173. Nonviolent occupation

In December of 2006, Eon, an energy company, submitted an application to the Medway council in Kent, England to build coal-fired generating units, the first to be built in England since 1974. The plant would emit more carbon dioxide than the world’s thirty lowest emitting countries combined. Within a few months, two other companies were proposing similar projects, with even more to follow. Eon planned to implement Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), as per the government’s request.

In 2000, a mining project known as “Progreso VII Derivada,” originally owned by the Canadian company Radius Gold and later sold to the U.S. company Kappes, Cassiday & Associates (KCA), received several licenses from the country’s government for extraction and exploration of over 5,000 acres of land in Guatemala. From this point forward, KCA began building gold mines without the knowledge of local communities in San Jose del Golfo and San Pedro Ayampuc.

United States Midwest farmers fought for agricultural policy reform that would ensure economic stability and sustainable financial support for small-scale farms. A number of rural grassroots organizations, including the Iowa Farm Unity Coalition (IFUC), Citizens Organizing Acting Together (COACT), and the United States Farmers’ Association (USFA) led the family farm crisis movement of the 1980s that demanded federal policy reforms to prevent unfair foreclosures and to secure economic stability for Midwest non-corporate farmers.

The Marsden Power Station B was originally built on Marsden Point, Ruakākā, Northland, New Zealand in the 1970s as an oil-fired power station, but when construction concluded in the 1980s, oil prices had risen substantially, resulting in the plant not being commissioned. In October 2004, Mighty River Power, a New Zealand-based electric company, applied to the Northland Regional Council, which manages air, land, freshwater, and coastal resources in the Northland region, for resource consent to operate Marsden B power station using coal.

In January 2015, Alex Friedman, who suffered from muscular dystrophy, uploaded a picture of himself in his wheelchair with the caption “disabled, not half a person” to his Facebook account. The post called for Israel’s government to raise the monthly disability stipend for citizens from its value at the time which was 2,342 NIS ($660), which was roughly half of the monthly minimum wage in Israel at the time.

After long negotiations, twelve countries from around the Pacific Rim came together to endorse the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The partnership would have been the largest regional trade accord in history, including countries that make up 40% of the global gross domestic product. The United States, Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore, Brunei, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Mexico, Peru, and Chile were involved in this trade negotiation, which was seen as a collective defense against China’s economic, political and legal influence in the Pacific Rim.

Alberto Patishtán Gomez was an indigenous Tzotzil teacher of basic education from the town of El Bosque in the Chiapas state of Mexico. The Mexican federal police arrested Patishtán in 2000 for murders that he did not commit. He spent the next thirteen years in the Mexican justice system as he campaigned for the release of himself and other indigenous political prisoners being wrongfully held by the Mexican government.

Taiwanese independence has been an important issue in East Asia since the country was established in 1949. Cross-strait tensions between China and Taiwan created tension within Taiwan. The two major political parties in Taiwan, the Kuomintang (KMT) and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), hold opposite positions on how the country should handle their relationship with China. The Kuomintang are a conservative, Chinese nationalist party that ruled in China for 20 years before leaving for Taiwan.

The anti-sweatshop movement was the largest student activism movement in the United States since the South African divestment movement over ten years before. Students all around the country pressured college and university administrators to adopt strict labor codes that guaranteed that merchandise bearing the college’s logo was not made by people working under unacceptable, “sweatshop-like” conditions.

The first attempt by an African American to enroll in Swarthmore College was 1905 when the admissions committee mistakenly admitted a light-skinned black student thinking he was white. Upon discovering his race the college withdrew its acceptance. The next attempt was not made until 1932 when a black student from Philadelphia High School applied to Swarthmore College. The admission’s committee decision was that, as a co-educational institution, Swarthmore College was not yet prepared to admit African American students.

In the spring of 1985, campaigns against apartheid in South Africa mobilized on campuses across the United States. Students at University of California Berkeley became aware of these campaigns and were moved to act. On April 10, two student groups—the UC Divestment Committee and the Campaign Against Apartheid—began organizing daily rallies at Sproul Plaza, a main gathering place on campus. Nancy Skinner led the Divestment Committee and William Nessen headed up the Campaign Against Apartheid, but the student coalition made decisions through the consensus of all members.

For centuries, those who made a living by extracting and collecting rubber from rubber trees had been virtual slaves to the powerful rubber barons who controlled the Amazon region. Attempts were made in the 1960s to unionize these workers, called “rubber tappers;” however, these attempts failed. The 1970s marked a shift in the dynamics of the extraction of resources from the Amazon. Ranchers from Southern Brazil began to buy up huge tracts of land in order to clear them for cattle grazing land.

