KEY COMPONENTS OF SUCCESSFUL SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

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"For me, the most important lesson
[of the Freedom Movement] is that by respecting the fact that fellow activists could passionately disagree over strategy and tactics—yet remain allies—they strengthened SNCC and the Movement as a whole."
From Bruce Hartford's article in Urban Habitat.
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MY WEBSITE: educationanddemocracy.org

Friday, March 22, 2013

social media and the dearth of stories of people power in movies

From ICNC newsletter:

By: Rebecca L. Stein, MERIP, March 20, 2013
In the West Bank today, cameras are ubiquitous, as is the usage of social media as a means of online witnessing. Both are deemed nothing less than political necessities, the sine qua non of political claims in the networked court of public opinion. According to one Israeli soldier, "A commander or an officer sees a camera and becomes a diplomat, calculating every rubber bullet, every step. It's intolerable; we're left utterly exposed. The cameras are our kryptonite."
 
By: Emily Achtenberg, North American Congress on Latin America, March 22, 2013
The Academy Award-nominated film "NO" re-opens a window on a moment when Chileans used the ballot box to bring down the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet in a 1988 plebiscite. Genaro Arriagada, the Christian Democratic Party tactician who directed the "NO" campaign, says the movie ignores the reality of extensive organizing work by Chilean popular movements, unions, and political parties, over several years. Pinochet planned to foster violence, annul the plebiscite, and reassert dictatorial powers if he lost (which was only hinted at in the film. The self-coup plan was thwarted when the other members of the military junta refused to back Pinochet.

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