Mexico Marches, Argentina Protests University Cuts, Malta Halts Weapons Ship

Editor's Note From Rivera Sun

A decade after 43 students were forcibly disappeared, hundreds of teachers and students marched through the streets in Mexico, demanding answers. The assault on the school buses 10 years ago sent shock waves through the country, and the involvement of the police and federal government has stalled the investigation into what happened.

In more Nonviolence News, close to a million Argentines poured into the streets in defense of free public universities after the president slashed the budgets by 70%. Hundreds of thousands of people mobilized across European cities demanding an arms embargo on Israel and an immediate ceasefire in Palestine and Lebanon. In Malta, all service requests from a vessel carrying weapons to Israel are being rejected; activists are pressuring the Maltese government to halt the ship entirely. In London, two young activists with Youth Demand unfurled a photograph poster of a Gazan mother and child, and pasted it over a famous Picasso painting of a mother and child. In the US, an anonymous group is replacing subway ads with anti-war posters.

A world away, but similarly intervening in a cycle of violence, a Nonviolent Peaceforce project in Iraq is helping refugee children resume their studies after 5 years of disruption. Education opens up opportunities and perspective; studies have shown that it is a critical determinate of whether a young person winds up recruited into terrorist groups. So, if we want to stop terrorism, young people need access to education.

Speaking of education (and the lifelong pursuit of it that Nonviolence News supports), this is a good week to grab a cup of coffee and follow the hyperlinks to some of the stories. Mull on them. Digest them. Think about the organizing lessons you can glean. For me, I spent some time savoring an article about a police abolition network in Minneapolis (where George Floyd was murdered) which is training communities on how to not call the police. Instead, people learn skills for handling minor disputes, get contact information to nonviolent professionals who can respond to crisis, and connect to mediators where appropriate. It's a system of directly intervening in police brutality by replacing the use of cops. This kind of nonviolent action is called a parallel or alternative institution (or Gandhian constructive program) and has been used by numerous movements, including the credit union of the United Farm Workers, the mutual aid network of the early Labor Movement, and Gandhi's spinning campaign.

Find these stories and more in Nonviolence News>>

In solidarity,
Rivera Sun