee and Congresswomen Lynne Woolsey.
A half dozen other Congress members also participated and or listened to the three-hour testimony.
[Note this social movement has elite sponsorship here and symbolic support as well by holding its revelations in D.C.]
Many of the representatives in attendance were visibly moved by it and Congresswoman Maxine Waters applauded the veterans for their bravery. KPFA and Pacifica Radio broadcast the hearing live.
Just as importantly, our three-day live broadcast showed many veterans they were not alone.
During the course of both broadcasts, we were deluged with phone calls, e-mails, and blog posts from service members, veterans, and military families thanking us for breaking a cultural norm of silence about the reality of war.
[See lots of sympathetic people, who are not 'action constituents' though are 'conscience constituents.']
Since then, we have heard from many veterans about the importance our broadcast and how it impacted them personally.
One soldier, Sergeant Matthis Chiroux, said learning about Winter Soldier caused him to refuse his orders to deploy to Iraq.
Before Winter Soldier, Chiroux said he was suicidal. “I just sat in my room reading news about Iraq and feeling completely hopeless, like I would be forced to go and no one would ever know how I felt,” he said. “I was getting looped into participating in a crime against humanity and all with the realization that I never wanted to be there in the first place.”
The turning point, Chiroux said, came when one of his professors at Brooklyn College in New York suggested he listen to a broadcast of March’s Winter Soldier hearings.
[Think emotions of despair and isolation in an individual transformed into affirmation and solidarity and better feelings collectively:]
“Here’s an organization of soldiers and veterans who feel like me,” he said. “All this alienation and depression that I feel started to ease. I found them, and I’ve been speaking out with them ever since.”
Since Silver Spring in March, regional Winter Soldier hearings have been organized across the country. New veterans are stepping forward to tell their stories and those who spoke in Maryland are revealing more about the reality of their service.
[Without a national 'media opportunity structure', they are going into different regions with the same repertoire to get the message out 'around' the consolidated media.]
To date, regional hearings have been held in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Gainesville, Florida.
In Seattle, 800 people gathered to hear veterans’ testimonies.
[Beginnings of a novel form of decentralized 'truth telling' calling on people from the local area. Think McAdam's cycles of insurgency.]
Many more are expected to be organized in the future.
With their continued testimony, veterans’ stories have become their most powerful weapon.
For more information and to listen to the testimonies from March and May 2008, please visit http://www.warcomeshome.org or http://www.ivaw.org.
---
http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/9-iraq-and-afghanistan-vets-testify/
1. Martine Ibsen
2. PAD protesters block access to main airport
3. Wow, this demonstration in Thailand which started out just a couple of days ago contains a lot of the elements we discussed this semester. It was actually my roomy that told me about it when I came home today, she had read an article about it in Chinese. I then wanted to find some different perspectives on the net. This article show how the PAD is trying everything they possibly can to get the government to resign. Throughout six month they have tried different strategies, and now they fight the government at one of the sorest spots they can, the tourism! By blocking the international airport it is a brilliant idea to get their word out to the world and hit the government powerfully. However a lot of people in Thailand depend upon tourism, so that is probably why a lot of PADs supporters now are waning. Something else I find interesting is that Queen Sirikit is supporting PAD, and this could be one of the reasons why this movement has become so strong. Thai people really respect and orner the royal people.
Take also a look at this video, which frames the demonstrators in a very violent way, and as a bunch of people showing group insanity rather then a people speaking up for their rights: http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20081125/video/811250314 Is it really like this? Or could it just be the government trying to lower the support from the population and the world in general by contributing to a media like this? I think it is hard to tell when you are not in the eye of the storm. How can we get the best and most valid information about the world news? Is it possible at all?
----------------------------------
Thailand
PAD protesters block access to main airport
(0)
25.November 2008, 13:22
The People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) blocked roads to Bangkok's main airport Monday, the latest in a series of defiant measures taken to pressure the incumbent government to resign. According to opinion polls, the PAD, which threatened a "final battle" with the government this week, is losing support in the country as the conomy suffers.
Picture: DPA
The PAD enjoys the backing of Bangkok's urban middle classes and elite, including Queen Sirikit
Protesters blocked the expressway to Thailand's main international airport on Tuesday, the latest twist in an increasingly desperate six-month campaign to unseat the elected administration.
Channel 3 television said the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) protesters had obstructed all but one lane of the multi-lane expressway to Suvarnabhumi airport, the main gateway for 13 million tourists who visit each year.
Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat, who has rejected PAD demands he resign, is due to return on Wednesday from an Asia-Pacific summit in Peru.
Earlier, the protesters surrounded Bangkok's old Don Muang airport, north of the city, where ministers have been running the country since the PAD invaded Government House in August.