During the second half of the 20th century, Chinese society experienced profound and tumultuous changes. Communist rule was declared in 1949, and the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s resulted in much social and economic upheaval. Students were particularly hard hit by the changes made during the Cultural Revolution as university funding decreased and education quality deteriorated. Student resentment towards the Communist government was further exacerbated by the practices of nepotism and profiteering among party officials.

By the mid-1980s, the Apartheid regime had been in control of South Africa for nearly 40 years. The country was in the midst of a national crisis, had declared a state of emergency, and over 5,000 people had been killed by the violence. Despite the African Nation Congress’ requests for international aid, specifically in the form of divestment, the United States (as well as many other powerful countries) resisted.

Residents of Junin faced the first assault on their land in the early 1990s, after the Ecuadorian government signed a contract with Bishi Metals, a subsidiary of Mitsubishi. The contract allowed the mining company to prospect in and around Junin, a community in the mountainous region of northern Ecuador. Junin and its surrounding region, Intag, have exceptional biodiversity and rich water resources. Junin also happens to be rich in metals—copper in particular. The arrival of Bishi Metals raised immediate concern among Intag residents.

The May revolt started as a student protest over the closing of the University of Paris’ Nanterre campus. The campus closed after months of escalation of student protests. These protests initially stemmed from a fight for sexual liberation (or the right to have visitors of the opposite sex in dorms) that later radicalized to become a fight for more student influence in the education system, and finally for a complete change of economic and social structure.

In 1954, a young military officer, Alfredo Stroessner, organized a military coup and overthrew Paraguayan President Federico Chávez. A devoted anti-communist, Stroessner declared a state of siege and suspended constitutional freedoms for the entirety of his 35-year rule. Throughout Stroessner’s last two decades in power, indigenous people organized widely to oppose the negative effects that his massive development projects were having on their communities.

After the country won its independence, India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, began calling for the construction of dams to aid in India's development. Many of these dams were proposed on the Narmada River, which flows through the states of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Maharashtra. In 1978, the Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal approved the Narmada Valley Development Project, which included 30 large dams, 135 medium dams, and 3,000 small dams. The most controversial dam was the Sardar Sarovar Project in the state of Gujarat.

The Jewish and Palestinian territorial claim to the same area of land has resulted in one of the most protracted conflicts in recent history.  Stemming from the Zionist demand for a Jewish homeland in the historic state of Israel, a homeland that would serve as a sanctuary for this persecuted and globally displaced people, large influxes of Jews into the former British mandate of Palestine have and continue to displace millions of Palestinian residents.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the political atmosphere in Kenya was characterized by brutal government repression and terror.  Under the single-party rule of President Daniel arap Moi, any form of political dissension was swiftly met with government interrogation, detention, and torture.  Many students, journalists, lawyers, and human rights advocates were among those imprisoned for perceived anti-government statements, ideas, and actions.

In 1921 the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party (MPRP) came to power and soon aligned the country with the USSR. Until this democracy campaign in 1989, the MPRP ruled Mongolia through a constitutionally-sanctioned single-party government. By the mid-1980’s, pro-reform sentiments and movements were spreading in Eastern Europe, especially at the universities. However, Mongolians remained isolated from all of this except for the few students who could afford to study abroad in Eastern Europe.

New York City is home to hundreds of community gardens spread throughout the city. Over the past 20 years, these gardens have served as green spaces in which community members can come together and share ideas, children can get to know the process of growing food and become familiar with the earth. However, in 1998, New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani began allowing the demolition of community gardens around the city in favor of luxury apartment development.

The Pearl Continental is a luxury hotel in Karachi, Pakistan, “located in the heart of the business hub and 15 km from the airport, [it] is a preferred choice for discerning corporate and leisure travelers,” according to their website. In September 2001, Pearl Continental management abruptly fired 300 workers due to a 'decline in bookings,' initiating a many year struggle between management and the Pearl Continental Karachi union.

In the southern Polish city of Kielce, in the late 2000s, a public bus company, MPK (Miejskie Przedsiębiorstwo Komunikacyjne), employed around 630 people and ran 160 buses regularly in the city. For several years, the company had been struggling to survive. It had been put under a traffic planning authority, ZTM, which controlled business operations and pushed it into debt. Working conditions were also unfavorable: wages were low, bus schedules didn't allow drivers regular breaks, and it became difficult for the company to hire new employees.

“This is how every worker feels it: with varying degrees of clarity they feel themselves living at a moment that could be decisive for their class, a moment in which all can be staked, everything risked, and perhaps everything lost.