Fownhope’s Heart of Oak Society traces its roots to the age of friendly societies, when communities provided their own safety net. Its anniversary celebrations reveal a tradition still very much alive, says MARK SEDDON
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The strategic and tactical genius of the US civil rights movement
Martin Luther King Jr. at a Civil Rights March on Washington DC in 1968
ANGUS REID explains the significance of Cuba’s egalitarian in letter and spirit Family Code and the pertinent lessons it holds for democracies anywhere in the world
Special report by PEOPLE’S WORLD
NICK WRIGHT considers how the isolation of Israel and a new film on the controversial Italian communist leader are creating new reference points for Italy’s left
CARLOS MARTINEZ says Cuba’s achievements in the face of a criminal blockade are startling, but the island’s future if the United States succeeds in crushing it looks bleak
AMNON BROWNFIELD STEIN reports that far-right MPs who mobbed the event organised by Hadash may have helped raise awareness of the brutality of the Israeli right
THE recent death of US non-violence guru Gene Sharp and the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King provide a good opportunity to reflect on the key role non-violent action has played in winning progressive change.
Sharp, whose extensive writings have influenced many of the campaigns that have overthrown governments across the world, repeatedly emphasised the importance of planning and strategy in carrying out effective non-violent action. Indeed, strategy is “probably more important in non-violent struggle than it is in military conflict,” he told me when I interviewed him in 2012 for Peace News newspaper.
For Sharp, those wishing to understand non-violent struggle needed to research the topic in depth — reading, at a minimum, his lengthy studies on the subject — rather than basing their opinion on “superficial impressions.”
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