"It is time to make a clear-cut choice between good and evil, between those who are loyal and traitors," PAD leader Somsak Kosaisuk told 10,000 yellow-shirted supporters waving hand clappers and shouting anti-government slogans.
Domestic flights were operating as usual from Don Muang, and there was no disruption to road or rail services despite a strike called by state sector unions in support of the PAD.
Any serious labor disruption would deepen the economic impact of the long-running political crisis, which has stymied government decision-making and raised fears about the export-driven economy's ability to cope with a global crisis.
The government forecast this week that the economy would grow just 4.5 percent this year, its slowest rate in seven years.
However, Thai shares and the baht shrugged off the protests, with the main stock index up 1.6 percent as Asian bourses rose after the U.S. bailout of Citigroup.
WANING SUPPORT
The PAD, which billed this week's action as the "final battle", forced the government to postpone to next month a joint parliamentary session to approve international agreements for a regional summit starting in mid-December.
But these latest protests are unlikely to deliver a knock-out blow to the People Power Party (PPP) government.
Opinion polls show waning public support for the unelected coalition of royalist businessmen, academics and activists who accuse Somchai of being a puppet of his brother-in-law, Thaksin Shinawatra, ousted as prime minister by the military in 2006.
Some analysts say the PAD's powerful backers in the Bangkok establishment are getting cold feet about the damage the political strife is inflicting on the economy.
"The people who've been backing PAD in the background have got frightened that it's getting out of control. It's a threat to public order and even the structure of the state itself," historian and political analyst Chris Baker said.
Tags
• People's Alliance for Democracy
• PAD
• Thailand
• Royalist
• People Power
Despite his ties to Thaksin, Somchai's bland, inoffensive personality has proved a hard target for the PAD.
Police are eager to avoid a repeat of Oct. 7, when two protesters were killed and hundreds injured in street battles, the worst violence in Bangkok since the army opened fire on democracy protesters in 1992.
Riot police have been carrying only shields and melting away when faced with PAD youths armed with iron bars, golf clubs and stakes.
Bloodshed could trigger another coup only two years after the army removed Thaksin, but army chief Anupong Paochinda reiterated on Tuesday that a putsch would do nothing to resolve fundamental political rifts.
The PAD enjoys the backing of Bangkok's urban middle classes and elite, including Queen Sirikit. Thaksin and the government claim their support from the rural voters who returned the PPP in a December election.
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http://www.welt.de/english-news/article2779160/PAD-protesters-block-access-to-main-airport.html
1. Graciela Nooitgedagt
2. Protest in Seoul (last Saturday)
3. I found it hard to find a nice article for this week, since the most important and relevant topic was Thailand. Which was already used by another student. The article I chose is about a protest in Seoul. I understand why this topic finds great support. This because it is so extremely hard for korean citizens to find a descent job, and waiting 2 years for some security is a long time, so when governments want to extend this time to 4 years, I understand that this gives great concern to the public.
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Workers Rally to Protest Labor Law Revamp
Thousands of workers took to the street in Seoul Saturday to protest the government’s move to extend the required period for a part-time worker to be upgraded as a regular worker, Yonhap News reported Saturday.
Under the current law, employers are required to hire a temporary worker as a regular when he completes an initial two-year contract.
The protest organizer, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions and the police, estimate the number of protesters to be 3,000.
The Ministry of Labor and the ruling Grand National Party plan to extend the required period of employment to four years, inviting outcries from opposition parties and labor unions.
KCTU said it will launch “major efforts” to stop the government’s planned move.
South Korea has some 5.5 million part-time and temporary workers, about three times higher than the average of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries, a group of leading economies.
-------------------------------
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2008/11/113_35286.html
1.Kyung-Hee, Kang
2.대운하 전위조직 ‘보수 환경운동단체’가 뜬다(Coming Right-wing Environmental Organization for Grand Canal Project)
3.
While the prospect of cross country grand canal sufaces again as as the government's "4 river improvement plan" was passed, a right wing environment organization composed of former executives of the canal project. They argue wealth of the country promote environmental conditions, and thus the canal project should be resumed. These pro-MB cabinet, canal project supporters show a way that how the right-wing party uses repertoire of social movements.
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ㆍ보수 ‘부국환경포럼’ 내년 출범… ‘재추진’ 논란 증폭
한반도 대운하 재추진을 지지하는 전국단위의 보수 환경운동단체가 내년초 출범한다. 지난해 대선 당시 대운하 찬성 진영이 주축이다. 이 때문에 한반도 대운하 재추진 논란이 한층 커질 것으로 예상된다.
박승환 전 한나라당 한반도대운하특위 공동위원장은 28일 경향신문과의 통화에서 “기존 환경운동이 지나치게 이상에 치우쳐 국가발전에 걸림돌이 되고 있다”면서 “보수 환경운동 시민단체인 ‘부국환경포럼’을 내년 2월12일 공식출범할 계획”이라고 밝혔다.
