Mahatma Gandhi As the year 2021 dawns, the world faces a whole range of problems including the COVID-19 pandemic, deep internal divisions in the US and other countries, persistent racism and casteism, sharp inequalities, rise of authoritarianism and fascism, climate change, environmental destruction, and so on. The situation is ripe for violence to erupt. In…
Category: Movement
097. Mairead Corrigan and Betty Williams: Partners for Peace in Northern Ireland
Mairead Corrigan Betty Williams On August 10, 1976, three children were struck and killed by the getaway car of a nationalist Irish Republican Army gunman in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The children were two nephews and a niece of Mairead Corrigan, an office secretary and a Catholic. Mairead’s sister, Anne, was badly hurt in the…
093. Tawakkol Karman: Advocate for democracy, press freedom, and women’s rights
Tawakkol Karman Tawakkol Karman, born in 1979, is a Yemeni journalist, politician, and human rights activist. Tawakkol has worked as a journalist since earning a degree in political science from Sana’a University. As a journalist, she wrote extensively and bravely about injustices and civil rights violations, despite the country’s severely restricted media environment. In 2005…
092. Nadia Murad: From being a victim to becoming a leading advocate for survivors of genocide and sexual violence
Nadia Murad Nadia Murad comes from the Yazidi village of Kocho in Iraq. The Yazidis are a Kurdish religious minority found primarily in parts of Iraq, Turkey, Syria, and Iran. Their religion includes elements of ancient Iranian religions as well as elements of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Although scattered and probably numbering only between 200,000…
091. Jody Williams: Successful campaigner for the ban on landmines
Jody Williams The 1997 Nobel Peace Prize was jointly awarded to Jody Williams (of Vermont, US) and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL). Landmines are the scourge of poor countries. 100 million un-detonated anti-personnel mines still remain buried in 60 countries after wars and armed conflicts. Their original purpose was to maim or kill…
089. Rigoberta Menchu: Working for the rights of indigenous peoples
Rigoberta Menchu Born in 1959, Rigoberta Menchú Tum is an indigenous feminist and human rights activist from Guatemala. Rigoberta has been championing the cause of Guatemala’s indigenous peoples during and after the Civil War (1960–1996) in that country. She has also been promoting indigenous rights internationally. Even as a teenager, Rigoberta was active in the…
088. Raging Grannies: Protesting with humour and songs for a better world
Raging Grannies The Raging Grannies movement began in 1987 in Victoria in the province of British Columbia, Canada. A group of senior women including teachers, businesswomen, artists, homemakers, librarians and other professionals started a protest against the threat to health and environment posed by the visit of US Navy warships and submarines in the waters…
078. E S Reddy: Crusader against apartheid in South Africa
E S Reddy Enuga Sreenivasulu Reddy died in Massachusetts, US, on November 1, 2020. He was not well-known in India, but the New York Times carried his obituary on November 5, 2020. What did he do to attract that much of interest? Reddy was born in 1924 in the village of Pallapalli, Andhra Pradesh, India….
066. Rosa Parks: Not giving up her seat in a bus, sparking a movement
Rosa Parks On the evening of 1st December 1955, 42-year-old Rosa Parks was sitting in the front seat of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, US. Those days, there was segregation in buses with the whites sitting in the front and the blacks in the back. Rosa was in the first row of the black section….
064. Underground Railroad: The escape route for slaves
Harriet Tubman The Underground Railroad was not a real railroad with tracks and trains. It was just a series of routes and hiding places that slaves from the American South used in order to reach places of freedom in the North. It is said that slavery began in America in early 17th century. Black Africans…