‘부국환경포럼’은 ‘부강한 나라가 환경을 지킨다’는 의미로 다음달 10일 100여명 규모의 발기인 대회를 가진다. 개발과 보존의 동시추구를 내건 부국환경포럼은 그 일환으로 ‘국토 업그레이드’ 차원에서 대운하 운동도 주요 과제로 포함시켰다.
박 전 위원장은 “대운하 내지 치수 사업도 선진국형 환경사업으로 업그레이드 하는데 도움이 되면 해야 한다”면서 대운하 재추진의 이론적 배경 제공, 대국민 홍보·교육 작업을 주요 사업으로 꼽았다.
이처럼 부국환경포럼의 조직화는 이명박 정부 ‘100대 국정과제’에서 빠진 대운하 재추진 동력 마련이 주된 배경으로 보인다. 그간 친이계 의원들을 중심으로 “지방경제 활성화를 위해 4대강 정비사업만한 카드가 없다”면서 ‘4대강 치수사업’을 통해 대운하 불씨를 되살리려는 움직임과도 연결된다. 실제 부국환경포럼은 대선 당시 ‘한반도대운하추진국민운동본부’ 회원들이 대거 참여하고, 차명진·강승규·진수희 의원 등 4대강 정비사업 필요성을 강조해온 친이계와 낙동강 인근 지역구 의원들이 상임고문으로 동참할 예정이다.
이 때문에 대운하 논란은 다시 수면위로 부상할 조짐이다. 최근 친이 직계들이 “대운하는 한번 좌초된 것이기 때문에 자연스러운 여론 형성이 필요하다”고 입장을 정리한 대로 대운하 추진 전위단체로 해석될 수 있기 때문이다. 대운하를 반대해온 기존 환경·시민단체와의 갈등·대립도 불가피해 보인다.
김광호기자
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http://news.khan.co.kr/kh_news/khan_art_view.html?artid=200811281810425&code=940701
1. Hojin Yoo
2. Parents and teachers against state
3. Education has always been a hot issue in Korea. Especially opinions divide whether elite students should be educated separatedly from other students. This time the parents and teachers are against the state's plans to establish an international school. The parents try to legitimate their stance with the constitutional law. I really look forward to the judocal decision since I personally don't see any violation of the constitutional law.
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Int’l Middle School Plan Taken to Court
By Kim Rahn
Staff Reporter
Parents and teachers groups filed a petition with the Constitutional Court, demanding the education authorities' permit for international middle schools in Seoul be nullified as they infringe upon the people's rights to equal education.
They have opposed the plan, claiming that the two designated middle schools will provide all classes in English and force more children to go to cram schools in order to gain admission.
They demanded the court halt Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education's plan to open the two schools next March. Last week, the office gave Younghoon Middle School and Daewon Middle School licenses to reopen as international schools from next semester.
The number of petitioners was 1,700, including residents near the two schools who oppose the conversion.
The groups claimed that setting up international middle schools is in violation of the right for equal education, the principle of free compulsory education and the right to pursue happiness.
``By designating the two schools as international schools, the authorities have made a specific education program and acknowledged a paid-in system for compulsory education,'' the groups said in their petition. ``Benefiting a limited number of students violates the right for equal education, parents' right to educate children and the dignity of man.''
``Most people oppose the special schools, which will add to the already fierce competition among children for admission, raise costs for private education, and widen the disparity in education between the rich and the poor. We hope the court will make a wise ruling on the matter,'' said a member of the National Association of Parents for True Education, one of the participating groups.
The groups said they would campaign to oust Kong Jeong-taek, superintendent of the education office, who strongly promoted the schools. Kong has claimed that the schools, where most lectures will be given in English, will be able to reduce the number of students going overseas to study English. School tuition is expected to cost approximately seven million won per year.
rahnita@koreatimes.co.kr
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http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2008/11/117_33931.html
1. So youn Kim
2. Activists take the 'revolution' online
3. I believe this article gives a good chance to think about social movements in online world, which is enlarghing its power and range more and more in these days. According this article, people have more participated in online activism, but it has a lot of weak points, for example, it makes people to quit their act easily and it can't be the alternative movements to the off-line movements. I agree with it, but I think absolutely the on-line movements are more likely to affect to emerge the off-line movements. I've seen a lot of real examples of the social movements(like American beef protest) which started and gathered on the on-line first. Therefore I think, even though the on-line movements couldn't be the alternative act, but this could compelete our 'movements'.
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By John Blake
CNN
(CNN) -- The singer Gil Scott Heron once declared that "the revolution will not be televised."
It is, however, going online.
Social activism is being transformed by the Web. Some of the most creative forms of protest and philanthropy are taking place online.
Activists are conducting demonstrations on YouTube, holding virtual fundraisers and using social network sites like Facebook to change the world -- one mouse-click at a time.
These cyber-pioneers include a nonprofit group that uses animated 3-D characters to protest the global shortage of drinking water; a Web company that allows ordinary people to create their own personalized charity; and a Goodwill blogger who reshaped the thrift store's image so thoroughly she was invited to New York Fashion Week.
Ted Hart, co-author of "People to People Fundraising: Social Networking and Web 2.0 for Charities," says the Web has already become a crucial source for nonprofit fundraising. Americans donated $550 million online in 2001, but that number grew to $10.4 billion in 2007, he says.
"It's a new world for a lot of nonprofit organizations," Hart says. "No longer is it good enough to say give us some money. The rules have changed."
Yet some people warn that this new world offers people an excuse to engage in "drive-by activism," superficial forms of cyber-activism that require little commitment.
"The Internet makes it very easy for people to jump in and out of social activism," says Matthew Hale, assistant professor at Seton Hall University's Center for Public Service. "If all the activism is online, it is easier to quit than going to meetings every week."
Real change: online or in-person?
Yet the Web makes it easier for a nonprofit group to reach more people than a meeting ever could, one nonprofit group says.
WaterPartners International is a U.S.-based nonprofit group that created a global campaign to create safe drinking water. Another company may have flown a spokesperson to an impoverished village and hired a film crew to promote their campaign. But WaterPartners says it saved money and time by putting its campaign online -- through animated, virtual characters built from actual people, says Nicole Wickenhauser, a company spokesperson.
Daily Web traffic doubled to WaterPartners' Web site during the campaign and the campaign attracted support from around the globe, Wickenhauser says.
"Real change is most often accomplished by committed individuals working together for a cause they feel passionately about," Wickenhauser says. "Whether they work together virtually or in person is less important."
Web-based activism not only enlarges the reach of social activists, it empowers ordinary people, its advocates say.
In another time, a person had to find a charity to give their time and money to. Now they can create their own charity through Web sites like "YourCause.com."
YourCause.com has been described as a MySpace for do-gooders. The new site allows a person to do everything a charity traditionally does -- raise money and awareness and recruit support -- all from a Web page designed especially for their needs.
Matthew Combs, the site's co-founder, says his site designs Web pages and vets charities for people who don't have the time or expertise to do it themselves.
"It's for people like the 73-year-old woman from New Jersey who created her own page to help out with a rare genetic defect she's suffering from," Combs says. "There's not a lot of 73-year-olds on MySpace. How do we make it easy as possible for them, but credible?"
Social network sites like MySpace are also throwing their support behind Web activists. MySpace has an "Impact" page that connects users with political and charitable causes. YouTube recently launched a "Nonprofits and Activism" channel.
'The reaction was priceless'
One of the most audacious forms of Web-based activism comes courtesy of Em Hall, also known by her blog name, the DC Goodwill Fashionista.
When Goodwill of Greater Washington wanted to expand its customer base, its leaders devised a campaign to reach out to a younger, hipper crowd.
The campaign's centerpiece was Hall. In her witty blog, She dispensed fashion advice, conducted an online virtual fashion show and sold Goodwill clothing on eBay (she once sold an $11.98 suit for $175 on eBay.)
Hall's blog averages 1,500 readers a week and has attracted readers from at least 100 countries, says Brendan Hurley, a Goodwill spokesman. Hall's blog became so popular she was invited in September to Fashion Week, a high-octane fashion show that features the world's most popular designers.
Hall still recalls how Fashion Week officials acted when she told them what clothing label -- Goodwill -- she represented.
"The reaction was priceless," she says. "A look of confusion came across people's faces as they desperately tried to figure out why Goodwill was at Fashion Week."
Despite the possibilities created by the Web, calling people to action still depends on people putting their bodies -- not just their mouse-clicks -- on the line, says Hale, the Seton Hall professor.
"All of the stuff you can do online ultimately has to show up in the real world," Hale says. "I don't see the Internet as a substitute [for social activism] but as a complement to it."
Paul Loeb, author of "The Soul of a Citizen,'' a book that examines the psychology of social activism, also says online activism can be powerful but limited. He tells a story from his book to make his point.
He says a friend took her kids to a protest against nuclear testing in front of the White House during the early 1960s. But she became dejected because only a few people joined her demonstration and then it rained.
Years later, the same woman attended a major march against nuclear testing. Benjamin Spock, the best-selling author and pediatrician who opposed the Vietnam War, was a featured speaker. He told marchers that he was inspired to join the march after seeing a small group of women huddled with their kids in the rain while marching in front of the White House years earlier.
"I thought that if those women were out there," Spock said, "their cause must be really important."
"He's seeing these ragged women in the rain and it touches his heart and he ends up getting changed by that," Loeb says. "That story couldn't exist in the virtual world."
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http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/11/27/web.activist/index.html?iref=newssearch
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